Double Digit Growth

 

Did you grow at 15.2% last year? The government says inflation was 7.0% last year but did they tell you they changed how they figured the inflation rate from the Jimmy Carter years? In Jimmy Carter criteria the inflation number is 15.2% not 7%. So if you are like most people and I'll bet you are, you most likely lost ground to inflation last year. If you were using Larson & Associates you grew last year. All Industrial Accounts grew by an average of 9.7% with a low of 6.4% growth and a high of 17.2%. So even we lost some and won some.  So what can you do? Get a Multichannel Target Marketing Program from Larson & Associates. Our average multichannel customer using the 3 legged stool method got 16.1%. MultiChannel Target Marketing offers you the potential to gain sales from existing customers or clients, and new sales from new customers faster then you can imagine. Today I am showing you an short overview of what’s involved and how direct marketing works. So what ia Multichannel Target Marketing? Multichannel Target Marketing is really quite simple. It is the building of targeted relationships with your customers and prospects. It works with different marketing platforms to put you in front of your target in multiple ways to be when and where they are. It means marketing your product or service to the people that are most likely to buy what you are selling where they are looking or how they want to look.   In putting a program together I find the best place to start is to build a list of all your customers, past customers and all those you might have send proposals out to. This is only the start. This list is your launching pad to your program.   Multichannel Target Marketing can be one of the most cost-effective ways of expanding your sales. It has the great advantage of being trackable. This means (unlike some other forms of advertising) you can measure the results, know who is reading and seeing your message. Will Multichannel Target Marketing work for your business? That is what we all want to know isn't it. Is this to key to unlocking new clients for you again and again? Targeting your direct marketing. The people most likely to buy from you are: Your existing customers Your past customers Prospects you have sent proposals to but did not act, yet Your specially nitch Because we don't use a 'shotgun' kind of approach. We bring a far more focused attack of target marketing so you get a higher value of return on your marketing investment. The more accurately you can nitch your customer, the better your chance you will have in finding more just like them. Answering these questions to segment the market makes your message even more direct. It allows you to focus maximum effort on the right people. Current Customers Because existing customers are the lifeblood of your business, it's vital that you keep ahold of them. If you don't someone might take them away. Someone like me if your competition hires me before you do. You know how difficult it is to lure a loyal customer away from a competitor - the same should apply to you and your customers. So, your first plan of attack should be directed at keeping your current customers happy.    Keep in touch at least once every 90 days. Depending on the life cycle of your product or service 15 or 30 days might even better. People like to feel special and individual. Show them that you know who they are. Tell them what is new and how they can best benefit from your services or products. If you don’t tell them, who will? I'll say it again incase you missed it, maybe I will tell them if your competition hires me before you do. It is your choice. Keep them informed about what is happening in your business. Offer them a special preview of your new product lines or services. Send updates of new products or services, details of discount offers ONLY for regular existing customers, reminders of your next appointment with them or a list of products when you know they will be buying based on past history. For example, a florist might send a product list before Mother's Day or Valentine's Day or their anniversary. If you have read Harvey MacKay;'s Swim With The Sharks you should already have this information. Right?  Think up fresh marketing ideas that no one else uses. Need ideas, ask me. That is what I do for a living. Side note ask about our "Pick My Brain" program if you need help here. Change the look of your email. Start a monthly newsletter. Let me have Janice or Elizabeth make a monthly phone call to all your accounts. But don't you ever sit your hands crying about how bad business is. Past Customers and Prospects sitting on a proposal Do you have any of these guys? Come on we all do. Open up your CRM and let me get to work. It is like one day I was making calls for a printing company and they turned over their past customer list to me. Talk about a horror story, but I called and found out that 1 out of every 14 calls were not so bad. I even talked to a past customer who went to another shop. They had gone through one of those jobs from hell. You know the kind that what ever they did would not work. They even did a complete press wash on a full sized web (you printers know that that costs) and it still did not come out right. Well I called and listened and listened, using my best Hank Trisler method of empathy got them back in the bidding process.  Same hold true for proposals sent out. There could be any number of reasons why it did not work out. Money? New management? Work flow? Buying a new plant? There is only one way to keep your hat in the ring and that is to keep in contact.  Larson & Associates can do that without you needing to use your valuable time on what might be a fishing expedition. New Customers For most of you this is what you come to a company like mine. You want more business! Do your homework first! As with any marketing exercise, you need to do your homework first. Start by figuring out who are you best potential customers. Nitch yourself and then narrow it down a little father. The more work you put in here to find the best fit for your company the easier it is for me to get you the kind of results you dreamed of. Next, set a budget for your direct marketing campaign as it all things there is a cost. Know it upfront before it bites you in the butt.  Then work through the rest of the start up questions:   What am you going to offer them? Do you have the stock/capacity on hand to meet possible demand and fulfill orders efficiently? You should also complete a break-even analysis to work out what increase in sales is needed to recover the cost of your direct marketing campaign and the overall cost of a new customer. And yes there is a cost for new customers, do you know what yours is. You! Yes You! Every business, large or small, can use targeted multichannel marketing. Quality databases and lists are the key to effective nitch marketing. It is less expensive and more efficient to collect names yourself or let us do it for you, but you can also rent or buy lists (I have done for clients but but the ROI does go down.) Doing it the slow way will take longer and it is better and stronger but if you need a super quick start it is an option or maybe you can work in alliance with other businesses that have good databases that blend with yours.  If you don't call me I can not help you so pick up the phone and call 847-991-1294. I'm waiting for you. We Make Good Businesses Great and Great Businesses Even Better  Larson & Associates 3475 Steeplechase Way    Suite 101  Grayslake IL 60030 847-991-2194

