The Reality of Achieving Top Search Engine Ranking

This article is the reality of what you need to do to get to the best position you possibly can in the search engines – no hype or myths. You will finally know what it is you really need to do and what you need to do to develop a strategy to promote your website.

Let us first look at what it is that gets pages ranked in the top of the search engines. Search engines each have their own secret methods and algorithms for ranking websites with the overall mission to get the most relevant content in front of someone searching for particular keywords. There is an endless battle going on between the search engines to bring us the most relevant content and SEO experts trying to find loopholes to get their clients to the top.

The different strategies for search engine optimization fall into two categories; white hat strategies which involve working with the search engines to give them what they are looking for, and black hat strategies which involve loopholes and cheats for getting ranked at the top. Although black hat strategies can work for a period of time the clever guys at Google will soon find out what you are up to tighten the loophole and ban you from the search engine. This is known as being Google slapped and can take a long time to recover from.

Ranking factors are continually changing and to know which ones actually work you would have to be an inside man on the search engine’s top team. Below is a list of the ones that have been proven through the test of time and coincide with what the search engines are trying to achieve – “white hat strategies”.

o You need to have keyword rich, quality themed content. This does not mean a load of gobble packed with keywords. Quality means keyword rich content with well worded phrases and paragraphs linked to those keywords. The search engines are getting a lot better at reading pages and they are no longer looking for just keywords but entire meaningful content related to the keywords.

o Links to your site from other web pages. It is important to have links pointing to your website from other relevant websites. They will have no effect from non-related web pages. Although you will not lose marks for having bad quality links from link farms and other non related websites it will not aid your quest for SEO. Authority sites are the best form of links to have; sites that already rank high in the search engines containing your link will throw a lot of weight.

o Older sites will tend to rank higher because of the experience and durability factor, as long as they are active sites and updated they will rise in time. Remember that search engines want to deliver the most up-to-date relevant information so keeping it current is important.

o Links out from your website to authority sites will also show relevance and importance on your site. Be careful to check out the site you are linking to. Although you won’t lose points for bad incoming links, you will lose points for linking out to bad content.

o Keywords play a major factor. Some are more competitive than others. Start with the most specific and work your way into long tail keywords. Adding a state or town for local businesses is a great help.

o The most important factor in all these points is to have unique content. You need to have your links coming from non-duplicate sources because the search engines filter all the duplicate stuff so the links will not count.

The Myth Buster of SEO

A search engine optimization expert cannot assure you of a first page ranking, unless of course he works for the search engines and has control to put you there. All he can promise is his efforts in trying to get you on the first page. Don’t believe that an SEO expert can get you 100 Page 5 links for $100. A single link from a site this high up will probably cost you $50 a month. The higher the ranking website you want to link from, the more costly it will be.

There are only six ways to get quality links from authority sites:-

1. Buy them
2. Talk them into placing a link on their site
3. Get them enrolled in your affiliate program
4. Provide them with unique content they want on their sites
5. Get in early on a low Page ranked site and wait for the page to rise in the search engines.
6. Have such a great site that people will happily put links on their site and tell people about you.

Last myth of the day is the back link checker. Using the link command “link: yourwebsite.com” does not give you accurate results. Why? The search engines do not want you to know the truth about your links because the only people that would be interested in such a thing are SEO experts – the very same people that the search engines are in direct competition with.

A more accurate way of finding out how many links you have coming into your site would be typing this into your address bar: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=.yourdomain.+-+

This is the only way of finding out if your links have been truly indexed or not. You need to replace “yourdomain” with your own web URL leaving out the.com and www. In the first one. So What is the Best SEO Strategy

Make sure that your web pages are optimized and W3C compliant. Remove any excess code like JavaScript by storing it in external files. Make sure all the h1, h2 and h3 tags are relevant to your theme and the Meta tags also fit in with the content.

Create lots of content for your site on a regular basis, preferably daily so you end up with hundreds of relevant pages pointing links toward your site. You will eventually see your site rise up the search engines for the main and long tail keywords. When you have good content on your site, submit your site to DMOZ.

