How To Market Without A Budget

Special Report: Want to learn how to market your product without a budget?  Here are the 6 parts to my Small Business Marketing Workshop series:

• Part 1 - Questions to Narrow Your Market
  
• Part 2 - Our Theories For The Answers 
• Part 3 - Introduction To Research 
• Part 4 - How To Research 
• Part 5 - Writing Your Marketing Plan 
• Part 6 - Execute Your Plan 

Other useful articles:

• Marketing 101 For Small Business 
• How To Create More Demand 
• About Demographics 
• Free Advertising 
• The Use of Loss Leaders, Discounts, and Promotionals

Sponsors:

• OfficeMax Deals of the Week
  

Small Business Marketing Workshop - Part 6

At this point, you should have your marketing plan and be able to execute it.  Make sure to give yourself and budget and stick to it because your business success will be partially based on how long you can work at building your business before you make a profit.

One thing you may want to add to your plan are measurements to use to make sure your plan is on track.  As you execute your plan, you should be making sure that the results are what you expect and be prepared to make changes.  Nearly 100% of the time something will be slightly different than you expect.

Good luck and make sure to let me know how it goes.

Other useful articles:

• Marketing 101 For Small Business 
• How To Create More Demand 
• About Demographics 
• Free Advertising 
• The Use of Loss Leaders, Discounts, and Promotionals

Sponsors:

• OfficeMax Deals of the Week

Small Business Marketing Workshop - Part 5

By now you have done your marketing research to help you confirm or revise your answers to questions about the customers for your product. These answers will help you devise a marketing plan to describe the following:

• Who is the customer for your product?  How big is the market?
  
• Where you can find them (online, magazine, newspaper, yellow pages, etc.)  For instance, you might find people who cook reading Cooking magazine.
• How you can appeal to your customer in your mini-marketing message, i.e. advertisement
• How to sell the product in your sales presentation.
• How likely they are to buy.

You may not be able to address all of these points but you do your best.  Your marketing plan is usually a big part of your business plan that you can show to potential investors or banks, so the more specific you are, the more people will feel confident investing in your comany.

Your assignment for part 6 is to devise a marketing plan.  You will take the information you have and try to address the above points.  If you have additional items to add to your marketing plan, please feel free to do this.

For more information:

• http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingbasics/marketingplan/article43018.html
• http://www.smallbusinessnotes.com/planning/sbabusplan.html
  

Next step:

• Part 6 - Execute Your Plan 

Other useful articles:

• Marketing 101 For Small Business 
• How To Create More Demand 
• About Demographics 
• Free Advertising 
• The Use of Loss Leaders, Discounts, and Promotionals

Sponsors:

• OfficeMax Deals of the Week

Small Business Marketing Workshop - Part 4

In Part 3 of the marketing workshop, I asked you to somehow come up with data about consumer behaviors as they relate to your product, and adjust your answers from part 2.  If somebody told me to do this 10 year ago, I would think they were out of their mind.  Basically, I'm telling you to do something that you may have no idea how to do.  Here are some ways you can come up with data for this assignment:

Small Business Marketing Workshop - Part 3

In part 2 of our workshop, we guessed about what the answers would be to our questions that we came up with in workshop 1.  Understanding that the answers are purely guesses but they lay the foundataion for our theories about what is going on in our market.  Next, we will try to prove or disprove our theories by doing some sort of research.  For research, we want factual information that could be either primary or secondary information.

Small Business Marketing Workshop - Part 2

In part 1 of our small business marketing workshop, we were coming up with good questions to ask to help us narrow down and define our market.  My example for a product was picture frames.

Small Business Marketing Workshop - Part 1

Marketing is about figuring out who would buy your product and why.  With that information, we can develop an advertising and sales strategy.  Advertising, in this case, encompasses all methods of spreading word about your product.

How To Get 15,000 Hits Per Day To Your Website

To be honest with you, I have no idea how much traffic we got to our e-commerce web site at its peak.  We were just doing a ton of business.  So much so we couldn't keep up, let alone check our web stats.  At first I wanted to see where people were going on the site, so I did check, but after a while just fulfilling our customer orders and requests was about all we could do beyond taking care of our children and working a full time job.

