Little Known Ways To Use Promotional Tools To Market Your Business – Part 1

Posted on by
Reply

20120111-231641.jpg

What stage are you in starting your business? Are you just getting started or have you been in business for a while and have exhausted your warm market and are looking for alternative ways of marketing your products or opportunity? In these next series of posts, I will share some low cost ideas of marketing your products and opportunity to potential customers and partners. This post will address the use of promotional tools such as testimonials, research studies and article reprints to grow your business.

As you develop your business plan, it is important to include the different tools and marketing resources that you will use to spread the word of the benefits of your product and opportunity to potential customers and partners. There are a number of different promotional tools that you can incorporate into your marketing strategy to build your business. Today, I will share some ideas on how you can use testimonials, research studies and article reprints as marketing tools.

Testimonials
Testimonials are customer’s reviews and feedback of a product or service that they have used and have had positive results. Positive feedback from others not only provides education about the benefits that product, but also provides third party validation for its use. How many times have you purchased a product based on word of mouth and positive reviews?

These tools are great because they also cost nothing to acquire. Most companies provide testimonials that you can use or you can build your own collection of testimonials by asking current customers about their experience with that product or service. Chose the best testimonials to include in your own marketing handouts. Use these testimonials as follow up tools to continue to educate on the benefits of the product or service and to connect and network people with similar experiences to share their stories and insights.

Research Studies
Depending on the product, the use research studies as tools builds buyer confidence and trusts. Providing links to abstracts and publications on studies performed by Universities and research facilities provides another form of validation. Automating the setup to notify you of new studies is pretty easy to do. To set up, select key words for your product. Use search tools such as Google alert and Pubmed (National Library of Medicine resource. For medicinal products) to search and notify you of new research related to your keywords. In addition, the National Institute of Health has a website called CRISP that publishes any new clinical trial on any medicinal or device products. Having these alerts set up will notify you via email of any studies published with your selected keywords.

Article Reprints
Articles about your product or industry also make great marketing pieces. These articles can be featured in journals, trade magazines, online resources etc. When including extracts of these articles in your marketing pieces, be sure to give proper credit to the article’s author and media source.
The search for new updated articles can also be updated using tools such as Google News Alert When properly setup, Google will automatically alert and email you when there are news articles containing keywords related to your topic or industry that show up online.

Regardless of which promotional tool you use, organize these resources by creating folders or files to collect and include in your marketing pieces. Use these marketing pieces as hand outs, online and as educational resources to build your business.

How have you used these tools to market your business?

Please provide your comments and feedback below.

If you think that this information would be useful to others, “Tweet It” , “Like It” or “Share It” with others by clicking above.

Is Social Media Marketing Right For Your Business?

Posted on by
Reply

20120106-225020.jpg

Social media is a hot trend that every business wants to have piece of the action. It is a great communication and networking tool that millions of consumers are using as a means to interact with others and meet others with similar interest. There was a recent question on a forum asking if others are using social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to grow their businesses. I felt that the question should have asked if these social media tools are right for every business and if so, how are businesses using these tools strategically. In this post, I will address the pros and cons of social media and ideas on how to strategically use these tools to increase your marketing efforts.

There are many pros to using social media for marketing your business. The little investment to get started and the possibility of reaching a large number of people makes it very attractive. On the other hand, the cons of using social media as a marketing tool is that it requires a long term commitment. For the most part, results do not happen overnight. It also requires a significant amount of time to start and maintain a marketing campaign. It is also increasingly popular and so for that reason, it is so difficult to gain visibility among its hundreds of millions of users. If you do not have the time to consistently contribute or expect fast short term result, it probably is not the best tool for your marketing efforts.

To use social media strategically as a tool, it is important to address these key points.

1) What are your business objectives?
Begin with the end in mind. Before diving into the social media space, it is first important to have a good understanding of your business goals and objectives. What is your business looking to do? Are you looking to identify and attract new customers, to build your brand, to build relationships, or to increase your sales revenue? Having these goals and objectives upfront, sets you up for success as you can use the most appropriate tools to reach them.

2) Who is your target market?
Instead of spending your marketing dollars on everyone, you will be in a much better position to focus your social marketing efforts on those people that are most likely to buy your products or services. Who is your ideal customer? What are your customer’s demographics characteristics? Where do they live? What do they do online? Tools such as Quantcast and Alexa are useful in providing demographic information about your target market.

3) Where is your target market “hanging out”?
The right marketing message to the wrong crowd is as ineffective as the wrong message to the right crowd. You want to make sure that your messages are connecting with the right people in the right space. It doesn’t make sense to target baby boomers and send out messages in a social media space where they don’t participate. Flowtown is a resource that provides you with information on social media demographics and who is using which social media sites. Participate in their industries, affinity and interest groups.

