A New Kind of Marketing For Your Same Old Business

A friend told me a story this morning: He called it Dr. 2.0! It’s a physician who specializes in a particular neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY, has no office, makes house calls only, and targets young adults with no health insurance. I can only imagine that this guy’s net profit is close to 100% (less subway fare). He even makes people APPLY to be a patient. You should learn more about what he does by visiting his site. This is a prime example of living life on your own terms, doing business your own way, and creating a tightly defined target market. [...]

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3 oz Small Business Marketing

I was shopping for face wash this weekend and check out this gem I found. This is a travel face/shave pack for men that features smaller than 3oz bottles of each product. Of course, this is very convenient for people who travel on airlines — since you’re no longer allowed to bring liquids in containers larger than 3.3 oz in your carry on bag. It’s about $80. <snicker> It’s a PERFECT example of tapping into the current challenges your customers are facing, solving a problem elegantly, and charging a premium for it. Think about it. The man who purchases high-end [...]

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Do You Earn Your Customers’ Allegiance?

Just this evening my wife, Jennifer, booked plane tickets for us to travel the week before Christmas. We had been planning on driving to the NC mountains to spend time at the family cabin. But she found some “amazing deal” on an upstart discount carrier. What a joy this should be. My least favorite airline of all time is TED. These tickets are even cheaper than TED, so we should be in for a treat. Anyway. As she completes the booking for this flight, the price starts climbing. They charge extra to reserve a specific seat, they charge you $10 [...]

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Are You Charging Too Little?

One of the fastest and easiest ways to generate more income in your business is to raise your prices. Most business owners are afraid to test the price elasticity of their offerings but surprisingly most businesses are undercharging for what they offer and with better marketing their prices can become even more elastic. We’ve not only found this to be true through personal experience in our own business but also consulting with many clients as well. Very frequently we find that prices can be raised immediately which can create an automatic cash surge in net profit and with the implementation of some [...]

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Repeat Customers Get Tuxed

My brother in law is getting married later this month. I’m an usher or a groomsman or whatever they call it these days. Happy times. So, I get an email with instructions to go get fitted for a tuxedo at the local tux shop in the mall. It happens to be the same place I used for my wedding and the same place my brother used for his. So, this will make me a third time customer. Not bad. The last thing I have time to do is drive to the mall and get fitted for a tux — especially since [...]

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