Marketing Strategies Blog by Peter Geisheker

Priceline to kill William Shatner Character

2012-01-19T13:16:00.000-06:00

Today I read that Priceline.com is killing off the William Shatner "Negotiator" character. My feeling on this from an advertising point of view is that this is going to be a huge and very costly advertising mistake for Priceline.com.

Priceline has spent millions of dollars branding the negotiator character and getting him into the minds of their target market. It is a great character and people generally like him. Now, Priceline is apparently going to go in a new direction. Yes, the "going in a new direction" mistake. One of the biggest mistakes you can make in advertising is killing off a character that is loved by your target market, especially after you have spent millions of dollars branding that character. Depending on what direction Priceline decides to go with their new advertising campaign and positioning, they are essentially going to be starting a new branding campaign from scratch and losing all the momentum and brand power they created with William Shatner and his negotiator character.

Keep a watch on the growth rate of Priceline.com to see if killing off the negotiator character and going in a new direction kills sales or actually increases them. My money is on seeing them take a sales dive by killing off William Shatner as their spokesman.

Please share your opinions on this with me.

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Advertising Agency
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate"
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638
Twitter: http://twitter.com/geisheker
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/geisheker

Small business financing

2011-12-04T13:53:00.001-06:00

I recently discovered an outstanding FREE service that connects entrepreneurs with investors. The service is called CapLinked.

If you need help creating business plans and/or marketing plans to present to potential investors, contact my marketing firm at (920) 471-1638 or email us. We have helped companies attract investors and we know how to write business and marketing plans that get investors excited.

To your marketing success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate"
http://www.geisheker.com
Main: (920) 471-1638
Fax: (920) 227-2261
Twitter: http://twitter.com/geisheker
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/geisheker

change marketing plan or change sales message

2011-11-26T13:15:00.001-06:00

The thing with marketing is you should always be testing your sales message against a control to see if you can beat it. Marketing is more about testing copy than changing your entire marketing plan. The marketing plan may be sound but if your sales copy sucks, your marketing plan is worthless. It all comes down to the salesmanship of your advertising.

Here is how to test copy. Let's say you tested 3 different sales letters (or print advertisements, or website sales pages, or Google AdWords text ads, etc). Out of the 3, you will find that one of them will most likely have a higher response rate than the other two. That best response sales letter becomes your control. You then use that control letter as your main sales letter while on a smaller scale you continue testing new sales letters to see if you can create one that generates a higher response rate than your control letter. Once you create a new letter that beats your control, that new letter then becomes your control and you create new sales letters that you test on a smaller scale to again see if you can beat the new control. When you do beat it, the new letter becomes your control. You just keep repeating the process to continuously improve your control to generate maximum results. This is how the best marketers create powerful campaigns--testing, testing, testing!

Another way to think of a marketing plan and testing copy is to compare it to a race car. If you lose a race, you don't build a new race car from scratch. You continuously fine tune the car to make it faster. It is the same with a marketing plan and sales copy. A marketing plan tells you who your market is and the unique benefit(s) your product or service offers them. Your marketing plan is the race car. But, to compete in the race (the market), you must continuously fine tune your race car (sales message/copy) to pull the maximum results out of it. This is done by testing different sales copy against a control to always try to squeeze a higher response rate from it. For example, just changing the headline in an advertisement can increase the response rate by 100%. Marketing is the art and science of testing copy. Almost never does an advertisement produce great results on the first try. Great advertisements are the result of testing many slightly different messages to continuously see if you can produce higher response rates.

To your marketing success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate"
http://www.geisheker.com
Main: (920) 471-1638
Fax: (920) 227-2261
Twitter: http://twitter.com/geisheker
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/geisheker

Marketing Strategy - stop trying to reinvent the wheel

2011-11-13T11:01:00.000-06:00

"I wish I could afford marketing like that!"

Ever find yourself thinking that? When you watch something big on television, such as the Super Bowl, you see companies pulling out all the stops to air what they feel are the best commercials for their products. The commercials wind up being more talked about than the game much of the time, because businesses pack millions of dollars into these 30-second spots designed to be funny, or edgy, or whatever will get them noticed. As a business owner, you may be a little envious of the marketing abilities of these companies.

But should you be?

I'm not going to bash every commercial on television, because there are certainly some that are brilliant, and effective. But the point of advertising and marketing is to bring in more sales. That's it. There is no other reason to advertise or market your product or service. While people are talking about the commercials after the Super Bowl, how many of them are buying?

Do you buy a particular brand of beer because a bunch of frogs keep saying it on TV in a funny way?

Does a guy in a goofy costume get you out the door to go get a burger?

When a talking dog tells you to go get a taco, are you going to do it because he says so?

