By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing
Some of the most important parts of marketing are the most prosaic. They are boring and uninteresting. Yet they are key to attracting to clients on a consistent basis.
I'm talking about "Marketing Process Engineering."
Not something you hear a lot about in marketing your services! But if you learn how to design, fine-tune and master your marketing processes, you're way ahead of almost everyone else.
A process is simply a series of steps carried out in an organized way. A process is a way to make something work consistently and predictably. A process is all about how-tos.
A process is a lot like a recipe.
Once you know the basic principles of cooking, you can cook just about anything with good results if you follow a recipe: Assemble the ingredients, mix in a certain way, cook for a certain time at a certain temperature and voila, you have beef stroganoff!
In marketing it's not much different. Once you know the basic principles of marketing, you can implement almost any marketing strategy if you follow a process: Assemble certain materials, deliver marketing messages in a certain way and order, communicate to your prospects and voila you have new clients!
I'm currently working on teaching the marketing plan process to both those in the Action Plan Marketing Club and the Marketing Mastery Program, so let me outline a process for you today.
The Speaking Marketing Process
This is one of my favorite marketing processes because it works so well to convert prospective clients into paying clients. I've used variations on this process to attract hundreds of clients and customers over the years.
The great news is that this process works just as well now as it did years ago. In other words, it's a time-tested system that will work for you as well, if you take the time to learn and apply it.
This is a marketing process to get speaking engagements in professional organizations.
1. Determine the talk you will give. Make sure you have a benefit- oriented title. "How to Manage Better" won't get you much attention, but an outcome-based title like this will: "Ten Strategies for Doubling the Productivity of Your Team."
2. Assemble your speaking package. These days you can put your materials together as a pdf document, but printed materials in a folder still work. You need these five items:
a) A cover letter that gives an overview of your talk and why you think it would be well-received by the organization.
b) A write-up of the talk that addresses both the challenges and your solutions: Challenge: Lack of productivity, Solution: New and effective approaches to increasing productivity.
c) A biographical sketch that demonstrates your experience, accomplishments and background in a way that proves you're the right person to give this talk.
d) A list of places you've spoken (if you have such a list). If you don't, don't worry about it; before long, the list will grow.
e) Some quotes from people who have attended your talks. Get quotes that praise you for sharing ideas that made a real difference to them.
3. Contact organizations. You must do this by phone. Rarely does email work (unless it's a follow-up to a request). Never mail or email your speaking package to an organization without knowing who will receive it.
4. Pitch your talk to the right person. You don't need hype, just a clear, benefit-oriented message. "I give talks on management to business associations and I've prepared a talk called, "Ten Strategies for Doubling the Productivity of Your Team." It's designed for the members of organizations like yours.
5. Send out your materials. You usually won't get an immediate yes, but if the talk sounds good to them, they'll typically ask you to send your materials. Send it off and then follow up in a few days to see if they have any questions. This simple 4-step process will get a lot of talks booked.
There's a lot more to this process, but I just remembered a teleclass recording I made a few weeks ago that covers this subject in even more detail. I'd like to give you a free copy.
Free Recording on The Speaking Marketing Process
Get this free recording: "Jump Start Your Business in 60 Days." This is an interview that Andy O'Bryan did with me. Andy asks me one question: "If you just had 60 days to get your business off the ground, what is the marketing approach you'd take?"
I not only answered the question, but gave a comprehensive overview of the total speaking marketing process, showing how to integrate a specific marketing strategy into the complete game of marketing. You can get it here now:
www.actionplan.com/tc_jumpstart.html
The More Clients Bottom Line: Turn every marketing strategy into a detailed step-by-step process. Once everything is in place and you've done it a few times, you'll find it relatively easy to roll it out anytime you want to generate more business. The struggle and effort of marketing disappears and is replaced by results.
What processes work best for you in marketing your services? Please share on the More Clients Blog. Just click on the Comments link.
Robert
Enjoyed the MP3 - very interesting. One question - what rationale can I give for not putting the free report etc that you recommend, on our website with open access? It so expected that reports will be publicly accessible.
cheers
Osbert
Posted by: Osbert Lancaster | May 13, 2009 at 06:32 AM