Freebies: Kicking the Cheapskate Habit

What’s the magic word in marketing? Yeah, that’s right… FREE! It’s the basic foundation of Marketing 101. That four-letter word captures attention, and spells success.

Keywords:
marketing, free, advertising

What’s the magic word in marketing? Yeah, that’s right… FREE! It’s the basic foundation of Marketing 101. That four-letter word captures attention, and spells success.

Now for the big question, “Are you implementing it?” Nope, those old clearance items that you haven’t been able to get rid of for the past decade don’t count. I’m talking about the real deal… something that’s worth something just being given away, no strings attached and no hidden costs.

Chances are that you’re probably just like the rest of us, and are afraid to really give something away. Heck, it costs a LOT of money to just throw products out the window to everyone who looks your way. We know how many people are out there like leaches, just looking for a handout, right?

Maybe… then again, maybe we cut ourselves out of a big bunch of profit by being cheapskates. That’s right, cheapskates!

Think about this. How can you effectively describe the taste of a crisp salad with all the trimmings, and a hot steaming turkey sandwich? Aren’t there a dozen restaurants that serve the same menu?

Would a restaurant owner be a fool to give away 1000 FREE lunches instead of trying to say in words when the tantalizing aroma, succulent tastes, and tasteful appearance can do convince in a way no words could ever? Sure, it might cost $5000, but how much higher would conversion rates be?

It sure doesn’t take long to rack up a $5000 dollar advertising bill with local TV and radio stations, or the newspaper. Will they net as many converted consumers?

Maybe you’re not into the food industry, but there is something you can give away that will have the same affect. Maybe it’s a free informational seminar, a free oil change, a free subscription, or a free haircut.

The key is to get them in the door, and wow them with the best you’ve got to offer. Believe me, consumers know when they’ve been handed cast-offs and when they’ve been wined and dined like royalty. You judge… which is more effective?

Most of us have come to expect the hidden agendas of giveaways. When we accept a gift, we’re looking for the “catch.” It’s a pleasant surprise to come across the “real deal.” We’re taken aback. We scratch our heads and wonder, but deep inside there’s a warm fuzzy that sticks around. We remember genuine generosity!

The next time you’re looking for a way to increase revenue, and are tempted to take the cheap way out, curb the urge. Go all out and treat your customers to an old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness FREE gift. See what happens!

Hey, I didn’t say it would be easy or that it wouldn’t take guts! Just remember that sometimes the biggest risks pay off big, and that risk takers often come out on top. Go the extra mile, and stand out above the competition… even if it scares you a little bit.

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Top Ten Questions to Ask YOurself When Selecting Your Target Market

Target Market is defined as the group to which you aim your marketing efforts. The more clearly you define and understand your market, the better you can market directly to that group. Talk their language, answer their problems, and show that your really “get” them and they are more likely to do business with you. Here are some questions to help you better define your target market.

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Target Market is defined as the group to which you aim your marketing efforts. The more clearly you define and understand your market, the better you can market directly to that group. Talk their language, answer their problems, and show that your really “get” them and they are more likely to do business with you. Just because you market to one group however doesn’t mean you have to turn away business from another group. Your product or service may be appropriate for many groups but your marketing will be more effective if you market directly to one at a time.

1. What are the demographics of my market? What are the measurable statistics that I know about my market such as age, income or occupation?

2. What are the psychographics of my market? What are the lifestyle preferences of my market? Are they all music lovers, golfers, or condo owners?

3. Is this a group I enjoy working with and/or find fascinating? If I have to spend a lot of time with this group will I be bored or repelled by it?

4. What kind of connection do I have to this market so I know it well? Am I part of the market myself or have I been part of it in the past? Do I have family and friends that are part of it?

5. What are the professional organizations, clubs, or activities that my target market frequents? I want to be able to find my market and talk to them directly. Do I know where to go?

6. What newspapers, magazines or websites does my market enjoy? If I want to stay in touch with the market ongoing then I need to know what this group is reading.

7. Do I understand the problems that my market faces? Will my product or service solve a problem for them?

8. Do I know the language that this market uses? Knowing the vocabulary of my market gives me more credibility.

9. Do I know what attracts this group? How do I let this group know about my product or service? What will get their attention?

