Marketing Tools Part 9 of How exactly to Write a Marketing Plan

There certainly are a lot of tools available for marketing, and it's vital that you match the advertising tools you utilize to your target clients. For instance, it wouldn't make sense to dress a scholar up in a costume and also have them dance on the corner of the road to market your organization, unless your dancing scholar was at a conference of your target audience.

AdWords and Pay Per Click (PPC)

Google, and other se's such as Yahoo, offer online advertising. When a user sits at their computer and types in a phrase, Google gives them the outcomes. For the people that have covered advertising, if the search phrase is triggered, an ad shows up. If the person clicks on that paid ad, the advertiser is charged.

There's a lot to understand with AdWords to create them do the job. You need to research the search phrases that are relevant to your company. Some search phrases are expensive of money and also have high competition. You may want to pay a lot per click to obtain high on the set of "sponsored links." Secondly, you need to monitor the results. Some individuals have made careers out of AdWords consulting.

Pros: The money cost, technical skill required, and time to implement are average.

Cons: To get good at this technique, you should read a lot and practice.

Articles

Articles are written bits of information, like essays. It is possible to write articles and publish them on your own website, other appropriate websites, magazines, and on websites that focus on expert articles.

Writing articles gives you the chance to present yourself being an expert in whatever you write. Articles offer you some credibility. Also, if you post articles on your website, you increase your content and raise the likelihood that people will find your website.

Pros: Articles written by you in areas you're an expert in do not require much research, plus they don't cost much, if anything. It generally does not take a lot of technical skill to create, and your Internet skills need only be average.

Cons: You must write. Some people do not like to write.

Blogging

A blog is a "blog." The idea is that you post articles or mini-messages regularly, and folks subscribe to your online log. Then they read what you have posted.

Pros: Blogs are cheap and do not require a ton of research.

Cons: Blogs can be time consuming, and you need to know a bit more about computers than you do for writing articles.

Brochures

Give away brochures at conferences and meetings to individuals who might be thinking about your services. Brochures list your services and testimonials and encourage visitors to call you or head to your website.

Pros: Brochures are nice to hand out to potential clients. They tend to lend credibility to your organization.

Cons: Brochures could be expensive.

Business cards

Business cards are a must. Business cards are cheaper, and simpler to handle, than brochures. You can give them out to more people.

Pros: Business cards are cheap and do not require a great deal of research to make.

Cons: All companies need business cards.

Dancing college student in a costume

About the only way I could see this tool being useful is in the event that you specialize in a niche, like writer support, and you go to a conference of writers and have your college student decorate like a pen. I pretty much just put this tool in here for the humor, and because there's lots of liberty statues dancing on the street corners these days.

Pros: Minimal research and time on your part is required.

Cons: This can get expensive.

Direct mail

Direct mail is what many people refer to as junk mail. This is only useful when you can get a list that's relevant to your organization. Direct mail is expensive, and if you do the envelope stuffing or labeling yourself, it is usually time consuming too.

Pros: Little research is required. Minimal computers skills are essential.

Cons: This is expensive and some folks are offended by spam.

Email

Email campaigns come with a host of problems unless you only market to individuals who have voluntarily subscribed to your list. Sending email out to individuals who have not subscribed to your list is a good way to get yourself banned from ISPs and make it so normal correspondence won't go through.

Pros: That is cheap.

Cons: This annoys people. This takes a large amount of computer savvy. You should do tons of research to make sure you don't violate any laws.

Google Maps

If a person searches on a term and then puts a location next to it, Google responds with a list of businesses that are close to the location. This is an easy task to set up and might generate a few calls for you each month.

Pros: This is free.

Cons: This takes just a little bit of time to set up, and you also need to do a little keyword research and have a small amount of computer knowledge.

Newsletter

Newsletters should be delivered regularly to people who have subscribed to your email list. Your newsletter can contain articles which will help your readers, services or services you will offer, stories of interest, pointers to new technologies you've discovered, and many other things.

Pros: That is cheap.

Cons: You must write. If you don't like to write, this may not function as best tool for you.

Press Releases

A press release is a written announcement that's given to members of the press. Pay attention to your audience if you use press releases. You can find press release services that distribute the releases to different companies.

Referrals

Just ask your current clients to refer you when appropriate. It is possible to consider a referral fee.

Schwag

Give aways can be as inexpensive as pens and will get really expensive, like leather bags.

Social media

Social media is actually websites that normal people may use and quickly publish blurbs, videos, and pictures, for other people to easily access. Social media is used for many stuff, including planning parties, keeping the grandparents up-to-date with pictures of grandbabies, and connecting with old friends.

A number of the top social media marketing websites are:

YouTube.com for posting videos

Flickr.com for sharing pictures

Facebook.com for reconnecting with old friends, sharing pictures, planning parties, doing offers

LinkedIn.com for maintaining your business connections

Twitter.com for connecting with friends and people with little, tiny messages and links

Voice mail

Change your voice mail to add a short version of your elevator speech or a quick set of your services.

Web site

Your website can be as simple as an online brochure or it can host products that you sell, useful articles for the clients, books, classes, and calculators.

Website optimization

The gist of website optimization could be learned in a weekend, however the techniques change constantly.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO) is the procedure for making sure a website follows all of the rules established by the primary search engines, such as Google, so the website is indexed and also possible. The task of search engine optimisation is good for the web site, the search engines, and folks surfing the web.

Hopefully that is done when your internet site is made and is maintained as your online site changes.

Gwen Nicodemus is really a freelance engineer/writer and homeschooling mom. Visit her website, Notion Nexus