Small Business Marketing Ideas

For a business owner coming up with new marketing ideas to grow your business can be frustrating. So I wanted to share with you several marketing ideas that we use to help small businesses to increase the average sales per client.

Consider the difference between an average sales of 10% over the lifetime of the client this could mean thousands of dollars or potentially millions of dollars of additional revenue and profit. The obvious way to increase the average sales per client is to increase prices. And if this was a world where your clients had no choice that might work, Unfortunately, in a competitive marketplace, your product must be priced appropriately, else you risk losing customers.

So the question is how: how do you increase the average sales per client for your small business without losing clients. In fact many of the techniques I am going to recommend, may even increase the number of clients. Because customer buy value not items, when you increase the value the cost becomes less of an issue.

In order to provide this recommendation in an orderly fashion, I have broken them into different categories.

Adjusting your Point of Sales process:

• Recommend additional products / services. While talking with your client explore their real needs and discover any additional products that your clients may need that you can offer. Remember they want their problems solved. Help them solve their problems and they will gladly compensate you.
• Bundle Products. By putting together a "ready made" package to solve your clients most pressing issues, you can position yourself as s problem solver not just a product seller.
• Recommend value products over cheap price. When a prospect comes to you looking for a product, review their needs before recommending a product. Often they think the cheapest item will work for their solution. Help your clients understand the problem and difference in products. This alone can increase your sales drastically.
• Product Placement. Place product that are used together - in the same area. This could mean making a small display that highlights an event or occasion. Consumers by experiences more than products. Help them create an experience. By grouping like minded products together, you will inspire your clients and their spending.

SALES SKILLS

• Use Consultative selling to understand all their needs.Take the time to understand your client's problems. They are coming to you to solve their problems. Ask questions. I like to think of myself as a doctor and before I prescribe any solution, I want to understand all their symptoms. This will help your clients feel heard and create more trust with you.
• Determine budget before quote. As you are asking questions and listening, find out if they have determined a budget. This will help you know what price points to be considering.

PROMOTIONS

• Promote seasonal products. Consider the different problems your clients experience at different times of the year. Create products specific for those problems and offer them during the appropriate seasons.
• Buy One - Get one. This can be used in so many ways. You can use a buy this and get that at 50% off, or free. Used with discretion, this can be a huge boost. Consider what your clients want and off the get one to increase sales.
• Increase Value offering. Instead of discounting a product, consider keeping the same price and adding more value to the product. For example, include 10% more product FREE instead of a 10% discount on your product.

Using these marketing ideas for your small business will help you to increase the average sales amount while increasing revenue and profit for your business.

Marketing Ideas for Your New or Small Business

You've started a new business and are not sure how to get marketing ideas to reach your target market. Sit down and distinguish what you want to achieve first, that is, brand awareness which will lead to sales or immediate sales. This decision will depend on the type of product you're selling. If you're selling a high value product, you may want to start with brand awareness to build trust in your brand. Either way you need to get your brand out there.

Here are some marketing ideas that will get you going:

• Run a competition and offer your products or services as the prize. Or offer something that will appeal to your potential customers. This will engage future customers and create brand awareness.
• Get your business involved on the major social network platforms. Liaise with your potential client base. You can promote your offers and competitions on these social networks. And create interest in your products and services.
• Book a stand at an exhibition in your industry. Thousands of people visit exhibitions. Potential clients can engage with you and learn about your products as well as even see and touch your products themselves. This face to face contact creates trust with your brand that would have taken months to obtain.
• Visit a mall in your target area and find out if you can book a space for a day or a weekend to promote your products and services. There's always a lot of traffic in a mall so you are sure to reach customers.
• Hand out promotional flyers with a promotional item at exhibitions, in shopping centres and also send them out with all your invoices. Spread the word about your business.
• Offer a free gift with every order placed within a certain time frame. People love free gifts and they will remember your company for it. This could lead to word of mouth referrals.
• Give away promotional products with every order, at shopping centres, at sports grounds, or wherever your target market is situated. Give pens, caps, keyrings or even stationery packs branded with your logo.
• Brand your logo on promotional T-shirts or golf shirts. Give them to employees, family members and customers to wear. Every time they wear your promotional golf shirts or t-shirts, this will act as active advertising.
• Participate in events such as walks and wear your branded t-shirt. People will see your logo and remember your company for participating in the event. Promote your participation in the event beforehand. Let people know that you will be involved in the walk or run.
• Use vehicle signage. There a few options that you could use such as vehicle magnets which can be placed on the doors, stickers for branding your vehicles and rear window signage. While driving you can actively advertise your business. You could even ask friends and family to place vehicle magnets on their cars to help promote your business.

Your marketing consultants can assist you with many marketing ideas that will suit your business and reach your target market. There are many options that you could use to get your name out in the world. Find solutions that work for your business.

