To many people the answer to this question would be a resounding “YES”. Are marketers really concerned with the welfare of their customers, or are they more concerned about the ‘bottom line’ of the organization they represent? I read of one example of an official in the Swedish office of Coca-Cola who says her goal is to get people to drink Coke for breakfast instead of having orange juice. Is that in the best interest of the consumer?

A change is coming, and has already started, in how consumers and organizations must view the marketing profession; a more ‘holistic’ approach towards consumers is required. In that regards companies must consider all aspects of their relationship with the consumer, not just their own goals.

Many may ask “is there a place for ethics in marketing?” In discussing concerns that consumers and advocacy groups have with the apparent lack of concern for consumers’ well being, we must address the challenges that marketers have to ‘self regulate’ and become more socially responsible. This really is no different than what would be expected of each of us: In an organized society it is the responsibility of all to behave ethically. One concern within the marketing industry is that if marketers do not change their ways, and become more socially responsible, they will become subject to more government controls.

The ethical relationship between marketing and the consumer is a key to the success of organizations. Consumers expect to be treated fairly and with respect. Consumers expect that the service they receive from organizations will be reliable, responsive, trustworthy, understanding, and that they are really receiving something of value. They do not want ‘lip service’, unrealistic promises, or misleading offerings. Consumers do not want to be sold products that are inherently bad for them. The ethical implications for marketers are great in meeting these expectations. As more people join the marketing field, especially in the increasingly popular ‘information marketing’ arena, these issues will, and should be, some of the first issues that need addressed.

A new foundation for marketing and the ethical implications of marketers targeting specific groups or segments of consumers is needed. Companies have targeted specific segments of consumers that they feel will provide them with the greatest returns, sometimes to the exclusions of others. Some consumers feel that marketers do not care at all about what happens to them once they purchase a product and that this caveat emptor, or ‘let the buyer beware’ theory of marketing is, and must, rapidly be dismissed.

Markets must become more concerned with the needs and wants of the consumer, but they must still keep in mind the overall goal of the company. This unfortunately creates a conflict between the priorities of the marketer, the needs and wants of the consumer and the goals of the organization (Profits), and is the basis for much of the confusion and concerns about ethical marketing practices. To overcome the challenges that this presents organizations, and to some extent consumers, all involved must take a more holistic, or all encompassing view of the marketing process. Ethical decision making for businesses will require them to take an “enlightened self interest” approach to serving the consumer, to insure that there marketing practices are ethically sound.

Consumers also must bear some responsibility to become more self aware and informed about the products they purchase and use. For those with the ability to make rational choices, consumers must take actions and research the products they buy; they must develop an awareness of their needs, as opposed to their wants, and make appropriate decisions concerning the directions their consumptions take them. If consumers expect organizations to treat them with respect, and provide a level of service consistent with their needs, they must do their part.

Service is really the art of offering a consumer more than just the product they are purchasing. Part of that offering is to provide consumers with the assurance that what you are marketing to them is based on ethically sound principles: Do organizations treat their customers with respect? Are they honest and forthright in their communications with consumers?

As awareness of consumer rights increases, and advocacy groups increase pressure on organizations and governments, the priority that organizations must place on the ethical implications of their marketing programs will only increase. In the service industry the relationship between the consumer and the service provider is all that matters. If the consumer perceives that they are being treated unethically they will go elsewhere. But, not only will they leave, they will take with them as many others as they can. The risk that organizations face by treating their customers/clients unethically is too great to let this happen.

Source by James Stephenson…

Commitment – This is an attribute necessary in every employee and leader. A committed person sees to the end what they were involved with in the beginning. A committed person gives it their all. People sometimes may not show some commitment if the direction and vision of the organization are not clear. People will certainly not commit to something they are not sure of. Commitment is almost similar to loyalty. When people buy-in to the vision and goals of the organization, they are likely to set aside their personal comfort and commit to the success and overall progress of the organization. When team members are committed to their tasks, completion and success is inevitable.

Company – This is a registered organization with employees and leaders. A company is also called an organization or a business. General structure of a company has Managing Director at the top (Chief Executive Officer) and below him/her are the individual departmental heads e.g. Sales and Marketing Director, Human Resources, Finance and Admin, Operations etc. A company is broken down into individual business units which seem independent but are actually interdependent on other departments. Companies’ existence is usually governed by the Companies Act of the country where the business is registered. See Business under the B Series. A company is also referred to as a corporate entity

Communication – The way we communicate internally and with external stakeholders is what normally divides successful companies from mediocre ones. If you cannot communicate with your employees about vision, targets etc, you should not expect miracles from them. If you can not be in touch with your customers and suppliers out there, no wonder you seem to be on an island of stagnation. Communication uses a channel which varies from print media to electronic media. More and more communication is now electronic as it is faster, less expensive and reaching a larger audience. Companies that have gone bankrupt can actually mention that because they failed to listen to the needs being communicated by their customer, they eventually ran out of business. Communication is a key for success.

Competition – When you have another company or individual offering services like the ones you offer they are considered your competition. You compete to win the heart of the customer. You compete for space, orders, attention etc. It is healthy to have competition. Your competition is not your enemy. It helps to keep your services in check. In situations where companies are a monopoly there is a general tendency to slip back, relax and assume business will always be there. This is why the same company will suffer the day a competitor comes onto the same market because customers never forget those that look after the diverse needs.

Confidentiality – Information in the organization has levels of exposure. Information that is for public consumption will be found in the press or on company noticeboards. Sometimes a bulk email may be sent to the whole organization. However certain sensitive information is just for a few recipients as the same information in the hands of someone on the shop floor could be scary enough raising tempers and anxiety levels within the organization. When minutes to meetings are leaked to people who are not privy to the discussions done then absolute chaos begins to brew. One quality for Personal Assistants and secretaries is the ability to keep confidence. If you do not excel in this area then you are not good enough as a leader or assistant to a leader.

Conglomerate – This is a business organization that comprises many business or companies. This is usually called a group of companies. This happens when leadership of the company decides on diversification into other business lines to a point where companies are registered to handle the extra lines or services instead of one company a diverse range of products and services. E.g. A Financial Services Group could have a bank, stock broking firm, Insurance company, Risk Management firm, Financial Accounting Firm, Auditing firm etc

Source by Rabison Shumba…

Many people get confused about the role of advertising in the marketing mix so here’s a simple view of where it fits in.

In the traditional marketing model, we talk about the 4 P’s

o Product

o Pricing

o Place

o Promotion

The last section – Promotion is what we mean when we say you are “doing your marketing”. It’s your communications or your actual marketing activities.

But first, let’s get clear about the PURPOSE of marketing and why you want to get good at it.

“The PURPOSE of marketing or it’s biggest task is to

persuade prospects to visit you online or offline so you

can present your offer. Done well they come waving their

credit card and ready to buy so there’s no need for hard sell.”

Whenever and wherever you get in front of your potential market is your marketing opportunity – you are communicating or getting your message across.

You could say this started as far back as Babylon when the Town Crier was the only delivery method! They went around town shouting out to people to go to the marketplace and you went to the marketplace with your goods to “present your offer”.

With the invention of print and other technologies you now have a smorgasbord of delivery methods or media to reach people such as

o Print – newspapers, magazines, catalogues, newsletters

o Phone, mail, fax

o Radio & TV,

o Internet – through websites, blogs, social networking sites, email, video & Audio podcasts

o Teleseminars & webinars

o Mobile media – Blackberrys and mobile or cell phones

o And lets not forget in person public speaking and networking

Now that range adds a level of complexity. But choice is good and you don’t have to use all of these but they are available to you.

In any event you’ll either be speaking or writing. Simply narrow down what makes sense for you and your business and use your strengths to work out a plan.

JUST remember the marketing principles remain the same no matter the medium – so the PURPOSE of your marketing is still the same. To persuade prospects to visit you online or offline so you can present your offer.

So where does advertising fit into this?

Advertising is simply a subset of your marketing activities it’s the SALES function when you make the sales pitch or “present your offer”. This could be verbal or written in all the same media you use for your marketing communications. What adds to the confusion is sometimes big companies use image based ads for awareness so the “sales pitch” isn’t obvious.

But the primary purpose of advertising is to SELL.

So you create ads in one form or another and get them in front of your audience.

Small businesses can’t afford to waste money on image advertising that is designed for the masses to promote a well known brand. It simply isn’t designed to sell, NOW.

What I do and recommend is Direct Marketing which is based on one-on-one relationships and uses proven direct response advertising techniques instead of mass advertising.

The purpose of a direct response advertisement is to get a response, NOW! Which means these ads actually ask the prospect to DO something.

Whether you’re building a list, selling a product or service, an appointment or even something you are giving away – you still need to “sell” it to your prospect. And ask them to take the action you want them to take to move them through the sales process.

In a nutshell, advertising is a subset of marketing and direct response marketing and advertising is the champion for small business.

Source by Kathleen Ann…

Overview

Corey Rudl was the founder and original owner of the Internet Marketing Center. He started by publishing his own book called Car Secrets Revealed. When a friend suggested he put it up on the Internet, he responded, “What’s the Internet?”

Eventually, through trial and error Rudl built his sales to phenomenal levels, and decided it was time to begin selling courses based on the techniques he had developed over the years. The Internet Marketing Center was born.

By the year 2005 it had grown to over $40 Million/year.

Over the past few years Rudl had taken on a friend as a sidekick, Derek Gehl, who had marketing experience of his own. The two worked side by side.

Then in June 2005, about the same time I was forming this website, a tragedy took place when Corey Rudl perished in a car accident. Derek Gehl soon took the helm and over the remainder of the year continued to grow the company to about $57 Million.

I’ve been fortunate to have developed a close working relationship with some of the staff, though I haven’t corresponded with Derek Gehl himself, and they have been so kind as to allow me to view nearly all the products in order to present my reviews to you.

