Category Archives: Marketing Plan

Seth's Blog: Consistency in Marketing, Duh!

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Seth  started a blog years ago and it culminated into a book called “The Purple Cow.”  He practices what he preaches.  It took years for the momentum to build but his book sold 250,000 copies and continues to sell to this day.  I estimated based on the cost of the book, there has been over $5,000,000 in revenue generated from sales.  He practices what he preaches: consistency earns trust and attention.

If you are are going into business for yourself, you must have short and long term goals. It’s the long term that sometimes gets overlooked in the marketing plan.  And it’s the first to get “cut” out of marketing budget when times get financially tough.  Take note and take charge of your marketing, today.   You have everything to lose if you don’t.

Here’s his thought of the day:

Breakthroughs and drips

There are only two ways to win in the market.

You can create a breakthrough. A promotion so powerful that people can’t help but engage. An innovation so remarkable, people can’t help but talk about it. A pricing strategy or ad campaign that breaks the mold and is worthy of attention. This takes huge guts and substantial investment.

Or you can win with consistent benefits, delivered over time. You win by incrementally earning share, attention and trust. This might take years.

Almost all marketing attempts to do neither of these, and of course, fail. Painless and quick are rarely associated with ‘successful.’

An Email Campaign for a Networking Group

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Updated 6/16- we went from 11 to 82 email addresses within 48 hours… combination of factors… all of which are GOOD.

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Bull Run  Networking is a local networking group that is small and growing in the Washington DC area.  I am a member and offered my marketing services to help get them on the map and grow the business. I’ll be reporting on the metrics to show how this type of marketing can help grow our membership and  how this email can evolve and grow with the group.

This is an example of how you can use email campaigns to increase visibility of your group/business in a community.

Click Here to View the Email

Via MailChimp, our email campaign application,  we will track  how many emails are forwarded to friends, and how many join the mailing list and who they are, what industries visitors represent and more.  In our meetings, we will track the # of visitors, the number of conversions to members, and industries as well.  These metrics will absolutely show how viral and permission marketing can work to spread the word about a business, a network group, or any other business you want to increase your prospects.  As well, this marketing campaign will grow and change as the group develops.

All marketing plans change, they should never stagnate, or else you are left behind in the business world.  All marketing plans should grow as your business grows, change as your business changes, and represent who you are and what your expertise is.

It’s all about your marketing program working for you without working YOU into the ground!

Two Dots Marketing  helps you work ON your business while you work IN your business.

Hail Hail to Email Campaigns!  Work it Ya’ll!

Diggin’ MailChimp?  Check it out via this link: Mail Chimp.

Prospecting/Cold Calls

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Through my wonderful Aflac Networking group, I ran across this question and thought it was worthy of posting here, along with my response to Scott. Cold Calling applies to everyone in business.  How does yours measure up?

I’m finding that a lot of people are phone prospecting and I want to know what is being said that is getting people in the door. Driving around is becoming incredibly costly and the economy isn’t helping my business or my gas tank. WHAT WORKS BEST? – Scott, Aflac Agent

Hi Scott! Ah yes, cold calling at it’s finest. Well, the real issue is this- you are fighting against some bad agents who do NOT know how to call. For example, my mother owns her own business and got a cold call from an agent who said, “Hi, I’m Sarah with Aflac. How many employees do you have?” My mother relayed this info to me and I would say if I got 5 calls like that, I’d be pissed as a business owner and not want to talk to ANYONE. So here’s the deal. You have got to find your TAGLINE. Why are you doing Aflac and what makes you different? You have got to put yourself in your client’s shoes… but also, you need to understand that it takes 3 – 5 contacts with a prospect to convert to an appointment. So if you cold call once, stop by once, send an email once– that is 3 contacts. It’s all about being there when the prospect is READY to buy. The New Marketing replaces the OLD marketing. Old marketing is really called Interruption Marketing– your cold calls are interrupting a prospect, getting their attention, and hoping they will buy into your appointment. The problem is that time is of value and most businesses refuse to give you the time unless you give them a darn good reason upfront and something of value to them. Aflac saves employers money. Do you tell them that when you call? Probably not. Most people want to sell the benefits of the policies to the employer and the scripts written do just that. But the employer could give two sheets about the benefits to the employee. they want to know how it benefits them. And do you tell them it’s FREE to them? Insurance means COSTS for health, disability, etc… So in essence, there are two critical points to make. Cold Calling and prospecting is OLD Marketing. New Marketing incorporates providing valuable information from you, the expert, at the TIME the prospect is ready to buy. So how do you get in front of the prospect at the right time? Consistent marketing techniques. Just cold calling doesn’t work anymore. It does on luck because about 1 in 25 contacts you will find someone who had a need. Burning gas in your car? Of course. But that is the nature of the beast the way Aflac trains you. You have got to fill your pipeline of prospect constantly to see a trickle effect. Now, you need to develop your marketing plan to reach your contacts consistently and be ready to sell when THEY are ready to buy. What IS your marketing plan? I wrote the Blog, Quackerting Tips. Now, I’ve launched a new marketing company to help everyone in sales and marketing. How would you like to have an email campaign that reached your prospects on a weekly or monthly basis with little to no effort on your part? Will your phone ring? Absolutely. Good luck with your marketing plan- if you want to learn more about marketing yourself, visit my website and sign up– www.2DotsMarketing. Regards, Jenn

Testing the Waters- My Return on Investment $$$$

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Updated: 6/2/09

Putting the cart before the horse? Well, I get a little antsy sometimes with my passion and excitement about my soon-to-be booming business.  I thought I would run a little test about blogging and email campaigns.  For those that think providing “free” information and education are a waste of your business time, you might think again after reading this.