Some commercials are wildly entertaining, I'll admit that. But how many of them are doing what commercials are designed to do, which is increase sales? As a marketer, it drives me nuts to sit through millions of dollars worth of wasted money while watching the big game.

It can be disheartening to think that you'll never be able to compete with the "big boys". Well maybe you can't in terms of production value, but you can certainly put together effective marketing campaigns that can rival what they do in terms of return on investment.

The key is doing the basics of marketing:

1. Know your audience. Understand what they want, what they need, what they're thinking, and how they talk. Speak to them on their level, and you will see how effective you can be.

2. Solve their problems. The reason somebody purchases something is because it is useful to them. Your marketing campaigns need to show how your product or service solves a problem that they are currently suffering from. It creates worth.

3. Make it urgent. Get them to buy now! It does you no good to show them there's a problem and then not motivate them to solve it now with a good call to action. Demonstrate to them that this can't wait any longer – they need to buy from you now before the problem gets worse!

4. Make it user-friendly. It makes no sense to drive people to a website, and then they have no clue how to buy from you. Make everything you do clear, concise, and to the point. Don't cram in more information than what is necessary. If it's too difficult, they will lose interest, and you will lose a sale.

The next time you watch television, pay attention to the commercials. See how many of them actually motivate you to buy their product. You'll be surprised how many do not make you want to buy. It will also comfort you and give you the confidence to go out there and put together a marketing campaign that will blow the big companies out of the water at a fraction of what they are paying – just by sticking to the basics of marketing!

To your marketing success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate"
http://www.geisheker.com
Main: (920) 471-1638
Fax: (920) 227-2261
Twitter: http://twitter.com/geisheker
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/geisheker

How I would change Dell Computer Marketing

2011-11-08T10:16:00.000-06:00

The business I would give a tune up to is Dell. Their brand used to be huge and then they just kind of disappeared from the spotlight over the past couple of years. They have switched their positioning a bit and I no longer know what the company stands for. What I would do is make a focused USP ad campaign and stick with it instead of jumping around so much. My positioning would focus on reliability – When you want a PC you can rely on, choose Dell. And I would stick to that core positioning. People want a computer they can rely on—not something that is going to break down or crash every other day. Keep the message simple and focus on the core benefit of reliability as the USP.

To your marketing success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate"
http://www.geisheker.com
Main: (920) 471-1638
Fax: (920) 227-2261
Twitter: http://twitter.com/geisheker
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/geisheker

How to market your business with direct mail

2011-11-07T12:26:00.000-06:00

I was recently asked by a major business publication, my advice for how to market a SaaS (software as a service) company using direct mail. Although my answers below are focused on the SaaS company, these direct mail marketing strategies can be used by all businesses.

Question: "We are a SaaS company that delivers a fully integrated business and practice management system for chiropractors. However we are struggling with our marketing and sales as we are on a very tight budget. Can you give me any insight in how to create a direct campaign that will get the doctors attention, on a budget?"

To produce the best results for a direct mail program for marketing SaaS, there are several very powerful direct mail strategies you will need to follow to increase your response rate. These strategies will produce great results for all sales letters, not just SaaS.

1. At the top of your sales letter, use a strong headline that states the most important benefit your software provides to Chiropractors. This headline should be bold and a larger font size than the font size you use for the body text in your sales letter. A great headline promises a specific result. For example, “How to increase the productivity and profitability of your Chiropractic office by 37% in 60-days or less”.

2. Your sales letters must be personalized on both the envelope and within the sales letter. Do NOT say, “Dear Doctor” as it screams junk mail. You must address the Chiropractor by their actual name -- Dear Dr. Smith…

3. When writing your sales letter, always use a friendly conversational style. Do not try to write “cold and corporate" by using large words and showing off your vocabulary. All that does is turn people off. Instead, write your sales letter using friendly simply language as if you were talking to your best friend. I find the more friendly and conversational that I make a sales letter, the better the response I get.

4. Your sales letter needs to explain the benefits Chiropractors will receive. Understand that everybody cares about one thing - "What’s in it for me?" Put yourself in the Chiropractor’s shoes and ask yourself, "If I was receiving this letter, why would I want to buy the product being sold? What’s in it for me?" “How is it going to improve my life?”

5. Offer quantitative proof of how your software will benefit Chiropractors. This can be done by including several testimonials from Chiropractors where the testimonials state exactly how your software helped them. “I love this software. I have been using it for 7-months and it has made my office run like a fine oiled machine. Because of my huge gain in productivity, I can now see twice as many patients and my office’s income has more than doubled. I highly recommend it to all Chiropractors.”

