3 More Essential Marketing Areas You Should Be Focusing On – - – Instead of Playing Farmville

1/.Dealing with Objections

To become a truly successful marketer you have to learn how to answer objections effectively.

More often than not it would be carried out via your sales copy, consequently you should spend a large chunk of your time talking to potential customers face to face to find out exactly what fears, worries and objections they may have.

Before you sit down to write your sales letter, it is advisable to show your product to several potential customers and simply ask them what questions they might have if they were presented with an offer to purchase it.

This is a simple yet very effective technique to get into your prospects head and tackle all their needs and concerns at the time of purchase. This will make their defenses go down faster than the value of the pound.

2/. Closing the Sale

Which one of those two types of marketers are you?

#1: You very carefully thought through each and every detail of the sales process. You understand how to ask the right questions at the right time and your calls to action timed just  right.

#2: When the time to close the sale approaches you suddenly break into cold sweat. Your feet start shaking and also you go into a state of semi panic unsure what to do next.

The customer senses your level of stress, fear, panic or any other sign of inconvenience you may project. It is crucial to carefully plan the whole process of selling from inception to comepletion so you don’t feel lost in front of your prospective business partner.

You must know the art of selling before you write a compelling sales copy, that’s why all the Copywriting Experts always compare writing a sales copy to a door-to- door sales person. You have to get a feel of what it means to be standing in front of the customer to really get in touch with your inner Dan Kennedy.

3/. Long Term Profits

Last but not least, you have to develop robust long term relationships with your existing buyers so they purchase from you again in the future. You need to ensure your customers are ultra-satisfied so they can provide great testimonials as well as numerous referrals.

According to Seth Godin in “The Purple Cow,” the “sneezers” (satisfied customers who recommend your product to their associates and friends) are the key to a successful business. In fact, those “sneezers” may be the only thing that will determine your success, because there is no better ad than a recommendation from a friend.

The Next Step

Once you have carefully examined each and every key marketing area of your business it’s time to take the weakest area and improve it. And when you’re done with it – move to the second worse and work on that one. And the next. And the one after that.

That’s a proven formula to at the very least double any business’ revenue in 30 days or less. Try it and report back on your results here by leaving a comment.

4 Essential Marketing Areas You Should Be Focusing On… Instead of Playing Farm Ville

4 Crucial Marketing Areas

You will discover a total of four important areas you should be focusing on if you want to breakout of mediocrity. Whether you are affiliate marketer, network marketer, blogger or freelance web designer – all these skills apply to you. Actually, they apply to anyone who’s even remotely connected to marketing and sales.

90% of Internet Marketers spend 90% of their time on unimportant and unproductive activities. The unfortunate part, however, is that most of them don’t even realize that they’re leaving A LOT of money on the table. I believe that such behavior is actually brought on by the very fact that many of them lack Courage.

Courage of Being Truthful With Thyself.

Becoming Conscious of Your Weakest Skill

The initial step of Personal Development in any area of life and business is admitting that there are areas that require improvement. So that you can become great (or at least above average), you need to find precisely which area needs the greatest improvement.

The same applies for marketing. You have to find out which one of the 4 Key Marketing Areas is the one that needs your immediate attention. Admitting you have a weak point is essential because just like a weakest link in a chain, the weakest skill in the marketing skill set will be the first one to collapse and drag you down.

1. Lead Generation

Lead generation means that you need to attract qualified prospects that can and will invest in your product or service within reasonable period of time (preferably within minutes!)

Lead generation should be very focused. It is not enough to drive traffic – you need to monetize that traffic very carefully. You should spend more time interacting with targeted prospects that are going to provide you with instant revenue to reinvest in other marketing areas.

2/. Authority

Authority Rules. People won’t buy from you unless they trust you, like you and believe that you’re a trusted expert with a helpful agenda.

No one likes to be sold to, right? I bet you don’t like it either. So don’t try to “sell” to others. Take more time becoming an authority in your niche. You need to become a trusted source of information, give advice and provide guidance to those in need.

Only by giving a lot of value you can hope to get something in return. You need to give more than you expect to receive from your prospects. Many of them won’t appreciate what you do, but there will be plenty of those who do, those who will become loyal to you for the work that you do which will eventually lead to a healthy business relationship.

3. Customer Needs

The single biggest mistake you can make is to presume that you know exactly what your prospect’s needs are. Every single prospect is unique. He or she may require the same product as the rest of your customers but his / her REASONS for purchase are Different!

Every prospect is unique, special and different. Each prospect has a different set of dreams than the one before him and the one before that one. You need to have genuine interest in the prospect in front of you. You need to address his every question, worry, need and desire in an unselfish manner so he feels that he has been understood – which is something we don’t get much these days.

4. Sales Copy

This is where you have to address those needs, worries and desires in such a way that the prospect can’t think of a single reason why he shouldn’t buy your product or service.

