According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, as technology provides nearly 24-hour media access, as children and teens go about their daily lives, the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minority youth, according to a study released today by .
Today,
8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.
The amount of time spent with media increased by an hour and seventeen minutes a day over the past five years, from 6:21 in 2004 to 7:38 today. And because of media multitasking, the total amount of media content consumed during that period has increased from 8:33 in 2004 to 10:45 today.
As this shift occurs it makes me wonder what impact not stopping to smell the roses may have on our children in the future. What do you think? Please share your thougts.
I must be honest. This little scribble has nothing to do with the fact that, in a staggering loss of support of the democrat’s health care policies, Scott Brown – a Republican – won Teddy Kennedy’s seat in the U.S. Senate yesterday.
Well, almost nothing …
True, the fact that the most liberal state in our union just sent a conservative to Washington could be construed to mean that, “the times they are a changing”. And, we could see abortion activists turning the other cheek and terrorists calling to have tea with U.S. leaders.
But I digress; this is NOT my point…
Marketing and politics are a lot like romance.
If Merriam-Webster dictionary is right when it says, romance is “trying to influence or curry favor with someone especially by lavishing personal attention, gifts, or flattery”.
Then the odds are not looking good for the Casanova who, when spotting a hot prospect, walks up and says “Hey, do you want to go out with me” right off the bat. Usually this approach results in a response something like, “No, I don’t know you. Get away from me” or perhaps a slap depending on the girl.
So how do you romance, sell, or otherwise convince somebody?
It’s not something that happens overnight, most of the time; you have to work at it. You have to earn trust.
Have you ever tried to sell something? Selling something even as simple as Girl Scout cookies still takes a little finesse. Granted the Girl Scouts have the “cute factor” working for them which gives them an advantage. However, they still have to convince people to buy.
If you think about a time somebody tried to sell you something and they started things off by saying “Hey, you should buy this” chances are you probably walked away.
Why? Because you were skeptical. They hadn’t bothered to establish any type of relationship with you. There was no reason for you to trust them.
You were probably asking yourself questions like:
Why should I trust this buffoon? I don’t even know him.
Why should I believe what this absolute stranger has to say?
I wonder if this guy is an ex-con.
I wonder if he plans to steal my credit card information when I pay for my stuff.
Whether your goal is to make a sale, secure a date, or win voters over to your way of thinking you must first establish trust.
So how do you accomplish this? What works for me is first trying to get to know the person. Find out what interests them, what makes them tick.
Developing a relationship with them, romancing them, bonding with them are the first steps. Then and only then, will you begin to earn and build their trust. Once you overcome this hurdle the gates will open and they will be more willing to listen to what you have to say … purchase what you are selling … or vote you into political office
Successful alliances form when the person trying to sell you gains your trust first. Once you feel confident the person you are talking to can be trusted then the fences come tumbling down.
Do we need health care legislation? YES.
The problem is the democrat’s health care bill got so caught-up in the, political parties us-against- them war, the democrats forgot their votes were supposed to represent the voice of their constituents not their democratic fraternity. As a result they lost the trust of voters and lost the seat that gave them a majority in congress.
The lesson here is when you want to close the sale don’t forget to build trust with your voters so you may romance them into buying what you are selling … or simply what you are saying.
Regardless of the business you’re in, you can’t improve on the products or service you offer your customers until you know what they like and dislike about what you’re doing now. The good news is that valuable information can be unearthed by asking your customers two simple questions:
How are we doing?
How can we get better?
Finding the answer to those two questions helps you understand:
The customers perception of the quality of service they are currently receiving from you and,
What you need to do in order to increase your customers perception value
Relative quality as perceived by customers is the single most important factor in determining long-term profitability. The big dollars earned aren’t gained so much from securing the initial sale but in your ability to keep customers coming back. And you keep them by providing greater levels of quality service as they perceive it.
The Ostrich Syndrome
Michael LeBoeuf in his book How to Win Customers and Keep them for Life, suggests entrepreneurs consider what happens to a business that doesn’t make a regular and systematic effort to ask its customers, “How are we doing?” and, “How can we get better?”
At the very least, you can be sure that it’s losing a lot of repeat business and long-term big dollars. And at the very worst, this brand of ignorance is economic suicide. When it comes to winning and keeping customers, a company without a plan of well-planned system of customer feedback is burying its head in the sand and hoping for the best. And as Dr. Robert Anthony noted, “if you stick your head in the sand, one thing is for sure, you’ll get your rear kicked.” Customer satisfaction is so important that you would think that most businesses would have a well thought out strategy for measuring it and putting this information to work.
