Peter Geisheker's Small Business Marketing Blog

my Suidoo page

2008-02-06T18:20:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone,

I finally created a squidoo page. You can see it at http://www.squidoo.com/marketing-firm

Peter

Get a FREE marketing brainstorming session

2008-01-22T14:03:00.000-06:00

This is Peter Geisheker, your favorite marketing consultant coming to you with a big present to help you start off 2008 with a FINANCIAL BANG!

Starting today and going through February 29, 2008, The Geisheker Group, Inc. is offering YOU a free 30-minute marketing brainstorming session on how to increase your sales by at least $100,000 this year.

To get this free marketing brainstorming session all you have to do is call our newly hired President and marketing guru extraordinaire Michael Pecora, at 315-597-6524 (New York phone number). There is NO obligation for you to buy any of our services. Hopefully you are smart enough to take advantage of this free offer because the ideas Mike will give you are AMAZING and this offer expires at 5 PM eastern standard time on Friday, February 29.

So, who the heck is this Michael guy?
Michael Pecora is the business and marketing genius that I have been trying to recruit to become the President of my marketing firm for over 4-years. That’s right, I have been chasing this guy for 4 long years. Does that make me a stalker? Probably. But my persistence has paid off and I finally got Mike to take the job of President of The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm.

So what has Mike done to deserve me calling him a business and marketing genius? Well, first of all, he has built eight companies from nothing to multi-million dollar companies ALL in under 10 years. So, the guy knows business and how to make money—fast!

Mike is also a creative marketing strategy genius. The ideas this guy comes up with blow me away. Mike has only been with my company for 2-months and he has already doubled sales. That’s right. He worked for two months for me and he has already doubled our sales.

Now, Mike wants to give you his marketing ideas on how to earn at least $100,000 in additional income for your business in the next year and he will do it for free, so call today.

Michael Pecora: 315-597-6524

Remember, this offers expires at 5 PM eastern standard time on Friday, February 29. Call now so you do not miss out.

To your business success in 2008!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"We deliver marketing results!”
http://www.geisheker.com
(315) 597-6524

Cool new product - gps auto tracker

2007-10-27T09:35:00.001-06:00

I have begun working with a new client and they have a fantastic product - a GPS tracking system for your car.

Car theft is an ever increasing problem in the world. Do something about it buy installing an affordable gps auto tracker in your car. Then, if your car is stolen, or you want to see where your kids are when they borrow the car, you can easily track the exact location of your car on the internet.

http://www.cyntrx.com

Great Link Trade Resource for Search Engine Optimization

2007-09-05T13:36:00.002-06:00

If you are looking for quality link exchange partners to help you increase your rankings in the search engines, a great resource I use is http://forums.digitalpoint.com/

There is no fee to use this service. I have been using it for the past couple of months to network with other website owners for trading links and it has worked incredibly well for raising my rankings in the search engines, especially google.

If you want to trade links with me, please email me at peter@geisheker.com. I am only looking for link partners that have business topic websites.

How to dominate your niche market

2007-09-04T12:16:00.000-06:00

As I have mentioned many times, the key to success in marketing is to choose a niche market and then dominate it by using repetitive marketing. What I mean by repetitive marketing is marketing to both your customers and the prospects in your niche market over and over...forever. This keeps your company fresh in the minds of your customers and prospects.

Here is the marketing campaign a very successful retail clothing store uses over a 1-year time period to absolutely dominate their market:

18 mailings (direct mail - sales letters/promos)
4 personal calls from their sales associate
4 Telephone Voice Broadcasts
52 weekly emails

That is a total of 78 contacts (also known as "touches") per year to each prospect and customer. And, each prospect and customer is being contacted using 3 different marketing channels - direct mail, the telephone, and email. Very, very smart!

If you want to dominate your marketplace, the way to do it is with repetitive marketing. If you are only contacting your customers and prospects a few times per year, you are going to get killed by your competitors. Make it a rule that you should contact every customer and prospect in your database a minimum of once per month and contact them using different channels such as direct mail, phone calls, email, faxes, thank you notes, etc. If you do this, you will quickly dominate your marketplace and have very loyal customers.

The best list broker

2007-08-29T14:51:00.000-06:00

One of the most powerful tools you can have in marketing is a high quality contact list. The better the contact list, the better response you will get.

If you are looking for a high quality list broker, I highly recommend:

BEST MAILING LISTS
Herb Kirsch
800-692-2378
FAX 520-885-3100
http://www.bestmailing.com

Dish Network makes a big marketing mistake

2007-08-20T13:43:00.000-06:00

Today I called Dish Network to cancel HBO because I find that I really do not watch it. When I called Dish Network to cancel my account, I was taken through and automated voice system that allowed me to cancel HBO by pressing a button. Quick, easy....and a big mistake by Dish Network.

What was the mistake?

I should have been directed to a customer service rep who asked me why I was canceling HBO. The rep could have learned that I wanted more movies and less HBO programming. Then, the rep could have tried to sell me on switching to a different movie package such as Stars or Cinemax. But, that opportunity was lost. Dish Network could have probably made an easy sale by finding out my problem with HBO and getting me to sign up with a different movie service. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of dollars (or even millions) Dish Network is losing by using an automated system instead of using customer service reps?

