Prosperity - Home Business Plans & Ideas

How To Put Creative Marketing, Free Publicity, and Strategic Joint Ventures to Work for Your Business…

 
Sit Back And Watch Your Profits Explode!

Introduction:  In February 2006, John Ritskowitz hosted a teleseminar with Michel Fortin, David Garfinkel, Yanik Silver, and JP Maroney. Entitled “Million Dollar Roundtable,” it was a chance for these marketing pros to share some of their best secrets for marketing offline, which is something more online Marketers should be doing. Ideally we should all be marketing both offline and online.  Well these folks delivered the goods, and while the call lasted about 2 hours, it still wasn’t enough time to get to everything (it never is, right?). So John compiled some of the ideas they talked about on the call, plus lots more ideas to cover the offline marketing spectrum.   Some of these ideas are more traditional, such as yellow pages advertising and classified ads. Of course that doesn’t mean they should be neglected.   Other ideas are traditional, but not used as much, or I should say not always used as effectively as they could. Direct response marketing and publicity are two that come to mind.   And then there are really creative ideas that are often overlooked, such as valuable joint ventures and strategic alliances. Some of these ideas have the potential to really deliver a lot of leads and sales with minimal traditional “work.”

  You’ll find these ideas start out somewhat simplistically and gradually get more creative and complex. So dig in and start thinking about how you could apply these ideas to your business today!        

Part I - Traditional Offline Marketing

• 1) Classified Ads - This is something everyone should be testing in some form or another. It’s great for lead generations. You should still have a strong benefit-driven headline and a clear call to action. Free reports work very well with classifieds. My local paper, the Hartford Courant even has an ongoing deal of 3 lines for 3 days - for free! Even adding more lines only ends up costing a few bucks. With a price like that, there’s no reason anyone with a website should not be testing ways to draw traffic to the site with classifieds.
• 2) Direct Mail - Nothing beats direct response when it comes to results-driven proven advertising. And messages sent directly to your highly targeted market via direct mail can deliver a terrific return on investment (ROI) when tested properly. There’s a wealth of information on direct marketing by Michel Fortin, David Garfinkel, Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, and many more experts. Here are some sites where you can learn more:
• http://www.successdoctor.com - Michel Fortin’s main site
• http://www.world-copywriting-institute.com - David Garfinkel’s site
• http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com - Home of the Gary Halbert Letter
• http://www.dankennedy.com - Dan Kennedy’s site
• http://www.srds.com - The Standard Rate & Data (SRDS) List Book, a great resource to locate mailing lists of nearly any type you can imagine. You can also find it in some larger city libraries.
• http://www.referenceusa.com - Reference USA is a great place to get compiled lists by industry, SIC, demographics and more. It contains names, addresses and lots of other great information on more than 12 million U.S. businesses, 102 million U.S. residents, 683,000 U.S. health care providers, 1 million Canadian businesses, and 11 million Canadian residents.
• http://www.usps.com - The US Postal Service website has a variety of tools and educational materials about direct mail as well.
• 3) Postcards - Yes, postcards are a form of direct mail, but it warrants its own category. Postcards are cheaper to produce and mail than full-blown direct mail packages or sales letters, and they are great for generating leads. Like classified ads, a free report or free gift often works well here. Postcards are also a great way to stay in touch with your customers and prospects, and they also work well as part of a sequence of mailings. A good place to go for customized postcards is http://www.usps.com (the US Postal Service website), because the USPS has partnered with a company that will print and mail your postcards for you! Best of all, you only pay for the postage (i.e. FREE printing costs). Hint: be sure to include yourself on the mailing list so you can get your own mailing as well.
• 4) Yellow Pages - Another great resource that is often underutilized or used ineffectively. Yellow page ads are great because when someone sees your ad, they are already in the market for your product or service. Yellow page ads need to be benefits-driven, with your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) stated clearly and boldly (remember, this is the one place where your prospects will see your ad alongside all of your competitors). You want your ad to stand out from the clutter. Use a direct response type of ad, and again, free gifts or premiums work well here.

Gary Halbert has written about yellow pages several times in his newsletter. To find them easily, just enter the following search at Google:  site:thegaryhalbertletter.com +”yellow page” Another great resource that JP Maroney recommends is Alan Saltz’s course on the subject, available at http://www.yellowpagesprofit.com A great thread on this topic can also be found on Michel Fortin’s forum at: http://www.copywritersboard.com/viewtopic.php?t=1652

• 5) Space Ads - If you’re going to do a space ad, it will generally get better results if you use the same layout as the editorials. Use the same font styles and sizes for the headline, body, etc. If the newspaper uses 2 columns per article on the page your ad will appear, use 2 columns in your ad. If they use 3 columns, you use 3. The “advertorial” approach almost always does better than traditional space ads that scream “ad.”

