Most companies make the mistake of selling their products based on price alone. As a result, they get in price wars with competitors and attract price shoppers who lack loyalty and just want the cheapest price.

Rather than selling on price, you should be selling on value. There’s a difference. Why do customers pay more for name brand products when they could get the same basic product at a cheaper price from a generic brand? It’s because they see the name brand product as higher quality and a better value.

Here are some ways you can start selling on value instead of price.

• Focus on the benefits—Too many times, companies get in skirmishes with other companies about whose product offers the most features. I’m sure you’ve seen the comparison charts some companies use to show how their product has more features than the competition’s. Stop talking about features, and start talking about how customers will benefit by using your product. How will your product improve their life? When you focus on answering this question, you’ll start increasing the value of your product.
• Study testimonials from satisfied customers—What do your customers love about your product or services? What problem did it solve for them? How did they benefit from using it? By reading your testimonials, you can get a better idea of what customers really like about your product, and you can focus your messaging around those things.
• Build confidence in your company—Why are consumers willing to pay more for a 2 liter of Coca Cola rather than buying the generic brand? It’s because they have confidence in the Coca Cola brand. They know Coca Cola. They trust Coca Cola. You have to build that same confidence in your company.
• Don’t water down your product’s value with discounts—What’s the first thing most companies do when they’re trying to attract more customers? They hold a sale. With the popularity of daily deal websites (like Groupon and LivingSocial) more and more companies are using discounts to attract new customers. But consider this. If you offer a discount on your products, you’re going to have a hard time convincing customers later on that your product is worth its regular full price. Discounts can water down your product’s value.
• Provide exceptional customer service—Increase the value of your products by offering a great overall buying experience. Intangibles, like excellent customer service, set your company apart and increase the value of your products. Focus on building relationships with your customers, exceeding expectations every time, and offering great service after the sale.

What tips would you add to this list?

Not all customers are created equal. If your business is like most others, you have a few great customers, a few bad customers, and a lot of customers that fall somewhere in between. The key, of course, is to get as many great customers as you can. Great customers are the ones who are loyal, refer you to their friends, don’t try to beat you up on your prices, don’t complain every time they get a chance, etc.

The reason most companies don’t attract more great customers is because they don’t really know who their best customers are in the first place. See, once you identify your best customers, you can focus on appealing to more customers like them.

To identify your best customers, you need to:

• Identify what makes a customer valuable to your business—You might think that your best customers are the ones who spend the most money, and that may be the case. However, the customers you find most valuable may be ones who offer value in a different way. Maybe they’re just easy to have a relationship with. Maybe they’re low maintenance. Or maybe they like to tell others about your company. Make a list of the traits you value in customers.
• Create a list of all customers and prospects—Now that you know what makes a customer valuable to your business, you need to make a complete list of all your customers and prospects. Don’t leave anyone off this list.
• Rate each customer based on the value they bring to your business—On a scale of 1 to 5, rate each customer or prospect on the value they bring to your business, based on the criteria you set forth earlier. This will help you quick way to clearly see who your best customers are (and who your worst ones are too, by the way). You can then focus your time and energy on your top clients and prospects, so you can build better relationships with them.

Do you know who your best customers are?

The best businesses have loyal customers who buy from them time and time again. Take a look at Apple. Apple customers are among the most loyal in the world. They line up every time Apple releases a new product. They put Apple bumper stickers on their cars. They show off their Apple gadgets to anyone who will listen. Wouldn’t you love to have loyal customers like that?

Growing a loyal customer base requires work, but it’s worth it. After all, it’s far more profitable for you to keep customers than to try to attract new ones.

Here are some things you can do to build a more loyal customer base.