10. Do I know who influences this group? Who are the people respected by this group? What are they advocating and can I align my product or service in some way with them?

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Viral Marketing 101 – Not Using It Could Kill Your Business! Here’s How To Capitalize On It.

Creativity.

This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.

It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.

While there…

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Creativity.

This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so many competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.

It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.

While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.

While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.

Viral Marketing Overview

Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.

In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pas on the product. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.

Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.

Using Viral Marketing to your advantage

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them moirй popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”?

Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsoft’s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked wonders for them.

Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.

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Don’t Read This Article – I Dare You!

See? It worked! The title said ‘Don’t Read This Article – I Dare You!’, and here you are reading it anyway. Victory for me and my amazing psychic abilities?

Hardly.

Actually, this Maiden Voyage article of The Don’t Chronicles has but one goal: to teach you the power of negative thinking! No, I don’t mean that you should give up on your positive attitude. I mean that people don’t like to be told “DON’T!”

Think about it. Why did you read this article? Defiance? Curiosi…

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See? It worked! The title said ‘Don’t Read This Article – I Dare You!’, and here you are reading it anyway. Victory for me and my amazing psychic abilities?

Hardly.

Actually, this Maiden Voyage article of The Don’t Chronicles has but one goal: to teach you the power of negative thinking! No, I don’t mean that you should give up on your positive attitude. I mean that people don’t like to be told “DON’T!”

Think about it. Why did you read this article? Defiance? Curiosity? Don’t like being told what to do – or NOT do?

These are the same emotions that people will experience when you tell them “Don’t buy my product”, “Don’t use my services”, “Don’t visit my website”.

They will say things like “I don’t care WHO that person thinks they are! I’ll buy the product, use the service, or visit the website if I want to; I don’t care what they say!”

They will think “I wonder what is so special about that product, service, or website that this person is willing to risk losing his or her audience by telling them not to participate?”

You don’t have to have the “Next Big Thing”, or have some “Incredible New” product in order to get someone interested. Instead, just get them interested!

Tell them that they don’t want to look into your services or products. They don’t need to read your information-packed website. They don’t want to spend time learning about how your product or service could help them.

Do you know what their first question is going to be when you tell them these things? “Why Not??”

Now you’ve picqued their interest! Now they want to learn more. They want to learn about this top-secret product they weren’t supposed to know about. They want to see this website that you told them not to bother visiting. They want to find out why your services are so in-demand that you can afford to tell people NOT to use them!

Human beings are people, and people are curious, and people don’t like being told what to do. This isn’t Sales and Marketing 101. This is Human Nature. If you want to sell your products and services to humans, you need to learn how humans think.

Or Don’t. I don’t really care anyway. I’ve obviously piqued YOUR interest, or you wouldn’t have read this far!

DON’T check out the rest of The Don’t Chronicles! After all, no one could possibly have a point of view or a unique way of dealing with life that you haven’t already thought of, right?

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Gain more Momentum with Color Postcards

Why do postcards gain more momentum from businessmen and purchasers alike? There lots of reasons behind this.

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Why do postcards gain more momentum from businessmen and purchasers alike? There lots of reasons behind this.

First, color postcards are affordable. It won’t drain your finances just to make your business famous and to increase its goodwill. Weighing your company’s budget down is not a good idea. In fact, it can be frustrating if the endeavor turned out to be a flop. Better have it in a competent price yet with a clever quality than drain your financial resources for nothing.

After finances, color postcard printing gives you an obvious business edge. It opens to many doors of business opportunities. You may not know it but it can result to overwhelming aftermath. The reason is that you are extending your facilities and marketing strategies in an almost effortless move. Let the viewers circulate your business for you that is what color postcards can do for you. Money-wise, marketing wise – what else can you ask for?

Color postcards also increases readership and retention. Thus, through the help of these marketing tools your business will be preserved in their minds and when they plan a purchase, they just have to rely on their memories to guide them with their buying decisions. That’s where the real action is.

