Wouldn’t it be great to have a year where your marketing efforts were streamlined and got the results you were after? None of us want to struggle with marketing, and yet this is the one topic that continues to be highest in the minds of small business professionals.

Let’s really consider some of the reasons that can sabotage our marketing efforts, and how we can turn that around.

Lack of a marketing mindset

We don’t see ourselves as in the marketing game. The truth is, if you are out there running a business, thinking like a marketer has to become your priority. It’s no use having a great service if nobody knows about it, or you.

Lack of knowledge is your enemy. Start by reading whatever you can. Speak to successful people in your field and ask them what strategies they use. The information you need is out there for you to take.

Lack of investment

For many small business owners, the focus on cost control prohibits them from ever investing enough money into marketing and promotion. These activities are seen as costs rather than as an investment. So this year I encourage you to reframe your attitude towards marketing. Once you know what marketing activity to do, and have confidence that it will bring results, spend the money enthusiastically.

Lack of focus

Perhaps you do spend time and money on marketing, but you aren’t happy with the results. Or your efforts are ad-hoc rather than carefully planned. Whatever it is, 2005 is the year to take charge. If what you are doing isn’t working - stop doing it! Ask a professional for help (not your friends or associates!). Or put yourself in your customers shoes and work out what’s going to attract them to your business. If an ad-hoc approach is the problem, take the time to complete the marketing plan in the ‘How to…’ section and become ruthlessly systematic this year.

Lack of over-riding marketing strategy

Marketing activity and tactics are all well and good but it is like driving a rudderless ship if there is no grander plan. Part of creating a marketing strategy is to clearly understand exactly where you are right now, and where you want to be. Your goal may be to have sales of $1,$5 or $50 million. Or you may want to revolutionise your industry. Or you may want your company to be acquired within 5 years. What matters most is that you have a clear, precise vision of where you are, where you want to be in 1year, and where you want to be in 5 years.

Not surrounding ourselves with the right people

All of the great books on success advocate spending time with people who are already successful at what you want to do. Why? By surrounding yourself with people several steps ahead of you, you can absorb the attitudes and values that made them successful, as well as picking up new strategies and ideas. So If you are hanging out with people who also lack a marketing mindset then it’s time to think about expanding your professional network to include those who are already down the track to success.

Marketing is more of an art than a science. Often times you learn by systematically trying different activities and approaches. The experts don’t always have all the answers . . . and this is exactly why you need to give plenty of personal attention to make sure your marketing is working as hard as it possibly can. If you want to get serious about success in business, then understanding marketing is an ongoing priority.

Here’s a quick list of 10 ideas to get you into the marketing groove:

1. Commit to reading one new marketing book per month

2. Start learning about how to market online

3. Make a list of people whose businesses inspire you, and carefully study their marketing techniques. How many of these are you using?

4. Make a list of successful people in your industry and check out their marketing strategy. Why not offer to take one of them out for coffee to learn more about how they got where they are (what’s the worst that could happen?)

5. Revise your marketing budget. Look at your previous investment in marketing, and ask yourself if this is the amount a truly successful business would be spending

6. Review all of last year’s marketing activities. Work out which ones brought new business in the door, or were successful in some other way (building credibility for example). If you can’t quantify how successful the outcome was, stop spending the money!

7. Implement an ongoing ‘keep in touch’ program with existing customers

8. Ask 10 or more of your most loyal customers for a referral

9. Stop doing those marketing activities that you know don’t work, but you do them anyway

10. Market research - ask 20 of your customers what value you provide to them. Use what they say in your own marketing materials
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Internet marketing is the same as traditional marketing, others are not. Here are seven things you need to know your online marketing is successful. When you write Xu copy, you should take the time to understand what works and what does not. There are two mistakes almost every amateur search engine copywriting.

Successful non-profit organizations use the Internet to market charitable program.

To help companies improve their digital marketing results, I also had in-depth, widely praised and won the AOP Award for best practice, publisher e-consultancy Guide.

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Internet marketing is still essential to any business’s overall marketing strategy. Mentioned before with all the benefits of internet marketing, people still buy magazines, billboards went out to check to see their mail, watch TV, and shopping. No matter how fast-paced and wide internet of communication, people go out together, talking about going to the gym. Thus, while Internet marketing is absolutely valid and important, demising certain value of the cost of traditional marketing any business, many potential customers. Another thing, when we say that internet marketing, it is not only figures we choose to click on ads. The list also includes security, advertising, advertising social networks, groups, discussion boards and many others. Accordingly, the online marketing activities can effect the number of people exposed. However, one disadvantage is that people started to become one of the, and would even read the advertising information advertising or know (even people in the security list), and delete without opening them. When someone on the Internet, they would like to read / write e-mail, chat with friends, read and post / reply comments, play fun games. As a internet marketing goal is to build a top priority for Internet users. Also, try and spam and unsolicited e-mail and advertising, more and more people away from Internet advertising in general, unless they are some specific content. A variety of Internet marketing strategy is free and paid online marketing can make more money. 12-month Internet Millionaire Review - Russell Brunson is a 12-month millionaire fraud?. As the market one of the most controversial books, and now the Internet millionaire’s 12 months still constitute a major buzz everywhere. A great professional internet marketing make money online. Internet marketing can be a lucrative industry, if some big Internet-related skills and knowledge development to do so successfully. Must also identify and develop the necessary strategies to make money online. Pay per click advertising, online advertising and link exchange programs, is marketing, can be used to make the Internet industry to make money online there are some important programs.

Internet marketing are not the result of a well-defined, integrated internet strategy; rather, they are a response to competitors activities or customers demand. Through the site has existed for more than a year, marketing staff and senior management will naturally question its effectiveness. This is usually the point in a coherent Internet marketing strategy needs to become apparent. As a result, starting in the sum of electronic marketing strategy, is when a company’s existing website, which is to review the existing site and its purpose is to improve the effectiveness of the future. There is no evidence that the development and implementation of a strategy to be significantly different approach to electronic marketing. Strategic planning for enterprise development or strategic marketing to comply with the established framework should still be. The framework provides a logical order to follow up to ensure that the strategic focus of all development activities included. It can be said, however, with the e-market strategy for a highly sensitive process of rapid response mode, the events in the market need. Soviet-style five-year planning application does not seem to fit, the best approach is a new process of electronic marketing strategy is a continuous improvement. Check fee (2002) pointed out that e-commerce or e-marketing strategy process models tend to agree with the following features:

