Succeed With A Solid Marketing Plan

In order to succeed with a basic marketing plan you need to focus on some core elements of a plan that targets the right audience and produces a specific result including lead generation or sales. For your marketing to produce results you should consider using multiple media formats.

There is so much competition today that the messages you use need to be one-of-a-kind. The effectiveness of any campaign is directly correlated to the quality of your list and the effectiveness of your offer. Before you even begin planning for your marketing campaign, think about your product and what motivates people to buy.

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After spending many years trying new things, I've found that marketing results are relatively consistent when sound marketing techniques are applied. These techniques are effective in any industry and any apply to any type of campaign you have. Consider building your marketing campaign using the following strategies:

Set specific goals. Before you begin, think about the specific goals you wish to achieve. Many marketers gravitate towards conversion but you need to define what that means for you and your business. Some individuals are simply looking for a sale, others a lead or download. Before you begin, identify what action you want respondents to take and how you're going to measure it.

Segment your market. Don't try to market to everyone. If you do, your campaign will not be successful. On the other hand, if you consider the specific audience you're looking to attract and find them, your chances of success increase tremendously. Review your current customer and find others like them if you wish to generate a positive return on investment.

Identify key messages. What are the key messages that resonate with your audience? Have you used successful headlines or email subject lines in the past? If you have, use these as a baseline and build from there. You need to speak in the language that resonates with your customers if you are going to get their attention and gain their trust.

Test multiple offers. The only way to run a productive marketing campaign is by testing various offers. Your offer is a critical component for improving marketing results. Your best bet is to test multiple offers and measuring the result. Once you find and offer that works, try to beat its results during the next campaign.

Use an integrated marketing approach. Don't settle for a single email, post card or ad. Rather, discover the media that your segment uses to get their information, do research, and buy their products. This will help you determine the best way to reach them. Once you develop a campaign, tie together as many of these media types to convey your message and offer.

Using these marketing techniques are important for producing a positive ROI. In addition, be aware of your campaign timing. Even if all of the above criteria are met, your campaign could still fall short if you havent exposed your audience to the right message at the right time.

Consider each of these steps before creating your next marketing campaign in print or online. Your marketing is only going to be successful when you set specific goals, segment your market appropriately, use effective messaging, and create a compelling offer. Experiment with different media to get your message across and deliver a winning marketing campaign.

Marketing Budget Crisis: Succeed Without The Budget

With marketing budgets under scrutiny, doing more with less is essential for creating a positive return on your investment. The fact is that marketing budgets are shrinking in today’s difficult economic climate. This is the exact opposite of what should actually happen. When times are tough, it’s time to start marketing.

How can you do more with a shrinking budget? The answer is simple. Create more way to market in a viral way. Essentially, let others do the selling for you. Here are a few suggestions for getting your marketing moving.

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Leverage all of you assets. As a business, are you leveraging every customer interaction you have? Whether it is on the phone, face-to-face, or over the Internet, how frequently do you use that opportunity to ask about other needs or pain points?

Ask for referrals. You would be surprised by the low percentage of businesses who ask for referrals. To jump start any referral campaign, offer a small benefit to those who refer a customers. At the very least, get your referral program up and running and be sure to send a thank you note for making the connection.

Focus on your communications. If you are sending letters, giving away business cards, or packing someone’s groceries, be sure to include a flyer or message about other products and services you offer. You may even consider a special offer that can be included with each of these touch points.

Keep testing new things. Especially in tough times, it is very important to dedicate a portion of your budget toward trying new marketing methods or ideas. Even if it is just ten percent of your budget, all it takes is one success idea to have a significant impact on your lead flow or revenue.

Improving marketing results does not have to cost you money. In fact, some of the best, most successful marketing ideas were started with little or no money. Think viral. How can you leverage the assets you already have.

One final tip. Take a closer look at your website. Can you do more to attract visitors and have them provides some information about themselves? This could be access to a free instructional video or ebook. That’s all it takes.

Easy ways to Stop Shopping Cart abandonment resulting from High Shipping Prices

As most of you know, I personally like to use this blog to share my marketing expertise and respond to questions all of you ask on a regular basis. However, this info was recently submitted to me and I found very helpful... so I wanted to share. Enjoy!

