Custom Banners: cost-effective and sure- shot way of advertising

Advertising is a significant part of any business. Effective advertising provides the stride to climb the corporate ladder and takes the business to pinnacle of corporate world. There are variety of means of advertising used by businesses for promotion but here we are talking about such a medium which is not only one of oldest advertising means but also most preferred one yet. Custom banners are that medium of adverting which represents businesses in such an effective manner so that they get immediate and measurable results.

A banner in its broadest sense represents an effective medium of advertising through providing information to a target group (new or potential customer) in an impressive and influential manner. Custom banners carry out a wide range of targets right from promotion of new products, acquiring new customers; persuade existing customers to strengthening of customer relationship. Contribution of advertising through custom banners in every industry is vital as it benefits the industry i.e. automobile, education, health care, banking, media and human resource etc. by providing perfect marketing solutions. A custom banner is a promising entrant in the world of advertising. Market research shows that advertising through banners is the most effective medium to target specific customer segments. Custom banners have the ability to elicit immediate reaction from a potential customer. Therefore it is certainly more effective.
Custom banners have made advertising more interesting as every business can make its own banners. It helps businesses to form their own individuality through their novel and effectual ideas. Custom banners can be made in any size or format, banners of bigger size adds visual support to any advertisement campaign and increase value of your message. Custom banners are in use for advertising since the evolution of advertising. In present days we see those banners everywhere. People have started estimating a company’s position by its banner and that is why companies are trying to say as much in a banner as they can. For establishing your company in market you need communicative and classy custom banner so that it may speak all about you. Usually simple and attractive banners attract people very much so it’s a good idea to keep design simple but stylish.

Custom banners are smart advertiser’s preferred choice today to tap the purchasing power of millions. The cost optimization benefits in advertising through custom banners are aplenty. It is an affordable and sure-shot medium via which knowledge of your product or services gets across to your target clients. You might have spend a lot of money on promoting your product through other mediums while custom banners come extremely cheap in comparison and targets a wide range of clients such as teenagers, white- collared professionals and CEOs. It is extremely beneficial for real estate agents, car and jewellery manufacturers, travel and tour agents, various portals, office automation units, educational units, computer manufacturers and dealers etc. to get their message across in a most cost-effective and sure- shot manner.

So what are you waiting for, don’t get left behind. Spend less and earn more. Go for custom banners to certain the success of your business.

Satisfaction Surveys Mask Customers' Reasons for Defecting

I see it all the time -- companies using the terms "customer experience" and "customer satisfaction" as if they are synonymous. They're not. The former is based on emotion that is derived from a process. The latter is based on an outcome at a particular moment in time.

Study after study has shown that more than three-quarters of customers consider themselves as being satisfied with their vendors just before they defect to others. Shaun Smith and Joe Wheeler suggest in their book "Managing the Customer Experience" that the number is as high as 80%. Yet marketers continue to use satisfaction ratings when gauging how well their companies are interacting with their customers.

What baffles me is the lack of recognition for the obvious. Even if high satisfaction ratings did equate to meaningful and memorable customers experiences (when viewed from the customers' points of view), they do little to predict the probability of satisfied customers initiating positive word-of-mouth.

Look at it this way. If you were to be surveyed after going to an average restaurant and having a decent dinner, you very well may say that you were satisfied. But how likely would you be to go home, call a few friends and suggest to them that they should also go to the average restaurant and have a decent meal? Not very. However, if you had a great time and exceptional food, you would be much more likely to tell others about your experience and suggest that they visit that restaurant.

The other drawback with satisfaction surveys is that each individual survey is based on the customer's particular expectations. Let's refer back to that restaurant. If you had heard great things about it and the food turned out to be mediocre, your satisfaction rating might be rather low. However, let's say you heard uninspired things but then found that your time there was better than you had anticipated. Odds are that your satisfaction rating might be higher. All this indicates, however, is that the restaurant jumped higher than the low bar that you had set for it. That is one of the major flaws with satisfaction ratings, you just don't know how high (or how low) individuals set their bars.

