Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

Marketing to boomers: Are you missing the mark?

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 by shahar

Are you mimicking old dumb marketing agencies and ignoring your best potential customers?
Smart businesses should develop marketing programs to reach baby boomers and do it in an intelligent way.
Are you asking why?

Well more than 30% of Americans are over 50 and the influential over-50 segment has $2.3 trillion in annual spending power and today controls 50% of all discretionary income. That is 2.5 times the spending power of 18-24 age group.
Did you see that the word influential is highlighted?

This is a generation that has disposable income to spend and invest even in though economic times.
The boomer generation likes to invest in products and services that are aligned with their deeper value. ( This is why it is really important for businesses to work with an irresistible promise like we show in the magnetic influence system). And boomers do pay attention how companies market to them

On the other side it looks like companies don’t care to pay attention to them.
Here some examples:

People 50+ buy 60% of all carbonated beverages but Coke The Heart Truth for Women campaign, which is a great campaign, uses a spokesperson that is 36 years old- Heidi Klum. Can’t they find anyone gorgeous after 50?
Pepsi uses psychedelic logos with Barry Whites tunes. Do we need nostalgia?
By the way, nostalgia is really the wrong approach with boomers. This is a generation proud to have changed the way things were done and some of the things they did, they don’t want to remember. Hair color spots tend to use this approach too.

Even worse is AARP that portraits 50+ as frightened and unintelligent in their commercials.

Honda spots for hybrid cars don’t include boomers while more than half of the 90 million 50+ consumers in America say they want to buy green.

People over 50 account for 80% of all leisure travel in this country including luxury travel. Do you think the spot “Travelocity Travel Wish #9: Jump on the bed in a fancy hotel” has anything to do with boomers?
There are many more examples of poor marketing to boomers. Just think about sex related commercials with couples in separate bathtubs.

Boomers can talk and make sex, why can’t the people that create these type of commercials do the same?
If your product or service is a good match for boomers, pay attention how you are promoting it, and include boomers in a tasteful, intelligent manner.

We appreciate and we like the attention. Missing the mark here can cost you a lot.

How To Advertise Your Online Business

Thursday, December 29th, 2011 by shahar

Learning the best ways how to advertise your business can be a real chore to say the least. There is
certainly no shortage of companies trying to convince you that you need to subscribe to their marketing
or advertising approach to gain clients. So, the real question is, “What’s the best form of advertising for
your business?” Well, research indicates that online advertising is not only far more cost-effective than
traditional off-line forms of advertising, but online advertising is also fairly easy to set up.

First of all, let me say, that there are really two forms of online advertising; there’s the paid method
known as pay-per-click advertising, and the “free” method known as SEO or search engine optimization.
For the purposes of this post, we’ll be talking about the paid method because it’s the easiest and
quickest way to implement a successful online advertising campaign.

For our purposes, I’m only going to refer to the Google search engine since Google dominates the
internet world. Google’s form of pay-per-click advertising is called Google Adwords. It’s referred to as
pay-per-click advertising because while your ads can appear for any number of targeted search terms,
you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad. Starting a Google Adwords campaign only
costs $5 to start and your ads can be up in a matter of minutes. Do a Google search for “$75 Adwords
voucher”, and if you’re a new advertiser to Adwords, Google will pay for the first $75 of your ad spend.

There are several components to Adwords that makes it the best way how to advertise your business
online. First of all, you have complete control over what you spend. Adwords allows you to set a daily
budget, so if you only want to spend, say, $300 per month, then you would set your daily budget at $10.
Once you spend $10 for the day, Google will pause your ads and turn them back on the following day.

Another thing I love about Adwords is the ability for what’s known as geo-targeting. Geo-targeting
allows you ads to only be visible to people in a certain geographic area or areas. If you only want to
attract clients in Houston, Texas and Baltimore, Maryland, you can do that.

