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Traditional Advertising Works Great …
March 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Be an Expert in Your Market.. Know Them, Create a Persona
February 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Want to be an Expert in Your Market
Know them, If you want to be an expert one of the first things you must do is "KNOW THEM" and by them I mean your prospect(s).
TO BE AN EXPERT YOU MUST KNOW THEM
This is an important part of being an expert because if you remember from the last post, expert publish. Experts also have to have a specific area of focus or a niche and not every per son in the wolrd is either interested or able to buy everything. This is very important.
Understanding your prospect is the most important aspect of publishing. You have to understand the who, what and why of your client.
CREATE A PERSONA
One of the best ways to understand your prospect is to create a persona(s) for your business. A persona describe ingreat detail the who, what and why of your prospect(s).
Your written persona(s) provide the picture of who you are publishing too. When you start to write a blog post, you refer to your persona, if I create a video I use my persona to ensure I'm speaking the right language to that prospect.
In this post, my persona typically is a services professional, in business for 10+ years, earns a minimum of 100k, has and has two kids. That's the demographic information, but I go further. I also have a sense of their why's. What I mean is I understand why they may be interested in working with me. They more often then not spend their time delivering their service and not focusing on marketing. My customer understand that the reason they become an expert is to generate leads automatically.
So, that is my persona. You may have more then one persona because you may have multiple prospects. Not matter what having a persona(s) makes the process of publishing easier because if provides a focus for who you are publishing too.
To help with the process of creating a persona for your prospects, I've attached a persona worksheet to help focus the creation of your persona. Download it free (no registration needed) but I woould love to hear your comments about is usefullness to you.
Dedicated to your success
P.S. I create my persona and attach a picture of what I believe my persona looks like. That helps with the publishing process. Download the Persona Worksheet Here
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Become an Expert In Your Market and Explode Your Leads Flow.
How to Build Your Book of Business… Don’t Cold Call Me…. Be an Expert
How to Build Your Book of Business… Don’t Cold Call Me
January 25, 2011 By 1 Comment
If your strategy for building your business is cold calling me, don‘t bother, it's a waste of your time and mine.
I got a call from a Financial Advisor, (you remember, a guy that was once a stock broker who now calls himself an advisor). I must admit I was surprised to say the least. When he called he said "Hello, Mr. Miller, My name is Bob Robinson from XYZ Financial Services and I wanted to know if you needed any help with your portfolio?".
What a surprise, my portfolio, what portfolio (like many, my finances have been devastated in the last few years. In fact, my "portfolio" looks more like Nagasaki after they dropped the a bomb), he didn’t waste much time after he heard my state; he ended the call as quickly as possible.
After I hung up, I was still amazed. Here was a guy calling me to build his business but he had no idea about the condition of my finances, my financial goals or anything.
Apparently I was on some list from 2006 and the advisor didn't realize that sh&t had really changed. Had he been on Mars during the last 6 years? Was he living on the space station? Didn't he know or care what has happened to millions of people in the US over the last few years including me?
After I got over myself, I started to think about this situation and his marketing strategy specifically. This guy was looking for new clients and his "creative" strategy was to invade my day with his need for a more money.
He interrupted whatever I was doing, not knowing anything about my current situation. Not knowing if I had money to invest. Not knowing that my investments were in the toilet? Not knowing if I was still a qualified prospect? He didn't know anything about me and I have NOT expressed any need for his services.
He took a shot in the dark hoping that he would get a bite and that did not work.
As I thought more it occurred to me "how so 1980's", cold calling a cold list without any knowledge of the prospect.
As I thought more, it also occurred to me that despite the fact my current portfolio sucked, I had no intention of staying in this situation. My intention is to resurrect my finances and my portfolio and become more successful then ever.
That’s my goal, to rebuild and be even more successful.
Which takes me back to Bob Robinson and the antiquated way he is trying to build (or rebuild) his business. If Bob wanted to “help with my portfolio” he would need to do the following;
- Clearly understand where I was today financially
- Articulate a plan to help me powerfully rebuild my finances
- Understand my needs and how you can help me.
So just a little inbound marketing would have helped Bob.
Bottomline, don’t cold call me looking for business, interrupting my day wit your agenda. While in the past I worked with advisors that I didn’t know and didn’t know me now I’ve decided “IF AN ADVISOR DOESN’T INVEST IN ME, I WILL NOT INVEST WITH THEM. INVEST IN ME FIRST.
Your Business Uses Mobile or Your Business is Bust
September 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I know, bold statement but the facts are the facts. Here are some reasons why from an Adage
Mobile is now even bigger than desktop use, and data/video usage exceeds voice calls.
