1. Finding merchants or affiliate programs
His is the first step- find a good affiliate program or merchant

2 Earnings potential
Visit Click Bank, Commission Junction or one of the other networks and get to know how much commission on average this merchant has paid.

3. Keyword Research
When you have found good affiliate program you can to begin next step: keyword research. This step is perhaps the most important. If you want to suitably to do this step you need to have proper keywords research tool.

4. Site Design
There are many methods and strategies of site design but in general every niche marketing site must to have: sitemap,main site, and some articles with relevant keywords of your niche.

5. Design a main page of your site
When you have your site sitemap, some articles with related keywords you can create mane page of your site. You must to use keywords, keywords phrases or long tale keywords related your market niche you choose. Don’t forget linking to your articles page.

6. Using articles.
Once more about article writhing. You can intend to write lots of articles, which can be used to link to these product pages and boost their rankings as well as get traffic themselves.
Article pages have a few reason: it use target less competitive phrases and rank well immediately so that your site gets traffic.

Have a look at some figures in connection with this strategy. Social networks are responsible for 22% of the total time spent on the web in the U.S. 85% of U.S. Web users have a Facebook account, while 49% are on Twitter. At the same time, YouTube is currently the second largest search engine worldwide. You will see even more people in other social media engines. Because of this, 50% of U.S.-based companies have social network pages of their own. Successful advertising on these websites promotes their personal brand to lots of people online.

Not all companies succeed in social media branding. A skilled personal branding consultant will say it’s more than simply having people follow you. It is about getting their interest and turning that into two things: recommendations and profits. You ought to make a lasting effect on your present and potential clients.

Keep these suggestions in mind when subscribing to a social media site, whether it’s a blog, a social network, or other social media engines. Identify your goals. Improving sales and getting new clients might be your primary goal for creating pages on such websites, nevertheless these shouldn’t be your only goals. What message would you like to give your readers or viewers? You’ll be able to come up with more interesting, high-quality materials when you’ve got a specific message or goal in mind.

Choose a voice for the materials. It’s advisable to stick with one voice for the social media campaign. This would let your followers know the distinct character of your business. Do you need to be serious and corporate-sounding, or light and easily reachable? Load materials that present this voice. Doing so can certainly help establish your company’s character in the minds of your followers.

Build your image. Ensure the look and feel of all your social networking sites tie in together. Many people consider appearance as an essential factor for following product pages. Keep yours simple and clean, yet unique and artistic. Place your logo on all of your materials to encourage brand recall.

Update regularly.One of the primary objectives of social media branding is to personally talk with your market. Be sure you maintain that connection once you begin communicating with them. Most social media sites let you schedule posts and also other updates. Prepare materials in advance so you never use up all your new posts. It’s recommended that you schedule a couple hours everyday and read what your followers say. You could gather commonly-asked inquiries and respond to them in one fell swoop, but do answer whatever you can in a timely fashion.

Set benchmarks. You need to frequently examine whether or not you’re meeting your goals. Evaluate which major performance indicators you will consider depending on your plans. This can include the number of comments you receive, new followers or likes, shares on other media sites, and conversion statistics. Modify your strategy and adjust your benchmarks as you go on.

What is Viral Marketing, Word-of-Mouth, or Buzz Marketing?

Viral Marketing is a way of capturing attention of consumers and the media to the point where talking about your brand becomes interesting conversation. Generating a buzz is based on either customers’ personal experience with brands or what other people have told them about these brands. When this experience becomes interesting, your brand and what your company is doing become a source of entertainment, and your brand becomes newsworthy. Basically it’s unconventional, it’s economical and it’s powerful. Buzz marketing is capturing the attention of consumers and the media to the point where talking about your brand becomes entertaining, fascinating, and newsworthy. Buzz marketing is about starting conversations. In a nutshell, buzz marketing is about getting people talking and getting the media writing about your brand. With Buzz Marketing you stop talking at consumers, and start talking to them.

Why does buzz work?

