Tag: how to increase sales

February 5, 2015

This is a Test – Only a Test – of Your Direct Response Marketing Strategy

If you woke up tomorrow and your accountant or office manager advised you that all you had left in your advertising budget for the rest of the year was $5000, how would you react and what actions would you take?

Oh, and one more thing…

The advertising has to produce sales results otherwise your business will go under.

Bummer ☹

This scenario above is one that many a small business owner could learn from and possibly save his or her small company. You see many small business owners still believe in the old adage that you have to advertise in order to keep the people coming to their businesses, yet they don’t have a clue if any of it really works.

And they have trusted their hard earned money to certain media outlets that say it’s working, yet can’t prove that the advertising is bringing in people who are purchasing or buying products and/or services.

So again the question arises – if all you had was $5000 for the remainder of the year, would you buy media (offline or online) that simply flashed your company name and fancy photos on the screen, channel or paper or would you buy media or create content that would bring in sales?

Oh, and one more thing I didn’t mention earlier… You need good creative to attract your target market. This is where direct response marketing comes in to play.

Yes my friend, a direct response marketing strategy could be what saves your bacon. The thing is your creative needs to be response oriented and have tracking and capture mechanisms attached so the person footing the bill can see actual results. Actual results means traffic and then you need to convert the traffic (prospect) into a new customer or client.

Direct Response Marketing Strategy

So the Direct Response Marketing Funnel & Process looks something like this…

Create Good to Great Creative (words, pictures, music, voice) that is designed to attract your target audience.
Find and Test Media or Content (most likely online) that your target audience is involved in.
Send Your Target Audience to a page, phone or place that they can interact with you so you can share your offer.
Present Your Offer and Make a New Sale, Create a New Subscriber (because you captured his or her name and info), or Created a New Interested Prospect that now knows who you are and what you do.
Follow-Up with Your New Customers and Subscribers to create more sales and referrals. Utilize email software to do the heavy lifting.

Now doesn’t this direct response marketing strategy look like a better plan versus throwing your $5000 budget up on the mass media wall with little or no chance of bringing in any new business?

Remember – you only have the $5000 and it has to last you for six months. The question is will you test, make sales or throw mud up on the wall and watch it dry and flake off?

Will you create a direct response marketing strategy?

Only time will tell and in six months we’ll see if there’s a small business with your name on it in the small biz obituaries or if your sign is still lit and the phone and email are still connected.

To your direct response marketing success,

Dave Krygier
Publisher

PS – I really meant it when I said utilize email software to do the heavy lifting, and believe me when I say you can use the software for your offline marketing too…

February 25, 2014

How Do I Increase My Sales – Offline to Online Anniversary Post

How do I increase my sales but lower my advertising costs the small business owner asks the man sitting across the table. The man simply states that in order to increase his sales the small business owner needs to change the way he thinks.

Well this is much easier said than done for most business owners and managers as they are shuffling their way through daily grind of small business.

Have you been thinking inside the box too much lately?

When I first started to write on this blog in February of 2010 I was in search of ways to help offline small businesses get online and develop ways to attract, capture and convert prospects into customers utilizing online resources.

It was quite the search and ultimately I put together the pieces to be able to provide small business owners ways to connect their offline marketing with the online world and visa versa.

Why would a small business owner continue to struggle and pay countless thousands of dollars per month and year only to find that the marketing and advertising is not working?

Fear of loss of business? Not knowing other ways to create new business?

A little of both? Probably.

In a recent conversation with a business owner he mentioned that his agency didn’t know the difference between marketing and advertising. I mean this came as quite a shock considering the thousands of dollars this man had invested with this advertising company.

The confusion that is spread across the land of small business is so vast that it amazes me that most small business owners are able to make a profit.

So where does this lead us today when we broach the topic of Offline to Online Marketing? How does a small business owner with a limited budget and resources really do both?

This is the question we must face and answer plus we need to ask these Five Tough Questions:

Is the Offline Marketing and/or Advertising really working and has it been tested?
Is the Online Marketing and/or Advertising working and has it been tested?
Is there a mix of both that has tested and proven to bring in new business?
Is the Marketing and/or Advertising showing ROI?
Is there marketing in place to connect and keep current customers in your world?

