Sitting at my kitchen table the other morning I decided, as I always do, to read some stories in the newspaper. I like our local newspaper as the writers they have working for them are very good and very thorough in the stories they are trying to translate.

I started reading some articles in their business section. One article I picked out in particular was talking about a handful companies and their stock prices as they are rising and falling based on certain factors and how society may be contributing to them. But what caught my eye was not the article itself but the advertisement located directly to its right on the page. The advertisement clearly stood out from the article, which I am sure was the company's intent when they ran it.

This advertisement was segmented away from the article by being boxed in with a thick dark border so as readers could tell it was not part of the article itself. Now I have seen advertisements like this before so it was nothing new, but it did remind me of the importance of how to relay what you are selling to the reader in the form of information as opposed to a “buy it now” type of advertisement.

The advertisement I was looking at was in the form of an article. The article told a story and painted a visual picture of what the product was, how it was used and who could benefit most from using it. It gave a variety of statistics, that although I did not personally verify, I am sure they can be validated with a little research.

This means of advertising to your customers appeals on a personal level. It doesn't matter if you are advertising in the newspaper, a magazine, on TV, radio or on the internet. The most affective forms of advertising today hit potential customers on an emotional level. This particular story does just that.

Imagine if you sold a product. Your product is used to help prevent fires in the home. You begin to write and advertisement in the form of an article that talks about how many homes are lost each year due to fires, how many lives it claims and so on. This makes your product appeal to them before they even know what it does. Now paint a picture to the reader as to how your product can reduce those numbers. Can you see how this form of advertising can be beneficial to you and the customer? Of course you can.

Before you submit your next advertisement, you should think about turning it into an article where you can paint an emotional picture for the reader. It may be the difference between some sales and a whole lot of sales.

If you have any questions or think I missed some method here, please leave a comment.

Information

Information is the life blood of marketing and you can use polls to collect vital details about the sort of people who visit as well as the more formal information about their thoughts on a product.

You can ask a straightforward question. For example, if you sell marmalade, you can ask: "What sort of Marmalade do you like?", and list various flavours. The answers will tell you the types liked and their order and this sort of information is useful, particularly if you have just introduced or will introduce a new product.

But as well as this, it tells you something equally useful. It tells you how likely your visitors are to respond to your polls since you can compare the number who answered as a percentage of the number who visited. If there is a wide discrepancy then you may need to look at the sort of polls you publish and be aware that you might not be getting good information back.

As a general rule, people like polls, seeing them as harmless ornamentation and entertainment. They also like to interact and feel part of the site and having an easy outlet for their preferences and ideas is useful in building sites that retain and encourage visitors. Again, if you don't get the results you expect, you may need to rethink the wording you use.

Of course, you can also ask questions that elicit other, more pertinent, information that is of use in planning your marketing and this area needs careful thought. Whatever you do, don't dash off a quick poll when a few minutes thought could have resulted in something that generates more relevant information.

It really is as easy as thinking what you would like to know and then producing a poll that is both interesting and fun to do and, thus, will be well supported.

Real Marketing

There are as many ways to use polls in real marketing as there are products. For example, if you sell t-shirts with a racing car motif you can use a Formula 1 or a Rally poll. It's a popular subject so visitors will probably be knowledgeable and enjoy putting their opinions and you will ensure that your t-shirt image and details are presented nearby, ready to receive the clicks.

In the same way, if you are marketing a new product or service you can use a poll to put the idea into the heads of visitors without making it too obvious what you are doing. If you have a new line in CDs, for instance, you might prepare a poll about the life of a singer to prompt buying of a new track or book.

There are many possibilities for using polls in this way that simply prompt people to think particular thoughts or think about a particular type of product. This can be very powerful since, for the most part, people will be unaware of the suggestion that is happening.

Polls like this take little preparation or implementation, they can be changed frequently and act as colourful additions to websites. The only problem is in integrating a poll policy into your marketing structure and then thinking what questions to ask and what answers to suggest.

However, I believe that, with thought, polls can act as clever marketing tools for the astute website owner who knows how to exploit and use them.

