ForumsAdvertising, Sales and Marketing

ironbed:

1. Where is your store located?

2. Please define your ideal target customer.

3. Are you in a good location that receives good foot traffic of your target demographics?

4. What are the demographics of your local population?

5. How many direct and indirect competitors do you have in your immediate area (other linen only stores and department stores that sell linens, too)?

6. What is your USP - unique selling proposition (i.e. how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors)?

7. What are the other businesses in your area that you can run joint promotions with (i.e. interior designers, bed companies that don't sell linens, too, etc..)?
8. What is your web address?

I look forward to your responses.

All the Best,

Doug Dolan

The Solopreneur's Guide

http://thesologuide.com/

Thanks for the compliment, Tony.

Actually, I haven't read any of Mr. Abrahams materials. But, I am always studying business materials, plus I apply what I've learned from my successes and failures in the past as an executive and as an owner of my own businesses.

Giving advice without asking appropriate questions is like walking into a doctor's office and having them give you the latest prescription without even discussing your symptoms and checking your vitals.

All the Best,

Doug

The Solopreneur's Guide

http://thesologuide.com

There are many SEO companies that "guarantee" rankings and cost quite a bit of money. It is impossible for any company to guarantee something that they have no control over. Moreover, many SEO companies put your sites in what is known as "link farms". These sites typically to increase your page ranking for a short while, however your website can be placed on blacklists which make it impossible for your site to show up with the Top 10 pages of related keyword searches. The new "Google formula" has been created to actively combat SEO companies from exploiting these methods to artificially increase page ranking. If your site currently has a low page ranking in comparison to competing websites with similar keywords, Google can take 6 months or more to crawl your website for an update, which is time that many businesses do not have - especially in this economy.

Real SEO happens organically. This means that you add your business on directories that already have high page ranks such as Yelp, Merchant Circle, etc...Don't stop with just a few - you really need to add your site on hundreds of sites. You should continue to participate in forums (such as these), but you should try to include your URL as well as other basic company information whenever possible. This will also raise your page ranking. Have you noticed that when you search for certain terms Google will now place YouTube results ahead of other search engine results? Utilizing video can help your SEO efforts.

Many small and medium sized business do not think they can afford television advertising and resort to mediums that are simply not as effective such as artificial search engine optimization, direct mail, radio, or newspaper advertising. Tonangi Media (http://www.tonangi.com) is able to keep your advertising costs low by constantly negotiating with our local and national partners to provide targeted and cost effective advertising both on television as well as the internet. Think how much you have spent on other marketing mediums in the past. These methods may be cheaper but if they don't bring in customers is it really cost effective or is it a waste? With a budget of less then $6,000 you can reach 1/2 a million people (in most areas) - and target them based on gender, income, and geographical location. We have customers that spend as little as $2,000 a month and customers that spend well over $25,000 a month. You decide your budget and Tonangi Media will help you meet your goals.

Tonangi Media is a full scale video production and advertising agency. We can create your concept, record a custom video complete with professional voice overs and original animation sequences that will make your advertisement stand out.

For more information please visit http://www.tonangi.com

Vinod Tonangi
Tonangi Media
http://www.tonangi.com

Video Production and Advertising for Small businesses

Hello Ironbed,
There are many ways besides SEO to get traffic to your website and many ways to convert that traffic to paying customers and to build lists to get repeat customers.
The three legs of a successful online marketing stool are:
1. Targeted traffic.
2. A website that converts. Most sites don't do this, but you can get 18% soft conversions (actions that lead to a sale or solid leads) and 3-6% hard conversions (closed sales). That's the benchmark we set for our clients' websites and our own.
3. A list of interested, motivated prospects you continue to sell to.

As far as traffic goes, there are many ways including good SEO. We've managed to get 1st place positions in Google for many of our clients. But this isn't done overnight. It takes a lot of work and involves several other methods of generating traffic. This includes creating and maintaning an active blog, writing targeted articles linking back to the site, press releases, Social Media, etc. All these methods generate traffic on their own, but also help the site rank higher in the search engines. The more inbound links from popular, relevant websites the better. We also use direct mail and articles and press releases placed in off-line publications, and even posters and T-shirts and local contests.

We feature a lot of these ideas on our website in case studies and also general online marketing information and resources, like our free e-book The Complete Online Selling System: 5 Proven Steps That Turn Your Website Into A Powerful Sales Magnet. Free e-books are another great marketing tool, but take some time and skill to write.

As I'm sure you know, marketing online is highly competitive. And that competition is only going to increase. You have to be smart about it to stand out and get noticed (in a good way). And the methods and techniques are very different from traditional off-line push marketing. There is a steep learning curve. But once you understand the environment, the opportunities are huge. It's best to use a combination of advertising means, both online and offline, and to use both appropriately and effectively. Fortunately you can test and tweak every aspect of both your offline and online campaigns to get just the right mix. And it cost very little and often nothing to test your online campaigns. There's no excuse for an online campaign that's not giving you good results. If it's not, change it until it does.

We're not done with a client until we hit the benchmarks we agree on. That's in our contract. It's all about results.

Peter

Peter Cutler
Principal / Creative Director
Studio 525
http://studio525.com

We don't just create websites.
We create results.

A well-planned direct mailing postcard campaign can work wonders. You can keep a mailing list of previous customers to generate repeat business and referrals. It's also possible to generate mailing lists based on demographic target info (age, income, location, etc.) A good online printing company like Expresscopy.com can help create a list, plus they have tons of customizable design templates to work with.

I agree with Medinvestment that ROS (Run of Schedule) is an affordable solution, however just because a method is cheaper does not mean it is more cost effective if it does not result in sales. Advertising in prime time, or late evening would not obtain the results you seek, and therefore your advertising dollars would be a waste. You can not simply purchase ad time without thinking about your demographic, otherwise you will end up wasting your entire advertising budget.

In addition you will find that when you talk to stations as a business owner you will find that they will require you to commit to a long term contract - usually about a year. . By utilizing an agency like Tonangi Media (http://www.tonangi.com) you can play your ad on multiple stations simultaneously and because we have many clients we are able to obtain wholesale rates and pass those rates along to our customers. Most of the publishers that we work with do not place large minimum requirements on us because we have given them business repeatedly - this means that you can work with us on a month to month basis instead of putting up a large deposit for a year contract.

Let me know if you would like to utilize Tonangi Media to advertise your products on local or national television.

Outstanding ideas
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