Business Building Tips Archives | Your Online Marketing Team

Market Research Tips – Let Your Competition Help You Sell More

October 22, 2020 by Jama Leave a Comment

Doing market research can be a huge time suck and energy-draining exercise. After all, once you create your ideal client profile and take in your product development surveys, what’s left? Well, have you ever thought about taking an in-depth look at what’s working for your competitors; or what’s not if they’re struggling? Yes, one of our favorite market research tips is to ask you to take a long hard look at what “the other gal” is doing and adjust accordingly.

Here are a few ways to get that done:

Checking out the competition

It’s nice to think you have no competition since what you offer is so much better or different than others in your niche. However, that’s just ego talking. We all have competition for the time and dollars of our target audience. With literally billions of websites out there, you are even competing for the attention of your target audience from businesses outside your niche.

So, what does a savvy marketer do? Examine… Compare… React… Create – ECRC.

Obviously, you will have competitors with products similar to yours. When you examine them closely though, you’ll find that they may not compare favorably with what you have to offer. While the differences may be subtle, they could still be significant to your target audience. This is when you can react by stressing the differences in your marketing copy, and/or by creating an entirely new product that will solve the problem more effectively. (What could be simpler?)

Testimonials tell the story

We all love to get testimonials from satisfied clients, don’t we? It can be very satisfying to know that you were able to help them exactly as you hoped to do when you began your business. Yet, your competitors will have happy clients too and, by closely examining the testimonials they receive, you may be able to fine-tune your own offerings.

Again, the differences may seem small but, that person who could have been your client chose someone else for a reason. Whether you’re trying to develop new products or grow your business by selling more of the ones you’ve already developed, understanding the differences in products will help you market yourself more effectively. (That’s a Big Plus in our book!)

Pay closer attention to negative reviews

Your own, and those of your competitors. As we shared in a recent post, knowing where and how your products(s) fall short of client expectations will help you in the long-term, enabling you to refine and improve them. Knowing the same things about your competition could be even more important to both your short and long-term success.

After all, something they’re doing got people to buy from them yet, for some reason, those folks were also unhappy with the experience. Once you examine why and compare your own product to theirs, you can react by creating a solution and marketing directly to the dissatisfied portion of the market. (Easy peasy!)

Finally, compelling sales copy is critical to the success of your business.

Refine Your Sales Copy

We would never advocate that you plagiarize a successful competitor – again, never! But, you can certainly investigate the language they use to sell their product(s) and get a better idea for promoting your own with more compelling sales copy.

With some help from Inc.com, here are some keys to refining your sales copy in ways that will lead to more conversions:

Focus on benefits, not specifications – Customers only care about specifications and features relative to how those qualities meet their needs. Start with benefits and help the customer feel their needs will be met. After that, you can dip into specs if they seem interested.
Focus on value, not price – Cutting prices can result in higher sales, but if you don’t provide a context they may question the value of your offer. Instead, shift your focus onto how the customer can get more, not how they can pay less.
Focus on show, not learn – Learn implies the customer has to do some homework. Who likes homework? Show means you’ll help. Customers buy from people who help them.
Focus on emotions, not reasons – Emotions play a major role in most purchase decisions. Never lose sight of how potential customers want to feel: Safer, healthier, smarter, more attractive. In some cases, your customers may just want to feel good about doing business with you.
Focus on you, not I – You need revenue. You need to make a sale. Maybe you desperately need to make a sale. The customer doesn’t care; nor should she. While you may desperately need to make a sale, only the customer can choose to buy, so always make the process all about the customer.

Do your competitors use sales copy that is constructed along these guidelines? If they do and you don’t, you’re definitely missing opportunities for more sales. You see, this is the type of sales copy that speaks directly to the needs of just about any target audience, regardless of niche. Why? Because it focuses on human nature and helps build relationships between individuals – you and your prospective client.

Looking for more market research tips, online marketing tips, and email marketing ideas? Get in touch with the YOMT Team today

Moving Your Business Online – Using Surveys to Develop Products and Marketing

October 8, 2020 by Jama Leave a Comment

Moving your business online should be easy in the 21st Century, yet… Not so much!