The last step will take time and will probably see more failure than success, but perseverance is the key. Contact authority sites in your niche and speak to them about putting a link on their site through an article or some other deal. The high ranking sites will need quite a lot of persuasion but will be worth the effort.

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SEO is an ongoing process that is best done slow and steady through writing articles and content for article directories and blogs. Not everyone has time to do this process which is why Adam set up his article writing services website to offer a complete SEO service through white hat search engine compliant strategies.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Email Marketing Mistakes

Many business owners who opt to try email marketing make the mistake of believing any type of email marketing is beneficial. This is simply not true; there are a number of mistakes business owners can make when they organize an email marketing campaign. Examples of these types of mistakes may include allowing promotional materials to be tagged as spam, not following up with promotional emails, not being prepared for an influx of customers after an email marketing effort and not marketing specifically to the target audience.

We will begin our discussion on email marketing mistakes with spam. Spam is a problem which is reaching endemic proportions. Each day Internet users are bombarded with spam from around the world. This may include a host of unsolicited emails which are promoting products or services the recipients may or may not be interested in purchasing. A critical mistake business owners can make in email marketing is to issue emails which are likely to be construed to be spam. This may result in the emails never reaching the recipient or the emails being deleted, without being read, by the recipient. Avoiding the potential of falling into the spam category is not very difficult. It basically involves ensuring your promotional emails contain more useful copy than blatant advertising. This will make it more likely for your emails to be taken seriously.

Another email marketing mistake often made is failure to follow up on promotional emails. Sending out emails to interested parties can be very beneficial but it is even more beneficial to contact these email recipients by other methods such as mail or telephone to answer any questions they may have and offer any additional information they may require. This type of follow up can be much more effective than simply sending an email and allowing it to fall into the abyss of an overcrowded email inbox.

Business owners may also run into the mistake of not preparing themselves for an influx of customers after an email marketing effort. The express purpose of email marketing is to generate increased interest in your products or services. Therefore it is critical for business owners to anticipate an increase in business and be prepared to accommodate this increased demand for products and services. This is important because potential customers who have to wait for products or services may seek out your competitors who are better prepared to provide them with products or services immediately.

Finally a critical mistake made by business owners is to not tailor an email marketing campaign to their specific target audience. This can be a problem because it may result in the email marketing being less effective. Business owners typically make this mistake because they fall into the trap of believing that it is more important to reach a large audience than it is to reach a target audience. You may blindly send your email marketing materials to millions of recipients and only generate a few leads. However, you could send the same email marketing materials to a smaller group of only a thousand recipients who all have an interest in your products and services and will likely generate more leads from this smaller email distribution list. It is not only important to send your message to members of your target audience but to also tailor your message to suit this audience. Creating an email message which will appeal to a variety of individuals is not as important as creating a message which will appeal to members of your target

audience. You will need an autoresponder system to market with email.

About The Author
Don Jeffre is the Owner of Don’s Sales, a computer repair business based in Vilonia, AR. USA. He owns and operates Really Unique Online Business Concepts, a blog dedicated to providing social media marketing and search engine optimization information. With over 14 years of industry experience, Don Jeffre shares his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog. Contact Don Jeffre at 501-796-2525, Skype: revenue4u, or Facebook

5 Keys to Creating Websites that Sell

5 Keys to Creating Websites that Sell

Your business website is essentially your storefront, business card and most significant marketing piece all rolled into one. How it affects your visitors and customers is then essential to your success. Provide a memorable experience and customers are sure to return time and time again. Lets take a look at five keys to creating a website that sells.

Key #1 Make your website interactive.

As the internet continues to grow and evolve its becoming more important to create a community around your business. To accomplish this you want to engage your visitors and customers. This can be accomplished a number of ways. You can:

* Provide a forum
* Post surveys or polls
* Enable visitors and customers to review or rank items. For example a How valuable was this article? question and a scale of 1 to 5 stars or a ranking from 1-10.
* Offer a blog and inspire comments and feedback
* Host contests and sweepstakes
* Publish video and audio content as well as written content. This gives users another way to access you and your personality.