You Really Want To Pay Me $2019

This Is About the 2019 Marketing Plan That Can Net You 100% ROI!  If you are a small to mid-sized company and happy with the results you are getting out of your current marketing campaign, great! But if you're like 9 of 10 businesses, doing what I call fluff and puff marketing or branding and not highly targeted direct response marketing, keep reading. For every $1.00 you are spending on marketing if you are not getting back back 100% to 2000% (did I really say 2000%?) back from your marketing you really need to be using us. If I were to sit down with you over a nice hot cup of coffee and ask you where your customers come from or what is the cost of each new customer, and how did you get them, could you tell me? Was it an email, a direct mail piece or social media or that hard working sales person walking door to door passing out business cards? The whole idea came about at Jim Hugh's One More Customer Networking event over in Carpentersville IL. He has one up in Island Lake IL but this knock on the side of my head happened at the one in Carpentersville. I have been a la cartingmy services like every other marketing company and feeling I could be serving my customers much better if I could just roll all the key elements all into one program so a person or company could afford what actually works from list procurementto direct mail to content writing to email blasts to teleprospecting to blogging. I did that and you get everything for just $2019 a month.  So, while the podcast rolled on I spread out my napkin, a technique I learned at Ricardo's (all you Chicago Advertising People should remember Ricardo's the place on Rush Street that it's outdoor tables overlooked a seedy part of the Near North Side) and wrote out this entire plan on one little white napkin. Really I worked out a million dollar marketing plan on a napkin. I have found that if a plan is larger than a napkin it is too complicated to put into action and nothing ends up happening.  The 11 Rules For 2019 1. You will only market to the best kind of customers for your business! 2. Each marketing piece will have a call to action! 3. There will always be a reason to buy NOW! 4. There will be clear, simple instructions. 5. Everything. Every dollar will be tracked, analyzed, measured and be held accountable. 6. If branding happens it will not be at the expense of the Direct Response message. 7. There will be follow-up, follow-up and more follow-up. 8. There will be a strong call to action in all copy. 9. It might look a little like mail order advertising. 10. Results Rule (say that 100 times!) 11. Good design takes a back seat to copy that sells!   So what are you waiting for? Really? Vincent and I are sitting drinking a cup of coffee waiting to manage your plan like a conductor in front of an orchestra Bruce and Rob are looking over compiled lists, ready to do a list sort for your ideal customer. Vicky is sipping tea (yes I have a tea drinker in the company can you believe that?) ready to turn copy into pointed message of action. Elizabeth, Janice, Connie and Brenda, those darlings of the phone lines, all have open time to be teleprospecting for you. There is just 1 problem We are only taking on 16 of these projects when they are taken they are gone!And we will not compete against ourselves so in any given market area we will not, I repeat we WILL NOT take on competing companies. So call right now before your competition does. Just phone 847-991-1294 or email to howard@larsonassociates.ws NOW and just say 2019.    Larson & Associates Making Good Companies Great and Great Companies Even Better

A Better Way To Get Real Sales Leads

Generate Real Sales Leads

Direct Mail

Email Marketing

Teleprospecting

The key to successfully implementing any Lead Generation system is to discover the balance between too much and too little in other words quantity vs. quality. Prospects will only schedule a “are we a fit” call very judicially. Finding that elusive ‘sweet spot’ where the planets align and the angels sing is challenging at best, screwing it up is easy, Knowing some of the basics is instrumental in understanding which way to go with any marketing campaign decisions.  Larson & Associates offers valuable advice and powerful assistance in understanding and implementing your important marketing strategies, building your brand and making success your new normal!

