Steve Guttridge: aka Stay At Home Bum Marketer

by: Kristie Lorette
If you make the wrong decision in your marketing efforts, it can cost you major bucks. It can also keep you from achieving your marketing goals–increasing business. While no one marketing method works for every business, there are ways to ensure that whatever marketing method you use works at the optimal level.

1. Define your market. Your product or service can’t be everything to everyone. Whatever product or service you’re selling, there is a specific group of people, businesses, or organizations you should be focusing on for your marketing efforts. Narrowing your marketing efforts allows you to spend your marketing dollars wisely and helps you define the business you’re in. For example, if you’re a web designer, you may be able to design a website for any type of business. Your marketing budget, however, does not allow you to reach everyone, so in order to spend your money wisely, you focus on marketing to financial service firms. Since you specialize in financial service firm website design, when a financial service firm is looking for a website designer for their next online project, they’ll know right away who to call–you!

2. Create a marketing plan. It may seem like a daunting task, but if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. When you write out a marketing plan, it helps you to put a plan in place. This plan further helps you to consistently market to your target audience. If you hold a seminar or send out a marketing email sporadically, the likliehood of your marketing efforts paying off are slim to none. Marketing success comes from consistently and constantly getting in front of the right people and then converting these people into your customers.

3. Give it time. Rome was not built in a day and neither is a successful marketing program. Consistency and repetition pay off when it comes to marketing. Many businesses make the mistake of sending out emails and direct mail pieces for a couple of weeks and when they don’t get the response they’re expecting, they throw up their hands in disgust and deem marketing a waste of time. To truly determine if your marketing efforts are successful, you have to give it six months to a year of consistent marketing before you can say if your marketing method is successful or not.

Make the right decision in your marketing efforts and use your marketing budget wisely. It’s the right way to achieve your marketing goals and increase business. While no one marketing method works for every business, if you stick to these three marketing methods, you’ll do what is right for your business.

About The Author
Kristie Lorette is a freelance writer that specializes in helping businesses and entrepreneurs create copy that sizzles, motivates, and sells. She is also the editor of The Inky Dot, a bi-monthly e-newsletter that offers tips, tricks, and advice on writing and marketing tips for businesses. You can learn more about Kristie and subscribe to The Inky Dot at www.studiokwriting.com.

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/marketing/article_4754.shtml

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by Gary Hand

Have you ever deliberately smiled, in order to create happiness? Maybe things weren’t going well, but you took a second to ask yourself, “What can I be happy about right now? What can I be grateful for?”

We smile because we’re happy. However, it is also possible to become happy by smiling.

Research shows that curling the corners of our mouth in a “mock smile” creates a positive biological response in the body. Yes, we can actually change the way we feel by smiling.

Anthony Robbins, the well-known motivational author and speaker, often talks about changing the way we feel by changing the way we move. If we’re feeling depressed, we can change our mood by smiling, holding our head up and shoulders back, and walking as if we’re confident and taking charge of the situation.

Smiling is also a good brain exercise. It rushes oxygen to your brain. Plus, you’re using facial muscles and stimulating feel-good endorphins. Perhaps you´re using muscles that you haven’t used in a while. We tend to write with one predominant hand, and use that side of the brain predominantly. As a result, the other side of the brain isn’t used as much. That’s why smiling and cross-lateral movements are so good for us. It activates both sides of the brain.

Have you ever taken a Step class at the gym? The workout involves stepping on the left and right sides of a box. It’s amazing how difficult it is sometimes, to reverse the routine and do it using the left leg (instead of the right). Of course, this type of cross-lateral movement is good for the brain because it activates parts of the brain that are rarely used. It promotes whole-brain functioning.

Whatever you´re doing right now, take a moment to smile. When you smile, your facial expression changes. Something inside changes too. You slowly let go of anger, hostility,tension, and stress. As a result, you feel more relaxed.

Of course, it takes a little practice…. but why not try it? Come on, you can do it! Smile, even if things aren’t going well. Allow that relaxed, easy-going state-of-mind to permeate your being.

Have a great day, and make tomorrow even better.

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by: Kristie Lorette
Last week, I attended a webinar on the future of marketing. While you have to deal with what is going on in marketing in your daily business life, it’s also important to know what you’re working toward. You can’t get somewhere without knowing where you’re going so I thought it would be interesting to share some of this information with you.

