It’s a new year and time to try some new innovative marketing ideas to help you stand above the other businesses in your space. Bonza Bottler Day is a great way to have a fun monthly promotion that the competition will never think about.

This is also my first post of the year in my new format where I will be focusing on new and different ideas for you to try that don’t have to be complicated or expensive.

• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 1
• Find Your Comfort Zone & Get Your Message Out!
• Marketing Should Be as Natural as Breathing—the Life of Your Business Depends on It! – Sponsored by TimeCenter.com
• Marketing Campaigns for Under $100
• Guerrilla Marketing Fun for a Friday

What is your mantra for 2011? As I discuss in the video I have been known to follow the path of a lot of new ideas and then find myself spread way to thin and not focused on the income generating tasks that will make my business really successful.

It is a good time to build these habits and the mindset now to be ready for next year.

• Books all Small Business Owners Should be Reading
• It’s Time to Reconnect
• “You can lose just as much money being as happy as hell”
• Doing and Knowing What You Love
• Were you Born in a Barn

I interviewed Babs Gösgens from Crossing Hippos. She is a consultant working out of the Netherlands building Joomla Websites and using Magento for E-Commerce.

Hope you enjoy!

You can also listen to my very first show with Ellen K Martin here

You could have the most unique, highest quality product or service in the world and you’d still be broke if you don’t market it every single day! Websites are not magic wands and your place of business isn’t a magnet. You must have marketing pieces that are perpetually in play, attracting new prospects and new clients, creating a steady stream of revenue.

It is your marketing, not your product or service, that is the lifeblood of your business. Marketing is what gets your offer out in front of the public, persuades people to buy, educates prospects about your business, builds your brand, outrageously increases sales…well, short of babysitting your kids for you, there are few things marketing can’t do…actually, you could create a marketing campaign for the best babysitters in your local area, so there’s actually nothing that marketing can’t do.

Market your business every single day and you are guaranteed to achieve financial freedom.

Give People Everything They Want and You’ll Get Everything You Need

Countless companies fail because they maintain an egocentric perspective in the way they conduct their business. If you continue to execute your marketing and customer relations in a manner that fails to truly perceive the needs of your clients and prospects then you will fail to connect with them.

Before you begin any marketing campaign or project you must get in the mindset of your prospective clients, focusing in on their hot buttons. Zero in on your target audience’s most frequent problems, worries, fears, aspirations and dreams and you’ll break all of your previous sales records.

Incorporate a completely genuine desire to help others within your marketing and it will generate a natural energy that will pull people in for life.

Article Marketing for Permanent Presence

Since consistent, frequent marketing is key to the success of your business, you need to consider the relationship of how much you get in return for your efforts—this is especially true for those of you working with bootstrapped budgets. Ideally, you want to be able to put one unit of effort in and get several units of success in return. Those of you doing your marketing on a one-for-one basis are sure to be going bald from pulling your hair out in anxiety. Successful businesses are those that incorporate leverage in their marketing.

Article marketing provides one of the best ways to market your business every day without actually having to do something every day. That’s because once you publish an article online, it’s there to stay, creating a permanent presence online. Articles pull people in from the search engines through your keywords, provide value through useful information, and drive Web traffic back your site through backlinks that you plant in the article.

This permanence also makes article marketing one of the most cost effective means of marketing. One price, one unit of energy, infinite potential.

Plus, you can print your online articles and send them out in direct response mailers to your leads. (Always think of how you can get the most use out of a single piece for the best use of your budget.) Providing helpful information in your mailers adds a great deal of value and helps establish why your business is the clear choice. Plus, adding an information-based piece in any marketing you do helps soften your sales approach, making it much more attractive than a standalone promotion. Due to a daily bombardment of advertising, people are naturally skeptical about these standalone promotions. When you provide something for free that people can use to make their lives better they’re much likelier to let their guard down and actively consider your offer.

Articles on Legal Steroids

Add video to your articles and you’ll instantly multiply your sales potential. For example, YouTube is now considered the second largest search engine on the Internet; behind Google but ahead of Yahoo and Bing. Is your business missing out on all those potential customers?

In addition, we are naturally sensory driven, so the more senses you engage in your marketing the better your chances of success. Pair your copywriting efforts with video and you give your audience yet another reason to stay tuned and focus on your offer.

