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Internet Marketers – Proposed Legislation Wants to Appoint You as Tax Collector

By Chip Cooper in Marketing

Proposed legislation in the U.S. Congress, if passed, will essentially make online merchants tax collectors, forcing them to collect sales taxes for all purchases. This is the latest attempt by cash-strapped states to collect sales tax revenues from online sales.

The Main Street Fairness Act (MSFA), introduced by Senator Dick Durban (D-IL), would change the current law which requires merchants to collect sales tax only when the merchant has a physical presence in the state. The effect of MSFA on online merchants, particularly small merchants, could be huge.

The Current Sales Tax War

The general rule regarding sales taxes is that merchants are required to collect sales taxes on the sale of tangible property to purchasers located within the merchant’s state. For sales to purchasers outside the merchant’s state, the merchant is required to collect sales taxes only for sales into a state where the merchant has a “nexus”, meaning a physical presence. The taxes on these sales are supposed to be paid by the purchasers in the form of use taxes, but most use tax obligations are not paid, and as a result states claim that they are losing between $21-34 billion.

Currently, Amazon.com and big box merchants such as Wal-Mart and Target are locked in a war involving whether Amazon’s affiliates should count as nexus for sales tax purposes, even though Amazon.com does not have a physical presence in the affiliates’ states.

Up to now, attempts by several states to force out-of-state merchants such as Amazon.com to collect sales taxes have been relatively unsuccessful. For example, Illinois and California passed so-called “Amazon laws” requiring out-of-state merchants to collect sales taxes if they employed marketing affiliates located in Illinois and California. Amazon.com retaliated by shutting down its affiliate program in Illinois and California, just as Amazon.com had done previously when Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island passed similar legislation.

After these shut downs by Amazon.com, it’s been reported that Wal-Mart and other big box merchants added fuel to the fire by offering to work with the terminated Amazon affiliates.

The Main Street Fairness Act

The introduction of MSFA is the most recent attempt to bring the U.S. Government into the war, but in a different way that does not involve nexus (a physical presence). Under MSFA, a participating state would be able to require the collection of sales tax by remote merchants that do not have a nexus in their state.

It’s important to note that MSFA makes no mention of nexus. Under MSFA nexus in no longer a consideration. Instead, to take advantage of MSFA, a state must have adopted the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA) and passed implementing legislation. In part, SSUTA requires states to follow uniform practices, including uniform product definitions, uniform sales tax filing requirements, uniform collection through the same office, an uniform registration of merchants through a centralized multistate filing system. At present, 24 states have implemented SSUTA.

What are the benefits of MSFA? The huge beneficiaries are participating states in terms of increased tax revenues collected by merchants. Estimates of “lost” tax revenues for all states combined generally fall in the range of $21-34 billion.

Are there any benefits for online merchants and consumers? Dick Durban’s website claims that MSFA:

* does not create a new tax, but provides a necessary tool to collect an existing tax in a simple and fair manner;

* releases consumers from tax remittance obligation;

* treats all merchants with equal sales tax collection responsibilities; and

* reduces collection costs and provides compensation for all sellers required to collect sales taxes.

Somewhat surprisingly, Amazon has reportedly come out in favor of MSFA. Apparently, Amazon’s opposition to the prior “Amazon laws” was based on Amazon’s belief that these laws would make it more difficult to report and collect sales taxes. Under MSFA, Amazon believes that the playing field has been leveled.

What about start-up and small online merchants? Will they conclude that tax collection is really not worth the administrative hassle? One key provision of MSFA is an exemption for small sellers. The catch is that Durban’s bill doesn’t define “small”, so we don’t know at this time the scope of the exclusion.

Conclusion

If MSFA passes, the big winners will be the state taxing authorities with increased tax revenues.

Large online merchants such as Amazon.com will not be losers because they have the administrative resources to collect and pay the taxes with the new uniform rules.

Will small online merchants be losers by having to deal with the hassle and expense of the additional administrative burdens? The answer depends on how the “small” exemption is defined. If you’re a small online merchant, you should pay close attention to MSFA. Better yet, contact your U.S. Senators and express your concerns.

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Leading SaaS attorney Chip Cooper has automated the process of drafting Website Legal Documents with his Website Legal Forms Generator. Use his free online tool — Website Documents Determinator — to determine which legal documents your website really needs. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to draft your website legal forms at http://www.digicontracts.com/whichdocs/ .

Why Are 95% Of Internet Marketers Unsuccessful?

By Graham Bray in Marketing

It’s an unnerving fact, but of all potential internet marketing wannabees, only 5% go on to sell products and make a success of their ventures. There is a huge drop-out rate with the vast majority failing to make it even past the first hurdle.