First of all, we’re not talking about simply putting up an uber-cool website and waiting for the clients to storm your virtual doors. That just doesn’t happen anymore – if it ever did!?! And, while a great website can make a huge difference in building your online reputation, you need content to fill it and products or services to offer.

And there’s the rub. What do people want/need that can’t already be found online these days – and that you have to offer?

While we would never presume to tell you how to run your business, we do have some experience with helping entrepreneurs develop and market products online. One of the things we’ve discovered is that, while you can certainly try to “walk a mile in their shoes” in an effort to understand what others are going through, your own experiences color your perceptions. This makes it almost impossible to truly grasp the pain points of the people you most want to help.

But hey, don’t take it personally. It’s just human nature to perceive the world from your own perspective. But, you can overcome that naturally built-in bias with tools that are readily available and easy to access in the virtual world.

Develop Products and Improve Marketing with Audience Feedback

Of course, we’re not the only ones with some expertise in this area. The digital forms creation service Wufoo and the email marketing platform MailChimp have put together some pointers to help you develop new products. The most important of these being surveys of your audience. (Needless to say, they both offer their services to help you get it done, too.)

Why surveys? Well, think of it like this. If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you began your business with a goal of helping others in mind. You perceived a need and sought to fill it. Unfortunately, for most, that vision goes unrealized and they struggle to survive in a highly competitive marketplace. Either your audience doesn’t see the same need you do, or you’ve somehow missed the mark with targeting and/or marketing your ideas.

In this case, what you really need is more information. You need a deeper understanding of what your ideal client is looking for, as well as broader knowledge of how to present it to them in a more compelling way.

The best way to get that information is to ask them for it. And, that is what a survey does. It gathers information that is critical to the success of your business in a structured way that enables you to process it coherently and effectively. Then, you can take that valuable data and massage your offerings to meet their needs in ways they will find hard to resist. Cha Ching!

We’ve touched on this subject a few times before, approaching it from different angles, such as: client satisfaction surveys, quarterly client profile surveys, opt-in follow-up nurture email campaigns.

Product Development Surveys

It goes without saying, but must be reinforced, that these are all important steps in a successful email marketing campaign. What we’re talking about today though is even more important – gathering product development information directly from the folks you hope will buy it from you.

Once you have the demographics of your target audience in place, thanks to your other surveys, it’s time to get serious about your product development surveys.

Here, we employ the advice of some real audience survey experts, the folks at SurveyMonkey.com. In an article titled, The best questions to ask for developing any product, they share ideas for, well… The best questions you can ask for developing any product:

How do my target consumers currently use my product?

If you don’t already have a product, answering this question may involve discovering what problems consumers have with similar existing products on the market. Knowing these points of value can help your business focus on the qualities that are most important. If your business wants to add complicated features to the product yet your customers prefer a simplified experience, that’s valuable time and money lost.

(In other words, learn to accept a “Yes, we like it” statement and stop pushing for more.)

What do my customers dislike about my product?

While it’s useful to find out what your customers enjoy about your product, some of the most important information you can gather is what customers dislike. Sometimes the best questions to ask for product development are the easiest to answer, too, as many customers aren’t shy about voicing their concerns.

(It may take some doing but you often have to set your ego aside and take the feedback in the spirit intended, even when it’s negative.)

What ideas do customers have to improve my product?

Ordinary customers have plenty of great ideas to improve your product, since they’re the ones using it the most. Surveying customers regarding improvements not only provides valuable insight, but also helps them feel engaged and more invested in your product.

(Offering them the opportunity to help you improve your product shows you are genuinely interested in their opinions, which can gain you huge loyalty points with them.)

What problems can I solve that my competition cannot?

This question is your classic competitive advantage. It’s the secret sauce in your product recipe. In our scheduling software example [from the article], the software may be faster and easier to use than a paper schedule, as well as cheaper than hiring a secretary or assistant. A paper schedule can be fragile and requires continual hand-entry, and an assistant can be expensive.

(No product is perfect, especially when offered through an impersonal medium like the internet. Use this client input to refine your product and try to make it “more perfect” than your competition.)

