Redefine marketing terminologies with Behavioral marketing

Redefine marketing terminologies with Behavioral marketing

by RAJESH KUMAR

Increase in sale is that factor what drives businesses to invent newer effective marketing tactics. This question might have pestered you many times that, if consumer satisfaction is the key to the success of any publicity campaign, then why do not businesses understand the need of their opinion before making any marketing strategy. It is true that consumer’s opinion should also be a part of any company’s marketing strategy and now businesses are also realizing it. That is the reason, which fortified the need of behavioral marketing in business world. Now every marketing expert considers the customer opinion and performance of previous product while making any new marketing strategy. Behavioral marketing is becoming very popular among businesses as it is rising as conventional marketing approach.
Behavioral marketing is redefining the terms of marketing; it keeps consumers in heart of every marketing project. After all consumers are that power that can build or ruin any business. A perfect marketing approach is nothing but a way to read consumer’s mind and to provide them with what they expect. Therefore we can say the behavioral marketing possess the perfect marketing approach as it knows how to read consumer’s mind to satisfy their exact requirements. It targets consumers based on their behavior or reaction for any product or service. Customer feedback is its equation for success as ay product is launched only after knowing what people think about it. It really helps in deciding whether the proposed product or service is worth launching or will it just increase the crowd of products and get vanished very soon. Every step under behavioral marketing is data driven as an effective marketing plan can be made only after analysis of market data.

Such campaigns are planed with the help of data compiled from various mediums such as surveys, feedback forms, hits on site and customer blogs. These all mediums help in getting the exact idea about what enhancement consumers want in new product or service. Today online businesses are growing with rapid pace and they also require something that may be beneficial in strengthening their position in online market therefore online marketing is also becoming consumer oriented. Many behavioral marketers are working to improve the efficiency of online marketing campaigns.

They are collecting the data that indicates number of hits, blogs position and position of the website in online world. These marketers serve advertisement to a particular section of society so that the advertisement may grab the attention of authentic and prolific consumers only. These data can be collected through IP information. Many behavioral marketing service providers are offering online and offline business a great opportunity to get the most out of their marketing campaigns.

Behavioral marketing is such a marketing strategy that believes in keeping consumers at the midst of every marketing campaign, so that consumers may realize how you take care of their advice and requirements. That will be really a delighting experience for you and you consumer that you both are contributing in development of a better market environment.


Rajesh Kumar is an Internet marketing specialist and has extensive knowledge about behavioral marketing and targeting. To know more about behavioral marketing and Behavioral marketing ,Behavioral Marketing Integration visit http://www.audiencemp.com.

Which promotional gifts are right for my company?

Which promotional gifts are right for my company?

by PAUL FEATHERSTONE

As anybody who has ever purchased promotional gifts will tell you, one of the hardest parts of the process is deciding which items are right for your business and which are going to give your prospective customers a puzzled look or even worse end up in the bin!
A good place to start is with the customer, thought must be given to what they would actually find useful. For example, logo bugs are not going to be much use on a building site, however personalised tape measures will be much in demand. Although there are new promotional gifts launching onto the market every week it is not always best to choose these products in place of older and more established items such as pens and mugs. Just because something is new does not necessarily mean that an item will be more useful to your customer. However, it is true that every once in a while a product comes along that really fills a requirement like no other previous product, for example USB memory sticks.

The questions of “where” and “who will I target” still apply to the choice of promotional merchandise a company buys as they do to any form of marketing.

The “who” question can be answered by looking at whether you want to target customers or prospects and if so whether you want to target them all or just a small segment. By segmenting your target market and choosing different gifts for groups with similar characteristics you will find your promotional gifts much better received.

The “where” question involves establishing how you intend to get your promotional gifts to your intended target market. If you are buying personalised items for distribution by a sales team then this will have implications on the sort of item you can give away in that you can choose heavier or more bulky items. If, however, you mainly communicate with your target market via the post then a smaller light-weight item such as a pen is often ideal.

Quantity is not always better than quality, you must ask yourself whether your target market would prefer a high value item which they can keep or a lower value item which may not have as long a life. By varying the size of the intended market you need not raise your budget, it’s just a question of which type of item is right for your market.

Another important consideration is the design you intend to use on your chosen promotional items – how will your marketing message look when printed? For example, if your company has a large or very detailed logo then it may be difficult to fit on certain smaller promotional products. In order to help with this important decision a number of promotional merchandise suppliers now offer a virtual sample facility so that you can check how our logo, message or design will look when printed on a range of different items.

If you can answer all of the above questions then you are ready to place your order for promotional gifts today!

Author Biography: Paul Featherstone is Marketing Manager for EMC Advertising gifts in Whetstone, North London. Paul joined EMC to spearhead the growth of their online business building on the company's 40 years of experience in the promotional gift market.

For more information on promotional gifts and the author Paul Featherstone, please visit: http://www.emcadgifts.co.uk

Behavioral marketing: make your mark with it

Behavioral marketing: make your mark with it

by RAJESH KUMAR

To be successful in today’s world is a difficult task, so a person needs to make all efforts to ensure that he is successful in whatever he does. To do this it is very important that he is fully aware about all the latest happenings that are taking place in his field of operation. This is the perfect way through which one can work towards reaching the business goals that they have set out on achieving. There is no shortage of any goods or services of any kind in the market. You will see that after a new product is launched in the market within a few days many similar looking products also become available in the market. In such a scenario it becomes very difficult to retain consumers to continue using your product instead of the others that are available in the market. Behavioral marketing is one process through which this can be done without any hassles.
Behavioral marketing is nothing but a marketing method that is implemented only after understanding consumer behavior. Any promotional or marketing campaign will not work out successfully till a target group of audience is identified. A product is designed and intended to be used by a certain section of people and behavioral marketing is the method that helps a business owner in identifying those people. Often it has been seen that a product which was very good could not see the light of the day or sometimes they simply go down the drain, just because the promotional and marketing campaign was targeted towards the wrong people. The effectiveness of any promotional campaign depends on the kind of background research work that has been done.

In behavioral marketing, the background research is done many days prior to the release of the product or good in the market. The research work involves finding out and observing customer behavior while they are buying things in the market. It is very important to identify what factors motivates then in buying certain goods and based on this you can actually find out what things you need to do to appeal to their tastes and sensibilities. Understandably it will be a blunder on the part of an advertiser or the marketer if they target college going kids for selling goods meant for small kids. And when any campaign is done without considering customers behavior and choice this is the kind of blunder that business owners end up doing.

For studying consumer behavior you can make use of different methods like observation methods, questionnaire method and research method besides several other methods. You need to zero in on the group of people you want to target and then use all these methods to study their behavior and how they buy things. Behavioral marketing makes use of all these methods before bringing out any products, good or service in the market. So to be on the safer side and to make a success out of your business, you must make sure that you implement behavioral marketing for your business.


Rajesh Kumar is an Internet marketing specialist and has extensive knowledge about behavioral marketing and targeting. To know more about behavioral marketing and Behavioral marketing ,Behavioral Marketing Integration visit http://www.audiencemp.com.

How the Courage of One Man Sparked the Greatest Revolution in Direct Response Marketing History

How the Courage of One Man Sparked the Greatest Revolution in Direct Response Marketing History

by CLAYTON MAKEPEACE

Dear Business Builder,
I just made a new friend; his name is Drayton Bird.

In case you just moved here from another universe and have no idea who I’m talking about, consider this quotation:

“Drayton Bird knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world.” – David Ogilvy

As Ogilvy Mather’s International Vice Chairman and Creative Director, Drayton and his team created brilliant direct response promotions for household-name companies like American Express, Bank of America, Ford, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, Philips Electronics, Unilever and Visa credit cards.

He’s also the author of Commonsense Direct Marketing (5th edition available now), Salesletters That Sell, and Marketing Insights and Outrages – and has written more than 1,000 columns for international magazines.

If you don’t read Drayton’s stuff, you ain’t no kind of direct marketer. Besides being one of the two or three most delightful and engaging personalities I have met in my 55 years on this planet, Drayton has a wonderful clarity of vision when it comes to direct response copywriting and marketing.

When I talk to Drayton or read his pearls of wisdom, I feel like I’m communing with Hopkins, Caples, Schwab, Ogilvy and Schwartz all rolled into one. He is one of the seven or eight true giants in the history of this industry – a genuine living treasure.

His knack for expressing profound, response-rocketing truths in the simplest of terms will make you money.

Anyway, when I was talking to Drayton the other day (I love saying that!), he mentioned that he’s working with Virgin’s legendary Richard Branson on some stuff …

… And that got me to thinking about how far we’ve come and where we’re going as an industry – and where the greatest opportunities are most likely to be awaiting us up ahead.

SO WITH THAT, LET’S JUMP INTO OUR TRUSTY TIME MACHINES AND HEAD BACK IN TIME TO JUST AFTER THE U.S. CIVIL WAR …

The time was 1872. The place: The Breadbasket of America – the Midwest. And Aaron Ward’s blood was boiling …

The 28-year-old traveling dry goods salesman fumed over the obscene prices local shopkeepers charged for the clothing, tools, lanterns and other general merchandise on their shelves. And he was even more livid that they were actually getting away with it. In those days, most small-town general stores enjoyed virtual monopolies. Few hamlets boasted more than one of these establishments and the next-closest shop could be a full day’s round trip away – often more.

