Referrals are the lifeline of small business! Are you one of the 2.1 million Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Australia? Then you’ll know that when you lack the reach and budget of a bigger business, referrals from customers are crucial – regardless of the industry your business is in, or its business model. Referrals are a great way to get leads that convert to sales faster, result in bigger purchases, and remain viable for longer. It is another way of growing your business aside from lead generation.

However, it is rare to get referrals without asking and for some people, it’s challenging to do so. Journey Point understands this, which is why we’d like to show you how to conquer this fear and use referrals to increase your business revenue…

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Getting referrals is another way to get sales without working super hard.It’s normal to balk at directly asking for referrals. You might fear rejection, or that you’ll learn something you’d rather not know about your business. You also don’t want to come across as being too pushy or salesy. We understand these concerns, but want to remind you that the idea of referring your business to others might not have occurred to your customers; so it’s up to you to plant the idea in their mind. Your business is part of an ecosystem of connections, and every touchpoint could provide an opportunity to spread your message to hundreds of other people who could connect you to even more potential customers.

This exciting, however, before you ask for referrals you need to know you offer a seamless end-to-end sales experience that will make referral success possible. In other words, you will only get referrals from satisfied customers! With this in mind, here’s how you can integrate your ‘ask’ in simple and easy-to-execute ways:

• Promote your referral program at the bottom of your email
• Include a call-to-action in your transactional emails
• Send a post-sale email to customers asking them to share their purchases on social media
• Place signs and forms at your receptionist desk
• Become systematic by creating a referral request email campaign that strategically asks for referrals when you identify a happy customer

These are just some of the ways you can ask for a referral in your communications with customers. There are many other ways that you can get ask for referrals and you are only limited by your imagination (and the technology you use)! If you aren’t sure where to begin, reach out and contact us today.

Rohan James is Creative Director at Journey Point. He is a master at using words to create desired outcomes, but when it comes to surfing his favourite breaks, the word “master” is nowhere to be found!

Most small business owners believe that the only way for them to achieve business growth is to get more customers. Yes, this is absolutely one way, however, it’s very expensive to all your resources and effort into generating new clients for business growth.

Many small business owners take this approach and tend to neglect another area that can greatly contribute to business growth. And this is your existing clients. Retaining existing clients has a big impact on business growth, so let’s take a look at how small business owners can grow their business – fast with this strategy!

You see, the fastest way to increase sales for small business owners is to target a group that already trusts you, your products and services, or have allowed you to market to them.

Who are these people? They are your existing database!!!

Here are some tips small business owners can follow to help re-engage your existing customers and leads:

SPECIAL OFFERS

 Excite your existing customers! Give your existing customers and leads a new reason to buy your products or services.

It’s easier and more cost-effective to get persuade people who are already buying from you to buy more rather than to find new customers and tell them to buy from you.

An email campaign offering them a discount for being on your mailing list is a great motivation for past customers to do business with you again.

LOYALTY PROGRAMMES

Customer loyalty programs drive sales and build brand loyalty. A loyalty program will go a long way to retaining customers and keep them buying from you consistently – if you’ve created an effective program, that is. 

Loyalty programs does not only provide more sales to achieve business growth but more importantly, it strengthens your customer’s brand loyalty to your products or services.

Did you know that, ‘Nearly 80% of consumers said it took at least three purchases for them to consider themselves loyal and 37% said they weren’t loyal until they had made at least five purchases (Yotpo). Making your existing customers buy several times from you whilst providing excellent customer service will definitely give you business growth.

There is one caveat to keep in mind when you are re-targeting your existing databases….

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They must be satisfied customers!!

Are you are looking for a way for small business owners to leave customers satisfied with your goods and services?

Keep an eye out for our upcoming blogs that will talk about how to do this effectively.

