Who is your perfect customer?

many companies today market to the whole world, and with large advertising budgets they can do this. Last year alone Coke-a-Cola spent almost 1.1 billion dollars on marketing alone.

I know this is out of most of our ranges, so we have to understand how the customers brain works in order to capture the perfect customer.

The “Perfect Customer” is just that. For every business, and business owner it is defined differently.  If you look into the past and see for yourself with  whom you have liked to do business.  This is most likely your “Perfect Customer”.

So how do I find the “Perfect Customer”?

Finding the perfect customer is actually fairly easy in the scheme of things.  It just takes some thinking.  Thinking like your perfect customer does. you need to ask yourself a few questions, plug in the answers, and set up your new marketing ideas and then test them out. here are a few questions to get you started.

• What pain are they having?
• How can you make the pain go away?
• What is it that will make them understand the pain better?
• What will build trust with this person?
• How can you remove risk to them?

These are just a few of the questions that you have to answer for your customer in your marketing campaign.  Don’t get caught up in telling your customer that “You’re the best in town…” as this can be the first thing they ignore, and it wastes your resources.  These statements are best left for your other customers to give you in a testimonial.

How will the internet help?

Never before in the history of mankind has a way been there for a business to reach out and communicate with so many potential clients at one time, at the customers leisure.

All advertising before, and still in practice, is based on interrupting what your client is doing to listen to your pitch.  With the internet and its many avenues to the customer, you don’t have to interrupt them anymore. Your message is right in front of them, right when they are looking for your services.  They WANTED to find your services, now they are looking for information about how you can fix their pain.

Show them how you can help!

To Click or not to Click?

One of the biggest questions in marketing today is whether on not to use PPC campaigns for advertising a business.  In order for me to give you a good idea of which is good for you I have to explain both in a little bit of detail.

PPC: (Pay Per Click)  This is the purchasing of keywords and Phrases with such companies as Google AdWords, AdZZOO, Yahoo Search Marketing, ect.  The purchasing of the keywords or Phrases takes into account your budget per day or month that you have to spend with them on advertising.  You now have the ability to Geo-target your audience as well, further refining where and when you ad will appear.   Over the last few years lots of money has gone into the PPC campaigns for domestic businesses, and much more will be spent in the coming ones.

• PPC search advertising continues to be the largest category, growing from $9.1 billion in 2007 to $20.9 billion in 2013. (Source: C|Net News, June 30, 2008)

SEO: (Search Engine Optimization) This is the art and science of using keywords and phrases, and other techniques to bring your web site into view in the organic listing on the search engines.  Whole companies dedicate themselves to optimizing your site for you.  From working on your copy, to better attract the spiders, to meta tags and re-writing the code of your site for better accessibility and indexing.

• SEO: $1.3 billion (11%) (Source: SEMPO data via Massimo Burgio, SMX Madrid 2008)

But Which one is better to use?

Looking at the graphic on the Google heat map it seems that PPC would not be a good investment for a small to medium sized business.  You can see where most people will click on the listings.  The top 3 of the organic list, NOT the paid advertising.  Why this habit of clicking mostly in the organic listing is there I am not sure.  There are lots of theories to this, but not one theory is more prominent then another.  personally I think it’s because people instinctively shy away from companies that spend lots of money on advertising, while going towards the companies that, in their eyes, know more about their services because their sites are higher up in the listing naturally. (this is just my two cents worth, not fact)

When should I use the PPC, and when should I use SEO?

Typically a company that uses PPC doesn’t have sufficient placement in the search ranking, or needs to get new information about a product or service out quickly. SEO done the right way that will not venture into black hat techniques, takes time to establish on it’s own.

Companies that use a combination of the two   forms of advertising will see the best results in the end.  If you have the time to build the rankings, SEO is your best investment, but to be seen quickly PPC is the only way to go.

Have fun out there,

Shannon

Google heat map Click for larger image

google heatmap seo vs sem

The first seminar in my series of four ( RMS beginners course #1 New ideas for your marketing! ) is now complete!

Thank you all for coming to the first of a series of four seminars.  I enjoyed discussing the topics with avidly enthusiastic students.  Please feel free in discussing the course in our forums, or by e-mail with me at any time.

Please check us out  at O’Briens every Thursday from 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Shannon

Announcing Hippocampus Marketing Seminars:

Replicable Marketing Systems Seminar #1: New ideas for your marketing!

• In this course you will learn who REALLY owns your business, as well as why.
• How a simple question can increase your sales.
• How to identify your perfect customer.
• How to set up a R.M.S. for your business!

Replicable Marketing Systems Seminar #2: Internet Marketing for Everyone!

• In this course you will learn what kind of web site is right for your business.
• What kind of Copy is right for your web site.
• Introduction to tracking your advertising.
• How to set up a R.M.S. for your business on the internet!

Replicable Marketing Systems Seminar #3: Printing Power

• In this course you will learn what kind print work is right for you.
• What kind of Copy is right for your print advertising?
• How to track your print advertising.
• How to set up a R.M.S. for your business in print!

Replicable Marketing Systems Seminar #4: Put it all together! *

• In this course you will learn how to put all the parts together in a RMS
• What kind of RMS will work for you?
• How to track your RMS Success!

* This class is the last in a series of 4, and the first 3 classes must be taken to fully understand this class.

Contact Info:

Shannon@hippocampus-marketing.com

(813)494-8249

All courses are $50.00 pre-paid, and $65.00 at the door.

If you pre-pay for all 4 courses you will receive all course material and courses for only $150.00!

Payments can be made online at http://www.hippocampus-marketing.com choose the seminar product you wish to attend. Checks and money orders and cash are always welcome.

If for some reason you can not attend one or more of the seminars you will receive the video and handout in electronic format 1 week after the seminar is given.

Replicable Marketing Systems Seminar #1: New ideas for your marketing! 02/11/10 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

O’Brien’s Irish pub 701 W. Lumsden Rd • Brandon, FL 33511 
TEL: 813-661-9688 www.obrienspubs.com for menu and directions.

Replicable Marketing Systems Seminar #2: Internet Marketing for Everyone! 02/18/10 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

O’Brien’s Irish pub 701 W. Lumsden Rd • Brandon, FL 33511 
TEL: 813-661-9688 www.obrienspubs.com for menu and directions.

Replicable Marketing Systems Seminar #3: Printing Power! 02/25/10

11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

O’Brien’s Irish pub 701 W. Lumsden Rd • Brandon, FL 33511 
TEL: 813-661-9688 www.obrienspubs.com for menu and directions.

Replicable Marketing Systems Seminar #4: Put it all together! 03/4/10

11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

O’Brien’s Irish pub 701 W. Lumsden Rd • Brandon, FL 33511 
TEL: 813-661-9688 www.obrienspubs.com for menu and directions.

To pen or not to pen?

This is one of the old questions in any business.  Do you buy a bunch of inexpensive logo imprinted pens, or go for a bit more expensive version and buy less of them?  Is the pen the right trade show item for you to get?  What other options are out there for you to look at?

Thanks for the memories….

The most important thing to remember about trade show items (promotional items) is to make them either plentiful or memorable.  If you are lucky BOTH!  This is the holy grail of marketing products!  The more give away items you….well, give away, the better.  Your name in more hands is always a good way to advertise, but what if they just collect the prize and never use it?  That means you wasted your money and you name is in a deep deep junk drawer some where in limbo.  The trick is to make the item USABLE as well as memorable. Pens, Jar openers, pizza cutters, refrigerator magnets….these have everyday uses that will keep your name in front of your customer all the time.

Hi everyone!

My name is Shannon Smith, and I will be your guide to new ways of thinking about your marketing.  You probably are asking yourself  “Who is this guy, and what does he mean with that title?”.  I’m sure you are doing just that, right now. … Or your not, and I am just typing to see the pretty words appear on the screen.  Either way I will be adding to the site on a regular basis.  I enjoy educating people about new ways to look at their advertising and their company’s image.

“Why should I listen to you?”

Why not?  I mean, every bit of information you place in your head helps you make informed decisions on everything in life.  Everything from how to cook breakfast, to how to fix your car.  If you don’t know how to do something you have to do 1 of 3 things:

• Learn to do it yourself. (time and energy to be lost here.)
• Learn who can do it for you. (then you have to learn how to tell if that someone is really good at it, or just a good salesman, but that is another lesson. )
• forget all about it and go on with life. ( I have gone this route when I couldn’t figure out how to program my VCR clock.)

The trick, I think, is to understand who you are.

1. What are your weaknesses and your strengths?
2. Do you learn quickly and enjoy the process?
3. Do you like to apply what you have learned?
4. Do you understand that you don’t know enough and HAVE to know more in order to help your business succeed?

These are the reasons Hippocampus Marketing is here.  I will be teaching you new ( and fun I hope) ways to market your companies and yourselves.  Each blog post will have a corresponding forum topic as well as your typical comment posts.  I would love to hear your views on what I have to say, as well as feed back on the seminars I am conducting.

So drop me a line, post a comment, or come see my seminars.

Shannon Smith