According to a recent Stompernet study, the industry average for shopping cart abandonment is 59.6%. Shopping cart abandonment means that someone goes to a website, reads the sales letter, and clicks on the buy link to go to the secure order form, but they don't finish filling out the form.

This means that for every 10 people who click on a "buy" or "order" link to go to a shopping cart, only four actually complete the transaction. And that's in an OPTIMAL environment, assuming the overall site traffic is high-quality and targeted, and the order process is crystal clear and caveman-easy.

Where do they all these visitors go? We usually have our clients start by checking on their shipping rates. The Stompernet study also reveals that one of the top causes for shopping cart abandonment is that shipping is too high, or numerous options make it too confusing.

3 Easy Ways to Stop Shopping Cart Abandonment

1) Avoid real-time shipping tables that offer too many shipping choices. Here's something we actually encountered. To buy a $14.95 CD, the "real time shipping" on a shopping cart gave them prices anywhere from $6.82 to $68.44 for various air, ground, and rush options for shipping. Of course customers would leave. It's just too much to think about. And seeing the option to pay $70 to get a $15 CD the next day really jumped out at the customer. They left, saying "shipping's too expensive." Even many customers who bought said "wow, that's a lot to pay to have it shipped."

2) Have only one or two shipping options. Replace that long shipping table with statements like: "It's $2.50 shipping, and you should get it in the mail in 2-3 business days." "Price includes all shipping and handling. Orders are typically shipped the same day we receive them." See the difference? We recently had a client end their real-time shipping calculations, end rush-shipping options, and simply offer two rates (one domestic and one international.) Their shopping cart abandonment rates dropped and their conversion rates went up a consistent 5% with just that one change. And, the fulfillment house said that the client is having far few instances of collecting "too little" shipping than they did when it was real-time.

3) Don't do rush shipping - offer instant downloads. If there's any reason why a customer would "need it right now," instead of rush shipping, how about adding an instant download option? This way, not only can your prospects have it right now but then you're also spared the headache of making sure "rush" orders, indeed were "rushed." Bottom line: When it comes to shipping, get to the bottom line and make it easy. When interested customers have to stop and think about shipping, they hesitate. It gets right in the way of the sales momentum.

Give prospects too much to think about and they'll think about buying somewhere else. This means you lost customers for life! So, keep it simple - and you will reduce shopping cart abandonment fast. Now of course, there are many other factors that will affect your website sales conversion and shopping cart abandonment rates. And, that's why I, now invite you to get a website review "live" on screen capture video that will reveal right in front of your eyes easy, understandable and proven shortcut secrets to plug your specific profit draining leaks.

Just for going to http://www.livewebsitereviews.com we'll give you our NEW, FREE e-Book: "Top 10 Deadly Mistakes That Will Cost You Traffic & Sales." Here's to decreased shopping cart abandonment rates and increased website sales conversion rates! The Website Surgeon Adam Hommey increases website sales conversions for entrepreneurs, small business owners.

SEO Design Tips For Website Success

When designing a new web site, there is a great deal to consider before you begin. Have you chosen a good niche? Have you organized your content in a way that is search engine friendly? Do you have a URL that makes it easy for search engine spiders to know what your website is all about?

Even if you have done all of the pre work to ensure that you are going to develop a web site that meets your needs, you must consider the needs of search engine spiders and SEO. Search engine optimization of web site design is easy if you know what to do.

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The first step is to start with an web site designed in html and to use cascading style sheets. CSS keeps your coding to a minimum and helps create a consistent look across all web pages. The design of your site needs to be simple yet effective supported by clean navigation.

Web pages should all have a unique set of meta tags including title, description, and keywords. Additionally, the keywords you are trying to optimize for should be contained within your meta tags and on page as well. Your template should have your keyword phrase at the top of your page as well as at the very end of your page.

One simple way to apply this technique is by beginning your title tag with a keyword phrase. Additionally, include a copyright notice followed by your keyword phrase in a clean simple flow. One example is Copyright 2009. WebmastersBookofSecrets.com Marketing Expert. Marketing expert in this example is the keyword and is the last text on your page.

In addition to the beginning and end of your web page, focus SEO design with these helpful tips. Include your keyword phrase in both an H1 header and H2 Sub header. Keep your keyword density between 4 and 6 percent. Also, make sure that your keyword phrase is in bold, italic, and underlined. And lastly, keep your word count to between three hundred to six hundred words.

