Resource Allocation

Resource Allocation

by: Michele Borowsky

So here you are…a business owner. Bravo!

You’ve got a catchy name, you’re equipped with all the right tools, your website is up, and now you’re ready to do business. So you start to network online, join the right groups, check out search engine adwords, subscribe to applicable newsletters for insight, and buy some of the better known marketing gurus books.

Hmmmm, not much is happening.

Okay, so now you begin to check out local networking groups in your community. You may join the Chamber of Commerce, the Elks, the Friars, various business networking groups….. and a little more is happening.

Then you look into trade shows in your area. You need collateral materials to hand out so you create an attractive flyer, perhaps start to mail out some postcards, let all your networking associates know about your trade show booth. Then you work the show…… and a little more begins to happen.

Now you start in earnest a referral program for your existing clientele. You know, if you send me a new client I will give you ____% off your next order.

Hmmm….didn’t get much from that.

So you then conclude that you have to start the process all over again. Work harder. Put in more time. Network more and better.

Okay, all good. But what’s missing? The fact is that regardless of your category of business, you will actually, on average, do business with less than 10% of all those who are aware of your company. That’s it????? Yup.

So what can a business owner do? There’s only so much time in the day. I’m doing all I can.

Yes, you are. But how about using your time to do what it is that you actually do, rather than trying to find people to do it with.

It’s now time to let media start working for you.

The next step for you is to start budgeting all of your resources. Up until now you’ve been using time, the one resource which cannot be created or renewed. Once it’s been used, it’s gone forever.

How about starting to use another resource…..money!

Do you have an advertising budget? Have you ever even thought about it? Invariably an advertising budget is the one thing which new business owners don’t allocate for, don’t consider, and just can’t bring themselves to spend. And I ask, Why Not??!!??!!

One of the reasons is that you’ve been indoctrinated to believe that successful marketing is a function of mindset, positive, proactive, enthusiastic, etc. All true. And all marketing. Your results to date have been less than explosive. Coming in dribbles rather than a downpour, and, as previously mentioned, your conclusion is to work harder.

What happened to paid for advertising?

How about working wiser for a change? Start to allocate a percent of each sale that you make to your advertising budget. Just like you have a household budget, you need to have a business budget.

And what will an advertising budget do for you? It will enable you to reach thousands of people with your business message, instead of just dozens. Can you imagine??? Thousands of people being aware of your company, thousands of people considering your products or services, thousands of people that you can market your message to. Wow. What a concept.

About The Author

(c) Michele Borowsky

Michele Borowsky is a 20+ year executive veteran in a Media Exposure Management firm and the author of The Mother of All Marketing for Business Owners.

http://motherofallmarketing.com

She can be reached at 6024042657 or by emailing: [email protected]

This article was posted on September 25, 2004

by Michele Borowsky

Work At Home, Go Bankrupt At HomeItกs Your Choic

Work At Home, Go Bankrupt At HomeItกs Your Choice

by: Isaiah Hull

If you want to make an income working at home, you must mitigate spending in the early phases of your venture. If you spend wildly, you will never make money. I can promise you this now. It happens to almost every person who tries to work at home; it happened to me and I nearly gave up, too.

It is fine to set high goals, but you must always be grounded in reality when it comes to your finances. You must record your expenses and you must plan to buy certain products and services at certain times. If you do not do this, you will overspend and you will fail. This is a guarantee.

Part of careful budgeting is learning what works and what does not. As annoying as it may seem, it is essential to track the results you get from all forms of advertising and expenses. You will have to slash unnecessary costs if you want to succeed. If your marketing plan is to purchase every opportunity you find, operate on a high outofpocket budget, and hope that throwing money at your problems will fix them, you wont see the results you want. You will slowly lose money and confidence.

I do not care how much money you are willing to lose: your success will be directly related to your patience and the economics of your business modelnot an opportunity you might happen to stumble over one day.

Patience is something you either have or will develop quickly working at home. If you do not have the patience to work out problems, to find the best products and services without buying each one, and to buy only when you need tonot when you feel the impulseyou will waste a lot of money; however, this problem will work itself out: either you will go broke and give upor you will learn to have patience.

The economics of your business model is also something that you will shape over time and continually change. When you begin your work at home venture, it is essential to research your field, find the best opportunities, verify them through multiple independent sources, and then create a budget based on your best judgement. It is also essential to be selective when you alter your budget. When you find an opportunity or service that you really want to purchase, write it down. Find more information about it. Come back to it at the start of your new budget period.

If you want to get the highest possible consistent return on your spending, you must maintain a focused, dynamic budget. This means you must concentrate your spending, track the results, and then be ready to change your budget for the next period to reflect your analysis of the previous monthกs outcomes. Do not shift from service to service during the same budget period. This will only obscure your results.

Joining a group of people who want to work at home is one of the best ways to artificially shape your budget model faster. You can find hundreds of these groups on the Internet alone; and in each of these groups, you will find people who are more experienced than you are, have tried some of the things you plan to try, and can tell you what has and has not worked for them. If you want to maximize your spending, this is one of the best places to start. There is no better resource than real, live people, who have succeeded in your field and are willing to tell you how you can do the same.