6. Offer a 100% money-back guarantee. “Try our software for 60 days and if it does not increase your office’s productivity by at least 30%, we’ll give you a full refund.” Understand that the biggest hurdle in a sale is the perceived risk on the part of the customer. In their mind they are thinking, “What if this software is junk? What if I spend time and money implementing it and it does not work? Will other Chiropractors think I am an idiot for buying this software?” You must remove this risk by taking the risk on your shoulders and offering a powerful money-back guarantee so Chiropractors know they are protected financially if they try your software and it does not perform as promised.

7. To get your prospects to take action, your sales letter must ask Chiropractors to purchase by a specific date and give them a bonus for ordering by a specific date. For example, “Sign up for our business and practice management system for Chiropractors by July 29 and we’ll give you the first 2-months of service for FREE.”

8. Use a P.S. in your letter and restate your most power benefit and sales offer in it. Most people will read a P.S. first before reading the sales letter, so it is important that your P.S. has a very strong sales message and a call to action.

9. To get your sales letter opened handwrite the recipient’s name and address. Do NOT use mailing labels! Yes, this takes a lot more time than using mailing labels, but mailing labels scream junk mail and get your letter thrown in the garbage unopened. The first key in a successful sales letter campaign is to get your envelope opened, and by handwriting the recipient’s name and address, you can almost guarantee that your envelope will be opened. Admit it—when you get a letter where your name and address are handwritten, you open it.

10. Make your envelope "lumpy" by enclosing a small, inexpensive free gift. Make sure the gift has your company name and contact information on it and that the gift is something a person would want to keep - such as a nice pen, a good highlighter, post-it notes with your company information printed on them, etc.

11. TEST your sales letter on a small scale to measure if your sales message will generate a response. You will never know what sales message is going to generate the best response rate, so you need to constantly test, and you should always test on a small scale. The biggest mistake you can make is to do a large direct mail campaign without knowing beforehand what the response rate is going to be. That is how you lose your shirt in marketing. A good way to perform a test is to create a list of 600 prospects. Then, write three different sales letters. Send letter “A” to 200 prospects, letter “B” to 200 prospects and letter “C” to 200 prospects. Then, measure the results to see which sales letter performed the best (produced the most leads). Just by changing the headline of a sales letter, you can double or even triple the response rate. Then, use the best performing sales letter and send it to 500 new prospects to see if it will again produce a strong response. Continue testing like this until you have a sales letter that is a clear and profitable winner.

12. Use repetition. You will have far more success from direct mail marketing if you send it to the same group of Chiropractors at least six times per year. Monthly is better. Understand that many Chiropractors (like all types of customers) need to think about a product several times before they will buy it. Therefore, you need to keep your message in front of them, constantly reinforcing how your service will help them. Then, when they are ready to buy, they will contact you.

13. If your budget is small, consider using postcards with a 60-Day FREE TRIAL message to get Chiropractors to go to your website and try your service before they buy. Remember that the word “FREE” is the most powerful word in marketing, so use it. Again, remember to test different sales messages to see which generates the best response.

14. And last, the most important thing you can do is to follow up your sales letters with telephone calls. A week after sending your sales letters call the Chiropractors on your list and pitch them over the phone. See if you can get them to try a no-obligation free 60-day trial. Do whatever you can to get them using your service so they can experience the benefits for themselves and become a loyal, long-term client. With SaaS, you earn your profits over time, so do whatever it takes to get client to try your service and experience the benefits. This is how you will build a successful business with constant and predictable growth over time.

To your marketing success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate"
http://www.geisheker.com
Main: (920) 471-1638
Fax: (920) 227-2261
Twitter: http://twitter.com/geisheker
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/geisheker

Local internet marketing strategies

2011-11-07T08:21:00.003-06:00

There are a couple of great tactics you can use to perform local Internet marketing to attract web traffic from a specific city. In this example, Green Bay, WI will be used as the city and the business will be for an accountant.

The first Internet marketing tactic to implement is to perform search engine optimization on your website so when a person goes to Google, Yahoo!, or Bing and searches for a “Green Bay accountant”, your website is displayed on page 1 of the natural results, and hopefully at the top of those results.

The natural results are free, so by getting your website a page 1 ranking for specific search terms people will use to find the product or service you sell, you are getting these customers for free. Free is good!

The best way to perform search engine optimization on your website is to update your HTML title tag and meta-description tags by putting in your city and main search term(s) you wish to rank for. In this example for an accountant in Green Bay, WI, you would want to use something similar to the following HTML title and meta-tags:

The second great local Internet marketing tactic is to advertise on Google AdWords. Google AdWords is the world’s largest Internet advertising platform and it will soon become the world’s largest advertising channel surpassing TV, radio, and print publications. Google AdWords allows businesses to bid on specific keywords that people search for on Google and Google’s partner websites (there are millions of Google partner websites).

