Marketing Tips

Popular method of advertisement on the Web

2008-07-06T15:41:00.009+07:00

PPC marketing or pay per click marketing is the most popular method of advertisement employed by various websites on the Internet. PPC marketing may often be referred to as pay for position, cost per click or pay for performance. But regardless of the term used, PPC marketing is the online advertiser's medium of choice for promoting products and services to online consumers.

PPC marketing is beneficial to both the advertiser and the consumer. Advertisers using PPC marketing only need to pay for the actual click throughs linked to their sites from search engines. At the same time as consumers are relieved of having to get annoying emails or pop-up ads for products and services.

When an online consumer searches for a specific product or service on the Internet, corresponding PPC marketing ads are also displayed alongside the results generated by the search engine. This forms a highly targeted consumer group that is more likely to purchase a specific product or service. In addition, websites get to limit their advertisement costs with the use of PPC marketing. PPC marketing is truly a winning solution for both parties.

Possible drawbacks of PPC marketing

Despite the obvious advantages of PPC marketing, there are possible drawbacks that can cancel out its benefits. One of the most common problems associated with PPC marketing is the inexperience of many people attempting to use this profitable advertisement method. Simply submitting PPC marketing ads to a search engine such as google, does not make up the entire campaign.

PPC marketing requires a calculated and systematic approach to setting up ads. PPC marketing involves the use of keywords and biddings in order to get top placement on a search engine. Getting top search engine placement helps boost traffic to a website that can easily translate into profit.

Without the necessary experience and knowledge to carry out a typical PPC marketing ad, may turn into an expensive campaign that does not convert into profit. PPC marketing ads also require continuous funding, as discontinued payments will also result in discontinued ads. This can be unfavorable for a website that has already built high rankings with their PPC marketing ads.

Bidding on keywords can also be quite costly, as the growing number of websites on the web struggle against each other to bid on the most popular keyword for their PPC marketing ad. Obviously small business websites are at a disadvantage here since big business websites are able to pay more for popular keywords related to their site. This is because most small businesses only set aside a small portion of their capital for advertisement, putting them at a disadvantage.

How To Get What You Really Want..??

2008-07-06T15:31:00.003+07:00

As a small business owner, entrepreneur or independent professional, it's important to make plans. It's also important to have the time to let things happen. Only you can decide what is to happen in your life. Here is a method that may work for you. You have nothing to lose.

Start with that yellow pad; you can transfer to computer later on. Tear out eight pieces of paper and label each as follows: Finance, Health, Professional, Community Service, Personal/Fun, Spiritual, Relationships (All) and Education. If you have other titles that you prefer, use them. Give this suggestion a chance; it's just that, a suggestion; a manageable breakdown of all life's topics.

First, ask yourself a few questions:

How will I do things differently than I've done them before?
What am I holding onto that I no longer need or want?
What are my personal values?
Are my business values the same?

Part of your plan, before setting your new outcomes, is to eliminate any toxic or draining person, activity, commitment or prior goal that is no longer working. You are not required to do anything that doesn't serve you. This will only create resentment and affect your future.

Prospective clients can always tell an unhappy, unfulfilled and dissatisfied person. You will not attract what you desire. For about a month, try asking yourself, "Is this what I really want to do?", " I this what I most desire?"

As the responses come, you will see what and who has been depleting your energy. Take care of yourself first. Be totally responsible for what happens in your life.

These topics can include business and personal outcomes.

Let's first choose the topic "Finance". Determine what you really desire. You may desire or want to be:

debt-free
have a child
create a larger profit
increase your income
buy a car
purchase a home
take a vacation
investment your money
quit work
sell your business .

You get the picture. This is a project that requires a little time. The energy is yours to direct where you want.

Another guide to desires and outcomes; keep them SMART. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and True. If you want a car, make sure to say "Platinum, 2005, 850i BMW car," not, "I want a BMW." You may wind up with a motorcycle! Measurable; how will you know it when you get it? Attainable; is it at all possible? Outcomes or results should be at the outer edge, not out of reach. Realistic and true for you, not anyone else.

