These questions are critical to the success of any marketing program.

You can have the very best product or service on the planet. You can have the most attractive offer, the lowest prices, lots of bonuses, personal attention, and the best service available.

But if you offer this wonderful package to the wrong market, you’re sure to fail. On the other hand, what if your package… your total offer, isn’t that good?

Let’s say it’s just average. Let’s also assume that your prices are not the lowest, but they’re at least in the ballpark. You’ve really got nothing special that the rest of your competition can’t offer.

But you have a great list to market to. Well-qualified, highly motivated prospects with the authority and the ability (money) to buy.

With that kind of market you just about can’t lose. Targeting your marketing efforts to the right people can make or break your entire advertising or marketing campaign. And if you’re a small business, you can’t afford to have that happen too many times. It’ll drive you right out of business!

One of the best ways to make sure you’re marketing to the right group is to go back over your records and create a list of your current and past customers and clients. You know the people in this group are the right people to market to, because they’ve purchased from you before.

Everyone who inquires about your products or services, or who makes a purchase from you should go on a list.

You should capture, at the very least, their name, address, phone number, date of purchase, what they bought, and how much they spent. If you’re using the internet, you should also try to capture their email address.

Radio Shack is one of the best at doing this. Even if you just buy a 79-cent battery, the clerk gets or updates your mailing information. The next thing you know, you’re getting all kinds of mailers, promotions and ads in the mail. It’s been a very important and successful part of their marketing program for years.

If you’ll do the same thing… get contact information from all your customers, the next time you want to make a special offer or run a certain promotion, you’ll have a very targeted list of people who have used your products or services in the past, or who have at least inquired about them.

And remember, all things being equal, people would rather do business with people (or businesses) they know, they like, and they trust.

Another thing you can do is send a Customer Questionnaire, link below, to all your existing customers asking for information that can help you determine who buys, what they buy, and why they bought from you.

By analyzing the characteristics of the people on this list, you can then develop a demographic model of other people who would be likely candidates for the kinds of things you offer.

Since you’re not marketing to the general public, very specific offers can be made to these target markets.

Not only will your hard marketing costs be considerably less, your response rates will be significantly higher. You can spend a lot of needless time and money marketing to the wrong market.

If, for instance, you advertise that you have the lowest prices, you’ll undoubtedly attract people who are price shoppers. That’s not altogether bad, but if you’re looking for long-time relationships with your customers, low price shoppers may not be the best market for you to attract. You can send out a questionnaire or better yet call your customers and ask them to visit your website where you have placed a questionnaire for them to fill out. The questionnaire is a great way to stay in touch with your customers.

Customer Questionnaire

As soon as a competitor advertises a lower price, or gives a little more away for the same price you’re charging, your customer is likely to bid you adios.

Long-term relationships presuppose loyalty. Loyalty from both the customer, and loyalty from the business.

If, as a business, you provide exceptional and continuing value to your customers, they, in turn, will continue to buy from you as long as the need exists.

By identifying the kinds of customers you wish to acquire, and then targeting those kinds of prospects, your customer acquisition costs will be reduced, and your customer retention percentages will soar.

Now, here’s a bonus: If you run an ad or promotion in the paper, on your website, on the radio or TV, not only will your customers and prospects hear or see it, but so will your competition.

By advertising or promoting to your own customer list by direct mail or via email marketing, no one knows what you’re doing but the recipients. It’s “stealth” marketing at its best!

While this type of advertising can alert the market to the fact that a product exists, it does very little to create a desire in the minds of the buying public to own the product, or at least inquire for more information concerning the product.

A better, more effective and more cost-efficient form of advertising, is called “Direct-response” advertising.

The idea behind this type of promotion is to get the reader or viewer to take some specific action. Either make a call, pay a visit to where the product or service can be seen or purchased, or perhaps, to send in a reply mechanism.

Institutional or image advertising is fine if all you want to do is promote the image of your company, your products, or the services you offer.

But when you consider the fact that your client or prospect couldn’t care less about your company or the fact that you want to sell them something, it adds up to a big waste of your money… money that could be better utilized elsewhere.