Adding videos to your articles also adds potency to your efforts because it allows you to position yourself as an expert. Why do expert opinions and celebrity endorsements still prevail as top marketing methods over all these years? People are more confident buying from an authority.

This opportunity is available to every type of business owner, but massage therapists, salon owners, and yoga teachers have an especially ideal opportunity to create informational videos for their clients and prospects. Create a series of instructive videos, get people interested, show people you truly want to help, and you will motivate them to buy from you.

Money Making Mindset

Above all, it is vital to your success that you remind yourself to have fun during your marketing. Approach your marketing like a drone, drudgingly shuffling through it because you’re viewing it as a mandatory duty, and your marketing message is sure to suffer. Enthusiasm is contagious and can be transferred to others to incite sales. But a complete lack of enthusiasm will leach much of your marketing’s potential as your audience will most certainly pick up on it. Instead, look at it as a fun adventure that promises infinite potential and you will surely unlock the power of attraction, sharing your confidence and enthusiasm with others, and converting record-breaking prospects to loyal customers.

• Find Your Comfort Zone & Get Your Message Out!
• Happy Bonza Bottler Day, oh and Happy New Year.
• Email Marketing, It’s like adding an Army of Employees
• 10 Ways to Improve Workflow
• Marketing Campaigns for Under $100

I have noticed as business is picking up I have had less time to commit to producing new articles for all my Bootstrapping Friends. Well I decided that I will share the video’s that I have created for my local clients with you guys as well. A lot of the information in them is just as important for my readers that are here as well.

It also does not matter where in the world you are my company would be able to help you with any of the concepts that I talk about.

• What the Hell is Social Networking?
• 5 Stellar Sales Tips To Push You To the Top of Your Field
• 10 Ways to Improve Workflow
• Marketing Campaigns for Under $100
• Monday Marketing Tip: Underpromise and Overdeliver

One place to really make this happen is with your diet. It might seem odd…can diet improve my business? The answer is a definitive yes. For most, work is where we eat poorly, because we’re always on the run and in a hurry. We just simply don’t have time to make a good meal happen. After considering the next few paragraphs, you may start to treat your diet like you would a client.

Firstly, there are many different foods which can improve not only your energy, but also your ability to think and make decisions. No, this isn’t coffee. It’s extra supplements such as vitamin E and fish oil. These nutrients, found naturally in many foods, have been demonstrated to increase thinking ability. You can easily find these foods around as many restaurants allow you to substitute beef or pork for fish in many their dishes.

On that point, avoid any fatty foods. Even if you are in the best shape of your life, a fatty meal will slow you down because your body has to process it. This mean you work slower, you think slower, and you are simply less motivated. You may still feel into your work, but you’ll be working at a decreased rate compared to how you might work had you had a lighter meal.

The same goes for the beverages you drink. Many drinks give you a short burst of energy, but they’ll make you crash later. Sodas and similar drinks provide you with sugar for energy, but many of these sugars are hard for your body to work with, so you’ll end up spending more energy in order to digest them. Instead drink water or other natural fruit juices. Tea is a great alternative to coffee that can still wake you up in the morning, but isn’t as harmful; especially compared to espresso drinks.

Generally speaking, your body is an investment as well. Just like you would invest in worker safety and appropriate training, take the time to do so with your diet. Just like your business in general, what you put in is what you get out. Your body in this sense is a tool to make your business run at its optimum rate. With a poor diet, you may be able to work, but you’ll be doing a worse job comparatively.

And hey, you may end up looking and feeling better in life in general as well.

• Email Marketing, It’s like adding an Army of Employees
• How to Write a Business Proposal
• Better your business with customer feedback
• Find Your Comfort Zone & Get Your Message Out!
• 5 Stellar Sales Tips To Push You To the Top of Your Field

