- 7 Ways to Improve Profit Through Both Long- and Sh...
- WHAT ARE YOUR MARKETING DECISIONS BASED ON? --PART...
- Guerrilla Marketing Attack
- Guerrilla Marketing Attack
- How to Build your Opt-In List
- Use Drop Shipping to Expand into New Markets
- Promoting Marketing Campaigns Via Affiliates
- How To Make Marketing Simple
- Guerrilla Marketing Yourself
Jumat, 22 Mei 2009
MARKETING BASIC
7 Ways to Improve Profit Through Both Long- and Short-Term Strategies
Your marketing mix is the combination of promotions, products, places (distribution channels), and prices you choose for products, services, and the overall business. It is important to strike a balance between those four "Ps". By including both short- and long-term marketing strategies of each, you can create an even more profitable marketing mix.
Long-Term Marketing Strategies
Long-term strategies build brand and company awareness, and give sales revenue a gradual, permanent boost. Some of the benefits are indirect and cannot always be directly associated with profit. For this reason, long-term strategies can be difficult to execute when the focus is short-term.
Branding activities.
High profile activities and general-purpose advertising contribute to your company's image by building familiarity and trust. This, in turn, can create customer loyalty. Successful branding can have a large impact on market share, but is a gradual process so cannot always be definitively measured.
Industry relationships.
Building healthy relationships with distributors and others involved in the industry puts you in a position to know about new opportunities and potential problems as they occur. Long term, this improves the flow of product from you to your customers and creates new distribution channels.
Giving.
Donating money, services, and time can build a positive image with customers and employees. Over time, this increases a company's trustworthiness. When they see you consistently giving something back to the community, they are more confident you will take the same care with them.
Research and development.
A new product pipeline and research are short-term expenses, but represent future sales. Conduct research with customers (or potential target markets) and design products to meet their needs. This ensures future growth.
Short-Term Marketing Strategies
Short-term strategies create immediate revenue. Sales and accounting people often prefer these to long-term approaches because the results are direct and quantifiable. The disadvantage of relying strictly on short-term approaches is the effect is temporary. They tend to be limited-time techniques that do not work well over time. Some examples ...
Reduced price sales.
Sales encourage customers to act. Holding a sale will give customers who have been "meaning to buy" an incentive to do so, resulting in a revenue boost. Frequent sales can erode profit over time as customers become "trained" to wait for a sale instead of buying at full price.
Group discounts and offers.
This is a good way to introduce your products or services to a new set of customers, or give important groups a permanent discount. Carefully evaluate long-term impact, however. Over time, the gain in sales may not offset the cost of continual price reductions.
Blended Marketing Strategies
Some marketing strategies have both long- and short- term benefits. Pay per click (PPC) advertising, for example, is a way to communicate temporary price reductions or highlight a promotion. PPC can also build long-term brand awareness, however, as you expose more people to a Website.
Together, long- and short-term marketing programs help achieve immediate sales goals while building business reputation and goodwill. Implement both and your business will prosper for years to come.
Bobette Kyle draws upon 15+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, online marketing experience, and a marketing MBA as inspiration for her writing. She is proprietor at the marketing plan and Website promotion site www.WebsiteMarketingPlan.com, where you can find more marketing strategy articles at: http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/techniques
Long-Term Marketing Strategies
Long-term strategies build brand and company awareness, and give sales revenue a gradual, permanent boost. Some of the benefits are indirect and cannot always be directly associated with profit. For this reason, long-term strategies can be difficult to execute when the focus is short-term.
Branding activities.
High profile activities and general-purpose advertising contribute to your company's image by building familiarity and trust. This, in turn, can create customer loyalty. Successful branding can have a large impact on market share, but is a gradual process so cannot always be definitively measured.
Industry relationships.
Building healthy relationships with distributors and others involved in the industry puts you in a position to know about new opportunities and potential problems as they occur. Long term, this improves the flow of product from you to your customers and creates new distribution channels.
Giving.
Donating money, services, and time can build a positive image with customers and employees. Over time, this increases a company's trustworthiness. When they see you consistently giving something back to the community, they are more confident you will take the same care with them.
Research and development.
A new product pipeline and research are short-term expenses, but represent future sales. Conduct research with customers (or potential target markets) and design products to meet their needs. This ensures future growth.
Short-Term Marketing Strategies
Short-term strategies create immediate revenue. Sales and accounting people often prefer these to long-term approaches because the results are direct and quantifiable. The disadvantage of relying strictly on short-term approaches is the effect is temporary. They tend to be limited-time techniques that do not work well over time. Some examples ...
Reduced price sales.
Sales encourage customers to act. Holding a sale will give customers who have been "meaning to buy" an incentive to do so, resulting in a revenue boost. Frequent sales can erode profit over time as customers become "trained" to wait for a sale instead of buying at full price.
Group discounts and offers.
This is a good way to introduce your products or services to a new set of customers, or give important groups a permanent discount. Carefully evaluate long-term impact, however. Over time, the gain in sales may not offset the cost of continual price reductions.
Blended Marketing Strategies
Some marketing strategies have both long- and short- term benefits. Pay per click (PPC) advertising, for example, is a way to communicate temporary price reductions or highlight a promotion. PPC can also build long-term brand awareness, however, as you expose more people to a Website.
Together, long- and short-term marketing programs help achieve immediate sales goals while building business reputation and goodwill. Implement both and your business will prosper for years to come.
Bobette Kyle draws upon 15+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, online marketing experience, and a marketing MBA as inspiration for her writing. She is proprietor at the marketing plan and Website promotion site www.WebsiteMarketingPlan.com, where you can find more marketing strategy articles at: http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/techniques
WHAT ARE YOUR MARKETING DECISIONS BASED ON? --PART 1
We all like to think we base our decisions on hard facts, but that’s not always the case. Business leaders will talk about doing their due diligence prior to making a decision; but in reality, when it comes down to it, what really pushes us to select one thing over another is our feelings.
While instinct and intuition do play a role in business (stories abound of business people who refused to pay attention to the facts and created a success out of what should have been a disaster), 9 times out of 10, cold hard facts and reality cannot and should not be ignored.