Moreover, it should describe your product’s benefits in such a way that your prospect won’t be able to imagine his life without it.

Sales copy is usually presented to a qualified prospect. Its job isn’t to “sell” your product or service to a “cold” prospect, its job is to convince the “hot” prospects who are familiar with your product yet hesitate to make the call.

8 Must Have Internet Marketing Tools for 2010

When mapping out your 2010 plan of attack for your Internet Marketing business, it’s important that you don’t spend money haphazardly if you’re on a tight budget. Even if you have plenty of money to invest, no one likes to waste money, right?

Here are eight Internet Marketing tools you want to make sure you have in your arsenal before you go guns blazing into 2010 trying to stomp out the competition. Make sure you have what you need and if you can’t afford it, set aside savings until you can.

1. Social media management options

Web 2.0 was new and shiny for awhile. Now it’s practically out of control, but you’re not going to steer clear of a social networking site when it has the potential to deliver lots of sales to you.

Whenever possible, you want to make sure you’re utilizing social media management tools to make your job easier. For example, if you’re bookmarking your domains, use OnlyWire to do many sites at once, instead of manually submitting them one by one.

For Twitter, consider using TweetDeck or another similar tool that helps you manage your microblogging communications. These applications help you cut down on the amount of time you spend sifting through dialogue to reach your target audience.

2. Site design tools

Unless you have deep pockets to outsource your projects, then it’s wise to invest in some site design tools that help you quickly and easily put together professional websites without having to spend weeks learning some new technology.

3. Article spinners and submission software

If article marketing is your primary source of traffic, then you may be using quite a bit of PLR (private label rights) to help you dominate the online chatter in your niche. While PLR can be used unchanged in most instances, if you’re submitting to certain article directories, you might want to spin the article into something unique – and a submission tool can enter your data into many sites at once rather than you having to do it individually.

4. Graphics creator

Graphics are something that can be purchased in bulk and used by many or outsourced to a professional service provider. But if you have time and want to learn, educate yourself about a particular free or paid graphics creation tool so that you won’t have to rely on another person to convey the image you have in your mind for your products and services.

5. Keyword research tool

This is a definite must-have tool for Internet marketers. Some keyword research tools are better than others. Some provide more data, or the information is more up-to-date than a competing product. Review several options before deciding which one is best for you, and then make the most of your new keyword tool for 2010 by taking action on the results it delivers to you.

6. Traffic analytics for SEO purposes

With more competition coming into the mix, you’ll want to really cut your teeth on the latest SEO strategies (white hat of course) that are being taught. Some of the SEO tools you’ll need will be how to guides, while others are applications that analyze your existing traffic and make recommendations on how you can achieve even better results.

7. Autoresponder list builder

Don’t have a list? Then start building one today. Not tomorrow and not next week – today! Too many marketers fail to start building a list until they have ample traffic coming in, but even 1-2 list additions per week will eventually add up to a healthy number over time as traffic picks up.

For 2010, you’ll be able to find some viable free list builders, but most marketers with the funds available will opt for the paid tools that give them more peace of mind that they won’t someday wake up and find their list has vanished or the freebie site has gone under.

8. Reliable hosting

If you have the most fantastic website in the virtual world, it won’t matter if your hosting company has too much downtime. You want to make sure your hosting is affordable, but that shouldn’t be the only reason you choose one host over another. Look for a very small percentage of downtime, ample customer service options that are provided 24/7 and 365 days a year.

5 Free Tools That Can Help You Get a Head Start in 2010

There’s not a marketer on the planet who prefer to pay for something when they can get it free. Free marketing tools are getting better and better – with developers often making money on the ad slots they provide in and around the site or on the tools themselves.

If you’re watching pennies, or just like to get a good bargain from time to time, consider these five free tools for marketers that you may need for 2010:

1.) CamStudio for Video Screen Capture Marketing – http://camstudio.org/

Camtasia can be pricey (£150) when you’re just starting out. But luckily for you, there’s an open source project called CamStudio that allows you to make an endless number of screen capture videos for free!

Pair your version of CamStudio with some free audio recording software at http://www.audioflash.org/ and you can create very professional videos to help you generate interest in your products and services.

2.) GIMP for Graphic Creations – www.gimp.org

Photoshop is often very hard for some non-tech savvy individuals to learn. And when you spend money on a tool like PhotoShop, you want to have the shortest learning curve possible.

Now you can take your time and use GIMP instead. GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program and you can use it for free, along with their thorough documentation, to make call to action buttons, minisite graphics, ads and more.

3.) WIX – Free Flash Website Design Tool – http://www.wix.com/

Flash sites are so expensive when you’re searching for a company or professional freelance individual to create one for you from scratch. With WIX, you can customize a template or make your own.

With a WIX site, you’ll have drawbacks, such as WIX ads being placed on your domain – and the domain won’t be your own dot com moniker, but you can upgrade when you have the money to invest in it and remove ads and use your own domain.