And then there’s this one, based on our experience…

How can I do it better than my competitors?

This may be the most important question in your product development surveys because the answer takes you directly to the heart of the matter. That is – exactly why your target customer is looking for an alternative to your competition. Is it their presentation style? Is there a personality conflict between provider and customer? Has a once ripe offering aged beyond its “Best if used by” date?

(There could be any numbers of reasons a consumer has lost interest in a once-favored product or service. However, you simply cannot presume to know why that has happened. Instead, you need to know exactly what the issue is and find ways to make your offering better.)

The Hard Truth We All Must Accept

We mentioned this earlier but think it bears repeating. It’s a hard truth that ego is often the downfall of even the most sincerely committed, otherwise empathetic entrepreneur. After all, if you’ve devoted the time and invested cash to get training in your niche, you are entitled to some pride in your expertise. We get that, of course.

But, if you’re struggling to sign up clients; if you’re finding it hard to justify investing time, money and energy in your business; if you’re losing sleep trying to figure out what went wrong, it may be time to realize you don’t have all the answers. But, you can get them, through product development surveys of your audience.

Looking for more online marketing tips and email marketing ideas? Get in touch with the YOMT Team today

Post-Pandemic Marketing – Time to Revise Your Ideal Client Profile

September 24, 2020 by Jama Leave a Comment

The “new normal” could be anything but the norm for a large number of people in post-pandemic marketing. (Yeah, we hate that phrase too!) What this could mean for entrepreneurs and small business owners is anyone’s guess, but there are some things we are likely to see moving forward.

As mentioned in a previous post, there are some very specific, strategic steps you can take to protect and “relaunch” your business as we (hopefully) leave this health crisis behind us. Among these are: researching your competitor’s actions and changes, finding new services that may be needed in your niche, and perhaps finding ways to “partner up” with other entrepreneurs to expand your reach.

We believe these are all important steps you can take to create a newly focused marketing strategy. However, you will also need to respond to the ways your prospects and clients may have changed their behavior as a result of the pandemic. After all, business owners are not the only ones who will realize that they have to respond to changing trends in the market. Your customers will almost certainly behave differently than they have before.

Focus on a Changing Client Profile

So, the question for you becomes… How might consumers react to the “new normal” their lives have become?

The answer to this question will absolutely alter your own perception of the perfect client, as well as how you are able to approach and appeal to the needs of prospects. Here are a few tips:

Appeal to core needs instead of focusing on high margin luxury services – Be conscious of their needs over wants. It’s a simple fact of human nature that many people are going to withdraw from social interaction to some extent. Whether from fear of infection or because of social distancing rules and regulations, they will not be as eager to take part in face-to-face encounters.

This will, to a large extent, force them to focus their energies on taking care of necessities instead of shopping for more extravagant solutions. Be conscious of this altered dynamic to your ideal client profile as you develop your post-pandemic marketing strategy.

Offer special pricing – Incomes have shrunk for many which make buying the things they need more challenging. (This also means that money for luxuries may not be available.) With that in mind, it’s likely that a new valuation for your products or services is in order. In other words, it is highly likely that the same old, same old will not work when it comes to pricing your services.

Offering freebies, gift cards, and discounts on packages could be the best way to maintain your revenue flow. Though profitability may suffer, it’s better to have some income than trying to hold out for maximum profits in a time of crisis.

Improve your online reputation and/or profile – Reputation may be the single most important factor in a post-pandemic world. How you responded to the crisis and, literally, how you managed to stay in business will be critical to your client’s and prospect’s perception of who you are and how you can help them.

Take Your Reputation to the Next Level

Developing new services and packages that are designed to offer relief from the stress and anxiety your prospects and clients have experienced will go a long way toward improving your reputation. This will also display your sense of empathy and your implicit understanding of their needs.

Further, praise from satisfied clients will be even more valuable than before, so make sure you have the testimonials page on your website up to date. You want to show them that you are on the cutting edge of this crisis, that you have the knowledge, talent, and skills to lead the way. That means that old testimonials, say praise from three years ago, will have little value (especially if they’ve seen it before).

