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As a marketing consultant, I was invited to be a faculty member of the Business Success Institute, a fledgling creation of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, through which business owners and managers are brought together for lectures and workshops on finance, human resources, sales and marketing.

Being active in Arizona marketing, I was gratified to see how The Institute gained a lot of momentum due to a format that brought people together to listen to speakers and discuss subjects of mutual vital interest. Presenters, as well as attendees, were energized by carefully planned agendas as well as impromptu discussions.

Marketing in Arizona has become sophisticated in direct proportion to the growth in business opportunities across a wide spectrum. At a recent session of the Institute headed by yours truly, there was much interest in a document compiled by Adam Urbanski that I shared with the group. As a longstanding practitioner of Phoenix Public relations, I found the group to be particularly interested in the PR aspects it introduces. It is reproduced below, with my best wishes to other people involved in Arizona advertising and related disciplines.

15 Irrefutable Marketing Proficiencies

1. PASSION

I’m passionate about why I’m in business. What I do impacts who and what I care about. Performing my regular work activities gives me joy, re-energizes me and is my way of contributing to the world.

2. VISION

I can see where my business will be in the future. I’m excited to undertake the tasks necessary to get there. When I talk about my business, people around me become enthusiastic and willingly lend their support.

3. STRATEGY

My business is strategically driven by a long-term plan. I don’t get distracted by “busy work”. All activities are results driven. I evaluate all opportunities based on my strategic plan.

4. CLARITY

I’m clear about whom my ideal clients are, what problems I solve for them and how I do it. This clarity allows me to save time, money and energy; I only contact and follow-up with people who want and appreciate my services.

5. UNIQUENESS

What I do and how I do it differentiates me from others and creates “top-of-mind” awareness in my chosen niche. My business is unique, so I don’t have competition. Others, who offer similar services, simply provide an opportunity for me to sharpen my skills, outsource overflow work and create strategic alliances.

6. MESSAGE

My introduction easily and powerfully communicates who I am and what I do. My message is clear and memorable even to people who don’t need my services. My introduction is benefit-based, jargon-free, describes my ideal clients, their biggest problem and the solution I provide.

7. IDENTITY

My business identity is an extension of who I am. All aspects of my business – from my business cards, to stationary, to web site, to my personal appearance – present a consistent, attractive image that’s appropriate for my industry.

8. MOMENTUM

My marketing strategies and activities are in line with my strengths and talents. It’s easy for me to promote my business because I love what I do, know the value I create and use only promotional activities I enjoy. I promote my business consistently and continuously and never allow the work I do for clients to break my marketing momentum.

9. METRICS

I don’t guess how well my business is doing. I have identified and regularly track specific, easy to measure performance indicators. At any point I can assess my progress against my written 90-day, six-month and one-year benchmarks.

10. SYSTEMS

All routine functions of my business are systematic; they are always done the same way and create predictable results every time. Lead generation, follow-up, keeping up clients’ files, tracking important dates, submitting proposals, sales process – I have a system for each one of those activities that allows me to complete them effectively and efficiently.

11. VALUE

I recognize that my clients buy not what I do but the value my work creates. I regularly attend training events and schedule activities that support me in learning fresh, valuable information (in- and outside of my area of expertise) so I become more indispensable to my clients. I’m clear about the value I deliver so I never hesitate to state my fees, recommend my business and ask for the job.

12. TOOLS

My promotional resources are limited so I make them count; they illustrate my expertise and pre-sell my services. All my marketing materials describe my ideal clients, list the problems I solve and communicate the benefits of working with me. I use tools like articles, public presentations, teleclasses, workshops, regularly updated content on my web site, and regularly-published newsletter to attract new business and maintain connection with clients and strategic partners.

13. RELATIONSHIPS

I love my clients. I respect who they are and cherish the opportunity to be on their team. I recognize that they are people first and clients next. I strive to learn about their personal lives. I take note of and acknowledge their important dates – like birthdays and anniversaries. I’m there when they need support and celebrate their victories.

14. TEAM

I recognize my weaknesses and that I’m not an expert at everything. To bridge my shortcomings, I surround myself with other experts on whom I can readily call for support or refer clients to. They become my partners and board of advisors and help me grow my business.

15. MINDSET

I recognize that how I think about marketing and selling my services may limit my ability to grow my business. I make a conscious effort to continuously expand my marketing mindset. I look for and learn strategies that allow me to better leverage my unique talents and expertise as my best promotional tools.

