Updated:  May 5, 2018

Most small businesses agree: getting new clients through referrals is a great way to grow their business. And, they’d like more to have more people out there recommending their service to others.

But, even though many small businesses recognize the important value referrals play in getting new clients, they don’t have a systematic referral marketing strategy in place.

Why?

We’ve found that there are several reasons.

Many small businesses:

• assume creating a referral marketing program will take too much time
• don’t know where to start, or lack some practical know-how of how to create one
• fear that it will require a lot of uncomfortable “salesy” networking to make it effective.

In reality, though, while it does take some commitment of time and effort, establishing a referral marketing program can be done through a series of simple steps. And over time, the pay-offs can be extraordinary.

5 Reasons Small Businesses Should Have a Referral Marketing Strategy

1. Referral marketing is the most cost-effective way of attracting new clients. Generating prospects from targeted advertising, direct mail, telephone calls, and other methods have their own level of effectiveness. But the cost of getting new clients from referrals (in terms of both time and money) is far less expensive. For this reason alone, all small businesses should make establishing a referral marketing program a priority.

2. Prospects that come from referrals make great clients. Because these referrals come recommended by someone they know and/or trust, they are generally easier to convert to a paying client. As clients, they also usually make fewer complaints about your service, are generally more loyal, pay their bills, stay with you a longer period of time, and are more likely to refer other prospective clients to you.

3. If you have a reluctance for “business networking” or asking others for referrals, consider adopting a different mindset. Consider this: there are many businesses that are as ready to use your service as you are ready to offer it to them. In fact, data from recent research indicates that 53% -88% of business-to-business professional services buyers are willing to switch to new service providers.*

Realize that all businesses have problems to solve. Start viewing yourself as a “problem solver” to other’s business challenges rather than just a “service provider” looking for new clients. As you take on this new mindset, you will become more comfortable with referral marketing tactics.

Referral marketing has been a natural and authentic way of building businesses for centuries. Finding ways for others to recommend your services doesn’t necessarily require you to be a super-star business networker or schmoozer, spending lots of time uncomfortably “working the room” at business luncheons.

But having a solid referral marketing system in place can help you to make the most of the contacts you already have — and to find effective ways of making new referral-generating contacts.

4. Consider each current and future client as strong referral sources, rather than just short-term sales transactions. That means the real value of each customer is greater than what it often seems. With a referral marketing program in place, each customer has a greater life-time value (LTV) to your business (that is: the amount of total revenue they bring in on their own, plus revenue that comes from new clients they refer to you). To see how this works, visit the Life Time Value Calculator here.

5. Effective referral marketing doesn’t happen on it’s own. While you might get some referrals by happenstance for providing a great service to others, to maximize the benefits of referral marketing, you need to develop a system for generating more referrals. Once the system is set up and moving, much of it basically runs on “auto pilot,” potentially generating steady streams of new revenue for your business.

* RainToday.com, How Clients Buy: The Benchmark Report on Professional Services Marketing from the Client Perspective, 2005.

The post Referral Marketing Strategies: 5 Reasons Small Businesses Should Have Them appeared first on One Hour Marketing.

While you can certainly ask for referrals face-to-face, or by phone, it is often wise to have a standard referral letter available to use for this. A letter often makes it easier for the customer to give it some thought of who would be the best referrals for you, and to get back to you at their convenience.   The referral letter and template below can also be used in an email.

Purpose  of Referrals Request Letter

Usually the best qualified sales leads you can get come from asking satisfied customers to refer their colleagues to use your service.

While you can certainly ask for referrals face-to-face, or by phone, it is often wise to have a standard letter available to use for this.  A letter often makes it easier for the customer to give it some thought of who would be the best referrals for you, and to get back to you at their convenience.

What a referral marketing letter / email  should include

• Ideally, this letter should be short and to the point.  While many businesses are afraid to ask for referrals for fear of sounding “pushy”, in reality, satisfied customers are usually willing to give referrals if you just ask.
• If possible, remind the client of something you know they liked about your service, or a major benefit or measurable result they received from it.
• Directly request that they provide you referrals if they know someone who might benefit from your service.
• Provide specific and simple instructions on how they can give you the names and contact information of these referrals.
• If you are sending it by regular mail, it is advisable to also include a self-addressed stamped envelope (or postcard) for them to respond to you.
• Ask permission if you can use their name when contacting these referrals.
• Optional:  if you provide a discount or free gift to referrals (or to those who are referring to you), consider mentioning that in the letter
• Thank them for their participation.

