“I would like to share this article  from http://marketingscoop.com that I’ve read today and would love to share it with you and see what you think.”

With more than a decade of experience in marketing, ranking from pay-per-click to direct mail, I’ve seen a lot of failures and far more successes when it comes to marketing.

Today, the art of marketing is far more complex than it once was. However, many of the same basic principles still apply. Too often, professional marketers and small business owners overlook the basic techniques that have separated successful campaigns from those that never turn a profit. Here is my all time list of effective marketing tips.

Know your audience. Successful campaigns get that way because marketers know their audience. They fully understand their needs, how to help meet those needs and how to create demand. Knowing and understanding your audience through proper market segmentation means a well targeted campaign that generates a profitable return.

Focus on the offer. A marketing offer is the driving force of marketing promotions that drive results. In fact, market testing has proven that the offer is the most significant criterion for conversion. Focus on your offer if you want to be successful.

Split test. Never ever run a campaign without testing something. One of the most common is a split test which allows you to simultaneously test two versions of something. It can be a web page, post card, or email. Split testing is essential for improving performance.

Never work alone. The most creative ideas come from working with other creative people. Don’t feel like you need to have all the answers or great ideas. You may start with an idea, but an open dialog with creative individuals will make it better.

Don’t sell on price. I’ve seen so many marketers fail because they sell on price alone. This leads to a discounting war, lower profitability, and often bankruptcy. Rather, focus on creating so much value that the perception of price becomes insignificant.

Consistent messaging. Consider the entire user experience before you launch a campaign. From email to website to offer, is the prospect having a consistent user experience? If they are, your campaigns stand above 98% of others.

Create value after the sale. As marketers, it’s our job to understand our market segment and build relationships, not dump people off at the front door of our store and walk away. Focus as much of your energy on building relationships with customers as you do prospects.

Test. Test. Test. In addition to split testing, you should consider multiple forms of testing in each marketing discipline. For direct mail, test headlines, offers, copy, time of direct mail drop, etc. Consider testing a life long mission.

Integrated Marketing Works Best. You can’t rely on one form of marketing to carry you to success. It’s okay to generate most of your leads or sales through PPC marketing if you will but what happens when that dries out? Use multiple media sources to meet your goals.

Nothing can replace experience. You can run out and hire all of the best consultants in the world, but you still have to do the work. Nothing can replace actual experience. It will make you a stronger marketer and more successful in the long term.

Apply these helpful marketing tips if you want to be truly successful. These techniques and tips are applied by successful marketers on a daily basis. The result is an ever growing success rate of marketing success.

“I would like to share this article written by Jeff Haden from LinkedIn that I’ve read today and would love to share it with you and see what you think.”

Somewhere along the line you started treating it more like a resume. It’s time to fix that.
Overall, LinkedIn is the best social media platform for entrepreneurs, business owners, and professionals. Unfortunately, your LinkedIn profile may not be helping you to create those connections.

So let’s tune yours up with six simple steps:

Step 1. Revisit your goals. At its most basic level LinkedIn is about marketing: marketing your company or marketing yourself. But that focus probably got lost as you worked through the mechanics of completing your profile, and what started as a marketing effort turned into a resume completion task. Who you are isn’t as important as what you hope to accomplish, so think about your goals and convert your goals into keywords, because keywords are how people find you on LinkedIn.

But don’t just whip out the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and identify popular keywords. It’s useful but everyone uses it—and that means, for example, that every Web designer has shoehorned six- and seven-digit searches-per-month keywords like “build a website,” “website templates,” “designing a website,” and “webmaster” into their profile. It’s hard to stand out when you’re one of millions.

Go a step further and think about words that have meaning in your industry. Some are process-related; others are terms only used in your field; others might be names of equipment, products, software, or companies.

Use a keyword tool to find general terms that could attract a broader audience, and then dig deeper to target your niche by identifying keywords industry insiders might search for.

Then sense-check your keywords against your goals. If you’re a Web designer but you don’t provide training, the 7 million monthly Google searches for  “how to Web design” don’t matter.

Step 2. Layer in your keywords. The headline is a key factor in search results, so pick your most important keyword and make sure it appears in your headline. “Most important” doesn’t mean most searched, though; if you provide services to a highly targeted market the keyword in your headline should reflect that niche. Then work through the rest of your profile and replace some of the vague descriptions of skills, experience, and educational background with keywords. Your profile isn’t a term paper so don’t worry about a little repetition. A LinkedIn search scans for keywords, and once on the page, so do people.

