Bizreviews » Entrepreneur

LOW-COST PROMOTION & MARKETING IDEAS

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:00:09 +0000

Promotion and advertising can be a heavy expense, especially for a new business that wants to make itself known in a community. A home-based business, however, more often than not, has a very limited budget when it comes to advertising. The home business owner needs to make the public aware of his or her product or service at the lowest possible cost. There are many ways. A pet breeder in a large city was struggling for several years-until he came up with a novel idea. He started giving away customized “birth certificates” for the pets he sold. Almost immediately, his sales rose more than 10 percent. The owner of a new home cleaning service was trying to attract clients. She couldn’t afford much advertising, so she began offering “home cleaning seminars” to civic groups. After two months of seminars, she was swamped with inquiries and clients. Promotion often makes the crucial difference between business success and failure. Customers or clients must know about a business or product line before they’ll buy and they must have a reason to buy. If you are trying to promote your business now, you can move in one of two directions: 1) You can take the conventional route to promotion and mount an elaborate media campaign, spending a considerable amount of money or 2) You can let your creative juices flow and mount a low-cost promotion effort, using a potpourri of attention-getting gimmicks to bring your message to the buying public. Now, to be sure, conventional advertising is valuable. If your enterprise is large enough or if you’re selling numerous product lines, you may find that a full-fledged media campaign is the most efficient and cost effective way to promote your business. If money is tight, however, or you’re not sure you can amortize the heavy cost of a media campaign over a period of time, the following is a assortment of low-cost techniques you can try. Not all may be appropriate for your particular business, and certainly it would be costly to try them all. But you’re sure to find some ideas that will work for you. GIVEAWAYS. People love to receive “free” items, especially items they can use to gain knowledge or improve their lives. You can base an entire promotional campaign on this desire. If you’re running a furniture repair business, for instance, you could give away a furniture repair brochure, free furniture planning guides, or color swatches. Once you begin giving away authoritative information customers will begin to perceive you as an expert in your field. NEWS CREATION. Want to get names and news from your business in the local newspaper? It may be easier that you think. If you don’t have any news to report to the local media, create some. Maybe you’ve taken on a new associate. Or maybe you’re selling an unusual product line. Or maybe you’ve opened a free advice center for the community. Or maybe you’ve received an award from a civic or professional group. Local Pennysavers and weekly are often quite interested in business news of this sort and can help you attract the attention of thousands of people. EVENTS. You may be able to attract the attention of the media or a crowd by staging a special promotional event. If you run a fitness classes, for instance, you could stage a celebrity instructor day. If you’re promoting a new real estate business, you can offer tours of a model home in the area. If you’re selling children’s products and it’s springtime, you can offer lunch with the Easter bunny. Get the idea? CHARITY TIE-INS. Are you launching a new product? Trying to increase visibility among a particular segment of your community? Offer your product to one or more local charities as a raffle prize or for use at a fund raising event. You’ll receive lots of exposure among people who buy tickets or attend the event. CONTESTS. Offer a desirable or unique item-or even several items-as contest prizes. First, find a contest theme that tiers into your business. A caterer might offer a quiche-eating contest. A photographer might offer a young model contest. A mail order craft firm might offer an “Early American” handicrafts contest. Invite contest submissions and offer prizes to the winners. Do contests attract attention? You bet. All it takes is a few signs, a small press announcement or two, and the word will spread throughout the community grapevine. COMMUNITY SERVICE. Nothing brings you to the attention of the people faster-or more favorably-than community service. Ask yourself how your enterprise can be a “good neighbor” to your community. If you’re running a lawn care and gardening service, perhaps you can offer one season’s services at no charge to a needy charitable