WHEN TIMES ARE TOUGH, DON’T CUT MARKETING

Although on the books, marketing is an expense, it’s really not when you stop and think about it. What do you need to do to generate sales? You have to let people know what you do and what you can offer them. It’s called marketing.

So when times are tough, why would you stop using your main resource outside of referrals to get more money in the company? With that in mind, forget what your accountant labels marketing as, you have to treat it as an investment.

Allow me to go further on the subject to clear it up. In accounting, sure, marketing IS an expense. But here’s what happens when marketing is viewed purely as an expense:

You think of marketing solely as an expense. When business gets slow, you cut marketing. Now you are letting less people know about your products and services.

Results: You get even less business.

If you think of marketing only as an expense, the odds are, your marketing is nowhere near as effective as it could be.

Here’s how you think of marketing as an investment. When you spend money and buy stock, that’s an expense AND an investment. When you buy a rental property, that’s an

expense AND an investment

When marketing is looked at as an investment, it is seen in a much different light. You start to require that it make money. You will begin to look for a return on investment.

For example:

You view marketing as an investment. Every time you spend marketing dollars, you track how much business it brings. Now you can see what’s working and what’s not.

Try new things and get rid of methods that were working and now are not.

Results: You get more sales and waste less money.

You don’t need to put in a lot of time to find out what works. Notice how other businesses track their response.

Every time you see a commercial that says “Mention this ad for a free gift,” they are tracking how well that ad works. Every coupon you see is a way for a company to track an ad. Every time someone asks, “How did you hear about us?” they are tracking what works.

When your marketing is an investment instead of just another expense, you’ll hold it accountable. It’s a small but important change in viewpoint that can add to your bottom line. Try it. It’s a little more work but I am sure it will pay off… and save your marketing budget.

What A Geek-Thing Taught Me Can Send Your Sales Response Through The Roof

Who is best qualified to prove your product works? Who has the credibility and the believability to talk about the benefits of using your product? Who will tell your customers and clients it’s a good decision to buy?

It’s you, right? Perhaps you’d better keep reading…

The answer is - your own customers.

Your customers have the experience of using your product. They’ve used the features, and experienced the benefits. Speaking from this familiarity your customers will relate with your prospects in a way you will not.

Your words are seen as claims when you talk about your product. But when your customer talks, their words are seen as truth.

When you’re selling a product or service, all internet marketers know there’s nothing like the power of testimonials. Testimonials are the social proof - the “Show me I’m not alone” evidence - from customers that have already bought from you and enjoyed your product.

I’ve seen salesletters written by top marketers that are composed of nothing but testimonials. We’ve all seen salesletters filled with so many testimonials that if printed out, it would drain your printer of it’s ink.

The testimonials in such letters contain nearly all of the elements a good salesletter must have: the features and the benefits (especially the benefits!) of the product; the stories supporting the use of the product; and novel ideas on how your product has been put to use. (Wow, it’s like an ‘open source’ method for sales-letter development!) Just add an attention-grabbing headline (and a link to the order page) and you’re done.

So how do you get authentic, sales-pulling, kick-butt testimonials that practically write your sales letter for you? Well, how about asking for them? The way that you ask, though, is the difference between asking and getting little, and asking and getting a tremendous response.

Small Business Marketing Tips

If you’re a small business owner, you probably don’t have a lot to spend on marketing. That’s okay, many small businesses aren’t taking full advantage of the many opportunities they have for marketing their business in basic ways that cost little or nothing to implement.

There are a number of things you can do to leverage your existing contact points with prospects and customers that require some initial effort to produce but go a long way in promoting your business, products, or services. Some of these methods include:

1. Business Cards. For less than $20, you can have a virtual billboard that promotes your business. Surprisingly many businesses forget about this great way to promote your business, your products, or special offers. When ordering your business cards, think about how you can use the space effectively. Some of the best business cards that I’ve seen include specific URL’s on the back for accessing free information, tools, resources, or product demo’s. I’ve even seen some with coupons on the back that turn business cards into a customer staple &ndash giving them an incentive to have your business card handy at all times.