Color postcards are also versatile. They can be distributed through single mailing or even through electronic mails. They can be personally given to prospective customers. They can be used to inspire, to educate, to persuade, to move and be guided to a certain purpose. In your case, you can lead them to purchase your products and motivate them to love you back. Moreover, expect for more and more sales!

A lot of businesses are using postcards because they are often perceived as something that will not waste any person’s time. They are engrossing and powerful emotional tool that knows no rejection. Every person will be hooked by them – staring and appreciating the beauty that in it or what lies within. Thus, if you are after the emotional aspect which is very much vital in the marketing world, go for color postcards! They will not only brighten the mood of the viewers. They will surely illuminate your business goals and endeavors!

Subtle full color postcards may not be that subtle when it comes to giving you business momentum. It can be wild, compelling and succumbing to purchasers. If you are short in words, be sure not to be short in persuasion..

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What is a Niche Market Anyway?

You are interested in starting a home-based business. You also want to use the Internet for your work-at-home idea. However, you are not sure if you can make money online. To make matters worse, you are confused about what home-based business opportunity to pursue.

Keywords:
Niche, niche market

You are interested in starting a home-based business. You also want to use the Internet for your work-at-home idea. However, you are not sure if you can make money online. To make matters worse, you are confused about what home-based business opportunity to pursue.

If this sounds like you, rest assured that money can be made online with a home-based business. You don’t need to study for years until you can reap rewards. There are sound business concepts that have been taught and proven to be true by some of the most highly successful marketers in the world. What is the top sound principle that will ensure your success? It is choosing the right niche market.

You might be wondering what is a niche. A niche is simply a group of people with similar interests and needs. They are very passionate about their topic of interest. Think of a small pond packed with starving fish and you have the bait specific to their needs; they will like what you have to offer the best. This, in essence, is a niche.

Why a niche market? Well, unless you are a huge corporation with bottomless pockets, niche marketing is the way to go. You see most of the large corporations blow off niche markets because they are not trying to make an additional $1000 to $15000 per month like many home-based business entrepreneurs and other small business owners. They are seeking to make millions per month, which is good for you because you don’t have to compete with those companies that have massive marketing budgets.

It really is easy to find potential customers in niche markets. Here are some examples:

Motor Home Owners
Carpet Cleaner Business Owners
Restaurant Owners
Winter Camping Enthusiasts
Siamese Cat Owners
Dentists
Landscape Company Owners

You get the picture.

Before you decide which niche market to target for your home- based business, here are four important points to consider:

1. Is the market easily defined and reachable? Do you know where they hangout? What kind of trade journals or publications do they read? Do they have clubs or are members of particular organizations?

2. Is the market small enough that you will not have tons of competitors, but still large enough for you to make a good profit?

3. Does the market have the money to spend?

4. Does the group have an insane passion for their hobby or topic of interest? Do they eat, sleep, and breathe their hobby? Are they constantly seeking more information related to their subject? A great example of this would be golfers and NASCAR enthusiasts!

Doing research related to these questions will help you pick the perfect niche market for your home-based business.

As you think about starting a home-based business and what market to target, follow the above suggestions and you will be way ahead of many other home-based business opportunity seekers who want to start a work-at-home business.

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You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression

Your website is the first thing your new potential customers will see when they meet you. Are you making a good first impression? Meeting someone online is little different than meeting them in person; unfortunately, you have less than a minute to catch their attention and keep them reading. Do they like the look of you? Are you saying what your customers are looking to hear? With the future of your online business riding on your words, are you making a good impression? Here …

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Your website is the first thing your new potential customers will see when they meet you. Are you making a good first impression? Meeting someone online is little different than meeting them in person; unfortunately, you have less than a minute to catch their attention and keep them reading. Do they like the look of you? Are you saying what your customers are looking to hear? With the future of your online business riding on your words, are you making a good impression? Here are five ideas to have your customers staying longer and remember you long after the encounter ends:

l. Dress nicely and be well groomed. Have you ever been to a website you were ready to leave as soon as you got there? Me too. Chances are things were too loud and too busy. Though there may have been something there of interest to you, you weren’t likely to have found it. So what is the well groomed website wearing this season? Not too many loud flashing headlines. Instead, make sure your site is calm and confident. Your headline and first paragraph should be a summarization of the website theme. Who you are, what you’re going to share with them and why you decided to do so. No one likes to read half a page only to find the site didn’t deal with their issue of interest. No flashing lights, no neon headlines, no blaring music or boisterous sales pitches blasting away.

