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The Four Step Marketing Plan for Small Business By Tim Birnie CEO – Birnie Marketing Solutions

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The Problem – Too Many Options & Too Few Solutions

If you’ve been searching the internet for the answer to business growth and are completely confused by conflicting information, you are certainly not alone. Many of our clients call us after unsuccessfully searching for a solution to growing revenues. With so many options available and so little time and energy to learn all the strategies, many companies, both big and small, opt to do NOTHING! What a shame! In this short ebook, my goal is to make things clear for you! I want to tell you exactly what works. Not only have we seen growth in our agency, but in countless other clients’ businesses as well. Obviously, you’re probably curious about our methods. Don’t worry, in this EBook, we will outline each of the steps in the Four Step Marketing Method in detail.

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Step 1 – Say the RIGHT Thing with Your Unique Selling Point Why should anyone do business with your company versus your competition? Stop and think about it for just a second. If you can't come up with how you’re better than the “other guy”, then you may have a weak Unique Selling Point or USP! The goal of this first step is to clearly identify the unique angle in your business and differentiate why any customer should buy from you, versus the competition regardless of price. If you’re a business owner, be prepared to get uncomfortable. YOUR UNIQUE SELLING POINT SHOULD SHOCK AND AWE ME SO THAT I WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU! It is your compelling message or USP! The sad truth is that 99% of business owners don’t have a Unique Selling Point.

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Dialing in Your USP So how do you identify your marketing message or USP’s? Here are a few things you should be doing already to understand your customers and prospects. a. Profiling Your Ideal Customers b. Surveying Prospects c. Surveying Customers d. Researching Competitors USPs e. Industry Research Yes, it sounds simple enough, but my guess is that you’re probably not profiling your ideal customers. I’d also guess that you’ve not surveyed prospects or your valuable customers. You may know what’s going on in the industry, but who are the top players? Why are they winning? What are they doing differently?

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A Winning Marketing Message Blankets Your Materials

I won’t kid you. Companies with amazing marketing messages or USPs have gone through the painful process of innovating. They are leaders and entrepreneurs who think outside the box. They have worked tirelessly to improve their inside reality. Rather than tell prospects about how NICE they are or how long they’ve been in business, they tell the customers exactly what they want to hear! Companies with amazing USPs know what their customers want because they survey them. They ask themselves what they could do better every day. It is sort of like what your mom used to say to you when you were little. “If you don’t have anything good to say, then don’t say anything!”

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The truth is that if you aren’t willing to listen to your customers, then you will never have anything good to say. One part of growing revenues is simply GIVING CUSTOMERS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT! Find out what your customers care about the most and then delivery it! That’s your USP! It goes into every aspect of your marketing and allows you to create a tipping point where customers choose your brand over the competition because of WHAT YOU GIVE THEM! After going through the USP stage, you should have a clear understanding of your prospects and customers’ wants and needs. There should be complete clarity of the MESSAGE you are delivering to your clients. This is your unique selling point and is the most critical point in marketing.

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Having an amazing USP doesn’t have to be expensive either. Sometimes we find companies who have great systems and services in place for their customers. The problem is that they never share it with prospective customers. When a company decides to build an amazing USP, they start by finding out what their customers want. Slowly and surely, the business can constantly improve their USP over time by innovating.

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Step Two – Generate Leads Using Your Platforms and Offers I’ll start off by telling you that 99% of business owners I meet with stink at building a database! They could have 10,000 past customers, but rarely reach out to them. To make matters worse, 99% of our new customers have zero understanding of generating leads for their business. Many are driven by high pressures sales, cold calling, and helping only buyers who are ready to buy today.

YES, THERE IS A BETTER WAY The primary goal of stage two is identifying where you can generate leads and what you can give away to make them want to learn more. We call the where – Platforms! We call the what – Offers!

