Are Reduced Rates Your Key To A Larger Customer Base?

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Although our site is somewhat a competitor to eBay, I will be the first to admit that eBay is a good site, and comes up with some really neat ideas. Once in a while I will check on there if I am looking for hard to find items. Their website really is no longer that place where you will find good bargains, like you used to.

While browsing around on their site I noticed they were running some kind of special where if you were selling something they would reduce the cost from their normal fees to ten cents.

This got me to think about what a wonderful idea that was. Not only was it an enticing reduction in price, but since it was only for a limited time, it made sellers want to post as many things as possible as quick as they can.

Regardless of whether your business is online, brick and mortar, or an on the road services company, this type of marketing technique may work well for you. If business is slow, and in this economy chances are you are slower than normal, this may be a good way to jump start it.

Do your homework and see what you can afford as a reduced rate. Keep in mind not only are you creating business to make yourself busier, but you are also building your customer base. Once you build an extensive customer base, obtain contact information from them, i.e., phone, email, address etc., and then your other marketing techniques can kick in.

If you provide an excellent service to your new customers, chances are they will tell others about your business and in turn there is no better value than word of mouth advertising.

We do something similar where we provide coupons to reduce our rates for a limited time. Since the coupons we provide are not limited to a one time use, we urge customers to share it with their friends and business associates. This practice has done well for us.

Get those reduced rates going today to jump start your business in this slowing economy. It may help you build your customer base as well as your bottom line.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online advertising and social network medium where you can promote your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Use the Follow Up Process to Earn More Customers

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A friend of mine recently went on a job interview. After many years in one industry he decided it was time for a change. He spent somewhere between six to eight months obtaining education in a new field that really excited him. Once his education was complete it was time to start hitting the pavement looking for a job.

Days and even weeks went by but finally he found something that was really what he wanted do. Sure he had to start at an entry level position, which he knew going in, but in the long run the new career path would not only pay off financially, but as he said, "you can't put a price tag on happiness."

During his process of interviewing for potential positions his routine was to research various companies, obtain the department contacts and then send out a cover letter with a resume. Sounds like the standard normal process does it not? He received many scheduled interviews and at the end of each one he told me about how great he did. He answered the questions without stopping or hesitating, as if he almost knew what they were going to ask before they did so.

Then I asked him how many offers he received at which he replied none. You could imagine the frustration he was feeling inside as he kept going on great interviews only to end up never getting a call for second chance.

I asked him if he did any follow up and he said, "What do you mean?" I told him after you interview with someone you really should send them a letter thanking them for the interview, their time, and mention the courteousness of the staff that you interacted with at their company.

So he started to write his follow up thank you letters and it wasn't long before he started getting second interviews. Now no one can guarantee that this is what led to the position he finally obtained, but it sure did not hurt him to take the time and effort for the follow up process.

This brings me to my topic today and that is as a business are you following up with your customers? The customers of today want to feel important. They want to know that they are not just some number on your board or in your computer system. Even though they may not have purchased something from you when they visited your website or walked into your store, the follow up could be the key to future sales.

Regardless of the business you are in, it is important to obtain contact information of all your customers. It can be an email, phone number, fax, or address. Whatever it is, try and get it. I am sure you have seen stores that ask businesses to drop in their business cards. This is a way to obtain contact information. Once you have that contact information you can then follow up with them, asking them various questions as to how their experience was with your company, products or services.

You do not want to bombard them everyday with such questions, but every 3 to 4 months will do.

Following up sales leads is a very important step in business. Not only can it lead to a sale of the customer you are reaching, but that customer can tell others as to how great they were treated and recommend your company over someone else's.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online advertising and social network medium where you can promote your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Marketing Agencies: What You Need To Know

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The aim of marketing agencies is to help the business take its product or service to the customer. In other words, the marketing agency eases the process of marketing that is so crucial for any business.

A marketing agency has a lot of work to do. These agencies are responsible for research and analysis to identify the target customer base for a business and then try through various exercises to turn them into clients. They also work on ways to retain the clients while extending further development of contacts with them. However, the principal role that marketing agencies play involves increasing the turnover rate and also the average statistical purchase value while keeping the target addressees well informed about new products, services, etc.

What Do Marketing Agencies Do To Be Effective

To achieve the tasks effectively, marketing agencies adopt several means including using Direct Mail, Telemarketing, Database Marketing, List-Broking, Unaddressed mail, BTL-Event support, Client/Customer Loyalty Program and Web Marketing. Marketing agencies also oversee the advertisement channels that include promotion through television, radio and newspapers. And also `point of sale` advertising.

While Direct Mail is a personally addressed mail sent by post that is mostly self-explanatory, providing the information about a product or service along with ad matter in the form of glossy printed text with or without images, Telemarketing on the other hand is done through the telephone. However, Telemarketing may not always be a direct sale, it may provide the client`s credibility in producing goods that are beneficial to consumption or use.

