One of the best ways to attract more clients is to quit marketing the same way your competitors do. Because when all mortgage originator marketing is essentially the same, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish one loan officer from another. And studies show that consumers will make decisions one of two ways. First, if all competitors appear the same and there are too many to choose from, consumers won't make any decision. Instead they'll continue procrastinating. It's the same when you go More..

Business Postcard Marketing: 35 Ways to Use It

Postcards are an effective way for many business owners and marketing managers to attract new customers and increase sales from existing ones. Postcards are inexpensive to produce and mail. You can produce one in less time than you need for a letter or self-mailer. You can use postcards in dozens of ways to promote your business. # attract new customers # generate leads for your sales force # generate traffic at your trade show booth # drive buyers to your website # strengthen relationships More..

D.A.N.C.E. With Me

Recently, a client asked what he could do to help my business, but I wasn't ready with the answer. A lot of us probably miss these opportunities because we don't think through what we need and how to respond when someone offers to help promote us. Let's take a look at the D.A.N.C.E., a few simple ways you can enlist your network to help promote your organization. Distribute and Display. Do you have literature or product samples that you can ask someone in your network to distribute for you? Pe More..

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Keeping Pace with Business Marketing

Today's business marketing rules are different than they were in years past. Those rules that once focused predominantly on local and regional business marketing have now gone global, thanks in large part to the creation of the Internet. Internet technology has brought the business world closer together and nowadays, it's just as easy to conduct business across the globe as it is to conduct business across town. If you want your business to stay afloat in today's highly competitive business env More..

Creative Online Marketing For Salespeople and Business Professionals

New to a sales career? Want to market yourself but don't have the money to do so? Tired of cold calling and prospecting? Wish there were an easier way to get the word out about your services? Does this sound like you? This was what I felt like when I got my first sales job selling copiers ten years ago. My sales manager back then was into the traditional methods of getting new business; that is, prospecting, cold calling, booking appointments, doing product demonstrations, and closing sales. Th More..

To All Internet Marketers - How To Get My Business?

More and more people are realizing that the Internet offers great potential to set up a healthy business for pennies on the dollar. This is good news for internet marketers - but it also means that they need to lift their game. Why? Because the would-be "netpreneur" has access to way more training than ever before. It's possible to get up to speed very quickly on what is needed to get started online. This, in turn, means that people quickly recognize what offers true value and what does not. Th More..

Marketing - The One Marketeer

I'm regularly asked to speak to people, that have either just started a business or have been going for some time. So many of these people are absolutely brilliant at working "in their business" but not so good at working "on their business" In other words; they're good at making the product or providing the service but they're not so good at finding new customers and generating more sales. Like them, you may not be too keen on making cold calls and selling your product or service but you DO ne More..

Loan Officer Marketing - How Branding Shapes Your Prospects Perceptions

Social scientists have proven that people experience what they come to expect. It's like the first time you watched your favorite movie. Before you saw it maybe you read a favorable movie critic's review, or a friend told you it was a great, or your favorite filmmaker directed the movie. But before you purchased the movie ticket, you had a perception that it was going to be good - and as you watched your favorite movie for the first time, your perception became reality. It's the same thing whe More..

Direct Mail Response Rates Mislead if You are Careless

I could tell you that the average temperature in the world is 60 degrees Fahrenheit. But that fact wouldn't keep you from getting sunstroke in Cairo. Or frostbite in Tuktoyaktuk. Averages tell you only so much. Direct mail results only tell you part of what you need to know. They tell you the percentage of people on your list who responded. That's it. They don't tell you if you broke even. If you made a profit. Or if the sales people who followed up on the leads closed any sales. Response rate More..

Your Marketing - From The Couch To The Cash Register

When you put time or money into any marketing plan, your onlyobjective is to MAKE A SALE. Are you sure your marketing is going toget your customer from their couch to your cash register? When somebody hears your message or sees your logo from somemedium you have created, what does the path from that first 'touch' toyour cash register look like? We call this path the yellow brick road. If your yellow brick road is wellbuilt, then your customer will follow a developed path from a recognitionpoin More..

Direct Mail Response Rate Boosters (12 tips and ideas)

1. Mail to a different list Your list is the most important part of your direct mail campaign. Who you mail to is more important than what you mail. So if you are persuaded that your offer is attractive, your creative is compelling and your timing is spot on, mail to a different group of people and see what happens 2. Change your offer The offer is the most important part of your direct mail package after your list. So if your response rates are lacklustre, change your offer (my thanks to fello More..

Your REALTORÃ‚Â® Marketing Plan

The steps to creating an effective marketing plan begin with identifying who you are going to be targeting, what you are going to spend, and how many sales you are going to receive as a result of your efforts. By identifying this information in the initial stages of your market plan development, you will significantly increase your return on investment and substantially increase your sales. Below is a step by step process to help you lay the framework for your own marketing plan: Step 1) Identi More..

