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Introduction

Internet marketing is the practice of promoting your company on the Internet with an easily understood, easily navigated, and easily accessed website. It is one of the fastest-growing and profitable businesses today. Marketing online is an important aspect of the business world today. Internet marketing is not the quick and easy road to riches that some would have you believe. You may find it is a cost effective way to deliver quality buyers for your services at little cost compared to most types of marketing services. Marketing is an ongoing process that will never end for as long as you wish to seriously profit from your website.

Marketing

Marketing on the internet today has changed dramatically over the past few years. It is getting more expensive to implement through traditional advertising channels. Marketing for online businesses are also changing and will keep changing along with the internet as long as technology keeps dictating changes. Marketing your business on the internet can bring you new customers and expose your company to vendors and clients alike.

Online

Online marketers are constantly devising new Internet marketing strategies in the hopes of driving more traffic to their Web sites and making more sales; witness the increasing use of blogs as marketing tools for business, for instance. Online marketing is not necessarily expensive and, take my advice, nowadays, you HAVE TO AFFORD IT. Online advertising techniques have been dramatically affected by technological advancements in the telecommunications industry.

Website

Website design has undergone various developments and you have to use the latest technology so that your visitors trust you. Website visitors need clear direction in what they are supposed to do on a website. Effective Internet marketing is what drives websites to the top of major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Internet marketing is still very much in its early development and people will always be finding new and improved ways to drive traffic to their website.

Link building is the process of getting other websites to link back to yours. Putting links to complementary products in your web pages helps you rank better by the search engines and is one of the best ways to gain search engine positioning that has relevant inbound links to a website.

Articles

Articles submissions are a powerful tool in successful internet marketing, they are also a fantastic method for getting quality one-way incoming links to your site and the way the search engines like. Articles are reviewed by other users and you will be called out on information that is less than reputable or solid. Articles also drive some direct traffic to your website.

Marketing with the use of articles has many benefits and is one of the best methods of getting backlinks. Articles also drive some direct traffic to your website. Bottom line, website traffic generation is an essential part of any internet business plan and should be attacked from several different levels to help insure the stability and longevity of your business. It is imperative that you not only have a professionally designed website, but a professionally marketed website as well. Internet marketing is one of the most key aspects of an effective website. Marketing is the glue that joins the website design and development with actual sales.

Conclusion

Internet marketing is a cost effective way to deliver quality buyers for your services at little cost compared to most types of marketing services. It is still very much in its early development and people will always be finding new and improved ways to drive traffic to their website. Marketing is actually one of the most challenging professions to become successful in, but it can be achieved if you are both hard working and patient. It is also very interactive as you are able to reach a broader audience.

Online marketing by email is, as the name suggests, the use of email in marketing and spreading your word about your services or products. It simply works like; you, as the owner of an online business, has to send emails on a regular basis to your opt email list. The questions are: What is an opt email list and what do you have to send?

Basically, an opt in email list -also known as bulk email list- is a list of email addresses of people who have shown an interest to periodically obtain any kind of information from online businesses like yours. The term opt in means that you have their permission to send to them whatever email newsletters, brochures, or any other online advertising stuff that you have dedicated for your targeted bulk email marketing solution.

In marketing by email, your e-mails target might be one of the following:

Sending direct promotional emails to try and acquire new customers or persuade existing customers to buy again.

You need a life long customer. To this goal, your second target is to establish a permanent communication with your customers and always offer them something useful for free like news letter.

1 Simple Reason to Build your Targeted Bulk Email Marketing Solution.

Sending emails to your targeted bulk email list would simply give your online business a great push in the positive direction. Internet users, registered in your list, are already interested to hear about your business and here is your easy chance to win new customers.

Discover right now 3 Tips to Master Your Targeted Bulk Email Marketing.

1. Decide What Your Target Market is.

A significant step to succeed is to well define what your target market is in order to design a targeted marketing strategy. Marketing by email solution would be in vain, if you build a list of people with diverse interests.

Moreover, having a niche market would bring more focus on your advertising campaign and would drive more targeted website traffic because you direct your emails to people who would most likely be interested in knowing about your offer.

2. Check the Residual Income of your Target Market

When it comes to targeted bulk email marketing, defining your niche will not be the only factor to bring your online business to the next level. Instead, making sure that your niche is a profitable one is of course necessary. To this end, check other well accepted internet marketing forums to see what others say.