It’s true that institutional or image advertising can help build “brand-awareness.” And that’s okay for large corporations that have multi-million dollar advertising budgets. But most small or medium size businesses simply cannot afford to spend their advertising dollars that way.

Most institutional advertising is not customer-focused. Instead, it promotes how great the company paying for the ad is. And since there is no call to action, at best, the results this kind of advertising produces are deferred results.

For the most part, people don’t care about how great your company is. They really care more about what a particular product or service can do for them.

They have their own wants and needs that they want to satisfy, and they will only buy what you are offering if you can show them how your product or service will satisfy those wants and needs.

That’s where direct-response advertising comes in.

This type of advertising shows the viewer or reader the advantages your product or service can provide her and let her know exactly what steps she must take to either get the product or service, or to get more information about it.

It’s designed to present enough information to give a compelling and immediate reason for the viewer to take some specific action. To send in a coupon, pick up the phone and call for an order or more information, or to stop by your place of business.

Direct-response marketing will bring in more response, more inquiries and more dollars than any other type of advertising or marketing.

And the results will be accountable, trackable and measurable. That is, you will be able to quantify exactly how many dollars you pay out for your marketing efforts, where your results come from and how many dollars you bring in as a result.

Direct-response advertising is simply the most effective type of marketing for most businesses, and effectively used, can bring immediate profits to your bottom line.

So it is with marketing. So many businesses have great ideas and plans, but they fail to take action. They’re waiting for “things to be right,” before they do anything. To some extent, that’s understandable.

Considering that most businesses… especially small businesses are tight for money, they want to make sure their advertising pieces are laid out just right, that the message is clear, that they’re getting the very best deal on advertising rates, and that the market conditions are favorable.

Make no mistake, all those things are important… very important. But it’s critical that we don’t get paralyzed into not taking action because of them.

Back when Apple Computer was first getting off the ground, articles were written about how they used the “Ready, Fire, Aim” approach.

That is, they got a product “Ready” (it wasn’t perfect), they “Fired” (got it out in the marketplace), then “Aimed” (listened to customer feed-back, then made modifications) and got it back out there again.

That is so different from the way many small or even mid-size businesses run their marketing campaigns today. They get an ad, a promotional letter, or campaign ready, then sit back and analyze it for months. Then they may or may not actually run it.

What holds them up? Why don’t they take a chance? Why not get the ad “out there” and see what happens?

That’s what Apple Computer did. Who knows? Maybe the ad or promotion will be successful, and maybe it won’t. But they’ll never know unless they test it to see.

Now, I’m not advocating wildly spending money and blindly running ads and promotions just to see it they’ll work or not. You certainly must put some thought into the market you want to target, the message you will send them, and the offer you make to them. This takes careful and calculated consideration. Google Adwords is a great place to spend money to do some targeted promotions. You can create landing pages and test various ads to see how each one p

But any business, even your business, can learn what exactly what Apple Computer found out: That the market will tell you if your product is right or wrong for them and whether or not your prices are too high.

And, they’ll tell you exactly what you need to do to make it saleable to them. Not only that, as a bonus, they’ll tell you exactly how much to charge for it.

How do they do that, you ask?

It’s simple:

When you run an ad or promotion, if a lot of people respond or take you up on your offer, it obviously worked. If the response was too great, it may mean that your offer was too good, or your prices too low.

On the other hand, if you get no or very few responses, then something is wrong.

1. Either you’re marketing to the wrong target.

2. The message you’re sending them is not clear.

3. The offer you have made them isn’t attractive enough for them to justify parting with their money. (Your prices are too high.)

But, if you just conceptualize the ad, design it, lay it out, and spend months on end analyzing it, you won’t learn a thing, except that your procrastination cost you a lot of unnecessary time and missed income.

Better to get the ad out in the marketplace and find out if it works or if it needs improvement. No need to second-guess. Let your market evaluate it for you and tell you what corrections you need to make.

