Whether you have a mainly offline (bricks and mortar) business or an online business, the social media are some of the latest and best sources of income.  Think of them as another profit center, another way for your business to expand.

Twitter is one of the most important of the social media in the Web 2.0 sphere.  It is a microblogging platform designed for networking with other people around the world.  The really good news is that you can do it for profit! 

Of course, like anything worth having, it requires dedication and diligent work.  The business person must be prepared to do it and keep on doing it to ensure the payoff.  These media should not be considered get-rich-quick schemes or pushbutton profits.  They are very effective, if you are willing to go about the process seriously.

If you are interested to know more about it and how it can be turned into another business or profit center for your current business, go take a look at this.

To your business success!

Paul Elliott

Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.

Tags: hypnotic marketing, Internet marketing, scientific marketing, small business, strategic marketing, guerrilla marketing, offline marketing, psychology, offline business,

Whether or not you have a web-based business you should know about the value of the "social media" including blogging.  In my opinion, you should learn about it and how to use it.  It will help any business whether offline or online based.

Here is some of the best information on the subjects, and it’s all free!

Chris Brogan has done an excellent job of giving us all the basics and much more at http://www.chrisbrogan.com/my-best-advice-about-blogging/.

To your business success!

Paul Elliott

Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.

Tags: business, offline business, scientific testing, , hypnotic marketing, offline marketing, psychology, Internet marketing, strategic marketing, scientific marketing

Actually, a good headline is worth a thousand words–maybe more.

You want to have several to test to see which one produces the best result.  While formulas are important starting points, no formula will give you real marketplace results like testing will.  Always prepare your material so the testing will be easily done.  Otherwise you will be tempted to gloss over it.

To your business success!

Paul Elliott

Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.

Tags: Internet marketing, guerilla, strategic marketing, scientific marketing, hypnotic marketing, offline marketing, guerrilla marketing, offline business, , small business

Mr. Jim Rohn is a man with broad ranging experience in business success instruction and motivation.  He is described as America’s Foremost Business Philosopher, but he is actually much more.

I have followed his work since I first heard him speak about 30 years ago and have profited greatly from his advice.

Here are some of Jim’s tips.

NINE THINGS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CAPITAL by Jim Rohn

When starting any enterprise or business, whether it is full-time or part-time, we all know the value of having plenty of capital (money). But I bet we both know or at least have heard of people who started with no capital who went on to make fortunes. How?, you may ask.

Well, I believe there are actually some things that are more valuable than capital that can lead to your entrepreneurial success. Let me give you the list.

1. Time.

Time is more valuable than capital. The time you set aside not to be wasted, not to be given away. Time you set aside to be invested in an enterprise that brings value to the marketplace with the hope of making a profit. Now we have capital time.

How valuable is time? Time properly invested is worth a fortune. Time wasted can be devastation. Time invested can perform miracles, so you invest your time.

2. Desperation.

I have a friend Lydia, whose first major investment in her new enterprise was desperation. She said, “My kids are hungry, I gotta make this work. If this doesn’t work, what will I do?” So she invested $1 in her enterprise selling a product she believed in. The $1 was to buy a few fliers so she could make a sale at retail, collect the money and then buy the product wholesale to deliver back to the customer.

My friend Bill Bailey went to Chicago as a teenager after he got out of high school. And the first job he got was as a night janitor. Someone said, “Bill, why would you settle for night janitor?” He said, “Malnutrition.” You work at whatever you can possibly get when you get hungry. You go to work somewhere — night janitor, it doesn’t matter where it is. Years later, now Bill is a recipient of the Horatio Alger award, rich and powerful and one of the great examples of lifestyle that I know. But, his first job – night janitor. Desperation can be a powerful incentive. When you say - I must.

3. Determination.

Determination says I will. First Lydia said, “I must find a customer.” Desperation. Second, she said, “I will find someone before this first day is over.” Sure enough, she found someone. She said, “If it works once, it will work again.” But then the next person said, “No.” Now what must you invest?

4. Courage.

Courage is more valuable than capital. If you’ve only got $1 and a lot of courage, I’m telling you, you’ve got a good future ahead of you. Courage in spite of the circumstances. Humans can do the most incredible things no matter what happens. Haven’t we heard the stories? There are some recent ones from Kosovo that are some of the most classic, unbelievable stories of being in the depths of hell and finally making it out. It’s humans. You can’t sell humans short. Courage in spite of, not because of, but in spite of. Now once Lydia has made 3 or 4 sales and gotten going, here’s what now takes over.

