So you’ve decided to go into business for yourself. You’ve got a great business plan, your marketing strategies are all in place and your finances are solid. What about the name of your business? Back in the day, such names as ‘ACME Automotive’ or ‘Bill’s Cigars’ would do. Today, there’s just too much competition in the marketplace, no matter what your business venture.

Creative business names will get you more attention and stand out in the mind of your customer. Today’s consumer is besieged, through their home mail, email and websites with more information than they care to digest. The name of your business is the customer’s first exposure to your business and may be the only thing that initially sticks. That’s why it’s important that you choose your business name carefully.

The type of your business determines the creative direction of your business name. For example, if you’ve got a boating shop, a nautical slant is a good starting point for a successful creative business name. In choosing a business name, you want to target your clientele. If your customers are mainly yachting folk, perhaps a name like ‘The Mariner’s Den’ would work. You want to create an image that’s got a touch of the avant garde, a snappy sound to the cadence of the business name, an edge of mystery or romance. It all depends on what you’re selling.

Put yourself in the place of your customer. As an instructive exercise, look on the net or in the phone book for a business that sells a product or service you might want to purchase. Without examining ads for what they sell or offer in services, see which names jump out at you and attract your attention. You’ll see that every time, the creative business names are the ones that grab you.

Now look up businesses that sell what you’re selling. Which ones are boring and which are intriguing? Which names have a good cadence when pronounced out loud? You don’t want to choose a name which is a mouthful to say. Awkward sounding names generally tend to confuse and don’t stick. Don’t choose a name similar to competitors because you like the sound or imagery. If you’re especially taken with the name of a competitor, analyze why you find it attractive and develop your own concept along the same lines.

Imagery is another important component of the creative business name. You know what sort of imagery you ideally want to evoke in a potential customer’s mind. Use a free association approach and jot down some words that describe your concept and USP. Now get out a thesaurus or synonym finder and look up words that have that nuance you’re trying to convey.

Developing truly singular business names does take time, but in the end, you’ll find it pays.

Yesterday I wrote about “How To Save 20% On Ebay — Ends Soon.” The main topic was about how to use compelling headlines on your copy to persuade people to read the rest of your article.

Today, we will continue with that discussion by talking about something called “social proof.” The web is a big place. And like big places in the offline world, people explore them with their guard up. People are skeptical of claims and hype. Can you blame them?

In order to soften people’s attitude towards what you are writing about on your website, you will need to provide proof. People want to see evidence. They want to see that what you claim works.

Social proof comes in several forms. They can be testimonials from others who have had success with your product or service. They can be screenshots of your accounts backing up your claim. They can be endorsements from authority figures like government officials, doctors, lawyers, celebrities, and religious leaders. They can be trust seals like those from the Better Business Bureau, Trust-e. security sites, independent test labs, and universities. In actuality, social proof online is not much different than social proof offline.

Now let’s take the “How To Save 20% On EBay” example from yesterday. I made the claim that you can get up to 20% of your EBay purchase if you use Live.com, EBay, Buy It Now, and Paypal. The procedure is to search for a product like the Nintendo Wii Fit using the Live.com search engine. Click on the sponsored ad from EBay.com. Find the item that you like on EBay with a Buy It Now button. Check out with Paypal. Then get paid your 20% cashback from Microsoft in 60 days.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? But it was only a claim. Most people will need to see some social proof that this works before they try it. Remember that the web is full of hype and scams. So people are naturally skeptical.

In this case, let me provide a screenshot as evidence that this cashback program using EBay really works. I bought an item on EBay using the procedure that I described. Today I received an email from Microsoft showing my cashback amount. See the evidence below:

The product that I bought was a bargain even at the Buy It Now price of $654. It became an absolute steal when I get my $125.80 in cashback from Microsoft. This makes the final price to me at $528.20.

If you would like more information on this cashback program, visit the following EBay page:

Did I get your attention with my blog post title? Good. I’ll try to accomplish two things with this article. The first thing I’ll discuss is the importance of headlines. The second thing is “how to save 20% on EBay – ends soon.”

Headlines:

Direct response marketing is all about capturing your prospect’s attention, then leading them through your sales funnel, then persuading them to take action. The late Gary Halbert, famous copywriter, used the term “AIDA.” to describe this process.

“A” stands for attention, “I” stands for interest, “D” stands for desire, “A” stands for action.

We won’t cover all the parts in this article. I’ll save that for later articles. Here, we’ll just look at the first “A” — attention, and that would be the headline in written copy. Let’s start by seeing why writing copy that grabs your prospect’s attention is so important.

If you have the greatest product or service in the world and nobody knows, then do you really have the greatest product in the world? If you have the greatest sales funnel in the world that leads people to your greatest product, and you had no traffic or eyeballs, do you have the greatest sales funnel in the world? I think you know the answer to those two questions.