Database marketing is more or less a kind of tailored marketing where the marketing agency creates the database, keeping in mind the client`s targeted audience. For example, creation of a database of pork eating communities in Brooklyn will prove futile to a client selling canned vegetable products. Database marketing is important because it helps the business reach out to the existing customer by first creating a list, which is a great starting point.

Some marketing agencies act as List-broker as the intermediary in the lease of databases (personal data as well as juridical data) created by their owners under the current law of the particular state and help a client to deal with it.

There is nothing funny about unaddressed mail. We all get scores of them dumped into our mail-boxes everyday, un-addressed and unsolicited. But their effectiveness is fairly good, at least among those people who do not get these many mailers. Leaflets, brochures and promotional matters received through the mail-box sometimes make the kid go for a breakfast food that others detest. In any case, these flashy fliers often stir up tempests in tea cup on the breakfast table. And here is its efficacy – to raise controversy – to raise interest.

Marketing agencies are today doing an extremely important work. But sometimes the work done by them crosses path with the advertising agency and the in-house marketing department of a big business house. In many cases, while the job of the advertising agency is to advertise, the role of the marketing agency is wider. That is because advertising is just a small part of marketing, which is a bigger subject.

By James Copper

James Copper is a writer for http://www.bigstrategies.co.uk where you can find information on a marketing agency

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

The Draw of a Powerful Press Release

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As a business owner or even someone looking to promote an event you are part of at your church or non-profit group, you should know that a press release can be very powerful.

A friend of mine was president of a youth baseball league for five years. He tells me the use of press releases far outweighed the return then most paid advertising in the same newspaper.

So what makes a good press release? Here are some handy tips to help get your press release going.

The headline of your press release should not be made up of some infomercial gimmick where your readers think you are trying to con them. A bad headline would be, "Miracle Product Cleans Your Floors For You". You can tell the headline is a bad one, and chances are no one will read the release. However if you reword it to grab the readers attention can make all of the difference. For example, "Self Cleaning Product for Floors Hits the Shelves in Record Numbers", might do better. Come up with a good headline.

Every press release must, according to my friend, answer the whos, whats, whys, wheres and hows of what it is you are trying to talk about. In his case he was trying to promote his youth league. He had to talk about who they are, what the league is about, why they exist, where they are located and how the readers can get in touch with them. If you cover all of these questions you will have all of the information in there that you need.

The content of your press release should read like a news story not an advertisement selling your product. In my friend`s case he wrote press releases talking about a variety of things, but all were made newsworthy. For example, after games were completed, he would write up small snippets to be placed into the sports section of the local paper, that gave a nice write about the game, who won, who were the stars etc. The local media loved, and my friend claimed that his small articles appeared almost daily while the season went on. You could imagine the impact this had on the success of the league.

Whatever it is you are trying to promote through the use of a press release, chances are you can make it newsworthy. If you don`t the editors that you send it to will more than likely will just throw it in the trash. Throw in some quotes from professionals and experts in your field, some statistics of your industry and you will have yourself a winner.

Once you have your great headline, awesome content, you need to throw in how people can get a hold of you, your company or product. A good way of doing this is to fit it in over the course of your content. For example you can add a quote earlier in your content that reads, "according to John Smith, General Manager of ABC Toy Company located in Anywhere, USA...", you get the point. Now that you have been mentioned, near the end of your press release, tell readers how they can get a hold of you. "For more information on that ABC Toy Company, Mr. Smith can be reached at...", would do just fine.

So there you have it! The meat and potatoes of how to write a press release. It is not as difficult as you think, but spend some time on it to polish it and it will surely be a hit for you.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online resource and social network, where you can advertise your business, products or services throughout the world without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

You can now download Indocquent`s free social bookmark utility for your website or blog at http://www.indocquent.com/social_bookmark/social_bookmark_landingpage.html.

Don`t forget to follow Indocquent on Twitter at http://twitter.com/indocquent

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Using Online Social Networks To Help In Marketing Your Business

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Social networks like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and of course our site, are all the rage right now and have been for a couple of years. They are a means by which people from all over the globe can come together, meet, socialize and learn new things. You make new friends, share ideas and so much more.

The downfall of social networks as it relates to business is very few companies have been able to figure out how to use these websites wisely to build a customer base or a following.

Here are some suggestions that you can use that might help your business in the realm of social networks.

According to Michael Bush of Advertising Age, "If ever there was a place in the world of marketing where the motto of `look before you leap` held much credence, it`s here. Any marketer worth its salt is going to spend a good deal of time studying the dynamics, rules and language of any social network before attempting to establish a presence there. To think you can just waltz in and begin spouting off about your product is totally wrong."

If you walk into a social network and start acting as if everyone should be your friend, join your club, or have an arrogant persona about you, chances are no one will listen and even worse you might get banned from the site.

