Business Minded Studio

Step Over Four Hurdles and Move Your Business Forward

2007-07-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

Four obstacles exist in the mind of every customer (sometimes at a sub-conscious level). They must all be overcome before a business relationship can move forward.

It's vital that you surmount a series of resistance points on your way to establishing a customer.
Your obstacles are: 1- No TRUST for you on the part of your visitor. 2- No NEED for what you have. 3- No perception that you can HELP them. 4-They are in no HURRY to act.

The old adage says, "by the inch it's a cinch", so let's take these as they come.

When you're selling something online, you are a stranger. Your challenge is build instant acceptance on the part of your website visitor.

Giving away something of value that provides a real benefit to your visitor melts away dis-trust very quickly. There are more unknowns than there are knowns in the reader's mind when they are looking at your website and deciding whether or not to accept your offer.

Giving before you try to take (sell) something is a great resistance-buster. An example of a very valuable free gift you could offer is to produce a review of a popular and good-selling internet-based business plan.
Producing a report on a popular subject will have an instantaneous effect on the level of trust you attract. No trust quickly loses its power when you provide this kind of free information. You are now ready for obstacle number two which is NO NEED.

No-need is quickly surmounted when you report on a product with strong testimonials. When your visitor finds that you have given them something free that others have praised, they begin to pay close attention to what you say. Free information of high value acts to enhance your visitor's buying frame of mind.
Once you begin to elaborate on the virtues of your product, your site visitor starts thinking about the issue of (NO HELP) which is actually obstacle number three.

The mind-set of NO HELP is a stubborn one and hangs in there even though you have built up a good amount of TRUST with your site visitor. Simply direct your reader's attention to statements from folks who found out for themselves how the product made a significant change in some area of their lives. By now you should be getting a feel for how helpful and easy it is for you to establish yourself as an affiliate marketer for a useful product.

A huge number of tasks and start-up challenges get done for you when you start out as an affiliate marketer for a popular product. You also benefit by having access to testimonial statements from happy customers.
Moreover, you can start faster and easier when you start as an affiliate. Also, blasting through the hurdles is much easier as an affiliate for a product than it is otherwise.

You are almost there. Three hurdles are out of the way but you are still left with one more. Getting someone 'off the dime' and settling on a decision is your fourth obstacle. This individual is plagued with inaction and the attitude that there is NO HURRY. Your customer could very well believe that your product and your offer will 'always' be there available for them at some point in the future.

It is your job to dispel this notion. Indeed, it could very likely not be available in the future, even the very near future.

Additionally, you can use the concept that the product may indeed be available for the foreseeable future, but the price could well be quickly climbing very oon.

Also, in all reality, the product itself will go away at some point and you won't be promoting it any longer.
Use both the notion of approaching scarcity together with the possibility of loss to effectively contain the obstacle of NO HURRY.

The goal and focus of all this discussion is not so much to make a single particular sale. Rather, you should have your mind on eventually building a double opt-in list of RESPONSIVE subscribers for your future use. You can build a responsive list of loyal subscribers if you apply yourself and follow the concepts outlined in this article. Practice and apply the principles described in this article to gain the lifetime loyalty of your own list of responsive subscribers.

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

The Magic Move to Being in Business

2007-07-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

Lots of entrepreneurs that I speak to spend a lot of time “being busy.” They’re attending meetings, answering emails and a ton of activity that fills up their schedule. They have great ideas in the middle of it all, but are so overwhelmed they fall into “productivity paralysis” and are just plain perplexed about how to really get to that next level. There’s a magic move to being productive and profitable in business that no one is talking about.

Lots of entrepreneurs that I speak to spend a lot of time "being busy." They're attending meetings, answering emails and a ton of activity that fills up their schedule. They have great ideas in the middle of it all, but are so overwhelmed they fall into "productivity paralysis" and are just plain perplexed about how to really get to that next level. There's a magic move to being productive and profitable in business that no one is talking about.

Before we get to the "Magic Move," we have to first acknowledge that as an Entrepreneur you should always be striving to work on your business rather than just in your business. You open up the energy around this by setting up systems. This approach allows you to be set up for growth and actually implement all those fabulous ideas you have. For example, if you're an acupuncturist instead of only treating patients all day you can explore ways to treat and reach more people at once-leveraging your time and your income. Strong systems in your business operations will create that space. I have entrepreneurs I coach who either set up or strengthen their systems as a must. For the sake of this article, we accept that as a given. Now, step into the magic move-the one that has you in joy with everything you're doing, rather than just trying to catch your breath and stay one step ahead (or filing you your time with "stuff" because you secretly feel lost about what to do next).

