An AIM Professional Service Group Exclusive Report

Introduction

Warren Buffet is considered to be the most successful stock investor in history. And the numbers speak for themselves; he is the third richest man in the world and as of today, stock in his company Berkshire-Hathaway sells for $2,793 a share! Buffet's investments have made money when the market is up and even more money when the market is down.

Warren Buffet's insight is so valuable that every year, thousands of Berkshire-Hathaway stockholders make their pilgrimage to the company’s stockholder meeting to listen to the amazingly simple and stunningly profitable investment tips from their precocious leader. If Tiger Woods is the king of golfers then  Warren Buffet is king of investors.

What is his secret? Simple – it’s a recipe combines stern discipline, ruthless accountability, and careful information gathering. Warren Buffet is famous for never investing in a company he couldn’t understand and remarkably his strategy is used by savvy business owners to market and grow their business as well.

Think about it.

What if you considered yourself to be a Marketing Investor? What if you coldly looked at your advertising as if it were a share of stock that had just two weeks to pay for itself? What if you partnered with marketing “advisors” he grew your sales potential much like an attorney watches your legal liability and an accountant protects your financial exposure?

Here is what would happen -
 

You Would Absolutely Dominate Your Marketplace and Demote Your Competition To A Dismal Future Of Desperately Holding On To Second Place.

Why? Because your business will have discovered a marketing system that would pound your message into the minds of your prospects, so when your prospect is ready to buy, you would have absolute confidence that they will remember your product and buy it regardless of price!.

This brief report will give you valuable insight into seven powerful marketing investment secrets used by an elite club of marketers. Marketing Investors hold these gems close to their vest because they cannot afford to let their competition know these lethal tips that guarantee a market monopoly (Pop Quiz: Guess Who is Warren Buffet’s best friend? – Bill Gates)

These secret strategies can be put to use immediately; however we want to remind you of one sobering fact, the business that reads this report and takes action will be the winner. Simply reading this material and tossing it in a folder will only place your business on death-row – just waiting for your competition to become the next Fortune 500 business legend.

So Read and Act.

Let’s Get Started.

Secret #1: Climbing the Right Mountain

“If you don’t know where you are going – any road will get you there”

The same goes for marketing and advertising – if you don’t have a marketing plan you can be only sure of one thing – that you will never be successful. Yes, you may get a few sporadic sales but you will never achieve what I call “knee-wiggling” success.
 

Knee Wiggling Success is:

Watching your sales grow consistently every month

Spending less money on your marketing while seeing more customers walk through the door

Being able to raise your price and get more business rather than less

Learning that your customers are selling your product and paying you for the privilege.

Knee wiggling success is not a fairy-tale. Even while you are reading this report,  our clients are seeing extraordinary results in their own business. The key to getting started is to take the first step of every Marketing Investor – Know where your headed.

Don’t just make a mental note actually take out a piece of paper and write down the objective of your marketing plan.

Here are a few great examples of a clear and measurable marketing objectives:

Increase Saturday sales by 50%

Turn 25% of first-time customers into repeat customers

Fill my contact database with 25,000 hot prospects

The reason why the Marketing Investor writes down their objective is because they are betting on one stunning fact:

98% of their competition will not even bother to take the time to write down their marketing objectives.

This is why the marketing investor wins every time – because they know where they are going – and with their goal in hand – the set out to find the tools to get them there.

Take a moment to fill in the blanks

Our advertising plan must __(achieve what?) _____ within ___(time period)____.

Ready?  Ok, let's move on -

Secret 2: Marketing Like A Tossed Salad

I love a fresh garden salad with Ranch dressing. When you look at a great salad, you can’t help but dive into the plump red tomatoes, the crisp ice cold lettuce, the salty olives, and the crunchy breaded croutons.

Strange thing though – I never fantasize about devouring a full bowl of olives or a cup of croutons are a plate of lettuce. However, if you combine these ingredients together – ring the dinner bell, you’ve made something different all together – you’ve made a tossed salad.

Like a tossed salad, the best marketing plan includes a mix of effective advertising tools. They might include a generous helping of newspaper, some radio advertising and a dash of direct mail or they are a spicy mixture of provocative press releases, hard-hitting brochures, and neck-snapping business cards.

A "business killer" for any small business advertiser is to gamble your entire marketing plan on one advertising tactic – especially if you are just starting your advertising program.

What you want is a diversified marketing plan. A diversified marketing plan does the following:

Reaches all of your prospective customers not just newspaper readers or radio listeners but all of your customers.