Furthermore, you have the ability to select as many keywords as you want to trigger your ads allowing
you to reach the maximum amount of targeted leads to your site. Finally, what I love most about
Adwords is the ability to see what’s working and not working. By viewing the historical data in your
account, you can see how many people viewed your ads and how many of those viewers clicked on your
ads. This allows you to make necessary changes to better optimize your account for maximum ROI.

Guest post by:  Brandon Jones
Senior Marketing Advisor
My Marketing Team

www.mygooglemarketing.net

How to have a remarkable business in 2012

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 by shahar

I just uploaded a presentation on how to have a remarkable business. It gives you some specific points to improve your small business marketing and make 2012 your best business year.

Enjoy!

See the How to have a remarkable business presentation here.

The death of Steve Jobs

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 by shahar

Just heard the news about Steve Jobs death and I’m really sorry to see him go.
I’m not an Apple user (well, I have an ipod), but I greatly admire its founder as being an example of a true entrepreneur, master creator and brilliant marketer.

Few people understood consumer psychology like he did and how to incorporate mystery and create desire when promoting a product. More than most he also understood the power of a community and is an example to any one.

He was a true example of how we need to be as entrepreneurs and how crucial it is in business to innovate and be fast to put products in the market, even when they are not perfect, how important it is to create a community linked to a higher purpose around our business and have them advocate and fight for you.

We need more people like Steve Jobs and we need to pay more attention to cancer research. Make a donation today to a cancer research institution like
http://www.cancer.org/

Marketing with MindMaps

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 by shahar

We use Mindmaps in almost all of our meetings and we just love it.

Mindmaps are visual diagrams to represent concepts or tasks that could be connected.

Its unique unstructured but connected nature makes it a great tool for any kind of brainstorming.
It can also be used for product creation, problem solving, site creation, marketing maps. identify audiences and ideal clients, product launches, sales funnels.
Helps you organize ideas. If you study consumer behavior, you can use this tool to see what is their connection (this would help you find other markets to the same product or service). You may also use it to find new opportunities for content development.

Mind maps are guarantee to improve effectiveness and efficiency in any small business. It can be one of the most valuable tools for small business marketing.

Here are some Mindmaps tools you can check:

Mindjet: Available for MAC and PC

Mindomo

Mindmeister

Small business marketing: Touches with prospects and customers

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 by shahar

The shortest route to failure is to touch a customer base or prospects only once. Like mailing one postcard.

Much better is to invest in reaching them at least 3 times.

Increase the level of trust

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 by shahar

Increase the level of trust with customers and prospects is part of creating an irresistible business and attracting long lasting prosperity.

Here are a few things you can add to your marketing messages that will help build credibility and trust:

1. Your guarantee. Keep it simple, strong and straightforward.

2. Customer reviews.

3. Privacy policy: This is mandatory in online direct marketing.

4. Ratings/awards: make them easily accessible on your site.

5. Customer service: Don’t hide your customer service number. You can also add a live chat to your site or a helpdesk.

6. Membership and affiliations: we have ours at the bottom of the home page.

7. About us: tell your story here

8. Client list: complete or partial list shows depth and experience.

Women in social media

Thursday, July 28th, 2011 by shahar

According to The Guardian Life research institute, female entrepreneurs are three times more likely to engage in social networking than their male counterparts. Female business owners are more customer focused and more likely to incorporate a sense of community into their business plan.

Social media manager or Social media agency?

Monday, July 25th, 2011 by shahar

I made a comparison between pros and cons of social media managers and social media agencies. This for the case of you looking to start a new business. I need to say that both options are good because they are in very high demand.

They are both cheap to start
They both have ongoing fees
You are not obliged to have an advertising fee like you would in a franchise business, but of course you do need a budget to advertise your business

Social media agency would bring more name recognition that a social media manager.

They are both proven business models and both in very high demand now and in the next few years.

A social media agency usually has proprietary systems in place and these systems allow people running the business more freedom.

A social media marketing agency also provides the owner the ability to scale more than a social media manager. The manager can create a team in order to scale.