Positive

According to Alexa, the Internet Marketing Center’s marketingtips.com comes in second only to Ken Evoy’s Sitesell.com among the big Internet marketing guru’s sites. That’s an amazing feat.

On videos, Derek Gehl certainly came off as the less slick speaker than his predecessor Corey Rudl, and was often interrupted and corrected by Corey Rudl. He never had quite the delivery Corey had. However, over time Gehl has come into his own as a powerful presenter in his own right.

The IMC’s strongest areas of teaching are

· Email marketing

· Automation of your business

· Aggressive testing

Email marketing is primary to Rudl’s methods. By “email marketing’ he isn’t talking about spamming, but mainly about building a huge email list via newsletter (ezine) offerings, and permission-based email advertising. However, in his earlier versions of his “Insider Secrets” course he came under fire for showing readers how to spam. That has since been cleaned up.

Rudl’s emphasis on automation is a point well taken. He acknowledges that Internet marketing simply isn’t an area where you can work an hour or two a day and sit on the beach the rest of the time. He knows your time will be at a premium, and he encourages you to automate as many things as possible through autoresponder, automated shopping carts and auto e-delivery of products where possible. He provides an onslaught of software for this purpose – which may well be part of the reason for his emphasis on automation — to sell you his software.

Aggressive testing was at the heart of Rudl’s own success, and he makes no bones about telling you the importance of doing the same. While pretty much everybody tells you the importance of testing, Rudl made it the focus of everything. The biggest problem with the way most gurus tell you to test, is that they encourage you to try one thing (say a headline) for a time, then try another, and see if your bottom line changes. But there is an inherent flaw in this method, which Rudl recognized. Suppose between week 1 and week 2 a magazine article features my site or product (I should be so lucky). They are sending pre-filtered traffic to my website, and my conversion rate is likely to be better in week 2. My headline may actually be hurting me, not helping, for all I know.

Rudl’s answer to this was to use testing software that concurrently and randomly directs traffic to two different views of the site, and allows you to compare the conversion rate at the same span of time. That is much more scientific.

Unfortunately, the IMC has no products specifically devoted to teaching testing techniques nor any software for the purpose. This is a big gap in their offerings.

One last very positive note is the newsletter – particularly the earlier ones. Nearly all the teaching the company did was echoed in the newsletter. These days it is more a sales letter than an instruction letter, but the archives are still available on the site and are a good free education.

Negative:

Corey Rudl’s and now Derek Gehl’s back-end tactics have come under a lot of fire. No matter what you buy from him, at rather high prices no less, you’ll quickly learn it isn’t nearly enough. If you buy a course, you’ll be told you need several expensive software packages. If you buy software, you’ll need to upgrade to the pro edition. If you think he’s sending you everything you need to know …

People often ask us the same question: “What’s the best way to advertise my Home Improvement business and gather leads?” We’ve compiled a handy list of the 10 most useful tools to advertise your business and see results.

1. Build a Good Online Presence

For what may seem like an obvious necessity for most, some companies still don’t value the importance of a good website. While most companies do have an online presence, it may not be attractive or user-experience optimized. A good website should convey the businesses’ goals, experience, qualities, and services in an easy to read way. There should be a blatant call to action, and sufficient information for the viewer. If the potential client can glance at your page and get all the important information needed, you are that much closer to reeling them in.

 

2. Search Engine Optimization

Many people think that SEO is solely related to building links and advertising your website link. A large part of search engine optimization is related to the way your page is set up. Are you taking advantage of meta keywords and titles? Are you using headers properly? Does your site have a large amount of unique content optimized for targeting certain keywords? These are all important things to consider.

3. Craigslist

Craigslist is a great way to advertise your services. You can hire a designer to create a small ad for you to embed into your Craigslist post, or simply use HTML to format a nice, easy to read, eye-catching advertisement. Re-post as per Craigslist’s guidelines and keep your business’s name out there.

4. Adwords

Google provides a great PPC (pay-per-click) advertising system which will target related websites that use Google Adsense to display your ads. You can target your chosen demographic, choose how much you’d like to pay for every click, and modify the appearance of your ad. They offer text ads, image ads, and rich media ads (flash, animation).

5. Social Media

These days social media is becoming the leading the way for advertising and creating a “friendly” relationship with your clients and fans. Create a Fan page on Facebook, establish a Twitter account, or create a blog. these are all great methods to attract your customers.

6. Blog Commenting

Find blogs related to your industry. Search them out, and post meaningful, relevant comments in the comments section. Be sure to add a link to your website, with a keyword that you’d like to target in the search engines. Slow and steady is the key to seeing results; keep at it on a daily/weekly basis and in due time you’ll see results.

7. Local Advertising

If your business is based locally, an ad in a local magazine or newspaper is a great option. Some companies provide direct mail advertising, which allows you to localize your advertisement in a demographic of your choice.

8. Content is King

Creating and publishing unique content will provide your website visitors with an interesting read, a potential link-back, and will improve your chances at getting picked up by the search engines. Google is beginning to heavily penalize websites with unoriginal content, and content of poor quality. Don’t get cut by the search engines. Keep your content interesting, unique, and greatness will follow.

9. Word of Mouth

Sometimes in these technological days we forget the importance of word of mouth! Don’t ever underestimate the power of a good recommendation. Treat your customers with respect and handle their job with excellence and you just might get the good word passed on.

10. Physical Ads

Physical advertisements such as billboards, bus benches, and other sign-age are often expensive, but they are generally high-profile and attention-getting. If you have the marketing funds available, give it a shot and see how it works. Create a marketing campaign and if the results are lower than you expected or needed, try another route.

While there are many methods that businesses use to market themselves, these are the top 10 ways to achieve positive results in this ever-advancing technological age. Try these steps for yourself and watch your business rise to success!

Source by Kevin Iamburg…

There are two types of CFD models, Market Maker and Direct Market Access. Each type has its own advantages and drawbacks and each CFD provider makes money in a very different way. It is important to understand how CFD brokers make money when you trade. In this article we will focus on Direct Market Access or DMA CFD providers only.

Direct Market Access CFDs are the most transparent type of CFD available, the reason for this is simply because DMA CFD brokers hedge every order they receive from their clients in the underlying market. When trading DMA CFDs you will actually see the CFD providers hedge order in the order book of the share listed on the underlying exchange on which the CFD is based.

In order to hedge in a cost efficient manner and enable the DMA CFD broker to offer CFDs on overseas exchanges the DMA CFD provider will utilise the execution services of a global investment bank that has exchange memberships globally. Having a relationship with one execution provider also allows the DMA CFD provider to achieve economies of scale resulting in lower execution and financing costs for the provider and ultimately the end client.

The global investment banks providing the DMA execution into the underlying exchange on behalf of the CFD provider also provide the financing on the positions, this execution and financing service combined works much like a CFD but on a much larger scale. The CFD brokers hedge transactions with the investment bank are known as SWAP transactions and the service offered by the bank is known as prime broking.

A DMA CFD provider model is simple, aggregate as many client orders and positions as possible in order to achieve reduced execution and financing rates on the SWAP contracts offered by their prime broker.

CFD providers make money much like any business where the business owner buys from the wholesaler and then sells the product in stores to retail customers.

The formula is simple, if your CFD broker is charged 0.01% commission on their SWAP trade and pay a financing rate of 0.50% above or below the RBA rate any they charge you 0.10% commission on the trade and 3.00% above or below the RBA rate they will make money. In addition to making money on commission and financing DMA CFD brokers also receive the benefit of netting all client positions against each other. Put simply netting means that if a long position offsets a short position the CFD broker has no position, however, as the client who is long is paying interest and the client who is short is being paid interest less a small haircut, the CFD provider profits from the difference between the two interest rates.

It is important to note that prime brokers will not deal with retail clients themselves and will typically only deal with large hedge funds and CFD brokers as such CFDs are a great way of achieving access to global markets in much the same way as the global investment banks themselves and hedge funds do.

Source by Marcus Portland…

Are you considering learning how to use Excel more effectively? Many people use Excel in their day to day jobs, and they’re not necessarily accounting or finance professionals. Excel is a robust spreadsheet platform that allows you to track and store a variety of data effectively. This article will outline some of the traditional and non-traditional career paths that can make good use of skills with Excel. Once you have finished reading this piece you should have a much clearer view of how Excel might be useful in different areas of the business world.

Accounting

As a spreadsheet application, Excel was originally intended to duplicate the large paper spreadsheets that have been used by accounting professionals for over one hundred years. Accountants are responsible for tracking and categorizing all of the individual transactions that make up the day to day operation of a business. Excel is a great tool for this because it allows them to track the details of the transaction, monitor the performance versus expectations and goals, and provide customized and useful reports on almost any aspect of the accounting of a business.

Finance

Closely related to accounting, finance professionals conduct a wide variety of modeling and analysis of a company’s performance. Finance might use complex statistical analysis to predict future performance of a firm or find correlations between certain events and the resulting impact on performance. Finance is also used to study the proper capital structure of a company. All of these functions are ideally suited for a spreadsheet tool like Excel.

Marketing

Marketing is a discipline tasked with generating and meeting the demand for a company’s products. As such, one of their primary functions is directing company resources into appropriate channels to generate demand and create awareness of the company. These channels are generally known as “advertising” and there is usually a cost involved in utilizing them. This cost may be in terms of human labor or money, but in either case it is an investment that should be tracked and monitored to ensure it is generating a suitable return in terms of new revenue. Again, Excel comes to the rescue by providing an easy format for organizing all of these marketing expenses and matching them with the results they generate.

Project Planning

Although there are more robust project management tools available, Excel does a fantastic job for planning and managing the more straightforward projects that arise from day to day in business. Many project managers will use Excel to create Gantt charts which can provide a visual representation of the steps and milestones of a project and help keep things moving toward the ultimate goal.

