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Actual for You - The Four Questions That Can Help You Focus Your Advertising
If you own a business, you also have to install a communication system to run it. It is simply unthinkable to run a business without the right type of communication system, which is the backbone of your business. Each and every member of your staff needs to have a telephone or other communication device for running business operations smoothly.With as many communication devices as the number of staff in your business establishment, the chances of over-billing and even the misuse of the communication network can never be ruled out. This means your hard-earned revenues may be going down the drain while you are planning and working overtime to increase the efficiency of your resources to maximize your profits.You need to put a check on this drain. For this, you can contact a Telecom Audit agency to look into your communication network. The agency can offer suggestions for improving efficiency, check the telephone bills, find billing flaws, contact the telephone vendors and help you recover huge overpaid amounts in billing. But all this requires time, effort and expenditure on your part, which you cannot afford to invest. This is where the Telecom Audit Software comes in. A simple piece of software can save labor and costs worth hundreds of man-hours. Telecom Audit Software can check your telecom bill’s accuracy very minutely and the moment it discovers a mistake that may result in over-billing, it files a complaint for a refund or a credit the overcharge in your account. The software is so designed that it can automatically audit and verify the invoices and thus saves a lot of time in manual operations. It can also display and keep track of wrong bills. Like every other software, there may be a catch in Telecom Audit Software also, in that it can become outdated, with the new ones coming in the market with better features.Ultimately it depends upon your individual requirements. If you are a large company with a sophisticated telecom network you need to u
If you haven’t opened your doors, head for the chamber of commerce office and in some cities, your local newspaper. Both can and often do have lots of demographic information on your prime prospect group.
The federal government can be a big help, too. Check out your local Small Business Administrat
We all make mistakes in business. The important issue is that we learn from them and apply the lessons in both our online and off-line business activities. One of my most costly mistakes happened about twelve years ago in the off-line business world. However, the lessons I learnt are just as applicable online as they are off-line.Having established a small mail order business part-time, I decided to expand the business using direct mail techniques. I had read all the books and attended a course and it seemed like the best approach to achieve my goals. After approaching various mailing list providers, I decided I had found the perfect list to reach my target market.Pricing was obtained from the list owner and he was happy to provide me with small quantities of names initially so that I could test his list. These tests were successful enough for me to decide to undertake two large mail campaigns one after the other. I was very confident that I would be receiving countless orders and soon leaving my full-time job.Disaster struck with the first mailing and the second mailing was too far progressed to stop. The initial sign was a significant increase in the dead letter rate. Then the quantity of orders was less than half what I expected. The second mailing had similar results. I was significantly out of pocket and I had to stay in my full-time job to repay the debts I had created.Shortly thereafter, I began to read reports that the list owner was being investigated for fraud and other criminal charges. All in all, a sorry state of affairs.The key lessons I learnt from this experience were:a) Always check the integrity of who you are doing business with – especially if you have not had previous dealings with them.b) Never assume that limited test results will be duplicated in larger scale tests.c) Never over-commit to promotional activity – it is better to grow slower than to lose your hard earned money.d
Jack was the Director of Advertising and Sales Promotion at Remington Arms Company and his four questions have helped me get my ideas focused in every advertising challenge I have ever faced.
After all, some say 85% of all advertising does not work. But when it does, it is pure magic. Let’s see if his four questions are your magic wand.
The Mitchell Four Questions.
Question 1: Who is your best or prime prospect?
The surest way to put your new business in the bankruptcy court is to think everyone is going to beat a path to your door. They will not. You will have a small group of customers who will account for most of your bread and butter business. That is what is meant by the 80/20 principle. Eight percent of your business will most likely come from twenty percent of your customers. Start to think and plan with that key fact in mind. If you do not, you will not have a clue who is buying from you and the media folks will be all over you like buzzards on a dead water buffalo. Get to know that prime prospect like you know your best friend. Develop a mental picture of that prime prospect. When you do, you will focus your efforts at those folks most likely to keep you in business rather than making large donations to the ad of the week club.
To paraphrase President Abraham Lincoln, you can reach all of the people some of the time; some of the people all of the time; but you cannot reach all of the people, all of the time.
Not even the giant Wal-Mart attracts everyone but you can bet they know who their prime prospects are and aim most their approach, right at them.
So where do you start? How do you find out who is going to be that best or prime prospect?
Start at the same place your business idea started. Why in the world did you want to start your business in the first place? Who encouraged you to take that giant step? What did you plan to do different that would attract customers in the first place?
If you have competition, go shop them. Get copies of their advertising. See who they are trying to persuade to come use their products and services. Go to your local community college and university and offer to let their marketing students do a research project on your business. Do online surveys.
