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The beginning of the year is always a great time of the year to renew your efforts toward making your business successful. If you need some suggestions to help you get started, here are some great resolutions for your online marketing in 2011.
Improve Landing Pages

These are the customized pages that your customers see when clicking on your ads or links. Make sure that all of your landing pages have a clear message and that they reflect your brand clearly.
Fully Utilize Social Networking Sites

Spend a little time on each site to look for current or updated features that will optimize your advertising.
Keep Learning from Others

Become a part of online communities in your niche. You can follow blogs and discussions on forums to keep up to date on the latest news in your industry.
Assess Your Cross-Channel Integration

Lay out all of your online pages and printed postcards and brochure ads together. Analyze the effectiveness of each element and eliminate those that don’t work. Make sure that your brand is consistent across the board.
Keep Up-to-date on Web Improvements

Search engines and browsers are constantly working to make web use easier and more enjoyable for the public. Google has made a couple of small but significant changes to Google Places. They now have a drop down box in PPC advertising that shows a map of the nearest location. They also have a drop down contact form that drops down from your PPC advertising. The more you know about changes such as these, the better you can take advantage of them.

Focus on Priorities

The fewer tasks you focus on, the more time you will have to enjoy your personal time. Spend more time on your loyal customers and put your cold leads on the back burner. Look for marketing avenues that are not really working for you and let go of them. Spend the bulk of your time on avenues that give you the most return with the least amount of work.

Rework Your Security

This is a great time to change all of your passwords and look into the effectiveness of your computer security programs. Start the new year out fresh to make sure all of your hard work is protected.

Maximize Your Pages for Mobile Users

You are probably well aware of the shift towards business done on mobile devices. Make sure that your website will load quickly and look great for your mobile users.

Focus on Relationships and the Customer Experience

Building strong customer relationships is one of the smartest strategies you can implement for the future of your business. Focus this year on making your customers happy and loyal. This means a lot of communication and a lot of follow up. You will find that more time with fewer customers will actually benefit you more than less time with more customers.

These resolutions are just a start. Add your own and make 2011 a great year for your business.

Understanding who you are selling to will affect your ability to sell to them. Your whole brand can be wrapped around the identity of your target audience. So, how do you determine who you are selling to? You will first need to know about yourself, what your product is, and what customers like about it. Then you will need to find out more about your target market. In this case, the more you know the better. So start with the most important questions and go from there.

Examine your product information.

The better you know your product the more accurately you can define you target market:

●     How much does your product cost?

●     What is the best thing about your product?

●     What sets you apart from your competitors?

Use surveys to find out about demographics.

Short surveys can be an excellent tool for learning about your target market. Ask questions about:

●     Age ranges

●     Gender and race

●     Marital status

●     Education level

●     Household income.

Ask these questions of your current customers to find out who you are actually selling to right now.

Ask questions about their spending habits.

You can find out some information online. Looking at competitors will tell you a lot. However, if you can get actual customers to give you information, then you will have the best idea of who you are targeting. Ask your customers questions like:

●     How often do you buy products online?

●     How much do you spend on various (your niche) products in a year?

●     Where do you shop?

Find out more details with questions about psychographics.

The information about your market that you may not think to ask fit into this category.  Questions like:

●     What are your beliefs?

●     Where do you live?

●     What are your hobbies?

●     What kind of movies do you like?

●     What kind of car do you drive?

●     What is your favorite kind of music?

The more you know, the better you can target ads specifically to consumers.

With a well-defined target market, you will be gathering better prospects and clients while spending less money. Your return on investment will be greater and your time will be better spent. The effort you put into gathering this information will be more than worth it.

Google maps is becoming  a prime revenue for advertising your business locally. If anyone searches for your city and type of business or restaurant, Google maps will come up with a list of locations in your area. This is a free service for now, so take advantage while you can. Simply follow these steps to make sure you are not missing out on this huge opportunity. Continue reading »

Branding your website is not so different from branding your company. You only need to focus on getting your website noticed online, and the good news is that there are some online avenues that will make branding your website more effective. The following tips will show you how to successfully use these avenues for a website brand that is noticed and remembered.
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A combined marketing strategy that incorporates online and offline methods will maximize your advertising campaign. Without online marketing, your company is missing out on the vast global network available online. Without offline marketing, your company will be unable to reach those who do not use the Internet or who prefer reading print. Both methods together bring a much greater chance for success in your marketing efforts.