As you can see, although Excel was initial conceived as a finance and accounting tool, there are a number of other uses for it. From marketing management to more obscure uses like project tracking, Microsoft excel is a tool that is used a wide variety of jobs. You might recognize how it may be a suitable tool to include in your career training arsenal.

Source by Thomas Richardson…

This article discusses the concept of “incidence rate” and how it is used in the context of online market research surveys. In practice, there is a difference between a “natural incidence rate” and a “practical incidence rate.” For some types of studies, the natural incidence rate may be of interest for analysis purposes by researchers at market research firms or marketing departments of companies or other organizations. For other types of studies, it may not be necessary to estimate “natural incidence,” and research users may become more concerned about ways to increase the “practical incidence” rate in order to reduce costs. It is important to understand when an estimate of natural incidence is needed vs. when it is safe to focus on increasing the practical incidence rate to reduce costs.

Market Research Surveys and Natural Incidence Rate

An example can help to explain these concepts. Imagine that a researcher wants to conduct an online market research survey of people who “regularly” visit large bookstores (e.g., Borders, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million). For this study, “regularly” could be defined as “at least once a month.” Many adult consumers would be sampled at random and invited to participate in the survey. For those who respond to the survey, the first question would ask how often they visit large bookstores. Those answering once a month or more often would be considered “qualified” to continue and complete a full survey for the study. Those answering less often than once a month would be considered “disqualified” for the full survey, and their survey would end after this first question. However, the respondents “disqualified” from the full survey (because they do not visit large bookstores “regularly”) would still be tallied.

Although the primary purpose of the study may be to learn about the detailed behavior of those who visit large bookstores regularly, the researcher may also be interested in the “incidence” of these types of consumers. That is, the researcher might ask, what proportion of adult consumers are “regular” visitors of large bookstores? This can be estimated by examining how many “qualified” to complete the full survey vs. how many were “disqualified.” The “incidence” of regular visitors of large bookstores would be estimated using the number qualified for the full survey divided by the total that responded. In other words, the incidence would be the number qualified divided by the sum of those qualified and disqualified.

This incidence may be very useful for the researcher, since it provides an estimate of the proportion of adult consumers who are regular visitors of large bookstores. Sometimes market research firms will use an estimate of “natural incidence” to “size the market.” That is, multiply the incidence by the number in the whole adult population to get the estimated size of the “target population” of regular visitors of large bookstores.

However, the calculation of “natural incidence” assumes that adult consumers were sampled at random to participate in the survey. If this were not the case, then the calculation described above would not yield a valid estimate of natural incidence.

In fact, many studies do not require pure random sampling of all adult consumers. Instead, particular types of consumers may be “targeted.” For example, many market research firms with online panels have extensive information “on file” about their panelists. Let’s assume that the researcher is conducting online market research using a panel in which bookstore behavior is already known. That is, when panelists joined the research panel, they were asked a variety of questions about their shopping behavior, and one of the questions was about frequency of visiting large bookstores. As a result, it would be possible to “target” regular bookstore visitors from the panel and only invite these panelists to participate in the new survey.

Market Research Surveys and Practical Incidence Rate

If regular bookstore visitors were targeted from the panel, then most would be “qualified” for the full survey. To be sure, some would be “disqualified” if the information “on file” about the panelists was sometimes no longer accurate. For example, if someone joined the panel a year ago, they may have been visiting large bookstores regularly at that time, but they may have changed their behavior since then. But, the number “disqualified” in this case would be very low compared to conducting a survey with consumers selected purely at random. Thus, “targeting” particular types of panelists can result in a very high practical incidence rate, but this would also invalidate estimates of “natural incidence.”

At this point, the reader might ask why target panelists based on information already “on file” if this will invalidate estimates of “true” or “natural” incidence? The answer has everything to do with cost. Targeting reduces research costs significantly because fewer survey invitations need to be sent; administrative time for market research firms in managing …

A lot of people are now getting into internet businesses and online marketing either to add extra income or eventually making it their primary source of income. Why? Because online marketing can provide better benefits!

First, you can contact and communicate with just about anybody in the world who has internet connection if you advertise your products online. That indicates a broader market reach for you, which can convert to larger profits. Second, setting up an internet based business needs only a portion of the cost required to set up an actual company establishment, which indicates lesser expenses for the business owner

Another thing that has drawn a lot of attention from people towards online marketing is the fact that you are not required to have your own product to begin. In online marketing, anyone can start generating profits online just by promoting, or even by just trying to sell other people’s items. Getting started with this type of marketing procedure is actually quite simple. All that you need to do is to set up a compliance agreement with an online merchant or vendor, and after everything is set up, one can instantly begin to generate profits by promoting the vendor’s or the store’s items.

Furthermore, the most popular and the fastest method of selling other people’s products and services on the internet is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing, in its basic definition, is a relationship between an internet merchant or store, who has items to sell, and his affiliates, who are willing to sell the vendor’s product on their website.

In a common affiliate marketing set up, the vendor provides his affiliates with advertisements, either banner or text type that directly links to his site. The affiliates will then get these ads placed on their site and they get compensated whenever visitors or product purchases directed to the vendor’s web page. Affiliates are often compensated on sales by commission, although other online product vendors would opt to pay a set fee for the affiliate’s compensation.

Getting started to make money online through affiliate marketing is fast and simple. You just need to sign up as an affiliate marketer to an affiliate program. Another option is to sign up as an affiliate on an affiliate network that hosts different affiliate programs. Signing up usually costs nothing, although some networks might require you to pay a small fee that may be the amount as a payment for the additional service those companies render like tools, webinars and training materials.

When you sign up with an affiliate program, you are usually required to fill up an information form about yourself. Some affiliate marketing programs may also need you to present the URL of your web page and describe its content. This will allow the retailers to verify that you actually have a web page with material that are relevant to their products. Some affiliate programs, however, does not require you to have a website. After filling out the form, you are then free to choose the affiliate programs you want to use.

After signing up with an affiliate program and becoming an affiliate, you are now ready to make money online by selling other people’s products. How do you make money? There are actually various ways for you to generate income as an affiliate marketer, and most of these ways depends on the type of affiliate program you’ve sign up for.

A lot of affiliate programs pay their affiliates in either of three methods: pay-per-click (PPC), payper-sale (PPS), or pay-per-lead (PPL). In pay-per-click marketing, the affiliate is compensated whenever he directs traffic to the vendor’s site. PPS and PPL online marketing programs is different. In PPS, the affiliate only gets paid when his referral converts into a sale. In typical PPS online marketing program, the affiliate would usually get 15% to 20% commission for each conversion. Pay Per Lead works the same way, although affiliates are paid a fixed compensation whenever his referral converts into a lead for the vendor.

Some affiliate programs are two-tier, which means the affiliate is also allowed to refer other affiliates to the vendor. In such affiliate program, the affiliate would not only be paid for the visits or sales that he would redirect to the merchant’s site but also for the visits or sales directed by the affiliates who signed up with the program through his referral.

Another way of earning more profits with affiliate marketing is through residual affiliate programs. Residual marketing programs are affiliate programs where the affiliate gets compensated a number of times for as long as the vendor keeps the customer the affiliate has recommended to his site. One type of residual program gets the affiliate compensated a commission every time the referred customer purchases something on the vendor’s site.

Another form of …

A successful digital marketing campaign is the dream of many business owners. With the help of this campaign, businesses won’t have to sleep and commerce can flow anytime and anywhere.

Digital marketing is usually defined as a marketing strategy that uses digital or Internet-based services, platforms, and tools instead of traditional marketing media. A typical strategy or campaign includes the use of email campaigns, social media, online videos, and banner ads on websites. This strategy is highly useful to every business, regardless of its type and size, because it has the potential to reach any customer or client who has a connection to the Internet, wherever they are at any time of the day or night.

But how do you start or create a good and effective digital marketing strategy? You can begin by following the key 3 steps and some additional tips below:

1. Determine and know your target audience.

A good digital marketing strategy starts with identifying the group you want your brand, product, or service to reach. To do this correctly, answer the following questions:

• Who do you want to sell to or who do you want to buy your product or get your services?

• How do they usually search for products and services they want info about online?

• Which social media sites or platforms do they normally use?

• Which sites do they spend a lot of time on when they are online?

By determining who your target demographic is, where they hang out, and how they like to engage with the brands they follow, you will have a higher chance of having your message being welcomed by online users rather than be lost the wide world of the worldwide web.

2. Put some thought into selecting the best platform to reach your audience.

At present, there are many ways of effectively reaching your target audience online. These include the various social media, search engines, display advertising, and direct email marketing. Generally, people who are of a consumer age have some type of online interaction. They may be researching using popular search engine sites, posting on various social networking sites, or reading content online. Most of these platforms have a measurable weighting toward a particular demographic. If you can’t understand the figures, get help from experts in comprehending them and with using them for choosing the best platforms to use in your digital marketing strategy.

3. Regularly measure and adjust.

Lastly, be open-minded when starting and even implementing a digital marketing strategy. Also, don’t be afraid to change what you’re doing. This is because the digital landscape is known for its rapid change. Although this may seem daunting, it’s actually one of biggest advantages of doing digital marketing. This is because the target audience, message, and placement of your online communication can be adjusted quickly and easily, unlike with traditional marketing.

Source by Jeff P Harden…

Marketing in the digital space has evolved immensely over time. There has been an explosion of new processes, new communication technologies and new marketing channels to advertise and promote your business. It’s a big change now! Everybody is utilizing digital marketing tactics to reach out to their customers, you have to re-invent your strategy to succeed in the ultimate battlefield of digital war. A well-planned set of digital marketing goals will help you measure the performance of your marketing activities and get real results. Implement the ‘5Cs’ strategy into your digital marketing mix to get closer to your business marketing goals:

C – Connect: Connecting your brand with target audience is the first step toward marketing success. The customer is the CEO of your business. To create a brand your customers will love you need to connect with them. So how do you make a connection with customers? It’s through social networks, email, website, blogs and search engines. Building a meaningful, emotional connection is vital for establishing successful customer relationship.

