Never underestimate the power and importance of branding. It’s perhaps the most important aspect of any business. It goes beyond product, distribution, pricing, or location. The brand defines the business in the world. It’s the name that identifies the business to itself and the wider marketplace.

A model may be beautiful, but without a name (her own personal brand), she will be “the girl in that picture”. Think about it; where would Norma Jean be without Marilyn Monroe, or who would think of Coca-Cola as just a manufacturer of soft drinks?

The Importance Of Branding: Identifying Your Brand.

Identifying your own brand will provides an obvious sign to customers and competitors alike, a name that is linked to product or service that distinguishes it from anything else. Harry may have a hobby shop, but advertising this as “The hobby shop run by Harry just down the road a bit” is not really very effective is it?  People will have trouble connecting with something that’s vague like this and are less likely to visit and therefore not recommend the hobby shop. It may well be the best hobby shop around, but who would know it?  A customer looking up Harry’s hobby shop on the internet will find it easier and more memorable if had a short name that could be Harry’s particular brand name too. Something like “Harry’s Hobby House” for example. Any potential customer can then refer others to Harry’s shop by name, exponentially increasing the potential advertising opportunities to referrals too.

Developing Your Brand.

Developing your brand takes a lot more than choosing a catchy and memorable name and placing ads all over the place. A brand is far more than a sequence of words attached to a particular product. A successful brand is a psychological “trigger” that needs to make a consumer react in a specific way when they think of that brand.

Returning to the soft drink scenario a second. Let’s think of someone who enjoys a cola, which they consider refreshing on a hot day; would the think of a cold cola, or an ice-cold Coke? The Coca-Cola Company has spent 100 years developing their brand of cola as a refreshing beverage and a formative representation of a market segment.  Coca-Cola has taken advantage of a mix of direct marketing, give-away techniques, and multi-product cross-branding to achieve maximum brand recognition and visibility. It has expanded outside its immediate competitive market into sponsoring sporting events and many other things. These are outside their direct market, but cleverly people could be encouraged to buy a coke as a means of refreshment when watching or taking part in such events.

Importance Of Branding: Brand Loyalty.

Brand loyalty is an important part of developing a brand. Consumers usually have a choice of products in a specific niche market, so a successful company will find ways to have consumers returning to them. This may be to buy more of the product or using the services rather than going to a competitor.

The brand loyalty can be built up by offering money off coupons or other incentives in the same way the large supermarket chains do to draw consumers into the store. This potential “loss leader” technique is designed to entice the person in where they will buy more products alongside the discounted offers at a higher profit margin. Sometimes, in exchange for discounts and grocery coupons, you may be asked to fill in a short survey on your own buying habits and average spending amounts. You will be asked to provide contact information so they can market directly to you if you have no objection to this. This information helps tailor advertisements and better-focus future promotional efforts.

When the customer has been “drawn in”, a successful brand loyalty campaign will result in higher sales volume. Loyal customers tend to be less sensitive to price changes (within reason, of course) and less sensitive to competitors’ incentives.

Studies have shown that 5 times as much is spent to gain a customer than to retain one. That’s 5 times as much you could spend on other things.

If you work in your own home business, in network marketing or as a coach for example, your brand will be YOU. A brand is the identification of your business and what it does. With the importance of branding, you should put in some effort to develop it, which if done well, can mature into a successful and profitable asset for you.

If you’re thinking about working from home and want to use the internet to do this, you will need to ask some questions. The 3 questions about internet marketing talked about in this post require answering and I hope that these answers are indeed covered here.

Internet marketing can be exciting, challenging, and it can also be very confusing. It’s going to make or break your internet business career, so you need to find out how to do it the right way. Many people who depend on internet marketing surprisingly don’t have a full grasp of the essentials of internet marketing.

In fact, many internet entrepreneurs waste a lot of time, energy, and don’t build up momentum because they haven’t taken the time to learn and understand internet marketing. Don’t let this lack of understanding damage your own income potential.