I expect, though, that we were listed on the web directory with the most traffic at the time: Yahoo.  And, we were the only distributor of our product, which was an exceptionally popular product, on the Yahoo directory.  So the product was searched a ton and we were the only site other than the corporate site available to people who were searching.  So that is the key to getting a ton of traffic to your website: Have the only website for an extremely popular web search.  Good luck with that.

Other than that, traffic to your website will be based on having pages with information people want to find.  Perhaps not the only supplier of the information, and not the most popular search, but generally having information being searched.  The more pages you have with information people want, the more visitors your site will get.  Better yet, have your visitors build pages of information that other visitors will want to view, such as having a forum.  I once ran a directory that was extremely popular because people wanted free listings on it.  Too bad it didn't generate a whole lot of income.

If you are giving away free samples or products, free web space, free information that people want, or free services that people want, vistors will flock to your site.  You just need to make sure it doesn't require a whole lot of maintenance to take care of your visitors or you will find yourself very busy.  If you have good software, though, many of these web services can take care of themselves.  You just need to have purchased hosting that can handle the traffic you'll get.

We were lucky and good, and had a business that made us money and that we could support.  If you work hard enough at promoting your site, you will also get lucky.  You just need to keep working at it for long enough.

Marketing 101 For Small Businesses

Marketing, in my opinion, is not simply the act of selling the product to a customer but is the definition and backbone of the total effort of the company.  Marketing defines the attributes of the customer and how the customer will be reached so that time and money are not wasted.  Marketing looks for the value added of the company that can be sold to the customer.  Marketing outlines the business flow of customers through various areas of the business.  Marketing can determine the vision and direction of the company.

Good marketing is the difference between being miserable and disheartened, and being energized with a lot of activity.  You are selling to the right people who want to hear your message.  People are making their way through the marketing process, hearing the sales presentation, buying product or signing up as distributors.  Poor marketing practice is like cold-calling the phone book.  It's beating your head against a brick wall and never getting anywhere.  If you are a new multi-level marketer, you have probably felt this way many times.

So how do you market well?  You need to find the right types of people for your product or opportunity.  Are you selling widgets?  Who uses widgets?  Do men or women usually buy widgets?  Are widgets purchased by everyone or just certain income levels?  Are people more likely to buy widgets in a certain part of the country or world?  Are office workers more likely to buy widgets than blue collar workers?  These are the kinds of questions you need to ask about your product in order to build a profile of your customer.

For an opportunity that sells widgets, you probably want your customer for widgets plus a few other elements.  For instance, are store owners likely to want to sell widgets?  Are widgets best sold by personal sales people?  Does being a distributor for widgets offer a discount for purchases?  These questions can define which of your customers you may want to offer the opportunity to, or the kind of people you want to find for your opportunity.

I have described this before as creating a demographic profile.  Demographics define a subset of the population.  A given person usually fits within a group or several groups.  Perhaps your demographic profile describes only 10% of the population so 90% of the population typically would not be interested in what you are offering.  If you make your offer to the correct 10% of the population, not all will buy but they are considerably more likely to be interested.  This makes business fun, to be presenting to people who want to be presented to.

Marketing also defines your advertising methods, sales messages, and what values your business offers to your customers.  Marketing as a whole may be a process of trial and error, but once you find what works for you, you just do it over and over and bigger and bigger.  Larger companies try to get more precise with their marketing activities by doing a ton of research before ever delivering a product to market, but since we don't have a major amount of resources or time, doing things small in a trial and error fashion works fine.

How To Create More Demand

You have a winning product and you have a great sales presentation, why are orders only trickling in? It could be many different factors, and you will have to consider each one and possibly experiment a bit before you come up with the right answer:

1. Your expectations are out of whack

Perhaps you have good sales and you are just looking to get rich overnight. Let's say you spend $100 on advertising and get $20 in orders. That's not bad. Hopefully the orders you've received are from customers who will buy from you again.