Often, I've found that even when you have the tightest of systems, you can find yourself feeling like something is missing. Your energy is a bit blah and you don't feel jazzed to create. Even though the systems are crankin', you feel stuck. Just about every time I hear this from an entrepreneur, I know the magic move is missing; there isn't anywhere in the systems that allows for time to just be. Incorporating this move makes all the difference in the world and it's the one that is most resisted (including myself at times). Interesting, right?
Let's get clear about exactly what I mean by "time to just be." I'm not talking about time to watch TV or be with family and friends-although this is important and should be part of your systems, too. I'm talking about time to really connect to that part of yourself which is a direct connection to divine, inspired action. These are the ideas, solutions, and "how tos" that cannot be conceived of, created, or tapped into when you are busy "doing" and "going 24-7." And it's the powerful, magic move that no one in business is talking about. Frankly, I believe it's because they're scared to.

Traditional business doesn't operate from a place of stillness. The battle cry is, "if you're not in motion, you're losing money!" Meanwhile, money is being left on the table everywhere because folks are rushing by and too busy to see it. Even all the latest buzz about the Law of Attraction is filled with insistence to, "use this tool, this exercise, this strategy." Be sure to understand, these are very helpful, but the point of them is often lost; to bring us to that deep place of knowing that comes from being able to be.

Every time I've coached a client around this magic move more money has appeared. I have one client who just created $4,500 in a half day. The inspiration to pursue this means would never have appeared had she just still been going, going, going. It works.

Call To Action:

Start by scheduling some "be" time. Just take it and see what happens.
Write down anything that comes to you.

Let it go and then return to it a week later. Mark what that experience is like (you might be surprised what happened in the week between!).

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

No CASH Affiliate marketing

2007-07-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

Building a home based affiliate business with the right resources.

Maybe the single greatest part about affiliate marketing is the incredibly low initial investment you need to start earning money for yourself. All you really need is a website.
If you do your research you can even find affiliate sites that provide the website! There are so many FREE programs out there that will walk you though basic web design, even if you know nothing about it, you can be up and running in the span of a day. All that’s left at this point is finding an affiliate marketing program to subscribe to.

Here are a few tips about starting up your affiliate marketing campaign today!

There are tens of thousands of affiliate marketing programs you can subscribe to. The list is essentially limitless. An important piece of advice, though, is that if an affiliate marketing program wants you to pay money to sign up, you might want to think twice. Unless the initial investment is very small, there are many other choices that you could make. You see, almost all affiliate marketing programs are FREE! That’s right, you read that right. FREE! And not only that, but some of the big time programs will even train you and give you tips on the right keywords to put on your webpage so random web surfers will find you, click on your link, buy a product and earn you money! Unless you really want to be part of an affiliate marketing program that charges money, don’t do it. There are thousands that are free.

Don’t use a low-quality internet provider. This can be a tough choice for those looking at keeping their costs at zero or as close to zero as possible. But your local full Internet Service Provider is going to do a better job of hosting your new money making website then some free site that crashes all the time. Your new web site is a money-making machine for you, don’t trust it to a company that isn’t going to do everything they can to make sure it’s up and running 24/7. You probably pay for an internet connection in your home already, and with your basic Internet account, you get web space. Use it and rest easy knowing that your website is in good hands.

As you can see, there are a few ins and outs to affiliate marketing that everyone needs to know. But the key here is the fact that you can earn money with almost no work involved. Just make a website, write some snappy content and set up your links and then sit back, relax and count your money.

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

Five No-Cost Marketing Tips

2007-07-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

Are there ways to market your business that will not cost you a fortune? How can you get the word out without driving your company into a financial black hole?

Truth is most marketing does take money, but there are some low-cost and no-cost options that you can put into action that will help you to get the word out about your products and service. While these ideas will not cost you a lot of money they will cost you time, so prepare for that.

These are fantastic ideas for the company that is just getting started. They also work! Choose two out of the five and move forward on them this week. Once you begin to see that in fact these promotional ideas can bring you business your momentum will build and drive you to pick two more.

Network at events. Go to Chamber of Commerce meetings, BNI Group meetings, and other organizational meetings that will be attracting your "ideal" client.

Gather business cards. Get as many as you can and then begin to phone and email to follow up. Do this immediately while you are still fresh in their mind. If they cannot use your services, ask them if they know of someone who can and get their contact information.

Attend public meetings. At every public meeting, make a commitment to say something that could be useful to those that are attending. This is a great way to not only share you knowledge and help others, but it also puts you in the eye of those who could use your services.

Create a "useful" handout. A handout that when given to a recipient they keep because it has value. For example with my business I have one entitled the "Top Ten Marketing Tactics Your Competition Wish They Knew." Make sure that you include your name, phone number, email address, website information and your 30 second commercial that tells the recipient about your business.

Create joint-ventures. Find colleagues and business associates whose business compliments yours and do joint promotions. For example I do joint-ventures with a copywriter and graphic designer. Who could you partner with?

Write letters to editors of local newspapers and business publications.Make them interesting and newsworthy. You'll be surprised at how often a good letter will get printed. Do not forget to include your contact information and website address.

By committing to one of these items on a weekly basis within one month you will see your business gain recognition and business. You can get the word out there without spending hundreds of dollars.