organization or nursing home in your area. Hundreds of people will hear about your work in the process. Volunteer for various community causes. If appropriate, you can step in during community emergency, offering products and services to help an organization or individuals in need. COUPONING. Americans are very coupon-conscious. Test the market: at what level will coupons increase the volume of various product or service lines? When you get some tentative answers, start distributing coupons that offer a discount on your services. Distribute them to area newspapers, on store counters, in door-to-door- mail packets (which can often be quite inexpensive), at the public library, at laundromats, at any location where people congregate. BADGES AND NOVELTIES. You can easily and inexpensively produce badges, bumper stickers, book covers, and other novelty items for distribution in your area. You can imprint your business name and the first names of the customers on many of these products at little cost and distribute them for free. Or you can tie your novelty program into a contest: once a month, you can offer a prize to any individual whose car happens to carry one of your bumper stickers or badges with peel-off coupons, redeemable at your place of business. CELEBRITY VISITS. With a bit of persistence, you may be able to arrange to have a local media celebrity, public official, or entertainment personally-even a fictitious cartoon character or clown-visit your service. The celebrity can sign autographs, read stories to children, perform cooking demonstrations, or perform any one of a hundred other traffic-building activities. CELEBRATE HOLIDAYS. You’ll probably want to celebrate major public holidays with special sales. But celebrate some of the offbeat holidays as well. Almost every business has a few little-known holidays. Ever hear of National Pickle Day, for instance? Or Cat Lovers Month? Once you find the “right” holiday, you can sponsor a special sale or special product arrange special media coverage of a holiday event. GO WHERE THE PEOPLE ARE. Can you open sales information booths at community fairs and festivals? This promotional technique can work for gift retailers, craftspeople, and personal service firms. If you have the people and the time, can you handle regional fairs or even trade shows? MAILING LISTS. Once you begin establishing a committed clientele, gather their names on a mailing list. Save the names from your mail orders and telephone inquiries. Eventually, you’ll be able to send product circulars or even catalogs to the folks on your list and you’ll be able to promise your products by mail. SCAVENGER HUNTS. If you want people to buy NOW, offer them an unbeatable deal. If they bring an old product-a small appliance, a book, whatever-to you, you’ll give them a worthwhile discount on a comparable new item. Or stage a general purpose scavenger hunt. Customers who bring in three canned goods for your community’s food bank will receive a discount on products purchased that day. PARTIES. Everyone loves a party. Why not celebrate the anniversary of your business or some special holiday by offering baked goods and beverages? If you’re running a service business, perhaps you can offer an open house or obtain a small banquet room in your community. Besides refreshments, be sure the place is brightly decorated. GREETING CARDS. Do you send out greeting cards to major customers or clients? Holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries make nice greeting card occasions. Greeting cards create enormous goodwill and keep your name in front of people. SEMINARS. In this information hungry age, people love to receive advice, especially about their personal needs and hobbies. If you sell health foods or run fitness classes, perhaps you can offer “wellness” seminars during lunchtime to your area’s business community. If you’re an interior decorator, perhaps you can offer one-hour decorating workshops to any group of ten people who will gather in someone’s home. If you’re running a printing business, perhaps you can offer tours and layout seminars at your plant. If you’re not pleased with your promotional efforts today or if you simply must increase your exposure among customers and prospects-it’s probably time to increase your publicity efforts. By all means, advertise in the media if you can or must. But don’t neglect your greatest promotional asset-your mind. Ponder the products, services, and events you can offer the community and devise a creative promotional strategy around them. You’ll have to invest a bit of time and energy in the project, but the payoff will be worth it. You’ll save hundreds-or even thousands-of advertising dollars and, better yet, you’ll travel a well-worn shortcut to profit.

