How Can I Retain My Nightclub Customers?

Publicity

My client has spent millions of pounds refurbishing and re-launching some nightclubs and late bars but this has not resulted in increased sales! Each re-launch is promoted heavily in the local area and the work is conducted to a high standard by professional design & build companies. The “look” is exciting and vibrant and has featured in many trade magazines.

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Jay’s Answer: Basically, if they’ve been redone, they are to be considered “new” bars, not updates of the familiar. During the remodel, patrons have found other “favorites”.

How does your client’s offering compare with his popular competition? Why should people want to switch?

As for ideas, I don’t know your demographic, and even if I did, I probably don’t live in the area. Therefore, bring in focus groups (paid) of your target demographic. This will be a two-fer: you’ll get some input of likes/dislikes, and you’ll get them in the door (which can create a word-of-mouth effect). The key is to simply get used to coming (back) to the locations – anything that can bring them in (special events, free nights, contests, etc.) will start the ball rolling.

Should I Start A Pet and Housesitting Business?

Services, Starting Out

I need help determining if I should start a business pet and house sitting. I just moved to the area I am currently living in and noticed with some limited research that there is a person doing the same thing across the street from my new home and three others with a 15 mile radius. Their marketing is not that professional and the service fees are complicated and include add on fees for everything such as returning house keys! I feel I could do this with a good name and tag line and get involved in the Chamber and network groups- what do you think ? Should I worry about the competition or just develop a name and tag line that would attract ?

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Jay’s Answer: Your competition already has a reputation and clients. If your benefit is a simpler pricing plan, then they could copy that in a heartbeat. Slicker marketing may not be matter to the prospects – the word-of-mouth factor would. Joining the Chamber is unlikely to produce the leads you’re looking for. The obvious leads would come from vets who don’t offer pet care service, pet food stores, local dog parks, and even travel agents (who knows when people will be traveling).

Focus on something different. First, make sure you get bonded. That will speak loudly that you’re to be trusted. Team up with a house cleaner, groomer, and/or handy person. Provide a full-service menu – go away on vacation, and come back to a home that’s better than when you left it.

Will A Business Blog Raise Your Pagerank?

eMarketing

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Jay’s Answer: Not directly. Let’s say you write the best articles on the web about your business expertise. Pithy. In-depth. Lots of world-class material.

First, the web crawlers have to find your blog. That means either you list it on a directory or from your existing site. Will that bump up your page rank, no.

The web crawlers don’t see how wonderful your text is. Humans do. They refer to it by linking to the great material.

Page rank is a combination of: the number and quality of your backlinks. Once you have a blog up and running, visit other relevant blog sites and post pithy comments. If accepted, your comments will create a backlink. If someone who reads your comments visits your site, likes what they see, then they’ll post a backlink, and so on. Ideally, someone else’s site which was deemed a high page rank site will backlink to you, creating the page rank bump.

So, creating a blog is only half the work. The other half is starting a viral backlink plan.

Is RSS Better Than Emailing Newsletters?

eMarketing

I’m with a purchasing cooperative and we need to get product updates to our members in a timely manner. I’m wondering if we could some how take advantage of RSS (real simple syndication) technologies to get this information out. Not all our members carry all of our lines. No one in our organization has experience with RSS.

  • Does this sound feasible?
  • Would this be more time consuming than sending blanket emails to all our Members?

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Jay’s Answer: It’s easy to do. The problem is that your members need to subscribe to your feed to see the updates. While you can see who has subscribed to your feed, you don’t know if they’ve seen it. Using email contact manager software you can see if they’ve opened it, clicked though, etc.

As for which is more time consuming – it’s a toss-up. With RSS you’ll need to update your web page. With an email, you’ll need to compose it, and send it out.

How Can I Create A Crisp Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?

Services

I’m expert for a methodology, which allows producers and concept developers to transform products, technology or innovative concepts into cheaper, better performing and hard to copy results. I’d like to take the next step and turn my knowledge into a desirable service. The idea is to cooperate with clients subject matter experts, once management is convinced of my services.

From talks to both technical and non-technical people it seem that the methodology in itself creates interest – at least, because it has a strange name (which is also hard to explain) – especially with the non-technical audience. Once they understand the basic concept, they even come up with ideas for applications in new, i.e. non-technical, fields, which is nice. It also seems that it’s better to talk about the achievements possible rather than about the detailed steps to take. Though, that will be necessary to do, too.

When people spend about 1 hour interactively with me they get the main points. To understand details it’s a much longer road for them and it’s easy to loose them on the way. For selling or advertisement purposes this is no good – who will spend 1 hour talking to me all the time? And how much talking can I do myself?

What I’d like to achieve is: look, like, hire (my services). Unfortunately I’m too deeply involved in the subject matter itself to truly find the right words for my potential clients.

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Jay’s Answer: You’ve correctly identified your problem (“Unfortunately I’m too deeply involved in the subject matter itself to truly find the right words for my potential clients”).

Besides hiring experts who can help you do this for your business a solution that might appeal to you is asking your prospects to tell you what you do. The wording doesn’t have to be correct – but the language will be that of an disinterested listener, who you’re trying to target.