4.) WordPress – Free Blog Software http://wordpress.org/

Chances are you’ve heard of this one before, but some people still think they have to pay for a WordPress blog. Not true. You can either host a WordPress blog on their dot org site, or install it free on a domain that you own. As most marketers already know, WordPress is loved by Google if you utilize it right by posting relevant content on a regular basis.

5.) MailChimp – Free Autoresponder Tool – http://www.mailchimp.com/

This tool is great for those with no list or a very small list to begin with. You can use MailChimp for free to store up to 500 contacts and send out up to 3,000 emails per month.

Blogging Explosion in 2010

The movie Julie and Julia took blogging mainstream for many who had no idea that an everyday, average individual could command attention and pursue their passion using an online technology available to the masses for free.

And it’s not just movies and rare blog success stories that make people want to blog. In 2009, the job market resulted in a ton of layoffs for journalists and print newspapers and magazines went out of business. These writers will take their skills to the Internet.

Blogging will boom in 2010 even more than it already has in marketing circles. Just like reality TV has now become a career pursuit for some young adults, blogging is being viewed as a potential income source for those who don’t want to take the regular route to financial success.

Perez Hilton has been very open with the amount of money he’s raking in – and it’s substantial. There are so many blog success stories that you can learn from and apply them to your 2010 Internet Marketing strategy.

The Bankaholic blog was sold for $15 million. ArsTechnica sold for $25 million. PaidContent sold for $30 million. Someone recently commented that you can start a blog about Doritoes potato chips and once it gets rolling with traffic, wait and see how much they pay you to own it.

In the year 2010, you’re going to find many grassroots bloggers who are flying by the seat of their pants. The one edge they may have over experienced marketers is that they don’t just get into a niche because it sounds lucrative – they do it because they truly have a passion for it.

That passion will translate into frequent blog posts and the building of a loyal and enthusiastic like-minded core audience. It will grow like a wildfire and when that traffic hits a certain number, competitors will come knocking at the door of these bloggers hoping to make an acquisition and funnel that traffic to their own interests.

Many of these bloggers you’ll be competing with won’t have the marketing savvy and insight to monetize their blogs as well as yours, so initially they may not see the same financial success. But don’t count them out if they’re fierce about feeding the Googlebots with constant content and ensuring they’re not hyping up their reviews in a way that violates current FTC rulings.

Your goal for 2010 as a blogger should be to continue leaving breadcrumbs on a daily basis for search engine spiders. Make sure you utilize broad and long-tail keywords. Comply with regulations about being transparent if you receive compensation for a review or testimonial. And narrow your niche down so that you have a high chance for success against the influx of new bloggers in the blogosphere.

To simplify the construction of a great email marketing program, we need to break the tasks down into three major areas of concern:

1. Collecting email addresses of prospects and customers of the business.
2. Organizing and maintaining a database of your email addresses.
3. Developing a coordinated set of marketing emails and offers.

Ways of Collecting Email Addresses

To be effective, an email marketing program must have the email addresses provided to them by the email recipient. In other words, your prospect or customer should tell you that they wish to receive information from your company! This is really the only process that will work on a ling term basis. To simply send out unsolicited emails to various names on a list is called SPAMMING, is highly ineffective, and your company should never be guilty of such practices.

To collect email addresses of your prospects and customers, there are several approaches that work quite nicely. Many small businesses will ask their visitors to provide their email address whenever they complete a registration form, contest entry form, customer survey, or special offer. A confirmation email is then sent to the prospect to verify their address and their willingness to receive information from your business. You will be amazed at the success that you will receive in such a well constructed campaign.

Likewise, you can promote a URL address (such as www. mycompany.com/signup ) at which you have setup and ‘lead capture page’ on your website to obtain the prospect or customer email address in exchange for something of value, such as a white paper on a topic of interest to your company, or a video download, or even some favorite recipes from your staff. This approach is called an ‘ethical bribe’ and is used quite widely. When you invite the site visitor to provide their email address, you must assure them that you will hold their address in confidence and will not share it with others.

Organizing Your Email Addresses

However you collect the email addresses of your prospects and customers, you must ensure that you have verified their willingness to be on your list, have a way of organizing the email addresses by prospect or customer type or other demographic criteria. Do not attempt to build such a capability yourself! There are many “Autoresponder Services” to choose from which provide a set of very cost effective tools to manage your email database. Check out the systems provided by Aweber.com, 1ShoppingCart.com, or Getresponse.com.

Developing a Coordinated Email Messages and Offers

You can pre-load a set of customer or prospect messages of any number and you can set the internal at which they will be delivered automatically to your specific prospects and customers. Such messages can be used to educate people about your company’s products and services, to inform them of upcoming events in your area and even to entice them to your business through effective offers and coupons.

The time that it takes you to develop and implement an effective email marketing campaign will likely be the most productive time that you spend in your business this year. There is no reason not to take action now!

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