Uses each advertising vehicle to strengthen the other so that the customer receives a consistent message

Uses the unique strength of each medium to accomplish the overall marketing objective

A diversified marketing plan protects your marketing investment.  It also helps you highlight which advertising is working and which should be eliminated.

While the details of selecting the right mix of advertising can't be covered i this report - we encourage your to answer these questions:

1.  Who is my target customer?

2.  How do they gather information they need to make a purchase?

3.  Can you reach them through their favorite information/research source (i.e.. Internet, Newspaper, Magazine, or Radio station).?

4.  Will your ad stand out and catch their attention?

If you are having problems answering these questions or just need someone to walk you through this process - call (734) 755-6496, our Marketing Advisors would love to assist you.

Once you have written down the answers to these questions - read on to the third secret - Be An Ad Mechanic.

Secret #3: How to Be An Ad Mechanic

Put on some old jeans, t-shirt and your favorite ball cap – it's time to climb under the hood of a successful ad.

Every great ad has four easily recognizable parts:
 

1. Attract Eyeballs with “The Hook” :

A hypnotic headline that literally drags a person’s eyes across the page and down the ad. A headline that hooks will peak curiosity and beg to be read. A jaw-dropping headline that hooks gets the heart pumping and the brain thumping. Every great ad has “the hook”

2. Convince With Evidence

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury . . .” You know what comes next – a compelling outline of the evidence. In an ad, the very first sentence after the headline begins laying out the evidence supporting the headlines claim. The evidence gives the customer a rational reason for purchasing your product or service.

3. Comfort with a Safety Net:

Your customers absolutely hate taking a risk. No matter how well you support your product or service they want a guarantee that they are not being swindled. Every great ad has an iron-clad, no hassle guarantee that reduces the customer’s risk to zero.

4. Activate with a swift kick in the pants!

The best salespeople know that their prospects want to be nudged over the finish line. And a great ad does just that – they make it easy for the customer to buy, call or visit a showroom to buy the product.

The debate over what makes a great ad can be settled in one word – profit. If your ads have these four elements and are easy to understand and benefit-oriented you are sure to see sales from your ad.

Warning: Why You Shouldn’t Advertise Like A Fortune 500 Company

Ever heard of institutional advertising? Institutional advertising is what you see on TV during the Superbowl or an episode of Friends. Institutional ads are created by large Fortune 500 companies who are seeking to create “brand awareness”.

Brand awareness is a fancy way of saying, ‘They remember our company name’. Brand awareness is a good thing to have if you can afford to wait for years to see it.  Big companies think in terms of years not weeks, and they don’t mind not seeing an immediate return from their ads. This isn’t the case for small and medium sized business owners.

You need to see an immediate return – that means that if you run the ad on Sunday – you see paying customers walk through the door on Monday.

The Attract, Convince, Comfort, Activate formulae is specifically designed to get a rapid-response to your advertising. The Marketing Investor understands this potent advertising secret and they use it to see an immediate return on their advertising investment.


Secret #4: It’s Alive!

I saw the offer in my Sunday newspaper and I couldn’t resist checking out the web site to get more information. The website did its job – I signed up for the free email newsletter and that’s when I was enrolled in the most persistent Marketing system known to man. Here’s how it went:

Week 1:

Received an email thanking me for ordering the newsletter and promising to stay in touch

Week 2:

Received another email informing me that the company wanted to offer me a special deal in the next couple of days and to remember to open the email when it arrives

Week 3:

Received special offer – but I decided to not to order

Week 4:

Received another email letting me know that they hadn’t forgotten about me and a call that day could still get me the special offer.

Week 5:

Received email informing me of a discount exclusively for the first 1,000 orders – I took the bait – hook, line, and sinker

Week 6:

Received Thank You email with a list of other services I might want to consider to complement the product I had just bought.

This system was methodical, smart, and effective. Look at your own marketing – is it what I call “Love ‘em and Leave ‘em” marketing?

 “Love ‘em and Leave ‘em” meaning you make your offer once and then throw their name in the trash if they don’t respond? If so, you are missing a goldmine in sales.
 

Let me tell you a story . . .

When I first met my wife-to-be, I let her know, somewhat prematurely, that I wanted to lifelong relationship with her. Like I should have expected, she told me to cool down and try “being friends” first.

Now most guys would have taken this as a “no-go” and moved on. Not me (I can be a little dense at times), I believed that the best way to increase my chances of finally “going steady” was to stay in contact. So, I cooled my heels but stayed in constant contact and after three months, I finally proved my sincerity and the rest is well “history”

Your prospects and my wife act the same way; most of them won’t simply fall into your arms the first time you make your offer. Most likely you will need to stay in constant contact with them until they are ready to buy.

