Marketing in a Spam-Filled World

The CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act of 2003 was effective January 2004. The CAN-SPAM Act applies to American businesses that use e-mail for commercial purposes, spammers, and those who hire spammers. The CAN-SPAM Act is the federal government’s first step dealing with e-mail spam.

Read more here
http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/01/30/facebook-advertising-tips

14 Powerful Tips for Marketing on Facebook

Finding a facebook-art-marketing-webinar good place to showcase your products, services and websites for free in the online world is a dream for everyone – Facebook has made this a reality. With half a billion Facebook users and thousands of online communities to choose from, Facebook has brought potential customers much closer to you.

It’s no big secret that Facebook can help you in online marketing. However, I know there are many of you who believe that just registering on Facebook is enough… it’s not. Your Facebook success story ends before it even begins!

Continue reading here
http://blog.socialmaximizer.com/14-tips-for-marketing-on-facebook

7 Pinterest Marketing Tips to Improve Your Visibility

"... We asked top social media professionals what they’re doing to get results from Pinterest marketing right now."

Read article here
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/pinterest-marketing-tips

How to Recognize Which Customers Are Bad for Business

Q & A article post that I think many will find very good read!

by Joe Worth

View article here -
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225017#

Five Tips for Turning Picky Holiday Shoppers Into Buyers

by Carol Tice

You may not want to think about the holiday season before Halloween, but for retailers it's inevitable. Often, merchandise needs to be ordered now to be in stores for December. The trick is figuring out how much to order so far ahead, especially with the economy stuck in sleep mode.

Read tips here
http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/220620

The 7 Ps of Customer Retention Marketing

by Karl Wirth

When we think of marketing, we often think of Marketing's efforts to acquire customers. The world, however, is moving toward relationship-based business, including subscription services and subscription commerce—but also most other business.

Read article here
http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2012/8882/the-7-ps-of-customer-retention-marketing?adref=nlt091112

Keeping Loyal Customers Loyal

"The long-term goal for most marketers out there is to gain customers and successfully keep them coming back for more," writes Kristen Gregory at the Bronto blog...That's where loyalty programs come into play—and for email marketers, they fall into two general categories..."

Read article here
http://www.marketingprofs.com/short-articles/2541/keeping-loyal-customers-loyal

19 Email Deliverability Terms Every Marketer Should Know

Posted by Jenn Yorke

"Keeping up with the growing number of email terms can be as tiring as embarking on an obstacle course. So to help you stay up-to-date with the most critical—and sensitive—email marketing information, we’ve put together a list of 19 deliverability terms you should know. This blog post will enrich your email marketing vocabulary and equip you for stellar team discussions and marketing presentations."

Read article here
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31964/19-Email-Deliverability-Terms-Every-Marketer-Should-Know.aspx

How To Use Your Customers for Product Ideas

In the normal paradigm of a new business product, an entrepreneur comes up with a product idea, starts a business, and tries to help it grow. But in this paradigm the product is conceived before it is even known if it will be successful. Now, a good entrepreneur will perform the necessary market research during which it may be determined that the product is not viable.

Retail Reward Programs no Guarantee of Customer Loyalty

Posted by Douglas Hanna

"...Retailers spend billions of dollars on loyalty programs which are designed to bring customers back for repeat business, but a recent poll by Crossview, an organization designed to optimize consumer experiences, revealed that 66 percent of consumers responding to a survey about loyalty programs do not shop at a particular retailer despite promises of earning points for future purchases."

Read entire post here
http://thesocialcustomer.com/douglashanna/35451/retail-reward-programs-no-guarantee-customer-loyalty

Why Marketing Begins After The Sale

By Joe Love

All business begins and ends with the customer. The company with the most customers wins, which is why successful companies know that the real marketing begins after the initial sale has been made. They know doing everything possible to retain the trust and the business of current customers is the essence of marketing.

Read article here
http://www.ryze.com/posttopic.php?topicid=684278&confid=1022

Seven Marketing Principles

© 2004 Joel Sussman, president Optimal Marketing Communications

"Focus on These Seven Marketing Principles to Attract More Business and Close More Sales"

Read tips here
http://www.ryze.com/posttopic.php?topicid=395628&confid=1022

Find The Goldmine Within Your Business

by Joy Gendusa

Doing a current customer breakdown can help you find the goldmine within your business by determining who you should be targeting in your marketing efforts in the future. There is a goldmine right there and you may or may not see it . . . it's your customer base!

