You cannot really say if newspaper or any advertising is working or not until you start using some simple ideas to make it effective:

1. Start measuring your conversion rates. Like how many people respond to your ad, how many people just ask for info (do you have electronic info and a newsletter available for them?), how many pay you after reading your ad?
2. Publish two ads at anyone time and measure the conversion rates for each ad. Keep the best and change the the other until it becomes the best. Therefore always have a control to measure your new ad.
3. Calculate the average profit per customer for the time a customers continue to spend money with you. When you have this info you will know how much can spend on advertising given a conversion rate. Therefore if you spend $80 bucks to get one client and the average client profit is $300 bucks then you should continue with the ad.
4. Use the same ad in two different publications and measure the conversion rates for the two publications. Over time stop the ad in the worst performing publication and find another publication to compare against your control-publication.  

Image by be OH be via Flickr

Allow me to recap:

You know that Coffee News is a small business opportunity allowing work from home moms, dads and others to publish a weekly one-page newspaper. This newspaper is distributed to local or community restaurants. The content consists of ‘news to amuse’ and takes less than 8 minutes to read. On the left, right, front and back page edges of the paper are 32 business-card sized ads where local businesses promote their business.

Currently more than 8 million people read this newspaper across the world every week. This is a significant publication with a reach stretching 52 countries.

My questions:

Are we utilizing the true power of Coffee News?

Why not add value to this amazing publication?

This is my suggestion:

1. Create a reason for readers to subscribe to an online newsletter via a blog
2. In addition to the paper version publish a shortened e-version with different news.
3. Create Google Adwords like ads for the local advertisers and publish it on the edges of the e-newsletter.

Just think about the opportunity:

• We have a captive audience having fun getting a Coffee News newsletter weekly.
• We have small business advertisers who get more exposure
• Coffee News marketing agencies can add more value to their sales pack.

What are the negatives?

Let me know what you think…..

Image via Wikipedia

When they read your advertisement;

Do they care who you are or what you can do for them?

When you advertise have you thought about the way you draw attention with your advertising headline?

Have you tested different headlines?

Are you sure your headline is the right one for you?

My guess is that it probably isn’t………

But let me illustrate why I believe that.

Imagine for a moment your wife phones and tells the drain is blocked. You’re driving down the road. And as luck would have it, you see two billboards.

On the left, it’s PJ White Plumbing, with a photo of PJ in his overalls, he looks trustworthy. And there’s his 800 number.

On the right side of the street is another billboard for Smith from with a headline 30 Minute Drain Fixer. Another nice photo, and a toll free number.

Who are you going to call?

Smith, right?

That’s because Smith is a specialist in exactly what you needed at exactly that moment. He  will sort your drain out in 20 minutes.

While PJ White, as capable as he may be, didn’t give you the assurance that he is focused on your your problem.

Now think about your advertisements for a moment.

Do you use a headline PJ White Plumbing?

Or is it 30 Minute Drain Fixer?

Your headline does NOT have (should not) to reflect your actual business name.

In fact, you can have a dozen or or more different headlines for different ads. And you should test all of them until you discovered the one attracts the most qualified customers to your business.

You also need to know your potential clients needs and then aim your heading accordingly.

Any business will know what specific incident (requirement, need) cause the most interest or enquiries.

Find these needs and use them with a solution when you create your advertisement’s headline statement.

Let’s consider the lead PJ White Plumbing.

1. It’s a general statement trying to brand PJ White.
2. It does not state a problem and it does not solve a problem.
3. It’s not specific

On the other hand 30 Minute Drain Fixer

1. It focus on a drain problem and share a 30 minute fixing solution.
2. It’s specific
3. It focus on the readers problem and not on branding a name

Most of the small business ads I see focus on the name of the business and waste advertising money. Because people don’t care who you are but what you can do for them.

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Unfortunately the small businesses have to continue wasting money on expensive advertising. But when they start incorporating a cultivation stage then they find that advertising becomes the net catching clients in their cultivation pool. In this pool potential clients are fed with gifts and education until the clients are ready to pull out their purses and spend money.

