Author: Fiona Adler

Most businesses know that the best way to get new customers is through word-of-mouth recommendations. Almost all of us base a lot of decisions on recommendations because we tend to believe someone who is not trying to sell to us. (Think about the last few purchasing decisions you made – whether it’s choosing a restaurant, a tradesperson, or a hairdresser, most of us rely on word-of-mouth to some extent.)

But the tricky part about word-of-mouth, is that it’s largely out of your hands. However, there are several things you can do to encourage your customers to recommend you to others.

1. Make sure customers are happy with your service
   This is literally as simple as asking them what they thought of your service. For some businesses it might mean making it policy to ask how the customer’s meal was, or calling a few days after a service has been completed to make sure everything is ok. If there was any problem, this gives you the opportunity to find out about it.
   
   
2. Ask them to rate you on the web
   For some businesses this sounds scary but if your customers are happy with you, all you need to do is ask if they’d mind posting a rating on the web for your business. Most people love to feel needed and if they’re happy with your service and you’ve developed some level of rapport with them, they’ll be more than happy to help you out. Misty’s Diner has been doing this for several months and at the time of writing has 120 customer ratings in WOMOW.
   
   Obviously we suggest you use WOMOW.com.au but the key is to have your customer ratings in a public forum run by an objective third party. That’s what makes them believable!
   
   
3. Ask for personal referrals
   At first glance this can look desperate, but all it means is letting your customers know that your business is built on word-of-mouth and if they know anyone that would be interested in your product/service, to point them in your direction. Later, when they’re having dinner with friends, hopefully they’ll remember this simple prompt and it’s amazing how often a referral will come about.
   
   
4. Let them know some inside secrets
   Give customers something interesting to say to other people. It doesn’t have to be particularly ground-breaking stuff either. It could be something about yourself and why you got into this business, the types of clients you deal with, something about a major project you’re working on, really anything that gives them the opportunity to tell someone else something they don’t already know.
   
   Imagine the difference between saying:-
   "I know a great plumber who might be able to help you out with that"
   and:-
   "I know a great plumber who specialises in grey water solutions. He was just telling me about a job he just finished where…"
   
   
5. Keep in contact
   Your customers could be in a position to give you a recommendation at any time, but if they haven't heard from you in years its not likely they'll remember you. The key is to stay in touch through personal phone calls, mailouts, newsletters, emails, lunches, whatever it takes to make sure that when the opportunity arises and a friend asks "do you know a good accountant around here?", your name will be the first they mention.
   
   One way to achieve this and combine with point 2 above is to email your clients saying that you'd like their feedback. Let them know that you're using a website to collect feedback and would really appreciate it if they could rate you (if you want to use WOMOW just include a link to your WOMOW page).
   
   
6. Dare to be different
   Another way to ensure your customers remember you is to be different in some way. There's any number of ways you could do this but some businesses I’ve come across that do this use things like bright uniforms, posting a quote of the day, asking customers to pay what they think is a fair price instead of using a price list, use dramatic packaging, provide a mobile service (instead of in an office), or serve each customer a fresh muffin on arrival. Really this is marketing 101 in terms of setting yourself apart from your competitors, but think of it not just as a way of being better, but as a way of being remembered and talked about.
   


7. Let everyone know about your ratings
   When people are checking out your website or in the midst of the sales process, let them know what your other customers say about you by showing them customer ratings or testimonials. These could be printed out in your office, a link to you WOMOW listing from your website, or included in your written quotes (eg "See what customers are saying about us here www.womow.com.au/biz/xxxx")
   


8. Thank people for their recommendations
   When you do get a recommendation, make sure you thank the person and let them know how much it means to you. This could mean phoning the customer that just sent their colleague to visit you, sending a box of chocolates or bottle of wine. When you get ratings on WOMOW, you can post a comment on their rating thanking them for their rating and for using your service – they’ll be more inclined to give you more recommendations, plus for everyone else reading, it looks like you really care. And unless the rating is anonymous, you can send them a private email too with a personalised thank-you.
   


9. Above all, provide great service
   This underpins everything else, but I can’t let it go unmentioned. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the mechanics of the business and forget about the customer experience. Be a customer for a day and put yourself in their shoes. What’s it like to phone your company, walk into the waiting room, email you, visit your website for the first time? Is there anything you could be doing better? Are there any basics that you’re missing? Once you get a few ratings, you’ll soon know what aspects of your business customers value the most.
   