Is your business making this mistake? Are you losing tons of sales because you are trying to automate everything instead of having customers talk to your sales reps?
Peter Geisheker
CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm

Free PR4 backlink

2007-06-04T13:22:00.000-06:00

If you are looking to improve SEO for your website, consider trading links with me. I can provide you with a free PR4 backlink at http://www.marketing-consulting-company.com/marketplace/marketing1.htm

How to easily get top 10 rankings on Google

2007-05-10T14:32:00.000-06:00

I want to start this blog by saying those of you who are my marketing clients know that I am a person you can trust and that I do not sugar coat anything when I give marketing advice. You also know that I under-promise and over-deliver. When I give my clients marketing resources, my clients know that I am providing them with a resource that produces solid results.

Those of you who are my clients also know that I am an expert at getting websites high rankings in the search engines as that is one of the marketing services I specialize in.

Now I want to let you in on something very special.

Over the past month I have been working with some of the world’s top internet marketers to test a new system for generating high rankings in the search engines – particularly Google. My main focus during the past month has been testing this system to make absolutely sure it really works and gets websites top search engine rankings. I tested the system with my websites and I tested it with a couple of my clients’ websites. I am thrilled to say the results have been incredible. After only spending a month using this system, the websites I have been testing have achieved top ten rankings in Google. In the world of search engine optimization, this is like winning the lottery because it normally takes 6-12 months of very time consuming work to get a top 10 ranking in Google.

For proof of how well this system works, over the past 3-months my website has been floating in ranking at around #15 - #12 on Google for the search term “marketing firm.” No matter what I did, I could not break into the top 10 results. Then I tested this system by using it on my website. After only 3-weeks my website moved up to position #4 on Google, and I am competing against 76 million other websites. Yes, you read that correctly. In a marketplace of 76 million websites competing for the term “marketing firm” I am #4. Within a month or two I am confident I will have the #1 ranking on Google. Incredibly isn’t it? Wouldn’t you love to see your website showing up as the #1 site people see when they search Google for your type of products or services?

The remarkable system I have been testing is called Search Engine Trust and it is completely revolutionizing Search Engine Marketing. Those who sign up for it are going to dominate the top spots in the search engines.

However, so this system does not get diluted by having too many people using it, we are strictly limiting the number of people who can sign up. As a huge favor to you, I am sending this message to you so you can signup before we begin our national advertising campaign and all the spots are filled.

So, PLEASE go to http://www.getsearchenginetrust.com/ and sign up today. Everybody always wishes they could get in on the ground floor of something amazing. THIS IS YOUR CHANCE!

This system works so well that I am putting my reputation on the line. If you sign up for this service, you are going to get high rankings in the search engines. And, I will help you use the program so I can guarantee you will get top 10 search engine rankings.

After you have signed up, please email me so I know you signed up. I will then show you step-by-step exactly how to use this service so you can achieve the same great results I have. As all of my clients know, I am 100% dedicated to helping them successfully market their products and services.

Sign up today. In a month from now you are going to thank me for telling you about this amazing program. http://www.getsearchenginetrust.com/

If you have a close friend or a family member who has a website and wants to get top 10 search engine rankings, please send them to the website to sign-up. Again, membership is very limited so the program is not diluted. Therefore, please sign up today and tell your friends and family members to sign up today. Otherwise you will lose out on something truly remarkable.

Sincerely,

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 592-9595

Project Management Services

2007-05-09T13:10:00.000-06:00

If you are looking for outstanding project management services, check out www.idealprojectgroup.com.

Ideal Project Group LLC provides professional project management services that lead to results. We understand the importance of execution; and that delivering your project on time, on budget, and with superior quality are that factors that will determine the success of your business and separate you from your competition.

Do you need elder care services?

2007-05-09T09:47:00.000-06:00

Dubols provides comprehensive medical and non-medical elder care services. Our personal care providers are available for their clients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Each care provider completes an intensive training program and is fully qualified to provide care that is patient,professional, and personal.

Dubols elder care begins with a detailed written care plan for each client. A Dubols Care Coordinator is assigned to monitor the elder client’s activities and care, and to be the point of contact for the client’s family. In creating the care plan we consider all the levels of care and types of services that might be needed. For more information please visit dubols.com.

Great Fundraising Program for Non Profits Fundraising

2007-05-07T13:55:00.000-06:00

If you are a non profit organization that wants to make your fundraising program far easier and more effective, check out Fundraising-Solutions.org. They provide free fundraising programs for non profits fundraising.

NFL Merchandise

2007-05-06T10:29:00.000-06:00

One of my clients, MCSportsFan.com, is one of the top NFL Shops on the Internet. If you are looking for outstanding NFL merchandise at a great price, check out his site. You'll be happy you did.

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm

Small Business Marketing Strategies

2007-05-06T09:53:00.000-06:00

Small Business Marketing Strategies

Retail Consultant Jerry Robertson interviews
marketing consultant Peter Geisheker

Jerry: What is the most important direct mail tip?

Peter: Get your envelope opened. If your envelope is not opened, the prospect cannot read your sales letter and buy what you are selling.

Jerry: Why should you make your direct mail envelopes lumpy?

