Marketing Budgets Shrink But You Don't Have Too

With marketing budgets under scrutiny, doing more with less is essential for creating a positive return on your investment. The fact is that marketing budgets are shrinking in today's difficult economic climate. This is the exact opposite of what should actually happen. When times are tough, its time to start marketing.

How can you do more with a shrinking budget? The answer is simple. Create more way to market in a viral way. Essentially, let others do the selling for you. Here are a few suggestions for getting your marketing moving.

Leverage all of your assets. As a business, are you leveraging every customer interaction you have? Whether it is on the phone, face-to-face, or over the Internet, how frequently do you use that opportunity to ask about other needs or pain points?

Ask for referrals. You would be surprised by the low percentage of businesses who ask for referrals. To jump start any referral campaign, offer a small benefit to those who refer a customers. At the very least, get your referral program up and running and be sure to send a thank you note for making the connection.

Focus on your communications. If you are sending letters, giving away business cards, or packing someones groceries, be sure to include a flier or message about other products and services you offer. You may even consider a special offer that can be included with each of these touch points.

Keep testing new things. Especially in tough times, it is very important to dedicate a portion of your budget toward trying new marketing methods or ideas. Even if it is just ten percent of your budget, all it takes is one success idea to have a significant impact on your lead flow or revenue.

Improving marketing results does not have to cost you money. In fact, some of the best, most successful marketing ideas were started with little or no money. Think viral. How can you leverage the assets you already have? By taking what you have and making it better or expanding it, your results will often scale. To many people stop short of fully riding out their marketing campaigns and enjoying the results they can achieve if only they persist.

One final idea to consider. Take a closer look at your website. Can you do more to attract visitors and have them provide some information about themselves? This could be access to a free instructional video or ebook. As the economy worsens, people are looking for more free information and helpful advice. So give it to them. The result will be a trusting relationship. When they have money, they will buy from your versus your competitors.

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Posted in: Budget

Good Marketing: Back To Our Roots

For any of our readers who have been following the Good Marketing Tips blog, you know that this site was created to provide objective reviews of online marketing tools and resources. I have found literally hundreds of marketing related tools to improve my business. But there are only a few that I use on a daily basis.

I'd like to start posting info on these tools more frequently as this blog evolves. Although I may recommend pay-for products and services in addition to free ones, I'll only do so if I've used the product myself. Also, I'm very interested in your comments regarding marketing products you've tried. Simply comment on any of the products I discuss on this blog so that the marketing community can benefit.

Today, I'd like to talk about a simple tool that is so easy to us, and free, that you have to check it out. That tool is Quantcast. Quantcast.com is a website that gives you a really good understanding of your competitors website(s). For example, let's look at this result for a random website.

Quantcast shows me their traffic information as well as demographics. Check out this demographics snapshot that shows me what types of people are using there site! It's a great way to understand your audience and the audience of your competitors.

This tool is a great place to start for your marketing related activities such as research and even creating new client campaigns. As you explore the tool, you will find that the information is really helpful.

Give it a try and let me know if you find this web traffic tool helpful. I used it quite often and find that it provides info that just isn't available anywhere else.

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Posted in: quantcast

Unique Article Wizard. More Traffic. More Sales

As someone who makes a living online, I'm often asked, "What is the easiest, most reliable, and cheapest way to get traffic to your website?" My answer is simple, article marketing. The truth is that I use a lot of different techniques, but one of the most powerful is the use of article marketing. And not just any kind of article marketing.

Getting high quality traffic is probably the biggest question asked by both new and established online businesses. After all, it makes no difference if you are selling a product, promoting affiliate links, or displaying adsense - you need traffic. And loads of it. So how do you do it?

A lot of readers ask me about traditional marketing like advertising. Advertising is expensive though. It is easy to spend several thousands of dollars a month on Google and never see a return.

Another popular tactic is to buy text links. Also expensive - and rapidly losing effectiveness in the search engines. Just 50 links can set you back aroudn $1,000. The reality though is that you really need thousands of links for #1 rankings.

From my perspective, there really is only one tried and true technique that has been quietly working since the very beginning of the internet, is completely immune to changes in search engine algorithms, is 100% legitimate and ethical, takes very little time, and costs very little to implement.

What's great is that article marketing can get your new site listed by the search engines in days rather than weeks or months. It will also give you top rankings for organic traffic, even in highly competitive markets. If you'd like to learn more about the article marketing system I use for top search engine rankings, check out Unique Article Wizard

My website MarketingScoop.com is ranked #1 for highly competitive terms like "marketing expert", "internet marketing expert", and "free marketing articles". I'm not afraid to reveal my secret simply because I build hundreds of new quality links to my websites each and every day. If you are serious about succeeding online, then check out Unique Article Wizard

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Posted in: unique article wizard