Mobile marketing is a marketing tool that can instantly and directly reach your customers – anywhere, anytime – at home, at work, or when they’re on-the-go.

Mobile text messaging has a HIGHER Read-Rate than Email.

Mobile marketing is a highly personal communications tool…your customers actually ASK to join. 

Mobile marketing is an effective and affordable way to involve your customers and maintain exposure for your business  — better than email, radio, TV or print. 

With mobile, you can reach 250+ million consumers in the U.S. alone. It’s proof your customers have gone mobile! How about you?

If you’re interested in mobile marketing for your business; check out:
www.text2deal.com

BTW: For those of you offering your own coupon clubs, you’re really going to love this…

Many small business owners have decided to implement a ‘pay per lead’ marketing program without fully understanding the exact methods used to pull those leads. In addition, if you’re not careful, your new lead program could end up costing you considerably more than you originally anticipated.

Should you decide to begin a ‘pay per lead’ marketing strategy, here’s some tips to help:

1. Make sure that you carefully evaluate the pricing structure.

2. Know your target market.

3. Research and analyze your industry specifics.

In addition, take some time to frequently re-evaluate your existing marketing strategies. One of the benefits that small business owners have; is the ability to quickly maneuver, zig and zag, and make changes immediately. If you find that your current marketing methods are not working, don’t be afraid to change them. Try something new, get creative, and go for it! If it doesn’t work out, don’t fret it – simply rinse and repeat…

Here’s my spin on it. Phone books have been around for decades, they have stood the test of time, and people are used to looking up business information in their local phone book.

The internet, on the other hand, is fairly new, constantly changing, and can often be confusing (search overload.)

However, the fact is; the internet has already proven itself to be the fasted accepted “information sharing” medium in history! 

People are familiar with the internet, they love it enough to pay for it, and moreover, they simply can’t get enough of it. Whether they are using it to stay in touch with friends and family, searching for a job, keeping up with the news, or searching for a local business; the internet is (already) intimately intertwined with our daily lives…and it’s not going to go away.

The key point for small business owners to realize is that when choosing to use the internet for marketing purposes, you’ll find (when done correctly) that it beats the phone book ad handsdown!

Internet marketing is cost effective, easily changed and updated, does not have “ad size” restrictions, and you have the ability to zero in on your local target market at the exact moment they are looking for you.

So what’s the best investment of your marketing dollars? Of course, the answer really depends on your budget; if you can afford it; choose to market your business with a phone book ad AND a website. If cost is an issue – choose the internet.

A. I don’t have time to do myself, or

B. I would simply prefer to place in the capable hands of other professionals.

The old saying goes something like this “SMART PEOPLE PUT SMART PEOPLE AROUND THEM’  -  which simply means you can’t do it all yourself. 

I truly believe that many business owners should try and put aside a small amount of time to examine whether or not they are asking for help when they really need it…  

But, how do you know when your business needs help?

It’s simple; the time to enlist the assistance of others is not necessarily when your business is sinking: 

The time to ask for help is before you leave the dock.

The time to ask for help is before you fall behind your competitors.

The time to ask for help is before the next sales rep comes knocking on the door.

The time to ask for help is before you lose money on outdated advertising methods.

Put yourself in a position of continuously being one step ahead, anticipating the next opportunity, recognize you can’t do it all yourself, and then find qualified professionals to help you get where you’re going.

If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus Coming to the Fairground Saturday”, that’s advertising.

If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that’s promotion.

If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flower bed, that’s publicity.

And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations.

If the town’s citizens go the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they’ll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that’s sales.

And, if you planned the whole thing, that’s Marketing!

Why? Because five times as many people will read your headline than your copy. Quite simply, a headline is…an ad for your ad. People won’t stop their busy lives to read your copy unless you give them a good reason to do so. So a good headline promises some news and a benefit.

Think about the last time you browsed through your local newspaper. You checked out the articles, one by one, and occasionally an ad may have caught your eye. Which ads were the ones most likely to catch your eye?

The ones that looked like an article.

The ones with the headline that promised news.

The ones with fonts and type that closely resembled the fonts and type used in articles.

The ones that were placed where articles were placed (as opposed to being placed on a full page of ads, for example).

The ones with the most compelling headlines that convinced you it’s worth a few minutes to read the copy.

Remember that the headline you use is extremely powerful and very important to the overall response rate that your ad receives.

What are features? They are descriptions of what qualities a product possesses.

· The XYZ car delivers 55 miles per gallon in the city.
· Our ladder’s frame is made from a lightweight durable steel alloy.
· Our glue is protected by a patent.
· This database has a built-in data-mining system.

