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More Clients - the Online Marketing Newsletter
for Independent Professionals
from Action Plan Marketing
and Robert MiddletonIn This Week's Issue: Learn how to use a combination of
passive and active marketing approaches.
Passive or Active Marketing?
Last week someone forwarded to me a CoachVille eZine
interview by Stephen Fairley of "Today's Leadership Coaching."
Stephen has just published a book called "Getting Started in
Personal and Executive Coaching."In the interview, amongst other things, Stephen discussed the
distinction between passive and active marketing activities. I
found it so interesting that I contacted Stephen and did a one-
hour interview with him on the topic.I'd like to give you some of the highlights of our discussion.
Passive Marketing
You might define passive marketing activities as putting out
information about your service and then waiting for a response
from those who got your information. Truth be told, I LOVE
passive marketing. As an InfoGuru, you ideally want to develop
enough visibility and credibility so prospective clients call you.Active Marketing
I would define active marketing as all the marketing activities
that are related to following up with prospective clients. So,
active marketing can be everything from following up with
someone you met at a networking event to making a cold call
to a company you think would be a great client.Finding a Balance
Good marketers work at finding a balance between passive and
active marketing. Passive marketing builds your personal brand
and your reputation. Active marketing gets appointments with
prospective clients.If you put all your time and resources into passive marketing in
the early stages of your business, you're going to build your
business very slowly indeed. You'll soon discover that it takes a
lot of positive exposure to get people to pick up the phone.On the other hand, if you put all your efforts into active
marketing, you'll never really gain any momentum. Getting new
business will always be hand-to-mouth, because your word-of-
mouth business won't be supported by reputation-building
marketing activities.Combining Passive and Active
A good example of combining passive and active marketing
was my very focused campaign a few years ago to do
speaking engagements. I researched organizations, put
together a package, contacted them and got myself booked.
After giving my talk (and the talk has to be great or you'll only
hurt yourself), I got cards and followed up with everyone who
attended.This combination approach generated a lot of new business
for me in a relatively short period of time. If I had just waited
for people to call, I am certain I wouldn't have landed nearly
as many new clients.The smartest thing to do in marketing your business is to
combine passive and active marketing. Here are several other
ways you can do this:* Send out mailings or individual letters to prospective clients,
and then call them up to discuss your services or to set up an
appointment.* Offer a complimentary coaching or consulting session to a
select group of people (by email or mail), and then follow-up
by phone to set up a time to talk.* Build your eZine (email newsletter) list and send out valuable
information on a regular basis, while always including an offer
for a product or service they can order online.* Participate actively in networking and meeting good
prospects, and then set up meetings with those who could
either be clients or lead you to prospective clients.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The InfoGuru Marketing Manual
This comprehensive marketing manual for Independent Professionals
is the flagship product of Action Plan Marketing. Written by Robert
Middleton over several years, it contains the accumulated wisdom of
over twenty years on how to attract clients with less struggle.Why is the InfoGuru Manual for you?
- It was developed exclusively for Independent Professionals such
as consultants, coaches, trainers and other service professionals
who are great at what they do but have a hard time consistently
attracting clients to their businesses.- The manual is based on a few powerful marketing principles that,
once you understand them, might seem obvious but are missed by
almost everyone (and implemented by even fewer).- The marketing principles contained will help you: increase interest
in your services, build trust and credibility with prospects, get prospects
wanting to learn more about what you do and create a steady stream of
word-of-mouth business.- It goes way beyond theory, vague generalizations or concepts and
contains hundreds of hands-on marketing strategies and action plans
that are easy to implement, even if you have no marketing experience.- Includes foundational marketing information on things like creating
an attention-getting marketing message and then goes into depth on the
most recent marketing techniques of web marketing and eZines.- You can read it like a book, you can go through it slowly and do
the exercises like a home-study course or you can refer to it whenever
you have a question about marketing your business.- It comes with a boatload of extras, including audio files, articles,
and the InfoGuru Support Forum, where you can get any question
about marketing answered for free.- The Support Forum can be used to answer questions, provide
resources, review marketing materials, web sites, proposals and
sales letters, as well as explore the more complex and confusing
aspects of attracting clients to your business.- It will help remove the mystery and struggle about marketing
and selling that so many Independent Professionals experience and
will help you realize that marketing can actually be fun.- It comes with my unconditional guarantee. Get it and try it. If you
don't think it's worth much more than what you paid, tell me and I'll
refund 100% of your purchase price.- Unlike most marketing information sold on the web, the manual is not
only available in digital form (pdf file) for immediate download, but for
just a few dollars more you can get a printed manual as well.- The InfoGuru Marketing Manual was published in February of 2001
and it's just as relevant today as I add to it regularly with updates of
the manual that can be downloaded repeatedly at no additional cost.- If you are looking for one tool that will help you attract clients with
an approach and methodology that is highly effective but doesn't
compromise your integrity, you've found it!For complete details and to order online go to:
http://www.actionplan.com/infoguru.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marketing Flashes on "Passive or Active Marketing?"
* Passive marketing educates prospects about your business.
Make sure all your marketing materials are informative,
interesting and relevant. Then make sure to include a very
specific call-to-action at the bottom of your brochure, newsletter
or article.* Active marketing doesn't mean "pushy marketing." You don't
have to be obnoxious to follow up, ask for an appointment or
suggest a next step. In fact, many people are put off when the
active marketing piece is left out. They don't know how to buy
your services.* Active marketing gives you valuable feedback that helps your
passive marketing. When you follow up after a talk or a
networking contact, you'll learn very quickly what worked or didn't
work in your initial contact. This will enable you to fine-tune and
adjust quickly instead of guessing.* Passive marketing is a wonderful marketing approach once you
have momentum. You don't have to follow-up as much. But you
still want to monitor all your marketing to determine what is
getting the phone to ring.* Whenever you develop a marketing strategy, include both a
passive and an active component. You'll get much better results
and you'll spin your wheels a whole lot less.Until next week, all the best,
Robert Middleton
ACTION PLAN MARKETING
Helping Independent Professionals Attract More Clients~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
210 Riverside Drive
Boulder Creek, CA 95006
831-338-7790© 2004 Robert Middleton, All rights reserved. You are free
to use material from the More Clients eZine in whole or in part,
as long as you include complete attribution, including live web
site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear.
The attribution should read:"By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit
Robert's web site at http://www.actionplan.com for additional
marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional
service businesses."* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
