Up-selling Strategy: Make the most of your customers

 Taken From (http://www.freshthinkingbusiness.com)

If your business can effectively reach its existing customer base, you have the advantage of marketing to those who already know and like your business and its products and services. Your business's existing customers are aware that your business can meet their needs and wants, and with prices they accept.

The following are four major ways to up-sell your existing customers. For the following examples I will use a media business to illustrate.

Sell more of what your customers are already buying.
Each of your existing customrs have certain buying habits. Ideally you'll have accumulated data that allows you to reference both the specific items they purchase as well as their frequency. With this information, you can offer additional products and services in which the customer has already proved to have an interest in. For example, sell other music CDs featuring your customers' favourite recording artists, or send your customers a newsletter announcing new releases.

Sell complementary products and services.
Your business may have products and services that can be sold in conjunction with other products and services that can be sold in conjunction with other products and services. These items are often an easy up-sell that can be made at the point of purchase. For example, when a customer buy a music CD, you could offer them a CD carrying case or a storage tower.

Introduce non-complementary products and services.
Your current customers posses a degree of trust in your business, and this can be converted into sales of products and services that are not directly related to the customers' existing purchases. For example, a customer who typically buys music CDs can be introduced to videotapes and DVDs that provide access to the latest in recorded movies.

Offer new products and services that your business has added.
As your business adds new products and services, these can be offered to your existing customers. This can be done without your having to convert these customers to your business, as they already like your business and how it operates. For example, if your media business adds media equipment to your product line, such as CD, video and/or DVD players, these can also be offered to existing customers.

Failing to Plan Your Business Financing Can Be a Death Sentence for Your Business

 Taken From (http://www.articlecircle.com)

Most businesses start out thinking the first thing they need is a great business plan. The popular myth is that potential lenders will place great stock in your business plan as a major consideration for approving the financing you need.

While a well written business plan will assist you when you are seeking financing, it is far down on the lenders list behind things such as your business management teams experience, your past business successes and your lending character. Having a plan for accessing the business capital you need to execute your business plan is what is required to bring your business success. Not having a viable business financing plan is the direct cause of why 90% of all new businesses fail.

Your lending character means the lender sees you having the ability and stability to repay the loan. They also ask how far they believe you can take the business to maximize the potential earnings and therefore their chances of getting repaid.

The first thing a lender is going to look at is how did you structure the business and were you responsible and knowledgeable in that. Are you Incorporated or an L L C? If not you are declined for a business loan and everything becomes based solely on you as an individual. Did you do your E I N, State, business licenses and bank filings correctly? If not, you are declined because a lender requires attention to detail.

A simple business credit report check by a lender will quickly show whether or not you are even in the ballpark for getting approved for financing. If the lender finds that you have not bothered to insure that your business has active reports with all three major business credit reporting agencies, then of course you are immediately declined.

Next, the lender will look at the character of your business credit reports. What do they say about your business? What kind of payment histories have you had with debts that are easy to get such as vendor trade lines, small business credit cards, equipment leases, etc? If your business has no credit history or very minimal history then no lender will even consider your business for a larger loan when you have no track record of paying smaller debts.

If you pass these simple tests, now a lender will get to the heart of you business loan application and it is only at this point that you even get the opportunity to present your funding request. Unfortunately as high as 90 percent of all business loan applications never get to this point, because most business owners never take the time to complete the initial steps.

So you have made it this far, The next question you need to ask is what is a lender going to want to see? Debt service! Here is where the lender finally looks at your business plan, or at least the financial pat of it, to determine if your business can debt service the loan. To make this determination a lender will test the reality of your numbers. Basically this means do your numbers add up and do they make sense.

If you do not know anything about accounting you had better get help. When a lender looks at your projected financial statement and finds simple accounting errors, then in most cases you will again be declined. They do not want to lend money to someone who cannot produce a simple proof and loss statement; or someone that cannot balance a balance sheet. There is a lot of help out there, get some.

Next, a lender will look at the market niche section of your business plan. While most business owners think that this is the place that sets them apart from the competition, it actually is the part where lenders will compare you to your competition. Here is where lenders must see that you have done you market research. Can the revenue claims that you are making in your financial projections be backed up by the actual market demographics for your specific business industry, location, customer base, etc.? It essentially comes down to the need for your product or service.

All of this can seem overwhelming and in truth it can be. It is the reason that 97 percent of all business loan applications get declined. The overriding reason is that business owners are not taught this in school and typically only gain this knowledge through years of brutal experience that normally includes having one or two failed businesses under their belts.