Do you have ideas about how you can appeal to the changes in your client base that can help with a post-pandemic marketing strategy? Feel free to share them with us and the YOMT community in the comments section below.

If you need help revising your ideal client profile, or with developing your post-pandemic marketing strategy, our team can help. Get in touch with the YOMT Team today

Small Businesses After the Pandemic – Time to Quit or Work Harder (and Smarter)

September 10, 2020 by Jama Leave a Comment

According to the Washington Post, the struggle is real for small businesses after the pandemic, with more than 100,000 of them shutting their doors permanently since March. As they explain, “It’s simply not possible for small businesses to survive with no income coming in for weeks followed by reopening at half capacity.”

And, while some 4.2 million businesses have managed to survive thanks to emergency SBA loans, that does little to help the rest of the 30 million or so small businesses in the country. In short, the future may be bleak for a fairly large number of these “micro” businesses.

However, there is hope and, with a solid plan and determination, your business could not only survive – but prosper.

Time to Get Strategic

Though it offers little solace, it must be said that those who are imposing such severe restrictions on business owners usually know little about the entities they’re regulating. In other words, being an expert at limiting the spread of a virus does not also make one an expert at running a business. And so, conflicts arise.

Despite this, your ability to weather the storm and keep your small business afloat will depend more on how you respond than the limitations being placed on you. According to an article at Forbes.com (and quite a few others), you won’t be able to just “wing it” anymore. You will need to respond to the urgency of the moment with “efficient execution” of a plan.

This means that, if you haven’t begun to do so yet, you must create a strategy for survival that includes marketing, client acquisition, client retention, and more.

The Forbes article offers five keys for reopening your business and they are all solid recommendations. (Yet, one can only wonder why they placed “Make A Relaunch Plan” number three on the list!)

Below are brief descriptions of each of the keys:

Lead With Engagement – Engage with your local community to empathize with employees and customers. Many states have released guidelines for reopening businesses. Still, consumers just aren’t coming out the way they used to.
Get Ready – Personal protective equipment (PPE) is here to stay for the foreseeable future. If businesses have not planned well, it may become the greatest barrier to reopening their doors. From masks or other face protection to gloves and barriers, choose wisely and have these tools in place.
Make A Relaunch Plan – Don’t just open your doors. Relaunch your business. You will need to account for a variety of needs and regulations in your post-coronavirus relaunch plan.
Over-Communicate – Social media, email and radio or are all powerful ways to communicate and spread awareness. The impact of good communications is doubled when the businesses has something substantial to say. By now, we all have much to say.
Start Partnering Up – Small businesses can use partnerships to expand their audience. This is an especially useful tactic now to generate consumer interest, as the nation has been on a commercial hiatus.

While there is quite a bit more detail offered in the article, we believe this shortened version of their keys will get you thinking about a strategic approach to reopening your business.

Developing Your Business Relaunch Plan

Want to know a secret? You don’t have to “reinvent the wheel” when it comes to relaunching. Other business owners have already started the process and that means you have a template available. All you have to do is watch and learn!

Whether brick and mortar or online, there will be successful and unsuccessful relaunches taking place over the next months. Even your competition can offer insight, based on how well or poorly they respond.

Take some time to sit down and study these questions, then get busy researching the answers. Once you do, you will very likely have at least an outline of a plan for relaunching your business.

What are the successful businesses in your area or niche offering? Check out the social media profiles and websites of some top performers to see what they’re doing.
What changes have your competitors made since the pandemic hit? Have they changed their hours of operation? Their services or product lines? What have they missed and how can you respond to fill any voids?
What services and categories are needed in your area or niche? Are there categories where you could offer your services? There is always something missing in a competitors menu of services, creating a niche for you to fill.
What services can you provide that are unique, superior, or at a more competitive price point? The more specific you can be here, the better. Take a deep dive into the needs of your target audience, especially what they may need from you in the wake of the pandemic. What can you do differently or better?
What will set you apart from the local competition (or others in your niche online)? Is there a need in your market for a pro who is willing to take on smaller projects, instead of always going for The Big Deal? Does your market need a pro with a different pricing structure?