Why do so many people give up before they’ve barely begun? These figures are in stark contrast to those published for more traditional business start-ups. According to statistics published by the Small Business Administration (SBA), seven out of ten new employer establishments survive at least two years and 51 percent survive at least five years. This is a far cry from the previous long-held belief that 50 percent of businesses fail in the first year and 95 percent fail within five years.

So why the big difference? One of the key factors is the ease with which internet businesses can be started. What are your initial outgoings? – a simple website, a product, a domain name, a hosting company, an autoresponder? All of these can be collated for less than $500. If you’re not even willing to do this simple stage yourself, then there are many, many ‘gurus’ who will offer to set up sites on your behalf.

Compare this with a traditional business owner. They will have to find premises, source all of the stock, possibly find employees, arrange for accountants and lawyers to look after the financial and legal side of things… and the list goes on. I’ve just done some “back of an envelope” calculations for starting up a new traditional business, and the figures are a little eye-watering! One time start-up expenses would be in the region of $40,500, with monthly ongoing costs in the region of $12,000. Assuming that it may take 6 months to get established and consistently find customers, then the total start-up costs for the first six months amounts to $112,500!

Let’s just put the two figures side-by-side. $500 for an internet business start-up and $112,500 for a traditional business start-up. Guess who’s going to be more committed to their business!

The key word here is ‘investment’. The more you’re willing to invest in your business, the more willing you will be to stick with it and really give it your best shot. Who in their right mind would be willing to throw away $112,500? In contrast, giving up a $500 internet business is no great loss.

It frustrates me when I receive emails from wannabee internet marketers who quibble about paying $197 for a product that could really launch them into a profitable online business. Get real! – if you’re really committed to your internet dream then do your homework, shop around a bit and then make a commitment.

I speak here from experience. One of my passions is trading on the foreign exchange markets and stock exchanges. When I first started I looked for the cheapest system available, and ended up purchasing a number of these, all $50 or less. Without exception the systems were complete and utter rubbish!

After months of frustration it began to dawn on me (I’m a slow learner!) that if I continued to pay peanuts then I would continue to get monkeys. I therefore spent some time looking for the best system and eventually invested over $3000 in a suitable product. I can honestly say that I have not been disappointed – the level of support and training has been fantastic, and I have an effective system that will continue to generate an income for me.

Recently I made a similar decision with my internet marketing. For years I dabbled, and purchased many ‘products’ that were more or less scams. I then found a system being offered by some guys I know well and trust, invested a significant amount of money, and my marketing has gone from strength to strength.

It hasn’t been easy, but because of my investment I am willing to make the necessary commitment of time and effort.

So what about you? Are you still trying to get your business started ‘on the cheap’? Or are you willing to do your homework and make an investment in your future? Do you want to be one of the 5% who succeed, or are you going to continue failing and remain in the 95%? I think that the answer is obvious, but at the end of the day it’s got to be your decision. I wonder what you’ll decide to do?

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Graham Bray is an enthusiastic internet marketer, and for nearly five years he has been developing websites as part of his Multiple Income Pathways. To learn more about internet marketing and how you can download newsletters, training videos and a *free audio recording and transcript* visit his blog at http://www.easierinternetmarketing.com

Content Gating: Quid Pro Quo

By Elmar Sandyck in Marketing

“He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open.” – Rabindranath Tagore

Content gating, do you know something about it?

Technically, it’s that thing you do as an online marketer to force potential clients or prospects to reveal their contact details first in order to get free downloadable content. You literally put up some sort of gate to block any interested person to automatically get free content without getting something in return for it. There is a Latin maxim that can perfectly describe this: quid pro quo, which literally means “this for that” or “something for something.”

Content gating is one of the most popular ploys that online marketers or entrepreneurs use to build an email list. It’s a white hat marketing practice but the thing is; it may not really be helping you in your business at all!

Ericka Chikowski wrote an article for the Entrepreneur magazine called, “Why You Shouldn’t Wall Off Your Web Content”. David Meerman Scott, a marketing strategist, mentioned that marketers who are practicing this kind of content gating are harming their business instead of improving it!

Here is a quote taken from the article:

The author of Real-Time Marketing and PR, Scott believes content gating doesn’t make for a good getting-to-know-you phase between marketers and potential customers. “I liken it to a singles bar where some guy comes up to you and says, ‘What’s your phone number?’ without even introducing himself. It sets up an adversarial relationship,” Scott says. Instead, consider collecting information after prospects get a taste of your expertise — and realize how much they can learn from you.

