The Top 10 Marketing Tools to Grow Your Business in 2004. Quit Smoking: Why People Do Bad Things (Even When They Know They Shouldn't).
Looking to grow your business? Make sure you have these marketing tools in place:
#10 A powerful tagline
In 10 words or less, a good tagline reinforces a company's reason for being. And smaller companies will find it to be one of the hardest working tools. To get one, first boil down to a single sentence, the benefits of doing business with your company. Then, take write up a few version of this and take them to a good copywriter. After deciding upon one, marry this tagline up with your company name and logo wherever they appear.
#9 Consistent branding elements
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a rancher would mark his cattle with an exclusive brand. This brand, depicting a unique visual image, distinguished his cattle from another rancher's. A branding effort for a growing company works the same way.
The consistent use of branding elements (i.e. name, tagline, logo, colors, fonts, and typestyles) clearly identifies your company from the competition.
#8 Search engine positioning
Today, just having a high-quality website doesn't mean success. Having large numbers of qualified prospects visiting your site does. If you're not spending equally on the promotion of your site through search engine positioning, then your website isn't working hard enough. One recent client of mine who found my site through a search engine, generated a whopping 1,500%+ return on my search engine investment.
#7 Calls-to-action
It's not enough to just rattle off your product's features and benefits. You must go one step further by telling your reader exactly what you want her to do next. Too often marketing materials effectively present a company, then leave the next step up to the reader's imagination. This is a missed opportunity. Instead, spell out exactly what your reader should do next. "Visit www.emergemarketing.com and register to win", "Call our estimating department for a free quote" or " Email us with your suggestions" are calls-to-action that leave no doubt about what you want your reader to do next.
#6 Attention-grabbing testimonials
Buyers of your product or service-especially first-time buyers-have reservations about doing business with you. Will your product deliver? Will you answer your phones? Will you be around next month? Written testimonials from your satisfied customers, scattered throughout your materials and website, smooth over buyer fears.
#5 Key messages
Remember back in English class how we were taught to write down a paper's thesis before we wrote the paper? This thesis statement was the argument you wanted to assert-the central point of the paper. Think of your company's key messages as the thesis statements for your marketing.
The next time you have to write copy for your brochure or website, identify the three most important things that distinguish your company from the rest. Then, write your copy so that these three ideas come through loud and clear.
#4 Results-oriented metrics
Can you imagine a doctor examining a patient without a thermometer? Yet this is precisely how many growing businesses approach their marketing analytics. Without metrics to track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, decisions are just...guesses. Develop two or three key metrics (i.e. # of new leads per month, cost per inquiry, or sales calls per month) that measure the true health of your business' marketing.
#3 Ongoing customer communication
Your customers have invested a lot in your company already; time, money and emotional energy to name just a few. Keep in frequent touch with them and they'll shower your business with repeat purchases, referrals and positive word-of-mouth. Use catch-up phone calls, email blasts or personalized letters to keep customers abreast of new products, promotions or just plain news.
#2 A marketing plan
The cornerstone to any successful marketing effort is a marketing plan. A good one lays the groundwork for action by covering the "whys" behind each task. It also helps break down a seemingly daunting effort into a series of more manageable chunks. And when the phones stop ringing, it gives you something to go back to. You'll never again ask "What should we do now?"
#1 A process for implementing your plan
Developing a marketing plan is only half the battle. Without a concerted effort to implement the plan, your marketing effort will fail. To avoid this common marketing mistake, use weekly project updates and quarterly checkpoint meetings to ensure your plan is successfully implemented.
Don't forget that proper implementation also hinges on having the right person in place. Who is this person? In three words-a project manager. Without a deadline driven, nuts-and-bolts type at the helm of your roll out, you'll drift like a rudderless ship.
About The Author
Jay Lipe, CEO of EmergeMarketing.com and the author of The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses (Chammerson Press), is a small business marketing expert who helps companies grow faster. He can be reached at lipe@emergemarketing.com or (612) 824-4833.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
Do you do Bad Things? Even though you know you shouldn't?