10. Go one step extra
    If it's at all possible, make it a policy to do something extra that customers wouldn’t expect. Call the next day to see how everything is working out, remember their order from their last visit (or set up a system that does), give them a coffee / wine / mineral water / chocolate on arrival, set up a TV with relevant DVD's in your waiting room, offer a free fitting service, write to them and offer a free maintenance check, give them a free air-fragrance with your service, or allow them to keep something else associated with your business.
    
    I know of one car dealership that provides a lifetime of free carwashing to anyone that buys a car from them. Not only does this provide a great talking point, it ensures the customer remembers them next time they’re looking to buy a new car.
    
    If there's something you can do to really wow your customers, they'll be so grateful, they'll look for opportunities to even the score. As they say, the difference between extraordinary and ordinary is the "extra"!

Once you start regularly implementing just some of these ideas, the referrals will start flooding in. It's a great way to do business!

Technorati Tags:customer service, word-of-mouth, customer referrals, word of mouth, wom, customer recommendations, womow
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Alison Beckwith

Research Triangle Park, N.C. - BioSignia, a predictive modeling company delivering innovative healthcare solutions, was honored in the 2008 Healthiest Company Competition, sponsored by Rex Healthcare and Business Leader Media. BioSignia’s recognition is due in part to its work in developing Know Your Number®, the first disease-specific risk assessment tool to predict an individual’s risk of developing chronic preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. This revolutionary testing tool isn’t just benefitting BioSignia’s clients, but keeping its employees healthy too.

“We are honored to be recognized as one of the top companies in the area for our healthy-minded practices,” says Tim Smith, president and COO of BioSignia. “Through our work with Know Your Number, our employees live and breathe the message our disease-specific risk assessment tool sends and you can see it when you walk through our offices.”

In 30 minutes or less, the Know Your Number assessment takes an individual’s information such as their weight, blood pressure, family history, lifestyle habits and key blood values. Then, it uses a proprietary technology called Synthesis Analysis™ to produce a detailed report on your risks of developing specific chronic preventable diseases. It’s unlike any other health risk assesment tool because it uses a multi-dimensional approach by isolating individual and aggregate data on a multitude of risk factors.

Smith says each BioSignia employee has taken the Know Your Number test to learn how to reduce their risks of developing chronic preventable diseases -- for some employees it’s been a life-changing experience. BioSignia was one of 24 Triangle companies recently recognized in the Healthiest Company Competition.

“Companies can really help motivate their employees to target their specific disease risks and adopt healthier habits,” adds Smith. “And that’s top on our list at BioSignia.”

To learn more about Know Your Number, visit: http://www.knowyournumber.com

***

About BioSignia, Inc

Headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C., BioSignia is a leading technology

company focused on bringing innovative predictive modeling solutions to the preventive

health and life insurance markets. At the core of BioSignia’s flagship solution, Know

Your Number is the company’s proprietary synthesis modeling approach to chronic

disease risk prediction. In 2004, BioSignia received the Disease Management Association

of America’s prestigious award for Best Enabling Tool for Disease Management. Since

then, the company’s talented R&D team has continued to advance synthesis modeling,

continuously updating it to reflect the ever expanding need for effective chronic disease

prevention, management and treatment. For more information, visit: www.biosignia.com


CONTACT: Alison Bechwith, abeckwith@919marketing.com, 919.459.8157

Technorati Tags:healthcare, chronic diseases, preventative diseases, healthy company
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Allen Jesson

Referral marketing originated when the Internet first entered the commercial marketplace. By creating a network of similar sites that defer traffic and potential customers upon one another, revenue and customer interest rose for participating sites.

Since then, the process of referral marketing has become a mainstay of web site design. Revenue generated through referral efforts has risen to become a multi-million dollar industry that has penetrated every nation in the world.

To institute a referral marketing campaign on your site, you must first institute a program for providing the materials other designers require in order to initiate a referral exchange. Typically, this constitutes HTML code to insert into a site that creates either a link or banner image that is optionally hosted on your server.

If you choose to provide a banner image, you must consider the pixel size and content of the images to allow for widespread adoption of your referral process.

If you can afford to invest in incentives to provide to potential participants in your referral network, proceed to do so through automated software hosted through the web.