This new mini-series of BrandReturn™ (our newsletter’s new name) will introduce the basic concepts of business and market research, share some methods of obtaining data, and prod you to begin collecting data and analyzing that data.
Market research consists of two primary categories: primary data and secondary data.
Primary data is made of information obtained through focus groups, surveys, and observation.
Secondary data is provided by another group, such as the Census Bureau, a professional association, or think tank. A problem with using secondary data sources is their information may not relate to your target market or geographic area.
Obtaining primary data yourself is time consuming and can be expensive; but how much money have you or your company wasted on advertising or activities that ended up not generating the business you thought they would?
You already have some primary data in your customers’ buying patterns. If you don’t have a system that provides you with mechanisms to breakdown data into various groups, then you need to begin investigating how to acquire one.
Here’s an example of how data review and analysis can become important:
A large hotel was experiencing an increase in revenue but not an increase in profit.
As the hotel began to study expenses, it discovered that managers were over-scheduling employees on the weekends and even paying overtime to deal with the expected increase in customers that marketing was driving in. Naturally most business would come in on the weekend and the facility would staff up on Friday afternoons and evenings. When check-in data was examined, management discovered that most visitors were checking in on Saturday morning. By making scheduling adjustments and cross-training employees, the hotel was able to use fewer employees to handle the influx of customers. More employees were given time off on Friday nights, raising employee morale which resulted in improved customer service. Soon, expenses were down, revenue was up, and most importantly, profits were up.
None of that would have happened if management didn’t take the time to look at the statistics, analyze the data, and make adjustments.
Surveys can also provide important information a business can use to improve the customer experience, the employee experience, or extend the brand through additional product offerings.
Surveys are labor intensive since they take a bit of time to create, administer, then compile and analyze the data. If spending a couple of thousand dollars can lead to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or more in revenue, it’s money well spent. The same can be said if that investment saves you from spending even more money to invest in something that your customers don’t want (and remember: Customers don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.).
There are lots of ways to conduct a survey. The method used depends on what data you’re trying to obtain and what customer segment or segment of potential customers (or former customers) you’re trying to reach.
For example, if you own a bricks-and-mortar store, you can ask your customers to complete a quick comment or survey card while you package their purchases. Of course, they may not be as entirely honest as they could be since you’re standing in front of them and, assuming you read the card right after they walk away it’s not anonymous (you could have them drop it in a box for an extra level of anonymity).
You could also mail surveys to customers (with a self-addressed, stamped envelope or SASE), try phone surveys (you can just imagine how hard they are to conduct), or email surveys. All of these techniques have pros and cons and we can’t stress enough that the method you pick should be the best method to be used with the population you’re targeting. If your customers are in a certain age group who are not heavy internet users, an internet-based survey administered through email would be a mistake.
Focus groups can be a great source of information but you’ll need to consider how you recruit the participants, what characteristics (demographic and psychographic) should your participants possess or not possess, and what will you give them as an incentive to attend.
That’s right. You have to incent people to attend. Only the rarest of the rare will participate in a focus group just because it sounds like a fun thing to do. Even surveys need some level of incentive to increase participation. Including a SASE is a bare minimum. No one is going to provide the envelope and postage to complete a survey for your business.
We hope this introduction to research has motivated you to begin thinking about your decision process, the information you’re collecting, and how research could possibly benefit your organization.
In our next issue we’ll discuss how research impacts advertising and marketing decisions and how it gives you more bang for your buck.
About Abiah Designs
Abiah Designs is a brand strategy / full-service marketing firm whose unique, proprietary research process creates and revitalizes brands that resonate with their target markets, leads to increased brand awareness, develops strong customer loyalty and improved market share. Visit our website (www.abiahdesigns.com or blog www.brandreturn.com) to view our portfolio, read our case studies, and begin to imagine how we can help you.
To grow your brand call 609 653 2233.
While instinct and intuition do play a role in business (stories abound of business people who refused to pay attention to the facts and created a success out of what should have been a disaster), 9 times out of 10, cold hard facts and reality cannot and should not be ignored.
This new mini-series of BrandReturn™ (our newsletter’s new name) will introduce the basic concepts of business and market research, share some methods of obtaining data, and prod you to begin collecting data and analyzing that data.
Market research consists of two primary categories: primary data and secondary data.
Primary data is made of information obtained through focus groups, surveys, and observation.
Secondary data is provided by another group, such as the Census Bureau, a professional association, or think tank. A problem with using secondary data sources is their information may not relate to your target market or geographic area.
Obtaining primary data yourself is time consuming and can be expensive; but how much money have you or your company wasted on advertising or activities that ended up not generating the business you thought they would?
You already have some primary data in your customers’ buying patterns. If you don’t have a system that provides you with mechanisms to breakdown data into various groups, then you need to begin investigating how to acquire one.
Here’s an example of how data review and analysis can become important:
A large hotel was experiencing an increase in revenue but not an increase in profit.
As the hotel began to study expenses, it discovered that managers were over-scheduling employees on the weekends and even paying overtime to deal with the expected increase in customers that marketing was driving in. Naturally most business would come in on the weekend and the facility would staff up on Friday afternoons and evenings. When check-in data was examined, management discovered that most visitors were checking in on Saturday morning. By making scheduling adjustments and cross-training employees, the hotel was able to use fewer employees to handle the influx of customers. More employees were given time off on Friday nights, raising employee morale which resulted in improved customer service. Soon, expenses were down, revenue was up, and most importantly, profits were up.
None of that would have happened if management didn’t take the time to look at the statistics, analyze the data, and make adjustments.
Surveys can also provide important information a business can use to improve the customer experience, the employee experience, or extend the brand through additional product offerings.
Surveys are labor intensive since they take a bit of time to create, administer, then compile and analyze the data. If spending a couple of thousand dollars can lead to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or more in revenue, it’s money well spent. The same can be said if that investment saves you from spending even more money to invest in something that your customers don’t want (and remember: Customers don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.).
