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Secrets to Success
Deborah Cole Micek
and John-Paul Micek
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Don't overlook current clients for future leads
Part 10 in a 13-part series
Existing clients and vendors are the quickest, surest way of getting more new clients.
That's Law No. 9 of the 12 Laws of Online Marketing with Business Blogs, RSS, and Podcasts.
When it comes to generating leads and attracting new clients to your business, most conventional advertising is useless. Like to prove it to yourself? It's easy. Just go and grab five or six consecutive months of your favorite magazine. Browse through them and track how many ads are repeated. So, how many ads did you find that ran more than once? I'd bet precious few, right! And here's the simple explanation why: The ads didn't generate enough new business to justify ever being run again.
There's a tremendous source for attracting new business - as many qualified and targeted prospects as you can handle. The source? It's the existing relationships you already have with clients, vendors, strategic partners, and other businesses -- and your business blogging can help multiply the results you get.
The key to unlocking the power within this sales force is to give each source a strong enough incentive to endorse your products and services and refer you to their clients. For three real-world examples, read a longer version of this article at www.advancedbusinessblogging.com/?p=134
So, how do people let you know that they trust, respect, and want to do business with you?
Without business blogging, if a current client, vendor, or strategic partner raves about your products or services, they send referrals to your store, or a sales letter to your site, or are forced to pick up the phone must make an immediate decision: Take action by buying now, or take no action.
With business blogging, knowing how jaded today's consumer is, with a solid business-blog strategy integrated with your overall marketing, you now have a powerful ally. In addition to people taking one of those three important actions, any new referral has the option of learning about you and your company through your business-blog content.
Since there is no heavy sales or marketing copy in your business-blog posts or business podcasts, these new referrals have the opportunity to connect with you and your company. And, with the aid of affiliate or other tracking methods, your clients, vendors, strategic partners, and other referral sources can use deep-linking strategies to send people to content that connects (rather than a hard sales message) -- while still being confident they'll get credit for their referral taking online action.
Apply these ideas and they will transform how efficiently you attract and retain new clients.
John-Paul Micek is the lead business coach at RPM Success Group Inc. Reach him at
JPM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.
Deborah Cole Micek, chief executive officer of RPM Success Group, is a business success coach and life strategist. Reach her at
DCM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.