Through InfusionOz I meet many marketing managers or business owners intent on marketing their products with all manner of selling propositions to various markets. This could be called ‘too many targets’ syndrome.

For any given product, there is a primary target market and possibly secondary markets. If you are trying to capture two different markets with the same campaign, you are splitting the focus and this normally doesn’t work too well. It’s exactly the same with selling propositions – hence the name ‘Unique’ Selling Proposition.

The answer is fairly simple: just craft a campaign and choose the media for each audience. This is made easy with the target market segmentation provided inside Infusionsoft.

First, You Must Get to Know Them

Get to know your top 20% of customers intimately:  find out their reading or viewing habits, their shopping habits, and their interests and tastes. Write all this down in a file called “ideal customer profile”.  Then when you have a new campaign to be written, you can send this to your copywriter to craft a message just for them.

Why do I suggest the top 20%? Because that’s who spends the most with you (80%, if the Pareto Principle is correct). They are usually the most loyal, and will often cost you less in administration.

Many companies have an offering for each market segment and this makes a lot of sense. But be careful if you cater to both business and consumer markets, because each needs different styles of marketing. For instance, you cannot get away with a longwinded online sales letter for a B2B software product, because your main buyers will dismiss it as fluff. But offering a free white paper outlining the pros and cons of certain systems would be infinitely better.

Ensure you have a marketing follow up system in place to build on this great first introduction to your product.

Then, You Must Court Them

Marketing is a lot like dating. Just as the beer swiller at the bar with a one liner gets rejected, so does the email marketer with a full-on sales message or over-familiar tone, intent on the sale.

If you’re setting up an email campaign, spend the first email welcoming them and reassuring new patrons that you respect their privacy. The second email should contain some great fresh ideas or knowledge that will help their decision making (business) or overriding problems (consumer). The third email will build on this; perhaps introduce a case study of how your solution helped someone, or keep up the interesting articles… with links to your website if they want to find out more.

In this strategy we’re not selling in the emails because if they’re interested, the linked website pages should be primed for persuading both cold and warm prospects to your solution.

Sometimes this will not be the way forward because your business has limited time offers (such as a travel agency or accommodation provider). In this case, you can ‘sandwich’ these offers in between some words that ignite the imagination. Even well crafted captions will do the trick; it’s certainly preferable to an image-laden email that does not even get seen by most email viewers.

I hope this article has you brimming with new ideas to implement. If you need any help with copywriting, web design, or email marketing, please send InfusionOz an email and we’ll pass you to a trusted professional that’s right for the job.

You can do 50 different things to bring people to your website. But what about actually MARKETING to those prospects so that they eventually buy from you? 

One business owner I know had a website in a very crowded marketplace – gift baskets. Her site was nice enough but her conversion was very poor. If you’re in the gift basket industry in Sydney, you’d better be ahead of the game. If studies show that it takes an average of seven contacts from a business to convert a sale from a qualified lead, why do website owners often expect the people just browsing their site to instantly buy? Capturing people’s emails (with a tantalising offer just for subscribers) was my first piece of advice to her.

Where is Helpful Advice on Email Marketing?
Although there is a plethora of info on attracting people to your website, actually marketing to them and getting action (sales/calls/bookings) is often left to chance. 

Email marketing has been around for awhile now, but it is rare to get advice on what to send, how often, how to segment your list, and how to get a great response. So most business owners just send untargeted offers, which seriously under-utilises this low cost avenue for customer acquisition. (Of course I work with Infusionsoft, the tool to use to get those high performing results you want).

In addition, pay-per-click advertising to attract customers can get quite expensive if 95% of the prospects sail away before any contact. Email marketing works brilliantly with PPC advertising because it allows businesses:

• to tell them more details about the services/products
• to learn more about their visitors’ real interests
• to offer value through information prior to purchase (i.e. handy tips, news, events)
• to keep the relationship between business and prospect alive, right after they showed interest

Fortunately, I am working on a solution to help end the marketing confusion generally circulating in the small business world. It will be an exclusive Business Builder’s membership program. Stay tuned for some interesting, results-focussed advice.

Some E-marketing Tips

You need to encourage people to give you their email address, so what do you give them in return? While it is the most popular, you don’t necessarily have to offer a newsletter. Other options are: a free white paper with some facts about your industry, a free consultation or evaluation, or a free webinar or teleseminar.

Thank them for signing up to your list (automatically of course), personalising this message based on their encounter with your website. Once they read your newsletter/email, track which links they clicked on, and then target mailings to their interests and habits. You can even segment people who found you through search engine marketing in a separate mailing list from your general list.