Simple SEO design is incredibly effective for achieving top rankings. These techniques help to expose your keyword phrase to search engine spiders. Additionally, they make each web page simple to scan, read, and react to. Take advantage of simple SEO design and results will follow.

Price Increases: Marketing In Tough Times

If you have ever worked for a company for more than one year, then you have no doubt experienced price increases. This is one of the fastest ways for companies to earn a few extra dollars and quite frankly one of the easiest.

As marketers, when we have to market and sell the same items at a new, higher price, we may find that the tradition campaigns become less effective. This is especially true when we hear objections from our customers. If there have been little or no changes to a given product, then it is next to impossible to overcome objections related to price.

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One of the biggest concerns that marketers have about price increases is that of customer attrition. This is especially true in markets where your competitor is priced are lower or about the same as your offering. There is always someone else that your customer can buy from. A recent study I read indicated that even though price can be an obstacle to buying, current customers are less likely to leave you after a price increase.

There are a number of factors that explain why this is the case. Also, one must consider the cost to the customer to start from scratch. This has both and emotional as well as financial component.

Customers have been conditioned to find the sale or ask for a discount. When introducing a price increase, customers do not want to incur the full impact. This is why they will continue to ask for discounts even after a price increase has been stated. As noted above however, even with a price increase, customers are not necessarily going to leave you.

Here are some ways to overcome objections related to price increases:

Add value that is greater than or equal to your price increase. Customers do not want to pay more for the same old thing. When they do, their perception of value diminishes. Provide additional services, support, or terms to deliver additional value that is substantiated by price.

Focus on switching costs. If a customer has to leave you, there are direct and indirect costs associated with doing so. Make a list for yourself. By moving to a new vendor, does you customer have to pay a new fee of some sort? Will they lose money by canceling with you or your services? How much time and effort do they need to put into finding a new vendor?

Do not treat all customers equally. I know it is taboo today to say such a thing but not all customers are equal. Some have been with you a long time. Others are working with you for the first time. Your price increases should reflect the individuality of your customers and the impact you wish to have. Consider treating customers differently.

The final bit of advice I can give around price increases is that you should really understand your competition and what types of alternatives are available to your customer.

If you have a stronger package at a better price than you competitors, switching is not an issue. If your offering is less valuable and more expensive, then perhaps you need to reevaluate your pricing. As a marketer, your job is to create a perception of value or remedy for a given need. Identify that need and focus your messaging on meeting that need. When you do, price is rarely an issue.

On-Page Optimization Strategies For Improving You Search Engine Results

On-page optimization is a great place to start your next search engine optimization campaign. Even though off-page optimization is essential for improving your Google rankings, on-page techniques can be used to build a strong SEO foundation and support good results on Yahoo!, MSN, and other major search portals.

Here are a few SEO tips you can use starting immediately to make your site more search engine friendly and begin enhancing overall rankings on all types of search engines. Optimize Your URLs

If you have not yet picked a domain name for your website, do not try to purchase your keyword dot com. Rather, pick a name that will be memorable and is something you want to build your company or brand around. You don't want to limit your options too severely. That said do try to place your main broad keyword into your URL.

Optimize Your Page Title, H1 and H2 Headers

Create a title that is relevant to your site content and which is no more that 60 characters in length. The reason you wan to limit the size of your title is because larger titles cannot be fully displayed on search engine results pages. The reason why the title is so important is because it gives you an opportunity to display your keywords first.

The first headline that appears on your page should include your keywords and be in the form of an H1 tag. The sub text should be presented as an H2 or H3 header. This reinforces the importance of your keywords and indicates prominence oriented around the specific content included on your web page.

Optimize All Your Meta Tags

SEO experts continue to debate the value of meta tags. I can tell you that although meta tags including the title, description, and keywords is less important that it was many years ago, it still plays an important role in optimization.

Today, meta tags are used as a starting point and a reference point for search engine crawlers. You meta tags need to be aligned to your page content and also include your keywords. This creates consistency, something that search engine spiders yearn for. So make sure to fully develop your description and keywords. I suggest limited your keywords to no more than twelve and limiting your description to about 150 words maximum.

Optimize your keyword density for Google

Creating a keyword rich content page is essential but don't get carried away. Your keyword density should be around 3 or 4 percent, no more. Some people believe that you could go as high as six percent for Yahoo! optimization but Google seems to like pages that have a smaller keyword density.