Sources : marketing.about.com
From : Laura Lake

Mind Over Marketing Matter

2007-07-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

What does mental energy have to do with marketing: Anything at all? You might be surprised to find out…

Does mental energy have anything to do with marketing? Do you believe in mind over matter? We have all heard about people healing their illnesses miraculously by a mere thought or the elderly saying that staying young is all about one’s state of mind. But what about business transactions – in specific your marketing campaign?

Yeah, so what about that perfectly run campaign – I mean one that started with marketing surveys that found the right “button” that your specific target market would respond to. One where the very best copywriters and graphic designers worked their magic and the campaign hit the target market repeatedly and consistently. Those marketing actions seem to call for a good return on investment, right?
Sure, it does, but there can be variables that determine another outcome that doesn’t have anything to do with the nuts and bolts of the campaign. Huh? What am I talking about? Am I talking about YOU and YOUR outlook of either being positive or negative? Yes, I am.

One’s mental outlook can have a huge effect on one’s marketing campaign – or their business for that matter. Many times in business I have spoken to entrepreneurs who have fixed ideas about what will work and what won’t. They just ‘know’ something will bomb – and guess what? It does. And then I talk to other business owners who have no preconceived considerations about whether a proven technique will work, and bingo – they meet success!

I will give you an example. We had a client – actually it was a friend of an employee and this employee was trying to help him expand his business. He had so many problems! He didn’t have enough patients coming in the door to bring him the income he needed and complained that the insurance companies were to blame. After all, it was the nasty insurance companies that were penalizing him by drastically cutting his fees, but at the same time sending tons of patients to him. And he didn’t have enough private-paying patients coming in to warrant dropping the insurance program. What was he to do? “Market,” I said!

Long story short – we tried to help him. But the guy had soooo many considerations about why his practice would not fix or grow. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to practice anymore! And to my employee’s dismay, no matter what we did to help this guy, it never worked. What did we do? Well, for one I designed his campaign, my VP Marketing wrote and designed the look and feel of it and we marketed to an upscale target market that was the exact demographics of the people that bought the most from him. Shoot – we even gave him the friends and family discount. And the more we helped him, the more abysmal the results were and the more ‘right’ he was. Tweaking and polishing the campaign wouldn’t even budge the results. He was one of these guys that shrugs his shoulders, shakes his head and claims he’s done everything he’s been told with a sad ‘I told you so’ face on. I generally run from these types. But since it was a close friend of my employee’s I really sunk my teeth into it and it was amazing the resistance I’d get from this doctor. And that resistance and outlook in general causes him all sorts of trouble in his personal life come to find out.

Do you see yourself in that doctor somewhere? Well, ask yourself – do you want your business to grow? He didn’t. And if you don’t want it to grow, why not? List out the reasons why you wouldn’t want it to expand and really take a look at them. Do they even make sense when you examine them? It may be little considerations that you don’t want to make more money because you’d have to pay more in taxes or child support. Or, you worry about being able to control a larger number of staff. Or you think that being bigger would make it harder for you to spend more time with your family.

I have had all those considerations and more. Believe me when I say that owning your own business and moving it through its growing pains is not a walk in the park. It takes guts and many times you feel there is no glory – but there is. All those considerations you have about not being able to grow your business have answers if you look for them. But you’ve got to have the right attitude. Positive wins over negative. Every time.

I started with nothing and no capital investments if any kind to grow my business – and I did it with no formal education either. How did I do it? I learned something valuable along the way that made all the difference in the world to me in being able to really believe I could grow my business and then really being able to do it. I found the Hubbard Management System which is a business methodology that teaches entrepreneurs and executives how to solve those hard-to-solve problems that seem insurmountable.
There’s this one exercise that I was taught that really worked. I will tell you how to do it and you can see for yourself if it works for you. Ready? Here’s goes:

Write down any and everything where you feel you are not operating from a point of control of in your business – in other words, where do you feel more affected by things than you are able to rationally control them?

Now look at each of those points, one after the other, and start writing down where you can be in control of those things.

Somewhere along the way your viewpoint will broaden, you will start figuring things out and start gaining control over your business.

Try it. It works – for the main reason it gets you to start being in control of your own mental outlook and starts getting you to be cause over your own difficulties rather then the effect of them. And that is what entrepreneurship is all about, right? Being in charge and overcoming obstacles to live that American dream – or whatever dream you want to live.

So next time your marketing campaign is not working and you have tried everything you can imagine, i.e., surveying your target market, tweaking the design, editing the copy, handling your employees so they aren’t chasing off business, etc. ad infinitum) - don’t be afraid to get a bit introspective and look at what your own viewpoints may be doing that is causing the failed results. And as an aside, watch out for naysayers who bring a negative attitude into your fold – they can have a “less than positive” impact on your results as well and make you feel like things are doomed or even worse, impossible. But then again, you can do something about them too!!!!

For every door that shuts, another one opens. You just have to look for it!

