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Benefits of a low-budget marketing plan

2010-10-05T00:37:00.001-07:00

The secret to creating a high-impact marketing plan is to optimize your limited budget. A one-time radio ad blitz, glossy brochure, or flash-enabled website will quickly erode your budget and derail your marketing plans. Use low-budget marketing to get your message out to your customers on a regular basis, and watch sales revenue grow.

There are several reasons why a low-budget marketing plan is a must for small business in today's advertising bloated society:

* Expensive ad exposure does not necessarily translate to increased sales. Just ask Super Bowl advertiser Pet.com, whose sock puppet commercial was a hit with consumers, but left the company bankrupt. Every marketing dollar spent should produce a good return in sales.

* Your target customers need to hear your marketing messages at least 7 times to influence a buying decision. Using marketing & sales strategies outside your budget, doesn't allow you to repeat your message often enough to make an impact.

* Marketing impact can be greatly improved by using multiple marketing channels. Prospects will likely become buyers if they: read about your company in the newspaper, attend a seminar, take home a brochure, and visit your small business website. The further you can "stretch your marketing dollars" to reach your target market in multiple channels, the higher the impact of your marketing message.

Low-Budget High-Impact Marketing Plan Techniques

Get A Piggyback: Hitching a ride on the marketing of another company can save your small business time and capital. When computer reseller franchise, Computer Exchange, was looking for methods to reach price conscious consumers on a low budget, the company followed Wal-Mart openings. Wal-Mart`s big budget marketing department would carefully select the new store openings based on demographics and other costly analysis. Cyber Exchange opened stores in the vicinity of Wal-Mart saving real-estate selection costs and piggy backing on Wal-Mart`s marketing plan.

Find The Right Target: A critical part of your marketing plan is targeting the right customer. For a low-budget high-impact marketing plan to work, find customers who are easy to identify and affordable to reach.

Forget the mass market and go for small niche markets. For example, local, large breed dog enthusiasts can be reached by clubs, special shows, and targeted publications. Reaching all dog owners will be ineffective because of limited exposure combined with higher costs of marketing in mass publications.

Make Yourself News Worthy: A mention of your company in the right media can help deliver your marketing message in a low cost manner. My local plumber has mastered the art of self-promotion. When a child's red wagon was stolen, "Pete The Plumber" showed up in his Super-Hero painted van to bring a brand new wagon to the child. It was a good deed; resulting in plenty of media talk.

Form a Joint Venture: Joint ventures are too powerful for small business to ignore. Forging an alliance with a group of small companies or a large corporation can give your marketing plan the ultimate "bang for the buck." A joint venture will lower your costs, enabling you to enter into new markets and create new distribution opportunities.

Maximize Referrals: The most cost-effective method of reaching new customers is by referrals from satisfied customers. A satisfied customer telling others about your small business is more effective than any fancy ad campaign. Spend time to get customer referrals on a weekly basis.

These are just a few of many tactics and strategies used by small business to create a high-impact marketing plan on a low-budget. Marketing success comes from creativity; not from having the biggest budget.

Facebook Still Has Its Benefits for B2B Companies

2010-10-05T00:33:00.000-07:00

The toughest kid on the block in the social marketing world still is Facebook in my opinion. The company that has enticed millions of users worldwide, still makes an impact, far outshining its competition. Many people, business owners in general, don't completely feel this way. In most cases, business owners have stated that even with the large shoulders that Facebook has in social media, it still seems to lack the strength in B2B marketing. However, there are many ways Facebook fosters interactive relationships, while providing a platform for employee communities, customers and distributors. Here are just a few strategies that can be used:

1. Photos & Videos: Facebook right now is the only social network that places photos and videos right into a users news feeds. Each update, rather it be video or photo, reaches out to all online fans or friends. Enhancing the phrase "getting the word out" to a broad audience with one click of a button.

2. Asking the Right Questions: Gathering feedback is a great way to gain insight on a promotion or a marketing strategy. Asking the right questions, can be a valuable tool as your Facebook community can become your personal focus group. But keep in mind, feedback goes both ways, as businesses should always respond to community posts. This creates a personal relationship that can be golden for a business, big or small. Make sure to foster relationships.

3. The VIP Room: Communities love Facebook as it can create that room where only VIP members are allowed. When doing a promotion, develop that invisible line that only members can cross. Curiosity can play in your favor. No one wants to miss out on the next big thing and be the last one to the party.

4. Tagging: You're it, or not. Tagging is a great tool offered at Facebook as new posts can be tagged with the source included. This is a great way to drive traffic to the original source and create a general note that your page is worthy of mention. Of course, only if you use sources that have some type of clout and are known by more than one person.

What other great Facebook tools does your company use?

Article marketing is just one tool you should have in your website promotion toolbox.

2010-09-21T18:02:00.000-07:00

What is Article Marketing?

Article marketing is the practice of posting keyword-focused articles on article sites that then syndicate your content. The reason this is an important website promotion technique is because some of these article syndication sites have a significant readership following.

Most article syndication sites allow you to post your content for free. Once published, your content becomes available for all to see - and potentially reuse. When done properly, articles you post on syndicated article sites can then become "link bait" for other sites. For example, let's say you own a home business that sells closet organizers. If you or your web content writer write an article about organizing your office, others who may want to post a blog entry about organizing your office may link to your article, getting increased exposure for your writing and your subject matter, especially if the article site gets a great deal more traffic than your own website, which is fairly likely.

