Successful creative strategies are not those that are clever, win awards, sound really interesting, or get people to pay attention. All of these outcomes are desirable, but they are not the reason we marketers should spend so much time thinking about our creative platform. Rather, our goal is to drive action. To become a master at driving and motivating buying actions, it helps to understand exactly what it is that causes people to buy.

And it probably won’t surprise you that people buy products and services to satisfy the same needs and desires that they attempt to satisfy with many of their other daily choices. Consumers buy for the following reasons:

• To solve a problem
• To increase knowledge
• To feel more comfortable
• To make life easier
• To become more valuable
• To satisfy a curiosity
• To feel better about themselves

Few people go through a checklist when deciding to make a purchase, but there is in fact an unstated process. First, they must have a perceived need or desire for what you offer. Then they have to believe that your offering satisfies their requirements, and they must also be convinced that you are trustworthy and your claims are believable. Simply put, prospects have to be satisfied with the basic value proposition-that what they receive by doing business with you is worth as much, or more, than what you are asking them to spend (including money, time, and effort). Finally, they must believe that the risk of doing business with you is low or manageable.

Appeal to People’s Emotion

People buy with emotion and justify their purchases with logic. This is why advertising that appeals to the emotions is often more successful than that which appeals to logic. First make your appeal to the emotional side of the prospect, then give him or her lots of good, logical fact-based reasons to justify the decision already emotionally made. Whether making a small purchase or a big-ticket item, people often have some degree of fear and anxiety when approaching the buying process.

Your job as a marketing or sales professional is to negate or overcome this fear and anxiety by making the purchasing experience as painless as possible. This can, in fact, be a point of competitive differentiation. Two of the most important buying motivations are to make life easier and to feel more comfortable, so whatever you can do to help your prospects achieve these objectives will be well rewarded.

Motivational Appeals That Work

Napoleon Bonaparte said, “There are two levers for moving men: interest and fear.” These are indeed the two master motivators, and all others are subset of these behavioral drivers. Because humans can be motivated in a variety of ways, using the correct incentive for a specific audience is a hallmark of good marketing.

Examples of appeals that have proven successful:

Greed – Everyone is susceptible to greed to some degree. While greed is usually thought of as a negative emotion, it is really just the desire to get a better deal than the next person, or to enhance our position at a low cost. Copywriters who effectively push the greed button sell a lot of products.

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) – With the FUD formula, you are selling from the negative perspective. FUD copy implies, “If you don’t buy our product, these bad things will happen to you.” As an example, fear has been used in financial marketing to persuade prospects that their current investments are suspect.

Guilt -Used carefully, guilt can be a powerful motivation tool. A good example of this type of appeal is AT&T’s successful “reach out and touch someone” campaign that ran from 1979 to 1983, and was resurrected in 2003. The campaign’s not-so-subtle theme is that you should feel guilty for not calling your loved ones (especially your mother) when AT&T makes it so convenient.

Curiosity – This appeal is most effective with so-called early adopters of products. Some people have a strong need to own, or at least know about, the newest products and services. If you are generating leads for a new product or service, create the curiosity in your advertising by withholding a little information. A curiosity-seeker who is satisfied does not respond to advertising.

Status or Exclusivity – People who have children know this as the reverse psychology approach. As soon as you tell your child he can’t have something, his interest in the forbidden object increases dramatically. Likewise, for many individuals, the desirability of a product rises in direct proportion to its difficulty of attainment.

Time Pressure – This appeal works better in a supporting role. Time pressure creates a sense of urgency by saying “buy me today because it will cost you more tomorrow” or “only the first 200 respondents can take advantage of this offer.”

Convenience – Most people feel a great deal of time pressure in their lives. Marketers who show people how their products and services will save them time and/or make their lives easier have a significant selling benefit.

Financial – Financial hot buttons can be pushed two ways: first, by demonstrating how your product or service will save money, and second, by demonstrating how your product or service will help generate more income.

Learning – Many people have a thirst for knowledge. They want information on how to do their jobs better, make their companies more profitable, and have a successful business and home life.

One important aspect to remember about the two master motivation levers: While fear can be a strong short-term motivator, interest (positive rewards) is usually more effective for long-term changes. This is equally true whether you are trying to get your children to do the right things, or to get your prospects to make a purchase.

