Mystic Toad Press Blog

When I started my new business I had no idea of what I was getting myself into. I’m really clueless when it comes to the web and online marketing, but I needed a website for the business. It was great! They offered branding, logo design and website creation for an affordable price, but most importantly it didn’t look cheap. It was very nice looking and easy to use as well.

I also can update my own site by myself with out going and calling some busy web person who doesn’t give me the time of day. The process was easygoing and very organized. After you fill out the project options and do the online payment, you give them the content and images if you have any and wait for them to reply back with 3 design comps. After you make some revisions you then approve the design and the site then get build out. Next is the final approval of the constructed site and then your site goes live.

I had to tell everybody I knew about this company. It was the best thing next to slice bread. I now have my own website for my business and I’m finally making my online presence known.

One key to keeping clients coming back for more is to make sure that they don’t forget about your small business and the services it provides. This doesn’t mean barraging customers with junk mail or spam, but by balancing your marketing efforts to provide value. One great way to do this is with newsletters.

Newsletters can be electronic or paper or a combination of both.

Print Newsletters
For established customers, a quarterly or monthly newsletter is a great way to keep you business fresh in their minds while providing valuable information related to your area of expertise. For example, my investment advisor sends out a quarterly, four-page traditional type newsletter filled with great tips that are relevant to the time of year. I love getting it because the information is great; and for him, well he’s my go to guy when it comes to financial questions. His newsletter is not only establishing him as an expert, but also helping to build the relationship with me, his client.

The newsletter can be as large or as small as you want, the important thing is to provide valuable, relevant information that your customers will want to receive. You can write the pieces yourself, or there are several resources online for free reprint articles on tons of subjects. You can also hire someone to write the pieces for you - it’s more affordable than you may realize and unlike reprint pieces, these will be attributed to you (no references to other businesses with the same expertise).

Electronic Newsletters
An electronic newsletter is similar to a traditional one in content, however, there are considerations. CAN-Spam laws need to be taken into consideration when sending the newsletter as do delivery options. There are many services available that will help to make sure your newsletter is compliant with anti-spam laws as well as manage your list and delivery options and I strongly recommend using one.

I don’t recommend sending more than once a month unless you have valuable information your customers will want to know. Also remember, people get LOTS of email, so over-sending is one way to ensure your e-mails will end up in the trash or your subscribers will UN-subscribe.

Which is Better: Print or Electronic?
The answer to this question is dependent on your market. In some cases a combination of the two can work affectively as well. You will have to determine what your customer demographics are and which option would be most effective for your small business.

My mantra is “Communication, communication, communication,” and newsletters are just one more way to get your message to your customers. By sharing your valuable knowledge with your customers you are reinforcing the value of your small business and supporting the relationship you have with your customers. I encourage you to take the first step and start thinking about ways a newsletter can work for your small business.

For resources on newsletters, visit Kleobell Creative Business Solutions.

Kelly Biedny is the owner of Kleobell Creative Business Solutions (http://www.kleobell.com). Her areas of expertise include branding/image development, communication/marketing, web development and project management.

For more valuable information on helping your small business become THE source of products or services for your customers, check out the Resource Library at kleobell.com.

Victoria’s Secret has about 1500 retail stores, a world class catalog, and
according to Alexa.com, a website that is consistently in the top 100 websites
on the plenet, as measured by traffic.

They successfully merchandise multi-millions of dollars in lingerie, fashions,
beauty products, and accessories.

They sponsor an annual beauty show, and they sponsor events, with elegant
supermodels like Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks, and get worldwide publicity from
those events, on TV, newspapers, magazines…their message is virtually
everywhere in the world.

Now, let me share with you the one marketing mistake that Victorias Secret will
NEVER make.

Victorias Secret will never become an INTERNET ONLY business!

Can you imagine how much business they would LOSE by closing down all of
their stores and catalog businesses, because they think that the internet is
“HOT”?

Retail sales, at the store level, accounts for more than 98% of Victori as Secrets
sales.

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Joe, that’s a ludicrous position to even
SUGGEST that Victoria’s Secret would EVER consider to be an “Internet Only
Business”.

And you would be completely correct.

But do you want to know the sad truth?

As a business consultant, I advise entrepreneurs everyday, IT IS A COMMON
THEME; I consistently run into otherwise intelligent people that DESIRE to
create an INTERNET ONLY business!

