Social media is seen by many marketers as the next gold rush. Like any business, the media industry evolves in cycles. In the past, there have been few job openings at media companies but now as content converges and more media companies are looking for ways to branch out and reach larger population bases there is an increase in the availability of highly coveted marketing positions.

However, the availability of new technologies and new developments in the media industry have created a demand for new kinds of experience, cultural knowledge and skills sets that candidates must be aware of if they wish for such a position.

If you are pondering starting social media marketing, these findings will help push you over the edge.  If you’re already onboard, feel free to examine what the really experienced marketers are doing.

When searching for a marketing position in the media industry it is important to know that the industry is highly heterogeneous. Marketers should also be aware of the competition that they will face when pursuing a position at a media company. Typically, marketers must have a plethora of solid experience and a vast understanding of the media industry and the specific changes impacting the industry they are looking to work in. Marketers should already be familiar with how to communicate their messages across a variety of mediums and how to connect with a large customer base.

Social marketing requires so many processes going on at once that it can quickly become overwhelming. It’s no wonder that things can slip through the cracks.

5 Simple Things Most Social Media Marketers Forget To Do

Set Goals

It’s amazing how many campaigns are run without a set goal. Marketers understand that social media is interacting with consumers but forget they need goals to track success. The goal doesn’t need to be a sales figure, it could be something as simple as number of @ replies on Twitter or Facebook fans. By analyzing your current standing, your goal and your % change you can decide what has been working and what not. Without these numbers you can neither optimize your campaign nor determine success.

Link Profiles

Linking your social media profiles to a hub and each other is a simple and effective way to build a community throughout your network. By making it easy for consumers to find the brand profiles you will remove an obstacle for them to join the community. Giving consumers multiple ways to connect with the brand increase the likelihood.

Use Multimedia

The web has evolved to go beyond just textual content to include images and videos. Leaving out this section of content means, disregarding a large section of consumers.

Listen Intently

When engaging in social media, 60% of your time should be spent listening to the industry and mentions of your brand. Only 40% of your time should be spent actually interacting with consumers. Here listening means actively tracking conversation and reading mentions. Just knowing that they exist is not enough; you need to know what they’re talking about, how they talk and what the trend is.

Have Fun

One of the forgotten, yet most important aspect of social media is to have fun. Brands forget that they’re engaging consumers talking to them instead of broadcasting a message. By having a good time yourself and staying upbeat consumers enjoy interacting with you. The brand must set the mood for the engagement, just like in offline relationships, online consumers will take cues from the brand on how the interaction should occur.

Remembering these 5 strategies can help make your social campaign a success. These may be easy to forget, but are extremely effective.

Author: Jaennie Hulme

Now you’re wondering what an autoresponder is, what it does and why are you in need of such a thing?  The main explanation of an autoresponder in one sentence is that it is a web based email marketing software system that delivers your welcome emails, newsletters, campaigns, offers and follow-ups in an easy and effective way that can change the way you look at email marketing forever.

The benefits of having a smart personalized autoresponder are endless just look at the following luxuries that an autoresponder provides for you:  You are assured of unlimited email marketing campaigns; you can have more than 100+ professionally designed HTML templates for total uniqueness every time.

Affordable and powerful newsletter hosting. Wouldn’t it be better to have a newsletter send out automatically to each of your subscribers every week? Easy and fast click-through sales and revenue tracking for your convenience. You also receive a free daily digest containing a report of your autoresponder’s activity for that day.

Excellent support and training almost at your feet, just as you need it. This type of software will make your business more effective than ever and just as enjoyable.One of the first things one should do when deciding on an autoresponder is to ask oneself a few questions:

1. Is this the best value for my money?

2. Will my data be secure?

3. Will my email be delivered successfully to my customers, or instead blocked by spam filters?

4. Will I experience the customer support that I expect, via email, toll-free phone and fax?

If you an answer yes to at least 3 of these questions you are on the path of successful email marketing.  One of the most important reasons for having an autoresponder is increased sales and the prevention of charge backs.

