The question is often asked: "I'm brand new at internet marketing. What
are the basic steps I need to take just to get started right?" This is
just about the basics. Someone has said, "If you can't understand
something, go back to the basics, and you'll find answers. The greatest
truths are too important to be new." In my mind this is only partially
true because things change so fast on the internet that you must flow
with it, or get drowned in the current. Nothing stays the same. But,
there are some basics. Abide by them!
(1) Have an address where people can find you. This means a Website. It
can be paid for, or free, but you need an address. If you want free,
look into Word Press. It's the best going. If you want something more,
just Google "website hosting." But in the end you still need Word Press.
Some gurus say you don't need an address. I say you do. Listen to whom
you choose.
(2) Get an auto-responder. Again, Google this. There are many types.
They are not free, but the prices are all over the map: to a month.
(3) Choose some niche that (a) is important to you to market, and (b)
that people need. If there is no need, what is important to you doesn't
matter. If there is a need, what is important to you does matter. How do
you know? Go to Google Keywords and see what is being searched for. I'm
a lawyer, and I always let people know I'm a lawyer. This may bring
praise from some, and criticism from others, but it doesn't matter. I
always let them know.
(4) GIVE! Jesus says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." I am
a Christian, and I live by what Jesus says. If anything I say is
contrary to what I think he says, I 'delete' it. The bottom line is give
away something that people need. Then they will connect with
you-appreciate you.
(5) This is a key many miss. Offer something extra after they click in.
Only a small number will buy, but does it matter? 1% is better than
nothing. Give people something above average. Average is defined as
"where the best of the worst meets the worst of the best." It isn't very
exciting. Our goal in living, no matter what we do, is to lead people
to 'higher ground.'
(6) Follow up with them by an auto-responder (step 2), and give them
more than they thought they would receive. Again, "It is more blessed to
give than to receive." Give people quality content in what they receive
from you. Don't just ask them to 'buy' from you. Your focus is them,
not you.
(7) Periodically, ask people to BUY, -- something of value to THEM. This
is not something you want to sell, to make you money, but something
that is of value to them. Everyone is tuned into radio station WIIFM:
what's in it for me? Tell them the benefits: what's in it for them.
(8) THIS IS THE MOST OFTEN OVERLOOKED! Create what is called 'a squeeze
page.' This is your page where you just get their 'email address.' Give
them something worth them giving you their email address for. Whatever
it takes, get their email address. This is where RELATIONSHIP takes
place. We like to live by rules, but relationship is where it all takes
place. Without personal connection there is no cash register.
Though marketing, advertising and public relations can all be integral
to the success of your company and they all have some glaring
similarities in how they can help your company succeed on some level;
each is indeed a different element, approached in a different way in
order for it to work the way it is supposed to work in an effort to
reach an ultimate goal.
Marketing could be considered the whole ball of wax in this equation. A
company's marketing department could be subdivided into several smaller
sections that operate as separate entities, but all work toward the same
ultimate goal - which is the success and growth of the company.
A company's marketing department could, and should include smaller
departments that are responsible for: public relations, advertising,
customer service, market share research as well as pricing, distribution
and product placement.
The piece of the equation that is advertising has the sole
responsibility of putting your product or service where the public can
see it. Advertising lets the consumer know what it is that you have to
offer, then lets them know why exactly they need it. A company could pay
a pretty penny for advertising; in fact the advertising budget is often
the largest part of the marketing plan's expenditure. As the saying
goes, "you have to spend money to make money."
Public relations can make prospective consumers want to buy your product
or your service, but public relations is a much less direct approach to
gaining sales than advertising. The point of public relations is to
highlight all of the positive things that your company does and is
involved in, while simultaneously keeping anything that could possibly
be construed as a negative out of the public eye. It is the public
relations departments' responsibility to make the company look good in
the public eye and they will take several routes and measures to get
there. A public relations department may schedule charity events,
distribute press releases highlighting company achievements or company
community efforts and schedule public speaking appearances at
educational or industry seminars - anything that can put the company
under a good light while in the public eye is the public relations
department's main concern.
The company marketing plan is how both of these integral parts of
business come together, along with several other aspects, to ensure
company success and growth. Each individual focal point of the marketing
department is integral to the success of the marketing plan.
Market research, which is probably the most intensive piece of the puzzle, will determine exactly who your target customers are.
With this information in hand, the product or service that you are
offering can be priced accordingly for the target audience. Once pricing
is established, the advertising department can begin its job of getting
the word out that your company has a service to offer. Depending upon
the advertising budget, this can be done in many ways: through
television, radio, print ads, billboards and/or flyers pointed directly
toward the target customer.
