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Published by:
Marketing Best Practices, Inc.
Author: H. David Frey
2507 W. Bay Area Blvd. Suite 1534
Webster, Texas 77598
Email: All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage or retrieval system without written permission from the author,
except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Disclaimer

This manual is designed to provide information in regard to the subject matter covered. It
is sold with the understanding that the publisher and authors and advisers are not
rendering legal, accounting or other professional services.

It is not the purpose of this manual to reprint all the information that is otherwise
available to authors, printers and publisher but to complement, amplify and supplement
other texts. For more information, see the references throughout the text.

Every effort has been made to make this manual as complete and as accurate as possible.
However, there may be mistakes both typographical and in content. Therefore, this text

Chapter 13 — 13 Elements Of A Winning Small Business Advertisement 97
Chapter 14 — 12-Step Foolproof Sales Letter Template 103
Chapter 15 — Telephone Success Strategies for Small Businesses 112
Chapter 16 — How to Price Your Product or Service for Maximum Profit 117
Chapter 17 — How To Use the Power of Packaging to Double Your Sales 132
Chapter 18 — Membership Marketing: Turning Occasional Buyers Into
Loyal Customers 139
Chapter 19 — Street Marketing for Small Businesses 145
Chapter 20 — Using Customer Testimonials in Your Marketing Message to
Break Down Fear and Skepticism 151
Chapter 21 — The Key To Guaranteed Repeat Sales 158
Chapter 22 — Lead Generation: How to Flood Your Small Business With
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Hot Qualified Prospects 165
Chapter 23 — Charity Marketing: Growing Your Business Through
Charitable Giving 172
Chapter 24 — Bumps, Up-sells, Cross-sells, and Down-sells 177
Chapter 25 — How to Create an Offer that Your Prospects Can’t Resist 183
Chapter 26 — How to Radically Reduce Refunds and Returns 194
Chapter 27 — Internet Marketing Strategies for Local Small Businesses 201
Chapter 28 — 16 Small Business Website Mistakes (and how to fix them) 205
Chapter 29 — How to Start Your Own Online Newsletter 229
Chapter 30 — Measure Your Marketing Efforts 251
Special Report # 1 — How to Make Yellow Pages Ads Work for Your
Small Business! 255
Special Report # 2 — Secrets to Direct Mail Success for Small Businesses 272
Special Report # 3 — How to Get Free Publicity for Your Small Business 297
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best business years could be during this recession!

It’s during the difficult times that you learn how to stretch your marketing dollar, to make
the most of your marketing investment. It’s during times like these that you learn new
and innovative marketing techniques that help your business thrive.

In “The Small Business Marketing Bible,” you will learn new and different techniques to
market your business that will make it immune to economic fluctuations and will increase
your top and bottom line no matter what the economy is doing.

You Must Hunt Down and Capture Your Prospects

I truly believe there will be fewer and fewer consumers that are out there just waiting to
buy. You will need to learn how to search out those prospects that may want to buy and
convince them that they need to buy — today. To do this you will need to discover new
and different ways to do prospecting and marketing.

Flashing ads with the words “sale, sale, sale” all over them won’t work. All these types of
ads do is skim the cream-of-the-crop prospects. (i.e. Those prospects who are ready to
buy today.) However, during the recession you will have to employ stealth marketing
techniques that will quietly hunt down and capture those prospects who are secretly
waiting to buy, but are too concerned about other things to make a move.

The only way to survive and thrive during competitive times is to re-focus your attention
on marketing. It’s time to tune up your marketing — to make sure you’re getting new
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customers in, inactive customers coming back, and your active customers purchasing
more.

It’s Time to Re-Double Your Marketing Efforts and Make

Effective marketing systems also allow you to leverage the assets that you already have.
These assets can very well be the knowledge that you have stored in your brain but aren’t
taking advantage of because you don’t know how. You will understand this more when
you read the sections on “Education-Based Marketing” or “Guaranteed Marketing.”

Putting these marketing techniques to work for you will put you head and shoulders
above your competitors. Why? Because very few (if any) small business owners know
the dynamic marketing techniques I’m about to show you — ideas that can literally
double your current business within six months and have customers practically line up
and beg to buy from you.

