Secondly, you need a website. An often overlooked component of the site is that your niche should feel that it was specifically created just for them. This is what’s referred to as the message to market match. The more your prospect sees a reflection of themselves in your marketing materials, the greater the odds are that they’ll pay attention to you. (Simply being ignore is the greatest challenge virtually all of us have to overcome.)

Next, you need a great offer on the site so that people will opt-in and tell you who they are. Again, this is a surprisingly overlooked step and it’s crucial for building brand recognition.

Finally, you need to drive traffic to the site. Personally I’d use a combination of SEO (search engine optimization) with paid advertising-especially now that Google is going through a huge upheaval with the changes to its algorithm. Plus, there are a lot of other search engines aside from Google that are excellent for driving traffic.

So that’s the set up. However, branding requires more than just this. In order to develop a level of awareness (which is what branding is ultimately all about) repetition is crucial. There are a lot of business branding ideas about what channel (marketing speak for method) is the best.

Could it be advertising? Sure. That’s how we did it when I was with Pepsi and Kraft Foods. You can too, as long as you have a multi-million budget. Don’t have one of those? Then advertising will be used for lead generation rather than branding. Plus advertising has a huge liability when it comes to branding-it’s not particularly trust worthy. Sure I may click on a link if the hook is right, but that’s a considerable difference from building trust, which is the cornerstone of a brand strategy.

So what’s the most trusted channel of communication? It’s definitely not Twitter…or your Linked In post…or your facebook update. Nope.

It’s actually the one-two punch that’s provided by your blog and an email that alerts your list to new messages. When done right, your blog is your voice…and your voice becomes your brand. But we can’t just hope that your new blog posts get read, you’ve got to promote them-to your list-via email.

Which underscores why it’s so important to capture contact information by offering a great free report, video, podcast, survey, ect when people come to your site.

If you’ve been on my list for a while, you’ll notice that this is how I’m building a relationship with you. You can do the same thing-BUT-yes, it requires work. Naturally you can either do the work yourself or orchestrate the work and have it done by others. But this is the process, that if I was serious about branding myself, I’d implement.

And implementation is what it’s all about.
Mark

In large part it depends upon how we are defining the term. Branding for small business really means to create a level of awareness among a very targeted niche audience. For example, I have a strong desire for Gentle Rain Marketing to have a high level of brand awareness among small to mid sized companies, primarily in the services industries. That’s very different than a brand strategy for companies such as Kraft or Pepsi who want awareness for their products on a global basis with virtually everyone.

The good news is that one can achieve a high level of targeted brand awareness within one or several niches. Here’s how to do it.

Not surprisingly the first step is to pick a niche. Although this sounds obvious, many businesses struggle with this step. The most common fear is that by niching, they’ll miss out on opportunities outside of the niche. While that’s certainly a possibility, the likelihood that by attempting to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one, is far more likely. Remember, a niche marketing strategy does not say that the one niche you choose sums up your entire market. You can have multiple niche marketing campaigns taking place simultaneously. The key is that for every prospect you reach, they should feel that you understand their specific needs, wants and desires.

Which brings us to the second step in the process. You need to develop some sort of free offer; article, video, podcast ect that communicates you understand a problem this niche faces. Do not start communicating your solution to the problem at this point. That’s a very common mistake.

Building a brand relationship with your prospective client is a bit like a dance. There are steps that need to be followed. The most important one is that before you start talking about your great solution, your prospect needs to believe that you truly understand their problem. Thus, lead with the problem…not your solution.

Step 3 is repetition of message. It would be great if all it took was one message in order to build brand awareness. The reality is different. You need to be in front of your prospective client numerous times in order for your brand to sink into the subconscious of their mind. Herein lies the challenge for smaller companies.

Advertising is expensive. You just don’t have the capital to run your ads repeatedly over and over again until the person finally remembers who you are and what you do. So we need to be a bit crafty and leverage our advertising so that it achieves maximum benefit.

The trick to doing this is to make sure that everyone gives you their contact information when they get your free offer. That enables you to send them ongoing messages for free. That’s how we cement in their minds the value that we bring.

