One thing I see that is often missing from people’s marketing materials is a clear call to action.

I am really going to elaborate on this one because it could mean the difference between your revenue increasing or not.

There are several strategies we use to create a clear call to action:

• Give a deadline: We’ve all received some sort of promotional material that has a deadline for ordering. The offer could end on that date. Or you could use the deadline in conjunction with an upgrade or free gift. That way, your potential affluent customers know they only have a limited time to respond and they won’t fall victim to the “I’ll do it later” syndrome.
• Advice of a price increase: People want to get in on a good deal. If your price is going up on a specific date, let your affluent customers know. They’ll want to buy before your product’s price increases.
• Offer a Free Gift: Nothing attracts new customers like free gifts. The affluent LOVE a good deal.  As an added incentive for ordering, offer your free gift to the first 100 or 1,000 people that respond.
• Offer an upgrade: One simple line can boost your sales. “Order within 10 days and we’ll upgrade you to the deluxe model.”
• Free products with purchase: You’ve seen this technique used with computer sales – “Buy a computer and receive a free printer”. This works with a whole range of products, but be sure to include a date on your offer. This politely urges people to take advantage of your offer before time runs out.

No matter how you approach your own call to action, be sure to include action phrases:

Call Now. Toll-Free, 24 Hours a Day. Mail this coupon today in the postage-paid envelope. Fax your response card.

Be sure to avoid passive phrases like: “You know how to reach us. Call when you’re ready to order.”

Why should you bother to establish a niche market? Because of the great advantage of being alone there, other small businesses may not be aware of your particular niche market, and large businesses won’t want to bother with it.

Here are the Best Characteristics of an Ideal Niche with Affluent Clients:

• Personal interest in topics within the niche. You enjoy reading, learning and writing about these topics.
• Networking foundation. You are already active in several networking groups or forums within the niche or can easily become networked.
• Moderate to high search volume. The niche has a moderate to high search volume, meaning that people actually do search for more information on the topic.
• Potential for Monetization. You want to make sure that people will pay you for the information.

I speak all over the country on a regular basis.  It is one of the major methods I use to build my list.  At the end of a show I will end up with hundreds of business cards stuffed in my briefcase from people who asked to subscribe to my newsletter. Another way I get a ton of contacts is through networking. When I take a person’s card, I ask if it is okay if I add him, or her, to my list to contact. If they say “no,” I write a big NO on the back of their card.

Below is the simple process I use to get my contacts into my system immediately when I am at an event. In addition, every Friday I will send any other contacts that I’ve accumulated over the week to my assistant.

Step 1: I bring an envelope to the event, with the event name and date written on the exterior.

Step 2: I bring a FedEx envelope with the shipping label pre-addressed to my assistant, put the event envelope in the mailer, and mail it.

Step 3: My assistant, who has my card scanner, proceeds to scan the cards into the system.

Step 4: She then exports the cards to a CSV file and imports them into three databases which takes about 5 minutes each: my Primary Contact Manager (Outlook), my Shopping Cart (oneshoppingcart.com) and my Email Newsletter (iContact.com).

Step 5: She also emails the CSV file to my sales team so they can send a welcome email to the contact and offer him or her a complimentary 30-minute strategy session and let them know about upcoming events.

Step 6: My sales team and I keep in regular contact with our list by offering them valuable information, like free teleclasses, autoresponder e-courses, low cost resources, articles and hot news.

If you do not have an assistant, I highly recommend that you plan to do this activity once a week at a minimum.  This is not something you want to fall behind on, because not only will you be losing hot prospects, but you might also end up in overwhelm.

My strategies for marketing make it SO easy to work with your IDEAL clients and the time and money you spend getting them and keeping them is way less, but typically I reserve this information for my Elite Clients only.  Well, this is it….today is THE day. I’m so excited to announce that I’m finally ready to share it all with you!

Discover How My Clients Implement My Lucrative System for Less Expensive Marketing that Leads to Your IDEAL Clients Faster and Easier.

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COMPLIMENTARY TeleCall
Thursday, June 24th 4 PM PST / 7 PM EST

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• The #1 way to CREATE programs and products AFFLUENT CLIENTS (your IDEAL clients) DESIRE without wasting precious time and hard-earned money in the process. (And it is NOT what you think!)
• The top 3 reasons why positioning yourself as an EXPERT is the way to earn a ton of money.
• The #1 strategy to convince affluent clients to buy from you and spend more money in the process. (Psst — one of my clients uses this easy method and adds more than $65,000 a year to her bottom line.)
• My secret weapon on how to raise your rates to a premium level–one strategy that is so simple…yet so underutilized.
• How to transform your affluent clients into a loyal pack of raving fans that tell ALL their wealthy friends about your business!!!

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22% of U.S. households have more than 55% of all earned income. This means that more than half of the country’s income is concentrated in one of five households.  The affluent have the money and they are willing to spend it…even in this cautious economy.

