peter | Peter B Butler on Marketing, Smart Lead Generation & Even Smarter Websites!

Lead Generation Strategies to get the Best Quality Clients.

February 4, 2009 By peter Leave a Comment

The last couple of “Lead Generating Web Site and Marketing Machines” we’ve set up for clients have been missing some specific content I needed.

And it shouldn’t have been!

So I want to give you the heads up on what you should be doing right now, whether you ever use us or not… and this is an absolute must for all business owners.

What others say about you is “infinitely more believable” than what you say about you…

… think about it.

How much more likely are you to try a new store or go to a restaurant if a friend or family member told you about it?

A lot more likely!

… imagine you then saw an ad in your local newspaper for this business.

You could almost speak with authority and recommend it to others even if you hadn’t been there yet. If someone you know and trust is making a recommendation it invariably means you are going to trust their judgement.

This is a very powerful marketing strategy that you need to embrace fully and use to its full extent.

You’ve probably heard me rave previously about what I call “gush factor” service. Forget the wow factor… we should all move our service to the gush factor level but that’s another rave.

My point is this. What is the value of creating gush factor service and great client rapport if nobody shares it with the world?

No value!!! It’s great to give good service and have happy clients but you really are leaving a lot of money on the table if you ‘don’t get this right’.

… a high gush factor with someone singing your praises is a really powerful tool.

Testimonials provide credibility as well as proof.

Not sure about you but I’m a bit of a gadget freak and I need reasonable amounts of retail therapy. Hey, we all have a vice or three. When I’m out with friends and family I use their recommendations and experiences a lot so I to know where to get the best value for my retail therapy sessions.

So why is this all so powerful? Like most business owners you rely on referrals for new business… a lot!

We all need to maintain or build our self generating referral machine. This is all a part of us positioning our business.

Isn’t that why you started in business in the first place? To be independent!

By using testimonials to provide this credibility and proof of what you say about you is true you’re also switching the psychology of your prospect or new client. They’re already pre-disposed to do business with you. The trust factor is high which means they’re like a direct referred client.

Using the Direct Response Marketing and Lead Generating model of the Smarter Websites system with testimonials is like a self generating referral and marketing centre all on its own.

That’s powerful. So what did we do about getting those missing testimonials? Got on the phone to back track what we and started a system to collect as much as we could.

Imagine your arsenal if you’d started this a year or three ago.

Some business owners already get testimonials and might be saying ‘So what, been there and done that”.

Well, get this… There is a powerful way to get them and use them and the lame way.

What should your testimonials say?
How to double the power and readership of yours!
When is the best time to get your testimonial?
How should they be signed?
How and where should you use them?

All this and more will be covered next week…

Speak then.

Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,

Peter B Butler.

Finally: A lead generation and marketing system that generates a stream of “highly qualified” clients for small business owners and retailers that’s self managed so they ‘own’ it and it positions them as the experts in their area and ends all lame and frustrating and sometimes costly advertising and marketing methods.

All those in favour of that say ‘AYE’!

To find out more go to Peter B Butler on… Direct Response Marketing, Websites and Lead Generation!

Filed Under: Direct Response Marketing Tagged With: advertising, direct response, lead generation

You Just Have To Love Easy Web Traffic!

January 27, 2009 By peter Leave a Comment

I know I’ve had a bit of a rant on Social Media Marketing recently but even at this early stage of sorting my own I now have evidence that it works. I’ll make this post a quickie…

I was just in checking my stat’s stuff for my sites. This is why I love our Smarter Websites model.

I can quickly and easily check a whole gambit of stuff that helps me reach more people and get more people to find me but more on that later.

Not only can I tell how many visitors I’ve had, and on a daily basis, I can tell how long they stayed and which pages they went to and from.

A big thing is what keywords they used to find me in the first place – that is huge. It means that I can then tweak and refine the keywords my site is known for and increase the visitors to my site… exponentially.

Another big thing is where did they come from? Did they type my name in? That’s known as ‘direct’ traffic or did they see a link somewhere?

There are only 3 ways people are going to get to your site –

Direct traffic
Referring sites
Search engines

Does that seem techy to you?

It’s not… If you can use Microsoft Word then you can do this stuff, it’s dead easy.

Actually, you don’t even have to ‘cause that’s a part of what the Smarter Websites package does. We not only optimize your site but we monitor it ongoing… test and measure… and refine what gives results.

And that’s what our members enjoy… results!

This is the exciting news. I’ve been talking about setting up your profiles more effectively on ‘Facebook’ and LinkedIn’.

After checking my ‘Stat’s stuff’ this morning I found that I’m getting checked out via both Facebook and LinkedIn. Yup, the stat’s tell me exactly where and how many. I’ve had 9.8% of traffic through Facebook and a bit less through LinkedIn. Not bad considering I’ve only refined my profiles recently.

