If you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering - what on earth qualifies me to tell you how to do your marketing? (Good question by the way 
)
Well, back in June 2002, my wife and I established a complementary health and beauty clinic in the village where we lived, and since then we’ve seen it grow from 3 rooms to 4, and from 6 therapists to 15 (16 if you include Transform Medical Group) and from losing money (briefly) in the beginning to a successful and profitable business.
In the process of doing that, I took up the challenge of creating our clinic website, and selling the services of our therapists to the public. As a secondary aim, I wanted to attract additional therapists to our clinic.
On both counts, I succeeded, as we now rank very well for our targetted search terms.
If you search for a name of a therapy we offer, combined with our target geographic areas, we are almost invariably on page 1, often top 5 and not unusual to be number 1. We even rank well for some non-geographic searches - try colonic irrigation price
as an example (currently #1 out of 1.4 million results). As a result, all our therapists get a decent number of enquiries from web searches.
The same strategy means we rank well for people looking for somewhere to practice - try treatment rooms northampton. As a result, we don’t do any advertising for our rooms, but we get a steady stream of people contacting us to rent space.
You remember I mentioned Transform Medical Group earlier? They found us on the web too.
Ok, you’re thinking - all very good. But what else qualifies me to offer advice?
Well, one of the other sites I created was the official HypnoBirthing UK website. That is now the #1 ranked website for hypnobirthing, and provides information for people interested in HypnoBirthing. That site has two primary aims:
- Get pregnant women interested in HypnoBirthing to contact their nearest practitioner
- Get hypnotherapists and birth professionals to train as practitioners
So, does it work? Well, let me put it like this.
On the first aim, as far as “find your nearest classes is concerned”, although I can’t track who actually rings a practitioner, I do know that 25% of visitors go to the listings page.
On the second aim, this year, we’ll be running 6 trainings for practitioners. Each course has 20-24 places available. The course costs £600. And we”ll sell every single place we’ve got months in advance.
In fact, of the remaining 3 trainings for 2008, July is already full, September is about half full last time I checked, and November is 3 places off being full.
Now for the good part….
- We do no print or media advertising
- We have zero advertising budget
- We take full payment for these courses up front, and we don’t do deposits, payment plans, etc.
- The list of people interested builds itself based purely on organic search engine traffic
- The event bookings are outsourced, fully automated and hands off
- I use simple, plain text emails - no fancy graphics, just good old fashioned copy-writing
You do the math - 132 places * £600. (No, really, work it out…). Yes, that is split between three trainers, and yes, there are venue and materials costs involved. But still not bad with zero budget…
To add to the above, I’ve spent the last 5 years reading and listening to pretty much everything and everyone I can get my hands on about marketing - Dan Kennedy, Bernadette Doyle, Claude Hopkins, Joe Vitale, to name but a few.
Sooooo - I reckon it’s time to strike out on my own and inspire others.
But what’s different about me? What’s my angle?
- I’ve had to learn this the hard way - by actually doing it. Our business, and to a lesser extent HypnoBirthing in the UK, lived or died by whether I could make it work. I’ve actually run a small business - not just read about it.
- I get absolutely, foaming at the mouth, jumping up and down MAD when I see small businesses and service professionals talking like lobotomised corporate drones. For God’s sake man (or woman) - EXPRESS YOUR PERSONALITY!
It boils down to this question to any business owner or service professional: “If you personally stood in front of your potential customer and spoke to them the way your website/brochure/leaflet speaks to them, would they a) buy from you or b) even be AWAKE?!”
If you’re like most small business owners and service professionals I know, you’re passionate about what you do (if not, why on earth are you doing it?) but there is ZERO passion in your marketing. Most of them just sound like everyone else - ARGH!
STOP IT - STOP IT - STOP IT!
Pretty much all marketing advises you to find your USP - Unique Selling Point. That’s vital and important advice. But when you’re talking about small businesses and service professionals, there should also be UPT - Unique Personality Traits.
Ask your friends, family and best customers what they like about you. What’s quirky and different? What makes people choose you over someone else? If you want customers that you like doing business with, they’ve got to like you, and that means ALL of you - warts and all.
Stand out - be different - and have your own voice!
So that’s what I preach - Personality Marketing!
If you’re interested in working with me, just drop me a line on gordon@personalitymarketing.co.uk - I’d love to hear from you.