Some article sites will allow you to include HTML links in your articles. You can then link your keyword phrase to the page on your website you're trying to promote for that keyword - a highly effective search engine optimization technique. Others won't allow you to do that, but they'll have no problem with you including links in your resource box (your profile or signature information used to let people know who you are), which adds important one-way backlinks to your website.

Article syndication sites also typically allow readers to conditionally include your article on their site. Conditions typically include the requirement that whoever reuses your article must cite you as the author and must retain any links in the article. As you might imagine, this provides additional opportunities to increase your site traffic and get the buzz out about your article.

Even if you have to pay to have the article ghost written for you, it's usually fairly inexpensive to have a good article written by a knowledgeable ghost writer and you still get the credit! Therefore, article marketing can be a very cost effective means of website promotion for your home business.

Keyword Research is Important in Article Marketing

Before you go about writing the article, you'll want to do some keyword research. Keyword research is the practice of balancing the popularity of a keyword or search phrase against the competitiveness of the keyword phrase. You certainly wouldn't want to spend a lot of time and money targeting keywords and phrases that no one is likely to use in a search. Likewise, if 80 million plus results come up when you search for your keyword phrase you may have a difficult time getting ranked for that competitive of a keyword.

Balancing frequency against competitiveness results in what SEO Specialists refer to as the Keyword Effectiveness (or Efficiency) Indicator (or Index), shortened as KEI. KEI is a number with two to four (and sometimes more) decimal places. Words that are rarely used in search will have a very small KEI (near 0) and keywords and phrases that are extremely competitive will also have a very low KEI. The higher the KEI the more likely it is that you can achieve top rankings for the keyword or phrase and it will be worth your while because enough searches are conducted to warrant giving the keyword some attention.

By knowing which keywords you want to focus on, the subject of your article will become apparent. Additionally you 'll know which words to work into your text (don't overdo it) and you will also use those keywords as the anchor text (the words clicked) for any links in your article or your resource box.

Finding Good Article Sites Using Google Alerts

There are a number of good article syndication sites available and you will have no trouble finding several that you like to work with that are also effective in getting your article noticed. One way to see which articles sites are getting good exposure in Google is to subscribe to [http://www.google.com/alerts]Google Alerts for your targeted keywords.

With Google Alerts you just specify the keyword or keyword phrase for which you want alerts sent to you. You can choose to receive alerts for news articles, blog postings, web pages or groups, or you can select Comprehensive, which will give you the alerts for all of the selections combined. Article sites are included with the Web selection, so you'll want to either choose Web or Comprehensive to receive alerts from postings on syndicated article sites.

Your alerts arrive via email and you can choose to be notified once per day, once per week, or as it happens. You'll see a listing of items that include your selected keyword phrase. Among the listings you're likely to see one or more article syndication sites. Click the news item to visit the site where the article is posted, sign up and you're ready to go.

Article Sites Want Good Material

Syndicated article sites want good material. The emphasis being on good. Many sites won't publish your content if it's not well written. Be sure to proofread your articles and have them spell checked before submitting them for syndication. Even if the article site accepts your poorly-written article for publication, you want to project a good impression for your home business, so it's critical that the article be compelling and grammatically correct to shed the best light on your business and to encourage others to link to your article and even republish it.

Take the Article Marketing Plunge

If you haven't tried it yet to promote your business and/or your home business website, I encourage you to take the idea of marketing information online by way of articles to get your home business or your website the kind of positive public relations exposure on which all home businesses and Internet businesses rely.

Grow Your Twitter Following

2010-09-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

Whatever your social networking goals are, the following tactics will not only increase the number of people following you, but you will begin to experience that old fashioned thing called "community":

1. Habituate your twittering. If Twitter is your water cooler, then drink 8 glasses a day as consistently as possible. I generally let it slide on the weekends, but during the week you can find me tweeting fairly regularly. People will start to expect to see you there. That's a good thing because this encourages more interaction with your community.

2. Engage your followers with meaningful tweets. It's kind of Facebook-y, but Twitterers like getting replies, and they arguably check for them often throughout the day. Just don't be the office chatterbox who has an answer for everything. So annoying. Helpful, witty, or informative is good. Giving people hives is bad.

3. Personable is more important than profound. Much like water cooler chat, the point is to be a conversationalist who knows when to make small talk, when to shut up, and when to speak up. It's okay to tweet about your personal life, but don't bore people with the inane unless it is going to inform or entertain. And be careful with the latter. No one likes a clown after the party ends.

4. Ask people to follow you at your Twitter URL. This one might seem obvious, but most people still aren't doing it. I admit, it was lost on me until about a month ago. Then I added the follow me request, hyperlinked to my Twitter profile, to (1) my email signature and (2) the byline under my blog posts. Next up is to change my byline for the articles I have plastered around the web.

5. Market your microblog on other social networking sites. Put your Twitter URL on your Website.

Like anything else in online marketing though, consistency is everything.

Social Networking Communities Provide Marketing Opportunities

2010-09-16T00:10:00.000-07:00

Social networking has never been as crucial and beneficial to companies. In our technical world your next business prospect could only be a mouse-click away.

We all know that by participating in local organizations and being active in our communities we are often greeted with the perk of new business opportunities. However, you may not be aware of the business communities that are being developed and thriving online. These networks allow you to locate business opportunities as well as find companies that may be able to serve your business-to-business needs.

Using these virtual networking tools you can connect with extremely talented and professional people, but don't just sit back waiting for others to come to you. You have to make an effort in building your online network, this means reaching out and building relationships with those that you have something in common with. You will be amazed at how quickly you will begin to get to know others.

