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Text Message Marketing (also known as SMS marketing)

10/22/2014

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There are a lot of advantages to Text Message Marketing.  We touched on them in my last post.  That was a long post, so I thought I'd write a shorter (and hopefully more concise) primer.  Text Message Marketing is also called SMS "Short Message Service" Marketing. 


 The two biggest advantages of SMS are:
1. It puts the advertiser in control of the message and the timing.
2. People "opt-in" so you know that these are people who WANT to hear from you.


The downside to SMS is:
It requires work on the part of the business owner.  You need to educate your staff so that they will educate your customers so your customers will sign up for your SMS program.  You see, you can't just purchase a system and then shoot out text messages to everyone's phone.  Customers have to sign up and they won't sign up if they don't know how, or worse, if they don't know that you have an opt-in program.  


Fortunately, it is very easy to overcome the downside.  You can quickly teach your employees how to sign people up and some companies pay a bonus or incentive to the employee who signs up the most customers in a given time frame.  You can also put a post card in every customer's bag as they leave explaining the program and including the SMS sign up code.  Give customers an incentive to sign up while you have them in your store or restaurant.  For example, you could offer 10% off today's purchases if they complete the sign up process.  Let them know that they will receive exclusive offers and discounts as a "member" of your text club.  


Texting is also great for bands, artists and theaters.  Your "members" get notification via text whenever you have a new video, song, show or even an interview available.  You can attach photos to a text message and really give your fans a personal touch.  


Would you like to learn more?  Better yet, would you like to try text marketing for 3-4 months free with absolutely no-obligation?  Simply fill out the form to the right and in the Questions box write "free text plan". We've set up a deal through Dealz4.org to give a free demo. At the end of the free trial period, you will be given the option to pay a discounted yearly fee or have the service shut off.  NO credit card is required for the free trial and your system will NOT become active unless YOU choose to active it after the trial period.  What could be more fair?  


*if you decide to keep the service you will receive unlimited texting for $397 per year.  


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Reaching Customers on Their Phones

10/11/2014

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Let's face it, most of your customers will never leave their house without their smartphone.  When my kids hear me tell stories of running out of gas at 2am and having to walk two miles to find an open gas station, they say "Why didn't you just call someone?"  They have no concept of what it was like to NOT have cellphones.  

Well, most of your customers now live their lives as if there was never a day that they didn't have their phone.  They trust their phones to not only make phone calls or to send text messages to keep in touch with people, they trust their phones to help them find whatever they are looking for.  This gives you two great opportunities:


Inbound Marketing

1.  As long as your website is mobile friendly, you can use your customers dedication to their phones to your advantage.  This past year I did some work for a company that specializes in poison ivy removal.  When I began working with them, their website was NOT mobile friendly.  You simply could not read their site, (which was designed for a desktop computer) on a 4 inch phone screen.  We changed that immediately.  We also added a "click-to-call" feature to the website.  The number of phone calls coming in from people requesting quotes almost doubled from the previous year.  Why?  Because we thought about our customers and made our system work for them.  Think about it, you're out in your backyard, you see something that you think is poison ivy, you grab your phone and search poison ivy, looking for images.  You see pictures of poison ivy and realize that, yes what you have in your yard is poison ivy.  Now, the next search is "How do I get rid of poison ivy".  The company website comes up and you see they offer free estimates, you either fill out the form or click "call now" and set up an appointment.  Either way, the customer is satisfied that the problem is being dealt with and can move on in their day.  The consumer is grateful that their problem is solved.  From the company's perspective, that customer is not calling around, they found what they need, they called you, all you need to do is follow through and close the sale.  


Outbound Marketing

2.  What about current customers?  How can you use technology to increase sales to your current customers?  We recommend Text Message Marketing or as it is also called SMS (Short Message Service) Marketing.  SMS allows you to send out bulk text messages to customers who have signed up to get these special, exclusive offers from you.  Allow me to explain some SMS best practices:

One of the best uses of SMS that I know about came from Macy's in New York City a few years back. They started a special "members-only" SMS club.  Every weekday at 10:30 AM they would text out a special discount offer that was only valid from 11am - 2pm for that day to thousands of people who lived and worked near Macy's.  Because that offer was only valid for three hours, it became priority for people who wanted to participate.  They began looking forward to what offer they were going to get and, for many of them, instead of eating lunch, they would run to Macy's from work.  

Amazon does something similar with their "Lightning Deals" everyday.  

I know the most common objections that I hear are "I'm NOT Macy's" or "I hate text messages" but keep in mind, you don't have to bed Macy's.  Suppose you own a small deli or restaurant and you simply tell your customers when they come in that if they'd like to save 10% today simply sign up for your text marketing plan. (See sidebar).  Many will sign up.  Now you're building your list.  The offers that you make are up to you and based on the needs of your business and the preferences of your customers.  You might simply use it on slow days.  Suppose you have a rainy cold Monday and you notice that you've had less customers than on a normal day. Seems like no one is out.  Well, (still using the restaurant example), if you want to boost your dinner sales, simply send a text out around 3pm that states your offer, maybe "Buy one dinner get second at 1/2 price today 4-8pm only."  Only the people who sign up for your offers get this deal, so you're not losing money on those that would come in anyway, but the guy who was planning to just go home afterwork decides to eat out with a friend instead.  

This works for virtually any type of retail business.  A grocery store can offer specials on specific days of the week or times of the day.  A clothing store can offer special discounts to "favorite" customers on specific items. Maybe you make the offer on Summer items as Fall approaches, or maybe you give special notice to your best customers that new items are in and they can save and see them before anyone else. Either way, you're boosting sales and rewarding their loyalty.  


