How to Quickly Build an Arsenal of Powerful Testimonials — Even When You're Just Starting Out!

Keywords: Testimonials

In this article you'll discover how to get those super valuable testimonials that are so vital to your freelance success!

One of my coaching students, copywriter Kim Stacey, asked the question, "How can my client quickly generate testimonials?"

The answer is the same for Kim's client as it is for us freelancers: you must develop them!

I confess that in my own copywriting business I was lazy in this department and had to scramble once I decided to correct my negligence. It's a fact that every couple of months about 10 percent of your business contacts change jobs, get promoted, quit work, or otherwise leave their positions. When that happens, your chance for getting a glowing testimonial from a happy client is gone forever!

So listen up...here are the secrets to painlessly growing your testimonial list:

Money Saving Marketing Tips

Keywords: Effective Marketing

How do you maximize the impact of your advertising and marketing efforts so that people will notice you, without breaking the bank? Whether you run a neighbourhood business or sell products online, there are a number of methods you can use to get the best deal for your small business. I've been doing it for years. Here are some tips:

Classifieds Work:

When you wade into the advertising wars, start small. If your product or service is one that is generally in demand, classifieds will probably serve you well for starters. They're cheap (maybe $30 to $70 per day) and you'll reach a large audience, especially in the major daily newspapers. Depending on the product or service you're selling, it won't take much to generate a return of $30 to $70 to at least cover your advertising costs.

How To Find a Money-Making Product To Sell, Part 1

Keywords: Affiliate Marketing

Believe it or not, finding a product to market is usually the least of your concerns. There are many ways to find a product. You can create your own information product, sell a service that you do, or market other people’s products for a commission.

While providing a service for people is good, it is often the most time-consuming of the three. For example, if you write resumes for people, or type manuscripts, you only get paid if you work. If you sell an already-made product, however, such as an information product or an affiliate product, you can set your website on autopilot and make sales with little work on your part.

Let me be very clear: You will have to work. You must maintain, at an absolute minimum, your advertising. If you do not, your lead generating machine will dry up.

Your Current Customer List is Your Ticket to Profit

Keywords: Effective Marketing

Need vs Want

I've seen many articles on this topic. Do people buy what they need or what they want. Some writers stress that they buy what they want and vice versa. The truth is there is a market for both.

How many times have you gone to the super market for milk, butter or bread, and came back with ice cream or some other snacks. It happens all the time right? Supermarkets have this down pat. Did you ever notice that you have to walk past many want products to get to the needs.

Why don't you use this strategy in your marketing. For example, when my computer consultants go on a service call they are instructed to listen to the clients, and probe them for information on what they like doing on line. Lets say they like playing games. When the consultant is finished with the job we leave them a package. Besides an invoice, we leave them a referral letter telling them if they refer two people to us we will give them two free hours of service, and a list of ways they can use them. It's ok because the lifetime value of a customer is gold. Then they write on the back of their business card 20% off and a code number for some great new software game we have in stock.

Dealing with Fear and Hesitancy

Keywords: Motivation

The only thing predictable is unpredictability. As a trainer and coach to sales professionals across the country, I’ve seen some trends we all need to be more aware of.

Fear and hesitancy can become a self-fulfilling prophecy for both us, and our customers! We have an important role as catalysts of our customers’ perceptions and actions. If you allow their actions to be controlled by fearful "what ifs," you’re doing them, your employer, and yourself a disservice. Second, if you spread doom and gloom, you’ll be inflicting one person’s reluctance (as well as your own) on another.

The definition of our work, our job descriptions and our responsibilities has dramatically changed. And we’d better be ready. First, some fast "101." Selling isn’t solving a shipping problem, and popping in once a week ‘just in case’ the client wants to see us (which we usually do more for our own sake than theirs). Selling, REAL selling, is:

Dominate Your Market

Keywords: Effective Marketing

Not long ago I was asked, "What is the most important thing Wisconsin manufacturers can do to improve their bottom line?" My answer . differentiate yourself.

