Cut Through the Hype: How to Create a Successful Marketing Plan

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the clutter of new tools and information available to small business marketers today. I’m sure at some point a small business will hear the following, whether at a conference, on a webinar or in a white paper:“You should blog!” “Are you on Twitter?” “What’s your SEO and PPC strategy?” “Are you doing email marketing?” “You need a Facebook fan page!” “Have you started automating your marketing and sales funnel?” Cutting through all the hype to see what really works for your small business can be a challenge. When you focus all your effort on tools and tactics but don’t have a clear strategy behind your actions, some serious holes in your marketing and sales funnel will start to surface in three main areas. For example:  1. Lost traffic: How much traffic...

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Business of Pleasure

The net is not the most popular type of pornography in the United States. Video sales and rentals accounted for $3.62 billion in revenue in 2006 while net pornography raked in $2.84 billion. Pornography revenues are not necessarily ranked according to population. China topped the list in 2006 with over $27 billion in pornography revenues. However, South Korea, only the 26th most populous nation on earth according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is next in line with over $25 billion in pornography revenues. Internet consumers are most likely to search for the terms "sex," "porn xchange," & "PornHub" to access their pornography product of choice. The top twenty search terms also include "teen sex," "teen porn" & "PornHub review" Some search terms were divided evenly along gender lines....

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Patti Stanger reveals dating destinations

Patti Stanger's Advice for Demi Moore: 'Hang in There!' The Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger doesn't appear that sorry for the offensive comments that made her Public Enemy #1 on Twitter the other day. Although he recently apologized, he went on Joy Behar's HLN show yesterday & As the star of Bravo's "The Millionaire Matchmaker," Patti Stanger is in the business of finding individuals who fit romantically, & on Friday, the relationship guru weighed in on why he thinks Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher split. Patti lays down guidelines, a match is made, & all are happy. except: that never happens. in the first season, the introductory credits claimed that Stanger (who is a "third-generation matchmaker," whatever that is) had a 99% success rate. by Jason Hughes, posted Nov...

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How Do You Want To Live?

For some, it's to own your own jobs. But for others, freedom means passive income & generating something they can pass on to their kids (without making the kids pass out from overwhelm & exhaustion). & for another set of little business owners, the preferred lifestyle is working in a business that they love & having a reliable team that lets them take or worry-free holidays a year. Every little business owner has to address this query: How would you like to live? query yourself The goals are personal. What is your long-term objective? Little business retirement: For example, do you plan to retire? If so, when? & who will run the business at that point? In Why Retirement Isn't in the Cards for Plenty of SBOs, Anita Campbell, founder of Little Business Trends, highlights...

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Cheap Car Insurance

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Shift Your Focus to Customer Experiences

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SMB and Entrepreneur News and Tips

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Rajinikanth

Bollywood Hot Girl Deepika Padukone has been offered to play the heroine to Rajinikanth in his next film. The untitled film to be produced by a big South Indian production house will have Rajini playing a double role. Deepika is said to be excited to play opposite Rajinikanth, but she is equally disappointed as the film goes to floors this year itself. Nayanthara is one of the leading actress who is subjugated almost the Mole Tamil and Telugu industry with her ideal body and the glamour of the fi...

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5 Ways Your Brand and Branding Define You

There is a big difference between your “brand” and your “branding.” Your brand is you: who you are , what you do, what you stand for, your DNA personality. You are a tangible artifact, which you create into a brand–an image that lives in the minds of the people you interact with and who come to know you. Are you… A watercolor nature artist? An NBA athlete? A criminal trial attorney? An eighth-grade science teacher? A cupcake baker? A cardiologist? A business consultant? A French chef? Your branding is what you do: every way you put your brand in action to create  associations with you, including your… Website Blog Email marketing Community involvement Social media platforms Collaborations Partnerships Sponsorships I recently discovered a brand website called Ranking the Brands,...

