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Marketing Tips for Entrepreneurs Part III

Posted on October 19, 2022December 19, 2022 by Amanda Bedell

Here we are! The last in my series of marketing tips for entrepreneurs!

If you haven’t read through the last two blogs, grab those takeaways here Marketing Tips for Entrepreneurs Part I and here Marketing Tips for Entrepreneurs Part II.

Now, the most important piece is this: of all these tips, what is ONE thing you can use to grow your client base this week? Send me a note of what you decide on so I can keep you accountable.

Create a Great Marketing Plan

A great marketing plan doesn’t need to be complicated. I understand marketing can be elusive and a little intimidating. But, I promise that you don’t need fancy technology or an all-in-one solutions…. You can start simple and you can start manual.

Pick up a regular paper calendar. Decide how many days per week you want content to be posted. Remember, you can start small! There’s no need to create content every day of the week or send out multiple emails. Maybe it’s simply dedicating 1 hour a week to social media, posting twice a week, and an email one time a month.

Once you know what content you want to begin with, simply take that calendar and color code days of the week. Each color represents a pillar from your content pillars document. (If you haven’t received my content pillars template, email me and I’ll send it to you, for free!).

Remember starting small is OK; you can always build on your marketing plan when you get into the habit of consistently creating content for your business. Fine-tune and refine your marketing plan based on your data and feedback.

Make Sure Your Marketing Fits Your Branding

There’s nothing worse than hiring a marketing company for your mountain-town vacation rental for them to post a picture of a couple walking along a beach! Ensure your social media, newsletter, lead magnets, and blog content have the same look and feel. The voice and style should make your brand recognizable among all your platforms. And, you’ll want to ensure your marketing and advertising fit your company image, products, services, and quality.

Review Your Current Marketing Plan

Remember the 80/20 rule? For business, the principle states that 20% of what you do is generating 80% of your income (revenue). With this lens, review your current marketing plan. What is bringing in clients? What isn’t? Make a plan to improve on the things that are working and drop the ares that aren’t. You don’t want to be spending money on marketing that isn’t giving you a good ROI (return on investment).

Educate Your Clients and Leads with Value-Driven Content

People don’t buy because of your fancy logo or cute tag line. If your materials aren’t addressing the problem your prospect has that they don’t want and doesn’t provide a result that alleviates the pain they are in, the marketing simply won’t work. Rather than pushing your company name and bio out to prospects, consider develop all your ads, campaigns, and sales materials with attention to compelling and factual information that solves pain points for your readers. Don’t worry about giving away too much information – when you’re in service of your audience, the right customers will be attracted to you.

30 Ways to Effectively Market Your Business

Posted on December 4, 2021 by Amanda Bedell

A step-by-step guide to creating and executing a successful advertising campaign

Have you spent thousands of dollars on radio or Facebook ads and seen zero sales from the advertising spend? Maybe you’ve been burned by a marketing consultant that promises the world only to fail to deliver results… today, I want to lift the veil on how to create a successful advertising campaign.

To do that, first, we must understand why people buy products or services. Every purchase is an emotional response. People always buy a higher emotional state. They’re buying for one of three reasons

to solve a problem or stop pain
an experience that feels good
for certainty

To develop emotion and a call to action, the majority of successful professionals use a succession of information-based commercials. What we find is that information-based advertising is much more effective compared to usual brand-based advertisements.

Here, I want to share with you that the principles used to put together high-impact (and oftentimes, high-priced) ads can be adapted to fit your needs and offer you similar results.

Here are some ideas for creating and executing a successful advertising campaign:

Put together a short report that you’ll automatically send to prospects when they contact you. This should include a short description of your business and what you specialize in. Don’t forget to include case studies, samples, or other proof of your success.
Develop value-oriented “yellow page” like ads.
Consider newsletters as a way of educating and informing customers about your industry and the services offered.
Offer a free lecture or webinar to raise awareness of your business, but make sure the content is relevant to your target market and that the presenters are well-known in the field.
Buy an existing business, improve marketing and grow this new business faster than a “from scratch” business.
Always test different versions of your ads to determine which ones are the most effective.
Use direct mail marketing to grow your business.
Put together a database of previous customers and send them new information.
Offer incentives such as frequent purchasing benefits, loyalty programs, or referral programs.
Approach large firms who may need your services and negotiate a deal to be their exclusive expert in your field.
Offer a 24-hour information line with a regularly updated recorded message. Make this available to all current and prospective customers/clients.
Donate time or materials to local charities to show support in your area.
Offer public clinics for the general public to come along and discuss what they need that’s free and approachable.
Organize seminars your customers/clients can pay to attend by putting together a high-perception value package.
Approach local newspapers by offering to write a weekly column about your area of expertise. Don’t ask for a payment, just a byline, and bio.
Develop a weekend or other destination seminar for customers/clients, not only does this give you an action-packed weekend with the most important people, it gives them a tax-deductible business adventure.
Take a good seminar and turn it into written form as a home study, member site program, audio, or video program.
Approach large companies and offer to give seminars to their employees, investors, or management.
Be proactive with your marketing plan.
Trade for your marketing. Offer products or services instead of payment.
Be willing to bring in new clients, even if at an initial loss because it will likely pay off later.
Adjust your marketing budget to maximize the potential income from them for the following year, and try to postpone advertising costs for the following year to offset your expenses.
Make offers to target markets or target market businesses to pay them for referrals or shared databases.
Offer loaner products to replace equipment that’s being repaired or refurbished.
Give away something free to everyone who brings in a print version of your advertisement. This is a great way to see which ads are giving you the most bang for your buck.
Continually consider what new products/services you can offer to current customers/clients.
Develop a mail order division of your company.
Offer a proposition to your competitors to trade customers/clients you were both unsuccessful in selling to.
Use different marketing tactics as an excuse to attract new customers/clients with new offers and goodies.
Offer a “you-pick-a-price” program. This is especially good for products you just can’t seem to sell.