With something as amazing as an autoresponder you have endless capabilities and flexibility concerning your email marketing campaign.  You are now allowed to put all your attention to what you do best and let the autoresponder do the rest; it produces the best results and value of any investment.

You now have more time to be creative and produce other products to market and even have more time for yourself and your customer satisfaction is guaranteed to take a permanent boost when you have the help of an autoresponder.

Autoresponders are the future of email marketing, and with it, that future is in your hands to change and shape your business just as you want it. No more negative thoughts or failures of any kind concerning your online business, because with the help of an autoresponder your are guaranteed to change the way you look at email marketing forever and sky rocket your business to maximum success!

Article Source:

Image Source

Author: Kate Sanchet

I admit it - I’m a nit-picker when it comes to proper use of the language.  I’m referring to English since that is my native tongue but regardless of which language you may be using, if you want to be viewed as a credible, authoritative source for whatever subject you are discussing, proper grammatical use and correct spelling is absolutely essential.

Few things irritate me more than seeing bad grammar and incorrect spelling in a newspaper or magazine article or hearing bad grammar on the television news.  These places are supposed to be authoritative sources of information.  If they cannot even make correct use of the language, how are we supposed to trust in their ability to do research or to make valid judgments on issues of importance?

These people supposedly attended institutes of higher learning that qualify them to keep the rest of us informed about matters of serious import.  When they write and speak like third or fourth graders, their credibility flies out the window!  When did we lose the ability to use our own language?

The same thing applies to advertising.   If you are doing marketing on the internet (or anywhere else for that matter) it’s a good idea to remember that you (and possibly your product) are being judged on the basis of your language since that is usually all that we readers can see of you.

How can you expect to convince a customer to purchase your product if you cannot  even convince him/her of your intelligence?  Misspelled words and incorrect phrases DO NOT mark you as an authority on anything.

Authorities are generally supposed to be successful, learned people who have done thorough research in their field of expertise.  Would you want to trust your care to a doctor who could not spell the illness you may be suffering from or the name of the medicine he is prescribing for you?  Some of the articles I have read recently leave me doubting the author’s ability to research their way back home.

How  DO  they manage to find their office each morning?   A while back I read one of those books written by a “supposedly” successful millionaire entrepreneur.  I hadn’t read very much before I was strongly inclined to throw it into the trash.  But since I had paid for it I decided to reserve judgment until I finished reading it (a painful process at best).

My main question is: If the guy is a millionaire, why did he not invest a few dollars into getting his book proofread?  Did he not realize that his poorly produced volume would reflect on his credibility and, rather than generating sales, would have the opposite effect?  Any third grader could have written it and would probably have done a better job.

I did not find his information either coherent or logical.  If he’s a millionaire, he had to have gotten there by sheer dumb luck because I could find little evidence of intelligent design in his book.   In marketing bad grammar equals bad impressions; bad spelling equals bad impressions and bad impressions equal lost revenue.

If you care so little about the public image you are creating by your own marketing efforts, how can I, the buyer, trust you to sell me a worthwhile product?  Believe me, this affects your bottom line.

I’ve been shopping for decades and I can’t remember ever buying a product that was promoted in such an unprofessional manner.  Invest a little time and effort into proofreading your promotional material.  You may find that it pays big dividends.

Article Source:

Image Source

Author: Jaennie Hulme

Now you’re wondering what an autoresponder is, what it does and why are you in need of such a thing?  The main explanation of an autoresponder in one sentence is that it is a web based email marketing software system that delivers your welcome emails, newsletters, campaigns, offers and follow-ups in an easy and effective way that can change the way you look at email marketing forever.

The benefits of having a smart personalized autoresponder are endless just look at the following luxuries that an autoresponder provides for you:  You are assured of unlimited email marketing campaigns; you can have more than 100+ professionally designed HTML templates for total uniqueness every time.

