Unfortunately we do not have time to maintain this blog anymore, however one of our bloggers is now running SelfMarketer.com a Do-It-Yourself Blog for Small Businesses.
Over at SelfMarketer.com they will be launching a series of articles that follow a small soup company going online. Will they be successful, and what will we learn from it? It’s been a pleasure and we look forward to blogging with you again in the future.
Check out the Blog for Small Business.
The Bottom Line Series - Part 2: The Secrets that Keep Them Coming Back for MoreHow many businesses do you know that have failed because they just couldn’t keep their customers coming back? What do you think they did wrong? Did they not pay enough attention to their customers needs? Did they neglect their target niche? Well if you’d like to avoid making these same mistakes, feel free to follow the steps below.
The most important thing in any business is its ability to keep returning customers. This is not to say that a business cannot succeed without recurring customers, but it makes it a whole lot easier.
Imagine you were the CEO of an NHL arena. Your job is to fill 15,000 seats at every home game… how are you going to do that? If you had no returning customers, your arena would probably be empty 10 games into the season.
So what can you offer as a company to keep the customers coming back?
In the NHL arena example the main niche the arena targets is entertainment. They offer an action packed hockey game featuring some of the best players in the world competing in front of a roaring crowd. Not to mention why half the fans go… the alcohol.
All in all it makes for a good night and people seem to enjoy the environment enough to come back for multiple games or even purchase season tickets.
When operating your own business you need to think in the same mindset. What niche am I going to target to keep customers coming back?
How do I know what niche to target?
Market research is the best tool for finding that target niche. Survey your customers, research the trends in your industry and decide what the main concerns of your customers are.
If your product was a running shoe, you may want to target the performance niche. Not just the niche, but also the competitive athlete driven customers you have. You could talk about how much faster you can run with the shoe, how much higher you can jump and specifically how you will outperform the competition.
Likewise, if you were running a health spa, you may want to target the organic product and healthy living niche along with the regular comfort and relaxation niche most spas target. 
You could show pictures of the organic products, snapshots of your smiling clients and show testimonials from other satisfied customers stating how pleased they were with the service.
Give your customers a reason to keep coming back
Why do most people go to the same groceries stores their whole lives? I personally go based on the variety of goods and the supply of the goods.
The grocery stores know their target niche and they stick to it. They make sure to have a wide variety of goods and always try to maintain a large supply of those goods. They service to their niche completely just like any business should.
This is exactly what you need to do with your own company. Find your niche, stick to it, and make it your goal to serve the customers in your niche better each day than the day before.
Using the grocery store example; to better themselves they could introduce a new line of products that would make their customers even happier.
Self improvement should always be in the mind any business owner and it should be used to specialize in your niche even more.
What can I take from all of this?
“Instead of walking door to door, give them a reason to come to you”
or in other words
“Why talk to 100 people door to door when you could draw 1000 to you in the same amount of time”
Thanks for reading the second installment of The Bottom Line series!
Hope you enjoyed the article and will read the third part of the series “The Need to Know Reasons Why Brand Imaging Rules”.
Check back soon!
-Jarod Henderson
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The Bottom Line Series - Part 1: Sell Your Clients, Not Just Your Products
Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The Top 6 Ways to Make Your Next Idea ‘Stick’
Elevator Pitches: The Secret Weapon of Entrepreneurs
Knowledge is Lifelong, but Education Doesn’t Just Happen!
This morning after waking up to the blindingly bright sun, I got up, rolled over to my computer and sat down while I wondered why I hadn’t started the kettle before sitting down. Either way, my concerns melted away once I hit the web and started reading some of the new posts that my favourite blogs had to offer.
Darren Rowse is the guy behind ProBlogger.net - A great resource for internet marketers and bloggers alike. This morning a new article was published, “13 Quick tips to Make Your Blog STAND OUT from the Crowd.”
In my opinion these thirteen tips should be made into a common checklist that is somehow distributed to anyone who plans to “grace” the net with their blogs’ presence. For the top bloggers I would bet these are all second nature.
1. Pick a unique topic
2. Develop a Unique Voice
3. Design
4. Useful Content
5. Be Prolific
6. Love Your Readers to Death
7. Be Original
8. Express an Opinion
9. Get Visual
10. Use Titles with Bling
11. Longevity Counts
12. Build Momentum
13. Drive People to Your Archives
There it is, the straightforward list of quick tips for effective blogging. The original post has much more detail and describes each of the points in depth - click here to view the original article on ProBlogger.net.
Now to finish up the beautiful day with a bit more work, maybe even some blogging now that Darren has got me thinking. I had to share this article and blogger checklist with you, I hope you add it to your arsenal of resources as I add it to mine. Enjoy the day!
Yours for Big Business, Starting Small,
Kris Scheben-Edey
P.S. I Think Jarod is working on the second part to his “Bottom Line Series!” Maybe he’ll release it tonight.
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I remember the first time that I used the search engines to look for quality information on marketing blogs. It didn’t go well, and I found myself directing a lot of my marketing from a narrow and slightly biased source.
After learning a lesson, I started to bookmark the posts I came across to use as resources and motivation. I’ve had these posts archived for reference, a large part of my blogging knowledge base aside from a few memories and a bit of experience.