Why do most blogs not make it past the first three months?  Perhaps because most authors start with a few ideas of what they want to say, but then they lack the skills to continue and develop a audience. Pro Blogger mentor Darren Rowse (of ProBlogger.net) reckons that many of his blogs did not reach their tipping point (of success) until about two years in – i.e. only the determined survive!

Blogs must show a consistency of voice. A voice that is perhaps not always going to be completely Politically Correct, but sometimes bring up a salient point that no-one has hitherto suggested, or break a new story. This is why blogging is different to writing web page content – sharing, helping, and throwing out ideas is the MAIN aim. Promoting is secondary. Get it?

Some Key Blogging Tips

Remember that the habit of posting has to be done like clockwork, through busy times and lean times, through computer meltdowns and people meltdowns. Outsourcing will take that load off you, but make sure the writer is clued into your audience and your core topics.

Don’t get bogged down in the blog posts. It’s meant to be fast.

“Think of your blog as a thick marker – and each blog post a single idea designed to inspire, engage and stimulate.” - Gavin, Servant of Chaos (pro blogger)

Learn yourself from the best commentators/bloggers, and then educate your audience. Snippets of other author’s comments, or related facts, makes each post interesting. While blogging may seem lonely at first, soon real comments from readers and a great social media strategy will get you past the blogging blues.

Stats:
While Technorati states it is tracking over 112.8 million blogs (figures in 2009, and exclude China), only around 21% are actually active.

More about Blogging for Small Business and a book you can buy at Servant of Chaos.

I was thinking today about the rise of the Guru in internet marketing. If we are to achieve our goals, do we need to follow a Guru? A coach? Or do we tread our own path?

Let’s look at what the most successful entrepreneurs tend to do. They research and learn from others. But a critical difference is that successful entrepreneurs do not ‘buy in’ to a guiding Guru’s opinions. They have their own. They question common preconceived notions (this often leads to new markets or new products).

Many successful entrepreneurs today have followed their passion with true grit and a real mission to complete. They face adversity, as you will, on a daily basis, and learn to make decisions quickly and not get caught up in second-guessing themselves.

Entrepreneurs learn from experts in other fields in order to shortcut their learning. They surround themselves with the best specialist consultants, contractors and employees, since they cannot DO everything.

Examples of single-minded entrepreneurs (no groaning please):
•    Anthony Robbins of Robbins Research International (Booklist on Amazon)
•    Sir Richard Branson (latest book: Business Stripped Bare)
•    Bill Glazer (book: Outrageous Advertising)

“Richard is the only person in the world to have built seven billion dollar companies from scratch in seven completely different sectors” (Amazon).

My point is, you can learn a lot from the work and success of others, as long as you remind yourself that you are taking steps along a path and that no-one is the final figure of authority.  Of course we all need some support along the journey, and some people choose a coach for that.

What role can a Life/Business Coach play?  A coach is a sounding board and guides you to practical, time-saving methods and smart business practices. Sometimes they are the sole encouraging voice, someone to help you achieve your goals in small steps. But they are not the final authority, you are.

You don’t have to wait for all the answers to get started on that lifetime dream, because you learn as you go along. If you learn from others who have built businesses, while promoting your own unique qualities, then you will surely become a business success.

CRM software is great isn’t it?  If you’re out visiting clients, it still sends out email follow-ups, builds trust through rich information, and sends out time-limited offers… doesn’t it?  Oh… yours just stores information that you’ve collected.

This problem came up recently with a prospect who is using SugarCRM. He says that it doesn’t DO anything for him; it’s just another place to store data.  After forking out his valuable time in setting up this system, he now realises that he needs something EXTRA that is going to automatically communicate to people, based on what they buy and what they request on his website.

This busy business owner wants to save time and effort when communicating to people in his database, so he is looking into Infusionsoft for both marketing and customer relationship management purposes.

The Right Tool
I guess the basic problem is having the right tool for the job. Also to be considered is, a lot of Customer Relationship Management systems available, especially Enterprise CRM, were designed for large companies with various departments. They are too cumbersome and expensive for the one-person to five-person small business.

Managing Opportunities
There is another segment of CRM which focusses on Opportunity Management.  Recording sales opportunities is important in most businesses, so every good CRM should include this facility. You can note multiple tasks against each contact, record activities likes meetings and calls, and note possible sales. Reporting tools also help you keep up with progress on a weekly or monthly basis.

Marketing is Left till Last
Save the best till last… while most large CRM systems are used with Enterprise Resource Planning, tracking customer data, and even recording all sales force activity… they do not automatically send out information, offers, and newsletters (by SMS, email, fax). That’s the work of yet another external system and an administrator as well.