So you can understand internet marketing better and how it can affect your business you must know the answers to these three important questions:

1. What Is Internet Marketing?
2. What Is The Cost Of Internet Marketing?
3. What Is The Benefit of Internet Marketing?

The Answers To The Three Questions About Internet Marketing.

• What Is Internet Marketing?
  Marketing is really rather simple. It’s communication about an idea, product, service, or organization. Marketing covers everything including advertising, promotion and sales. It also covers different techniques and the type of communication used to advertise, promote and sell products and services.
  Marketing is in fact broader than just advertising or promotion. It also includes researching the niche market to find out what consumers want. This enables the business to understand what meets their needs with an appropriate product, price and how to distribute them.
  Bearing these things in mind, the marketing needs to know market research, how to reach decisions on products and prices, advertising, promoting, distributing and selling.
  Marketing also covers activities involved in moving products and services from the source to the end user. This includes making customers aware of products and services, attracting new customers, retaining customers and building and maintaining a customer base for a product or service.
  Internet marketing includes all of these activities. It also uses various internet tools including web sites, email, ezines, banner advertising, blogging, RSS, text links, search engine optimization, affiliates, autoresponders, and other e-commerce applications.

• What Is The Cost Of Internet Marketing?
  The range of expenses for internet marketing can be huge. There are some promotional marketing activities that can cost nothing, some only pennies a day, while other forms of advertising can cost you thousands a day, depending on the methods employed and budgets allowed.
  It is vital to consider your goals – both long-term and short-term. You also need to work out how much each prospective customer is worth to you. Research and activity like this will help you work out an affordable budget for any internet marketing campaign.
  It’s possible to set up internet promotions free, but you won’t necessarily have full control of your content this way. You can run your business without a website that you own and have full control over by using free blogging sites like Blogger (Google’s free blogging system), WordPress.com (as opposed to WordPress.org, which is the coding for you to have your own website / blog on the WordPress platform) or many other free website options. You can also get business pages on social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Linked in and Google plus to build a web presence from where you can do your own marketing online.
  The costs of having your own website have dropped considerably over the years. You can get a domain name and blog set up and hosted for under $100 a year if you look around. This will increase if your traffic grows, but to start up it’s pretty cheap. This doesn’t include things like learning how to set it all up or learning SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are free resources where you can do this to start up. When advertising your website / business online, you could easily spend $25-50 a day for advertising but there are many cheaper ad options available. Facebook ads are more cost effective than Google adwords in many cases. Do your research and you will be surprised how little you can get good advertising for.
  The best way is to start small, keep costs down and slowly build as you test and learn what methods work for your market and product. There is no magic wand that works wonders for everyone. It all takes time and testing. Each product has its own unique appeal and every marketer needs to take that into account.

• What Is The Benefit of Internet Marketing?
  Internet marketing offers more than a lot of traditional marketing methods. Web sites and blogs will continue working to promote and market your product 24 hours a day. It can do keep promoting and selling long after any traditional marketing campaign has ended. Similarly, if you use advertising in ezines, newsletters, use banners and text links all over, these will continue to increase in power over time.
  Email marketing, when done well can bring in a tremendous surge in contacts and sales and offers you the opportunity to personally connect with your message to reach a targeted audience. This enhances the chance to increase sales quite a lot.
  One of the best benefits of internet marketing is that it offers convenience and immediate satisfaction. Your prospects will see your marketing message when it is convenient for them. This will occur when they’re looking for a solution to a problem they have that your product or service fits for them. Your sales message should offer them the ability to act on that interest immediately. They can find your product and buy in the time it would take to watch a commercial on television or turn a page in the newspaper. This can also happen when you’re asleep! This is the power of internet marketing.

Now you have the answers to these important questions about internet marketing, you look to start on your own internet marketing campaign — and working towards a great success in your new business venture.

As a business owner, it’s important that you find your target market. The next thing to do is find ways to connect with people in that market. How can you do this?