You can choose to reward your referrers through the number of click-throughs they generate or by the number of sales generated through visitors who registered as a result of using your link.

The more attractive the incentive you provide, the more likely it is your fellow web masters will adopt your referral campaign.

You can also benefit from mutual referral exchanges. Providing a site banner for a companion site that sells similar products or services is beneficial so long as they act in kind.

Once mutual referrals begin to flow, you might consider pursuing other opportunities for combination sales and marketing arrangements.

Referral marketing can help to increase web site traffic and sales without causing a major impact on your bottom line. Through the use of a few well placed web site links and banners, customers can spread brand awareness and become incentivized to purchase your products and services.

Actively recruiting other web masters to participate in your referral program is often a painless exercise in good, mutual business relationship building.

Understanding the process of referral marketing is half the battle. Organizing your time and actually spending time on this aspect of internet marketing can really make a huge difference to your website traffic and the sales that follow. Referral marketing is a simple process that spreads the word about your site.

Technorati Tags:internet marketing, word of mouth marketing, viral, tell a friend, refer a friend, referal marketing
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Todd Ash

The definition of a viral video is basically a video clip which gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through e-mail, IM messages, blogs and other media sharing websites. Brick Marketing's viral video marketing is a service that combines the creation of a viral video and online video marketing.

Viral video marketing is a super way to build your online brand, visibility, among a host of other online business benefits. Take some lessons from the big guys about how to use video marketing the right way, it's about more than just traffic.

The amateurs like "Brookers" and "Lonelygirl" publish their video clips for fun and notoriety, and the big corporations like Nike, Warner Bros, and MTV2 produce and publish them in order to drive traffic to their web sites and sell more of their products or services. Because the advertising cost relatively inexpensive. And it produces results.

Todays youth now spend more time online that watching television. It's all about pageviews and favourites and bookmarks and links on blogs. Your YouTube video can assume viral status and be passed on via emails and blogs. Even be spotted on Facebook walls. Since the audience themselves decide whether or not your video is worthy enough to become viral or not. You better make sure it is. That is where StudioX comes in.

This piece also includes a best practices rundown by Justin Kirby, managing director of viral marketing company DMC, who did the planning, seeding and tracking for this campaign. The creative was produced by Maverick Media.

People aren't just watching video online, either. They're taking it with them by downloading video clips to their handheld devices like the video iPod and Sony's video game console, the PlayStation Portable. Now cell phones have the ability to watch YouTube videos.

For the online entrepreneur (the web site owner seeking to make money online) the purpose of your you tube video is to bring traffic to your site. The You tube video site is a phenomenon which has taken the internet by storm and unless you've been off in a far away place, you will not doubt have seen one of the many videos which have been popularized by the site such as Tyson the roller-skating dog. Did you know that You Tube gets twice as much traffic as Google. That means that you tube alone, gets one million hits a day.

Do a video contest because everyone else is. This online-video "contest" fad will continue, and it will become more difficult to activate consumers to promote your product. Do a search for "video contest" on Google and you'll see four or five different ads for contests.

The David Chappelle video contest is a good example of a nice idea with some executional flaws. First, it didn't initially promote the contest on its own website because it wanted to focus people on buying the DVD. Second, it petered out. Contest winners weren't announced and insufficient media budget promoted the contest. To give you an idea of how abused contests are getting, there was a summer promotion for a mayonnaise manufacturer looking for videos about may recipes.

However their are numerous ways to monetize viral videos. From contextual ad programs like Adsense, Yahoo Publishers Network and Chitika to affiliate programs and product sales "revenue sharing is just one aspect of earning money through the use of online video.

Viral video marketing is the gift that keeps on giving. Internet video marketing is going to be the next big thing in SEO. The "on-demand" characteristic of video marketing is another great benefit. Why video marketing is the most powerful and effective method to earn profits The truly simple steps to get setup in a flash and add videos to your web pages Why you're suffering, even if you don't know it, if you're only using other advertising and promotion techniques. The big reasons why video marketing is so effective and how you can capitalize on them and so much more.

Viral videos are those videocam recordings that get spread around the internet like wild fire. Without anyencouragement, people share a video clip with everyone they know. And within days, thousands of people have seen the video clip.

Facebook: Share, share, share. Other ideas include creating an event that announces the video launch and inviting friends, writing a note and tagging friends, or posting the video on Facebook Video with a link back to the original YouTube video.

