Marketing Archives

The Right Marketing Tool For You

If you have a business to promote, you may want a marketing tool. But what is the best marketing tool for you? What marketing tool is widely used? Some of you may be asking what a marketing tool is. There are answers to these questions.
A marketing tool is something that a business uses to promote its product or service. This can be done through various means. But the main one is advertising (or marketing). A marketing tool can be any of the following: web design, SEO, photos or illustrations, autoresponders, and public relations.
The first marketing tool listed was web design. With a stunning web design, you can attract more people to your site. A web design that is easy to navigate also keeps people interested. It may also be memorable to keep them coming back.
The second marketing tool is SEO (search engine optimization). With search engine optimization you can guarantee that your site will be one of the first listed on a search engine. It does this by using link popularity and keyword popularity used in search engines. This will ensure more web traffic. In turn, this means more business.
The third marketing tool is photos or illustrations. If you have attractive photos or illustrations of your product or service, people will be more likely to purchase it. Get a professional to do this for you. The more photos or illustrations you have the better.
The fourth marketing tool is the use of an autoresponder. An autoresponder is a powerful marketing tool. It is used to automatically send out emails to people on your mailing list or to people who may have visited your sight. These automatic emails can list sales, promotions, or any other advertisement you’d like to have noticed to better promote your business.
The fifth and last marketing tool is public relations. Public relations are also a great marketing tool because it not only makes you look good, but it develops positive feedback of your business. This will in turn bring you more customers. Always build good rapport with your customers.
The best way to get different marketing tools is on the web. There are many sights that offer different marketing tools. They all vary in price from site to site. Most offer guaranteed results in a determined amount of time or they offer you a full refund. Some even offer a free trial period.
A marketing tool is the best way to promote you business. Using more than one marketing tool at a time will ensure even better results. Take your time and see which one is best suited for your business. If you can, try to use all 5!

Outsourcing Your Marketing Needs

Have you ever stopped to notice that your marketing
campaigns and activities are not paying off, or
getting your desired result? So, you are spending a
fortune on marketing booths, exhibits, brochures,
flyers and so on and still your client database has
not improved? Have you ever stopped to think what are
you doing wrong? What is it that you lack?

You may have a pool of right-brain creative people in
your marketing team, producing impressive brochures
and coming up with great exhibit ideas, but do they
have the left-brain analytical people for a better
understanding of the statistics and trends in the
modern-day information and tech-savvy market? I guess
not.

This is the usual reason why most companies waste
time, money and effort on futile marketing campaigns
and activities-they don’t have the right people for
understanding the market.

Yes, they have the creative ones but that is not
enough to generate the result your company is aiming
for. These creative people of yours may only be
wasting their creative talent because it is not
well-aimed at the target. Fortunately, more and more
companies are realizing this mistake and so they are
now outsourcing their marketing needs for a more
focused and successful marketing endeavors.

The trend started with outsourcing only a part of the
marketing function, which is the advertising. Now,
companies are already outsourcing the more
nitty-gritty marketing tasks such as customer
analytics, lead management and direct-mail management.
What used to be simple marketing tasks have now been
realized as very significant factors that can greatly
help boost marketing success.

Marketing outsourcing business companies have
recognized this importance and have focused on
producing experts in these fields so they could
provide the best service to their clients. So, these
days, services for these seemingly mundane but very
important marketing tasks, can be outsourced for
better results.

And a lot of companies are realizing the sense in the
idea. A recent survey reported that 53% of polled
marketing executives are now planning to outsource
their marketing needs. They now realize that
outsourcing marketing activities saves the company
marketing cost, while at the same time producing
improved quality work that generates the result they
wanted.

Also, they see now that mass marketing is no longer
reliable for reaching more prospective customers
because nowadays, communication has become more
complicated than ever, hence, it needs expertise on
computer aided analysis. And this is what marketing
outsourcing business companies have and offer.

However, this does not mean that marketing executives
and officers of the company are no longer needed. The
opposite is true.

While the activities are outsourced, there is a vital
role for the marketing executive to play-they still
need to build and maintain good working relationships
with their clients and customers.

The good working relationship still rests with them
because customers still need to see the company in
flesh and blood, despite the convenience of outsourced
computerized services on the Internet. The marketing
executives, of course, still have to oversee the
production and progress of the marketing activities
that are being outsourced.

Of course, that still has to be managed and monitored
to ensure the company get the best result. Also, they
are to build good working relationship with these
outside suppliers to ensure that the company’s
specific needs are met. As in every business, success
lies in building and maintaining good working
relationships with both the clients and the suppliers.

Is Your Marketing Plan Ready for an Update?