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Platforms: Your Phone Your Website Your Showroom

Offers: Free Ebooks Free DVD/Books Free Informational Emails Free Trials

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How it works If you’re reading this e-book, then chances are good you downloaded it from our website. The website is the platform which presented the Ebook as an offer. We gave you an offer on our website platform today. Let me ask you a quick question. How often does your company answer phone calls from prospects without ever offering them something for FREE? My guess is that people come into contact with your business every day by calling you, visiting your website, and visiting your showroom or office without anyone ever asking them if they want something for FREE! But Tim, people don’t want to be bothered, do they? You’re reading this ebook, aren’t you? If the offer is good and it seems valuable, your prospects, who have not decided to buy yet, will request the offer to learn more. That’s when the MAGIC happens!

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The Database Explodes with Growth You see, when you give away something for FREE, you’re asking the prospect for something very small in return. Yes, you’re asking them for their contact details. Perhaps even their address if you’re mailing a DVD or brochure. Maybe, you’re just asking for the email address for an ebook. The prospect contact details will instantly go into the database. The database will then be assigned the job to follow-up with your prospects using marketing automation. Take a look at the chart below again. See how Platforms & Offers flow to Marketing automation. That’s right, you generate leads and then follow up automatically. Every time you follow-up, you hit the prospect with your Unique Selling Points, explaining clearly why you’re better!

Leads & Automation Working Together

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In other words, once we acquire the lead, we will put them into a system so that we nurture the lead until they are ready to buy. We’ll discuss marketing automation shortly, but the goal of the Platforms & Offers step is to figure out how we can generate leads everywhere for your business and get them into a database. The database system, which will cover in a few minutes, will follow up automatically with your Unique Selling Points or marketing message.

Platforms and Offers Critical Points a. You clearly identify where you can give away FREE Offers - PLATFORMS b. You clearly identify what you can give away to generate leads - OFFERS c. You measure how people respond to your offers and improve

Step Three – Measure and Leverage the Marketing Arsenal

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Step three is probably the most exciting step to talk about for most businesses, and rightly so! When companies have a strong USP (step 1) and have baited their Platforms with Offers, there is an explosion of growth when you turn on the marketing. It is like pouring gas on a lit fire! Step three’s goal is measuring your marketing efforts to determine what works. Our philosophy is that most businesses overspend with marketing because they don’t track anything. We believe you don’t need to build a bigger brand or try to “get your name out there” to grow sales. We believe in measurable marketing. Keep what works and dump what doesn’t. The marketing arsenal drives sales, but it also drives leads into the database.

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But What is the Marketing Arsenal? Here is a short list of some of the marketing methods we use for our clients at Birnie Marketing Solutions. Granted, every situation is different and we’ll probably suggest a few others for your business. • Search Engine Optimization • Social Media Optimization • Video Marketing • Pay Per Click Marketing • Content Marketing • Referral Marketing • Affiliate Program Integration • Podcasting

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• SMS or Text Message Campaigns • Mobile Apps • Direct Mail Marketing • Radio & TV Marketing • Magazine or Print Marketing You might be feeling a little overwhelmed at this point. Don’t worry. We realize that some marketing arsenal weapons won’t be a good fit for your business. Because every situation is different, we’ll only suggest concepts proven to work in your industry. Remember, your marketing arsenal weapons should be measured and if we’re handling your campaign, we’ll kill any marketing idea if it doesn’t grow sales! Please keep in mind that every business is different and has a different marketing budget. Our goal is to help you grow sales by cutting marketing that doesn’t work and applying that capital to what does work!

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Filling Up the Database & Driving Sales Unleashing the marketing arsenal is FUN! As a business owner, it is exciting to come into the office and feel the positive morale because your salespeople have more leads than they can call in a single day! It is also a powerful feeling to be able to tell the salesman from the Yellow Pages that he’s fired because the thousands spent with his marketing only generated 10 sales last year and the money could be better used somewhere else. Imagine being able to tell him this because you NOW MEASURE your marketing and can see what works.