A great way to get very low costs space ads is to use what’s known as remnant, or standby advertising. Enter the following search in Google to see what I mean and to learn more:  site:thegaryhalbertletter.com +”Nancy Jones” And you’ll learn to experiment in many creative ways to find out what works for you. A local advertising paper, the Rare Reminder here in the Hartford area, has classified ads and space ads. But I noticed that one “stone and mulch” company has their space ad featured upside-down in every weekly issue. At first I thought it was a mistake. But after seeing it upside-down week after week, I suspected they found that their upside-down ad stands out from the clutter. People think it’s a mistake and read it. Yes, it’s a gimmick. Would I do it? Only if it tested positively. And maybe it has for these folks. Food for thought.

• 6) Radio/TV/Infomercials - You might be surprised how inexpensive you can get these types of slots, especially if you use remnant advertising. Study the best infomercials, for example (the ones you see over and over again…they must be working or they wouldn’t keep airing them), to get some ideas on how they are constructed.
• 7) Flyers - Who says you can’t hire a high school student to stuff mailboxes or stick ‘em under windshields? Obviously if you are selling a high-priced financial course, it would be better to target the windshields of a fancy hotel than your local Wal-Mart. And I believe the US Postal Service also prints them for you like they do postcards if you want to mail them. Check out http://www.usps.com
• Networking - Your local Chamber of Commerce, trade shows, seminars, and anywhere your prospects hang out are all good opportunities for networking. In many cases, the hotel bar the night before the seminar is the best opportunity for making contacts. It’s usually more effective to try to capture contacts and leads than to try to close a sale on the spot, so get your elevator speech ready and have plenty of business cards on hand.
• 9) Telemarketing - Remember the “Do Not Call” list only applies to consumers, so if you do any kind of business to business selling, telemarketing is a viable marketing method you can use effectively. Also, the “Do Not Call” list may not apply to you with your customers or if you already have a relationship with your prospects.
• 10) A Trade Show Booth - A great place to capture leads. Again, a free report or gift does wonders. When you get a long line waiting at your booth, many people will stop by just to see what the fuss is about. Make your sales materials and sales people benefit-driven. Remember what your prospects are thinking: “What’s in it for me?”
• 11) Blimps, Banners, and Billboards - If it’s zoned for advertising and it’s blank, you have an opportunity.
• 12) Door Hangers - Those same high school students can help you with door hangers as well.
• 13) Circulars - Again, high school students can also help you hand out circulars, post them on community bulletin boards, on telephone poles, wherever. You can make a donation to your local church and ask them if you can leave a stack at their next bake sale or bingo event. And certainly you can arrange to have your circular included in your local newspaper or community paper. For your money, circulars are very inexpensive to print and distribute.
• 14) Card Decks - These stacks of index cards are mailed to targeted audiences. Each deck can contain anywhere from 50 to 200 cards or so, each with an advertisement or coupon. They may also double as a business reply card on back. Since your ad is mixed in with tons of others, it’s especially important to have a great headline and layout that will stand out from the clutter.

Card decks are inexpensive because all of the advertisers are sharing the cost of the mailing. They can cost as little as three cents a prospect for large mailings. Even for smaller mailings, they are generally cheap, which is good for testing. Make sure you choose your audience wisely. Card decks are great for targeting a niche. Free reports or books work especially well here, because the person flipping through the cards will be attracted to the word “FREE.” As always, make sure there is a clear call to action. Multiple methods of response usually work better than a single method. For example, they can drop the card in the mail, call a free recorded message, go to your website, etc. And you may have some options with remnant space, so always try to negotiate a lower price (how hard is it for them to stick another card in their mailing…their costs are incremental and their profit is high even on remnant rates). A couple other tips: When you see repeat advertisers in a deck, you have a pretty good idea that the deck is working for that ad. If that ad also targets your niche market, it may be a good one to test in. Also, test with copy that you already know works.

• 15) Value-Paks - Similar to card decks, “value-paks” are little booklets with multiple ads. They are mostly used with coupons, rather than business reply cards.
• 16) Ad Magazines - You’ve seen them. Magazines that are little more than a collection of space ads. They are usually local, and the ads in them usually aren’t direct response. By putting your direct response ad there, you stand out over all the other ads. But the downside is that these magazines tend to be less niche-focused (although there are certainly exceptions, with the real estate and automobile-themed magazines and newspapers).
• 17) Catalogues - Your catalog doesn’t have to look like L.L. Bean or the like to be effective. A good one to study with respect to the ads themselves is the J. Peterman catalogue (check out http://www.jpeterman.com).

