12 Marketing Secrets That Will Skyrocket Your Sales

12 Marketing Secrets
That Will Skyrocket Your Sales
By David Carrington

Website Marketing Professionals
Narragansett, RI • 1-877-KEY-WEBS
www.WebsiteMarketingProfessionals.com
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“12 Marketing Secrets That Will Sky Rocket Your Sales”
1st Edition • Published in the United States of America
Copyright © 2010 - Website Marketing Professionals - All Rights Reserved.
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Introduction
“If I had 8 hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend 6 hours sharpening my ax”
- Abraham Lincoln
A marketing crusade is an all out effort to convert prospects to your product or service,
your company, and your way of thinking. The success of your business will most often
result from how successful your marketing efforts are.
You can have the greatest product or service there is, but if you don’t know how to
successfully get it into the hands of your potential customers, your business is doomed to
fail before you even start.
You should compare your marketing efforts to the work of a missionary or the launching
of a crusade because only the fervor and the determination of a missionary or crusader
will assure your marketing success.
Missionaries are driven by more than just their desire to sell someone on buying their
product or service. A missionary’s goal is to convert the world to their way of thinking,
their product or service. Only through such a conversion process can you expect to
receive not just a customer, but customers for life.
When your business launches a marketing mission, it takes a different approach to
marketing than what is traditionally done.
Traditional approaches must be set aside in favor of your missionary or crusader goal. In
a traditional effort, the real motivation for most marketing activity is to make a quick
buck. That’s nice to do, but that’s not all you need to stay in business.
As a missionary marketer your business goal should become a commitment to win your
customer’s business and loyalty forever. The goal of your marketing is to change the way
your customers think about your products or services. Your prospects and customers
must see your business as the very best way to solve their problems or satisfy their wants
and needs. Then your goals and your growth will be met as a natural result.
If you manage your sales and growth properly, increased profits are going to follow.
Immediate profits are nowhere near as important as long-term profits. To insure that
you're going to continue to profit for the long-term, your real objective is to convert your
prospect into a customer who shares your vision of what you're trying to accomplish and
is a true believer.
Vision is often a problem with the normal sales approach. There is no vision other than
the short-term, which is to make the immediate sale. There is no real focus (or very little)
on what is called "Back-end Selling" or the "Lifetime Value of a Customer" which I'll
talk more about later.
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What is Your Vision for Your Business?
•
Is your business focused on a specific area of interest of your prospects,
customers, or clients?
•
Are you driven fervently by the need to help them or yourself?
• Why should prospects and customers patronize your business rather than one of
your competitors?
• What will not only cause your customers to return again and again, but cause
them to tell others to buy your products and services as well?
• Can you take that vision, incorporate it with a main sales and marketing thrust, or
a “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP) and use that to differentiate from your
competitors?
I am going to show you how to launch your marketing mission and how to re-think your
entire mindset on how real success is created whether you want to use information to
market yourself, a professional practice, or to market a business.
Life is really about marketing and selling. You start out as a cute little newborn baby and
you’re selling your parents on responding to your every whim. Throughout our lives, we
re-package and re-market ourselves continuously. We sell our parents on caring for us.
We sell our spouses on staying with us. We try to sell our children on obeying us. We try
to sell our bosses on employing us. We try to sell our customers on buying from us.
Usually through trial and error, throughout out our lives, we stumble upon some
marketing approaches that work, along with a few good sales techniques. Some tend to
work better than others, but we get by.
If you’re not a very good salesperson, you'll probably have some difficulties in life.
If you're a good salesperson, you’re probably going to succeed in life.
If you’re a great salesperson, you’ll probably be able to obtain your heart’s desire.
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Technique # 1