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Can Birnie Marketing Solutions Help Me without Four Step Marketing? Yes, we can help you improve your marketing campaigns by simply starting to measure your marketing. Most of our new clients start off here by hiring us to do SEO, Social Media, or integrate a new website. While they are happy with the growth their receiving, the truth is that they are NOT even cracking the surface unless they implement the complete process. In other words, if a company has an amazing marketing message (Step 1 - USP), generates leads everywhere (Step 2 – Platforms & Offers), and then measures and leverages their marketing dollars (Step 3 – The Marketing Arsenal), then they have a complete system in place for marketing. While some clients implement only measurable marketing, clients who’ve experienced triple-digit growth, use the complete Four Step Marketing Process. You’ll see why as we dig into step number 4.

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Step 4 – Automate Your Follow-up with Marketing Automation If you remember back in step number two (Platforms & Offers), I shared with you how all of the people who take you up on your free offer go into the database. Well, we’re not going to just leave them there! We’re going to follow-up with our USP over and over again with our automation campaign. We’re going to nurture the relationship until they are ready to buy. Don’t get bogged down by the word database. Think of it as online software that automatically follows up with prospects as part of a system. There are lots of different applications that do this, but for the sake of simplicity, we call it marketing automation. It is the delivery mechanism to send the emails, letters, postcards, SMS messages, and even prerecorded phone messages.

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What Can Marketing Automation Do for Your Business? 1. Systemize the Follow-up for all prospects with your USP 2. Systemize your customer follow-up so they become customers for life Yes, we’re going to follow up with CUSTOMERS TOO! The Marketing Automation Process The process is fairly simple to understand. Prospects wanting your offer will go into your database and receive sequential follow-up until they become customers. Your business shares your Unique Selling Points over and over again.

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When Prospects Become Customers Once the prospects become customers, they should receive customer follow-up. We no longer tell them why we’re better. Instead, we thank them for their business and continue to build the relationship so they are customers for life! Remember, the best customer is the one you already have!

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Reviewing the Four Step Marketing Process Step One – Say the Right Thing with Your Unique Selling Point - You have clarity on your ideal customer profile and know exactly what prospects and customers want. You’re innovating so that you can deliver! Your USP is strong and it separates you from the competition. You have clarity on your marketing message.

Step Two – Generate Leads Using Platforms & Offers - You will have clarity on your marketing platforms and free offers. You’ve booby-trapped your platforms in search for prospects that are not ready to buy today. All prospects go into the database and are queued for follow-up communication.

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Step Three – Measure and Leverage the Marketing Arsenal - You have clarity on marketing weapons for your business and measure all marketing to see what works and what doesn’t. The marketing arsenal increases sales immediately but also drives prospects to your platforms and offers, building a pipeline of prospects. Marketing dollars are reallocated from nonperforming campaigns to campaigns which deliver a better return on investment.

Step Four – Automate Your Follow-up with Marketing Automation - You have clarity on how to automate the entire follow-up process from prospect marketing automation to customer retention.

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Questions to Honestly Answer about Your Business We understand that it might seem like a lot to take in at first. Perhaps you’re feeling like it is a little too much for your small business. It really isn’t complicated once you get started. Let us encourage you to dive deeper and explore what we’ve shared in this ebook. Ask yourself these questions to determine if we might be able to help: 1. Do I have a clear marketing message I share consistently with prospects? 2. Do I generate leads by giving away free offers automatically? 3. Do I measure my marketing dollars and return on investment? 4. Do I use marketing automation to follow-up with prospects & customers? Don’t be discouraged! It is time to do something about it!

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Invitation from Tim Birnie – CEO at Birnie Marketing Solutions Yes, Four Step Marketing does take time and work to implement, but it is worth it. We’ve helped brand new businesses hit seven-figure revenues in as little as seven months. If you’re even slightly curious about the Four Step Marketing Method, we invite you to do one very important thing.

Schedule a Free 30 Minute Call with Tim Birnie birniemarketingsolutions.com

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