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Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

Ensuring your brand remains consistent across the entire marketing mix and across every communications channel is essential to maintaining a consistent and coherent image in any competitive marketplace and should be the first consideration of your advertising agency.The variety of marketing channels available to any company today have their own specific demands and their own rules. A design might look great on your business card or letterhead but may not have the same impact on a poster, tube card, direct mail piece, display advertisement or online.

Print management with a view to not only cost effectiveness, but also how your brand is expressed to its maximum impact across all above, below and through the line channels is vital to effective communication with your target audiences. Central to all this is the initial corporate identity design, aside from its creativity and how it captures the spirit of your proposition, how effectively it can be translated across all those myriad expressions will determine its longevity and impact. There are some important things to remember when designing logos or corporate ID and here are some guidelines:

A logo designed in a vector based program such as Illustrator allows for much more flexibility in terms of colours and results in a much clearer image especially if there is text in the logo and you want to use it in large format. With this in mind, it is inadvisable to use a photograph in a logo. If you can’t use a vector based program then design it as large as possible!

Stick to using just one or two fonts in your logo. Over-use of different fonts can make a logo look cluttered and unprofessional. Any text you want to use in a logo should be clear and legible, or don’t use text at all.

You may need to use your logo for a variety of different purposes and in different ways. Remember that just because something looks good on A4 print materials doesn’t mean it will be so wonderful by the time it’s been expanded to fit exhibition graphics or a billboard. Whatever you create should work well across the smallest to the largest of applications.

You may want to use the logo on black or white backgrounds or dark or light coloured backgrounds so the logo should work equally well as a stand-alone element or in a coloured box. Allow for the possiblity that your logo may need to be used in mono (single colour) as well.

You have probably seen some designs that you like but it’s important to try to make your logo as individual as you possibly can. There is no reason not to incorporate aspects from other logo designs that you find appealing, but when it comes to it being original is what will get your logo noticed.

I’ll bet you have read a lot of headlines that sound similar to this one above, or make promises like this one seems to. You have might have read some of those articles all the way to the end, even clicked on some of the links in the article and read all the information on those links. When you finished the article, you may have thought to yourself, “That just won’t work”… who in the world would ever buy THAT… or whatever that! IT WILL RUIN MY IMAGE!

That isn’t necessarily so. I’m going to give you some tips that will give you an opportunity to monetize your website or blog, while preserving your brand. One of the best and easiest ways to monetize your online properties is to join some affiliate programs and advertise them on your site.

Affiliate programs are the answer

Why affiliate programs? Simple. As an affiliate marketer program, you get access to products and services that are well supported by professional marketing materials and you don’t have to pay for those materials. All the work of writing an eBook, or recording an audio track, or programming a software product is taken care of by someone else. But the benefits don’t stop there. You also don’t have to create any marketing materials - those are all created for you by the affiliate program owner.

Another great benefit is that you really don’t have to keep track of money or finances. Most good affiliate programs will provide the members with a login to a sophisticated affiliate management program that is based on one of the leading affiliate software programs. Software management of affiliate program means that you won’t have to ride herd on the affiliate program owner.

Five tips for choosing affiliate offers to promote

1. Look good earnings potential - You want to make sure that if one of the people you refer to an affiliate offer buys, that you will make some decent money. Some experts recommend that you look for high percentage payouts. I prefer to look for opportunities where you can make a ‘big hit’ from a sale. This affiliate program for promoting music teacher websites offers the opportunity for you to earn $200 for a sale with monthly recurring income of $10.
2. Choose programs your readers will like - It is critical that you choose affiliate programs and offers that your audience will appreciate and be interested in. It wouldn’t be too smart to choose to promote affiliate programs and products for adult content movies on a site that is dedicated to toys for toddlers. However, if you have a website that helps people find careers is sales, it would be great to promote something like How to Get Into Medical Sales.

