Blog Category: marketing

What are the key factors to take into account when setting up a complete e-commerce website?

22 October 2012

E-commerce websites open up many doors and can this can have huge advantages and benefits for both consumers and the business which sets it up. There are however, certain key factors which have to be taken into account to ensure that the e-commerce website works well for the consumer and the e-tailer.

An online store works pretty much the same as any conventional shop, the advantage for the consumer is that they have access to a far greater amount of information about any product they may be interested in purchasing. This said, consumers will browse the Internet and visit many online stores to find the best bargain around. The fact they have access to reviews about products at their fingertips, means they are more inclined to use an online store than a conventional one these days as it takes up a lot less time and effort.

One of the main points to consider when setting up an e-commerce site is what it is you are actually offering the consumer and how much they really need the products you are selling on your website.

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The importance of branding in the online business market

19 October 2012

Branding is a relatively new concept to online marketing and although it was commonly used in the offline marketing world, online marketers remained very much in the background. Things have changed dramatically over recent times and branding is now considered to be an extremely important factor for online businesses to succeed in a very competitive global market place.

Many people who use the Internet today expect to be entertained whilst they browse the Net looking for things they need or information about things that interest them. There are millions of websites for them to choose from, so anyone who wants to capture an audience has to make sure that their business is obvious right from the moment a viewer clicks onto their website.

Establishing a recognisable brand means that the audience has been captured and will normally stay on a website where they are familiar with the products or services that are being offered to them. They are more likely to interact with something they know and trust. It is a simple matter of them feeling secure with someone they consider an expert in their field of work. Very often just because you offer products or services at a lower price does not necessarily mean that you will convince a potential buyer to spend their money on your website, and this is purely because they lack faith in the site if they do not recognise the brand.

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How do you measure ROI for video marketing campaigns online?

15 October 2012

Knowing that your online video marketing campaigns are actually achieving the results you had hoped for is an important factor when it comes to the effectiveness of it. Knowing how to measure how successful they are means being able to calculate your return on investment, known as ROI. This sounds pretty easy to do, but in fact it is not as simple as it first appears.

There are five basic ways of measuring ROI, the first being able to identify just what it you want to accomplish through your video and then see if this is indeed happening or not. The way to do this is pretty obvious as you need to know what audience you are targeting and what message you are trying to put across to them.

Once you have identified your objectives through your method of communication, you will be able to determine the returns that you are likely to get through the use of video marketing on your website. One example of calculating whether your message is achieving its goal is to see if it is saving your customers money on things that they are being shown.

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How can technology help my business to expand into social media?

10 October 2012

More and more businesses are realising how much they can benefit from the marketing platforms that social media offers them, it is obviously very tempting to jump on the band wagon as soon as feasibly possible. The fantastic leap that technology has offered both small businesses and corporate companies to expand to the far corners of the world has meant a complete rethink on how businesses are run in today’s fast moving world.

The Internet opened up many doors and online marketing presented new challenges for businesses in general. With the advent of Facebook and other such sites, it was only a matter of time before marketers realised what great marketing platforms they had at their fingertips. Social media enhances business productivity by allowing companies to use important tools which allow business collaboration, as well as offering them the opportunity of setting up a very professional looking organization. This is all achieved by social bookmarking tools.

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What level of investment is required for serious 2nd time entrepreneurs who understand that you need to invest in web technology?

03 October 2012

Technology has helped businesses reach the far corners of the world at the press of a few buttons. It has opened up global markets for every company that has a website and with consumers now having access to the Internet from even the smallest of devices this means that investment in web technology is of paramount importance to companies who wish to expand even further in the future.

Web technology is the way forward and businesses today cannot afford to not invest in the latest software that is available to them. It enables them to control how their businesses are perceived by global consumers. It is not enough to just sit back on one’s laurels and expect a website to work for you, no matter how smart it looks. There are tools available today which enhance how you analyse the data that is gathered through the latest software. The advantage is that you can integrate the software into an existing IT system.

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What to avoid when Selling Products Online?