Scott has found that ungated content gets between 20 and 50 times more downloads. He says a gated piece of content that would be downloaded 2,000 times could skyrocket up to 100,000 downloads if you open the lock. So in what way do we ask for their information? Put up a secondary offer at the end of that freebie. But before prospects can view that webinar or download the next PDF, they’ll need to pony up their e-mail address. Assuming that only 5% of the 100,000 takes up your offer, you will still get around 5,000 leads.

And, adds Scott, “you will definitely know that they have read the white paper you sent them. I had a few conversations with sales people and they said that they prefer someone who has already read the white paper and wants to know more about it than someone who just gave out his/her e-mail address, got the white paper, and has never read it.”

So, should you or should you not do content gating? I’d really love to hear the comments of those who are practicing this and those who do not.

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Online Marketer Elmar Sandyck Is Giving Free Online Tips On How To Use Content Gating. Learn All About It By Visiting http://www.InternetMastermindStrategy.com

Small Business Marketing – 20 Low Cost Marketing Ideas to Grab You More Clients

By Simon Lovell in Marketing

It’s time to get fruity with some great small business marketing ideas that will help you explode your clients (not literally!). As a small business, marketing can sometimes be daunting, but take these 20 ideas and implement one idea every day. Put a tick list on your desk and take massive action.

1. Brand your Business Clearly. Make sure your business name or logo clearly identifies the ultimate benefit of what you are offering in a way which will appeal to your market; keep it simple, short and memorable. A store called “Gifts for Garden-lovers” or “Green-finger Gifts” is precise and clear; one called “Smith’s Store” or “Universal Wonder” gives no clue.

2. Be Seen in All the Right Places. Think about where your target customers go and try to arrange to advertise by displaying leaflets or posters there. For the youth market, use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or other online resources. For adults and young families it might be the local supermarket, the library, the gym, or the “mother and toddler” group. For the senior market, target locations your potential customers visit such as libraries, doctors’ and dentists’ waiting rooms, church halls, community centres etc. or advertise in the local paper or free-sheet, perhaps with a promotional discount voucher.

3. Give Your Knowledge Away. What you know about your business and your industry is interesting and potentially valuable to others. Without giving away any really sensitive information, offer to speak at schools and colleges, women’s groups or business clubs on a topic related to your business; write for the local paper or speak on the local radio and you will gain valuable exposure. Make your website as informative as possible. Tell potential customers exactly how you will help their business, or benefit them personally. If you can, reveal a few “tricks of the trade” to help them make best use of what you sell. Very few people will actually steal your knowledge to set up for themselves, but many of your customers will feel gratified that you are willing to be open and honest with them.

4. Word of Mouth. This can be a very valuable marketing tool – and is absolutely free! Make sure all your customers leave you 100% happy and satisfied with the service you have provided to them, and they will become ambassadors for your business.

5. Investigate the Competition. Use a friend or a paid “Mystery Shopper” to call on other businesses in your area to see how they operate. Get hold of their advertising literature and compare their offering with yours. Check out their websites. What can you do to make your business stand out?

6. Offer Discounts. Produce Discount Vouchers to be used at your store or business (perhaps on certain slower moving products, or on certain days when your trade is usually slack). Add an expiry date to generate a sense of urgency. You could include a discount voucher in your advertising, hand them to each customer, or mail them to previous clients.

7. Give-Aways. Hand out free samples in your local high street; give customers a small free product with each purchase over a certain value; or have “3 for 2″ offers or “Buy -1-Get-1-Free” promotions.

8. Linked Purchases. Offer a deal where customers who buy product A get product B at a reduced price. This can encourage customers to buy two products, when they would otherwise only have bought one.

9. Loyalty or Reward Schemes. Issue a card to be stamped each time the customer buys, with a full card entitling the customer to a free product, or a discount on their next purchase (but make sure the cards and stamps are kept under control, or you could end up with an unexpected rush of claims!)

10. Competitions. Run a competition and choose an exciting prize from your range of products or services, which will not cost you a great deal but which will be very appealing to your potential customers. Advertise the competition widely in the locality, send a press release about it to the local press and radio and, if appropriate, make sure people have to call at your business in order to enter – which gives you a chance to promote your business to them in person. Invite the local press to be present when the prize is awarded, to get some more free publicity.

11. Open House. Host an open evening at your premises. Invite both potential and regular customers for drinks and nibbles and a chance to see/test your latest products, with a discount for purchases or orders placed on the night.

