Amazon Prime: Online Marketing by Prime – Amazon.co.uk

Amazon Prime: Online Marketing by Prime – Amazon.co.uk: by Jason Li 2013 ©
 

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT (For Marketeers Regarding Amazon Prime)

“Try Amazon Prime FREE for one month: Unlimited FREE One-Day Delivery on millions of eligible items; Express Delivery for £4.49 per item (delivery before 1pm).”

“Over 300,000 popular Kindle Books to borrow for free, as frequently as one book per month and with no due dates.”

(Taken from Amazon Prime)

 

Amazon Prime – what you have just read is about a service that is changing the world forever.

It’s the single most important business copywriting and strategic marketing reveal that you must analyse and understand if you want your business to succeed.

So Am I Promoting Amazon As A Secret Amazon Prime Employee?

No... Although - I admit straight away: I LOVE AMAZON.

For me... first came the internet, and then came GOOGLE and Amazon as the world’s most useful internet services in the world.

And it’s going to be for the foreseeable future possibly humankinds most valuable consumer supplier of goods and services.

Here’s Why (And How Amazon Prime will do this)...

Amazon has played its card in how it is going to get even more rich, and you’re about to see why this is with Amazon Prime.

What is Amazon Prime?

There’s some clue in the opening paragraphs so I’m going to state how important it is and have you read it again:

“Try Amazon Prime FREE for one month: Unlimited FREE One-Day Delivery on millions of eligible items; Express Delivery for £4.49 per item (delivery before 1pm).”

“Over 300,000 popular Kindle Books to borrow for free, as frequently as one book per month and with no due dates.”

In summary, at the time of writing in June 2013, customers get to borrow free Kindle Books and enjoy free delivery. Plus there are streamlining movies services too.

So you see, for those who understand how effective direct marketing and strategic marketing is... Amazon is going to be

The De facto World’s Greatest Direct Marketing Business!

Here’s some stats to prove it:

Amazon was launched in the United States in 2005.

(Taken from Wired.com) In the fiscal year of 2012, analysts at Morningstar suggested that Prime members grew from 7 million to nearly 10 million. Prime membership was greatly boosted by promotions to customers who bought a Kindle Fire.

In total, Amazon had about 182 million customers during the year, so Prime members make up about 4 per cent of the total customer base.

So here is the significant bit about profit: Prime customers accounted for $78 more in profit before interest and taxes per customer than non-Prime customers, as revealed by Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottoy.

And now the comparison bit: The average Amazon customer when calculating the operating profit from the 182 million customers is $10 per customer.  So Amazon Prime customers are about

SEVEN TO EIGHT TIMES MORE PROFITABLE

than a non-Amazon Prime member.

And now for the insane bit: about a third of Amazon’s profit come from just 4 per cent of customers who buy stuff on Amazon.

So how does Amazon go on to be the de facto direct marketing business on the internet?

Amazon Prime is capturing all the people in the world:

a)      Who have money to spend.

b)      Who are happy to buy direct... that is online.

c)       By offering people with money the convenience, opportunity to save money, and the service of wider selection of goods; so that it is easy to just go to one-stop Amazon to see if what the buyer wants is listed by searching Amazon’s product database.

d)      By keeping in touch with people who keep on spending by being constantly relevant...Prime members keep revisiting... and spending.

Once you’ve got used to buying books, Amazon’s fantastic web designers and copywriters make it easy for you to notice other items in other categories by:

·         Promoting other books.

·         Promoting non-book items such as brand name watches to streaming films to baby toys.

Emails

The secret power of Amazon is in emails.

Amazon sends you regular emails on all sorts of categories to tempt you to buy special offers. It’s really hard for consumers to resist.

Just think of near enough every item that are resold in retail shops (eg. Your Armani watch or Nike T-shirt) in the most popular and largest locations. Think of John Lewis, or Oxford Street in London, or even the Trafford Centre in Manchester. Amazon will likely have the item available.

Think about it, you can kit out your whole home by buying off Amazon without having to leave the sofa.

But Amazon Destroys Business

Isn’t that what locals always say when a successful innovative business comes along.

(Hey... there’s nothing better than a local business with tradition and history.)

