Marketing Guides

Archive for December, 2009

Biggest Mistakes Business Owners Make With Their Advertising

During the recession many large businesses have had to downsize or close. Many of these casualties are in the finance industry. But how does it affect small business owners or home business owners? According to statistics whether there is a recession or not a staggering NINE out of TEN small businesses that start today will not be around in ten years time. For seven small businesses or home businesses the figure is much lower: Five years or less.

How do you prevent the statistics from applying to you? You need to do something different than other businesses in order to survive. It is plain suicide to do things the same way other small business owners do. Marketing and advertising should be your main activity. Businesses that thrive during a recession double or triple their usual advertising budget. And they dont make mistakes.

Which mistakes do small business owners make in their ads?

Their ads dont have a headline

If you look at newspapers or yellow pages advertisement you often see advertisements without headlines. They often have the business name no headline or a very weak headline. We see an average of 1500 advertisements a day. Most people tune themselves out from those advertisements.

They dont have a powerful offer

For the ad to stand out it needs to have a powerful offer. You have to remember you have between 3 and 5 seconds or less to catch someones attention get them to act on it straight away. Once they put it aside you have lost them forever.

No testimonials

If you tell something about yourself in your ad people are going to doubt what you say. But if someone like a customer says something and especially if you have more than three people who say something about you it is way more believable.

Their ads just sound like everyone elses

Think of what people want the most and write a free report on it. This establishes you as an expert and you build up trust which gives you credibility and helps you to establish a relationship with your client. The report costs very little and people need the information and are more likely to hang on to the report and keep it with them. No other advertisement does this.

Their advertisements are just general and not unique

Make sure your advertisement makes you stand out. Give powerful headlines that make people think like Seven reasons why you should or Dont buy a ___ until you read this. Who else wants to The Truth about . This headline: Attention Home Owners is written to get your target markets attention. So target people in your headline. Find out what your customer wants and target that in your headline.

Thinking that less is more

Many people think they have to have fewer words in their ads. They think noone would read a longer ad. This cannot be further from the truth. Some people take longer to decide based on more information. If they are still reading and youve stopped writing youve lost them.

Not giving your prospective customer enough information

This is really the same as the previous point. We all have a natural degree of scepticism until any doubt is gone. A prospective customer wont be convinced about what you can offer until you persuade him. So you need to give a prospective customer as much information as he needs.

Thinking that advertising doesnt sell

If you have a well written ad that pulls in sales it is like a salesperson that you dont have to pay. So if you have a sales letter that does everything a salesperson does: Presenting your offer overcomes objections and closes with a call to action you can let it work for you over and over and over again until it stops working.

It doesnt take away the risk

Changing to a new provider or service seems very risky to the prospective customer. Take the risk away with a guarantee or giving a lot of educational information.

Not talking directly to your customer

Your advertisement should be written as if you are talking directly to one person. Imagine your ideal prospect sitting right in front of you and talk to him.

Not making it easy for people to call you

Now if you have all the above right and you dont make it easy for people to contact you you have lost your prospective customer. So make sure you have a dedicated phone line for your business and that you are at the end of that line.

Not having a deadline for your offer

People like procrastinating and if they dont have to act they wont. As soon as they decide to wait until later you have lost them.

Offering discounts in your ad

Often giving a discount means to a customer that you cant get your product or service sold. Rather than discounting give a reason for the discount like you are getting in new stock and need to make space or that you have some products that got damaged through delivery and you are offering these at a discount people would have no problem buying.

Instead of a discount you could add value to your offer. Say to them that if you get this product or service I will add an ebook or several ebooks on a related topic or add a couple of low cost products on top of your offer. Or if they get their nails done they can also have a free pedicure.

In conclusion make sure you have an attention grabbing headline with an irresistible offer and you will pull in more clients and grow your business.

Get your free report here for more information on how to write advertisements and sales letters that sell.

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Hannah du Plessis is an ex music teacher who is now working as a Sales Professional. She has always been involved in direct sales part time after hours. In June 2008 she started selling for MyProfile a company that Nathan Chanesman started in Australia. Hannah jumped at the chance to be affiliated with this company as the products incorporate most of her interests.Her interests are Marketing Sales writing finance real estate and psychology. It is her greatest ambition to study for an MBA.

Big Business With A Small Budget Easy Way To Build Any Business If Short Of Cash

Building your future can seem a long way off when you start with a dream and have no hard cash to invest in what is needed to get started.

Isn’t it true that most “opportunities” out there are for those that can afford them from the outset?

Trying to get through the mass of offers out there to find out the true costs are so time consuming and can easily serve to do nothing more than confuse you deflate your enthusiasm and move your dream further and further into the unreachable distance….

It is so easy to start off very optimistic and very excited as many of us have been and some of you at this stage hopefully still may be… but each time you turn around you seem to have to commit to spend money that you don’t have on big advertising campaigns and so you remain fixed still holding the dream but not getting ahead no nearer as the days and weeks and months pass.

You really can’t get ahead if you have to spend on advertising especially when you are starting out with little or nothing to spare.

How would it be then if someone could show you basically step by step how you can build your future for your dreams without spending a ton of money while doing it?

I can now confess to you Iwas one of those people with big dreams; with great passion lots of energy with selfbelief with a serious attitude BUT with no money.