With summer vacations over and schools back in session, marketing plan “season” is fast approaching. This is a time when you reflect on the effectiveness of your business marketing programs. You will be planning to improve performance of some marketing programs, discontinue some, and try others for the first time.
Each Marketing Plan is Unique
For those writing a marketing plan for the first time, it is important to know that there is no “magic formula” to an effective marketing plan. Formats and procedures vary widely, and your marketing plan will be one-of-a-kind.
Your company, customers, competitors, and suppliers interact to create a unique and ever-changing business environment. Because of this, your marketing plan should also be unique and frequently changing. What worked wonderfully for one company may be a dismal failure for you. What worked yesterday for you may not be the thing for you to do today. By thinking of your plan as a unique and perpetual work in progress, you can be better prepared to change direction when the business environment changes.
A Plan Makes a Profitable Difference
Ultimately, your marketing plan is a compass by which you navigate your day-to-day business. As opportunities arise or your business environment changes, the objective and strategies in your marketing plan will point you toward the best action. Without a marketing plan, you are guessing what might be best for your business. And don’t forget to address your Web site in the marketing plan. Without a marketing plan your Web site may be a drain on your finances rather than a business builder.
Also, understand you do not need a marketing degree and a lot of experience to update or create a marketing plan for your business. Once you have a structure to follow, the rest is a matter of rolling up your sleeves and getting it done. There is no single approach to developing a marketing plan. There is a wide selection of books, toolkits, and software to help you through the planning process. Some approaches require a great deal of time and others are “quick and dirty.” All can be applied to your business as a whole, an individual product, or your Web site.
So, in all the hustle and bustle of everyday business activities, don’t forget to take the time to update an existing marketing plan or write a new one. Your future profits depend on it!

Creating Online Business Internet Computer Marketing

There are many different ways you can work at creating online business Internet computer marketing.

The first key when creating online business Internet computer marketing is to assess your competition. This is important because you need to know what your competition is doing when devising your online marketing plan. By knowing what your competition is doing, you will see how you can make some changes to your marketing plan so you can stand apart.

The next key when creating online business Internet computer marketing is to decide what your goal will be for this. When you decide to do any marketing campaign, you need to know what you want your end result will be. Many people do not think about this before starting out with marketing a product. What are the results you would like to receive from Internet marketing? Do you want to increase traffic to your website? Would you want to sell more products? Do you want your name to become recognized for a product release in a couple of months? Each of these three is a different focus and knowing which one to focus on will be the difference in how the Internet marketing campaign will be devised.

By this point in creating online business Internet computer marketing, you will have a better idea of what your competition is doing and what your focus is. Now you will want to focus on your marketing strategy. This will have to focus on a couple of fronts potentially. To get traffic to focus upon a product, you may want to start incorporating product information into current marketing towards your client base. This is hard to recommend how to work on marketing strategy in this article without knowing your particular focus and what you are looking to accomplish. Marketing strategy comes down to deciding what you want to do and getting it done. When you are marketing on the Internet, see that you can find a targeted list of prospects who you can market to. This can be done in many different ways. You can use Adwords to bring targeted prospects to your website or you can advertise on ezines that your targeted prospects read. You could work with other websites to profile your product if you wanted. The beauty of the Internet is that you have an unlimited number of resources that you could use to help you in launching your marketing campaign.

Hopefully this article on creating online business Internet computer marketing has given you some insights. Whenever you are looking at starting new marketing, you need to see what is being done out there in the marketplace and how this is stacking up sales-wise for your competition. You will then want to decide upon your focus of your marketing campaign.

You will have put yourself in a great position by going through these exploratory steps before deciding how to approach your marketing campaign. It can allow you the ability to improve on what is working and potentially develop a niche within that market.

Search Engine Marketing-How it Differs from Search Engine Optimization

Search engine marketing is a set of marketing methods used to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages. Types of search engine marketing include; search engine optimization, pay per click, paid inclusion, and social media optimization. Search engine marketing differs from search engine optimization which is the art and science of making web pages attractive to internet search engines.

Non-profit organizations, universities, political parties, and the government can all benefit from search engine marketing. Businesses that sell products and/or services online can use search engine marketing to help improve their sales figures.

Some of the goals of search engine marketing are to develop a brand, generate media coverage, and enhancing a reputation, and to drive business to a physical location.

If you do not feel confident enough to try your own search engine marketing there are several companies that will be able to help you out for a price. If you decide to go with a search engine marketing company take your time and shop around, find a company that really suits your own businesses search engine marketing needs.