That meant shopkeepers could demand any price they liked. And although consumers hated these greedy shopkeepers for fleecing them, they had little choice but to grumble and fork over their money.

That didn’t sit well with the idealistic Mr. Ward and, being a man of action, he decided to do something about it.

Investing $1,600 of his own money (about $26,000 in today’s dollars), he printed a simple flyer offering 163 items at bedrock prices, then mailed his one-sheet catalog to families throughout the Midwestern states.

For Mr. Ward, it was a daring deed, founded on moral principle and fueled by righteous indignation.

It also proved to be a red-letter day in American entrepreneurship.

Because with that one mailing, Aaron Montgomery Ward lit the fuse on a marketing revolution that continues even now …

MR. WARD DOES WELL BY DOING GOOD

And so on a brisk Midwestern morning more than 135 years ago, thousands of Americans opened their mailboxes to discover Mr. Ward’s one-page catalog – a solicitation sent to them precisely because they were believed to be excellent prospects for the products advertised.

It was, as far as we can tell, the first direct marketing promotion they’d ever seen.

And Mr. Ward’s innovation didn’t end there: He also invited customers to respond to his catalog by placing their orders through the mail and invented “Direct Response Marketing” in the process.

Consumers loved the idea of saving a bundle. They also relished the idea of doing their shopping without leaving home.

Most of all, they loved the fact that Mr. Ward had given them a way to hit greedy shopkeepers where it hurt them the most: Right smack-dab in their bulging wallets.

Mr. Ward had harnessed the awesome power of his prospects’ most dominant resident emotion – their hatred of the merchants who had been abusing them.

And they ordered in droves.

In fact, the response to Aaron Montgomery Ward’s little catalog was so explosive, his next few catalogs quickly ballooned from the one-sheeter weighing less than an ounce to a massive book weighing a hefty four pounds.

By 1904, with only 17 million households in the U.S., Mr. Ward could be found mailing a staggering three million of his catalogs to eager consumers every year.

THE TRIUMPH OF SCIENCE OVER HOPE

Mr. Ward loved his innovation even more than his customers did. Because now for the first time, he could know – to the penny – how much money his advertising produced.

He could count the number of orders, the sales revenues and the profit produced by each mailing of his catalog – and by each product in his catalog.

This meant that for the first time, business owners and marketing people using Mr. Ward’s direct response marketing model could view the money they spent to attract customers as an investment.

And they could calculate a return on investment for every product in their inventories and every dollar in their advertising budget.

Mr. Ward had, in short, transformed advertising from an expense that businesses could only hope would make money into an exact science that told them not only whether their advertising was working, but also how well it was working.

And that knowledge allowed marketers to cut losing promotions short while ramping up the size of their successful campaigns.

Mr. Ward’s innovation also meant that, by mailing more than one version of their solicitations at a time, they could learn which kinds of headlines garnered the greatest readership of their ad copy.

Another huge breakthrough: For the first time ever, businesses could discover which sales copy techniques and offers produced the greatest response, revenues and profits. And that meant they had a way to consistently boost response, average sale and return on investment with each mailing.

Unsurprisingly, others soon followed in Mr. Ward’s footsteps – most notably, Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck.

From its founding in 1895 until its first brick and mortar store opened in 1925, Sears, Roebuck and Co. – which now boasts more than 350,000 employees and annual revenues of more than $53 billion – offered its products exclusively in catalogs delivered through the mail and received its orders and payments exclusively through return mail.

Throughout the 20th Century, Mr. Ward’s direct response marketing revolution expanded far beyond catalogs and even the sale of products – to fundraising for countless charities, causes and political organizations, to producing leads for Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer salespeople and, as we direct response copywriters are fond of saying, much much more.

Nor has Mr. Ward’s direct response marketing revolution been confined to direct mail. Throughout the last century, enterprising marketers pioneered and perfected the use of magazine and newspaper ads, television and radio commercials and many other media to solicit a direct response –a request for more information or an immediate purchase – from prospects and customers.

THE INTERACTIVE MARKETING REVOLUTION

As recently as the 1990s, the world’s companies could pretty much be divided into two groups: Those who primarily relied upon Interactive Marketing to attract new customers and to sell products to established customers – and those who did not.

Banks and credit card companies, insurance companies, publishers, fundraisers and, of course, catalogue companies spent billions on promotions that targeted their best prospects and solicited a direct response from them.

But for the most part, manufacturers, retail chains and others focused on non-interactive advertising they hoped would emblazon their brands on consumers’ minds.

All that changed radically with the explosive growth of the Internet in the 1990s.

Today, with more than 1.1 billion people using this miracle of modern technology worldwide – and with the cost of interacting with prospects and customers via the ‘net infinitesimally small compared to other media – Aaron Ward’s direct response marketing revolution is being adopted by every conceivable kind of company to attract customers and multiply sales:

>>Direct marketing companies were among the first to see the potential of the Internet. Montgomery Ward, Sears, Nordstrom’s, Victoria’s Secret, Lillian Vernon – pretty much every catalog retailer you can name – now has a prominent storefront online. Amazon.com – the online book, music, video and electronics “catalog” – will earn net revenues of more than $12 billion in 2007, making it the largest online retailer on the planet.

>>Many businesses that were once confined to storefronts and left trusting their fortunes to the vagaries of image advertising now use the Internet to produce measurable sales results for every advertising dollar they spend.

Travel agencies like Travelocity.com, Expedia.com, Orbitz.com and Hotels.com drive business travelers and vacationers to their sites and earn a king’s ransom booking flights, hotels and auto rentals online. Office Depot and Staples each sells billions of dollars-worth of products online each year.

Grocery giants Winn-Dixie, Safeway and other chains invite you to download coupons and even order groceries online. Real estate giants like Century 21.com, Remax.com, Realtor.com and others drive prospects to their sites to browse properties for sale, to find a realtor near them and even book appointments.

>>Even manufacturers, wholesalers and other non-retail companies have gotten into the Interactive Marketing act. Auto manufacturers invite you to build your car online, then arrange to have a local salesperson contact you to close the deal.

Sites maintained by Harley-Davidson, Nike and countless others invite you to learn about their products, to find virtual or brick and mortar establishments where their products may be purchased and even to schedule appointments with salespeople.

Of course, these massive companies are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg: Millions of mid-sized companies and even local mom and pop stores are now using the Internet to attract new customers and make sales 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

In fact, one of the most fascinating of these smaller entrepreneurial animals to emerge on the ‘net is the “Solopreneur:” Men and women who, simply by establishing a store on eBay or setting up a one-page website attached to a shopping cart, now have the power to bank thousands of dollars from online sales – and to grab his or her share of the estimated half-trillion dollars that online retailers will earn on the web this year.

DIRECT RESPONSE MARKETING COMES FULL CIRCLE

Thanks to the Internet, millions of companies and entrepreneurs around the world have discovered the tremendous advantages direct response marketing – or in today’s parlance, “Interactive Marketing” – offers them; of being able to precisely measure the sales and profits produced by every advertising dollar they spend.

It was only a matter of time before smart marketers at these Internet companies began looking beyond the virtual world; to begin wondering what would happen if they converted their online sales copy into full-page ads and plastered them across newspaper and magazine pages from coast to coast.

… Or, mailed their online catalogs to qualified prospects just like Aaron Ward did more than a century ago.

And so, armies of companies that would never have considered mounting direct response campaigns a couple of decades ago are now taking their successful online businesses into the offline world.

The moral of the story …

Today, the Internet has made direct marketing indispensable to every kind of business.

To compete effectively, every business on Earth must now be a direct response business.

And that means every business on the planet needs YOU.

Remember how I said Drayton is working with Richard Branson at Virgin?

Now, I didn’t ask – but I’m betting that The Great Mr. Bird isn’t writing sales copy for Virgin Airlines or Virgin Records or Virgin Vacations or Virgin Games or Virgin Comics or Virgin Books or Virgin Wines or Virgin Media or Virgin Mobile – or any of the other Virgins with whom the spectacularly prolific Mr. Branson has surrounded himself.

I’m betting he’s working on something entirely different; most likely something that requires more than a copywriter – something that requires an expert with a world-class working knowledge of the nuts and bolts of direct response marketing.

Yeah – I’m talking about the monotonous, humdrum, tedious stuff like database structure and management. Retrogression analysis. Psychographic and demographic number crunching. Customer acquisition strategy. Customer lifetime value optimization.

That’s right: The dull, boring stuff that makes companies billions – the stuff that requires expertise that companies are eager to pay through the nose for.

So here’s your assignment for this week:

Head on over to Amazon.com … search for books on direct marketing … buy some … and then actually read them.

I love Bob Stone’s Successful Direct Marketing Methods. It formed my foundational understanding of this business and gave me the basics I needed to become more than “just a copywriter.”

I also just ordered Chet Meisner’s The Complete Guide to Direct Marketing … Direct Marketing: Strategy, Planning, Execution by Edward L. Nash … and The New Direct Marketing: How to Implement a Profit-Driven Database Marketing Strategy by David Shepard Associates.

And then, in what I’m certain will prove a failed attempt to become at least half as adept as Drayton is – or at least be able to hold up my end of a conversation with him – I also ordered Mr. Bird’s Commonsense Direct & Digital Marketing … How to Write Sales Letters That Sell … Marketing Insights and Outrages … The Master Marketer … and Open for Business!