There are many ways to market your product using a large number of online with Google AdWords or Yahoo’s Overture advertising network, eBay, members network, cost per click marketing. In addition, there are many second tier cost of sales and earnings per share network. You need to have a good network marketing strategy, using the Internet to provide online marketing tool. With Internet marketing company, will help you to get your website in search engine advertising and optimization services provided by many of the results, but eventually you need to determine what kind of network marketing will give you the best of a product line. It used to be you bought CPM (cost per thousand) in large-scale campaign Web site and hope that the good performance of these ads and get traffic to your website. Now, there are many choices, there is usually a for each event better than the other run. It appears that the use of network marketing the best way to get return on investment cost per click online marketing tool, the strategic point. Google AdWords and Yahoos Overture CPC programs have dominated the world of network marketing in the past two years, they only get bigger and stronger. Network marketing companies have sprung up to help beginners learn how to use AdWords and Overture to the best of their ability to rope. If you want to build a brand, then the cost per click will not be online marketing solutions. Instead of the online brand, you will go to a CPM campaign, is a straight line costs. The targeted ads, and now there’s online advertising spending is due to leave the television and radio have been gradually transferred to the Internet. Why do you want, if you are advertising with the radio or TV, you can actually track the individual results of the work online. We believe that many ad networks and affiliate program will gradually fade out in the next several years, while Google and Yahoo Zhudao even with their own, targeted search results and more per click advertising network. Internet changes quickly, any company want to optimize their online marketing presence needs to adapt and adjust to the latest technology.

Network marketing is the three capacities: transport infrastructure, marketing, application development, marketing methods and permissions. Practical ability of the network in sports marketing when three similar shift manual gearbox, driving a car, both in mechanics.

Internet marketing is the same where you live, because it is a global market.

They do not have banner ads, because they are cheaper than print. In Facebook, because their children that they should be. If you start what you want for your site’s business focus and you concentrate all energy on helping to improve the preliminary results of this goal, Name of the Dong Xi you Keyi try, to see if they are how they work. Or you can look at things, said: “I do not see how it can help me achieve my goal. Now, if you ignore something, it is possible that they will actually become extremely important, and you ‘local employees realize that you made a mistake. but only the larger error is ignored, since you are overriding, or try to do everything hafway and accomplish nothing.

Network Marketing is not just large budget or the entire company’s IT department. We have developed in Newfoundland and Labrador website, then who can appear in more effective competitors excluded from the market itself. We can do the same for you, to establish an online presence to support your other. This allows you all the seamless integration of marketing activities, you become a better profit growth in your site shooting. With complete Internet marketing strategy and a strong web site design, your company has the potential to become a global player., Kok River, some in Newfoundland and Labrador, or any other parts of the world community, asking them to do, they can help your web site design, as a money-making machines effective. We believe that your answer in Lorne Park and associated companies will seek to get you.

Internet marketing is clear, the next question is usually, “Yes, but where I start?.” For new and existing customers a direct entry point. In the days passed, and when people want to find a business, they turned to the yellow pages. Today, your customers will find you on the Internet, if you are not there, they will turn to the next thing, they did find: 1,

Network Marketing is your competitor doing? How do your competitors in the domestic major search engine rankings? What kind of traffic from their own site? Use the right tools, this valuable information can be found in your competitors.: What is it your product or service for the customer to resolve or do not provide any good? In what ways you can best illustrate this advantage? Clear and consistent information on the positioning of your products in the market based on a solid understanding is very important to all offline and online marketing efforts.: How much money can you get customers and still make a profit? What is each customer, you get the value of life expectancy? This is the answer you need to determine the effectiveness of any network marketing program running on key issues.

Internet marketing is falling over themselves trying to shift dollars from offline to online marketing. I believe the idea is that network marketing will give them better to reduce the U.S. dollar in a tight economic returns. While it is certainly a solid strategy for mobile Internet, it pays to put it a little thought, the first: Verify your infrastructure. Offline dollars in your move to online, to ensure that you can actually use all of the online customer service. Do you have in place of? You can quickly adjust the landing page and website copy? No sense, if you put in to send visitors to a site, sucking money from online advertising. If you are from offline to online money like two weeks to generate a 5:1 return, reducing the Prozac and think twice to come back. The biggest mistake I see their budget, the company’s transformation, is that they think this is a line ‘run and do’ things. Marketers and their bosses think they can create a landing page or start a PPC campaign, and then forget about it for a month. And this cycle works in print or television, it will not work online. Line is highly, highly repetitive, and requires constant attention. So you save a lot of advertising money into the labor force.

Characteristics of network marketing is definitely a good start in the Internet market, but if you do not know how to drive traffic to your site, these things will be wasted.

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Internet online marketing experts found in the blog, webmaster forums and online publications. com, where you can learn about the latest Google updates the new method can make money website. Acetylcholine maravilla is the President and Chief Executive Officer powerhomebiz. One on entrepreneurship, in order to step by step information.

Internet marketing is just too numerous to mention in this article. If you access the Internet value-added services, web savvy, you will see how much of this marketing can increase your business type.

Network marketing is online marketing, network marketing, network marketing. Internet marketing is very important, but the madness of growth with social media, I strongly recommend listening skills is to know how to do twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Many marketing media, relying on the three to take home the bacon only. The building is a long list of network marketing, a necessary component of success. List building simply means that a user list, you can communicate regularly via e-mail. In order to start building a list, you first need to establish what is called a capture page. Pages, your visitors will be asked to provide some free gifts, to share their names and e-mail. It can be a free report, e-books, video or presentation software. Many merchants also offer free electronic can receive daily early bird tips and notifications.

In today’s competitive (and noise) market, we must combine all the right online marketing tools, to create a truly effective and comprehensive marketing program. All, of course, is up and around the central site, but to create opportunities, improve customer response, increased brand awareness, the site of the network through a comprehensive marketing strategy, including search engine optimization, PPC, social media tools to support marketing, and so on.

Linked network marketing ideas and technology and business strategy design, development, Internet advertising and marketing. Search engine marketing, email marketing, display advertising, affiliate marketing, display advertising, blog marketing, display advertising, viral marketing. Internet marketing is the media running along the different stages of customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing, search engine optimization in a specific site, e-mail marketing and Web 2, banner ads. Network marketing has become more and more organizations use to promote the network media key and very effective. ‘The establishment of a website’ or ‘promotion site’ is the foundation, but not the basis of network marketing.

Somewhere behind that website is a real goal, the real organization. Internet marketing strategy includes all of the online advertising products and services, including market research, email marketing, websites, and direct sales.

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Network marketing is hard. Don’t kid yourself and truthfully don’t even attempt a network marketing venture unless you either have or plan to put into place a highly potent and highly duplicatable network marketing system
geared for 2005 and beyond.

Before I tell you what a perfect network
marketing system
should look like let’s talk about what doesn’t
work for most
network marketers. As I’m sure you probably
know, network
marketing is notorious for having a 95% failure
rate. Let’s
talk about why.

Have you ever heard of Occam’s razor?