12. Join an Online Booking Service. If you run a hospitality business (hotel, bar, pub, café or coffee shop) consider joining one of the online booking services, such as Top Table, or Gourmet Society. This will bring you to the attention of travelers from other areas who might not otherwise find you, and you can also offer special deals through some sites. This can be a two-edged sword, of course, as the site will probably also carry reviews by your customers – but if you offer high-quality service and excellent food and drink, good reviews will boost your reputation.

13. Carry Out a Survey. Have a supply of small cards by the till as each customer completes their transaction with you, asking the customer to complete a short survey on their experience with your business, and to fill in their details (especially email address). Offer a small monthly prize as an incentive. This will not only give you valuable feedback on your success (or otherwise), but you will build up a database of email addresses, which you can use for promotional emails, newsletters etc. For ideas on how to use these, click on.

14. Collect Business Cards. Copy those city centre restaurants and have a large glass bowl by the cash desk, to collect business cards (or hand-written contact details slips) from customers, with a monthly draw for, say, a free bottle of wine or champagne – this is another way of building a database for future marketing activities.

15. New Image Party. When you re-decorate your premises, hold a “New Image” party, inviting local press, radio, community dignitaries, neighbours, the general public and previous customers from your database, to show off your new premises, and launch new products or services.

16. Professional Brochure or Leaflet. With desktop publishing software available on every PC and laptop, there is no excuse for unprofessional looking publicity material. Have a nit-picking friend read through any leaflet/flyer/ poster you propose to use, to check for grammatical, punctuation and spelling mistakes.

17. Error-free Website. The same applies to your website – your professionalism is in doubt right away if your website is riddled with typing errors, misplaced apostrophes, poor punctuation and grammatical mistakes. Don’t assume your website designer will correct your text – he or she is an expert in computers not grammar. If you can’t afford a proofreader, ask a fussy friend or relation to check it for you.

18. Superior Telephone Service. Is your telephone system as good as it could be? During working hours, make sure every call is answered within 3 rings and that the greeting you give is friendly and personal. Ensure that the person who answers your calls is trained to deal with the majority of customers’ questions themselves. After hours or at busy times, make sure your answerphone message is professional, helpful, and proactive. Not just “please leave a message” but “we are so sorry that no-one is able to help you right away, but we promise to call you back by 9:30am tomorrow if you would be kind enough to leave your number” or something similar. And make certain you always deliver on that promise.

19. Community Visibility. Join fellow Business people at the local Chamber of Commerce, Business Clubs, Rotary Club, Round Table etc. Get involved in local charity events, so you gain a positive reputation for contributing to the community.

20. Get Involved in Local Events and Activities. If there is a community event in your town, make sure you are there to publicise your business – maybe you can have small samples to give away, or hand out a voucher for a discount at your business. If there is a local charity event, take part yourself (or sponsor someone else to do so) carrying/wearing your business name.

I really hope you enjoyed those 20 tips. Just one that works should help you to explode your profits!

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Would you like tip 21 to 70? If so head to http://www.marketingbrainstorm.com/blog to download the full ebook 70 Marketing Ideas: That Won’t Break The Bank. It’s completely free.

Using Subscription Software for a Membership Website

By Margaret Winfrey in Marketing

A membership web site can easily be created with the correct choice of subscription software. In fact, unless you are conversant with coding and using content management system (CMS) software, it is unlikely that you could generate anything but the most rudimentary form of membership site by yourself.

There is subscription software available online that can make creating a membership web site as simple as clicking a few buttons. However, creating a subscription site is just the beginning, because once you have the site what are you going to use it for? The vast majority of people that use software to create a membership website fail to make any money with it for a number of reasons, but the most common is failing to plan.

Formulating a Plan

You must have a plan before you start up your first membership web site – in fact before you even decide on the subscription software you intend to use. There are a number of questions you must ask yourself.

• What are you going to use the site for?

• How will you attract members?

• How will you keep your members more than the first month?

• How will you make money from your members?

• What will you give them in return?

Some of these questions are discussed briefly below:

Using the Site: The answer is to make money! Keep that in your mind all the time – you are not benevolent, but will give fair return for your members’ payments. However, you have to make money! There is one exception to this, and that is a charity website, in which case you are here to give information. However, you can still make money for your charity!

Attracting Members: You can attract members to your site by means of common internet marketing techniques such as article marketing, PPC, participating in forums, Facebook Ads, submitting on website directories, using social networking and social bookmarking to promote your site, participating on Scribd.com and so on. Once you have them on your page, you must keep them there – see below.

