Willow Marketing
Internet Marketing Tools and Techniques

How To Classify Your Network Marketing Prospect List Part 1

How To Classify Your Network Marketing Prospect List Part 1

Are you new to Network Marketing?

If you are, then one of the first things your sponsor or upline has probably already told you is that you will need to create a prospect list. I explain the reasons why you need to create a list of at least 100 names in another article I’ve written, called “Your #1 Secret Weapon”.

Once you have written your prospect list, it’s time to start approaching the people on your list with your business opportunity. Many people feel that you should just start calling the names on your list.

I have a different point of view. In my experience, I have found that once you have created your prospect list, it’s time to do some “classifying.”

It’s important to understand that by classifying your prospect list, I am not talking about pre-judging, or pre-qualifying people for your business opportunity.

You should not prejudge people, as there is no way you can predict who is going to seize your network marketing business opportunity and use it to transform their lives for the better and who is going to do absolutely nothing with it, despite having shown all the signs of being a potential “hot” prospect.

Also, do not pre-qualify the people on your list. This happens AFTER you have presented them your business opportunity. People will then qualify themselves “in” or “out” of your business. Your job is simply to present them with information, then allow them to make an informed decision as to whether your business opportunity is right for them or not.

Classifying the people on your prospect list is different. You are looking for people that you believe are worth approaching first, because you instinctively feel that they make a great contribution to the growth of your network marketing team.

You will want to classify the people on your prospect list in terms of criteria such as:

Location – Can you drive out to meet them within, say, 45 mins to one hour? Or do they live interstate or overseas?

Character – Are they positive and open to new ideas? Are they coachable and can they follow a system? Are they people who take immediate action when they recognize an opportunity? Do they have a large circle of influence? Asking these questions will help you identify potentially good business partners.

Remember that, as the CEO of your own organization, you will want to recruit the very best team you possibly can find. Classifying your contact list will help you identify other individuals who share your values. I recommend building your “dream” network marketing team with people who have the qualities that you strive for and admire.

Other Criteria – Are there people in your prospect list who are currently involved in another Network Marketing company, or who have previous experience building a multi-level marketing business? This can either be a good thing, as they may already be open to the concept of Network Marketing, or not so good, if they received poor training and experienced lack of upline support in the past and now are carrying some negative feelings or misconceptions about the Network Marketing industry.

The same thing applies to approaching professional salespeople. Some sales-trained professionals may be open to the idea of Network Marketing once they realize that multi-level marketing organizations create their sales volume based on a lot of people using and recommending a little bit of product each, and some may not get the point of Network Marketing at all, preferring instead to continue earning sales commissions through the addition of their individual sales, instead of via the multiplication and leverage of a team of people working together!

To read the rest of this article and learn more ways to classify your prospect list, visit my business training website: http://www.networkmarketingpro.net/classifying_your_network_marketing_prospect_list.html

10 Offline Tightwad Marketing Strategies to Help You Get More Clients

10 Offline Tightwad Marketing Strategies to Help You Get More Clients

Copyright 2006 Donna Gunter

Several years ago, in response to client requests for no-cost or low-cost marketing techniques, I coined the term “tightwad marketing”. My definition of tightwad marketing is the art of doing more with less, or using your creativity instead of your checkbook to get the word out about your business.

Even though the saying, “If you build it they will come” worked for Kevin Costner’s character in the movie, “Field of Dreams”, life doesn’t often imitate art. Usually the first thing that pops into someone’s mind when they think about marketing is, “I’ve got to place an ad.” Place a few ads and soon your marketing budget has totally dried up. Statistics say that someone must see your ad six times in the same publication before thinking of using your business. If it’s a weekly or monthly publication, that could be six weeks to six months down the road, and you can’t afford to wait that long!

In order for the public to find your field of dreams, here are ten inexpensive ways to get started:

1. Define your USP–­your Unique Selling Proposition–­and use it in everything that you do. Make sure your customer knows what it is that you do that is unique to you and your business. Don’t make them struggle to answer the question of why they should do business with you instead of your competitor.

2. Create joint ventures with other businesses that complement yours. For example, if you’re a real estate agent, team up with a cleaning service, an interior decorator, and a personal chef to offer a nice packaged deal to a new home buyer.