Key #2 Make sure your website provides value.

People go online for a number of reasons. They go online to research a potential purchase, to seek solutions for a problem they are having and to be entertained. If your website provides all three; products, information, and entertainment then you are in tip top shape. The good news is your content can provide both the information and the entertainment and when written well, can also inspire purchases. Here are a few ideas to provide value for your customers and prospects:

* How to articles, videos, and audio
* Tips articles, videos, and audio
* Case studies
* Workbooks and reports
* Interviews with experts
* Product reviews

Key #3 Make sure your website is easy to navigate.

It takes a visitor about 20 seconds to make a decision about whether they are going to stay on your website or click away. If your site is laid out nicely, with products and services, information, prices, FAQs, and content easy to find then people are more likely to hang out – the longer they stay on your site the more likely they are to make a purchase or to return again.

To make your site easy to navigate consider:

* Keeping your site simple.
* Keep your pages uniform with the same options and appearance.
* If you have a lot of content, great! Use drop down menus and organize your content by topic for easier access.
* Offer a search function where users can search for products, services, or content topics quickly and easily.
* Provide a way for users to easily go back to previous pages. A back key is an option however if every page has the same options and drop down menus, including the ability to quickly return to the home page, a visitor will always be able to find what they need.
* Test your websites appearance on different browsers to make sure every visitor has a good experience.

Key #4 Make your website easy on the eyes.

Ever visit a website and the text was so small or the colors so incompatible that you could not read a word? Readability is critical to a selling website. Make sure:

* Your colors are easy on the eyes,
* Your graphics are not distracting
* And keep formatting like underlining, bold and italics to a minimum.
* Spacing between sentences and paragraphs is adequate
* Font size is large enough for people to read and font is easy to read

Key #5 Give them a soft sell.

People expect to be sold to and they are looking for it – they are wary. Instead of hitting website visitors with a hard sell, provide information, solve their problems and show them the benefits of your products or services. They will be much more receptive and appreciative.

Creating a website that sells requires a structured approach and a desire to create the best experience possible for your visitors. Once you have created your website, consider testing it and asking associates, friends and family for their opinion.

Don Jeffre 10 Things That Will Make Your Tweets Pop!

10 Things That Will Make Your Tweets Pop!

Every day we work at it: toiling away on our social media networks, doing what we can to reach our customers and broaden our client base. Twitter is one of the simplest platforms to use when reaching out to people, but you may not be tweeting to your best advantage. So, what can you do to make sure that people actually want to read your tweets and can get the most out of them?

Here are ten things that you should be doing with your tweets in order to make them stand out. The only way to reach out and grab the attention of your followers (and that of future ones) is to have some interesting things to say!

1. Be Unique

When you find an interesting article or video that you want to share with your followers, don’t just copy and paste the title into your tweet. Instead, try to put together your own unique spin on it and give them an idea of what is in store for them when they click on the link.

2. Keep It Short

Twitter limits your tweets to 140 characters, which may not seem like a lot. But really, you’re not supposed to be writing a book here. Keeping it short lets you give only the necessary information without a lot of fluff. Try to keep your tweets to around 120 characters. That way, followers can add their own opinions when they retweet.

3. Think of Your Tweets as Headlines

When writing articles, the sure-fire way of getting readers is by having an attention-grabbing headline. The same goes for your tweets. Make them easy to read and catchy in order to induce your followers to reply or click on the added link.

4. Use Interesting Facts

People love finding out new tidbits of information. These can be random statistics about a topic that is related to your own business. Giving your followers an interesting fact will be more likely to encourage them to click on a link than a boring title.

5. Tweet With Your Own Voice

Don’t tweet like an automaton. Readers want to know that there’s an actual person on the other end of those tweets, so write as you would speak. This gives your tweets a hint of your own unique personality, which followers love. 6. Get Your Timing Right

In order for your tweets to get noticed, you need to make sure you’re publishing them when your followers are the most active. Take note of when you get the most replies and retweets. This is when you should be the most interactive with your followers.

