Press Release: Local Entrepreneur and U.S. Army Veteran Tracy G.J. Congdon Officially Forming New Marketing Company In April, Delivering Tested And Documented Marketing Strategies.

Mr. Congdon utilizes direct response marketing in his approach to designing marketing automation solutions for his clients, once in place they provide a nearly immediate return on investment (ROI.) He will begin accepting new clients starting April 4th 2016.

-Michael Patrick

When speaking with Mr. Congdon he offered the following story to demonstrate what he meant by tested and documented. On July 27^th of last year he met with Mary, the owner of an Italian restaurant. She found him through a desperate web search as she was beginning to fear her third year open would be her last year open. Mary reached out via phone and after emailing to setup an appointment, Tracy and his executive assistant went to her location. They listened to her concerns and needs as she seemed to be holding back tears. Mary informed them it was her dream to open a restaurant in her community, but with each passing month there were fewer and fewer customers coming in. Her dream was slowly slipping away. Like many business owners she invested in expensive ADs out of desperation with no measurable results. Mr. Congdon says, “He always stresses the dire importance of testing and measuring. If it can’t be measured, how do you know if it is working?” He ended up modifying marketing strategies he designed initially for a previous campaign to bring in new customers for a spa that offered massage, chiropractic, weight loss services and more. He then discussed the importance of knowing exactly what it costs to acquire new customers, what each one is worth, and how to determine the lifetime value (LTV) of a regular customer. This allowed them to assist her in determining what the ROI needs to be when investing in advertising, and why holding advertising accountable is critical to businesses’ success. After fully laying out how this marketing strategy would drive new customers to her each month, Mary still seemed a bit hesitant. Milling over their proposed solution, Mary finally said she was about to say “not sure I can afford it… when a quote popped into my head. Successful people don’t ask what it costs, they ask what it is worth. Successful people invest in themselves and their education and that’s why they’re successful.” With that Mary was on board and said, “What do we need to do to get started?” Seven business days later on August 5^th, her first new customer from this campaign came through her door.

Early this March Tracy received a phone call from Mary stating she uses the systems and processes they put in place to track and measure every dollar that comes in from the marketing strategies they put in place. Hearing some clicks of her keyboard she then said, “To be exact over the last seven months we brought in $115,024.00 that we can trace directly back to that campaign. An average of $16,432.35 in operational funds each month since, we put those marketing strategies in place. Thank you Tracy!” During her call they setup another appointment with her to put multiple customer retention campaigns in place and calculate her next targeted increase. She gave them a referral they are working with now. Feeling confident with the successful testing and measuring, they feel they have the needed tools in place to begin bringing on new clients as of April 4^th 2016.

When Tracy was asked why “The Marketing Soldier?” His reply was, “After 12 years in the US Army and over 15 years studying and implementing marketing strategies it seemed appropriate. Running a veteran owned company, he is asking, “Please give us a ‘like’ on Facebook www.Facebook.com/TheMarketingSoldier and a ‘follow’ on Twitter @TGJCongdon!”

Congdon admits his website www.MarketingSoldier.com, is in need of an upgrade which he plans to have done later this year; for now it serves its purpose. His contact information is there for business owners who wish to consult with him.

Business owners and sales professionals that decide to consult with The Marketing Soldier can expect:

1. To start by clearly defining who their ideal target market is.
2. Craft a powerful message that speaks to them and gets them to respond.
3. Discover what media works best to deliver this message to their target market.
4. Put systems and processes in place to automate as much of their marketing as possible, including follow up and customer retention programs. 

Along with rolling out his upgraded program in April, he plans to begin a subscription based service mailing out a physical newsletter along with a monthly cd. This will include interviews with others in advertising and marketing, with in-depth discussion of techniques from their combined years of creating campaigns for different businesses.

If interested in subscribing to The Marketing Soldier’s email newsletter, please visit this Google shortened web address https://goo.gl/OBgnXB.

Press Release: Over the last seven months we brought in $115,024.00 that we can trace directly back to that campaign. An average of $16,432.35 in operational funds each month since we put those marketing strategies in place.

When Tracy was asked, why “The Marketing 

Soldier?"

 His reply was, “After 12 years in the US Army and over 15 years studying and implementing marketing strategies, it seemed appropriate. 


Running a veteran-owned company, he is asking, “Please give us a ‘like’ on Facebook, http://www.Facebook.com/TheMarketingSoldier and a ‘follow’ on Twitter @TGJCongdon!”


http://www.MarketingSoldier.Com 

View Full Press Release Here: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/01/prweb13188445.htm

"Over the last seven months we brought in $115,024.00 that we can trace directly back to that campaign. An average of $16,432.35 in operational funds each month since we put those marketing strategies in place. Thank you Tracy!"

