Online Advertising Marketing

Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

If you have your own small business, it’s important to decide exactly who you will be marketing your products or services to. After all, you probably don’t have the time or the money to market to everyone. And even if you did, it is not recommended.

You’ll want to select what is called a “target audience.” This is an identifiable group of people you believe will be the best prospects for your business.

But for many small business owners, narrowing their focus to one primary group of people can be a challenging task. They want to help everyone — 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.
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The moment I decided to specialize as a direct response copywriter (which means you get a response directly from the marketing materials, there’s no middle person involved, like a sales rep) I knew there would be one thing that would determine if I would be eating steak or eating mac and cheese.

And what’s the one thing? The results I got for my clients.

Therefore, improving results became a pretty big focus of mine. You might even call it a passion. (Some people who aren’t nearly as nice have called it in an obsession.)

Regardless, here are 5 tips that can help you improve the conversions of your marketing materials.

1. Know who you’re talking to. If I hear anyone say “women are my potential customers” or “anyone with skin is my target market” (yes, that really was a direct quote from someone who sold Mary Kay or Arbonne or something like that) I will send my border collies (all 3 of them) to your house and force you to play fetch with them until your arm falls off. Seriously, the quickest way you can end up with the most dismal results imaginable is to try and talk to everyone. Come up with a specific customer — the more specific the better — and make sure your marketing materials speak directly to that customer.
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Do you feel that you’re wasting valuable marketing efforts on tire-kickers: a large and growing market segment? They subscribe to all your free offers — but leave their credit cards behind.

Early in my business life, I talked to anyone and everyone, enthusiastically. I gave away classes, e-books, articles and more.

But soon I was forced to confront the reality of opportunity cost. While I was chatting happily with the freebie-seekers, I lost the opportunity to update my websites, create new products and write more articles. — activities that would most likely bring “real” paying clients.

1. Communicate “professional” and “commercial” on every page of your website.

Like many professionals-turned-marketers, I was nervous about sounding too sales-y. But when I began learning more about copywriting, especially copy for the web, my style became more direct. As soon as you arrived on my website, you knew: Sales were happening here.

What I learned: Serious buyers rarely got turned off. They want to be sold. Freebie-seekers and tire-kickers got the message quickly: You have to pay to play.

2. Create low-cost or no-cost products that deliver bite-sized portions of your expertise.

Serious buyers want to assess your style and expertise before buying. They may want to develop a relationship before handing over their credit cards.

So you need the basics: website content, ebooks, ezines and audio. You may even offer one-time consulting sessions so prospective clients can get a sense of your style.

3. Donate services for everyone’s benefit – not to help a single needy visitor.

Back in the early days, I felt sorry for everyone who called. But soon I discovered a hard truth. These “needy” folks were paying large sums to more experienced consultants who knew how to say “No!”

If you genuinely want to help others, donate your services through nonprofit and charitable organizations where you will get recognition, testimonials and possibly future referrals.
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When used effectively business cards can be a great marketing tool. In this article we will discuss 5 of the most effective ways that you can use your business cards everyday.

1. Be Creative.

Be creative in the design of your business cards. Business cards do not just need to be bits of paper with your contact details on them. Be creative and give your business cards a use and purpose. Make them a powerful marketing tool in the promotion of your business.

Your aim is to make your business card something that the receiver will want to keep and make use of. This is the difference between a well thought out and designed business card and a piece of paper with your contact details on it that will probably be thrown into the trash.

Give the recipient of your business cards a special offer. For example if you are a school/training centre you may offer ‘first lesson for free with this card’ or if you run a shop maybe you will offer ’10% of any purchase over $50′.

Whatever your business, there is a creative way to give your business card real value to the receiver. If you can think and implement these new creative ways before your business does, you will have an instant advantage in that area of business, and should definitely see a rise in business if you have promoted you cards correctly.

2. The 1 minute rule

The 1 minute rule basically says, if you talk to a person for longer than 1 minute they should already have one of your business cards in their hand.

This means in conversations you need to find a way to talk about what you do, and be in the position to be able to offer one of your business cards to the person you are talking to in the first minute of conversation. This can be likened to a conversation you may have with someone at the bus stop or on the elevator. The conversation will end in a very short time and you only have a very short time to get your message across, or in this case get your business card to the recipient.

The 1 minute rule is basically just practice to get your business card out there as much as you can. Many people go through all the trouble of ordering business cards just to let them sit in a corner of their office. To use business cards effectively you must be giving them out at every opportunity that you have.
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