So that’s why, when my new customers have got to the stage of seeing the Infusionsoft demonstration on automating their marketing to a segmented list, it’s like the light bulbs go on – because they realise it’s all simple enough for just one person to manage. Hooray.

“I know I put that number somewhere here… I have to call that guy back, where is that bit of paper?”
“Where did I put that Project Alpha file? It’s somewhere in this computer!”
“Seriously, would those spammers stop sending emails about their Indian SEO service?”

If these types of comments or thoughts sound familiar, it might be time to look at your work style efficiency. We’re not all natural-born brilliant organisers, and the time we lose on these little things does add up. It’s time that is not billable, and it’s moments like these that distract you from your core tasks.

With a little bit of forethought these inefficient habits can be replaced by new habits and new software rules. Let the software do the work, not you.

5 Work Efficiency Tips

1. While on the phone with a client, bring up your CRM system and find the client’s name. You can still jot notes if you prefer, but ensure you enter the notes and date while the conversation is fresh in mind. Walah – already in the system, never to be lost.
2. Each project should have a folder in your main documents. Never save working files haphazardly and try not to have more than four tiers of folders.
3. For emails that come in, spam filters can only catch so much. Set up some Rules so that those with certain words will get deleted or sent to junk. (In Entourage, select Tools-Rules, usually select email (POP), then specify the words commonly found in the message of these spam emails; in Outlook select Tools-Create New Rule).  If you have new rules set up, I suggest you check your deleted items/junk folder every two days to ensure that those you want to see are not going there (then adjust rules if it’s catching the good emails).
4. All e-newsletters which you subscribe to can be set up to go to a Newsletters inbox folder, with a new folder and a rule (Entourage: Add criteria: subject contains: newsletters; Add action: move messages – select newsletters folder). Any new newsletters that come in can then be added with a right-click, Apply Rules (Newsletters).  Then you only see these low priority newsletters when you want to ‘research’ or ‘play’.
5. All your bulk emails should be handled by an automated Email Marketing system, thus freeing you up from sending and receiving various emails, dealing with subscribes, unsubscribes or bouncebacks, etc. This system is held “off-site”, but you can easily upload any existing contacts.

I hope these few tips have given you a good start on making your work time more efficient. Please speak to Aveline for further personalised advice and systems consultation.

As I come across a lot of different business types in the small business sector, I often notice similar problems crop up within the very heart of the business: sales & marketing.

SME owners without adequate systems often struggle to keep up with different enquiries from different sources, trying to remember who gets what and when. Prospects are at different stages of the sales cycle, and it usually falls on the SME owner to keep track of each prospect and send them the right information, to keep building trust one step at a time. Utilising a great sales & marketing process can mean the difference between having a successful business, or a busy job.

If this sounds familiar, it might be time to seek some assistance. As Greg Chapman says on Business Builders:

“By systematising your business, you make your business more efficient, reduce your costs, and ultimately, make your business run without you.”

If you are too busy, you dread opening your email, or your work style is haphazard at best… an integrated system like Infusionsoft that combines Automated Email Marketing, a powerful CRM that keeps all sales activities on track, and a helpful person to set it all up… could sound like business nirvana to you. After all, if you can make part of your business run without you, you get that most precious commodity of all back: TIME.

You probably already have some way of recording customer contact details, right? Excel spreadsheets, Outlook groups, post it notes, or even a database that was set up once, but is now gathering dust. Is this costing you time and profits?

Some micro business owners feel caught in the middle – they do not have the time or resources to use the full functionality of the large CRMs built for medium to large enterprises – but they could do with a contact management system to keep it all together in one place, as well as build targeted marketing campaigns.

With a well-executed CRM system, you can better service customers, increase customer loyalty and repeat business, streamline tasks, and of course ensure long-term profitability. The more information you gather in your system, the better you will become at seeing where the opportunities lie.

Unfortunately, while all business owners know they are vital, these strategies are rarely implemented consistently and easily, so let’s look at some of the sticking points.

Problem Overcome – Under-Marketing

Often we overlook marketing our other services/products to people that we have already sold to. This upsell or cross-sell can be an easy way to add to your profits for little extra costs. But how?  One way is to market to a segmented list with a special offer for that particular type of client.

Many business people have been doing it the manual way so long, that they are surprised when I show them a system that does it all so easily … often automatically. This frees up their time as well as aids their brand recall.

Problem Overcome – Crossing Over Tasks, Chaotic Working Style

In working with businesses, I have seen some partner businesses misallocating tasks, sometimes forgetting tasks, crossing over tasks, and having poor systems and tools. Once such couple I recently coached at length had all these problems.

