About to disappear

For a few years I have been selling an e-book I wrote called: PR for PIs: 73 Powerful Tips for Effective PI Marketing.  In about two months my new marketing book will be coming out, one I have been working on for some time and which is not exclusively focused on the private investigation business. Rather, it is for all business owners (although a PI could benefit from it). At that time the PR for PIs book will disappear.

It occurred to me that before the  PR for PIs  book is no longer available, some people may yet want to order it.  So I’ll make its farewell even more attractive by offering it at the lowest price ever, just $2.50, payable by PayPal. (Don’t worry, it’s still worth it, with dozens of useful marketing tips in the approximately 20,000 words of the book). Just send me an email, I’ll send you a PayPal invoice and upon payment I will send you the ebook.

I realize this is definitely not the perfect Mother’s Day or Father's Day present, but if you buy and use this book this year, you just may be able to buy your mother a bigger Christmas present this year.  

Best wishes for your success.

Bob Mackowiak

Mackowiak Communications

755 Bronx Drive

Toledo, Ohio 43609

email: mackowiakcom@aol.com

Providing marketing assistance to private investigators since 1988

Lectured about marketing at PI conferences - - by invitation - - from Florida to Alaska, from Pennsylvania (on 9/11) to Texas 

18 years healthcare marketing and communications

7+ years in marketing communications at a major university college of business 

Check out my LinkedIn profile if you really want to know more.

The List

There is tremendous value in your “list.” Hopefully, you even have several lists: current clients with whom you probably already do a good job in keeping in touch with; former clients; potential clients; and the A-list of people you want to be potential clients.

The most often missed opportunity is found in the former clients list. Too often we think they are long gone and of no value. After all, chances are very good that many of them have already moved or are no longer in business, so we would be wasting postage sending a letter to people who aren’t even there to receive it, right?

(Imagine, the horrible danger of losing 50 cents on someone no longer there versus the opportunity of making hundreds, even thousands of dollars from someone who is still there and whom we just think is a cold fish. On which side do you think you should error?)

There is no way you can know exactly why everyone on your “cold” list is not doing business with you unless you keep in touch with them. They may have had to deal with a dying parent, been in ill health themselves, been too busy with their own projects, moved to Australia but now are back, going to school....you know, busy with other aspects of their own life. But we all too quickly assume they simply have made some conscious decision to no longer do business with us, so we write them off without so much as a postcard to say “Hi. How ‘ya doing?”

Your list is your lifeblood. Who is on your list who is waiting to hear from - - and do business with - - you?

One more call

When you reach the end of your normal work day, and are ready to pack it in and go home, take a couple extra minutes before you leave and make one more phone call. You can call someone who is a current client, someone whom you have wanted to become a client, a friend whom you have not talked with for some time, someone who owes you money, someone with whom you have been playing phone tag for days, or anyone with serious value in your life or for your business.

The concept behind this is that, while most people have decided that business is done for the day, you are
making that one extra effort, that one extra call, and if you do it every business day, you’re looking at some 250 contacts that you will make above and beyond what your competitors are doing. The payoff could be tremendous.

And you will be surprised how many other business people are still in their office after 5 p.m…and pleased that another professional is also hard at work after 5. It’s going that extra mile, doing that one extra thing, every day, that can produce huge profits for your business and clearly set you apart from all your competition.

And if you’re asking yourself if this is really a marketing technique, the answer is yes. Marketing is getting the right message to the right person (see the very first section of my PR for PIs marketing ebook about creating your written marketing plan). If sending a message thatyou are still hard at work when others have called it a day is not getting a great message out to clients and potential clients, I don’t know what is.

Test, test, test

An information broker had a dilemma. He was looking for a way to beef up his profits and was wondering if he should try lowering his prices.

On the one hand, he knew his business was good, that he had a great product and great service. And he charged for it, nicely above the norm.

On the other hand, he realized that if he did indeed price his services at what his competitors did, he could still make an okay profit from each transaction and probably dramatically increase the number of regular clients he has. That would force him to hire some additional staff, which he was not sure he wanted
to do, but he was looking for a way to expand his client base.

Such a problem, eh? Too much profit or too much business?

While it is important to have a USP (Unique Selling Postion) to call your own, basing your USP solely on

price is typically not a good thing, especially for investigators. The problem is that, at any given time,
someone - - who may be momentarily hungrier than you - - can lower their prices; you lose your USP, need to decide if you want to go even lower in your pricing, or are forced to do something else. However, you can test the concept of lower pricing on a small portion of your target audience. Or lower the prices to everyone but only for a limited time. Remember, you can and should test new offers with a target audience for a limited time.

Examine Everything

Seize a couple minutes away from your normal business routine to examine your marketing tools. Put
all of them, everything you use, on the table in front of you. Do they work together? (Do they work at all?)

Do you have the same static letterhead design you used for the last 20 years, giving the impression that you may be out of touch with the latest technology, the most recent developments in investigations, etc.?
Maybe it’s time to redesign your basics, your letterhead and your business cards. Hire a graphic designer
if possible. Don’t be afraid to hire the professional help you need to be perceived as a professional. Be sure you include on your business card every way to contact you, including home, cell phone, email, website, your blog, etc.

Be sure to include your area code with your phone number. (No, not everyone knows it, especially if you live outside of a major metropolitan area and your mailing is going to people in that area. And I’ve actually seen someone’s business card this year that didn’t even list what city they were in.