Peter: Direct mail envelopes should be "lumpy" by having a free gift in the envelope to create curiosity. When a person receives a lumpy envelope, curiosity takes over and they open the envelope to see what is inside. As I stated, the most important part of a direct mail piece is getting your envelope opened, and by making your envelope lumpy, it almost guarantees that your envelope will be opened.

Jerry: Why should a small business have a strong money back guarantee?

Peter: It is to remove all financial risk a customer feels when doing business with you. People don't want to be taken advantage of by spending their hard earned money on a bad product or a bad service. By offering a money back guarantee, you take that risk away from the customer so they know if they are not pleased with the product or service they buy from you, they can get their money back.

Jerry: What are three low cost effective marketing strategies for your business?

Peter: Direct mail is one of the most effective marketing tools available and compared to buying display advertising or hiring a sales person, it is fairly inexpensive. Another very low cost strategy is to write a news release and fax it to the media that covers your your industry and/or your local marketplace.

Jerry: How do you get testimonials from your customers?

Peter: The easiest way to get a testimonial is to call your customers and ask them how they liked the product/service they bought from you. If they are very happy, ask them what they liked most about your product/service. Then, as they are talking, write down what they are saying. Once your customer is done talking, tell your customer that you loved their answer and you would really appreciate it if you can use what they said as a testimonial. Almost always your customer will give you permission.

Jerry: What is a Guerrilla Marketing Plan?

Peter: Developed by Jay Conrad Levinson, the Father of Guerrilla Marketing, www.gmarketing.com, a Guerrilla Marketing Plan is a very condensed version of a corporate marketing plan. It focuses primarily on the most powerful income producing strategies needed to generate sales. While a Corporate Marketing Plan may be 20+ pages long and full of detailed market research and competitive analysis, a Guerrilla Marketing Plan is short (1-2 pages) and focuses on the marketing strategies you will implement to produce sales immediately.

Jerry: Name some of the more unique reasons for a small business to issue a press release?

Peter:

* Offering an innovative new product or service that will change the world

* Holding a free seminar/clinic

* Your business is doing something "new, crazy, insane, bizarre, very funny, or just plain out of the ordinary".

Jerry: What is needed to get your press release read?

Peter: To get your press release read, it must be very unique and special and shocking if possible. Remember, the media wants interesting human interest NEWS STORIES, NOT more boring advertising disguised as being a press release. Your press release must be something that makes people go "wow!". It must be real news. If your press release is just an advertisement, it will be thrown out.

For an example of how to make a boring press release exciting, one of my clients had a new software product they wanted to release. It was a cool product and if I had written a standard press release just about the product, it might have gotten a little media attention, but not enough to make any type of an impact. The problem was there was not enough of a news interest factor. So, I decided to do something crazy to make the press release a much more interesting news story instead of just another boring new software release. So, what I did to spice it up was this. The company CEO had a puppy that he brought to the office. As people love reading stories about animals, I decided to make the puppy the focus of the news release. So, the news release told a story of how a curious puppy was the inspiration for creating this innovative software product. By bring the puppy angle into the press release, it immediately became a human interest story that grabbed the attention of the media and got my client a lot of free press both in print and on the radio.

Jerry Robertson is an expert retail business consultant and author can be reached at http://www.jrobconsult.com.

Peter Geisheker is the CEO of The Geisheker Group Marketing Company. Peter specializes in developing and implementing strategic marketing programs for small businesses. For more information and a free marketing plan ebook, please visit:
http://www.marketing-consulting-company.com.

2007-02-26T15:17:00.001-06:00

How to Greatly Increase Your Odds of Business Success By Niche Marketing

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is trying to market their product or service to a large general market instead of focusing on a small niche market. As a marketing consultant, getting my clients to focus on a niche market is the most difficult part of my job. Whenever I tell a client that they must start off small and focus on a specialized niche market, my client almost always says, “But I think everybody could use my product and if I limit my market, I will get fewer sales.” Then my response is, “Okay, if you want to market your product to the world, how many millions of dollars do you have to invest in regional, national and international advertising campaigns?” Then I get a blank stare or the phone goes quiet.

To be successful in today’s hyper-competitive, over-advertised marketplace, you absolutely must focus your business and marketing on serving a specialized and preferably small niche market. This is especially true and a matter of survival if you have a small marketing budget. If you ignore this advice and try to market to a large general market before first becoming successful in at least one small niche market, I can guarantee you that you will soon go broke and be out of business. However, if you do decide to focus on serving a small niche market, you greatly increase your odds for business success with much less risk.

So what is a niche market? A niche market is group of consumers or businesses that all have a very specific need or want. For example, let’s say you sell fancy and fairly expensive parrot cages. Your niche market consists of people who own parrots, and particularly people who own parrots and earn an income large enough that they can afford to buy your fancy parrot cages.

On the other hand, if you decide to market your fancy parrot cages to everybody in the United States who owns a bird, you are marketing to a fairly large general market and the money you spend on marketing will be wasted because nearly all of the people who will see your marketing will NOT have a need or interest in buying an expensive parrot cage. Yes, that sound you just heard is the sound of your money being flushed down the toilet because you ignored niche marketing.

