FicWad

3) Where -- Where is your ideal client? Where is your customer located geographically? Where will you position yourself so they can easily find you? Where are the best places to get your marketing message to them? Will you speak to groups, hold seminars, or write a blog, newsletters or articles?

Then there were the newspaper and magazine ads that you put out. Such were much costly! When you place an order for bumper stickers, you aren't even serving complete dollar amounts on every sticker and getting in the bulk permits you to preserve even much money. How on world can you go wrong? Custom bumper stickers could secure you so many amount that you would have otherwise utilized on much expensive forms of marketing. You can get that more money and do other better things for your business like getting that latest cash register that you've had your eye on!

Understand where you are and what you have agreed to. Set some rules for the next stage. If you gave them a card then make it clear what your commitment is - sending a report for example, emailing them with some meeting times etc.

What Mort has done (which virtually all of us do at some point or another) is to confuse activities with strategy. But why is this a problem? Well let's say that Mort sends out some letters or emails. And maybe a few people respond. And maybe Mort actually calls one or two of them. But then he gets busy (or decides that following-up really isn't that much fun) and he lets the leads grow mold.

The most important trap to avoid is to make sure you do not focus on activities rather than developing a business development process. Here's the scenario. Business is a bit slow so Mort the Business Owner wakes up one morning and says to himself, "It's about time we got some new business." So when Mort arrives at the office he immediately puts in place his Marketing Strategy. "Let's make some cold calls. Or write some letters. Or update the database. Or write an article." The list goes on and on.

16.Privacy information. If you ask for people's personal information, your privacy policy should spell out what you will do with that information. If you don't have a privacy policy in place, get one! Check out other websites to see what their policy is and model it after them, if that makes you comfortable. Or, just use your common sense and create a policy. It may be something as simple as a couple of paragraphs explaining that you and only you have access to their information and that you won't share it with anyone. Without a privacy policy many folks will feel hesitant about giving you their name and email address.

There are also a few secrets to making it work, though. With AdWords, it isn't all about the highest bidder getting best position on the page. They are really big on relevance, and the more relevant your ad to your chosen keyword and your website, the better it will be for you. For small business marketing, this whole system can drive scores of targeted traffic to your business if it's done properly.

Be willing to "stretch yourself" to achieve the money goal of doubling your income. I recommend that solo entrepreneurs choose an amount that is 50 percent more than they are currently earning, for the next 30 - 90 day period. Challenge yourself! What do you have to lose?

So offer them something useful in exchange for nothing more than their name and email address. Then stay in touch regularly via email so they can get to know, like and trust you.