|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com |
|
|
Youre Halfway There!...Or Not Part 2
Now that you have had a chance to create a game plan for accomplishing your business goalsduring the third quarter of this year, let's focuson the fourth quarter of this year. These last three months of the year are not only crucialfor meeting business goals for this year, they are also crucial for making sure you head into the next year on tracktowards meeting and exceeding future business goals. Here are some ideas for wrapping up this yearon a positive (cash flow and emotionally) note: DURING OCTOBER Create a contest or sponsor an event in your community. If you are creating a contest, think about ways to offera prize that will benefit the winner as well as your business.Make sure the contest entrants are comprised of your target market. Distribute a press release to help promoteyour contest.Distribute another press release when the contestis over to announce the winner of the contest,and to demonstrate how your prize benefited the contest winner. If you want to sponsor an event, find an eventthat will not only give your business appropriate exposure, but will also give you personal satisfaction. This is also the month to start preparing for aHoliday promotion if you haven't already.Jot down some ideas for special offers that youcan give your prospects and clients during theholiday season.Offer a different promotion for each group. Your holiday promotion for prospects should be designed to convert them into clients.Your holiday promotion for clients should be designed to keep them as longtime loyalclients who will continue to increase their lifetime customer value. DURING NOVEMBER It is time to roll out your Holiday specials.Make sure they are sent out duringthe first week in November, if notsooner. You want your business and your special offersto be on the mind of your target market before they are drowning in offers and ads from othercompanies trying to persuade them to part withtheir holiday cash and end of the year budget dollars. It is also time to start reflecting on what has happenedwith your business during this year.Create a Business Journal and write downbusiness lessons learned, accomplishments, mistakes made, and future business goals. DURING DECEMBER Wrap up the fulfillment of your Holiday Special Offers during thefirst half of December. Show your appreciation for yourclients by giving them a gift tothank them for their business this year.Do this before the second half of Decemberapproaches. Instead of sending a run of the mill calendar or holiday card, send a unique gift...A gift that uniquely reflects your business. What can you give your clients that will be valued and used by them on a day to day basis? How can you make your gift do double dutyby relating it to your business so your clientswill think of your business every time theyuse your gift? Even a calendar can go from run of the mill to a unique tie in to your business by addingdaily or monthly tips to it, and branding it with your logo. During the last half of December, give yourself and your business a gift by slowing down and working less. Take time to enjoy the fruits of your laborby going on a much deserved vacation,or by donating your time and moneyto your favorite charity. Before you go, don't forget to give yourbusiness the gift of a better future by settinggoals for next year. Continue to create a game plan for your goals,and by consistently taking action on your plans,you will give your business a gift that keeps on giving for years to come. Copyright 2004 Black Unicorn Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved Tresaca Hamilton is the CEO of Black Unicorn Communications.Black Unicorn Communications helps Service Businesses attract more clients in less time. Visit http://www.blackunicorninc.com for a FREE Business Success Toolkit, including the 7 day e-course: 7 Steps To More Clients
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Fundraisers - How to Raise Twice the Money With Half the Sweat If your members, parents or donors wear clothes, watch t.v. or read books you have the beginning ingredients to a sweet recipe for a great year-round fundraiser. 6 Simple Ways to Determine Which Marketing Ideas Are Best for Your Business Did something catch your eye in a direct mailing this past week? Have you recently gone to a website and encountered something entirely new that caught your attention? Did a friend of yours try out a new marketing idea and generate a few thousand dollars of extra business overnight? How To Use The Og In All Of Us To Make More Money 5000 B.C. -- somewhere near a cave in Montana Nine Advance Networking Skills for Seasoned Networkers A seasoned networker knows the real meaning of networking --being organized, efficient, effective, and, of course, workthe event to its fullest. Attending networking groups afterso many years can tire and drain anyone's excitement.Especially since these situations are not social events. Itis easy to have one foot in the event and the other someplace else. A major challenge for all networkers is to bethere with both feet. Color Part 2: Formats and Systems There are several color formats and systems available for mixing and specifying colors. Here, we explain three of the most common systems: RGB, CMYK, and Pantone colors. Send Postcards To Save Money and Cut Through E-mail Clutter Use your computer to send personalized color postcards in quantities of 1 to 1,000. Mortgage Broker Marketing - Sell Problems, Not Solutions Are your marketing messages to Realtors® guilty of these promises? Marketing Strategy - Spell Out Your Unique Value I attended a "Sales Focus" seminar a few years back in which the speaker asked this key question. "Why, based on all the competitive alternatives available to me, would I want to buy from you?" What a great question. Marketing Strategy - Shift the Focus Most of the service providers I've