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

The e-Marketing Plan - Brief Overview and Working Scheme

2007-07-19T02:05:00.000-07:00

I. Summary of a marketing planThe marketing planning (concretized in the marketing plan) is an essential organizational activity, considering the hostile and complex competitive business environment. Our ability and skills to perform profitable sales are affected by hundreds of internal and external factors that interact in a difficult way to evaluate. A marketing manager must understand and build an image upon these variables and their interactions, and must take rational decisions.

Let us see what do we call a "marketing plan"? It is the result of the planning activity, a document that includes a review of the organization's place in the market, an analysis of the STEP factors as well as a SWOT analysis. A complete plan would also formulate some presumptions on why we think the past marketing strategy was successful or not. The next phase shall present the objectives we set, together with the strategies to achieve these objectives. In a logical sequence, we will further need to evaluate the results and formulate alternative plans of action. A plan would consist in details of responsibilities, costs, sales prognosis and budgeting issues.
In the end, we should not forget to specify how the plan (or plans) will be controlled, by what means we will measure its results.
We will see how to build the marketing plan, what is its structure: after we will see how to build the traditional marketing plan, we will take a look at the e-marketing plan and see how the unique features of the internet will require some changes in the approach of writing a marketing plan.

But, before we continue, we must understand and accept that steps of the marketing plan are universal. It is a logical approach of the planning activity, no matter where we apply it. The differences you meet from a plan to another consist in the degree of formality accorded to each phase, depending on the size and nature of the organization involved. For example, a small and not diversified company would adopt less formal procedures, because the managers in these cases have more experience and functional knowledge than the subordinates, and they are able to achieve direct control upon most factors. On the other hand, in a company with diversified activity, it is less likely that top managers have functional information in a higher degree than the subordinate managers. Therefore, the planning process must be formulated to ensure a strict discipline for everyone involved in the decisional chain.

II. The general marketing plan

The classical marketing plan would follow the following scheme of 8 stages:
1. Declaring the mission: this is the planning stage when we establish the organizational orientations and intentions, thus providing a sense of direction. In most cases, this is a general presentation of the company's intentions and almost has a philosophic character.
2. Establishing current objectives: it is essential for the organization to try to determine with preciseness the objectives to be reached. These objectives, in order to be viable, must be SMART. SMART is an acronym and stands for "Specific", "Measurable", "Attainable", "Realistic" and "Timed". The objectives must also convey the general organizational mission.
3. Gathering information: this stage is based on the concept of marketing audit. After performing the audit of the macro-environment by analyzing the STEP factors (social, technologic, economic and politic), we should turn the focus upon the immediate extern environment (the micro-environment) and analyze the competitive environment, the costs and the market. Finally, we will conclude with the SWOT analysis, by this way we will have a general view upon the internal environment compared to the external one. The SWOT analysis combine the two perspectives, from the inside and from the outside, because the Strengths and the Weaknesses are internal issues of an organization, while the Opportunities and Threads come from the outside.
4. Re-formulating objectives: after the close examination of data gathered in the previous stage, sometimes it is needed to re-formulate the initial objectives, in order to address all the issues that might have come up from the previous stage. The distance between the initial objective and the re-formulated objective will be covered by appropriate strategies. We must ensure the re-formulated objective is SMART as well.
5. Establishing strategies: several strategies are to be formulated, in order to cover the distance between what we want to achieve and what is possible to achieve, with the resources at our disposal. As we would usually have several options, we should analyze them and chose the one with more chances to achieve the marketing objectives.
6. Plan of actions: consists in a very detailed description of the procedures and means to implement the actions we want to take. For example, if the strategy implies a raise in advertising volume, the plan of actions should establish where the advertisements will be placed, the dates and frequency of the advertising campaigns, a set of procedures to evaluate their effectiveness. The actions we plan to take must be clearly formulated, measurable, and the results must be monitored and evaluated.
7. Implementation and control: consist in the series of activities that must be performed in order to run the marketing plan in accordance to the objectives set by the marketer. At this stage, it is critical to gain the support of all members if the organization, especially when the marketing plan is due to affect the organization from its grounds.
8. Performance measurement: constitutes the last but not the less important stage of the marketing plan, since we can achieve only what we can measure. In order to measure the performances achieved through the marketing plan, we need to constantly monitor each previous stage of the plan.
The marketing plan that has a feedback cycle, from 8th stage back to the 4th. That is because sometimes during the planning process, we might need to perform stages 4 to 8 several times before the final plan can be written.