Sure, the thought is seductive: I’ll build a website, I’ll build some traffic, people
will fall in love with my products, they’ll order in droves, my bank account will
fill up, AND I CAN DO IT AUTOMATICALLY, WITHOUT EVER TALKING TO A
HUMAN BEING!”

My friends, wake up and smell the coffee! That kind of lunacy is a sure path to
failure, just as it would be an act of lunacy for Victorias Secret to shut down
their stores.

If you want your business to thrive, do not, I repeat, DO NOT ! depend soley on
building an internet only business.

In todays mass media environment, it’s difficult to trust ANYONE that you can’t
meet personally, or at least talk with, in order to develop a relationship.

There are several reasons that Victorias Secret stores are successful, and, in my
humble opinion, (Which I value above all others), it’s because they do a great
job of helping customers, face to face, and delivering a very personal,
satisfying, relationship-building connection with their customers.

So, what’s the lesson? If you’re building a business, don’t sabotage yourself by
limiting yourself to the internet ONLY, which may likely be your least likely way
to succeed.

Instead, use ALL the tools available to you: Use Online Publicity AND Offline
Publicity Use Web Site Communication AND Telephone Communication Use
E-mail follow up AND Direct mail follow up

And above all else, make a commitment to having the personnel ! in place to
close the sale, as well as deliver personalized customer service AFTER the sale.

Sure, it takes effort, energy, and time to jump in the car and go visit a client.

But it demonstrates something at a very high level that you cannot do over the
internet.

It demonstrates that you CARE enough to show up.

Someone once said that showing up is half the battle.

Your web site cannot show up for you, and it cannot look your client in the eye,
and it cannot reach out, and shake hands, or hug someone.

Victorias Secret will never throw away 98% of its business with a “Web Only”
strategy.

Neither should you.

Joe Nicassio coaches business people in marketing.

EVERYTHING in this program is designed to help YOU Systematically
Increase your REVENUE and BOTTOM-LINE PROFITS.

Check it out: http://HeartfeltMarketing.com

Copyright 2006 Marketing On The Playground (TM)

What I have discovered through my experience of marketing is, it’s all in how we define it. We can think of marketing the way most of us do which puts us in the box of making cold calls, knocking on doors, going to numerous networking groups, sending out mail, speaking, the list goes on and on of what we have known. The simple definition of marketing is: letting your audience know what you do. From this simple idea, it’s up to you how you want to market. You have complete freedom in “how”.

Here’s the bottom line!

No Marketing = No Clients = No Money = No Business!

HOWEVER…

You do get to Market YOUR WAY! You get to have FUN! and be extremely creative. In fact, give yourself permission to market YOUR WAY and change the formula above to:

Market YOUR Way = More Confidence = Attract more clients = A THRIVING BUSINESS!

Now, let’s change your definition and Guess What…your definition will be different from each businessperson you meet. We are all unique. We choose different business paths; wear different clothes; drive different cars; have different viewpointsour marketing approach should be just as unique?

Here are 3 examples of “marketing” provided from entrepreneurs.

1. I didn’t like networking groups but thought I would try some out. My definition of a networking group is this: It had to fit with my values, it had to be fun, and the group had to come from a unique perspective. Most of them were about collecting as many cards as you can. I tried 4 groups and one fit perfectly. EwomenNetwork comes from “giving first” and they have a wonderful format that gave me permission to ask for what I wanted. It was very safe, very professional and very genuine. I’ve been a member for 3 years - it’s the only one I attend consistently.

2. I have a Web Design company and one of my passions is voyager canoeing. I began to utilize outdoor-related themes in our marketing messages and promotions. Most important, I decided that canoeing was also a great way to network. As a professional woman business owner and an experienced canoe guide, I developed a Ladies Voyageur Day. I hosted a group of entrepreneurial women on a guided canoe trip. The event was so successful it has become an annual sponsored event.

3. I had always found marketing to be a distasteful chore. I was diligent and had managed to stay busy as a consultant by networking and following up on leads, but it was an unpleasant duty, and I avoided it whenever possible. I think one of the best-kept secrets to becoming successful at marketing is first choosing to be of service to a group of people you truly care about. With my new mission in mind, all of a sudden, marketing became effortless.