Today’s noisy advertising environment has forced marketers to become more creative and some say even slightly devious with their methods. Consumers are subject to constant information overload and are wary and distrustful of companies due to scandals and scams they have heard about or been victims of in the past. All of that buyer’s remorse from past bad purchase decisions has built up and created a wall of sales resistance that they psychologically throw up whenever faced with something that appears to be a marketing message or sales pitch. Conversely, consumers like to rely on friends and peers for product and service recommendations and will do less shopping around and are more apt to act based on recommendations of people the know. This has long fueled efforts to increase customer referrals for companies. Another way to enter a customer’s mindshare is through buzz marketing, which is simply the process of sharing information through the natural social networks of your target market that helps them in the decision-making process. That way, instead of coming from a faceless and distrusted corporation, the marketing message instead seems to emanate from the most powerful endorser possible: your coolest friend.

How is it different than traditional advertising?

Most marketing, advertising, and PR employs a push strategy, where you push your message out into the marketplace at people, typically when they are not seeking it. Many people do not enjoy or appreciate this approach. Good marketers know that using a pull strategy to market their products and services can result in close rates at least twice as high as a traditional push strategy. Doubling your marketing effectiveness is certainly worth paying attention to. Buzz marketing is powerful because it gets customers to seek you out.

Why is this a good time for Buzz?

Marketing today is in a state of turmoil. Industry leaders say traditional marketing campaigns, based on mass media advertising, are not working anymore. And the facts back them up. A 2004 study into advertising effectiveness by Deutsche Bank in the US consumer packaged goods sector found that only 18 percent of television advertising campaigns generate a positive return on annual investment, while the Harvard Business Review reports that for every dollar invested into traditional advertising for consumer packaged goods, the short-term return on investment is just 54 cents. Marketing in the business-to-business sector fares no better. An astonishing 84 percent of B2B marketing campaigns actually result in a fall in market share and brand equity. Word of mouth connections are highly influential. A 2004 UK survey of 10,000 consumers by consultants CIA:MediaEdge found that 76 percent cite word of mouth as their main influence on their purchasing decisions, compared with traditional advertising’s mere 15 percent. In the US, NOP (now GfK) research shows that 92 percent of Americans cite word of mouth as their preferred source of product information. Studies show that when it comes to generating excitement about products, word of mouth is 10 times more effective than TV or print advertising. Younger consumers, who are still forming their brand preferences, are among the most coveted by marketers. These days they spend less time planted in front of the tube and are more skeptical about the messages they receive there. Therefore a recommendation for a product or service from a trusted friend is more memorable and convincing than the cleverest television ad and more likely to be turned into action.

What are the benefits?

Many are saying that buzz represents the future and will surpass traditional ads in regards to maintaining consumer brand-interest. If I can involve one person really deeply in my brand in 50 cities, vs. 50 people in one city, I’ll take the former every time, says Mark Hughes, author of Buzzmarketing: Get People to Talk About Your Stuff. Jon Berry of research company Nop World, and author of The Influentials, argues that word of mouth is worth more than twice what it was in the 1970s in affecting consumer purchases, and it’s 150 percent more influential than newspaper and magazine advertising or articles. Another benefit of buzz marketing is the ability to break through customers’ natural defense mechanisms that they typically have up when receiving marketing messages. Customers think of you more like a friend and less like a business trying to sell them something, and that is a great place to be.

1) Review your business. What were your key metrics for last year (sales commissions, listings taken, listings sold, number of clients, etc)? What were your successes? What do you want to improve?

2) Decide where you want to be. What do you want to accomplish over the next year? Based on last year’s performance, what key metrics do you want to hit? Be specific. How much will you make? How often will you work? What types of clients do you want to attract?

3) Review your performance. Which marketing activities are bringing in business? Which are a waste of money and can be cut out? What marketing activities should you invest in, such as publishing a monthly newsletter, developing your online marketing strategy, or doing more business networking?

4) Select your marketing tactics. It can take seven to ten contacts with someone before they hire you. Plan for it. What is the step-by-step process you will implement to convert a complete stranger into a paying client? What marketing tactics will you use to:

* Market to strangers: How will you attract the attention of those people who have never heard of you?

* Market to suspects: How will you follow up with people who have opted in to receive more information but you haven’t yet talked with one-on-one?

* Market to prospects: How will you sell your services to those who contact you?

* Market to clients and past clients: How will you keep in touch with clients, deliver excellent client service, and ask for referrals?

* Market to referral partners: How will you find and partner with professionals and community influencers to cultivate referrals?