Look at the evolution from where the internet first started. It started out with everything being free. Natural search was first starting. You could actually go to the top of a natural search engine within a day or two of launching a site and start getting traffic almost immediately.

Kevin Nalts is one of the most-viewed YouTube comedians with more than 650 short online videos seen more than 25 million times. By day he's a Marketing Director at a Fortune 100 company, and he speaks, writes and consults in the area of online marketing and viral video.

Technorati Tags:youtube, video, viral video, video marketing, facebook, tagging, viral video marketing, david chappelle
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Todd Ash

How to get web traffic, especially free web traffic, is always a million dollar question to every Internet marketer and online business owner. After all, no matter how good your products or services that you offer in your site are, they have no buyers if nobody comes to your site. Hence traffic is very crucial for your online business.

There are many ways to use video on the Internet to market your practice. The first is adding video to your exisiting website and the second is building a direct marketing dental video website from scratch. Every dentist that wants to compete for business on the Internet will eventually have to have some form of video content on their dental websites to maintain the standards that are currently being reached by some on the Internet. By building a dental video website from scratch you will be able to take full advantage of the technology available to you to create a unique and custom website that meets its objectives.

Internet video marketing can increase your web site traffic almost instantly once you post the right video. The best part of video marketing is that except for the cost of producing the video it's all free. You can increase your web site traffic by thousands all for the cost of the video. And some videos are so low tech they can be made with a small digital camera or even a camera phone.

Using an Internet video marketing campaign along with search engine optimization and search engine marketing is the best way to advertise your website and increase your web site traffic. Forget about expensive web advertising that doesn't work.

You can use the free social networking and marketing tools on the Internet to increase web site traffic and take your business to the next level and double or triple the number of hits that you get on your website everyday. A few words of caution though - when you're producing internet videos don't make them too high tech or over produced.

Keep in mind that some people will be viewing the video on a slow internet connection. Make a video that will load quickly and play fast so that people can view it even if they don't have a high speed Internet connection or offer two versions of the video with one optimized for high speed connections and one optimized for slower connections.

Some of the ways that website promotion occurs and that can increase website traffic is through the use of SEO, viral marketing, and internet campaigns which each play a significant part in creating a successful web presence. SEO techniques help to build page ranking and increase website traffic through the use of things like back linking, and directory submissions.

The use of viral marketing, mailing lists, word of mouth and video marketing helps to increase website traffic by reaching out and using existing social networks and structures for website promotion. In addition, Internet campaigns help places ads on relevant sites or keyword related sites in order to help increase traffic, promotion and can create an additional source of revenue from your site.

Obviously it is of no benefit to have a strong web site marketing campaign, including a powerful_streaming_video_advertisement, if your web site has limited internet visibility. Everyone today focuses on search_engine_optimization which can have significant benefits when done properly. But unfortunately the complexity coupled with the dynamic structure where the rules are constantly changing, make it almost impossible for a business owner to effectively run a successful SEO campaign. Obviously you can hire a firm to do it for you but beware because many of these firms charge an excessive fee while offering little in terms of results.

When it comes to taking your online business to the next level, break free from the chains of one-dimensional selling. Studies have shown that online video significantly increases conversion rate over sales copy alone. Remember?Use the same sales strategies that you use with sales copy. Sell the sizzle not the steak, and end with a strong call to action that gives your website visitor a strong incentive to buy.

Submit your internet marketing videos to the venues computer turn to for videos, such as YouTube, Google Videos and Yahoo! One great benefit to submitting with one or all of these is that your video will be hosted for free, keeping your website bandwidth for your customers.

Videos and video marketing are not just here to stay, they are the future of online marketing. As the larger corporations including TV and movie makers are now using his medium, it makes sense to join the party. Video marketing is one of the fastest growing online tactics with an audience that is hungry for more - so long as it is reasonable good quality and entertaining.

Video marketing can be an excellent way to generate web site traffic. Video marketing is essentially free (other than the cost of the camera to shoot the video) and can be a very powerful strategy in getting targeted traffic back to your site, as well as in other facets of the marketing process like building relationships and branding yourself.

Proper website promotion is the key to creating increase web traffic results, page ranking, and the increase in revenue that every business desires when establishing a website. Using the Internet as a media to reach a potential 729 and 785 million customers, can be a large boost to any company?s consumer reachable market and potential revenue possibilities. Thousands of businesses cannot be wrong so consider what Internet marketing can do for you and your business today.

