The Fifty Quid Challenge (our name for the Towergate Accumulator Challenge) launched this evening! Participating businesses will be given £50 each by the generous Towergate CEO Paul Whittaker – each business then seeks to get as much ROI as possible in the next 3 1/2 months. All proceeds will go to Bury St Edmund’s St Nicholas Hospice Care. Have a look at the first of our Challenge 2011 videos:

Here’s the older one for prosterity.

What is Google Places? If you use Google to do your searching, you’ve probably noticed a map in a prominent location and the local listings that go with it. These listings also tend to top the searches, beaten only by the pay-per-click ads. So, where are these results coming from?

The source of these listings is Google Places

Google Places is in essence free listing of businesses, allowing consumers to easily search for services or products in their local area. It is also an easy to place to find all the relevant information needed to find or contact a business.

The Places listings often dominate the first page of the results. Even where they do not push the standard results off the first page, they are still up there at the top. There can be as many as 7 Places listings and with that much choice there may be no need to ever to scroll further down.

However, there may also be as few as 3 or even none for certain searches. Does that mean those businesses don’t have to worry about Places? Not at all! You do! That’s because  it’s actually a golden opportunity for someone to utilise Places and jump easily to the top of the search….pipping you to the post and the new client!

If you don’t have a website or indeed any online presence currently, a Places page is perfect. It includes address, phone number and opening times amongst other things which is easily enough to get you started. When you, or if you do, have a website, linking it up with a good Places page can really boost it up the results.

You may be asking at this point “So how do I get a Places page?”

Well, first of all, make sure you don’t already have one. Yes, Google automatically adds listings. You may have had a Google Places page all along and just need to claim it. The process is free and quite simple to get the basics filled in – we can show you how at one of our Google Places workshops.

However, the basics will only go so far. Even in a niche with low competition, eventually someone will look at you and say “I can beat that” and before you know it you’re falling back down the rankings. You need to really optimise that Places page and it’s best done sooner rather than later.

And here’s where we come in.

Google Places Workshop

Cinnamon Edge runs workshops on Google Places that will show you how to get that listing created, verified and optimised with ease. Even better, the next one is only on 31 March 2011, so you’ll be up and running in no time!

Find out more about your Google Places workshop

Simply click here for more details and for information on how to sign up – and on how to claim yoru free video (worth £97). We look forward to seeing you at the Google Places workshop!

Google Places is that part that pops up on page one for many searches – it currently comprises:

• A map on one side and details of up to seven of those businesses on the other
• The map has pointers on it, showing where those businesses are located
• These details have links to the businesses’ sites and to their Places page

A Places page is like a one page, one stop shop of your business. You can use it to show where you are, the area you serve, your opening hours, payment methods, and much, much more. People can post reviews on your site, and Google may also feature reviews from other sites.

Why do you need to be on Google Places at all?

I’m not sure if you know, but Google made big changes to its search results in October 2010.

• As a result, local results take precedence over true ‘organic’ results
• Eight out of ten consumers search online at least weekly
• Over half of these people are looking for a business within 15 miles of where they live, and a Places page gives them that information very quickly
• In fact, a massive 20 percent of Google searches end up with people viewing a Places page
• …and the percentage is even higher for mobile phone users

From your point of view, the people coming to your site/premises via a Places page are much more likely to be qualified – that is, interested in what you have to offer.

Get in front of your competitors

It’s worth learning how to rank well in Places and to optimise your Places – you want:

• Targeted traffic
• Visitors who want to take action because of what they’ve seen 
• To get seen in the first place – there is only room for a maximum of seven Places spots on page one. Even if fewer are showing, you won’t necessarily be up there with them unless you get your Places page sorted

Not sure how to do it?

Come on a Cinnamon Edge Places Workshop, get us to come into you, or ask your webmaster to (a) claim, and (b) sort your Places page out, making sure he or she knows how to optimise it.

Poor Writing Lets You and Your Business Down

Read on to find out why – and to find out what you can do about it.

Poor writing can really let you and your business down for the reasons outlined below.

The corollary is, of course, true!

Good writing leads to better communication, time saved, a professional appearance, the vital messages getting across, and more money coming into your business.