3. Generate Solutions To The Problems Of Your Target Market.

Start your targeted bulk email marketing solution by looking for common problems in your niche and then fire your creativity to find solutions to them. It does not have to be a 100% complete solution, but it should offer a real help to your list. This tip alone would show you as an expert in your field and let people be happy to hear and buy from you.

The relationship marketing strategy developed from the direct response marketing campaigns popular in the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s. These campaigns emphasized the importance of customer retention and continued customer satisfaction, rather than an emphasis on individual transactions, and per-case customer resolution.

What is Relationship Marketing?

Relationship marketing is a type of strategic marketing that targets it’s audience with more direct information on the specific products and services a customer may have interest in. It differs from other forms of marketing in that it seeks to retain customers by building relationships with them, rather than a direct or intrusive strategy, which focuses on acquisition of new clients by targeting majority demographics, based upon prospective client lists purchased from third party sources.

As traditional marketing took off in the 60′s and 70′s, companies found it more difficult to sell consumer products. The original model had developed into a system, which focused on selling relatively low-value products in mass quantities to a higher volume of consumers. Since the beginning of modern day marketing platforms, many methods have been developed in an attempt to broaden its scope. Relationship marketing grew out of this era, and is one example of an attempt to expand the reach and applicability of marketing.

Simply put, relationship marketing focuses on targeting the relationship of company to customer. If you have an existing customer base, it makes sense to learn what these customers like about your products and services and how you as a company can improve on this. If you build on the good relationships you already have with your customers, and create customer loyalty, this is more valuable than putting energy towards always attempting to gain new business.

Defensive Marketing vs. Offensive Marketing

Relationship marketing can be understood in simple football-like terms of offensive and defensive approaches. “Defensive” marketing and “offensive” marketing are terms that were coined by C. Fornell and B. Wernerfelt in 1987.

Defensive marketing describes attempts to reduce customer turnover, increase customer loyalty and retain the customer base already in place, by keeping them happy with your service, and interested in your products. In contrast, offensive marketing seeks to obtain new customers and increase purchase frequency. Defensive marketing focuses on reducing, or better managing customer dissatisfaction, while offensive marketing focuses on “liberating” dissatisfied customers from competitors and moving them into the offensive marketer’s customer base essentially getting customers to switch teams.

Customer & Consumer Relationships

Relationship marketing is a key collaborative strategy to retain customers. It is essentially an offshoot of customer and consumer relationship management. The theory is this; attracting new customers is more costly, yet less profitable than developing existing client loyalty. By developing and promoting your existing client base through research and an understanding, you will create a loyal client base for years to come, with less expense and higher returns. Building lasting relationships with the clients you already have is a recipe for long-term marketing success.

I was visiting a very popular network marketing site today. I was a bit surprised when I took a look at the sponsor page. I found several people on the sponsor page who I had never heard of before. So why was I surprised?

This network marketing site has many opportunities to “get involved” :

1. You can chat on their message boards.
2. You can submit articles for the monthly newsletter.
3. You can post comments and interact on one of several blogs.
4. You can buy advertising in four different places.

This is not the only site where I’ve seen network marketers invest time advertising in one place, but then not getting involved in other places. (all on the same site)

When you market, look around for opportunities to get involved:

1. If you’re advertising in an ezine, write a guest article from time to time.
2. If you’re buying a banner ad, or button ad, see if you can write a guest column for the site.
3. If you’re advertising on a blog, comment on posts weekly. Write well thought out, helpful comments. Offer to post guest posts once in a while.
4. If you’re advertising on a site that has a message board community, participate in the community. Visit weekly and add value to the conversations.
5. If you’re placing a classified ad on a message board, make sure to also participate in the community so that those who see your ad know who you are. They open your ad because they want to know what you have to offer.
6. Sponsor a contest from time to time on sites you are advertising on. You want your name and your company name known on this site.
7. Offer to contribute content on the site in an area where they don’t have quite enough content.

These are all ways you can get involved in the sites you are investing money to advertise on.

Technology marketers (especially the ones who live in agencies) love to make marketing more complex than it really is.

While there’s a lot of craft in the practice of technology marketing – and some of it does start to resemble rocket science – the core of the discipline is very, very simple: you have to be able to answer three questions quickly, clearly and compellingly.
The Three Questions

Again, nothing that would trouble Einstein:

1. Who the hell are you?

2. Why should I care?

3. Why should I believe you?

That’s it. The whole enchilada of technology marketing (some would say all marketing, but I actually believe the soap, cigarette and beer peddlers are doing something very different).