As an example of Google AdWords advertising, if you go to Google.com and search for “Green Bay accountant”, you will see 2-3 text ads at the top of the results page that have a light yellow background behind them and you will see one or more text ads placed in the right hand column where it says “Sponsored Links”. These ads are placed by accountants (or their advertising agencies) who are bidding on the search term “Green Bay accountant”, so when a person searches for “Green Bay accountant”, their text ad is displayed. If you are an accountant in Green Bay that wants to attract new clients, you would also want to bid on that search term and have your text ad displayed. The business that has the top position has paid the highest bid for the search term “Green Bay accountant”. The business with their ad in the second position has paid the second highest bid amount for that search term, etc.

Google AdWords also allows you to advertise by city and/or zip code. When you setup your ad campaign, you choose the city name and/or zip codes where you only want your text ads to appear. This way, if a person in Green Bay searches on the word “dentist”, and you are bidding on that search term for local searches, your text ad would be displayed.

Google AdWords is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform which means you ONLY pay when a person clicks on your text ad to go to your website. You are not charged for your ad being displayed, which is called an impression. You only pay when a person clicks on your text ad to go to your website.

The amount you bid per search term depends entirely on the amount of competition and financial value for that keyword search term, with competition being the number of businesses that are bidding on that search term. For a very popular high value national or global ad campaign search term like “mutual funds” the mutual fund advertiser may be paying $5 - $25+ for a single click. On the other hand, if you sell very niche product or service in a specific city, such as “Green Bay accountant”, and you have little competition, you may pay as little as 10 cents per click. The more competition, the more you pay per click. The less competition, the less you pay per click.

For more information on Google AdWords and to start advertising to your niche market, call us today at (920) 471-1638 or click here to email us.

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate"
http://www.geisheker.com
Main: (920) 471-1638
Fax: (920) 227-2261
Blog: http://blog,geisheker.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/geisheker
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/geisheker

Marketing Strategy - Choosing the Right Bait

2011-10-04T14:16:00.004-05:00

Marketing is a lot like fishing in that to be successful at it, you need to choose the right bait to catch the type of fish (customer) you want to catch (get to buy your product/service).

When fishing for bluegills, you want to use a bait they want to eat. One of the best baits for bluegills is using night crawlers. That is a bait they love. However, bluegills do not bite at great big muskie lures that may be bigger than the bluegills are. It's the wrong bait and no matter how many times you use a big muskie lure, you are almost guaranteed to not catch any bluegills.

Using the right bait is also critical for success in marketing and getting customers to buy what you sell.

When I refer to using bait in marketing, what I am referring to is focusing on a benefit your target market wants the most for the particular product or service you sell. By benefit, I am referring to the end result your product or service delivers.

To make this easier to understand I will give you an example. Let's say you sell athletic shoes for serious runners. These are the people who run 3+ miles a day every day and they live to run. They are your target market. Now the marketing question is, what bait (benefit) do serious runners desire most in a running shoe? Determining the right bait means the success or failure of your business. You may decide the bait you want to use is that your running shoes look super cool and high-tech. You look at them and they just look awesome. However, is having a super cool looking running shoe the bait (benefit) a serious running is going to desire most when choosing to buy their next pair of running shoes? Or, do you think a better bait might be to market your shoe as being super comfortable and the runner won't get sore feet and blisters? Maybe, maybe not. It could be the best bait is your running shoes are very durable and the runner can wear them for a year without wearing them out, thus saving them money in having to buy a new pair of shoes every 3 months. That may be the magic bait benefit that gets serious runners to buy your shoes. But at this point, you just do not know.

I know, you are thinking that you should just list every benefit your product or service offers and you will get customers by the zillions. Wrong. It has been proven over and over in marketing that customers will remember only one major benefit your product or service offers. One. That is why you must focus on the benefit (bait) your target market of customers desires the most.

So how do you know the #1 benefit (bait) they care about the most? You absolutely must talk to your potential customers in your target market (the more the better) and ask them what is the number 1 benefit they want that determines what product/service they will buy in your niche market. You have to ask them to tell you what is the bait that makes them bite. You will probably find that there are breakdowns of what they want such as 62% want benefit A, 23% want benefit B, 10% want benefit C, and 5% want benefit D. Now if you are a fisherman, you want to use the bait that has the greatest opportunity to catch the type of fish you want to catch. In the example above, if 62% of your target market says they will buy if they can get benefit A, benefit A would be the benefit you want to really focus on in your marketing because that benefit is going to be the bait that catches the most customers.

I hope this helps you focus your marketing message on the #1 benefit your target market cares about most. By doing this you WILL see an increase in sales and it will help you dominate your niche market.

