Dramatically Improve Your Marketing Results With These 6 Simple Steps

What if there were a few simple things you could do right now that could help you to market more successfully in the future? Even if you didn’t have your marketing act together over the past year. Well, there are.

Keywords:

marketing effectiveness, marketing results, marketing plan, marketing

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What if there were things you could start doing now that could help you to market more successfully in the future? Even if you didn’t have your marketing act together over the past year. Well, there are.

(1) Review your past marketing activities and results

Take some time to review all of your marketing activities and try to understand which ones worked best. And when I say “worked best” I mean, which ones resulted in more clients, more customers, more sales, or more growth for your business?

Your goal each year should be to understand which marketing activities bring you more business and which ones do not, so you can concentrate on the activities that work, and delete the ones that do not. Even if you did not have an organized marketing plan, or marketing activities that you implemented consistently during the past year, if you are still in business today, then there must have been some form of marketing going on.

(2) Broaden your definition of marketing

Marketing isn’t only things like running an advertisement, or sending out a direct mail piece. It's anything you do that puts your business, product or service in front of the prospects you are trying to sell to.

You may be surprised to realize you’ve been marketing more than you know!

Any time you talk to someone about your business, product or service, in person, at an event, over the phone, or through a brochure or some form of media, you are marketing. Any time you send someone an email or a thank you card from your business, you are marketing.

Be aware of any time you are communicating with current customers, or potential customers. Take the opportunity to make them aware of new products or services, special offers or programs, or even milestones or changes in your business.

Do you include your business card every time you mail a letter to a client or prospect? Do you have an email signature that includes your business name, your phone number, your email address, your website address and possibly even your tagline? You should. You are reminding people about your products and services and making it easy for them to find out more if they so choose.

If you truly believe that your products or services can enhance people’s lives, then it should be easy to share the word at every opportunity. After all, if people don’t know about you, they can’t benefit. Put this way, it is almost a disservice to NOT market.

(3) See if you can track your sales to your marketing, either directly or indirectly

Take a look at the marketing you did do, taking into consideration all of the activities mentioned above. Can you directly or indirectly track any new or increased business to these activities? An example of direct tracking might be: You attended a networking event and someone you gave your business card to, contacted you or made a purchase.

An example of indirect tracking might be: You attended a networking event, and someone you gave your business card to, referred you to a friend, and that friend contacted you or made a purchase. For each marketing activity you did over the past year, ask yourself the following questions:

(a) Did I get any new clients, customers or increased sales as a direct result, or an indirect result, of this activity?

(b) If the answer is yes, quantify the result by asking yourself: How many new clients, customers or sales did it generate?

If you can't seem to track your past marketing activities, consider asking your current customers how they found out about you.

You could do a survey that includes a number of customer satisfaction questions, but also includes a question to determine how they found out about you.

If you have a handful of clients that you work closely with and you really don’t know how they found you, pick up the phone and ask them.

At the end of this exercise, you will have a list of all of your marketing activities, and the results connected to each one.

(4) Separate those activities that resulted in business from those that did not

Are there any activities on your list that did not result in new or additional business? If you gave these activities a good opportunity to bring you business, then maybe it's time to consider dropping these activities and trying some new ones. After all, there is no sense continuing to spend money on marketing that has not proven to be effective for your business. Even if it has worked for someone else, it may not be a good marketing activity for you and your business.

(5) Use this information to plan your marketing for next year

Plan to spend more time, energy and/or money on those activities that brought you business and sales. These activities have proven themselves to be effective for your business, product or service. So odds are if you commit more to them, they will result in even more sales. And, if you really don’t have any way to track your sales or new clients, don’t beat yourself up. You are not alone. In fact, one of my biggest challenges as a marketing consultant has been to get my clients to track the effectiveness of their various marketing activities. Just make sure to remedy this now, once and for all. Commit to never implementing a marketing activity again without some way to track how effective it is.

(6) Set up a way to track all future marketing activities

Recognize the importance of tracking and make sure that you have a plan in place to track all of your future marketing activities. The simplest way to track is to simply ask each new customer where or how they found out about you. You may also want to consider including a code on any flyers or brochures that you distribute, and providing a reason for the customer to bring that flyer in when they come to make a purchase. Reasons to return the flyer could be to take advantage of a special offer, or to get a discount or free bonus gift.

