Jul 10
23
People Buy People – A Sales Mantra
In recent years the sales persons mantra has been “people buy people” which in turn supports the belief that ‘it’s not about sales but about relationships’.
Clearly this shift from “customer service” to “customer relationship” has transformed selling and the sale process, particularly in business to business sales. But perhaps it is time we questioned some of the behaviours and attitudes that stem from these beliefs.
To some the ‘realtionship’ aspect of the sales-customer relationship is still simply about the lunch-time meeting; dinners (perhaps on expenses) and all that goes with the notion of wooing a potential client or prospect.
In some senses it became a game that both parties knew they were playing… the subtext of the relationship being to make a sale by convincing, coercing and closing.
Todays sales professional plays the outer game of providing solutions and hence the dialogue comes from a different place.
The assumption can still be howeverthat ‘people buy people’, and deals are closed on the basis of whether the client ‘likes’ or ‘gets on with’ the salesperson.
This is perhaps an erroneous assumption…
OF course people are more likely to meet and do business with someone they like BUT if that person cannot meet the values expectations of the client then there will be no deal.
The professional sales relationship is not only about being ‘a nice guy’ but about the qualities and values that can be promoted and delivered.
The current economic downturn creates some exciting possibilities for sales teams (there’s loads of pain out there!) and these opportunities will come to those who can:-
- Promote, build and develop relationships
- Inspire trust and create meaningful dialogue
- Promote and act upon the core values of their service and/or product
- Enter into a solutions based discussion with a real intention to help and not necessarily to sell
- Bring a value proposition to solve problems and move clients closer to their business goals
And the KEY SKILLS for effective sales people in these interesting times…
To be able to shut up and listen.
Far too many sales people forget that it should be the customer/client who needs to do most of the talking. How can you be open to what is being said if all you are doing is waiting for an opportunity to deliver your pre-prepared sales pitch.
To be able to ask questions.
Finding out about the prospects business, their needs and their aspirations is something many sales folk claim they are able to do. Maybe so, but “finding out” is about effective questioning and that is a skill which often needs to be honed and refined.
To be a source of information.
Sales people are experts in the fields they work within. They often have intelligence about market trends, challenges and developments which will effect their clients directly. Having this information makes them a valuable resource to their clients over and above any benefits their product or service may bring.
In other words…
Foreground the clients needs. dreams, goals and challenges whilst stopping yourself from launching into a feature-benefits pitch about the ready made solution you are wanting to sell.
There is an ‘inner game’ that needs to be mastered. That is the game of coming to a sales meeting with the genuine intention of understanding a clients business; questioning their needs; uncovering their challenges and providing
Alan
Posted in Sales by .
Twitter Marketing Tips – 7 Unorthodox Strategies to Use Twitter For Business
By Kenneth Yu
Twitter marketing is a highly effective way to drive traffic to your content and establish an online presence in the quickest amount of time. Here are 7 “weird” ways to unleash the immense power of Twitter in your small business.
1. Be Vulnerable
To be naked is to be human. When you start sharing your hopes, dreams and fears, you connect with people on a visceral level. Remember, people buy from who you are before they buy what you sell.
2. Tick People Off
There’s a saying that when you try to please everybody you will please nobody. Be opinionated and the people who adore your persuasion will become your fervent followers. Polarization creates sales.
3. Tweet Nonsense
This sounds crazy, but hear me out. People hit up Twitter to chill and catch up with news. People don’t go on Twitter to do business, at least not deliberately. Hit their funny bone and they’ll respond by noticing you.
4. Become Yoda
People are addicted to positive thinking quotes on Twitter. The more motivation quotes you Tweet out, the more you get tweeted. The end result: People think you’re a deep thought leader worth following.
5. Start Dealin’ Cool
Again this bears repeating, people don’t go on Twitter to be sold to. Instead, they go to find breaking news and time-wasting Youtube videos. Here’s the key: Give them what they want (the cool), and they’ll give you what you want (the green). So go on Digg and tweet those links away.
6. Be a Master Asker
Don’t be afraid to ask for a specific action on your Twitter feed, for example a retweet. If you don’t ask for retweets, people will not give you one. If you don’t ask for props, they may not give you one. Ask and you shall receive.
