Yes, the economy is still worsening. People are spending less.
Yet you can still attract more customers and, sometimes, even more per-customer spending. How .... ?
By offering them something more. You just need the right kind of partners and methods, as Jamie Herzlich points out in Newsday today. (She quoted me along with others including my friend, John Jantsch, of Duct Tape Marketing.
Here are six quick, SmartPartnering success stories, followed by 14 easy ways to jumpstart a first, profitable partnership. Bet you can adapt at least one to your kind of business - or club or other non-profit group.
1. Give ‘Em Another Reason to Visit Your Business
That’s how Applebee’s attracted more customers – many first-time visitors - to their family restaurants one summer, without advertising more. When Weight Watchers designed and branded several low-cal menu items for Applebee’s, followers of their diet program (and those who were thinking of losing weight) had a new reason to eat at Applebee’s. The restaurant’s customers got introduced to a new program – Weight Watchers, by a restaurant they already knew and liked.
2. Deepen Your Customers’ Emotional Bond With You, in How You Support a Local Cause – With Them
A month after Hurricane Charley and tropical storm Bonnie, when a storm the size of Texas pummeled parts of Florida, their “neighbors” in Florida and Georgia were given a small way to help with storm relief efforts.
When they shopped at Winn-Dixie grocery stores they could “even it up” at the checkout counter. That is, they could round up their food bill to the next dollar or more, with the extra change going to the local Red Cross chapter for relief efforts.
Many of the retailers and non-profits that worked together forged a second alliance faster (they knew each other better) to create bus caravans for their food-direct-to-Katrina-folks.
3. Coddle Local, Lucrative Niche Customers
Last Valentine’s Day, several neighborhood businesses — including a, women’s medical clinic, florist, health food store, clothing boutique, shopper newspaper, museum store, gym, bookstore and beauty salon — joined forces for a month-long promotion to attract and serve women.
The bookstore hosted a series of “Beauty Inside Out” - themed series of in-store demonstrations and mini-seminars each led by a manager of one of the participating businesses and highlighting a book collection and the local partners’ related products and services.
Each presenter provided a handout that included reference to at least one of the other partnering organizations, plus a joint offer of services with one of them. As well, each presenter wrote a guest column based on their presentation, which was featured in the shopper newspaper, with the author’s follow-up offer and e-mail noted at the bottom of the article. Of course each column author quoted others in this mutually beneficial alliance.
4. Become Their Top-of-Mind Choice. Offer a Tantalizing “Extra”
Who knows how many people chose to stay at the Ritz Carlton rather than at another luxury hotel because of an added thrill - complimentary use of a brand new Mercedes during their stay? Mercedes and Ritz Carlton forged a smart partnership and became the top-of-mind choice with their kind of (upscale) customers and so can you - regardless of the kind or size of your business.
5. Trade Benefits to Lower Overhead & Attract Attention With a “First Ever”
That’s how T-shirt designer Tami Minatelli exhibited at nine street fairs last summer without paying for her booth space. A manufacturer of a no-stain suntan lotion paid for Tami’s booth. She wore their lotion and her T-shirts, with a sign above her head, describing her original painting-on-cotton method and the lotion’s “do no harm” guarantee. Next to burn protection, that’s the biggest concern of people who use suntan lotions.
6. Boost a Local Cause in a Way That Builds Your Profits
That’s how firefighters in the town of Toluma got a badly-needed but expensive piece of equipment, a deluge gun, without asking their cash-strapped city council for a single dime. And made a local eatery more popular, well-known – and profitable.
Here’s how. Business was slow all over their town. The firefighters were getting nowhere when they asked for donations from business owners experiencing a weak economy.
Yet when they approached the manager of a local pizzeria, PizzaLove, he said he didn’t have the authority to donate money, but he had a better idea. “Here’s what I can do. We can pick a Wednesday, say four weeks from today for an “Our Community Cares” day here. I make $500 or so on Wednesdays. On that day, after we sell $500 worth, every dollar after that I’ll split 50/50 with you. So if you inspire enough people to buy a pizza on that day, you can raise more money than you just asked me for.