5) Schedule your activities. Now that you know what needs to be done, schedule your activities in your calendar. What activities will you do each week? For instance:

* Strangers – Run weekly classified ads.

* Suspects – Publish a weekly email newsletter.

* Prospects – Follow up with phone calls, mailed letters and emails.

* Clients/Past Clients – Take a past client out for coffee each week.

* Referral Network – Subscribe to blogs, newsletters, and social media channels where colleagues interact. Each day, post a new comment on someone’s blog or engage with them on Twitter/Facebook.

6) Schedule a monthly review. Block off a few hours each month to review your marketing calendar and your goals. Are you hitting your targets? What is or isn’t working? What do you need to modify to achieve your goals?

A dairy company decided to run an exciting promotion that they hoped would increase sales dramatically. Inside some of their small milk cartons they placed a device that made a MOO sound when the carton was opened. If the consumer had that carton, they would be a winner. The promotion was going along just fine until one of the cartons was opened on an airplane and the “lucky winner” looked inside and saw wires. Panic ensued and the plane was forced to make an emergency landing. The dairy company was held responsible for all the costs associated with the emergency and had to pull the promotion from the market immediately. What started as a great idea, ended up in disaster for the company.

So, what went wrong?

Quite simply, the company designed the promotion without taking into consideration a number of external factors that, if well thought out ahead of time, would have helped them prevent this disaster from happening. For example, if they would have considered exactly where their small cartons were being distributed, they would have realized that placing that kind of promotion in the hands of airline passengers may have some quite logical and terrifying consequences.

In this example, the company was guilty of simply adopting a tactical marketing approach and did not look at the strategic implications like they should have. A strategic marketing approach would have prevented this disaster from happening.

In this article I will show you how marketing is a strategic task, and should not be driven by tactics and tools. I will show you how, if you do marketing at a tactical level, you could be wasting money (and potentially losing money like the dairy company mentioned above) and being less effective. People often say “marketing is expensive”. I agree with that assertion if that marketing is not well thought out and planned ahead of time. Often a great idea is just that – a great idea – but when the rubber hits the road and reality sets in, that great idea needs to have more than just creativity. It needs a dose of honest reality as well and that comes from looking at the potential pitfalls through strategic eyes.

What you should be looking for – maximizing your opportunities

Marketing is all about choices, and making the right choices give you the ability to maximize opportunities. It is all too simple to pick a marketing tactic in isolation and to implement it without weighing up the options of “what else can we do?”

Small and midsize companies are particularly guilty of this because they often do not have the time or resources to evaluate all the potential choices that are available. They simply go to the tried and tested “oldies” – brochures, business cards, website etc – and feel that as long as they’ve spent their money on these marketing tools, then they are OK. What they fail to understand is that they are placing themselves in the most dangerous place in the mind of their potential customers: “ME TOO-ville”. They will look and feel like everyone else and that makes them vulnerable.

So how do you break out from “ME TOO-ville”. Well it’s quite simple: change your way of thinking. Start looking for the opportunities that are not being satisfied, rather than being a copycat.

What marketing is not – the tactics and the tools

At home I have a toolbox. It is filled with all the latest gadgets, widgets, devices that enable me to fix things around the house. So, my toolbox is overflowing with all the best tools in the business – then why is my house in such a state of disrepair? It’s actually quite simple; just because I have the tools does not make me a handyman. And if I was handy, would I really be able to fix those electrical and plumbing problems that require a little more knowledge, all because I have a full toolbox. Absolutely NOT.

So what’s the key to this problem? It’s knowing, AHEAD OF TIME, what you can and cannot do. Don’t buy the tool and keep it in the toolbox if you have no real need for it, OR if someone else should be using it because they have the right knowledge and experience. In actual fact, having THAT tool is a waste of money and could in fact be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

What are the tools of marketing that we have in our marketing toolbox? Well there are tons of them (to name just a few: business cards, brochures, flyers, adverting, social media, a website, a trade show etc), and like most tools in a toolbox, only a few get used. The others go to waste and it is those others that are often the most important and impactful. So how do we work that out?

Decide before you buy (or use) the tool, whether it’s appropriate to have. And that is called PLANNING.