Here’s another way to gather information. Create a drawing with a significant prize. Money. A trip. An I-pod. Something cool. If you have a store, do the contest in the store. Encourage everyone who comes through the door to fill out an entry. Do the survey twice a year.
We are looking for demographics in the survey. Demographics are numbers we can measure. How old is your prime prospect? Is the prime prospect female or male? Married or single? Does your prime prospect have a family? How much education? White collar or blue collar? White or minority? How wealthy? Is fitness important? Do they like pets? Member of a church? What is their favorite type of transportation? (Yes pickup drivers and different that Lexus drivers.) Do they drink? Smoke? Play sports? Choose questions that apply to your business and what you offer.
If you haven’t opened your doors, head for the chamber of commerce office and in some cities, your local newspaper. Both can and often do have lots of demographic information on your prime prospect group.
The federal government can be a big help, too. Check out your local Small Business Administrati
Norman Woodland, a 27-year-old graduate student at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia developed the first code system that automatically read product information during checkout. Woodland and his friend Silver were awarded a patent for their application titled Classifying Apparatus and Method on October 7, 1952. Many experts are of the view that the Woodland and Silver bar code was the basis of what would soon become a global phenomenon.In the beginning, barcodes were developed to store data in the spacing of printed parallel lines. The idea was to help grocery stores speed up the checkout process and keep better track of the inventory. However, the system soon picked up and became a success story.Barcodes form the basis of identification in almost all types of businesses in the modern world. Barcodes are variously called as Universal Product Codes or UPCs. These are machine-readable codes and come in strips, generally comprising of a series of short black lines of varied thickness. These codes are read by optical scanners called barcode readers or scanned from an image by special software. A laser reader or scanner can translate the barcodes into the corresponding alpha-numeric digits, which are used to uniquely identify a piece of property. Barcodes are used world over to implement Auto ID Data Capture (AIDC) systems that improve the speed and accuracy of computer data entry.At present, we have codes in several patterns of dots, concentric circles and hidden in images. Barcodes are provided by a body called Uniform Code Council (UCC). A manufacturer has to apply to the UCC for permission to enter the UPC system. An annual fee is charged for the service. In return, the UCC issues the manufacturer a six-digit manufacturer identification number. The manufacturer identification number is part of a standard 12-digit bar code.Bar coding standards have brought about great precision, technical refinement and uniformity in the way business is
The surest way to put your new business in the bankruptcy court is to think everyone is going to beat a path to your door. They will not. You will have a small group of customers who will account for most of your bread and butter business. That is what is meant by the 80/20 principle. Eight percent of your business will most likely come from twenty percent of your customers. Start to think and plan with that key fact in mind. If you do not, you will not have a clue who is buying from you and the media folks will be all over you like buzzards on a dead water buffalo. Get to know that prime prospect like you know your best friend. Develop a mental picture of that prime prospect. When you do, you will focus your efforts at those folks most likely to keep you in business rather than making large donations to the ad of the week club.
To paraphrase President Abraham Lincoln, you can reach all of the people some of the time; some of the people all of the time; but you cannot reach all of the people, all of the time.
Not even the giant Wal-Mart attracts everyone but you can bet they know who their prime prospects are and aim most their approach, right at them.
So where do you start? How do you find out who is going to be that best or prime prospect?
Start at the same place your business idea started. Why in the world did you want to start your business in the first place? Who encouraged you to take that giant step? What did you plan to do different that would attract customers in the first place?
If you have competition, go shop them. Get copies of their advertising. See who they are trying to persuade to come use their products and services. Go to your local community college and university and offer to let their marketing students do a research project on your business. Do online surveys.
Here’s another way to gather information. Create a drawing with a significant prize. Money. A trip. An I-pod. Something cool. If you have a store, do the contest in the store. Encourage everyone who comes through the door to fill out an entry. Do the survey twice a year.
We are looking for demographics in the survey. Demographics are numbers we can measure. How old is your prime prospect? Is the prime prospect female or male? Married or single? Does your prime prospect have a family? How much education? White collar or blue collar? White or minority? How wealthy? Is fitness important? Do they like pets? Member of a church? What is their favorite type of transportation? (Yes pickup drivers and different that Lexus drivers.) Do they drink? Smoke? Play sports? Choose questions that apply to your business and what you offer.
If you haven’t opened your doors, head for the chamber of commerce office and in some cities, your local newspaper. Both can and often do have lots of demographic information on your prime prospect group.