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Making your site more search engine friendly is a fairly simple matter. If you understand search engines and what they are looking for, then all you have to do is implement the right aspects on your website. Follow the steps below and you’ll be well on your way to a blog that captures attention from search engines and, therefore, web surfers.

Step One: Learn What Search Engines Want
Each search engine will work a little differently. They scan your website in different ways so it is important to learn as much as you can about the most popular ones. Google and Yahoo are the two you should be really concerned about; usually if your site follows their SEO (search engine optimization) requirements, the smaller search engines will follow.

Step Two: Write Good Content
Your textual content is what the search engines are scanning through. Colors and graphics make your website look nice, but they will not bring you up on a search. You should have at least 5-10 pages before you even begin a blog.

Step Three: Include Keywords
Learn what keywords will drive the right kind of searchers to your site and use them. Include them in the top portion of your pages as some engines don’t scan past the first third of the page. The more you use the keywords, the better chance you will have of showing up.

Step Four: Make Your Web Page Titles Unique
Having unique page names is imperative. This is a huge step towards optimizing your WordPress blog. Choose a different keyword for the beginning of each page title and you will increase the likelihood of being found. Also, make sure the url of each page is simple and if possible includes the keyword, such as www.blog.com/category/title-of-blog-article.

Step Five: Link Your Blogs Together
Whenever you reference a previous blog entry, you should link the two together. By connecting past blogs with current blogs, you increase the visibility of your blog. You will also increase the effectiveness of your keywords. You may also want to go back and edit your previous blogs so that they link to newer ones as well.

Step Six: Submit to Search Engine Directories
Submitting to directories with a WordPress blog is welcome by search engines. First check your site for errors and get a description ready. You may also need a list of your site’s url’s/addresses. Now you can submit, but do not do so too often. Once a month is more than enough.

A few last tips: keep in mind that your keywords should have their own page and that you should mention keywords 3-5 times for every 150 words or so of content. Also, don’t forget to place keywords in the Tags section of articles. And do not stop with these steps. Once you’ve accomplished the tasks above, do more research until your blog is at the top of the search list on Google and Yahoo.

As you may know, red is a color full of powerful emotions: anger, passion, desire, love. Red is associated with power and strength, danger and war, determination and energy. And in advertising, red can be used to compel customers to take action, if used correctly. Here are some tips for using the color red in your advertising, whether it’s for brochures, TV commercials, or postcard printing. Continue reading »

You know that you need to make your product stand out from all the others. The question is how. How can you make your product more appealing? How can you make poster printing more trustworthy than your competition’s? The answer is simple. Choose one or more of the following principles to beating the competition through product differentiation. Continue reading »

It is a well-known fact in business circles that keeping your current customers is a lot less expensive than attracting new ones. Generating customer loyalty starts with good customer service and quality products, but there are also some marketing strategies that will help keep customers returning to your store.

Show Appreciation
If you have a client who buys a big ticket item from you, show your appreciation with a thank you note. Everyone likes to be appreciated. You can even cut costs through postcard printing in the form of a thank you note; 4″x6″ postcards are cheaper to mail than regular mail.

Keep in Touch
Regularly contact your customers. Send out greeting cards around the holidays. Mail birthday cards to clients. Give customers seasonal coupons sent with postcard printing pieces. If your business deals with just a few clients, take them out for coffee or invite them to a cocktail party at your house. Continue reading »

You can use Adobe Illustrator to warp an illustration just about as easily as you can in Photoshop. For those who are familiar with PhotoShop, the Warp Tool in Illustrator is similar to the Liquefy tool in PhotoShop. You can use the warp function to shape an image, such as a photograph, to fit onto an object, such as a cup. Or another option is to use a warped illustration for an abstract effect, which would work great for an illustration in brochure printing created for a high-tech or artistic company. No matter your need for a warped illustration, it is rather simple when following the right steps. Continue reading »