Category: General Article

Marketing Automation of Your Articles For Business

If you are marketing products or services, you need to let others know what you are doing. Marketing Automation of articles builds your business.

Writing relevant informative articles related to your products and services is essential to building your business reputation and credibility. Creating a successful business means using great tactics to gain exposure. You need to let others know what you are doing through article creation and use tools for Marketing Automation of your business on line. The informative pieces you create about your business go a long way to branding you as credible and reputable.

It is very important to produce content of importance in relation to your business and also you need to have quality products and services. Quality important information in your article content is a bonus to your business to maintain customer interest. If the content is strong in relation to what they are looking for, your business can flourish. Potential customers won’t even look at your product or service unless they feel they can trust you.

Every business needs quality software applications for production and distribution of articles and website creation. Good use of these can make Marketing Automation a routine that can be accomplished where limited time and budget are required. Hiring or outsourcing website creation and content on a continuing basis to develop and grow a business can be very expensive. This especially will not work in the micro niche businesses that produce a small monthly return, but with Marketing Automation, acquisition of quality software applications can help a person with limited time and resources produce multiple micro niche businesses which can reach 7 figures annually.

In summary write the hot reports. Chock it full of information your target market enjoys. Find and acquire the quality software you will need to create your websites, get your website business and articles to page one in search engines. Without some form of Marketing Automation software, you will be hanging out for weeks trying to get one small micro niche business up and earning money.

There is more free information on acquiring free software applications and purchasing needed Marketing Automation Software here.…

Set Your Marketing Business Apart With Video

Marketing firms are responsible for helping businesses get the exposure they need for their business to thrive and grow. Therefore, anyone interested in setting up their own marketing business needs to be outgoing, have lots of contacts, and have skills for evaluating business marketing needs. And since there are many marketing firms out there, you have to be able to set yourself apart from the crowd. One way to do that is with expert video marketing on the web.

Promoting your marketing firm on a local basis still requires making contacts in person. Make it part of your everyday business plan to contact people you know to let them know what you are doing, because networking is the key to success. And even if you specialize in video marketing online, you’ll need offline tools like business cards and brochures for your business.

Because web video has become such an amazingly important force in internet marketing, it is a great place to specialize these days. Believe it or not, video accounts for around 60% of all web traffic, so you can see how solid video marketing can have a huge impact on your potential clients or even your own website.

YouTube consistently ranks in the top five most visited websites in the United States with over 2 billion views a day, and right now getting video to the top of local search results is fairly easy, making video marketing software and video distribution software critical to your success in local business marketing. In other words, now is a great time to position yourself as a leader in local video marketing.

Being able to shoot, edit, and distribute videos to multiple video sharing sites and social media sites is a real plus for local businesses. But you may have to make a case for web video as a promotional tool for small local businesses, who may not see the web as being that relevant to them. Understanding local business needs and offering them more value for their marketing dollar is what will build your client base.

Video is a terrific tool for showing off the benefits that local businesses offer. For example, while your local lawn mower dealer wants to sell mowers, your video productions should show the benefits of owning those mowers in the form of a lush, green lawn in front of a beautiful house. Everybody knows what a mower looks like, but they may need to be reminded of the benefits of owning a certain mower.

To become a success with a video marketing business, you’ll also have to be well-versed in the art and science of search engine optimization, or SEO. This is a matter of building or modifying websites and their content (including video) so that they rank as highly as possible in search engine searches for relevant keywords. With the big search engines now honing their local search features, this is another great place to get in ahead of …

Thought Leadership Interview – Jill Konrath on Closing the Gap Between Marketing and Sales

Jill Konrath wrote the first section of The Quintessential Marketing Automation Guidebook where she wrote a letter from Sales telling Marketing exactly what was needed to help drive revenue. If only companies were that brave. Her letter stirred up reactions from our readers, so I caught up with Jill to ask her to share a few more insights about how to bring marketing and sales closer together.

CD: What does marketing need to do to get salespeople to use the content they provide?

JK: Write good content. Most of what marketing produces today sucks. It’s self-serving tripe that highlights the company’s fabulous products, unique methodologies and state-of-the-art technologies. When sellers use this type of content, it trivializes them with customers. They’re seen as product-pushing peddlers who add little value to the sales process.

Educate the sales force. After an eternity of only getting crap from marketing, salespeople don’t have a clue how to use good content. They need to know how to follow up effectively on leads with content during the sales process.

Make it simple. Salespeople don’t have a lot of time. If it’s scattered across the website, it won’t be used. If it’s not intuitive, it won’t be used. Make it as much a no-brainer as possible.

CD: In SNAP Selling, you talk about the prospect’s three decisions. What are they and how do they related to content?

JK: Basically prospects make three primary decisions when it comes to dealing with salespeople. Their 1st Decision is to “allow access” to them. Sellers may only want a small amount of their time, but today’s crazy-busy buyers are stingy with it. At this stage, salespeople could use content related to the value other firms have used from using the company’s offering. This supports their reason for getting together and increases their chances of setting up a meeting.

The prospect’s 2nd Decision is to “initiate change” – which is something they are loathe to do with everything else on their calendar. Sellers desperately need good content to help prospects determine if making a change would provide significant value for their organization. This could include case studies, white papers, podcasts, articles, analyst reports and more.

Finally, the prospect’s 3rd Decision is to “select resources.” At this phase, sellers need content that differentiates them from other vendors and supports the company’s strengths. Please notice that I didn’t say brochures. They provide little value except at the very end of the sales process. In my opinion, fancy four-color glossies are a relic of the past – even though salespeople may still be clamoring for them. There are enough sales dinosaurs out there who haven’t yet realized that brochures create significant collateral damage and destroy more opportunities than they gain.

CD: In SNAP Selling, you present a Buyers’ Matrix. How would you suggest using this matrix as a tool to create a more productive relationship between marketing and sales?

JK: Every …

Marketing Automation Software Builds and Improves Business

There are many advantages to companies by the use of Marketing Automation Software. It will help to reduce the activities which are complex and also reduce the complexity of low costs. It has two tasks whose provide help to this software to doing this. The two tasks are:

Segmentation of customer database: This is the first task which helps to sub-sectioning of your customer database into unique fields which all are based on consumer; we will do this type of job by use of this task that is Customer segmentation. There are many multiple segments if the marketers will focus on that this thing will increase the efficiency of marketers. Using Marketing Automation Software, if there is properly segmentation of database held it will help to improve purchasing rates and then the each segment has test message which is different from each other within your database that increases existing base revenue.

Campaign Management: This is the second task. By using this task we can execute automation. By this campaign management, Marketers can design campaigns of content by all the help of system that contents are delivered to your scenario. The automation of campaign is same as people do an investment account. There is better way to add small amounts of money continuously. There are marketing messages and content all are focused on a single theme which would be e-mail marketing campaign. There are many software tools whose focus on email marketing, also there are very advanced applications whose focus on blogging, social media. Marketers can create their contents once by the use these new tools, the sharing of the contents on many digitals channels by the help of tools.

Software builds business: When the use of software tools is proper and by intelligence, marketing automation software will build business, provides profit in business. There is distribution of contents to attract new customers by the use of this software tool, and tool increases the value of your existing customers. These software tools are of low cost and very user friendly.…

Avoid These 5 Twitter Mistakes

I admit it. I’m a Twitter gal and I absolutely love what Twitter can do for small business owners. It produces massive visibility, it’s a top-notch lead generation tool and a powerful networking platform.

Unfortunately, Twitter continues to mystify many small business owners who aren’t quite sure what all the fuss is about.

The good news is that Twitter doesn’t have many rules. It’s by in large all about using common sense, being polite and exercising good judgment. But, that being said, here are five ways to ensure that your Twitter experience is a tragic disaster:

1. Toot your own horn too much.

Obviously, you are passionate about your small business and want to let the world know about its strengths and virtues. However, Twitter is not an advertising platform. It’s a social community. When you constantly shout sales pitch to your followers, they’re going to instantly unfollow you. Instead, try to immerse yourself in the Twitter community and join the conversation.

2. Use the default Twitter profile.

If you’re using Twitter as a marketing tool for your small business, then you need to avoid the default Twitter profile. That cute, little default cloud background is certainly not doing your small business any favors. Take a few minutes and put together a customized Twitter profile and brand your small business by utilizing all of that valuable advertising space. (No excuses, you can even do this for free at )

3. Tweet once a week.

Your followers have hundreds, if not thousands of Tweets flowing through their Twitter stream on a daily basis. If you think that your weekly Tweet is going to get noticed, you need to reset your thinking. Twitter works best when your followers see your Tweets flow through their stream again and again. Repeated exposure is the only way to get noticed on Twitter.

4. Don’t interact with your followers.

There are all sorts of nifty Twitter automation tools that can help manage your time on Twitter. And I’m a big believer in sending out a few automated Tweets. But, if you want Twitter to work, you actually need to personally log into your account and send out Tweets. Answer questions, retweet your followers, make conversation. Your followers want to see a real person in front of your small business. They’re not looking for a bunch of automated, impersonal Tweets.

5. Give up too soon.

This is one of the most common problems of Twitter. In fact, Twitter has one of the highest “drop-out” rates of any social networking platform. And, it’s a shame. Small business owners everywhere, start on Twitter only to drop out a week later. Twitter isn’t an instant fix for your business. It’s a relationship tool and relationships take time to develop. So, give Twitter the time that it deserves and it will reward you.

Whether you’re a Twitter newbie or a seasoned Twitter professional put these five tips into play and make your Twitter experience one that …

Tips For Designers to Survive the Current Market

If you follow the news, you’ll hear that the market is up, the market is down, some design businesses are struggling, some are doing okay. Experts can’t seem to agree, but a lot of designers are worried.

Here is the truth: The current market is more challenging for designers because fear has caused people to spend less or take a longer time making decisions about more expensive purchases. Some see that as bad news. I see it as an exciting challenge to think more creatively, learn new skills, and come out way ahead as the economy gets stronger. Many will throw in the towel. The ones who come through will enjoy incredible – and much easier – success (with a lot less competition).

So what are the things you can do to survive and thrive in the current market?

* Create more online exposure

Despite a slower economy, online retail shopping continues to show growth. But even if you don’t sell products online, you need to have a strong online presence. While local homeowners are searching on the web for products to purchase for their homes (and many more of them are doing this), you want them to come across your information. Post to your blog at least twice a week. Create a profile on sites like , , and . Just a few minutes a day on these sites will drive more traffic to your business.

* Sell updates rather than investments

When people are being more careful with their spending, they are more concerned with VALUE. This doesn’t mean that homeowners are not spending on their homes. In fact, recent research is showing that many homeowners want to “reward” themselves with small purchases to spruce up the look of their homes. They may still be hesitant to invest in an entire room remodel, but they are very eager to update a room with accessories, new tassels, paint, or colorful throw pillows.

Focus on those “update” items, and you’ll find that many more people are willing and excited to do business with you.

* Create multiple streams of income

As designers, most of us have ONE source of income: working with clients. Yes, we do many things for them and sell various products, but THEY are our only way to make money. When clients are spending less on home design, our business suffers.

But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Designers who have added other streams of design income are not feeling the crisis. Let’s face it. If you have income coming in from various sources, you are less likely to suffer when one or two of them is slow. Look into writing, teaching, membership programs, or doing teleseminars.

