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

Marketing Your Small Business

Small business marketing may be the most important part in owning and maintaining a successful small business. A good portion of the marketing effort is determining the needs of your target market and then explaining that you provide solutions to meet those needs. Contrary to popular belief, it is a lot more than posting a sign or handing out flyers. Though many of the philosophies and tactics may be similar, small business marketing is an entirely different discipline than marketing of large companies. Successful marketing is not just a tactic or strategy; it is an entire process and you are sure to fail if you are not enthusiastic about your small business.

Done properly, marketing can and will attract all the clients your small business can handle. But I would suggest you get to a place where you work only with clients who value what you have to offer. If you commit to following simple small business marketing systems, strategies and ideas you can significantly increase what you charge for your services. Unfortunately though, most small business promotions focus only on how great their products and services are. But you need to stay focused on what products and services your ideal clients want and need.

Here’s another big no-no to avoid. Instead of marketing only when you need money or cash flow, commit to marketing your products and services all of the time. It is very important to consistently market your products and services because as I have been saying for years, success is based on persistency and consistency, not magic.

Planning is also a key ingredient to the success of any small business. Developing a small business marketing plan will be one of the most crucial elements to your success. By creating your marketing plan you will eliminate the panic and need for an instant solution to financial problems because you can avoid many of the ups and downs that result from the all to common stop and start marketing. Your plan does not have to be set in stone, it can evolve as you and your business grow. The important thing is your dedication to consistency with your marketing.

The lack of persistency and consistency will lead to an unused marketing plan. This in turn will lead to spits and starts in your cash flow. Successful entrepreneurs who have a small business marketing plan make more money in less time. When you start to think of who your ideal client is and what products and services they want or need and then combine that with your marketing tools and techniques, an effective marketing plan is not far behind.

As you are probably starting to see small business marketing is an entire process, a synergy of the individual tactics and strategies. That’s right, small business marketing is a system where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Another common misconception is that small business marketing is just common sense. Nothing could be further from the truth. An understanding of how small business marketing is conducted is essential for you if success is your goal. You do want results and success don’t you?

It’s all about determining the needs of your target market and then providing solutions to meet those needs. So many people believe that marketing their small business is all about running advertisements, but it isn’t. If you are serious about your success in business, then make understanding marketing an on-going priority.

The ultimate result of small business marketing is to attract more new customers and persuade existing customers to purchase your products or services in higher quantities and more frequently. The successful can attribute their success to having a strategic plan and following it consistently. When you create a marketing plan you will be able to compete at a higher level. Your odds of winning the game significantly improve when you take the time to create a plan.

To your success!

SUBJECT: [FIRSTNAME] Need An E-Mail Marketing Consultant?

Dear [FIRSTNAME],

Email marketing is an effective way to get your business fresh
in the mind of a customer. In fact this is to be the most use
way of marketing by 2008. The content of your marketing campaign
is very important. You are competing with many other businesses
for the attention of the consumer. It has to appeal to them and
encourage them to go to your website and make a purchase. The
concept is simple but the process is much harder. It can be very
time consuming. If you are struggling with your email marketing
processes or simply don’t have the time to commit to the
process, consider hiring an email marketing consultant.

What exactly is an email marketing consultant? This is generally
a freelancer who has skills in the area of developing effective
email marketing campaigns. There are businesses that employ
several email marketing consultants as well. They will help you
device effective promotions, specials, and newsletters for your
business. The amount of time you use an email marketing
consultant will depend on how regular you plan to send emails to
your customers. These consultants are very familiar with the
email marketing process as well as what consumers respond well
to. They know the market trends and many other aspects that are
part of the formula.

Since email marketing is such an important part of the entire
marketing concept today, take the time to investigate the
consultant you plan to use. If they are part of a company then
check them out with the Better Business Bureau. You will find
out about any issues and complaints filed against the company by
other consumers. Check the internet for reviews about the
company or individual as well. It is important to ask the email
marketing consultant exactly what they will be providing for
you.

Ask for references and information previous projects they have
worked on. Most email marketing consultants have a portfolio.
Putting the wrong person in charge of your email marketing can
damage the relationship you currently have with your customers.
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself changing email marketing
consultants down the road once your business has grown and the
objectives of the company have changed. Sometimes the
relationship can continue long term but if your company heads in
a different direction then some changes in marketing and
creativity may be in order.

An email marketing consultant should be willing to listen to the
goals of your business. They need to be aware of exactly what
you want to accomplish. Keep in mind they may need to make
changes to your plan based on the best marketing practices but
they should be willing to discuss the changes with you as well
as why they are needed. If the consultant isn’t willing to talk
with you about the goals of your business or isn’t easily
reached then don’t work with them. They may not be effective or
they may have too many projects taking place to do yours
justice. Any agreement with you and an email marketing
consultant need to be clearly placed in writing for both parties
to sign.