Life is a sales job from beginning to end

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:42:04 +0000

Strange as it may seem, our life is made up of a series of sales presentations . Sales may not be your gig, but if you re the boss you re making presentations everyday. Be it a pitch to your Board, announcing a policy change to employees, selling an idea to your spouse, or just trying to win others over to your point of view you need to punch up your people skills for winning pitches. Like it or not we are all salesmen. Our lives are made up of a series of sales presentations , otherwise known as presenting one s self in the best light possible. Whether we re out for a job interview, trying for a raise, or just convincing our employees that a job must be accomplished you are making a presentation. To become masterful at it can be summed up in the acronym IPRESENT! I involve your audience Human nature is such that people support solutions that they help create, so involve them by allowing your audience to participate with questions or ideas. It goes without saying that to not involve key people is risky, because messages can be misunderstood. Your plans may be derailed before they begin if sufficient buy-in is lacking. Use lots of open-ended questions in your presentation to draw out the silent type. P prepare your audience Preparation is a key to success. Prepare your listeners to what s coming during or before your presentation. Try these pre-meeting tactics: Assign task-related pre-work. This could be pre-reading or study of a problem, and the preparations of possible solutions. An example could be, go and visit three kinds of accounts before the meeting. Make pre-meeting contacts with those invited by email, phone, or in person. You might want to try an informal survey to get people s position on the issues at hand. Remember support on key or controversial matters can be established ahead of time by lobbying, if you know where to lobby. R research your arsenal Do your research! People who make it look easy and are effective presenters have a hidden arsenal. This is an arsenal of up-to-date, organized material that can be accessed quickly in ready-to-use form when needed. They have the stats to back up their ideas, and they have a mental arsenal of stories, examples, jokes, and ice-breakers to use when needed. Your physical presentation could include tangible items relating to the issue such as recent articles clipped from newspapers or magazines, photographs, reports, and demonstration property. To become masterful in this art learn to maintain resources you can access for just the right thing at the right time. E explain Why? The next thing you must do is to explain why? The single most powerful thing you can do to convince your audience of something is to provide a convincing reason why they should do what you suggest or believe what you say. People want and need a clear WIIFM what s in it for me? to be able to react positively to what you want them to do. It s extremely important that you deliver a vision of benefits. Hearing the why won t automatically generate a yes to your proposition, but it ll open the door for receptivity to your idea. Knowing and accepting the why satisfies a basic need that we all have to understand the purpose of our actions. Use the words because or so that in your presentation and then finish the phrase. When your subject matter is controversial or likely to generate emotions, it is essential that your why s be tested in advance. Ask some people you trust or that are on your team to play devil s advocate to help you with your logic and arguments. These are just the first four points for making successful presentations. There are eight of them in total, and we ll look at the other four in my column next week. For now, let me leave you with this thought. Life is a sales job from beginning to end. From the moment that we discern how to get approval as children, winning friends at school, getting our first beau, getting our first (and subsequent) job, getting engaged and married, achieving our goals, and anything else you can think of in between we re selling ourselves or our ideas all along the way. Who said you weren t a salesperson? S stands for State (mental) Management. The mental state of the successful presenter must be congruent with the message. If you don t believe that, try giving a pep talk to your sales force when you re depressed it won t work! You must be aware of and manage your own mental state and that of your listeners or communication channels will not be open. I don t have space to elaborate on methods of doing this, but here are a few key hints. First, AAI act as if. Act the way you want to feel, it s amazing how this works. Use music to set the mood if necessary, dress the part, and reduce your anxiety by whatever method works for you. Remember that you re the one in charge, and presentation mastery isn t about being perfect it s about achieving your objective. E is for eliminating the unknowns. Fear of public speaking ranks high on most people s list of worst fears. You may find you re unusually nervous, develop poor voice tone or negative body language, and be unable to respond to audience feedback. Managing your anxiety permits you to focus on your audience and their needs. The basic approach to do this is the asking ourselves a list of what if? questions. Another way to overcome our fear is to take ownership of the situation. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Double check your notes, and prepare yourself. N is fudging a little by using the second letter of the word know as in kNow Your Audience. Whether it is one person or many that you are presenting to you must do three basic things: Meet their needs, reduce tension, and avoid mistakes. A good knowledge of the listeners will give you a chance to tailor your objectives to meet their needs. This also allows you to reduce the audience-presenter tension so they will focus on what you re saying. With a clear knowledge of your audience s views you ll be sensitive to potential hot buttons . T stands for Tailor Your Presentation Throughout . Boring listeners leads to missed objectives or total failure. You must be flexible and responsive to your audience. To do this you need to use techniques that will give you audience feedback; you must diagnose the cause of the problem you re addressing, and finally you must choose the solution to act upon. When you re presenting watch for non-verbal behavior such as clock-watching, foot-tapping, and cat-napping. When any of these are present get some feedback with, Is it too warm in here? or Should I pick up the pace? That breaks the attention or lack of, of the audience and brings them back to your talk. One important thing to remember is that the mind can absorb no more than the seat can endure. Sometimes a simple thing like taking a short stretch break will solve the problem. The techniques for achieving your most desired outcomes are at your fingertips, when you remember that life is a series of presentations.

