“A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets rough.”
Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)
40th President of the United States
When General Custer was completely surrounded, his chief scout asked, “General what’s our strategy?”
Custer replied, “The first thing we need to do is make a note to ourselves — never get in this situation again.”
Hope is not a strategy!
It amazes me how much companies rely on hope in their marketing and lead generation approaches. If we put an ad in the paper “we hope they will respond” or if e palce a display ad in the local chamber magazine.. “we hope people will notice our ad and call us.”
The only way to ensure that hope is not the basis of a marekting strategy is to begin to demand a return on every marketing investment. And the only way to ensure you get return is to measure everything. And in every opportunity to drop hard earned money into a advertising product that is held out in front of you as being the perfect answer to your marketing need, rigourously demand metrics.
The biggest waste of money is dumping it into conventional advertising mediums and not knowing it’s return.
“I get up every morning determined to both change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes, this makes planning the day difficult.”
~ E. B. White
Thanks RickSticks
In a great post on Creatin Passionate Users there is a great graphic of customer relationship.
Please note… love or hate is a good thing… if they could care less, then you are in big trouble.
Any idea?
It’s a question that more than a few Yellow Page advertisers ponder. If you’re currently spending money every month to run an ad in your local directory, you don’t want to wrestle with that question. You want to know that your investment is generating a consistent flow of new clients to your business.
So what can you do to maximize returns and stop worrying?
First of all, know this–Yellow Pages Advertising has incredible potential. As a business owner, you have few other ways to reach prospects who are as targeted, and ready to buy as these. But naturally… your success depends on the quality of your ad. And when it comes to ad content, far too many advertisers are quite simply… lost.
“The red-hot commodity of the Information Age?
Why that would be the Yellow Pages… It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.” Fortune July, 2003
There are few places to turn. It makes for an unpleasant situation for the honest businessperson trying to harness the tremendous potential of such a perfectly targeted medium. And so, most advertisers rely on the Yellow Pages design department, who, as it turns out, develop most of the ads in their directory.
It’s hard to differentiate your company if that’s the case, don’t you think?
While many advertisers fail to develop an ad that draws a strong response, that doesn’t mean it’s difficult to do. In fact, because of the mistakes that “riddle” just about every subject heading, there’s an amazing opportunity for the business owner that does his homework. If you’re reading this article, you’re doing your homework.
“How come we still have the Yellow Pages?
They Work. You don’t go to the Yellow Pages and look up pizza unless you’re planning to order pizza.” Fortune July, 2003
What Yellow Page success boils down to is ad content. Not color. Not professional design.
Sure, those things matter too; but they are nowhere near as important as the words you use to fill your ad. People turning to the Yellow Pages have already determined that they need you. They just need to know whether they should call company A, B, or C.
Their choice doesn’t depend so much on color or design, as it depends on what you offer that your competitors don’t — the policies you hold yourself to that give consumers faith in you and your business — they way you build credibility, and actually give a prospect insight into “how” you do business.
Here is a point you need to understand… Listing the brand names you carry and the “laundry list” of products or services you offer don’t build credibility. They don’t set you apart from your competitors who offer the same thing!
Plenty of other things do. And chances are you embrace those policies and those hassle, and risk removing, motivators already. You probably do quite a bit for your clients that make their lives easier, more lucrative, more pleasant, and so on. You probably have credibility boosters that you’ve never considered including.
And that is because you may not realize the power they have in motivating an eager prospect to act. Iron-clad guarantees… customer testimonials… rock-solid offers for new customers… a headline that goes well beyond your logo and company name; these are things that work wonders in a targeted, ready-to-buy medium such as the Yellow Pages.
When your competitors focus on the same “laundry-list” of products and services offered - they only appear like AN option. Use the copy points I talk about above, and you show your prospects why you’re A GOOD option.
There’s a huge difference.
That’s what the Yellow Pages are all about, right… showing an eager prospect why they should call you instead of one of your competitors.
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Alan Saltz, the author, teaches Yellow Pages Advertisers how to boost their response and return on investment, using simple, but extremely effective techniques. His website offers unbiased Yellow Pages Advertising advice and tricks that anyone can implement.
For more information visit:
In a recent survey done by Accountemps, executives were surveyed on “What is the most annoying or overused phrase or buzzword in the workplace today?”
Here were the responses…
At the end of the day ~
Solution ~
Thinking outside the box
Synergy ~
Paradigm ~
Metrics
Take it offline ~
Redeployed people ~
On the runway
Win-win ~
Value-added ~
Get on the same page
Customer centric ~
Generation X ~
Accountability management
Core competency ~
Alignment ~
Incremental
For the fun of it check out BuzzWhack, a site “dedicated to de-mistifying buzzwords”
Here are some that I love…
Google share: The amount of real estate one gets on the first page of a Google search. “If we name our site ‘harvest’, we won’t get enough Google share.”
keepage: The opposite of garbage.
Three Finger Salute: Another name for Control-Alt-Delete, the command of last resort that allowed early PC users to restart their computers when they froze up. Its inventor, IBM’s David Bradley, retired last week
There is in fact a shareware software called “Bullfighter” that will audit your Word or PowerPoint documents to ensure that they are jargon and “bull” free.
The question I have is what jargon do we use in our idustry that might make it hard for our customers to understand? In shredding I hear the word “tip” which makes sense to us, but doesn’t help our client. I used the phrase “hang a box” to talk about reshelving a box. No problem using internal slang, it’s when we assume our clients understand when clearly they don’t. Listen to yourself today and maybe you’ll realize that you too have become slangified.
According to DM News, Google’s share of searches rose further based on statistics released by OneStat.com. The Amsterdam-based web analytics firm said Google’s share rose to 57.2 percent from 56.4 percent. Yahoo’s share remained steady at 21.3 percent, with Microsoft and AOL bringing up the rear with 8.6 percent and 3.5 percent respectively.
So does it make sense to be sure your site gets indexed by Google?