I’ve been quite busy lately trying to keep up with the thirty day challenge.  The challenge is designed to take you from nothing to earning your first $10 online in only 30 days.

The basic concept is not about the money, but the process involved to set up a website or blog and to use it and social networking to get indexed with the search engines, and selling an information product.

It’s amazing how much I’ve learnt already about social networking and the instructions given are very clear. I suggest that if you have approx1/2 hour per day to spare, jump online and give it a go. Thirty Day Challenge

one of the first things I ever learnt about marketing was the concept of th 4 P’s. I came across this artcle by Nate Stockard and believed that it sums up the definition of the 4 P’s.

The Marketing Mix For Small Business Marketing

All marketing resources will eventually talk about your marketing mix, but what do they mean exactly? Marketing mix is a term that the marketing world tries to hold as a private term that only the industry knows about, but as a small business owner, you need to understand how to plan and implement your marketing mix.

The marketing mix is defined as the four P’s of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. These four areas make up the complete outline for product or service marketing. Once you have defined the variables for each P, you have a basis for proper marketing.

Market research will play a major role in each area of your marketing mix. You must understand what you are competing with in regards to products and pricing. Although you may have a new and unique item with an innovative type of distribution, you still must compare your product or service to existing ones.

Here are the four P’s of your marketing mix for small business marketing.

P #1: Product

The product or service or selling must be defined first. What are you selling? How will it be packaged? Determine your product’s features, and then build the benefits from them. At this point, you will make all of the decisions relating to your product or service: style, quality, packaging, warranty, etc.

P#2: Price

Pricing actually plays a vital role in the branding and image of your product. Determining your price can be difficult, especially if you product is in a widely-variable industry. You must determine pricing strategy, retail and wholesale pricing, possible bundling, and any type of discounts.

P#3: Place

Place refers to how you will distribute the product. Will you sell to retail stores, or will you sell directly to customers? Is your product a wholesale item? The decisions made about distribution will affect your marketing mix in terms of how you will warehouse your products, how you will process orders, what types of channels will you use, and how will you cover the market.

P#4: Promotion

Promotion is the area where you will make decisions on how people will learn about your product. What types of sales strategies and promotions will you use? What kind of sales force will you need to sell your product? How will you use public relations and publicity to support your product? There are many aspects of the promotion element of your marketing mix. In fact, the other three P’s will affect your promotion strategy.

Decide on the first three P’s before you tackle Promotion, but ultimately, each P will coordinate with the others. Once you complete your marketing mix decisions, review the entire plan to make sure you have a consistent and precise marketing mix plan in order to properly sell, distribute, and promote your product.

Nate Stockard is the owner of Stockard & Associates, Inc, a marketing and design firm in Houston, TX specializing in small business solutions. He is also the author of The Market Seedling, an informative source of information, articles, tips, and advice for small business owners and marketers.

Emma Rhoades is the author of the “ Start up Marketing Kit” - marketing basics presented to you in step by step format, allowing you get promoting your business straight away. Drop by www.divapromotions.com.au/marketingkit.asp for your FREE preview.

When devising your marketing mix or action plan, you need to include a variety of different options. I always recommend approx 5 different strategies to incorporate into your marketing mix.

Using email marketing is a rapidly developing method, allowing you to keep in contact with your customers and helping you to develop your relationship with them. Marketing Consultant Susan Burnash recommends the following guidelines to help you get the most from your email marketing campaign:

Good Planning and Preparation - The best way to prepare for an e-newsletter campaign is to start by creating your own editorial calendar.  Define your theme and topics in advance and then start an e-newsletter file to collect information you may want to include.  Whether it is an electronic file or paper one, you should add content ideas, pictures, industry or business news, event information, or anything that might inspire you and benefit your readers for an upcoming issue.

2.       Proper Brand Communication - The attributes that define your organization should set the tone for your e-newsletter.  Done well, your e-newsletter should be able to communicate your brand through your writing style, voice, logo, colors, fonts and choice of images, and content.  And if you are the brand, don’t forget your picture. Readers like a face to connect with a name. 