This will give you plenty of information to get you started on putting together a business funding request.

Top 5 Online Money Making Tips

 Taken From (http://www.moneytips4me.com)

In computer age people have devised new ways to earn money which has become full time profession for many people who are working very hard to generate business on a sustained basis. There has been a huge proliferation of websites and this in turn has led to events that offer handsome opportunities for entrepreneurs to earn money online. Some of the Top 5 Online Money Making Tips have become very famous in internet space because with little knowledge you can create millions out of nothing.

Writing:

• There has been an explosive growth in online space in recent past. As a matter of fact many individuals and organizations are joining virtual space every day and there are billions of addresses that are currently floating on internet.
• In retrospect it has a huge business potential and you can do your bit to earn money by expressing views on different events or area of your choice. There are different field like sports, politics, art, and culture that continuously attract people and they are quite eager to have latest updates about them. It would be a blessing in disguise that will help you to gain a useful insight into revenue methodology of your website.

Affiliate Marketing:

• It is considered to be one of the most prominent among Top 5 Online Money Making Tips currently popular in internet space. You can market product of different websites from your own web link which would generate lots of revenues.
• In modern era many companies try to sell their goods by increasing visibility however it is not possible in a short span of time therefore they rely on affiliate marketing to boost traffic to their website. Using different techniques on some of the most popular search engines you can identify and promote traffic through your site by providing links.

Social websites:

• There are many new sites which want to promote themselves in virtual space. To identify and increase their membership they run unique programs like referral scheme wherein if you become a member and you also persuade your friend to create an account you would be rewarded with cash.
• In addition you can make your profile more interesting by writing genuine and informative contents that would help you to generate more revenue.

Online trading:

• It is most common and does not require additional skills. You can buy or sell products as well as services on internet. People are increasingly using online methods to perform different tasks that would help users to concentrate more on financial aspects of the deal and in process earn good money.
• If you have goods or you are an expert in fixing hardware or software problems you can advertise about it on internet which would increase your customer base and online revenue. It is important to maintain quality of product because if it’s shoddy it might lead a bad user experience and loss of business.

Online activities:

• In this competitive world when companies are jostling with each other for market space surveys are done on a regular basis to have an approximate idea of money it will generate. Many companies offer cash to their customers for mentioning their requirements and feed backs about a certain product.

How To Increase Your Profits Through Branding

 TAKEN FROM (http://www.infoproductcreator.com)

Have you ever noticed that in any given market there are
names you hear over and over again?

They appear on discussion groups, email lists, online
newsletters, web pages, reviews, other people's products,
and in a variety of other publicity venues.

What you really want to know is how do you become a
winning "brand" in your given market.

You may be amazed to know that the secrets of how to reach
"expert" status in your given field are really quite basic.
These powerful tips applied constantly, consistently with
focus will help you get the advantages branding will bring.

TIP 1 Do Something You Are Passionate About. Passion,
experience and dedication are the 3 key ingredients leading
to "expert" status. Make sure you are doing what you truly
desire and the branding will come.

TIP 2 Do something you have or can gain experience with
very quickly. Most people who operate and provide advice
in their markets don't have direct experience. Get your
hands dirty doing what you love and your experiences will
shine through.

TIP 3 Give back more than you get. Set time away every
day to help people out on public discussion boards,
teleseminars, web seminars, through free information, e-
courses. Your level of awareness in your market will
heavily depend on the amount of useful, detailed, and
highly relevant information you release.

TIP 4 Stick With It. Contrary to popular belief, the
benefits of branding in your market will take time. People
look up to others who have stuck with their dreams through
good times and bad.

TIP 5 Values and Ethics. Set the bar high and far fewer
people will make it to the other side. Giving up short
term opportunities, revenues and prestige in favor of your
longer term reputation will always pay off in the long run.
You will notice that anyy of the "experts" in your market
shun controversy, usually always try to take the hight road
and protect their reputation as if it were their last drop
of water in the desert.

TIP 6 Develop Your Own 30-second commercial and include it
everywhere. Your 30-second commercial must include the
single most compelling benefit about your product or
service. Include it in every email, business conversation,
discussion forum posting, business card, free article and
any communication you have.

TIP 7 Create your own technology. Make it easy for your
market to remember you. Create your own solution system.
While you may repeat steps used by others in your market,
differentiate yourself by labelling your specific approach
to your problem space.

