Cleaning Up Your Marketing

Written by Charlie Cook


Continued from page 1

Getting Attention 6. Does your marketing message prompt prospects to contact you? 7. Do your ads, letters, and web site motivate prospects to contact you? 8. What are your conversion rates? 9. What steps can you take to improve them?

Positioning 10. What are you doing to establish your credibility with prospects, to help them know and trust you? 11. Is it working as well as you'd like? 12. What could you improve? 13. Isrepparttar value of your products and services clear to your prospects or do they question you about merits and price? 14. Want to learn how to ensure that your prospects understandrepparttar 119885 value of your products and services?

Selling 15. How successful are you in selling, that is, in getting commitments for everything from appointments to orders? 16. What's your conversion rate of prospects contacted to clients and customers? 17. Do initial s/ales generate repeat s/ales and referrals for years to come? 18. Want to learn how to generate more s/ales from each client?

Evaluating Your Marketing Plan Use Michael's three questions to summarize your comments about your marketing plan and your success in getting attention, positioning and selling.

1. What's working?

2. What's not?

3. What do you want to improve?

The hardest part about cleaning out your closet, attic, garage or your marketing is getting started. It may be time to straighten up or throw out some of your old marketing strategies and tactics and replace them with new more effective ones. Start 2005 with a well organized marketing plan, one that helps you Get Attention, Position your products and services and Sell and you'll find your business growing in leaps and bounds inrepparttar 119886 coming year.

2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved. - The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals and small business owners attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up for the Frëë Marketing Plan eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com


SIX Trade Show Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Written by Mitch Tarr


Continued from page 1
Trade Show Marketing Mistake Number Four: Not trainingrepparttar booth staff. Next time you attend a show, look for any ofrepparttar 119884 following behaviors. •Cell phone usage •Exhibitor staff talking to each other •Talking about clients •Food and Beverages inrepparttar 119885 booth •Gum chewing •Corporate secrets-inrepparttar 119886 open! You getrepparttar 119887 idea! Perhaps any one of these is not an indictable offence, but have you seen more than one? Or even, was itrepparttar 119888 one thing that caused a potential prospect to pass you by. An opportunity that would never come again. Often in shows people who are not professional sales reps attend and pull booth duty. Product managers, PR people, CFO’s and others. Just being in a show doesn’t mean they know selling skills and/or show etiquette. Trade Show Marketing Tip. Hold training classes beforerepparttar 119889 show, write out a show guide, and have a pre-show meeting onrepparttar 119890 show floor to remind everyone that behavior that would not be tolerated inrepparttar 119891 boardroom of your best client would not be tolerated onrepparttar 119892 floor either. Trade Show Marketing Mistake Number Five: Not trying to qualify a prospect. IF you are attending trade shows to generate new leads, you will want to as closely as possible follow your selling process. The fact you are at a show and everyone is giving away yo-yos doesn’t shouldn’t keep you from doing what you do in real sales situations—qualify your prospect. I had a client who sold to small business owners. Which ofrepparttar 119893 following opening statements would haverepparttar 119894 best effect for him? A: Hi, would you like to see my product? B: Would you like a yo-yo? C: Do you own a small business? If you picked C (I surely hope you did) you are on your way to leveraging your trade show investment. It is critical to know if you are talking torepparttar 119895 people who your marketing efforts are targeting. Just because someone is at a show doesn’t mean they are your target audience. They could be media (yay), competition (groan), or tire kickers (yikes). Trade Show Marketing Tip. Your success will be greater if you plan to qualify inrepparttar 119896 booth. Qualified prospects are like gold-you need to dig a little bit. Remember to train you staff (all of them) to askrepparttar 119897 sales question. “Are you my market?” Trade Show Marketing Mistake Number Six: A weak follow up plan. You have in your hand, a list of people who stopped by your booth (lets say they aren’t qualified) or you have a stack of business cards (lets say they are qualified decision makers). What you do next will make a difference to your result. You must have a measurable, crisp, FAST follow up plan in place. This is one way you will most certainly separate you from your competition. Here is an area where most people fall down. The scariest story I heard of was actually a friend of mine who worked a booth in a trade show and allowed someone else to takerepparttar 119898 business cards home. Can you guess? They lostrepparttar 119899 cards! There was no back up. They were GONE! Now that leads to poor follow up. The onus was onrepparttar 119900 prospects to remember they talked with you and want to continue to talk with you. Trade Show Marketing Tip. So plan and measure your follow up. That alone costs you no money and delivers a better result. As you can see many of these mistakes are common sense. But common sense only if you have seen them work or not work in your favor. Trade Show marketing is a skill. And as such can be developed to produce better results.

More at www.marketing-for-small-business.com

Trade Show exhibiting expert and author.


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