This last step is the crucial element for creating a brand for your business, and while it makes total sense logically, it’s ironically one of the least utilized tool in the marketing arsenal. Thus, if you implement a great brand-building stay-in-touch communication strategy you’ll likely be miles ahead of 90% of your competition.

However, the most crucial element is implementation. If you don’t have the time to actually put in place a brand building strategy, THIS will be of interest.

Sure it takes a certain amount of guts to do something no one else in your market it doing, but that’s how you break out to the pack. Getting stuck in the middle is the easiest way to be ignored, and that’s one of the biggest problems most businesses face-no one pays attention to them.

I was thinnking about advertising ideas for small business and one thought struck me. While it’s great to get traffic (and I wrote last time about why Google may not be the best place to start running ads), where you’re sending people is equally (if not more) important. That’s what I want to focus on today.

As many of you know, I’m a big believer in having multiple websites. One of these (hopefully built on a WordPress platform) should be your authority site. For those of you who remember such things, this would be the online version of the old fashion brochure.

You also need sites that focus exclusively on capturing leads. The most common of these are what’s called Squeeze Pages. (The term comes from the concept that the visitor is “squeezed” in one direction, which is to opt-in for the information.) You can see a simple example of a traditional squeeze page HERE

There’s a spin on Squeeze Pages that you may want to consider-especially if you plan on using Google Adwords to promote the page. (Google takes a very dim view of pages that are obviously set up just to capture names.)

A Reverse Squeeze Page focuses on a compelling headline (similar to a normal squeeze page) but it immediately goes into an article format, such as one might read in a magazine or newspaper. The key to pulling this off is the story that you tell. That’s crucial. The story teaches a lesson…it’s intriguing…you get some real value…up to the last page…when there is an offer (but sorry in order to get it-you have to optin.) Here’s a great example.

***Want us to write and set up a Reverse Squeeze Page for you? Send an email to Mark@GentleRainMarketing.com with the word “Reverse” in the subject line.

Now there are some caveats to the reverse squeeze page. The overall numbers of people who read the entire page may be lower than for a more traditional squeeze page that immediately asks people to opt-in. However, even if the number of people who read the entire page is smaller, this can offset by a highly targeted advertising campaign to drive people to the page. (Keep in mind that wile Google doesn’t like traditional squeeze pages they love Reverse Squeeze Pages because they provide great content.)

The biggest advantage of Reverse Squeeze pages is the QUALITY of people who opt-in. Conversion numbers of prospects (those who opt-in), who turn into clients (those who give us money), are far higher with Reverse Squeeze Pages.

It think that for this reason alone, Reverse Squeeze Pages make an enormous amount of sense to add to your marketing mix.

I’ll be interested in what you’re doing in this area, and as always, if I can be of assistance, please let me know.

Talk soon
Mark
NEED MORE CLIENTS BUT SIMPLY DON’T HAVE THE TIME FOR MARKETING?

Just to quickly reiterate, the steps are 1) A great “hooky offer’ that you promote on your website to get visitors to stop bouncing off and start opting in 2) A sequence of follow up messages (using the soap opera storytelling strategy) 3) An integrated strategy for driving lots of high quality traffic to your site. (And do yourself a HUGE favor, don’t worry about this step until you have the other two pieces in place.)

So when we think about guerilla advertising ideas for getting traffic, the first thought that pops into people’s mind is Google’s Adwords program. If you had asked me 3 years ago, where’s the best place to start, that’s where I’d go.

However, I wouldn’t recommend it today. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still think Google makes a lot of sense. The problem is that ads are getting increasingly expensive and Google has become terribly rigid in their stance towards marketers. You may have heard of their new “Panda” algorithm that has the SEO world in a topspin. What’s received less publicity is the spin off effect Panda has had on paid search. Numerous advertising accounts have been kicked off the system, and clicks that used to cast a buck now cost $5+.

So, at least for the time being, I’d hold off on advertising on Google unless 1) you really understand how their CPC program works and/or 2) you’ve fully implemented the other strategies I’m about to share. Guerilla advertising for small business really benefits from some of the other options that are available. Here’s where I’d start.

Facebook. There probably isn’t a site out there that collects as much personal information about it’s members as does Facebook. What this means is that you can micro-target a niche for far less than Google charges. Yes, advertising rates for Facebook are creeping up, and they’ll likely continue to do so as they become a public company with the corresponding Wall Street pressure to boost earnings. But, for the time being, this is where I’d start.