How to use the referral marketing letter template

• Use the notes in blue as guidelines and suggestions of what you might include in your own letter.

• Double click on the lines in the template ( ______________ ) to fill in your customized content for the letter.

• Reformat the letter for printing on your own letterhead, or for use as an email.

Asking for Referrals Letter Template

Dear:  ________________   (customer first name)

I was glad to hear that you were pleased with  _________________________.  (service or project that your business performed, and state a specific benefit/result they received)   

May I ask you a favor?

Since you were happy with our service, would consider jotting down the (below) the names and contact information of any of your colleagues that you feel would benefit from   ___________________ .  (enter your service name, service description, or major benefit of your service offering)

For your convenience, I have provided a self-addressed stamped envelope for you to reply.

I may mention your name when I contact them.  Please let me know if you are OK with that.

We also give a __% discount on  _________________    (name of service, project, etc.)  to any new clients we receive from referrals.

Thanks again for your business, and referring us to others.

Sincerely,

____________   (name)

____________  (other contact information)

Please list referral names, company name, and phone numbers here:

1. __________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________

Asking for Referrals Letter Sample

[Sample for Website Developer]

Dear Jim:

I was glad to hear that you were pleased with the recent redesign of your web shopping cart last month, and that you had seen an increase in sales since it was implemented.

May I ask you a favor?

Since you were happy with our service, would consider jotting down (below) the names and contact information of any of your colleagues that you feel would benefit from our web development services?

For your convenience, I have provided a self-addressed stamped envelope for you to reply.

I may mention your name when I contact them.  Please let me know if you are OK with that. 

We also give a 10% discount on the first project we perform to any new clients we receive from referrals.

Thanks again for your business, and referring us to others.

Sincerely,

Mark Simpson

ACME Web Development, Inc

Tel:  XXX-XXX-XXXX

Fax:  XXX-XXX-XXXX

Please list referral names, company name, and phone numbers here:

1 __________________________________________________

2 __________________________________________________

3 __________________________________________________

The post Sample Referral Letter / Template appeared first on One Hour Marketing.

You’re not alone.  Even the most extroverted people find networking a bit intimidating. .But often that is because they fear their attempts to meet, greet and network will come off as being pushy or aggressive, and that others will be offended.

The good news is that if you are networking effectively, other’s won’t even notice.
And you won’t feel so uncomfortable either.

So what’s the secret?

The secret to effective networking is to do the most natural things you would do with anyone whom you want to get acquainted:   Ask questions about who they are, what they do, and what they like.

Building relationships with others that are either potential clients, or could refer potential clients to you, is usually centered around a 3-step process:

They need to:

1.  get to know you
2.  get to like you
3.  get to trust you

So where do you start in this process when networking in a group of strangers?

Most everyone enjoys talking about themselves a bit.  And by asking questions to others you give them some permission to “brag” about themselves.  It invites them to engage with you and to let their guard down a little.

What kind of questions should you ask?

What’s important is to ask questions that are open-ended.  Asking closed-ended questions that corner a person to say “yes” or “no”, for instance, won’t spark up a conversation.  In fact, the silence between closed-ended questions like that can make a good networking opportunity dissolve quickly.

Here are 7 questions to consider:

1. What do you like most about your work?
2. How would you describe your ideal customer or customer or client?
3. What changes new trends, development or changes to you see coming down the road in your market/industry?
4. What has has been kind significant changes have you seen happen in your line of work, industry, marketplace in the last few years?
5. How did you get started in your line of work?
6. What is the most interesting or exciting project you are working on (or have worked on)?
7. What differentiates your company, product/service from others who do similar kinds of work?

Granted you probably don’t want to interrogate and ask one person all these questions in one 15-minute exchange at the next chamber of commerce luncheon.  But having a list of questions like this in your mind before you show up to a function will help you prepare — and give you confidence about business networking.

You’ll also be able to get to know some folks, engage in some memorable conversations, and perhaps exchange a business card to possibly continue contact later.

The post How to build your business networking confidence appeared first on One Hour Marketing.