Here is another example. Let’s say you invent a new kind of ergonomic chair. This chair is very comfortable and really helps people who suffer from lower back pain. Now, what most inventors would do when they come to me to market their product is they would say, “Everybody will want my ergonomic chair. I want to first market it nationally and then to the world.” Then I ask my famous question of how much money do they have for marketing, and I am told it is a couple thousand dollars. So, my client wants me to launch a national marketing campaign for a brand new product nobody has ever heard of and I am supposed to do this with a few thousand dollars. Not going to happen.

My advice for how to market this new ergonomic chair product is to market it to a very specialized niche market and there are several to choose from. The key is finding the market that most needs this product as well as can afford this product. One niche market to consider would be to market the chair to assisted living centers for the elderly. Another niche market is Chiropractors who could sell this chair directly to their patients who suffer from lower back pain. There are many other niche markets that could considered too. The key is to determine who has the most desperate need for your product or service and then focus your marketing on that niche market. If you are still confused, do this exercise. Find the people who stay up at night worrying about the problem your product or service solves and you have just found your niche market.

Peter Geisheker
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
(920) 592-9595

2007-02-23T12:42:00.000-06:00

Myspace Marketing - How to market your business for FREE on Myspace

Myspace.com is the world’s largest social networking website. It is the cool place to be if you are in your teens, 20s and 30s. I have also found that it can be an outstanding free marketing tool for social business and websites.

So what is Myspace.com? Myspace is a website where anybody in the world can create a free “personal” web page (i.e., my space). Once you have created your personal web page on myspace, then you can connect your page to other people’s myspace pages by clicking on a link to request to be a person’s friend. Once that person agrees to be your friend, then you and that person can email each other, chat with each other, leave comments on each other’s myspace pages, and read each other’s blogs. There is no limit to the number of friends you can have and some of the more popular people on myspace have millions of myspace friends and have actually become Internet celebrities and have been featured on talk shows.

Over the past year I have been conducting test marketing on myspace for a couple of my clients and I have discovered that myspace can be a very good free marketing tool for businesses. However, myspace is not for all businesses. The types of business that will do well having a myspace page are the “cool” types of businesses that want to market to people in their 20s and 30s. Businesses that will have luck marketing on myspace include bars, clubs, “hip” clothing stores, and cool Internet websites.

Here is how to market your business on myspace.com:

1. Go to myspace.com and create a free profile. Make sure to talk first about yourself and then about your business. However, you must consider your myspace page a personal page where you talk mostly about you and a little about your business. Do not just talk about your business because if you do, people will not want to be your friend. You need to focus on the personal aspect such as, “hey this is me and my life. And by the way I run this Internet website that sells cool t-shirts.” If you think of myspace as a place to network and meet friends FIRST and market your business SECOND, then you will do well on myspace.

2. Once you have created your myspace page, click the browse link to find the type of people you want to market to. You can search by gender, age, location, ethnicity, etc.

3. Go to each person’s page and click their “Add to friends” link. The person will either approve you or deny you. If they approve you, your myspace page and their myspace page will be connected as being friends.

4. To market your business, post friendly personalized bulletins. When you post a bulletin, a link to your bulletin will be posted on each of your friend’s myspace pages. If you have 5,000 myspace friends, than you can literally have a message sent to all 5,000 of these people for free. However, remember that you must be personal with your messages. Talk like you are talking to your best friend. Do NOT talk to people like customers. Myspace is a place for friends and you must respect that.

5. Post friendly comments on your myspace friends’ pages and include a link to your website. Then, everybody who goes to your friend’s myspace page will see your comment and your link. Some will click on your picture to become your friend and some will click on the link to go to your website.

Good Luck!

Peter Geisheker
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm

2007-02-03T11:11:00.000-06:00

Free Sample Sales Letters

Many business owners want to know how to correctly write a sales letter. So, I have written a short article on how to write a sales letter. At the bottom of this article are two sample sales letters that you can download.

To write a successful sales letter, there are several strategies you should use:

1. At the top of your sales letter, use a strong headline that states the most important benefit you are offering. This headline should be bold and a larger font size than the font size you use for the body text in your sales letter.

2. When writing your sales letter, use a friendly conversational style. Do not try to write "corporate" where you use large words and try to impress your prospects with your command of the English language. All that does is turn people off. Instead, write your sales letter as if you were talking to your best friend.

3. Your sales letter needs to explain the benefits your potential customer will receive. Understand that everybody cares about one thing in life - "What’s in it for me?" Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask yourself, "If I was receiving this letter, why would I want to buy the product or service being sold? What’s in it for me?"

4. Ask your prospect to take action such as to call you for more information, to visit your website, to complete and order form and mail you a check, etc. If you do not ask your prospects to take action, they won’t.

5. Include testimonials from customers. Testimonials are one of the most powerful sales tools available, so always include at least one testimonial in your sales letters.

6. Use a P.S. in your letter and restate your most power benefit and sales offer in it. Most people will read a P.S. first before reading the sales letter, so it is important to make your P.S. have a very strong sales message and a call to action.

7. Make sure to include all of your contact information - telephone number, fax number, email address, postal address, and your website address.

8. Make your envelope "lumpy" by enclosing a small, inexpensive free gift. Make sure the gift has your company name and contact information on it and that the gift is something a person would want to keep - such as a nice pen, a good highlighter, etc. And, the promo gift should have your company information on it – your company name, phone number, and website address.