7. Ooze Sex Appeal.
Be as suave with people as you would in real life. Offer compliments, be amicable, crack a joke or two. You’ll be surprised how well this translates in the online space.
And this will help you get as much Twitter traffic as possible.
BONUS TIP:
8. Raise the Banner. Stand for a cause and your followers will start standing in solidarity with you.
And now I would like to invite you to claim your instant free access to my Twitter marketing and psychology videos by going to http://DarkSideOfTwitter.com
Plus, you also get a motherlode of other limited-edition social media tutorials and videos.
From Kenneth Yu – The Puppet Master and Social Influence Marketer.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kenneth_Yu
Posted in E-Marketing Internet Marketing Social Media by .
Jul 10
21
Better Marketing by using Psychology
Creating a Better Marketing Strategy Through the Use of Psychology
By Alexander Carroll
Psychology:
1) The emotional and behavioral characteristics of an individual, group, or activity
2) Subtle tactical action or argument used to manipulate or influence another
Marketing:
1) The process or technique of promoting, selling and distributing a product or service from producer to consumer
To be successful at marketing requires the process of promoting; selling and distributing the product or service in a way that prompts the consumer to purchase the product.
To prompt the consumer, marketing requires the subtle action needed to influence its audience.
In order to influence the audience, marketing needs to understand the emotional and behavioral characteristics of the group.
Every time we view an ad on television, in print or online we are viewing the mixture of marketing and psychology in action. In truth psychology is involved in marketing so much that we take it for granted. A simple example of how psychology affects marketing can be viewed in how you pick colors and images for your website.
Depending on the market, some colors will sell better than others. Below are listed common colors and the associations people subconsciously give them. Whether your site will focus on the positive associations or the negative ones will depend, in large part, on what other elements you include in your site. For example, a man in a suit under a blue sky will show trustworthiness, where someone in dark blue leaning against a wall with a frown would imply sadness or boredom.
The color red has the positive association of love, warmth, excitement, and passion while its negative associations are danger and anger. Blue relates to power, professionalism, and trustworthiness but can also convey boredom or sadness. Green represents nature, life and money although decay and toxicity are given to it also. Orange is fun and youthful but can appear to be cheap and lack of quality.
Another example of psychology in marketing is with the ‘teaser’.
A teaser is a short paragraph that entices, or influences, someone to click in deeper and find out more. The teaser focuses the need that the customer feels for the product. To accomplish this requires the understanding of the emotional and behavioral characteristics of the customer. If you do not understand your customer your teaser will be ineffective.
Regardless of the marketing strategy or the product being promoted – to market effectively requires the basic understanding of your target market and to understand your target market requires psychology.
Does this mean we need to take courses and classes in psychology?
No.
Realizing that psychology is involved helps to focus your efforts, helps to form your strategy, helps to think about the problem from a different view point. Understanding the use of psychology will help you study your customers’ habits, needs, even the language they use, and integrate the results into your marketing campaign.
For more on the subject of marketing please read my article “More than Product Promotion” or visit my site at http://optimizeroi.com.
Alex is an independent consultant focusing on business development and internet marketing.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alexander_Carroll
Posted in Marketing Psychology by .
Jul 10
20
Colour Psychology and Marketing
The Psychology of Color in Marketing
By June Campbell
What colors have you chosen for your marketing materials? What were your reasons for making that particular choice? Was it because you liked those particular colors, or did you have a particular marketing message in mind? While visual appeal is an important consideration, your color choices could be sending a specific message to the people who view them. Are you sure you know what that message is?
You’d be wise to consider the psychology of color when designing your marketing materials. Be it business card, brochure, web site, posters or other material, you’ll be making color choices. Colors not only enhance the appearance of the item — they also influence our behavior. You will do well to consider the impact that the colors you use will have on your target audience.
For instance, have you noticed that most fast food restaurants are decorated with vivid reds and oranges? It’s no accident that these colors show up so frequently. Studies have shown that reds and oranges encourage diners to eat quickly and leave — and that’s exactly what fast food outlets want you to do.
It’s also no accident that you see a lot of reds and blacks on adult web sites. These colors are thought to have sexual connotations.
Ever notice that toys, books and children’s web sites usually contain large blocks of bright, primary colors? Young children prefer these colors and respond more positively than they do to to pastels or muted blends.
