*** Every weekday for 30 days, I’m giving you one “big idea” to solve your toughest marketing challenge.  To submit your problem for consideration, follow the format today’s subscriber used, and then hit “reply” with your own specific details and challenges.  My assistant will filter through these replies and forward me the best ones to review.  MOST important – if you like what you are reading, forward this information on to a few of your friends and associates. ***

Today’s question comes from Paul D’Arcy, out of Dorset, England, who asks:

“Craig, I am passionate about how golfers can enjoy golf so much more than they do now by having a better mental approach.

I have been putting together product in the form of tips booklet, free report and aim to have newsletter, ezine, blog etc to create a “fan ” base of golfer who will learn from my experience and down to earth approach.

My question is, “How can I build sufficient numbers of subscribers starting from zero?”

I can understand all the concepts of giving great value to people and how to build value  but can’t get my head round how to go from a standing start of zero.

Helping golfers get so much more from the game will be a dream come true, but I am bemused to how I can get off the mark.

Any thoughts?  Regards, Paul D’Arcy”

Great question, and it’s one that you should break down, before simply looking for an answer.

For starters, what does ‘a sufficient number of subscribers’ mean?

For most people, ‘sufficient numbers’ means, “an ongoing supply of more leads than you’ll ever want.’  But as anyone who owns my book knows, you can also make GOBS of money with comparatively very few leads, when you’re using the right marketing strategies from the very beginning.  (including charging top-dollar… creating continuity programs… qualifying your leads… and using sequential ongoing marketing messages, amongst other things).

The other issue you MUST consider, is the quality of your leads.  For instance, golfers looking for free information only, are going to find you, whether you want them to or not.  So you need to make sure you’ve got things in place to intentionally attract those people who are interested in paying for good information as well.

As to growing your list, I’m not going to cover online advertising because I think this is self-explanatory.

I’m going to mention two places to advertise offline, however, and then I’m going to cover what’s most important here, and that is, the STRATEGY you need to use, to attract your leads.

Offline, you’re going to want to advertise using direct mail and once you get a solid control piece going via direct mail, you next want to place ads in some of the golfing magazines.  Ad rates for golf magazine will cost you an arm and a leg, so you’ll definitely want to wait until you know what you’re doing before booking that ad space.

You need to know the biggest appeals, and the fastest way to convert prospects to clients, and the product or service that give you the highest ROI.  THEN you want to move to space ads.

And since there’s so much competition in this industry, you’re going to need to differentiate yourself pretty quickly.  And there are two specific places you need to create this differential: one, in your marketing… and two, in your services.

And here’s how you can do this: First of all, use two-step lead generation to generate your leads.  You want to use an advertorial-style ad to generate your leads (as shown on page 166 in my book), sending them to some kind of a free report from the ad.  The simplest thing to do in this situation is to write a free report called “The 7 Biggest Mistakes Golfers Make That Cost You An Endless Number Of Missed Puts And Blown Strokes.”

This will generate you quality leads who are interested in what you have to say, and it will give you a platform to position yourself as a unique expert – even if you’ve only just started in business.

Your free report would identify these mistakes and drive them to order one of your products, that specifically helps golfers overcome these mistakes.

Of, if you want to escalate the process… instead of using a free report, you can simply generate leads and then drive them to a webinar or a live teleseminar.  On this call, you’ll cover similar material, and you then drive the listeners to a similar offer.

You can then follow-up with the non-buyers by sending them your free report and  a replay of the call.

Lastly, a little insight on things:  when someone says to me, this is “a dream come true,” it often means it’s just a dream.

I have found, the faster you go from concept to implementation, the more likely you are to succeed.  People who keep things in their head forever — constantly re-thinking the details and making it vivid in their dreams — are usually better dreamers than doers.

Not saying this is who Paul is, I’m just making a statement based on consulting with literally hundreds of people over the last ten-plus years.

For some reason, there is plenty of time for dreaming, but unfortunately… as fast action takers know, there is much less time for doing.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S.  22 Ways to completely eliminate ALL your marketing headaches… Right NOW!

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