Who Are You Competing With?

2008-07-06T15:27:00.006+07:00

Before you can market, you need to know who you are marketing to. Who is your customer? How will you market? Will you cold call, mail, set appointments or employ a walk in approach? Be careful with the walk in approach as many businesses do not permit soliciting. You might just want to drop off information and follow up with a telephone call.

In order to determine who your market is look at your business plan. How did you define your average customer? What was your estimate of total market size? What territory did you intend to service? You might want to make a table for the following: Product/Service - list your product(s) or service(s). If you offer a variety of models or types, list them separately. This will more clearly define your market. The more specific the answers to these questions, the easier it will be to determine a marketing plan. What marketing techniques did you delineate in your business plan? Are you using them, and if so, how effectively?

One of the best ways to determine what works best is to look at your competition.

What is your competition doing.? How are they marketing? What services do they offer? How do their prices compare to yours? Some of the ways to determine this information is to talk to prospects who are now using your competitors products or service. Ask them, "How can I offer and deliver the same things my competitors do - or better?" Obtain and study your competitors literature, for example, promotional materials that outline price, what services they offer, products they are selling, etc. Keep all the materials obtained on your competition and update this information on a quarterly basis. If there is a industry publication that contains information on your competition, subscribe and read it. You may be surprised to find stories that reveal important information on your competition. Attend trade shows, exhibits, and conferences for your industry. Read the local papers and papers in the area your competition is located. Ask your customers what they like and dislike about your services or products.

How My Name Will Be Recognize ..??

2008-07-06T15:19:00.005+07:00

Some of the ways in which to get your "name out there" are to call your local television and radio stations, and ascertain whether there is a medium you can get your name in. A very good source are public stations that hold auctions, at which you can donate your services. Do something to get yourself noticed and send it to them.

Send press releases to television and radio stations, in addition to newspapers. Make it short, concise, and eye catching. One tip is to put your picture on the press release. Be sure all the information you want to impart is in the first paragraph.

Contact local newspapers, they love to do articles on home-based and small businesses. We have had excellent success getting both our newsletter and directory published in small local papers. In addition, these releases have also gotten us published in New Business Opportunities, Small Business Opportunities, and Income Opportunities to mention a few. Many of the businesses that we have written press releases for also have reported very good results.

Volunteer your services to non-profit organizations. Give seminars and classes to establish yourself as an expert. In addition, if appropriate to your business, advertise on services like AOL, CompuServe, and Yahoo. We had a flood of responses for both our newsletter and consulting service, by advertising on CompuServe.

How Do I Search My Market?

2008-07-06T15:02:00.006+07:00

Your market is who you want to reach. Your customer. Who is your average customer? What is your estimate of total market size? What territory do you intend to serve? Will you offer a variety of products or services?

The more specific you are, the better definition of your customer (what their characteristics are), the easier it will be to more clearly define your market.

Many times you can obtain your Unique Selling Position from your customer. You need a USP to stand out from your competition. It is specific to you and your business. It is yours and yours alone. Your way of doing business.

How you define your market will also make a difference on how and what you use to reach that market. Will you direct mail, cold call, do walk ins, use the web, employ radio/television and/or print advertising?

In lease purchasing you define your market based upon the strategies you employ. For example, with consulting your market is a lot broader and wider, than it would be if you are using the co-operative strategy exclusively in a well defined surrounding area of where you live.

Again, with lease purchasing, what you do to reach your market will depend on what strategy you are using. You would advertise in your local papers that you can help buyers and sellers with the lease purchase advantage. Whereas, for consulting you want to reach a wider market, so you might take out an ad in a national paper or advertise on the web, or use e-mailing as a marketing strategy. For example, when I need to send out emails for consulting, I open Group Mail, pull up my consulting group email, put in the email addresses I collected for the day and press send.

Now that you've got the idea, start defining your market. Once you do, you'll find that your business is easier to operate and more profitable.