It still surprises me as to the number of small business owners who don’t test their advertising. Yet they continue to spend and spend and spend, even when they don’t really know if it’s working!

The Online World has Changed

In the past four years the online world has changed dramatically with the uprising of local, social and mobile channels.

Local Search Optimization and Marketing has had a big impact on small businesses that rely on the local community for traffic and sales. From maps listings to directories to reviews and more. It’s an ever-changing landscape that can be red one day and then green the next.

Social Media Channels such as Facebook, Pinterest and Linked In are impacting small business in ways not even on the radar back in 2000. Mobile Technology and Search has been the biggest shift that I have seen since 2009.

More and more business people and consumers are using mobile web enabled devices and replacing their traditional desktop and laptop computers.

It’s like the wild, wild, west when it comes to mobile and the changes coming so frequently that it’s virtually impossible to keep up unless you are plugged and tuned in daily. So the next time someone asks you or you ask someone else, how do I increase my sales but lower my advertising costs, know that there is hope right around the corner. There is hope and our friends at Small Biz Mechanix are paving the way to help small businesses connect the offline to the online world.

Stay close and stay tuned as there are plenty of updates on the way.

To your small business success,

Dave Krygier
Publisher

August 20, 2012

The Secret to Increasing Sales in Your Restaurant Business

Due to the amount of travel that I do on an annual basis, certain restaurants and food service establishments are frequented more than others. During one of my recent trips I encountered what I would have considered a fluke, but this particular restaurant business I had been to before and experienced marginal service.

It all started out when I called the restaurant on the property where I was staying for a carry out order. It took five phone calls and I was unable to get anyone on the phone that could take my order. This lead to a walk up to the restaurant, only then to order and wait.

Fortunately the food was good, satisfying ye ole’ stomach and thus the frustration seemed to settle and lead to a relaxing evening. But morning came and the prior nights episode led me to contact the director of food & beverage who had an open ear and apologized more than three times. Although this individual was very pleasant, he missed the key to retaining my future business and could have avoided this call had he surveyed his patrons.

So in today’s article I want to share two steps on how you can take a dissatisfied customer and turn him or her into an advocate and possibly a raving fan.

How to Create Raving Fans that Return and Bring their Friends to your Restaurant Business…

1. If you have a Dissatisfied Customer – Find out what you can do to make it right. It might only take a complimentary drink or appetizer to appease and please. And what’s that worth to you, the proprietor or manager? It should not be about cost. It should be about retention and keeping that customer, so when he or she comes back around, your establishment is at the top of the list. This is a mindset and one that you will need to instill in yourself and your staff.

Note: In this economy you need all the happy, satisfied customers you can bring through the door. In most cases it is expensive to bring a new customers in, so why not do everything possible to keep the customers instead of letting them fume and never return.

By doing so you may well turn an upset, angry, dissatisfied customer into a positive, happy, referral-generating advocate.

2. Train your Managers and Service staff to be Customer Friendly and Oriented. This takes time and finding the right people, plus it’s not easy to do, but it is possible. The secret here is to hire the best people who will treat and care for your customers like they are their friends. If you don’t know how to do this – find someone who does or can offer assistance.

Remember – food is only part of the equation. You have to serve good to great food in order for people to continually return to your business and be comfortable referring others. Service is the other part of the equation that in my opinion gets left out more often than I can say here today.

If you are going to retain customers, you need people to do the work. So find people you can train, trust and allow you to build repeat/referral business for your restaurant business. This way you can sleep better at night and your reputation could even blossom.

Are you involved in a restaurant, food service company or coffee bar and want to learn how to increase sales and retain customers? If so, then contact The SmallBiz Mechanic and see how you can Retain Customers & Increase Sales in your Food & Beverage establishment.

Dave Krygier
Publisher

July 20, 2012

Increase Sales to Your Website

When I hear the term increase sales to my website this always brings to mind the response if we can help you increase sales to your website, can you really handle the sales and back end service?