It may take a marketing campaign or two for you to start seeing
the effects. You should see a small increase in traffic to your
website as well as sells. Don’t expect to see a huge difference
overnight regardless of the product or service you are offering.
Your email marketing consultant should go over this information
with you as well. A consultant knows the process and market
trends enough to give you a realistic forecast of what to
expect. They can also help you analyze data that can be used to
make your next email marketing campaign more effective.

To Your Success,
YOUR NAME HERE

P.S.
Email marketing is a valuable concept that allows you to reach
volumes of customers quickly, effectively, and inexpensively.
The process can be difficult and time consuming. An email
marketing consultant can help you meet your email marketing
campaign goals while allowing your to use your time to operate
other aspects

Make More Money with Marketing Metrics

Do you measure the results of your marketing tactcis? You should. Knowing which marketing endeavors pay dividends will save you time, money and effort by allowing you to focus your marketing budget on tactics that work. Learn how to measure the effect of your marketing efforts to make more money.
Do you know how effective each of your individual marketing tactics is? Many small business owners market in a vacuum. They spend money on brochures, advertisements and web sites with no real way to tie specific results to specific endeavors.
If you are unable to associate leads and sales with the specific marketing efforts that generate them you have no way of knowing what is working as an effective marketing mechanism and what is not.
The money you invest in marketing your company is precious. In order for you to maximize your marketing dollars you need to know the results individual marketing efforts generate. When you know the results of your marketing tactics you can make intelligent decisions about how to better allocate your marketing budget.
For instance, if you concurrently run a direct mail campaign, a search engine advertising campaign and weekly ads in industry periodicals without some method to discern results you will not know which effort generates the lions share of any new business.
If you don’t know that your direct mail campaign yielded 90% of your revenue with a 2% response rate, you are powerless to make the wise decision to reinvest in the direct mail campaign and make changes to or drop entirely the other campaigns. What’s more, if you can figure out how to double the response rate of your mail campaign, you can nearly double the revenue your marketing campaign without spending money on search engine marketing and periodical advertisements.
Measuring your marketing results will help you save money by allowing you to eliminate unproductive marketing tactics and at the same time, will help you make more money by allowing you to reinvest in productive marketing tactics.
Do you have a method for measuring the effect of your marketing?
Here are four tips for gathering the information you need to make wise marketing investment decisions.
Use a Database
Start by designing a database to keep track of individual marketing efforts and the leads and sales they generate. Make sure you include fields to track the dates of your campaigns, campaign descriptions, the number of leads generated and sales made. Once you have a central storage location for this information you will be able to make queries to glean the information you need to make wise marketing decisions.
Ask Questions
When you or your staff speaks with a prospect on the phone make sure you ask how they heard of your business; was it a referral or an ad in the local newspaper? It’s such simple way to gather valuable information many small business owners overlook it.
Be sure to ask your prospects how they heard of your business.
Make It Easy for Your Prospect to Help You
Make it easy for your prospects to properly identify the marketing piece to which they respond. If you have multiple phone lines into your office you can easily accomplish this by assigning a unique phone number to individual marketing efforts. This way, you or a staff member can ask what number your prospect dialed or, if you have the right phone system you can look at the phone to see which line the call is on.
Data Entry Should Be Easy Too
Once you or a staff member have garnered the information you seek from your prospect, make it as easy as possible to have this information to be entered into your database system. If you employ a staff, make certain everyone is up to speed on your latest systems. Training is a must.
Move Your Marketing Forward
The idea is to gather as much information as you can about which marketing mechanisms generate the best (and worst) response, who is responding and why they chose to respond.
Once you have this information you will be better able to think like a future client, cater your marketing material to their needs and generate more leads and sales.
What are some other steps you can take to measure the effect of your marketing efforts?

5 Benefits to an Internet Marketing and Advertising Company

Companies generally rely on outsides sources for their regular advertising needs. They turn to graphic designers, advertising agencies, and communication firms to handle all of their communications, both external and internal. With that being said, many companies buck this trend in terms of Internet marketing and advertising, attempting to do it on their own.

There are various companies that will provide you with the Internet marketing and advertising help that you need. They will provide you with the tools necessary to grow your business through Internet marketing. You simply need to agree to hire an Internet marketing and advertising company for this style of marketing.

There are plenty of reasons for you to turn to one of these marketing companies for your needs. These five benefits will help to show you how your own company can benefit from the professionalism of an Internet marketing and advertising business.