Direct Mail Response Rates Low? Eliminate These Mistakes

Are your direct mail response rates lower than you expect? Check your sales letter or direct mail package against this checklist to uncover the reasons for your poor response. LIST You are mailing to people who are never likely to buy You are not mailing to others in the same business who influence the buying decision Your list is out of date Your names and addresses are not formatted correctly for proper delivery Your list has job titles only, not names FORMAT You are using the wrong format f More..

Practice Marketing: How to Answer What Do You Do? to Increase Prospects, Publicity and Profits

"What do you do?" "I'm a CPA. What do you do?" "I'm a stockbroker." End of conversation. And the end of an opportunity to promote you and what you do in a way that will increase your prospects, publicity and profits. Some like to call it The Elevator Speech" as in something you can say in the time it takes to ride on an elevator. What I found is that many many people never ride on elevators. So the term Laser Speech really gets at what you want to do - communicate what you do in a focused More..

6 Article Marketing Smarts: How To Get More Reprints And Exposure

Article marketing is the latest buzzword for marketers looking to promote their sites and products online. But how do you measure the success of your article marketing campaign? It probably depends on what you expect your article to achieve for you - better branding, more sales, or more publicity. One way to measure article performance is to check how many times your article has been picked up and reproduced on various sites. To do that, just copy and paste the article title in quotes into a More..

How to Protect Yourself Against the Hidden Cost of Shipping to Trade Shows

Trade Shows are lots of work, but they can generate lots of new business for their participants. In addition to the expense of staffing your booth, food, lodging, display, travel, etc. you need to consider how will you transport your equipment to and from the event. This sounds like a simple task, but few freight carriers deliver to trade shows. Why don't many carriers ship to trade shows? Anytime you have lots of businesses shipping to the same destination on the same day there will be problems More..

Sales and Marketing: Can One Exist Without the Other?

Simply put the marketing people and the sales people depend on each other 100%. One cannot say that a marketing department is any more or less important then the guys who are closing the deals in the sales department. Indeed, one would not survive a day without the other which is why in many smaller companies the account manager are responsible for both functions. The very simple axiom of business is that in order to sell something you must first inform people that it is for sale. On the other More..

Free Sample Sales Letter: Example of How to Write a Persuasive Business Marketing Letter

Here is an example of a business-to-business sales letter mailed to auto dealers by a firm that markets gift cards that replace paper gift certificates. Anything in brackets [like this] did not appear in the letter but simply appears to describe the mechanics of the letter Author: Alan Sharpe Target audience: General managers of auto dealerships Mailer: Sharpe AutoCards [a fictional company for the purposes of this sample letter] Purpose: Generate appointments for salespeople [MAILING ENVELOPE More..

Small Business Pricing: Setting A Price For Your Product / Service

The importance of pricing can not be underestimated as incorrect pricing can often result in the failure of a business. New businesses often make the mistake of either charging too little or too much for their product or service. So to help you avoid making one of these mistakes, the following section will outline some of the guiding principles of price determination. Price is a key part of marketing. Setting prices is called pricing. Pricing means more than how much you charge. Smart customers More..

Direct Mail Response Rates Soar With Dimensional Mailers in Business-to-Business Lead Generation

The toughest job you face as a B2B direct marketer is reaching your prospect with your message. Reaching C-level executives is particularly difficult because they employ mailroom staff and executive secretaries who screen their mail, or your mail, depending on how you look at it. So unless your direct mail lead generation letter or postcard or self-mailer stands out from the rest, it won't reach the desk of your potential client. That's why dimensional mailers are one of the most effective ways More..

No One Gives A Damn About Your Business. Unless You Give em A Reason To

The good news is that there are thousands of people looking for what you offer. The bad news is that those people are extremely tough to attract not to mention that your very livelihood depends on it. It's a scary thought when you think about it. And many don't. Some are simply ignorant to the marketing realities. For others the expense and complexity associated with any kind of formal marketing effort is simply too intimidating. They rely souly on word-of-mouth. The fact is, word-of-mouth is gr More..

Inform vs. Excite

excite v. 1 a: to call to activity b: to arouse to feeling 2 a: ENERGIZE b: to produce a magnetic field in 3: to increase the activity of 4: to raise to a higher energy level syn see PROVOKE A lot of marketing doesn't do the whole job. It informs, but doesn't excite. The factis, it doesn't matter if you have the best product if you're not getting prospectsexcited. If you don't excite your prospect, you won't sell your product. So, how doyou excite your prospect? Start by acknowledging that your More..

Read more About The Power of because...

Tipical Mistakes in Marketing

To prevent the risks of a promotion campaign for our products or services, I'm talking about email campaigns, it is recommended to study some of the most common mistakes that can be made in this situation: 1. The desire of immediate success Launching a promotion campaign through email can be compared the situation in which we want to reach the top of a hill with our car, starting from the base. It is obvious that we won't succeed on the first try and it requires a little more time until we rea More..