Video marketing is like a double edged sword. You gain views from people who look at your video and you gain search engine visibility. This is what has every Internet Marketer and online guru going crazy. Online Video Marketing has double impact in a short period of time.

Look at the evolution from where the internet first started. It started out with everything being free. Natural search was first starting. You could actually go to the top of a natural search engine within a day or two of launching a site and start getting traffic almost immediately.

Where you place your video on your website can mean the difference between success and failure. You want to make sure that you put it where it will be seen. It should get prominent placement.

Technorati Tags:free, seo, youtube, google, website traffic, business promotion, free website traffic, bideo marketing
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Peter Collins

Ft. Lauderdale, FL - The Oregon Spring Trail is a three-day racing contest held every summer, near Portland, OR. This year’s event, its eleventh, commenced on April 20 at Portland International Raceway.

Crowd favorites

Rally America points leader Travis Pastrana, and his navigator Christian Edstrom were the fan favorites. They drove an Open Class 2007 Subaru Impreza WRX STi. Tanner Foust and co-driver Christine Beavis, another favorite, took an early lead on the first day driving a Rockstar Energy Drink Subaru.

Weather plays truant

The notorious Oregon weather, which produces heavy rain at this time of the year, makes this race a test of endurance as much as of skill. On the second day, due in part to Tanner Foust’s flat tire, Andrew Pinker and teammate, Patrick Walsh, driving a Jack Daniels Subaru took the lead on the slippery surface.

Final result

By the time the rally reached its final stages, only 44 of the 75 racers remained to cross the finish line. The final result showed Pinker on top; Ken Block second and Foust third. All the top three places went to a Subaru.

Soaring popularity

The popularity of this event has reached such a level that the X Games were introduced to it in 2006. Today, these games are broadcast live to millions on ESPN and ABC.

One difference between NASCAR and this is that here, all cars must be street-legal, and Oregon Trail racers are protected by working windshield wipers and headlights and should have license plates.

For further information please visit: http://www.autousa.com/content/oregan-trail.jsp

About the Author:
Contact:
AutoUSA
110 SE 6th Street
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, US
Ph: 954-769-6659
Website: http://www.autousa.com/

Technorati Tags:auto, cars, racing, automotive, oregon, oregon rally, racing contest, trail rally
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Mark Myers

Have you ever tried to build a website? Is a Blogger template the best you can hope for? Do you have enough trouble with English, let alone an entirely new HTML language? Do you have any clue what a CSS stylesheet is? Don't worry, it is about to get simple.

Ok, I have a confession. I have put up over 100 websites, and I barely know either. Yes using blogs and free WYSIWYG editors (That's what you see is what you get) I have had to learn some HTML. When I started using Frontpage and Dreamweaver I had to learn way more than I knew. I knew I was relegated to using sorry templates that I could not change forever. So I struggled putting up my first 10 sites. They were all horrible, are still up and barely pay for the hosting and domain names.

I knew to step up my profits, I quickly had to find another solution. I was reading through a free bonus report on web marketing and the author mentioned a product I had never heard of, XSitePro. I surfed around read some reviews, and thought it might be the answer to my prayers, so I bought it and tried it. WOW, it was almost as easy to put up a professional looking site as a my space page!

I started churning out web sites. I could build and publish a professional high ranking optimized site as quick as an article. I was in heaven, my sites were all search engine friendly user friendly, and I could go back to marketing my sites for income. I could keep using XSitePro for two more years if I had to, but there were limitations.

Web 2.0. Video, adsense, music, dynamic pages, interaction. Make no mistake,I do well for myself with my limited sites, and do not have a clue how to do any of these, but I know that is what the future will demand. In steps XSitePro 2. If you can think of any feature you would want a piece of software to do on building a website. It does it. Half of the things listed in the benefits, I do not understand.

What I do know is XSitePro 2 is leading the pack. With all the intuitive features it comes with, I am sure I will be able to double the number of sites I have making me money in six months. If you have never published your first site, or you are a seasoned pro and want to spend more time having fun than writing websites, XSitePro 2 is exactly what the doctor ordered. Construct two sites and call me in the morning!.