Affordable and powerful newsletter hosting. Wouldn’t it be better to have a newsletter send out automatically to each of your subscribers every week? Easy and fast click-through sales and revenue tracking for your convenience. You also receive a free daily digest containing a report of your autoresponder’s activity for that day.

Excellent support and training almost at your feet, just as you need it. This type of software will make your business more effective than ever and just as enjoyable.    One of the first things one should do when deciding on an autoresponder is to ask oneself a few questions:

1. Is this the best value for my money?

2. Will my data be secure?

3. Will my email be delivered successfully to my customers, or instead blocked by spam filters?

4. Will I experience the customer support that I expect, via email, toll-free phone and fax?   If you an answer yes to at least 3 of these questions you are on the path of successful email marketing.

One of the most important reasons for having an autoresponder is increased sales and the prevention of charge backs.

With something as amazing as an autoresponder you have endless capabilities and flexibility concerning your email marketing campaign.  You are now allowed to put all your attention to what you do best and let the autoresponder do the rest; it produces the best results and value of any investment.

You now have more time to be creative and produce other products to market and even have more time for yourself and your customer satisfaction is guaranteed to take a permanent boost when you have the help of an autoresponder.

Autoresponders are the future of email marketing, and with it, that future is in your hands to change and shape your business just as you want it.

No more negative thoughts or failures of any kind concerning your online business, because with the help of an autoresponder your are guaranteed to change the way you look at email marketing forever and sky rocket your business to maximum success!

Article Source:

Image Source

Author: Kimmo Linkama

It is sometimes amazing how stubbornly companies and their marketers cling to old-fashioned, clichéd and downright wrong ideas of how they should market their companies and their products or services. Here is a collection of self-destructive obsessions from my 20-year marketing communication career.

1. Me, myself and I   The most efficient way to end a date abruptly is to talk about yourself all the time. Why would your customer think differently?  When you go to almost any company’s website or read their marketing literature, you will be inundated with talk about what WE can do, what OUR values are or how OUR products perform.

Let’s be honest: the customer couldn’t care less about YOU. She wants to know “what’s in it for ME”. Instead of knowing that your machine does X thousand revolutions per minute, she needs information on how her business will do better if it buys a machine that does X thousand revolutions per minute.  In other words, don’t just tell about features. Go ahead and transform them into advantages and benefits.

2. Mass individualism   It may be fun to create terms that only have a meaning to you, or your advertising agency. But what will your customers think?  The example above is from real life, but let’s not reveal who is the culprit. The company was so proud of this flash of genius that it made it the motto of their retail chain.

Obviously, nobody came to think that in only two words, magnificently contradictory, they managed to create mass confusion.

The moral of the story: When you’re creating mottos, taglines or slogans, make sense. Adapt the terminology to your target group and remember that people need to understand what you’re saying immediately. And for heaven’s sake, be clear about what your business is about and what it tries to achieve.

3. We are the best partner you can imagine   If you don’t know how to quantify your offering, maybe you should start practising. Soon and hard.  I recently ran into the website of a web design company that claimed to be “the best web design company for you”. Given that a quick Google search on “web design company” gives 86,500,000 (yes, eighty-six-and-a-half million) results, I have my doubts. Just claiming something doesn’t make you an expert. Proving it does. Again, make it crystal clear what the customer’s benefit of doing business with you instead of your competitors is.

4. This is how it’s always been done in our industry   Has it brought any results? As Einstein said: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  The funniest – or most tragic – aspect of many companies’ resistance to changing their message or tone of voice is that a) they seek the help of a marketing communication specialist to improve the results of their business, and b) when they are getting the help, they still want to do it the old way.

Which needed to be changed to improve the business, remember?  Particularly in times like these when the economy is slowing down, it might be an idea to be the first to break the conventions of your industry. It takes some courage, definitely, but may produce results that surprise you.