Design Direct Mail Postcards Back-to-Front to Boost Response Rates

Conventional wisdom says that the front of a direct mail postcard is for the picture and the back is for the address, stamp and a short message. But some savvy direct marketers design their postcards the other way around-and boost response rates as a result. The goal of the front of the postcard is to grab attention long enough to arouse curiosity and motivate your prospect to turn the card over and continue reading. But postcards are usually delivered with the back of the postcard showing, no More..

How Testimonials Can Put You in the Spotlight

If you need evidence that a testimonial or referral can help you, let me tell you a personal story: My friend Dave raved about his boss all the time. "She knows I'm still in school," he said, "so she always asks about my schedule." "She's really smart, too," he added. "The company wants to promote her, but she keeps telling them she really trained to teach. She's just waiting for a job opening." "Hey," I stopped him, "if she's so great, why don't you take her out?" "Nah," he said. "She's too More..

How To Turn $100,000 Into $1,191,817 In Just One Year Part II

Turning a modest $100,000 annual turnover into $1,191,817 may sound outrageous but if you really understand the fundamentals of marketing this becomes quite achievable. Once you realise that just improving every area of your marketing can create a multiplying effect on your turnover it's time to look in more detail at exactly which areas you should target... The Three Main Ways To Increase Any Business Are... 1. Increase the number of clients... 2. Increase the size of each sale you make... More..

5 Reasons Your Marketing Communication is Falling Flat

One of my associates sent me a promotional email she'd received. "I know this marketing communication doesn't work," she told me, "but why doesn't this make me want to buy?" I took a look, and what I saw was familiar and sad. The promotional piece was for a weekend retreat. I could feel all the good intentions behind it, but the words just lay on the page like tired puppies. Worn out. No zip. No life. As solo business owners, we are often at a loss to understand why our words aren't getting a b More..

Make Your Marketing Solve a Problem

You may be engaged in a marketing activities that are working against you. Or, at the very least, are making sales more difficult. It's a common problem - marketing that focuses on what your company can DO and what your company KNOWS and how much experience you HAVE. Surprise! This doesn't work. Instead of focusing on YOU, market yourself as an innovative problem solver. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how easily this approach attracts new customers. Emphasize how your service or problem fix More..

Have Something Good To Say

If you don't get this right, you can just forget about everything else...your advertising will fail miserably if you don't have something good to say. The great business philosopher Jim Rohn probably summed it up best in his lecture about communications. He was talking about personal communications, not about advertising, but I think the principle holds true. He says to be a master communicator, all you've got to do is follow this three-step process: First, have something good to say. Second, sa More..

Everything Youve Ever Learned About Marketing Is Wrong

Everything you've ever learned about marketing and advertising is WRONG. Everything you've ever heard everything you've ever tried, everything you've ever done, it's all WRONG. Hello, my name is Rich Harshaw; I'm the CEO of Y2Marketing, the nation's leading marketing consulting and fulfillment agency. What I want to do in this series of articles is teach you a system for innovating and marketing your company to a point that it's instantly evident that you're the obvious choice to do business wi More..

Always Sell To New Eyes And New Ears

One of the hardest things for you to do as an advertiser to do is to step into your prospect's shoes and really understand what makes him buy, and to find out how the prospect reacts to your marketing and advertising efforts. It's easy to get caught up in thinking that just because you spent $14,000 -- or $140,000 -- on your latest batch of ads that every person on Earth saw the ads and paid really close attention to them. Well, generally speaking, they didn't. For the most part, people won't ev More..

Private Practice Marketing: 3 Secrets I Wish I Knew When I First Started Out

I don't know about you, but I am still waiting for my first class in graduate school about how to develop, market, and run a private practice. I'm also still waiting for my father to have a discussion with me about the facts of life. My wife and I have 2 kids, so I guess I figured it out for myself. Just like I had to figure out for myself how to market and build a practice. So here are three secrets I wish I knew when I first started my practice. Secret #1 - Grow Rich in a Niche A niche is More..

Private Practice Marketing: 3 More Secrets I Wish I Knew When I First Started Out

Secret #4 - Get very comfortable asking for payment One of the easiest ways to set this up is to have very clear explanations in your intake forms about how payment works. It's your job to train your clients how to pay you promptly. You can adopt the saying I use, that "no one leaves without leaving their payment." A significant part of this is having the words to say. For example, when a client tells me they left their wallet, purse or checkbook in the car, I respond with "That's OK, I'll More..

Corporate Cleavage

I enjoy cleavage as much or even more than the next guy. However, after reading my latest issue of Men's Health magazine, I checked my Encarta dictionary and looked up the word "cleavage". There is business science in "them der hills", namely the division or splitting of something, and last but not least, "the hollow visible between the breasts of a woman wearing a low cut garment". Suffice to say, I was very relieved that I had not been bastardizing the use of the word cleavage all these year More..

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