If you can answer these three questions well, you’ll have done the hardest and most important part of your job. You will also have made the other parts of your job a lot easier.

The questions are sequential. You can’t answer them out of order. In fact, answering the first question well earns you the right to ask the second and answering the second well earns you the right to ask the third. Answering all three earn you the right to sell something. There is no other way through this obstacle course.

Fail along the way and you haven’t just lost the battle, you’ve lost the war.

Let’s take them one at a time:

1. Who the hell are you?

This question tests your ability to break out from an unspeakably noisy world, stand out from a very specific kind of competition and win passage to the second question.

The question is phrased in colloquial Yank-speak for a reason. ‘Who are you?’ presumes the questioner wants to know the answer. ‘Who the hell are you?’ assumes the opposite: that the questioner not only doesn’t want to know, but is openly hostile – annoyed that you’ve interrupted their train of thought and tried to impose your agenda on to theirs.

This reflects the real world of the marketer/prospect relationship. Most technology marketing commits the fatal error of assuming the audience welcomes the communication and is highly motivated to sift it for its meaning.

In the real world, the opposite is true. Your prospects don’t give a damn about you. They want you out of their face. They hope that you fail so that they don’t have to give you any more of their precious time and attention.

‘Who the hell are you?’ more accurately reflects the psychological context of your attempted communication. It also raises the bar. A lot of marketing can pass the easier test of intriguing an interested, motivated audience. But you’re not marketing to your mother. You’re marketing to someone who considers you the enemy.

To make the challenge even more accurate (and raise the bar still further) you have to consider your Question 1 competition: the other people and things who are also trying to get the same person’s attention at the same time.

Your direct commercial competitors are only one cluster of competitors for the attention of your prospect. Some of these may be formidable competition in their own right. Some may outspend you. Others may execute better. But they’re still not your main competition for Question 1.

Your Question 1 competitors are legion and they include such formidable foes as:

* Manchester United

* Global Warming

* Scarlet Johannsen

* A leaking toilet

* A highly-strung boss

* Your prospect’s wayward teenage daughter who didn’t get home until 3am and refuses to talk about it.

You get the idea.

In the no-man’s land before the Question 1 hurdle, that pesky company who makes better widgets than you is not the problem. Scarlet Johannsen is the problem.

Your challenge is to use words and pictures to stop your target audience for a millisecond, then plant a tiny suspicion that the thing in front of them just might be worth another five seconds of their time.

This is the art of the headline.

Some headlines tell the prospect who you are in a direct, literal way (“Learn Italian in three weeks or your money back.”). Others tell people who you are in a more oblique way. They may communicate what kind of company you are, your attitude to your work or the general world you operate in.

The art of the headline is the subject of another article. For now, it’s enough to say that a good headline stops the prospect in their tracks and moves them closer to your answer to Question 1.

Who the hell did you say you were?

2. Why should I care?

You’ve elbowed Scarlet aside for a few seconds. You’ve emerged from the Question 1 scrum with a small scrap of your prospect’s attention.

Now you have a tiny, fleeting opportunity to answer question 2, ‘Why should I care?’.

The key here is speed. Successfully negotiating Question 1 does not mean the prospect’s door swings open; that you’re ushered into the office, given a cappuccino, and begged to tell your tale.

Despite the effort you put in to getting this far, you have less than a minute to clear the next hurdle. And it’s harder than the first. Maybe exponentially so.

‘Why should I care?’ can only be answered with statements that establish direct, personal relevance for the prospect.

You’ve woken her up. This had better be good. Maybe something like:

* ‘There is a train coming and you’re on the tracks and we know how to untie you.’

* ‘There is a pot of gold hidden underneath a bush and we have a map.’

* ‘We will keep you out of jail.’

* ‘We will make you rich and famous.’

* ‘We will save you so much money you can do that thing your boss keeps striking out of the budget.’

* ‘We will get you out of your crap company and into a great company that appreciates and rewards your talents.’

If it weren’t for one thing, answering this question effectively wouldn’t be so hard. That one thing is the next Question.

If it weren’t for the next Question, you could simply lie. You could make any of the statements listed above, sit back and wait for the web hits to come pouring in.

But Question 3 awaits. And it’s no good blagging your way through this one if you have zero chance of clearing that one.

