Small Business Digital CoachGROW REVENUES BY 25 TO 100% OR MORE IN 90 DAYS OR LESS while reducing advertising cost and effort

Swine flu marketing is not the prettiest topic I could be blogging about. This post is not meant to offend, but to point out for some resources that serious students of marketing can learn from.

If you find yourself bothered by the topic (or suspecting that you might be offended), I implore you to move on from this blog post. Thank you.

Now…

Like millions of others, when news of the rapidly spreading swine flu epidemic hit, I paid very close attention to the changing developments. I have a keen appreciation for history, and I happen to be one of those who believes that sometime in the next few years (or decades if we’re lucky), we will indeed face a nasty microbe of pandemic proportions.

Of course I hope that this won’t be the case, but factors like the hyper-connectedness of the modern world, and disturbing cases of widespread antibiotic abuse (in both humans and livestock), as well as other conditions that lead me to believe that certain “doomsday” warnings are not as far fetched as many people would like to think.

So you can imagine that I paid a great deal of attention to the reports of the Swine flu.

Ironically, I think that the explosion in information and communication technologies (mobile phones, internet, cable, satellite, etc) also will act as a stop gap so that we don’t experience the scale of death and destruction the world experienced as late as 1918 with the Spanish flu where over $50 million people died world wide. (See the swine flu googlemaps mashups that were tracked by hundreds of thousands at the height of the swine flu spread).

Having said all that, as a marketing consultant and student of marketing, I watched the blogosphere for the “swine flu marketing” lessons and case studies I was sure would quickly follow.

The marketing crowd did not disappoint…
From tacky (but probably profitable) swine flu mask advertising, to moderate and well thought out analyses of viral marketing based on events, there was something for everyone.

Out of all the material I came across, I’ve chosen the following marketing case studies as the best examples of Swine flu marketing lessons I came across.
Perry Marshall and Dan Zarrella are some people I’ve learnt a great deal from and if you’re interested in becoming a marketing technician you definitely want to subscribe to their blogs, newsletters, etc.

Enjoy!

3 Best Swine Flu Marketing Lessons
1. Swine Flu Google Ads – By Google Adwords Guru Perry Marshall
2. 7 Viral Marketing Lessons Learned from Swine Flu – By Dan Zarrell, Viral Marketing Scientist
3. Swine Flu and the Marketing of Supply and Demand – Great and short post by Albert at Mooladays

4 Food For Thought -Swine Flu Marketing Links
1. Even Nerd Doctors and Scientists are acting like marketers by piggy-backing on latest news.
2. Why E-learning and distance collaboration technologies will be aided by incidents like the Swine flu epidemic.
3. The Naming and Re-Naming of a Virus – PR and swine flu by CrisisBlogger
4. Lipstick on a Pig – The other side of the swine flu renaming argument

Back on social media marketing and personal branding. A few weeks ago, I shared a very powerful video tutorial from Gary V, the $50 million dollar man.

Well, here’s an interview he did recently with CNN that, with his typical passion, really illustrates just how powerful the change in the marketing landscape has become.

All this, and the internet as most of us know it, is really only 14 years old!!!

Remember Roomba the Robo-vac?

Well, now we’ve got the Robo-mower and I want to take this opportunity to share a bit about how to differentiate your business with creative and innovative product or service development.

Here are 4 ways to create differentiation through product/service innovation in your business:
1. Addition/Bundling: Product + Add-on Product or Product + Service
2. Subtraction: Old business model minus superflous element
3. Transfer: Apply established (old) concept to a new market niche/ application
4. Engrafting: Bring new concept to an old market.
5. Pure innovation: Bring a new concept to a newly defined market.

So for example:
Addition: Circus + Ballet/Opera = Cirque Du Soleil
Subtraction: Old Insurance company – Insurance agent middlemen = GEICO
Transfer: Mail Order club (old concept) + Movie rental (new market) = Netflix
Engrafting: Mall (new concept) + church (old market) = Modern mega-church
Pure innovation: Peer to peer lending + Internet banking = VirginMoney

These might be slightly rough examples but the most important reason they are listed is to jog your creativity and inspire you to think about how you can apply business model innovation to your business.

