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Building Your Opt-In List

As more and more people are venturing into Internet based business, competition is fast catching up. The need is therefore being felt to develop new marketing skills and various strategies are being evolved for this purpose. Though online marketing has shown a sudden growth, many have been already feeling its rise and taken pro active steps to cope with this oncoming challenge.

The result of all this is the demand for online marketing tips and strategies. This has given birth to Internet marketing strategies as a new form of business. You will find several offers of marketing strategies which will give you an advantage in your business. While this may be available at a price you can also look around for low cost ones that meet your budget.

Yet another strategy would be to go for opt-in mail marketing. This in other words mean marketing by permission. For this purpose you need marketing materials like newsletters, and promotional mailings via e-mail. The more opt-in marketing mail is sent, the more chances there is to bag sales and get repeat sales. Opt-in marketing requires the permission of a willing customer to subscribe to your marketing materials. Your list gets build with all those who want to subscribe to your opt-in marketing list.

Since the people in your list have opted to be in your marketing list, this list is a good source from where you get your customer!

It may at first look difficult to build an opt in list. Find out from other available sources and information the various methods used by other people and adopt your own strategies. A little patience and persistence will soon get you results. Whatever methods you would wish to adopt, certain basic essentials could be useful.

1) The content on your homepage should provide a good impression. A visitor to your website may leave your site without signing up if they do not find something interesting. At the end of your content, add a good web form. State that you have more interesting information and whether they would like to have more of these information through further updates. Your statement should tempt them to give their name and email address. Once done, the web form will save the information for you and build your opt-in list.

2) Ensure that your homepage is well written. Your site should be easy to use and understand. It should be equally attractive with beautiful graphics and able to capture your visitors fancy.

3) If you need returning visitors and customers, you should be able to provide useful products. A satisfied visitor will come back with more business for you or recommend your products. You will thus have more people joining your list.

4) Do not provide the emails of those in your opt-in list to others as they may get spammed. Your visitors will lose their trust and confidence in you. Build loyalty.

5) Update your list regularly and keep it clean.…

An Introduction to Cross-Channel Marketing

Cross-channel marketing is often mixed up with the concept of multi-channel marketing. In truth, they’re two entirely different things. Here are some of the primary differences…

Cross-Channel Means Channels Crossing

Well, obviously, right? But the basic definition of cross-channel marketing is that you have two different forms of marketing, say, a website and a catalog, and both of them are leading prospects to the other. In the cross-channel structure, you have two forms of marketing supporting one another like a pair of crossed fingers. They are both strengthened by the other, and in fact, intertwined to the point where they are best kept part of a singular ad campaign.

Multi-Channel Just Means Many Channels

Advertising using print, the web, television and radio is not cross-channel marketing unless they are actually referring to one another in some way. A radio ad that says “Get online to see more great deals” or “Check out our catalog for a great deal” is cross-channel. A radio ad that simply says “Come on down” is multi-channel marketing. Multi-channel simply means that you have multiple channels for marketing, regardless of whether or not they are “crossed.”

Using Marketing Automation Software in Cross-Channel Marketing

Crossing your channels can be easier if you have the right marketing automation software. What you’re looking for is software that is, first of all, easy to use. No matter how powerful, efficient or effective it is, if you can’t get it working then it’s not going to do you any good.

Email campaign management is one of the easiest things to do with marketing automation software. If you ever want to test the waters with a new program, just try out a trial run of a new email campaign and see how it performs.

Cross-Channel Challenges

However, you should know that cross-channel campaigns can be tough. They come with a lot of challenges. One of the main issues is that the data can be a little harder to track. It’s difficult to be absolutely certain as to whether or not the catalog campaign is working, for instance. The only way to know for sure is to stop running the catalog and see if it hurts your other forms of advertising.

Of course, nobody ever said that tracking data in a marketing campaign was easy, but when you start mixing your media, you can be surprised how fast it gets out of hand for an amateur or even a pro. This is why the right email campaign management software is so important. At the very least, if you can make a few parts of the job a little easier, then you absolutely should.

Is it worth it even with these challenges? Absolutely. Today’s consumer is unpredictable. You may think an email campaign is enough, but some people still don’t use computers. You may think email and a catalog will do, but some people throw catalogs away. Covering as many bases as you can and trying to bring leads …

The Real Value of Marketing Automation Software

Marketing automation software is such a name being given to a particular software platform which was produced for marketing divisions and companies as to make things easier by automating recurring jobs. If you would be working in marketing, then probably you’ve already known what this thing is all about. But just to make sure we have the same thoughts as well, then perhaps we could get to make some evaluation of marketing automation software.

This marketing automation software is a solution which provides innovative email marketing functions like landing page generation, complete analytics as well as multi-step campaigns. It could also involve sophisticated message testing and targeting attributes which can’t be found in a simple email marketing product. Marketing automation software is an essential feature of any CRM system. It plays such an important role in any online businesses. If you are making a business on the internet and wishes to promote it online, then you should be concerned with automated marketing software and the advantages which it could offer you. Promotion procedures such as incorporating customer information, customer segmentation as well as campaign managing could be time consuming if it is being done through manual operation.

Carrying out campaign would relatively become a lot effortless and more dynamic if you have this marketing automation software at your possession which allows you to perform processes such as summarizing initial proposals, accumulating and organizing feedbacks as well as collecting survey details. The data you would be obtaining is significant in aiming for your main customer sector and organizing persuasive messages. It would therefore be possible to automate your campaigns throughout various means which includes emails, phone calls and door-to-door marketing. The value and aptness of channels differs with the level at which your marketing campaign is.

It is therefore true that such a huge corporation having a huge number of leads from various sources would require some form of marketing automation to check out which are the ones prepared to be occupied. The lead promotion program is able to manage individual lead degree. If emails are being sent to a hundred target prospects, it would still be much likely to keep a trace of their feedbacks and levels of concern. Custom-made emails could possibly be sent through and based on the interest levels we could get in touch with the customers or even not make an interaction with them until the time they would be prepared. It is such a successful means in keeping in touch with the clients which are not yet in the stage of purchasing. Marketing automation software has its concentration on lead generation with targeted marketing programs as to make way with attentiveness and attention in an organization’s products or services and develop leads from the initial interest through sales.

