How to become a Better Business Marketer

It's a fact that business these days is more competitivethan it's ever been. To stay alive, you can't just offer aquality product at a fair price. You have to know how tomarket effectively. And as you know, marketing goes hand inhand with advertising.

Unfortunately, most business owners have no idea of how toget the most out of every marketing dollar they spend. Youshould demand that you get the best possible results fromevery dime you drop into marketing.

Does this seem too obvious? Look through your yellow pages.Pick them up right now and glance through them. Answer thisquestion: are most of the ads telling you what benefits youget if you become a customer? Or are the ads telling youabout the companies, where they are, how wonderful theyare, what they do, how great their quality is, how greattheir service is, and all about them?

Around 95% of the ads are totally focused on the businessand not on what the business can do for you, the prospect.Pay attention to advertisements in newspapers, on thetelevision, and on the radio. You'll find the same thinghappening in those places, consistently, every day. Thistype of selfish advertising falls into the terriblywasteful category of "institutional" advertising.

Institutional advertising produces, at best, deferredresults. At worst, institutional advertising isineffective, unproductive, and a wasteful expense thataccomplishes no profitable purpose whatsoever.

You know it's institutional advertising when it tells youhow great the company is, or how old and stable they are,or some other frilly, fancy, cutesy and othernon-compelling foolishness.

Your selfishness is what kills most of your marketing. Frombrochures to flyers, sales letters to advertisements, yourmarketing message should let your prospects know that youare concerned only with what they want.

Anything about you should always come last. Your customersshould always come first. All marketing materials youcreate should focus on what the prospects want and need.Every sentence should show that you understand their wantsand needs. Until your marketing efforts focus on theprospects first, your marketing is handicapped.

Determine who your market is. Ninety percent of thebusinesses out there never precisely determine who theirmarket is, and what the desires, needs, wants, and passionsof the prospects in that market are. This is a gravemistake.

The successful marketer can tell you precisely who he'smarketing to, and what they want in a product or service.He can tell you his best prospect's approximate age,location, education level, income level and other criticalinformation. You must know the who first, and then you canfocus on the why.

Why do your customers buy from you? What do your customerswant or need most in the products or services you offer?Remember, you need to focus on discovering what the "why"is so that you can focus your marketing efforts on showingyour prospects that you can meet the "why" in the mostsatisfactory fashion.

Think about it. How can you expect to adequately fillsomeone's needs if you never take the time to understandthem? It's simple, yet few companies ever bother to work atmeeting their customers' needs.

Companies that is successful with their marketingunderstand their customers' needs and attempt to satisfythose needs better than the competition.

If you want to own your market, find out what yourcustomers really want. Discover their desires. Search outtheir passions and needs. Once you have this information,you will be armed to corner your market.

Capture Your Customers & Prospects Names And Addresses.

Of all the terrible marketing mistakes made, I feel thatthis one has caused companies to lose the most money. I'mtalking about hundreds of thousands of dollars every month.Why a company would spend hundreds and thousands of dollarsto get a customer in the door and then let them walk outwithout getting their name and address and other vitalinformation from them is beyond me.

I can't understand it, but 90% of the businesses in Americadon't ever bother to keep track of their loyal customers,let alone any prospects. Your mailing list, or customerdatabase, is your biggest source of lifetime profits.

keep track of every customer and every prospect. Accordingto Fortune Magazine, it costs five times as much togenerate a new customer than to resell to an existingcustomer. Existing customers are almost as good as money inthe bank.

Your existing customers already know and trust you. Theybought from you and (hopefully) had a positive experiencewith you. They know you'll deliver on your promises,because you've done it before with energy and promptness.

All you need to do is develop a systematic way of keepingtrack of them, and then ask them to buy from you moreoften. By establishing a long term relationship with yourcustomers and prospects, you can maximize your businesssuccess. Especially if your products or services help solveyour customers' problems.