When it comes to this couple, their working style was very different, one had more on their plate, and the unbalanced task allocation was having a big impact on their relationship all-round. A fresh look at it opened up some great answers, like using a journal for noting ideas instead of interrupting, respecting the spouse’s time, having a schedule, discussing business at a weekly planning meeting and prioritizing tasks.

In your team, who are doing similar tasks?  Which tasks could be streamlined?  If it’s a manual task or process then we see how it can be automated using technology or a simple system sequence.  Oft-times using a software tool can streamline a task into a few simple steps…  saving many hours of painstaking work.

You may even be paying for a bells & whistles CRM program, but haven’t seen the benefits yet as so-and-so was supposed to be doing it (i.e. a dusty database). Take charge and look at new ways to perform those regular repetitive tasks like quotes, proposals, invoicing, follow-up emails, newsletters, etc. I’d love to hear all your questions about how to streamline your tasks.

Every business owner I speak to has the problem of wearing multiple hats, chasing their tail and doing many things at once.  Is there an answer to this problem?  I think each business type is different but they all have common issues to deal with.

Because there are so many options, and so much information at our fingertips, many business owners get really frustrated and time poor. So what are some simple steps to get out of the mire and into productivity and growth mode?

Reminding ourselves to “Eat that Frog” and do just the most important things first in our day is the first step (recommended book: Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy).

Once you have your task list prioritised and under control, the next step is delegation of some tasks.  Sometimes you can outsource administrative/marketing tasks to someone who is either paid a lot less than you or else is much better at it, freeing up your time to focus on your core talent.

Next, you can set up a system to deal with repeated or follow-up tasks. You need a way to not only capture interested people’s details, but also build trust and respect. Say for example your system captures email addresses and emails a seven part course to interested prospects. It also tracks their interests and follows up with recommended products/services. They are invited to events you have put into the email service – and have a way of responding that is easy, like booking/paying through your own portal. This is all possible from within Infusionsoft.

What you are trying to achieve with these sytems is automation, to take less of your time and to increase the results from marketing activities. Infusionsoft is a powerful tool that enables business owners to leverage their time, grow their leads, and increase revenue and profits.

Hello and welcome to the first blog post for Infusionoz!  We’re in exciting times.  At least, we feel that we are!  And I hope you feel that way too.

I must share with you something that happened on the weekend that has got me thinking… and that has made me realise the ‘social media’ age that we are now living in and how important it is to be a part of it.

Last night I went to the Adam Hills live performance at the Powerhouse in Brisbane, seated just a few rows from the front (I love being up close so I can see expressions and the REAL person!!).  Adam came onto stage to a very excited crowd and within minutes he had discovered a man seated in the front row who looked a little like Santa.  Actually maybe a LOT like Santa! No kidding, and his name was Lex Cush.  Lex went along with Adam’s frivolity of wanting to take a picture of them both together and he then posted it on his blog page via his mobile phone, and then posted a tweet (on Twitter) to see who could come back with the funniest caption.

This might not sound that strange, however it was a live show and Adam was sitting on the edge of the stage with his mobile phone in hand, sending tweets and reading some back.  Not your usual stand-up comedy!  And it wasn’t just the photo of him and Lex that was posted either, as he found humour in some of the audience’s surnames (and admittedly it was VERY funny) so had to ID them and of course take more photos to post off.

After a little while Adam checked his mobile phone for responses and read out some tweets from around the world, with proposed captions for the picture of him and Lex, and we had a laugh.

What struck me as both funny and interesting is that one of the tweet replies came from a guy in the audience… who used his mobile to respond to Adam’s tweet.   As Adam remarked: “how funny that you’re communicating with me via a satellite and we’re about 15 metres apart”.

That is exactly the sign of our times:  tweeting, blog posting, re-tweeting, and using mobile phones to post comments and keep in contact with strangers all around the world, at any time, anywhere.

Not everyone is up with it though… it’s generally seen as a ‘young persons thing’.  Yet here was Adam Hills, an almost-40-yr-old sitting on stage with his blackberry taking photos, posting them and tweeting during his show.  Technology is available and accessible to anyone who wants it, and to anyone who chooses to get on board.

In business circles the traditional marketing channels are slowly being overtaken by our social media and technology advances in marketing automation such as Infusionsoft.  Those people who haven’t yet caught on are either looking in or choosing to let it go by.  I believe, to their detriment.

Regardless of what worked yesterday, we do know that things are always changing.  Traditional marketing of the past won’t bring the same results today or tomorrow, and with social media taking charge of the way we communicate – it’s something that simply can’t be ignored.

So with the memory of last night’s performance and Adam’s versatility with his tweeting and posting, I’m off to go tweeting myself.

Have a great week!

Aveline