So for those of you who are looking to improve your blog, empower and enlighten your readers – here’s my favourite articles on blog marketing:
1. How To Market Your Blog In 2007, by Tony Hung
This is definitely one of my favourites as it provides not only relevant and effective techniques – but in addition it is one of the most comprehensive articles you’ll ever find for free.
2. 25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog, by Lee Odden
If the first article left anything to question then Lee Odden has likely covered it through the excellent 25-point guide. I like to use these as a checklist (with a few changes), when launching a new blog for myself or a client.
3. Top bloggers reveal how to build traffic off-blog without spending a dime, by Jonathan Fields
This is an inspiration article because the author has interviewed numerous prominent bloggers to ask them their single favourite, low budget, blog marketing method. The article contains the opinions of over 14 influential bloggers including Cory Miller and Darren Rowse.
4. 8 Tips to More Effective Blogging, by Jolina of TopRankBlog.com
This is my quick fix when I need some blog marketing motivation. A quick guide that’s simple layout always helps me put my own work in perspective.
5. Top 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to a New Blog, by Miguel Alvarez
I’ve always been a fan of copywriting, well at least since the time I learned about how it can be used effectively. Miguel Alvarez writes many inspiration posts on copywriting and this is one of my favourites from the CopyWriting.com blog. This is not a post on copywriting a blog, just a great resource on marketing one – written by a copywriter (so you know it’s good).
These are the top five articles I use for reference and now you’re welcome to use them yourself. I’ll be following the marketing of blogs in my 5 part series, The Blog Bloodlines – compiling a complete guide and list of resources for marketing your own blog. Now that I’ve shown you the standard, my job will to be make an even more useful reference - an all-in-one guide to blog marketing.
Blogs are a great way to network, and any marketer or business builder that plans to build an online presence, needs to know a thing or two about blogs. Good luck blogging.
Cheers,
Kris
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One of the best tools for any salesperson is their ability to sell themselves to a client or prospect. Not only that, but the ability to sell their potential clients on the experience they gain from using the product rather than the products raw benefits.
So how do I sell my clients?
If you were to take a look at the top performing companies in the world, you would notice some similar characteristics. They all have something to offer their customer that’s unique or innovative. This could be a large source of knowledge, great customer service, superior benefits or even friendly employees.
Understanding your customer is the foundation for any good business; but finding that one aspect that differentiates you from your competitors is what will make your business truly succeed.
Another parallel you will see is in the advertising department. If you were to look at the most compelling retail commercials on the market right now, the majority of them don’t show the product in the commercial itself. This is a marketing tactic.
How can you sell something without advertising it?
Your job isn’t necessarily to sell the product itself, but the values, the beliefs and in some cases the lifestyle that is associated with your product.
I have two great examples I would like to share with you.
(Links to the campaign commercials are provided on the pictures. I suggest to watch them)
This campaign was released in late 2006 and was later shown at the 2007 Super Bowl. The cost of $2.5 million to air the commercial was nothing in comparison to the 500 million viewers that tuned in - Not to mention the 12 million more viewers who watched the video over the next year. This commercial accounted for 1/3 of the new sales for their Real Beauty campaign.
How can a campaign be so successful without even showing their product?
Dove connected on an emotional level to their customers. They were proving that all the faces you see on the covers of magazines are nowhere near the reality. The message was every woman is beautiful and they shouldn’t hide it. Dove was relating their products to comfort, self-confidence and beauty- Exactly what every women wants.
That’s why this campaign was so successful. Not once did the ad mention how well their product worked or who was endorsing it -Those factors didn’t stop people from buying it - Dove found a great target market and campaigned accordingly to their needs, creating value in their product.
This was a brilliant ad campaign launched in the first half of 2008.
The ad was truly the first of its kind and really connected to the public.
The beginning of the ad starts with a young man in a regular competitive soccer league, scoring the big goal and going pro. It also shows the lifestyle along with the fans, the girls, the fame and the glory of being a professional athlete.
What makes this ad so compelling and easy to relate with?
A large majority of the worlds population has played some sort of sport or follows professional sports. Every kid has the dream of going pro and being a superstar.
This ad relates to that completely.
Like mentioned above, later in the ad you see the girls, the fans and the other superstars you are playing with such as Ronaldo. But the ad makes sure not just to show that but also the hard work that goes along with it. It shows the training, the fighting and the perseverance.
By showing all of these attributes it really gives a picture of what it is like to be a professional athlete and what youngsters strive for. When someone sees something like this, it inspires them to be better, it calls them to try harder and give it 110%.
I don’t know if it was just me, but I had goose bumps by the end of the ad.
It creates a life style. A customer sees fame, they see other celebrities, they see power and they will relate that to the Nike brand. They will think to themselves, “If I buy Nike, I’m that much closer to becoming a superstar”.
Not once does it really show the product it is advertising but the Nike symbol is flashed a few times. Subconsciously consumers will associate Nike with greatness, with fame, with hard work and next time they walk into that sports store, they’ll remember that.
So what can we take from these 2 examples?
Create an image for your company
“Don’t be known for what your product offers but what lifestyle you offer your customers “
I hope you enjoyed part 1 of the series “The Bottom Line”.
Part 2 of my series will be “The Secrets that Keep Them Coming Back for More”.
It will be released sometime early next week.
Check back soon!
-Jarod Henderson
Like my stuff? Follow me on twitter! Jarod Henderson
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