In summary, working at home offers opportunityseekers flexibility and unlimited income possibilities, but if you do not apply the correct business model to control your spending, your statistical chance of succeeding is low. If you do the following things, you will succeed:

Keep a dynamic, focused budget.

Remain patient.

Track your results.

Find mentors and friends in your field to help you.

Remember: You can go broke at home or you can retire early working from home. The choice is yours: be patient and economical and you will see results; or act spuriously and reap failure.

Copyright 2004 Isaiah Hull

About The Author

Isaiah Hull is the webmaster of http://www.workathomerightnow.net . Email him personally at mailto:[email protected] to receive free, personal, stepbystep instructions to build a home business online for an investment of $0 to $300/mo.

This article was posted on October 05, 2004

by Isaiah Hull

AdWords Campaign Set Up Tips Part Two

AdWords Campaign Set Up Tips Part Two

by: Chris Burgess

Ready for more tips on how to make your AdWords campaign work more effectively for your business?

Start with a Modest Budget

Just as you should start with a smaller geographical region, start with a modest campaign budget. Spend a few days or a few weeks fine tuning your ads before you really decide to pump up the budget. The more กfinishedก and tuned your ads are before you start spending serious amounts of money on advertising, the better.

Patience in building a strong ad group before you expand will benefit you and your bottom line.

Remember Your Audience

Write ad text that will appeal to your audience and bring in the traffic you want. If your products appeal to hobbiests, use terms that hobbiests would understand. If your products are directed mainly at younger customers, use youthful verbage and terms that will draw their attention.

You only have your ad text to convince the กrightก customers to visit your website. Make those words count by making sure that you target the message toward them.

Attract the กRightก Customer

There is a fine line between writing ads that appeal to customers enough to get a high clickthrough rate and writing ads that merely draw anyone. You want to have a high click through rate on your ads, since it will get you higher placement and save you money. You don’t want to attract customers who won’t ever becom customers though.

Use strong action words in your ads. Include powerful selling points and benefits. Try to stay away from phrases that will draw everyone though such as กfreeก and กbargain.ก Write an ad that will bring you viewers who have a good chance of becoming customers too.

About The Author

Chris Burgess is a Marketing Expert with BuyItSellIt.com Online Stores (http://www.buyitsellit.com). He has established and maintained successful pay per click campaigns for BuyItSellIt.com and many of its customers. To build an online store for your small business quickly and easily, sign up for your own free 30day trial online store at BuyItSellIt.com.

This article was posted on August 22

by Chris Burgess

The Magic Of Exponential Business Growth

The Magic Of Exponential Business Growth

by: Ewen Chia

Is there a กmagicalก way to exponentially grow your business?

Itกs about the timeless business principle known as ‘reinvestmentก.

Look, one of the most exciting times for any new business is the time when effort begins to pay off. Finally, the sales are coming in and you have profit to show for all your hard work. It is very tempting during this time to splurge those profits…

But youกve to resist this urge and stop!

You do deserve a reward. You deserve the greatest reward of all: a highly profitable, growing and thriving business with LONGTERM stability. You deserve to take your business from where it is to where you dream it to be.

Again, one quick and easy way to close that gap between reality and desire is simply by reinvesting a potion of your profits back into your business.

Itกs the same for any business offline, and itกll be the same for any successful business online.

Letกs look at why this is so.

Every business requires a minimum budget to get off the ground. Likewise, every business requires an expanded budget in order to grow and increase profitability. Remember that your budget covers more than กoperating expensesก and advertising. It is also there to cover the purchase of new software, fund new projects or your continuing education.

Keeping this in mind, what are some areas you can reinvest in:

* Increased Reach and Exposure

When you begin with a small budget, your advertising options are naturally somewhat limited. Once you have the money to reinvest you can begin testing new channels to deliver your message. This may mean placing an ad in an ezine you couldn’t afford to before, or even taking your efforts offline to print and radio advertising.

* Expanded Tactics and Improved Testing

You have the opportunity to try out new approaches. You also have the opportunity to increase your current ad spend in existing campaigns and test the results. This is critical especially in pay per click advertising. For example, your minimum daily budget for a Google Adwords campaign affects the number of times your ad is seen and clicked on. A simple increase in your daily budget may turn a mediocre campaign into a winner.

* Rapid Growth Through Efficiency

There are any number of tools you can invest in to improve how you organize your business, how you manage customer service and even how much tracking of sales and traffic you can accomplish.

Anything which shortens the time you spend on the detail work of your business means more time to focus on the activities which improve your bottom line.

* Improved Products

You must constantly strive to create new products and improve on existing ones in order to remain competitive. Perhaps your first product didn’t quite fit your vision? Perhaps your web page could use a tune up? You can reinvest in improved graphics, improved design and other multimedia enhancements. This not only makes your product more attractive, it also increases its value and what you can charge for it.

The principle of business reinvestment is really about profitable growth through momentum and careful planning.

A business is very much like a seedling you want to grow into a tree. It requires air, sunlight, water and food. You tend to it and nurture, even when the immediate benefits aren’t obvious.