Things to keep in mind:

• This is only an estimator to give you a sense of ranges many business-to-business (B2B) direct marketers experience.
• Response rates can greatly be affected by many variables, including the creative execution of your direct mail package, the quality of your lists, the market’s awareness of your company, the interest or need of your service, etc.
• A response is not necessarily a sale.  It might be a request for more information, an appointment for a presentation, a registration form to a free seminar, or any other response to a “call to action” you have in the direct mail package.

The post Direct mail response rates estimator appeared first on One Hour Marketing.

By doing so, you’ll often find a goldmine of sales revenue (and, remember:  the cost in time and money to get a former client to buy is usually far less than attracting a new customer).

4 tips for developing a plan to reactivate past clients.

Block out an hour in your busy schedule and do this:

1. Look at your client database, and pull a list of those that are inactive.  Be open minded.  Don’t make assumptions that “these folks will never come back.”

2. Analyze any trends for these inactive customers.  What services did they use?  What needs or problems did they have?  Do they still have these needs/problems? How long ago was it since your last contact with them?  Are they using a competitor now?

3.  Determine what services you could offer to them immediately to generate sales.  What kind of offer (price, package of services, etc.) could you offer that they might respond to?

4. Develop a plan to inexpensively contact them.  Would it be best by phone?  A letter or email?  A postcard?

4 ideas for generating new interest in your service from former clients

1. Have the owner of your company call them.  Sometimes just touching base to see how things are going can regenerate interest in your service.  You might be surprised that they say, “oh, we’ve been meaning to call you… we need to…”

2.  If in your customer notes there was a problem with your service that caused them to discontinue working with you, consider sending an “I’m sorry” or  “we’d like you back” letter.  Make it short, give a heartfelt apology for what went wrong, and express interest in working with them again to solve their business pain or problem (perhaps offering to set up a free consultation).   Including some fresh testimonials from current clients might help heal the relationship as well.

3. Offer a free assessment of their current needs. If it’s been a while since you’ve contacted them, it may be time to re-assess their goals and challenges.  Offer some pro-bono time to hear them out, and make some (free) suggestions that are of value to them.  Don’t be afraid to give a lot of value to gain them back.   It may prove to prime the pump for new business opportunities.

4. Give them a “preferred client” offer for your services.  Offer a special discount to them as a previous client.  Consider spicing up the offer with a free or discounted upgrade to your service if they come back.  Tailor the offer specifically to the profile of needs that had when you worked with them before (or new needs they have now).

Perform a “reactivation” campaign a few times a year.  It will help you flatten out peaks and valleys in sales revenue, and, generally, any time or reasonable financial cost you put into to reactivating  previous clients is going to be highly profitable compared to the same type of efforts you invest to attract new clients.

The post How to reactivate previous business clients for new sales revenues appeared first on One Hour Marketing.

It is highly recommended that you use contact management software (or customer relations management management software, sometimes called “CRM”) to capture and record information.   Software can really improve your ability to not only keep an up-to-date database, but also provide easy ways for access reports, lists and further streamline ongoing communications with your prospects and customers.

Here are some suggestions of what information you should be gathering:

• Contact names.  You’ll want to include a primary contact (name of the individual), but you’ll also want to be on the watch for any key names or titles at the business, and record them. This assures you have multiple points of contact of those that might be part of the decision making process to use your services.  It also serves as a back-up should your primary contact ever leave the company.
• Job title and job definitions.  Get the official titles of any of your contacts  (double check to make sure they are correct).  Also, if possible, make notes on what their job descriptions are (that is, what are they responsible for).  This information can be helpful to refer to later if you need to make contact with multiple people in the company.
• Demographic or psychographic information.  Having a sense of the age, background, likes/dislikes of your prospects or customers can be important in improving communication with them.  As you have discussions with your contacts, if they express elements of their background, experience — or if you are able to gauge some information on this buy observation, make some notes in your database.  Many times, especially with prospects, it’s helpful to have these notes on hand to refresh your mind of these details before making the next follow-up contact.
• Name of company.  Be sure to get the right spelling and format of the company, so that it will appear correctly on all of your letters, faxes, etc.  For example, is it “XYZ Technology” or XYZ Technology, Inc.”   Pay close attention to these details, as making a mistake can make for bad presentations later in your communication to a prospect or customer.
• Address.  Get both the physical and the mailing address if they are different.  Make note of which address they prefer you to send them anything to.
• Methods to contact them.  this should include any alternative ways to contact the customer such as phone numbers (including cellular phones, if applicable) email addresses, website address, fax numbers, etc.  As your relationship evolves with the prospect or customer, be sure to keep updating your database if you receive new ways to potentially contact them down the road.
• Buying history.  make sure to make notes of the date of the first purchase, subsequent services, amount of sale, and any other transactional information.
• Source of lead.   if the contact is a prospect, be sure to keep track of how customer initially made contact with you.  What is from another customer’s referral?  From a direct mailing you did?  Or a booth at a conference or trade show? Code this into your database for later reference.
• Source of sale.  When the prospect makes his/her first purchase, record (if applicable) any effort that they may have responded to.   Did they respond to a an email or follow-sales letter you sent. Or  telephone call.  Tracking this information over time will help you identify what methods of follow-up are most effective in generating first-time revenue from a prospect.
• Special needs of customers.  capture and record any special needs that the prospect or customer indicates to you as part of your ongoing communication with them.   This is important information that can be used later to expand or alter your service offerings.
• Customer comments.  Be sure to keep track of any comments from customers, whether they be complaints, testimonials, special requests.
• Payment history.  Make sure to log any important details on the customer’s payment history.

