If you're a small business owner or a self-employed professional,
this site contains a huge number of resources to help you be a
better marketer. There are articles, a free ezine and many marketing
tools.
The codfish lays ten
thousand eggs,
The homely hen just one;
The codfish never cackles
To tell us that she’s done.
And so we scorn the codfish,
And the homely hen we prize.
Which demonstrates to you and me
That it pays to advertise.
Trust Economies:
Investigation into the
New ROI of the Web
A Manifesto from Julien Smith and Chris
Brogan
“If You Build It, They Won't Come What
happened to the early days? You built a baseball stadium, a store, a web
app, and people flocked to it... now what? We are suspicious of
marketing. We don't trust strangers as willingly. Buzz is suspect. It
can be bought. Instead, consumers and business people alike are looking
towards trust. We want our friends to tell us it's good. We want someone
we know to say we should look into it. Marketing spend might start at
awareness, but in the Trust Economy, communities are king, and ROI
stands for Return on Influence.” Ask
for your free copy now
If there's two things you don't usually hear together
in the same sentence, it's libraries and video games. Look for that
to change real fast. We've been working long and hard on something
here, but we're now ready to pretty much make the whole deal public,
and what better place then to do it here first?
Article continues
You know you run a stellar
business--now it's time to boost
that image of yours so all the
world knows it. Follow these
five steps from Kim T. Gordon,
president of National Marketing
Federation Inc., a marketing
consulting company, and author
of Maximum Marketing, Minimum
Dollars: The Top 50 Ways to Grow
Your Small Business, to
raise your business image to new
heights.
So how do you
maintain a level of number one sales person for a period of twenty years at
every sales organization that you go to? There are a lot of factors. However,
two of the most important are:
1. NEVER wing it!
2. Understand that buying is an emotional decision
Some
marketing consultants talk about how you should always stress
benefits, and never talk about features … and how you should
always focus on the customer, and never on the company.
But
is that always true? Of course not. For instance, the number of
years you’ve been in business is a feature – a fact about the
company. Yet prospects care how long you’ve been in business --
and your longevity can help close the sale.
"Even though the magazine addict in me perked up
with glee after reading this tip from Daniel Pink's
A Whole New Mind, I hadn't put it into action until
just now. It's simple. Go pick up five magazines
that you've never heard of in areas you've never
chosen to read about. Flip through at will, maybe
tear out some images or articles that speak to you
in some way, then watch for breakthroughs.
What do the blogosphere and customer-focused
innovation have to do with each other? More than you think,
according to Patricia Seybold, author of
Outside Innovation: How Your Customers Will Co-Design Your
Company’s Future. Thanks to blogs, more people are
communicating publicly than ever before in the history of the
world. This trend is reshaping how we communicate with one
another and how we share ideas and experiences. Because of its
growing importance as a communications medium, Seybold says it
would be a mistake to ignore it as part of your innovation
efforts.
How can you harness the power of the
blogosphere for innovation? Here are some strategies that
Seybold mentions in her book:
When you pick up a magazine or newspaper, you want to know whether
what you’re reading was written to inform you or to sell you. It has
long been a publishing tradition to clearly separate editorial content
from advertising material. Both have their purpose and their usefulness,
but both have their place.
The same principle applies to the brave new world of online publishing,
although norms and practices are still emerging. This applies equally to
Web pages and to search engines (the technology that often gets people to
Web pages). Article continues
As
people scan e-mails with preview panes, disabled images and
tiny-screened handheld devices, savvy e-mail marketers craft
campaigns that aim small--but think big.
Two Wharton researchers have developed a
mathematical model that they say will allow companies, for
the first time, to predict at what pace new products will
gain acceptance in markets where purchasing decisions by
knowledgeable, influential customers sway the buying habits
of others.
"It's not your customer's job to remember you. It is
your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don't have the chance to
forget you."
Promote yourself to the masses by
becoming an expert speaker at your target market's events.
It's always
amazing to me that when I speak at an association meeting,
conference or breakout session at a convention, people
always come up to me afterwards to inquire about hiring me.
It doesn't matter what the audience size is--it always
happens.
The purpose of a headline or subhead is to seize the
reader's attention. Larger and bolder heads generally
seize attention better than smaller, lighter ones.
I want to talk to you about what is perhaps the most effective,
yet underused referral strategy that I know which is to...
...simply ask for them.