Recently a very clever quote caught my eye: “If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be a part of someone else’s”. I realized that it was absolutely true and totally inevitable. Destiny of any kind is in your hands if you make it your plan. If it is not part of a plan, then that destiny is in someone else’s hands. Would you really be satisfied with that? If not, then get planning.

People often struggle with the definition of marketing, and I recently came across one of the simplest definitions that not only puts marketing in perspective, but does the same for selling.

Marketing is the thinking part of selling – deciding what products to sell at what price, with what channels of distribution and how to promote them. It is a planning, positioning function.

Selling (and communicating) is a producing, doing function. It involves carrying out the plans and providing information on how well the plans work or do not work in the marketplace; this in turn could require that a new marketing (strategic) decision be made.

With marketing clearly being a strategic function, planning is obviously a key component.

So there it is – the link between marketing /planning /and strategy. And the link between the planning (marketing) and the doing (sales and communication).

So now that you know what marketing really is, and that planning is a crucial component, how do you do proper marketing planning that maximizes your opportunity?

Part 2

Strategic Marketing Planning = Breakthrough Marketing

The whole idea behind planning is to make sure that you have all the information at your fingertips BEFORE making a decision. By doing that you improve your odds of creating marketing activities that will break through the clutter and the noise of competing messages. And one of the important things to realize is that competing messages is not only in the area in which you compete, but in fact all messages that strive to attract your target customer, whether for business or for pleasure. So, the objective of breaking through becomes that much more daunting, but also that much more important. Hence the NEED to plan carefully and comprehensively.

Marketing planning is a process

So where does one begin. The most important starting point is to realize that planning is a definitive process. It’s not always a moment in time because as the planning progresses, new and important information always surfaces that may change you next decision. So be ready to be flexible – that’s where you will find the surprising next idea that you never considered before, because you had never approached marketing strategically before. This is quite invigorating because it’s almost as if you find yourself looking at things through a new set of eyes. It starts with having objectives, then creating a strategy, and finally it involves developing the tactics and the tools.

Take Hardee’s, the regional American fast food chain that competes against the likes of McDonalds and Burger King. For years they attempted to compete head to head, with all the same promotional approaches as their competition. They made no inroads and could not increase their same store sales or market share. It was only when they went back to basics and looked at their business from scratch did they realize that they had to outflank their competition and not take them on head to head. They researched their customer’s needs, revised their positioning, and concentrated on offering a higher quality product and customer experience. They then supported that through break through advertising that did not speak to their customers strengths (speed and price), but focused on their own strengths (quality and service). Immediately, their same store sales turned around and grew.

When they started their process, they probably did not know where they’d end up – but because they followed the process through to its logical end, they were able to develop a strategy that worked. And they keep fine-tuning the strategy, so it is a never-ending story of Planning, Producing, Doing and Evaluating. Round and round, adjusting and refining. Breakthrough marketing is a never ending process…

As Thomas Edison said: “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”

Marketing is all encompassing

So, the Hardees example clearly shows that marketing is all-encompassing. It’s not only about promotions or pricing or advertising. It’s also about customer needs, and quality, and product, and customer service and positioning and so on. It’s about understanding how the world is changing and how that impacts the provision and delivery of products and services. It’s about things that go on inside the company, but also about what happens outside the company (the external environment). To plan a really effective approach to marketing, you need to have a much bigger vision, a much bigger perspective on things in order to open up your mind to possibilities that you may never have considered.

However, what the public (or your customer) sees is just the tip of the iceberg. The tactics and the tools. It is the understanding, the planning, the strategizing, the positioning that is below the surface. That is the foundation upon which the tactics are built. Without the base that acts as the stabilizing force or the keel of a boat it will just topple over and sink below the surface, never to be seen again.

Yes, I know that this all-encompassing process makes marketing a little more complex. But, is making ad hoc decisions a better choice? That, after all is for each and every decision maker to decide. Remember: “If you don’t have a marketing plan for yourself, you’ll be a part of someone else’s”.

So let’s really understand what all encompassing really means.