Walking you Through the Process

An Internet marketing company is going to hold your hand through the entire online marketing process. They will be able to show you all of the right moves in marketing, taking you step-by-step through the process. They will be able to show you things that you never would have considered on your own, making your marketing campaign more successful and sustainable.

Brainstorming Ideas

Internet marketing companies are going to work with you to try to make your business successful. They are going to bring ideas and creativity that you would not have on your own. This brainstorming push will help to come up with new ideas that will push your company forward.

Writing the Copy

It can be difficult to write clean and concise copy that connects with your target audience. Internet marketing companies have the experience necessary to write this copy. They will be able to write directly to your consumers, clients, and potential customers. This connection is crucial for the overall success of your company.

Presenting Multiple Options

An Internet marketing company will be able to provide you with multiple options and possibilities. You will be able to see what you can do with Internet marketing and choose the package that is right for your company.

Feedback

Many Internet marketing companies will be able to provide you with the feedback that you need to understand the success of your campaign. They will be able to show you how successful the campaign is, how your target has responded, and will break down the tactics that worked and the tactics that didnÕt work. This information will be crucial for your Internet marketing future, helping to you be as efficient and effective as possible.

Professional businesses will help you to get the most out of Internet marketing. An Internet marketing and advertising company is going to give you the best that they have to offer, providing you with the marketing tools that you need for success. They will help you to come up with new ideas, will write your copy, and will help you to evaluate the success of your strategies. If you want to have successful Internet marketing you need to hire a professional company.

The Key to Successful Marketing

If your business has limited marketing resources in terms of people, expertise and materials then you might want to consider outsourcing your marketing functions to an independent marketing professional or a marketing and promotions agency. Small businesses, downsized companies, and expanding corporations all have different reasons to outsource.
Marketing can be an expensive activity and maintaining in house resources can really make this a difficult program to commit to. But marketing is a very important part of business success so allowing someone else to focus on marketing gives companies a chance to focus on their core business and areas that will enable them to surpass their competition.
Outsourcing marketing resources comes with a price, but this cost is usually lower than it would be if the companies had employed and undertaken in house activities. By eliminating the need to hire full-time employees, using an agency for marketing resources saves companies thousands of dollars on wages, taxes and benefits. You are also gaining expertise in an agency that you might not find in individual employees. In addition to their own staff, agencies also have other resources to help you, such as their own outside contacts, suppliers, designers, copywriters and printers–saving you time as well as money.
When you hire an outside agency, you are hiring experts in marketing. These are professional people who can focus on all your marketing needs and not be hindered by your internal politics, relations between employees, or lack of knowledge among staff in relation to marketing strategies and how they integrate with business strategies. Marketing professionals whether independent or through a marketing agency – will often have more experience in the particular aspects of marketing than you staff, and undoubtedly more than you could pay for in an employee. Also, since they work with other clients, they have seen what works and what doesn’t in other company campaigns. This knowledge translates to more efficient and effective marketing for you as you have the benefit of their hindsight.
As with outsourcing any business function, allowing an outside agency to do your marketing or advertising brings a certain kind of objectivity with it. Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective to overcome difficulties and to achieve specific goals. An objective marketing professional will help you see things you might otherwise miss and will be more open to offering a range of fresh ideas as opposed to a bunch of tired ideas that you might have been toying with for years but have yet to implement.

Learn Affiliate Marketing The Right Way! Leave No Room For Mistake

Affiliate marketing is ideal to start an internet business working from home. Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest growing marketing channels on the internet. Affiliate marketing is considered one of the best ways to earn money online. Affiliate marketing is great because anyone with a laptop, Internet connection and some imagination can set up an affiliate marketing business.

Affiliates generally attract traffic either via paid search or Search Engine optimisation. Affiliates can also be search engine marketers who run pay-per-click campaigns in order to drive traffic and sales for an advertiser. Millions of affiliates send billions of visitors to tens of thousands of companies in return for a payment. Affiliates will continue to grow larger and more professional.

In a nutshell, publishers — also known as affiliates — display ads supplied by advertisers. However, it is also true that many affiliates do not earn big money online because they do not have a proven system to follow and thus unsuccessful in earning an income on the Internet.

No matter how you go about it, affiliate marketing is a proven, effective way to increase your traffic. If you own or want to start your own Internet Business, affiliate marketing is a must for your marketing strategy. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the easiest and most effective home business opportunities online today. In simple terms, affiliate marketing is a web-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts.

