Category: Marketing

Developing and Marketing Niche Products

Posted on by Aaron

After you find your niche you should conduct market research to find out who is in the market to purchase these products. After you gain this information you can expand your product line horizontally. You should not rely on that one product to carry your business. For example let’s use the 1970’s eclectic fashions niche. If you were to start and online store selling these eclectic fashion clothing you could add accessories to your product line like jewelry, hats, shoes, or other related products that would compliment the clothes that you are selling.

Now that you have expanded your product horizontally you should now look to expand vertically. This is done by taking one of the related products and making it a niche product itself. An example of this would be taking your jewelry line and selling it as the niche product with the other products that you are selling …

Direct Marketing

Posted on by Aaron

The goal of any successful direct marketing program is ultimately a positive effect on your bottom line. Good direct marketing programs are proven performers that will give you an edge over your competition. The direct marketing expertise and capabilities that a good direct marketing company offers will turn your direct marketing expenditures into successful investments.

Look for a company that has years of target market research experience ready to work for you. They will uncover who your best customers are and develop a direct marketing campaign that will get them to respond.

They should know how to impact behavior, get results and form the basis for long-term relationships with your customers and prospects.

Direct marketing abilities should include:

  • Direct response advertising
  • Customer relation’s management
  • Data management services and data analysis
  • Media planning, media buying and complete direct marketing campaign management

Seven HUGE Tips to Direct Marketing that gets results

Successful …

Marketing Stained Glass

Posted on by Aaron

Getting Custom Work

  • When Tom Holdman (a local stained glass artist) decided to become a stained glass artist, a neighbor recommended that he go to a wealthy neighborhood and go door to door asking if they need stained glass in their home. He did just that and made a contact with a family who wanted glass and had some influence with the library board. This lead to a commercial job which lead to a great deal of publicity.
  • What can we learn from this story? That any friendship or relationship can lead to glass work. What we must do is ask anyone and everyone if they want or need stained glass work. Then, we must doggedly follow-up when someone expresses an interest. It is often amazing how a simple monthly phone call will eventually pay off. There have been many clients in our past who put off their project for
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Not Waste Money on Marketing

Posted on by Aaron

How do you avoid wasting your money on marketing that isn’t going to result in more clients and more sales? How can you ensure you’ll get the “biggest bang for the buck?”

The answer is to go back to your marketing plan and look at your goals and objectives. You’ll also want to look at who you identified as your ideal prospects or target clients.

Then you simply evaluate these potential marketing activities based on their ability to help you achieve your objectives, and their ability to put you or your company in front of your ideal prospects.

While sponsorships and donations are in part a goodwill activity and can be very worthwhile for that reason alone, if you are evaluating them from a marketing perspective (and I recommend you do, especially if you get asked to sponsor or donate frequently) you need to make sure they will give you …

Loan Officer Marketing

Posted on by Aaron

Communication Channels

A channel is the path used to transmit the message. Campaigns depend on various channels of communication to transfer information. An integrated campaign uses multiple channels simultaneously.

Channels include electronic, direct communication, and media. As a rule, select channels and sub-channels that your targeted audience uses regularly. Presenting your message in a format that your target audience is already reading can increase the probability of your item being read.

Electronic Channel

In a multi-channel world, communication has become increasingly complex and technology based. For example, the electronic channel uses email, fax, telephone and web sites to transport messages from you to your targeted audience.

Email provides a direct communication channel, rather than a broadcast channel. Fax transmission is a physical communication medium, and has a more official aspect than email. An agent-focused web site, if you place submission forms, online support, newsletters and visual impact on it, is …

Marketing Strengths vs Weaknesses

Posted on by Aaron

While you need to declare your strengths and your benefits, you don’t have to treat the competitor as the enemy. The goal is to have no competition, not bring attention to it! The more unique you can make yourself, the more you appeal to a select part of the market. You are carving out your own defined market.

In my opinion, 7-Up doesn’t compete with Coke. 7-Up, by calling itself “the Uncola”, appeals to people who don’t want caffeine or dark soft drinks. 7-Up defined a market which was waiting for an alternative. To say that these companies aren’t competitors may be going a bit far, but the point is, you need to take care of defining your specialty, and promoting it, in the maximum possible way. When you promote positive benefits, with flair and impact, you’ll get your market share.

I also maintain that even though you have declared

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Stop Marketing Leaks

Posted on by Aaron

Do a check up of your follow-up system from the time of precontact to six months later. Since only 2% of sales occur after a first contact and does not go up until the fifth contact — it goes to 80% then — what is your follow- up plan of action between the first contact point and the fifth?
This means that if you e-mail them once or twice there is less than 2% they will read it. People are very busy and even if you put the same message out week after week, there is less than 13% chance that they will even notice it’s the same message.
And they will need to see it at least 5 times before they will “really” read it. Follow- up is an easy plan, that is, once you sit down and plan it out.
I read a book this weekend, Marketing Outrageously. …

Things You Should Know About Niche Marketing

Posted on by Aaron

If your private practice is not growing niche marketing can help. How can clients find you and purchase your services if you are a generalist? Being a generalist is useful when you live in a small town or remote area. Niche marketing is a specialized area of work that sets you us as an expert. You can market your niche by writing articles, creating e-books or tip sheets, and letting the media know that you are available to give interviews based on your area of expertise.

  • Niche marketing is marketing your service or product to a segment of potential consumers (aka your target market).
  • A niche can be based on an endless number of segments of the population: age group (e.g. teenagers), a geographical location (e.g. the city of Montreal), an industry (e.g. the mining industry), a group of professionals (e.g.lawyers), a life stage (e.g. menopause), a special interest group
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Marketing to Your Branded Audience

Posted on by Aaron

Developing the relationship with the audience that has already paid some attention to your brand can increase your marketing ROI significantly. Consider this:

  • First-time contacts are harder to close than those customers who already have several touch points with your brand.
  • Most businesses generate half or more of their revenue from referrals or returning customers.
  • Customers who have been nurtured through the buying process are more informed and tend to spend more money.

Although it is always essential to attract new leads for your business, you shouldn’t neglect the seeds you’ve already sown. Try these strategies to reach your branded audience:

  • E-newsletters or old-fashioned paper newsletters. Keep your audience up-to-date on your business and give them new information that you know your customer base will be interested in.
  • Personal follow-up. Don’t just send an email. Call the new contact or send a thank you gift to keep your brand in
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Point Of Sale Marketing

Posted on by Aaron

If you own a retail or physical location for your business, it is likely that you use a cash register, cash drawer, and printer receipt at your point of sale. If you do, you might as well make them into point of sale marketing materials. For one thing, if you place certain items you are hoping to move quickly near the cash register, customers can use change or extra money to purchase those items as a spontaneous purchase. You may find that this works best as a point of sale products if you mark them as on sale, clearance, or marked down.

For the best results on cash register point of sale products, you should also dress them up a bit. Use merchandisers like toppers or attractive dispensers. With something like that with the merchandise, it will draw a customer’s eye even if they wouldn’t have normally considered the product. …