Month: July 2008

Word of Mouth Marketing (Part 2)

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Last post I talked to you about word of mouth marketing. If you haven’t read that article yet click here to read it first and come back to this one.

Mainly I was focused on how you can get referrals from your existing customers, but I also want to talk to you about one of the most profitable marketing strategies you can use. Creating strategic alliances with complementary businesses can literally make your business. One good strategic partner could provide 25-50% of your business.

What is a strategic partner? Sometimes it’s obvious… If you’re a mortgage person, you want to have partnerships with good real estate agents, a photographer wants to have partnerships with wedding planners, etc. You want to look around and see what other kinds of businesses share your same potential customers.

Once you identify potential alliances, you’ll need to ask an important question, “what can I do for them?” You are trying to make a sale, not just meet people. This is USP (Unique Selling Proposition) revisited. What’s unique about your business as far as how you can help a potential strategic partner.

I won’t go into great detail about the concepts of this kind of marketing. The idea here is to get you thinking about it. It’s probably one of the most under used marketing strategies.

The Word of Mouth Lie

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One of the most widely held pieces of misinformation relates to word of mouth advertising. Specifically, business owners believe if they do a good job, people will tell their friends. This is just plain false.

You’ll understand why, when you realize two facts. First, people expect you to do a good job. Generally you are only noticed if you some how manage to wow them, or if you disappoint them. Second, most people don’t naturally talk about businesses, even ones they’ve had good experiences with.

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How to Empty Your Email Box

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This post is about managing your email better so you can be more effective. When I started working on this I was amazed at the amount of time I’m able to save with a few simple steps.

Would you be surprised if you found out that you are wasting an hour a week on email? I’m talking about a solid hour that you could be spending on other work.  One hour a week adds up to more than a week of lost productivity a year. I think for some of us this number is actually low.

Breaking just one of the bad email habits (checking it too often) will also make you much more effective in other work that you are doing. Every time we interrupt a task we are in the middle of it takes at least a few minutes to get back into the mindset to work on it again.

Instead of explaining how to get control over your email, I’ll send you to the link for the page where I learned it.

Project Inbox Zero

Additionally, Remember the Milk is a great service for keeping track of tasks. You don’t want to keep track of tasks in your email system, because it’s not a very good tool for that. You need a trusted system.

Empty Head – Best Stress Relief for Business People

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Are you a standard stressed out business person? It’s because you’re thinking too much… More specifically you spend too much of your mental energy on stuff that you aren’t completing.

In the book, Getting Things Done, by David Alan, I was exposed to a brand new idea. This is one of those ideas that as soon as you hear it, you know the truth of it. You say to yourself, “of course!”

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List of Local Directories

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Hi,

Some of these I already have listed on More Business Today, but many I don’t. I haven’t checked these links yet to see if they all work. Soon I’ll be offering a more advanced local advertising package that will include submissions into even more local directories.

âEUR¢ Google

âEUR¢ Yahoo

âEUR¢ MSN

âEUR¢ Yahoo Yellow Pages

âEUR¢ AOL Yellow Pages

âEUR¢ Verizon SuperPages

âEUR¢ Switchboard

âEUR¢ YellowPages.com

âEUR¢ Sprint Yellow Pages

âEUR¢ YP.com

âEUR¢ InfoSpace

âEUR¢ Local.com

âEUR¢ JudyâEUR(TM)s Book
âEUR¢ True Local

âEUR¢ HomeStore.com

âEUR¢ Welcome Wagon

âEUR¢ Realtor.com

âEUR¢ MerchantCircle

âEUR¢ Earthlink

âEUR¢ 4INFO.net

âEUR¢ KUDZU.com

âEUR¢ InsiderPages.com

âEUR¢ YPCity.com

âEUR¢ InformationPages

âEUR¢ Info USA

âEUR¢ City Search

âEUR¢ Axiom

Why Choose You?

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You can easily use all of the tools in this blog to help promote your business and still get little results. The reason is simple. Consumers are completely overwhelmed with marketing messages. You need to create something that separates you.

You need to answer the question, “Why Choose Your Business Product or Service?” A good answer to this is a USP (unique selling proposition).

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