Christopher Ryan is one of the nation’s foremost experts in B2B marketing and sales. Author of How to Create an Unstoppable Marketing and Sales Machine (Fusion Marketing Press, 2009), Mr. Ryan is founder and President of Fusion Marketing Partners (http://www.fusionmarketingpartners.com). Chris Ryan was formerly a senior marketing executive at noted companies like Stellent, Inc., FrontRange Solutions, PeopleSoft, Sybase, and Group 1 Software. Mr. Ryan’s latest book can be obtained at Amazon.com or at http://fusionmarketingpartners.com/get-the-book/.

If you spend some time in marketing or sales, you will probably face the challenge of rescuing a failing operation. Perhaps you are now in such a situation and despite the difficulties, you can probably relate to what Winston Churchill said: “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” After all, you probably are getting shot at, figuratively speaking. Having been through a number of turnaround situations (most of which turned out successfully), I can impart some definite rules of the road.

The first thing you should do is decide if the turnaround is possible. Sometimes you are faced with a situation where the handwriting is on the wall and despite your best efforts, success is not in the cards. It is better to discover this early so you do not have to spend your time and money on a losing cause.

Depending on the pathologies of the current situation, you may not have the luxury of a lot of thinking and planning time. In this case, you will need to quickly assess the situation and make very fast decisions, based on factors like:

• Level of commitment from the board and senior management.
• Strength and loyalty of the existing sales and marketing staff.
• Capabilities and loyalty of the existing customer base.
• Major problems, both actual and perceived.
• A product or service that has an identified value proposition.
• Past and present budgets.
• Competitive landscape.

There are two very important things to remember in the early stages. First, people will be watching to see if you stumble early (with some perhaps hoping that you do). You should be careful not to make grandiose promises. Your early enthusiastic projections can come back to haunt you, so it is better to under-promise and over-deliver than vice versa. Second, ask for the resources you need early, while you are still in the honeymoon stage. This may sound counterintuitive, but if you deliver early success on a meager budget, they will often try to give you less, not more, going forward.

On a similar note, make sure you establish your authority early. Any ground you give up early will be difficult to regain later. And do not make the mistake of thinking that everyone is your friend. I’ve seen many talented marketing executives scuttled by entrenched but unproductive sales VPs and vice versa.

Do a quick but thorough assessment of the people you have to work with. Where are the valuable skill sets? Which people are the keepers and which are hurting the organization? Be careful here to understand the politics and alliances.

You should also do a thorough review of customers. Despite the difficulties, there are probably certain customer segments that are profitable and others that are not worth the costs and trouble to maintain. The point is to focus like a laser on the profitable segments and ignore the others. You can go back and revisit underperforming segments later.

Once you have completed your analysis of the overall situation, customers, and human elements, you need to dive into the numbers. You need to quickly find out whether there are any aspects of marketing and sales that are working and can be leveraged and expanded. You can probably find some non-working or marginal programs to kill.

This is also the time to put on your manufacturing hat and analyze your marketing and sales assembly line to find the weaknesses. Chances are, you will find problems in one of five areas:

1. Not enough inquiries coming in to the top of the funnel. Address this by generating more inquiries.
2. Plenty of inbound inquiries but few are turning into qualified leads. Address this by instituting a good lead qualification process.
3. Leads are being qualified in good numbers, but few are showing up as opportunities in the sales pipeline. Address this by examining what sales reps are doing with their qualified leads.
4. Plenty of opportunities but poor metrics when it comes to converting them to closed deals. Address this with a careful review and revamp of sales processes.
5. Inability to monitor the four preceding metrics. This is probably due to a lack of knowledge of how to measure the end-to-end process (that is why they hired you) or because you do not have the right CRM and marketing analytics technology.