March 1st is National Salesperson Day!

March is "Irish American Month" and the 1st Friday in March is "National Salesperson Day!"

National Salesperson Day is established to recognize the value of the professional salesperson. This day is meant to recognize the hard work performed by all professional salespeople.

Who is a salesperson? A huge part of the workforce. Some examples include:

• Real Estate Agents
• Mortgage Reps.
• The register clerk at your local coffee shop
• Sales associate at your office supply store
• Servers / Bartenders 

The list goes on and on

Celebrate this day (the 1st Friday in March) by offering thanks and appreciation to any salespeople you come in contact with.

Boost Your Business with Systems that Actually Work, Subscribe Below!

Boost your business with systems that actually work! Subscribe to the monthly Marketing CD, includes our newsletter mailed out to you all for just $49.95

Below is a partial transcript of our recent monthly CD:

[pictured above]
....

Heather: I have noticed you stress testing and measuring and ROI I mean immediate return in the next week or so not in months.

Tracy: That’s the only way to do it! So here it is we gathered our data loaded it into a CRM customer relationship management tool like Outstand, we love using their website. After looking at the calendar we selected the first business day of the month to begin our campaign. We also looked at the slowest days of the week to take that into consideration for this promotion. So your card arrives in the mail and unlike regular mail no one sets an obvious card down when it is around their birthday right? No, they open it and it reads “Happy 30^th birthday Heather come in on any Wednesday night in the month of February and enjoy one of these offers just for you.”

Heather: Wow, that would definitely work for me!

Tracy: Of course it would, it works for almost everyone. We run this and the anniversary one hand in hand typically. The obvious difference is we have the cards mailed in the month of the anniversary listed and include a much more detailed promotion. Something like the now famous Giorgio letters, which if anyone would like to see those again they can email me at Tracy@MarketingSoldier.Com include their physical address and I will mail them out. 

Heather: Such great information. You mentioned Outstand what is that?

[Video on Outstand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXUhpOki77w]

Tracy: It is a third party site where you plug in all your data and you can send out and track really nice looking emails and also send physical mail all from your computer. I had to put together a tutorial on YouTube since I reference it so often I got tired of so many calls and emails about setting it up!

Heather: That’s because you rock.

Tracy: Thanks, another thing that “grinds my gears” as Peter Griffin likes to say is when I go to consult with a business and they have no idea what their average ticket is. So frustrating.

Heather: Can you elaborate on that point?

Tracy: Sure, when you do the birthday club promo we have a minimum of 3000 names we pull for our clients. Divide that by 12 months and you get 250 people (I am just using even numbers to explain this easier.) 250 birthday cards go out with special offers during the first week of the month and let’s say for whatever reason we only manage to get 1/3 of the recipients to respond to us. Well that is still 83 new customers who come in. Since no one eats alone on their special day our research has shown that a birthday dinner for two with drinks etc. averages $136.86. Let’s say it is a particularly slow month and we only had 1 out of every 6 people who got our card come in. That is 42 people with at least one other person come in for dinner. We generated $5,748.12 on a day that was normally slow. Now let’s forecast a slow year and multiply this by 12 and you made $68,977.44 with a simple direct response marketing technique. In this scenario that is still a significant amount over and above what we charged them and what the program cost.

Heather: Even downplaying these numbers it still sounds so impressive!

Tracy: That’s is why this is such a no brainer. By the way our average has been a 48.7% response rate. Crazy, huh? I wanted to quickly point out that any restaurant owner nationwide can call us at (888) 663-9491 and we can pull that consumer data for them.

Heather: Right! I was making some notes on those numbers on your original quote 1/3 or 83 people respond and come in to dine with an average ticket of $136.86 is a whopping $11,359.38 from 4 nights that used to be considered slow. Let’s multiply that by 12, $136,312.56 wow, just wow.

Tracy: When you break it down like that it really becomes crystal clear that businesses can’t afford to not have this system in place. It becomes even more fun in the second year it is in place. Assuming they has a pleasant experience and the business continues with this program the response rate only grows each year. Now you have to look at things like the LTV or lifetime value of that customer. Did they come in for the first time for this promo? Did they become a regular? Are they letting their friends know about this too?

Heather: That really is incredible Tracy

......for this entire program listed above mailed out to you email Tracy@MarketingSoldier.Com with "Guaranteed to fill your seats" in the subject line.