To your success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

social media marketing services

2011-09-21T14:26:00.000-05:00

The Geisheker Group marketing firm is now offering social media marketing services. For more information on our services and how we can help you, please visit the following link:

http://www.geisheker.com/social-media-marketing.htm

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Free negotiation training audio book

2011-09-06T07:23:00.001-05:00

I found a great resource for you to learn how to become a killer negotiator. Jim Camp, the world's leading expert on negotiation strategies and negotiation training has a free audio book version of his best selling book, "Start With No" at http://www.startwithno.com.

To your success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Burger King Finally Kills King Mascot

2011-08-19T14:38:00.001-05:00

As those of you who read my blog know, I HATE Burger King's ad campaign with the freaky looking King character. And, it appears others do too and Burger King has finally killed the King character and has hired a new ad agency to focus on selling the product. Even though the "King" was an award winning ad campaign, IT LOWERED SALES! So, that pretty much shows you that the people who give away advertising awards have no clue what is good advertising.

The point of advertising is to INCREASE SALES. That's it. Advertising is supposed to be salesmanship on a mass scale. Too bad most ad agencies have forgotten that and think advertising is about being "edgy" whatever the hell that means. Actually, yes I do know what edgy means. It means the ad agency has no clue how to sell the product so they create some super "creative" ad campaign that has almost nothing to do with selling the product. However, the ad agencies will argue that sales are not the main focus. What they are doing with their creative ad campaign is building mind share, and branding, and fancy BS statements like that that basically mean, we have no clue how to sell your product but we want your money to create your advertising.

Remember, the purpose of advertising is to increase sales and not to win awards.

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Marketing Strategy of Drama

2011-08-04T13:10:00.002-05:00

When you look at what topics are most popular in the USA culture in regard to what people talk about, topics that sell magazines, what they watch on TV, what movies they go to, and the news, one clear message comes to forefront--people love drama!

We are drama addicts. The more drama the better. So, if you are creating a marketing campaign, what do you think people will be more interested in--more dull marketing saying you have been in business for 20 years and you have friendly service, or a great story with drama in it? Obviously the drama or I would not be writing this blog post.

I know - you are thinking you don't have any drama to add to your marketing, Make it up! Create a dramatic story where the happy ending is your product or service. I remember back in the 80s there was a great TV campaign for a coffee brand where there was a single man and a single woman living in a condo across the hall from each other. They were in their mid 30s and very attractive. In this series of commercials they would flirt over drinking coffee and the flirting would become stronger and they were falling in love. These commercials were like mini soap operas and people were going crazy to know if these two people would fall in love. It was wonderful romantic drama and both men and women enjoyed it and it sold the coffee brand like crazy!

Because it has been over 25 years since I saw the commercials, I sadly cannot remember the brand. However, I have a strong feeling it was Folgers. If you know the commercials I am talking about and the coffee brand it was for, please let me know so I can share them on this blog. If you can find videos of these commercials on youtube, even better!

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SEPTEMBER 21, 2011 UPDATE: The commercials are for Nescafe Gold Blend and here are the commercials:

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Your job (my job) is to be creative and think of a dramatic story where your product or service is the savior. Make it exciting and entertaining. Make it an ongoing series of ads, sales letters, newsletters, emails, TV, radio, or whatever channel you use. The key is make it an interesting story line that has drama and showcases the great benefits of your product or service saving the day. Or, if this is not something you want to do, hire my advertising agency to do it for you. We'll create a dramatic story that will WOW your marketplace and increase your sales and profits. Call us at (920) 471-1638.

To your business success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

How not to hire a marketing firm

2011-07-30T14:08:00.000-05:00

When you hire a marketing firm, you are hiring them for their marketing expertise. I recently had a client who hired my firm to create a new landing page for their website. So, we wrote new copy and created a killer landing page. The problem was the client did not like it and made us make a million copy changes, which completely watered down their page and made it dull. DEAD DULL.

Now the client is blaming us because they are getting poor results from that page. They even talked to another marketing firm for their opinion of the page. That firm said the copy was dull, no calls to action, etc. The thing was, we had all those things and the client made us remove them.

How on earth can a client have the gall to blame us for their lack of results when they made so many changes to our work that they killed everything we put into their page to drive leads and sales?

So here is the lesson in this story. When you hire a marketing firm, TAKE THEIR ADVICE! You are hiring them to help you market correctly, so do not tell them how to do marketing and change the copy they write and the strategies they want to use. If you knew what the hell you were doing with marketing you would not have gone to the marketing firm for marketing help in the first place.