7. Add Value

There are a wide variety of reasons that people use Twitter, from how to collect stamps to the newest techniques in web design. Whatever your reasons for using Twitter, focus on tweeting about those specific topics. When you concentrate on one or two topics, followers will see you as a valuable source of information.

8. Be Interactive

When it comes to your followers, think quality and not quantity. Get them to interact with you, ask questions, and make sure you’re responding to their own questions too.

9. Add Helpful Links

Since tweets are limited, including a link will allow you to share more information. You can include links to your blog, an article, or your webpage. Use your tweet field to include an interesting way to lure them in.

10. Get Them Thinking

Your tweets should always leave your followers wanting more. You want your tweets to be thought-provoking because that’s how you get your readers to stay connected to you and want to interact with you even more.

What works for you in your tweets? Do you have any extra tips for enhancing the Twitter experience? Share with us! We’d love to know what works for you!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dawn Pigoni – Social Media Virtual Assistant http://BeSocialWorldwide.com | http://Twitter.com/dawntrenee

The Social Media Marketing world is important to online businesses and I bring value to other companies by offering social media marketing assistance to those small companies that don’t have the time, knowledge or manpower to keep up with social media marketing.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Low-Down on Local Places Listings

The Low-Down on Local Places Listings

Though the World-wide-web is often praised as the foundation for globalization, and links us across countries and continents, new developments have shown the relevance of emphasizing the local places listings and other local aspects of internet marketing.

How to SEO is Over. Local Places Listings are in. Facebook Check-in, the rise of Foursquare and Yelp, and the popularity of Google Places listings and Google Maps establish this point.

There are several main aspects to your local business listings: local directories and your business address; the content of your local listing and customer reviews.

Let us look at each of these in greater detail.

Local Directories and Address

Your address is vital as it indicates where you are positioned and which other places of business are in your area. Needless to say your location is crucial for prospects to find you and for the listing to be shown to potential buyers in your region. Your listing in local directories, such as the online telephone book or White Pages, Yelp for the US, the United kingdom and Germany, or TrueLocal for Australia, will automatically be recognized by search engine spiders and typically syndicated to other listings. By way of example Google Places draws on data from most of these directories and shows them in the final search results. Most of the time, local directory listings are created by other people, but they do need to be owner-verified. Thus, if you see your organization listed somewhere and you didn’t set-up the listing, don’t be anxious, simply go through the steps to claim the listing, or get in touch with the directory directly.

Content of Your Local Listing

The content of your local listing is critical because it demonstrates what types of products you provide. First, be selective when you choose your classification and the key terms for your business – these are the elements your ideal customers are searching for. In the listing itself you want to give your potential customers the right amount of info – neither too much nor too little. You may consider adding photographs and video clips if you have them available – the more your potential shoppers can discover about you, the better.

Customer Reviews

A truly impressive feature of local business listings is the ability to post a review. These days it is supported by most local directories and can either be great for the owner of a listing, or horrible. Nonetheless, potential prospects are much more likely to make contact with you if they find out that others have been pleased with your service. And on top of that, many times your listing will appear more frequently than others if you have more reviews. That suggests implementing a strategy to ask past and current customers to post a review is very important.

In the event that you’re receiving undesirable feedback, make certain you react to the critic as soon as possible – they may simply have a little difficulty that you can sort out swiftly and easily. And even if it’s a more substantial issue, you will know what your customers think of you and what you can do to improve your company.
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For more information on online marketing, including our monthly internet marketing newsletter visit http://www.eminentonlinemarketing.com.au

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

7 Unbreakable SEO Rules

7 Unbreakable SEO Rules
A SPN Exclusive Article By Nick Stamoulis (c) 2011

As a practice and industry, SEO is constantly evolving. Sites are seemingly at the mercy of the search engines, who usually can't be bothered to give the site owners a heads up before they update their algorithm. Every few weeks it seems like someone is heralding the death of SEO, but evolution does not equal demise. Over time, tactics and methods change to work inside the guidelines of the search engines and to meet the needs of the online user, but the core fundamentals of SEO have remained the same.