3. Look for affiliate programs powered by software - When you sign up for an affiliate program it will quickly become obvious if the owner of the program is serious about helping affiliate members be successful. After signing up, if you are automatically redirected to a page powered by a fully-featured affiliate marketing software program, they are probably serious about their affiliate program. If you get an email message that says ‘here is you affiliate link’ you might want to think carefully about investing any time. Their are several top name brands like iDev Affiliate, LinkShare, and JROX JAM. My favorite is JROX JAM, which you can get for free here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/recommends/free-affiliate-management-software.htm

4. Make sure the website is NOT anonymous - What I mean is, make sure that there are real people standing behind the website, people with good reputations, who take customer service seriously. Affiliate program owners who let you know who give you contact information with phone numbers are more likely to treat you well. They aren’t likely to try to avoid paying you the commissions that you have generated. If you can find a picture, bio, and phone number of the affiliate site owner, chances are they will behave legitimately. You will also be able to ‘Google’ them to find any complaints about their program. Peggy McKee, the Medical Sales Recruiter, is one of the country’s leading sales recruiters - she proudly announces her site ownership on the about pages like this one: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/about/

5. Choose affiliate programs that have support programs - If you are choosing a piece of software to buy, you probably wouldn’t purchase it if there was not support mechanism in place. It would be wise to use similar criteria when evaluating affiliate offerings. If the website owner doesn’t have a support system in place - something like a ticket system or help desk software - then they probably don’t care about their customers. If they do, then you can be rest assured that they are trying to keep customers happy. If they AREN’T working to keep customers happy, their poor service will reflect poorly on you, and tarnish your reputation.

There are a couple of affiliate programs that meet all these criteria, that I recommend if your site’s visitors would be interested in these subjects. One is an affiliate program for a sales interview tool that targets sales professionals - you can check it out here: http://30-60-90-day-sales-plan.com/affiliate-program-details/. The other is a program that has a broader appeal - it targets people who own businesses that either have no web presence or under performing websites; you can get all the information for it here: http://websitesthatdrivesales.com/blog/home/affiliate-program/

Pop Up Displays - Portable Presentations

It is common for companies to begin a search for a new Portable Display only to find that the definition is very confusing. If you are already making plans for upcoming shows here is what you need to know. To begin with, you'll find that nearly every display system is catorgorized as a portable these days. Now there is a new portable exhibit type being callled Portable Exhibit Hybrids. In order to help you comprehend the difference and to decide upon the exhibit that will best serve you, let me present you with seven questions a marketing department should ask.

1. How do you define "portable" when it comes to exhibits? People in marketing departments have differing opinions depending upon size and budget. When money is less of an object it is taken for granted that union help will be hired to set up the exhibit and less thought is given to how it ships. In that case portability is actually less important. Others think of Portable Trade Show Displays as being able to ship via UPS or FedEx. Many prefer a display that they can set up themselves. Owning an exhibit that is simple to set up becomes more important.

2. Don't wait until the last minute, plan in advance. Do you project so much growth as to need a larger booth in six months? There are some new exhibit designs for 10' booth available that are not designed to expand into a 10 x 20 and beyond. You will be better served by a modular exhibit that can grow as your needs expand.
3. Would it make more sense to purchase more than one exhibit because of various show priorities?
4. Keep in mind the shipping and drayage expenses.
5. When making your choices regarding exhibit hardware, exhibit design and graphics, make them independent of each other. It is too easy to be attracted to a display by any one element, however all three must work together.
6. Your budget is always important, but it shouldn't be the most important factor as you decide which exhibit to buy. Why? The reason to attend trade shows as an exhibitor is to sell product and to make money. The small business mind-set is often on saving money you may not end up with the best selling tool.
7. Ask plenty of questions. Not all portable exhibits are created equal. Each system has unique positives and negatives. The more you learn about the various exhibit options before you buy the happier you'll be with the result.