The three areas of strategic marketing planning starts with understanding:

1. the overall, external business environment that is outside the organization – this could include the markets, customers, competitors and macro environment

2. the system of marketing are aspects that are inside the organization – this could include objectives, strategies, programs, implementation and the resources that the organization has available, and finally

3. the marketing tactics and activities themselves – including products, prices, distribution, personal selling, advertising, publicity, sales promotion, website and a ton of other tactics and tools

Each one of these aspects themselves is an article – suffice to say, they are critical in the development of the marketing plan. In some instances, each and every aspect needs to be renewed. At other times, they may just need to be refreshed. At the end of the day they need to be looked at each time new marketing initiatives are considered.

One thing is clear however, it all starts with strategy. And strategy is ultimately developed as a result of knowledge. The process of planning is all about moulding all the knowledge into one place, evaluating it and identifying a relevant strategy. As Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War and a Chinese military legend (during the 19th and 20th centuries, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War grew in popularity and saw practical use in Western society – his work has continued to influence both Asian and Western culture and politics) once proclaimed:

“Strategy without tactics is a slow route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat!”

Let’s all learn from this master. We should not be rushing headlong into implementing a whole range of tactics without having a well thought out plan. It could lead us to a noisy, expensive and totally unwelcome outcome.

Part 3

The tactics and activities of marketing

Many people feel that by just implementing a whole range of marketing tactics and activities, they are doing the right thing. Well, as Sun Tzu has indicated, that may just be the noise before defeat. Without developing a strategy, those tactics could lead to trouble. And especially if the tactics have been developed without consideration for the options or alternatives.

So, just how many marketing tactics are there?

Most people will quote a number ranging for 5 – 20. In fact, that number is woefully short of reality. Normally, when I write a marketing plan I consider over 140 tactics – yes, that’s right, over 140. So STOP and ask yourself right now: “If I am only considering 5-20 tactics, what are the opportunities that I am missing?” Take a few moments to think about the implications of those lost opportunities. Nobody is saying you need to use all 140+ alternatives; however, there is absolutely no cost to you to consider them. So why short-change yourself? Why limit yourself to the tactics that you may be seeing your competitors implement? Think it through carefully and ask yourself: “Am I leading or am I following? What in fact do I want to do – lead or follow? If I want to lead, then I’d better start by becoming more creative”. The choice is quite simple, and it’s in your hands.

The importance of alignment of tactics

When deciding on your tactics, you also have another choice to make. It is a choice of alignment. If some tactics do not support your overall company plan, or your marketing plan and strategy, why would you select it? Which structure do you want to represent your marketing effort?

A firm foundation is critical, and it needs to be built from the bottom, up. So choose carefully. And don’t get caught up by the hype or the latest fad. Make sure your investment is appropriate and gives you the best odds of generating great returns.

Concept of selling vs. buying

Sales is one of the most important components of marketing, and can be seen as a marketing tactic. It’s what makes business actually progress. So where does selling really begin? It starts with ultimately knowing your prospective customer and what motivates them to buy. That knowledge and information provides you with the power to develop an offering that will satisfy their needs. If you have that knowledge, your odds for success go up dramatically. What makes this even more complex is that each prospective customer is motivated by different things, so you really can’t generalize. So, you need to have a really good understanding of customer behaviour as well. Just another added complication. (Watch these three segments of a panel discussion on consumer behaviour to find out more about what motivates consumers )

Remember, a person does not buy something just because you have it to sell. They will be interested in buying ONLY if it satisfies a need that they have – so you need to understand the customer’s needs and what motivates them to buy. It will enhance the odds of you completing a successful sale.

Measurement

Every investment needs a positive return. So measure everything that you possibly can. No successful marketing campaign should be without some form of measurement. And marketing, through some of the newest digital tools and technologies is slowly edging towards becoming more of a science than an art. Make sure that every marketing effort is designed and developed with measurement in mind. Otherwise you will be missing out on a critical success factor – return on your valuable financial investments.

So where does one begin?

One of the easiest tools to use is the marketing audit. The audit collects current data from the organization and enables the missed opportunities to be highlighted by a trained marketer. The cost is very reasonable and is the wisest investment in marketing that any organization can make. It will set them on the right road to success knowing that the strategic direction of the company has been taken into consideration, thus ensuring that the marketing plan will deliver results that move the organization forward in an approved manner.