In fact, we’re lucky we live in a free market system and innovation is here to improve customers’ buying power, or else monopolies can dictate products and prices.

So yes, you may not like your Tesco’s taking customers from local businesses, but look at it this way... if there are two restaurants on the same street, and one is busy and the other hardly has any patrons...

Is It The Restaurant That Is Struggling That Is Wrong

Or Obviously It’s The Consumer Who’s Wrong?

So the question must be posed? Is it big businesses that destroy local businesses, or consumers who are not considerate and change to shop at big businesses; or the local business who cannot be bothered to innovate and improve? Hold that thought.

Amazon Prime Innovation

Remember the paragraph describing the services of Amazon Prime?

Amazon would have spend months analysing the customer research data to come up with their new compelling strategy of capturing the segment of

The world’s most CONSISTENT SPENDERS in the online direct marketing category

During a history of innovation and technology to improve humankind, humans cannot resist technology.

You see – humans choose the easy option when faced with similar choices (a consumer psychology tip that can help you win orders by just mastering this technique alone – it’s in the ebook The Goose Bump Effect in more detail.)

Here are some examples to prove it:

·         We wore clogs and moved onto shoes.

·         Transport was once by horseback, now it’s by car, bikes, trains, airplane (and skateboard).

·         Messages were sent by letters, and now sent by text, social media or email.

·         Once we drove into town to buy books or a film... now you just search Amazon.

And this is where we are today: Innovation, convenience, better pricing, wide selection of goods and so on and so on.

That’s why Amazon Prime is the most important development in direct marketing.

Scared by Amazon Prime?

You don’t have to be. You just need to keep being systematically pro-active.

Here’s some ideas that might help your business:

·         Don’t ever stop innovating even if you are top of the tree.

·         And don’t forget the importance of direct marketing. Keep in contact with your customers.

·         Make sure you systematically collect data and research your customers.

Thanks for reading. Please share this article with friends who like Amazon.

 

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Call to Action Best Practices (including Buttons)

Call to Action Best Practices (including Buttons) : by Jason Li 2013 ©

Call to Actions (CTA) are really important...

In fact critical...

Whether it’s on a web page, sales letter, or email...

Get this wrong and sales conversions will be low...

Get good at it and your enquiries and sales conversions will allow your business to grow.

How else does Call to Action affect business?

Call today to register for the ‘Annual prize draw’ ***01234 5678910*** It ONLY takes 40 seconds! Registrations end 5pm this Friday 31st

·         Call to Action affects how many enquiries you get.


·         Call to Action provides better qualified leads.


·         (It’s unusual – but yes, Call to Action) Reduces labour costs. You see, sales people spend lots of unprofitable time cold calling or visiting prospects at the very earliest stage of the sales cycle with no idea if the prospect is ready to go all the way to conclude by making an order; especially in business-to-business and complex sales. This means working with a prospect at the low interest/enquiry stage leads to low response rates and makes the business inefficient.


·         Call to Action brings forward interested buyers because they are not sold to. Buyers can sniff out a sales pitch all day long... because they get pitched all day long. But after reading your copy, prospects that contact you have decided they want to seriously consider working with you. Otherwise, why would a CEO of a business with legal, operational, human resource, turnover, logistics, product, brand, Inland Revenue issues, and so on make an enquiry?


·         Call to Action provides your sales people more productive time on working on seriously interested prospects.


·         A good Call to Action can determine whether a prospect makes an enquiry today or in 6 months. (However, you may need to provide an incentive to bring forward an enquiry.)


·         A good Call to Action motivates interested prospects to consider if they are ready to take action now (or very soon after assessing their own situation on the spot.)

Case study: Email Campaign business-to-business using Call to Action

I manage an email campaign to certain businesses. Many businesses that receive emails from this campaign usually have a professional gatekeeper (I call them pro gk’s – I imagine if they had goalie gloves they would be brilliant because nothing would get past them). Therefore by telephone the owners are always out of reach. (It’s like trying to contact Richard Branson you would think sometimes for some sales people due to well trained gk’s.)

As the email is genuinely targeted at business owners (or directors as a minimum decision making level), the emails have to be excellent in getting their attention and them to read it (and we can’t use Meercats because they don’t work for this campaign).