Market researchers have had a field day identifying the colors and the likely effect they have upon us.
However, the effects of color differ among different cultures, so the attitudes and preferences of your target audience should be a consideration when you plan your design of any promotional materials.
For example, white is the color of death in Chinese culture, but purple represents death in Brazil. Yellow is sacred to the Chinese, but signified sadness in Greece and jealousy in France. In North America, green is typically associated with jealousy. People from tropical countries respond most favorably to warm colors; people from northern climates prefer the cooler colors.
In North American mainstream culture, the following colors are associated with certain qualities or emotions:
Red –excitement, strength, sex, passion, speed, danger.
Blue –(listed as the most popular color) trust, reliability, belonging, coolness.
Yellow –warmth, sunshine, cheer, happiness
Orange — playfulness, warmth, vibrant
Green — nature, fresh, cool, growth, abundance
Purple –royal, spirituality, dignity
Pink — soft, sweet, nurture, security
White –pure, virginal, clean, youthful, mild.
Black –sophistication, elegant, seductive, mystery
Gold — prestige, expensive
Silver — prestige, cold, scientific
Market researchers have also determined that color affects shopping habits. Impulse shoppers respond best to red-orange, black and royal blue. Shoppers who plan and stick to budgets respond best to pink, teal, light blue and navy. Traditionalists respond to pastels – pink, rose, sky blue.
Want to test some of this out? Check out web sites belonging to companies with marketing budgets that allow for extensive research into what sells best.
Jaguar (http://www.jaguar.com)
A luxury car with a luxury web site. There’s a predominance of black (sophistication) and silver (prestige). Jaguar markets to people with high incomes who view themselves as sophisticated and look for a prestigious vehicle.
Volkswagon Microbus (http://www.vw.com/microbus/)
Check out the predominance of yellow (happiness) and orange (playfulness). Matches the type of owners that Volkswagon is trying to attract, don’t you think?
So how can you put this information to use?
First, think about your target market. Let’s say that you are selling books for young children, but you are marketing to grandparents. You’d probably design the books in bright, primary colors (reds, blues, yellows) to appeal to the children who will use them. However, the marketing materials (web site, brochures, etc.) would be designed with grandparents in mind. You might decide to go with blues (trust, reliability), pinks (nurture, sweet, security) and yellow (happy, playful).
Of course, you would test your ads and colors on a small market segment before rolling out a large scale campaign.
Give some thoughts to the message you want to send and to the psychology of the recipient. Then choose your colors accordingly.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=June_Campbell
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Psychology-of-Color-in-Marketing&id=420225
Posted in Marketing Marketing Psychology by .
Jul 10
20
E-Marketing Strategy – 7 Dimentions
e-Marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions to Consider (the e-Marketing Mix)
What is e-Marketing?
e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no doubt – that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their products via the internet in the early 90′s.
The frenzy around these new marketing techniques created by e-tailers and supported by the internet rapidly gave birth to a new dimension of what we knew as Marketing: the e-Marketing (electronic Marketing).
There are many definitions to what e-Marketing is, the simplest and shortest one being formulated by Mark Sceats: e-Marketing is Marketing that uses the internet as manifestation media. A working definition is that coming from a group of CISCO specialists: e-Marketing is the sum of all activities a business conducts through the internet with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.
e-Marketing Strategy
The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing – the well-known 4 P’s (Product – Price – Promotion – Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P’s (People – Processes – Proof) and you got the whole extended Marketing mix.
Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline: the extended Marketing mix (4 + 3 P’s) is built around the concept of “transactional” and its elements perform transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the 2P + 2C+ 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.
These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P’s) and upon each other.
1. Personalization
The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual level and gather all possible information about them, with the purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.
For example, a cookie strategically placed on the website visitor’s computer can let us know vital information concerning the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up) we will offer a low-volume variation of our website, with reduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash applications. This will ease our customer’s experience on our website and he will be prevented from leaving the website on the reason that it takes too long to load its pages.
Personalization can be applied to any component of the Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.
2. Privacy
Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the previous one – personalization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected information.
This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to consider all aspects of privacy, as long as data are collected and stored, data about individual persons.
Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.
3. Customer Service
Customer service is one of the necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.