Many business owners and executives, professionals and even
sales people have all sorts of mental hang-ups about asking for
referrals. However, most of those hang-ups are invalid and I find
that those who ask, get
I have taken this strategy from a
suggestion made by John Stanley, a conference speaker and retail
consultant. He was writing to encourage publicity for libraries, but
the idea would work just as well for many organisations. He writes,
“An advertiser’s dream is to hit its target audience when they are
not distracted by other advertisers and have time to absorb the
promotion. In today’s hectic world those situations are rare, hence
the high dollars to get product placement adverts on movies. … Café
menu holders featuring a promotion are used in other retail sectors.
The objective is to educate and promote whilst the person is having
a cup of coffee. Coffee shops often have Perspex menu holders and
you can use these to promote [your organisation], services and
[programmes]. The great thing about these holders is that people
read them while having a relaxing cup of coffee … Placing adverts in
newspapers is not the way to grow [organisations], we need to be
innovators and the opportunities are there.” John Stanley Associates
website is http://www.jstanley.com.au
So how can we use this idea? Do you meet in a café? Then could you
arrange to have your publicity displayed there? Do you know someone
who owns a café who could display for your organisation? Otherwise,
what do you have to offer your local café owners to persuade them to
display your promotional materials? Think about it. Do you could
offer training? What would it cost to advertise in your local café?
How much of a year’s training does that amount to? Try offering that
to the café owner. Maybe they have a friend or family member who
would benefit from your training. Who from your organisation has the
skills to offer this trade? If no one in the club will take it on,
maybe you have a friend or relative who could negotiate for you …
the options are yours.
Say it loud and proud with these
funky, spunky, cheap ideas to get noticed.
Marketing is made
up of many, many, many things all working to support one
another and to touch your customers many times. And
yes--I meant to say "many" that many times. Marketing is
a process, not an event; you have to think marketing all
the time.
Read on ...
It is the inevitable topic of conversation at a networking event: Tell me
about your job.
When I explain my life's work -- teaching leaders to achieve their dreams
through powerful public speaking -- my conversation partner often shrugs and
says, "Oh, I could never deliver a speech. I get too nervous."
My response: "What do you think you are doing right now?"
Make no mistake, when you network, you are delivering a series of
minipresentations. If you don't know how to put your best foot forward in these
business-critical situations, you can forget about building your business or
advancing your career.
Master networkers realize that attitude and preparation are vital ingredients
for success. How do these pros set themselves up as winners in the networking
arena? Let's examine a dynamic dozen techniques:
Read on ...
When
you hear “futurist,” who do
you think of? What about
“marketing expert,”
“leadership guru,”
“motivation authority” or
“customer service
specialist”? Would you like
to be on the short list for
your expertise?
What are you known for?
If
you’re ready to be one-of-a-kind instead of one-of-many, you’re
ready for this teleseminar.
Make your offering unique and avoid the competition
Many
entrepreneurs think that selling to the widest possible
market is the likeliest path to success. They are afraid to
pursue a market niche because they fear they'll lose
business by turning away customers. But this 'take all
comers' approach is not very effective. It's hard to stand
out when you market your business without a distinctive set
of prospects in mind.
When I talk with my clients about adding
testimonials to their marketing toolbox, I
get a lot of nodding heads and agreement.
And yet, many businesses put testimonial
gathering on the back burner. It becomes one
of those "important but not urgent"
activities. I'd love to see you turn up the
fire on this no-brainer marketing tool that
yields strong benefits at miniscule expense.
Here are a few tips and compelling reasons
to begin creating your inventory of client
testimonials:
Email signatures (a.k.a. sig lines) are powerful, low-cost,
high-return marketing tools (a virtual business card or ad) for
your foundation or organization. What's interesting is how
seldom sig lines are used.
Consider this: If your organization has 30 employees, each of
whom sends 15 emails daily outside the organization, then
(assuming 250 business days) that's 112,500 business cards or
ads distributed annually, at no cost. If you have 100 employees,
that's 375,000 cards or ads annually.
PRESS, PROFIT AND PROVOCATION: LIBRARY PROMOTION FOR THE
OVER-EDUCATED PART 6
by Tia Dobi
"What makes you unique makes you successful." - William
Arruda, CEO of Reach, a recognized global leader in
branding organizations and the people who belong to them.
I'm a copywriter. And this is my confession: You gotta
bulletproof your business.