Basically it states that the simplest
explanation for a
phenomenon is usually the best. We’ll use this
theory to
explain why more than 95% of network marketers
fail.

Ready?

Most network marketers fail because the
marketing methods
that they are taught don’t work 95% of the time.
Pretty
simple right?

So we’re led to ask the logical next question,
what are most
fledgling network marketers taught?

Well, I can only speak from my experience, but
what I was
taught was to buy and cold call leads.

Now, I’m not going to say this doesn’t work, but
I will say
is that after six months of cold calling leads
for 3 hours a
day with very little success this tactic doesn’t
work for
me. Don’t get me wrong some people are very good
at cold
calling leads, but most people aren’t.

What happens to most people after they’ve spend
thousands of
dollars on leads with very little success after
months of
effort?

They give up.

Another factor contributing to why most network
marketers
fail is the type of leads they use. Why does the
type of
leads make a difference?

Business opportunity leads, the leads most new
network
marketers are told to use, are generic. These
leads answer
an ad that just asks them if they want to be
financially
free, or make money from home or something like
that.

Well . . . of course they do!

But that doesn’t mean they want anything to do
with YOUR
network marketing program. When the average
network marketer
calls these generic bizz opp leads the leads
don’t know
anything about the network marketer’s business
and for the
most part honestly don’t care. This leads to
the fledgling
network marketer hearing a lot of “NOs”.

Hearing NO all the time leads to quite a bit of
self doubt,
both about the network marketers own ability and
the
validity of their association with their network
marketing
company. Negative feelings begin to harbor and
as I said
before eventually the network marketer gives up,
usually
with 3-6 months.

The fledgling network marketer’s perception of
their
business goes from one of opportunity to one of
complete
doubt and negativity. Reality follows
perception, so because
the fledgling network marketer believes both
themselves and
their business as having little hope this
becomes TRUE.

That’s basically why 95% of network marketers
fail if you
asked me.

So how do we change this paradigm?

We build a Perfect Network Marketing System!

Now we get to the good stuff! What does a
perfect network
marketing system look like?

For the average home based network marketer to
be successful
certain thing MUST be in place. I will list them
here:

o Lead capture page designed specifically for
specific
Network Marketing Company:

This page must contain strong sales copy that
tells the
prospect why he wants to opt in for more
information. The
best way to do this is to offer a High Value
Free Report in
exchange for there contact information.

o Free Report specifically designed for Network
Marketing
Companies Opportunity:

The free report must be highly informative. It
must explain
all of the features and benefits of joining the
network
marketing organization as an independent
distributor and
must focus on the support and resources
available to the new
recruit should they choose to purchase a
distributorship.
The company’s products and compensation plan
must be clearly
explained here as well. If possible,
testimonials should be
used, as they are extremely powerful sales
conversion tools
in this portion of the sale process.

o Follow up Email System:

Attached to the Free Report there must also be a
follow up
system that continually markets through email
the program to
the lead. Most leads don’t act immediately and
must be
marketed to at least 7 times before they take
action. The
email follow up system must have strongly worded
sales copy
and must have a system for getting through spam
filters.

o A Continual Feed Back System that uses the
Fear of Loss:

Along the with email follow up system there must
be a
feedback system that will alert the prospect by
email when
new prospects opt into the system and invoke the
fear of
loss during this process by telling the prospect
that if the
next prospect in line upgrades to a paid
position before he
does then he will forever loose commission on
that prospect.
This is an extremely powerful psychological tool.

o Strong Support:

It’s one thing to get someone to buy a
distributorship, but
it’s a totally different thing get them to work
the business
effectively. There must be an email follow up
system once a
new distributor signs on to ensure that he
receive adequate
training on how to market successfully. There
must also be
human support at this point. So, there must be
strong
relationships built between upline and new
distributors.

o A Good Product or Service:

In order for this entire marketing process to
work, the
system must be back by a strong and ethical
network
marketing organization that sells a high demand
product that
people need and would purchase even if there
were no
compensation plans attached to it.

o You:

You must be an active part of your business. You
must be
willing and open to learn new ideas and tactics
at all
times. You must have a passion for your business
and truly
believe in the product that you plan to build your
organization around.

In Conclusion:

I’ve listed the basic component’s a of a perfect
network
marketing system. This system will involve NO
cold calling
because the prospect will opt in to request more
information
specifically about your business before you even
talk to
them.

Cold calling generic bizz opp leads and hearing
a lot of
NO’s is what causes most network marketers to
fail. We want
to avoid this at all cost. This is what this
system is
designed to do!

By having your prospects opt in specifically for
more
information about your product and business plan
and then by
giving them a detailed report explaining all of
the above
before you even speak to them your chances of a
successful
sales conversion will greatly be increased. The
email
follow-up and fear of loss systems will increase
your
chances successful sales conversion even
further. These
factors will cut down on the number of NO’s that
the you
must endure before success. This will increase
your home
business’s duplicability vastly.

Further, having uniform training and exceptional
support are
the basics and must be present.

So,

Before you spend another dollar on your network
marketing
efforts ask yourself if you’re using a perfect
network
marketing system. If your answer is no and you
aren’t having
any success then ask yourself what you can do to
change your
system to one that will work for you and your
future
distributors using the principles that I have
detailed
above.

I struggled with network marketing myself using
the old
fashion methods, but as soon as I studied
internet marketing
and how to apply it to network marketing things
got a lot
easier. I was able to spot network marketing
organizations
that were specifically positioned for internet
marketing and
earmark what I thought to be the best of the
bunch. After
that, it was simple a matter of choosing the one
that with
what I though had the “best product”.

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Marketing successfully requires not only insight into how a product or service can be successfully marketed but also flexibility into the marketing of a product or service.

This is one of the marketing principles that doesn’t seem to be taught successfully. Too many times, the “marketing gurus” will promote a type of marketing that has worked for them to the exclusion of all other types of marketing.

Now the type of marketing they promote may very well have worked well for them, but it is folly to believe that one marketing method and one marketing method only will work for every product or service everywhere. This just is not the reality as marketing methods can be as unique as the products and services that are marketed.

Innovation, creativity and flexibility are needed in any type of marketing efforts. Trying several types of marketing is usually the best method of eliminating marketing methods that fail, and determining which marketing methods are successful.

Online business or any type of business for that matter demands perseverance and determination. Perseverance and determination are also promoted heavily by the marketing gurus. However, perseverance and determination does NOT mean sticking with a marketing method that is incorrect for the product or service or NOT producing any results. It does not mean continuing self-defeating marketing methods over and over at a loss each and every month.