3. Stress the benefits of what you do, not the product or service. There’s a great story that’s passed around about the world’s most successful insurance salesman, who, when asked what he did for a living, responded, “I buy life assurance.” Most people responded, “What do you mean?” to which he replied, “I buy life assurance for my clients at the best possible price. Would you like me to buy some for you?” Make your potential customer think, “I’ve got to get that!”

4. Become newsworthy! Send out media releases to announce a new service or product or sponsorship of a charity event. Create an event or a special day. Link what you do to an existing trend or news event. Talk about your personal story in the business, i.e. if you went broke and bounded back, started to create one product and ended up with another, etc. Issue an award or give something away. Conduct a survey and report the results. Write a letter to the editor.

5. Talk to your customers. Call 5 previous customers and find out what they liked and didn’t like about their dealings with you, and how you might better serve them in the future. Have them write testimonials that you can use. Ask and reward them for referrals.

6. Love what you do and become a model of what you’re selling. If you don’t absolutely love what you do and feel passionate about it, your customers are going to see right through you and not be convinced to buy what you are offering. For example, if you’re a car mechanic and your shop sits on a parking lot full of clunkers that don’t run, why would anyone hire you to repair their car? Or, if you’re a landscaper and your lawn is full of weeds and crabgrass, who wants to hire you to beautify their yard? If you don’t truly feel passionate about your business and become a living model of that business to everyone you meet, then find another business!

7. Network, network, network! Join organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce, professional groups, civic groups, etc. and any type of organization to which your target market might belong. Attend community events like business open-houses or neighborhood picnics. Sales master Joe Girard lives by his “Law of 250”, which states that everyone knows about 250 people well enough to invite to their wedding or to be in attendance at their funeral. Lesson: Perhaps the person you’re speaking with isn’t interested in what you offer, but there’s a good chance s/he knows someone who is­250 of them!

8. Use attention-getting devices — make yourself visible. Always have business cards on hand to distribute. Have a t-shirt personalized with your business name and wear it when you run errands. Wear an outfit or uniform that shows the world who you are. UPS has taken their identity as seen in their brown trucks and uniforms and embraced it with the tag line in their current commercials, “What can brown do for you?”

9. Talk and teach. Approach local organizations about being a guest speaker at their next meeting. Give a workshop that is open to public and is low-cost/no-cost for participants and discuss a particular aspect of your business, or demonstrate what you do. Offer them valuable information, but leave them hungry for more. For example, a financial planner might offer a free seminar called, “Planning for Retirement as a Thirty-something” or a bank loan officer might offer a workshop in conjunction with a real estate agency called, “Everything a First-Time Homebuyer Needs to Know But is Too Scared to Ask.” Or, work with your local college or recreation department and get paid to teach what you know.

10. Implement 5 a day. Make a list of all the creative ways you can market your business, and implement 5 of them per day.

Remember, in Tightwad Marketing, you’re limited only by your imagination!

10 Marketing Strategies for Sports Betting Sites

10 Marketing Strategies for Sports Betting Sites

So you have a new sports betting site and you were hoping to compete with the established sports book sites, how do you go about letting the world know the site exists?

In the old days new sports gambling sites would simply just start aggressive Pay Per Click campaigns. With today’s Internet the search engines no longer allow gambling sites to advertise and that includes a ban on search engine PPC. Removing this type of advertising forced the online gambling providers to come up with other ways of increasing their popularity.

There are a number of strategies you can try in order to attract potential members to your sports betting sites.