Technorati Tags:xsitepro, web 2.0, xsitepro 2 review, xsitepro 2
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Beryl Powell

In a conversation, your response to the question “What do you do?” will determine if the conversation continues. The first paragraph on your web site determines if a visitor will stay to learn more about you or leave.

The marketing messages you deliver to your audience should clearly state the results your clients will achieve by working with you, and distinguish you as the solution to their problems. Your marketing messages should also show your uniqueness.

There are six messages you must have in your marketing arsenal:

* Tagline – a few words that sets your perceived image.

* Elevator Speech – a 3.5 second message that tells what you help your clients achieve.

* Compelling Marketing Message – your main message that speaks directly to your target market; it shows you understand their problems and are the perfect solution to solve their problem.

* Your Story – a statement that tells your ideal client what drives you to do what you do and why you are choice they should choose to solve their problems.

* A Reason to Buy Now – a statement that tells your ideal client why they should buy what you are selling, and why they should buy now instead of later.

* Call to Action – a statement that tells your listener or reader the actions to take so they can take advantage of what you are offering.

Each marketing message should be able to be delivered individually, and as one conversation.

Your marketing messages should come from the client’s point of view and highlight the value you provide to the client,so when you create your messages use words that focus on the client’s problems and the solutions they are looking for. Start by asking yourself a few questions like:

* What do you help your clients achieve?

* What value do you bring to your client’s business?

* What or how do your services allow your client to exist, perform or behave?

* If your client was telling one of their clients about you and your business, what do want them to say?

* What impact do your services have on your client’s business and life?.

Technorati Tags:business, marketing messages
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Daniel St-jean

First, let me share with you a definition of marketing I found on Wikipedia: “Marketing is a societal process which discerns consumers' wants, focusing on a product or service to fulfill those wants, attempting to move the consumers toward the products or services offered.” (aka selling)

That sounds about right. Let me follow that with a brilliant observation from Donald Cooper, one of America’s top professional speaker and corporate trainer: “We are all human beings selling something to other human beings. How damn complicated should that actually be?”

Apparently, complicated enough. The facts are: businesspeople are selling all the time, and consumers are buying all the time. The question is: are they buying YOUR products, services, subscription, business opportunity, expertise, concepts or ideas? If not, WHY NOT? Well, I don’t have ALL the answers to that last question, but I have some.

My signature says I’m a “BizzBooster” and an Internet Marketing Advisor. That’s true. My wife (the other BizzBooster) and I teach businesspeople how to boost their business, particularly on the Internet. We are teachers.

To be effective teachers, we need to be good students. We are. We study marketing 24/7 (pretty much) and we make good notes of the harmful mistakes people make in their marketing strategies for the purpose of teaching our customers and clients how to avoid those mistakes in order to boost their business.

By “boosting their business”, we mean making things easier, saving time, saving money, beating the competition, generating more leads, prospects and customers, making more sales, more money, and ultimately, more profit!

If those are results you aspire to in your business, read on because the 2 marketing tips (we call them TIPPPS™) I will talk about here will help you avoid two of the god-awful mistakes we observe all the time that cause businesspeople to fail—or at least underachieve. I promise you that marketing any business successfully will be a lot easier when you apply those 2 expert TIPPPS™ Thoughts Ideas Principles & Practices for Professional Success).

Here’s the first TIPPPS™: “Everything people do, they do either out of their need to avoid/reduce pain, and/or their desire to gain/increase pleasure.”

Or as Jeremy Bentham once wrote, “Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure; they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.”

It is crucial for the success of your marketing endeavors that you understand the pain and pleasure motivators, and how to use that knowledge when designing marketing material, of any kind.

Most people in marketing and psychology agree that the first motivator – pain – is more powerful than the second. For example: Joe will be quite willing to work 50 or even 60 hours a week in his business so he can buy the BMW he’s been dreaming about (aka pleasure).

Now, imagine that Joe needs to make a lot of money in order to keep the IRS from seizing his store and his house and throwing him and his family out on the street (pain). Joe will be willing to work a LOT harder (80 hours a week?) to avoid that pain than he would be to gain the pleasure of owning a fancy car.

People will do things to avoid pain they would not even consider if it were merely to gain some pleasure. What that means to you is that to get the maximum results from your marketing materials, you should use what is known as the AIDA formula: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action – where the word Interest features pain and problems.

With that in mind, “most” of your marketing should follow along the easy path of answering these questions:

1-Are you getting ATTENTION with your opening?

