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52 Marketing Tips To Help Turn Your Great Idea Into A Business

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So you’ve got a great idea, but it’s not a business yet.  Here are 52 marketing tips to help you turn your idea into a real business.

Getting Started – Branding and naming

1.  Learn how to name a product or business – search Google and you will find plenty of guides to help you come up with a business name.  Read them and learn how to do it properly.

2.  Don’t name your business after yourself – unless you plan to work by yourself forever, don’t name your business after yourself. Consider your industry, the benefits you offer and use what you learnt in point 1 to come up with something unique.

The Thinker 200x300 52 Marketing Tips To Help Turn Your Great Idea Into A Business

Now that's an idea..

3.  Build a brand from the start – create a brand with personality, values, and a look and feel that is distinct and different from your competitors right from the beginning.

4.  Invest in good logo design – I don’t care how handy you are with design software, being able to use it doesn’t make you a logo designer. Get a professional to do it.

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10 Things You Can Do Today To Improve Your Marketing

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marketing on white board 300x259 10 Things You Can Do Today To Improve Your MarketingWant to improve your marketing?

Here are 10 things you can do in your business today that can make a big impact on your marketing.

1. Track your leads.

Do you know how customers find you? If you don’t then start asking them.  There are a few simple ways to do this.

You can simply ask new customers, include it as a required field on a website enquiry form or include a tracking mechanism within your advertising activity.  Whatever you do, find out how they found you.  It will show you what part of your marketing strategy is working, and what isn’t.

2.  Say thanks for referrals

Do you know how powerful it is to say thank you for referrals?  It’s so easy to do, but often forgotten by small business.Today you must put a system in place to thank every person that refers a client to you.

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What Is A Customer Worth To You?

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Whats a customer worth to you What Is A Customer Worth To You?What is a customer worth to you?

A fairly simple question isn’t it?  And it’s one of the most important statistics any small business owner should know.

But it’s amazing how many businesses don’t know the answer.

Knowing what a customer is worth is simply knowing the long-term value of a customer to your business.  It’s often called “Lifetime Customer Value”.  To know it, you should know the answers to the following three questions:

1. On average, how much does a new customer spend on your business in the first 12 months?.

2. What is the average length of time customers buy your products or service?

3. On average, what do customers spend with your business after the first 12 months until they are no longer a customer?

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7 Marketing Lessons From The Real Estate Industry

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Real Estate Marketing 7 Marketing Lessons From The Real Estate IndustryThis post is one of admiration.

For years I’ve admired the real estate industry and their marketing systems.

I think other businesses can learn from it and in this post I’ve listed what I think are the 7 most important lessons small business owners can learn from real estate marketing.

1.  To sell something, you need to market it.

Imagine if you went to an agent and they said to you – “we will list your property but we won’t do any marketing.  We won’t create a promotional flyer, we won’t take any photos and we certainly won’t promote it in our shop front”.  You would walk out the door. So why do other businesses believe they can sell products and services without any marketing?

What real estate agents do well is they include marketing as a cost of sale.  To sell the product, the investment in marketing needs to be made. A good lesson and process for any business.

2.    Good copy sells

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How To Leverage Friends and Family To Market Your Business

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Friendly neighbours How To Leverage Friends and Family To Market Your BusinessGood word of mouth is priceless.

When others say good things about you, most of the hard work is done.  It’s then up to you to convert the sale – and it’s much easier to sell when you’ve already come highly recommended.

I’ve been working with a few new businesses recently and I’m finding many are overlooking a key marketing opportunity – that is using friends and family to help market their business.

So why is there marketing value in friends and family?   It’s because they know, like and trust you – the first three critical steps the customer must do before they buy from you.

The question you need to ask is, do your friends and family know exactly what you do?  I bet they don’t.  And that’s a shame because you’re missing out on one of the best word of mouth marketing opportunities available to your business.

In my experience, most business owners spend 90% their time telling total strangers about their business.   Yet they fail to give friends and family the information that can deliver new customers to the door.

