Marketing Plans & Strategies Archives - Page 6 of 10

You Already Know How to Market… So Why Don’t You Have All the Clients You Need?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

For the past twenty-plus years, I’ve been asking self-employed professionals to tell me the most effective ways they know to get clients. No matter where and when I ask this question, their answers are always the same: “networking,” “referrals,” “word of mouth.” These are the right answers. The professionals I ask know this to be true.

But then I ask a follow-up question: “What are you doing right now to market yourself?” And what I hear back is surprising, given the answers to my first question. More than half the people I ask tell me their primary focus is on something other than those answers. They’ll tell me they are building a new website, or mailing out postcards, or running pay-per-click ads, or cold calling strangers, or launching a Facebook page, or exhibiting at an expo, or posting promos on Twitter.

Here It Is At Last – The Secret to Marketing

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

Isn’t that what every self-employed professional is really looking for — that one magic formula that will take the effort out of marketing and bring you all the clients you need, forever?

Searching for this marketing silver bullet, they read articles and books, take seminars and home-study courses, and hire consultants and coaches. And in the process they learn about many, many so-called marketing secrets.

These “secrets” to marketing consist of supposedly surefire approaches like search engine optimization for your website, social media marketing, joining a leads group, sending postcards, and running pay-per-click ads. There are of course many more, and each of them is being touted by someone as the ultimate solution for marketing your business.

Who Has Time for Social Media?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

As my spouse Dave and I were sitting one morning at our respective computers, I wondered aloud what topic to choose for my monthly newsletter. Dave, staring at his own screen, complained, “Who has time to work and still keep up with Facebook? Hey, why don’t you write about that?” Now since Dave isn’t even working at this time of year, if he feels overwhelmed by the endless stream of social media posts to read and make, what’s it like for the rest of us?

For the average independent professional who is trying to serve existing clients, run a business, and market for new clients in multiple ways, social media can be only one small piece of the picture. Yet it seems that to use social media well, it can potentially consume an endless amount of time.

Here are five ideas to consider about where social media marketing may fit — or not — into your already busy life.

Are You Offering a Commodity or a Unique Solution?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

As a self-employed professional, the last thing you want is for clients to perceive you as a commodity. Commodities are products or services that are considered to be basically the same no matter who provides them. When your target audience thinks of you as just another financial planner, graphic designer, life coach, personal trainer, or psychotherapist, you must work far too hard simply to get them to remember you until they need you.

Here are five ways you can position the solution that you offer as distinctive enough to attract and hold your prospective clients’ attention, AND convince them that your solution is the one they need.

Seven Ways to Get Clients to See You as an Expert

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

As a self-employed professional, the view that prospective clients hold of you is crucial. What you want is for clients to see you as an expert. How clients perceive your level of expertise will influence not only whether or not they hire you, but also how much they’re willing to pay, how easy it is for you to close the sale, and whether clients award you big projects or small ones.

It may feel like you, the person to be hired, don’t have much power over clients’ perceptions. You may believe that clients will make their own decisions about how — or whether — to work with you, regardless of what you do. But that’s not true. There is much you can do to influence how potential clients view you before you ever have your first conversation with them. Here are seven ways you can influence clients to perceive you as an expert.

Your Marketing: One-to-One or One-to-Many?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

It seems like there’s a new way to market your business appearing every five minutes here in the 21st century. How can self-employed professionals know which marketing methods will make the most sense for them?

When evaluating possible ways to market your business, it can help significantly to apply a quick test — is the marketing method you’re considering “one-to-one” or “one-to many?” Here’s how they’re different.

4 Ways to Market in Your Sleep

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

As a self-employed professional, the demands of marketing your business have the potential to give you many sleepless nights. It often seems that the list of things to do is endless, and there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to market your business, serve your clients, run your office, and keep up in your field.

Next Entries »

You Already Know How to Market… So Why Don’t You Have All the Clients You Need?

Here It Is At Last – The Secret to Marketing

Who Has Time for Social Media?

Are You Offering a Commodity or a Unique Solution?

Seven Ways to Get Clients to See You as an Expert

Your Marketing: One-to-One or One-to-Many?

4 Ways to Market in Your Sleep

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