Danielle MacInnis – Marketing Blog for Small Businesses

by Wendy Maynard, Marketing Maven

You may think your biggest business asset is your equipment or your inventory. But, you have two assets even more important than these. Your first big asset is your expertise: your unique knowledge and the specific way that your company helps your clients.

Your second asset is your list of satisfied, loyal customers, as well as your pool of warm prospects with whom you are building a relationship of credibility and trust. Building this list and keeping in touch is your ticket to an ongoing, steady stream of income – no matter what the economy is doing. And this is true regardless of the type of business you run. These individuals will develop a fierce brand loyalty and they will spread the word about how much they love you.
Here are some tips to build your list of leads and prospects:
If you have a website, make sure you have some kind of name capture mechanism. In exchange for people’s contact information, offer a subscription to an ezine, a free report, an e-course, coupon, sample, or some other perk.
Make sure you have an effective online system to collect the names of your customers and prospects. The best program I’ve found for managing my lead generation and follow-up activities is MavenMerchant.com. This program allows you to set up a name capture form for your website or blog, as well as autoresponders to automate the process of communicating with your list on a regular basis. Set it up and let it work for you as your online salesperson – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
If you have a physical location, place a sign-up form in an obvious place for your visitors so you can stay in touch with them on an ongoing basis. You can offer an incentive to sign up such as special coupons, discounts, or a print newsletter with tips. For instance, one of my clients owns a retail boutique and she offers special VIP Customer Discount Events.
When you give speeches, presentations, and attend trade shows, collect the names of people you interact with! In exchange for their contact information, offer people a prize like a free product or a discount. You can do the same thing if you offer telephone seminars or online courses to your clients.
Grow your list by conducting a joint venture with a like-minded business. This is one of the most powerful ways to grow a list of qualified leads. For example, a mortgage broker and Realtor can offer a free seminar on home buying. Both businesses can collect the names of the attendees.
Submit articles to various websites, ezines, and industry publications. Make sure each article has a resource box with information about your business and a link to a name capture page. Submit Your Article is a powerful service that will send your articles to numerous websites. For a fre.e online service, try EzineArticles.com
Good ‘ol phone calls can also do the trick. They often say something like: “Oh my goodness, I am so glad you called! Getting in touch with you has been on my list for weeks now. Let’s set up a time to meet because I have this great new idea for a project…” And off we go!
Direct mail is a relatively inexpensive way to keep in touch. There are so many different types of direct mail you can send to your list. But you can keep it simple. All you really need is a regular postcard to remind people of your presence. If you want to get more complicated, you can send a printed newsletter, thank-you card, or special letters with gifts inside.
Anyone and everyone who has ever purchased from you should go on your list. It is much easier and cost effective to cross-sell and up-sell to past, satisfied customers than it is to convert a prospect into a customer. Regularly keep in touch to ensure your company stays in the forefront of their awareness.

Be sure to track your marketing activities with your customers and prospects. This includes direct mail, phone calls, estimates sent, and meetings. You can use something as simple as Microsoft Outlook, which has client relationship management (CRM) functions. You can also use software with more robust CRM capabilities such as ACT! or Goldmine. If you don’t need to have the latest version of these, look on Ebay for great deals on an earlier release of the software.

Action Item: Take a look at your current system for collecting names and following up with prospects and customers. How do you store your contact data? What actions will you take in the next three months to improve the list-building aspect of your marketing, and how will you reach out to them on a regular basis?

Jon Miller in a recent post at Marketo.
Top Five Lead Management Best Practices:

1.Be everywhere. “Cast your marketing net wide so customers will find you no matter where they are searching,” he advises. (as long as they are within your target market profile).

2. Build prospect profiles. Create a lead database to manage and store all your leads, and then make sure you have a strategy in place to keep that database clean (e.g., lead de-duplication).

2.Automate lead handoffs. He offers an example: “Define different lead status values to indicate whether someone is a qualified prospect but still nurturing, or a true sales-ready lead.” Then update their lead status in the CRM system.

3.Provide sales-lead insight. Give the sales rep the prospect’s history, and offer insight about the “interesting moments” that caused that person to become a lead.

4.Recycle leads as necessary. If your sales rep can’t follow up right away, or the prospect isn’t available, don’t let a lead just sit and turn stale. “[H]ave a process in place to reassign the lead or escalate the issue,” Miller advises.

I have been investigating a number of CRM tools that will do what I call close loop marketing for my clients. These tools enable you to put in a database and then create campaigns to nurture a lead. The two I am favoring at the moment are OfficeAutoPilot(OAP) http://www.officeautopilot.com/ and FirstWave (FW) http://www.firstwave.net.au/.

Both have their benefits but I think Officeautopilot has a slight advantage in functionality at the moment. Firstwave is more practical and easier to navigate so I guess it depends on your need and who will be driving the marketing effort.

Firstwave is around $500 upfront and $395 per month US with up to 1000 emails a month free and Officeautopilot is no set up fee and $597 for basic tool and $195 for the marketing tracker with 1000 at .01cent.

