Archive for Marketing Stuff
06.03.08
Posted in Marketing Stuff at 10:21 pm by admin
A Networker’s Tale
You’re all excited, you’ve finally taken the plunge and joined that network marketing company you’ve been looking at. You’re keen and eager. Your sponsor tells you to make a `contact list’ of all the people you know - your friends, family, milkman, old work colleagues, neighbours etc and work through them. You tell all your friends and family and they buy product or hold a demonstration for you. After a while you seem to run out of steam - all your friends and family have got some of your product - where do you go now?
Sound familiar? Is this you or someone in your team? What you need is an injection of new people to see your products and book parties/demonstrations. People are the life-blood of your business. You need new customers, party hosts and potential recruits. Talking to people you’ve never met before is going to keep your business dynamic and fresh. So where are you going to find new people?
Start fundraising! Did you know there are over 160,000 registered charities in Britain, 35,000 schools and colleges (that’s a lot of PTAs) not to mention church groups, sports clubs and individuals who are all trying to raise funds for their worthy cause. And what’s more they are always looking for ways to fundraise or people to attend their events!
Be creative! Offer themed demonstrations, prize draws on your stall at the fete, do quick coffee morning events, sponsored catalogue sales, office lunch hour events and ladies evenings. Always be aware of the power of a fundraiser - people who might not host a party for themselves might hold one to raise funds for a favoured cause.
Make sure that a healthy proportion of your business is fundraising-based and you’ll never be short of leads again. Good luck with your business!
http://www.fundraisers-uk.com/main.php is a UK wide directory for fundraisers. It connects fundraising groups with the people and small businesses in their area that can help them with their fundraising. The website aims to give an affordable internet presence for all those small businesses and individuals who have something to offer fundraisers. http://www.fundraisers-uk.com/main.php - connecting the right people!
Permalink
Posted in Marketing Stuff at 4:30 am by admin
Do you remember your first day as a business owner? You were probably just like the rest of us… pretty darned happy and bit on the proud side. Yeah, back then we thought we could conquer the world. Now we’re too busy conquering our own little corner of the world to pay a lot of attention to the rest of the world… unless it’s to learn a few tips from successful marketers just like us who have made it big. Tips just like these… that will apply to every market - regardless of the product or service - are a great motivators to try something new. Yeah, you never know when the next idea will be worth a million dollars!
1. Create a Special Offer
A special offer is exactly that… an offer that is special. Normally, customers would not be able to purchase this product or combination of products, and once the products are gone… sorry!
You don’t have to go out and order a bunch of new products to put together a special offer. It don’t take a whole lot… just use what you’ve got. Grab a few items that are related, group them together, discount the price, and your customers will be excited to be getting a good deal. Think about it from your standpoint… you’ve sold three or four items rather than one. Yeah, combination offers are winning deals for everyone!
2. Address the Small Customer Groups
Niche markets are everywhere, right under your nose! Within the customer audience that you serve right now are groups of people who share common traits. Think about it… maybe you have a group who speaks Spanish, a group of teens, and a group of middle class family men and women.
Evaluate these classes of people, and discover the unique needs and desires they share. That will set you up to customize your advertising campaign directly to them. It’s not hard to take your current ads, and make a few changes to adjust to the niches. They’ll be impressed that you understand THEM, and the increase in your profits will be the best thanks you can get.
3. Set Up a Winning Referral Program
Successful marketers develop the ability to turn their customers into advocates. Often, they don’t even have to directly ask customers to refer them to others. Their willingness to go the extra wins customer loyalty and support. Naturally, satisfied customers refer their friends and family to the place that will take good care of them.
Quality service and is the first step toward referrals, but you can easily take it one step further. Studies show that every satisfied customer tells three people about you. What would happen with a little incentive added to the picture? Yeah, a lot more. Give customers who refer friends a thank you - whether it’s a discount, special gift item, or a simple thank you card - and watch the referrals spiral!
You can get two birds with one stone by implimenting customer surveys. A few quick questions about what the customer does and doesn’t like about your product, followed by a request for the names and addresses of friends and family who would benefit from the product, and you’re all set to go with the contact information of a prospective customer!
