guerilla marketing for your website

Guerrilla marketing for Website Owners

1. T-shirt Marketing. Get a T-shirt made with your website’s logo and URL on it. Offer the T-shirt as a prize in a competition. If the T-shirt looks decent the winner will wear it and act as a walking billboard for your blog. (You can get a T-shirt made at CustomInk.com, though there are plenty of websites that do this).

2. Bumper stickers for all. Mail out bumper stickers for your website to readers who want one. The price of an envelope is not much to pay for some advertising on busy roads. (You can get custom stickers made up at Kinko’s or your local equivalent).

3. Post some bills. Stick a poster about your website on your work or school’s noticeboard. You probably want to wait until no-one is around before you try this one.

4. The browser trick. Go to your local library, internet cafe or computer room and set your website as the default browser homepage on all the computers you can easily access. I can’t help you when it comes to dealing with tetchy librarians, however.

5. Release a free eBook. Link back to your website throughout and encourage sharing. If the eBook is good it could go viral and drive traffic back to you.

6. Go to the beach and write your website’s address in the sand (preferably out of the way of the rising tide, and large enough to be seen by passing airplanes.)

7. Run a competition to win items you own and could do without. Instead of auctioning CDs, furniture, art, video games etc. on eBay, why not use them to build your website?

8. Carry around blank business cards with your website’s URL on them. You can hand out a card whenever your website comes up in conversation — or whenever you bring it up.

9. Get your website URL tattooed on a visible part of your body. Warning: this might look a little dated if the no-www movement wins out in future. Scared of the needle? A temporary tattoo or permanent marker will do the trick. Better yet, draw the URL on someone else, preferably while they’re asleep.

10. Run a competition and make the prize a service you’ll perform. This could be marketing consulting, graphic design, a guest-post, or some other service which utilizes your own individual expertise.

11. Organize a meet-up for webmasters and bloggers in your area and use it as an opportunity to network.

12. Leave fliers for your website at niche hot-spots. For example: leave fliers for a personal finance website outside the economics faculty of your local university, or fliers for a book review website outside a library.

13. Participate in forums related to your niche. Drive traffic back to your website through your forum signature.

14. Run a competition to win advertising space on your site. This is yet another no-cost prize you can use to market your website: free for you but valuable for others.

15. Take out an ad in your local newspaper. They’re often pretty cheap and local papers can have a circulation of thousands.

16. Add your website’s URL to the signature of each email account you use. If appropriate add a funny comment or quote to draw people’s attention.

17. Wear your URL. Make a custom hat, T-shirt or hoodie with your URL on it. This is bound to be a conversation starter.

Have you used any unconventional strategies to promote your site?

Four Winning Strategies To Business Marketing

Business marketing, the simple act of bringing together the buyers and the sellers has gained such importance in business today that there are specialized strategies for this purpose. Various marketing strategies that are a mixture of innovation and expertise are tried out every now and then. While some of them are winners and hit bull’s eye in the first attempt itself, there are others that fail. If you are a new entrepreneur and are looking for some winning marketing strategies then you have come to the right place indeed. Today, the consumer is more product savvy and hence you need to be more market savvy in order to get the marketing strategy right.

Direct Marketing

Of all the proven marketing strategies, none have gained as much reputation as direct marketing. A successful direct marketing campaign will give you amazing results and will propel your business to newer heights. If you can set up a database of the most probable and right customers and mail to the right customer all the time, then your direct marketing campaign will produce better results. The right customer will read your mail while the others will dismiss it as junk. You want more people in the right customer category than in the junk category. Boost your mail with the right information and dialogue. List the benefits of your product or program in small sweet paragraphs. Finally make an impact with it.

Online Marketing and lead generation

If there is anything in the last decade that has changed the way we live, then it is the internet. So you need to incorporate the internet into your business marketing program. There are several online marketing strategies that are proven winners. Lead generation, affiliate marketing, direct marketing and many more such marketing programs are available online. There was a time when lead generation on the internet was considered to be a dead end. But now there are more precise lead generation models that have put the earlier lead generation practices behind. Lesser number of fraudulent leads is being generated and the other online marketing strategies are also improving.

