It sounds simple but, if you run your own business, you know it's easier said than done.
The problem is that there are only 24 hours in the day and you have to spread yourself around a whole range of different tasks - looking after your clients, finding new ones, planning for the future and carrying out all the day-to-day duties of running a business. Each of these is a full-time job on its own.
If you look at people who are already highly successful as business owners, you tend to see two factors combined:
Firstly, the right "success mindset" or way of thinking.
Secondly, effective marketing that easily attracts lots of customers and lets you charge higher prices.
Perhaps the first of these points seems a bit hard to pin down. But the reality is it's what successful entrepreneurs do every day with fantastic results. And the rest fail because they don't have it.
So let's put it to the test. Grab a sheet of paper now and answer a few quick questions.
I promise this will help grow your business.
Success mindset is based on two things - knowing what you want and taking focused action to get it.
So, to start, consider these two questions.
1. What exactly do you want your business to have achieved in 3 years time (e.g. in terms of sales, profits, size or reputation)?
2. What proportion of your time each day is spent on activities that are focused on these objectives?
If you're not spending most of your day focused on your objectives, you need to consider if there are some things you should stop doing.
Getting the mindset right is the first step, the next key is to make the marketing more powerful.
The trouble is that most business owners don't think of themselves as being in marketing.
But, whatever business you're in, marketing is its lifeblood.
It keeps your business growing, and can allow you to enjoy your dream lifestyle.
Yet most business owners either don't pay enough attention to marketing, or they spend so much time and energy on it that they don't have time to make money.
Some gurus would like you to think that marketing is a complicated process that requires lots of specialist advice.
Truth is it can be quite straightforward if you put in a bit of thought and planning.
Being able to give powerful answers to these five questions gives you the keys to increasing your profits.
1. What problems do your prospects and customers have that you can solve or what do they want to achieve that you can help them with?
2. Who are your ideal customers, taking into account how you can reach them and how well you can give them what they want?
3. Why should they do business with you rather than someone else?
4. How can you get your message across to them using what media?
5. When exactly will you communicate with them using each of these tools?
These may seem quite simple but most business owners struggle to give good answers to all of them.
Taking some time to consider these questions gives you the material for a very effective marketing plan.
Then, as you act on it, you can keep reviewing it based on the results and improve your answers.
Combining these good marketing answers with the right mindset from the first two questions above, you are well on your way to success.
If you have a business plan or vision that is written, you only need to integrate this Internet marketing piece into that existing plan. However, if you are like many of my clients, you carry your business and marketing plans in your head without bothering to commit anything to paper.
Here are ten considerations you need to make as you complete your Internet marketing plan:
1. Objective of Internet Marketing Plan:
What do you want to accomplish by using Internet marketing? Provide services and info to existing clients? Sell services or products? Educate your target market or your staff about your product or service? Create an online community for your target market? How much money to have to spend each month on this Internet marketing plan? Having a goal and budget in mind will make your marketing more effective.
2. Marketing Funnel:
The most successful online business owners have a marketing funnel (think of it as an upside down triangle) through which they "funnel" clients. The process begins from the wide top of the funnel, representing low-cost products or free give-aways, and moving clients down through the funnel to the narrower portions which represent gradually increasing investments from the clients from your higher-priced products and services. For more details go to www.forum-marketing-videos.com. What products and services do you currently offer? Are they at varied price points that would create a funnel effect? What plans do you have to increase your product or service line? Will those new offerings plug gaps in your marketing funnel?
3. Your Competition:
Knowing and understanding where you stand among your competitors can you help you strengthen your marketing message. Do a keyword search for the terms someone might use to find your business online. Write down the URL's of your top 5 competitors. How popular and relevant are their sites? You can check their traffic ranking with Alexia. Does your competition offer something unique? Where are the gaps in the service or product offerings?
4. Target Market:
Instead of trying to marketing to everyone (the shotgun marketing approach), find a clearly definable target market that you can easily describe and locate. Are they male or female? What age group? What industry? What socio-economic group? Where do they hang out on- and off-line? What do they read? To what groups and associations (real and virtual, personal and professional) do they belong? How much money do they make? Can they easily afford your product or service? What keywords are they using to search for businesses like yours online?
5. Solution to a Problem:
The reason that someone will buy your product or hire to you to provide a service is to solve a particular problem that they have. For more information login to www.website-convertion-secrets.com. What problems and issues plague your target market? How does your product or service solve that problem? How does your solution differ from that of your competitors? What makes you uniquely qualified to provide the solution to their problem?
6. Branding Your Business:
Your domain name can either help you be memorable or cast you into a sea of "brindles" solutions. At a minimum, you'll want to buy both your personal name as well as the name of your business, if it's available. If you use a full-featured domain registrar, you'll be able to point and mask these domains to internal pages of your web site, or use them as stand-alone sales letter pages.
You may also think of problems faced by your target market or solutions that you provide and buy domain names in the version of those as well. Internet marketer Dean Jackson brands his ebook on how to stop a divorce by owning the domain name. This is a compelling solution to his target market -- men who have been ignoring their wives' complaints of marital dissatisfaction and come home one day to an empty house and a note telling him that she's filing for divorce.
Both Robert Greenshields & Gurpreet_tni are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Robert Greenshields has sinced written about articles on various topics from Home, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Web Development. Robert Greenshields helps entrepreneurs and independent professionals develop a uccess mindset and winning marketing strategies for higher profits. Sign up for his special report on the. Robert Greenshields's top article generates over 90500 views. Bookmark Robert Greenshields to your Favourites.