The thoughts which you obtain with the assistance of marketing automation software allows you to plan the pattern of your webpage and include some factors unto it which makes surfing …

Why Is Social Media Needed in Small Business Marketing?

We are all witnesses to the Internet explosion. We have seen how people from various ages and class groups have risen to become giants in the World Wide Web. For small business marketing, social media marketing is one promising platform that has to be tapped. Let us run through how easy it would be to engage in e-commerce and optimize your social media marketing to promote your local business.

First and foremost, ask yourself this: Can you translate the opportunity to talk to your customers into a positive edge for your business? If you answer yes to this, then you should rally make use of social media for your local business marketing.

Social media enables your to get excellent and free feedbacks. If you can use this critical information to your advantage, it will give you the winning edge over your rivals. Take both bad and good comments. Reach and interact with your customers. Keep them near you be listening to what they have to say. Keep in mind that at the end of the day, your ultimate goal is product sales and customer care. Traditionally, getting feedbacks from customers entails large amount of money and resources. Social media made this very easy and more efficient.

Social Media enables you to know what your audience wants. It is crucial to fully be aware about what customers really want and what are they trying to look for in your type of products. Consider the age brackets, race, and gender as well. Figure out who will most likely use your products. Essentially, these are the major indicators in determining your social media market place.

Social Media enables you to establish leads and double up your online promotion. If your truly are active in participating in community forums, you will have bigger chances of drawing in people to your site. People generally favor users who are more active in online discussions. With the proper links to your sites, they will visit your site and read more about what you can offer. That is one of the magic of social media marketing actually, leads, traffic, and more sales.

Social Media helps in boosting up your brand. With the right and quality content, you will only have to maximize your presence in various sites that you are into to promote your products. Link up with your target consumers and get them to familiarize with your products. Your comments in community forums could help by placing relevant links or image ads for easy association.…

How the Article Marketing Automation Tool Can Help In Your Marketing Efforts

Ever since e-commerce commenced, one of the very first effective marketing efforts ever implemented online has been article marketing and up to this moment, it has benefited a lot of online marketers in their aim to increase website traffic. In fact its popularity and efficacy has increased significantly in the past years in article marketing that it has taken many forms and most website owners maintain one or two forms of articles. The reason why article marketing reached this kind of fame is because it is easy to do and implement and it is quick to make.

However, the challenge here is how to create articles and submit them to as many popular websites as possible to further increase your website traffic, because even if your articles are really interesting and worthy of reading, it would take a long time before the number of people that are able to read it is increased to the amount that you would want it to be if you are only able to send your articles to only a few sites. This is where the article marketing automation tool becomes very handy.

The article automation tool simplifies your article submission process because what it does is it automatically puts forward the articles that you write to different websites and blog sites all at the same time and all you need to do is monitor the submissions and make sure you do not submit twice in a specific website. Without the article automation tool, you would have to go through the tedious process of writing articles for all the sites you would want to submit your articles to but with this tool, all you need to do is keep track of the web sites you want your articles to be published onto.

Keep in mind that search engines use links as a criteria in ranking and the article marketing automation tool increases your opportunities to increasing the links that will direct people to your website and increase your website traffic, thus also boosting your page ranking as far as your status on search engines is concerned. If you are able to post your article contents in different web sites and social networking accounts, the article marketing automation tool then has been the key in getting you one-way back links which is very important in page ranking.

The article marketing automation tool definitely is a time saver and an income booster becomes it decreases exponentially your writing and submission tasks and at the same time provides many avenues in increasing your rank thereby further enhancing your online presence. It makes your article marketing efforts easier and quicker by minimizing the time that you spend in writing and sending out your articles to numerous sites.…

How to Improve Internet Marketing to Maximize Your Productivity

In a recently conducted survey of 37,000 Internet marketers, it was discovered that they all had one thing in common, the mass majority of them were all experiencing the same hassles and areas of frustration in their businesses, the bottom all wanted to improve their internet marketing skills but were at a loss as to how to do it.

The answer lies in the use of macros. So what is a macro and how can it improve internet marketing? A macro is a single computer command that initiates a set of instructions to perform a specific task. Another way to put it, it’s a shorthand representation for a number of lines of code. Simply put, a macro takes a series of tasks and condenses them into one or two keystrokes thereby freeing up the user’s time to enjoy life as they once knew it.

By the use of macros you can improve Internet marketing so much that it will literally cut down your workload from 8-12 hours a day down to about 1 hour a day. Imagine how this would improve internet marketing if you could use a macro to automate tasks such as:

Checking your email

Writing good quality content

Checking all your stats online

Managing all your websites

Managing your PPC campaigns

Building unlimited websites or web pages

Handling all your customer service

Logging into any website or member’s area

Creating backup files or folders

Other online business-related activities

Do you think your internet marketing would improve if you had tools like this available to you?

Computer Maintenance Automation

Display Automation

Dual Monitor Automation

Internet Bookmarks Automation

Logins Automation

Magic Text Clipboard 9X

My Jots Automation

Password Protected Macros

Quick Launch Automation

Quick Search Automation

Reminders Automation

Save Webpages/Websites Automation

Universal Address Book Automation

View Recent Items Automation

Web Design Automation

Web Page Source Code Automation

Renames Files/Folders Automation

One Click Unzip Automation

Make Money Now! Automation

Website Templates Automation

By using cutting edge technology like macros, you will be able to improve internet marketing which will allow you to spend less time doing all those mind numbing tasks and at the same time increase your overall productivity. Best of all your profitability would also increase as well.…

What Small Business Owners Are Missing Out On By Not Having a Website

Small business owners seeking to make their business more profitable or stable need not overlook the benefits of creating a website. Websites for small businesses offer amazing new opportunities that are otherwise unavailable. We have put together a list of what you are missing out on my not having a website for your small business.

Gaining credibility on a larger scale – Small business owners may have established their credibility with their regular customers or within a radius of a few miles. If they wish to build more credibility and share their expertise with more people than ever before, establishing a website where they can provide this information through articles, blogs, and videos is a great way to do this.

Molding Identity – Maintaining a website is a great way for a business to effectively mold how they would like to be perceived by patrons and others in the industry. It allows a company to have more control over the information that is provided on them and to have a better look into what people are saying about them.

Housing their own community – Unless they’re a coffee shop, providing a place where customers can get together and offer advice and share ideas can be pretty tough to accomplish. Having a website for a business can provide a place for patrons to do this easily by offering chat space, instant messengers, and comment room for company blogs and articles. This proves to be important because it gets people discussing a company’s products and services.