Hope this helps …

Clayton Makepeace is a working direct response marketing consultant and copywriter who has helped his clients attract more than 3 million new customers … quadruple their profits … and rake in more than $1 billion in direct mail and internet sales. His daily e-letter, The Total Package, shares his proven response-boosting techniques with younger writers, business owners, and marketing pros. Find out more at http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

WordTracker Reveals the Top 500 Search Engine Keywords of the Week!

WordTracker Reveals the Top 500 Search Engine Keywords of the Week!

by CLAY SINCLAIR

WordTracker Reveals the Top 500 Search Engine Keywords of the Week!

Our friends at Wordtracker and Search Engine Guide released September 4, 2007 - the top 500 Search Engine
Keywords queried from the Largest Meta Crawlers on the Web over the past 48 hours.

Search Engine Keywords and Pay Per Click Management:
While this keyword list is interesting and revealing, most of these keywords would be too expensive to bid on
and would drive a lot of non relevant traffic to your site. While this is obvious to most - we say this because we've
had to remove many of these keywords from our clients keyword lists in both Google Adwords and Yahoo SMS.

Below is a snippet (50) of that keyword list. For the full list visit Search Engine Watch!

The top 300 surge report


These are the top 300 queries from the last 48 hours, which
represents the complete queries from the largest Metacrawlers
on the web (Metacrawler/Dogpile etc..) for the last 48 hours.


Nos. Count Keyword
===========================================


1 5233 play games
2 4773 myspace
3 3542 yahoo
4 3409 google
5 3230 ebay
6 3165 play game
7 2781 myspace.com
8 2556 music lyrics
9 2461 baby boy names
10 2353 yahoo.com
11 2353 proxy https
12 2303 lauren caitlin upton
13 2300 youtube
14 2225 mapquest
15 1966 lunar eclipse
16 1746 nick hogan
17 1596 free english course
18 1593 youporn
19 1573 craigslist
20 1563 you tube
21 1536 game cheats for ps2
22 1534 facebook
23 1398 madden 08 cheats
24 1342 gospel music lyrics
25 1331 carpet skates
26 1318 local newspaper
27 1303 girls
28 1292 triple h
29 1258 hotmail.com
30 1249 meaning of names
31 1181 owen wilson
32 1161 hotmail
33 1121 nick bollea
34 1106 dictionary
35 1084 newspaper obituaries
36 1082 jessica alba
37 1056 paris hilton
38 1039 catnip video
39 1011 sperm shack movies
40 1010 jenna jameson
41 1005 jobs in nigeria
42 1001 yahoo mail
43 987 free radio stations
44 964 aol.com
45 948 wikipedia
46 940 george hotz
47 923 msn
48 897 soulja boy
49 887 fergie
50 875 gonzales resigns


Plan Today and be Happy Tomorrow:
Those who act today and get their businesses included in Google Local Search Results and Yahoo Local Search Results will be the ones that will greatly benefit from these searches tomorrow. Those who don't act today won't be left behind tomorrow, forcing them to scramble and pay expensive fee's (just like SEO Campaigns today) to get listed in this valuable new tool.

Pay Per Click Edge
For an impressive look at PPCE and their capabilities, review their PPC Management Proven Success page.
And don’t forget the PPC Case Study linked in the footer of the site!

Contact PPCE today at 888.451.6063 or email us at info@ppce.net

The 50 Plus Generation, An Untapped Home Based Business Niche...

The 50 Plus Generation, An Untapped Home Based Business Niche...

by MICHAEL J KOHN

Are You Looking For A Growth Market?
The number of U.S. adults over the age of 50 will soar over the next ten years. In fact, U.S. Census Bureau data shows that 50+ adults will be the only growth demographic - measured by age - between now and 2015. The Baby Boomer generation will enter its 50s and 60s and is set to be prime candidates for a work at home business opportunity.

Some marketers think the biggest opportunity to add people to their home based business opportunity lies in the young consumer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Boomers are actively searching for new income opportunities; where as the young consumer can easily become overwhelmed in today’s dynamic marketplace.

Many companies hesitate when it comes to marketing new ideas to the Boomer generation, especially ideas that have a focus on technology. Often they say older consumers are resistant to change and don’t adapt well to new technology.

Baby Boomers are just as open to new ideas as younger consumers. The Boomer generation broke the mold during every stage of life, middle age is no different. As Boomers hit midlife, they’re open to a wide range of new home business ideas and experiences.

Baby Boomers have always been at the forefront when it comes to embracing new ideas and technologies. During the course of their adult lives, Boomers have embraced PC's, cell phones, PDAs, e-mail, and voicemail, all new ideas that can be used in a work from home environment or an internet home based business opportunity.

When it comes to the Internet, the story is no different. Boomers are using the web at nearly the same rates as other age groups, and in just about the same way. The fact is 70% of adults age 50 to 64 are online today. This is only about 12% less than younger age groups. While fewer 50+ Internet users have access to a broadband Internet connection than the general online population, their overall usage patterns mirror other age segments. They’re more likely than GenX’ers to use the web to gather information, nearly as likely to shop online, and they’re avid consumers of business and health related information.

If todays trends continue, even more Baby Boomers will be online in the years ahead as the overall U.S. population ages. Over the next ten years the 50+ web audience will include more of today’s younger Boomers and we will see many use those skills to develop an internet home based business in provide extra income. Social networking, multimedia and blog sites will also continue to gain popularity among the Boomer generation.

The opportunity for entrepreneurs looking to tap into the ever growing 50+ market in the years ahead will be enormous. It's not hard to imagine small or even large web-based businesses succeeding in this virtually untapped market. The key will be to provide a highly rated online business opportunity for the Baby Boomer generation. One that is easy to follow, appeals to a broad range of individuals and is not outrageously expensive.

God Bless and Always Remember To Make It A Great Day!!

Michael J Kohn New Image Marketing Group, Inc.

Please Visit Us At: http://www.PassiveMillions.com

How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

by TERRY H HILL

Competition is a natural and integral part of doing business. How successful you become at competing depends on how you position your business relative to your competitors.
Differentiating your business means defining your company in relationship to the competition. It means that you understand and are able to communicate your point or points of difference and why you’re better, or different, than your competitors. It means continuously making improvements to sustain a leadership position.

If you want to differentiate your business, you need to look at your business from your current and your prospective customers’ perspective. Then, do a competitive analysis, and determine where your business fits in the mix. Identify and communicate specifically how you meet your customer’s needs in a way that no one else can—in a way that is different or better than the competition.

Common points of differentiation include: cost, quality, performance, product availability, technology, leadership, timely delivery, superior service, durability and customer support. Creating a differentiation strategy is referred to as developing a Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is your biggest marketing weapon and is the key to differentiating your business from your competitor. What is a USP? In essence, it is a simple statement that sums up the unique features, benefits, and value that you provide that no other competitor can.

A competitive analysis lists your leading competitors; summarizes their products/services, promotional strategies, distribution methods, strengths /weaknesses, locations, offerings, prices, branding; and determines whether the business is growing, stabilizing or declining. These are the important questions:

• Who are your competitors?

• What customer needs/preferences are your competitors trying to fulfill?

• How are their products/services similar to, or different from, your company?

• How do their prices compare with yours?

• Are your competitors able to offer superior quality products/services at a competitive or lower price? • What is their competitive strategy?

A competitive analysis also outlines strategies for gaining a competitive advantage, keeping competitors out of your market, exploiting the competitors’ weaknesses, and exposing their areas of vulnerability. With this information, you can craft competitive and marketing strategies, thus fine tuning your brand and your message.

To find out more about your competition, you can:

• Personally visit their offices.

• Call them to request products/services information and pricing.

• If possible, purchase their products/services.

• Attend trade shows and view competitors’ exhibits.

• If possible, talk to their customers to find out what they like or dislike about the competitors’ products/services.

• Collect advertising, marketing and promotional materials.

• Visit your competitors’ websites.

• Some online resources: Dow Jones Interactive www.djinactive.com, D&B Million Dollar Database www.dnb.com, Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys www.standardandpoors.com, One source Corp Tech Company Profiles www.corptech.com, Hoover’s www.hoovers.com, U.S. Census Bureau www.census.gov, and U.S. Securities and Exchange filings www.freeedgar.com

• If possible, make arrangements through a third party to interview competitors’ employees.

To identify the distinguishing characteristics that set you apart from the competition, start by analyzing your company. Then, compare your company’s processes, products, workforce, and promotional activities with those of your competitors by pinpointing the strengths and weaknesses of your company and those of your competitors.

Delivering value and benefits that no one else can deliver in the marketplace is the foundation of your Unique Selling Proposition. Your USP becomes the cornerstone of your sales and marketing message. It is this message that builds and reinforces your brand, attracts new customers, and sustains your competitive edge.

An author, speaker, and consultant, Terry H. Hill is the founder and managing partner of Legacy Associates, Inc., a business consulting and advisory services firm based in Sarasota, Florida. A veteran chief executive, Terry works directly with business owners of privately held companies on the issues and challenges that they face in each stage of their business life cycle. Terry is the author of the business desk-reference book, How to Jump Start Your Business. He hosts the Business Insights from Legacy Blog at http://blog.legacyai.com and writes a bi-monthly eNewsletter, "Business Insights from Legacy eZine."