There are many ways to connect with people, but connecting directly with the type of person you need to so you attract the right one for your business is not easy without a plan of action to find them. It’s all part of the way a business is run. Whether you’re in a “bricks and mortar” style business, a home business or any other kind of business, leads and customers are your life blood, so you need to find the people interested in your product or service.

With the possibilities growing because of social media and the accessibility to millions more prospects if you use the internet, your opportunities are endless. The principles for finding people are just the same though.

The Five Ways Of Connecting With Your Target Market

1. Attend organization meetings or networking events.
   Where do people in your niche hang out? Research this, and find a way to attend a meeting or go to a networking event or two to mix, mingle and get to know people. What better way to meet and get to know these individuals and what they need while learning more about the market?
   If you work this system online, you can go to social media and find groups that are targeted to your niche and share some value there. You can meet and connect with many great prospects this way. Build relationships first so you can find out what the person needs so you can help them. Don’t make the mistake that many make of pitching your business or opportunity before you know what is wanted.
2. Offer to speak at a meeting or conference.
   Do you have something of great value to the people in a specific group? Get to know them and those in charge of the group and offer to share your expertise. Do a presentation or short talk on a helpful topic. Having attended the group and taken some notes, you should know the helpful tips or other material that will hold their attention. You can entice them to learn more about you and what you do? A brief summary of your skills and knowledge can be enough. Chances are someone will talk to you after the presentation.
3. Advertise in publications your target market reads.
   Search online to research what suitable magazines or ezines etc. are out there. It’s possible you could even get your advertisement to be published in both hard copy and online too. Advertising can be costly, so be careful to do your research well!
4. Present a free webinar or online event.
   If you’re not comfortable standing in front of people personally, but feel you have something of value to teach those you’re trying to influence, offering a no-cost webinar. You can try lots of these out for free. There is also Google Hangouts, which is free and offers you an opportunity to connect with several people for a “mini conference”. For more attendees you can search online for programs that offer you a free trial before you commit to buying into their system.
   A great advantage to this method is that you can teach from the comfort of your own home. It’s also a great way to grow your email list. If you find this to be successful, you can offer more advanced training for a small fee, which will bring in a little extra income for you.
5. Start a niche blog.
   If you can start a blog, you give yourself the opportunity to reach your target market and also brand yourself in the process. Writing daily or weekly posts related to your niche will help you to build your own influence even more. Research is the key to a successful blog post, so take some time researching the topics that you can write about. Try to make your material interesting and fun. If you’re excited to write for your market, make it show. If you’re excited about something, others will be too.
   Don’t forget to research your keywords. These are an important part of getting search engines to index and rank the content in your blog. Learn the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) so you can at least start to make an impact. Share your content with your social media connections and even in those groups you’re a member of if it’s allowed.

I hope you have found these 5 tips useful. These are great ways to connect with your target market and should be used as part of your strategy to grow your business. Here’s to your success.

For those of you who don’t know – affiliate marketing is an arrangement between a seller and a person who markets their product for a commission, aka an affiliate. An affiliate can also earn commission from programs that are known as CPA (Cost per action) networks.

Affiliate marketing is basically a win-win situation for the merchant and the affiliate. The seller gets more opportunities to advertise his products for free to a wider audience, which will increase sales. The more hard-working the affiliates he can employ, the more sales he can expect. He is saving a lot of time effort and money looking for the wider possibility of more markets by getting affiliates to market his products and services.

Whenever a person clicks on the link on the affiliate website and goes on to purchase the product the seller has more leverage on his earning power He may even get more recommendations and possibilities to sell more products.

The best part for the affiliate is that they benefit from each customer who clicks on their website link and goes on to purchase the product or avails of the service provided by the merchant. The affiliate will usually get a commission per sale, which can be fixed percentage or fixed amount.

The best part is that it there is no charge to join an affiliate program.

Making Money Online With Affiliate Marketing

If you’re looking to become an affiliate marketer so you can start to money using the Internet, these three basic steps can help you build the foundation of an effective affiliate marketing campaign.

