If you decided that you wanted to become a world-class, competitive athlete within 5 years, wouldn’t it be wise to start eating better and exercising right away, even if you hadn’t picked a sport yet?

The point of step 2 “Maximizing the Current” is to get in shape.  No matter what you decide about your target market going forward, what media mix you will be using, and how you will compel your prospects to want to contact you, there is a sale that is about to happen in your business.  Techniques I use in step 2 will help you get more profit from it.  You have customers surrounded by potential referrals, but they don’t ever think of you.  Techniques I use in step 2 will draw out those referrals.  Use the increase in profits that merely “getting in shape” will provide to fuel real lead generation…

But you don’t want to be random about generating new business.  Step 3 = Set the Strategy.  With your customer-maximizing house in order, it’s time to improve the effectiveness of how you go out and get new ones.

Components of your marketing strategy:

• A well-defined target:  geographics (where they are), demographics (who they are), and psychographics (why the buy — the emotional appeals that relate to the benefit you can provide).  Analysis of your customer database will help you — who are the most profitable customers you already have?
• Your Unique Comparative Advantage:  a good description of the problem you solve or benefit you provide and how/why your product or service is uniquely capable of delivering on the solution your target audience needs (we have a formula for developing a powerful UCA)
• Contact methods:  the “portfolio” of media you use to contact those in your target audience at the right time, given the benefit you deliver
• The message:  an attention-getting and compelling message that exposes the pain — the deficit your prospect is experiencing because they lack your solution
• The offer:  the natural, “no-brainer” step toward a solution for your client that you make easily available to them by simply contacting you.
• The follow-through:  your multi-step plan to capture their contact information and nurture the initial interest into a burning desire to meet with you, test your product, order it, agree to your pilot program, etc.

Next week — Generate and Convert.  Putting that strategy into practice and monitoring, measuring, and improving it!

Not every TV advertiser is shooting to win a Cleo award.  The vast majority have the simple goal of gaining mindshare among people in their target audience.  So it should be with your use of social media sites.  Don’t get bogged down in the perfect approach, just get busy and “feel” your way through it.  First, let’s take a look at why people join social networking sites:

Keep in touch with existing friends
I don’t know what it is, but I over the years I have managed to always be an email address or phone number behind as my college friends changed jobs or moved around. If you connect with friends through one of these sites, you’ll never get left behind when they make a move.

Make connections with people who have similar interests or valuable expertise
Are you an avid equestrian? There is a group online for you. Amateur or professional photographer and like to check out other great pics as well as share your own? Great sites exist for you too. Need an expert to help you with a problem, subgroups are already set up or someone in your network is bound to know the “right” person to assist.

Follow celebrities, companies, or products that matter to them
Can’t wait for the next version of Guitar Hero to come out? Hoping U2 will hit your city on their next tour? Now you have a way to be the first to know whenever any news is shared.

O.k., so nothing earth-shattering going on — just AWESOMELY convenient. It is like the equivalent of having a “friends” button on your phone that ALWAYS knows everyone’s current telephone number and will just fire up a conference call for you with one touch. Or instead of just hearing a good joke every once in a while at the office, now you can be notified immediately whenever anyone anywhere says something funny, if you want (not quite to that level, but you get the idea).

How to Take Advantage of Knowing
Why People Participate in the First Place

As you know, unlike TV, print, radio, etc., social media is a two-way deal.  While the equivalent of traditional advertising (like pay-per-click) has its place, I wouldn’t recommend starting there.  You will have a positive effect on your business just by participating (or if you already are, putting more of the “right kind” of attention on these outlets).  So what is the right kind of attention?  Simple, go back to the reasons why people join in the first place:

• Keep in touch with existing friends
• Make connections with people who have similar interests or valuable expertise
• Follow celebrities, companies, or products that matter to them

So whatever you are doing in your social media communications, you will be most successful if you are helping people in one or more of the above quests — the very reasons they participate. Chances are slim that you can help them with the first item — but perhaps you have a product or service that actually ties into social media sites in that way.

It is more likely that you have the opportunity to participate in one of the other two ways.