1. Optimize your site for higher ranking in the organic searches. This is a tough one seeing as the competition is very steep. Don’t use questionable tactics, just be honest with your SEO and optimize the pages for the content that is actually on each page. 2. Generate topical content well in advance of the sporting event that you would like to promote. Generally speaking, search engines can take 3 to 12 weeks to find new pages so unless you are really up on how to get the pages indexed quicker, give new pages plenty of time to be discovered by the search engines. 3. Allow other sites to use your topical content in exchange for a text link back to your site. Doing this allows you to gain extremely valuable one way text links that will help to increase your link popularity. Just make sure you choose the text for that link carefully and the site posting your article maintains credit to you as the writer. 4. Post articles from other sites. Make sure that the article you post on your site is full of keyword rich text and optimize the page that contains that article for the contents of that article. When done properly this can greatly improve your chances of being found in a search engine for that articles topic. 5. Add a Forum to your site and create categories that promote the events that your site specializes in. For instance, if your site is based out of Europe you might want to make a bunch of categories based on Soccer such as Soccer Injuries, Soccer Trades & Rumors etc. Doing this will generate keyword rich, topical pages that eventually will be indexed by the search engines. The more active you’re Forum, the greater the chance of creating countless pages that the search engines will love. 6. Join forums on other sites and actively contribute to them. You see when posting to other forums your signature is added to the bottom of your post. In your signature you have an opportunity to place some text that could be used to promote your site. Also, some forums will allow you to place text links within the signature. Be respectful and do not stuff the signature with too many text links. 7. Add your site to as many directories as you can. Some directories can take a long time for inclusion, the DMOZ for instance, so you should apply to them as quickly as you can after launching your new sports betting site. 8. Reciprocating links can be helpful as long as you carefully search out potential linking partners. Make sure that the sites you are linking to are quality sites that you yourself would actually spend time on. A good rule of thumb is this – if you would bookmark the site others would probably bookmark it as well and therefore, the site would be a good site to trade links with. 9. Offer affiliate programs to other webmasters. If you offer affiliate programs make sure that you actually pay your affiliates in a timely manner. You would be surprised at how many sites actually don’t treat their affiliates very well. Treat the affiliates like the limited partners that they are and that level of respect will more than likely result in your banners and text links gaining better placement on the affiliate’s websites. 10. Purchase banner space on sports related websites. This can be an expensive proposition so you really need to take care in selecting the sites you want to buy banner space on. Don’t base your decision on Alexa ratings alone as these can easily be skewed. Also be wary of sites stating Hits and Impressions as their verification on traffic. The best stat to base you purchase on is monthly unique visitors and don’t take their word for it, use an independent third party tracker for unbiased results.

Just like everything else in life there are no guarantees but if you adopt some or all of the above mentioned marketing strategies, your site should see improvements over a short period of time.

How to Develop a Marketing Plan

How to Develop a Marketing Plan

If you’re thinking about developing a marketing program, you need to begin with a marketing plan.Having been in marketing for more than a decade, I have seen my share of marketing plans.Some are short and to the point, others are hundreds of pages thick and cost thousands of dollars to produce.

The irony is that many of the expensive marketing plans end up on a shelf and rarely get implemented.The simple plans, if researched and implemented effectively, have the greatest impact.

Regardless of the scope of your marketing plan, you must keep in mind that it is a fluid document.Every business needs to begin with a well structured plan that is based in thorough research, competitive positioning and attainable outcomes.Your plan should be the basis for your activities over the coming months.However, you should always be willing to enhance or redirect your plan based on what proves successful.

Marketing Plan Basics

1. Market Research Collect, organize, and write down data about the market that is currently buying the product(s) or service(s) you will sell. Some areas to consider: •Market dynamics, patterns including seasonality •Customers – demographics, market segment, target markets, needs, buying decisions •Product – what’s out there now, what’s the competition offering •Current sales in the industry •Benchmarks in the industry •Suppliers – vendors that you will need to rely on

2. Target Market Find niche or target markets for your product and describe them.

3. Product Describe your product. How does your product relate to the market? What does your market need, what do they currently use, what do they need above and beyond current use?

4. Competition Describe your competition. Develop your “unique selling proposition.” What makes you stand apart from your competition? What is your competition doing about branding?

5. Mission Statement Write a few sentences that state: •”Key market” – who you’re selling to •”Contribution” – what you’re selling •”Distinction” – your unique selling proposition

6. Market Strategies Write down the marketing and promotion strategies that you want to use or at least consider using. Strategies to consider: •Networking – go where your market is •Direct marketing – sales letters, brochures, flyers •Advertising – print media, directories •Training programs – to increase awareness •Write articles, give advice, become known as an expert •Direct/personal selling •Publicity/press releases •Trade shows •Web site

7. Pricing, Positioning and Branding From the information you’ve collected, establish strategies for determining the price of your product, where your product will be positioned in the market and how you will achieve brand awareness.

