Recession Proof Your Business

Watch the news lately? It seems that the media is out to destroy our economy, everything is doom and gloom. Don't let this get you down there are ways to survive and thrive even in an economic down turn. The key is to go over all your fixed overhead costs and look for ways to reduce these costs, check your Lease, phone bill, utility bills, cell phone bills, cut overtime and look to save even a few percent every way you can. Then you need to increase your marketing and visibility while your competition has buried their heads in the sand. If you don't have a large marketing and advertising budget you need to use as much free marketing as possible, spend your time instead of your money. To find out more go to Big Ticket Promotions.

Great article on Strategic Alliances

A Quick Lesson on How Strategic Alliances Can Help Your Business Today

From: EzineArticles | November 19, 2008

A Quick Lesson on How Strategic Alliances Can Help Your Business Today Read more at EzineArticles »

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

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:

WATCH THE VIDEO

Like I said - forget about Google for Broad Keywords.

Focus on something that you can actually WIN with, and win big!

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.