Criteria for success from the email campaign:

·         Business owners get 100s of emails... so they must be very interesting to get read... I can’t emphasis this enough.


·         Ensure owners see the value of the product and services.


·         To drip feed value over a series of emails.


·         Ensure the whole offer is of better value and differentiated from competitors.


·         The email is viral enough to get passed around.


·         Different decision makers see value in the email (this allows the buyers to assess the email content and if the products and services really are compelling enough for the board room to make it a priority).


·         Generate enquiries from serious prospects (The general buying and thinking process of buyers will be to go on the website, look at competitors, speak to friends – even the wife), and carry out internal investigations.


·         Get the company in front of decision makers at an early stage and build up a relationship... even if the prospective buyers already have long standing relationships or in a contract.


·         Be a means to build up a relationship with decision makers where cold calling and sales reps can’t due to little success leaving messages and voice mail with admin staff.


·         The sales staff earns more commission and have better holidays as they are spending time on closing not speculation.


·         Sales staff are travelling less miles and in better health as time is organised with serious buyers only... bordering on order taking as much as possible.


·         After all this... the call to action must draw out interested buyers to call this company, not another, and to call sooner rather than later.

So here are some Call to Action observations:

Due to writing direct response sales copywriting, and taking part in a number of marketing communications campaigns, I have gathered some interesting titbits of knowledge about Call to Actions which may be of interest (Please note your own A/B split tests can give different results):

WIIFM Value: Your Call to Action should answer why your prospect should take an action. Remember, humans are inherently selfish. Your Call to Action must answer “What’s in it for me?” better than any other competitor.

It’s easy to do: Even if your product or service is complicated. Simplify the starting process so that prospects can get up and running in a matter of seconds. (If you struggle, some tips are in the beginners guide book ‘The Goose Bump Effect’ in the top left above Services.

Urgency: Create a time limited offer. Such as 40% discount or a free matrix/chart worth £20 if you register by X date.

Bigger is better: Generally, if your Call to Action is larger than the surrounding copy and designs... your Call to Action has a better chance.

Easy navigation: Prospects who are interested will want to get going now. If they’re sat on the fence, making it so simple to start now will also help you persuade the ones who are just “so close to registering.”

Remind them what to expect: Ideas include: download a file, request information, add a product to shopping cart, subscribe to a newsletter, navigate the next page, download a trial, submit form, request a call back, register for prize draw, and so on.

Stong guarantee: Humans are risk averse because they don’t like change. We’re programmed to avert being hurt. A strong guarantee reduces this worry.

No links, ads or cluttered text (on web pages) next to the Call to Action: Humans cannot multi-task. Humans cannot focus on two complicated things simultaneously.

F-shaped Call to Actions: Humans start at the top left (in the Western world) and move the eyes to the right, then down a bit, then across again, and then down again. If your Call to Action can mimic this, if will catch the prospects eye.

Simple Products have Call to Actions above the fold: You can have the Call to Action right at the top if it is a very simple and universally known product. Many prospects won’t need to read the copy or look at the pictures to ‘get it.’

Complex products have Call to Actions delayed: The more complex and more you have to educate, add value and differentiate, the further down you should have your Call to Action. Putting your offer and what you want to be paid too early reduces your chances of success because prospects can’t understand how you are worth the value.

Colour: Orange or Red against a contrasting background can assist conversion rates. Red colours generate a feeling of aggression and increased heart rates. This is where marketing consumer psychologists will tell you that many people make decisions based on emotions. You can use red for strong actions such as ‘buy’ and soft actions such as ‘request contact’ (and use a blue colour for trust).

Copy: The wording makes a big difference to response rates. If you just have a simple ‘buy’, you are risking leaving this open to the 100% convinced only to buy this product, and from you, and right now to take action. Sometimes an 80% convinced prospect is ready to go to 100%, and your copy has to take them there.

Of course... if you’re just another HR payroll software, plumber, interior designer, or tax accountant who provides great service or other commodity out there, a Call to Action alone won’t help you too much.

Spend a bit of time improving the product so that you are more helpful (of value) and differentiated than other competitors, and your conversion rates will naturally improve.