Stay away from companies that promise top rankings. Most companies that promise tope ranking are more interested in your money then they are in keeping your business. Quite often this type of company will charge you top doller, spend a few days making sure your website has a few basic requirements and that is the last you hear from them. This type of search engine marketing company is not really interested in repeat customers.

Tread carefully around companies that promise first page rankings on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo. Make sure these companies are talking about sponsored listings and not just natural listings. Companies that are only after natural listings traditionally charge a large monthly fee, using a small portion of the money on sponsored listings, and pocketing the remainder.

The false promise most commonly used by shady search engine marketing companies is the money back guarantee. Generally if you read the contract very carefully you will lean that these companies have a very strange idea of major search engine. Companies that have a money back guarantee typically don’t deal with the search engine movers and shakers like Google and Yahoo, instead they use small obscure search engines that are hardly ever used.

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) was created in 2003 to offer the public educational resources about search engine marketing and to also promote search engine marketing. Currently SEMPO represents over 500 global search engine marketing companies. Sempo is happy to offer their resources to the public for free. SEMPO has offers search engine marketing training courses for any and all interested parties who would like to expand their knowledge of search engine marketing. SEMPO’s objectives are to teach search engine marketing strategies, techniques, and successful practices, to increase the availability and quality f its professionals, and to offer training courses that will help to establish a benchmark for search engine marketing. The cost of a SEMPO training course can range anywhere from five hundred dollars for a fundamentals of search marketing class, to over two thousand dollars for an advanced search advertising course.

Mission: Aggression

Aggressive Internet Marketing Made Possible

Aggressive internet marketing means full-blown marketing and promotions that exceed any businessman’s expectations. A business needs fierce internet marketing. No more, no less. But to make it low cost? Is that even possible? How can something so aggressive be affordable?

Luckily, you can avail of inexpensive aggressive internet marketing if you just look hard and good enough. Be keen and alert and know what’s going on in the online industry. The following questions will help you discern if your chosen internet site to do the marketing fits the bill.

1. Does the company offer free website design?

Even if you know your HTML, it is still more advisable if a professional team does it for you. Some internet marketing sites offer free web design to make sure that your site’s needs are met. It’s a must that marketing is integrated to the web design. If the company requires you to pay more than fifty bucks for the web design, then so much for straight-forward internet marketing! Look somewhere else!

2. How many keywords does your web site cater to?

Having too many keywords or key phrases to focus on will make your page ranking drop. Creating smaller web pages with content that emphasizes only a few keywords will serve Internet marketing endeavor better.

3. How search engine-compatible is your website?

Internet marketing is coined “aggressive” only if it is a hundred percent search engine-compatible. There are about 10 major search engines online and your site has to work accordingly with them. Find out if your internet marketing site is expert on search engine optimization.

4. Do you know your competitors?

Affordable aggressive internet marketing pushes your business forward by taking note of your competitors. Analysis and evaluation of the competition is mandatory to figure out your shortcomings and advantages over them. If this feature is excluded from your internet marketing plan, you’re getting a mediocre deal.

5. How efficient is the monthly marketing plan?

Usually, you’re asked to pay a monthly fee for the marketing plan. For a marketing plan to be efficient, it must zero in on the following things: webpage development, link exchanges, web content, updates and technical support. Of course, also included are the standard SEO, competition analysis and keyword density.

If you’ve procured the right answers for the previous questions, then you can finally say: “Now that’s low cost aggressive internet marketing.”

Aggressive Internet Marketing Made Possible

1. Does the company offer free website design?

2. How many keywords does your web site cater to?

3. How search engine-compatible is your website?

4. Do you know your competitors?

5. How efficient is the monthly marketing plan?

If you’ve procured the right answers for the previous questions, then you can finally say: “Now that’s low cost aggressive internet marketing.”

What Marketing Can’t Do For You

I thought I would clear up some misconceptions about marketing in this two-part series: What Marketing Can Do For You and What Marketing Can’t Do For You. This issue is about what marketing can’t do.

While there’s no question a solid marketing program can increase your business, it can’t fix everything. Below are 5 things marketing can’t do for you:

1. Marketing can’t make you an overnight success. Just because you start a marketing program doesn’t mean you’re immediately going to see your business explode. Marketing is about getting your name in front of your target market on a regular basis until they finally decide to give you a try.

On that note, if you’re in trouble right now – sales are down, a new business isn’t getting off the ground like you planned — depending on how bad the trouble is a marketing program may not be enough to save you. A successful marketing program needs time to work and more likely than not, a little money as well. If you’re panicked about one (or more likely both) you may need to start looking at other options.

2. Marketing is not about doing something once and forgetting about it. The very best marketers test. And test. And test.