Guerilla Marketing

This relatively new low cost marketing strategy has created a huge impact on online marketing in the last few years. It relies on the principle that direct marketing is saturated and customers today are unaffected by these strategies. Hence guerilla marketing relies on getting you and your product in the places which customers are most likely to be present in the future. This has a great chance of giving your business the right kind of boost and a head start. There are many strategies that are used in guerilla marketing. The thank-you-take-away packet is one of the most used methods. This not only gives your customer a value added service by means of the packet, but it also thanks the customer for using your service. This keeps your company fresh in the minds of the customers.

Other methods

Besides these, there are many other marketing strategies that can be a part of your winning business plan. It all depends on what your target audience mainly comprises of. Put in the right amount of research and you will surely hit the right note with your marketing plan.

William King is the director of Wholesale UK Distributors, Importers, Dropshippers & Manufacturers Directory, Wholesalers, Traders, Manufacturers, Dropshippers & Distributors Directory, and Canadian Wholesalers and Dropshippers Canada Dropshipping Directory. He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

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

Custom Promotional Products - Low Cost Marketing Strategy

Promotional products are customized printed advertisements, logos, and messages printed in marketing and communication materials. Advertisers used articles to promote the name of the company, brand of a product, quality of a service, and many other things that they can perfectly disseminate information to create a sale. For the campaign materials, one can use a key chain, pen stand, ashtray, or anything that is functional, cute, or handy.

Promotional Products add to the dynamics of prolonged and multiple exposures to the media. Promotional items or accessories are plenty. They may include apparels, calendars, automotives, watches and clocks, awards and recognitions, badges, bags, parcels and totes, beauty and wellness products, caps , hats and head gear. They can be computer accessories, electronics, food and beverages, fun and games, home and house wares, key chains, mugs and earthenware, office and desk products, sports and outdoors, tools and hardware, trade shows, travel and many others.

Promotional accessories are good for any kind of promotional strategies you have in mind. These accessories may be functional items. Use these products for your campaign and you will see positive results. Business promotions may look more into using promotional products to carry the company name and logo in as many forms as possible as such as bags. Printed items expose the company to desired publicity scale.

Promotional products have the power and the ability to convert infrequent business client into regular customer, which would increase your sales. Alternatively, promotional merchandise serves customers in providing information of business goods and services and they do not need to look in the directory for the specific product or service anymore. Moreover, recycled promotional merchandise has gained huge popularity through the years.

The benefits of Promotional merchandise:

Keeping business in the forefront of customers mind - This helps set you aside from your competition and keeps you in the front of customers mind.

More buzz and cheap advertising - Promotional merchandise is cheaper than radios, TVs, or other high-end forms of advertisements or marketing.

Enhancement of business image - Promotional merchandise helps others to view as a generous person. People like generous people and people like to do business with such people.

Wide collection of products to choose from - Promotional merchandise comes in a wide variety of shapes and colors. This is a great way to advertise your business instead of just advertising in the yellow pages, TV, radio, or other costly traditional medium. There are many online companies with promotional products of different types as such as, pens, pencils, notebooks, calendars, and many other types of promotional products to hit the customers' target. Moreover, recycled promotional merchandise has put on vast popularity through the recent years as the recycled promotional merchandise is made from recycled materials, the manufacturing costs are less.

If you would like to see and learn more about our promotional products, promotional items, please visit the website. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Halasz

Small Business Marketing Review - Guerilla Marketing

We never want to recommend you limit yourself as a small business owner or marketer to reading just one book on small business marketing. Why straightjacket your mind? No single author, no matter how great, can cover everything. There are just too many good ideas out roaming the planet.

But, if you are ever forced to grab one small business marketing book before you bail out of a plane we recommend you latch onto one of Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerilla Marketing books. He is a fantastic authority when it comes to marketing ideas for small business chief marketers and small business owners.

Guerilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business
is another of those books that we first read over ten years ago; although the first edition of Guerilla Marketing has been out for more than twenty. Clearly, Levinson’s ideas have staying power among small businesses.

OK, there are so many Guerilla books out there by Jay Conrad Levinson that we can’t cover them all. Let’s just state this fact: the Guerilla tactics outlined by Levinson are among the best on earth for small business marketing. Levinson is one of the first professional marketers to really focus on small business. Levinson isn’t writing these books for ad agencies or Fortune 500 in-house marketers; he is writing for you, as small business owner.

