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Cleaning Up Your MarketingCharlie Cook Has your once well-organized marketing plan come to resemble the jumble of stuff in your closet not to mention the garage and the attic If you are like most people, each time you come across a new marketing idea you try to adopt it and add it to your existing approach. Strategies and tactics tend to accumulate and linger even when they may not be working as well as youd like. Like the ill-fitting clothes that accumulate in your closet or the broken tools still in the garage, they are hard to get rid of, whether because of habit, emotional attachment or just plain not getting around to cleaning them out. To improve your marketing, youll need to clean out some old ways of working. While I dont want to get anywhere near your closet, and in fact I could use some help with mine, I can show you how to clean up your marketing plan so youre ready to take advantage of the New Year to grow your business. Cleaning Up Your Marketing Plan Every morning my friend Michael Angier of SuccessNet.org sits down at his desk and asks himself the following three questions about his business. 1. Whats working 2. Whats not working 3. What can I improve You may not want to review your marketing plan five times a week, but it is a good idea to do it at least once a year. So take out your pencil or fire up your computer and assess your marketing plan: Your Marketing Plan 1. Is your plan working 2. Do you have a well defined marketing strategy that helps you achieve the three phases of marketing: Getting Attention, Positioning, and Selling 3. Do you need to write or rewrite your marketing plan 4. Do you need additional information or coaching to complete your marketing plan 5. What are you going to do to improve your marketing plan Getting Attention 6. Does your marketing message prompt prospects to contact you 7. Do your ads, letters, and web site motivate prospects to contact you 8. What are your conversion rates 9. What steps can you take to improve them Positioning 10. What are you doing to establish your credibility with prospects, to help them know and trust you 11. Is it working as well as youd like 12. What could you improve 13. Is the value of your products and services clear to your prospects or do they question you about merits and price 14. Want to learn how to ensure that your prospects understand the value of your products and services Selling 15. How successful are you in selling, that is, in getting commitments for everything from appointments to orders 16. Whats your conversion rate of prospects contacted to clients and customers 17. Do initial s/ales generate repeat s/ales and referrals for years to come 18. Want to learn how to generate more s/ales from each client Evaluating Your Marketing Plan Use Michaels three questions to summarize your comments about your marketing plan and your success in getting attention, positioning and selling. 1. Whats working 2. Whats not 3. What do you want to improve The hardest part about cleaning out your closet, attic, garage or your marketing is getting started. It may be time to straighten up or throw out some of your old marketing strategies and tactics and replace them with new more effective ones. Start 2005 with a well organized marketing plan, one that helps you Get Attention, Position your products and services and Sell and youll find your business growing in leaps and bounds in the coming year.
| RELATED ARTICLES You Attract Who You Are On The Internet! Being online is not only about getting your piece of pie, its also about what kind of pie you are getting. Your company is often being measured by many other business people online. There are many ways that people are keeping an eye on you.Search engine placementsNumber of incoming linksAlexa rankingPR Rating onlineWebsite growthWhat others are saying The Seven Secrets of a High-Sales Marketer If you want to boost your website sales to the next level, youve got to think and act like a high-sales marketer. Heres how: 3 Steps To Increasing Your Web traffic for Free You own a website and you want more traffic. More traffic will lead to more sales and more ad revenue.The basic costs of a website, once it is finished, are small. All you need to do is get some more visitors. Pay per Click might not be economical for you in that 100 visitors at 10 cents a click is $10. If only 2 out of 100 buy your $1 product, you are losing $8 per hundred people. Next. Organic Search Engine Optimization What it is and why it’s so important. A Cost Effective Way to Advertise Online. . . A Permission E-Mail Marketing We all hate e-mail spam, right I even have the coolest software program that will help you combat spam and actually bounces the spam e-mail straight back to the user. http://www.mailwasher.net Online Marketing Donts There are over 200 million people worldwide connected to the Internet, with over 64 million regular users in America.It’s no wonder that such a vast audience has made online marketing one of the fastest growing industries in the world.However, half the trick of conducing successful ecommerce is finding a way to get people to your site in the first place—hence online advertising. How to Print Your Marketing Postcards For A Penny, Address Them For Free, and Automate the Whole Process This article will show you how to cut your printing costs to a penny and have your postcards addressed for free without doing it all yourself, reducing the time you invest in your mailing to almost nothing. Ten Breakthrough Marketing Ideas 1. Create a directory of web sites on a specifictopic. Give people the option of adding thedirectory to their web site by linking to it. Putyour business advertisement at the top of thedirectors home page. This technique will get lotsof people to linkto your web site and give youfree advertising. Who Is Your Real Competition If you design kitchens, is another kitchen designer your competition Most likely not. And the sooner you can position and modify your marketing strategy against your real competition, the sooner you will start to see more business come through the door. So Who Really Is Your Competition Not Common But Effective Free Marketing We all know the many "free" traffic producing avenues. We all know about free classified ads, traffic exchanges, web site submitters, banner exchanges, link exchanges, but how many of you have ever thought of this FREE traffic avenue! In the past I have tried, I think, every free method of advertising, and have also had some success with the variety of free advertising resources. I have also tried different paid advertising sources. They have been very effective in building my business, but many times have proven to costly,especially when you are just starting out in a new business. So I was always on a quest to find new and better ways to advertise. Then I met a person on line with the secret!! Top 7 Internet Marketing Sites for 2005 Are you confused by what really works when marketing your business online How to Write Your Way to More Quilting Business So, youve opened up your quilting business Some of The Best Ways To Get Visitors To Your Site Before building a site there are many things that you need to take in mind. For example, how are you going to design your site, what is it going to cost you, how long will it take you to build, etc. All of these things mentioned a both are important aspects to consider when designing a site, but there is no point in doing all of this if you can’t even get visitors to your site afterwards. Use Internet Marketing to Bring Customers to Your Local Business Millions of "bricks and mortar" businesses have websites, but only a fraction of those businesses are using the Internet to bring in more sales. Its an expense that they pay because "everyone else is doing it". Dont settle for that. Are You Ready To Research Your Market Picture this. You develop some product or service, spend countless hours making sure everything is just right, set up a beautiful web site, make sure the ecommerce end is secure, and then release what you know will be of utmost benefit to others. Graphic Design Tip- White Space as a Positive Element Graphic designers of catalogues, booklets and annual reports should consider the paper pages as a positive element of the available graphic design area. The blank white paper spread is like the untouched canvas of a painter. The potential for design impact is encompassed by the physical confinements of the size of the paper pages. Creating Marketing Fireworks If you live in a small town like mine on the Connecticut coast, you will spend the 4th of July watching fireworks, along with everyone else in town. Why is it that people love fireworks Improving Your Inter-Company Communications At No Cost Its all very well having a flashy and expensive advertising campaign, backed up by a wealth of positive PR, but if your staff are not all pulling in the same direction this could be the biggest leak in your plan. Some Copy Tips From An Old Hand I have been in the ad game for a long, long time. I have trained hundreds of writers, and I’ve been responsible for moving of millions £ & $ in product worldwide. Here are just a few tips that I hope will help you do a better job, and make a bigger name for yourself. An Often Overlooked Strategy for Getting Your Foot in the Door Most companies are constantly seeking efficient and cost effective marketing and promotions strategies. It’s likely they are also seeking strategies to increase sales through obtaining key information. Regardless of the industry, almost everyone has heard or read arguments saying sales and marketing are separate, while at other times hearing and reading they are interconnected. |
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