Like in the traditional small business advertising post we have the same stages but we have included the cultivation stage; consisting out of a ‘gifts and committer’ stage. I will discuss these two stages today and then in a follow up article I’ll illustrate how to implement the cultivation pool. 

Let’s consider the diagram above;

We get the target audience that we want to advertise to, as soon as they read the ad some of them will become wanters. A very small number of the wanters are hot prospects and may become payers (willing to take out their purses and pay for the goods). However most of the wanters are only lukewarm and not convinced yet; they may not have the money to pay today, they may not feel comfortable with the advertiser yet, they may not know if what’s advertised is what they want. Now is the time to educate and create relationships with them……… in the cultivation pool.

What Happens The Cultivation Pool?

We provide the lukewarm wanters with gifts until they are ready to commit and then buy. Therefore the intention is to keep them with in our sphere of influence and not send  them back to the target population. Because when they are sent back to the target population we need to use expensive advertising to get them back. So lets rather keep them in the pool.

While they are in the pool we give them gifts.

What are these gifts? We provide them with:

• Testimonials from happy customers
• Information on the products and services
• How to use the products
• Elaborate write-ups on guarantees
• Education

Basically we are creating a trusting relationship so that our lukewarm wanters can take out their purses and buy our products.

You’ll also notice that we can send our post-payers (people who have paid) back to the cultivation pool until they are ready to buy something else.

1. With the cultivation pool we never have to let anyone, who has seen our advertisement, back to the target population.  
2. With the cultivation pool we can increase our advertising conversion rate by more than a 100% and reduce the cost to get a new client by a factor of more than a 100.

Please note: I am not suggesting that small businesses should spend less money on advertising. All I am saying is that traditional advertising is expensive because it makes the same mistake over and over again.

When you advertise with the idea to catch lukewarm wanters for your cultivation pool your advertising becomes effective and cheap.

As I have mentioned; the next article will look at how you create a cultivation pool. Then we will look at how you adopt your advertisements to get more lukewarm wanters in the pool.

Good luck 

Let’s look at the traditional advertising cycle and see how it relates to a fishing net.

The traditional-advertising cycle used by most small businesses follow the same cycle. Basically they pay for an advert without thinking about the mentality of their potential customer.

Today I will discuss the traditional advertising cycle and then, in a follow up post, I will look at a multi-step-marketing cycle as an alternative to the outdated traditional advertising cycle.

Diagram: You get 10 000 people called the target population, only a 1000 read the advertisement, 100 like what you have advertised and become a wanter. Only 10 decide to buy but when it get’s to taking out the money only one have the guts to actually to take out the purse and pay for it. Every time during these stages the potential client is returned to the target population. Never is there a place were relationships are cultivated. In the next post I will look at the cultivation cycle then I will just focus on the cultivation cycle.

I believe that traditional small-business advertisers make a fundamental mistake because they assume there’s only three (to four) advertising stages.

Let’s consider the traditional advertising stages:

1. Out there is a mass of people (population) and some of them (target population) may be interested in the product being advertised. Let’s assume that only 10% of the target population see the advert. (The other skip the ad because it was not well structured to draw them in).
2. Then we get the wanters; those who read the advertisement. They want the product. They may not want it today but they want it. This stage is over looked by traditional advertisers. These wanters may want to buy today, others may want what is advertised but may not have the money today or need some time before they spend the money. Other wanters are at this moment gathering info on your product. Traditional small business advertisers ignored this stage and allow these people to become part of the general population again.
3. A small percentage of the ‘wanters’ will take out their purse and buy what’s on offer and then they become a ‘payer’. They give you money. The other may not yet trust the offer and become a expensive non-entity.
4. I have also included a stage that I call “Post Payer.” This stage is also not considered during traditional marketing. It’s included here to show you that in traditional advertising the ‘post payer’ also becomes part of the general population.

Every time traditional business people advertise using this model they recreate the fishing experience.

They spend expensive money to attract the same people over and over again. They attract people that they are willing drop through the holes again. These holes allow potential paying clients, who read their ad, to get away. It’s like putting bait out and hoping to catch many fishes with a large eyed net.