You are so creative when it comes to designing. Now use that creativity with your business. You can enjoy wild success!…

Marketing Automation

There are instances when people may view marketing automation as a disadvantage rather than an advantage in society. This is because people may be scared of the consequences such as marketing automation being the cause of the loss of their jobs. However, notwithstanding the unemployment problems of many, this automated system is still best implemented. This is because the internet-based business environment calls for more complex techniques in order to go with the flow of its increasingly competitive landscape.

Marketing automation provides a solution to the intricate needs of an increasingly competitive online-based business environment. It makes work both more efficient and effective. For instance, through automation one can have a program that would relay the right outbound message to respond to a lead’s online and inbound responses.

Automation does not actually mean that all the marketing activities would simply be handled by the programs of the computer. In fact an automated system should go hand in hand with the creative insights of the marketing personnel. To increase one’s rank in the search lists, the ideas to promote the site coming from the marketer are still needed to ensure online success.

Online buyers over the years have become more discerning in their buying habits. They go through many websites and utilize social media as well to look for the right products for them. What a marketer could do is to insert marketing automation into the process. For instance if the prospective buyer calls up to inquire about the product, automated answers on frequently asked questions can be prepared. The process may not seem too personalized, but still it has a touch of being professional in the approach as the answers are screened and put together for a professional sounding output.

Marketing automation is actually more than just having an answering machine. This is because automation allows the consideration of the prospect’s response so that the software can in fact offer reconsideration when a buyer declines. Part of automation could also be the ability to show rich content such as visuals for special offers which could help persuade prospects to buy the product. Thus, one should not see the machine for marketing automation as a status symbol that one has “arrived” in the internet business world or as a hindrance to creating more jobs. Instead, it should be seen as a truly helpful tool towards a more efficient and effective business. It is thus best to start mapping out the process of marketing automation for your business. It could do wonders for your productivity as you align yourself with the benefits of technology.…

Why Do Most People Fail at Online Business?

The sad reality is that most businesses linger on at a hobby level for a few months or years before petering out. Relatively few make it to a level of success that provides a full time income.

I’ve watched, consulted for and worked with many people in the online business world, starting back in 1991 when I sold my first piece of software via the old bulletin board system, an early precursor to the internet. Today I’m a full time online entrepreneur.

Here are some of the most common themes I see in failing online businesses:

1. Too much focus on the product or service – New business people spend a lot of time thinking about and developing their product or service, while they spend relatively little time thinking about what their market niche, business model is or how to market their product. Yet niches, business models and promotions are more important to success than the product.

2. Lack of persistence – A large number of people get started, create a web site and then quickly lose interest when their new site does not instantly generate thousands of dollars each month. The hard truth is that it takes time to build an audience, and patience to build a solid foundation for your business. Its not one large thing that suddenly propels a site to success, but often dozens or hundreds of small actions you take over months or years that add up to create a significant profit.

3. No concept of online marketing – In the crowded internet of today, it is hard to get someone’s attention among several billion web pages, much less keep someone’s attention for more than about 15 seconds. Online marketing, copy writing and building an audience is not the same as it is traditional media. I’ve watched clients agonize over fonts and images, but spend zero time on search engine optimization, copy writing, audience building, email list management and other critical online skills.

4. Inability to manage growth – When success does come to an internet business it often comes in large waves. However, the first Tsunami of traffic and orders will frequently wipe out the business and its owner in the process. The success they worked so hard to create becomes a noose around their neck as they are unprepared to hire people or buy equipment and insist on continuing to do everything themselves. A good friend of mine has been stuck in a cycle like this for over a year. Rather than restructuring his business to outsource as much work as possible, he continues to dig a deeper hole for himself.

So if you want to build a solid foundation for your new online business, carefully consider your market niche, your business model, how long you’re willing to stay the course, your online marketing plan and how you will manage growth when it does come. With the right systems in place, many of these issues …

5 Tips to Develop an Effective Marketing Plan

Developing a marketing plan for your business requires time and effort. It is not something that can be done without concentration and proper preparation. Few business owners truly understand what they need to do in order to develop a marketing plan that will work. This is to be expected as few business owners have been educated in marketing. Add this to the fact that the world of marketing seems to change on a daily basis and the task seems rather overwhelming.

Yet, there are a few simple steps that can help business owners develop effective plans that will work consistently over time. Taking the time to complete these steps can be the deciding factor between success and failure.

First, business owners need to set aside time dedicated solely to the task of marketing their business. Much like a budget, this plan will need to be attended to and monitored. Having set hours to work on marketing allows business owners the opportunity to work regularly on their marketing. Set aside five to ten hours a week for marketing and put it on the calendar. It is best to work in chunks of time such as two or three hours rather than scheduling an hour a day.

Second, business owners need to define their goals. Without goals there is no way to determine if marketing efforts are successful or not.

Third, decide on a budget. How much money is available to dedicate to marketing efforts will be a large factor in determining what can and cannot be done. Don’t worry if there are little to no funds available to support marketing efforts. The internet has created an environment where it is possible to advertise business products and services for free.

Fourth, business owners will research marketing activities that are specific to your industry and fit within the allocated budget. Developing an idea sheet along with approximate costs for each activity during the research process is a great way to keep track of your discoveries.

Fifth, develop a weekly marketing plan. The marketing plan should include marketing activities to be done as well as time to track the results of all marketing efforts. Tracking the results of your marketing efforts is critical to understanding which activities are successfully promoting your business and which ones are not working.…

Big Data Marketing Offers Critical Insight-But a Distributed Marketing Technology Is Key to Success

Marketing technology firms continue to offer credible evidence that the analytical insight gained through Big Data will be a huge factor for organizations in the near future.

Why? Consider this statistic: the amount of data an enterprise collects is expected to grow 650% over the next five years. It’s statistics like this that make it impossible to ignore what “Big Data Marketing” can bring to the bottom line for a business. It’s the key to long-term sales growth.

The growing technological and analytical capability of managing and using this unprecedented amount of enterprise data will continue to explode to all new levels in the coming years. Big Data, as the term is coined, will shift businesses from managing and observing “data transactions” to also managing and observing “data interactions.”

What does this mean? It means that businesses will be able to assess the needed data points that are crucial in understanding when a consumer will buy, and why. This extraordinary shift in technology continues to evolve at fast rates due to rapid advancements in processing power, data storage, and tracking analytics, integrated with newer, robust distribution and communication channels.

In order for companies to truly embrace Big Data and wrap their arms around what this concept can do for their sales teams, a multi-channel distributed marketing platform is needed so that all branding collateral, content, and marketing efforts can be centralized for the organization. More importantly, because of the substantial progression of communication and distribution channels, a distributed marketing technology helps optimize content distribution across varying forms of media including email, mobile, microsites, and social media. Organizations that do not implement this type of technology will struggle to collect the data points that are necessary to achieve profitable success and will be at competitive disadvantage in the near future.

These facts are hard to dispute. The industry is already witnessing a 40% annual increase in marketing technology spends, and leading analysts are also projecting that by the end of 2017 the CMO will spend more on technology than the CIO.

Big Data is still considered a buzz word. It still is not full defined, nor accepted by all marketers or industry professionals. However, the evidence continues to be reported that Big Data isn’t going anywhere. I recently read an article about some additional studies that were released this summer by Lattice Engines on this very topic. Their survey stated that 89% of executives believe sales reps miss opportunities because they cannot keep up with the information about customers and prospects, and also noted that 90% expect there would be great benefits to sales if insight was automated and delivered through one system.

This leads me back to my belief that the formula for success for marketers in the future is going to be quite simple: Bigger, Richer Data Sets + Real Time Analytics + Personalized Multi-Channel Marketing = a Higher ROI.…

Tips For Driving Traffic to Your Website

When it comes to giving your business an online presence, you want to get as many potential customers to look at your website as possible. This means you have to consistently update your content, advertise and backlink as much as possible. You have to make your site seem essential to those who are interested in your business. Let them know that you are at the top of your game in the industry, and if they want to know the latest news and product information, they have to check with your service and with no one else. This all sounds like a great idea, but in practice, driving up your web traffic is actually a tricky business. In this article, you will learn some tips for driving traffic to your website.

First, links are the answer. Make sure that you are linked in as many relevant places as possible. When we talk about link quality, for example, it’s all about making sure that you are reaching the right audience. If you sell garden supplies, which kind of websites do you think you should link on? The answer, of course, is to link on online magazines that specialize in gardening issues. This way, readers of the gardening magazine will see the links for your site again and again and will know that you are a big name in the business.

Next, make sure that you are networking online. You can use Facebook, for example, to spread the name of your website by word of mouth. You can start a profile and a group of which fans can become a member. This is a great way to get people looking for your website so they can see what’s new, which products are for sale, and which kinds of sales you are offering. This is a great way to make your website seem essential to those in the know.

Finally, driving traffic to your website is all about making your website seem important. Perhaps it really is important. You need to let people know this. Spread your message, but make sure the right people are seeing your message. You need to reach out and get customers interested in your web page because of what you have to offer. Your business will grow and your website will take on a life of its own. The future of your business is on the Internet. Learn how to use this valuable tool.…

Benefits of Article Marketing Automation Tools

Today, more and more people are resorting to the internet in order to have financial stability and be remedied from the recent economic turmoil. While the internet is an effective avenue for entrepreneurs and business owners to get money quickly and easily, there is one problem: how can you make sure that your online business is doing well without being tied to your chair and your computer?

Perhaps one of the greatest online inventions these days is the amazing automation tools that online marketers and online business owners can use so that they are able to monitor their businesses while they sleep or when they are on a vacation. And because article marketing is one of the most effective, it is but right for online marketers and business owners to have at least one reliable article automation tool that will help them manage their content.

Article marketing is the process of writing content to promote a certain product or service and then publish the articles to online article directories and hope that your articles come first in the search engine results. Almost all online marketers today are using article marketing to promote their business because it is totally free, easy to learn, and guaranteed to deliver the results you desire.

However, there could be a slight problem with article marketing: writing and submitting articles on a regular basis can be tedious and time consuming especially when the volume of articles you need to write for your products or services continue to rise. Article marketing can be easy during the first few steps of building your business – when you have more time than money to spend – but as your business grows, the demands grow as well.

Should you come to that point where you do not have as much time as before to do the article marketing endeavors yourself, there are some things that you can do. If you have the budget for it, you can consider enlisting a help of a content provider company or get an article marketing automation tool to help you with the load.

When you hire a content provider company, all you have to do is provide them with the topics and the other details of the project and they will write the optimized articles for you. Automated article software programs on the other hand will take care of the distribution of the articles for you.

Going for article marketing automation tools such as these can be a real time saver for you and for your business, instead of spending time writing articles you can now ask someone to do the work for you while you focus on watching over your business. On top of that, article automation tools will also provide backlinks for your website in the process.…

Using Blogs For Small Business Seo

Blogs are probably one of the easiest, cheapest and most effective marketing tools out there for small businesses today. They have so many benefits, especially in terms of search engine optimisation (SEO).

Google, and the other search engines love fresh content; same as humans, we don’t want to read out of date content, and neither do the search engines (not that they actually ‘read’ the content, but they don’t want to present old content to searchers). Because of this, Google will prioritise fresh content over old content in their results. So imagine you have recently created a blog post all about the benefits of your product – such as your particular brand of easy clean paint brushes. When someone searches for ‘easy to clean paint brushes’ in Google, there’s a good chance that your blog post on your super easy to clean paint brushes will show up high in the search results. Your result is likely to be higher than some of your competitors who just have a product page featuring their brushes, that they’ve not updated in six or more months. In terms of search engine optimisation, you must remember that search engines don’t rank websites, they rank pages – and they love brand spanking new pages! Having a site with regularly updated content and regular new pages also means that overall your site gets more ‘trust’ from the search engines. So some of the benefit from the new content will roll over to other pages as well, even if they haven’t been updated in a while.

