Now when I speak of marketing, I am referring to something quite separate (although complementary) to sales.

A marketing system, when it’s done right, offers you a lot of benefits. Chief among these is that your sales team only spends time talking with prospects who have indicated an interest in your programs.

But that is certainly not the only benefit.

In the world of selling high-value products and services the decision to engage your firm is seldom made after the first meeting. Staying-in-touch is crucial. Unfortunately it’s very easy for this crucial step to fall between the proverbial cracks. This is especially true if the entire stay-in-touch effort rests on the shoulders of your field sales team.

A truly effective marketing system should be designed to enable you to remain in touch with consistent messages of relevance and interest. The process should seamlessly and automatically move prospective clients from curiosity to interest to action. Best of all it should be largely automated so that one never has to worry about too much time elapsing between communications.

That’s what a highly effective, fully-integrated marketing system should do for you.

Something else we observe about the most profitable and productive companies is that the focus of their marketing is on building relationships rather than the more common transactional approach of selling services or products.

This is a fundamental shift in thinking, and not surprisingly impacts both what and how your communicate you message.

It’s been our experience that successfully building these new business relationships depends upon three important factors.

The first is having a process in place that is specifically designed to motivate prospective clients to “raise their hands”.

The second is a separate system (with some similar characteristics) that enables the firm to stay in touch with both existing and prospective clients, with messages of relevance and interest.

The third, and arguably the most important factor, is the patience to commit to a marketing effort even if results are not immediate.

Patience is key, but as with many things in life it’s something that’s easier to say, than do.

Let me share with you a quick story.

Back a few years ago I decided to take up martial arts. Lots of fun. Punching, kicking, plastic weapons, what more could a middle-aged guy want? I actually became reasonably proficient. If my wife Marian and I ever get attacked by a really slow old person, I know exactly what to do.

Anyway, after about a year I felt I had my fill of martial arts. I was ready to move onto something new. My Sensei sat me down and told me that he thought I had the potential to be a very good martial artist and he was sorry that my lack of patience was going to cause me to leave the sport.

Now this isn’t the first time I’ve been told this. And in all candor I’ve probably quit far too many things before I got really good at them because of my impatience.

As you may have guessed, the reason I’m sharing this story with you is because I think that a lack of patience is the number one reason why marketing campaigns don’t produce the desired results. It would be great if we could start a marketing campaign in the morning and have it yield results by the afternoon, but we both know that’s not going to happen.

No, marketing, like most things of value, takes time. Takes patience. Takes focus. Unfortunately most people don’t stick with a marketing plan long enough to see any significant results.

So what’s the answer? Do we magically just go out and order up some patience? I’m a big believer in positive thinking, but I also know how hard it is to change a fundamental character trait.

What tends to make me more patient, whether it’s in my hobbies or business, is having a plan. Having a system to follow. When I have a plan, when I know what the next steps are, then I’m much more likely to stay-the-course. I’ll see something through to the end. Conversely, when I’ve only figured out one step in the process, then I’m real likely to give up (or get distracted) after I do just the one thing.

Thus the importance of having a marketing system. We think that a great one focuses on these key components:
1) Targeting a hyper-responsive group of prospective clients.
2) Getting their attention by creating a great story about who you are and the benefits that people get from working with you.
3) Motivating them to self-nominate themselves as being interested in learning more about your services or products.
4) Moving them along a series of steps that encourages them to take action.
5) Staying in touch with them and building the relationship with consistent messages of relevance and interest.

Although the goals of marketing are simple, implementing a process to actually achieve these objectives is anything but simplistic. But if you keep these steps in mind you can begin the process of developing a very powerful marketing system. To learn more go HERE.

Questions From Gentle Rain Readers from Mark Satterfield on Vimeo.

Internet Traffic Secrets from Mark Satterfield on Vimeo.

The first thing to consider is who do you want to have link to you? All links are not the same. Google ranks websites on a 10-point scale. A site that has a Google page rank of 1 is worth very little. Google reserves the 10s for themselves. A site such as CNN or Amazon are ranked around 8. Realistically your objective is to get sites that are ranked 5 or higher to connect to you. Set as a goal to get 12 sites linking to you and you will find that your own Google page rank and visibility increases substantially.

So what is the best way to get links? One option is to research the sites you would most like to have linked to you and contact them directly. I’ve heard that this can work but it’s obviously very labor intensive and frustrating. I personally use three strategies, which only require a minimal investment and offer you a chance to get literally hundreds of high quality links.

The first is to write articles such as this one. The page on which you found this article has a link to my website through the information that appears in my author bio box at the end of the article. Rather than distribute the article manually to each and every article directory, I use an article distribution service to send them out. For example this article that you are reading will be distributed to over 700 article distribution sites. That’s a lot of links. I typically write two or three 500-700 words articles a week that are sent out. Although that may be more writing than you want to do, you can outsource the task to a freelancer that you can find on elance. Even if you just write one article a month, you’ll reap some great visibility rewards.