Here are 7 basic rules of SEO:

1. Understand User-Intent
Keyword research is the cornerstone of any SEO campaign. Understanding user-intent when conducting and selecting your keywords is critical to getting your SEO off on the right foot and helping the right audience find your site. For instance, are "gym shoes," "sneakers" and "tennis shoes," the same thing? For some consumers those three words are completely interchangeable. But if a tennis player were looking for a new pair of shoes, they would search using "tennis shoes" and expect a very specific result. It doesn't matter how you would search for your brand/products, it only matters how your target audience searches. Targeting the wrong keywords because you failed to understand the intent of the search means you'll miss out on potential traffic and customers.

2. Don't Rush Your Link Building
It is crucial for the search engines to see a diversified approach to link building that slowly grows over time. A blended approach demonstrates your commitment to white hat link building and building your online presence naturally. The search engines are very aware that they are playing a game with spammers and black hat SEO users, and they don't plan on losing. If you develop too many links too fast, even if they are good quality links, this can raise a red flag with the search engines and your site could be penalized.

3. Content is King
Content is anything that is public and shareable. This includes blog web page content, blog posts, articles, podcasts, videos, whitepapers and more. It is also the most important factor of a website's long term SEO success. Content should always be written for the end user, not for the search engines. You have to remember that the search engines are not going to be the ones purchasing your products or services, people are. Optimize your content so the search engines can find it, but don't forget that it has to be human friendly first.

4. Be Strategic, Not Spammy
This is especially important in regards to social media marketing and social SEO. If you really wanted to, you could create a hundred different Twitter profiles to promote your content through. But what kind of real value are you getting from those profiles other than a link? You don't have to tackle every aspect of SEO at once. Frankly, there just isn't enough time in a day to take on that much work upfront. Pick and choose your battles so you don't overdo it. Flooding the online market with low-quality SEO doesn't help build your brand or reputation.

5. SEO is Long Term
This is probably the hardest thing for those new to SEO to wrap their heads around. SEO is not a quick fix to your online marketing. No, you won't be ranking on the first page of Google for all your keywords by tomorrow, next week, or even next month. This is especially true if you recently launched your site. It takes a long time to build up your trust factor with the search engines.

SEO builds upon itself over time, but that doesn't mean that once you have reached the first page in the search engines that you get to pack it up and call it a day. The Internet is continually growing and evolving. If you want to stay at the top, you have to keep working for it. It doesn't take long for your site to slip down in the results pages if you abandon your SEO.

6. Follow Search Engine Guidelines
Google, Bing and Yahoo want you to do well with your SEO because it helps clean up their search results. A better SERP makes for a happier search engine user. Search engines are in the business of pleasing the customer, just like everyone else. If your site can't help them do that, you won't ever rank well. That's why every site owner and marketer has to read the Google and Bing Webmaster Guidelines. Consider those guidelines your SEO line in the sand. If they call something black hat, then treat it as such and avoid it. It can be very tempting to test out the black hat side of SEO, especially when you see your competition doing it and seemingly getting away with it. Just don't! Sooner or later the search engines catch on and your site will be penalized.

7. Integrate Everything
Just about all your online marketing (and offline marketing) efforts can be leveraged for SEO. One of the biggest mistakes you could make is keeping your actions in separate silos. SEO works best when it is incorporated into the mix, becoming an essential component of your online marketing. If your company has a large marketing department, don't segregate the SEO guy back to the IT department. Bring him aboard the marketing team and you'll achieve greater online success.
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Nick Stamoulis is a 'Boston SEO consultant' (http://www.nickstamoulis.com/seo-consultant.html) and President of 'Brick Marketing' (http://www.brickmarketing.com), a social media marketing management and 'SEO firm' (http://www.brickmarketing.com/ search-engine-optimization-firm.htm). With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by publishing daily posts to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal (or SEO Journal), and the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 140,000 opt-in subscribers. Contact Nick Stamoulis at 781-350-4365 or nick@brickmarketing.com
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Copyright © 2011 Jayde Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
SEO-News is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.