Another benefit of adding fresh content to your site on a regular basis is that the search engine bots will crawl your site on a more regular basis – meaning that any crucial updates you’ve made to your site/content will be refreshed in the search engine results a lot quicker. Have you ever wondered what the ‘cached’ link means when you look at search results in Google? Clicking on this will show you the last time Google crawled that web page – so you can see exactly what Google is seeing. If you have updated your website with some new product pages, Google will not know about it until the next time it comes to crawl your site. So if you hardly ever update your site, Google will be in the habbit of only crawling your site on a monthly (or so) basis. This means that none of your new product pages will appear in the search engines results during this month – not until Google crawls your site again. However, if you constantly add new content to your site, Google will get into the habit of crawling your site a lot more often – the ideal crawl amount is daily, but realistically, weekly will do. Having your site crawled on a regular basis, means your brand new product pages will show up in the search engine results a lot quicker.

So we’ve established that the …

Social Media Automation Tools to Increase Your Marketing ROI

Want to stop wasting time on social media and get better results from your social media marketing efforts? Then this list of social media automation tools is for you. One or more of these tools could help you to save time while increasing your marketing ROI:

Facebook to Twitter: This is a tool for Facebook which can be used with any profile or page. Just click the Facebook to Twitter link while you’re logged in and you can link your pages to Twitter and share your content instantly.

Gist: Gist is a handy tool which can keep track of all of your social networking, social media and email contacts with one easy to use web based interface; it’s also available for Outlook and Gmail, so you never have to lose an opportunity to connect with the people you need to keep in touch with.

Hoot Suite: If your business uses Twitter, this is one automation tool you’ll want. HootSuite allows you to write tweets and schedule them to post later and keep an eye on keywords as well as providing a lot of other useful functions. It can also be integrated with other apps, making it an especially helpful tool to have.

: This tool can update your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networking and social media pages all at once, or any combination you like. It’s free and works on mobile devices as well.

RSS: Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an easy way to aggregate the content you need in one place, saving you the time of going from one site to another or wading through content you don’t need. It works with Google Reader and other RSS feed readers and can also be used with Google Alerts for user specified keywords so you can keep an eye on what people are saying about your business.

Selective Tweets: This is an application for Facebook which allows you to decide which updates you want to share with your Twitter followers rather than sharing all of them. You don’t want everything on your Facebook page out there for the whole world and this tool gives you total control over what to share and what to keep to a smaller audience.

SocialOomph: This service lets you schedule your social media communications and post it automatically. There are both free and commercial versions available; only the commercial version handles Facebook page and profile posting and scheduling.

Tweet Old Posts: Sometimes you come up with blog posts which have information which is useful whether you publish it now or years from now. This plugin for lets you repost old content which is still relevant to your readers.

TweetBleep: This service lets you monitor any keywords you like on Twitter for $20 per month; the results are sent to you by email.

TwitterFeed: This cloud based service lets you share your blog content as you post it to Twitter, Facebook and other social media and …

Internet Marketing Automation – Is There a Way to Cut Time, Save Money & Increase Productivity?

Does internet marketing automation really exist or is it just a pipe dream? Can you really cut the time spent on daily tedious tasks such as checking email, answering support tickets, submitting to article directories and social media sites? Is there a way to automate the tasks that take forever to do yet are so important you just can’t afford to skip?

Simply put, can you save time and increase your productivity using some level of internet marketing automation?

The successful Internet Marketer knows that in order to continue to prosper at what they do, they need to incorporate as much internet marketing automation as they possibly can to avoid spending hours upon hours on their computer doing all the things that are required in order to succeed in this very competitive environment.

Real internet marketing automation would help in performing tasks such as:

Checking email

Writing content

Checking stats online

Managing websites

Managing PPC campaigns

Building websites or web pages

Handling customer service

Logging into a website or member area

Social networking

Creating backup files or folders

Other online business-related activities

I’m sure the average Internet Marketer, when they first imagined their lifestyle, had no idea that they would be cooped up in some place in their home spending hour after hour on their computer performing mind numbing work but for most that is the reality, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Although some fortunate internet marketers can outsource their day to day tasks, others can’t afford to do that. Do they have options? Now they do but they may not be aware of new cutting edge tools available that can literally cut their work by more than half the time they are currently spending.

Thanks to some very talented individuals we now have ground breaking technology in internet marketing automation that can automate an unlimited number of tasks, including very tedious things like writing content, checking website stats, building websites just to mention a few. This special software can perform on demand and has the ability to adapt to whatever the Internet Marketer needs to perform.…

Disruptive Innovation and Small Business Growth Strategies

Harvard professor Clayton Christensen coined the term disruptive innovation to describe “a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves ‘up market’, eventually displacing established competitors.” An example of disruptive innovation is the cell phone (disruptor) displacing fixed line telephony.

There’s never been a better time to be a disruptive innovator. If you have a good idea, the barriers to market entry are shrinking. Business innovations like crowdsourcing and outsourcing provide cheap access to technology development, marketing resources and administrative support. You don’t need massive resources to invest in hiring employees to perform these business functions for you – you can design business graphics, develop an iPhone app or outsource your IT function using the new business models.

At the same time, large corporations have never been more vulnerable. A new survey by Right Management, the consulting arm of staffing group Manpower, finds that a whopping 84% of employees are planning on searching for a new job in 2012. That’s not surprising, considering how big business has laid off employees, reduced salaries and eliminated perks over the past 4 years. Do you think that this 84% is focused on providing innovation and exceptional customer service to their employer’s customers? I would posit that they are not and that their customers are ripe for the picking by a nimble competitor, particularly a disruptive innovator.

Small businesses that focus on providing groundbreaking solutions to customer problems are in a good position to take business away from corporate monoliths, particularly at the smaller end of the market. While large enterprise customer-facing employees are focused on internal politics and avoiding the next round of layoffs, small business owners can focus on providing excellent service and solving customer problems efficiently and affordably.

A good example of a disruptive innovator is Hubspot, a provider of marketing automation software located in Cambridge, MA. Formed in 2006 by MIT graduate Darmesh Shah and venture capitalist Brian Halligan, Hubspot started their business by providing an end-to-end internet marketing software solution to small businesses, a market that was not served prior to their entry. Five years later, Hubspot has grown to be ranked #33 on the Inc. 500 list (#2 for software providers.) As is typical of disruptive innovators, Hubspot is moving upmarket into the enterprise market.

Small businesses that use inbound marketing technology like Hubspot’s can get found by buyers and earn the right to have a conversation with them. When prospects see that you have the capabilities, determination and drive to solve their problems, you will win your share of business.

So take heart my friends – become a disruptive innovator!…

Article Marketing Automation in the World of Web 2.0

Every day millions of people all over the world go online to research and purchase products and services. As a business owner, taking advantage of the actions these potential customers are already taking is a smart move. Reach thousands of customers who are already searching for you with article distribution in the world of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is simply the next new generation of online activities and applications. It can provide great marketing opportunities through communication, collaboration and interactive networking because it’s all about people. Social networking sites connect people daily regardless of their locations or routines.

Web based communities make sharing information simpler than ever. Web 2.0 goes hand in hand with article distribution as a way to interact with customers and teach them instead of providing passive images and advertisements.

Article Marketing Automation

Combining article distribution with the tools available in Web 2.0 can make increasing sales on your website easier than ever. Creating and distributing original content online allows you to share your knowledge with a targeted base of potential customers. By providing the answers they are seeking, you gain their trust and build faith in your credibility.

One of the newest tools for online marketers is article marketing automation. Through your chosen publication service, you can utilize this Web 2.0 tool to provide information and interact with customers on an ongoing basis. With article marketing automation, you are allowed to submit as many articles as you wish at one time for publication at one or more predetermined future dates.

Article marketing automation can be especially beneficial for startups and businesses that experience times of high and low traffic. You can create as many articles as possible during your startup phase before your website goes live. Take advantage of the slow times when you have more time to write.

You submit your content today and schedule it to publish any time. Before you know it you’re running a successful article marketing campaign without even thinking about it on a day to day basis. This lets you spend more time on the daily needs of your business and customers.

Social Networking

Share links through social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter once you’ve published a few articles. These sites allow you to set up a page where consumers can become followers or fans of your business. Whether they’re just interested in your area or have made a previous purchase, you are making a valuable connection with your customer base.

You can share information about products or services as well as links to articles you’ve written. Keep your customers informed with new and exciting information about the industry, or your thoughts on current events and the world of business.

In this new world of Web 2.0 and marketing online, you have the opportunity as a business owner to be uniquely connected to your customers. By sharing parts of your business and life with people, you build bridges with …

Why Maps Are Important to Small Business

Introduction: Your customers are using maps on their home computers and on their mobile phones. Internet mapping and the social internet have converged and this creates a huge opportunity for small business. Have you checked to see if Google has mapped your business? It probably has. These days, when someone is deciding whether or not to become your customer, where they are in relation to where you are is more likely to influence their decision than ever before. Two big opportunities stem from this – Search and Social. Each uses maps in a different way, and the way that will work best for you will depend on the type of business you have.

Using Google maps for Search: These days, someone driving through a town would search for a cafe using Google Maps on their smart phone. Smartphones can show them a Google map of where they are and all the cafes near them. Of all the cafes on the screen, those that haven’t completed their Google Place page are unlikely to appear first. Most people click on one of the first few search results, so being at the top of the list is important if you want your business to be found.

Using Facebook Places for Social: Another way customers can find you is through their Facebook friends. When a customer can check-in to a cafe using Facebook Places they automatically share their location with all of their Facebook friends. If their friends are close by, they might meet up!

Your customers are using internet maps to search for you, so you need to be sure that you can be found where they are looking. Businesses that traditionally would have been found using the Yellow Pages now need to have a Google Maps presence. Hospitality businesses need to be active on the social internet as well as being on Google Maps.…

7 Easy Tips to Generate an Extra Income Online by an Internet Genius!

The question has come into everyone’s mind at one point or another…”How can I make money fast?” or “how can I make money online?”

We know in the back of our minds there is simple way to do just don’t know how to to it.

Luckily for some, there is a straight forward answer!  There are several ways to make money quickly online using the internet, a tool we often take for granted and now we can find out just exactly how to use it properly and to our own advantage.

So here goes…

The 7 Easy Tips To Generate An Extra Income Online:  

1. Before you can start making money, you will need to register as an affiliate with a reputable company. This is where you will be able to track your progress online and most importantly, get paid!

2. Carefully select a quality product to promote and get your Hoplink code which will enable you to get paid. This could be a service or product you will be promoting online.

3. Purchase and register a domain name for your business to promote your new product. You can arrange for domain forwarding so that your new domain name will take visitors straight to the product you are promoting. This will be connected to your affiliate account via your Hoplink code. Having your own domain name is CRUCIAL in making your promoting efforts a MASSIVE success.

4. Spend around 1 hour a day writing an article or advertisement for your product or service which is the cheapest and easiest way to promoting your service or products online.

5. Post your article or advertisement  to online various forums and groups. Do not spam as this can cause your account to be blocked. Imagine having the ability to join hundreds of online groups and have the ability to instantly email tens of thousands of people to promote your product or service for free. 

