subject: 2011 Marketing Ideas - 7 Promotion Tactics For The New Year [print this page] As each firm is aware, the most significant way in which we can bump up both the profile of our business and build sales is through useful and almost aggressive use of marketing tools.
A successful establishment can only get that way if their target market is aware of its existence. Wishing for prospects or sales while remaining asleep at the switch - not actively engaging in lead generation - simply won't help a firm accomplish success and might even end up in losing market share. But, using just seven practical marketing tools will help a business gain the revenue targets it has laid out for itself in 2011and may even help it exceed those revenue goals.
7 Marketing Tips to Impact Your Business Sales for 2011
1)Competitive Analysis
For 2011, start with an appreciation of your business place in the market, your status and competitive rank in order to truly impact your benefit from marketing going forward. Check out your competitors' current marketing tactics, observing what has worked well for them or where they have failed in their marketing activities.
You need to develop a marketing plan for your business that identifies your growth intentions for each of the next two years and make sure you put down on paper what marketing ideas you must implement to reach those objectives. Do you recall what I identified above - that you first must have a good grasp of your existing market position. Thats because the marketing tools to reach your goals will vary depending on many things like: how long youve been in business, competitors strength, whether you are particularly well known in your field, the size of your marketing budget, etc.
2) Marketing Resources
Obviously you require resources to fund your promotion but not all marketing tools break the bank. Simply review your financials to decide what funding can be used for marketing and promotion, decide the tactics you can afford that will do the job.
So many marketing tools these days are inexpensive or even free and that allows a small business with limited budget to use them effectively.
3) Drip Marketing to Clients and Customers
I dont know about you, but I feel you need to maintain a discourse with present customers, not just spend all your time to get new prospects.
Current customers are like the girl you brought to the dance. You must respect them and give them your attention. Modern marketing tools are like that and offer ways to keep in touch. Marketing tools that retain customer contact are, for example, email autoresponders, blogs, hard copy or electronic newsletters.
Personal touches such as personalized emails are a great way to make customers feel exclusive and not simply a number in your email list. This can help your regular sales to continue.
4) Backlinks from Articles and Blogs
New prospects are needed to continue to grow your business as well as to replace customers you lose during the course of a year. Are you new to the web or maybe a very experienced online marketer? Either way, there are online marketing tools available that provide definitive support for your awareness, lead generation or sales conversion.
Both blogs and ezines have grown in popularity and are very positive, as is article marketing.
5) Marketing Resources
Marketing tools are constantly evolving and new and better marketing tools continue to be introduced. It pays to keep abreast of sites that offer marketing tips and marketing tools because they can keep you abreast of the newest effective capabilities.
Using professional marketing books, the web, market research and in some cases, even the help of mentors; you can keep your knowledge of marketing fresh, helping to evolve new ideas to help you reach your sales targets.
6) Marketing Tools for Automation
Dont spend away your profits from successful marketing campaigns. Invest in additional marketing campaigns to drive incremental profits. Take autoresponders for example. They will send bulk emails about promotions, new products or sales letters at the click of a button. Focus on marketing tools that assure you reach the marketing targets you have selected.
An internet marketing tool will write your original sales letter and generate multiple versions of the letter that you can test to see which version works best. (Just kidding about it writing the original letter). Online marketing tools can submit your original eBook, article, white paper, etc to hundreds of sites for publishing.
One marketing tool writes (almost) your promotional letters. A different marketing tool for sales letters to promote your business or website is not marketing software, but outsourcing copywriting to professionals for about $5 per page. This tool improves the salability of your direct mail or online salesletters if you are not skilled in writing. While email has been a useful marketing tool for many companies, simply adding a note at the bottom to pass-along the email will help your message go-viral. Should your customers become interested in products you sell, they can forward your email to their peers and colleagues providing you with a free form of advertising.
7) Marketing Plan
Finally, as you gain the benefits of a successful marketing strategy and see your sales targets met, that would be the time to re-evaluate your situation once again and look at how you can change your marketing plans to help you reach new, higher targets.
Final Point
Keep your eye on the prize; your aim is to reach your targets and increase your sales so it's important to stay motivated and strive to make your business as successful as possible.
