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Your business has one main goal in mind - that is to increase your sales. To accomplish this you need to attract attention to your Business products and services. You need more visitors to your store or traffic to your website... whatever the case may be. The more business leads you get, the more customers you will have, and ultimately your sales volume will increase.
There are many methods that you can use to bring in leads for your business. The methods that we will tell you about are s imple and low cost... yet they are very effective. Here are ome of the methods that are known to be effective in generating leads:
- Offer a Free Vacation Vouchers
- Offer a Free Electronic Book (EBook)
- Publish a Newsletter
Offer Free Vacation Vouchers
I know what you are thinking... A Free Vacation? Who is going to believe that! Here is how it works... hotels frequently give away free rooms in order to get people in their hotels hoping they will spend money on their services. Most recipients of free vacations stay longer than the amount of complimentary nights offered, and most require other travel services such as airline reservations and auto rentals.
How would you like to give your Prospects (potential customers) a Free Vacation Voucher? This successful marketing strategy has and is still being used both in Internet Marketing and Direct Marketing for generating leads. You could use these Free Vacation Voucher in a couple of ways.
One way is to give a Voucher to acquaintances that you think may be interested in buying or may tell other people about your Business.
Secondly, you could present your Free vacation offer through online and offline advertising. For example, you could submit a Classified Ad offering a Free Vacation for the next 100 visitors that come to your website, subscribe to your Newsletter, download your Ebook, attend your information seminar, download your demo software... or any other marketing activities you have going on. You are getting Free Publicity from every one of these people that are receiving these vouchers. Use your imagination.. the list of ways that you could use these vouchers for lead generation is endless.
These Free Vacation Vouchers are colorful and professionally designed. They come with your business information at the bottom of each voucher. They can be delivered to your place of business within 2-5 business days.
The same thing can be done with your customers. How would you like to offer your Customers a Free vacation? Give them a Free Vacation Voucher to say that you appreciate their patronage. You would be surprised what that will do for your business. These satisfied customers will spread the word about how much they liked your products or services. They will, no doubt be repeat customers if they ever need your line of business again.
Offer a Free EBook
Put together some information that you feel is interesting, unique, and relates to your business. For example, you could put together content on How to do something. People love to be shown how to do something interesting and unique.
Once you have the content, you need to put it in a format that is appealing and everybody can open and read (i.e., HTML or PDF). The final touch is to generate a nice looking cover for your electronic book. The cover should be colorful and have a catchy title. The combination of a beautiful book cover with a great heading is what arguably drives a person to want to read its contents.
Once, you have created your EBook, you need to let people know about it. Have the EBook available on your website for download. When someone comes to your web site to download it, capture their information into your database by having them enter their names and email in your web form. Now, they have opted in to your database and you can follow up with them.
Publish a Newsletter
One of the most effective ways of generating leads for your business is by offering a Free subscription to your Newsletter. As with the Free Ebook, it is important when writing a newsletter that you write about something that you feel people will find interesting and unique.
Everybody has something that they can write about. What most people lack is the time to write. Even if you publish a Monthly newsletter, people will want to sign up if they feel that the topic is interesting.
Employ any or all of these well known marketing strategies, and you will notice a significant increase in website traffic and an increase in the leads generated. But don't stop there! Remember, you need to follow up with these leads and turn them into paying customers.
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Dwayne McLean is Co-founder of Smart Marketing Central, LLC - a company providing businesses with automated marketing strategies and business resources. For more information visit: www.smartmarketingcentral.com
Subscribe to our Weekly Newsletter, "Advanced Strategies for Business Growth" by emailing: ezine_html@smartmarketingcentral.com Posted By : Dwayne McLean Address : Ph : , URL : http://www.smartmarketingcentral.com/ Date Added : 25-Jun-2004
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Build or Buy--Should You Build Your Own Opt-in Email List?
By Mohamed Rabea
http://www.bizpeak.com
The easiest way to acquire an email list for your ezine or email marketing is just to buy one. They're not too expensive, and they
provide you with a long list of names and email addresses.
But if there is one thing I've learned as the owner of an ezine, it is that the easy road is not always the one that brings you
the best results. The problem with buying an email list is that none of the people on that list know who you are. When they
receive an email from you, most likely they will just delete it without bothering to open it.