Our initial net was caste to 10 000 people but we only caught one. This gives the advertiser 0.01% success.

When you plan on catching fish with the correct net and various cultivating tanks you will be able to increase your success rate by 1000 times.

Well, maybe only a 100 times.

But I will take a 100 times anytime.

Because:

Let’s assume you are small business person advertising;

• You have an advertising budget of 1000 per month
• You measure your response and get a 100 new clients every month
• Then for the same amount you’ll get 1000 new clients with the new marketing proposal.

Do you agree?

Have fun

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So many people tell me that the hardest part of selling is encountering negativity and refusal.  So I want to share with you one of Stephan Schiffman’s “rules” for selling success from Make It Happen Before Lunch.  Here’s the rule – are you ready?  EXPECT negative initial responses!

Here’s a framework for thinking about that.  In Schiffman’s words, “Any time you suggest something new to someone you don’t know well yet, there’s going to be some initial resistance.  In your first call, set the goal of getting that negative response out in the open – not avoiding it!”

“In the initial call, you are not selling yourself, or selling Coffee News, or selling your services.  You’re selling an appointment.  You’re making the appointment the topic of conversation.” Bill Buckley President Coffee News USA.

This reminds me of expecting the kiss on the first date. If you go out to your appointment expecting to get the sale from someone you have never met you must prepare for the negative initial response.

When you go to an appointment to sell your services you should have different walk-away-success measures. Selling the service is not always possible at the first meeting. I prefer to use the first meeting to introduce myself and the product I am selling, the next objective is to get the person to like and trust me. And if you are a great salesperson you may get the order today.

But that’s not possible for all of us at the first meeting and here’s the procedure I propose:

• Get the appointment and confirm it before you leave your office.
• Introduce yourself and listen
• Introduce your services and try and show your product.
• Try and (a) close the sale
• If you cannot close the sale ask if you can continue with the education
• If the person agree get their (b) email address and add them to your online blog newsletter.

From (a) and (b) you’ll notice that we have two walk-away-success measures. If we get the deal then it means a success. But if we don’t get the deal then at least we have the email address and can follow up………until we have the deal.

Instead of getting 5 sales out of a hundred, we now have 5 sales out of a hundred and 95 emails out of a hundred.

Now you can use a blog/newsletter, like the one I am using to send you this educational stuff, to cultivate long-term relationships. And when they need your services you’ll  be the first one that comes to mind.

Regards

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Many online businesses generate huge incomes from affiliate marketing. But what stops an off line publication, like Coffee News,  making money by promoting these same affiliate products?

What is Affiliate Marketing? 

It’s an online form of marketing where you get paid to promote a product or service. In other words it’s a marketing practice where a business rewards affiliates for visitors or customers brought about by the affiliates’ marketing efforts.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Online businesses who want to sell products or services can start an affiliate program. People sign-up for the affiliate program and get an unique affiliate link (unique website address). When they share the product with their readers they give the readers the unique affiliate link to click on. When the reader buys the product the referring affiliate gets paid a commission.

How Do You Take Affiliate Marketing Off Line?

I will discuss this in more detail using three examples. Here’s the simple steps; you create an offline ad that you publish in a newspaper and ask interested readers to go online and visit your unique affiliate link.  And when they visit the link and buy you get paid.

What are the problems when you take affiliate marketing off line?

The most common issues are; affiliate links are long and ugly. But I’ll show you a way to make them short and nice.

Let’s get started with the idea to take affiliate marketing off line.

1. Do your home work and sign up the better affiliate programs.
2. Create great ads
3. Make your affiliate links short
4. Send interested people to your affiliate web sites using your unique affiliate link.

Below are three affiliate products that will explain how you can convert the online affiliate process and use it for an off line publication.

Example Number One:

One of the best affiliate programs or at least a highly recommended affiliate program is David Frey’s Small Business Marketing Best Practices.

