Every business owner has a list of some prospects that they would love to have as clients. Maybe it’s because of the revenue, the fame, or the prestige that they would bring you, or maybe it’s just the fact that they are one of your competitor’s clients. Whatever the case, you want them to be investing the money in your company, and they’re not yet. What can you do about it?

There are a lot of options, really, and since you’re probably not taking advantage of many, if any of them, you have a lot of room for improvement. The main focus in targeting your list of “dream clients” is consistency repetition. You want to reach these people though as many mediums as possible, as frequently as possible with a consistent message.
Advertise in mediums that will reach them. If you manufacture and sell pumps for the food packaging industry, advertise in a trade publication that they are likely to receive. You could even ensure that they receive it by signing them up for a subscription, since most are free.

• Utilize direct mail. An postcard campaign will allow you to inexpensively reach your list of “dream clients” on a weekly basis, maintaining TOMA and further driving your message home. If you have a small list (100 or so prospects) you can reach these prospects on a weekly basis over several months for an investment of just a few hundred dollars.
• You should email your “dream clients” on a regular basis, but take care to avoid over doing it ? this can be seen a spam and will backfire. Email marketing allows you to contact your prospects for almost no cost, and can be completely customized for each prospect.
• Blog regularly about subjects of interest to your “dream clients” to improve your search engine ranking for applicable keyword phrases. This will increase the likelihood of them ending up on your web site, and will increase the likelihood of them staying one they get there.
• Get your “dream clients” associates, vendors, and clients talking about your business. Their feedback will carry more weight than anything you can tell them at this point.
• Face to face sales calls can be fairly effective with an average sales person, but when they come on the heels of an effective multi channel marketing campaign, they can often deliver phenomenal results. Give your marketing effort some time to work, then follow up with a face to face sales call.

Business people, especially the “left-brain” types like lawyers or accountants, often want their marketing to follow a certain set of rules. They want to know that if they invest X amount of dollars, they will get X amount of sales. They want to know how long it will take to receive a particular result. They want to know exactly how everyone will react.

I understand, really. Guess what? It doesn’t change the fact that that’s not how it works. It never has and it never will.
In all aspects of businesses, you deal with a number of variables. When it comes to marketing though, you deal with just as many variables, but then throw all of the variables from your consumers’ mind into the equation as well. The end result falls just short of absolute chaos. No one can truthfully tell you that they know 100% for sure exactly how many sales your new marketing campaign will generate. No one can truthfully tell you that they know 100% for sure exactly when the majority of prospects will become you new clients as a result of your marketing campaign. In all honesty, no one can truthfully tell you that they know 100% for sure, anything about your marketing campaign except the cost. Sure, they can point to statistics and case studies. They can show you testimonials from satisfied clients. Things don’t always follow these patterns though, and if you’re serious about running your business, you need to know that.

Marketing is a lot like some of the other “soft” skills, like leadership or negotiating. You may be a great negotiator, but if the guy on the other side of the table had a fight with his wife before leaving the house, got a phone call from the doctor on the way to work and learned he had cancer, and then was told that he was passed over for promotion when he got into the office, do you think you’re going to make much progress with him today?

You may have the best marketing campaign in the world, but the time may not be right for it, or you may be reaching out to the wrong target market, or peoples? opinions may change over time. Red Bull started off marketing to an extremely small niche by targeting young ravers in the night club scene, but later realized that there was tremendous untapped market in truck drivers who needed to stay awake while driving. By all accounts, this horrible tasting energy drink should have only appealed to a younger crowd, but in the real world, it had a much broader appeal.

The point here is to understand that your marketing will never follow a precise pattern, no matter how analytical or predictable you or your prospects are. You’re going to have to roll with the punches and adjust your marketing continually to get the most from your budget. Sometimes, what seems like it should work doesn’t. Sometimes, what sounds like it would never work does. This is the nature of the beast, and if you can accept and adapt to it, your business will be far more successful.

Despite all that we can do thanks to the internet, people still want to be able to reach you, or at least see that you do exist somewhere in the real world. This became very evident today while searching for a vendor on the east coast. I had found a company that offered prices, quality and service comparable to the vendor that I had been using, but after 15 minutes of searching, I was unable to find an address. Had they included this simple piece of information, they would have very likely picked up a new client today.

If you’re running a business, you need to include your address on your web site ? and you should make it easy to find, because your visitors that aren’t patient or computer savvy will leave before digging for it.

As we reach the middle of July, most of us have probably gone through the slowest time of the year in our businesses because of our customers, employees and partners taking vacations. This year, rather than taking a reactionary “wait and see” approach to climbing out of your seasonal decline, why not be proactive and reach out to your consumers before your competitors have an opportunity?

Now is the time to start preparing for when our consumers return from their vacations, refreshed and recharged. Parents are buying back to school clothes and supplies for their children, employees are buying new clothes and training materials for their climb up the corporate ladder, and business owners are investing in all sorts of products and services to help foster the growth of their company. Are you ready to capitalize on it?