From my perspective you are better off focusing on the placement of your keywords and the type of emphasis you provide. Remember to focus on H1 and H2 tags and place keywords at the beginning, middle, and end of your web page. In addition you should have an instance of each keyword phrase in bold, italics, and underlined. This variety again reinforces the value of your links.

Keyword Variation

The last piece to focus on is keyword variety. Instead of stuffing your page with the same keyword phrases again and again, use some variety. A great way to do this is to add a word or two before your keyword phrase and after it. Creating variety is important because it shows each search engine that your site has a focus but that you are not intentionally trying to improve your ranking.

The most important part of any search engine optimization campaign is to make your site appear natural, present valuable content, and follow on-page optimization best practices. If you use the above suggestions as a guide, you will be well on your way to a fully optimized website.

On Page Optimization Is Essential for Improving Your Rankings

When thinking about search engine optimization and where to begin, think about on-page optimization. Although off-page optimization is essential for improving your Google rankings, on-page techniques can be used to build a strong SEO foundation and support good results on Yahoo!, MSN, and other major search portals.

Here are a few SEO tips you can use starting immediately to make your site more search engine friendly and begin enhancing overall rankings on all types of search engines.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Optimize Your Website URL. If you have not yet picked a domain name for your website, do not try to purchase yourkeyword.com. Rather, pick a name that will be memorable and is something you want to build your company or brand around. You do not want to limit your options too severely. That said do try to include your main broad keyword into your URL.

Optimize Your Page Title, H1 and H2 Tags. Create a title that is relevant to your site content and which is no more that 60 characters in length. The reason you want to limit the size of your title is because larger titles cannot be fully displayed on search engine results pages. The reason why the title is so important is because it gives you an opportunity to display your keywords first.

The first headline that appears on your page should include your keywords and be in the form of an H1 tag. The sub text should be presented as an H2 or H3 header. This reinforces the importance of your keywords and indicates prominence oriented around the specific content included on your web page.

Optimize All Your Meta Tags. SEO experts continue to debate the value of meta tags. I can tell you that although meta tags including the title, description, and keywords is less important that it was many years ago, it still plays an important role in optimization.

Today, meta tags are used as a starting point and a reference point for search engine crawlers. Your meta tags need to be aligned to your page content and also include your keywords. This creates consistency, something that search engine spiders yearn for. So make sure to fully develop your description and keywords. I suggest limiting your keywords to no more than twelve and limiting your description to about 150 words maximum.

Optimize your keyword density for Google. Creating a keyword rich content page is essential but do not get carried away. Your keyword density should be around 3 or 4 percent, no more. Some people believe that you could go as high as six percent for Yahoo! optimization but Google seems to like pages that have a smaller keyword density. From my perspective you are better off focusing on the placement of your keywords and the type of emphasis you provide. Remember to focus on H1 and H2 tags and place keywords at the beginning, middle, and end of your web page. In addition you should have an instance of each keyword phrase in bold, italics, and underlined. This variety again reinforces the value of your links.

Keyword Variation. The last piece to focus on is keyword variety. Instead of stuffing your page with the same keyword phrases again and again, use some variety. A great way to do this is to add a word or two before your keyword phrase and after it. Creating variety is important because it shows each search engine that your site has a focus but that you are not intentionally trying to improve your ranking.

The most important part of any search engine optimization campaign is to make your site appear natural, present valuable content, and follow on-page optimization best practices. If you use the above suggestions as a guide, you will be well on your way to a fully optimized website.

Unique Article Wizard Exposed

Ever wonder why some Internet marketers seem to get top search engine rankings and more traffic than the rest of those doing business online? Why? The answer is more simple than you might think.



The reason why their getting all the traffic is because they are using the power of article marketing - with a twist. Article marketing has been a popular technique for building back links to web sites, blogs, and jump pages for a few years now.

In recent months, Google has begun to penalize web sites who post duplicate content and devalue the content when it appears identically on other websites. As a result, today's top marketers have begun leveraging a new aspect of article marketing... unique article distribution.

This technique is so powerful that many website owners have abandoned traditionally pay-per-click advertising and reinvested in article creation and unique article distribution. If you want to get the most from your article marketing, check out Unique Article Wizard.