Sunday, December 28, 2008

Niche marketing - marketing strategy

By Marc Frieden

A single industry of any type is far to large for any individual business to tackle all on its own. Even the largest corporations cannot cover a whole market by themselves. This is where niche marketing becomes a businessperson's best friend for making potential much more manageable. If you develop your own niche marketing strategy, then your business will offer specialized goods and services, and you will be able to target specific niche groups of prospective clients.

But what does niche marketing actually mean for your own unique business? By understanding your own business niche, it means that you gain the capability for mastering your own special corner of the marketplace. Your niche marketing strategy will bring about a better ability for catering to specific customer interest so that you can capitalize upon it. You'll have your own unique niche in the business world in which you will stand out the most.

What do you need to make this niche work? It's all well and good to choose a niche marketing strategy, but it's another to recognize what is involved to make the theory a reality. You've identified your strengths and what you enjoy, now it's time to assess them with customers in mind. How can you use this information in a way that will make customers buy something? To answer this question, look at your potential customers. What do they already buy, and what are they likely to buy in the future?

How is my business most effective? What are my special skills and strengths? When answering this question, go over both your own abilities, and the abilities of your company as a whole. List your strengths and skills. You may find this process to be quite enlightening. It includes things that you've always known, but may not have actually recognized for their full potential.

What do you and your other team members enjoy doing? The more you like what you're doing, the more you'll naturally be able to dedicate to its success. If you don't like your business niche, there may not even be profit available, because you'll be held back on a subconscious level. To begin answering this question, one of the best places to look is at your hobbies and the things that you already do for enjoyment. Instead of only working with your dreams - which may or not be what they expect them to be in reality - look at what you've already tried and already liked. These are the tried, tested, and true activities for you, and are those to which you're most likely to motivate you the most. This passion can only translate to added profit. Not only will this make your company a more enjoyable venture, but it will give you endurance and focus that you may never have known you had. This level of stamina and motivation is vital to starting up a fresh company, or changing a business that already exists.

What do you need to make this niche work? It's all well and good to choose a niche marketing strategy, but it's another to recognize what is involved to make the theory a reality. You've identified your strengths and what you enjoy, now it's time to assess them with customers in mind. How can you use this information in a way that will make customers buy something? To answer this question, look at your potential customers. What do they already buy, and what are they likely to buy in the future? - 15790

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Winning a Promotion in Bad Economic Times

By Robin Maxwell

In difficult times, when both small and large businesses are laying off employees, many of us worry about holding on to our jobs.

What we probably should be thinking about instead is how to get our next promotion. After all, even in the worst of times, there are opportunities available to those prepared to take advantage of them. So, try these methods to help you move up the career ladder. You may be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you get results.

1. Be absolutely certain you know what is expected of you and the factors will be in evaluating your readiness for promotion. If in doubt, ask and observe.

2. Do everything you can to ensure the success of your boss. And, share the credit for your successes with him/her.

3. When you bring your boss problems, always bring solutions. In fact, make a reputation for yourself as a problem solver.

4. Be the kind of employee every manager wants; reliable, helpful, goal-oriented, and low maintenance.

5. Seek out the toughest challenges and projects.

6. Good cheer and a positive attitude can take people a long way in the workplace. Never engage in gossip or criticism of colleagues. No exceptions.

7. Accept praise and criticism evenly.

8. Continue to improve your skills and develop new ones. Work especially hard on acquiring valuable skills your colleagues do not have.

9. Organize yourself to maximize your output. Good organizational skills will be noticed, and will help you accomplish more.

10. Be good to your co-workers. Help, support, and mentor them whenever possible.

Remember that even if there is no way to move up in your current organization, you never know when an opportunity might present itself. Your task is to be ready when that opportunity comes, be it in your current workplace or in another. - 15790

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Baby Phat Rush Card - Review

By Dan Moskel

The Rush card also known as the baby phat rush card is a prepaid debit card. It was created by Russell Simmons a co founder of the hip-hop record label Def Jam.

The baby phat prepaid card works this way; you make a deposit on your card, then you can use your card to make purchases, then the funds to pay for those purchases are deducted from your card. The card offers 100% guaranteed approval.

There is no chex systems check or a credit check. The rush card comes as a black card and the baby phat rush card is a pink card.

This card does give you free direct deposit. To use this you will only have to fill out a form and turn it into your employers' payroll department.

Then you checks will be deposited into your rush card. You will still get a breakdown on your hours and how much the deposit was.

With this card you receive free online account access. You can also access your cash at over 800,000 ATM's.

You card can be used to make purchases over the phone and online. In addition your rush card allows you to write physical paper checks.

