2 Free Marketing Tips To Get The Word Out About Your Business

Are you earning as much money that you would like to in your business? If you answered "no", then you should know that there are things that you can do to boost your overall business profits. Most business owners hang their hat on the notion that marketing is hard, and that they would rather hire someone out to do it, rather than doing it themselves.

Internet Marketing Tips: How To Have Faith In Your Internet Marketing Plan

First and foremost, if you plan to complete web marketing for your business you must have a plan. Being prepared is a huge part of being able to move forward and become successful. Now once you have this plan established you really need to stick to it and part of that is having faith in your plan. Many people lose faith in their plan because they do not see immediate results and they may become bored.

YouTube Marketing Tips to Grow Your Business

The world's biggest online video-sharing service, YouTube, is the perfect place for marketing campaigns to shine, if only marketers know how to grab the spotlight. The community is diverse, and its population huge. YouTube marketing can increase sales and widen brand coverage by using this innovative platform to connect and capture existing and potential customers.

Trade Show Marketing Tips For Your Business

Well known to be one of the most popular outlets for business professionals, trade shows serve several important roles. These highly trafficked venues allow for a great deal of exposure towards your product, and can attract many new leads your way thus amplifying your client base. Being around other like minded individuals often leads to great new networking opportunities,

Lifetime Value of a Customer Explained

I always say when talking about marketing your small business, there is 'no treasure without measure'. Now if you are anything like me (and I accept we are all different but I know a lot of people that agree on this point) you like to skip the details... the boring bits...the tedious bean counting...

5 Tips For Increasing Online Marketing Success

Online marketing success greatly relies upon creative thinking on the part of the individual entrepreneur. Whether developing innovative ideas for promotional or product purposes or simply refining the way many business tasks are completed your creativity is an asset! With that said it is important to recognize that in order to be successful marketing online we must avoid certain behaviors or beliefs that inhibit creative thinking!

10 Most Important Factors for Small Business SEO

The online space is changing constantly and every day there is a new product, platform or idea being created to attract and distract business owners. Whilst writing this article there could be a new product being launched that renders this article out of date and so rather than look at the shiny new things available online this article will focus on the fundamentals of online success for a small business owner.

1. Clear Project Aims - What do you want to achieve online? Are you looking for brand awareness, direct sales, lead generation or is your web site simply a supporting act for your more traditional offline activity? Setting out clearly defined goals will lead to the second key area for online activity which is keyword selection.
2. Keyword Selection - Once you have identified your project aims you can set about the task of creating a keyword map. The aim here is to identify keywords or phrases that people who are searching, browsing or even fumbling their way online would use to find you. An example of this might be "Cheap Car Insurance" might be a phrase suitable for generating direct sales whereas "Insurance Companies" might be more brand awareness. Google's own keyword tool is a really useful free offering for identifying good phrases with regular search volumes.
3. Traffic - Once you have created a keyword map you need to identify the best place to generate traffic. Search engines like Google are usually the best place to start but are you looking for a Pay per Click campaign through the likes of Google Adwords? This is quick and easy to achieve but very often far too expensive for most small to medium sized businesses. Are you looking for organic traffic from the natural listings? This typically needs a good Small business SEO specialist to help but tends to deliver more quality and sustainable traffic. Could social media be more suited to your product i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in or the host of social bookmarking sites like Delicious or Digg? What about the power of video which is becoming ever more important online and traffic can be gained from the video streaming platforms like You Tube, Daily Motion or Metacafe and also direct from the first page of Google.
4. Traffic Quality - One key factor when deciding where to get your traffic is the quality and quantity you need. There is a fine line between quality and volume - too much attention to the quality and you may not generate enough visitors to convert, too much attention to volume and you may waste lots of money generating leads that do not convert or you cannot cope with. Concentrate on your highest profit margin phrases first and build from there.
5. Traffic Behaviour - Once you get visitors to your web site they need to stay in the first instance, get to where they need to be quickly and efficiently and once there convert into a lead or sale. If you have a high bounce rate it could be that people are searching for one thing and arriving at a page that says something different. If someone is searching for "red shoes" make sure they arrive at the page within your site that sells red shoes not a page that sells "green track suits" or your home page that talks about your business in general. If someone is searching for 'sports wear" by all means send them to your home page or a category page that says Sports Wear. Can the user navigate the site easily without needing a crash course in code writing!! Is your site clunky or slow to load if so change it customers will get board, it is a fact that searchers are spending less time on each page they visit and bounce rates as a whole are increasing indicating that today's searcher is less prepared to dig for what they want and are looking for it to be served to them quickly.
6. Traffic Conversion - Once visitors are on your site and have been able to navigate or have landed on the correct page you need mechanisms to help them convert. If you have a shopping cart this is straight forward you want them to buy something however if they don't what next? How can you grab their details so that you can market to them again? It is essential to have multiple reasons for a searcher to leave their details and often less is more here. Rather than giving away every piece of information at your disposal reduce it slightly and get the searcher to ask for it. Give them a snippet of a newsletter or white paper and get them to ask fro the rest (this way you generate a lead), show them a video and ask them do they want more? (another way to generate a lead). Early stage researchers may only want to leave an email address in order to receive a newsletter perhaps whereas a searcher who is ready to buy might leave lots of information to receive full product specifications or a price list?
7. Traffic Retention - Most small business owners have one chance to convert traffic into leads or sales and that is usually the first time a potential customer visits the site. Many blue chips and larger web site real estate work really hard to create a web site that is appealing enough for visitors to return therefore giving them multiple opportunities to convert traffic to sales. Small business owners however usually do not have the time, resource or subject matter to create a site that engages visitors over and over again with the possible exception of e-commerce sites. This doesn't mean that small business owners shouldn't try by introducing videos, industry news updates, company news updates, blog posts, twitter posts, weekly offers or even competitions in order to give visitors a reason to return.
8. Traffic Profiling - Most businesses will now have some kind of traffic analysis software (often Google Analytics) however few small businesses are conversant with all there functions. With Google analytics for example it is possible to set up targets and goals to track the performance of traffic throughout the site. Traffic profiling takes this a stage further by separating traffic and leads into predetermined categories from early stage researchers to general enquirers and the holy grail of hot leads who are ready to buy now.
9. Lead Management - Once a lead has been captured it is essential that business owners can store and manage these leads effectively. This ranges from creating categories for leads, compiling a history, prospect system to manage calls and recalls and some kind of filtering system to facilitate target marketing and re-marketing. Even if your site is an e-commerce site it is proven that less than 5% of people who visit your site for the first time will buy something and so it is essential to have a lead management programme to facilitate the other 95%
10. Re-Marketing - It has long been proven in the world of offline marketing that it takes between 5-7 contacts on average to turn a prospect into a top quality lead or sale and this is no different online. On average small to medium sized business owners tend to contact their prospects only 2-3 times and many only make one contact. This is one major area where a small business owner can truly maximise their ROI when it comes to online marketing by having the capacity to simply and regularly contact their prospect base.

