John Hunt, the creator of the “Do-It Yourself Marketing Handbook System” released the following review of the New Marketing Plan & Calendar Creation tool.
Check it out and sign up below for your $1, 21-day, no-obligation trial of Fast Marketing Plan.
Please take a look at John’s great Do-It Yourself Marketing Handbook System by clicking this link Now. I highly recommend John’s system, it’s the perfect way to get your marketing on track and into high gear fast.
Entrepreneur’s Toolbox to Help You to Market Your Business (While Cutting Costs and Increasing Efficiencies)
An “Entrepreneur’s Toolbox” includes things that must be within the prospective entrepreneur’s very person but also; external tools.
First, let’s cover what you – the prospective entrepreneur – must have within yourself, in order to have a productive future.
First-and-foremost, “vision” is an absolute must.
The most successful visionaries normally have a very big picture of where it is that they want to be. (It is easier to scale back to a more practical – and smaller – overall vision than it is to open your mind to a larger vision; once you have set your mind to something small and simple).
Secondly, you must possess plenty of “Self-Trust”.
Many speak of “innovation” as part of the ideal entrepreneur’s mind. Well, without belief in your ideas and the inner trust in yourself that what you wish to provide is needed in the world, your ability to innovate means nothing!
And, last (certainly not least) an entrepreneur must have a bit of “Intuition”. And, despite some of the ideas that the term ‘intuition’ may bring to mind, the sort of intuition that I am referring to is simply: “Knowing something without knowing how you know it”.
And, while it seems to be an in-borne quality, intuition can be developed.
The purpose of this article is to show you the external tools that can develop your intuition – as well as your vision and self-trust – to its fullest potential; in order to cut your costs and to increase your overall efficiency!
A proper business and marketing plan, devised by an outside, expert source; can help you to avoid the mistakes that many make. (Passion and drive are great qualities but, sometimes they get in the way of the bottom line!).
When it comes to your marketing, it is important to be aggressive but also, to be sure that you aren’t aggressive to the point that you trap yourself into one course of action.
Also, you don’t want to ‘burn yourself out at both ends’. So, a well-tuned Marketing Plan is absolutely crucial. To go along with that marketing plan, it is positively a must to possess a detailed, easy-to-use Marketing Calendar.
As covered in one of our other informational articles, a marketing calendar can also help you to be sure that personnel staffing, budgeting and foresight are already taken care of; with little work coming from you! Therefore, you save money, can dedicate your time to more constructive things than worrying and, have that overall satisfying feeling of stability.
A Budget Plan is very important, alone. And, while it is fine-tuned and worked-around (as well as made to be flexible) within your marketing plan (and calendar), having a realistic, organized and easy-to-monitor budget plan is an absolute must. And, just like your other external tools, a budget that is designed for your particular business and reviewed by objective experts increases the odds of your business being a success.
Just like your Marketing Plan, your overall Business Plan should contain “what if” strategies.
No matter your foresight or intuition, you can never be completely certain what emergencies may come up; nor, can you always correctly predict what you competition is going to do.
Put simply, our Business and Marketing Plans must be very flexible and objective. Being “fixed” in your planning can lead you to failure; in fact, it normally does, for most!
A Strategic Investment Plan is something that you must have ready when beginning your career as an entrepreneur.
While you may know exactly what you wish to invest in and when, just like the tools covered above, you must have plenty of flexibility in terms of your investment planning.
What your competitors do, things that happen in the economy and possible failures of past marketing are all things that may play into your needing a flexible and objective strategic investment plan. And, a common mistake that many make is grouping their investment plan in with their budget plan. When you put some thought into those two things, it becomes apparent that they need to be separate; or else you wind up with too many important factors compartmentalized into one category!
Also, depending on your business, you may be thinking more locally than Globally. Well, the right Marketing Company takes things like this into account from the very start. If you consider yourself as an aspiring entrepreneur (or if you are already an entrepreneur looking to increase his success) we have plenty of essential and proven tools that can help you along your way!
“No Battle Plan Survives First Contact with the Enemy”
Many of us view our businesses and their plans as ongoing wars with competitors. We tend to see every facet of our plans and actions as battle-like comparisons with those of our adversaries.
After all, things like our marketing plans, advertising efforts, marketing calendars, logos and branding – even our products, services and ideas, themselves – are our weapons. And, collectively, we are always trying our best to make sure that our weapons and stratagem are bigger, better and stronger than those of our ‘enemies’.
The title of this article was actually a quote of the infamous Napoleon the Great. And, while you may be saying to yourself, “But, Napoleon lost”, your statement is missing one ever-important word – ‘eventually‘.