1. Think mise en place, or everything in its place. This idea is popular among professional chefs. Basically put, make sure your work space is organized with everything in easy reach and nothing in the way.
2. Your computer desktop is still a desktop. Clean your computer’s desktop of needless links and files. Put relevant files together in folders and create quick links for all regularly used applications and websites.
3. Grabbing something? Grab something else. Every time you get up to get something, stop and ask yourself if you need anything else while you’re up.
4. No more games. We all need a little release with games and other distractions at times, but if you eliminate these products from your computer, you’ll be surprised how little you miss them.
5. Turn off chat. Many offices and Web applications have Web chat. Unless this is essential to your business, turn it off, or put your account on “busy.”
6. Keep separate business and personal emails. Doing this will keep you from being distracted by personal activities that can probably wait till after work.
7. Swallow the biggest frog first. When you organize your day, do the hardest and most painful task first. This will make everything else easier and prevent you from procrastinating.
8. Keep work at work. Don’t allow yourself to carry work over into your personal time. Often, this is an excuse to be lazy at work to limit your work time. This will help you focus while at work and improve your personal life as well.
9. How do you work when your boss is watching? Always work as if your boss is over your shoulder—especially if you are your own boss! With this mindset you’ll see greater productivity.
10. Time to lean, time to clean. While you might not have anything to clean when you work, keep in mind that there is never down time. Many workers allow this little bit of wiggle room with their time, however it only pushes work off that needs to be done anyways.

In a general sense, your workflow will greatly improve when you make your work area as streamlined as possible for completing a task and creating attitudes that focus work time on work. Thinking in terms of tasks to be done instead of hours to work will also greatly improve your productivity. It may take time to completely adapt these ideas into your work area and attitude, but the extra effort required to do so will pay off large dividends.

• Find Your Comfort Zone & Get Your Message Out!
• 5 Stellar Sales Tips To Push You To the Top of Your Field
• Email Marketing, It’s like adding an Army of Employees
• What the Hell is Social Networking?
• Late Payments Can Be a Good thing in a Slow Economy

Stating that the Web has forever changed business is a massive understatement. The amount of customers available to a business like yours has exploded with people from all over the world able to access your products any time of day. However, every business is taking advantage of this new market and crowding has become a significant problem for businesses trying to stand out in search engine listings and against other competitors selling similar products.

Though it may seem like spending loads of money on advertising is the only way to really get ahead and standout in search results, this isn’t true. In fact, you can stand out amongst your competitors, come up higher in search listings, and generate greater interest in your product line all at the same time. How to do this is simple—take your remaining cash budget and throw it down a wishing well! Okay, that’s obviously not what I suggest, but sometimes the frustration of new business ventures makes you feel like that’s the only why. But for a much more realistic approach, you can write and submit articles about your business subject.

This doesn’t mean write sales sites for your business—you’re already doing that and everyone else is too. The way to stand out is to take advantage of the other great utility the Web has provided consumers—information gathering. When people are interested in something, they search the Web for information. Even if they are buying a product, prospects won’t just look up sales websites, they’ll look for purely informational sites for objective opinions free of any sales pressure. For example, if they want a bed, they’ll want to know what types of beds are out there; if they want cheese, they’ll want to know health info; or if they’re interested in widgets, they’ll want to know what one is even before they think of buying.

Here’s where you and your business come in—you create this content for customers. Whether it’s setting up an entire website for information or submitting articles to a larger service, by generating content on your area of expertise, you increase the amount of traffic to your specific business area. Furthermore, you become a resource for not just products, but for information. This means more potential customers are coming to your websites, and more content means a greater chance of appearing on search result listings without extra money spent on advertising. Best of all, you position you and your business as a source of expertise on whatever you sell. Customers trust you for all the valuable information you’ve given them and they know you are competent about your products rather than just a business doing a sales pitch.

However, you can’t just put any content on the Web. Find out what customers are interested in when it comes to your products. Give them great content that isn’t only about your products specifically, but how to use them, maintain them, or enjoy them best; stated in a general way. When you write these articles, providing information about the subject should be the primary goal. Your business should be a small footnote at the end, reminding customers if they’d like to see some great products related to this subject, they can find them at your website.

Using these guidelines, customers will become excited and informed about your product realm, and they’ll remember which businesses helped them along the way. For you and your business, you’ll see greater interest, Web traffic, and better search results in a way that makes you stand out among competitors.

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In addition, I haven’t seen many comments on these articles lately. As much of an absolute marketing mastermind I am, I’m sure I bring up arguable points once in a while. And as I’ve said before, I always welcome suggestions on future articles. Please feel free to drop me a line if you think of something you’d like to learn more about or introduce for discussion. Thanks!

