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By Scott Spooner

The other day I was driving through a business park on my way a client’s office. Along the way I passed by a string of businesses that you would normally find on a major city boulevard: gas stations, dry cleaners, mini-marts, and the like.

However, there was one business that caught my attention: a sandwich shop. There was nothing memorable about the building or the name of the business; in fact, I had driven past this business dozens of times before without taking much notice. What caught my attention on this particular trip was a new banner that they had hung outside their front door.

The sandwich shop was now promoting something called the Business Meeting Package. This “package” includes 10 sandwiches, 10 drinks, 10 salads, and lots of pickles.

Now, there is nothing new about offering lunches to local businesses, but most of these types of promotions are aimed at the individual employee who is in a hurry to grab some food during a lunch hour. What made this promotion unusual was that it was targeting a slightly different niche – the “work during lunch” crowd.

With the slower economy that we are currently experiencing, many business owners, and employees, are working through lunch in an effort to stay as productive as possible. This sandwich shop identified this trend and built a marketing promotion around the niche.

I pulled over and went into the store to speak with the owner  about this promotion (and to get a sandwich!). I asked the owner how the promotion was working out; he told me that the banner was, indeed, drawing a response from the local area businesses. In fact, he said that the promotion was responsible for a 10% increase in catered lunches.

And that’s the point. Hanging a banner saying something like “we cater” probably wouldn’t have worked. There are lots of those types of marketing messages around town. However, positioning the catering service around the needs of the work-during-lunch crowd (i.e. a “business meeting package”) was the key.

This business had found a new and unique niche and they were starting to see the rewards from pursuing that niche.

So, how can you do the same with your business? What customer needs are going unfulfilled in your niche? How can you identify those needs and offer a unique solution?

What are your thoughts?

Technorati Tags: niche marketing, niche markets, target marketing

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By Scott Spooner

This past week Yahoo consummated its long awaited courtship with Bing by announcing that, henceforth, Bing will be powering the search functions of Yahoo, one of the Net’s most respected search engine companies.

I can understand the desire for Yahoo and Bing to enter into this partnership; both from a market share and financial perspective. After all, someone has to challenge the 600-lb. gorilla that is Google.

But, from a strictly marketing point of view, how will Yahoo position itself in the mind of the consumer? To the average consumer, Yahoo has always meant “search”. If Bing is now powering the search, can Yahoo legitimately continue to claim this mantle? If not, what position will Yahoo stake out?

I’m sure – or, at least, I hope – that both Yahoo and Bing have their best marketing teams working on this very question. In the ever changing landscape that is the Internet, they’ll have to move quickly if the are going to capitalize on the benefits of this merger and build future market share.

Otherwise, the venerable search engine will shrink into the shadows and join the likes of other search engines that have come and gone.

Or maybe the net surfers of tomorrow will simply remember the former giant as “YaWho?”

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Technorati Tags: Bing, Market share, niche marketing, niche markets, Yahoo

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By Andrew Rossillo

You could have the finest product line or set of services in the marketplace, but if you fail to market your offer right, no prospects will ever see or hear about it. Even if you are employing one of the latest online marketing tools, the outrageous rate of saturation of today’s marketplace means that people are constantly bombarded with a virtually infinite amount of marketing and advertising messages throughout the day. This makes it even more of a challenge to reach your target audience.

Because of this onslaught of marketing and advertising, our brains have actually become programmed to filter out a great degree of the messages that are fired at us. What new marketing tool consistently passes through our marketing and advertising filter? Mobile marketing and the awesome power of text messages! One of the reasons why businesses are experiencing great success with mobile marketing is because it features a fraction of the competition than other media-Internet and email tools are engrossed in a jam-packed and highly competitive environment.

For example: An email message usually has around a 10 percent success rate of actually being read. Text messages, however, feature over a 90 percent success rate of not only being read, but being read within the first 30 minutes of being received! While getting your marketing message out is important, having your message actually read is key to your business or organization experiencing record-breaking sales. What adds even more potency to this special type of marketing? It’s the only marketing media that reaches prospects and clients while they are on the go! Mobile marketing and text messages allow you to automatically update, announce, invite and communicate when you want and how you want!

Top Mobile Marketing Benefits:

• Generate leads that you can continuously market to
• Build a mobile database for lucrative follow-up
• Reach customers instantly
• Build relationships with customers
• Learn more about your customers through surveys, polls and demographic info
• Drive traffic to your business with the use of coupons, special deals, and event promotions

Your Chance to Be a Wealthy Pioneer

Very few businesses are actually taking advantage of mobile marketing right now. That’s because this type of marketing is where Internet marketing was back in 2000. That means you can get a gigantic head start by incorporating mobile marketing within your business today. Plus, you can easily integrate mobile marketing and text message marketing within any offline and online marketing campaign. Of course, this type of marketing is substantial enough to form a standalone marketing campaign.

If you’re questioning the type of potential you have with text message and mobile marketing then consider that there are 270 million mobile subscribers in the U.S. alone, and 91 percent of them are said to keep their phones within just a few feet of themselves 24 hours a day throughout the year! In addition, text message marketing has an incredible reach of almost 5 billion compared to Internet marketing’s reach of 1.7 billion.

Lucrative Lead Generation

Every time a prospect or customer opts into one of your text message offers (e.g. to get informational updates, coupons, discounts) that creates a lead. You now have the means to market to that person as much as you’d like. Take this opportunity to upsell, build belief in your business, provide additional value, increase attendance at events and just about anything else you can think of.

This is made even easier with the accompaniment of super simple database options that allow you to file all of your leads, so you can send out a blast to your entire database or use simple filters to send out to select groups within your database. Build a herd and market like there’s no tomorrow.