Step 3. Strip out the clutter. If you’re the average person you changed jobs six or eight times before you reached age 30. That experience is only relevant when it relates to your current goals. Sift through your profile and weed out or streamline everything that doesn’t support your business or professional goals. If you’re currently a Web designer but were an accountant in a previous life, a comprehensive listing of your accounting background is distracting. Keep previous jobs in your work history, but limit each to job title, company, and a brief description of duties.

Step 4. Reintroduce your personality. Focusing on keywords and eliminating clutter is important, but in the process your individuality probably got lost. Now you can put it back and add a little enthusiasm and flair. Describing yourself as, “A process improvement consultant with a Six Sigma black belt,” is specific and targeted but also says nothing about you as a person—and doesn’t make me think, “Hey, she would be great to work with.”

Share why you love what you do in your profile. Share what you hope to accomplish. Describe companies you worked for or projects you completed. Share your best or worst experience. Keep your keywords in place, leave out what doesn’t support your goals, and then be yourself.

Keywords are important but are primarily just a way to help potential clients find you. No one hires keywords; they hire people.

Step 5. Take a hard look at your profile photo. Say someone follows you on Twitter. What’s the first thing you do? Check out their photo.

A photo is a little like a logo: On its own an awesome photo won’t win business, but a bad photo can definitely lose business.

Take a look at your current photo. Does it reflect who you are as a professional or does it reflect a hobby or outside interest? Does it look like a real estate agent’s headshot? A good photo flatters but doesn’t mislead. Eventually you’ll meet some of your customers in person and the inevitable disconnect between Photoshop and life will be jarring.

The goal is for your photo to reflect how you will look when you meet a customer, not how you looked at that killer party in Key West four years ago. The best profile photo isn’t necessarily your favorite photo. The best photo strikes a balance between professionalism and approachability, making you look good but also real.

Step 6. Get recommendations. Most of us can’t resist reading testimonials, even when we know those testimonials were probably solicited. Recommendations add color and depth to a LinkedIn profile, fleshing it out while avoiding any, “Oh jeez will this guy ever shut up about himself?” reactions. So ask for recommendations, and offer to provide recommendations before you’re asked.

The best way to build great connections is to always be the one who gives first.

BY MARKETING EXPERT JUSTIN McMAKIN,
CEO & CREATIVE DIRECTOR FOR FULL MEDIA CENTER

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As an authority in marketing communication, Full media center and it’s expert is giving you an opportunity to learn more about marketing your business witch is crucial for a company survival. As a thank you for visiting our website we offer you a complimentary gift at no cost. Sign up to the form on your right and received every week an video email of our own marketing expert and CEO of Full media center, Justin McMakin. Every week, we will communicate you some very important marketing tip witch in result can help your company grow. There is nothing to lose, no commitment or cost required, just sign up to the form on your right and start receiving helpful marketing tip every week . Thank you again for showing interest in Full media center , your marketing communication authority.

Marketing Tip Weekly Archives

• Marketing tip- week 1 – Video
• Marketing tip- week 2 – Endorsed Leverage Marketing
• Marketing tip- week 3 – Bribery

BY MARKETING EXPERT JUSTIN McMAKIN,
CEO & CREATIVE DIRECTOR FOR FULL MEDIA CENTER

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE A WEEKLY FREE MARKETING TIP VIDEO EMAIL

As an authority in marketing communication, Full media center and it’s expert is giving you an opportunity to learn more about marketing your business witch is crucial for a company survival. As a thank you for visiting our website we offer you a complimentary gift at no cost. Sign up to the form on your right and received every week an video email of our own marketing expert and CEO of Full media center, Justin McMakin. Every week, we will communicate you some very important marketing tip witch in result can help your company grow. There is nothing to lose, no commitment or cost required, just sign up to the form on your right and start receiving helpful marketing tip every week . Thank you again for showing interest in Full media center , your marketing communication authority.

Marketing Tip Weekly Archives

• Marketing tip- week 1 – Video

• Marketing tip- week 2 – Endorsed Leverage Marketing

• Marketing tip- week 3 – Bribery

<li><a title=”marketing tip – week 3- bribery” href=”http://www.fullmediacenter.com/?p=1452″>Marketing tip- week 3 – Bribery</a></li>

BY MARKETING EXPERT JUSTIN McMAKIN,
CEO & CREATIVE DIRECTOR FOR FULL MEDIA CENTER

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE A WEEKLY FREE MARKETING TIP VIDEO EMAIL

As an authority in marketing communication, Full media center and it’s expert is giving you an opportunity to learn more about marketing your business witch is crucial for a company survival. As a thank you for visiting our website we offer you a complimentary gift at no cost. Sign up to the form on your right and received every week an video email of our own marketing expert and CEO of Full media center, Justin McMakin. Every week, we will communicate you some very important marketing tip witch in result can help your company grow. There is nothing to lose, no commitment or cost required, just sign up to the form on your right and start receiving helpful marketing tip every week . Thank you again for showing interest in Full media center , your marketing communication authority.