Bad writing reflects poorly on your business

People think things like, ‘If this is the standard of their writing, what will their service/product be like?’ and, ‘Is this business so unsuccessful they can’t afford to employ or train a proper writer and copyeditor?’

Bad writing can make you sound unfocused and ill-informed, and people see this as a reflection of your business.

Bad writing loses you money

Describing a product or service in a boring way? People will stop reading and not buy.

Bad writing is bad manners!

It’s a bit like the written version of sitting opposite someone who is mumbling, stopping at odd points throughout a sentence, and using jargon-laden language that is beyond your comprehension, never mind your boredom threshold.

The difference is, politeness may dictate you at least hear the person out…but with web content or physical literature, people can choose to click away or bin it.

Bad writing means you don’t communicate your message properly

When people communicate properly, we can misunderstand what they are saying – the same goes for poor grammar (a misplaced apostrophe or comma can make all the difference!) and poor structure (leave the best bit to the middle or end, and it may well get overlooked).

In addition, if you have a great idea but it’s written badly, that idea may go un-noticed, or unremarked.

Bad writing is a time waster

Bad writing adds to the time people have to spend on getting things done because of the need for constant clarification.

Business writing is a skill that is easily learned. Attend one of our business writing workshops to learn the tricks of the trade – or just make the jump and get a professional writer in!

Read this related article from The Bloom Group that includes actual corporate examples.

It was on why you need to build a list and how to automate the process.

(If you want to see the notes as well, click on the link. This will take you to SlideShare; look under the presentation for the notes.)

There is a tradition in marketing that says that you need an average of at least seven contacts with a potential customer before you get a sale. It might go something like this:

1.  The potential customer calls or emails you or signs up to your list. (That’s the first contact.)
2. You reply. (That’s the second contact.)
3. You follow up 10 days later with a phone call (etc)
4. They have some more questions so you send more information in the post
5. You email
6. You call again
7. They call you and they’re ready to buy

 Which contact number do you stop at?

 A typical seven step sales process may go:

•  Call, letter, call, letter, call, letter, call, sale, or
• Call, email, letter, call, email, letter, call, sale or
• Email, email, email, email, email, email, sale

 Nowadays, especially with the amount of advertising people are bombarded with, you’re more likely to be successful if you contact people 20 or 30 times, because they ignore three quarters of what they see: don’t take it personally; it’s often they’re just short of time. But even if you only stick to seven steps, choose now to follow up more with enquiries and customers.

 Look at your own buying habits, or pretend you’re one of your customers, and you’ll see that buying is often a process, rather than an instant decision. Say you want a new vacuum cleaner; the chances are, you don’t stroll into a store and buy the first one you see.

 Instead, you probably:

•  Decide it’s time for a new vacuum cleaner.
• Read some reviews on and offline
• Start noticing the car advertising
• Asking others their opinions/knowledge
• Call or email for some brochures and read them and/or visit a few stores
• Think about how much you want to spend and compare prices
• Make your purchase, or decide to hire the appliance

 This process applies if you’re house hunting, or wanting a new car, dinghy, horse, dinner service, plasma TV or computer. It can even apply to buying shampoo, but let’s stick to something like vacuum cleaners or cars for this example.

 So now you know how the buying process goes, can you see that keeping in touch could pay dividends? Even when they buy from you, keep up the customer service and they’ll be more likely to buy from you again in a few years’ time, or at least recommend you to other people.

 You need to start keeping in touch when the buyer puts out feelers and makes the initial contact (by phone, email, or in person). At this point they’ve given you permission to sell to them and communicate with them. Most retailers will send out the information and leave it at that: if you carry your marketing efforts further, you’ll get more rewards.

 It’s OK, you don’t need to go into ‘hard sell’ mode. All you need to do is be very helpful (not annoying or obsequious, just genuinely helpful) and focus on solving the prospects’ problems rather than on a sale per se. Ask questions, find out their needs and wants, and offer solutions. When the time comes to buy, they’ll seriously consider you. If you can’t help directly, then say so… and recommend someone else who can help them, even if it’s a direct competitor with whom you have no reciprocal agreement. The prospects will remember your good deed and tell others.