So the first thing that all direct marketers must do is to grab the attention of our readers. We want eyeballs. The best way to do that is to appeal to their human needs. And what might those human needs be? Without going through Abraham Maslow with you, let’s just keep it simple. All humans need health, wealth, and libido in varying degrees.

In the case of my headline — How To Save 20% On Ebay – Ends Soon — I was appealing to the “wealth” category. People want and need to save money in varying degrees. I don’t care if they are a single mother with three kids to support or Warren Buffett … people think about wealth, and they think about wealth in this order:

1. How can I keep the money that I have?
2. How can I make more money?

The fear of losing what you have is much higher than the greed to get more. Want an example, look at the global stock market this past few weeks. People are dumping their stocks, even though most of their holdings are perfectly good, because they fear losing what they have more than wanting to get more money. This human reaction is global.

So back to my headline, I used the appeal of “how can I keep the money that I have” in order to grab my reader’s attention. And it worked. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article.

I also used a specific number – 20%. People like to see numbers even though most people don’t like math. Numbers appeal to people’s tendency to rationalize their emotional decisions. Did you get that?

“People Buy On Emotions And Rationalize With Logic” or numbers.

The emotion is to save money and the rational to read the rest of the copy is “20%.”

All this makes sense, doesn’t it? Good. There is one more thing. The headline said, “Ends Soon.”

That bit of verbiage appeals to the worldwide human belief in a concept called “scarcity.” Let’s talk about that concept for a moment. It’s important.

If you’re familiar with the first story in the Bible, Adam and Eve had it good. They had all the fruit, warmth and companionship that they wanted in the Garden of Eden. Then Adam had to ruin a good thing and got them both kicked out of Eden. All of a sudden, their world of “abundance” became a world of “scarcity.” Not long after, God created marketers, but that is another story. Just know that nothing in the world would consistently sell if their wasn’t this notion of scarcity.

Not convinced? Just look at every public company. All public companies sell products and/or services, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. Do they use scarcity as a market tactic? Of course they do. But what you may not also realize is that they are also subject to the same rules of scarcity … time. All public companies must report there revenue and earnings according to fiscal calendars. They work on the scarcity of time, as do we.

Okay. So after writing all that, how can you save 20% on EBay? Follow along below:

1) Think of something that you would like to buy this holiday season. Either for yourself or as a gift.

A popular gift this year is the Nintendo Wii Fit video game. You can buy this product online at stores like Amazon.com and also Ebay.com. Click here to see what the Nintendo Wii Fit looks like.

If you want this item, shop early because it sold out last year … seriously.

2) Go to www.live.com. This is Microsoft’s search engine like Google.com.

Type in “Nintendo Wii Fit” or whatever else you might like to buy into the search box at live.com. The first listing that appears is a sponsored ad. See the ad below. Click on it.

3) Once you are at EBay, select the item that you would like that has a “Buy It Now” button.

Regular auction items are not eligible.

4) After clicking the “Buy It Now” button, you will be taken to a confirmation page. There you will see how much of a rebate you will get. The rebate ranges from 20% to 30%. The maximum rebate amount is $200.

5) Checkout using Paypal. You will not be eligible for the rebate if you don’t use Paypal.

That’s how you save 20% on Ebay. And it really ends soon. Microsoft, a public company, will go broke if they continue to give away money like they are doing with this special offer.

For the complete details of this program, go read it on the Ebay site.

Have fun!

Marketing and sales is a process whereby you lead an interested prospect from step A to step B to step C to closure. Note that closure could be that the prospect becomes a customer or they simply don’t buy because there was a mismatch somewhere along the process. The prospect decides based on the offer that you have made to them whether they wish to continue down the process.

As a good vendor, your job is to present your prospect with the right offers at the right time. The prospect’s responsibility is to decide whether or not to take up the offer(s). Ultimately, it is the prospect who decides whether or not to buy … despite however slick the sales process is.

So what is a vendor to do to increase sales? Good question. But I think the better question is how should the vendor present his offer to the prospect so that the prospect is in the right frame of mind to fairly evaluate the offer. After all, people buy on emotions and justify it later with logic.

There are one million and one pages of sales and marketing material devoted to how to increase sales. I won’t regurgitate them here on my blog. Rather, I’m going to show you an example of a company that does an excellent job of presenting offers to prospects at the right time during the sales process.

Before I show you the example, let me highlight the key elements of a good online marketing and sales process:

* Lead with free or low cost. Vendors have done this for years by offering “lost leaders.” Grocery stores advertise products below costs in order to lure customers into the store. Once they have the customers in the store, they know that the customers will usually buy more than just the sale item.