To prove a point about the misconceptions sometimes promoted by the marketing gurus and the misconceptions others may have about perseverance in general, I’ve used two actual case studies below:

A. Case Study #1 is a young male who started an online business many years ago promoting marketing resources and marketing strategies. He had many fine offerings that were of great value, as he spent much time and energy researching and developing resources. He read many manuals from marketing gurus, who stressed a lot on list building and e- mail marketing.

This young man, following the marketing guru’s advice, spent much time and energy for years, e-mailing others relentlessly, swapping ads for further exposure, writing articles in other newsletters and e-zines, and trying every “trick” of e-mail marketing to no avail. He also persisted in this strategy as he had taken to heart the principle of “never quitting” quite literally, which the gurus had promoted so heartily to him.

He lost quite a great deal of time and money until he noticed that his Web site had been ranking quite well in the Search Engines (after all, he had great content). Most of the few sales he had been making were coming directly from his Web site, despite the fact that he did not believe in (and dreaded) Search Engine marketing! He rethought the whole process and his approach, and began focussing on marketing his resources strictly from his Web site, applying his perseverance and determination to that, with incredible success ever since!

B. Case Study #2 is a middle aged female who approached the marketing somewhat differently, as she had read a manual from a different marketing guru. She was promoting a customized service, rather than a product, and the guru, whose advice she followed, firmly believed in Search Engine marketing, and Search Engine marketing alone. She spent literally tons of money, and tons of time, getting her Web site to the top of the Search Engines.

Like Case Study #1, she felt that if she only gave it enough time, and persevered, sales would be made. As time went on, she discovered that most of her sales were being made through her e-mail marketing. Her articles, ad swapping, and other e-mail marketing efforts (she published routinely her own newsletters and e-zines), were leading to more clients than those which were attained off her Web site. In her case, e-mail marketing was the “key” to success, but she also was following the mandates of the wrong marketing guru.

The above two studies highlight the folly of blindly following the mandates of any marketing guru. While many do have good solid advice to give, the business owner must possess enough flexibility to test many methods. Creativity and an open mind help immensely when determining marketing methods.

Perseverance and dedication are important, of course. But they must be applied correctly, along with flexibility and innovation, for success to occur in a business. All avenues should be pursued with perseverance and dedication and then choices of marketing methods made based upon the results. After all, results are what make a marketing method successful! Without results, any marketing method is a dismal failure.

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Set up multiple simultaneous marketing campaigns with database marketing automation email software that get results exploding your internet business marketing while growing multiple optin lists, prospects consistent follow, increasing Back End Sales, and bottom line profits.

When you don’t follow up your prospects or customers with additional information, you are allowing valuable customers and prospects to skip from your grasp, go to your competitors, and satisfied their needs, at the expense of what should have been you’re your profits.

Those are customers that may have been very interested in your products, but simply lost your information, or were too busy when your information was sent. Some customers will purposely wait to see if you find them important enough to follow-up their inquiries. When they don’t receive a follow up message, they take their business elsewhere.

I don’t know about you, but just about everyone doing business on the Net been in that position, because of failing to automate their follow up. Though it’s been found that customer follow up at preset times with pre-written messages, dramatically increases sales.

The exception, those who automated their marketing campaigns, their list and database management, and automated their follow up with personalized email marketing software; and, they dramatically increased their back end sales and bottom line profits.

But, just as important as the increase of sales and profits, is the time saving features of marketing automation, as is the case with email marketing, the single most important aspect of database marketing and back end sales.

Other benefits of doing internet business with email marketing automation is the ability to follow up with prospects, while following through collecting leads, prospects, and customers email addresses and personal data, from a target market; growing an opt-in list of subscribers, managing multiple lists as a list server, and setting up multiple marketing campaigns with unlimited autoresponders.

Regardless of the spam problems of these days, email still remains most effective medium for:

o Keeping customers posted on new products and specials

o Ongoing personalized dialogue with website visitors

o Proactively getting customer satisfaction and testimonials

o Prospects follow up and requesting more information

o Keeping track of all contacts and email communication

o Introducing new products to your contact database

o Motivating and training your employees and associates

o Educating your customers and prospects

And the list could go on and on with no other limitation than the marketer’s creativity and imagination, or the email marketing automation software he’s using to automate his customers follow up.
.
Automated prospect follow up is the solution to selling more on the Internet, and specifically, for more back end sales. There is a wide range of email marketing automation software on the market now a days, some more sophisticated, easier to use, and more expensive than others.

To make a good selection of the wide range of available choices, there’s a minimum of features you must consider.
\
From the marketing stand point the minimum features would be: automated database management and list server for multiple list management; manage and track, import and export, contact data from-and-to its database; and multiple autoresponders for sequential follow-up.

As important, is the ability of data merge for personalized email to potential customers, prospects, newsletters subscribers, clients, colleagues, organization members, affiliate or associates, and network marketing downlines; and, automated add and remove contact data from its database.

Other than the above, the software should allow for the seamless input of prospects on the front end, and when they come out the other end, they have all the information they need to make an intelligent decision to buy, to join an affiliate program, or sign up to a Network Marketing downline.

From the technical point of view, the software should feature: the capacity to operate sending email through your regular ISP server, or through its own integrated mail server to by pass your ISP servers, and avoid using up its band width - this is a must feature if you have a list of more than 1000 contacts.

Other important technical features for the email marketing software of your choice would be, the capacity of sending email through multiple simultaneous threads (at least 10 threads), at a sending average rate of 15 emails per thread; and an email address verifier, to verify new contacts email addresses and keeping your list clean from those entering a fake email address only to download your bonus.

Finally, the email software must have the capacity to handle the entire user unknown, undeliverable, and bounce back messages. This feature is very important to keep a clean list, and avoid being filtered by the ISP’s servers as Spam, because of too many undeliverable taking up their band width.

With an email marketing and database management software with all the above features, a Marketer or internet business operator you can set up, operate, and manage multiple programs, multiple marketing campaigns; and, also running multiple special offers, simultaneously and effortlessly.

For Netprenuers with an affiliate program, or into network marketing, this kind of software can help training associates, affiliates, and downlines, via email, on subjects such as distributor handbooks, marketing materials, or instructions for a quick jump start.

Finally, if you’re an e-publisher, this software provide the capacity for multiple broadcasting of newsletter or ezines; as well as to automatically submit article to hundreds of ezines editors at once..

Automated email and database management automation could afford business owners and marketers the means to capitalize on the full power of the internet, by consistently following up on customers, prospects, affiliates, and downlines; and, launching multiple and simultaneous marketing campaigns, while dramatically increasing their back end sales and bottom line profits.

Email marketing automation generates interest, traffic, and sales for an online business; and, its just amazing the amount of work and time that it saves. I cannot imagine someone marketing or doing business on the internet without email marketing automation software like this.

