SUCCESSFUL MARKETING IS THE SCIENCE OF ATTRACTING PEOPLE TO YOUR BUSINESS IN SUFFICIENT NUMBERS AND OF THE NECESSARY QUALIFICATIONS IN ORDER TO REACH YOUR GENERATED PROFIT GOALS.
In Chapter Five we discussed KEY ELEMENT NUMBER ONE:
You cannot have a CUSTOMER until you have a PROSPECT. And we defined a “PROSPECT” as being a “QUALIFIED” VISITOR.
Therefore, we have a “FUNNEL” that looks like this:
| V-I-S-I-T-O-R-S |
\ /
\ PROSPECTS /
\ /
| SALES |
| |
The reason why these three categories are displayed as a “FUNNEL” is due to the number of people in each category.
In other words, you will get MORE VISITORS to your Site than you will get PROSPECTS, because some of the VISITORS are NOT QUALIFIED OR INTERESTED in what you are selling.
You will obviously have MORE PROSPECTS than SALES, because a percentage that is less than 100% will buy what you are selling.
In PART ONE, Chapter Six, we discussed the ratios of PROSPECTS-TO-VISITORS and SALES-TO-PROSPECTS.
Now we are going to go into detail and focus on the FIRST part of the FIRST CRITICAL RATIO:
THE PROSPECT-TO-VISITOR RATIO
The FIRST PART of the Prospect-To-Visitor Ratio is the “VISITOR” part.
The “VISITOR” is FIRST and FOREMOST in terms of IMPORTANCE because before you can have a QUALIFIED VISITOR, whom we call a “PROSPECT”, you must first have A VISITOR!
The FIRST KEY, as indicated at the TOP OF THE FUNNEL, is to ATTRACT AS MANY VISITORS T O YOUR SITE AS POSSIBLE
Note: Keep in mind that there must be some correlation between the number of Visitors and a Reasonable LEVEL OF INTEREST! We will discuss this issue shortly.
Axiom Number Twenty-Nine – THE TOP PRIORITY IS TO MAXIMIZE THE QUANTITY OF THE VISITORS YOU ATTRACT
There’s a saying that goes:
“RUNNING A BUSINESS WITHOUT ADVERTISING IS LIKE WINKING AT A GIRL IN THE DARK. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING, BUT NO ONE ELSE DOES!”
If you do not advertise, how will anyone know that you are there or what you are doing? You can never assume that just because you have an INCREDIBLE Site, offering INCREDIBLE Information, Products or Services, that people will beat down your “door” to find you. THE REALITY IS THAT YOU NEED TO GO AND FIND THEM, AND ENTICE THEM ENOUGH TO COME AND VISIT YOU!
Let’s break this down into the two components: (1) FIND THEM, and then (2) ENTICE THEM.
Axiom Number Thirty – WHERE ARE YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS RIGHT NOW?
First, you need to consider all the places that you can think of where Your Potential Customers are right now. This will take some thought and some research. After all, they’re not all only in one place, waiting for you.
Depending on what subject your Information, Product or Service is, there are certain places where there are bound to be a HIGHER CONCENTRATION of Potential Customers than in other places. What you don’t want to do is to waste your time advertising in areas where the people most probably have NO interest in what you are offering. In Chapter Nine we will address this issue in Great Detail.
Now let’s talk about the flip side of this point for a second, because it’s one of the many small but CRITICAL pieces that are a part of the formulation of your Success.
While Your Offer is most probably NOT universal in appeal (like Pepsi or Coke for example!), if your product appeals to TOO SMALL of a group of people, you are severely limiting yourself on the amount of Visitors that you can drive to your Site.
The lesson to be learned here is this. While you do not want to make your Offer so generic that it doesn’t have a TARGET MARKET, you also DO NOT want to make your Offer SO SPECIFIC that the Market is too small to give Your Business a chance to Generate the Desired Profit.
Axiom Number Thirty-One – DEFINE YOUR TARGET MARKET TO BE AS WIDE AS POSSIBLE AND STILL BE CLEARLY DEFINED
Let’s take my Course as a simple example. If I wrote my Course and Marketed it as “HOW TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL GARDENING INFORMATION BUSINESS”, instead of “HOW TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL INTERNET BUSINESS”, the size of the Market of Potential Customers would have been CONSIDERABLY SMALLER. On the other hand, if I had Marketed my Course as “HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN ANYTHING YOU DO” I would have watered down my TARGET MARKET, because the Course is SPECIFICALLY GEARED towards BUSINESS, and not just life in general.
