66 Ways To Promote Your product or Services

Some guru sells his program because he has 60 ways of marketing.  One Dentist was asked about his marketing he said he had 100 ways and use them all. Well I came up with 66 so far. I will work on more sometime after tax season or you can email me with ones I might have missed.


The true is you can’t use them all. Some are too costly for many of us. Some won’t work. Try as many as you like and find the ones that work and work them till they stop working or you stop working, whichever comes first.

Here they are:

1.    Direct to Consumers
2.    Party plan
3.    Rack Jobbers
4.    Wholesalers
5.    Mail Order House
6.    Resident Buyers
7.    Fairs and Exposition
8.    Chain Stores
9.    Discount Stores
10.    Lease Departments
11.    Supermarkets
12.    Free Publicity
13.    Sales People
14.    Franchising
15.    Co Party
16.    U.S. Government
17.    Direct Mail
18.    Co-op Mailing
19.    Trade shows
20.    Advertising Specialties
21.    PX’s
22.    Premiums
23.    Classifieds:
24.    In Papers
25.    In Magazine
26.    On the net
27.    In Special papers
28.    Articles
29.    Ezine
30.    Emails
31.    Sig files
32.    Radio
33.    Television
34.    Seminars (paid to You)
35.    Bill Boards
36.    Flyers
37.    Brochures
38.    Seminars you give free
39.    Telephone
40.    Referrals
41.    E.books
42.    Free Search Engines
43.    Paid Search Engines
44.    Post cards
45.    Yellow Page ad
46.    Cross Selling with others
47.    Joint Ventures
48.    Telemarketing
49.    Take out Boxes with ads on
50.    Posters
51.    Booth at Mails or stand at mall
52.    Man or Women with sign about your business
53.    Window Display
54.    Outside Signs
55.    Articles for directories on the net
56.    Free downloads with ads about your business products or services
57.    Free Recording
58.    Free Video
59.    Free CD
60.    Free Report
61.    Free Samples
62.    Special Events
63.    Contests and Sweepstakes
64.    Column in a Newspaper
65.    Editorial writing by you
66.    Free Phone Messages

Let me know at Joetrevis@aol.com  if you would like me to explain any of these in a report that your interest in.  It will be at least 2 pages with a lot of information.

10 Steps to Getting Paid for Your Marketing Materials

How many times have you heard the same sound bites come out of your mouth to your clients, prospects, and audiences, almost boring yourself to tears in the process? Imagine generating money directly from those sound bites, from those pearls of wisdom that effortlessly trip off your tongue. Yes, it is completely possible, and here’s how to do it.

1.    Capture those tidbits of information as soon as they come to mind. Jot them down in a notebook or get them into a Word document. They can be in a raw format, with just enough information to jog your thinking about what you mean. There will be time to refine them later.

2.    Let a couple weeks go by, allowing most of the information to surface in your thoughts. It rarely happens by declaring two hours on a Thursday afternoon to sit at your computer to think of it all.

3.    Refine and organize the tips. Divide them into categories and edit the text. Use a writing style similar to what you are reading here.

4.    Be sure to include your contact details so readers can easily reach you. Add a brief section about your background so people will know your qualifications for presenting the information.

5.    Hire a graphic designer to make the words look good on the page. Your completed product will be a tips booklet measuring about 3 ½ inches by 8 ½ inches when printed. The designer will create their part of the finished product as a PDF file.

6.    Send the PDF file from your graphic designer to a printing company. Do an initial print run of 1,000 copies.

7.    Think about who can benefit from using your booklet to promote their own product, service, or cause. Send them a sample of your booklet and a cover letter describing some of the ways they can increase their sales or further their cause by using your booklet as a promotional tool.

8.    Consider corporations, associations, publications, and any other group that seems appropriate for the topic of your booklet. Reach out to as many of them as you can, on whatever budget of time and money you have available to you.

9.    Realize that every time one of the large-quantity buyers sends out your booklet to promote their own product, service, or cause, they are also marketing your business. Your contact information in the booklet allows the reader to reach you directly.

10.    Enjoy the expansion of your customer base and your checking account. You are now reaching a larger audience than you are likely to do single-handedly, thanks to the large-quantity buyers of your booklet. And you have been paid by your buyers to reach those new people.

Those sound bites you have been saying for years are now reaching far beyond your current clients, helping your buyers, their clients, and your own business. It doesn’t get a lot better than getting paid for your marketing materials.

