Marketing: 21 Ways to Promote Your Business Successfully

21 Ways to Promote Your Business Successfully

Written by Andre Plessis

I always feel sorry when I am approached by someone who has no clue on how to advertise his or her business. For me there are three components to succeed in business:

You MUST have passion for your business.

How can you possibly succeed in your business if you do not love what you do. Not everybody was born lucky as Pete Sampras, Leonardo DiCaprio or Tiger Woods who found something they loved very young and quickly became highly successful.

Most people may have to wait longer to find something they really love and hope to find repparttar success they expect. It took me 6 years to find what I like and that was being a marketing consultant. Before that I tried many things, but I was never successful because I did not have any passion for those business. The biggest challenge is to quickly realize if you like that business or not. If you do not have repparttar 120249 passion for it, you'll never be successful. If you are passionate about what you do, you will most likely work long hours, have fun and help a lot of customers with your business. Please be smart and if you are trying to launch a business you may want to avoid starting an online business where you will be selling items like gifts baskets.

Just think about it. How many people go online and buy gift baskets online? What are their chances to find your site among billions of other sites? The Internet is a place where many people go to find information. So if you decide to sell selling gifts baskets online you may want to think twice. Another type of business I would probably think twice before I start that type of business is if you have to compete with big chains, such as The Home Depot, Pizza Hut, WalMart etc...

You need to have a little budget to advertise your business.

Well I guess you probably realize that you need some money to advertise your business. You do not necessarily need a lot of money but you need some if not repparttar 120250 phone will never ring. I say you do not necessarily need a lot of money as you may think because I started my business from home with no money. I was doing cold calls to businesses. During repparttar 120251 first three months of my business I did a little online advertising and believe or not but after only 3 months my business kicked off and I never had to make a cold call again.

Conclusion: There are many forms of advertising you can use to grow your business and you do not need to spend a lot of money.

Marketing your business.

That is not an easy task when you are just starting in business and there are no mentors to help you. Many people feel hopeless. When they first begin to devise a marketing plan for their business. One of repparttar 120252 most important factors is deciding how you will get potential customers' attention. Here are some tips to make them notice you so you will standout from your competition.

There are many forms of advertising your business.

a) Flyer distribution b) Direct mail advertising c) TV advertising d) Radio advertising e) E-mail marketing f) Banner advertising g) E-mail co-registration h) Pop advertising i) Pay per click search engines advertising Cost Per Click (CPC) j) Lead generation - Cost Per (Lead CPA) k) Keyword advertising l) Newspaper advertising m) Affiliate programs n) Yellow pages/online yellow pages o) Viral marketing p) Coupon advertising

How do you attract new prospects or get more sales from past clients? Here are 21 techniques that will help succeed in your efforts to market your business.

1) Offer what your competitors don’t!

Study your competitors to see what benefits your competitors are (or are not) offering their customers, and see if your business can offer an added benefit such as free consultation, free delivery, free upgrades, free information booklet, free sample(s) etc. -- to your customers to help increase repparttar 120253 value of your product or service to prospective clients. Announce this new "benefit" in your promotional materials. This is probably repparttar 120254 most important of repparttar 120255 21 techniques to increase your sales and learn how to market your business. Ask yourself repparttar 120256 following questions:

WHAT DO I OFFER THAT NO ONE ELSE OFFER? WHAT CAN I OFFER THAT WILL MAKE MY OFFER SO IRRESISTIBLE THAT IT WOULD BE FOOLISH TO REFUSE IT?

Once you answer those two questions you won’t have anymore problems with competition.

2) Study your customers

As you get clients, invite them to share their feedback. Use this information improve your business but to also send reminder notes, thank you letters, and even birthday cards. That will demonstrate to them how important they are to you.

3) Special offer!

Send a notice to your clients and prospects and let them now you have a special deal for them. Let them know as well that this is a special for them only and no one else can get this deal.

4) Frequent-buyer program

Create a frequent-buyer program that let your clients use points or credits to get products for free or get discount towards future purchase. (i.e) buy 9 coffees and repparttar 120257 10th one will be Free)

5) Product combos at special pricing

The Power of Buzz

Written by Susan Friedmann, CSP

How did Hotmail gain over 12 million subscribers in 18 months? How did repparttar

very low budget movie “The Blair Witch Project” become such an incredibly successful phenomenon? The answer lies in repparttar 120248

power of “buzz.” Buzz or word-of-mouth marketing influences more people to buy, or not to buy products and services, than most other forms of marketing. Why is it so powerful? Basically, we have a need to share information as a means of communication and also as a way of understanding repparttar 120249

world around us. Often, we base many of our purchasing decisions on information gleaned from friends and well-respected associates. We tend to listen to them more readily then most mass-media messages. In his book “The Anatomy of Buzz,” Emanuel Rosen states, “most marketing today ignores repparttar 120250

power of buzz and tries to influence each customer individually.” He believes that “buzz travels through invisible networks that link people together. Noise, skepticism and connectivity all influence today’s buzz.” As exhibitors you need go no further than repparttar 120251

tradeshow floor to find a network that creates a real buzz. It starts prior to repparttar 120252

show, gathers momentum at repparttar 120253

show, and then slowly dissipates after repparttar 120254

show ends. Every exhibitor has repparttar 120255

power to influence repparttar 120256

buzz. It all depends on product/service quality, marketing savvy and repparttar 120257

decisions made. I recall visiting a telecommunications show a couple of years ago when repparttar 120258

buzz on

show floor concerned a Fortune 100 company and major player in repparttar 120260

industry, (who shall remain nameless). The talk centered around repparttar 120261

image of their booth which wasn’t quite up to expectations. The buzz went like this: “The ABC Company has gone cheap. They must be having financial problems.” It’s gossip like this that starts repparttar 120262

wheels of

“rumor mill” turning and can even create havoc on repparttar 120264

Stock Market. Remarks like this often have very little bearing on reality, but people make assumptions and decisions based on what they see and hear. Obviously, repparttar 120265

originating source of repparttar 120266

buzz plays a key role in its basis for truth. I’m sure that you would much prefer any tradeshow buzz to be positive. Since talking about products/services makes economic sense, how can you use repparttar 120267

buzz to add to your existing marketing efforts? I’ve put together ten guidelines for you to consider: 1. Brainstorm all possible groups of people who might be interested in your products/services. Consider including repparttar 120268

media, opinion leaders, influencers, lead users, politicians, analysts, etc. Don’t forget chat rooms and newsgroups although buzz still spreads primarily by personal interaction. 2. Research how information spreads among your customers. Ask them how they usually learn about new products/services. Who are their major information sources? Who’s information do they value? You’re primarily looking for groups of people rather than individuals. However, don’t discount individuals, as they may well be a powerful opinion leader. 3. Develop a clear and concise message highlighting repparttar 120269

product/service benefits you want to filter through these different groups. Zero in on your product’s uniqueness and what it can do, for example, to help save time and money – two basic elements most people seek.

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