Earn more and be Financially Free through Network Marketing

2008-06-21T21:03:00.005+07:00

People have been finding ways to make money to make life easier for them. Money that can help them support their lifestyles and provide for a comfortable, worry-free existence. Different approaches have been mixed with different reactions. While some are willing to take more risk than others, it is these risk takers who usually hit the jackpot.

Many businesses have been founded with the pain of many burned attempts to strike it rich. When the internet boomed in the early nineties, everyone wanted to get into the action.

But still, the internet is still a good venue in making money, although not as profitable as before, one good idea can still provide you a good income. All you need is determination, self-discipline, a good product, a computer and an internet connection, a little business know how and computer literacy won’t hurt either.

Ecommerce has been all the buzz lately, with the convenience of the internet in bringing people closer, selling your products and services has become easier to do with large numbers of potential customers.

One of the businesses that made its mark is the network marketing or also known as the multilevel marketing. Even without the internet, network marketing became a huge hit already, albeit the different types of reaction from the consumers. In a nutshell, network marketing is a form of offering your products and services via distributors.

Anyone can be a distributor, when you are one, you can get income from selling your products as well as for recruiting other distributors. You also receive commission for what your recruited distributors sell and for what their recruits sell as well. This is called the downline of the original distributor.

With network marketing, you are not dependent on others or to a boss. It’s like you franchised your own line of the business. The amount you will receive depends on your diligence and commitment to your network.

The more products you sell the more commission you make and the more recruits you have the more commissions you will have from them. With enough recruits, you could just wait for your commissions from their sales.

With network marketing, you get a free reign on how you run your business. Also you get financial freedom and would be able to impart these with other people. You can get your friends and family to join in on the business and watch each other grow businesswise. This is as valuable as the profits you are going to make.

But like all businesses network marketing is not without its risks. There is no guarantee that it will succeed. But many have, so this all depends on your willingness and the product being marketed.

Look for products that are used everyday by people. Or, try out a product that is new and innovative, try to see if it has a potential by test marketing the product or the service which is rendered. Check if you yourself would use it. You must be very knowledgeable about your product because people are going to ask questions about it, and that’s good. If you get the curiosity of the people, chances are they are interested.

Network Marketing doesn’t grow overnight. Be patient that is one of the beauties of network marketing. Your marketing strategy is done by word of mouth. The more people you recruit the better the chances to saturate the market with information about your product. You don’t have to spend oodles of dollars for big TV ads or newsprint ads. Add the internet into the picture and you get advertising in which tens of millions of people could see allover the world.

So Many Affiliate Programs! Which One Do I Choose?

2008-06-21T20:52:00.004+07:00

Ask questions first before you join an affiliate program. Do a little research about the choices of program that you intend to join into. Get some answers because they will be the deciding point of what you will be achieving later on.

Will it cost you anything to join? Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. So why settle for those that charge you some dollars before joining.

When do they issue the commission checks? Every program is different. Some issue their checks once a month, every quarter, etc. Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice. Many affiliate programs are setting a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must meet or exceed in order for their checks to be issued.

What is the hit per sale ratio? This is the average number of hits to a banner or text link it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. This factor is extremely important because this will tell you how much traffic you must generate before you can earn a commission from the sale.

How are referrals from an affiliate’s site tracked and for how long do they remain in the system? You need to be confident on the program enough to track those people you refer from your site. This is the only way that you can credit for a sale. The period of time that those people stay in the system is also important. This is because some visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase. Know if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.

What are the kinds of affiliate stats available? Your choice of affiliate program should be capable of offering detailed stats. They should be available online anytime you decide to check them out. Constantly checking your individual stats is important to know how many impressions, hits and sales are already generated from your site. Impressions are the number of times the banner or text link was viewed by a visitor of your site. A hit is the one clicking on the banner or text links.

Does the affiliate program also pay for the hits and impressions besides the commissions on sales? It is important that impressions and hits are also paid, as this will add to the earnings you get from the sales commission. This is especially important if the program you are in offers low sales to be able to hit ratio.

Who is the online retailer? Find out whom you are doing business with to know if it is really a solid company. Know the products they are selling and the average amount they are achieving. The more you know about the retailer offering you the affiliate program, the easier it will be for you to know if that program is really for you and your site.