By signing up for Business Insights from Legacy eZine at http://tinyurl.com/2t4fxs you can keep abreast of the latest tips, tactics, and best business practices. You will, also, receive the free eBook, Jump Start Your Knowledge of Business.

Contact Terry by email at http://www.legacyai.com or telephone him at 941-556-1299

How to Attract Search Engine Spiders to Increase WebSite Traffic

How to Attract Search Engine Spiders to Increase WebSite Traffic

by JOCELYN GOMEZ

I’m going to start this amazing tactic out with an example to give you the feel of how this works. Think of a spider. When a spider (Search Engine Spider) makes a web, it does it in hopes of catching a tasty insect (Your Website). When the spider catches the insect, it sucks it of all Its’ juices (Your Website Content) then leaves it hanging on the web (The Search Engine).The thing is, spiders don’t eat every insect they see, so you need a good insect. In this case, your website is the insect and if you want it to get caught by the spider and be put on the web you need to attract the spider to your website. Fact is, if you’re not in the top 10 Search engine rankings it’s almost impossible to get targeted traffic to your site.
Creating Good Bait - What The Search Engine Spiders Look For.

When Google sends out it’s spiders to crawl the web, the #1 thing they are looking for is Good Quality Content. Good content is content that gives people that visit your site great information on whatever it is that they are looking for. Having lots of good quality information on your website attracts visitors and search engine spiders. Why is good content important to Google? Because Google wants to provide everyone that searches the web using their search engine with websites that provide good quality content. If they accomplish this, there’s a better chance that people will use Google over the other search engines to find what they want.

Good Content - The content you provide should match the topic of your website and contain well planned keywords that will help improve search engine rankings for your site. Make sure to use your chosen keywords in the title, sub heading and content of your website for maximum exposure. You should do research on you keywords to help you choose the words that bring in more traffic.

Another very important thing that the search engine spiders look for is how many one way links you have throughout the web to your site. The more links you have to your site, the better your chances will be to increase web site traffic and get higher rankings. You get one way links by writing articles and press releases. Keep reading.

Setting The Bait - How To Make Search Engine Spiders Find and crawl Your Website.

A lot of people pay to get their websites’ in the search results of search engines, but why pay when you can make it happen for free. If you want to maximize your chances of the search spiders crawling your site you need to follow three simple steps.

Step 1: Submit your website manually to all the major search engines. You can do this by going to Google and typing “submit site to (Search engine name)” this will give you the proper search results to submit to that specific search engine. Only submit your site once in a month.

Step 2: The most important step, this is how you get valuable quality one way links to your site. Write an article on a topic that matches your website topic and submit it to article directories that are ranked high in the search engines. You can find them by going to Google and typing in whatever your niche/subject is + articles. Example: “Microwave oven articles”. Make sure to put it in quotations like I did, this will bring back the results that contain the exact words you typed in. Submit to as many article directories as you can. Also, submit at least two or three different articles every week, make sure to contain a link to your site in the author information box.

Step 3: Create a press release to a press release service. You can do this by typing “Submit Press releases” into Google search. This also provides you with valuable links.

Tip for Your Success

This is something not many people pay attention to. There are a lot of affiliates that provide good information, software and services that help new internet marketers get free targeted traffic and higher search engine rankings. It’s a good idea to look into it to jump ahead of the competition.

About The Author

Jocelyn Gomez is dedicated to helping and showing New Internet Marketers up to date strategies on how to get FREE targeted traffic for no cost and low cost. If you would like to learn more on the subject of this article, Visit http://TrafficHotSpot.bravehost.com to increase website traffic today.

Related Articles - increase website traffic, targeted advertising, increase search engine traffic, free, improve search engine rankings,

What is marketing? A quick look.

What is marketing? A quick look.

by PETER VAN ZIJL

What is marketing?
What does marketing mean? Most of us think of marketing just as selling and advertising. This is no surprise - every day our live are flooded with TV commercials, newspaper and magazine ads, sales calls, junk mail and of course email ads. All day someone is trying to sell us something. It is as inevitable as taxes and death.

You may be surprised to learn that advertising and selling is just the tip of the marketing iceberg. They are very important, but they are only two of many marketing functions that have developed over time. Marketing functions developed as marketing's influence infiltrated different business sectors.

Different companies became interested in marketing at different times. Companies like Coca Cola saw the unbelievable potential of marketing almost immediately. Marketing then spread rapidly through consumer packaged good companies. In recent times, more consumer service orientated businesses such as airlines and retailers have adopted a more modern approach to marketing. The latest groups to adopt marketing approaches are service providers such as engineers, lawyers, doctors and accountants. Until recently, professionals like this were not allowed to engage in price competition. Legislation changes have enabled professionals to advertise and engage in competitive pricing.

Now in the 21st century marketing has changed. In the old days it was the old "telling and selling" approach. Now we are more customer orientated, satisfying our customers needs by interacting and working with the customer. We are living in the age of online marketing - tailoring products and services for a more one-on-one approach thus encouraging customer feedback.

A marketing organization now understands their customers needs and tailor makes these products for their customers. Different challenges arise now. Borders are no longer a hurdle to trade. This is what brings up different challenges to marketers, whether to standardize products or tailor make them to a certain geographical market. The challenge of marketing is to retain customers by satisfying their needs, wants and demands. Marketing is a social and managerial process by which people obtain what they want and what they need thru creating and exchanging products and value with others.

http://www.2010guide.com"> http://www.2010guide.com

How to Choose Exhibition Gifts

How to Choose Exhibition Gifts

Author: Gareth Parkin

Exhibitions are great places to get in direct contact with prospects. At an exhibition, you need not have to fish out your prospects, as only interested persons will come for querying. The onus is how you put yourself across and how you are able to draw the focus among your competitors. Distributing exhibition gifts is a great way of attracting target customers. Remember, people always have an inclination towards getting free gifts and it all depends on your marketing prowess how you can cater to there inclination using your exhibition gifts. In other words, your exhibition gifts do make a huge difference as to how many people will be drawn to you.
Exhibition gifts can be virtually anything...pens, mugs, coasters, folders, and even T-shirts. Selecting which gift to distribute at an exhibition is often a headache because the last thing you would ever want is spending fortunes of exhibition gifts and getting return on investment that is practically zero.

Some great tips on selecting exhibition gifts

Go for theme-based gifts… these go down exceptionally well in exhibitions and can create a lot of interest in your business. You will also benefit from theme based exhibition gifts because a theme would give you a direction based on which you can choose your exhibition gift. The most important thing that’s worth mention is selection of theme. In other words, your exhibition theme and exhibition gifts should reflect the style of your business or organisation. For being an IT supplier there is no point in distributing beer mugs. A far better option would be distributing promotional mouse mats which are well designed and likely to compliment your business and image far better.

Your exhibition gifts should always be customizable with your personal business details. Promotional pens, promotional table and desk coasters, promotional coffee and beer mugs, promotional t-shirts, whatever you give, get them carefully designed, printed, and colored according to your company colors, logos, and make it complete with a very personalized marketing message. At the same time, remember not to make your exhibition gifts too show-off kind, something no one would love to carry. Remember, you are surrounded by your competitors and everyone who visits the exhibition will have enough of free exhibition gifts to mix up. It is only by selection, quality, and personalization by which you can set yourself well ahead of your competitors.

Many exhibitions are of a casual nature. Therefore, purchasing polo shirts or even T-shirts personalized to promote your business or organisation may be a great idea. Make sure you get the correct sizes, and let your employees have a say about the color and style, but these highly popular items make great exhibition gifts. Sometimes, there are mixers for exhibitors the night before the exhibition, which would also be an appropriate place to wear this kind of an item. Also, if your employees will simply be attending the exhibition, instead of running a booth, having a promotional article of clothing is a great idea. Afterwards, your employees can keep and wear this item other places as well.

Get Coverage Using Promotional Bags at Trade Shows

Get Coverage Using Promotional Bags at Trade Shows

Author: Dan Smith

Companies exhibiting at trade shows invest a significant amount of time and money, so it is essential that they maximise this investment by getting as much coverage as possible. Promotional bags are one of the most effective giveaways at trade shows and serve several purposes.

Anyone who has ever been to any kind of exhibition or trade show cannot fail to have noticed the sea of colourful tote bags – overprinted with a brand name or logo – carried on the shoulders of visitors as they walk around. Promotional tote bags are popular with visitors because they are extremely useful for carrying all the brochures, catalogues, samples and freebies they accumulate during the day. And all the time they act as a walking advertisement.

Low cost, branded tote bags are ideal if the prime marketing objective is to create awareness, because they can be handed out fairly randomly to anyone passing by. If, however, the quality of leads is more important than the quantity, a smaller amount of more expensive promotional bags may be a better solution. These can either be handed out to reward key customers or form part of a prize draw to bring people to the stand. Other exhibitors may also be giving away promotional bags so it is important to choose a style, colour and design that will stand out from the competition.

Offering something a little bit different from the rest will help generate interest and a buzz around the hall.Affordable, highly visual and practical, promotional bags are undoubtedly one of the best products for creating maximum exposure at a trade show.

Choosing the Right Promotional Bags Vendor

Choosing the Right Promotional Bags Vendor

Author: Dan Smith

Promotional bags are a highly effective and popular means of advertising, often used to reward loyal customers or to raise brand awareness amongst prospective customers. There are many different types to choose from, ranging from computer bags and conference bags to duffel bags and sports bags.

