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Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Free SEO Tools

February 25th, 2009 Sean No comments

SEO Book

One of our favourite websites for assistance with Search Engine Optimisation is, you guessed it. SEOBook.com.

In particular they provide FREE tools as add-ons for Firefox.

We’ve been using:

A few features of Rank Checker worth mentioning:

  • It enables you to check all your keyword rankings within the SERPS of Google, Yahoo and Live Search (MSN).
  • You can specify which Google to check. We’ve been using the .co.uk version of Google.
  • It performs quicker than a lot of other tools we’ve tried out. (Web CEO for one…painfully slow)
  • The top 200 results are checked for a rank, if you aren’t found you’ll see a dash.
  • After using it for a month or so we’ve found it to be not always accurate, but its usually within 10 places or so.

Read more…

Referral Marketing Success – Build KNOW, TRUST and LIKE

April 13th, 2009 Alexander No comments

(Further to the content on our main website about why a firm with clients would want to develop an effective Referral Marketing Strategy)

Those who get a lot of referred business are usually good at their job – AND clients know it.

Their clients KNOW, understand and appreciate the service and its benefits, believe they are given good value for money and they also TRUST and LIKE the person that deals with them or provides the service to the extent that they want to help them.

Referral Marketing

KNOW, TRUST & LIKE are the attributes that need to be improved in order to get lots of quality referrals. more…

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Categories: Referral Marketing

Getting Referrals from Centres of Influence

March 26th, 2009 Alexander No comments

This blog is also for any firm or individual that has clients and a client base, rather than customers. It follows on from our other blogs on Referral Marketing and from info on our main website . Referral Marketing is the best business development strategy there is for Service Providers…

A COI is ideally a client who knows your firm and at least one person in it very well and trusts and respects what you do and is confident enough to recommend you often and without hesitation.

The reason they are like this is a combination of their character – “they are just naturally like that”, and their social status or power status at work. COIs need to be identified within your client-base and treated very well for obvious reasons. More…

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Categories: Referral Marketing

Your Work Colleagues could be a Great Source of Leads

February 27th, 2009 Alexander No comments

Referral Marketing

Getting leads from Colleagues, Internal Business Referrals,  Inter-departmental Referring or Cross-selling, whatever you call it – either way you’re maximising the value of your clients. Here’s some simple tips – but be aware of the common problems.

This post is for any firm or individual that has clients,  rather than customers. It follows on from our other blogs on Referral Marketing and from info on our main website. Referral Marketing is the best business development strategy there is for Service Providers…

Some firms are good at inter-departmental referring others are not; either way your strategy for dealing with this should be included in your overall Marketing Plan.

Human nature needs to be used to your advantage rather than disadvantage.

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Categories: Referral Marketing

Getting FREE leads from External Connections

April 14th, 2009 Alexander No comments

Referrals From External Connections
This blog is for any person or firm that has clients rather than customers.

Referral Marketing is the best business development strategy there is for Service Providers…

…Accountants, Financial Advisers, Solicitors, Dentists, Designers, Architects, Plastic Surgeons, Builders, Vets, IT Services, Website Designers, Stylists, Trainers, Consultants, Printers, Landscape Gardeners, Brokers, etc.

Other service providers and professions other than your own have clients that may also need your services; your clients might also need their services. So it makes perfect sense to be proactive about it. Working more holistically and referring your clients to other carefully selected providers and professionals will compliment your own offering, bringing ‘added value services’ that your clients will appreciate and remember you for. In return the service providers and professionals are also more inclined to refer their clients to you, which is the main objective.
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Categories: Referral Marketing

Asking for Business Referrals – Handling Objections

April 14th, 2009 Alexander No comments

Objections and Hesitation – What to do when simply asking your clients for referrals doesn’t work. PLUS thank you gifts.

This blog is for any firm or individual that has clients and a client base, rather than customers. It follows on from our other blogs on Referral Marketing and from info on our main website. Referral Marketing is the best business development strategy there is for Service Providers…

Simple is best – it’s easier to ask with just one sentence, it’s clearly faster and efficient and less likely to be left out of a meeting than a long rehearsed speech on why you want referrals and how the system benefits the client, etc. However, you need to memorise a longer set of effective phrases when you come up against resistance to referral giving.

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Categories: Referral Marketing

READ NOW! Ultimate Attention Grabbing Headline Writing Tip

February 26th, 2009 Alexander No comments

LOOK!

The key to successful copy-writing -  for blogs, press releases, marketing literature, web pages, sales letters, tele-sales scripts, leaflets, posters, brochures, adverts, book titles, articles, white papers, etc.

……is having a High-Impact HEADLINE or TITLE

Draw people’s attention to reading the body text using a strong attention grabbing headline.

Grab them from the start. It’s about the HEADLINE TEST; if the title makes people read further – you have succeeded.

The headline should make sense, get ATTENTION and ATTRACT enough INTEREST for the reader to have the DESIRE to ACT by reading more.

If not, your copy headline is not strong enough.

To labour the point here’s a video of Dan Kennedy…

Categories: Marketing

Modern Marketing Strategy

June 18th, 2009 Alexander No comments

Make sure you’re barking up the right tree!

Aimed at business managers and entrepreneurs – this post is just to start you thinking about ways to improve your marketing efforts in 2009 and beyond.

New Economic Era – New Marketing Plan, The Customer Experience, Pain Points, Behavioural Data, Online-Shopping, Marketing in a Recession, Generation X, Y, Baby Boomers and Traditionalists. Predicting the Future.

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Categories: Marketing

Google PageRank – Frequently Asked Questions

April 13th, 2009 Alexander No comments

Although this article was written in March 2005 much of it still holds true.

What is Google PageRank, and how important is achieving high PageRank when trying to earn a high spot in Google’s search engine? Keep reading to learn the answers to these and many more questions.

What is Google PageRank?

Google PageRank (one word) is Google’s measure of the relative importance of a Web page on the Internet. The numbers rank from 0 to 10. The higher the number, the stronger the PageRank.

Is the PageRank (PR) number for the entire site?

PageRank is determined for each individual Web page, as every page on your website has a different PR. The site home page is likely to have the highest PR as it will have the most sites linking to it. Each internal page will have a different Google PageRank. In many cases, the PageRank for a very informative and heavily linked article on an internal page will be higher than that of the site’s home page.

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