Lecture Notes

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:00:05 +0000

IRRESISTIBLE QUERY LETTERS Test Your Idea: To lead to a sale, your query must convince the editor that you have a clear idea of what you plan to cover in the article, and what approach you re going to take. So before writing the letter, think your article idea through carefully, and picture yourself describing the article to a friend. Find Your Angle: Finding your angle is often a matter of narrowing your topic. A topic like Sports is far too general, narrow it to say, Table Tennis is better. Often, reducing the story to a single dimension e.g., focus on a key person, place, or event gives a salable angle. When your subject is popular, you must give the editor a fresh approach. One way is to take an idea like Overcoming Failure and give it a twist to something like Failure Can Be Good for You. It needn t be exotic to sell, something as mundane as New and Improved has worked by adding a new ingredient to the usual. Research Helps: While many queries can be written entirely from your own knowledge, a little research can pay big dividends by seducing the editor. Facts sell editors on an idea. Editors look for queries with many specifics: Don t just write that Last year millions of people suffered from yeast infections. Tell how many millions and why! Research both the topic and the markets you re aiming it at. A common reason for rejection is because of inadequate knowledge of the magazine. Shaping Your Raw Material: After you have the basics: the idea the slant/facts, and the market then you re ready to write your query. A good query starts strong, and never lets up until the editor is sold. Follow the two newspaper dictums; The five W s (who, what, where, when, why) which explains the story immediately, and the inverted pyramid which emphasized putting the most interesting information first. You ll lose the editor s interest if you save the best for last, and always remember EDITOR S CUT FROM THE BOTTOM UP! Page 2 3 Main Sections to a Query: The Lead Paragraph The Summary The Author s Bio. Each has a specific purpose: first, tell the editor what the story is, then why she/he should buy it, and finally who is going to write it. The Lead is aimed to hook the editor and make them want to continue reading. Once you ve aroused the editor s attention, move directly to a summary of the article. Summary – This section should convince the editor that you know where you want to go with the article; it should outline the points you plan to cover or provide factual information about your topic giving only enough to prove that your story is real. Here you can mention your sources. Tell the editor who ll you ll be talking to, and if experts are they on the cutting edge of today s technology. Also include here a working title for the article. Don t spend a lot of time trying to get a provocative headline, because titles are often changed by the editor before publication. Author s Bio is where you sell yourself as a writer to the editor now that you ve sold him/her on the idea. Don t be bashful; editors expect a bit of sell in the bio. There s nothing wrong with saying, I m highly qualified to write this article because if a convincing reason follows. Start your bio with your publishing credits, and include magazines similar to the one you re pitching if you can. -30-

Is Franchising Your Bag?

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:42:03 +0000

Are you wondering what the hottest franchising trends are? Much of the recent success in that area is traceable to two demographic trends: Americans are getting older and feeling pressed for time. Doesn t sound too bright, but it means booming business in franchising circles. Now I am by no means a Franchise Guru. I ve never owned one, worked for one, or even considered one and for good reasons. First, when I started my publishing and publicity business I wasn t flush financially enough to pay the freight on a franchise. Secondly, it seems too much like working for another corporate business to me. Things are done their way or no way, and you work for two you and the piece the company takes. That doesn t mean that it can t be your cup of tea, because many entrepreneurs love franchises. I m not going to expound as a franchise expert, but rather I ll give you the facts about the hottest ones to look at if you like franchises. Despite the status of the economy it seems the most stunning growth in franchises in 2004 has been in the senior-care segment. Seven senior-care companies ranked in the top 500 in Entrepreneur magazine have grown a total of 370 units in one year, and almost 39% in the past year. Experts say that despite the large increases, this market hasn t peaked yet. By 2010, 39 million Americans will be 65 or older, and that s almost 20% of the North American population. About 30% of non-institutionalized seniors live alone, per the Dept. of Health and Human Services Administration on Aging. Many of them need extra help at home or companionship. As the nation ages and boomers turn 60, this segment of the population will grow. Elder care will replace child care as the number one social issue, predicts Jeff Huber, vice president of Home Instead Senior Care a franchise that grew from 356 to 448 units this past year. The next hottest area is kids. Parents want their kids to have fun and be well-educated and will spend money to ensure this in good times and in bad. Children s products and services segment of franchises have grown steadily over the year and become one of the top 5 overall categories in term of unit size in 2004. What s changed? Spending on children is now being fueled not only by baby-boomers, but by Generation X a group that has $736 billion in spending power. Another change in the market in the past 25 years is the increase in dual-career families. According to some in the industry, this is an ideal time to enter the education sector of franchises for kids. Kids fitness programs are also growing. Caryn Burnier, franchise sales director with Stretch-N-Grow International, says they have added 50 units last year. We expect to see more children enrolled in fitness programs in the coming year, says Jerry Perch, vice president of sales/marketing for the 92-unit Kinderdance International Inc. franchise. Last, but not least, the tech industry is rebounding from its nose-dive in the past. This is because there is an increased dependence by people and businesses on their technology. People need advice on what to buy and what not to buy, and what is the proper solution to their particular need. Computer Moms International Corp., a training and support provider, has seen a shift in its client base since it started 10 years ago. The greatest demand for services from the Computer Moms group has shifted to the business market, and the group added 30 franchises last year. The experts claim that the demand for quality full-service training and tech support is vast now and expected to become greater. Following on the heels of those three areas are franchises in the area of Home Improvement, Fitness, Income Tax Preparation, Business Consulting, Specialty Ice Cream, and Coffee. So, if you re in the market for a franchise type business pay heed to the up-and-coming hot leaders and let somebody else go for the 7-Elevens.