Each bag has its own distinct features and benefits, offering numerous branding options including embroidery, screen printing and transfer printing. It is therefore important to choose the right vendor to help identify which promotional bags will be best suited to the campaign.

In addition to personal recommendation, a good starting place is to seek advice from one of the relevant promotional merchandise trade associations. Member companies are obliged to operate to a strict code of conduct, which enables prospective customers to feel confident about their integrity, competence and professionalism.

Whether the requirement is for budget or premium promotional bags, it is imperative to get the product quality right as this will reflect on the company and the brand. However, it is not enough to base the selection purely on relevant experience and expertise, as it is equally important to select a supplier that prides itself on a high quality service. Getting this wrong can have disastrous results for the campaign.

Many promotional bag vendors have their own in-house design department that will offer free visual samples and artwork to factory specification, as well as a customisation service for bespoke orders.

Promotional bags are a great way to market any business, but the choice of vendor is crucial if the campaign is to have the maximum impact.

Effectiveness of Branding Promotional Bags

Effectiveness of Branding Promotional Bags

Author: Dan Smith

Promotional bags are an extremely effective means of advertising for any company, primarily used to reward loyal customers or to make an impression on prospective customers at events. Some of the most popular types of promotional bags are: business bags, laptop bags, promotional backpacks, sports bags, travel bags, tote bags and cooler bags.

Anyone considering the use of promotional bags in their next marketing campaign should look into the added benefits of branding. Personalising promotional bags will make them stand out from the crowd, which is fundamental if the promotion’s objective is to raise brand awareness.

In many ways, the choice of branding is just as important as the choice of bag. All promotional bags provide excellent overprinting opportunities with several low cost branding options available.

Screen printing offers the best value for adding a one- or two-colour logo to promotional bags, whereas transfer print is slightly more expensive but ideal for logos needing a four-colour print process. The low cost option in relation to perceived value is embroidering, which can accommodate six colours in any design.

Branding on leather promotional bags should ideally be subtle in line with the quality and intended use of the product. Options include foil blocking or blind embossing. In addition promotional bags can be further customised by the addition of metal and rubber badges or stitched-in labels.

With their combination of practicality, style, superior quality and cutting edge design, branded promotional bagsare a perfect way for a company to demonstrate its commitment to excellence.

Tips to Choosing the Right Promotional Bags

Tips to Choosing the Right Promotional Bags

Author: Dan Smith

With such a diverse selection of promotional bags available, including business bags, laptop bags, promotional backpacks, sports bags, travel bags, tote bags and cooler bags, it can sometimes be difficult to know how to choose the right bag.

First, work out the campaign’s approximate budget, and then check exactly what is and is not included in any quotations.

Establish the marketing objective. Inexpensive promotional bags are ideal as giveaways to raise awareness at a trade show, whereas branded designer bags are more suited as corporate gifts to reward loyal customers.

Get to know the audience. A good understanding of the target market’s interests and lifestyle will make it easier to identify what kind of promotional bags will have the greatest positive influence on them.

Remember that a quality brand requires quality merchandise, with poor quality products likely to have a detrimental effect on the brand. Promotional bags should therefore be in line with the brand’s current or desired external image.

Be innovative. The most successful promotions are those that stand out from the crowd. A good supplier should be able to come up with an exciting range of original ideas.

Consider the question of branding as this is often as important as the choice of bag. Options include screen printing, transfer print, embroidery, foil blocking or blind embossing.

Finally, choose a supplier that places high value on providing a quality service as this can make or break a campaign.

Promotional bags are a highly effective means of advertising for a company, but it is important to choose the right bag to meet the campaign’s objective.

Creating Awareness for Charities

Creating Awareness for Charities

Author: Dan Smith

There are currently about 170,000 main charities in England and Wales registered with the Charity Commission. Many of these not-for-profit organisations rely largely on fund-raising through events, voluntary committees and the sale of charity merchandise.

Charity promotional merchandise encompasses a whole range of items such as T-shirts, silicon wristbands, keyrings, pens, pencils, mugs, balloons and badges, which are overprinted with the charity’s logo.

Of the various kinds of charity merchandise, one of the most successful and cost effective in promoting awareness and boosting funds are badges. Badges are an enduring classic with a high perceived value. Many business sectors including charities have already realised their potential and benefited from their massive appeal.

Several distributors of promotional products support the fundraising sector with a dedicated charity division, offering a full range of merchandise and services for the smallest to the largest charities. This complete tailor made package provides practical solutions at every stage – from design and consultation to warehousing and distribution - helping charities maximise the potential and proceeds of their fundraising campaign.
By working together with the charity to determine the product options and designs that best suit its needs, the distributor is able to supply all kinds of fundraising merchandise, from badges, backing cards and collection boxes to fully integrated campaigns.
With their popular appeal, longevity and low unit cost, badges win on all fronts. Anyone looking to create awareness for their charity through the use of merchandise should therefore look no further than badges.

Power Words That Increase Sales

Power Words That Increase Sales

Author: Jo Mark

Making a purchase is an emotional activity. When browsing among a number of sale items, most people will most often choose the product that makes them feel the best. How you feel about something is an emotional response. Some words or phrases cater to these emotional needs more than others. Sitting on that sofa is so comfortable and cozy. The car you are considering will impress the neighbors. That item for the home looks just perfect with your surroundings. People buy things to satisfy their emotional needs and make them feel good.

By using emotional power words in your titles, ads, emails, and sales pages you will entice more people to buy your product. As proof of this, from which ad below would you prefer to make a purchase?

Ad 1) Sale, sale, sale! Free bonus – today only! Buy 1 tube of XYZ Skin Cream, get 1 FREE! Rub it in and you can feel it releasing all the tension in your body. Makes you feel so relaxed, you’ll think you just had a massage! Fast delivery, Free shipping! Your complete Satisfaction Guaranteed or your money back – no questions asked!

Ad 2) Two tubes XYZ Skin Cream – no charge to ship.

Both of these ads are selling the same thing. But, if you are like most people, you would prefer to buy from ad number 1. In that ad, all of the key words from the list below are used. Try using some of these words in your ads, sales pages, and emails and watch your sales increase!

1. Use the word "fast". People like immediate gratification and want fast results, fast delivery, fast ordering, etc. We value our time more than our money.

2. Use the word "discount/sale " in your ad. People like bargains and are more inclined to buy something on sale. Using a time limit on your sale (today only) makes people more inclined to buy it now.

3. Use the word "you/your" in your ad. Design your ad in a normal conversational tone. People will subconsciously believe that you are talking directly to them. It makes them feel important and more inclined to buy.

Please excuse me now; I have to finish up here. You see, I saw an ad for this new XYZ Skin Cream that I’ve just GOT to order…

Promotional Coasters your Tool to Brand Awareness

Promotional Coasters your Tool to Brand Awareness

Author: Gareth Parkin

Any marketing endeavor is complete only when you are able to make your clients feel that they are important to you. This may sound simple, but can be as difficult. You cannot afford to call up your clients every week to remind them of you. On the contrary, you cannot leave it up to your fate, thinking that you have done enough to keep the client reminded. How do you reconcile between these? Make a strategy so that you don’t need to get into direct contact with your prospects but keep the prospect immaculately reminded of you, your business, and how he would benefit from you. This is where promotional products help.
Distributing promotional items is indeed a cost effective way of reaching out to your clients and prospects. Nowadays, not only small businesses are taking resort to promotional item distribution as their mode of advertising, even the majors are adding this in their marketing budget because of the personalized contact that can be gained through distribution of promotional items.
Promotional coasters are an effective promotional item. Cost effective and large enough to display your marketing message in a readable format, you can distribute printed coasters among your existing clients, design them for office use, home use, and distribute it among your prospects with a hope of staying in their foresight. Whatever may be your objective, printed coasters make great promotional items as these can be completely customized to incorporate your logo, colors, and marketing message.
Some tips!
Categorize your clients - Refrain from distributing the same set of printed coasters to everyone. It will not be so effective. On the contrary, categorize your clients, their office environments, and their outlook and design your printed coasters accordingly. I knew someone who once visited a client’s office to get a look at the desks, tables, etc and accordingly had his coasters printed and designed. Believe me! It worked immensely.
Decide upon the usage - You can distribute printed coasters for office use as well as home use. Remember, a design that is appropriate for office may not be appropriate for home. For example, a printed coaster designed for an office may contain some motivation phrase, some work related quote, etc. This, I am afraid, will not be that much appreciated in a household, where designs are more in use.
Be focused on quality - Quality of promotional coasters you distribute goes a long way in creating your reputation. No client of yours would like to use your printed coasters if they look cheap and have irritating colors, etc. This would in fact, be harmful for your reputation than being neutral. Hence, be careful while deciding upon the quality of your printed promotional coasters. I m not telling you to spend beyond your limits but quality should certainly be a criteria as it would also act as a tool in setting your position above your competitors, who would also be into some sort of marketing activities. A great idea is to try innovative design ideas and marketing message that does not directly tell about your company, but leaves a firm message of the knowledge you have and why it would be beneficial for the client to have you as his supplier.