Napoleon had plenty of victorious battles – many of which he was predicted to lose – and, regardless of what you think of the “Pint-Sized General”, the quote -and philosophy behind it – are a great start, as far as the way one should look at their business’s plan and, how it relates to that ongoing war with the competition.
In regard to business, no marketing plan should be set in concrete! No matter how effective your plan may be, chances are, it will have to be altered at a given time; due to what your competitor(s) is doing.
We have all been in a situation in which, we feel heavy frustration from the fact that we have to change the plan - that we once considered our ‘baby’ – in order to counter what it was that another company was coming to battle with.
Even the actions of your clients, future clients or suppliers can take you by surprise – to the point of startling you – and force you to change the way in which you had set out to do things. In other words, you must be ready for anything. You must have flexibility. You must expect the unexpected!
Now, don’t feel as if you have to be a psychic. Don’t feel overwhelmed at the thought of needing a business and marketing plan so flexible that it takes away from the overall aim and goals that made you ‘hungry‘ to run your particular business in the first place!
There is an easy way to be sure that you can continue to have success in the future – if you just start off with flexibility in mind! The best way to do so is to have a marketing plan that is flexible and built to adjust itself when the time comes to do so.
At Fast Marketing Plan, our goal is to provide our clients with marketing plans that are easy-to- create, easy-to- follow, success-driven and (perhaps, most importantly) flexible. Because without flexibility, a business owner may find himself trapped and on the verge of giving up on everything that he had set out to do. Well, no person or business entity should have the power to put you into that mindset and, with a flexible marketing tool as a weapon; they won’t be able to!
When going to war, you must be sure that you have a pre-planned counter-attack for anything that may take you by surprise. Just having that knowledge may put you ahead of a good percentage of those that you are competing with.
More importantly, however, is being sure that your counter-weapon is more powerful than that of your enemies’ and, that you have another weapon or plan of attack to follow-up with; allowing you continue your march to success without any interference.
In any case, don’t be trapped by a stationary, unchangeable plan of attack. Do not allow yourself to be left with your shields down, while busy doing other things; allowing your empire to be taken down. Have the proper fortifications in place to protect what you worked so hard to build.
And, know that the first (and likely the most crucial) defense for the upcoming battles that you will face is a flexible, defensive-to-offensive marketing plan!
That’s exactly why all your marketing efforts should have some type of expiration date.
A limited offer will “out-pull” and “out-sell” an open-ended offer almost every time.
When you do test a “limited offer,” you will need to explain to your client/prospect why you are making your offer “limited.” For example: “Quantities are limited. We only have 132 units in stock and the man¬ufacture is back ordered.” Or “Call today. We have sold 3 in the last two days, and we only have 7 units left.” Or “We made a special purchase and can’t offer this price again.”
People will want to know why what you are offering is limited, or they will not believe that there truly is a limitation. You need to give them this information.
“Givers have to set limits because takers rarely do.”
- Irma Kurtz
It is also very important to keep in mind that if you are mailing a limited offer you have to allow time for it to arrive. Bulk rate mailings can be delayed by bad weather. They also travel primarily by railroad and there are many factors that can cause a delay in delivery.
Sometimes it just makes more sense to mail an offer via First Class Mail – especially if the offer is time sensitive.
Keep in mind that nothing is forever, everything has a limit and you can use those limits to your selling advantage.
When your offer is known to be limited, it will force people to respond or lose the opportunity. Limits force a decision and that is the ultimate goal of any marketing effort. What kind of limit will you set for your next offer?
How happy are you with the quantity and quality of the contacts you receive from your Web site?
Many businesses complain that their Web sites do not generate enough contacts and sales leads to justify the cost. They want a better ROI for their Web sites.
We were also getting very frustrated because our Web site was generating very little e-mail and/or phone contact information. After testing a few different web design ideas, and finally decided to insert a bright, attractive, attention getting box on each web page.
This box contained our phone number and e-mail contact information.
As a result of this change, we started to receive many more calls and e-mail leads. This simple change made it very easy for anyone to contact us, and made those who did contact us feel more secure and willing to give us their business.
How can you make your business more accessible and available to new prospects and clients to generated many new sales.
As you know form experience, people will leave your Web site if they have to put too much effort into navigating it, or if they run into trouble trying to figure out how to contact you.
When a future client needs more information from you and your contact page is buried somewhere deep in your site, then it may never be found. If this happens – and it does at many sites we all have visited – then the customer is gone, maybe forever. The sale is essentially lost. Don’t let this happen on your Web site.
What can you do to make it very simple for visitors to your Web site to find your contact information?