Marketing Tip Weekly Archives

• Marketing tip- week 1 – Video
• Marketing tip- week 2 – Endorsed Leverage Marketing
• Marketing tip- week 3 – Bribery

I love this article written by Martin Lindstrom on Wed Nov 16, 2011 from fastcompany.com explaining how today’s Gen Y have better chance in entrepreneurship due to their easy understanding of today’s technology and amazing capacity of sharing, anything really, online trough Social Media.  I thought to share this as Alphay, one of our client, targets Gen Y  young entrepreneurs as the future of this economy and thought this article was very relevant to this.

There’s a fundamental difference between the rebels of the past and today: Generation Y are born entrepreneurs.

Every generation rebels against their parents. When parents approve, their offspring disapproves. Parent says black, adolescent teen says white. Psychologists who are expert in these matters explain that rebellion is a factor in establishing identity. It’s part of the journey of growing up — personalities are taking shape and a sense of self is being nurtured. Even if you haven’t quite worked out what you want, it helps to know what you don’t want.

But the times seem to be a-changing, yet again. Today’s teens are surprisingly in harmony with their parents. They wear the same branded jeans, have similar music in their iTunes library, are happy to accompany one another to a U2 concert, and if you ask them, many will talk about their friendly, supportive relationship.

Our conventional views of rebellion have been summed up in iconic images: think Marlon Brando wearing a leather jacket astride a Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle in ‘The Wild Ones.’ Or the young couple wrapped in a blanket, standing in the rain and mud at the famous music festival held at Woodstock in 1969. So, what’s going on? Has the rebellious stage bypassed Generation Y and their parents? How will this affect their budding identity? It’s too soon to tell, but there’s one fundamental difference between then and now: Generation Y are born entrepreneurs.

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A quick visit to Facebook will show you just how many teens have begun selling products on their pages. A great video goes viral on YouTube, and suddenly kids are inspired to monetize their page and become content developers. Witness how the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations inspired the sale of hundreds of partisan T-shirts on the web–all managed from the comfort of their bedroom clutter.

Every day I’m contacted by at least 100 kids asking for advice on starting their own businesses. This is what I tell them:

You have nothing to lose
You have no mortgage, you have no husband or wife to support. So go for it! Be provocative, share your opinions. In other words, if you produce T-shirts, make them opinionated. No one stands out by being ordinary. The older you get, the more conservative you’ll probably become, so this is the time to test your limits, to see how far you can go. After all, if not now, then when?

Let your courage drive your business
When I was 15 years old, my local television station had serious problems selling television commercial space. So, I contacted them and we did a deal. I proposed producing a range of TV spots with advice to small businesses on how to, well, use TV commercials to boost their businesses. The station had nothing to lose. If nothing else they had a sweet story of a young kid who seemed crazy enough to do something different. We struck a deal and I began working with them and learning about television production and effective communication. Sadly, the station backed out a few months into the deal. By then, however, I’d learned so much that the whole exercise was worth it. You see, as naïve as I was, I had begun to build my own brand.

Here’s my advice: use your innocence, passion, energy, and fearless self. Knock on doors that you might find too uncomfortable to approach when you’re older.

Let others pay for your business
Let’s go back to the t-shirt business and the biggest mistake most entrepreneurs make. They imagine an avalanche of sales and, in their youthful optimism, invest heavily in stock. This results in a pile of stuff no one wants — and a credit card debt that will take months to clear.

Don’t purchase products in advance. Wait until you get the orders, even if it may cause a slight delay. Spend time working on a sorry-I’m-late letter. It’s far more important that you don’t end up with a product that no one wants. Let your customers finance your production.

Over-deliver and under-promise
The future is viral, and your business is 100 percent dependent upon it. If people like your product, they’ll tell their friends. But don’t make the mistake of thinking your great product is good enough. More effort is always required.

In Japan, it’s an old tradition to over-deliver and under-promise. You see it everywhere. Take, for example, when you order sake. First, the waiter will place a wooden box on your table. Inside the box there’s a sake cup. The sake gets poured into the cup, as you would imagine, but it doesn’t stop there. The pouring continues until the cup floats in the overflow. It makes for a challenging drink to sip, but it contains the essence of the over-deliver-under-promise principle.