III. The e-marketing plan

The e-marketing plan is built exactly on the same principles as the classical plan. There is no different approach, but there might be some formal differences given by the uniqueness of the internet environment. Many of these differences come from the necessity to ensure a high rate of responsiveness from the customers, since the e-world is moving faster and requires faster reaction from its companies, compared to the traditional offline marketplace.
Even though it is perfectly acceptable and is a common practice to use the 8-stage classic model for the e-marketing plan as well, you might want to consider the simplified version proposed by Chaffey, who identifies four major steps to build the e-marketing plan:
1. Strategic analysis: consists in continuous scanning of the macro- and micro-environment. The accent should fall on the consumers' needs that change very rapidly in the online market, as well as on surveying the competitors' actions and evaluating the opportunities offered by new technologies.
2. Defining strategic objectives: the organization must have a clear vision and establish if the media channels will complement the traditional ones, or will replace them. We must define specific objectives (don't forget to check if they are SMART!) and we must also specify the contribution of the online activities to the organization’s turnover.
3. Formulating strategies - we do that by addressing the following essential issues:
- develop strategies towards the target markets;
- positioning and differentiating strategies;
- establish priorities of online activities;
- focus attention and efforts on CRM and financial control;
- formulate strategies for product development;
- develop business models with well-established strategies for new products or services, as well as pricing policies;
- necessity for some organizational restructuring;
- changes in the structure of communication channels.
4. Implementing strategies: includes careful execution of all necessary steps to achieve established objectives. It could refer re-launching of a website, promo campaigns for a new or rewritten site, monitoring website efficiency and many more.
Note: a common strategy to achieve e-marketing objectives is the communication strategy. The steps to built a coherent communication plan will be presented within a further article.

IV. The e-marketing plan (sample titles)

1. Executive Summarya. overview upon present conjuncture;b. key aspects of the strategic e-marketing plan.
2. Situational Analysisa. characteristics of the e-market;b. possible factors of success;c. competitors’ analysis;d. technological factors;e. legal factors;f. social factors;g. possible problems and opportunities.
3. The e-Marketing Objectivesa. product profile;b. target market;c. sales objectives.
4. The e-Marketing Strategiesa. product strategies;b. price strategies;c. promotion strategies;d. distribution strategies.
5. Technical Issuesa. website content;b. website "searcheability";c. logging security (for customers and staff);d. customer registration procedure;e. multimedia;f. autoresponders;g. order forms and feedback forms;h. access levels to online resources;i. credit card transactions;j. website hosting;k. website publishing;l. technical staff (size, requirements)
6. Appendix
7. Bibliography

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Create Your Marketing Machine to Plan for Marketing Success

2007-07-19T01:48:00.000-07:00

The answer to push-and-pray marketing is to plan your marketing in advance: to sit down and create a Marketing Machine so that your marketing runs smoothly and effortlessly all year long. Creating a year-round plan for marketing can really improve the number of sales that you'll be able to make, and keep a steady stream of clients and income coming in. There are several things to consider when creating your Marketing Machine:

Do you ever feel like you're constantly running around, trying to get your marketing materials put together and out the door? Are you frazzled by the marketing process, and driving your writer, designer, or printer absolutely nuts? Is your "plan" to just pick one new idea every now and then to implement? Or are you constantly hopping on the latest marketing idea, and throwing away your time and money with your efforts?You're not alone; most small businesses have the same approach to marketing. The result is marketing that's not cohesive; it's marketing using the "push-and-pray" method - you just create marketing pieces here and there, and then hope for new clients and sales to come rushing in. When you're busy, you just forget or put off your marketing entirely; then, when you finish all of your client projects, you panic, push out some new marketing materials, and hope for the best.
The answer to push-and-pray marketing is to plan your marketing in advance: to sit down and create a Marketing Machine so that your marketing runs smoothly and effortlessly all year long. Creating a year-round plan for marketing can really improve the number of sales that you'll be able to make, and keep a steady stream of clients and income coming in. There are several things to consider when creating your Marketing Machine:
Consistency and repetition are two of the most important things to planning your marketing. Experts say that you have to make 6 to 12 "first" impressions on a potential client before you'll be remembered. So make sure to set up your Marketing Machine to include many marketing pieces per year, evenly distributed throughout the year (see "Timing," below) and presented in many different ways (see "Format," below).
You should also make sure to have consistent and repetitive copy and design elements throughout your materials. Using some of the same text selling points across all of your marketing materials helps increase memorability. And making sure the look-and-feel of your materials is also consistent, with a well-designed and well-established Visual Vocabulary, will make the pieces of your Marketing Machine look like a well-planned, professional, and unified set, instead of a disjointed mess, just slapped together.
Format is the way that you're delivering your marketing materials. Marketing can be presented in many formats:

• Printed materials, like stationery, brochures, postcards, and datasheets
• Online materials, like your website
• Digital materials, like Word templates, email signatures, and PDF files
• Written materials, like articles and press release
• Meeting and presentation materials, like PowerPoint presentations, presentation folders, proposal covers, and leave-behind materials like brochures or other marketing pieces.
• Follow-up materials, like eZines or online newsletters, offline newsletters, sales letters, and thank-you cardsIt's important to match the media that you're marketing in to your target audience to get great results from your Marketing Machine.
For example, if your audience is highly technical, marketing online is probably a good idea. But if you're selling to people who rarely use computers, printed media would be a better direction to take.

