Marketing tips

THE FOLLOWING IS FROM A NEWSLETTER I SUBSCRIBE TO. CONTACT ME AND I WILL NOTIFY THE AUTHOR AND HAVE A  COPY SENT TO YOUR PERSONAL MAIL BOX.

TARGET MARKETING

What is your target market?

* Small Business Owners
* Opportunity Seekers
* Doctors
* Homeowners

Do you define the targeted market for your business similar
to one of these?

 If you do, you're working harder and
spending more money than necessary to promote your business.
And you're enjoying only a fraction of the sales you should
be getting. Most business owners recognize the value of targeting a
market. But when you target a broad audience like those
listed above, you're only targeting prospects who CAN use
your product or service. You have to narrow your focus if
you want to target prospects who are LIKELY to use your
product or service. One of the best ways to do this is to
find a niche market.
WHAT IS A NICHE MARKET?
A niche market is a narrowly defined group that includes all
of the following:
1. Individuals in the group have the same specialized
   interests and needs.
2. They have a strong desire for what you offer.
3. You have (or you can create) a compelling reason for
   prospects in the group to do business with you instead of
   with someone else.
4. You can easily reach individual prospects within the
   group.
5. The group is large enough to produce the volume of
   business you need.
6. The group is small enough that your competition is likely
   to overlook it.
WHY YOU MUST NARROW YOUR FOCUS
A niche market enables you to target your sales messages
with great precision. The more narrowly you define your
niche market the easier it is to cater to the specifically
defined interests of people in that market.
For example, some businesses describe their target market as
"opportunity seekers". But this is a broad audience. You
cannot cater to specifically defined personal interests of
individuals in this group because it may include all of the
following:
* Executives who want to get out of the corporate
  environment and start their own business
* New mothers who want to start a home based business
* Students who want to generate some extra income
Any promotional message to this group would have to be very
general. But people don't respond to general talk. They
respond only when they feel you are talking directly to them
about their individual needs.

SPECIAL ADVANTAGE: A highly defined, small niche market can insulate you from competition. Other small businesses are
likely to overlook it. Large businesses will find the market
segment too small to bother with.
HOW TO FIND YOUR OWN NICHE MARKET
One way to find a good niche market is to evaluate your
existing customers. Can you uncover a segment of customers
with similar characteristics?

For example, I recently talked with an MLM distributor. About a year ago she noticed that many distributors in her downline were health or physical education teachers. She now has a lot of success targeting a niche market of female physical education teachers who are married, have children and are members of the same professional association.
Another way to find a niche market is to work backward from
the benefits you offer. Start by listing all the benefits
provided by your product or service. Then list some of the
characteristics of prospects whose current situation can be
dramatically improved by those benefits. You should begin to
see a narrowly defined group emerge as a niche market.
IT'S YOUR BOTTOM LINE
Is your target market specific enough that you can you
develop sales messages so sharply focused that prospects
believe you're talking specifically about them? If not, use
the information in this article to help you find a niche
market of your own. Then tailor your sales messages to the
specific interests and needs of that niche market. You'll
see an immediate increase in your sales and profits.
 TARGETED SOLO ADVERTISING!
When does it matter WHO reads your ad?  ....ALWAYS!
Advertise to the readers who are interested in what
you have to offer. Choose from 28 categories.
Don't waste your advertising dollars on a market that
is not interested in your offer!

I subscribe to a great number of ezines, some of which
provide free advertising for their subscribers.  Of late
a disturbing trend of abusing the privilege of posting
free ads in ezines has emerged.
The evidence is that great numbers of people are in the
habit of subscribing to free-ad ezines and using a fake
(or throw-away) email address.  The procedure is to submit
free ads and never look back.
The reasoning behind this is that those posting the free
ads will benefit from the service and not have to pay the
"price" of reading the ezine.  You expect others to read
your ad, why not give them the simple courtesy of reading
theirs?

Those who submit free ads using false or throw-away email
accounts cost ezine publishers a great amount of extra
time and effort which could be spent on more productive
items.  This becomes a nightmare of rapidly diminishing
returns which could conceivably cause most, if not all,
ezine publishers to totally discontinue free ads.
At this point you are probably thinking, "Big deal!"  You
better believe it is a big deal.  FFA s and free classified
ad sites were almost totally ineffective because this same
mentality was used in abusing them.

  How effective is an ad nobody reads?
As I see it, those subscribing to an ezine for the purpose
of submitting free ads should at least be willing to
provide a valid email address and accord the publisher the
courtesy of reading his/her ezine.
Once the throw-away email in-box is full, all further
messages sent to that address are bounced.  Thus, the
publisher cannot verify the email address of the person
submitting the ad and the ad is not published.  This is
all a great waste of time and effort.
How would you like it if you published an ezine and groups
of people subscribed just long enough to get a free ad and
then disappeared?  Try putting yourself in the publisher's
chair and looking at it from that point of view.
Using fake or throw-away email addresses solely for the
purpose of abusing the privilege of submitting free ads
is the same as spamming someone.  There is nothing ethical
or moral about this practice. I will undoubtedly receive some irate responses to the following statement, but so be it.  No publisher should
feel obligated to provide free ads to obtain subscribers.
The content of their ezine speaks for itself.  Where the
publisher wishes to help subscribers by allowing the
posting of free ads, the poster should be required to be
a regular subscriber to the ezine.
Some find this hard to believe, but the Internet should not
be a battlefield.  Choose to cooperate with the publishers
instead of going to war against them and you will achieve
much better results.
One of the greatest attributes of the Internet is that we
are hidden behind a computer screen.  We are not judged
by our appearance, race, color, creed, social status or
other such things.  We are judged solely by what we tell
others about ourselves.
This is also the ugliest part of the Internet.  Those who
are rude, discourteous and greedy can hide behind their
computer screens and commit outrageous acts with virtual
impunity.  It is like coming into a huge amount of money.
The money does not make a person good or bad, it only
magnifies the goodness or badness.

You have surely seen the meek, mild-mannered soul who
turns into a raging maniac when driving a vehicle. The
Internet has become that vehicle for some of us.
The future of the Internet is in our hands.  We can make it
a garbage dump or one of the greatest benefactors known to
humanity.  Common courtesy and decency are no less
required on the Internet than in face-to-face dealings.

 Article - Abuse Free Ezine Ads - You Lose!
              By Robert Taylor