Strategic Giveaways: Crafting Effective 'Free' Offers for Lasting Engagement Give away something for free. Free is the strongest word in marketing provided that it is used wisely. Giving away something of value is always welcomed by a prospective buyer. They have the opportunity to experience what you are selling without having to make a firm commitment. Once that have been [...]

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Strategic Competitive Intelligence gives you the edge over your competition Your competitors can be your best source of information. Use them to your advantage. Whenever you undertake any kind of marketing, one of the first things you should do is evaluate what your competitors are doing. The idea is not to simply copy them, but to actually learn from them and try to identify [...]

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The Dynamic Nature of Strategic Branding: Beyond the Logo Your brand is your product or company name and what it stands for. It is not only your logo as some people mistakenly believe. Your brand is a living organism, something that changes over time, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, depending on how well you take care of the brand. It is often a key [...]

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Leveraging Warranties as Effective Sales Tools When you buy a new product from a store, doesn't it make the purchase easier when they salesperson says to you: "and the product is warranteed by us for 3 years"? Very often, just the use of the words warranty or guarantee helps to reinforce the product or service that is being sold, even if the warranty is never used. It's like that[...]

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Navigating the Shift from Do It Yourself Marketing to Professional Guidance for Business Growth For many smaller businesses, marketing is often a Do It Yourself project. That often works at a basic level and I encourage you to do that when it is appropriate, and when you have the time and the required skills. At a point in time (and every business owner will have a different [...]

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Turning Satisfaction into Advocacy: Crafting Compelling Case Studies and Customer Testimonials Who are the best and most respected promoters of your business – well obviously, it's your happy customers. So why not take advantage of this tremendous goodwill by documenting case studies and testimonials that your customers can endorse. If your customers are truly satisfied, they[...]

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Identifying a Precise Target Market for Enhanced Marketing Strategies One of the most critical things a business person needs to do is decide who they want to sell their products or services to. In marketing terms that is known as The Target Audience. While it is often totally logical, many people cannot truly identify exactly who their target audience really is. They often [...]

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Only by Diversifying Marketing Strategies can you stand out from the crowd Wow, we're almost ½ way through the season and it feels like we've only just begun. Over the last nineteen weeks I have spoken about a wide range of basic marketing techniques that every business owner or manager should be using. It's time to get more serious and to discuss a range of marketing [...]

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Embracing Change: The evolution of print to digital marketing materials Do you realize that the world we live in is a very different place to what it was 3 or 5 years ago? The same reality applies to how we all do business, and it is especially true with how we market our businesses. The single biggest change is how the world has become digital, with marketing messages moving [...]

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Leveraging Satisfied Customers for Effective Referral Marketing Well it's definitely not the business owners, nor the people that work in the business. Quite simply, it's your best and most loyal customers. They have the most intimate, and relevant, knowledge about your business and why it is meaningful to customers, like themselves. Very often, business owners won't truly [...]

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