Here are a few of my favorite social networks:

LinkedIn
LinkedIn has become my favorite online social network for business purposes. It's easy to view profiles, get connected, and even recruit potential new hires. There is also a recommendation feature that allows you to see what others say about an individual.

Facebook
Facebook isn't just for kids anymore. The demographic of this social network continues to broaden. I've found that I love the features and the different applications that are available. It also carries with it a certain level of privacy that I have not seen in the other networks. With 600 million searches and more than 30 billion page views a month can you afford not to be part of this network?

MySpace
I'm still not fond of MySpace. It continues to carry that juvenile feel for me, but I have some readers that say MySpace works for them. Don't discount it - it's working for some perhaps it can work for you as well.

VisiblePath
VisiblePath is Silicon Valley-based. It is a lot like LinkedIn, but it automatically determines who your real network is, and how strong each individual relationship is, based on your emails and calendar items that involve them. VisiblePath is the new kid on the block; just having launched at Web 2.0 Expo in May of this year.

SoFlow
Prestigious, cream of the crop professionals. Great features, fantastic focus groups, and awesome business networking opportunities. This network launched in July 2004 with great buzz, but seem to have lost the excitement since then.

Ryze
Large database of users, casual and more of a social atmosphere. A little difficult to navigate, but overall it's a great place to hang your hat. Take a few moments browse the networks and look for others that you have something in common with. Who knows you may just find your neighbor lurking around there.

Orkut
Orkut is owned and developed by the mega search engine Google, I have to say at first this network carried with it a lot of excitement, unfortunately I became uninterested when I started getting email messages from people I didn't even know. While the communities are nicely developed I find that I spend more time in the previously mentioned networks. However, don't let my opinion sway you - this network may just have what you are looking for.

Thanks Laura.

Motivate People to Sign Up for Your Newsletter with a Bonus

2010-09-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

Making visitors of your Web site sign up for your newsletter is getting increasingly difficult as people are more reluctant to give away their email address (and they're perfectly right facing all that spam).

A bonus (in addition to the great newsletter) can motivate people to sign up. For example, you could offer a white paper or -- preferably -- a detailed case study for all those who subscribe to your newsletter, or new subscribers get a special tips and tricks edition of the newsletter, or a funny Winamp skin.

The possibilities are endless, but make sure the bonus is the right bonus for the right people. Whatever you offer, it must be directly related to the newsletter.

Ideally,

* the motivation to sign up for the newsletter is the same as the motivation for getting the bonus, and
* the bonus acts as a multiplier, not as a separate motivation.

Create a Clear Call to Action in Email Marketing Campaigns

2010-09-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I get newsletters and marketing messages via email that have everything except a clear call to action. They're beautifully designed, a joy to read, and they get me in the mood to do something — if only I knew what the sender expects me to do.

I don't know where to click, what link to follow, where to order.
Create a Clear Call to Action in Email Marketing Campaigns

One of the crucial elements of an email marketing campaign is a clear call to action.

* Lay out exactly what you want the recipients of your message to do, and
* design the message to make that path clear for the recipient, and easy to follow.

Call to Action Example

Don't distract with too many links or offers, and make not only the call to action clear but also what recipients can expect when they click through. This can be as simple as "Click here for a 20% discount on your next weekend trip."

Brand Beyond Marketing

2010-09-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Imagine you are about to embark on a trip of a lifetime. You’ve received brochures for a luxury resort. The rooms are lavish; the grounds impeccable. Photos of the restaurant’s signature dishes look delectable. You’re sold.

You go to the hotel. The room is musty and a tad dirty. The food is barely passable. Service is brusque and spotty at best. When you complain to management, you’re met with indifference, or worse, silence. You leave disillusioned and disgusted. For all the resort’s slick marketing, they’ve fallen woefully short.

Branding goes well beyond marketing. It will not be successful without ensuring that all aspects of your business reflect and support your intended brand. One of your most valuable assets—your people—must be well-trained in articulating and delivering on your brand. This step is particularly important for service organizations that don’t have concrete products. Their offerings are soft assets like knowledge, experience and people.

When employees don’t deliver the brand, it can be the kiss of death for a business. Don’t believe me? Visit a hotel review web site like TripAdvisor.com. Peruse travelers’ comments and you’ll likely come across more than a few who cite poor customer service for their negative hotel reviews. Conversely, employees who represent the brand flawlessly and consistently can propel a business to stardom.

Brand: The Sum of All Its Parts

Despite what many believe, brand isn’t about your logo, tagline and glossy brochure. Instead, a strong brand integrates multiple components, all of them necessary, including customer interactions, employee communications, corporate philosophy and advertising/marketing efforts. Your brand extends to your employees, customers, the media and even the general public as the above story illustrates. If these components don’t consistently reinforce your brand, customers will become dissatisfied. The negative impact of their perception, should they voice their opinions to other potential customers or even the media, could have a ripple effect on your business. This can erode your brand equity and create misperceptions about your company in the market, that in turn could lead prospective customers, employees and investors to pass on your organization.

On the other hand, brand consistency throughout all levels of the organization helps drive an organization to grow and prosper. Strong brands can drive an increase in sales. The company is better suited to attract and retain the best employees. Vendors can see value in your brand and look to establish partnerships with your business, while investors will see the business and your brand equity as a valuable commodity.

Branding Through Your Employees

Your employees are one of the most critical touch points for your customer. Here are several steps to ensure that they are representing your brand in the best light possible.

* Develop a Company Philosophy.