5. Ambition.

“Wow! If I can sell 3, I can sell 33. If I can sell 33, I can sell 103.” Wow. Lydia is now dazzled by her own dreams of the future.

6. Faith.

Now she begins to believe she’s got a good product. This is probably a good company. And she then starts to believe in herself. Lydia, single mother, 2 kids, no job. “My gosh, I’m going to pull it off!” Her self-esteem starts to soar. These are investments that are unmatched. Money can’t touch it. What if you had a million dollars and no faith? You’d be poor. You wouldn’t be rich. Now here is the next one, the reason why she’s a millionaire today.

7. Ingenuity.

Putting your brains to work. Probably up until now, you’ve put about 1/10 of your brainpower to work. What if you employed the other 9/10? You can’t believe what can happen. Humans can come up with the most intriguing things to do. Ingenuity. What’s ingenuity worth? A fortune. It is more valuable than money. All you need is a $1 and plenty of ingenuity. Figuring out a way to make it work, make it work, make it work.

8. Heart and Soul.

What is a substitute for heart and soul? It’s not money. Money can’t buy heart and soul. Heart and soul is more valuable than a million dollars. A million dollars without heart and soul, you have no life. You are ineffective. But, heart and soul is like the unseen magic that moves people, moves people to buy, moves people to make decisions, moves people to act, moves people to respond.

9. Personality.

You’ve just got to spruce up and sharpen up your own personality. You’ve got plenty of personality. Just get it developed to where it is effective every day, it’s effective no matter who you talk to - whether it is a child or whether it is a business person - whether it is a rich person or a poor person. A unique personality that is at home anywhere.

My mentor Bill Bailey taught me, “You’ve got to learn to be just as comfortable, Mr. Rohn, whether it is in a little shack in Kentucky having a beer and watching the fights with Winfred, my old friend or in a Georgian mansion in Washington, DC as the Senator’s guest.” Move with ease whether it is with the rich or whether it is with the poor.

And it makes no difference to you who is rich or who is poor. A chance to have a unique relationship with whomever. The kind of personality that’s comfortable. The kind of personality that’s not bent out of shape.

And lastly, let’s not forget charisma and sophistication. Charisma with a touch of humility. This entire list is more valuable than money. With one dollar and the list I just gave you, the world is yours. It belongs to you, whatever piece of it you desire whatever development you wish for your life. I’ve given you the secret. Capital. The kind of capital that is more valuable than money and that can secure your future and fortune. Remember that you lack not the resources.

Credit Statement to be included in Reprints:

This article was submitted by Jim Rohn, America’s Foremost Business Philosopher. To subscribe to the Free Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine go to www.jimrohn.com.

Copyright © 2001-2006 Jim Rohn International. All rights reserved worldwide.

Tags: small business, guerilla, scientific testing, scientific marketing, strategic marketing, , guerrilla marketing, offline business, offline marketing, hypnotic marketing

There are a number of classic copywriting formulas. They are classics because they have proven very effective over time. These formulas work equally well for website work, email, direct mail, brochures, and advertising in many formats and media.

One of these very effective script writing formulas is: fear, fear, solution.

Your focus must be on your customer.

You must understand your customer or prospective customer well. His or her problems and how to solve them should be your main focus. If you don’t solve someone’s problems, nothing sells and nothing happens.

Until you learn and better understand the customer’s problems and the fears he or she has associated with those problems, you will not be very effective in your marketing programs.

Once you do understand those elements, you can look in your group of products or services to develop solutions to solve the problems and relieve fears of the customer.

“Fear, fear, solution” is one formula. Here is the process.

You pose a fear you know the customer has or should have; then, you amplify that one as you pose another; then, you offer the solution to the problem and the relief of those fears, . . . which is your product or service.

Of course, the process is somewhat longer than that, but the thread of the principle is found throughout.

To your business success!

Paul Elliott

Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.

Tags: guerrilla marketing, offline marketing, hypnotic marketing, Internet marketing, scientific marketing, small business, offline business, strategic marketing, psychology, scientific testing

 DISASTER PLAN: How Lose Customers In A Single Move!

At times it is surprising how easily large corporations make huge errors in judgement!

In this case the company which produces the Absolut Vodka brand produced a TV advertising campaign for airing in Mexico that played on the longstanding rub the Mexicans have had toward the U.S. for having lost the Mexican-American War of 1848.

