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Growing Your Business With Your Marketing Priorities

by: Charlie Cook

None of us have enough time in the day to get everything done, but small business owners and entrepreneurs like you are particularly pressed. You wear so many hats; there is a seemingly infinite list of tasks to accomplish each day, from providing services to clients, managing product distribution and delivery, to keeping accounting in order.

You try to fit in some marketing when you can, but you're not sure which activities are essential to do each week or each month to build a steady stream of clients. You make some calls, send out a mailing or put up a web site, but you still have that nagging feeling that if you knew which marketing activities translated into the most new business, you could be more successful.

You want more clients or, if not more clients, higher paying clients. So, what are the most important marketing tasks to do in order to attract more of the right type of prospects?

Build and Maintain Relationships with Prospects

Your number one marketing priority should be to build relationships with lots of qualified prospects. It sounds obvious, but remember that the reason to advertise, network or to have a web site is to generate leads, leads you can then convert to sales. Take a look at the number of years you?ve been in business and the size of your prospect list.

If your advertising, networking and web site are working, you should be able to generate new leads and a growing list of qualified prospects each month. A successful website, for example, can generate hundreds, if not thousands, of new leads monthly.

George recently signed up for my coaching services. He has been in business for over ten years, but his prospect list consists of less than 150 names. George should have contact information for thousands of prospects by now. Even without an active web based lead generation strategy, if George had added every prospect and client to his list over ten years his list should contain over a thousand interested people.

How many more sales could you close if twice as many ? or ten times as many? people know how you could help them?

The first step is to get prospects' attention with your marketing message and materials. Then you want prospects to take the next step; to contact you, buy from you right away, or add their name to your mailing list. Offering free, relevant information such as a report or free workshop will prompt your prospects to give you their contact information and increase the results generated by your advertisements and mailings.

How big is your target market? What percentage of this group is on your mailing list?

Your goal is to help as many people in your target market learn what you do and to get them to give you their contact information. Once you have their permission to stay in touch, you can go to work building a relationship with them.

Demonstrate what you do so they understand its value and you establish your credibility. When they know and trust you, they?ll be happy to tell you what they need and to buy your products and services.

So how can you incorporate lead generation and building relationships with prospects into your weekly schedule?

Each week reach out to get the attention of people who haven?t heard from you. Do this through your advertising, web site marketing, articles, mailings or cold calls (if you know how to use them). But don?t spend a dime on any of these unless you have a strategy in place for converting this attention into sales and qualified leads.
Set aside time each week or at least each month to stay in touch with your list of qualified prospects and past clients. As your list grows, use your time to focus on past clients first and use a mass mailing or email to stay in touch with other prospects. Share an idea your prospects they can use and they?ll be reminded again and again how much you know and why they should buy your products and services.
Use your communication with prospects and clients to help them identify what they need and understand how your products and services can help them. You may think that doing this once should be enough, but most people are too busy to read every mailing they get or to remember the details until its pressing or important for them to act on.
With regular correspondence you'll increase the chances of putting your information in front of your prospects when they are ready to buy.
Set aside time each day to contact qualified prospects.

If someone has sent you an email, left a phone message or otherwise expressed interest in your products, pick up the phone and call them. Quickly identify whether they have the authority and interest to contract with you and either continue the conversation or move on to your next lead.

Get attention; build your list of qualified leads; regularly help prospects with your ideas; and respond to your most qualified prospects promptly when they request services. Do these four things every week and every month and you'll soon have many more prospects eager to learn how you can help them, eager to buy from you and more new clients than you ever thought possible.

About The Author

The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Plan eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com

ccook@marketingforsuccess.com

Backpacking Journals ? Preserve Your Backpacking Experiences

by: Rick Chapo

There are famous instances of people keeping journals throughout time. Of course, Anne Frank?s Diary is the best example. In her diary, Anne kept a running commentary of the two years her family spent hiding from the Nazis. While your backpacking experiences better be more lighthearted, keeping a journal will let you remember them as the years pass.

A good backpacking journal combines a number of characteristics. First, it should be compact so you don?t have to take up unnecessary space for other things. Second, it should have a case to protect it from rain, spills and so on. Third, the journal should contain blank areas to write your notes. Fourth, the journal should contain cue spaces to remind you to keep notes on specific things. Cues should include:

1. Who you went backpacking with,

2. Where you backpacked and if you enjoyed it,

3. Who you met and...

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Email Marketing Lesson: Privacy Policies and Email Marketing

Email Marketing Lesson: Privacy Policies and Email Marketing

by: Joan Pasay

For those of you who know me you?ve gotten the message that I am passionate about customer privacy. What kind of an Email Marketer would I be if I wasn?t?

First off, if you don't have a privacy policy on your website stop reading this Email Marketing article and get one. I mean it, it is important.

If you do have a privacy policy, here are some things you will want to make sure your privacy policy covers or includes:

-How you treat Email addresses that are entrusted to you (when someone subscribes to your Email newsletter list or sends you an Email message).

-How people can take back their Email addresses and get off your list (un-subscribing).

-Your mailing address and contact Email address.

Why the mailing address and contact Email address?