Continue reading tips here
http://www.ryze.com/posttopic.php?topicid=531845&confid=1022

9 Tools for Building Customer Loyalty

By Sean M. Lyden

Follow-up is extremely important to growing your homebased business. Like anything worthwhile, consistent follow-up requires a lot of effort, but over time you'll reap the benefits of a steady stream of repeat business and referrals. After all, it takes far less time and money to sell to an existing customer than a cold prospect.

Read his tools here
http://www.entrepreneur.com/sales/customerservice/article54792.html

10 Heavy Duty Online Sales Grabbers

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

1. Give your prospects extra incentives so they will
order quicker. It could be free shipping, a faster
shipping option, free gift wrapping, etc.

2. Make your small business look big on the world
wide web. Design your web site using professional
graphics, ordering systems, organized layouts, etc.

3. Attract a lot more customers by giving them clear
ordering instructions. Give them all the information
they need so they can complete their order easily.

4. Give your customers buying incentives so they'll
make repeat purchases. Offer them discounts, free
gifts, bonus points, etc.

5. Tell people about your site whenever you get a
chance. Those people will tell other people and so
on. It's a cheap way to multiply your advertising.

6. Write and send press releases for your web site.
Use a strong headlines, make it newsworthy, and
tell the journalist why their readers would like it.

7. Use a lot of headlines on your web site and ezine.
Some types of headlines are free offers, questions,
problem solvers, sales, and statistics.

8. Design graphics, templates, buttons and banner
ads for other sites. Allow people to use them in
exchange for your web link on their home page.

9. Use time saving promotional software. You can
automate your search engine submissions, posting
to online classified sites, etc.

10. Advertise your online business by dressing in
clothes that are imprinted with your ad. It could be
a T-shirt, ball cap, coat, etc.

How to Lose a Customer in 5 Ways

by John Jantsch

Getting a customer is hard work. Keeping them, or more importantly turning them into repeat and refer customers, requires an equal amount of strategic thinking and tactical action, but it’s where the real business building momentum is generated.

Read article here
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/article/how-to-lose-a-customer-in-5-ways-john-jantsch

3 Ways You Can Drive More Sales With Social Networks

Building a strong social media platform for your small business can help you gain more customers and ultimately make more sales. Find out what you can do with social media in order to drive more sales to your business.

View article page here
http://www.morebusiness.com/social-media-tools

Seven Tips for Building Customer Loyalty

by Micah Solomon

Loyal customers can be an important driver of sustainable business growth. They're usually much less price-sensitive, can be nearly immune to competitive entreaties, and can become a powerful marketing arm, going out of their way to promote and defend your company online and off -- for free.

Read tips here
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219475

Is your Online Business Making This Mistake?

Copyright (c) 2009 Ajay Prasad

You have a good website, you are focused on your product,
you work hard at the business and yet your website is not
delivering the expected... What went wrong?

Mike Carlson (name changed) had a website that was
perfectly in all aspects- it was running well, looked good
and it was even on page one for some keywords. Yet he was
getting practically no traffic and his conversions were
abysmal.

Mike is no exception. There are plenty of entrepreneurs
with online businesses who are unsuccessful in attracting
traffic.

Mike just failed to plan well.

What Mike planned was that "I will sell this product,
target this keyword and have an online shopping cart for 24
hour accessibility"

Mike failed to plan a strategy. He did not plan how to
achieve his targets. He just planned what he wanted to do.

"Planning to fail is failing to plan", you've heard this
before. This is particularly true for businesses and no
prizes for guessing; this applies to online business too.
If you have decided to do business online and you have no
plan, you are doomed to fail. Online business plans must
be focused on all business activities which will lead you
to your goal, help you to reallocate your resources to
optimum use, analyze and make corrections & adjustments to
get back on track if you ever deviate from your goals.

In the world of e-commerce you need specific planning

- What ecommerce business do you want to start?

- Is there a demand for the product?

- Is it too niche to generate revenue?

- How much revenue do you plan to target in the first year
of business?

The above questions will help you decide the selling price
and the number of people who must purchase your product for
you to achieve the target. Your conversion rate will more
or less depend on the conversion rates of your industry.

Once you get an approximate figure you can calculate the
number of visitors you wish to browse your site. Then to
need a workable plan which will get the required number of
people to your website. This means that you much finalize
what phrases are being used to search for the product and
target the ones relevant to your product and traffic
estimations.

