•10 Steps To Unleash Your Lead PR Machine
10 Steps To Unleash Your Lead PR Machine
Copyright 2005 John Jantsch
PR is a powerful small business marketing tool. By PR, I mean getting positive press mentions about your firm in local, trade and national publications.
The reason these mentions are so powerful is because they are seen to come from unbiased 3rd parties. So, they are more believable. People are conditioned to think your ad messages are just sales hype, but when they read about how great you are in the local business...
•7 Steps to Local Search Dominance
Right now, in every community in America, increasing numbers of people of all ages are turning to the world wide web to find products and services right there at home.
This trend, known generically as local search, presents a huge opportunity for small businesses who focus on winning in this arena. Below are 7 steps every local business should explore today in order to gain a competitive advantage in their local markets. (Someone in your market and industry will do this, why not you?)
1)...
•80% of All Advertising Is Wasted Due To This Common Mistake
80% of All Advertising Is Wasted Due To This Common Mistake
by: John Jantsch
You’re flipping through this publication as you wait for your latte, when suddenly you decide to stop and read an ad. What made you stop? I’ll bet it was an attention grabbing headline.
It is a scientifically proven fact that 5 times as many people read headlines as read the body copy of an ad. So with the headline, an advertiser has spent about 80% of their advertising dollar. It doesn’t take a genius to realize...
•Blogging For Business - Great Reasons For Every Business To Start A Weblog
Blogging For Business - Great Reasons For Every Business To Start A Weblog
by: John Jantsch
If Howard Dean’s failed political campaign accomplished anything, I would say that it brought to the mainstream the use of something called a weblog or “blog” as it known in cyberspace.
A blog is really nothing more than a diary uploaded to the Internet and until about the last 12 months was the realm of the individual who saw it as a way to publish there random (and sometimes disturbed) thoughts....
•Consistency Builds Trust
Consistency Builds Trust
by: John Jantsch
You know your prospects need what you sell. You know they want what you sell. Heck, you know that they even sent away for information on your service and requested a quote.
But the fact is you are missing one major piece of the puzzle.
Want to know what it is?
No matter what else you know, often, the missing piece is knowing when your hot little prospect will actually make a purchase.
People search for information and solutions in many different...
•Desperately Seeking the Truth
Desperately Seeking the Truth
by: John Jantsch
People today are bombarded by so much information that they have become numb to what feels like advertising or, during political cycles like we are in today, out and out fabrication.
Small business owners should resist the temptation to copy what passes for advertising today and focus on telling the truth. I don’t really mean to imply that companies are lying about what their product or service can do, I just mean that they aren’t giving us...
•Fire the CEO
Fire the CEO
by: John Jantsch
If you are the boss and you think your job is to run the business, you are dead wrong. Your job, the most important job in any business, is to market the business.
Peter Drucker, way back in 1956, said, "Since the purpose of a business is to find and keep a customer, then the only two things that matter are marketing and innovation...everything else is a cost."
I love it when I get a business card from a small business owner and the title on the card says...
•Google AdWords and AdSense - A Dynamic Small Business Marketing Duo
Google AdWords and AdSense - A Dynamic Small Business Marketing Duo
by: John Jantsch
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last year or so, you probably know that Google has become the king of the search engine hill. There are many reasons for this but number one in my opinion is that above all else they put value on content. Today I want to introduce you to two very powerful small business advertising options created by Google.
These two ingenious programs have all but...
•Have You Identified the Enemy?
Have You Identified the Enemy?
by: John Jantsch
One of the most powerful driving forces in human nature is competition. The desire to overcome something or some company, the need to win, the cause, can in many cases be more important than the day-to-day work of the company.
If your company and your people are to ever reach some level of greatness, you must identify and focus on beating something, on creating and communicating a reason for being.
If your reason for being is that you got...
•Have You Sold Your Internal Customers?
Have You Sold Your Internal Customers?
by: John Jantsch
You can make the sale. You know your core message. You know your target market inside out, right?
But if you have even one employee than you've got another sales job to do. Everyone in your organization must also be sold on the dream you have. Everyone who answers the phone, walks the sales floor, attends that Chamber event, or follow-up on a sales lead in your company’s name must be sold first.
Let’s start to think of your employees...
•How To Create A Complete Referral Marketing System
How To Create A Complete Referral Marketing System
by: John Jantsch
These steps are taken from the Referral Flood Marketing Program. Referral Flood is an insider’s shortcut to referral marketing and features over 4 hours of audio training, 54 real-world referral marketing systems, and a host of referral marketing tools, letters, postcards and forms.
Step #1 - Create a referral target market(s) – you must create a target list of companies and individuals who can be motivated to refer. This...
•How To Write A Killer Press Release
How To Write A Killer Press Release
by: John Jantsch
One of the primary tools still used by PR professionals to garner media coverage is the press release. Now understand the purpose of a press release is to grab the attention of an editor, not to offer a word for word story to a publication. Most professionals as well as small business owners misunderstand this concept and are therefore frustrated when they can't seem to make it work for them.
If you understand that the purpose of a press...
•Is Your Website Ready For Local Search Engine Traffic?
Is Your Website Ready For Local Search Engine Traffic?
by: John Jantsch
I suppose the real reason for a local small business to have a website at all is to provide information for the local market, generate leads from local shoppers. Up until now too many small businesses have created websites more like monuments to their company name. If someone knew the name of the company, they could probably find the website. That was good to a point but what about those people who just know they need...
