7 Infallible Rules of Marketing

by Troy White

The other day here in Calgary where I live, I was out walking my dog and noticed a Parking Officer giving my neighbour a fine for having his camping trailer parked on the street. What was the mistake this friend of mine made?

Either he didn't know the laws around parking a trailer on the street for extended periods of time, or he was ignoring it.

While it only cost him $150 in fines, if you don't know the rules (or ignore them) in business it's far costlier. On the other hand, if you stick to the following basic rules of marketing, you'll avoid losing money, and instead be on the road to success.

Just follow these 7 rules of small business marketing:

1) It's not your brand or your logo that sells; it's solving a problem for your customer. Most small businesses invest thousands on their professional "look" without any thought (or investment) in how they can help solve their customers' problems. If you think about the WIIFM (what's in it for me) rule for marketing... you can see why a logo means little to your customers.

Help them solve a nagging problem... and you have a friend for life.

2) To get a prospect to become a buyer, use a compelling offer. The first thing you need is an in-depth understanding of what exactly your prospect wants. Guessing doesn't work in the marketing world. Then make sure the targeted offer is front and center in your promotions.

Headlines are perfect to show them you understand their innermost wants, needs and desires. Next, make sure you cover all the intimate details and benefits they get with their offer. Show them ample amounts of proof that you deliver what you promise, and that others in their shoes got the results you promise.

Give them a solid reason to act right now... and guarantee that your product or service will deliver. The longer the guarantee the more compelling the offer. Make it so compelling that there is literally no risk on their side, you carry the risk and must deliver or they get their money back.

3) Each marketing campaigns you launch needs a minimum of 3 steps to succeed. When communicating with your clients and prospects, you must send at least 3 different pieces to them in order to call it a properly designed campaign. In the day of email spam, deliverability issues, and the sheer volume of competition in your inbox (or mailbox)... you need to be consistent in your communication to get them to read it.

Each of the messages can and should cover one of the main benefits you are offering. Having multiple messages also allows you to cover off multiple objections you get from prospects. Last, people need reassurance and seeing different points of view on your offer if a great way to drop their buyers resistance that can cost you the sale.

4) Avoid cutesy sayings and vague one-liners that say and do nothing that take you closer to goal #1. Again, a cute radio ad is useless if it doesn't generate you leads or make you money. Sometimes people get lucky and find a great tag line, but that alone won't make you successful. You must back it up with solid marketing and exposure to those prospects that are most likely to buy.

5) Personal marketing is far more powerful than impersonal marketing. Don't hide the fact that you are a real live person, like most business owners do. They try and mask the size of their company... pretending to be a big corporate behemoth. Putting your face and personality front and center in all your marketing will do more for your sales than anything else you do.

6) Effective advertising is interruptive. It stops your ideal customer in their tracks and literally forces them to start reading your materials. Be realistic to yourself here... the ads you run, the website you have: do they stop your ideal prospect in their tracks and literally force them to read more on what you are doing?

7) Tracking your advertising campaigns is the only way to know whether it is working, or not. Most business owners do not understand where, exactly, their leads come from. Or at which point in the sales cycle does a prospect typically turn to a buyer. Or which ad version works best... or in which paper, on which site, etc. If you don't track your marketing effort you have no clue what is working or not... so how can you keep doing what is working and stop doing what isn't? You can't! Testing and measuring is the only way.

You know at least 7 rules to keep you safe and avoid expensive mistakes. Use the above 7 marketing rules to keep your business safe and headed where you want to go.

Troy White "Turning Your Words Into Wealth"

About the Author

Troy White, The Marketing Results Mentor and Expert Copywriter helps clients achieve HUGE growth surges in their business in very short periods of time. He is a very sought after marketer and advertising specialist who has helped launch some of the world's most profitable marketing systems. For more info visit White's site at http://www.SmallBusinessCopywriter.com or sign up for his Free Cash Flow Surge Newsletter at http://www.CashFlowSurges.com

3 Simple Ways to Increase Site Traffic

by Alex Marco

Are you working tirelessly to drive traffic to your site but still do not see any decent result? Frustrated and disappointed? Its understandable. Its' probably not your fault anyway. You most likely have been following the wrong approach all these while. Read on to find out what methods of traffic generation you should do to finally increase your site traffic today.

First, article marketing. Many people dismiss article marketing as no longer effective. Well the opposite is true. It continues to be one of the most effective traffic generation method today. The only situation when article marketing don't work is when you are spinning content and rewriting it haphazardly. As long as you continue to write quality content that is being addressed to a single reader, you will see result. Readers will be tempted to visit your site after reading your quality articles. The effect of this will soon multiply and so is the increase in your site traffic.

Secondly, have you considered using video marketing to generate traffic to your site? If you haven't then now is the time to do so. More and more internet users are flocking to video sites to catch their favorite videos nowadays. And these people could easily be your site visitors. You are simply losing too much if you are not taking advantage of video marketing today. In terms of technical aspect, you don't need to worry because there are many software around to help you create a video. As for ideas, simply head to popular sites like Youtube to get started. Make use of of videos and soon you will be attracting droves of visitors to your site.

