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Better Marketing Through Modern Mind-Control
There are two kinds of marketing: Direct Marketing and Brand Marketing. Direct marketing targets wallets. Branding is about hearts and minds. DIFFERENT BY DESIGN Ads designed for branding are cool. They don't plead and beg and cajole, they...
Do You Play Hit and Miss With Your Marketing?
Too many online marketers use a "hit and miss" marketing approach. By that I mean placing some ads here and there in the hopes of selling something. And it's the worst possible way to do business. Why? Because you probably *won't* do much, if any,...
No Marketing Budget, No Problem!
So you’ve got a great business idea, and you’ve spent some time setting up a basic website to tell the world about it. Good for you, but the idea is only half the battle. Communicating your idea to the masses through marketing is the key to driving...
The Power Of Viral Marketing
You certainly know by now that the term "viral marketing" is not just another dot-com cliché. Quite the contrary, it describes the incredible, unmatched power of the Web to promote your business by marrying email to the traditional concept of...
The Yin & Yang of Internet Marketing
Westerners believe opposites flow in a natural cycle always replacing the other. They tend to look at things as black or white, right or wrong, up or down, giving a separation and unrelated-ness in their perspective.
Chinese view opposites...
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Marketing or Selling -- Which is more important?
A question I often get from clients and students goes something like this: "I've been collecting marketing ideas... and I have a drawer full! I also have a stack of promising leads I've accumulated. And I know it's important to stay visible, so I do a lot of networking, but then I just end up with more names in the stack. How do I prioritize all this?" If you've ever wondered something similar, you may have lost sight of a very important truth -- the way to win the marketing game is not to collect the most leads; it's to make the most sales. Marketing activities that increase your number of sales are good, and activities that don't are bad, even if they bring in plenty of leads. If you don't follow up on the leads you gather, you are throwing away your time and money. The main purpose of marketing strategies like public speaking, writing articles, getting publicity, networking, promotional events, and advertising is to gain visibility. (A secondary purpose of the first three strategies can be to gain credibility.) Why do you want to be visible? It's not just so people will know who you are and what you do, it's so they will do business with you. If someone has already expressed interest in doing business, call them. Do it now. Memorize this rule -- following up on hot, or even warm, client leads is always more important than marketing for more visibility. There is a simple diagnostic test you can take to see where you need to focus your marketing vs. selling efforts, which I call the Universal Marketing Cycle. Think of the marketing and sales process as a water system that begins by filling your pipeline with leads. The pipeline empties into your follow-up pool, which you are continually dipping into. Your intent is to move the leads further along in the system, to making a presentation of some kind (by phone or in person), and finally closing the sale. Where are you stuck in this system? Is it in filling the pipeline to begin with? Or is the pipeline full, but you haven't been following up? Perhaps you have been
following up, but don't seem to be getting to the presentation stage. Or maybe you are making presentations but not closing sales. Wherever you seem to be stuck is the area that needs more effort. When you have promising leads you aren't contacting, the follow-up stage is clearly your stuck place. Take that stack of leads and sort them into three categories: prospective clients, useful networking contacts, and other. Now sort the prospective clients into hot, warm, and cold. Stop right there and follow up with all the hot and warm leads. If, and I do mean if, you still need to do more work about marketing after following up with all those leads, go to the networking contacts and sort them into two groups: people who can lead you directly to prospective clients, and people who can lead you to other marketing opportunities, e.g. a new networking group or a speaking engagement. Stop, and you guessed it, follow up with the people who might have leads for you. You should now have three groups left: cold client leads, people who can lead you to marketing opportunities, and other. Now is the time to decide whether you need to do something new to market yourself at all. Look at what you have been doing so far to get all those hot and warm leads you had. Maybe you just need to do more of the same. If that's true, put those cold leads aside, because you'll have more hot and warm ones shortly. If you need to do something different to get better leads than what you had, go ahead and explore one of the new marketing possibilities in your second group, or one of the ideas stashed away in that drawer. And that "other" group? Throw them away. They are just cluttering up your pipeline.
About the Author
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Thousands of business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of "Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You'll Ever Need" at http://www.getclientsnow.com
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KnowThis: For Marketing, Market Research, Internet Marketing ... |
KnowThis.com offers a wealth of information, forums, and resources for professionals, academics and students in traditional and internet marketing, ... |
www.knowthis.com |
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Marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Marketers depend on marketing research, both formal and informal, ... The next big thing is a concept in marketing that refers to a product or idea that ... |
en.wikipedia.org |
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Marketing - Marketing Strategy - Marketing Plan - Marketing ... |
Learn about marketing careers, the stages of developing a marketing plan, how to begin marketing research, create a marketing strategy, and how to market ... |
marketing.about.com |
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Marketing.org - Home of the Business Marketing Association |
Serves the professional, educational and career development needs of business-to-business marketers. |
www.marketing.org |
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Welcome - American Marketing Association - www.marketingpower.com |
Dedicated to serving the educational and professional needs of marketing executives. |
www.marketingpower.com |
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Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR News - Brand Republic |
Find the latest Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR news from Brand Republic, the online resource for up to the minute advertising and marketing news and ... |
www.brandrepublic.com |
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Marketing Magazine - Marketing News - Brand Republic |
Marketing Magazine - Marketing News - Brand Republic. |
www.brandrepublic.com |
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Marketing (Canada) |
Offers a Canadian source of news and articles on marketing, advertising and media. |
www.marketingmag.ca |
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BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice. |
Pay per click advertising - online advertising directly on sites of your choice, internet marketing solution for online advertisers. |
www.bidvertiser.com |
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Online Behavioral Contextual Advertising and Marketing. |
Promote your business with today's most effective online advertising technology, contextual advertising at a cost effective metric of CPC, PPC, CPM or CPV. |
www.clicksor.com |
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Sales Jobs / Marketing Jobs / Advertising Jobs - MarketingJobs.com |
Employment site for marketing and sales professionals. |
www.marketingjobs.com |
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The Chartered Institute of Marketing |
The Chartered Institute of Marketing is the world's largest international marketing professional body and helps with career support and information ... |
www.cim.co.uk |
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Marketing: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
See all blog posts tagged with marketing on Technorati. |
www.technorati.com |
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Marketing Profs - Marketing Concepts and Strategies: Expert ... |
Marketing knowhow from professionals. Newsletter, articles and how-to's. |
www.marketingprofs.com |
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Guerrilla Marketing Online - The Official Site |
Guerrilla Marketing Online is anonline magazine for small business, entrepreneurs, sales people and marketers of all kinds. |
www.gmarketing.com |
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Business Marketing - Small Business Marketing |
Business marketing - Read everything your need to know about small business marketing. |
www.entrepreneur.com |
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All About Marketing |
Adapted from Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation ... Inbound Marketing Includes Market Research to Find Out: ... |
www.managementhelp.org |
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Pages tagged with "marketing" on del.icio.us |
USA Network Announces a NASHVILLE STAR Marketing Partnership With ... - Yahoo! ... Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing ... |
del.icio.us |
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ClickZ Internet Marketing Solutions for Marketers |
Includes columns with commentary and analysis on a wide variety of internet marketing subjects ranging from B2B marketing to search engine marketing. |
www.clickz.com |
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Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing |
Trade association for users and suppliers in the direct, database and interactive marketing fields, offering seminars and resources, and lobbying for ... |
www.the-dma.org |
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