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80% of the U.S. population will have a mobile phone by 2010.
- 35% of American adults are using their mobile devices for wireless Internet access.
- The average iPhone user only spends 45% of his on-device time making voice calls – the rest is spent browsing the web or using applications.
- Video accounts for 69% of mobile data traffic.
Access to the web and applications via mobile is growing and will soon be universal.
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Smartphone usage of both browser and applications has increased more than 110% in the last year.
- By 2011, 99% of mobile phones will be data-capable devices – at minimum they can do basics like sending and receiving SMS text messages.
Consumer use of mobile devices is growing exponentially – much faster than PC or Internet use grew – but U.S. businesses have been slow to take advantage of endless opportunities to optimize stakeholders’ mobile interactions with the brand.
Possibilities for interacting with consumers via mobile go beyond delivering content and enabling transactions. Location-based targeting, real-time comparison shopping and QR codes allow businesses to interact with customers in novel ways.
Viking Cooking School Uses Text Messaging & Text Coupons to Grow Enrollment
September 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Viking Range Corp manufactures high end stoves and other appliances and has a cooking school.
The school has 16 locations around the US. Recently Viking used text messaging to boost school attendance. The school sent out an email to it's existing customer database with an offer to signup using a web based custom widget.
Then Viking asked students to text "Viking" to shortcode 313131 (the school now had a mobile text customer list).
Once they built the list, Viking looked at the schools cooking schedule to see what classes need filling. They then sent a text message to the list. Here's an example;
Girls Night Out in Vegas! Cook shrimp to perfection, make herbed melt in your mouth biscuits and grilling meat to perfection Sun 4/18 5PM-8PM call 898-8345
One recent text filled eight class spots, valued at $79.00 each — a single text message that cost less the school $15 dollars to send resulted in an additional $632 dollars in revenue. Viking Cooking School has since brought two other locations on board, with plans for more in the near future.
How can you use text messaging to grow your business. Call us today to discover how 267-940-7504
Why small business must have a 360-degree local and mobile Web strategy
May 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment
This post is derived from an article in Fridays article in Mobile Marketer called "Why brands must have a 360-degree mobile Web strategy". The point of the article is that brands need (must) enlarge their marketing strategy to include not only a mobile Website but promoting including what I call "mobile access" to every part of their business in every area of business.
The article's point was that either online or offline, brands needed to include the mobile experience. So, if a customer searched on a Website on their phone, they needed to see a mobile Website. If they received a coupon and clicked on the coupon, the coupon needed to be formatted in an easy to read fashion for mobile phones.
The mobile experience needed to be included in every aspect of marketing including advertising. So, on every ad, print, TV, radio and online, the user should be able to use their phone to respond to the ad.
In today's marketing and advertising environment, I could not agree more. But I believe that small business MUST do the same thing.
Small business customers are using their phones as well, to find products, services restaurants that they want. A small business customer will need to see a mobile webster, if they get click on an ad on their phone, the landing page needs to format for ease of use on the phone and small business also need to give user the opportunity to respond on their phones to other types of advertising in every media.
So, Mr or Ms Small Business Owner, you need to heed the same advice for brands (your business is a brand as well, right) start thinking about how your customers can interact with your business using their smart phone NOW. Don't wait until it's to late.
What is Twitter and how can you use it for Business
May 20, 2008 By Leave a Comment
I just recently got the Twitter bug (http://www.twitter.com/dwightmiller) and I’ve had many people ask how Twitter works and what’s it’s purpose. To help explain Twitter, I found this video and in my next post I’ll tell you if I’ve found any use for it in business.
The Google Advertising Enterprise Adds – TV Advertising
March 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Google recently announced a beta program that allows advertisers to buy ads on television networks. Google will allow advertisers to upload 15, 30, 45 and 60 minute advertisements. The Google platform allows advertisers to closely connect TV advertising to the Internet and measure the results. As you know, I am a firm believer in only buy advertising that can be measured and this new Google beta mets that goal.
According to the Google website the program works the same as adwords, you basically pick networks and dayparts, set a budget and maximum CPM, upload the video and track you ads. As usual it’s simple, easy and easily trackable. You can finally track advertising results and ROI.
The benefits are obvious, you can track and measure your advertising results, Google says it is attached to various setup boxes so advertising results are measured. In the TV business, there is something called “make goods” where you repeat the ad to get the demo promised. There is also givebacks, where you give back money, the Google system helps reduce or eliminate this challenge.
The last benefit is the benefit you get using the Google platform, once you launch your ad, you can see performace of you advertising message and tune it to get better results.
If you are looking to advertise on TV, consider the Google network. If you want to know how it works, Call Today
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