3 ways Web 3.0 is changing the marketing landscape

1. Bye-bye keywords. While keywords will still play a role in search engine marketing, Web 3.0 is more than the keywords itself. Founder of Bintro.com claims that semantics will play more of a vital role than keywords. What he means by semantics is that he sees copy going away from keywords and more towards conversational sentences that make sense. We’ve seen some of this already with blogging. Blogs tend to have more of a conversational tone that readers on all levels can enjoy and learn from.

2. Going mobile. The United States has been a mobile society for quite some time now, but the future of mobile phone use across the globe is expected to increase. The widening reach of mobile phone use will be answered by Web 3.0 with more and more transactions taking place on mobile phones. It is expected that 50% of the world will be using a mobile phone by the end of 2010. Again, this is not in the United States. This is the world.

Think about what mobile phone transactions will do for business. Picture this. You’re out to dinner with your spouse. While you’re in the lobby waiting for your table, you strike up a conversation with the gentleman sitting next to you and learn he is the ideal client for your product or service. You hook him and he bites. He wants to buy. You pull out your cell phone and process his purchase with his credit card and your cell phone–all in the lobby of the restaurant. You can complete the transaction right now while the sale is hot, rather than having to send an invoice when you return to the office tomorrow or send them to your website and hope they make the purchase.

3. Videos marketing. We’ve seen the popularity of videos emerge online with the invention of sites such as YouTube. Web 3.0 is going to take the use of videos one step further when it comes to marketing. It’ll be less about interrupting your customer’s experience and more about creating an experience. Instead of buying a pop-up window ad that pops up when they type in a web address or land on a website, your video ad will be on the website they’re visiting. Most Internet users realize that if they click on a banner ad, for example, that they will be directed away from the site they are on. With a video ad, however, when they are ready to hear and see what you have to say, they can hit the play button and watch the video without ever leaving the site they have come to visit. This enhances the customer’s visit to the site rather than interrupting it.

Change is on the horizon in how you market and conduct business online. It may change the way you write your marketing copy, accept payments for your products and services, or the types of advertising you buy for your business. Web 2.0 changed the way we do everything online and Web 3.0 continues to alter our approach. Be aware of these changes and start to prepare your marketing efforts now so your business benefits from these changes in the future.

About The Author
Kristie Lorette is a freelance writer that specializes in helping businesses and entrepreneurs create copy that sizzles, motivates, and sells. She is also the editor of The Inky Dot, a bi-monthly e-newsletter that offers tips, tricks, and advice on writing and marketing tips for businesses. You can learn more about Kristie and subscribe to The Inky Dot at www.studiokwriting.com.

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/marketing/article_4758.shtml

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by: David Bocock

I received an e-mail this morning from someone who had watched someone’s Bum Marketing Method videos, and had a question about the ranking structure dealing with keywords and the very competitive market. The question was, “When I’m looking for a keyword phrase to write an article around, what is the rule of thumb for the number of competing websites to determine if I can rank for that phrase?”

There are a lot of garbage sites filled with inaccurate information so I thought I would write an article to address this common question…here goes.

Before I start to look at competition I want to make sure there are enough people actually searching for that particular keyword or key phrase. I’m assuming that you have built your keyword list around what people are looking for, and where people are spending their money.

A good tool to use is http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/ to see how many times people have actually typed your keyword phrase into a search engine over the last 24 hour period. As a bonus, it will also give you more keyword ideas to add to your list.

Here’s the key with this tool, since you have a keyword focused on those people who are deep into the buying cycle, or who are desperate to solve a problem, this tool can show you exactly how many people go out looking for it each day. We want at least five people, which is highly targeted and will generate sales.

I then check my competition using the intitle: and inanchor: search designators in the Google search tool to assess my true optimized competition and try to keep that competition below 100 sites or less.

I know how you might be feeling right now… no one goes online looking for ways to make money if they already have enough. I was exactly where you are right now, not so long ago. I know how confusing and frustrating finding someone you can trust to teach you how to make money online I’m that guy though, and it won’t cost you a penny to check out my site… although it may likely be the most important thing you do all day. Please visit with me at http://www.4d-mmb.com to see what everyone is talking about!

About The Author
There are 15 hours worth of video covering every detail of Article Marketing and making money online at my website. I’d love it if you could click on over and check it out for a couple of minutes.. i’ve got a free 30 minute video for you if you do on how to find a profitable market to sell to. http://www.4-daymoneymakingblueprint.com

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/marketing/article_4705.shtml

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