By the way: look, like, hire is a nice idea, but the reality is you also need trust in that equation. Trust is what makes people believe that giving you their money is likely to produce the result you promise. Without that, you’re all hype. Trust can be built with white papers, testimonials, 3rd party studies, articles, seminars, meetings, etc

How Can I Increase My Online Membership?

eMarketing

I own a small internet startup in the business of online games. We are launching our first project within a month or so, and it is a service where users must sign up to create a free account. Our goal is to simply get as many users signed up as we can in order to grow as large and as quickly as possible.

Since we are a small firm, we only have a few thousand dollars to put towards advertising and marketing. We’ve already decided on positioning and a target market.

So the question is: How can we get the most bang for our buck? We’ve considered Google Adwords, MySpace or Facebook advertising, and online contests/giveaways. Any other ideas or strategies?

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Jay’s Answer: Focus on your strategy first. You have a lot of competition online (over 31,000,000 pages when I searched for “free online games”, and 1,000,000 for “free role-playing games”) so it makes sense to plan rather than spend your money randomly.

Are your games much different/better than what’s out there? Is there another company that you can team up with – offering your games (content) in exchange for ad revenue on their site?

PopCap Games (www.popcap.com) has been around since 2000, and has successfully grown their company. They have free web-based games. Free downloadable games (but you need to pay for higher levels or longer play). Multiple hardware platforms. No ad revenue, though.

If you’re focusing on role-playing gamers, then it would make sense to find the popular role-playing forums & blogs and tell them about your games, why they’re great, how they’re different. Send a press release to role-playing magazines or a personal introduction letter to the web game reviewer on staff.

Create a blog about your site. Allow people to share tips/tricks. Rant. Applaud. Actively respond to questions/problems. You’re trying to build community – make it easy for people to hand around.

How Can I Get Word-of-Mouth Marketing For My Handbag Business?

Products

Hi, I am embarrassed to say that I am a marketing professional but now that I have started my own business I have been very challenged with coming up with creative marketing strategy (website omitted).

I am really interested in word of mouth marketing and shoe string marketing for my beaded handbag business. I believe the competitive advantage of my products are that they are beaded by hand, very unique, and affordable. Do you have any creative marketing ideas on a start-up budget?

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Jay’s Answer: A few of comments about your website:

  1. Your website is classy looking, but your pictures don’t allow me to see the bags. A close-up of the bag with better contrast between the background and it would be great.
  2. I would prefer to see fewer pictures on the home page and better crafted copy. I don’t want to check back often – let me sign up and you email ME. I want to know about the materials, the exclusivity, the quality, how beautiful having the bag will make me feel.
  3. Your catalog should provide dimensions of the bags as well as let me see if there are pockets, etc. There should be a PayPal button next to each purchase to allow me to buy it NOW.

For a start-up budget, you have a lot of choices.

  • The social networking (Facebook, etc.) environment would be a natural.
  • Write to various purse blogs (ex: http://www.purseblog.com/) about your new styles.
  • If you have a friend who can shoot digital video, a 30 second piece showing a pretty woman holding & using a pretty bag. Place the videos on the various video sharing sites (Google Videos, YouTube, etc.).
  • Advertise your bag on Craigslist.

How Can I Get New Patients For A Physician?

Publicity

I have a physician client that is well-thought of in the community but who has moved to several different practices in the past few years and is now on his own. He had a a client base that was more medicare heavy and he would like to now recruit new patients with insurance and capable of paying their co-pays!

I would appreciate any ideas to put into a potential proposal. He’s already mined his past patient list and done the rotary circuit- even ran several print ads but has not seen much benefit. I’m thinking he needs a major referral network or may need to approach some individual businesses and offer to treat their patients for a fixed yearly base.

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Jay’s Answer: A person finds a physician from referrals, not from the yellow pages (unless it’s an emergency). Here are some ideas:

  • Contact new homeowners & renters in the area
  • Sponsor talks on a variety of topics that you specialize in ("Info Night").
  • Write articles for the local newspaper ("Ask The Doctor").

What Is A Good Slogan For My Virtual Staffing Company?

Names + Taglines

VirtualStaff is a practical Solution to all of your business needs. We specialize in helping business focus on business by providing relief from day to day tasks that can be easily offloaded to an assistant. We are an independent contractor providing virtual assistance in a professional demeanor. VirtualStaff is here to partner with your business giving you more time to focus on what you do best.

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Jay’s Answer:

  • 24/7 Administrative Assistance
  • Grow Your Business – Not Your Staffing
  • Helping Hands For Your Business
  • Project-Based Business Expertise

How Can I Market My IT Consulting Company?

Services

What could be done to promote our business solutions other than conferences, newspapers, magazines, newsletters, interview, press releases, …

These ideas are extremely used, what I am looking for is something really new or special.

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Jay’s Answer: Who is your target market? What problems of theirs do you solve? What makes you unique? Why should people trust you?

These questions are the core for your marketing strategy. Without one, you’ll be wasting time and money trying to attract attention.

To build trust, for example, provide lots of white papers or articles that demonstrate your expertise. Team up with other related businesses and co-market. Provide an after-market solution to another business (IT support) following a purchase.