It's no secret to anyone breathing that in the US we are in the worst financial crisis of most of our lifetimes. If you are worried about your business you are certainly not alone! The next few days bring great uncertainty about what the governernment is going to do to try and help. Will they bail out the banks, or will the hard line republicans win out and nothing will be done immediately? Who knows! What is clear is that the vast majority of Americans are very unhappy with the situation and not keen on sinking billions of dollars into saving an industry known for greed.

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The Washington Post last week had an article by Stephen Perlstein which compared the recent collapse of major financial institutions to a category 4 financial storm.  It is quite an eye opening article and clearly points out the dangers of our current situation. He described it as perhaps the greatest destruction of financial wealth the world has ever seen! The most important part of the collapse we are seeing on small businesses will be the inability to obtain credit and loans and the loss of customers who are becoming ever more tight with their budgets.

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I used a direct marketing mailing approach to solve a very big business problem for me many years ago. I didn’t even know what  the term direct marketing was at that time, but as a business person I understood how it worked intuitively. More importantly, I knew I needed to do something quick and a direct mailing approach seemed to me the best way to reach the people I needed to respond.  From one letter I obtained clients that paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the following years.

Direct marketing is, in my opinion, by far the most effective means of advertising available to almost any small business. There are unending ways in which direct marketing can be conducted, but all successful campaigns have several things in common.  First, you must target the audience most likely to be interested in what you have to offer. Second,  you must understand what that audience needs and how any products or services you offer can fulfill their needs. Third, you must tell them how you are going to solve their problems better than any other option out there. Fourth, you need to provide clear reasons to respond right away. And finally you must provide clear instructions on exactly what they need to do right now to benefit from your offer.

Most business people who are aware of direct marketing think of it in terms of long hype filled letters that they have received for some particular product or service. However, not all direct mail is like that. Direct response mailing for professionals needs to be considerably more… well professional in it’s presentation. In my opinion the most lucrative use of direct mail is for businesses that can use it to pull in customers or clients who will use their services over and over again.

Business to consumer is the most traditional use of direct mailings. However, business to business may well be the most valuable form of direct mail. When mailing to consumers there is often a focus on making an immediate one time sale as opposed to using the approach to develop a relationship. In a business to business direct marketing approach you are much more likely to be interested in finding new long term clients,  rather than making a quick sale.  In this situation the effectiveness of your mailing is not measured in immediate sales, but rather in long term clients or customers who may pay you many thousands of  dollars over a period of years.

So here is my story of the six figure direct mailing I did. The health care industry was in a state of severe upheaval and change. Managed care had wiped out or severely hurt many psychologists in private practice. I was one who suffered these times.  Now I only do a very narrow specialty that does not rely upon insurance companies at all. However, back then I was, like many others, entirely dependent upon insurance companies for my income. The problem with insurance companies was not only poor pay, but an incredible amount of work needed to even get paid by them.  You needed a billing specialist just to deal with the companies on a daily basis.  Traditional referrals from other health care providers became problematic due to the complexity of the insurance situation.

For some years I had been very gradually  transitioning  to  working  in rehabilitation centers and long term care facilities, because I had experience in those populations and knew that once I was able to get a contract with such a facility I would have  a steady flow of referrals and a much less complicated billing situation. However, I had always wanted to maintain a traditional outpatient office as long as it was financially viable. Managed care made it no longer viable for me in a very brief period of time. I decided that I needed to close my office and move to a full time consultation practice.

However, in order to make that change I needed to get a number of contracts with facilities, and I needed to get them as fast as possible. Complicating the situation was an explosion in relatively large companies marketing to these facilities claiming that they could better serve their needs than individual professionals such as myself. In reality these companies were often no more than glorified marketing and billing services for local practitioners whom they hired for a percentage of the profit. However, they had full time marketing people and slick presentations to try and take every facility they could get. Once they got a contract any practitioner who had worked there before either had to come work for them or lose all the business from that facility.

I knew from experience that the people who really understood the situation in such facilities were the social workers. While the big companies were marketing to the corporate people or facility administrators, the social workers were the ones who had to deal with the services they provided on a daily basis. I knew that may social workers were quite disillusioned with the quality of services these companies provided and also had the behind the scenes power to influence the administrators who made the decisions on contracts. But how would I find the social workers who had a real need to make a change in service providers? It would be impossible for me to call them all and go to meeting after meeting to find the ones that might be receptive to me.