Allan Starr
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/phoenix-advertising-agency-head-interacts-with-business-owners-701774.html

Once you have become an expert in network marketing, you will probably find yourself in the same position as other on the internet. Getting the word out to people that you are there and ready to help them make a bundle from their website. It will not matter how great a person’s website looks, or how fantastic their product or service, if no one knows their site is there they will receive no business.

One of the ways many have found successful in advertising on the internet is through pay-per-click programs, or affiliate programs, which involve a third party planning your ad on their site and you pay them a pre-determined amount every time a visitor to their site clicks on your ad and visits your site. Payment to the third-party advertiser can be made based on the visit, or a percentage or fixed dollar amount of an actual sale.

This benefits you as it puts your advertisement in front of more people. Joining an affiliate promotions company could have your ad posted on several hundreds of sites, each one promoting their own site, giving you that much more exposure for which you pay only if others visit your site.

On the downside, one of the things search engines look for are outside links to your site and while all of the affiliates you have sign up with you do link to your site, due to embedded codes to track the site’s visitors search engines may ignore those links.

Another method of advertising your network marketing business is to design your site around the information sought after by search engine spiders. There once was a time when having sufficient keywords listed in meta tags would draw their attention but the number of hits to websites with erroneous information led search engine developers to train their spiders to look for only good information. Many times in the past a search would turn up websites with totally unrelated information based on keywords alone.

Today’s spiders also search for titles of web pages that relate to the search terms as well as quality information about the search terms. Your web pages should have quality text that provides information for which the person is looking, and not only on the index page. The meta tags, as well as quality textual information should appear on every page of your site where you want search spiders to look.

Getting your own site noticed by potential customers when they perform an internet search for advertising a network marketing business, will let them know that you know how to get the attention of search engines and may improve your standing among customers as well. By advertising your own business correctly, you will most likely pick up business advertising others’ business.

Gary Worley
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/tips-to-advertising-a-network-marketing-business-85919.html

Savvy advertising – business internet marketing depends on it – is the key to a successful internet business. Considering how many competitors are vying for your customer’s credit card number, it is not surprising that advertising, business internet marketing, and online promoting have become buzz words that every entrepreneur who took a home based business to the ‘Net has become familiar with. Stellar goods and services are not enough to attract customers and clients, but spreading the word of where these can be had is just as important.

In the earlier days of advertising, business internet marketing took the form of banner ads. Many of these banner ads sought to attract customers by being brighter and more colorful than the competition. This soon translated into neon green banner ads that would make your eyes ache. Soon this color war was not enough, and movement was added to the banners. Thus, banner ad advertising – business internet marketing at its worst in some cases – got a bad reputation and many a webmaster took down many of the more obnoxious ads. Clearly, this left merchants clamoring for other avenues of advertising their wares and services.

Those who were ad savvy toned down their banner ads to be tastefully constructed and pleasing to the eye. Rather than going for shock value they enlisted the help of affiliates to spread the word about their products. Additionally, these internet entrepreneurs looked to other media to spread the word of their wares, and quickly these leaps of faith paid off. Print ads are now routinely taken out for online businesses, and in many cases a website takes the place of a telephone number. Savvy advertising – business internet marketing at its best – has once again reclaimed the world wide market place and made it a friendly place for consumers and a competitive environment for merchants.

William Hanratty
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/savvy-advertising-business-internet-marketing-107884.html

You’ve probably heard the famous saying “I know that half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted: if only I could figure out which half it is!” Well, now you can. By eliminating the common mistakes many businesses make with their advertising programs, it’s easy.

Here’s a checklist of mistakes many companies make with their advertising:

1) Not focusing enough time and effort on their advertising

Most business owners spend far more time and effort on mundane things that don’t really affect their bottom line than on advertising. This is the first huge mistake. Without effective advertising, almost all businesses will fail.

If you feel you don’t have the time or desire to handle the advertising for your business, consider hiring a consultant or agency – but with caution. It’s almost more difficult to find an ad agency that knows what is effective than it is to study it yourself. Many agencies are far more focused on winning awards than creating profits for their clients.

If you do feel you need to hire an agency, find one that will work on a results compensation basis vs. a straight commission for all the media they buy. This gives them an incentive to provide results and not pad the budget to justify a larger commission for the agency.