© 2005, Paulette Ensign

9 Packaging Trends That Will "Connect" You With Consumers

Today’s consumer is a moving target. Choosing the right consumer and the right demographic to target is an important decision. Monitoring what is hot and what’s not can dramatically influence a package design’s success or failure. Package design is an integral way to connect with your customer. But do you clearly understand the needs and wants of these elusive markets?

Understand the customer is critical. The problem today is that one package may not satisfy the needs and requirements of all buyers.

There are many niche markets out there and each one requires specialized packaging. So if you are targeting one of those, do your research first. What works for one target market may not work for another. So....

1) Find out what package attributes appeal to the customer you are targeting. If it is a harried homemaker shopping for your product then convenience of use had better be at the top of the list. Those over 50 are seeking convenience too but issues like the size of print on the package and ease of use top their priority list. Make sure your package employs the characteristics that appeal to your target market.

2) Understand how the package will be used. Families no longer sit and eat a meal with everyone at the same time. There are special diet requirements or dieting in general in most households. It’s not uncommon to serve different meals to different individuals. Package sizes will vary accordingly. EX: People who travel a lot buy sample or trial size packages because they are small and easy to deal with

3) Know your customers current buying trends. Several years ago, we went through the supersized phase. There are still a lot of supersized packages; however, buying trends are changing to smaller sizes in general. To package smaller does not mean less profit, in many cases it means more. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for convenience, ease of use and a smaller quantity. Remember the three premium baking potatoes in a package cost almost the price of a 5 lb bag. If you live with just one other person, do you really need 5 lbs of potatoes?

4) Keep abreast of new packaging technologies. Creative, new products have the advantage in the marketing world even if their technology is not new. Several years ago, Metedent took the world by storm with the duel aperture dispensing mechanism. Recently hosts of new cleaning products have revived interest in this type of dispensing. Look for innovate ways to combine two products into one package.

5) Watch where people shop. There is a shift from traditional retailers to new and innovative store formats. The convenience store, once considered a low-end marketer, has now transitioned into store that provides premium products at a premium price. This evolved from the hurry up and go mindset demonstrated in today's shopping habits. Recent studies are showing that consumers no longer make one big trip and stock up but make several trips a week and get just what is needed at the moment at the most easily accessible retail outlet. EX: The grab and go cups of snack foods convenience stores are now offering. This category did not exist a couple of years ago.

6) Keep pace with "hot button" packaging issues. This includes legislation too. People do really care about the environment and the amount of excess packaging. There is a move afoot to expand the number of vegetable-based plastic materials used in food packaging. If packaging consumers give these products their endorsement, look for other new products to surface. Legislation can change packaging mandates overnight. There have been "bottle bills," surcharges and bans that prohibit the use of certain packages. EX: Several fast food companies are test marketing corn-based plastic packaging materials. Ex: Ban on juice boxes in Maine and aerosol cans in Chicago.

7) Security in packaging is becoming increasingly important. This will continue to come into focus as more people become concerned about product integrity. One major security scare could force everyone to change their packaging methods immediately. Look for new tamper evident and security devices that can be incorporated into your packaging. Cost efficiencies are now making many of these devices more affordable and will soon become mainstream.

8) Competition of various packaging materials is increasing. From the imports that are readily available to the merger and acquisition mania that is taking place, keep current on your chain of supply globalization. Certain products such as plastic bags that used to be the mainstay of American manufacturing have now gone offshore. Ethic diversity both her and abroad is demanding that all packaging be multi-lingual and people really don’t care where the product packaging is manufactured.

9) External influence of power players. The big box retailers are driving packaging procedures and policies at retail. Mandates from these companies such as RFID tracking are in their infancy. This type of requirement could become mandatory overnight. If you want to do business with companies such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart, you will need to include the design and selection of your packaging materials as per their demands and others will follow suit.

Remember, the customer depends upon you, the designer, as a resource. They expect you to keep up with packaging trends and technologies and provide the latest and greatest innovations the industry has to offer. If you cannot connect with the consumer through package design, do not expect your products to fly off the shelf.

8 Tips to be Successful with your own JV offer

Most likely you have already heard other people getting all excited about JV's and how they can help you build your online business.

Or maybe you belong to that group of people who are not familiar with JV offers, which is short for joint venture offers... also known as business proposals.

Either way... you can benefit tremendously from the following 8 tips to be successful with your own JV offer. Let's get started...

1. A JV offer doesn't require a JV partner to buy your products or services to become a JV partner.

Asking you potential JV partner to buy the product or service would be considered a sales offer and not a JV offer. A JV partner is usually offered a free review copy of your product or service.