Zero in on the Low-Hanging Fruit

If you are faced with a really tough marketing and sales environment, it may be necessary to get some quick victories under your belt in order to buy time to carefully plan for the future. Here are some areas where you may find early wins-otherwise known as low-hanging fruit:

• Existing Customer Base – Look for low-cost up-sell and cross-sell opportunities.
• Extending Contracts – Incentivize existing customers to increase the length of their contracts.
• Competitors – Borrow ideas that have worked/are working for competitors.
• Lower Cost of Acquisition – Replace higher cost media such as print advertising, direct mail and trade show exhibiting with lower cost media such as email and social media.
• Offers – Review the chapter on offers and test them until you find one or more that can boost your leads and sales.
• Sales Force Incentives – Selectively apply incentives to encourage greater results from the sales department.
• Partners – Explore ways to incentivize your channel or strategic partners to increase sales.
• Lead Revival Opportunities – Reconnect with all qualified leads from the past twelve to eighteen months. This is a low-cost and potentially lucrative source of new business.

Another area of low-hanging fruit to consider is products and pricing. Look at your cost of goods, margins, profitability, and lifetime value. You may find that you are under-pricing or over-pricing in relation to the rest of the marketplace, and if so, this is an excellent opportunity to gain additional revenue and profitability.

To Be or Not to Be (Honest)

There are times when you should be careful about sharing all the facts with your team. However, unless you believe that sharing the whole truth will scare your good employees into leaving, it is usually better to be up-front about the challenges you face. This can create a true team atmosphere that will not only serve you well during the turnaround phase, but also post-turnaround.

Christopher Ryan is one of the nation’s foremost experts in B2B marketing and sales. Author of How to Create an Unstoppable Marketing and Sales Machine (Fusion Marketing Press, 2009), Mr. Ryan is founder and President of Fusion Marketing Partners (http://www.fusionmarketingpartners.com). Chris Ryan was formerly a senior marketing executive at noted companies like Stellent, Inc., FrontRange Solutions, PeopleSoft, Sybase, and Group 1 Software. Mr. Ryan’s latest book can be obtained at Amazon.com or at http://fusionmarketingpartners.com/get-the-book/.

Many therapists working on a 1:1 basis or with couples, find themselves constantly challenged by the peaks and flows of running a sustainable private practice. They find it hard to sustain a regular flow of clients they want to work with and their attention is drawn away from the work they love to concerns about whether it is viable to continue. This drains their creativity and makes them less valuable to their clients. Their chief concerns are how to attract and retain the therapy clients that match their skill base and stretch their skills and own desires for professional development.

Why do many – if not most – therapists struggle with the basics of easily attracting therapy clients into their practice? This is even more bewildering since all around they see examples of unhappiness and challenges by people who talk of seeking a skilled therapist with whom to work. How can therapists and clients literally ‘get together’?

The problem is broadly two-fold. The first lies within the therapist who harbors myths, beliefs and expectations of how therapists should behave and what is appropriate in terms of running a practice. The second follows on from the first and points to the outdated methods they use to attract their clients..

Therapists (like any other human beings) are influenced by social and cultural myths of what is appropriate. For the therapist, these are strongly influenced by their professional training and invariably therapists – particularly psychologists, psychotherapists and counselors – believe that somehow it is wrong to take a business approach to their client work.

They often believe that the rules of marketing, selling or revealing information about themselves to their potential clients, is somehow wrong. Many believe it interferes with the therapeutic process. Unfortunately for many therapists, if these views are so entrenched and they resist seeing their practice as having business aspects, they will find themselves unable to continue. The clients simply won’t find them or will find other therapists with whom they feel more aligned.

The second challenge therapists face lies in the methods they use to attract therapy clients. Traditional methods include brochures, referral lists, word of mouth or relationships with referring GP’s. The information they provide those sources are often shopping lists of the ailments they believe their clients suffer from e.g. anxiety, depression, low self-esteem. Cursory information is given on themselves other than contact details, professional qualifications or the modality within which they practice. The reasons given for such paucity of information is that it interferes with the therapeutic process.

If you want to run a successful and sustainable practice, you must realize that today’s clients are changing. Whilst their psychological and social challenges may be similar or even greater, the ways in which they navigate the social world are different. The Internet has empowered people to extend their choices in all areas, not least how they seek help to overcome their difficulties. No longer are many clients content with seeking their GP’s advice or limiting their search to the Yellow Pages. Today they search extensively to find a therapist with whom they believe they can work. Not only do you need an online presence, you also need to project more about yourself to the world since the would-be client is looking for someone with whom they feel comfortable to share their challenges. The shopping list of ailments is often rejected by clients who seek a more personalized relationship with someone they believe will be able to empathize with their predicament.