If the potential dollars have not convinced you, here are 5 more reasons why you MUST market your services upwards towards this lucrative audience:

1. Marketing To The Affluent Requires Less Energy and Less Effort. If you had the choice between selling to one person to make $10,000 or selling to ten people to make $10,000 which would you choose?
2. The Affluent Are Not Affected By Economic Conditions. Typically, the affluent have enough diversification in their wealth that a blip in the economy is just that and doesn’t significantly affect their accumulated fortune.
3. The Affluent Shop on Value. This means they will pay the asking price even if it’s 100% more expensive than the competition IF they perceive added value.
4. The Affluent Do Not “Nickel & Dime” You. If time and again, you over-deliver on expectations and provide superior service, the affluent are convinced of your value and won’t ask and ask about each charge in your service agreement.
5. The Affluent Are Exceedingly Loyal. Once the affluent consumer makes his or her choice and as long as you continue to deliver value and exceptional customer service, they are your client for the long term.

Affluent clients will help you differentiate your business through their perceptions and their grapevine of referrals and acts opinion-sharing. If you are able to communicate your difference effectively, and then fulfill your promise, you can shape your wealthy client’s views of you within your marketplace (product category).

Here are the benefits of a well defined differentiation:

• You will become a client magnet attracting affluent clients to you instead of you hunting them down.
• You will spend significantly less time and money marketing.
• You will reduce your sales cycle because you will stand out at the clear winner.
• You will increase your revenues.
• You will get to choose the clients you work with.

The most effective way to gain a thorough understanding of your ideal affluent clients and to get at the insights that really make them tick is through Market Research. Although the term Market Research often conjures up big dollar signs in most business people’s minds, there are many ways to justify the minimal implementation expense with the maximum knowledge you gain as a result.  Let’s look at the important reasons why Market Research helps you hit your mark:

Why is Market Research CRITICAL?

Market research is an essential part of any business that wants to offer products or services that are focused and well targeted. Market research is the study of groups of people that you would like to sell your products or services to.  Researching your ideal target market can provide you with sound and objective data.

Why You Must Complete Your Marketing Research:

1. You can’t determine what your potential customers want unless you first know who they are
2. Once you know the type of product that your potential customers want and need, then you have to determine who else is selling similar products and how each competitor is perceived in the market place
3. There’s nothing worse than spending time and money developing and marketing a product, just to learn too late that no one wants to buy it

Without a clear understanding of your ideal affluent clients, you are doomed to lack any real authenticity to incent action.  Take the time to conduct market research and learn everything you don’t know before getting started

The concept of marketing calls for an understanding of customers and the intent to satisfy their needs better than the competition. But different customers have different needs, and rarely is it possible to satisfy all customers by treating them alike. Two types of marketing approaches exist from which you must choose in determining how to best support your business:  mass marketing and target marketing.  By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses between the two types of marketing methods, we can better understand the value of each:

Mass marketing refers to treatment of the market as a homogeneous group and offering the same marketing mix to all customers. Mass marketing allows economies of scale to be realized through mass production, mass distribution, and mass communication. The drawback of mass marketing is that customer needs and preferences differ, and the same offering is unlikely to be viewed as optimal by all customers. If firms ignore their differing customer needs, another firm will likely enter the market with a product that serves a specific group, and the incumbent firms will lose those customers.

Target marketing on the other hand, recognizes the diversity of customers and does not try to please all of them with the same offering. In marketing to the affluent, we use a target marketing approach. The first step in target marketing is to identify different market segments and their needs.

Ask any successful business owner and they will tell you that having multiple streams of income is essential to create a thriving business.  Multiple streams of income means your business has more than one way to make money.

One of the things I teach is called the “Goldilocks Product Strategy.” This means you have clients in three levels of service: small, medium and large.  As a marketing to the affluent coach, I am a big fan of having a Premium Priced service offering.  However, if all you sell is high-priced services, some individuals who can’t afford you at this time may be ruled out.  Mercedes introduced the “C” class for exactly this reason… to get their clients comfortable with the luxury because ultimately most upgrade to a higher-end vehicle.  After all, clients need to trust you and trust that they are getting a good deal for their money. If you offer products or lower-priced services, you’re offering the chance to “try you out” before investing several thousand dollars.

Additionally, the more income streams you have, the less devastating it would be to lose one. Businesses without multiple streams of income took a big hit in the 2009 economy transition.  What would happen if you lost your biggest client? Or a couple big clients at the same time? Eventually you’ll find other clients to make up the difference, but it could cost you dearly in the meantime. With the diversity of multiple income streams, a dip in one stream of income is not so scary when you still have money coming in from other sources.

Using multiple streams of income is the science of getting much more done with the same, or less, effort.

First impressions need to convey the image you have chosen and should be re-enforced by all of your company’s actions. By presenting a crisp, clean business card out of a holder you create a better image than digging around for a bent or dirty card. If visitors often come to your business premises then an instant image is created by exterior signs, interior design, staff clothing and company cars. If you align these aspects accurately with your brand it can make a real difference.  Literally, down to the voicemail we choose for our messages is creating the customers experience we deliver with our brand.
The most important thing is to make sure you are consistent because a clear image takes time to build. If you keep changing the appearance of your brand it will confuse customers. If it is done correctly then any small business can create a powerful brand image and attract new customers with little extra cost.
Almost every business has a business name, from the smallest market trader to the largest multi-national corporation. Only a minority of those businesses however, have what could be classed as a brand.
Your brand image should be trying to meet your affluent target customer’s expectations, needs and aspirations, it is important to try and reflect exactly what they are looking for.