Do you have a branding plan? Are you climbing the ladder
to "expert" status?

Every market is looking for leaders, you simply have to
follow the steps to get there.

Internet Marketing Strategies

 Taken From (http://www.businessfreearticles.com)

Finding Your Path Through the Internet Marketing Jungle

Trying to decide how to strategically market your service or product (or yourself) online can be overwhelming. There are a myriad of marketing possibilities to choose from, and more great strategies are being offered almost daily. How can an internet marketer decide on the best strategic marketing plan that works for their business?

There seems to be as many answers for which strategies to use in what situation than there are internet marketing strategies themselves! There are definitely too many strategies for any one marketer to utilize them all. If you have a very large team with access to multiple internet marketing specialists, your marketing strategies can incorporate most available methods. However, most of us do not have access to that kind of resource.

How Do You Choose Your Internet Marketing Strategies?

There are too many internet marketing options to discuss them all in a short article, but there are three general principles that can make a huge difference to your marketing efforts. Following these principles will not just improve the success of your current internet marketing plan, but can help you figure out where to start focusing your efforts in the first place.

Three Principles for Making Appropriate Strategic Marketing Choices

1) Be Capable in your Strategic Marketing

Not all marketers are created equal. We all have a variety of strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately we tend to focus more on how to fix our weaknesses rather than how to harness our strengths. It is true we should all strive to improve ourselves, but sometimes the time and effort placed on learning the internet marketing strategies we are struggling with would be better placed finding and perfecting strategies that we already have an aptitude for.

When a strategy works well for the majority of marketers it does not necessarily mean it will work well for you. If a particular strategy does not come easily to you, it will take more time and will likely not generate the top quality you need to stand out against your competitors. If you are not adept at something, use a different strategy that you can implement effectively with the unique capabilities you do have, or make the investment to outsource if you have the means to do so.

This does not mean we should not learn new strategies! If you are not constantly learning, you will also not succeed. Make sure you are not perpetually spending more time learning something that is difficult for you than you are taking to actually market your product or service. Some great internet marketing strategies are better left for others who have a better aptitude for them. Their expertise will allow them to do it better than you anyway.

2) Care About your Strategic Marketing

Let’s face it; everything we do in marketing is not fun. It is work, and most definitions of work do not include the word ‘fun’. However…take a second and think about sitting in front of your computer to work on your latest marketing project. If you would rather be sitting in the dentist’s chair getting a couple of teeth pulled, you are spending your time with the wrong strategies. Work can actually be enjoyable. At the very least, you should be able to find a few good strategies that beat getting teeth pulled. There are many strategic marketing choices on the internet. Pick the ones you enjoy and care about.

“But my current marketing strategies are supposed to be the best for my product!” “My upline says this strategy has been working for everyone on the team!” If you hate what you are doing, it will show in your work, just as your passion will shine through when you are doing something you love. It will be difficult to put in extra hours when necessary, you will be more apt to give up prematurely, and you will be unable to do exceptional stand-out work if you hate every minute of it.

Start by learning the marketing strategies you are most interested in, see which ones you like, and master those first. Eventually learn them all so you can find which methodologies you most enjoy and are best at. These will be the marketing strategies that perform the best for you and are more sustainable in the long run.

3) Be Consistent with your Strategic Marketing

For many marketers, the strategy seems to be: ‘Chase the latest and greatest marketing options as soon as they appear.’ They work on something, get mediocre results, then three weeks later when a great new idea comes along, abandon their current efforts and ‘try’ something else. This is not a recipe for sustainable success.

Sometimes the latest hot new marketing trend can work wonders and inject a lot of cash into your business. New ideas should be taken advantage of when appropriate. However, if it’s new it is unproven and may fail. Has it been tested in your niche market? Will it still be working a week from now? If you change your marketing plan more often than you change your socks, you will never get really good at anything. You will be spending as much time learning new things as you do actually marketing your product or service.

Consistency is the key. If your strategic marketing plan is based on solid and proven strategies and you do not give up and start something new every couple weeks, you will become an expert in those strategies. They will get easier, less time consuming, and start running like clockwork to bring you a consistent stream of clients. It is easier and less risky to learn and test new methods when you have a proven and profitable system already in place to fall back on.

Points for Choosing the Right Internet Marketing Strategy

- Develop a good strategic base of internet marketing methods that you enjoy and are capable of implementing effectively.