Boost your business with systems that actually work! Subscribe to the monthly Marketing CD, includes our newsletter mailed out to you all for just $49.95

The Marketing Soldier, Michigan Businesses Online, Positive Vibe News, and Get Found on The Fly(er) are all divisions of Get Found on Google, Inc. Copyright  © 2016 All Rights Reserved 

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Own or manage a restaurant? We can fill your seats on even the slowest of days!

We would like to share with you a little information about our surrounding area. There are 10,000+ people “listed” in Belleville and we have all of their birthday months, 758 in February to be exact! Using this we are capable of putting together very powerful direct response mailing campaigns. For some we send out an actual birthday card to these local “potential customers” during the month they were born. This shows you truly care to earn their business. Who else does that?

We have documented a 48.7% average response rate. That’s up to 364 NEW customers this month alone! Multiply that by your average ticket. Especially considering they never come in and eat alone on their birthdays.

Do you see any other local restaurants doing this? Nope, they all choose to send out automated and typically cheap… I mean free emails. How easy is it to overlook or delete an email? That is assuming it didn’t land in the spam box to begin with.

This campaign is especially fun when we target families who have someone turning a significant age such as 13, 16, 19, 20, of course 21, or 40. Even more powerful when we send out anniversary cards! Yes, we have that data available too! (Along with so much more.) Please, ask about the “now famous” Giorgio letters.

Our most successful clients send out a physical birthday card to a good number of (now) regular patrons, along with potential ones, monthly. Each containing multiple offers urging them to come back in and dine. We like to put together these special offers for the restaurants slowest day of the week to help fill that time frame. 

Why do people generally stop frequenting a business? A bad experience or because they begin to fill ignored. We can help you avoid these pitfalls.

Marketing outside of Belleville? A quick call and we can get you exact counts and a quote for your chosen area. (Available nationwide.)

Give us a call, an email, or send us a fax to discuss how we can fill your seats on even the slowest of days!  - Tracy

Increase Your Customers with "The Business Card Handshake"

There is a local liquor store near me that I happen to visit regularly enough to be recognized by the staff. (Don't act like you don't have your own spots you visit, LOL!) One day while selecting a "tasty beverage" to take back to my basement pub and watch a little UFC, built in 2012 called "Congdon's Pub," I started a conversation with the GM which eventually became about what is it I do for a living. She was probably thinking how do I afford all the cabernet sauvignon and scotch I purchase there. After explaining that I have accumulated 15 plus years of knowledge and experience in the field of business and marketing she had a look of disbelief so I called her out on it. We strolled to her back office and I sketched out a few very inexpensive and easy things she could do to bring in more business. 

During the following 11-week period she handed out 200 of her business cards to people she did not recognize as being her current customers. We made her a goal of handing out no less than 10 a day, as she set about this, on the back of her business card she would write, "free regular coffee or soft drink" and sign it. Then she would tell the prospective customer, "when you come into our store, that drink's on me!" (Like all campaigns I set-up there are metrics in place to track and measure the results.)

Of the 200 she passed out, 51 came back; that's over a 25% return. Obviously, most of those who came in and redeemed that card bought other things. Plus, many of those customers came back for more visits.

The unique thing about a business-card handshake promotion is that it has a strong redemption rate and a strong conversation rate. The reason is that it allows you to develop a personal relationship with potential customers. There's a nice ego boost when a customer knows the manager or owner of a business. It makes them feel special. Take advantage of this.

And don't create some special "free cards" for this purpose. To really make a person feel special, you use your business card. Handwrite the offer on the back and sign it. That will have a much greater impact for you. We often suggest to our clients that they pass out 10 - 15 per week. But it's not just handing them out. It's that 15-second greeting that goes along with it. Here's one that worked really well for a popular local Mexican restaurant. (And why the idea was fresh in my head to use.)

"My name is _________, the General Manager at the _______ (state the location.) (Shake hands.) Have you ever been there before? Do you like burritos and tacos? Well, you're going to like ours. Why don't you come on in and be my guest. (Take out a business card and write the offer on the back in front of them so as not to show it was so pre-planned.) Have an entree on me. Hope to see you soon! 

I still get emails telling me great success stories from this one simple idea.

If this one doesn't work for you try reading "the hindsight promotion" below.

A very successful financial advisor from the Grand Blanc / Fenton area and I created a modified version of the Business Card Handshake. 
While commuting to work Andrew would have to have his morning coffee. Before he would pay for his beverage, he would first look in his rearview mirror. If he saw a car nicer than his, he would not only pay his tab  but also that of the person in the other luxury car as well. He then would ask the person at the drive thru window to hand his business card to the person in the car behind him after writing a brief note on the back. The note read "If you think this is an interesting way of getting your attention, think of the things I could do for your financial portfolio." He got many new clients off of a simple  cost for a coffee and a clever use of his business card.