Redefine Marketing Terminologies With Behavioral Marketing

Redefine Marketing Terminologies With Behavioral Marketing

Author: Rajesh Kumar

Increase in sale is that factor what drives businesses to invent newer effective marketing tactics. This question might have pestered you many times that, if consumer satisfaction is the key to the success of any publicity campaign, then why do not businesses understand the need of their opinion before making any marketing strategy. It is true that consumer’s opinion should also be a part of any company’s marketing strategy and now businesses are also realizing it. That is the reason, which fortified the need of behavioral marketing in business world. Now every marketing expert considers the customer opinion and performance of previous product while making any new marketing strategy. Behavioral marketing is becoming very popular among businesses as it is rising as conventional marketing approach.

Behavioral marketing is redefining the terms of marketing; it keeps consumers in heart of every marketing project. After all consumers are that power that can build or ruin any business. A perfect marketing approach is nothing but a way to read consumer’s mind and to provide them with what they expect. Therefore we can say the behavioral marketing possess the perfect marketing approach as it knows how to read consumer’s mind to satisfy their exact requirements. It targets consumers based on their behavior or reaction for any product or service. Customer feedback is its equation for success as ay product is launched only after knowing what people think about it. It really helps in deciding whether the proposed product or service is worth launching or will it just increase the crowd of products and get vanished very soon. Every step under behavioral marketing is data driven as an effective marketing plan can be made only after analysis of market data.

Such campaigns are planed with the help of data compiled from various mediums such as surveys, feedback forms, hits on site and customer blogs. These all mediums help in getting the exact idea about what enhancement consumers want in new product or service. Today online businesses are growing with rapid pace and they also require something that may be beneficial in strengthening their position in online market therefore online marketing is also becoming consumer oriented. Many behavioral marketers are working to improve the efficiency of online marketing campaigns. They are collecting the data that indicates number of hits, blogs position and position of the website in online world. These marketers serve advertisement to a particular section of society so that the advertisement may grab the attention of authentic and prolific consumers only. These data can be collected through IP information. Many behavioral marketing service providers are offering online and offline business a great opportunity to get the most out of their marketing campaigns.

Behavioral marketing is such a marketing strategy that believes in keeping consumers at the midst of every marketing campaign, so that consumers may realize how you take care of their advice and requirements. That will be really a delighting experience for you and you consumer that you both are contributing in development of a better market environment.

How to Increase Profits by Knowing your Product and Competition

How to Increase Profits by Knowing your Product and Competition

Author: Tan Yian Chuan

During various IT shows, I am often surprised at how sales representatives continuously inundate me with the same one-dimensional marketing proposition.

"There is no point checking out the other offers available at the other booths, because they're all generally the same. In fact, if you purchase this laptop from us, you will get a free memory upgrade to X GB!"

Hopping over to the next booth, their laptops came with that amount of memory.

All this illustrates 2 things:

- You realise how ill-prepared many of these sales reps are. The companies or themselves have not gone through the necessary own product and marketing training;

- Despite claims, they have not done their field research of other competing products and marketing.

Both these could have been avoided easily if the necessary research, planning and education had been applied to their marketing effort. In doing so, both companies and employees would be clear on what their business and product offered, and how they differed from competitors. With this, they would be in a position to create more value, better bonuses and greater incentives for people to buy in.

The following methods can be used to arrive at this position:

1. Compare the benefits of your product with that of your competitors'. Come up with new and better benefits over that of your competitors', that you could provide;

2. Note the unique benefits of your product;

3. Using all the case studies that you have personally encountered, and also that of the most successful businesses and people, determine what the 3 best benefits and selling points their products have;

4. Which of these could be applied to -your- product?

With these methods, you will gain a clearer and thorough understanding of the benefits and advantages your product has to offer over others'. From the resulting marketing to the clients, you would be able to iterate your selling points and assist them in making well-informed buying choices. By building credibility in showing your market and product understanding, clients are more often than not, likely to select your product. And you.

Promote your Website With Unique Article Submissions

Promote your Website With Unique Article Submissions

Author: Keith Driscoll

Unique articles are imperative as they improve a website's visibility on the WWW. Unique articles are distinct as articles that wouldn’t be found in the majority of web sites on the WWW. An article submission is usually done to get the top quality backlink with the most fitting anchor link. Every time an article submission is published, the author gets another link to their website. If your company is giving web marketing the attention it deserves, then article submission is a marketing practice which should be a solid part of your approach to marketing your products, services and brand online. The only problem I found to SEO article submission is the time and effort it takes to submit your article to the article directories. In a nutshell article submission is a way to add link popularity.

You can pickup articles from many sites but most of those free articles are used on 1000’s of other sites too therefore it means you just have duplicate content on your website, and since search engines can easily identify the duplicate content on the internet therefore your content will not have any importance to search engines. Having quality targeted and unique content is more useful to a Webmaster than having the same mass-produced poor articles that are so frequent on the web today. I would apply the free articles as a starter but its best to write your own.

It is pretty noticeable that the articles you submit will be featured in front of 1000’s of website owners, ezine publishers, creative writers, professional bloggers who are always in the pursuit of fresh, original content. There are hundreds of general and niche article directories which are ready to publish your quality articles with back links to your website(s). Any site will accept articles for publication as long as they give readers valuable information. It is vital to submit as many articles as possible to give you the exposure you need to be sought after by publishers.

Also don't use articles to promote your company within the content. Try not to use unique information within every single article that you write though, mix and match them.

Straighforward, easy to read articles are quite effective in achieving your goals of higher website traffic and profits. If you think one article will help you with building a link marketing campaign you are incorrect, you need to constantly write and submit articles to do this.

Like all great advertising methods, everyone and their grandmother is jumping on the bandwagon to submit articles, however not all of them are decent. And now some of the big article directories are sorting out the wheat from the chaff; discarding obvious spam and low quality articles that are submitted to them. However, the key for your article submission promotion to be successful is not just creating quality, informative and creative articles, but you must also submit them to the correct sites in the right manner so that your desired audiences can find them. If you are not submitting articles to promote your website today, then you are seriously missing out a huge piece of targeted traffic eager to purchase your products, or register for your affiliate programs or list.

Aligning Brands and Channels

Aligning Brands and Channels

Author: Bob Segal

People look like their dogs. I say this based on my non-scientific sample of fellow pet owners I have met while walking through Oz Park in Chicago with my own (handsome) dog, Kelsey. My informal assessment is supported by researchers at the University of California at San Diego. Dog owners, the researchers theorize, pick pooches that reflect the owner's disposition--happy, moody, tough, etc.

What does this have to do with marketing? Well, marketers should foster the same type of match between their brands and channels as pet owners do between themselves and their dogs. If your company's brand stands for "productivity," that's what your channel should deliver. If you promote your "inventiveness," your channels should be similarly creative. If your company is known for its "high style," your customers expect to see that cutting edge image when they meet your resellers.

While this might seem intuitive, I am amazed by how few companies take proactive steps to ensure that their channels reflect the brand image the manufacturer is trying to present. In our brand implementation work with clients, Frank Lynn & Associates uses a detailed checklist to review all of the potential "touch points" between customers and the brand. While advertising, Web sites, product literature, and other media clearly play a role, the channel is frequently the most influential brand communicator on the list.

One of our industrial clients is working hard to promote a brand image that stresses cost-cutting and efficiency (by promoting the use of its products in six-sigma manufacturing processes). The client has educated its salespeople, enlisted industry consultants, created an online knowledge base, etc. Unfortunately, most of the client's distributors are primarily "order-takers." The distributors' salespeople do not know how, and are not motivated, to make a consultative, engineering sale. Having visited our client's Web site, or hearing our client's CEO speak, a customer would be significantly confused when they visit one of the distributors.

The situation reminds me of the (possibly apocryphal) meeting between Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe. Monroe gushed, "Gosh what do you say, professor, shouldn't we marry and have a little baby together? What a baby it would be--my looks and your intelligence!" Einstein then quipped, "Yes, but dear lady, it might be the other way around."

Fearing such a result, our industrial client is taking steps to rectify the situation.

Before we get into the steps that any manufacturer can take to align brand and channel messages, we first need a sidebar on the issue of channel power. When I bring up the issue of brand/channel alignment, many clients complain they do not have the power to compel their channel partners to behave in a certain way. Sure, if you are John Deere, Lexus, Coca-Cola, or IBM you carry some clout in the channel relationship. But, even these companies cannot command adherence to a brand strategy. And, at the other extreme, manufacturers of tertiary products, those who might represent less than 1-2 percent of their partners' business, sometimes feel powerless.

I do not believe the situation is as problematic as some companies might believe. We have developed a significant list of tactics that can help. While each tactic might not apply to your company, or a tertiary-product company, I am convinced there is something for everyone in our list.

Before pursuing any of these tactics, companies need to make sure they have a powerful brand message. Without going into much detail here, we tell clients to think about brands using an approach we call UCC--unique, compelling, and credible.

With such a brand position in place, companies can create a strong brand/channel alignment by adopting some combination of the following tactics:

1. Channel Selection. Perhaps the most powerful tactic to deploy is making brand alignment one of the criteria you use to select channel partners in the first place. If, however, you are already stuck with channel partners that do not exactly fit the brand message, then add even a few new partners that do fit, and promote them as a model. Competitiveness and guilt are wonderful motivators to the existing partners.

