The Marketing Funnel: Simple, Effective Marketing Strategy
February 29, 2008
No matter if you’re publishing your first book or producing your first invention, you need a simple, effective marketing strategy. So, hiring a marketing agency to develop and implement that strategy will bring raving fans flocking to stores or your website to buy your incredible offering, right?
Well, maybe. Maybe not!
There is a very simple ? yet amazingly potent ? marketing tool which in and of itself can become your most basic marketing strategy. It’s called the "marketing funnel", and it’s most important role is to first attract the interest of a minimum of 1,000 people then gradually, over time, one-by-one develop their trust in you?and, of course, in your idea or product.
Every funnel has certain things in common. Each, of course, is very wide at the top and very narrow at the tip. Not everything can come out the bottom all at once. Each also has a certain capacity from small to large. And each is a solid container. If it’s got lots of holes, then it’s a colander! Your marketing funnel operates just like a conventional funnel you use in you kitchen or garage. The only thing that makes it different is what you put in it!
The Changing Values Landscape of the U.S. and How It Impacts Midlife Job Searchers
February 29, 2008
Imagine a huge river that has been flowing for centuries: See the thick underbrush that has grown up on either edge of the river’s expansive banks and the moss-lined stones that litter its shallow edges. Feel the power of water so deep and so strong because it has been pulsing through this landscape since the Renaissance, yet now this mighty river approaches a "Great Divide" such as has never been seen before in human history.
Ten Top Tips for Terminating Telephone Terror
February 28, 2008
1. Make telephone callsFew things are more terrifying than the unknown. The fear you create for yourself is far worse than the reality of cold calling. Once you start making telephone calls and continue making telephone calls, it gets easier. You overcome fear by doing.
2. Make a lot of telephone callsIf you have only one prospect to pursue, that prospect becomes overwhelmingly important. If you have hundreds of leads, no one prospect can make or break you. The more calls you make, the more success you will have.
3. PreparePrepare for cold calling the way you would for any major presentation. Know what you want to say, how you want to say it and how you want to represent yourself, your company, your product or service. And know the goal of your telephone call.
4. PracticeIf you are new to cold calling or uncomfortable with cold calling, practice your pitch out loud. Role-play with friends or colleagues. Practice various sales scenarios. This way, you will not have to worry about what you are going to say. You will be prepared, and you can focus in on your prospect.
Building a friendly home based business
February 27, 2008
Building a friendly home based business
by: Greg Carson
No business would succeed without customers. It is they who can make your home based business work. They can be compared to the fuel in your car. Without fuel your car won’t run and without your customers, your business will go nowhere. Whatever the cost is, you need customers and thus will it be forever.
A crucial aspect of home business is building and maintaining a steady clientele. Your first customers are commonly made up of people you already know such as friends, colleagues, families, etc. You have to remember that your home business needs them. These friends of yours have other friends. As your bond with them grows stronger, invitations to bond with their other friends become more likely. If you please each new friend, then your client stream will continue to increase. You can visit the home business site at www.homebusinessite.com for more insights about this.
The focal point here is that you make your business work by expanding your client list in as many ways as you can invent. They are everywhere, it all depends on your initiative. The best way for an online business to expand its clientele is to optimize its attractiveness to search engines. Search engines produce hits; hits produce leads; leads produce clients; clients produce success opportunities. Usually the most successful business owners have gained their track through online marketing.
A Simplified Marketing Plan that Works!
February 26, 2008
When I started my first business in 1981, I researched business plans and marketing plans. I looked at all of the formats and read a lot about the purpose of creating a business plan. But I never got enthused enough to do it.
When I launched my speaking business in 1997, I reconsidered a business plan and a marketing plan. Again, they looked too complex - like a lot of “overkill” for my one-person operation. But I soon found that I needed some type of plan that would remind me of where I was going and how I planned to get there.
For the past several years I’ve been using a simplified marketing plan. And it’s been working for me. It may inspire you to do something similar - or at least do something! Here’s how it works.
At the beginning of the year (or during my planning period for the year), I list the goals for my business. I try to look at all of the facets of the business. For example:
1. Book X speaking engagements.2. Give X free speeches.3. Generate $X in consulting fees.4. Increase website traffic to X page views per month.
7 MUST-HAVE Conditions To Goal Setting
February 25, 2008
The three keys to living without limits have always been the same. They are clarity, competence, and concentration. Goal setting will help you live without limits. Learning how to set goals is an art. Learn why setting goals is a necessity. Here are 7 Must-have conditions to set goals.
