Recession Busting Ecomm Business And Marketing Strategies V3

[email protected] · www.iMarketingSuccess.com · copyright 2011© 1

$19.95

Recession-Busting eCommerce, Retail, and Service Business Money-Making Strategies!

An eCommerce, Retail and Service Business Roadmap to New Sales

Opportunities and An Idea Stimulating Special Report for These Economically Challenging Times

By Bill Mooney

www.iMarketingSuccess.com I just can’t get this conversation out of my head. I had a great talk with my father-in-law in early 2008 shortly after this nasty recession hit. We were sitting down in his living room, a short distance off the historic Route 66, talking about business in general. I don’t have to tell you this recession has hit a lot of people very hard. My father-in-law has been a very successful retail business owner by any and every business standard, although he would be the first to argue with my assessment. He agreed that this recession is like no other he had been through. Anyway, we were talking about the recession and business in general, and his simple comment motivated me to write this special report for my eCommerce and retail clients to spur creative thinking. I remember his statement clear as day, “Bill, the game has changed!” That statement sounds so simple, so elementary, so basic that most of us would let the words just pass on by without much more than a smile and a “whatever” in our mind. But it has really stuck with me these past couple of years. Most business owners, managers, and executives are so concerned about what is happening with sales today, or yesterday, that they are frozen to take any action of change. They are playing the same game. Some business owners may change, but in a mode of safety, security, timidity, or fear, most won’t, which will be the demise of their business as they know it.

Is this what your eCommerce and Marketing Plans feels like?


What is Your eCommerce and Internet Marketing Prowess? Take this brief quiz to have a better understanding of your eCommerce and Internet Marketing strengths and weaknesses. Answer each question with a score from 0 to 5. Zero means non-existent. Five means absolutely and 100% correct. 1) I am taking sales away from my online competitors.

0 1 2 3 4 5

2) I fully understand the business and marketing opportunities on the internet.

0 1 2 3 4 5

3) I have a full-time employee on staff, or hired professional, who is an expert in eCommerce and/or internet marketing.

0 1 2 3 4 5 4) I embrace change and am eagerly looking for opportunities to super-charge my business and marketing efforts!

0 1 2 3 4 5 If you scored an average of at least four on each of these questions, congratulations, you are on your way to dominating your market, or you will be dominating soon. If you scored three or below on any of these questions, it’s time for you and your company to make a serious paradigm shift towards a better strategy. The following 66 strategies and thought-provoking topics should get you started on your way to scoring a 5 on all 4 questions. And, I am here to help your company move into the world of target marketing and develop an automatic marketing machine! So, I’ve broken down your business activities into 15 different categories. Within each category, I’ve written ideas and strategies that will stimulate your creative mind to get beyond this turbulent time and help you reinvent your business. Find a quiet place and spend an hour or two absorbing these concepts. Bring a big writing tablet so you can capture the avalanche of ideas that will be coming out faster than you can write! I look forward to hearing your feedback, new ideas, and success stories that I can share with others. Be sure to check out my Free special offer worth $500 as you read through the strategies! The game has changed, and so should you!

Bill Mooney eCommerce Development · Internet Marketing Coach · Business Rejuvenation Expert


The 15 Highways to Recession-Busting Your Business!

eCommerce and Retail Internet Marketing

Customer Database

Products and Services

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Target Market

Marketing and Media Strategy

Lead Generation

Bonuses, Premiums, Special Offers, and Free Trials

Testimonials

Reputation Management/Reviews

Affiliates, Joint Ventures, and Charities

Referral Programs

Employees and Operations

Vendors

Your Competition Plus a Special Bonus……

How does your company rate? Look for my copyrighted rating system worksheet and a great story how a successful eCommerce start up operation rejuvenated their business. A few changes can recession-proof your company today!


eCommerce and Retail Internet Marketing

1) CONSIDER DEVELOPING AN eCOMMERCE WEBSITE Here is a quick way to add revenue to your bottom line. A client of mine was quickly on the way to add about $1,200,000 to $1,500,000 in additional profitable revenue the first year of this new venture by adding eCommerce to his arsenal. And he does not have a large business, just one retail store. Look for my short analysis of the business model at the end of this special report. If you are considering starting an eCommerce site, this is a must-read, and I can help you get the results you need and avoid the potholes…..very quickly!

2) REINVENT OR DEVELOP YOUR WEBSITE TO MAKE IT A LEAD-GENERATING, MONEY-MAKING MACHINE!

Most retail websites I have helped reinvent for clients are too generic when I first review them. Many of them are beautiful catalog sites with pretty pictures, have a good selection of product, and make the retail store look professional. I haven’t met a store owner who isn’t proud of how wonderful their site looks. Their logo looks amazing. The colors match and the theme travels through the entire site. But when I ask them how much revenue the site generates for them, or other measureable results the site produces, you would be amazed at the confused looks and stammering speech I get in response. I have yet to meet a store owner that knows the answers to these questions off the top of their head. They know how much their store sold last month, but they don’t know how their website is performing for them. You need to know how your website is performing. You need to know how much each lead through the door costs you regardless of the lead source. You need to know how much business each lead source is bringing in the door. If you don’t you are flushing dollars down the toilet. Spend a few minutes and take an objective look at your website right now. What message are you trying to project to your customers? Does your store name jump off the page? How about your logo? Should your site be flashy, colorful, bright with lots of pictures, or should it contain more relevant content? I know you probably spent a lot of money on that beautiful logo and color scheme, but isn’t the message you send to the customer more important? What is the immediate message you are sending to your visitor? Is that really the message you want to send? Your message shouldn’t be your logo. Most product and service businesses should have more relevant content than flashy pictures, videos, etc. Don’t get me wrong, use pictures, videos, audio, and whatever you have, but the written word is how you will effectively or ineffectively get your message across. And the search engines love relevant written content. More on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) later.


3) CONSIDER A PROFITABLE PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) CAMPAIGN

And I mean profitable. I was talking with a Realtor client of mine the other day and he said he didn’t want to do a Google adwords campaign because many of the agents in his office have tried it, and it didn’t lead to any business. I can faintly hear my elementary school teacher saying…. “If at first you don’t succeed…..” An online and brick and mortar furniture client I work with is spending about $3,000 to $3,500 per month on pay-per-click and generates between $100,000 and $140,000 per month in additional revenue. That’s about a 3% cost for marketing. Some of you pay that much in credit card processing fees alone. If done correctly and efficiently, the leverage of pay-per-click can be enormous. If done poorly, the adword fees can be an enormous waste of money. Effective pay-per-click campaigns come down to the simple marketing approach of… … the right message … to the right people … at the right time … using the right media From many of the PPC ads I’ve seen, it’s no wonder most sites aren’t profitable. They are going after the wrong words or phrases, they are sending them to a page that won’t get the visitor to do something (a poor call-to-action), or they don’t have a system to properly follow up with the prospective customer. Have a great plan, test it, and adjust if isn’t working. There is a reason that in 2009, barely a decade after the first dollar was spent of Google ads, that an estimated $15 billion was spent of PPC. Forrester Research estimates that more than $31 billion will be spent on PPC in the year 2014. PPC can work for you with a proper strategy in place. And you must test, test, and test before committing a lot of money and effort into the campaign. Or better yet, send me an email and I will help you with your strategy and implementation of your program.

[email protected]

4) OPTIMIZE YOUR WEBSITE FOR BETTER KEYWORD TRAFFIC (SEO)

There’s no magic to website optimization, or search engine optimization (SEO). Just a little science, planning, and execution will get your site to rise in the natural search engines better than what you are doing now. My Realtor client told me the website company who developed his site “optimized” it…get ready….. 5 years ago. Think about that…. He was satisfied with site optimization 5 years ago. That’s ancient news. It takes paying attention to the performance of the keywords, adding content regularly, going after new words or phrases, and paying attention constantly. You should be monitoring the progress and performance of your SEO plan at least monthly, more optimally, every other week. I monitor some of my clients’ search engine optimization (SEO) weekly. Optimizing


five years ago will not cut it, six months ago will even put you in the rear view mirror of those of us that are driving the high-powered website. The furniture store I told you about in the last section went from not being on the internet to having over 10,000 monthly visitors in a short 2.5 months. AND, their organic traffic (website searchers finding your site through natural means, not through paid ads) went from zero percentage of their overall traffic to over 25% of their traffic in less than 4 months. Those are phenomenal numbers for any website, let alone on the very small budget we had to develop the eCommerce program. All because we went after targeted keyword traffic specific to the products we were selling and our content on the site was very relevant to the keywords.