A thoughtfully planned philosophy that guides how your company operates is the first step to reinforcing your brand among your workforce. The prestigious Ritz Carlton Hotel Company is an excellent example. They have created the following five “Gold Standards” for their business operations that reinforce the brand and detail an employee’s role in delivering on this brand:

1. A vision to revolutionize hospitality in America by creating a luxury setting for guests and a credo that states the company’s commitment to the genuine care and comfort of its guests.
2. A motto that exemplifies the level of service for its guests: We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.
3. Three Steps of Service:
o A warm and sincere greeting that uses the guest name, if and when possible
o Anticipation and compliance with guest needs
o A fond farewell that uses a guest’s name, if and when possible
4. “20 Basics” that outline the responsibilities and expectations for how the company delivers on its service (including #13—Never Lose a Guest)
5. The Employee Promise (“At The Ritz-Carlton, our Ladies & Gentlemen are the most important resource in our service commitment to our guests.”)

Maintain Brand Consistency
This step is essential to building a strong brand. However, it is often one of the first steps to unravel. You must establish consistency throughout all aspects of your organization. But setting the standards is not enough. You must constantly evaluate your actions. Establish checkpoints for each aspect of the business that interacts with customers and the general public. Ensure that each employee is empowered to identify and address inconsistencies in your brand. Fail to deliver on brand with one customer, and he or she might forget. Fail to do so for another, and he or she might not be so forgiving. It only takes a scant few to dispel the brand you are touting.

Practice What You Preach.
The best way to lead is by example. If your brand projects your organization as one which supports its employees and then reneges on that promise, your brand (and sales) will suffer. Case in point: Wal-Mart. The company says, “We believe that one of the keys to our success is our people and how we treat them.” However, the retail chain has been the subject of unfair employee wage practice lawsuits. Moreover, though they say they value their target customer (the hard working middle class) their actions aren’t necessarily consistent with the rhetoric.

Implement Brand Guidelines.
In order to ensure brand consistency, your organization must establish a framework or set of brand guidelines for all to follow. We’re not merely talking about logo or corporate identity guidelines, but actual brand guidelines that communicate the company’s brand positioning statement, key messages, core values, brand attributes, measures of success and processes for handling customer issues or feedback. Federal Express was an early pioneer in this idea. The international shipper utilizes an Internet-based program which outlines the company’s brand guidelines. This detailed approach provides guidance on everything from the graphic standards for use of the company logo to how cultural differences affect brand (particularly important for global companies). Establishing brand guidelines leaves no room for misinterpretation and helps maintain consistency throughout all levels of the organization.

Understand and Address Cultural Differences.
With advancements in technology, communications and the Internet, we are truly becoming a global economy. Considering cultural differences when building a brand is more important than ever, particularly if your business has international reach. Words and phrases in America might not translate to the same meaning in another country. What customers value and perceive as positive in the United States may be perceived radically different elsewhere. In the past, the United States was the model that all others wanted to emulate. That isn’t necessarily the case today. Therefore, it is incumbent on corporations to ensure that their brands can transcend these cultural differences, if they are to have a greater geographical reach.

Brand extends well beyond your marketing efforts. Your brand is only as good as the people behind it...and the people in front of your customer. Take the time to effectively build a corporate culture that mirrors your brand. Train your employees to represent that brand. Evaluate your consistency in delivering your brand across all aspects of your business. In doing so, you will strengthen your brand equity and position your company for greater success.

Thanks Laura Pasternak

Should You Cut Your Marketing Budget During a Recession?

2010-09-06T16:53:00.000-07:00

Oh my, the sky is falling and we are in an economic downturn. It’s on the news and it is in the papers. Everywhere I turn we hear of the downward spiral of our economic state. I know what you are thinking; it's time to cut that marketing budget. Signs of recession are all around us. Let's start slashing costs and marketing is the first to go. Makes sense, right? No! Let me explain.

Don't you dare cut your marketing budget. That is one of the first mistakes businesses make during times of economic crisis.

It's time to get smarter about your marketing dollar and spend it to bring results. Sounds good doesn't it? However, I can hear you - how do you do it? If ever customer intelligence was important it's now.

The key is to look at your marketing dollars as an investment not an expense. Use the customer knowledge that you have and implement SMART marketing during these times of financial distress.

SMART marketing consists of the following

S - Strategize
M - Maintain market spend
A - Assess and allocate the budget
R - Research your customer thoroughly
T - Target and reach out to them

Stand fast during this time. I can not stress to you the importance of seeing your marketing spend as an investment during this time and not an expense. Companies have survived difficult times and have come out strong. You don't have to take my word for it. I came a across a fantastic and informative study done by Penn State’s Smeal College of Business entitled Research: Proactive Marketing During Recession . All business owners should read this article. In this study they remind of us of companies that weathered the storm and succeeded. A few examples include:

* Procter and Gamble - During the Great Depression they pushed Ivory soap.
* Intel - In 1990-1991 during economic difficulty they pushed out the campaign "Intel Inside".
* Wal-mart - Walmart launched their "Every Day Low Prices" campaign in 2000-2001.

I am sure you recall all of these campaigns as I do. Even when there are difficult times well-positioned companies can in fact survive and thrive in them. It truly is about being SMART and taking marketing seriously now more than ever.

A major key is to know your consumer. Know them inside and out. Know what they think and know where they are. Know how these economic times are hitting them. Create your message around that pain. Reach out to them. Look and revise your product line if necessary. Look at developing lower cost solutions if possible. Be flexible, but at the same time be aware and always assessing.

Consider this - if you in fact cut your marketing budget, how will your consumers find you? You have severed your business lifeline and future hope of potential growth. Perhaps you have a secret that I'm not aware of and can reach that success without marketing. If you do I'm always willing to learn and I’d love to hear from you.