What is most interesting for me is the mix between the 3 primary sources of traffic – direct, referring and search engines. You don’t think I’m going to tell you the rest of my stats do you?

Our clients love the fact that they now understand it all – or is it the fact that they don’t have to understand it is what they love? Hmmm, I’ll have to ponder that one… you can enjoy it too – go to “Smarter Websites” to find out more.

Have I made any money or picked up any clients as a result of this already?

No, give me a break… its early days yet but the extra traffic and exposure is always a good thing. All this will increase your favour and standing with the ‘Google Gods’. It’s also increasing the ‘authority’ of your site along with increasing the chance of other people picking up my content and referring people to us.

You’ll be amazed who and where other traffic will come from, but that’s another post… If you want to enjoy this lap of luxury in website world go to “Smarter Websites” and look for yourself.

Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,

Peter B Butler.

All those in favour of that say ‘AYE’!

To find out more go to Peter B Butler on… Direct Response Marketing, Websites and Lead Generation!

Filed Under: Direct Response Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged With: lead generation, social media

Excellent Guidance in Lead Generation…

January 22, 2009 By peter Leave a Comment

“Peter is a rare jewel in the crown of the WA marketing fraternity in that he provides excellent guidance in that hardest of hard business development jobs – lead generation.

The techniques he advocates help to differentiate your business, are measurable and cost effective – an attractive feature in our current financial environment.

I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Peter to any business owner or manager who is looking for a marketing professional with original ideas and the skill and expertise to make them work for you.”

Tony Addiscott

Mobile: 0413 143 500
Fax: 08 9463 7852
Email: tonya@guidecommunications.com.au

Filed Under: Testimonials Tagged With: direct response, lead generation

3 Best Tips For Using LinkedIn!

January 21, 2009 By peter Leave a Comment

I started using LinkedIn about a year ago. Probably like most people I set up my profile and did nothing with it. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what else I should do.

You do need to build up your connections. Check your friends ‘connections’ too and ask for the introduction to like minded people.

It is a valid networking and lead generation tool and I’ve generated 1 hot lead through it already so I’m good with that. A friend even had a job offer last month too!

Here’s the share on a few tips and tricks that could help.

First up is your Public Profile URL… Edit it.

The default link looks something like this – http://www.linkedin.com/pub/XX/xxx/XXX which is pretty ugly and random.

What makes a lot more sense is to use the word or term you want to ‘rank’ for with the search engines. So change it to something like this http://www.linkedin.com/in/thepeterbutler but it could be your business name if you like.

It will help in Google World. Your name should still appear in the search results regardless but if the text link contains the actual words, like your name or business then that’s all the better for the search results.

Increase Your Public Profile!

I’d also recommend placing this as a link on your website. The more links on your site to other sites about you will increase your overall profile on the internet.

A point to consider, when people click on that link and they’re redirected to your LinkedIn page the sexier URL will appear in the address bar, much more professional rather than some generic random line.

It’s easy to edit. Just hit ‘edit my profile’ and click on the text. Your name might be taken already so be prepared to slip in something that sets it apart. You can use a digit or perhaps ‘the’ as a differentiator.

I have both my LinkedIn and my Facebook profiles as links under a category link ‘social media sites’. My take is this, people want to do business with people and this shows them that humanness side. You should have decent profiles set up on both Facebook and LinkedIn.

Your Own Personal Built In Website Feature!

This is huge. Click on ‘Applications’ in the left navigation bar and you have 10 applications at this point ready to ‘plug in’ to your profile.

The biggest for me was the WordPress plug-in. This feature means as I make a post to my site it appears in my profile automatically. So my last 3 posts are sitting in there with no effort, getting more exposure and all the while telling my story and adding to my credibility. That is a very cool tool.

Yup, it has a Built In Slide Show Presentation too…

The Slide Share Presentations will be my next set up – this will be a real boon for a lot of people too. I show my wares via Power Point so this will work particularly well for me.

What plug-ins will suit you?

Depending on the nature of your business as to which other plug-ins will be most useful to you. This is the short list of other tools – Google Presentations, Blog Link, LinkedIn Polls (cool), Trip-It, Reading List by Amazon and some online collaboration tools.

It seems the issue for most people is time, to learn how it all works or committing to ‘building that network’. It’s the same for me so my take is to do this stuff in my ‘slow’ time or at least not my ‘peak’ productive time. I’ve even sat there with my laptop while I catch a TV show to get through it.

So, go to it and get LinkedIn!

While your there let’s get connected too. The more ‘connections’ we all have the better.

Here’s my public profile link: http://www.linkedin.com/in/thepeterbutler

See you on LinkedIn!

Committed to Generating “Highly Qualified” Leads and Making You More Money,

Peter B Butler.