The post CHECKLIST: What information to include in your customer database appeared first on One Hour Marketing.

One of the strongest ways to persuade prospects to buy your service is the use of testimonials in your marketing materials.

A testimonial — an endorsement from an individual that is similar to the kind of prospects you want to attract as clients — can have a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of all your marketing materials, including:

• brochures
• website
• emails
• sales letters
• telephone sales calls
• sales presentations
• advertisements
• trade show booths
• annual reports
• service upgrade & renewal notices
• invoices

Good testimonials do two things:

1. They directly appeal to a prospect’s “trigger points” (their specific pains or problems they need solved) and demonstrate specifically how your service has benefited (solved the pain or problem) for real people that are just like your prospect.
2. Reduces the fears, anxieties and perceived risks the prospect may have before making a purchase decision. The testimonial illustrates that your company helps people just like your prospect to successfully solve a pain or problem the prosepct has.

Two baseline requirements before you start a testimonial program

So having a lot of good testimonials sounds great, doesn’t it?

The reality is that implementing a testimonial program is a challenge. But it can be done successfully if you have these two requirements in place:

First, like all good marketing, it requires you to purposefully focus your attention on your clients, and not your business or yourself. Good testimonials are focused on satisfied clients expressing benefits about your service, not generically praising how great your company is.  Recognizing this is key to be able to develop the most effective testimonials.

Second, a testimonial requires a commitment to an ongoing effort and strategy.   You must be in contact with your satisfied clients — always keeping in touch and “in the know” on any specific and measurable results they’ve had by using your service. And in that process, you must be willing to ask for testimonials from these clients — and know how to ask the right questions.

So let’s get started on developing your testimonial program…

Two must-have elements of a strong testimonial

Generic accolades about you or your company are not effective. Things like:

“We love your work. Keep it up!”

“I’m so glad I signed up for this. I recommend it to everyone.”

The above testimonials will have very little impact on a prospect’s decision to buy from you.

Instead, strong testimonials should have these two key elements:

1. The testimonial must reinforce specific and concrete benefits that the satisfied client received as a result from your service.   For a prospect to find the testimonial meaningful, he or she must be able to relate to a specific pain or problem the endorser had, and get understand specifically how the problem was solved by your service.
2. The testimonial must be attributed. Blind testimonials are rarely effective.   For a testimonial to have credibility to a prospect, they must be able to identify with the type of person who is endorsing the product.   A name is the most critical attribute, but here are some other attributes that can have a very positive impact on your testimonials:

• • • title
    • company
    • industry / type of business
    • awards or honors
    • length of experience in industry
    • published articles, books, research
    • leadership positions
    • memberships
    • what media outlets they have been interviewed (and sourced) by

How many testimonials should you have?

There’s no magic number, but ideally you should ask for testimonials from as many clients as possible.

Here are some guidelines:

• Have a least one testimonial that represents each market segment (or type of customer or business) you target.
• Have at least one testimonial for each feature (and its corresponding benefit) of your service.

Obviously the more you have, the better.

Be willing to ask for them.   But what do you ask?

Often a satisfied client is willing to give a testimonial, but they might ask for assistance on what to say.  This is good.  Don’t be afraid to direct them.