But believe it or not, when it comes to customer satisfaction, the overwhelming majority of businesses, from giant corporations to mom and pop operations, are burying their heads in the sand and hoping for the best. Many of these same companies spare no expense when it comes to measuring such things as cash flow, productivity, market share, earnings and net assets. Yet very, very few even try to obtain, measure, or regularly monitor what their customer likes and dislikes about the job they do. It seems ironic that in the information age, most businesses aren’t even trying to obtain, measure, or use some of the most valuable information of all.
Tom Hopkins author of, How to Master The Art Of Selling, agrees with this philosophy but says few companies actually track these metrics and if they do they don’t know what to do with this information.
Service Quality Can be Measured
For better or worse your customers have an opinion about the quality of service that you offer and collecting, gathering, and measuring these opinions on a regular basis provides the crucial information you need to keep them buying, multiplying, and coming back. And it’s not an impossible task, a number of companies have been doing it for quite some time and many more will be doing so in the future.
Each program needs to be tailored to address the specific needs of each business. For example if you own a small business with just a few customers, regularly ask your customers relevant satisfaction questions, write down their answers and look for themes. A larger organization will need to apply a more structured approach.
Measurement Tools
1. Construct a brief survey – Distribute a survey containing important questions about specific aspects of your service and ask your customer to rate your company from one to five or one to ten on each question. Then add space for the customer to tell you what he is thinking in his own words.
2. Survey your customer by telephone – Although this is a more expensive option, telephone surveys will give you the most accurate picture. It takes a little of the customer’s time, but you can ask more questions, and it provides a more random sample. Results from written surveys can be skewed because the most common respondents are customers who strongly like or dislike their experiences with your company.
Here are some questions that you may want to consider using:
How well do we deliver what we promise?
How often do we do things right the first time?
How often do we do things right on time?
How quickly do we respond to your requests for service?
How assessable are we when you need to contact us?
How helpful and polite are we?
How well do we speak your language?
How well do we listen to you?
How hard do you think we work at keeping you a satisfied customer?
How much confidence do you have in our products or services?
How well do we understand and try to meet your special needs or requests?
Overall, how would you rate the appearance of our facilities, products, communications and people?
Overall, how would you rate the quality of our service?
Overall, how would you rate the quality of your competitor’s service?
How willing would you be to recommend us?
How willing would you be to buy from us again?
The more you can modify these questions to make them applicable to you specific business, the more valuable the answers you receive will be.
Be sure to include open-ended questions in your list. Ratings scale questions like the ones listed are a basis for measurement, they may not give you the valuable information you need to hear from your customer in his own words.
Some examples of good open-ended questions are:
Are we doing or not doing anything that bugs you?
What do you like best about what we do?
How can we better serve you?
What parts of our service are most important to you?
Be careful with the last question because what customers say is most important may not be what causes them to buy. Example airline passengers say safety is most important to them but doesn’t influence who they choose as a carrier because they perceive all airlines to be safe.
3. Get feedback from you ex-customers
When customers quit you need to know why they quit and what you can do to win them back. You should send them a quick comment card. if you know then phone them personally.
4. Once you start getting information, put it to work - Get to work on correcting perceived weaknesses and capitalize on perceived strengths. Make a list of problem areas and rank order the list in order of most important. Alert everyone to the problem and get input from the group on how to resolve the problem. Follow-up with the customers to let them know what steps were taken to resolve the problem.
5. Keep on asking and improving - All the answers you need will not be uncovered in one survey. You need a continuous survey process to uncover issues continuously. This will also allow you to track the success of your efforts and the evolution of your business over time.
Everything changes, including customer’s perception of your service. Businesses that are smart enough to keep asking, adapting, and improving in accordance with what the customer thinks, will have the inside track to long term prosperity.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to supplement your income.
What is affiliate marketing? Simply put it is earning a commission by promoting a product on the internet.
How does it work? Well, you sign-up as an affiliate with the company with a product you want to promote and they provide you with a unique id.. It may take a couple of days to get approved but once you do you are ready to promote the product.
Then to promote a product you write an article or create a newsletter and insert an affiliate link or some HTML code into the code view of your message, save it, publish it and you are ready to go.
Then what happens is when a visitor visits your site or receives your newsletter, clicks on your link and buys the product you are promoting or fills out a form at the merchant’s website, you earn a commission for the sales and leads generated from your links.
So as an example, currently I am setting-up a website for a gentleman who is really sharp but doesn’t want to know anything about setting-up websites. He needs to set-up his hosting and domain registration so he goes to my site clicks on my Go Daddy affiliate link to place his order. Once the transaction is complete Go Daddy sends me a percentage of the sale.