This is because you know the tree WILL one day bear fruit all year round.

When you tend to your business with the same care, every cent you invest will return to you tenfold and bear profit for years to come.

If youกve been doing this, great…

If not, maybe itกs something to think about, starting right now.

Copyright 2004 Ewen Chia

About The Author

Ewen Chia is the CEO of Instant Marketing Secrets Inc, delivering realtime uncensored marketing content to help marketers skyrocket their traffic, sales and profits. Sign up for more profitpulling marketing letters, tips and strategies instantly here:

http://www.InstantMarketingSecrets.com

This article was posted on October 10, 2004

by Ewen Chia

7 Tips to Setup your Home Business Budget

7 Tips to Setup your Home Business Budget

by: Alex Timaios

Every Home Business entrepreneur in the world has a clear and well defined goal: to earn money with his/her Business. Then the next question would be: how can we know if we really ?earn?or are just loosing money? Allthough it sounds trivial, it is not.

I assume that only in few cases a fellow home business entrepreneur will be able to have an own accountant to calculate the Profit/Loss sheet. So you may need to help yourself. Let?s go step by step. Setting an own Budget could help you to know ?when you are in plus?and when the opposite is the case.

A Budget is nothing else as estimating costs and income. As every ?prediction?, calculation and reality could differ. Thus it is your task to review your budget from time to time and adjust it based on real numbers. The ?real numbers?are the ?actuals?you get from your business. The ?budget?is the estimation of your costs and income. There are several applications on the market to perform the mentioned steps. For the beginning, you can use a calculation sheet.

1) Choose the periodicity of your budget. Usually you may choose weeks or months. This means you need to calculate every cost to a weekly or monthly basis. I.e. if you pay for your autoresponder 120$ a year, the monthly costs are 10$ and the weekly costs are equal 120$ divided by 52, getting 2,31$ per month

2) Make a complete list of all recurring costs you already know: i.e. Web hosting, Residual Income Fees, your autoresponder, lead subscriptions and so on. Make a complete list with all costs you already know. Consult your credit card statements and search your Paypal account for subscription payments. Transform the costs to the unity of time you have chosen in step 1 (i.e. monthly or weekly).

3) Now make a list of all ?one time?payments you plan to have this year, and calculate the accruals for the periodicity you have chosen in Step 1. Example: you plan to buy Internet Marketing Literature for 300$ this year (this is your Budget). You could calculate then a monthly ?costs?of this literature as 25$ a month, or 5.79$ per week. If you have purchased equipment (i.e. Hardware), you need to distribute the costs amount the life of the product. I.e. one PC usually is used for three years. If you pay 1000$ as one time payment, you can distribute the costs over three years, giving 333.33$ per year or 27.7$ monthly, or 6.41 $ per week. This is call ?depreciation.?. If you now that after three years you may sell the PC for 200$, calculate the depreciation accordingly, starting now from 800$ (1000$200$). As you see, Hardware is not as expensive as you would expect, from the financial point of view.

Add the costs obtained in step 3) to the list you have already prepared in step 2). Now you have the complete list of your estimated monthly or weekly costs.

4) Now we come to the most interesting section: your Earnings! Obviously you can be in ?plus?, only if your earnings are higher as your costs. This sounds again trivial, but is not easy to achieve.

Most of the Internet Marketing Newbie?s would expect to be ?in plus? after a very short period of time. This is unrealistic. As you have seen in the first steps of the calculation of your budget, you may consider Hardware, Literature, Marketing spending and other costs that in the first months do not have the corresponding earnings. Thus, it is absolutely normal that you may have a period where you are ?in minus? for a while, till you reach your ?breakeven point? (earnings = costs).

But let?s come back to the earnings. In Internet Marketing, your earnings are derived from sales. There are either direct sales or indirect sales from your downline, if you are driving an MLM like business.

Here you will see that the estimations of earnings is obviously much difficult then the estimation of your costs. Ideally, you may express your earnings as a percentage of your marketing spending. If your marketing effort is not able to produce sales, you may review it and look for other marketing strategies. You need to achieve that every penny invested in marketing lead to internet income. IF you have tracked properly your marketing campaigns, you may be in a good position to estimate your ?conversion rate? (the percentage of your clicks that lead to sales) and thus, can express your earnings as a percentage of your marketing costs.

Example: you are running a Campaign with PPC Search Engines to promote your business. You pay 0.05$ per click and achieve 300 clicks a month. Your corresponding recurring costs of 15$ a month are already considered in your budget.

Your conversion rate may be 1%, so you expect three sales per month. If you get 8$ per sale, your monthly earnings are 24$ a month. This means your profitability is 25% (24$15$) / 15$. For every advertising dollar you get 1.25$ sales.

The total profitability of your business will be lower, since you need to consider the total cost and not only the PPC marketing cost.

The problem may consist that at the beginning you will not know the conversion rate of your campaign, so you will need to work with estimations. Once you have the real numbers, review your estimations based on that numbers. Your Budget will get more and more accurate, the more data you can provide.