A dairy company decided to run an exciting promotion that they hoped would increase sales dramatically. Inside some of their small milk cartons they placed a device that made a MOO sound when the carton was opened. If the consumer had that carton, they would be a winner. The promotion was going along just fine until one of the cartons was opened on an airplane and the “lucky winner” looked inside and saw wires. Panic ensued and the plane was forced to make an emergency landing. The dairy company was held responsible for all the costs associated with the emergency and had to pull the promotion from the market immediately. What started as a great idea, ended up in disaster for the company.

So, what went wrong?

Quite simply, the company designed the promotion without taking into consideration a number of external factors that, if well thought out ahead of time, would have helped them prevent this disaster from happening. For example, if they would have considered exactly where their small cartons were being distributed, they would have realized that placing that kind of promotion in the hands of airline passengers may have some quite logical and terrifying consequences.

In this example, the company was guilty of simply adopting a tactical marketing approach and did not look at the strategic implications like they should have. A strategic marketing approach would have prevented this disaster from happening.

In this article I will show you how marketing is a strategic task, and should not be driven by tactics and tools. I will show you how, if you do marketing at a tactical level, you could be wasting money (and potentially losing money like the dairy company mentioned above) and being less effective. People often say “marketing is expensive”. I agree with that assertion if that marketing is not well thought out and planned ahead of time. Often a great idea is just that – a great idea – but when the rubber hits the road and reality sets in, that great idea needs to have more than just creativity. It needs a dose of honest reality as well and that comes from looking at the potential pitfalls through strategic eyes.

What you should be looking for – maximizing your opportunities

Marketing is all about choices, and making the right choices give you the ability to maximize opportunities. It is all too simple to pick a marketing tactic in isolation and to implement it without weighing up the options of “what else can we do?”

Small and midsize companies are particularly guilty of this because they often do not have the time or resources to evaluate all the potential choices that are available. They simply go to the tried and tested “oldies” – brochures, business cards, website etc – and feel that as long as they’ve spent their money on these marketing tools, then they are OK. What they fail to understand is that they are placing themselves in the most dangerous place in the mind of their potential customers: “ME TOO-ville”. They will look and feel like everyone else and that makes them vulnerable.

So how do you break out from “ME TOO-ville”. Well it’s quite simple: change your way of thinking. Start looking for the opportunities that are not being satisfied, rather than being a copycat.

What marketing is not – the tactics and the tools

At home I have a toolbox. It is filled with all the latest gadgets, widgets, devices that enable me to fix things around the house. So, my toolbox is overflowing with all the best tools in the business – then why is my house in such a state of disrepair? It’s actually quite simple; just because I have the tools does not make me a handyman. And if I was handy, would I really be able to fix those electrical and plumbing problems that require a little more knowledge, all because I have a full toolbox. Absolutely NOT.

So what’s the key to this problem? It’s knowing, AHEAD OF TIME, what you can and cannot do. Don’t buy the tool and keep it in the toolbox if you have no real need for it, OR if someone else should be using it because they have the right knowledge and experience. In actual fact, having THAT tool is a waste of money and could in fact be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

What are the tools of marketing that we have in our marketing toolbox? Well there are tons of them (to name just a few: business cards, brochures, flyers, adverting, social media, a website, a trade show etc), and like most tools in a toolbox, only a few get used. The others go to waste and it is those others that are often the most important and impactful. So how do we work that out?

Decide before you buy (or use) the tool, whether it’s appropriate to have. And that is called PLANNING.

Recently a very clever quote caught my eye: “If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be a part of someone else’s”. I realized that it was absolutely true and totally inevitable. Destiny of any kind is in your hands if you make it your plan. If it is not part of a plan, then that destiny is in someone else’s hands. Would you really be satisfied with that? If not, then get planning.

In this article I will outline the 6 necessary elements you need in your marketing plan and some applications that will help illustrate each element. The six things you must include: an evaluation of your marketplace, the profile of your ideal customer, what you want to accomplish as a result of your marketing, the big picture view of media tools, an accountability structure that will aid in implementation, and strong financial proof that your plan will work.

Evaluate your marketplace

No matter what format you use the concept of evaluating your market is always the first step. In this part of the plan you research your top 5-10 competitors and come up with a list of strengths and weaknesses for each. You do the same exercise on your own company. This will help you create a clear picture of how you are different from everyone else.

It is on this foundation that your marketing efforts should be built. In the car rental business Hertz has always been the number one company. This made Avis come up a slogan that could help set it apart… “We’re #2 but we try harder.” This helped position Avis as a company that would work harder for you by giving you that extra level of service.