Veretekk Integration

Original Article Posted to Internet Tales and Tips

Read the words below from Tom Prendergast, the CEO and founder of Veretekk. This insight will allow you, the Google reader, to become more familiar with real marketing and search engine optimization techniques and strategies than you have known before.

I have been running Veretekk and it's predecessor for over 10 years. Prior to that I built online communities. Learning and teaching have been the constant throughout this Internet experience. People need good information to make good decisions. We make decisions everyday based on the information that is presented to us.

There are a lot of buzz words these days. Internet marketing, automated marketing, social marketing, integrated marketing, etc. Did you know Veretekk has been an integrated marketing system since it started back before the year 2000. For instance, ebooks, PDF fliers and classified ad submitters. Rss feed systems and 20+ Marketing Portals that carry your campaign out to the search engines. An emailing POP and autoresponder system to build legitimate lists and allow you to mail to them without fear of being accused of Spam.

We have also incorporated a version of Social networking internally since we first started. We just didn't know what it was called. And another major feature of Veretekk since it began has been the live web based conferences for our meetings, presentations and our trainings.

Interesting how Veretekk has quietly been doing this all these years while the rest of the Internet now seems to be catching up.

Enter Educational Marketing. The newest buzzword. With the continued massive advancements and new technologies, it is enough to make your head spin. But the way I see it, there are a few fundamentals that I doubt will change much in the coming years.

The quest for knowledge. The need for a mentor. The power of good content and information. Yes it is also necessary to build videos these days, because our culture has become media orientated and their attention is short and in demand. But the bottom line is, content.

Educational Marketing is something Veretekk has been doing within its members back office with the Veretekk training for years. That is about to change. The Veretekk conferencing system is about to open it's doors to the public with multi part presentations and seminars. These presentations will be generic in what they present. Some of the presentations you will find will be "How to determine a good autoresponder, what to look for and a thorough analysis as to all the different options you have out there. What is double opt in vs. single opt in. Deliverability rates, costs and the many functions each systems offers. Another example would be a seminar on how to get top SEO results illustrating top positions and showing what they are doing to get to the top. And yet another would be how to research and determine good keywords, purchasing domain names and how subdomains and title tags also play into the campaign. I think you understand this so far, right?

Related to Educational Marketing is a Veretekk exclusive called "Veretekk Integrated Marketing". Successful distributors would hold seminars in their specific company showing their success, their properties and the system they built incorporating Veretekk into it to achieve that success.

Education Marketing is a powerful new advertising concept that converts skeptical shoppers into informed buyers, intentional, and customer service driven education of your current and prospective clients for loyalty and longevity by direct response.

Companies find that Education Marketing is more effective than traditional "image" or "price and item" advertising. They help consumers do their "homework" by providing useful information about their product and category.

Stop selling. Start helping your customers buy.

The old "hard sell" faded long ago. Consumers avoid being sold. They embrace information that helps them buy the right products.

Build a relationship with your prospects

By providing useful information, you build a relationship of familiarity and trust. You become an expert resource instead of "just another vendor."

Veretekk's Education Marketing presentations will be available from our Veretekk presenters, specializing in helping you, our subscriber, by directing your prospects to your Veretekk site so they can attend through you to get needed information to generate new business. We'll convert your prospects into your business category and convert your "traditional advertising" into effective Education Marketing. All you have to do is promote the presentations, send them to your site to easily log in and we will do the rest. We will also give you the needed advertising copy for the presentations so you won't have to worry about that part either.

The broad appeal of education is inherent in both the learning process and the improved decision-making and performance an individual or business experiences as a result of learning. Education is recognized globally as a route to security and success. Good educators, whether they are individuals or organizations, are respected and heard.