5) Now you can build your Budget based on Costs and estimated earnings month by month.

You may decide to ?reinvest? part of your earnings and increase your marketing spending month by month.

It is time now to put all data into your Calculation Sheet. Start building columns, one column per period (week or month). Per each period, reserve two columns, one for your budget and one for your ?actuals? (your real numbers).

Divide your rows in ?Earnings? and ?Costs?, subdivide them in several rows for your earnings (in the case you are working with multiple programs, reserve one row per program) and one row per each cost element identified in the steps 12.

Reserve a Row for a sum of all your cost elements (per period) and a corresponding row for the sum of all your earnings (per period). At the end, add one Row with the difference of your earnings minus your costs.

Now you are in the position to see period by period, what is the ?net result? of your business. You will see immediately if you are earning or losing money.

As already mentioned, it is absolutely normal that in your first months (or years?) you will have more costs then earnings. This is the case for every business. However you should be now in the position to ?predict? when your ?breakeven? point will be reached (total earnings = total costs, per period). You may decide to invest more in marketing activities if they seem to be profitable, or save costs by reducing your recurring expenses.

6) Review your budget on a regular basis. The more data you have, the more accurate your budget will get. Calculate period by period your conversion rate and monitor the results of your marketing activities. Put the results back to your budget and create new Budget ?versions? for that purpose.

7) Now run your business! Your Budget is now a powerful instrument to give you a good financial basis if you are on track or not. Some people have the tendency to oversee spending and overestimate earnings. If you feed your budget with real data, it will give you an instant view of the results of your entrepreneurship! Most of the CEO´s of the world are doing exactly that. Of course financial aspects are important, but can not replace your Vision and Strategic thinking. But it can ?bring you back to the earth?, if your strategy and vision is too ambitious, but can not be financed.

About The Author

Alex Timaios is an international Marketer, specialized in Home Business and Residual Income generation. He runs the websites http://www.101homebiz.com and http://www.101workathome.biz.

This article was posted on February 17

by Alex Timaios

How Much Does A Website Cost?

How Much Does A Website Cost?

by: Steve Lillo

To receive a complementary consultation and free quote for your website project, complete our project survey form located here.

As a website designer, this is often the first question that I am asked by a new client. The simple answer is that it costs whatever you are willing to spend; anywhere from free to millions of dollars. A more productive process to address the issue of cost is to answer a series of questions.

What are your needs, goals and expectations?

What are the needs and expectations of your site visitors, customers and clients?

Is your business already established with its unique brand/identity?

What is required in terms of the skills, experience and level of design?

Do you want to hire a high profile design house, a medium sized design studio, a small company or a student? What can you afford to budget for your project?

We’ll take a look at these questions to see how they influence the cost of creating a website, look at two simple examples and give you some ideas for coming up with a budget for your project. In general, the cost for a website will be based on how long it takes for design and implementation plus any additional costs required for hardware or software. While there are certainly no hard and fast rules, the more experienced the design company, the higher their hourly rate. Generally, the more robust and complicated the site needs to be whether for handling large amounts of traffic, for technically sophisticated programming and database integration or for specialized images and text the higher the cost.

What are your needs, goals and expectations? What are the needs and expectations of your site visitors, customers and clients?

It’s important to address what your ideas are for a website and why you want one. There may also be details or uses that you haven’t considered. The needs and expectations of your target markets are also important and will also address your analysis of your competition. A good designer will support you through a process to determine what is required to achieve the results you require. PlanetLink often provides this as a consulting service with a portion of the fees applied towards the actual design work. Projects can also be implemented over time so that the costs can be spread out. The more involved the needs of the project, the greater the cost.

Is your business already established with its unique brand/identity?

Websites on a tight budget generally don’t address this issue. It’s important that your website accurately represent who you are from the perspective of กlook and feel.ก If the way your business is visually and thematically represented is structured and effective, then the process of creating the imagery for your website will ideally be an extension of what already exists. If the budget allows, for businesses without a unique identity or style, often the generation of the website is an opportunity to create print materials at the same time, thus saving costs.

What is required in terms of the skills, experience and level of design? Do you want to hire a high profile design house, a medium sized design studio, a small company or a student?

At PlanetLink we look at the process of website creation from three perspectives; artistic/creative, technical, and marketing. A good design company will have skills and expertise in those areas. In general, the more skilled and experienced the team, the higher their rates and the higher their minimum project fees. Some design firms don’t take on a project for less than $20,000. You will also find designers that will create your site on a perpage cost (okay for simple, low cost sites, but not recommended for anything beyond that). Someone who is just getting started in the business may also do your project for free just to get the experience.

What can you afford to budget for your project?

This is really an important question to ask yourself. What are your current expenditures for marketing? For sales? For support? What are your expectations/projections for revenue, or reduction of expenses from your website? What is the current annual revenue for your business? Your budget should, to a degree, be commensurate with the level at which your business is operating. If your website were for a large corporation, the budget would be higher than for a small sole proprietorship.