You need to budget some money to acquire some business knowledge to keep your business running. If you are into online business, some level of internet knowledge need to be acquired, are you into networking, affiliate marketing, or selling products online, this is not easy as so many gigs are saying.

You don't need to jump into any business without proper preparation. These are factors you need to acquire before you can run business smoothly both online and offline.

1. Capital: Start up capital is required before any business can succeed. It can be from loan, money inherited from your family; hence no business can run freely.
2. Management: The bedrock of any business is proper risk, finance, and human resource management, without this factor in your business it will definitely collapse.
3. Market: This is otherwise known as product outlet, the processes were your product reaches the final consumers.

Business Tips:

1. A business is more than a briefcase.
2. Don't waste time learning the tricks of the trade instead learn the trade.
3. The core of any business is the capital, it is not the market, and it is you.

It is pertinent to mention here the truth that business never fails, it is people that do.

 

Brands are buying into entertainment. Just count the number of incidental exposures of products you've seen on television and movies. Take for example, American Idol. Judge Simon Cowell is often seen drinking from a cup with the Coca Cola logo. In fact if you watch closely, the logo is also seen on the plasma TV screens on stage. In other words, branded entertainment is about placing the product either subtly or prominently within an entertainment product.

Product Placement can be verbal, like a mention in the show or visual where the product is seen. It is increasingly a tool used by marketers to push their brands into the limelight and increase awareness through such exposures. What ticks for the marketing folks is that their brand is not just associated with the entertainment, eg. a blockbuster movie or a much anticipated television series, it is also seen being associated with a celebrity when the actor uses the brand in the movie or the television programme. The association has added value for the brand. But branded entertainment has its setbacks.

It can be a matter of too much too soon. If the brand exposure is too subtle, the audience may not see it. If it is too prominent, the audience may get brand fatigue and develop a negative perception towards the brand. That is something you don't want happen to your brand. Think about it. As an audience, you want to be entertained. The last you need is to have brands plastered all over your screen.

After all, there is a place for that in the form of commercials and advertisements. The key is to balance the exposure and the placement so that you can have an edge when it comes to promoting your brand without over-killing it.
Branded entertainment is here to stay. So the next time you're in the theatres or at home watching TV, see if you can remember the brands that caught your attention.

One of the first things I learned that although this is a basic wrapper, the end flaps do not match any of the candy bars on the shelves in today's market. Therefore, I removed them. I was looking to design the package into something attractive that people would buy when they went to the candy shelves. I also wanted it to look original.

It took sometime to create this little masterpiece. Soon I had a finished product that I could show as a mockup.

This product would compete with all the candy bars on the market. It would be your standard candy bar aisle competing against Hershey's, Whatchanmacallit, Nestle Crunch, and the like. The customer you are looking to attract is more than likely ages 7 to 21. Although people of all ages eat chocolate, and you may use ads in a variety of different places, the younger the person the more sugar they are bound to eat.

This would be the ad for the chocolate bar to capture an audience.

With the current laws regarding spam, marketers now utilizing the power of email, are now forced to use the safelists or suffer the legal consequences in turn.

What are safelists? Safelists are email services, where a user in particular agrees to receive email, at the email address they use to opt in with. This can be done in many ways. Simply be signing up for something free on the Internet, or intentionally joining a safelist, one thing is for sure... If you put an email address into a form on the Internet, it is likely that one way or another, your name may be sold, and/or used in a safelist somewhere along the lines.

Therefore, if you sign up for something with a particular email address, do not be surprised to find your inbox overloaded with junk mail!

More often than not, when a marketer joins a safelist, they are likely to be advertising to other advertisers' alike, and at times will end up sending an email advertisement for a product or service to a person selling the exact same thing!

Now, the upside is that this will not happen all of the time, and in fact, some of your fellow advertisers that may get your email, may very well be looking for your particular product or service, which can very well result in a sale for you.

At this time, let me use a particular, standard, free safelist as an example here…

Let's just say that you have joined a free safelist that has 10,000 members, and allows you to email every 48 hours, which is a fairly typical standard these days.

Here is what my experience is on such an example

First, in my opinion, there are probably going to be around 1,000 of those people that either will never check their email, or no longer even have the email associated with that particular safelist anymore.

