This is the second of a two-part article on overfilling your marketing funnel and client pipeline.
Last week we discussed that, in order to quickly fill your funnel and pipeline, you will want to have these 5 tools:
1. Unique Selling Proposition
2. Attention-grabbing, memorized elevator speech
3. Client attractive website
4. Effective business cards
5. A “full practice mentality”
Now that you have those, you
want to implement strategies that will result in clients coming TO YOU
rather than you having to chase after them.
1. Brand yourself.
Branding
isn’t just for megacompanies like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. In order to build
a relationship with your prospects, you want to brand yourself and
remain consistent in that brand.
Do you have a logo? A tagline?
Your photo? A certain masthead? Specific colors and fonts? What
feelings do you evoke when someone looks at your materials? What
feelings do you WANT to evoke?
They used to say it took between 7
and 10 times of someone seeing something before they had any
recognition of it. In today’s information age, I’m sure the number has
increased – make it easy on your prospects by branding your business.
2. Niche yourself.
Some
people are huge proponents of niching while others feel it doesn’t
makes a difference. The truth is “it depends” on the type of business
you’re in. You will find that your clients may begin to niche
themselves over time
Perhaps most of your clients are women or
men. Maybe they are primarily in real estate or a certain age group.
Perhaps they all have children or maybe they are predominantly
entrepreneurs.
A “niche” is any defining feature of a group. It
does not need to be the industry they serve or the business they are in
as long as you can group them.
3. Keep in touch.
Whether
you send an email or printed newsletter or holiday and “just because”
cards, find reasons to keep in touch with your target audience.
Offer to speak at their events and let them know whenever you do something new. Ask for their referrals.
4. Create materials that “pull”.
All
of your marketing materials should talk about what you can do for your
prospects and what you HAVE DONE for your clients – results-based
testimonials are great for this.
By showing how you solve
problems, you will draw prospects into your funnel rather than always
selling and turning them away. You wan to focus on the results and
benefits, not the features of your services.
5. Tell everyone.
You
want to tell *everyone* what you do – get in the public eye as much as
possible using press releases, writing articles, attending networking
events, etc. to insure that your business does not remain the “best
kept secret”.
Just starting? Send a letter (or email) to your
friends and former colleagues letting them know that you have just
launched a business and directing them to your website or to call you
for more information.
Make your marketing easy by creating
systems for as much as the above as possible and, once you’ve created
your brand, you want to consistently brand EVERYTHING you do, say and
produce.
Even now, when my business continues to grow by leaps
and bounds, I keep my marketing funnel full by insuring that I perform
at least one marketing-related activity every single day. Consistency
is key.
SANDY NOTE
In preparing for the launch of my new
home study system (I’m not quite ready to share details) and finishing
up my website copy in addition to working with my coaching clients,
I’ve been working more hours than usual.
It caught up with me
this weekend when I realized that I hadn’t met a personal deadline. In
stopping to reflect on what happened, it suddenly hit me – I haven’t
taken any “Sandy” time since early May. DUH!
Those who know me
well know that I LOVE Whole Foods Supermarket and go every month (the
closest one is about 45 minutes away) – I haven’t been in a few months.
My precious Sasha (that’s her to the left) may need hip replacement
surgery so we haven’t been going for our early morning walks and “date
night” with DH has been replaced with “band practice night”. 🙂
No
wonder my creative juices weren’t flowing as smoothly as usual! I’ve
taken away some of the things I enjoy most and forgotten to replace
them with other fun stuff!
If you find yourself busy, but not
productive or otherwise being held back, take a few minutes to reflect
on the “why” and address it as necessary.
I hope you enjoy today’s fresh new article — the second part of how to overfill your marketing funnel and client pipeline.
For the past 5 years, Sandra Martini has been showing
self-employed business owners how to get more clients consistently by
implementing processes and systems to put their marketing on autopilot.
Visit Sandra at www.SandraMartini.com
for details, compelling client testimonials and her free audio series “5 Simple
and Easy Steps to Put Your Marketing on Autopilot”.