2. Have a nice voice; be friendly and pleasant. Have you ever met someone you initially thought you’d like to get to know… and then they opened their mouth and you realized you knew all you needed to? Your website should speak to your readers like a good friend might. Be easy to understand. Write in short sentences, with short paragraphs. Each paragraph should have a theme, stated in the first sentence, and elaborated on through its conclusion. And though it’s so tempting to put some fancy font on your website, you have no idea what they’ll see. Stick to the basic Arial, Helvetica, & Sans-serif fonts. They’re easy on the eye.

3. Talk just to them; treat them like they’re the only one. Rather than talking to the masses as a whole, write to a particular person. Picture them in your mind and write as though you are having a private conversation with them. Be their friend – This is something for ‘you’, not just anyone. They’ll feel like you really like them and like they have your undivided attention. Always use active voice rather than passive. It will make them feel as though you’re speaking directly to them.

4. Always focus on their needs rather than being pushy and trying to move too fast. Nobody likes to be around someone who pushes the relationship too quickly. You want to get to know someone before you get too emotionally involved. There was a reason this person chose to visit your website. Address that need. How can you solve their problem? Don’t tell them what you have; tell them what problem of theirs you can solve. Making a purchase is an emotional decision. If you move too quickly, they won’t be ready to commit emotionally. Get to know them first.

5. Give them a reason to stick around or come back. Give them something they can’t get anywhere else. While yes, they probably won’t feel as special at any other website, but on the off chance the competition is also following these five steps, give them a free mini-course. Let them see you care about their success and about them. Show them you value the relationship. Give them a free report; something to help them reach their goal.

If you follow these guidelines, you’ll make a wonderful impression and your new friends won’t want to leave. They’ll appreciate your thoughtfulness and stick around long enough to see what an absolute ‘peach’ you really are.

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Dramatically Increase Qualified Leads With Qualified Promotional Gifts

There may not be a lot you can do about past promotional products that ended up losing or even costing you money, but you can guarantee that you never again lose money on promotional items that fail miserably.

Keywords:
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Are you sitting at your desk, scratching your head and wondering why you just spent a gazillion dollars on a marketing promotion that brought you exactly zero return on your investment? Do you still have boxes and boxes of those pens you thought would have your phone ringing off the hook, sitting in your storage room or warehouse, lonely because no one wants to take them home?

Don’t freak out. There may not be a lot you can do about past promotional products that ended up losing or even costing you money, but you can guarantee that you never again lose money on promotional items that fail miserably.

How? Well, see, it’s all the idea behind the promotional item. Many business owners make the mistake of thinking if they stick their logo on a cheap or even very nice pen or magnet, their bottom lines will instantly rise.

It takes more than that for promotional items to work. It takes some thought and planning on your part for them to stand a fighting chance in this extremely cluttered marketing and advertising arena. Yep, it takes knowing two things: 1) What message do you want the promotional item to convey, and 2) What action do you want the customer to take.

Unless you know these two things and work them clearly into your promotional items, even the cleverest promotional product will fail. People may get a nice pen or refrigerator magnet, or even something unique, from you, but unless it has a message and spurs your clients to take action of some kind, the pen will get stuck in a drawer or lost, and the magnet will get stuck on the refrigerator and forgotten until it’s needed to stick up a grocery list.

Pens and magnets are great for branding your company, but they rarely make anyone want to use a company’s services. At best, in an emergency, because your number just happens to be on their desk or refrigerator, you’ll get a call-and a sale.

That’s because other than presenting your logo, name, address and phone number, they don’t have a clear message. The promotional item may even say you’re the best widget maker in the USA, but so do a zillion other pens and magnets and notepads out there. But they don’t give anyone a reason to use your company’s product or service. And even your promotional ideas have to connect to your customers’ needs for them to take action of any kind. People need a reason or benefit to make them take action.