Who is Allyn Cutts, and why should you care?
Allyn has spent over 24 years helping businesses like yours find new customers and increase sales to current customers. Allyn is a marketing and sales fanatic, providing measurable marketing solutions that drive huge results for small-to mid-size business clients. Allyn works personally with clients to design and deliver off-line and on-line direct marketing strategies that focus on metrics and measurable results. You can learn more about Allyn Cutts at www.AllynCutts.com and you can call 610.437.4106 between 10 AM and 4 PM Eastern Time Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Submitted with Article Distributor.
Permalink
05.03.08
Posted in Marketing Stuff at 12:12 am by admin
When you work for yourself and do business on the internet you have to be a great strategic leader and a skilled tactician; even under the best of circumstances, it’s hard to be both.
In the corporate world, goals and milestones are the absolute measure of productivity and success. But when you work for yourself there’s no objective-other there to hold you to your goals and keep you on track. Add to that the untamed complexities of doing business online and suddenly setting and achieving goals takes on the magnitude of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Despite its promise of efficiency, the web has for many home-based and small business owners become a seductive quagmire of distracted action, chaotic click-thrus and paralyzed productivity.
It’s natural to look to others for advice and information on how to navigate the landscape, but in the process, you often get distracted, take detours, follow the road that leads to nowhere, and before you know it you’ve lost sight of your ultimate goals.
What does it take to get where you’re going
No one knows for sure “where” success lies in wait for you. But we do know the road is often longer than the Nile, more twisted than San Francisco’s Lombard Street and only partially paved to boot. Factor in the occasional mud-slide or wash-out that’s bound to crop up along the way and the battle to overcome loss of focus and lack of direction soon becomes a way of doing business.
As the commander-in-chief and your most loyal employee, you have to be able to flip your view between the big picture and all the personal and professional micro-tasks that have to get done in order for you to realize your goals.
You can try grabbing a map and some tips from those who’ve made it and come back to share their success secrets. But separating myth from money-making often takes as much time as blazing your own trail. Not to mention, one person’s treasure map quickly becomes a roadmap to mediocrity depending on how many people are all trying to play and win at the same game in the same space online. Golden nuggets gleaned from your success mentors need to be adapted for your journey and your circumstances.
Without knowing how long your journey is going to be, it’s important to establish milestones that stretch you beyond your comfort zone, but are still attainable with the resources you have at hand. Short-term wins create wind-at-your-back-momentum to keep you pushing forward instead of crumbling in a heap of disillusionment or even disgust.
Before you get on your way you also want to take stock of what you’ve got. Now’s the time to be brutally honest with yourself about what you’re good at, what you love doing, and what you’d give up in a quick click if you thought you could afford to never do it yourself again.
Every hour you invest trying to accomplish non-core tasks or working in areas where your skills are weak has an exponentially negative effect on your results. Not only are you depleting your precious resources, you’re unlikely to see a return on your efforts that provides sufficient reward and motivation to keep you moving forward.
What you need is a system that’s structured enough to keep you on course, fluid enough to alternate your view between the big picture and the micro-tasks at a moment’s notice, and flexible enough to adapt to the unforeseen and the unexpected as, and when, they inevitably arise.
Using an e-business Goal and Productivity System (GPS) can help you:
- Establish realistic goals and immediately set a course for action from right where you are.
- Balance your business and personal values and desires when defining your goals.
- Hone in on your own strengths and pass off as much of the other stuff to those whose strengths better match the task at hand.
- Provide direct access to quality knowledge, resources and tools that can help you prioritize and achieve your goals.
- Know where and how to multi-task, undertaking several projects simultaneously to gain leverage and when to focus exclusively one project at a time.
Rarely is there ever just one right answer to the challenges you face in your e-business or only one path to your desired goals. You don’t want to become so mired in the task or problem at hand that you lose your way or your will to continue on the path to your success.
