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Get Personal: Letters vs. Direct Mail
One of the reasons direct mail works is the personal aspect. It's ostensibly a letter from you to your prospect.

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10 Tips to Grow Your Business Plain & Simple
"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value." Albert EinsteinRecently I heard a statistic that the majority of businesses operate at 60% of their potential.

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The Benefits of a Marketing Plan
What is a Marketing Plan? Marketing is to do with matching the features and benefits that your products and services are able to provide with specific customers and then telling those customers why they should buy them from you. Your marketing plan details how to do this.

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Marketing is More Than Advertising
Marketing is a business process about which much is written, however is often not completely understood. Many think that "marketing" and "advertising" are interchange-able words.

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How to Turn a Marketing Calendar into Marketing Success!
Do you have a list of marketing ideas that you'd like to implement, but just never seem to get around to actually doing some of them? Who has the time?Creating a marketing calendar is the only way to make sure you stick to your plans. Take it seriously - don't forward today's marketing to-do into tomorrow's list or you'll fall behind right away.

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Small Business Marketing Tip - Putting the Customer First.
I am a great believer in the keeping to the basics - the totally obvious things that we all learn in Running Your Business 101, and then promptly forget. I often have people come up to me after a speech and say, "This is all blindingly obvious, just common sense.

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Make Your Mailing a Home Run, Not a Strike Out!
You can use great design and copy to get a better response.When you send a mailing to your customers or prospective customers you are counting on making considerably more money in new business than you spend on the mailing, right? It is obvious that if you were not going to profit from the mailing, you wouldn't send it out.

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Mortgage Marketing to Realtors - Creating a Memorable Positioning Statement
Mortgage marketing to Realtors involves having a crystal clear position that establishes credibility, so that you can develop a consistent dialogue with prospects and guide them at every stage of the relationship building process.Declaring your position begins with creating a Positioning Statement.

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Sowing and Growing Your Network
The N-word! We all know the value of networking and we feel we should be doing more of it. Unfortunately, for too many of us the very thought of attending an event where we have to mix and mingle with total strangers is enough to drive us into hiding until it's all over! What a pity we often force ourselves to go to a potentially great conference, but we're so busy worrying about the networking part that we forget to enjoy the event!But networking is like so many other activities in life-it's easy when you know how.

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How to Connect Features and Values
"Buy this magazine or we'll shoot the dog," went a memorable cover for the satire magazine National Lampoon many years ago. On the cover, along with the threat, was the picture of an attractive dog with large sad eyes - and a pistol pointed at its head!Want a powerful way to make sure your message leaves an impression on the people who receive it?Talk about the consequences that will occur as a result of following or not following your advice.

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Supply And Demand And Marketing
According to Dough McCormick, Chariman and CEO of iVillage, Inc, "Technologists focus on supply but they don't understand advertising is focused on demand. Just because we have an available ad doesn't mean we have to sell it.

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Fundraisers - How to Raise Twice the Money With Half the Sweat
If your members, parents or donors wear clothes, watch t.v.

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The 3 Unknown Steps of Marketing Success
To be your own marketing expert you first need to know where to begin. It's no good learning how to be a good copywriter, if you don't know what medium is best to promote your work through.

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Marketing Success Defined
How do you personally define success? High income? Substantial net worth? A fine home? Peer recognition?On a personal basis, there are likely almost as many definitions of success as there are people in the world.In marketing, though, there are just four measurable elements of success:Profitability, Market Share, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention.

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Private Practice Marketing: 3 More Secrets I Wish I Knew When I First Started Out
Secret #4 - Get very comfortable asking for paymentOne of the easiest ways to set this up is to have very clear explanations in your intake forms about how payment works.It's your job to train your clients how to pay you promptly.

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Wooing Women With Packaging
In just one month three California vineyards have introduced new wine product lines specifically targeted to women. The product offerings are intriguing with names such as "White Lie" and "Mad Housewife" to the latest introduction "Working Girl White.

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Using Alternative Media to Generate More Customers
Last week I received a very nice thank you gift from a friend of mine, Eric Ruth, who is arguably the number one marketing coach to the personal fitness trainer industry.Eric, asked if he could interview me about a specific topic and I agreed.

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Build A Successful Business By Staying Connected
Over the course of your business life you'll come in contact with a number of other business people. They could be lawyers, business services, suppliers, customers, etc.

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Free and Easy School Fundraisers | Elementary and High School Fund Raising Ideas
Parents are always looking for free and easy ways to improve their child's education. School funding plays a big part in the education that your child receives, especially if you are in a smaller school such as a church school or private, independently owned school.

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Finding Your Niche: What Do You Want To Be Known For?
In my experience, there are two kinds of small business owners: one that knows whom their market niche is and utilize it, and another who tends to waiver or not want to "set in stone" their target market. With the latter group, I always probe for more information: Why don't you want to choose a specific target for your product/service? Time and time again, the response is the same "I don't want to limit my profits by only catering to a few.

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