2. People like the product but they like another vendor

Maybe your sales presentation needs a little bit more about why people should buy from you. Why should they buy from you and not somebody else? Just because you gave the sales presentation doesn't mean you'll get the sale.

3. People don't understand your product

Perhaps either people don't understand why they should buy the product or why they should buy this product when other comparable products sell for less. A little salesmanship could overcome this problem by going into more detail about the product's features and benefits, and why the customer will be happier with this product.

4. The price really is too high

Generally as the price of your product goes down, demand should go up. You should not be selling for a loss but maybe a minor adjustment could change things. A little research is in order to figure out what people are willing to pay.

5. You aren't selling your services

Many services add much value to a product. For instance, if you offer a long guarantee or you engrave the item. Perhaps you deliver the product to the person's door the same day ordered. Make sure to offer free services that cost you little, or save you money.

6. You haven't considered customer retention

Often initial orders are great but follow up orders are poor. How is the customer being treated? Are you meeting their expectations? Is the product falling short? Make sure to follow up with customers who order and ask them if there is anything you could do better.

I mentioned services that save you money. We found that many of our efforts to improve our customers' experiences were worth spending a little more money for and saved us money compared to other distributors who did not do these things. For instance, we offered a six month money-back guarantee where other distributors offered 30 days. We found that more of our customers were successful with the product and we had significantly fewer returns.

We also had a policy of going above and beyond for our customers, and doing our best to eliminate the hassles of doing business with us. We found that people appreciated the effort so much that they would only buy from us, we had very few complaints, and almost nobody took advantage of our good nature. In fact, we only ever had 2 credit card charge backs because we would usually be able to work things out with our customers. I had mentioned that we used to bill customers who would send payment. We had so few customers not pay us that we saved money versus customers who used credit cards. I would also call customers who didn't pay just to ask them if everything was ok. I ended up writing off 2 of the accounts but we generated a lot of word-of-mouth advertising.

Chris and I used to have meetings to discuss "the right thing to do" when we had an issue with a customer. This led to better customer service policies and more happy customers.

Hopefully you can come up with other ideas to improve customer retention and pump up your sales.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

You are excited. You sign up and buy the kit. You are going to make big money. All you have to do is sponsor three and teach them to sponsor three. Sounds soooo easy. You call all of your friends and none - zero want to be your distributor. But but all you have to do is... Then you try and try and try, you get more and more frustrated. Then discouragement sets in. People are telling you that you seem like you are part of some cult, and that this will never amount to anything. You know what else your sponsor told you? That you never have to sell... Hey, you've been selling your opportunity to your friends and family right?

These are the two lies that sponsors tell: You only have to sponsor 3 - and you don't have to sell. "Everybody" uses these lies, because they are true in theory. I mean, you don't have to sell if you are buying for yourself and sponsoring others, or do you? Sponsoring is recruiting and is very similar to selling; so technically - it is selling. And you do sell to yourself. If you advertise, your marketing message is a sales pitch and usually requires a sales presentation as a follow up. Even if you are recruiting this is true.

As far as needing to sponsor just 3 people and teach them to sponsor 3, in my experience your attempt to sponsor from your warm market is nearly impossible and where else would you get just 3 from? Let's say that you beat your head against a brick wall long enough and it crumbled... in other words you sponsored 3. The likelihood that all 3 will want to do anything is slim and none. Especially if you use the same "sales" pitch: sponsor just three, no selling involved. Some people will just sign up to get you off their back. Others will sign up and get busy. Others must watch Monday night football and have a case of beer nightly. Some just have the misfortune of getting sick, injured, fired, divorced... you just never know what you're going to get.

Ok, so what do you really have to do? First, realize that you are in business. You started a small business and you will need to know how to sell your product. No way around it. You must sell to yourself, your warm market, people you know, and people you don't know. You do this to learn their objections. Hey if you sell something, that is great, but your greatest learning experience is when people don't buy. Why did they choose not to buy? Very important stuff because we need to learn how to overcome the objections to your product... mainly because the product is also the opportunity.

