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Debbie LaChusa Profile and Articles
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1). 2 Ways To Eliminate Your Competition – It’s Easy!
Eliminating your competition is the easiest way to increase your chances of business success. And I don’t mean literally eliminate them, in the sense
2). 4 Easy Ways to Get Free Marketing Exposure
Are there really ways you can get valuable marketing exposure without spending any money? You bet there are. The trick to uncovering these met
3). 5 Easy Ways to Create Great Info Products
So you've decided to start publishing an e-newsletter, or you'd like to develop a Special Report as an added-value for your customers, or maybe you've
4). 5 Steps to Success: A Surefire Way to Achieve Your Goals
No doubt you started this year with some big
ideas about what you wanted to accomplish.
I know I did!
Maybe it was how many new clients you wanted to get, or how much money you wanted to make, or how many products you wanted to sell.
In the world of marketing, these "big ideas" are called goals and objectives. And, they are what dictate your every move, when it comes to marketing, that is.
5). 5 Tips to Help You Identify WHO To Market To
If you have your own small business, it's important to decide exactly who you will be marketing your products or services to. After all, you probably
6). 5 Tips to Help You Market When You Think You're Too Busy
What if you've taken the time to create a marketing plan but now you're so busy servicing your current clients that you're having a hard time keeping on track with your plan?
Is it okay to set the plan aside for awhile? After all you've got enough business to keep you busy. And, you're not sure you could handle additional clients right now anyway.
While marketing may not seem like a necessary activity when your business is going gang-busters, it's only a matter of time before your lack of marketing starts to impact your business.
7). A Great Logo Is A Marketing Must-Have. But Is It Affordable
And is having a logo really that important? My answer to both of these questions is an emphatic YES!A logo is a graphic or visual representati
8). A Great Logo Is A Marketing Must-Have. But Is It Affordable For Small Business?
And is having a logo really that important? My answer to both of these questions is an emphatic YES!
A logo is a graphic or visual representation of your brand. Your brand is your business, product or service and what it stands for. It's whatever you are out in the marketplace selling.
Why do small businesses need a logo?
Why can't they just market using their company name? Logos are expensive, right? Can a small business owner really afford to get a logo? Or at least a good logo? Lots of questions.
9). A Marketing Lesson From TV's The Apprentice
Advertising and marketing are creative disciplines. That's one reason I love being a part of the marketing industry. Finding creative solutions to hel
10). Are You a Small Business Lone Ranger? Take My 10-Question Qu
So what exactly is a "Small Business Lone Ranger?" A "Small Business Lone Ranger" is a business owner who does all the work themselves.No matt
11). Are You a Small Business Lone Ranger? Take My 10-Question Quiz To Find Out!
So what exactly is a "Small Business Lone Ranger?" A "Small Business Lone Ranger" is a business owner who does all the work themselves.
No matter how big or small the project, the Lone Ranger handles 100% of it. Either because they're afraid to let go of control or because they feel they can't afford to hire help. Can you relate? I know I can!
So what's wrong with doing everything yourself? Well it's tough to grow your business if you're busy managing every single detail.
12). Are You Missing Out on Free & Easy Marketing?
Did you know there's something you do every single day that you
could be using as an opportunity to market your business?
What is it?
Sending email. How many email messages do you send in a day?
I recently went back and counted the messages in my Sent folder.
I use several email accounts, but in just one of them I found an
average of 10-12 messages a day.
13). Are You Sabotaging Your Marketing Success?
What?!? Sabotage your own success? Who would do that? Well, you'd be surprised how many small business owners think they are effectively marketing the
14). Beat the Holiday Sales Blues With These Festive Marketing Id
The holidays can be a tough time of year for some businesses. Let’s face it, if you are not in a retail business tied to the holidays, odds ar
15). Beat the Holiday Sales Blues With These Festive Marketing Ideas
The holidays can be a tough time of year for some businesses.
Let’s face it, if you are not in a retail business tied to the holidays, odds are your business dips this time of year. It’s a natural phenomenon - consumers are preoccupied and busy so they tend to put off purchases and decisions that they don’t absolutely have to make, until the first of the year.
