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Five Joint Venture Marketing Skills A Small Business Owner Must Have
Joint venture marketing is a lucrative way of leveraging the assets of two or more businesses. It is the fastest way for businesses to achieve certain business goals and benefit their clients at the same time. For the joint venture partners, this...
Make your Writing or Marketing Projects your Top Priority
Make your Writing or Marketing Projects your Top Priority Judy Cullins c 2004 All Rights Reserved. When you finish your eBook or print books, you have a product you can sell. After you finish the book be sure to write the all important sales...
OCTOPUS MARKETING - Create a Community of Opportunity
Yesterday as I sat down to get a haircut, I noticed that for the first time that I was the only customer in the shop. My barber anxiously asked, "Are the stores empty where you work?" He told me that 40% of his business has eroded; half of his...
What Are You Afraid Of: Marketing Survey Results About Business Owners Going Cyber
After two weeks of surveying my visitors, I am finally making an attempt to draw some conclusions. Reading my visitors replies to the survey questions, I sense one common concern in one way or another: lack of money and lack of profits. One...
What Our CAT Taught Me About Marketing!
Toby is one of our two family pets (both cats). He is quite astute, and he has learned one of the most basic tenets of selling - stick with what works!
Many of Toby's days are spent perched on the top of my monitor as I work here on my...
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What's Missing From Your Marketing?
Stuart from Colorado had talked to a number of marketing firms and gotten estimates for designing and printing his marketing materials and building a web site for his business producing promotional cds. One firm quoted $100,000 to build his web site alone. He sensed something was missing or wrong, but couldn't put his finger on it, so he called me.
I asked Stuart how the various marketing pieces and activities were going to work together to help him generate leads. I asked him what his marketing strategy was. He drew a blank. The marketing firms he had talked to had provided detailed information on what they were going to produce for him, but none had discussed a coordinated plan to generate leads and sales.
Marketing without an integrated strategy is like playing poker, tennis or football without knowing the rules, keeping score or having a game plan. You could put in a lot of time, energy, and capital, and still end up losing the game. Has this happened to you?
W.inning at business is the same as any other game, whether your objective is to beat the competition or just to be the best in your industry. To be successful, you need to know the rules of the game, have a clear strategy and track your progress.
The Rules for Winning at Marketing and Sales Here are some of the most essential rules to follow to succeed at marketing your business.
1. Written goals are motivating and can help you succeed. Define your objectives for revenue, lead generation and conversion rates for the year and then break those down for each quarter. Commit them to writing. Next list the weekly and daily tasks you and/or your employees need to accomplish in order to reach your goals.
2. The more qualified prospects you can attract, the more clients you'll have. A clearly defined lead generation strategy will bring in the new prospects you need to be profitable.
3. It's easier to convert prospects to clients when they are looking to solve a problem. It's much harder to convert people who don't have a current need or concern, even if they are members of your target market. Instead of seeking prospects, prompt prospects to look for you.
4. You'll get a better response from marketing messages that are focused on client problems and concerns, not on your credentials or descriptions of products and processes. If you're not getting the response you'd like from your mailings, ads or web site, take a second look at your marketing message. A few changes in your marketing copy can increase response by factors of ten or more.
5. Integrate your tactics and
message across your marketing materials, ads, and web site to prompt people to seek you out and contact you. Trying to generate leads without an integrated strategy is like playing football without a set of plays for the quarterback to use with the team. He'd end up throwing the ball only to find the receiver had gone the other direction or go for a field goal on the first down.
6. The purpose of having a web site is to generate leads. Once you have a lead you can use it to generate sales. Once you get prospects to your web site or reading your marketing materials, make sure you prompt them to contact you.
7. Most sales are the result of a relationship based on your credibility and the value of your products or services. Developing these relationships can take weeks or months to build. Your marketing strategy should facilitate this process of building relationships over time, with multiple opportunities for contacting prospects.
8. The easiest people to sell to are past customers. Prompt first time clients to buy from you again and again.
Keeping Score In order to know if your marketing is working you need ways of keeping score. Which marketing results are you tracking? Which additional ones should you define each month and quarter to track?
Keep track of these important 'scores' to evaluate your marketing:
1. How many prospects seek your firm out each month? Is this number growing each month by five to ten percent?
2. What percentage of people who are exposed to your ads, your web site and other marketing materials give you their contact information so you can stay in touch with them?
3. How many people are on your house list of qualified prospects? How fast is this list growing each month?
4. How many people buy from you each week? What is the dollar volume of each sale?
5. How many sales come from repeat customers?
Whether we're talking poker, tennis, or marketing your small business, the objective is to improve your performance and succeed more often. When you have a game plan, know the rules and track your scores, you can continually find ways to improve your marketing and be more successful.
About the Author
2005 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.
The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals and small business owners attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up for the Free Marketing Plan eBook, for small business owners and people responsible for marketing, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.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 ... |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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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