Bush says, "If there are any marketers out there who still believe the world of social networks is filled only with young nerdy types and weirdos looking to hook up, they need to take a good second look. Not only is it a prime target for marketers looking to reach moms-the all-important gatekeeper of the household-but within some of the most popular networks, a significant percentage of users are over the age of 35." The demographics for social networks are changing daily. Not only are the age ranges changing, but more and more people are joining. These people are your potential customers. You need to become a part of any social network and really should be a part of all of them to get your business name, products and services out there.

Studies have shown that using mainstream marketing and advertising methods will not work. If that is the case, what is the purpose of social networks then? According to Rick Murray, the president of Edelman digital, "Frequency of message is not the idea here, Frequency of contact is."

Social networks are areas where consumers go to ask questions on products or services they are thinking about buying or using. This presents a great opportunity to you. Not to throw an ad in their face in the hopes that they buy, but to socialize with them by answering their questions. This helps them with their issue and helps your business by presenting you and your company as experts in an industry.

Although social networks have been around for a little while they really are still in their infancy. You need to become a part of them, get involved in helping consumers with the expertise in your field, and start building your friend`s list. That list will eventually turn into your customer base.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online advertising and social network medium where you can promote your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Advertise or Content, Which Should You Be Using To Attract Website Visitors?

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With an online website and/or business you are probably sitting their wondering what the best option would be to draw more attention to it and attract visitors. There is a debate that has been ongoing in regards to this very question. Should you pay a search engine for targeted advertising or add more content to your website so that people come back to learn.

According to Jon Fine of Business Week, "The old guard of media forever struggle with the degree to which they`re comfortable engaging with the newer players online. (To pick just one example: Viacom sued YouTube over copyrights last year, while many other programming giants partnered with it.) But a variant of this tension also erupts inside some big online portals--Yahoo!, AOL, and, most recently, Microsoft--which are media operations themselves, since they produce content and sell ads around it."

So what is the right answer? Simply put…both of them. If one works well and so does the other, it makes sense that applying both techniques to work together doubles your efforts. It is what we do on our web site, and it works very well for us.

In a recent interview in Business Week, Wenda Millard, president for media at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, who formerly ran ad sales at Yahoo after stints in print says, "What AOL and MSN and Yahoo have become are tech companies--infrastructure companies that will facilitate some of the [ad] buying and selling processes. They are not heading toward becoming media companies."

Fine says, "Millard`s infrastructure comments allude to the arms race among all major online portals to buy and build platforms for massive online ad networks, which sell and place ads across multitudes of Web sites. (The ad network argument for Microsoft-Yahoo: Such networks make more money from ads on sites they own, since there`s no sharing of revenue with an outside content owner.)"

As the big names, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google battle it out for internet supremacy in the advertising world, while confusing what media content is, you can take a much less cut throat approach, add some content to your website, run a few ads, and get those visitors you have been wanting. Of course none of this will matter if you have a website that people do not know how to use. That is for another article.

By: Bruce A. Tucker

About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online advertising and social network medium where you can promote your business, products or services without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.

Promoting Your Product the Smart Way

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When a customer hears the name of your business, what do you want them to think? You want them to think of your business as one of professionalism and quality, right? Well, then guess what you have to give them? Professionalism and quality!

As you are designing your advertising campaign, keep returning to the question of what your customers will think. Too many businesspeople – especially ones just starting out – make the mistake of "cutting corners" in the area of product promotion. The see the relatively high cost of good, quality printing and cringe. They think they can save a few bucks to let a company of questionable quality produce their printed material, and they end up paying for it in the end.

Let's take business cards, for example. You can take two full color business cards, one from a very high-quality company such as Print Place.com, and another from a company that is less professional, and set them side by side. You will instantly be able to tell which is better made. Cheap printing is painfully obvious, even to customers. Do you want your customers to see your ads, and think "cheap"?

Yes, quality costs money…but it is always worth it. When you get your brochure printing done, make it of the highest quality. Believe me, the increased profits that you see from it will quickly make you forget the anguish you felt from paying extra.

Even something that seems trivial, like the quality of your newsletter printing, can have a profound affect on your bottom line. Usually, newsletters are sent to people who have already provided you with business. The idea is to get those customers to come back. Do you think that they will come back if they see poor quality in the newsletter that you send them? That, my friends, is highly doubtful.

The fact is, customers want to see that you care enough about your product to spend money to tell them about it. That may not be what they are thinking, exactly, but that is really what it comes down to in the end. They want quality, and sometimes you have to pay a bit more to deliver quality. When the time comes to count your sales increase, however, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Do yourself a favor, and invest in high quality printing in your advertising efforts. Your customers will think much more highly of you if you do.

by Kaitlyn Miller

For more information, you can visit this page on brochure printing and newsletter printing

Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.