Which one is right for you?
I’d say that is a personality thing. You can run both from home. With any you can achieve 6 figures in a relative short period of time.
How big do you want to go?

Ongoing Fees

Required Advertising Fees

Name Recognition

Proven Business Model

Ongoing Support

Proprietary system

More freedom

Travel apps for small business owners

Friday, July 22nd, 2011 by shahar

We sure travel a lot and we love apps that can make our live easier.

Here are 3 that can help you while you are away:

mysims2go: This app finds the best carrier to transport outgoing calls and help you minimize roaming fees or international charges.

MeetingWave. This one, unfortunately is just for IPhone users. Besides this sad fact, it is a good app for you to find local networking events, happy hours etc.

Fring.com: Allows you to make and receive video calls for free to or from any smartphone. It also has text chat.

Small business marketing- cool apps to use

Friday, July 15th, 2011 by shahar

There are more apps than Angry birds and Words with friends. some can help you market your small business.
Here are 5 of them:

1. To host mobile meetings: Campfirenow.com.
You can chat with a group through your devices, share files and view YouTube videos.

2. to keep track of expenses on the go.
i need this one. It is proongo.com
You can even take photos of receipts to track expenses. you can also view expenses by employees and approve or deny.

3. Travel plans: Tripit.com
The app uses info from confirmation e-mails with maps and directions.

4. Access your secure network
roverapps.com
Lets you access secure file and offer several tasks.

5. Manage your connections
addieu.com
Exchange contact details and follow them.

Why Solar-powered Tables Will Wirelessly Recharge Your Products ?

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011 by shahar

By contributor: Doctor Z. Dobson

So there’s this completely new tendency running along side our passion with the very best wifi gadgets [1], and it’s the proper way to keep their battery packs full. With lots of the very new pads and tablets, mobile handsets, and notebooks the only typical problem is the most practical approach to get them energized. I started out browsing for what normally I would do with many of these numerous products and now I think about what I’d do with out them. I additionally worry nighttime if I’ve got each one of them on their own proper electrical wires and charging up for the morning ahead.

When the technology products firstly hit the marketplace there were wires attached with the Universal serial bus plug-ins on the portable computer. This looked like a pretty fresh concept for me originally. I was a follower of the ease with which one could simply plug the item in during the night time while reading e-mail. Regrettably, like several things, this quickly became a problem. How can I get my item with me at home if it may need to stay plugged in at the personal computer?

Later came the Universal serial bus wall adapter. I went shopping for one of these soon after my first smart phone decision. I desired to plug it in to the wall in my bedchamber so I would’ve it with me during the night time, but I did not have anything but the Universal series bus charging cable to power it. Next thing I realized, the wall adapter was coming with many of the products I purchased.

Over the past months, I have started to read and hear tips associated with wi-fi charging mats. From things I understood initially, they were wanting special cases for the accessories to employ them. Not too long ago, this was deleted. The world of wireless charging is getting ready to bust wide open.

We will need to set a pin in that field. We will be back quickly. Right now, we will need to talk about the significance of eco-friendly innovation [2]. Numerous negative people to eco-friendly technology will assume it’s tree-hugging talk to get customers to pay for higher priced products and that it’s all a ridiculous effort mainly because none of the unfavorable consequences are essentially taking place. Although that is true, the exclusively complication with that argument is just how many men and women are in the modern world. Simply because of the amount of people existing on the entire world and the total number of them using coal and gas driven electric power, we have started to have a complication. Now give some thought to the number of them that will have children and exactly how that will grow the sum of people making use of electric energy and non-renewable fuels. The best responsible thing to try and do is for technology to feature environmentally friendly alternatives right now that can become green expectations later [3].

On the other hand, ladies and gentleman, I present to you the first eco-friendly method to charge wire-less all your cellular gizmos, Panasonic’s new solar-powered wire less charging table. Due to be launched at the end of 2011 or early 2012, the new table will make use of solar powered energy obtained by the solar panels on the face of the table to power up the gizmos put on the table! This can be the potential future of a natural green pv technology that is Qi enabled.