Not everyone will respond the same way to the needs of the moment. Some will do the expected – some the unexpected – with varying levels of success. Use these questions to research your local market or online niche and see if there’s an unmet need you can fulfill to attract new clients – or renew relationships with previous clients.

If you’re having trouble figuring out what your business will look like after the pandemic, and how to get strategic, we can help: Get in touch with the YOMT Team today

Opt-in Email Follow-up Campaign – Nurture Your Subscriber List

August 27, 2020 by Jama Leave a Comment

As we discussed in a previous post, using opt-in gifts is a great way to grow an email subscriber list, giving you an opportunity to engage with prospects you KNOW are interested. (How do you know? They gave you their email address!) Of course, this begs the question of HOW to engage and nurture them. The answer is; an opt-in email follow-up campaign.

How does an email campaign help your list building strategy? With a series of follow-up emails to every subscriber who downloaded your opt-in, you can begin to nurture a relationship with them. Based on the particular opt-in they chose, you should be able to generate a series of emails that speaks to their particular area of interest; their pain points, if you will.

The emails then address these points, offering practical solutions they can use to resolve certain issues. (Again, the opt-in clues you in to what matters most to them.)

Eventually, of course, you will offer the chance to work with you to help them resolve all of their issues; anything (and hopefully everything) that may be related to their original pain point.

Email Nurture Campaign to Your Subscriber List

Again, just as there are no one-size-fits-all solutions to the pain points of your clients – your email nurture campaign cannot be focused on a single issue. Rather, your emails must address the variety of subjects that your opt-ins tackled. The idea is to offer a bit more depth with each email, moving progressively toward a Big Solution.

Ideally, this will be when they accept your Call-to-Action and pay to work with you – a Special Deal for Subscribers ONLY!

How do you construct these emails? Thoughtfully. Generously. Consistently.

A nurture campaign will ONLY work if you take the time to develop real-world, practical solutions to your subscriber’s pain points. This lets them know you truly understand their dilemma and that you really can help. By freely sharing some of your “secrets”, you build trust and begin to generate loyalty. Consistently staying in touch with them illustrates your commitment to helping and shows that you are engaged with them and interested in their welfare.

How to Structure a Nurture Campaign – Offer Value

Here’s how to get started creating your email nurture campaign:

The opt-in they choose tells you their priorities – Let’s say you offer three opt-in gifts: A, B, C. Each gift addresses a specific issue, with potential solutions that actually work. The prospect who chooses opt-in A will need a different kind of nurturing than those who picked B and C. The series of emails you create for each of these subject areas must again offer real solutions to real problems, along with a Call-to-Action to work with you for a fully developed program.
Nurture them toward working with you using email – Here is where you describe your program(s) in some detail and offer a Special Price for Subscribers ONLY! Again the programs need to be focused on their issues. Program A addresses the subject in Opt-in A; Program B for Opt-in B, and Program C for Opt-in C. (Sorry if that’s all too obvious. Just trying to be as clear as possible here!)
Offer another freebie, if needed, or a very inexpensive service – You really can’t expect a new prospect to eagerly drop, say $2000, right out of the box – no matter how good your opt-in gift is! Instead, think in terms of a simplified service or recorded training that you can let them have at a Big Discount. A good example might be an hour of recorded training from a webinar you hosted recently: a $75 value for $9.97… For Subscribers ONLY!

In a perfect world, your nurture campaign would need just 3-4 emails to successfully bring subscribers into the fold as paying clients but, realistically, you should think in terms of half-a-dozen or so.

So, if you’re ready to get started using an opt-in email follow-up campaign to build your subscriber list, but are unsure how to get started: Get in touch with the YOMT Team today

How Many Opt-in Gifts Do You Need to Grow Your List? (Well, how many subscribers do you want?)

August 13, 2020 by Jama 2 Comments

While it’s not literally true that you will need 100 opt-ins to get 100 subscribers, it is true that, all things being equal, you will need more than one giveaway to substantially grow your email subscriber list – or to get one started. (Of course, with something like 1.7 billion websites competing for attention worldwide, all things being equal in online marketing is a bit of an oxymoron, so… )

The critical thing to remember when you are working on list building is this: there are no one-size-fits-all solutions to the pain points of your clients.