To use this feature you visit the website and input the person or business that you want to write a check to. This includes name, amount of payment and address.

Then a physical check in your name is sent to the payee. This is a great way to pay your bills, no more buying money orders.

With this service and direct deposit you will also save money by not having to pay for check cashing fees.

However, we do not recommend the rush card. This is because of the number of fees they have that other prepaid cards do not carry.

An example is the convenience fee. This is a fee you are charged every time you use your card.

The convenience fee is $1.00 with a monthly maximum of $10.00. However you will be charged a convenience fee for every purchase you make in a month.

You will have to wait till the end of the month and full calendar month later to have your extra charges refunded to your account.

That can end up being a full 2 months before you are refunded. This is unbelievable especially because many of us use are card more than ten times in a month.

Furthermore to be charged for every purchase you make seems outrageous. Then to have to wait for a full calendar month to expire before you are issued your refund is unbelievable.

Also to use bill payment you must enroll which is $2.00 then every check you write is another $1.00. There are other prepaid credit cards that offer free bill pay and no fees.

The rush card claims there are no hidden fees however that seems to be a very contradictory statement. Especially when you are forced to read the fine print to discover that you will be charged one dollar for every purchase you make.

In sum, look at some other prepaid cards. They have fewer fees and better benefits for being a card holder. - 15790

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Cool Ways to Make Money With the Internet

By Dave Thomas

You obviously have the goal of creating an income online, so you need to be aware of some of the realities of getting started in the internet world. Plenty of dishonest people out there are ready and willing to take your money and give you worthless internet income programs in return.

If you really want to learn to create income on the internet - in a way that creates a relatively passive income you can enjoy from any location - you need to master the art and science of ranking web pages high on Google. There is no better, more passive source of web traffic.

But again, you'll need to be on the alert because the same scam artists who will sell you other programs will also sell you bogus information about geting free traffic from Google. They buy large amounts of Google advertising trying to convince you to buy their "free traffic program." They're skilled marketers, and they know how to push your buttons.

Is it possible to know if a marketer's claims are legitimate? Yes - you know they're a straight shooting person if you can perform Google searches and find them high in the natural listings. Are you aware of what I mean by the "natural listings?"

Every time you perform a Google search, you're going to see two different kinds of listings. On the left hand side of the page you'll see what are called the organic listings - they can't be bought or sold - you only get there by knowing how Google works (and how to work Google).

On the other hand, if you see one of the sponsored links on the right hand side of the search results page offering information about free traffic, you'll know it's not worthwhile. Although Google's paid search program is a great way for savvy marketers to get traffic to their websites, it's no place for people trying to teach you how to conquer Google.

However, do you see how ridiculous it is when a person who wants to sell you a program about getting free traffic has to buy the traffic to tell you about it? If they don't know how to land the free traffic themselves, how can they claim to teach you to do it?

So, when seeking a mentor who can show you how to make money on the internet by getting free traffic from Google, make sure they can prove their knowledge by showing how they themselves are getting free traffic from Google. Choosing the right mentor will be the difference between relatively quick success and possible endless frustration. - 15790

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How To Design An Affiliate Website

By Anson Hall

Have you ever thought of making money online. As a matter of fact, there are lots of opportunities to make money online. One of the ways is to start your own business in the field of affiliate marketing.

There are some marketers who will try to promote the affiliate products by posting the affiliate links on places such as online forum. However, it will be a lot better if you can create your own affiliate website.

The design of your website is very important. You will need to create a website which converts. Otherwise you will not be able to make money with affiliate marketing. What you have to do is to consider some practical issues when you are creating your affiliate site.

#1 First of all, you will need to search for the products you will promote. You can make the decision based on your hobby or interest. However, you should make sure that you will be promoting four to five products in your site. To this end you may want to search for a few affiliate programs which promote similar products.

#2 The next step is to think about the main theme of your website. You should never create a site without a theme. A general site may not covert well. Of course the theme of your website should be totally related to the products you have chosen.

#3 The contents of you website should be related to your niche. If you are creating a site on wedding, you will need to make sure that the articles you post on your site are relevant to this topic.

#4 You do not need to make the design of your site very fancy. However, you will need to make the articles easy to read. It is extremely important to make the site easy to navigate.

#5 Consider hiring a ghost writer if you do not have time to write the article. Of course you may also need to hire a writer if you are not the kind of person who can write very well. Yet, you must give enough instructions to the writers when you are hiring one.

#6 One last piece of suggestion is that you will not join too many programs at a time. It takes time for you to promote an affiliate program. Unless you can outsource all the work, you will not have to time to promote thirty at the same time. - 15790

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