Cinda Baxter writes in her blog, “always upward: blog” about the power of “supporting local business in small, easily consumable bites” by keeping our money local. In other words, with more businesses losing their leases every day, we can make a big difference by making a small change in our shopping habits.

We all shop. It’s a part of daily life and there is power in your shopping habits. Instead of going into neighboring cities, or even counties let’s choose to patronize those businesses in our own community.

Why?

•Keep money in our community: Significantly more money re-circulates locally when purchases are made at locally owned, rather than nationally owned businesses.
•Buy what you want, not what someone wants you to buy. Community businesses are going to stock their stores based upon the needs of their community. Let them know what you want and they will have the motivation to please their neighbors.
•Put your taxes to good use
•Support community groups – Our local businesses are the ones who sponsor our youth sports teams and donate to our auctions.
•Create more good jobs – there are city mottos based upon the theme of live, work, and play in the same city in which you live. Not having a commute is definitely a “plus”

This list is by no means exhaustive. What other reasons can you think of?

Now on the flip side of this concept, how can you, the Orange County Business Owner reach the patrons in your neighborhood. Welcome Express is “home plate” for new residents who are ready to touch base with their current surroundings. In addition to welcoming newcomers with a package of valuable welcome gifts from local businesses, we provide an online directory containing tools and resources – a mini yellow pages for newcomers. Take a look!

Orange County Business Owners Turn to Marketing Tips in Tough Times.

First and foremost, stay in the game!  Design an integrated advertising campaign that will drive consumers to a purchase decision.  EX:  Your prospects might see a magazine ad or gift certificate that sends them to a website, which in turn leads them to make a purchase.  This approach generates sales in slow times & pays even larger  dividends after the economy recovers.

Convince consumers to spend on you:  People still spend money in a down economy, but only if you convince them that spending their money with you makes sense on an emotional & practical level.  In the absence of proactive marketing on your part, consumers’ preferences, perceptions & desires for products/services will naturally drift to someone else who is being proactive in their marketing.  This means you will have to spend more time, money & energy in the future to win them back

Emphasize price promotions vs. cuts:  Two-thirds of shoppers are more likely to use gift certificates/coupons during a slow economy. The resurgence of gift certs/coupons is a strong indicator of a trend toward price-specific promotion.   Generate  promotional offers — avoid full scale price cutting, which can hinder your ability to survive & grow during a recession.

Market to newcomers & current customers:  Replace the 20% of customers you lose  every year with newcomers, while working to upsell or resell your current customer base.  Offer more services or product features.  Reach out to the customers in your database with e-mail, snail mail or sales calls.  Vary your tactics, so you maintain mindshare without wearing out your welcome.   

As the leading Orange County, California Directory and Resource Guide, we provide newcomers and established residents with essential OC information at the city and county level. Explore details on Dining, Shopping, Entertainment, Traffic, Weather and Job Search options. With more than 160,000 registered Business Listings, this Orange County Directory is rapidly becoming Orange County’s # 1 choice for Local Search.

Join 160,000 other Orange County Businesses. List your company in our online Business Directory. Listings are FREE but premium listings show up at the top of the page–just like Google–and start at $29.99 per quarter. Click HERE for more information.

Small business marketing, especially in a down economy, requires a psychological aspect, as Vitaly Grinblat explains. At Welcome Express we offer an arsenal of advertising products designed for Orange County small businesses to attract new customers who are newcomers themselves. The psychology is clear – newcomers are seeking a higher percentage of solutions than those who are settled into established behavior patterns of commerce.

*What is your real goal in marketing and advertising your business?
 
Let’s look at relationships as an example. When you first meet a member of the opposite sex and you feel attracted to them, you don’t come up and after introducing yourself propose marriage, do you? There’s a process involved in creating a relationship. You first usually go on a date and get to know someone before even considering marriage. If you actually did walk up to someone you didn’t know, introduced yourself and told them that you want to skip all the steps and get married, you’ll probably never see that person again, and ruin what potentially could have been a great relationship.

It’s the same in business. Not all your prospects are ready to buy right away. Depending on what your products or services are, it may take several steps before your prospect feels comfortable enough to go ahead and do business with you.  On the other hand, there are some business that all they do is advertise to get people to know who they are and there’s no tracking mechanism for any follow up to continue the relationship building process.