In fact, being prepared to “lead” them a bit with certain types of questions will help you capture a stronger testimonial. With some nudging, you will normally find that most clients like to talk about how well things are going.

Here are some guidelines of the types of questions to ask:

(Be sure to download the testimonial worksheet for specific sample questions)

Ask questions that will:

1. Urge the client to talk about specific and concrete benefits they received as a result from using your service. Try to get specific metrics, such as “we increased sales by 25% in 3 months” or “we reduced costs our costs by one-half in a year.”
2. Encourage a comparison of your service to others they’ve used in the past.
3. Help the client describe the “before” and “after” situations related to using your service.
4. Capture information for attribution (name, title, industry, etc.)

Remember, the strongest testimonials will get the prospect thinking: “hey, this person is just like me. He or she has the same problem as I do, and it got solved with this service. I want to buy this service, too.”

How do you find testimonials?

1. Contact satisfied clients directly — by phone or in person.

Be direct and ask them the results they are getting from your service.   Then ask “may I quote you?”   If they agree, write down their statement. Then send it to them by mail or email with a note stating that you’d like their permission to use the testimonial in your marketing materials.

2. Survey your clients.

A good way to solicit testimonials is to conduct a survey of your clients. While every response may not be useful for a testimonial, you’ll probably get some (and any other comments can probably be used to help you improve your service).

Surveys can be conducted by regular mail, or can easily and affordably be conducted by email, using an online survey utility like Survey Monkey or Survey Gizmo.

To improve response rates, make the survey easy and quick for your client to complete. Keep it to less than 10 questions (five or six might be even better), and be sure to mix up the style of questions (include both open-ended and closed-ended questions.)

Should you offer clients a gift for their testimonials?

Gifts are optional, but they can add a nice touch to your testimonial program. You just need to be careful how you approach gift-giving so that your testimonials are objective and “pure.”

When contacting customers directly, by phone or in person, if you want to send a thank-you gift, it is often better to do so after the client gives you permission to use a testimonial (that is, not announcing in advance that “I’m giving gifts if you give me a testimonial”).   Usually when you make direct contacts, satisfied clients are quite willing to talk and don’t need an incentive to do so.

When surveying clients, however, you can often increase your response to the survey by offering a small gift for completing the survey (note: the gift is an incentive for completing the survey — not for providing positive comments about your service!).

What kind of thank-you gifts can be used?   Gifts could be an article or special report that you’ve written that would be helpful to their business, a low-cost item (such as a calendar, notepad, writing pen, etc.), or perhaps a gift certificate to a coffee house or online bookstore.

The post Boost sales with a client testimonials program appeared first on One Hour Marketing.

One of the challenging aspects of trying to attract new clients is setting up the initial appointment with them to discuss your service offering.

Use this tried and proven sales letter template to get the attention of your prospect before you call them by telephone to set an appointment.

Download it here: free sales letter template (2-page .doc)

How to write a referral letter

Usually the best qualified sales leads you can get come from asking satisfied customers to refer their colleagues to you.

While you can certainly ask for referrals face-to-face, or by phone, it is often wise to have a standard referral letter available to use for this. A letter often makes it easier for the customer to give it some thought of who would be the best referrals for you, and to get back to you at their convenience.

Download it here:  free referral sales letter template  (Word doc file)

Struggling to write sales letters? Template makes the process easy

Are the sales letters and emails you send to prospects or clients not pulling the results you want?

Then consider spending just five minutes of pre-writing planning before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).   This small investment of time on the front end will make every communication you have with a prospect or client count more toward the bottom line.

Many times, especially in this fast-paced electronic age of quick-and-short emails, our written communication is so casual, we miss opportunities.   We forget to think-through our sales letters and follow-up before we write and send them off to the recipients.

This four-question pre-writing sales letter template can put more punch in your writing.

Don’t be fooled by its simplicity.  The outcome of working through these questions before you begin writing a sales letter can be more powerful than you think.

1.  Who are you writing to?

This may seem obvious, but the answer to the question is deeper than it appears.  Take a moment to think a bit more about who you are writing to.

Things like:

• What is their position in the company?
• What needs and pains are they experiencing in their business?
• What stage are they at in the buying decision process when they will receive your sales letter or email?

Put yourself in the reader’s shoes before you begin writing, and your message will be more relevant to them — and therefore more persuasive.

2.  What is the overall objective of this sales letter?

Why are you writing it?  What is your motivation?  What do you want to happen as a result of this letter?

