Charlie Cook's MArketing for Success Insider's Club

 

The Top Experts Reveal Small Business Marketing Strategies
That Get Results In This Economy

New Year’s Marketing Resolutions

By Charlie Cook   |   December 29, 2004

2004 was my first full year in business (started 04/2003) and I ended up with a total of $223,000 of commission income for my insurance agency. In 2005 my goal is to double that income through more aggressive marketing, website marketing, my referral reward program and using my autoresponder better.

Tom Larsen

Larsen & Associates Insurance Agency Inc.

www.anarmoragent.com

To keep a postive focus.

L. VanPopering

www.rogueriver.com

My first resolution will be: ‘As part of my six-monthly business plan review to re-define my marketing strategies and set specific marketing targets.

David Moffitt

Managing Director

www.transformlighting.co.uk

To build my financial services clientele big enough so that I can do that full time.

Casey Ditmore

To overcome objection, ask for the sale and increase sales for my business.

Nikki Morrile

http://www.iabweb.com/yourchoiceforhealth

Your newsletter hit a particular chord with me as I have been feeling overwhelmed by all there is to do. As you suggested in your article I have chosen one focal point only for the next week or so. This is to run a survey of potential product ideas, so that I can choose a product to develop.

Janice

www.weight-loss-motivation-program.com

More contacts from persons who visit my site.

Paul Hegele

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What do you think of BNI?

By Charlie Cook   |   December 20, 2004

“What do you think of BNI?” – Coki Cochran

I’ve never been a member of Business Networking International though I’ve seriously considered it. I do know people who are members and generate lots of new leads and business from their involvement. There are lots of online and offline networking groups to choose from. You can review with the Business Networking Guide

on my site.

To take full advantage of BNI and other networking resources take a look at Creating Opportunity with Next Step Networking. – Charlie Cook

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Any New Fresh Marketing Ideas for My Golf Range?

By Charlie Cook   |   December 17, 2004

“I have recently bought a golf driving range wich was in a poor state. In six months i have gained many new members and feel that we are going in the right direction by offering special offers at different times of the day or week, but locally there are newer driving ranges in operation. What i am looking for is a new angle on marketing, a fresh idea?” – live Staddon

Offers can be a great way to get first time prospects in the door but you need a long-term strategy for building client loyalty. Think about why people like golf driving ranges, what they are looking for and find a way to give it to them. The age of your facilty isn’t necessariy a negative. Focus instead on creating a unique ambiance, one that will keep golfers coming back. And look for ways for first timers to connect with other people who use your facility to create a strong social bond.

Relationships rule in keeping people coming back and then you can leverage those relationships to get existing customers to bring in new customers. – Charlie Cook

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Marketing or Intrusive Snooping?

By Charlie Cook   |   December 17, 2004

Yahoo is now using something called “Web Beacons” to track Yahoo Group users around the net and see what you’re doing and where you are going similar to cookies. Yahoo is recording every website and every group you visit.

Take a look at their updated privacy statement : http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy About half-way down the page, in the section on cookies, you will see a link that says web beacons. Click on the phrase web beacons. That will bring you to a paragraph entitled” Outside the Yahoo Network.” In this section you’ll see a little “click here to opt out” link that will let you “opt-out” of their new method of snooping. Once you have clicked that link, you are exempted. Notice the” Success” message on the top of the next page. Be careful because on that page there is a “Cancel Opt-out” button that, if clicked, will *undo** the opt-out.

One note: before doing the above, make sure you LOG IN to Yahoo with your Yahoo account name. Otherwise, it may not take effect. – Contributed by Lorraine Carol

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Want Qualified Leads for $6 per Lead?

By Charlie Cook   |   December 15, 2004

“We are strictly performance based and charge $6.00 per qualified lead we deliver. There are no set-up fees or other costs to you.” – (requested name be removed)

Ouch, $6 per lead is a lot . Now figure what it would cost to generate 10,000 or 100,000 leads. I do spend some money on google and ezine advertising which pays for itself in sales. In addition the majority of my leads come from free lead generation strategies I use and have documented in Creating Web Sites that Sell bringing my costs per lead down to pennies not dollars. – Charlie

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I Don’t Know How To Market My Plug In Profit Site, What Do I Do?

By Charlie Cook   |   December 15, 2004

“I pay $24.95 a month for a plug in profit site with 5 affiliate streams. Each time I can get an affiliate to sign up I will make money from their sales. The site was site up for me but I have no idea how to market it.” – Joseph Hinkle, Locksmith

My advice, don’t market the site. Dump it. These programs are scams and I have yet to hear of anyone other than the person you are paying your monthly fee to making any money. Not to mention marketing something you don’t know anything about is rarely effective.

You’ll be much more effective marketing something you know. As a locksmith you already have a valueable expertise. You can leverage this expertise to grow your locksmithing business. The two marketing manuals which I wrote to help you include The 15 Second Marketing Guide and Earning More by Marketing Smarter. – Charlie

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Do You Ever Update Your Free Marketing Plan Guide?

By Charlie Cook   |   December 14, 2004

I’m always working to update and improve each and every marketing manual I provide, free and otherwise. I just did a complete update to the free marketing plan guide to make it even more useful.

To get the latest version just sign up for the Free Marketing Plan Guide and let me know how you like it. – Charlie

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Your Marketing Blog Looks Great!

By Charlie Cook   |   December 14, 2004

“I think your blog looks absolutely great! There’s an interesting cross pollination that can go on between ezine and blog and you’ve got a good think going on. Questions work well…

I’m reformatting my primary site How Much Joy to sell much bigger and getting a lot of inspiration from the layout of your site, so I hope that is OK and I thank you muchly.” – Suzanne Falter Barns

Thanks, Suzanne. Of course it was your comment that prompted my new marketing blog. And, yes since I added the blog to my site, traffic has jumped another 10%. – Charlie

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Marketing Strategies Work for Real Estate?

By Charlie Cook   |   December 11, 2004

“My husband and I have a commercial real estate appraisal business here in California. We had a great year last year and want to double our revenue in 2005. How can you help us given that you’re not familiar with the appraisal industry?” – A.M. Fischman

A- Imagine you were planning a trip up the coast to Oregon but your car needed a tune up. Would the mechanic need to know your route before he could fix your car?

Of course not. His or her job is to make sure your vehicle gets you where you want to go. The same is true for your marketing plan and marketing strategy. My role as a marketing coach is to help small business owners like you take your businesses where you want to go whether its in the appraisal, web design, accounting or investment management industry. – Charlie Cook

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More On Alexa Rankings

By Charlie Cook   |   December 10, 2004

Alexa rankings are really just a snapshot — the data they collect is only from people who have downloaded the Alexa toolbar. As they travel the web and visit sites… the toolbar collects the data and uses it for the Alexa rankings. I have a client that was successfully able to improve his Alexa rankings drastically just by having everyone in his company install the toolbar at work and at home, have all his relatives install it, and set his site as the home page. He ended up with a great Alexa ranking.

Discovering that they ‘combine’ sites and data they think is similar really surprises me… and coupled with the fact that their stats only represent Alexa toolbar users – pretty much nails the coffin lid shut on any usefulness this has in my opinion. Nice to have a good ranking if you are marketing your site as a portal, or are looking to sell the site — but other than that — not sure it’s worth even paying attention to. In fact, I only go there and look when somebody asks me about it.- Tracy Sabattis, Mannix Marketing, Inc.

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