21 September 2012

Most economists in the mainstream tend to agree that, because of the all-encompassing, come-one, come-all nature of the Internet, the web is one of the few legitimate venues to consistently thrive through economic downturn. This is not a fact lost on the average businessperson looking to create a web presence. Millions of newcomers venture into this realm every year, but over 90% will ultimately fail.

Selling products online is not nearly as easy as big-name stores like Amazon and eBay make it look. It’s quite difficult to sell online, primarily because there are so many potential mistakes a person could be making. Below we will cover some of the top mistakes you should try to avoid when selling online.

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Simple Steps to Cold Calling Success

28 October 2011

With millions of homes across the globe having computers, as well as millions of people out there on streets with mobile devices, the Internet is absolutely everywhere. Its no wonder that most of the business tips you'll find revolve around the web. However, the telephone isn't dead just yet, and cold calling can still bring an influx of customers to your business if done correctly.

Cold calling used to be extremely popular and lucrative, and it still is with many businesses. Simply put, it is the process of calling up potential customers and informing them of your business and its products. Cold, of course, comes from the fact that this person is not expecting to hear from you its a surprise call.

If you're looking for success in cold calling, you should follow some simple steps.

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How to Find a Niche

26 October 2011

Marketing is a rather difficult thing if you go about it in the wrong way. If done correctly, however, it can not only be easy but also bring you incredible results for your business. Marketing done incorrectly, on the other hand, like marketing too broadly, will waste time, money and quickly drive your business into the ground.

Finding a niche market for your business's product and/or service is the best way to go about searching for, communicating with and driving traffic to your business. A niche is already more likely to be interested in what you're selling, and it requires no magic, if you will, to communicate with them.

You will only have to stand above competition within that niche and not the entire market in general.

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Using Newsletters to Jack Up Revenues

21 October 2011

There are many methods online businesses use in order to increase their sales revenue, and it all comes down, more often than not, to offering more to the customer and whether its through a free gift, a certain percentage off of the cover price, or even offering superior quality, having your business perceived as better than the competition is a great way to increase revenue.

Formulating a good newsletter and using this method to reach your customers is a great way to tell people about whats going on and to jack up your business's revenues.

Newsletters are great tools for commerce, but not just any thrown-together mess of words will do. There are a few steps you should follow when formulating your newsletter, whether they're going out to existing or potential customers.

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How to Make Your Business Newsworthy

20 October 2011

No matter what you do in business or who you market to, nothing is ever going to give you the same amount of success as word of mouth. Having good publicity will drive a large amount of new and possibly repeat customers to your business. Of course, you need a reason for the publicity. Your business has to be newsworthy to warrant it.

So, what can you do to make your business a newsworthy business? Luckily, there are plenty of things you can do to attract publicity to your business to create a buzz about it. However, it all starts with understanding what newsworthy means in the context of business.

This isn't necessarily about having your business featured in Fortune magazine or in the evening news. Its more or less about creating a frenzied atmosphere around your business and drawing people in through hype and exposure.

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Niche Marketing Pros and Cons

12 October 2011

Although there are many ways to describe it as well as various terms given for it, niche marketing is one of the simpler approaches to marketing that there is in terms of understanding the concept. A niche is simply a segment of another market, its own little world within a larger marketplace, and it acts, by and large, with predictability.

Anyone thinking about getting into a web business has probably heard of niche marketing if they haven't seriously entertained starting a campaign. However, it is remiss to think that everything's positive with this marketing method.

Like everything in life, there are downsides to niche marketing. Sure, its one of the most successful ways to market online but its not successful for everyone, and it certainly has the potential for failure.

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Brand Marketing Online

22 June 2011

Although customers and money may stand out as the most important aspects of your business success, its actually the business itself that must do well before you build up a customer base and before you start cashing checks. Your company's brand what it is and how it is perceived is how customers identify you and the stronger your brand, the better the success.

Using the Internet to market your brand is something that is becoming very popular these days, and with a few very good reasons.

First and foremost, the Internet reaches every corner of the globe and millions upon millions of web users. Were not only speaking about desktop PCs in peoples houses; today's Internet is mobile and always with people when they're on the go.