My call to action to you: Share this with another person who likes business articles about sales conversions right now. 

Time to do this: only 30 seconds so start right now.

Karma points: plenty (and you’re friend might be delighted you thought of them too.)

Further reading:

How a counsellor like Oprah Winfrey will outsell a salesperson: trust and buying psychology

Read more ...

The Law of Attraction: Intention Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction: Intention Law of Attraction: by Jason Li 2013 ©

As a sceptic... I originally thought the law of attraction was a load of rubbish...

In fact, an outright scam...

A way to take money off desperate people...

But I now believe it has worked in some ways.

Do you believe? Read on to see my story.

The Secret

I first came across this about three years ago when people and the media were raving about The Secret.

I thought, “Let’s be open minded and at least learn something new, even if I don’t agree.”

So here’s what I learnt.

In summary, if you believe good things are happening in your favour, soon your desires will be fulfilled, such as; you will be walking on a nice beach on holiday and feel the warm sun and the sounds of the waves; the universe will help you get there.

It’s based on vibrations.

So if you think negative things like: we don’t make many sales on a Monday or no-one calls our number anymore – guess what – the universe agrees and delivers your negative vibe... because it is what you want. 

(That’s right, time to gag that energy vampire in your office right now.)

“You get what you wish for”

You get what you wish for has been a known saying throughout time.

The law of attraction is mainly based on this philosophy, and you have to control your mind to ensure you only get what you wish for.

And it has happened to me.

I used to complain that I lived in an economic zone where jobs were low level unskilled  and low paid, so there were no decent graduate level jobs to apply for.

Maybe in a way I liked to prove this too.

Even though I desperately wanted a high paid graduate job, my negative vibes fed me low paid office jobs.

The Law of Attraction for more money

After managing and turning around a failing takeaway during the day as a challenge as an Interim Manager, while co-creating a board game each night and weekends, my attitude changed from looking for a low level job to looking to be a business advisor as I believed I was more than qualified to do so.

And so, not too long after winning a contract from Marks and Spencer to have 10,000 board games in over 200 stores in the UK, I got a job in a government funded agency and got to use my specialist marketing strategy skills.

I was unwittingly using the law of attraction.

I was focusing on what I want, mainly because I really believed I could help people, not just because of my Master’s Degree certificate, but because I proved it that I can both fine tune an existing offer (takeaway) and create a new product (board game) from scratch that beat many household brand name competitors.

So the law of attraction process started when I was ready to sacrifice in the short term an office career and go all practical in doing a business turnaround by running a takeaway, and sacrifice my nights inventing a new product.

“Money will come when you’re ready for it”

Now all this is in vain if you can’t get rich fairly quick.

We all want to have lots of money and free time.

It never happened for me in the past, I’ll admit that.

Again, I desperately wanted the money and the option to do what I want with my time.

Recently I heard a podcast and a very successful entrepreneur said a few years back he was poor and desperate to be rich. He was maxing on credit cards and working all hours, but his businesses were struggling.

And you know what... his mentor said:

“Money will come when you’re ready for it.”

He said he is ready for it. Of course he is; he’s desperate for it. But substantial money never came.

But now, money comes to him all the time, and it makes sense.

Law of attraction gratitude

Part of the law of attraction is gratitude.

Gratitude when you have an opportunity, whether it ends in a result you want.

So let’s say a prospect enquires. Even if they do not buy, be grateful and thankful (say thank you in your mind) that you had a prospect enquire, no matter what the outcome is.

This way you are telling the universe that you are thankful for what has been give to you.

It’s like when a referral has come from your network. It may not turn into an order. But you should thank them for the opportunity.

So if you think negative in a way such as: “I hate all these time waster callers.” Well guess what, the universe takes that on board and the prospects will start to reduce in numbers.

Now, at this point, for those new to this, it does all read a bit hocus pocus. I don’t blame you because I was in the same mind set for ages. So only you can decide to carry on reading this or re-read it again with an open mind.

Law of attraction leads to change

There are so many people who complain about unfortunate bad luck or how they just missed out.

So here is how the law of attraction gets you to where you want to be.

Remember above where I wrote that the law of attraction requires you to focus on where you want to be, the ideal result, outcome and feelings.