6. Keep track of your business by checking on sales daily. Remember to update your articles. Place lots of mini advertisements by using free online classified ad sites.

7. Keep looking out for new services or products and stay focused then start the process all over again!

Overall, there are tons of ways to make money online but these tips are tried and tested. They are true and the best of the best and most importantly, they work! …

A Lead Capture System – Getting More Customers

Keeping in touch with your customers is easier than ever with a lead capture system. Many of you may be asking, what is a lead capture system? Basically, it is a nurturing system that develops a relationship with your potential customer by sending messages routinely that are relevant to their interests and loaded with valuable information. A lead capture system can simplify your life by automatically sending out preset messages to your customer list, weekly, monthly, etc.

A lead capture system, also known as marketing automation or an autoresponder, is designed to capture your visitor’s information. This is how you build a good, qualified list and convert more traffic from your website into customers. Give your visitors an offer or product of value for free to download. Once the visitor responds, require the following information: name, and email by using an Opt-in form on your website.

A good lead capture system consists of four major components:

An Opt-in form on a Landing Page. This is a form where visitors to your website can enter their information to receive your free offer or product. The Opt-in form is typically on a separate page, called a landing page, which explains your free offer in detail.

An Autoresponder. This is a piece of software that automatically sends a series preset messages to your potential or existing customers. It’s a good practice to send valuable information that interests them, not so much about your products and messages should be more toward benefiting your customers, and once in a while, how your product or services can benefit them. In this way your lead capture system helps your potential customers to know you, like you, and build enough trust in you to buy your products or services.

A Confirmation Page. This page comes up to thank your customer after they have Opted-in for their free gift or product and directs them to go their email to confirm it’s their correct email address.

A Double Opt-in Pagethat points to the Gift Delivery Page after they have confirmed their email address where they can receive their gift or product.

A lead capturing system is all about establishing relationships with your website visitors. Building these relationships can also bring in repeat business because now, they know, like and trust you. By acquiring the contact information from your visitors, you position yourself to build a good customer list.

The goal is to get your leads to respond to the free product and engage further with your business through a lead capturing system.…

Time, Consistent Work and Affiliate Marketing Equal Success

Do you live by the philosophy that what ever you do today you will harvest tomorrow, you are a very intelligent person. Then you also know that what ever you do this week, you will reap next week, and if we bring it up one step: What ever you do in 2010 you will reap for years to come. This couldn’t be more true for your affiliate marketing business or what ever internet marketing you do. Or in any other area in your live for that matter.

In our first year in this business we worked our tails of without to many results (as we could see than), and we used a lot of time and money on education that all said we would succeed quick like: ” Make $30 000 in your first 30-60 days bla bla bla”. And we all know this is BS for the majority of the people. There are a lot of affiliate marketers that makes these amounts and more each moths, but in their first two mounts ever in this business? Don’t think so.

The Education from our first year in business are paying off big time now, and the reason is one major factor: TIME AND CONSISTENT WORK! We are getting a lot of traffic from work we did two-three years ago, and makes a lot of money from it. But we didn’t see a dime in our account back then. The reason is simple: It takes a long time for your work to be indexed by the search engines, it takes time for your blog to get a decent page rank from Google even if you follow our guidelines in our free e-book: “The Blog Set Up Check List 2.0”. From the time you submit your “killer article” it will take some time before you get some serious traffic. So if you like to be success full in your affiliate marketing/internet marketing business and you don’t have a lot of money to invest in your business but time. Follow these steps for a least 12 months:

1. Set up your blog. This will in time be the “nerve center” in your business for years to come if you follow the steps in our free e-book.

2. Post regularly on your blog, three times a week is a good start. When you reach 100 posts you will see traffic you never thought possible.

3. Submit one article a week to “top ten article directories”. Submit only original content here!

4. Set up a blogger blog with two keywords linking back to your “nerve center”, this will simply give you more quality back-links to your main blog.

5. To get some fast traffic, sign up at relevant forums with more than 5000 members and post there 2-3 hours a week without SPAMMING, just leave your link in your signature field (just use forums that allows links in the signature fields) This is another great way to …

Email Advertising – 3 Common Mistakes

Email advertising is a very efficient way to promote your business and is a perfect example of online marketing automation. However many approach this strategy the wrong way which results in decreasing the marketing effectiveness of their messages.

3 of the most common errors committed that diminish the marketing effectiveness of an email campaign are discussed below!

Foregoing Relationship Building

In just about every case the only reason people opt in to your list is they feel they will benefit in some way! The last thing you want to do is flood their in-box with nothing more than sales pitches! Offer subscribers useful information and speak to them in a casual and sincere way and don’t regard them as a sales target. The best way to promote your business to these subscribers is to show them your willingness to be helpful and with no strings attached! By doing so your marketing effectiveness will increase when you do make an offer to them! Focus more on being helpful and less on making sales and in the long run you will be more profitable in doing so!

False Product Claims

What need do you have in hyping any product or service to the people on your list? Think about this for a moment! Firstly hype is typically used to capture a persons attention however if these people have subscribed to your list I believe you already have their attention! Secondly consider how you would feel or react if and when someone uses hype on you! Remember when you promote your business you are also promoting and branding yourself! Making false product claims is NOT the brand or image you want to have online!

Misleading Subject Line

By saying whatever you may think it takes to get people to open up your email, you will quickly lose their confidence in you! The worst of it is usually these subject lines bear little relevance to the content found within! Now in this case you’re branding yourself as an irritating liar, good going but this brand is no better and possibly worse than the one we discussed above! Always keep your subject lines relevant to the content of your message or people will simply unsubscribe! If your word is not taken as true or accurate your marketing effectiveness will suffer as a result!

Remember these people were good enough to join your list and for that you should be thankful so don’t abuse them or you will lose them!

Email advertising is a very effective way to promote your business and when done correctly is a shining example of online marketing automation. Many people however severely diminish their marketing effectiveness by using strategies that are far too aggressive. The discussion above reviews 3 of the most common mistakes marketers commit in their ‘bull rush’ to make a sale! Recognition needs to be given to the fact that the people on your list will remain subscribers and likely periodic buyers …

Marketing Automation And Lead Nurturing – Not Only For The Big Guys

The common perception among marketing managers at relatively smaller companies is- we are too small to think about marketing automation or implementing a lead nurturing program. Many a times, it is difficult to break this perception although there are solutions available which suit the needs of smaller companies. It is very common to hear thoughts like ” we are interested in setting up lead nurturing program but we just have about 100 inbound leads in a year” or ” we don’t have the budget to invest in marketing automation technology so we will stick to email for the time being. If you believe in the same thought – I differ to this idea of lead nurturing being exclusively for the big guys.

It is true that a large company with thousands of leads from different sources needs some form of marketing automation to find which ones are ready to be engaged. The lead nurturing program is capable to deal with individual lead level. The question which pops up- can lead nurturing help to a one man marketing sales team armed with a list of 150 target accounts and 300 decision makers, the answer to this question is a big YES. Let us understand it with the help of an example- If email are sent to all the 150 target accounts, it is still very much possible to keep a track on the response and study their level of interest. Personalized emails can be send and according to the interest levels we can get in touch with the prospect or even not connect them till they are ready. It’s an effective way to keep in touch with your prospects who are not yet at the buying stage of the cycle.

So why does many believe that it’s out of reach or they are not big enough to make use of something like this? Is it the budget? Many of us read about how global giants managed to drive millions by nurturing their large databases, it doesn’t mean it is out of reach or expensive. It should be accessible and coast effective to both big and small companies.…

Does your home appear dull and lifeless? If so, landscaping can provide many benefits. Just a token amount of landscaping can really make an old home look like a stunning piece of art. The tips in this article will guide you down the path to yard rejuvenation, so read on.

Try sketching out your ideas on paper prior to starting any landscaping project. When you make a sketch, you get a visual of your ideas and you will get a more realistic idea of what tools will be needed to finish the job. You can also adjust the sketch more easily than you can the yard after you have made the alterations.

If your landscaping plans include an outdoor kitchen, it pays to use granite as your primary material. Although granite may be expensive, it has many advantages including less maintenance and the ability to place hot pots on it without damaging the surface.

When planting your garden, ensure you have focal points for all seasons. Select different plants that flower in different seasons, paying attention Home Improvement Contractors to what will grow well in your area. You can also pick trees with nice foliage or evergreens which make your yard look alive all year long.

Select plants wisely, because that could seriously affect the result of your overall landscaping project. You want to avoid things like putting plants that need lots of sunlight in a shady area. Don’t plant trees if there is not enough room for growth. A little extra effort means that you will have beautiful, healthy plants.

Now that you are aware of the advice presented here, your yard can be a beautiful and exciting place. You can make your home look very vibrant and as though it was part of a film. Take advantage of this advice and you are on your way to a spruced up home.…

Article Marketing Automation – More Than Just Submission to Article Directories

Article marketing automation can help you save time and money, especially if you outsource your article writing work. This is because a single article gets submitted to multiple article directories under the same author name. This means no content duplication plus wider exposure to your target readers, more so since these directories have content syndication members regularly taking published content and syndicating it on their sites. This then means more exposure and backlinks for you and your sites.

Article marketing is a content marketing strategy. It can direct target readers back to your sites when your article content is properly written. It can also get more target viewers reading your articles because your published articles can have high search engine rankings for your target terms.

Usually, you submit articles to directories which publish your articles for free. Many think that article marketing will bring more visitors to the website: true, but not directly. Most directories do not send you a lot of traffic. What they do give is a keyword anchored link back to your site. It’s a well-known SEO tradition that the more keyword anchored back links point to your site the better it will rank in search engine results.

Article marketing automation is a new strategy for article marketing and the biggest break for anyone who likes their online business as automated as possible. Aside from just submitting to directories, it is also a link building service, or a source of free content for bloggers and a bum marketing tool (content marketing without a website). As a one-way link service, most directories frequently permit 3 links to be placed into the resource/bio box section of each article you write while there are others which allow your links to be placed in the body of your articles.

Backlinks are important for your SEO/SEM campaigns. Search engines like Google keep track of the links pointing to the content pages of websites, and when it finds a lot of links on high PR dofollow pages of sites with high domain authority, it considers the linked page to be important and relevant to the keywords used as anchors of the links. This then means higher search engine rankings for your content pages after relevant keyword searches.

Article marketing automation can automatically submit your articles to directories as well as to blogs relevant to your keywords. For example: if your article is about dog grooming, then it is posted on blogs about pets and petcare. If you write about cooking, your article will be posted on blogs about food and health.

With automated article marketing, your articles are distributed without requiring much manual work. This means you could get more traffic from your work since you can write more articles and have them submitted to article directories and blogs or other sites without wasting time submitting them manually.

Article marketing automation also ensures that your article is slightly different each time it …

Tips When Printing For Business Marketing Material

A successful and effective marketing plan is a crucial part of the success of any business. This is why you need to carefully consider every aspect when printing for business marketing material as this will influence the success of the marketing plan quite a lot.

Here are a few top tips that should be noted when printing for business marketing material:

The first thing that you need to determine is what exactly you are advertising. Are you advertising a certain promotion? Or are you selling a product? Either way, you need to make sure that your advertising material makes it clear. People need to easily understand what you are trying to sell.

Remember that most marketing media have the sole primary purpose of attracting new business. This means that you simply need to entice potential clients and make them want to find out more. You do not need to include every last detail about the product or service on the pamphlet. Include just enough information to make the client want to find out more about this product now.

