Entrepreneurs' Primer on Marketing, Advertising, and
Selling

By: Terry Collison, Blue Rock Capital

 

 
   

Advertising ABCs

10 ways that Advertising issues play a pivotal role in your venture

Marketing What?

Your Promotional "cash flow"

A Model of the Selling Process When the "Product" is You

Selling (and Silence)

A Model of the Real Selling Process – NO Ultimately Means YES

10 Marketing, Selling, and Advertising Tips

The First Rule of Advertising for Entrepreneurs

 

  

 
   

"Early to bed and early to raise, work like hell and advertise."
~ Ted Turner

 

  

 
   

10 ways that Advertising issues play a pivotal role in your venture from Day 1

 

  

 
 

① Develop a product with specific utility – functions, features, and potential benefits that are relevant for an identified set of potential users.

② Identify such users as specifically as possible – in the form of an actual means for reaching them – names, titles, addresses, phone numbers, common "events" where you and they can be face-to-face, either individually (an in-person “call”) or collectively (an industry conference) or through some intermediary (direct mail letter or via print-media or other types of advertisement). 

③ Truly understand the issues that your intended users see as “hot.”

④ Relate those issues to the functional capabilities of your product and then back to the potential benefits that users would realize if they were to start using your product.

⑤ Figure out pricing and terms. Figure out any additional “collateral” to be associated with selling/purchasing the product (added benefits, incentives, etc.).

⑥ Communicate the simple facts that the product exists and that it is available for purchase and is ready to use immediately.

⑦ Help the targets identify their own situation with the characteristics of the product.

  

 

 

 		 

⑧ On the other hand, opportunities that just pop up are not to be ignored – if they fit.

⑨ There are no guarantees that your in-place marketing, advertising, and selling programs will work. (Before getting discouraged, bear in mind that this same rule applies equally to your competition.) 

  

 

 

 

 

  1. Help the targets identify their own situation with the characteristics of the product.

  1. Motivate the targets to take some type of pro-active action (calling for more info, calling you to chat, inviting you to come see them, inviting you to call them, showing up to participate at an “event”). 

    2.

  2. Ask for the order.  It's amazing how many companies never actually ask their targets to make a purchase decision.

    3.

  3. Design and implement your sales follow-up program (1) to cement this present sale, (2) to establish that your company is the solution source (to support future sales opportunities), and (3) to get referrals and personal introductions to other likely sales candidates.