MAKE YOUR OFFER IRRESISTABLE

admin — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:00:04 +0000

Since you re selling to human beings wouldn t it be great to know the five secrets that have the greatest influence on your customers? What I m about to share with you will make you the Svengali of Sales in your niche. I m going to put them in the order of use in the marketing process, but they can overlap or be switched around to fit your situation. What happens in nature when there is a vacuum? Right. There is an attempt to fill that void, and human nature also follows that law. Filling the void When someone does a person a favor or gives them something of value for free, this act provides an imbalance in the relationship. This creates a subconscious pressure on the recipient to give back in some way. This is what s known in marketing as filling the void. Reciprocation In marketing the word FREE has the most response of any word in the English language. That s why marketers use it over, and over again. Everybody likes something for free, don t you? Even though free means there is no obligation or cost, the recipient does feel obligated. If something of real value is given to the person, an imbalance is created a void in nature that needs to be filled. Maybe not immediately, but if that person has gotten great value and use from the gift, there will be a nagging sub-conscious motivation to reciprocate in some manner. You ll find that some people just don t seem to reciprocate, and it could be that they didn t appreciate the full value of your offer. This is why it s so important to make sure when you are offering a free gift with a promotion, that your customers are made aware of the full value of what they re receiving. What really makes this work in marketing, though, is that you make your free offer available when your customer takes action. Now it can be a very small one like filling out a customer card for you (which gives you their name, address, and email address), or accepting your product on a 30-day trial. Getting your customer to like you – Have you heard the phrase, if a customer knows, likes and trusts you then they ll buy from you . Well, you ve gotten them to know you with your free offer, the next step is to get them to like you. The quickest way I know to get someone to like you is for you to let them know that you like them (reciprocation, again). Now, not ALL people are going to like you and you re not going to like all your customers, but if you take this approach you ve a lot better odds of finding customers. When you re writing your ads and marketing letters always write as if they are a personal note to a real, live, breathing friend. Use plain talk as if you re talking to your best friend, and not hi-tech technobabble . Keep it simple! Trust I don t know about you, but when I hear someone say TRUST ME it reminds me of a snake oil salesman and makes me do anything but trust them. So how do you get your customers to trust you? Take a leadership role with them and tell them what they should do to take action and buy. You must be or present yourself as an Authority figure. An expert in your field and the only one they should buy from as proven by the endorsements of your other customers, their friends and neighbors. If your offer is made in a letter, than include some endorsements from others, mention articles written about you, books, articles, newsletters that you ve written, etc. It is interesting that most people don t want to make a decision, and it s better that you give them an action plan to say yes . Scarcity This is one persuader that really motivates humans to action, and you must create and manage this to your advantage in every offer you make. People want things that solve their problems or make them feel good about themselves that are of good quality. They want it even more if the quantity is limited in some way. Remember the law of supply and demand? If the demand for a product is high and the supply is low, then the price that s charged will be accepted readily be it high or low. (Sounds like buying gas for your car, doesn t it?) Even if you create the perception that there is a limited quantity available, a limited time frame for availability, or whatever you conceive to use, you ll find this a catalyst to action for your customer. Of course, it goes without saying that you always include a guarantee of some kind in your offers. I always like the no questions asked type of guarantee for 30, 60, 90 days or even a full year if it fits for you. With this you re emphasizing your credibility (trust) by saying you re going to be around for a while. I ve found that most times there are very few takers to the guarantee policy you offer, and if there is you don t want to keep an unhappy customer anyway. Be sure to include all five of these tips in all of your offers (ads, sales letters, presentations, etc.) and you ll see dramatic results and an increase in your business.