It is not a law or anything but it just makes sense. Your willingness to share your postal...

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What Are The Real Challenges Of The New SAT?

by: Linda Correli

The Scholastic Aptitude Test is one of the most widely-taken admission tests in America. The SAT evidently has become synonymous to the college application process. Moreover, it is considered to be one of the most accurate evaluating indicators of applicants? college success.

The SAT gained amazing popularity among educational institutions, which are more likely to accept the SAT, rather than any other college testing programs.

Whereas, for students the SAT is the most important test they have to take in their life. Thus, when the matter concerns college admissions and awarding scholarship, no exam is more crucial and responsible.

That?s why, the recent innovation, introduced by the College Board, which administers the SAT, became the most controversial and nerve-racking focal point for college-bound students. Indeed, it wasn?t the bolt from the blue, because educators...

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How to Naturally Improve Your Vision

How to Naturally Improve Your Vision

by: Ruth Bird

What is 2020 vision?

20/20 vision is a term used to express normal visual acuity (the clarity or sharpness of vision) measured at a distance of 20 feet. If you have 20/20 vision, you can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance. If you have 20/100 vision, it means that you must be as close as 20 feet to see what a person with normal vision can see at 100 feet.

20/20 does not necessarily mean perfect vision. 20/20 vision only indicates the sharpness or clarity of vision at a distance. There are other important vision skills, including peripheral awareness or side vision, eye coordination, depth perception, focusing ability and color vision that contribute to your overall visual ability

How to Naturally Improve Your Vision without Glasses or Surgery:

Discover the natural vision improvement method that touts a great success rate in reversing...

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Handling Rejection

Handling Rejection

by: Allan Cowley

Everybody suffers rejection at some time or another in their life. The first step in handling rejection is to recognise that rejection is a necessary part of our private and professional lives. No success is achievable without encountering rejection of some form along the way. It encourages us to hone our skills.

Let me use an example. Imagine that you are the author of a novel. In order to get your novel published you are going to have to send a manuscript to as many publishers as possible. Unless you get lucky, you are likely to have a very high rejection rate. However, this should not be viewed as failure, but merely as a part of the natural process of success. Every road to success includes backward steps as well as forward.

Publishing is famous for the high rates of rejection that new authors encounter. If the publishers you have been in contact with are complimentary about your work, then you...

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Latest Fishing Technology And Fishing Gears

Latest Fishing Technology And Fishing Gears

by: Dylan Miles

Fish finder

Imagine you?re sitting out there on your fishing boat, you whip out a cool gadget you just bought from the Internet and after a couple of beeps, the device tells you that there is a school of fish some 3 meters or so away from you. Now, how cool can that be? It?s almost like an ultrasound scan of the sea or the lake that tells you exactly where the fish are.

But of course, this is not news because many different companies have developed their own ultrasound-like fish finding gadgets a long time ago. But Maptech?s new i3 module is the first of its kind. It?s the first ever touch screen, hi-resolution 3D Fishfinger. Yes, you can literally see the kind of fish that?s swimming around under your boat, in super clear images and in real time.

The i3 Touch Screen command on the fishing gadget can help you navigate the floor of the lake or sea with a radar, combine...

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Bringing Up Baby: Communing With A Humpback Whale

Bringing Up Baby: Communing With A Humpback Whale

by: Constance Weygandt

Did you ever have a moment in time when you think to yourself, ?This is it. This is the moment. Life just can?t get any better.?
And then, it does. Such a moment happened to me, last week, while whale watching in Ma?alaea Bay on the Alii Nui.

It was a gorgeous day out on the water. The weather could not have been more perfect and the whale sightings were plentiful. It was a day when total strangers are your friends. We had all shared the experience of seeing these powerful mammals arcing out of the water and diving back in. (This is called breaching.) We had even seen a baby whale heading towards our catamaran until the mother herded her away. I was relaxing against the side of the boat, enjoying the warm breeze and contemplating the perfection of the moment. The activity of the whales had died down and it was almost time to return to the harbor, when Captain Chris...

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HPV Virus

HPV Virus

by: Ryan Fyfe

Human Papilloma Ciruses (HPV) is a virus that infects humans. Some of the effects of the virus are associated with sexually transmitted diseases (STD's).

Over one hundred strains of the virus have been identified by Scientists. Most of these strains are harmless. Some of these strains can produce common skin warts which appear on the hands and feet. Approximately thirty strains are spread through sexual contact. Some of these thirty
can cause visible warts known as genital warts, while others can cause cervical and genital cancer.

HPV greatly outnumbers other std's making it the most common sexually transmitted infection. An estimated 80% of sexually active adults are infected with one or more genital HPV strains at some point in their life. The vast majority of infected people suffer no side effects from the virus, which means that most of these people don't even know that they are infected. This lack...

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Things To Look For When Buying A Cordless Microphone

by: Mantius Cazaubon

Wireless microphones have numerous uses, from amateur to professional, from bars and clubs to educational institutions and churches. A good, reliable wireless microphone system can be an excellent addition to any of the mentioned locations, but it can also be used on stage, during a concert, a prize contest, announcing a play or for karaoke. Radio and TV stations often use such cordless...

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