Inducements: Inducements to join your membership web site can keep visitors on your site for more than a month- free gifts if you have any to give. Free reports on your niche and so on. Simple product reviews are no good because these are available free online for any product you can imagine. You can easily make up a short report using FAQs you can make up. Think of common problems and then answer them.

Financial Plans: How much to charge? That is up to you, but can be from $7 to $97/month depending on the value of your site to your membership. You should be able to accept PayPal or straight credit or debit card payments.

What Niche: You can run more than one membership web site, so your niches are unlimited. Start with a niche you know well and then branch out to others when you have more confidence. If you add forum software to your membership web site (not difficult) your members can answer their own questions, and you need not be an expert on your niche. Ask a knowledgeable member to act as administrator – many people love doing this job without payment. It lets them show off their knowledge, and you can learn from them.

The other questions can be answered as they come up, but you get the idea. Make sure you have a plan and are not starting off blind, or you will fail. Subscription software is very good, but it can’t plan for you.

Choosing the Subscription Software

The subscription software you choose to run your membership web site is very important. You should first set out your plan, and what you need in the software to enable you to carry it out. Free software is fine for a knitting club, but not for a high-powered internet marketing business.

Your subscription software should enable you to generate a membership web site that is totally flexible and that can incorporate any additional software you want to use with it – such as forum software that enables your members to interact with each other. It should come populated with products you can offer your members, and should be easily updated.

The ideal type of subscription software, although you may not understand this right now, will charge a monthly fee, in return for which you receive monthly updates of products and reviews you can offer your members. Otherwise it will not be a turnkey solution and you will have to maintain it yourself every month. Your members will soon get bored if your site is not regularly updated, and this is what a monthly subscription site can do for you.

Repeat Again and Again and . . .

Let’s face it, whatever they charge you, you can get back with just one or two members, and your membership will grow month on month. This is how the big dogs make so much money – they find out something that works and they repeat it again, and again, and again, and. . .

Repetition is the name of the game, and if you repeat your membership web site many times each month with different niches using the same subscription software that can handle multiple membership web sites then you will be more than satisfied.

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If you are seeking ways to create a membership web site to make you money online, then check out http://www.MemberDesk.com where you will find the subscription software you need. This offers you total flexibility to designer a membership site to suit your needs.

Online Marketing: Free and Low Cost Strategies that Make More Sales

By Robert Dempsey in Marketing

The good news is that regardless of the continued massive growth of the Internet, the rules of business haven’t changed – fundamental business strategy still applies. You start with your ideal customer, you find out what their biggest problems are, you then find or create solutions for those problems, and finally you put the solution in front of the customer and the sale is made.

The even better news is that what has changed is our ability to reach more of our next customers at less cost – it is much greater today and is expanding. This comes with its own set of challenges.

When it comes down to it, there are two types of online strategies we can use: 1: free and low-cost; and 2: paid. Free and low-cost go together because even though some of these strategies might be free in terms of cost, they are definitely not free in terms of time. For now, let’s look at the former.

As mentioned before, free and low-cost strategies are those that are extremely inexpensive dollar-wise but more expensive time wise. The most popular and effective in use today are:

* Blogging
* Social media
* Email Marketing
* Search Engine Optimization

Blogging: Every business should have a blog and post at a minimum one article per week. Blogging can help to build or strengthen expert status in your industry. It can show customers that you know what you’re talking about and can really help them. These articles can then be syndicated to a larger audience in social media – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and others.

Many blogging platforms are free. A great way to start out is using WordPress. Out of the box WordPress has a lot of features – everything you need for a blog. In addition, there are thousands of free plugins you can use to add features to your blog that can enhance the search engine optimization, create contact forms, automatically send blog posts to social media, etc. If you can’t find what you need for free, there are many paid plugins for less than $100 that also come with support.

Social Media: As business becomes increasingly personal once again, participation in social media is a must. This doesn’t mean you have to sit on Twitter all day and watch the tweets roll in – that would be a complete waste of time. Rather, you can set up custom searches for the main keywords of your business, and engage with the people that use them. You never know when you’ll be talking to your next customer or raving fan.

There is a new breed of customer relationship applications maturing in the category of social CRM. The purpose of these applications, typically web-based, are to help you cut through all the “useless” chatter on social media so you can focus in on potential customers. One such application currently in beta is Commun.it.

Email Marketing: A cliche in Internet Marketing is, “the money is in the list.” What is meant by this is that if you have a relationship with a large group of people via email, you can make buying recommendations that they will act on, due to the relationship. For the most part that’s true.