9,000 left to receive your email

Now, out of the 9,000 people left, I would say about 4,000 or more have a particular “list address” that they only use for the purpose of receiving email in turn, so they can continue their advertising campaigns, and login about once a week to blindly delete all email, just to keep a clean inbox, and never opening one single email at all.

5,000 left to receive your email

Ok, at this point I will figure that about 5,000 will now at least login at some point, and perhaps glance over the initial page of emails. I figure that about 2,500 of those people take a quick glance, then delete, with the remaining 2,500 staying to perhaps check out a few adds before clearing out their inbox.

2,500 left to receive your email

Now, I estimate that the 2,500 left are going to do a few different things here. They are going to look at the adds somewhat quickly, and the subject title that catches their attention may actually get them to click and open that particular email. Out of all the emails, in their overloaded inbox, yours is in there somewhere.

Again, in my personal estimates, I am saying that 1% will actually find your particular email, and actually click on it!

I am estimating that about 25 people will actually click, and see your add!

Out of those 25 people, I am going to say that 15 take a glance, and leave forever.

The remaining 10 will stay and read a little longer, and a few people will actually draw interest, and start clicking on some of your offers.

Let's just say, that this particular add blast worked and you actually got one sale!

You know what? That would be very, very, very good!

Personally, I utilize 3 paid listers, and about 25 free ones just with the email advertising alone.

Past this, I have a website that I submit to search engines, and free online article submissions as well. You can find these by doing a search in your favorite search engine(s) and it definitely adds a boost in your campaign(s)…

At any rate, just don't give up on the safelists so soon.

Do not look at it like, “Well, I sent to over a million people and nobody bought, so I guess I will just give up…”

Look at some of the variables first. You may think that you mailed to 10,000 or even 1 million, but the fact is, only a small amount of those numbers will actually see your add. That is why you need to be creative, and write up one of the best, catchy subject lines you can think of, without violating ethics, law, etrc…Essentially, do not put such things in your subject line as, “Account terminated”, “Notification of payment”, etrc…Not only is this a dirty tactic, but often in violation of the safelist, and only looking to get you into a lot of trouble.

Oh yes, I almost forgot…”The time of day to send your add!”…Well, you may already know this but many of these email servers vary greatly! Some send your add right away, others' are delayed, and some put you on a “first come, first served” basis. I have no problem sharing some of my personal stats with you here as well. My sales for some reason take place between 9:00am - 1:00pm Mountain time, and what is even stranger is that, this seems to occur mostly on Wednesdays and Saturdays for me. I hope that helps you out with your email campaigns.

Most importantly, never, ever spam! If you send an email to someone with a particular offer, that the recipient never agreed specifically to receive, you are spamming. It is also considered spam to answer an add with your own add. Very bad idea!

Good luck, and happy sales!

So how do you foster this relationship you have with your customers?

First and foremost as with any relationships, it needs to be worked at and nurtured. Customers come in all shapes and sizes. There are the fans and there are the switchers. Let's take them on one at a time.

The fans

These are the die-hard fans of your brand. They are intensely attached to your brand and make repeated purchases. They form brand communities like chat groups or fan clubs eg. Mini convertible Club. There they bond with other brand users and promote the use of the brand. It's a great way to get positive word-of-mouth promotion. Hearing it from opinion leaders and brand advocators is more personable and believable. It's a powerful way of getting your brand message across to new customers too! Of course, fans of your brand need to be rewarded for their loyalty and support. They need to feel special and be given special privileges such as, be the first ones to know about new products or sales promotions, get rewarded with rewards points, discounts and one-off special edition premiums. In other words, they need to be handled with care and their feedback taken seriously because they give you a bigger share of wallet.

The switchers

These are the folks that have little attachment and loyalty to your brand. They are brand-switchers and are easily swayed by your competitor's brand messages. Even though they are aware of your brand but they don't quite identify or bond with it. In branding, your biggest challenge is to get the switchers to identify and like your brand. You want to move them from switching to trusting, liking and loving. In other words, switch them into fans. Understand their needs and why they're switching. Pay attention to what they're saying. Because they are already aware of your brand, you can focus on winning their trust and commitment.