Is the affiliate a one tier or two tier program? A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated. A two tier program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you a commission on the on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Some two-tier programs are even paying small fees on each new affiliate you sponsor. More like a recruitment fee.

Lastly, what is the amount of commission paid? 5% - 20% is the commission paid by most programs. .01% - .05% is the amount paid for each hit. If you find a program that also pays for impressions, the amount paid is not much at all. As you can see from the figures, you will now understand why the average sales amount and hit to sale ratio is important.

These are just some of the questions that needed answering first before you enter into an affiliate program. You should be familiar with the many important aspects that your chosen program should have before incorporating them into your website. Try to ask your affiliate program choices these questions. These can help you select the right program for you site from among the many available.

PPC marketing - Fast method of advertisement

2008-06-21T20:42:00.008+07:00

PPC marketing is beneficial to both the advertiser and the consumer. Advertisers using PPC marketing only need to pay for the actual click throughs linked to their sites from search engines. At the same time as consumers are relieved of having to get annoying emails or pop-up ads for products and services.

When an online consumer searches for a specific product or service on the Internet, corresponding PPC marketing ads are also displayed alongside the results generated by the search engine. This forms a highly targeted consumer group that is more likely to purchase a specific product or service. In addition, websites get to limit their advertisement costs with the use of PPC marketing. PPC marketing is truly a winning solution for both parties.

Possible drawbacks of PPC marketing

Despite the obvious advantages of PPC marketing, there are possible drawbacks that can cancel out its benefits. One of the most common problems associated with PPC marketing is the inexperience of many people attempting to use this profitable advertisement method. Simply submitting PPC marketing ads to a search engine such as google, does not make up the entire campaign.

PPC marketing requires a calculated and systematic approach to setting up ads. PPC marketing involves the use of keywords and biddings in order to get top placement on a search engine. Getting top search engine placement helps boost traffic to a website that can easily translate into profit.

Without the necessary experience and knowledge to carry out a typical PPC marketing ad, may turn into an expensive campaign that does not convert into profit. PPC marketing ads also require continuous funding, as discontinued payments will also result in discontinued ads. This can be unfavorable for a website that has already built high rankings with their PPC marketing ads.

Bidding on keywords can also be quite costly, as the growing number of websites on the web struggle against each other to bid on the most popular keyword for their PPC marketing ad. Obviously small business websites are at a disadvantage here since big business websites are able to pay more for popular keywords related to their site. This is because most small businesses only set aside a small portion of their capital for advertisement, putting them at a disadvantage.

Running an effective PPC marketing campaign

There are a number of things that a website should consider when running an effective PPC marketing campaign. It is important to develop a marketing plan in order to get the most return on investment from PPC marketing. Selecting the most appropriate keywords that relate to the site's business is essential in PPC marketing.

However, simply choosing the most popular keywords does not necessarily translate into profit. Selecting more specific keywords that will put a site within the first ten results of a search also gets greater awareness from online consumers. In addition, it doesn't cost as much as getting the top spot for PPC marketing.

It is also important that a website constantly monitors the performance of their PPC marketing campaign. This will help the site modify any existing PPC marketing ad to make it more productive. At the same time any PPC marketing ad that has not proven effective can be immediately discontinued. Altering PPC marketing ads is a continuous process that many websites do in order to increase their return on investment.

Getting professional help with PPC marketing

The popularity of PPC marketing has given rise to professionals offering PPC marketing services for small and big businesses. Hiring a professional PPC marketing company is advisable for a small business without experience in PPC marketing. Most PPC marketing companies offer reasonable rates for their services and at the same time produce acceptable results.

A PPC marketing professional can attend to all the details commonly involved in a PPC marketing campaign. Handling a PPC marketing campaign is a time consuming process that can be overwhelming for a small business. A PPC marketing professional can help set up a PPC marketing campaign and later on train someone from within the business to handle it to ensure its continued success.