But do it carefully… by testing as we discussed earlier. Once you find that it works, take massive action. Roll your ad or mailing campaign out and let it bring you the profits you’ve worked so hard to earn. Utilize google adwords for campaigns. Adwords are cost effective and a great way to measure and test ads/promotions.

It’s important not to get blinded by how well you think your marketing efforts will pay off. Even with all the necessary research in place, nothing is certain. The real key is how the market responds to your efforts and offers.

Before you invest any significant amounts of time, money or effort in any marketing or promotional effort, it would be wise to test the effectiveness of your campaign. That way, if it doesn’t work the way you thought it would or should, you haven’t wasted unnecessary resources.

Here are a couple of examples to illustrate this point:

Let’s say that you want to do a direct mail campaign to 20,000 homes in a certain radius around your business. So, you rent the list of homeowners, print up the pieces, have someone stuff the envelopes, affix the postage and haul them down to the post office. Then you sit back and wait for the calls or orders to come in.

But after a couple of weeks, you look at your results and find that you have only received 19 responses. You quickly take out your calculator and figure up that you just pulled a whopping .00095 percent!

Doesn’t sound like a very good return on your investment, does it? Well, it’s not. But, sadly, that’s the way most businesses operate.

But now, let’s suppose that instead of all 20,000 pieces being identical, and mailed at the same time, you decided to only mail to 5,000 the first time. And, let’s say you came up with five different approaches or ideas.

Now you go to the printer, have 1,000 of each idea printed, and get them in the mail. After a couple of weeks, by monitoring the results, you notice that idea number three had the best response… 12 orders, or, .012 percent.

Not a great response, but far better than all the other letters combined. And, you’ve not only not spent a ton of money on your marketing campaign, but you haven’t tipped your hand to all your prospects with an ad that doesn’t work.

Now, let’s go back to the drawing board and fine-tune the letter that pulled the best response. Make the headline more attention-getting, the benefits the reader will gain more appealing, and the offer more attractive. Then, send it out to another 1,000 names.

This time, your letter pulls 47 responses. That’s a 4.7 percent response! Not bad in anyone’s book. And, you’ve only used 6,000 of your original 20,000 names. You still have 14,000 left.

You now have a “control” letter. By tweaking the letter again, you may find that it pulls even better. If it does, then this letter becomes the “control.”

Just because you rented 20,000 names, doesn’t mean you have to mail the same piece to all of them at the same time. That’s what most businesses do, and it’s why so many of them have given up on direct mail.

Once you have a letter that is pulling well, keep mailing is short runs, always trying to beat your control letter.

Do you see what has just happened? By monitoring the results and by testing your mailing you were able to turn a complete flop of a promotion into a huge success.

Your testing is never complete. Just because you’ve run a couple of different tests, doesn’t mean you stop testing. You should always be testing something different to see if you can beat your control.

For instance, suppose you’re doing a direct mailing to residences and want to know whether you should use an envelope with teaser copy, or a plain white envelope. The answer can be found by testing. Here’s one way you might do it:

Split your addresses into two groups; Group A and Group B. These can be arranged by zip codes.

Group A will consist of addresses in certain zips and Group B will have addresses in different zips.

Group A will have teaser copy on the envelope, and Group B will be in plain white envelopes.

It’s important that the contents of all envelopes be exactly the same. If the test is going to be accurately measured, you can only have one variable, and that variable in this case, is the different envelopes.

Now, when your responses or orders come in, simply keep track of the zip codes they came from and you’ll know very quickly which envelope pulls the best. (This is assuming, of course, that the various zip codes consist of similar demographics.)

Once you’ve determined which delivery system is best, you can go on and test other components of your mailer.

Some things that are worthy of testing are…

• Headlines
• Subheads
• Super-heads (or pre-heads)
• Body copy
• Bullet points or statements
• The offer
• Price
• Guarantee
• Return policy
• Whether or not to use graphics
• Which graphics pull best
• Drawings
• Objects
• Pictures of products
• Pictures of people
• Charts and tables, etc.

If your marketing can’t be segregated by zip codes, you can use specially coded coupons or response cards. Use different codes for different variables that you’re testing.