8. Budget Budget your dollars. What strategies can you afford? What can you do in house, what do you need to outsource.

9. Marketing Goals Establish quantifiable marketing goals. This means goals that you can turn into numbers. For instance, your goals might be to gain at least 30 new clients or to sell 10 products per week, or to increase your income by 30% this year. Your goals might include sales, profits, or customer’s satisfaction.

10. Monitor Your Results Test and analyze. Identify the strategies that are working. •Survey customers •Track sales, leads, visitors to your web site, percent of sales to impressions

By researching your markets, your competition, and determining your unique positioning, you are in a much better position to promote and sell your product or service.By establishing goals for your marketing campaign, you can better understand whether or not your efforts are generating results through ongoing review and evaluation of results.

As mentioned earlier in this article, be sure to use your plan as a living document.Successful marketers continually review the status of their campaigns against their set objectives.This ensures ongoing improvements to your marketing initiatives and helps with future planning.

How To Incorporate Adsense Into Your Online Affiliate Marketing

How To Incorporate Adsense Into Your Online Affiliate Marketing

A lot of people are lured by affiliate marketing because it can be financially rewarding, even if you just stay at home. Affiliate marketing programs are best alternatives to those who are sick and tired of their arduous daily work just to climb up the venerated corporate ladder. You don’t need products to sell, you just have to market them in your own web site and you don’t have to worry about processing the customers’ payments and the shipment of the products. If you are already into affiliate marketing, probably you were thinking about these benefits, too, before deciding to join an affiliate program.

Of course you want earn huge amount of commission. Who would not want it anyway? Keep in mind, however, that affiliate marketing cannot guarantee you instant success if you don’t work on it. There are a lot of ways of maximizing your income. The Internet is a huge library of information, use it to learn of other opportunities and ways to increase your income. You can partner with several merchandisers and promote different products in your website; thereby, increasing your chance to earn a commission.

The easiest way for you to rev up your revenue potential is by incorporating Google AdSense into your marketing campaigns. What is Google AdSense? What are its advantages? How can it boost my revenues? These are some of the questions you might want to ask. Let’s try to probe into Google AdSense, so you would know how it could help you in your affiliate marketing program.

Merchants place their ads in Google, which is one of the most popular search engines or tools for locating various resources in the World Wide Web. Now the Google AdSense program allows you to display these ads in you website and when your visitors click through them, you earn. The advertiser, which is the merchant pays Google for every click-through made by the customer and you as a partner of Google, gets a share from that payment.

What’s great about the Google AdSense is that the ads are relevant to the content of your web page. Most likely, visitors of your web site are interested on the theme of your site and specifically, on the content of your web page. So, seeing ads related to their interest would definitely drive them to click through the link or the ad. Using state-of-the-art technology, Google scans your web site and matches the content of your pages to their large database of advertisers; this way, Google is able to find ads that are targeted by the users of your site. In addition, Google changes the ads in your site as you change the content of your pages, so you can always expect the ads to be relevant to your site.

Having Google ads in your website is also a way of convincing your users to return to your site. Repeat customers multiply your income without having to exert extra effort to convince them again to click through your links. And your potential to earn doesn’t depend on them alone. Since you already have their confidence, they can be your endorsers as well. They could refer your site to family and friends who probably share the same interests with them.

Advertisers in the Google AdSense program range from large international brands to small-time domestic and local businesses, so the targeted market for the ads can range as well. This adds variety to your site; thereby, attracting different kinds of users. As you attract more users, you increase your earning potential as well. If you are targeting a specific nationality for your site users, don’t worry because AdSense can be used in different languages.

In order to boost your revenues through Google AdSense, you must pay attention to making web pages of high value topics. Make contents related to high-paying ads, so you can earn more. Some ads pay only a few cents while some ads pay you dollars just for a single click. You would need to do a little research on this so you can come up with a more relevant content. Join affiliate marketing forums and get tips from experienced affiliate marketers.