Your answer to Question 2 has to be:

* Relevant – something the prospect actively thinks about, cares about, worries about.

* Available – something that isn’t being said by everyone else.

* Attainable – something you can deliver on; something you can prove you can deliver on. Something true.

Now you can see the challenge.

Most technology marketers try to clear Question 2 by making the grandest claim they can make. They think about the benefits their solution confers, then think about why this benefit is good, and why this good thing is important and why this important thing is essential.

Then they say the ‘essential’ thing. And it comes out like this:

* ‘Increase your profitability with our spell-checker.’

* ‘Boost your share price with our middleware.’

* ‘Double your revenue with our test software.’

White noise. Static.

Answering Question 2 is about finding some clear space in the market, then balancing relevance and credibility into something intriguing. Not something that closes the deal right here and now; something that moves the prospect to the next question.

Your job here is to raise an eyebrow. To earn a few more minutes to give you a fighting chance to answer Question 3.

3. Why should I believe you?

You’ve passed two very tough tests. Your prospect knows who you are and why you think they should care. Now you’ve got a chance to make them do something about it.

But first, you need to make them believe that what you said in Question 2 just might be half true.

This is the struggle for credibility. No single fact can win it for you. You need to amass enough evidence to tip things in your favour.

There are many ways to bolster credibility:

* Statistics – ideally independently generated

* Awards

* Accreditations

* Analyst attention and endorsement

* Media attention and endorsement

* Lists of customers

* Testimonials

* Case studies

* Your reputation

* The way you speak

* The way you look

* The way you behave

* Your resources and assets

* The credentials of your team

* Other successful products

* Your company’s commercial success

You don’t just need one or two of these if you want to clear Question 3. You need as many of them as you can get.

Notice that ‘simply making a claim’ is not on the list of credibility-builders. A claim is an empty thing. Prove it. Demonstrate why it’s true. Show how you deliver on it. Make me see the light.

Credibility is never granted it is always hard-won. This is true because all IT buyers have been badly burned. Most have been badly burned repeatedly over the most sensitive parts of the body. They’ve heard a lot of claims and they aren’t in the mood to take yours at face value.

But because it’s so hard, tech marketers often forget the most powerful credibility-builder of them all: a good story that makes sense.

A good, strong, logical story, well told, can earn as much credibility as three or four of the credibility-builders listed above.

This is especially true for ‘early adopters’ or ‘champions’ who rely less on what others do and more on their own judgement.

You may not have all the proof you need. You may not have all the endorsements you’d like. You may not have any customers at all. But if your stuff works, there’s a reason. And if you can explain why it works while other solutions fall short – and do it in a distinctive, compelling way – you can pass the test established by Question 3.

This doesn’t mean you don’t need any of the credibility-builders. The more the merrier. But if you’ve got a great story to tell, invest in telling it well.

In short: get the best copywriter you can find and shower him in riches.
Using the three questions

Answering the Three Questions is the hardest part of technology marketing. It’s also the most important part.

You can spend a fortune on advertising; have the best search engine optimisation in the market; generate a library of killer white papers – none of it will work if you can’t nail the Big Three first.

As obvious as they sound, the vast majority of technology marketing fails miserably at answering the three questions quickly, credibly and compellingly.

At Velocity, we make the Three Questions the starting point of every engagement. We don’t get stuck into campaigns, websites or brochures until we (and the client) feel we’ve cracked them.

You can map your entire marketing plan to the Three Questions or use them to guide and evaluate any single piece of communication.

In a good piece of marketing, you can see the Questions get answered, in order. In a bad one, you have to hunt for the answers and you’re not satisfied when you find them.

SponsorDaddy, the latest, claim-to-be-greatest online network marketing system which is now in pre-launch, has managed to create a bedazzled buzz in the online network marketing world.

So what’s all the fuss about SponsorDaddy anyway? Do we really need another over promise/under deliver online network marketing system? What makes SponsorDaddy so great?

As little as 2 years ago, there were only a handful of funded proposal style MLM systems, which gave any newbie the opportunity to be branded as “The Expert” in the industry. Today the internet is jam packed with tacky landing pages delivering endless “free” reports and overpriced eBooks disguising the obvious intention of lead generation.

So, when we received an invitation to check out the SponsorDaddy’s online network marketing system, naturally our defenses went up.