We will connect the apparition of the customer service processes to the inclusion of the “time” parameter in transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, over time.
For these reasons, we should consider the Customer Service function (in its fullest and largest definition) as an essential one within the e-Marketing mix.
As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you wish) can be performed upon any element from the classic 4 P’s, hence its moderating character.
4. Community
We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities that interact for a common purpose is what we call a “community” and we will soon see why it is of absolute importance to participate, to be part of a community.
The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states that the value of a network is given by the number of its components, more exactly the value of a network equals the square of the number of components. We can apply this simple law to communities, since they are a network: we will then conclude that the value of a community rises with the number of its members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have to be a part of it.
The customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a community where they interact (either independent or influenced by the marketer) – therefore developing a community is a task to be performed by any business, even though it is not always seen as essential.
Interactions among members of such a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.
5. Site
We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media – the internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper location, to be available at any moment and from any place – a digital location for digital interactions.
Such a location is what we call a “site”, which is the most widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the “website” is merely a form of a “site” and should not be mistaken or seen as synonyms. The “site” can take other forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.
This special location, accessible through all sort of digital technologies is moderating all other functions of the e-Marketing – it is then a moderating function.
6. Security
The “security” function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.
What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:
- security during transactions performed on our website, where we have to take all possible precautions that third parties will not be able to access any part of a developing transaction;
- security of data collected and stored, about our customers and visitors.
A honest marketer will have to consider these possible causes of further trouble and has to co-operate with the company’s IT department in order to be able to formulate convincing (and true, honest!) messages towards the customers that their personal details are protected from unauthorized eyes.
7. Sales Promotion
At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.
This function counts on the marketer’s ability to think creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an efficient promotion plan.
On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuously keep up with the latest internet technologies and applications so that he can fully exploit them.
To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and they are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be efficient and deliver results.
Otilia Otlacan is a young certified professional with expertise in e-Marketing and e-Business, currently working as independent consultant and e-publisher. She developed and teach her own online course in “Principles of e-Marketing” and is also a volunteer Economics teacher.
You can contact her via her personal website at BRAINmarketing.net [http://www.brainmarketing.net] or check out her latest developing Marketing resources project at TeaWithEdge.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Otilia_Otlacan
http://EzineArticles.com/?e-Marketing-Strategy:-7-Dimensions-to-Consider-(the-e-Marketing-Mix)&id=21976
Posted in E-Marketing Internet Marketing by .
Jul 10
20
How important is Brand Marketing
How Important is Brand Marketing?
By Michael J McCoy
Brand marketing is one of the ways that a company can build a reputation and a presence among potential customers. The brand that defines a company is usually comprised of a name, a logo and sometimes a symbol. These are the visual markers that remind people of the company’s reputation.
Building a Brand’s Reputation
The logo and name may be a big part of building a brand, but it’s a company’s reputation that is really at the heart of any brand. To keep a good reputation as a part of the company’s brand, offering good customer service and staying in communication with customers is key.
Offering a place for customers to find out more about the company and to make comments and ask questions is a way to keep communication going. A company blog that reaches out to customers and tells them more about the company and it products is a good way to build a brand. It also provides that platform for communications.
The Importance of Customer Service
The Internet has provided countless places for people to talk about their bad experiences with companies. Studies have shown that people are far more apt to talk about bad experiences with a company than good ones. To keep a brand’s positive reputation, those bad reviews should be responded to. Using Google alerts for your company’s name can let you know as soon s your brand is mentioned online.
Companies large and small are reaching out to customers online, extending customer service even when it wasn’t requested. Even large companies like Home Depot search online and respond directly to customers who have blogged or tweeted about their bad experiences with the company. This shows online readers that the company really does care about their customer experience. It can also help a company find out when there is a serious problem that needs attention.
Building Customer Loyalty
Besides keeping a reputation positive, the purpose of brand marketing is to encourage customer loyalty. By providing a customer with a brand representation such as a symbol or logo that evokes a positive emotional reaction, a customer will likely choose that company again when it’s time to buy.
Marketing the company’s name and logo is a way to keep that brand in the mind of the public. The logo should be on websites, marketing articles, blogs and anywhere that the company is doing its marketing. That includes offline papers and promotional products. When it is kept in front of customers, they remember the good experience they had with that company and may be persuaded to look into what else they have to offer.
