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

Business Week Reports Holiday price Wars

BusinessWeek Reports the Beginning of Holiday Price Wars

By editor | November 11, 2008

“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.

ShareThis

This entry was posted in Shopper Marketing and tagged holiday retail, holiday shopping, retail economy, retail news. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Big retailers slash Margins New York Times Article

Big retailers Slash Margins New york Times Article

Desperate Retailers Cut Into Their Own

Margins

Don't let this article get you down, read it because it's important, then go to my previous post and use the FREE MARKETING TIPS and take action NOW. Local retailers can't afford to cut Margins, But you can afford to do more marketing especially if it's FREE.
Rich

By editor |

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.

ShareThis

This entry was posted in Retail Holiday Season, Shopper Marketing and tagged Black Friday, holiday shopping, Shopper Marketing, shopper response. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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.

1. Open an Ad Word Account with Google.
2. Start Small choose a budget of $20 a day
3. 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.
4. Start out with a default bid of .25 and use the selection tool to show your ads only in the area you service.
5. 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.
6. 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
7. 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.
8. 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.

Get started, Theirs no time like NOW to get more customers If you have questions, leave them as comments and I'll answer them on the blog for all our readers to see. You can also send an email through this page, I'll answer within 24 hours.If you feel you don't have the time or experience to implement the Marketing Plan Send me an email and we can see if we can help. Please do not call the office as we are working around the clock to maximize our present clients campaigns for the holiday season.
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