When you first begin your business, everything is fine and dandy. It’s like bringing home the new baby from the hospital. Everyone visits to see the new baby. Everyone thinks the baby is cute and wants to hold it. Everyone “oohs” and “aahs”. After a few months though, the newness wears off. Now it’s time to get down to raising this new baby and preparing him or her to be successful for their role in life.

A new business suffers about the same type of beginning. You talk the decision over with your family and involve them in hearing your initial business plans. Everyone gets excited and tells you to “go for it.” Everyone agrees to help out and the whole house is buzzing about with visions of big bank deposits dancing in their heads. After a few months though, the newness wears off. Since you probably haven’t made any money, family members may grow tired and discouraged. They begin degrading your motives for opening the business in the first place. They may even embarrass you and make you feel like a total failure without even realizing it.

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The word “Press Release” seems to scare most people to death. On top of that — not many people take the time to even think of writing their own Press Release. We hope this brief article will help clear up some of the mystery’s surrounding this simple form of marketing.

The first thing you have to remember is that a Press Release is a “news” item. It needs to “inform” people, NOT sell them something. For example, you are reading this report because you want to learn something that will BENEFIT YOU. You aren’t reading it just so you can buy something else.

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Thou shall not overlook the POWER of the search engines! After all - where do over 80% of Internet users look before finding the web site of their choice? Here are 10 tips that will help you on your journey toward
search engine heaven!

#1 -
~~~
Thou shall not -

Try to trick the search engines with techniques such as invisible text. This will only make your journey a difficult one. Try to work together with thy search engine brother, and HELP them to find your web site’s useful content.

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So often we forget that our customers are our boss. I think that I discovered one significant reason why most of us fall into this “rut.”

The day we began our business we were as happy as could be. The customer was king! We didn’t have many orders so we bent over backwards to make sure that all our customers were happy. Some of us might have even gone overboard and “went into the hole” just because we were so overjoyed that we had received a customer
order! What a thrill!

But, later on, we became much more busy. We were putting in long hours, neglecting family and social life and realizing that being in business does have its gloomy side. While we tried our best to give each customer personal attention, some customers couldn’t be more pleased if we hung ourselves with a new rope!

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Do you want leads or do you want to get actual orders right away? Again, be explicit when communicating your objective to your reader. Do you simply want them to fill out a coupon in order to receive more information, or do you want them to enclose a check or money order for a specific amount? Regardless what you want them to do, the choice is yours.

Some products are better sold on a two-step basis, or what is generally called “lead generation” campaigns. Here are the two steps that take place.

>> First Step: The ad explains brief info about the product and asks reader to write or call for additional information.

>> Second Step: Readers who respond receive sales literature which encourages them to place an order for the product.

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1. Mail to your customers more often. If you are now mailing
four times a year increase the frequency of your mailings to size or eight times. If you increase your mailings by 25% you should
increase your sales by at least the same percentage.
2. Use a P.S. on every direct mail letter. The P.S.S is second in importance only to the headline. 3. Don’t forget to thank your customers for their orders by
enclosing a message with the orders…and enclose another
merchandise offer with the “thank you” message.
4. Vary your mailing format - use self-mailers, Lettergrams,
HTML email letters, envelope formats, catalogs…change your format so that prospects don’t get in the habit of recognizing your
mailing piece.
5. Ride on the coattails of current events (energy crisis,
elections,, cold winters, etc.) When inflation increases, have an “inflation-cutting” special, etc. 6. Look for other products you can successfully sell to your
customers.

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Most firms turn over the entire problem of advertising to advertising agencies. This practice generally costs the advertiser nothing because the agency receives a commission from the medium in which the advertisement appears. The medium returns to the agency 15 percent of the cost of space sold to the advertiser. With this return the agency can offer its clients other services in addition to placing advertisements, and still make a profit.

Agencies are often equipped to handle every phase of the Program. They may help with research, prepare the advertisements and select the media in which the ads are to be run, and they may also assist in other phases of marketing and even in -product development. However, the primary duty of an advertising agency is to suggest the best media in the best combination for the advertiser.

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A Trademark may be a word, symbol, design or combination word and design, a slogan or even a distinctive sound which identifies and distinguishes the goods or services of one party from those of another. Used to identify a service, it can be called a service mark. In general, throughout this pamphlet the term trademark will refer to both trademarks and service marks. Normally, a trademark for goods appears on the product or on its packaging, while a service mark is usually used in
advertising to identify the owner’ s services.

A trademark is different from a copyright or a patent. A copyright gives protection for an artistic or literary work and a patent gives protection for an invention.

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You may be in Mail Order, Direct Mail, or you may be a local merchant with 150 employees; whichever, however or whatever—you’ve got to know how to keep your business alive during economic recessions. Anytime the cash flow in a business, large or small, starts to tighten up, the money management of that business has to be run as a “tight ship.”

Some of the things you can and should do include protecting yourself from expenditures made on sudden impulse. We’ve all bought merchandise or services we really didn’t need simply because we were in the mood, or perhaps in response to the flamboyancy of the advertising or the persuasiveness of the salesperson. Then we sort of “wake up” a couple of days later and find that we’ve committed hundreds of dollars of business funds for an item or service that’s not essential to the success of our own business, when really pressing items had been waiting for those dollars.

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There are many schools of thought on how to write a successful direct-response ad, letter or brochure. Some say you need to be subtle, some say be harsh, some say be round-about, some say be direct. There is one technique, though, that is coming to the forefront as one of the most successful to employ.

Info-Loading is the style of overloading an advertisement with information about your product or service. The theory is, you give the customer more information than they’d ever want on your product/service, and they’ll feel more confident about you and what you offer. Also, the customer that actually reads through it all is the one who’s interested enough to buy what you offer. The good news is, it works!

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