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SMS marketing has revolutionized the way advertising has been done
because it is cost effective and no extra expenditure is required.
Content: Most of the advertisements today are spot advertising but there
are advertising methods which do not require that the target audience
be at a specific place and this is where SMS marketing breaks all the
barriers of advertising.
SMS marketing is a welcome change from spot advertising because the
target audience can be anywhere at any time unlike spot advertising
where the target audience have to be at a specific place and at a
specific time. This is also quite affordable because sending text based
advertisements require no additional expenditure for setup. SMS
marketing allows the sender to send multiple text messages to anyone,
anywhere and at any point of time and that too at relatively low cost.
One good thing about SMS marketing is that it provides instantaneous
results and it can be proven through statistics. For instance, take the
example of United States, where there are 270 million cell phones and
the number is increasing day by day. There are 2.5 billion text messages
that are sent on a daily basis. The reason why text based marketing is
so popular is because ninety four percent of the text message gets
delivered and are read by the text message recipient, as shown by recent
studies. In this type of advertising the chances of reaching your
intended contacts are higher than any other advertising methods because
you are sure that the text message sent by you has been received by them
and they have gone through it. SMS marketing is an easy mode of
advertising and with it you can reach your target audience effectively.
It provides desired results and at low cost, and that is not all. It is
extremely easy to operate and the only thing that you have to do is to
create a message and select the groups/contacts you want to convey your
message to and send it. The speed and the ease of use are also quite
beneficial for the senders. Data in the form of text messages are not
cumbersome and are extremely easy to transfer, which means that you can
send thousand messages in a minute. Most of the business organizations
use this method of advertising because they are able to reach thousands
of contacts within minutes. SMS Marketing also has the ability to
increase retention. Through this mode of marketing you can reach the
same person as many times you want to. Once you have the number of that
person, you can reach him any time and this increases retention.
In this article we are going to discuss about Facebook marketing. It
includes some important points regarding Facebook pages. Then we discuss
about how business should use Facebook in order to get the most return
from it. Finally, you will find out three key areas that you need to pay
attention to when you drive traffic to your website using Facebook
advertising.
Things You Need To Know About Facebook Fan Page
There are several important things that people often do not realize about fan pages:
- At present, you can create as many fan pages as you want, if you have a Facebook account.
- You can have unlimited number of fans. It is different from friends that you can only have maximum 5,000.
- Unless you decide not to publish your Facebook page, it can be seen by
anyone, including search engine, without login to Facebook.
- Google will index Facebook page. In other words, you can apply your
existing SEO technique to a Facebook fan page. It is probably the most
important point because business that has Facebook presences may not
leverage their fan page power to the max.
- You can include external resources, like a website, into your Facebook
fan page. It can further extend the functionality of your current page.
You can also create marketing campaign that is specifically designed
for Facebook.
Using Facebook As a Marketing Tool?
Quite a number of people think that Facebook is a great marketing
resource because a lot of people are using Facebook everyday. Although
they are correct to certain extend, Facebook is not originally designed
to be a marketing platform. It is a social media platform. In other
words, it is designed for people interacting with each other online.
Marketing is just one of the ways of using Facebook. Just like search
engine, it is designed to allow users to search and get result, not for
advertising purpose.
However, most businesses cannot see it and they create a Facebook fan
page because other people are doing the same thing. As a result, they do
not have many fans on their fan page and their business does not
benefit from the fan page.
So let's discuss how to use Facebook advertising to drive traffic to your fan page and website.
Driving Traffic Using Facebook Advertising
The most important key to be successful in Facebook advertising is to
know who is your customer. Unless you define your target customers as
detail as possible, you may not get good result from Facebook
advertising. After defining your ideal customer profile, you can create a
marketing campaign specifically targeting those customers.
The next key is about image. Some people think that having a good image
is important but other people find that it is not. Actually the answer
depends on what business you are in. So you have to do a split test:
first create an ad that has an attractive image and create another one
that does not have attractive image, see which one perform better. You
will find that out very soon.
Imagine you are groggy eyed in the morning, just out of the shower, not
yet caffeinated and your doorbell rings. You open the door and are faced
with a person in a suit who begins: "Good morning, I would like to
introduce you to this amazing product that you must buy. Your world will
never be the same and... blah blah blah" for about 10 minutes. Now if
you haven't slammed the door in the person's face yet, let me ask you
how likely, on a scale from 1-10, will you buy from them? I'll guess not
likely. Fifty years ago, before the age of high-def TV, cell phones,
and the internet (gasp!), this was your first introduction to marketing
and sales. You would have politely listened to the sweating salesperson
and maybe you would have bought that shiny new product! However, these
days we are very selective about who we 'let in' (in more ways than one)
and the days of door-to-door sales are over.