Any business today can benefit from been online
especially during the downturn, but many are deterred from
getting online by the cost of professional help or the time
needed for self-build tutorials. Now, with the UK launch of 90
Second Website Builder, individuals and small companies can create a complete,create a complete, custom designed website in no time at all.

The simple but smart ‘drag and drop’ software takes the
complexity out of creating and uploading sites, so that even the
most techno-unsavvy customers can get connected in record time,
for an unbelievable cost of just £47.00.

Managing Director Ken Smaile quotes”With this new software,you don’t
need to know anything about e-commerce or scritps and the like
language or imaging software to produce a professional looking
site. Even if you’re an absolute beginner, with 90 Second
Website Builder you can create a website that will promote your
company - without taking costly time out from your core
business. Simply add your text, logo and images before
publishing to the internet takes just one click.”

Traditional HTML editors use dynamic page layout, which means
that the first object placed on the page will then determine the
position of all subsequent items. The 90 Second software allows
users to simply point and click to pick up content and drag it
onto the web page, allowing complete control over the web site’s look
and layout.

But the package can do much more than that. Users can also add
banners, navigation bars and ready-to-use javascripts, whilst
doing e-commerce online is a snip with the software’s built in
shopping cart system.

And it’s not just businesses trying to ride out the recession
that will benefit from the 90 Second Website Builder: the
‘Twitter effect’ has spawned a generation of budding web
designers looking for ways to practice their web wizardry.

An online members area includes step-by-step videos showing how
to set up each stage of a site, and marketing advice, including
e-books on how to drive traffic to their new website, ideal for
anyone needing to get results in a short time with littel cost.

Ken Smaile concludes: “Everyone from kids building their own
social networking page to businesses whose success depends on a
strong site will love our hands on approach with support. We even provide
a selection of editable templates so people can get started
straight away without needing any web skills or extra software.”

So if your looking to get your first website builder then you
have found it in Website Builder

Website Video Ad

The Internet has developed no end in the last ten years where seeing more and more video presenters on websites today. The internet has evolved into a sophisticated world of niche services, portals and products. This growth in Internet use and the advances in technology have begun to challenge the media industry, TV can now be viewed anytime, and any place online, the same with films and music. This has obviously added to illegal downloading issues, but also created a whole new market, which has caught the attracted the interest of advertisers.

Online marketing is worth big money, for a few key reasons:

TV adverts are only shown between programmes, whereas Internet adverts and banners are on screen nearly all the time. Giving the advertiser much more coverage.

*The amount of people that can be reached is incredible. For example last year google had 1,118,000,000 view their advert that’s over 18 times the population of the UK.

*Targeting the right market is fairly easy, working out the markets interests and then placing adverts on the main sites of these interests can quickly aim the information straight into the segment the advertiser wants to reach.

Some sites such as myspace and facbook know that their users visit the site almost everyday to check their messages or comments and they know this regular traffic is worth a lot of money. Linking between sites is a technique less well known websites can use to gain traffic, by making a post on for example myspace which includes the web address to their site, owners can guide a section of myspace’s users towards their website and therefore boost their own traffic.

Some website owners have even used internet user’s mistakes to gain traffic. You can tell where a domain is from by its ending, such as Great Britain has .co.uk, America .com and France .fr. Cameroon in Africa has .cm and one entrepreneur came across a brilliant and highly profitable idea. He bought up hundreds of domains ending in .cm that sounded similar to their .com equivalents. By using user mistakes to gain traffic Kevin Ham made well over 2 million dollars!

Company owners are also starting to realise that text based websites don’t hold their audience interests for as long as needed. Website creators are attempting to combine website video production and website to create new, more interesting sites that not only entertain but more importantly sell. These website tour guides can greet site guests, show them round and help a company communicate their brand image and intentions. Not only this, but tests have proved that people stay longer on sites that feature a video tour guide rather than just text and user retention is highly important to potential advertisers.