Perry Belcher is known for it’s great product marketing, visit Perry Belcher site to know more about Perry Belcher

Recently I was talking with a very bright traditional marketer on the value of integrating Internet marketing into an enterprise’s marketing mix. Personally, I have witnessed significant and measurable increases in the online results of an enterprise when they include traditional marketing strategies like direct mail, radio, television or publicity with their internet marketing strategies.

Although he did not disagree with the concept, he re-focused the discussion on the importance of an enterprise establishing their marketing message and objective even BEFORE contemplating their traditional or Internet marketing strategies. What an excellent point! What about you…

o Have you created a clear and concise marketing message?

o Have you defined your customer benefits and integrated them into your message?

o Have you established a measurable objective to determine your success by?

Your Marketing Objective Defines Your Results

Business owners and marketers have a tendency to think in broad terms about their marketing objective by focusing on ones such as “generating traffic” or “designing a website.” Instead, the effectiveness of their internet marketing strategies should be driven by specific marketing objectives established from the end result required of the business to be economically sustainable.

For example, “generating traffic” is not directly tied to a financial objective like “generating a cost per sale of $75.” The common misperception of “traffic equals sales” has wasted tremendous amounts of business’ capital on poor quality website traffic. In addition some businesses have developed negative attitudes towards Internet marketing by falsely associating poor results to it instead of to a lack of an objective.

Recently a new client described his horror story of spending a significant part of his budget on contracting with a paid search service provider. The resulting paid search campaign was a major failure in terms of satisfying the client management’s net profit objective. Actually, to be precise, the campaign caused a massive negative net profit.

After asking further questions to understand why the situation occurred, I discovered that the blame could not be attributed to the service provider’s failure to perform but instead to the client’s failure to define the correct marketing objective.

The client contracted with the service provider under an objective of “generating traffic” versus “generating a positive net profit.” The goal of “generating a positive net profit” involves a more strategic performance-centered setup and management of a paid search campaign which this particular service provider was not capable of delivering through their business model.

Unfortunately, directed by the client’s defined objective, the service provider delivered massive volumes of paid search “visitor traffic” which failed to satisfy the client’s non-communicated but expected increase in positive net profit.

Your Marketing Objective is the Balance between Determining Success and Failure.

By defining a measurable objective, an internet marketing strategy is regulated by the resulting increase or decrease of it. From this perspective, a simple “yes/no” decision is made as to the success of a particular strategy: “Yes” it achieved the marketing objective and should be maximized; or “No” it fell short of achieving the marketing objective and should be dropped or the message adjusted and tested again. Without a measurable objective, the success of an internet marketing strategy is determined by subjective means versus real data.

A Clear and Concise Marketing Message Ensures Achievement of Your Objective

The marketing message is essential for generating performance from your Internet marketing strategy. Rather on your website, landing page, or paid search ad, the message attracts visitor attention, qualifies the type of visitor and persuades the visitor to complete your defined marketing objective.

An excellent book written by Doug Hall titled, “Jump Start Your Business Brain” outlines three essential components every effective marketing message should include. They are:

1. Overt Benefit: answers the customer-centric question of “what’s in it for me?”

2. Reason to Believe: what persuasive credibility shows that you will do as you promise?

3. Dramatic Difference: what is your uniqueness to the customer?

The rudimentary knowledge gained from these three essentials is that you must focus on your visitor and answer their buying questions. By satisfying your visitor’s needs in a manner that persuades them to buy, they will correspondingly satisfy your needs.

Are You Satisfying Your Visitor’s Needs?

An easy way to assess whether your marketing message is even capable of satisfying your visitor’s needs is to count the number of times your website copy states “you or yours” versus “we and us”. Although primitive, this exercise will immediately tune you in to where your marketing message is directed. If you’re talking more about “we” then about “you” then you’re focusing on the wrong message.

Instead of spending more time on developing a traffic generation strategy, re-focus your time and thinking on developing an effective marketing message with a measurable objective. Ultimately your traffic generation strategy will achieve higher returns and stronger results when you attract the most qualified visitors through an effective marketing message and gain “data-driven” insight from a measurable objective.

Perry Belcher is known for it’s great product marketing, visit Perry Belcher site to know more about Perry Belcher

The success of your business depends on your ability to build marketing momentum. Without the ability to generate new sources of leads your capacity to sell will slump and the growth of your business will stagnate or shrink.

Unfortunately, many small business owners are at a loss when tasked with coming up with new ways to market while others are frustrated into stagnation by seeing consistently ineffective results from their marketing efforts. It doesn’t matter if your business is young or established. If your business is young you must market well simply to survive. On the other hand, if you have had marketing success with a method that does not increase your opportunity to generate new business your success will be stunted by your limited ability to find new sources of business.

Building marketing momentum is like kicking a ball down a hill that keeps getting steeper. Each time the hill becomes a little steeper the ball will roll faster and pick up momentum. In marketing, any tactic you add to attract attention to what you do is like making the hill a little steeper.

The other day I was talking to Ed who runs a successful metal shining business. I asked him how he went about generating new sales. He told me that 100% of his marketing effort is networking. I couldn’t help but wonder why. I realize that he is doing well with it but if he simply placed an ad in the yellow pages that generated just one sale a year he would cover the cost of the ad and be profitable!

Even though Ed’s networking efforts are successful he is limiting his ability to grow his business by only implementing one form of marketing. By simply trying something new in addition to networking Ed can benefit from developing a new way to generate leads and build his marketing momentum.

Is your marketing effort one dimensional or stagnant? Here are five tactics you can use to build marketing momentum.

Deliver a Great Marketing Message

A great marketing message will have the effect of generating interest in what you do. It never ceases to amaze me the number of small business owners that fail to use a compelling marketing message. How many times has someone described to you their business or what they do with a label like, “I’m an accountant” or “I’m in Communications”? Such answers are not likely to start interesting conversations and marketing opportunities are missed.

If you answer the “what do you do?” question with a savvy marketing message you will find that more people associate what you do with a need of their own or that of a friend, colleague or relative and you will win more referral business. Develop and use an outstanding, compelling marketing message and you will find that more people show interest in what you do. The result will be more better sales.

Make Cold Calling a Hot Source of Sales

Many small business owners hate to make cold calls. Their derision is understandable. By making cold calls they are setting themselves up for rejection. No one likes being rejected. However, rejection is part of the game when making phone calls. Once you realize that it’s not your fault when someone says no during a cold call you can move passed your barrier and add cold calling to your marketing arsenal.

The fact is that by regularly picking up the phone and reaching out to potential clients small business owners increase their chance of finding new business. A percentage of the people you speak with will become clients when you make cold calls, especially if you are targeting your market well and are offering something they need. What’s more you can work to improve your phone skills to increase your ability to make sales. Add cold calling to your marketing strategy and you will increase your opportunity to generate new business.