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Marketing Online Viral

18 June 2011

In business, you will find and undoubtedly learn many various marketing techniques that will help your chances of business success. In today's world, many of these methods are centered on the Internet, using its endless potential to help you market your brand to customers. With all the many methods you will learn about, viral marketing is one of the most essential.

Viral marketing can be explained in many ways, but the easiest way to think about it is the proverbial buddy system, or word of mouth. In essence, you meet and greet people with viral marketing material and, hopefully, your company's name will be passed on by your contacts to their contacts.

Of course, successful businesses are not run on hopefully, so you must use the Internet to your utmost advantage and ensure that you have viral marketing success.

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Going into Business for Yourself, the Ultimate Business Oxymoron

06 May 2011

Going into business for yourself is strange terminology. Going into business for yourself can mean that a person is indeed working for themselves but they are providing a service or offering a product that meets the needs of others. Therefore, the saying should actually read going into business for others. This makes going into business for yourself the ultimate classic business oxymoron.

Going into business for yourself always sounds so good and in most cases it is great. No more answering to the boss, taking orders from others and having to work a nine to five job. But is it all it is cracked out to be? The answer is quite simply yes it is.

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The Fastest Way to Increase Your Sales

09 February 2011

Increasing sales in business is an ongoing battle. We are always looking to improve sales and become more efficient and maximise our sales revenue.

What is the fastest way to increase sales? That is the question we would all like answering today, if only the answer could be defined into one sure fire tactic.

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The Pros and Cons of Multi-Level Marketing Programs

25 December 2010

In some business circles, multi-level marketing (MLM) programs are avoided like the plague. Why? It has to do with the shocking resemblance they bear to those pyramid programs of old. In essence, most MLM programs are just dressed-up pyramid programs that are always hit-or-miss in terms of effectiveness.

Since pyramid programs are now illegal, MLM programs cant operate the exact same. However, many do bring similar elements into the fold and leave you at the top having to build your business through customer sign-ups, and their sign-ups, and their sign-ups.

MLM programs can be lucrative if you're a smart businessperson and conduct business the right way. They can also be traps, too, reeling you in and forcing you to spend a lot of money for little to no return.

Lets go over the pros and cons in a non-biased way.

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A History on the Affiliate Marketing Model

17 December 2010

The model of affiliate marketing is pretty straightforward and simple to understand. In essence, if you make it your business to promote someone else's business, then you'll receive a percentage of everything you help that business sell. Offline, this model has certainly been used before. Online, its still in its infancy and has dozens of different stories about how it came to be.

No matter which story you read, the characters and time line and even certain aspects of the model are going to be different. However, the exact specifics of affiliate marketing's history do not matter nearly as much as knowing relatively where and how it started and how quickly it took off to become a billion-dollar industry.

The most accurate summation of affiliate marketing details: In the mid 1990s, as the Internet was first introduced to the mainstream market, cdnow.com, a music site, decided to try a new venture to increase their sales. If other websites would place links to cdnow.com, then that site would receive a portion of the proceeds for every album sold.

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Partnering in the New Economy for Increased Market Share

14 December 2010

The economy today isn't what it was three years ago. With most of the world still feeling the sting of recession, some have found it more difficult to pursue their business dreams. Things are getting better, but they're still not back to where they were. However, the New Economy is still going strong, and its still a great idea to play the entire expanse of the marketplace.

The New Economy is basically what the industrialized, manufacturing-based world is known as today. With the globalization process, and the Internet bringing it all together like never before, this large service-sector economy is unlike anything the world has ever seen.

A lot of businesses are looking to exploit this by making their products and services available across the Internet and across various markets. To do this, some businesspeople are partnering up and looking at the long-term goal of a big corporation with worldwide reach.

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Providing Customer Service to the Customer Service Team

10 December 2010

Managing your own business is certainly difficult on your own. This is why people hire well-trained professionals to assist them when their business grows in size. The hope: these professionals will be well equipped to handle the business and help it to grow and profit. However, its still up to you to provide the customer service at times.

This is even true for your customer service team. Believe it or not, you'll have to provide ample customer service to your customer service team if you want everything to run smoothly and remain on track.