The only downside to these services is cost.  Most SMS companies want to charge you a high set-up fee and then a per-text fee.  The "per-text" fee is deceiving because when someone signs up they text in, then receive a confirmation which they have to respond to, then they respond then they receive one more response so you have at least 4 texts just to sign up.  That can put kill your budget before you even get to send one offer.  

We recommend Dealz4.org because they offer unlimited texts and a flat fee service.  Right now, they are offering our customers a three month free trial period with no obligation, no set-up fee.  100% free to you for three months. If you use it and decide to keep it the service is only $397 per year.  If you'd like to take advantage of this offer simply use the form on the right and in the "Question" box tell us that you want SMS and the name of your business. We'll set it up for you and get you your username and password.  (You can also go directly to Dealz4.org but the service costs over $900 per year if you sign up directly.)  
(Train your staff to help them sign up and you can immediately begin signing up hundreds of customers.  Remember, they are opting in. They WANT to receive your offers.  They are ASKING you to market to them. As a business owner, isn't that what you want?)  *
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"...but advertising doesn't work!"

10/4/2014

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If you put 100 business owners in a room and asked them what they think of advertising I guarantee you a large percentage will say "advertising doesn't work."  When I started out doing ad sales for newspaper and radio I would hear that comment from prospects frequently.   My response was usually  "Have you ever heard of Coke, Pepsi, Ford or Kelloggs?".  They would always say "yes".  I would say "You see advertising does work."   "Bad advertising doesn't work."  If your advertising is not working, you may be running bad ads.  


"What makes an ad bad?"  Well, a lot of things, putting an ad in the wrong place is just as unproductive as putting a really poor ad in the right place.  You see there's a lot that goes into an ad.  I think the biggest problem with most advertisers is they do ads for themselves, not for their customers.  Allow me to explain.  If you own a clothing store named "Dorothy Marie's", and you're "Dorothy" the average ad rep (for a print ad) is going to bring you a sample ad with your name really big at the top of the ad.  The problem with that is if I've never heard of your store, seeing the name, frankly means nothing to me.  So putting "Dorothy Marie's" in huge letters at the top of the ad is most likely going to make you feel really good but it won't do anything to attract customers.  It's a vanity ad.  


So how do you reach customers?  Well, what are you selling?  Using Dorothy as an example again, let's imagine that she sells women's shoes.  Ok, but what makes her shoes any better than the discount place at the mall?  Well, she sells really comfortable, stylish shoes for working women who commute into the city.  


So with that information how do we make a good ad.  Well, I had a customer like that in 2002 or 2003 and we designed this ad campaign.  We took a women, put her in a bubble bath and had her laying back in her tub with her feet out and these really nice dress shoes on her feet. The headline of the ad was "Shoes so comfortable, you'll never want to take them off", combined with this sort of shocking photo of a woman in her bath with shoes on.  Then we simply added additional text under the photo and it worked. It got attention and it sold shoes.  


See our focus was her customers.  How they want to feel in their shoes.  They want to look good but they also want comfort.  


So what do your customers want?  What do they need from you?  Why should they come to you (or your store) instead of going to a competitor?


Need help brainstorming?  Please fill out the form on the right for a free, no-obligation consultation.  






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Getting To Page One of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other Search Engines

10/2/2014

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We frequently hear from people who tell us "my website used to come up on page one of Google but I don't see it anymore."  There are a lot of reasons why a website that was page one of Google six months ago or a year ago, isn't page one any longer.  First, Google changes their algorithms constantly.  Their job is to make money, they  make money selling ads.  If it was easy to get your business to page one for free, no one would buy ads.  So they're really not interested in making it simple for you to get to page one.  Also, they want to protect their users and to Google that means getting the users the most accurate, valuable, relevant information.  If your site has great content but nothing has changed in 5 years, you're probably not going to hold your spot for long.  

Then of course there's the competition.  I try to explain search engine optimization (or SEO) with a football analogy.  Since I'm only about 8 miles from MetLife Stadium, I'll use the Jets as my example.  Now suppose the Jets are going to open the season against the Patriots and they come out and win the game 28 - 3, holding Tom Brady to less than 100 yards passing.  Well, that's great for them for game one but if they play the Patriots again in week 14 of the season and come out and try to do exactly what they did in game one, they will probably lose 28 - 3, or worse.  You see, the Patriots and every other team in the league that is going to play the Jets during the season studies the game tapes, they look for tendencies, they look for strengths to be wary of and the look for weaknesses to exploit.  SEO is the same principle.  If you're a cosmetic dentist and you're on page one for "Cosmetic Dentist in Montclair, NJ" this week, all those cosmetic dentists on pages 2-10 are trying to figure out what you are doing to rank higher than they are and they'll be doing all they can to imitate your strategy and make themselves look better to Google.  

Unfortunately, SEO is NOT something that you can do once and forget about.  You need to check your ratings frequently.  Ideally, you want to add valuable content to your site at least once per month and you want to be ready to tweak your site if you notice it dropping in rank.  

We offer a free 50+ page analysis of the strength of your SEO.  There is no obligation and the report will be emailed to you.  If you'd like your site analyzed free, please fill out the form to the Right and simply request "Free SEO analysis" in the "comments" box.  


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    Author

    I'm George Louvis
    From 1997 - 2008 I owned a radio station and a  newspaper/magazine publishing company.  I've sold millions of dollars of advertising and designed campaigns that have generated millions of dollars of revenue, and thousands of new customers for my clients.  All the advice here is free.  If your sales are not what they should be, if your marketing isn't working or if you just want to talk please call 973-220-6859 for a free 30 minute phone consultation.  I love helping and there is no obligation.  

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  • Welcome
  • Video Marketing
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