So get your message and call to action clear in your mind, then choose a promotional item that gets those two things across to your customers-and you’ll have promotional items that are hands-down winners every time.

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Get Affordable-Even Free-Targeted Advertising In Magazines

By now most of us have tried just about every advertising method available. From ads on Google to website banners. And even though you may have found an advertising method that works, you’re probably still looking for more.

I’m often surprised by how many home-based business owners and opportunity seekers have never thought of advertising in magazines. Magazines are the original targeted media. While TV shows and newspapers may try to appeal to a very wide audience featuri…

Keywords:
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By now most of us have tried just about every advertising method available. From ads on Google to website banners. And even though you may have found an advertising method that works, you’re probably still looking for more.

I’m often surprised by how many home-based business owners and opportunity seekers have never thought of advertising in magazines. Magazines are the original targeted media. While TV shows and newspapers may try to appeal to a very wide audience featuring many different kinds of people, magazines have always focused their efforts on a tightly defined audience.

For example, look through the magazine rack the next time you’re at the grocery store and you will see dozens of different magazines focusing on everything from cars, fishing, crafts, home decorating, relationships, and business. All these magazines cater to a different audience with different tastes and buying habits.

By choosing magazines that focus on your best potential customers, you almost guarantee your ads will be successful. It’s an old rule in marketing that getting your ad in a magazine that intensely appeals to your best customers will get you ten times the results than advertising in a famous mass appeal publication like Business Week, Time, or Newsweek.

That’s right, advertising your home-based business in Home Business Magazine will most likely get you far more response than getting your name in Newsweek.

And this is REALLY good news for those of us working from home. Smaller, more tightly-focused magazines almost always offer very affordable ads, usually in the back of the magazine. While full and half-page ads can cost hundreds or thousands, you can advertise in the back for about the same cost as putting a classified ad in your local paper. Then, as very few people know, there are also ways to get FREE ads in big magazines. Either way, it’s cheap, targeted, and it could be your best path to new profits.

And don’t let that “back of the magazine” position discourage you. More than half of people read magazines from back to front. Businesses advertising in the back actually have the most visible spot in the magazine.

The weeks ahead are traditionally a time when magazines drop their advertising rates. Place your ads NOW to take advantage of low rates early in the year which, incidentally, is the time of year when the most people are interested in joining a business opportunity.

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What Is Search Engine Marketing

he search engine is a website, which tracks other websites. Deploying a website is no way means of getting any kind of recognition in this world. Web is a reliable source for millions of websites that want recognition.

Keywords:
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“What Is Search Engine Marketing
The search engine is a website, which tracks other websites. Deploying a website is no way means of getting any kind of recognition in this world. Web is a reliable source for millions of websites that want recognition.

Once your web site is up and running makes sure to list down all the major search engines. Most customers use search engines to begin searching for a specific product or service. We provide effective solutions for our clients that can have website contents designed around the targeted keywords. We also provide some dedicated web sites, which can promote your web site free.

As per business prospect, the enquiries are generated for the top ten or fifteen websites only. However, the search engine keeps on changing this way in terms of priorities. Therefore, it is vital to realize the use of precise targeted keywords by the users and webmasters for long-term effectiveness.

Every marketing initiative begins with a solid marketing plan; hence, search engine marketing is no different. However, it is quite an unfortunate fact that most of the search engine marketing are conducted without any the firm foundation and clear direction that a good search engine marketing plan can provide. You can also put your own banner ad on either top or bottom of the highly trafficked page.

There is more than one reason for search engine marketing company for marketing your business through the search engines, such as increase of brand awareness, increase in traffic or popularity.

Furthermore, as in world, the search engine marketing company revenues continues to climb, search engine marketing will demand increasingly stable and intelligent management approaches that incorporate time tested methodologies, which are common to traditional marketing.

We also provide the detailed essential components of basic search engine marketing. Every attempt is made to generalize the instructions and examples for developing a very insightful and effective search engine marketing in such a way that its guidelines are followed by a greater diversity of readers. Each numbered item represents a unique section within the plan itself.

“

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