Using a GPS can help you quickly view and investigate all aspects of running a successful e-business and fluidly guide you from “know-how” to “take-action” and ultimately to your goal.
Yvonne Bailey is co-creator of the My eBiz Director Goal and Productivity System (GPS) - a centralized online command center that enables small and home-based businesses to manage their e-business development goals, strategy, projects, and activities all in one place. She can be found online at http://www.innovationworx.com
Permalink
04.10.08
Posted in Marketing Stuff at 3:42 am by admin
There is no denying the fact that email marketing is the most effective method of driving traffic and sales to web sites today.
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing that is even more effective than traditional direct marketing. The latter relies on snail mail and it usually takes days for mail to reach recipients. One of the advantages of email marketing is that it is instant. You send out a message and it reaches the recipients immediately.
When you incorporate all the strengths of direct marketing into email marketing, like testing and targeting, then what you end up with is one of the most powerful marketing weapons ever invented.
Email marketing has of course not been without its’ problems. Spam of mass unsolicited email has been a major problem that has given email marketing a bad name, such that when you mention it folks are quicker to think about illegal emails than they are to grasp that you are talking about legitimate and legal email marketing. Even more serious a problem is the fact that spam has caused many ISPs to set up filters that sometimes cause us not to receive email that we actually want and some of it has even been specially requested. For instance when somebody subscribes to an email newsletter.
Still, despite all the challenges, email marketing remains a powerful and potent online marketing tool, more so for those with the skills and knowledge to use it.
Find out more about the Best email marketing campaign for you
Permalink
04.01.08
Posted in Marketing Stuff at 4:28 pm by admin
Email advertising has become very widespread with the increasing use of the Internet as a marketing tool. Companies are realizing that the attention of potential customers can be grabbed by filling their inboxes with informative messages that have attractive subject lines. Spam mails have been outlawed, paving the way for opt-in email advertising that is more cost-effective and has better response rates.
Email advertising is no doubt the cheapest form of advertising, since the ads can be sent to millions of people in a single day. The cost of email is also negligible compared to postal or any other kind of traditional advertising. With advancements in software and better Internet services, email ads have become very easy to send. There are many software tools for email advertising available today.
These software packages are very easy to install and use. They can be downloaded in simple steps and used by almost anyone. Most of them also have advanced features, such as the customization of email messages, contact list management, validation of the email addresses, processing of incoming messages, multithread verification, embedding of HTML messages, bounce-back tracking, import of contacts from different formats such as ADO/ODBC, Microsoft Access databases, Microsoft Excel and CSV and creation of logs for every operation.
These can be used from anywhere in the world. Most of these software programs can handle bulk email advertising with no bandwidth or ISP problems. Some programs may also include location and collection of email addresses, generation of automatic replies to email inquiries, automatic removal of un-subscribers from the email list, verification of email address lists, organization of email address lists, and others. Some tools can send over 50,000 mails per hour. Prices of these software tools start from $40 and may go up to $400 or more depending upon the options available.
Another recent advancement in email advertising is the “talking email”. Voice or music can be added to the email file, by which the advertiser can “talk” to the recipient. This not only makes the email more attractive but also more distinguished, thus attracting the recipient.
Email Advertising provides detailed information on Email Advertising, Email Advertising Campaigns, Email Advertising Ideas, Email Advertising Companies and more. Email Advertising is affiliated with Email Marketing Tools.
|
|
Permalink
03.31.08
Posted in Marketing Stuff at 11:45 pm by admin
Basic Website Promotion for the Novice, by Brian @ RankAdvance
Many website owners & smaller internet businesses simply cannot afford to hire a specialized web marketing / promotion firm to properly market their site for them. [link] This is not the end of the world for them - there are other possibilities, many of them free and only acquiring a bit of your time. Basic website promotion requires very little skill, rather just a few pointers of what needs to be done !
Let’s say your site is ready to be seen on the www. You have done all the necessary things to optimize your site to a decent degree, ie. good title tags, description & keyword tags, plus have enough related content. The links between pages are all there, and you have a proper site map.