Generating more leads – It can be difficult to generate leads as it is, but the web can make it a lot easier. When a business establishes a website, they then establish an incredibly effective way to build leads. There are some great ways to do this: developing a social media following, gaining blog followers, providing forms on the website to collect submitted information, and building successful email marketing campaigns.

Establishing more professional contacts – Networking with others in the industry is crucial to a company’s success. The ability to share information and ideas with other professionals and build a relationship with them is key to building a successful company. When a company has a website they are able to create more contacts quickly and easily by letting everyone know who they are.

Interaction with more customers – A company positively interacting with their customer is imperative to maintaining and gaining loyal patrons. Customers have the right and a want to feel connected on a personal level to the company they are spending their money with. Having a website where they can interact with a company easily and directly communicate with them lays the ground work for a great business. Tying social media accounts in with a website is suggested if a company wants to optimize their relationship with their customers. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have provided superb platforms …

5 Step Article Marketing System – Step-by-Step Article Marketing Secrets

If you want an article marketing system to make money online, then read this. You will discover article marketing secrets to sky rocket your business online.

Step 1: Keyword Research

You want to do keyword research. You want to look for keywords that are relevant, have a lot of searches, and have little competition. You also want to look for a keyword that has between 3 to 5 keywords. This type of keyword (known as “long tail keywords”) can help you to rank higher in the search rankings since less people focus on it.

Step 2: Write Your Article

Next, you want to write your article. In the article, you want to write about a solution for a problem in your niche. So whatever problem or struggles that your niche market is having, then you want to write a solution for that in your article.

Another important thing is to pick one long tail keyword and place it in the important areas of the article. For example, you want to place your long tail keyword at least one time in the title, first sentence, middle body, last sentence, and resource box.

By strategically placing your long tail keyword in those areas, your article will have better chances of ranking higher in the search engines. That means your website will get more traffic. More traffic means more money in your pocket.

Step 3: Create Resource Box

One of the most important parts for an effective article marketing plan is to create a resource box with a strong call to action. The resource box is the place where you get to place your website link. The resource box is usually below the article.

You want to write a strong call to action in the resource box. This means, you want to tell the reader exactly what to do after he reads your resource box. You also want to provide a benefit for going to your website. So make sure to tell the reader a strong benefit. Then, the reader will most likely want to go to your website.

Step 4: Submit Article

The next step for the article marketing strategy is to submit your article to an article directory. There are hundreds of article directories on the internet. So search for an article directory and submit it to the most popular article directory.

Step 5: Build back links

Next, you want to build back links to your original article. After your article is approved, you want to build back links to your article. Building back links means you are building links pointing to your article.

The more other websites point to your article, the more you will be popular in the search engines. You can simply create more back links by submitting the same original article on different article directories. The only change is that you want to make the resource box link to your first original article. Thus, your first original …

Article Marketing Automation – Creating Your Own Money Making Success Plan

Tired of writing one article after another? Are you wondering about what to submit where, and how to get the most traffic from your efforts? You are not alone. Fortunately, there are ways to incorporate article marketing automation into your online marketing tasks. There are lots of free ways to create interesting unique articles quickly, and methods to submit your articles to the top directories in very little time.

Article marketing is a great strategy to use when you want to drive traffic to your website. The goal is to write as many top quality unique articles on a subject, and create an informative resource box and keywords for each one. You want to be knowledgeable about your topic, so the first step to creating a good article would be to read about your subject. Take notes about different aspects, and qualities. Use this information to search further and get more ideas about what to write. Creating an outline and breaking your subject up into several headings with blocks of ideas is the goal.

Once you have compiled the information, start your keyword research. Take some of the keywords that reoccur throughout your outline and check the traffic through free online tools like the Google Keyword Tool, or the SEOBook Keyword Tool. Use these keywords in the title of your article, in the first paragraph, and approximately every 100 to 150 words throughout your article. You want to include your keyword, and you also want to keep a natural rhythm in your work.

When you have written at least five articles, submit them to the top article directories. Take a few days and create Web 2.0 properties like Squidoos, or Hubpages. Link them back to your original blog to maximize traffic. Article marketing automation can be fun and easy. You have to create a plan for yourself, and discover what methods work.

Try to write a few unique articles everyday using these methods. Create a plan that you can stick to, and work everyday towards your goals.…

Can Your Business Benefit From Article Marketing?

Article marketing is one of the most popular methods of promoting a small business – whether you are an online business, a sales professional such as a real estate agent or a brick and mortar retail company. Not only is it easy, it is also low cost and even you can do it!

By writing articles in your area of expertise you are:

Spreading the word to your niche market

Demonstrating that you are the “go-to” person in your field

Creating a body of work that continues to promote you and your product or service long after the article has been published.

Keep in mind other businesses that target your same niche market are looking for quality content to provide to their readers. You can provide well-written articles for their blogs, newsletters or other media that is targeted to their audience.

This could even apply to a competitor! Take for example that you are a real estate agent in your local area that specializes in short sales. You could connect with another agent in another state to share articles that are posted regionally. When you write an article for someone else be sure and include a plug about you and your business at the bottom of the article (this is often referred to as a resource box.) Include a link to your website or blog. They get free content and you get free publicity! Win-Win.

Will article marketing work well for your niche market? If you have valuable advice to give to your potential customer – the answer is yes. If you’re selling a product or service or trying to drive traffic to your website, then article marketing is right for you. It is one of the best ways to boost your search engine ranking, drive targeted visitors to your website and help prospects build trust in you. Remember that before a sale is made, people need to know, like and trust you. Article marketing is a key component in creating trust.…

For More Beneficial Advantages to Your Online Home Based Business, Use an Inbound Marketing System

Legitimate online businesses can gain a huge advantage by making it easier for people to find them through search engines and mediums such as social media networks, so that rather than bombarding potential customers with advertisements, you will actually have them looking for you. The way to do this is be increasing your web presence and becoming well known online. Even though this process may take longer and it does require extra effort from you, it has some long term benefits that make it well worth pursuing.