Becoming an AdSense affiliate marketer is easy and fast. You just have to apply online and once your application is approved, you can instantly set up Google ads in your site. All you need to do is copy and paste some codes in your web pages and in no time the ads will appear in your site.

Strike while the iron is hot! Take advantage of the favorable circumstances the Internet is offering you. Make the most of your affiliate marketing opportunities, use Google AdSense!

How To Have A Quick Start In Network Marketing

How To Have A Quick Start In Network Marketing

The first thing that we to understand when starting our own network marketing business is that this is not going to be something that will net us two million dollars in two weeks. We have to treat it like any business and put in both our time and money. With that said, let us look at some ways to explode our business in the shortest time possible and the least amount of dollars spent.

The first thing that we need to do is register a domain and forward it to our affiliate site. This will help make our business more professional looking which will help drive more cash into our pockets. This can be done through many sites; just do a search for domains and you will find a ton of companies selling them. I personally use Godaddy for all my domain needs.

Then next thing that we can do to explode our business is advertise via signature files. All we need to do is simply search for forums we would like to participate in and set up a signature file (also known as a resource box) with our domain in it. The goal is to add one post everyday to each forum, keeping in mind people only want to read legitimate posts. This may take some time to generate results but it is well worth the effort.

The next thing that we need to look at is using pay per click tools such as Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing to drive traffic to our site. This is easy to set up and can bring in a lot of site hits. The biggest thing here is not spending too much for each click. Take a look at what other people are paying for the same type of services and what the return on the investment would be.

Finally, another way that we can we can open our business with a bang is through the use of ezines. Ezines are essentially online magazines where you can pay to have an advertisement placed. This is a fairly cheap method of marketing and can generate wonderful results. It’s time to get off to a great start.

5 Tried And True Internet Marketing Strategies

5 Tried And True Internet Marketing Strategies

If you have an internet business and you are looking for excellent marketing strategies, it is often best to start out with strategies that have been successful for others. You want to choose marketing strategies that will bring excellent results when you use them. There are a variety of internet marketing strategies available, but the following are five strategies that have proven themselves effective over and over again.

Strategy #1 – Search Engine Optimization One of the best internet marketing strategies to help you market your product or services is search engine optimization. This marketing strategy focuses on optimizing your site to be best found by popular search engines such as Yahoo and Google. Before you can make this strategy effective, it is important that you understand how search engine optimization works. If you are unfamiliar with this concept, it may be best to hire someone to help you with this type of marketing.

Strategy #2 – Newsletters Another internet marketing strategy that has proven to be successful is e-newsletter marketing. This type of marketing works by allowing site visitors to sign up for your emails, and then you can periodically send out newsletters updating them on your business and making special offers to draw them back to your site. If you choose to use this strategy it is important that you only send these newsletters to those who sign up for them.

Strategy #3 – Pay Per Click Ads A very popular form of internet marketing is using pay per click ads, which are both easy to use and cost-effective as well. You can sign up with various search engines to have your ad show up as a result for specific keywords and you will only have to pay if people click on your site. Many have found this internet marketing strategy to be one of the most effective strategies available.

Strategy #4 – Link Exchanging A newer internet marketing strategy is link exchanging. This strategy basically works by having various websites exchange links. You can ask another site to provide a link to your site, and in return you will put a link to their site on yours. This works to be mutually beneficial for both businesses, and while it provides more web traffic, it can also help increase rank on search engines as well.

Strategy #5 – Web Banners Web banners are another type of internet marketing strategy that has been proven to be very effective. This strategy requires purchasing space on other websites such as e-zines or other sites that may be relevant to your business. In the space you purchase your ad will appear and you will benefit from the traffic of that site being interested in what you have to offer.

Each of these internet marketing strategies have proven to be great strategies that brought results. When choosing which of these strategies to use, be sure that you pick strategies that fit the nature of your business. There are many methods of internet marketing, but if you are new to the business, often using the tried and true methods can bring the best results.

19 Viral Marketing Techniques

19 Viral Marketing Techniques

With the onslaught of marketing campaigns geared towards Internet users, viral marketing has paved the way and has become one of the top methods used in advertising.