Again, this question can seem simplistic at first glance.  But just like when taking a cross-country road trip in your car, you must figure out where you are going first to be able to successfully get there.

List the main one or two objectives you have for writing the sales letter or email.

• Is it to set a specific time for an appointment with the prospect?
• Is it to get confirmation of a request for proposal?
• Is it thank them for meeting with you yesterday, and agree on a specific time for another meeting?

3.  What is the overall message you want to convey?

What supporting elements in the sales letter will appeal to the person in question #1, and make the goal and objectives in question #2 happen?

Here’s is where you think about what you really want to say…and also how you want to say it.

• Are there benefits of your service that you should highlight in this message that will appeal to the reader’s specific needs?
• What tone should the letter have (gratitude, empathy, excitement, etc.).

4.  What is the action — or next step — that needs to be taken?

This is perhaps the most often overlooked element in sales letters.

Your email or letter should specifically communicate to the reader what the next action step is, and who is going to take it.

• Do you want them to review and sign your proposal that is enclosed?
• Or are you telling them you will email them a capability brochure with pricing tomorrow for their review before the meeting next week?

Sales letters without “calls to action” usually have miserable results.

In your pre-writing planning, be sure to clarify what the next step is.

Easy 7-step sales letter template for business-to-business services

Here’s an easy-to-follow, 7-step sales letter template for professional or business service providers.

1.   Get attention

Getting the attention is the primary importance of any direct marketing piece.   The goal is to engage the reader enough to get them to read the rest of the letter.  The key to doing that is to make it interesting enough, but also it must be believable.

Here are several ways you can grab the reader’s attention in a sales letter…

• Promise a benefit (“Reduce  your marketing costs in half in just 90 days”
• Ask an intriguing question:  (“What do 90% of all small businesses overlook when saving on income taxes?”
• Make an offer (“Reply now and get a 10-page free report to help you get more customers”).

2.  Identify the problem your reader has

After you get the reader’s attention, you immediately want to identify the relevant problem the reader has that your service can solve.  Generally, the problems for most businesses fall under these general categories:

• how to save money (reduce costs)
• how to make more money (increase revenues, increase profits)
• how to improve operations, increase productivity

You’ll want to state the problem in a way that the reader can recognize it.  In a essence, you must help the reader discover (or rediscover) a real problem, pain or predicament they have, so that they will be thinking about when you introduce your service as the solution to it in the next step of the letter.

3.  Position your service as the solution to the problem.

Now that the reader is thinking about or feeling the pain of the problem you just identified, you now want briefly position that your service is the solution to that problem.

4.  Prove that your service is the solution to the problem.

To prove the case, there are three basic items you should try to include in the letter to reinforce your position.

• mention the primary benefits of your service, and how they can measurably solve the problem the reader faces.
• mention any “social proof” that you have that your service provides the benefits you are promising.  This can be done by mentioning testimonials of real clients, or describing “mini case studies” or success stories of previous client projects.  It’s important to note results here, not just just make claims.
• what credentials do you have?  In support of the other two items above, you can weave information about your experience, training, technology you use, professionalism, etc.   While these credentials aren’t usually effective on their own, they do help support other types of proof in your letter.

5.  Give them an offer

All sales letters need an offer.

Are you offering a free seminar?  A free special report?   A complimentary assessment or one-hour consultation?   Or perhaps a low-cost introductory sampling of your service?

What is it that you are offering to get them to reply to you?

Offers can be spiced up by adding two elements:  scarcity and/or exclusivity.  Doing so you state that the offer is good only for a limited time, or for a limited number of people.

Examples:

“Our seminar only has 30 seats available.”
“We are only offering the report until Dec. 31”

6.  Make sure it has a guarantee.

A guarantee helps “reverse” any risk the reader might be worried about if he or she replies to your offer.

If you’re offer is free, you might try something like “The consultation is absolutely free.  There is no obligation to purchase the service.”

Other guarantees include:

“If you aren’t satisfied with our work, you don’t pay.”
“Everything is done in 30 days or less, or your money back.”

7. Tell them what to do

This is the “call to action.”   Many sales letters forget this part, even though it seems obvious to include it.

You must tell them exactly what you want them to do to get the offer — and make it easy for them to respond.