Free sample sales letter 1 (pdf)
Free sample sales letter 2 (pdf)

If you need help creating a powerful sales letter, brochure, press release, website or other marketing materials, please contact The Geisheker Group, Inc. by calling (920) 592-9595 or send us email by clicking on the following link: http://geisheker.com/contact.php.

To view all of the different marketing services we provide, please visit
http://www.marketing-consulting-company.com.

To Your Success!

Peter Geisheker
President and CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"Innovative Marketing for Innovative Companies"
(920) 592-9595
Fax: (920) 491-9090

2007-01-30T17:06:00.000-06:00

Risk Reversals - How to Get More Sales by Offering a Guarantee

By Peter Geisheker

One of the most powerful marketing strategies you can use to instantly increase sales is a strong guarantee. The reason why a guarantee is such a powerful sales tool is that it eliminates the risk a customer faces when doing business with you. It is like giving your customer an insurance policy to protect them against shoddy products or services.

Think about it. One of the leading reasons why people choose NOT to buy a product or service is they are worried that if the product or service sucks, they are going to lose their money and they will feel like a fool for buying it. And nobody wants to feel like a fool.

Here is an example of the power of a money back guarantee for a product. Let’s say you want to buy a puppy for your kids. Pet store “A” has several very cute puppies and they cost $250 each. Unfortunately, if you buy a puppy from pet store “A” and it turns out the puppy is sick or has a disease, it is your problem. All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges. On the other hand, pet store “B” offer several cute puppies and they offer a full money-back guarantee that states, “Take your new puppy to a veterinarian within the next 14 days and if it is sick or has a disease, you can return it and pick out a different puppy or you can have a full refund.” Now which pet store would you prefer to do business with? Pet store “A” where all sales are final or pet store “B” where you are protected? The obvious choice is pet store “B”. Pet store B is going to get the most business and will easily dominate sales over pet store B, especially if pet store “B” is smart enough to include their strong money-back guarantee in all of their advertising.

A strong money-back guarantee is also an incredibly powerful sales tool in the service industry. For example, let’s say you own a small business and you have several computers. Now computers being computers, from time to time they will have problems and you will need a computer technician to fix them. To find a computer technician, you go to the yellow pages in your phone book. There you see two ads for computer service companies. You read advertisement “A” and the company looks good, they have been in business for 5 years, they have a friendly staff, blah, blah, blah. Then you read advertisement “B”. In this ad you read that all parts and service come with a 90-day guarantee. If your computer has the same problem within 90 days after they fix it, they will come back to your office and fix it for free. Now, which company are you going to call—the company that offers no guarantee or the company that protects you with a strong guarantee? The choice is obvious.

If you want to instantly increase your sales, offer a strong guarantee and display it in all of your advertising. If your competition offers a guarantee, do everything you can to make your guarantee stronger.

For more information and a no-obligation quote on how I will help you successfully market your product or service, please call me at (920) 592-9595 or click on the following link to email me.

http://geisheker.com/contact.php

To Your Success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"Innovative Marketing for Innovative Companies"
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 592-9595

2007-01-29T13:52:00.000-06:00

How to Easily Get Customer Testimonials

By Peter Geisheker

Using customer testimonials in all of your marketing materials (sales letters, brochures, website, advertisements, etc.), is one of the most powerful marketing tools available.

The reason why testimonials are so important and valuable in marketing is that prospects are much more likely to believe a customer testimonial that praises your product or service then they are to believe slick sales text written by the company that is advertising.

Another reason why testimonials are such a powerful marketing and sales tools is that they are very similar to a referral. A testimonial is a person telling other people that they can trust your business and that you offer a quality product/service.

Now that you know how valuable customer testimonials are, you are probably wondering how you get testimonials from your customers. Here are four very easy yet highly effective strategies you can use to get customer testimonials immediately:

1. If you are a new business and you have not made any sales, let several of your friends try your product or service for free. If they honestly like it, ask them if they will write a testimonial that you can use in your marketing. This is very easy to do and should instantly get you several testimonials.

2. If you are an established business and you have made sales, call your customers and ask them what they like most about the product or service they purchased from you. As they tell you, make sure that you are writing down what they are saying. After they are finished praising your product/service, tell them, “wow, that was great! Can I use what you just said as a testimonial?” Almost always the customer will give you their permission.

3. Email your customers and say that you are developing new marketing materials and you would love to include a client testimonial from them. Then ask if they would be generous enough to help you by emailing you a brief testimonial. If you have a list of at least 100 customers, you should get at least a couple of good testimonials by doing this.

4. Mail your customers a thank you card for doing business with you. In the card say you would be very thankful if they would be generous enough to give you a testimonial by either emailing it to you, faxing it to you, or simply calling you on the phone.

By executing the above strategies, you should easily get 10+ strong customer testimonials. Then, make sure to take advantage of these testimonials and use them in ALL of your marketing. By doing this, you will instantly see an increase in response rate and sales from your marketing.

For more information and a no-obligation quote on how I will help you successfully market your product or service, please call me at (920) 592-9595 or click on the following link to email me.

http://geisheker.com/contact.php

To Your Success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
"Innovative Marketing for Innovative Companies"
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 592-9595

2007-01-20T12:36:00.000-06:00

Do You Make These Common Internet Marketing Mistakes?