When you sell an opportunity, you are selling yourself as sponsor and your lifestyle, but you are also selling your product. Because... who is going to buy the product? We know from earlier posts that legal MLM companies must have product sales in order to pay commissions to distributors. If everyone is recruiting and nobody is buying or selling the product, how much money do you make? That's right, zero. "Gasp," you say, "I don't want to work my butt off and earn nothing!" Well then, you must sell the product to yourself, to customers, and to your downline distributors.

Second, you must realize that even though theoretically it's possible to only need to sponsor three (or four or five), the reality is that 95% or more of distributors will drop out. No matter how they are recruited, no matter how much support, no matter if you build their business for them, no matter if you have the greatest product ever... they will drop out. So you will constantly need to replace your drop out distributors in order to keep your business growing.

Another sad reality is that good distributors (i.e. big fish) work not with all of their distributors constantly, but mainly with their best producers. Do I agree with doing this? Absolutely. You should be there for all your distributors but usually it's the best ones who want and deserve help. The others are bothered when you call them.

One thing you can do to keep drop out distributors happy: Don't oversell your opportunity. If you tell your distributors they can make money while playing on the computer, they'll be playing solitaire wondering why the checks are not flowing in. Tell them that hard work pays, they will either work hard or not, but they won't be unhappy either way.

Next post I will write about how multi-level marketing is similar to and different from other small businesses.

The Use of Loss Leaders, Discounts, and Promotionals

I don't believe in giving away the store but there are times when loss leaders and discounts are in order. Loss leaders is product, samples, information, booklets, catalogs, etc. giving away at a loss in order to secure future business. A discount is a reduction in price but not so much that it creates a loss. A promotional item is something useful to someone else that promotes your business.

Many people expect samples, catalogs, and promotional material to be given away for free but they do cost you money. One thing I will say about giving away these kinds of items is that you only want to give them to people who want them. For instance, if you are doing door hangers, use cheaper materials and give catalogs to people who respond. People who receive catalogs otherwise will just throw them out and they are very expensive to you.

Giving away product is similar. It is very expensive to you so I would try to avoid this practice. Samples cost less. However, if you have a very warm sales prospect or very warm distributor lead, giving away an item might be in order. Use this practice sparingly or it may get very expensive very fast.

Sharp discounts should definitely be given to your warm market, i.e. family and friends. In fact, I would sell at cost to your warm market because they will be your best source of word-of-mouth advertising. Smaller discounts can be given to your best customers or those who buy a lot of product.

Promotional items are useful in some cases. For instance, I like to use inexpensive key chains or pens with my company name and web site address. I usually give them to people who ask for information. More expensive promotional items can be given to your best customers or prospects who may mean a lot of money to you. The more useful an item is, the more they are likely to use it and look at it. Still, I would not use it as a substitute for networking or advertising.

One thing you should never, ever do: You should never pay for a distributor to sign up. However, offering freebees to your best prospects is useful, especially to promote good will and to get them to open up to you. I like mailing postcards offering to send them free items to help them with their decision. Now they may call you because they have something to talk about, and that can lead to questions and answers about the business.

Even using freebees to people requesting them, i.e. free information and samples, can get expensive. We used to spend our entire profit from selling products on freebees, and we sold a lot of product. Especially when first starting out it is important to give yourself a business budget and stay within that budget, because you don't want to find yourself out of business before you even get started.

Free Advertising

A cynic would say that there is nothing free in life, that everything has a cost. Free advertising does have a cost and that cost is your time. Sure there is no monetary cost, but advertising for free will eat up a lot of time for the result you get. Still, when you are starting out, you have more time than money so spending time to advertise is a better choice than spending money.

Before I get too deep into where you can get free advertising, we need to define what advertising is. Advertising is a way to sell your product or opportunity without you personally making a sales call or presentation. It is your marketing message given out in your absence.