Here are some of the advantages you will gain from instituting an inbound marketing system:

One big advantage of using an inbound marketing system is that it makes it much easier for you to allocate your resources. In other words you can control where and how people will be able to find your website, for example Facebook or Twitter. This also gives you the opportunity to control the kind of first impression you want to make. This way you can be sure that things are working the way you want them to, and if not then you can quickly change your tactics or make improvements to get the best results from your resources.

Another advantage is that you will be able to determine just how effectively your strategies are working. Let’s say for instance that you have a squeeze page that gives anyone who visits your website from Facebook, and signs up for your newsletter a free e-book. This will help to measure your conversion rates and you can then split test your landing page to get better conversions in the future.

Ultimately the consumer is the person who has all the power because they are the ones who make the decision on whether they want to take action or not. With an inbound marketing system in place you can improve your relationships with your customers and by using social media networks you can actively engage with your customers and be sure that they are satisfied with the product or service that you are providing. By presenting them with the opportunity to find you, instead of you actively seeking them out, you are allowing them the chance to feel that they are in control. This will also give you much happier customers.

Working with this type of marketing system forces you to integrate your various assets including your website, email campaigns, social profiles and squeeze pages. The advantages of doing this can make a huge difference to your company as it creates a central point that it brings all the functioning areas of your organization together.

Finally by integrating all of your digital assets for your home based business your customers will find it much easier to stay in contact with you and you with them, which makes the whole process of selling your products or service a more pleasant experience. So from this you can see that …

Methods for Effective Sales Collaboration

Business collaboration is nothing new. It has been in the business world since times immemorial. However this has gained a priority in the recent times, as more and more, people are merging two businesses to create an innovative and improved enterprise. This is helping both the businesses to garner more customers and the owners are becoming successful in their endeavors.

During the First World War, it has been found that work councils came into being in the 1940s. This was mainly popular in the engineering and technical departments in an organization. Collaborations in the world of business can be both intra and inter organization. The collaboration can range from the simple kind of partnership to funding of crowds to the complex situation of starting a multinational company. The collaboration between the team members also helps in the prosperity of the company.

Some of the methods that can be used for effective sales collaboration are as follows.

Team Lead:

Team leader is one of the most important people for the creation of effective collaboration both for online work as well as for the offline work. They are the ones who know how to build relationships with the partners or the employees for the effective working of the company. This is the reason why Bill Gates, Steve Jobs are well known as great team leaders who could lead their company from the front.

Dream Team!

The second element is a dream team which can support the team leader in his actions to make the team strong and independent. One has to be devoted to the idea of the product or idea and committed to the success of the other team member. Selecting individuals with the right attitude, skills, commitment level is very helpful for a team leader in making a good team.

Broadband Connectivity!

It is very essential to have a good and a reliable internet connection. In recent times, a major chunk of the work is done online. This is the reason having a reliable internet connection helps a person much. Web based applications, sending emails, management platforms, online editing documents or even blogging for the company will require the help of a good internet connection. Therefore, one must ensure that their internet connection is reliable and can work properly.

Sales Collaboration Software:

There is a number of collaborative software available in the market which you can install for completing the work fast and quickly. One can simply register and create an account with the help of which the person can coordinate work online using the project management software. This will quicken the pace of your work and you can select as per your needs.

Hosting Server

A good hosting server is essential for a company that will be working in collaboration. Account security levels, scalability, and downtime statistics are some of the elements that one must check before selecting the hosting server for their company.

Deploy these methods for increasing the effectiveness of Sales collaboration …

Marketing a Small Business Online – Crucial Step to Improve Your Business Online Marketing Efforts

Marketing a small business online is not that difficult when you break it down to small easy steps. Many small business owners do get overwhelmed in the amount of work they do for their day to day operations. But when you step back and develop a step by step approach it just makes it much easier for you to progress your marketing efforts. Small business online marketing is wide open for search engine optimization. Most of the local small business market is not utilizing the certain techniques to improve their web site results. Now picture your business on the top of each search engine results for your given keyword. Imagine how many free referral and product sales this can achieve. There is one critical thing you can do that will prime your business for a hostile takeover in your market. 

The most important part of marketing a small business online is to list your business on the local search engines. Google, Bing, and Yahoo all put out results for existing local businesses in your area. A quick search for “Accountants in LA” can show several hundreds of listings of accountants that are in the city of Los Angeles. Everyone knows that the Yellow Pages is not what they used to be. More and more people are using the internet to find products or services. Now imaging if you business was listed on top for accountants in LA. Off course assuming you’re in the accounting business. But go ahead and give it a try. Put your kind of business as the keyword and end it with “in your City”.   Replace your city with the city you live in. What are the results? Was your business listed? 

Let’s face it; marketing a small business via the Yellow Pages is becoming less and less common these days. Phone books just get tossed in the recycle bin every time I get them in my house. It is just a fact that I can find information much faster by using the internet. More people are getting online than ever before. Internet access is just the way television first got started; eventually everyone will have at least one in their household. 

Google, Yahoo, and Bing are slowly taking over your local search engine results page. It is time to ensure your small business is primed and ready. Visit the websites and find out how to get your business listed right away. I have been doing it for clients and some have gotten it listed into Google in less than 48 hours. The other search engines, Yahoo and Bing, take a little longer. For one thing Bing mails out a confirmation letter to your business mail box. …

MLM Opportunity – How to Be One of the Top Five Percent That Succeed and Thrive

It is a well-know statistic that 90-95% of all new businesses fail within their first year. This is no different when relating to an MLM or network marketing business opportunity.

What will set you apart from the crowd and allow you to not only succeed but thrive when so many before you have tried, given up, or flat out failed?

If you’ve been in the network marketing business for any amount of time you’ve probably heard about or been told to develop your “why”. Your “why” basically summarizes your motivations for joining your MLM company in the first place.

A strong why can help you remain centered and strong when struck by adversity. It gives you motivation when you are tired and inspiration when you’re feeling stuck.

I like to think of your why as passionate purpose.

So do you have a personally crafted, written down passionate purpose for your MLM business opportunity?

If yes, great! But I’m still going to suggest that you finish reading the article and go through the following exercises/questions.

If no, then now is the perfect time to develop this crucial piece of network marketing business success.

Most of the time people’s “why” centers around an income goal. For example, “My why is to make $5,000 per month so I can quit my corporate job.” Or “I want to get to the executive level so I can get the company car.”

And I say….Boring!! Ho-Hum. Is this really inspiring? Motivational?