If any online network marketing system is going to compete against the masses, it obviously needs to stand out amongst the crowd. What we found as unique was the ‘plug and play’ approach to work for any MLM system, not just a lead generation tool, but as a way for you to brand yourself, together with your MLM opportunity.

In our experience, most online network marketing system provide excellent methods of lead generation, but a poor follow through on directing those prospects to your primary MLM opportunity. SponsorDaddy has that feature automated, making it easy for anyone new to the business as well as MLM professionals.

Adding to that, SponsorDaddy has the ability to market multiple MLM opportunities under the same platform, to the maximum of three different opportunities. On face value, the above benefits are enough to grab any successful network marketer’s undivided attention. But seeing online MLM system’s come and go, one has to ask: Can they deliver what they promise?

SponsorDaddy is classed as the new kid on the block, but the founders are most definitely not.

NaXum Online Marketing Services has been the provider of tools and services for home business entrepreneurs for about 6 years, enabling them to successfully market products and services online. From powerful custom flash movies, to custom newsletter systems, to a live spokesperson welcoming your website visitors, Naxum Online Marketing Services has touched every aspect of online MLM. With the experience gathered from dozens of custom branded online marketing system’s for affiliate companies, direct selling companies, their MLM leaders and distributor force, Naxum created SponsorDaddy. The same platform used for custom systems, now universal.

SponsorDaddy’s system appears to be rock solid. How about the money? Although SponsorDaddy system was designed as a MLM tool to promote your primary business, there’s a compensation plan attached which seems foolish to ignore.

SponsorDaddy pays out on direct coding bonuses (fast start) and weekly, residual income through a new style, very generous binary compensation plan.

How to sell Bob, Chris, Taylor and Apple in the Future

Selling to a diverse group of people isn’t easy. This is particularly true when the groups are separated by generational differences and perspectives. I have a brother for example that refuses to join Facebook and I guess that I should be happy he has a telephone. My mother won’t join twitter and my grand daughter is too young to have a Facebook account. People prefer to communicate differently and we must adapt to this. It is critical that you understand the dynamics of who you want to sell to and how to sell them with the right marketing strategy and sales tactics. Let us examine a few common differences and think about how we can better reach each person on an individual basis.

Bob – the 70 year retired Plumber

Reading the paper and watching TV is how Bob gets his news. If you want to connect with Bob, you better use the paper and the telephone book or pay for an evening news ad on TV. A good recommendation from a friend is the best source for getting Bob’s business. If you try to send Bob an email, you are wasting your time and an internet connection is going to remain dormant in the house. Bob doesn’t understand where the traditional values went and likes to pay for everything with cash or by check. The best way to reach Bob is with a personal letter or note.

Chris – the 50 year old Fireman

As far as Chris is concerned, the Internet is a confusing contraption that crept into his world to show him just how old he is. The computer revolution began just as Chris was entering the workforce so he had to adapt, just not willingly. Chris uses the computer as a requirement and prefers the older methods of communication. Chris has watched his children adapt and grow with computers but would rather watch TV and read the newspaper. He tolerates the computer to connect with some of his friends and has slowly migrated to using Facebook so he knows what his family is doing. However, Bob will use the computer to research and find information and thinks of it as a tool to gather information.

Taylor – the 30 year old career woman

The world according to Taylor is connected through the computer and social networks. To some degree, if something isn’t connected to the internet, it is outdated. Taylor grew up with the cell phone and instant messaging. Taylor believes the best way to stay connected with friends is through Facebook YouTube and LinkedIn. When Taylor wants to purchase something, her network of friends and connections will influence the decision of what to buy. Taylor thinks that subscribing to a newspaper or using the telephone book is what old folks do because everything is on the Internet. Taylor likes to hang out with her friends socially at places like Starbucks and reads her friends posts and blogs. Taylor likes to experience life with a global perspective. Taylor rarely pays by cash or check and does most everything by credit card and frequently online.

Apple – the 12 year old student

The computer and the internet has always been part of Apple’s life. She doesn’t know anything different. However, the grounding of traditional values is refreshing to Apple and she has grown to appreciate life’s simple moments. Taylor has been taught about and is aware of the predatory nature the Internet can have and is balanced in her use of it as a tool. The multi-media world for Taylor is easy to adapt to and it seems like she was wired for technology with built in filters to make sense of how to use technology and still remain human to others. Apple has a high conscious level and value for nature, energy with the environment. These values are very important to her and impact her purchase decisions even if they are for a 12 year old.