Therapists who are comfortable in providing a little more information about how they work, their philosophy and their values, will be rewarded with more clients who are the most likely to benefit form their interventions.

Clare is a contributing author to the Creating A Successful And Sustainable Private Practice course and also contributes to the http://www.BestTherapyPractice.com blog a resource for counselors, therapists and psychologists.

ROI, or rate of return on investment, is an important factor in determining the success of any marketing campaign. At its most basic level, ROI determines if a business has made money or lost money on its marketing campaigns.

There are many factors to consider when computing ROI. The easiest is to compare the amount of money spent on a marketing campaign to the amount of money that same campaign made. For example, if a business spends $100 on a campaign and that same campaign makes $150, then the ROI is 150%. And, the ROI is 50%. The company made $50 profit on the campaign.

However, there are other factors to consider as well such as how much time was spent developing and implementing a campaign. The cost of time is not to be underestimated. The more time it takes to develop and implement a campaign the more money it costs. Figuring out the cost of man hours associated with a campaign is essential to developing true ROI figures.

Finally, there are campaigns that will lose money or make no money at all. Many marketing campaigns are developed to generate leads and introduce potential buyers to a product or service. Although these campaigns will not initially make money, they will in the long run if the company running the campaign is successful in establishing credibility and authority.

To track ROI, a company must have specific goals associated with each of its marketing efforts. Knowing the goals in advance is critical to determining the success of a campaign. If the goal is ten sales but a campaign only makes 5, then it is not necessarily successful. Yet, if the goal is ten sales and a company makes 5 sales while generating 25 leads, then the campaign might still be considered a success.

More to point, if a campaign is being run to generate leads and nothing else then it is critical to determine the number of leads that would define the efforts as successful. In order to determine ROI and the success level of a campaign it is essential that tracking efforts are put in place.

It is easy to successfully track campaigns. An Excel spreadsheet works well for this. Create a list or form that keeps track of a campaign, the number of hours spent creating and implementing the campaign, any sales or leads that are generated through the campaign, and the goals of campaign.

Create a form that is simple to use and easy to access. Print out a version and keep it by the phone or the computer and tally the response to your efforts on a daily or weekly basis. This simple but effective tactic will help businesses determine if marketing dollars are being spent wisely or being spent on campaigns that don’t work.

Amy Leigh is an Internet Marketing & Business Consultant who writes for businesses and helps them develop effective marketing plans. Visit http://acompletesuccess.blogspot.com or http://www.amy-leigh.com to learn more.

Are you one of those people that never throw anything away? If you are than you may be one of the smart ones. There is a new market that has emerged here of late and that market is demanding to have affordable yet stylish reusable name tags. Actually more to the point they want cheap name tags that last. This is something that has started to boom in recent years, the need to outfit people with name badges without spending a lot of money. So that means that all of the people in the world that have saved their money and do not want to spend it on inferior products, can now rest at ease. It’s never been easier to improve somebody’s appearance, while enhancing their professionalism with the new reusable name tags.

The dealers of reusable name tags are having a ball with this market. They know that there is a great need for blank name tags with company logos. The demand for these items has tripled in the past five years, making them one of the most sought after style name tags in the market today. The problem is that the price has been inflated due to the demand. As is the case in the land of opportunity, people see an opportunity to make money and they seize it.

Fortunately, there are still a few places to get these quality stylish name tags without breaking the bank. Let’s face it, how difficult can it be to place a logo on a name tag, paste a pin to the back and mail it out. I would say, not very!
We recommend finding companies that specialize in these products. Companies that do the work in- house. Get the lowest price you can find by going direct to an in-house name tag manufacturer.

We’ve seen full color reusable name tags as low as $1.63. Remember, you’re looking for these tags as a long term investment, make sure you find the right company to do the work. It is always a smart move to plan ahead, talk to many companies first, and ask for samples to be mailed out to you. This pre-planning will ensure you find the name tag company that is willing to go the extra mile for your business.

http://www.floridabadges.com