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Aside from the fact that Placement Intelligence can Scan Organic and Sponsored Results…it also gives you the ability to:
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positions…this is a huge opportunity!
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One very interesting feature you will find in Placement Intelligence is…the ability to easily send in your input for enhancements and features. This is the exact application used by myself and my staff on a regular basis.
Placement Intelligence will be continuously improved by adding more features and the ability to provide more data with the objective of giving all its users higher profit potential and rate of success per campaign through precise targeting.
The best way to do this is to work together! If you have an idea, no matter how crazy it may be…let me know. I will personally review and document all feature requests and send out random surveys to determine the most wanted features and enhancements. Then start implementing and adding the most wanted and beneficial features.
Placement Intelligence is backed by a 100% money back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose! If for any reason you feel that Placement Intelligence hasn’t helped you in your marketing efforts…all you have to do is let me know and I’ll give you a full refund. All I ask is that you give it an honest try.
Fair enough?
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Peter Drucker, perhaps one of the most influential management scholars of our time, once said, “A business has to make money, and a business has to make customers.” And businesses do this each day by creating and marketing things customers are willing to purchase.
This is the crux of the economic equation
However, far too many businesses lose site of this important factor and approach the planning process from the perspective of their needs alone. And this is fine, as long as what is developed creates value for their customers.
The problem occurs when businesses try to maximize the value of a customer to their business alone. Sometimes they forget they still must create value for their customers or they won’t have any, and they may ultimately go out of business.
This is what I call dysfunctional value creation and in every situation when this occurs you will see a company basing their decisions on the value the customer can create for the company.
What happens when this occurs?
The value proposition becomes too one-sided. Customers become increasingly unhappy with the relationship and ultimately disloyal. The next time something goes wrong or your competitor approaches your client with an interesting proposition, because your relationship is not solid, they bail on you.
You see this happen frequently with advertising agencies when the account representative changes and the players higher up the food chain do not have a relationship with the client’s key decision makers.
Perhaps the client contact doesn’t like the new person or maybe, because they are new, they do not know enough about the client to sound informed and intelligent enough to work with them to grow their business.
Regardless of the reason, if the client doesn’t really feel you care and are trying to support initiatives they value, the relationship can be interpreted as one-sided.
Why does it matter?
Businesses need to balance the things they need to do to make money against what they need to do to gain and keep customers as the global landscape becomes more and more competitive.
Why?
Because without long-term loyalty relationships become vulnerable, unstable, and over time can be lost altogether.
Does this mean you have to deliver on every single one of your client’s petty requests? No.
However to continue to be competitive, the businesses partnering with their customers to enhance mutual value are better able to stabilize the business relationship and focus on long-term growth.
Lexi my cute little Sheltie has been holding down the fort a lot lately.
Most of the time her job is to eat, sleep, chase the cats around and bark at anybody that shows-up at the door like the Fed Ex guy.
As my friends and family know, I have been spending more time than I would like at various doctor’s offices. Earlier this week I went in for an EMG test. Now I know why they don’t tell you exactly how this will go in advance. They literally stick pins in you and torture you with electric shocks to see if your nerves and muscles are working properly. Boy was that pleasant.
Anyway, now I am off again for more physical (torture) therapy. I just wanted to let you know in case you call and hear a bark on the other end of the receiver. It won’t be me taking your call but it might be Lexi.
I was listening to a new MP3 I bought recently, How To Endure A Recession, by Fred Gleeck and Bob Bly the other day.
These marketing pros shared 16 practical tactics and strategies business owners can use to profit during a downturn in the economy. Some were cost saving measures and some were business generation techniques.
The most important point made during the discussion reminded me of a book I read a long time ago . iIt was Napoleon Hill’s book, Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude.
This quality is quite simply why it makes sense to maintain …
A Positive Mental Attitude
Now lets be clear about this I am not suggesting that if you assume a Positive Mental Attitude nothing bad will ever happen to you, because that’s just not true.
What I am saying is that if you follow what Napolean Hill says you will become more successful and be able to open doors for yourself that you never realized you could.
Part of the reason people have trouble getting started, completing important projects, and ultimately achieving success is they do not believe they actually can be successful. By not believing, they get caught-up in a negative thought process that derails them.
Know Any Worry Warts?
Have you ever met anybody like this? They get worried and dream-up all kinds of reasons why they will fail. This thought process is counter productive. By thinking this way they waste valuable time. Time they could be spending pursuing their goals.