Let’s take a look at two examples:

A small business needs a website for their business so they have a presence on the Internet. The site is simple about 5 pages with information about the business, the services they provide, and a form that can be submitted and the information received via email. The budget isn’t available for creating a graphic กlook,ก and existing images will be used. A smaller, less experienced designer may take on a project like this for a few hundred dollars. A medium sized firm might quote $3000 to $4000 depending on variables. A larger firm would probably not take a project this small.

A mail order company wants to get into online sales. They currently have no website. They have a narrow mix of about 200 products with a broad target market; it’s also time to update their image. Depending on a wide range of variables, a project like this could start at about $7000 and go into six figures.

So back to our question, the cost for your website is determined to a large degree by what you can afford to spend. The complexity, size and needs play an important role as well as the level of expertise and experience of the design team. Generally, the more you spend on your website, the more website you will get for your money, an obvious statement but true nonetheless. In developing the budget for you project; remember to consider your needs and expectations, the level of design, size and complexity required for your projectกs success.

Additionally an important component, beyond the scope of this article, addresses the promotion and marketing of your site the best project in the world isn’t likely to be successful if no one knows about it. Be sure to include the costs associated with your marketing program.

About The Author

Steve Lillo author of Websites That Work! is the President of PlanetLink, a website design and consulting firm which specializes in creating websites which get results. They also provide their Web Rx Service for increasing the effectiveness of existing websites. PlanetLink can be reached at http://www.planetlink.com or by telephone at 4158842022.

[email protected]

This article was posted on June 18, 2003

by Steve Lillo

Postcard Printing: Swiftly Meets Your Standard and

Postcard Printing: Swiftly Meets Your Standard and Budget

by: Maricon Williams

Postcard printing can easily take us from fantasy to reality. Thus, to be an effective postcard, it must have striking, colorful image plus crisp text. This will call for a situation of excellence in graphic design and photography. You can acquire the look you wanted by a file in your computer. If you don’t have any, then leave it to the expert in the printing industry. Printing companies will help you achieve the transformation through an electronic link between the image in your computer or their image and an offset printing process. With just a few clicks away, the postcard that has been haunting you in your imagination will come to life accurately produced, delivered and ready to market your business!

You may think that going from 1 or 2 color printing services to online printing for custom 4 color or four color printing is a complicated process. The truth is it is not! All color printing of postcards, business cards, bookmarks and the likes is gang run. It means that numerous files are on the same sheet. Thus, it is not that complex as we imagine it to be.

Compared to other forms of advertising, postcards are relatively easy to produce. Yet, oftentimes, inadequate production time is allotted. It can be exasperating and categorically unacceptable to have it scheduled weeks before the need. With an efficient, printing company, you will be assured that your postcards will be printed within the time stipulated thus, meeting your deadlines. In addition, there are companies who can speed up the printing and shipping if you are really in a rush.

Postcards need not be costly in order to come up beautiful and engrossing. Postcard printing quotes must be one of your most important budgeting considerations. As an intelligent purchaser, you must monitor the competitive printing prices and strive for the best possible price within your printing standards. Today, a secure online ordering process and reliable delivery system is available to guide you with your budget. Printing quotes online are essential tools to acquaint you with the printing price so that you can balance it with your budget.

In choosing the printing company to take care of your printing needs, be sure that they will free you with forthcoming worries about the quality printing you ordered online. They must have the integrity to reproduce a quality postcard just the way you wanted it at the price agreed upon in their printing quotes!

About The Author

Maricon Williams

I love reading. Give me a book and Iกll finish it in one sitting. Reading is the chance to be transported to a different world and so is writing. Iกm more enthusiastic about writing however, since you can relay your ideas to someone else. I can only imagine that feeling when I hear a complete stranger talking about my ideas which read on an article somewhere. To relay my message to as many people is the same as touching people with music. Only mineกs less harmonic. I try to make up for it with the color I bring with words. And most of the time, it’s more than enough.

For additional information and comments about the article you may log on to http://www.printingquotesonline.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 01

