Market Your Identity
One of the most critical but overlooked parts of business success is using your identity. If you want to build a successful business you have to strike the word image from your vocabulary right from the start. Webster’s Dictionary defines image as an imitation or representation of a person or thing. On the other hand, identity is defined as, the condition or fact of being the same in all qualities.
Identity is based on truth and honesty. Image is often false and misleading. It something you are not. Prospects and customers are very good at knowing the difference between an identity and an image. Companies that portray their true identity also have integrity and that is always at the top of the list for the reasons why customers buy.
Companies will spend hours, days, and even weeks trying to decide what image to portray. They come up with all sorts of things to portray to the public as part of their image with no regard to who they really are and they types of people that make up their organization. Unfortunately, at some point during their marketing campaign, the whole thing usually backfires.
Prospects will come into a business, order by phone, or order through a Web site and learn that the company is not who they held themselves out to be in the first place. They find that the company is different, not bad, but different. This makes the prospect unconsciously feel ripped off. The prospect will feel that he or she has been victimized by your misrepresentation. They will feel this way because you communicated an image that had little basis in reality, only in hope.
An identity is automatically honest. If you communicate your real identity, people feel a sense of relaxation when they contact you because they see, again on an unconscious level, that you are exactly who you portrayed yourself to be. They know that you did not misrepresent your personality, so they are more likely to believe other things you say. People will feel connected with your business because they trusted you and you did not betray that trust.
Whether you’re just starting a business or you have an existing business, you must begin changing and evolving your entire business to fit your identity. Whatever type of business you are in, always remember the business is an extension of you and all the employees that work in the business. So always make sure you have the employees in place to portray who your company really is. If you are a strong outgoing person, and you want to position your business as a strong and innovative leader in the field, you wouldn’t want a staff of shy introverted people.
Your identity must be clear. Make sure there is never any confusion as to who your business is. You should always be consistent and portray the same identity everywhere, over and over. If your identity is confusing or inconsistent in any way, then your customers will also be confused and they won’t do business with you for very long.
Always reinforce your identity with your actions. For example, if you preach personalized service, you need to qualify your identity by actually spending a certain amount of one-on-one time with your customers. If you talk about your large, helpful staff, then make sure you have one. If you promise a unique specialty, then back it up by offering a focused blend of products and services based on that specialty.
The consistent use of your identity will make a long-lasting impression on your target market and help your prospects instantly recognize your business. Just like your personal identity, you want those who have seen your business before to be able instantly recognize it. Your business identity must make a lasting and positive first impression, so always keep it professional, consistent, and up-to-date.
Because your identity is the basis for a truthful, strategic marketing campaign it will help build your brand identity. Branding creates both a business and an emotional bond to your product and service. Branding is what makes prospects aware of your business and the benefits your products and services offer to them. Branding is how your business is known in the marketplace.
Steer clear of anything the even resembles an image, and instead build your company around your identity. Make sure you ads, brochures, Web site, letters, e-mails, graphics, office, sales people, telephone demeanor, and all your employees reflect your identity. It will make your customers feel good about doing business with you.
Remove the whole concept of image from your marketing. People who patronize your business will enjoy an honest personality. By conveying yours, you will be giving your prospects and customers what they want and what they unconsciously need. When you do this you’ll find that the entire business process gets easier once you’ve embraced the idea of communicating your identity.
Whether you are a one person consultant or a ten person service organization, every business needs a strong identity to be successful. Always remember, people do business with ethical people they can trust. Always be as honest as you can be with your customers. And by communicating and then living up to your identity you’ll be building rapport and trust.
Copyright(c)2004 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. A former ad agency executive and marketing consultant, Joe’s work in personal development focuses on helping his clients identify hidden marketable assets that create windfall opportunities and profits, as well as sound personal happiness and peace.
Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com
Read more articles and newsletters at: http://www.jlmandassociates.com
Maximum Marketing – Minimum Budget
Six years ago I started my small Virtual Assistant business with a non-existent marketing budget. I borrowed marketing books from the library, read countless articles on the Internet and joined a professional trade association of my peers. I learned hundreds of marketing techniques and one valuable lesson. The lesson I learned is that the financial ruin of large companies is often achieved by incredibly expensive and glitzy marketing plans that do not take into account the company’s ability to earn a profit. Over time, I found that the most effective marketing techniques that allow a company to make a profit are those that are inexpensive or free. What a fantastic discovery for me at that time! This knowledge, combined with hard work and excellent customer service, enabled my small business to expand at a phenomenal rate.
When developing your marketing plan be aware that frugal marketing techniques take more time and a great deal of personal creativity but they DO produce results! Following are a few of my most successful frugal marketing techniques:
Website
It is not necessary to spend thousands of dollars on a beautiful website. Some of the most effective and interesting websites I have seen were built on a frugal budget. Far more important than the cost is the content of a website. At a minimum your website should include your company name, contact information, tagline or slogan, company/owner biography, a list of services, a client list or list of testimonials, articles or press releases you have written and any interesting information related to your business that might be of help to your visitors. It is essential that you use a paid web host and not a free service. Free hosting may exclude you from search engine listings and may brand you as a neophyte in your field when that impression may not be correct. Inexpensive hosting is available and many hosts provide free or low cost web templates that will give your site a polished and consistent look. For a list of affordable web hosts visit the Web Host Directory and Host Review. Having a well-developed website will help you leverage the results of your other frugal marketing techniques and, in the long run, will save you money by reducing the overall cost and shipping of your marketing materials.
Public Relations
Create a press release and submit it to your local newspaper. Highlight the unusual aspects of your business and educate the reader about your business and your industry. Do not simply promote your own company, but promote the industry as a whole. Position your business as unique in that industry by explaining, for example, how your company takes a novel approach to delivering products or services. Take the same press release and format it for the Internet. Submit it to as many free press release sites that you can find such as LocalBusiness.com, PRWeb.com and USA News. For added impact, search the Newslink website to find other community newspapers in your state that might be interested in your business news. Follow standard press release formatting and be sure to add that you are available for interviews in your contact information section as this opens the door for feature interviews during slow “news” weeks for local papers. Send out a press release every quarter or at least twice a year. Always include your website’s URL in any marketing materials and press releases. For more information about press releases including formatting visit the Netpreneur Exchange, Infoscavenger and Pertinent Information.
Contests
Sponsor local or on-line contests by providing a prize. This could be one of your products or a coupon for two or three hours of your services. In return you will receive valuable free publicity. Find local contests, which would welcome your participation by scanning your community newspaper. Target on-line contests by surfing for well-established companies that compliment your own. For example, if you sell wine glasses, you should seek a company that sells wine and offer a set of wine glasses as a contest prize. Another option is to search for e-zines (on-line newsletters) that cover a topic related to your business and ask the editor about partnering to offer a contest to readers with your product or service as the prize. You can find e-zines by searching on-line directories such as BestEzines.com, The Ezine Directory or Ezine Search.
Publishing
This is my favorite technique. Write an article about an interesting or timely topic related to your business that would be of interest to your target market. Ask a friend or loved one with editing skills to proof your article for you. Create a four or five line biography at the end of the article that includes your contact information: your company name, e-mail address and company URL. Add a copyright statement at the very bottom of the article. Then submit the article to on-line article archives, e-zines and appropriate websites. This technique helps establish you as an expert in your field, publicizes your business, and creates incoming links to your website to increase your link popularity and search engine rankings. You can begin submitting your article to: Article City, Expert Articles and GoArticles.com. These three resources will get you started but a quick Internet search will provide an extensive listing of thousands of venues on-line.
Networking
Research your local chamber of commerce and start attending their networking events. Develop and rehearse an interesting “elevator speech” that summarizes your business and your talents in less than thirty seconds. Introduce yourself to as many people as possible, give your elevator speech and hand out your business cards and collect the business cards of prospects. Take the business cards you collected, use the back of the card to write down what you discussed or other important information about the prospect, and FOLLOW UP! Write and mail a quick note on your business stationery to say how nice it was to meet them and mention something memorable you discussed. Keep in touch with them on a regular basis.