Doing that drastically increases your chances to gain a JV partner as this makes him or her feel obligated to return the favor by doing his part of the partnership and e.g. promoting your product or service to their lists.

Why am I mentioning this? Yes, you guessed it right... I had people contact me to do a JV with them and when I asked for a review copy to check first the value of the product... I was referred to their sales page!

2. A JV offer has to be a win/win or better a WIN/win. :)

A JV offer has to provide your JV partner with one or more additional benefits for becoming your partner... his WIN. Your win will e.g. be to be able to tab into your JV artners list and gaining extra sales.

A JV offer that offers a win/win could e.g. be:

"I am looking for JV partners that can promote my product or service to their list of contacts.

In return for you are recommending my product or service to your list, I will not only provide you with a free review copy of my product or service, but also pay you a 10% higher commission than regular affiliates."

Another example... a JV offer for a service you provide could e.g. offer this:

"I am looking for a JV partner who needs a small to medium sized software product developed in Visual Basic. I can offer to do that for you free of charge in return of 10% of the profits you generate selling that software for the first year starting at your first sale and 5% for the time after the first year."

Again, a win-win situation... the JV partner has a product without out of pocket expense that he can sell exclusively to his lists, his WIN. And you can earn royalties for live without your own list.

3. Don't make the initial JV proposals too lengthy. Especially when you propose to a well know marketer, this can be the JV kill. Those people often have very limited time and will not even read your message all the way to the end if it's pages long.

It is better to send a short teaser email first and then follow up once they reply with all details.

4. Make your potential JV partner feel like you're a peer and not a salesperson.

Do your research before you send your first email to a potential JV partner.

Make the style of your JV offer personal, mention details about their business and how the JV offer can help them in what they want to achieve.

5. Don't let your JV partner do all the work, participating in the JV should very as little work as possible for them.

Be prepared and offer them to provide marketing material for your JV partner. This can be solo-ad copy, banner and text ads and other materials your JV partner can use to share the word about your product or service.

The less work it is for them, the more likely they will become your JV partner. It is that simple.

6. Don't just go only for the big player.

Overlooking smaller publishers that have a very loyal and responsive list can be another mistake. Besides, those will be much more likely interested in your JV offer as they are not flooded with them (yet).

7. Show them how you can help their clients and customers.

Give an example how your product or service compliments your potential JV partners own products or services. This way you help them to provide an even better service to their clients and customers.

This will also build trust that doing a JV with you will not only earn you and them money, but show that you are interested in helping them to look good in front of their own clients and customers.

8. Test your web copy and conversion rates and provide details.

By letting them know your conversion rate, they will know that sending traffic to your is not a bottomless pit. They can estimate how much they will be able to earn by doing a JV with you.

If you know e.g. that you will generate 1 sale out of every 70 targeted visitors your sales page gets, then let them know that you have a 1.4% conversion rate on targeted visitors.

Knowing all of the above, your next question might be... where do I find JV partners to contact?

Here is a list of resources in alphabetical order that will help you getting started:

- Anthony Blake Online - Entrepreneurial Success Forum:  http://www.ablake.net/forum/

- JV-Network: Free membership site to become a JV partner of   top marketing experts or to post your own JV offers for a fee: http://add2it.com/see.pl?JVnetwork

- jvAlert: Paid membership site to become a JV partner of top marketing experts, post your own JV offers and search their offers database: http://add2it.com/see.pl?jvAlert

- jvAlert Member Forums: http://www.jvalert.com/forums/

- JV Money Makers Forum: http://jvmoneymakers.com/forum/

- Mark Hendricks's Inner Circle Marketing Forum: Free section to post and find JV offers: http://www.hunteridge.com/forum/members/

- Mark Hendricks's JVdealmaker Players Club Forum: Free section to post and find JV offers  http://www.jvdealmaker.com/members/

- Michael Green's "How To" Internet Marketing Forum: http://www.howtocorp.com/forum/

- MikeFilsaime's Marketing Forum: Free section to post and find  JV offers http://www.1sitemanager.com/forum/

- The Warrior Forum: Free section to post and find JV offers  (Note: Before posting, first post helpful feedback in other  sections of the forum) http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/

- Warrior Discussion Forum: Free section to post and find JV offers (Note: Before posting, first post helpful feedback in other sections of the forum) http://www.warriordiscussion.com/forum/

Balancing Your Promotions

Promotion of your online business may take a variety of directions. Some will bring more success than others. Every one is important to consider when you are trying to open the door to visitors to your site.