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Four Growth Areas — The Key To Your Ultimate
Marketing Plan

The secret lies in learning how to grow your business effectively. There are several
strategies you can use to grow your business, but they all fall under four general
categories.

1. Attract more new customers.
2. Increase the average sales amount.
3. Make your customers buy from you more often.
4. Hold on to your customers for life.

Every technique that I will talk about in this manual will fall under one or more of these
growth categories.

I believe small businesses focus too much of their efforts on number 1 and number 4.
You may disagree with me, but if a small business is receiving 40% of its new business
from referrals, it may be an indication that they are not spending enough time on

• Establish ongoing communications that present compelling offers that can’t be
turned down.
• Follow up with your customers to see how they’re enjoying the benefits of the
new product or service you sold them, and suggest products or services that would
increase their satisfaction.
• Track your customer’s usage and buying patterns to suggest purchases right
before they actually need them (this also helps keep the competition away).

Hold on to your customers for life…

• Deliver uncommon customer service by going the extra mile.
• Give your customers the opportunity to “go on record” by giving you testimonials
about your great customer service.
• Perform stealth surveys with your customers from time to time to gauge their
level of satisfaction.
Your goal is to design systems and programs that surround these four categories of
growth strategies. In this manual I will give you specific marketing techniques for each of
these areas to grow your small business.

After reading and studying this manual you will have the weapons you need to create the
ultimate small business marketing plan that will help you flourish during any down
economy.

You May Have to Completely Re-Think Your Marketing
Strategy

As you read, think about how each strategy or method could be applied to your small
business. Throw away your ego and ponder how you can customize these powerful
tactics to fit into your current business model. While you’re reading this manual, have a
notepad handy to take notes and write down To-Do’s.

make something happen.

But I have encountered many small business owners who get into trouble “doing” the
wrong marketing activities the right way or “doing” the right marketing activities the
wrong way. If you want to “do” the right marketing activities the right way you must start
with a marketing plan.

You don’t have to kill a tree to create an effective marketing plan. In fact, you can create
a successful plan for your small business in just one day. To begin, don’t worry about
writing style or making your plan fancy. Just go get a pencil and paper and let’s get
started.

Step 1 — Understand Your Market and Competition

A big mistake that many small business owners make is to latch on to a cool product or
service without first understanding the market and what it wants (not what it needs). If
you try to sell something that people don’t want, they won’t buy it.

It’s that simple.

A profitable market consists of people who have dire wants that are being unmet, so
much so that they will jump to buy your solution (product or service). A profitable
market can be compared to a lake with thousands of starving fish. All you need to do is
throw in the bait and it turns into a feeding frenzy.

To get an understanding of your market you should ask yourself questions like:

• Are there segments in my market that are being underserved?
• Are the segments of my market for my product or service big enough to make
money?

• How does my potential customer normally buy similar products? (e.g. in a store,
on the Web, door-to-door)
• Who is the primary buyer and the primary buying influencer in the purchasing
process? (e.g. husband or wife, purchasing agent, project leader, secretary)
• What kind of habits does my customer have? For instance, where do they get their
information? (e.g. television, newspapers, magazines)
• What are my target customer’s primary motivations for buying? (e.g. looking
good, avoiding pain, getting rich, being healthy, being popular, etc.)

Step 3 — Pick a Niche

If you say that your target customer is “everybody” then nobody will be your customer.
The marketplace is jam-packed with competition. You’ll have more success jumping up
and down in a small puddle than a big ocean.

Carve out a specific niche and dominate that niche; then you might consider moving on
to a second niche (but not before you’ve dominated the first one!).

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You could be a “lawyer that specializes in child accident liability” or a “CPA for used car
dealers” or a “dry cleaner for the Heritage Park subdivision in West Oaks, CA.” You get
the picture. Make sure to choose a niche that interests you and that is easy to contact. I
can’t stress this point enough.

There’s nothing more destructive than to pick a niche that you can’t communicate with or
that costs you a ton of money to contact.

Step 4 — Develop Your Marketing Message

Your marketing message not only tells your prospect what you do, but persuades them to

The following is a smattering of tools you have at your disposal to get your message out:

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• Newspaper ads
• Posters
• Contests
• Card decks
• Seminars

• Television ads
• Signs
• Sweepstakes
• Door-to-door
• Teleclasses

• Radio ads
• Banners
• Trade shows
• Yellow Pages
• Articles

• Classified ads
• Newsletter
• Charity events
• Networking
• Infomercials

• Billboards
• Take-one box
• Telemarketing

on a hip-hop radio station. This is a complete mismatch of the market, message, and
medium.