Use Your Web Site as An Effective Marketing Tool

Many companies have web sites that fail as effective marketing tools. Does your web site consistently generate leads and sales? It should. And it can. The World Wide Web is a continuously open marketplace that reaches hundreds of millions of consumers every moment of every day and allows you to easily and accurately target those who buy your products or services. A company without a web site as part of its marketing team is missing a fantastic opportunity to increase its revenue stream. Deliver a web site that functions as an effective marketing tool and you will consistently add to your marketing momentum.

Develop Your Network

Another great tool to use to build marketing momentum is networking. Networking is a highly effective means of generating referral business (which is some of the easiest business to get, once you get a referral). A person who is willing to take someone else’s advice to contact you about your product or service will transfer the trust he has in his friend or colleague making the referral to you. Making it easier for clients to trust you removes one of the barriers to making a sale. By developing a robust network you will increase your ability to find new prospects and do more business.

So then, just how should you go about building your network?

Ed, from our previous example, is able to successfully operate his business with networking alone. That’s because Ed networks the right way. Many small business owners and executives don’t realize what networking truly is. Unfortunately, all too often people think they are networking by reaching out only to the people they know when what they should be doing is taking steps to continually expand their network. Ed regularly attends networking events and is involved with multiple networking groups. He ads new people to his network all the time and has a successful business to show for it (though he could be even more successful if he added another tool to his marketing toolbox).

Measure Your Results

No matter what tactics you adapt to market yourself or your business be sure to measure your results. By measuring your marketing results you will be able to move away from or correct what does not work and stick with and reinforce what does. By diligently measuring your results you will improve your ability to ad to your marketing momentum and grow your business and success.

By measuring my results and trying new things I have been able to develop an ad that enjoys a 20% response rate. The ad is so successful I only need to run it occasionally to generate enough calls to keep me very busy. Not only does this great ad do a fantastic job of generating interest in my marketing services it saves me money on my advertising costs because I can meet my goals by running fewer ads.

You too can develop highly effective ads by measuring your results.

Move Your Marketing Forward

If your marketing efforts aren’t helping you reach your goals you can improve your results by implementing any one of the tactics outlined above. Choose the one you feel most comfortable with and take small measured steps toward realistic goals and you will see a beneficial transformation in your marketing results.

Perry Belcher is known for it’s great product marketing, visit Perry Belcher site to know more about Perry Belcher

Small business marketers love the chase. Love the new fangled way to make the phone ring. They love to think of a marketing promotion as a single event. But it’s precisely this view of marketing that holds most small businesses back. They fall prey to the “marketing idea of the week” and never fully explore what it takes to create and build a completely functioning, consistently performing, marketing system.

In this article I am going to outline the basic steps that any business can follow on the way to creating their very own marketing system. But first let’s explore this word system in the context of marketing. Small business owners have no problem thinking systems when it comes to say, accounting or hiring. When it comes to marketing though, all bets are off. It’s as if they are waiting for magic fairy dust to fall upon them with the next great marketing innovation.

Look, effective marketing is little more than creating and operating an effective marketing system. Now, when I use the word system I mean several things. 1) The system is documented - You can’t have a system or a step in a system unless you write it down. 2) The system is built on sound marketing principals and 3) You constantly measure, innovate, and refine the system.

Okay, so on to the system building steps.

1) Narrow and define a target market - Small business owners love to say yes. “Sure we can do that.” The next thing you know the target market is roughly anyone they think will pay them. You must commit to a narrowly defined target market and you must focus all of your attention upon serving that market like no one ever dreamed of. A narrow marketing focus might be - Estate Attorneys - as opposed to Law Firms.

2) Discover and communicate a core message for that market - Until you can show how your firm is different and offers something unique, you will always compete on price. You must find a way to tell your newly defined narrow target market why you have something to offer that they value. Your core message might be - We show estate attorneys how gain all of the business they can handle - as opposed to: We help law firms.

3) Develop multiple forms of permission based lead generation - No one like to be sold to and more and more advertising is falling on numb ears and eyes. Your lead generation system must be built on several fronts, such as public relations, referral marketing, strategic partnerships, and targeted advertising. Your lead generation message must offer the target market a reason to want to know more. Forget about the sale, look for ways to build trust.

4) Construct a lead conversion and customer reselling process - No amount of leads in the world will help your business if you don’t efficiently turn those leads into clients. You must have a plan that maps out what you will do when phone rings, when you make the sales call and when it’s time to do more business with the clients you already have. Most small businesses completely ignore this aspect of their marketing, but this is where the real success in marketing lies.

5) Create educational based marketing and presentation materials - Forget about the glossy sales brochure, use your marketing materials to teach how your firm is different, how you solve real problems, how you work, why you work, what you believe and your marketing will be much more successful. Your web site must come from this point of view as well.

6) Define the most important marketing success indicators - Setting marketing goals for such things as leads, appointments, sales, phone calls, referrals, impressions, mentions and anything else you can think to measure is how you turn marketing into a game and how you keep score of the game. Everyone loves and game and the only way to improve something is to measure how well you are doing in the first place.

7) Build an annual marketing calendar and budget and stick to it - Once you have spent the time and energy to think through steps 1-6 you need to commit your plan to a marketing calendar and then allocate (or at least think about) the money it will take to implement your plan. Once you create a calendar it is much more likely that you will look at the tasks assigned to each month like a “to-do” list. So, instead of whining that you should do more marketing, you simply scratch each item off your list and plan for the next. It’s an amazingly simple but effective device.

Okay…now the last bit of advice.

Every system needs a champion. Either find someone in your organization who does little else but operate the system or hire a marketing professional and charge them with helping you develop, implement and run the system.

Properly fed and maintained, this little marketing system can become the engine that drives your firm’s climb to the top.

Perry Belcher is known for it’s great product marketing, visit Perry Belcher site to know more about Perry Belcher

As recession begins to bite hard, ’spending’ is the watchword of the moment. While the government introduces financial initiatives designed to encourage higher spending, people and businesses are looking for ways to cut their budgets. Despite the recent reduction in VAT and government appeals to banks to increase lending, businesses can’t ignore the lower revenue figures as customers retreat in large numbers.

In times of financial uncertainty, a review of business operations will highlight those functions deemed non-essential or over-resourced. Historically marketing is usually among the first to be culled. It is not a well understood discipline and invariably its implementation is lacking. By and large, it is seen more as a cost centre than a revenue generator, working to bring new sales leads to the business. Properly conceived, planned and implemented marketing strategies can raise an organisation’s profile in the marketplace, in turn strengthening brand awareness and loyalty, all of which eventually leads to more customers and ultimately more revenue.