There are lots of ways to conduct a survey. The method used depends on what data you’re trying to obtain and what customer segment or segment of potential customers (or former customers) you’re trying to reach.
For example, if you own a bricks-and-mortar store, you can ask your customers to complete a quick comment or survey card while you package their purchases. Of course, they may not be as entirely honest as they could be since you’re standing in front of them and, assuming you read the card right after they walk away it’s not anonymous (you could have them drop it in a box for an extra level of anonymity).
You could also mail surveys to customers (with a self-addressed, stamped envelope or SASE), try phone surveys (you can just imagine how hard they are to conduct), or email surveys. All of these techniques have pros and cons and we can’t stress enough that the method you pick should be the best method to be used with the population you’re targeting. If your customers are in a certain age group who are not heavy internet users, an internet-based survey administered through email would be a mistake.
Focus groups can be a great source of information but you’ll need to consider how you recruit the participants, what characteristics (demographic and psychographic) should your participants possess or not possess, and what will you give them as an incentive to attend.
That’s right. You have to incent people to attend. Only the rarest of the rare will participate in a focus group just because it sounds like a fun thing to do. Even surveys need some level of incentive to increase participation. Including a SASE is a bare minimum. No one is going to provide the envelope and postage to complete a survey for your business.
We hope this introduction to research has motivated you to begin thinking about your decision process, the information you’re collecting, and how research could possibly benefit your organization.
In our next issue we’ll discuss how research impacts advertising and marketing decisions and how it gives you more bang for your buck.
About Abiah Designs
Abiah Designs is a brand strategy / full-service marketing firm whose unique, proprietary research process creates and revitalizes brands that resonate with their target markets, leads to increased brand awareness, develops strong customer loyalty and improved market share. Visit our website (www.abiahdesigns.com or blog www.brandreturn.com) to view our portfolio, read our case studies, and begin to imagine how we can help you.
To grow your brand call 609 653 2233.
Guerrilla Marketing Attack
Succeeding with a guerrilla marketing attack is a very simple seven-step process. Take all seven steps and watch your profits rise and your competitors cringe. It's not as hard as you may think to succeed at a guerrilla marketing attack. And if you launch one properly, you'll find that succeeding at business is also not as hard as you may have thought. Don't even think of skipping any of the seven steps to success because all seven are necessary. We're not talking about playing with marketing. We're talking about succeeding with marketing.
1. The first step is to research everything you can. That means carefully investigating your market, your product or service, your competition, your industry and your options in media. What media reach your target audience? What media makes them respond and buy? Should you focus on advertising or direct marketing or a combination of the two? There are answers to these questions and guerrillas have the knack for coming up with the right answers. As a person who is already connected to the Internet, you've got a head start in the research department. There is loads of information online that can propel you in the direction of success.
2. The second step is to write a benefits list. Have a meeting. Invite your key personnel and at least one customer -- because customers are tuned in to benefits that you may not even consider to be benefits. Example, my wife patronizes a certain bookstore regularly, not because of their books, but because of the carrot cake they serve in their cafe. Once you have a list of your benefits, select your competitive advantage because that's where you'll hang your marketing hat. If you haven't got a competitive advantage, you'll have to create one because you'll need it. After all, anyone can come up with a benefits list. Figure out why people should patronize your business instead of that of a competitor.
3. Step number three is to select the weapons you'll use. In my third guerrilla marketing online column, I listed an even 100 weapons from which you may make your selection. My recommendation is to use as many weapons as you can. Fifty of the hundred weapons are free. After you've selected the weaponry, put the weapons into priority order. Next to each weapon, write the name of the person who is in charge of masterminding the use of the weapon plus the date it will be launched. Consider each date you write to be a promise you are making to yourself. Guerrillas do not kid themselves or lie to themselves, so be realistic. The idea of a guerrilla marketing attack is to select a lot of weapons, then launch them in slow motion -- at a pace that feels comfortable financially and emotionally. My average client takes 18 months to launch an attack. Don't rush.
4. The fourth step, and this is a toughie, is to maintain the attack. The first three steps are extremely simple compared to this fourth step. Maintaining the attack means sticking with your plan and your weapons even though you don't get the instant gratification you want so much. Everyone wants success to come instantly, but it doesn't happen that way in real life. The Marlboro Man and Marlboro Country helped make Marlboro cigarettes the most successfully marketed brand is history. But after the first year of marketing, they didn't increase sales one bit for Marlboro. Maintaining the attack made it happen.
5. Step five is to keep track. Some of your weapons will hit bulls-eyes. Others will miss the target completely. How will you know which is which? By keeping track. By asking customers where they heard of you. By finding out what made them contact you. Keeping track is not easy, but it is necessary. If you aren't ready to keep track, you aren't ready to launch your attack in the first place.
6. Step six is to make a guerrilla marketing calendar. This should be 52 rows long and five columns wide. The first column is called "Week" -- listing in which week of the 52 weeks you did what you did in marketing. The second column is called "Thrust" -- referring to the thrust of your marketing that week. What were you saying? Offering? The third column is called "Media" and it refers to which media you were using that week. The fourth column is called "Cost" and lets you project how much you'll be spending that week. The fifth column is called "Results" so you can give a letter grade to the week -- you know, an A, B, C, D or F. After one year, you compare your calendar to your sales figures and eliminate all but the A's and B's. It takes about three years to get a calendar loaded with slam dunks. Once you have one you'll feel like the client who said of his, "It's a lot like going to heaven without the inconvenience of dying."
7. The seventh step is to create a guerrilla marketing plan. Seven steps to succeeding with a guerrilla marketing attack. If it sounds easy, reread this column. It works, but it's not easy.
Jay Conrad Levinson in the Father of Guerrilla Marketing. Mitch Meyerson is the author of Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars, Founder of the Guerrilla Marketing Coaching program and Co-Founder of The Product Factory and Traffic School. He has been featured on Oprah.