Profile of your ideal customer

The worst thing you can say about your product or service is that, “everyone has a need for it.” Segmenting your market and defining a specific profile of your best customers will help build your marketing plan in strong and healthy ways. The benefit of clearly defining your target market will not only make your job of creating and choosing marketing materials easier, but it will also save you money because you can focus your efforts on a very specific market segment.

What do you want to accomplish as a result of your marketing?

You can’t measure the success of your plan unless you have clearly defined benchmarks for comparison. Every marketing effort needs goals. They can be long-term or short-term but need to be measurable. Also, part of your plan should include evaluation points to gauge progress of your efforts.

Getting the big picture view of media tools

Before choosing what media tools you are going to use in your campaign it is essential to evaluate each tool based on the information you gathered in the first three sections of your plan. Can you effectively deliver the message of how you are unique through a particular tool? Does the tool clearly reach the ideal target market? Can it help you achieve your goals without making you go broke.

If you have done the appropriate research these questions are typically easy to answer. It is only when you decide on your desired media tool first before evaluating it’s attributes on a big picture level that you can get yourself into trouble.

Creating an accountability structure that will aid in implementation

All of the best laid plans are for nothing if you don’t have a proper implementation system. In most sample marketing plans you can see how a typical marketing calendar is laid out. It really doesn’t have to be that difficult or pretty. You simply need a week-by-week list of the specific marketing activities you want to accomplish in order to complete your overall plan. This involves taking each marketing strategy and tactically dividing it into weekly chunks. The marketing calendar should also contain the evaluation points we discussed before to help measure the progress of your goals.

Having strong financial proof that your plan will work

The final element of any plan should include a budget that gives strong financial proof that your plan will work. This is accomplished by projecting sales as a result of your marketing efforts, accurately costing out the various pieces of your marketing mix and then doing an ROI analysis (Return On Investment). Your ROI analysis should clearly show that your marketing efforts will produce a return. If your company has a long sales cycle then sometimes this will involve simply a break-even on the marketing costs up-front with the promise of larger future sales.

These six necessary elements should be included in any sample marketing plan format you are evaluating: an evaluation of your marketplace, the profile of your ideal customer, what you want to accomplish as a result of your marketing, the big picture view of media tools, an accountability structure that will aid in implementation, and strong financial proof that your plan will work.

For us – the online marketers – this is an effective channel to promote your products. So what elements are needed for a video to spread at lightning speed? Let’s find out!

Firstly, be aware that we are online product marketers, not talented individuals who show off incredible skills (singing, dancing, playing music, and performing magic tricks…) in order to become famous. The uniqueness and strong emotions often make the video widespread over the Internet. And make sure you have a director’s mindset to produce good videos. This is in fact very easy so you should invest some time to learn it on movie forums. You should choose the topic, film, then edit… all by yourself. These are totally within your reach.

Always remember that the effectiveness of video marketing is directly proportional to the sales revenue from the website, as well as the number of visitors who come to the website to view product information.

You don’t need to be very pretty. You only need to have the ability to speak, a decent sense of humor, the ability to attract your audience and so on, your videos will be very impressive. You can also find a partner who possesses the skills above. And never forget that a good video must be directed by you yourself.

Do not exaggerate your product on the advertisements or try to cite the media praises as well as criticisms about it. Even though your purpose is to advertise your product, always try to focus on consumers’ experience and be honest about the product. Of course, advertising is an art in which you need to show evidences to make the audience rest assured about the value and quality of your product. Analyzing a sample product in deep details is the good thing to do.

Editing and staging a video is undoubtedly a very important part. Try to combine speeches and products images in the video. Do not focus too much on your prettiness and bore your viewers with that video.

Nowadays, digital cameras often have the functionality to record HD videos. Even a mid-end mobile phone is capable of doing that well enough. In addition, you can get a free edition of the video editing software that is able to run smoothly on your average computer. That should be all you need to make a video

In order to have this process to be more effective, you need to have a highly optimized and well designed website, and your offline marketing material should give out the same message as your online marketing does.

You are probably wondering exactly why this works so well and the answer is because analytics is much easier to track online versus offline, hence you could apply such an advantage to you offline marketing campaign in an effective manner in order to have enhanced leads to every aspect.