It's all about building on that relationship you have with your customers. Remember, fans of brands do more than just rake in the sales. They bring in the new converts too!

• Are you a person like communicating with the others?
• Do you have more friends than the others do?
• When you are scolded by your leader or customer, are you angry? If not, what is your reaction to this kind of scolding?
• If there is a mountain for you to climb, do you want to get to the top, where is not safe, and you may lose your life, when you can stay at the middle of the mountain?
• Who will be the person that you can think that he or she is your model or can gain your admiration?
• Are you sky with the leaders of the companies when you have to talk to them?

For the first question, if your answer is yes, it shows that you have the ability to talk with the others, and have the potential power to persuade a person into doing something for you. So, it shows that you can meet the basic requirement of entering the marketing career. Otherwise, try to find that if you can change a little bit and to form a habit to communicate with the others. If you can do it, you can be a candidate for marketing career.

Second question is to test if you are social person. If you have many friends, it shows that you are social person, and this is the basic requirement for you to be in marketing career, too.

If you are not angry when are blamed or scolded by your leader or customers, you are on the positive side to become a person in marketing arena. This is for the third question. I don't know how you will reaction on this kind of blaming or scolding. If you take it for granted, it shows that you cannot improve your marketing skills by yourself, and you need a person to guide you in this career. If you face this kind of problems too often, it shows that you have to change your manners or attitude toward the others. If you will give up, you can never be at the top level in marketing career. Even worse, you will lose the job.

About the fourth question, you will have to think about the risks in the marketing career. Since not all the persons are suitable for this kind of job, you may face failure. However, if you want to climb to the top of the mountain, it shows that you have the potential power to be a good marketing manager or even higher in position in this field.

The next question is a general question for you to answer. If your model is in political field, you should consider entering the political circle. If your model is in the marketing career, you are the right person the career of marketing.

The last question is to test you if you feel at home when you talk with the leaders. This is a manner or we say an inner-world power for you to do a good job as marketing. This will not affect your politeness at all. You can be very polite and show your respect to them. However, you are not afraid of talking with them. This is the point.

After answering these questions, you will know if you are suitable for the job or not. I wish these questions can help you to know which kind of person you are, and wish you could find the job you like.

Business Cards

If you are serious about your business you must have business cards. They are cheap and are a great way to attract potential prospects or customers. Simply hand them out to people who you feel may be interested in your business.

Also, whenever I visit a restaurant, bar, or club, I'll leave my business cards in all of the bathroom stalls. (Just make sure nobody is in there of course... lol!)

And don't laugh at this! It really works. When I visit the bathroom an hour or two later, I'll find that all of my business cards are gone and I'll have a fresh new set of sales the very next day.

You can get free professional looking business cards at Vista Print, all you have to pay is shipping and handling.

Fliers

With today's technology, flyers are very easy to make. You can simply design a flyer online and just print it out and make copies. Then you can post them in area businesses where you feel your potential customers may hang out. (Just make sure you ask permission from the business owner.)

Or simply hand out your flyers to people you meets on the street. Many bars and clubs don't have a problem with posting flyers in their establishments either, especially if you are a patron.

And don't forget about supermarkets! Many have bulletin boards, at least here in New Jersey where I live, and you can post your flyer there. There are hundreds of people walking into supermarkets everyday and they are in a buying mentality. Take advantage of it and post your flyers often.

My Brochure Maker is a site that lets you create and print flyers or brochures online for free:

Automobile Advertising

What...? Yes you read that right! Your car is not only a driving vehicle but a great advertising vehicle as well. You can stick magnetic signs or plates on your car with your company name and/or domain name for all to see.

Your business can be exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of people everyday whether your car is parked, you are driving, or even when you are stuck in traffic. It's fairly inexpensive and a great way to "drive" home your message.

Here are a couple of sites to check out for this very sort of thing:

• I.D. It Plates
• Magnetic Signs

Those are just a few of the ways to advertise off-line. I'm sure you can come up with other clever ways as well.

You've got a brain... use it!