Within these confines, from defining too tight of a Market for your Offer, to watering down your Market too much, you need to find the BIGGEST MARKET you can find without crossing the line to watering your Market down too much.
For example, “HOW TO PLANT AZALIAS” might better be changed to “HOW TO PLANT AND CARE FOR PLANTS AND SHRUBS”, because it widens the Market for the product. However, “HOW TO CARE FOR EVERYTHING OUTDOORS” waters down the Market.
While there are more things outdoors to care for than Plants and Shrubs, the TARGET MARKET is no longer clear.
Defining Your Market is Critical as we begin to develop YOUR MARKETING PLAN to attract the maximum amount of Qualified Visitors. Your Site will require these visitors in order to generate the PROFITS called for in your Business Plan. Also remember that:
- The PRICE of your Offering,
- The QUANTITY of Sales,
- The existence of COMPETITION, and
- The strength of AFFILIATE PROGRAMS,
Are all CRITICAL FACTORS in the Ultimate Success of Your Business.
At this point, you should be thinking about Several Potential Offers, either INFORMATION, PRODUCT, or SERVICE, that you feel has a TARGET MARKET that may be SUBSTANTIAL ENOUGH to be able to generate enough QUALIFIED VISITORS to make ENOUGH SALES to GENERATE YOUR DESIRED PROFIT.
As you can see, ALWAYS KEEP YOUR FOCUS ON YOUR ULTIMATE GOAL, WHICH IS TO GENERATE THE DESIRED PROFIT!
Before we get into the various Marketing Techniques that you will use to Reach your Potential Customers, let’s talk about some Statistics. This will give you a good idea of what in part, the task of Successful Marketing is all about. You’ll also be able to see why so many Businesses fail, just from this One perspective. There are LOTS of reasons why Businesses fail, but faulty Marketing, or a lack of the understanding of the Critical Nature of the task before them, is often a big contributory factor to their demise.
When you are doing “Cold Marketing”, meaning that YOU are making the INITIAL CONTACT to your Prospective Customer, the percentage of time that they respond favorably in general terms is 1% of the time. This is not to say that that aren’t things you can do to increase this return. But I don’t want you to think that if you have a Market of 1000 people that may have an interest in your Offer, that you’re going to have 500 sales. That’s a 50% Saturation Rate and that’s probably NOT going to happen!
If you have 1000 people and 1% of them are interested in your offer; you are going to generate 10 Visitors to Your Site.
Ideally, you’d want a market that is a million or more. It’s a fact that the bigger your market, the bigger your numbers at the Top of Your Funnel.
If you put 10 Visitors PER DAY into the Top of your Funnel, of which 9 are PROSPECTS, and your Sales-To-Prospect Ratio is 1/45, then you are going to get 1 Sale every 5 days, because it will take 5 days to get 45 Prospects at the rate of 9 per day.
If however you have a big enough market to generate 100 Visitors per day, then based on 90% you’ll have 90 Prospects and at 1/45, you’ll have 2 sales per day.
As you can see, there is a HUGE DIFFERENCE to Your Gross Sales Volume, isn’t there? At 10 Visitors a day, you make 1 Sale every 5 days, whereas at 100 Visitors a day, you make 2 sales PER day. Taking it one step further, at 1000 Visitors per day, you’d make 22 Sales per day!
Always keeping the funnel concept in mind, you will want to have the WIDEST POSSIBLE MARKET to attract the LARGEST QUANTITY OF VISITORS, to fill up the TOP of your Funnel. This is a CRITICAL part of Your Success!
Axiom Number Thirty-Two – PERSISTENCE PAYS
Another place in which Businesses often come up short is in the area of PERSISTENCE. Your message cannot go out to people just one time. Or two, or three.
Your message needs to be CONTINUAL. Consumers need to gain a COMFORT LEVEL by hearing about you over time. If you put out an ad, get your 1% response, and stop advertising, then even if you do have a Large Market, what will you do AFTER you send out that ad?