Success will come when there is a good match of these three elements.

Step 6 — Set Sales and Marketing GoalsGoals are critical to your success. A “wish” is a goal that hasn’t been written down. If
you haven’t written your goals, you’re still just wishing for success. When creating your
goals use the SMART formula. Ensure that your goals are, (1) Sensible, (2) Measurable,
(3) Achievable, (4) Realistic, and (5) Time-specific.

Your goals should include financial elements, such as annual sales revenue, gross profit,
sales per salesperson, and so on. However, they should also include non-financial
elements such as units sold, contracts signed, clients acquired, and articles published.

Once you’ve set your goals, implement processes to internalize them with all team
members, such as reviewing them in sales meetings, displaying thermometer posters, and
awarding achievement prizes.

Step 7 — Develop Your Marketing Budget

Your marketing budget can be developed several ways, depending on whether you want
to be more exact or to develop just a quick-and-dirty number. It’s good to start out with a
quick-and-dirty calculation and then to support it with further details.

First, if you have been in business for over a year and tracked your marketing-related
expenditures, you could easily calculate your “cost to acquire one customer” or “cost to
sell one product” by dividing your annual sales and marketing costs by the number of

are answered based on the understanding of the lifetime value of a customer.

How to Calculate New Customer Acquisition Costs

To calculate new customer acquisitions costs, first research what total marketing costs
were for the previous year. Next, count how many new customers you did business with
last year. Finally, divide your marketing costs by the number of new customers to
determine your cost per customer.

Of course, this is not entirely accurate, but it’s a pretty good guideline. Many of your
customers came as a result of word-of-mouth or referrals. Perhaps some of your old
customers purchased your product or service from you as well. These things can
incorrectly inflate the cost per new customer.

Let’s do a hypothetical calculation for a new customer acquisition cost for a hot tub
dealer. We’ll assume that we sold $1,000,000 worth of spas and our marketing expense
was 5% of revenue.

New Customer Acquisition Cost

Total marketing cost from previous year $50,000
Number of spas sold 166
Average cost of new customer acquisition $301

You’ve Got to Start Somewhere

Although your new customer acquisition cost may not be entirely correct, at least it’s a
start. By the way, you should start to collect some important information from your
customers at the time of the sales. For example, you should be tracking how your
customers came to you and what motivated them to buy from you.

Word-of-mouth referral 1 referral for every one customer
Total Lifetime Revenues $13,760
Average Gross Margin 30%
Lifetime Gross Margin $4,128

In our hypothetical examples the cost of a new customer acquisition is around $300 and
the lifetime gross margin of a customer is $4,128.

Now ask yourself how much are you willing to invest, per customer, to grow your
business. If you are grossing $4,128 per customer would you be willing to spend more
than $300 to acquire a new customer?

I hope so!
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Don’t Skimp When It Comes to Investing Your Marketing
DollarsTime and time again I see most small business owners, in general, under-invest in
marketing. Why? Because, invariably they don’t understand the lifetime value of a
customer!

This is a big mistake that many owners make. I understand that the percentage of
marketing dollars spent varies from industry to industry; however, did you know that the
majority of best practice small businesses invest up to 10% or more of the total revenue
on marketing?

These are the most successful small businesses. Why? Because they have taken the time
to compute the lifetime value of their customers and realize that its one of the best

Federal Express based their slogan on a promise of delivery reliability. Domino’s based
their slogan on the fact that most pizza eaters don’t care how much stuff is on their pizza,
but that it is hot, fresh, and delivered quickly.

Your Unique Selling Proposition

Each of these slogans is their respective company’s unique selling proposition (USP). A
USP is something that differentiates you from all your competitors both local and
industry-wide. It’s what makes you so unique that people will choose to do business with
you over any of your competitors. Your USP states your distinct advantage.

One of the deadliest mistakes small businesses make is not being unique. Now more than
ever you must differentiate your small business. Today there is an explosion of choices
for consumers. During slow times, the same number of small businesses will be vying for
a diminishing number of prospects. When this happens the competitive landscape gets
tougher and choices for consumers get more difficult.