Nope!

Let’s expand the possibilities and change your “why” to passionate purpose.

Passionate purpose is what makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning absolutely ready and on fire to begin the day.

Passionate purpose keeps you strong and steady in your business endeavors no matter who laughs at you or says no.

Passionate purpose keeps you holding your head high and inspired even when half of your team quits and joins the latest super-juice company.

So how do you dive past your normal “why” and connect with your passionate purpose?

Well, it’s going to take a little time and some soul-searching. Make sure you have at least 10-15 minutes to begin the exercise, a pen and of course some paper.

Ready?

Answer the following 5 questions as quickly as you can. No deep thinking, just initial reactions.

1. What gets you really excited? Or what do you love to talk about with anyone that will listen?

2. What huge problem would go away if you suddenly had unlimited money?

3. What problem scares you the most that money can’t solve?

4. You’ve been told that you have to start a charitable organization. What would it be?

5. List 5 reasons why you would start this particular charitable organization.

Put your answers away for at least a day. It is essential that you give yourself some time between answering the first 5 questions and finishing this …

The Unique Features Of Customer Relationship Management Software

Customer Relationship Management Software normally abbreviated as CRM is a special application properly designed to help a business organization or company in managing all data that are associated with its clients. Aspects covered include sales, marketing, ongoing follow-ups, support services and so on.

The CRM software is known for its wonderful features tailored to meet the needs of any business organization. Listed and discussed below are some of the vital features.

Multiple User Environments

The CRM software application comes with unique multiple user environment which allows every member of your organization to communicate effectively. Each member is allowed to have access to the schedules of the other members connected. This encourages effective network connectivity.

Sale Force Automation

This is another wonderful feature of the CRM software. It could be in form of Marketing Automation which enhances connectivity among marketing departments of the company making use of the software. This feature makes various marketing processes easier by automating repetitive tasks. Most consultants and marketing employees of the company benefit from the feature as they are given the room to specify various criteria and outcomes for all kinds of tasks and processes. The software interprets and stores the processes perfectly thereby reducing human error in the organization.

Effective Data Backup System

It’s always a tragedy to lose vital data in a computer network system by any means. The Customer Relationship Management Software has an effective hourly data backup feature that prevents data loss. You’re sure to retrieve all your data anytime as they are automatically secured through the back-up system each time an operation is being carried out.

Document Sharing

The CRM software also allows document sharing among all the members of the organization who are connected through the application. Each member can easily have access to other members’ document. This enhances perfect communication in the organization and also ensures quality output production.

Wide Range of Reports

The software allows wide range of reports in diverse manners. It supports proper email Marketing Automation and reporting without any hassles. This enhances the connectivity of all members using the software. Time is also effectively utilized in the process.

Indeed, the CRM software has other unique features such as contact and lead management, import and export functions, customizable knowledge base and so on. It also has features that support outlook express and other likely applications. Your company stands the opportunity of changing level digitally when this software is properly installed.

Finally, you can always go for the best type of CRM software application for your company. You can go for the locally hosted version which demands your constant control and management. You can equally go for remotely hosted version which is usually hosted by the CRM Company that provides the service to your organization. This last option is usually the best version since, the responsibility of managing the technicalities software rest on the shoulders of the CRM service provider.…

Ensuring Successful Marketing Automation Solution Implementation

Usage of marketing automation solutions can streamline sales and marketing operations to a great extent. However the implementation of such sophisticated solution presents complexity and common pitfalls that can be avoided with some marketing automation software implementation best practices. In fact efficient operation of such solution depends largely on advance preparation as the automation technologies go from purchase to getting put to work.

Following logical steps in implementing marketing automation solutions

Firstly it’s important to define the business problems and then work through the solution. Setting milestones and defining the metrics to track the progress and to measure the benefits of using marketing automation solutions is the next logical step. Today social communities are widely exploited by organizations for marketing purpose, but very few of them actually use them to the best of their advantage to promote their offerings. Hence it is essential to understand how these social media channels work and how people use these channels before jumping into it. Determining your social goal and using analytic tools to measure and monitor the social activities over time is the key to successful social media marketing.

Technology aspects to consider while deploying marketing automation solutions

User adoption is critical in running the solution effectively. Therefore go for solutions with more intuitive User Interface (UI). In fact many marketing automation vendors are customizing their applications to suit specific user roles. It should be remembered that even if the solution is endowed with powerful analytic tools, it could tantamount to nothing if the user is unable to properly handle it. Organizations must make it a point to invest in training and education before starting to use the solution. A clear idea about operational changes and other forthcoming changes in strategies, processes will put the employees in a better position to make more efficient use of the marketing automation solutions.

Statistics show that an organization can typically save as much as 20% of total sales and marketing costs by organizing and automating key sales and marketing processes. Better co-ordination between sales and marketing teams to convert maximum number of leads into winning deals is possible only though the use of a framework that will establish standard definition for lead qualification, lead scoring, build joint teams to facilitate consequent sales enablement and include provisions for reporting. Additionally design your campaigns keeping both and marketing and sales team in the loop. For example a well-structured offer for a new service or product might drive a potential customer to contact the sales people for more information. So if your sales team is not conversant with the offer they might end up painting a picture of incompetence.

The next important thing is to find an executive sponsor who understands the value of marketing automation solutions and the need for process changes to keep the project aligned with organization’s strategy and portfolio direction. Likewise the solutions implementation should be also aligned with the company objectives.

Conclusion

Because of recession and economic downturn …

7 Reasons Why Focus is Your Number 1 Asset in Your Online Business

Most people want to make money online but very few actually do it. Why is that? There’s a simple answer really. Most people have a lack of focus when it comes to starting their own business.

Developing a crystal clear focus on your goal is the only way you’re going to make headway with your online business. Here are seven reasons why focus is essential if you want to succeed.

1. Focus helps you clear out the clutter from your mind.

When you have singular purpose, it’s easy to get rid of what’s not working and focus on what does. The next time you hear a piece of advice, read an article or look at a report, you can ask yourself “Does this serve my purpose?”

If not, feel free to get rid of it or disregard it. It’s much easier to purge yourself from information overload when you’ve got focus.

2. Focus helps you define your time.

When you sit down to the plan the next week, you can define exactly what tasks need to be done each day. When you’re focused on putting your plan into action you can break down your big goal into precise daily tasks.