Time and again Levinson emphasizes brain-power over money-power in small business marketing. Of all the lessons in the book, this is our favorite—small business marketers can outsmart the competition; hence, the title, of guerilla marketing. Guerillas are typically outnumbered and outgunned, and so their tactics must be different than the conventional warriors.

Guerilla Marketing contains chapters on virtually every marketing channel: radio, PR, newspapers, television, etc. Need a quick refresher to make sure your radio spend is as efficient as it could be? This is a great resource to use to just pick up and review to see if you are leaving anything out in your current tactics when you are using this channel.

We also find chapter 5--Secrets of Developing a Creative Marketing Program--a good intro course for anybody beginning a new marketing strategy. Here Levinson outlines “Seven steps to creative marketing”--a worthwhile checklist for any small business marketer to use. Again, this is a great tool to use to review any campaigns you are launching or already have in the works.

Especially helpful is Chapter 29--How Guerillas Win Battles. Levinson offers timely suggestions on how to sustain your marketing once it works. He actually warns of what to do when you encounter success by using the guerilla methods. For those of you familiar with Michael Porter’s works, you’ll know the vital importance of sustainability in any competitive business.

Guerilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business is definitely a worthwhile read.

Remember: Brand (who you are) + Package (your Face to the Customer) + People (customers and employees) = Marketing Success.

© 2006 Marketing Hawks

Craig Lutz-Priefert is President of Marketing Hawks, a firm providing essential marketing vision for small business. Marketing Hawks also provides expert sales presentation review at their VideoMyPitch website. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Craig_Lutz-Priefert

Guerilla Marketing Breakdown, Money Versus Time

What is worth more: your money, or your time?

This is the trade-off involved in guerilla marketing. You don't need a lot of money, but if you don't invest your time, your efforts will not pay off. The principles behind guerilla marketing (listed in the beginning of this chapter) require planning, groundwork, and effort.

How can you tell whether it's worth the trade-off?

Here is a brief, hypothetical example.

One popular marketing method is to send out e-mail announcements in the form of a regular weekly or monthly newsletter. You could build a mailing list and create your own newsletter (the guerrilla method) or you could buy advertising space in another business's newsletter (the traditional method).

If you choose to advertise in another newsletter:

• You will spend somewhere between $100 and $1000 for premium space in a widely read newsletter (e-zine) with a big subscriber list. You may end up spending more for consecutive ads, since consumers typically need to see your message 3 to 7 times before they'll buy.
• You will spend a few to several hours researching e-zines, writing your advertisements or article, and contacting the e-zine owners in order to schedule your ad's appearances.
• You will typically see a conversion rate (number of people who read your advertisement compared to number of people who become your customers) of 2 to 5 percent - slightly higher than the conversion rate of a direct mail campaign. This rate typically goes up a few percentages with subsequent advertisements, depending on the effectiveness of your copy (the wording of your message).

If you create your own newsletter or e-zine:

• You will spend $0 to $100 (you may decide to invest in desktop publishing software, list management software or services, or an upgraded Internet service provider plan to handle additional web traffic).
• You will spend several hours to several months building your opt-in subscription base, through methods like sign-up boxes, refer-a-friend programs, e-zine directory listings, and word of mouth.
• You will realize the typical conversion rate at first (2 to 5 percent) - but you will never have to spend another penny for advertising, because you own the newsletter or e-zine. Your subscription base will continue to grow, and your sales resulting from your newsletter will increase exponentially, rather than in the measured bursts you can expect from the "traditional" method.

One thing to be wary of when you're building an e-zine subscription base is buying bulk lists and using "free traffic" programs to bulk up your subscribers. Though this will give you some impressive numbers, the majority of these will either delete your e-mails unread, or unsubscribe as soon as they've met the requirements of whatever benefit they signed up for. The best results will come from a carefully targeted subscriber list that you have built yourself.

Determining your money-versus-time factor
How can you figure out whether the time you'll invest in a given guerilla marketing campaign is worth the trade-off in advertising dollars -- assuming, of course, that you have a substantial advertising budget to begin with? (If you don't, no worries; you don't need one!)