And also to show gratitude.

Well I have been focusing on the results of where I want to be.

In order to get there, I cannot carry on doing the same things I did yesterday, last week, last month or last year.

As you already know, doing the same thing leads to the same results.

And so I have to let the universe know I am willing to accept the changes to get to where I want to be.

It’s the only way my career and wealth can improve.

In order to take steps towards the results you desire, you have to say to the universe you are grateful for the changes that are presented to you.

If you don’t... then the universe believes you don’t want to change, and therefore you don’t want to achieve the better results.

No changey, no better resultsy: end up samey!

The law of attraction and this blog

So this blog was set up to give businesses ideas and tips to improve and get better results.

This can lead on to the human benefit of more free time as profit increases, more money to reward yourself and do more things in life.

But readers can only get to the results if they are willing to take a chance and try new ideas and new knowledge... to get to achieve a better result.

So, what would you like to attract for your business?

What would you like to change to improve your business?

What will you be willing to do to improve your business?

What would you be willing to pay if you could achieve a better result of overcome that nagging problem?

Please share this article if you think it will help or inspire anyone you know.

Further reading:

The problem of creating new products and services

How to generate more leads for my business

When your marketing is not working

Read more ...

What is ROI?: Jedi Return on investment methods for more profit

What is ROI?: Jedi Return on investment methods for more profit: by Jason Li 2013 ©

Are you a leader in your business... or a director?

Do you want to direct your business to more profits?...

Better conversion rates from marketing communication campaigns such as advertising, web site revamps, brochures, rebranding or email campaigns?...

Then here are some nifty ways to gain a better return on investment from your marketing communications spend.

How to calculate return on investment (ROI)

Why delay, let’s go through how to calculate return on investment

(return-capital)/capital) x 100%        = rate of return

(£110 - £100)/ (£100) x 100%        = 10%

So now you know what return on investment (ROI) is, so how you can use it to improve your business?

Rate of Return

Everytime you do something in your business, do you know the expected and actual rates of return?

Let’s say you do a promotion such as a 100 leaflets that are door dropped in your local area... what numbers are you expecting convert into sales, what numbers did you really get, how did you get to these estimates in the first place?

When you spend £2,000 on a website revamp, what rates of return are you expecting? Sure, the web site really looks great. Most web designers truly are fantastic visual artists. But I’m asking you as the boss and leader the hard question... what rate of return were you expecting from your £2,000 investment?

If you employ sales people, again you will have expected rates of return?

Add up all your sales efforts and marketing communication campaigns costs over the year and be truthful, what rates of return are you expecting?

Do your sales and marketing campaigns improve your turnover; improve profit margins and overall profit?

If the rates of return are low, like 500 cold calls to an order, even though you are certain you are targeting the correct target market, could it possibly be because the previous investment in developing your service and product was more than a year ago; so it means your offer is gradually not creating enough value for your target market TODAY?

When was the last time you added more value? How did it affect your rates of return after you improved the offer? If you can’t think of how to fine tune your product and service offer, have a look at the Goose Bump Effect ebook preview.

In fact NO... read on... you don’t deserve a free preview. You still believe that it’s not the product or service or your total offer that needs to improve. In fact, you want to spend more money on branding because it makes your ego feeeeeel guuud. So carry on reading.

Customer’s rate of return

So now you understand your own rate of return measurements.

In fact... it is almost certain you never purchased anything without trying to really estimate what you got in return.

So if you bought 1000 sales leads data for £100, you expected after all your expenses possibly £500 profit.

If you buy a nicer car, you want the hot guys/girls on the pavement to squint to see you through the window as you pull up at the lights. (Now that’s ROI because you want to be noticed by fit ones; yeah.)

And that way, my friend, is pretty much how your customers are thinking.

Your customers are trying to work out their rate of return from your product and service. (How many lovely people they can attract.)

Yes, you want the sale, more customers, more conversions, more revenue and more profit.

Yes, the customer knows you are keen for them to sign the papers, type in their card details, or send a purchase order... don’t you think they’ve ever been sold to in their life before?