The principle behind the success of viral marketing is the number of users reached through the campaign. There are several viral marketing techniques that can be applied for an advertising campaign to succeed. Take a look at the following:

1. Creating viral marketing awards.

Creating viral marketing awards help both the companies and users by creating even more users. Awards in viral marketing help innovate the industry more and bring out more effective marketing techniques.

2. Distributing free software.

Anything useful and free gets an instant “fan base” on the Internet. Provide online users with any software that they need for free – even for a limited time – and they will surely grab it.

When using a free software, you can run the program to suit any application, check the flow of the program to learn how it works, make improvisations and have the right to distribute the software for free.

3. Providing free email account.

This is what Microsoft did to initially launch Hotmail. They put in a “teaser” at the end of the free e-mail messages that they send out providing a link for users to sign-up for a free and private e-mail account.

The word “free” has sparked the interest of online users, as well as the fact that this is something that online users really need. Soon, almost all Microsoft users signed up for a free Hotmail account. This started the viral marketing fever.

4. Providing free web space.

Personal web logs have become all the buzz on the Internet.

There are companies now who are competing like crazy just to offer customers the lowest cost on directory listing and have the biggest space allotments.

This competition will benefit the users in such a way that they get their pick from a host of web space providers and have the greatest deal.

5. Creating top 100 site.

Online users often need a list of web sites relating to the topic that they need. Creating a top 100 list is one way to build your list and increase your customer base.

6. Offering free e-cards.

Egreetings.com is one company which provide teasers for online users to send electronic greetings cards. They are animated and personalized, so most users take advantage of the offer.

7. Offering free graphics, banners, templates.

Just like the marketing of regular consumer products, anything that is free and useful will catch the attention of a lot of people. Banners, graphics, templates and other items that online users can use is a welcome addition to their list of freebies and will infuse the viral marketing fever.

8. Offering free consultation.

Most online users do not know exactly where to go for consultations about web services or other services in various fields.

Free online consultation web sites require you to enter your name, e-mail address and other pertinent information and this would help add up to your subscribers and customer base.

9. Offering specialized link directory.

Specialized links directory help build a more specific clientele, as the users who need this service can be classified. This technique yields more accurate results.

10. Free newsletter with bonuses.

An online shopping company might use this viral marketing technique. Offering catalogs with free online gift certificates will generate a huge customer base.

11. Free redirect service.

Redirect services gives out the new contact information of a web site that changed hosts or servers, as well as re-directing users to a new or personalized domain name. This is an alternative to the much longer and complicated URL’s offered by most web hosts.

12. Free screensavers.

You cannot browse through the Internet and not find popup advertisements about free screensavers. This is one way of getting the user’s e-mail address for a company to start building a solid customer base.

Getting online users to take advantage of free screensavers, as well as emoticons or other downloadables that they can use on their computers is one of the most effective techniques used in viral marketing.

13. Free autoresponder service.

Autoresponder services add up to your company’s sales by using follow-up e-mail messages in marketing.

14. Free email course.

You cannot believe the wealth of information that you can gain from free e-mail courses. Most publishers of free e-books want to share their knowledge to other online users and this is a good way to entice users to your web site.

15. Writing articles and distributing them for reprint with resource box.

When writing articles for free download, make sure to have them reprinted with the resource box.

A resource box is a box on one side of the web page where you got the article, and it shows the complete contact information of the author of a particular article.

16. Using forums and discussion boards which uses signatures.

The users of discussion boards and forums have the same interests. By getting their signatures on message boards, you can have a very wide array of potential buyers from a specific target market.

17. Starting your own affiliate program.

This is one of the best methods to generate traffic and sales to your site. Here, a specialized link is provided for your affiliates so that users can be veered towards your web site.

18. Providing free guestbook.

A guestbook makes a list of all your online visitors. After a user visits your website, you would have their contact information for future marketing and mailing purposes.

19. Providing free forums.

Online forums have a lot of participants which can be a very useful viral marketing technique.

By applying these viral marketing techniques to promote your products and services, you will surely generate traffic to your web site, build a huge and solid customer base, add to your sales and contribute towards the success of your company.

Note: This article may be freely reproduced as long as the AUTHOR’S resource box at the bottom of this article is included and all links must be Active/Linkable with no syntax changes.

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