Friday, January 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Business Blogging engage your Customers
Business blogging is now seen as the best way forward to connect with your customers on a regular basis. At one time designing a website was the way to go to showcase your services and goods, but not any more. Business blogging is definitely the smart way to build customer relationships.
What do blogs have that websites don't? Well, for a start a blog is a website, but it's designed in a different way to connect through Really Simple Syndication or RSS to the search engines and anyone who wishes to receive updates regularly - one thing a traditional website doesn't do.
But more importantly, a business blog allows you to build relationships with your customers by allowing your personality to shine through. No-one likes the gimmicky sales pitches, they are becoming a thing of the past. What we want now is a 'connection' with the people who are selling us services and products.
When you write a blog for your business, it's important you share some of your personality with your readers. You don't have to go into the personal side of your life, however, if you want to make strong connections it's important for you to share your story, for example:
Why did you start this blog?
Why should people buy from YOU and not someone else?
What are your experiences of using the products or services?
Why are you promoting these particular products or services?
In your opinion, what are the benefits of using them?
You may have heard of the old saying in marketing 'People buy from people'. This is absolutely true, but remember, when you are selling online your customers or the 'people' in the marketing saying can't see you in person. This is why it is so important to build your business blog in a way that you connect with your readers and build strong relationships using your personality.
And now I invite you to join me for my free weekly teleclasses, where I help small business owners to start an online business using blogs and info products. Get started today by checking out my tips and advice on http://www.StartAnInternetBusinessBlog.com and sign up for my free teleclasses.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Irene_Houston
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Business Week Reports Holiday price Wars
BusinessWeek Reports the Beginning of Holiday Price Wars
“I have never seen any environment like this. The fight is on … They are all scared.”
According to BusinessWeek, retail price wars have begun and they are brutal. Retailers are seeing same store sales decline in double digit numbers at the most important time of year and they don’t know what to do except mark it down.
Sales planning has gone to the wind and retailers are doing whatever they can to salvage the season. The article quotes one retail spokeswoman as saying that their approach will be to take better care of customers rather than “throwing money to marketing activities.”
However, now more than ever is the time to practice innovative retail marketing. Traditional techniques may not yield the necessary impact but stores in crisis need to do something dramatic to drive in customers. Marketers need to take a huge breath and stop flailing around just long enough to come up with a better plan than “how low can you go” otherwise we’ll all find ourselves in bigger trouble after the dust settles.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Big retailers slash Margins New York Times Article
Big retailers Slash Margins New york Times Article
Desperate Retailers Cut Into Their Own
Margins
The New York Times this morning reported on the weekend’s sales results from every possible statistical angle. It was a tale of two economies, the overall economy holding and the retail economy holding on for dear life.
A quick highlight of the weekend stats:
- Shoppers spent 7 percent more this year than last
- Sales increased 3 percent compared with last year
- Foot traffic was up almost 2 percent (although a separate report said that foot traffic was down 11 percent)
Despite these seemingly encouraging statistics, many retailers did not report their weekend sales as usual and will instead roll them in with the monthly reports. J.C. Penny went so far as to say that, “in light of the challenging and volatile economic climate, and shifts in this year’s retail calendar, we don’t believe that reporting sales data for any one day (or weekend), including Black Friday, would provide a meaningful barometer of our business.” Interesting.
Unfortunately, Black Friday may not have changed the color of retail financials because the discounts, savings and sales cut so deep that the moderate increases reported haven’t changed anything. You heard it here first. We warned just a couple of weeks ago that retailers should be careful of using lower prices rather than innovative marketing to lure shoppers (BusinessWeek Reports the Beginning of Holiday Price Wars). Now that they’ve done it for Black Friday, shoppers expect even greater price decreases leading up to the holiday and plan on holding their collective breath until they get it. This marketing tactic in this climate may be the ultimate bridge to nowhere.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Free Business Marketing Plan for The New Economy
Happy Holidays Free Business Marketing Plan Below it's really FREE
I'm writing this Blog Post because we are crazy Busy with our Clients bringing Customers to their stores and Websites, and can't be in all places at once this holiday season,The following is a plan any small Business can implement today and increase your Business by Tomorrow, and it's FREE
Happy Holidays from Big Ticket Promotions
Craigslist
The easiest and Fastest way to reach potential customers, go to craigslist.com find your catagory and post a classified ad, the ad will show on google but better yet a large portion of your customers are searching Craigslist. You also need to Search FREE CLASSIFIEDS and post on as many local sites as you can. Cost to your business FREE!!!