”The firefighters loved the “fire-fighting pizza” community challenge. . They prepared banners and asked the local supermarket and gas stations to put up on their outside walls. They had signs and announcements printed for free by the local copy shop with a bright red “donated by” credit line to the copy shop on them.
The headline on the signs and flyers read, “Eat at PizzaLove. Save a local life.” They visited offices complexes, even those with signs that read “No soliciting.” (Who’s going to kick out the volunteer fire department, right?) They went to apartment complexes, video rental outlets, grade and high schools. They put flyers and signs everywhere. Once people heard about their cause, handing out flyers was like giving away candy. The local radio and newspaper gave them free coverage talking and writing about their inspirational community story.
When Wednesday came around, the place was packed. They made enough money to get the Deluge Gun. Most importantly it was a fair partnership because everyone contributed, so participants were likely to want to work together again.
* Here are 14 low-risk and high-opportunity ways to jump-start your first SmartPartnership :
1.Print joint promotional offers on your bills and/or receipts.
2. Offer a reduced price, special service, or convenience if customers buy a minimum amount of services or products from you and your partner. Make a much better offer when they buy a larger amount.
3. Hang signs or posters promoting one another on your walls, windows, or products.
4. Mention one another’s benefits when you speak at local events, write an articles or are interviewed by the media.
5. Describe the situation where you and your partner’s products or services work well together.
6. Pool mailing lists and send out a joint promotional postcard.
7. Promote your partners’ products during their slow times, and ask them to do the same for you.
8. Share inexpensive ads in local shopping papers or a nonprofit event program.
9. Give a joint interview, demonstration, or Q & A. session to local media.
10. Put one another’s promotional messages on Lucite stands on counters orfloor stands in waiting areas.
11. Encourage your staff to mention how your partner’s products can be used with yours.
12. Give your partner’s product to your customers when they buy a large quantity of your product, and ask your partner to do the same.
13. Use door hangers, posters, flyers, or postcards to promote special offers for one another’s products.
14. Co-produce an in-store or office event, a demonstration, celebrity appearance, free service, or lecture.The bottom line: when partners serve their mutual market better together everyone wins.At the very least you get introduced to your kind of customers through businesses they already know and trust.
hopfully readers enjoy this information ..
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
successful marketing strategy
One of the most important factors to bear in mind when planning and building your business web site is what sort of visitors you are really looking for.
The process should be;
1 - Find the Target market .
2 - Get them to visit your site .
If you don't proceed in this way then you might get great amounts of visitors to your site but they may not be 'quality' visitors... i.e. they may have stumbled upon your site whilst actually looking for something else.. something you do not offer.
So If you have a site that sells red leather jackets and you promote your site under the category of 'clothing' then you will probably get many visitors coming to your site all looking for some item of clothing.
If you fine tune your advertising from the start it is possible to pre-qualify the web site visitor a little so that you will only receive hits from those who are looking for 'red leather jackets'.
By doing this you will have MUCH LESS traffic... however, the traffic you do get will be looking for exactly what you are offering from the very start. This will increase your conversion rate immensely and you will make far more sales per visitor and therefore, if you are paying for your advertising will increase your Return On Investment (ROI) .
What are the methods you can use to get traffic to your site?
Pay Per Click (PPC) Search Engines Google's Adwords and similar Article submission Blogs Newsgroups or Forums Classifieds (online) Offline methods
PPC (Pay Per Click) .
Most Search engines now have some sort of pay per click system. This is basically where you pay the search engine to appear at the top of the results page for your chosen keyword... the cost for this is based on performance so you pay a certain amount each time your site is visited.
