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The Most Amazing Tool for Marketing Your Small Business… Ever (Grael’s book entry 2)

June 16, 2010 by Grael Norton, Acquisitions Manager

Note: this is the second post in Grael's book-writing series. For a quick explanation about what this series is all about, please visit this post.

So of course, only one week in and already I'm behind (my last writing session should have been on Friday.) I'll just have to double-up sessions this week.

First, possible revised title: The Most Amazing Tool in the World for Marketing Your Small Business… Ever: The One Marketing Tool You Can Use to Find Great Leads, Create "Category-of-One" Positioning, Close More Deals, & Skyrocket Your Sales.

I like that it gets longer and longer with each revision. It'll drive some unfortunate cover designer crazy!

Now it's time to start fleshing out the Table of Contents:

1. The Cruel Reality About Owning a Small Business Today

a. The dream of owning your very own small business

b. The dream becomes reality. Reality is a nightmare.

- owning a small business is really, really tough

- all the different activities small business owners must do on a day-to-day basis

- 90% of new businesses fail within 5 years (check stat and cite)

2. Your #1 Job as a Small Business Owner

a. business owners must build systems in all areas of their businesses (see Michael Gerber's The eMyth.)

b. your #1 job is sales: bringing new business (customers) in through the door and selling more to existing customers

- you accomplish this via marketing

c. while most businesses have some systems in place, many don't have a marketing system

- you need a marketing system

3. Using Media to Market Your Small Business

- definition of media

a. An introduction to information-based marketing

benefits include:

- position yourself as the expert (people want to do business with experts)

- set buying criteria for your prospects

- better informed customers buy more

- build relationship with leads, prospects, customers

- raise your prices

b. direct-response information-based marketing

- step-by-step marketing (education) process

- each step leads logically to each next step, and ONLY that particular next step

4. How to Build a Multimedia Marketing System for Your Small Business

a. the marketing funnel or system

- lead generation (speaking, articles, blog, website, social media)

- what is the purpose of lead generation? leads "raise their hands" by requesting information

- warming the lead and converting to prospect (Infusionsoft)

- closing the sale and converting to customer (salesletter, live call)

5. Different Kinds of Media to Use in Your Marketing System

a. print media (salesletters, brochures, business cards)

b. electronic media (blogs, websites, video, podcasts)

6. The Very Best Media of Them All

a. the humble book: hundreds of years old

b. readers are extremely valuable customers

c. benefits of a book vs. other media

- attention span

- expert status

- physical thing that stays on the shelf

7. How the Heck Do I Get it Done?

a. leveraging time

b. "time-saving technology" is frequently a huge time-waster

c. block out time, then stick to the schedule

d. work on multiple projects at once

e. maybe write it on the blog?

f. start working on a marketing system TODAY

There... that's a great start to the TOC. I'll pick this up again on Friday!

Tags: writing, business, graels book, media
Filed Under: Marketing, Writing,

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