It's not your fault. It really isn't. You know you should stop doing it, but no matter how much you know that, and how much you try, you just can't stop!
Everyone knows how to lose weight. Don't eat fattening foods. Exercise. Everyone knows how to give up smoking. Don't light the cigarette. Yet having this knowledge just isn't enough. Sometimes even having the desire isn't enough! Time and again I hear about people who get really close to quitting smoking. They can get all the way down to one or two cigarettes a day, but just can't give up those last two. Many even make it all the way down to zero, but the cravings, oh the cravings! They are wretched, those cravings. Most will go back to smoking within the first few days. They can cut away most of the "stuff" that keeps them glued to the cigarettes, even not be addicted to nicotine anymore(!), but there is just something deep in their core that magnetically pulls them back in, like two lovers who know they are bad for each other but just can't help themselves.
What is this thing? What is at this core?
Let me take a step back for a moment. How many adults do you know who are happy? I mean really, truly happy? Think that question is foolishness? Let me ask you this. How many people do you know who love their work? I'm talkin' jump out of bed in the morning, can't wait to start. Sadly, the percentage is very small. Why is this?
We live in an interesting quick-fix culture. People don't really have to deal with their issues. We've got:
* television
* movies
* shopping
* toys
* and hitting the gym
to distract us and make us feel better. Even more than that, many people's issues are quite buried. Think of dreams that were squashed when we were young. "An artist? You could never make a living at that! You should be a doctor!" People often forget what their dreams once were.
As a result, I see an awful lot of unhappy, unfulfilled people walking around. They don't know what is bothering them, they just have that gnawing feeling that there must be more. Advertisers pray on this, selling us more and more bottles and gizmos to give us that ever elusive Happiness.
True inner needs? People either:
* think they're impossible to fulfill
* are too scared and resigned to fulfill them
* or are so disassociated from those needs that they don't even know what they would be even if they had to guess!
All those "bad" things -- smoking, overeating, gambling, alcohol, the list goes on and on -- are easy ways to fill the void. Smokers will be able to relate to this one -- if you've just had a fight with your family, what do you do? You go for a smoke. Smoking makes it feel like the problem goes away. (I call this the "smokescreen." Har har!)
I'll let you in on a little secret--the real reason it's so hard to quit is not the nicotine. It's this void-filling. When you quit smoking (or any bad habit), you're suddenly faced with real life. All those stresses and needs that you've been avoiding? There they are, pulling at your coat tails, yelling, "Pay attention to me! Pay attention to me!" If you got in touch with your real inner needs and took baby steps to start fulfilling them, you would actually have little desire for cigarettes. It's true! I see it happen time and again in my Stop Smoking Coaching practice.
How do you do that, you ask? Here are some baby steps that you can start trying out now:
* Next time, instead of taking that quick fix--stop.
* Have a little quiet time and listen to what your insides have been trying to tell you.
* Try journaling -- don't edit your thoughts, just write.
* Some people find meditation and yoga to be great accesses.
* Try deep breathing.
* Go for a quiet, leisurely walk by yourself.
* Personally, I find it easiest to just start noticing where in life I seem to be avoiding things the most, or if I want something more immediate and active, doing a mindmap (a word drawing) to figure out what I'm really thinking.
For each person, the key to figuring out your needs is different. Play around with it, don't give up! You'll be glad you did!
Jill Binder is The Stop Smoking Coach with a 90 day program to show people the 8 steps to quitting smoking forever, with a 100% success rate. She is the author of "What's Your Smoking Type?" and has appeared on "Daytime" (TV), "Radioactive Women" (Radio), "Good Times" (magazine), and "Metro Toronto Today" (newspaper).
You can sign up for her newsletter, "YourTurn - Turn Your Weaknesses Into Your Perfect Life" at http://www.StopSmokingCoach.ca
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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