10 Marketing Insights that will Strengthen Your Business in 2009 by Joel Sussman Part 2

Marketing Strategy #6: Speaking of media relations, another strategy worth exploring is to let the media know that you're an expert in your field and are available as a company or industry spokesperson. Depending on your credentials, as well as your comfort-level with being interviewed by a reporter, you might want to send a brief letter outlining your accomplishments and expertise, and mention that they can feel free to call you if they need comments, quotes, background information, or opinion on a news article or feature story they're working on. The positive publicity, credibility, and recognition you could potentially get from this kind of coverage can potentially give your business or practice a real boost.
Marketing Strategy #7: Business cards can either by a waste of paper or an effective bridge between a prospect and their potential as a long-term client. Business cards are an integral element of your company's branding strategy, and can sometimes make or break you when it comes to getting prospects to take you seriously. A lot of companies skimp on business card design, concept development, and printing; and that lackluster image is conveyed directly to prospective clients. Bottom line is: Your chances of favorably impressing prospects will improve substantially if your business cards are printed on high-quality paper, display a professional-looking logo, and use a font style that's easy to read and is representative of the nature of your business. Your business cards should also contain either a well thought-out slogan or a short bulletted list that capsulizes your services, your expertise, and your commitment to excellence.
Marketing Strategy #8: Anticipate why a prospective customer might be reluctant or ambivalent about doing business with you, and then make sure to address their concerns in a clear, deliberate, and confident way. Guarantees of satisfaction, believable testimonials from satisfied customers, and assurances of dependable customer service after the sale are a few of the ways that you can reduce sales resistance.
Marketing Strategy #9: If you find yourself chatting with a blogger who's in your profession or industry, but does not directly compete with you, offer to fill in for him, occasionally, as a "guest blogger". Blogging can be a pretty arduous undertaking, so they might welcome the chance to take a break and present their readers with a slightly different point of view. Make sure, of course, that you are allowed to include one or two links back to your website. This will accomplish two objectives: 1) You'll probably draw in anywhere from a "trickle" to a "flood" of additional traffic to your website, and 2) Inbound links to your site from other relevant, high quality sites can help improve your search engine positioning (ranking) in Google, resulted in more targeted traffic and potential customers.
Marketing Strategy #10: When developing a marketing plan, don't forget that there is a huge range of marketing ideas you can employ, many of which are free or inexpensive. Marketing ideas and techniques include yellow pages advertising, Pay Per Click advertising on Google and other Internet portals, exhibiting in trade shows, networking at local or regional professional conferences and business groups, direct mail, distributing coupons, sponsoring contests, and of course, traditional media advertising, such as radio, TV, newspaper, and magazine display ads. That's just the short list of marketing strategies you can pursue as part of a planned marketing campaign, so devise an exhaustive list of possibilities, target your audience, and then plan a campaign based on your budget and your goals.