Linked-In. If you’re in the b2b space and/or targeting senior level executives, this advertising option is worth adding to the mix. Again, you can target where your ad appears. One of the best ways to niche your campaign is to align it with the groups that pertain to your audience. It’s likely you’ll get a big pop the day your ad initially runs, and then it will taper off. What this means is that unlike other ad venues in which you can largely “set it and forget it”, you’ll need to refresh your ad copy on a regular basis. Ads also tend to be a bit pricey, but remember, it’s the quality of opt-ins that’s the most important, not just building a big list.

Bing. The common misperception is that Google owns all the search traffic. They’re certainly the 500 pound monster in the room, but they’re not the only player. What I like about Bing is that their ads cost far less and you can drive traffic to pages that are primarily designed to capture information on your visitors. (Google hates those types of sites.) This is definitely worth investigating.

Certainly, advertising is only one way of driving traffic to your site and there’s more to it than just deciding where you want to advertise. (Selecting the right keywords to go after is one of the biggest challenges.) Other strategies you may also want to consider include adswaps, affiliate marketing (this can be HUGE if you do it right), eBook syndication, video marketing…lots and lots of options

More about all of that to come.

But, remember…while learning is fun implementation is what actually grows your business.

Talk soon
Mark
Want to outsource your marketing so you can focus on serving clients? This will be of interest.

When it comes time to market your business, there are really only 4 things you need to focus on. Everything else is superfluous. In fact, an easy way not to get overwhelmed by all this is to continually think to yourself, “How does what I’m about to spend time on, actually help me achieve one of these 4 things?”

Thing #1 is to choose a very specific niche market. No, I’m not asking you to define your entire business as serving just this one niche. All we are doing is positioning you, at the very beginning-when you are trying to get the initial attention of your prospect-as someone who specializes in them. Remember, the first question everyone asks is, “Will this work for me?” Personal self-interest is paramount. Dan Kennedy refers to this as the “message to market match” which basically means, “To what extent does your prospect see a reflection of themselves in your marketing materials?”

Thing #2 is to create something that you can give away for free as a lure to get people to pause when they’re on your website, and opt in to your list. Whether it’s a report (Yes, they still do work) video, eBook doesn’t particularly matter. The reality is that you’ll live or die by whether you get the hook right. That’s yet another reason why you want to micro-niche your marketing as much as possible.

Thing #3 is to create a series of email follow ups using the soap-opera story sequence made famous by Andre Chaperon. When we design these emails at Gentle Rain, they are carefully constructed to link together in a seamless story, that runs weeks or months into the future. The goal is to firmly engage our reader, while at the same time motivating them to take action. This is the crucial step (often overlooked) that coverts high percentages of prospects into paying clients.

Thing #4 is to drive lots of highly targeted traffic to your website. One of the huge mistakes many people make when marketing a small business is to think that large numbers of visitors equals success. The reality is that you can make amounts of money off of tiny lists as long as they are highly focused. Naturally a bigger list is better than a smaller list, but a highly targeted list trumps huge numbers of random (or wrong) prospects every time.

It’s at this Thing #4 that social media starts to play a role but not before. Which raises a key point. Many people focus on Thing #4, before they have Things #1-3 set up. That’s a bit like getting people to come to your grocery store before you have the shelves set up and stocked. Seems kind of obvious, but go to a few websites and see if you can find a great free offer that compels visitors to opt in, and you’ll get my point.

But…there is one issue we still haven’t addressed, and that’s time. So let me offer something to you. If you run a $1+ million business (or connect with people who do-I’ve got a great affiliate program for what I’m about to offer)…we offer a service in which we’ll put together everything I’ve just outlined for you. It’s fully described <strong>HERE.

But, regardless of whether you hire us to do your marketing or not, if you follow these 4 “Things’ there really isn’t any reason why you can’t have an extremely effective marketing system, up and running in less than 30 days.

Certainly good food for thought.
Mark
mark@gentlerainmarketing.com

Of course, as we all know, the reality is far different.

So why is it that these marketing strategies produce such meager results? A large part of the answer is that we don’t do a particularly good job of zeroing in on precisely who we are marketing to.

