3: Stimulate a good amount of repeat and referral sales.
The good news is that there are hundreds of businesses all around you that have proven marketing systems that potentially could work well for your business also.
Here is a simple example to get you thinking.
The proven system to stimulate referral business
A little while ago I had the opportunity to chat with a business owner in Canada called Mark who has a very successful acupuncture business.
Mark started his acupuncture business just over a year ago and used three simple marketing strategies to stimulate new acupuncture clients and get referrals to ideal new acupuncture clients.
Mark now regularly earns $10,000 to $12,000 income every month from his acupuncture clinic and is so busy he can only take on a tiny number of new clients.
Mark explained his three marketing strategies to me and what I liked about them was how simple they were to use.
One strategy was a printed gift certificate that Mark sent to new clients within three days of their first visit to his acupuncture clinic.
The gift certificate was for a free 30 minute acupuncture treatment session. Mark included a very clever two page letter with each gift certificate and discovered that by doing this around 50 per cent of his gift certificates were redeemed within 2 weeks.
90 per cent of the people who came in for the free acupuncture treatment session booked to come back for further paid acupuncture treatments and spent on average around $500 over the next month or so.
What I immediately noticed about Mark's Gift Certificate strategy is how well it could work for a range of other people in the natural health field.
People like chiropractors, massage therapists, naturopaths and many more could all use this same gift certificate strategy to get new clients and a ton of referral clients as well.
All they would need to do is use Mark's gift certificate and 2 page letter in their own business.
(If you have a business in the natural therapy field feel free to email me and I'll give you further details on the three proven strategies that Mark is using.)
The big advantage of using a marketing system like Mark's is that it has already worked well to create new clients and stimulate some great referral business for his acupuncture clinic.
So there is a good chance it will produce good results for other acupuncturists as well as people in other natural health fields.
The key here is to find something that is already working, preferably in a business that is related to yours.
Here's another example:
I attended a marketing seminar many years ago and the presenter explained a very simple system that any tradesperson could use to turn more of their quotes and proposals into paying clients who said 'yes' and agreed to use their services.
The system took around 7 minutes to use and involved adding three simple headings to each proposal or quote. (Along with writing 2-3 sentences under each heading.)
The example the presenter gave was for a house painter. However this quote improvement system would work equally well for any type of tradesperson who regularly presented quotes or proposals to prospective new clients.
By finding a marketing system that is already working (particularly in your industry) you can often save yourself a lot and money using marketing that may or may not produce great results.
It's a simple marketing shortcut that might be worth testing in your own business.
'The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.' John Burroughs
Action Exercise:
What businesses in related fields to yours have a proven marketing system that is already working well?
How could you get permission to use this marketing system in your own business?
Graham McGregor is a consultant specialising in memorable marketing.
You can download his 396 page 'Unfair Business Advantage' Ebook at
no charge from www.theunfairbusinessadvantage.com