And what are benefits? They are what those features mean to your prospects.

· You’ll save money on gas and cut down on environmental pollutants when you use our energy saving high-performance hybrid car. Plus, you’ll feel the extra oomph when you’re passing cars, courtesy of the efficient electric motor, which they don’t have!

· Lightweight durable steel-alloy frame means you’ll be able to take it with you with ease, and use it in places most other ladders can’t go, while still supporting up to 800 pounds. No more backaches lugging around that heavy ladder. And it’ll last for 150 years, so you’ll never need to buy another ladder again!

· Patent-protected glue ensures you can use it on wood, plastic, metal, ceramic, glass, and tile…without messy cleanup and without ever having to re-glue it again—guaranteed!

· You can instantly see the “big picture” hidden in your data, and pull the most arcane statistics on demand. Watch your business do a “180” in no time flat, when you instantly know why it’s failing in the first place! It’s all done with our built-in data-mining system that’s so easy to use, my twelve year-old son used it successfully right out of the box.

Just remember, it’s more important to focus your ad copy to emphasize benefits not features.

The problem for many small business owners, of course, is the expense of delivering your commercial message via television. Video commercials are not cheap to produce and quality air time can definitely put a dent in the annual budget.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could deliver the same commercial quality  and impact without sacrificing your childrens college tuition?

The value of online video commercials are just now beginning to be realized.  With the influx of video websites such as YouTube, the internet has  started to see a shift in how marketing is done online and small business owners are starting to take notice!

No longer viewed as just a hobby or fun past time, online video commercials are undoubtedly the next big thing for spreading your business message to the masses.

1) Lowest Price – If you’ve got the corner marketed on low budget prices, flaunt it. Wal-Mart has made this USP famous lately, but it’s not new to them. In fact, selling for cheaper has been around as long as capitalism itself. Personally, I’m not crazy about price wars, because someone can always come along and sell for cheaper. Then it’s time for a new strategy…

2) Superior Quality – If it outperforms your competitor’s product or is made with higher quality materials, it’s a good bet that you could use this fact to your advantage. For example, compare Breyers Ice Cream to their competitor’s. From the packaging to the wholesome superior ingredients, the quality is evident. It may cost a little more than their competitor’s ice cream, but for their market, it sells.

3) Superior Service – If you offer superior service over your competitor’s, people will buy from you instead. This is especially true with certain markets that are all about service: long-distance, Internet service providers, cable television, etc.

4) Exclusive Rights – If you can legitimately claim that your product is protected by a patent or copyright, licensing agreement, etc., then you have a winner for exclusive rights.

Want some more USP examples?

· We are the only car repair shop that will buy your car if you are not 100 percent satisfied with our work.

· Delivered in 30 minutes or it’s on us!

· No other furniture company will pay for your shipping.

· Our recipe is so secret, only three people in the world know it!

As with most ways to boost ad copy response, research is the key with your USP. Sometimes your USP is obvious, for example if you have a patent. Other times you must do a little legwork to discover it (or shape it to your target market).

And if your copy doesn’t tell him, it’ll land in the trash faster than he can read the headline or lead.

A lot of small business owners make this mistake. They focus their content on them as the company.  For example; how long they’ve been in business, who their biggest customers are, how they’ve spent ten years of research and millions of dollars on developing this product, blah, blah.

Actually, those points are important. But they should be expressed in a way that matters to your potential customer. Remember, once your ad is thrown in the garbage, the sale is lost!

When writing your copy, it helps to think of it as writing a letter to an old friend. In fact, I often picture a friend of mine who most closely fits my prospect’s profile. What would I say to convince this friend to try my product? How would I target my friend’s objections and beliefs to help my cause?

When you’re writing to a friend, you’ll use the pronouns “I” and “you.” When trying to convince your friend, you might say: “Look, I know you think you’ve tried every widget out there. But you should know that…”

And it goes beyond just writing in the second person. That is, addressing your prospect as “you” within the copy. The fact of the matter is there are many successful ads that weren’t written in the second person. Some are written in the first person perspective, where the writer uses “I.” Other times the third person is used, with “she,” “he,” and “them.”

And even if you do write in the second person, it doesn’t necessarily mean your copy is about them.

For example:

“As a real estate agent, you can take comfort in the fact that I’ve sold over 10,000 homes and mastered the tricks of the trade”

Although you’re writing in the second person, you’re really still focusing on yourself.

So how can you focus on them?

One way to focus on your customer is to always remember to emphasize BENEFITS…not features.