The actual cost of each click depends upon the popularity of that search term but normally starts at about $0.10 per click and for the average popular term can rise up to about $1 per click and for certain terms can rise up to as much as $20 or $30 per click.
Search engines .
To get your site included in the major search engines can be the best form and at the same time the most difficult form of getting visitors to your site... it can be completely free of charge. If you do manage to get your site included then when you will probably find your page after typing in your chosen 'keyword' or 'search term' to be low down in the results.
For popular keywords your new site will probably be found after thousands of other sites. Most people don't click on the web sites that are listed below the 4th or 5th positions so being ranked for example 845th for your search term is almost the same as being ranked 23rd as both will result in next to no traffic at all. The depressing truth is that you must appear in the top 3 or 4 positions to obtain any considerable amount of traffic.
To achieve high rankings for your particular search term is an art in itself... this art is known as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This art form has no rules, only guidelines. The search engines want to give accurate results and therefore don't tend to make public the details of how they rank the search results .
Google Adwords :
Adwords is the google answer to PPC where you pay for your listing based on the search term but instead of appearing at the top of the search results page your ad will appear in 2 different places.
First, in a column of adverts down the right hand side of the search results and second they appear on participating web sites that have related content to your keywords. These sites will get a small percentage of your payment per click but will send you a large amount of traffic.
Using ADwords successfully is basically a numbers game. You need to know the percentage of sales you can make from your web site.. i.e., if you sell 2 of your products for every 100 visitors to your site then it is possible to calculate more or less how much you can afford to spent on ppc advertising.
For Example:
Say you sell handbags for $50 that you buy for $20 and for every 100 visitors to your site you normally sell 2 handbags .
Your profit margin for the two sales will be $60 ($30 profit per sale).
Divide the profit by the amount of visitors ($60 / 100 = $0.60) - this is the maximum amount you can spent on advertising to break even .
Obviously you need to do better than break even and make a profit therefore as a rule of thumb you can divide this amount by 2 ($0.30) to get you maximum bid per click to be able to advertise with ppc AND still make a profit .
......................................
successful marketing advices :
always you have to know first, that internet marketing strategy, is the personalization of the message. It is important to not only identify who your potential customers are, but also to know what they are looking for. Your marketing message needs to be developed and customized to deal with your identified target customer base.
This means that you should talk directly to your target market rather than as a general customer. If you are marketing head ache pills, make sure your marketing message addresses people with head aches and not just people with some form of pain. Know your market and address them directly.
Second in internet marketing strategy is privacy. With anything online, people are of course worried about their information being safe. You should make sure that your potential customer base has good reason to trust you with their information. Having information about your customers makes it easy to cater to their needs. Without security you will not get that opportunity.
You need to make sure you have proper security to guard customer information. You need to make sure that current and future customers are aware of what steps you are taking to protect their information and privacy. Draft a Privacy Policy for your business and make it easily accessible to your clients.
Don't assume that your clients will know about your privacy policy - tell them. Make sure you put their minds at ease and they will in turn be willing to trust their information in your hands.
As with any business, customer service is important to your internet marketing strategy. This is because people need to know they are being cared for, especially in the cold world of the internet .
Adding a customer service link and giving your customer an easy way to contact real representatives will aid your internet marketing strategy a great deal. Poeple like to deal with other people. Make sure you give your customers that option.
Internet marketing strategy is a necessity for not only online businesses, but also any business that wants to reach that group of people who use the internet.
In order to get your strategy in place and running smoothly it is important that you understand that while many aspects of internet marketing are the same, there are also aspects of it that differ from real world marketing .
The process should be;
1 - Find the Target market .
2 - Get them to visit your site .
If you don't proceed in this way then you might get great amounts of visitors to your site but they may not be 'quality' visitors... i.e. they may have stumbled upon your site whilst actually looking for something else.. something you do not offer.
So If you have a site that sells red leather jackets and you promote your site under the category of 'clothing' then you will probably get many visitors coming to your site all looking for some item of clothing.