Always ensure that your contact details are clearly visible on all promotional material. A potential client should never have to look for a way to contact you. When printing for business marketing material there should be a few different contact details included. For example, try to include the address, email address, website and contact telephone number for your business.

Make sure that the design of the printed material reflects the correct image of the business. Market material is a direct reflection of the business and helps to build brand identity. For example, if you are a creative company then your marketing should be fun, arty and creative. If you are an accounting agency then this type of marketing would be inappropriate and a more professional design would be better suited. If you budget allows for it then seek the advice of a professional graphic designer before you send the design to the printers.

When choosing a printer you should always opt for quality over cost. Never choose to work with a printer simply because they quoted you the lowest price. When printing for business marketing material the material needs to be printed professionally. High quality prints may cost a bit more but they will be a lot effective in the long run as they project a professional image of your business. Always ask to see samples before making any decision about which printing company you would like to use. You can then be sure of the quality of prints that you can expect to receive if you choose to do business with them.

If your take the above mentioned tips into account when designing and printing for business marketing material then you would be ensuring the success of the marketing plan and your business as a whole. Remember that marketing materials are often the first impression that potential client has of your business and this …

Marketing Automation – The Key to Lead and Demand Generation

Marketing Automation refers to the various software platforms which allow organizations to automate the repetitive marketing tasks. This results in increased demand and lead generation. Understanding the interests of the buyers and responding to it as if on a cue is impossible to do via a manual process. Automation ensures that the marketers target prospects with appropriate content when the time is ripe for the picking. This software platform customizes messages and automates the market communication timing.

Nowadays there are various tools available to the buyers which help them to make the right purchase decisions. Therefore, the organizations need to change their marketing stance and guide the prospects through automation software. This software prods the buyers to consider and then select specific products and services. This is done simply through proper timing of the right messages. On that precise information is given which the targeted customer needs to make the required decision.

Demand Generation:

Marketing Automation is the key demand generation, there is no question about this fact. In today’s highly competitive marketing scenario creation, nurturing, and the management of the buyer interest in specific product and services requires a change of strategy. Simply pushing messages under their nose is bound to fall flat and prove ineffective. An understanding of the needs of the prospects to facilitate the buying process is crucial. This is demand generation and it is successfully achieved through the use of Marketing automation software.

Demand generation is all about the gauging of the buyer’s area of interest, as well as the level and stage of that interest. A study of the online behavior of the buyers helps the software to pinpoint the time when pushing sales is going to provide the best results. For the demand generation to give the intended results through the automation process, focus on the quality of data is crucial. It needs to be kept current and precise.

Lead Generation:

Social automation software is the key to lead generation just as they are crucial for demand generation. With the help of this software it is possible to shorten up the time required between the generation of the lead and lead closure. This happens because this automated system takes into account every digital activity performed by the prospect before it is considered to be a sales worthy lead.

Lead generation is quite a complicated process which involves target account setting up, target segments, title cloud and multi-channel marketing set ups. Also, there is prospect identifying process, qualified lead establishment, sales qualifying, sales nurturing and the sales feedback. And this whole elaborate process is automated through marketing automation. This makes everything simpler for sales and marketing departments of various organizations.

Automation software helps in lead generation which can then be passed onto the sales team. Also, it is possible to cultivate leads using this process that are not even near sales closing. There are myriad benefits of using the automated system since when maintained …

It’s All in Your Head: Easy Ways to Stay Positive and Boost Your Business

I did a lot of things over the past few years to grow and expand my business, including working for the lifestyle I want, defining my ideal clients and taking care of my physical and mental health.

Part of my mental healthcare included maintaining a positive mindset and it really made a huge difference. It cleared my head and allowed me to really focus on my business. Here are the four things I did to create a constant source of positive energy.

1. No News!

My first rule was no news, no radio and no reading the newspaper. That meant not flipping on the radio in the car. It meant not turning on the TV – even for two seconds – because it seemed like I’d always hear bad news. It’s amazing how I always manage to hear about the top news items anyway.

2. Positive Programs and Music

I made sure that I had a lot of positive audio programs and music. This can be any kind of spiritual teacher, guru, coach, leader or author who resonates with you. Buy their audio books or seminars and put them in your iPod or on your computer; rent them from the library and listen to the CDs in your car. Positive, uplifting music is good too. I, myself, like music that includes chanting, affirmations and stuff that’s just fun and fancy-free. We all have music that puts us in a good mood – so use whatever works for you.

3. Positive People

I decided I only wanted positive people around me. That meant I needed to not hang out with some of my family and friends. I worked hard to avoid energy vampires – those people who are so negative they just suck the life right out of you. To be honest, for a while I went into kind of a little cocoon. I needed to reconnect with my family and myself and be very purposeful about who I was spending my time with. Also, I attended retreats and conferences that were in a positive, spiritual realm. If that doesn’t work for you, find something related to a hobby. For example, if you’re into genealogy or you’re a stamp collector – whatever gives you energy – put yourself in those environments.

4. Community Connection

I made sure I was connected to community. This is a really big one because we tend to isolate ourselves. As entrepreneurs with our own businesses – most of us in our own homes – it’s very easy to isolate. So, find some like-minded groups, like a book club, spiritual group or volunteer activity, and attend regularly.

Taking care of oneself physically and mentally – and keeping a positive mindset – is a great way to keep yourself in the game. You’ll be amazed at the renewed motivation you have for doing the things that are not your core passion, but will make …

How to Leverage Marketing Automation in a Hi-Tech Start-Up

Marketing Automation focuses on lead generation with targeted marketing programs to drive awareness and interest in a company’s products and services and nurture leads from first interest through to sale.

Commonly used in business-to-business (B2B) or longer sales cycle business-to-consumer (B2C) sales cycles, Marketing Automation is really the marriage of email marketing technology coupled with a structured sales process as defined by a customer relationship management (CRM) program.

Setting it up

Firtsly you need to configure your website to collect registration information which you can score in your Matrketing Automation program. Score thresholds need to be approximated to distinguish between those leads that are worth following and ones that should go into a nurturing program for further qualification.

If a lead meets the score threshold just by filling out the registration form it should be immediately exported into your CRM. If not, then a ‘leadflow’ should be used to ‘nurture’ the lead with multi-touch email campaigns until it has accrued enough points to be exported to your CRM as a ‘pre-qualified’ lead.

Points can be attributed to a nurtured lead when they open or click-through from an email or visit high-value pages on your website (e.g. a pricing page).

When you’re dealing with high volumes of leads a quantitative and dispassionate means of assessment is far more efficient than qualitative judgments made by different members of your sales team.

Marketing Automation and your CRM

Once a lead is in your CRM, then what?

If you’re using a Sales and Marketing CRM system, leads can be automatically assigned to sales reps depending on their location, industry sector or whatever parameter is right for you. ‘Views’ can be assigned for each rep that lists these pre-qualified leads. Once visible to reps, these leads can be moved into their respective Open Lead queue for further qualification. If the lead is interested but not ready to buy, they can be pushed back into a leadflow for further nurturing.

If your automation and CRM systems are properly aligned they can assist sales reps during their qualification process by presenting essential lead information right inside the CRM including lead score, latest activity levels and recent behaviours (pages visited, emails opened etc), giving your rep insight into hoe engaged the prospect is.

As your team grows you’ll need to keep on top of your lead scoring thresholds so that reps don’t starve. High score thresholds might stop a few sales reps getting swamped with leads (or only focusing on the best quality leads), but once you have the manpower there is nothing better than real salespeople qualifying real prospects.

One final tip is to ensure that all leads, whatever quality, are eventually exported into your CRM. Even though they may be disqualified by your marketing automation system, their behaviour can continue to be tracked and scored. You may want to periodically trawl through these disqualified leads to find out if any are responding to email campaigns or visiting …

How To Build A Mailing List For Your Business

Building a mailing list is one of the most important aspects of building and growing your business online. Most marketers online will tell you that the money is in your email list. Building a mailing list is a matter of some simple steps that you can take and build a list of customers interested in the services and products of your business. I will present some simple ideas that can be easily implemented.

Make an offer of something of value of interest for signing up. Providing your website or blog followers with a special E Book that is of interest to your readers in exchange for their email address when they sign up. You set up your email marketing software to send the E Book when they have confirmed their name and email after signing up.

Create interesting and valuable video and upload the video to sites such as YouTube. This is a great way to generate leads by having a link to your sign up page on your video channel profile. You can add a link in your video as well. This is one of the easiest ways as millions of people watch videos on You Tube and other Video Sites. There is an enormous audience for video. Using something as simple as a slide show presentation draws interested viewers.

Sign up for Google Alerts and Forums in your business niche. You can comment on these blogs and forums to build back links and get follow backs to your website or blog to where your sign up form for your list is.

Sign up to the social networking sites such as Facebook. You can publish your information and articles of interest and get link backs to your website and blog.

Using marketing automation software is the best way to build your business fast online. It is very necessary to acquire a good quality email software with auto responder to automatically deliver your products of interest for sign up and to create automated followup letters for your product sales.

For more information on list building with marketing automation software go here.…

Door Hanger Printing is Useful in a Marketing Campaign

Door hanger printing is an effective component of marketing campaign. It is well suited to a personal business like a homely eating joint. If you look around, you will find that a few restaurants are promoting their joint through door hangers in competent manner and are getting good response. This idea is well suited for small enterprises and helps to improve their businesses.

The focus is on the message that you give in the door hangers. This is the way to impress customers and it requires expertise of some class. The script has to be professionally written to highlight significant features of the business so that customers find it appropriate to the subject. The message should be clear enough to enhance the confidence of customers to try the product or a service.

As a store owner, you must give due consideration to the creation of a door hanger. The vital thing is the message in it, which is the key of achievement. Messages that you convey should be to the point, clear and genuine. Door hangers are most economic to produce and bring direct customers for the business.

You have to make arrangement to hang them by moving around your locality. It is not thrown away like the ordinary pamphlet, which we are given in stores. People read door hangers normally and come to know a product or a service. It is therefore compulsory to produce door hangers attractive and significant to draw attention of the people.

That is why this is regarded as an efficient marketing tool. The door hanger is often targeted to impress a certain section of people or a community who share common interest being in the same locality. The local promotion is increased by using door hangers. Local sales are backbones of any business organization and improving local relation strengthens it.

A properly managed door hanger marketing plan is able to reap rich fruits for your sales income in a very limited time. The effective message communication is done nearly cent percent in the door hanger printing and retail store owners profit from this simple tool of marketing.…

Benefits of Marketing Automation Software for Your Lead Generation Team

We all want to see a fitting return to the investment we put into our marketing and B2B lead generation campaigns. Marketing automation provides the modern-day business with the means to increase effectiveness and cut down running costs at a time when day-to-day costs are running higher and higher and marketing strategies become seemingly more complex by the day.

To reach your audience you need to boost activities across the board. Marketing automation programmes can help companies of any size and stature to change the way they operate in a marketing and advertising landscape that changes at a constant rate. It streamlines your focus and gives your B2B lead generation team all the tools to target your key audience and utilize strategies to reach them effectively.

Traditionally you would look towards word of mouth, trade shows and traditional advertising to reach your prospects. The time has come to integrate these methods with a modern approach to target specific industries and individuals.

There are a number of key benefits to installing marketing automation systems within your organisation.

For one you will see a rise in productivity. Your staff will be able to launch campaigns within a much quicker time frame due to the negation of repetitive tasks that were the norm with traditional marketing campaign planning.