Wishing you every success,

The Journey Point Team

PS. Do you want to know how to double your profitability? One way is through marketing automation. Companies that automate lead management see a 10% or more bump in revenue in 6-9 months in time (Strategic IC, 2017). Learn how marketing automation can double your profitability by downloading ‘The 7 Rules of Successful Marketing Automation’ or contact us for a complimentary consultation!

Click Here To Grab Your Free Copy Of This Guide Now.

Rohan James is Creative Director at Journey Point. He is a master at using words to create desired outcomes, but when it comes to surfing his favourite breaks, the word “master” is nowhere to be found!

A high converting website is paramount to your business success. Unfortunately, many small to medium size business owners believe they only have to do the bare minimum when it comes to creating a website – simply build a website and then the sales will come rolling in. Wrong!! Your website is what will persuade people why you are what they need.

It is through your website that you can tell your prospect customers ‘What’s in it for them?’ Why they should hit the contact us button and know how you can assist them in their needs. A converting website – converting website visitors into actual customers – is what you should aim for and not just having a website that contains basic information about your business.

The goal is to have a high converting website. Your website must be a lead generating one so that you can focus on other important tasks to run your business. Your website should help you generate sales too! Don’t worry. It is not that difficult.

Let us show you how to have a high converting website in 5 simple steps.  

1. Your content should be attention-grabbing that readers will definitely click on and read on further
2. Your page load speed is crucial, as customers will leave if it takes too long to access your site. We know of cases where Google stopped AdWords campaigns because pages were taking too long to load.

3. You have to ensure that your website is following the best practices for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). If you are unsure about this, consult a reputable SEO services provider to explain how they can help you get the rankings you want.

4. Engage with your visitors by offering them a lead magnet free of charge (information that is highly desired by prospects). This allows you to get the contact details of visitors who are interested in your offering, but who are not ready to purchase now. You can follow up with these leads with offers to convert them into sales.

5. Make sure that you have an automated follow-up emailing service that can communicate with your newly captured leads to save you time, and will help to further qualify them.

These are 5 Tips to convert visitors to your website into customers…

If you know you need a high-converting website and are unsure how to get started, contact us and we’ll point you in the right direction.

Happy Converting!

The Journey Point Team

PS. Would you like a Client Stampede towards you?

“7 Steps To Get Clients Climbing Over Each Other To Get To You” 

Click Here To Grab your Free copy of this eBook now.

Rohan James is Creative Director at Journey Point. He is a master at using words to create desired outcomes, but when it comes to surfing his favourite breaks, the word “master” is nowhere to be found!

How to out market your competition is not difficult when you understand that few businesses market well.

Have you ever been sent an email that has absolutely nothing to do with your interests, or makes you an offer for something that you’ve already bought?

It’s annoying isn’t it?

Consumers not only want but these days, expect to be treated as individual human beings with unique needs and preferences.

What a nightmare for small business owners with a limited marketing budget right?

Well, before you go reaching for that bottle of scotch, the good news is that with the correct CRM and Automated Marketing platform, you can take advantage of this consumer trend and learn how to out marketed your competition in no time.

So listen up, here’s how to out market your competition:

1. Understand Who Your Customers Really Are

One of the most frustrating things for a business owner is not having all the information or data you need at your fingertips when you need it.

And asking leads or customers for the same information multiple times will hurt your retention rates, cost you referrals, and damage your standing in the marketplace.

Using a powerful CRM and Automated marketing platform like Infusionsoft, you can segment your database in any way you want to.

This means that you can create groups of people in your database according to demographics, psychographics, buying behaviours, product purchases and any other ways that would be useful for your business to know.

For example, it would be good to segment men and women, as their buying behaviours are often different.

You may have some offerings that are purely for women and if a man receives this marketing he will not be impressed. This means you’ll lose favour in his eyes and all the people he shares his disappointment with.

So if you want to know how to out market your competition, the first step is to understand intimately who your prospects and customers are and then segment them into smaller groups that have the same or similar identifiers.

Once done, you can routinely follow up conversations and if you have a sales pipeline, you can easily schedule automated reminders for someone in your business to complete a manual task, such as a follow-up call.

