Greg Group Publishing

Increase Sales Through The Product Ladder

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:53:01 +0000

You must continue to develop your products along a product ladder. The product ladder may consist of a free ebook to introduce your business. Then, you have the primary basic book and videos next in the ladder. This may progress to a three day seminar or the gold membership followed by personal coaching. The idea is to move the customer along a value chain with each product being more expensive with the customer developing more value. this strategy is more in tune with information products but can be utilized by other purchases such as travel, subscriptions, etc.

This is a great way to build customer relationships and to maximize the lifetime value of your customers. Once you get the first sales, trust has been established with the customer. This significantly increases the chances that the customer will buy from you again. New products and services will evolve as your customers seek new solutions to their problems. It is important to continue to gather customer feedback to identify new problems and solutions to the problems.

You Can Change the World

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:53:08 +0000

This is a special post produced by MeanderFilms. This short film really captures the imagination of how to change the world. It is both inspiring and motivating to see one person making a difference despite the odds of changing the world.

Lee Bennett of Seattle and his daughter Maura won second place in the Converse One Star/Target Video Contest with “Just 1 Girl” (shot in Carroll County, Georgia / Atlanta metro area). “Just 1 Girl” was written by 11-year-old Maura about her perspective on the challenges she will face in creating change in the world as she grows up. Lee Bennett is an independent filmmaker, artist, and activist who also performs and records as Richard Roe.

How to Identify the Real Buyers

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:23:26 +0000

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This is a hugh accomplishment as once you have your buyers, you can sell them on your product upgrades or ladder. You should keep in mind that you need to age the account of buyers. This requires allow the new buyer enough time to receive your initial product and to get some initial benefits from its use. Then, you can contact the buyer with your next product to move them through the product ladder. Also, keep in mind that once you know who your buyers are, you can contact them by direct mail, phone and other venues. This works to solidify your relationship and get the lifetime value of the customer.

Find the Real Buyers

admin — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:41:33 +0000

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As you move prospects through your sales funnels, you must determine who the buyers are and who is just browsing your products. The best way to find buyers is using the free product tactic. You want to know who is ready to open their wallet and buy your product. By offering a free product that requires the buyer to pay for shipping and handling, you can sort the current buyers from the prospects. The free product is like hooking up a friend to something they are looking for or need. People love to be hooked up as they feel you have done them a favor. This is a hugh accomplishment as once you have your buyers, you can sell them on your product upgrades or ladder. You should keep in mind that you need to age the account of buyers. This requires allow the new buyer enough time to receive your initial product and to get some initial benefits from its use. Then, you can contact the buyer with your next product to move them through the product ladder. Also, keep in mind that once you know who your buyers are, you can contact them by direct mail, phone and other venues. This works to solidify your relationship and get the lifetime value of the customer.

How Do Your Customers Buy?

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:08:25 +0000

You must determine who and what your targeted customer is looking to purchase. More importantly, you must determine the lever to their buying pattern. This can be simplified by thinking about the focus of your customer’s reason for buying. Are they trying to avoid pain or seeking pleasure? If the customer is trying to avoid pain, then they dislike their job, want to avoid their situation and other reasons to seek a solution. In general, these are the buyers that are motivated by their current pain in their life.

In contrast, other buyers are seeking more pleasure rather than avoiding pain. The pleasure seekers are optimist that are goal oriented and look to grow their business or income. For example, entrepreneurs are typically pleasure seekers as they easily relate to risk for the gain of starting a successful business. To make sales, you must approach each buyer type with a different strategy. For example, you will have different landing pages for each customer type with specific marketing content for pleasure seekers or pain avoiders. For example, if you are selling a weight loss product, you have two buyer types: weight losers and muscle builders. The marketing of your weight loss product should focus on each buyer type based on their motivation: weight loss or muscle building.