In marketing, the most persistent business wins. A Marketing Investor views each customer as long-term investment. If the prospect is indeed a prospect (with the willingness and ability to buy) staying in consistent contact will turn them into a customer.

However most businesses lack the Marketing System that will filter their suspects, nurture their prospects, and reward their clients. Here are five quick steps to take to create your Marketing System.
 

5 Steps to Creating Your Marketing System

Step #1: Identify Your Prospects

Take all the time necessary to get this step right. Ask yourself this question, “What does my ideal customer look like, act like, and want”. Take out a piece of paper and draw a stick figure and label what brand of shoes, shirt, and pants they wear. Imagine what they do to relax. What books they read, what songs they hum to themselves while daydreaming – get the point?

Step #2: Find Out How Your Prospects Get Information

After identifying your prospects, the next step is to see where they like to hang-out, what they like to read, who do they depend on for information. Look at the stick figure you drew in the first step and ask yourself the question “What does this person have in their carry-on to read on the plane?”. Is it a newspaper or magazine (which magazine). Do they love to unwind with the local “Easy-Listening” radio station or surf the web?. Find out where your prospects are most susceptible to listening to your pitch then go to Step 3

Step #3: Ask Them to Dance

Even you haven’t heard the latest marketing buzzword – know is the time. It is called “Permission Marketing” and it’s the latest holy grail among marketing egg-heads. Permission Marketing is simply asking your prospect for permission to stay in contact with them. Once you have received this permission, you can open the flood gates of persuasive, compelling, and action-oriented communication. It is very important that you get this permission because without it, you are just a spammer. A what? Not the nauseous gelatin meat that you find pressure-packed into a cute tin. No, I mean the marketers who send email and snail mail to those who didn’t ask for it. This type of marketing never works. Don’t try it – get permission.

Step #4: Make it easy to buy or give permission

It never ceases to amaze me to read a brilliant advertisement that ends with a toll-free number in micro-type at the bottom of the ad. If you have gone through the trouble of writing a great ad – make sure that you make your toll-free number, web address, office location as BIG as possible. Don’t make your “ready to buy” customer search for your contact information. This goes for getting the prospect’s permission to contact them in the future. Make your contact form easy to understand and complete fill-in within one minute. Resist the urge to get every shred of information that you possibly can. Remember your prospects are time-starved and everyone hates filling in forms. At the most, ask for a name, address, and email address. Finally, if your form needs to be mailed back to you – spend the extra quarter to make it postage-free.

Step #5: Get The Referral

This step is the most widely known and the least used. Always ask for the referral; even if your prospect does not buy from you – ask for the referral. You will be shocked by how many will not purchase your product or service but will refer to you two or three other friends that will! The bonus to asking for the referral is that most likely you will make the sale without needing to spend as much time or money as you did with the initial person who made the referral.   If the person does buy your offering – then definitely ask for a referral. Referrals from satisfied customers is the most powerful marketing tool known to man (and the oldest). A couple of years ago, at the height of the Internet craze, the term Buzz hit the advertising lecture circuit like a Oklahoma twister. Everyone wanted to know the secret of harnessing the power of Buzz. Here’s a quick lesson on Buzz and it goes like this: Lot’s of Referrals = Lot’s of Word of Mouth = Lot’s of Buzz The companies that enjoyed the benefits of Buzz just did what savvy Marketing Investors have been doing for centuries, getting others to refer their product.

Secret #5: A Baby only A Mother Could Love
Before I began helping small business owners with their marketing and advertising, I worked for one of those big, fancy Madison Avenue Advertising agencies.

If you were to visit my old agency, you would immediately recognize the reverence that surrounded the “Agency’s Work”. Magazine ads in gilded frames adorned the walls, sleek television sets played the latest television commercial in a ritualistic loop begging to be noticed.
 

If you traveled to the top floor, you would enter the inner sanctum of the agency’s power – the Creative Department – remove your shoes Moses, you’re on Holy Ground.
 

Don’t misunderstand me - I love to watch clever commercials. As a matter of fact, I have a Superbowl party every year to watch the commercials – not the football game. But guess what, clever commercials don’t sell.
 

That’s right I said it! Cute commercials with dancing monkeys or cannons shooting hamsters only entertain – but they don’t sell.
You see, much to the horror of the big agencies, it is the ugly, text-filled, white-space choked, ugly duckling ad that pulls customers through the door like free lemonade in Texas. The reason for this seemingly contradictory phenomenon is deceptively simple – ads that sell - sell and ads that entertain – well – they just entertain.
 