Direct response mail was my key to success. I  made a large list of facilities in my geographic area,  knowing that I only needed a very small number of contracts to fill my schedule. I created a very professional   letter addressed  to the head of social services in each facility. I laid out my experience and credentials. I discussed the problems they likely experienced using the large companies that I was competing with, and my main selling point was that they would have a direct line of communication with me as person who provided the services. I also made it clear that I currently had a number of contracts and was only looking for a few more to fill my schedule. I strongly, but very politely, suggested that they contact me right away if they were in need of my services.

I sent out the letters all in one mailing and had no idea if I would even get one response. The next several days were very anxiety producing. I waited and hoped. Within one week I had enough responses to fill my schedule and ended up turning down contracts. I had gone from a very difficult situation to a very secure situation with one letter! I continued to service those facilities for many years and made hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of that one letter. I continued with many of  them until I decided to no longer to that work. It was actually a sad day for me when I quit doing that kind of work as I had made many friendships with facility staff members. That one letter was the most effective marketing tool I have ever used! You may be able to do something very similar if you follow a similar approach in your  business niche.
 

More on Direct Mail- Six Figure Direct Mail For Professionals

 There are some in business who believe there is no such thing as a bad paying customer. Often times this is the same group that believe there is no such thing as bad publicity. Nothing could be further from the truth for any business owner looking to build a viable growing business. You need to choose your own customers from the pool of ones who wish to buy from your business.  That's right, you need to be in control of choosing your customers!

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As is evident from the posting dates, I have been only intermittently  posting to this blog since I launched the site several months ago. I do this as an area of interest to me , and at this point it is not a significant income source for me. I had focused on promotion to achieve a decent pagerank, which I think I have accomplished with a respectable pagerank of 4 in a period of less than 6 months of lmiited effort. Much of my internet  marketing work has   been on other sites that are bringing me a regular stream of income. However, the main things that consume most of my time are my work as a forensic psychologist, my family, and other hobbies. Those always come first in my life, but I think I have developed a plan to allow me to focus more time on this blog.

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Without a doubt Google  provides some of the best free webmaster tools on the internet.  Most webmasters are not even aware of the great tools that Google provides them. Even worse, some are aware that they exist but have never bothered to check them out. If you are one of the webmasters who fails to take advantage of the free tools that Google offers, you are at a serious disadvantage to those who do. The very fist thing you need to do is become a registered user with Google to get access to any of their tools. The next thing you need to do is to get an Adwords account with them. Even if you don’t think you will run any Adwords ads in the near future, you need the account to use some of  their most powerful tools.

Most people are aware that Google offers a free keyword suggestion tool that can help you find keywords that are relevant to your business. Keyword research is fundamental to almost every aspect of internet business. If you fail to pay attention to this very basic aspect of internet marketing then you are almost certain to struggle in your business. The keyword suggestion tool can be found easily by doing a search for “Google keyword suggestion” and going to the google page at the top of the search results.

The next very powerful tool is their site analytics software. You need an Adwords account for this one, but it is an amazing tool that tracks visitors to your site. This tool allows you see a wealth of data about how they found you and whether they are converting to customers and/or leads on your site. Similar software costs hundreds of dollars and is not nearly as user friendly and powerful. Using this software is an absolute must for any serious webmaster.

Last, but by no means least, is their suite of tools appropriately call webmaster tools. This is a collection of tools to allow you to find out many things such as how many  pages you have in their index, any problems with your pages,  and most importantly a very detailed list of the pages on the internet that link to you.  This list is the heart of understanding why you do, or do not, rank for search terms of interest to you. In my opinion this is the most valuable tool that Google could have ever created and is a relatively recent addition to their offerings.  Simply said, it rocks!

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Many people have ideas about running an online business that are unrealistic. They assume that they simply need to obtain a website, which will cause the money to magically start flowing. Unfortunately, this is very far from the truth. People who have had success online can tell you that it is not so easy. Like an offline business, success in an online business requires a high degree of knowledge, a little bit of luck, some timing, and hard work. Luck alone, however, is not likely to be enough. Following are some tips to assist you in getting off on the right foot.

Your website is your storefront. It must look professional and clean just like your office or store on the street. The first impression many people will develop of your business is the image of your website home page. On the internet if someone doesn't get pulled in right away they are likely gone within a matter of seconds. You must manage your website presentation with extreme care.

A common adage in the world of internet marketing is that "the money is in the list." Simple adage, but crucial to success. It is vital that you use both professional and ethical ways to grown your marketing list. It is always a bad idea to purchase harvested lists of names and e-mail addresses without deliberation. E-mail marketing can be the lifeblood of many Internet based business, but it can bring a business to its knees if you become tagged as a spammer. You must build your own list with only people who have opted in to receive them. Quality is key : you must provide quality products and service. If you're short on quality, you'll get some initial sales, but never receive repeat business — hardly a tool for long term success. Quality will help create a constant source of repeat buyers who tell their friends.