Timing includes making sure that you market consistently throughout the year. But there are some other factors to consider when setting up your Marketing Machine.
Make sure that you set up your Marketing Machine so that you have plenty of time to create your materials and promotions. Consider working materials in "off times" for your business, such as the holiday season, or on slow days. Working on marketing when you're not busy with other projects will allow you to make the best possible use of your time and to devote enough attention to each of your marketing efforts.
If you partner with vendors, such as designers, printers, copywriters, or others to create your marketing materials, make sure that they have enough time to do a good-quality job as well. Ask what their lead times are, and be sensitive to their busy times as well.
Another technique to cut down on time spent working on your Marketing Machine is to batch similar projects together; for example, writing several articles at once and then setting up those pages on your website so that they're ready to send when it's time to release them. Some newsletter services, such as Email Brain (www.emailbrain.com) even allow you to set up your newsletters to send at a scheduled time in the future-even months down the road, which automates your Marketing Machine even further.
Budget approximately 10% of your gross profit for marketing use, say the experts. Be sure that you include all aspects of creating your marketing materials, including:

• Design work
• Copywriting and copyediting
• Printing
• Mailing
• Placement fees for advertising
• Public relations
• HTML newsletter service fees
• Website hosting and domain name fees
• Website maintenance and updates
• Search engine optimization
• Trade show fees
• Referral and affiliate feesSome businesses also include networking fees, like meeting costs and membership dues, in their marketing budgets.

Batching several projects together not only helps with timing but also with staying within your marketing budget. For example, if you plan to send several postcards in a year, you can often save money by designing and printing them together. You can also save printing set-up fees by printing all of your materials for a year at once: that way, the printer only has to do the set-up work once. You might be able to get a discount on your web hosting or HTML newsletter fees by pre-paying an entire year at once.
And make sure to set a bit of your budget aside for unexpected marketing efforts: for that press release you'll have to send when you win an award, or for advertising in the perfect new publication for your target market.

Evaluation of Success means asking your new leads how they found you, and tracking the resulting sales and conversion rates. Make sure that each of the components of your Marketing Machine is working for you and producing results. But be sure that you give those components a bit of time to begin working: it often takes a bit of consistent repetition in marketing to see some results.

Flexibility is important as well. If you begin a new type of marketing and you find that it isn't working after a few months, you should be flexible in your plans for your Marketing Machine. Reevaluate whether the marketing tactic just needs a bit more time or if you should revise or replace it with some other type of marketing piece.
Maintaining the Machine involves reevaluating your Marketing Machine plans at least quarterly to make sure that they are in alignment with your business's progress and goals for the year. See if you need to add any marketing tactics or revise your plans to fit with your business's path.

If you create a Marketing Machine that addresses all of the topics above, you should be on your way to marketing your business in a successful, well-thought-out, and manageable way. And if you implement your Marketing Machine in a consistent and repetitive way throughout the year, you should have less stress and more sales in the coming year.

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The Importance of a Marketing Plan

2007-07-19T01:39:00.000-07:00

There aren’t many things in life that you would get into with out a plan. Marketing is no different. Your overall marketing plan should cover about a six month period, and should be made up of weekly and monthly marketing schedules.
This is how you do it:

1. Figure out how much money is in your budget.
As we all know, marketing of any kind costs money. How much money you are willing to commit to the cause is going to determine some key factors about how that money can be best spent. Remember, you want to be economical but you also need to be realistic on what it will take to pull in the leads you need to close new and repeat business.

2. Determine your target market.
Who is most likely to buy your product? Are they married? Are they business owners? What is their income level? These are the people that you want to target. One of the most common mistakes in marketing is answering "Everyone" to the question "Who is your target market?" It may be that you have more than one target market, but there is no product in the world that appeals to each and every person. Even Coca-Cola targets different people with different messages. Decide who is MOST LIKELY to buy what you have to sell and target them. Your message to teenagers will be different than your message to housewives even if the product is exactly the same. Different markets may require different mail pieces or advertisements.
2a. Using the Right Mailing List.In making sure that your message is getting across to the right people - people who are in the market for what you’re offering – it usually comes down to finding the right mailing list.
There is a great deal to know about mailing lists. There are pointers you could follow when buying a mailing list that tell you what to watch for in a mailing list company to make sure they’re reputable. They are:

i) Get references. Talk to other people that have purchased mailing lists from that company.
ii) Do they guarantee on delivery? That means due to the inevitable number of bad addresses there are in a list, can they still guarantee a high percentage of deliverable addresses. That number should be 90% or better. People move all the time so a mailing list company cannot guarantee 100% deliverability – but they should guarantee at least 90%.
iii) How often do they update their information? They should be able to answer this question and should be updating their information monthly.
You can get burnt on mailing lists – it is the most expensive part of your campaign. Ask friends who own businesses. Don’t just purchase from the first person that tries to sell you mailing lists. Do your research.

3. Select what media to use. (i.e., Direct Mail, Television, Radio, etc.)
This decision will depend on both your budget and your target market. If you have not done a good deal of marketing in the past we recommend picking one media to start. This is much easier to keep track of and you will better be able to tell whether or not it is working. Also, since repetition is the key to marketing success, using one media to begin with will help you reach the same people multiple times. If you run a newspaper ad and send out a postcard, you run the risk of the majority of the people only seeing your ad once. However, if you send out the postcard twice you can guarantee that you get your message to the same people twice and you will start to build recognition.
Once you are getting the returns that you want from the first media, or if you decide that it is not working for you, you can branch out into another form of advertising. Over time you will build up a very diverse marketing plan.

