Small Business
Marketing News

In this issue:
Food For Thought
Co-operative Marketing - Save $ - Increase Exposure
Networking On-line
Online Marketing Quick Tips
FREE Exposure For Your Home-based Biz
NEW Contest At Bizine.com

Food For Thought:

There are only about a half dozen things that make 80% of the difference in any area of our lives.

by Jim Rohn

Cooperative Marketing Strategies

by Terri Gray
WMDesign@bizine.com

Have you ever noticed how many corporations market their products and services with each other? For example: McDonalds, Mattel, and Coca-Cola.

Why do you think they do that?

Working cooperatively with other companies can save you money on your marketing and advertising. It also brings in additional customers that you may not have reached through your own efforts. Same goes for those businesses you market cooperatively with. It is a win-win situation for all of you.

So how can you make this strategy work for you?

Take a good look at your business. Who are your customers? What other types of products and services would appeal to them? What other businesses supply these types of products and services?

Next make a list of the businesses that market to the same target market. Then investigate their services to see that you are not in direct competition with them. Categorize each of the other businesses so that you have similar businesses grouped together.

For example, if you are marketing cloth diapers, find companies that provide other services to new or expecting parents. Child care, children's resale shops, a Discovery Toy's consultant, midwives, nanny, maid service, companies that prepare and deliver home cooked meals, nutrition consultants, breastfeeding clinics, doctors. And group them according to their services so that each group is not competing with another.

Then start brainstorming about how you could coordinate an offering or advertising venture with these businesses. For example, they could each offer discounts or coupons that could be put in a welcome package for a new mom and handed out by the physician's office. Or you could run a series of larger ads in a local paper announcing a gift package that could be given to new parents. An announcement of this offering should be sent to the customer list of ALL involved businesses.

A package of this type could include diaper service for a month, a one time maid service for the new mom, a few days of prepared meals from a food delivery service, a toy for the baby. These gift packages could be sold to the customer at a reduced rate and have additional information about other products and services in the packet for the new parents.

This does several things:

Promotes your business and those of the people you work with.

Saves money on marketing and advertising.

Demonstrates credibility by affiliation with other businesses.

Generates a sale as well as potential repeat business.

Gets your information out to other "hot" prospects.

Once you have your business list, idea list and benefit list together you can start contacting the other businesses. Ask to speak to the owner or the person that handles their advertising. Present your plan to them and see who is interested. Get a couple dates/times that are best for them to meet. Schedule a meeting of all the interested parties and present your ideas to them. See what other ideas they come up with and start firming up your plan of attack. Will you put the materials together yourself, or hire someone (they may want to work cooperatively with you also!)? Find an interested business from within each category so that none of the businesses are in direct competition with each other.

The same principle can be applied online. I help businesses to build "Internet Communities". This way they can benefit from the traffic generated by other related businesses targeting the same market, but without the direct competition.

You can do this by sharing webspace within the same domain name (creating a sort of mall with common areas that provide content to attract new and repeat visitors), or through link exchanges, sponsoring contests in conjunction with other sites, hosting events, or a number of other ways.

One of the things I do is to help businesses to develop these types of marketing strategies so that they can benefit from increased exposure and decreased marketing expenses.

If you are interested in setting up a cooperative marketing program, or Virtual Community on the Internet, please contact me for a FREE consultation

**********************
Terri Gray's Small Business Consulting
& Website Design
http://www.austinwebdesign.com" target="blank & http://www.homeimages.com/gray WMDesign@bizine.com
**********************

Networking Online
by Terri Gray
Webmaster@Bizine.com
WM Designs

The Internet is a "Virtual Community" and you can quite effectively network in it, much the same as you would offline in your "Real Community".

The online community has a number of methods that people use to meet and to exchange ideas, leads and support. The trick is to find the appropriate groups and places that are suited to you, your interests and your business. Following are some of the places on the Internet where you can begin your online networking.

Chat Rooms - Many sites online now have chat rooms with scheduled meetings. These sites are generally moderated and are set up to discuss specific topics. If you are on America Online, there are many such chats in the "Your Business" section. Browse these chat listings and find a group that you would like to join. You can gain useful information by participating in the chats, can meet other folks and learn what they are doing. Use the same techniques that were discussed in the last issue on how to network and you will soon be building beneficial business relationships online.

If you are not on AOL, try doing searches for a topic that is of interest to you and include chat in with the keywords. IE: try business chat, marketing chat, real estate chat, parenting chat etc. You will find numerous sites for your specified topic that will include chat rooms and forums (message boards). Online, you have an additional advantage when using the message boards/forums. Many of the search engines list the content of these message board posts. By using keywords in your posts, you could pull up on searches and people will be able to read them and then go to your website from them.

Newsgroups & Mailing Lists - There are tons of newsgroups and mailing lists online. Topics range from business, to hobbies, education, parenting etc. Find a group in which you share common interests. By participating in discussions, you can develop personal and business relationships. While these are not appropriate places to advertise, most folks use a signature so that you can see what business they are in and they can learn what you do. If you start referring folks to people you meet through these groups, they will start remembering what you do and will refer back your way as well. To search for Newsgroups of interest, visit: http://www.dejanews.com. For Mailing Lists visit: http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/

Link Exchanges - Surf the Internet for other sites that would be of interest to your target market. Be sure that these sites are of interest to your prospects, but are not in direct competition with you. Then contact the webmasters about exchanging links. This can be a win - win situation for both of you, provided you are targeting the same group.

Working with other Webmasters - You may even consider hosting an event or sweepstakes of some sort with a webmaster from the above group. Another great way to network with other webmasters is to exchange advertisements in each others newsletters, or by submitting articles of interest to their readers for publication in them.

Quick Online Marketing Tip
by Terri Gray

Give folks a reason to visit your site! Host a sweepstakes or have a drawing for a FREE gift. You can generate leads, increase traffic and exposure all at the same time. For a free place to announce your sweepstakes, visit: Winning Ways Sweepstakes Newsletter http://www.onlinesweeps.com and email the editor with your sweepstakes announcement. And don't forget to list your sweepstakes page with the search engines & list it in your signature file.

FREE Exposure For Your Home-based Business

Bizine.com regularly posts home-based business profiles so that others can learn about the opportunities available for working from home. If you would like to have your home-based business profiled at Bizine.com, simply request our home biz survey by sending any e-mail message to: profile@bizine.com.

NEW Contest At Bizine.com

Starting Friday, October 3rd, we will be hosting a new contest for a FREE website at Bizine.com. To participate, entrants should submit either a sample marketing letter, or classified ad that they have used for their business (or make one up for a fictitious business or product). The most compelling ad, letter, or marketing pitch will win a FREE website designed and hosted by Bizine.com for 1 year. Watch the site for more details to be posted on Friday 10/3!)

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ONLINE MARKETERS! Take 30 seconds and learn what makes the difference between the "internet success stories" and the "obscure web marketers".

Finally, a genuine insider tells all! http://www.bizweb2000.com/d2075.htm or mailto:webinfo@bizine.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Next Issue: Tips For Boosting Your Website Traffic

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!