worked for or with don't like marketing or selling. In fact, a lot of them will say they "hate it." At the very least, they'll tell me they don't think they are very good at it. The Magic of Keep-in-Touch Marketing Yesterday I received a phone call from an acquaintance that I've met once or twice but haven't seen in over a year. She wanted to let me know that she was referring me to a client of hers who needed help with his Web site copy. Although I hadn't thought about her in months, she mentioned that she'd received a postcard from me for the past two quarters - and that's why she instantly thought of my services when her client voiced his need. Although it wasn't really magic, it sure felt like it. That's the magic of keep-in-touch marketing - people remember you and feel like they know you, and eventually, they often give you business or refer others to you. 10 Tips For Packaging That Sells Products To Boomers Boomers are a prime and growing target audience. Does your product speak to them? Does your product's packaging compel them to buy it? If not, you are missing a very important market segment. According to Rick Adler, founder of The Senior Network: "Simply based on population growth trends, if a product is marketed to the 50-plus audience and maintains its market share, it should increase in sales by 35 to 50 percent in the next 20 years. Conversely, a brand targeted at the zero to 50 age groups will be flat in sales." Marketers VS Consumers Predators VS Prey The distance between marketing consultants and the real world can truly be mind boggling. When a marketing consultant tells someone to send out 10,000 postcards in order to get a 3% response rate and that the actual sales will be something less than that ...and then asks the client to pay him for that golden nugget... there has to be a problem! Using Flyers In Your Business If you are not using flyers in your business you are missing out. Flyers can be used to sell your product, promote your product, promote your services, and in a number of other areas. Know Thy Competition BREAK FROM HO-HUM MARKETING ? IT'S TOO BORING!Once you break from ho-hum marketing, and learn to put your deeper beliefs and values into your promotion, a remarkable thing will happen: You will beat your competitors at every turn, attract precisely those clients who really need and appreciate the products or services your company provides, and have a really good time in your business. In other words ? once you know what your clients really value, and how you are different from your competitors then it's an incredibly simple process to promote your company's products or services. Get More Clients From Networking - Follow The Rules Of Dating! If you're a business owner, you probably spend quite a lot of your time at networking events. In fact, it may be the main way you try to get new clients. But do you ever feel that you could get more from these meetings? Do you actually get the results from your networking to justify the amount of time you put into it? Customer Retention with a Personal Touch Personal contact with customers is a crucial element in the success of any new business ? and it's one of the most common casualties of growth. As a company grows, the president tends to fade away into his or her office. That can lead to loss of leverage right at the point when a company is starting to take off and needs it most. Online Communities - A Marketers Wildest Dream and Worst Nightmare! Online Communities are all over the Internet and attract lots of visitors which make them ideal for marketing. People participating in these communities share information about whatever they want under various topics. Some of these discussions get very heated while others go by nearly un-noticed. Spammers have made their mark in these communities by making many of these forums unbearable to legitimate marketers. Informational posts that are commercial in nature are often "Flamed" as being advertisements, solicitations, or even spam. This can easily discourage a new marketer, and possibly even destroy their career. The online community at www.eSpiritCommunications.Com is one acception. They have taken the "Flame" away by creating a online community for marketers, business owners, and consumers. The environment is friendly, and everyone posts and reads what they want in the forums. There are no "Bullies" running around because the rules allow advertising in appropriate categories. Find the Goldmine Within Your Business Doing a current customer breakdown can help you find the goldmine within your business by determining who you should be targeting in your marketing efforts in the future. There is a goldmine right there and you may or may not see it?it's your customer base! But is it all of them? No ? definitely not. Then what the heck am I talking about? Service Marketing - A Relationship Building Approach Can we imagine a place in the world today without a marketing activity. It looks remote. When we all move from one place to the other, we need an interactive or a Communicative Response System (CRS) to facilitate a marketing activity and enable the market to respond. When this Communicative Response System (CRS) eventually reaches a market, there are buyers and sellers waiting to respond. The A-Z of Exhibiting Overseas Exhibiting overseas is one of the fastest and most cost effective ways to identify the best foreign markets for your products/services. International trade shows and fairs offer opportunities for multilateral contacts and business deals. They allow you to test your product's export suitability; explore the strength and scope of your competition; and gain exposure to potential suppliers, in-country distributors and customers before making any sizable financial commitments. However, to effectively trade internationally, top management must commit to developing foreign markets.
|
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |
