Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Finding a Niche by: Matt Bacak / TAB Money Group

If you don't find a niche market for the product or service you offer, you will have a difficult time being successful. Most newcomers who wish to do business on the Internet often market to everyone they can find with the expectation that everyone will do business with them. This is the same as throwing mud against the wall and hoping some of it will stick. They have not yet found their niche market.
What is niche marketing?
A niche market is composed of individuals and businesses that have similar interests and needs, which can be readily identified and that can be easily targeted and reached.
Finding a niche for your business means finding a great product or service for a highly targeted audience.
Here's the process to find your niche business
1. Find a niche product or service you are passionate about. This will greatly improve your chances of being successful. Why? Because it's the only way you're going to be able to devote the kind of time and effort to create a meaningful web site, build up the right traffic, generate worthwhile income, and enjoy what you're doing.
2. Choose a niche product you are knowledgeable about. Reflect on what skills, hobbies or products you know the most about. If you don't have the knowledge yet, then choose a niche product that you would love to promote, and then spend the necessary time to research it, so you can eventually become an expert in your marketing field.
3. Define your niche market - do the necessary research to see if there is a market for your niche product. To create a profitable business for your niche product, you need to ask yourself these questions:
a) Is there sufficient demand for it? - If you choose a field that is too broad it may be hard to stand out from the competition. For example, camping equipment could be your niche product. Well, unless you are a large corporation such as Sports Authority (a large retail store in my town), you won't stand out from the crowd. However, a more highly targeted niche product could be Coleman Camping Equipment.
b) Keyword research - use keyword tools such as the overture suggestion tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion) or word tracker (wordtracker.com) to find how many people are searching each month on keywords related to your niche product.


Here's an example:
According to overture (at the time of writing this article), the keyword phrase "camping equipment" was searched 76164 times in one month. If you do a search on Google.com for camping equipment you will find 1,610,000 web sites show up - heck, that's too competitive.
However "Coleman camping equipment" generated 1242 searches in one month according to overture. Google.com shows 93,200 competing websites. That's much better though still somewhat competitive.
Tip: Notice there are not many web sites (even the top ones), that have "Coleman camping equipment" in their titles. This is just one of the ways to obtain a high ranking on the search engines for your newly targeted web site. This will then provide lots of targeted traffic to your site.
c) Take a survey - you may already have products or services that you selling to your customers. If so, ask questions within your survey about what product or service would help your customers business. If it can help them save time by gaining more knowledge or automating tasks, you could have a winner.
d) Create Your Own Unique Selling Position (USP) - study your competition to find out what they emphasize about the product which makes them stand out from the crowd. Then decide on something that will make your business unique from the others. It could be something unique about the product (i.e. discount Coleman camping equipment) or you could choose a more highly defined target market (i.e. Boy Scout organizations and clubs throughout the USA that use Coleman's camping equipment).
4. Build and promote your web site - to develop a profitable web site for your niche product you need to create a number of informative pages that will not only attract visitors from the search engines, but inform and move them to purchase from your site.
Niche marketing is the key to developing a profitable business that will make you stand out from the crowd. By doing the necessary research and building an informative web site, you will become an expert in your niche marketing field.


About the author:
Matt Bacak is a featured author on TAB Money Group. He became "##1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours.
Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is
turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories.
Discover The Secrets http://promotingtips.com

You may read more business articles by going to TAB on Business.
©2008 TAB Money Group - All Rights Reserved

Brochures. Are yours helping or hurting your company? by: J K Inwood / TAB Money Group

Web Design Graphics Copywriting Kirwood Inc., Web Design, Graphics, Copywriting
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brochure design
Corporate Brochures:
Are Yours Helping or Hurting Your Company?
Please contact us at (519) 439-8884 or Email to discuss your particular brochure or copy writing requirement.
How Good Are Your Company's Brochures?
Desk Top Publishing software does not solve your copywriting and professional design/layout problems any more than owning a wrench makes you a qualified mechanic.

Do you find yourself reluctant or even a tad apologetic when you hand out your company's brochure? Are you unhappy with it, but not sure why? If so, chances are you need a new brochure. But before you leap into that project, consider some of the points that follow. A little thought and planning now will go a long way in the creation of a brochure which both projects your corporate identity and image positively and is a brochure of which you can be proud.

Why Do You Even Need a Brochure?
First and foremost, a brochure is just as important and basic a tool as your business card. However, where your business card simply introduces you as an individual, your company brochure introduces your entire company. It is like an executive summary of your operation and offerings. It is an important marketing and sales tool, one in which you can do a little bragging and shamelessly present your credentials in the most favourable light. It is your opportunity to create a lasting impression. Make sure that it is a good one.

A Good Brochure
is essential to the success of your business. It must be brief. It must effectively communicate the most important fundamentals about your business and your products or services. It must communicate with, reach and move a prospective customer who, you must assume, knows nothing about your company. That is a tall order.