If you fine tune your advertising from the start it is possible to pre-qualify the web site visitor a little so that you will only receive hits from those who are looking for 'red leather jackets'.
By doing this you will have MUCH LESS traffic... however, the traffic you do get will be looking for exactly what you are offering from the very start. This will increase your conversion rate immensely and you will make far more sales per visitor and therefore, if you are paying for your advertising will increase your Return On Investment (ROI) .
What are the methods you can use to get traffic to your site?
Pay Per Click (PPC) Search Engines Google's Adwords and similar Article submission Blogs Newsgroups or Forums Classifieds (online) Offline methods
PPC (Pay Per Click) .
Most Search engines now have some sort of pay per click system. This is basically where you pay the search engine to appear at the top of the results page for your chosen keyword... the cost for this is based on performance so you pay a certain amount each time your site is visited.
The actual cost of each click depends upon the popularity of that search term but normally starts at about $0.10 per click and for the average popular term can rise up to about $1 per click and for certain terms can rise up to as much as $20 or $30 per click.
Search engines .
To get your site included in the major search engines can be the best form and at the same time the most difficult form of getting visitors to your site... it can be completely free of charge. If you do manage to get your site included then when you will probably find your page after typing in your chosen 'keyword' or 'search term' to be low down in the results.
For popular keywords your new site will probably be found after thousands of other sites. Most people don't click on the web sites that are listed below the 4th or 5th positions so being ranked for example 845th for your search term is almost the same as being ranked 23rd as both will result in next to no traffic at all. The depressing truth is that you must appear in the top 3 or 4 positions to obtain any considerable amount of traffic.
To achieve high rankings for your particular search term is an art in itself... this art is known as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This art form has no rules, only guidelines. The search engines want to give accurate results and therefore don't tend to make public the details of how they rank the search results .
Google Adwords :
Adwords is the google answer to PPC where you pay for your listing based on the search term but instead of appearing at the top of the search results page your ad will appear in 2 different places.
First, in a column of adverts down the right hand side of the search results and second they appear on participating web sites that have related content to your keywords. These sites will get a small percentage of your payment per click but will send you a large amount of traffic.
Using ADwords successfully is basically a numbers game. You need to know the percentage of sales you can make from your web site.. i.e., if you sell 2 of your products for every 100 visitors to your site then it is possible to calculate more or less how much you can afford to spent on ppc advertising.
For Example:
Say you sell handbags for $50 that you buy for $20 and for every 100 visitors to your site you normally sell 2 handbags .
Your profit margin for the two sales will be $60 ($30 profit per sale).
Divide the profit by the amount of visitors ($60 / 100 = $0.60) - this is the maximum amount you can spent on advertising to break even .
Obviously you need to do better than break even and make a profit therefore as a rule of thumb you can divide this amount by 2 ($0.30) to get you maximum bid per click to be able to advertise with ppc AND still make a profit .
......................................
successful marketing advices :
always you have to know first, that internet marketing strategy, is the personalization of the message. It is important to not only identify who your potential customers are, but also to know what they are looking for. Your marketing message needs to be developed and customized to deal with your identified target customer base.
This means that you should talk directly to your target market rather than as a general customer. If you are marketing head ache pills, make sure your marketing message addresses people with head aches and not just people with some form of pain. Know your market and address them directly.
Second in internet marketing strategy is privacy. With anything online, people are of course worried about their information being safe. You should make sure that your potential customer base has good reason to trust you with their information. Having information about your customers makes it easy to cater to their needs. Without security you will not get that opportunity.
You need to make sure you have proper security to guard customer information. You need to make sure that current and future customers are aware of what steps you are taking to protect their information and privacy. Draft a Privacy Policy for your business and make it easily accessible to your clients.
Don't assume that your clients will know about your privacy policy - tell them. Make sure you put their minds at ease and they will in turn be willing to trust their information in your hands.