- Be consistent with these marketing strategies so you become an expert and are profiting from them with minimal effort.

- Try almost everything, including the ‘hot’ new methods that look like they have potential, but don’t abandon the tried and true methods that have already been proven to work.

- If you find new marketing methods that you enjoy and can utilize effectively, add them to your long tern internet marketing strategy and use them consistently until you master them.

Follow these steps, be patient and consistent, and you will succeed in finding your own strategic path through the internet marketing jungle. Happy Marketing!

What is an Effective Internet Marketing Strategy?

 Taken From (http://www.freemarketingzone.com/)
If you’re still struggling to finally reach your financial independence & make a nice living from your home, then listen... The only reason why you’re failing is because you don’t have a good website marketing strategy.

If you ask any successful offline world entrepreneur how it’s possible to build a great business without a proper strategy, he’ll start laughing. But many internet marketing experts are trying to make money without even realizing what on earth they’re doing online…

If you believe that you can jump in, create a website, submit it to a few directories or blogs, sit down, relax & watch those thousands of dollars (that you’ve seen in many marketers’ checks) to come, then you need to stop right there. It ain’t gonna happen. You need to think: who you are and where do you want to be in the future. Whether offline or online, there are only two things that matter: “Buying” and “Selling”. Basically, to simplify, it all comes down to this:

Who is your customer?
What is he or she specifically looking for? You must know their problems or desires. You must be in their shoes and find out what is that would make them feel better (an offer).

What is your offer?
Why should they buy from you? How come you’re better than the rest? Why should they trust you? Are you offering your own or someone else’s product? How will you create an irresistible offer so they beg you to sell it to them?

Think about it… There are millions of people buying online every single day. If they’re not buying from you then whose fault is that - theirs or yours?

Before you even start creating internet marketing strategy for your website(s), you need to do a research. That’s where it all begins actually. Just like in any business, you have to understand where you are and what can you do.

#1 Phase - Online Research

In this phase, you must research your market. Who are your main competitors? What are they doing online? PPC, SEO, press releases, develop their own products, do affiliate marketing or Adsense? What are their weaknesses? Do they offer a guarantee? Is their product really good? Do they build links constantly or not?

Who is your favourite customer? Where do they hangout: MySpace or YouTube? Are they freebie seekers or desperate buyers? What forces them to buy one or another product? Read reviews, forums, testimonials to find out as much as you can about your target market.

#2 Phase – Data Analysis

If you’ve performed a thorough online market research, it’s time to systematize the data you have. Write down what are the main strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Maybe you have more time than your competitors? Or maybe you know some targeted traffic source that others don’t. How might this affect your business?

Which are the places your target market usually visits? What are their main concerns? Maybe they’re not satisfied with the products in the market. Can offer something better, maybe in a form of a bonus? After that, you come to the next step, which is developing your internet marketing strategy.

#3 Phase – Strategy Development

When you already know your target market and your competitors, you are able to start creating your internet marketing strategy (or strategies). Just sit down and think about: who you are and what you can offer to the target market.

It involves a little bit of planning. What marketing methods you’ll use and which ones you can afford? PPC, SEO, email, blogging, podcasting, video blogging, webinars, viral traffic generation, link building, banner exchange or others…? You must prioritize your web marketing tactics. Find out what’s going to bring you positive ROI in the shortest time possible.

Do you have enough time to perform search engine optimization? If so, then sit and do everything you can, day in day out, to rank at the top in search engines. Don’t have time? Then buy PPC traffic and start testing your landing pages effectively. Or buy resell rights to products and sell them on ClickBank with the help of JV partners.

Don’t have time AND money? Then you better get one or another, otherwise you’re dead.

Seriously, you must find ways to get time or money. You need to think about how you can exploit other people’s time and money to build your own web business. That’s what rich people do and that’s what you must do if you want to survive in this competitive world.

#4 Phase – Monitoring Performance

When you have an internet marketing plan, you can start implementing it right away. The last step is to start monitoring your internet marketing campaigns. Which keywords people typed into search engines to find your site? Which keywords brought you the most money in PPC marketing? Are you satisfied with your SEO rankings or not? Do majority of your visitors leave your site without even spending 30 seconds? And so on…

Only with the help of close monitoring you can discover what works and what doesn’t. Testing landing pages, testing Adwords ads against each other (A/B split testing) can show you some amazing results. And remember – you never know for sure until you TEST it!