To get 7 amazing online marketing audios, visit http://www.easywebautomation.com
1. The first step is to research everything you can. That means carefully investigating your market, your product or service, your competition, your industry and your options in media. What media reach your target audience? What media makes them respond and buy? Should you focus on advertising or direct marketing or a combination of the two? There are answers to these questions and guerrillas have the knack for coming up with the right answers. As a person who is already connected to the Internet, you've got a head start in the research department. There is loads of information online that can propel you in the direction of success.
2. The second step is to write a benefits list. Have a meeting. Invite your key personnel and at least one customer -- because customers are tuned in to benefits that you may not even consider to be benefits. Example, my wife patronizes a certain bookstore regularly, not because of their books, but because of the carrot cake they serve in their cafe. Once you have a list of your benefits, select your competitive advantage because that's where you'll hang your marketing hat. If you haven't got a competitive advantage, you'll have to create one because you'll need it. After all, anyone can come up with a benefits list. Figure out why people should patronize your business instead of that of a competitor.
3. Step number three is to select the weapons you'll use. In my third guerrilla marketing online column, I listed an even 100 weapons from which you may make your selection. My recommendation is to use as many weapons as you can. Fifty of the hundred weapons are free. After you've selected the weaponry, put the weapons into priority order. Next to each weapon, write the name of the person who is in charge of masterminding the use of the weapon plus the date it will be launched. Consider each date you write to be a promise you are making to yourself. Guerrillas do not kid themselves or lie to themselves, so be realistic. The idea of a guerrilla marketing attack is to select a lot of weapons, then launch them in slow motion -- at a pace that feels comfortable financially and emotionally. My average client takes 18 months to launch an attack. Don't rush.
4. The fourth step, and this is a toughie, is to maintain the attack. The first three steps are extremely simple compared to this fourth step. Maintaining the attack means sticking with your plan and your weapons even though you don't get the instant gratification you want so much. Everyone wants success to come instantly, but it doesn't happen that way in real life. The Marlboro Man and Marlboro Country helped make Marlboro cigarettes the most successfully marketed brand is history. But after the first year of marketing, they didn't increase sales one bit for Marlboro. Maintaining the attack made it happen.
5. Step five is to keep track. Some of your weapons will hit bulls-eyes. Others will miss the target completely. How will you know which is which? By keeping track. By asking customers where they heard of you. By finding out what made them contact you. Keeping track is not easy, but it is necessary. If you aren't ready to keep track, you aren't ready to launch your attack in the first place.
6. Step six is to make a guerrilla marketing calendar. This should be 52 rows long and five columns wide. The first column is called "Week" -- listing in which week of the 52 weeks you did what you did in marketing. The second column is called "Thrust" -- referring to the thrust of your marketing that week. What were you saying? Offering? The third column is called "Media" and it refers to which media you were using that week. The fourth column is called "Cost" and lets you project how much you'll be spending that week. The fifth column is called "Results" so you can give a letter grade to the week -- you know, an A, B, C, D or F. After one year, you compare your calendar to your sales figures and eliminate all but the A's and B's. It takes about three years to get a calendar loaded with slam dunks. Once you have one you'll feel like the client who said of his, "It's a lot like going to heaven without the inconvenience of dying."
7. The seventh step is to create a guerrilla marketing plan. Seven steps to succeeding with a guerrilla marketing attack. If it sounds easy, reread this column. It works, but it's not easy.
Jay Conrad Levinson in the Father of Guerrilla Marketing. Mitch Meyerson is the author of Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars, Founder of the Guerrilla Marketing Coaching program and Co-Founder of The Product Factory and Traffic School. He has been featured on Oprah.
To get 7 amazing online marketing audios, visit http://www.easywebautomation.com
Guerrilla Marketing Attack
Succeeding with a guerrilla marketing attack is a very simple seven-step process. Take all seven steps and watch your profits rise and your competitors cringe. It's not as hard as you may think to succeed at a guerrilla marketing attack. And if you launch one properly, you'll find that succeeding at business is also not as hard as you may have thought. Don't even think of skipping any of the seven steps to success because all seven are necessary. We're not talking about playing with marketing. We're talking about succeeding with marketing.
1. The first step is to research everything you can. That means carefully investigating your market, your product or service, your competition, your industry and your options in media. What media reach your target audience? What media makes them respond and buy? Should you focus on advertising or direct marketing or a combination of the two? There are answers to these questions and guerrillas have the knack for coming up with the right answers. As a person who is already connected to the Internet, you've got a head start in the research department. There is loads of information online that can propel you in the direction of success.
2. The second step is to write a benefits list. Have a meeting. Invite your key personnel and at least one customer -- because customers are tuned in to benefits that you may not even consider to be benefits. Example, my wife patronizes a certain bookstore regularly, not because of their books, but because of the carrot cake they serve in their cafe. Once you have a list of your benefits, select your competitive advantage because that's where you'll hang your marketing hat. If you haven't got a competitive advantage, you'll have to create one because you'll need it. After all, anyone can come up with a benefits list. Figure out why people should patronize your business instead of that of a competitor.
3. Step number three is to select the weapons you'll use. In my third guerrilla marketing online column, I listed an even 100 weapons from which you may make your selection. My recommendation is to use as many weapons as you can. Fifty of the hundred weapons are free. After you've selected the weaponry, put the weapons into priority order. Next to each weapon, write the name of the person who is in charge of masterminding the use of the weapon plus the date it will be launched. Consider each date you write to be a promise you are making to yourself. Guerrillas do not kid themselves or lie to themselves, so be realistic. The idea of a guerrilla marketing attack is to select a lot of weapons, then launch them in slow motion -- at a pace that feels comfortable financially and emotionally. My average client takes 18 months to launch an attack. Don't rush.
4. The fourth step, and this is a toughie, is to maintain the attack. The first three steps are extremely simple compared to this fourth step. Maintaining the attack means sticking with your plan and your weapons even though you don't get the instant gratification you want so much. Everyone wants success to come instantly, but it doesn't happen that way in real life. The Marlboro Man and Marlboro Country helped make Marlboro cigarettes the most successfully marketed brand is history. But after the first year of marketing, they didn't increase sales one bit for Marlboro. Maintaining the attack made it happen.
