Clayton Makepeace has released the latest issue of ‘Total Package’. The featured article by Troy White is titled “Business Content Strategies For Marketing in a Recession”. [Article]


Clayton Makepeace has released the latest issue of ‘Total Package’.

The featured article:

Business Content Strategies For Marketing in a Recession

by Troy Whit

Fellow Business-Builder,

You’ve probably heard the McGraw-Hill Research results by now.

If not, here is a recap:

600 companies in 16 different industries were studied. It lasted over a five year span, and included one recession during the study.

The conclusion? Companies that maintained or increased their marketing budgets during the five year span grew by 256% more than those who didn’t. Those who cut back on their marketing and advertising during the same period of time only grew by 19%.

I know which growth number you and I would prefer … but how and what can we do to get those numbers?

First, a few things that must be understood:
As mentioned above, companies who cut back on marketing during the coming months and years will suffer.
Companies who are not aggressively going after new leads and new customers will barely survive the mess we are in right now.
Companies who follow the direct marketing strategies shared on The Total Package blog will trump those who follow traditional, non-direct marketing models.
If you increase your marketing right now, you will capture a much larger share of the marketplace you play in.
If you look at your direct marketing costs as an investment, you will experience much greater returns on your money.
The initiatives that will pay off will take either your time or your money. If you have the money, you can decrease the amount of time it takes to get results. If you have more time than money ““ you will still get results ““ it just takes up more sweat equity to get those same results.
Content is king in a pitch-fest world
Who else is sick and tired of pitch after pitch?

E-zines.

Blogs.

Twitter feeds.

Websites.

And on, and on, and on.

The actual product launches are great examples of marketing, but the sheer volume of them in the Internet marketing space is deafening.

Same with Twitter, which I am still working on (up to 1,700 followers now, still trying to figure out where it fits and doesn’t). Now that everyone is starting to use the same formulas to grow their Twitter followers, it is a very busy world on Twitter, everyone pitching their wares, with little real content.

So, what can you do?
Start thinking like your actual customers would be a great start!

Do you like being pitched at 24/7?

Of course not.

Something useful would be a nice change, wouldn’t it?

Or something entertaining added into the mix?

Think through what you could be giving them that would help them, hook them, get them more involved with you and your business, or keep them coming back for more.

You could try:

A simple four-page print newsletter instead of always using e-mail.

Create an e-book of your best blog posts or articles, and give it away to your existing leads, and/or use it to generate new leads.

Turn your e-book into a physical book. Self-publishing tools like lulu.com make it extremely easy to do small-run printing of your books.

Interview your own people. Get insider information from your customer-service people, your engineers or technical people. Talk to the sales people and the marketers. Find out three interesting things from each of them about their perspective on your business and products and share it with your contacts.

Test putting together an autoresponder series that educates your clients on how to use your products and services. You could have one series for new users. One for intermediates. And one for advanced. As soon as they finish one level, offer them the next.

Implement some form of membership program into your business. I worked with a massage therapist in the past and we changed his entire business model from one-off purchases to a membership-only model. From a $45 massage, to a $900 membership. Or what about The Lobster Guys who I have written extensively about through this blog. They went from selling $5 lobsters on the docks (with every other fisherman), to selling $3,000 memberships (and making a fortune along the way).

Become a problem publisher. Share the fact that you are not invincible (like so many of the gurus out there pretend to be). Show them the challenges you faced, and what exactly you did to overcome them. Show the problems your customers faced, and how your products helped them overcome them. Be real. Be human. And admit you have flaws. Everyone loves a real person … and detests the fake snake oil salesmen.

Do a teleseminar series with experts in your field. Get four or five experts together and host an educational series your prospects and clients would want to be a part of. Side benefit: You have a product afterwards you can sell or use in lead generation.

Be unusual and outrageous in your marketing. Take California Tortilla for example. They have a fabulous newsletter (CalTort Taco Talk – http://www.californiatortilla.com/taco-talk.html) that is exceptional. They are personal. They come up with funny contests and sayings (like their Pop Tarts a Go-Go Day, or their Wall of Flame that talks about their “Ass in the Tub,” “Ass in Space,” and the ever-popular “Ass in Antarctica,” hot sauces). I WISH there were more restaurants doing this … actually, anyone could be having more fun with this type of approach … including me (a writer-downer for myself).

Create a top 10 list or a buyer’s guide to help them in their decision making process. Show them the proper way to decide on their purchase. With real content, little sales talk, and lots of personality.

Be the first in your field to bring out a Tales-From-The-Toilet (or something like that) publication. This could be a monthly or weekly publication that comes out that shares wacky stories from around the world, and then relate those stories back to your field. Give them a laugh. Break up their day. And keep them coming back for more.

Bring out a regular book, movie, or website review. Anyone in the marketing field needs to be an avid reader and researcher … so share some of your findings! Tell them what you are reading, and what you thought. Or tell them about the movie you just saw with your kids. Or the awful experience you had last week at the mall when trying to buy clothes. The opportunities are endless, all it takes is some initiative.

Break the damn rules.

Just because someone, somewhere said this is “best practice” doesn’t mean it applies 100% of the time, across 100% of the industries. For every one person seeing success with “the rules” there are just as many, or more, seeing bigger and better numbers by breaking the rules.

Take the Internet marketing crowd.

All the rules that are hyped up as unbreakable … are being broken day in and day out.

And companies are making a huge profit by doing so.

Lots of highly successful businesses don’t use 36-page magalogs, but still make a fortune.

Pay-per-click advertising is used in some business models with great success, other businesses use 100% offline marketing with just as much, or greater success to show.

Long copy vs. Short ““ both can and do work.

E-mail subject lines do NOT have to be short (contrary to what many people say).

Kimberly-Clark tested long vs. short e-mail subject lines and saw 64% greater numbers with long, long subject lines (done across multiple tests … with similar results in all).

The ONLY way to know what will work in your business and what will get you the results is to try new things.

Keep doing the same old things IF they are working.

But, if your old marketing tools are no longer working in the recession … put them back on the shelf for now!

Bring out some new ones and break more than a few rules to see what works.

Or in the offline world.

Are you still using Yellow Page ads? Is it still working? I met with a person last week who was spending $2,000 per month on Yellow Page ads and is barely seeing a return on them. Why keep doing them? Because that’s the way it’s always been done!

Wrong.

Just because it worked in the past decade, doesn’t mean it will work in this next decade (or year).

There is a Boston dentist who dropped her Yellow Page ads and put all of her focus on delivering website content, blog posts, and information products that target the right clients.

Her practice grew 10-fold in two years.

What about newspapers, trade mags, or community papers?

They are hurting bad right now, and are eager for your business. THEY are no longer in the driver’s seat, you are.

So get aggressive with the negotiations and see what they are willing to do for you.

Get better rates.

Get editorial content mixed in.

Get placement closer to the front, exactly where you want it. Without advertisers, they are toast.

So always remember who is in the driver’s seat … and use it to your advantage.

What about YOU?
Do you have anything you are doing differently right now that IS working? Would you be willing to share?

We are all in the same boat here … how we deal with it is what makes the difference. Some people are cutting back … and they will barely survive the coming year. Others are aggressively trying new things to see what works … and those are the ones who will thrive in troubling times.

The choice is yours.

If you do have some strategies working for you, why not share them here and help out your fellow marketers?

Thanks again.

To your success,

Troy White

Editor, Small Business Mastery

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Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

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*IMNewsWatch would like to thank Clayton Makepeace for granting permission to reprint this article.