In this short video, I share what I believe is the most practical definition of marketing… one that every business owner can use to qualify and quantify the advice you receive and the results you generate from your marketing efforts.

What is marketing to you?  Does this definition suit your business?

Leave your comments below.

According to Google’s corporate philosophy published on their site, their number one driving principle or guideline is to focus on the user (that’s you and me) and all else will follow.

That’s important, because oftentimes as business owners and marketers, we think the gorilla serves us.  Sadly, that’s simply not the case.  They serve the person searching for information and it is their overriding goal to deliver the most contextually relevant search results on the first page.

They don’t really care if YOU show up on the first page.  Unless your page is exactly what their user is looking for.

While it’s true that advertiser’s pay Google lots of money every year to have the privilege of being “found” in the form of advertisements, there are other ways to leverage Google to find your customers and communicate with them directly… but to do it, you’ll need to become one of the people that Google has committed to serving above and beyond all else.

You need to think like a searchER instead of a searchEE.

Google Alerts, The Secret Tool For Finding Your Customers

Are you family with Google Alerts?  It’s an automated search function that you can “set and forget”… that is, until an email arrives telling you about any new pages with your specific search time have shown up on the internet.

Here’s the basic usage of Google Alerts:

1. Visit http://www.google.com/alerts
2. Type your specific search term in the field provided
3. Set the filters and email address to deliver the results to
4. Create the alert

I have an alert for my name.  Any time my name is used online, I get an email notifying me about it.  In fact, this post will generate an alert once Google crawls my site again.  This helps me because it helps to manage my reputation online – I know what people are saying about me and I can respond accordingly.

I have another alert set up for “Make My Marketing Work“.  That’s the name of my book and I’m interested in knowing when people refer to it in their blogs or other online conversations.  Again, I can enter the conversation if/when appropriate.  (Using that phrase will generate another alert to my inbox when this article is crawled.)

I also have alerts set up for certain keywords like “first marketing plan” so that when someone blogs about needing help writing their first marketing plan, I get a notification and can swoop in with some free advice and a link to my book page for more detailed help if they want it.

You’d be surprised at how much traffic you can generate to your website over time by being one of the “first responders” to blog posts or articles that contain one or more of your keywords.

How to Use Google Alerts to Find Prospective Customers On Twitter

Ok, so using Google Alerts to stalk yourself (or your competitors, by the way) may not seem overly valuable, particularly if no one is talking about you yet.  And getting email alerts and having to respond whenever someone uses your keyword could become a full-time job if you’re not careful.

But there are more interesting ways to use Google Alerts, particularly if you want to find targeted followers on sites like Twitter.

Let’s say your business serves people in the Vancouver, Canada area and you only want people on your Twitter list from around Vancouver.  You can set up an alert for that.

Or if you provide services to the small business owner or entrepreneur market.  You can set up an alert for that.

Or let’s say you want to know whenever someone uses the phrase “can’t lose weight” so that you can swoop in and offer some weight loss advice in 140 characters or less.  You can set up an alert for that, too.

And it’s not as hard as you might think.  The process is the same as above, but the trick is in “how” you search for information.  Using some of Google’s advanced search features, you can be finding people on Twitter all day long, without ever lifting a finger.

Here’s the search syntax you would use:

If you want to search Twitter by someone’s occupation you would search for:

allintitle:”*entrepreneur*” site:twitter.com

Of course you’d replace “entrepreneur” with the specific occupation you’re looking for.  The asterisk is a wildcard and allows for other words or phrases on either side of the word entrepreneur.

If you want to search Twitter by information they include in their bio you would search for:

intext: “bio* life coach*” site:twitter.com

Again, you’d replace “life coach” with the specific word or phrase you’re searching for.

Finally, you could simply search all of Twitter for a particular phrase using:

“*can’t lose weight*” site:twitter.com

The Skinny

Here’s the thing.  Google doesn’t care about you wanting to be FOUND by people.  They only want to help people FIND what they’re looking for.  Fortunately, if you want to FIND your customers, Google is more than happy to oblige.

You can set up an alert for that.

Do you have a powerful Google Alerts tip?  Share it in the comments below!

Here’s an idea you can use to motivate and persuade your target audience to respond to your small business ad by visiting your store or website and making a purchase:

Offer a “Free With Purchase” incentive for anyone who makes a qualifying purchase within a specified period of time.

This is a powerful marketing idea that can work for many different kinds of small business owners.

Let’s use a golf equipment retail store as an example.

Create Your “Free With Purchase” Incentive Offer

Let’s say it’s spring time and you’re a local golf equipment retailer planning a marketing event to kick of the season. The first thing you will need to do is determine what product to give away.

You’ll do this by selecting something that is purchased fairly frequently and which costs very little to purchase, but has a high perceived value and a high margin or mark-up.

An obvious example might be a package of golf balls since every golfer is constantly losing golf balls and needs to replace them on a regular basis.

Ideally, you’ll contact your golf ball supplier and try to negotiate a discounted rate on a bigger order of golf balls under the assumption that you’ll have more foot traffic in the store during your sale event.

Next, you’ll need to determine under which circumstances you’re going to give away those golf balls.

You can select from a minimum purchase amount such as ‘anything over $50 or $100’; or the purchase of a specific item such as ‘free with every putter sold’.

You’ll also want to set a timeline parameter so that you maximize the immediacy and the urgency to act quickly.

Creating The “Free With Purchase” Incentive Advertisement

Now that you know what incentive you’re going to offer and under what conditions, you’ll need to create a compelling advertisement to let people know about your special offer.

First, you’ll need to craft a powerful and compelling headline that advertises the key benefit and catches the attention of your target audience.  It should be VERY specific and engaging.

Something like: FREE Sleeve of Golf Balls With This Ad!

That will grab the attention of most amateur golfers and at least get them to read more about how they can get free golf balls.

In the body of the ad, you’ll write about whatever it is that you’re trying to sell, either the minimum purchase amount, the specific putter you’re promoting or whatever else you’ve decided to offer.

You’ll also mention the dates during which the offer is valid and remind them to “clip this coupon” and bring it in to the store in order to claim their gift.

Tracking & Measuring Your Marketing Results

Finally, you’ll want to include some kind of identifying code on the coupon itself that lets you know which newspaper, magazine or flyer it came from.  You’ll also want to write down the items purchased by the person redeeming the offer for tracking and measuring your results.

This is critical because after the promotion is over you can then review your coupon redemption and count the number of people who responded to the ad by coming in to the store and claiming their free gift.

If you’ve done a good job of targeting the placement of the ad, the message and offer to the desires of the target market and combined that with a strong call-to-action, you should end up with a positive return on your marketing investment.

You’ll know this by adding the order total of all the coupons that were redeemed and then deducting all of your costs including the cost of the advertisement.

If the result is positive, you have a winning formula that you can repeat.  If the number is negative, you lost money on this advertisement and it needs additional work to make it successful.

P.S. Got something to say?  Leave your comments below!

Related Post: Free Marketing Incentive – A Real World Example from ImToo