5. Step five is to keep track. Some of your weapons will hit bulls-eyes. Others will miss the target completely. How will you know which is which? By keeping track. By asking customers where they heard of you. By finding out what made them contact you. Keeping track is not easy, but it is necessary. If you aren't ready to keep track, you aren't ready to launch your attack in the first place.
6. Step six is to make a guerrilla marketing calendar. This should be 52 rows long and five columns wide. The first column is called "Week" -- listing in which week of the 52 weeks you did what you did in marketing. The second column is called "Thrust" -- referring to the thrust of your marketing that week. What were you saying? Offering? The third column is called "Media" and it refers to which media you were using that week. The fourth column is called "Cost" and lets you project how much you'll be spending that week. The fifth column is called "Results" so you can give a letter grade to the week -- you know, an A, B, C, D or F. After one year, you compare your calendar to your sales figures and eliminate all but the A's and B's. It takes about three years to get a calendar loaded with slam dunks. Once you have one you'll feel like the client who said of his, "It's a lot like going to heaven without the inconvenience of dying."
7. The seventh step is to create a guerrilla marketing plan. Seven steps to succeeding with a guerrilla marketing attack. If it sounds easy, reread this column. It works, but it's not easy.
Jay Conrad Levinson in the Father of Guerrilla Marketing. Mitch Meyerson is the author of Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars, Founder of the Guerrilla Marketing Coaching program and Co-Founder of The Product Factory and Traffic School. He has been featured on Oprah.
To get 7 amazing online marketing audios, visit http://www.easywebautomation.com
1. The first step is to research everything you can. That means carefully investigating your market, your product or service, your competition, your industry and your options in media. What media reach your target audience? What media makes them respond and buy? Should you focus on advertising or direct marketing or a combination of the two? There are answers to these questions and guerrillas have the knack for coming up with the right answers. As a person who is already connected to the Internet, you've got a head start in the research department. There is loads of information online that can propel you in the direction of success.
2. The second step is to write a benefits list. Have a meeting. Invite your key personnel and at least one customer -- because customers are tuned in to benefits that you may not even consider to be benefits. Example, my wife patronizes a certain bookstore regularly, not because of their books, but because of the carrot cake they serve in their cafe. Once you have a list of your benefits, select your competitive advantage because that's where you'll hang your marketing hat. If you haven't got a competitive advantage, you'll have to create one because you'll need it. After all, anyone can come up with a benefits list. Figure out why people should patronize your business instead of that of a competitor.
3. Step number three is to select the weapons you'll use. In my third guerrilla marketing online column, I listed an even 100 weapons from which you may make your selection. My recommendation is to use as many weapons as you can. Fifty of the hundred weapons are free. After you've selected the weaponry, put the weapons into priority order. Next to each weapon, write the name of the person who is in charge of masterminding the use of the weapon plus the date it will be launched. Consider each date you write to be a promise you are making to yourself. Guerrillas do not kid themselves or lie to themselves, so be realistic. The idea of a guerrilla marketing attack is to select a lot of weapons, then launch them in slow motion -- at a pace that feels comfortable financially and emotionally. My average client takes 18 months to launch an attack. Don't rush.
4. The fourth step, and this is a toughie, is to maintain the attack. The first three steps are extremely simple compared to this fourth step. Maintaining the attack means sticking with your plan and your weapons even though you don't get the instant gratification you want so much. Everyone wants success to come instantly, but it doesn't happen that way in real life. The Marlboro Man and Marlboro Country helped make Marlboro cigarettes the most successfully marketed brand is history. But after the first year of marketing, they didn't increase sales one bit for Marlboro. Maintaining the attack made it happen.
5. Step five is to keep track. Some of your weapons will hit bulls-eyes. Others will miss the target completely. How will you know which is which? By keeping track. By asking customers where they heard of you. By finding out what made them contact you. Keeping track is not easy, but it is necessary. If you aren't ready to keep track, you aren't ready to launch your attack in the first place.
6. Step six is to make a guerrilla marketing calendar. This should be 52 rows long and five columns wide. The first column is called "Week" -- listing in which week of the 52 weeks you did what you did in marketing. The second column is called "Thrust" -- referring to the thrust of your marketing that week. What were you saying? Offering? The third column is called "Media" and it refers to which media you were using that week. The fourth column is called "Cost" and lets you project how much you'll be spending that week. The fifth column is called "Results" so you can give a letter grade to the week -- you know, an A, B, C, D or F. After one year, you compare your calendar to your sales figures and eliminate all but the A's and B's. It takes about three years to get a calendar loaded with slam dunks. Once you have one you'll feel like the client who said of his, "It's a lot like going to heaven without the inconvenience of dying."
7. The seventh step is to create a guerrilla marketing plan. Seven steps to succeeding with a guerrilla marketing attack. If it sounds easy, reread this column. It works, but it's not easy.
Jay Conrad Levinson in the Father of Guerrilla Marketing. Mitch Meyerson is the author of Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars, Founder of the Guerrilla Marketing Coaching program and Co-Founder of The Product Factory and Traffic School. He has been featured on Oprah.
To get 7 amazing online marketing audios, visit http://www.easywebautomation.com
How to Build your Opt-In List
How to Build your Opt-In List
By Wayne Van Dyck
To get an email list, some companies decide to send customers a free newsletter. Yet there are many other ways to get email addresses. Having a newsletter doesn't always make sense for your company. For instance, if you happen to sell microwaves, how much information could you send your customers, daily, on microwaves? So, well explore a few other options for increasing your email list.
You could run a contest. The objective, puzzle, game, or task should be easy and straightforward so that you don't confuse or frustrate the customer and you still get their email address in the end.
A free eBook as a great incentive to collect email addresses. People love getting free things, especially eBooks on topics that interest them. Remember your eBook doesn't have to be 100 pages long it can be five to ten pages. That length will work just fine.
A great way to collect email addresses is to survey the customer. You can find out what the customer likes and dislikes and also what they have problems with or need answers to.
You should advertise your opt-in offer in an e-zine or classified ad. It actually isn't that expensive and if you find the right place to advertise, you could quickly see dramatic results.