Have you run newspapers and magazines ads? Are there any articles that have been written about you, about your business, or about your products and services?
People may be impressed and respond when these articles and ads run the first time, but how many of them are ever seen again by the public?
Running an ad can be very expensive, so you may not be able to run an ad for an extended period of time.
Articles written about your business that get printed in the media have a short shelf life. When the current issue of a publication that contains the article about you or your business is taken off the shelf, people won’t be reading your positive press anymore.
Repurpose, reuse and republish your marketing
But you can re-use and re-purpose these items in other marketing efforts of your own.
When ads for your business (or positive articles about your business) are printed in a newspaper or magazine, have them copied or reprinted at a local “quick print” shop. You now have the ability to use these reprints in a lot of marketing projects. Here are some inexpensive ways to distribute your reprints:
Scan and e-mail your ads to clients and prospects.
Post your scans on your web site.
Mail reprinted materials along with statements and invoices.
Include reprints with your next direct mail effort.
Have some high school students put reprints on parked cars or on the “community posting boards” at the local library or college.
As you are making your reprints, be sure to add the caption, “as seen in (Publication Name),” under the actual ad or article. This caption will give your new marketing effort added credibility.
“The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.” - William Gibson
Your advertisements can also be enlarged and displayed at your place of business. This will remind patrons about the offers in your print ads. Your advertisements may only run once in print, but they can live forever. You can reuse them for years.
The same technique can be used to extend the life of any positive articles that are written about your busi¬ness in newspapers, journals, and magazines. Another great idea is to take these reprinted articles and distribute them to any of your clients and/or prospects who you feel might have missed seeing them in the original publication.
“This is like deja vu all over again.”
- Yogi Berra
If you want to re-use or re-print an article, you may have to get permission from the author or original publisher and pay a small fee. Remember that it’s priceless when someone who isn’t connected with your business, writes positive comments about you or your business in the media. You can use these comments forever.
It is wise to collect all the advertisements that you run, all the positive articles that are written, and all the testimonials that you receive from satisfied customers.
Put these materials into a binder, and use it as a brag book. Use the material regularly in your marketing efforts, to build credibility and help people feel more confident about making a decision to do business with you.
Do you have old advertisements or positive press articles lying around that could be reprinted and used in your future marketing efforts?
B2B businesses seem to have much smaller marketing budgets then B2C businesses.
If you are a B2B business looking for a few ways to stretch your marketing dollars, here are 5 to get you stretching.
5 Ways To Stretch Your Marketing Dollars
Use the ads you create in other way besides publication advertising. When you run your ad pay for reprints (they are very lows cost) and mail your reprints to clients and future clients. Also turn you ads into data sheets by printing feature data on the back of your reprints.
Don’t change a thing. If your ads are working, keep running them until they stop working. You’ll get bored with them long before your future clients.
Pay your suppliers on time. Taking advantage of discounts and avoiding costly late fee can save you a lot of money. Plus, you’ll build your reputation leading to referrals and better service from your suppliers.
Don’t get to fancy with your ads, brochures and marketing. Many times going overboard will turn off potential clients, especially in the industrial marketing. Concentrate on your headline and offer, they are far more important then the bells and whistles.
Do it yourself. The everyday marketing tactics such as distributing press releases, updating your marketing plans and meeting with media resources can all be done by your or and administrative assistant or even a virtual assistant for some of the repetitive tactics.
Bonus Tip:
Looking for low-cost ways to generate qualified sale leads. Try sending new product and service press releases to trade publications and journals. They need and welcome the content.
If you had to choose just one of these dollar-stretching ideas, which one would you do first?
By the way www.FastMarketingPlan.com is getting close to being completed. I’m shooting for a November 30 launch. So click on the link above and sign up for updates and you’ll be in the front of the line for a 30-day $1 trial where you’ll love building all the marketing plans you need, FAST and the best part, you’ll get reminders and help every Monday morning about your upcoming marketing tactics to kick into action
An “Entrepreneur’s Toolbox” includes things that must be within the prospective entrepreneur’s very person but also; external tools.
After all, things like our marketing plans, advertising efforts, marketing calendars, logos and branding – even our products, services and ideas, themselves – are our weapons. And, collectively, we are always trying our best to make sure that our weapons and stratagem are bigger, better and stronger than those of our ‘enemies’.
A limited offer will “out-pull” and “out-sell” an open-ended offer almost every time.
We were also getting very frustrated because our Web site was generating very little e-mail and/or phone contact information. After testing a few different web design ideas, and finally decided to insert a bright, attractive, attention getting box on each web page.
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