All those in favour of that say ‘AYE’!

To find out more go to Peter B Butler on… Direct Response Marketing, Websites and Lead Generation!

Filed Under: Direct Response Marketing, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: business building, social media

Oh My God People are Contacting me…

January 19, 2009 By peter Leave a Comment

Who wants to start their day with a BIG thankyou from a client?

I got the sort of email from a client that we all like to get. Here’s the subject line and content.

______________________________

Oh My God People are Contacting me and leaving messages

I received these two comments last night from my site…………WOW……

David O

Nice Site layout for your blog. I am looking forward to reading more from you.

Tom Humes

Very interesting analysis. Moves my thinking along in terms of helping clients measure the impact of the leadership development work that I do, mostly with non-profit social service organizations. Thanks.

Larry Wenger, MSW
Workforce Performance Group

David O

______________________________

David O was ecstatic! After 8 years of having a website that suffered rigor mortis (it was stiff and dead).

David was so excited because we had only re-published his site 2 weeks prior and after 8 years of disappointment, well, I’m sure you can see why he was over the moon.

You need to understand this. To be indexed by Google, found by the search engines and then these articles even found by humans in that time frame is nothing short of miraculous.

How did we do it? I’ll cut straight to the chase.

The WordPress Platform!

…and our little box of tricks and very sexy plug-ins and how we use them. You didn’t expect me to give all our secrets did you?

Why was David so excited even though we told him to expect this sort of thing?

Because he’s been told similar things in the past. David had spent $18,000 over the past 8 years with 4 different web developers with all the promises in the world and none had delivered.

Here’s the thing…

Did any of those websites generate leads? – No
Did they capture lead details? – No
Was he able to market directly to his clients to those visitors after they left? – No
Was he able to relate and market to existing clients through his website? – No
Did he actually make any money through those websites? – No

We’re all told we need to have a website in these modern times but we’re not told the specific functions that the website should perform and how it really is just a tool in our marketing toolbox.

If you answered no to any of the above then you have to question everything you’ve ever been told about website world. The problem with most web designers is that they are not marketers.

It’s not their fault, they know how to do sexy graphics and know some code and stuff but they don’t understand marketing. And especially direct response marketing. For the most part all you end up with is a very sexy online corporate style brochure… and that’s it!

It won’t actually make you any money. Makes you wonder why you would bother doesn’t it. The whole point of a website is to build your business so you make more money through…

Generating leads.
Generating fresh and qualified leads consistently.
Being able to start a relationship with prospects.
Capturing the prospects details so you can market to them consistently.
Being able to relate to and market to existing clients.
Actually make money.

So David was well on his way to achieving that with his new style website based on the WordPress platform and our template, big box of tricks and hosting. Already he had 2 people respond to the information that he was able to post easily and quickly on his own to his own website, he was rapt.

He was able to respond to these ‘comments’ and start a relationship with these people. That seems to be a fundamental flaw in most peoples thinking with websites and business today. So many people have forgotten the basics…

People want to do business with people!

That’s what this style and model of website will achieve. It’s all about being able to relate to your prospects and clients. The side spin to this is other people visiting his site will see this and it starts to bring the barriers down and the trust factor up. The world will see that you’re a real person who knows what they’re talking about and not some big impersonal corporation.

The Google Gods will smile upon you!

Not only that but it means that the Google Gods will smile upon you because you have a web 2.0 based website platform. Without going all techy it basically means the search engine world will love you and your site which means that more people will find out about you and you can actually interact with them.

And that’s without any marketing per say. This style is the way of the future for websites but more importantly for NOW because you really don’t want to get left behind and have your competition getting the jump on you.

David is now able to run direct response marketing pieces, both online and offline and direct people to his site, qualify them, capture their details and market to them at will.

How good is that?

I’ll keep you posted with David’s progress as it all really starts to snowball for him.

“Breaking News”! I’ve just done an interview with David so can listen in to what David actually had to say!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Do you want these sort of results? Jump on this NOW and I’ll talk you through it! Contact me NOW!

Make 2009 Your Best Year EVER!

Filed Under: Website Marketing Design Tagged With: Testimonials

Thank you SOOO very much for your help with my Yellow Pages advertisement

January 18, 2009 By peter Leave a Comment

“…I am THRILLED…!” Thank you SOOO very much for your help with my Yellow Pages advertisement.

I couldn’t even have started this without your “Salon & Spa Yellow Pages Salon Secrets”. I did exactly what you advised… built the whole ad by implementing your page by page instructions.

Not that this was easy… but it was a whole lot better than anything I have ever come up with on my own.

Of especial help was your availability to critique the ad… I don’t know how you come up with these amazing ideas… every time I changed the ad using your suggestions it became tighter… more powerful and I could see how the whole ad jumped out to grab the reader with a power packed grab of benefits.