Have you ever experienced this? If you have, I’m sure you still clearly remember it. Make this your mantra. If someone orders a t-shirt, include a free hat and a nice card. You can be sure that your customer won’t forget it; chances are neither will their friends.

Team up
Nothing’s worth anything unless you have a good distribution system. A friend of mine sells roses delivered to the door. Another friend sells luxury hams from Italy and exotic mushrooms from Japan. Those that buy the roses might very well be interested in a basket of exotic foodstuffs, whereas those buying the food might be interested in the flowers. One night the penny dropped. Today they share a distribution network cross promoting on another as they go.

A true entrepreneurial spirit is about passion, courage and creative thinking. Believe me, the time for conservative thinking, careful considerations and long-winded planning sessions will arrive eventually. But, before it does, help yourself to the smorgasbord of goodies before it’s too late.

12 Marketing Predictions for 2012 by marketingprofs.com

In 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype; Facebook’s and Twitter’s advertising platforms gained momentum; Google joined the social networking party with Google+; social became a mainstream component within search-engine results pages (SERPs); and Congress called for increased disclosure by companies providing location-based services.

As 2012 follows on the heels of such events, what digital changes and trends should forward-thinking marketers anticipate? Here are Optify’s Top 12 predictions for the year ahead.

1. Marketing automation 2.0 will arrive, ushering in mature software and increasing enterprise adoption

Historically, marketing automation has consisted primarily of email and email nurturing. In 2011, however, we witnessed the expansion of social customer relationship management (CRM). Marketing automation is now one of the fastest growing segments of the CRM industry.

In 2012, it will evolve from being an early-adopter tool into a mainstream solution for organizations that want to connect marketing operations, from the very top of the funnel, to online search, and down through sales and customer management.

Industry players like Aprimo, Eloqua, Marketo, and Optify (our company) will continue to shape the marketing automation 2.0 revolution.

2. Customers and employees will become an extended part of companies’ marketing teams

As social networks are used ever-more frequently for aggregating and sharing interests, expect opinions, positive or negative, about products and services to spread with lightening speed. As a result, businesses’ customer relationships will become increasingly focused on creating and managing perceptions.

In 2010, companies began listening to customers’ wants and needs via social buzz. In 2011, they focused on responding to digital customer commentary. In 2012, companies will need to move the needle forward, scaling marketing efforts by creating and sharing information with employees and influential customer evangelists to help define their brands, products, and services from the ground up.

Salesforce.com’s recent extension of its chatter feature, which allows businesses to share information and files with their customers via a hosted network, is early evidence of this trend.

3. SoPo (social personalization) will be on the rise

“Keeping up with the Joneses” has never been so transparent. The power of referrals and recommendations will be fine-tuned and harnessed to encourage and persuade others to follow their friends’ leads.

With an ever-increasing social network footprint, and the explosion of data fueling it, expect networked recommendations to become more ubiquitous (e.g., your friend’s friend likes this product).

Content recommendations on Facebook stores and participating e-commerce sites will be increasingly powered and filtered by friends’ preferences (see “Likes” and “Social TV” below). Social sign-on, group sharing, and universal wish lists will even make personalization on smaller sites possible, and collaborative filtering will create connections between people in unanticipated and creative ways.

4. “Likes” will intersect with multimedia

“Likes” will begin to influence more than just online text content. Digital video content providers will assume friends share “Like” preferences for video content. In turn, they will tailor and filter programming to you based on the “Likes” you and your friends provide.

By anticipating what you’ll be most inclined to watch, digital providers will help you cut through the growing expanse of online multimedia content. It’s highly probable that Facebook, either via acquisition or via a partnership with companies like BuddyTV or Hulu, will explore or invest in “Social TV.”

5. Location-based marketing will grow, and certain customer use cases will shift predominantly to mobile

In specific markets, such as travel, shopping, and dining, customer engagement and purchases will happen more frequently via mobile device. A recent study found that one-third of all American adults use smartphones, and that percentage will continue to rise.

Travel-related click-through-rates are already higher on mobile devices than on PCs, and location-based marketing—fueled by the likes of Foursquare—will continue to soar.

This holiday season, we’ll see the majority of last-minute gift and store searches happen via mobile device. And with 50% of last-minute shopping projected to be done via mobile device in 2015, marketers in 2012 will have to consider mobile in their usage mix as adoption of the mobile smart device becomes increasingly universal.