How To Out Market Your Completion Step 1: – Know who your customers really are and segment your database according to common identifiers.

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2. Create Highly Targeted Messages

Now that you have your database segmented correctly, the next step in knowing how to out market your competition is to target your messages to those segments correctly. There’s nothing worse than receiving an email from a company who sends you information about something you have no interest in. Let’s say you downloaded a guide on liver detoxing from a health and wellbeing website. Then the next day you receive an email with The Top Five Tips To Lose Weight Without Exercising. While this may be an interesting subject for some, if you don’t have a weight problem and you downloaded the information on liver detoxing simply because you want more energy, you are going to feel misunderstood by that business. There is no excuse for a poorly targeted message when such great technology is around that allows segmentation of a database, such as Infusionsoft. If someone expresses interest in your information for left-handed people who have green eyes and who love to cook vegetarian meals, your follow up messages ought to be written specifically for left-handed people with green eyes who love to cook vegetarian food, right? It’s so simple, but you can guarantee 99% percent of your competition is not doing this. And this is brilliant for you because you now know how to out market your competition… Segment your database as we looked at in the previous step, and provide highly-target messages and information to those segments. An example of this was a recent Blog post that I wrote. It was titled Marketing Automation Follow Up – The Top 6 Benefits For Small Business The people who subscribe to our Blogs are business owners who are interested in Marketing Automation and so this piece was written with them in mind. The result was that two people who read this information contacted us and one has become a client. This is the power of highly targeted messaging to the right audience. How To Out Market Your Competition Step 2: Create Highly-Targeted Messages for your correctly segmented database.

3. Track Your Campaign Performance

You have segmented your database and you are providing targeted information, what next? Using a campaign map inside your automated marketing platform you are able to keep tabs on the number of people who receive your marketing messages. From there you can also see at a glance what actions people are taking on your messages, what section of the campaign they are in, and who are the most engaged. Once people have responded in a certain manner to your marketing, they can have a “tag” automatically applied by your software, which in turn triggers and automated notification. This could be notifying a sales rep to call someone in your database that been identified as a “hot” prospect.

This level of automation means that you reps will not be wasting time talking with people who have no interest in your offering or who are nowhere near ready to make a buying decision.

Tracking your campaign performances shows you how to out market your competition by giving you the feedback on what is working and not working. This is not based on you guessing what your leads and customers are thinking, but by giving you real data in real time based on real behaviours!

With this information at your fingertips how to out market your competition is no longer a mystery.

All you need do is make adjustments and tweaks based on the data and soon enough your will have your campaigns perfectly optimised.

How To Out Market Your Competition Step 3: Track Your Campaign Performance. Set the correct triggers and tweak and refine your campaigns until they are fully optimised. How to out market your completion is a relatively simple process in theory, but I don’t want to leave you with the impression that just anyone can do it well. First, you will need an excellent CRM and Automated Marketing Software such as Infusionsoft. This will allow you to segment your database to the level that suits your business, as well as provide the responsive automation you need. For example, if you sell specific screwdrivers to women who don’t have children and who love to build flat pack furniture, you will need to be able to easily identify these people in your database. You will then need to compose marketing material that specifically talks to these people as if you know their thoughts, problems and aspirations. Then you will need to be able to review your campaign performance and make changes and tweaks as identified by real data, in real time based on the actions of real people. Now you know how to out market your competition, it’s time to take action!

Rohan James is a Director at Journey Point. He is a Marketing Wizard, but when it comes to surfing his favourite breaks, the word “wizard” is nowhere to be found!

Here’s the dictionary definition of “Ideal Client” – noun, “anyone who will buy my product or service.”

WRONG!!!

It still surprises me when I consult with business owners and I ask them, ”Who do you sell to?” they often answer, “anyone who wants it…”

So then I narrow it down…

Q: “Okay, so who is your Ideal Client?”

A: “Anyone who will pay for it!”

Wrong!