This brings us to customer experience and how it effectively differs from customer satisfaction. The customer experience considers the customers' emotions that are the direct results of their interactions with companies. The goal of questions in such surveys include whether or not the customer believes that the company has the customer's interest in mind or if the customers feel that they are just a means for the company to make money. The ironic aspect of this is that, because companies so readily resort to satisfaction surveys, they do not realize how their customers actually feel about them. The results of a recent survey by Bain & Company backs this theory. It indicates that eighty percent of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience, but only eight percent of their customers agree with that sentiment. Eye-opening, isn't it?

If you are conducting satisfaction surveys, I strongly suggest that you ask your customers about their experiences instead. Your overall ratings may not be as high as they were when you were asking about satisfaction, but the results more accurately reflect where you are and how far you have to go to reach your goals

Viral Marketing 101 - Not Using It Could Kill Your Business!

Creativity.

This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. Because competition and rivalry abounds, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.

It doesn’t matter if you have a killer product or a professionally designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worst of all, your business could just get killed.

While there are so many methods and schemes used by e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.

While the term Viral easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; not only is that illegal, you would probably tick off all of your customers (so much for return sales). Besides, everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spyware anyways.

Viral Marketing Overview

Viral Marketing, also known otherwise as Viral Advertising, is a marketing technique used to build public awareness of a product or company. It employs many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product as would a traditional advertisement. Viral Advertising is much more elegant and stealthy in its means. By taking on other forms of communication, your marketing piece could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.

In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pass the product along. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, it most likely will not end up in junk mail and, even better still, may even get read.

Using Viral Marketing to your advantage

The main and foremost advantage of Viral Marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence. All of this can be done for free (or darn near close to it!).

Most every company and website is catching on to the efficacy of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, Viral Marketing could easily push you ahead in the ratings game.

Viral Marketing is a stealthy way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. It is so inexpensive that not doing it could be downright business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story; many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them more popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”? Compare that with Blair Witch 2 – this time with traditional advertising as opposed to word of mouth - it was a failure in comparison.

Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.

Mobile Search Marketing - Get A Head Start On Your Competitors.

The mobile search market is still in its infancy and many advertisers are taking a 'wait and see' approach. This lack of competition in the mobile search space surely presents an opportunity for businesses to get a head start on their competitors.

While most advertisers are reluctant to commit, it is relatively straightforward to get positioned well in the natural search listings of the mobile search engines, and PPC programme click costs are still comparatively low. So, how do you start to market your business on the mobile web?

The good news is that a mobile search marketing campaign is relatively simple to set up. But before you can promote your website to the mobile search market you need to ensure that it is compatible with mobile screens, or you need a specifically designed site in a mobile ready format such as XHTML, WML, or iMode.

The reality is that most sites will be difficult to adapt to small mobile screens and will not have the simplified functionality that is required by mobile users, so a dedicated mobile site is preferable. Fortunately, mobile sites are relatively cheap and quick to build. You can also register a .mobi domain so that users (and search engines) will know that your site is fully mobile compatible.

Once you have your site established, accessing the mobile search market is now quick, easy and cost effective with both Google and Yahoo offering the ability to place PPC text ads on their mobile web search engines. There are also other 3rd party mobile ad network providers such as Admob (www.admob.com) that allow you to place contextual ads on selected content.

In addition, mobile websites can be optimised for high visibility in the natural search results of the mobile websites using conventional SEO tactics. You can even submit a Google Mobile Sitemap. As few business have mobile ready websites the competition for valuable screen real estate is surprisingly light and it is relatively easy to get well positioned on the mobile search engines.

While the majority of people may not yet be ready to book their holidays on a mobile handset, there is clearly a business for other travel and tourism related suppliers like hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs, golf courses, attractions, tour guides and other local services.

Very few businesses have mobile versions of their websites, so there is an opportunity to get ahead of your competitors through early exposure for your products and services on the mobile web.

