Better Marketing Results

The Stronger than my Excuses Show - "Don't beat yourself up over setbacks...Just don't give up" on Episode 7

If you own a business or running a business you WILL encounter difficulties, setbacks, roadblocks and even failures. What is key to your ongoing success is how you will handle these challenges and use these situations to learn while taking responsibility going forward!

View The Stronger than my Excuses Show - "Don't beat yourself up over setbacks...Just don't give up" Episode 7

#business #businesstips #businesssupport #motivation #inspriation #strongerthanmyexcuses #ajrcounsellingcoachingandconsulting #bettermarketingresults #businessdevelopment #ndccoachingandtraining #pmzmarketing #milestonebelanova #marketing #marketigtips #marketingexpert #advertisingexpert

We are looking forward to a series of new business seminars planned for in the coming year!

The event survey feedback from attendees on our recently completed seminar "Seminar on Growing Your Business: What You Need to Know" has been overwhelmingly very positive! #marketing #businessdeveloment #pmzmarketing. Photos below courtesy of Jo Hanlon of Mind Your Ps.

If you have any marketing topics that you would like to request us to cover in the planned business seminars and workshops for next year, please let us know using the comments form below.

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A recent presentation on Direct Response Marketing is available at our Marketing Seminar Presentations page.

It is my view and experience that the best marketing technique to drive new business development is direct response marketing!

What is direct response marketing? It is a marketing technique designed to generate immediate business results from a promotional offer.You can read my article about using AIDA (Attract, Interest, Desire, Action) to help you prepare your promotional offer from our many articles at our Marketing Resource Library.

Your promotional marketing message or direct response offer will have the following attributes:

• Creative - to ensure that your marketing information will stand out from the crowd and draw the recipient to read or view your promotional offer immediately
• Target Market - is a highly focused and targeted selection of prospective customers for your marketing message offer
• Content - utilise an emotive personalised and relevant marketing message that will resonant with the recipient, it must have a compelling and powerful offer with a 'call to action' framed with scarcity or a limited time frame to drive the response

Over the years, my clients and I have successfully used direct response marketing techniques using the following communication channels:

• Postal Mail
• Email Marketing
• Social Media
• Leveraged Personal Selling
• Cross/Multi-Media

I am interested in hearing from you on your own direct response marketing results, what has your experience been in using direct response marketing techniques?

Please share with us and join the discussion.

This is a puzzle for many a business owner with the majority of businessmanagers and owners looking to grow web traffic using search engineoptimisation or search engine marketing.

Yes, building web traffic volume is very important to thesuccess of an online business. However, we need to keep in mind that NOT all web visitortraffic is equal. Traffic for traffic volume alone is a total waste of our time and resources. We need the right kind of quality traffic –targeted and interested potential customers!

What in your own experience contributes to a successful online web business presence?  Let's hear from you!

The three of the most common and difficult small business and medium enterprises marketing challenges are:

• Finding new clients and customers
• Using engaging marketing messages that generate results
• Implementing business oriented marketing systems

I have published an article on the Marketing Challenges of Small Business & Medium Enterprises (SME) that provides useful information and tips on how these challenges can be handled.

Many of you that have been in business a number of years will have encountered these challenges and have survived the experience to grow their businesses.  For those of you that have kindly share with us your successes in managing these small business and medium enterprises marketing challenges.

Did you know that more often it is the things that you may not be doing that will have a much greater impact on your business growth than those that you do? These are areas that I have found as a business consultant as the most prevalent in holding back the growth of small companies:

• Understanding your Customer Market
• Adequate Planning
• Managing Cash Flow
• Operating a Marketing and Sales Development Process
• Targeted Marketing Campaigns and Programs

What do you think? In your own business situation have you faced these issues or other more significant challenges? Share with us your views and expereinces.

[Read the complete article]

Email marketing is one of the most cost effective communications mediums when used properly to add value and build relationships with your recipients. Here are the five steps to follow in building an effective email marketing program:

One: Define your business objective

You need to be absolutely clear about what you want to achieve.

Two: Build your email list

Put a plan in place to start growing your list.

Three: Prepare your message

Plan ahead and spend most ofyour effort on the message you want to get to the recipient and whataction will result from it.  Follow the AIDA guide;attract the Attention of the reader, generate their Interest, create aDesire for the reader to act and provide them with a call to Action.

Four: Test and test again

Test for open rates with different email subject lines andtest click thru rates for different call to actions.  Once you have theemail that best performs send it to your target list.

Five: Measure and track your results

Use your email marketing analysis tools to measure the resultsof your effort versus the objectives you have set for the emailmarketing campaign.

Share with us your views on how you have used email marketing to promote your business - what works and what does not work.

[Read the complete article]

Some of our readers will note that in landscape mode tablets and smart phones can accommodate websites designed for desktop computers as these devices are fully capable of the screen resolutions that match the desktop.  However, I don't think these are the same! Web content will appear so much smaller and will almost be unreadable without zooming with your two fingers to expand the view.

With desktop computers we use mouse clicks and keyboards while for tablets and smart phones we use “finger sweeps” and on-screen touch keyboards.

It is a completely different user experience for the web visitor that I am sure you will all agree.

What do you think? If your business has implemented optimised web templates for tablets and smart phones, what were the drivers that were considered to making this a priority for your online web business presence?

QR codes can be used to increase the response rate of your marketing campaigns exponentially.

They are quick and very easy quick to use.  Use your smart phone to simply point and scan.  

What are some of the benefits for using QR codes with your marketing?

• Extremely quick responses and conversions for traditional offline marketing
• You are able to track responses easily
• Leverage on social networks to reach out to new customers
• Use premium advertising and marketing space effectively
• QR codes are so easy to share

What is your own experience with QR Codes?  Have you been a recipient of a direct response piece using QR Codes for the 'Call to Action? Did you use it? What was your impression?

Or perhaps, you have used QR Codes with your own marketing campaign? How did it go? Were the results to your satisfaction?