Using Preface to Build Trust

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:07:05 +0000

Preface is used to initiate contact with the potential customer. It is during this time when you want to build trust with the customer. Before a customer will open their wallet, they want to feel secure that you will deliver what they are looking to purchase. This is were prefacing is the tool to consumate this relationship with future buyers. To be effective, preface should include proof that your product does what it says it will for the buyer. There are too many unscrupulous marketers online that are selling smoke and mirrors as a skeem to make money. You must prove to the buyer that you are not one of them. You do this by adding customer testimonials in writing and video to your preface materials. What you want is testimony showing the results and amount of time and effort the previous buyer used to get these results. There is no such thing as having too many customer testimonials about your product. Be sure to ask buyers for their feedback and suggest that the great responses create a video to share with prospects.

You can utilize your auto responder to move the prefacing forward. Here you can create a daily message that will include a different customer testimonial each day. For a new or fresh prospect, you should contact them on a daily basis throughout the first week or two. This is were you can build the trust with the buyer. By continuing the prefacing during this period, it lets the buyer know more about your product and how it can be beneficial to their objectives. You must keep in mind that you are not selling the product but you are selling the solution to the buyers problem.

Everything You Need To Know About Word of Mouth Marketing

admin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:07:43 +0000

Guest Blogger: Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing

Lesson 1: The Definition Of Word Of Mouth Marketing

Word of Mouth Marketing is a) giving people a reason to talk about you and b) making it easier for the conversation to take place.

It’s C to C Marketing—when a consumer tells a consumer about you. Actually, it’s B to C to C. When it comes out of the mouth of a marketer, it’s marketing. When a real person repeats it, it’s word of mouth.

It’s more than just marketing—it’s also product design and customer service. People talk about fantastic stuff and great treatment from companies they like.

Lesson 2: The Four Rules of Word of Mouth

Rule #1: Be Interesting

Nobody talks about boring companies, boring products, boring ads. Everyone can be interesting. Before you run an ad, before you launch a product, ask your spouse about it. Trust me…if he or she finds it interesting, you’ve got a winner.

Rule #2: Make People Happy

Create amazing products. Provide excellent service. Go the extra mile. Make sure the work you do gets people energized, excited, and eager to tell a friend.

Rule #3: Earn Trust And Respect

Nobody talks about a company that they don’t trust or don’t like. Earn the respect of your customers. Be good to them. Talk to them. Honor their intelligence. Fulfill their needs. Stay honest. Every company can be nicer, and every one of us can work to make our company a little better to its customers.

Rule #4: Make It Easy

Find a simple topic that is easy to repeat. Not your formal brand statement, not your product description. Forget elevator pitch…it’s the pass-in-the-hall test. What can people tell a friend about you in one sentence?

Then do everything you can to make it easy to share that topic. Use tell-a-friend forms on your web site. Put it in an email. Pass out flyers. Blog it. Stick it on a t-shirt.

Lesson 3: The Three Reasons People Talk About You

Reason #1: You. They Like You and Your Stuff.

They like you. They feel a connection to your company, they respect what you do, and they want to support you. So they bring their friends. People feel driven to share things they like with their friends, so their friends can enjoy them too. Create great products and services that inspire them. (Think about TiVo, the best album ever, the best cookie you ever ate, or the spot remover that actually works.)

Be likeable. Make great stuff. Provide great service.

Reason #2: Them. Talking Makes Them Feel Good

People talk because it makes them feel special, smart, connected, in the know, and important. (Think about the restaurant guy, the what’s-on-sale maven, the computer guru.) People also feel good when they can help others find what they need or solve problems. (Think about the guy who always knows which contractor to call or which car to buy.)

Provide reasons to talk that make your talkers feel smart and special.

Reason #3: Us. They Feel Connected to the Group

Talking about a company and being passionate about it makes us feel like part of a family. We talk about it because it makes us feel included on the team. (Think about Harley owners, Apple junkies, sports fans, and anyone who loves a great band.)

How to Get More From Twitter

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:39:58 +0000

We all know about the growing popularity of Twitter and most have used Twitter in the past. Patients are using Twitter as a form of communication with family and friends. Your organization has been subjected to Twitter by now. We have experienced how Twitter can be a valuable asset when communicating with the masses. Do you know how to use Twitter for market research? Here are a few Twitter apps that may be of use to you as a marketing tool.

