My Marketing tips

Archive for November, 2011

Attract Clients With Your Professional Image — Your Personal Image Is A Vital Marketing Tool

To attract potential clients smart small business owners make their personal image work for them. They are aware of how they look to other people. It is good to ask yourself Do I look like someone my potential clients would want to do business with?

A well known plumbing company actually promotes their services by marketing the image of their plumbers. Their ads tell potential customers that their plumbers never show up greasy or dirty. Just that promise tells the customer they wont have to contend with grease spots on carpets black marks on walls or residue on doorknobs. It also means the plumber that enters their home will not be wearing dirty overalls. By association people feel that a nonmessy worker is going to do a more professional job. This is an example of turning mage to advantage.

Most people judge us by how we look and especially by what we wear. When I started as a business consultant back in the 1970s I didnt have a clue about this and what I wore was not appropriate for a business consultant. In fact I was wearing clothes that my dear ol Texas mom had chosen for me and she didnt have particularly good taste. I was wearing a chocolate brown doubleknit suit with a cowboy cut. I had bright peachcolor polyester shirts and polyester ties with a knot the size of a fist.

I could tell I was getting no respect so I grew a beard. Still no improvement. So my girlfriend took me down to the garment district in Los Angeles and picked out a maroon suit to make me really stylish. I was sure something to look at but it made it really hard to gain acceptance as a business consulting expert.

For example one Friday afternoon I got my small paycheck and ran down to Crocker bank on Western Avenue in Los Angeles to deposit it. The bank had just closed so I knocked at the glass door. The guard inside took one glance at me and turned his back on me without opening the door. Maybe this kind of thing has happened to you too.

During the following week Tom a fellow consultant showed me a newly published book by John T. Malloy called Dress for Success. I avidly read Malloys carefully surveyed data on what your clothes communicate to others. I started to apply it on my extremely limited budget. I went to the Salvation Army Thrift store and bought 2 silk ties and pieced together the best business look I could.

The following Friday same time I rushed to the same bank with the same small paycheck. This time the same guard took one look at the new improved me unlocked the door and invited me in after the bank had closed like I was a big shot! The only thing that had changed was how I looked. I was thankful that the gray color of the bank door glass made my maroon suit look gray.

Years later I suggested to a friend who sold supplies to beauty shops that he get some good suits like I had. He discovered that conservative business suits are the wrong look to sell glamour. You have to look at the successful people in your field and get whatever survey data you can find about their image. Suits are not always the right image.

What you wear in social situations can make the same kind of difference and help you get ahead in other ways. Pick a look that communicates who you are. How much money do you want to make? You need to look the part. Really it makes a difference. Try it.

Copyright 2009 Creative Business Strategies Inc. All Rights Reserved.

About the writer:  David Sanders has experienced survived and helped others to survive four recessions since 1978. He is considered one of the top experts in Marketing Productivity and Time Management Longterm Strategies with Weekly Real Time Planning and Efficient Utilization of Personnel. The CEO of Creative Business Strategies Inc. a multifaceted corporation Mr. Sanders still makes time to provide quality seminars to Chambers of Commerce and business develop organizations throughout Southern California. His purpose is to help owners and entrepreneurs win with effective marketing and productivity strategies.

Ten Ways To Rapidly Increase Your Sales On The Internet

1. When you make your first sale followup with the customer. You could followup with a “thank you” email. Customers remember good service and are more likely to buy from you in the future if your service is fast friendly and courteous. Include some free surprises with your product and include an advertisement for any other products you sell. You can send followup every few months promoting your product. Don’t send followup email too often as people will start ignoring your emails.

2. You could up sell to your customers. When they’re at your order page tell them about a few extrarelated products you have for sale. They could just add it to their original order.

3. Tell your customers if they refer five customers to your website who purchase the product they will receive a full rebate of their purchase price. This will turn one sale into four sales and is a cheap way to get traffic to your site. This can multiply sales as customers who were referred by someone else will often then refer other customers themselves to get a rebate on the product. This scheme can be can be run as a compliment to an affiliate program. Many people who buy products on the Internet may not be interested in becoming an affiliate marketer. With this system they could refer family friends people they work with and save money for themselves and bring more customers to your website.

4. When you sell a product give your customers the option of joining an affiliate program so they can make commissions selling your product. This will multiply the sale you just made. Having affiliates is like a business employing a salesperson on commission. They only get paid for any sales they make but the more sales they make the more money they make. Affiliates have a great incentive to sell your product because the harder they work the more money they make. If you are an affiliate look for programs with 2tier payment levels. With 2 tier programs you will generally earn a percentage of any money affiliates you have recruited make. This is similar to the principle above with affiliates you recruit earning money for you.