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

esurance commercials

2011-06-24T21:43:00.000-05:00

As an ad man and marketer I am always watching how brands change. One of the latest brands I have seen make a big change is esurance car insurance. They had what I thought was an outstanding branding campaign with the cartoon character commercials featuring the stylish and kinda sexy esurannce woman with pink hair who would wear the black "Matrix" inspired outfits and save the day. A big part of the commercials focused on no paper forms to stop wasting paper, save trees, and help you as a customer save money while also doing your part to help save the environment. I thought the commercials and the brand were very easy to recognize and provided a strong and easily memorable message. But, in the past few months that has all changed.

The new esurance commercials do not have the cartoon characters and are just boring car insurance commercials that look like other boring and generic car insurance commercials. I ask, "What the hell were they thinking? They had created a strong brand with a positive message that made them clearly stand out as being different and better than other car insurance companies and they abandoned it."

In my opinion, esurance has made a huge branding mistake in abandoning their cartoon character spokeswoman and fun commercials that carried a positive message and going to their now incredibly boring new ad campaign with normal dull actors selling normal dull insurance.

What are your thoughts?

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Appointment Setters Available

2011-06-01T11:39:00.000-05:00

Thousands of businesses have completed our survey on what marketing services they need most, and the number 1 request was help getting appointments with potential business clients.

So, to help businesses get appointments with potential business clients, we have created an appointment setting service where we will make calls on your behalf to businesses to schedule appointments for you. That’s right. We will do the most difficult part of generating new business which is getting your foot in the door by scheduling appointments with businesses in your target market.

We can also help you create powerful brochures and sales presentations so when you have meetings with potential clients, you will know how to get them excited about your product or service so they want to buy from you.

Pricing for appointments will be based on your target market as some markets are easy to get
appointments while other markets are incredibly difficult.

To get a no-obligation quote for our appointment setting services and other marketing services, please call us today at (920) 471-1638.

We look forward to helping you grow your business!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Volkswagen Tiguan TV Commercial

2011-05-25T19:56:00.002-05:00

Just saw a brilliant TV commercial for the new 2011 Volkswagen Tiguan. The commercial shows a kid at a party beating the hell out of a car shaped pinata with a bat but not being able to break it open or even remotely damage it. As the kid swings away hitting it like his life depends on it, the front of the pinata is displayed and it has a Volkswagen emblem on it. Then the kid's dad picks up the bat and tries to break open the pinata but cannot do it either. Obviously the point of the commercial is Volkswagen makes a very strong car that is not easily damaged. Simple and brilliant and reminds me of the wonderful Doyle Dane Bernbach Volkswagen commercials.

So, kudos to the creatives who made this ad. Great work! And, for those of you looking for ideas on how to create brilliant advertising, this is a perfect example.

To your success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Jim Camp, The World’s Top Negotiation Trainer, selects The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm

2011-04-20T12:19:00.001-05:00

Green Bay, WI, April 20, 2011 - Jim Camp, the world’s leading negotiation trainer to the large and small industry and government agencies, today announced he has selected The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm to provide marketing services for J. Camp University, Jim’s new online negotiation training organization. J. Camp University is providing the most advanced online negotiation training classes available in the world. It boasts the world’s first interactive negotiation training simulator. Camp clients practice the most difficult negotiations before they begin. This announcement comes after Jim Camp reviewed several top marketing firms.

Jim Camp author of best-selling "Start With No", founder of J. Camp University and the Camp System of Negotiation Training selected The Geisheker Group after extensive research into top performing marketing organizations. Camp states, “We see The Geisheker Group, after interviewing seven firms, as being the marketing firm that best fits our objective of getting the word out to the world of the profits and the return of training investment that can be enjoyed with the Camp System of Negotiation Training and the power delivered by our new university and it’s “Start With No” Credentialed Courses. Geisheker has a track record that demonstrates excellence in marketing and improving corporate bottom lines.”

The Geisheker Group, Inc. is a privately owned marketing firm headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Peter Geisheker, CEO of The Geisheker Group states, “We are thrilled to be working with Jim Camp. He is the undeniable leader in negotiation training, and Camp University will provide an outstanding educational resource to professionals who want to learn how to be a top 1% negotiator.”

