Do You Practice Attraction-Based Marketing or Interruption-Based Marketing?

What is the goal of your business?

When I ask this question to audiences large and small, most reply, “To make money.” E-Myth fans suggest that it’s “To sell your business.” Many will quote their mission statements. The answer is analogous to an acorn; the entire tree is contained within. The goal of your business is:

To Find and Keep Customers.

The way we find customers has changed significantly over the last few decades.
When we survey all the methodology available to us today in the marketing mix, this can range from personal sales calls to print, radio, TV, billboards, direct mail, Google Adword advertising and Facebook to name just a few.

The best method has always been through customer referrals. We know that it costs 5x as much to find a new client as to service an existing one. We refer to this as “working the back-end of the funnel.” The best prospects to buy from us in the future are usually people and businesses who have purchased from us in the past.

How is your back end-marketing program? Are you using current technology to find, communicate, keep and sell to your current database? I have bought from thousands of vendors over one hundred trade shows throughout the past 25 years. I am simply amazed at how many companies never follow-up! This is a major faux-pas, equivalent to leaving money on the table. Can you afford to do this?

On your website, do you have an automated system for continuously generating leads and an auto-responder for servicing those leads? Once you get a lead, how do you follow-up? How often do you follow-up? One of the greatest tools of your online business (read: online business vs. website) is the ability for you to acquire leads and service them in a timely fashion, continuously.

Do you want more clients, customers and patients?

Entrepreneurs make profit solving problems. What problem or pain in the marketplace does your product or service solve?
How are you communicating that you have the answer to my problem?

The big mistake you can make on the web (in advertisements - traditional and online) is telling people what you do. In Attraction-Based Marketing, we tell our future clients what they get: features versus benefits.

Your future customer only wants to know three things:
1) Can I trust you?
2) Do you know what you’re talking about?
3) What can you do for me?

It’s all about Trust, Credibility and Benefit. If you can honestly and accurately build a relationship, establish trust, provide credibility via the endorsement of raving fans and show how, what you service or sell will directly benefit them. Then you will be on the way to closing the sale and acquiring a new client or patient.

Fact: 86% of consumers trust peer recommendations, only 14% trust advertisements.

Short-sided business people look for one sale. The long view is to ask yourself:
“What is the lifetime value of my customer? “How can I turn a satisfied customer into a referral to bring new business? How can I keep my customers satisfied?

Share relevant, applicable content on a continuous basis; tell compelling success stories from your raving fans of which your exceptional business has provided exceptional service to. And hold benefit driven solutions at the top of your mind.
The formula for success: Stop thinking about your website as a website. Start and continue to think of your presence on the net as your online business, no different than having a brick and mortar location, or maybe you have both, which is even better…

Action plan:
• Make a relevant content rich video, upload it to your YouTube channel, embed on your site and watch your organic Google rankings increase. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world.

• Embed a web form for gathering names in exchange for something of real value.

• The web form should be correlated directly with any one of a dozen good E-Marketing firms: iContact, Aweber, Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, Vertical Response, etc. Looking for an industrial strength application that will walk the dog and tell you what someone on your list of 85,000 had for lunch? Email me!

• Want to utilize the most targeted marketing opportunity for a specific demographic out there? Facebook or LinkedIn.
• Think that social media is a fad? Watch this 4.5 minute video: http://www.vortexbusinesssolutions.com/social-media-marketing/

• Formulate a plan for communicating with your client base on a regular basis, utilize your database and send out relevant content along with excellent offers. Showcase your expertise via articles, blogs and quality cross-links from relevant websites. (Did you know that swapping links with spammy sites that have no relevance to your product will actually lower your Google ranking juice?)
• Solicit endorsements, testimonials, and success stories from your highly satisfied customers: post these on your site. The best method: Short videos.

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) your site properly.

There is an old saying in Hollywood: “Films are never finished, they’re abandoned.” The same is true with your online business. It’s never finished and it requires constant attention, just like your valued employees and customers, clients and patients. Apply some of these suggestions, and then please share your success stories with me by emailing jonathan@vortexbusinesssolutions.com
I’d like to hear from you.

Jonathan Sabin is Principal of Vortex Business Solutions, an Iowa City-Basedr
Business acceleration consultancy, web development firm, and visual communications company.