• Find Your Comfort Zone & Get Your Message Out!
• 5 Stellar Sales Tips To Push You To the Top of Your Field
• Email Marketing, It’s like adding an Army of Employees
• 10 Ways to Improve Workflow
• Marketing Campaigns for Under $100

When money is abundant, businesses tend to make choices that aren’t as effective or pragmatic. In this way, a tight budget may be beneficial in helping you create a concise marketing plan that targets customers that will actually purchase your products or ask for your service rather than just be aware of them.  Here are a few basic ideas for marketing campaigns for under $100 to help you get started in expanding your business.

To begin with, make use of marketing materials that don’t cost anything. The best way to do this is using Internet tools that help you create word of mouth about your business without having to spend. There are many websites that people use for social networking that your business can use such as Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter. These websites allow you to post information about your business—upcoming events, new products, change of service—for free and anyone connected to your business and anyone connected to them will hear about it. Use this as a soft campaign to generate awareness of your business to a huge customer base.

Another option is to set up an informational website associated with your business. Whatever you sell—cookies, janitorial service, or stiletto heels—you can create a website that helps people learn more about your realm of service and products without directly selling to them. This may seem contradictory, but many people research on the Web before purchasing products or services. If they happen to learn what makes a great cookie on your website, they’re more likely to buy from you when they’re ready. These sites are easy to set up (you already know everything) and they don’t take much to maintain since there’s no e-commerce applications, just simple text, pictures, and maybe video.

Work with companies that do targeted advertising online. Unless you’re selling a very general product, you probably do business with very interested people. In order for you to get customers who are serious buyers you need to go where they go. It’s expensive to post ads in magazines, but it is much less expensive to post ads with companies that will only charge you based on the number of times the ad is shown on a webpage that is topically related to your business. These companies greatly reduce your costs and you are only paying to advertise to people who are likely to buy.

Generally speaking, think of the modern marketing campaign this way—getting the word out to the public should be free and advertising to customers should be done directly based on their interests. The Web has revolutionized business in so many ways—there’s no reason it can’t save you money as well.

• Email Marketing, It’s like adding an Army of Employees
• What the Hell is Social Networking?
• More Kick A$$ Guerrilla Marketing Promotions Part 1
• Happy Bonza Bottler Day, oh and Happy New Year.
• Find Your Comfort Zone & Get Your Message Out!

This phenomena is simply using the Web to connect with people, many of whom you meet exclusively through the Web by having shared interests or through others you already know. Many websites that you’ve heard of are social networking site—Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, and Twitter are probably the most popular. Each does something a little different, but basically each one allows people to share ideas and media with many people at once with little effort. Twitter, for example, allows you to send messages to everyone in your friends list, but only at 140 characters at a time. It’s a great way to let everyone know what you’re up to and for others to check up on you, but without a long phone call. Other sites like Blogger allow you to blog, put up posts of text as long as you want, so that you can expand upon ideas or comment on events and let anyone who’s interested join in on the conversation.

These activities may not seem like very much on the surface, but their power comes when many people are all communicating at once. You may only get 140 characters on Twitter, but you may get thirty messages a day. This makes you aware of what many people are doing very quickly. Furthermore, sites like Facebook and MySpace allow you to give and get a look out what other people are interested in and are up to any given day; very quickly. Your friends get to see what others are writing about you, and through this, new connections are made. When millions of people are doing this together, ideas and conversations spread out quickly.

The true strength of these technologies is the ability for users to pass along messages to others instantaneously. It’s like a game of telephone, expect there are thousands of people spread out all over the world and there’s no lag time between messages. These technologies are nothing to scoff at. Many recent news events have been reported first by people posting content to social networking websites and passing the word to others through these networks. Because they are so quick and don’t require much work to use, they are a great way to spread the word about anything, including historic moments.

So now you want to get on it? Great! It’s free to use any of these services. You don’t have to use them regularly, but when you do, you may find yourself connecting with distant relatives, old friends, and people you never met before, who have the same interests. Through this you can learn a lot, hopefully make a few business connections, and maybe even a few new friends as well. Tweet!

So follow me on twitter: @heckman

• Email Marketing, It’s like adding an Army of Employees
• 5 Stellar Sales Tips To Push You To the Top of Your Field
• 10 Ways to Improve Workflow
• Marketing Campaigns for Under $100
• Find Your Comfort Zone & Get Your Message Out!