We need to remember that Marketing is not created out of magic. Neither is it a big production event that you need to organize one after the other. Marketing is a system. The goal is not to give you a one-bang hit but rather to build a system that will give you 10 to 100 customers each month without you having to worry what to do next. It’s building a system that keeps working for you.

There are many different strategies that we can use in order to achieve our goals and gain more leverage. However, in the next four weeks, I want to focus on how we can utilize technology in an offline world.

Most of the business owners look to the internet to market their products and services. This is a good thing because if your business does not have a website, you end up losing money. However, relying solely on the internet to reach your target market will not give you the leverage that you have been looking for in your business. Yes, there is a lot of money online but people still want face-to-face communication. What is especially powerful is giving people a means to communicate with you at their convenience. This strategy is simply providing 1800 number where people can call your business at any time without you having to sit and wait for the phone to ring 24 hours a day, seven times a week.

This service is also known as voice mail to email service or virtual answering machine. When you’re customer rings this number, what they’ll hear is a recorded message telling them about your company and your services and it will give them the option to record their names and details as part of the message just like in the answering machine that people get. The power and leverage for you is instead of you having to check the answering machine every day, the caller can leave a message at any time they wish to call. The moment they hang up that message will be sent to your email as a recording.

Moreover, the power of this strategy is about having your prospect qualify themselves by saying yes please send me some more information.

There are three tips you must keep in mind when writing the script to your message in order to increase your conversion rate.

1. You must have an opening statement that says, "Welcome to the (your company name) 24 hour request hotline." This is to reinforce that the caller has arrived at the right location.

2. You need to inform the caller the length of your message. This will ensure them that they will not be listening to you within the next five hours. For example, "This message is only 40 seconds long."

3. Lastly, at the very end of the message we want them to make a course of action. We want to give them a good reason why they should leave their contact information and move on to the next step. I recommend that you use an incentive such as a free report or a free CD. "To receive your free CD entitled ‘(title of the free item)’, please leave your name and mailing address after the tone. To ensure that you get immediate reaction, please spell any difficult names. Thank you. Please leave your name and details after the tone now."

It is a simple technique but it gives your business a powerful leverage – making the most out of your time and making it possible for people to respond to your ads and leave their contact information.