Some examples:

“Fill out the postage-paid reply card and drop in in the mail today”
“Go to .www.ourwebsite.com and enter your email address on the top of our home page.”
“Call us at 1-800-XXX-XXXX and our trained representatives will get the report out to right away.”

It’s also a good idea to provide multiple ways for readers to respond (such as mail, telephone, fax, email, etc.).   The more way they can respond, the higher potential for response.

One of the best resource for free sample sales letter or templates is your own mail box.

Why?

Just think of all the free, unsolicited direct mail you get every day.  You often think of it as junk mail.  But consider this:  most professional marketers and copywriters keep what they call a “swipe file.”   A swipe file is selection of sample sales letters you get that you like.

You can create your own swipe file of free sample sales letters  (and generate a sales letter template from them) by just spending a few extra minutes a day opening your junk mail.

If you collect these for a few weeks, you’ll begin to notice that some large companies that send them to you are repeating the same one.  That’s often because they have tested this sales letter template or format and know that it works (which is why they send it more than once).   Big companies spend thousands if not millions of dollars testing sales letters to find out which ones work best.

By spending some time building and analyzing your own swipe file you can take advantage of lots of expensive testing, and devise your own template for a successful sales letter.

The post Get free sample sales letters / sales letter templates appeared first on One Hour Marketing.

DOWNLOAD: Sales lead generation program tracker  (Excel spreadsheet)
This easy-to-use spreadsheet allows you to keep record of year-to-date information on multiple sales lead generation programs. Track costs, reach, response rates and cost per lead for each, plus get a grand total across all your programs

How to identify your most qualified sales leads

Carefully using your limited resources — both time and money – for sales lead generation and follow-up on prospective clients is key to building a profitable small business.

Whether you’re a solo-entrepreneur/consultant or have a staff to help you generate revenue, how can make the most of each and every sales lead that comes your way?

Developing a simple process — a “sales lead qualification process” — is essential.

A qualification process helps you systematically evaluate every new client business opportunity, and prioritize how you handle each one.

Specifically, this process helps you to:

• identify the potential clients that are the best fit for your service.  These are the businesses that have a pain or problem that you have the experience and credentials to solve, and ones that match the criteria of your “ideal client profile” and target market. There’s nothing worse than investing lots of effort on proposing a solution for a prospect, only to later realize that it isn’t a good fit for you (or them).
• saves time and money in following-up with prospects.  You can avoid allocating limited resources following-up with tire-kickers, people that don’t have the funds to pay you, or don’t have the authority to make a buying decision.
• understand what you know, don’t know, and need to know in order to adequately follow-up with the prospect, increasing your probability to gain them as a new client.
• determine who are the key players (influencers and decision makers) to make the deal happen.
• understand where the prospect is in the buying process.  Have they just started doing research?  Have they identified other options (like your competitors)?  Are they ready to buy now, or do they need more nurturing before they can commit?
• identify the strengths and weaknesses of your service (which can help you be more competitive in your marketplace).
• track and measure — overtime — the best approaches for each type of sales lead you get.  A key to profitable growth is to duplicate a process that has worked in the past to convert prospects into paying clients.

How do you qualify a sales lead?

The easiest way is to create a simple internal checklist, and rate or score the new client opportunity based on several criteria, such as:

• needs analysis of the prospect (what pain or problem do they have that needs to be solved?)
• the best-fit solution for the prospect
• the time frame and urgency the prospect has to solve the problem
• the value or return on investment (ROI) the solution will provide the prospect (does the solution save them time/money? increase sales? etc.)
• the budget and other resources the prospect has available
• what relationships do you have with the key players that have authority to buy your service?

A sample sales lead qualification scoring form is available for you to use as a model in developing your own process of evaluating and prioritizing your new client opportunities.

The specific criteria you use may be different, depending on the profile of your ideal client, but this form can serve as a helpful model.

The post CHECKLIST: Sales lead qualification scoring form appeared first on One Hour Marketing.

The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps (somewhat like mind maps) that give the meanings of the words, and then branch to related words. It’s a great way to brainstorm for the perfect word in a more multidimensional way than using a regular printed thesaurus.    It’s an affordable software tool, and is available in a desktop or an online version.

Lexical FreeNet – Connected Thesaurus.  This is a free service.  Just type in a word, and you’ll find related words, concepts, and even rhyming schemes.

The post Got writer’s block? Here are two copywriting tools to get you going again appeared first on One Hour Marketing.