If you’re a student of marketing, some of the elements above probably remind you of the marketing strategy tool known as the Ansoff Matrix…

This post, “Develop an effective USP Intro” is part of the small business profit course series.
It’s all about defining the concept of the USP so clearly that you can really sink your teeth into it. I’ll have some supplemental posts (such as history of the USP, billion dollar USPs, unconventional USPs, the elevator pitch-abbreviated USP) outside of the main track of the Small Business Profit Course for you to dig deeper into at your convenience, but today we’re going to give you the shortest track to develop a customized USP that works.

We’ll Cover:
The Definition of a USP
The EVP alternative to USP
The profit-pulling power of a strong USP (simulations and history)
USP Crafting Step 1: Know thyself (What am I good at)
USP Crafting Step 2: Know thy customer (Research what your customers value)
USP Crafting Step 3: Know thy enemy (Competitive analysis: Identify product/service/message voids)
USP Crafting Step 4: The Guarantee in a USP
When to bail out of your business
Marketing: Affordable Business Re-engineering

Definition of a USP
Like I mentioned in the Branding, Differentiation and Positioning post, my definition of the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is as follows:

A USP is a concise, benefit-telegraphing idea or promise that conveys powerfully and with immediacy why your target customer or client should do business with you rather than a competitor or substitute. This idea should convey the “uniqueness” of your business among the prospective customer’s alternatives.

But what happens when there just isn’t anything unique about your business?

Even in stable and mature industries where uniqueness is difficult to achieve, you must still differentiate your business. The Extra Value Proposition (EVP) is the business case you make for “what more” your client will get by going with you rather than your competitor.
(By the way, it’s relatively uncommon to not be able to craft at least one unique competency…if you need ideas, check out Business innovation 101)

A USP slogan is the statement that communicates the USP and that can be deployed and re-deployed throughout your marketing system. Your USP statement or slogan (also known as a “tagline”) is the tool that connects your USP to increased profitability in your business.

What do I mean by that?

When I ask most small business owners what marketing outcome they’d like to see in their business, without batting an eye most of them say, “I need to get more customers!”. In reality, the vast majority of businesses I see (including some of my past clients) don’t realize that there’s more profit and wealth to be realized from following up with, and converting current prospects, than there is in finding a whole new bunch of leads.

No matter what business you’re in, there are Only 3 Ways To Grow Your Business. No more no less!

And once you recognize that a strong USP is the core of any effective marketing strategy and system, and that deploying it throughout your business is the best way to experience the effect of that USP, you’ll hurry to craft a strong, effective USP (Or have your USP created and deployed for you)!

The EVP (Extra Value Proposition)

If you’re like most of my clients and most small business owners I know, you’re probably struggling with whether the USP is a realistic demand to make of your business. In other words, you’re probably thinking,

“That won’t work in my business because my business isn’t all that unique…”

Well, that’s what thousands of Pizza joint owners were thinking the day Tom Monahan was crafting the USP that built a billion dollar company.
The truth of the matter is that 99.999% of the time, I can find a combination of staff/ owner expertise, staff competencies, market niche focus, breadth of selection/ network/ suppliers, location or some other feature of your business that can be unique when applied to your desired market.
However, in the strictest sense, you don’t need to have an absolutely unique selling proposition for your business to profit immensely from superior positioning.

An “Extra value proposition” (EVP) is a variant of the USP. It is the differentiating idea for businesses delivering commodity products and services, that are smart enough to differentiate their marketing message.

What a powerful USP can do for you
If you’re a student of effective marketing, you have undoubtedly come across some of the legendary USP case studies where millions of dollars in profit growth were realized. However, many serious-minded entrepreneurs like you struggle with visualizing how something so abstract as “positioning” can have a real dollar value to you business. The power of a USP is:

The power to convert a greater percentage of prospects to clients with a strong USP

The power to attract a greater percentage of referral partners and close more referrals

The power to generate a greater number of referrals because of the “specificity” of a strong USP

The power to attract positive Word of Mouth and media coverage because of an outstanding USP

There have been cases where small businesses have received tons of coverage on TV, radio and print media because of a singularly remark-able USP statement which the company has crafted and backed up with performance.