But learning does not need to be a formal education process. Conveying knowledge can take place in a lot of forums: Whose opinion do you seek? Who taught you to ride a bike? Drive a car? Hit a baseball? Remember that moment? The gratitude? The subsequent success? Those are powerful moments. Maybe learning how to select the proper motor oil for your antique car or knowing how to pick an additive that gives your new product just the right appearance isn't quite as memorable, but you probably remember the person who taught you how.

As the names implies, educational marketing is a specific type of marketing where you engage potential customers and clients through education and consultation. It is about taking a leadership but also an expert, instructional, and training role in engaging customers and clients.

Educational marketing is often used in large businesses where a high degree of technical understanding is part of the customer-buying process. The computer hardware, computer software, Internet, medical, and pharmaceutical industry are large-scale examples of businesses that engage in educational marketing efforts. Even late-night infomercials engage in educational marketing when they demonstrate how to use new, innovative products.

How you perform as individuals is a direct reflection of their business. The individual-company relationship cannot easily be separated with the business.

Fundamentally, there are four basic ways potential customers and clients learn during the educational marketing process. They can read, listen, see, or do. They can read text information such as books, brochures, newspapers, ads, and other media. They can listen to a live or recorded audio program such as a speech, training, or presentation. They can see (watch) a video (such as instructional tapes, videos, and DVDs) or a live demonstration through a class, workshop, or seminar. Or they can practice on or work with the product itself such as product and software trial periods.

I believe powerful educational marketing tools include published books, audio programs, and videos. They are powerful because they are also the same tools used in credibility marketing. In fact, successful educational marketing efforts result in a dual benefit. Good educational marketing also translates to good credibility marketing.

I am an advocate of using published products as part of any educational marketing strategy. Even if books don't get read, they command the highest respect out of all the media available including newspaper ads, brochures, radio, CDs, videos, and TV. This stems from the academic and scholarly symbolism we attach to books to this day.

An author is often bestowed by the public with expert status on the subject they have written and published on. I often hear, writing and publishing a book is like getting a GED for the college degree. Depending on the subject and quality of your book, it may be like you getting a Bachelor's, Master's or even a PhD degree. The difference is that it takes far less time, money, and effort to write a book than to earn an academic degree. Becoming an author is a worthwhile investment for any high-achieving business professional, entrepreneur, consultant, and CEO.

Publishing a book or an audio program are excellent ways to engage in educational marketing. In addition to being great business symbols and calling cards, they help teach and spread your message. They empower your potential customers and clients with your expertise, knowledge, and wisdom.

In closing, I am a huge advocate of Educational Marketing. Large or small business, you will have to educate your customers and clients about your business, product, and service before you can sell them.

There is a misconception in service businesses that your marketing's most important function is to promote what you do, or in other words, your services. But the fact is, the most important function of your marketing should be to establish that you are knowledgeable, capable and can be trusted.

Most people don't do business with people they don't trust, especially when it comes to buying services. When they buy your services they are, in fact, buying the talents, skills, and personalities of YOU or your team of professionals.

Even if you have the lowest prices, if your prospect doesn't trust you, it will be difficult to close the sale. This is the basis for Education-Based Marketing.

Education-Based Marketing is a powerful marketing strategy that establishes trust and credibility using educational messages. It is the direct opposite of traditional marketing, which uses selling-based messages.

People are tired of hearing worn-out, old sales pitches. Barriers shoot up the moment you begin delivering a sales pitch. In contrast, people sit up and listen when you share important facts and expert information that help them make a good buying decision.

Determining Your Educational Message
Imagine stepping into the mind of your prospect and listening to their mental conversation at the very moment they decide to begin shopping for your services. What questions are they asking themselves? The secret to attracting qualified prospects early in the sales cycle is to find out the answers to those questions and use them as the basis for your educational marketing message.

For instance, suppose you are a marketing consultant. Perhaps your prospects are asking themselves, "How can I market my business at the least cost?" or "Why are my marketing efforts not succeeding?"

Now that you know what your prospect's questions are, now you can craft a marketing message that answers those questions. In the process of answering those questions you'll be building a relationship of trust with your prospect.