Generating real sales leads is essential in developing a market base for your product or service. Today we explore three tried & true methods for building the up sale and marketing your success; the venerable ‘go-to’ direct mail, its digital cousins target email marketing or email blast and teleprospecting

Direct mail encompasses a wide variety of marketing materials, including brochures, catalogs, postcards, newsletters and sales letters. Major corporations know that direct-mail advertising is one of the most effective and profitable ways to reach out to new and existing clients.

What's the advantage? Unlike other forms of advertising, in which you're never sure just who's getting your message, direct mail lets you communicate one-on-one with your target audience. That allows you to control who receives your message, when it's delivered, what's in the envelope and how many people you reach.
Email marketing is the targeting of consumers through electronic mail (email). Often associated with data mining, email marketing can be used to impact consumers in a variety of ways. In general, email marketing is a more evolved, digital form of traditional direct mail marketing. In a typical email marketing scenario, an organization builds an email list to reach or inform established and prospective customers. An email list may be complemented by a marketing database that allows for customization, data mining, precise targeting or other purposes. However, ubiquitous and unsolicited email, also known as spam, has made it difficult for ethical email marketers. Most email and Internet service providers (ISP) have significant filters to block spam, so getting legitimate messages across is easier said than done. Given this, email marketing has evolved into a specialized niche in digital marketing.
Teleprospecting is a complex function which uses a business-to-business selling practice. The point of the teleprospector’s job is to qualify a potential opportunity. In layman’s terms, teleprospectors, or inside sales reps, determine if a company is the right fit for their product.
Ideally, teleprospectors know who to call because marketing has strategically amassed a targeted list of business who potentially want or need the product being sold. Teleprospecting consists of some cold calling, but mostly warm calling, where the prospect already expects a call and is open for discussion. An effective call process includes multiple “touches” to key decision-makers and strategic assessment of the target businesses. It also usually includes setting  up  a meeting or call with an outside sales executive and a key decision maker for later in the week, or later in the year, to circle back at a more appropriate time in their buying cycle.
Despite the misleading name, teleprospectors aren’t only using the telephone; they’re also using email and in some cases direct mail to drive prospects to interact before engaging them in a telephone call.
Now that we can begin to appreciate the inner workings of these strategic marketing elements there are a few things to consider about your potential clients & customers list before you begin…

In any raw, unfiltered list of potential company prospects, on average, at least…

• 3 are actively looking for a solution to the problem that you can solve

• 7 are willing to hear about what you have to offer to reduce their ‘pain’

• 30 have no idea if your product or services is relevant to their business

• 30 are not aware that they may even have a need for your product or services.
At Larson & Associates, we cannot predict guaranteed trends, deal in ‘sure-fire’ methodologies or peddle winning insider tricks to tell you what will and will not work 100% of the time. No one can. What we can tell you is this, that statistically when you hit people with your message in multiple formats, at multiple times in quick, consistent succession that you will increase your odds of success and lower your risk of ever crossing over the line and becoming a pest and earning a place on the ‘no-call list’.
So the question now is, are you looking for tools that just create lead activity? Or are you in the market for a system that works for you, building leads and generating possibilities?
At Larson & Associates, we offer two primary platforms for building that system. Two options for creating real sales leads utilizing the three methodologies whose effectiveness speaks for themselves.
These two lead generation platforms are a place to begin or to build upon established successes:

Platform Plan APlan A combines the basic effectiveness of digital direct email marketing and the comprehensive coverage and immediacy of telemarketing. It’s a quick and effective basic solution. When you need good results and you need them now this plan can provide 4 times the results in lead generation that cold-call alone.

Platform Plan BPlan B combines the basic effectiveness of email marketing and the immediacy of telemarketing and encompasses the personalized global reach of the venerable marketing veteran of direct mailing. When you’re after the best results and looking for long-term, comprehensive solutions then the established reliability of the trifecta of marketing power is your call. Providing upwards of 15 times, or close to 50%, of all possible successful ‘hits’ in a given prospect list.
Using fundamental approaches of marketing principles these plans can help you capitalize on our experience and years of insight. With all of the moving parts involved in modern marketing strategies lead generation is a basic yet vital element of market success.
Like the Swiss watchmaker, Larson & Associates assembles the finest parts of your business with the most effective and functional elements of marketing principle to keep your business running smoothly and on time.
If you want to find out how we can do this for you today, contact or call us at 847-991-1294