Although you hired your customer service team to assist your customers, they will still need both guidance and assistance to ensure smooth sailing. For example: do your employees immediately know your position, or do they share your same business vision and focus? If not, its important that you start off by making sure you're all on the same page.

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Increase Retail Sales Quickly and Easily

03 December 2010

If you already have a relatively solid business in place, then those supposedly easy methods will work a lot easier than if you have no business in place at all. In fact, that's how everything labeled easy is supposed to work. It simply helps you tune up your machine; it doesn't necessarily give you the tools and know how to build it from the ground up.

In this short guide, well go over a few ways you can quickly and easily increase your retail sales. Of course, as mentioned up top, this is for businesses already in operation, already advertising and already selling. If you're looking to set up a business on these tips, you might be deterred when you find out they wont work so readily for you.

That's not to say they're not good tips to carry around with you if you've yet to open up your business. You can use these. The point is that they wont be quite as effective unless your business is off the ground.

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Need an Investor Is Your Business an Attractive Proposition?

12 November 2010

One of the hardest things to do when starting a business is to find the necessary capital to get you off the ground. All you could possibly think of that needs to be covered still manages to never be everything once the ball starts rolling. A few hundred for this, a few thousand for that by the time you're in business, you need a huge windfall just to avoid bankruptcy.

Of course, the most common way to ensure that you find the necessary start-up capital is to attract an investor. Investors are probably the best thing that ever happened for small business. Sure, they're not in it for charity. They're in it to make a profit. However, without the help of investors in the business world, the overwhelming majority of good ideas would never reach fruition.

The only way that you're going to get an investor is to make sure that your business seems profitable.

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Cultivating Market Perception

10 November 2010

Market perception is going to be vital to your long-term worth as a business. Knowing how to properly cultivate this perception and promote a positive image is an aspect of business that's going to benefit you in the long run. To begin working on your market perception, it's important to develop your positioning statement and your key marketing messages.

A positioning statement is how your business expresses the way it wants to be seen by customers. In other words, put what you most want customers to know about your product/service into this positioning statement. Its all about direction and focus at this point, and having a clear direction leaves the ambiguity out of it.

The positioning statement is taking one strong position. Emphasizing the key aspects of your product and overall business comes in the supporting messages. This is where you can begin working on the overall interest of your product, by generating a buzz about it and calling for action. However, don't stray from the concrete position of your product.

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Creating an Online Brand, the Pitfalls to be Aware of

08 November 2010

Theres more to business than just a brand name, certainly, but how many people would drink Coca Cola if it wasnt Coca Cola? There are many products out there on the market less expensive and that taste relatively the same. However, theres only one Coca Cola a brand name that has been working for decades for their popularity.

Every businessperson wants to emulate that type of effectiveness in terms of their personal business brand. Having name recognition, the perception of fair business and loyalty, the stoic business presence thats something we all aspire to. But there are pitfalls associated with branding that you must be aware of, especially branding in the fickle online world of business.

In the real world, a stable brand can last through some controversy and some bad business moves. As long as the brand is formed, it can be recovered. In the online world, however, even the most solid brands can be instantly brought down if they do bad business or decide to skimp on customers in some form or fashion.

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Key Factors in Successful Website Conversions

01 November 2010

As you're first starting to build your web business, you may hear a lot of emphasis placed on driving traffic to your website. This is a huge percentage of your business getting people to visit your site. However, if you wish to truly be successful with any business venture, you can't simply have traffic show up. You have to be able to convert your visitors to buyers.

Having a strong conversion rate can transform your startup or middle-of-the-road web business into a successful venture virtually overnight. Of course, taking the necessary steps to ensure your methods convert visitors is a longer process in itself, but if done correctly it's a process worth its wait in gold.

Website conversion is a term that's explained very easily. It's the number of potential customers visitors that go on to become customers. Too often, websites work on increasing their total traffic instead of their conversion rates. While this may help in the SEO aspect and name recognition, it doesn't do that well for the bottom line.