A great use of email marketing is for lead nurturing. Not everyone that visits a website is ready to buy. Some people are looking for information and some are comparing competitive offerings. If you’re lucky some will come with credit card in hand, but most don’t. That’s where lead nurturing comes into play.

With most email marketing solutions you can set up an automatic sequence of emails to go out to your email list on a schedule – this is an autoresponder. You can mix in broadcast emails that provide timely information to your subscribers. To get people to join your list you offer them an ethical bribe such as a video, ebook, or other piece of information that offers value. Regardless, the point is to deliver a steady flow of value that builds the relationship to the point where the prospect followsyour call to action and makes a purchase.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): This is the stuff of myths and legends and really seems to be a dash of science with a heaping tablespoon of alchemy. Without going overboard though it comes down to a basic principle: Google is in the business of providing its customers (searchers) with the most relevant results so they keep coming back, seeing and clicking on ads, and Google makes billions. So what does relevant mean? It means that the information and experience you provide around a set of keywords or phrases is better than anyone else’s.

Is that a bit of an over simplification? Yes, but we could talk about SEO for months and not go anywhere. So for now, keep in mind that relevant content and user experience is what Google cares about. Provide that to people and you’ll rise in the rankings.

Which Way To Go?

With all these options it’s difficult to see which way to go. And the answer isn’t “it depends” but rather the order in which to do everything you’ve read about. And here’s the answer to that:

* Start with content. Create a blog if you haven’t already and start writing content that will help your ideal customer.

* Create a free report or a video and create an email list. Give people the free report in exchange for their email. Be sure that you limit the amount of sales pitch in this free report – if you want to keep people as subscribers they need to get value.

* Sign up for a free Twitter account. Don’t jump in head first but rather do some searches around the keywords and phrases that best define your business. Take note of how people use those words, and also note who uses them. After a few weeks you’ll know how best to approach people and strike up some conversations.

* Search engine optimization. With all of your content do one thing: write for your ideal customer. Whoever that person is, write to solve their problems. Once you’re doing that, you can dig into more advanced strategies.

The final step with this primer in hand – there’s only one thing left to do – go make it happen! Start a blog, join Twitter, create a free report and set up an email list, and start writing content for your ideal customer. Do those four things and you’ll be well on your way to making many more sales.

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Robert Dempsey is the Itinerant Entrepreneur. He combines technology, psychology, and marketing to help his clients build their empires using strategic marketing. Visit his website to start getting more traffic, leads, and sales. http://www.ItinerantEntrepreneur.com/

International Relationship Marketing – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Gayle Hawks in Marketing

Communication, Customers, and Connectivity

Relationship marketing is not a new marketing concept, however, it has become an increasingly more important concept in the modern economy. Relationship marketing basically uses a company’s relationship with its current customers as the basis of targeted marketing efforts. This relationship is fostered and closely nurtured to ensure that customers are satisfied with their products or services and that they remain loyal to the company.

Customer Satisfaction

The most important element of relationship marketing is customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction, which can be achieved through quality customer service, quality products, and quality service, is used to not only retain customers and generate referral business, but it is also used as a source of marketing data. After all, satisfied customers are more willing to talk with company representatives about their experiences, to make recommendations (those all important word of mouth referrals), and to accept marketing materials.

There are several ways in which customer satisfaction can be used in relationship marketing. The first way is through an online opt-in communication system. Customers that want to receive promotional materials and communications from the company opt-in to an electronic mailing list. Viral marketing techniques can also be used as a part of a relationship marketing campaign that is designed to promote customer
satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction can also be measured and monitored through the use of relatively new social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook. Two great examples of companies that actively monitor social media channels (especially Twitter) are General Electric and Chili’s. Both of these companies employ very aggressive tactics in the realm of social media to monitor what is being said about them, their products, and services.

Customer Retention

Customer retention is another focal point of relationship marketing. In this case the marketing professional would take steps to ensure the customer remains loyal to the company. This is usually accomplished by offering loyal customers special perks such as discounts, promotional items, private sales, and other rewards and incentives.

Once customer retention programs are in place and a relationship has been established, then the marketer can utilize relationship marketing strategies to mine data from the customer. This data may then be used to create customer retention measures, to identify problems, and to develop corrective plans for those identified problems.

Relationship Marketing

Unlike other types of marketing, the success of any relationship marketing campaign hinges on the ability of the marketer to establish an ongoing relationship with their customers. Relationship marketing has really come to the forefront for many companies, especially in the online/Internet realm. With debacles such as the “Motrin Moms”, “United Breaks Guitars”, the Nestle problem, and the @keyinfluencer/FedEx issue, it’s become more and more apparent that companies need to dedicate time and effort in developing, maintaining, and monitoring appropriate relationship marketing tactics.

