The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand Out From The Crowd

Struggling business owners will spend time to save money, whereas successful business owners will spend money to save time. Why is that an important distinction? Because you can always get more money, but you can never get more time. So you need to ensure the stuff you spend your time on makes the biggest impact.

Dominate a niche, then once you own it, do the same with another and then another. But never do so all at once. Doing so dilutes your message and your marketing power.

Targeting a tight niche allows you to become a big fish in a small pond. It allows you to dominate a category or geography in a way that is impossible by being general.

By far the biggest leverage point in any business is marketing. If you get 10% better at marketing, this can have an exponential or multiplying effect on your bottom line.

To be a successful small business marketer you need laser-like focus on a narrow target market, sometimes called a niche.

The marketing plan ended up being the 20% part of the business planning process that produced 80% of the result.

Rather than trying to sell directly from your ad, simply invite prospects to put their hand up and indicate interest. This lowers resistance and helps you build a marketing database—one of the most valuable assets in your business.

The uniqueness may be in the way it is packaged, delivered, supported or even sold.

A better option than discounting is to increase the value of your offering. Bundling in bonuses, adding services, customizing the solution can all be of genuine value to your customer but can cost you very little to do.

If you want more success you need to start paying attention to and expand the things that give you the most leverage.

Rather than “getting your name out there,” you’ll fare much better by concentrating on getting the name of your prospects in here.

Understanding the difference between strategy and tactics is absolutely key to marketing success.

You know [problem]? Well, what we do is [solution]. In fact, [proof].

Direct response marketing is a particular branch of marketing that gives small businesses cut through and a competitive edge on a small budget. It’s designed to ensure you get a return on investment that is measurable.

When you turn your ads into direct response ads, they become lead generating tools rather than just name recognition tools.

It’s not that the small businesses aren’t good at “branding” or mass media ads. It’s that they simply don’t have the budget to run their ads in sufficient volume to make them effective.

A great way of figuring out your ideal target market is to use the PVP index4 (Personal fulfillment, Value to the marketplace and Profitability) and give each market segment you serve a rating out of 10.

You must stop selling and start educating, consulting and advising prospects about the benefits your products and services deliver compared to each and every competitor in your category.

People only find out about your quality and great service after they’ve bought. A good USP is designed to attract prospects before they’ve made a purchasing decision.

Along these lines, a pricing strategy that I’ve seen work very well is offering a “standard” and “premium” variation of a service or product. The “premium” version is priced at about 50% above the “standard” but offers twice or more value than the “standard” variation.