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Publicity for Growth and Profit

27 October 2010

One of the things you'll work hardest at in your business is marketing your brand and trafficking your products and/or services. Even if you manage to become successful, the marketing doesn't stop there. When's the last time you've gone a week without seeing an ad somewhere for McDonald's or Coca-Cola? For ultimate growth and profit, it's all about publicity.

Realistically, you're probably not going to be the next big thing like a Coke. This isn't anything you don't know; and the sooner you realize you'll never become one of the world's biggest players, the sooner you can get everything in to perspective and start working on your business to achieve one goal at a time instead of the pipe dream of world domination.

That's not saying you won't end up being a big player, but approach marketing with a sense of realism. All you're looking to target here is your market i.e. the individuals more likely to purchase from you because they need what you're offering. If you can get a handle on this, then you can start to publicize your business for some quick growth and ultimate profit.

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Beware of the Get Rich Quick Schemes of the Noughties

25 October 2010

I felt it was about time to write about this new scheme which seems to be popping up all over the place and tempting people into something which I've termed as the new "Get Rich Schemes of the Noughties".

This is not a new idea, if you remember back in the 90s, this became a popular marketing ploy which promised that people can attain massive wealth by working from home with these schemes that have high return rates, little risk and low investment of effort and time.

Legal and some questionably legal programs were often advertised in magazines, newspapers and the famous infomercials. Other less legitimate schemes would operate through cold calling or spam post.

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Business Book Review: Magic of Selling by Dan Hollis

25 October 2010

Some will say that the start-up entrepreneur is always at a disadvantage simply because the market operates tirelessly without their presence, and that the odds are stacked against anyone attempting to carve out a niche. Others, however, say this is not the case, and that so many successful entrepreneurs simply mean that there's an abundance of successful formulas.

When it comes to information on how to work your way from a start-up business person with an idea to a successful marketer, there are countless systems and books out there to try. One of the most popular for aspiring entrepreneurs is The Magic of Selling by Dan Hollis.

Hollis' work is available in many formats, including book, eBook and CD, and the purpose of the work is to assist individuals considering taking on sales as a business. The Magic of Selling: A Treasure Map for the Future Successful Salesperson was constructed both to provide adequate help in the field and to provide some entertainment. It's fun to read.

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A Review of the Book The E-Myth, by Michael Gerber

22 October 2010

A lot of people in the online business world constantly seek out advice from experts about how to proceed and what to watch out for. When a reputable expert writes a book about Internet business, you better believe that it sells a lot of copies and turns a lot of heads.

One such book is The E-Myth, written by renowned business consulting guru Michael Gerber. What Michael does in his book isn't very different in terms of his approach. Gerber lends his observations and expert advice in an easy-to-read format that helps to guide readers in the business world

What sets his book apart is the actual tone and the cold, hard truth that most of what people think to be a business is really just a job. This distinction is shocking to some individuals who've worked hard to create a business but find they have to keep working at it. Thus, their business isn't a business at all, but really a job they've created.

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Maximizing the Mobile Web Opportunity

06 August 2010

The Internet has been rapidly evolving since it first arrived on the scene. From box-shaped, bulky desktop computers to portable laptops, the way we access the Internet has completely changed in less than a decade. Weve been taking it even further this new millennium. Now anyone can access the Internet from their mobile devices on the go.

What this means for people is that, no matter where they are, they can also have a direct link to the Internet and the social networking sites they love to use. What this means for businesspeople is that their customers are always online, no matter what time of day, and transactions can be made with a simple click.

If youre operating an online business, then the best thing you can possibly do is to optimize your website/business in order to maximize this unique and rapidly growing mobile web opportunity. If you choose not to, your business will suffer because your competitors are surely out there optimizing their sites with the latest and greatest applications and software tweaks.

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How to Select an Internet Marketing Company for Your Requirements

21 July 2010

A lot of people operating home businesses are literally working 15 minutes a day and enjoying ample revenue. This isnt to say that theyre not stressed out about the business and constantly having to worry about its direction; but some bring an idea to the table and choose to outsource the day-to-day operations like content writing, linking and Internet marketing.