I stand with you during these times and wish you most prosperous marketing campaigns. Success can happen and it can be done, but marketing is involved.

Thanks Laura

Social Media Marketing Benefits for Nonprofit Organizations

2010-09-06T16:51:00.000-07:00

We know that in this economy one area that has been hit hard is the nonprofit organizations. The good news is that social media marketing seems to be working wonders for those organizations.

There are many benefits to social media marketing for nonprofit organizations, but often these organizations are not sure how to get started and sometimes don't have the information it requires to convince their board that it's a marketing method they should explore. I hope to change that today.

A recent report that was released showed that nearly 85% of nonprofit organizations have implemented some type of social media marketing. That's not even the outstanding part, nearly 45% percent of these organizations have found that social media marketing plays a very important role in their fund raising. Do I have your interest now?

What does this mean? It means if you are a nonprofit organization and you have not adopted social media marketing it's time you put it on your radar. In a time when donations are down and fund raising is difficult, why not try social media? After all, what do you have to lose?

Implementing a social media marketing policy and strategy for your non profit organization doesn't have to be difficult. As a matter of fact I'm going to show you the core components that will help you get started and on your way to marketing with social media tools that are available to you.

Thanks Laura

Online Communities: What and Why Do You Want It for Your Site?

2010-09-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

You may think that building an online community is just a matter of setting up a Bulletin Board or a chat room and then sitting back and waiting for the people to come in, but there is a lot more to it than that.
What is a community?

According to the WWWebster Dictionary, a community is (one of several related definitions):a unified body of individuals: as ... a body of persons of common ... interests scattered through a larger society

For the purposes of the Internet, this is the best definition, as it does not require that the people live together, only that they have common interests. By that definition, anyone who visits your Web site is a part of the community of that Web site.

Why build community?
Once you have people coming to your Web site, you already have a community of sorts, so why spend time "building" one? The Internet is a cold place. Most communities in history have been built around people who lived together, and so could get to know and work with the other members of their community.

When you are part of a community on the Web, you often don't know the other people with whom you interact. You could walk right past them on the street and not say hello. Building a community on your Web site, gives your visitors the chance to interact and feel a part of something. These connections build a network between people and (hopefully) they will like interacting with people with similar interests and so will keep coming back.

Online communities give your readers reason to stay interested in your site, and give you more readers.

How do you add community?

There is no tried and true method to encourage community spirit and feeling on the Web, but there are some tools to help encourage community.

Bulletin Boards and Online Forums
Bulletin boards are a great way to create an online community. Most forum software allows people to browse through the postings before logging in, and once they feel comfortable they can set up an alias and submit their own posts.

Web Based Chat Rooms
Chat rooms bring instant interactivity to a Web site. They also bring more anonymity than a bulletin board. Your readers can come into a chat room, give themselves any name they like and talk to other people with similar interests. They are less formal than a chat room, and allow more freedom. Good chat clients allow one person (or more) to act as a moderator so you can have hosted chats and control the room. Once you have a chat room, you can set up regular chats sessions, informal meetings, or just allow people to come and go as they please.

Newsletters
Newsletters are a great way to keep your readers informed about your site. You can use newsletters to talk about new features, explain exciting changes to the site, or just give good information that they might not have found otherwise.

Calendars
Often the most overlooked community builder is the online calendar. This can be as simple as a list of events and their dates and times, or as complex as you can imagine. They are an invaluable tool for building community, as they allow your readers to find out what's happening. You can and should list events like your chat room schedule, guest authors, or forum topics to be discussed, but don't forget events outside of your site. If your readers find that they can get valuable information from your calendar, they will come back and be more motivated to use it for your other online services.

Thanks Jennifer!

7 Signs You're Creating Your Own Workplace Stress

2010-08-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

Quick, by a show of hands, how many of you have workplace stress? Almost everybody, great. Now, how much of that stress do you think is self-imposed? What, no hands? Well, I’m not surprised, but you may be in for one.

You see, most people make their own stress. Why do they do it? How should I know? I’m not a shrink. So how do I know it’s true? I don’t; you tell me if any of these 7 Signs You’re Creating Your Own Workplace Stress resonate with you:

1. Not making enough money? Join the club. Nobody, I mean nobody makes enough money. Work hard, be smart, do great things, learn how to negotiate, and the money will come. That’s how it works.
2. Under appreciated, nobody loves you? Boss treats your co-worker better than you? Did you ever think maybe it’s you? Maybe you’re always whining. Maybe you treat them like crap. Maybe you never grew up. Who knows?
3. Your group gets no respect. IT is always getting dumped on. Sales and marketing has it easy. Guess what? The other group probably feels the same way. It’s called Silo behavior and it’s destructive, period. Grow up.
4. You have a psycho boss? An abusive self-hating jerk who acts out his childhood drama on poor unsuspecting employees. That sucks, but the unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, so you don’t get to pick your boss. Fighting battles you can’t win generates stress.
5. Too much work, too little time. This is usually self-imposed. Are you sure your deadlines are real and not just you feeling self-important, pushing yourself too hard because you haven’t got a life outside work? Slow down; what’s the worst that can happen?
6. Peer problems. There’s a coworker you just don’t get along with and it’s really stressful, right? Well, guess what? I’ll bet she feels the same way about you. It happens to everybody. Try a little detente. Offer an olive branch. Swallow your pride and give in. It won’t kill you.
7. Executive management doesn’t listen or care. Did it ever occur to you that executive managers are people too? They have their own issues and they’re not perfect. Some companies are well managed, some are managed by idiots. On the outside chance they’re not idiots, did you ever think that maybe, just maybe they know more than you do?