The very first strategy which you can use as it pertains to tracking marketing offline is to place a URL on the printed material that’s unique, and also creating a web page that enables you to see and track the efficiency of the campaign that’s not online. If you track these analytics, you can observe several critical factors like the geographical locations of your readers, which pages they mostly visit in your website, what proportion is completing the forms, and lots of other aspects that you formerly planned on viewing. Consequently, this would give you a good understanding of your offline, and also your online marketing campaign techniques for that specific product or service.

Interestingly enough, the exact opposite could be followed, which is another strategy. In a nutshell, your offline strategy could be enhanced with your blog or other social networking by bringing in visitors. Take for example, offering a unique item for those who follow you online, or even for your customers or prospects, which will involve getting them to stop in and visit your display at a fair. Doing this will give you with a wise idea of precisely how successful the marketing strategy is both offline and online, that is very valuable information.

Additionally it is crucial to remember the ever growing technology of cell phone, called QR codes. Such codes may be applied into offline campaigns. In using these codes, prospects found offline will be driven to your site, your video, a special offer you are giving out through a survey, and a lot more. Some way, this can be a very powerful tool to combine your offline marketing campaign with your online marketing strategy.

How about placing the URL of your social media pages, instead of giving out free advertising to social media companies simply by putting their logos on your offline marketing material. Yet another strategy is to make special deals to those who will follow you on those social networks. You should always push your business to the front instead of just putting logos and telling people that you’re on Twitter or Facebook.

Yet another approach you can follow is with your offline mailers. This strategy is particularly great for firms who send out mailers, where prospects fill in simple questions and send them back. An excellent way to gain a prospects trust and create relationship is to collect information about him before picking up the phone, and you do this by understanding background information and about where the prospect lives. Both your conversion rate and campaign effectiveness in marketing will be increased as a result.

These are just a few main approaches that you can put into action to mix your offline marketing strategy with your offline marketing approaches. Nevertheless, there are a lot more plans of action, the next objective is to convert your prospects into the clientele; nevertheless this requires far more information and facts.

Purpose + Mission
SWOT analysis
Marketing strategy objectives
Strategical marketing objectives
Budget analysis + implementation

Purpose + Mission Statement- The purpose of the marketing plan, while seemingly somewhat self explanatory, should be a concise statement of why this plan was drafted and allude to how the information in the plan could, or should, be used. Mission- If a new business is creating a marketing plan a mission statement may not exist and thus need to be devised. The mission statement needs to be a specific and clearly worded paragraph that embodies a stable and lucent long-term vision of the organization. A good mission statement should be able to answer such questions as: What is the business’s creed, or standard for doing business? What services does it provide? Why is the company in business? It is a strict guideline of what the business stands for, and what the business offers to its customers.

SWOT Analysis- This section of the plan analyzes is great detail the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of, and to, the company. Strength- ex: Current Products (features, benefits, pricing, incentives) Weaknesses- ex: Current financial condition (could potentially be strength) Opportunities- ex: Target markets (mass market? Segmentation, demographics, psychographics, needs of market) Threats- ex: Competitors

Marketing Strategy and Objectives- This section is crucial to the development of the proposed services or products future. This part consists of: identifying the marketing strategy, financial objectives, and overall marketing objectives. This gives a specific direction the product will take and creates accountability in the plan so efforts and results can be measured in relation to these starting objectives.

Strategical Marketing Programs- This is typically the longest part of the plan and is deeply detailed in respect to the strategy to achieve the designated marketing objectives in part three. These programs include descriptions of: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place. Ex: Define current market, and the planned changes. Define how these changes will be accomplished, and explain why these changes must take place (use evidence of research or due to competitors).

Budget Analysis + Implementation- This final section scrutinizes the business’s financial ability to carry out its marketing plan. Defining the extent of the marketing budget will help determine the financial impact and capabilities of the projected plan. As a precursor to the actual implementation of the products or services a performance analysis presents the expected results of the plan. It is an educated estimate of the potential overall success of the plan and helps to prepare for the future. The last step in the marketing plan is to organize an implementation schedule that shows timelines and identifies those responsible for certain tasks. This keeps the marketing team involved and held responsible for timely work and effort.