Sell a Valuable Product or Service
Over the years, everyone’s heard the expression that if you build a better mousetrap, the
world will beat a path to your door. If you’re in business, experience has probably proven
that this is a huge myth. You may be the best at what you do. You may have the best
product or service, but you will go broke if you don’t have customers. You’ve probably
already figured this out.
Unless you properly market your product or service, no one is ever going to even find the
path to your door, regardless of how unique it is. Marketing’s ultimate role in the sale of
your product or service is at least 80% of the success of your business.
Marketing is more than just selling. It encompasses everything from creating the image of
your company and product, a color scheme, location, background, and much, much more.
Marketing’s goal is to take your valuable product or service (your better mousetrap) and
position it as an “I can’t live without that product or service” or “I can’t live without that
mousetrap”.
Once your prospective clients or customers really understand what your business stands
for, they will realize that your products or services are vehicles that will fulfill their goals
and satisfy their needs. Sales will then be a natural outcome.
Some examples of this vision might be someone coming up with a mousetrap that allows
the mouse to go into the trap via a one-way door and can’t get out. You can take that trap
and let the mouse out in the woods without killing the mouse – for some people that’s a
better mousetrap.
It might be a health food store whose vision is that people should eat properly in order to
enjoy a greater quality of life, and ultimately live longer.
Once customers grasp and embrace your business concept, they may be a customer for
life. That is if your business continues to use strategies that I will show you here. You
will earn your customer’s loyalty and trust. Your customers will keep additional business
coming your way by continually buying from you and referring their friends and family.
Your marketing investment will be returned to you over and over again, which creates
residual income. Now isn’t that what you thought would happen when you got into your
business?
Following these marketing methods is the only way it will happen!
The practical result of having these customers for life might mean you can grow your
business from your existing customers. You don’t have to continually strive to get new
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customers. Research shows that finding new customers or clients can often cost you 5 to
20 times more than selling your existing customers.
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Technique #2
Identify and Integrate Your “Unique Selling Proposition”
Your “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP) is that one, distinct, appealing idea that sets
your business apart from every other “me too” type competitor. It distinguishes your
particular business in a positive manner from your competition.
To identify your USP, you want to begin by creating a statement of benefits about your
business. This statement of benefits is a list of all of the various strengths that you or your
product or service might possess. From this list, select the three to five strongest benefits
and formulate them into a cohesive USP. Base it upon those characteristics that will most
motivate your prospects to become a customer of your business.
It should include items that reflect either the operation of your business, or the quality of
your business, or services that your business provide. It can include the actual location,
atmosphere, price, selection, product knowledge, what the buying experience is like, etc.
It’s really a concise appeal or promise that your company makes to your prospects. Your
best bet is to make it one that no other immediate competitor offers or even better, one
which they CAN'T offer.
Most businesses cannot really articulate in one or two crisp, concise, clear paragraphs
their USP. Most businesses are trying ineffectively to be all things to all people.
You need to have a crisp, niche-driven USP. It should be your one most unique, attractive
selling advantage and something you truly deliver to your prospect.
Depending on the strength, and maybe the biggest marketing void in your area for an
unfulfilled niche, your USP may be one of the following...
• You could sell your product or service for less.
• You could specify the exact amount and sell it for less than any other company.
Many appliance stores like Best Buy and Circuit City do this. They give you a
guarantee that they have the lowest price.
• For most businesses I don’t recommend this approach, there really can be only
one low priced leader and if you position your business correctly you don’t need
to have the lowest price.
• You can sell a higher quality product or service than anyone else. You may
charge more. Explain to them that you’re giving a lot more value. This is a more
preferable method.
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• You could provide more customer service or education before, during and after
the sale than anyone else does at a comparable or lower price.
• You might offer price guarantees or twice the level of assurance protection or
warranty than your next closest competitor.
• You might offer exceptional bonus products, services, premiums or gift
certificates than anyone else.
• You might offer a larger selection or more choices and options than anyone else.
• You might have a service department that is 20 times the size of your competitors