About Jim Camp
Jim Camp is a leading global expert on negotiation training and coaching. The Camp System of Negotiation Training has, over the last twenty five years, trained and coached thousands in global negotiations in more than 500 multinational organizations, including Texas Instruments, Intel, Applied Materials, Merrill Lynch, IBM, Cisco Systems, Prudential Insurance, and Nationwide Insurance. Camp is the best-selling author of two negotiation books in 12 languages, Wall Street Journal Best Seller “Start with No®” and CEO Read Best Seller, “No: The Only System Of Negotiation You Need For Work and Home”. Jim is President and CEO of Camp Negotiation Systems and inventor of his proprietary Camp Negotiation Project Management System. Camp and his negotiation training have been featured on CNN, CNBC, ABC, FOX, CBS, numerous radio shows, and in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Inc., Cosmopolitan, San Francisco Chronicle, The Columbus Dispatch, The Christian Science Monitor, and San Jose Mercury News. Knight-Ridder Publications declared his negotiation books "must reading." Camp has lectured on negotiation at many prestigious graduate schools and in such countries as Russia, Romania, Hungary, England, Germany, Singapore, Japan and China. He is a frequent conference keynoter on negotiation and has taught his negotiation training methods in nine countries on three continents. For more information on Jim Camp, please call 614-764-0213 or visit http://www.startwithno.com.

About The Geisheker Group, Inc.
Established in 2004, The Geisheker Group is one of the world’s most respected marketing firms. The Geisheker Group has helped hundreds of companies in the USA and Europe improve their marketing programs and return on marketing investment. For a full description of all online and offline marketing services offered by The Geisheker Group, Inc. please visit http://www.geisheker.com or call 920-471-1638.

The secret psychological marketing strategy of reciprocity

2011-04-14T14:56:00.000-05:00

In this post I am going to share with you an incredibly powerful marketing tactic learned from the field of social psychology. This amazing marketing strategy is known as the law of reciprocity.

The law of reciprocity states that if you do a favor or give a gift to a person, that person will feel a strong psychological need to do something nice for you in return. A perfect example of this is when gifts are given to you by friends or co-workers at Christmas. How do you feel when a friend or co-worker completely out of the blue gives you a Christmas gift? You have two instant gut feelings. The first is, "wow, what a nice gesture!" The second feeling is, "Oh crap. Now I have to buy a gift for this person." This strong feeling that you need to return the kind gesture is the universal law of reciprocity.

So how do you use the law of reciprocity as a powerful marketing and/or sales strategy? Simple. Give your prospects and customers a gift and they will feel a strong psychological need to return the gesture in kind. Their return gesture may be that they are now open to taking your telephone call and scheduling a meeting with you. It may mean they are now far more open to doing business with you. It may mean that they are more loyal to you and buy more often. See anything bad in these results? I don’t.

I successfully use this strategy by giving a great marketing book to companies that contact my marketing firm. Giving my leads this gift makes a great first impression and greatly warms up the prospect to wanting to do business with me and my marketing firm. Who would you prefer to do business with—a business that just treats you like a number or a business that sends you a very personalized gift before you buy anything from then simply to say thank you for contacting them? It’s a no brainer. The company that sends you a gift and expects nothing in return will get your business the majority of the time.

Once you try the law of reciprocity, you will be amazed at how much more open prospects are to taking your calls, scheduling appointments with you, and doing business with you.

Below is a video on the power of reciprocity by business guru and author of the book, "The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur" Mike Michalowicz.

To your success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

emini futures trading course

2011-03-07T20:26:00.000-06:00

I just finished taking an amazing 4-day online training course on how to trade emini futures in the stock market. I have to tell you this has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I never realized how easy a person could make money until I took this seminar and tried it for myself. With what I learned in this course I will easily double if not triple my income this year.

If you want to double your income check out emini futures trading.

Register by clicking on the link below to attend a 2-hour into webinar that is going to blow your mind and change your life. It sure has changed mine!

http://www.emini-futures-trading-system.com/

To your success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Marketing Survey

2011-03-01T11:32:00.000-06:00

My marketing firm is conducting a new survey on the marketing needs of businesses in today's business climate. It would be a huge favor to me if you would take 1-2 minutes to answer the questions on my survey.

Here is the link to the survey:

http://www.geisheker.com/survey.htm

Thank you in advance for your help!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate"
http://www.geisheker.com
Main: (920) 471-1638
Fax: (920) 227-2261
Twitter: http://twitter.com/geisheker
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/geisheker

the wrong way to get a job

2011-02-24T14:55:00.001-06:00

If you are a job seeker I am going to give you the most important tip you will ever get for landing a job.

The tip is this: STOP ASKING FOR A JOB!

When you ask for a job, you are asking the company to give you something. You are asking the company to risk time and money on you. This is the REVERSE way it should be. The way you should apply for a job is to tell the company all the ways you will help them so they can either make more money or save money if they hire you. Stop being an expense and prove why you will be profitable to the company. If you want to be paid $50,000 per year plus benefits, you must prove to the company why they will make at least $100,000 or more by hiring you. Justify your wages.

Those of you will take this advice WILL get a great job. Those of you who are looking for a job handout will remain unemployed...as you should be. Stop being an expense. Prove why you create far more financial value than the cost of your wages.