However, if you are self-employed, a business owner, in multi-level
marketing, or an artist, it is very possible that you may have found
yourself uttering something similar to a prospective customer- in 2011.
Just not at their home door but perhaps someone is reading your email
blast first thing in the morning or you are chatting with someone in
line at an overpriced coffee shop. So here is my second question: How
has that been working for you? Well, you probably aren't reading this
because you are a millionaire and using outdated techniques!
Here are things we know about any business:
1. There is always a product or service you need to sell to make a profit.
2. If people don't know about what you are selling, they won't buy from
you. (It always amazes me that some folks create wonderful things and
never share it, expecting to be 'discovered'. Guess what, they are still
undiscovered and broke!)
These are the things we know that we know. What are the things we know
that we don't know? Perhaps you don't know how to copyright or maybe you
don't know how to build a stellar website. You can easily pay someone
to help you with this. However where businesses fail is in what they
don't know what they don't know. Say what? Again, business owners fail
by a lack of awareness of what they don't know-and this is what is
killing their profits!
So here is some complimentary enlightenment: the hard sell, the constant
push of your product doesn't work. In fact, it is making you broke
because potential clients are screaming for the hills. What does work
then? Value. Anyone on your email list or any customer who walks into
your storefront who believes your business provides value, will trust
you and even like you! Provide education or an extra service at no
charge and you build a worthy brand. Become the expert in your industry
and understand what your customers want. Then, when you offer a product
or new service, sales will come effortlessly. Customers will buy because
they are already sold on what your brand represents. Think of the
biggest brands (rhymes with grapple) that have lines at the door for
their newest products- they have built a brand that keeps a loyal base
of followers.
Where many businesses get stuck is how to build their brand. One option
is to buy a team or hire an agency to do this but most small business
owners and the self-employed have a limited budget. Therefore, the key
is to educate yourself and become the best marketer for your business.
This is a smart investment as knowledge lasts forever.
The die cut business cards are the new unconventional splendor that you
can go for. These are among the best and worth checking out cards when
it comes to business marketing and advertising. It will associate you
better in your business network and will also help you to be remembered
at all times. Just like any other person, different sort of businesses
have different characteristics.
You can use the "see-through plastics" for printing your card as it
gives precise and clean look that you always desired. It would perfectly
fit with a designer as they deal with contour and lines. The designing
is all about consistency, measurements and congruency. Having these
clear die cut plastic cards as a business tag would remind your clients
what you do. It will also signify your business and your company to a
great extent as it is one such material which is known in the
architectural field.
Making a die-cut cards using various clothing garments will although
appear to be quite funny but at the same time it will also give your
card a fashionable look. If you are a "fashion designer", you have to be
reliable with the style and change and also with the business card
which will fit your personality and purpose. Having good designed cards
can make your customers connecting with you in a better way.
The tools which you apply during your business purpose can very much
represent who you are and what you are into. Use of die cut card for
your business network can make your business turn better and well
connected.
Steel Town Promotions Pittsburgh
Nowadays, for every Business - Marketing is everything. To begin with,
marketing should be taking up a large proportion of your time. Then, as
your business grows, you may hire someone to perform marketing for you
full time. Therefore, setting up an online store is of no difference at
all. Some of the most effective marketing techniques include:
* Search engine optimization - Search engine optimization involves optimizing the keywords and Meta tags in your site.
* Listing your site in free and paid web directories - The best
directory is Yahoo. However, you should also submit to the smaller and
cheaper web directories as well to attract a different group of
customers.
* Google AdWords and Yahoo search marketing - Also known as pay per
click advertising, this is a fantastic way of getting targeted traffic
to your online store.
* Affiliate marketing -Affiliate marketing works well because you
only have to pay for the successful sales. Affiliates promote your site
using ad words, websites and other techniques. Whenever someone makes a
purchase as a result of an affiliate's promotion, you pay the affiliate a
percentage of the sale price.
* Link exchanges - Work on exchanging links with related sites to
increase your Google page ranking. This is especially important during
the first few months of your new site's existence.
* Local advertising - Trends in the society indicate that an
increasing number of people are supporting their local communities by
buying more local products nowadays. Going walkabout in your community
and personally handing out flyers is one of the most effective ways to
advertise locally.
* Promotions: online and off. Try offering free shipping, discounts
on multiple purchases, Purchase on Purchase, giveaways, free coupons to
attract customers to stay on your site.
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