5. Our marketing team didn’t like your suggestion   All right, that’s infinity minus one. Helps the ad agency a lot.  When your marketing message is being crafted, whoever is crafting it may not hit the nail on the head the first time. Perhaps he was sloppy, but equally well it may have been an insufficient or unclear brief.

That’s why the writer or the design team need a detailed dissection of WHY the suggestion didn’t fare.  Besides, it is totally irrelevant what your marketing team likes or does not like. What matters is what the target group thinks. Test, research, find out. Then adapt.

Article Source:

Image Source

By Michelle Carvill

Okay, times ahead are looking rough - but you’re not going to be shortsighted and pull activity - instead you’re going to consider how you can leverage upon your activity and get your house in order - so that you have a sharp pencil to work with.

You’ve taken a step back and you’ve decided that there are numerous things you can do to improve your business. And, given that ‘implementation is key’ - you now you want to pull together a program to develop and improve your business. But where do you start? How do you select which areas to focus on initially - to ensure that resources, time, financials and effort are allocated appropriately?

SWOT analysis provides you with a starting point. A simple framework for analysing your business designed to help you identify the ‘health’ of your business - looking at Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats - hence SWOT.

Like many activities - outcome is dependent upon input. Therefore, it’s essential to look at all aspects of your business; industry dynamics, market growth, product development, culture, customer relationship management etc, etc.  The more analysis you undertake, the deeper your understanding.

How SWOT Analysis Works

Generally, the SWOT analysis framework looks at all areas of your business from 2 perspectives;

Internal Issues: Areas within the business, which the business owner has the ability to influence.
External Issues: The environment within which the business operates. Areas of limited control such as, business climate, legislative issues etc. So let’s look at the practicalities of undertaking a SWOT…

Step 1 - Preparation

Set out what you want to achieve. The SWOT process helps you to highlight areas of greatest concern, and greatest comfort - helping you to identify where you need to take action to resolve any challenges.

It’s not a quick process. Most businesses, regardless of size, have a number of complexities to flesh out. The SWOT process may identify actions you need to take before you can continue with your analysis - you may need to undertake Market Research - a project in itself. Create a timeline, meet with relevant parties regularly and ensure that the SWOT is given the time it requires, to assess, discuss and monitor progress.
Step 2 - External Issues

Opportunities and Threats often focus attention on the External Issues. Perhaps a threat is sited as ‘new technological developments’ - which may influence the sales of your product. However, this Threat could also turn into an Advantage - it could mean that your product would be in demand by those who don’t want to move forward with technology, or it could mean that you develop a new product offering with better features.  The SWOT creates significant opportunity to brainstorm areas such as; trends, the current state of the business, and impact external issues may have on the business - covering 6 key areas:

1. Industry
2. Competition
3. Technology
4. Customers
5. Shareholder circumstances
6. The General Business Environment

Step 3 - Internal Issues

Analysis of your strengths and weaknesses should focus on the relative strength or weakness compared to your competition.  The same principles apply - the current state of your business, trends within your business sector, and scope and impact.

1. Aspects relating to direction of the business

- Vision
- Strategy
- Culture
- Structure

2. Aspects relating to the operations of the business.

- Products and services
- Marketing and sales
- Production and inventory
- People
- Finance

Step 4 - Implementation

Once you get through your SWOT, you will have spent a significant amount of time and resource, discussing, identifying, prioritising and brainstorming. By this stage, having gone through this process rigorously, you will have identified your core initial issues which need to be addressed.

And this is where the fun starts. You have undertaken research on your business - you have a clearer idea of key issues - and how to move your business in the direction you want to take it. There’s still a lot to do - but at least you are off first base.

Michelle Carvill is a Marketing Consultant and has been running http://www.carvillcreative.co.uk for the past 6 years. Working with a number of small and medium sized businesses - she shares her hands on experience - tips, news, view and advice. Visit her blog http://www.carvillonmarketing.com for more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michelle_Carvill http://EzineArticles.com/?How-Healthy-is-Your-Business?–Do-a-SWOT-to-Find-Out&id=1858865

Powerful Marketing For Free - Strategies
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Leonardo_Wood]Leonardo Wood

Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive, in fact some of the greatest and most powerful forms of marketing cost no money to implement. If you are willing to spend some time working on your marketing it will make a real difference to your business.