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You Only Have a Little Time: Say It and Make It Stick

We are living in a world of instantaneous communication where you have to say it and make it stick – quick - or the opportunity is gone. Think about it: If you’re trying to communicate in this digital age, then you’ve noticed that our attention spans are short. Twitter makes us think we can get the gist of “it” in 140 characters or less.  But not just that; those of us who have worked with children were either frustrated or discovered the art of quick and powerful lessons. Have you ever tried to teach a roomful of 6-year-olds? My hat is off to the professional educator because in my opinion, a 6-year-old’s attention span seems to shift every 2 minutes.  And that’s perfect.   You can’t become good at communicating, marketing and getting the kind of attention that...

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5 Tips to Improve Your Marketing Mix

It’s not about one marketing piece, it’s about the whole thing. To be effective, your business needs a presence both offline and online. It needs to use print and digital marketing tools. It needs both advertising (paid) and publicity (free). It’s the marketing mix that gets and keeps your company message “out there” in front of your target audience. Here are five marketing mix tips to seriously consider and implement:  1. Brochures & Business Cards Print marketing items are not dead yet. Sometimes our technology doesn’t work like it should, and having that business card and brochure as a backup could save your marketing opportunity. Besides, there are a lot of people who just need to have something in their hands in order to remember you, so give it to them.  Have...

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12 tips for business success

What's important to the success of small-business owners and entrepreneurs? Knowledge, skill and talent. However, many competitors have the same traits you do. The key to beating the competition and achieving success is mental, reflected in one's attitude, totally controlled by the individual and requires no cash. This holds true in most human endeavors besides business — in sports, the arts and politics. How many times have we seen the underdog team or player win over the more talented opponent? The difference is often attitude. These 12 attitude attributes can put you in the right mindset for achieving entrepreneurial success. 1. Have passion for your business Work should be fun. Your passion will help you overcome difficult moments and persuade people to work...

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Infolinks Self Serve In-Text Ads Marketplace

Self Service Infolinks Marketplace Infolinks has introduced the world’s first In-Text ads Marketplace. The Marketplace allows you to create and optimize In-Text ads campaigns in a matter of minutes. Now advertisers can effortlessly create and manage their ad campaigns just like with Google AdWords. You can use the new Marketplace to promote your blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube Channel, etc., for a bigger brand boost at a reduced cost. While most bloggers work on free ways of generating traffic, the use of paid traffic sources like Infolinks can get the job done a lot easier. As an AdWords advertiser, I’m looking forward to testing out the Infolinks In-Text ads Marketplace. Quick and Easy Interface The self service In-Text Advertising Marketplace allows you to create campaigns in only...

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Love those customers!

In keeping with my recent rants on service and Customer Service Executives here’s some more info to get your team going. The organisation you work for has done some shuffling of titles etc. Or perhaps they are about to hire a new person (you) for a role in Customer Relations – they want you to manage it… Let’s say they are giving you ‘some scope’ to develop the role and or the department and let’s say they are serious and want to really wow the customers, love them so to speak. How will you go about it? Here’s ten thoughts from my perspective. Create an environment in the organisation from top to bottom where the Customer is King (it’s not new but it is still a great idea) no customers – no business right… so it should make solid sense. Get clear about the intended results – more sales...

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More Customer Love…

As If I haven’t prattled on enough lately about customer service people and loving customers… some more ideas and chunks of info must be useful to assist people to really think about what they do and how they might make this whole area better. If this resonates with your organisation then you could use this as a brainstorming tool to get practical action to take place. So here, take a lok at more weird and whacky ways to “love the customer!” Concentrate on the customer, figure out  what they need – want – love – aspire to – entertain them – quiz them – excite them – prod and poke them! (careful!) – cause them to giggle – get VERY curious about them (In the right way…) Thrill them with a fresh approach or two to loyalty Tell them things (good things, bad things, things they want...

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Going past one no…

Oh please, dear sales person, if I say no once perhaps you had better dig a bit deeper, ask more questions…  if I have an objection about the price, then ask why… what do I already know and how do I know that. If I have a niggle about one point, perhaps there are other points you can focus on… and hey how do you get past the issue of price “Why would I spend $5 – 6,000 if I can get one for $3-4,000?” simple, it’s like cars they do basically the same thing, some are perhaps better quality, some provide more status, you want quality and status, you pay… Here’s why (outline a benefit). Oh and if you’re calling me in Australia but you have an American accent that sounds like you are in an overseas call centre and the line is crap, I am going to be suspect about you right from the...