5. Sell the reprint/reproduction rights to your products. You could include an ad on or with the product for other products you sell. You can make money from the sale of the reproduction rights to your products. You can also include links in the in products you have allowed people to sell to your other products. This method can greatly increase sales of your products as every copy they sell to someone else will have links to your other products.

6. You could cross promote your product with other businesses’ products in a package deal. You can include an ad or flyer for other products you sell and have other businesses selling for you.

7. When you ship out or deliver your product include a coupon for other related products you sell in the package. This will attract them to buy more products from you. You can also ship out a coupon that states they will get a discount on other products you have but put a time limit on the coupon. This will generally mean people will go visit your website faster as they see the time limit on the coupon.

8. Send your customers a catalog of addon products for the original product they purchased. This could be upgrades special services attachments etc. If they enjoy your product they will buy the extra addons.

9. Sell gift certificates for your products. You’ll make sales from the purchase of the gift certificate when the recipient cashes it in. They could also buy other items from your web site.

10. Send your customers free products with their product package. The freebies should have your ad printed on them. It could be bumper stickers ball caps tshirts etc. This will allow other people to see your ad and order.

About the writer:  Shane Woods is one of the nets top online mentors and is the creator of http://www.automatedrecruiting.com. If you would like to find out more about Shane Woods you can visit http://www.whoisshanewoods.com.

Social Bookmarketing – Spreading The Word To Millions Of People

Social Bookmarking: Get ready for some heavy traffic!
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The social bookmarking site that we at iyazam.comnbsp;like tonbsp;recommend for starters is StumbleUpon.
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http://www.stumbleupon.com/nbsp;
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StumbleUpon allows you to tag sites within your areas of interest that you think your peers should check out. It also recommends sites to you based on what others have tagged within your areas of interest.
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There is debate whether energy should be focused on social bookmarking since traffic coming from such sites tends not to be quality traffic. Visitors tend to stay on the site for only a very short time and they rarely convert into buyers. Despite these drawbacks StumbleUpon is an excellent tool that can boost your rankings in the search engines. We will explain how it works very soon but first wed like to show you how to use the site.

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1. First go to stumbleupon.com and download the toolbar.

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2. Before creating your profile StumbleUpon will ask you for your areas of interest. Browse the topics that are in your areas of interest ndash; make sure to check boxes related to your business.

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3. Follow the steps to create your profile.

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4. Add friends; you are limited to 200. When selecting friends it is best to search for people with whom you share common interests.

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On the stumbleupon tool bar you will note the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons in the toolbar.
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The stumble button is like the channel changer on a television remote control ndash; it allows you to flip through a wide variety of sites all within your selected areas of interest.

If you come across a website that you like you can give it thumbs up. A small box will pop up for you to give a description of what you like about that site. When prompted make sure to tag and categorize the site.

The thumbs down button is for a page you dont like.

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SHOW ME THE TRAFFIC!

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Get started by promoting your own site on StumbleUpon:

1. Go to the homepage of your site.

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2. Give it thumbs up you can only do this once.

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3. Write a good description about your site.

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4. Tag it and categorize it.

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5. Do this with every page of your site.

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How does this process generate massive traffic? Whenever your site is given thumbs up it will appear more frequently in the StumbleUpon search. The more thumbs up your site earns the broader your traffic.

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If writing is in Ricks area of interest whenever Rick flips through websites by using the stumble button sites related to writing will show up. Suppose Jack has a website that discusses writing and his website has received thumbs up. Jacks website will appear in Ricks Stumble search.

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Note the word social; in the term social bookmarking. If you want others to stumble upon your site if you want your site to appear in the stumble search then you must Stumble other sites and give them thumbs up. This is an incredible tool for driving traffic which will in turn elevate your position in the search engines.

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TO TAKE STUMBLEUPON ONE STEP FURTHERhellip;

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bull; Every time you submit an article post on a forum add content to your website publish a press release or even a classified ad stumble that page and give it thumbs up writing a description and tagging and categorizing.

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bull; Stumble and give thumbs up to every website where a link to your site appears. This puts those sites into the stumble search and therefore your site as well

About the writer:  Hillel Porath is the founder and developer of http://www.iyazam.com . Hillel has been working in marketing for several years learning many valuable lessons along the way the fruits of which appear on his website. Hillel lives with his wife and toddler in Israel.