3.       Relevant and Valuable Content - Relevancy is the number one ingredient for a successful e-newsletter.  Relevant content can include: How To articles, Case Studies, Client Profiles, Industry or Business Trends, News Stories, Expert Advice.  If it speaks to what your readers want or need to know, you can’t go wrong.  And mix it up!  Write some content yourself, or hire a professional writer, and make sure to include content from, or links to, other experts in your field or business.

4.       Balance Between Text and Images - Using images to support your topic is a good idea, but because many people have images turned off, it is critical that your e-newsletter communicates equally well without them.  To test how your text works alone, turn off your images in your email client and send yourself a sample.  If the text is as effective without the pictures as it is with, it will be effective to all email recipients no matter how they have their email options set.  

5.       Click-Through Opportunities - Because e-newsletters need to be short and easy to read quickly, providing brief articles with “to read more” or “for the complete article” click-through links is a great way to go.  Summarizing or condensing an article serves as a teaser designed to drive readers to your website for a deeper experience.  It also enables you to get valuable click-through information about your customers’ behaviors and interest when you review your tracking reports.       

6.       Reader Engagement – E-newsletters should serve as a springboard for further conversation with your readers and you.  There are many ways to create an interactive relationship.  You should always include a Contact Us link to your email address or an online form that is easy to fill out.  You can also utilize polls and surveys.  All of these show your readers that you are interested in what they have to say and value their input.  But make sure you respond in a timely manner.  If you don’t, you may be hurting yourself more than leaving these items out altogether.  

7.       Tracking and Reporting - Keeping your email database current and monitoring the behavior of your customers are the primary reasons for sending out an e-newsletter on a regular basis.  If you aren’t using email campaign software with tracking capabilities, you are totally missing the boat.  Many of my clients use Constant Contact, My Emma, Blue Sky Factory, or Swiftpage.  All provide self-service options for those that want to manage their campaigns in-house or they can provide full-service options such as creating custom template designs, executing your campaign, managing your database, and reporting out results through campaign tracking.  

No matter how you go about it, you can see that by not using this method you are most definitely missing out!!

Emma Rhoades is the author of the “ Start up Marketing Kit” - marketing basics presented to you in step by step format, allowing you get promoting your business straight away. Drop by www.divapromotions.com.au/marketingkit.asp for your FREE preview.

I received an email on Sunday evening saying that I was a finalist in the 2008 Australian Home Based Business Awards!

Very happy and pleased with myself!

The awards will be presented on Monday 18th August at Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

I’ll most definitely keep you all updated on how I go!!

A brand new website has just started. IT’s the cream of the crop in terms of social networking for women in business.

Not only does it have very active forums, you can create your very own page that details who you are and how you can help. Everything is linked back to this page so people can check you out, visit your site and contact you.

The social networking buzz is taking off more now in Australia and Business Women Unite is just one way to get your business noticed.

Join today - it’s completely free!!

Emma Rhoades

Diva Promotions

Ok, so It’s been a while since I’ve written properly in this blog. I’ve had some family things to deal with- mainly the passing of my father.

But I’m back and I want to share with you some of the low cost marketing strategies that are making a huge impact today.

I’m going to share these with you one at a time so you can go and do some extra research on them.

The first is article marketing. This is one of my favourite marketing techniques. Purely because it’s free and it gives such an impact to the reader. It positions you as an expert in your field.

And to potential clients - this is incredibly important. Would you go to someone who is an expert, or someone who is mediocre for your services? And how best to establish this expert status? By being written about.

When you write articles, you write them not about your business, but about a particular topic. For example, I am going to write an article on low cost marketing strategies and creating action plans. I’m not going to mention anywhere that I actually can create a personalised action plan for you as this is deemed advertising.

Instead, I’m going to give you so much good, useful information that you can use right now in your business that you are going to come back to me and my site when you want more info.