Well good news for us all Ifound something.

That can truly help any of us that have the bigdreamssmallpocket syndrome.

It is a videos series by my friend Mike called “Building On A Budget”. In the videos Mike shows you how to build any home business for 500 or less.

Itook theseFREE videos an absolutely legitimate FREE offer to anyone actually I can get very excited by the word FREE … and immediately felt a sense of hope and affirmation that did not move my dreams farther out of sight but instead made me see them more clearly. I was hooked by what this feeling created deep inside of me and I then went and purchased his book which was ridiculously low in price so even I could afford it! It also made me feel better that I had invested just a little in myself. Well I know I am worth it wait and see.

By starting to apply the techniques he teaches step by step the results were immediate and visible. I am now getting more and more results with generating leads as I go through each step just as he professes will happen.

It is practical work step by step to get cashflow and leads to customers and then moves towards sponsoring others to get onto the pathway that I thought needed all the money invested. The pathway is there for us all even if we have no money. The system has been designed for us.

The best part is the confidence I have gained in Mike and his teachings because I have not spent any more money.

So here Ihad my chance some free videos to listen to and just an easyread booklet which does not run into volumes. You can absorb all of this in just a couple of sittings and then go back over part by part as you start.Scribbling on pages as you go.

Now I had some real tools that i could put to work straight away to grow and to focus in on my dreams again without splashing the endless cash that I thought would be the only way that people really got there. Life does change when the dream stays in focus and I am working every day now to accomplish what Mike has laid out for us to follow.

You can get free access to these videos

Iwill soon be moving up the ranks in sponsoring numbers of new people to my business through the planned system and techniques Mike uses … there is so much more to share with you.

Watch for my progress. Enjoy your dreams. They can start here today.

About the writer:  I need tools to develop and grow. With guidance from those I choose to follow I will learn and practice relentlessly to achieve contentment and abundance. With vision and heart success and independence lies ahead. I respect work commitment perseverance and a will to overcome. I applaud those who move with urgency and are unafraid of tomorrow. I believe if we dream work tirelessly and with spirit to make changes… nothing is impossible.

Best Internet Article Maketing Secrets Strategy Tips Techniques Plan And Effective

I have compiled all the article marketing plan tips strategy techniques and secrets you require to make your next article write fabulous.

Article writing is one of the free ways to drive traffic to your website organically. Anyone can write an article in any subject in as little as 20 minutes or even less as long as you have full information about what you want to write about. You dont have to be an expert in order to write articles. As long as you have a basic knowledge of English; you can write good articles.
Simply select the topic of your choice. I recommend you do a thorough keyword research and find out what people are searching for when it comes to the niche you are marketing. Use a keyword research tool like micro niche finder to find what people are searching at search engines. The keyword research tools can even aid you to find less competitive keywords. It is necessary to do a proper keyword research if you want to get targeted traffic to your site. While doing your keyword research also consider using longtail keywords as you know that it might be difficult to rank at first page of Google for short tail keywords like “credit card”. But if you use a keyword research tool to find similar and less competitive keywords for “credit card” you will be able to find hot and less competitive keyword like “credit card gas reward gas credit card online affordable credit cards etc” which are more targeted and less competitive longtail keywords. Even though you wont be able to get as much traffic as “credit cards” keyword you will get targeted and high ranking. Your article can rank at first page of Google if you write an article using long tail and/ less competitive keywords. Long tail keywords convert more than short tail keywords because you are being precise to what the searcher is looking for.

After youve selected the keyword you want to write on. Write an article between 250 to 800 words. Include the keyword you are using into the opening and closing paragraph of each of the paragraphs in your article and also within other paragraphs too. Do not use excessive keyword; you might end up being penalized for keyword abuse. Write an article that will be interesting to your reader and not one that wont make any sense. Make them interesting and include jokes to make your reader willing to read your article till the end. If possible include funny words to wet the readers appetite and make them want to laugh. If you dont know about the topic you want to write about simply search about that topic at an article directory site and read various pages about that topic. Then close the pages and write what you understood from the ones youve read. Write them in your own words in order not to be penalized for plagiarism. After writing your article the next step is to submit it to articles directories.
Some of the top article directories are:
Ezinearticles
Goarticles
Searchwarp
Articlealley
Articlecity
A1articles
Findarticles
Buzzle
Articlesbase

I recommend you use an article submitter software to submit your article to as many as 600 article directories with just one click instead of manually visiting each of the directories and submitting them there. This could consume a lot of time and also it maybe boring too. Using an article submitter like article submitter pro to submit your article to as many as 600 article directories will bring huge amount of free traffic to your site. Not only will gain traffic by using it you will also build a whole lot of thousands of backlinks to your site.

I recommend you first submit your article to Ezinearticles after it has been accepted you can then resubmit that same article to as many as 600 article directories using article submitter pro. The 600 article directories you will submit your article to using article submitter pro are also indexed by top search engines like Google Yahoo Live and Ask etc. If you want a software that can be able to generate unique articles for you automatically without manually writing time meaning you will save a lot of time then you should get Instant Article Wizard. Its a software that can generate any field of article you need in minutes which are unique.

About the writer:  Carl Roughsedge is Director of www.eMoonlighting.co.uk which provides marketing and graphic design to small and medium businesses around the World.