Or, you might use different telephone numbers or send them to landing pages within your website. Some businesses have the respondent ask for a specific person or department.

For instance, if they ask for “Susan,” you know they’re responding to one particular offer, and if they ask for “Heather,” they’re inquiring about the same offer but with a different variable being tested.

Such persons don’t really have to exist; you just use the names as codes to measure the responses.

When the phone is answered and the caller asks for “Susan,” you simply say, “I’m sorry, Susan is not available right now. May I help you?”

You told the truth. Susan isn’t available. And, you’re able to help them. What’s more, you’ve identified which offer the caller is responding to.

Testing is such an important part of any successful marketing effort that nothing should be rolled out in large amounts without first testing.

Just using this simple strategy can help you maximize your returns, minimize your costs in time, money and effort, and add significantly to your bottom line.

Whatever you do, don’t fall in love with your project so much that you can’t be objective. And don’t spend too much time trying to analyze and figure out why a particular thing works and why another doesn’t.

It really doesn’t matter why. What matters is what. Put small test runs out into the marketplace and let your customers tell you what works and what doesn’t.

The link below is a chart that can help you keep track of the variables you’re testing. In the first column, you write the item that’s being tested. (Envelope, headline, offer, etc.)
Description of Ad and Item Tested worksheet
In the second column, the “Key Code,” you place the method you’re using to identify which offer the respondent is responding to. (A person’s name, department number, color of the flyer, picture on a postcard, etc.)

The third column, “Cost of Ad,” is where you write how much the ad costs to run. Or, if you’re using direct mail, you’ll insert the total cost of the mailing, including printing, envelopes, stuffing, postage, etc.

Any promotion worth putting your time, money and effort behind, is worth measuring how well it performs. Only by knowing what kinds of results a certain marketing effort produces, can you determine whether or not to run it again, or what you may need to do to change or tweak it in order to make it more effective.

It’s absolutely amazing how many business owners don’t understand this simple concept. They’ll let the salesperson from Yellow Pages, radio, TV, Newspaper, etc. sell them an ad and have their department layout the ad, then let the ad run with no way of knowing whether or not a prospect called or a customer was obtained as a result of that ad. The majority of businesses forget to put the website on these ads. The power of tracking is available with web stats from your website.

These type of ads has no “accountability” or “measurability.” So, next year, the same ad gets run, the same results are had, and the business owner continues to complain about how poor business is.

And the same thing happens with his or her newspaper ads, magazine ads, direct mail campaigns, Val-Pak marketing and every other type of marketing they do.

As an astute business person, you should never even consider running an ad or executing a mailing campaign or promotion without having some type of response mechanism to measure the results.

You wouldn’t think of ordering and paying for a product… any kind of product, and then not checking to see if you received it.

Yet, many business owners will run ads in their local radio, local TV, newspaper, magazines, Money Mailer, or Val-Pak, or send out a mailing and never even bother to see what kind of results the ad produced.

I know it’s crazy. But it happens every day. And millions of dollars are wasted because of it.

Some people even go so far as to say, “Well, my advertising isn’t to bring in customers right away. Its purpose is to keep our name in front of our prospects and create ‘top-of-mind-awareness’ so when they’re ready, they’ll remember me.”

Well, top of mind awareness is important. There’s no question about that. But you can’t afford to operate your business on “deferred results.”

Each of your ads and mailings must have a definite, targeted purpose. And each ad must be measured to see that it, in fact, does accomplish that purpose. We’ll talk more about this in a later section.

But for now, here’s a simple 4-step system you can set up to measure the results of each and every advertising or promotion campaign you run:

1. Put together an “Advertising and Promotion Results Analysis” book. A simple 3-ring binder works well for this.

2. On the inside of the binder, insert a few clear plastic “page protectors.”

3. Print up some copies of the “Advertising and Promotion Results Analysis” forms found on the next page, and insert one in each of the page protectors facing the back of the binder.

Every time you run an ad or promotion, put a copy of that ad or promotion in one of the page protectors facing the opposite direction of the Analysis form.

