Top 10 Questions That Will Help You in marketing

If you create a marketing plan for yourself, you will follow the following post. I think this will help you to learn the proper things in marketing industry.
One of the greatest challenges many new businesses face when they start up is creating a viable marketing plan that works for their unique talents. One-person micro companies, often called "solo-preneurs," usually understand their business own models, yet may not have the traditional marketing background to distill that knowledge into a cohesive marketing plan or communicate it effectively to others. If you're in that position, these questions will help you develop a very basic understanding of what it will take to create a marketing plan that works for your business.

1. Who is the person (my ideal customer) who wants what I have for sale?
Identifying your ideal customer is the first step toward understanding what you need to do to market your business. What you are looking to do is to define the key characteristics of the person who would most want what you have to offer. Hint: Not everybody will want what you've got to offer. Unless you've got an exclusive on oxygen or water, if you think the whole world would want your product or service, you're making a rookie mistake.

2. What does my ideal customer really want when purchasing my product, information or service?
No matter what you're selling, be it your time, expertise, or the greatest mousetrap ever invented, people buy for wants rather than needs, and those wants are not always immediately obvious. Take me, for example: As a marketing coach, I help people develop systems and tools for marketing themselves with integrity and ease. But guess what? People don't care about the process or tools I offer, they care about the results of our work, which is why when people ask me what I do, I tell them that I help small businesses attract more clients. My clients need help marketing because what they want are more clients. Very subtle distinction, yet it speaks to my target audience because it focuses on the results (what they get), rather than the process.

3. What else do I know about my ideal customer?
You want to get inside the mind of the customer to really understand what's driving the buying decision, as well as where and how to find your customer. What behaviors distinguish your ideal customer? Is the need for your product or service seasonal (sparked by weather or events at a certain time of year), or constant? The more you know about your ideal customer, the better chance you have of speaking directly to their wants in a way that is compelling.

4. Where can I find my ideal customer to communicate my message?
Does your ideal customer get information from magazines, newspapers, web sites or friends? Is your ideal client thinking about purchasing your product or service in a store or at home? Unless your ideal customer is a treasure hunter, you'll have to find a means to communicate with him or her that is within his or her daily communication threads. For example, if you were selling ultra-premium ice cream, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to advertise in a magazine for diabetics.

5. What do I have to say to capture my ideal customers' attention and interest?
This is the tricky part for so many entrepreneurs. Just like question number two, think wants (benefits) not needs (features). If your ideal customer identifies with being part of an exclusive group, perhaps your message would include something about your product not being for everyone, only for people who are ready for or up to the challenge of what your product offers. Many products and services effectively appeal to what people want to be, rather than what they want to have. That's why models get so much work in commercials; they represent the fantasy existence that people want when purchasing that product, be it a car, underpants, or a burrito.

6. If money were no object, what means would I use to get my ideal customers' attention?
Think BIG! Let the ideas just flow. The purpose of this question is not to frustrate you, but to surface possibilities that can be turned into opportunities. For example, if money were no object, maybe you'd like to advertise in a national magazine for people who fit your ideal customer profile. But since money is an issue, advertising may not be an option. But perhaps renting that magazine's subscriber list is within your means, if a direct mail campaign is the way you'd like to go. Or perhaps a product review or article about you/your service or product would be of interest to that magazine. If you don't censor yourself, you may find lots of related and relatively inexpensive opportunities that you wouldn't have allowed yourself to consider because of cost.

7. Since money is an issue, what can I do to get my ideal customers' attention?
Here's the place to be very practical. If you only have a limited budget, how do you get the most bang for your buck? Most people find that a combination of several low-cost tactics works far better than blowing the entire budget on a one-shot ad, because people generally don't respond to just one message received about a new product or service.

8. When am I going to do what I have to do to get my ideal customers' attention?
The hardest thing for many entrepreneurs to face is that in order to make the sale, they have to actually do something. And usually they are going to have to do it not just once, but over and over and over again. Entrepreneurs are often creative people, and the thought of repetition makes them shudder. Having a calendar of specific tactics for three months at a time is one way to schedule the tasks so that they don't seem endless. At the three-month mark, a review of what's worked and what hasn't will help you determine what needs to be done in the next quarter, and so on, until you're a millionaire.