Pay Per Click - Fast Ways For Your Marketing Do

2008-06-21T20:37:00.007+07:00

The Internet has now become an important medium for product and service advertisements. Almost every company that can afford print, radio and TV advertisements have also ventured into placing ads on the Internet.

But with millions of websites out there being visited by millions of computer users, how can you make sure that your ad can be seen by your target customers and that your leads will be followed by these users? Here are a few tips.

1. Place an ad on the websites frequented by your target customers. Before doing this, you need to define who will be your target customers. Placing an ad on sites that they usually visit will increase the possibility that your ad will gain the attention and will be followed your target customers.

Also, consider the website's search engine placement, traffic, external linking and the other ads placed on it. External linking will determine if there are other sites that link to this site. This will mean that people can get to the site where your ad is placed, even if they are browsing a different site. Check if many of your competitors have ads on this site.

2. Placing ads on some sites cost some money. However, there are also sites that can place a link to your site, product or service in exchange of having their link being displayed on your site. This is also true about the newsletters sent by site owners to its mailing list members regularly.

Also, having helpful links placed on your site and having sites link to your pages help in boosting search engine ranking. This is similar to making a statement that your site's content is important that other sites have links to your web pages.

3. Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a good method in Internet marketing. You will only need to pay for the ad if the link is clicked. If you prefer this method of advertisement, make sure that you are using services that set limits on daily expenses. There are also services that help you determine effective keywords and monitor the PPC results.

4. Choose your domain name wisely. It is still being debated if domain names matter when it comes to search engine placement. Whether it does or not, having product related domain names help consumers remember your domain, that they can go back to your site even without the links.

5. Make sure you have useful content on your sites. While keyword density is important in search engine placement, having useless information or annoying repetition of keywords will not increase your customer's confidence in your site. It may even affect your sites traffic and can get your site removed from search engines. So make sure that keywords are used strategically.

6. When thinking of keywords, think like your target customers. What do you think are they going to search so they can get to your site? Also, use specific keywords or key phrases. Submitting a single word or a very general phrase to a search engine will not get you to the top of the search results compared to submitting specific keywords that describe your product and services perfectly.

7. Track your ads. Always check how much you have spent on placing links on frequently visited sites and on PPC. There are services that allow you to monitor PPC transactions and how many of these end in sales. You always need to consider if the ads that you have placed on these websites are getting you to your target consumers and if these ads can lead to revenue.

One final tip on marketing products and services, sell the benefits. It will help your marketing strategies a lot if you highlight the benefits of choosing your products and services instead of merely discussing the product specifications. Product specifications may not mean much to customers, unless they know what these stand for (how these specifications affect the quality of the product or service).

Many people say getting to the top of search engine results is difficult since millions of websites exist, which can be using the same keywords. While this is true, this doesn't mean that your website has to stacked under your competitors' websites when presenting search engine results. Strategic advertising and linking, together with useful content, can also get you to the top of the search results.

What Internet marketing has to do with content!

2008-06-21T20:18:00.008+07:00

You have heard the phrase “content is king,” and this is very true. Website content will do a number of things for your business:

1. Informative, interesting content will help you pre sell your visitors and entice them to click through to your sponsor’s website. These can be varieties of articles. Information articles are very popular and will establish you as the expert in your field. This will create trust and credibility for you in your visitors’ eyes and encourage them to click through to your sponsor and buy. Product reviews are also popular and are great pre sellers.

2. Content can also be used to improve your Page Ranking. Google will consider good content as a good resource for their customers, the searchers and your visitors. Always optimize your content using your main keywords.

3. Keep your website fresh by adding new content on a regular basis. Once a week is a good schedule. This will make Google happy and will again improve your Page Rank and position in Google.

4. When you fill your website with good informative, interesting content, other webmasters will want to link to you to add resources to their website for their visitors. You will then be able to create back links, which will also help you with search engine positioning.

Content is not hard to get. You can either write articles yourself or get them written. Apart from these resources, they will provide you with fresh content every week. You can modify this content for your own use and have it ready to go on the fly. This will save you money and time.

What Marketing Can Do?