If you do this every time you run an advertisement, a promotion or a direct mail campaign…and you carefully analyze the results, you’ll quickly see which promotions are working, which ones need a little tweaking to improve them, and which ones you should discontinue as soon as possible. As your binder grows, make two additional binders.

In one binder place all your “A” ads and sales letters. That is, the ads that pulled the best. In another binder, place the ads and letters that produced marginal results, or at least broke even.

And in the third binder, put all the “losers.” The ads and letters that absolutely bombed.

Then, when you get ready to do another promotion or mailing, you’ll know which ads or letters you can depend on, or at least which ones you can model your next promotion after.

Now, regarding the third binder… well, stay away from the ads in that binder. Those ads have already proven that you won’t want to run them again.

But, the second binder… the one with the marginal or break even ads and letters. That’s one that you may want to experiment with. Look over the ads and see what may have gone wrong.

see attached PDF
Advertising and promotion tracking sheet

Just because those ads didn’t make as big a profit or get as big a response as you would have liked, is not necessarily a reason to dump them. Sometimes a little tweaking or adjusting can turn a mediocre ad into a real results-producer.

BUT… do this secondarily to using the ads and letters in the first binder. They’re already proven winners.

Do you see the advantage of doing this? By having a copy of the ad or promotion and the results it produced in a central place, it makes developing your next promotion so much easier. No more guessing. No more wonder.

You’ll not only save time, but if you can take a proven winner and make it a little better… pull a three-percent response rather than say, a two-percent response, the difference will all be profits to you.

Running the ad or promotion costs the same, whether it pulls two-percent or three-percent. But, that extra one-percent is a 50 percent increase in response rate. And that one-percent may mean the difference between a profit or a loss on that promotion.

Even if the advantage you offer has to do with quality, service, dependability, convenience, professionalism, etc., just to state those facts is not enough.

You must find ways to quantify, or identify specifically, how those items benefit, or provide advantage to the end user. When you use phrases or words like, “Top Quality,” “The Best, Most Reliable Service,” “Dependable Delivery,” or “We offer top-of-the-line products, the best service, and the lowest prices,” they ring hollow in the ears of your prospects and clients.

These are too vague and meaningless. Not only can most of your competitors say the same things, they do say them. Instead, you want to be very clear about how the advantages you offer will benefit your customers.

Tell them exactly what they can expect from you. It may be that you only offer your customers, clients and prospects the highest quality, “top-of-the-line” products. If so, that’s great. But tell them in very specific, definable and quantifiable terms so they understand exactly what “highest quality, top-of-the-line” means to them, and how they’ll benefit.

Maybe you have the lowest prices in the industry or your market area. If so, that’s good. But how much lower are you? How much can your prospects and customers save by buying from you?

Perhaps the support you offer in terms of education, service or marketing assistance is superior to that offered by your competitors.

Or it could be that you offer free shipping, extended hours or better trained salespeople or advisors.

Those are all good things to offer. But, in and of themselves, they don’t say much. To use these features for to their fullest advantage, you must quantify them.

Show your prospects and clients very clearly how much lower, how much better, how much superior, how much of an advantage they’ll get by doing business with you.

Spell out exactly, clearly and specifically what advantages and benefits your customers will gain. Whatever you choose to make your UCA, remember, it must be perceived as desirable to your prospects and customers. In other words, they have to consider it to be of value to them.

If you can, make your UCA that’s something exclusive to you and you’re business operation. The more exclusive or proprietary you can make it, the less competition you’ll have.

If you’re the only one who offers that something extra, whatever it may be, your clients or prospects can’t get it from anyone else at any price. It’s simply not available.

And, if that something extra is exclusive to you, no one can compete with you, and that gives you a great advantage in your marketplace.

That something then, whatever it is, becomes your Unique Competitive Advantage… your UCA. It’s the thing, the reason, the advantage, that will make it not only worthwhile, but beneficial and advantageous… even desirable for others to do business with you.