• Build relationships with your customers—Stop thinking in terms of sales and start thinking in terms of relationships. Your sales philosophy needs to focus on relationship building. Your business can’t lose that personal touch. Take time to get to really know your clients, and keep in touch with them to make sure their needs are always being met.
• Position yourself as the expert in your niche—When customers trust you and view you as an expert, they’ll turn to you every time they need the services or products you offer. No matter what your niche, you need to be seen as an expert. If you sell bicycles, learn everything there is to know about bicycles and share that knowledge with your customers.
• Always deliver on your promises—Relationships are built on trust. If you routinely fail to live up to your promises, you’ll lose the trust of your customers, and the relationship will be damaged, usually beyond repair. It’s pretty simple. If you say you’re going to do something, do it.
• Give great service after the sale—Don’t ignore your customers after they’ve given you their money. Demonstrate your commitment to their satisfaction by providing them with great service after the sale. Follow up with them to make sure they’re happy with their purchase. If they contact you needing help after the sale, be quick to respond.
• Ask for feedback (and use it!)—Do you really know what your customers want? A lot of businesses think they know, but they’re usually wrong because they don’t actually listen to their customers. Always encourage your customers to provide you with honest feedback, and use that feedback to improve your offerings.

What’s your approach for building a loyal customer base? Share your tips by commenting below.

I’ve spent some time on this blog dispelling the myth that all clients are good clients. The truth is that not all customers are good for your business. A bad client can cost you time, resources, energy, sanity, and most importantly, money. That’s why I advocate firing your bad clients. Let them go. Think you can’t survive without their money? Fire them and spend that extra time working up a plan to attract A-list clients. Trust me, it will be worth it in the long run.

But how exactly do you fire a bad client? I’ve fired more than a few clients in my day, so I’ll share some tips with you based on my personal experiences.

• Stay calm and professional—There’s a good chance you might be pretty upset with your client. Maybe they’re way behind on paying you, or maybe they talk down to you and you’re tired of it. No matter what the situation, you have to be the professional. You can’t control how others behave, but you can control your behavior. You’re running a business, so you can’t treat this like a nasty breakup with a significant other. Professionalism is your main goal.
• Blame yourself—Ever heard the classic breakup line “It’s not you, it’s me”? You can use this approach when firing a client. Take the blame if you feel it will help diffuse the situation. Tell them you’re not the right person for the job. Tell them you’re booked up. You can find any number of ways to use the “it’s not you, it’s me” approach to firing a client.
• Suggest another service provider—One way to soften the blow of your breakup with the client is to refer them to someone else who can provide them with the services they need. This shows that you’re not holding a grudge and that you care about their future success and satisfaction.
• Raise your prices—A lot of bad clients are clients who don’t want to pay you what you’re worth. They’re constantly trying to haggle with you to get your prices down. You can usually get rid of price shoppers simply by raising your prices.
• Take care of any remaining loose ends—Before severing the relationship with your bad client, make sure you’ve taken care of any loose ends. If you still owe them work that they’ve paid for, finish the project.

Have you fired any bad clients? How did you do it? Share your experiences by leaving a comment below.

One of the toughest lessons I learned early on in running my own business is that you can never stop marketing yourself. It’s easy to get comfortable when everything is running smoothly with your company and you’re experiencing success, but things are constantly changing, so you have to keep marketing your company if you want to continue enjoying success.

It’s also easy to get so caught up in running your business that you forget to set aside time to promote it. You have to set aside time every single day for marketing your business. Your marketing is just as important as the work you’re doing for your clients, so don’t neglect it.

Here are some of the reasons you have to always be marketing your business, even when you’re experiencing success and don’t think you need to.

• Marketing takes time to work—The marketing you’re doing right now may take several months to start producing results. If you want to continue to enjoy the success you’re having now, you have to keep marketing your business aggressively so you’ll have a solid foundation for future success and growth.
• Just because business is good now doesn’t mean it always will be—In business, there are always highs and lows. Not to rain on your parade, but just because things are really great at this moment doesn’t mean that your business won’t slip into a valley a few months from now. That’s why you can’t get comfortable with your current success. You have to keep working to maintain it.
• It’s important to stay relevant—Consumers have shorter attention spans than ever before. If you suddenly stop marketing your business, you’ll disappear, and everyone will soon begin to forget about you. When that happens, your customer base will dissipate and your lack of relevance will kill your business.
• You have competition—Every business has competition. And if you want to keep your competitors from stealing your target customers, you have to aggressively promote your business and reach out to potential customers. Your competitors are marketing their companies, so you have to do it as well if you want to stay in the fight.
• Marketing isn’t a one-time task—Too many times, companies will do “a little marketing” and think that’s enough to help them grow and prosper. Marketing isn’t a one-time task. It’s an ongoing process. Every day, you need to be spending time building relationships with customers and prospects, finding new ways to generate leads, building your brand’s credibility and name recognition, and strategizing for future success.

