It then becomes your job to track reply rates to each advert. How many enquiries came in? How many of those converted into actual sales? Assuming each of those will spend the same as your customer average over time, you will quickly get an idea of which adverts have actually made (or lost) money and if so, how much?

This is one of the ideas covered in the book – “the Marketing Launchpad” by Alastair Campbell available now from Amazon – order your copy today.

Who do you want to sell to? Small business owners, pensioners, young people or somebody else? Be clear who your CENTRAL audience is and make your message pertinent to them. If you catch other people at the same time that is great, but be clear about whom you focus your activities on based on the numbers, interest in what you do and ability to pay.

For more information or to find out how marketing can work for you visit our site or contact us on 01858 44 55 43 or email alastair@idealmarketingcompany.com

 If you were asking what people really want from a marketing campaign, most people would say generating high quality leads. 2-step marketing is designed purely to generate high quality leads.

2-step marketing is a good way of establishing your authority. I’m a marketing consultant like 1,001 other marketing consultants that are around, but say, because I’ve written a special report on how to double the sales of photocopiers, if someone in the photocopy industry is particularly interested in that report, I come across as having some authority within that area. I am not just “another consultant” but a consultant who’s written something that is very specific and of interest to that particular business. It is a very good way of quickly, easily and inexpensively establishing authority by producing a reasonably authoritative work which will be of interest to people.

You must remember that this is not about selling straightaway, but about getting a foot in the door. It’s about people raising their hand and gathering the names of people who have said that they are potentially interested in finding out more about what it is you’re talking about. They are not ready to buy but, they are interested.

We offer a 1 hour FREE consultation, if you would like to see what we can do for your business contact us 01858 445 543 or email alastair@idealmarketingcompany.com

By Alastair Campbell. The Ideal Marketing Company

If you are serious about growing your business, this is a useful exercise to assist you in putting across the right message to prospective customers.  You can call it re-framing if you like, but I just think of it as a genuine way of trying to see things from the other persons point of view.

Most of us like to think that by offering the products or services that we do we are helping people.  So for example at the Ideal Marketing Company my main aim is to help my clients to win more business, convert more enquiries and keep their customers for longer – that’s what we do.  Our sole focus as a business therefore is to help our clients.

What are the benefits of thinking like this?  At every stage, including an initial meeting, it means our focus is on ‘what can we do to help?’.  We only work with people who we think we can help.  Our main outcome is to help business owners grow their business.  If we don’t do this then we have failed. Or we don’t accept the business in the first place.

When I meet up with a prospective client I don’t think about selling to them, I think about how I can help them. 

Let’s face it, most of us are looking for people to help us.  That is much more useful to us than being ‘sold to’.  Being ‘sold to’ implies that somebody ‘does something’ to us.  Selling can imply manipulation, deception and tricking people into buying something they don’t want and don’t need.  Contrast this with a focus on helping somebody.  The focus changes and becomes all about assisting them to achieve results.

My suggestion to you is to forget about selling to prospects and to start thinking about ways that you can help people. Now I am not pretending to be a saint, I want to grow my own business and make money too, but I want to do this on the back of helping people.  The great American Sales Trainer Zig Ziglar once said ‘You can get anything you want in life – if you help enough people achieve what they want in life” That’s a better philosophy than screwing the last penny out of everybody that you can and tricking them into buying things that they don’t want isn’t it?

So, to paraphrase, if you want to grow your business, focus not on what other people can do for you, but what you can do to help other people. 

Alastair Campbell is MD of The Ideal Marketing Company based in Leicestershire, England.  He offers marketing ideas and support to business owners and is author of the book The Marketing Launchpad available now on Amazon. 

 He also offers a free 60 minute no obligation marketing consultation – see www.idealmarketingcompany.com for more details.

Want to stand out from the crowd? Then don’t produce a marketing message that is the same as the crowd. A bold benefit led statement, strong visuals, consistent branding and a bright, simple graphic will help you be noticed and remembered above all the noise.

Do you need some free advice on your current marketing campaign? To find out more about our 1 hour  free consultation call us on 01858 44 55 43 or email alastair@idealmarketingcompany.com

2-Step marketing is designed purely to generate high quality leads. By that, I mean people who are in the market for buying the product or service that you have to offer. That is what two step marketing is all about. Even better than that, the leads tend to be quite warm.

Why does two step marketing work so well?

For those of you who haven’t read it, there is a fantastic book I would recommend called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.  It talks about lots of different factors that influence people and help them make buying decisions. One of the key things that he talks about is something called the law of reciprocity.