The answer is simple: DO IT AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN!
Statistics shows that the FIRST TIME you send out your ad, is NOT the highest percentage of response. Typically, the first time people see your ad, they may or many not even notice it. The second time, maybe they DO notice it. The third time, maybe they give it a moment’s thought. They fourth time the idea is growing on them. The fifth time they meant to call but didn’t. The sixth time they called.
In this case, it took SIX TIMES to get this particular person to respond to your ad.
A lot of times Businesses will send an ad to a particular group of Potential Customers, and then send an ad to A DIFFERENT GROUP, and then yet a THIRD GROUP, and so on. WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
PERSISTENCE PAYS! THE SQUEAKY WHEEL GETS THE OIL!!
Axiom Number Thirty-Three – SEND THE SAME AD TO THE SAME GROUP A MINIMUM OF THREE CONSECUTIVE TIMES
Send out the ad to the same group a MINIMUM of THREE CONSECUTIVE TIMES. Keep track of the results and if the fourth time is giving you diminishing returns, THEN you might want to run it once more, or move to another area, depending on whether or not the return has diminished to the point where it is no longer Profitable.
If at this point you do not have a solid idea of what you are Offering to sell, that’s okay, because at this point, at least you know what the best Characteristics are for your offer.
You know that you want an Offer that appeals to a sizeable, reachable market, where there is a need that you are filling. And then you know that other factors such as the Cost of the item as it relates to the Sales price, Competition and the Strength of related Affiliate Programs, are all factors.
If you do not know what you will be offering, you can certainly narrow it down to something that you are familiar with, and then spend some time searching for Sites that carry related items to see if there seems to be a Market for Your idea. There are plenty of chat rooms and forums in which you can participate, and ask those folks what they think of your idea.
FREE Market Research in the areas that you will ultimately be advertising in is an EXCELLENT way to determine if there is a Market for your Offer.
Once you determine WHAT you are going to Offer and WHERE you are going to Market it, you have taken a HUGE STEP FORWARD to building the Foundation to Your Business.
In Chapter Nine, we will discuss the BEST WAYS to Market Your Offer to attract as many Visitors as possible.
Always keep in mind that we need to attract QUALIFIED Visitors, whom we call, PROSPECTS.
After we discuss the many different methods of ATTRACTING VISITORS, then we will explore how to design and write the ads themselves.
Then we will proceed to Chapter Ten where we will discuss how to best SELL THEM on Your Offer.
As you can probably see, SUCCESS IN BUSINESS comes from mastering ONE BUILDING BLOCK at a time. There is no such thing as rushing into Business and being Successful in the long term with the exception of the luck of one person in a million.
Success comes from Knowledge, Motivation, Persistence, and Desire, to name a few. What you are learning right now is DETAILED KNOWLEDGE, STEP-BY-STEP, from a 25 year pro, as promised!
Okay, NOW we’re to the FUN and MOST CHALLENGING part of the Business!
Axiom Number Thirty-Four – THE THRILL OF THE CHASE!
“ULTIMATELY, YOUR SUCCESS OR THE LACK THEREOF WILL BE DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE AMOUNT OF TIME, EFFORT AND ENERGY YOU SPEND MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS”
THE IDEA IS FOR YOUR BUSINESS TO TAKE AS LITTLE TIME AS POSSIBLE TO DO ALL O THE TASKS THAT ARE NOT DIRECTLY RELATED TO MARKETING YOUR SITE.
When Your Site finally goes “LIVE”, that’s a VERY EXCITING MOMENT for you.
BUT, YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT KNOWS ABOUT IT!
There’s well over a million Sites on the Internet – why would ANYBODY visit YOURS?
The answer is this:
Axiom Number Thirty-Five – THE REASON WHY FOLKS WILL VISIT YOUR SITE IS BECAUSE YOU ATTRACT THEM TO YOUR SITE.
THE AMOUNT OF TIME THAT YOU SPEND SUCCESSFULLY ATTRACTING VISITORS TO YOUR SITE IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE AMOUNT OF PROFITS YOU GENERATE.
One of the BIGGEST MISTAKES a person who is in Business can make is to not recognize THE MOST IMPORANT TASKS. While there are MANY tasks that have to get done, one thing is AN ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY:
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A POTENTIAL CUSTOMER, YOU WILL NEVER HAVE AN ACTUAL CUSTOMER!