I bought two of his products and found them invaluable. Let me use one of David’s products to introduce how I will take affiliate marketing off line:

The Small Business Marketing Bible

This is how David introduce product: …Attract More New Customers, Sell More to Existing Customers, and Bring Back Your Customers More Often, With Less Effort — No Matter What Product or Service You Sell.

When you sell one this products you will make $65 (about R600) per sale.

How do you do it?

1. You signup for David’s affiliate program here.
2. You’ll get an email with all your affiliate links and David calls YourIDNumber.
3. The affiliate link for the the Marketing Bible will look like this http://www.marketerschoice.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=YourIDNumber&u=www.TheMarketingBible.com
4. You need to replace the YourIDNumber with your own.
5. You’ll agree that the link is long and ugly. This long link will not work off line and we need to shorten it. This is what we do:
6. When you have replaced or added your ID number with your own, highlight the link, and copy it.
7. Now go and make it shorter. Visit www.bit.ly where you can do it. (You can also use the optional custom name). After I have shortened my long ugly link a www.bit.ly became http://bit.ly/mbible. This is a nice short link and will still give me credit when the sale is made.
8. Now that you have a short affiliate link you can create your off line ad and publish it in off line.

Let’s look at a possible ad for an off line publication:

How To Attract More Customers

Attract More New Customers, Sell More to Existing Customers,

and Bring Back Your Customers More Often, With Less Effort —

No Matter What Product or Service You Sell.

Get Your Copy Today Visit Us Online At www.Bit.Ly/mBible

Example Number Two:

Learn Why Jean Daum’s 17 Secrets Rocked The Small Business World

1. This is the Coffee News Affiliate program
2. You can make $500 or R5000 per sale with this affiliate program
3. You can sign up here.
4. Your affiliate link  will look like this one http://www.ilocals.info/affiliate/jrox.php?uid=YourID_1
5. Change YourID for your own unique ID that you get when you join.
6. Copy this link and go to www.bit.ly and shorten your affiliate link. You can also use the optional custom name. For this example I did not use the option, and my long affiliate link of became  http://bit.ly/2Y00n

Let’s look at a possible ad for an off line publication:

Learn Why Jean Daum’s 17 Secrets Rocked

The Small Business World

Never did she realised there will be 1100 small business

operating in 52 countries 21 years later.

Join this Proven Small Business

Get Your FREE Ebook Today On How It’s Done www.Bit.Ly/2Y00N

Example Number Three:

Are YOU Sick of Trying For Jobs in Dubai?

1. With this program you promote an eBook on how to get jobs in  Dubai http://rsaclick.nikengroup.hop.clickbank.net
2. You can make $17 for each sale
3. You need to first signup with ClickBank to get your account name. You can sign up here.
4. Now go and find your Dubai affiliate link here.
5. Your affiliate link  will look like this one http://xxxxxx.nikengroup.hop.clickbank.net and you need to replace the xxxxxx with your ClickBank account name.
6. Copy this link and go to www.bit.ly and shorten your affiliate link. You can also use the optional custom name.

Let’s look at a possible ad for an eBook:

Beat The Recession With A Dubai Job

Do You Want a 100% Tax Free Job?

Then Get a Job in Dubai.

Here is How to Start

Learn How Today By Visiting Us Online www.Bit.Ly/jKOOX

Here are a few more affiliate programs you can have a look at and take them off line as suggested above.

1. If I look at all the  money SiverSandsCasino is paying out to TV and online they are obviously making money and that’s why they also have an affiliate program. What I like about them is the fact that South Africans get exposed to this product a lot and an off line ad can ride on the back of all this exposure. There affiliate program is here.
2. One of the oldest and best affiliate programs around is Internet Marketing Tips. You can join them here and take what you need to market their products off line. They pay up to $65 per sale.
3. Mantality is “South Africa’s only one-stop online shop for the urban man”. They have interesting products to promote and comes highly recommended. Join them here.

These products may give you a head start and can add five income generators to your off line publication. Try them.

Regards

Johan Horak

P.S. A note of warning: Using affiliate marketing offline my seem to be a easy and lazy option to fill excess advertising capacity. It is. Therefore an off line publication can fill the excess capacity with affiliate products but it should never be the core income generator.