Summary of the tools:

1. Marketing tracker tools – track traffic via url coding to web pages, google ads and online campaigns. – Both

2. Lead scoring; both – and routing with OAP

3. Outlook integration – OAP

4. PURLS – personalised urls coming soon for both

5. Tags for segmentation – OAP

6. Phone tracking and integration for call centres – both

7. Templates for direct mail campaigns – FW

8. Reporting on campaigns, customised reporting – both

9. Customisable database – both

In the age of 1:1 marketing companies will be developing their own CRM tools or buying into a software vendors vision. I guess the benefit of outsourcing is you aren’t putting all your resources into the R&D and you can focus your energies and time on the business you do best. One thing is for sure, the intimacy that you have with your customers is related to the loyalty and value that they provide you, so it is worth investigating in a system that will give you that sort of relationship.

I have developed a model that attracts customers to service based businesses.

First it is really important to understand role of marketing and sales in the lead generation process. The role of marketing is to attract, educate, interact and nurture a lead (prospect or potential customer). The role of  the sales person is to qualify, present proposals/ benefits, pricing, negotiate, answer questions, close the sale and nurture the customer in the after sales experience. Most small businesses don’t understand how critical both of these elements are in running a successful growing business.Usually the owner is the salesperson, but marketing seems to fall through the cracks or gets handed to the PA. These skills can be learned but to master them takes practice and expertise –  Let me walk you through my lead generation model so as to provide you with some useful information to generate more leads for your small business.

After identifying your target market (which is an exercise in itself – find more information on this in my online training- Free) then you can start to think about the sort of lead generation techniques that you might engage to attract customers and make them aware of your business. Lead generation tools are many and varied so it is best to pick the a few to concentrate on first based on your comfort level and how likely your ideal customer is likely to use them.

1. Publishing content is one of the first tools that you can use. Publishing on a blog like this or your website is a great way to keep your content fresh and visitors coming back and also gives you a chance to build that first connection with them. Why Blog as a small business, and another articles to read more. If you have a lead capturing form and a good offer (sign up to get 10 top tips on how to xyz) then you have a lead to work with. It also improves your Google ranking but more on that later!

2. Referral is often how small businesses grow, however you can grow faster if you leverage that referral and collect details of who referred them and send them a thank-you or a gift. Saying thank you is important and encourages the customer to repeat the behaviour. Just as  important to treat the person who has been referred as a new customer and  ensure you can service their needs .Once your customer has signed up and had a good experience testimonials and success stories can become other lead generation tools. John Jantsch has a great article and book called The Referral Engine.

3. Direct mail can take many forms but as a lead generation tool it gives you a chance to have an ongoing conversation with a prospect. Once you have captured their details, then you can build a auto-responder campaign. This is a simple series of automated emails that warms the prospect with relevant and useful information until they are ready to do business with you. Aweber, constant contact, campaign monitor and mail chimp are software examples that can assist you with this email automation. You can also listen to Tim and Luke interview on Autoresponders for more information. The key with any direct mail or email campaign is to have a compelling offer. You have to make it enticing enough so that the prospect will want to leave their email details. What information can you share or give that will address one of your customers unmet need. Some of the ideas I have done with clients have been a free diet calculator, online consultation, questionnaire with access to results, free service offer (massage), download of some relevant tips (my marketing resources). Another tip is only ask for the information in the form that you absolutely need. There is a lot lower response rate if you ask for more than an email address and name.  As a direct mail piece you can direct them to an online page or a phone as the call to action.

4. Advertising – I am not a big fan of advertising unless you have a niche where you can afford to do a campaign of ads over time. If this is the case then ensure that you have a strong call to action on the ad so that you can capture and follow up leads. A special offer with a limited time-frame often works. I am using some of the coupon sites like spreets.com.au well with some service based businesses at the moment. Article on why traditional advertising doesn’t work for small businesses. Also online advertising and why may be worth it. Read more.

5. Media and PR – As the subject matter expert,  it makes sense to write articles  about your area of expertise and submit them to where your audience is reading. The online environment makes this simple with article submission sites and PR engines. PR wire allows you to submit your article as a release for free. This also allows Google to find your content.  Again while you may not have a call to action on a PR release having your contact details, bio and website is a must. More on doing PR effectively.

6. Networking – having real authentic conversations with interested people off line or online is critical to a small businesses growth and lead generation funnel. Picking the right places to network seems to be a stumbling block for many small businesses. If you really understand your customers then you will know where they social and network and you will choose those forums. I like to network online in small business forums like Linked-in and flying solo, as well as business women networks. Know where your audience is and start having a conversation. The key is to be useful, friendly and build real relationships. More on networking as a small business.

7. Speaking – Having a chance to speak in-front of key prospects is one of the best ways they can get a taste of you. It is also a perfect lead generation forum as you can sprinkle your call to actions through the presentation content as well as at the close. Finding the right forum and pitching for the work takes some preparation but the benefits of this sort of lead generation is well worth it. Why speak up as a small business owner.