As with any business, customer service is important to your internet marketing strategy. This is because people need to know they are being cared for, especially in the cold world of the internet .
Adding a customer service link and giving your customer an easy way to contact real representatives will aid your internet marketing strategy a great deal. Poeple like to deal with other people. Make sure you give your customers that option.
Internet marketing strategy is a necessity for not only online businesses, but also any business that wants to reach that group of people who use the internet.
In order to get your strategy in place and running smoothly it is important that you understand that while many aspects of internet marketing are the same, there are also aspects of it that differ from real world marketing .
Thursday, October 9, 2008
MONEY MAKING ONLINE
Are you beginning to wonder if you will have enough money to retire? Depending on your personal situation, you may find yourself needing to make money at home right away or as many people are experiencing, you may be making enough just to pay the bills with nothing left over for retirement savings. Starting a internet home business to help supplement your future income may be your best option.
It's interesting to see how many ordinary people have started home businesses all around the world.
Anywhere that there is Internet access there are people earning fantastic incomes from the comfort of their own home. There are many reasons why running a internet home business to supplement your retirement income works as well as it does for many people. Starting a home business no longer requires a large investment or following the much used business model of network marketing.
Today there are legitimate home business opportunities all around you. Beware, though, because there are certainly plenty of scams out there too, and you definitely want to learn how to avoid them. But for the most part there are literally millions of ways you can start a home business and make money online today.
Using the Internet to their advantage is the primary reason todays home business owners are successful. They know that they can find products to sell rather quickly in fields such as affiliate marketing. These owners also know that they can make it easy on themselves by working eight hours a day, and have a business that's open 24 hours a day. Depending on the type of home business that you operate you may not even have to physically touch the product or even collect any money.
There really are legitimate home businesses that will take care of everything for you if you will just handle the sales and marketing for them. Both network marketing and affiliate marketing allow you to work from home as though it were a regular job. You simply become a sales and marketing expert online .
As with many jobs you are going to need training, and you will find that the Internet offers excellent hands-on training. There is no end to the amount of training available on how to use the Internet to make money.From blogs to discussion forums where you can ask questions there is plenty of free advice to help you succeed. As your knowledge slowly grows, so does your home business and your future retirement income .
If you are willing to treat your internet home business as an investment in your retirement savings you can certainly make a lot of money. You will have another source of income when you finally retire. You may even earn as much money or even more than you would if you were getting up early every morning and going to a full time job.
There are many ways to make money online but I'd like to just focus on three of them right now :
1-Blogging : While blogs are not a new phenomenon, it is quite new that people are starting to use them to make money online. You get a chance to share your opinion or your expertise in the topic of your choice and make money. How does this work? The easiest way is to sign up with the Google AdSense program. They will give you a piece of HTML code that you can insert into your blog (hire a tech guy to help you with this if you don't think you can handle the installation process). That code will display ads on your blog that directly relate to what you are blogging about. This means your visitors are getting targeted ads which means they will click on them more. The more they click on those ads, the more money you'll make.
2-Create Your Own Information Product : You'd be amazed at how information that have and think is useless, is actually really valuable to thousands of people online. Maybe you have a home remedy for acne. Maybe your mother has the meanest brownie recipe any one's ever seen. All of these pieces of information can be constructed into an ebook. Once your ebook is written and ready be sure to upload it to Clickbank so affiliates will promote it for you!
3-Retail-E-Commerce : Many people are making great livings online selling wholesale products for retail prices on sites like eBay. The trick here will be to find a legitimate supplier whose prices are low enough for you to turn a profit.
The other trick to making e-commerce work is to make sure you're in the right market. You need to make sure you're in a market that has enough buyers to support the kind of income you want to create with you online business. Just because you are interested in a highly specialized niche topic, doesn't mean anyone else is. That's why you need to check out who are already ebay's best sellers and consider tapping into those markets which are already proven to be profitable.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)