Three Things You Can do to Put Social Media to
Work for Your Business, and Not Be Annoying

Participating in social media sites opens this opportunity to you in a few ways. Again, I view social media as primarily an EXTREMELY convenient means of communicating — so use it to do some of the things successful people have been doing forever:

1. Help people make connections with what they need
   Someone that you know able to solve a problem that you notice someone else has? Make the introduction, they will both thank you.
    
2. DEMONSTRATE your expertise
   Again, nothing new here, just a different means. For many (perhaps most) business owners it is valuable to be positioned as an expert in what you do, or perhaps have your business known as a well-run operation. Long before social media sites existed, this was accomplished through PR, speaking engagements, and the like. Being quoted in a newspaper or trade magazine is still valuable, but now there are many more outlets.
    
   Being referenced or quoted on a popular blog can have just as much impact. Speaking at a luncheon or major conference are, again, still valuable. But now you may be able to get recognized as an expert without leaving your desk. It is a much more “democratic” environment. In fact it some cases it IS a democratic environment. People with issues that they need help with post questions or challenges and others in the network chime in with suggestions. In the end, the requester, and the community at large, can rate the value of the answers provided by the array of experts who gave recommendations.
    
   Asking and answering questions is quite a “mature” dynamic on LinkedIn in particular. If you are not familiar, check out the Answers Section of their site.
    
3. Allow your “fans” to follow your company or products
   This is a bit more delicate. My guidance is to, AGAIN, recognize that social media is just a MASSIVELY convenient way to communicate, but people haven’t changed a bit. If you wouldn’t go passing around coupons at your next dinner party, or tooting your own horn at a chamber of commerce luncheon, then don’t do the same on Facebook! But you ARE missing an opportunity to make it convenient for the people (customers, partners, suppliers) who really want to or need to stay tuned-in to what you are doing if you refuse to participate.

There is a famous saying from Zig Ziglar that goes something like:

You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.

Keep this philosophy in mind with your use of social media sites, and you can’t lose!  Not sure which site(s) might be best for you?  Comment below with your questions or thoughts.  I would be happy to help you think through your options.  Think this posting would be helpful to others you know?  Use the “Share” button below to use (guess what) just about any of the social media sites to share this information.

I think that is a good thing. Marketing expenses ought to be under constant scrutiny. But be careful. Each of your marketing activities (and you already have more underway than you think) is either bringing you business, or has the potential to. Do you know which marketing activities are your lifeblood? Do you know which ones are a complete waste of time and money?

When trimming back on your marketing expenditures, be sure not to bite the hand that feeds you!  How can you avoid that?  Here are a few tips:

Six Simple Words
“How did you hear about us?” Resolution number one for 2009 ought to be working this question into every conversation you have with a new prospect, every form you have a new client fill out, the web form you present to someone signing up for your newsletter, and anyplace else you have the opportunity.

If you are going to defer that newspaper ad campaign, hold off on that web site facelift you were planning, or think twice about sending out another direct mail piece, how do you plan to arrive at that decision? Can you predict how much business you will forego by canceling that effort?

Good for you for insisting that your marketing dollars work hard for you. No expenses should be automatic. If it doesn’t bring you a sufficient return, cancel it. Sounds simple, right? Well it can be. Step one is to be informed about what expenses and activities are bringing you business today. “How did you hear about us?” and a spreadsheet, paper log, accounting system, or even system of jars with beans in them will take you a long way.

In This Hand…
You say you’ve been tracking the sources of your business for a long time now — excellent! So you know which marketing efforts aren’t worth it, which ones have earned the right to more $ or effort, and maybe even have some ideas for new marketing tactics that will work for you. Right?

Well, you’re probably part of the way there. Calculating the amount of business that specific marketing activities generate for you can be tricky. Have you tracked the lifetime profit that each new customer provides? Have you accounted for the referrals that those new customers have sent your way? You may have run a series of newspaper ads 5 years ago that seemed like a complete failure — only 2 new clients. But are they now your best clients who have also brought you other business? Or were they bargain hunters that took advantage of a sale and disappeared?

The answer to what is working and isn’t working for you is burried in the data you have (or could be collecting). The answer to why something is working or isn’t working is more complex (and one of the things my clients hire me to figure out).

For now, ask the question “how did you hear about us” and begin tracking the answers to get smarter about picking which hands to bite.