1. State your goal in positive terms.
People often set a goal in terms of what they don’t want! “I don’t want to smoke, to be angry…” It’s “what I want to do or want to be” See the difference? Hear the nuance? Are you ready to state positively every goal you want to achieve?
2. Make sure the goal can be self-initiated and maintained The goal doesn’t depend on the attitude of your neighbor, on the behavior of your wife or family. The success of your goal must depend on you, and you alone.
3. Your goal must be sensory specific
Here comes the importance of clarity. The clearer the picture, the more compelling and the more attractive it is, the greater the drive to reach your final destination. Act as if the goal is already achieved. Make a very clear image, in rich details, and you will be so enthusiastic that you will automatically attract the solution.
Keeping and Motivating the Best Employees
February 24, 2008
Keeping and Motivating the Best Employees
In “You Win With People” we talked about the need to hire the very best people to build your team. Now that you’ve done that the question becomes, how do you keep them, and how do you keep them motivated.
Much has been written about Employee Retention and about Motivation. But most of what has been written has been written in terms of the average employee. In fact, if you are measured at all by your company in this area, it’s almost always a measurement of employee retention. But all turnover is not bad turnover, so a retention measurement is actually a false measurement of how you’re hiring and firing practice helped the company.
So back to the question. How do you keep and motivate the best employees that you’ve hired? All human beings have basic needs that must be met, starting with food and shelter. So it’s obvious that you must pay a fair wage and provide adequate benefits or people won’t be able to stay with you. But once the basic needs are met, does it require more money or more elaborate benefits packages to keep the best employees?
Do I Need an RSS Feed?
February 24, 2008
RSS has been around for more than 10 years but has only recently become popular. RSS provides headlines and summaries of information in a concise and standardized way.
Benefits for Publishers
1.) Avoid Spam Filters
Statisticians estimate that 70% of the email transferred each day is spam (unsolicited email). With that statistic, even opt-in users risk losing valuable messages in the cesspool of spam. RSS feeds effectively nullify spam as an issue. Requesting feeds allow users to maintain complete control over the content they view. Users can easily opt-in and out of feeds that provide content of interest or importance.
2.) Expanded Reach
RSS allows publishers to reach a number of new and different markets that typically are less crowded with competition. Many small businesses are often slow to adopt or learn new technologies, giving businesses that lead the way a competitive advantage.
3.) Content Syndication
Syndication of feeds increases exposure.
4.) Repeat Visitors
RSS is all about repeat visitors. Users who have previously visited a site often have a stronger connection to the site and are more likely to purchase or trust the information on the site.
5.) Free web traffic
Small Business Mistakes: Are You Making Enough of Them?
February 23, 2008
That’s right are you making enough mistakes in your business? Some of you are probably annoyed at my question; others are thinking “Geez, Rose! If I made any more mistakes I’d have to run screaming back to a day job!”
If you went to school in the public school system in America, you were culturally trained to avoid and hide mistakes, after all; your teachers and professors didn’t give you a great grade for your efforts unless those efforts produced great results. So, too, if you were an employee in corporate America you were rewarded for chasing perfection and penalized for making mistakes.
But now you’re self-employed.
And it’s a necessity that you rethink the whole issue of mistakes. One of the most important mental shifts we all need to make as self-employed business owners is from hiding and avoiding our mistakes to embracing them! And to making lots of little ones frequently! (It’s those big mistakes that happen “once in a while” that will kill your business not the little mistakes you make daily.)
Here’s an example of one of those business-killing mistakes:
9. The Shotgun and your Business!
February 22, 2008
9. The Shotgun and your Business!
by: Bill Boyd
Using a shotgun to drive customers to your website, might be a bit over the top!
What I’m talking about is the shot gun splatter approach to analyzing your market.
I recently saw a video that demonstrated this technique to me and I found it very useful, but a little difficult to understand using the shot gun analogy.
So here’s a way analyzing your market, that I feel more comfortable with.
Look at your target market as a commercial eco system.
Everything is related and in some way reliant on each other in one way or another.
For example: If I am assessing wether to get into the English Language education market. I should look at the eco system surrounding the particular environment.
I could look at the teachers, who need students, the students who need books, the teachers who need books, the book manufacturers who need teachers and students, the book manufacturers, students’, and teachers who need stationary.
You get the picture? When assessing a market we should always look for other related products and services that would interest people in the particular market we are assessing.