That’s why direct marketing solves this problem. Using the direct marketing approach allows you to build a relationship with your prospect and give them a chance to get to see what you offer before asking them to buy. Which takes all the pressure off of you and them.

Here are the steps to successful direct marketing rollout:

1. You need to pick a specific target market. Not everyone is your prospect. In fact, the more narrow your target market is, the more likelihood of success, because you can tailor make your message to their particular needs. Dan Kennedy, of the greatest marketers in the world, calls it a perfect message to market match. [ Editor's note: Welcome Express targets the newcomer to Orange County who hasn't yet selected and made habit his or her 'chosen' merchants for doing business.]

2. Create something that you can include for free in your direct response offer. Notice I said free. Because we want the prospect to act (or respond) to your offer by calling, or going to your website, or faxing you, or walking into your store, whatever it happens to be.

This step is important, because this separates the interested prospects (leads) from the ones who have no interest. You now can continue sending information via mail or email to these people, because they’re the ones that raised their hands. Why waste your advertising dollars on people who don’t even show any interest in what you have.

3. Have a great offer with your give away. There must be a compelling reason for your prospects to act now. It must be emotionally captivating and have social proof, (testimonials). Make sure you have a strong guarantee, people love guarantees, and although if your product is good, they will not ask for a refund, but it does make them more comfortable to make the decision to buy.

The ones that don’t respond, you keep communicating with. You see the timing has to be right. They may not be ready. Money could be an issue at this moment. They may have marital problems or something else that keeps them occupied at this moment, and your offer is the last thing they’re interested, for now.  So you follow up with emails, mail, send them reminders, tips, ideas, etc… Depending on your business, this would vary, but the idea is to keep the sequence of follow up going.

4. When the prospect buys and turns into a customer, keep communicating with them, and have a back end sales strategy. In other words, have additional products and services that you could sell them later. If you don’t, your competition most definitely will.

Again depending on your product this will be different for everyone, but think of what can complement the product they purchased. If they bought carpet, they might be interested in a carpet cleaning solution, to keep it clean. They may also be in the market for furniture, drapery, and other items.

The psychology of a direct response model for small business marketing is simple, if you keep your customers’ best interests at heart and do whatever it takes to nurture those relationships, which later turn into profit centers.

*Source: Vitaly Grinblat  http://www.squidoo.com/law_of_attraction-for-abundance

Ready-Fire-Aim Marketing* – The Small Business Approach to Accelerate Your Marketing Success!
Welcome Express stands Ready, at YOUR Service to propel your OC-based small business towards its 2009 business goals! Ready-Fire-Aim!

This is the approach to achieve rapid improvements in your small business marketing results in Orange County. It’s not about incremental improvements, but rather transformational improvements.

It’s the Ready-Fire-Aim approach. I’m talking about an approach to marketing, and approach to business, and an approach to life. Enlighten your small business to the wisdom of the Ready-Fire-Aim approach. I know what you’re probably thinking. That little voice inside your head is asking, “Don’t you mean Ready-Aim-Fire?”

Lots of small business owners have a tendency to think about and maybe plan things, but then hesitate to take any action. You want to make sure you get things just right. It’s sometimes called analysis paralysis.

Take a good hard look at the people and organizations you admire for the successes they’ve accomplished. You’ll likely find they are much more willing to live by the Ready-Fire-Aim approach.

It’s like a great football team. They can’t possibly know everything that’s going to happen before they get in and play the game. They call a play they’ve designed and practiced (Ready), they run the play (Fire), and then they look to see how the other team reacts, re-huddle, and call another play that they think will be successful based on what they’re learning (Aim).

It doesn’t mean that you just go out and start acting and doing without any planning or thinking. Guess we could call that the Fire-Fire-Fire approach. That would be a mistake and most likely wouldn’t work out for your business.  But, Ready-Fire-Aim marketing can lead to is a willingness to increase the pace of your growth. Be willing to learn more and do more faster. Be willing to reach for loftier goals and accelerate the success of achieving them.

The thing is the marketing mistakes you make along the way aren’t going to kill you or drive you out of business. Everyone makes mistakes. But, the Ready-Fire-Aim person is the one who learns from the mistake, adjust and then gets ready to fire again.

Be willing to give yourself a break. You can’t know everything there is to know about marketing (or your business, or your life) before you get in the game and call a play.

