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Get Viral For Painless Marketing
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Angela Booth
angelazip.com.au
Get Viral For Painless Marketing
http://
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Summary: Permission and viral marketing promise simple and
effective ways to market your business painlessly.
Category: Small Business
Words: 450
Get Viral For Painless Marketing
Copyright (c) 2003 by Angela Booth
When you run your own small business, you're often just too busy
to market your business effectively. You may put off marketing
altogether until your order book is almost empty.
The secret to avoiding disaster is to craft a realistic marketing
plan: a plan which takes into account your time, your budget, and
most important of all, your emotional makeup.
I hit upon this secret because for years I thought I was plain
rotten at marketing. I wanted instant results, didn't get them,
and so avoided marketing altogether. You can imagine how
successful that strategy was; I learned to love rice and baked
beans.
Finally I made a deal with myself: I would create a new marketing
plan, focusing solely on those marketing activities which I
enjoyed, and which were easy to implement. If I felt an activity
I didn't enjoy was vital, I'd outsource it. I decided to
outsource telemarketing, for example, because I only have to
think about making a cold call for my palms to sweat. I did a
deal with a friend: she'd make cold calls for me, and in exchange
I'd write news releases for her business.
If you'd rather do your own dentistry than market, investigate
these two options: "permission marketing" and "viral marketing".
Both these activities cost little, yet can get big results.
Permission marketing basically means that a customer has given a
business permission to contact her with news about the business,
special offers, and so on.
Permission marketing is easy to implement. In its simplest form,
you send out an email newsletter to your customer database once a
month. The newsletter contains news, helpful information and
small adverts for your products and services. If someone has
bought from you, they like what you have to offer and will buy
from you again. A newsletter shouldn't take more than a couple of
hours of your time once a month, and you should see a rise in
sales almost immediately.
Permission marketing works online and offline. Viral marketing is
more of an online marketing tool.
In viral marketing, the business creates a free product of some
kind, which it hopes that its customers will send to others, with
the business's marketing message intact.
Think in terms of something which you can offer free at your Web
site. Information products are ideal. Consider electronic
reports, ebooks, and e-courses. Alternatives include
screensavers, free software, and images.
Just make sure that your business name and contact details are
prominent, and then encourage your Web site visitors to share the
items with others.
If you hate marketing, accept this fact about yourself. Then find
painless ways to market.
***Resource box: if using, please include***
Veteran multi-published author and copywriter Angela Booth crafts
words for your business --- words to sell, educate or persuade.
E-books and e-courses on Web site. FREE ezines for writers and
small biz: http://www.digital-e.biz/
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