Have you ever made the mistake of slacking off on your marketing? Share your experiences by leaving a comment below.

Press releases still serve a very important PR and marketing purpose. Whether you distribute them online or email them to reporters and bloggers, the goal is the same—to get your news read by as many people as possible.

In order to achieve this goal, you need to write better press releases, because the sad truth is most press releases just suck. Here are 4 ways you can write better press releases.

1. Find a unique angle—The average reporter is bombarded with press releases all day long. They’re probably receiving press releases from your competitors too. That means it’s crucial that you do something to make your press release stand out from the crowd. The same old, tired, straightforward press release about a bland topic no one outside of your company cares about just won’t cut it. You need to find a fresh approach to your stories to make them more relevant and more compelling.
2. Don’t write to the template—Nearly every press release looks the exact same. The headlines are the same, the opening paragraphs are the same, the buzzwords are the same, and the dull, lifeless quotes are the same. If you want to distribute a press release that gets noticed, you have to steer clear of the paint-by-numbers style of press release writing.
3. Know thy audience—Who is going to be reading your press release? Reporters? Buyers? Investors? Affiliates? Customers? Know your audience, and write your news in a way that appeals to their main interests.
4. Edit. Edit. Edit.—Too many press releases are filled with fluff. That is, they contain irrelevant, useless information that does nothing but boost the word count. Your readers, no matter who they are, are pressed for time. They just need the main points of your story quickly and clearly. Anything that doesn’t need to be in the press release should be cut out. Get rid of the buzzwords and industry jargon while you’re at it.

What press release writing tips would you add to this list? Share them by leaving a comment below.

Thanks to the SEO press release, a lot of people seem to have forgotten that press releases can actually be sent to reporters with the hope of getting media coverage for your company. For those of us who actually still send press releases to the media, it’s inevitable to run into situations where no one bites on your story. Understanding why your press releases are unsuccessful is important for helping you write better ones in the future.

Here are 4 possible reasons that a press release might not get picked up.

1. The headline failed to grab attention—Journalists are bombarded with press releases on a daily basis. The dirty little secret is that most press releases don’t even get read—they end up in the trash bin (virtual or real). Why is that? It’s because a lot of journalists glance at the headline to decide whether or not to continue reading. If the headline isn’t compelling, your story probably won’t get read. You really need to focus your efforts on writing clear, powerful headlines that grab the reader’s interest and force them to check out the rest of your press release.
2. It reads like an advertisement—You’re supposed to be sharing actual news, not just a thinly-veiled advertisement of your products and services. Unfortunately, the number of press releases that read like advertisements only seems to have increased thanks to shady online press release distribution websites.
3. Nobody outside of your company cares about the news—Most of the stuff that companies try to pass off as news is so trivial and boring that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at how pointless the press release is. For the most part, no one cares if you just launched a new blog, hired a new employee, or updated something minor on your website. Be honest with yourself when writing your press releases, asking “Who really cares?” If you don’t see anyone outside of your company giving a hoot about the story, best to bury it.
4. You sent it to the wrong people—Just like in all other aspects of marketing, the quality of your contact list matters quite a bit. If you don’t send your press releases to the reporters who would actually be interested in covering your story, you’re just wasting your time. Build a list of highly targeted reporters, and make sure you keep it updated as reporters are constantly being shifted in their assignments.

What are some other common reasons for ineffective press releases? Share your thoughts below by leaving a comment.

Savvy marketers are now using ebooks for an array of purposes—from building their email lists by offering a free ebook in exchange for a signup to making money by selling the ebook straight up. Not surprisingly, many have taken notice and have tried writing their own ebooks. Maybe you’re thinking about publishing an ebook.

Before you get started on this big project, you should know that not all ebooks are successful. Those stories you hear about people raking in the big bucks from their ebooks are more of the exception rather than the rule.

Here are 4 reasons that you might want to reconsider writing an ebook.

