Advertising?

What does it mean to advertise?

You have a business and you want customers to buy your product. You need to let know your entire potential customer that you have a product to sell. To let them know, you’ll need to advertise your product.

At first, it’s quite simple to understand. But in reality, it can become quite hard to advertise.

To make as much money as you can, you want to advertise to the positive customer that will buy your product. You don’t want to waste time and money with those who don’t.

It’s all about knowing the customer personality that will buy your product. When you know who they are, then you can focus your advertising on them.

The best advertising is the one that brings a lot of sales compare to the number of viewers.

As an example, banner advertising usually bring one click per 10 000 views. This means that you need to show your banner 10 000 times before someone click on it. This doesn’t mean that you sold to that person; it only means that they visited your business clicking on that link.

You should focus your advertising where your potential customer should be. If your advertising is well made, it should bring sales into your business.

We all know about the break pub on TV. They bombard us with those until we start to think like they want and buy their product. It’s mostly the same with any advertising. You have to make it large and intense. More is better when you want to convince anyone to buy your product. The more your ad is seen, the more people will answer it and buy your product. I can take up to 15 times for a customer before he answers your ad. So, show them again and again.

Do you know your market?

Importing and using...

Does something working out there in another country will work here too? You can't know until you do some test and research. In music, you can have a great success in one country and nothing just outside of there. You need to understand the people before you can start to market.

Do you know your market? Do you know enough to start a business tomorrow? Are you the kind of person to open a sandwich shop before you know how to make good sandwich?

Some people are using this research to keep pushing away the opening of their business. Don't be among those. Knowing your market is very good, but you should not spend too much time on it. You only need to know if there's people out there that would buy you product. That's it. Then you should start to offer your product to them.

You could do that job yourself, or you could hire someone to do it. It's all about you and how much you can spend on this research.

Every business have to start with the first customer.

Free way to bring traffic to your business!

On line or off line business needs customers. If you open a shop far from the main street, you'll have to advertise so people know you exist. It's the same for on line, when you start a business will a low budget, you need to advertise a lot because you can't afford to buy Google ads.

Here's some easy way to promote your business for free.

- Create a signature that you'll use with your e-mail, post in a group or any where you can put it. As long as you don't send empty post or e-mail, it will not be seen as spam.

- Comment on blog. Take the time to read and write a comment on blog that are popular. With your comment you can add the link to your business or blog. Write good comment. Try to say something interesting. Fast and easy.

- Posting a video on YouTube. Add your signature in the description of the video. You never know when one of your video could become viral. Better be prepare then sorry. Even if you only get 5 hits per week on your video, it's still 5 peoples that could become customer to your business.

- Social program. Register to all of them. If you can find them. As long as they are free, register and fill your info with links to your business. And try to come back to your account at least once a week.

- A lot of media website offer to leave a comment. Do it and leave your signature at the end.

Take a look at what you do in your free time. Every time you get out of your house, it's an opportunity to promote your business. Ads on your car, t-shirt, bags, baseball cap and everything on which you can put an ads is good. If you're a member of a club, try to sponsor activities so you can promote your business. Always have business cards on you. Have some flyers with you if people want to know more about your business. Be nice and open with people.

What market?

Know your market...

Giant went down because they didn't understood their markets need. Seth gave a very good example of this in his post.

Do you know your market? Really?

What makes people ticks and buy? Will they buy from you or someone else? If you can't answer those questions, then you don't know your market.

You can have the best product in a field, but if the customer think that it's not needed they'll go for something cheaper.

There's also the need for something to be useful. Let's look at the pocket knife with the most tools on it.

Now, try to put it in your pocket...   This is a joke of $2000 dollars.

There's a lot of examples you can find all around you. Product that has find their way onto the market and aren't selling as the creator would have expected.

Before you start selling something, do your best to understand your market. Find something that is needed and fill that need.

Biz online?

Lots of people wrote about this all over the world.

"Making money on the internet"

Even if I'm not rich right now, I know a few things about making it on the web. So I'll share with you, for free, what I've learned over the years.

- It all start with a dream. Yes, you need a reason to do it. You need something that will make you sit in front of your computer even if you don't feel like it. If you don't have a dream, then you'll never get the success you think you can get on the internet.

- The product. You have to find something that you feel good about. Having your own program or becoming an affiliate for something that you like is mostly the same. You need to feel good about what you choose to promote. There's no way for you to make money if you think your product is a piece of junk.

- You'll need to brand yourself with your product. Having a smiling face with a product help to create a friendly contact with your customers. You can still promote without using your name, but your ads will be lost among all the others. With your branding, people will remember you and start to trust you. 

- Advertising. On the internet, it's the wind to your mill. Without advertising, you're just one more product that is lost on the internet. It's like having a barber shop without any window or sign to tell that your are there. On the internet, you need to advertise if you want any results. There's a lot of free way to do so, but free means that you'll have to invest hours upon hours of work to advertise your business. It can be done, but most will invest some money into advertising. I would say that you need $25 of advertising for each $1 you invest into the product.

- Just do it! Keep doing it! This may seems easy, but most will give up before a year. Building a business takes tame and lots of work. You won't become a millionaire over night. It can takes month, even years before you'll see some income from your work. 

- Be there to answer any request from your customers. This is the second part of Branding. Without this, you'll never grow fidelity with your customers.

I know that I still have a lot to learn. So, if you think that I miss something that should be here, send me a message or a comment.  :)

Whiners....

The whining...

Are you a whiner? Or maybe you have problem with whiner around you?

Whining is an energy drain. No one really want to live around whiner. When it's a customer, it's even difficult. You have to see if this is valuable whining and search why they're whining. Some people are whining because of something that has no relation with the business in which they're whining. Those people can waste a lot of customer support.

You can see a lot of people whining in chat, in forum or in blog. Sorry, but I don't like whiner. I will never waste my time reading someone whining when I see that it has no reason to do it. Usually, within the first fives lines I can see if this is justified.

Here's a book that could be interesting for someone who wants to climb the ladder of big companies. It was written for woman, but I'm sure it can be use by men too. :)  


Stop whining and start winning by Molly Shepard and Jane Stimmler

I did a search for tips to face whining, most were about children and some about co-worker. Not much about everyday life. 

If you have idea on how to face whining (with no violence), send them to me. :) 

A little quote for you...  

"Stop making excuses, nobody is listening. You can produce excuses or you can create results - but you can't have both! Use your energy to make something happen. Be patient. Real change takes time. It doesn't happen overnight." ~ Les Brown
 

An Interesting idea!

Advertising your company is an art. You need to find ideas that will promote the qualities of your company and get you out of the pack.

Internet business have the reputation of being easy to advertise. But it's far from the truth. In reality, it's as hard to take an internet business and get it in front of the customers. You need as much work as in the outside world. It's has hard to make the contact with your customers on the internet.

And still, to get out of the pack you need a lot of work, good ideas and passion.

I just stumble upon a good idea to advertise your business. Outside and inside of the internet.

Photo playing cards custom printed.

There's something out of the pack. Creating a set of paying card could become a great way to promote your business. Giving them away where you think they would be used and seen would be the finishing step of that advertising process. Camping, coffee shop, hospital, waiting room, plane and where ever you would find someone having some time to spare. As long as you can put your custom cards in front of people, it's OK to give them away.

If you choose to create cards that you want to sell, then it's another story. You'll need to choose the market and create the card for that market.