Marketing

Viral Marketing 101

There are many advantages to viral marketing. Viral marketing can be effective for either web-based and everyday "store-front" businesses. If done correctly, viral marketing campaigns can absolutely bring thousands, even millions of new people to your website and business. It will bring additional traffic to your site and build up your link popularity. Viral marketing campaigns are inexpensive and work well. The idea is to promote your website mainly through word-of-mouth. Every website can use these marketing strategies. It just take a few steps.

First of all, remember that any pushy marketing promo is often irritating and might detract from your intent. The key is offering original and practical content that audiences will eagerly share with those they know. It is a characteristic of people to want to communicate - for example by sharing a fabulous eatery or novel, it becomes an instant hit.

Set up an uncomplicated "tell a friend" section. Be sure it is easily accessible and insert it on every page, but DO NOT send emails to the friends after the first contact - if they later want to, you can add them to your mailing list; this way they will see you are not a spammer - and above all don't be pushy and don't be annoying.

Compose an online book, provide wallpaper or backgrounds for PCs, along with clever tools, such as online weather forecasts. Make certain that you brand these with links reminding people of your web site.

Put a clever brand name or logo on your site or product. This should be listed repeatedly on your site and on every item you sell.

For those whose website content changes or is updated frequently, be sure to implement RSS. Superior RSS feeds are registered and shown by a variety of sites online.

The campaign must target emotions and elicit the need for action. Be determined, and you have to be dogged with your persistence, but do not cross the line into being pushy.

Guerrilla Marketing Basics

There is not a pre-determined set of rules to follow when doing guerrilla marketing for your website. The trick is to be creative. It doesn't use expensive traditional methods such as ads on TV or the radio. The trick is to use cheap imaginative methods to deliver the message. Small businesses have been utilizing these techniques for years by using flyers, pens, t-shirts, and bumper stickers.

Guerrilla Marketing campaigns also use techniques that are more out of the ordinary, such as contests, PR stunts, and whatever type of innovative marketing strategy you can imagine. Podcasts are growing in their popularity. Be original with your ideas.

To begin your work as a guerrilla marketer, you first need to exercise your creativity. Find different methods to get the message about your merchandise or service to reach possible clients.

Examine what you sell from the perspective of the customer. Who is the target consumer for this item? How do their minds work? For example, if teens are your target demographic, you will try to steer away from boring campaigns and aim for something dynamic. However a trendy and cutting edge campaign is not liable to draw the elderly or conservative business types. For a demographic that is based on gender rather than age, naturally you should customize your campaign to appeal to either men or women.

Integrity and work ethic in business are required regardless of the kind of marketing methods that are employed (with guerrilla marketing, employ multiple campaigns; don't limit yourself to just a couple)

Regardless of what you are told; just as with every successful company, if you spread your message but you don't have a superior item to sell, your time and work will be misspent. Or worse. The ideal marketing technique is word of mouth; however, it is also the most damaging for those who perform poor work. A major tax firm where I used to work told the associates something to the effect that customers who are happy with the service you provide might let a few people know about you. However, if they are displeased, they'll tell everybody they meet. Food for thought.

Promotional Gifts-Plan to Succeed

It has been established beyond doubt that the distribution of promotional gifts is one of the ideal ways to reinforce your brand with your customers. These types of products which have good utility and durability have time and again proved to be great brand ambassadors. While there is no guarantee that all gifts that you distribute will last the distance, with some thought, effort and investment of time, you can reduce the chances of any gift malfunctioning and giving your brand a bad name.

The first step is to determine a budget which would be adequate and enough to take care of your purchases. It is futile to hope and aspire for some top end quality items without making the necessary budgetary allocation for them. There is utmost need to do some research and find out the comparative costs of the items you have in mind before deciding on something that you can afford.

Having set the budget, you now have to look at the types of products that are available within that budget. Their selection should also be such that they are fancied by your customers and hence knowing customer taste is of paramount importance. Your sales person should be able to give you a good idea about the individual preferences of your customers and that information will help you considerably in narrowing down the gifts you ultimately want to purchase.

The next part is the branding and this will go a long way in creating that impact and recognition that you aspire for. It is best to adopt simple printing processes to make sure that your logo is clearly visible and not obscured by lot of colour or graphics. Another point to note is the size and shape of the fonts that you use for the logo. Your logo must be visible even from a distance and you should not make that difficult with the use of complicated and convoluted fonts.

The last and probably the most important aspect is the timing of your gifts. While modern machines and printing technology can deliver fast and at short notice, it is always advisable to plan things such that you are not rushing your vendors. You need to allow time for proof reading of messages and the correct display of the logo, as these cannot be compromised at any cost and any last minute rush will only serve to spoil things.

You can see from the above that there are steps that need to be followed for the success of any brand promotion and as long as you can adhere to this discipline, you are sure to create the right impact and the use of promotional gifts will enhance your brand recognition.