To your success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

why controversy is smart marketing

2011-02-23T16:51:00.000-06:00

In my last blog post I used some naughty words and I even dropped the F bomb. Most businesses would say doing something like that is business and career suicide. I mean, God for bid as a business owner I say something that may be politically incorrect or pisses some people off.

And to those people who say you should play it safe, fuck you and go enjoy your beige carpeting. Playing it safe is Kryptonite for business success. Nobody who is anybody in this world became a "somebody" by playing it safe. Nobody has ever become wealthy by playing it safe. Success is the reward life gives you for having the balls to take risks.

The risk I took by writing a blog post filled with naughty words just landed me an expert author spot on one world's largest marketing blogs. The blog owner read my angry blog post and loved it. I also received several emails from people telling me they love my style and it is so nice to see somebody who is not afraid to say what is on their mind.

And guess what? People LOVE reading stuff that is controversial and has drama (marketing tip alert! marketing tip alert!). People hate boring. How many NY Times bestsellers are books that discuss how to assemble a TV stand?

The moral of this story is that drama and controversy sell because they are interesting. The worst thing you can do in business and in life is to play it safe and be boring.

So, go piss somebody off. Give a customer an underwear wedgie. Buy a van and drive around your neighborhood asking young children if they want to climb in your van to meet Santa Clause. Okay, maybe skip the last one. But have fun. Be outrageous. Make somebody laugh.

To your personal and business success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

I need to get this off my chest

2011-02-16T23:01:00.002-06:00

This blog post is basically me bitching about people who piss me off. If you want to hear me rant and rave, then sit back and enjoy. If not, there are about a gazillion other websites you could be visiting and you may want to leave now.

Okay, here is what has been building up and pissing me off more and more. I have an e-newsletter that several thousand business people around the world subscribe to. If you know me and you have read my blog or subscribe to my newsletter, you know I am brash, a wee bit on the arrogant side, and I call things how I see them. What is pissing me off is the cry babies who email me saying they don't like my tone or they think I am too harsh or derogatory and my writing style is too in your face and arrogant.

Well fuck you to those people. If you don't like my free marketing newsletter, unsubscribe you miserable twit! Don't spend 10 minutes writing me an email bitching about how I write. There is nobody with a gun pressed against your melon telling you to read my newsletter or my blog. Go away and bitch to somebody who cares.

On the other hand, if you want kick-ass marketing tips that will show you how to beat up your competitors with a club filled with rusty spikes, then you'll love my style.

Hugs, kisses, bunnies, and rainbows,

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Stop kitchen sink marketing

2011-02-10T10:03:00.003-06:00

A problem my marketing company deals with every day is getting clients to understand the importance of focusing their marketing message on one core unique benefit that their competition either does not offer or does not talk about in their advertising.

Businesses have the misconception that the more features and benefits you list in your marketing and advertising, the more chances you have at getting customers. I call this "kitchen sink marketing" because you are trying to include everything including the kitchen sink in your marketing message. THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT WORKS!

"Why?" you ask?

Simple. People cannot remember a list of benefits offered by your company. There is just too much advertising noise out there. People are bombarded by thousands of advertising messages every single day. You think they remember them all? Do you? Unless you are living in a cave, over the past week you have seen or heard well over 2,000 advertising messages from TV, radio, billboards, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, posters, etc. Now, I what you to write them all down. Yes, all 2,000 of them. And, I want you to list all the benefits each of those companies offers you. Let me guess, you remember almost nothing, even if you really sit down and try hard. Why is your memory so bad? Your brain is protecting you from information overload. That is why you are darn lucky if a customer will remember one thing about your business. Your job is to own that one valuable idea in their mind about your business.

You will find that all great companies that have been extremely successful (billions of dollars in annual revenue) focus their marketing and advertising on ONE key benefit they offer. They do this because they understand people at best will only remember 1 thing about their company and they want to control what that one thing is that people remember.

If you want to grow your business and get customers to remember you, you absolutely must focus your marketing message on one powerful and unique benefit that your product or service offers and is unique in your industry. Do not become confused by me saying your unique benefit. Maybe all of your competition offers that same benefit. But, do they include it in their marketing? Do they focus on it as their #1 key benefit? If they don't, YOU can take the unique benefit and own it.

To your success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Get over your BS

2011-02-06T11:03:00.001-06:00

I just finished reading a very inspirational book titled "Get Over Your B.S." by a friend I met on facebook named Shanon Nelson. In this book Shanon shares her life and how she went from a series of bad relationships and struggling in life to getting her act together and achieving success. This book is a quick read and will inspire you to get over your B.S. in life and achieve your dreams.

To learn more about Shanon Nelson and her outstanding book, visit http://www.facebook.com/shanonda

To your success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing company
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-163
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"