 And remember to do the same for your existing customers: keep in contact with them and see how you can help them further. This is especially important if they’re likely to be approached by your competitors or see adverts for similar products (and don’t see any of yours). Have a follow up system for your existing customers and offer them new/additional products or services at regular intervals. Mix your methods of communication and test to see which work best with whom and for what product.

It’s no good having a great USP if you don’t know much about your potential clients. Being the cheapest printer in the area might not matter if your prospects are well-off professionals: they may go for the printer who goes for a mix of quality and speed, for instance.

So, for a good marketing campaign, you need to know what your customers are like, what they like about you (this is where your USP will come in), what will be the most effective methods to bring them in, how you can contact your customers and prospects, the ways you can influence their buying, and lastly, how you can take control of all the processes involved.

In fact, ‘Think P’. Look at what’s important to you and your clients and decide which parts to concentrate on:

Positioning (For example, do you want to be known as the only lady plumber in the area, or the person to go to if the Inland Revenue is about to investigate you?)

Place (For example, do you want to sell from premises, a stall or online?)

Products (For example, what lines sell best or hardly at all? Which offer the best ROI? How do you package them? Is the image consistent?)

Price (For example, how much does it cost you to get a customer? Do they stay with you one month, one year, for always? How much are they worth to you over this period? What discounts can you offer? Will they incur any costs by moving across to you and can you offset these costs for them? Can you offer ‘free’ post and packing and include these costs in your price, yet still offer good value?)

Process (For example, do you make the whole process from seeing your product to buying it, to keeping them informed and giving follow up, consistent? Do you staff? It’s all marketing. Try the whole buying process out, from start to finish, for yourself, and get a ten-year-old to do it too.)

Promotion (For example, how do you promote yourself and your products or services, and how do you carry on promoting yourself even when you’re handing over an invoice?)

People (For example, how well are your staff trained? Do they put across a good and consistent marketing message? Do they know what to do when unusual things happen? How do they come across to the public?)

Presence (For example, it’s not only your staff that makes a difference to sales, it’s your vans, shop fronts, etc, that also matter.

Purpose (For example, what do you want your prospects to do when they land on your web page or visit your store?)

So, what are your Ps? Let your own ideas spill out – and then ask your staff, clients and prospects what they think too.

If you understand what it is that makes us respond, you can use the knowledge to develop your marketing approach. Here are a few pointers:

Your brain has three main areas. The outer cortex is known as the ‘new brain’ and is where rational thought takes place. The middle part of your brain deals with your emotions. The inner brain or ‘old brain’, shared by all sentient beings, deals with non-conscious decisions, actions and reactions. The trick is to reach your prospects’ old brains and get that to make the buying decision for them.

The old brain deals with tangibles, not intangibles, so you need to use direct language and solid proof. Thus, corporate-speak phrases such as, ‘You really can’t fail with interactive relative matrix approaches’ just won’t work! You can find plenty of examples of corporate gobbledegook and obfuscation at the plain English Campaign website. Happily, they also show you how to write in plain English too. And for a bit of light relief (though it’s scarily like real life pomposity), you can even generate your own gobbledegook at the site.

Be a bit like a dart player: get into position, focus, aim, and throw true. Once you’ve diagnosed the pain, differentiated yourself from the rest, and demonstrated the gain (benefits) to your prospect, aim and deliver the rest of the message to the old brain. Before you send that message flying on its way to their old brain, make sure it fits as many of the following criteria as possible.

Your old brain responds to ‘pattern interrupts’; in fact, it scans for them. If there’s a change in pattern in your environment, it tells your body to respond before your conscious thought kicks in. Think how often you’ve shied away from an attacker that’s leaped out at you from the shadows, only to realise it was a bush waving in the breeze. But if it had been an attacker, you would have been speeding out of there even before your outer cortex started interfering with an, ‘Eh? What? Is it a bush or an attacker? What should I do next?’ So:

This means you can use contrast to get the attention.

Brains also respond to ‘me’, so get your prospects’ attention by using their names and/or saying ‘you’ and ‘your’.

Remember we mentioned the old brain picks up on tangible ideas, not nebulous concepts? This means you need to use phrases such as, ‘We can save you over £13,671 in tax this year’ rather than stuff like, ‘We provide a flexible solution to your tax requirements.’ Note that we used a specific sum as well: it sounds more convincing than a round sum like £13,000.

