Marketing: Focus…a Marketing Strategy

Focus…a Marketing Strategy

Written by Ann Marie Rubertone

Focus…a Marketing Strategy Copyright 2004 Ann Marie Rubertone The secret to increasing sales doesn't lie in choosing just repparttar

right marketing tactic for each of your businesses. The real problem that's experienced by many entrepreneurs--a damaging lack of focus. Plenty of entrepreneurs make this dangerous mistake. They try to market more than one business at once, or they tackle too many targets for a single business. Suddenly, they discover that their time and budgets are fragmented beyond their ability to produce positive results. The solution is to get--and stay--focused. This single alteration can actually reduce your marketing costs and increase sales. The trouble with trying to market several businesses at once is that you end up with many different target audiences--each requiring its own set of sales and marketing tactics. To reach them, your sales tactics may include creating an in-house prospect list, making cold calls to set up appointments and handling one-on-one meetings with prospects. Instead of trying to gain small profits from a variety of individual ventures, for best results, repparttar 120297

key is to pick one of your businesses (preferably repparttar 120298

most profitable and enjoyable) and focus all your marketing energies in that direction. I inevitably get calls from business owners who say, " I have repparttar 120299

greatest product on earth. Anyone can use it--kids, parents, businesses." And then I'm forced to reply, "Do you have unlimited funds to launch this product? Can you start off with $10 million, or how about $20 million or more?" Because no one can market to everyone. The cost would be astronomical. Even repparttar 120300

world's largest companies, with seemingly unlimited marketing funds, typically focus their efforts on a single type of product or service for individual niche markets. And repparttar 120301

actual campaign messages they employ differ depending on repparttar 120302

hot buttons for each niche.

Fern Reiss’s PublishingGame.com: Achieve Media Attention for Your Business

Written by Fern Reiss

Do you want to be quoted by repparttar

national press on a daily basis? (How much would that be worth to your business?)

In repparttar 120296 past six months, I've been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Entrepreneur, The Associated Press, PBS, Voice of America, Family Circle, Glamour, Redbook, Self, Health, Prevention, Parents, Parenting, Women’s World, First for Women, Newsday, Newsweek, Salon, In Touch Weekly--and even The National Enquirer.

In fact, I've been quoted in over 100 prestigious U.S. publications. I call this "Expertizing," and it's good for business, regardless of repparttar 120297 business you're in. Anyone can learn to get this kind of media attention, for any book or any business; my Expertizing workshop attendees are achieving this same level of media recognition. Here's how:

First, syndicate. This column is syndicated; hundreds of thousands of people read it. Syndicating a newspaper column doesn't pay very well anymore (you'll probably make only $5 or $10 per column) but it gets your name out. And syndicating online is even easier. My next title, "The Publishing Game: Syndicate a Column in 30 Days" will cover repparttar 120298 topic more thoroughly, but you can get started just by doing a google search for "[Keyword] article submit."

Start a national association. A national association will get you media attention automatically, regardless of your other credentials. The National Pediculosis Association in Needham, Massachusetts, is a great example. (That's lice, for those of you without small children.)

Create a holiday. Anyone can create a national holiday, and it's free. Register at Chases.com, and on a slow news day, journalists will come looking for more information on your holiday--the more interesting, funny, or quirky, repparttar 120299 better. I just helped an Expertizing client set up a holiday for her very technical company that would otherwise have been paid little press attention--but next year, she's going to be inundated with press attention when National Geek Day rolls around.

If you're going to do a flyer for your business, put something useful on repparttar 120300 back so people don't throw it away. The back of my Publishing Game book flyer has a useful hot contact list, with contact information for major magazines, talk show hosts, wholesalers and distributors, book reviewers, and more. (You can get a complimentary copy at http://www.PublishingGame.com) My new Expertizing flyer has information on my Expertizing workshops on one side, but repparttar 120301 other side has suggestions of how to write Killer Soundbites that repparttar 120302 media will quote. (You can get a free copy of that one at http://www.Expertizing.com) If you include something useful, people will hang onto your flyers forever.

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