C – Converse: Just because you know well about the features and benefits of the range of products and services your company provides doesn’t mean that your customers are also aware of them. Communicating directly with your niche community is necessary to inspire brand awareness. Customers want to be emotionally impacted during their entire journey of commercial existence. Keep in mind some of the right ways of customer communication – send personalized emails, create content based on customer needs and engage in conversations on social channels.

C – Characterize: A business is one that customers only know while a brand is one that they love. You have too many competitors selling the same services as you do. How are you different from them? What is so unique about your products? You need to characterize your business to build a brand that customers love to recommend. You need to convince customers about the benefits that they can gain from using your services. People choose a product based on the value they receive. So be unique, be distinctive to get more recommendations and repeat customers.

C – Captivate: If you don’t understand the value of customer engagement and instead, focus on sales pitch, then you will definitely fail in the long run. Engaging with your target audience is necessary to retain existing customers and attract new ones. To captivate your customers you must provide useful information through all digital marketing channels, make all conversations two-way, serve your customer needs when they want, and become an honest, empathetic & assertive communicator.

C – Convert: The ultimate aim of your digital marketing campaign is to convert prospects into buying customers. Your customer conversion strategy requires a complex combination of value proposition, customer online experience management and customer feedback. Reach the customers at the right time and right content to move them through the conversion funnel.

If your business starts using the ‘5Cs’ digital marketing strategy, you will be able to better connect, attract, engage, communicate and convert potential customers. With more repeat customers and more conversions, your business will become sustainable. The 5Cs will yield the greatest wins to help your business grow and get bigger!

Source by Alok Dharayan…

Registration and signup forms often make a burdensome task for website visitors. They also create problems for marketers and their conversion rates. OpenID is a solution that aims to solve this problem by allowing visitors to sign in with a single user ID. This method offers convenience for the web user but is quite useful to marketers as well. Aside from eliminating the tedious registration process, it also prevents new users from having to leave your website just to verify their email address. Sounds like a win-win, but it is still important to know the pros and cons of OpenID as they relate to email marketing before accepting this feature on your website.

More Efficient Data

One significant benefit is that if you accept it on your website, you will have access to valuable data that would traditionally require the user to complete a long registration form to obtain. OpenID providers such as Google, MySpace, and Yahoo collect and share precious demographic data that could greatly benefit your email marketing campaign. This data often includes the users name, gender, location and email address. With such revealing information at your disposal, you can optimize your marketing strategy and fine-tune your website to better suit the needs of your visitors.

Lower Customer Service Costs and Higher Satisfaction

OpenID allows visitors to use an existing online identity to sign into your website. This could be an identity they created on Blogger, Flickr, or other sites that except the service. Being that the user’s identity is already authenticated by an existing provider, there is no need to store usernames and passwords in your system. This essentially means no more pouring valuable resources into time consuming burdens such as password recovery and excess customer care. By accepting OpenID on your site, you will be able to get the maximum use from your web infrastructure while increasing satisfaction among customers who no longer have to worry about forgetting their passwords.

The Trust Issue

The biggest disadvantage relates to trust. Whether it was created with LiveJournal or WordPress, someone with an OpenID had to provide specific information to obtain it. At that point, a profile for that user is created and may be shared with those who accept the service on their site. This includes all the rich user data we mentioned above. So even though a visitor does not have to provide this information to sign in to your site, they still could be providing you with access to it by simply entering their ID. If the user is not comfortable sharing the same information they shared with AOL with you, it could result in a lost conversion you never have a chance to get back.

Conclusion

This option certainly has its drawbacks, but from an email marketing aspect, the positives outweigh the negatives. The access it gives you to such powerful data makes it almost irresistible, while the convenience factor benefits all parties involved. If you think your visitors will welcome something like OpenID, implementing it is probably a good idea.

Source by Gary San…

Market segmentation is widely defined as being a complex process consisting in two main phases:

– identification of broad, large markets

– segmentation of these markets in order to select the most appropriate target markets and develop Marketing mixes accordingly.

Everyone within the Marketing world knows and speaks of segmentation yet not many truly understand its underlying mechanics, thus failure is just around the corner. What causes this? It has been documented that most marketers fail the segmentation exam and start with a narrow mind and a bunch of misconceptions such as “all teenagers are rebels”, “all elderly women buy the same cosmetics brands” and so on. There are many dimensions to be considered, and uncovering them is certainly an exercise of creativity.

The most widely employed model of market segmentation comprises 7 steps, each of them designed to encourage the marketer to come with a creative approach.

STEP 1: Identify and name the broad market

You have to have figured out by this moment what broad market your business aims at. If your company is already on a market, this can be a starting point; more options are available for a new business but resources would normally be a little limited.

The biggest challenge is to find the right balance for your business: use your experience, knowledge and common sense to estimate if the market you have just identified earlier is not too narrow or too broad for you.

STEP 2: Identify and make an inventory of potential customers’ needs

This step pushes the creativity challenge even farther, since it can be compared to a brainstorming session.

What you have to figure out is what needs the consumers from the broad market identified earlier might have. The more possible needs you can come up with, the better.

Got yourself stuck in this stage of segmentation? Try to put yourself into the shoes of your potential customers: why would they buy your product, what could possibly trigger a buying decision? Answering these questions can help you list most needs of potential customers on a given product market.

STEP 3: Formulate narrower markets

McCarthy and Perreault suggest forming sub-markets around what you would call your “typical customer”, then aggregate similar people into this segment, on the condition to be able to satisfy their needs using the same Marketing mix.

Start building a column with dimensions of the major need you try to cover: this will make it easier for you to decide if a given person should be included in the first segment or you should form a new segment. Also create a list of people-related features, demographics included, for each narrow market you form – a further step will ask you to name them.

There is no exact formula on how to form narrow markets: use your best judgement and experience. Do not avoid asking opinions even from non-Marketing professionals, as different people can have different opinions and you can usually count on at least those items most people agree on.

STEP 4: Identify the determining dimensions

Carefully review the list resulted form the previous step. You should have by now a list of need dimensions for each market segment: try to identify those that carry a determining power.

Reviewing the needs and attitudes of those you included within each market segment can help you figure out the determining dimensions.

STEP 5: Name possible segment markets

You have identified the determining dimensions of your market segments, now review them one by one and give them an appropriate name.

A good way of naming these markets is to rely on the most important determining dimension.

STEP 6: Evaluate the behavior of market segments

Once you are done naming each market segment, allow time to consider what other aspects you know about them. It is important for a marketer to understand market behavior and what triggers it. You might notice that, while most segments have similar needs, they’re still different needs: understanding the difference and acting upon it is the key to achieve success using competitive offerings.

STEP 7: Estimate the size of each market segment

Each segment identified, named and studied during the previous stages should finally be given an estimate size, even if, for lack of data, it is only a rough estimate.

Estimates of market segments will come in handy later, by offering a support for sales forecasts and help plan the Marketing mix: the more data we can gather at this moment, the easier further planning and strategy will be.

These were the steps to segment a market, briefly presented. If performed correctly and thoroughly, you should now be able to have a glimpse of how to build Marketing mixes for each market segment.

This 7 steps approach to market segmentation is very simple and practical and works …

1. Black Forest Gummy Bear: A Consumer Favorite

Many people consider the top brand on the best gummy bear list to be the Black Forest gummy. This may be because real fruit juice helps to make this candy a healthier version of the soft bear that so many people love. Many consumers appreciate the fact that Black Forest gummies are not as soft and chewy as some of the alternatives made by other brands.

This means they won’t be as likely to stick to your teeth, gums, and the roof of your mouth. Their slightly stiffer consistency, along with the fact that they are flavorful and aromatic, may be what makes them the preferred choice of countless chewable candy fans.

They come in five fruit flavors, including pineapple, cherry, and apple. These just might be the best gummy bears out of all the ones to follow – but that could easily be a matter of taste, right!?

2. Haribo: The First Gummy Bears

The Haribo brand was the first to manufacture the now famous chewables. The concept for this unique candy treat was created in 1922 by the German candy maker, Hans Riegel. He styled them after the dancing bears that had been so popular in Europe in the previous century.

The Haribo original (Gold-Bears) gummies come in an impressive spectrum of fruit flavors, from orange to raspberry to lemon. The green Haribo ones are strawberry-flavored, and the clear ones taste like pineapple.

This brand is known for producing soft, pliant bears. If you want a tasty alternative to fruit flavors, Haribo also makes cola-flavored candies shaped like cola bottles.

3. Trolli: Another Soft and Fruity Bear

The Trolli brand is another top seller in gummy candies, and like Haribo Gold-Bears, their own bears are delightfully soft – even more so than the Haribo option. Numerous children prefer these because they are so soft and easy to consume.

The Trolli bears come in five fruit flavors, including apple. The most powerful flavor in this bunch is cherry. If you are looking for an alternative to the classic fruit flavors, Trolli also makes sour worms.

4. Albanese: A Broad Assortment of Flavors

The gummy bears made by Albanese brand come in a wide range of pleasing flavors. Some of the unique flavors that make these candies stand apart are watermelon, pink grapefruit, mango, and blue raspberry.

These make a colorful addition to any party refreshments display. These are soft and chewy, but they do not stick to the teeth like gummy bears made by some of the other top-selling brands.

5. Jelly Belly: Beyond Gourmet Jelly Beans

The brand that is famous for its gourmet jelly beans also makes gummy bears. Jelly Belly also uses kosher-certified gelatin to make its candy, which many gummy aficionados are likely to appreciate.

These gummy bears are known for being soft, fresh, and flavorful. The Jelly Belly gummy bears come in five classic flavors. They are also available in a sugar-free variety with seven flavors, which include grape, tangerine, and watermelon.