How To Package Your Educational Marketing Message to Generate Qualified Prospects
Once you have developed your educational message you need to package it and offer it for free in exchange for your prospect's contact information. This is critical. Effective marketing is not just a matter of getting the word out but more importantly, getting a response back.

You can package your educational message in a format your prospect will respond to such as a written special report, an audiocassette, a video tape, an email course, a CD-ROM, a live seminar, or even a toll-free phone message.

How To Deliver Your Educational Marketing Message
Now that you have developed and packaged your education message, you should develop strategies and processes to give it away. To do this you must first identify all the "customer touch points" in your business and offer your educational message at each one of those touch points. Common customer touch points are your business phone, website, advertising, publicity, networking conversations, public speaking events, social networking sites Facebook, Youtube, Skype, etc.

For instance, instead of ending your business phone conversations like this, "Well John, thanks so much for calling and if you ever need my services just let me know." End your phone conversation with an offer like this, "Well John, thanks so much for calling. By the way, I've just developed a great special report that talks about the top 10 tax breaks for people that set up a small business. If you'll give me your address I'll send it to you free of charge. Would that be okay?"

You've just accomplished three very important things with this telephone strategy, (1) you've generated goodwill by offering a valuable free gift, (2) you got your prospect's contact information so that you can continue to market to him, and (3) you now have a reason for a follow up phone call after he receives and has read the special report.

Resist the Urge to Give a Sales Pitch
It's easy to set your services business apart using Education-Based Marketing because most of your competitors are using selling-based marketing. The beauty of Education-Based Marketing is that you give prospective clients what they want, information and advice -- and remove what they don't want, a sales pitch.

By offering helpful advice, you establish yourself as an authority because prospects see you as a reliable source of information. Be careful not to give in to the urge to include a sales pitch with your educational message. This will only erode the trust you have established and make you the same as your competitors in the eyes of your prospect.

Integrated Marketing Communications
Definition: A management concept that is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.

Integrated marketing means not just looking at one element of your marketing plan and expecting results that are independent from your other marketing components. An integrated marketing mindset means that you are massively mindful of the marketing you are doing across the board to ensure there is cohesiveness in the flow of information, and to best leverage your message for maximum return on investment.

Here are four simple tips to building an integrated marketing plan:
1. Buy domain names (URLS) for any call to action you might want to use in any of your marketing plans. Good Domains like www.itsgoodbusiness.net, www.itsgoodbusiness.com.au or www.directorsclub.net to support any advertising you will run to generate leads.

2. Make sure every mailing you use has a specific call to action that will drive lead generation on the Web. For example, a flier that has a call to action, such as, "Market conditions and the current economy makes owning a small business a powerful tax credit. Put $1000 of dollars in your pocket before you even make your first sale. Go to www.itsgoodbusiness.net to get your custom weekly market report." This will be much more valuable than a simple "just-listed postcard" with no traffic driver.

3. Classified ads. I know-you are dying to ask, "Aren't newspapers dead?" The answer is no, especially if you use it as a specific driver in your Web strategy. Imagine having different calls to action that go to specific subdomains on your website to create interactivity and lead generation. Ask your local newspaper what they charge for a simple classified ad. You might be pleasantly surprised how inexpensive this strategy can be. Not to forget also using online classifieds, Craigslist, etc.

4. Stealth marketing on Facebook. The ads on the right-hand side of your profile or newsfeed screen are ads you can create and run. This is where you have the opportunity to do stealth marketing and, even better, select specific target markets that reach those people using Facebook. Imagine having an ad that says, "Is your job secure in the current economy? Click here for help." This, in turn, could take them to a specific site that addresses this problem, such as www.itsgoodbusiness.net. (P.S. - This applies for Craigslist.com, Google, etc.).

Note: When driving traffic to your website from any marketing channel to a specific form, make sure these leads go into a specific e-mail follow-up autoresponder that supports the message and connects to them.

Butch Hamilton
Director of Marketing Veretekk

Posted by Don Jeffre
Veretekk Platinum Member