If choosing an Internet marketing company is something youve been entertaining, then you do need to know a few things before proceeding. A lot of these companies will charge a pretty penny to put your sites name out there and deliver some traffic. Unless you pick the right one and open up a line of communication, you could be looking at a wasted investment.

The first step in this process is to do a little bit of research. You may not know enough about SEO to optimize your own website, but you can certainly enter a term like the best Internet marketing companies or something similar.

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Top Five Internet Marketing Services That Could Be Useful For Your Business

09 July 2010

There are hundreds of Internet marketing services to choose from if you're thinking about going that route. What separates the best from the rest?

Well, it has to do with a few factors that most never think about when working on SEO. These include client retention, alternative campaigning and speed of ranking among other factors.

The best in the business are certainly not the cheapest in the business, but they're proven companies with very few negative points. They've excelled in a crowded market by simply being better than the competition in multiple areas, and anyone thinking about starting an online business should look into one of these companies.

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What is the Buzz around Social Media Marketing?

25 June 2010

Social media has literally exploded over the past few years. Social networking sites like FaceBook are more popular today than email has ever been. It was long thought that the younger generation was flooding the social networking market and causing it to receive these high numbers, but Nielson Online found that it's actually older people causing the sudden boom.

This means that, regardless of age, people are turning to social media far more than other aspects of the Internet like email. This brand of marketing has become preferred by businesspeople as a result, and even professional networking communities have hundreds of thousands of members these days.

Why is social media marketing so popular? This question cannot be accurately answered in full. There are various aspects one can discuss and figure out what contributes to the success, but it's impossible to know exactly what lures people to these sites more than other brands of marketing.

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A Short Guide to Organizing a Direct Advertising Campaign

16 June 2010

Instead of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for advertising in a particular unproven market, many businesspeople go another route and employ a tactic called direct advertising. In simple terms, direct advertising is a marketing strategy that streamlines your businesss marketing efforts by going directly to the customers.

Regular advertising means youll gain exposure over a large audience and folks within your niche will hopefully seek you out. Direct advertising takes the guess work out of it and enables you to cater directly to your potential customers. Its cheaper and far more effective, especially for Internet businesses.

How to Advertise Directly
Direct Mail
Small or large businesses can benefit greatly from direct mail. Not only can you target recipients of your marketing, but youll also be able to protect against a large response. Direct mail is extremely cost-effective, fast, and it allows you a platform for unlimited advertising.

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Advancing Your Business - Partner, Promote and Profit

12 April 2010

Starting your business begins with an idea. Nothing has ever fallen into an entrepreneur's lap; it's all been about thinking up a unique idea and angle, and pursuing it fervently to see it through fruition. There are many ways in which you can go about starting a business. In this article, we'll cover the three Ps: Partner, promote and profit.

First up is the partner. Now, like a marriage, you're going to want trust, devotion and still an informal relationship that involves some enjoyment outside of the business arena. Although the last point isn't vitally essential, it still helps tremendously to forge a friendship with a business partner, allowing for regular dialog and a positive attitude.

Finding a business partner shouldn't be hard work if the business idea is worth pursuing. You would be surprised at how many people jump at the chance to take part in a business they think will be profitable. It's a possible life-changing venture that brings out the entrepreneur in us all.

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Five Solid Low-Cost Marketing Strategies

05 March 2010

Marketing has been an essential part of business for as long as business has been around. No matter what youre trying to sell, its vitally important to spread the word and develop a customer base.

Theres no better way to run a business than to get your name out there. Name recognition is everything, but in order for a name to be recognized, you must reach a broad base even if youre only catering to a niche market.

In todays high-tech world, there are many advertising methods that are extremely effective. However, business owners are forced to pay high rates for many of these methods. But where theres a will theres a way, and in recent years, quite a few low-cost marketing strategies have been developed. Here are five of the best-working for Internet marketing purposes.

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Promotional Literature - How do you ensure it pays for itself?

02 March 2010

There are a lot of people in the world that can write, but only a small percentage can do it effectively when it comes to business. If youre one of those people, then youve seriously lucked out and should thank your lucky stars.

However, if you have to hire out and get a freelancer to do it for you, then you better make sure the product youre receiving is of a high enough quality to pay for itself in the long run.

