In early 1992, President George H.W. Bush was riding high. He was sitting on an almost unprecedented 80% approval rating following the first Gulf War. Conventional wisdom pegged him as a shoe-in for a second term. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton faced an uphill battle. He was largely unknown at the start of 1992, facing a very popular incumbent. Worse for him, his opponent "owned" foreign policy. There was no way to successfully attack him on that front. So what did the Governor's campaign do? More..

Developing A Focused Marketing Strategy

You want all of your marketing messages to have a single focus, so they pull together instead of competing with each other. Great! So how do you come up with one? First, there are several things you need to know. Who is your target? As specifically as possible, who are you trying to sell to? Don't just say "women," say, "fashion conscious women age 18-35." Say, "stay-at-home mothers of preschool children." Next, what benefit of your product or service will most appeal to them? Let's say you're More..

Marketing: Can I Trust You?

We live in an unprecedented era of communication. Because of this, your prospects are literally bombarded from all directions with marketing messages. They've heard so many hyped claims, that they automatically distrust them all. How can you avoid this in your marketing messages? How can you convince them that what you promise is what you will actually deliver? First of all, tell the truth. Don't promise that your widget will do something it won't. You may get sales in the short term, but long More..

Get Personal: Letters vs. Direct Mail

One of the reasons direct mail works is the personal aspect. It's ostensibly a letter from you to your prospect. Because of this, the more personal you make it, the better your response will be. If you're mailing to 100,000 people, putting your prospect's name on your letter is about as personal you can get. But there are times when you can - and should - send out highly personal letters to individual prospects. Say you sell gardening supplies, and driving to work one day you notice a home wit More..

Maximizing Your Yellow Page Investment

Yellow Page users are the hottest of all prospects - someone who has made the decision to buy, and now is looking for a place to do it. Does your ad convince them that your business is that place? It doesn't have to be the biggest, although that can certainly help. And if you do it right, it won't even matter if your business is listed first. What matters is that your ad is the most persuasive. "But, Lisa!" you're saying in your most shocked whisper, "Everybody knows that the first listing in More..

How to Use Marketing Judo to Beat Big Competitors

If yours is a small business and you have big or even huge competitors, you may be laying awake at night wondering how can you possibly beat them. You can't out-advertise them, or out-promote them, and you probably won't be able beat to its prices. For example, think about a small business whose biggest competitor is Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Amazon.com or some other huge retailer. Is there any way to compete successfully against these Goliaths? My answer is to use marketing judo. As you may know ju More..

Profitable Marketing Programs (Part 1)

Deciding whether a particular marketing program is profitable to your business is often more subjective than the accountants would have you believe. You should not only consider the direct revenue and costs associated with a marketing program, but you should also think about the long term impact on your business. The full benefits gained from a marketing program are not directly and immediately measurable. Many benefits happen over time. Advertising; brand building and awareness; Web site impro More..

A Creative RIOT

Relevant, original and impactful: that's what my friend Creative Director Jim Mountjoy says that effective creative must be. With apologies to Jim, I have my own acronym because I think ROI is only 75 percent of the way there. Effective creative is a RIOT: relevant, impactful, original and true. Let's say you are a personal injury attorney who represents the people. Do you think that a blue collar worker cares if you have "protected North Carolinians since 1975," or would a message like "fighti More..

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10 Essential Criteria For Choosing Your Target Market

A specific group of people you will focus on selling your services to is your target market. This is not to be confused with the problem you will be solving for this group. Why choose a target market? You need to decide exactly who your audience is before you sell your services. Deciding on your target market lays a critical foundation for your business. When you get clear about who your target market is, you will: * know where to focus your selling and marketing efforts. * know where to focu More..

Stretching The String: Five Tips To Maximize Your Marketing When You Are On A Shoe String Budget

"I know I need to market my business in order togrow my business, but right now I can't afford it." I have heard this statement numerous times frombusiness owners that are struggling to stay in business. They are hanging on by a frayed string that will break at any moment, resulting in any chances at asuccessful business to come crashing down. But it doesn't have to happen that way. Instead of focusing on what they don't haveand not doing anything to market their business,struggling business o More..

What is a Marketing Plan Anyway?

Building a business that grows steadily in size and profits is like building your dream house. First, you identify what kind of home you want, then you and your architect plan and create blueprints for your house, then you'd build it, move in and enjoy it. Now imagine that you didn't have the time to plan your home but went ahead and hired a builder to get started. How would he know what to build? Without a plan, the result would be unlikely to meet your needs and you'd have wasted a lot of tim More..

Dont Advertise Your Business - Market It!

Too many business owners believe that marketing their business means just paying for a few ads. What few understand is that Advertising is not the same as Marketing. Too many clients have come to us only after they have wasted large sums of money by copying their competitors with "me too" advertising. And the media and advertising agencies love it. When you approach an advertising agency, their mission will be to convince you to spend your entire marketing budget with them, not to help you devis More..

4 Ways to Get a Prospects Attention Fast

Can you remember the last dozen advertising messages beamed at you today? Can you remember even one of them? Most people can't. This illustrates a major obstacle you need to overcome before you can successfully promote your product or service. You have to capture a prospective customer's attention in the first few seconds or your sales message will be ignored. This is especially important on the Internet where a visitor can simply click away from your website ...forever. Here are 4 proven tech More..

Contrarian Marketing at Benettons

Perhaps, with apologies to Dale Carnegie, we should call this article: "How to make enemies AND influence people." The subject: United Colors of Benetton's campaign to promote its clothing, using photos and stories about death row prisoners in the U.S. It's what journalist James Bone of the Times of London called the "latest in a string of deliberately provocative campaigns". In an age when most advertisers try their hardest to avoid offending anyone, this company takes a clearly contrarian ap More..