What is Qi you ask? Qi has been produced by the wifi power trust as a standard specs to be applied by the manufactures of charging items, like our new table, and the products which they will charge up, like your brand new smartphone that is touch-screen equipped, reads guides and has a foldout full-sized keyboard. This recent Qi technological know-how has only been around since the beginning of this season, but everyone is needing quick integration and a score of product launches. Utilizing Qi with older wire-less gizmos is reassured, and we will definitely be seeing and hearing much more about Panasonic’s innovative solar-powered wi-fi recharging table and lots of other Qi enabled rechargers soon.
If you feel the need to explore more about solar panels and the ways to add it in your daily life let me suggest you these alternative information:

- [1] Here you can find out more in detail the info concerning the photo voltaic table. Japantrends.com is a spin-off of CScout, it is a web service to aid buyers to comprehend the Japanese marketplace and its people offering the newest tech news flashes. They were the 1st to report the news about the solar power table totally wire less

- [2] Here you could have a clear point of view on how to use power from the sun to power most item’s electric batteries (i.e. mobile phone, car batteries, etc…). If you are not in a position to afford the investment to install a residential solar power system, it could be an ideal beginning to introduce you to solar panel systems. 12voltsolarpanels.net is a free website managed by Hettie. She shares her experiences with 12 volt solar panels to help people create the conversion from a full-time electrical energy dependence to a profitable electricity efficiency introducing solar panel technology to people that need compact rechargers.

- [3] If you possibly can pay the investment to install solar energy panels for your own property (or qualify for solar tax credits or rebates), here a few reviews to help you learn how solar power operate and the ways to integrate them in your daily life. Residentialsolarpanels.org is a non-profits blog site managed by Shannon. She is a freelance writer and expert on photo-voltaic for home use. If you would like to explore more about solar powered energy I recommend you to review the following information related to solar residential systems.

Who am I ?:

Doctor Z. Dobson (http://twitter.com/dr_zara_dobson) is a former post doctoral scientist at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She received a diploma in computing research and high-tech, and extended her research into a Ph.D. working in the Bio-Medical and Multimedia Information Tech in the University of Sydney, Australia. She is a writer for many leading mags in the alternative energy arena i.e. “Renewable Energy World”. Actually she’s a guest writer for sustainable energy websites, web logs and community forums.

Increasing sales in a business

Sunday, July 10th, 2011 by shahar

Every day we have a quick meeting in the morning where we focus on one specific way to bring sales that day and one to cut costs. This helps us remember that marketing is also about making sales and specific actions are necessary

15 Reasons You Should Be Starting Your Own Business

Thursday, July 7th, 2011 by shahar

1. You have control
2. Financial freedom
3. You get to be the boss
4. You can write off more expenses
6.The opportunity to engage your creativity on a daily basis.
5. You can benefit from the talents of others
7. Recognition
8. Equity
9. It’s easy
10. You can work from home
11. Greater personal freedom.
12. Work and play according to your natural biorhythms.
13.Opportunity to make a difference and see the real impact of your work.
14. Be an example to family and friends that it is possible to create and build a life you want.
15. Spend more time doing the things you enjoy and the things you are good at and hire other independent entrepreneurs to fill in the gaps.

What is keeping you? Start your own social media marketing agency now!

Creating confident, courageous, successful women

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 by shahar

There are times we need an extra push. We need someone to boost our self-esteem, help us stop self-sabotage and just get us to be the best we can be.
Having a business is not easy and we tend to get in the way of our success more than we thing.
I know I self-sabotage quite often.
If this is your case, you need to know this company and check their very unique system to help women in business be successful and create a legacy of purpose-driven prosperity.

Kathleen Ashton, the founder can help you be all you can be.

Stop self-sabotage now!