If you think this post oversimplifies things, think again. You may be over complicating things.

Try a little experiment: If you experience an issue or two and it changes when you jump companies or groups, then you were probably in a dysfunctional workplace. Welcome to the real world. Don’t whine and complain. Don’t give in and don’t give up. Be optimistic. Continue your search for a passionate, fulfilling job at a great company. You’ll find it.

But if it doesn’t change, if it’s always the same, then it’s probably you. You might want to see somebody about that.

Client Red Flags? Ask These 4 Questions

2010-08-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Steve Tobak

Ever get a call or an email from a new client and, well, it just doesn’t feel right? I mean, red flags go up, your spider sense starts tingling, the hair on the back of your neck sticks up? You know something’s not quite right but you’re just not sure what it is.

But still, times are tough and you need the business. I don’t know about you, but when I’ve got bills to pay, I tend to cut potential clients a lot of slack. Lately, if it even looks like I’m in any way “screening” a potential client, even the slightest bit, my wife looks at me like I’m some kind of moron. You know what I’m talking about.

So, if you’re a consultant, salesperson, work for yourself, or are in any kind of service profession, these four questions will help you deal with potentially problematic clients. I’ve been around a long time and, IMO, Business Pundit hit this one out of the park.

Is there a way to both respect your intuition and the financial health of your business?

The answer is yes. I recently found four excellent questions that you can ask yourself if you have a bad “gut feel” about a new client. Tamara Suttle, M.Ed., LPC, a psychotherapist and marketing expert, shared these questions on a forum I frequent. I wanted to repost them because I found them so incredibly useful.

1. How did you find me?
2. Have you ever worked with a _________ (fill in the profession) before?
3. Did you find it useful?
4. What did / didn’t work for you with that professional?

In case it isn’t obvious, the response to these four questions will provide a tremendous amount of information and go a long way to helping you determine 1) if the opportunity is even real, 2) how you might go about succeeding where others before you have failed, and 3) if you should pursue it or punt.

2010-08-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

This is the first step in the process of developing your brand strategy. By defining who your brand is you create the foundation for all other components to build on. Your brand definition will serve as your measuring stick in evaluating any and all marketing materials and strategies. You will begin this process by answering the questions below.

1. What products and/or services do you offer? Define the qualities of these services and/or products.

2. What are the core values of your products and services? What are the core values of your company?

3. What is the mission of your company?

4. What does your company specializes in?

5. Who is your target market? Who do your products and services attract?

6. What is the tag line of your company? What message does your tag line send to your prospects?

7. Using the information from the previous steps create a personality or character for your company that represents your products or services. What is the character like? What qualities stand out? Is the personality of your company innovative, creative, energetic, or sophisticated

8. Use the personality that you created in the previous step and build a relationship with your target market that you defined in Step 5. How does that personality react to target audience? What characteristics stand out? Which characteristics and qualities get the attention of your prospects.

9. Review the answers to the questions above and create a profile of your brand. Describe the personality or character with words just as if you were writing a biography or personal ad. Be creative.

# Focus on your target audience when answering each question.
# Compile each answer in a journal or notebook specifically designated to the Brand Development of your company.
# Be honest with your answers, answer each question thoroughly.

Social Media Marketing: Put It to Work for You

2010-08-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

Like most people you have probably heard about social media marketing, maybe even dabbled a bit in Twitter, Facebook or YouTube, but you are still not sure how you can put social media to work for you and your business. I understand. I've put together a few resources that will help you not only understand the need and the importance of social media marketing, but they will also help you in getting started.

I know I sound like a broken record when I talk about the economy, but the truth is we are all trying to be resourceful and find those low-cost and no-cost ways to market; social media is an option. If you are struggling and your marketing dollars are shrinking I challenge you to give social media marketing a try. You may not and honestly probably won't experience success overnight, but over time you will begin to see and reap the marketing benefits and rewards that social media marketing brings to your marketing mix.

Marketing During a Recession

2010-08-12T02:25:00.000-07:00

Businesses are tightening their budgets and many of them are cutting their marketing budget. I understand that these times are tough and I know that many companies are even laying off employees, but it is important to understand that cutting your marketing budget can often cause more harm to the growth of your business than you realize.

Studies have shown that companies that continue to market during tough economic times often see growth during those times, where businesses that cut their marketing budget will often see a decrease in sales.

It's not time to cut the marketing budget, it's time to re-evaluate your marketing and analyze what is working and what's not. Take time to explore new options of marketing that cost less, but can still deliver the results you are looking for.

We cannot ignore these financial difficulties that our country is facing, but today I want to help you understand the importance of marketing during the recession, learn how to set a marketing budget that you can work with, and explore popular no cost to low-cost marketing tips that you can begin implementing today.

Reference:Laura's Marketing Blog

Boosting Your Hits: Web Page Marketing

2010-08-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

One of the most talked about subjects is how to get people to the Web page. With millions of Web pages there is sure to be another on your topic and probably lots. So how do you boost hits?
Some Common Ideas

With every good idea comes a price. When you're promoting your Web site, try to use the methods that work best for you, but remember the drawbacks.

1. Submit your site to search engines.
Search engines all have different methods of adding sites, but if you submit your site to them, a listing will help improve your site statistics.

But... it can take a long time to submit your site to a lot of search engines. Also, you can't be sure that all search engines will accept your site.