A basic business template - i.e. common sense - says to make sure the text is well-written, free of grammatical errors and to the point but theres a lot more to writing effective copy than keeping it short, simple and clean. Whether youll be trying to take on the writing duties or hiring out, youll need to know a few things about making promotional text pay for itself.

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How to Write an Effective Follow-Up Sales Letter

02 February 2010

Knowing how to write effective copy - or even how to get your hands on effective copy - is one of the many not-so-secret business tactics used by today’s most successful entrepreneurs.

If you’ve already written the first sales letter, then you already know most of everything needed: good grammar, quick and clean rhetoric, professionalism, etc. However, the follow-up letter is a different monster entirely. This is where emphasis will be placed on your dedication and responsibility.

When done correctly, a follow-up letter can be one of the most effective tools in the world of business, especially highly competitive e-businesses. The reasons to write a follow-up letter are numerous and include: providing detailed information and showing continued interest; recapping important product points; emphasizing benefits of a product or service; reminding customers/subscribers of current or upcoming offers; thanking someone for their business.

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How to be Sure Your Advertising is Reaching Your Target Market

26 January 2010

Marketing has been likened to putting a message in a bottle. You take your time to write it out, seal it up, toss it out into the ever-moving ocean and hope desperately that it reaches a target.

With today’s multi-media basically running the world, the old bottled message way of thinking is now reversed. Now the message reaches everyone, but the recipient is so inundated with bottles that the message has to be something special to get them to show up to your island.

In short, there are two basic ways to “reach” your audience. One is simple: having your market put eyes on your advertising and your business. The next way to reach someone is in more of a metaphorical way - reach, as in, get through to them and get their attention. And if you want to know if your business is doing that, there’s only one surefire way to tell.

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Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for the New Millennium

20 January 2010

There are many marketing tactics out there in Web Land that people use in order to become more successful with their businesses. Guerrilla marketing is one of the most popular right now. Basically, guerrilla marketing is a very unconventional system of promotions that rely on certain factors like energy, time and your imagination.

It’s the poor man’s answer to big-budget marketing, so to speak. Guerrilla marketing involves a strong will and a vivid imagination. The idea is to engage your market and become interactive by creating buzz - going “viral.” The tactic has evolved in recent years, and the new millennium’s guerrilla marketing is just as popular as ever.

There’s actually a book out now called “Guerrilla Marketing Tactics for the New Millennium,” written by the creator of this tactic, Jay Conrad Levinson. The basic idea behind Jay’s brilliance is something that was once thought to be common sense, and that is to show initiative.

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How do you find a niche market?

08 December 2009

You wouldn’t try to sell comic books to a baseball card collector would you? They’re just not the same market. The card collector has no interest in comic books, so to set up your business to cater to the card collector would be a waste of time and money. Instead, you want to cater to the comic book collector. It’s common sense. It’s a niche market.

For the many people trying to work online, the right niche market is important. Sure, you could get 10,000 visitors looking at your site, but if they all want baseball cards, you’ll have zero conversion with your comic books.

Use anything as an example, and the results will always come back the same: you need to cater to your market. Traffic to people who are more likely to buy the products you’re selling. This is how good business is done, and if you want a good business, you need to learn how to find a niche market.

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The Power Of Article Marketing And How To Leverage It

09 November 2009

The pen is truly mightier than the sword. And if that’s not a bold enough testament to the power of the written word, there are hundreds of other adages, all illustrating literature’s unique prowess, like the keen advice to never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.

If you’re a work-from-home entrepreneur, using your computer to build a business, article marketing - the written word - can be your best friend. Article marketing can easily generate traffic to your sites and even create conversion. The trick to this technique is to leverage its power.

One of the first not-so-secret secrets to article marketing is volume. For example, let’s say you’re operating a business and are currently receiving 200 visitors a month. You’re driving them there by writing 10 articles every month.

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What Makes a Terrific Brand and why is it Important?

20 October 2009

Have you drunk a Coke lately? Have you gone to McDonald’s? These brands are recognizable around the entire world. What about them makes them tried, true people pleasers? A well executed approach to branding is a key part of the immense success enjoyed by such companies.