Advertising is meant to do one of two things or both: Gather leads for your product or opportunity and or create an image for your company. Good display advertising should do both. In classified advertising we are probably just asking for leads. These are two ends of the spectrum and there are many possibilities in between.

Print advertising is not the only game in town either. You can advertise on television or on youtube. You can also advertise virtually on line, which can be similar to display advertising or can do much much more. Media advertising is not the end of the road either, because you can deliver your advertisement directly to your prospect. For instance, putting a business card on the bulletin board in the grocery store or hanging flyers on the front door of homes.

So you can start to see how advertising can be either truly free or kinda free. You will have to spend money to print flyers or business cards but there is no cost beyond that. There are also many free classified sites online that you can make use of. You probably will get very few leads this way but the leads will be free.

Let’s talk for a bit about what makes a successful advertising. I had talked about demographics and asking for what you want in another blog. You can apply these to advertising also. To get the best response to an advertisement, you need to advertise where the viewers are interested in what you are advertising. For instance, if you sell children’s books, you may look into advertising in Parents magazine. This is an example and advertising in Parents would have a cost, but you can see what I mean.

Your advertisement must also be carefully crafted so that you are asking for what you truly want. For instance: “Sell household products for profit. Free information: SM, Box 5432, Chicago, Illinois 60652”. The responses to this advertisement will be people who consider themselves sales people, and who are not put off by the idea of selling household products.

These days, you can also create a web space for free or very little money and direct people to visit. Many people use twitter or facebook to get out a marketing message, which are both free. Do a google search on free website for more possibilities. I will write more about advertising in future blog entries.

About Demographics

Demographics is a description of a subset of the population. For instance: Men, older than 60, that own their own home. If this is the demographic of your market, then this is who you want to seek in order to sell your product. Not that you will sell your product to all men older than 60 who own their own home, but that you will have an advantage with this group of people to where you will sell more to them as a percentage than the general population.

This is how you change the odds more in your favor. You define the kind of person who would want to buy your product and then you find people like that to sell your product to. Rather than selling 1 in 100 people, you may sell 1 in 10 (as an example). Plus your product will captivate the interest of your target market more than the general population so your feedback will not be so negative.

How do you define the demographic for your product? Let’s take an easier example, say you sell toys. Who is your target market? It could be children that are the right age to want the toy. Probably either a boy or girl. Let’s think about this a bit more though - do children this age have the money to buy toys? If not, perhaps you are looking for their parents. So you demographic may be parents of boys between 8 and 12. You can do the same with virtually any product.

So then how do you find your target market? There are many ways that are only limited by your imagination. Remember that starting out we want to try to avoid spending money as much as possible. So perhaps we can make a list of everyone we know and call them one by one (cold calling your warm market), which sucks but stay with me a second. Rather than asking them if you can make a sales presentation to them or talking about business, maybe you just ask them if they know anybody who has children around 10. Make a list of these people then contact them. Again, rather than specifically selling these people, let them know who you were referred by and ask them if they know anybody else who has children around 10 that are shopping for toys for Christmas (or something similar). Often they will refer more people or talk to you about your product. The idea is not to hard sell but to make contacts, get them information, and get referrals. Sales come from warm leads (people who show a strong interest in your product) not from pressuring people to buy stuff they don’t want or need.

The important thing in finding your market is to ask for what you want.

How do you sponsor then using these techniques? You must first define the marketing for your business opportunity. Perhaps they will be women in their 30’s that want to make a little extra money. Or they may be your best product customers who want to save a little by buying from themselves. Or they could be people who have expressed an interest in being a business person. Use your imagination, there are many possibilities. You may also be able to refine your market once you begin working your business.

From there we find members of our market, get them information if they are interested, and get referrals.

Please note that calling people and getting referrals is only one method of finding members of your market. You can use your imagination and find other free ways to make contact with people within your market demographic. For instance, I used to post coupons on the bulletin board at the grocery store. You can also advertise for free on line using classifieds. Make sure to ask for what you want.

I will write more about how to advertise effectively with and without spending money in future posts.