That said, here are a few words of warning. Cutting your marketing budget without thought to the business impact can be devastating. Experienced marketers know this but are under pressure to reduce spending nevertheless, and never more so than now. Conversely, there are those organisations that hold marketing up as one of the tenets of business success in all weather. These are the companies that believe if you throw enough money at marketing, eventually more customers will come and the coffers will start to fill. But without a plan behind the intent, this approach is simply a waste of money and potentially fatal to the business. There is another way.

It is accepted wisdom that marketing is essential to a prosperous business. But is it possible to maintain marketing effectiveness on an ever-decreasing budget? To answer this question, we first need to understand three things: what exactly is marketing these days, why is it so important anyway and how is it changing?

MARKETING’S EVER INCREASING IMPORTANCE
To the uninitiated, marketing is a synonym for a wide range of disciplines and activities that somehow fall into the same bucket: advertising, public relations, exhibitions, promotions. It’s true that marketing covers all of these and many others, but what actually is it?

Marketing is essentially project management in disguise and has already been functioning well through outsourcing for a significant period of time. The proliferation of marketing activity, widening supplier resources and the increasingly short term view of the role of the marketing director have all combined to create the right environment for outsourcing marketing from the strategic through the bottom line operational level.

As recently as ten years ago, certain businesses did not need to market themselves as we understand it today. Businesses such as estate agents, housing developers and banks simply opened their doors and customers would come to them, ready to buy. These businesses saw marketing as a way to rise above the competition, but there was still essentially plenty of business for all of them. However, as markets have fractured and changed, the competition has become ever more fierce and new business models are continuously being developed. On top of that, in the current economic climate it is these traditional pillars of the economy that are suffering the most.

In light of these circumstances, marketing has taken on a new importance. It has become paramount not just to business success but also to business survival. Brand presence in itself is no longer enough. It is continuous brand strengthening and communication through robust marketing strategies that forms the foundation.

Ultimately though, marketing is about understanding your customers and your market. What have you got to sell, who are you trying to sell it to, and what is the best way reach them? In addressing these issues, the successful marketing programme will cover market research, define the most appropriate channels to market and the most effective media to reach the right audience, and articulate why the market should buy from them. This last point is the cornerstone to success marketing, otherwise known as the ‘Unique Selling Proposition’

Having outlined what marketing is and why it’s so important, surely it would be simple enough to work out a plan and execute it. Unfortunately for marketers everywhere, this is easier said than done. Why? Because marketing is undergoing radical change.

THE CHANGING FACE OF MARKETING
Since the dawn of the Internet age, online marketing has unfolded at an alarming rate. At no time is this more true than today. With the advent of the so-called ‘Web 2.0′ over the last few years, social networking has seen a proliferation of new tools and online media have opened up new and diffuse channels to market. Marketing today is in many ways unrecognisable from the discipline it was, even ten short years ago.

This change has brought increasing complexity to strategic marketing and planning. Internal marketing departments are being spread more thinly, relying increasingly on a growing list of supporting agencies each dedicated to a particular marketing activity. It has also meant that marketing managers and executives have taken on more of project management role as they supervise and coordinate an abundance of outsourced activities. Similarly, the marketing director’s role has become fundamentally project-based. Marketing directors are often tasked with a series of strategic restructures as the business continually morphs to adapt to its market. This has imbued the role with a short-term outlook, such that today it is unusual for a marketing director to stay with an organisation for more than two years before moving on.

In finding a solution to the challenge of achieving effective marketing on a strict budget, it is worth noting that the prevalent marketing agency landscape developed out of necessity, not through careful planning. Outsourcing on a piecemeal basis is not a cost effective formula. It has been technology driven, not marketing driven. And there are a few fundamental issues with this approach. Firstly marketing executives do not ordinarily make good project managers. They lack the advanced skills required to integrate and synchronise a myriad online and offline activities into a single, mutually supportive workflow.

Outsourcing marketing functions is not a new concept. In fact it is a tried and tested way to quickly reduce costs by moving core functions outside of the organisation. It was first widely applied to customer service through call centres. However sales and marketing departments quickly discovered that if you outsource on a purely tactical basis, it can backfire on your business. It is important to build in strategic processes and controls to maintain service quality. The challenge for marketing is how to achieve quality control across such a diverse and disparate range of activities. One answer could be to combine outsource partners with a project management team. Another approach is to integrate these functions and elevate the outsourcing relationship to a more strategic level. To identify the best approach, we need to understand ‘marketing integration’ and how this can create cost efficiencies.

INTEGRATING OFFLINE AND ONLINE MARKETING
While today every business considers having an online presence as a necessity, tomorrow it will be blogs, giveaway content in the form of PDF reports and email newsletters, online communities and social networking that will become essential to every marketing strategy, programme and campaign and not just the domain of the forward-thinkers.

These new ways of communicating with the market are moving seemingly further and further away from the real world. Aside from keeping up with developments, marketers are faced with the challenge of integrating online and offline channels so that they support and reinforce, rather than contradict each other.

On top of this, technology has levelled the playing field. Now anyone can try their hand at marketing. Publishing a newspaper or magazine is possible with a software programme and a broadband connection. Achieving professional quality media is now accessible to the man on the street. Similarly online marketing is open to everyone. However, the ability to market does not guarantee marketing success. Despite ease of online communication, the availability of tools for fast analysis of market data and the speed of digital delivery, superior marketing implementation can only be ensured when it is backed by a consistent business strategy and coordinated marketing programme. More importantly, integrating traditional offline marketing with the many disparate forms of tactical online activities in a strategic way will be essential to success.

COST EFFECTIVENESS IS MARKETING GOLD
As marketing agencies continue to proliferate and shift towards more and more specialised niches, it begins to make sense to consolidate the mainstream functions within an integrated framework. Logically, however, this would suggest higher internalised costs. To avoid these costs, without compromising effectiveness, suggests moving the mainstream function outside the organisation.

However, this makes little sense if executed at the tactical level. What is needed is a restructuring of the traditional outsourcing model so that the lines of communication are at board level. Strategic public relations and public affairs consultancies have worked this way for many years. The timing and conditions are now right for marketing to adopt this approach: to move from a tactical project management style to a higher-level strategic partnership with their outsourcers.

Put simply, modern outsourced marketing takes the accepted concept of interim management and retained agencies to a higher level. In an outsourced arrangement, highly skilled marketing consultants and managers liaise with specialist agencies to an agreed strategy and budget, in a well-constructed operating process to deliver on planned objectives and targets. By taking an holistic view from a brand perspective, outsourced marketing has the potential to lift the bar on performance and programme integration in a way that traditional marketing management finds hard to achieve within modern cost structures. Key to achieving this is integration of the internal marketing function at the strategic level of the business.