No matter WHAT KIND of Business it is, that Business needs to ATTRACT POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS, and then TURN THEM INTO CUSTOMERS!
For many years, I have explained the Division of the Work Force as being represented by two groups:
JOB CREATORS AND JOB MAINTAINERS
Both groups, Job Creators AND Job Maintainers, are CRITICAL to the SUCCESS of the Business.
In a Conventional Business, The Job Creators are composed of two groups: The Marketing People, who FIND THE PROSPECT, and The SALES PEOPLE, who turn the Prospect into a CUSTOMER.
Once the Business has a CUSTOMER, The Job Maintainers go to work. The Maintainers go about making sure that the products and/or services that were sold to this Customer are delivered.
Product may need to be ordered, manufactured, assembled or delivered. Service personnel may need to follow up with the Customer to be certain that the Customer is satisfied. There may a Collection Department, a Human Resources Department, and an Accounting Division to MAINTAIN the ebb and flow of the day-to-day Business Operations.
As you can see, BOTH Job Creators AND Job Maintainers are CRITICALLY IMPORTANT to the OVERALL SUCCESS of the Business.
But CLEARLY, UNTIL THE JOB IS CREATED – THAT IS, UNTIL THE BUSINESS HAS A CUSTOMER – THE JOB MAINTAINERS HAVE NOTHING TO MAINTAIN! No product to deliver, no services to render. Nothing to do until the JOB CREATORS, MARKETING AND SALES, FIRST CREATE A CUSTOMER!
THIS IS A CRITICAL LESSON TO LEARN!!
ALWAYS UTILIZE THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF YOUR ENERGY WITH THE FOCUS OF FINDING A POTENTIAL CUSTOMER, AND TURNING THEM INTO A CUSTOMER.
DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO AUTOMATE EVERYTHING YOU CAN AUTOMATE that is OPERATIONAL IN NATURE. YOUR PRIMARY FUNCTION MUST BE TO CREATE PROSPECTS, AND THEN HAVE A SIGHT THAT CAN MAXIMIZE THE SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO.
Chapters 10, 11 and 12 are devoted to How to Sell, Verbiage and Closing Techniques, and the layout and flow of Your Site. The ULTIMATE GOAL is to be able to AUTOMATE virtually EVERY ASPECT of Your Business. But ONE of the ABSOLUTE MOST CRITICAL POINTS IS THIS:
THE MORE EFFECTIVE YOU CAN BE IN GENERATING PROSPECTS, THE MORE TIMES YOUR SITE HAS THE OPPORTUNITY TO SELL YOUR OFFER.
Let’s review the concept of the “FUNNEL” from Chapter 8.
| V-I-S-I-T-O-R-S |
\ /
\ PROSPECTS /
\ /
| SALES |
| |
Remember that we said that we start by creating VISITORS, which is the LARGEST of the Three Groups by Quantity.
Then a certain percentage of the Visitors are PROSPECTS. We defined “PROSPECTS” as “QUALIFIED” Visitors.
And then we said that the combination of the NUMBER OF PROSPECTS and THE SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO determines Your number of Sales.
So, if you have 100 Visitors per day, and 90% of them are PROSPECTS, which is 90 PROSPECTS, and your SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO is 1/45, then you will make 2 Sales per day.
If you have 500 Visitors, and 90% of them are PROSPECTS, which is 450, and Your SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO is 1/15, then you will make 30 Sales per day.
Remember, we said that depending on the AMOUNT OF PROFIT that You Desire to Generate to Achieve Your Dream, that the Profit per Sale times the number of Sales determines Your Gross Profit. This means that if you have a Gross Profit of $98 per Sale, and you have 2 Sales per day, then Your Gross
Profit is $196 per day, or $6,000 per month.
Based on 30 Sales a day however, at the same $98 Gross Profit per Sale, you’d generate $3000 per day in Gross Profit, which is $90,000 per month!
We will address all of the issues that go into the MAXIMIZATION of the SALES-TO-PROSPECT RATIO in the next Four Chapters.
FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS CHAPTER, WE WILL EXPLORE ALL OF THE MAJOR MARKETING TECHNIQUES TO MAXIMIZE THE NUMBER OF VISITORS THAT COME TO YOUR SITE.