Differentiation is the process of separating yourself from your competition by clearly defining in your customer’s mind something that you do better than anyone else.

In short, making your company different from everyone else in your marketplace.

I like to think of a target customer’s mind as a room full of file cabinets. Each file contains one, or maybe two companies that fill a certain need. So in the world of airlines there’s one file labeled "lowest cost". Southwest fills that file. Another folder is labeled "best service.” Midwest Express, with its first class leather seats at coach prices and chocolate chip cookies baked en route, is filed in that one. For this, Midwest is able to happily pocket a few extra dollars for every seat on every flight.

Alliance Partner Turns Up the Heat on Sales

Keywords: Website Growth

Reed Switch Developments Corp. President Debra Berns knew that her company’s web site had not tapped the full potential of the Internet. Last summer, amid signs of a weakening economy, she decided it was time to overhaul the company’s web site in a bid to generate new customers and sales.

Racine-based Reed Switch manufactures magnetic proximity sensors used in boats, commercial lawn mowers, elevators, escalators, incubators and dialysis machines.

With only 15 employees, the company didn’t have the expertise in-house to build a world-class web site. So it turned to WMEP Alliance Partner Don Crowther, president of Breakthrough Consulting, an Internet and marketing consulting firm.

"The first thing we did was to make our web site more user friendly … easier to navigate and faster to download," says Berns. "One thing we wanted to avoid was all the bells and whistles – if the page takes too long to download people will just leave."

What is the Most Effective Way to Advertise?

Keywords: Advertising

Bob from Ottawa wrote to ask, "What is the most effective way to advertise locally at a friendly price. Thinking of postcards..."

Bob has an unusual business. He paints murals on the walls of children's bedrooms. While his occupation is unique, his question about the best way to spend advertising dollars is not. I regularly get the same query from realtors, executive recruiters, and other service professionals and small business owners. Whether you've got $500 or $15,000 dollars allocated for advertising, how should you spend it to attract new clients and customers?

The fact is this is not the right question - or, at least, not the first one to ask. Most people spend more time deliberating on where to spend their marketing dollars than they do on the key elements of a successful advertising campaign. The result is that many people tell me, "I've tried advertising and it doesn't work."

Use the following steps to make advertising work for you and to build a campaign that generates more money than you spend.

PR Essential to your Success

Keywords: Public Relations

Whether you are a business, non-profit or association manager, your success will depend, to a large degree, on how well you positively impact the behaviors of those outside audiences that most affect your operation.

You need to create external stakeholder behavior change – the kind that leads directly to achieving your managerial objectives.

And you do that by persuading those important outside folks to your way of thinking, then moving them to take actions that help your department, division or subsidiary succeed.

The road to that success is filled with potholes, but you'll never feel them if you have the right roadmap.

Like this one: people act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is accomplished.

11 Powerful Marketing Tips

Keywords: Marketing

Each of these 11 marketing tips is based on a marketing strategy or tactic proven to boost sales. How many are you using?

Tip 1: Your customers buy your product or service to feel a certain way after their purchase. Keep this in mind as you develop your ads, web pages and other sales tools. Use vivid word pictures to dramatize the pleasant feelings your customers experience when they use what you are selling. It intensifies their desire to have it and motivates them to buy now.

Tip 2: Continually test new advertising and marketing methods...and old methods you never tried before. A good guideline to follow is to allocate 80 percent of your budget to proven promotions and 20 percent to testing new things. Most businesses using this formula keep growing regardless of changing market conditions and intense competition.

Some Advertising Is Doomed To Fail

Keywords: Advertising

When people are concerned about the lack of response to their advertising, usually they complain about one of two things. They either say, "I put it in all the popular ezines but nobody responded" or "I followed all the copywriting 'rules' but didn't even get one sale." This dilemma is normally due to one common problem. There is one thing most people don't think about that dooms their advertising to failure.

Advertising is a process, not an event. Basically this means four things.

(1) Your copy has to be fabulous.
(2) Your placement has to be right on target.
(3) Your timing has to be impeccable.
(4) You must repeat your ads regularly.