Conclusion: Indulge in a Novelty Gummy Recipe for Adults

Now that you know which brands make the best gummies, you may want to try making a fabulous gummy recipe intended exclusively for grownups: Vodka Gummy Bears. This recipe is incredibly easy to prepare. Simply assemble your desired amount of gummies in some bowls (don’t fill the bowls more than halfway). Then, cover the candy with the vodka of your choice.

After that, allow them to marinate in the vodka for at least one or two days. The various recipes for this concoction vary in their directions; you can let the gummies sit either covered and refrigerated or uncovered and unrefrigerated. You may then serve them in dishes (you might want to provide your guests with eating utensils).

Since their stiffer consistency means that they may hold their shape better than other gummies, the Black Forest gummy bears could be the best choice for this recipe.

You don’t need to be in grade school to appreciate this popular candy item. Gummy bears have been a longtime favorite for nearly a century. Whether you consume them straight out of the package or drenched in vodka, don’t forget to share this colorful treat with others!

Source by Christina M Thomas…

#1 Apple

Product placements in many moves and TV shows with the stars using their products. For example, a great shot of JUST THE IPHONE and nothing else in the Sex in the City Movie. My favorite? I am Legend!

#2 Berkshire Hathaway

Warren Buffet, the most successful investor in the world apologizes to his stockholders for making mistakes in the bad economy.

#3 Toyota Motors

They sponsored Top Chef Chicago in 2008. Not only did they have commercials every other second but every shopping trip was in a Rav 4

#4 Google

Becoming a verb and being used in a movie with Jennifer Lopez in Maid in America, Google was written into the script!

#5 Johnson & Johnson

Not only do they have a you tube channel, they also have multiple Facebook pages for the different segments of their market.

#6 Proctor and Gamble

Took Movie product placements to Books! Cathy’s book, Persius book authors agreed to have character use certain make up products!

#7 Fed Ex

Movie product placement abounds! Bowfinger, Runaway Bride and of course their super commercial called Cast Away!

#8 Southwest Airlines

Lots of papers are written on them because of their service.

#9 General Electric

Top Chef is heavy with their appliances.

#10 Microsoft

Bollywood has been the beneficiary of their product placements.

#11 Wal-Mart Stores

Product placements on shows like Dame Chocolate and others.

#12 Coca-Cola

Obama was seen drinking a Coke during the campaign. With giant cups placed on the desks in American Idol, In a children’s book about dinosaurs, there is a coke bottle on every page, The Democratic convention, Madea goes to Jail and the Olympics make them product placement champs.

#13 Walt Disney

The View from Walt Disney Studios and Marley and ME…need I say more?

Source by Letitia Wright…

Online Classified Advertisements or Online Classified Ads are a great way to advertise a business through the internet. Traditionally, you can see classified ads by reading newspapers and magazines and online classified ads just work the same way that it does but on a wider range of people who will get to see your advertisement.

When putting an ad on a newspaper, on television, or on the radio, your prospect customers would be limited to those who will read, watch, and or listen to your advertisement, while doing an advertisement online can boost your number of prospect customers for your business from, say, nationwide to worldwide.

Furthermore, online advertising are a lot cheaper than advertising through TVs or radios. There are also hosting websites that would offer free advertising to their customers. Doing online advertising is a great advantage and may even bring in new customers for your business at little or practically no cost.

Using Online Classified Ads Effectively

There are some similarities with online classified ads and the traditional classified ads, like to attract customers there still has to be the element of drawing in the right customers. For this reason, the online ad must be appealing to the target market of the business that it would catch the attention of your desired target market instantly. Also, it is wise to find a host website for your online ads that provides a lot of hits so your online ads will be seen very frequently. Also make sure to read the rules of your host website before posting your online ads.

An example of using online classified advertisements effectively is by putting your advertisement through Google. Google scans classified ad hosting websites for your business, some of which you might see are advertising websites that would let you advertise your business online free of charge.

Rather than advertising through plain text, most advertisements online can now be seen by the use of animated web banners that can be seen through various websites. If you are planning to do this, make sure that your online banner would be eye catching, pleasing to the eyes, can catch the attention of your prospect customers immediately, and may include interactivity so that people would want to click on your web banner.

Other Alternatives to Online Classified Advertising

Always remember that finding a host website to publish your online ads is not the only way to advertise your business through the internet. There are lots ways you can advertise your business online.

Examples of these are joining web forums, writing articles through the internet, having your own blog and, say, putting your products there, submitting your products through search engines, using website affiliates to your website, or maybe even chatting with people through various instant messaging services throughout the internet.

Even though online classified advertising is a great way to advertise your business, do not forget that traditional classified ads are still useful until today. There are still a lot of people out there who do not go online and would prefer reading the newspaper or watching the television. You can always mix offline and online advertising in order to achieve better results for your business. It is wise to use every possible marketing opportunity, especially the ones that would work the best for your business.

Source by Terez Dunn…

Advertising is a form of mass communication with the public. It is usually one sided i.e. from the company to the buyer/potential user of the product. It is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade the potential customers to purchase or consume more of a particular brand of product/services. As rightly defined by Bovee, “Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.”

Advertising an important tool of communication is use to promote commercial goods and services, it can also be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial issues such as AIDS, Don’t drink and drive, Polio, Save water, electricity, animals and trees etc. “Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest – it is much too powerful tool to use solely for commercial purposes.” – Attributed to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy.

Advertising is most effective with products that can be differentiated from similar products based on consumer accepted quality difference. Tom Egelhoff has classified advertising in 6 types, i.e. for company image, name brands, advertising service instead of a product, business-to-business advertising, co-op advertising and public service advertising. Television, Radio, Cinema, Magazine, Journal, Newspaper, Video Game, Internet, Billboard, Transit Cards, Sandwich Board, Skywriting are the different mediums used to deliver the message. The companies choose the method according to the cost, budget, target audiences and their response. However, word of mouth advertising/ personal recommendations is an unpaid form of advertising which can provide good exposure at minimum cost.

Various new forms of advertising are growing rapidly. One of them is Social Networking Advertising. It’s an online advertising with a focus on social networking sites and use of the internet/ World Wide Web in order to deliver marketing messages and attract customers. The other is E-Mail advertising; E-Mail Marketing is often known as “opt-in-email advertising” to distinguish it from spam. “I believe ‘credibility’ is one of the biggest issues yet to be addressed by Internet advertisers. Everyone has their eye on ‘privacy’ as a critical concern, but credibility will be far more enabling or disabling to website profitability. A company can have a web presence and, unless the brand name is familiar, consumers have no way of knowing whether it’s a big company, a small company, an honest company, or a single scoundrel. I may be worried about my personal data being disclosed in violation of my privacy, but I’m far more concerned about whether or not the person or company with whom I’m dealing is reputable. Can I believe their claims? Will I have a recourse if something is wrong with the merchandise? Credibility no longer is strictly a brick-and-morter issue. I can’t judge someone by their place of business, when I conduct that business on the Internet. I can’t grasp a hand and look into their eyes to judge their veracity. Credibility is a huge issue.” – Jef Richard.

For a message to be effective keep it short, simple, crisp and easy to absorb. It is essential to translate the products/services offer into meaningful customer benefit by advertising and to build awareness and generate response. REMEMBER: – THE AIDA MODEL -ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE AND ACTION.

In the modern scenario, most of the companies outsource their advertising activities to an advertising/ad agency which is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising and sometimes also performs other forms of promotion like public relations, publicity and sales promotion for its client. Departments of the advertising agency includes: – The Creative Department (who creates an actual advertisement), Account Service (who is responsible for co-ordinating the creative team, the client, media and the production staff), Creative Service Production (here the employees are the people who have contacts with the suppliers of various creative media), Other department and Personnel. (like public relations). As said by David Ogilvy once that the relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account.

Thus, I would conclude by the famous words of Bruce Barton (1955), “Advertising is of the very essence of democracy. An election goes on every minute of the business day across the counters of hundreds of thousands of stores and shops where the customers state their preferences and determine which manufacturer and which product shall be the leader today, and which shall lead tomorrow.”

Source by Rupal Jain…

As a small business owner, you most likely spend quite a large amount of time trying to discern new ways to gain customers. Marketing can be a fun or stressful business. They key is to understand the types of marketing.

Instead of sending your marketing budget in many different directions, you can choose a specific type and be consistent with it. You will quickly see that your marketing budget pays off much more quickly.

Here, you will find information on four of the main types of marketing. This way, you will be able to choose the marketing actions that will work best for your business. You will then be able to point your marketing budget in the right direction.

1. Blanket marketing is a type that is often used by larger business. Blanket marketing means that you spend money advertising to everyone. Many people choose to do blanket marketing by advertising in magazines or newspapers. You will not really have control of who sees your advertising, but you will have the potential to reach many people.

The downside to blanket marketing is that it can be quite expensive, and you could be wasting money marketing to people who may never become your customers at all. Blanket marketing is best for those who have plenty of funds available and who feel that they will be able to gain many customers from the plan.

2. Targeted marketing is a method in which you choose a certain demographic and only market to them. This could mean that you advertise to everyone in a certain area. Alternatively, you could advertise to everyone in a certain age range.

The great thing about targeted marketing is that you will have a much better chance at getting customers since you will be advertising to the types of people who would most likely become customers. The downside is that it will take a little legwork to determine who your target is and then find the right way to advertise to them.

3. Social media marketing could be called the new kid in town since it is relatively a young concept. With this marketing, you use any one of the many popular social media sites to advertise your company. You can also use a daily blog to garner business.

The downside to this type of marketing is that you will be sending your information out to many people who may not be interested at all. With blogs, you will have to take the time to keep the blog up to date. Otherwise, people may stop reading it.

4. The last type of marketing is not marketing at all. There are not upsides to this. It may seem like a way to save money, but when your business fails, you will actually lose a great deal of money. It is extremely important to find marketing funds within your budget.