An example that he gives is this: there is a temporary member of staff that goes into an office. He works quite hard, goes out to lunch, comes back from lunch, and says to the people who work in office “By the way, I’m running a marathon for charity, would you sponsor me?” He gets some interest from some of the people in the office, but not very much. Another temporary member of staff goes and works in the morning, goes out to lunch, and when he comes back from lunch he buys a bottle of Coke for everybody in the office. He says “It’s very hot outside so I just thought everyone would enjoy a Coke.”  Then an hour later he asks people if they would mind sponsoring him. The results are incredible.

If you give somebody something for nothing, they feel a moral obligation to return the favour in some ways. So it works on the basis of that. If you give somebody something for nothing that is of value and helps them, they feel obliged to return the favour in some way. That might be by passing on a lead to someone else, by writing a testimonial, or it might be by buying something extra from you.

 To find out more about the ideal marketing company, and what we can do for your business contact us on 01858 445 543 or email alastair@idealmarketingcompnay.com

This is probably one of my favourite marketing subjects because it gets to the absolute core of what people look for marketing to achieve. If you were asking what people really want from a marketing campaign, most people would say generating high quality leads. They want leads from a person who are potentially interested in buying from the company and that is exactly what two step marketing is all about.

Why does two step marketing work so well?

 It focuses on the right people. If you send out a direct mail campaign to a hundred people, which of those people are you going to follow up on?  By using 2-step marketing, if ten of them have replied to you using the reply mechanism that you’ve included and asked for their free offer, free report or CD then those are the ones to follow up. They are the ones that are clearly interested. Those who have not responded are probably less interested. If you’ve done everything right, you’re first going to follow up with the ones who have already raised their hands. Imagine you were talking to a room full of people and you ask the question “Who in this room owns a Mercedes?” The people who put their hands up are the ones that are interested in what you’re selling and that is exactly what two step marketing does. You ask people to raise their hands: they are not saying they want to buy a Mercedes, but they are interested in finding out more. Those are the ones that you focus on.

For more advice on PR & Marketing contact us on 01858 445 543 or email alastair@idealmarketingcompnay.com

These are some of the main types of advert and the reason they tend to run.

Direct response – adverts that have the clear intention of asking the reader to do something, such as call a number and book/enquire. This direct approach is also the easiest way to tell whether an advert or publication is working.

Trade – this advert is not for the public, but for people likely to stock the products that can be sold to the trade. It can be very important if you want to explain to a retailer the benefits of selling on your product or service.

Corporate – a flag-waving advert that tells the world what a wonderful company you are. It’s my least favourite type of advertising. However, it has its place when a company is being tuned for sale or in response to bad PR.

Brand building – this can be effective but is notoriously difficult to measure and the results are known only over long periods of time. Often the best approach for satisfying this need is to take out sponsorship in relevant publications that fit your customer profile.

Sponsorship – not strictly advertising, but as outlined above, it can be useful to build awareness of your business. It helps to make you known to your customers if you use the right types of publication. If you think your customers tune in to a local radio station for the weather or read a particular section of a newspaper, consider sponsoring it as a cost effective long term alternative to advertising.

Launch – there is a big difference between continual advertising and the initial launch campaign. Advertising can be very effective when something is brand new, so it makes sense to spend more money than normal in an intensive burst during the early days.

This is one of the ideas covered in the book – “the Marketing Launchpad” by Alastair Campbell available now from Amazon – order your copy today.

Make your offer as eye catching and imaginative as possible. Make it time sensitive and difficult to say ‘no’ to. Make it believable and above all make it easy to understand. To assess whether you’ve achieved that understandability, show your letter to a stranger; they should be able to say in about five seconds what you are telling them about if you are to have a chance of winning over people with your direct mail letter.

This is one of the ideas covered in the book – “the Marketing Launchpad” by Alastair Campbell available now from Amazon – order your copy today.

If you want to get 2012 off to a flying start, you might be interested in a free seminar I’m running at the end of January. Following a ‘full house’ for this talk in November I have been asked to run it again.

It’s taking place on Tuesday January 31st from 5pm till 7pm at The Arc Business Centre, Lubenham Hill, Market Harborough, LE16 9SZ.

The theme is making the most of new business opportunities in 2012 by using a combination of traditional marketing principles – combined with the best of social media and the latest modern marketing techniques.

As it takes place near tea-time, we’re laying on drinks and nibbles to make it even more tempting for you.

It’s free to attend, but we are anticipating another full house so PLEASE book early to avoid disappointment. You are welcome to bring up to 2 colleagues with you.

Just e-mail seminars@idealmarketingcompany.com if you’d like to come saying how many places you’d like and I’ll e-mail you full directions and a reminder a few days before the event.