By Peter Geisheker

I have been involved in Internet marketing since the world-wide-web began and I consider myself to be an Internet marketing expert. From my experience helping clients build successful websites, I have learned what works and what does not work when selling on the Internet. To help you avoid costly mistakes, I have listed what I have found to be the biggest Internet marketing mistakes.

Mistake 1: Using Flash. If your website is one big Flash presentation, you are making a huge mistake! Why? Because consumers go to your website to seek information, not to watch a "I'm so cool" Flash presentation. Ask yourself, when you go to a website, do you sit there and watch their ego-building Flash presentation or do you click the "skip flash" link to get to the real information?

Another major problem with Flash is that it is only "interesting" the first time a visitor goes to your website. If they actually return to your website, they will do everything they can to skip your Flash presentation so they can quickly get to the information they want. In my experience NOTHING kills Internet sales more than Flash. That is why you almost never see the world's top websites like Google, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo using Flash as the basis for their web pages. If you are making this mistake, get rid of the Flash immediately and make your website a valuable source of information, because that is what consumers want.

Mistake 2: Letting your webmaster write the text for your website. This is another huge mistake that companies make. On nearly a daily basis I get a call from a company that has spent a fortune building a website and they cannot understand why they are not generating any sales. My first question is, who wrote the text for your website? In nearly every case they tell me their webmaster wrote it.

Why is it a mistake to have your webmaster write your website marketing text? Here is a hint-- webmasters are programmers, NOT marketing professional who know how to write text that sells. If you want your website to generate sales, you must hire a person who is an excellent copywriter and knows how to write words that make people want to buy! Would you hire your webmaster to write a display advertisement for you? Of course not! Then why on earth would you allow them to write the text for your website? By having your webmaster write the text for your website, you are ensuring your website will be an awful sales tool. To solve this problem, hire a marketing professional to write the text for your website. We at the Geisheker Group specialize in writing powerful marketing text for websites. For a free no-obligation quote, call us at (920) 592-9595.

Mistake 3: Making your website hard to navigate. Have you ever been to a website where you have to click on various generic graphics or parts of a flash picture to try and find a link to the information you are looking for? Why on earth do companies do this? It is not fun, it is not clever, it is STUPID AND ANNOYING! When designing your website's navigation (links to information) use the acronym K.I.S.S., which stands for KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! Simple sells. Complex does not. If your webmaster tries to sell you on using parts of a Flash picture for links or some other complex navigation system, FIRE THEM IMMEDIATELY!

Mistake 4: Not having a telephone number on your website. People rarely trust companies that do not have a telephone number. I certainly don't. If I am considering buying a product from a website and they do not have a telephone number, I don't buy. And I know others feel the same way. For example, I have had several clients hire me because I had a telephone number on my website and the other marketing consultant websites they were looking at did not. Therefore, if you want customers to buy from you, make it easy for them to contact you by having a telephone number on your website. In fact, you should have your telephone number on EVERY page of your website.

By following these recommendations, your website will be a far more valuable sales and marketing tool.

If you need help designing or updating your website, The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm would love to help you. For a free quote, call us at (920) 592-9595 or visit http://www.geisheker.com.

2007-01-19T13:35:00.000-06:00

FREE New Rules of PR ebook

I am writing to you today because I found a great free ebook on how to market you business by posting online press releases. This ebook was written by PR expert David Meerman Scott and has some fantastic tips that I plan to start using immediately to help my clients as well as to better market my own business. I hope you enjoy it!

Download it by clicking on the following link:

http://www.marketing-consulting-company.com/New-Rules-of-PR.pdf

If you need help writing your press release, I would love to help you. Contact me today by calling (920) 592-9595 or email me by clicking on the following link.

http://geisheker.com/contact.php

I look forward to helping you!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group, Inc.
"Innovative Marketing for Innovative Companies"
http://www.geisheker.com

2007-01-19T11:19:00.000-06:00

How to Write a Good Sales Letter

To write a good sales letter, there are several strategies you should use in every sales letter you write:

* At the top of your sales letter, use a strong headline that states the most important benefit you are offering. This headline should be bold and a larger font size than the font size you use for the body text in your sales letter. A great headline promises a specific result. For example, “If our skin care product does not make your face look 10 years younger in 30-days or less, we’ll give you a 110% refund!”

* When writing your sales letter, always use a friendly conversational style. Do not try to write “cold and corporate" where you use large words and try to impress your prospects with your vocabulary. All that does is turn people off. Instead, write your sales letter using friendly simply language as if you were talking to your best friend.

* Your sales letter needs to explain the benefits your potential customer will receive. Understand that everybody cares about one thing in life - "What’s in it for me?" Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask yourself, "If I was receiving this letter, why would I want to buy the product or service being sold? What’s in it for me?"

* Offer quantitative proof why your product or service is better than the competition. For examples of how to show proof that your product is better than the competition, your sales letter should make statements that you can prove such as, your widget lasts 3.7 times longer, it costs 27% less, our company offers a 90-day 100% money-back guarantee while our competitors offer no guarantee, our widget is guaranteed to last 5 years or we will replace it for free, while our competition only offers a 6-month replacement guarantee, etc.