16). Can Small Business Owners Really Afford A Great Logo?
And is having a logo really that important?
My answer to both of these questions is an emphatic YES!
A logo is a graphical or visual representation of your brand. Your brand is your business, product or service and what it stands for. It's whatever you are out in the marketplace selling.
Why do small businesses need a logo?
Why can't they just market using their company name? Logos are expensive, right? Can a small business owner really afford to get a logo? Or at least a good logo? Lots of questions.
17). Customers: The Key To Successful Marketing
How well do you know your customers?
What is the primary reason your customers or clients come to you? Or purchase your product or service? What is the Number One problem you solve for them? Do you know? Are you certain? If you don't, your marketing could be missing the mark, and you could be missing out on sales.
Uncovering Your "Key Selling Point"
This is the Single Marketing Message that is the central message in all of your communications about your business, product or service.
18). Deciphering Marketing Lingo for Small Business Owners
Maybe you've heard these different marketing terms, maybe you haven't. Either way, let me help to clarify the difference between them, because you should have all three if you want to market successfully. And knowing what they are may be your first step to accomplishing all three for your business.
Unique Selling Proposition
A unique selling proposition,.
19). Determining Marketing Effectiveness Even If You Didn't Track
What if you've done a variety of marketing activities over the past year, but you did not establish any way to track the response? Now you don’t know what worked and what didn’t.
Is there anything you can do now before you continue with your marketing efforts and potentially continue spending money on not-so-effective marketing activities?
First of all, don’t beat yourself up.
20). Do I Have To Be A Good Writer to Market My Own Business?
Many of the most effective low-cost marketing strategies require writing. What can a small business owner do if they're not much of a writer? Can they still market their business themselves on a shoestring budget?
Marketing is a form of communication. And you do need to be able to write well to communicate effectively.
So what do you do if you don't write very well? You have two choices.
21). Does Your Marketing Pass This 10-Point Test?
Good marketing, whatever form it takes, always meets certain criteria. That's what makes it good. The following 10-Point checklist will help you determine if your marketing passes the test.
I challenge you to evaluate one of your recent ads, promotions or other marketing activities to see how it measures up.
1. Does it focus on the solution or benefit you provide?
Too often ads simply list product or service features.
22). Dramatically Improve Your Marketing Results With These 6 Simple Steps
What if there were things you could start doing now that could help you to market more successfully in the future? Even if you didn’t have your marketing act together over the past year. Well, there are.
(1) Review your past marketing activities and results
Take some time to review all of your marketing activities and try to understand which ones worked best.
23). Drive Tons of Traffic to Your Web Site
If you've got a web site then one of your biggest marketing challenges is how to generate traffic without spending a fortune. Whether you're trying to build your ezine or prospect list or get potential customers to contact you or buy your products or services, getting people to your web site is a must and can be a challenge.
Especially if you don't have a big budget to spend on online marketing, and if you're having a tough time getting your site to show up in the search engine rankings.
24). Earning the Right to Sell with Stats — 10 Steps to Greatness
We could learn a thing or two from pro sports.
Baseball players use stats to tell the story of their season and their career. Scorekeepers keep track of every at bat, every hit, every strike out, every run scored and every base stolen.
Those stats are cited by commentators during the game, sports reporters after the game and they are featured on the backs of baseball cards to they tell the story of the player's career.
25). Getting a Web Site Can Be Fast, Easy, and Inexpensive When You Know Your Options
So what do you do if need to get a web site but you're not sure how to go about getting one. The good news is you have several options. To help determine which option is best for you, ask yourself the following five questions:
1) How computer literate am I?
2) How easily do I learn new computer programs?
3) How much time am I willing to put into.
26). Getting Your Prospects' Attention: Create A Character
When you are marketing and selling a product or service, it's key that you understand who you are talking to.
Who is your ideal customer?
Who has a problem that you, your product or service can solve?
Who would be most interested in your product or service?
Who is most likely to buy your product or service?
Once you identify who the best customer or ideal client is for your product or service, write a description of that person.