The Best Pulling Ad Ever!

How this little ad increases your inquires.

I still use this style ad to test the response I’ll receive from ebook or sales letter. I guarantee this ad will pull if you place it in front of the right prospects.

My best ad reads “Free ebook” followed by “enter your name and email address” to receive your Free ebook. This ad has always been my best pulling ad.

In addiction to sending them the Free ebook I also send them to my website. Once I collect their name and email address I also send them follow up emails offering my other products to them.

This works like crazy.

Your best customers will be those who are just starting out online. They are active and seem to be buying everything they come across.

Who are the people who buys the most online?

It is the people who are known as opportunity seekers these are the easiest to sell your products or service too. So make sure you collect their names and email addresses. So you can continue to send them your other offers.

Remember the rule of thumb here. They have to see your advertisement at least 7 times, before they will respond and buy your product.

Many people fail to follow up with their customers with their other offers. And this is like leaving your money on the table. And what happens, their customer will go to another website to spend their money.

In the online business follow up sells is where the big bucks are made. Those who don’t follow up with their other offers will soon be out of business..

Orchestrating Your Leadership

Recently I had the opportunity to lead an orchestra. It’s an experience I recommend to all. Admittedly, I had my doubts. With no formal training I wondered:

* Would I lead correctly?

* Would others respond, and if so, how?

* Would I look foolish?

Follow My Lead

I did look foolish — but somewhat by design. My orchestra was a conference audience whom I was training to step into their own leadership. And follow my amusing lead each guest conductor did…magnificently. (Some joked I was an easy act to follow. My mission had been accomplished.)

Conductor Gets All Aboard

While a soundtrack played in the background I passed the baton to a random attendee and took the seat of my surprised successor, who then took a short stint as leader. Each subsequent conductor’s seat was filled in turn by the previous conductor at their whim. And to my satisfaction the audience of aspiring leaders responded to each conductor. Their styles varied yet the audience caught on to each leader’s style and direction. They clapped, vamped and even soloed.

During our debrief, it became clear we learned a great deal about leadership through this symphony ice-breaker:

* There is no one right or wrong style of leading — many styles and approaches abound

* Leadership goals and gains may be dependent upon one’s talent pool

* Your leadership approach may be dependent upon the score, script or soundtrack you’re expected to follow

* Your leadership may be dependent upon the conductor you follow and impression he or she has left

Each guest conductor remarked upon how different the view was from in front of the audience. Conducting felt differently than they imagined it when they had been sitting down.

Upon returning to their seats after conducting, conductors also better appreciated the role, risk and responsibility of each who led that day.

Leaders: Making Beautiful

Music The most effective conductors, and leaders, are the ones who elicit the best from each of their musicians: the strings, brass, percussion and woodwinds. The best leaders get their teams to meld their strengths together to make beautiful music.

* How well do you conduct the groups you lead?

* Do you connect with the various temperaments of your orchestra: the quiet ones, the soloists, the steady backbones of your team, etc.?

* Do you appreciate the various talents of your ensemble? How?

Unconscious Trumps Self-Conscious

Each “leader” agreed that they performed best when they let go of concerns about how they looked while leading. When their focus shifted to results and bringing out the best in others, everything else fell into place.

Each leader learned from those before and after them, and recognized that as the music changed, so too did the role of each leader.

When your time comes to lead, may you conduct your musicians as a conductor leads the symphony. Be brave and expressive and you’ll hear the bravos and bravas of your devotees.

Leaders in Training

You say you're a leader in training? Consider the following recommendations to hone your leadership skills:

* Join a Toastmasters club (toastmasters.org). They develop leadership skills as well as communication skills. Become an officer within and beyond the club you join. They have hundreds of positions where you can gain valuable experience as a leader.

* Identify and secure a mentor for yourself, whether within your organization or in your field.

* Become a student of leadership: read books and watch movies about leadership.

* Observe leadership styles of world and local leaders.