Yes, we know you tell your clients this, and we know that you offer customized, real-world solutions to their dilemmas. And yet, we also know that you are hoping we will tell you that there IS a single solution to your email marketing and list building questions. (Yeah, we’ve been doing this a while now. LOL)

What does this mean for your list building strategy? Simply, that you will need a variety of opt-in gifts to generate interest, based on the varied needs of your target audience.

What Your Opt-in Offer Should Accomplish

Let’s define some terms here, first:

An opt-in offer is the presentation of a gift (usually digital) in exchange for the email address of a visitor to your website; perhaps the most valuable thing they have to offer in the age of online relationships.
Typically, the opt-in offer is a bit of high-value information that is designed to resolve a particular issue that is important to a member of your target audience.
The most common form of opt-in gift is an article or “whitepaper” that can be downloaded in document form, though a mini-eBook (a 3-5 page PDF) is a very popular choice, as well. Free video or audio training are also very popular opt-in gifts.
Critical to the success of such an offer is that the information you share must be targeted to a particular portion of your audience and that your solution be laser focused on a specific issue. Do NOT try to be all things to all people. Instead, provide a REAL solution to ONE problem.
Finally, the most successful opt-ins offer huge value in exchange for something of equal value – your visitor’s email address. In other words, the solution you share in your opt-in MUST be something that a client would be otherwise willing to pay you for.

Now that you have their email address, you have an audience with whom you can engage through the use of newsletters, nurture email campaigns, “check in” emails, event notices, and promotional materials. This is how you begin building relationships in our digital world; relationships that show your expertise, grow trust, and have the potential to generate conversions.

Types of Opt-in Offers

Since our audience is so diverse, it’s virtually impossible to share every type of opt-in offer that you might be able to offer but, the following are some of the most common – and effective – examples we have helped our clients create:

Nutrition Coach: It goes without saying that many, if not most, people who consider working with a nutrition coach are interested in weight loss, weight maintenance, or both. The problem is they may not be the same people, which means your weight loss audience may not respond to an opt-in gift that offers maintenance tips – and vice versa. Then again, others may want help with healthy menu planning, healthy shopping tips, how to read nutrition labels, or even nutrition tips for their children.

Secrets to Losing Weight
Secrets to Keeping Wight Off
Virtual Grocery Shopping Tour
Nutrition Label Guide
Healthy Meal Panning Guide (with menus for healthy breakfasts, lunches, and dinners)

Since each of these opt-in gifts will appeal to a different segment of your target audience, you will be able to build your subscriber list with a diverse mix of potential clients.

Business Coach: While many business owners are looking for tips to boost profits, other are looking for ways to increase revenue, launch new products or services, increase efficiency and/or production, etc.

Goal Setting Tips
4 Easy Steps to Boosting Annual Revenue
Business Start-up Checklist
Employee Engagement Tips
Increase Profitability Starting Now

While each of these subjects will likely have an effect on the others, you goal is not to offer a free, all-in-one training that is equivalent to a master’s degree in business.

Product Launch: Launching a new product (or service) presents a seemingly endless list of challenges for a small business owner. In fact, the newer your business, the more challenges you will face – until you have a few launches under your belt. Enticing prospects to buy your products or services can be advanced by offering other items at no charge.

Get Your Free Sample (of ___) Today!
For a Limited Time, Save $$$
Free Trial Offer for Subscribers Only!
For a Limited Save 50% Off!
Help Us Test Our Newest (Product or Solution) and Get a Free ___!

Remember, free stuff generates interest and interest can eventually lead to conversions! For example, you can download a copy of our FREE Product Launch Checklist here! (See what we did there?!?) 😊

Well, that about does it for a blog post, where space and attention spans are limited. In closing, it’s important to remember that a good opt-in gift solves a single important issue for your audience. It should then be followed with a series of emails to discover if the information you shared was helpful (which is another subject we can deal with later).

For now, follow these tips to grow your list and let the rest take care of itself. Are you looking for more tips on email marketing, help with your online marketing strategy, or other marketing ideas? Get in touch with the YOMT Team today.

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