27). Help! I Don't Know What to Name My Business
If you are just starting your business, or if you have just developed a new product or service for an existing business, one of the first questions you need to answer is, "What should I name it?" And while you may feel pressure to make this decision quickly, I caution you to not make it lightly. What kind of things should you take into consideration when choosing a name?
Don't Use Your Own Name
Well, first of all, use a name other than your own name.
28). How To Get Others to Market Your Product or Service for You
Marketing can be expensive and most small business owners don’t have big marketing budgets. So looking for targeted ways
to get free marketing exposure is a great solution. You may have considered public relations as a low cost marketing tactic, but
what if you can’t write, or you don’t have the time to sit down and create a press kit or even write a press release?
Well, there’s an easy way to get publicity that does not even require you to write a press release.
29). How To Market Effectively Even If No One Understands What You Do
So how do you effectively market your product or service when one knows anything about them because you're in a new and emerging industry? How can you expect to get customers if no one understands what it is that you do?
If this is your situation then a big part of your marketing strategy will need to be educating consumers about what you do. If yours.
30). How To Massively Multiply Your Web Exposure AND Position Yourself As An Expert
What's the quickest, easiest way to get exposure for your business all across the web AND turn yourself into an expert, in one fell swoop? The answer is Article Marketing. And if you haven't heard of it, or tried it yet, you're missing one of the most effective and inexpensive marketing strategies available on the net.
If you can write, or find someone to write for you or edit your work, you can use Article Marketing to dramatically increase your exposure on the web.
31). How to Not Waste Money on Marketing
If you own your own business, you're probably innundated with advertising and marketing opportunities and salespeople. You probably get asked to sponsor events and donate to organizations. Maybe you've even been hit up by the premium company trying to get you to buy pens with your company name on them.
So how do you know what to spend your marketing.
32). How Well Do You Know Your Prospects? Take this 10-Point Quiz to Find Out
It’s crucial to know your prospects if you want to market effectively to them.
Take this quick quiz to see how well you know and understand your prospects. If you can't answer these questions, how can you be sure you are connecting with your audience in a relevant and meaningful way?
How can you be sure you are reaching them with a compelling message.
33). Identify The Ideal Target Audience With These 5 Tips
Narrowing your focus to one primary group of people is often difficult for small business owners. They want to help everyone — and very often their product or service CAN help a variety of people.
It also goes against human nature to narrow your focus in order to grow a business. Common sense seems to tell us if we want to grow our business big, we need to appeal to more people.
34). Improve Your Marketing Results With These Simple Steps
What if there were things you could start doing now that could help you to market more successfully in the future? Even if you didn’t have your marketing act quite together over the past year? Well, there are.
Review your past marketing results
Take some time to review all of your marketing activities and try to understand which ones worked best.
35). Increase Your Sales With an Incredible Offer
What are you selling?
Coaching? Consulting? Professional services? A product? Information?
To start with, you need to sell your product or service in terms of benefits to your clients and not features.
Clients want to know what your product or service will do for them, not necessarily all the credentials you have or the process you use.
But once.
36). Is A Marketing Plan The Same Thing As A Communications Plan?
How does a marketing plan relate to an organization's communications plan? What are the differences? Is the marketing plan just one aspect of the communications plan? Should one consider combining them into a single document?
A communications plan is a PART of your marketing plan. A communications plan is a focused strategy you use to get the word out about your business, product or service.
37). Is It Time To Kill Your Marketing Program?
Ouch . . . sounds pretty drastic I know, but . . .
If you've been in business for any length of time, you've no doubt been faced with the question, "Should I dump this marketing program or should I wait a little longer for it to start producing results?"
Even if you're new in business, you may have tried a new way to market your business and with lukewarm results found yourself wondering how long you should stick with it before giving up and trying something else.
38). Marketing A Misunderstood or Scary Product or Service
What do you do if your business, product or service is something hardly anyone is aware of or understands? Or worse yet, if it is something they are afraid of or want to avoid?
My answer is three-fold.
First, focus on the SOLUTION you are providing
What is the primary problem your prospects have that you can solve? Do they have pain you can relieve? Do they have an ailment or affliction you can cure? In these cases, you are not selling your "scary" or "misunderstood" product or service, you are selling pain relief or healing.