2. Use meta tags.
Meta tags allow search engines to categorize your site based on the keywords and descriptions you place in your pages. They go in the head of your HTML document. Meta tags most often use the keywords and description meta tags. There are even several sites that will help you build your meta tags to increase your standing.

But... not all search engines use meta tags. For example, About.com pages list sites that are relevant to topics, but the sites listed are chosen by the Guides. Submitting your site to be listed at a relevant About.com Web site is a good idea, but the listing will be decided upon by a person, not a machine reading meta tags.

3. Talk to developers of sites that are relevant.
Most sites have a "related sites" link and if your site is relevant, try to get it linked there. Remember that Web sites don't build themselves, and if you are nice to the owner of a Web site they may want to work more with you to promote your site as well as their own. Also make sure to submit your site to ratings organizations that are relevant to your subject matter.

But... you can't force any Web developer to link to your site. They will do it if they want to. Reciprocal links will do a lot for getting people to link to you.

4. Use a submission service.
A simple way to get your site listed in a lot of places is to pay to have it listed in search engines. There are many services like this available, some are online and some you use a program on your computer.

But... While this is easily the best way to increase your hits to your site, it can be expensive. Some services charge hundreds of dollars to list your site in many different engines. This may be worth it to you, but for someone just starting a Web business, it would be better to use the free ones or do it yourself.

5. Word of mouth.
This is a nice, community oriented way to get your site visited. There are services like Recommend-It that make it simple for your readers to tell their friends. Make sure that all your friends know about your site as well.

But... there isn't a lot you can do to promote your site this way. Make sure that you have good customer rapport and encourage people you talk to to tell their friends about your site.

6. Advertise other than just the Web.
Keep your URL in your email messages and other correspondence. Direct mail (US Postal Service) can get you good exposure, as can billboards, newspaper and magazine advertisements, and posters. Your URL should be on your business card, and if you get promotional products such as pens, mugs, or t-shirts, make sure that your URL is on them too.

But... this can be expensive. If you can, try to get your site featured in local news stories, possibly as a "local color" type interest story. This will get your URL in the paper, and get more people to your site.

7. Get a Good URL.
Many Marketing people will tell you that their page is a success because it has a good URL that is easy for their customers to remember. A good URL is short, "intuitive", and preferably has a domain name that reflects the content. For example:
http://www.bookstore.com/

is a better URL than

http://www.isp.net/~bookstore/

which is better than

http://www.isp.net/~jenn/interesting/sites/links/bookstore.html

But... some very popular pages are on GeoCities, which often have very long URLs, are not on their own domain name, and are not necessarily "intuitive". Clean URLs can be important, but remember that many people will get to your page via links, and URLs are not important to them.

Thanks Jennifer!

Low-Budget High-Impact Marketing Plan

2010-07-19T01:44:00.000-07:00

Great Portfolio Site for Web Designing

2010-02-25T02:15:00.000-08:00

Now I spend more time on the web than probably I need to. Everyday I'm online searching for sites that deal with web design or networking. I come across some great sites and some ridiculous ones as well. Just recently I came across the site http://www.newwebpick.com/. The site lists the top rated web sites in the world from what I viewed. They have some great designs by some great designers, and a few or more site designs that are unbelievably crazy. Check out the site and if your a web designer, definitely post your stuff here. And let me know if you come across any great site picks for designer resources.

Sales Lead Generation and Article Marketing Tips

2009-10-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

Article marketing is the best sales lead generation technique on the Web today. Unfortunately, many marketers writing articles on the Web fall short in their sales lead generation efforts. They simply can't get people to visit their websites.

This is a critical fallacy that will render your article marketing campaign worthless. You must get people to visit your website and join your mailing list. If you don't, you are wasting your time, money and energy.

Sure, it is great to write articles displaying you as the expert in your field. And, yes, it is nice to post articles that help the world in general. But if your goal is to use article marketing as a sales lead generation technique that builds your email list, you might be falling short if your articles don't have a call to action that grabs readers by the throat and pulls them to your website.

Include an Irresistible Offer in Your Article

How do you maximize lead generation from your articles? You must have an irresistible offer so people will come to your website and identify themselves. Once you capture your prospects' names and email addresses, you will be able to create a sales-winning relationship. If you don't do this critical step in lead generation, you'll never have another chance to sell to these people.

Enticements to Use in Your Article Marketing Campaigns

Here are four irresistible products or services to help prospects make the critical decision to visit your website and give you their email addresses for lead generation success:

* Special reports. Don't confuse special reports with newsletters. These are 3-5 page reports on a special topic. They should include your own insights that prove you are the expert.
* Quizzes. People love to take quizzes. Create quizzes that have 10 yes or no answers. Design questions so people will see their pain. This sets you up as the expert who has products and services that can help them.
* Free 15-minute consulting sessions. When offering free consulting services, be careful of tire kickers who want free advice and won't ever buy. Here are three easy steps to conducting lead generation consulting sessions properly:
1. Get the person to clearly state the problem.
2. Show how your background can help the person. However, don't give away your best thinking at this point. Think of this as a get-to-know-you session, not a high level exchange of ideas.
3. Ask for the order to get them to buy your books or consulting services.
* Offer free chapters in your book or free sneak previews to your information products including software, DVDs, CDs and MP3s. This tactic will overcome your prospects' fears of the unknown. People will get hooked and buy your products.

Article Marketing Lead Generation Success

The most important part of writing articles for lead generation is getting people to visit your website. If you offer these tactics, you will build your list and get more names for your sales funnel.

The Big Deal About Twitter

2009-10-20T16:49:00.001-07:00

Simple Question: Is Twitter making you any money?