8. Online SEO, Google etc. Having an optimised website is a must. If you don’t understand SEO then do some homework. Search Engines Optimisation is all about Google and other search engines finding your site. It all comes back to understanding what key words your customers use and then using those words, so they can find you. You web designer should be able to help you with this or we can. Google Key words reference guide is a good source of reference. The other key having your site build on a content  management system. All this means is that it is easily updatable. I use wordpress and citymax.com but there are lot of great content management systems that are easy to use and very affordable. Social media like twitter and facebook are mediums you can use to connect with customers but they take time to maintain. Is social media it worth it for small business? Read more. Resources on how to do this are listed in these e-books.

9. Getting found in local directories – frankly is a no brainer but it is surprising how many people haven’t done this. Here is a list that I think is a good starting point and free. Local service directory

1. Google places – Small Business Big Marketing have a good walk through guide here.

2. True Local

3. Yellow pages online

4. Local council business directory

5. Associations – Australian Marketing Institute , Flying Solo , AustralianBusinesswomen’s Network, Womensnetwork, Australian Women Mentoring Network(associations relevant to your target market)

10. The last lead generation tool is to use the success of your existing client base to encourage new prospects that they have the right service provider. Testimonials and success stories give potential customers a taste of the sort of success you have had and what you are like to work with. Having as printed hand-outs and on your website is a must.

So there you go. Some simple lead generation techniques that you can start to adopt today. I would love to know how you go. Remember you can always fill out our small business marketing survey and by contributing you will immediately see a report on how over 30 businesses have improved their marketing.

Note: 25 prospecting tools from my venture pad

Here are 25 ways to prospect for new business relationships and referrals.

• Chambers
• Networking Groups
• Professional Organizations
• Websites
• Blogs
• Social Marketing
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Youtube
• Technorati
• Article Marketing
• Internet Radio
• Volunteering
• Pro-Bono
• Referrals
• Sponsorships
• Events
• Email Marketing
• Keynote Speaking
• Webinars
• Teleseminars
• Workshops
• Traditional Media
• Neighborhood Community
• Faith Community

More on sales and marketing integration for small businesses – read here.

My other lead generation articles

Where is your prospect plan?

What marketing works for small business?

How to give your customers a taste of you to win more business

As we start the festive season and wind down at the end of 2010, a small part of us should be looking towards next year. How can we keep our businesses growing? What can we be doing now that ensures a steady stream of ideal customers in 2011?

Here are my 5 steps to creating an effective marketing plan for your small business in 2011.

1. Write out your goals for this coming year.

I like to use a audit chart with my clients. Where are we now and where would we like to be? Then we run through a set of questions.  Once you have your big goals you need to break these down into small achievable tasks and prioritise them. To do my marketing audit click here.

2. Focus only on your ideal prospects and existing customers

It is time to narrow your focus and build a plan around your ideal prospects. It is no good trying to be everything to everyone. FOCUS. Ask yourself , who is my ideal customer?  and build a marketing plan just to attract those customers. I think it is important to focus on existing customers first and then potential customers. remembering the 80/20 rule. So if you have a database of existing customers start with them first. When was the last time you communicated with them, offered them something of value? Christmas is a perfect time for giving!

2. Put it on paper.

So many of you walk around with lots of ideas in your head. Force yourself to put it on paper. You need the suggested marketing activity, i.e ad, mail-out, email campaign, event. Then the cost. What will the return be. i.e leads, sales? Who will implement this activity? Remember better to do a few things well than many things poorly. Plan out the whole year so you can see exactly everything you are going to do. Then make a call on what to dump. Don’t do too much. Do a few things really well and if you have it on paper then you can see what you are doing and what is working and amend on the fly. You can purchase my marketing action planner  here for $10 Bargain that will give you a great template to use for your small business in 2011.

3. Do a survey

It is important to understand your customer and staff needs. This is always a good time to ask for feedback as it can shape ideas for the coming year in terms of incentives for staff and ideas from customers to improve your service or product offering. Doing a simple online survey or making a few phone calls can really make a difference to making a great marketing plan. For a survey done for you for $100 email us today and we will take care of the rest at danielle@macinnismarketing.com.au

4.  Be different

In order to create awareness you need to gain attention. Trying to come up with some creative ideas and campaigns for your business throughout the year can be the difference between a promotional campaign working and falling through the cracks.

5. Measure the results

You need to evaluate everything you do in a marketing plan. Look at what you did last year. What works? What didn’t. Be flexible enough to change so that you can do more of what works. If you don’t  a very clear return on a marketing activity that you are doing then STOP! Google Analytics will help you see what is happening on your website. Every campaign should have a call to action that you can measure.

Are you ready to get serious?

MacInnis Marketing Minute – emails once a week with marketing quick tips

Free Marketing Tool Kit for Small Business – 8 weeks of information and training to help you understand marketing and the best tools as a small business to use.

MacInnis Marketing Coaching Packages – several packaged options to have me as a coach on line either email or email and phone correspondence to assist you with you marketing challenges.

Online marketing business survey – Even just reading this survey will help you know the right questions to ask when marketing any business on line.

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