Join on-line communities such as newsgroups, discussion boards, e-mail lists, etc. where your target market and peers congregate. Introduce yourself and your business if introductions are allowed by the community guidelines and encouraged by the list moderator. Establish your credibility and promote yourself by responding to questions in your field of expertise. Join an affordable, well-known and professional association of your peers on-line or locally. If it is permitted, announce your availability to take on sub-contracted work from your peers, but read the guidelines and do not “spam” these lists which will result in a loss of your credibility and professionalism. Become involved locally with a worthy charity by donating your time, products or services.
Over time, as your business grows, you can and should add a few paid marketing techniques to your marketing plan. But you must continue to use the most rewarding of your free and inexpensive marketing techniques to maximize your profit. Never forget that creativity, hard work and excellent customer service are the keys to growing a successful business while keeping your marketing costs in check.
(c) 2002, Davis Virtual Assistance. All rights reserved.
Article marketing guru Bonnie Jo Davis offers free and paid article marketing resources on her Squidoo Lens and at her membership site Article Submission Sites.com.
Writing Sales Letters That Sell
The most important part of any marketing you do is direct marketing. This includes letters, postcards, brochures, newspaper or magazine coupons, telemarketing, TV or radio direct response commercials, e-mails, and the copy on your web site.
For any direct marketing campaign to be successful, you need to have a combination of marketing tools in order to make your offer repeatedly. One of the most potent tools you can use in your direct makreting is the direct mail letter. The letter, whether you’re using it through the mail or the internet, is the actual sales pitch. It relays what your product or service is, and how much it can benefit the prospect. In short, the letter should do everything that a traditional person-to-person sales pitch does.
Here are ten things that will make your letters more effective:
1. It must have a headline. The headline is the ad for the letter. It flags down the reader to read more.
2. Present the facts. Begin with a statement of basic truth, known and accepted by the reader. By introducing known facts, your create believability for later statements in the letter.
3. Do as much personalizing as possible. Personalize name, address, special interests, and anything else you can.
4. State your offer in the beginning, again in the middle, and again at the end.
5. Create a sense of urgency by giving prospects a cut-off date by which time your readers must respond to your offer.
6. Always include a P.S. The P.S. is the second thing readers read, following the headline.
7. Stress your main points with underlines, bold type, all caps, or a yellow highlighter effect. But don’t stress too much.
8. Use short paragraphs, sentences, and words. In lettes of two or more pages use subheads.
9. Use black ink, plus blue to underline more important points. Print your signiture and make notes in the margins or hand-write a P.S.
10. Tell the reader exactly what to do upon completing the letter, along with how to do it, and when to do it.
A succesful direct marketing campaign might consist of four pieces sent at two-week intervals: a two page letter, then a one page letter, then a postcard, then a telephone follow-up. It is important to remember that even the best letters don’t get read if the envelope doesn’t get opened. So make the envelope enticing to get your recipients to open it. You can do this by putting a “teaser” line on the outside, motivating the person to open it. You could use a window envelope with a photo of free gift, resemblance of a check, or some other unique design. This increases curiosity and gives the recipient a reason to open the envelope.
The same is true for your e-mails. Make sure you put something recognizable in the subject line so that the recipient will recognize that is from you and will peak their curiosity, otherwise, they’ll likely delete it without opening it.
You should have an entire file of letters for different occasions: promotions, offers, thank-you, follow-up, referral seekers, and more. Always test you letters until you have a file of proven winners.
All contents Copyright(c)2004 Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies achieve financial success, increase profits, and build total success. A former ad agency executive and marketing consultant, Joe’s work in personal development focuses on helping his clients identify hidden marketable assets that create windfall opportunities and profits, as well as sound personal happiness and peace.
Joe can be reached at: joe@jlmandassociates.com