* Upsell with relevant options. Car dealers do this when they direct their customers to the finance office. It’s the finance manager’s job to sell the customer on paint protection and extended warranties.

* Give them different delivery options. Shipping and handling can be a profit center for online businesses. Amazon offers free shipping, but that usually takes many days for the item to arrive. Some people just can’t wait so they upgrade to various levels of expedited shipping.

* Ask them to add an extra item for no additional charge. Once the customer has paid for shipping, they would want to add to their order to bundle their costs.

* Offer them related offers from your business partners. Magazines do this when they would offer you a discount to subscribe to one of their sister publications. Some people call this partner marketing. It works because you already have a buyer. And a buyer is many times more likely to buy another product than a prospect.

* Give them an opportunity to join your frequent savings club. More and more companies offer discounts if you would join their club. Supermarkets do this. Costco does this. Office Depot does this. You name it. The best membership type club for the vendor is one where their members have to pay a regular due.

* Finally, offer them a discount if they would refer a friend. This is viral marketing. When done right, it brings in warm leads at no additional costs.

Now that I’ve shown you the key elements of a good process. Let me introduce you to a company that does this process exceptionally well. You’ll have to go through it to see for yourself. The good news is, you’ll get a usable product for your business if you do decide to buy. It’s your choice, as it should be. They’re just presenting you with the right offer at the right time. Remember to copy this process for your business because it works. >>>

http://alextran.com/bookmarks/marketingfunnel

xWZdBPFTHOQWhen most folks think of sales and marketing, their minds envision someone who runs around peddling goods and services. You’ve seen the stereotype on TV, like the door-to-door salesman trying to convince housewives to buy his “Vacuum Deluxo-Rama.” This sales model works. I read a report that companies made $28B last year in door-to-door marketing. There is nothing as effective as selling a product face-to-face. . . Or is there?

The benefit of selling door-to-door is that the salesman can adjust his marketing message according to the cues that his prospect gives him. I don’t have exact numbers but I suspect that the response rate is about 10%-15% for a trained salesman. I based this number on my personal experience having sold door-to-door when I was a teenager. For the sake of simplicity, I’m using the word “him” to signify both he and she sellers. The reality is that most door-to-door marketers today are females selling MLM types of products.

If you compare the response rate of selling this way versus selling by email blasts (0%-0.3%) or direct mail (0-0.7%) or radio or TV (1%-10%), the peddler method wins hands down. But there are three major downsides — selling door-to-door or peddling has limited reach. A salesman can only knock on so many doors per day. The other downside is that this is an expensive marketing channel for the product owner. They have to pay a hefty commission to the salesman for each sale. Some product owners also cover the salesman’s expenses as part of the cost-of-sales. The third major downside is “cold-call burnout.” This is when the salesman cannot take another rejection. They simply cannot get out of bed in the morning anymore to knock on another door of a total stranger. Cold-call burnout also afflicts telemarketers. Imagine being mandated to make at least 50 cold-calls a day, only to be rejected by 49+ people. When this happens, the product owner needs to hire and train a new salesman.

Alas, there is a better way. Instead of peddling, where you are constantly chasing a prospect, you might want to consider have the prospect come to you. Yes, it is easier said than done. But consider this: How much did that last referral cost you in marketing dollars? How hard was it to close on that prospect? Not very hard at all, was it?

How do you get more prospects to call you? Besides building a network of referrals because you become know as the provider of quality products in your niche, you might consider how you established that reputation in the first place. Let’s get to the point: You built yourself up as the expert in your niche. Nowadays with the Internet, it is easier than ever to build yourself as the expert. When you get recognized as the expert, prospects will come to you. Even better, they will refer other prospects to you. Now isn’t that easier than being a peddler and chasing all the time? I thought so.

Instead of going door-to-door trying to sell the “Vacuum Deluxo-Rama”, seek to become the recognized expert in high-end vacuums, the ones used in fine hotels like Ramada. Seek to become the Oreck of the high-end vacuum niche. When you want an Oreck, you’ll have to call or go to his web site.

As a business owner, the last thing you want your customers to do is to compare apples with apples. As soon as they compare apples with apples or oranges with oranges, you enter a marketing state called “commodity” pricing. This is a dreaded word in business because selling commodities means selling on price. The vendor with the lowest price wins the business. Unless you like to employ slave labor and make little to negative profits, don’t go there.

Human brains are wired to compare things. We instinctively want to pick the best between two or more choices. If we see two oranges, we want to pick the prettier one. If the two oranges are identical, we tend to pick the cheaper one. As the seller of oranges, we’d be wise to sell orange juice if there are too many orange vendors. The smart marketer wants to steer clear of the masses with their product. Some people call this differentiation. I call it the principal of comparison.