The one thing that most people don't consider that dooms their ads to failure is that all four elements in the process must be in place.

Let's go through them individually to get some clarification and ensure your ads get the response they should.

The SKINNY on Radio Advertising

Keywords: Radio Advertising

From meager beginnings in 1920, radio has grown with us to be a major player in advertising. The radio industry says they get about 8 percent of all advertising bucks. Not bad when you consider the many ways to hawk your service or product

They get their fair share because radio works. With over twelve THOUSAND radio stations in the country, the music and news they broadcast is everywhere.

Radio is the mobile medium. Few cars have TV’s up front, and few drivers can read the New York Times while driving (safely). The advertising on radio targets you passively. You don't have to be looking at it or reading it to get the message.

Radio’s strength is drive time. The times of the day when most people are in their cars driving to and from work. You can sound like a pro when you call ‘em AMD and PMD.

When Is A Niche Market Over-crowded?

Keywords: Internet Marketing

When investigating starting a business on the Internet, the advice you'll very frequently get is to build a business in a very targeted niche. You'll even be advised to find a niche within a niche in some cases.

By focusing on a very tight niche, and offering only products, services, and information within that niche, the market naturally gravitates to you. The world will begin recognizing you as the expert.

When someone is searching for information on that topic in the search engines, since your site is so focused, it naturally ranks higher. Since you've spent a lot of time really researching the topic and related keywords, you should naturally perform better in the pay-per-click search engines too. Your focus will enable you to uncover advantages that others miss.

Do You Make These Dumb Marketing Mistakes? (I Have Made Some of Them Myself!)

Keywords: Advertising

Most businesses have what I called a "sales prevention department."

It's not part of anyone's business plan and no one starts their SP department intentionally, but we all have one. It’s the "department" that sends out the messages that prevent people from spending their money with you.

My personal favorite is a classic and one that you see all the time in front of grocery stores at bus stops...

“No Change Here”

Imagine you're walking down the street in a new neighborhood and you see a sign that says:

“No Change Here”

The message is clear: we're not very friendly here. And your reaction to that message will be just as clear: “I don’t want to go in there.”

Insight: Failure and Success In Online Business

Keywords: Internet Marketing

Creativity and Determination are the KEY ingredients in all online success stories. So many times, as a moderator and participant in the net's most active and lauded online marketing forum, The Internet Marketing Warriors, I have heard the same questions repeated by hopeful marketer after hopeful marketer. And mostly they begin with "How do I...?"

Similar questions, in a dead-heat in frequency, vary around a theme such as "What tool should I use to...?"

Know-how and tools.

Go to any forum on the net, on almost any subject, and you will find hundreds or even thousands of people exchanging information on know-how and tools. "What is the best way to write copy?" "Which autoresponder script is best for my business?" "What hosting is the best for me?"

Google Wants You

Keywords: Website Ads

I am about to show you how thousands of webmasters are quietly pocketing thousands of dollars every month for doing nothing.

Well, almost nothing.

Here's the scoop:

Google started a pay-per-click program called "AdWords" some time ago. You have likely seen some Adwords ads at the right hand side of Google searches or on many websites (like a few pages on mine.)

While those ads generate solid revenue for Google, they also generate revenue for the websites which show them to their visitors.

The program for webmasters is called "Google AdSense."

7 Secrets To Top Search Engine Rankings (Yes, Even #1 Positions!) For SEO Dummies

Keywords: Search Engine Optimization

There's hope for the 'little guys' in the search engine ranking game, even if they can't tell the difference between the title and keyword meta tag!

You can achieve high rankings for important keywords simply by applying certain rules that stand the test of time and even technology...and the number one rule is really to...

...Help the search engines provide relevant search results!

How do you do this? I'll reveal the 'secrets' soon.

While I'm far from being an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) expert and am just sharing experiences here, I've achieved some phenomenal results by following these basic rules and without resorting to 'tricks'. Importantly, these are rankings that last.