2-Are you stating a problem (pain) your prospect is INTERESTED in?

3-Are you offering a solution your prospect DESIRES?

4-Are you asking your prospect to take ACTION?

Of course, I had to use the word “most” above because there are instances where it’s all about pleasure; dance classes, cooking courses and piano lessons are 3 examples.

Back to AIDA: If you sell products that help people who suffer from sore feet (for example), the best opening to get attention would probably be “Sore Feet?” (pain) as opposed to “Want foot relief?” (pleasure).

Bottom line, walk in your customers’ shoes for a while (pun intended), find out what his “pain” is, what his problems are, use that to get his attention, and then present your product or service as THE solution that will rid him of that pain and you will do exceedingly well. For Internet marketers, remember that the vast majority of people go online to find a solution to a problem. Focus on solving that problem and you’ll smile all the way to the (virtual) bank.

In other words (and this is the second TIPPPS™): “To have success, it is necessary that you bait the hook to suit the fish.”

I don’t mean any disrespect to shoppers, leads, prospects and customers by using the word “fish” This is actually a recommendation from Dale Carnegie in his famous book How To Win Friends And Influence People.

Here’s what he said: “I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found out that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm in front of the fish and said: ‘Wouldn’t you like to have that?’

Why not use the same common sense approach when fishing for people? When someone asked Lloyd George, then Great Britain’s Prime Minister how he managed to stay in power, he replied that if his staying on top might be attributed to any one thing, it would be to his having learned that it was necessary to bait the hook to suit the fish.

The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.”

And as was pointed out earlier, what people want more than pleasure are ways, methods, strategies, tools, products and services that will help them avoid pain or at least reduce it. Bait your marketing “hook” with a solution, and the “fish” will bite.

I hope the “knowledge” you gleaned from this article will be helpful. Remember though that knowledge is power ONLY when it’s combined with ACTION! If you think the TIPPPS™ above are valuable, DO something with them, and seek out more of them.

Daniel G. St-Jean, BB, IMA, AMA

(BizzBooster, Internet Marketing Advisor, Article Marketing Alchemist)

P.S.: This article was inspired by a very informative and enlightening 5,500-word article which you can read by following the link listed in the Resource Box.

Technorati Tags:marketing techniques, marketing, business marketing, email marketing, marketing tips, marketing help, marketing strategy, marketing tools, marketing ideas, marketing success, e marketing, sales and marketing, product marketing, marketing solution
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Tony Savour

Telemarketing is a worldwide proven method to gaining more sales effectively and efficiently. It involves the process of calling up potential prospects and trying to sell them your product or service. As well as contacting new potential clients it is a method of contacting your existing customers and selling them other or new products or services that you offer.

Telemarketing is the next stage in your sales campaign after you have generated leads (not covered in this article) and the effectiveness depends on how you and your staff hold yourselves on the phone and how you come across. A major factor in telemarketing is how you come across to the prospect on the phone because a lazy rude telemarketer will never make it in the industry.

Right now let's get on to some tips that will help you increase your sales and potentially maximize your telemarketing campaign.

Firstly when you make a call to a prospect you have very little time to grab their attention and give them a good impression to keep them on the line. If you want to make a good impression you will need to plan your calls carefully and get yourself prepared to take on the challenge. You will need to be nice and friendly and enthusiastic on the phone and give the pitch of a lifetime every time. You need to keep the prospects interest and try to get them involved, this is how telemarketing work..

Try and keep your office and/or desk tidy and clean so as to not distract you from the call you are making, also try and make sure that it doesn’t have anything from your lunch break on or magazines etc as these may not seem distracting but can really put you off course. Telemarketing can be tiring work so you will not want to be distracted as it can completely throw you off.

Before you start you are going to need a script for you to read off of each time, you can experiment with these and change them to find out which one has the best effect of prospects. The good thing about scripts is that you can always change them and it is always good to not read directly from the script but to work off of it and expand it as you go, this way you will be able to work out the best telemarketing method for you.

Also remember that you should not be practising or warming up on real prospects as these can result in petty sale losses which should not have occurred. If you really need to warm up and prepare yourself which you most likely will, the best way of doing this is to get somebody to run through the script with you or play the role of a prospect before you start your rounds. Telemarketing can be a harsh business where prospects can be rude or aggressive down the phone to you, if this occurs you must be able to control yourself and handle the matter professionally, so always be prepared for any outcome.