Only 10 Years to Get to the Start Gate!

admin — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:00:06 +0000

It seems hard to believe that it was in 1994 when we saw the first banner ad online that captured and monopolized our eyeballs. By the late 1990 s, dot-coms flush with venture capital cash, operated with a money is no object attitude and the hype knew no end. When the dot-com crash hit, it seemed that online advertising was a lost cause. Ad blockers killed the banner ads, and spam killed the e-mail campaigns. Users tuned out, and it seemed that marketers had killed the golden goose. But a funny thing has happened between then and now. Not only has online advertising and marketing endured, but it has emerged as an absolutely crucial part of today s marketing mix. Online marketing brings new levels of reach, targeting and accountability, and has moved into the mainstream. Online advertising has become the solution to marketing problems at a level that other media haven t been able to do. The numbers back this up as shown by IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers September report that online ad spending in the U.S. totaled $2.37 billion in the second quarter, a 42.7% increase over the same quarter last year. This shows the seventh consecutive quarter of growth, and the market today is growing at more than 20% per year. Companies are spending at a level that is really pretty interesting. Consider Ford Motor Co, Tom Green the advertising manager of its truck division just finished a new season of marketing campaigns. Mr. Green says, we gave digital as much thought and attention as any other medium. Look at the numbers, he says, 80% of people who buy a Ford vehicle go to our Web site first. Half of all truck customers use online shopping sites. You d be crazy as a marketer not to take this medium seriously. That much attention and spending is the fact that Internet usage is now firmly in the mainstream and broadband usage has grown by leaps and bounds. According to Forrester Research, 64% of U.S. households are online, with nearly 20% or 23.1 million homes, using broadband. Nielsen/NetRatings, which measures individual users rather than households, reported that 51% of July users connected to the Internet by broadband vs. 49% by narrowband, an industry first. Today the Internet is everywhere and when it s not, people notice and demand that it be even more available. Online advertising has matured and it enables marketers to target consumers in a fine-tuned fashion creating highly personalized user experience. It s as effective in getting across a communications and branding message as any other medium. Online advertising also allows two-way interaction between advertisers and their targets, providing a real-time feedback loop that s invaluable. A marketer can establish and maintain a two-way dialogue with a consumer online, and no other form of advertising can do this as effectively. For large advertisers such as Procter & Gamble Co., online lets them interact with groups of consumers more directly than ever before. This is demonstrated by being able to engage with a million consumer database on a monthly basis through their Club Olay program. Online advertising supports an almost endless variety of messaging formats, from banner ads and e-mail messages to more elaborate interactive vehicles and microsites. It s the capability to combine the motion and animated visuals of television with close-up and personal interaction. The results of online advertising campaigns can be measured precisely, making publishers accountable for the promises they make and marketers accountable to management for the success of their programs. Yet even though online advertising has asserted its strengths, real-world marketers have made online just another medium in their standard marketing mix. More than anything, what online provides mainstream advertisers is another point of contact with the consumer at various stages of the buying cycle. So where is the evolution of online advertising today? It s been a crazy 10 years, but marketers say we re closer to the beginning of learning how to take advantage of this new medium. Online ads will get better targeted, with new concepts opening up new opportunities to marketers. We should see online ads becoming richer and more evocative, with animation and streaming video. If history is a guide, there will be ups and downs and the hype meter will spike at highs and lows, but the past has set the stage for future growth. Marketers are on the cusp of a big trend now, made possible by the familiarity and true use of the internet as an advertising medium. This is the starting point, where the future growth in online advertising is just beginning to come into view. Where will you go from here?