You’ll be able to change your approach on a day-to-day basis, based on the mood of the marketplace. The enhanced flexibility is a joy compared to the set hard and fast routines of past marketing campaigns. Costs will also be reduced as you streamline your approach after a faster and in-depth analysis of differing methods.

Marketing automation software that is being released on the market today is highly intelligent and provides valuable information about what type of targets are working and why. You will be in a better position to make the right decisions from the beginning of campaigns in future as a result. The previously mentioned flexibility also allows for an instant and quick fix to any current problems.

This increased intelligence provides your b2b lead generation team with the necessary tools to tweak your output so that it is entirely personal to its recipient. Studies have concluded that you are more likely to see a response and shorten conversion and sales rates should you personalize your initial approach. If you get that first contact right you can ensure a better relationship that you can nurture.…

How to Effectively Implement Demand Generation Process

With all the B2B marketers these days focusing on revenue, customer centricity, content marketing and marketing automation as part of their strategies, it seems that they have the perfect mix of components to build and administer modern demand generation programs. However, in spite of all the efforts, modern B2B demand generation tends to fall apart in execution. It’s been estimated that nearly 70% of the demand-generation efforts fail to target the ideal customer, and technology marketers also report an average opportunity pipeline contribution at mere 27%. Successful demand generation execution needs bringing together of human resources, process, content and technology and getting these elements to work in harmony. This will align the buyer education with the different stages of lead qualification process. This will help coordinate the efforts of the marketing and sales team members while facilitating seamless tracking and hand-offs between the technologies systems.

Now, if you want to provide a value added first rated buyer experience while at the same time optimize the lead to revenue conversion you need to approach the entire concept as a clinical process and adopt a new design ethic referred to as demand process stewardship. So now the question arises that despite all the right intentions and efforts why we often fail to make the best use of the demand generation process. There are few fundamental barriers that stand in the way of optimizing the process to achieve maximum success.

Lack of organization in demand generation process

The objective of B2B demand generation should be to enable and augment the lead to revenue process. Yet most of the sales and marketing people fail to organize around this goal due to lack of coordination. Instead of rationalizing marketing and sales roles in terms of how they should contribute to the process jointly, it is more important to organize according to communication channels, such as email marketing or PR, or to the other activities such as events or campaigns.

In most of the cases, companies focus on campaign structure that is promotional and short-term,and fail to consider the perpetual nature of buying processes. Instead they should re-devise their marketing efforts, consider their role in lead engagement, nurturing and converse on and identify the team that will lead the demand process stewardship efforts.

Lack of proper understanding of demand generation process and inadequate training

In order to run a process successfully, one needs to understand and manage the operational dynamics of the process and deliver leadership that is completely goal B2B marketers are not sufficiently trained to perform these tasks satisfactorily. Most marketers’ experiences are communication facing and center around messaging and sales enablement. Also, failure to address the revenue performance and metrics required to optimize demand-process flows can render the entire process ineffective.

Evaluating the performance of demand generation procedure

Assessing the performance of the managed process on regular basis is vital. You should be aware of whether you have been able to achieve the desired outcome or …

Marketing Automation Today

The world of marketing is complex enough; add to it the intricacies of its activities and the tremendous amount of data involved, the whole thing is simply astounding. With the advent of advance automation technology, the monotonous tasks are greatly reduced with the help of intelligent software. Marketing Automation endeavours to greatly improve productivity and efficiency. First and foremost it automatically handles the tedious tasks that normally drain marketing personnel. Marketing covers a wide range of components that it seems just humanly impossible to maintain a high level of efficiency over a long period of time. Marketing Automation is designed to address the issue of flagging competence; and aims only to improve the effectiveness of every activity to ensure the sustainability of a healthy business organization.

For an organization to envision growth and stability, it has to invest in marketing its products or services. They implement these by aggressively coming up with ideas of different marketing strategies and marketing campaigns. The result is a scary combination of huge amount of data and terrifying tasks. It is where marketing automation comes in. Marketing automation will sort out the necessary data for detailed assimilation. Then it will make an elaborate profile on the potential clients and initially categorizing them by priority.

Marketing Automation is also heavily used in launching marketing campaigns through the web. It is such a very powerful tool in using the internet media as launching pad of these marketing activities. It is widely used to bring about adequate consciousness regarding the products or services of a particular company. These are implemented by making use of the email technology or taking advantage of the popularity of the social media. There are softwares that are designed to automatically send a valuable advertisement through an email and some even invade social media sites for a greater marketing access for the users. This scheme for sure increases the market range of these products or services.

Marketing automation will be of great use if you intend to increase your sales revenues. The ease to which you will achieve your goals will dramatically influence the growth of your organization. Marketing is such a competitive field; the most astute wins. With the use of this automation, you can amplify your marketing strategies which will apparently result an astonishing success.

Marketing automation is also capable of deriving a detailed analysis on the trend and tendencies of the potential and current clients. They can formulate a practical idea based on the given information and therefore craft an effective marketing plan. This is such a great help for the marketing personnel. Thorough information is a very potent tool in the field and will determine the success of the sales team.

There are so many softwares now that amplify the principles of marketing automation. Some of it are considerably expensive. You have to be able to identify your specific needs before you consider subscribing to any of these softwares. Migrating to an automation system is not an …

Understanding Marketing Automation Software, Email Marketing Software, and Customer Analytics

Using marketing automation software can be a beneficial thing for anyone wanting to streamline their business. Marketing automation technology can help take things such as understand customer analytics that would have to be performed manually much more automated and quicker allowing you to spend time on more important tasks. Marketing automation is best achieved through the use of email marketing coupled with a sales process in order to reach a wider audience of customers.

When it comes to customer analytics you want to know as much as you can. It is wise to know all about the spending patterns of your customers as well as potential future trends that may affect your business. A big part of marketing automation software is understanding customer analytics. This is because you can use this to help understand your customers and the profitability particular customers or demographics bring to you. Because if you understand who your customers are and who potential customers can be you can branch out with things like email marketing software in order to gain more customers. If you know who your customers are you can make sure that you’re going after all of the potential customers you could have been missing in order to achieve a higher level of success. Keep in mind that this can also help you from wasting your time in trying to contact those that are not within your range of customers, this way you can focus your energy on where you have been and will be successful.

What email marketing software does is send large bulk emails to potential customer in order to draw them in. This isn’t like spamming your customers, because if you use professional email marketing software the email you send out can be a simple thing such as notifications of sales or coupons and provide your customers with links to the products and services that they would be interested in taking advantage of. Email marketing has been used for a number of years by some pretty big name companies. It is a proven tool for success that can be used to draw people to your business. It is a good idea to have the email you send revolve around some new information or potential sales or products that are exclusive to your company in order to ensure the highest probability of success. Using your best judgment and solid business practices you can be sure to send out email only when necessary so your customers do not feel as though they’re being bombarded by your marketing.…

Automating Your Marketing Process

Lets start with a definition. To automate your marketing process means to simply have a documented process for this task to be completed effectively and efficiently. Now when starting out your marketing plan might change until you find the right marketing mix, but once you do find that right mix automate it.

So, here’s a few suggestions to help you get your marketing automated:

1. If you don’t already, learn to embrace technology. By embracing technology I mean regardless of if you sell online have a website for your business. Millions nationwide use the internet and more specifically the internet search engines when looking for their problem solver. I know when I’m looking for a product or service I take it to Google. So, when a potential client “Google’s” their problem you want to be sure to come up as their solution. So, DON’T miss out on valuable leads set up a website. I would also recommend having a twitter and/or Facebook page for your business as well. Twitter and Facebook are great promotional use tools for your business. You can use these tools to tweet/post specials, sales, updates, & coupons to millions instantly.

2. Have a lead capture system. Most potential clients won’t buy until they trust a product and/or service or they simply won’t buy until they are ready. So, for these reasons have a way that you can capture and store the details of those who visit and buy from your website or physical location. Capturing these details will enable you to build relationships, updates, and also do follow ups. When capturing these details you can also on your website or in store offer to the customer/potential customer the chance to sign up for free newsletters and to be sent promotional offers and etc. Be sure that when a customer signs up to send them a thank you.

3. Lastly, make use of auto responders. Auto responders are fabulous because they allow you to capture leads as well as manage and see statistics on your subscriptions and unsubscriptions. Also, with your useful auto responders you can automatically send or schedule to send messages, updates, newsletters, and etc. to every subscriber on your list or at a subscribers request. Remember automation is a good thing. Having automation in place for your marketing means less frustration, more time spent on other tasks, and better chance for business success because you are organized.

So, try automation NOW!…

5 Ways a Small Business Can Put an Automation Engine to Use in Their Email Marketing Campaigns

A huge marketing list chock full of customers does not always translate into repeat sales. In order to get customers to shop with you again, you must have a strategy that keeps them attentive, active, and engaged with your brand. A good automation engine can help your small business accomplish each goal, especially when using it for your email marketing campaigns.

1. Capture leads

A common feature of an automation engine is allowing users to capture leads from their website. This function typically integrates with the existing HTML forms on your site, collecting the data from leads and automatically sending it the destination of your choice, or the systems centralized database. Throw in an arsenal of lead management tools, and you have a solution that can be used to effectively track leads throughout the entire conversion cycle from prospect to customer.

2. Establish Relevance

When used effectively, an automation system will allow you to create one-on-one relationships with subscribers by ensuring that your communications are relevant. The technology makes it easy to employ the best practices of email marketing, providing a way to utilize segmentation, targeting, and event triggered communications to deliver content that it is the most relevant to the recipient. These solutions are increasingly proving to be quite efficient at engaging consumers.

3. Achieve Personalization

Aside from relevance, personalization is something all email marketers should strive for. It helps you stand out from the spammers by showing that your business has a human pulse and is not just firing blindly to the masses. Personalization becomes significantly easier to achieve when utilizing a fully integrated automation engine. Coupled with customizable email templates, rich, detailed profile data enables you to easily tailor your messages to the preferences of individual subscribers. There are even some systems that offer flexible batch signature rules that help you build trusting relationships with leads and customers.

4. Create Multi-Channel Campaigns

More small businesses are using automation engines to enhance their email marketing campaigns by integrating them with other communications channels. Most solutions allow you to reach out to clients and prospects via direct mail, voice messaging, and even fax. This gives your brand even greater reach by allowing your audience to communicate through their channel of preference. Furthermore, the ability to launch multi-media campaigns will help you enjoy an edge over competitors who are still confined to the email platform.

5. Analyze and Execute

Most automation engines provide analytics methods such as forecasting, dating mining, and market analysis, each of which helps the email marketer predict customer behavioral. This is in addition to opens, clicks, conversions and other standard metrics. The analytics data is provided to you in the form of comprehensive graphs, charts, and tables, making it easy to dissect the information and execute your campaign strategy accordingly. An automation engine is only as effective as the data it has to work with, so the more data …

How To Easily Avoid The Duplicate Content Ban Hammer

Duplicate content can be a serious problem for you because it can lower your ranking in search engines. Content that is not original will lower the value relevance of your site in the eyes of search engines, so your search engine position will likely suffer accordingly. Many web publishers do not intend to use such content but, unless your content is 100% original, you can get surprised.

Because there are millions of sites that are searched on the Internet, browsers quickly get aggravated by duplicate content, whether such duplication is intentional or unintentional. It can destroy any web site credibility and authority you may have in the eyes of your visitors. As they are searching they can easily see similar information in the description of your site as it appears in search results and they will pass you by because it does not offer something unique.