But if you want better conversion rates, more money, more profit, less wastage of leads, to reduce the number of prospective customers who sign with competitors, and reduce the number of interested prospects with money to spend walking away and looking at other products and services to improve their business and lives... now is your chance.

“What sold well last year or yesterday might not sell as well tomorrow or next year.”

Look here dude. Either you keep your head in the sand, spend more on advertising, buying more lead data to give your demoralised and commission famished sales staff; get more stress, get more wrinkles, watch friends and family do better... Or, make that change to help your clients enjoy a product or service that is obviously of even better value than before.

Did these clients get a good enough rate of return on investment?

Marks and Spencer

I co-created a World Cup football board game as a freelancer that sold in over 200 Marks and Spencer stores. This included the research and game design to ensure it was in line with the demand of the market.

M & S wanted an exclusive football product to attract customers to their retail stores only.

On the Ball sold 10,000 copies in year one and was a top five selling product.

Competitors included: The Apprentice, Deal or No Deal, The Price is Right and Countdown.

No money was spent on TV advertising to promote the game, you could only know about it if you noticed it in the store. I had to rely on the methods in The Goose Bump Effect ebook to ensure that it hit the spot in terms of what buyers are looking to pay for as it sat amongst many big brand name board games.

My game only had one shot of being: noticed, picked up, the pictures and copy on the back read by the prospective customer... then it was either a) put back on the shelf or b) put in the basket. That my friend is the sales cycle. Anything else is delaying that decision of a or b.

Some AIDA magic:   A attention I interest D desire A Action

Boom!

It was positioned as a family game (a big point of difference – again explained in the ebook how to get this dead on to match what the market is demanding) and packed with unique humour and action cards for players to physically carry out fun tasks – no other board game around really offered much in the way like this at the time.

KashFlow

KashFlow was already a leading online accounting software to the small business sector.

Within 3-4 years about 300 accountants were recommending KashFlow to their client base after a launch of an accountant’s portal.

But sales growth had dropped off, whole sales teams would come and go, with new teams built from scratch.

I carried out some research to provide a 2^nd opinion.

To give you a picture, the main competitors included the giant Sage, Xero, Free Agent/Iris, QuickBooks and more.

Leading up to the year before I joined, KashFlow had won awards as a leading accountancy software, but had just missed out recently.

It was fairly obvious to see why.

The first thing is that other software houses upgraded their software much more quickly in the last year or two. The meaningful differences and value gap when compare to competitors was shrinking.

Secondly, when a prospect went on either software provider’s website, you see the same USP’s: easy-to-use, 30 day free trial, monthly payments, real-time... and so on.

How can any consumer choose?

So I developed a marketing plan based on adding value to blow other software houses out of the water. The plan was based on not just doing your accounts quicker, but tasks quicker too.

In case you’re asking, no I’m no technical guy, and was only a facilitator on this one. None of the integrations or upgrades were my direct idea... mainly because I don’t know the tech market.

I verbalised the philosophy that the software can follow as a theme to add value and differentiate.

The upgrades included MailChimp integrations for sending email campaigns from the same database, integration with DropBox, and click a link from the invoice facility to send your customers to your bank so they can pay directly online without you having to chase customers for taking card details. These examples would help the user enjoy more productivity through software automation of tasks. These were clearly outlined to prospective users as a USP for busy entrepreneurs.

Finally, a change to waive the fee charged to accountants for the portal brought about another 300 accountants to start recommending the software to clients within 3-6 months of taking away the fees. It only took five of the accountant’s clients to subscribe to cover the accountant fee. Given the fact that some accountants have several hundred clients, in the long run this would get over the hurdle of accountants worrying about the upfront fee. Once accountants had a client on board, the feedback was almost always good. So this got over a major deal breaker as most accountants would not pay a fee to recommend a software... so taking away this fee worked really well, especially as almost every decent accountancy practice has more than five clients.

Boomerang Couriers

One day as a marketing strategy business advisor I was sent by the enterprise agency to see a lad in Preston who had a courier business, based on volume discounting for pallet collections.

He was struggling, and he was desperate for help as a new business.

After analysis of the competitor landscape verses his business offer we found a very popular post office offer that he could improve on in both how he provided the service and price.