5) DEVELOP AN iPHONE, DROID, or iPAD APP Developing an application for a smart-phone or tablet can be cheaper than what you might expect. Apps for iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices can be great tools to enhance brand awareness and help marketing efforts. And don’t think your business is too unique to have one. As I was strolling down the grocery aisles recently, I noticed a cough syrup company came out with an ingenious app for iPhones and Blackberries. It was advertised on the shelf in front of their product. Their app helps me choose the best cough syrup to buy depending on my cough symptoms. What an ingenious idea and very simple too. What can a retail or eCommerce store develop? Plenty of things. Watch your customers as they shop in your store. We developed a simple app to help the customer scan tags and place products in their “favorites” and send them to the sales agent to help shop for their home. Sort of a lay-away plan. You are only bound by your imagination, or by our imagination and experience.

6) MAKE SURE YOUR WEBSITE IS A LEAD-GENERATING MACHINE

Get on the internet and surf several sites in several industries. Try to figure out what the owner of the site is trying to accomplish with the pages of the site. Are they trying to sell you something? Do you feel compelled to shop more or maybe purchase? Do they make you feel like you would love to visit the site later? Did they have a compelling message or USP (unique selling proposition)? Most site developers love to make a site look nice, brag about the owner or company, and describe some of the assets they have….you know, we have 26 trucks in our fleet…..we are housed in 17,000 square feet of space. So what? The website should be a prospect/lead generating machine. If your site is not capturing contact information from a good percentage of the many people who visit your site as possible, you are losing opportunities! What bait do you have to extract contact information from the visitor? You should have a very nice giveaway (bait) to entice the visitor to give you their contact information. Are you too stingy to give something away? Just think about what the lifetime value of just one of your customers might be. Isn’t giving something inexpensive worth it?


I can hear some of you saying, “yeah Bill, people don’t sign up for newsletter, tips, or email alerts any more.” I call B.S. It’s happening every day. To manage all these extremely targeted leads, you will need a high-quality CRM (customer relations management) package integrated with your site. (You can email or call me for suggestions depending on your sophistication and price-point). If you don’t have a compelling offer to encourage people to take your bait, then you are missing the boat. And oh yeah, that Google adwords campaign has just wasted another few hundred bucks.

Can you hear the sound of the toilet flushing your marketing money down the drain?

7) FIGURE OUT WHAT YOUR CONVERSION RATE IS, AND IMPROVE IT!

Do you know how many visitors you have coming to your site? What pages do they surf? How many visitors provide you with their contact information? How many buy? How long do your visitors stay on the site? What is your bounce rate? What pages do your customers exit the site? These are some great things to know if you want to make your site work for you instead of paying money every year for a glorified business card. Spend the time today to set up a tracking and reporting system. Most of the information is available if you have Google Analytics set up on your site. I track anywhere between 10 to 25 different measureable results for my clients to make sure we are heading in a productive direction.

8) SOCIAL MEDIA, SHOULD I PARTICIPATE? Short answer, you had better be actively involved! But how involved should you be? Depends on the business and product or service you are providing. I’ve see furniture stores struggle in social media for many reasons. Other businesses do very well with social media, like certain consumable products. You need to have the right content on the social media page, make it fun, not always sell to people, and you need to manage the content daily and weekly. This is the best strategy to keep your readers involved with your page and coming back. Engage your followers in a fun and enlightening way.


There are a lot of people using social media. Facebook alone celebrated their 250 millionth user in July 2009. In July 2010, one year later, they passed the 500 millionth user mark. About half of all internet users are involved with Facebook. As of February 2011 about 175 million users log onto Facebook every day. About 200 million Facebook users are accessing their account through their mobile device. And this is just Facebook. We haven’t talked about Twitter, Digg, and a lot of the other social media outlets. Not to mention the new Google Plus product starting to explode. Get involved. I would start with Facebook and Google Plus. Great marketing opportunities if you have the right message!

9) NATURAL SEARCH ENGINE TRAFFIC The biggest difference between natural search engine traffic and paid traffic (Pay-Per-Click campaigns-PPC) is the cost. With PPC, you buy internet traffic. With natural search traffic, visitors come to your site because they found you naturally through their specific search and your efforts to drive this free traffic to your site. There is an art and a science to get your site to come up in the search engines like Google and Yahoo naturally. The science is in the way you set up your pages on the site, your keyword selection, descriptions of the pages, meta-tags, etc. The art side of the equation is how you present the information to the visitor, both on your site and through the other content you have scattered around the internet. One of the biggest parts of my marketing business is to create specific content campaigns for my customers to drive targeted, natural, search engine traffic to their sites. There are ways to get some of that traffic to your site quickly, but you will need to be patient. The search engines take time to figure out that your content is on your site (indexing.) The online furniture store I was telling you about earlier started to see positive natural search results in about four months. After nine months our effort is humming. In about one year to 18 months, the site will be dominating some very specific keywords.

10) SHOULD I START A BLOG OR TWEET?

Writing a blog, or tweeting, or posting on social media sites such as Facebook takes a tremendous amount of dedication from your company. The benefit to blogging or tweeting is that you can create very target-rich content in a very short period of time and build a relationship with your customers and fans.


Blogging and tweeting can be fun, it you want it to be. Or it can feel like drudgery if you don’t set it up correctly in the beginning. I would suggest planning out 6 months to a year of content before you start down the path of sharing your thoughts to the world. Nothing is worse for your online image and traffic growth than creating a blog ghost town (a blog that has started and then stopped over time.)

Customer Database Your customer database is the life blood of your business. Think about your customer database as your herd. Nurture it, expand it, and make your herd work for you.

11) SEGMENT YOUR LIST!

Look for the most responsive qualities and the least responsive qualities within your customer database. Customers will respond to one offer more than another and one price-point over another. Have they already purchased a living room set? Then change your marketing to this customer for dining and bedroom sets. Using a powerful Customer Relations Management (CRM) software package will allow you to customize your message to each customer based on their past buying habits. Pre-qualifying your customers and know what they are looking for from the outset is a very powerful too. You will be able to drip market (consistent and automatic marketing) them over time customized to their needs.

12) NURTURE YOUR LIST!

I find too many eCommerce and brick and mortar retailers don’t use their email and direct mail lists effectively. Don’t be afraid to email or direct mail your list often. If someone decides they don’t want your information, then they will opt-out. That’s just fine. Your list just got richer with serious relationship-based customers. And don’t worry about the other transactional buyers who opt-out. They will likely be back if they feel you gave them a good value and service last time. They are just transactional buyers for furniture or whatever you are selling them. Cultivating and nurturing your list is about the best way to change some of those transactional buyers into relationship buyers in the long run.

13) INVEST IN A QUALITY CRM PACKAGE!

There are many Customer Relationship Management software packages out there to purchase or rent. I don’t consider Outlook and Constant Contact true CRM’s. Outlook is a great calendar, email management, and contact management program. But it doesn’t have the marketing and sales features a quality CRM should include. Constant Contact is a great email blast package, but as of this writing, it doesn’t have the ability to categorize your customers like you should and manage the message to each category (i.e. living room furniture buyers; dining room furniture buyers).


A great CRM package will include all of those functions plus the ability to add auto-responders, track sales, and automate a lot of marketing functions.

Products and Services

14) CONSIDER A LOWER PRICED OFFER OR SERVICE!

During these tough economic times, customers are much more price conscientious than normal. The general public has become brainwashed by the media that everyone is hurting and consumer confidence is down. It is a total buyers’ market, and consumers believe you will sell your products and services to them for less than you paid for it wholesale. Try to counter that belief and appeal to the low end of the price range. That could be with different products. You will obviously have to make up profits with higher volume.

15) BUNDLE YOUR PRODUCTS OR SERVICES FOR BETTER VALUE!

Free shipping and delivery with a 3 piece living room set. I know this isn’t a rocket science concept, but we do have the tendency to forget about the obvious, especially when we are stressed about sales and profitability. I would imagine that’s why you are reading this, because you are looking to spur on your creative juices again after stressing over sales, payroll, lease payments, and utilities. Look for the not-so-obvious bundle. Maybe team up with the electronics store next-door and sell a TV with a new entertainment center. Or a $100 gift card from the nice restaurant next door (of course you only paid $25 for the $100 card…. Or maybe you didn’t have to pay for the card through your excellent negotiating skills)!

16) UNBUNDLE YOUR PRODUCTS OR SERVICES TO INCREASE MARKET SHARE!

Buying sets of furniture at a discount? Break it up and have a bed only sale.

