Visual Marketing Strategies to Help You Rise Above the Crowd

You have a message to communicate to your prospective customer. Unfortunately, they're so overwhelmed by advertisements and other promotional information that the chances of your message getting across are slim to none. Indeed, studies show that the average consumer in this country is bombarded with nearly 3500 commercial messages a day.

So what can you do to make sure your target market takes notice? What can you do to make sure your organization is presented in the best possible light?

Speak Directly to Your Customer
Use delivery channels that allow for one-to-one communication. For example, it's more difficult to target a prospect or client through a mass media vehicle like television, versus direct electronic mail where your audience volunteers to hear from you. Untargeted, mass-marketing efforts are often disruptive to a prospect (think of the commercials you're thrown to when you hear the familiar, "right after these messages" from television game show hosts).
Media that allows you to communicate more directly to your audience, like variable-data printing (VDP), allow for the customization of text and imagery in print and electronic media. For example, with variable-data and digital printing, it's possible to retrieve an individual's area of interest from a database so that the photography and text in a brochure is tailored specifically to their needs. Always consider media channels that allow you to speak to your audience on their terms.

Be Unique
Make sure your visual marketing is as distinct and individual as your organization. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you see (or hear) a commercial for an automobile dealership? There seems to be an unwritten rule that they must all be loud and overbearing. You know which spots we're talking about: 20 font styles with 20 different colors; flashing, flying and spinning video and graphics; and an extremely loud voiceover. Does the similarity of these commercials help one dealership stand out from the others?
The same holds true for visual communication efforts that use templates, clip art, or overused formats. You deserve a visual presence that is as unique as your organization. Don't follow the crowd--rise above it!

Keep It Clean and Simple
Keep the visual design of your communication uncluttered and approachable. Whether it's on your website, a company brochure, or a billboard, less is usually better. This is particularly true for communication that is introductory in nature. Until a prospective customer becomes interested enough to dig deeper and learn more, present your message in an easily digestible format--most people get overwhelmed when they are presented with too much information. A clean and simple design helps them more easily find what they're after.

Be Consistent
Use a family of typefaces, colors, backgrounds and graphic elements for your communication pieces. Be consistent in your identity marks--make sure your logo is consistent in its presentation, including any associated type treatment. Make it easy on yourself--there's no reason to reinvent the wheel for every new communication piece you develop.

Email Marketing Success-Optimization

It's a common trend that internet marketers do whatever they can do to get the e-mail address of the people visiting their site. Online, you have a really small window of opportunity to convert a visitor into a client and if they're not ready to buy whatever they're browsing on your site, it's a good idea to at least find out who they are so that you can try a different sales approach on them on another day. Just because they're not interested in what you're selling today doesn't mean you can't find something else to tickle their fancy.

There are many ways to do this such as:
- Offer a free report with information they'll find valuable
- Ask them to opt in to your newsletter or subscribe to your website for update
- Intrigue them with entry into a free draw for a prize.

Once someone has signed up for something you've got a valuable e-mail address that you can use to build your list of potential customers. Once you have that e-mail address, you want to be very careful with it because otherwise it won't do much for you.

How do you stay out of the spam filter?
It's a good idea to have someone confirm before you give away anything. Many will put in a fake e-mail address just to get something for free. You can require them to confirm by receiving an e-mail from you and clicking a confirmation link. Remind them to check their junk folder and if they mark your message as not being Spam, their email software could then automatically whitelist you so that you don't land in the spam folder in future. By requesting a confirmation, you also ensure that you are getting a real e-mail address.

Autoresponder software is a good investment for anyone marketing online. Buying into a package AutoResponsePlus or something similar will help you easily manage your mailing lists. The thing is, once you have a mailing list in place and a plan that includes autoresponders, you need to work on your email content and deliverability.

Each communication you make in future with prospective client should do two things:
1) The e-mail needs to offer them something valuable otherwise they'll unsubscribe. Give information or tips or helpful information that will have that person anxious to open future emails from you.
2) You need a call to action line at the end which will entice them to do something you want after they close the email. This could be to visit your website with a handy link, sign up for another service, refer their friends to you or even offer a purchase link so they can buy what you're selling.

Deliverability is definitely a key factor. You want to know that your e-mails reach their recipient's email box so here are a few things you can do to increase the likelihood of your target audience actually opening your e-mail. People are fed up with Spam and using all sorts of programs and techniques to ensure they're not having to sift through spam to get to the important e-mails.

People make use of domain keys and SPF records so that they aren't getting phishing e-mails by those posing as their bank or PayPal.

People use spam filters and this helps them build the trust in their incoming messages. Once you make it past that filter, you're set.

By getting yourself whitelisted, you can increase the likelihood of being delivered to an e-mail inbox instead of a Spam folder and by buying an autoresponder product that's hosted on your own server, you can more easily get past Spam filters because if you've done your bit to get whitelisted, you'll be trusted by your recipient's e-mail server which will increase the chances of your brilliant and persuasive copy being taken seriously

Maximize Traffic With 10 SEO Power Tips

How do you know what type of content is really going to attract the right searchers?

