While there were likely a few potential clients who saw or heard your ad vast majority of those you reached simply had no need for your products or services. What’s more, those who might indeed have a need for your product or service were likely not actively seeking what you sell at moment they saw your ad.

You can improve response to your advertising by marketing to a smaller but more focused audience. Your ad will not only appear in front of those who have a need for what you sell, it will be seen by more people who are actively seeking what you provide.

Take some time to identify periodicals and other ad vehicles that serve your market and fit your budget and then place your ads in front of a smaller but more specialized audience. You will sell more and get more for your advertising dollar. It’s amazing what a spear can do.

Sharpness Matters Too Even if you trade in your marketing net for a spear (focus your market) your marketing results may still be disappointing if your spear is dull - you may squarely hit a fish with tip of your spear but if it is not sharp fish may squirm away.

You can perpetually keep your spear sharp with an outstanding marketing message. Your marketing message should speak directly to your buyers and clearly communicate why they should buy from you. If it does not your future customers won’t ever take notice of you, even if you are ideal solution for their needs.

Many small business owners use a poor and ineffective marketing message because they do not fully appreciate value of a good one. A strong marketing message will be noticed by those most likely to become your clients and will work to get your prospects to take action you want them to take: visit your store or web site, contact you for more information and ultimately, buy from you.

Take some time to examine your marketing message. If you get sense that it isn’t very focused, it probably isn’t. What words and phrases can you use to sharpen it up?

Move Your Marketing Forward Get rid of your net and sharpen you spear. Even if you hate to fish or have never gone fishing, you’ll find yourself looking forward to every opportunity to wade into knee deep water.

Copyright 2005 Jeremy Cohen, Better Marketing Results. All rights reserved.

Quick RSS Feeds - Free online tool that allows you to simply enter URL of RSS feed, define number of items you would like displayed, and Javascript will be automatically generated. http://www.quickrssfeeds.com

FeedRoll -A free service for syndicating popular RSS and ATOM news feeds on your website or blog. Select a feed, customize design, then copy and paste code provided onto your page. http://www.feedroll.com/rssviewer/

RSS to Javascript - RSS-to-JavaScript.com was designed to easily convert any valid RSS, RDF or ATOM feed into easy-to-implement Javascript. No XML or programming experience is necessary. http://www.rss-to-javascript.com

PHP Options - The benefit to using a PHP script to display RSS on a website is that content dynamically updates but search engines see content as static.

FeedForAll's rss2html.php - If you are technically savvy and wish to host script yourself, check out FeedForAll, as they have a free PHP script available that will display RSS feeds on a website. http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm

FeedRoll Pro - A fee-based professional service that tracks statistical information for publishers displaying feeds. FeedRoll Pro incorporates a number of display options for publishers wishing to syndicate their content, giving users choice of PHP or Javascript. http://www.feedrollpro.com

RSS2HTML - Display RSS feeds by selecting layouts and color schemes on this free resource. http://www.rss2html.com

9.) RSS Blogs Stay informed about latest RSS industry news by monitoring RSS blogs. Daily posts bring readers current news, industry announcements and general RSS information.

RSS Specifications - Everything you need to know about RSS. The RSS Specifications blog contains daily posts and RSS tidbits. http://www.rss-specifications.com/blog.htm

KbCafe - Daily posts and editorials related to RSS and new RSS products that have emerged. http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/

10.) Publishing List / RSS Newsgroups New RSS-Publishing List for publishers. The list is focused on marketing/publishing/operational issues rather than hardcore technical details of RSS, meaning that coding issues and disputes over merits of RSS vs. Atom are not focus. If you wish to participate in list and receive e-mails of posts, simply subscribe by sending and e-mail to: rsspublishing-subscribe@topica.com

RSS Syndication - Collection of RSS related news feeds displayed in an easy-to-read format. http://www.rss-syndication.com/rss-news.htm

11.) RSS Related Forums - Forums can be a useful for anyone doing business online, both in terms of reading content and actively participating in discussions. If you want to learn more about RSS consider participating in following online RSS communities:

2RSS - RSS forum for feed and related RSS discussions. http://forum.2rss.com/

FeedForAll Forum - RSS forum for RSS and feed creation-related discussions. http://www.feedforall.com/forum

German RSS Forum - German RSS forum for feed discussions. http://www.rss-forum.de/

12.) Locate RSS Feeds -

Syndic8 - RSS and Atom news feeds on a wide variety of topics. Designed with a directory structure and search functionality. Syndic8 also tracks statistical information related to RSS feeds. http://www.syndic8.com

Feedster's FeedFinder - Use Feedfinder to search by keyword or by URL or a combination of two in order to find feeds on that topic or by that organization. . http://feedfinder.feedster.com/

RSS Discovery - The websites you already read may have an RSS feed. Use BlogStreet's RSS Discovery tool and enter in a website. If there is a feed available BlogStreet will provide URL. http://www.blogstreet.com/rssdiscovery.html

RSS Locator - Directory and search engine for RSS content including weblogs, newsfeeds, forum feeds and related content feeds. Locate topic-specific RSS feeds for syndication. RSS Locator displays feed content in an HTML format so users can preview feed's content. http://www.rss-locator.com

12.) Submit RSS Feeds - As more and more people get involved with Internet and as more Web sites, blogs, news services and other online resources continue to grow in number and variety, it becomes increasingly important to maintain high visibility and exposure for content being generated by closely following major distribution media. As a rapidly increasing number of content sources, new and old, migrate or add RSS as a key distribution channel, and as more people utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed, ability to maintain high exposure and visibility is gradually shifted from complete attention to major search engines and content optimization techniques to an increasing awareness of RSS feed directories and search tools.

RSS Submit - Save time and automate RSS submissions with RSS Submit from K-Soft. http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html

RSS Specifications - Submit RSS files to large list of RSS directories and expedite your RSS content syndication. http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm

RSS Submission Service - A fee-based blog submission service that will submit your blog or RSS feed to more than 70 blog directories. Submissions are done manually, and this service is primarily designed for blog feeds. http://rss-submission-service.notrivia.com/

RSS Top 55 - Top websites for RSS submissions. Premium service is available for a nominal fee that will prioritize RSS site submissions in order of importance. http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

Using RSS tools, publishers and webmasters can increase productivity and efficiency. RSS monitoring can often automate many of procedures that are time-consuming and monotonous, freeing up time.