Source by Melissa B Evans…

Since the arrival of the internet, the face of the marketing and advertising business has dramatically changed. The internet has provided an infinitely wide advertisement board where companies all over the world can post their information, product catalog and brochures. With the increasing number of products and services, internet marketing online business has become a growing industry with fair chances of good profit.

Internet marketing, also called e-marketing or online marketing, is the marketing and advertising of products and services on the internet. The definition of what it is depends on because there are several jobs within the field. For example, the owners of a manufacturing company may develop a website that advertises their own products. Some advertisers can be hired to provide ways on increasing the popularity of specific products and services. There are internet marketing groups and firms that work by optimizing website content. Some websites earn by advertising other websites.

There are several forms of marketing that utilize the web. One is e-mail marketing that is the direct sending e-mails from the company to the customers. The e-mails contain new offers and products, updates and promos. However, the biggest deal of e-marketing is focused on website development.

The primary tool and object of internet marketing online is the website. A good website displays the image the company wants to show to the public and the message they want to convey. Its web pages must be easy to navigate through and they must completely show the products and services offered by the company. If the site wants the viewers to be directed to other web pages, their links must be visible and placed at strategic spots. Most importantly, for a website to be effective, it needs people to see its content- the internet traffic. Internet traffic is the subject of competition among all the websites.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a very popular internet marketing strategy. SEO explores the more technical aspects of web page design. It is the arrangement of website content and coding so that it will receive high rank positions when displayed by search engines. Referrals of search engines through SEO are free. To contrast, back then, companies simply pay search engines to include them in the search results but they are not guaranteed of high ranks. There are several firms that offer SEO services for other companies.

Other models of e-marketing include blogging, articles and review writing, and pay per click (PPC). There are sites that host blogs for free so many online marketers, many of those just at home, make use of them to advertise products. Many also post their product reviews on blogs, including referral links. In the PPC system, a company hires several sites to host their links in forms of text or images. The hired sites are paid every time the links are visited by surfers. As a summary, all these methods work if the hosting website receives a good amount of visitors.

Internet marketing is practically a web with interdependent sectors, providing equal number of job opportunities- even to those at the comfort of their own home. That makes the internet marketing online business to continue to be a source of good income despite the tough competition. Experience, knowledge and creativity are required to succeed in this field.

Source by Ewen Chia…

Marketing in general is a vast and complex beast which requires knowledge and effort to truly master and leverage it to its full potential to grow your brand, let alone your business. Any good internet marketing strategy can effectively help you build your business online. However, as many internet entrepreneurs look to expand their online presence and grow their businesses further, I find that many of them fail to create a complete marketing and business development strategy, focusing the majority of their efforts online. Sadly, this is a HUGE mistake on their part.

Over the course of my career as an entrepreneur, business owner and web designer, I’ve conducted business with many individuals and businesses all wanting to increase their reach, develop a stronger brand awareness and build a strong internet presence. Yet through all their questions, two common fears continually rang through during my discussions with many of them. They either feared the idea of taking on a major internet campaign or they felt that internet marketing would replace their tried and true traditional marketing methods. Both these fears have their roots in the fact that the vast majority of them simply lacked the proper knowledge necessary to see that both an internet marketing and traditional marketing strategy should compliment each other providing reciprocal support of their various strengths. I like to refer to this more complete picture of a marketing strategy as “blended marketing”.

Why Do I Need to Do Marketing

If you plan to generate any kind of income online you need to gain an understanding that your blog or website is simply and extension of your true business. You must develop your business model first before you can properly identify how to apply your blog/website as a useful tool in your overall marketing and business development strategy. Any successful business has a marketing strategy to grow their business. You can’t simply set up a blog or website and expect the business to come rushing in. You must have a strategy in place to help bring in the interested buyers you desire.

Gain a Little Perspective

As a successful internet entrepreneur and internet marketing expert myself, I’ve been using a blended marketing strategy for well over a decade to maximize my reach, increase my exposure and better market to my target audience to grow my online business. I’d like to share with you how a blended marketing strategy can benefit you and provide you with some techniques I use when constructing your blended marketing plan.

To help you gain a better perspective on the concept of blended marketing I suggest you have a quick read of Rena Bernstein’s post over at Social Media Today entitled “Integrating Social Media with Traditional Advertising to Gain Higher Returns”. It is a great read and provides valuable insight into the benefits as well as examples on how effective it can be if done correctly.

What is Blended Marketing

Blended marketing is essentially a mix of both internet marketing and traditional offline marketing methods to create a more complete, overall marketing and business development strategy. Many businesses fail to integrate both internet marketing and traditional marketing strategies together. By taking advantage of the strengths of both an internet marketing and traditional marketing strategy, you will better position yourself and/or your business for greater success.

The idea of a blended marketing strategy is to create a complete marketing strategy which takes advantage of the various strengths of both an internet marketing strategy and a traditional marketing strategy where you work to increase your search engine rankings and internet exposure, while at the same time increasing your reach and exposure offline as well.

Different aspects of a blended marketing strategy can be for example, utilizing an email marketing campaign in conjunction with a direct mail campaign to provide a specific promotion to a select group of recipients. Some email marketing systems provide a service where they will also send a direct mail piece to your email list provided you have addresses for each recipient in your list. This is just a high level example of how a blended marketing strategy can work to ensure broader reach from multiple fronts.

Benefits of a Blended Marketing

The benefits of a blended marketing strategy are vast allowing you truly grow your business at a much more rapid pace than if you didn’t have one. A blended marketing strategy allows you to:

1. Gain Greater Exposure
2. Market to the Same Audience Through Multiple Online and Offline Marketing Efforts
3. Track the Effectiveness of Various Campaign Efforts
4. Identify the Strengths of both Online and Offline Marketing Strategies
5. Create Multiple Promotions for Various Marketing Strategies
6. Generate Multiple Sources to Feed Your Sales Funnel
7. Create Brand Awareness Online and Offline
8. Market Products/Services Both Online and Offline
9. Present Yourself as a Strong, Stable Business

…

Marketing strategy:

Marketing strategy consists of some valuable plans that integrate an organization’s marketing goals. The Proper combination of goals, policies, and action sequences makes the marketing strategies effective. The main aim of marketing strategy is to increase the sales and profits of any organization or company.

Marketing strategy is developed by considering the following factors:

Environment analysis and marketing research:

The observation of external factors that promote success or failure of a company is a most important marketing strategy. The external factors include economy, competition, atmosphere, transport system and solicitation of data to resolve special marketing issue.

Market selection:

For better sales of a product, market selection is significant. The amount of sales of a product depends on the location of the market, whether the market is situated in urban or rural areas; whether the market place is easily accessible for people.

Consumer analysis:

The consumer characteristics such as taste, choice and preference affect the product marketing. The consumer characteristic varies from man to man and location to location. So inspection of consumer characteristics, needs and purchase processes is also important.

Product planning (including foods, services, and ideas):

Product planning includes the development of existing product by changing of the composition, packaging system, product positions, brands and deletion of the old products.

Distribution planning:

The delivery system of the product to various markets, shopping malls and restaurants is also considered for marketing strategy. The distance from the production place to whole or retail seller, transportation system, physical distribution, allocation of goods, wholesaling detailing, inventory management and channel relations are reasonable factors for distribution planning.

Price planning:

Price of a product should be kept in tolerable range for all classes of people so that they can easily pay for the product. If the price of the product becomes very high, the consumer will not buy the product.

Communication Planning:

The communication planning may include the advertising about the product through different mass media, such as the television, radio, newspaper. The more a company publishes, the more it sells. At the recent time, online advertising is another media of publicity. By advertising the companies or organizations gets the chance of focusing their product’s good quality and urging the customers to buy their products.

Brand name:

Brand name of a company has a large effect on the consumer to make them buy their product. A company should select a nice and attractive family brand for its better publicity.

Source by Farid Hossain…

Internet marketing is simply the process of promoting a product or service on the internet, which makes it possible for businesses to reach to a huge number of internet users from all over the world.

There are many different kinds of internet marketing strategies. These include email marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, display advertising, affiliate marketing or search engine marketing.

Focused And Targeted Marketing

The reason that businesses use internet marketing is because it has allowed unprecedented levels of focused and targeted marketing. Customers are looking online for solutions to their problems that work and offer good value for money.But with so many businesses online, you need to clearly present your prospects with exactly the kinds of solutions they are looking for.

Here are 5 ways that businesses use internet marketing to their advantage.

1. Know Your Market

A market or niche is the specific industry that your online business focuses on. Remember that no business can sell to everyone. The more focused you can make the content on your website, videos, social media posts, and any other marketing messages, the more successful your online business will become.

2. A Professional Website

If your website looks unprofessional, prospects won’t hang around for long. Even if you implement every internet marketing strategy to get visitors to your website in the first place, if it looks shoddy and unprofessional, it’s highly unlikely that they will consider buying from you.

3. You Provide Value

Just because the information on your website is free doesn’t mean it should be rubbish. In fact, producing high quality content on a regular is a great way internet marketing strategy. Make sure your website has information on every product and service you offer.

4. Build A List Of Prospects

Use your website to capture email addresses and build your email marketing list. By doing this, you can connect with your prospects on frequent basis. By delivering valuable information via email, it will help you to develop a relationship with your prospects and show you know what you are talking about. That way, they will be more likely to buy from you.

5. Monitor The Trends In Your Marketplace

Success in internet marketing comes from giving your prospects what they want and need. Demonstrate to your potential customers that you know all about all the top products and services available, not just your own. If you study your niche and keep up to date with the latest trends, you can make use of this information to position your business as the go to brand.

Source by Jon Allo…

1. Asses the situation, you need to take inventory of the resources available to your organization. Your resources include your publicity budget, your staff, and distribution channels. The second question you need to answer during the assessment phase is, what is your message and then you can accurately define why you need more coverage.

