Tuesday, March 31, 2009

When Marketing Professional Services - Don't Try to be All Things to All People

As a professional solution provider do you try to "specialize" in everything?Or do you specialize with every person in your niche, providing the services each of them require?Let me explain.

Years ago a friend of mine, a multiple lines insurance agent, had what he thought was the opportunity of a lifetime.There was a gas station in his community, on the busiest street in the neighborhood - that had gone out of business.The owner of the property could not find another oil company to lease it so he cleaned up the site and began trying to lease the building as a bakery, pizza shop, or small retailer, anyone really.

It occurred to my friend that this would be an ideal location for his insurance agency.It was on the main drag, there was parking in front, and it was on a corner for easy in and out maneuvering.The building was remodeled, the parking lot was re-paved and the original 15 foot high gas station sign was painted with his logo.

It read, "Suburban Insurance, We Specialize in ALL Kinds of Insurance" in a very professional look.And of course his catchy phone number everyone around there would remember easily.How could he lose?With all those people driving back and forth every day?They would see the sign on their way to work, call for an appointment on the way home.

What did the people driving by think?Who knows, no one stopped.He was trying to be all things to all people and it did not work.For three months he didn't make a sale that could in any way have come from one of those passing motorists.He was faced with the prospect of giving up this really neat space or cutting back elsewhere because he had signed on to a lease based on his untested assumption that people would drive in every day of the week.

During a chance conversation with the owner of an actual gas station in the area a light went on.He realized that he needed to specialize in something, offer something unique or timely - get people to stop in for that one thing, so he could tell them about the other products and services his agency offered.

He returned to his office and found behind the building a portable sign, we've all seen them - the kind gas stations roll out by the curb where the passing motorists can't miss it.He had it painted using his professional theme with the message, "Changing jobs, we have short term medical insurance - don't put your family at risk" and put it out by the corner.

Not being a savvy marketer he did not know that a major employer in the area was laying off a lot of the very people who were driving by his office twice a day.

Within the next two days nearly 20 drivers stopped in, over a dozen of them bought the insurance - they were about to change jobs and had never heard of this kind of insurance and the other picked up brochures for the short term medical and some of his other products.

Every week or so he would showcase another of his products - travel accident, International medical, errors and omissions, etc.Every time he did that, people would stop in.From the relationships he created he sold the other more complex and more profitable coverages demonstrating that his agency actually did specialize in all kinds of insurance.

For the last twenty years I have seen examples where professionals of all types claim to specialize working with home business owners, small business owners, and executives.They think that by covering the entire waterfront they won't miss anyone.The opposite if often the result however.

Too often we try to be all things to all people and lose our credibility.Just because we do a lot of different kinds of consulting or coaching, or offer several different and usually complimentary services - people really only want to know if we have what they need right then.

Start by thinking of your audience those people ideally suited for the services you provide.Maybe a should say audiences.Think about your several audiences vs.your specialties.So, if you are a business coach and do sales training, customer retention, and recruitment within one field that's not bad if you tie them together under one umbrella firm name providing a range of services for a specific audience/category.

On the other hand, if you position yourself as a marketing expert and as engineering expert, you may want to consider your audiences again and use different materials, literature, etc.for each audience.Savvy professionals have several bios or web sites, not linked together - one they use for speaking for instance, those they use when they are emailing to a specific category prospects, those they use for different audiences they serve.

Remember, you can't be all things to all people but you can be different things to different people.


About the Author

Successful professionals are always on the lookout for ideas and resources to help them.

They are also looking for creative ways of marketing their professional services.If you want to be even more successful in the future than you are today, learn more about marketing professional services and share your insights with others, visit us and join in the discussion.

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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Drive Traffic Using the Tell-A-Friend Script

A lot more and more website owners have the most notable dilemma, which is how to increase the amount of traffic flow to their websites.Through out the past few years a number of methods have been created to rectify this situation.Whilst number of them will work there are a lot that are likely not to even make the smallest impact.One of the techniques that have been the origin of lots of success stories in sending traffic to websites is viral marketing.Viral marketing is designed to use the tendency of a visitor to share information they may find informative, entertaining or amazing.

Loads of companies count on this method to help spread their products and grow the popularity of their business or their website.Viral marketing utilising a number of mediums that try to bring out this type of behaviour, it may be in the form of a thought provoking story, an addictive flash game, or an amusing video and load of others that may possibly catch a person's fancy.

This special form of marketing is usually very cost effective and is a great tool for any business to use.The advantages normally out weigh the cost and the efforts to initialize this marketing system.All websites will immensely benefit from some type of viral marketing.

Tell A Friend Script One of the simplest techniques in viral marketing is to use a tell a friend script.This is a straight forward programming script which you can add to the programming of your website.Basically, a tell a friend script is installed in the webpage's with a media placed next to it so that a person may simply send the media to a list of his friends or his family members.The fundamental concept of a tell a friend script is a script where people can their name and, e-mail address, then the recipient's e-mail address and then send the media to the intended recipient much like an e-mail with an attachment.When the recipient gets the e-mail he wouldn't view the email as spam mail because he will notice the sender's details as a person he or she knows or is familiar with.

