When Is The Best Time For A Small Business To Market?
The best time to market is today. And everyday hereafter. Marketing should be a year-round process. Even seasonal businesses must consistently reach out to customers or risk having to rebuild their sales every year.
Many business owners who are struggling today might have built highly successful companies if only they’d put marketing programs in place. In the first few years of business, owners are focused on doing the ‘thing’ that is the business (i.e., doctors want to be doctors) instead of marketing and other activities to grow the business. According to Michael Gerber, author of E-Myth, 80% of new businesses fail in the first 5 years. 80% of those left will fail in the next 5 years. But to try to bring in customers without prospect databases, marketing tools or materials, often with little or no name recognition in the marketplace is almost impossible.
If this story seems a bit too familiar, it’s time to take charge of your company’s marketing and become proactive. Whether you are just starting your business or have been in business for many years, consider putting into place a system to capture prospect’s contact information and a system to stay in touch with everyone who’s shown interest or purchased from you. Making an investment of time and money into establishing a marketing and client retention system now will pay benefits for years to come.
There are many software programs available to facilitate this aspect of marketing. Not all of them will be best for your business. Take some time to evaluate which one will work best for you or consult with a marketing pro. In the meantime, even keeping paper records (i.e., sign up forms at the counter of the restaurant) will get you started. Then, when you have decided on an automated approach, it’ll just be a matter of data entry to get caught up.
Client acquisition and retention doesn’t have to be hard. It just has to be done.
Contact me at georgann@catchphrasemarketing.com, or call me at 877-434-9019, with any questions you may have about electronic marketing (email, newsletters, ezines) or to discuss how using these marketing methods can quickly improve your business’ profitability. I can show you how to do it, or I can do it all for you.
Also, you can go to www.catchphrasemarketing.com to get even more information on the benefits of using email marketing in your business
Georgann McCrosson
More on Lead Nurturing
The definition of ‘nurture’ is to foster, help develop or grow. Lead nurturing is not about following up in a few months to see if a prospect is ready to buy. It is about developing long-term, trust-filled relationships. Provide your prospects with consistent, meaningful communication, regardless of their timing to buy.
Be sure your potential clients have answers to the following questions:
- How will your service or product help them?
- Why should they buy from you instead of a competitor?
- Does your solution really work? Can you prove it?
What other questions might your prospects have? Take some time to find out. Once they have the answers they will be much more likely to buy from you when they’re ready.
Too often our emphasis is on lead generation. But, getting tons of leads does not necessarily mean getting tons of sales. When it comes to leads, more is not better unless you are prepared to nurture the people who raised their hand, asking for more information.
Start a lead nurturing program as soon as possible. It matters less what you do than the fact that you do it. As part of your program decide how often you will contact your potential clients and stick to it. Whether it’s once a week or once a month, they will become comfortable with hearing from you. And your reliability will be noticed. If you are reliable before the sale, they’ll know it’s more likely they can rely on you after the sale.
Contact me at georgann@catchphrasemarketing.com, or call me at 877-434-9019, with any questions you may have about electronic marketing (email, newsletters, ezines) or to discuss how using these marketing methods can quickly improve your business’ profitability. I can show you how to do it, or I can do it all for you.
Also, you can go to www.catchphrasemarketing.com to get even more information on the benefits of using email marketing in your business
Georgann McCrosson
Nurturing Leads
No matter what communication medium you utilize, it’s rare that a single approach will be effective in sparking interest in the majority of your audience.
Once you’ve sparked some interest in the prospect with your message, the next step is getting them to let you know it, to raise their hand, identify themselves and progress to the next step.
Unfortunately, that can take several attempts as well! Being busy and distracted, requiring motivation, education, awareness, etc., contribute to your prospect’s attention span. A single contact – even among people who have already expressed an interest in your service – is rarely enough to carry them to the next level of interaction.
Most leads are long-term relationships. According to marketing research about 75% of proactively generated leads do not have an immediate need for your service. They have identified themselves as interested in hearing what you have to say, but they’re not ready yet to make an investment.
And, according to the Yankee Group, 40% to 80% of new business leads are lost or not followed up on due there being no process in place to maintain contact with a lead that is in the pipeline but not ready to buy.
Lead nurturing is an important, but frequently overlooked, part of the whole lead generation process for service providers. As a business professional, you can’t know exactly what message, in what format, will be the one to spur the desired action in your prospect.
Direct marketing, via mail, email or phone calls, is regarded in terms of “campaigns”. Unfortunately they are rarely long enough or intensive enough to extract all the value possible.
Ongoing communications with your target audience, long after the campaign is over, will boost your lead rates and improve the quality of the leads you generate.
Contact me at georgann@catchphrasemarketing.com, or call me at 877-434-9019, with any questions you may have about electronic marketing (email, newsletters, ezines) or to discuss how using these marketing methods can quickly improve your business’ profitability. I can show you how to do it, or I can do it all for you.
Also, you can go to www.catchphrasemarketing.com to get even more information on the benefits of using email marketing in your business
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Georgann McCrosson
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