so the customer only has to wait a few minutes before they are helped. Maybe you
can show up on a service call within 30 minutes. Unlike the cable company that
say’s they’re going to show up and you’re waiting three weeks before they get
there. (Of course, I’m exaggerating).
• You might have a trade-in program that another company doesn’t offer.
• You might have a specific age group that you target, like the Generation X’ers,
for example.
There's almost an infinite number of things you could say when creating your USP.
You can have more than one USP and you can market each to a different niche group.
You should decide on one main USP before you actually construct your entire marketing
mission. Then you must weave your USP into everything you do.
You want to be certain that you can actually fulfill whatever your big USP promise is. It
doesn’t do any good to promote your fabulous selection of products or services if you
only have two versions of an item.
Before I actually recommend some USPs, I want to describe something that is prevalent
in most businesses.
You can ask any business owner to clearly articulate in one paragraph or less their USP
and most of them don’t have an answer. Write yours down right now. Don’t think about
it, just write it down. OK, now email it to me: Website Marketing Professionals
I am not kidding! I’ll critique it and improve it if I can. And I’ll do it at no charge.
Do you know what an “elevator speech” is? If you get on an elevator and someone asks
you what you do, you should be able to tell them concisely and clearly what it is before
you get to your floor. They should be asking you, “Really? How do you do that?”
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It’s really no surprise that most businesses lack a USP. It’s no surprise that they barely
get by. Their failure rate is high and their owners are apathetic. They get only a small
share of the potential business.
Other than having a great location, why will prospects and customers come to your
business? If you don’t offer an appealing promise, a unique feature, or special service
then why should they spend their money with you?
Look at McDonald’s They’re usually sitting on a corner lot in a great location, but other
hotdog or hamburger joints might also have a great location.
Why do people go to McDonald’s instead of the hotdog place, which may even have
better food? Because McDonald’s offers all the other great advantages too, you know
exactly what you’re going to get. The service is fast, the food is fresh, the restaurant is
clean, they always have restrooms, etc.
Do you want to go to a firm or company that’s “just there” ? Or one that really has some
type of unique benefit?
Wouldn't you rather go to a company that offers you the broadest selection in the
country? Or one that guarantees the lowest prices? Or one that sells the highest quality
product in the industry?
You gain a huge advantage by offering a unique and appealing product or service. You
want to focus on what appeals most to people in your profession, and also on the real
needs or unfulfilled parts of your particular niche.
You want to integrate your USP into every part of marketing your business, including
ALL advertising materials, Yellow Pages, direct mail ads, your sales people, radio, TV,
and so on.
Let me give you some examples. You want to put your USP into your headlines. You
might have a headline that says:
“We always inventory 120 kinds of widgets in 15 sizes and 12 colors, and in price ranges
from $50-$1,000.”
“We have 11 times the selection, 5 times the color choices, and 3 times the locations”
You can then take this further into your advertising or your sales letters. You can say:
“Most heating and air conditioning contractors handle just 1 or 2 brands of air
conditioners. ABC Heating & Air Conditioning carries the 10 best-selling name brands.
Plus, we're authorized installers and a service center for these and 5 other brands. Why
should you accept anything less than the exact brand you want, and at a great price?”
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I’m going to give you some short and specific examples of some USPs that you can use
depending on what you’re offering. In other words, if your USP is that you discount
price, then you might use something like:

“The average mark-up in the doodad industry is 30%. Ours is only 15%”
Now, if you have a USP that is oriented for service, you might try:
“When you buy a doodad from any other company in town, you get a limited warranty.
When you buy the same doodad from us, you get a lifetime unlimited warranty with
service guaranteed within 4 hours and a loaner doodad and we make house calls”
You can have a USP that focuses on quantity, which is sometimes called “Snob Appeal.”
An example of this might be:
“Only 1,200 of these widgets are produced annually”
In other words, they need to get one of these because there are only so many of them.

“900 of them stay in Australia where they are created, and of the remaining 300 come to
the US. So we’ll offer these to our best customers for as long as they last”
That’s a quantity and snob appeal USP.
Your “Unique Selling Proposition” is vital to your marketing foundation. You must
clearly identify and articulate your company’s USP. Once you understand and embrace
the marketing missionary philosophy, you will realize that all areas of your business
needs to be involved with marketing.
Don’t forget my free offer. Write down your USP and email it to me right now at:
Website Marketing Professionals. I am not kidding! I’ll critique it and improve it if I can.
And I’ll do at no charge.
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