Chanre A Williams is a marketing consultant and the owner of Deschan Marketing and Promotions. Based in Gauteng, we offer affordable and customised marketing solutions to small and medium businesses.

Complex Business Solutions and Simple Applications

Programming business solutions into your company from scratch is a very long and arduous process. Even with a competent IT department, the actual development of an application is not easy to come up with. The hours of employee time that it takes to create the technically challenging programs can be exhaustive. This, obviously, is not very cost effective and it detracts from the work that is normally done by the IT staff.

Running software programs that are specifically designed to take those difficult situations and turn them into easy, point and click solutions is a much more cost effective idea. These are programs that have already been exhaustively created, tested, reworked, and made to be applicable for any business. Yet, there are many business owners that are unsure of whether or not this is a fast and effective way to solve their issues.

Technology in business has become so commonplace that most of the time there is little understanding of what actually goes into its creation. The companies that are able to produce this software and run a reliable service for various companies have invested a great deal of time and money into the process. This benefits your business because that is time and money that you do not have to apply while gaining the easy solution that you require.

How can one software program offer solutions to so many different issues and still be effective? This is what cloud computing is all about. The original program is designed to solve a specific problem and the additional issues are resolved through the cloud. This means that you can take on the additional applications that are required for your business to run smoothly and effectively. Because it is run on the cloud concept, you are not required to take on anything that you don't find beneficial. Applications that are useless should not have to be required in a package purchase.

For small to medium businesses, the idea of creating this sort of wide spread problem solving software is overwhelming. There are many different software programs that offer a wide range of applications. The time devoted to research and software comparison is hardly a fraction of the time that would be devoted to the creation of such software from scratch.

As technology gains its place in the market and businesses come to rely on technological advancement more every day, the continued development of additional simple to integrate applications will help to continue to improve the outlook for small to medium businesses everywhere. The growth of such development will only serve your company more as you will continue to have easy solutions to those complicated problems.

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Work At Home Business Solutions - A Beginner's Primer For Niche Research

So, you want a work at home business solution that will help you identify a profitable market niche to target. Everybody seems to have trouble with this, and sometimes I do too since it seems to be so confusing. In this article I'd like to provide you with an easy work at home business solution for niche research with a simple to follow step by step process that should help you get through the potentially confusing research phase.

So, the first thing you need to do when building a home internet business is to come up with some product or service ideas, right?

Wrong.

The first thing you need to do is mentally prepare yourself for what may be the greatest experience of your life, but that is a topic for another article! You are going to need a work at home business solution for coming up with ideas before you can crunch the numbers you receive from niche research. It may be hard to come up with product ideas on your own though, so you should look into a guideline you can follow to spur your creative side.

So, my advice for a work at home business solution for niche research is to use the Overture search engine term suggestion tool and look for searches over 10,000 but not higher than 100,000. Beyond that point the competition will likely be too heavy. This is of course just my opinion, and should only be used as a rough guideline to get started.

Once you've found a topic, the next part of my work at home business solution for niche research is to dig deeper into that topic. Let's say you chose a topic that has 150,000 searches on Overture for the broad term. If your topic is, say, golf, you should look for a niche within that topic like "improve your golf swing" which only gets 16,000 searches or whatever.

Then run your niche searches through Google Trends for the next part of my work at home business solution for niche research. This will let you know how often this subject is popular, and you don't want to make a product that is only popular during the summer only for example.

Then check Google AdWords for a work at home business solution for niche research. See how people are bidding pay-per-click ads on that topic. If people are advertising regularly, they are probably making a profit.

Then, it is time to decide on a niche using the above criteria, which should complete the work at home business solution for niche research!

IT Marketing Ideas That Attract More Great Clients

Are you looking for some IT marketing ideas to help you really get noticed by potential clients?  Perhaps you should start looking beyond all the generalist tasks you are doing as a trusted technology provider for your clients ... and start positioning yourself as a real IT specialist.

Why?  Well, the truth is you don't need that much industry experience to position yourself as an IT specialist.   But specialization can make an enormous difference in your marketing results, your hourly billing rates, your sales call closing rates, and your clients' lifetime value.

Of course, there are a lot of IT marketing ideas that can help you position yourself as an IT specialist.  But the key is identifying something you enjoy doing that many small business owners in your area need.  Finding a specialty helps ensure you won't just look like everyone else providing technology services.

Consider the following 5 IT marketing ideas to help you attract and retain great clients for your business.