The best way to overcome this tendency is to re-program the way you think. Clear your mind of the mental cobwebs of negativity. Re-program your emotions, feelings, habits and tendencies and take action.
Future Events
Why do people worry about a recession. Because they are afraid things are going to get bad. And you know what? They may.
But when you think about this rationally worrying about the future is a waste because it has not happened yet. And quite frankly, there is really nothing you can do to prevent a recession. Even if you have some great idea do you really think Fed Chairman, Ben Bernake is going to take your call let alone take your advice? No.
The Past
Others worry and get stuck in a cycle of re-examining what has happened in the past. I guess they think if they analyze the past enough they might be able to change something. However usually others have moved on and aren’t really interested in re-living the past.
So again, worrying about the past is a waste because there is nothing you can do to change the past. When you get stuck in this cycle realize what is happening and force yourself to move on to something more productive.
The Present
The best thing to focus on is the present because it is the only place a person can make a change that will really make a difference in their lives.
Take hold of your destiny by living in and creating your success in the present.
For some people writing can be about as enjoyable as chewing nails. They sit down to create a sales letter…and nothing.
Their normally active, multi-tasking brain suddenly becomes as barren as the Mojave desert.
Not one babbling brook.
Not one fluffy bunny.
Not a cloud in the sky.
So how do you get started? Well the first thing you need to do is…
Get your juices flowing
You can’t just wait around for the inspiration boat to come in. It ain’t gonna happen…at least not when you want it to.
Some people think if they just sit and wait long enough something will come to them. Some magical idea will miraculously appear and they will begin to write prolifcally like Edgar Allen Poe, Hemingway, or Issac Asimov.
Did you know it took nineteen years for Asimov to publish his first 100 books, ten years to publish the next 100, and only five years to bring the total up to 300. Mr. Asimov, when asked by Bob Bly how he became so prolific replied that he believed he was so prolific because he had a simple straightforward style.
So there’s a good place to start.
Write the way you speak, write fast and edit later
Now I must preface this with a disclaimer…not everybody is going to agree with me.
However, I find that if you write the way you speak, write fast, and prevent yourself from editing what you write as you go, you will do a better job of developing content.
Why? When you stop and start to edit what you have written as you go you interrupt your left brain or the creative part of your brain. Once interrupted, it is harder to get the creative juices flowing again. So next time leave the editing for later and focus on writing what it is you want to say.
Waiting for inspiration
This usually results in the development of brain glaciers. Have you been there?
These glaciers make nothing you write seem good enough. You start, but keep erasing everything you write re-wording things over-and-over again never exactly saying what you really mean to say. Eventually these glaciers develop into a full-blown mountain forming a mental blockade. And the result? You end up writing nothing, nada.
To prevent this you must begin to write. It is as simple as that. Just do a brain dump. Get your fingers moving writing down all of the random thoughts flying into your head. Don’t worry about form or style at this point just begin. You will have time to go back and refine your thoughts later.
Do the easy stuff first
The trick to writing is to just get started. Once you get started and the more you write, the easier thoughts flow and more fluid your writing becomes. Once I get going, the flood of ideas is only hindered by my typing speed.
So pick something easy and just get started. Once you gain momentum the rest will come more easily.
Write about what interests you most
Similar to writing what you would consider easy first in the spirit of just getting moving you should also write about what interests you most. An area of the product that really interests you. A benefit you can enthusiastically describe.
When you write with enthusiasm the reader gets carried along with you in the excitement and selling your product will become easier.
Study expert’s copy
Constant exposure to the copy of experts will transform your writing over time. Copy ads of famous copywriters over word for word.
If you do this enough times the expert’s writing begins to imprint on your brain and you become a better writer as a result. When you sit down to write you next sales letter the components seem obvious, the wording flows, and the message has higher impact. Not every time but your chances of writing better copy will increase exponentially.
Begin with a bunch of headlines
One of the first things you can do is think about a list of benefits the product provides. Think about the product’s target audience and how the product’s benefits will be useful to them. Then take a few hours and headlines and subheads that feature the benefits you uncover.
This activity is useful not only in creating the headlines and subheads but will be useful content when constructing a bulleted list.
Write to your mama
Have you ever read one of those sterile corporate brochures riddled with big words that did not add a lot of value to the message and at times left you wondering what it all was supposed to mean? Well, let me tell you something…those type of brochures don’t really generate results.
When you are writing any sort of promotional piece whether you are trying to sell a product or service it is important to write as if you were speaking to one person. Your reader will feel your enthusiasm when they pick-up your promotional material and you will be able to more effectively sell the benefits of the product.
So next time you sit down to write, write like you are talking to your mother or a friend. Your copy will be easier to understand and be more effective.