By Paul Sheals

Best Practices for Successful Email Marketing

Done right, email marketing builds and strengthens the relationship that you have with your clients. Imagine your emails being opened by your subscribers and then shared with their friends. Imagine people responding to your email campaigns. Achieving high email open rates and response rates is based upon following a few email best practices and consistently delivering something of interest and value to your subscribers.
Let's look at several of the best email marketing practices and how you can put them to work for you.

Strategic Lifetime Marketing - A Life Preserver For Your Business

Ever heard of 'Riptide Marketing?'

In the United States, riptides account for approximately 100 deaths every year. Despite its name, a riptide isn't related to the ocean tide at all. It is actually a strong flow of water returning towards the sea from the shore. More accurately, this flow of water is called a rip current.   Rip currents can occur at any beach that has breaking waves, including oceans, seas, and even large lakes such as the Great Lakes. Rip currents can tow an unsuspecting swimmer or wader out to sea at speeds up to one to eight feet per second.   But rip current themselves are not dangerous.  

Rip currents become treacherous when the panicked victim fights to swim back to shore. In the futile attempt to fight the current, the victim becomes exhausted and drowns.   Though seemingly counterintuitive, the way to survive a rip current is to simply swim parallel to the shoreline. By doing so, you will swim perpendicular to the direction of powerful pull and ultimately free of the current - without exhausting yourself. Then you can change directions and swim towards shore.

What do riptides have to do with your business?

When revenue slows down for any reason, general overhead and administrative expenses continue to flow out. Just like a rip current.   The common business reaction is to ramp up one's marketing efforts to bring in new customers and entice previous customers to return.   In the ensuing flurry of panicked activity, no marketing plan is developed or, if there is one, it is ill-planned or isn't followed. Carried to its extreme, this ultimately leads to business death by drowning in a sea of unpaid advertising and general overhead bills.

An Example of Riptide Marketing

Until recently, one of my clients was paying over $20,000 in Yellow Pages ads - every month! The return on the marketing investment? Needless to say, far less than $20,000 per month.   Now, obviously, spending money like that is not a formula for business longevity. Fortunately, with my coaching, at renewal time the company slashed its Yellow Pages commitment to more manageable and reasonable levels.

The Solution to Riptide Marketing

Strategic lifetime marketing is an approach to marketing that capitalizes on the lifetime value of your most desirable customers. In the business world, this is akin to swimming parallel to the shoreline when caught in a potentially deadly rip current. The key is to develop such a lifetime-oriented approach to marketing before a crisis occurs.   One of the first steps to developing a strategic lifetime-oriented marketing plan is to first understand your highest-value customer.