Now here’s what you can do:

1.    Make a list. Take out a sheet of paper and write down every advantage you can think of why someone should do business with you. Get a big list. Don’t worry about whether or not your competitors can offer the same advantages or not at this time. Just get some points down on paper. Think in terms of how your business might fit in the following categories:

A.    The name of your business. Does it say what you do, and position you in such a way that there can be no mistake? Can there be any doubt what kind of business “The Hair Club For Men” is in? As another example, if you didn’t know it was a men’s clothing store, what would you think “The Men’s Warehouse” sold… men? What about your business? Can you use the name as an advantage?

B.    Exclusive niche. Are you trying to be all things to all people? Or do you occupy and dominate (or at least have the potential to dominate) a certain market? The tighter a group you can cater to, the more control you’ll have and the more opportunity you can have to dominate and control it.

C.    Expertise. Do you have some type of specialized understanding of a particular market segment so you can become a recognized expert? If you do, when people look to you for help and expertise they can’t get anywhere else, you’ll have a tremendous advantage.

D.    Guarantee. If you have an unusual guarantee, you can use that as a competitive advantage. We’ll discuss the concept of “risk reversal,” and guarantees later.

E.    Market positioning. How are you viewed in your marketplace? How do you stack up against your competition? What is your market’s perception of you versus other competing businesses? Domino’s didn’t go head to head with other pizza shops trying to make a better pizza. Instead, they went after quick, in-home delivery, and nearly completely dominated a market in a very short time.

F.    Price. How are your prices compared to those charged by your competitors? Do you have the lowest prices for your products, and operate as a “discount” operation? Or, do you take a higher price-point position and operate at a more “exclusive” level? Either position can be an advantage depending on how you position your business and the products and services you sell around it.

These are just a few of the areas that you may want to consider as competitive advantages. Of course, there are more, but at least this will get you thinking.

2. Segregate your list into three groups:

A.    Those exclusive to you or your firm. (Your competition cannot offer these.)

B.    Those that can be offered by both you and your competition.

C.    Those currently offered by both you and your competition, but which they are not capitalizing on presently.

The best advantage you can gain will be from those in Group A… those areas in which your competitors cannot perform. These are things only you can do for whatever reason, and you will want to capitalize on them to your fullest advantage.

Group B lists things offered both by you and others. Don’t neglect these. While they’ll be the weakest of the three groups, with a little work and creativity, you may be to combine parts of these with those you have identified in the other groups.

The last group, Group C, can be used to a real advantage. But you must be careful. While your competitors aren’t currently using these, if they notice that you are beginning to use them, you may awaken a hornet’s nest. They may see what you’re doing, recognize that they too can offer the same advantages, and begin including them in their promotions.

2.    Formulate your UCA. Begin with the strongest point you’ve come up with. Think of how it applies to your customers in terms of why they should do business with you rather than your competitors.

One way to do this is to pretend someone has just asked you what you do, or why they should do business with you instead of anyone else. Your reply should follow the following two-part formula:

A.    “You know how (point out a common problem your customers face)…___
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________”

B. “Well, what I do is (provide a solution to that problem)… _________________
_______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________”

Developing an effective UCA doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. But it absolutely must be done if you expect to gain and maintain any kind of an advantage in today’s marketplace.

“Why should I do business with you, instead of any and all other options I have?”

This is a question that goes through each of your prospect’s minds before they choose to do business with you, and through each of your customer’s minds before they return to buy from you again.
And, it’s a question you must take the time to formulate an answer to. Without such an answer, you become like every other business who sells the same products or services as you.

It doesn’t matter what product or service is being offered, your customers can go nearly anywhere and find the exact same (or very similar) products or services offered for the same price, or perhaps for even less money than what you charge.

Think about yourself, for a minute. Why do you do shop at the same stores or eat at the same restaurants over and over again?  Most likely, it’s because they offer you something you can’t get from their competitors. Maybe they’re closer to where you live or work.

Or maybe you like the way a particular restaurant prepares a certain meal. Perhaps it’s the environment or the people who work there.  Or maybe you just feel comfortable… almost like you’re at home while you’re in their place of business. It may not be one single thing that influences you, but rather a combination of several factors.