Brand marketing often targeted directly at the people who are most likely to become customers. A company that is targeted to an older demographic should take that into account when brand marketing. The logo and the slogan should be created with this demographic in mind. A younger demographic may respond better to a different logo. The design of the website, an important part of brand marketing, should also reflect the tastes of the target demographic.
Direct Horizon Business Development Group has over 50 years of technical experience behind it’s business practices. Whether it’s web design, content creation, content distribution, point of sale systems, traffic and conversion tracking, ppc or custom software, Direct Horizon Business Development Group is the one you want to call.
For access to our blog please visit http://blog.directhorizon.com.
For access to our website please visit http://www.directhorizon.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_J_McCoy
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-Important-is-Brand-Marketing?&id=3955067
Posted in Brand Marketing by .
Jul 10
20
Niche Marketing Exposed
Niche Marketing Exposed
By Rick Samara
Niche marketing can be a very misleading and therefore confusing term. This confusion can often result in failure, if this term is not properly understood. The purpose of this article is to clear up some of the confusion about niche marketing. In its purely literal form, niche marketing is really an extremely broad term. For example, a niche market can be health products; but there are many, many different categories associated with health products. Just type “health products” into a Google search box and you will see what I mean. The results are extremely broad, and not very helpful because they are just not specific enough to the searcher’s needs.
Niche marketing is actually a subset of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing involves representing a company as an affiliate and marketing their product or products on the Internet. Consequently, affiliate marketing and Internet marketing have almost become synonymous terms to home business enthusiasts; and herein lies some of the confusion. So, what is the difference; and why is this so important?
Niche marketing is essentially the skill of developing what is more accurately described as a micro-niche marketing strategy. It’s very difficult to compete in a purely niche market. Using health products as an example, if someone types in “health product” into a Google search box, there are two likely events that will occur. First of all, their results are going to extremely general in nature; and secondly, the websites that pop-up on Google’s first page are not likely to service their needs. Plus, an Internet marketer cannot expect to compete against some of the larger companies that appear on Google’s Page 1 search results.
Consequently, most Google searchers now use what are known as “long-tail keywords” or “keyword strings” to refine their search to more accurately find what they are looking for. As an example, if someone is looking for “health products that increase energy,” they will use that keyword string to find what they are looking for. Obviously, these are the consumers of products and services.
Internet marketers (or, Affiliate marketers) need to sensitize their marketing techniques and adapt to these real life search strategies by consumers. And, this is where niche marketing really takes the form of micro niche marketing. This is directly related to the consumer’s search efforts. Internet marketers simply need to develop the right “keyword string” to market their affiliate products to these consumers. Furthermore, it does not have to be “products” at all. It can, and probably should be a single product that solves the consumer’s need.
Niche marketing can be an extremely effective tool used to build an Internet home business; but it needs to be understood in the context of how it used today. Niche marketing is much better represented in terms of “keyword strings” that consumers now use to find exactly what they are looking for on the Internet. Consequently, anyone interested in learning how to build an Internet home business needs to sensitize themselves to the skills attributed to what is better termed as micro niche marketing. Furthermore, there is huge value is learning how to take these “keyword strings” and integrate them into a great domain name to promote virtually any affiliate product.
Rick Samara is a small business owner turned full time affiliate/internet marketer. Rick’s unique background in small business with an expertise in providing small business owners consultative support, coupled with his writing and organizations skills position him as an excellent instructor in internet marketing. Visit his website to download free content ranging from video tutorials, PowerPoints presentations and e-books on Internet marketing.
For More Information, visit: http://affiliatewebsitereview.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rick_Samara
http://EzineArticles.com/?Niche-Marketing-Exposed&id=4582535
Posted in Marketing by .
5 Successful Marketing Tips For Small Businesses in Any Economy
Marketing your business and building your brand is extremely important in any economic environment for a small business to ultimately succeed. The recent poor economic conditions around the world have dramatically impacted everyone’s business, while at the same time creating great opportunities for those who have continued to market their business. Studies have shown again and again that continuing to market your business in all types of economic environments is crucial for long term success.