How can someone become a legit Twitter Celebrity?

2009-10-20T16:41:00.001-07:00

How can someone become a legit Twitter Celebrity?

Step 1: Don’t push out too many links, you are not an RSS reader.

Step 2: Don’t read any of the Twitter or “How To Use Social Media” books out there. Doing so will make you sound like everyone else who has read those books, which mutes your voice.

Step 3: Be honest. Say what you really think, all the time, no matter what. Social publishing is about authenticity and transparency, if you’re not yourself online, people are going to be in for a shock when they actually meet you.

Step 4: It takes time. I’ve been pushing one thing or another online since 1998. It’s now 2009. If you’re serious about this, and you have no connections like I did starting out, you need to put in a lot of work for little to no reward for a very long time.

Step 5: Be everywhere. If there’s a directory, you should be there. If a blog lets you leave a comment using Twitter or include your username, do that. If there’s an open-call for Twitter users to submit X,Y,or Z, submit all three. Don’t ever push too hard with your audience, but push hard when you have an opportunity to promote yourself in a non-spammy way.

Step 6: Don’t automate anything. Automation = Failure.

Step 7: If you don’t see any sort of improvement in exactly one year in terms of an organic growth of followers, re-tweets, and click-throughs, then re-evaluate what you’re doing and tweak what you can. Always leave room for tweaks.

Fighting a cold is a full time business!

2009-10-02T19:25:00.001-07:00

Been away from my blog for over a week or so now. Having a really bad cold and trying to work-makes work even harder. I hope everyone stays healthy out there as we head into a tough winter.

Marketing Basics for the Small Business

2009-08-19T01:42:00.000-07:00

The essence of marketing is to understand your customers' needs and develop a plan that surrounds those needs. Let's face it anyone that has a business has a desire to grow their business. The most effective way to grow and expand your business is by focusing on organic growth.

You can increase organic growth in four different ways. They include:

* Acquiring more customers
* Persuading each customer to buy more products
* Persuading each customer to buy more expensive products or up selling each customer
* Persuading each customer to buy more profitable products

All four of these increase your revenue and profit. Let me encourage you to focus on the first which is to acquire more customers. Why? Because by acquiring more customers you increase your customer base and your revenues then come from a larger base.

How can you use marketing to acquire more customers?

* Spend time researching and create a strategic marketing plan.
* Guide your product development to reach out to customers you aren't currently attracting.
* Price your products and services competitively.
* Develop your message and materials based on solution marketing.

The Importance of a Target Market in Small Business

When it comes to your customers keep in mind the importance of target marketing. The reason this is important is that only a proportion of the population is likely to purchase any products or service. By taking time pitch your sales and marketing efforts to the correct niche market you will be more productive and not waste your efforts or time.

It's important to consider your virtual segmentation by selecting particular verticals to present your offerings to. Those verticals will have the particular likelihood of purchasing your products and services. Again, this saves you from wasting valuable time and money.

Small Business Marketing and Large Business Marketing are Different

If you are like the majority of small business owners your marketing budget is limited. The most effective way to market a small business is to create a well rounded program that combines sales activities with your marketing tactics. Your sales activities will not only decrease your out-of-pocket marketing expense but it also adds the value of interacting with your prospective customers and clients. This interaction will provide you with research that is priceless.

Small businesses typically have a limited marketing budget if any at all. Does that mean you can't run with the big dogs? Absolutely not. It just means you have to think a little more creatively. How about launching your marketing campaign by doing one of the following:

* Call your vendors or associates and ask them to participate with you in co-op advertising.
*
* Take some time to send your existing customers' referrals and buying incentives.
*
* Have you thought about introducing yourself to the media? Free publicity has the potential to boost your business. By doing this you position yourself as an expert in your field.
*
* Invite people into your place of business by piggybacking onto an event. Is there a concert coming to town, are you willing to sell those tickets? It could mean free radio publicity. If that is not your cup of tea, how about a walkathon that is taking place in your area, why not be a public outreach and distribute their material?

When you do spend money on marketing, do not forget to create a way to track those marketing efforts. You can do this by coding your ads, using multiple toll-free telephone numbers, and asking prospects where they heard about you. This enables you to notice when a marketing tactic stops working. You can then quickly replace it with a better choice or method.

Getting Started with Small Business Marketing

By being diligent in your marketing and creating an easy strategy such as holding yourself accountable to contact ten customers or potential customers daily five days a week you will see your business grow at an exceptional rate. The great thing is it will not take a large marketing budget to make it happen.

Are sites like Directfreelance.com beneficial for designers?

2008-12-30T02:44:00.000-08:00

I have personally viewed this site and at one time placed bids for projects. It was amazing, if not, downright ridiculous to see the response of bids on projects. The rates some designers charged dropped as low as a couple of dollars for projects that any sane designer would charge somewhat in the high thousands. It was also downright annoying to place your bid on a project and before you know it-another designer would outbid you by a few dollars and so on. This would continue until the bid actually closing, leaving the final designer bidding to do something on the lines of $10 for the design of an ecommerce website. I started to question are these legit designers bidding or the actual company Directfreelance.com submitting bids to keep the hype up. I mean come on people, are there really designers that hard up for business that they would literally cut their rates 95% to get a project.

If Directfreelance.com is a legit business, please designers who have been successful on this site-please respond to this posting and tell your story. Also, let me know your thoughts on the rates Directfreelance.com charges designers to just bid on projects alongside hundreds across the entire world. I think Directfreelance.com would benefit more by charging the companies and not the designers.