B2B Social Media Lead Generation: 5 Opportunities Meet 5 Challenges

Taken from(http://www.ck-blog.com

It’s a great subject, and an important one for B2Bs who must generate, qualify and close business leads so as to ensure the viability of their companies. And it got me thinking… and inspired this post.

I’m going to run down what I see as the 5 biggest opportunities and 5 biggest challenges for B2B lead generation in a 2.0 world. And then I’d love to know your thoughts. Tell me what I’ve missed or mistaken; after all, we’re here to learn from one another.

Biggest Opportunities:
Through Web 2.0 technologies there are tremendous opportunities for Lead Generation, namely:

#1: A great “leveler.” Through social media, small and medium-sized businesses can now afford the same media used by big companies, so this opens an affordable, effective lead-generation channel for SMBs. But, that being said, all companies need to understand that what they save in dollars they trade-off in time as these media need constant attention and new content. No autopilot here.

#2: Building relationships that beget revenues. Through two-way communications tools that facilitate knowledge sharing, professional networking, and problem solving, companies can leverage social media to build strong relationships–and relationships will always be core to B2B lead generation efforts. And then B2Bs can grow those relationships into revenues for their organizations.

#3: Efficient way to create leads… who in turn, create more leads. By building relationships with prospects and customers, companies also increase the chance that their target audiences will use these tools to spread/amplify favorable online word-of-mouth (WOM) about their brands. Online WOM is especially critical given that buyers are avidly using social media to research feedback from other professionals before making purchases. And where offline WOM can reach 10 people, online WOM can reach 10,000.

#4: Influencing purchasing decisions. When making purchases, professionals have always relied on third-party feedback and that has not changed—but the *way* that professionals conduct their pre-purchasing research and *who* influences their decisions has undergone dramatic transformation. In the past, customers looked for product feedback from press and analysts as well as professionals that they knew, but now they take to the Web and seek online opinions shared from other professionals, who they may not know yet, before they make purchases… and that feedback significantly influences their purchasing decisions. This changes the way that business is done because now we have new voices in the business process–and for companies who are delivering great offerings and experiences, this is a huge opportunity. (You’ll see how this is also a challenge for companies as I discuss in the next section.)
#5: Increasing Reach. Through social media and the social web, companies now have access to a world of new markets and new customers. And while many companies might not be able to increase their physical footprint due to prohibitive costs, they can afford to increase their digital footprint and reach new markets in new regions.

Biggest Challenges:
And the major challenges for B2B companies transitioning to Web 2.0 technologies for Lead Generation entail:

BusinessPeopleWalking #1: Learning how to use these tools well (and as a support to strategy–not before it!). Far too many companies are placing tools ahead of strategy, it’s the darndest thing. All they know is that they “Need to be on Facebook… STAT!” but don’t have clearly defined goals or a differentiated strategy for so doing. Here’s the irony: With social media, the tools are simple, but the complex, customer-led online landscape is wholly complex and companies face a great challenge in learning the new practices and new rules. Net net: it’s critical that companies set a strong strategy and learn the new rules and practices of the social web before they start implementing programs—otherwise they sink instead of soar.

#2: Signal vs. Noise: How to stand out from the clutter. When every company can afford these new media (a huge opportunity), the challenge is how to stand out from the crowd, or produce the highest signal amidst the noise. This speaks to strategy, differentiation, understanding one’s audience and grasping how to communicate with prospects.

#3: Providing value BEFORE the sale. Marketers have to learn how to extend value to online communities before they work to extract value from them. In “old world” marketing, the value was provided in buying the product but now marketers’ online programs need to create distinct-but-complementary value in addition to the product’s value.

#4: Learning how to “sell without selling.” Companies have to learn a two-way, conversation-oriented exchange rather than the one-way perfectly worded sales pitch that they’ve become accustomed to delivering for decades. To be sure, it’s a learning curve but in pays in spades.

#5: Letting go of control over brands. Customers can now publicly voice their opinions and experiences (be those opinions positive or negative), so companies have to understand that all of their messaging and branding will no longer be in their full control. In sum, companies who are (1) ensuring high product quality + (2) providing superior customer service + (3) promoting true product claims (not inflating or deceiving their customer audiences) will do remarkably well. But companies who are not delivering on these 3 fronts will face tremendous challenges–because their customers will publicly set the record straight. (This is what I call the “New Transparency.”). All of the 3 areas I’ve outlined are, however, within the company’s full control.
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