Therefore, grab people’s attention with a pattern interrupt. How might you do this?

Also be aware of when people listen most to your message – that is, the beginning and the end. So when you start your conversation or pitch, don’t waffle on with uninteresting and uninformative facts like when your business was founded. Get right in with the main message, which is how you can help them; how you can find a solution to their pain. As you wrap up what you’re saying, repeat your main message. By the way, anticipation increases attention. This is because dopamine levels are raised. Try to raise anticipation levels before you start talking, especially if you’re speaking at a seminar or similar. How might you do this?

Remember, the primary purpose of all marketing strategies is to deliver a message to the consumer. The message may be an attempt to sell a specific product, to promote a specific brand, or to introduce the consumer to a company with something to sell.

We spoke in the last article about three ways to market yourself in a low cost or free way. Here are four more.

1. Set up joint ventures

Use joint venturing where you have one asset, and another business has a complementary one. You approach your clients (or theirs) jointly, and split the profits. For example, say you have a great product on how to decrease your golf handicap and you know the owners of a golf course who has a good list they can promote to, you get them to talk glowingly about your product. Each subsequent sale you make is more than you would have done otherwise, so it’s worth splitting the profits.

Say you sell cars: you could promote someone’s insurance and each time you sell the package, you get a ‘reward’ (payment). From the insurance firm’s point of view, they get another sales team that’s costing them nothing until you secure them a sale. Look out for non-competitive businesses that have the sort of customers you want to reach. You win because you’re getting a virtually overnight expansion of the amount of people you meet. They win as they get an immediate additional income stream and their customers are pleased.

What joint ventures could you do and with whom?

2. Email your ‘list’

Emailing your ‘list’ (the customers and prospects you have email addresses for and who have agreed to hear from you) at least twice a month. Split test your offers, content and types of emails. Personalised, simple emails are more read than long, convoluted newsletters. Of course, you could send out hard copy letters, but this is more time consuming, slower, and a lot more costly.

What offers could you email your list with?

And, if you don’t have a list, what steps will you take to build one?

3. Speak in public

This is a great marketing skill, so go and get training if needs be, or pick on a colleague who likes doing it and ask them to step in for you. Wherever you work, the chances are there are plenty of places crying out for speakers. So, go and give a 40 minute presentation to a group on your area of expertise: you’ll have a whole group focused on you – a marketer’s dream!

Give them a talk that will help them: for example, ‘The Ten Best Ways to Market Yourself’, or ‘Seven Things You Can Do to Ease a Stiff Back’. You can show the audience how your knowledge/product/service will help them, but keep the sales pitch to a minimum and put it at the end.

Do include a call to action, and make sure they take away your details. Say you’ll send them the seminar notes and a bonus report (or gift) if they sign up to your newsletter. DON’T go on about how long you’ve been in business, etc. The audience won’t care; they’ll want to know what you can say that will help them with their problems.

Research online, and at your local Chamber of Commerce, networking groups, library and tourist information office. Look further afield too. Somewhere out there your prospects will be meeting in groups: overweight teenagers, smokers, vintage car buffs, metal work enthusiasts, people with no clue how to fill in a tax return, rock climbers, whatever. It’s a numbers game – try 10 and get two, and keep at it. Your reputation will spread, you’ll be seen more and more as the expert to turn to (and buy from) and your diary will be full.

Which groups could you approach that would like to hear a presentation from you, and what would you speak on?

4. Improve your sales skills

(Or improve your sales team’s skills.) Yes, this is marketing: it’s marketing through talking, either face to face, over the phone, or through the written word. Read How To Master The Art Of Selling by Tom Hopkins and books by Richard Denny and Brad Sugars. Also read books by copywriting masters such as Dan Kennedy (and also apply what you learn about selling through the written word to what you say to your prospects).

Rather than leaping into trying all techniques at once, practice one skill at a time until it becomes second nature. Then work on the next skill. Most people aren’t prepared to put in the time to improve their sales skills, preferring to ‘wing it’, so if you’re willing to spend the time learning, you’ll have a great competitive advantage. There’s an initial investment, but thereafter your sales skills improvements can make a rapid improvement in your profits for no extra cost.

What step could you take this week improve your sales skills, and what will you start to sell?