History has shown the importance of marketing in both down and up economies. Take Sears a well known retailer that has prospered in the past by aggressively marketing in poor economies. Montgomery Ward was once the leading retailer that dramatically pulled their marketing back during WWII. Sears on the other hand increased their marketing and overtook Ward as the leading retailer. Almost 40 years later Sears ended up acquiring the bankrupt Ward.
History has shown us that most businesses dramatically reduce marketing during economic downturns. Businesses become fearful cutting back advertising and crucial employees. Cutting back during a poor economy or an economy that is recovering is absolutely the worst thing to do for a business that looks to be the leader. Studies have shown that businesses that maintained or increased their marketing spend during poor economies experienced over 200% or more in sales revenue than the companies that decreased spend.
The following are 5 suggestions to succeed in any economic environment:
- Add Value & build relationships! Unlike big box retailers or larger service companies you as a small business owner have the upper hand. Larger companies are slow to react. As a small business owner you have the ability to connect with your customers and prospects by connecting with your community. Add local news & stories to any advertising to build the connection.
- Stay in front of customers! Email, call or visit existing customers as much as possible. Remember to look at what your cost is to attract a new customer and remember that it’s much easier to keep your existing customers than attract new ones.
- Reward your loyal Customers! Acknowledge customers in all types of economic conditions. Discount or gift to say thank you really creates stronger loyalty and builds long term relationships. Referrals also really increase because of this.
- Categorize your Customer Base! Look at your current typical customers and learn what commonality they have. Try to focus current advertising on that demographic or typical customer to increase your opportunity for success.
- Create & Maintain an Acquisition Strategy Model! Develop a process that prospects go through from the confirmation for an appointment, follow up phone call after appointment, follow up letter or postcard and whatever else you find helpful for you business. Regardless of the model keep it consistent and make sure to follow in both up and down markets.
These 5 suggested marketing tips are relatively simple to implement in any business model and will have great results on long term revenue. Remember that again companies that aggressively continued to maintain their marketing strategy in slower economies experienced much larger sales growth in better times. These 5 tips did not all require money to be spent and are powerful in all economic situations.
Mike Kawula is an owner of Discount Cleaning Products and 123BuyIt, America’s #1 Online Retailer of Commercial & Residential Tools, Cleaning Supplies & Office Supplies! Feel free to visit http://www.discountcleaningproducts.com or by email at marketing@123buyit.com Thank you! 888-233-0851
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Kawula
http://EzineArticles.com/?5-Successful-Marketing-Tips-For-Small-Businesses-in-Any-Economy&id=4413531
Posted in Marketing by .
Jul 10
20
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing Strategies
By Sev Cabrera
Affiliate marketing is an elaborate job which can give you lots of big paychecks if you do it right. Many people aspire to get into this business but if you don’t know the right way to do the job you’ll be just like them, failures. So if you want to succeed, read on below for some tips on how affiliate marketing works:
Make your webpage unique for each product you want to market. It won’t do you any good if you choose to lump them all together in one site, not neat and not user friendly, it’s doubtful that you can attract any customers with these strategy. It is greatly advised that you take one webpage and use it to promote just one product. Make your webpage attractive, easy to follow and with links added at the right places; a webpage where when your viewers sees it they won’t get bored and continue reading on your sites content until they get interested in the product you market and eventually buys it.
Add in some articles with lots of keywords about your product which will highlight it and draw in visitors and customers. Reviews about the product you promote should also be included, testimonials from users who’ve already tried the product is a good marketing strategy and will make your webpage more credible.
Be sensible to your readers, remember that they are potential customers and should be careful in dealing with them. Respond as quickly as possible to those who signed up on your website and if possible create an auto responding mail to get back at them immediately. With continuous contact with the interested customer a sale can be closed after messages. If you fail to close a deal with a potential customer then you will have to deal days with the regret of being incompetent in your marketing skills.
Be sure to point out that the product that you’re selling can make your customers life a lot easier and also enjoyable. Give your products strong points and if there are any, their weaknesses, being honest can help you in the end. Avoid saying the word “free” when marketing to a client; you might be mistaken as a fraud by some customer. Lay out your product goodies and convince your customer that they’d miss a lot if they don’t avail of your wares.
Affiliate marketing is not that hard to do, with the right know how and with the right knowledge on how to connect to your target audience you will surely end up succeeding. When you get good at it then the money will just come pouring in by the torrents.
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