17) CONSIDER ADDING MORE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES Check the internet, your friends, your network, and your family for other opportunities to pick up a new product line or a new service to offer your clientele. I do help my clients find small internet niches to attack. It’s a great strategy to improve overall market share. One online furniture client found an occasional table manufacturer that is promoting drop shipping. What a great way to have some add-on sales and not have to touch the product.

18) PACKAGE YOUR SERVICES TO BECOME A TANGIBLE PRODUCT


By packaging, you can pre-sell some of your services to promote customer loyalty; it can create immediate cash-flow and stimulate sales during the slow cycles. For the furniture business, maybe you can have a design service or a paint color service. Or use your delivery people to help customers move their home if they buy from you. One successful offer I helped a furniture online retailer promote was to include a free leather protection plan for every leather piece sold. The cost was only $40, but the perceived value was 4 times that. Shortly thereafter, most of his competitors started to offer the same thing. I’m just throwing out ideas to help you think outside the box.

19) LOOK TO FILL A NEW VOID TO REINVENT YOUR BUSINESS One of my customers found a small niche that was being underserved in his community. The niche was baby furniture. He decided to dedicate a very small portion of the retail floor to baby furniture. We set him up with a computer terminal nearby, the right website pages, and an iPad to help the new moms and dads shop in his store, and voila, a ton of dollars per-square-foot. And you know what? Many of those folks are coming back for new beds, living room sets, etc. One of the added benefits to this program was that he created more relationship buyers over time as opposed to the price-conscious transactional buyer.

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

20) THE WEAPON OF MASS DELIVERY (of paying customers) Your USP is your best weapon against your competitors. A USP essentially explains your position against your competition. What makes you different? Why are your unique? Why should I buy from you? If you have a hard time defining your USP, then you will be in trouble with your business if you aren’t already there.

21) TELEGRAPH YOUR PRIMARY BENEFIT Another way to think of a USP would be telegraphing your primary benefit to your customers. Most small and medium businesses feel more comfortable telegraphing their primary features to their customers as opposed to their benefits. That’s one of the fastest ways to go out of business. What is a benefit? Consider what a customer would want when joining a fitness club. Will they join the club that promotes that they have 25,000 square feet of space, free weights, a pool, and really great music playing all the time? Maybe. If some of those features are important to them.


But what about the facility that boasts 90% of their clients who join for weight loss programs lose an average of 25 pounds in 8 weeks, and we can do the same for you? That would be very compelling if you are looking to lose a few pounds. Which USP would be more powerful? The 25,000 square foot gym, or losing 25 pounds in 8 weeks? You have to remember that the customer is always going to think WIIFM (What’s In It For Me.) Benefits will appeal to WIIFM. Features, not so much.

22) AN ICONIC USP THAT BUILT AN EMPIRE What brand would you think of if I said “Fresh, Hot Pizza Delivered in 30 Minutes or Less, Guaranteed?” Dominoes built an empire on this USP. How did they come up with this USP? Looks to me like they figured out what their customer’s biggest fears and frustrations were and then solved them. Who wants a pizza an hour from now that is cold and tastes old?

23) YOUR USP IS…. Spend some time figuring out your customers’ biggest fears and frustrations and then tailor your message around solving their problems. And your message better be believable. Dominoes made sure people believed them and placed a guarantee behind their USP. They later had to eliminate theirs because of accidents and lawsuits, but you should see the point here loud and clear.

24) BOOST YOUR USP WITH A COMPELLING OFFER & STORY How will your customers resist a special or compelling offer with a powerful USP? How about giving away an ebook like this one for new prospects? Or free cheesy bread with every large pizza. We could go on all day with ideas. Got your tablet handy? Don’t stop writing fresh ideas until you have 20 compelling offers written down every day, for 5 days a week. That’s 100 new opportunities every week. Not all of them will be very good, but that’s ok. It will start the creative juices flowing very fast. Keep it up for a month and you will be amazed how creative your mind can be when you use it effectively!

What is your story?

Everyone loves a story. Tell your customers and prospects your company’s great story, and tie it in with your USP. A mentor of mine once suggested I write in a conversational tone. I do my best to connect with you in my writing style and content. As I write, I imagine the two of us sitting down at a table after a round of golf enjoying a Diet Coke. We are just having a conversation. This style of writing is much easier to read, and I think it is easier to write in a conversational tone. My grammar might not be perfect, but what’s most important is that my message to you is loud and clear.


Is it?

25) IS YOUR USP A COUPON? I smile and shake my head a little when I see a company spitting out coupons to their customers like there is no tomorrow. Couponing as a prime marketing strategy is a bit of a “me too” mindset. “That’s what works in our industry.” Get yourself out of the coupon box and try some targeted direct response marketing. What message are you projecting to your customers when you always have a coupon available? Constant couponing tells me that your regular prices are too high. I will wait until the next coupon to come visit you. Invest your time promoting that your regular prices are an incredible value through your USP. Then a coupon is a special treat for the customer when you do want or need a sales surge.

Target Market

26) DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOUR TARGET MARKET IS? I recently went on a trip with my wife to visit my in-laws in another state. My father-in-law is really into sport shooting. Specifically target shooting with scoped rifles and handguns. I found out how hard it is to hit the bulls-eye on the target. My wife thinks it’s easy though, hitting her first shot with a high-powered rifle dead center. We won’t get into that right now. Are you using the shotgun approach to marketing? Throwing a message out there to the masses and hoping people come in to a store. There is a local small health club chain in our area. They recently became the exclusive health club sponsor to a local professional sports team. I’m sure they paid a tremendous amount of money on the sponsorship. But what are they getting for their advertising money? Maybe some brand exposure. But how can they quantify their sales off of this investment? This is a shotgun approach. How about a more direct approach selling the benefits of joining their club to a targeted audience within about 3 miles of the club? This would be a more targeted approach, like using a scoped rifle as opposed to a shotgun. What I find common with most new clients is they are still listening to the old-school “advertisers” trying to sell radio, TV, and newsprint. These approaches to generate quality leads are very shotgun in nature. Don’t get me wrong, they can still be effective with the right message, but you better test that message before money is spent on these expensive methods. As I work together with my clients and better understand their business, I am able to help them focus their marketing efforts on their targeted customer. Targeted focus much like


firing that high-powered 30-06 rifle at 100 yards. Once you hone in on the target and steady the rifle, the odds of hitting the exact target are very good, especially if you are my wife. Spend a good amount of time defining your target market. What are their income levels? What kind of cars do they drive? What’s the age range? How about the clothes they wear? Go very deep in your analysis. Then the process of honing your message and marketing gets much easier.

27) THE BEST WAYS TO TARGET MARKET

• Geographically – zip codes, cities, counties, states….. spend the time analyzing your area(s)

i. Work your geographic market to death! ii. Track where your sales have happened using software

• Demographics – What does your target market have in common? • Associations – What groups does your target market belong to? • Personal - What are their hobbies? What music do they listen to?

28) HAVE MULTIPLE TARGET MARKETS

The beauty of developing an eCommerce business, or internet marketing campaign, is that you can have multiple target markets. Only target multiple customers if you have the operational support to manage the different streams of sales, of course. I have one client that has 5 different websites that serve very specific niches within his larger business category. Because of the niche, it is easier for him to perform better with the search engines, thus driving very targeted traffic to specific pages on his site. I would say go-for-it on one condition…..that you are prepared to manage the many different aspects of the multi-pronged marketing efforts.

Marketing and Media Strategy

29) RE-EVALUATE YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY

Re-evaluate your marketing strategy right now! Who are your best relationship customers? What do they do for a living? What is their income range? How can you reach more of those relationship customers? Where do your customers live? Analyze the zip codes of your most loyal customers and target those neighborhoods with direct response campaigns.


List all different type of media outlets in your area. Television, radio, local newspapers, press releases…. Keep thinking.

30) WHAT ABOUT TV, RADIO, AND PRINT MEDIA? If you are a small to medium sized business, I’m sure you have seen the returns on the investment of TV advertising shrink rapidly. Think about it, most of us are recording shows on DVR’s, streaming shows on Netflix and Hulu, and renting movies for $1 at Redbox these days. Who wants to watch commercials? Have you followed the trends of TV advertising lately? The costs are rising, especially during political seasons because the big buyers are purchasing big blocks of prime-time spaces. What does that leave you? Yeah, the late-night slot after the show has ended. Can you measure how many leads you are getting from TV? How much is it costing you per sale for the TV slots you are buying? And radio? Who listens to radio commercials any more? My finger hits the next station so fast and often I’m surprised I haven’t built up calluses. Not to mention how many people are using their iPods for the car music anymore. And don’t get me started on print advertising. Have you seen how thin the papers are any more? We all know about how fast newspaper subscriptions are dwindling. If you are spending money on any of these media, please evaluate what it is costing you per lead and per sale. There are cheaper and better performing alternatives out there.