39). Marketing Effectively to More Than One Audience
What's a small business owner to do if they have more than one audience to market to? Perhaps they need to attract clients but they also need to recruit business partners or vendors. Do they need two marketing plans or can they use one plan that tries to address both aspects?
This is a great question that applies to many different types of businesses who find they need to market to more than one group of people.
40). Marketing with Special Reports. It’s Cheap, Effective and Easy!
Providing your prospects or customers with information products is a great way to provide extra value or to provide an incentive for them to make a purchase or to register for your ezine or newsletter. And if you write a report or article and provide it as a free download from your web site, you have no printing or delivery costs and you can drive traffic to your site.
41). My Marketing Budget Is Small. How Can I Make The Most Of It?
For example, it may not make sense or be necessary to market consistently all year long. Are their times when your particular industry is slow and customers are not likely to purchase? Conversely, are their times during the year when customers are more likely to be in the market for your product or service?
Schedule your marketing activities to take advantage of these peak times and to avoid what I call the "valleys" (when no one is in the market for what you are selling).
42). Print Advertising: Knowing What To Put In Your Ads
So you've decided to run a print ad in your local newspaper. The paper may have even told you they could produce the artwork for you if you just tell them what should be in the ad. Problem is, you're not sure what should be in the ad.
The first thing you need to do is answer the following question: What is your objective for the ad? You need to know what result you expect the ad to accomplish in order to determine what needs to go into the ad.
43). Publishing Special Reports And Ebooks At No Cost
So you'd like to start publishing special reports and ebooks to use as marketing tools and to sell as products. But you have no budget to get this new venture going. Here's a tip to help you get up and running at no cost.
The traditional route to publishing digital products is to purchase software designed specifically for creating PDFs, such as Adobe Acrobat.
44). Reach Thousands of Your Prospects, Absolutely Free
I'm big on getting maximum marketing exposure at the lowest cost possible. After all, most small business owners don't have huge marketing budgets, so finding inexpensive ways to market is a necessity.
Recently I was able to get free marketing exposure for my business to 100,000 people. It was something that took an hour or two of my time and the payoff was huge.
45). Ready, Fire, Aim!
You probably read my headline and thought, wait a minute, isn't that backwards? Isn't it supposed to be "Ready, Aim, Fire?"
Well, a year ago I might have agreed with you. But not anymore. What changed? I did! And boy am I glad I did.
Let me tell you a little story. Up until last year, I was one of those people who planned everything down to the smallest detail.
46). Relationship Marketing: 10 Tips for Keeping Clients Happy
You've probably heard the saying "It's easier to keep an existing
customer than to get a new one."
Well, it's more than just a saying, it's true.
That's why you want to take very good care of your current
clients or customers and do whatever you can to give them
lots of reasons and opportunity to buy from you over and over again.
Who wants to constantly be out there pounding the pavement
looking for new clients and customers? That's a lot of work.
47). Should You Offer Commissions For Customer Referrals?
As a small business owner you may find yourself in a situation where you want to partner with another business but they are asking for a commission on your services. You will want to be prepared to handle such a request BEFORE you find yourself in this situation.
Whenever someone asks you for a commission in exchange for marketing your product or service, it is basically an affiliate or referral program.
48). Skip Christmas This Year. Do Give-Thanks Marketing Instead
November is the perfect time to let your customers or clients know that you appreciate their business. And did you know that doing so can be a very effective marketing tactic?
November is a great time to send out Thanksgiving cards to show your appreciation to your current customers, vendors, business partners, or anyone who refers business your way.
49). Stellar Customer Service in 10 Simple Steps
If you're like me, you've had plenty of experience with BAD customer service. Just think about the last time you had a bad experience with a product or a service.
Perhaps the product or service did not live up to the sales pitch. Maybe the company was unresponsive to your calls or emails. Maybe they did not do what they said they were going to do.
50). Style and Perfection in Home Decoration with Plantation Shut
Choosing plantation shutters for form or function? Plantation shutters offer both to today’s homeowner. These unique window treatments trace their ro
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