Think about it.

If you read an article in a business magazine for example. How many times have you read that and thought - “wow, that was so helpful” and then visited that persons website.

And the good thing is, is that you can write that article!!

I know - I’ve done it! I’ve been published in a few different magazines from articles that I’ve written. And I don’t have any formal knowledge in writing articles.

It’s easy, it’s cheap and you’re missing out on a lot of business if you don’t start exploring the concept of article marketing.

Until next time,

Emma.

 Marketing Strategies - www.divapromotions.com.au

I’ve recently been notified of a newish website - http://www.bizthinktank.com.au

They are currently running a competition where you can win $10,000 worth of business coaching! It’s for small business and soho business so go along and check it out. It’s free to enter and you just need to answer 3 quick questions.

It’s sponsored by Optus, so you will end up on their mailing list, but you never know - you just might win!!

So go along, nominate your business and then vote for your own business plus others. The popularity vote also plays a part in winning.

Good luck!!

Emma Rhoades,

Diva Promotions - www.divapromotions.com.au

P.S - whilst you are there, give Diva Promotions a vote!!

by Cindy

 Nowadays, Social networking sites popularity is increasing day by day like facebook, myspace, orkut, digg etc…., we can say social networking is one of the best and free ways for increase traffic on our site. Social networking is important in blogging and if you can’t do social networking then it’s a rare chance that you’ll be successful in blogging. Leaving comments and trackbacks is part of social networking. Apart from that is part of one of the popular Social news networks.

(1). Increase traffic through Friends
Friends are the heart of the social networking attitude, and when promoting content this can be a valuable tool in viral marketing. The more friends you have in your network, the more visibility you will have when promoting.
(2). Increase traffic through Blogs
Blogs are one more great way to spread the word, most blogs allow you to post nameless comments. I use these blogs to post a comment then I include a link to one of my sites. I achieve a free back link for simply commenting on a story.
(3). Increase traffic through Picture Perfect
You may not understand it, but by passing on uploading your picture, you are also passing on an opportunity to get more people clicking on your articles. Why? Well, for one, it is known that spammers never take the time to upload a picture. Second, it is called ’social’ networking and ’social’ bookmarking sites. If you are trying to be ’social’ then you should put a face to your name.

(4). Increase traffic through Profile Pages
If you are a keen online social network’s, you will have a pimped out profile page. Here are a few examples of how you can increase visibility to your content. On my profile pages at myspace.com, digg.com, linkedin.com, stumbledupon.com and yahoo.com I have links to all my social network profiles & personal projects. This does 2 things; increases my link back total to my projects and shifts visitors to my other profile pages so I get more friends! to promote your RSS feeds via your profile pages, the service displays recent RSS activity and the service is free. Another service you find interesting is myspacestats.net myspacestats.net, a service that tracks and stores your social networking traffic. The service simply puts an image on your profile and counts the total amount of visitors per day, month and year.

(5). Increase traffic through bulletin
Bulletins use your friends list, basically the more friends you have the more views your bulletins receive. Common sense! Some people use bulletins way to much and if I grasp these spammers they get deleted ASAP. So my advice is to use this angle a few times a month and keep them simple, this raw move toward keeps the bulletins friendly and not to over bearing.

(6). Increase traffic through Content
Nothing is more important than content. If you are a good writer and you write about interesting topics, you are going to do well on the social networking sites. People seem to like top 10 lists, top 20 lists, etc. I suggest that you look at digg.com to see what gets the most diggs. I have failed multiple times on getting a post digged or stumbled, even when I thought that it was the best article ever. You don’t always win.

(7) Increase traffic through clipart and screensavers
If you have some skills in this direction then try creating clipart and screensavers. Offering these for free is also a good way to get more traffic.

Finally, make sure that you are part of a few of the more popular social networking websites. These memberships will be only destined to build your own network and not of overt marketing. As your social network grows you can invite your contacts to join you on the social networking website. This should start a sequence reaction that will get them inviting their own contacts and so on. Finally your network will grow to a point where it becomes truly helpful.