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Making your staff pay…

What your employees earn for the organisation needs to be more than what you pay them, but how much? There are costs to cover having employees, so it makes sense to earn more than just what they cost the organisation. In some organisations they seem to have no idea how much value their people add to the organisation, so lets have a think about the issue. Let’s look at a range of costs and how it all adds up (their wages while they are on holidays and wages for a person who may replace them, as well as superannuation, insurance etc). How much? If we work on a figure of $800 per week that’s nearly $42,000 pa. Here are the ‘hidden costs’. - 4 weeks wages for a fill in employee while the other is on holidays    $6,400 - 1 week personal leave      ...

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Guaranteed! But at what cost…

It’s standard practice to have a guarantee for many products and services. For some in business it’s the thing which sets them apart from their competition, for others it’s a legal compliance issue which they prefer wasn’t there. What does it cost your business and how should you handle it? Being a service nut I like the way it can make your business stand out from the crowd, compliance or not… so handling guarantees becomes a major issue you solidly stand behind, giving every customer ‘peace of mind’ in knowing you will be there with them if ANY issue arises. Over the period of a year or three it can be easy to look at the cost of supplying services to fulfill your guarantee obligations to keep your ‘customers happy and fulfill your legal obligations. In the intervening ‘learning...

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Step in early or wait for the problem to arise.

It’s a dilemma many Supervisors, Managers and Leaders face. You have a team who waiver from the path occasionally, do you let it go until it becomes a problem, or do you step in early and keep things on track. I figure if you take a Leaders view you provide the guidelines so the team can follow the lead, therefore you don’t wait for a challenge to arise, you provide a great set of guidelines to ensure things stay on track. If things stray from the path, you then get to put on your ‘coaching hat’ and provide support to ensure the team are aware of the guidelines and assist them to explore how they might have ‘strayed from the path’. This is one of the reasons I often suggest a great set of Values – Mission and Vision be in place as a foundation to always work from. It allows the Leader to have...

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Online Education

Online education is a way to enhance students' knowledge in specific subject areas by giving them access to a variety of materials on the subject. It is growing very rapidly and online doctoral programs have even developed at leading research universities. It is accommodating in this manner because it allows the individual to work while being enrolled as a full-time student. Also easy and flexible that allows you to maintain your professional and personal commitments while pursuing health high-quality education. Online education is now available for almost every type of degree. Online education that can be relied upon is eLearners.com. Here, everything you expect you can ea...

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Winning the Business Competition

Any business has an equal chance to be successful. What needs to be understood is to start a business then the most important is the courage to fail, and how strong you are able to survive in it, even how fast you rise from your fall, such as the expression of Napoleon Bonaparte, "I never worry about what will I do to win pertaruangan, but I always knew exactly what I did when I lost the fight. "Here are some tips for doing business with the right and memenangakan competition: A. Be The First. As with the first person in running a business will give you a greater chance of success compared to being a follower. Be the first to make you known in advance and considered a forerunner of your business. A category of products / services that really make your new single player in the category tersebur...

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Managing unstable income

Unstable incomes can mean that sometimes get is but a regular basis, sometimes small but often, or sometimes even great, but rarely. However, have no fixed income as a freelancer does not mean you can not have fun, right? Like having his own company, a freelancer sued clever open employment for herself, determining monthly salary and think about how to 'smoke billowed kitchen equipment company. " The key is financial management. There are strategies for the financial condition remains safe and in control. Here are tips how to manage irregular income of a freelancer: 1. Record Spending. Want easy, just use a notebook to write down how much money is spent every day. Want more organized, there was nothing wrong with using free computer software that allows you to calculate. When finished, try...

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Managing Family Financial

Practical Tips Family Financial Planning 1. Monthly billing. Collect all your quarterly bill, then add the whole, then for three to get the average monthly bill, such as telephone bills, school fees, insurance and so on. 2. Monthly Spending. Also Collect all your quarterly spending, then total and divide by three, to get an average total of your spending per month, like buying clothes, treat the family to eat in restaurants and so on. 3. Preliminary Evaluation. Evaluate your spending it. Look for opportunities to save money and cut spending items that are not necessary. 4. Preparation of Plan Budget. Plan your monthly budget and try to obey and begin to allocate funds such as savings deposits, certificates of deposit, pension insurance. 5. Actual Budget Evaluation. Search the revenue...