2. Invoices. Do you send your customers an invoice in print or electronically? If you do, use the invoice to promote your brand, product or service. This is also a valuable touch point to thank your customers and prompt them to learn about other things you offer. Some of the more effective messaging for your next invoice might be, “Thank you for your business. To learn more about our frequent shopper program call 1-800-555-1234”. This simple message can increase awareness and get your customers to take notice.

3. Emails. Nothing in marketing performs as well as your very own list of customer emails. Customers who offer their email address want to hear from you. Do what you can to encourage customers to provide you with their email address. You can always provide a small incentive like a pen with your business’s name on it, free information, or a white paper addressing an area of growing importance. Once you have this email list, communicate to your customers on a regular basis and encourage them to do more business with you. Satisfied customers are likely to forward your emails to others, growing the size of your customer base.

4. Thank You Notes. A number of small businesses are very effective at communicating with their customers. These businesses use every shipment as a vehicle to promote their products or thank their customers. You should do the same. When you make a sale and are shipping a product, insert a short thank you note that offers your gratitude and willingness to hear from the customer or perhaps your latest catalog or flyer. This goes a long way in showing your appreciation for you customer and interest in building a long term relationship with them.

5. Online Coupons or Offers. When you have a particular product to sell, you should offer information about it on your website. Additionally, offer an incentive for prospective customers (new customers). When individuals are on your website and take interest in your product or service, providing an incentive to buy can drive considerable response rates. You might be concerned about discounting your product or service to existing customers so be clear that your offer is only for new customers. Your existing customers understand that you’re trying to grow your business and won’t be disappointed to learn that you’re giving an incentive to new customers only.

6. Free Samples. Giving away free samples is one of the most effective marketing tactics available today. Even if you have a service business, offering up a method for prospective buyers to try a derivative of your service without paying for it can lead to increased trials and conversions. Large consumer product companies like Proctor and Gamble know that once a consumer decides that he or she likes the product, they will become a customer for an extended period of time which more than pays for the cost of their promotion.

7. Encourage Referrals. Small businesses that leverage the power of referrals experience strong growth. When you have others suggesting your product or service it’s like having your very own sales team. These referrals are even more powerful because, like word-of-mouth, the prospect is being encouraged to buy from an existing customer, associate, expert, or influencer. Think about how you can encourage referrals from your customers or other service providers. One way is to ask other vendors to distribute information about your business to their customer base in exchange for you doing the same.

Marketing doesn’t have to cost a lot. Use your own business to communicate your marketing messages and increase lead generation. These simple methods are effective for any small business owner regardless of industry, product, or service offering. Implement some or all of them to see the power of effective small business marketing.

Work and Preparation Equal Success and Confidence

You have decided to start your own business on the internet. The first question is what do I do? What kind of service do I offer or what product do I sell.

What field are you knowledgable in? What do you have to offer others? Am I qualified to help others?

Most everyone has the knowledge and ability to help others. The problem is that most do not have the confidence to share that knowledge. We question ourselves and the abilities that we possess.

Years ago when I was in the United States military, I learned some valuable lessons about people. The majority of people are content to follow. There is nothing wrong with this and the world needs followers as well as leaders.

The world also needs leaders and the confidence that goes with that role. To be a successful leader, you must have the confidence in your own abilities. And to be successful in the marketing world, you must be a leader.

You must have the confidence that you can help others and have the ability to convey that confidence to them. You must possess the knowledge to allow you to portray this confidence to your clients as well.

If you cannot convey this confidence to your potential customers, you will have a very difficult time being successful in any type business. People come to you for help, you must project a sense of confidence or you have little chance of attaining that success.

A few years back when I was in the advertising business, a client told me one day that I seemed so confident that the ad campaign I has just written would be a rousing success. He asked me how I could be so confident when we had yet to even test the campaign?

My answer to him applies to almost any task or any field. I told him that I was confident because I had spent many hours studying the market that we were targeting. I had also spent many hours looking at other ads, both successful and unsuccesful. I had then spent a lot of time putting together the campaign and when I finished, I went back and spent even more time ensuring that everything was just right.