Outsourcing marketing execution is the traditional view taken by organisations when attempting to strip out costs, but within today’s marketing landscape this can only come at the expense of marketing effectiveness. Modern outsourcing should aim for strategic consistency across internal marketing functions. This has the additional benefit of placing overall responsibility and planning at an organisational level rather than with ultimately one departmental representative, the marketing director.

As a contractual arrangement, strategic outsourcing establishes common operating practices and reportage, which work in accordance with KPI measurements and agreed ROI indices. From a marketing perspective the strategic outsource model has the organisational intelligence necessary to achieve a balance mix of online activity and offline in an integrated manner.

CHOOSING A STRATEGIC OUTSOURCED MARKETING PARTNER
As a means of replacing high cost, high turnover internal function with a strategy partnership that communicates at board level, the outsourced marketing model has much offer. It is equally suited to growing companies that have yet to develop a marketing department as those that are downsizing. For those marketers working under the conditions accompanying a merger or acquisition situation, or companies and brands stripped of resource through administration, outsourced marketing also presents an attractive option.

If you decide that outsourced marketing is for you, you’ll want to ensure that you engage an outsourcer that agrees to a planning process that involves clear ROI and KPI objectives. Ideally this will be presented in the form of a marketing dashboard to allow a continuous evaluation performance on the fly. You should also be careful to select an outsource partner that can offer a complementary mix of senior consultants with skills that span all media and marketing channels. Naturally it is also critical that this experience covers both online and offline environments. Finally, it is important to assess whether your outsourcing partner can offer flexibility in its fee structure. For example, can it package a tailored launch service for an all-on cost but also provide supplementary services on a ‘top-up’ basis as and when required?

Cost savings are readily achievable with a fully outsourced marketing function, provided consultation is observed at board level. Since services are rendered on a ‘time block’ basis, it is easy to adjust the marketing resources ‘tap’ to whatever level suits the budget. Provided the partnership is structured correctly, marketing results should not be adversely affected. In fact, the enhanced planning and creative development process that comes through an outsourced arrangement can lead to improved marketing effectiveness and sales performance that proves to be as valuable as lower marketing costs.

Marketing Outsources is the UK’s first specialist organisation, which offers both in company management with external creative and production services to provide full executive resources and a planned programme of activity. Implemented at a substantially lower cost yet with an improved performance, making the most of technology and better planning and faster working.

With Marketing Outsources you get a topflight director just when you need the strategy and creative direction with board level input to overall company growth, backed with experienced marketing managers.

Marketing Outsources can deliver and implement your marketing strategy through a group of expert and experienced suppliers, embracing the benefits of new technology, whilst balancing online and offline spending to optimum effect.
Tim Arnold is the principal partner of Marketing Outsources, the UK’s first specialist organisation, which offers both in company management with external creative and production services to provide full executive resources and a planned programme of activity, implemented at a substantially lower cost yet with an improved performance, making the most of technology and better planning and faster working.

Tim has over 35 year’s experience in marketing, advertising and sales promotion. He set up Marketing Outsources having worked as a Portfolio Marketing Director for 10 years. In this role he has been Marketing Director for Hagemeyer and Berkeley Homes and head of e-commerce for Farnell.

Previously, he was founder of Tim Arnold & Associates and chairman of the Arnold Worth Group, a leading UK independent marketing services group. Prior to that he was a Director of Wasey Campbell Ewald (Interpublic) and MD of their sales promotion company.

Tim started his career as a Unilever trainee before moving to become Brand Manager for Yardley of London. He is a fellow of the Institute of Sales Promotion and member of the Marketing Society and has recently published “The Marketing Director’s handbook” with Guy Tomlinson.

Perry Belcher is known for it’s great product marketing, visit Perry Belcher site to know more about Perry Belcher

In developing their business plans, companies of all sizes face the challenge of determining the size of their markets. To begin, companies must present the size of their “relevant market” in their plans. The relevant market equals the company’s sales if it were to capture 100% of its specific niche of the market. Conversely, stating that you were competing in the $1 trillion U.S. healthcare market, for example, is a telltale sign of a poorly reasoned business plan, as there is no company that could reap $1 trillion in healthcare sales. Defining and communicating a credible relevant market size is far more powerful than presenting generic industry figures.

The challenge that many firms face is their inability to size their relevant markets, particularly if they are competing in new or rapidly evolving markets. On one hand, the fact that the markets are new or evolving is the reason why there may be a large opportunity to establish them and become the market leader. Conversely, investors, shareholders and senior management are often skeptical to invest resources because, since the markets do not yet exist, the markets may be too small, or not really exist at all.

In developing over 200 business plans for emerging ventures, venture capital firms, SMEs and Fortune 500 spinouts, I have encountered the challenge of sizing emerging markets numerous times and has developed a proprietary methodology to solve the problem.

To begin, it is critical to understand why traditional market sizing methodologies are ill-equipped to size emerging markets. To illustrate, if a research firm were to use traditional methods to size a mature market such as the coffee market in the United States, it would consider demographic trends (e.g., aging baby boomers), psychographic trends (e.g., increased health consciousness), past sales trends and consumption rates, price movements, competitor brand shares and new product development, and channels/retailers among others. However, conducting such an analysis for emerging markets presents a challenge as several of these factors (e.g., past sales, demographics of the customer when there are no current customers) don’t exist because the markets are presently untapped.

The methodology required to size these new markets requires two approaches. Each approach will yield a different approximation of the potential market size, and often the figures will work together to provide a solid foundation for the market’s potential. I call this first approach “peeling back the onion.” In this approach, I start with the generic market (e.g., the coffee market) that that company is trying to penetrate, and remove pieces of that market that it will not target.

For instance, if the company created an ultra high-speed coffee maker that retailed for $600, it would initially reduce the market size by factors such as retail channels (e.g., mass marketers would not carry the product), demographic factors (lower income customers would not purchase the product), etc. By peeling back the generic market, you eventually will be left with only the relevant portion of it.

The second methodology requires assessing the market from several angles to approximate the potential market share, answering questions including:

o Competitors: who is competing for the customer that you will be serving; what is in their product pipeline; once you release a product/service, how long will it take them to enter the market, who else may enter the market, etc.

o Customers: what are the demographics and psychographics of the customers you will be targeting; what products are they currently using to fulfill a similar need (substitute products); how are they currently purchasing these products; what is their degree of loyalty to current providers, etc.

o Market factors: what other factors exist that will influence the market size - government regulations; market consolidation in related markets, price changes for raw materials, etc.

o Case Studies: what other markets have experience similar transformations and what were the customer adoption rates in those markets, etc.

While these methodologies are often more painstaking than traditional market research techniques, they can be the difference in determining whether your company has the next iPod or the next Edsel.

Perry Belcher is known for it’s great product marketing, visit Perry Belcher site to know more about Perry Belcher