Advertising and Marketing blog

We have said it before; if you volunteer to do something make sure you do it. The same is true of being dependable for showing up when you have agreed to be at a specific location. Can you imagine having a group of volunteers agreeing to cook a meal for the elderly and the crew does not show up? I have been to events where people have had to scramble to fill a crucial spot at an event by doing more than one job. Do not be that person that is deemed unreliable for being on time and in place as agreed. The best way to make sure you are reliable is to confirm the day before the event about what your duties will be and where and when you will be meeting. Many people forget to do the confirmation and find that their job, time and location have been changed. You may be thinking that the organization should be communicating the changes but often this falls through the cracks and some unsuspecting volunteer gets lost in the process.

If you are always there on time you will gain a reputation of being dependable. Those around you will know that they can rely on you to get things done. It will free them up to accomplish other tasks. If you have ever helped set-up an event such as a seminar, you will know how much work happens behind the scenes. When you take the seminar, it always looks seamless. In reality it’s those who volunteer to do the work that knows what is missing. The number of errors or mishaps can be minimized if everyone who volunteers actually shows up and does their job.

Do not be the person that does not show up without letting someone know there is a problem. Be reliable and let others be confident in the fact that you will be there when you say you will be there.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. is a speaker, author (over 170 books, articles, and publications), and consultant. She has provided marketing, sales, business development and training expertise for companies such as Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Varian Medical Systems, Accenture, Avaya, Cisco Systems to name a few. Dr. Daoust has also done extensive work with small businesses in developing their marketing, training, and operational plans. You may contact Dr. Daoust at http://BizMechanix.com. You may also view her latest publications at http://BlueprintBooks.com Dr. Daoust also writes for the National Networker http://theNationalNetworker.com

It is becoming common knowledge that a website that expects to get the most out of its search engine results must search engine optimize its content in order to achieve the highest possible ranking. What is not as well known is that website content isn’t the only type of writing that can be search engine optimized to produce a favorable outcome for your website.

As a part of your marketing strategy, you will likely have include the distribution of press releases in order to let people know about the latest events and movements of your business or website. What you need to recognize is the fact that this is also one of your best opportunities to employ search engine optimization, and take advantage of another opportunity to have the search engines work in your favor.

To do this properly, there are a few things that you will need to do. The first, of course is to write the press release and make certain that all of your most important keywords are included within its text with a good density. You must then distribute your press release to the right places. There are a number of different press release services out there – both free and paid – that are willing to publish your press release and distribute it to different media representatives worldwide. Among the largest and most popular of these press release distribution websites are webwire.com and prweb.com.

By working with large distribution sites such as these, you’ll be making sure that your search engine optimizing efforts are being used to their fullest. The reason is because these sites distribute to so many other sites, and because they are always having their information and content scanned by different search engine spiders and indexers, having your press release added to the possible top results for the keywords that you have selected.

This is such an easy process that it is, in fact, considered to be even easier than writing the press release itself. After all, you need to make certain that the press release is good enough that it will be picked up and republished by other websites, online journals, blogs, and ezines, and not just remain stranded at the press release distribution website, as handy as it is with website ranking.

Remember that the purpose of your press release is not just search engine optimization. That is a secondary advantage. You still want to make sure that the news that you are reporting is spread as far as possible, and read by as many prospective clients and site visitors as you can manage.

This being said, you need to understand that though your keyword needs to be included in your press release, the rest of the content has to be of high caliber. If you are not skilled in writing, you may choose to have a professional press release writer do it for you – they are quite worth the money.

An effective press release will have a strong, informative title, information that is straight to the point without any fluff, no spelling or major grammatical errors, no informational errors, and a healthy smattering of useful keywords. By ensuring that your press release fulfills all of these requirements, you dramatically increase your odds of having your press release well distributed, well ranked among search engines, and well read among your target market.

As far as the keyword is concerned, do make sure that it is mentioned frequently enough to count, but don’t paste it into your press release so many times that it doesn’t read naturally or that it might register as SPAM by the search engines who will be ranking it. A safe density is usually within the 2 to 3 percent range. Try to use it once in your title, and very close to the beginning of the first sentence in your first paragraph. After that, once or twice in the rest of the press release should do it.

It is important that you never overlook the value of search engine optimizing any online document that you may create. Press releases are among the most effective because of their high distribution, but you should include search engine optimizing in anything that you will be posting.

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North http://www.15dn.com, where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

Sometimes you may wish someone else would sell your products or services so you did not have to do it. In the mind of almost everyone, this would be absolutely ideal. In reality, only you can be as passionate and knowledgeable about your products and services. This is even true when you company grows.

There are several things that you can do to lessen the pain of trying to sell your own products and services. Here are three great ways to be more successful.

1. Don’t forget there is a difference between sales and marketing. You should first MARKET your products and services and forget about selling. You should ease into the selling phase through a good solid marketing plan that contains action steps and timelines for completion. You need to plan where you are going and as Yogi Berra states. “If you don’t plan, you will end up somewhere else”.
2. 2. Find other services and products you can use as a lead in to the ones you provide. This means you need to find a product at a low entry price that will allow you to upsell to your other products and services. If you are selling weight loss products, then start with a free booklet on weight loss guidelines. Then upsell to what you have to offer. Be sure that your upsell offer is included in the guide book. For more information on how to upsell you may contact BetteD@BlueprintBooks.com
3. 3. Create your own channel partners (called affiliates in the eMarketing world). Get as many as possible to sell your wares. The more the better. Even if each one of them only sells one item per week, and you have 50 people, that is 50 sales per week. This takes some preparation as you need to make sure the “partners” have all the tools they need to do the sale. You also must have a communication plan in place to keep in touch. They will go away or not sell if you do not communicate with them on a regular basis. You can learn about good communication skills through BizMechanix.com

In summary: Market first, find other products that complement your current ones, and find channel partners or affiliates to sell on your behalf. Remember that good communication is the key to resellers.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. has been networking with others since leaving high school years ago. Realizing that no one really cared about what she did in life unless she had someone to tell and excite. She decided to find the best ways to get people’s attention, be creative in how she presented herself and products, getting people to know who she was, and being visible all the time. Her friends and colleagues have often dubbed her the “Networking Queen”. Blueprints for Success – Networking: 150 ways to promote yourself is the first in this series. Blueprints for Success Branding Yourself: Another 150 ways to promote yourself is planned for release in 2006. For more information visit http://www.BlueprintBooks.com