This goes far beyond just simple niche marketing. Unfortunately it’s just not enough to say, “I specialize in working with women…with Human Resources Executives…with butchers…bakers…candlestick makers.”

No, what’s really required is to take it to the next step. To communicate true empathy with your prospective client. Not surprisingly, this isn’t always easy.

So if you are looking for a better way for marketing a small business, this will be a helpful exercise.

What we’re about to do is to create an two Avatars. They represents the Ying and Yang of your prospects. (This is a concept I picked up from Andre Chaperon, who if you’re not reading his stuff, you really should be. He calls his two Avatars Frank & Matt.)

The first Avatar represent the customer segment you want to avoid. These are the tire-kickers, the nay-sayers, those with no money, the pains-in-the-butts that life is just too short to have to put up with.

The second Avatar represents your ideal customer. These are the types you want to attract lots of. You want your subscriber list to be full of them.

Now the key to this exercise is to be able to describe these two different types at a great level of detail. Let me pass this lesson over to Andre who does a great job of explaining it HERE.

Yes, this requires that pesky “mental heavy lifting” but this can be a game changing exercise.

Talk soon,
Mark

While this is all good stuff, you may run a business in which you just don’t have the time for marketing. If that’s the case, this will be of interest.

So why is this a bad idea? Simply put, it views twitter, facebook or whatever is the newest bright shiny object, as an end unto itself. The ultimate goal gets lost. And what’s that? It’s getting you more business. Somehow (and surprisingly) people lose sight of that and spend amazing amount of hours becoming King of the Hill over a mound of sand that produces no revenues for them.

A far better small business marketing plan focuses on a strategy. Perhaps the strategy incorporates facebook, twitter, linked in and other tactics, but the end goal-getting new clients-is never lost.

However, not surprisingly, there’s a bit more to it than just that. After all we can’t actually sell much of anything from any of the social media platforms. That would be considered way too gauche. So the challenge becomes, how do we get people from social media on to your personal mailing list , so you can sell them stuff without incurring anyone’s wrath.

Here’s one strategy that’s worked well for me and for many of my clients-perhaps it will work well for you too. Let’s focus on Linked In.

As most of you know, Linked In has all sorts of groups catering to all sorts of interests. If I were you, I’d join all the relevant groups in your niche. Then, I’d write an interesting blog article on your site. Around the frame of your blog, I’d put some interesting links that motivate people to actually engage your services or purchase your information products. Then, I’d go to the groups and post a promotional “teaser” message that motivates people to go to your blog page. What you’ll find is that you’ll get a lot of opt-ins to your list this way.

Want to see how it works? Look around at the page this blog is on. Get the idea?

OK now how about the new business strategy you may not have considered that I mentioned in the beginning? I’ll admit this isn’t for everyone, and in fact you’ve got to be a profitable business in order for this to work for you. (I’m empathetic to start ups on a shoestring budget-but this isn’t going to be a good fit.)

In a nutshell, the idea is to outsource your marketing-lead generation, lead capture, stay in touch conversion strategy-to us. If you’re intrigued there’s some more information HERE.

Talk soon
Mark

The interesting thing about these groups is that they often don’t tell you what you think you want to hear. My natural reaction is to immediately discount or dismiss a lot of ideas that don’t immediately resonate with me, when reflecting on the idea is probably in my best interest. What I find particularly helpful about the mastermind group is that since these are really successful people, it’s not easy to have that knee-jerk reaction. If someone who has built a $100 million company from scratch suggests something, I’d be pretty short sighted not to at least consider it.

There’s no shortage of small business marketing tips that we can pick up from any of a number of sources. A lot of them are pretty cool such as one I learned about how to get my YouTube videos on the first page of Google for certain search terms.

However, what’s of infinitely more value is changing your approach and way you look at things. This has happened to me a few times. The first (and most significantly) was when I finally shifted from a mindset that I could do what I do completely on my own. Upon reflection, I’m not sure why I was so reluctant to engage with others or to invest in programs that accelerated the process, but I certainly was. Granted, we can waste a lot money and doing one’s due diligence is crucial, but the old adage of “you need to be willing to invest in yourself”, is really true.