If you want to survive during the slow economy you must differentiate yourself in the
eyes of your prospect. Your USP is what states to the world why you are different.

*Factoid*: The origin of USP comes from a man named Rosser Reeves who was
considered the “high priest of hard sell.” He was an advertising agency chairman back in
the 60’s. He wrote a book titled, “Reality in Advertising” that became very popular. It
was translated into 28 languages. He introduced and defined the concept called Unique
Selling Proposition.

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Why is Your USP so Important

To be successful in small business you don’t have to be the best, you just have to be


You shouldn’t rush or hurry the decision of your USP. You will spend thousands of
dollars on advertising and promoting your USP. Once you’ve made your impression and
then decide to change it, you begin to confuse your prospects, and it will cost you even
more money to re-implement a different USP.

If your USP is a promise or guarantee, you must make sure that you can fulfill your USP
promise. Domino’s had a very bold USP. To get a pizza to anyone’s house in Domino’s
marketplace within 30 minutes was sometimes a difficult feat to consistently accomplish.
But the rewards were fantastic.

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How do you pick a USP? You need to first identify which needs are going unfulfilled
within either your industry or your local market. These are called “performance gaps.”
Many businesses that base their USP on industry performance gaps are successful.

Here are some examples in different small business industries:

Example #1 — Auto Repair Industry

Performance Gap (problem) = Auto repair establishments have a reputation of being
dishonest.

Potential USP (solution) = “If It Ain’t Broke, We Won’t Fix It!”

Example #2 — Dental Industry

Performance Gap (problem) = No one likes to go to the dentist because its such a
painful experience.


This is sometimes called “preemptive marketing.” You can preempt your competitors if
you take a strong benefit, whether or not it’s unique, and put your stamp on it first. All
others who come after you will just be strengthening an advantage that you have already
placed in the minds of your prospects.

Live Up To Your USP

Be bold when developing your USP, but be careful to ensure that you can live up to your
USP. Your USP should have promises, guarantees, policies and procedures, employee
evaluations and other reinforcing processes to make each USP come alive.

Having a strong USP can make your business super successful; on the other hand, having
a USP that you can’t live up to is suicide. I’m sure that Domino’s had to eat the cost of a
lot of pizzas when they didn’t arrive within 30 minutes, but they developed a system that
allowed them to deliver on their promise consistently.

Integrate Your USP into Everything You Do

Once you have put some careful thought to your USP and have developed it, you need to
integrate it into everything you do. Your USP should be found somewhere in your
headlines, body copy of ads, direct mail, and Yellow Pages. You should repeat it clearly
and consistently in every one of your radio and television commercials.

You should include it in your sales presentation, on the walls of your business and even
on your business card. You can’t over-do or wear out your USP, especially if it’s
powerful.

The nation’s most successful furniture dealer is based here in Houston, Texas. You can’t
turn on a radio or television without hearing the furniture store’s USP, “Saves You
Money!” across the airwaves. It’s everywhere.

have to worry about getting customers again. You’ll have more than you’ll ever want.

Once you have developed an effective marketing message you can (and should) start to
use it in all areas of your marketing such as:

• Flyers
• Advertisements (print, radio, T.V.)
• Business cards
• Selling presentations
• Website
• Speeches and workshops
• Daily correspondence
• Proposals
• Brochures

Basically, any form of external communication will include parts or even your entire
marketing message. Even outgoing faxes and your telephone answering service will use
parts of your marketing message.

What is Your Marketing Message?

Your marketing message is what grabs your prospect’s attention, tells them how you can
solve their problem, why they should trust you, and why they should choose to do
business with you over and above any and all other choices they might have.
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Most of you have already developed a marketing message and just don’t know it. Some
of you think you have developed a marketing message but really haven’t.

For example, I was visiting with a mold remediation company here in Houston the other

Hope for PKD sufferers — Recent Tests Point to Potential Cure to PKD.”

Do you think you would continue reading the letter? Yes!

Suppose as you continued reading, you saw charts, pictures, and testimonials that
provided positive reassurance that their claim to cure PKD is true. Do you think you
would get excited after reading this information? You bet!

Now imagine as you got to the bottom of the letter you were given a list of other research
companies that were working to find a cure for PKD, but were told that only one (the