* Don't underestimate the value of cultivating your leadership skills beyond your workplace: in church, through volunteer and service organizations, or elsewhere in your community.

* Avail yourself for leadership opportunities in your organization: spearhead a blood or food drive, plan a sports tournament, coordinate your company's presence in philanthropic endeavors, etc.

Tag Lines Tell A Tale of One's Occupations

"What do you do?"

In our society this is the first question we’re asked, after "What is your name?" The real question is: “How do you answer this question?”

Do you tell people your title: clerk, programmer, driver, teacher, sales rep or receptionist — or do you answer more descriptively? Too many people respond to this question with a bland, unimaginative job title or standard industry classification (SIC) code. B-O-R-I-N-G! To set yourself apart from the crowd, cast your profession in its most ennobling light and focus on the benefits of your work as they accrue to others!

Consider Ruth Blumert Walker, longtime receptionist for the Oakland, California law firm of DONAHUE, GALLAGHER, WOODS AND WOOD. When asked her occupation, Blumert proudly proclaims “I’m the Director of First Impressions." Indeed she is!

Walker knows that people dread going to a law firm. They're usually there because of a problem and their visit is costly to boot. Walker understands the key role she plays in their experience, and her moniker showcases the power she possesses to make a difference.

Why not replace your official title or occupation with a more descriptive tag line? An effective "tag line" casts your skills in an ennobling light, sharing pride in your chosen profession. People respond affirmatively when you tantalize and enthrall them with an interesting or compelling tag line. Furthermore, you’re sending a message you have a strong sense of who you are and what you do and are thus deemed more employable.

Consider the following:

• The residential realtor who describes herself as "putting people into their dream home." What a powerful statement she is making.

• The commercial credit specialist who smiles and tells strangers who ask that he is "giving credit where credit is due."

• A commercial airline pilot informs people who ask that she is “shrinking the globe to reunite families and loved ones.”

• A midwife proudly proclaims that she is “bringing new life into this world.”

In each case these professionals are sharing some of the magic of their profession with their listeners. And listeners respond accordingly. It’s a powerful conversation opener, whether in a networking event, a job interview or just during casual conversation

Whatever your profession, you can create a "tag" line to showcase the results of your work and cast it in an ennobling light.

Here are some more examples to stimulate your creative juices:

• The Internal Revenue Service agent who tells people who ask that he's a "government fundraiser.”

• The Gardener tells people "I Turn the World Green. . .one garden at a time."

• The Dietitian says "I Teach People How to Behave in Front of Food."

• The Voice Coach who proclaims she "Gives Voice to the Timid."

• The Telephone Customer Service Representative (CSR) who tells people she "has a special calling.”

• The Plantronics headset saleswoman who says she helps people "Use their head… not their hands. "

• The photographer who “Gets paid to shoot people for a living.”

• The executive assistant who calls herself the “Presidential Gatekeeper”

• And even the motivational speaker, Craig Harrison, who tells people he's "a motivational magician who turns aspirations into achievements."

It's your turn! Look anew at your occupation or profession and identify its outcome or the effect its commission has on people. Now create a descriptive tag line to excite others about what you do, and what it can do for them!

Use the power of language to create a compelling tag line that gives you pride and infuses others with excitement too. Tag, you're IT!

Hidden Costs of Offshoring

The media is full of reports of tech companies going offshore for their software development and support capabilities. While this is a real phenomenon that is happening, and the dollar cost savings can be compelling, there are several downsides that don't seem to be brought up very often. These can have a tremendously detrimental impact on a company's products and brands, and without careful consideration can lead to shortsighted decisions that ultimately take down a company.

Here are a few of the considerations:

1.) You may stifle and inhibit your product efforts

Truly great products are created by innovative engineering teams that work very closely with Product Managers and other groups in a company. As a Product Management professional I've worked with some great teams that have delivered some incredible products. Products like these aren't something you can simply write a spec for, deliver it to engineers overseas, and get something exceptional back. Sure, for simple and VERY straightforward coding work you can farm it out. But if you want to create truly breakthrough products you need a team that has great ideas AND that works closely with your Product Management folks to ensure customer needs are being met. The best situation is where you get a team that looks at the MRD (Market Requirements Document) and figures out a way to deliver far more than what it calls for in a way that Product Management could never have thought up.