Your ideal client is the one who is hungry for and who best fits your offering.

And not only that, they are repeat buyers who also refer their friends, family and colleagues to you!

Would you like more of these clients coming to you?

If so, you need to first identify who these people are, what pain they’re in, how your solution can help them, what they need to know before buying, what common objections they may have and so on.

Armed with this knowledge, you can compose your marketing strategies in a manner that is going to talk with them at the emotional level that is driving them to take action – and by doing so; you will gain their trust and ultimately their business.

And if you really know what you are doing, you can also present your marketing strategies in a manner that allows them to qualify themselves, so when they make contact with you, they are not just mildly interested in what you have to offer…They are hot!

And how much easier would business and life be if you were only dealing with ideal clients instead of time wasters?

For example, if you provide legal services it may be something like, “ we understand that you don’t want to have to do this, after all, taking this action could cause a massive split in the family that may be irreparable; but at the same time, you know you have to, you know what is right; so make us the bad guy and let us get you what you are entitled to and deserve…” 

Would someone considering fighting for a share of an inheritance be motivated to contact this law firm after reading this?

Of course they would!

You have shown that you understand and empathise with their situation; you have shown them how to get the outcome they want while minimising the stress involved in a process that is uncomfortable at best.

Remember that each marketing campaign will have one message delivered to one market through one medium.

So here’s the steps to get clear on the audience you want to target. 

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Ideal Client Profile

Demographics

• How old are they?
• What sex are they?
• Do they have children?
• What income level are they?
• Are they single or dual income households?
• What other interest do they have?
• What hobbies do they have?
• Where do they hang out?

The list could go on and if you get stuck you can check out Brian Sun’s ideal client checklist here https://blog.autopilothq.com/define-your-ideal-customer/ His checklist will help you build on what I have started here. So this is a great start in identifying who you will be talking to in your marketing and advertising, however… People buy with their emotions first and foremost and then they justify the purchase with their intellect. So in order to trigger them to make the purchase, you need to also understand which emotions when triggered will cause them to buy. To identify these emotions, you will need to understand things such as: Psychographics

• What problems they have
• What keeps them awake at night?
• What is their greatest fear?
• What are their aspirations?
• What do they value most?
• What do they achieve from buying from you?
• What objections do they have?

Combining the two (Demographics and Psychographics), you will understand who your ideal client is, where they are, and how you can get them to buy from you. Taking the time to understand these important foundations of any marketing strategy means your marketing effort and dollars will be in all the right places. And that has to be good for your business right?

Rohan James is Creative Director at Success Wizards. He is a master at using words to create desired outcomes, but when it comes to surfing his favourite breaks, the word “master” is nowhere to be found!

Whatever you do:

Upselling is a great way of making your sales go further, but always make sure that you are upselling a product or service that adds value to the current purchase, or you might start seeing a lot of abandoned carts.

We’re almost at the end of our series on the 7 “Must Do’s” Before Advertising, so be sure to visit us again for the next post, titled [BLOG TITLE].

Oh, and one last thing. If you are struggling to find upselling opportunities for your product or service, contact us. We’ll be more than happy to brainstorm some great ideas with you!

Rohan James is Creative Director at Success Wizards. He is a master at using words to create desired outcomes, but when it comes to surfing his favourite breaks, the word “master” is nowhere to be found!

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Whatever you do:

Upselling is a great way of making your sales go further, but always make sure that you are upselling a product or service that adds value to the current purchase, or you might start seeing a lot of abandoned carts.

We’re almost at the end of our series on the 7 “Must Do’s” Before Advertising, so be sure to visit us again for the next post, titled [BLOG TITLE].

Oh, and one last thing. If you are struggling to find upselling opportunities for your product or service, contact us. We’ll be more than happy to brainstorm some great ideas with you!

Rohan James is Creative Director at Success Wizards. He is a master at using words to create desired outcomes, but when it comes to surfing his favourite breaks, the word “master” is nowhere to be found!