5 Reasons NOT To Have a Marketing Plan

Imagine your perfect customers — the ones that will eagerly buy your products or hire you for premium pay. Imagine being able to bring those perfect customers to you and having them buy your products or services not once, but again and again. That’s what an effectively executed marketing plan does. It reaches the people who want what you are offering, convinces them to take action, and keeps them coming back.
Sounds nice, right? So why doesn’t every business have a marketing plan? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons you may not:
1. “We had a marketing plan once, but it didn’t work. It isn’t worth the time to put one together.”
No marketing plan will work if you do not work the plan. The planning document is there for business managers to use as a strategic reference throughout the year, as programs in the plan are executed and as other opportunities come along. Any marketing plan that is filed away and forgotten as soon as it’s written is useless.
2. “So-and-so had a marketing plan and it didn’t help his business at all!”
Marketing is a process, not a singular event. A marketing plan is only the first step in that process. It points your business in the right direction by detailing marketing strategies and programs that will move you toward business objectives.
You must execute the programs in your plan so that you can evaluate program success. Rarely does a marketing program work best on the first try. It is up to you to analyze barriers to success, then tweak and tinker until you are getting positive results. If you ignore critical follow-up, most of your marketing programs — whether you have a marketing plan or not — will fail or fall short of their potential for success.
3. “Marketing planning is too hard.”
Writing a marketing plan doesn’t have to be complicated. There are different levels of planning. More intricate marketing planning processes will result in more refined strategies, with better potential for success. But, if you have limited resources, a top-line approach to planning is much better than none at all.
4. “We don’t know how to write a marketing plan.”
There are numerous books, software, “toolbox” resources, and articles that take you step-by-step through the process of creating a marketing plan. Frankly, not knowing how is an excuse, not a reason, to avoid marketing planning.
5. “My business is too small for a marketing plan.”
Sound marketing strategy is critical to small business success, especially new businesses. Statistics vary widely depending on the source, but most reports cite failure rates for small business at 65% — 90%. Knowing ahead of time how you will compete and how you will be successful in your marketplace can dramatically increase your chances of success.
Your marketing plan is a vital key to small business success. If you do not have a current plan, start one today. Your company’s success depends on it.

Combining Email Marketing with Other Types of Marketing

Whether you choose to do your marketing online or offline, one thing does not change. This is the concept that no single marketing strategy will be as effective as a combination of two or more marketing strategies. This does not mean it is necessary for you to implement every known marketing strategy to promote your business but rather it implies that it is worthwhile to market from a few different perspectives to help you achieve your business related goals. This article will examine the importance of combining email marketing with other types of marketing to create a successful; multi tiered marketing strategy and will also offer some advice on managing more than one marketing strategy at once.

As the old saying goes, “Two heads are better than one,” and this is certainly true when it comes to marketing. You may enjoy a great deal of success with email marketing but this does not mean you should not try other types of online marketing such as website creation, participation in industry related message boards, placing banner ads, orchestrating an affiliate marketing campaign and generating inbound links to your website. While it is possible that not all of these strategies will be effective for your business, you are likely to find at least one other option which complements your email marketing and helps you to achieve your business related goals.

Alternately you may even wish to combine your email marketing campaign with more traditional marketing strategies such as radio ads, television ads and the print media. Just because these types of advertising do not take place online, does not mean they will not be able to help you generate more business. In fact advertising both online and offline can allow you to reach a larger target audience. This is because you will likely reach Internet users around the world but can also reach potential customers who do not utilize the Internet for purchasing or researching products or services similar to the ones you offer.

Popular marketing strategies to combine with email marketing include banner ads and message board participation. These are all online activities and each one individually is fairly simple. However, in combination these simple activities can create a powerful statement. You may send out emails offering useful information about your products or services, purchase banner ad space on websites which may be of interest to your potential customers and participate in industry related message boards where you can earn the respect and pique the interest of potential customers. Even if your potential customers are not currently in need of the products and services you offer, seeing your business name so often can have a branding effect. Branding is essentially a process in which consumers see a company name so often that they are more likely to select a product from this company when they are in need of an item the company offers.

If you are planning to combine multiple forms of advertising, you should be aware that this can make it difficult for you to evaluate the effectiveness of each marketing strategy. This is especially true of the marketing strategies are implemented concurrently. When you are only using one type of marketing strategy, you can generally attribute increases in sales or website traffic to changes in the marketing strategy. However, when more than one type of marketing strategy is in effect, determining which strategy is producing the desired effect can be quite difficult. This situation can be handled by not making changes to more than one marketing strategy at a time. This will help to pinpoint which changes produce an increase in sales or website traffic. It can also help you to determine when changes to your marketing strategy have a detrimental effect on your sales and website traffic. However, if you are having difficulty determining which marketing strategy is most effective you can consider asking customers to answer survey questions and provide information such as how they learned about the products or services your business offers.