The second tool is video. For each article I write, I turn it into a short narrated video using power point slides. Although YouTube is the best known video directory service it actually only has about 11% of the video traffic. Thus I use a video distribution service to get my short video out through all of the various video directories. Since Google gives a lot of credit for video, these short videos tend to rank very high for the key words that I tag them with. It is important to keep in mind that I don’t really expect that anyone would actually go onto YouTube and search for me. Rather, because my video is on YouTube it gets a lot of “Google credit” and shows up when someone does a search for my keywords. People watch the video and if they like what they see, they’ll take the next step and go to my website for more information. This is a strategy well worth implementing.

The final strategy for getting links is the most direct. You simply buy them. You can go on Ebay and search for links for sale or one of the other services you can find by Googling “Buying Links”. Expect to pay around $10 x the page rank of the site that you want to link to you. For example a website with a page rank of 5 would typically charge you between $40-$60 for setting up a link to your site. This may be expensive for some businesses, and it may not be where you focus first, but I’ve found that this is often money that is very well spent.

Not surprisingly, the purpose of the second sentence is to get the reader to read the second paragraph. If we can get the reader to read the second paragraph then we have a good chance that they’ll go down the entire slippery slope of readership and read the entire letter.

If the focus of the first sentence is to raise a potential problem that the reader may be facing, the goal of the second sentence is to expand on that problem. There are a couple of ways we can do this.

The first is to focus on the reasons why the problem occurs. In some instances the problem that you’re communicating is well understood. It’s been around for a long time and everyone acknowledges it’s an issue. Thus simply stating that you too understand the problem, won’t earn you much credibility in the eye of the reader.

What will enhance your credibility is briefly communicating why the problem exists. Now I realize that every company is unique, and it’s impossible to communicate the exact reasons for why a problem exists with anything close to 100% accuracy. However, if you’re marketing to a specific niche (which you should be) then there are going to be some common reasons that are shared across companies within a particular group.

By communicating the reasons for why the problem exists, you will demonstrate that your understanding of the issues are deep rather than superficial. An approach I use is the following:

Although the problem is well understood, the underlying issues are often not so readily apparent. For example in many cases we find that the key contributors to this problem include: (A, B, C)

When you create the three bullet points make sure you keep them short and concise. Remember that at this point in the relationship building process what we are tying to do is to raise enough interest so that the reader will do what we want them to do once they have finished reading the letter.

In other situations the challenge may be that the problem you raised in the opening sentence just isn’t seen as “all that big a deal.” If that’s the situation, then the second sentence needs to focus on why this issue is important. The way I do that is by communicating what is likely to occur if the problem isn’t addressed. The key at this stage is to strike the right balance. You want to raise real consequences of not addressing the problem, while not going overboard and sounding like Chicken Little.

I like to use a bullet point approach for listing the consequences. The bullet points can be set up with a simple statement such as; Unfortunately, the consequences of not addressing this issue can include…

If we’ve done our work correctly, at this point we’ve got our reader’s attention. This is the point when we want to shift the focus of the content to What Do We Want To Reader To Do When They Finish Reading The Letter? This is where we make the reader a very compelling and specific offer, which is designed to move the relationship building process to the next step.

Mary supplements her reputation by writing frequently for an industry trade publication and speaking at conferences, meetings and symposiums. She uses her speeches as a tool for staying in touch by calling existing and prospective clients and encouraging them to attend. Writing articles both enhances Mary’s credibility and provides her with a variety of excuses for staying in touch with her clients, both when she is researching the article and after it is published.

Focus is an important component in developing your reputation for expertise. Most people define their focus by industry. Others define it by function or by what department typically buys their services. Finally, others may have a geographical focus. Naturally, focus can be some combination of these three. It’s important to have a focus, otherwise it’s very hard to become an expert. If you don’t, it’s a little like saying let’s go eat American food. It just doesn’t limit your choices significantly in order to target your efforts.

Joining What Your Prospects Join

Once you’ve determined where to focus the next step is to join the group that caters to that industry or function. If you’re unclear on what association serves these groups, the answer is as near as your computer. Go on-line and access Google. Type in the industry or function you want, followed by the word, association. In a matter of moments you’ll see a vast list of potential groups that cater to your search criteria. It will probably take you a little bit of time to investigate the various sites that are listed, and it’s likely you will run down a few blind alleys.

However, with a modicum of effort you should be able come up with multiple associations that are worth investigating. Another benefit of this search process is that you will uncover special, one-time events that you might want to attend. I’d encourage you to get on-line with Google right now and see what your research turns up!