Always keep records of your daily calls and make sure that write down who you called and whether successful or not as from these results you can see prospect patterns which you will be able to work from in future to enhance your sales.

Also the last tip for this article is to make sure that you ask questions to the prospect to try and find out what the want and then offer your products or services accordingly. If you try to tell the prospect what they need and try to force the product or service you can pretty much guarantee no sale is going to happen.

I hope that these tips have helped you and that you use the effectively.

Technorati Tags:telemarketing
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Author: Paul Ashby

The £500,000 Honda waste of money on “live” television advertising is perhaps, the final straw in the acceptance of advertising as a means of “communicating” with consumers.

Our unwillingness to admit to the huge failings of advertising are reflected in our business institutions suffering from a loss of nerve to admit that advertising has become a total travesty, and amount to a national moral funk. We have let advertising standards fall in almost everything and especially in understanding the true meaning of the word communication.

Our claims that “advertising works” reflect an unwillingness to look rather more closely at the “evidence” touted by the various bodies representing advertising (and media) self interest!

It would appear that sometimes a decision taken by Media/Agency/Client is so lacking in common sense that the only appropriate reaction is to bang one’s head against a brick wall. However a blinkered advertising campaign, such as Hondas’, is so bad that the outcome can be truly toxic. There are more and more grotesque examples of such decisions, decisions lacking in any knowledge of the communications process, emerging as advertisers try to cut through the clutter, attract consumers’ attention etc.

I guarantee that the £500,000 could have been far more effectively spent with total accountability. All is revealed in my book “Television killed advertising” out end September.

Advertising people don’t understand the real world, they don’t understand the meaning of the word “communication”, and with the decision to split the creative role and the media role, there has been a proliferation of “experts” who still don’t understand communication. Between them issues forth a startling amount of opinions as to what constitutes “good” advertising, never for once realising that there is no such thing. Advertising people are subhuman living in a fantasy world in which communications can be controlled by “creativity” and supposedly sophisticated readership/viewing habits can instruct customers to read./watch their advertisements...they don't of course! The world we live in is vastly different from the world they think we live in.

Perhaps the change to reality is already starting! “US retailer quits TV for instore promotions”! Although only a casuist would draw hard and fast conclusions from such sparse data, it isn't good news for the US TV industry that a major retailer like Gap boosted its bottom line after quitting the medium in favour of instore merchandising for several successive quarters.

The switch trimmed 18% off the firm's marketing expenditure during its most recent quarter, contributing to a 40% year-on-year leap in profits.


So…no more retreat, let us rediscover the true meaning of communication and then start to provide our clients with the sort of marketing communication they deserve in the 21st Century.

Advertising has set no standards for the effective, accountable marketing communication of products/services matched only by the total lack of relentless curiosity! The history of advertising is also one of constant rejection towards anything that questioned the supremacy of advertising, despite the fact that the alternative on offer was substantially more effective and less expensive than advertising itself.

1. In a nutshell: marketing as we know it is a construct of the last century or so. Markets, on the other hand, have been around for thousands of years.
2. Interactive communication is not the same as online/digital. Truly interactive is "letting customers into the heart of your business"
3. In markets (as opposed to marketing) the sale was merely the exclamation mark at the end of the sentence. The rest was conversation and relationship.
4."Listen. Measure. Respond."
5. "Why" is more important than "how".
6. At the farmer’s market, the farmers let you taste the fruit. How can your customers "taste your fruit"?

So let us define Interactive Marketing communication. Interaction can be defined simply as straightforward communication between two parties. Presently we are in danger of losing the real meaning of interaction, as we tend to focus discussions on the emerging technologies and neglect the communication process itself.

With an understanding of the real meaning of Interactive Communication, existing media can be made interactive, and subsequently far more cost effective.
Interactive Marketing Communication turns passive advertising into active advertising and actually alters behaviour during the communication and learning process.


In my book “Television killed advertising” to be published end September 2008, I detail just how much more effective
Interactive communication is when compared to conventional advertising and details the results of a research investment in excess of £5 m.

Technorati Tags:sales, marketing, communication, advertising, interactive, customers, client, honda, media, clutter, agency, decisions, accountability, standards, gap, toxic, personalize, travesty, humanize, grotesque
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator