My 2¢ Worth

ver notice that your level of ambition is inversely proportional to the amount of work you have to do? Well it is in my case at least.

 have a ton of work to do. Not much ambition. Lots of procrastination, however.

h, I have accomplished quite a bit today and I am on schedule with my current projects, but it would have been so much easier to say the heck with it and go fishing!

unny thing from a guy who doesn't like to fish that much...

Feature Article

7 Questions to Ask Before You Advertise

by: Michele Pariza Wacek Creative Concepts and Copywriting

Most business owners and managers keep a fairly close eye on their marketing budgets.

And nothing throws a budget out of whack faster than advertising.

Advertising, or paying good money to get your message in front of your target market, still has a place in your marketing mix, although it's not quite as effective as it once was.

If you're going to advertise, you need to be smart about it — or you can quickly find yourself with a blown budget and not much to show for it. Below are seven questions to ask yourself before writing out that check.

1. Do you need to generate customers/traffic/leads/etc. right away? If so, then you better pull out your wallet. Advertising is hands down the fastest way to get your message in front of your target market. (You're paying for placement after all.)

2. Do you have another way to get the word out about your business? For instance, do you have a customer database or an e-zine list? If so, then you might be better off sending an e-mail (assuming you have customers' e-mails). Although technically e-mail announcements fall under advertising, I'm not counting it in this particular case because it's more or less free (or very low cost).

Perhaps you have a good news angle and a good relationship with a reporter. Or you have a high-traffic Web site and/or blog. Or maybe you're an active volunteer with a large organization and can use networking to get the message out.

But if none of those really apply, then you'd better take a closer look at advertising.

3. Do you need to augment your other marketing efforts? Maybe you have articles featured on a Web site targeted to your customer base. Great when your article is front and center and not-so-great when your article is buried in archives. A little advertising on that site can keep you in your target market's sight all the time. Or maybe you struck gold and got a big article written about your company in the perfect trade publication. Fantastic for that month and not-so-fantastic for the other 11 months of the year. Or maybe it's taking you longer than you'd like to drive traffic to your Web site. Advertising is good for speeding things along.

Frequency is king when it comes to marketing — if you're out of your customers' sight, you're probably out of their mind when it comes to buying time. Advertising is a good way to beef up or speed up what you're already doing.

4. Are other marketing methods not appropriate in this situation? Let's say you want to have a sale. But your customer database is small (or nonexistent). Your Web site has minimal traffic. And you aren't going to get any bites from the media since having a sale isn't news. What do you do? Run some ads.

5. Would you rather save time than money? Let's face it. Running an ad is easy. Other marketing methods are more time-consuming. If you want your marketing to be easy, then advertising is about as easy as it's going to get. (Now there is a caveat to this one, because you can hire people to do some of those marketing tasks, such as updating Web sites, running PR campaigns, etc. However, not everything can be hired out so you still might be stuck spending time you don't have.)

6. Are you planning to test a new campaign or a new product/target market? Running small, inexpensive ads can be a good way to test certain marketing aspects before launching big, expensive, time-consuming campaigns. If you want to penetrate a new market or if you have a new product to launch or a new marketing message to try, buy some ads and see what the response rate is. Another strength of advertising is control — you have total control over your test.

7. Do other marketing approaches never quite measure up? It happens. Advertising in one or two specific media outlets seem to generate more sales and more leads then anything else you've tried. If that's the case, then don't mess with it. As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Creativity Exercise -- Advertising and your business

Is advertising right for your business? Try this exercise and see.

1. What's your biggest marketing challenge right now? Write it down.

2. Go through the above list of questions and ask yourself each one. Does it apply to your situation? If it does, write that down too.

3. Do some brainstorming. In what ways can you use advertising to solve your marketing challenges? What media would work best? Online? Print? Radio? Television? Direct mail? Something else? Make up an ad for a variety of media.

Now do the exact opposite. Think of ways advertising WON'T work for your business. Brainstorm at least 25 reasons why advertising won't work for your specific situation. Be silly. It's a good way to loosen you up.

4. Go back and reread both your pro and con lists. Now read your ads. Do you like what you came up with? Do any of them resonate with you, even now after coming up with your list of objections?

You may have just come up with your next advertising campaign.

**************

Michele Pariza Wacek owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting, a writing, marketing and creativity agency. She offers two free e-newsletters that help subscribers combine their creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. She can be reached at www.writingusa.com.

Display the Current Date

You can display the current date on your webpage by pasting the JavaScript code below into your HTML document where you'd like the date to show.

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/JavaScript"> <!-- Begin myvar = new Date(); Month = (myvar.getMonth() + 1) Year = (myvar.getYear()) if (Month == 1) {WordMonth = "Jan";} if (Month == 2) {WordMonth = "Feb";} if (Month == 3) {WordMonth = "March";} if (Month == 4) {WordMonth = "April";} if (Month == 5) {WordMonth = "May";} if (Month == 6) {WordMonth = "June";} if (Month == 7) {WordMonth = "July";} if (Month == 8) {WordMonth = "Aug";} if (Month == 9) {WordMonth = "Sept";} if (Month == 10) {WordMonth = "Oct";} if (Month == 11) {WordMonth = "Nov";} if (Month == 12) {WordMonth = "Dec";} document.write(WordMonth+". "+myvar.getDate()+", "+Year); // End --> </script>

Now the date will be displayed in the format shown in red below. If you want the full month to show, just change the month in the code to a long format ("January") and you are ready to go!

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Second Article

Basics of Marketing

by: Scott F. Geld Marketing Blaster, Inc.

Knowing what marketing actually is can be fundamental to any business, however small. No business can avoid marketing; without it, no one would know you existed. Of course, your actual merchandise or service is just as important, but without marketing, a brilliant idea is wasted.

To be a successful marketeer, you really have to understand the concept of marketing. Marketing is the science of making prospective customers into real purchasers! Even the best item in its class won't sell successfully if nobody is aware of it. Some items need less pushing than others, but sales of most artefacts will be boosted by the right kind of promotion. A sound method of marketing a product is to persuade potential buyers that they really must have it straightaway otherwise they'll miss out.

Where is the best place for an organization to start in order to maximize the effects of its marketing? First, get the fundamentals correct, as we are about to describe.

Before you can target anyone, you must know who they are. Understanding your potential customers is fundamental; to sell to someone you have to know what will get their focus and what will make them buy.

To understand your customers you need to think about how they think and how they function and what influences their decision to purchase something. You need to think about what they will think about your product. You need to think about how they will feel about your product and what will inspire them to buy your product.

Simply instructing someone to buy an item is not enough. A little persuasion is required. The item needs to attract the interest of the potential customer, preferably so much so that they'll make an immediate purchase. Marketing can be targeted at different sectors - male or female, young or old, etc. However, a mass market approach can often be used. The nature of your merchandise should determine the marketing strategy used.

The key to successful promotion is never to lose sight of the customers' needs, so that you can persuade them that your merchandise is just what they require.

**************

Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing for MarketingBlaster.com, a company specializing in affordable traffic (5 cents/visitor) and direct links for $5/link. For more information please visit: www.MarketingBlaster.com

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