The federal government can be a big help, too. Check out your local Small Business Administrat
Starting a business? For many people, the bravery to venture out on your own is the ultimate dream, you’re your own boss, you make your own time, and your dreams of making it big in the independent business lives on. But don’t forget there are many responsibilities. As the business grows so is the need for manpower. This means salaries to pay and records to make and keep. Maintaining a pleasant working condition is imperative, and nothing makes a disgruntled employee than a spotty payroll check stub. Everyone wants fair compensation and as the owner of the company or at least the accountant, you want to make sure that this followed to the T. Salaries may be given depending on the preference of the company or to the nature of the business. Some provide salary schemes as bi-monthly, monthly or quarterly (every week).There are now many ways to pay the salary of the employees. Some prefer the old fashioned way of procuring checks while some want to electronically deposit the wages to the bank accounts, which is fast becoming the popular medium these days. This is called direct deposit, usually employees are provided direct deposit advices to inform them of the deposit made to their accounts which pertain to their salary and details behind them. This is what can be used as a payroll check stub. They are usually delivered a day before the salary day. So that the employees can get a hold of them on pay day and scrutinize them. Even if you use other method of compensating your employees, it is imperative that you provide them a payroll check stub to clarify everything that leads to their salaries.Payroll check stubs are the slip of paper provided to the employee on salary day which details all the information about the salary the employee is about to receive. There they will see all the information they will need to know about their wages. Like for example, their rate, their hours worked, their salary rates, the deductions made like taxes, medicare, insurance, loans, s
To paraphrase President Abraham Lincoln, you can reach all of the people some of the time; some of the people all of the time; but you cannot reach all of the people, all of the time.
Not even the giant Wal-Mart attracts everyone but you can bet they know who their prime prospects are and aim most their approach, right at them.
So where do you start? How do you find out who is going to be that best or prime prospect?
Start at the same place your business idea started. Why in the world did you want to start your business in the first place? Who encouraged you to take that giant step? What did you plan to do different that would attract customers in the first place?
If you have competition, go shop them. Get copies of their advertising. See who they are trying to persuade to come use their products and services. Go to your local community college and university and offer to let their marketing students do a research project on your business. Do online surveys.
Here’s another way to gather information. Create a drawing with a significant prize. Money. A trip. An I-pod. Something cool. If you have a store, do the contest in the store. Encourage everyone who comes through the door to fill out an entry. Do the survey twice a year.
We are looking for demographics in the survey. Demographics are numbers we can measure. How old is your prime prospect? Is the prime prospect female or male? Married or single? Does your prime prospect have a family? How much education? White collar or blue collar? White or minority? How wealthy? Is fitness important? Do they like pets? Member of a church? What is their favorite type of transportation? (Yes pickup drivers and different that Lexus drivers.) Do they drink? Smoke? Play sports? Choose questions that apply to your business and what you offer.
If you haven’t opened your doors, head for the chamber of commerce office and in some cities, your local newspaper. Both can and often do have lots of demographic information on your prime prospect group.
The federal government can be a big help, too. Check out your local Small Business Administrat
In an ever-expanding corporate environment, the need to have an individual identity is a must to stand out from the crowd and get noticed. There are several ways of making this statement such as brand advertising, promotion campaigns and a personalized logo. However, a very subtle yet effective method used to highlight a person or organization’s individuality is the use of personalized rubber stamps.A personalized rubber stamp allows the users to craft their own design, logo, slogan or signature for the stamp. The engravings in the rubber base are made exactly according to the need of the user, adding to the tailor-made approach. These rubber stamps also make the perfect gift for any occasion.Personalized rubber stamps come in various shapes and sizes and focus on the minutest of details. Wood handle stamps are one of the most unique personalized stamps. Unlike other commercial stamps, these stamp handles are custom made to match the size of the rubber die. Other variations include personal signatures, images and logos. Since these stamps are made for a specific individual or organization, their size and shape can also be customized.Personalized rubber stamps are usually made with real red rubber using laser engraver process. This process helps create the finest details in any stamp, may it be text based or an image. Personalized rubber stamps maybe used for a variety of purposes, such as stamping important documents, decorating greeting cards and wallpapers, certifying documents, and creating art tabletops.Personalized rubber stamps are the best way to create a lasting impression of individuality. The stamps can also be designed as gifts for several occasions, including those designed to represent different zodiac signs for a person’s birthday. Whether representing an organization, an individual or just an abstract thought, these stamps are sure to leave a positive impression.
If you have competition, go shop them. Get copies of their advertising. See who they are trying to persuade to come use their products and services. Go to your local community college and university and offer to let their marketing students do a research project on your business. Do online surveys.
