How to Market Your Service Business Using Inbound Marketing

January 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

This post is the first in a series of posts designed to help service business owners start the process of using  Inbound Marketing to find customers and grow profits. 
 
There are a few definitions of Inbound Marketing but my definition is simple,  Inbound Marketing means 'helping customers solve a problem' on the media where they are most likely to look" marketing.
 
Make sense, help your prospect solve a problem.
 
Here is what I mean as I wrote in a post a few days ago about my experience with a clogged sink.  Christmas Day after dinner my kitchen sink clogged. I went to Google (on my iPhone) and typed in "How to unclog a sink" looking for help from a local plumber. To my surprise there was not one local search result. 
 
So since I'm writing this post to help business owners discover how to grow their business with Inbound Marketing, I decided to dedicate myself to writing these tips. Look for them to come about once every other day.
 
I find that many business owners have a hard time with this first tip. My experience with business owners is that when asked "WHo is your customer?", the typical answer is "Anyone" and that just ain't so. No business has the resources to market to "Everyone". So it helps to 
 
  • Know Your Customer – try to clearly define your customers and ensure that they have the following qualities
  • They want what you are selling. To Craig Garber, one of my mentors "if you're selling bass fishing equipment but you have people who fish on the ocean as your prospects, you're going to have a hard time selling anything". So its important that you fish in a river  of biting fish. The customer can pay you. Your is only valuable to the people that can pay you and EVERYBODY can't necessarily pay you. So to keep the fishing metaphor going "fish in a river of fish with money"
 
For example, I work with a contractor and he (we) are very clear about our customer. This contractor ONLY works with real estate investors and the  customer is almost always a  real estate investor that has purchased his first investment property and gotten burned by another contractor. That's our customer, notice that the definition is very specific and targeted and this definition helps tremendously with marketing the business and winning clients.
 
If you want help defining your customer, give me a call to schedule a free consultation or click on the this SCHEDULE link
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3 Tips for Getting into Mobile Marketing

September 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Great tips from MarketingSherpa.com

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Your Customers Are Using Mobile Phones. Are You

September 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Noah Elkin, senior analyst at eMarketer, New York, recently reveal a list of trends that reveal how your customers are using their mobile phones. After reading this list, you will know how and what you need to do to lverage mobile marketing in your business.

eMarketing Mobile TrendsYour customers are buying smart phones and consuming and creating information daily. Customers are creating content, sharing content, reviewing your products and  looking for information. These trends create tremendous opportunities for your business and marketing to your customers.

The biggest trend in mobile usage is social networks like Facebook and Foursquare. But users are checking the weather.surfing the net, looking for directions to stores and restaurants and of course they're shopping.

The most important way that you can leverage mobile usage in your business is to design a plan, a strategy to being the process. Emulate the big guys, include SMS marketing and mobile coupons. Check to see how you site looks on your iPhone and your friends Droid. Start either small or with a full blown plan but the important thing is to start and start NOW.

Want  help developing a mobile marketing plan. Schedule a FREE STRATEGY SESSION by clicking here.

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Social Networking Is All About Mobile, So Why Aren’t You All About Mobile?

September 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

 

Over the last few posts it has become obvious that customers are using mobile phones for a variety of reasons and one of the biggest is social networking. 

When you look at the various social networks almost all of them require a smart mobile phone. If you check in on Foursquare.com, Gowalla.com, Where, Facebook Places or Yelp.com you have to use a mobile phone. Each site uses mobile phone location services to tell if you are close to where you want to check in and you typically can't check in if you aren't close to the location.

 

The point is

Social Networking is all about Mobile, So Why Aren't You All About Mobile?

Aren't you already mobile? You most likely own a smart phone like an Android or iPhone. You are probably like most smart phone users, you use the phone to play games, send or answer text messages, look for stores and restaurants, check the weather and you probably have downloaded the PayPal app and you shop on your phone. (Somebody is shopping, Paypal expects to close 2010 with $500 million in mobile payments).

So the question is, Why haven't you started a mobile strategy for your business? If your spending thousand of dollars and hours of time on social networks, social networking marketing.

If you've hired a social network guru, why havn't you include mobile marketing in you business marketing plan. 

It's time to start NOW

 

Want  help developing a mobile marketing plan.

Schedule a FREE STRATEGY SESSION  click here.

Filed Under: Marketing, Mobile ECommerce, Mobile Phones Tagged With: , , , ,

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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

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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

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