A MARKETING TECHNIQUE is simply a method for attracting a Potential Customer. There are NUMEROUS Techniques that we will talk about in Detail.
But before we do so, let’s talk about the CONCEPT OF WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO ACHIEVE.
WHAT WE ARE NOT TRYING TO DO IS TO SELL THE OFFER!
THE PURPOSE OF MARKETING IS TO INTEREST THE POTENTIAL CUSTOMER ENOUGH TO CHECK OUT YOUR OFFER!
There’s a HUGE DIFFERENCE between TRYING TO SELL THE POTENTIAL CUSTOMER ON CHECKING OUT YOUR OFFER, AND TRYING TO SELL THE POTENTIAL CUSTOMER ON BUYING YOUR OFFER!!!!!
Its CRITICAL that you CLEARLY UNDERSTAND YOUR PURPOSE WHEN YOU MARKET!
You will have a SITE that SELLS YOUR OFFER.
When you Market, you are Selling Your Prospect on coming to Your Site.
MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS DISTINCTION!
Axiom Number Thirty-Six –THE FUNCTION OF MARKETING IS TO CREATE VISITORS TO YOUR SITE IN SUFFICIENT QUANTITY AND TO BE COST EFFECTIVE IN THE PROCESS!
THE COST EFFECTIVENESS OF ANY MARKETING TECHNIQUE IS DETERMINED BY THE PERCENTAGE OF THE COST OF THE TECHNIQUE AS IT RELATES TO THE AMOUNT OF PROFIT GENERATED FROM RESULTING SALES.
Let’s say that you can generate Prospects to Your Site for a cost of $1 each, you are selling products with an average per item profit of $25, and it takes 50 Visitors to make 1 Sale. In this case, obviously this Marketing Technique is not Cost Effective because the net result is that it cost $50 to generate enough Prospects to make 1 Sale with a Profit of just $25. NOT GOOD!
However, if the average Profit per item is $100, and the cost per Prospect is $.25, and you make 1 Sale for every 45 Prospects, then for every $11.25 that you spend Marketing Your Site, you generate $100 in Gross Profit, of which $88.75 is Net Profit before taxes! This is a VERY COST EFFECTIVE MARKETING STRATEGY!
So if a Marketing Technique costs $100 but generates LESS than $100 in Profits, it cost too much for this technique. But, on the other hand, if it cost $500 for a Marketing Technique, but it generates $5,000 in Profits, then this technique was WELL WORTH IT!!
You will want to have your Cold Marketing Costs be 10% AT THE MOST in Relation to Generated Profits. This means that some Marketing Campaigns may cost 20% of the Gross Profits generated, in which case spending $200 to generate $1000 in Profits is still a good investment. There are Marketing Campaigns that you will run that are FREE advertising, and therefore generate PURE PROFIT. And there are those that will be in the 5%-15% range in terms of MARKETING COSTS VERSES PROFIT GENERATED.
But it is NOT necessarily the case that the LOWER the percentage of Your Marketing Costs, the more profit you make!
Axiom Number Thirty-Seven – YOUR ADVERTISING COST, WHEN DONE EFFECTIVELY, IS YOUR FRIEND, NOT YOUR ENEMY!
LOTS OF TIMES THOSE WITHOUT A LOT OF BUSINESS EXPERIENCE THINK THAT IF THEY CAN HOLD THEIR ADVERTISING COSTS DOWN TO NOTHING, THEY ARE MAKING THE MOST PROFIT. THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY TRUE!
We will discuss the 3 Main Marketing Categories in Great Detail in Chapter Nine. For now, let’s define one of the Three Main Categories as “Cold Marketing.” Cold Marketing is the Marketing that YOU PERSONALL DO to attract Visitors to Your Site through Your Own Direct Marketing Campaign.
As part of designing Your Business Budget, we will be dedicating 10% of Gross Sales to be used for your Cold Advertising Budget. This will be achieved by a combination of FREE advertising, with of course some PAID advertising.
If it’s the case that your Cold Advertising Costs are 10% of your Gross Sales, then that means that by spending $10 for advertising, you have generated $100 in Sales.