Here’s another way to gather information. Create a drawing with a significant prize. Money. A trip. An I-pod. Something cool. If you have a store, do the contest in the store. Encourage everyone who comes through the door to fill out an entry. Do the survey twice a year.
We are looking for demographics in the survey. Demographics are numbers we can measure. How old is your prime prospect? Is the prime prospect female or male? Married or single? Does your prime prospect have a family? How much education? White collar or blue collar? White or minority? How wealthy? Is fitness important? Do they like pets? Member of a church? What is their favorite type of transportation? (Yes pickup drivers and different that Lexus drivers.) Do they drink? Smoke? Play sports? Choose questions that apply to your business and what you offer.
If you haven’t opened your doors, head for the chamber of commerce office and in some cities, your local newspaper. Both can and often do have lots of demographic information on your prime prospect group.
The federal government can be a big help, too. Check out your local Small Business Administrat
Marketing products and services through the Internet is unquestionably easier and more rewarding compared to traditional marketing methods. With the millions of people worldwide getting online each day, there’s an enormous possibility for a merchant to sell his products and generate huge income.However, merchandisers are not the only ones who can benefit from online marketing. A booming industry nowadays, provides great opportunity as well to individuals as affiliate marketers. In affiliate marketing, an affiliate marketer doesn’t need to have his own products and services to sell. All he needs to do is to refer people to the merchant’s business site for them to buy the products and thereby, earn a commission.The key to an affiliate marketer’s success is to choose a good affiliate program and to employ excellent marketing techniques in promoting or selling the products to consumers. Why good and not the best affiliate program? There is no “best affiliate marketing program,” as one program might make one affiliate marketer a millionaire and the other a frustrated marketer. In other words, it can be a success to one and a failure to another. But there certainly is a good affiliate marketing program to start with. How to make it best would now depend on you.But before you think how you are going to make it best and financially rewarding, first think about how you are going to land on a good affiliate program with the thousands of affiliate marketing opportunities abounding in the Internet today. Try to look into the following tips and suggestions on how to best select the affiliate program that’s right for you.Information, that’s you need in order to make the right choice. It is helpful when you have already focused your search to a specific interest, which may be the theme of your website (if you already have one). In this way, you would be able to direct yourself towards a program that really matches your needs, wants and resources. It would be easi
If you haven’t opened your doors, head for the chamber of commerce office and in some cities, your local newspaper. Both can and often do have lots of demographic information on your prime prospect group.
The federal government can be a big help, too. Check out your local Small Business Administration office or check their internet site, http://www.sba.gov for documents that can be very valuable. Census track information is a good place to stick your nose for an afternoon, too. And, be sure to use your nose. Learjets have to be licensed. Learjet pilots have to take check rides. Learjet owners have to register their planes. All have the FAA in common. Do not forget those government agencies. You helped pay for them and in some cases, they are indeed willing and ready to help.
When you apply the answers to how many times the person needs your services--every day, once a week, once a month, once-in-a-lifetime--we start to get a picture of the size of the market. Clearly a small convenience store has a much different market than someone who plans to sell Learjets. The convenience stores my have 90% of its business coming from a radius of five miles while the jet company may have a market which is world-wide.
As you can see, all soon can be some. We are looking for focused marketing. Rather than take a shotgun approach to the marketplace, our aim is to take a rifle shot. We want to take a rifle shot and hit the bulls-eye rather than take a shotgun blast and blow the target away. Each time you can refine some information, you make it possible to define the prime prospect group. Yes, you will discover sub groups of prime prospects with special needs as you move along and that is GREAT! You can target those special prospect groups with targeted custom message aimed just at them using your PC. That is almost free advertising.
When you have good demographics, you can ask the media folks how many of those specific prospects the media rep has in their audience. If they do not have any, you do not buy. It’s that simple. So much for the donation part of your advertising budget.
Question 2: What is their problem?
People buy for a reason. It’s important you discover the reason why they are “willing” to trade their hard earned money for what you have to sell. Here are my ten reasons why people buy something:
1. The nag factor.
If something needs to be fixed in a household it will go unfixed only as long as the fixer is willing to tolerate the nagging of the person demanding the fixing. If you offer the solution to the nagee or a suggestion to the nagger, chances are you will increase your business. An easy solution is more saleable than a pretty product. Sell the solution. Saturday mornings are filled with fix-it shows. Listen to them and see who is calling. You’ll soon get the idea.
2. Acceptance and Entertainment.
If you are in the business of selling something interesting, and that can include the teaching of same, you are in a position to market relief from boredom. Promote what you have that is interesting and different and the information on how to do it and your response will improve. Make a trip to your business an entertaining event and you will profit handsomely. Get your prospect’s hands on somethi
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