I say that as an observation, not as some sort of sneaky way to lead up to a sales pitch. However, I do believe that who you rub shoulder with has a huge impact on how successful your become. Sometimes in order to get in proximity to those who are most successful in your field you need to invest in order to do so.

In my opinion, that’s an investment that’s worth making. Food for thought.

My focus has always been on those who offer high value services. This includes consultants, advisors, coaches and a wide variety of experts. The term “relationship selling” is not foreign to my clients, although how precisely to implement a strategy that focuses on building a relationship often remains elusive.

I’ve written before about the classic mistake many services business make when it comes to trying to get the initial attention of a prospective client. They focus too heavily on describing their approach…what their service consists of…why their service is superior…on and on. Unfortunately this is not what’s going to hook someone’s attention. That’s not to say prospective clients won’t be interested at some point in time in learning all about your system or approach-it’s just that they’re not interested in it immediately.

There’s actually a formula for what you want to communicate to hook attention and it’s pretty universal. Among all the small business marketing strategies you may have been exposed to, this is one you’ll want to incorporate into your communication strategy.

To briefly reiterate, what’s going to hook attention is communicating that you understand the problem they face. Thus, selecting the right problem is critical for this strategy to work. (Duh). However, that said, if you don’t get the problem exactly right the first time, that doesn’t wind up being a huge issue. In fact it’s a good idea to create a variety of hooks, each one focusing on a different problem. I’ve found that problems which I thought would resonate with my markets sometimes fell flat, while problems that I thought “weren’t that big a deal” generated huge interest.

As I mentioned, when communicating the problem there’s a structure that tends to work best. It’s pretty simple but here it is:

1) This is the problem.
2) It’s not your fault.
3) Lots of other people face the problem.
4) However, not solving the problem can cause lots of consequences.
5) Here’s what your life can look like if you do solve the problem.

That in a nutshell is how you want to communicate each problem. As you’ll notice, the structure focuses on the twin levers of pain & gain. In any sales or marketing communication, those are the two primary anchors we are continually moving between.

So here’s a helpful exercise. Pick a problem. Now write a short (300 word) article that follows the structure I’ve just outlined. My guess is that you’ll have the beginnings of a highly effective lead generation offer.

However, even the most savvy small business marketing consultant often falls victim to the trap of trying to sell far too early in the process. There’s an enormous temptation, once we learn that a prospect has a problem, for us to bring out our great big solution bat and just wack the poop out of the poor person. To hell with relationship building-let’s book some business! Unfortunately, it’s this lack of patience that kills marketing efforts that otherwise could be extremely successful.

So let’s think about the first step in the process-how do we get someone to pay attention to us? Let’s assume for the moment that this person whose attention you want is very busy, lots of responsibility and frankly, really isn’t all that interested in building a relationship with you. How do we go about getting that person to engage?

If you ask anyone who has spent any amount of time in the small business marketing consulting field, you’ll hear one consistent answer; appeal to their self-interest. At the very early stages-when you’re just trying to get someone’s attention, they’re really not interested in what you do.

What’s going to hook them is if you can communicate that you understand the types of problems they face. Lead with the problem-not your solution.
I know this probably isn’t the first time you’ve heard this but the reality is that most services providers are terribly wrapped up in how great their system/process/approach is. Even if we assume that your approach is in fact the absolute best one available , it makes no difference when you’re marketing your services to someone who doesn’t know you. The excellence of your system isn’t going to be known and appreciated until after you’ve been hired.

Thus when you lead with how great the service is, it just sounds like so much Blah, Blah, Blah to your listener. They’ve heard it all before. Everyone says their system or solution is great so you won’t stand out.

This isn’t to say that your solution isn’t important. Of course it is. At some point in the sales process your prospect is going to be very interested in learning about it. But, it’s not the hook that’s going to them to pay attention to you. I’d estimate that after working with owners of services businesses, consultants and advisors for over 20 years, 90% don’t get this and it’s one of the key reasons they struggle.

It’s showing that you understand the problem that’s going to hook their attention. And it’s for that very reason why free reports are still one of the most valuable weapons in your arsenal. The right report that focuses on that critical issue of pain, will get the people you want to do business with to pause and say, “OK tell me more.”