The key here was preparation. I was totally prepared and felt like I had exhausted every possible means to ensure that the ad campaign was the best that it could possibly be. How could I not be confident.

It reminds me of school. When I spent the time studying, I always felt confident when test day arrived. The times that I did not spend the time studying, the confidence was just not there, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself.

Back in those days, confidence seemed to come because you were driving the fanciest car on campus and everyone looked up to you. Or you were the captain of the football team or the head cheerleader. At that point in life, most looked up to you for the wrong reasons. Well, I am here to tell you that those things mean nothing in the today’s world.

You have the ability to start your own business and turn it into a successful venture. What does it take? You are going to have to have the confidence to pass along to others. How do you acquire this confidence? Well, it does not come because you are good looking, popular or inherited a million dollars. It comes from work and preparation.

Do you have the ability to make it happen? Of course you do. The question is, are you willing to put forth the time and effort that it takes. Success and Confidence take work and preparation.

Put Your Logo On The Map With Promotional Coffee Mugs

Crazy for Promotional Coffee Mugs

If you’re looking for a way to get your logo seen and your business in the public eye, consider investing in promotional coffee mugs. Presented as gifts to clients, or as part of a marketing blitz, promotional coffee mugs can help you in spreading the word about your enterprise. More noticeable than pens, and more universal than golf balls, coffee mugs can be used by anyone, anywhere. While coffee drinkers will appreciate the addition of a new mug to their collection, non-coffee drinkers can use it for tea, hot chocolate or soup. Promotional coffee mugs offer an inexpensive, yet highly effective means of advertising your business.

Personalizing Promotional Coffee Mugs and Glassware

From logos to mission statements, personalized coffee mugs are designed by you and custom made to your specifications. Even if you don’t have a business to promote, promotional coffee mugs make great souvenirs of class or family reunions, anniversaries and large scale birthday celebrations. Many suppliers offer photo transfer services that allow your logo and/or images to be permanently affixed to a variety of coffee mug designs. As they are generally purchased in bulk quantities, promotional coffee mugs are extremely cost effective and are adaptable to most budgetary constraints. Don’t let the competition edge you out, get a head start by distributing promotional coffee mugs today.

Styles, Shapes and Sizes &ndash The Variety of Promotional Coffee Mugs

Personalized coffee mugs to advance your business or cause can be found in an abundance of styles and several materials. Whether you’re looking for an acrylic travel mug with a spill-proof cap, a standard ceramic mug with a high gloss or matte finish, or an elegant glass mug with your logo etched into its surface, promotional coffee mugs are available to suit your taste. Specially sized jumbo coffee mugs in flared brim and signature coffeehouse styles lead the current trend in coffee cup promotions. Glass mugs in the traditional pint or Irish coffee styles are also very popular. If you’re on a budget, standard ceramic or acrylic promotional coffee mugs can be a wise choice. Basically the number of options you have for color, size and style is virtually unlimited and subject to your own personal preferences.

Where to Find Promotional Coffee Mugs

The best place to look for high quality, low cost promotional coffee mugs is on the internet. Many printing and business gift companies provide all the information you need to know about ordering, shipping and designing promotional mugs right on their website. Mug designs are implemented with your customizations and shipped directly to your home or business. Using the internet to shop for promotional gifts allows you the freedom to browse a wide selection of options in a short time period from the comfort of your home. If you want to get the most publicity for least amount of money, promotional coffee mugs are the choice for you.

Identify The Ideal Target Audience With These 5 Tips

Narrowing your focus to one primary group of people is often difficult for small business owners. They want to help everyone &ndash and very often their product or service CAN help a variety of people.

It also goes against human nature to narrow your focus in order to grow a business. Common sense seems to tell us if we want to grow our business big, we need to appeal to more people.

In reality the opposite is true. When we narrow our focus to a particular group of people we become an expert in solving their particular problems. We get to know them very well and we can develop additional products and services to fill their needs.

So how do you decide who to market to?

Following are 5 tips:

1) Think about the type of people who can MOST benefit from what you have to offer.