2008-06-21T20:13:00.005+07:00

I thought I would clear up some misconceptions about marketing in this two-part series: What Marketing Can Do For You and What Marketing Can't Do For You. We'll start with the positive.

Over the years, I've had dealings with some business owners who have a rather skewed perception of marketing. They think you throw a few ads out there, get a couple of press releases printed and voila! You're a big success.

Oh, if it only were that easy. (Although if it were, I probably wouldn't have a job.)

But there's no getting around that to have a successful business, you need a solid marketing plan.

So what CAN marketing do for you? Increase your business - no question about it. You need to be marketing if you want to grow your business.

However (and this is a really big however) marketing is NOT going to result in overnight success. Marketing is about slow growth, building on last week's success and forgetting about last month's failures. (Or what you THINK are failures. It's not uncommon that a campaign you think is a dismal disappointment may be what caused the next campaign to take off.)

Marketing is about frequency -- about your target market seeing your offer over and over again until they're finally ready to buy. Without that very important frequency, your business will start to stagnate and eventually die.

Now that doesn't mean you won't have a major success with a campaign. Even a massive, amazing, unbelievable success. You'll run one ad or be featured in an article and wham! You end up with more orders than you know what to do with. While that's a great shot in the arm, it probably won't last unless you keep building upon it. Eventually the orders will dry up and you'll be back to where you were before.

Marketing is also about being consistent. This goes back to building on successes. Your customers need to see your message over and over again. This builds trust and credibility. Plus, your current customers will also respond to that frequency. Not only will they not "forget" about you and go to your competitor, but it will help build their trust in you as well.

Lastly, marketing is about working hard. There's no getting around it. To be successful means putting in the time and energy to continually market yourself. (You can also pay someone to help you with it, but basically it comes down to someone somewhere has to put in the time to continually market you.)

If you remember nothing else, remember this: If you don't implement your marketing strategies, nothing is going to happen.

That last sentence seems obvious, but again, I'm amazed at how many people I run into who aren't willing to do the work. They talk about it, but when it actually comes down to doing something, they somehow never seem to get around to it.

One way to overcome that is to plan on doing one task or a little marketing every day. Then it doesn't seem quite so overwhelming. Me, I make a commitment to do X number of marketing tasks a week, regardless of how much time that takes.

What's The Difference Between Marketing And Advertising?

2008-06-21T20:03:00.004+07:00

Many people confuse marketing with advertising or vice versa. While both components are equally important, they are also very different. Knowing the differences between the two can put your company on the fast track to success.

Let's start off by reviewing the formal definitions of each and then we'll explain how marketing and advertising differ from one another:

Advertising: The paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers.

Marketing: The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.

After reading both of the definitions, it is easy to understand how the differences can be confusing to the point that most people think of them as one and the same. So, lets clear up the confusion.

Advertising is but a single component of the marketing process.

Advertising entails publicizing your business, product, or services you are offering. It involves the process of developing strategies such as ad placement, frequency, etc. Advertising includes the placement of an ad in such mediums as newspapers, yellow pages, television, radio, and of course the Internet. Advertising is the single largest expenditure of most marketing campaigns.

The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is the pie chart. Mentally, visualize breaking the pie chart down into several slices that include advertising, product pricing, distribution, customer service, sales strategy, etc.

Using this method, you can see, advertising only equals one slice of the pie in the marketing strategy. All of these components must not only work independently, but they also must work in unison towards the ultimate goal of publicizing your business and obtaining customers.

Marketing, on the other hand, is simply a process that an organization goes through to facilitate an exchange between buyer and seller.

Definition of Marketing

2008-06-21T19:45:00.006+07:00

To too many people marketing equates to one of two things:

- Selling: with all that entails such as the dreaded double-glazing or financial salesman.
- Advertising: with all that entails such as the slick young creative and smarmy account person.

Of course marketing also encompasses these functions – though, hopefully not as in the stereotypes that are in so many minds – but marketing is about a great deal more than just selling or advertising.

Marketing is the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you're continuing to meet the needs of your customers and are getting value in return.