Here’s a good way to start small and work up from there in developing a good catalogue:

• a) Try a simple double-sided flyer first and test response.
• b) Make sure you locate highly targeted lists, as the wasted cost of mailings is going to be your biggest expense.
• c) Continue to expand, test, and tweak. Test everything-your layout, your copy, your prices-until you find the best combination.

How To Choose A Good MLM Company
by Willie Crawford

According to the respected journalist, Richard Poe, in his book Wave4 – Network Marketing in the 21st Century, Internet Marketing is responsible for moving over $100 billion of goods and services yearly on the global front. It is therefore very likely that you have already come in contact with some type of Network Marketing product or service. The concept of moving goods through an army of independent distributors has earned its place in the marketing world despite the negative publicity suffered by the industry. Network Marketing is here to stay; the question that remains is, “How do I choose a company?”

Here are some very important pointers that would guide you in the right direction. Any company that you can find passing these criteria will be a great company to line up with.

1. A company that has been in business for at least 5 years and has great financial backing, excellent management and a ‘distributor first’ philosophy. The company should also have a long-term development goal and not just be out for the quick cash.

This may be a pretty tall order to reach but considering that the great majority of start-up MLM companies fail within their first three years you don’t want your income stream to suddenly dry up! It’s no picnic to discover that after you’ve spent time, effort and money to build a solid organization the company closes down because one of those essential elements was missing.

There is the prevalent myth that the best time to join a company is at start-up—the so called ‘ground floor opportunity’—, but if the truth be told, the ground often caves in leaving many people very unhappy. This does not mean that you should wait for five years to see if a company would do well, because logically, this would mean that no MLM company will ever get started. The point here is that you should assess your risk and know that the chance of losing your money is higher with a new company than with a company having a proven track record.

You know the saying that the proof of the pudding is in the eating; just so the proof of the stability of a Network Marketing company is in the duration of survival. In fact, in over 60 years of MLM history and after tens of thousands of MLM start up companies, only around 42 companies have made it to their 5th birthday.

Any business owner would admit that the first years are the toughest. This is the period when the company is just establishing a footing and income is most likely low. If the company does not have the proper financial backing it is not likely to survive these years. You would not want to join a company that is depending too much on the distributors for survival. A MLM company takes time to build momentum by the very nature of the business - word of mouth advertising, people telling people. Before it reaches top momentum it must have the financial backing to survive the early hurdles.

Customer support for the distributors is also a critical part of the company. If their distributors feel neglected then they will simply not stick around. Especially in today’s market where there are thousands of MLM companies beckoning. The distributors are the consumers and salespeople, and to neglect them is to commit certain suicide.

A sad reality of the MLM industry is that there are many scam artists that come along just for the quick cash just before they close shop and disappear. This would require that you do your due diligence such as checking consumer alert websites as FTC.gov and WorldWideScam.com among others. These scam artists will normally emphasize the compensation plan over the actual product—if there really is a product—and apply high pressure sales tactics to persuade you to join the “ground-floor opportunity”. These criminals prey on human greed and have little sympathy for the naïve.

2. High quality (unique if possible), reasonably priced products or services that should be, ideally, consumable so users will have to buy over and over again.

Traditionally, MLM companies are able to produce higher quality products simply because they don’t have to pay outrageous prices for advertisement. Just think about the millions of dollar paid per year by companies such as Nike to sports stars for a 30 second commercial. This money, if Nike followed the MLM model, could go into developing better quality products and paying their workers better salaries. Because a large part of a normal company’s budget goes towards advertising, Network Marketing companies will deliver a higher quality product, all things being equal, per dollar spent.

Also remember that you want to be paid continually so you need a product or service that is consumable so the customer has to keep refilling his supply. Nutritional and telecommunication companies fit this requirement very well.

Apart from being consumable, another important factor is how ‘needed’ this product or service is. The negative side of pushing nutritional products is that most people are only concerned about their health after it is already failing! (You’ll do well recruiting at the local hospital). If you are marketing a service such as web hosting, medical coverage or legal services you are more likely to have less attrition in your downline.

If the company is selling a product that you can pick up at your local department store, then you’re not likely to do very well. A unique or proprietary product will do better since you’ll have less competition—you learn very early that there is no such thing as zero competition although some companies will want to make this claim.

The “acid test” question to apply to the price of the product or service is, “Would I purchase at this price if there wasn’t a compensation plan attached to it?” If your answer is “No,” then you are looking at a potential pyramid scheme where a product is just attached to the compensation plan to make the opportunity appear legitimate. In these cases you will always find that the compensation plan becomes the selling point and the product or service rarely mentioned. (Here is an informational article on the subject of recognizing and avoiding such schemes: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/invest/mlm.htm.)