3. Focus helps you get more done.

When you’re focused on a specific set of tasks for your day, you’ll get a lot more done. Rather than starting a project and then hopping around from a forum to your e-mail to Twitter and then back to a forum, you’ll actually lay the groundwork for your future success.

4. Focus makes your decisions easy.

Developing focus makes it easy to decide whether or not an activity is worth your time and attention. If it doesn’t serve your purpose and get you closer to meeting your business goals, you can simply push it aside.

5. Focus gets faster results.

What do you think happens when you spend more time working on your business and less time pretending to work? You get more done. Picture the difference in the amount of work you’ll accomplish if you’re working on just one business model, versus trying to hop from model to model each day.

6. Focus gets better results.

In order to succeed online, you need to become a master of what you do. By working on one business model and learning the ropes, you’ll become really good at what you do.

Since you’re practicing at it each and every day, you’re going to become better at the basic elements of your business and you’ll get much better results.

7. Focus makes your work enjoyable.

When you develop laser focus in your business, you’ll enjoy it more. Getting better results on a faster timeline will encourage you to work more on your business.

You’ll want to see more of those good results pouring into your life. Focus also makes your life simpler, which can make it more enjoyable to work on the …

3 Big Tips to Using Article Marketing to Build an Email Marketing List

If you want to know about using article marketing to build your email marketing list, then you are in the right place. This article will cover 3 tips to help you along the way of building a list with articles.

Many people use pay per click to build lists, and that works fine. But for the Internet marketer who wants to do it for free, articles marketing is the way to go.

One way to do this is to write articles and submit them to article directories. Ezine Articles is the most important directory because it gets the most traffic, but there are other ones also such as GoArticles and Buzzle. By submitting articles to these directories and then adding a good authors resource box that makes readers want to click, you are well on your way. When the readers click on the links in the resource box, you should direct them to a squeeze page which will sell the reader on giving you their email address. Without enough articles in the directories, you will get a lot of traffic and a lot of people potentially clicking on your links to visit your landing page and sign up to your email marketing list.

Another way to use article marketing is to write guest articles for other marketers. As a marketer with a list, we want to give our subscribers useful information. So offering a useful article to another marketer will benefit both you and the marketer. You will benefit because with you resource box intact, the marketers readers will have the opportunity to join your list. And the marketer benefits because his or her readers get beneficial information.

A third way to use article marketing is to sign up to a program that syndicates your articles around a network of blogs. These programs will allow you to place links in your articles which you can direct to your landing page to collect email addresses. There are several programs like this out there, one of which is Article Marketing Automation. Using a combination of these three methods will put you on the fast track to building your email marketing list.…

Reconnecting After Recession

Economists all over are now predicting that the end of recession is near. While the Feds won’t still acknowledge that, it makes sense for your company to be ready to play the game again. But, the recession has caused a paradigm shift in consumer behavior. Consumers will now think twice before parting with their dollar and expect more value for money. What should your marketing strategies be so that you are all set to face the recovering markets? Read on…

1. Reconnect: It’s great that your company managed to stay afloat through the recession. Reconnect with your customers and tell them you are still around. Something as simple as e-mail flyer would do. Since your customers will now look to stretch that dollar to the maximum, offering online discount coupons is also a good idea.

2. Learn more about your customers: This is a good time to understand and get to know your customers better. This way, you are better equipped to meet their needs once the clouds of recession lift. Use this time to study customer patterns. If you are using a marketing automation software, start generating relevant reports and studying them. If your firm does not use a marketing automation tool, this would be a good time to migrate to one.

3. Be selective: One common mistake companies make at this time is getting too desperate. Don’t fall into this trap and bombard all the prospects in your database with marketing e-mails that resemble junk. Instead, target those areas intensely, which are expected to be brimming with opportunities once recession lifts. A good example would be sending personalized HTML e-mails or e-newsletters to your best prospects rather than sending a generic e-mail advertisement to everyone on your database. Do not compromise on customer privacy or permissions. Try too hard and you may be perceived to be as annoying as the telemarketer who calls up during dinner time…

4. Provide value, restore faith: Provide value to your customers. The term value here doesn’t only mean monetary value. Define value from the customer’s perspective. The first step involved in doing this is to understand what the customer values. Recession has caused an erosion of faith in all corporate brands. To regain that trust, you have to enhance customer experience at every chance you get. Remember that by providing more value, you can create more business.

5. Changed conditions: While it’s true that no pessimist can be an entrepreneur, don’t expect things to return to normal too soon. You might have to make changes in the way you currently conduct business. Do majority of your sales happen online through credit card transactions? Post-recession, you may want to offer other payment options to your clients, as many of them may be wary of buying too much on credit. Anticipate your client needs and start working towards satisfying them.

The ideas mentioned above will not require any major increase in your marketing budget, but, on the other hand, can offer …

Market to Succeed in 2010

2009 saw marketers experiment with varied strategies in the hope that something will yield results. These experiments along with the current economic conditions have shaped the marketing strategies for 2010. This article outlines some of the up-coming marketing trends.

1. Value addition: The recession is just lifting and people are still cautious. They don’t want to spend too much too soon. People are willing to put their money only where they get real value addition. What you need to do is position your brand in such a manner that it reflects value.

2. Meet expectations: We spoke about value addition above, the next challenge is to meet consumer expectation-ensuring that what you offer is of value to your customers. People now want more for less. To make your brand truly successful, it is important that you offer them what they perceive to be of value and importance.

3. Enhance consumer experience: Does your company perennially put clients on-hold? Does your site take too much time to load? Now is the time to look into these areas and fix any discrepancies. People are still lethargic when it comes to spending money. You need to be proactive and make every interaction your prospect has with you, a positive experience.

4. Use Social Media effectively: We all remember the buzz created by e-mail when it entered the marketing world. Today, it’s the Social Media that seems to be all-set to take the center-stage. In fact, a report published by the Social Media examiner states that a startling 64% of marketers spend over five hours each week on social media. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Blogs, You Tube have become solid platforms for networking and improving business relations.

5. Content: Update all your customer touch-points with relevant content. Whether it’s your website, blog or your social networking profile and wall, make sure it reflects the latest on your brand. If you send newsletters to your prospects/clients, ensure they reach them consistently. And last but not the least, try and keep the content customer-centric.