Reading What Your Prospects Read

The second strategy of successful rainmakers was that they read what their targeted group of prospects read.

Now, in order to do this they first had to find out what their prospects were reading. Fortunately, this is pretty simple and straightforward. The easiest way to find out is to simply ask your clients what they read. This is a good excuse or reason to stay in touch with your clients and it sends a very positive message about your personal commitment to their industry. Also pay attention to what magazines are lying around in the reception area the next time you call on your client. This not only gives you information about what your clients read but who else sells to this group of prospects.

When you’re reading these magazines or trade journals you’ll want to make sure that you’re reading them from a marketer’s perspective. How can what I’m reading help me build my business? An interesting point of fact is that few people who are mentioned in the press are ever contacted by individuals seeking their business.

This point was driven home a few days ago. I was in a local bookstore and happened to browse the magazine rack. I picked up a copy of the Harvard Business Review and noticed that there was an article in it by an old colleague of mine. Of course I was thoroughly impressed to know someone who was published in such a prestigious magazine, and took it upon myself to give this person a call a few days later. I knew that the magazine had been on the racks for the better part of a month, so I was interested in how many other people had called the author to congratulate him or to seek his business. I wasn’t terribly surprised when in response to my question the author replied, “How many people have contacted me? You mean aside from my mother? Just you.” The point is that hardly anyone contacts people who appear in print, and that’s a shame. It’s easy to write the author of an article you’re impressed with a short note, and if you don’t know the address, you can send it to them in care of the publication. It’s an easy and highly productive method to establish contact with people who would be difficult to get in touch with by other means.

Along these same lines it’s helpful to establish relationships with the business reporters who cover your industry. For example, since a lot of my work is with technology companies and consulting firms, I’ve made it a point to get to know the reporters who cover these areas. By being a source to them I’ve been able to establish relationships that are mutually beneficial. They get quotes and insights into the goings-on in these industries, and I get tips about personnel changes, mergers and relocations. I’m a little surprised that none of my competitors have tried to strike up similar relationships with these reporters.

Something else you’ll want to pay attention to as you’re perusing the trade publications is who is advertising? Again this is an often-overlooked area of opportunity.

I do a fair amount of business with one of the largest technology consulting firms in the country largely because they happened to run an advertisement in a trade journal. This particular ad listed the name of the regional VP and gave his phone number. That prompted me to give this person a call in which I referenced the ad and how effective I thought it was. This initial call ultimately resulted in an introduction to their national head of training. Today, this consulting firm is a valued client of my firm.

I used to think that if I actually contacted people who were quoted in the press or wrote articles they would think I was a pest. I incorrectly assumed that they got bombarded with telephone calls. Ironically, the exact opposite is true. Moreover, when you introduce yourself and say that you really enjoyed their article, it’s a very positive way to begin a business relationship.

Because, right now, it’s a mess. The total tonnage of noise just overwhelms the system. Quite frankly if someone was responding to a tweet of mine, I’m not even sure how it would get on my radar screen. The sheer din of sales pitches and idle blather drowns out what could be beneficial, interesting or thought provoking.

So should we give up on Twitter altogether as John Reese suggests? The argument for doing so is certainly persuasive. Most people who sign up for Twitter abandon their usage of it within 45 days. Standing amid the crowd in Times Square on New Year’s Eve may be an exciting experience, but do you really want to do that every day? That’s Twitter in its current format. Crowded. Noisy. The sheer lack of order overwhelms those of us who, for lack of a better term, want to actually use it for something.

Yet, there are so many people proselytizing about it. So many voices saying that “It’s working for them.” What precisely it’s doing is a bit unclear, but still can that many voices be wrong? Maybe it’s me. Maybe if only I was doing Twitter better it would work for me too.

Or maybe not.

Which is why when a voice such as John Reese says that Twitter is a waste of time and until they get their act together (his words not mine) he’s unhooking from it, we need to be paying attention.

Ryan Deiss has a different take on the subject and it’s one that I’ve always gravitated to since Twitter reached critical mass in popularity. His belief is that the benefit of Twitter is primarily as a lead generation tool. It reaches people who you otherwise would miss. Thus in Ryan’s mind Twitter is simply another medium to distribute our message. As long as your prospective client is reading their Tweets, this approach has a lot of merit.

Not surprisingly the real trick is to get people from Twitter to your website or sales page. Thus once again the role of the copywriter comes to the forefront. In fact in many ways we’ve come full circle, back to the days when writing tiny classified ads was a primary method for generating leads. With Twitter’s 140 character limits, hooking attention with just a few words becomes an important skill if you’re going to use Twitter as Ryan suggest.

Regardless of what camp you’re in, it’s clear that Twitter has entered the awkward adolescence phase. Do we ship the kid off to boarding school and check in with him when he’s finally matured? I’m not sure what the answer is but it is clear that the days of Twittering for the sake of Twittering are drawing to a close.