2.) Your brand and customer relationships may suffer

The cost of losing a customer and ruining your brand as a result of offshoring can be very high. Consider this example. My wife Sarah (VP of Sales for the 280 Group) recently had a software problem and contacted technical support for a well-known brand name product. She ended up exchanging email five or six times with them. After the second message it became painfully obvious that the person on the other end didn't speak English very well, and that they had little chance of even understanding the problem let alone solving it.

Now if this was an isolated incident it would be one thing, but this company gave me the exact same lack of service when I had a different problem. Sure, they saved a lot by having the support handled by someone in India. But now that they've lost us as customers, the question is, how much are they going to have to spend to attempt to win us back?

Smart companies are realizing this - that's why Dell pulled their India tech support efforts recently. The long-term value of a customer is FAR higher than any short-term savings they can realize by having someone less-expensive answering support questions.

3.) Managing offshore development can take a huge toll.

A friend of mine recently returned from a trip India where he is managing an engineering team and was investigating finding new facilities. He goes there about once a quarter. During this trip he got violently ill, and suffered the usual jet lag and loss of personal time when travelling. Upon returning he informed his boss of the progress, and was told that he needed to return again in 2 weeks to finalize the deal on the office space and make sure the team was on track.

The cost of this? Well, I can tell you that if he gets the chance to work for a different company where he doesn't have to travel he'll be the first to jump ship.

Incidentally, he mentioned that they are having problems with attrition of staff in their India office, and that office space is no longer as cheap and widely available as before. While it had been easy and cheap to offshore two years ago, it had become more complicated and time-consuming recently.

4.) Lack of accountability

I'm working with a team that is remote right now for a client. Every day we have a team meeting conference call and people call in from multiple sites. Though good in theory, we end up having to repeat many things that are said because the phone lines are questionable. Additionally many people skip the meeting, or delay us because they don't have the project files to look at when we put them up on the projector. I also suspect that a good part of the team is doing work (or other things) on their computer while on the phone, since when they are asked a question it is clear they haven't been listening.

There is something to be said for making your team show up in person, look you in the eye when you are having a difficult discussion about schedules and features, and not be able to hide their facial expressions behind a phone line. True accountability makes for great product teams.

THE BOTTOM LINE

One has to wonder, when the laws of supply and demand begin to catch up with the situation, and the hidden costs of offshoring begin to become more apparent, will companies come to regret their cost-conscious post-bubble offshoring choices?

Writing Effective Benefits Statemen

How to turn features into compelling benefits that matter to customers

One of the most common trap the marketing folks get into when working on technical products is focusing on the features of a product rather than the benefits to the end user. Features are great - we all want to know what is in a product and want to be able to compare it to other products. But at the same time there are many features that, while the benefits may be obvious to the Marketer or Product Manager working on them, may leave potential customers wondering why they matter.

Here's an example. Back when I was the Product Manager for the Human Interface for the MacOS at Apple, the company would routinely release new technologies with each operating system release. Since many of these technologies were very "cool" by technology standards they would get talked about as feature. A few examples include QuickDraw GX and QuickTime.

Now for those of us who are more technical geeks, or for those who followed what Apple was doing we immediately understood what Apple meant when they said "includes the new QuickDraw GX graphics and printing architecture and version 2.0 of QuickTime". But for the other 99.999% of the world, stating some benefits would have answered the age old question of "So why should I care" (and "So why should I upgrade").

When writing effective benefits statements think of the phrase "Which means that you can". What do I mean by this? To give you an idea I'll use the 280 Group as an example (this is the part of the article where we do the shameless self-promotion). One of the "Features" that we promote is that we provide "Hand Picked Marketing & Product Management Consultants and Contractors". On its own you might say "So What?", but here's the benefit statement.