6. Personalize: Don’t want to spend too much at Pizza Hut? How about the pizzeria at the corner of the road? More and more people are turning towards local businesses. This is time to make your presence felt locally. Get to know your customers, personalize your communication with them.

7. Intelligent Marketing automation: So you have a marketing automation software program or intend on using one to take the pressure off you. Sounds good, but make sure that the program you deploy is intelligent. An archaic automation model that helps you send mass e-mails won’t suffice. What you need is an intelligent marketing automation tool that can integrate the various modes of customer contact and thus enhance your marketing efforts.

Marketing in 2010 is not shouting from roof-tops about what you have to offer. It is all about anticipating what your prospects want and giving it to them even before they ask for it.…

Streamline Your Sales by Switching To a Marketing Automation Solution

A manual process is time-consuming and has a high rate of errors whereas an automated system enables one to get rid of redundant data and focus on quality data, leads as in this case.

With a marketing automation solution marketers can manage all the complex and time-consuming tasks of lead management, lead scoring, lead nurturing and CRM integration. Thus marketing automation is the optimization of the complete marketing process right from campaign planning to lead winning.

What does marketing automation software do?

Marketing automation software studies a prospective buyer’s digital body language and can assess their level in the buying process and zero in on their area of interest.

The automation software also assists in scoring leads by carefully categorizing the readings and letting a marketing person know if the buyer is ready to talk with him or whether his Digital Body Language shows his disinterest in the product.

Delivery the right content

The content to be delivered needs to be highly personalized and the buyer has to feel important. Furthermore, this data needs to be cleansed and standardized periodically. Delivery the right message at the right time can be done through marketing automation. With automation, workflow is streamlined and time saved.

Campaigning

Marketing automation software allows aligning the campaigns with the sales teams in an efficient way. The software targets, builds, executes and measures the success of the campaign, the issues therein and converts good leads into qualified ones. The software further helps to customize email messages and campaigns that match the customer needs.

Creating promo offers

The software helps create discounts and promo offers based on the buyer data and interest. This is a smart way to manage your leads.

Post sale – The automation software organizes post-purchase actions like helping you develop better customer relationships and follow-up.

Automating the billing process – The software’s billing automation features manages your billing and collections processes. In addition it automates multiple accounting tasks that otherwise eat up a lot of time

Inventory tracking – Automation software tracks your inventory and sends alerts if the product is out of stock. It also sends delivery details directly to the person eliminating any error.

Thus the best part of marketing automation software is that organizations can use it in different ways to meet their specific needs. They also use marketing automation tools for creating, executing, managing and measuring online marketing programs.

An automation software ensures that marketing and sales can work together to ensure the right follow-up of each potential customer. Automated workflows analyze and deliver automated responses based on the customer’s area of interest. The moment the marketer knows that the customer is showing interest, the software further helps him in narrowing this customer and organizing the next step of lead nurturing. This automatically turns into lead scoring and finally lead winning.

The above shows that a automation software helps marketers to focus on managing demand rather than following – up. It …

Internet Marketing – Will Your Business Benefit From Internet Marketing?

Every day more people turn to the internet to find information to solve their problems and to network with others online. We also hear about numerous offline businesses finding further success by creating an online presence. However in order to work out if your business will benefit from internet marketing you need to find out what is really happening in your business niche online.

How do you find out what is happening in your business niche online?

The first thing you must do is find out how likely your targeted audience is to look for your products and/or services online. It stands to reason that if no one looks for your products online then internet marketing will do little for your bottom line.

Conducting market research will help you determine whether or not you should market your business online. You could survey your existing customers with suitable questions to find out if they use the internet to research information about your products and/or services. Alternatively you could hire a market research company to carry out this research for you. They will conduct research quickly for you, gain a lot of valuable information and give you their opinion of the outcome you can achieve marketing your business online.

They will be able to tell you things like whether your targeted audience only searches for information about your products online or they actually make online purchases. Without this research you may have little idea of whether or not internet marketing will benefit your business. So a little time, effort and money spent on research first may save you wasting more time, effort and money on marketing that will have little effect on your business.

If your research indicates that an online presence is worthwhile for your business then you will need to work out how you are going to advertise your business online.

How do you advertise your business online?

Your research will also give you a good idea of whether people search for information about your products and/or services online or will actually buy from you online. With that information, unless you have a good knowledge of marketing online, it will be extremely worthwhile to seek the help of professionals. They will consult you to determine which online marketing strategies will be the most effective, design advertisements for your campaign, help you implement the campaign and evaluate the results of your online campaign.

The success of your online marketing is only limited by your ability to execute effective marketing strategies to promote your products and/or services. Some strategies you might employ may include optimizing your website for relevant search terms, placing links to your site elsewhere on the internet, writing and publishing articles and newsletters and using affiliates to promote your products.…

Automating Sales Follow-up

How many times have you called on a “small business” owner/prospect only to be told that now is not a good time to even talk, much less buy?  After a few more follow-up calls and no progress made, you are ready to give up. In fact, most salespeople give up before they call five times. Yet 80% of all sales are made at or after the fifth call. 

How do we get to that magic sales closing time without irritating the prospect?  After the second follow-up call we are beginning to feel that we are too intrusive, yet we know that the prospect needs our product and will probably eventually buy it – unless we are too irritating in our follow-up initiatives and are told to stop calling.

Here’s a suggestion.  After the second follow-up call, mention that you don’t want to regularly intrude into the prospect’s busy schedule, but would like to keep in touch by sending an email periodically that provides information that is of interest to business owners.  Close by saying you’ll call again in a few months and see how things are going.

For the next few months, maintain contact automatically with Marketing Automation Software.  You will have already prepared a series of 8-10 emails that can be used for this period of time in almost every situation.  Each email in the series was designed to provide useful information and to be a gentle reminder of what your product can do in that particular situation. 

Add this prospect to the mailing list and let the software keep in touch.  It is likely that the prospect will reach that pivotal point when he/she is ready to buy and your product will be fresh in his/her mind.  If that hasn’t happened at the end of the series, you will automatically be reminded by the software to make that promised follow-up call.

When you call, you will already have your lead-in pitch ready.  You have been providing him/her with a service.  Talk about the emails you have sent and the information they contained.  Inquire regarding any other information needed to make the purchase decision.  Then branch out into your sales-closing routing.   