by Maricon Williams

Five Tips for Trade Show Success on a Small Budget

Five Tips for Trade Show Success on a Small Budget

by: Rena Klingenberg

No matter how small your marketing budget, your business can afford to have a successful presence at trade shows without incurring big expenses. Here are five tips for exhibiting in trade shows inexpensively:
1) Have a sales representative exhibit your line at a trade show. If you can’t afford a booth and travel expenses, a sales rep who exhibits in trade shows or gift marts in your industry can present your product line without the cost of a fullfledged booth. An added benefit is that a professional sales rep has a network of connections and knows your market niche well, and is likely to be more experienced in selling and trade show dynamics than you are.
2) Rent a temporary space at a wholesale gift mart or showroom. You can plunge into wholesale shows inexpensively and without being present by renting a temporary space in a wholesale gift mart or showroom. For a monthly fee, you can display your products there for direct sales to retail shop owners. This is a good way not only to break into wholesaling on a small budget, but also to test new products.
3) Share a trade show booth and expenses with a related but noncompeting business in your niche. This costcutting solution works especially well for oneperson businesses. Besides saving money, additional benefits to a boothsharing arrangement include access to each otherกs customers in the same market niche, and the convenience of having a knowledgeable person manning the booth when you need to take a break.
4) Make over your current displays instead of buying new ones. Creating a new exhibit by giving your existing trade show booth displays a fresh face costs a fraction of the price of purchasing all new booth components. Consider each element of your booth separately, and brainstorm ways to update it without completely replacing it.
5) Purchase used trade show displays rather than springing for new ones. Many preowned booths and exhibits are in excellent condition and can be bought for less than half the cost of a brand new one. If you decide to buy previously owned exhibit components, be openminded and keep your display needs in mind. Visualize how each used exhibit might perform for you.
For even greater savings, look at used trade show displays offered at rockbottom prices because of damage or missing parts. If you can think creatively about how youกll refurbish the damage or replace missing pieces, you can come up with an effective, original display for very little cash.
Many sellers of preowned trade show displays are willing to bargain with you. Don’t hesitate to offer the seller less than the asking price. It helps to research beforehand the retail price for the exhibit so you can make a reasonable offer.
In summary, thereกs no reason to miss out on potentially profitable trade shows because of the expense. Look at your small marketing budget in a new light, and brainstorm ways to put those limited dollars to work helping you reach new customers.

About The Author

Rena Klingenbergกs website, http://www.tradeshowboothdisplay.com, is a resource for trade show exhibit success information. She is also editor of the online newsletter ‘trade Show Success on a Small Budgetก at http://www.tradeshowboothdisplay.com/newsletter.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on May 16, 2004

by Rena Klingenberg

Stretching Your Marketing Dollars7 Cheap and Eas

Stretching Your Marketing Dollars7 Cheap and Easy Ways to Market on a Budget

by: Mohamed Rabea

Just because you have to stretch your marketing dollars doesn’t mean their effectiveness will decrease. The easiest marketing solution is often to simply throw money at a problem. But that is rarely the most effective. When Businesses are forced to use creativity and ingenuity to market on a budget, that is when some of the best results happen.
There are always going to be rough times in any business. But those who throw money at their marketing problems instead of finding alternative means will find themselves in a tough financial situation.
Here are a few cheap and easy marketing methods that won’t drain your bank account:
1. Learn to barter. Not every price is fixed. For instance, TV and radio time that goes unsold is wasted forever, so stations will usually accept offers below their normal rates.
2. Create your own marketing materials with desktop publishing programs. These programs are easy to learn and use, so after a few hours of study, youกll know your way around well enough to create simple marketing materials. If you aren’t confident in your design skills, find a sample piece to model yours after. In the marketing world, looking over someone elseกs shoulder for the right answer is permissible.
3. Get a tollfree number. Although long distance rates are more affordable than ever, most people will still hesitate to call a long distance number. If you have a toll free number, there is nothing standing between you and your potential customers.
4. Buy smaller print ads and run them consistently. In the end, the repetitive printing of your ads will elicit more results than running a few large, impressive ads.
5. Buy cable TV ads. Now anyone, no matter how tight their budget, can advertise on television. Cable rates are incredibly cheap and you can even target your commercials to specific parts of the city.
6. Get the cell phone package with the most minutes and give your number to everyone. When customers can get a hold of you anytime of the day or night, you can connect to more persontoperson sales.
7. Don’t sacrifice your image by accepting shoddy production or design. A shoddy advertisement gives you a shoddy image. Continue to hire professionals to design your ads, but shop around for the best prices. Hire a professional designer to create a visual format, then hire a lowercost designer to do your followup ads with the original as a guide.

About The Author

Mohamed Rabea is the owner of one of the Internetกs most popular home based business and marketing websites, available from http://www.bizpeak.com & http://www.bizpioneer.com

This article was posted on June 28, 2004

by Mohamed Rabea

Business Goal Setting and Then Following Through

Business Goal Setting and Then Following Through

by: Joy Gendusa

Your business can’t go according to plan if you have no plan.

What do you want to achieve this year? More new customers per week? Higher average order amounts? Better customer service ratings? No matter what it is you are shooting for, goal setting is one of the most important things that you will do in the New Year. I’ve got a few tips to help you get there.

1. Keep it Challenging but Realistic.

Any goal that you set for your company should be challenging but don’t over do it. For example, if you had an average order amount of $700 last year, you wouldn’t want to set your goal for this year at $3000 per order. Unless you make drastic changes in how your company runs or what you are selling, that goal is just not realistic. You know best what you may be able to achieve in your particular industry, so be honest with yourself and set your goals accordingly.

2. Write All Your Goals Down.

You may say to yourself on January 1, กI want to get 20 more new customers per week this year.ก A few months later you will be saying กDid I say I wanted 20 or 30?ก Or more realistically, you have forgotten that you even made that goal. If you have all of your goals written down you will be able to not only go back and check them, you will also be able to go down the list every few months and check to see how many of them you have completed.

3. Assess Your Current Situation.

To set goals you have to know where you are at right now. In 2003 I wanted to assess our customer service rating so we sent out a survey to all of our customers on which they could rate us in each department of our operation. That helped us establish our base. Now we send the survey to every customer after every order. This way we can keep track of how we are doing and if there is ever a hiccup we can fix it quickly. Don’t assume anything. Always assess the current situation before setting a new goal.