2. Company-Owned Channels. While we do not generally advocate that manufacturers open up their own dealerships or distributors (especially in competition with existing channel partners), this tactic is sometimes necessary. When IBM launched the first PC, they opened up IBM Product Centers, in no small part to demonstrate to new, independent dealers what a retail facility should look like. Sony, Nike, Viacom, and other companies have opened up their own dealerships for similar reasons. Some of our clients have even opened up company-owned channels, on a temporary basis, to get across their brand message--then turned around and sold the business to an independent dealer who understood the value of the brand.

3. Activity-Based Compensation. You may already know that Frank Lynn & Associates strongly advocates activity- or functional-based compensation, in general. You can tie some portion of the channel's discount/rebate to performing activities that relate to brand alignment, e.g., training salespeople, using your promotional materials, or any of the other tactics in this list.

4. Store-within-a-Store. If you sell through a retail channel, consider the store-within-a-store concept to bring a bit of your brand directly into the retailer. Perfume companies pay their own reps to work behind the counters at department stores. HP and Microsoft teamed up to create unique display areas within retailers, where customers could gain hands-on experience with products in a variety of applications. Industrial products manufacturer, Parker Hannifin, has established several hundred ParkerStores at its distributors. Kodak has placed thousands of its photo kiosks in retail locations.

5. Point-of-Sale. If a store-within-store or even a kiosk seems a bit overwhelming, do not underestimate the power of basic point-of-sale materials. These may be small displays that surround your product, stand-alone racks, or simply hand-out materials. Regardless, they bring your message directly to the customer. They can also serve as training (see below) for channel salespeople. Make sure to coordinate with channel partners since each has its own perspective of what fits (and what does not).

6. Channel Training. Partners may not reflect your brand message due to a lack of employee skills. Or, perhaps your message never filtered down to the individual sales or technical people that "touch" the customer. You can roll out a separate course just on branding and marketing your product, or you can combine it with product training. If you are on a budget, try webinars or CD/DVDs.

7. Champions. If training does not get you far enough, consider building channel champions. These are channel employees that, for whatever reason, are, or could be, boosters of your brand. Maybe, they have had a good experience using or selling your brand. Maybe they are just really into your technology or style. Maybe they have a good relationship with your channel account manager. Whatever the reason, find these people and treat them right. Their enthusiasm for your brand can be infectious. This strategy works particularly well for manufacturers of tertiary brands. Maybe you cannot get the attention of your partner's CEO, but the category manager or individual sales rep might care.

8. Marketing and Sales Tools. Aligning manufacturers and channel brands requires repetition. You need to communicate your brand position to and through the channel on a frequent basis. One means of accomplishing this is by providing channel partners with tools that they can use over and over. (Proposal boilerplate, partner portal with product, ordering, technical information, sales checklist, product configurator, planogram, or FAQs on your website) While these tools are not conventional brand media, each of these tools can slowly, but surely, shape the way your channel partners act and communicate with customers.

9. Account Plans. Partners often do not fully appreciate the strategic thinking behind your brand message. If so, I can guarantee that they do not appreciate the benefit of the various tactics I have described above. To help partners grasp your brand strategy, the importance of your tactical plans, and the financial impact on their business, you need to instigate an annual planning process with your partners. The plan, preferably developed by the channel's principal or senior executive, should squarely address the issue of brand alignment. Channel principals/executives, especially in smaller firms, do not have anyone with whom they can discuss strategy. Your account manager becomes their business consultant. The plan should outline how you and the partner will achieve joint sales and profit targets. As such, it should cover all the activities that relate to brand alignment - training, promotion, advertising, customer targets, employee training, etc.

In a world of increasing commoditization, manufacturers must create and reinforce brand messages that trumpet their differentiation. Channels are arguably the most important media for communicating with customers. However, customers simply do not want to buy from manufacturers and channels that are not in agreement about fundamental premises and promises. The good news is that you have a wide variety of tools and tactics to bring channels into alignment with your brand message.

Oh, and don't forget to take the dog out for a walk.

A Case for Market Research: Do you Really Know What your Customers Think?

A Case for Market Research: Do you Really Know What your Customers Think?

Author: Jeanne Fec

Every quarter, Frank Lynn & Associates conducts a channel-marketing workshop for sales and marketing managers from many different types of companies. Many--even large Fortune 1000 companies--do not use formal customer research as a strategic marketing tool.

Some of their main excuses include:
> "Sales people talk to customers all the time. They bring a lot of customer insight."
> "Customer research is done for product development, and that isn't a constant need."
> "Internally, the discretionary annual marketing budget leans toward marketing communications, like new literature campaigns, mailings, etc. to drive growth."

Smart Business interviewed Jeanne Fec, Senior Principal of Frank Lynn & Associates Inc., to learn more about using formal customer research to optimize investments in new products and drive growth in sales and market share.

What about using the sales force for research? Aren't they the critical interface between a company and their customers?

The sales force is one of the biggest investments a company makes, and it can be used as a "conduit" to understanding customer sentiment. This is important. But there are two problematic issues in gathering customer insight from the company sales force.

How do typical sales people spend their time? If they are good account managers, it is with existing, high-value customers. Here is the gap. How do we learn from those outside the sales force's circle of presence? Companies that consistently maintain double-digit growth make it a point to learn and act upon perceptions, purchasing behaviors and expectations of prospective and low-profile customers.

Then there is focus and motivation. Sales people are trained and paid to sell. It is a challenge to get reliable and effective market research from salespeople. A formal customer research effort more effectively delivers unbiased data. Customers will also note the extra effort taken to understand their perspective.

Are there additional reasons to use consistent customer or non-customer research?

Research and development is another big investment that market research can optimize. Numerous companies fail to include external customer research in the product development process.

Engineering-driven organizations are especially vulnerable here. Great ideas are put into motion because they seem to solve problems or outstrip the competition on design and capabilities.

Successful marketing strategies must also take into account the size, sensitivity and buying behavior of target end-user segments. This is a step best filled with regular collection of insight from those customers. But we still have clients come to us regularly with great products, seeking a market to buy them.

End-user research can effectively and efficiently answer critical acceptance questions before a more significant investment is made. These basic questions can be incorporated into a research methodology that can be conducted in person, over the phone or via questionnaire.

Give us some examples of key research questions.

Certainly. Let's continue with our example of a new technology product being prepared for a launch.

Technology: Does the technology meet the customer's needs or solve the problem? Is it perceived to be robust enough? Or overkill for the existing situation?

Economics: Are the benefits greater than the cost? Developing an actual selling price is a challenge in any research methodology, but good research can define a value-based price range in the mind of the customer.

Timing: Are prospective customers capable and willing to make a purchase in the short term? Asking questions about purchase cycles, budgets, approval processes, centralized versus decentralized buying behaviors, and other timing questions will help gauge opportunity forecasts.

Environment: Research questions can assist in understanding behaviors that have a high impact on success. For example, you can test the customer's internal environment, which means the customer's level of sophistication and readiness to adopt the new technology. It is also critical to understand the customer's external environment, such as alliances with competitors or previous negative experiences. In the overall scheme of things, this type of research investment is small relative to the cost of R&D and product development.

We've talked about customer satisfaction research, new customer access and new product research. Are there other ways that research helps companies grow?

Good research has proven to help companies maintain current share, grow within their customer base, and strategically grow outside of it. There is one additional benefit research can deliver. Customer research can tell us how to raise the bar. It informs us about unmet needs, or identifies unique benefits that competitors do not deliver.

Develop a Powerful Nonprofit Marketing & Communications Budget

Develop a Powerful Nonprofit Marketing & Communications Budget

Author: Harris Eisenberg

Today we will try to answer the age old question: What portion of a nonprofit’s budget should be spent on marketing and communications? Let’s be straight from the start - you need to have a comprehensive and realistic budget. This is the most critical component of your plan, consider this a map to reach your goals.

In the for-profit world the standard for a marketing budget is 10-20% of projected gross revenue. However, things aren’t so clear in the nonprofit world where there is a dual bottom line of people and dollars. In this case you should take a percentage approach OR a flat dollar approach.

What’s most important is that you establish a budget prior to the start of each fiscal year, and track costs and outcomes, quantifiable outcomes especially, through the year. This enables you to analyze cost vs. benefit.

The Percentage Approach
This approach is tracks expenditures directly to an organizations growth or decline in budget and membership throughout the year. The main advantage of a budget based on your organizational finances is that it is organic - spending grows with your organization. Please note, organizations must oftem make exceptions for special needs (launch of a new program, introducing new leadership, etc.).

The average allocation is from 9% to 12% of your annual organizational budget (start with 10% as a rule of thumb). And note: advocacy organizations need to allocate more of their budgets to communications, since much of their advocacy work is communications or outreach based.

Here’s a simple example of a budget shaped by the percentage approach:

2% advertising and promotion media (be sure to include postage)
4% production and printing (newsletters, brochures)
2% special events
3% salaries, consultants and freelancers.

The Dollar Approach
Many organizations prefer a flat dollar approach and find it to be easier (and safer) than the percentage approach since your total budget has to cover utilities, rent, taxes, health insurance, etc.

To define the dollar amount for the year, start out with calculations based on last year’s costs and then revise it to reflect new programs or other events on the horizon. Contact colleagues in the field and prospective vendors to accurately gauge costs and get your projections as accurate as possible. Either way, this will help you produce a baseline budget.