A Good Brochure
must leave the reader with the impression that yours is a solid, reliable company and therefore its products must be equally as good, solid and reliable. It is a corner stone in building trust with your prospective customers. It must leave the reader wanting to learn more about your company, but not necessarily today.

A Good Brochure
will introduce your company and give the prospect a visual feel for who you are and what you do. It should function well as both a door opener before a sales call and a reminder afterwards to which prospective clients may refer. While your brochure will seldom actually get you a sale, it will make getting the order so much easier

Does Your Current Brochure Do All That?
No? Well, Change It.
A Bad Brochure Is Like Bad Breath.
No one will tell you what is wrong, but they will avoid you, or in this case, your company. Your brochure, along with your phone number, will simply go right to the trash.

When that happens, you will find you have done more than just waste your money and time. You have turned a prospect into a permanent no sale without even getting a chance to get in the door. If you saved a few hundred dollars on producing your brochure, was it worth it?

A badly done or cheap looking brochure reflects badly on you, your company and your products. Do not scrimp. A company which economizes on a brochure may also be seen as scrimping on its products.

Your Brochure Should Not
attempt to be a comprehensive technical manual detailing all your product specs. It should not be a price sheet listing special sales items and the like. These are sales sheets and have completely different requirements in look, design, and purpose.

When companies try to combine these functions in a one piece all things to all people brochure, they often end up with a confusing, disorganized mess. You can be absolutely certain that if your brochure is difficult to read, it won't be. This could reflect a confused company to a prospect. Remember K.I.S.S.?

An acceptable combination of both types is often seen in a presentation folder. One pocket holds your corporate brochure, the other pocket holds special deals, sales sheets, price lists and the like.

Brochures Are Usually Used In Three Ways:

* Initially: as an introductory mailer. You may mass mail the brochure to sales leads and follow up later by phone.
* Secondarily: Your brochure should always be used as a leave behind at initial sales calls. Even when you have mailed out a copy in advance of a meeting, it is always a good idea to leave another copy as you finish up your sales call. It serves as a reminder that there is a solid, respectable company behind the sales rep who just left. And it certainly never hurts to have several copies of your brochure circulating in your prospect's office(s).
* Thirdly: A corporate brochure is essential to fulfil requests from potential clients for literature, either in response to an ad or a phone enquiry.

Do NOT Do This....
A major Canadian Bank produced a series of "Advice to Small Business" booklets to hand out to prospects. Each branch manager was supplied with a quantity of these brochures. However under the bank's accounting system they were only charged if they actually gave out the brochures. The result? You guessed it. Many of these branch managers stashed the brochures in the vaults and refused to give them out to avoid being charged.

Brochures and advertising material are wasted sitting in your mail room. Get this material into your prospects' hands.

CHECK THE TRUNKS OF YOUR SALES REPS' CARS
More then once we have seen expensive sales material only get as far as the sales rep's car trunk and no further. Make sure they are giving it out as intended.

How Do You Develop a Good Brochure?
The easiest way is to contact us today for a free discussion and proposal. No obligation. Telephone us at (519) 439-8884, Fax us at (519) 439-9491or EMAIL us right now. You probably get dozens of brochures, flyers and general junk every week. Pay attention to what you do with them and why. Some you probably scan quickly and file for later reference. Others, you toss straight in the garbage. A very few you will actually read. Why? Take a second look and see what attracts and sells you . . . and what repels you.

1. Learn from your competition. Before you start to develop a brochure for your company, review all your competitions' brochures. You'll be surprised at what you learn. Pick out the points and techniques that attract and sell you. It is easier to point to a brochure with the type of image you like than to verbalize it in briefing a creative person.

The best way to learn about your industry is from your competition. You do you have their brochures, price sheets, promotional material, samples of their products, don't you? This is the first step.

2. Involve your Creative person from the start. Bring in a creative services person for a preliminary chat. Show him your competitors' material. Give him an idea of what you are trying to accomplish and a little company background.

A skilled, creative person should be able to elicit from you all he needs to develop an initial rough concept, copy and layout. Work together to develop the brochure you need.

We usually (but not always) will develop a rough at no charge on the understanding that we produce the work if it is accepted. We find this is actually very productive for all concerned.

3. Determine how much you can spend on your brochure? It's no good just telling your designer to develop some ideas unless you provide a realistic budget within which to work. You do not want to waste money, but neither do you want to produce some schlock just to save a little. That's penny wise and pound foolish. A good bench mark you could use is that your brochure should match or better the quality of the best competitive brochures.

Set a budget that tends to hurt and than add 10%.Your brochure must reflect the quality your company sells. There is seldom profit in looking second rate.

4. Printing Budgets Setting up a reasonable printing budget is easy, if not painless. Call up a couple of printers and ask them, in general terms, what it will cost to print the type of brochure you have in mind, based on all artwork supplied. Usually they will be glad to assist. After all it could mean an order.