THE SECRETS OF INTERNET AND ONLINE MARKETING

admin — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:00:05 +0000

You probably already use the Online World for many things. Whether you use it for entertainment, research, sending E-mail to friends and family, or just discussing numerous subject topics with others. Of all the things you can do online, there is one that you should definitely know how to do. MARKET A BUSINESS ONLINE! That’s right, with the power of the Online World to reach millions of people, Online Marketing is definitely an awesome tool that no business should be without. The simple fact that advertising is practically FREE. The ability to get the results of thousands of dollars in free publicity is practically unheard of in business today. Only recently have more and more people figured out how to utilize the ever exploding Online World to market their business efforts. Think about it, there is probably no business in existence that could not benefit from free publicity! And the fact that properly utilizing free advertising raises net profits to unbelievable levels! Using any or all of the major online services, or the INTERNET, can help you market your business efforts. Let’s start with plain-old advertising. On America Online, for example, they will let you place classified advertisements for FREE! They have a variety of classifications to choose from. By placing these small free ads you can generate some very quality leads that can turn into sales. Or if you are a really good marketer you could sell something straight from your free ad. Wouldn’t that be something, using the actual free ad to do all of the selling. The other services offer free advertising from time to time. When they do charge for classified ads it is usually very inexpensive, and still a great deal considering how many people those ads can reach. When you place any advertisements you should always “code” your ads. This means put something in each individual ad that will tell you, if you get any business from it, which ad it came from. This way, you will probably find that some sections are better producers than others, and you will want to concentrate on these sections and not the ones that weren’t making any money. To code an ad you could make them request a certain “report” for more information. You should give each report a different code for each ad. Such as: “ask for report #1tv” , this way you would know that this request came from the ad on television, for sale category, and so forth. If they send you an order straight from the ad, make them give you an order #, which would be different for each ad. THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ADVERTISING ONLINE ARE NOT USING THESE AD CODES!!! THIS IS A MAJOR MARKETING MISTAKE!!! By not tracking exactly which ads are making money, they are wasting their time by continually placing ads in “loser” categories. The actual code can be anything you want to assign to it. ALWAYS keep track of every ad you place. Make a note of what it said, where and when it was placed. You will be pleasantly surprised when you analyze your “ad data” and see some positive trends developing. Just repeat these trends and it will help you to make more money! How would you like to find a name list of several hundred (or even thousand) people who might be interested in the particular product or service you are selling based on their jobs or interests? Wouldn’t that be great!? Well, you can! And the Online Services supply this service as a part of your regular membership. This little unknown tool is called the “Member Directory!” You can do searches in the directory for other users with certain characteristics. For example, if you were selling fishing equipment, you could do a search by “fishing.” All of the people that were registered in the directory and had listed fishing as one of their hobbies would show up on that search list. You could now send each one of those people an e-mail message telling them about your product or service, it’s just like using a mailing list, but you have no postage! (*Make sure you check with your Online service to see if they allow unsolicited E-mail.) You can also get the names of several prospects by doing some “browsing” in the different topic forums. Using the earlier example of looking for people who fish, you could look under sports until you found a discussion on fishing. You could then take note of the users’ names that were participating in the discussions. You could do the same thing on the INTERNET with one of the many newsgroup topics that they have. The bottom line is that you “test” and record the results of your Online Marketing efforts. Then just repeat the steps that are making you money and expand on them to reach more people. Doing simple research on the Internet. The Internet has several mailing lists that are dedicated to marketing on the Internet. You will also find hundreds of articles on the World Wide Web. By searching one of the WWW search engines like Webcrawler you can find all the information you can read. Use search strings such as: “online marketing”, “internet advertising”, “selling online”, and so on. You can also find many books on the subject at your local bookstore or being advertised online.

Internet Marketing Introduction

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:00:17 +0000

Today, most people access the internet for information, products and services. All entrepreneurs have turned their attention to the World Wide Web because it reaches so many people so quickly. Sales are increased dramatically and expenses are not necessarily smaller, but different. If a company had a small shop in a rural town, they would have employees and other expenses. If this same company had an online business, they would probably not have as many employees on the clock. They may have the same amount of expenses but they would be different. There would be advertising costs, web design costs, search engine optimization costs, affiliate or joint venture costs, among others. Nevertheless, selling products or services online has become very popular for many new entrepreneurs ranging in all ages, even as young as 15. If you run a small business online where you sell an information product, such as an eBook, you can write the eBook yourself as a guru on the topic. For example, let s say you studied religion in college and got a PH.D in this subject. You write up an eBook explaining a drastic point of view concerning scriptures. You make sure it is information packed and very good quality. You sell it for 14.95 dollars to whoever is interested and you get their email address so you can forward them new updated info. You now have an email list so you can keep in contact with your buyers and possibly sell them other products in the future. You keep track of all your sales, you take care of customer service, and you handle everything. Guess what? You keep 100 percent of the profits. Obviously, some companies are MUCH more complicated than that. But you get the picture; online marketing is a piece of cake. All you need is an idea and an internet marketing business plan of action. In other words, you do not need millions to start up a company on the internet. All you need is a great idea and the drive to do most of the work yourself.