The clients I wanted to serve were people I really cared about, I wanted to spend time with them. Instead of dreading networking events. I began looking forward to them as a place to meet new people I could help. Before, I had avoided business lunches finding them boring and awkward, but now I enjoy listening about new opportunities to be of service.

To summarize our 3 marketing definitions:

- Giving first, asking, “How can I help you forward your business, “rather than saying, “What do you do.”

- Creating a marketing approach that doesn’t feel like marketing because I’m doing what I love…Voyager Canoeing

- Being a service to a group of people

OK, do you have a new perspective on the definition of marketing? What are your thoughts with the questions below?

1. What was your original definition of marketing and is it different now?

2. Did you give yourself permission before this class to think of marketing ideas outside of the box? If not, what permission will you give yourself now?

There is a marketer inside of all of us - it’s just a matter of identifying the true, authentic marketing person inside of YOU.

Beth Woodward, CPCC, is the creator of the popular Marketing On The Playground Program, and the “My Way” Marketing Plan. Find out more about how to market “YOUR WAY” with the free e-course 5 Steps To Market Your Way at www.asimplemarketingplan.com .

This old saying which addresses the variability of the weather in
Montana is also applicable to the volatile market dynamics for an
online business. If there is one thing that is certain about the
future of online marketing, it is that it will continue to
constantly change.

A generation in Internet marketing seems to last 12 months or
less and therefore it is very important for online marketers to
reassess their marketing plan frequently. It wasn’t too long ago
that popups and banner ads were all the rage and now they’re
about as welcome as a telemarketer or a lawyer.

In earlier times, just getting traffic to your website could
spell success. That just is not the case today. In the current
environment, Internet marketers have many tasks before them
including increasing traffic, maximizing traffic quality, and
improving conversion ratios. Much simpler said than done, but
the key element is to understand that we are dealing with a
dynamic marketing landscape where change is almost a continuous
process. A successful Internet marketing campaign will always be
a work in progress.

A dynamic internet marketing campaign will be a continuous
process of monitoring & analyzing, followed by tweaking &
experimenting, followed by measuring the impact (more monitoring
& analyzing) of the changes made.

The first step in analyzing your marketing campaign is
pinpointing precisely where the prospects are coming from.
Whether it’s search engines, email, or from other sources. All
of this data can be found in your server logs and there are some
very good traffic analysis tools (many of them free) that will
provide you with the information without requiring you to become
technically proficient at deciphering raw server logs.

By analyzing the information taken from the traffic analysis
tools you can track keywords and other parameters which will tell
you how visitors are getting to your site which, in turn, will
help you improve and target traffic.

The goals for your particular site will depend upon the nature
of your online business or endeavor. A good way to determine
how well your site attracts and converts visitors is to analyze
your traffic and then experiment or tweak some of the different
elements of your site such as sales letter copy, special price
promotions, limited time offers, free offers, headlines, color
schemes, testimonials, etc., etc.

After making changes in your program, once again analyze your
traffic to obtain a measure of the impact (good, bad, or none)
that your tweaking has produced. And then start the process all
over again, retaining the changes that yielded a positive result
and, of course, rejecting those that did not.

Remember folks, it is up to us to stay in touch with the fact
that there is one certainty about the future of online marketing,
and that is that it will continue to change.

Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business
and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based
business. For more information visit his website at Proven Work At Home Business

Website advertising is an art and you must understand its dynamics before it will work for you.

Here are a few website advertising insiders’ secrets that will enable you to seduce your customers and make them buy from you.

(1) Use Verbs, Action Words in your website or ad copy!

Action words speak to the subconscious mind directly!

By reaching for their subconscious mind, you bypass the objecting conscious mind and make them to desire what you’re selling.

The subconscious is the Motivator, the Action Taker, the very seat of all Emotions.

Action words (especially the first word in bulleted benefits) easily get the inner mind to open saying yes, yes let’s do it!

Use words like…create, profit, turn, discover, keep, develop, open, build and any more you can think of.

Look close at some of the greatest advertiser’s ads and you’ll see ads full of action!

(2) Be passionate and emotional in the presentation of your offer!

People respond to passion, to excitement and drama. It doesn’t matter who they are, doctors, lawyers or bankers!

(3) Break Up Your Copy - Create White Space!

Nothing loses more sales than a solid page of type.

People just won’t read it.

Responses have increased 300% or more just by breaking the copy up, making it inviting to read!