I hope you see how these people are different and how they see the world from different perspectives. Because of this diversity, we can’t afford to approach everyone with the same ideals and marketing methods. It just won’t work and we must adapt to a personalize approach to increase the response we are looking for.

Personalized Marketing is Possible

Fortunately, the marketing and printing world has adapted and there are new ways to personalize everything and anything. The internet can become the best tool to reach certain clients and it can also be the worst way to reach others. We need to learn how to mix and match the right method of communications to reach each of our market segments individually.

Purls or Personal URL’s is one way to reach a mixed market. This involves using personalized postcards and personalized mailers to increase response rates. The concept is simple. People are attracted to and respond to a personal, old fashioned direct mail that directs them to a personal website. When you receive one of these, you are almost drawn like a magnet to the website, because it is personalized and it appeals to everyone, young and old.

The level of sophistication for these personal mailing is endless. For example, you can develop a target specific marketing message for Chris the Fireman if you put a fire truck on the cover of the mailer and use Fire fighting jargon. To reach Bob, a pipe wrench on the cover will appeal to his memory and invite an impactful response.

I hope you see how personalized, targeted mailings are a requirement for reaching a diverse market. When you want to increase the success of your marketing dollars, the best place to start is with a savvy business printer. Look for a company that knows how to leverage data and digital printing to reach your target market audience. The individual cost per piece will be higher. However, the response rates will be so much higher with personalization that you can reduce the number of pieces sent while you create a value proposition that actually makes personalization a value.

Test the Power of Personalization and Multi Media

One of the best ways of working with a business printer is to test market a few campaigns and see what works best. Because you can often measure the response rates by the consumer actions, you will know what works. Your business printer should be able to create different versions of your marketing mailings so you can determine what works best. Testing is important.

If you are trying to reach Taylor the career woman, you should try using appropriate images on the cover to attract her attention. You would do this instead of putting a golf club on the cover for Bob who enjoys playing golf. Changing the images for each target marketing group can have a dramatic impact on your results.

Using multi-media is also a key to success. When you can orchestrate a marketing campaign that has variable images to target each target market and uses different copy for each group and also blends email campaigns, and video with direct mail – you have a wining combination.

We aren’t done yet. Imagine adding the power of social networking to achieve your goal with Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and LinkedIn so you are reaching all the socially connected individuals. You could drive all your interested traffic with PURLs and your messages to a web page that closes the contacts with unique offers or video offers. Yes, this is how marketing has changed and it isn’t just the future – is how we expect to be reached. This is certainly how the youngest of our group, Apple, expects to be treated in the future.

Before you begin your email marketing campaign, you have to consider just what your objective is. Of course, you want to sell, but the business of marketing is a little more subtle than that. In fact, there are many ways to go about selling your product or service via an email campaign. As it were, email, besides being extremely cost effective is also quite flexible.

Direct Email: A direct email approach is pretty straightforward. It consists of sending out a promotional message in an email. The information contained in the email can simply be an announcement of new items, a special offer or discount, or it can be a friendly introduction.

Retention Email: The retention email takes on a different character. In this instance, you’re trying to keep customers coming back. You want loyalty. So, instead of a simple promo, a retention email should aim at developing a long term relationship with your customers. It should offer something more than just advertisements. You want to give your customers valuable information. You want to entertain your customers, keep them smiling during the day.

Once you determine what sort of email campaign you want to design, there are many different approaches you can take.

Email Newsletters: An email newsletter doesn’t focus directly on sales. The purpose of a newsletter is to foster a relationship with your customer. You do this by giving them information that’s of use to them, whether it be a weekly column about how to stay in shape, or a monthly recipe special. The content should be entertaining, easy to read, and thoughtful; it should reflect the core values of your company. Newsletters are an excellent opportunity to develop your brand, to make it stand for something. In the end, a good newsletter will lead to an indirect increase in sales.

Catalog Emails: An email catalog is an electronic representation of your product listing. This approach is more direct than a newsletter; it gets straight to the point. Of course, you do want to deliberate carefully about the design and aesthetics of the catalog. If your email catalog is hastily put together, without thought or care, you might as well abandon your email campaign and start over. Design is everything.

Best of Email: This approach goes along the lines of a catalog, but rather than displaying all your wares, you showcase a selected few that you have handpicked. The structure is fairly simple-all that’s required are a few promo shots, some quick copy and links to process orders.