Now he could go on to spend money on advertising such as leaflets and within 6 weeks he had two new part-time staff on shifts handling enquiries and collections.

The ROI on Sales and Promotional Spend when getting marketing strategy right

So the importance of strategic demand marketing is starting to make sense now, huh?

Here’s a story:

Imagine if you just decided to spend thousands on a new brand concept complete with new logo, new company colours with an ingenious new brand concept.

Then your design consultants revamp your website... costing another thousand pounds (potentially).

And so your SEO, keywords and social media are now built around your new brand concept.

Yes, you’ll get some new site visitors, because new brings in adventure seeking types (a segment who constantly look for new).

Some may even buy your product because it hits the spot. Many won’t.

So you spend copious amounts of money on sales staff, telesales, field sales, sales managers and trainers. No-one has a clear cut answer why one month is great and another is not so good.

Can you imagine how much money, anguish and time is wasted in generating revenue using this method?

Compare this to a friend of mine who makes bespoke products. He follows new trends and adjusts to meet demand. Effort and costs are minimal: success and conversion rates are high.

Now picture this story of a tool supplier to artists:

This supplier could argue that because artists want to draw and use different colours, then their biros would meet their needs.

Does that read wrong to you?

(OK, the business will get lucky occasionally and sell a set or biros to complement his pencils or water colour paint pots.)

Yet many businesses operate this way.

That’s why thousands of prospects in your market reject you.

What if the product was adjusted to suit prospects demands more closely?

What would your ROI from sales staff and website conversion or SEO be now?

I’ll leave that to you.

Only you can say if it’s better to be in line with what prospective customers are seriously demanding to purchase.

(Or carry on improving and changing everything else from your desk layouts, to staff, to the type of carrier bags used at exhibition stands, to what the brand stands for... everything but the main product which the customer is paying for.)

The importance of Product ROI

Let’s say your product gets an ROI of 20%.

You spend £100,000 a year on business costs. The service elements to your product/package are also included; such as techies/developers or if you are lawyers then the law team.

And you earn £100,000 annually.

So without any promotional costs added, the product itself gets an ROI of 20%, let’s say from referrals.

So you earn £120,000 annually.

Now you want to promote your business to increase revenue. So you hire SEO, website developers, leaflet and print ad consultants, plus spend on newspaper ad space etc.

If your product is not aligned with demand, it is possible your total ROI on your product will now reduced.

Why?

Total costs go up; cash flow, profit margin and ROI for your product will drop down to almost negligible.

So if you spend £20,000 on promotion, then total costs would be £120,000.

But your additional revenue was only £10,000.

After the adding the additional costs, let’s compare with the increased revenue, say £130,000.

Then your ROI is now just 8.333%

So if you have a tactic of spending more on promotional costs and advertising to bring in more revenue, then this is going to become more inefficient for the business.

 

Can you think of businesses that suffered results like this? Businesses like Woolworths comes to mind.

On the flip side, if your product is what your target market is seriously demanding to buy, then any new promotion to prospects who were not aware of your exceedingly good product will likely buy.

Therefore, your ROI will be higher that the scenario before.

Ultimately

ROI is all about ROI on sales conversion for your product or service.

 

ROI is all about ROI for every product or service in terms of how it has been created to meet demand. If you make it and they don’t buy it, you have no return on your investment.

If you build houses and you get no sale from a viewing... Forget blaming the brochures, the lifestyle pictures and the reps uniform. Why does the HOUSE not meet demand?

No one here set up a business to virtually invest most of their money and time as an ad agency business managing art work and signing off Illustrator files.

No one here originally set up a business in order to go onto spend most of their time thinking about branding rather than filling that gap they saw in the market.

And definitely no one here from a trade started a business because they fancied becoming a cold caller and rejection-proof sales person.

So why neglect the real reason anyone is buying from you?

Are prospective customer’s sales objections about you or really about what your business can offer in terms of value?

If you truly want greater ROI, make sure you concentrate more effort on what you have to offer.

If you care for your target market and offer them exceptional value and differentiate the right way, and the prospective customer knows they will get exceptional ROI, your conversion rates have a better chance of improving.

Final words:

Please share this article if you have a friend who you might think a strategic demand marketing approach could help them.

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