* Include several customer testimonials to give social proof of the quality of your product or service. Testimonials are one of the most powerful marketing tools you can use, so take advantage of them and always use them in your sales letters.

* To get your prospects to take action, your sales letter must ask your customer to purchase by a specific date and give them a bonus for ordering by a specific date. For example, “Buy our widget by March 25 and get an instant 10% off”, or, “Buy our widget by March 25 and get a second widget at half price.” This strategy works like magic and that is why you see it used so often on TV, particularly in infomercials and other successful direct-response advertising.

* Use a P.S. in your letter and restate your most power benefit and sales offer in it. Most people will read a P.S. first before reading the sales letter, so it is important that your P.S. has a very strong sales message and a call to action.

* To get your sales letter opened, use a standard white business envelope and handwrite the recipient’s name and address. Yes, this takes a lot more time than using mailing labels, but mailing labels scream junk mail! The first key in a successful sales letter campaign is to get your envelope opened, and by handwriting the recipient’s name and address, you can almost guarantee that your envelope will be opened.

* Make your envelope "lumpy" by enclosing a small, inexpensive free gift. Make sure the gift has your company name and contact information on it and that the gift is something a person would want to keep - such as a nice pen, a good highlighter, etc. And, the promo gift should have your company information on it – your company name, phone number, and website address.

* Here is the most important sales letter tip: Use repetition. You will rarely have success with your sales letter campaign if you only send out one mailing. Each prospect on your contact list should be contacted a minimum of four times during a 12-month period.

As a final thought, understand that the national average response rate for sales letters is a little less than 1%. What that means is if you send out 100 letters, a good response rate is for one customer to contact you. However, one way to greatly increase your response rate is to use the tips I mentioned in this newsletter and to make follow-up calls to the contacts you sent your letters to, especially if you are marketing to businesses.

If you would like help writing a good sales letter, please call (920) 592-9595 or email me.

To Your Success!

Peter Geisheker
President & CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
(920) 592-9595

2007-01-16T10:29:00.000-06:00

The Best Way To Generate Free Targeted Website Traffic

By Peter Geisheker

If you have a website, you need to drive traffic to it. Without traffic, you won't make money, sales, get subscribers, etc. What good is a website without any traffic? And if the site is getting traffic, what good is it if it's not targeted traffic?

There are many ways to drive traffic to your site, both free and paid. But we are not going to talk about paid traffic right now. That is a totally different topic.

So, back to free traffic. The best way to get free traffic to your site is by implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the art and science of making Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) want to rank your website on the first page of results when a person conducts a web search. So, let's say your website sells motorcycle tires. Your goal with SEO is that when a person goes to a search engine and searches for motorcycle tires, your websites is one of the top 10 results that are displayed, and preferably, your website is one of the top 3 websites shown.

By getting your website a top 10 ranking in search engines, you will be getting your customers basically for free. And, that's a good thing! When you are not paying to advertise, your profits increase significantly because there is not marketing cost involved in acquiring them.

The tool that I have used to get my website top search engines rankings and to get my clients top search engines rankings is a software tool called SEO Elite.

SEO Elite is the top rated program for getting high rankings in the major search engines and it is the program that the world's top search engine optimization firms use to get their clients top rankings. If you are serious about getting to the top of the search engines, you need this tool.

Click here to download SEO Elite so you can get your website top search engine rankings and free website traffic.

To your success!
Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Company
(920) 592-9595

2007-01-15T17:58:00.000-06:00

Split Testing - The Most Powerful Marketing Strategy You will EVER Learn

By Peter Geisheker

Every business owner is looking for that golden marketing strategy that works like magic to grow their business. Well, I hope you’re sitting down because I am going to tell you the most powerful marketing strategy you will ever learn. The strategy is called split testing.

“What the heck is split testing”, you ask? Split testing is the process of comparing the results (sales, leads, etc.) of one marketing piece against another marketing piece to see which generates the most sales. Clear as mud, right? To make split testing easier to understand, I will show you an example of split testing using direct mail sales letters.

You write 2 sales letters to sell the sales training course you are offering. Both sales letters are identical except for one thing – they each have a different headline. Sales letter “A” has the headline, “How to easily double your sales in 180 days with this little known marketing strategy” and sales letter “B” has the headline, “Learn the marketing secret twelve small businesses recently used to increase sales by over 173% in less than 180 days.” Then, you send letter “A” to 2,000 prospects and letter B to 2,000 prospects. You then track which sales letter produces the most leads and sales. The results tell you which sales letter is the stronger sales tool – letter “A” or letter “B”.

“But how do you track which sales letter is producing the most leads/sales” you ask? Easy. You add a unique key code to each letter campaign so you can track it. So, for letter campaign “A” you use the key code 111 at the bottom of each letter and for letter campaign “B” you use the key code of 222 at the bottom of each letter. When a customer calls (or places an order), you simply ask them for the key code in their sales letter. Then you track these codes in a spread sheet so you know which letter produced the lead and the sale. After a few weeks to a month, you will know which sales letter is producing the most sales and you can feel confident sending the stronger sales letter to the rest of your prospects.