Top Ten Emails: If you don’t want to do an all out newsletter or if you want to simply mix things up, you might want to think about sending a top ten email. These consist of facts and tips that will promote your product while giving customers helpful information. Any variation, e.g. top five ways to save money and look beautiful, or seven can’t miss tips, etc., works well too.

How To Email: This is very similar to the Top Ten approach, except rather than offering a list, you offer a tutorial. Show your customers how to make a birdhouse or knit a sweater, for example.

Press Release: A press release are the perfect way to get your company news coverage. This is especially useful if you have media contacts.

There is no one size fits all solution. Try out different methods to see what works best for your company. Get creative. Just remember to keep your customers at the forefront.

Doctors often wonder when and how to start incorporating marketing into their long-range business plan. There’s no argument that it is a necessity – the questions are more about the process.

Ideally, a practice should start marketing from its inception. Whether general, cosmetic or another type of specialist, the sooner you market, the easier it is to develop your brand as a quality dentist in your market. However, as more and more doctors are transitioning from a general practice to one with a greater aesthetic focus, the need to create a source of pre-qualified patients with an interest in aesthetics grows.

Getting Started
Far too often, doctors turn to marketing once they realize their practice is in trouble. Perhaps they have dropped insurance too quickly, or the competition has landed in their neighborhood. The number of new patients each month has declined, and panic mode sets in. It must be time to stop stalling and start marketing.

In reality, successful marketing efforts are built over a period of time. The practice needs a plan. The practice needs a brand identity (ie – logo, tag line/positioning statement and consistent “look”). The practice and associated brand need several months of consistent advertising before they can even start to grab hold of a position in the mind of a prospective patient. Using marketing to turn a practice around within a month is like trying to stop a flood with a single sandbag.

So when is the best time for the non-advertising practice to start incorporating marketing into their practice? From the moment you take your first course at LVI. Start with the internal projects first – developing a long range plan, a logo, determining your position in the market, a stationary package, new patient welcome package, etc. Make sure you’re your case presentation and case closing skills are well practiced. Then, as you continue to take more courses and further develop your skills and confidence, you’ll be ready to jump into external marketing without waiting.

Patience = Patients
When asked how long the process takes, I often refer to the history of my husband Larry’s practice. Before he even opened his doors, we had created a logo and communicated his opening with print advertising and direct mail. As his interest in aesthetic dentistry grew, print ads about aesthetics began appearing in our advertising schedule.

But it was not until he had completed several LVI courses that we pulled the trigger focusing on aesthetics in our advertising. Gradually, more patients began asking about these services. In his estimation, it took over a year of consistent advertising about aesthetic dentistry before our market came to regard him as the premiere choice for those services.

As a general rule, the more saturated your market, the longer the process takes. We were fortunate with Larry’s practice because we live in a rural area with virtually no established competition for aesthetic dentistry – and it still took a year. Of course, now the competition has caught on and competitive ads about cosmetic dentistry are infiltrating the market. But since he was established in his position, his brand has remained consistently strong. As a general rule, you have to spend twice as much money to achieve half the result if you’re trying to occupy an established position. Find a niche message and stay with it.

In a metropolitan area such as Philadelphia or Houston, advertising for aesthetic anything can be seen in every medium. Cosmetic surgery, LASIK, permanent makeup and salons are all competing for your prospect’s expendable “health and beauty” income. A myriad of ads for smile makeovers pepper the magazines, radio and TV. Your prospective patient now has to sort through all this clutter to get to your message, and with enough frequency that they remember you when the time comes to make a decision.

There is skill involved in knowing when to start promoting your talents. An old saying in advertising goes “Nothing can kill a bad product faster than good advertising.” In other words, have your clinical, case presentation and case closure skills refined before you unleash your message on the public.

Where Do I Start?
Once you’ve made the decision to market your practice, you’ll need to do a little homework. First, carefully evaluate the competition in your market area. This includes anyone promoting out of pocket health and beauty services as well as other dentists.

Look in the local paper, lifestyle magazines, yellow pages and check your mail. Watch the ads on TV and listen to the radio. Cruise the web for your market. Try to gauge the message and frequency over a period of several weeks. Rip out ads and make notes about what you see. Are these advertisers consistent or just looking for a quick fix? Those with a consistent and clear message are your competition.