The principal of comparison is simple enough to understand. Yet businesses screw this up on a regular basis. Let’s look at a recent example. We all know that hybrid cars are hot right now. The marketing machines created a demand for green products so it’s cool to be green. It started about three years ago when Toyota got a few movie stars to drive their Prius Hybrid car. Celebrities tend to make things cool; even a car as homely as the Toyota Prius. But that wasn’t the main reason why the Prius took off and left their competitors like Honda in the dust.
Wanting a piece of the action, Toyota’s arch-rival, Honda decided to get into the hybrid car market by creating the Honda Accord Hybrid. What, you’ve never heard of the Honda Accord Hybrid? Of course you haven’t. Honda introduced the car and had to scrap it shortly after because it didn’t sell.

The Accord Hybrid didn’t sell because it looked like the regular gasoline powered Accord. The only difference was price. The hybrid car cost about $8K more than the regular car. Even with gasoline prices at $4/gallon, it would take about 10 years to get your $8K investment back in gasoline cost savings. And this was exactly what potential customers did — they used the principal of comparison to compare the two models of Accord. This was an easy exercise for them. The two Accords looked alike. Remember how our brains are wired.

The Toyota Prius, on the other hand, didn’t look like anything else in the Toyota product line. It wasn’t a Corolla nor was it a Camry. The Prius was a unique car. Consumers had nothing to compare it with so they accepted the hybrid car along with the premium price. Viola, Toyota created a hit with shrewd marketing.

What about the Honda Civic Hybrid? The answer is that Toyota outsells that car too. I’ll let you figure that orange comparison out for yourself, now that you understand the principal of comparison.

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. In business, you are either in sales or you are in sales support. There is no middle ground. If you are in sales, you will fully understand and appreciate my statement for all its meaning. If you are in sales support, you may object to my black and white statement. In either case, this article will be relevant since we all deal with objections whether we see ourselves in sales or not.

For those business owners who face the daily challenge of trying to sell their product and/or service, there is an obstacle that we sellers all struggle with. And that would be overcoming objections. In fact this obstacle is so great that it has fed a whole other industry called sales training where the main focus is how to handle and overcome objections. Some names you would recognize include Zig Zigler, Brian Tracy, and even Anthony Robbins. They all sell “how to sell.” But guess what, the easiest people to sell to are sales people. Think of the irony.

Back to my original point — how to overcome objections — because in real-life, outside of guru sales training, your potential customers are very skeptical. They will object to every claim that you make. The worst part is that they will not vocalize most of their objections. So you will have to guess based on body language and other clues that they may leak out. And that’s the easy part. The hardest part is how to overcome their objections when you are making your sales claim on a piece of paper, like an article, a white-paper, a special report, a sales letter, an advertisement, an email, and other written sales material.

Are you starting to see the challenge here?

Let’s start with what I find is the best method. This method will run counter to what you may have heard from guru sales trainers. I call this method, “selling into the objection.” Here is what I mean…

You know from being in your niche or industry what the wants and needs are of your target customer. You also know that your product or service satisfies 75% of your target customer’s wants and needs. So you sell on your strengths in your presentation. Your potential buyers, as opposed to tire-kickers, tend to focus on the 25% of the product or service where you are weak. Did I mention that this is good news? Why? Because the psychology of people who are ready to buy is to look for reasons not to buy. If you are lucky, they will point out all the things that are “wrong” with your product or service. They are looking for you to trip up in your response so that they are forced out of your sales process.

Most business owners at this point will instinctively defend the 25% weakness. These sellers will say something like, “Oh, it’s not that bad. You’ll get use to the freeway noise. Just close your windows and you won’t hear a thing.” In response, the potential customer will think, “I don’t believe this guy. The interstate is only one block away from this house that he’s trying to sell and he tells me that I won’t hear it when the windows are closed.” Do you see the push-pull effect here? You don’t want to go down this route. Instead, you want to sell into the objection.

Here’s an alternative discussion. The seller says, “Betty, you’re right. This house is very close to the freeway and the noise is bothersome. Some people get used to it and some don’t. Let’s try opening the windows and see how bothersome it is at it’s worst. Let’s also turn on the TV to check if we can hear the TV show even with the windows open.”

This part is daring, I know. It’s human nature not to what to admit fault. Yet here we are admitting to the potential customer that the freeway is noisy. We’re even trying to make it worst by opening the window. But this is precisely what we must do in order to keep the customer in our sales process. We must not slip up by going against an obvious weakness. Remember that the customer is serious when they are looking closely at your weakness. So admit your weakness and let them decide for themselves whether they can live with that weakness or not. Sure you’ll lose a few, but not anymore than you would lose if you tried to insult their intelligence. In fact, you will lose less customers by selling into the objection.

Try this method for yourself and let me know if it works for you in overcoming objections. By the way, you can use this method in print by creating FAQs that address your weaknesses head-on.