2. After you assess the situation set your budget and time line. Don’t let your budget impact your goal. A small budget can create the opportunity to try innovative tactics. Depending on your organization you can create a publicity plan for a year or longer. If you are in a crisis situation you may want to create a shorter publicity plan like for 90 days.

3. Next determine who your target audience is. These are your stakeholders which include current donors, potential donors, volunteers and people who benefit from your services, staff and board of directors. It is important to find your distribution channels( the way stakeholders consume information). Knowing your target audience helps select which print/ online publications, radio and television stations to ask to broadcast your message.

4. Set the goal for your publicity plan and identify objectives, your objectives are: to increase awareness by using local and national media to better educate the local and global community about your organization’s cause. To raise your profile to recruit board members and volunteers. To help promote fund-raising activities. These are the objectives for your publicity plan.

5. Determine your tactics. Tactics are the resources your organization will use to carry out your goals and objectives. You can use various distribution channels to achieve your goal such as: face book, email, websites, blogs, online and print news publications, radio and television stations.

Source by Ly Syin Lobster…

Trading has changed a good deal since I first stepped onto the trading floor in the 1980’s and one of the most significant changes has been the development of overnight trading. As I am sure you are aware, most contracts are open for e-mini trading nearly 24 hours each day. The market closes briefly just after the cash session for a half hour and then starts the next day’s trading. Obviously, this creates some tremendous opportunities to catch some decent trades after hours.

So what contract should you trade? The simple answer is; any market that has decent volume and price movement. Alas, that is much easier said than done; many of the lesser indexes are very quiet over the course of the evening hours so you will have to be fairly creative in choosing which contract you plan for your e-mini trading. That being said, contracts like the TF and YM generally lack any real movement overnight. Of course, there will be times when even these lower volume contracts are active, especially if there is some significant news or announcements these two markets can be traded, but generally speaking, you will probably have little success with the YM and TF. These contracts are simply too thin to trade most of the time.

However, there are some contracts that can be easily traded in the evening session, especially during Japanese trading hours and European Trading hours. If it were me I would concentrate on contracts that have a significant impact on the European economy.

Some of my favorite contracts to trade are;

6E: This is the futures version of the Euro and it generally moves inversely to what the DX contract is doing. There were several years that this contract was so hot that I started trading at 4 AM EST and had tremendous success. Since the EU is very actively manipulating this contract with stimulus programs this contract has been a bit slow, but recently it seems to have broken out of the choppy market syndrome that has dominated most of the trading on the 6E.

CL: Let’s face it, people seem to want to trade crude and the price action can be very active. Generally speaking, the night session will be very good on this contract or it will be working sideways in a channel.

6A: This is the Aussie dollar and can often track with crude prices. I would check both contracts to see if the markets are correlating or diverging. There can be important news in Australia that may override the usual correlating nature of this contract with crude prices.

ES: I am not a big fan of the ES, as it can be clunky and grind away in a narrow channel. But this is not always the case; there are many nights when good trades can be found. You don’t have to worry about all the hanky-panky that is typical of the ES during the cash session.

6J: The Japanese currency can also be active during the Japanese cash session. Be careful with this contract because the Japanese central bank has been very active in keeping the Japanese currency price stable. I will admit the measures the Japanese central bank has taken can cause a good deal of movement in price or it may bore you to tears.

6B: The British pound is generally active after 3am EST and can be a real blast to trade. It trades in a fairly logical manner but you should always be on the lookout for unexpected spikes in price as it doesn’t take much volume to push this market around, which is in sharp contrast to trading during the cash session. In short, this is a contract that you should always check for potential trades overnight.

As a night e-mini trader, your goal is to look at the all the contracts and determine which one is showing significant movement. Of the contracts listed above, the 6E will generally have the heaviest volume of the bunch. As an e-mini scalper, all I am looking for in trading at night is some reliable movement in price. As always, best of luck in your trading.

Source by David S. Adams…

Offline Marketing in a Nutshell

The definition of offline marketing isn’t difficult to grasp, since it’s the very same marketing strategy that was traditionally used before online marketing came into widespread use. Before online marketing monopolized the marketing landscape, becoming the primary means most businesses use to promote their products and services, traditional marketing methods were far more prominent and were, in fact, in exclusive use for gaining the attention of the buying public.

Any complete definition of offline marketing would have to include the concept of print-based media. Publications such as magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and brochures, and other types of print media, including letters, postcards, and business cards, have all been widely used to market products. Additionally, the traditional definition of offline marketing typically includes radio, TV, and recordable media such as audio and videotape. In-person encounters, including one-on-one meetings and group presentations such as lectures, seminars, and workshops, also round out the common definition of offline marketing.

Marketing Has Changed

Most of the conventional marketing campaigns we’ve been discussing, which fit the classic definition of offline marketing, carried a hefty price tag – and still do. However, today, they no longer hold the monopoly they once did. They now compete with – or even complement – new media methods. At one time, such offline campaigns were considered one of the inevitable expenses of doing business. But, with the advent of the Internet and today’s extensive line of high-powered digital devices, marketing has changed significantly.

While the overall definition of offline marketing has remained the same and its importance has certainly not diminished, its influence has shifted and its function has changed, opening the way for a whole new era of direct marketing strategies.

Today’s Marketing Requires More

Recently, the old-school definition of offline marketing as a stand-alone strategy – in comparison to the brighter promise of online marketing – has left the offline version the clear runner-up in the marketing race. And while traditional marketing methods haven’t been totally replaced by online methods, they now serve a subordinate role. Whereas, at one time they were the whole story, today they serve to complement, supplement, and/or reinforce online methods by leading prospects to a business’s website or social media fan page.

In short, online methods are the obvious winners in terms of convenience, cost, and reach, yet they clearly benefit when a well thought-out traditional marketing plan is run simultaneously. Because some online marketing methods, such as e-mail and social media, are completely free, they are some of the most cost-effective marketing methods you’ll find! And you can learn to use these and other Internet marketing media effectively.

New Media Marketing Can Be Learned

 

There are many ways to ensure that your online presence is reflected in your offline marketing efforts. Many marketers are learning these processes and implementing them into their own businesses to ensure maximum profits. However, it can be quire confusing in the beginning if you don’t know what you are doing. Which is why I created a free report to get you started in the right foot.

Why wait? You owe it to yourself to stop stumbling through the maze of modern marketing methodology, inconsistently implementing one slow and ineffective trial-and-error tactic after another, when you could begin earning profits quickly, easily, and painlessly. So, do yourself a favor: Read my free report. You have nothing to lose – and everything to gain.

Source by Frank Demming…

We’ll start with the good stuff:

o Guerilla marketing is cheap. At the high end, you

may end up investing a few hundred dollars in

promotional items or a major, centralized piece that

you can build a number of different campaigns around.

At the low end, it’s free — and you can’t beat free!

o In addition to growing your business, guerrilla

marketing involves networking, both with your

customers and with other businesses. In the process of

executing and maintaining your campaign, you will make

a lot of new friends and allies.

o Guerilla marketing is specifically tailored to meet

the needs of small businesses, whereas traditional

advertising venues are complicated and expensive to

the point of exclusion (bordering on snobbishness).

o Many aspects of creative guerrilla marketing

campaigns are just plain fun! You get to perform wacky

stunts and engage in unusual activities, all in the

name of working for a living.

o Guerilla marketing works. If you do your research,

plan your campaign, and stick with it, you will more

than likely end up with a better and more profitable

business.

And now, the not so good:

o Guerilla marketing works — but it is not completely

fail safe. It is, after all, advertising; which is far

from an exact science. The number of variables

involved in advertising guarantees that nothing is 100

percent effective.

oAs with any advertising campaign, you will not be

able to pinpoint exactly what works and what does not.

Obtaining measurable results is difficult (but not

impossible, unlike other marketing techniques).

o Guerilla marketing requires a greater level of

dedication and energy than traditional advertising

venues, which often consist of throwing large amounts

of money at other people to do the work for you.

o If you are looking for a quick fix, guerrilla

marketing is not your solution. You will not see

instant or overnight results stemming from your

efforts. An investment of time is required in order to

achieve your business sales goals.

o Guerilla marketing is not for the thin-skinned or

faint of heart. At the very least, you will have a few

detractors who find fault in your methods. At worst,

you may be threatened with legal action (which is why

it’s so important to check your local laws before

engaging in a guerrilla marketing campaign).

Source by Rich Henderson…

I was asked to select a moral question that a marketing manager is or may be confronting in today’s world and apply the Ethical Reasoning Process in addressing the issue. Ethical dilemmas are a daily concerns for some managers. Patrick Murphy, Gene Laczniak, Norman Bowie, and Thomas Klein, authors of Ethical Marketing, outline the importance of senior leadership in corporate ethics. The article focuses on ethical reasoning.

Here’s an example of ethical reasoning. Please consider if marketing managers should take advantage of selling overpriced government products and services that run counter to the concepts of corporate responsibility. The focus involved a past experience with Westinghouse, Inc. which was contracted to the federal government. Of course, businesses operate to make a profit. However, one may wonder to what extent.

Below is the application of ethical reasoning to this situation:

(1) Definition of an ethical problem: The ethical problem was related to the extent that Westinghouse managers would pursue profitability at the risk of legal actions and damage to the company’s brand. Marketing ethics is the systematic study of how moral standards are applied to marketing decisions, behaviors, and institutions.

(2) Selection of an ethical standard: Westinghouse operated under moral relativism in dealing with the federal government. Moral relativism claims that it is personalized according to the individual and his or her circumstances or cultural orientation. Westinghouse, Inc. executives found themselves with this ethical dilemma. In 1992, Westinghouse was a corporate empire, commanding over $12.8 billion in sales and employing over 116,000 people.

Because of its powerful market position, Westinghouse became a corporate oligarchy in the United States. They were active in several business sectors, including radio and television broadcasting; electronic products; industrial operations; power systems; transport temperature control equipment; and environmental cleanup services. Westinghouse executives’ attitude of ‘being too big to fail’ also carried the baggage of ‘anything goes for profit.’