It includes:

Finding out what groups of potential customers or markets exist
What groups of customers you prefer to serve – your target markets
What their needs are, what products or services you might develop to meet their needs
How customers might prefer to use the products and services
Who competitors are and what they are doing
What pricing mechanism and approach you should use
How each of target markets might choose to access the product, etc.
How much customers / clients might be willing pay and how.
How to design and describe the product such that customers/clients will buy from the organization, rather than from its competitors – the unique value proposition
How the company or products should be identified – personality -to be most identifiable i.e. naming and branding
Ongoing campaigns, which can include advertising, public relations, sales and customer service

All of this was characterised many years ago by Dr. Philip Kotler as the 4Ps:

- Product – making what customers want
- Place – delivering it via the channels they want to use
- Promotion – making them aware of its existence
- Price – making it available at a price they will pay

At the end of the day marketing is really about not losing sight of the basics. You have to be focused on what customers require as the outcome and then find out how to get there by meeting customers needs over a period of time, in a socially responsible way, whilst making a reasonable profit.

Marketing is really a philosophy and attitude about customer focus that has to run through the whole organisation. If you get that you get marketing.

5 Reasons Why Blogging is the New Internet Marketing Tool

2008-06-21T19:31:00.003+07:00

Blogging is a concept that started in late 90s. It used to be a way to comment an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice out one’s opinion on the said page. What started as a single-sentence commentary has evolved into pages of personal take on just about anything and everything under the sun. As it continues to move forward, online advertising has tapped into the blog’s potential. Here are 5 reasons why you should use blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

1.Blogging is simple. The simplest way to get your piece on the net is through blogging. No skills are necessary… an average adult can read and type, or at least click a mouse. It’s like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write your ideas, experiences, new products, and hope that the truth behind your articles comes out and entice your reader to also try your product. If you have a PC and an Internet connection (who doesn’t?) then you can blog and advertise.

2. Blogging is authentic. In this day and age where advertising saturate our lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims. However, in blogs, real people share their real-life experiences, unscathed by paid advertising. Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience. You definitely want to buy a tried and tested product.

3. Blogging is free. Because blogging is yet to be proven as a mainstream online advertising media, most sites see it as something to augment current marketing tools and thus offer it for free. Any opportunity for free webtime is definitely a bonus especially to businesses that are starting up. Needless to say, paid blog pages can generate more income for your seriously growing business.

4. Blogging builds credibility. As you get more and more into writing your experiences on a particular product or industry, your readers come to realize that they can depend on your posts for their own information needs. As such, you become an expert on it; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blogs. As companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or make you an affiliate, which pays for every referral generated from your blog site.

5. Blogging builds your market. Unless you are a Hollywood star, chances are, only your Mom reads your posts. Mom has a lot of friends, so she lets her friends know how interesting your blog site is. But you need not depend on Mom to increase your readership base. Look into the following ways to build your market through blogging:

-By using your e-mail. Today, blogging is overcoming the e-mail’s popularity in quickly and effectively reaching and expanding a market. In this age of speed and quick access, logging in and downloading e-mail is simply taking longer than clicking into a blog site. Let them explore your site by using a short e-mail message as teaser to your blog site. If your e-mail is on an entirely different subject, use your e-mail signature to give a link to the site.

-By using subscription. An easy way to get your readers e-mail is to give them an opportunity to subscribe to your blogsite. Keep some exclusive information for your subscribers to entice readers to subscribe and give their e-mail address. Just be responsible in using their e-mail address, as the last thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.

-By understanding your readers. Conduct a simple survey for your readers to understand their profile and advertising preferences. Ask consumers to give you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a trial that you shared. In this way, it is like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a face-to-face interview.

-By joining a blog network –A network of blogs maybe a collection of blog sites that share the same industry, interest, readership base, payment mode, etc. Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to several real bloggers about a single subject. Clearly, more bloggers are better than one.

-By using RSS. RSS is the fastest growing technology on the Internet today. As such, having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base. Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site.

Give your business a boost by effectively using blogging as an Internet marketing tool.