For instance, maybe your Web site isn’t converting visitors to customers as well as it should be. You could hire a copywriter to tweak it for you. You could test the different elements to see what raises your conversion level. That’s one way to use testing. You can also test different headlines, different offers, etc.

3. Marketing can’t fix a bad experience. This is a big one. If your customers have a lousy experience with your products or services or with your customer service reps or sales people, etc., that’s it. Worse yet, not only have you lost a customer for good, that customer will probably tell others about their bad experience. So now you’ve lost more potential customers as well.

Marketing can get people in the door, but it can’t ensure they’ll have an experience they’ll want to repeat. Before assuming more marketing is what you need, take a moment and make sure your current customers are truly satisfied with your business.

4. Marketing can’t fix a flawed business. Much like tip number 3, marketing can’t fix cash flow issues or staff problems.

Okay, I can hear all of you saying “Of course, marketing can’t fix cash flow problems. Do you think we’re stupid?” My answer is no, I don’t think you’re stupid at all. I think what happens is sometimes you get so caught up in the day-to-day challenges of running a business you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Let me explain. Let’s say you have a business that’s struggling with cash flow. The first thing that springs to mind may be revving up marketing. After all, the idea behind marketing is to increase revenue. On the surface that makes sense. However, if you look a little closer, what you might find are expenses that are out of whack or not getting invoices out in a timely manner. So what you should be fixing is your accounting problems rather than changing your marketing.

5. Marketing can’t make people buy things they either don’t want or can’t afford. It doesn’t matter how great your product or service is, if you’re selling to people who either don’t have the interest or the means to buy it, then your marketing is going to fail no matter how brilliant it may be.

So basically it all boils down to this, before you decide you need more marketing, take a few moments and make sure marketing is really the right solution for your business.

Creativity Exercise — Reality Check

Before you launch into a new marketing program, take some time to analyze what’s really happening in your business. Do you really need a marketing program or is your problem:

* You aren’t able to close the leads you have
* You aren’t invoicing in a timely manner or following up with unpaid accounts
* Your customers aren’t happy with the product or service
* Your customers are having a bad experience with technical support or something else in the process isn’t working
* Your target market isn’t right
* You aren’t passionate about what you’re doing anymore
* Your business has way too many expenses

And so on. Basically I just want you to make sure marketing really is your problem before you start fiddling with it.

If you want to grow your business, then you should be consistently marketing your business. But if you’re using marketing as a bandaid for some other problem, then you could be headed for trouble.

Discover the Secrets of Effective Marketing

The discipline of marketing can often be complex and confusing. As a marketing veteran, I have seen countless marketing professionals get hung up on various aspects of marketing which have little impact on actual marketing results.

Based on my experience, there are four critical elements to an effective marketing campaign. Whether you’re looking to improve your search engine marketing results, internet marketing, or marketing in general, be sure to follow these simple guidelines which I refer to as the A.T.O.M approach.

A.T.O.M – Audience, Timing, Offer, Message

1. Know Your Audience. No one can effectively market, communicate, or sell without knowing their audience or what motivates them to buy. Is your potential customer male or female? Young or old? A first time buyer or frequent purchaser? Are they the final decision maker? Do they have preferences for a particular product, service, or delivery method? The more you know about your audience, the more targeted and relevant your marketing can be.

2. Timing is Everything. Even with the most convincing marketing campaign, prospects will have no interest in your product or service if you aren’t communicating to them at the right time. Be sure your marketing message is in front of prospects when they’re ready to buy. This could be at a particular time of year or perhaps prior to a life event.

3. Finding the Right Offer. In direct marketing, experts say that results are 40% dependant on your list, 40% on the offer, and 20% on your creative. The same is true for internet marketing, search engine marketing, and the like. Test your offers and find the one that out performs all the others. This offer should continually be tested and refined to improve your results.

4. Its all about the Messaging. If you know your audience well enough, you should be able to craft a message that addresses their needs and differentiates your product or service from the competition. Additionally, be sure to stress benefits over features. This will give your audience a reason to read, try, and buy.

The next time you are conducting a marketing campaign, use the A.T.O.M. approach. Knowing your audience, ensuring that you reach them when they’re ready to buy, experimenting to find the most productive offer, and communicating to them productively, are essential for any marketing campaign to deliver results.

NOT Using Viral Marketing Could Kill Your Business!

Creativity

With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.

It does not matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it does not matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.

While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems.

Viral Marketing Overview

Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

The information about Viral Marketing presented here will do one of two things: either it will reinforce what you know about Viral Marketing or it will teach you something new. Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing.

Using Viral Marketing to your advantage

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectively of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”?

Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.

Then you will be glad you took the time to learn more about Viral Marketing.

by Shivam Patel