FEATURE:

"Hand Picked Marketing & Product Management Consultants and Contractors…"

Which means that you can…

BENEFIT

"…save the time and hassle of doing the work yourself to find a qualified consultant, check their references, etc."

Here's another example:

FEATURE:

"Seasoned Professional and Experienced Consultants…"

Which means that you can…

BENEFIT

"…rest assured that you will have a committed and professional resource to see the project all the way through and get excellent results."

The "Which means that you can" phrase helps bring out the real value to your customers. They don't care about technology or features if there isn't an associated benefit to them. This may seem like Marketing 101, but it is amazing how many people neglect this when writing their marketing content.

To wrap up, let's go back to the Apple example. Now if I told you that you should upgrade to the newest version of the MacOS because you'll get QuickTime 2.0, which means that can watch movies on your computer that are twice as big and are much higher quality, would you be a little more prone to want to upgrade

The Three Most Common Affiliate Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

By now I'm sure you have realized that affiliate marketing is one of the most effective and powerful ways is of earning some money online. Affiliate programs give everybody a chance to make a profit through the Internet. Since they are easy to join, implement and pay a commission on a regular basis, more an more people are now willing in this business.

But like with all businesses, there are countless pitfalls in the affiliate marketing business as well. Making some of the most common mistakes will result in decreasing everyday profits for the marketers. That is why you should avoid them now than be regretful in the later.

First Mistake: Selecting the wrong affiliate program.

Logically, many people want to earn affiliate marketing commission as fast as possible. By rushing through the selection stage, they tend to choose a bandwagon product. These are products that the program thinks is "hot". They choose the product that is in demand without actually considering if the product appeals to them. In many cases, this is not a very wise move obviously.

Instead of doing this, try top choose a product in which you are truly interested in. For your internet venture to succeed, you should take some time to plan and decide your action plan.

Choose a product that appeals to you. Then do some research about that product to see if they are in demand. Promoting a product you are more passionate about is easier than promoting one only for the sake of cashing in.

Second mistake: Not buying the product or using the service.

When you decide to be an affiliate, your main purpose is to effectively and convincingly promote a product or service and to find customers. For you to achieve this purpose, you must be able to relay that certain product and service to the customers. It may be difficult for you to do this when you yourself have not tried these things out. Thus, you probably will fail to promote and recommend them convincingly. You will also fail to create a desire in your customers to avail any of what you are offering.

The best thing to do is to try the product or service personally first before you sign up as an affiliate to see if it is really delivering what it promises. After you have done this, you are one of the credible and satisfied customers aware of it's advantages and disadvantages. People will then feel the sincerity and truthfulness in you and this will trigger them to try them out for themselves.

Mistake number 3: Joining too many affiliate programs.

Because affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might feel the temptation to join various affiliate programs to try and maximize the commissions you will be getting. You also may think that there is nothing wrong and nothing to lose by being part of many affiliate programs.

This may be true, it is a great way to have multiple sources of income. However, joining multiple programs and attempting to promote them all at the same time will cause you to sabotage yourself. It will prevent you from concentrating on each one of them properly.

The result? The true potential of your affiliate program is not reached and the income generated will not be as generous as you initially thought it would. The best way to achieve excellent result is by joining only one solid program that pays a 40% commission at least. Give it your best effort by promoting the product or service enthusiastically. As soon as you see that it is already making a reasonable profit, then maybe you can now join another affiliate program.

The best technique is to do it slowly but surely. There is really no need to rush into anything, especially with affiliate marketing. With the way things are going, the future is looking real bright and it seems affiliate marketing will be around for a long time.

A lot of affiliate marketers makes these mistakes and are paying dearly for their actions. Do not fall into the same situation they have been in, try to do whatever possible to avoid making the same mistakes.

Time is the key. Take the time to analyze your marketing strategy and check if you are on the right track. If done properly, you will be able to maximize your affiliate marketing program's potential and earn higher profits.