5. Pre-Press Budgets As a rule of thumb, use about 50% of the printing cost as a budget for your copy, design, type and final artwork. This percentage will be lower on larger printing jobs of course. Take heart. There is some consolation in the fact that your pre press costs are a one time item.

After you get over the initial shock, fire up your spread sheet and set a realistic budget.

For the best results, let your printer print but have your creative person do all the copy, design and related pre press work. Do NOT have your printer designing brochures. And no matter how good your receptionist is with her paint program, do not have amateurs creating your corporate material, unless of course you want to look amateur.

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TO HELP YOU GET BETTER BROCHURES. Contact us today for a free discussion and proposal. No obligation.
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* Please contact J. Kirby Inwood
* Email
* Kirwood Inc.
* Tel: (519) 439-8884
* Fax (519) 439-9491
* 2406-340 Colborne Street
* London ON N6B 3N1


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About the author:
J Kirby Inwood is a featured author on TAB Money Group. He can be reached at hwwp://www.kirwood.com. J. Kirby Inwood is a superb but immodest copy writer with decades of experience
He weeps over the illiterates writing ads today

You may read more articles on business development and success on TAB on Business.

©2008 TAB Money Group - All Rights Reserved

Failing At Your Network Marketing Business? by: Daegan Smith / TAB Money Group

Readers read this! Do you know that Network Marketing whether online or offline has been a good source of income for young business establishers nowadays? Well, Network Marketing is not a simple business topic. This form of business does not just demand a debiting and a crediting knowledge background. Leave the task of computing among accountants.

This type of marketing may double or even triple your business budget easily, provided you will not fall in either one of the common mistakes done by error-prone Network Marketing producers and distributors.

1. Avoid Network Marketing groups that offer commission-based compensation among distributors. There is a big possibility that it is an illegal pyramid.

The act of alluring people or business finders to enter a business group has been an ordinary day-to-day street transaction among business-minded people. There are those people who will explain first the benefits that you can get from their group. But the reality is that they will just reverse what they had said. Believe me, it may not always be the case but beware. BEWARE the dogs suck! Metaphorically speaking, the dogs are those Network Marketing groups that offer commission- based compensation. The only assurance you got here is your having a job. But your assurance of getting paid evenly or squarely is diminishing. You can be paid still, but until when? That is a question that needs no more answer.

2. Avoid groups that oblige the new distributors to buy expensive products or any materials that the group offers. This might be another sign of potential danger.

It always pays to be nice. But some nice people are sometimes not all nice. It is not always the case. The truth behind is that there are pyramid groups that force their newly-entered distributors to purchase the expensive products or materials. Fake pyramid groups always have at the back of their minds the amount they could get. Sometimes it turns to be something from nothing. Take this friendly advice, right in front of your face I’m telling you, find ways to quit to the group.

Allow them to use you with just compensation. Do not allow anyone to use you as a distributor in which nothing’s left for you. Speak and think.

3. Do not heed to what the pyramid promoter is promising if he or she said that you can have more money through continued help in recruiting more distributors.


This is another clear sign of your being a victim of illegal network marketing. The bottom line here is work with just compensation. If the scenario is like the one stated above, quit now or be sorry. They might just be using you for their personal interest.

4. Some distributors don’t give ample time or attention to their network marketing group.

Don’t miss it. It is important. Some people are joining the group half-heartedly. But take note, it will count days or months to build an elevating career in network marketing.

5. Some network marketing operators take the business reluctantly as if its status will not able to decline in time.

Each member of the network marketing group must work hand-in-hand to sustain the set objectives of the group. This practice is not just recommended. It is a must to follow. But doing the otherwise will lead the path towards business failure.


6. Not realizing why you are operating the network marketing business.

It may sound stupid if after how many days of marketing operations you realized that you don’t have a definite target or objective in your business. But no matter how stupid it may be, it might be a reality that some are born as invalid plan setter. Early from the birth of your network marketing business, you should have already realized the reasons why you are driving the business. Recovery from money problems of the business is not like reading the A, B, and C. Setting your business objectives is the keyword.

7. Have a well-established commitment to work and duty.

There is no better time to start moving than NOW. Product distributors must attend to their respective assignments. One cannot make his or her business grow by just merely looking at it. Be committed to you work. Have time to pinpoint your business weaknesses so you can catch-up for the committed mistake if any.

As you reach the end of this article, I am hoping you are ending, too, the failing of your networking marketing business. Start rising now, young entrepreneur! You can advertise your article for free on Sling Ads.

About the author:
Daegan Smith is a featured author on TAB Money Group. He is the leader of the fastest growing team of successful home business enterpernuers on the net. Find out how we're creating financial freedom all across the globe and how to get in on the action FREE =>http://www.comlev.com Team Blog: http://www.turnkeyinternetbusiness.blogspot.com

©2008 TAB Money Group - All Rights Reserved