•Lumpy Mail Gets Your Message Through
Lumpy Mail Gets Your Message Through
by: John Jantsch
When it comes to your gravy, lumps are bad. When it comes to getting your marketing message through the mail room, past the gate keepers, and onto your buyer’s desk, lumps are just the ticket. I love direct mail for small business marketing and I’m particularly fond of something I call “lumpy mail.” Lumpy mail is a direct mail piece or package with some dimension to it. A box is lumpy mail. A balloon arrangement, a kitten, a hoola hoop....
•Marketing - The Way To Make What You're Really Worth
Marketing - The Way To Make What You're Really Worth
by: John Jantsch
You only have so much time in a day right?
So wouldn't it make sense to focus as much of your time as possible on the things that produce the highest payoff.
I don't know about you but most small business owners are do-it-yourself types and get sucked into doing the littlest silly work faster than you can say "Oh look, the copier is jammed again."
If you want to achieve any of your goals and finally start making what you...
•Marketing Is a System, Not an Event
Marketing Is a System, Not an Event
by: John Jantsch
Small business marketers love the chase. Love the new fangled way to make the phone ring. They love to think of a marketing promotion as a single event. But it’s precisely this view of marketing that holds most small businesses back. They fall prey to the “marketing idea of the week” and never fully explore what it takes to create and build a completely functioning, consistently performing, marketing system.
In this article I am going to...
•Postcards Make It Rain Referrals
Postcards Make It Rain Referrals
by: John Jantsch
One of the simplest ways to expand your marketing efforts is through the consistent use of postcards. Create a list of narrowly targeted prospects and then hammer away at them with powerful marketing messages.
One of the most effective ways to get a prospect's attention is to talk to them about problems you know they are facing. Create a card that describes, in some detail a problem a client had...then of course describe the brilliant...
•Simple RSS Tricks
By now you've heard of the whole RSS thing and maybe you've even started using it in various ways to subscribe to blogs or offer your blog's content to others. Today I would like to take you on a little ride to show you how, without really knowing much of anything about RSS and how it works, you can do some very powerful and useful things to add, filter and republish content.
Tracking mentions of a certain product
Search technorati.com and other blog search engines for mentions
Tag each...
•The Single Most Powerful Small Business Marketing Tool On The Planet
The Single Most Powerful Small Business Marketing Tool On The Planet
by: John Jantsch
Let me get right to the point. The single most powerful small business marketing tool on the planet is a marketing plan. Now before you roll your eyes and run for the hills let me clear a few things up.
When I talk about a marketing plan I am not referring to those academic exercises found in college marketing books, or the templated mumbo jumbo found in business planning software. I will not be asking you...
•Triple Your Business In Three Ways
Triple Your Business In Three Ways
by: John Jantsch
There really are only 3 marketing functions...once you master them, the rest of the game is pretty simple.
Every small business owner wants more business. So what do they do. They focus all of their marketing attention one thing - advertising, lead generation, making the phone ring.
Oh sure, without a steady flow of new leads most businesses are sunk. But, it does no good to have a bunch of leads unless you can turn them into clients....
•What’s On Your Refrigerator?
What’s On Your Refrigerator? Copyright 2005 John Jantsch
A very well accepted practice in marketing goes something like this: Find out as much as you can about your very best clients, narrow your marketing focus and find more of the same.
I often start out the creation of a marketing plan for my clients with a thorough analysis of their current and past clients, with an eye out for common characteristics among their best clients. The thought is, if you can really identify traits that seem...
•Why Every Small Business Owner Needs Two Websites
Why Every Small Business Owner Needs Two Websites
by: John Jantsch
Every small business owner knows that they need a website, right? Well the truth is what they really need is at least two websites.
One website that is specific to their business, product, service, name, etc. and...
another site that is an educational site specific to the benefits of their service or product.
So JoesBaitShop.com tells all about the various lures and tackle you offer, even more about the charter trips, and...
•Worn Out Brochure Design Is Keeping Small Business Owners Down
Worn Out Brochure Design Is Keeping Small Business Owners Down
by: John Jantsch
I got another one of those calls the other day...Can you make me a brochure?" Many business owners have been sold on the notion that they need a tri-fold brochure or they are not in business. Forget it...everybody's got one and no one uses it.
Your potential clients need an education. They need to know how you are different. (The typical tri-fold brochure simply confirms that you are the same.)
Every small...
•You Slap My Back and I'll Slap Yours
You Slap My Back and I'll Slap Yours
by: John Jantsch
Want to know how to increase your marketing effectiveness 10 fold...overnight. Let someone else do it for you. Joint ventures, where another business markets your service or introduces you their clients, can help send your marketing to another level.
Every business, no matter what the industry, can locate businesses that market to the same target market and find ways to create joint ventures and cooperative marketing campaigns.
It's a...
•Your Actions Tell Your Clients How You Expect To Be Treated
Your Actions Tell Your Clients How You Expect To Be Treated
by: John Jantsch
There is a widely accepted principle of human behavior that goes something like this. "Your actions tell the world how you expect to be treated." Look all around you and you will find that the truth of this statement is as evident as the clothes you wear.
So, if you don't expect to be successful, you're telling the world you probably don't think you have what it takes to succeed, if you don't expect to get the...
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