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OKPAY new payment alternative

OKPAY Inc. is a rapidly growing offshore company incorporated in British Virgin Islands in 2009, its founders having worked tirelessly on this project since 2007. The company owners are business people with a vast practical experience in the field of electronic commerce, financial software development, product marketing and sales via the Internet. The origins of our expertise in e-currency and payment processing date back to the year 2000 at least.OKPAY is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet.What you can do with Okpay.com Account?1.Flexible depositing and withdrawal optionsYou can easily exchange your real or electronic money for OKPAY and vice versa. Available convenient methods to deposit to and withdraw Bank Wire, E-currency,...

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3 Kick Reduce Credit Card Debt

In the period in which everyone can easily make a credit card as now, consumers are increasingly free to buy consumer goods without realizing the high interest credit card. As a result, many consumers are caught in credit card debt. If you fall into this group, then you need to apply the following tactics to avoid telling you not to harassed by debt collectors. 1. Prioritize Largest Flower Credit card bill will bloom and the flowers will bloom again. That's why, you must pay your bill in full. If not enough funds, prioritize to pay credit card bills from the bank that applies the highest interest, especially if you have credit card debt of more than one. For example, you owe 2 million dollars in bank A that applying interest at 10 percent and 1 million dollars in bank B, which charge interest...

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4 Things to Do Before Investing

When you probably are planning to manage your funds for investment through a variety of containers such as entry into the stock market or you want to invest for retirement or college, not a bad idea. Moreover, investing in a variety of different groups of stocks or stock mutual funds are the best way to build long-term nest egg. For it before you leap, check out the steps that must be done in the following list: Save a little emergency cash Stocks are good long-term option, but the stock is too difficult to predict if you need cash suddenly. If your car needs a new clutch or pump water heater when the stock market falter, you will need to sell your shares at a basic level of sales - not a good investment strategy. Detailed rules on this vary, but 30 percent of the annual life needs is a...

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Paying yourself

If you work for a year, but your savings are not much different from the previous year, then you do not pay yourself. You work for telephone companies, water companies, supermarkets, dairy factories, and other companies that the production of consumption goods your midst today. If you get a paycheck, say, U.S. $ 750.00 per month. Then you have to specify how you would mengaji yourself. For example, U.S. $ 150.00? Then you have to live with the money of U.S. $ 600.00 and can not use U.S. $ 150.00 for any reason. The more you consistently set aside U.S. $ 150.00 per month, and the more persistent you pay yourself, then the path to wealth is open for you. So the important thing here is, before you start paying your bills, your expenses, you first have to pay yoursel...

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Salary Not Out Quickly

Pretending to be a 'lot of money' is a dream for everyone. With everything money can you earn, home, cars, jewelry, and so forth. Of course, to get a lot of money we have to work hard. And of course you do not want the income you earn from hard work was gone just like that right? Now for your income is not in vain and you can be the 'deep pockets', deh try the following manner: Every time out to receive a salary, do not immediately go to the shopping center such as Mal. Go home and make a list of spending your needs, such as household goods, children's education, health, etc.. Then note each time you spend money. Thus you will know where all the 'running' your money. Try every time to buy household appliances, choose a good quality but with price not too expensive. So, you do not need very...

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Great way to reach financial independence

Becoming a millionaire was not as difficult as imagined in our minds. At least this opinion topnotch entrepreuner Adam Khoo from Singapore in his book Secrets of Self-Made Millioners.According to Khoo, before becoming a millionaire, you must be prepared. That is, ready to face obstacles and challenges, as well as on the path to achieving that success. No need to pass a Harvard or have a big capital to become one of the lucky ones. The key is to maintain enough assets and intellectual mind.In the 364 page thick book, Khoo said the key in achieving the goal of becoming a millionaire is to create, manage, multiply, and enjoy your money. The first step which will be published are seven keys to create wealth that is to adopt the millionaire mind, determine financial targets, creating a financial...

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