See the illustration below:
ADVERTISING DOLLAR AMOUNT
COSTS AT 10% OF GROSS SALES
$ 10 $ 100
$ 100 $ 1,000
$1,000 $10,000
ADVERTISING DOLLAR AMOUNT
COSTS AT 25% OF GROSS SALES
$ 25 $ 100
$ 250 $ 1,000
$2,500 $10,000
As you can see, even when spending $25 in Advertising to generate $100 in Gross Sales, or $2500 in Advertising to generate $10,000 in Gross Sales,
Accordingly, if you spend $25 instead of $2500, did you SAVE $2475, or did you LOSE THE PROFIT ON THE DIFFERENCE OF $9900 IN GROSS SALES?!
OBVIOUSLY, assuming that there is a PROFIT to be made in the GENERATION OF GROSS SALES, the MORE GROSS SALES YOU GENERATE, THE MORE GROSS PROFIT YOU ALSO GENERATE!
As you will see in the NEXT Table, if the COST OF COLD ADVERTISING is 50%, and the Cost of ALL OTHER EXPENSES is 40%, and the COST OF GOODS IS 33%, then the TOTAL of these THREE IS 123%! Since this is MORE THAN 100%, which is MORE THAN THE GROSS SALES PRICE, THIS RESULTS IN A LOSS !!!!
ADVERTISING DOLLAR AMT GROSS LOSS BASED
COSTS AT 50% GROSS SALES ON EXPENSES OF 123%
$ 50 $ 100 – $ 23
$ 500 $ 1,000 – $ 230
$5,000 $10,000 – $2,300
As you can see from the illustration below, the LOSS of $2,300 results from having a 50% Advertising Expense, 40% For All Other Expense, and a 33% Cost of Goods.
Sales Generated = $10,000
Less Adver Expense = $ 5,000 (50%)
Less Oper Expense = $ 4,000
Less Product Cost = $ 3,300
—————————————-
TOTAL LOSS = – 2,300
CLEARLY, THE COST OF ADVERTISING CAN RESULT IN GENERATING PROFITS, OR GENERATING LOSSES! THIS IS WHY IT IS SO CRITICAL TO ADVERTISE, TO GENERATE GROSS SALES, BUT TO BE AWARE OF YOUR COSTS AS THEY RELATE TO THE GROSS AMOUNT OF SALES THAT YOU ARE GENERATING TO BE SURE YOU ARE GENERATING A PROFIT AS WELL!
We need to discuss one last element of importance before we look at individual Marketing Techniques. That element is TIME.
Axiom Number Thirty-Eight – TIME IS CRITICAL ELEMENT TO THE GENERATION OF PROFITS:
GENERATING $10,000 IN GROSS SALES FROM $2,500 IN ADVERTISING COSTS IS SOMETHING TO GET EXCITED ABOUT IF YOU CAN DO IT EVERY DAY. IF HOWEVER YOU CAN ONLY DO IT ONLY ONCE A YEAR, THAT’S NOTHING TO CELEBRATE ABOUT!
The point here is that you must have a big enough Market, a big enough Marketing Campaign, and big enough THINKING to GENERATE PROFIT RELATIVE TO TIME. By putting in your Effort, your Money and your ingenuity, you need to not just generate Sales, but rather to Generate the NUMBER OF SALES that you NEED TO GENERATE in a SPECIFIC TIME PERIOD in order to GENERATE THE DESIRED AMOUNT OF GROSS PROFITS.
Assume for a moment that Your Dream requires a $10,000 per Month Gross Profit. Based on a 25% Advertising cost, by spending $5,000 in Advertising for the Month you can generate $20,000 in Sales. If $5000 for the month is the Cost of your Operating Expenses, then you have generated $10,000 for the month in Gross Profit.
If however you spend $5,000 PER QUARTER, generating $20,000 in Sales PER QUARTER, then you are generating $10,000 in Profit PER QUARTER. This means a MONTHLY PROFIT OF ONLY $3333, WAY SHORT OF THE DESIRED PROFIT.
Here’s a very serious situation that occurs when your Gross Sales decrease as in the example above. The more that your Gross Sales decrease, the HIGHER the percentage of OPERATING COSTS are against the Gross Sales. We will discuss this in more detail in Part Three.
