By Julie Chance

Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a one person shop, to be successful, you must have a marketing strategy and you must implement it consistently. However, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune and you don’t have to be a creative genius.

The key is developing a marketing strategy that forms a solid foundation for your promotional efforts. Implementing promotional activities such as advertising, direct mail or even networking and one-to-one sales efforts without a marketing strategy is like buying curtains for a house you are building before you have an architectural plan. How would you even know how many curtains to buy or what size they needed to be?

You can develop a strong marketing foundation by:

•Defining your product or service: How is your product or service packaged? What is it that your customers are really buying? You may be selling web-based software tools but your clients are buying increased productivity, improved efficiency and cost savings. And if you offer several products or services which ones are most viable to promote?

•Identifying your target market: Everyone or anybody might be potential clients for your product. However, you probably don’t have time or money to market to Everyone or Anybody. Who is your ideal customer? Who does it make sense for you to spend your time and money promoting your service to? You might define your ideal customer in terms of income, age, geographic area, number of employees, revenues, industry, etc. For example a massage therapist might decide her target market is women with household incomes of $75,000 or more who live in Uptown area.

•Knowing your competition: Even if there are no direct competitors for your service, there is always competition of some kind. Something besides your product is competing for potential client’s money. What is it and why should potential customer spend his or her money with you instead? What is your competitive advantage or unique selling proposition?

By: Anthony L. Davenport

-------------------------------------------------------- Do you want On-line Success?

If you want to succeed online, you have to do something. (Advertise, Market, Joint Venture, product development) Doing something and failing is a lot better than not doing anything at all.

You see if you make a mistake you will still be able to learn and improve on your efforts--If you do SOMETHING. If you do Nothing you will never have benefit of hindsight and will not be able to improve on anything-- and you will always be at starting point.

Learning from your mistakes lets you improve whatever you fell short on first time around: eMarketing, website design....anything. ----------------------- "But every time I go to do something there is always a new eBook that comes out that is supposed to SHOW ME HOW TO SUCCEED ONLINE." (So I want to wait and read THAT one, so when I get started I will get it right first time)." ----------------------- Are you held standing still by this mind set? I know I was. It's true that today we have available to us much more eMarketing information than there ever was a few years ago, and number of 'Top Money Makers' selling their "secrets" to success is steadily increasing. So it is quite understandable why so many people wait to start any new eBiz project.

We all suffer from this 'information analysis paralysis' or 'IAP' for short (this is just what I like to call it ^_^ ).

This simply means that we as eMarketers and eBiz owners are bombarded daily with information on how to run our businesses. All this information tends to make any marketing decision hard to conclude. Since we really don't know what will work and what won't, and again we are afraid to make mistakes...(making a mistake is not failing, it's start to success)..

People are scared to make mistakes and they want to succeed with as little as possible. So with all this information available we tend to think that our margin for error should be non-existent. With all these eBooks and Courses on how to succeed online coming from people who actually did it (or so they say),we have no excuse to make mistakes or fail. right?

I know it was this mind-set that froze me into an IAP case for almost 2 years. Always searching for a sure-fire marketing plan/opportunity. Never actually getting around to implementing anything because something that seemed better always came out..Well what I found is... We are all human beings, we all make mistakes, some are more talented than others in certain parts of life and there is no 'Pie in sky' 'SURE money maker'... ...Ya, I was disappointed too. (But if you find one let me know ^_^)

Now I will be one of few that will admit, I don't know everything about eMarketing.

But I am willing to share with you some tips I’ve picked up on way. Below are a few eMarketing techniques that have not only worked for me but for more Highly successful eMarketers as well

Just a reminder, you and I are two different people so just because something works well for me doesn't mean it will work same for you. This is true both ways, If an eMarkeing technique works horribly for me, doesn't necessarily mean it will won't work for you... ..you determine your success, and way you do that is by trying something, then IMPROVING your efforts and results. ---------[ tid-bit-tips for online success}------------------------------------

just a note, these are not going to be in any order... I am writing them down as they come to me ^_^..

1) --Marketing to Targeted News groups--. . I think this is SO important especially if your just starting out, or if your trying to start a NEW advertising campaign.

First go to Google.com or Yahoo.com and check out newsgroups for you niche.. in search engine or directory..

Once you find your appropriate site...to get some quick targeted traffic: post a quick letter asking for these people's thought on your site.

Make sure that you don't come off as a newbie eBiz owner.. Establish in your post that you are a semi-successful eBusiness and just revamped your website and information layout. Tell them you added new content, products, etc. And you have been reading post in newsgroup and have come to respect many of members opinions---so you would like their opinions on your site's 'new layout.'

then toward end of your post tell them to ask themselves when they are viewing your site:

Is message clear? Can you navigate site easily? What didn't you like about it? Can you offer any suggestions?

at end of your post leave you URL address, and a quick description of your site---your "sig file" (for those who don't know: a "sig file" is a little message at end of your article/email/post that contains your site URL and a description of your site, products /services or new promotions.)

Once you have done this, Continually search and post informative articles in newsgroups your niche hangs out at.. and ALWAYS include your "sig file" at end of each article this will ensure you a nice stream of TARGETED traffic. Note: make sure your "sig file" is only a brief descriptions, 3-8 lines long..DO-NOT make it into a blatant advertisement... you will lose credibility doing this.

Another note: this is a great way to get targeted traffic to your site, but don’t rely just on this method alone. as in most cases this is a long term traffic provider that will provide targeted prospects, just don’t expect any HUGE numbers...this is just a great place to start...

2)---using Pop-Ups to get subscribers---