The first strategy to eliminate the trap of duplicate content is to create unique information yourself or hire writers. This content needs to be focused on your primary keywords. Otherwise, you are wasting time writing or money on ghostwriters. This includes creating a compelling description that surfers will see as they search for information online.

So, your main job should be to create unique information yourself or edit articles you pay writers to create for you. If you already have articles or content on your web site you need to run it through free online tools to check originality and make changes if needed.

Search engines like Google have “spiders” that crawl sites regularly and scan the content. These “bots” can identify copied or similar information and will penalize your site without any chance of appeal. Google will think you are a spammer even if that was not your intention.

One key is that the content of your site should have relevant and unique information to provide to your visitors. Get in the habit of creating unique information related to a specific theme or subject that will appeal to people interested in the subject. This will ensure that your site is highly regarded by visitors who may link to it and this gives you back-links that search engines love.

To make it easier for you, there are tools available to help eliminate duplicate content. These tools, like CopyScape (Google it), will show whether you have content too similar to other sites, particularly in articles, page titles, images, and other elements that can be found by searches on other sites.…

Whether you’re trying to increase your home’s value or simply beautify the place a little bit via a few needed improvements, you need to know what you are doing in order to avoid mistakes. This is the nature of home improvement work. It takes some skill to be a gifted carpenter. A handyman might not always know how to do home improvements. That is the main reason you should read these tips.

The more personal your renovations, the less likely it is that someone else will want to buy it for enough to cover the cost of the work.

An over-the-range microwave is a great way to save space in the kitchen. Most of these units have a recirculating air filter rather than an actual vent, so cooks that need strong ventilation should look elsewhere.

Paint stripes on your old walls prior to installing paneling! Regardless of the care you take when installing paneling, old walls have a tendency to peek through. To start, you can measure the places the sheets of paneling will connect.

Construction adhesive is great at stopping floor squeaks.

Consider radiant heat tiles if you’re revamping your flooring. These tiles use electricity to produce enough heat as well as providing a great looking floor. You can do this yourself if you have detailed instructions.This project can do yourself without any help.

Be sure to protect the floor while you paint. This will help ensure wet paint from damaging your carpet or floor. A cheaper way that this done is to layer old newspapers. Other options include a drop cloth or large plastic tarp; both are available at most home improvement centers.

Don’t get rid of bedroom doors simply due to them being dirty. Remove your door from the frame, and sand them down to the bare wood. Then buy any oil based paint of your choice and paint your door with a paint roller. For doors that you want to look new, consider changing your doorknobs.

The proper tools can make all the difference when working on a home improvement task. The right tools will help make the job is done right and done well. It also important that you know what the best way to use your tools properly.

Visit some open houses to find ideas of what home improvements you want to make. Lots of model homes are a great place to get good ideas.

Humidity caused by hot baths and showers can result in the growth of damage to a bathroom. Simply repainting over the bathroom walls doesn’t destroy the mold. You will need to be proactive to prevent mold from getting there in the first place. Put in a fan and make sure there’s ventilation.

Some home improvement projects are surprisingly simple and even fun. You may even think some projects are downright simple! But if you do not understand how to properly pull them off, you are going to cause a lot more harm than good in your home. You have …

Linking People, Ideas And Technology With Marketing Automation Solutions

Today’s marketers are using Marketing automation solutions to match buyer’s requirements, launch new activities and to direct the sales team to focus on leads and increase the ROI. The internet has changed the way buyers think. They dig out information on their own and decide when they are ready to. It is time for the shrewd marketers to join the bandwagon of inbound marketing and marketing automation solutions.

Why does my company need Marketing Automation Solutions?

There is too much data out there and managing it is getting challenging by the day. Information is power and tons of data is being exchanged daily. The marketing dept, the sales team, the customer service, everyone is using this information. But is it being used effectively?

Automation is filling the critical void faced by companies wherein there are separate tools being used for CRM, sales and marketing. With an automated platform these three can be integrated and the result will be a combined system that offers email marketing, web analytics, social media campaigns and content management.

Adopting effective Technology Marketing Solutions

Businesses are still scrambling to get their processes right. They lack in organization and planning. This is where Marketing Automation Solutions come handy and help business enterprises to streamline their marketing and sales function. Creativity and Innovation go hand in hand and help achieve maximum sales leads. Thus it provide a stable platform for the continuous changing marketing scenario especially for the B2B and B2C companies.

Every aspect of the business world has been digitized. E-commerce is being used for business expansion through various marketing tools like email marketing. This form of marketing is relatively cheaper and combined with automation; it can help enterprises to draft emails effectively.

Marketing automation solutions facilitate effective communication between the marketing and sales teams. Social Media Campaign, a part of an automated solution, is an equally powerful tool to acquire sales leads. This in turn will create a better ROI and a competitive edge for the companies.

How will the New Year be for Marketing Automation Solutions?

The marketing automation solution platform is going to gain immense popularity especially for the SME market.

It is expected that there will be a rise in the quality and number of features in the major marketing automation platforms in the coming year. The more the market gets competitive, the more the functionality will be sophisticated.

Conclusion

Thus an effective marketing solutions process can turn quality leads into sales. With an automated system, sales team can come up with better campaigning strategies and based on real data, the companies can gain greater control. Marketing automation solutions allow marketing to automate the most difficult part at the front end of the sales funnel so that qualified leads only make it to the top. These tools provide relevant marketing history to the sales teams so when they get in touch with the customer they are well prepared. And chances of a well prepared …

Article Writing – How It Can Help With Back Links

Apart from being an art, article writing is also a technique to draw online traffic. Articles need to be informative and well-written. Its purpose is to provide a means for expressing ideas and for informational communication. The sole intention is to engage the reader to click on the back link while informing about a service or product.

Article writing provides many advantages like increasing back links, link building, site traffic, and an effective way of making money online. It is considered to be a great marketing strategy to obtain free publicity and listings within search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo and others. It is considered to be a popular and economical way of advertising exposure and website promotion.

What should be the features of an Article?

Construction of an article involves the blend of information and marketing. The five essential components of an article are title, introduction, body, conclusion and resource box. You should keep in mind that the title must be attractive and include the primary keyword. The brief description of the article and a hint to the conclusion should be contained in the introduction. The body of the article comprises of the article’s main part, which also provides you the option of placing certain anchor text links. It is advisable not to place any anchor text link in the article body so that readers can complete reading the article. The conclusion should not only summarize the already discussed points but should also act as a prelude to the resource box. The resource box is in reality the author’s bio, which should be written in a modest manner with the HTML tags that form the back links.

Specific keywords should be used in the articles. As per the requirements of a search engine, the content needs to be revolved around a theme and should be interrelated. For attaining your website’s credibility and exposure, you need to submit articles to various related newsletters and article directories. At the time of submission, the website’s URL must be provided and the readers should be invited to visit the website.

Developing quality back links via Article writing

From various popular websites, back links can be earned to your site via article writing. Various articles on innumerable topics are contained within the article directory. The republishing of your articles by relevant websites can lead to the attainment of many quality back links. Your article can be liked and posted by web publishers on their websites. Though the publishing can be done for free, the publishers are required to copy the author information at the articles’ end. By this process, you are provided with back-links from their websites that offer exposure of your website and help in driving traffic to it. The modified versions of the same article in various other directories will ensure numerous more links. More number of links will ensure more readers or visitors of your website.

Readers reading the article can …

Marketing Automation Software For Huge Success

Today everything is available online. Business organizations are going online and of course your customers are online. So, if you have a business and do not market it online then you will be losing the competition and will left behind in the race.

In such a scenario, when everyone is online, if you do not have an effective online marketing strategy then of course, no one will know you and, hence you can not do business. So, online marketing is to be done will full force. There are a lot of methods that cold be used to market your business online. It includes email marketing campaign, business ads, article marketing, optimizing your website to be ranked in top searches of several search engines and a lot more. It is true that no single technique could sort out your problem and you have to use multi techniques to stay ahead of your competitors, especially when it is the case of online marketing.

So, what is the key to gain successes in marketing the business online? Well the answer to this question is applying several online marketing techniques as we discussed above or you can choose an alternative. So what is that alternative? The answer is an integrated software that could take care of all your marketing needs. There are a lot of marketing automation software available in the markets that provide instant marketing solutions for your business automatically. Such software are best used for all kind of business online. If you have just begin with online business or have a small business which is not enjoying good profits then such software is a must for you.

Marketing automation software are designed especially to cater business marketing needs that includes

1) Marketing your business or products.

2) Generating leads to your business website.

3) Increasing sales.

4) Attracting new customers / target audience / potential customers.

5) Retaining and developing new clientele.

6) Branding your business organization, etc.

The functions listed above are a difficult and individual task in itself. You have to focus and take necessary steps to attain the objectives given above. If you have a small business or do not have a team of professionals then attaining the objectives listed above is most difficult for you. Some small business owners get stuck in fulfilling efforts for these objectives and get unable to focus of their business.

Online marketing is not an easy task. Even if you have technical knowledge of technologies and facilities available online, you won’t be able to achieve the top results. For example article marketing, SEO, SEM, etc. are few fields that requires professional.

Marketing automation software integrates client relationship management; bulk emails or email marketing campaigns, ecommerce solutions / gateway, etc. Such piece of software has a database management system that allows you to store and manage details of your clients or prospective customers.

It is better that you go for such automated software rather than purchasing different software …

Customer Care Through Social Media

We explore how you can harness social media to enhance customer experience

In 2005 when Jeff Jarvis wrote of the ‘Dell Hell’ in his blog, the company retaliated with ‘We do not respond to customer complaints through blogs’. Dell was criticized for their ‘look don’t touch’ policy when it came to blogs. Today, Dell has a Direct to Dell community which features blogs by its officers, forums and even customer support. Dell’s also on Twitter and Facebook, out to solve client issues. Many big brands including Starbucks, HP, Comcast, Ford are using social media for customer service. It’s safe to say that the customer service canvass has been repainted thanks to the social media. Presenting a few tips that will help you jump the bandwagon of social media customer service-

1. Listen-browse around social media sites. Have your eyes and ears open for what people have to say. Before you jump in to defend your brand, listen and understand what the customer’s saying.

2. Act-so, now you know what’s really bugging your customer. This is the time to act. I was surfing the net and came upon a blog where the blogger said that he hated HP. As I scrolled down the comments section, I noticed that one of the HP guys had responded, ‘Sorry that you had a bad experience with us. Can we touch base and discuss this?’ Sometimes, hapless customers dash off complaints and type out all their frustrations onto their blog/Facebook page. Once they get it out they’re generally much calmer and would be willing to speak. Or may be they just wanted to be noticed so that their problem can be solved. So go head and start acting the way that helps solve their issue.

3. No scripting- be yourself on your blog/Facebook/Twitter interactions. Do not, and I repeat, do not use scripted answers. Remember your clients should know that your company cares. They are not looking for an automated response.

4. Don’t ignore-if you’ve got your brand on the social media, then you have to be diligent. Never ignore customers. Sure, you may have someone asking the simplest of questions, but they’re putting those questions to you because they need help. Revert at the earliest.

5. Don’t bluff-this rule applies to customer service through any channel, not just to social media. But bluffing on social media can prove even more costly. Your inability to stand good on your promise could be broadcast to net surfers around the world.

6. Ask-the best thing about social media is it puts you directly in touch with your customers. Use this powerful medium to talk to your customers. Ask them what you can do to make their lives simpler. That’s the easiest way to increasing customer satisfaction and them what they want! Check out Dell’s IdeaStorm page to see what I’m talking about.