31) CONSIDER TARGETING THE “LOW END” OF THE MARKET Look what stores are doing well in this economy. What furniture businesses are prospering? What other businesses are prospering?.... and why? How about selling low-end products and have the customer pick them up at your warehouse? No deliveries. This is discount warehouse approach to gaining market share. I have eCommerce customers taking this approach under another “brand” to not dilute their local brand name and damage the market share on the upper end they have already established.

32) TARGET THE ULTRA AFFLUENT This market usually will not want to compromise their lifestyle, even if it means going into debt. One of my clients recently ran a 4-year financing promotion. He had the single best day he had in years, and the month ended up being in his top 10…and in this economy.


33) LOOK FOR PEOPLE AND INDUSTRIES THAT DO WELL IN THIS TYPE OF MARKET

Marketing to the medical community seems to be a good strategy in tough times. Their business is generally recession proof. Look for other recession proof business. How about marketing to employees in the software industry? Look at your community and target those industries that have been doing well.

34) ONLY TARGET THE TARGET-RICH PROSPECTS Spend most of your time and resources on those super targeted prospects. Buy or rent very target-rich lists. Make sure your message to them is right on. Your message must resonate and solve their biggest fears and frustrations. What are their biggest fears and frustrations? Right now it might be how long will your furniture store be around? Will I get my product? Be creative.

35) LOOK FOR MULTIPLE BUYERS Most of these lists will have multiple buyers segmented out of the list. People who buy things often. This list will cost a bit more, buy these are your target customers during these tough times. Make sure you have a compelling offer with a call to action for these buyers. Don’t forget to include the power of the guarantee!

36) DEVELOP AN IRRESISTABLE OFFER Irresistible, that’s the operative word. Think about the carnival pitchman who gets people to act now. Or imagine those infomercials that have a very strong call-to-action. Not that you have to be sell like the Sham-Wow guy, but develop an irresistible offer now! Again, appeal to their fears and frustrations. What are the biggest objections your sales people are facing today? Fix that with an offer to take that resistance away.

37) LOOK FOR CO-OP OPORTUNITIES IN MARKETING TO REDUCE COSTS

Maybe you have some friends or business associates that would like to share the expense of a direct mail campaign to the same list. How about teaming up with a nearby restaurant that caters to the same client? Or a clothing store? Be creative. If you are struggling, I guarantee you, other brick and mortar stores are struggling and are open to ideas. Unless they have a copy of this ebook too! Be my guest and pass this ebook on to your friends and business associates. Do your vendors and suppliers offer co-op dollars for marketing efforts?

38) MORE MARKETING!!!! This is not the time to retreat and put your head in the sand with your marketing efforts. That’s what a lot of your competitors are doing, I guarantee it! In this economic environment,


there are people still buying, you just need to expand your market share and be more focused with your marketing efforts. How do you grab more market share? Through effective and highly targeted marketing efforts. Print, TV, and radio advertising are dying and expensive breeds. You need to embrace the digital marketing effort. You have an opportunity to reach buyers in new ways. Just observe your customers shopping habits online and in retail stores. I bet most of them are taking pictures with their cell phones, texting their spouses, and also comparison shopping right in your store, or while they are on your website. While shopping with my wife the other day, I took out my cell phone at Costco to check a price of some food wrap to make sure we weren’t paying too much for this monster sized package. I stopped and really thought about my buying habits and patterns and how they have changed over the last year or so because of technology and the economic environment. Observe your own buying habits, thoughts and feelings these days. If you are thinking about price, or convenience, or the poor service you received when you are shopping, then you should know that you customers have similar behaviors when they are in your store. Scary thought, huh? Stop advertising! Market. If you can not measure the success of a campaign, it’s not marketing, it’s advertising. And advertising is extremely expensive. Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. What I am really saying is make sure you can measure your results with any promotional campaign you launch. And test, test, test before you commit a large amount of money and resources to a new campaign.

39) USE SIMPLE SALES LETTERS AS OPPOSED TO EXPENSIVE LITERATURE

Statistics show that a sales letter with a direct response approach highlighting the benefits of your products or services as opposed to their features generates a much better response than feature or image marketing. And don’t fall for the “a short letter is better than a long letter” conventional wisdom. Be a storyteller within your marketing materials. People love stories. Longer text consistently out-performs short letters. Think about that. I was working with one of my clients on a sales letter for a website landing page the other day. He wanted help with a comprehensive Google Adwords campaign. I wrote a sales letter for him. His first reaction was, “this seems a little long.” “I asked him, what are your hobbies?” He said, “I like to play the guitar when I can.” I asked him if he had a favorite brand. Of course, he said yes. I proceeded to ask him what he would do if he wanted to buy a new guitar. He started to get the point. He told me, “I would get on the internet and hit every site that carried the brand and model I wanted. I would then read all the information, and re-read it.” When we want information, we seek it out. When we find it, we study it, and study it some more. If you write well enough to connect with the customer, bam, easy sale! Remember, the right message, to the right people, at the right time, using the right media spells success.

40) USE LOW-COST MARKETING TOOLS MORE OFTEN Email broadcasts, webinars, voice mail broadcasts, and audio and video sales letters on your website can be fast, cheap, and effective methods to close more sales. Mailing postcards can


be very reasonable and, if done well, a very good return on the investment. Direct them to a website landing page with an irresistible, compelling offer. Keep your eyes and ears open for less expensive opportunities.

41) DIAL UP THE EMOTION IN YOUR SALES COPY Find out what your customers’ biggest fears and frustrations are, and solve their problems! An emotional and compelling story always helps the response….when appropriate of course.

42) EXCLUSIVE OR PRE-QUALIFIED MARKETING People love to belong to groups or be part of something special. Appeal to those desires. Create an exclusive club, or group, and make a compelling offer to your customer database to join. Maybe your subscription is free or maybe you should charge a small amount. Make an exclusive offer to those within your group or club. This is a great technique for a sales surge. The larger your herd, the larger the sales surge.

Lead Generation Now that you are on your way with a defined target market, and a clear and compelling Unique Selling Proposition (USP), let’s go get your new customers!

43) RIGHT MESSAGE, RIGHT PEOPLE, RIGHT TIME, RIGHT MEDIA

Lead generation becomes easier when you have the right message, delivered to the right people, at the right time, and using the right media. I became a lead for a cowboy hat store on my recent trip to visit my in-laws in New Mexico. If you have ever been to old-town Sante Fe, New Mexico, then you can understand why I bought a new hat there. Sante Fe is a beautiful old western town. I’ve been looking for a cowboy hat that fits me for years. I have a challenging hat size and I can rarely buy a hat off the shelf. When I see a baseball hat my size, anywhere, I buy it because I never know when I will see another one my size. So I am a prime lead for a hat company that can solve my challenge. I have never been lured in by any company’s USP for all these years of wanting a nice cowboy hat that fits. Never. My wife, my in-laws, and I were strolling around old town one beautiful summer Friday taking in the sites after a wonderful lunch in the Sante Fe Café when I noticed a small sign next to a cowboy hat in a glass case. Now, I wasn’t really looking for a new hat, but the sign caught my eye. The sign said “custom” cowboy hats and the shop name. At that point I wanted to see if they had one in my size. If I hadn’t seen that sign, I would have likely just gone about my day and enjoyed the sights. In my mind the word “custom” meant possibly a hat that would fit me.


Because I did see that sign and the message resonated with me, we promptly walked directly to the custom hat shop and the rest is history. I am now the proud owner of a chocolate brown cowboy hat that actually fits me! Their message was the right message for me. It hit me at the right time and the right place. And the media was a simple sign that I could see. I haven’t been marketed to very well in the past. With the new internet marketing opportunities, I should have been marketed for a new fitted cowboy hat. I am active on Facebook. I am active on Linkedin. But no hat company has been very progressive with their target marketing. I think I will need to send a few hat companies this ebook. Maybe they need some help. What do you think? What is your message and can you get it out to your customers when and where they want to see it?

44) BUY A LIST FROM A BROKER

There is no shame in buying or renting an opt-in list for your target market. What better way to quickly reach thousands and thousands of targeting leads? Remember, these lists are opt-ins, meaning they have agreed to receive your offer. Believe it or not, there are still people that are opting in for your information. Opt-in means your marketing efforts are not considered spam. Do it. Don’t be ashamed.