They’ve also been a very long time in the making. What you see today is a culmination of years of research and trial and error. The world’s best brands have been tweaked and reinvented and are constantly changing in small ways without changing and losing their repeat customer appeal and an awful lot of work goes into building a brand that’s so incredibly successful. Is it worth it? Put it this way: Who hasn’t heard of the names mentioned above?

Obviously, 99.9% of all businesspeople aren’t going to have that sort of brand - but you never want to treat it as any less. Your brand is your name recognition; your image. It is what makes you and your business unique, desirable, and honest, and, most importantly, worth spending money on. To you, a brand should be your business’s identity, and it should be a part of you that you care enough about to constantly improve.

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The Beginner’s Guide to Pay Per Click Search Engines

13 October 2009

Have you thought about starting a pay-per click campaign recently? Truthfully, this is something that can be daunting, even for those with computer knowledge. If you were to go check online, right this second, looking for PPC information, you would be bombarded with pages and pages of complicated rhetoric.

Since you’re a beginner, the professional-style instruction manual is more than a tad ironic. Luckily, a beginner’s guide to PPC can be short and sweet.

First, let’s go over how these search engines work. Say you’re surfing around, looking for a business that sells how-to gardening books. You use an engine like Google, unaware of their ranking and pay system. What you’re most interested in is that top result. To you, that result is reputable - it’s on the first page of Google.

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Creating a Marketing Strategy for Your Business: Part B

22 September 2009

Making Sure Things are Right from the Start

Today’s market is far different from the market twenty-years ago. The importance of market trends of previous years have little to no relevance in this marketplace. Technology has caused market conditions to change quickly and frequently, and customers have far different wants and desires now.

Businesses wishing to succeed in today’s fast-paced, competitive business world must not only choose the target (niche) market wisely, they must also focus intently on unique benefits provided to customers by the business -- something wholly original from competitors.

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Creating a Marketing Strategy for Your Business: Part A

15 September 2009

Getting Started

The following guide will cover basic tips and techniques to enable the development of a marketing strategy for a business. Properly implementing a strategy is equally as crucial as the strategy you choose to proceed with.

The most important thing to remember is that, in order to achieve sustainable success, the market strategy chosen must be effective. However, thousands of new businesses continue to fail every year, even with a solid strategy in place.

This is in no doubt due to a lack of correct implementation. A small business that has the vision to get started with a dynamic strategy has infinitely greater odds of survival than one that starts without. Setting a business apart from competitors is essential in business. Putting a great strategy in place helps to do that.

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What is direct mail marketing and how effective is it?

20 July 2009

There are countless advertising tools that help people to succeed in marketing. From old-school mainstays to new up-and-comers, the amount of marketing techniques available to the public is staggering. What’s even more staggering is the effectiveness of these techniques.

In business, direct mail is perhaps one of the most popular means of advertising. Direct mail involves advertising to potential customers via printed ads, letters, and other forms of solicitations. Costs are trimmed by designing bulk-mail campaigns and various targeting techniques for mailing lists maximize the response rate.

The situations in which direct mail can be used effectively are virtually endless. For example, certain stores can use direct mail to advertise their new products. You see this everyday in the form of sales papers from grocery stores, retail stores, etc.

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What Being Sticky Means in Advertising

14 November 2008

In economics, the term “sticky” describes a situation in which a particular variable is defiant to change. You can see this with nominal wages, and how they’re said to be sticky. Various factors contribute to the “stickiness,” including unions, stubbornness, self-interest, and price regulations.

But in the world of advertising, especially on the web, “sticky” takes on a slightly different meaning, though not far removed at all. It’s easy to see a correlation between the two worlds. After all, the internet is the world’s most accessible economy, and what possible better way is there to advertise?

Being sticky in advertising basically means that your advertising approach isn’t a cheap and sleazy come-on; it’s more personable and believable. For an example of this, just check out the many millions of blogs and see how the homey feel and the do-it-yourself appeal can easily sell a person on anything from a simple ad click to a high definition television.

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