So how do you tell them what you do?  Here are three steps.

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Always Keep Your Eye Out For Marketing Gold

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marketing gold1 Always Keep Your Eye Out For Marketing Gold

Image Credit: Herb Hyder via Flickr

Gold is EVERYWHERE!

Well marketing gold is at least…..

When I work with clients, I love finding little bits of marketing gold.

It can come in all shapes and sizes – either big nuggets that make an immediate impact on sales or little sprinkling of gold dust when melted together can add real polish to a marketing campaign.

The challenge for many small businesses, is to know how to recognise marketing gold from just plain old dirt.

Let me give you an example.

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5 Marketing Statistics You Should Know About Smartphone Users

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smartphone 5 Marketing Statistics You Should Know About Smartphone Users

Image Credit: bfishadow via Flickr

It’s time for a VERY short quiz.

Hands up who owns a Smartphone?

If my numbers are right, 46% percent of you will have your hand up.  And if I ask the same question in 11 months time, that number should be 60%.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Smartphones are now the mobile phone of choice for the Australian consumer.

The Apple iPhone, Android and Windows 7 phones are fast becoming the norm rather than the exception – in fact in June 2011, there were 29.28 million mobile services in operation in Australia and 46% of those were Smartphones.   Industry estimates put this figure at 60% by the end of 2012.

This kind of growth is hard to ignore and Smartphones are changing how consumers access the internet, search for products,  consume news and manage social networks.

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10 Marketing Tips in 60 Seconds

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Marketing Big Ideas 10 Marketing Tips in 60 Seconds

Image Credit: Gene Hunt via Flickr

Want some marketing tips? Here are 10 you can read in 60 seconds.

1. Seed Your Market

Find key opinion leaders in your market, and make sure they sample your product. They will be a great source of word of mouth advertising.

2. Be consistent

Ensure all of your marketing messages and branding are consistent. Consistent marketing and branding builds trust.

3. Ask customers how they found you.

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So You Think You Don’t Do Any Marketing…

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Marketing Messages So You Think You Dont Do Any Marketing...I’m always amazed at how many business owners say they don’t do any marketing.

Nearly every time, it’s at a networking function where they have handed me a business card and told me what they do.  ”Never done any marketing?” I respond.

“Don’t look now, but you’ve just been marketing your business to me. And you’re also at a networking function which is a marketing tactic in itself”.  It’s often a bit of a light bulb moment where the person actual realises the different between marketing and advertising.

It’s amazing how many businesses don’t distinguish between the two.

If you were to google a definition of marketing, you will find answers such as:

“The action or business of promoting and selling products and services” or “Marketing is the management process for identifying, anticipating and satisfying consumer requirements profitably”

You will notice none of this identify “advertising” as the key component of marketing.  It’s just the tool that businesses are most aware of.

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Get Your Marketing Strategy Right, Before You Think About Tactics

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Marketing Tactics Get Your Marketing Strategy Right, Before You Think About TacticsEveryday I talk to businesses owners needing help with their marketing.

It’s great that they recognise they need help. With nearly all that I speak to, some commons themes arise.  Most will say, “I printed some marketing flyers and they didn’t work” or “I advertised in the local paper and didn’t receive a call”.

I also have business owners wanting help to produce marketing materials.  They want help to put a flyer together or a sales brochure.  When we look closer and ask some probing questions, it becomes clear that the business doesn’t have a clear marketing strategy. Any flyer or brochure put together based on their current messages will be a waste of time AND money.

The flyers, brochures and advertising are what we call marketing tactics.  They are the tools marketers used to execute a marketing strategy.  The reality is, if the strategy isn’t right, then no tactic will deliver a result.

We often find that the tactic  choice was correct, but the poor implementation meant that the business owner didn’t get the results they expected.  Again, it comes down to getting the strategy right.

So here are three tips for business owners to help refine your marketing strategies.

1. Know your target market intimately

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pixel Get Your Marketing Strategy Right, Before You Think About Tactics
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