Component 1: Target the right customer
Component 2: Lead generation and capturing prospects contact information
Component 3: Converting prospects to paying customers
Component 4: Profit Optimisation - Increasing the value of each sale and each customer
Bob explains that if you can understand and do a reasonable job in each of these areas, that's all you'll need to create a marketing system that gets the results you really want.
Which means that marketing truly is much easier than most people make it.
Everything you do with your marketing starts with targeting the right customer.
Get this right and being successful with your marketing gets substantially easier.
Get it wrong and your marketing is doomed to be ineffective or fail completely.
For example, there's a women's gym in Bob's area that sends out monthly mailers to every household in the area.
Since this gym limits its membership strictly to women, a high percentage of their mailers automatically get tossed in the trash.
The more your business appeals to a well-defined segment of your market and the more you can connect with the wants and needs of that segment, the easier it is to market more effectively, selling more of your products or services and reducing your costs at the same time.
This just doesn't have to happen.
For just a few dollars more, the gym could rent a list consisting only of those residences with females as part of the household.
And they could fine tune it even more by paying a slightly higher charge for those households with females in a specified age range.
Simply by doing this, they would save 40 per cent or more on their mailing costs.
Physical mailings take time and money to implement properly and it makes no sense to throw away a large chunk of your mailing budget when simple targeting solutions are readily available to solve the problem.
Next step.
This gym could cut their costs even more and increase their membership roll by targeting at an even deeper level.
One way to do this would be to conduct a survey with a drawing for a valuable gift for everyone who completes the survey form.
The survey form would ask a few questions about types of equipment and classes the members prefer and their age and occupation.
This information - while extremely simple as I've promised - is worth its weight in gold. It would reveal which types of equipment to increase and which to eliminate. Which classes to add or increase and which to reduce or eliminate.
The preferred equipment and classes could also be featured in their marketing and would draw even more paying customers without a penny of additional expense and no additional effort.
It would also reveal the predominant age range of members and possibly show specific occupations that make up large sections of the membership.
Those age ranges and occupations could then be targeted at a much deeper level in the gym's mailings.
And other age ranges could be eliminated completely.
This is another "simple" strategy that would decrease the overall costs of the gym's marketing and increase their membership sales substantially.
Few businesses focus on marketing to their 'ideal target market' out the fear that they'll lose some business by doing so.
But the fact is, the more your business appeals to a well-defined segment of your market and the more you can connect with the wants and needs of that segment, the easier it is to market more effectively, selling more of your products or services and reducing your costs at the same time.
In his guide Bob explains in detail 8 simple rules for selling more of your products and services by actually doing substantially less marketing.
Here's a sneak preview of 3 of his 8 rules...
Rule 1: Not all customers, products and marketing pieces are equal
Some customers, products and marketing pieces are worth their weight in gold.
Others may appear to be an asset, but actually put a severe limit on your profits. Discover how to identify each type (including many that are just below the radar) and use this to boost your profits by marketing less.
Rule 2: Simplify
Odd as it may sound, the best way to increase your sales 3x, 5x or 10x is to eliminate most of your current marketing. Discover how mercilessly simplifying their marketing took one company from $1 million per year in revenue to $12 million - by marketing less. And how you can benefit from the exact same process.
Rule 5: More choice = fewer sales
Bob gives two case studies of companies that performed radical surgery by eliminating the majority of their products.
The results? Profit increases of 600 per cent!
I highly recommend this short marketing guide by Bob. (It is well worth reading.)
"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." ~ Confucius
Action Exercise:
Get a free copy of '8 rules to selling more of your product by marketing less.'
Use at least one of these rules in your own business and notice what happens.
Graham McGregor is a consultant specialising in memorable marketing.
You can download his 396 page 'Unfair Business Advantage' Ebook at
no charge from www.theunfairbusinessadvantage.com