1. You don’t have a unique approach—If your ebook doesn’t offer people something different that they can’t get anywhere else, how can you expect people to want it? It’s just like anything else. You have to be different and give people something they haven’t seen before.
2. You’re not an expert on the subject—This should go without saying, but you need to write your ebook on a topic you’ve been studying for years. You should have an impressive understanding of the topic, and you should present your own ideas rather than just mimicking what everyone else has already said.
3. You don’t have a plan for it—What are you going to do with your ebook? Just because you publish it doesn’t mean people will be lining up to download it. What’s your goal? To make money? To build your email list? To gain notoriety? Figure out your goals, and create a strategy for promoting your ebook that will help you achieve them.
4. You’re not willing to put in the time to do it right—Writing an ebook is going to take time, that is, if you do it properly. There’s a lot of researching, outlining, writing, editing, proofreading, formatting, designing, and promoting that goes into launching a successful ebook. If you don’t want to put in the time and effort into doing it right, don’t do it at all. You’ll just end up publishing a useless ebook that only serves to tarnish your reputation.

Have you ever written an ebook? Did it produce the results you’d hoped for?

Over the past several years as a copywriter, I’ve come across a few prospects who wanted to hire me to write fake testimonials for their marketing materials. I refused, but I’ve now seen plenty of forged testimonials written by others, so I’ve gotten pretty good at sniffing out phony testimonials.

Here are 4 ways to spot a fake testimonial.

1. There isn’t a last name—In most cases, fake testimonials are attributed to names like “Joe G. from TX” or “Tina S. from NY.” No last names are used, presumably to prevent anyone from trying to verify the legitimacy of the testimonials. You’ll also notice that fake testimonials often don’t have a city, just a state.
2. There isn’t a website link—If the company sells products or services to businesses, the testimonials should have links back to the individual’s business website. All of the testimonials on my website include a link to the client’s company website. It shows customers that my testimonials are in fact real.
3. No accompanying photo or video—You should always be wary of testimonials that don’t have a photo or video of the individual leaving the remarks. Written testimonials without picture or video are the least trustworthy of all testimonials.
4. It sounds like marketing speak—Obviously, testimonials will say positive things about the company. But there’s a fine line between glowing remarks from a customer and obvious marketing speak you find in a fake testimonial. If the testimonial contains phrases the company uses in its marketing or just feels like a written advertisement, it very well could be a fake.

Have you ever seen any fake testimonials?

Getting coverage on blogs has become an essential part of PR strategy for businesses of all sizes. From getting bloggers to review your products to landing a guest posting opportunity, there are all sorts of ways you can leverage other blogs to increase brand exposure.

But before you can get the coverage you desire, you have to pitch the blogger. You need to email the blogger and have your pitch stand out from all the others he or she is surely receiving on a daily basis. And doing that means avoiding these 5 common mistakes for pitching bloggers.

1. Sending them a generic email—Not personalizing your pitch is an almost surefire way to get your email deleted instantly. Why would any blogger want to respond to an email that you’re obviously sending out to every other blogger in the industry? You need to make the blogger feel special. Make them feel like you’re offering them a really good opportunity. Call the blogger by name. Mention some tidbits about their blog, letting them know you’re familiar with their work. This can go a long way to getting your pitch noticed.
2. Not researching their blog—Spend a little time learning about the blog before pitching the blogger. You need to make sure your story or guest blogging pitch is actually a good fit for the blog and is something the audience will respond to.
3. Giving too much information—The goal of your pitch is to get the blogger to respond and write you back. You don’t have to share every detail with them in your opening email. Keep your pitch short and to the point. If you can’t get your pitch across in about 2 paragraphs, you’re doing it wrong.
4. Sending the same pitch over and over—Following up on your pitch is one thing. It’s okay to email the blogger a few days later to make sure they received your email, but emailing the same pitch over and over is a huge no-no. Doing so is annoying and the quickest way to get on a blogger’s blacklist.
5. Pitching before creating a relationship—Who would you be likelier to listen to: someone you’ve never heard of or someone who you have a relationship with? Obviously, the latter. Before sending your pitch and asking for a favor, spend time connecting with the blogger. You can do this by interacting in the comments, talking to them on Twitter and Facebook, linking to their posts from your blog, etc.

Are there any other mistakes to avoid when pitching bloggers? Leave a comment and let us know!