Merchant Circle
Build up your free Merchant Circle listing and Network, Post coupons they show up on Google in hours. Write Newsletters send to your customers and Circle. Cost to your business FREE!!!!
If you're not a Merchant Circle Member Click Here Now and sign up Free No Strings attached
Classified ads
Local classified ads are a cheap way to get traffic to your website and bring you new customers.
Sample ad Free Report 7 things you need to know before buying an appliance www.joesappliance.com or call now (xxx) xxx-xxxx
For Local Retail Stores and Restaurants
Work Smart not Hard. The 3 mile radius around your business is your bread and butter. Target this area with Door hangers, Local Community newsletters, local shoppers, email marketing campaigns (you can actually buy an email list of your zip code), Direct mail Post Cards and the least expensive way Flyers have one of your people puy them on mailboxes tape them don't put them in the Mailbox it's against the law.
Work your customer List
if you have a customer list reach out to those people with a special holiday offer, mail them, email them, even call them on the phone and wish them a happy holiday and tell them you have great Vip specials only available to your best customers as a holiday gift for their Loyal Patronage.
Ad words
This is a great tool for You're Local Business to Promote and Market your product to people in your area looking for a specific product or service. Here's how to get started.
- Open an Ad Word Account with Google.
- Start Small choose a budget of $20 a day
- Create a few ads, always put your phone number. Local searchers will call your business if they need something right away instead of clicking your ad, this keeps your costs down.
- Start out with a default bid of .25 and use the selection tool to show your ads only in the area you service.
- Pick your keywords, you can use googles tool but I have found the best tool to find great keywords and phrases is Keyword Elite, if you want to see this product work click here.
- Create a simple ad Joe's Pizza specials, buy 1 dinner get one at 1/2 price, 2290 jones rd. your town 555 1212 this week only
- Don't send the customer who clicks on your ad to your website, create a simple page at Google's Page creator that sells your deal tell your customers to print it out like a coupon and bring it in to take advantage of your limited time special offer. Make sure you put a prominent link to your Website if you have one, if you don't have a website make sure all your info is on the page and landing page.
- Now you are ready to test your ad, be patient let it run for a few days and watch your placement, you always want your ad to have an average position of 3 to 4 so you show above the fold where you are seen as soon as the searcher hits the search results.
Don't forget to subscribe to my blog so you can get posts automatically.Use the subscribe button at the top of the page.
Happy Holidays,
Rich
P.S. Use these simple steps immediately, don't wait, you owe it to yourself, family and employees to successfully Market your Business NOW.
PPS. If you really need my help shoot me an email, I may send you an answer at 1:30am but I'm always here to Help.
bigticketpromos@gmail.com
Friday, November 21, 2008
Recession Proof Your Business
Great article on Strategic Alliances
A Quick Lesson on How Strategic Alliances Can Help Your Business Today
A Quick Lesson on How Strategic Alliances Can Help Your Business Today Read more at EzineArticles »
Sunday, November 9, 2008
7 steps to marketing your Online or Offline Business using email lists
Effective marketing online or offline is all about collecting names and email addresses from prospects and customers.
1. You must make collecting the email addresses of your customers a system.
2. Email is the best way to stay in touch with your customers.
3. If you create a list, your email promotions to your list are now free.
4. You build your email list by offering something free like a free report if online or by just adding email address ____________ to your sales form for offline, also a simple offline contest works well even if it’s to win a free pizza.
5. You then follow-up with soft selling emails, always giving useful information and promoting your sale or special offer.
6. The key to success for your local business is to give people a reason to come in now. You can do this by offering a limited time Sales Event or limited time specials. I like VIP customer specials for existing customers in which they need to bring a copy of the email in, it makes them feel special.
7. These principles apply to all types of marketing online and offline and it’s all in the list, scheduled communication and helpful information will make your emails welcomed by the customer and they will want to open them.
This process can be automated or can be done by hand depending on the size of your list and the volume of business you are doing. Most online merchants will use an automated system, most offline merchants will start out by hand.
click here to see Big Ticket Promotions Webpage
Thanks Rich
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
How to Actually Rank For Any Keyword With a Legitimate Search Engine "Loophole"...
I usually don't pass these type of things on but this actually works.
Everyone wants to have their site rank well in Google.
And why not? Not only can Google send you a boatload of free traffic - it's also highly targeted, and it's one of the best ways to drive business.
The problem is, that exact same ideal is shared with thousands of your direct competitors. This creates an environment where you'll always be fighting, kicking and scratching to maintain your traffic - along with the ever present fear that your livelihood is only one "algorithm update" away from vanishing.