4. Make a Schedule and Stick with It.
Figure out how many people you have in your target market. For this example we will use Direct Mail Marketing. If you have a mailing list of people in your target market that has 1500 names, figure out how many times per month you can mail a postcard to them and still stay within your monthly budget. Once you come up with this number, do it!
The importance of having a marketing plan cannot be stressed enough. Create one and follow it and you’ll start seeing the benefits.

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How to use your SEM campaign as a long term sales tool

2007-07-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

So, you’ve run your one month trial search engine marketing campaign and received your first sales enquiries. Now you can simply sit back and watch the business roll in… right? Wrong! The trial gets you started in the world of SEM, but the first month is just a taste of what is to come.

The common misconception is that once the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign is set up it can run itself. Even if your campaign is going great in the first month, you need to develop and fine-tune all campaign elements over the next 4-5 months. We at Trendhaus know that the longer you run SEM campaigns and “tweak” them, the more successful they become (for the same amounts of media budget). So, over the next six months, invest some time in your campaign performance. Follow these steps consistently and turn your SEM campaign into a long term sales engine! Insert your tracking code If you haven’t already inserted a conversion tracking code in the trial period, now is the time to insert it! Decide what you want people to ultimately do on your site i.e. purchase online, enquire or sign up and then place the code behind this ‘goal’ HTML page. The code will then track exactly how many purchases, enquiries or sign ups occurred as a result of your SEM campaign. You can then filter these results to see which keywords and text ads convert for you and really generate sales. Use analytics and reporting tools Google offers an analytics tool which allows users to learn more about who their visitors are, where they come from and how they interact on your site. The analytics function gives statistics on not only your SEM campaigns but other marketing initiatives as well so you can compare what is working for you. Other search engines also offer reporting tools which return important data on the effectiveness of your text ads and keywords. Regularly running these reporting tools will enable you to write better text ads and strengthen your marketing activities. Pause ineffective keywords Three months into the campaign, you should analyze the performance of you various key words and pause words which are not performing in regards to clicks and conversion data. We have clients who run their entire campaign with 10 key words only. These “golden nugget” words generate significant amounts of new client leads and/or online sales for them. Pausing ‘ineffective’ words will enable you to allocate your budget more effectively to better performing words. Amend text ads for relevancy Relevancy is a big thing in search engine marketing. There is nothing worse than seeing an ad that does not speak to the end consumer. For example: a business that is advertising their services in purely functional terms will run the risk of performing poorly, simply due to inappropriate copy writing for the web. If copy writing isn’t your strength outsource this part of your campaign to a specialist. It can make a world of difference to your campaign performance and in the end to your sales. Also, amend text ads for location and keyword relevancy. Putting the suburb in the title will help deter wasteful clicks and save budget. For example: if a user is searching for a service in “Cronulla” and your ad shows with “Sydney CBD” in the title, they are less likely to click on it as it is not relevant to them. This increases your click through rate and saves the budget for people that are looking for products or services in your location. Bidding strategy Imagine the search engine market as something like the stock exchange. Competitors are constantly entering and exiting the market, driving the ‘market price’ for popular key words up and sometimes down. If you don’t consistently monitor and amend your bids you will soon find yourself on page three of the sponsored links. Coupled with the so-called ‘quality score’ for your text ads, search engines pretty much place the highest bidder for a particular keyword on position one. Understandably, this is where everyone wants to be because you will get the most traffic to your website. However, you have to remember that just like the stock exchange there are small and large players in SEM. Some companies have a lot of budget to spend when you may not. Be smart with your bidding! Don’t bid $10 on one word when you only have a daily budget of $30. In this case you should either reconsider your budget or look for another, more cost-effective type of marketing for your business. Monitor best click days After running your campaign for at least four months, you will begin to see clear trends in click patterns. Determine the days in which your campaign receives the most clicks as well as conversions. After four months, many of my clients move the budget from the least performing days and shift it to the best performing days only. Start off by eliminating one day and then over time you can refine your campaign in a way that will enable you to forecast results. The one thing I have learnt about search engine marketing is that it’s not rocket science. However, it is time consuming and it needs 100% dedication. You need to allocate at least 3-4 hours per week to refine and analyze your campaign to make it work for you. Understandably, for anybody trying to run a business, 3-5 hours a week is a big ask especially when business is booming from the SEM campaign. If you cannot dedicate this time away from your business, sometimes it is best to enlist the help of a good agency or dedicated professional. That way, you can focus on your core business and let the experts do what they are best at – generating leads and sales for you.