1. Identify a specific niche you are interested in or passionate about. You will be developing a website later, so you need to have some knowledge and some passion for the product or service that covers your particular niche expertise. Focus on a specific area you know well, that way you will be able to bring out your best. Here are a few places you can do some research on – ClickBank Marketplace, J.V. Zoo and CJ.com. You will find a lot more by searching online for appropriate affiliate programs.
2. Make sure you look for good paying merchants and high converting products. Set up a spreadsheet of these good paying and high converting affiliate programs relevant to your niche and then look to create a website. When choosing the products, it’s a good idea to check out the support offered as well as marketing materials that can help you promote the products. The marketing materials may include articles, text links, banner ads, classified ads, reports etc.
   There are a lot of affiliate networks and providers that provide information on the most profitable products and best paying sellers in their network. This should help you to choose the right program and products to promote.

3. When you have decided products to promote, you will need to create a web site. It’s best to have your own domain name and reliable hosting, but it’s not essential. This is one of the hardest parts, because you need to learn how to set up a website and then get traffic to it. Traffic brings in sales and of course, profit.
   There is a lot to learn, but don’t be discouraged. If you’re teachable and willing to learn, you can be successful in all of this too. In affiliate marketing, it is possible to earn a lot of money in a short time by employing the right strategies and methods.

It’s important that you work on educating yourself by reading books, taking courses or watching videos online that have some instruction on the things you need to learn about. You can also learn about the best and proven advertising techniques this way. Find out what is working now and take action on it.

Remember, there is no such thing as get rich quick and it can take time to get established and start earning great money. Affiliate marketing may seem very tempting, especially when you read great testimonies of merchants and affiliate marketers alike who have benefited from it. It really takes a great deal of hard work and persistence to be successful. You also need to be creative and flexible.

Most people don’t understand this. When they don’t make sales, they quit, then look for other programs and don’t do anything different. In the end, they make crazy statements that affiliate marketing is just another “scam”. Learn what you need to learn by following successful people and do what they do. If something doesn’t work, you have missed something. It’s too easy to blame the program when it’s more likely the human element that has caused the problem. Don’t worry; it happens to all of us.

By employing the right strategies, you can achieve great success in affiliate marketing. Make sure you become a great and successful affiliate marketer by doing the work necessary and being accountable for your own actions.

When you start out in network marketing, one of the first things you need to get to grips with is how you’re going to get leads for your business.

How will you deal with the touchy subject of lead generation for your network marketing business?

The MLM industry has developed some scepticism over the years, mainly due to some hype and promises of making lots of money and having financial freedom. Sadly, there are very few people who have had fantastic success in network marketing compared with those who have signed up for it. It’s also true that even fewer have been able to maintain that success for long periods of time.

This doesn’t mean that any of the Network Marketing companies are bad. It also doesn’t follow that the opportunity for the “average Joe” to make extra money or to dramatically change their life is a “con” or a “scam”.

Lead Generation For MLM Has 2 Main Benefits

1. Your family and friends will be free from your attention when you find ways to generate leads other ways. You may have already approached your friends and family with a previous opportunity, and because you didn’t succeed that time, you have no true credibility with them now.

2. Whatever lead generation tactic works for you can be passed on to your business team so they can duplicate what you do and build the business. You will find out from anyone in MLM that duplication is a key component of this type of business. It’s possible for anyone to buy leads and phone them up or find ways to contact them online by email using tools such as an autoresponder.

Buying leads is not always a good idea and so you need to consider a few things before you decide to go down that route.

1. Are the leads you’re going to buy exclusive to you, or are they sold to others too? There are those who will sell leads to several people. What this means is that you could be marketing to someone who has already been contacted. Make sure you do some research and make sure you get leads that are exclusive to you.

2. When was the lead actually generated? Which would you prefer – to speak to someone who has declared an interest in the last 24 – 72 hours or the past 6 months? A good lead for any MLM needs to be spoken to quickly before they have been subject to the scepticism of others, so the sooner the better after the declaration of interest is the best.