Remember the “Mean Joe Green” ad that Coca-cola aired in the early 80’s. Just thinking about that little kid offering the battered and beaten football giant a Coke still chokes me up.
 

But, the folks at Coca-cola pulled the ad after a couple of months. Why you ask - because it didn’t sell. Sure people were reminded that little kids are cute, innocent and surprisingly generous but this didn’t make people switch from Pepsi to Coke!
Coca-cola realized that the best ads simply said – Drink Coke because it tastes better. You know what – that’s the type of ad that the Marketing Investor absolutely loves because it earns money every time.
 

If you have an advertising agency helping you with your marketing be on guard for what I call “The Beauty Myth’s” They go something like this
 

1. “A Good Ads Makes Good Use of White-space”

Newspaper ads are too expensive to waste space. Make your case – sell your products benefits and take as much space as you need. If you can’t fit it a newspaper ad, write your prospect a letter. White-space doesn’t sell – words do.

2. “People Hate To Be Sold – You Must Hide Your Sales Pitch”

Wrong, people get annoyed with businesses who confuse or mislead them. Customers actually will appreciate your business clearly telling them what your selling, how it will help them, and how they can learn more, and where they can buy it. Don’t be afraid to sell and you will find out that your customers don’t mind buying.

3. Pictures Sell

This point actually is close to the truth. Nothing attracts attention like a photograph. However, don’t use your photograph as the headline – because a picture means something different to each person. A picture without a headline is likely to get confused and ignored. Always accompany your photograph with a hard-hitting headline that will drag your prospects eyes down the page.

4. “People Scan Ads They Hate to Read Them”

Wrong! If your ad rep or advertising agency tells you this – tell them your not interested in their services and show them out the door. This person is guaranteed to take and lose your money quicker than a Vegas slot machine.   The common adage among savvy Marketing Investors is “The More You Tell, The More You Sell”. Research has shown that the more text you use to explain the benefits of your product the more you sell – not less! Your prospect wants to hear what you have to say about your product and your information makes it easier for your prospect’s to say yes. Don’t fall for this Marketing Beauty Myth.

Secret 6: Test, Test, Test!

Recently a daily newspaper began selling advertising packages to local businesses that looked like a great value but was actually the most ludicrous idea that I had seen in a long time.
 

The deal went like this – If you bought a package of 2,3, or 5 ads they would deeply discount the last ad that you ran in the package. Sounds good right – who would pass up a discount deal?
 

Here’s the catch, you had to pick one ad to run and you were not allowed to change it. This means that if your first ad bombed, you were stuck with paying for the bum-ad for the remainder of your contract! No matter how much you begged, you couldn’t change a single word!
 

I told all of my clients to run from this deal like the “Black Death” because it violated a cherished secret of the Marketing Investor – Test Everything. Test your headline. Test your first sentence in the ad. Test your offer. Test the size of your ad, test where you put your 800 number. Test, Test, Test!
 

The Marketing Investor will test dozens of ads until she finds the one with the best results. Once that ad is found then the last and most profitable secret becomes important:

Secret #7: Rabbit Farming

I’m sure you have seen the cute television ad that Visa is using to promote the Visa Check Card. In the commercial, a man with his little daughter are purchasing two bunny rabbits. Of course, the man wants to use a personal check and the clerk begins to ask for an endless litany of identification.
 

In the meantime, the two fertile bunnies are reproducing at an exponential rate right before the shocked girl’s eyes. The commercial ends with the pet store full of bunny rabbits.
 

Ask yourself a question, if you had an ad that made you $3 for every $1 you spent. How many times would you run the ad? That’s right – as many times as you could afford. In How many newspapers or radio stations would you run the ad. Let me guess – everywhere that would take the ad. Just like those bunnies your ad would be everywhere.
 

This is the last secret of the Marketing Investor. I call it the power of multiplication and it’s the single most important sales-building principle in marketing. Once you have found your winner – bet the farm on it. Don’t be shy – run the ad as many times as you possible can.
 

Here are some ideas:

Put your headline on the back of your business cards with the line “Ask Me About This Ad”

Put your ad on the back of every store flyer. You will be amazed at how many people will show up at your store with the flyer

Put your ad on your web site linked to a contact form for more information

Use your ad as the “on-hold” message on your telephone.

Read the ad to everyone who get’s your voicemail

Place the headline to your ad below your signature on your stationary and emails

Multiplying your ad will allow you to truly maximize your advertisements sales-building potential. Another added bonus: your ad will drive your competition nuts. No matter where they go – they won’t be able to escape your success.