Itกs Only Going to Hurt A Little…

Now, in financial goal setting for your business, one invariably comes to the question: ขHow do I decide on a budget when starting a marketing plan?ข

This is obviously the first question that you have to answer in order to get started on your new campaign. And in order to reach the income goals you have set for yourself.

So how do you figure out what your budget should be? Here is an easy method to help you find a number that is going to work for you and your business. Some might say that it is a good rule of thumb, but I personally judge things on whether or not they work and get results. That’s all.

Moving on… Start with the amount of income that your company generated last month and multiply it by .14 (or 14%). That means that if you had $50,000 in Gross Income last month you should budget to spend $7000 on marketing in the next month. Wait… I know, it sounds painful but it is just like a shot at the doctor. It might hurt for a minute (or in this case a month) but down the road you are going to be glad that you went through it. Putting that much toward the right marketing will bump up your income the next month and start you on a cycle of steady growth.

I know that some businesses run tighter than others and it is possible that you won’t be comfortable with that amount in the beginning. Don’t misunderstand me, any marketing is better than no marketing. Don’t get discouraged if your budget is lower than 14%. But use 14% as the ideal to strive for because, for me as well as many other growing businesses, it has proven to give the best rate of growth possible. How do I know, you ask? My company has expanded 400% in the past 2 years. Now picture your business at 4 times its current size… Thereกs that smile I was looking for!

The growth of your business is based on three factors; quality products, great customer service and the proper amount of marketing. If you know you have the first two taken care and you still aren’t experiencing healthy growth then you need to take a serious look at your marketing budget.

So sharpen your pencils, start calculating and decide how rapidly you want your business to grow.

Please take a moment this week to sit down and decide on your goals for the New Year. Even if it is past the New Year and even well into the year, set your goals for the rest of the year.

Everything is easier when are working towards a goal. My goal is your success and I assume that is your goal as well.

About The Author

Joy Gendusa founded PostcardMania in 1998; her only assets a computer and a phone. In 2004 the company did close to $9 million in sales and employs over 60 persons. She attributes her explosive growth to her ability to choose incredible staff and her innate marketing savvy. Now she’s sharing her marketing secrets with others. For more free marketing advice, visit her website at www.postcardmania.com.

This article was posted on March 03

by Joy Gendusa

Internet Marketing On A Budget

Internet Marketing On A Budget

by: Thad Collins

Establishing a web presence on the internet is based on two factors when you are on a budget, your willingness to devote time to your marketing efforts, and knowing the true facts of what really works in the world of internet marketing. There are many site promotion companies that promise to generate traffic for your site, but if you are a business on the Internet, you want more than just hits; you want potential customers to visit your site. The techniques discussed below will give you an understanding of what is working on the Internet, and bring those customers to you if properly applied.
The fact is, that increased visitors to you site may increase its ranking on some search engines, but would you rather have 10,000 visitors from traffic generating sources just clicking through so they can generate traffic to their own site, or 1,000 visitors who are seriously interested in the products or service that you are offering. There are many avenues available to the smart net marketer on a budget if they understand who they are aiming their marketing efforts towards.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO requires you to seriously reduce your web content into a few sentences and keywords. Getting a high ranking on a search engine is more vital than most marketers will admit, and the common mistake made by netrepreneurs is concerning keyword listing. The myth being that you list every word with the slightest importance in the ขmetatagข section, with main keywords being continuously repeated. The fact is, that most search engines will consider this spamming, and will generally reject your submission. The site I am promoting, consumermortgagereduction.com uses only essential keywords, and I do not repeat any of them more than three times.
There are a lot of search engine submission sites on the web, and these are great for initially announcing your site, but the best way to get high ranking is to visit the few engines that still accept ขfreeข submission, and submit directly to them. The purpose of the search engine is to find new site on the web and catalog them, and they generally search one another for new site listings. A high ranking on a few free search engine will get you listed on the engines that are ขpay for inclusion,ข this may require a bit more time, but it can save you money in the long run.
The best source for increasing traffic to your site is article submission; I have an article I wrote entitled ขSearching The Internet Without Search Enginesข that was picked up by hundreds of web marketing and advice sites. To be successful using this type of marketing requires repetition, and writing on topics you are familiar with. These articles do not have to be sales pitches for your site, just information relating to topic you are familiar with, and most services that use your article will have a ขbioข section that you can use to discuss your site.
The object of article submission is for the sources that use your articles to become familiar with your writing, and feel that you have something to say about a particular topic. It does not hurt to mention your website in the article, but do not use the article to simply sale your website. If you look at my site http://www.consumermortgagereduction.com, you will see that we provide Equity Acceleration and Mortgage Auditing Business Opportunities, but after ten years of marketing various websites, I feel that I can help the next netrepreneur avoid the mistakes and pitfall that I have made, so that’s why I submit article on promotions and marketing.
Newsgroups have been around since the early development of the web, and they are still considered an excellent source for people to share ideas. Posting to a newsgroup about your business is basically the same as writing articles, it should not be a blatant sales letter, but instead it should be an invitation for potential customers to visit your site. Newsgroups encompass a variety of general subjects, so no matter what type of business you operate; there is a newsgroup to post your message to.
These groups have some basic rules, it is important that you visit the groups before posting, and find out if your content is suitable for inclusion in the group. Some newsgroups are monitored by a group moderator, and posting unrelated content to these groups can cause you to be ขflamedข and banned from posting by members of the group. Nevertheless, newsgroups still remain a good source for discussing topics you are proficient in, while getting members who are interested in your business to visit your site.
The last tool I will discuss on marketing on a budget is classified marketing, and this tool can be extremely effective if used correctly. There are a large amount of sites that provide classified advertising for free, and an effective classified campaign requires that you develop headings that will attract the attention of the potential visitor to your site. The majority of free classified sites restrict the number of words you can use, generally to twentyfive or thirty words, so write copy that will get your message out with the fewest word s possible. Remember that these sites receive a great deal of listings, so be sure to post to them often, and change your heading and message to keep it fresh.
Effective website promotion on a budget can be an elusive goal to achieve if you fail to use the right tools effectively get your message out. Some of these techniques will provide you with instant increases in traffic, while other may take weeks or months to show results. The techniques listed above are intended to relay your experience in a given industry, and as an expert in your field of business, these sources can accomplish more than any paid advertising can achieve.