Dump the details
When writing a promotional piece care should be taken not to weight down your message with too much detail.
Why? It distracts and bores the reader and you will lose their attention. If they really are that interested in the detail have it available for them just not in your promotion.
How to describe your product
When you try to describe your product to prospects think about the differentiation characteristics.
Make a list of these features and then ask yourself, “what benefits do these features provide the end user?” Make a list and use this content to describe your product. You will find your description is clearer and your writing more persuasive.
The blog went up, the posts began, and then I disappeared. So what happened?
Well, I had to shift gears momentarily and work on my internet marketing training goals. You see when I left the corporate sector with a commitment to hang my own shingle I had no idea what I didn’t know. What’s the old saying? You don’t know what you don’t know. I think that’s it. Well that’s me.
You see I spent years partnering with merchants and creating direct response marketing campaigns. I know all about building campaigns that deliver a positive ROI and selling businesses on partnerships.
So what was missing? Quite frankly, it was the nuts and blots of internet marketing. When you have a staff to supervise, you can hire experts to manage every aspect of your business and focus your energy on the areas you excel.
However, as a beginning entrepreneur what I found is that I knew little about the operational parts of running an internet marketing campaigns. For example, until I posted this site I had never posted one.
So why bother? Well when I launched my copywriting/consulting business all the calls were coming from the internet marketers who desperately needs writers to supply content for their sites. As you know I am already an accomplished writer but felt in order to deliver better value to these prospective customers I needed to understand their world.
Unlike the kids hitting the scene now, there was no such thing as internet marketing when I was going through school. So I have been spending part of my time learning this stuff. My goal is to evolve the business so that it reaches a stage where I feel comfortable farming out some of this stuff but I don’t feel comfortable doing that until I learn it myself. I want to have a safety net in case my help moves on.
The good news…I’m almost there, yeah!
If you are anything like me don’t get discouraged or give-up. I would encourage you to consider signing up for one of these courses to bring your self around the learning curve a little faster. They definitely helped me. Roz’s program truly motivated me because her story is a lot like mine. She is just as great a person as she seems in her posts.
In addition to the handbook you can sign-up for personal mentoring and coaching. Here is the link to her program and her description of it.
Read the amazing true story of how one woman, with no previous business experience, earned $436,797+ in 2002 and now earns MUCH MORE than that … just by selling other people’s stuff online!
In her down-to-earth, sincere and often humorous style, Rosalind Gardner guides you through the entire process of building an affiliate marketing business on the ‘Net.
Frequently revised and updated to reflect industry changes, the Super Affiliate Handbook now consists of 236 pages and 124 screenshots that will show you step-by-step how to become a Super Affiliate. You’ll learn how to pick the best affiliate programs, negotiate a commission raise and save time, money and effort on everything from affiliate software to web hosting.
The other training programs that I highly recommend are the ones produced by the Internet Marketing Center. Derel Gehl and his team put together a comprehensive overview of how to get going on the internet and are truly worth the investment.
Read the materials carefully and sign-up for the one that most closely meets your needs right now. As your skills advance you may want to consider the more accelerated options but I would suggest for beginners to start with The Insider Secrets to marketing your business on the internet course. Here’s the link to the beginner program I recommend.
“Discover the EXACT formula we useto attract 1,000,000+ visitors to our websites each year!”
Learn how you can get other website owners to send traffic to your site, score a top ranking in the search engines, and get 1,000s of dollars in free advertising…
And attract an avalanche of eager customers to your website with the exact same system we’ve used to turn just $25 into over $60,000,000 in online sales!
(You heard us right… that’s $60 MILLION!)
1,000s of people with little or no Internet experience are already using this proven step-by-step formula to make everything from $5,000 each month to $2 MILLION+ each year…
I plan to spend the rest of my day writing and keeping my Sheltie Lexi from trying to munch on the cats. Thank you for visiting my blog I hope you have a great day!
Karen
Success is not the position you stand, but the direction in which you look.
I must be honest. This little scribble has nothing to do with the fact that, in a staggering loss of support of the democrat’s health care policies, Scott Brown – a Republican – won Teddy Kennedy’s seat in the U.S. Senate yesterday.
Tom Hopkins author of, How to Master The Art Of Selling, agrees with this philosophy but says few companies actually track these metrics and if they do they don’t know what to do with this information.
For some people writing can be about as enjoyable as chewing nails. They sit down to create a sales letter…and nothing.
Learn how you can get other website owners to send traffic to your site, score a top ranking in the search engines, and get 1,000s of dollars in free advertising…