A proper business plan will establish your business goals
and eliminate unrelated unnecessary activities. After
asking yourself the above questions you have a clear view
of what you want from your online business in a given
time frame.

Online business plans may differ but there are a few broad
guidelines which all such plans should include. They are
knowledge of your market, content management and
integrating your website design with SEO. Once you have the
idea of a niche item you want to deal in you need to find
the market for it. Then you need to refresh your website
content periodically for search engines to fall in love
with you. Your website planning, development, management
and marketing strategies should be integrated with your
business model for perfect harmony between each other.

An analysis of Mike's business was that he just started
selling products outright, targeting low traffic keywords
and not finding the right people or the right market. In
fact he was selling niche products to a generic audience.
He did not research and did not plan long term He just
focused on the present.

Know your customers

Here is some basic information that is needed before you
launch your online business:

1. Who is my prospect?

- Demographic information

a. Where do they live?

b. What is their income group?

c. What is their age group?

d. What is their family size?

e. What is their profession?

f. Psychographic information

g. What is their lifestyle?

h. What are their beliefs?

i. What are their radio/TV watching habits?

2. Product usage information

- What is their hot button issue that your products or
services address?

- How do they use your products/services

a. How much?

b. How much money do they spend?

c. What are their expectations from the products/services
that you offer?

3. What is my prospects internet usage behavior?

a. What percent of your prospects look for your
product/service on the internet vs. Yellow Pages?

b. What keywords or key phrases do they use to search
products or services that you offer?

c. What percent of your prospects purchase your
product/service over the internet?

d. What makes them decide to buy on the web vs. in store?

The plan for online business is very different from the
plan for normal brick and mortar business. This business
runs 24x7 non stop and closes as and when you, the business
owner wants.

Focus on the customer

- What benefits do my products give my customers?

- How can I maintain their satisfaction levels?

- Why will the customers buy my products?

- How do I reach my target customers?

These are some questions which should be answered by your
online business plan. Traffic generation is very important
for this business and you may opt for free (article, blog,
forum marketing) or paid (solo ad, Pay-per-click marketing,
SEO) methods to generate more and more traffic.

The goals in your plan should be realistic, measurable and
appropriate to your skill level and time scale. Your plan
should include the details such as start-up costs, labor
needs product quality, competition, the size of your
potential market, profitability, necessary product support,
legal issues and regulatory concerns, associated costs like
shipping, inventory and repeat business potential and
cross-selling potential.

Keep asking yourself these questions... .

- How many visitors are coming to the site?

- How many visitors are new vs. old?

- How long does each visitor stay on your site?

- What does each visitor look at?

- What graphics, words, pictures, etc are generating the
most responses?

- Which search engines are getting you the best prospects?

- Where else are your customers coming from?

- How many pages does the visitor look at?

- What are your website rankings?

- How much money have you made from the average visitor?

- Who are your biggest money-making customers?

- If you use PPC is it working and paying for itself?

- Which links are bringing your visitors and are they
converting to customers?

Last but not the least, online business should invariably
be related to something you love to do. The product or
business should have an attraction value for you which will
help you to not get bored while the time flies. A majority
of businesses fail during the first two years after
inception, mostly because its owners are no longer willing
to put in the work needed to make it grow. By picking an
area in which you have a natural affection and aptitude in,
you will increase the chances of making your online
business more than just passing fancy.

So get going and don't forget to fail to plan a complete
strategy.

About the Author:
Ajay is a partner in OnlineBizHq, an organization offering
free consultation on online business opportunities to
entrepreneurs. He is also the co-author of "Plant Your
Online Biz Money Tree" the ebook taking the entrepreneur
world by a storm. Click on the link for sneak buy at-->
http://onlinebizhq.org/free-money-tree-book.shtml Ajay is
also the owner of GMRWebTeam a professional and reputed
http://www.GMRWebTeam.com company.

Courtesy of Shannan Hearne
http://www.SuccessPromotions.com
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/shearne-marketing

How to Avoid a Social Media Lawsuit

by Lou Dubois

Businesses are utilizing social media to develop their brand and connect with customers. They often overlook the legal ramifications that could arise. Here's what to watch out for.

Read article here
http://www.inc.com/guides/201102/how-to-avoid-a-social-media-lawsuit.html?partner=newsletter_Startup