If you are currently doing any advertising (newspaper, yellow pages, coupon mailers, direct mail) or tele-prospecting (telemarketing, internet marketing) at all, your business can experience instant profits from the construction of an effective USP.

Developing a strong USP while avoiding common USP mistakes is the single biggest thing you can do to skyrocket your conversion rates and systematize your marketing in a way that will earn you more (if you choose to sell your business) or give you more freedom to have your business work for you (rather than have you be a slave to your business).

An effective USP, exists somewhere at the intersection of:

Your core business strengths or marketing assets (often ‘hidden’ in plain sight)

The hidden wants, frustrations, desires of your marketplace; your prospects and customers

Your competitor’s weaknesses or the empty spaces in your competitor’s marketing messages.

A strong USP is the foundation of an effective marketing system and strategy. While you can take advantage of our services to develop an effective USP, I’m going to show you in the posts below (over the next few weeks), a step-by-step system for creating a USP that you can use (My only caution to you is that you read and re-read the most common USP mistakes post).

Developing A Strong USP Step 1: Identify Your Core Business Strengths
Developing A Strong USP Step 2: Small Business Market Research Gold
Developing A Strong USP Step 3: Competitive Survey and Scanning Secrets
Developing a Strong USP Step 4: USP statement , elevator pitch and sales scripting for profit

Subscribe to this marketing blog so that you don’t miss any of these business building manuals as they come.

This post is going to be the first in a series of Videos from the heavy hitters that I’ll use to deepen the small business marketing curriculum I’m creating to help you grow your business dramatically over the next few weeks.
This is a 45 minute video by Gary Vaynerchuk (Just in case you don’t know him, Gary V. took his family’s business from $4 million to $50 million with online marketing) – I promise you once he starts, you’ll want to stick around till the finish.
Here’s what you’ll learn:

Click here for the lesson on Differentiation, Positioning and Branding…and contact me to find out about my 9-Step Business Wealth Treasure Hunt that can grow your business 21% or more in as little as 31 days without spending any additional money on advertising.

This twitter tool is a neat little one. It allows you to pull all your Twitter followers and create designs with the mosaic of pictures.
It’s called Twitter Mosaic.

Even though I haven’t been on Twitter long, Here’s a mosaic of my current followers…(I just got an idea, I’m going to do this ocassionally on this blog to document my Twitter growth).

Get your twitter mosaic here.

Isn’t this neat?

If you read my previous post where I talked about the Jerk carpet cleaner’s marketing, then you’ll appreciate the case study I’m about to share with you. This is another company in the same area, that’s doing it right.

The case I made earlier is that you can’t expect your clients to willingly and unquestioningly (is that a real word?) pay you a premium above what they would pay your competitors if your marketing material doesn’t tell them what they’re paying for.

Your marketing materials must educate!!!

Your websites, your videos, your sales scripting, your brochures and marketing kits, and even your ads and sales letters must educate your prospective and current clients on why they should pay more to do business with you and be happy to do it.

On the video below, these guys actually make carpet cleaning seem very interesting…and manage to plant some ideas in your mind as to whether you should even consider using someone else because they show you all the little details (like the little thingies under the table) that could save you a lot of aggravation. I know who I’m going to use when I need carpet cleaning.

The only thing I’d do different might be to make the YouTube Video more search engine friendly with a title and useful keywords like – “Free Denver Carpet Cleaner demo”…with 714 views so far on Youtube that video might have been a lead generator at the search engines rather than just a credibility builder on their website with a simple change in title…Check out this excellent video marketing case.

Till next time.
Gogo

Learn internet marketing and finish with a client-generating website in weeks- Guided coaching

Strategic marketing is about all the things you do, think and plan before you take any marketing action in your business. This website is intended to be a one stop resource for entrepreneurs like you who want to learn how to use your website as the platform for launching multi-media, mult-channel marketing campaigns that bring you all the business you can handle.

Here you’ll also find all the information you need to make a decision about how to choose a website and other web marketing strategies and resources.