Service Marketing - A Relationship Building Approach

Can we imagine a place in the world today without a marketing activity. It looks remote. When we all move from one place to the other, we need an interactive or a Communicative Response System (CRS) to facilitate a marketing activity and enable the market to respond. When this Communicative Response System (CRS) eventually reaches a market, there are buyers and sellers waiting to respond. Marketing is not today what it used to be years ago. It started as a barter and has reached a currency worl More..

Trade Show Exhibit Booth - 7 Tips to Improve Yours

Once you have decided to participate in a trade show, half your work is done. The other half starts with exploring ideas on how to get the maximum out of the event both in terms of brand building as well as sales enquiries. Here are seven easy to follow and cost-free implementation tips which would help you improve your trade show booth. 1. Balanced dÃƒÂ©cor The size of your trade show booth doesn't really matter. The main idea should be that you work towards achieving a balanced look for the More..

4 Sales Strategies with Your Trade Show Exhibition Booth

Trade show booths can act as an excellent source for generating sales enquiries in the short run. Companies are able to demonstrate their products or services and get instant enquiries at the booth which on timely follow up can result in sales. Some of the tips on how to maximize the benefits of a trade show booth as a sales tool are mentioned below: 1. On-Spot promotion schemes: This is an age old trick which works well at trade shows. Firstly it makes the visitor stop at your booth for more t More..

Trade Show Marketing - Getting Prepared for the Big Event

With the increase in number of tradeshows being held across the world, it has become imperative to check the trade shows' credentials before you commit participation. Here are some quick tips on checks to ensure that you are not heading for a dud trade show: 1. Check previous history and years of experience including backing by any large industrial groups: This is the most obvious way to research on the event planners. Trade shows backed by large organizations would have greater availability of More..

Trade Show Display Booth - A Marvelous Contact System

Trade show booths are one of the best direct contact systems with end consumers. The face to face meeting opportunity with customers can provide some excellent results?provided you have a good communication strategy in place. Keep in mind that there are at least a hundred other advertisers at the same trade show vying for the attention of the consumer, you have a small window to make an impression on the persons mind. Here are some tried and tested strategies to implement to maximize your on-the More..

Business Promotional Items - How to Stimulate Word of Mouth Advertising

If the promotional items you give out end up in the attic or shoved in the back of a desk drawer, they are probably not doing what they are supposed to be doing. However, if items you passed out to clients and customers are being seen again and again, chances are, word-of-mouth advertising is stimulating your business. With media (radio, televisions and newspaper), messages can come and go. But, the exposure promotional items can give equals longevity. While there is no real scientific way to m More..

Unique Gift Items - 3 Creative Ideas

With promotional items there are standards: t-shirts, mugs, note cubes, calendars, magnets and keychains. Then, there is the really creative. Sometimes with a specific campaign, you may want to go above and beyond and really start a buzz about your company. This is not to say that creativity always costs more money. In fact, a really cheap promotional item can go a long way if the right message is attached. For example, the first idea stems from a friend of mine who worked at a career school. S More..

Discount Promotional Items - How to Save Money

It takes money to make money is an adage we hear everyday in the business world. So, when it comes to getting promotional items, you've got to budget for it. Or do you? There are several ways you can save money on your promotional item order. If you are planning to kick off a campaign, create an item to woo existing customers or create an exciting event giveaway there may just be a way to pinch a penny or two. PUT OUT FOR BID You may have a company that you've always dealt with and if that is More..

Promotional Marketing Products - Selecting the Perfect Item

People are known to shop on impulse- buying an item just because it is on sale, or purchasing something because it looks great in the store. When shopping for promotional items, you really can't succumb to impulses. Instead, you must carefully decide on an item that will help meet your objectives. A career school admissions representative who worked with the high school market once wanted to buy magnets to give to people. Although magnets were in the budget, they would not really do the job of More..

Trade Show Promotional Products - Boosting Booth Traffic

I was about seven or eight years old when I learned the value of promotional items at trade shows. I just didn't know it yet. I was at a home show with my parents. As we walked through the hall it was held in, I noticed people walking around with yardsticks. I really had no need for a yardstick, but seeing them made me want one. So, to make me happy, my parents kept an eye out for the booth passing out the yardsticks. I got my yardstick, and my dad got a deck from the contractor who was passing More..

Keeping Marketing Simple / Ten Simple Steps

1. Business Cards It is very important to market yourself via business cards. You should be making a conscious effort to hand out ten per day at the very least. Have them on you at all times, and keep a supply in your car just in case. When doing business with someone, don't give them just one business card, give them two, and ask them to refer someone to you. 2. Mailers and Reminders Keep a tickler file handy on all of your customers birthdays, kids birthdays, and anniversaries. Send them a More..

Are You Guilty Of Interruption Marketing?

You muted the commercials on the TV last night because youwere fed up with interruption marketing. Ditto if you wentthrough your mail to find most of it is junk. Ditto again,if a stranger phoned you (usually at dinner time) asking youto answer a survey, or give to yet another worthy cause. Interruption marketing does just that. It interrupts you,and steals your time. And it is the darling of mass marketing, which is the childof the mass media, which was born in the 19th century withlarge circu More..

The Key to Success

Good business is about communication... not just what you say but... Early Monday morning the phone rang in my office; it was very early for a business call. I answered "Good morning,? Nancy Fraser" there was a short pause on the line and then a voice asked, "Is this Gloria?". When I said no, she hung up. Good communication is also about listening. Unfortunately this kind of interaction happens thousands and thousands of times a day and not always in situations like this where there is nothing More..

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