What Budgeting Does for You
You will find that a formal budget is a great tool. Your budget (and plan) will help you distinguish between needs and wants. You’ll see how much you have to spend to reach your goals and, via tracking results, understand what programs are working to reach those goals. For example, based on your budget, you may decide to promote your advocacy campaigns via direct mail and email, media relations, and paid advertising in order to match fundraising and actionable timeframes or, you may decide to hold off on enhancing your already strong membership campaign with the launch of a members-only
web site.

In the end, results matter, plan and track to make sure you succeed.

Learn the Secrets of Launching a Successful Enterprise - Marketer Mark

Learn the Secrets of Launching a Successful Enterprise - Marketer Mark

Author: Paul Sterling & Kristin Denton

This morning Mark Joyner's assistant, Anne Reilly, emailed me to let me in on something new...

A hush-hush, super secret project Mark is about to launch.

Her email stopped me in my tracks and had me totally shift my focus from what I was doing to promoting this new product for Mark - he's that amazing.

How would you like to have the power to capture people's attention at the mention of your name? To have an army of people actively promoting your products to their lists?

Got your interest... yet? I hope so because he does this again and again and again.

How do Mark and the other masters of internet marketing do it?

1) He over-delivers - consistently, product after product.

2) He builds a presence on the internet (viral marketing is key - delivering free content that is shared and shared.)

3) He has websites, many of them - and it's true, no matter what BS people say - you need a website or many (I have about 50).

4) He gets his content out on the net (he writes shorts, quality articles and gets them out on the net - see my blog on how to get them out to many sites quickly and easily).

5) He builds his team. And now you can add Mark Joyner to your team. HE has spent years and years working on the net to become an 'overnight' success.

6) He creates a launch plan.

7) He Builds Buzz and Curiosity - track his and others to see how it works - save their emails - write a step by step flow chart.

8) And I'm sure he continues to learn. Become an affiliate of the Big Guys and Big Gals and learn how it done from the inside out.

9) He builds relationships so when you are ready - people know who you are and will drop what they are doing and help you succeed.

These steps are followed by internet successes including people like Tellman Knudson, Ben Mack and Matt Bacak and others.
Get started toady and watch Mark Joyner's launch and learn.

Few Ideas for Viral Marketing

Few Ideas for Viral Marketing

Author: Avdhesh

Here are few ideas to help you start your viral marketing campaign:

1. Purchase the branding rights to a viral E-book. Allow people to give away your free E-book to their visitors. Then, their visitors will also give it away. This will just continue to spread your ad all over the Internet.

2. If you have the ability to set up a forum or other bulletin board, you really have a great tool. Allow people to use your online discussion board for their own website. Some people don't have one. Just include your banner ad at the top of the board.

3. Do you have a knack for web design? Create some templates, graphics, etc. and upload them to your site. Then, allow people to give away your free web design graphics, fonts, templates, etc. Just include your ad on them or require people to link directly to your web site. Make sure that you include a link back to your site in the copyright notice and require them to keep your copyright notice in tact.

4. Write an E-book. Allow people to place an advertisement in your free E-book if, in exchange, they give away the E-book to their web visitors or E-zine subscribers.

5. Write articles that pertain to your product or service. Allow people to reprint your articles on their website, in their E-zine, newsletter, magazine or E-books. Include your resource box and the option for article reprints at the bottom of each article.

6. You can easily find products on the Internet that will sell you a license allowing you to distribute the product free of charge to other people. Look for those products that provide "branding rights". That is where you can include your own name, website, and contact information.

One of the company expert in viral marketing is www.website-control.co.uk , they handle all the process required to start and manage internet viral marketing campaigns.

How to Accelerate Word of Mouth Marketing

How to Accelerate Word of Mouth Marketing

Author: Sunil Shibad

If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Simply put, it is word of mouth. Word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising. It is the most honest form of marketing, building upon people’s innate desire to share their experiences with family, friends and co-workers.

Word of mouth for a brand is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do extraordinary things well. People notice that over time. While there are no shortcuts to generate word of mouth, you can use specific techniques to accelerate the process. Here are a few of them:

Look at the customer as a friend or a family member and not as part of some vague demographic group.

Develop entertaining and informative ads that can be easily forwarded.

Work actively with social networks.

Host discussions and message boards about your brand.

Identify people who are able to influence your target customers.

Inform these influencers about what your brand is all about and motivate them to spread the word.

Recruit new evangelists, teach them about the benefits of your brand and encourage them to create a buzz.

Set up online clubs for passionate users.

Track online conversations about your brand by both supporters and detractors.

Listen and respond to both positive and negative conversations.

Participate honestly on online blogs and discussions.

Redefine Marketing Terminologies With Behavioral Marketing

Redefine Marketing Terminologies With Behavioral Marketing

Author: Rajesh Kumar

Increase in sale is that factor what drives businesses to invent newer effective marketing tactics. This question might have pestered you many times that, if consumer satisfaction is the key to the success of any publicity campaign, then why do not businesses understand the need of their opinion before making any marketing strategy. It is true that consumer’s opinion should also be a part of any company’s marketing strategy and now businesses are also realizing it. That is the reason, which fortified the need of behavioral marketing in business world. Now every marketing expert considers the customer opinion and performance of previous product while making any new marketing strategy. Behavioral marketing is becoming very popular among businesses as it is rising as conventional marketing approach.

Behavioral marketing is redefining the terms of marketing; it keeps consumers in heart of every marketing project. After all consumers are that power that can build or ruin any business. A perfect marketing approach is nothing but a way to read consumer’s mind and to provide them with what they expect. Therefore we can say the behavioral marketing possess the perfect marketing approach as it knows how to read consumer’s mind to satisfy their exact requirements. It targets consumers based on their behavior or reaction for any product or service. Customer feedback is its equation for success as ay product is launched only after knowing what people think about it. It really helps in deciding whether the proposed product or service is worth launching or will it just increase the crowd of products and get vanished very soon. Every step under behavioral marketing is data driven as an effective marketing plan can be made only after analysis of market data.

Such campaigns are planed with the help of data compiled from various mediums such as surveys, feedback forms, hits on site and customer blogs. These all mediums help in getting the exact idea about what enhancement consumers want in new product or service. Today online businesses are growing with rapid pace and they also require something that may be beneficial in strengthening their position in online market therefore online marketing is also becoming consumer oriented. Many behavioral marketers are working to improve the efficiency of online marketing campaigns. They are collecting the data that indicates number of hits, blogs position and position of the website in online world. These marketers serve advertisement to a particular section of society so that the advertisement may grab the attention of authentic and prolific consumers only. These data can be collected through IP information. Many behavioral marketing service providers are offering online and offline business a great opportunity to get the most out of their marketing campaigns.

Behavioral marketing is such a marketing strategy that believes in keeping consumers at the midst of every marketing campaign, so that consumers may realize how you take care of their advice and requirements. That will be really a delighting experience for you and you consumer that you both are contributing in development of a better market environment.

Promotional Coasters your Tool to Brand Awareness

Promotional Coasters your Tool to Brand Awareness

Author: Gareth Parkin

Any marketing endeavor is complete only when you are able to make your clients feel that they are important to you. This may sound simple, but can be as difficult. You cannot afford to call up your clients every week to remind them of you. On the contrary, you cannot leave it up to your fate, thinking that you have done enough to keep the client reminded. How do you reconcile between these? Make a strategy so that you don’t need to get into direct contact with your prospects but keep the prospect immaculately reminded of you, your business, and how he would benefit from you. This is where promotional products help.
Distributing promotional items is indeed a cost effective way of reaching out to your clients and prospects. Nowadays, not only small businesses are taking resort to promotional item distribution as their mode of advertising, even the majors are adding this in their marketing budget because of the personalized contact that can be gained through distribution of promotional items.
Promotional coasters are an effective promotional item. Cost effective and large enough to display your marketing message in a readable format, you can distribute printed coasters among your existing clients, design them for office use, home use, and distribute it among your prospects with a hope of staying in their foresight. Whatever may be your objective, printed coasters make great promotional items as these can be completely customized to incorporate your logo, colors, and marketing message.
Some tips!
Categorize your clients - Refrain from distributing the same set of printed coasters to everyone. It will not be so effective. On the contrary, categorize your clients, their office environments, and their outlook and design your printed coasters accordingly. I knew someone who once visited a client’s office to get a look at the desks, tables, etc and accordingly had his coasters printed and designed. Believe me! It worked immensely.
Decide upon the usage - You can distribute printed coasters for office use as well as home use. Remember, a design that is appropriate for office may not be appropriate for home. For example, a printed coaster designed for an office may contain some motivation phrase, some work related quote, etc. This, I am afraid, will not be that much appreciated in a household, where designs are more in use.
Be focused on quality - Quality of promotional coasters you distribute goes a long way in creating your reputation. No client of yours would like to use your printed coasters if they look cheap and have irritating colors, etc. This would in fact, be harmful for your reputation than being neutral. Hence, be careful while deciding upon the quality of your printed promotional coasters. I m not telling you to spend beyond your limits but quality should certainly be a criteria as it would also act as a tool in setting your position above your competitors, who would also be into some sort of marketing activities. A great idea is to try innovative design ideas and marketing message that does not directly tell about your company, but leaves a firm message of the knowledge you have and why it would be beneficial for the client to have you as his supplier.