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Is Your Website Customer-focused or Egocentric?

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This may sound like a ridiculous statement, but all too often industrial companies do not design their website for their customers.  Rather, they take an egocentric approach to web design, more interested in talking about their products, their history, their news, their events, etc.  While that information may be important to them, it’s not necessarily what their customers are interested in.

People are not visiting your website to kill time.  They are visiting to find a solution, answer a question or take the next step to do business with you.  So, to be successful, you need to create your website for your customers – not you.  If your website does not serve your prospects and customers, it is not serving you either.

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How to Triple Your Online Sales Leads

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Lead generation consistently ranks as a top priority for B2B companies. However, most companies handicap their online lead generation efforts by relying on their Website’s ‘Contact Us’ page as the sole method for prospects to take action.

Triple Your Online Sales Leads

To turn your Website into a money-maker, put the following proven recommendations into action. I have seen many companies more than triple their sales leads with these tips.

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A Brand is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Managing Your Company’s Online Image

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Word-of-mouth is not what it used to be. Just 10 years ago, upset customers or raving fans could spread their opinion about your business only to their family, friends, neighbors and work colleagues. Now, thanks to social networking and the infinite publishing power of the Web, customers can share their rants and raves instantly with a worldwide audience.

A Brand is a Terrible Thing to Waste

In such a connected world, your online image is everything. And if your online image is tarnished, performing the following key business functions will become much more difficult:

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Embrace the Marketing Paradox: There are Riches in Niches

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To be successful online, there is a paradox in marketing you need to embrace: The smaller your target market, the bigger your opportunity. This may seem counterintuitive, because you may think marketing your business to the widest possible audience – trying to be all things to all people – is the best way to succeed. But if you say your target customer is “everyone,” you are really targeting no one.

Niche Marketing

To put it another way, when you try to be all things to all people, no one will remember you.

Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers. It’s not just about entertainment – it’s about education. Permission marketing is curriculum marketing.

Seth Godin
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The Secret to Social Media Marketing Success

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If you follow the latest trends in online marketing, and maybe even if you don’t, you are probably hearing plenty of buzz about social media. Marketing professionals throughout the world are praising social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as the answer to all of our marketing prayers.

Social Media Marketing Success

So, what is social media marketing and should you jump on the bandwagon? In this post, my goal is to separate the hype from the helpful in social media marketing, so you can figure out if your business should dive in and integrate social media into your marketing mix. And if you decide to take the plunge, I will provide you with the secret to social media marketing success.

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How to Build an Email List that Grows Sales

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The key to effective an email marketing campaign lies in a notion known as “permission marketing.” Your email messages should build goodwill with your customers and prospects, not annoy them. Therefore, you need to obtain permission from your customers and prospects before adding them to your email marketing mailing list.

Build an Email List that Grows Sales

I strongly recommend you focus the majority of your efforts on building your own house list, rather than purchasing or renting a list from a publisher or list broker. The following tips will help you build a valuable house list, both online and offline.