When times are hard the phone stops ringing, so what are you going to do about it? Give marketing for free a try before you start sacking people.

Here’s a list of ways you can market your business for free:

Call your previous customers - They are the easiest people to sell your products and services to.

Networking - Get out there, meet people and spread the word, if you are quiet you may feel deflated, but you just need to get out there and promote yourself.

Stop Advertising - I don’t mean stop advertising altogether I just mean stop advertising in the places where you are not sure if its working or not and spend the money you save on testing other forms of marketing and advertising.

PR - Get in the media talking about what you know best, your trade or business etc. You are an expert on what you do and the media will feature you if you have something of interest to say. Check out the stories already in the papers etc to see if you can piggy back any of the stories that are already in the news.

The Papers need stories and there is no reason why you can’t get your business some free publicity.

Upselling - This is a great FREE way of getting more from your sales, at the exact point that someone buys from you they need to be offered something else which will increase the amount of money they spend with you.

You could offer a more expensive version of the original product or maybe an extra service that compliments the original purchase.

What else can you offer your customers at the point of purchase?

Emails - Are you regularly emailing your previous customers and potential customers? It will help you get more work and it costs nothing to implement.

Testing - You need to test and measure your existing marketing and advertising to see if its working or not, it costs nothing to test and it helps to eliminate ineffective advertising and marketing.

You need to keep track of where your calls come from, how many leads are generated from a particular ad, how many sales are converted and how much profit was made as a direct result of each ad.

If you do not have the answers to these questions how are you going to know whether or not you are throwing your money in the bin.

There is no excuse for not implementing the strategies above. Go for it!

Discover very easy to implement marketing and internet marketing strategies to recession proof your business with this free E-Book from Marketing Man. [http://www.ablebusinessmedia.com/marketingmanebook.htm]Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Marketing Man has hundreds of Marketing Tips to help you recession proof your business. If you run a small business visit his website today to get instant free marketing tips to help you fight the credit crunch. [http://www.marketingman.info/]Marketing Man

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Leonardo_Wood http://EzineArticles.com/?Powerful-Marketing-For-Free—Strategies&id=1859137

By Leonardo Wood

There are dozens of specific strategies that you could be implementing in your business to help you fight the recession. Here are 6 you might want to consider.

1 - Don’t give up when communicating with your leads or existing customers. People won’t usually buy from you the first time you contact them. These days it can take up to 10-20 points of contact before your customers buy from you. If you leave the enquiry or the quote on the shelf waiting for the calls to come in you will be leaving money on the table.

2 - Guarantees are crucial, especially in the current economic climate. If you offer a cast iron guarantee it is sure to help you get more sales. Most people will never ask for their money back.

3 - Try Google Pay Per Click advertising, (bidding to get high up on Google) it is quick and easy to set up and there is almost no wastage, people will not see your ad unless they search for your products/services, and it doesn’t cost you until someone clicks on your ad and visits your website.

4 - Don’t take too much notice of the depressing news, there is massive opportunity for businesses who are smart in the way they think about marketing and advertising. Most business owners cut back on as much advertising as possible, if you spend wisely in the right areas you will have a much better chance of getting the work that is still out there.

5 - Upsell at every opportunity - This is a great way of instantly boosting your profits. What other product/service or upgrade can you offer your customers at the very point they make a purchase.

6 - Increase the amount of communication you have with your existing customers. Everyone is looking around to save cash, if you are constantly emailing, phoning, mailing your customers they will be less likely to shop around. I takes a lot to get a new customer, do everything you can to keep them.