Visit ES-Review for more information on the best Marketing Automation Software.…

Infusionsoft Versus a Marketing Assistant

Before you read this, remember that we created computerized solutions to save ourselves the work. In many cases we used to hire people to save ourselves the work, today we can choose either a biological solution (an employee) or a digital solution (a piece of software.) With that thought out there for your consideration, consider this…

As of 2009, the median expected salary for a typical Marketing Assistant in the United States is $37,471 or $3,122.58 per month (excluding all the other costs an employer must bear.)

Assuming a typical 37 hour week this equates to 160 hours a month of “working” time, about $18.74 per hour. There are approximately 1600 working hours a year for a typical employee and 8,760 total hours in a year.

We work for about 20% of the year when you compare total time to work time. So it’s fair to say that if you made your marketing assistant work every hour of every day then you’d have to pay them about 5 times as much or about $187,000 a year!

Currently Infusionsoft Pro costs $499/mo or about $5,988 per year. Already this is about 6 times cheaper than the media salary of an marketing assistant but Infusionsoft works 24/7/365.

If you run the numbers you’ll find that Infusionsoft is about 30 times cheaper. Put another way, you’d need at least 5 full time marketing assistants to handle the workload. And frankly I’m unconvinced they’d match the speed and efficiency of a computerized system which operates at millions of cycles per second.

My point (for I know this is a somewhat “silly” comparison) is that if you think of Infusionsoft as a person hired to your team, they’re the best value you’ll ever get for your dollars. They won’t quit. They won’t get sick or demand a pay raise. They will not need vacations and won’t ask for double-time on statutory vacation days. And the quality of their work will remain consistent day after day, year after year.

Nope, for a mere $499 a month you’ll get the digital equivalent of staffing nirvana (or pretty close to it… nothing’s perfect!)

So, for those who wonder about the price consider this, $499 is the PRO level. If you are sending less volume through the system (upto 75,000 emails) you can pay $299 a month – it’s cheaper still. And if you didn’t want ecommerce, a shopping cart, affiliate management or sales force automation then you can use the $199 service (upto 25,000 emails a month.)

It’s really a no brainer when you look at this way.

*Disclaimer* Infusionsoft will not give you super powers. You do need to take this powerful system and implement it. This will require some planning on your part. If you are a fan of process and systemization then you’ll enjoy the experience. If you are not, then you will need some help either directly from Infusionsoft or from one of their Certified Marketing Automation Coaches (like …

Customer Relationship Management Software – Taking Utmost Care of Clients

Today, maintaining a good relationship with your customer is one of the only ways to ensure that your business grows and that you are actually able to add on more customers over time. Unless you take the effort in ensuring that your existing customer base is being taken care of in an appropriate manner, it is hard to build a reputation and add on more clients. Hence, one of the practical solutions in this regard would be to go in for customer relationship management software, which can significantly help in making the entire process more efficient. In a number of ways, companies have gained significantly from going in for this option.

Empowering the marketing department

If you want your customers to be happy, then you should give your employees the necessary tools for doing so. Simply giving them an objective and not providing them the tools for achieving these objectives is going to be a pointless exercise. Hence, implementing marketing automation is definitely a recommended task here. Not only will your employees be able to get things done faster, but you will also be able to ensure that the company is able to grow without problems. Just focusing energy and resources on individual aspects will not help with growth. Even your marketing department will need some attention.

Choosing the right software

Ensure that you meet with your marketing department and discuss a plan for them to follow and ask them for their requirements. Depending on what has been decided, you will need to invest in appropriate customer relationship management software that can help in achieving all of the listed tasks. There is quite a lot of software out there that claim to help in automation but only a handful that you can actually count on. Hence, ensure that you are able to get something that can live up to its claims and actually help your marketing team get more things done.

Automating replies and giving time

Customers always tend to have a lot of queries. Hence, it is important to make sure that the queries are taken care of and that they do get a reply right away, when they have posted a question. Similarly, potential customers too would want information right away so that they can make the decision to go in for something or not. In a number of ways, having the automated replies helps in building confidence and making sure that their queries are not gone unheard. With the right kind of customer relationship management software, this is an assurance.

Hence, with all these things factored in, it is safe to say that getting the right kind of customer relationship management software is quite an important thing to take care of. Don’t neglect the option and simply go in for something that you might not really be able to completely take advantage of. Read reviews and go only to reliable websites that can help you in getting …

Experiential Marketing – What Is It and Is It Right for My Business?

Small business marketing takes many forms. You can reach out to your customers via direct mail; get to know them on social media; and tell them about your latest offers in their email inbox. But these techniques are missing something.

We’ve lost the personality from our businesses. The ‘real’, ‘human’, element that made us so unique has gone. We’re hiding behind our computer screens and it could be damaging business. Your customers want to see the real people behind your company. And this is easier than you may think.

What is Live Event Marketing?

Experiential or event marketing is a great way to reach out to your customers on a personal level. Your customers get the chance to see your products for themselves, and try them out. They get to see the real person behind the company, and have all their queries solved there and then.

There are a whole host of locations where you can market in this way. Large, national exhibitions, localised trade fairs, even street markets; each of these events holds something different for your company.

What could be a better way of promoting your products? Getting to engage with your customers, and letting them see for themselves just why they need to buy from you. If you’ve never exhibited before, it is easier than you may think to guarantee success.

Top Tips for Trade Shows

The first secret to trade show success is a great display and stand. You need to grab your customers’ attention and lure them over to your stand. Once they’re at your stand, your products need to do the talking. Make sure visitors can test them out and get the full impact. Give them space to convince themselves they need to buy.

Secondly, you need to give customers an incentive to stay at your stand. If they’re not buying right away, you want time to convince them too. If they have brought, you don’t want them leaving just yet. Offer freebies, competitions, or refreshments as a way to hold their attention. Try and cross sell where possible, or at least get people to sign up to your mailing lists.

Thirdly, you must be aware of your sales technique. Hard sells can put people off pretty quickly, whereas going in to soft might still loose you the sale. Give customers time to try out your products before asking if they’d like help. You need to be able to assess their body language, and time your sales pitch perfectly.

Is it Right For My Business?

Live event marketing is a great method of offline promotion for any business. Whether you sell a product or a service, you ought to be integrating this method into your campaign. This is the easiest and most effective way to show your customers the face behind your business.…