1. Be Choosy with Your Clients.  If you are like many others in the small business IT consulting field, you are probably doing everything for your clients, including tasks like network design, procurement, project management, dealing with phone companies, Web hosts and ISPs, deciding what to buy and inspecting it when it comes in, and doing configuration, testing, integration, customization, training and troubleshooting.  Wow, that's a lot of hats to wear!  Your Virtual CIO role as the person that does everything certainly makes you a generalist in some respects.  But who says you have to be a generalist for everyone under the sun?  IT marketing ideas that really work involve you being all things to only some of the people in a particular niche.  You provide true IT consulting solutions and show your clients that the buck stops with you.  You become accountable for everything your clients need.  But most importantly, you must limit the scope of the kind of clients you pursue, usually by industry niche.
2. As an IT Specialist, You Can Market More Cost-Effectively to Your Niche.  Marketing to a niche is actually easier and a lot more affordable than virtually any other IT marketing ideas.  You will know exactly where to advertise when it comes to trade publications.  You will be able to stop wasting time and money on generic ads in the newspaper, phone book or on the radio.  When you understand your specialty and the needs of your niche, you will be able to come up with a marketing message that speaks directly to your target audience and really resonates.  All of a sudden you become very valuable to potential clients and find yourself getting a warm response to your sales letters, postcards and any seminars you give.
3. Picking a Specialty Niche Doesn't Always Require Extensive Experience.  Finding your specialty and your niche can be as simple as having two or three clients, in the same or similar industries, who you've been working with for a  year or two.  Perhaps you've been doing a project such as migrating an antiquated MS-DOS-based industry-specific application to a 32-bit or to a Web-based application.  As you go along, you may get to know a specific applications through work with a client or two.  Now that you know that specific application, you most likely stand out from other consulting firms that those that use this industry-specific application could call.
4. Size Up the Market Size When You Think About Your Specialty Niche.  One of the best and most important IT marketing ideas is to make sure you do your homework before you decide who you are going to serve.  As an IT specialist, sometimes you will have to turn away potential clients, which may be counter-intuitive to the idea of growing your business.  However, you are not really turning away any really viable clients.  Instead you are making room for, almost like a kind of de-cluttering of your client list, and honing in on a segment that will be a good fit for your solutions and bring you a good source of high-margin, long-term, steady service revenue.
5. Develop a Marketing Message that Fits Your Specialty.  Don't try to speak to the masses with your marketing materials.  You can't possibly create a message that will resonate with everyone.  And if you do, you will find yourself competing on price and reduced to a commodity.  A well-defined specialty helps others know exactly what you do and for whom you do it.   Plus focusing in on a well-defined niche avoids those prospects that would just call 30 companies they found in the phone book, looking for the lowest, dirt-cheap price.

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Home Business Solutions

Many times people look at home business opportunities when they are considering working at home. This certainly does make sense however you need to find a good home business idea first. With that thought in mind we will take a look at a couple things to pay attention to regarding home business solutions.

1. With the many advantages the Internet offers home business owners you must incorporate Internet marketing into whatever opportunity they choose. One of the primary advantages of this is automation and how it can increase the amount of work you get done every day.

Many people start their work at home opportunity on a part-time basis because they have full time jobs. This is certainly understandable, but the Internet gives you the advantage of getting more work done similar to if you have employees on the payroll.

Automation is one of the keys to that! For example you can automate many of your advertising functions. You can promote your business via pay per click advertising and once your campaign is set up traffic comes in automatically.

You can do other things such as article marketing and automate the submissions to article directories for further exposure. You can even purchase credits from traffic exchanges and have your ads showing up on everyday as opposed to surfing manually.

These are all just ideas on how you can automate your business to promote itself without physically doing the work everyday.

2. Today much emphasis is put on niche marketing and choosing an area of interest to start your own business in. This is good advice because it is something you will be doing on a regular basis so you might as well have fun while you do it. One of the best home business solutions today is to start a blog and incorporate it into any type of product or program you choose to promote. One opportunity that works well with the niche marketing is affiliate marketing.

As an affiliate marketer your products are already given to you so you don't have to worry about creating them. Other benefits that make this a great way to make money online include marketing resources, training, and processing all the orders.

This is two home business solutions to keep in mind when looking at opportunities for yourself. Finding a niche that appeals to you and automating many of your daily functions will make your life easier and the work you do at home more fun!

Expand Your Business With Creative Ideas

Creative ideas can result in new products, new services and more efficient internal business procedures. When seeking creative ideas in your business, look for ideas throughout your company as well as ideas from outside sources. Here are a few places to seek innovative ideas.

Problems/Pains in your Business or Industry - Identify the current problems faced by customers (and potential customers) in your industry. Listen to commentators in your market and develop solutions to problems presented by those commentators. Monitor discussion forums, trade publications, customer feedback, focus group information and related data to identify problems or pains in your industry. Then, tap into the creative genius of your business to solve those problems or pains.