This will now be the very first time you market your site on the www. We assume that your site doesn’t appear on any search engine, nor have any other link (direct or indirect) to it.
Step 1 : Submitting to Major Directories & Search Engines
This is a logical step, and one that can take lots of time, especially if you do manual submitting. It can take many weeks, sometimes months before a search engine will visit and index your site. There is also a risk that your site might not even be indexed.
There is a shortcut that we can recommend. Ask a friend or acquaintance with a website already indexed by the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) to place a temporary link on their site to your “new website”. This will ensure a much faster inclusion in the search engines, and when the search engines visit your friend’s site again, your site will be “seen”, the link followed, and your site indexed. Your link can now be removed from the friend’s site, except of cause if it’s a related site to yours (an added bonus as you will have incoming link number one to your site).
Some directories ask a fee for inclusion. If you can afford a few, we highly recommend it, as this will count big time towards your search engine rankings. Be careful not to submit you site to insignificant, low traffic directories - go for the big ones. A proper internet search will put you on the track of the better ones.
Step 2 : Acquiring relevant links to your site
In essence this boils down to establishing better reciprocal links. You will do this over a period of weeks, months and even years. Put an amount of time every week aside for this purpose. It will be a very good investment in the end ! This long term link-acquiring program will eventually yield dividends. The trick lies in finding sites related to yours, but not directly in competition with your site or target audience.
You will need to “show cause” to the other site owner why it’s advantageous to link to yours. Start by compiling a curtious email link request message that you can use over and over. Make the message personal by addressing it to a specific person whenever possible. Remember, the more relevant links pointing towards your site, the higher your search engine rankings will be. Coupled to good related content, it will not surprise me if you eventually reach a number 1 position on a major search engine for more than one keyword phrase !!
About the Author
Brian is a freelance writer, website marketing expert & webmaster of 3 websites, including Rank Advance : http://www.rankadvance.com
Permalink
03.28.08
Posted in Marketing Stuff at 8:04 am by admin
Do you give web site visitors the opportunity to download a
free trial of your product or service with the intention
that they will come back and purchase? How are you
following up with these visitors? Asking them to fill out a
form and immediately giving them the download on the next
page is not the best way to generate a quality opt-in list.
Collecting accurate opt-in information from these visitors
is essential to follow up education and making the sale.
Download giveaway opt-in conversion is extremely simple when
done with the correct process. Unfortunately many
businesses are leaving significant profits and subscribers
on the table by using the wrong methods.
The Wrong Way
A visitor comes to your site and they fill out a form to
request your free download. Upon submission of the form they
are taken to your thank you page where you provide the link
to download.
This person has been given your download but you have not
given them a reason to subscribe to your list. They might
have given you a fake email address and in all likelihood
did give you a fake email knowing that they just need to get
to the next page to receive your information. Since you
can’t follow up with them you might have lost a sale.
The Correct Way
Insert the AWeber opt-in form on your site. Within eye site
of this form provide information about the importance of
subscribing to your list. Add value to your list by giving
them compelling reasons to subscribe. Make it clear that
the download link will be provided in the email they receive
after confirming their subscription.
On your thank you page (or redirect page) they are taken to
after they fill out the form you need to provide information
on verifying. Verified opt-in allows you to ensure that the
person subscribing did so with his or her own email address
and didn’t provide a fake or malicious email. Let the
visitor know that they should check their email inbox. Tell
them what the subject line of the email says so they know
what to look for. Convey that they must click on the link
inside to verify and receive the download link to your
product.
In the autoresponder they receive after verifying, give them
the download link. Since they are subscribed to your list
and have confirmed that the address they provided is valid
you can effectively follow up providing more information
about using the free or trial software, training tips, and
further benefits or features earned by becoming a customer.
Using these techniques you are sure to increase your sales
when converting free downloads to paid customers.
Sean Cohen, Director of Client Relations & Development of
Newtown, PA based AWeber Communications, Inc. an opt-in
email service provider. With 7 years managing opt-in follow
up and newsletters for small businesses.
Learn more: http://www.AWeber.com
Permalink
