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“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success! If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”    Albert Schweitzer

How to Build and Maintain a Marketing Plan for Websites

Profit Centers, Target Markets,  Marketing Programs.

It all begins with a plan. Do you have a business plan? At least notes on your business? Something?

If you don’t yet have a business plan, you certainly need to have a marketing plan. This marketing plan will improve your bottom line. But this is not a business plan. Although, by the time you are done, you will think it is.

The ideas, concepts, and insights, taught in this course have been fine-tuned during 30 years of experience working with hundreds of Web sites and companies and making thousands of outside sales calls. It will teach you how to implement a time-managed program where you can get more results from one salesperson than other companies using several sales people. One of the keys to the success of this program is that we show you how to reach 2200 contacts in your target markets in the first year alone, with only one person!

This is a “living program”. The more you understand it, use it, and apply it, the better the program becomes. It can be used in whole, or in part, by the owner of the company or the employee hired to handle marketing. The more you implement this program, the better the results. We can document many of our companies doubling their business in the first year.

Glen Ray from RTC in Baton Rouge offered the following comments on our program. “The concepts seemed so simple. I thought, this can’t be what fast-growing companies are paying to hear! The truth was that the concepts were simple, but extremely effective. In fact, it seemed so simple that in the first year we didn’t even use everything bob had taught us. We only used a small portion of his methods in the first year, and our sales almost doubled.”

The following definition of marketing comes from the book “Secrets from the Lost Art of Marketing” by H. Brad and Alan J. Antin. “Marketing is what gets and keeps customers. The true foundation upon which all great marketing is built is the unselfish desire to do good for your customer. The actual marketing, on the other hand, is simply making sure they know about it.”

Marketing is not just sales, although sales are a part of your marketing program. A good marketing plan will consider the image we project to our customers, quality control issues, employee training, target markets and profit centers, and many more items. In short, marketing touches every facet of your organization.

For marketing to be effective it must have the full and active support of upper management. Marketing cannot be hit or miss, or something we do when we don’t have any other work. Effective marketing demands consistency. Many businesses have to close their doors or struggle from year to year to stay out of debt because they do not practice a consistent marketing program. The truth is, almost any program would have yielded some success if they would have just worked it consistently. Effort without results is still failure. Procrastination is failure without effort.

The Web sites and industry is changing rapidly. The insurance industry has changed dramatically since 9/11/01. The cost of property and casualty insurance will continue to rise and get harder to obtain as these large catastrophic events continue to escalate in cost. Mold emerged as a property insurance issue and not only changed the insurance industry, but caused tidal waves of change in the Web sites and industry. Equipment manufacturers have been creating new methods of mitigating water damage by using a whole new generation of equipment. As labor, insurance, and fuel costs continue to skyrocket, we have felt rates being squeezed tighter and tighter. The way we used to do things, in many cases, is no longer acceptable.

Change is the only constant that you can count on. Are you ready to change?

What reaction will change bring? Resistance? Acceptance? Enthusiasm?

Marketing Made Easy

It doesn’t matter if you are a small single location business, or a large operation with multiple locations. You must still start with a BOTTOM UP approach. By bottom up in the insurance industry we mean you must start with the agents and work your way up the ladder to district managers, sales managers, and regional managers. On the claims side of the industry you should start with the adjusters and work your way up to the claims managers, etc. Even if you are a member of a major franchise organization, when approaching your local market you must still work from the bottom up.

TOP DOWN marketing is reserved for corporate level marketing. It can be effective at the corporate level when you can meet the demands of a nationwide or region wide vendor program.

There are four simple truths to incorporate into every marketing program.

1. Marketing is a numbers game.  The larger the numbers, the better your chances of success.

2. Ask for the business.  Many times we get so caught up in the procedures, we forget that the reason we were there is to ASK FOR THE BUSINESS. From my experience, even marginal marketing representatives will have some success if they do the numbers and ask for the business.

3. Most sales are not made on the first contact.  There are numerous sales surveys which state that the prospect did not buy until the 5^th, 6^th, or even the 7^th contact or more. So, why stop at call #1? Develop a program for repeat contacts and increase your chances.

4. This is a relationship business!  People do business with people that they know and trust. Trust is built from reality, not make believe.

“It’s Not About You!”

I know for some of you, especially owners, that is a difficult statement. “It’s my business” or “These are my goals” are some of the normal comments. That is true. It is your business and your goals, but in order to reach them you need customers and employees that understand.

It is your business, but if you want to stay in business, you need to please customers. We please customers by meeting a need of theirs. Sounds easy, right? People with water damage need the water out, and the home dried up. If that is true, then anyone with an extractor and a dehumidifier can do this business. Do you believe that?

Marketing is about your meeting the needs of your customer. In many cases, you are going to have to take some time to discover those needs. Agents are business people and they need to keep their customer base. An adjuster who is overworked may need someone that can handle a claim and resolve it, not add to his already overburdened list. Your job is to discover your customer’s needs and respond.

Whether you are on a list or not, you must still make the calls.

Remember, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”!

Before you proceed with trying to create your marketing plan, I suggest you review your company’s Mission Statement. The Mission Statement is important part of your Business Plan and your Marketing Plan. If the area you are moving into is not consistent with your Mission Statement, then I caution you to reconsider.

I should also point out that this program is designed for people who want to achieve success by creating a consistently good quality service and receive a good profit. This program is not for low-cost selling. Being the low-cost leader is a marketing position. If that is your goal, spend money advertising and highlight your low cost. My caution is that we are not selling widgets or products. In this industry we can’t “lose a little on each one we sell, and make it up on volume”. You are entitled to make a good profit to stay in business.

Below are some questions you should consider answering before you attempt to create a marketing plan. These are by no means all of the questions you will face, but it is a good place to start.

1. What business are you in?  As simple as this sounds, for many owners it is not easy to pin down. Write down a concise description of your business that other people can understand. HINT: I believe you are in the business of customer service. It’s about quality of life and through our clean-up, mitigation, or remediation efforts we accomplish that. 

2. What market segment are you interested in? Insurance, property owner, low price leader, quality driven? HINT: If you only do insurance work, will you be profitable or lose money? You need to mix your job sources.

3. Who is the “real buyer” of your services? How many eyes are on you? HINT: Insured (policyholder/consumer) + Adjuster (insurance company) + Agent + Property Owner or Property Manager.

4. How will you define success?

5. What motivates a buyer to do business with your company? Define needs! HINT: Or better said, what’s in it for them in doing business with you?

6. What is unique about your business? HINT: What is your unique selling position or your unique selling advantage? Remember, always be thinking benefits over features.       

7. Who is your competition?

8. What advantages do you have over your competition, or what makes your business unique in your market area? HINT: We all have trucks, equipment, and technology. Think about benefits over features.

 

9. Do your customers perceive there to be a difference between you and your competitors? HINT: Don’t ask me! Ask them!

This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2011 at 4:17 PM by admin and is filed under Search Engine Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.