That is why it is so beneficial to build your own opt-in email list. Yes, creating a list from scratch is the more difficult and
time-consuming solution, but at least it is a solution. Email lists rarely bring the desired results, so the money you spend on
them might as well be flushed down the toilet.
Email marketing and ezine distribution isn't about blasting a bunch of strangers with sales pitches and information they don't
want and didn't ask for. If you really want to achieve results with your email list, you need to build your own.
Here is a list of questions you need to ask yourself when building your email list:
*Who is your target audience and what do you have to offer them?
*What kind of relationship do you want with the recipients of your emailings?
*What method or methods will you use to collect email addresses?
Web forms, registration or subscription forms, trade shows, telephone contacts and sales calls are all viable ways to get the
email addresses of people who will be interested in what you have to offer.
*Will your emails come in the form of ads, newsletters, deals and specials, company announcements and press releases, or discussion lists?
*Will you handle the creative aspects of your mailings, such as copywriting and editing, or will you need a little help?
Once you're ready to start building your list, use outside lists to help you get started. You can recruit opt-in list members by
renting an opt-in list to send out an announcement. You could also try taking out an ad in a targeted email newsletter or
discussion list.
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Mohamed Rabea is the owner of one of the Internet's most popular
home based business and marketing websites, available from
http://www.bizpeak.com & http://www.bizpioneer.com Posted By :
Mohamed Rabea Address : Ph : , URL : http://www.bizpeak.com Date Added : 28-Jun-2004
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I Get My Best Ideas in the Bathroom!
Since I am a multi-tasker, why not? I won't mention the other tasks, but I am a multi-tasker for sure. The bathroom became a place with such a peaceful atmosphere that I almost have a mini office setup in there.
After Calgon finally took me away, I saw a way to therapeudically, (is that a word?) multi-task.
The quiet atmosphere and the lack of phones and doorbells have created the perfect place for me in the bathroom. I don't hear the dishwasher, I don't hear the dryer, and the TV is not blaring commercials in my ear telling me that because I am a woman, I leak, I stink, I have yellow teeth, I have feminine odor that needs covering up, the hair on my face needs bleaching, pulling, or I can just have it electrocuted.
And if that's not enough, I'm told that my clothes are dirty dingy and need oxygen because the dirt is having a problem breathing I think. Not only does the dirt need oxygen, it also needs vitamin-C in the form of orange products.
We are spending a lot of time on getting dirt to a healthy state. Next we will be testing the earthworms to see if they are actually an Atkins-friendly supplement for the dirt. Well enough of WHY Calgon took me away...
What are the essentials for successful bathroom business ideas? Well, you need a quiet place to sit or stretch out. You can add water to get the ideas really flowing. Paper is a necessity. For multi-tasking I suggest two kinds of paper: single-ruled and two-ply. You will need a light. Bright enough to write, but not so bright that you get "distracted" by what could be yellowing teeth. You will also need an imagination, but stay away from those ideas that"stink".
After setup, just let your mind wander. You will be surprised at what comes to you. Write down your ideas. One idea can lead to a multitude of new ideas. Let's say you were thinking about a book you read. Then your mind wandered to the bookstore where you were earlier that day looking for a book on algebra for your son.
Bathroom Business Idea!- What about a focused book store creating a new niche in the market! ALL About Math. It could carry math books from pre-school to college. Every math book they make. Math books for teachers, tutors, students, and parents who want to stay involved. You could offer flash cards, math games, math software, math charts and graphs, math rules, and so much more. You could even sponsor math contests from age 4 to age 40. You could offer in-store math tutoring, in-store math quizzes, in-store speed math contests. And I could keep going on and on, just from one simple idea. Anyone looking for a math book would seek you out "first" as you are bound to have "everything" math related!
Writing down your ideas can be so much fun that time may get away from you so don't do what I did. While I dismissed the thoughts of ring-around-the-collar thanks to Calgon, I forgot all about ring-around-the-tub.
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Rebecca Game is the founder of Digital-Women.com
© Copyright 2004
Reprints available upon request
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