You can also do this by phone or on the Internet if that is how your customers make purchases. Simply ask them to provide you with the code on the brochure or flyer that they are calling or ordering from. Make sure the code is specific to the location or group of people that you distributed the flyer to. If you are networking or speaking to a group and someone gives you their business card and agrees to receive your free report or e-newsletter, make sure you include a reference in your contact database of the event where you met them. For every marketing activity you do put a plan in place to help you track all them. Effective tracking is by far one of the easiest ways to improve your marketing effectiveness. And when you zero-in on what marketing activities are most effective for your business, you will be able to focus your efforts on only those activities, and will be able to spend less and get more as a result.

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa

Get more results from Promotional Products

Promotional items range from market-proven goods such as T-Shirts, Pens and Planners to innovative items such as Soap Films, Stress Relievers, Pill Boxes, Medical Spoons, CD/DVD Cases, Lunch Bags and Car Plates, all bearing your logo and company information.

Keywords:

Promotional Products, promotional items, pens, pencils

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In today's high-competitive market, it is hard for businesses to attract potential customers. Promotional products offer a unique opportunity to spread your company's name to your niche, and stay there for a while.

The promotional items you select are limited only by your own imagination. They range from market-proven goods such as T-Shirts, Pens and Planners to innovative items such as Soap Films, Stress Relievers, Pill Boxes, Medical Spoons, CD/DVD Cases, Lunch Bags and Car Plates, all bearing your logo and company information. Statistically, over 500,000 different products could be used as promotional items.

There is a promotional product for every event, campaign, or celebration in your business. But, no matter what promotional products you choice... make sure you maximize your investment to get more results. Here its some occasions to use these marketing resources and what type of product use.

Advertise your products and services -

Promotional products are excellent to promote your products or services at trade shows relative to your industry, but you may also consider those trade shows, events and appointments that are not related to your company.

BRENDA BIERI, DDS - Dr. Bieri realized that a simple advertising tool such as the stock molar-shaped tooth magnet would be an excellent reminder and help advertise her clinic. She realized that participating in the "Career Day Event" at the local Middle School as a volunteer, and giving away a molar-shaped to each student, they will appreciate her consideration! God knows our community helpers rarely have the money to spend on goodwill tokens! This community advertising produced excellent results to her practice.

Promote goodwill -

If you are involved in your community and you do exhibit at the community trade shows, expos, health fairs, community service events, fundraising events, etc, you need to provide your audience with a tangible reminder that you were there for the good of the community. Promotional products like pens, magnetic calendars or post-it-notes could do a great job for you in such cases.

Build store traffic -

Building store traffic is something cannot be achieved in one day. Building store traffic is a daily task to be performed, and where each event, show, social or community program counts in building a store traffic efficiently and inexpensive. Whatever is the event you participate, bring something interesting for your audience that they will not only hang onto, but also carry out home or office.

Grand Opening and Anniversary Celebration -

Grand Opening or Anniversary Celebration is present in every community. At your celebration, not only you must properly bring the attention of prospects, but also get them inside your business. Once inside, take this opportunity to give them something to carry out home, so they can remember you later. Celebrating opening is a way to show people you intent to stay in their community for a while. Refrigerator magnets, pencils, erasers, beach balls, and jar openers are good promotional items for such events.

Build Customer Loyalty -

In this competitive market we all live today, the price to pay for getting a customer is high. To keep a happy returning customer is a top priority for every one of your staff. If you have customers to recognize for being with you for several years, personalized promotional products could make the trick to reminder your customer how important is for your business. Desk clocks, high-value pens, jackets and others personalized promotional products could do a good work for you.

Incentives for Safety and Incentive Programs -

Have your employees kept your company injury-free for a while? Does your driver have kept good records thru the year driving your company's trucks? Consider one of our hundreds of reward and incentive program products to recognize their effort. Personalized mantel clocks, caps or executive travel bags are great for these special occasions.