Who is your highest-value customer? Sounds simple enough but, in my experience, this is one of the toughest questions for business owners to answer with clarity and confidence. (By the way, "everyone" is not a good answer.)   You can start by understanding the demographics and psychographics of your ideal target audience:

• Demographics are quantifiable characteristics - factors such as age, race, gender, religion, income, education, and profession.
• Psychographics are less readily quantifiable, but more critical to your success - they describe what your target audience values, how they think, what they care about, how they feel, and how they choose to live. These factors directly reflect their buying habits.

The Lifetime Marketing Quickstart Action Plan

 The cure for riptide marketing consists of three simple steps:

1. As described above, first understand the demographic and their psychographic characteristics of your market.
2. Then, determine the potential of your product or service in the marketplace. Do so by uncovering your target's biggest problems and needs to which you are the answer. Once you have this kind of information clear, you'll be prepared to craft your ultimate value offering - customized to the needs, wants, and mindset of your best customers.
3. Finally, measure the effectiveness of your promotional activities.

The Bottom Line:

Without a strategic approach to effective, lifetime-oriented marketing, you are putting your greatest asset - your business - at risk. Whether you are starting a new business, introducing a new product or service, or seeking to expand your existing business, it is vitally important to first understand the mindset and buying habits of your potential and existing consumers.   With this information, you can position and package your offering in a way that attracts the consumers who are looking for the product or service you have to offer as well as the value that you offer.   This strategy will enhance your ability to get your value-based message to your target audience with greater cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and impact. It will increase your prospect-to-buyer conversion rates, shorten the buying cycle, and increase the frequency of repeat and referral purchases.

By George C. Huang, M.D.

Marketing With Big Ideas - It's Not an Exact Science

Be it in science or in marketing, a great idea is a great idea. Use the great ideas of science to beef up your marketing by standing on the shoulders of these giants.

State the Obvious - Isaac Newton - Was Newton the first guy who was ever beaned by an apple? Doubtful. But he was the first person to give a name to the phenomenon of falling (and the acceleration it produces).

When marketers take the time to identify, name, and analyze consumer behaviors that we see every day, we develop an understanding of which marketing methods create a gravitational pull towards our products...and which are just whacking people over the head.

Change is Inevitable - Barbara McClintock - In McClintock's era, geneticists considered genes to be unalterable, barring chance or damage. McClintock found genes that could change their own position on the chromosome, or even change chromosomes, through her work with maize. OK, this doesn't sound that exciting, but it's analogous to, say, words moving around on a page, or even hopping from book to book. Remembering that change is built into our very genes encourages flexibility - and the realization that adaptability must underpin every long-term strategy for growth.

Concepts Come First - Albert Einstein - Einstein said, "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." So, you might not have wanted him writing your ad copy...but as a concept, I'm digging on the invisible cat.

By Reese Minshew

Online Marketing Tips That Can Help You Out

Internet marketing can boost the profitability of a business. Advertising on the web means you are able to reach customers from all of around the globe. Finding out how to optimize this resource is essential to your success. In this article, we will share the best ideas in Internet marketing. Successful marketers be aware of positive impact electronic magazines might have, especially those who've developed magazines which help them begin a stronger reference to their readers.

Try adding a personal touch by showing pictures of yourself and your loved ones and employees. You can also include details about your lifetime or fun office anecdotes. Create attention-grabbing subject lines for the Ezine which will draw the future prospect in and make them would like to learn more.

Personal focus on customer complaints could possibly be the distinction between obtaining a bad reputation or resolving a conflict peacefully and positively. You need to make an effort to handle all customer complaints yourself as this way you realize whether they have been resolved. If your customer includes a problem and emails you about it, imagine a solution, and provide it towards the customer personally. It can sound good in writing to have ten different social networking profiles, but if you can't provide them with each sufficient time to look active, it won't do any good. Inactive profiles that aren't updated regularly are useless.

Including your signature in each and every outgoing email is vital, even though it doesn't pertain to business. Spread your business card all around the cyber-world; you want just as much exposure as you possibly can. There is no telling which of your email contacts might be looking for some cat food from your cat food site. This is not just convenient on their behalf but means guaranteed sales for you. You have to produce a great site before worrying about setting it up ranked. All online businesses must start with this idea. The greater looking your site looks, the less time you have to put into keeping it up.

Take benefit of email to enhance your business. Send customers newsletters that provide them information that's so useful that they clamor for more. Make your subscriber believe you are sending them personal note with helpful, useful information in it, as opposed to spam. By sending clients newsletters, you can keep active in them after they have remaining you site, thus, which makes them feel appreciated. You are actually more capable about the various means of enhancing your internet business presence. Now, you need to simply apply them to your business. Alterations may be to be able to customize these phones fit your own particular needs. What matters is that you simply are always learning and always wanting to try new things.

By Sally Dollie Morgan