Marketing Blog - Ideas That Work

Why should you take a few minutes a day to write a blog and will it help you market your business?

Take a look at your marketing materials. Do they grab your prospects' attention and make then laugh or cry? On the scale of dry and boring versus engaging and entertaining an insurance application form would be on the dry and boring side and what one of your impassioned colleagues shouts when he is throwing his coffee cup across the room is on the engaging and entertaining end of the spectrum.

The norm around marketing is that it's supposed to be dry and "professional". The result is that most small business marketing is boring as dirt. With blogs, the norm is still being defined. It's acceptable to include opinions, rants, ideas, commentary and personal stories. The result, many blogs are attention grabbers, interesting and fun to read.

Blogs provide an accepted vehicle for you to make your marketing more personal, more direct and let people see your ideas and personality. Of course you might want to keep your wildest ideas and thoughts to yourself.

Why is this type of communication good for business?

Blogs give people and companies a chance to break out of an out-moded boring model of marketing and market and be more engaging, conversational and personal.

Whether you sell to small or large companies, the end buyer is just another person, someone like you. When they get to know you as a person, a person full of ideas, expertise and passion, they'll be more likely to relate to you and to want to do business with you.

And then there is the added plus, that Blogs are easy to use and you can publish your ideas instantly without having to build or load a new page to your web site.

Want more prospects and clients to know you, trust you, understand how you can help and keep you front of mind?

Start blogging!

- Charlie

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The Insider Secrets to Highly Effective Marketing is a blueprint for success. It includes the entire system I've used to build my own thriving business and has helped others transform their businesses.

Watch your email for the big announcement on Tuesday, because I'm including four special launch bonuses for people who claim their copy in the first 5 days.

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- Charlie
Small Business Marketing For Results

Articles are a great way to generate credibility and leads and new business. How do you know if your's are any good?

If you write small business marketing articles it's easy to get them in ezine article directories but what you really want is for publiations to pick them up and use them in their ezines - with proper attribution of course. Or you want magazines to do the same, again with your contact information included.

What you want to avoid is having other sites steal your content, post it and claim it as their own. I've had sites steal my small business marketing articles causing the following problem. When another site posts your content without a link back, the search engines see it as duplicate content and may not list the article when you add it to your own site.

It's a good idea to regularly search the web to see who is posting your articles and where. You may want to send out some to be shown on other sites, provided they link back to your site. While sharing articles is a good idea, keep most of your content on your site and check periodically to make sure that it's not getting ripped off and damaging your own search engine ranking.

How do you know if your article strategy is working?

a. If others are stealing your small business marketing articles its an indication you're a good writer. I found one site with an article ripped off from Tom Hopkins the marketing guru and with one of mine, both attributed to the site owner not there rightful authors.

b. If your articles are helping your search engine ranking and generating leads, you know your marketing ideas are hitting home.

Want to know the best way to use your articles to grow your business? Discover the Secrets to Opening Doors With Your Articles >>
- Charlie Cook
Small Business Marketing That Works

This past week AT&T started blocking my email, email to my AT&T email service from my own web sites, and then I discovered AT&T along with a number of other phone companies has also started blocking access to free VOP conference call services.

I'm not sure what AT&T is up to but it would appear they are trying to make it harder for you to market your business wihout resorting to using their phone services.

Just when small business owners are starting to discover the effectiveness of using email to market their businesses it appears the phone companies are getting greedy and want to squeeze the internet for more profits.

What do you think?

- Charlie Cook
Small Business Marketing That Gets Resutls

Small Business Marketing Question
"My marketing question is about my target market. I am re-structuring my business. I monogram (embroider) on items. I could market to anyone and everyone needing promotional wear but should I or would it be better to narrow down my target. At the same time I don't want to miss an opportunity.

Your advice would me most appreciated."
Cynthia

Answer
Pick a niche or a couple of niches and you can focus your marketing, charge more and make more.

- Charlie
Small Business Marketing Ideas That Make Sense and Make Money

Jim Cramer is a huge marketing success. He has his own TV show dispensing financial advice and two books on the Business Week top seller list. He's definitely made it despite the fact if you followed his investment suggestions you would have lost money last year.

That's right Jim Cramer is a huge business marketing success even though he's wrong more often than he is right according to madmoneymachine.com which tracked his investment suggestions last year.

How can this be? How can someone be so successful even though his ideas are typically wrong?