As social media continues to develop and grow, relationship marketing tactics will continue to evolve and change as well. Companies large and small need to take a proactive step in their relationship marketing – especially in the main online communities such as Twitter and Facebook. With the speed in which bad experiences, poor service, poor performance, or inappropriate actions can be reported and spread online, the need for vigilance in relationship marketing has never been greater.

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25 Ways to Make Your Marketing Copy Bolder and More Intriguing

By Marcia Yudkin in Marketing

Clients have asked me for help because they feel stuck in a rut when it comes to getting the attention of their audience. Many feel they know only a limited number of techniques and seem to use the same strategies and angles over and over again. They’re bored and frustrated trying the same-old, same-old repeatedly and are pretty sure recipients on their lists feel the same way.

To the rescue is this list I created of bolder approaches you can try to freshen up emails, web pages, ads and other venues for promotional copy. Along with each idea, I’ve provided an example illustrating how you might put it to work.

I. In Headlines, Subject Lines and Elsewhere:

1. Ask a Weird or Provocative Question
Example: Whoever Heard of 77,000 Opt-ins From a Single Email?

2. Play Up an Emotion
Example: Take Command of Your Email Inbox.

3. Refer to Current Events
Example: Avoid Being Blindsided by a Blizzard.

4. Issue a Challenge
Example: Can Your Widgywidget Pass the Steamroller Test?

5. Use a Line of Dialogue
Example: Pssst, Your Benchmarks Are Outdated.

6. Cite a Specific Number
Example: Here’s Why 45,682 Managers Trust Us.

7. Confess Something
Example: We’re Embarrassed to Admit It, But…

8. Present a Quiz
Example: Take the Readiness Roadmap Quiz.

9. Highlight Case Study Results
Example: How Apoxya Achieved 458% ROI.

10. Quote a Client
Example: “Helpful. Hard-nosed. Hassle-free.”

11. Say What the Reader is Probably Thinking
Example: Why Can’t Metrics Be Simpler!

12. Guarantee Something
Example: Quicker Payback – Guaranteed.

13. Connect to Social Trends
Example: Help Green Your Marketing Department.

14. Promise to Get Rid of an Annoyance
Example: No More Compliance Hassles.

15. Compare Before and After
Before: 25½ Passwords. After: Just One.

16. Name the Exact Audience You’re Targeting
Example: For the Manager Not Confident About Reaching This Year’s Targets.

17. Create Suspense
Example: To Be Unveiled at the TTT Tradeshow…

18. Invoke Imagination
Example: Imagine All Your Emails Effortlessly Organized.

II. Within Your Copy:

19. Use Un-Businesslike Language
Example: Time to cut the crap, wouldn’t you say?

20. Use Vivid Metaphors or Similes
Example: When your to-do list feels like Grand Central Station.

21. Include Surprising But True Facts
Example: Only one government contractor in five knows that…

22. Compare Costs/Other Factors to Everyday Items
Example: Solve your IT headaches for less than it costs to treat everyone on your team to a double latte.

23. Make Predictions
Example: Prevent next year’s biggest risk now.

24. Tell a Story
Example: When one of our clients took our new RXV234 back to the office, his IT manager at first refused to install it. Two days later he became an evangelist for it. Here’s why.

25. Write from an Unexpected Perspective
Example: From the night cleaning crew or the daughter of someone who now gets to go home from the office at a reasonable hour.

One fairly conservative corporate client surprised me at the number of items on this list he became excited about trying. Remember, the goal is to wake up the reader from their slumber of disinterest and to get them paying attention. Unexpected language, suspense, mysteries, relevance and promises are just a few of the techniques that belong in your expanded bag of tricks. Try being different, informing and entertaining without giving offense, and you’ll not only awaken your prospect, but also re-energize your own excitement about your product.

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Veteran copywriter and marketing consultant Marcia Yudkin is the author of Persuading on Paper, Meatier Marketing Copy and 13 other books. Besides mentoring marketing departments in copywriting skills, she runs a one-on-one mentoring program that trains copywriters and marketing consultants in 10 weeks. Participants learn no-hype marketing writing skills and business savvy. For more information, go to http://www.yudkin.com/become.htm

How to Get to Know Your Customers – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Workbooks in Marketing

In the current difficult economic climate it is more important than ever, as well as more difficult than ever to both attract new customers and retain your existing one. With so many businesses offering deals and bargains to attract business during the recession it can be difficult to keep up without sacrificing all your profit. The best way to maximize your sales today is to make sure that you know your customers – what matters to them most when they are making a purchase, how they decide what they need and which marketing approaches are most successful with them. By getting to know your customers you can more easily develop a rapport and instil in them a sense of loyalty – making your company their first thought when they decide to make a purchase. So, what are the best ways to get to know your customers?