Tell a friend script gets rid of greatly the ability of being blocked as it uses the information that has been added by the sender.This will result in a wider spreading of this marketing method.It might seem quite underhanded but it is a very effective method.When the e-mail is sent and opened the sent media will be read, viewed or played.Together with the mail there would be a good brief description of the business or website that is sponsoring the media that has been sent.This gives invitation for the introduction of either the website, business name or its products.And don't forget to add to that another tell a friend script.

Yep!You guessed it, then the whole process repeats it's self again.When more people begin to use the tell-a-friend script, that will mean that more and more prospects will know of the existence of the sponsoring business or website.Prospects that read the ads within the mail and liked what they saw would go on to click on the link and visit the website (i.e.your website!).This will increase traffic to you website resulting in a higher number of possible customers.

Tell A Friend Script Availability A tell a friend script is a very easy to use and doesn't need a complex method of programming.Actually, you can just copy and paste a script and easily add it onto the intended page.And finding one is even easier.All you need to do is go to a search engine and write into the search box "tell a friend script" then just hit enter or click go.

In the search results pages there will be many listings that will send you to a number of websites where you may access a tell-a-friend script.After this it is just a simple case of looking and searching for the right script and then copying it into your intended web pages.Using a tell-a-friend script and this viral marketing technique you can send traffic to your website that wills possibly meaning great profits.This is a straight forward and non harmful script that presents great advantages for low cost mixed with great creativity and foresight.

It is important that you take your time when using a tell-a-friend script.If your media that you choose doesn't get the exposure that you expect of it, it might take a bit of time before it starts taking viral effect.But eventually loads of people will see your ads and there is huge probability that they should visit your website increasing the traffic to your website.


About the Author

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor and co founder of Top Affiliate Programs


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Sunday, August 31, 2008

Make Money Online - How Hype Can Ruin Your Business

Making Money Online is a viable, stable and respectable business.

Affiliate Marketing for example, is where millions of companies on the Internet pay a performance-based commission if you can drive sales to their online pages by promoting their wareses and services. An affiliate is able to brand money browse cyberspace by human being a middleman between online surfers and merchant wareses. By mentioning customers also the goods they are probing for, the affiliate gets a charge for every acquisition cherish the merchant by means of an Affiliate Plan.

There is a lot of hype and dishonest claims out there concerning causing change online. Mainly, if something sounds too right to be authentic it probably is.

On the whole these claims are tactics to get employees to buy a few type or higher than priced e-book. Unluckily these tactics steadily shed a getting dark light on this problem and the the whole story that it is a viable, candid and accurate way to brand currency browse cyberspace and book at homestead for yourself.

Memorizing the detail just about affiliate advertisement, and the precise devices and means to mature this business is important to accomplishment. Dont fall for the hype

Hype and Essential of Having Currency On the internet and Affiliate Advertisement:

Hype: "Get wealthy overnight" "Style Millions Entering Journal" "Brand 1,000 by Today"
Specific: Affiliate Commercial grants endless occasions to class cash online and the liberty of creating your own domicile business BUT it gets rid of a lot of burly book, precise shrewdness, perseverance, pledge and tolerance for sensation. These moronic expressions are merely hooks to advertise you one or two further hype, dont dropped for it

Hype: Stimulating Capital riches Browse cyberspace plus Affiliate Commercial is simple.
Specific: It is principally simple, but it is not simple. It eliminates a lot of robust textbook, commitment and tolerance. The key to achievement is picking up the accurate instruments and means and consistently applying themselves.

Hype: You labor under to buy an costly e-work or course to grasp the business of Affiliate Sales promotion and to Make Change Surf the net.
The whole story: There is a ton of complimentary hint concerning the how-tos of affiliate commercial and inducing capital riches on the internet.

Hype: Affiliate Marketing needs a lot of money in initiate-up costs.
Essential: In specific, affiliate advertisement is particular given that you can start off a abode-affair along furthermore after to not anything in start off-up bills, all that is want to know is a mechanical device, an World wide web connection, knowledge of exact gears and manners, a willingness to textbook hefty, and of way the desire to brand cash.

Hype: The World wide web is too competitive and the occurrences to make change on the internet are no longer obtainable.
The whole story: In essential, there are many viable incidents indoor affiliate marketing, and while definite publicize areas are to a certain extent competitive there are thousands that are likewise wide open. Daily basis there are millions of new users joining the Web and there are heaps of untapped niches/vends handy where capital riches is hopeful to be earned. The key is picking up the exact experiment techniques.

Hype: I tolerate to give up my day job to make currency surf the net and to create an affiliate commercial business.
Detail: A few affiliates work almost about their day jobs, this can be a confront, but those that truly requested it do succeed. You can become old this business on your own period and book just about your professions and families also the end purpose of course of reporting your chief so long once your business becomes booming

Dont let dishonest hype and schemes mess up your triumph in having money browse cyberspace. Candid, means, tools and guides are the keys to causing capital riches browse cyberspace.


Close to the Inventor

Understood a Free, whole, step-by-step advice to building an affiliate marketing online page at:

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