Discover very easy to implement marketing and internet marketing strategies to recession proof your business with this free E-Book from Marketing Man. [http://www.ablebusinessmedia.com/marketingmanebook.htm]Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Marketing Man has hundreds of Marketing Tips to help you recession proof your business. If you run a small business visit his website today to get instant free marketing tips to help you fight the credit crunch. [http://www.marketingman.info/]Marketing Man

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Leonardo_Wood http://EzineArticles.com/?6-Marketing-Tips-to-Help-You-Fight-the-Recession&id=1859152

Author: Jody Gabourie

Marketing is all about creating and fostering relationships with your prospects and your clients.  A big part of achieving this is that people need to know, like and trust you before they’ll engage in a relationship with you or do any business with you.

Before a person will commit to making a purchase from you, they need to trust that your products and services will do what you say they are supposed to.  Also, if you want to keep your profitable clients, they have to continue to trust that you’ll deliver on your promises.

Trust is the basis of any relationship, be it personal or strictly business.  Take a look at the following ways that you can build trust and credibility into your small business marketing strategies:

1. Provide examples

Give lots of case studies and examples that outline how you’ve helped clients and the difference it has made in their business and their life.

Real examples are much more powerful and credible than simply making claims about your service or products.

2. Seek out referrals

We all ask our friends and colleagues to recommend good places to eat or a reliable plumber, because we trust the opinions of people we know.

It’s the same for your business; actively seek out referrals from satisfied customers.  Implementing a marketing system to generate referrals is one of the most overlooked marketing tactics for small businesses.

3. Get testimonials  People always pay more attention to what others have to say about you than any claims you make about yourself and your business.  Make it easy for your customers to provide testimonials.  Create some marketing systems to facilitate this and then use the testimonials in all your marketing tactics:  website, sales pages, direct mail, email communications, brochures and so on.

4. Offer guarantees

None of us like “buyer’s remorse” and providing a guarantee of service or results of your products and services will go a long way to help alleviate any concerns people have in handing over money to you.

Make sure you act promptly and with no hassles when you have to fulfill your guarantee.  Keeping your word is a huge part of building trust with people.

5. Share your contact information

Nothing raises a red flag more with me than when I cannot find a business’s contact details - address, phone number, fax, email address, website, name of their assistant, customer service number, etc.

By listing your contact information on all your marketing materials, you go a long way in showing people you exist, you are a real legitimate business and you’re available if they have any concerns or questions.

6. Write articles

Write and submit articles to establish yourself as an expert and to help build a reputation that shows you know what you’re talking about, you’re willing to share your expertise, and you’re “here to stay” - all components towards building trust.

7. Stay in touch

Regular and consistent contact with people helps facilitate trust - they know you’re around and interested.

Contact your prospects and clients regularly (via email, phone call, card, etc.) to get feedback, follow up, and provide useful tips.

8. Be a resource

Provide information that is timely and helpful to your prospects and clients.  Post articles on your website, send them an applicable, interesting report or magazine clipping, forward an email with details about a great teleseminar or workshop they might benefit from.

9. Let your personality come through

People do business with people, not companies.  Help prospects trust you by letting them get to know you.  Share your personality and passion in your marketing strategies and communications - for instance, have a picture of yourself on your website, share some tidbits about your personal life (hobbies, likes & dislikes, pets) and don’t be afraid to express opinions in your writing.

Take a look at your day-to-day marketing tactic and determine if you are doing all you can to build trust with your prospective and current clients.

If not, try incorporating a couple of the suggestions above and once they’re running smoothly and are part of your marketing system, then add a couple more.  Keep doing this and you’ll be rewarded with long lasting, rewarding and profitable relationships with many people.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/build-trust-with-9-small-business-marketing-strategies-443749.html

About the Author:
Jody Gabourie, The Small Business Marketing Coach, delivers simple, innovative and powerful marketing strategies to help business owners find and keep their most profitable clients. To learn more about how she can help you take your business to the next level, and to sign up for her FREE special report, ezine and articles, visit her site at   http://www.JodyGabourieMarketingCoach.com