Promote your Company's Website -

Getting your website online is easy. Driving customers and prospects to your site is different. Beside many options to promote your website online, you may also work to promote your site offline. First at all, don't miss a single piece of paper leaving your office without your complete web address, and yes, this includes business cards, envelopes, letterheads, catalogs, brochures, etc. You should also use a direct mailing to customers to promote your new site. Magnet mailers are extraordinary products to create a dynamic direct mailing, which includes a small magnet to keep close at hand for getting in touch when they need.

There are more interesting articles about Promotional Items at Action Printing, Inc website.

Getting Results With Viral Marketing

Are you looking to find out how so many big companies are so successful? It’s a mystery to many people, but making your business what you want it to be might rely on this.

In order to remain successful on the internet, creativity is necessary. Since so much competition is going on, you should be on the cutting edge of attracting traffic to your site. Even if you’ve got an awesome product or a great web site, people won’t even know you exist if they can’t find your site. Th...

Keywords:

viral marketing,viral trafficking,viral,marketing viral,internet marketing,marketing

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Are you looking to find out how so many big companies are so successful? It’s a mystery to many people, but making your business what you want it to be might rely on this.

In order to remain successful on the internet, creativity is necessary. Since so much competition is going on, you should be on the cutting edge of attracting traffic to your site. Even if you’ve got an awesome product or a great web site, people won’t even know you exist if they can’t find your site. Thus you won’t make lots of profit. Your work could go to waste.

There are hundreds of techniques used in e-marketing. One of these is called Viral Marketing. Viral might sound unpleasant, but you can imagine the virus in this case to be your product. It spreads like a virus… fairly soon, everyone has heard of it or experienced it.

Viral advertising raises the general population’s awareness of your company. Companies rely on the theory that if people find the web site pleasurable enough, they will pass it on for their friends and family to see. The consumer promotes the site for you, and it is completely free. All it takes is a cool game, a funny video, story, etc... Any point at which your product is mentioned can be considered good publicity.

Viral trafficking has become a widely accepted form of advertising because of how cheap it is. Instead of being spam mail, it relies on the individuals to send the product on themselves. If you receive an email from someone you know, you’re not likely do delete it. Some companies offer incentives for passing on the viral marketing message. It’s a small price to pay for having it sent to thousands of people.

The biggest perk perhaps to viral marketing is the amount of familiarity your site receives. You begin to see lots of traffic that are all potential customers. With a bit of creativity, you can reach a huge number of people and let them know your site exists.

Many sites are getting beginning to see the effectiveness of viral trafficking. You can’t afford not to use it. If you use it alongside SEO techniques, your web site could be unstoppable! Once you generate a buzz or hype about your site, many people will visit just out of curiosity.

Four Ways To Achieve Great Results ... CONTINUALLY

The author contends that great results are not truly great unless they are being achieved on a continual basis. He shows four ways to make it happen.

Keywords:

leadership skill, leadership skill training, leadership development, management, management skill, management skill training, effective leadership, leadership communication, leadership communication skill, management communication, management communication skill, management training, management development, business leadership, influence leadership, motivation, motivational leadership, leadership excellence, charismatic leadership, communication, manage, organizational success, organizational development, results, leadership results, career, motivator, motivating, executive

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PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

Word count: 850

Four Ways To Achieve Great Results ... CONTINUALLY
by Brent Filson

Leaders live and die by results. For almost a quarter of a century, I've been teaching leaders of all ranks and functions worldwide to achieve not just average results but "more results faster continually." And "continually" is maybe the most important factor.

A lot of leaders live by having people get more results. They live by having them get more results on a faster basis. But they die when trying to get "more, faster" CONTINUALLY.

Here are four ways to make CONTINUALLY happen.

1. Deep Expectations. Clearly, expectations are a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you commit yourself to the expectations that achieving anything less than "more results faster continually" is unacceptable, you've created new contours for success.

I call those expectations "deep expectations" because they involve the five results-drivers that go deeply into your organization. The results drivers are: the strategies that marshal functions around central, organizing concepts; the tactics to execute those strategies; the resources to support the tactics; the people skills to promote great execution; and the motivational leadership to have the people be ardently committed to the execution.