In this article I wanted to cover a few very basic tips that you can keep in mind when building high-performance strategies. Remember that good search engine marketing is not about trying to manipulate or "fool the search engines." Good SEO skills are more about creating genuine relevancy for well-written content that deserves to be found because it is truly the most relevant and useful to your audience of readers.

What students quickly discover in the 5-Day classes is that the optimization skills are not nearly as hard as many people make them out to be (even for the most competitive phrases,) once you've been trained and understand the full scope of influences that are at work. The biggest advantage that we have had is all about the "accuracy of information."

1. Write content that your audience is already looking for within the last 90 days.
True keyword research is not about 'guessing at keywords' but its all about researching actual data. How are your SEO research skills using Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery? At the SEO Workshops we teach much more than the traditional "keyword research" methods. We help students learn "Keyword Forensics" and how to quickly tap into the hidden niche trends that 99% of most Webmasters never even notice.

2. Does your Web copy speak to the reader or does it speak about yourself?
Remember that your Web site should be focused on your audience first and appeal specifically to a niche interest. When writing your Web copy, you need to dialog in an appropriate tone and format for the right audience. Some of the most interesting content will have more appeal if it speaks to your audience in terms of "you." You can, you might, you will, yours, your and you're INSTEAD of we, ours, we're, we will, we can, etc.

3. Focus on writing for the human audience first and search engines second.
While search engine optimization is important to your visibility, try writing your content first. Most people don't write their best when trying to optimize and create content at the same time. Focus on creating highly useful content that is extremely focused on one topic per page. Once you have completed your writing so that you are pleased with it, then go in to do a mild re-write for the search engines.

4. Tips for triggering idea generation and giving your strategies a unique twist.

While many people seem to spend time exploring their competitor's Web sites, we encourage you to lead the way with new ideas. Try not to be obsessed with what the competition is doing, but be creative and start your own new trends. Spend just a little more time working on your projects this week than you did last week. Setting yourself apart from the competition is easier than you might think and gives you a huge advantage over others.

5. Creating your content so that it "speaks" to a specific audience of visitors.

Think of how your Web copy reads and ensure the dialog flows smoothly. Read your work out loud and see if you can improve the tone of your message with natural expression. Keep your specific audience in mind. How you write for senior citizen (in tone and in format) may differ considerably from writing for an audience of for example "new parents." Always ask yourself "what is important to these readers?" Rely on researching accurate data to eliminate guess work.

6. Remember strong calls to action

Without a firm call to action, don't expect the reader to naturally guess at what you want them to do next. Plain ordinary dialog that asks the reader to take the next action will usually work best. Dialog that is written for voice (similar to the way a broadcaster writes to project their personality.)

7. Build your search engine optimization skills in the beginning with the "stress
free" approach.

If you are new to SEO, you may want to focus on the long tailed niche phrases since most searchers are doing fairly descriptive and intelligent searches these days. Ideally you want to attract those who already know what they are looking for and just need to find your pages more easily. With practice and the right training you can go after highly competitive phrases too but you'll find that the best conversions nearly always come from the niches. Also remember that it is the basic SEO skills that carry you through and must come before any of the advanced strategies. The result will be stable top rankings that stand the test of time with minimal fuss.

8. Give your readers a non-threatening reason to respond right now.

What is the objective for your page and does your Web copy work effectively at fulfilling that objective? It may not always be about trying to sell a product or a service. It should not be about fulfilling your needs first but it should be about meeting the needs of why that searcher first conducted a search. Meet their needs and deliver up something that satisfies their search first and then give the visitor a non-threatening reason why they might respond to you. Do you want their e-mail address? Or do you just want them to pick up the phone and call? Never lose sight of the fact that the Web is a marvelous two way interactive experience, if you want it to be. Make your Web site a vehicle for relationship building and remember that many readers may actually have the desire to interact and participate through Blogs or other "User Generated activity." Give your visitors something that involves their participation.

9. Remember that your readers always want to feel like they are in control of their Web experience.

People often use the Web for researching topics of interest or doing preliminary price comparisons or for looking up information. While most people explore the Web for their own purposes, the more that you put them in control of their experience the better. If appropriate, you may want to consider adding additional tools or functionality to your Web site in order to enhance its usability for your specific audience.

10. Did you know that if you write your content so that it naturally "reads very well."

You will naturally gain some bonus for having created content of quality. By this, I mean content...that reads well to a human being. Don't stuff keywords all over the place. Instead, use moderation in everything you do. One of the things you need to understand is that "theme based" search engines like Google, are actually using a measure of artificial intelligence (AI) to measure how well your article "reads" based on all of the overall context of your body text (other than the keywords) based on data that a search engine has gathered concerning a specific topic. This is great news for writers because if you are making a transition to writing for the web, you'll find some search engines are literally rewarding pages that are "well written