Use short sentences, short paragraphs and simple words!
Make it easy and clear!

(4) Use the Seductive Power of Confidence!

Always show absolute confidence in your letters.

State your claims simply and boldly - DON’T EVER BEG!

You must be confident in your presentation if you desire to inspire confidence in your buyers.

May these website advertising insiders’ secrets improve your website advertising and make you a lot of money.

Warmly,

I-key Benney, CEO

I-key, a Millionaire CEO from New York City is the creator of “Mscsrrr: Millionaire Secret Cash System”, (online currency trading), program which has helped thousands of ordinary people from all over the world to attain financial security and shining success during the past 2 yrs.

Mscsrrr Millionaire Secret Cash System helps you to generate $1,500+/Week for life, from home or office, part time or full time. No large investment or hassles. Win $1000-$2000 free “cash”…

You’ve seen them, those massive duplicating machines that roll out sales letters by the hundreds, decorated with yellow highlighters, red letters, and blue frames. Every guru on the web is trying to sell some precious idea through the hype and sucker fields of spam responders. It’s about the final result. It doesn’t matter what their business looks like on the Internet, so long as they profit from their grandiose promises and schemes.

Guru letters come in forms, simple to copy, reproducible, and predictable. Line two will be in bold red letters, lines seven and eight will be highlighted with yellow, the letter of recommendation will be written by some gorgeous model named Sheila, and she will have managed by the skin of her teeth to avoid Problem X and salvage her children’s lives with Solution Guru.

But, wait, I’m one of those folks who offer the heavens to those of you stuck here on earth by way of a grandiose promise and the delightful form letter that I rewrote to sell MY solution. So, what does that make me? A web-guru with the answers or just another Joe blow surviving in a world of Internet businesses by selling my wares?

Reality sets in along about the time you click on the send button and you realize (I hope) that those magical solutions, all of them, have one commonality. The person on the winning end of them did a lot of work, put out a lot of effort, and created a lot of failures to go along with the winners predicted in the letter. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to get where you want to go. Almost anyone can follow some specific plan or solution to a winning end. Not every vehicle uses the same set of wheels. There are a variety of wheels, and a variety of solutions to get you where you want to go.

Guru letters work. The proof is in the duplication. If you want to become a guru, you can opt to use those incredible sales letters with the power pitch, dedicated complimentary letters of recommendation, and influx of redundancy, or you can hire a copy writer to come up with some new, wonderful words or power and salesmanship to introduce your product to the world.

Empower your product with new ideas, innovative sales techniques, and dynamic content. Become a nuru guru, pirate the workable solutions of the mania on the web with original content written by an expert copy writer.

Impact your market as never before. Be seen. Be alive. Be creative in your endeavors to brand your business and consume your market. Let eBiz Blitz empower your dreams by infusing your business publications with Dynamic Content. Visit Dynamic Content Creator, Jan Verhoeff, at http://www.freewebs.com/ebizblitz

One of my favorite quotes is often used to describe goal-setting — but it applies equally well to your marketing efforts. We start with Alice lost in the woods in Wonderland, where she comes upon the Cheshire-Cat…

“Cheshire-Puss,” she began rather timidly, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where…” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “…so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “If you only walk long enough.”

How does this story apply to marketing? Because there are so many different ways to promote your company — so many places where you can share information about your business. And you can pour a lot of time and energy (not to mention money!) into marketing without really getting anywhere. That is, unless you have a strategy and know where you want your efforts to take you. You can create an effective MARKETING PLAN by asking yourself the following questions:

WHO ARE YOUR POTENTIAL CLIENTS?

Rule number one in the world of marketing is that you can’t be all things to all people! You must know exactly who your potential clients are in order to reach them effectively. Your client base is not “anyone who is disorganized” — but it might be “working moms” or “entrepreneurs” or “elderly people who have to downsize their living environments.” And the more specific you can be about your demographics (age, income level, gender, geographic location, etc.), the easier it will be to connect with these clients. Since my area of expertise is Professional Organizing, let me share an example of some demographic groups that I might market to:

- working moms who have kids in daycare or afterschool care

- entrepreneurs who have been in business (less than / at least) 1 year

- elderly homeowners who are moving to a retirement community

- homebuyers who are purchasing a house worth $200,000+

- busy executives who work an average of 12+hours a day

WHERE ARE YOUR POTENTIAL CLIENTS?