Go ahead and have a big vision. It’s your vision plus your commitment that will lead you to taking the right actions.
Create a marketing plan to take you towards your vision. Don’t let uncertainty or unanswered questions hold you back. Just do the best you can based on what you know and trust that you will continue to learn and improve.

 If you’re feeling stuck in moving your marketing plan forward, then get some outside help. Maybe the Ready-Fire-Aim action you need to take is to hire a marketing coach or to join a power-marketing group. Nobody said you necessarily have to do it on your own.

Ready-Fire-Aim! Following even this simple advice will put you ahead of 90 to 95% of other small business owners in the game. Just think of what that could mean to your business and your life.

*Source: Kevin Dervin

Nine Common Small Business Mistakes and Cures*
Every small business makes mistakes in the journey to success. Stay alert to the pitfalls by planning ahead and taking steps to avoid the common mistakes.

Can You Relate To Any of These Mistakes?
1. An over-reliance on the “vision” and an underdeveloped plan to get there. Your goals are the easy part to define. Work tirelessly on a disciplined strategy toward achieving these goals.

2. Not sustaining your passion for your business through the tough times. We all have times that “test us.” This is the time to dig down deep and remember why you are in business and renew that hunger for success and passion for what you do. Remember, Thomas Edison had about 1,000 failures before finally inventing an electric bulb that worked.

3. Coasting when things are going well and becoming lax about sustaining an aggressive business model.

4. Not diversifying. You should always have new plans and look for new ways to expand on your initial offerings.

5. Not budgeting enough money for branding, advertising and marketing. Business owners frequently fail to set aside adequate funds to get the word out and look credible.

6. Not setting your business apart from the competition. Actively make your product or service distinct from your competition and use this distinction as part of your marketing and advertising.

7. Neglecting loyal existing customers. Word of mouth is powerful free advertising, so keep your good customers happy and content. Always try to improve customer relations. However, if a customer becomes a major distraction to your business, find a diplomatic way to let them go and move on.

8. Not being focused on efficiency. Time is money, so let others help you reach your business goals if they can do a task better and faster. If you know the best possible way to do something, teach those around you. This will free up your schedule to focus on business growth.

9. Doing things on your own, when you need help. Sometimes we let our ego cloud our judgment and we don’t realize that we would have been better off hiring an expert. While often times cost is the true inspiration for doing things on our own, there are times when doing things on our own proves to be costly.
————-
*Source: Matt Chansky  http://www.momentum18.com/common-business-mistakes.html

The economy is down. Make the most of it by reading the signs. Call it economic uncertainty. Call it a full blown recession. Call it opportunity comes-a-knocking, especially for those companies with vision, a remarkable message and the desire to grow.

When the business winds blow south and everybody gets tight with marketing, advertising and selling, what does your company do? Hunker down, cut to the bone, hope and pray you’ll ride it out? That’s your cue to step in and step up, snatching your competitors clients. Slow and steady isn’t going to win this race. Neither is short-term business think.

There is a massive amount of research to support this kind of thinking. A McGraw-Hill study of 600 companies showed that those who cut advertising during the recession of the early 80′s, saw sales increase by 19% between 1980 and 1985. Companies that continued to advertise, market and connect during the recession had sales increases of 275% during the same period. That’s right, a whooping 275% increase. Now what are you going to do?

Think about it. When your competitors decide to hide in the woodshed, it’s time for you go for the remarkable connection and win the competition. Because if you decide to hide out along with them, you’re going to suffer, right along side them. If you decide to wait it out, there is one thing you can depend on – companies that wait during the downturn, spend more money over a longer period of time just to get even.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_S_OGrady

Segment your Market -
All customers are not the same. They have different needs, preferences, and budgets. Segmenting the market into a group of similar customers can help you develop a successful marketing strategy. Trying to satisfy every customer with the same approach is not going to be effective and profitable.

Examples of ways to segment your customers:
- location
- age
- income
- education
- previous buying habits
- how they respond to different advertising promotions

Competition -
Make a list of your competitors. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Who are the major competitors in this market?
- How different they are in delivering their products and services?
- How do they make money?
- How much they charge and what they offer to the customers?
After you answer these questions ask yourself what they do better than you do.