Absolut Vodka apparently never supposed that people in the U.S. would never even know the TV ad campaign had even run.  Has their ad department never heard of the Internet?

Incredible!  Check out this article which tells more of the story — http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/05/america/LA-GEN-Mexico-US-Absolut-Ads.php

The marketing lesson?  Know your customers — all of them!  Understand them very well.  Never take them for granted.

Never assume you will be able to target a segment of your customers exclusively–you won’t.  Of course, you can target them selectively, but you cannot do so exclusively–avoiding that some for whom the message was not intended will also see it.  Keep constantly in mind that your customers are intelligent and they are informed, especially in these days of mass media and the Internet.

Remember, one of The 88 states that, “You should never leave to chance anything over which you can exert some control!”  (Get more on this subject by subscribing to “The 88 Marketing Tips That Will Change Your Life!” on this site.)

Profile your customer as precisely as you can.  Understand all you can about his or her likes and dislikes.  Part of this understanding is the demographics of your average cusotmers–where do they live, what are their ages,  incomes, where do they shop for groceries, what do they do for recreation,  etc., etc.  The more you can know about your customers the more effectively you can present your products or services to them.

In preparing your Disaster Plan be sure it is designed to avoid disasters . . . not create them!

To your business success!

Paul Elliott
Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.

The marketplace is the sole arbiter of the success of your programs. It alone determines what works and how. Ignore that at the peril of your business.

In spite of the fact you may love your business, product, or service, never allow your love of such things to override the results of your market testing.

Design and pursue an effective process of testing everything. Testing often has the reputation of being too complicated or expensive, but it does not have to be either complicated or expensive.

For example, you can test your advertising programs simply by having your receptionist or salesperson ask where a prospect learned of your business.

While this is very simple and effective, I have been amazed how frequently a business has no formal method to record and analyze the results. Business owners who do this will too often say, “We collect this data.” When I ask to review the results, I am then told, “Well, we simply get a ‘feel’ for it.”

While a “feel” may be reassuring, it is certainly far from scientific and very ineffective for planning or adjusting marketing plans and programs.

If you insist on failing to test, failing to use the data you have at your fingertips, or failing to follow what the marketplace is shouting to you about your business, you invite failure. The more you ignore these things, the more quickly will be your failure.

Another thing to keep in mind as you decide whether you will follow the information the marketplace is providing you is, that if a competitor hires a good marketer, you will have little hope against that competitor.

It is so easy to build an excellent, thriving business with the consistent application of good marketing principles, it is almost sinful to avoid doing so.

I urge you never to allow a complacent attitude toward effective marketing drag your business over the brink of failure. Well, perhaps not failure, but at least limping performance. It that what you really want for your business?

To your business success!

Paul Elliott

Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.

Tags: small business, scientific testing, offline marketing, , offline business, business, guerilla, hypnotic marketing, guerrilla marketing, scientific marketing

The Power of Continued Customer Connections

When your customer or contact gave you his or her information, that was permission to begin the process of “affinity bonding.”  Affinity bonding, discussed in more detail in “The 88 Marketing Tips That Will Change Your Life!” is really little more than building a gradually strenthening relationship bond with each customer.  (Sign up for the “The 88 Marketing Tips That Will Change Your Life!” at http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/)

Each follow-up contact you have with the customer, over time, further strengthens that affinity bond developing a very strong and lasting relationship with him or her.

This is one of the most valuable assets a business can possibly have!

Once you have made the initial contact with a thank-you note or welcome letter expressing your thanks, this affinity bonding process has started.  BUT do NOT let the process cease there!  If you do let the affinity bonding process slide or drop it altogether, you are allowing large amounts of money flow down the drain.

Continue to make contact with your customers several times a year to thank them, remind them that you are still around, and that you still do whatever it is that you do.  It is especially productive to do this around Thanksgiving and the Christmas Holidays and the New Year–any or all.
 
But don’t stop there!  Continue direct mail and email campaigns giving them “unannounced” specials or sales only they get because they are your most valued customers.  Remember to put a date limit of some sort.  This gives the message of scarcity and limited availability–both excellent psychological triggers.  It also helps you avoid having to fulfill on your offer long after you were expecting to do so.

I suggest you mail at least every 3 months and email at least every 3 weeks.  This keeps your name in front of your customers.  Strengthen that affinity bond, don’t let it simply decay into non-existence.  It’s too valuable an investment to allow that.

Remember you can automate that process very conveniently and inexpensively.  Check this out at Marketing Success Blueprint.
 