9. How will I get my product, service or information into my ideal customers' hands?
If you have a product, chances are you will need some sort of distribution system. That means setting up relationships with retailers or distributors if you're selling into a channel such as retail stores, or a fulfillment process if you're selling direct to your customers. If you're selling a service or information, you'll need to consider whether you need an office, or if you can deliver the service to your customers' home or work locations, or even if you can provide your service electronically via the web or by phone.

10. How will I know when I've reached my goals?
Working without specific goals is the best way to ensure burnout and frustration that I know of. Set your goals, be they in number of units sold, or hours of service delivered, and keep an eye on how you're doing on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Having specific goals to work toward will help keep you motivated and on track, and will also provide you with valuable information about what's working for you, as well as what needs to be adjusted.

OK, so you've answered all these questions honestly and completely but you still need help, so now what? Call me for a free chat about what it will take to get you where you want to be. You can reach me at 360-882-1298. And pat yourself on the back; if you've answered all these questions, you are head-and-shoulders above the rest of the crowd of entrepreneurs, and well on your way to success!

Top ten Internet marketing Strategies for your website

This is an important issue now a days in internet how to promote a website. You will have to learn some marketing stratagies in internet to make popular your site. So I think this post will help you a lot.
Internet marketing can attract more people to your website, increase customers for your business, and enhance branding of your company and products. If you are just beginning your online marketing strategy the top 10 list below will get you started on a plan that has worked for many.

1. Start with a web promotion plan and an effective web design and development strategy.

2. Get ranked at the top in major search engines, and practice good Search Optimization Techniques.

3. Learn to use Email Marketing Effectively.

4. Dominate your marketing niche with affiliate, reseller, and associate programs.

5. Request an analysis from an Internet marketing coach or Internet marketing consultant.

6. Build a responsive opt-in email list.

7. Publish articles or get listed in news stories.

8. Write and publish online press releases.

9. Facilitate and run contests and giveaways via your web site.

10. Blog and interact with your visitors.

By following the above tips you'll be on your way to creating a concrete internet marketing strategy that could boost your business substantially.

Top 10 Email Marketing Strategies

Email marketing is the most powerful tools of web marketing . So you need to know the strategies of email marketing.

1. Get relevant – dive into personalization and segmentation.

The greatest capability of email marketing technology – segmentation and personalization – is likely the most underutilized by most companies. Making your emails as relevant as possible to each recipient is the most critical "must do" in 2006. Your emails are competing for attention with an increasing number of messages in your subscribers’ inbox. The emails that resonate most, through personalized subject lines, offers, articles, products showcased, and follow-up emails based on recipient activity, will be the clear winners. It is crucial that companies begin this process, even if it is simply personalizing the content of the subject line or sending modified emails to several different segments of your list. Once the process is started, companies can then work toward the promised land of dynamic content and lifecycle-based messaging.

2. Resolve or minimize deliverability and rendering issues.

Marketers must send pre-campaign test messages to uncover delivery problems before sending the actual message to recipients and monitor results after each message to spot ISP blocking, filtering and blacklisting. They should test their email messages in different email clients (Outlook, Lotus Notes, AOL , and Web clients like Hotmail/MSN , Gmail and Yahoo!) and platforms (PC and Macintosh) and correct problems. Establish authenticity as an email sender by publishing SPF code in their DNS record.

3. Redesign email messages for the inbox and users who view them in the preview pane and block images.

Marketers must redesign their emails to render properly and be easily read and acted on in a world of preview panes and blocked images. In 2006 Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail will add preview panes to their Web-based clients, adding to the significant usage of preview panes by Outlook and Lotus Notes users. Marketers should redesign email message templates to deliver maximum information in the top 2 to 4 inches and increase their creative use of HTML fonts and colors, while relying less on the use of images that ISPs or recipients' email clients might block.