Bonuses, Premiums, Special Offers, and Free Trials

Bonuses, premiums, special offers, and free trials are great tools for sales surges and lead generation. Much the same way this letter will hopefully get you to contact me to help you with your marketing and eCommerce efforts. The information I am giving you in this letter is free.

My strategy is that you will find a few gems in this ebook that will help you get your business on a more profitable track. And then you will take me up on my two (2) Free Bonuses presented later in this ebook. I am giving you $500 worth of free expert advice, just for becoming part of my iMarketingSuccess family.

45) BIG DISCOUNTS We see big discounts being offered all the time. When we subscribed to a local newspaper in years past, my wife and I would joke every Friday when the paper came out. Like clock-work a large chain department store was promoting a Saturday and Sunday only sale. To this day, I will not buy anything at retail price at that store. I wait for a “sale.” Maybe they do have me looking for their coupons, but they have worn me out with the word “sale.”


Have a sale, but make it a sale. Make it believable that you are discounting items big. Show proof that the discounts are real and deep.

46) USE APPROPRIATE KEYWORDS A furniture brick and mortar store I have been helping has had tremendous success using the word “Liquidation” these days. It seems to resonate with the customers. The first question the sales people get from the customers when they step into the store is “are you going out of business?” It’s a great opportunity to let them know, no, we are reducing our warehouse inventory. That word single-handedly turned my client’s business around last summer….. he even ran it again for two months this summer with fabulous results. Easy payment terms and giveaways are still tried-and-true techniques to build traffic.

47) TRADE-INS Think about taking trade-ins like car dealers do. Maybe an old sofa isn’t worth anything, but giving the customer a few dollars for it might separate you from your competition and make them feel better about working with your company.

48) CELEBRITY APPEARANCES This is an old school technique, but still works. One of my clients actually contracted with a local celebrity musician to play a series of concerts at his store. What an amazing lead generation tool.

Testimonials

49) COLLECT TESTIMONIALS LIKE THEY ARE GOING OUT OF STYLE

It's one thing to tell your customers that your company is wonderful, or your products are the best thing since sliced bread, but for one of your customers to do it for you is priceless! My suggestion is to be bold and ask for testimonials whenever you can. Get your testimonials in written form, audio, or video form. Get testimonials any way you can. My preference is to get as many video testimonials as possible. Video testimonials place a personal touch on the words. Pictures of your customers with written words are the next best thing.

50) WHAT IS A GOOD TESTIMONIAL? I feel some of the best testimonials come from the weight loss industry. The before and after videos, photos, and the verbal testimonials are very powerful.


Work on getting your customers to frame their testimonials to highlight the benefits of your company or product. Get testimonials that will help remove doubt about your company. Use photos of the customer and their full names. Using their full names adds a tremendous amount of credibility to the testimonial.

Reputation Management and Reviews Let me set the record straight, I look at reputation management more like reputation marketing. You need to market yourself. You need to market your business. You need to market your reputation. Let me explain. Where do most business owners spend their energies when they see that horrible negative review? The first reaction is anger. “How can that SOB write that in public?” “That’s going to kill my business!” They take the review personally and immediately think of ways to get the review removed from the site. I wish I had a dollar for every time a business owner asks me, their friend, their associates, or relatives to write a positive review to help push the negative review down. That’s the totally wrong path to reputation marketing. I’m telling you, don’t waste your energy worrying about these yo-yos! Spend your time flooding the internet with so much positive comments that’s these few negative reviews get overwhelmed like a professional football team playing a high school varsity team. They will simply get man-handled and overwhelmed. Here’s a little test. Go to Google right now and type in the name of your business. If you do not control the first two pages on Google with positive things about your company, you are losing customers and thousands of dollars every month.

Call or email me. I have an incredible Reputation Management and Reputation Marketing program that will guarantee your success!

51) DON’T BE BULLIED BY ONLINE REVIEWS

Don’t you feel like your business is being bullied whenever you see a negative review of your business? Take action and have a proactive approach to this new phenomenon. If you don’t pay attention, you are losing truckloads of business. Who needs negative press right now?

52) MAKE LEMONADE OUT OF LEMONS Does a bad online review get your blood boiling? Then you are like just about all of my business owner clients. What do you do about those bad reviews? I know, many are very petty or downright unjustified. But something has to be done.


Your mood management is the first step towards making lemonade out of lemons. Snap out of your bad mood and focus on making some lemonade. The reviewer’s assessment says more about the person making the assessment that about your…or your company. I know, I know….bad reviews can hurt your company’s reputation. Here is my suggestion to make lemonade out of lemons. You will need to monitor all appropriate review sites, or hire a professional, like me, to monitor and manage your online reputation. Respond to a negative online review immediately. And I would respond to the positive reviews quickly too. Remember, the potential new customer is not only looking at the bad review, but how you handle that review. I believe the response is more important than the review itself. Make sure you are very positive in the response and offer the customer to come in to resolve the issue. Don’t let your mood get the better of you and your response. Take the high road. Provide the complainant a couple of days and times to make an appointment with your or your representative to resolve the issue. I would even reiterate the previous offer you made to them in the response. This will show other readers that you did address the customer’s problem right away. Most of those customers won’t even take you up on your offer. The best option is still to have a company like mine be your Reputation Marketing company!

Affiliates and Joint Ventures

53) HIRE A BOATLOAD OF SALES PEOPLE AT A VERY LOW COST

That’s essentially what affiliates are, additional sales people. Look for similar websites that sell similar or related products. Let your affiliates promote your products or services to their customer base and pay them a small percentage of each sale. There are wonderful software packages available to track sales from your affiliate sites and calculate the appropriate commissions. Clickbank is a wonderful website to attract potential affiliates, especially for electronic products.

54) TEAM UP WITH LIKE-MINDED COMPANIES Creating joint-venture promotions with companies that will compliment your products or service is a very profitable strategy.


These joint ventures don't necessarily have to sell your products. I was part of an online venture several years ago selling golf fitness products online. We formed a joint venture with PGATour.com to provide them with free articles and tips for their website. Our sales went from a handful a day to upwards of 40 a day almost overnight because we had a very targeted joint venture and the right message and product. Look for these types of joint ventures. They can be very profitable and only cost a few hours of writing. You can also hire a ghost writer if that's not your bag. Or hire someone like me to get it done for you. That’s probably the best option…. Hire me to make this happen for you (shameless plug.)

Referral Programs

55) TRANSACTIONAL OR RELATIONSHIP BUYERS Let’s face it, word-of-mouth advertising and marketing is one of the oldest and tried-and-true methods to increase your business. I’m sure you have transactional buyers and relationship buyers in your business. Transactional buyers hammer you on price, turn-around-time, and anything else he or she can get you to agree to, just to save a buck. For some items I purchase, I am a transactional buyer. But for other items, I look for the relationship. The relationship buyer will buy from you, or your company, because they like doing business with you. Price is not always the issue. They want a great value. And the value is the whole buying experience. How can you get more relationship buyers that fit your target market? From your existing customers of course. Your customers have friends and families with similar values. Just as mom and dad told us when we were younger, you are measured by the company you keep. The referral customer is less skeptical and more trusting of your business. Let’s tap into those opportunities.

56) HOW MANY REFERRALS CAN I GET? That’s really up to you. Think about how many friends, family, business associates you may have. All of those are potential referrals. Probably hundreds of potential referrals. How many friends do you have on your Facebook page? Your Linkedin account? These are more opportunities.


In reality, you will get about one to three referrals from each customer if you have a good program in place. So looking at the potential with each customer, you have virtually an unlimited number of referrals. If half of your customers refer two people, the potential can be enormous. (Your customers will typically refer 1 to 3 of their friends to you, but the potential is much higher with an aggressive program.) If you have 1000 customers and 50% of your customers refers 2 customers, that’s another 1000 new customers. If 50% of those refer 2 more customers, that’s another 1000 customers. There are big opportunities for you are ahead. How much is each new customer worth to you? How much will they spend with you over the lifetime of your relationship? $5,000? $10,000? $500? Make sure you give your customers a nice gift as a thank you. How much can you spend on a nice referral gift for your existing customer? Do the math. Is 10% of one transaction value too much? Five percent of their lifetime value? How much profit do you get on each sale? Do the math and don’t be cheap. It’s that easy.

