Small Business
Marketing News

In this issue:
Food For Thought
3 Great Business Tips
Search Engine Tips
So Your Website's Up - Now What?
Business Books

Food For Thought:

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.

by Jim Rohn

3 Great Business Tips

Dr. Nunley's
Biz-Tips
by Kevin Nunley

Over-Sized Post Cards
Post card marketing is hot! And why not? With the price of first class postage going up, the cheaper price of postcards offers a real bargain.

Plus, the prospect doesn't have to open an envelope. Your ad message placed on a postcard is staring them in the face

Markus Allen heads MailShop USA, a company that specializes in postcard marketing (610-359-9870). He reminds us that postcards come in several larger, attention-getting sizes.

The 5-1/2" by 8-1/2" size gives the most bang for the buck. It's cheap to print and stands out in a stack of mail. This sized postcard travels by Standard Mail (the new Third Class) which costs 32 cents.

A jumbo-sized postcard, up to 12" by 15", can be used to list multiple messages.

Complaining Customers
You probably have noticed that many major department stores take the attitude that "the customer is always right."

I often wondered where the wisdom was in this. More than once I've witnessed a demanding customer dressing down a clerk who patiently listened, even though the customer was clearly in the wrong

Marketing research done by major companies tells us why "the customer is always right." Much of it has to do with word-of-mouth.

A customer who has a bad experience generally tells 10 other people about it. Others will tell more. The number of people who eventually hear about the bad experience can reach upwards of 100.

Simply saying, "I'm sorry. What can we do to make you happy?"--can stop the complainer in their tracks and reverse bad PR.

Sales Letter Ideas
Most businesses of any size use sales letters of one type or another. Whether its a simple thank you note to a customer, info on your web site, or a lengthy newspaper ad--smart sales letter formulas can improve response.

Here are a few tried-and-true methods for writing your next sales letter.

Flatter the reader. Let her know that she's part of a group you consider important. This makes your sales letter more personal.

Write to the reader peer-to-peer. People are more likely to believe a letter from someone who is similar to themselves. If you are selling boats, let the reader know you are a boating enthusiast, too.

Ask a question. This works best to draw the reader in when the question is one that the reader finds interesting or curious. Your prospect will continue on to get the answer.

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Ask for a free list of Kevin's special reports on marketing at (801)253-4536 or on-line at DrNunley@aol.com. See all his articles on his Marketing Info Supersite: http://members.tripod.com/~DrNunley.
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Search Engine Tips
by Terri Gray
terri@terrigray.com

Many people are confused about the search engines and how to get the best directory listings with them. This column will be an ongoing discussion on Search Engines and how to make the best use of them. If you have any tips that you would like to share please feel free to email them to us

The search engines are the "yellow pages" of the Internet. As such, the search engines are concerned about the accuracy of their systems. When people do a keyword search, they expect to have sites pulled up that are truly relevant to those keywords.

However, many webmasters were interested only in generating traffic to their sites. They spammed the Search Engines with keywords that were requested frequently, even if they had no relevance to the site. And they also spammed them by repeating keywords using the same color as the background so the search engines would pick them up, but they could not be seen by the viewers.

This misuse of the system has caused many of the search engines to remove sites completely from their directories or to penalize them for abuse.

When you install your META Tags, try not to repeat your keywords more than twice. Do try to include as many keywords as possible in all three parts of your META Tags (Title, Description and Keywords). Also try to use as many keywords as possible within the first 120 words of the site. If your page is primarily graphics, use them in the image tags that are describing the images.

Also, tailor a separate set of META Tags for each page on the site. That way you can better target folks for each particular page and improve your chances of being pulled up more frequently on keyword searches.

Naturally, you want to attract people looking for your products and/or services. So why would you want to mislead folks any? Do you really think that someone would do business with you if you "tricked" them into coming to your site with false keywords? So play the game fairly, don't abuse the system, just learn to use it more efficiently.

So Your Website's Up - Now What?
by Terri Gray
terri@terrigray.com

Many people think that once their website is up that people will just automatically start flocking to it. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

A website is an online "storefront" and just like a traditional offline "storefront", if the business owner does not advertise and market it, it will not prosper. So what are some ways you can announce your new website?

• Print up an invitation - invite folks to visit your new website send this out to friends, family, former business associates, existing clients and contacts.
• Add your new URL to EVERYTHING! This includes your invoices, stationary, envelopes, business cards, print ads, flyers, job signs, brochures, hats, t-shirts, vehicle - and anywhere else that you would normally include your phone number. If you already have a lot of pre-printed items, have a stamp made with the URL and stamp it on anything you send out.
• List your site with as many search engines and directories as you can.
• Announce your website to appropriate newsgroups and mailing lists.
• Create a signature to use at the end of your email messages. Keep it about 4 to 6 lines of text, including the URL, to follow proper Netiquette.

Visit the NEW Small Business Bookstore - You'll find great information for starting your home-based business, plus marketing tips, motivational and self-improvement books and information on how to write effective sales letters. Check out the some of the tools available to help you succeed!