4. Optimize the beginning of the email relationship.

Marketers must focus special attention on the beginning of the email relationship, because the most significant decline in email performance comes two months after recipients opt in. Engage new subscribers immediately with an organized program that includes a welcome message sent out upon confirmation, followed by the current newsletter or promotion, and emails offering a set of "best-of" newsletter articles or an email-exclusive offer just for newcomers. Manage subscribers’ expectations from the start by adequately explaining the email program’s value proposition, frequency, type of content and privacy policies.

5. Get on the permission train.

Marketers must review the permission practices across their Web sites and at all customer-contact points within the company. Convert any opt-out address collection (loading a subscription form with a checked box or sales offers emailed to prospects without permission) to opt-in. While not required by the CAN-SPAM Act, permission-based email is becoming the acknowledged best practice in the industry. Companies that send unsolicited email risk damaging their brand and losing customers.

6. Focus on metrics that matter.

Marketers spend way too much time worrying about process-oriented metrics such as open and click-through rates. Companies need to focus more on the end goals by tracking conversion rates, revenue per email, whether specific desired actions were taken, etc. Newsletter publishers need to drill down and track which type of articles and format style motivate subscribers to click through to read more, and then adjust content and formats accordingly. Use open and click rates as indicators of trends and possible delivery and rendering issues rather than as stand-alone measures of campaign success.

7. Take better care of long-term subscribers.

EmailLabs estimates that 30% to 50% of a company’s email list may be inactive, meaning that subscribers have not opened or clicked on a link over a reasonable series of messages or time period. Marketers need to wake up these dormant subscribers by trying different subject lines, frequency of mailings and new formats, sending them special offers or best of newsletters, surveying them, and getting them to update their demographic, preference and interest profiles. Marketers also need to analyze these “inactives” to uncover potential trends such as how they opted in (sweepstakes offer, free whitepaper, etc.) and their demographic profiles.

8. Maximize search with email.

Search is now a dominant means to acquire customers and leads, but companies that don’t integrate their email programs with their search efforts are throwing search-engine-marketing dollars in the trash. Include an email offer as a secondary objective on the landing page. Invite visitors to opt in to a newsletter, download a whitepaper or try a product/service demo if they don't want to buy or take other desired actions. Then, use email to move subscribers along the sales lifecycle.

9. Test, test, test and improve.

Things move and change quickly in email marketing. What works for a competitor or worked for you six months ago might not work today. Companies need to test variables continuously, including format, design, copy style and calls to action, subject line approach and offers, personalization, content types or product categories and more. Start with simple A/B split tests, and repeat the test at least a few times to verify results.

10. Create an email marketing plan and align resources.

Do you have an actual email marketing plan with specific goals, success metrics and action steps outlined? Because email marketing is still so new to many organizations, budget and resources for the channel are often not in line with the opportunity and potential ROI. Develop a plan that clearly demonstrates to management the value and ROI of a strategic and well-run email marketing program. Make sure your plan includes enough budget and resources to enable significant improvement in ROI through increased personalization and segmentation, better deliverability, continuous testing, analysis and improvement and use of advanced technology.

Source: http://www.emaillabs.com/email_marketing_articles/email_marketing_strategies_2006.html

Top 10 email marketing tips

ONE
Avoid Spam Filters
Most internet service providers (ISP) now use rigerous spam protection to trap unsolicited email before it gets into their customers inbox. Spam filters "rank" each email with a point system. Using words like 'FREE', 'SAVE', '$
TWO
Track With Link Clicks
Internet users seem to respond better to plain, bold, blue text link as opposed to a banners, forms or buttons. Use links in your newsletters to send people to product specific webpages. Links can be tracked and reported giving you real-time responses detailing who clicked those links and when.

THREE
Personalize Mailings
Which of these would get your attention: "HEY, YOU!" or "HEY JOHN" ? Personalization should be used in your emails. In-fact, by simply starting your email with "Hi [subscriber_name]" instead of the boring "Hi there", you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%. Why? because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you when you address them by their first name.

FOUR
One-Click Unsubscription
Mandatory laws are coming online everyday that require all messages to have a REMOVE ME or UNSUBSCRIBE link within the email. The link should take the recipient directly to a page where they are then removed immediately and without tricky pop-up's or redirects .