57) WHAT SHOULD I BUY FOR MY REFERRAL GIFTS? Take a look at your target market and see what they may like as a gift. One baseball training center would give the athlete a new $250 glove for every 5 customers they brought in to the program. The glove only cost the owner about $100, but he got an immediate surge in business of over $1,500. And over the lifetime of those new customers, about $12,000. Not a bad return on investment. What do your customers want? If you are a furniture store, maybe your customer would like a new painting to go with their living room set…. Or an area rug. The sky is the limit.

58) STOP BEGGING FOR REFERRALS Excellence in service will earn your referrals. Do you have an “Excellence in Service” program in place? I would get on that immediately…..probably right after you have re-worked your Unique Selling Proposition (USP.) Create a list right now of the things you would like to change about your business to make it a better experience for your customers….and a better working environment for your employees. Conduct referral promotions to generate more interest in your business. A new baseball glove? A new area rug? How about referral events. I helped one client create a concert series and the only people that could attend were existing customers and their friends and families. These new prospects had to register online (using your customer relations management (CRM) system to capture their information of course!)


And of course you could simply ask for referrals. Ask your recent customers how they felt about your products and/or service. After they share their great experience with you, ask them if they would be open to putting that in writing. If the customer is in your store, break out your nice digital camera (which should be fully charged and handy) and take a picture of you and them with an ear-to-ear grin. I know it may feel uncomfortable, but you will be surprised how eager people will be if they are truly a fan of your company. Get the idea?

Employees and Operations

59) GET RID OF THE DEAD WEIGHT, NOW! It may sound cold to you, but you have to evaluate each one of your staff. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about managing your employees up, or out. If you haven’t completed quantifiable employee evaluations recently, I would get on it right away. Manage those marginal employees up. If not, there are plenty of amazing people out there looking for a great opportunity.

60) BE RESPECTFUL! In a recessionary period, employees are already nervous about their positions and the future. Now is not the time to play the “got them over a barrel” card. The more you can support them and their efforts the better they will perform. If you are stressed about business, believe me, they can and will feel the stress too. If they are stressing about their jobs, their performance will suffer. Just as sports coaches should do, have the employee focus on the results of the next task, not the mechanics of how to get the job done. Get your employees to compete hard for the team, and your business will thrive. More referrals, more leads, more sales.

61) IMPROVE YOUR SALES TEAM! I’m sure you track the sales every month for each of your staff. And what, about 20% are doing 80% of your sales? Make sure you have metrics on every sales opportunity and find out what the best performers are doing to close more sales. I know this sounds obvious, but you would be surprised at how many business owners aren’t thinking about their sales numbers in this way. Work on improving your conversion ratio. One possibility is to bring in a professional sales trainer to help the lower producers. How about some online sales training for the sales reps not producing? Manage them up, or manage them out.


Look for professional sales people. Not order takers, or store tour guides. Professionals will jump at the opportunity to use your new CRM sales tool we helped you set up (another shameless plug for my services) and automatically follow up with leads like there is no tomorrow.

62) THE I.C.O. A great friend and mentor, Dan Haygeman ( Work/Life Balance Coach; www.danhaygeman.com), exposed me to a fantastic study completed by a gentleman named Will Schutz for the U.S. Navy shortly after WWII. The Navy wanted to know why some of the ships during the war performed far better than others. The I.C.O. (Inclusion, Control, and Openness) chart was the result of that study. The more I use this system and teach it to business owners, the more I am impressed with the results. I will give you a brief overview in this ebook. If you would like to learn more, please email me and I am available for presentations and coaching. Each employee has certain intrinsic needs to perform at their peak every day. If they don’t receive their level of need, then you will see their mood change rapidly, and the employee’s performance tanks. Those three needs are Inclusion, Control, and Openness.

This is how employees think and react in general…. When I receive the needed amount of inclusion, I feel significant. When I receive the needed amount of control, I feel competent. When I receive the needed amount of openness, I feel likeable. The needed amount from their manager, peer, or subordinate is different for each employee.

• When an employee doesn’t receive the needed amount of inclusion, their mood can change very quickly. Their reaction can be negative because they don’t want to feel insignificant.

• When an employee doesn’t receive the needed amount of control, their mood can

change very quickly. Their reaction can be negative because they don’t want to feel humiliated.

• When an employee doesn’t receive the needed amount of openness, their mood can

change very quickly. Their reaction can be negative because they don’t want to feel rejected.

Watch your employee reactions this week. Make notes on mood changes and see if you can find out what makes each employee tick. Think of junior high aged kids. The likeability and rejected portion is heavily into play. In the business environment I see less of the likeability factor involved, and a lot more significance and competency being questioned.


Feel free to email me if you would like more on the ICO chart. It’s a great tool.

[email protected]

Vendors and Suppliers

63) DUMP THEM! Bottom line, you need to periodically review your vendors and suppliers’ performance. If they are not performing to your needs, manage them up, or quickly fire them. You do not need the headache. One of my furniture clients recently dropped an entire line because the orders kept getting fouled up. The furniture was selling fairly well, but the employees had to spend a tremendous amount of time managing the mistakes. In the end the profits from this manufacturer weren’t worth it. Can them!

64) MAKE THEM COMPETE Remember, this is still America and the free enterprise system is still alive. Make your vendors compete for your business. How about developing a performance rating system and only let the strong survive?

65) DO YOUR VENDORS AND SUPPLIERS SUPPORT YOUR BUSINESS MODEL?

If you are heading towards eCommerce for your business, do your existing vendors and suppliers support your efforts? Do their products ship clean and fast? If not, ask them to help you out, or look for others that will support your efforts.

Your Competition

66) WHAT IS THEIR USP? One of the first orders of business when I start working with a new client is to analyze their competition. I first look at the competition’s web presence and see what type of online business they are doing. I look at their Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and the message they are projecting. I look at the intricacies of the competitor’s site to see if they know what they are doing to


optimize their site. And most companies are not doing a very good job with the details of improving their website’s performance. After my evaluation, I will travel to the competition’s retail store, if they have one, or if the client approves the travel if out of my town, I make a personal visit. During my visit I evaluate how well the competition is selling their USP and if it is an effective strategy. I also evaluate other benefits and features from the competition. It’s amazing what you can learn with a visit to a retail competitor. Most do a very poor job with the details that make a difference. Sometimes you come across a gem or two. Need help with an analysis of your competition? Send me an email today.

[email protected]

How I Helped One Small Retail Furniture Store Add

$100,000 to $140,000 a Month in Revenue in Three Short Months

By a Targeted and Surgical Approach to Marketing, We Sold over $75,000 of Furniture the First Month with an Average Ticket Price of over $2,500

I was approached by a forward-thinking small business owner during the deepest part of the recession to help him rejuvenate his business during this recession. He had just experienced his worst month in sales ever. That lousy month’s sales were only about 20% of his best ever month, and about 67% less than his typical month. His sales that horrible month were less than ½ of his break-even point. Not a very good month to say the least. He was very stressed and motivated to do something different….and fast!

He brought in the business rejuvenation expert to get him back on track! After several strategy sessions we decided that expanding his furniture business nationally was the best tactic and would have a fast and lasting effect. No, the strategy was not to open up more brick and mortar stores all over the country, but to sell his products throughout the lower 48 states online. I quickly began to complete research on all his product lines to determine which would be the

best to sell nationally online, and what would be the best USP for this division of his business.

We then proceeded to develop the mechanics of the site for best customer interaction and focus on just a few brands, and not include his entire line of products. That would be far too much to manage at first. He was on a tight budget so we needed to get profitable sales rolling in as fast as possible.


Miraculously, we had the site up and running and logged our first sale 3 months after launching the project. The first full month of business recorded about $75,000 in sales and it grew from there. Here’s the bottom line on the formula for eCommerce success. If you use most of the techniques I have described in the 66 strategies above, you will increase your chances of success tremendously. And I can help you get results rejuvenating your business too! As you read on, you will find a rating section of this ebook. You will be able to rate your performance in the 15 categories we discussed in the beginning of the book. And you will see how we focused on our new online furniture business. We started this project focused on the 6 most critical categories (1, 2, 3, 4, 13, and 15.) As the business owner continues to hone and add more of our strategies down the road, the growth will continue in months and years to come. But he must stay on track to keep up with growth.