Next, determine the best person to help you guide the marketing of your practice. There are many independent consultants who can help create a long range plan and schedule for program development. Give them appropriate insight into your business and plans, but make sure they do the homework to learn the nuances of your industry. There are also a number of excellent full service agencies who can execute the plans as well as develop them.

Unless your office manager has credible past experience, don’t frustrate her and make her learn a new industry. Work with an experienced marketing professional who looks at the whole picture. You or your chosen point person should act as the VP Marketing does in a corporation – manage the consultant or agency, but let them do what you hired them to do.

It Worked For My Best Friend, So…
We hear it often – “I’ve been hearing that radio worked really well in “X” market. Let’s give radio a try.” The key to marketing a practice lies in understanding the principles behind marketing strategy. Every market and message is unique. What you say and how you communicate it will not have the same results in Lewisburg, PA as it will in San Francisco. It totally depends on who your target demographic is (family age women, professional men, blue collar, Hollywood, divorcees, etc.) and where they are located (holistic S. California, power-driven D.C, health conscious mid-west). There is no single right answer for everyone. That’s why package marketing solutions work well for some people and totally bomb for others. The more your marketing consultant knows about your target market and competition, the more specific – and targeted – the message can be.

Pulling the Trigger
While you may have hired a consultant or agency, remember that ultimately, it’s your business. The agency has an obligation to give you recommendations based on their knowledge and experience. But everything you approve – logo, ads, website – will all reflect on you and your practice. Make sure you’re not only comfortable with what you approve, but that you love it. A good agency will keep working until you get a product that simply thrills you, as well as one that gets calls from patients.

Once you’ve made the decision to add marketing to your practice, be prepared for a long term commitment. Remember that it takes time to get results, but with good direction and a unique creative message, you will get the attention of your prospective patients. Don’t change directions after only a month – give it time. Keep an eye on the future. Strategies to market aesthetic dentistry will change as our society’s trends and needs continue to change. Evaluate the competition, track your results, and most of all, keep learning. Continual improvement will help to define your success.

When you are working with limited funds, starting your info-marketing business may require financial maneuvering. I have several strategies that can help you start your business using the funds you have.

As the President of the Information Marketing Association, I host monthly coaching calls for info-marketers who have questions and are trying to launch their infopreneur business. Here is a question from Susan in Florida about starting a new business with limited funds. Since this is a common question, I decided to prepare an article about this challenge to help you.

If funds are limited the two easiest ways to grow your business rapidly is either through an affiliate arrangement where somebody already has your customer or to figure out how to start doing this thing online where you are selling your product or service online and you’re driving traffic to your site through search engine optimization.

The first way, somebody already has an affluent customer that you want to do a joint venture with in order to provide your products or services. That way you can get your information to the customer where it has an endorsement from somebody who already has trust with them. That’s one way and probably the best way.

The second way is to figure out how to start creating your business online where you are selling your product or service and you’re driving traffic to your site through search engine optimization. Using a search engine optimizer is very cheap, and click advertising would be moderate. I would probably go online and see who else is marketing to your niche, who has assembled these people already? I would be approach those marketers in a way where, since they already have the customers you can work together in order to provide this other service to them that many of them need

When you approach other marketers about at joint venture, you don’t want to approach them saying how they can help you. You want to first approach them of how you can help them. Tell them how you can provide them with articles or information they can send out to their customers or members. You can help them with newsletters, online or offline, or maybe a CD where they interview you or teleseminar where they interview you as the expert. Now they can now provide additional information to their members that make them look better.

If you can narrowly define your market of people that are most likely to want what you have, doing a direct mail three-step funnel to them would probably be a very good strategy if the direct mail were good. The other thing is that if you send out the first wave and you get a miserable response, don’t send out the second one. So send out the second wave only if you get a decent response on the first. That way you can plan a different strategy or find out that direct mail isn’t the right link.

There have never been greater, more diverse, more lucrative opportunities for everyone-experienced, successful entrepreneurs to rank beginners-in the field of information marketing. If you can name a topic, there is a market for providing information about it. People buy information about almost everything-from hobbyist topics like dog training, to business topics like how to sell over the telephone, to self-improvement topics like fitness walking. The key is to find a responsive market and then package information that customers want in convenient forms such as DVD’s, books, eBooks, CD’s, magazines, websites, teleseminars, webinars, coaching programs, seminars, and conferences. Watch a free video revealing several info-marketers created their products and became infopreneurs at [http://www.InfoMarketingStartup.com].