A large part of focusing your marketing efforts is knowing where to find your clients. Are they at home watching TV? Shopping at the grocery store? At the mall? On the internet? Do they attend business networking functions? Or work late at the office? Then that’s where you need to market. Choose your venue accordingly. In other words, “don’t put fliers on cars if your customers don’t drive!” If your clients are:

- working moms, market through daycare centers

- entrepreneurs, market through small business and “start-up” groups

- elderly, market through senior organizations and retirement communities

- new homeowners, market through realtors and mortgage lenders

- executives, market through professional associations

WHAT MARKETING STRATEGIES WILL BEST REACH MY CLIENT?

This is an off-shoot of the previous two questions. It should be fairly simple to determine which methods to use once you know who your prospects are and where to find them. But let’s add one additional wrinkle — how much can you afford to spend on marketing? You might be able reach your audience best by putting a full-page ad in a national magazine — but can you afford $27,000 per ad? Start off by testing your marketing message on more reasonably-priced options. Here are some examples of matching the right marketing strategy with your client demographics:

- working moms, put up fliers at daycare centers

- entrepreneurs, give workshops on organizing for small business groups

- elderly, network with the intake staff at retirement communities

- new homeowners, offer referral fees to realtors and mortgage lenders

- executives, write an article for a professional association newsletter

WHY WOULD PROSPECTS PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR MARKETING?

The next step in focusing your promotional efforts (once you know how you want to reach your intended audience) is to hone in on your message. People are bombarded each day by an excess of information — and we’ve learned how to selectively ignore about 90% of it. You have to make your message stand out, or it will get lost. Tell potential clients WHY they should be interested in what you have to say — capture their attention by explaining how they will BENEFIT from your services. In my case:

- working moms will free up more time to spend with their kids

- entrepreneurs will be able to focus again on the work they love

- elderly clients will face less stress when “paring down” their belongings

- new homeowners will be able to unpack and settle in sooner

- executives will be more productive and increase staff productivity

WHEN SHOULD YOU LAUNCH YOUR MARKETING ATTACK?

Timing is everything — you have to deliver your message at the moment when your prospect is most receptive. But how do you know when that is? Promoting a business is a little like investing in the stock market — you should commit for the long haul (did you realize that most business people give up on a marketing strategy just before it begins to pay off?) But you should also be prepared to take advantage of any special to really connect with your potential clients. Some examples of these strategic marketing efforts I might use include targeting:

- working moms around mother’s day or the start/end of summer break

- entrepreneurs during a start-up or expansion phase

- elderly clients when they start the process of “cleaning out”

- new homeowners when they are starting their house search

- executives on “Clean Off Your Desk Day” or “Organize Your Files Week”

HOW DO YOU EXPECT YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS TO TURN OUT?
If you don’t know what you want out of your promotional strategies, how will you ever know if they have succeeded? It’s critical that you set marketing goals, just like you would with any other area of your business — but simply saying, “I want more clients,” is too vague. “I want this ad to bring in 20 new clients and double my mailing list,” is SPECIFIC and MEASURABLE. It’s easy to track of your marketing efforts if you will:

- create a marketing calendar indicating when each promotion will run

- assign each promotion a unique “code” or name

- record the number of responses and $ in sales each effort generates

- compare your expectations with your results

- ditch the ideas that didn’t work and double up on the ones that did!

Of course, you can always toss a lot of information about your business into the wind — and some of it will randomly end up in the hands of potential clients. Or, you can decide to focus your promotional efforts on those people and strategies that will give your the biggest return on your investment. If you treat your marketing like a game of darts and only aim for the bullseye — you will come a lot closer to hitting the mark (why do you think it’s called MARKeting?!)

Ramona Creel is a Professional Organizer and the founder of OnlineOrganizing.com — a web-based one-stop shop offering everything that you need to get organized at home or at work. At OnlineOrganizing.com, you may get a referral to an organizer near you, shop for the latest organizing products, get tons of free tips, and even learn how to become a professional organizer or build your existing organizing business. And if you would like to read more articles about organizing your life or building your business, get a free subscription to the “Get Organized” and “Organized For A Living” newsletters. Please visit http://www.OnlineOrganizing.com or contact Ramona directly at ramona@onlineorganizing.com for more information.