Ask people what they think about something related to your services by using TwittPoll. Simply create a poll to get feedback on what your friends/fans think about a particular subject. Maybe you are thinking of marketing at a future sporting event, then ask if people will be watching.
Ask a question using Twitter Answers. This can take on many forms as Mosio enables this app to ask any question using Twitter to get answers from people just like you. This is a free service that only requires a free account with both Twitter and Mosio. Your question is placed on Twitter Answers so people can respond. You may gather research just by viewing the questions being asked by others.
OK, so healthcare is local. Just the answer for you is LocalTweeps. This app maps Twitter profiles and content to geography by city and zip code. This is still in the beta stage but has significant potential to localize your Tweeps in the future. In case you are courious - Austin, Texas is the top city for local tweeps.
Want to analze your Twitter satistics? You can do this at TweetStats. This free app supplies a nice bar graph of your Tweets by month, time of day, interface, replies to and more. this is a good way to review your past trends and what you thought was effective using Twitter. You can also look at the latest trends on Twitter for today such as the “bubble boy” news story and for all time.

Physician Groups Struggle With Lower Revenue and Utilization

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:42:53 +0000

For the first time in several years, medical practice revenue declined in 2008. According to the newly released MGMA Cost Survey: 2009 Reports Based on 2008 Data, multispecialty group practices reported a 1.9 percent decrease in total medical revenue. Although it may not seem like much, in an industry where operating costs are rising faster that revenues, any decline presents a challenge.

Not surprisingly, the driving factors hint to a tough economy: a drop in patient volume and increasing bad debt due to patient financial hardship. In response, practices have trimmed overhead costs, but not enough to make up for shrinking revenue. Here are three key findings from this year’s report.

Each medical specialty’s cost and revenue drivers are distinct, but overall we saw a drop in patient volume comprising a 9.9 percent decline in number of procedures performed and an 11.3 percent decline in number of patients from 2006 to 2008. Plus, bad debt in multispecialty group practices from fee-for-service charges increased 13 percent in the same time period, suggesting that some patients may be having a harder time paying their medical bills.

Hospital Care in the United States

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:36:44 +0000

HCUP Facts and Figures: Statistics on Hospital-based Care in the United States, 2007

The HCUP Facts and Figures Report were recently released to the public. There are always some great tidbits of information from these statistics. The importance of OB/GYN and NICU services are very pronounced in the latest HCUP statistics as:

Conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth were the reason for more than one out of every five female hospitalizations in 2007.
When combined with stays for newborn infants, these hospitalizations accounted for one-quarter of all stays.

If you think about 25% of inpatient stays being related to maternal care, this is more proof of the importance of marketing to women as the decision maker (not including the female role in health decisions for other family members).

Where did the health care dollar go for inpatient stays in 2007? Circulatory disorders accounted for 22% ($74.6 billion), injury and poisoning for 11% ($37.2 billion) while hospital stays for childbirth, pregnancy and newborns cost $34.2 billion.

In 1997, there was 128 discharges per 1,000 persons in the U.S. This increased to 131 discharges per 1,000 discharges in 2007. Here is where it gets interesting: inpatient utilization among 65+ persons actually decreased 3% (from 36% to 33%) from 1997 to 2007; utilization among the 45-64 age group actually increased 4% during this period. The rationale is that the number of persons in the 45-64 age group increased significantly from 1997 to 2007.

Click here to get the report.

HCUP Facts and Figures: Statistics on Hospital-based Care in the United States, 2007 presents information derived from the 2007 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), with trend information as far back as 1993. This report includes information from the 2007 database containing discharge records for all patients treated in a sample of approximately 1,000 hospitals. These discharges are weighted to represent all inpatient stays in community hospitals across the nation. Community hospitals include all non-Federal, short-term, acute care hospitals; psychiatric and substance abuse facilities and short-term rehabilitation hospitals are not included.