As you can see the world of online sales and advertising is fast moving and constantly changing. The question is where will it go next and if you know then it’s definitely time to invest.

Virtual Presenter

Having video content on websites is much more effective then standard text because it creates a visual interaction with the audience so there for the audience will receive instant information about the website video ad or services available. Also it keeps browsers interested with the information that is given, as there is direct interaction with the browser.

There are various online presenters out there one example is Marino Olova who hosts a web show on youtube called too hot for words where people will ask her random questions and she will give them an answer however her unique selling point is her breast as you may see in her videos and this has attracted viewers to watch her productions as sex sells, because she has a mass audience who watch her productions she now receives funding form marketing sources such as google where they will post a links on her pages and will get a certain amount of money every time her videos have been viewed.

In the year 2008 it came to knowledge that internet marketing has surpassed television hence why itv had a loss of 600 jobs because they where not turning in enough revenue from advertisement to keep staff on. Google ppc campaigns can be used to target specific audiences on sites like youtube where viewer are watching material related to company products. Hence they can place their products on a specific website either 1 of two things that there product suits the target audience which visit that site or website that is popular and has an large audience which visit the website, hence why youtube has taken the nation and advertisement world by storm as they have a mass audience going into millions. Video channels are really growing in numbers because producers can make good money through advertising.

The popularity with video based content such as you tube, facebook and myspace, is growing as people are interested in watching other peoples productions and load up their own productions for the public to watch, same with face book which is a social network site and myspace where you can upload your own videos for your friends and family to watch and also add comments expressing their opinions on what they think of the production.       

These days as we all are aware of the fact that Business is spanning its hands in all the spheres, be it commercial tasks or educational tasks. Business is growing and thriving as well. Seeing the profits earned by the businessmen, numerous people are being attracted to commence and start the business. People who can afford to own and run a business are certainly choosing it as an opportunity to earn their livelihood. Business gives several opportunities. There are several distinct options for a person to be in a business. The chain of the business is hierarchical. Starting from producers and manufacturers, it passes on from wholesalers to the retailers. From these retailers, it actually comes into the market where the consumers can actually buy various products and commodities. Being in a business is not simple as it includes vast competition and challenges. But, those who have the courage and can afford it as well, could definitely try their hands because the market is occupied with several lucrative opportunities. These lucrative opportunities is definitely owed to the customers. To illustrate, the Arlington Heights Plumbers and Cicero Electricians (Need one? click here!), who have already gained an expertise in their job, are now ready to try their hands at business. They are planning to buy the products in bulks at fewer prices and then distribute it to various retailers at some profit. This margin would facilitate them in earning lots of money. The products that they will buy would definitely be of great quality as they have lots of experience in this field. On the other hand, the Hinckley Roofers (Need one? click here!) too are getting attracted to run a business. The option for them comprises buying and distributing the products in bulk. They can go for products such as cement, concrete, glues and fixtures. This they can then distribute to the retailers or the builders directly. This is really a nice career option for them because this will fetch them huge profits and that too without much hassle.

Extreme Wealth Formula

Video marketing is soon going to replace article marketing. Most internet marketers do not use it correctly, and that can really hurt. Before you start using video marketing to make cash online, there are some important things to consider.Whatever type of marketing you are doing to promote your business, product or service, you’ve got to provide people value so that they actually feel comfortable going into business with you.

Most people think that video marketing is all about sale-pitching for 5 or even 10 minutes & that’s certainly not the case. You should always be creative with your video marketing. You will be able to make cash online only if you use your marketing effectively. One of the best ways to become successful on the internet, is video marketing.

Even if you do not say 1 word about your product, and just provide people with real value, you will be able to make cash online. If you provide valuable content and something that people want, then you will be successful with video marketing. If you provide true value to your prospects, you will be able to make cash online.