Written by Cindy Battye
http://www.trafficbunnies.com
http://www.nettrafficchat.com

http://www.trafficbunnies.com
http://www.nettrafficchat.com

Article Source: http://www.therepozitory.com.au

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I’ve found out recently that I’ve been nominated for the Telstra Business Women of the Year Award. I wanted to take the time to say thankyou to the valuable client who took the time to nominate me!

I’ve submitted my entry form which was a mammoth task!

I’ll ensure that I keep you updated of my progress!

Wish me luck!

How many times have you… 

placed an advert showcasing your website, with the intention of getting more subscribers, only to find that you received some visitors, but very little subscriptions to your database?

If you’re still reading, them I’m guessing quite a few times!

Getting people to sign up to your database sounds pretty easy, but it’s not. You need to give them some valuable incentives for them to give you their name and email address.

The following article will show you how to get maximum subscriptions for your visitors.

Did you know that only about 1% of people will purchase on their first visit to your site?

So this means that approx 99% of your visitors will look, and then click away.

You need to get their details on this first visit so that you can remind them later on what you can offer them.

It takes the average person approx 9 times of viewing your business before they will act and purchase. This is where building a database is critical to the success of your business.

Firstly, you are going to need a capture device on your website. This is an incentive that will ‘capture’ the details of your visitors.

Incentives usually come in the form of eBooks, or Mini E-Courses, or competitions.

Some people still use the words “sign up for my newsletter”

Ask yourself this - why would you sign up to someone’s newsletter? What incentive does it give?

However, look at this sentance in comparison - “ Find out how you can make an extra $200 per month with this FREE EBook!”

Which one are you going to give your email address to???

Using Competitions

Competitions are a fantastic way of increasing your database. Most people though believe that they have to actually give one of their products away, or provide the prize themselves.

Not so.

Why not form an alliance with another complimentary business owner, and give something of theirs away? They will gain some extra exposure from your site, and you get a free prize.

Make sure the value of the prize is relevant to the exposure they will receive.

Then promote your competition everywhere and watch your database flourish!

Making the most of EBooks

eBooks can be hard to put together, however if you can write a simple article, then you can put together an eBook.

Make the topic interesting and the information valuable. If the visitor can sense value, they will have no hesitation in passing over their name and email address.

Your headline and incentive must be clear and exciting for the visitor.

Something like “ See how you can work extra hard and earn $200 per month extra” is not going to cut it.

Try something like:” Would an extra $200 per month be useful to you? FREE info on how you can earn just that!” This entices your visitors to give their details.

Then ensure you actually tell them how they can earn that $200 per month. Tell them in detail, and give them value.

Mini E-Courses for database building

A Mini E-Course is like an eBook, however the information is delivered via email, in successive days.

You will need to set up an autoresponder system, such as aweber.com

Again, your headline needs to entice people to give their name and email address in return for a e-course on how to make an extra $200 per month.

These are ideal if you want to sell an information product - you can give tidbits of information from your product, and tell them they can skip ahead in the course by purchasing the full product.

Once you start to use capture devices all over your website, you will see a massive increase in your database.  How can people resist free information that is going to help them?

I have at least 3 capture devices on my home page of my website - and all 3 generate new people on my database.

I also recently created a mini E- Course and the growth to my database has doubled! It was so easy to create - I already had the information in my head, it was a matter of putting it down into some emails!

Start writing down some pointers today, ready to turn them into an eBook or simple mini E-Course.

Or better still, contact some other business owners whose products are complimentary to yours and see if they want to join you in a promotion. You can bet that most will!

Emma Rhoades is the author of the “ Start up Marketing Kit” - marketing basics presented to you in step by step format, allowing you get promoting your business straight away. Drop by www.divapromotions.com.au/marketingkit.asp for your FREE preview.