This article discusses several of the more useful ways to promote and the necessity of keeping some balance in your promotional efforts.

-- SEARCH ENGINES

Everyone needs to make an effort to get their site indexed to the major search engines. If you have no idea how to do this, here is one of the most important links you will every locate and it comes at no cost.

http://www.Selfpromotion.com/

If you want more people to visit your website, you must know how to create search-engine-friendly web pages, and then submit your URL to all the major search engines. That's what this site is all about.

-- LINKING

Think of links on other websites as road signs that point to your site. That's what links do. They will be useful if they are on high traffic sites that are relevant to your site's content.

Now there are many ways to create and maintain links. Too many for this article to discuss. Here are a couple of pointers about linking.

Avoid "link farms" that create a load of useless, irrelevant links to your site. They may do more harm than good with the search engines.

I recommend that you create a links page and manually add and delete links. Avoid purchasing and installing scripts or other such methods.

If you don't have the skills to do that then, there are some good paid services that will manage your links. A simple search on one of the major search engines will turn up a bunch.

Here are a couple that I can recommend:

http://www.Reciprocalmanager.com/
http://www.linksmanager.com/ and
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/

-- JOINT VENTURES

This is simple. I have something to promote. You have a website or newsletter. I will pay you a portion of my profits to promote it.

It can work well if you can endorse the item with a personal statement and recommendation.

Be careful of jumping on all offers. Make sure they are legitimate.

-- ARTICLES

One of the least expensive and most effective ways to get some exposure for your business or newsletter is to write and distribute articles.

Publishers are looking for good, fresh content for their newsletters and ezines. You provide it with a well-researched article.

The trade off is that they are required to include a short resource box at the end of the article that links back to your site.

It's a Win-Win situation.

One of the ways to let your article gain exposure is to list it in several of the online article directories like:

http://www.ArticleToGo.com/
http://www.BizSiteBiz.com/marketingarticles
http://www.marketing-seek.com and
http://www.articlecentral.com

There are many others. Just search "article directories".

-- AD SWAPS

Great way to get some no-cost exposure. If you have an ezine or newsletter, just locate some similar publications and offer to swap ads with them.

-- EZINE ADVERTISING

Probably the easiest ways to get some exposure quickly is to locate and advertise in some selected publications.

Be sure that the newsletter is likely to reach your target audience. It won't do much good to promote your "Yellow widgets" to an ezine which is made up of readers who are mothers of newborns interested in learning about how to mix baby formula.

You can also spend some serious money quickly with this type of promotion. Be sure and track your ads to make sure you are making money above your advertising expenses.

Depending on the nature of your online business, some of these promotional types may have more or less relevance for you.

Whichever means you use, try and keep a balance in your efforts that will allow you to most effectively reach your target audience.

Advertising - Are You Wasting Your Money?

Anybody who has a product to sell, an idea to promote or a service to offer relies on advertising to get the attention they require.

There are so many forms of advertising that finding the correct medium can sometimes be a daunting task.

Depending on the type of business, or the reason for your need for promotion you may find it easier to seek some professional advice.

Firstly you need to decide who your target market is, whether it is men or woman, older generation, younger generation, companies etc.

Secondly you need to ascertain whether your market is local, national or global. This is important, as leaflet dropping in your local supermarket car park is fine if your product or service is a local one, but if your services can be offered world wide or nationally, then you are seriously losing out on the largest percentage of your market.

Once you know who you are planning to target, and where they are, you can begin to research the how, which are the options you have available.

There is an absolute ton of free information on the internet, and if you are reading this, you must have access to it!

If you have a low budget, try doing the advertising yourself, you can knock up some great leaflets from your own pc, (providing your market is local).

Making a website has become a lot easier over the years, and if you shop around you can get some great prices on hosting packages and domain names. Try downloading a free html editor, preferably with a wysiwyg platform, (what you see is what you get), there is a wealth of information on the internet to guide you through making a simple website.

If you have a bigger budget, then consulting with one of the many advertising companies is an option. These people can advise you, and come up with some fantastic ideas, but be sure to shop around and not just go with the first company you come across. Prices will vary, and their expertise will vary also, so it’s an idea to ask to see some references, or some of their projects with other clients that they have worked on.

Done correctly, and with proper research, advertising will reap rewards. It is after all one of the most important factors in any business. So I personally, would always recommend that you give this area the attention it deserves!