(3) Application of the ethical standard: Managers set the standards for corporate culture. Ethics involves a company’s values. Mark Johnston and Greg Marshall, authors of Relationship Selling, share how employees watch how senior managers act on ethical matters rather than what they say. Therefore, senior managers should lead the way by example. Overall, leadership always sets the tone for ethical practices in their organizations. In the early 1990s, Westinghouse operated six U.S. government-owned nuclear facilities involving nuclear production. Eventually, the company became the largest civilian government contractor.

With a variety of massive contracts with the military, Westinghouse became the twelfth largest defense contractor. However, there was a great ethical price. Westinghouse had been involved in numerous ethical violations, including labor and environmental problems. In March 1991, the DOE’s Inspector General found that Westinghouse and Bechtel Corp. attempted to conceal millions of dollars in overruns by misleading the federal government. In 1985, a Westinghouse employee was found to defraud the Pentagon of $200,000 by overcharging for electrical equipment. Furthermore, Westinghouse was in numerous litigations of violating environmental laws and circumventing safety requirements.

What should a marketing manager do? Marketing managers are responsible for connecting with key stakeholders and promoting their products or services. At Westinghouse, the marketing manager should have reinforced to corporate executives the importance of protecting the company’s brand.

The executives took a very narrow view of profitability. The marketing manager should have discussed a long view approach. Of course, this solution would have gotten the marketing manager fired, but he wouldn’t have gone to jail. In becoming a corporate mogul in the early 90s, Westinghouse created a profit generating machine that lacked a moral compass to navigate its ethical problems.

© 2013 by Daryl D. Green

References:

Donahue, J. (1992). “Corporate profile: Westinghouse web. Retrieved on September17, 2012 from http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992/03/mm0392_11.html

Johnston, M. & Marshall, G. (2010). Relationship Selling. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Murphy, P., Laczniak, G., Bowie, N., and Klein, T. (2005). Ethical Marketing. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Hall.

Source by Dr. Daryl D. Green…

Marketing is not as simple as many may lead you to believe. In order for your business to be effective, you need to understand what is involved in promoting what you are offering in terms of products and services. That is where a good marketing initiative comes in to play. A marketing initiative is essentially anything that is clearly defined as a marketing effort. Simple, isn’t it? It is basically anything specific in your marketing plan. So what types of things are considered marketing initiatives? Here are a few examples that may help you.

For larger companies, a marketing initiative can be a theme. For instance, a set of commercials that use a specific character or funny situation over and over may be considered a marketing initiative. This, though, would certainly be more common with large businesses. An example of this is the Geiko commercials that feature the cute talking gekko. The initiative is to associate their car insurance services and products with a character that sticks in your head. Being cute is an added advantage. This is why many commercials use cute, cuddly characters such as babies and puppies etc.

Another example of a marketing initiative is undertaking a certain method relentlessly. Sometimes you may wish to focus your efforts solely on one method of marketing. If, for instance, you decide to implement email marketing with great fervor, then you can call that your email marketing initiative. You will outline a plan very specific to that initiative. And you will carry it out. Focusing your efforts into a sole initiative demands that you understand it intimately. You better know what you are doing if that’s the ONLY initiative you’ve got. In addition you also need to have a backup plan in case your initiative does not come through for you as you hoped. Often, when you put all your eggs in one basket, you better have more eggs!

Another type of marketing initiative you may invoke is a large scale shift in what you are doing. If you are going away from traditional marketing to exclusively use the internet that is a whole new marketing initiative you are putting in place. Though not as specific as other examples, it is certainly something that directly affects the marketing of your company. These types of initiatives are usually done parallelly with your existing marketing initiatives. The old initiatives are slowly phased out as the new one takes over.

A marketing initiative can also be as simple as a shift in an idea. You can have a new marketing initiative that simply changes the way you promote your company, or more specifically what about the company you are trying to promote. A shift in positioning is a good example.

Marketing initiative is a broad term that is used often. However, if you understand what it is you will be more able to effectively put an initiative in place if you need to. Changing or implementing an initiative is a big part of the promotion of your business. So it’s important that you understand what it means in the first place.

Source by Khemal Dole…

So lately, I’ve been getting a few messages about a new Travel-based Network Marketing company called Plannet Marketing. And chances are if you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking about joining and you’re doing some last minute research on the company. If that’s the case, then look no further. In this Plannet Marketing Review, I’ll cover all the essential details you’ll need before you join. With that said, I do want to disclose that I am not a Plannet Marketing distributor. In all honesty, it really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other if you join so you know you’ll be getting a truly unbiased review.

Who Is Plannet Marketing?

Plannet Marketing is a company that sells travel through a Network Marketing business model. The company is based out of Atlanta, Georgia and as of this writing Plannet Marketing is just over 6 months old. The company was founded by Donald Bradley, formerly of YTB and Paycation Travel. Bradley brings with him 20 years of experience in Network Marketing. Before starting Plannet Marketing, Bradley was the Master Distributor and #1 Income Earner in Paycation Travel. He literally had everyone in Paycation in his downline and was responsible for bringing in the company’s top leadership group. I’m not sure what happened, but around the time Craig Jerabeck and Barry Donalson left 5linx and joined Paycation was the same time Bradley decided to leave. Maybe he didn’t feel good about those guys joining and being sponsored by the company when he was the Master Distributor. Who knows? And who really cares? Regardless of the reason, it looks like Bradley was willing to walk away from everything he built to start from scratch again. Overall, the company looks pretty solid. And while it’s too early to tell if they’ll even be around for the long haul because they’re only a few months old, Bradley and the other members of the Corporate team bring a ton of experience in Network Marketing and Travel, which is a good thing.

How Do You Make Money With Plannet Marketing?

The actual compensation plan provides several ways for distributors to get paid. But the crown jewel of the compensation plan is the 3X9 Matrix. With a Matrix model, it’s critical that you get a spot early on if you want to capitalize on spillover. If you’re positioned underneath a strong builder, you can benefit from their efforts as they place people under you while they’re filling up their Matrix. With a fully filled 3X9 Matrix, you’ll have 29,523 distributors underneath you. If they’re all active and you get $4 monthly from each distributor, you can make up to $118,092 monthly. In addition to your Matrix pay, you can also earn a 10% Match on the Matrix pay of your personally sponsored distributors.

In addition to the Matrix, the company provides monthly bonuses to Directors. Here’s a simple breakdown of how the Director bonuses work:

1 Star Director – 100 active distributors – $500/month

2 Star Director – 300 active distributors – $1,000/month

3 Star Director – 500 active distributors – $2,000/month

4 Star Director – 1,500 active distributors – $5,000/month

5 Star Director – 4,000 active distributors – $10,000/month

6 Star Director – 10,000 active distributors – $16,000/month

7 Star Director – 25,000 active distributors – $30,000/month

8 Star Director – 50,000 active distributors – $50,000/month

9 Star Director – 100,000 active distributors – $100,000/month

Between the Matrix Pay, the 10% Match on your personals and the Director Bonuses, it’s pretty clear that there’s plenty of money on the back end. If you’re a strong team builder and you have a knack for creating good culture, Plannet Marketing might be a very lucrative opportunity for you.

Should You Join Plannet Marketing?

Well, only you can truly answer that. The company certainly looks solid. Travel is a very marketable service that’s easy to talk about. And the compensation plan is generous and lucrative. All those things together should guarantee success, right? Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. At the end of the day, it is your ability to sponsor people into your business on a consistent basis that will lead to your success. This is why I recommend that you learn Attraction Marketing. If you can position yourself in front of prospects that are already looking for what you’re offering, you’ll have no problem getting leads online. And if you have an abundance of quality leads, there’s no telling how successful you can be.

Source by Jaime Soriano…

Marketing mix is one of the major concepts of marketing. According to the traditional base, there are 4Ps of marketing. These are referred to as the marketing mix. But in the modern use of the term, many more Ps have been coined. People have found six, seven even eleven Ps of marketing. In this article we will talk about the 4Ps and 6Ps.

Four Ps

The four Ps of marketing mix consist of Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Product means the thing that you are selling. It can also be a service like the tourism industry.

Price means the rate at which the product is being sold. A number of factors are involved in determining the price of a product. These include competition, market share, product identity, material costs and the value customers perceive of a product. In fact prices are also determined by competitor’s products. If the competitors have the same product, then the price of a product will go down.

Place refers to the real or virtual place from where a product can be bought by a consumer. Another name used for place is called “distribution channel”. Promotion is the way that a product will be communicated to the general public. There are four distinct ways in which this might be done- ‘point of sale’, ‘word of mouth’, public relations and advertising.

Somewhere down the line people felt that four Ps were not enough for marketing mix. It had to face a lot of criticism mainly on the grounds that it was extremely product focused. This was not enough for the economy which is based a lot on services as well nowadays.

Another criticism that marketing mix has to face is that it does not have a ‘purpose’. So it should be looked upon as a tool that sets marketing strategy. Another criticism of marketing mix is that it does not discuss customers. This is why the concept of Six Ps of Marketing mix has achieved relevance.

Six Ps

The six Ps contain all the four Ps of marketing – product, price, place and promotion. In addition, it contains, two new Ps, namely People and Performance.

People include the potential and current customers of the business and how they make their purchase decisions. Market segmentation is also a part of this. It contains the features of market segmentation and the most attractive segments of this market.

The next P is Performance. This implies the performance of the business. The financial and strategic objectives of the business are dealt with here. It is also seen whether these objectives are achievable and realistic or not. The metrics of financial performance are also seen and appropriated in this division.

The six Ps of marketing mix help to overcome the criticisms of the four Ps. Hence the 6Ps serve to be a better alternative as compared to the 4Ps of marketing mix.

Source by Pepik Smith…