Social Media
It seems like everyone has a Facebook and a Twitter today. More and more companies are making use of social media to connect with customers, and it is a sound business decision. By becoming involved with your customers on social media you become involved in their daily lives, and gain access to a wealth of information about their likes, dislikes, location and other valuable data.

Customer Relationship Management Software
Customer Relationship Management software allows you to gather information about your customers through integrated market research and updates from points of contact such as sales personnel and customer service staff. However, it does much more than that – it allows you to analyze the data that you have accumulated, automatically flagging point of interest and opportunities for growth. The software can anticipate your customers’ needs and flag your attention to potential opportunities to make sales.

Post-Sale Feedback
It is always a good idea to reconnect with your customers after you have made a sale – it helps to build a rapport and can make the customer feel valued and important, promoting repeat sales in the future. It can also be an excellent way to get feedback on how well your company served the customer’s needs and any room for improvement that may be available. It can be especially valuable if something has gone wrong in the sales process or the customer has a complaint.

Focus Groups
Focus groups can be ideal for the testing of new products or potential strategies. They allow you to hear real-time feedback from customers about the idea and follow up with any particular questions that suggest themselves from your customers’ responses. Many companies have used focus groups to road-test successful products. They can now be carried out on line as well as in person by making use of video technologies like Skype.

Surveys
The old fashioned survey still has a place in today’s market research. The rise of the internet has made it much easier to administer and target your surveys. You can use paid survey sites or offer your Twitter followers the chance to win a prize if they answer the survey. This has the added benefit of reducing your costs.

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This is an article by Workbooks, leading supplier of web-based CRM software.

The Power Of Attraction Marketing

By Linda Credit in Marketing

First, for those that may be unaware what Attraction Marketing is, a brief explanation. Attraction Marketing is a process by which one offers something of value free on the internet in order to generate solid leads via internet marketing techniques such as search engine optimization (SEO) in connection with pay-per-click campaigns or similar tools such as generating new site registrations.

By offering valuable content free, this will position you with the prospect or vendor as being trustworthy and an authority on the subject matter. This in turn will entice the prospect or vendor to seek additional information using your pre-established marketing structure.

Key to Attraction Marketing is the ability to produce valuable content to attract the prospect in the first place. Using the principles of SEO, having structured your content to achieve high rankings in specific search engines, this will be the first draw to getting the new or returning prospect. People respect value, and offering something of value right out the box will setup a much higher trust level with the prospect for further involvement. A prospect will be much more inclined to fill out a site registration form on your site if they trust that you are not going to use it to spam them, or to give their email address away. Many hard sell marketing approaches fail to recognize this fact when attempting to engender registrations or pursue the next step after one has hit on a pay-per-click ad.

Succeeding at network marketing through Attraction Marketing is further enhanced when one looks at the principles of Magnetic Sponsoring as explained in Mike Dillard’s book. Mike further explains the importance of creating more targeted leads, using strategies for generating additional cash flow for network marketing reps, and how it is critical to be perceived as an expert in the network marketing field. When it comes to Attraction Marketing, think of it as the Law of Attraction. People have a natural tendency, once reservations have been eliminated, to come together if there is value in the relationship.

Putting Attraction Marketing to work in your business requires a number of key principles:

1) Producing value added and relevant materials on a consistent basis
2) Promoting your “brand” by developing relationships on social networks
3) Presenting unique and relevant content – no cookie cutter materials
4) Avoiding the trap of the traditional “sales pitch;” attract rather than promote

When thought of as focusing on attraction rather than promotion, one can see how Attraction Marketing via network marketing is a different approach to take than other traditional marketing approaches. Many on the internet have “trust issues” due to spamming, transfer of computer viruses, and identity theft. It is critical to engender trust in the newly blossoming relationship if one expects to be successful marketing on the web.

The true entry point for all of this is to offer something of value – just remember that the prospect has most likely found you by doing a web search. If they have found your content helpful, they will be much more willing to take that next step. This fact remains true even if we are talking about a potential new vendor for your marketing services. Absolutely nothing beats a good first impression!

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Linda Credit is a professional Internet Attraction Marketing Coach & Mentor who specializes in helping small businesses build a massive business online easily and quickly. To get the exact training tools and resources Linda uses, visit www.millionairesbydesizn.com/training today!

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