7. Customers, your brand builders-Brand building has evolved. It’s not just about advertisements or discounts any more. Today, a brand …

How Article Marketing Can Help Your Enterprise

If you are an internet marketer or a website owner, you know that one of the best ways to get the word out is through article marketing. This particular method of online marketing is highly ideal because people use the Internet to find information. When you write informative articles with links back to your site, you can expect traffic to come in consistently.

Benefits of article marketing are… Read on to find out.

With this method, you are establishing yourself as an expert on a certain subject. A lot of people actually go to article directories to discover new ideas and thoughts. Thus, if you submit an article to these article directories, it is like bringing your site to the public eye.

Subtlety is the name of the game when it comes to these article directories. You have to write a relevant article on the product or service you are offering and likewise, highlight its features and benefits. A compelling and quality article will then encourage people to visit your site for more information.

A great thing about this method of online marketing is that you are able to hit two birds with one stone. Aside from getting exposure from article directories, you can also craft your articles in such a way that search engines will pick them up for particular keywords. Therefore, you need to optimize each article for a certain keyword you are targeting. Once the search engines pick up your keywords, you’ll have an instant boost in search engine results standing.

Article marketing is also ideal for small business owners because submitting articles to the thousands of article directories in the web is free. You can write your own articles or have them outsourced. The key to effective marketing is to place a link on your resource box so your readers can follow through to your site. The more article directories your articles are published in, the more backlinks you will get. With a lot of backlinks, you can expect a large traffic volume and an instant high-up from search engines.

After submitting to article directories, you need to ping the search engines so that it will be easier for them to find your article. Bookmarking your article and pinging its bookmark URL should also be done to create more backlinks.

Article marketing is something you can use for your business. With the number of searches for information daily, you can’t go wrong with providing quality content for your readers. See your traffic increase with this form of online marketing.…

This article will give you some great ideas for improving every area of your home.

Use fans to cool your house in the summer months in order to be more energy efficient. Ceiling fans are great for increased circulation and therefore help keep the room cooler.

It can be a very expensive to purchase brand new furniture. You can spice up your living space by using previously owned pieces that you have found at a garage sales. You can locate amazing gems among the used furniture items. Some may need to be worked on, but with a little elbow grease and time, they can be a real asset to your household.

Construction adhesive is great at stopping floor squeaks.

Think about your improvments before you do it.A plan is essential if you want your project to be within your budget and completed on time.Contractors will be much happier if you already have a good idea of what you want before construction starts.

Make puncture holes along the rim of the paint can rims with a nail. Use a nail and drill holes in order to solve the problem.

Don’t buy furniture that has busy patterns. You can use different colored pillows and throws to create a commitment.

Building materials can be stored between floor joists or ceiling rafters. You can put many different things up your big pieces of molding or wood in these areas. Just put some furring strip across those too exposed floor joists and slip your material inside to store it.

Get references from anyone you hire to do improvements at your behalf. Think of this in terms of importance as you are hiring an employee. You should have to know if the job.

It is critical to inspect these items regularly to see if necessary. If not cleaned regularly, it can catch fire and debris can clog your gutters and downspouts, this can result in water damage when not addressed.

Invest in a drain snake for your drains.It will save you money on expensive and toxic drain cleaners as often. Drain snakes are not for the completely inexperienced, so you might need a plumber to show you how it is used for the first time.Snakes come in different sizes and lengths so make sure you get the one right for your drain before buying one.

Mounting a television on the wall can free up valuable floor or surface space, or at the least one can clear off space from whatever their tv was previously sitting on. This is an easy project that can be done in under an hour if you do it properly.

Pick a color for the room in question. Complementary colors look nice in formal rooms like the dining room. This is a very effective way of colors and is very effective and visually challenging.

Now that you are equipped with some handy tips, you are ready to take on one of your many future home improvement projects. You can make your dream …

You Have A Facebook Business Page, Now What?

You’ve set up your Facebook business page and now you need to make the most of it. The key to any small business social media marketing plan is to be active on your Facebook page. In order to attract fans, get more Facebook likes, and keep them engaging with you, you have to give them a reason to do so.

Social media marketing is an ongoing process. Your Facebook business page is your chance to show off your brand, and let people know what you are all about. It is more than just promoting yourself. You need to inform, entertain, and engage your followers.

Content will always be important so be sure to keep it relevant. You wouldn’t go into a bakery to buy your steak, and your fans won’t come to your page to hear about things that have nothing to do with your industry. People want to be “in the know” and to do that, they need to have current, relevant information. Whether you are running a contest, having a sale or other event, or have some interesting industry news, keep your fans informed.

Another way to engage your followers is to entertain them. Post a video or funny pic and challenge your fans to caption it. Run a contest and encourage your fans to share and invite friends. Get them to help spread the word about you. Be sure to reward them with a prize. Prizes don’t have to be extravagant. Make them relevant. People follow you because they are interested in your product or service, so why not reward them with something free from you.

Finally, ask questions and start conversations. What better way to give your fans a voice, than to ask them something. Let them know that their feedback is important to you. Nothing is appreciated more than feeling like you are being heard and included.

Small business marketing doesn’t have to be bland and boring. Remember to be informative, relevant, and bring some fun into it. Get fans interacting with your brand and they will share it. Everyone loves to be part of a good conversation and contests are a great way to keep people motivated to stay engaged with your brand. Be active on your page. There’s nothing worse for a fan than liking a page that never has anything to interact with. There was a reason they “liked” your page in the beginning and you need to give them a reason to keep coming back. One last thing to remember is the importance of keeping the “social” in your social media marketing!…

The Easy Way to Put Your Time to the Fullest – Article Marketing Automation

The only drawback is that it requires the merchant to dedicate more of his time to it. This makes the merchants to juggle his hours in order to also devote some of his hours to his family and at the same time to enjoy his leisure hours. There are also instances where an individual is still tied up in a current employment and waiting for the right time to tender his resignation. The easiest way to put your time to the fullest and getting a lot of things done is through Article Marketing Automation.

Putting your articles in an adequate amount of locations to get it to the spotlight is the most time-consuming and wearisome part of marketing your article for your online business to take off. It requires just a small budget and is simple to do although the required time in grabbing the spotlight (so you get to be read) in the appropriate locations can occupy much of your time. Article Marketing Automation gives you the opportunity to have the easy way of putting your time to the fullest.

The role of Article Marketing Automation is primarily to assist you. To get you introduced to it, it is a conglomeration of self-regulating sites and blogs with the aim of handing out articles for the different members of Article Marketing Automation set-up.

What is good about article marketing automation? You get a good amount of sites where blogs can lead you to a bigger connection for your own site. The network keeps on growing and currently has more than 2,000 members.

Growing logically, it is the best cost efficient and time efficient method of writing articles for marketing. In just a matter of 3 weeks, it can help you land on the first page and as a matter of fact, trainings on this aspect are given out. Aside from giving you pertinent substance for the websites and blogs that you own, it also issues your articles extensively.

Article Marketing Automation works this way. You write an article or ask someone to do it for you, and then present it to the network of article marketing automation. It is trouble free and very straightforward. Once presented to the network, you article is allocated to different but applicable sites enabling you to have more publicity, connections and creating your influence and traffic.

It assists in giving you the proper training to use the network effectively and to get the results from your own hardships. By just a period of 2 – 3 months, this mechanization will push you to the top. To attain success in the field of article marketing is their aim and that is why they will give you the needed support you need.

It may be new to your ears but it is a fact that article marketing is the new and easiest method to pierce through Internet Marketing. It can assure you to …

Strategic Business Partnerships Grow Small Businesses

Developing strategic business partnerships should be part of every small business owner’s growth plan for the company. A strategic business partnership has several benefits for the companies involved including: access to existing customers, quick penetration into new markets, enhanced branding, and others that may not be so apparent such as cost reduction benefits from utilizing a partners employee base or getting price breaks from suppliers due to an increase in orders to fulfill new demand. The best business executives and small business owners understand that it is very difficult to execute growth plans alone and aligning with other companies that have mutual interests and a shared target demographic is the right solution. Building a successful business partnership has its difficulties and limitations as well, but the time spent in researching, negotiating, and finally implementing a new strategic business partnership can result in a tremendous return of investment that would rival any internal efforts in the same amount of time.

Find New Customers in Target Markets

The cost of acquiring a new customer is never cheap. However; by aligning with the right partners that can deliver clients a small business can then focus on providing a high level of customer service and getting the most out of what strategic business relationships provide. After a company’s executives have decided that forming business partnerships is the right path for the business, it’s important to research and identify a strategic business partner that can either lead you to many future business partners or has a large existing customer base in the area you intend to service. Just because a company has a large number of customers and they’re in a similar industry does not always mean they will be the right choice. The potential new customers need to be in a geographic location that you can easily service unless the partner is willing to take on additional roles and responsibilities, which could range from sales calls to product delivery to customer service.

Strengthen Brand and Marketing Capabilities

The right strategic business partner should elevate the business’s brand and reputation in the industry that it services. When researching and identifying a partner make sure to take note of how the other company is viewed by its customers, competitors, and the market in general as any positive or negatives will rub off on your brand due to the execution of a business partnership. This can be the quickest way for a small business to achieve name recognition within its industry, by developing a relationship with a large business that already commands respect and is known for delivery high quality products and services with excellent customer care. It is critical during negotiations to fight for co-branding, which may be difficult depending on the nature of the business relationship. If a major concern is being overshadowed by a partner in marketing due to their size and resources than it’s important to make those concerns known prior to moving forward. However, for many …

New Business: Tips That Will Help Pt 1

Whether you are thinking about starting a new business or have in fact started a new business, there are many things you can do both right and wrong that will either help or hinder your progress. It is very easy to do the wrong things and suddenly find yourself back at square one again with a failed business behind you. However, it is just as easy to learn the right things and steps to do, to make your business a winner and stick in the hearts and minds of your customers.

Below are ten tips that have proven to be effective with helping in business, some learnt through interactions with others, some learnt the old fashioned hard way.

Expectation management. If you set expectations correctly with your customers and then exceed them you’ll always be the hero, even if these were set very low to start with. Think EasyJet.

Don’t be scared to say ‘no’ to customers when they ask for credit or extended terms. Cash flow is the life blood of all SME businesses so, keep control, pay suppliers on time and don’t let customers steal extra credit days.

3Hs: Hardworking, Helpful and Honest creates good working relationships throughout.

People like to know they are being thought of. Immediately after a meeting (the same day ) find contacts on Twitter and LinkedIn and connect to them and you will stick in their memory for longer.

Focus on what you do best. Every business person has their strengths and weaknesses. Great sales people are not always the best at paperwork and administration. Recognise your weaknesses and think about how you can outsource those tasks.

Invest in your employees. A happy work force is a productive work force. Staff need to be kept motivated. Clearly define their role in the business and make them feel part of a team.

Cash is king, keep it flowing. More businesses fail because of poor cash flow management than any other reason.

By all means, utilise the web for e-marketing, budget the balance right. Your Twitter and Facebook fans and followers don’t want to see lots of similar updates from you in a small space of time.

Don’t complain about competition. Use it as a way to guide your business ahead. In particular, in the technology area, don’t stand still. Constantly learn new skills and techniques and use these to create new products and services that your rivals are too slow to master.

Instead of having a seminar that sells someone something, educate them on a subject that is relevant. Improving someone’s knowledge is a more powerful tool than trying to sell them a product.…