Most schools start near the end of August (with the exception of year-round schools, which start near the end of July) so you should expect that most families will be back home around the middle of the month. You should expect most businesses to be back in full operation around the same time frame. In order to begin reaching these consumers before your competitors do, you’re going to have to act fast, preparing any newspaper or television advertising, along with any direct mail and other marketing channels you plan to utilize. Remember one thing though ? be realistic with your graphic designer…just because you’ve waited until the last minute doesn’t mean that they should have to jump through fiery hoops.

The bottom line here is to get your seasonal marketing out there before your competitors do, and keep it going as intense as your budget allows. For the highest ROI, it’s better to reach a smaller, more targeted audience consistently than it is to reach a larger, less targeted audience a few times. Get moving on this, because pretty soon we’ll have to start getting ready for Christmas!

In a recent blog post (What does Google really owe you?) we commented on the Kinderstart v. Google lawsuit. As expected, the case has been dismissed.

Kinderstart is now attempting to enlist the help of other poorly performing web site owners to launch an equally frivolous class action lawsuit against Google for supposed defamation. Perhaps Kinderstart should focus on developing a solid marketing plan instead of wasting time, energy and resources in court.

We all want to get the most from our marketing materials. After all, we’re investing money in them to produce results. For smaller businesses operating on smaller budgets, a relatively easy solution is to ensure that all of your marketing materials have the same general appearance, which will multiply the overall effectiveness of your marketing campaign. When your consumers see several different marketing pieces that are each significantly different, you won’t generate the same impact as if your consumers see several different marketing pieces that have a similar appearance.

Think about the little green gecko that is in all of Geico Direct’s television commercials ? you also see him in their newspaper advertising and direct mail marketing, not to mention on their web site. By tying all of their marketing together, they are creating a more powerful and consistent image. You can do the same thing on a smaller scale with your business by having all of your marketing materials designed with a similar appearance. This includes all printed materials such as business cards, post cards, brochures and?signs along with your advertising in newspapers or magazines. By making the investment to do this, you will generate more revenue from your current marketing budget.

Google now supports (though Microsoft has for quite some time now) the META NODP tag, which lets you opt out of the ODP title and description. The tag is below:

What do you say when someone asks you what your business does. Accounting? Plumbing? Plastic surgery? Maybe even underwater basket weaving. All of these answers are incorrect, because like telling people how your business is doing, the right answer can make all the difference in finding new clients.

While you may very well be an accounting firm, chances are that there is something that really sets you apart from other accounting firms. Perhaps you specialize in accounting for small businesses, accounting for restaurants, or even accounting for businesses that plan on becoming a public company. What ever the case, you need to make it clear specifically what you do. For example, at Wildfire Marketing Group, we specialize in helping small companies compete with the bigger companies and win.

So the next time someone asks, tell them specifically what you do and before long, you’ll see a dramatic increase number of prospects that are more suitable to your business.

Software is a great thing; rather, software can be a great thing. While it’s made some tasks much more efficient and cost effective, such as accounting, programming and graphic design, it’s also put tasks into the hands of people that in all honesty, should not be handling them. Just because you have a copy of Quick Books, it doesn’t mean you are an accountant, and likewise, just because you have a copy of Adobe Photoshop, it doesn’t mean you are a graphic designer. Alas, some businesses are started with literally no budget (and some particularly hard headed people insist on trying to do everything themselves) and are going to design their own logo no matter what, so for those people, here are some guidelines to follow:

• Don’t use photographic images in your logo. It will look amateurish and busy and will be ineffective. The purpose of a logo is to create instant and memorable recognition, enabling you to brand your company/product/service. It’s not supposed to tell you everything about the company — that’s what your marketing materials (web site, brochures, signs, etc.) are for.
• Use a minimal number of colors. Your logo shouldn’t resemble a kaleidoscope, remember, the key is instant and memorable recognition. The fewer colors, the better — aim for 1-3 colors.
• Determine how your logo may be used before designing it. A drop shadow may look great when your logo is used on your letterhead, but it won’t be able to be used on your embroidered shirts. If you start with the end in mind, you will run into fewer problems down the road.
• Avoid illegible or over-used fonts. That fancy script font may look great on your monitor, but how will it look on a billboard at 65 miles per hour? How will it look scaled down to fit your business card? As for over used fonts, every soccer mom in America has a web site plastered with Comic Sans so don’t even consider it for your logo. The same goes for Arial, Times New Roman, and Papyrus to name a few.
• Design your logo in a vector format. This way, it can be scaled to any size with no loss of quality. IMPORTANT NOTE: Saving a raster file as an EPS does not make it a vector file! You must design it as a vector format from the start.
• As soon as your budget allows, hire a professional designer. It will make a difference in how people perceive your company.

Google has updated their toolbar PR (PageRank). What does this mean for business owners? Nothing really, it’s just one of those “feel good” things for web masters and internet marketing people.