I joined an online network related to the Aflac industry– a network of my cohorts across the country.    I decided I wanted to write a Blog on my newbie experience, aka my personal story, about the first few months in the business. At the end of my Blog, I told everyone that if they wanted to get some free custom marketing tips specific to the Aflac world (and believe me, it is it’s OWN world), to email me and I would send the FREE TIPS.

Time invested in the Blog- 30 minutes and frankly, it was FUN!

I then created an email campaign using MailChimp (the less expensive and fun version of Constant Contact) that contained over 11 marketing tips- which I called “Quackerting Tips” as a play on words.

Time invested in email development- 30 minutes

Within hours, I was overwhelmed with agents asking me to send them the free tips.  In addition, the developer of this online network posted my blog on the home page of this social media site which of course, increased my visibility 10-fold.  Over 330 agents had access to my Blog.   I also got a call from the developer telling me this was one of the best blogs written and wanted me to jump in and manage this social network site.  Pretty nice pat on the back, I’d say!

Before I finish the story, let’s go back to our basic business model.  When you have clients, you have a database of people interested in your products/services.   You have people willing to purchase.  If you don’t have clients, you don’t  have business. And you should always be mining for new prospects to fill your database.  So we know the value of your database– it’s your gold mine and life line.

My database started out at ZERO.  To date, I have 43 new contacts in my database of interested prospects, and it’s growing by the day which  means I captured 13% of the agents thus far. Target marketing is the way to go!

Here are the metrics, provided by MailChimp, for my hour of time:

The industry average of opened emails: 18%  ~ My average: 58%

The industry avg of bounced emails:  6.5% ~ My average: 0%

The industry avg of click thru rate: 4.5% ~ My average: 17.5%

This is how effective marketing works. This is the NEW marketing. Results. Since this was an experiment and I did not offer them any of my services for a fee yet (still developing that portion of it), this was incredibly valuable for building my brand, awareness and prospects.  I continue to send this group FREE tidbits which helps continue to build my credibility and expertise.  When I’m ready to launch my website, I’ll have a database of people interested in what I do and can send them a special invitation and special rates to try out my services.

You can do the same.   Would you like to know more and how to make this work for your business? Reply to this note  and I’ll connect with you!!!

Happy Days to all!

6/2/09– on May 29th, Mailchimp.com Blog linked to this post, for which I am grateful and delighted.  In addition, the Aflac network has almost doubled in 4 weeks to over 650 agents– and the emails keep pouring in, building my subscriber list.  It’s pure bliss to be able to help my fellow agents and see the power of marketing live, from my living room office.

Working ON Your Business vs. IN Your Business

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Defining this is pretty simple.  When you work ON your business, you are working on your organization’s business plan, marketing plan, accounting books, paying contractors, freelancers or pretty much anything that does not create direct income’interaction from your customers, clients.    Working ON your business will generate income in the future from your actions, of course.  This is what I call FIPA- Future Income Producing Activity.

When you work IN your business, you are working for your client.  You are providing them a service/product  in which they will pay you in return for such.  This is what I call IPA- Income Producing Activity.

The balance of this can really get wacky for many business owners who are wearing both hats of FIPA and IPA.  You can’t do one without the other.

I’m in the FIPA phase of starting my business. However, my mortgage and bills really don’t appreciate FIPA very much. They much prefer IPA.  And well, frankly so do I.  It’s hard to walk by DSW and see a gorgeous pair of heels for the summer and have to pass it up because my FIPA far outweighs my IPA work at the moment!

However, FIPA will provide amazing rewards for me in a few months – converted to IPA.

Since I already have a handful of clients who are using my services,  I spend my mornings and early afternoons completing their projects in a timely fashion.  The afternoons are spent working ON my business– if I don’t focus ON my business, I won’t get this business launch by September. That is my goal of course!

And I want MORE business now.  Wow.  So instead of waiting to have all my “ducks” in a row to launch the entire vision I have in my little Virgo brain, I’ll be phasing my company launches over the next few months.  So you will see various iterations of my services being offered, advertised, and promoted to you and others.

For now, I am working on an international mortgage company’s digital media (aka website for starters), print media, and of course, integration of data for future marketing (permission, viral, and referral).

I happen to also be working a ladies’ golf league website– a simple design to provide information and start the permission and viral marketing aspects of growing the league over the summer. This project will help the coordinator who really has used emails to get the word out– the emails have amazing content, and are hilarious to read, but there is no image or a way to easily invite others to join this amazing group of women.

Another project is in the works to add a DONATE NOW feature to a non-profit website in the local area.  They currently are not able to collect donations to further their goals, except by snail mail.  Not surprisingly, they have not received many donations over the years– small chunks of donations. The ease of adding this robust feature will definitely catapult them into the 21st century of marketing and from there, it will only grow and grow with some tactical and specific marketing techniques to support this wonderful online feature.

Oh, and well, I do need to work ON my business… you know what I’ll be doing at 3pm today… :-) . Got any ideas for a company name?  Still waiting for that inspiration to HIT me over the head.