Having good sales copy is critical to an online business. There is no face to face contact — you must depend on the quality of the website sales copy for success. Quality sales copy techniques will depend on your market, but grabbing attention up front is vital. Your customers must know the benefits as soon as pos

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There is a lot of information out there about internet marketing available, both online and  offline. The vast amount of information available to a small business owner can be overwhelming and quite confusing.  That is why many small business owners are too intimidated by internet marketing to make a serious effort to grow their business with the power of internet. That is really a shame because when you strip away all the hype and the latest “secret of the day” the basis are really quite simple. Whether you want to learn enough to do the internet marketing for your business online, or you want to be informed well enough to make wise choices in outsourcing the internet marketing for your business, it is critical that you understand the big picture.

It is my firm belief that the success of your business depends upon your ability to get yourself noticed,  and then to provide the incentive for people to help you grow business by their loyalty and what they say about you.  It is  really just that simple on the internet and on the street. The differences lie only in the techniques that you must use to make that happen.

On the internet you have essentially two ways of  getting your business noticed. You either buy advertising or you earn it by getting your name out there and associated with the services of your business. Hard to believe it is just that simple,  isn’t it? The core idea is simple enough.  It is putting that idea into practice and making concrete marketing plans that determines your success or  failure.

There are many methods  to  buy your way in front of the screens of your potential customers. As with all advertising, it can be very cost effective,   or a complete waste of your time and money, depending upon the skill with which you can target your spending  your prime customer group. The great thing about advertising on the internet is that you can test return on investment very quickly and effectively without the kind of huge financial commitment you would need for a similar campaign on the street. A prime example of internet advertising is  Google Adwords text ads that are on the top and right column of all their search results,  and on millions of sites on the web. The other online service providers such as Yahoo and MSN have their own version of these text ads. There are many other forms of  advertising which I will discuss in future articles.

The other way to get yourself in front of your target customer group is to earn it.  The object is  to  get yourself listed as highly as possible in the search results for terms of interest to you , and to get your business direct traffic from other sites that mention your services.  The best way to do this is to provide information that other websites find useful for their viewers.  This requires a commitment to effort and cash to make it work, but the results are much more permanent than buying advertising.  Personally I much prefer this method since you get long term results for your efforts. However, you must know what you  are doing in order to get the maximum return for your efforts.

It is just that simple, and that complex!

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No matter what business you are in, you must understand what you sell in order to thrive and grow to your potential. You might say “well that’s easy I sell lawn care” , or maybe “I have a restaurant, I sell food.”  If we were together right now what would you tell me that you sold? Think about it, before you answer. Surely there  must  be millions of answers depending upon the nature of your business.

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Know your customers! This is the first step to envisioning a winning approach to building your business. When I talk about knowing your customers I am talking about knowing them as distinct groups of people with some common bond that brings them to your business. But I am also talking about knowing them as individuals so you can understand how their need for the “thing” that you sell fits into the overall picture of their daily life. Knowing them as groups is absolutely essential to any business growth. Going beyond that and knowing your most important customers as individuals will take your business to heights that are otherwise unattainable. So let’s start with what is often called your “target market” and what I refer to as you customer group personalities. First things first. If you think you sell to everyone, then you are destined to failure or mediocrity at best. You can NOT be everything to everyone. No matter what business you are in, the need to focus on understanding who are your most valuable customer group personalities is vital to focusing your efforts on serving those groups better than any of your competition. How much you have to narrow the picture of your primary customer group personalities depends upon the nature of your business. There are many potential aspects to the primary customer groups you serve which include such things as: Geography Income Profession Interests Age Sex Marital Status And Many More Each business has a unique combination of the above mentioned aspects that are relevant to their business. For example some business (such as internet based businesses) can sell on a global basis, while others, such as restaurants, are much more geographically limited in their primary customer group personalities. The important thing is to know which aspects are relevant to your business and to apply that knowledge to developing your business marketing strategies. Now let’s get on to knowing your customers as individuals. Obviously it is not possible to know everything about all the customers you serve. However, it sure does make a huge difference to know at least something about your most important customers. See if you can describe just the top 10% of your customers off the top of your head. Do you even know their names? Do you know their interests? Do you know why the patronize your business? Do you know them as anything more than someone that just bought something from you? I am willing to bet that many of you don’t have clue. If you have never taken the time or effort to learn these basic things about even your most important customers then you are leaving more money on the table than you want to know! The first key to building a business on relationships with customers is knowing your customers as well as you can!

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