An email signature or electronic signature, otherwise know as a sig file, is a three to six line footer that you can add to the bottom of each email message you send out with your name, personal info, company info, website, and a free report with a link attached. You will be pleasantly surprised how many visitors you get this way. Be sure that you track where you are getting your traffic by the different links you send out.
A customer will have no problem providing you with their name and email address if they are interested in downloading an article from your web site. They will love to receive more articles from you or have access to a members only area of your site with plenty of resources.
You should offer your customers a free course or a free download to collect email addresses. They will appreciate and love to get something for free. Customers who opt-in when something free is being offered think to themselves what have I got to lose. It a great deal for both of you.
Wayne Van Dyck is a former venture capitalist and builder of offline technology companies. He is the founder and developer of Simple Money Machines. Simple Money Machines is all the money making technologies in one, easy-to-use, hosted application… enabling non-technical people to set up online businesses in less than 30 minutes. It's made for people with 9-5 jobs, retired folks, stay-at-home moms and college students. To get a FREE copy of “STARTING A HOME BUSINESS MADE SIMPLE", go to:http://tinyurl.com/ykyoqx.
wvd@sbcglobal.net
Permission to reprint this article in unchanged form, including author bio.
By Wayne Van Dyck
To get an email list, some companies decide to send customers a free newsletter. Yet there are many other ways to get email addresses. Having a newsletter doesn't always make sense for your company. For instance, if you happen to sell microwaves, how much information could you send your customers, daily, on microwaves? So, well explore a few other options for increasing your email list.
You could run a contest. The objective, puzzle, game, or task should be easy and straightforward so that you don't confuse or frustrate the customer and you still get their email address in the end.
A free eBook as a great incentive to collect email addresses. People love getting free things, especially eBooks on topics that interest them. Remember your eBook doesn't have to be 100 pages long it can be five to ten pages. That length will work just fine.
A great way to collect email addresses is to survey the customer. You can find out what the customer likes and dislikes and also what they have problems with or need answers to.
You should advertise your opt-in offer in an e-zine or classified ad. It actually isn't that expensive and if you find the right place to advertise, you could quickly see dramatic results.
An email signature or electronic signature, otherwise know as a sig file, is a three to six line footer that you can add to the bottom of each email message you send out with your name, personal info, company info, website, and a free report with a link attached. You will be pleasantly surprised how many visitors you get this way. Be sure that you track where you are getting your traffic by the different links you send out.
A customer will have no problem providing you with their name and email address if they are interested in downloading an article from your web site. They will love to receive more articles from you or have access to a members only area of your site with plenty of resources.
You should offer your customers a free course or a free download to collect email addresses. They will appreciate and love to get something for free. Customers who opt-in when something free is being offered think to themselves what have I got to lose. It a great deal for both of you.
Wayne Van Dyck is a former venture capitalist and builder of offline technology companies. He is the founder and developer of Simple Money Machines. Simple Money Machines is all the money making technologies in one, easy-to-use, hosted application… enabling non-technical people to set up online businesses in less than 30 minutes. It's made for people with 9-5 jobs, retired folks, stay-at-home moms and college students. To get a FREE copy of “STARTING A HOME BUSINESS MADE SIMPLE", go to:http://tinyurl.com/ykyoqx.
wvd@sbcglobal.net
Permission to reprint this article in unchanged form, including author bio.
Use Drop Shipping to Expand into New Markets
For retail businesses, expanding into a new market can be a risky proposition. Aside from additional marketing costs, there are also the costs of storing new inventory that may or may not sell.
This is just one more situation where drop shipping can help save you time, money, and a lot of unwanted stress. Just like drop shipping is a low risk way to break into the retail business, it can also help your existing business get its feet wet in new markets.
Let's take a look at an imaginary online retailer that sells camping equipment. For years, this retailer has focused on specializing in tents and sleeping bags only. Now, to increase sales and profits, he wants to expand into more camping accessories such as cookware, backpacks, propane, emergency equipment, and so forth. The problem is, he's worried that he won't be able to overcome his reputation as a "tents and sleeping bags only" store, and he'll be stuck with a lot of inventory he can't sell.
In comes the drop shipper. Now the tents-and-bags-only retailer can start offering an expanded offering on his website without risking an investment in inventory.
One of four scenarios could possibly occur:
1. He is unable to sell any items from his expanded catalog, and goes back to selling just tents and bags. He only loses a little time from the effort. 2. He sells some items, but not enough to justify bulk purchases of the additional items. He sticks with drop shipping the new items to keep his new customers happy and coming back for more. Hopefully, sales continue to increase and his expanded selection becomes a major part of his business. 3. The expanded selection is a huge hit, so he starts purchasing inventory to save money by purchasing in bulk. 4. He finds that he loves the time he saves from drop shipping so much, he expands his drop shipping operation to include his tents and sleeping bags!
Whatever you're thinking about expanding into, drop shipping could be the solution for your business. Using a drop shipper will allow you to run your tests without the risk of losing money on inventory.
When looking for a drop shipper, the usual rules apply: make sure they provide real-time inventory reports to minimize the risk of backorders, make sure they use a reliable shipping provider that also provides tracking information, and make sure they process orders in a timely fashion so you don't end up with angry customers.
Stuart Lisonbee is an eBay PowerSeller, eBay Certified Consultant, and former eBay employee. He currently works for Doba, a drop ship service provider, at http://www.doba.com
seb2you@gmail.com
This is just one more situation where drop shipping can help save you time, money, and a lot of unwanted stress. Just like drop shipping is a low risk way to break into the retail business, it can also help your existing business get its feet wet in new markets.
Let's take a look at an imaginary online retailer that sells camping equipment. For years, this retailer has focused on specializing in tents and sleeping bags only. Now, to increase sales and profits, he wants to expand into more camping accessories such as cookware, backpacks, propane, emergency equipment, and so forth. The problem is, he's worried that he won't be able to overcome his reputation as a "tents and sleeping bags only" store, and he'll be stuck with a lot of inventory he can't sell.
In comes the drop shipper. Now the tents-and-bags-only retailer can start offering an expanded offering on his website without risking an investment in inventory.
One of four scenarios could possibly occur:
1. He is unable to sell any items from his expanded catalog, and goes back to selling just tents and bags. He only loses a little time from the effort. 2. He sells some items, but not enough to justify bulk purchases of the additional items. He sticks with drop shipping the new items to keep his new customers happy and coming back for more. Hopefully, sales continue to increase and his expanded selection becomes a major part of his business. 3. The expanded selection is a huge hit, so he starts purchasing inventory to save money by purchasing in bulk. 4. He finds that he loves the time he saves from drop shipping so much, he expands his drop shipping operation to include his tents and sleeping bags!
Whatever you're thinking about expanding into, drop shipping could be the solution for your business. Using a drop shipper will allow you to run your tests without the risk of losing money on inventory.
When looking for a drop shipper, the usual rules apply: make sure they provide real-time inventory reports to minimize the risk of backorders, make sure they use a reliable shipping provider that also provides tracking information, and make sure they process orders in a timely fashion so you don't end up with angry customers.
Stuart Lisonbee is an eBay PowerSeller, eBay Certified Consultant, and former eBay employee. He currently works for Doba, a drop ship service provider, at http://www.doba.com
seb2you@gmail.com
Promoting Marketing Campaigns Via Affiliates
by Carsten Cumbrowski |
Avoid mistakes that can cause problems during or after the campaign which are in most of the cases customer service issues that probably harm your image in the minds of your existing or potential customers and will potentially hurt your brand in the long run.
Announce it, but announce it right Before you launch your marketing campaign through your affiliate marketing channel consider the following tips and check if you have everything ready and in place that your affiliates can to their job right. This article is focused on the proper announcement of the launch and discontinuation of your marketing campaigns.
Always provide an expiration date and time. Provide your affiliates with the expiration date and time for any coupon or marketing campaign you want them to promote. If it is an ongoing promotion let them know that.
If you don't know the expiration date of a promotion yet, provide the information how long you expect it to run and the goal you want to accomplish with it, which will have important impact on the expiration because you will probably discontinue the promotion earlier if you don't meet your goals at all and extend it much further than originally planned, if it is exceeding your expectations.
Use your affiliates campaigns to boost yours You can also announce a campaign before it launches, but make sure that you provide the date and time of the launch and make clear what they can and can not do with that information. Specify if you allow or even recommend affiliates to announce an upcoming campaign to their customers.
You don't want then to announce all the details of the campaign, of course not, because that would damper the effectiveness of the campaign in general, but enough to get their customers attention and make them curious about what might be coming.
Provide Teaser material in those cases. Even without having a teaser can it help to increase the effectiveness of a campaign if you announce it to your affiliates, because it gives them more time to plan and make preparations on their end.
Affiliates might be preparing a campaign for their Site at the same time and your campaign would be perfect to launch parallel to increase each others "bang" or may be it could be incorporated into their campaign, mentioned or referred to. This is often the case with campaigns for specific holidays (Christmas, Valentines Day, Thanksgiving, St.Patrick's Day etc.) or national events (Super Ball, Stanley Cup, Olympic Games, Mardi Gras and Spring Break etc.).
Discontinuation of long running promotions There are only a few cases where you would not know at least a few days before the fact when an ongoing promotion will be discontinued for whatever reason.
Send a notification before it expires to give your affiliates some lead time to prepare and ready exactly when you want them to be. Don't do it on the day or worse after it expired, demanding the immediate removal from the affiliate site and a complete stop of any other way of promoting it.
The earlier you can send the notification the better. Don't give the impression to your affiliates that your company decided unexpectedly to discontinue the campaign today and had your own Webmaster jump through hoops to get it of your own website that very same day, if it did not happened that way.
This is still too often done like that by many merchants and very unprofessional. I explain the case where it is appropriate a few chapters later.
Bad timing Most merchants run monthly campaigns. A lot of coupons are valid for one month only and often targeted to aid and improve the effectiveness of that month's campaign.
Sites that are specialized in promoting merchant campaigns, like coupon and other sites that target and attract bargain hunting customers have their busiest days right at the end of the month and the first days of the following month replacing expiring campaigns with the new ones. If possible, announce upcoming or to be discontinued campaigns that used to be ongoing outside this timeframe.
This will increase the chances that your campaign will get more attention and decreases the chances that the announcement of a discontinuation gets unintentionally missed. Affiliates are humans and humans make mistakes especially when they are under stress.
Unplanned discontinuation of any promotion Keep in mind that the chances are good that affiliates promote long running promotions in multiple different ways. To stop all of them might takes more than a few minutes.
Affiliates are busy too and the ones that do it right and successful are doing also resource planning as any other healthy business and are not able to halt their business operation for you, because you want them to do something immediately you knew already earlier.
Only if there is very good reason (Legal Issue, Natural Disaster, End of the World and that sort of things) is it acceptable and also understandable for your affiliate if you demand an immediate stop of a promotional campaign. If you have to demand an immediate stop, explain why.
The promotion and even the release of new action movies that involved terrorists was stopped or delayed immediately after 9/11. TV Stations changed their programming and replaced what was considered inconsiderate with more appropriate programming.
This could not be planned ahead, but the right thing to do and nobody was complaining about the extra time it took to do it or the fact that I had to be done fast. It is not acceptable and bad business practice in any other case.
Announcements via email Regardless what, when and why you announce something important and/or time critical to your affiliates via email, make sure that you state in the subject of the email your intention and content of the email and not just "Affiliate Newsletter" which is fine if you are providing general information and news to your affiliates.
It is the worst subject you can use for emails that do require immediate attention or actions to be taken by the affiliates that have a due date. Your emails are not the only emails an Affiliate receives.
Clear email subjects allow quicker, more efficient and better processing by the affiliate and reduce the chances that critical emails get overlooked.
Final words Affiliate Marketing RRule No.1: Affiliates and merchants are business partners, treat them as such.
Carsten Cumbrowski has over 5 years experience in the Affiliate Marketing Industry and knows both sides of the Business, as Affiliate and Affiliate Manager. He operates an Affiliate Marketing Resources Site at http://www.cumbrowski.com
How To Make Marketing Simple
by Biana Babinsky
Quite a few clients have told me that marketing is difficult for them. It is difficult to get started with marketing; it is difficult to figure out how to market, and it is difficult to understand how to market effectively. Even if you are already using marketing techniques to promote your business, there is no guarantee that your marketing efforts will bring the results you are looking for.
I have put together a simple plan for you to take charge of your marketing and to simplify at least some of the process. Here are five marketing steps:
- Define What Needs To Be Done. What are you marketing? Is it a product or a service? What are the results you are looking for? Would you like to generate more sales, more leads, more partners? Which online marketing techniques are you planning to use? Search engine optimization, article marketing, newsletter publishing? The better you define these points, the easier it will be for you to put your marketing plan into motion.
- Break Your Plan Into Bite-Size Pieces. Divide-and-conquer is a proven, time-tested technique for managing complicated tasks. If your goal is to optimize your web site for search engines, your bite-size pieces will include learning about search engine optimization, performing keyword research, optimizing your pages, optimizing your copy, etc. It is much easier to follow along when you map out the steps.
- Understand The Marketing Process. It is really difficult to apply a marketing technique if you do not have a good understanding of the process. For example, if you do not know how to use article marketing to promote your business, you will not be able to use it to market. Learning about marketing is essential. It will help you market now, and you can use your newly acquired marketing knowledge to continue marketing your business for years to come.
- Don't Try to Do Everything At Once. Don't start using five marketing techniques at the same time. You will simply end up jumping from one method to another, without spending a proper amount of time on any one of them. If you do not devote sufficient time to applying a marketing technique, you will not get results. Take some time to learn and apply a new marketing technique. Then, once you are seeing results, move on to the next one.
- Track Your Results. Tracking your results (or lack thereof) helps you understand what has produced results and what hasn't. It also helps you compare different marketing methods and to determine which one(s) produce better results for your business.
Use this five point plan to better market your business and get results from marketing your business online.
Learn how to make marketing simple! Biana Babinsky is the online business coach, expert and author who has taught many solopreneurs how to become better known online, get more clients and make more money. Now you can learn all of her online marketing secrets, described in simple steps, in the Complete Step by Step Online Marketing Course at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zcourse
Guerrilla Marketing Yourself
| by Jay Conrad Levinson and Mitch Meyerson |
Guerrillas control the messages that they send. It's all about intention. Guerrillas live intentionally Non-guerrillas send unintentional messages, even if those messages sabotage their overall goals in life. They want to close a sale for a consulting contract, but their inability to make eye contact or the mumbled message they leave on an answering machine turns off the prospect.
Guerrillas send no unintentional messages
Unintentional messages erect an insurmountable barrier. Your job: be sure there is no barrier. There are really two people within you -- your accidental self and your intentional self. Most people are able to conduct about 95 percent of their lives by intent. But that's not enough.
It's the other 5 percent that can get you in trouble -- or in clover. I'm not talking phoniness here. The idea is for you to be who you are and not who you aren't -- to be aware of what you're doing, aware of whether or not your actions communicate ideas that will help you get what you deserve.
Who do you market to without even realizing it?
Employees. Customers. Prospects. Teachers. Parents. Children. Bosses. Prospective employers. Mates. Prospective mates. Friends. Sellers. Landlords. Neighbors. Professionals. Members of the community. The police. Service people. Family. Bankers. These people can help you or stop you from getting what you deserve. You can influence them with how you market yourself.
The three big questions to answer
To market yourself properly, answer these three questions:
1. Who are you now? If friends described you, what would they say? Be honest rather than complimentary.
2. What do you want out of life? Be specific.
3. How will you know when you've reached your goals?
If you can't answer these questions, you're doomed to accidental marketing, spending your life reacting instead of responding, the odds against you reaching your goals.
How do you send messages and market yourself right now?
With your appearance, to be sure. You also market with your eye contact and body language, your habits, your speech patterns. You market yourself in print with your letters, email, website, notes, faxes, brochures and other printed material. You also market yourself with your attitude -- big time. You market yourself with your ethics.
How people judge you
Again, you may not be aware of it, but people are constantly judging and assessing you by noticing many things about you. You must be sure the messages of your marketing don't fight your dreams. What are people using to base their opinions, to make their decisions about you?
* Clothing * Hair * Weight * Height * Jewelry * Facial hair * Makeup * Business card * Laugh * Glasses * Title * Neatness * Smell * Teeth * Smile * What you carry * Eye contact * Gait * Posture * Tone of voice * Handwriting * Spelling * Hat * Thoughtfulness * Car * Office * Home * Nervous habits * Handshake * Stationery * Availability * Writing ability * Phone use * Enthusiasm * Energy level * Comfort online
You're fully aware of your intentional marketing and possibly even invest time, energy and imagination into it, not to mention money.
But you may be undermining that investment if you're not paying attention to things that matter to others even more than what you say: keeping promises, punctuality, honesty, demeanor, respect, gratitude, sincerity, feedback, initiative, reliability. They also notice passion -- or the absence of it. They notice how well you listen to them.
What to do now
Now that you know these things, what should you do? Although Ben Franklin himself said that three of the hardest things in the world are diamonds, steel and knowing yourself, here's a three-step plan to get you started on the road to self-awareness and self-marketing acumen:
1. Write a positioning statement about yourself. Identify just who you are and the positive things that stand out most about you.
2. Identify your goals. Put into writing the three things you'd most like to achieve during the next three months, three years and then ten years.
3. State your measuring stick. Write the details of how you will know when you've achieved your goals. Be brief and specific.
To guerrilla market yourself, simply be aware of and in control of the messages you send. Do that and your goals will be a lot easier to attain.
Mitch Meyerson is the author of Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars (Dearborn Trade 2005) and three acclaimed psychology books. Get your free marketing jumpstart kit at http://www.gmarketingcoach.com
