Axxis Buzz

How to improve the performance of  the hardest working tool in your arsenal!

•    Your business card should be quality stuff.
It does NOT have to cost you an arm and a leg. Cards printed on your computer on sheet-fed stock are too thin. Every attempt I have made in the past ended up with cards that are warped just from peeling them off of the backing paper. This will not do. Quality cards, printed on quality stock, bought in bulk (500 or more) cost less in the long run.

The same goes for the free cards offered by companies that print their logo on the back. Do you really want your customers and prospects thinking you can’t afford to buy decent business cards? The quality of the card you hand out reflects directly on you.

•    Your card should contain your contact information.
This sounds pretty obvious, but you and I both have cards that don’t contain enough contact information. I have a card passed on as a referral that only contains a company name, a phone number, and a website address. I would like to have the name of the person I am contacting at the very least. In this case, my philosophy of “Less is More” just doesn’t cut it.

In the same breath, I will also tell you that you don’t have to list every single way of contacting you if it isn’t relevant. For instance, if you work from a home office and you don’t see clients there, don’t list your address. If you are the kind of person that checks your email once a week whether you need to or not, either join the computer age, or don’t list an email address. You don’t want to be thought of as unresponsive if it takes you a week to read and respond.

•    Your card should clearly represent what you sell, provide, do, or are capable of.
This is your mini-brochure! Whether you are networking for a job or new clients, if someone can’t tell what you do, you are not going to get a call. It is easier and faster to find another person or company than to find out if you are a good fit. Provide a tool that works effectively.

This is vitally important if your card is passed along to someone else. The information on your card is all they have.

•    Don’t try to cram everything into a few inches.
Business cards have two sides, and many printers don’t charge a penny more to print on both. Use the extra real estate, keep it concise, and provide links to fuller information, like a website or a LinkedIn profile.

•    If a logo is applicable, include it!
This is your first brand impression, so integrate it. If your company is fully branded, use the fonts, colors, and wording that communicates your brand.

•     Handing out more than one is a referral waiting to happen.
Make referrals easy!

3 reasons to simplify your marketing designs.

 I stood by my client as he proudly showed me the two-page spread he’d bought in the local yellow page directory, and cringed. He’d allowed the yellow page salesperson to turn the design and messaging over to their graphics department. He’d given them a laundry list of things to include, and they had dutifully followed his instructions. I was looking at the result: a very expensive, semi-permanent representation of his business that was so full of “stars” proclaiming “Call NOW,” Lowest Rates,” “First-Time Buyer Programs,” that it was impossible to read the core message. Was there a core message???

It’s tempting. You buy space for an advertisement, you’re sending out a mailer; you want to get the most bang for your buck.

Your designer comes back with something that’s good, but you want more. It doesn’t tell the whole story of what you do, how well you do it, or why your customers should buy from you. You send the designer back to the drawing board to add more content. Maybe you send the designer back more than once. You’re happy when there isn’t  a snippet of empty space waiting to be filled with a sales pitch, and sign the order.

Your results are less than stellar, and here is why:

1. You assaulted and confused your audience with so much information and so many sales pitches that they couldn’t make sense of it, or they felt pushed and tuned out all of your message.Solution: Sticking to ONE major message in an advertisement or marketing piece allows that message to shine. Instead of throwing in the ‘kitchen sink’ of reasons why your prospects should do business with you, give them one GREAT message, make it memorable, and back it up.
2.  Too many visuals. Remember the saying “a picture paints a thousand words?”Solution: Pick your graphics carefully. They should engage your audience immediately, while providing a strong relationship to your written message. Chosen well, the thousand words don’t need to be included!  Limit the number of graphics: use only one main graphic to reinforce your point, if possible. Additional graphics may include your logo and other visual cues that convey information instantly, such as the credit cards you accept, or BBB membership.
3. You overdid the call to action. While many marketing pieces seem to forget that a call to action is essential, your piece is so full of them that your audience can’t decide what to do, or what to do first, and they abandon your message completely.  Solution: DO have a call to action, but don’t expect your viewers to commit the next week of their lives deciding which action they need to take or which action they should do first.

The old KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) method works best when you’re marketing, both visually and in copy.

Have a well-defined goal and stick to it.

Use your website (you do have one, don’t you?) to give the whole story, and make sure your marketing piece directs your audience there. Your website should be used to expand on your message, tell the rest of the story, convert browsers into buyers, so use different marketing channels for the purpose that makes each most effective.

Remember, people don’t want to be sold, they want someone to make it easy to buy.

info@velocitybusinessadvisor.com
Visit the Blog: http://velocitybusinessadvisor.blogspot.com/

Cost
Customer Service Institute – It costs 5X more to get new clients than to keep an existing one

Longevity
¨National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) – 3-Year study proved that
businesses that focused on service were more likely to survive than those who emphasized
price or product

It All Comes Down To…

Customer Expectations

Meeting (Exceeding!) those Expectations

Totally satisfied customers are 6X more likely to repurchase than satisfied customers (Xerox
Corporation study)

Message/Vision

Every great company starts with a vision of how they will serve the market DIFFERENTLY
and BETTER than existing options

THEN THEY COMMUNICATE IT!

Once Communicated to the Prospect…

A Lead is generated
In person
Telephone
¨Internet
¨Other
Sales/Conversion
Service/Delivery

The real focus of this article is the next area: service and delivery.

Businesses Fill Needs (Service)

People trade dollars for solutions
People buy for two reasons:
Decrease Pain
Increase Pleasure

That’s it – nothing else. Generally, people will move a bit quicker to decrease a pain than to increase a pleasure, but both principles apply. Can you think of any product or service that this does not apply to?

If not then:
Find a way to decrease the pain or to increase the pleasure in your industry and your chance of success soars

Slideshare presentation by Andrew Chiodo.

• President at Value Positioning Development ®

Past

• Senior Lecturer - Adjunct at Otterbein College
• Adjunct Professor at Franklin University
• Independent consultant at Chiodo Consulting

Brand image is a multi-channel process:

• Sensory Cues:
  Visual Cues. This is the logo, the look and feel of your marketing materials, including your website and collateral, and if you have a product, the packaging and the product itself. Brands can be heard too! How about the type of music played in your store or on your phone’s hold message? Though visual cues are what we think of most when describing a brand or planning marketing materials, all the senses affect what your customers perceive. Try walking past the Starbucks in the mall. Doesn’t the smell make you want a cup of coffee…or am I that weak?
• Messaging:
  What you say and how you say it. If you talk about the longevity of your product (and you back it up), your audience will get the message and see you that way. You’ll have the best success if you use the language your audience speaks. If you have more than one market segment, you may use different messaging to reach each segment. Messaging is delivered in many ways;  taglines, brochures, websites,  product descriptions, and social media–today’s word on the street.
• Product & Services:
  Take away the message, take away the visual cues, the cool logos, the awesome packaging, and you are left with your actual product or service. Think about what you offer, how you offer it, the consistency, the durability, the way it’s delivered. Is it consistent with what you want your customers to think of when they think of you? Do your products deliver on their promise?
• People:
  Are your employees providing services representing you in the way you want? Take a job with a retail clothing store, and you’ll find that many have guidelines requiring their staff to wear their apparel. Abercrombie and Fitch targets teens and very young adults. Have you ever seen a fat, balding man on their sales staff? If you show neatly dressed employees on the brochure for your cleaning company and the person who shows up is sloppy, dirty, and rude, your brand wil be perceived differently than you intend. Think of your people as your frontline brand ambassadors.

Even for the smallest of companies, the perception of your brand is important. Conceive and create it carefully. Reinforce that image in everything you do. Consistency counts.