Nevertheless, the businesses you continue to frequent give you something special. Something unique. Something you just can’t get anywhere else. It’s that uniqueness that keeps you coming back over and over again.  If you expect people to do business with you rather than your competition, it’s imperative that you have something to offer that your competition doesn’t have.

Preferably something your competition can’t offer. Something that sets you and the products or services you offer apart from everyone else in your type of business.

That’s what’s known as your Unique Competitive Advantage, or UCA.

You may have heard this concept referred to as a “USP” (Unique Selling Proposition), “USA” (Unique Selling Advantage), “PDF” (Personal Differentiating Factor), “SOB” (Statement of Benefit), “UPA” (Unique Purchase Appeal, PDF (Personal Differentiating Factor), or any number of others descriptive names.

In any case, the name or what you call it is not important. No matter what you choose to define your unique factor, it’s one of the most critical, yet most often overlooked marketing tools in business, today.

Without a clearly defined factor that differentiates you are sets you apart from everyone else who offers the same (or similar) products or services as you, your business will be no different than any other business your clients or prospects will encounter, and there will be no reason for others to do business with you rather than your competitors.

On the other hand, a well thought-out, carefully identified UCA can differentiate you and your business and make you stand out from your competition as unique, different, and special, and the business enterprise that’s most desirable to do business with.

Coming up with your own UCA doesn’t have to be difficult. It’s simply a matter of identifying what you have to offer your clients, customers or prospects beyond what the product or service you offer can provide.

Let’s say you’re involved with a product or service that is so similar to others in the marketplace, that there is no significant difference between them.  In that case, your UCA must be something you or your firm or business can offer, exclusive of the features or benefits of the product or service you sell.

But it must be done. If you fail to market, or if you market ineffectively, you can’t expect to remain in business very long, let alone grow your business. With the tremendous increases in technology, and labor and materials availability, more and more businesses are finding it difficult to maintain any type of competitive advantage because of their products or prices. For your business to prosper and grow, you need to aggressively engage in effective marketing practices.

If the products and services you offer to your customers and prospects are really worthy of their hard-earned money… if they really will provide a benefit to them… then you, as a business owner, owe it to yourself, your employees, your suppliers and your customers to learn as much as you can about the marketing strategies that work in today’s competitive business environment. You then have an obligation to see that as many people as possible take advantage of the wonderful benefits your products and services can provide for them. And, you have an obligation to do it as cost-effectively as possible so more people can afford them and so your business can remain in business to serve even more people. Now you’ve learned four strategies that can be implemented immediately and help you get on the road to making your business more successful and profitable. Study them. Tailor them to fit your operation. Then apply them. They won’t do you or anyone else any good unless you put them to work.

Finally, learn all you can about results-producing, lead-generation marketing. Become a student. Apply the concepts and strategies to your business, and watch it grow! If, for some reason you don’t have the time or desire to learn the latest marketing techniques, don’t just drop the ball. Your business and your customers are too important. Make sure you find a qualified consultant that can help you analyze your business, decide which strategies will work best for you, then set in motion a systematic plan that will help you skyrocket your business to the next level. These four strategies will start you on your way. Apply them in your business, and your competition won’t stand a chance!

Make all of your advertising efforts “Direct-Response.”

Nearly every advertisement or promotion you see today is what’s known as “institutional” or “image” advertising. That is, the ads promote the image of a particular product, service or institution.

Now, here’s a hard and cold fact: People… your customers… couldn’t care less about you or your image, your company or its image, your sales quotas, or whether or not you’ll be in business this time next month. Not, at least, until you show them how your product or service can benefit them.

Image advertising may be okay for very large organizations that just want to create or maintain name recognition in the marketplace, but if you own a small or mid-size business, you most likely can’t afford that luxury. You have to make every dollar you spend on promotions count.

The best way to do that is with “direct-response” advertising. This kind of advertising focuses on the customer or prospect, and shows them how to solve their problems with your products or services.

Direct-response advertising is designed to get your customers or prospects to become emotionally involved and to take a certain action… such as, call for more information, send in a response card or make a direct purchase.