3. Another important thing to know is how many leads you get for your money. When you purchase your leads and convert them into your business you can then purchase more. This is very important when you’re starting out and building your downline team.

4. Has the lead been “qualified”? You will find that the best leads will have an email address and phone number and have answered a few qualifying questions like: “How quickly will you want to start” or “How much do you have to invest to get started” or “When is the best time to contact you?”.Any prospect who has filled in answers to these questions are a far better lead and more qualified for you to talk to than someone who has just put in a name and email address.

5. What is the rate of response? As you work these leads, you conversions will improve as your skill grows. You will get better response from the leads that are qualified first and, even when you’re working on your skills, you will get conversions.

I believe that this short guidance will help you in your MLM lead generation. Take great care in choosing your lead source if you decide to go down this route.

An alternative to buying leads is to learn how to generate your own leads on the internet. Generating your own leads is better because you have more control over the qualifying process and the building of the trust etc. from the start. You can learn how to generate leads though investment in an online training system that will develop your skills and your income too.

Research your options because you want to make sure that whatever way you go forward, it’s the best way for you personally. Ask yourself if you prefer building a business relationship with a person who left their details with someone else and you paid for those details, or left their information on your capture form so you can directly start building a relationship and create the trust needed.

Good luck.

So you’re up for making a great income on the internet with your own business that’s right for you. According to the last thing you’ve just found, it’s all as easy as walking down the road. All you need to do is a few searches, and then get yourself a website and you’re ready to make a killing and fill your bank account with oodles of lovely cash! Sound familiar? And what planet is the person who told you that living on?

If you’re looking for a way to spend a lot of money learning useless rubbish that tells you to sit back and wait, then take note of these programs and sit back and wait. It’s a little like buying the bricks to build a new wall, getting the cement mix and saying, right now build yourself! It’s all hype and simply a way to take your money. Don’t ever be under any illusions; there will be a lot of work to do initially until you’re in a position where you can safely say you’ve “made it”.

How To Know Whether The Business That’s Right For You, Truly IS?

When looking to do a business that you feel is just right for you, you need to feel that it inspires you to take action. If you have an interest in the niche that the business is centred around, you will likely meet the criteria of finding the right business for you.

Cover these important pointers when looking for the business that’s right for you and you will be on the right track:

• What are you good at? – What are your skills that you can use to effectively promote something that you would enjoy? Think about….
• What do you like doing, for fun, business, or pleasure? – It is really remarkable the amount of successful web-owners and marketers who are successful in doing something they really love or are good at.

There are so any business ideas out there in this day and age and you can find the niche you’re interested in and develop a business strategy around that, providing that you do the research necessary to see whether there is a good market for your idea.

Instead of trying to start a business from the “ground up”, you can see if there is a reputable network marketing company that is working in the niche you’re interested in. What this does is cut down your potential overheads massively and you would then brand YOU instead of having to brand a whole new product range and develop them and take the risks that all this entails.

The Business That’s Right For You Is Just That – What Next?

The next thing you need to do is to learn all you need to know about the products that in the range and become as much of an expert as you need to be. This will be more relevant when you develop your own products and want to sell them. It is a great thing to know about your products and how they can help people, but when working in Network Marketing, a lot of the time you will only need to point prospects to a presentation where the experienced leaders will do the selling for you.

Network marketing is a great way to build a sustainable and regular growing income. With the income being residual commission based, it’s very possible to have a pay rise each and every month. The benefits of the network marketing system is that you can build an income reasonably quickly, but the sustainable full time income will follow after having completed training and learning all about how your particular business works to maximise your influence and build your income.

You can go down the traditional business route when searching for the business that’s right for you, but weigh up the pros and cons of everything and also how much you have to raise to start and maintain a traditional business. Very often the benefits of a network marketing business outweigh the pitfalls and costs of a traditional business, so don’t dismiss anything that could give you the business you actually want to be involved in.

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