Now here is the great part…. I’ve always been taught, and I coach professionals on the principle, “if you want success in something, you need to measure the progress!” My simple rating system for my eCommerce, internet marketing, and business strategies will help you measure your progress like you never have before. To illustrate how we put this to use, my furniture store in the example above had an overall score of 43 out of 75. That’s only a 57% score. Not very good in the classroom, but in real life, it produced some very good results. Why? His rapid success was because he focused on the 6 critical categories (numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 13, and 15.) His score for those 6 categories was a 23 out of a possible 30 points. Still only 77%, but very good results for such a new venture. Imagine what will happen when he gets close to 100% on all the categories. This furniture online business scored very well on the USP category, beating the competition category, and the employee and operation section. I spent a lot of time developing those categories for him to launch the project. My advice to you is to take the same strategic path and focus very hard on the key 6 categories. Then move on to the rest of the lineup. I am available for coaching you on your priorities and the intricate mechanics of getting things done.

Here’s What a vendor Who Was Involved in this Particular Furniture eCommerce Project Has to Say about Our Rapid eCommerce Success


“Your company has consistently doubled shipments with Home Direct from your inception. I can tell you right now that success is VERY rare. I was with my VP of sales

just this past Monday and he commented on the rate of increase in your business stating “not even CSN grew this fast”. That is high praise indeed considering CSN does an average of X to X (number left out due to confidential information) shipments monthly with us.”

Joshua Hrapek Shipping Consultant Home Direct USA

Are you looking for similar results with your eCommerce or internet marketing efforts?

I can help you!

Two FREE Offers You Can’t Refuse Valued at Over $500! I have two FREE offers I don’t think you can refuse. The first is letting me help you with a marketing challenge you need solving. If you email me at [email protected] with a brief description of a marketing challenge that needs immediate attention, I will personally email you back with suggestions. This is a $250 offer, just for reading my ebook all the way to the end. Be sure to include all of your contact information.

My second FREE offer to you is that I will personally critique your iMARS© Score. Email me your scores per category, and I will offer you valuable suggestions to help you with prioritizing your direction. This is another $250 value.

Is there a catch? Not really. But my offer has a limited time and I can only handle so many new requests a week since I am working on rejuvenating other small and medium sized businesses at the same time. After I receive my 10th request in a week, I will have to put you on a waiting list. I despise waiting lists, but there is only so much I can do with a high demand. And I can’t work for free for very long. So I will soon cut off the free portion of the offer. So email me right now at:

[email protected]

What’s your next step? Take the test to see where you rate.

What is Your iMARS© Score?

To improve anything in life you need to measure your progress and track your results. We do it with our financial investments and budgeting. To lose weight, it’s best to track your food


intake, exercise, and follow the weight loss. Athletes know to track their progress with any metric they can from fitness level to performance. But what about marketing effectiveness? Not many people do it because they really don’t have the ability to measure the effectiveness of their plan…. Until now. I have a rating system to help you manage your progress. It’s called iMARS (iMarketingSuccess.) It’s a great tool to track your current effectiveness within our 15 categories. When you start to implement some of the ideas in this ebook and those you discovered through your strategy sessions, you will be able to improve your score quickly. Of course, we are here to help you strategize as you need it. What’s the benefit to a better score? Of course, more leads, more profitable revenue, and a healthier company. The following pages describe each of the 15 categories and how you can rate your own company. Then we will talk about what these numbers can mean to your business.


How do you rate your Category (eCommerce and Retail Internet Marketing)?

Rate your company’s performance in the eCommerce and Retail Internet Marketing category from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –Your strategy and action for internet and eCommerce strategy is nonexistent. (Your roadmap for eCommerce and internet marketing for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about some of the internet strategies for your website and/or retail store but have not implemented them yet, or have no immediate plans (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have gotten into the car to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan and are toying with the internet strategies without much passion and vigor. 3 - You are up and running, but you aren’t following any measurable results and not paying attention to your program very closely. You need more help with the plan, implement such a plan and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway. 4 - Your business is active in internet marketing for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress. You may be making a few dollars, or collecting some leads, but it’s just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You are an expert in internet marketing for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This “division” of your business is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, and you are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.

Enter Your Score for Category ______


How do you rate your Category (Customer Database)? Rate your company’s performance in the Customer Database category from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 – Your strategy and action for building and developing your prospect, lead, and customer database is non-existent. (Your roadmap for customer database marketing for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about some of the internet strategies for developing and automating your customer database but have not implemented them yet, or have no immediate plans to do so (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for your database, or have your customer’s contact information database started and want to do something with the information. You aren’t pursuing internet strategies with much passion or vigor. 3 - You have a customer database system, but you aren’t following any measurable results and not paying attention to your program very closely. You may be using an email management system such as Constant Contact, but you aren’t using a more powerful Customer Relations Management CRM software package as you would like. Your email system is not fully automated at this point. You need more help with a plan to develop an auto-responder series, implement such a plan and strategies to get you moving to make the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the onramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company is active with your more powerful CRM (more robust than Outlook or Constant Contact) for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to automate the entire process to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars, or collecting some leads, but it’s just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the onramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You are an expert in CRM and automated marketing for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This “division” of your business is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Products and Services)? Rate your company’s performance in the Products and Services category from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –Your strategy and action for developing your products and services in non-existent. You have been essentially selling the same products and/or services for a year or more. (Your roadmap for strategic products and services for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about some of the internet strategies for developing your product and service base but have not implemented them yet, or have no immediate plans to do so (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan to enhance your products and services, and are playing around with internet strategies without much passion or vigor. 3 - You have an active product and service strategy to keep up with the changing times. You may not be tracking changes closely or following any measurable results. You would like to pay a little more attention to your product program. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company is very active with product changes and strategies for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to automate the entire process to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars, or collecting some leads, but it’s just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You are an expert in product and services strategies for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This “category” of your business is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Your USP)?

Rate your company’s performance with a great USP from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 – You do not have a very good Unique Selling Proposition (USP), or all you have is a tag-line that someone came up with at a lunch meeting or off-the-cuff. You have had the same slogan or tag-line for a long time. (Your roadmap for an incredible USP for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about your USP for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company and the customer. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better USP, but have not pursued using it in your marketing materials. 3 - You have a very good specific USP and you are using it in your marketing materials. You may not be tracking changes in your traffic leads, and conversions because of your USP.You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your USP and marketing materials in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established USP strategy for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your USP deeper into your daily marketing efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars, or collecting some leads with your specific target, but it’s just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible USP for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This “USP” is driving great business your way, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Target Market)?

Rate your company’s performance in the Target Marketing category from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 – Your strategy for developing a specific target market in non-existent. You have been essentially selling the same products and/or services for a year or more jus hoping any customers come to your store or website. (Your roadmap for target marketing for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about your target market a little, but have not gone through the exercise of really examining exactly who buys from you.(You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan to exam and detail who your best buyers are, and are playing around with internet strategies to sell to that market without much passion or vigor. 3 - You have an active target market strategy to keep up with the changing times. You may not be tracking changes to your target market very close or following any measurable results. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your target market in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company is very active with target market changes and strategies for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to automate the entire process to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars, or collecting some leads with your specific target, but it’s just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You are an expert in your target market for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This “market” of your business is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Marketing and Media Strategy)?

Rate your company’s performance in the Marketing and Media Strategy category from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –Your marketing and media strategy is minimal. You are doing the same things you have always done like TV promotions, a few newspaper ads, and a radio spot or two. You have been essentially marketing the same way for over a year. (Your roadmap for marketing and media strategy for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about some internet marketing strategies or considered getting into eCommerce to expand your market share but have not implemented your ideas yet, or have no immediate plans to do so (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan to get start internet marketing and/or eCommerce to improve your revenue without much passion or vigor. 3 - You have an active internet marketing strategy to keep up with the changing times. You may not be tracking changes closely or following any measurable results. You would like to pay a little more attention to your internet program. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company is very active with internet marketing and maybe you have dabbled in eCommerce (dabbled meaning generating a little revenue, but the website is generating less than 25% of your existing business revenue. You need to quantify your progress and need to automate the entire process to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars, or collecting some leads, but it’s just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You are an expert in internet marketing and eCommerce strategies for your entire business. This “division” of your business is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Lead Generation)?

Rate your company’s performance with your Lead Generation program from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –You do not have a very good Lead Generation program, or the one you have is performing horribly. (Your roadmap for lead generation for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about your Lead Generation for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better Lead Generation program, but have not pursued using it very vigorously. 3 - You have a very good Lead Generation program and you are generating some leads. You may not be tracking how well the program is performing with sales conversions. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your program in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established Lead Generation strategy for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your program deeper into your daily efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars off these leads, but your programs are just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible Lead Generation program for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This “Lead-Gen” is driving great business your way, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Bonuses, Premiums, etc)?