“What happens if both sales letters bomb and produce poor results?” Then you write two more sales letters and test them against each other on a small scale (sales letter “C” versus “D”). Testing like this is far less expensive than sending a single, untested sales letter to tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of prospects. By split testing different messages on a small scale, you can test the pulling power of a sales message without breaking your bank. And, you learn which sales message is the one that generates sales like crazy and will grow your business. If you want to be successful in marketing, always test on a small scale and once you find a winning message, then market on a large scale. NEVER market on a large scale with an untested sales message or you will almost certainly lose a ton of money.

While testing the headline is one of the most important things you can test when testing marketing pieces against one another, you can also test things like price, ($99 per widget in letter “A” and $79 per widget in letter “B”), coupon versus no coupon, promotional specials (get 3 widgets for $197 versus get 4 widgets for $249). But the key is to only test one thing at a time. Do not test a headline in one letter against a price in another letter because you cannot compare the two. Only test a headline against a headline and a price against a price.

“This sounds like a lot of work” you say. “Explain to me again why is split testing so important because I still don’t get it?” First of all, you are right. Split testing is a lot of work. However, the reason it is so important and worth all the work is that it is the one market tool that allows you to significantly increase your marketing return on investment while greatly reducing your financial risk. Split testing allows you to determine which sales message (campaign) is producing a profitable result while eliminating marketing campaigns that are not producing profitable results. Using the sales letter example above, let’s say that the results of your split test of letter “A” versus letter “B” showed that letter “B” produced 34% more leads than sales letter “A”? Wouldn’t you rather use letter “B” for marketing to the rest of your clients instead of letter “A”? Of course! That is why you do split testing. You do it to find out what sales message is going to generate the most sales and make you the most money! So, split test your way to success.

Peter Geisheker is the CEO of The Geisheker Group Marketing Company. Peter specializes in developing and implementing strategic marketing programs for small businesses. For more information and a free marketing plan ebook, please visit http://www.marketing-consulting-company.com.

2007-01-08T12:44:00.000-06:00

The Differences Between Great Marketing
and Terrible Marketing

by Peter Geisheker

As a marketing consultant and copywriter, I see horrible marketing everyday. The most common mistake I see is what I call, “me too marketing”.

“Me too marketing” is when a business creates a marketing piece (advertisement, brochure, sales letter, website, etc.) that looks and reads like an exact copy of their competition’s marketing. Instead of demonstrating why their product or service is unique and offers outstanding benefits, they say exactly what their competition says.

For proof of “me too marketing”, go to your phone book and look at advertising in almost any category. You can basically exchange the company names in the ads and the ads are identical. Nearly everybody is using the same dull clichés such as, “Our customers are #1”, “Serving your needs for xx years”, “Family owned”, “Best Service”, “Friendly Service”, “Great Selection”, etc. This kind of advertising is SO BORING and overused. That is why it produces such horrible results. If you want to have marketing that generates a lot of quality leads and puts you ahead of your competition, you need to be different and prove why your product or services offers the best benefits to your customer.

To make your marketing great so it consistently generates high quality leads, here is a list of the differences between great marketing and terrible marketing:

1. Great marketing includes an attention-grabbing headline that calls out to the target market and makes a benefit-based promise. Bad marketing does not include a headline and hopes that the reader will find the graphics interesting enough to read the marketing piece. Big mistake!

2. Great Marketing focuses on a powerful benefits-based sales message and promise. Bad marketing focuses on aesthetic graphic design and being “cute and creative” and using as little sales text as possible. A great sales message is a message that promises a specific result. For example, “If our skin care product does not make your face look 10 years younger in 30-days or less, we’ll give you a 110% refund!”

3. Great marketing offers quantitative proof of why a product or service is better than the competition. Bad marketing just says, “we are the best.” For examples of how to show proof that your product is better than the competition, your marketing should make statements that you can prove such as, your widget lasts 3.7 times longer, it costs 27% less, our company offers a 90-day 100% money-back guarantee while our competitors offer no guarantee, our widget is guaranteed to last 5 years or we will replace it for free, while our competition only offers a 6-month replacement guarantee, etc. You need to make your marketing promise so strong that people would have to be a fool to do business with anybody but you.

4. Great marketing uses customer testimonials to give social proof of the quality of a product or service. Bad marketing does not. How many times have you purchased something because you read a lot of customer testimonials praising the quality of the product? I know I sure have. Testimonials are one of the most powerful marketing tools you can use, so take advantage of them and use them in ALL of your marketing. You will instantly generate more sales.

5. Great marketing asks the customer to purchase by a specific date and explains step-by-step how to place an order. Bad marketing does NOT ask the customer to buy and does not have a time-limit for the offer. To make your marketing great, you must ask for the order and give a specific time-limit for taking advantage of the offer. For example, “Buy our widget by March 25 and get an instant 10% off”, or, “Buy our widget by March 25 and get a second widget at half price”. You may think this is a cliché but it works over and over. That is why you see it used so often on TV, particularly in infomercials and other direct-response advertising. I promise you that these companies would not be making these offers if it was not leading to a lot of sales and profits.

If you apply these simple strategies in your marketing, I guarantee you will see an increase in sales. Remember, fortune favors the bold.

For more free marketing articles, please visit http://www.marketing-consulting-company.com/tips.htm

To Your Success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Consulting Company

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