And thirdly, you should use social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to drive traffic to your site. Why? This method may be slower in generating result but the benefits is profound. Not only will you attract people to your site but you are also able to increase your web presence and authority as well, if done right. Social networking also enables you to interact with your visitors and customers, further increasing trust and your accessibility to them. So why not use it?

So if you are still struggling to increase site traffic today, do these 3 traffic generation methods and do it well. Do not give up and I'm pretty sure you won't be struggling for long. Your site traffic will be something that you are proud of.

About the Author

Looking to find the best advice on how to increase site traffic? Then visit http://TrafficPullingTips.com today to obtain more than 100 proven time-tested tips on how to increase website traffic for you.

Earn More Money With Back-end Offers

by Gary David

There are many different ways to create a back-end system, from using private label content to develop high quality products that compliment your primary offer, to offering additional access to membership sites or service features that enhance a customer's purchase.

An upsell that could be offered before the payment would provide customers with the option of upgrading their initial purchase so that they could take advantage of the product's full benefits.

When you create your back-end products, it doesn't have to be difficult, just create a second product that compliments your first product. It will dramatically increase your online sales, considering the fact that creating your back-end funnel requires no further customer acquisition costs, as you are selling to the same customer base that has already purchased your product before.

Another easy way to create a back-end product for your upsell, is to aqcuire PLR or Private Label Rights content. You can do whatever you want to a PLR content, change the graphics, put your name as the author, edit some words to fit your writing style. By using PLR content, you can have your own product immediately, just make sure to deliver quality product and change some part of it so it will look like as your own product.

If you fail to develop your back-end system, you are leaving a lot of money on the table and a lot of lost sales. Regardless of what your niche market or the price of your info product, if don't take advantage of the opportunity to upsell or resell to an existing customer base, you are literally leaving money on the table.

Example:

If you are selling e-book via the Clickbank marketplace, and you priced your e-book at $17, and you advertised your e-book that costs you $100, which yielded 10 customers. Your gross profit would be $170 ($17 X 10 customers) - while your net profit would only be $70 ($100 in advertising), based on those 10 customers and the costs to actually acquire them (advertising). However, if you offer these 10 customers with a backend product or service, which sells for $97, and only 30% of these customers accept it, you will generate another $291($97 X 3 customers) in income.

If you did not apply the 'backend' concept, your net profit would only have been $70 for 10 customers. Even in small numbers, a backend system will dramatically increase your overall income.

The backend concept can really help you to explode your profit margin quickly and easily. All you have to do is to supply to your existing customers with additional product offers that are relevant to your primary product and make more money on a consistent basis from the same customer base. It's as simple as that.

About the Author

Discover how you can profit from PLR products, increase your online sales, explode your affiliate commissions, and create back-end products and unlimited number of products at www.PLRContentRiches.com.

Splash Page Marketing

by Maurice Petersen

Splash pages play are important in your affiliate marketing program. Anyone responding to an marketing message whether an email, pay per click or ezine ad etc. will normally be directed to a splash age. This concept started when marketers began building their mailing list. In an effort to maintain contact with a visitor for follow up messages a mailing list was essential.

Although the main use of a splash page is to capture names and email address some marketers are adding additional functionality to the page. The best way to get a feel of how splash pages can be used is to look closely at the splash pages used by the marketers in the ezine advertising or respond to some cpc ads. If I listed several URL,s to several splash pages it would be considered advertising and I probably could not get this article published.

Generally the splash page will offer some kind of incentive in exchange for your contact information. People are becoming increasingly reluctant to turn loose of their contact information and incentives of high perceived value in some cases become quite compelling. In fact incentives to make the incentive offered more attractive are at times used. Often time restraints are placed on the incentive like -be sure and obtain your free ebook by May 1st -. This encourages us not think about it for a period of time,but, to act now. Maybe you will see -don't miss out I only have 75 of these available-. This introduces the concept of scarcity which motivates us to take action before it is to late.

Some marketers use a splash page to promote other offers or other sites. In my way of thinking another offer or another URL could cause people to click away from your splash page and significantly reduce the chance of capturing their contact information. Once the contact information is captured then other offers and sites can be introduced. Another way to introduce another offer is direct them to another offer site or A One Time Offer Site when the submit button is clicked on the splash page. The main consideration is to obtain mailing list information.

A nice looking and well presented splash page is a plus. Don't clutter up the page with several graphics. It's a good idea to show an image of the ebook, report or soft ware being used as an incentive. Keep the content form as the central focus of the page. If your discussion regarding the incentive offered is lengthy place the contact form in more than one location. Maybe place it at the top and middle or middle and end.

A splash page can be designed to be used with several different promotions. This simplifies the marketing effort and minimizes splash page creation. Having a separate splash page for each promotion has advantages over the one page fits all. They can be customized to bring out the benefits of how this incentive enhances the product or opportunity being presented. Possibly even a bigger reason in using a dedicated splash page is a separate splash pages simplifies tracking to see where the hits came from.

About the Author

Maurice Petersen is an affiliate marketer and writes articles on various topics for affiliate marketing. For more interesting articles on affiliate marketing visit my blog and signup for a free report: 3 Keys To Creating Big-Time Commission Checks. Visit: http://www.stayhomeandworkonline.com