YOU SHOULD BE AWARE, HOWEVER, OF THE CRITICAL NATURE OF GENERATING SALES IN A PARTICULAR TIME FRAME WITH THE CORRECT PERCENTAGE OF THE COST OF ADVERTISING AS IT RELATES TO THE OVERALL SUCCESS OF YOUR BUSINESS.
We have an understanding of the Principles of Advertising, which are:
- ADVERTISING GENERATES SALES
- MAKE SURE YOU ARE ALSO GENERATING A PROFIT and
- GENERATE YOUR PROFIT WITHIN A SPECIFIC TIME FRAME
Now let’s take a look at Different MARKETING TECHNIQUES and the affect they may have on Your Business!
There are THREE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS from which to Market Your Business. Each has its own TARGET group to whom you are Marketing. Since there are 3 different groups, there are three different approaches that are necessary in order to address each group. Within the Marketing Effort for each group, there are different Techniques that can be utilized to attract Visitors to Your Site. Some Techniques will be more cost effective than others will. Others may cost a bit more but are made up in Volume and in your ability to continue to Market your Customers.
Axiom Number Thirty-Nine – THERE ARE THREE POOLS FROM WHICH TO MAKE SALES: COLD MARKETING, REFERRAL MARKETING AND REPEAT MARKETING.
We will look at these THREE SEPARATE AND DISTINCT MARKETING STRATEGIES SEPARATELY so you can CLEARLY UNDERSTAND EXACTLY what you need to do in each area to MAXIMIZE the amount of Visitors to Your Site.
COLD MARKETING:
COLD Marketing consists of MARKETING DIRECTLY TO YOUR POTENTIAL VISITOR. In other words, you are placing ads to find Prospects to visit Your Site. Depending on the technique, this can be the more expensive of the two ways to Market. However, there’s a rule in Business that says:
20% OF YOUR EFFORTS WILL GIVE YOU 80% OF YOUR RESULTS, WHILE 80% OF YOUR EFFORTS WILL GIVE YOU 20% OF YOUR RESULTS. BUT YOU NEED BOTH TO MAXIMIZE YOUR RESULTS.
Examples of Direct Marketing are Pay-Per-Click engines, Classified ads, etc. COLD MARKETING includes all of the Techniques for you to Directly motivate Your Potential Customer to take action. We will discuss these shortly.
REFERRAL MARKETING:
REFERRAL Marketing consists of Marketing to those who will in turn Market to Your Prospect. In other words, you are in effect recruiting a Sales Force to find Prospects for you to visit Your Site. Depending on the technique, this can produce sizably more results. It is not without its costs, however. But this approach is critical to the amount of NEW TRAFFIC to Your Site.
You will attract some traffic via COLD Marketing, which in effect is you working on your own to build traffic to Your Site. REFERRAL Marketing allows you to build and ARMY of Sites that PROMOTE YOUR OFFER in return for a Commission, which is in lieu of the Advertising Costs of COLD MARKETING. There are several advantages of Referral Marketing:
- You only pay commission when Sales are generated!
- More Sales will be generated by the efforts of many than by you alone and
- You now have a Customer that you can continue to Market for life for free!
REPEAT MARKETING:
REPEAT Marketing Consists of Marketing to Existing Prospects and Customers. With COLD Marketing and with REFERRAL Marketing you are Marketing to find a FIRST-TIME Prospect.
With REPEAT Marketing, you CONTINUE to Market EXISTING PROSPECTS whether they did or did not purchase anything. If they DID purchase, you now have a relationship with them and can sell them another product or service more easily than the first Sale because now they trust you. If they did not already buy from you, by continuing to Market them, you are interacting with them and building a comfort level with them.
Now let’s discuss the principles of DIRECT and INDIRECT MARKETING.
DIRECT MARKETING:
DIRECT Marketing consists of your attempts to Sell Your OFFER. If for example you want the folks to come to Your Site, you are Selling them in Your Ad to come directly to Your Site.
INDIRECT MARKETING:
Indirect Marketing consists of PRE-Selling Your Offer. This means that instead of advertising to direct Visitors to Your Site, you advertise to direct Visitors to Your Giveaway. Then you whet their appetite enough so that from there, they want to go to Your Site to get ALL of the information because the partial blurb of Information was SO EXCITING!