You need to be attractive & creative when using video marketing. You don’t need to be the most beautiful person, but proper lighting & a good background just makes it more effective. You can easily find screen recording softwares on the internet if you are not comfortable. You can even use these screen recording softwares for presentations and so on. When utilized effectively, video marketing can be one of the best free ways to make cash online! So remember, when using this effective source of free advertising, provide people real value, and give them solutions to their problems and you will soon see yourself succeeding on the internet with ease.  Video marketing can only be effective, If you use it properly!

When times are tough & consumer confidence is low, customer loyalty concepts may well be a saving grace.

When sales of your products or services are not what they should be and the usual marketing methods aren’t working as well as they have done in the past, your bottom line will surely be hurting.

Couple this up with falling customer loyalty and you could be heading for tough times..
We’ve all heard of the Pareto Principle, it’s the one that states 20% of your customers will account for 80% of your profits.

JUST 20%!!  –  scary… or… what!

So… How do we keep the top 20% wrapped in the ‘warm & fuzzies”?

Here’s how…

They need to feel loved by us.

Here’s a number of options to think about -

Make an effort & get to know your customers. Customer loyalty concepts are a waste of time until you do.

You absolutely must know what gives them a headache… what keeps them awake at night.
You can only do this by getting to know your top 20% customers so you know what products & services they require.

Only then can you to implement a customer loyalty program that compliments their wishes.

Conduct some marketing intelligence activities using tools like customer surveys, market research and customer feedback.

You can then use this information to nurture them on an ad hoc basis to further show how much you value them.

Customer Loyalty: Be Very Careful NOT To Abuse It

There’s an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review that’s worth reading. It questions current theories regarding customer retention and the link between company profits & customer loyalty.

Exceed Their Expectations at Every Single Opportunity

Shooting for a WOW facture every time you make a sale will ensure you get maximum benefit your customer loyalty concepts.

We all expect top customer service nowadays so we cannot expect our customers to be loyal if we’re supplying less than top service.

In particluar your top 20%.

You need to be providing proactive services that they don’t expect and you need to keep on doing it.

Prove beyond any doubt how important your customers are by valuing their opinion & input.

On a regular basis, ask them what they think about your business and the products & services that you provide.

Add value to your loyalty card program so it’s attarctive to your customers. Consider the Best Buy reward card that Best Buy department stores have implemented. A great nurturing model that works a treat.

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the majority of us need an incentive of some kind to do something for someone that we do not know all that well.

You could offer your customers points for every purchase which they could redeem for cash or a discount. Another benefit of loyalty cards is they allow us to track purchases so we’re aware of the products that the top 20% customers purchase.

This alone will increase sales and your customers are rewarded for their loyalty… win / win.

By conducting effective market research what you can learn?

Know your customers – Market research will help you better understand your customers in a number of ways including demographic information such as their age, gender and geographic spread. The better you know your customer the easier it is to target your marketing and fine tune your product or service.

Know your target market - Who exactly are your existing customers and where do they live? What age group does your product or service appeal to? Do you know who your potential customers are and where they live?

Know your competition – Market Research will help you measure your service compared to others. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your organization and are you improving in the right areas?

Products and services - Do you have the products or services that people want? Do you represent value for money? How do your organization’s products and services match up to that of your competitors? Can you deliver, do you deliver, should you deliver?

Ease of doing business – Do your customers find it easy to deal with you and when they visit your store and/or website do they find what they want? Is there sufficient advice and assistance on hand? Do people find it easy to buy from you? Are all your staff properly trained, helpful, knowledgeable and available?

Marketing – Is your marketing reaching the right people and is the marketing message clear and effective. What are the marketing channels that are available to you, which ones should you concentrate on and which, if any, should you consider dropping?

Is your marketing message understood? Does your marketing material accurately reflect your brand? Do you advertise and promote through the right channels? Are you reaching the right people?

With the power of the Internet it is now very easy to conduct market research using one of the many online survey software sites that make conducting surveys and collating good market research intelligence quick, easy and extremely cost effective.