2) Think about who you would most enjoy helping, or working with.

3. Think about the type of people who will be easiest to reach, AND who will be most receptive to what you are selling. These will be people who KNOW they have THE problem you can solve and are LOOKING for a solution.

4) Know that just because you select a particular group of people to focus your marketing on, does NOT mean you can’t help others who may come to you. It only means you’re going to focus your proactive marketing efforts on the target group you select.

5) Lastly, don’t over-think it. Listen to your gut, pick a group you feel you can really help and proceed with the development of your marketing plan. Marketing is a fluid process. The important thing is to start. You can always refine your audience and your plan later as you learn more.

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa

Publishing Special Reports And Ebooks At No Cost

So you’d like to start publishing special reports and ebooks to use as marketing tools and to sell as products. But you have no budget to get this new venture going. Here’s a tip to help you get up and running at no cost.

The traditional route to publishing digital products is to purchase software designed specifically for creating PDFs, such as Adobe Acrobat.

But there is another option that won’t cost you a dime. Use free PDF-making software available on the web.

If you don’t mind seeing a few ads every time you create a PDF, I recommend using PDF995. You can download their free software at .pdf995.com and use it to create PDF formats of all your ebooks and special reports, or any other files that you’d like to convert to PDF format.

Once you have installed the free software, you simply print the documents you would like to convert, and select PDF995 as the destination printer. And, voila! Your file has been converted.

Be sure to also download their PDF Edit and Signature software to take advantage of their editing and security functions. I have been using PDF995 for months and I love it. It is simple and easy to use, and best of all, it doesn’t cost a dime!

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa

The 7 Steps To Successfully Responding To Product Knockoffs

It’s every small business owners nightmare: you find and market the perfect product or service only to wake up one morning and find that someone else is producing cheap knock offs of the same thing.

So how do you deal with it? By following our seven steps…

1. Offer a better product

It sounds simple, but offering a better product is both the easiest and most effective way to respond to product knock offs. There is always a market for products which improve on the ones that have come before them: make sure you’re consistently looking for ways to improve your product, and you’ll remain one step ahead of the knock off sellers.

2. Create a marketing edge

A great deal of good business comes down to great marketing. This is another area in which it’s easy to gain an advantage over product knock offs. The people who sell knock offs aren’t interested in building a brand, creating a buzz or researching their market. In fact, they want to spend as little time and money as they possibly can on selling more units of their product knock off. By investing in your marketing, you can gain an important edge.

3. Make quality a priority

You’ll never be able to stop knock offs completely. What you must remember, however, is that knock offs have one big disadvantage over your product: their quality.

Most knock offs are cheap, mass-produced copies of quality goods. That’s why they’re sold for so little. By offering a product which is truly high quality, you’ll appeal to those buyers who aspire to owning the real thing, and make it much more difficult for anyone to copy you.

4. Getting a patent does not prevent competition

A patent will help you deal with knock offs to a certain extent. What it won’t do is eliminate the competition. You’ll never completely eliminate the competition. All you can do is rise above them by making sure your product, service and marketing is the best it can possibly be.

5. Target smaller or niche markets where you can have the edge

While you may want to conquer the world with your business, it’s often far more effective to conquer a small part of it by targeting a niche which you can excel in. By concentrating on a niche market you can get to know your clients and their needs inside out, and make sure your product or service is tailor made to fit that niche. Leave the rest of the world to the knock off sellers.

6. Adapt to market changes and trends

In business, you have to adapt or die. By allowing your business to trudge along, doing the same thing in the same way you leave yourself wide open to competitors who are willing to be innovative and to move with the times.

7. Provide exceptional customer service

Businesses which produce knock off products often aren’t interested in customer service. People like to do business with other people they can trust: that may not apply to sellers of knock-off products, but it should apply to you. If it does, you have nothing to fear from product knock offs.

Summary

While it’s impossible to completely eliminate product knock offs completely, it is possible to respond to them in such a way that your own sales don’t suffer. This article provides seven steps to help you make sure that your products and service are able to stand up to the competition.