Increasing sales to your website really means that you have to increase the targeted traffic to your site or social media sites, and then convert that traffic through a sales funnel or sales page, if you only have one product.

In my previous post, Increase Sales the Soft Sell Way, I mentioned the methods that we have used for many, many years. This is the method we used at The Tiny Store and I still use to this day.

Here are three ways that you can soft sell your way to success and increase sales to your website using web-based tools:

1. Create & Place Lead Generating Magnets and bring new leads and prospects your way. These magnets are designed to attract people who have a real interest in what you have to offer. A magnet can be a dedicated web page, an article, a pay per click ad, a classified ad or even a video. The idea is to create powerful, focused, lead generating magnets and then place them in areas where your target market hangs out. This is a great way to increase qualified traffic which in turn should bring you more leads and sales, if you have a product funnel in place.

2. Use Capture Mechanisms – which could be an email auto-responder, standard email, the phone or combination of the above. If you are socially savvy then utilize social media sites to connect, captivate and capture leads. The key here is to be available and willing to communicate when the prospect raises his or her hand and says I’m ready! The more leads you capture – the higher chances you have for converting them into new customers which = sales and $$$ in your bank account.

3. Study Direct Response Strategies & Tactics – If you are going to increase sales to your website you need to know the basics about direct response marketing. So read, learn, study and then apply the basics to your small business. If applied properly these strategies and tactics can help you increase sales to your website and whatever business you are in. Note: always use best practices when it comes to sales and marketing. Leave the short cuts and phony baloney to the amateurs and those that don’t want a long-term business.

Increasing sales is one thing, but taking care of customers is altogether a whole other story. When it comes down to it, you need to be able to handle the sales, service the customers and grow the relationships so you can continue to increase sales with what’s called the backend.

As I have stated in so many different articles, posts, tele-calls and products; increasing sales comes from bringing in new customers, taking care of them and also marketing to existing customers.

How to increase sales in small business is not difficult. Online or offline all you need to do is find the need, fill it and then continue to build on the relationships that you create.

Now go increase the sales in your small business and if the times comes that you need a little assistance, contact The SmallBiz Mechanic and maybe he can help you work out the kinks.

July 13, 2012

Increase Sales – The Soft Sell Way

In part one How to Increase Sales in small business I wrote about the existing customer side of the increasing sales equation. In this post I want to cover how you can increase sales using what I call the soft sell way.

This soft sell process is one that I started implementing many, many years ago, prior to the world wide web. You see, I was never really interested in sales per say, but it seemed that no matter what I did in small business, I always ended up being in sales and thrust into the biz dev role. So the soft selling process evolved over the years and I really believe that it contributed to my ability to increase sales and develop new business.

The thing is, there are many different ways that you can increase sales including hard driving tactics that many businesses still use today and maybe you’ll even see results and maybe you won’t.

It’s a sad state of affairs to see so many small businesses with no clue as to how they can drive more traffic and increase sales. They think they need to reinvent the wheel with some new ‘salesy’ tactic that will bring droves of prospects through the door, yet they continue to struggle and fail not knowing what to do next.

How did I increase sales using this so called soft sell approach? I simply worked hard and studied from the greats like Dale Carnegie, Frank Bettger and Og Mandino. I also attended live seminars and trainings and then I implemented, tweaked and adjusted over the years.

Notice I wrote implemented, which means action was taken and the information put to good use in my various businesses. If you study and learn but do not put the information to good use, then it’s wasted time and money.

One other thing to mention here – I still research, study and learn as much as I can about the topics that have to do with sales and marketing. I am continually in the hunt and keeping my eyes and ears open for anything that can help further my business and my client’s businesses.

Let’s get down to it:

The bottom line is that you have to sell something in order to have sales revenue come your way. Whether you are selling on the internet or selling offline, you are still selling.

To increase sales in your small business you don’t need to be pushy. A matter of fact, pushy will usually get you less sales and more un-subscribes, if you use email.