4) How will you measure the effectiveness of your objectives?
Lastly, it is important to measure the effectiveness of your marketing methods based on your objectives. Are your objectives to increase traffic, conversion, sales, or other objectives for branding, relationships, search ranking etc. There are great tools that are specific for certain social media sites and other general tools such as google analytics.

To decide if social media is right for your business, decide if the pros outweigh the cons and approach your marketing methods in a strategic fashion.

What made you make the decide that social media was right for you?

If you think that this information would be useful to others, “Tweet”, “Like” or “Share it” at the top of the page.

The Little Known Secrets To Accomplishing Your Goals.

Posted on by
Reply

20111230-234229.jpg

It’s just a few days before the beginning of a new year. There’s something clean and refreshing about the new year that allows us all to start anew and make plans on what we would like to accomplish for 2012. Goal setting seems like such a straightforward and easy task to do, yet very few people actually meet the goals that they set in various aspects of their lives. This past year, I spent time searching for the missing principles of goal setting in my life. In this post, I will share the principles and philosophies that I have learned about setting goals.

Continue reading →

What Everyone Ought To Know About Home Business Deductions

Posted on by
Reply

20111227-234150.jpg

In a previous post, I discussed one of the advantage of home based business is the tax advantages you get by qualifying for a number of home office deductions. Having a home based business entitles you to a wide variety of legally deductible business expenses as some of your personal expenses can be converted into valuable business deductions. This is different than being an employee, where you have limitations on what you can legally write off. To qualify for these deductions, you must prove that you are operating a legitimate business out of your home. In this post, I will discuss the criteria you must meet to qualify for these deduction and provide you with a resource that will provide additional tax information as well as appropriate tools for documentation and tracking.

Continue reading →

7 Tips On Getting Your Home Business Started The Right Way

Posted on by
Reply

20111219-120529.jpg

So you have done your due diligence and have picked the right company to work with….now what? In this post, I will share a few ideas on how to get organized and start your business on the right foot.

1) Understand your “why”
Before undertaking any major task, it is really important to understand your reasons for starting your business. What are you looking to accomplish? Did you decide to start you business because you are looking for away to earn income so that you could be home with your kids or are you looking for a way to become your own boss? There are many different reason why people decide to start their own businesses but it is important for you to really understand your reasons because this is what will drive you to keep moving forward when you hit those dips and challenges in your business.

2) Meet your support team
The beauty about this business is that you have a whole team of people to support you through your journey. Don’t be shy….pick up the phone and introduce yourself to others on your team. You will be surprised by the amount of support you will receive. Your support team has a vested interest in your success and so they want to make sure they provide you with the tools and resources that you need to succeed.

3) Work with your support team to build your business plan
By building a plan, I’m not talking about a ridged plan with numbers and details but more along the lines of determining what you would like to accomplish (what is your goal), how will you fund your business, how much time can realistically put into your business, and understanding what systems your support team has in place to market your business. Your plan should include calendaring, your action plan and tracking. Set a schedule and establish a daily, weekly, and monthly routine that fits your lifestyle and is realistic for you.

Also, involve your family with your plan. They need to be involved in the process so that they have an understanding of what you will be doing and how you will need their support in the process.

4) Set realistic expectations
I know that I just addressed it in the last bullet point but I think that this point is so critical it warrants repetition. Don’t have unrealistic expectations of becoming a millionaire overnight. This is a business and it requires treating it like a business and not a hobby. Remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint.

Become a lifelong learner. There may be skills that you will need to develop, ideas you need to experiment and implement. Be patient with yourself and be persistent and consistent in your activities. You’ll have a great story to tell in the end.

5) Create a Tax file – track income and expenses
There are amazing tax advantages when you own a home based business. In most cases,these tax savings can help pay for your business expenses. Take the time to learn more about the tax advantages of having a home based business. One great resource is the Home Business Tax Savings Learning Center. This site has many resources and tools that you can use to learn more about tax savings and tracking your business’s income and expenses.

Make sure you have a list of business expenses you should keep track of and have a system of collecting and organizing your expenses. There are other great financial tracking programs such as Quickbooks, Quicken and Mint etc. There are also a number of paper based systems that you can use to track your expenses. Any system works just as far as it allows you to keep track of your business’s cash flow.

6) Build your “other” support team
Your “other” support team should consist of a lawyer, accountant, financial planner etc. Counsulting with your team of professional advisors will help you determine the legal and financial implications of operating your business (sole proprietor, partnerships, limited liability corporations etc). Ask others in your business who they would recommend. Make sure you work with someone who has experience with home based businesses.

7) Set up a separate business work space
Try to separate business and personal space. Not only will this be helpful in your productivity but also helpful in tracking business expenses for tax reasons.

These are a few ideas to help you get started on your exciting adventure. If you think that this information would be useful to others, “Tweet”, “Like” or “Share it” at the top of the page.

Are there any others that you would add to the list? I welcome you comments below