Advertising and Marketing Ideas to Create Phenomenal Profits In YOUR Small Business

“O.K. Claude. You keep telling us what to do…what did you do last in business last month?” PDF Print E-mail

“O.K. Claude. You keep telling us what to do…what did you do last in business last month?”

I’m glad you asked. I thought that this would give some insight into how I run my business.

Here are the figures from March 07.

$ of sale Tracked source of sales

$12,364 Gift Certificate program

$11,844 Direct mail advertising

$13,880 Referrals

$ 2,411 Sign (drive by)

$6,356 Sign on door (sale sign )

$ 996 Yellow Pages listing call

$2,600 Unknown or multiple sources

$3,553 Small stuff not tracked.

$54,004 Total sales, not including internet or Newsletter income.

Here are a couple of explanations.

Almost all of the Gift Certificate income is from referrals from high end vacuum cleaner & heater buyers that gave away gift certificates that I mailed to them.

Sign on door; means a cheap sheet of paper telling about a buying trip we were going on, and the sale we were having as soon as we came back. Last year, we only took in $800 with this method and the year before that $4,000. I have no idea why there was so much variation. This year we also set our voice-mail to tell about the sale. That’s $6,000 we wouldn’t have had if not for this one idea. This would be the 3rd time I’ve put a copy of this sign in my newsletter, so I won’t do it again. If you e-Mail me, I’ll send you a copy by return E-Mail.

Direct mail advertising is from 2 coupon magazines I advertise in. My total cost for them was just under $600.

Each magazine had 2 ads from me. My vacuum cleaner ad and my heater ad.

$54,000 may seem like not much, or may seem like a lot.

But remember, we have no employees. We have little overhead. And I haven’t even counted the sales from my “Healthy Home News” Newsletter. (it was just under $1,000) but we only mail them to 367 people right now.

My printer has given me special pricing that you can use if you like. The order form is included here if you’re interested. Frankly, I had another service mail my newsletters until now, but his rates are better so I’ll go with him next month. If you are interested in you’re own Customer Newsletter, let me know. It’s only $77 a month for the newsletter on CD.

By the way, I just got an offer in the mail to have someone do a 4 page newsletter for $500 a month. And everyone who joins for $500 gets the same newsletter as everyone else. Hmmm. Maybe I should raise my price.
 

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Reviews from Amazon.com.

Your Survival Guide to Ad Reps Who Don't Know Any Better!, January 23, 2010

By Gloria Steinman "Obsessive Compulsive Book Re... (Sandusky, OH)

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If you have ever been approached by an ad rep, you know the feeling of confusion and frustration. They tell you how much your business will increase and how you will get SOOO many new customers. Then you run the ad, nothing happens, and the rep comes back and tells you to run it again to see if it works next time. Surely if you continue to run the ad SOMETHING will happen!

After months of spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars, many business will throw up their hands and proclaim "ADVERTISING JUST DOESN'T WORK!"

 But what you don't know, and to be honest the ad rep doesn't know it either, is that the simple act of purchasing an ad does not mean you will get a response!

There are tried and true "rules" to advertising and Claude's book is very good at laying those "rules" out in an easy to understand way. It is not the last book you should ever read on advertising but it can be used to IMMEDIATELY improve the response to YOUR advertising!

 I highly recommend this book to any small business that operates on a local level.

The $20 bucks you'll spend (at Amazon.com) on this book will be well worth it and if you actually put some of Claude's principles to work you could see a return on investment worth thousands of times the cost of this book! Claude has spent 10 years in the school of harsh reality and has tested and tweaked these methods for the survival of his own business.

Claude Whitacre is My Hero!

 An Incredibly Valuable Book!, January 19, 2010

By Mike McGroarty

The Unfair Advantage is an excellent book that every small business owner should have on their desk. Not their bookshelf, on the desk, and the pages should be dogeared from constantly refering to this book. All businesses need to and should advertise aggressively and this book really does give you an unfair advantage by teaching you how to craft your advetisements, and where and where not to place those advertisements. Advertising that doesn't work is expensive. Advertising that REALLY works is libertating and will take your business and your life to the next level and beyond.

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