3. A Compensation Plan that is fair to both fulltime and part-time distributors alike with leadership bonuses for those who build large and productive teams.

We have already mentioned that a successful MLM company will have a “distributor first” philosophy. In no other place should this be exhibited more than in the compensation plan. It takes only some simple arithmetic to see how many sales or distributors you need in your organization in order to be in profit. Most people don’t take the time to do the math and sometimes are “deceived” by the fancy potential income charts that are put out by the company.

The point here is that you need to read between the lines and the fine print to be sure what you are paid for your effort. Most people will skim this section because it may read like a tax code and who likes to do their taxes? That’s why we hire accountants.

Compensation plans fall into basically four types:

(a) The Break Away Plan. This is the oldest and most traditional plan and allows distributors to build and be paid on an unlimited number of frontline associates. When the frontline associates reach a certain predetermined volume they can “break away” from their upline and form their own organization. In this break away plan the leaders are paid on all their frontline and also certain levels down in their break away groups. In this model if you don’t work you don’t eat. You have to recruit in order to be compensated.

(b) The Unilevel Plan. Here you are only paid on a certain number of levels determined by the company. In this case there are no ‘break away’ groups. The larger your frontline the larger will be your total group size. The lower levels would therefore be much larger than the upper ones. Again if you don’t recruit you don’t get a check.

(c) The Matrix Plan. In this plan you are limited to the number of recruits you could have on your frontline. So in a 3 X 5 matrix you’ll have 3 on your front line then 9 on the second level, then 27 on the next and so on. Compared to the two other plans we’ve looked at the matrix plan limits your success to a certain level. What’s so appealing about this plan though is that recruits are told they only need to get 3 and are even promised “spill-over” from a “heavy hitter” in their upline. The results are that everyone joins looking for spillover and never makes any personal effort. Results? Certain failure. A matrix, though limited, can work but the distributors must depend on their personal efforts and allow the spillover (if any) to be just an added bonus.

(d) The Binary Plan. This plan is a special case of the matrix where you can only have two on your frontline, hence ‘binary’. The only caveat here is that many such plans require you to balance both sides of your organization before you can get paid. This is really a trick so that the company can keep your money as long as possible and sometimes forever. Some dishonest companies will start off by opening only one side of the binary—called a ‘powerleg’—as there is no possibility of you getting paid until the other side is opened. By the time the other side is opened many people may have left the company leaving their commission checks behind as well. You are forever left, not only with recruiting, but trying to balance the sides of your team. Beware of such plans!

There are variations of these plans that have come along such as the straight line plan where you are paid on every one that comes in after you.
Companies that follow these plans don’t seem to survive very long since most people just join and stand by waiting on their checks. There is no real incentive to work the plan.

Warning: You should always be particularly suspicious of compensation plans that pay out over 60%. This normally means that the product is overpriced, qualification quotas or volumes are almost unreachable or the breakaway structure can rob you of your investment and hard work. If the company uses the breakaway plan you may find your downline disappearing just as you are about to hit the big numbers. If a company intends to be deceptive it will be in the compensation plan; so study it well!

4. Training and solid upline support for your team.

Many companies provide training and promotional materials for their distributors but it is often difficult to strike a balance between product promotion and distributor training. And distributor training normally takes a backseat. You should be wary of companies that charge exorbitant prices for their promotional materials. You are investing your advertising dollars so the company should not seek to make a profit from you here—although many do.

You should seek to align yourself with an experienced leader and learn as much as possible from his or her recruiting methods. Be sure to investigate your upline because that can be the one factor that determines success or failure for you. Study the company literature to see who the ‘big hitters’ are and join their group. It is said that misery loves company; so does success.

5. A wide and even global market if possible.

You may find a company with all the great characteristics that we have looked at so far and then discover that it is not available in your area—ouch! With the advent of the Internet you find that many more companies are going global. This means that your market reach will be wider and chances of building a solid team greatly improved.

Apart from the sheer geography of the company’s market reach, is the potential customer base as well. For example, many American nutritional companies are aiming for the ‘baby boomers’ who are now in their midlife years and make up a good percentage of the buying public—in means and numbers. This demographic of customers want to look younger and are very health conscious. Any product that caters to their needs will most likely have a ready market.

Another big “bubble” when looking at population demographics is the children of the baby boomers. Look at what they are spending money on!

Choosing a company that has a product or service for which there is no ready market will make it very difficult on the distributor. And in this industry one needs a lot of encouragement.

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