If you've ever seen Jim's TV show you know he comes across strong. He rates and raves and is over the top in his commitment to his ideas. He doesn't give nice dry analysis, he shouts and proclaims his ideas with undeniable passion. You'll ever love or hate him for it. The bottom line is hundreds of thousands of people love him for saying what he thinks, even if his ideas don't stand the test of time.

How can Jim's approach help your small business marketing?

Most people are afraid to get up and say what they believe, to voice their opinions. This is even more true when it comes to marketing their businesses. Instead you could be telling it like you see it, not holding back. Do it and your prospects will love you for it. True, you may offend some people, but they probably weren't going to buy from you anyway.

If you want to stand out from the competition put yourself and your personality in your small business marketing. Let people know your likes and dislikes, let them know your beliefs and you'll generate interest and respect and sales.

Put personality into your business marketing together with honest performance of your products and services and you'll be amazed at how much business you'll attract.

- Charlie Cook
The Truth About Small Business Marketing

Labels: outrageous small business marketing

Sometimes the secret to small business marketing success involves skill and confidence.

Last week I was on vacation with my 20 year old son skiing in Colorado. The temperatures were warm and the snow was beginning to disappear on some trails. On one trail called Mineshaft I was standing at the top of a snow covered ledge. There was plenty of snow five feet below me but between me and it was a patch of mud.

I jumped, well sort of, and instead of clearning the muddy grass and smoothly slidding onto the snow I hit the mud, my skis stopped and I kept going, without them. Thankful my son came after me and with a smooth hop, lept over the mud onto the snow, collected my gear and skiied down to me. What did I do wrong? I knew what to do but I flubbed it.

According to my son, I clenched as I jumped, and instead of easily clearing the mud, I landed in it. It was all in my mind, a matter of confidence.

The same is true of small business marketing. To succeed, you need the skill and knowledge of what to do and you need the confidence to do it. Don't let yourself fall short of your marketing expectations just because you lack the confidence.

Find out what small business marketing strategies actually work so you can grow your business with confidence.

- Charlie
Small Business Markeitng For Business Owners Who Want Results

What's the biggest barrier to small business growth? is it your small business marketing or something else?

Yesterday I made a couple of phone calls to virtual assistants about a joint venture business idea of mine. Each week I get emails from small business owners needing help with their web site copywriting, web site design website marketing, managing their ezine, email broadcasts, providing customer suppport, making sales calls and a host of other tasks.

I'm not set up to outsource all these small business marketing tasks but obviously there is a huge demand and with 30,000 + small business owners on my list I get lots of requests. My idea was simply this: I was thinking of setting up a joint venture with a virtual assisant firm that could handle a ton of business and do all the above tasks.

So what happened when I called a couple of smart virtual assistants I know?

I asked them about their goals and this is where we ran into a stumbling block. The virtual assistants I talked to were thinking of growing their businesses to $60-70,000 per year in revenue. I was thinking instead of helping them build a six hundred thousand to six million dollar a year business.

Set your goals to low and you'll never be truly successful. Obviously you aren't going to make millions the first day in with your business but to make it you need to think big, make big plans and then get the help you need to reach them.

Are you goals too small? Are they limiting your success?
You can change this in an instant.

- Charlie Cook
Small Business Marketing That Results In Big Profits

"Is there online data about how much I can make with my web site?"

I wish there was a simple formula for computing how much your online business will or could make. But, to my knowledge this type of web site marketing data doesn't exist.

Typically web site owners want to know: What percent of people who come to my site can I expect to buy and how much money can I expect to make for every 100 visitors?

The answer to these web site marketing questions is that online selling isn't a one step process, as you'll see below.

1. With a well designed and written web site you should be able to convert 10-25% of vistiors to prospects, people whose contact information you have and can build a relationship with.

2. With a well executed follow-up program you should be able to convert 10-25% of your prospects to buyers.

So far this translates into 1-6% percent of site vistors becoming buyers.

3. How much you make with your online sales is dependent on the cost of your products and how well you upsell buyers. Each time someone is about to make a purchase, you should be able to motivate them to spend 50% more with an effective upsell offer.

4. The bottom line is the gross sales you bring in is determined by your conversion rates and the effectivness of your upsell strategy.

If anyone has supporting or conflicting data please add your comment and let me know.

- Charlie Cook
Small Business Marketing for People Who Want Results