The strategies, tactics, resources, people skills, and motivational leadership must be viewed within the context of and tested by "more results faster continually."

2. Deep relationships. To promote CONTINUALLY, you must champion deep, human, emotional relationships with the people you lead. This means going beyond the relatively shallow relationships involved in order-giving environments. The relationships cultivated in such environments don't go much deeper, in terms of their human bonding, than those involved with the giving, receiving, and carrying out of orders. When you order people to do a job, you may get more and faster results, but I submit that you won't get more/faster CONTINUALLY.

The power of deep relationships has been demonstrated since the dawn of history. In all cultures, whenever people needed to do great things, one thing had to take place: A leader had to gather those people together and speak from the heart. Profound, heartfelt relationships had to be established for great things to be accomplished.

Today, many leaders miss out on deep relationships that can lead to great results. They may know such relationships are important, but they don't know how to consistently create them, maintain them and enrich them.

Think of a time when you've experienced a deep, bonding with somebody -- not sexual as in a significant-other relationship -- but a bonding to achieve certain organizational accomplishments. It might have been with a boss, a friend, a colleague ... doesn't matter who, the important thing is the WHAT, the relationship.

Now, picture yourself interacting with that person on one or more occasions. What was the physical setting? What was said? What was done? Recall what you felt. Recall the bonding that took place. What were the physical facts that gave you those emotions, that bonding? What were the actions you took as a result of that bonding? What were the results that came from those actions?

You may conclude that those relationships led to better results – and provided necessary environment for CONTINUALLY.

3. Deep processes. How do we create and sustain those relationships? One answer is through processes. Processes, which are systematic series of mental or physical steps directed toward specific ends, cultivate clarity of purpose and repeatability of outcomes.

A proven, robust process to advance CONTINUALLY is the Leadership Talk. The Leadership Talk is not about having leaders order people to do tasks, but having those people badly want to do those tasks. The ability to have others "want to" separates average leaders from great leaders. Hence, the Leadership Talk is a key driver of CONTINUALLY. (See my website for more information.) In fact, without employing Leadership Talks, leaders fail to create and sustain results-producing bonding between the leader and the people.

4. Deep results. If Leadership Talks are a key process in achieving the deep relationships needed to advance CONTINUALLY, what kind of results should CONTINUALLY encompass?

You can begin to get great results CONTINUALLY by having them flow through the prism of the Leadership Imperative.

The Leadership Imperative is: I WILL LEAD PEOPLE IN SUCH A WAY THAT WE TOGETHER NOT ONLY ACHIEVE THE RESULTS WE NEED BUT WE ALSO BECOME BETTER AS LEADERS AND AS PEOPLE.

You are never more effective as a leader as when, in getting more results faster continually, you are helping others be better than they are -- even better than thought they could be.

Guided by the Leadership Imperative, you'll find yourself realizing deep results. Furthermore, those deep results will advance CONTINUALLY. After all, if people know that in working with you, they will improve their job performance, boost their career, and enrich their lives, won't they want to work with you ... CONTINUALLY?

Results, of course, come in many forms and are measured and evaluated in many ways. I've discovered that most leaders are getting the wrong results, or the right results in the wrong ways. When you aim to start achieving "more results faster continually" you are on the right road to achieving the right results. Be guided by the four ways to make CONTINUALLY happen -- deep expectations, deep relationships, deep processes, deep results -- and you'll insure you'll be getting them in the right ways.

Employee Rewards Reap Results

The way you reward people forms an essential foundation for effective people management. Money is by no means the only motivator of people, but too little money demotivates powerfully. Studies have shown that material reward is far more powerful than monetary.

1. How To Determine Levels Of Reward

To determine how much reward is appropriate, consider the question what level of employee reward will attract, retain, and motivate people of the calibre that you require. If ...

Keywords:

employee reward and recognition,employee incentive reward,employee reward program,employee motivation reward,employee reward system,ways to reward employees

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The way you reward people forms an essential foundation for effective people management. Money is by no means the only motivator of people, but too little money demotivates powerfully. Studies have shown that material reward is far more powerful than monetary.