5 Ways To Increase Website Traffic To Your Website

Keywords: Increase Traffic

Millions of websites online can be placed in their own special category of "Deserted Town". The only life you can find there are those of the webmasters who created them. This is because they get very few, if any, targeted visitors. For these website owners, there are simple techniques they can use to increase website traffic.

Read on and I will give you five ways to increase website traffic to your website. These aren't hidden secrets and they won't give you millions of hits per month for just $ 9.99. (I'm sure you know what I mean). However they are effective and using them will increase website traffic to your website. And the visitors that you get will be more profitable because they will be targeted.

Increase Website Traffic

You can pay to increase website traffic. (I've decided to get the money spending out of the way first). There are many ways you can pay to increase website traffic; here are three (3) popular ones.

· pay-per-click · ezine ads · website ads

Before you use any of these paying methods to increase website traffic to your website, I want you to first examine your website with your ideal customer in mind. What keywords will they use to find your website in the search engines? Write them down.

Success Stories: $1 Million His First Year

Keywords: Success

Here's a success story for you: Launch a site in January, be making $120,000 per month by May.

Pretty impressive, huh?

Not only that, he claims virtually anyone can duplicate his methods and have similar results. Maybe you won't make a million your first year, but would it be so bad to hit $300 or $400K? Yeah, I thought so.

Who is this wunderkind? Brad Fallon of MyWeddingFavors.com.

Brad was, by trade, a search engine optimization expert. When I first heard that I thought, "OK, now I get it. If you are an SE Expert you can accomplish this."

Brad dismisses that notion. "I can teach almost anyone to get similar results in just an hour and a half."

The Key To Successful Selling

Keywords: Sales

Your business's success will depend on your ability to persuade others to take actions that will help them while also helping you. This is referred to as a win-win situation. Both parties in the transaction must receive a benefit in value or in satisfaction. There are many buying motives that may bring a customer to your business:

Gain Utility Conformity
Time saved Productivity Saved effort
Health Convenience Money saved
Comfort Happiness Need
Protection Pride (vanity) Want
Pleasure Fear Economy
Amusement Love Luxury
Security Profit Safety

The key to successful selling is to determine which motives brought the customer to you and then develop a sales presentation that will convince the customer that you and your products or services can meet those needs. This process can be broken down into a series of steps:

Prospecting. This is the activity of identifying potential customers or running ads to entice people into your business offline or online.

How To Market Without a Website

Keywords: Marketing

Despite what internet marketing “gurus” tell you, you do not need to have a website to be successful in internet marketing.

You do need some basic tools, but a website is not one of them.

Sure, a website is helpful, especially as a content management tool, and even more so if you sell your own products. But if you are an affiliate marketer, you don’t need your own site.

For affiliate marketing, there is really only one tool you need (other than internet access and email): an autoresponder. You need a good autoresponder that will let you broadcast messages to the list that you will build. Most free autoresponder programs will not let you do this, so you need to invest about $20 per month in a good autoresponder. This will be the best investment you ever make in your business. And, since autoresponder programs are affiliate programs themselves, you can promote your autoresponder program and eventually have it pay for itself.

How to Test Market for Free from Your Own Web Site

Keywords: Internet Marketing

Here’s a novel way of test marketing new produce for free from an existing web site. Maybe the idea is not so new but it’s new to me and I know for a fact it works - because I tried it out and the results were spectacular.

In a nutshell…

Recently I developed five new interlinked products which I was loath to thrust upon an unsuspecting public without some idea of their uptake potential. I looked at several online test marketing software kits but baulked at the price tags. Then I decided to undertake a little experiment. I added two new pages to www.writing-for-profit.com of which the first was devoted to Product No.1 (which co-incidentally comprises the other four) with the second page offering a free ebook extolling the virtues of the new package. Bearing in mind that this new parcel was disparate from my core produce I featured these additional pages with navigation buttons entitled ‘WHAT’S THIS?’ and ‘AND THIS?’ Then as belt and braces security so as not to confuse visitors I explained in a regular page why I was doing this by coming up front and confessing that I was test marketing.