Rate your company’s performance with your Bonus and Premium program from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –You do not have a very good bonus, premium, and special offers program, or the one you have is performing horribly. (Your roadmap for bonus and premium marketing for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about offering more bonuses, premiums, and special offers for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better bonus program, but have not pursued using it very vigorously. 3 - You have a very good bonus and premium program and you are generating some leads. You may not be tracking how well the program is performing with sales conversions. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your program in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established bonus and premium strategy for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your program deeper into your daily efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars off these leads, but your programs are just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible bonus and premium program for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This bonus and premium program is driving great business your way, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Testimonials)?

Rate your company’s performance with your Testimonial program from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –You do not have a very good testimonial program, or the one you have is performing horribly. (Your roadmap for using testimonials to your best advantage for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about collecting more testimonials for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better testimonial program, but have not pursued using it very vigorously. 3 - You have a very good testimonial program and you are generating some leads. You may not be tracking how well the program is performing with sales conversions. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your program in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established testimonial strategy for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your program deeper into your daily efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars off these leads, but your programs are just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible testimonial program for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This testimonial program is driving great business your way, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Reputation Management)?

Rate your company’s performance with your Reputation Management program from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –You do not have a very good reputation management program, or the one you have is performing horribly. (Your roadmap for reputation management for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about launching a reputation management program for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better reputation management program, but have not pursued using it very vigorously. 3 - You have a very good reputation management program and you are generating some positive results and actual leads. You may not be tracking how well the program is performing with sales conversions. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your program in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established reputation strategy for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your program deeper into your daily efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars off these leads, but your programs are just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the onramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible reputation management program for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This program is driving great business your way, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Affiliates, Joint Ventures)?

Rate your company’s performance with your Affiliate and/or Joint Venture program from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –You do not have a very good affiliate and joint venture program, or the one you have is performing horribly. (Your roadmap for affiliate and joint venture marketing for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about launching an affiliate-joint venture program for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better affiliate-joint venture program, but have not pursued using it very vigorously. 3 - You have a very good affiliate-joint venture program and you are generating some positive results and actual leads. You may not be tracking how well the program is performing with sales conversions. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your program in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established affiliate-joint venture strategy for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your program deeper into your daily efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars off these leads, but your programs are just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible affiliate-joint venture program for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This program is driving great business your way, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Referral Programs)?

Rate your company’s performance with your Referral Programs from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –You do not have a very good referral program, or the one you have is performing horribly. (Your roadmap for a referral program for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about launching a referral program for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better referral program, but have not pursued using it very vigorously. 3 - You have a very good referral program and you are generating some positive results and actual leads. You may not be tracking how well the program is performing with sales conversions. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your program in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established referral program for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your program deeper into your daily efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars off these leads, but your programs are just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible referral program for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This program is driving great business your way, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Employees and Operations)?

Rate your company’s performance with your Employees and Operations program from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –You do not have a very good employee development program, or the one you have is performing horribly. (Your roadmap for a better employee program for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about launching a better employee development program for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better employee development program, but have not pursued using it very vigorously. 3 - You have a very good employee development program and you are generating some positive results and actual results. You may not be tracking how well the program is performing with sales conversions and improved performance. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your program in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more successful. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established employee development program for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your program deeper into your daily efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be making a few dollars off the improved performance, but your programs are just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible employee development program for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This program is driving great business your way, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Vendors)?

Rate your company’s performance with your Vendor program from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –You do not have a very good vendor development program, or the one you have is performing horribly. (Your roadmap for a better vendor program for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about launching a better vendor development program for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better vendor development program, but have not pursued using it very vigorously. 3 - You have a very good vendor development program and you are generating some positive results and actual results. You may not be tracking how well the program is performing with improved profitability and improved performance. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your program in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more profitable. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the on-ramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established vendor development program for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your program deeper into your daily efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be a little more profitable off the improved performance, but your programs are just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible vendor development program for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This program is driving great business your way, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How do you rate your Category (Your Competition)?

Rate your company’s performance with your Competition program from a scale of 0 to 5. I’ve defined the scale for this category below. 0 –You do not have a very good competition tracking program, or the one you have is performing horribly. (Your roadmap for a better competitor tracking program for your store is non-existent, and you don’t have a vehicle to get your business into the fast lane on the internet marketing interstate highway.) 1 - You have thought about launching a better competition tracking program for a little while, but have not gone through the exercise of really figuring out what is best for your company. (You haven’t even gotten into the car to start your journey.) 2 - You have just opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat to start your journey. You may not have a well defined plan for a better competition tracking program, but have not pursued using it very vigorously. 3 - You have a very good competition tracking program and you are generating some positive results and actual results. You may not be tracking how well the program is performing with improved market share and improved performance. You would like to pay a little more attention to developing your program in more depth. You need more help with the plan, implementation, and strategies to get you moving and making the operation more profitable. (You are in your car, traveling a little, but are on the side streets looking for the onramp to the highway.) 4 - Your company has an established competition tracking program for both your website and brick and mortar store (if you have one), but you need to quantify your progress and need to integrate your program deeper into your daily efforts to achieve maximum results. You may be gaining a little more market share off the improved performance, but your programs are just not paying big bucks yet and you need to shift it into overdrive. (You are hitting the on-ramp to the internet marketing highway.) 5 - You have an incredible competition tracking program for your website and/or brick and mortar store. This program is driving great business your way, you are gaining a huge market share, is very profitable, is automatically generating truckloads of qualified and highly targeted leads, converting them into sales and creating lifetime relationship customers. You are now looking for the next challenge for growth in your business. I tip my hat to you and would love to share success stories. And we might be able to help each other out and join in my Mastermind group.



How Does Your Company Score? Score

eCommerce and Retail Internet Marketing ____

Customer Database ____

Products and Services ____

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) ____

Target Market ____

Marketing and Media Strategy ____

Lead Generation ____

Bonuses, Premiums, Special Offers, and Free Trials ____

Testimonials ____

Reputation Management/Reviews ____

Affiliates, Joint Ventures, and Charities ____

Referral Programs ____

Employees and Operations ____

Vendors ____

Your Competition ____ Total ____


Let’s Analyze Your iMARS© Scores

There are 15 categories within our iMARS© system and a maximum score of 75. The Key categories (1, 2, 3, 4, 13, and 15) have a maximum score of 30. Your total score is _______/ 75 Your Key score is _______/30 Your average score is ______ The key to understanding your strengths and weaknesses lies in these numbers. I would first start by looking at your key score. If your score isn’t at least a 23, you have some basic and serious work to do right now to stabilize your marketing efforts. Work towards getting that number up to 27 or more in the next two months. If your average score is below a 4, you need to put your efforts in high gear. If you have a full-time employee working on your marketing, you need to have a serious talk about under performance. If you have a contractor helping you with your marketing, time to hire a new contractor. Get that number at 4 or more in the next three months. That would be the same with your overall score. You need to have that score at 60 or above by the end of the next three months to have an effective program. Remember, our online furniture store achieved a Key score of 23 within just a few months and was generating $100,000 to $140,000 in profitable revenue for the owner. Does that mean you will have the same results? Who knows, but it is worth looking into. You could have dramatically better results if you have a great plan.

Are you looking for similar results with your eCommerce or internet marketing efforts?

I can help you!


Two Offers You Can’t Refuse Valued at Over $500! I have two FREE offers I don’t think you can refuse. The first offer is to have me help you with a marketing challenge you need solving. If you email me at [email protected] with a brief description of a marketing challenge that needs immediate attention, I will personally email you back with suggestions. This is a $250 offer, just for reading my ebook all the way to the end. Be sure to include all of your contact information.

My second FREE offer to you is that I will personally critique your iMARS© Score. Email me your scores per category, and I will offer you valuable suggestions to help you with prioritizing your direction. This is another $250 value.

Is there a catch? Not really. But my offer has a limited time and I can only handle so many new requests a week since I am working on rejuvenating other small and medium businesses at the same time. After I receive my 10th request in a week, I will have to put you on a waiting list. I despise waiting lists, but there is only so much I can do with a high demand. And I can’t work for free for very long. So I will soon cut off the free portion of the offer. So email me right now at:

[email protected] The information is right here. You’ve documented your strengths and weaknesses and you know you need to move forward. So call or email today to take advantage of my generous offer today. No obligation and no need for a guarantee since I’m not charging you a dime! I look forward to hearing from you today!

Bill Mooney eCommerce Development, Online Reputation Management and Marketing, Business Rejuvenation Expert, Internet Marketing Coach www.iMarketingSuccess.com 503-563-5233

Documents

Recession Busting Ecomm Business And Marketing Strategies V3