You can get a rough estimate of your results by performing the following steps:

1. Determine a traditional advertising venue that most closely relates to your intended guerilla marketing effort.

2. Estimate the total monetary cost of each method.

3. Estimate the total time investment involved with each method.

4. Assign a reasonable dollar value to each hour of your time you would invest ($15 an hour is a good average).

5. Add monetary costs and per-hour time costs to each method, arriving at two separate totals.

6. Calculate a projected profit resulting from each of the methods (don't forget to factor in the "snowball" effect gained from guerilla marketing through repeat business and customer referrals - most traditional advertising venues are one-shot deals).

7. Subtract total cost from total profit.

This will give you a general idea. Usually, the guerilla marketing campaign will end up looking like a much better deal.

Learn more about guerilla marketing and how you can benefit from it at http://www.imguerillas.com. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chan_Peng_Joon

Guerilla Marketing Ideas For Identifying the Key Decision Makers

Here's some small business marketing advice for getting to the key decision-maker. This is often a tough group to get in front of. The issues are very common. "I don't know who the decision-maker is." "I get intimidated by dealing with a senior level person." "I don't have credibility with people at that level." "All her calls are screened." When we look at these challenges we find that they fall into three major categories.

First, you may be having difficulty identifying the decision-maker. Secondly, you may be blocked from getting to the person who can really make the decision. Third, many people feel anxious or uncomfortable when they're actually in front of a senior level decision-maker. We'll discuss strategies to help you in all three of these areas.

Let's talk about the first area, identifying the decision-maker. Think about the people at your prospective client as falling into one of two groups. The first is the decision-maker. This may be a single individual, or if you sell a variety of products, there may be multiple decisions-makers. The decision-maker is the one who can, as the name would indicate, actually make the decision to buy your product or use your services.

The second, and much larger group, includes supervisors, users of the product and technical experts. We'll refer to this second group by the acronym S(supervisors)-U(users)-TE (technical experts) or SUTEs. These are people who can influence the purchasing decision but don't actually have the authority to make the decision. That doesn't mean that they're not important. However, their needs are different than those of the decision-maker, and we will need to cultivate our relationships with them differently. It's important that we don't get confused about who does what. Those who claim they are the decision-maker often do so in the hopes that we won't circumvent the process by going over their heads. Others claim to be the decision-maker for ego reasons, or simply because they feel that they might be able to make the decision. Unless we're sure about the level of influence each individual has in the company, it's very hard to maximize our effectiveness.

The first step is to make sure that we fully understand what we mean by decision-maker. The bottom line is that the decision-maker is the individual who can make the decision without further approval. Think of it this way, when you submit your invoice, who will have to sign off on it in order for you to get paid? That person is the decision-maker. Never lose sight of that target. That's not to say that you want to just exclusively focus on influencing him or her. That would short sighted. Decisions are not made in a vacuum and any good decision-maker is going to want input from those who are likely to be impacted by the decision to buy your product or service.

How do we identify the decision-makers? One method that we will discuss in more detail later, is to purchase contact names from a list broker. An alternative to this is to hire a recruiting researcher to develop an organization chart on a company that's a top prospect. The executive search community has used this practice for many years and there's no reasons why you can't make it work for you.

If you're targeting specific industries you might want to consider using any of the larger contact list brokers. They do a good job of keeping their information current and the price is very reasonable. Like most marketing firms we keep a list of these firms close at hand.

It's also important to remember that the decision-maker is likely to change over time. Just because a person is the decision-maker today, doesn't mean that they'll play the same role the next time around. There are a number of factors that will influence this. For example, the more you're asking them to spend-the higher the decision will be made in the organization. Similarly, as business conditions become more difficult, the higher the decision is likely to be made. Another factor is your personal history with the client. If the company knows you or your firm they may feel more comfortable delegating the purchasing decision down in the organization. If you're an unknown entity, the opposite is often true.

One of our clients sells a training program to a large multi-national bank. When they started working with the bank, the decision to use their service was made at an extremely high level. As the company became more comfortable with the supplier the decision making process became less arduous and was delegated to more junior level people.