INFO-LOADING” CAN INCREASE YOUR AD’S PULLING POWER

admin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:42:03 +0000

There are many schools of thought on how to write a successful direct-response ad, letter or brochure. Some say you need to be subtle, some say be harsh, some say be round-about, some say be direct. There is one technique, though, that is coming to the forefront as one of the most successful to employ. Info-Loading is the style of overloading an advertisement with information about your product or service. The theory is, you give the customer more information than they’d ever want on your product/service, and they’ll feel more confident about you and what you offer. Also, the customer that actually reads through it all is the one who’s interested enough to buy what you offer. The good news is, it works! Here’s how to do it. Say you’re planning a quarter-page display ad in a magazine. Instead of leaving a lot of white space, so it looks open, and instead of putting pictures in to catch the eye, fill the whole space with text! Load it with as much information as you can fit in, without making it unreadable. To prevent it from looking like a grey blur when the reader’s eyes scan through the page, put a bold, black box around the ad, a bold headline, and emphasize important words and phrases with bold print. You can do the same thing with a mailing. Put together a four-page sales letter loaded with copy, then add a brochure/flyer that re-emphasizes the important points in even greater detail. A few cautions with this technique. First, make sure you actually have something to say! We are so conditioned to being economical with our words in advertising that it’ll be hard to info-load without feeling repetitious. Instead of rambling on about features, tell customers every single benefit they’ll get from your product/service. BENEFIT is the important word. Give Info-Loading a try. Depending on your audience and what you’re trying to sell, you may find that info-loading can load more sales into your bank account!

Increasing Sales

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:00:12 +0000

Here s the steps to increasing sales: Qualify Your Prospect Maximizing your time is important, so the faster you can determine if you ve got a potential customer the better. Determine who the Decision Maker is, do you have a good rapport with him/her, is their a problem you can solve or do they know there s a problem? You may have the greatest hammer in the world, but if all this prospect uses is screws you can t sell your product. Gain Trust Price and product benefits are obvious buying factors, but less obvious ones are intuition, impressions, and rapport. Prospects are just as apt to buy for emotional reasons as practical ones, so you need to show them you are most like them, you re sincere, you keep your word, and are honest. If you say you ll see them on Tuesday, make sure you keep your word. Don t make a promise you don t intend on keeping. Define Your Unique Position Your product or service provides your customer with a specific benefit or group of benefits. Make sure it isn t the same as your competition. Why does your company stand out? Let them know the difference. LISTEN! Most salespeople are guilty of overselling , and often miss the sentence from the prospect that says, You re right. We ll take it. Listen to your prospect as he answers open-ended questions, and even listen to his tone and inflections of speech. Uncover the problem, and then provide the solution and stop talking. Stay Focused Too many small business owners spend all their time putting out fires instead of making sales. Spend at least 60% of your time trying to produce revenue. The sales window of 9am-5pm is small, so plan your selling time accordingly. Schedule non-sales generating duties outside this time. Polish Your Presentation Don t take your sales presentation for granted. Practice your pitch. You ve spent a lot of money perfecting your product or service, take the time to develop a comfortable, confident, effective presentation. Do Your Homework Research your prospects so that you can ask better questions, show better under-standing of his business, and be more prepared and confident before your meet. Learn From Success Many entrepreneurs have success in one industry with one type of client, and then don t focus on getting more of the same type. If you ve been successful selling to doctors and publishers, call on other doctors and publishers and refer to the successes you ve had. Prospects will trust you more if they know you have previous experience with others in their field. You also spend less time establishing your credibility with them. These are just a few of more than 50 or more ways to increase your sales revenue, but they are valuable in helping you to accomplish one very important goal TO SELL THE MOST PRODUCT OR SERVICE IN THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME. Remember, the only difference between an average baseball player and an All-Star is just one more hit in every 10 at bats. Step up to the plate and sell, sell, sell.