6. The discount economy will grow even larger

Considering the flagging economy and consumers’ income woes, offers from companies such as Groupon, Living Social, and niche players like One Kings Lane and Zulily, will have an even greater uptick in 2012. Those companies will grow more than many have previously forecast.

Even Amazon.com has gotten into the local deals mix, recognizing the value of even deeper discounts for customers. At the same time, daily-deal offerings will become increasingly hyper-local. Players intelligent about using the mobile market and geo-based offers will be category winners.

7. Social media ads will become a significant part of the advertising mix

At the end of 2010, Twitter had 150 customers using its paid advertising program. In Q2 of 2011, it had increased its advertising customer base to 600, with an 80% rate of renewal. Moreover, in 2011, Facebook’s brand advertising revenue rose 104% from Q1 to Q2.

But even in light of those tremendous gains, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks have only begun to scratch the surface of potential advertising revenue streams.

In 2012, marketers across the board, from big and small companies, will include social networks as a line item in their online paid advertising budgets because those networks will make access to their hundreds of millions of users more accessible.

8. Social networks will become a more significant source of organic search traffic and a greater influencer of SERPs

As social networks become an increased source of paid traffic, they will also become an increased referral source of organic search traffic. In 2011, small and medium businesses, typically technology followers, began using social media more frequently, perceiving it to be an effective marketing medium.

In 2012, we can expect that trend to rise, especially as social media buzz becomes a mainstream component of SERPs. For companies that wish to preserve or improve their rankings, social marketing activities will no longer be optional; in 2012, they will be a necessary element of traffic-driving success.

9. Google antitrust will continue to be a thorny issue

Heading into 2012, Google is being investigated globally as an antitrust offender. Google’s overwhelming market dominance puts it squarely under the worldwide legal microscope for any anticompetitive actions.

With 80% of Yelp traffic, for example, derived from Google, and 30% of Google searches resulting in traffic to the largest e-commerce sites on the Internet, Google’s power is indisputable. As a result, Google’s business practices will continue to endure intense scrutiny and encounter legal challenges.

10. Focus on social media ROI will be top of mind

As businesses move from initial adoption of social media marketing toward the next stage of reflection and refinement, they’ll be seeking data that clearly indicates the cost-effectiveness of social media campaigns.

With another year of experimentation and trial under their belt, marketers will be more sophisticated and adept at navigating the social media channel. In turn, they will be more demanding of tools that effectively enable tracking, measuring, and improving ROI.

11. Virtual teams will become more common

The globalization of the workforce will continue to mushroom with low-cost access services becoming more prevalent.

As more effective video-conference, document-share, shared schedules, and various other online project-management and workflow technologies are introduced to the market, the ability to communicate and work with virtual teams will become ever-more efficient.

We’ve witnessed a growing trend of employees working in distant states, countries, or continents who are considered integral parts of core business operations. Remote employees are being woven into the fabric of our companies, working virtually side-by-side with locally based employees to create and deliver winning products.

12. Facebook will advance social commerce and give Amazon a run for its money

It’s undeniable that Amazon and Facebook are the market dominators of their markets: online shopping and social networking, respectively. But to date, those two markets have experienced very little crossover. That’s odd, considering the tremendous opportunity to marry those markets. After all, isn’t it an enjoyable pastime for friends to shop together?

Facebook will make it easier for friends to do just that by providing an environment and online-shopping experience that are entirely different from the way we shop on Amazon.

It is only a matter of time before shoppers trade in a trip to the mall in exchange for an online buying spree with virtual friends via shared screens, video chats, and group-buying discounts.

Read more: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2011/6359/12-marketing-predictions-for-2012#ixzz1e5FQaFif

Comparing the two handhelds on the basis of applications seems a little unfair, because Blackberry lags so far behind iPhone it seems they do not even try. One reviewer commented that shopping the Blackberry apps store reminded him of visiting a pawn shop that sold only used 8-track tape players—an apt comparison according to users who have tried both phones. The difference originates in Apple’s more democratic approach to application development: Apple encourages iPhone users to develop and market their own applications, triggering both healthy competition and amazing innovation. Although the iPhone apps market looks a lot like an internet flea market, nevertheless iPhone applications empower users to do on their phones almost anything their minds and imaginations can conceive.

Similarly, iPhone gaming prevails. iPhone’s combination of responsive touch screen and motion sensor enables a richer, more varied gaming experience, and its combination of faster processor and larger memory enables player versus player competition Blackberry cannot rival. Hardcore online gamers look for their favorite new challenges on iPhone just days after they debut on CD-Rom, because iPhone offers a gaming experience comparable with handheld gaming devices for all the major manufacturers.