This presents its own unique challenges. How does one remain in contact with the senior level individuals when they're no longer directly involved in the approval process? New reasons or excuses need to be created in order to stay in touch. Developing these high level relationships is so difficult and time consuming that one doesn't want them to lapse due to lack of contact. However, if I just call to thank the high level executive for renewing the contract she'll think that I'm wasting her time. Once you waste the time of someone at this level it's very hard to regain your credibility. Thus, success with a client creates its own set of challenges. We'll discuss creative strategies to deal with this situation shortly.

As we mentioned there is a second group of individuals who play a variety of roles in the decision. These are the people we referred to as the SUTEs. Who are they?

The SUTEs have varying degrees of influence ranging from considerable to negligible. They don't decide who wins, but they do have a say about who can play. In effect they limit the number of participants. The SUTEs tend to focus on the product itself and evaluate it based on factors such as, ease of use, compatibility with existing systems, or will your product make them look good in the eyes of their superiors? By contrast, the decision-makers tend to evaluate products or services from a broad strategic perspective. Issues for them might include, lowering overall costs, impact on profitability or gaining market share.

Where should you focus your initial efforts? At the decision-maker or on the SUTEs? It is far better to aim too high than too low. Starting at the top and working your way down is always preferable to attempting to push the boulder up the hill. This strategy also is helpful to avoid getting blocked from dealing with the decision-maker.

It is very difficult for a SUTE to shut you out from communicating with the decision-maker if you've already had interaction with him or her. Ultimately, your strategy should be to gain the confidence of the SUTE and convince her that you are truly looking for a win-win outcome. We'll discuss the specifics on how you do this shortly.

On your pad of paper, underneath where you wrote down the name of the account, write down the name of the person who you believe is the decision-maker. If you're uncertain about who the decision-maker is, simply write down DM with a large question mark next to it. This will remind you that finding out who that person is should be high on your list of priorities. Next write down at least three SUTEs for this account. These should be people who can influence the decision, although that level of influence is likely to vary from person to person. Don't feel constrained to write down the names of only three SUTEs. This is a good opportunity to list as many SUTEs as you can.

Once you've listed the decision-maker and a minimum of three SUTEs, assign to each of them a level of influence. This is simply whether you believe that the person has a high, medium or low influence on the buying decision. Obviously the person you've chosen as the decision-maker will have a high degree of influence. The level of influence for your three SUTEs may vary considerably. Naturally, this is only a snapshot of what you believe to be their levels of influence at this moment in time. As you learn new information about these people, or as their roles change, you'll want to adjust your contact strategy accordingly.

Mark Satterfield provides small business marketing services to consultants and entrepreneurs. You can subscribe to his tip sheet on marketing strategies for small businesses by going to http://www.gentlerainmarketing.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Satterfield

Small Business Ideas on a Low Budget - A Little Short on Cash Building Your Business?

It basically will nickel and dime you to death. You really can't get ahead in your business if you have to spend a ton on advertising, especially when you are first starting out.

A very useful skill in online network marketing is being able to use your advertising dollars efficiently. This requires you to learn the strategies that enable

you to build your business on a budget.

Wouldn't it be nice if someone could show you basically step by step how you can build your home business without spending a ton of money while doing it?

Well, there is some good news.

My main problem in building my business was the lack of money. Now, I can build my business without hurting my bank account.

This has taken my business to the next level. I will continue to see growth in the future thanks to these revolutionary new concepts.

I recently came across something that I think will really help your business as it has mine.

The techniques I apply in my business are:

- effectively posting ads on free advertising sites

- setting up and using a blog to get continuous traffic

- using videos effectively to advertise

- creating a capture page that gets visitors to opt in

- submitting a press release to get prospects

- using a funded proposal to get money for advertising

Within two weeks of applying these techniques, I am now getting as many as 50 new qualified prospects per day.

The best part is that I did not spend much money while doing it.

Now I have the tools to grow my business without getting nickel and dimed to death.

A small business on a low budget is very possible.

Want to build a business on a budget? Check here... Build Any Business on a Budget Enjoy your new found wealth, Ronny Abraham r12lp17a@gmail.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ronny_Abraham