Plus, mobile marketing offers one of the most significant ROI’s possible among today’s leading marketing and media tools. Text message marketing is like having hundreds of obliging little marketing assistants hustling around doing all the work for you. All you have to do is press a few buttons and you’ll have instantly reached out to your entire database of leads, customers and prospects-with a 90 percent success rate of being read!

Andrew Rossillo is the primary copywriter and co-owner of Business Ball; a comprehensive business resource website. We’re all about helping as many people as possible, so please feel free to post our article on your website. We simply ask that you don’t alter the content and that you leave our link to Business Ball intact (http://www.businessball.com/).

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Rossillo

http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Make-More-Money-With-Mobile-Marketing&id=4698379

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Technorati Tags: Lead generation, Mobile Marketing, niche marketing, niche marketing tools, niche markets, Text messaging

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What do Starbucks, Sports Authority, and Jack in the Box all have in common? They all are successful, national brands. They also have recently embraced social media as part of their marketing campaigns.

Starbucks and Sports Authority are developing campaigns using “location based” media (such as Foursquare.com), and Jack in the Box has developed a “fan page” on Facebook where they can communicate their latest promotions via their fan base.

Hundreds of businesses, both large and small, are following suit.

Whether you publish a blog, or have a “brick and mortar” retail location, you can no longer afford to ignore social media and it’s power to both create a community of followers, and nudge those followers to your blog or store.

But, with the dozens of social media sites popping up, where do you start? My recommendation is to visit several of the better known sites (like Facebook, Twitter, Digg and StumbleUpon) and see which ones “fit” your personal style.

For instance, if you are interested in bookmarking sites in your industry, consider the social bookmarking sites (like Digg, Reddit, and Propeller).

If writing short posts is more in tune with your lifestyle (called “micro-blogging”), then consider Twitter.

If you just want to jump in with both feet – and mix it up with 400 million of your closest “friends” – then Facebook might be the place for you.

In any case, get in the pool and start paddling around. You’ll find that the water is just fine.

Once you’ve settled on a small list of social media sites that interest you, set up an account with each and begin posting; post about yourself, but also post about your industry and your business.

One word of caution here: don’t get into social media sites thinking that you are going to get very far by selling your products and services – that will come later. Simply become part of the conversation and and listen for frustrations and “pain points’. Offer advice. Point people towards solutions that you have found.  Be seen as an expert. Lead the conversation. If you have something useful to say, people will start looking forward to your posts, and then will want to learn more by stopping by your blog or store.

So, you’re now ready to take your first step. It is a good step to take. In future posts I’ll explore more of the social media sites, along with some tips and tricks for  building a loyal following.

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Related videos:

Social Media in Plain English

commoncraft.com A simple story that illustrates the forces shaping social media. This video comes in an unbranded “presentation quality” version that can be licensed for use in the workplace. http

What is Social Media?

chris.pirillo.com – Blake Cahill recently interviewed me, and I thought you might find my answers somewhat interesting. If you wanna know what I care about most, let me lay it on the line… and please post a video response with your own take on Soci…

Technorati Tags: Digg, Facebook, Reddit, social media, Social network, StumbleUpon, Twitter

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By Scott Spooner

When you think of search engines, what names come to mind? if you are like most people, you’ll probably come up with some combination of Google, Yahoo, and Bing. If you’ve been on the Net for a while, you might also think of Alta Vista, Baidu, Ask, and dozens of others.

But let me ask you: did Facebook or Twitter come to mind?

Most netizens associate Facebook with social networking, and Twitter with micro-blogging. But few realize that both Facebook and Twitter are also up and coming search engines, as both offer searchable keyword databases.

With active Facebook members now exceeding 400 million, and active Twitter members now exceeding 100 million, the respective search databases are enormous.

Add to this Facebook’s pay-per-click ad network (with rumors that Twitter will be following suit with their own paid advertising), and you have a potent combination for both demographic/geographic keyword research and targeted advertising opportunities.

If you are an on-line marketer who is looking to build traffic and reach your target audience, then don’t overlook Facebook and Twitter when it comes to search.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Google, Scott Spooner, Twitter, Web search engine

The key to niche market research is finding the needs of your target market. Watch this short video as the author dives into market research for a niche.

Included in this video is a tour of Big-Boards.com and how to use forums in your market research. This is a good video if your are having trouble coming up with niche ideas for your on-line business.

Need more ideas? Download a free report on hot niche trends on http://NicheTrends.net

Duration : 0:9:55

Technorati Tags: market research, niche marketing, niche trends

LaShanda, the Web Tech Gurl, talks about niche marketing and how you can find your target market online. This short video focsues on business fundamentals, and offers good tips for any niche marketer.

To learn more, visit the following web site: http://www.webtechgurl.com

Duration : 0:9:27

Technorati Tags: business women, internet marketing, niche marketing, social media marketing, social networking, target marketing

Before you or your business can become successful you must identify who your target audience is! Start by conductings some market research and discover which niche market you are targeting! This short video offers a few tips on how to begin thinking about who your target market is, and what problems they might have that you can solve. The sound quality is poor, so you’ll need to turn your speakers up.

This video is brought to you from the folks at EasyNetrworkMarketingLeads.com

Duration : 0:1:26

Technorati Tags: target market, target marketing

Here’s a short video from Tracey Walker. On this video Tracey discusses target marketing and how you must target market to see success fast. Your ability to target market will determine the growth of your business. Her focus in on developing a downline, but the principles she discusses are applicable to any type of business.

You can learn more about Tracey at: http://www.mlmiseasyonline.com

Duration : 0:8:45

Technorati Tags: target market, target marketing