1. How To Determine Levels Of Reward

To determine how much reward is appropriate, consider the question what level of employee reward will attract, retain, and motivate people of the calibre that you require. If an employee does something that results in a one-time boost for the company, a one-time incentive is most appropriate.

2. Why Give Employees Added Rewards In Addition To Wages?

Keep in mind that the main reason why you are giving an employee reward is because you want exceptional results, not comparable performance. Exceptional productivity will more than cover extra pay.

- Employee rewards should be set for noteworthy achievements
- Rewards must be related to a particular completion of a given task
- Employees should be encouraged to express their recent achievements
- Ensure the employee knows they deserve it, it will have a great impresion on their personality

3. Employee reward should never be an alternative for a reasonable remuneration scheme

This type of award should not be set as an enduring option to stable income amendments when, in fact, these changes should be carried out for constant and regular completion of tasks, excellent execution, and notable modifications in conscientiousness, or enhanced assessment of a status. Remember that employee reward is a one-time incentive program; therefore, it should be set out clearly and must be understood well by the employees so that they will know where to stand.

6. Employee rewards should not reflect the impression that these are changes to one’s basic pay

It must be set out clear to the employees so that they will not expect anything more than what they have to receive. Make it apparent that the extra pay is for special achievement only and nothing else. Generally, employee rewards may be in the form of cash incentives or non-cash fringe benefits. It could even be something of no real financial worth such as a personal letter of commendation.

7. Reward By Volume

If you have to use a monetary type of employee reward, give reward based on results. This means that the employee gets a fixed amount for a specific amount of results. In theory, this gives the employee the best incentive to maximize output. In fact, employees tend to put a ceiling on their earnings and thus on their effort. Nevertheless, the key concept here is that the management should only give an employee reward that is tied to an individual achievement. The reward must be reasonably large to have value - no one likes getting an overly small reward as it could have the opposite effect and make the employee view the company as cheap or undervaluing them. Never reward an employee for what has been accepted as a sensible objective. It should be given for extraordinary achievements only.

Executive Search Agents Get Results

Recruiting a senior manager or director for your business can be expensive. Placing adverts in the right papers and journals is a huge expense in itself. If you’re recruiting at the top level in your business, it may be more cost-effective for you to use an executive search agency.

Did you know that, in some cases, the fee charged by a recruitment agency may actually be less than handling the recruitment in-house? People often turn to an executive search firm when they hav...

Keywords:

executive jobs, executive recruitment, executive search

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Recruiting a senior manager or director for your business can be expensive. Placing adverts in the right papers and journals is a huge expense in itself. If you’re recruiting at the top level in your business, it may be more cost-effective for you to use an executive search agency.

Did you know that, in some cases, the fee charged by a recruitment agency may actually be less than handling the recruitment in-house? People often turn to an executive search firm when they have had trouble recruiting for a certain position. They may have had a low response to adverts, or discovered that all the CVs that have been sent in are from people who are under qualified or inappropriate for the role. This can be very frustrating, particularly as it is very expensive to place recruitment adverts in the local and national press.

Businesses who don’t have a full-time Human Resources function, or who are too busy to handle top recruitment themselves often outsource to an agency. Whilst it has a cost attached, it removes the majority of the recruitment burden from the company’s internal resources and makes sure that the best candidates are put forward for the job. This use of external expertise is really no different from using a design agency to run a website, or a sanitary company to do the cleaning, and leaves the company’s management free to approach the interview stage fresh and enthusiastic.

Executive recruitment is normally for specialised roles and candidates therefore need to have a very well-defined set of skills and experience. For this reason, businesses are often less concerned with the time taken to employ someone than they are with the quality of the person they eventually hire. This can turn the search and selection process into a long one and managers can go through several sets of candidates before offering the position.

Specialist recruitment agencies come into their own here. Their databases help to search out possible candidates who have the right combination of qualifications, experience and skills, and can even undertake the first round of interviews on the company’s behalf, so that the final list includes only the best candidates available. This outsourcing of basic recruitment functions allows the company to concentrate on running the business and leaves them feeling confident that the candidates that come for interview are all suitable for the job.