FIVE
Double Opt-In Lists
If you want to grow your mailing list, then you absolutely must use a double opt-in process. This process requires the user to enter and subscribe to your newsletter. The user then recieves an email containing a 'verification' or 'opt-in' link that when clicked takes them to a confirmation page on your website. You know are assured this user did indeed approve the subscription to your list.

SIX
Dynamic Communication

An autoresponder is an email that is sent at a certain time interval after someone subscribes to your list. Autoresponders are a way to automatically follow up with your subscribers and provide them with more information. For example, you could setup an autoresponders for new subscribers that is sent one hour after they subscribe that contains a THANK YOU message.

SEVEN
Consistent Look
Try and keep the look and feel consistent in your eBLAST campaigns. By keeping the look and feel consistent you can maintain and strengthen your brand and image. Create a custom template for your newsletter and whenever you need to create a new issue, use that template for consistency.

EIGHT
On Time, Every Time
Try scheduling your messages to be delivered at the same day and time of the week (i.e. every Wednesday at 3pm). This will create a familiarity and subscribers will come to "expect" your email to arrive in their inbox consistenty at that time.

NINE
Less Than A Second
When email arrives in subscribers inboxes you get less than a second to catch their attention with the subject line of your email. After this, they will either delete or ignore it. A subject line should provide a sense of curiosity and be easy to understand resulting in a higher 'open-rate'.

TEN
The Preview Pane
Many email clients like as Outlook and Thunderbird usually preview emai in a smaller pane. Be sure to place interesting content at the very top of your email to be sure to catch the top of the preview pane and create enough interest to open it., 'PURCHASE', 'SAVE' will cause your messages points to rise and ultimately be flagged as spam only to end up in the junk or bulk mail bin.

TWO
Track With Link Clicks
Internet users seem to respond better to plain, bold, blue text link as opposed to a banners, forms or buttons. Use links in your newsletters to send people to product specific webpages. Links can be tracked and reported giving you real-time responses detailing who clicked those links and when.

THREE
Personalize Mailings
Which of these would get your attention: "HEY, YOU!" or "HEY JOHN" ? Personalization should be used in your emails. In-fact, by simply starting your email with "Hi [subscriber_name]" instead of the boring "Hi there", you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%. Why? because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you when you address them by their first name.

FOUR
One-Click Unsubscription
Mandatory laws are coming online everyday that require all messages to have a REMOVE ME or UNSUBSCRIBE link within the email. The link should take the recipient directly to a page where they are then removed immediately and without tricky pop-up's or redirects .

FIVE
Double Opt-In Lists
If you want to grow your mailing list, then you absolutely must use a double opt-in process. This process requires the user to enter and subscribe to your newsletter. The user then recieves an email containing a 'verification' or 'opt-in' link that when clicked takes them to a confirmation page on your website. You know are assured this user did indeed approve the subscription to your list.

SIX
Dynamic Communication

An autoresponder is an email that is sent at a certain time interval after someone subscribes to your list. Autoresponders are a way to automatically follow up with your subscribers and provide them with more information. For example, you could setup an autoresponders for new subscribers that is sent one hour after they subscribe that contains a THANK YOU message.

SEVEN
Consistent Look
Try and keep the look and feel consistent in your eBLAST campaigns. By keeping the look and feel consistent you can maintain and strengthen your brand and image. Create a custom template for your newsletter and whenever you need to create a new issue, use that template for consistency.

EIGHT
On Time, Every Time
Try scheduling your messages to be delivered at the same day and time of the week (i.e. every Wednesday at 3pm). This will create a familiarity and subscribers will come to "expect" your email to arrive in their inbox consistenty at that time.

NINE
Less Than A Second
When email arrives in subscribers inboxes you get less than a second to catch their attention with the subject line of your email. After this, they will either delete or ignore it. A subject line should provide a sense of curiosity and be easy to understand resulting in a higher 'open-rate'.

TEN
The Preview Pane
Many email clients like as Outlook and Thunderbird usually preview emai in a smaller pane. Be sure to place interesting content at the very top of your email to be sure to catch the top of the preview pane and create enough interest to open it.

This top ten email marketing tips is found in http://www.coolstream.biz/eblast.htm