Don’t assume anything. Make it easy for people to find you.

Marketing May Day

As a professional private investigator, you have probably experienced a situation in which another PI – someone who may actually be a competitor of yours - - has been willing to share a resource, a technique or an idea you can use to solve a particular case you are working on.  Although I have worked with P.I.s for nearly 30 years (am I old!) I know that I am not an investigator and could never ever provide advice on an investigation. 

However, we all have our talents and abilities. I've made a living in the public relations/marketing communications arena for nearly 40 years (man, I really am old!), the last seven years as director of marketing communications for the College of Business and Innovation at The University of Toledo (my alma mater!).  

One of the professional perks I find at work is that I am surrounded by great minds who offer new perspectives and ideas: any direction I turn when I walk out of my office, there are marketing professors (until I get further down the hallways and encounter the dreaded accounting professors!).  

Let me be your marketing colleague!

Even when I think I have developed great copy for an advertisement, web content, news release, promotional article, etc., - - -  and I do have a fair amount of confidence in my writing and marketing abilities - - there is someone savvy enough to offer a suggestion to make something a little better, to suggest another avenue that can be used to reach the target audiences we want, or simply to endorse what I have produced. (Just last month, for example, I had written two versions of text for a full page newspaper ad, and I thought I had nailed it.  The dean made a key suggestion to me, I reworked some of the copy one more time, and that is the version which appears in the ad.)

One of the favorite words on a university campus is colleagues. It is not a corporate environment where someone is always trying to seize credit and climb to the top, but rather one where professionals really do share ideas to make the end product/experience/results better.

Actually like the experience you may have had with another investigator.

However, it occurred to me that you may not have access to someone who can offer some insight into your marketing efforts:  someone who can make content suggestions for your website, review your marketing plan, suggest a marketing tactic you may not have considered or implemented, or with whom you can discuss ideas.

So, for a very brief time, I am offering to be your marketing colleague.

Special offer, special rate, 

only until May 1!

You don’t want to pay huge fees to hire a marketing firm which promises - - but can’t guarantee - - massive business results.  (Besides, how many marketing agencies even know a private investigator, while I am connected to hundreds just on LinkedIn!) 

Maybe you don’t want or need another perspective on your marketing materials, another opinion of your marketing plan, or someone to critique your website.

But maybe you do…and if so, it’s May Day!

That’s because you have until 11:59 p.m. on May 1 to make me your marketing colleague, and at a very special price.

For just $50, you get an hour of my time to generate a custom, written marketing critique of whatever you want me to review. (And I guarantee you that $50 is a fraction of my marketing consulting hourly rate....probably like it is far less than your hourly investigative rate!!)

For your one hour purchased through your one-time $50 payment, I will provide a critique, ideas, suggestions, support and (usually gentle) criticisms  about how to make your marketing plan and/or marketing materials better. You decide what you want me to review and report on.  Your report, personalized and written just for you, for you to use and implement when you are ready.  

Maybe a little help is just what you need!

Sound good?  If so, you only have until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, May 1 to take advantage of this offer.  That means you need to either send your check, money order (or cash, although I would prefer you don’t send cash) payable to Mackowiak Communications, 755 Bronx Drive, Toledo, Ohio 43609.  You can also pay by PayPal…just shoot me an email that you want to take advantage of this great offer and pay via credit card through Paypal, and I will email you an invoice you can process.

Then you simply tell me how I can best be your marketing communications colleague: tell me if you want me to review your website, analyze your marketing plan, brush up  your brochure, tweak your marketing tactics, etc.  (Again, at this price and with one hour to work on your greatest need, you must prioritize what you want me to critique.) You will get an individualized written report with my personalized suggestions for you.

BONUS!  Because I do work full-time, depending on the response to this short-term, one-time offer, it may take a little while to complete all the custom critiques.  So, to give you something to help you (and give me time to do the critiques) I will throw in as a bonus, at no extra charge, my last marketing e-book "PR for PIs: 73 Powerful Tips for Effective PI Marketing," so you can have something of value to read and feed your marketing mindset.

Also, there is  a limit on how many of these I will accept, so if this appeals to you, keep in mind that I reserve the right to close the door on accepting additional critiques when I choose. (I don’t expect this to happen, but if I max out, any payment you would send would of course be refunded in full...and I will still send you marketing e-book!)

I think you will agree that this is a rare opportunity to partner with a guy with the right background to enhance your marketing efforts.

Happy May. Happy Marketing

Best wishes,

Bob Mackowiak

Mackowiak Communications

mackowiakcom@aol.com

Seven Search Engine Optimization Tips

Folks savvy about Google have recommended the following tips to help your business get better rankings in their search engine:

Think people, not placement: Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as cloaking.

Easy links: Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

Content is king: (I’ve said this before, but your content drives people to your site.) Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content. Make sure that your tutle  elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.

Use keywords to create descriptive, easy-to-remember URLs.

Bing experts have suggested the following activities to get better rankings in their search engine:

Make it easy to find you: Make sure content is not buried inside rich media (Adobe Flash Player, JavaScript, Ajax) and verify that rich media doesn't hide links from crawlers.

Feed the people: Create keyword-rich content based on research to match what users are searching for. Produce fresh content regularly.

Watch out for graphics: Don’t put the text that you want indexed inside images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it is not displayed inside a company logo.