Marketing Blog - Ideas That Work

Finding marketing opportunities is like finding the best places to ski for me. Let me explain.

Five years ago we had the good fortune to buy a ski condo at Sugarbush in VT, a mountain we had only occasionally visited. The first couple of years I headed for the trails, skiing where everybody else was. I found lots of great terrain, but also lots of others competing with me for the same runs and the same snow. With lots of people covering the same ground, the condition of the trails often became less than ideal fairly quickly.

Once I knew the mountain and had found the ski trails I liked best, I started exploring the spaces between the trails, in the woods. With the help of friends and family and my increasing abliity I found hidden paths through the trees where fresh snow lingered untouched just waiting to be skiied.

With new confidence in my ability to navigate the unmarked and unexplored parts of the mountain, I spent much of this year skiing the outback. Starting from the top of the lift, with friends I explored headed out beyound the area limits to enjoy the fresh snow and the solitude of skiing the backside of the mountain. So how does this relate to marketing your small business?

The most obvious place to look for marketing opportunities is where everybody else goes. The problem is you'll find yourself competing with lots of other people for the same space, just as I was on the ski trails.

Instead of focusing all your time on marketing in the same places as all your competitors, look for marketing opportunities in between the common areas others sell their products and services and you'll be pleasantly suprised to find many untapped sources of revenue, often untouched by your competitors. Learn how to discover all the small business marketing opportunities you've been missing.- Charlie Cook

"Do you suggest post-cards being sent out to other business? We have started to brainstorm various selling tactics but aren't 100% sure." - Lisa Welch

Postcards are a great way to generate leads but by themselves are unlikely to generate a sale. If you have the right marketing message you can use postcards to prompt prospects to call you or visit your web site. When they do you can follow up with the essential marketing information to build credibility, define value and move them towards a sale. - Charlie Cook

"How can I help the search engines find my site and avoid common search engine marketing mistakes? - Adam Brock

1. Start by creating a list of keyword phrases and the variations you think people will use in searching for your products and services.

2. Use the Overture keyword suggestion tool to organize these according to the frequency people actually search for them.

3. Use the keywords in this list when you write your web page copy and articles you distribute online.

Learn exactly how to write and code your web site to help the search engines give it a top ranking. - Charlie Cook

"Do you suggest post-cards being sent out to other businesses?" - Lisa Welch

Postcards can be used successfully for lead generation and to attract qualified prospects or they can be a big waste of money. To make sure your postcard campaign is successful make sure to include a marketing message that gets the attention of your prospects and prompts them to contact you. - Charlie Cook

"Why do you put the period in S.ales or the zero in pr0fits in your ezines?" - Greg Timpany

The spam filters block email newsletters that include words such as:
- sales
- profits
- here
- wife
- questions
- check
- investments
and many more and probably never thought would be included.

For additional information on the topic read:
- Spam Filters Out of Control
- Avoiding Getting Your Newsletter Caught in Spam Filters (includes a more complete list of words that can get your ezine blocked by spam filters).
- Charlie Cook

According to research by Bersin & Associates In 2004, the e-learning market grew 30 percent to a $14 billion dollars. Sent by colleague Kristie Tamsevicius .

$14 billion dollars and growing by 30% a year! What does that tell you?

Individuals and corporations are looking online for basic information as well as in-depth training resources. If you are an expert or want to become one, you can benefit from this to attract attention, position your services and grow your business. Learn how to get a piece of this fast growing e-learning market with "The 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing" and "Creating Web Sites that Sell". These manuals detail the marketing plan and web marketing strategies I've used to get a share of the e-learning market and how you can do the same.My Marketing Manuals and Marketing Tools sell well here in the U.S. and Canada as well as overseas from Australia to Germany to Sweden and parts of the mideast.- Charlie Cook

"We are experts in travel and have lots of great connections with luminaries and are trying to decide whether to spend $900 per show to be on a new station in our area to establish ourselves as experts. What should we do?" - Ann L.

Before you spend large sums establishing your radio presence you will want a way of taking advantage of this exposure. Define your marketing strategy, develop your marketing materials so that when you use radio to get attention, it helps with lead generation, building your prospect list and translates into sales.

Positioning yourselves as experts is a great way to attract prospects and clients. I'd start by using the low cost strategy of distributing your articles to get free publicity . I regularly send my marketing articles out to a list of over 800 online and offline publications which generates a huge amount of traffic to my web site.

You can also use talk radio to get wide exposure. I suggest starting with free interviews on shows that already have a wide audience. Use this link to learn how.

1. Set up your marketing to take advantage of your expertise
2. Use your articles and free radio exposure to get known.
3. When people visit your web site make sure your web marketing and lead generation strategy prompts them to contact you and buy from you.
- Charlie Cook

"How do I keep the ideas coming so I can continue writing creative newsletters?" - W.L.

My best souce of ideas are my prospects and clients. Prospects send me questions, clients describe their concerns and problems. Each marketing question or problem posed provides the topic for a potential marketing article. Each time I get an inquiry or after talking to a client, I jot down any marketing ideas. Then when I sit down each Wednesday morning to write I have more than enough ideas to use. I may get a question about web site marketing or internet marketing, small business marketing strategy, writing a marketing plan, business networking or increasing sales with their web site. Each has the potential to become a marketing article or in this case the topic of a marketing blog. - Charlie Cook

"I don't enjoy my job and just want to make enough money so I can quit it, what do I do." - Allison

You'll be far more successful if you focus on finding a job you love. There is an almost infinite array of options for those people who seek out work they enjoy. People make a living at everything from teaching skiing or piano to running corporations. In each case, those that are successful are the people who really love what they do.

Your work should be a way to do one of they things you love, not just a way to put food on the table. Find a job, a way to make money doing one of things you truly enjoy. I have one client who loves to fly. She pays for passion by doing the traffic report from her plane over Anchorage Alaska. I have a friend who loves math and tracking the markets. He works for a reinsurance company. The possiblities are infinite for anyone with almost any interest.

Learn how to leverage your interests and passions to make a living and enjoy your life with the 5 Principles of Highly Effective Marketing. - Charlie Cook

"You must have someone realy good doing your search engine positioning. I see your site appearing in the top 10-20 spots for lots of keywords on Google. Who does it for you?" - Kristie T.

It is true my site enjoys top 20 positioning for a lot of keyword phrases related to marketing. Phrases such as free marketing plans, marketing message, marketing blog, web site marketing plans, marketing coach, business marketing tools, etc.

This is a result of a simple system I developed that is you can learn with my internet marketing manual "Creating Web Sites that Sell" and I've applied to my site myself. Of course the first step is having highly relevant content, that's what the search engines are looking for. The second step is knowing what the search engines are looking for, that's what you'll find explained in Creating Web Sites that Sell. - Charlie Cook

When you wake up in the morning do you look forward to going to work, marketing your products and services and delivering them? Or do you dread going to work?

Yesterday I got a call from someone looking for help marketing her business who said she hated her work. It's tough to promote something, even if its a valuable service if you hate doing it. My advice was to either find a way to really get excited about parts of the job or find a new one. Life is too short to spend it doing something you don't enjoy when there are thousands of ways to make a living. Use your passion to help you find a way to love what you do.

Fortunately most of the people who call me for marketing assistance love what they do, it's just marketing they don't enjoy. The problem there is much easier to solve. Its easy to love marketing your business when you know how. The trick is to use your passion to drive your marketing plan and your marketing strategy. Learn how to talk about what you do so you attract more clients and build your business network. Learn how to use the internet to generate leads. - Charlie Cook