Customer "Wish List" - Your customers can provide a wealth of valuable information and a flood of ideas for new products and enhanced features. It is especially important for employees with direct customer contact (e.g., sales representatives and customer service representatives) to identify unmet needs of the customers. Customer service representatives can identify patterns of similar problems (or customer confusion), which may be addressed with a product revision or the addition of a new feature. The easiest way to identify customer "wish list" items is to ask the customer. Establish a regular dialog with your customers to receive suggestions for new products, new services or new features. Acting on those suggestions, when appropriate, to meet the customer's requests will strengthen your relationship with those customers as well as other customers that likely benefit from the same new product or feature.

Best Practices In Other Industries - Look at procedures and techniques used by companies in other industries and think about ways to apply those procedures to your own business. These best practices include product features, manufacturing procedures, development processes, or internal procedures. Look for industries that have handled problems similar to those faced in your own market. Look at the solutions developed in those industries and apply those teachings to your own business. Although your products or services may differ, look at the underlying technique or procedure that led to the solution in the other industry. Think about ways to apply those practices to your business to enhance existing products or improve operating procedures.

Develop a habit of seeing "problems" as opportunities to create innovative solutions that will expand your business and position your company as a leader in its industry.

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Top 5 Billion Dollar Business From Home Ideas

Top 5 Billion Dollar Business From Home Ideas

One of the good things about the downturn of the economy is, it's caused people to rise up and seriously look at ways to generate and/or increase their income. And what's gaining more and more credibility and visibility these days is the business from home opportunity industry. But the downside to that is so many people that choose to go into that industry often end up frustrated, mainly due to lack of marketing skills and not having the best business from home ideas to begin with.

What I'd like to do speak on 5 home based business ideas that are within the billion dollar markets.

1. A Product Broker or Professional Shopper- Imagine shopping for your friends and clients, finding them the best deals through thousands of stores and getting paid to this. Well, if you align yourself up with a company that has that as part of their business system, then you're luck and in the money. Most of your business will be done online and since most people shopped online than inline this past Christmas, it's a recession proof business.
2. Website Broker - It use to be that if you wanted to have a hand in this growing internet, particularly when it come assisting small to medium size businesses get set up online with a website, you had to know all of this html language. Nowadays, that's no longer the case. A website broker is the middleman between the developer and customer. You connect the two and get paid for doing so.
3. Financial Solutions Consultant - No matter how you slice it, it's a tough economy out here and people are looking for ways to generate income and to simply get out of debt. You could be that individual to offer them a solution to get to zero debt faster by becoming a financial solutions consultant - and you don't have to go back to school to learn how. So, if you don't mind working with some simple numbers and working with people, then a financial solutions consultant might the right for you.
4. Weight Management Consultant- Weight management is still one of the most lucrative industries. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a slowdown in the obesity epidemic in this society. The term or keyword "weight loss" is highly searched for within the search engines. Becoming a weight management consultant is very honorable and will be very rewarding, both financially and emotionally.
5. Cosmetic Consultant - This is the one industry that will never die. Even in the worst of times, a lot of the female population will purchase cosmetics, be it lipstick, eye-liner, foundation or whatever. I am now seeing a growing trend with men becoming a cosmetic consultant. I think it's a brilliant move.

Well, there you have it. These billion dollar industries aren't going anywhere anytime soon and are great for any individual to start his or her own home based business. Of course there are many other business from home idea's, but these are industries that have stood the test of time. So, when you decide to look for that business to start up from home, be sure you do your homework and see what the demand is for your choice.

Choosing the 'Right' Programming Language for Your Business Solutions

Most likely there are two reasons why you are reading this article at this moment. Either (1) you are starting a business and looking for the most apt software for the best price that will help you get ahead; or (2) you need to revamp your software and technology to stay ahead in this ultra competitive business world.

There are an endless number of programming languages out there - Is java the best technology for your project or is it .Net, PHP or may be Perl? There are an equal number of databases to choose from - Access, mysql, SQL server or may be Oracle. But the question is - how to choose the 'Right' technology which is affordable and can cater to not only your current business needs but to its future requirements as well.

Ideally deciding on the best software programming language for your business solutions, should be a team activity which involves heads of IT and relevant departments and experts from your solution provider. But in case you are a small business owner or just starting-up on your own, evaluating the following factors can help you too, to take the right decision on the technology front.

Key Factors

- Budget

The first thing to consider for your business is the costs and the possible return on that investment. Decide the budget based on the return, a product/service is expected to bring. If it's a product with small shelf life and limited features, you might consider a boxed solution rather than a custom solution. It's a quick and less expensive way to market. But if this application is the lifeline of your business then you need to evaluate the long-term business requirements and benefits of investing in custom build solution with a high-end technology.

- Choose the right features

What are the features you are looking in your software? What are the shortcomings in your business that can be resolved by having the right system in place? Identify the areas where technology can automate the processes, thereby improving business efficiency and productivity. What features would be required in the long run to accommodate more products or services when your business expands? Discuss these features with your solution provider to decide on a programming language which can handle your business for a long time without being outgrown by it.

- Time to market

If you are developing a time-sensitive product, the most critical factor in its success will be its timely release. It may be your best idea and you may have invested in the best technology, building an error-proof product. But if you are not able to market it at the right time, you may lose to your competition who would have captured the market impulse and brought the product at the right time. Quite possibly, you can lose out on a huge market share. Choosing the programming language which can quickly build the product is the key factor here.

- Scalability requirements

What is the intended life cycle of your product/application? If your business requires it for next 5-10 yrs, there is high probability that you might need to expand its functionality or increase usability. The technology used for such solutions should be scalable and upgradable, with or without vendor involvement. Imagine a situation where you have invested a good amount of money and time in training employees to use a software, which after 2-3 years needs upgradation to meet your business requirements but doesn't has the capability to do so. Surely, you don't want to land up in such a situation. So, a golden rule - always clarify with your solution provider about the future business requirements and capabilities of the chosen technology and programming language.

- Application demands

o Performance

If you application sees some peak traffic in certain time of the day which is crucial for your business, then performance is the key factor for your system. It will be important to choose a programming language with ability to handle a large number of simultaneous requests/transactions (supplemented by high-end servers) without affecting the speed and performance of the system.

o Security

If security of your application is of paramount importance, then short-listing a technology with focus on security features is what you need to do. For ex - Java security technology provides a large set of APIs (cryptography, public key infrastructure, secure communication, authentication, access control etc), tools, and security algorithms, mechanisms, and protocols. Zero-in on a programming language which provides the user or administrator with a set of tools to securely manage applications.

o Content change requirements

If your application requires a frequent change in the content or you need to change the look and feel of your website quite frequently, it's good idea to go for a CMS with features and flexibility to be managed by the system administrator without vendor involvement.

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Success Affiliate Business - 6 Affiliate Marketing Ideas to Select Niche Affiliate Products

Obviously, one of the most significant steps to be a successful entrepreneur in affiliate marketing is to select profitable niche affiliate products. With those lucrative affiliate niche products and multiple affiliate marketing strategies, you can earn huge of affiliate commission online. You will discover and learn 6 affiliate marketing ideas to choose hot niche affiliate products to sell online in this article.

Now, I am going to give you 6 affiliate marketing ideas to get great niche affiliate products to sell on the internet. You will discover workable and proven affiliate marketing ideas to help you succeed in selecting the affiliate products on the internet.

1. Participant actively in the well-known forums, web boards, chat rooms or membership sites. The first critical step to find profitable niche affiliate products to sell online, like crazy, is to find out and try to identify the problem in your markets. This means you have to know exactly what people's problem is in your markets. You have to identify what they are looking for or what the solution for their problem is. Without this action, it is difficult to discover highly profitable niche products or affiliate products to sell on the internet. Well-known forums, web-boards, chat rooms and membership sites are great places for affiliate marketing entrepreneurs to find the problem and solution in the market. Those places are perfect for people to exchange their experiences, be socializing, find out their problem and look for the solution. My experiences show that people always have their own problems and they are looking for how to solve their problems always on the internet. They believe that the internet is a global library where there is a ton of information. Additionally, the easy and quick way to find out the well-known forums, web-boards or chat rooms is to search from the search engines. You will discover a lot of great sites over there. My recommendation is to pick up the active and popular forums or sites. With those forums, it is easier for you to participant and get people's problem.

2. Read articles, news, review information and blogs. Obviously, choosing lucrative niche products requires an effective research. All you have to do is to do your own research by reading articles from articles directories, news from Google, Yahoo and MSN group, review information and blogs. With this action, you will discover what the market is and what people are talking about or what their concern is. Personally, I have no doubt that those articles, news, review information and blogs are great places to find out up-to-date information, people's problem and solution. That information will lead you to discover niche products to sell online.

3. Research effectively on keywords. The effective keyword research will lead you to discover profitable markets and products to sell online. There are many keyword tools to help you to generate hot niche keywords on the internet. Additionally, search engines are absolutely great places to find out niche products to sell online. Focus keywords (or search keywords) play a major role in those search engines. At the present, those search engines are so smart and intelligent. With those keywords and search engines, you can find out what people are currently looking for. I am sure that with the effective keyword research and search engines, you can discover untapped market and niche affiliate products in the market. The real keys to your success in this step are: to brainstorm your initial keywords, do your market research with those initial keywords, and dig down those keywords for hot niche markets and products respectively.

4. Exchange the ideas among affiliate marketing entrepreneurs. This approach is one of the most effective and easy ways to find out the niche products to sell on the internet. I highly recommend you to exchange your ideas, experiences and knowledge with other people. Sometimes, you can get the lucrative niche markets and products for your home based affiliate business by discussing with others. However, I highly recommend you to have your own ideas and exchange your ideas with others. Personally, I believe this is a give and take scheme. You have to give your ideas to other affiliate marketing entrepreneurs first and then you can take others later. More importantly, this could be a join venture relationship in the future.

5. Join the affiliate marketing networks. Many reliable and secure affiliate products are in the affiliate marketing networks such as CJ, Clickbank, and Linkshare. You can find great affiliate products on those marketplaces. Some of affiliate marketing networks like CJ and Clickbank have great tips, top recommended affiliate products, and hot new products for affiliate marketing entrepreneurs to advertise and sell on the internet.

6. Test the niche affiliate products by yourself. My experiences show that niche products are sold like crazy and are very profitable for affiliate marketing entrepreneurs, but it does not mean that those products can be profitable for other entrepreneurs always. All you have to do when you found your niche products to sell online is to test them. By testing, you have to plan, work and track results closely.

Final thoughts, with those 6 action ideas, I am sure that it will help you to find great niche markets and products to sell online. My bottom line is that you should not focus on #1 best selling products on the internet, but you should focus on the problem and solution people are looking for in the market. I strongly believe that everyone can earn huge affiliate commission in any markets and products if they have their passionate in those markets and products.

How to Evaluate an Advertising Or Marketing Idea, From Start to Finish

Are you just starting out in business? Perhaps your business is less than six months old. It's an exciting time for you, with a world of opportunity ahead and the power to take your business in any direction and to any market you choose. All you need to do is get your business in front of your target audience. So you're probably thinking about advertising and marketing, and wondering which method to pick for the best return.

One of the most useful tips I've learned in my career when evaluating marketing ideas is to always follow the 4 Ms. What are the four Ms? They are 'message', 'market', 'media' and 'moment'. For any successful marketing communication you need to get the message, market, media and moment right. All 4 must be right or it's highly likely that the communication will fail.

For most ideas, 'moment' is going to be the one where they fail - the person on the receiving end of the message needs to be in the right frame of mind for buying from your business. The moment we want to deliver a message about our services is when the target customer is doing what they usually do when they think about a need for your product or service.

To take an example, let's say your business is a journal database for students. Good places to advertise might include the library (preferably near the online facilities), or online adverts on student support websites. Here, you're catching your student at the right moment - right when they're studying and might need some help, and are near a computer so they can visit your site.

Get the idea of the 4 Ms concept? Great. Let's fill it out a bit. Any marketing idea is evaluated/planned as follows:

STEP 1: Decide what the communication goal is - what do you hope to achieve? For example, you might want to incite action, create/raise awareness or create/strengthen buyer preferences.

STEP 2: Decide what your market is - who are you aiming the message at?

STEP 3: Work out the best moment to deliver your message - what moment are they best primed to receive your message? In other words when will they most want your product or service?

STEP 4: Decide on the message itself - this encompasses the product, service, brand, price or incentives as well as the availability of the offering.

STEP 5: Select your media - selecting the best media type based on the above and the budget and schedule.

STEP 6: Find a creative solution - consider the appeal type - either emotional or informational and execution style e.g. how it works, function, feel, look, audio etc.

STEP 7: Plan and carry out implementation - pre-production, production, post production and distribution. In other words, make it happen.

STEP 8: Measurement of effectiveness - possibly the most important step. This involves measuring what worked and what didn't and the achievement of any goals. If I can't measure how effective an idea is, it's less likely I'll run with the idea.

Before you embark, if you can mine some stats to get an idea of success, great. Let's say you have an idea for a banner and you're paying for 10,000 impressions. The banner company say they have an average click through rate of 1.5%. You're likely to get 150 people visit the site. What's your conversion rate (number of visitors to number of orders)? If it's under 1%, with your conversion rate, you're likely to get 1 order.

To take an example that demonstrates the use of the 4 Ms very well, consider the journal database that we mentioned and consider how we could use a student fresher pack to market the database (the box that arrives in their halls of residence):

1. Goal: to create awareness of our service, and incite the potential customer to begin a relationship with the company.
2. Market: students - in this case, students right at the beginning of their course (the most valuable to us)
3. Moment: the pack lands straight in their dorm room. We need to get something near or on their computer as this is where they study.
4. Message: we'll deliver a copy of the database and a presentation - we'll insist they register to use the free stuff.
5. Media: we'll use a disc - this way they have to take it to their computer (where they study)
6. Creative solution: we need to appeal to students. we'll make it fun and quirky to use (plus we're giving them stuff free, incentive to use it)
7. Implementation: need to find a company that will make this happen for us.
8. Measurement: we can measure how many people sign up from the disc, how many visit our website, how many use the database, how many go on to order a subscription. We can compare this to the cost of producing the disc and distributing the disc, and we can work out the cost to acquire a new contact and the cost to acquire a customer.

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The Easy Small Business Marketing Idea

Why did you decide to read this article?

I'll bet I know.

Humor me, and let me take a few guesses.

OK?

Alright.

First, surely you own and operate some kind of small business, and as a result you'd like more new customers (or better results) from you next small business marketing campaign.

And...

The word "easy" in the title of this article appealed to you.

Am I right?

If so, then you are not alone.

In fact, I'll bet a bushel of Napa Valley grapes almost everyone who reads this article will be attracted to it simply based on the word "easy". Why? Because nobody wants to struggle to get an end result.

And there-in lies the lesson in this article.

People want easy solutions to their problems.

Think about it this way:

If you designed a single pill that people could take once, that would cause them to lose all the weight they wanted, and as a result have a "killer bod" they always dreamed about, then don't cha' think you'd be the richest chap to ever walk the face of the earth?

Of course you would.

Because not a single person wants to work hard to lose weight.

And if they could pop a pill that made losing weight "easy" then who wouldn't want to do that?

Sure, on some deep level most people realize that a simple solution to whatever bugs them is not realistic. But they still want an easy solution. And people buy based on their "wants"... not based on their "needs".

What's this mean for you and your business?

Simply that the easier you make it for someone to do business with you, the better results you'll get from your next small business marketing campaign.

In fact, tied to your main appeal should be some copy that demonstrates that your solution is easy to get and easy to use. Why? Because every one of your buyer's wants an easy solution to their problems.

This gets back to that word "easy" which got you to read this article in the first place.

You see, you want this same easy solution too.

So do I.

So does everybody including your prospects.

And one last thing:

If you are serious about growing your business, then more than likely all you need is a few more good ideas like the one in this article.

So ask yourself this:

Where can you turn for more good ideas like what you just read in this article?

In my humble opinion, you have to be careful where you look for good ideas because just about everybody and their brother claims to be a so-called 'business expert'.

Remember:

Saying is one thing.

Doing is another.

And most of these "talking heads" have never run a successful small business.

But I have. And so if you connect with my style then take a look at my author's box below because I'm chalk full of easy small business marketing ideas that get results.

Wesley Murph is the author of "The Little Black Book of Small Business Marketing Secrets: 10 Proven Ways to Add New Customers, Repeat Sales and Referrals to Any Small Business!" which includes a campaign he wrote for a client that pulled a whopping 35.7% response to an ice-cold list. And even though Wesley rarely accepts new clients, you can get more tips like the one you just read by going to...

Report #1: The 10 Most Important Elements to a BLOCKBUSTER Marketing Campaign

Report #2: 3 Effortless Ways to Get 10 New Customers using the B.I.N. Method

Report #3: The Simple Marketing Strategy that Puts New Customers into Your Business Almost Instantly

 

Rewarding Marketing Ideas For Your Massage Therapy Business

Sports massage therapy, mobile massage services, or a professional massage studio are all successful business strategies that all should include a marketing strategy that can grow your business. Your range of services, professional business practices, and massage knowledge can help to create a rewarding campaign that is sure to bring business.

Online

Massage therapy offers a range of services from shiatsu to sports therapy to Swedish and deep tissue massage techniques. Offer your customers and potential customers a way to research the difference and choose your massage therapy clinic or services as their best choice. An online presence for your massage therapy business is the best way to recruit potential customer and establish new business. Online you will be able to provide knowledge and be a resource for those interested, you are findable through online directories, and can even incorporate customer reviews to build the respect of your business and make the choice easier for your customers. If you want to further establish your presence online, continue to build yourself as a resource by establishing an informative blog, RSS feed, and a running list of information for customers interested in the services of massage therapy.

Print

Print advertising methods are a way to reach out to your targeted customers with promotional offers and branded advertising that both grow your customer base and your brand awareness. Your print advertising should first start with business cards that include your branding and can also service as appointment reminders. To extend your advertising opportunities, use your established customers to help by offering referral cards and a referral program that rewards the help of your already dedicated customers. Flyers and postcard mailers are another great opportunity to reach out to those who may not otherwise know about or have taken the interest in your massage therapy business. Mailers can be sent to your targeted customers with help of purchasable advertising lists and help to build awareness for your business. Although the customer return may not be 100%, it is a great way to establish your name and put the notion of massage service into customer minds.

Signs

Massage therapy is about professional business practices and expert knowledge. A professional and trustworthy business appearance can be the deciding factor for choosing your business. If you run your business out of a massage clinic or studio, your storefront makes the first impression for your business. Establish a respectable storefront using window signs that include your branding and business slogan. One way vision is a great material that adds privacy to your clinic windows and allows you to design a full-window advertisement that is full-color and impactful. Your massage business windows should emphasize your business name and branding and show the professionalism and relaxing environment your studio provides.