About The Author

Thad Collins is the owner of CMRS which provides equity acceleration business programs to entrepreneurs, you can visit the site at http://www.consumermortgagereduction.com

This article was posted on June 17, 2004

by Thad Collins

Market Your Site with a Smile

Market Your Site with a Smile

by: Dessy Oundian

If you have a business, you know that the most important thing, yet the hardest, is to get your product out to your clients. It does not matter if it is a Tshirt, a baby crib or the latest toilet seat. Getting your product to you clients is called MARKETTING and it costs MONEY. Of course, it makes money too, otherwise why would the big boys spend billions of dollars to advertise and market?

Right… But if your budget is limited, how can you find the way to your customers’ wallets? Two words: Be Creative! Put your imagination at work, combine it with technology and come up with an Internet Marketing Strategy. You will be amazed how cheap, yet highly effective a properly designed Marketing Campaign can be.

The best way I know to bring more traffic to your site without spending too much money is the word of mouth. If you have ขsticky contentข your visitors will come back for more, and they will share your URL with their friends. A good idea is to use appropriate humor content on a special section on your web site, because as any good marketing specialist will tell you, humor is one of the two things that sell most.

Humor is wonderful for getting attention. It can be extraordinarily effective when it is used correctly. People will actually look for your site, talk about it and email links if it’s good. Why? Because people like funny things. They relax and pay attention when they know you have a sense of humor. It puts them in a good mood, and it creates a more comfortable atmosphere and a more positive image for your company. It makes you easy to approach, and easy to remember.

And thatกs a fact. But where do you start your quest? Here are a few links for:

1. Daily cartoons – a very good/cheaper than you think idea. A funny cartoon will bring you more repeated visitors than anything else. You can get a license to use a daily feature from a cartoonist, or if you have a budget you can even commission some custom work for your site. Prices vary. Check out http://www.evlad.com

2. Humorous column – another winning idea. Finding a good writer that will fit your web site can be a bit tricky, though. Here is a link to one that I personally like: http://www.barrylank.com

3. Ecards a great example of viral marketing. All the big sites have a special ecards marketing budget. Some of them are spending millions per year only for quality content. You can have an ecards section on your site easily and for a lot less with the services of http://www.cardsup.com

4. Free screensavers – it’s a good idea to offer free humorous screensavers to your visitors. Each screensaver is a reminder of your web site and carries a link that the user can click and come back to you. http://www.humordrive.com

Another way to obtain quality content is to contact any of the syndicates that distribute comics and columns. Here is a short list:

http://www.creators.com

Creators syndicates a bunch of cartoons: Agnes, Flight Deck, BC, Wizard of Id, Miss Peach, Rugrats and Ballard, just to name a few.

http://www.kingfeatures.com/subg.htm

King Features hosts several dozen cartoons including: Hagar the Horrible, Curtis, Dennis the Menace, The Better Half, The Amazing Spiderman, Baby Blues, Zits, and many more

http://www.latsi.com/

The L.A. Times Syndicate has fewer cartoons in syndication. It features the cartoons of Single Slices, 9 to 5, Dr Katz, Sylvia and 9 Chickweed Lane and more.

http://www.unitedmedia.com

Looking for Snoopy and Peanuts? Dilbert or maybe Raising Duncan, Rose is Rose, Frank & Earnest? They and almost 90 more comics can be found here at United Media.

http://www.uexpress.com

UComics offers Garfield, Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, Fox Trot, Ziggy, Overboard, Stone Soup and many more.

About The Author

Dessy Oundian is the marketing Guru behind http://www.etoon.com one of the largest searchable cartoon databases in the world. Find Tshirts and other custom apparel, get information about licensing our cartoons or send ecards.

This article was posted on April 05, 2004

by Dessy Oundian