Think about it – do you like sales people who are pushy and over the top or the
sales person who takes the offer off the table or even let’s you make the decision when the time is right?

Maybe you’ve been subscribed to some marketer’s email lists that are all about sell, sell, sell and not a lot of content? Maybe you’ve been approached too many times by salespeople who are pushy, overly talkative or just plain rude?

You see most people will put up a wall and turn the opposite direction when these kind of salespeople enter their world. It’s a turn off and they feel kind of dirty.

By the way – what I’m writing about here also applies to online marketing and list building. Because the sales/persuasion tactics you use to attract people to your squeeze and landing pages directly reflect on you even though you’re not there in person.

Here’s my suggestion to you; instead of the hard sell, sell, sell – you take the soft sell approach, throw out the bait and then let the person warm up to you. This keeps them in your world until he or she decides to purchase, stay around or just plain exit at their leisure.

This way you have a higher retention rate and in the long-run you maintain credibility and close more business.

This is the way we did it at The TIny Store and how I still work with clients at SmallBiz Mechanix.

To your small business success,

Dave Krygier
Publisher

July 6, 2012

How to Increase Sales in Your Restaurant

Increase Sales in Your Restaurant Business

I was recently reviewing some stats about one of the article directories and one of the most reviewed articles had to do with bringing repeat business to a restaurant.

In my previous post about Surveying your way to Success I mentioned how this simple, yet effective tactic can help your business.

Why? Because surveying is one of the simplest ways to increase sales in a restaurant and develop repeat customers that continue to return again and again.

Today’s topic and about increasing sales not only applies to restaurants but all small businesses who want to grow and increase sales.

Providing good service is one thing…Providing great service is an entirely different story altogether.

The restaurant business is tough enough as it is, so don’t make it tougher on yourself and your staff by looking for short cuts to increase sales.

Do not make it complicated, because it’s really a very simple formula.

Here it is:

Great Food plus Great Service equals satisfied customers who will return if you continue to treat them right.

Notice I didn’t say anything about price in that equation. Price was not mentioned at all but is important so make sure to pay attention to it.

So let’s stop looking and searching for the magic bullet that is going to make our restaurant overflow with repeat customers. Use the formula above and keep it simple.

Now let’s talk about a few of the missing ingredients that you can add to your service menu and begin to increase sales.

1. Personalization. The missing ingredient in almost every restaurant I have continued to frequent in the last 20 years is personalization. Yes, personalization.

How many times have you been back to your favorite restaurant yet none of the people remember your name? This is a tragedy, yet so many establishments just don’t understand that a person’s name is very important to him or her.

I happen to frequent many of the same restaurants ….

One in particular – the owner remembers my client’s name and he’s friendly to me but never once that I can remember has be called me by name. He also does the same thing to my client’s sister, who also happens to be part owner of their business.

2. Connection. Once you personalize you can connect. Connect with your customers. Connection is the key. The Great food + Great Service = happy, satisfied, returning customer. Yes – if you really want repeat business the food has to be good to great and the service just as great. But the connection must happen along the way to crank up the repeat business machine.

Very few restauranteurs that I’ve run across are taking advantage of building solid relationships with their customers. At least in my travels I have rarely ever seen this.

So let’s stop looking and searching for the magic bullet that is going to make our restaurant overflow with repeat customers. Use the formula above and keep it simple.

Remember it’s all about your customers. You make them feel great, they tell their friends. You make them feel bad with inconsistencies in your food and service and they’ll tell their friends and possibly not frequent your establishment ever again. This is not new news but with social media, reviews, citation sites, texting and email means word spreads faster than ever before.

So it’s more important now than ever before that you work on providing the best experience to your customers, new and old. That’s what we did at The Tiny Store.

After all, it’s not about what you want – it’s about what they want.

Dave Krygier
Publisher

June 15, 2012

How to Increase Sales in a Small Business

Ever seen the business that is complaining about lack of traffic, lack of sales and how the economy is hurting business? How to increase sales in a small business is simple. There are two ways to accomplish this: One is through your existing customers and the other way is through new leads and fresh prospects.

Today I’ll cover the existing customer side of the equation.