And that's if you can even get ranked for any Major Broad keyword without pay per click, to begin with...
In fact, only the largest, most-established authority sites can reliably see consistent traffic from Google. And even then, their rankings fluctuate constantly - several times a day, in some cases.
Your Local Business will come up on top in longtail keywords on Google which is great but
The fact is - it's getting harder and harder for the "little guy" to get any kind of meaningful web presence on the web these days.
Getting ranked in Google is almost impossible unless you've got a major promotional budget and some time on your hands to "wait" for your domain to become trusted (Google favors older domains). And advertising with pay-per-click ads isn't affordable like it once was.
Search marketing(Nationally) has finally become what everyone feared it would - a game reserved for big business.
But what if there was still a way to legitimately rank for keywords with tons of traffic?
And what if you could do this without having to spend months and even years building up an authority site to do so?
In fact - what if you could systematically create one-page minisites that could rapidly rank in the top 3 spots (consistently) for basically any keyword you target within a matter of a week or so?
Is this for real?
YES.
But not with Google.
It's happening right now, as we speak, on MSN.com
Now - before you think it - yes, I know, MSN doesn't have nearly the reach that Google does. But, it still does receive millions and millions of search users daily. After all - MSN is the default home-page for anyone who first uses Internet Explorer.
And, to put it in perspective, which would drive more traffic?
Occupying the #1 ranking for your most desirable keyword target on MSN?
Or occupying the #47 spot on page 5 of Google's results?
Sadly, it's actually more effort to make it to the 47th spot in Google than it is to literally dominate in MSN.
How does this work?
Watch this video to find out:
Like I said - forget about Google for Broad Keywords.
Focus on something that you can actually WIN with, and win big!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The Selling Secrets of Great Sales Letters
THE SELLING SECRETS OF MILLION DOLLAR SALES LETTERS
Regardless of what you're trying to sell, you really can't sell it without "talking" with your prospective buyer. And in attempting to sell anything by mail, the sales letter you send out is when and how you talk to your prospect.
All winning sales letters "talk" to the prospect by creating an image in the mind of the reader. They "set the scene" by appealing to a desire or need; and then they flow smoothly into the "visionary" part of the sales pitch by describing in detail how wonderful life will be and, how "good" the prospect is going to feel after he's purchased your product. This is the "body" or "guts" of a sales letter.
Overall, a winning sales letter follows a time-tested and proven formula:
(1) Get his attention,
(2) Get him interested in what you can do for him,
(3) Make him desire the benefits of your product so badly that his mouth begins to water, and
(4) Demand action from him - tell him to send for whatever it is you're selling without delay - any procrastination on his part might cause him to lose out. This is called the "AIDA" formula, and it works.
Sales letters that pull in the most sales are almost always two pages. For the larger priced items, they'll run to at least four pages.
Regardless of the length of your sales letter, it should do one thing, and that's sell, and sell hard! If you intend to close the sale, you've got to do it with your sales letter. You should never be "wishy washy" with your sales letter and expect to close the sale with a color brochure or circular. You do the actual selling and the closing of the sale with your sales letter - any brochure or circular you send along with it will just reinforce what you say in the sales letter.
There's been a great deal of discussion in the past few years regarding just how long a sales letter should be. A lot of people are asking: Will people really take the time to read a long sales letter. The answer is a simple YES. Surveys and tests over the years emphatically prove that longer sales letters pull better than the shorter ones, so don't worry about the length of your sales letter - just make sure that it sells your product for you! The "inside secret" is to make your sales letter so interesting, and "visionary" with the benefits you're offering to the reader, that he can't resist reading it all the way through. You break up the "work" of reading by using short, punchy sentences, underlining important points you're trying to make, with the use of subheadlines, indentations and even the use of another color.
Above all else, you've got to include some sort of ordering method. For online sales, I recommend Paypal, whether you are selling on ebay or on your own website. If by mail order, the order coupon has to be as simple and as easy for the prospect to fill out and return to you as you can possibly make it. Keep the ordering process simple, and you'll find your prospects responding with glee.
For mail orders, should you or shouldn't you include a self addressed envelope? There are a lot of variables as well as pro's and con's to this question, but overall, when you send out a "winning" sales letter to a good quality mailing list, a return envelope will increase your response greatly. On the other hand, pre-stamping is not relevant according to mail order tests which have been performed.
My recommendation is that you experiment - try it both ways - with different mailings, and decide for yourself from there.
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