With institutional ads, you have no way of knowing how effective your ads are because you have no way of measuring how many people respond to them. So, you have no way of calculating the actual cost of the ad. That’s not good.

On the other hand, because direct-response ads require a person to take a specific action, they have an automatic built-in method of measurement, and you can measure whether or not it is profitable to run that ad again, or if it needs to be changed to be more effective.

Direct-response ads can be integrated effectively into the marketing efforts of nearly any business, and can take the form of landing page within a website, pay per click ads, mail order, newspapers, radio, TV and telemarketing.  Each of the components of a direct-response ad can be measured and tested separately so you can determine which combination of headline, opening statement, body copy, offer, guarantee, etc. works best.

Here are three simple, but not conclusive guidelines that can help you get the most from your direct-response ads:

•    Create an attention-getting, emotional-based, benefit-oriented headline.
•    Start small and test each component separately. Only increase the size of the ad gradually as you determine which combinations work the best.
•    Offer a free gift for responding. Make sure the offer has a highly perceived value to the reader, listener or viewer. Consider things such as special reports, booklets, introductory seminars or initial consultations.

Remember that the only reason you ever run an ad… any type of ad, is to evoke an immediate and qualified response from your customers or prospects.

You want and need this feedback, and you need it now, not six months from now. How else are you going to know if you should continue running this particular ad, or if you should change some component of it?  You’re in business to make a profit, not just to tell others about your wonderful products. Your ads have to work. They must work. They must produce results that can be translated into dollars.

That’s the entire reason you run them. That’s the entire reason you’re in business.

Change your advertising efforts from a cost into an investment… a profitable investment with a measurable return, by changing all your advertising and promotional efforts to direct-response. It can ad significantly to your bottom line, and will be one of the best moves you can make.

Build a database of current, past and prospective customers and keep in touch on a regular basis.

Who are your current customers? Do you know? How do you know? Do you have a record that shows who they are, what products or services they regularly purchase, what their last purchase was, when it was, and how often they make purchases from you?

How do you know that the person you consider to be a “current” customer isn’t, in fact, a “past” customer? When was the last time he or she bought from you? Have they sent any referrals to you lately? If so, who? If not, why not? Have they taken their business down the street to a competitor? If so, to whom? And why?

What about your prospective customers? Do you know who they are? Have you developed an “Ideal Customer Profile” that accurately describes who your best customers are so you’ll know whom to target with your marketing efforts? Do you have a list of them? Do you know how to reach them? Are you reaching them on a regular basis?

The answers to these questions can give you valuable information that can blast your business to never before dreamed of heights.

By knowing exactly whom you have dealt with in the past, who you currently deal with, and who you would like to deal with in the future can dramatically change your business, your profits and your bottom line.

If you’re not currently using a computer to keep track of these and other categories of customers, you should be. This database can be the starting point of unbelievable profits!

Targeting your marketing efforts to the right people can make or break your entire advertising or marketing campaign. And if you’re a small business, you can’t afford to have that happen too many times. It’ll drive you right out of business!

Keeping in touch with your customers…past, current and prospective, is one of the best marketing tools you can employ. It doesn’t have to be “hard-sell.” It can be as simple as any of the following examples:

• Send birthday cards to your clients.
• Send postcards on the anniversary date of their first purchase with you.
• Send a questionnaire asking for their evaluation of the product or service they purchased, or feedback on how it could be made better.
• Send an informational newsletter on a regular basis.
• Involve your customers in a contest or promotion… perhaps a referral generating promotion.
• Sponsor client luncheons with guest speakers that address subjects of interest to your clients. Have them bring a friend.
• Send announcements of “preferred customer” sales or events by special invitation. Include an invitation for someone who is not one of your current customers.

Make your current customers feel special.

Make your past customers feel missed

And make your prospective customers feel wanted.

Use your internal database to keep in touch with these groups of customers. Let them all know how much you care, and how much you appreciate their business, and this will take your business to new levels faster than nearly any other method you can think of.