Value Proposition / Unique Selling Proposition (USP) -
In order for your market approach to be successful you have to offer something different. You need to develop an effective value proposition or unique selling proposition. In your value proposition you will list your products and service features and the benefits they deliver to your customers.  Now you need to communicate your value proposition to your target market by:
- Advertising: print media, TV, radio, internet ads, search engine optimization, website marketing
- Public Relations: press releases, events
- Sales Promotion: special offerings, discounts, customer loyalty programs
- Community Involvement: sponsorship

Marketing ROI -
Key to effective marketing is measuring your promotional activities. For example, how many customers do I get from my ad in newspaper and how much did it cost me to get these customers. Now you can compare different alternatives and improve your marketing return on investment in your next promotions.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ivo_Legenda

Many people are often confused with the words marketing and advertising. Marketing and advertising are two closely linked factors of an organization. The basic difference between marketing and advertising is that advertising is a key element of marketing. Marketing includes all basic functions of promotions and advertising is one of them.

Marketing:
In simple terms, marketing is a wide range of activities that a firm undertakes to place its products or services to fulfill the needs and wants of customers. Marketing is the exchange of goods between buyers and sellers in a mutually beneficial manner.

Marketing includes four controllable factors such as product, price, place and promotion. They are collectively called marketing mix. The management of a company has keen interest on these terms, because they determine the success of a firm company in market place. These parameters are designed based on the company’s resources and constraints. They even determine the acceptance of your products or services in the market.

A firm adopts certain methods to communicate with the target audience. These methods are collectively called as Marketing communications (Promotion Decisions). A mix of marketing communication includes:
1. Advertising
2. Sales Promotion
3. Personal Selling
4. Direct Marketing and Sponsorship
5. Publicity and Public relations

Advertising:

Advertising is the basic form of promotion decision. It is the most effective mass communication method. Advertising is a paid form of communication by an identified sponsor. It conveys non- personal, public messages with non-personal presentation of features to both existing as well as potential customers.

Advertising is the presentation of an idea, product, place or a person to induce the attention of customers. It is a part of the communication strategy, which communicates the firm’s offerings with the target group. Target customers get the ideas of products through advertisements published in newspapers, direct mail, billboards, radio, internet and television.

Advertising also addresses key decisions of placing ads and determining their frequencies on various forms of media. Advertising is the most expensive communication as well as promotional method. The cost of placing advertisements varies according to the selection of the media. For instance, advertising on television and internet are highly expensive.

In short, advertising is a small part of marketing, but is one of the key marketing functions. On the other hand, marketing refers to all the processes that facilitate deals between buyers and sellers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Clarke

The Value of Effective Networking

Networking is about building good relationships in a more formalized way. The key to being an effective networker is to see a relationships’ progression as more of a slow burn, rather than walking into a group and seeing who is instantly available to sell your products or services to.

The key to effective networking is to see what you can do for the other person. The most effective networkers are the people who are genuinely on the lookout for their fellow group members. By establishing how you can help the other person, without looking for anything in return, enables your fellow networkers to feel confident about your integrity. The person who is generous in this way will stay in people’s minds as someone to be trusted and valued.

Having follow-up emails and meetings with associated service providers after networking meetings are useful to maintain the continuity. These meetings can be relatively short, say an hour in length, but are a good way for business people to discover if there are ways that they can support each other. This is often a win/win situation as one person gets some business and the other is able to offer a more comprehensive service to their clients, and so appear more professional.

Staying in peoples’ minds means that it is important to attend meetings regularly. Some network groups require a membership commitment and this entails an annual subscription fee. Other groups are more informal and allow people to visit as and when they choose, paying an attendance fee for each visit. If you are a member of a group it is important to maintain the continuity of your presence. It strengthens the group dynamics and it also enables you to be seen as someone who is committed to your business and the group as a whole.

Also, some networking groups have web sites that allow members to contribute their articles or join forums and discussion groups. All these are opportunities to introduce yourself, spread the word, and establish yourself as someone who is experienced and knowledgeable in your field. This enables other networkers and potential clients to understand more about what you do. It is a further way to reinforce the relationship and peoples’ confidence levels in you and your skills. It is the way to give you an edge, something for potential customers to see as making you special from the competition, a reason to choose you.

Asking for warm leads is important. If someone does have a recommendation for you, ensure that the potential client knows who you are and is expecting your call. Maybe even arrange a meeting where you are able to be introduced properly. This strengthens the confidence that the potential client has in you. After all, we all our more positive about buying from someone who comes warmly recommended.

All it takes are one or two really good leads to make all the effort worthwhile. These could be the leads that really set your business on its feet and sustain it over many years.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Susan_Leigh