2) Relying on advice from friends and relatives

If business owners do handle their own advertising, many times they let their friends/wives/husbands or other various employees who have no idea whether or not advertising is effective make the decisions about their advertising plan.

Would you ask your dentist for advice about fixing your car engine? Of course not – that’s not their expertise. So why in the world would you base something as important as decisions about your advertising on a relative who has no idea what he’s talking about?

3) Being led by pushy or aggressive media sales people

The reason media companies pay their sales people big bucks is because they can influence you to buy space, air or time (in the newspaper, radio or television) and give you no guarantees if it doesn’t work. Sounds kind of crazy, doesn’t it? Your customers probably wouldn’t buy from you and not expect the product or service to perform the way it should. But ad sales reps do it all the time.

Now sometimes they really mean well, and they have lots of experience and some fluke event or problem comes up. But for the most part, ad sales reps will do virtually anything they can do to get the sale.

If you feel like you’re being bullied by an ad sales rep or that they really aren’t looking out for your best interest, but really feel you want to work with that station/newspaper, etc., then ask for a new rep. They want your business and you’re the one calling the shots, so if they want your business, they need to find someone you’re comfortable working with.

4) Allowing your creative delivery to be ineffective

You can buy the best media schedule in the world that reaches 100% of your market 100 times, but if your message is not well created, it won’t bring you the results you want. Most companies rely on either their ad agency or the media company themselves create the ads for them. This is a very difficult thing because most companies acting on your behalf don’t take the time to learn about your business, your customers and what makes you different in your market.

To be effective, your commercial or ad must give the potential customer a compelling reason to buy your product or service. That means you have to come up with a better slogan than “we have the best service and we’ve been in business for 112 years.”

No one really cares….well they do, but they don’t believe you. If that’s what you want to convey to your market, then give them a story that tells them that you have the best service. Make your company stand out.

You also have to include some sort of call to action. If you have a wonderful warm and fuzzy commercial that makes people 1) notice the ad, 2) actually read or watch it without being distracted by one of a million other things going on in their lives, and 3) become compelled and engaged by the message to have a positive feeling about your company and don’t ask them to do something as a result of that – you’re wasting your time and money. This is something that many ad agency creative types don’t get.

If you don’t ask them to do something specific within a certain time period, there’s no way to measure the response. You may say that you can compare last year’s sales for the same time period with this year’s, etc., but that doesn’t take into account a myriad of other possible reasons that your sales went up or down.

By giving your ad viewers/listeners/readers a specific action to take, you know that the reason they did that is because they were motivated to do so by your ad.

5) Always doing the same old thing because that’s what you’ve always done.

If you’re not growing, you’re dying – and the same goes for your business. If you’re happy with the same old returns on your advertising (assuming that you’re measuring it in some way), then continue to do the same thing. Most business owners aren’t though, so it’s important to try new things.

The way society changes the way it uses media and as quickly as those changes happen, you need to keep up or lose out. Many business owners are afraid to try something new because it takes them out of their comfort zone – especially if no one in their industry has ever tried the new idea. This is a huge mistake and robs them of potentially huge profits.

6) Falling into the price trap.

This is another huge one! Unless you’re Wal-Mart and can guarantee that no other business can sell for a lower price, don’t use that as your main selling point. Once you start down that path, it’s virtually impossible to stop.

If you can’t come up with another reason for your potential customers to choose you instead of your competitor, you really need to find one (or more)!

7) Not using publicity or events in their advertising plan

It’s amazing how few businesses even try to use publicity or special events in their advertising. It’s often the best advertising you can get – not only because it’s free, but because it cuts through the clutter. If the newspaper runs a story or a TV station is covering something during their newscast, it has automatic credibility that you just can’t buy.

Of course you can’t control the message 100%, but if you learn solid techniques of creating your publicity or press event, you can have a great deal of influence about how a story is covered.

If you can eliminate only 1 or 2 of these mistakes (assuming you’re making them all), you’ll wonder why you didn’t do so earlier! In business, if there are enough of the right customers buying your products and services, many of your problems seem to disappear.

Kevin Sinclair
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/7-common-business-advertising-mistakes-60213.html

We have opened a small lawn care business. After hearing a lot of really good feedback from other lawn care owners. But we want to advertise effectively, any one have an tips ?

marketing is what you should be thinking about, not advertising. The other thing I always recoomend is reading/researching sales. Zig Zigglar and many other fine sales professionals have written books and they are normally at your public library.