So now you have it: 30 ways to market to other professionals and businesses. Other great ways to get your name out there for little or no money are as follows:

Get engaged in your community-volunteer, donate to local events, etc.
Join your local Chamber of Commerce and attend networking and other activities throughout the year.
Join local, state, or regional professional associates for further networking opportunities.
Become a board member of a local organization.

Advertising should never be your only method of marketing strategy, there are numerous ways to get your name out there in a way that feels personal to potential customers/clients.

“Many companies have forgotten they sell to actual people. Humans care about the entire experience, not just the marketing or sales or service. To really win in the modern age, you must solve for humans.” – Dharmesh Shah, CTO & Co-founder of Hubspot.

If you’re not sure where you start with your marketing plan or how to reach out to your local community, competitors, customers/clients, and others who could influence your business in a highly positive way try our GUIDED TOUR to experience the tools and resources we have to boost your business to the next level and beyond.

This is how to Guarantee a rockin’ Q4

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Amanda Bedell

Hello fellow rockstars,

I’m jumping in to talk about why this is the perfect time to start the 90-day Jumpstart. Why on earth would you do a program in the middle of the summer as we’re exiting a pandemic?

It’s natural for some businesses to slow down during the summer — pandemic or not. After talking to businesses in a variety of industries, it was clear to us this is the optimal time to embark on the 90-day Jumpstart.

We have one goal: to make Q4, rockin’ for you!

This summer, get everything lined up:

Hone in on marketing messaging that directly speaks to your ideal customer and market position systems using the three marketing fundamentals and the marketing equation.
Attract employees and onboard them in a way that you can rely on them during your most valuable season
Create efficiencies and systems that enable you to take Q4 and run with it.
We are exiting a pandemic. Yes! We need you to take care of yourself right now. Get out, enjoy friends and family safely, take a vacation… but, I want to see you participating and working ON your business rather than do it. I have a vision of someone logging in from a beach. Wouldn’t that be so cool?

What is the structure of the 90-day Jumpstart?

The reason why the program is structured the way it is, comes from an experience I had in 2017 when I was a part of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses (10KSB) program. It’s kind of like an accelerated MBA where they pair you up with businesses that have at least $150,000 in revenue and four or more employees. To say this program was life-changing for me is an understatement. It was so awesome to be surrounded by entrepreneurs that had the same issues that I did. All of our businesses were in different stages and different industries but experiencing the same things. The camaraderie that developed was amazing.

I made my big life choice of leaving my bakery business based on a relationship that I had with someone in my 10KSB class. They asked me, “why was I hanging on so tight to the business when you have so much more to do?” My point in sharing that is that these deep relationships could stick with you for a lifetime.

As a business owner, I know that it can get really lonely, especially when you’re working day-to-day with managing employees and you — we all — need someone to listen to us, to help us see blind spots, and support us through challenging choices. That’s why 90-day Jumpstart is structured in a very intimate way where we have, at most, eight people in each cohort. So go ahead, click on the 90-day Jumpstart link and fill out the application if this at all interests you at all. The next step is you and I sitting down (virtually) and talking for 30 minutes about your business — and it’s free.

If the summer one doesn’t work for you, still fill out an application if this feels like a fit. We offer the program year-round and can stay in touch when the next cohort is available. There’s nothing more that I love than to hear about what you are doing. The passion fellow business owners have for their businesses, customers, and employees are so cool to me.

I look forward to speaking with you! Thank you for jumping in, considering the possibilities of upgrading your lifestyle by sustainably growing your business, and creating the life you want.

Let’s dig in!

5 Strategies You Will Master By Signing Up For The 90-day Jumpstart

Posted on June 15, 2021August 20, 2024 by Amanda Bedell

90-DAY JUMPSTART

Are you asking yourself, why aren’t more customers buying from me? You invested in social media or a shiny new website but aren’t seeing conversions? Learn why your marketing doesn’t work and, more importantly, how to fix it NOW.

WHAT: 90-day Jumpstart is a structured virtual program where you will learn, practice, and implement a number of strategies that begin to grow your business immediately. Best of all, you’ll continue to see these strategies pay off for years to come.

After taking this course, you will never again ask yourself what you need to do and how to do it to increase sales, increase cash flows, increase efficiencies, or how to grow and attract dedicated staff.

Past participants have experienced 2x, 5x and even 15x growth in the first year these strategies were put in place.

HOW: You might be asking yourself, how is this possible?! You’ve likely been trying to get more customers forever but nothing sticks and you feel like you’re on a hamster wheel creating content with little to no engagement. Or, you’re getting engagement but not seeing sales. At the base of the 90-day Jumpstart, you’ll learn these strategies:

Position your business in a league of its own
Attract your soul-mate customer or client
Attract and retain your ideal employees
Increase your number of transactions
Decrease your costs

WHO: Business owners in business a minimum of 2 years and generate $50,000 – $1.3M in revenue a year.

WHEN: The next cohort starts

Are you in? If it’s a hell yes! Fill out the application here >>

If you’d like to see more information, learn more here >>