Avoiding Marketing Money Pits

Is your business bombarded by sales and other marketing professionals telling you that the products or services they are offering are in the best interest of effective and cost reducing methods to market your organization? Finding your way through the maze of offers, opportunities and avoiding potential money pits highlights the importance for all businesses regardless of size to have a strategic marketing plan that is implemented and followed.

It is a tough market place for any small business and information is the key to making wise marketing decisions and for the survival of any business or organization. The relevance of a strategic marketing plan can not be under stated. It is unfortunate but all to common that people under the disguise of professionals in marketing and sales will boast their products and services as the most effective and cost reducing methods to market your business. Additionally, by writing articles or giving lectures for example, they attempt to give their claims a form of legitimacy. Beware of people making extraordinary claims, a true professional wants to sell you their product or service but also retains the integrity to learn your business and knows when the product or service is not a good fit. The benefit for this type of sales or marketing professional is your loyalty and trust in future business transactions.

A strategic marketing plan helps a business to avoid potential money pits that waste valuable marketing dollars in expenditures that may appear to cost less but have minimal or no measurable results. Simply because something may cost less and other businesses are participating does not make it a solid marketing decision for your organization and certainly does not guarantee successful results. Regardless of the ticket price if it does not produce measurable results and drive business to your establishment it is a money pit.

There are many good examples on the internet of people under the disguise of professionals boasting their products or services as sound marketing advice. One of these claims is that a business could inexpensively build brand recognition through the purchase of low cost promotional items with the organizations name or logo embossed on them; items such as pens, tablets, calendars, magnets, and much more. The problem is that this technique offers minimal to no measurable success in brand building, but more importantly does nothing to draw new customers into the business.

In terms of simple math, if an advertising business were to spend the same money that would be spent on embossed promotional items in traditional media channels such as print, radio, or television for example with an expected 2% rate of return and a minimal exposure of 12,000 individuals gives the advertising business the opportunity for 240 customers for that expenditure. If only 30% of the 2% actually make a purchase that provides the business with 72 new transactions. A business can multiply its average transaction price by 72 to see the real potential income from this one marketing expenditure. Another benefit is brand awareness that would be gained through the advertisement and the opportunity to build customers for life. Furthermore, to entice repeat business and brand loyalty the organization can offer its customers coupons. This method promotes customer appreciation and can be a low cost marketing method.

Moreover, with any marketing expenditure a business should always perform a cost benefit analysis in correlation with its strategic marketing plan. Simply, if it does not offer measurable results, drive new business, and build brand awareness it is a money pit.

A Day in the Life of the Reverse Funnel System

BEEP! BEEP! Keep it moving, non stop ever flowing traffic. For the first time in my life I feel blessed to be caught in a traffic jam. But the highway has thousands of lanes and the traffic will never be jammed, until arthritis sets in and your crippled fingers can no longer scour the web finding new ways to drive traffic to your site.

A day in the life of the Reverse Funnel could mean ten thousand dollars in your added into your fat pockets. A day in the life of the Reverse Funnel system could mean a sore back from being slumped looking over your computer, a slight head ache and a loss of focus in the eyes that comes after several hours of staring at a computer monitor, all the while with nothing to show for your miseries.

A day in the life of the Reverse funnel System is dependant on how well you know how to navigate the internet, how connected your team is and how close you are. A team that completely shares all their secrets so everybody can be successful will make you more successful.

A day in the life of the Reverse funnel System is what you may need for your self, for your family, for your freedom right now. The prospects of this system are remarkable. I am making lots and I mean lots of money, 20K in my first month involved in the Reverse Funnel System. Franco, my up-line made over 50K this month, his second month in the Reverse Funnel System. Of course his $1,000 commission off each of my sales helped him out a bit.

But that’s how it works. You work and you get hard workers to work underneath you. Working for GRN (Global Resorts Network) you and your uplink get a $1,000 commission. So when you become the up line your worker’s and you get $1,000 commission. That’s a thousand dollars free for you as long as you teach the people under you our valuable marketing skills.

So get that traffic moving and experience a day in the life of the Reverse Funnel System.