If you offer mobile massage services, mobile advertising is the way to go. Car magnets are a perfect solution or mobile advertising as you travel between appointments. The easy reusable advertising is a way to build recognition for your services while on the road and increase the strength of your other forms of advertising. Adding mobile advertising to your marketing strategy can turn rewards that you'd never expect. Seeing your branding and business name in all forms builds your reputation as a trusted business and in turn will increase your customer base.

Michael Allen works as a Director of Marketing in Boston, Massachusetts. He has worked with both large companies and small local businesses for over 20 years. His vast experience in the field of marketing positions him as an expert in helping businesses expand by using marketing tactics.

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The Best Small Business Blog Marketing Ideas Revealed

We all know that the blog marketing solutions are very important in business growth. Most of the times, the blog ensures the best low cost marketing ideas. Even better, some of them are totally free. However, whether you choose free methods or you pay for them, you have to be sure that you apply the right small business marketing ideas. If you use the appropriate marketing strategies for business owners, you can enjoy a great business success very soon. So, which are the best small business marketing ideas?

RSS: For sure, RSS is one of the best blog marketing strategies. Lately, everyone is using the RSS orange square. This great tool keeps us informed about specific updates which reflect a particular blog section. When you add the RSS button, you actually ease the access to your data. As the button provides an easy way to get the desired information, people love to use websites which provide the RSS option. This option is one of the best marketing strategies for business owners.

Fresh Content: Another great way to promote your business is to keep on posting new and high quality content. Most of the times, the blogs which continuously provide fresh content are easily discovered and propelled by the search engines. So, the fresh content is another important blog marketing tool.

Blog Submissions: Some other marketing strategies for business owners are the blog submissions. These options highlight great small business marketing ideas which provide the chance to directly submit your blog details to different web directories. By using these small business marketing ideas, you can definitely promote your business more efficient.

Communication: Another essential blog marketing strategy is the communication with potential customers. Through communication, you can easily find more marketing strategies for business owners and apply them in order to satisfy your customers. And of course, happy customers mean more business for you.

There also are some low cost marketing ideas. One of them is the submission of your blog content to online directories.

These low cost marketing ideas can help you to promote your business faster and even better.

Two Tips to Assist People With Niche Marketing Ideas

There are millions of people making a living through the Internet. However, the majority of these businesses will be unsuccessful inside of three years of their inception. Why is that? It's because the company owners have no idea the importance of niche marketing websites. Don't let this happen to you. What are things that you should do to ensure that you are successful?

Tip 1 - Do Your Research

Many people are under the assumption that they can build a website without ever having to do anything more. This isn't true. If you're going to have a thriving website, you need to make inquiries and have research materials to comprehend the difficulty of the niche market especially if you hope to succeed on the Internet.

When you search for ideas to make money online, you probably run across a dozen or more sites that claim that you can make quick and easy money by doing much of nothing. Actually, that's not true and don't ever believe it. You must do some research on your niche if you plan to make real money from the venture. If you want real money, you must learn how to design a website that will bring in traffic and profit.

There are many sites that claim that they can teach you how to do this and they may even provide you with gimmicks that look and sound good but even once you have the program and study it, you're nowhere closer to understanding the material than before. If you truly want to know how to get your sales up, bring in traffic, setup your website and more, then you need to find a program that can help you achieve these goals. With so many websites handing out bad advice, it's no wonder many people quit before they start to make any money. Everything begins with trial and error before you can build a business, either virtually and/or brick and mortar.

Tip 2 - Determine What Your Niche Is

After you've done some research, it's time to pick out a niche you would like to do. Make sure it's something that you are really passionate about or something you've got some understanding in. No matter what you pick, it should deal with something that can help out or give a solution to your potential customers in whatever problems they may have. When a person does a search for this specific keyword, your website will have a high probability of showing up in the search results, which nets you free traffic. However, without this niche website, you won't be seen near as often, if at all.

Bear in mind that these are just helpful hints to get you started. What you really need are the tools that will help break ground on your niche marketing business. Many websites can help you locate the right web hosting and the kinds of programs that have a propensity to work. Some websites even offer tips on how to bring traffic to your website and much more. When you're trying to market your niche, you certainly don't want to do this all on your own. Find a niche marketing business that can help you get your niche started.

With the economy spiraling down, you must be willing to do more than just have a job. You must commit to several streams of income so that if you do lose your "real" job, you won't be fretting about whether or not your bills will be paid. A niche website will help you out with this problem. You can have a niche marketing business up in 24 hours, which will run seven days a week. You'll have to work at it but in no time, you can get a second income.

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