Don't believe me? Then try these latest library mottos on
for size, look and feel:
Colour and brand are inextricably linked. Think of all the brands that
bring a colour to mind -- Tiffany's trademark Robin Egg blue, Starbuck's green,
UPS' "What can brown do for you?" Each of these brands don't just use their
colour -- they own the colour.
Colour moves us. It sparks memories and can convey emotion. In marketing,
colour
can determine which product a customer selects. A trip to any market or grocery
store will confirm what retail merchandisers already know: colour is an important
component of the memory we carry about a brand and it helps us to select the
same product repeatedly. Colour becomes a shortcut in the selection process. We
look for the orange box. The bright blue bottle. The red can.
Colour and brand are inextricably linked. Think of all the brands that
bring a colour to mind -- Tiffany's trademark Robin Egg blue, Starbuck's green,
UPS' "What can brown do for you?" Each of these brands don't just use their
colour -- they own the colour.
Colour moves us. It sparks memories and can convey emotion. In marketing,
colour
can determine which product a customer selects. A trip to any market or grocery
store will confirm what retail merchandisers already know: colour is an important
component of the memory we carry about a brand and it helps us to select the
same product repeatedly. Colour becomes a shortcut in the selection process. We
look for the orange box. The bright blue bottle. The red can.
How to use other people's contacts, clients, and
clout to generate a flood of new business
Continuing the message
You probably get at least one of these among your monthly credit
card bills. We're talking about a remittance envelope that
offers you things you may or may not want to order.
But have you ever considered borrowing that same idea and adding
helpful information to your own reply envelope?
I know that you, my readers will not believe this, but I'm an
introvert. And I know that it's not easy being an introvert and
a successful business owner, too.
Being known locally, even if you have a virtual business, is
something every business owner must do to build credibility and
a stellar reputation. Even the Internet Guru's attend networking
meetings and speak to groups as a way to market their online
business.
Attending a meeting of an organization or association may
mean three types of networking opportunities - pretty
overwhelming and nerve racking for an introvert who is not
prepared.
Every part of your sales message is important. Your
opening is crucial. Your presentation of product
benefits ... of proof and credibility elements ... of
the offer and premiums ... of your guarantee ... and of
your closing "ask-for-the-sale" copy are all critical.
But of all the things you do to produce a sale, nothing
equals your headline when it comes to pushing response
through the roof. In my 33 years in this business, I've
seen great new headlines produce 25%, 35%, even 45%
lifts in response and ROI.
You've probably heard the old adage that it
takes 7 - 9 exposures for people to begin to
be aware of who you are. But that isn't really
the formula.
The formula for memorable advertising is really
this: relevant ad +speaking to one person at a time+reaching the same person at least three times in
seven nights sleep= Dominance of Category Awareness.
Our Guerrilla Marketing coach explains the
quickest way to create an effective marketing plan, plus 7
ways to ensure its success.
The Web Site Toolkit
This comprehensive program gives you everything you need to build
a high quality professional service
business web site.
The Web Site Toolkit is divided into sections that correspond to
each section of a web site. Included in each section is an audio
tutorial that you can listen to online (mp3 and Real Audio), a
written manual as a pdf and links to web site samples. In addition,
there are links to resources such as editors, writers, web designers
and useful web and Internet tools.
Click
on the picture to enrol in this course for free.
Whether you are a
professional in a solo-practice or own a small
business, chances are you feel overwhelmed when it
comes to marketing. While you may be an expert in
your field, consistently attracting new clients
probably isn’t one of your strengths.
Here is just a short list
of "marketing culprits" that are likely keeping your
business from reaching its full potential:
A recent US survey
of Not for Profit organisations has found that many NFPs are lacking effective
marketing and communications with current and would-be supporters.
The study, conducted by Not for Profit consultation group Cause Communications,
found only one in five respondents knew what their peers were doing in the area
of communications, and 90 percent of respondents said their organisations did no
market research on their target audience.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents answered that their communications budget
could be better; 12 percent said they had no such budget at all.
Lisa Witter, the executive vice president of a New York consulting firm says
that while both large and small NFPs have been traditionally excellent with
organisation, policy, and fundraising, communication and media relations remains
at a deficit.
Those tasks, experts say, are essential to widening recognition of an
organisation's goals and broadening long-term support.
The situation in Australia is expected to be very similar.
The result of this research has seen Cause Communications produce an exhaustive
Communications Toolkit that translates well to the Australian scene.
Read more
If you're ignoring your link popularity--the number and
quality of other sites that link to yours--your search
engine rankings will suffer. Find out what makes good links
and how to get t