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The Four Secrets of Successful PPC Campaigns

2007-07-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

Over the past decade, online marketing has become an integral part of most businesses’ marketing strategies. In particular, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) have become one of the most common channels for any business to sell its products and services. In this article, I will share some insights into successful SEM and SEO campaigns.

The attractive quality of SEM and in particular pay per click (=PPC) advertising is that the results are measurable. As a strategic marketer, I have never come across any sales or marketing tool which is so transparent and cost-effective. PPC campaigns allow you to see vital statistics on user behavior, text ads, keywords and much more. Best of all, however, is the fact that you can use PPC campaigns as “instant sales generators”: You can pause your campaign when sales are high or you can switch them on again when sales are low to get a new sales boost. Secret 1: Have an online strategy in place before you start! Prior to implementing your online strategy you should consider the following: I. Define the purpose of your online marketing campaign Some businesses use PPC purely as a “sales generator” tool, other businesses use it as a way to encourage new client leads and others simply for increased brand awareness. II. Identify the medium and long term online strategy It is important to have realistic medium and long term expectations. Bear in mind that online campaigns deliver improved results the longer you run them. III. Set a realistic monthly budget Always consider your budget relative to your product’s profit margin. PPC can have a massive effect on sales and lead generation, but in our experience, we often find that very few businesses develop a strategy before they start their campaign. The alarmingly common approach of “let’s allocate some budget for 6 months and see what happens” is a recipe for disaster. Particularly for the first weeks of your PPC campaign run time, it is imperative that you dedicate a significant amount of time to fine-tuning key words and text ads. An alternative solution is to employ an agency and ask them for a trial PPC campaign in which the results are assessed after 4 weeks. If your agency cannot deliver results within the first 2-3 weeks, chances are that they are not allocating your budget to the right key words and text ads or did not consult you properly in the first place. Secret 2: Prepare your website! Statistics show that you have got exactly 6 seconds to convince a visitor to stay on your site. If the visitor does not instantly find what he or she is looking for, your budget will not translate into business or leads. It is critical for your website to have the following characteristics: Enticing images- If you offer a service, pictures of happy people will give the impression of satisfied end users. If you are offering a product, make sure that your images are clear and represent your product in a true manner. Good web copy–Remember that less is more when it comes to web copy. Don’t clutter your site with unnecessary text. Good web copy should fit in one frame. Call to action phrases- Tell your visitors what you want them to do. Examples of good call to action phrases are: “Call now!”, “Buy today!”, “Contact us!”. No scroll bars- Wherever possible, fit everything into one screen or frame. The more a user has to scroll, the more chance you have in loosing the visitor. Site design in HTML– Flash websites might look great, but are a killer for any SEM campaign. You may incorporate some flash images to enhance your site’s look and feel, however keep your site predominately HTML. Remember: Unless your site is ready, your traffic will not convert into sales or leads. Secret 3: Start small – Choose one Search Engine only Especially if you are dipping your toe into the pay per click pool for the first time, it is more than OK to start off small. In my experience, too many companies are confronted by the variety of choice between different PPC search engines and are tricked into thinking they need to be on all these so-called “networks” immediately. New online advertisers are often considering big players such as Google Ad Words and Yahoo! Search Marketing (Yahoo!7 and ninemsn), but also the smaller fish such as Sensis, Ask, MIVA and Mirago. Too many different campaigns (each of which are run according to different rules, different budgets and different funding) are too much to juggle for most first time online advertisers. It is important to stay focused when deciding on your first search marketing network, and refer back to your online strategy to properly match your purpose to the correct network. I would always recommend trialing a campaign on Google due to its amount of market share (55%) and quality traffic. If your campaign performs well on Google, chances are it will also perform on other networks. Walk before you can run. Test your campaign on one network first to get a feel for it, and when you feel more confident then consider branching out. Secret 4: Trial and Assess the Results After choosing the correct search engine network to implement your PPC campaign, embark on a simple three week trial campaign. The great thing about PPC is that you can pause it whenever you like, so you are not locked into any long term commitment after your designated ‘trial period’. Once you have seen the campaign results for the first three weeks, you (or your online agency) should be able to identify trends for your particular business. For instance, you should be able to see which of your key words were most sought after, which words attracted most enquiries or led to sales, which “click-days” and “click times” were extremely popular and which companies you compete with. Example: one of our clients in the beauty industry knew after their three week trial period that Wednesdays and Thursdays between 12noon and 4pm were extremely popular for them in regards to clicks and enquiries for their services. As a result, they shifted their entire media budget on these 2 days and now receive twice as many enquiries as they had gotten in previous weeks – with the same investment! Whilst trends are important to analyze for both your medium- and long-term online strategy, you must also closely analyze the direct impact that the campaign has on your business. Your sales team (or whoever answers calls in your business) needs to be briefed before the campaign starts and should monitor where new business leads are coming from. Analysis of your new business enquiries and where they found out about you is important to accurately gauge the impact of a prolonged PPC campaign. Use your trial campaign as an indication of what is to come. In my experience, PPC campaigns improve immensely over time and a feature of their success depends on the amount of time that is invested in their development.

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