Here’s a story to kick things off:

I was on the telephone(yes, ye ole telee) with a business acquaintance from the past and this person mentioned how a particular store he was dealing with had fantastic sales numbers. His company, we’ll refer to it as #1, had been trying to figure out how to bring in more sales yet he couldn’t quite figure out how to duplicate his customer’s success.

As I asked more questions it became apparent that the people in that particular store were the key, if he was going to increase his sales in other stores.

Yes, the people were the key that could unlock the door to additional sales. Because the sales staff at this particular store have been ecstatic about his product. They love it. Why?

Because the product speaks quality, the marketing materials support this quality and they deliver on time. Now these are the two major factors as to why this manufacturer is still in business after more than 50 years.

On the other hand you have this business’ competitor, company #2, who hasn’t updated their marketing materials or catalog in years and the owner is turning over his company to a family member and people who may not have the best intentions.

Company #2 is struggling and it looks like a long up hill battle unless they can change their plan and give it an overhaul.

Now let’s get back to company #1. What could they do to increase sales?

Simple…Use Social Proof and obtain Testimonials from the store owner and staff about his product. Then take these testimonials in written form, audio and video and use them in all of his marketing and sales efforts to obtain new business.

Because there’s nothing better than a satisfied customer singing your praises to help bring new prospects to the party.

Like I said in the beginning of the post, how to increase sales in a small business is simple; look at your existing customers and dig deep to see how you can bring them back into the fold. This should create repeat and referral revenue and once you do that you can begin to cultivate and build on the relationships you have started.

Want to know how we generated 20 to 25% repeat and referral revenue? Check out Secrets of The TIny Store and learn how to increase sales in your small business or touch bases with the Small Biz Mechanic and maybe he can help you tune up your sales engine.

Dave Krygier
Publisher

June 6, 2012

List Building – The Sales Monster Returns

Ok, so if you missed part one(List Building and The Sales Monster) you probably want to check it out first so this post makes more sense. The jist of where I’m going with part two about List Building and The Sales Monster is connecting with your subscribers without losing them along the way.

Because if you are going to build a list of subscribers(online or offline), at some point you’ll need to convert them into customers. And by doing so the conversion plus ROI should equal one happy business owner.

You see just building a list by itself is not going to make you any money. I know, I’m beating a dead horse here but a long list of peeps with no conversion is not gonna help your small business.

So we have to sell and offer our subscribers and clients(if you have any) at intervals and these intervals will depend on your type of business and how many products and services you have to sell.

Maybe the interval is once a week or maybe it’s two times per month?

Maybe you have so many products to offer that it’s twice a week or more?

No matter – just work to achieve a balance between selling and great content.

Because if you don’t, the sales monster might rear his ugly head when you let him loose on your subscribers and clients without properly understanding how to create and manage a sales funnel.

In other words – you throw too many offers on the table all at once or every day and your list gets burned out like water thrown on a fire pit.

Now let’s take a turn and talk briefly about the triggers…

If you want to really connect with ‘the people’ on your list and desire to have them purchase whatever it is you have to offer them…

Then consider implementing the Seven Triggers.

Author Russell Granger refers to Seven Triggers in his book on influencing people’s decisions. These triggers can surely make a difference for you in your business if you study and implement them correctly.

Let’s say you test just one of the triggers in your marketing and it happens to be the Authority Trigger. This trigger is one where you are the expert or maybe someone you work with is the expert and you build on credibility.

This credibility will open up doors to opportunities that otherwise would not be available to you and might increase sales if used legitimately. Of all the triggers this is one that you as a professional or seasoned business owner can use to develop, grow new business and conquer the sales monster.

Remember – if you really connect with subscribers, then they are more likely to purchase and become clients (or customers if you prefer) and clients are more likely to continue working with you over the long-haul.

Repeat Sales = Happy Business Owner = No More Sales Monster

If you want more information about list building tactics and strategies, check out this article about List Building & The Relationship and consider subscribing to the List Building Guide if you want more in depth information on the topic.

Dave Krygier
Publisher