 To your business success!

Paul Elliott

Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.

Tags: scientific testing, psychology, offline business, hypnotic marketing, guerrilla marketing, , business, scientific marketing, small business, offline marketing

                       Should You “Pay” For Referrals?  

You certainly should pay for referrals, though not necessarily in the sense that the headline might suggest.

Without a doubt, you should recognize anyone referring you business or potential business.  You want any referral sources to know that you are aware of their confidence in you and your business and that you appreciate their telling others about you and recommending you.  We human beings want and need acknowledgement of our efforts.  While that acknowledgement doesn’t necessarily have to be a direct payment per referral, it often is.  However, there are many other ways to offer thanks of tangible value.

You can offer coupons or bonuses for referrals.  If you have served your customers well, they will likely be very willing to refer other people including friends and family members to you, IF you give them the suggestion that they do so AND offer a small bonus to them and the people whom they refer to you.

There are several ways to get your current customers to send you referrals.  One is to send them some of your business cards, say five, with a code on them that identifies the customer from whom they have come.  When the referral brings in that card, he or she gets a special bonus or discount, AND the referring customer gets one also.  IF the bonus or discount is appealing enough, your customers will LOVE to pass out these cards.

Another form of recognition that works well is to offer a gift certificate to a popular local restaurant or for a popular store in your market area.  As you see the benefit of such a program, you will think of more variations.  In fact, the variations are even more beneficial to you than the same program all the time, year-in-year-out.

If you know the lifetime value of your customers, it is easy to understand how you can afford to be generous with both the referring customer and the new customer.

Remember, when it comes to your current customers, doesn’t it make sense to turn them into raving fans?  Imagine how nice it will be when your customers become your most effective sales force!  Nice thought, isn’t it?  But you can do exactly that with a systematized approach to developing your relationship with your customers.

Please don’t tell me it won’t work.  I’ve done it! . . . and done it more than once!

But you must take action now!  Start that program today!

To your business success!

Paul Elliott

Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.

Tags: psychology, scientific marketing, offline marketing, scientific testing, small business, , hypnotic marketing, guerilla, offline business, business

 A Critical Marketing Process: Know, Like, and Trust

That is the psychological process your customer experiences in the process of developing the affinity bond with you and your business.

Every person prefers to purchase goods and services from someone he or she knows.  That makes sense, doesn’t it?  If you know someone, you feel more comfortable with what he or she has to say.  Of course, if you don’t like or trust that person, you will simply move on to some other source.

The next stage in the affinity bonding process is to come to “like” the person we have recently come to “know.”  This takes more interaction–more interchanges in the affinity bonding process.  This process is part of developing relationships.  Good relationships simply don’t instantly develop.  It takes time and multiple contacts.

After we have come to like someone, we have more confidence in what that person says.  As that confidence develops, we come to “trust” the person.  We begin to not only have confidence in what he or she says, we also develop a trust in everything he or she says.  Again, notice that this is a process which occurs over multiple contacts and interchanges.  

The average sale of nearly anything requires from five to nine contacts.  Some sales experts say that number can be as high as eleven.  Another interesting statistic is that 80% of salespeople never make the second contact!  That is amazing when it would be so easy to continue the process with additional contacts.

Of course, in the process of affiinty bonding it is not necessary to do that with a face-to-face contact, though that does count.  You can contact your customers with email, postcards and letters, telephone calls, faxes, etc. 

Again, making additional contacts  with your customers and potential customers is so important!  You may say, “But that is simply too much trouble.”   My response would be, “Do you prefer to spend five ot six times more time, effort, and money to make your sales?”  That is what it will take to sell a given amount of goods and services to someone you have never met as compared to someone you already know.

Understanding that your response should be, “Paul, I’ll be delighted to continue the process of contacting all the people on my list.  I know some of the potential customers will become customers and some of my customers will become excellent customers!”  Why would you want to simply spend more to get the same amount of income . . . or less?

Do you want to automate the process making it much more effective and less time consuming?  You should.  Take a look at this.  I’ve found it to be very successful and makes my work a lot less.  You can try it out without making a committment.

Any way you do it, by all means build the “know, like, and trust” pattern in the people on your list.  Later we’ll discuss how to turn your customers into raving fans.

To your business success!

Paul Elliott

Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.

Tags: small business, hypnotic marketing, scientific testing, business, offline marketing, , psychology, guerrilla marketing, strategic marketing, offline business