(Patience…This may take up to 20 seconds to start once you hit the play button.)

Micro-Targeted Marketing from Mark Satterfield on Vimeo.

So what truly makes your business unique? Interestingly the one thing that you want to focus on has little to do with your system or process. It has nothing to do with your education or years of experience. What makes your business unique is the story you create about yourself and your business.

Unfortunately many small businesses try to act as if they are much bigger than they are. They communicate a marketing message that may be appropriate for General Electric, but does not resonate when the author is working out of a spare bedroom. Why small businesses and solo consultants do this is easily understood. They fear that they will not be take seriously unless they pretend to be much larger than they really are.

Somewhat ironically, it is the very smallness of your company that gives it a unique advantage. It enables you to craft a story about why you founded the company, what your mission is and your business philosophy. The fact that you may be working by yourself enables you to craft a story that only you can tell. When you do so, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that clients are attracted to you because of your individuality.

So what goes into developing a good marketing story? The first step is to think about all the fears or concerns that prospective clients have about your services. For example, if you are a marketing consultant it is likely that your prospects are concerned that implementing a marketing system will be difficult or expensive. They may be getting their current clients through networking or word of mouth and do not see any reason to invest in something new.

Thus, in your story you might talk about how when you started out you relied on networking as your primary method for growing your business. However you eventually discovered that the time you could devote to networking when you did not have any clients, was no longer available to you once you successful landed some new business. You would go on to explain that since clients do not last forever you were continually in a feast or famine mode since you only had time to do marketing when business was slow.

Your story would conclude with your discovery of a marketing system that enabled you to identify new prospects and convert them into paying clients by using the internet and other automated systems. Much to your pleasant surprise the marketing system was not terribly complicated nor expensive to implement. As a result of doing this you now have consistent streams of new clients, and the feast and famine business cycles are but a distant memory. Your mission has become to share this method that worked so well for you with other small business owners.

This becomes your signature story and differentiates you from your competition because it enables prospects to relate to you. For small business owners, developing this type of marketing story becomes one of the most effective ways to stand out from the competition.

Successfully operating your business depends upon a variety of factors. Since at a certain level this is a numbers game it’s important that you have both a large base of people to present your messages to, and that you’re adding new people on a continual basis. So what are the best ways to add more new people to your opt-in list? Here are my favorites.

My number one favorite is writing articles. They don’t have to be terribly long. Typically 500-700 words is a good number to shoot for. The key with using articles that actually will help you get new traffic, is that you need to provide some good value. It can’t just be “The 10 reasons you should hire me.” In fact after ten years of doing this, I’ve noticed an inverse relationship between overt promotion and how effective the article is at attracting new people to my website. You don’t need to give away all your secrets, but if you show value in your article, you’ll find that people will respond in a very positive way.

My number two favorite method is to post to the forums that specialize in your field. The easiest way to do this is simple enter into Google the keyword associated with your audience and the word forum. For example in my world that would be, small business marketing forum. That will quickly give you the top discussion groups in your niche. Then it’s simply a matter of signing up and getting into the communication flow. Again the same rules apply as before. You want to provide some helpful ideas or suggestions to the discussions that are taking place. Most forums or discussion boards allow you to include your url or contact information at the conclusion of your message. But the key here is not to get carried away. Don’t spend all your time visiting the message boards because ultimately successfully growing your business is all about implementation. A good goal is to post once a week. I like to do it on Mondays and have found that it is a good way to jump start the week.

Third on my list is Google Adwords. Lots of business owners shy away from using Google’s paid advertising program, but I think that’s a mistake. You can set up a local campaign and budget a small amount of money to test it out. I’ve got a number of clients who are getting extremely good results with micro-budgets of around $200-$500 per month. Naturally the important point is to track the results so you can expand the effort down the road. Remember that the success of adwords depends in large part on the keywords you select. When developing your list of these, put yourself in your prospect’s mind. Remember that people search on the internet largely because they are trying to solve a problem. Thus your keywords need to focus on the problem your prospects face, rather than just on the solution you offer.

Fourth is social marketing, but there are some real challenges to that. There’s little point in having 20,000 followers on Twitter if no one ever becomes a paying client. That said, social media is a excellent tool but you need to approach it in a certain way. I’ll cover the specifics about what I mean later.

One final item that is important to keep in mind. There is little point in driving lots of traffic to your site if you don’t motivate people to tell you who they are once they are there. Thus, you need to have numerous offers of free information in order to get these visitors to take the first step in the relationship building process. What you offer does not have to be elaborate. However it does have to provide some real value. Keep these points in mind as you are developing your marketing strategy and I think you will be very pleased with both the quality and quantity of new prospects who come to your website.