focus your marketing message

In the outstanding business and marketing book, "Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in Your Business" by marketing guru and author Lynda Resnick (the marketer behind POM Wonderful, Fiji Water, Teleflora, The Franklin Mint), Lynda makes a wonderful argument for the importance of creating a strong USP that focuses on the leading benefit your product/service provides. I could not agree more.

Lynda also states that you need your sales message to be brief and very to the point to provide maximum impact. She says a good way to do this is to create your message as if it were going to be placed on a billboard with people driving by it at 55 mph. That means making your marketing message about 5 words or less and those words must make a powerful statement. Again, I could not agree more Lynda! Too many companies when describing the benefit they offer have a sales message that is several paragraphs long, and sometimes, several pages. This shows a tremendous lack of focus. Lynda states in her book on page 110, "If your message is a paragraph long, you don't have a message--you have a paragraph." Read that last sentence again as it is one of the most powerful marketing lessons you will ever learn. If you want a marketing message that people will remember, keep it brief (5 words or less if possible) and the words you use must make a strong impact. Remember, you cannot bore your customers into buying.

Now go and buy the book "Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in Your Business" by Lynda Resnick. You will learn a lot about marketing and entrepreneurship.

To your business success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing company
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

effective advertising

If you want your advertising to be more effective, you must understand that the #1 purpose of advertising is to explain how a product (or service) solves a specific problem better than any other solution so customers want to buy your product/service instead of a competing product/service. Sadly, many advertising agencies do not understand this simple concept and create advertising that is for entertainment only and does nothing to show the benefits of buying the product/service being advertised. That is why so much advertising fails to increase sales for the product/service being sold and is a negative return on investment.

Another way of creating effective advertising is to put yourself in your customer's shoes and say, "why should I buy this product/service? What's in it for me? What major benefit do I get? Why is this product/service a good value?"

To your business success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing company
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

101 marketing strategies

Click to download my free ebook of over 101 marketing strategies which also include an outline of how to write a marketing plan.

Enjoy!

To your business success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing company
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

sales representative jobs

The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm is seeking a few rock star sales representatives for B2B cold calling. You will be selling marketing consulting and advertising agency services to businesses. We care much more about your cold calling sales ability than we care about your resume. You need to be relentless at getting appointments with C-level decision makers. If that is you, call us right now and tell us why you are the man or woman for this job and why we should hire you immediately.

We offer a base plus commissions. Call 920-471-1638 and pitch us.

Please note that we are only hiring residents of the USA to work in the USA.

Making the foreign language internet pay

This post is from guest blogger Nora Zavalczki of Lingo24.com

English is the lingua franca of the global age. It is the dominant language of mass culture, in particular of mainstream cinema and the internet. Around the world, it is spoken by between 300 and 400 million people as a first language; and by anywhere between 400 and 1,000 million people as a second language. This means that up to 20% of the world’s population speak English to some degree. This figure is increased in Europe, where 51% of EU citizens speak English as their first or second language.

These figures have a clear converse: 49% of EU citizens do not speak English and at least 80% of the world’s population has no working knowledge of the language. Other figures make clear that the position of English as the lingua franca of the global age is not as certain as it may seem. There are more native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and, according to how the figures are calculated, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu and Arabic than there are of English. 18% of EU citizens speak German as their first language, 5% more than the number of English native speakers. Another European language, Portuguese, is spoken worldwide by around 200 million people. It is significant that Hindu, Urdu, and Portuguese are spoken in the world’s two biggest growing economies, India and Brazil.

The nature of the global dominance of English is further upset when one considers that English as spoken around the world is different from the English spoken by native speakers, which is often overlooked by businesses when working abroad.

These differences often lead to confusion between native and non-native speakers - of whom there are far more - which can make business hard to conduct. Colloquial, everyday language is much more difficult for non-native speakers to understand than formal language with which a native speaker may not be comfortable.

For instance, native speakers are much more likely to use phrasal verbs - to get up, to build up, to get going - when a Latin-based verb such as to establish would be more easily understood by a non-native speaker. Such confusion can lead to a loss of business.

It is clear, therefore, that it is to the benefit of an international business to be able to conduct dealings in a variety of languages. Doing so gives a business a foothold in markets denied to a business insistent on using English.

When using traditional forms of advertising in a foreign market, such as in a newspaper or on a billboard, no business would consider doing so in anything other than the local language. The same applies to the many forms of internet advertising.

For example, a business should have versions of its website available in the languages of all the markets it is targeting. Any customer visiting the site is likely to prefer it to a site presented in the alien language of English - customers are four times more likely to buy from a site written in their own language. Being able to communicate with clients in their native language, for instance by email or over Skype, also makes business swifter and therefore cheaper to conduct.

Many of the languages which are spoken as much as, if not more than, English are used in the world’s biggest developing economies: Brazil (and other South American countries able to follow Brazil’s lead), Russia India, and China (BRIC). A company cannot expect to break into these markets using English alone. The most straightforward route into these markets in the twenty-first century is through the internet. Doing so in the country’s native language(s) will bring far greater financial benefits than the use of English alone would do.

About Lingo24
Lingo24 is a global translation services provider that also specializes in website localization. It has over 100 employees based in the UK, Panama, Romania, China and New Zealand, and a network of 4,000 translators. Its projected turnover for 2009 is $6.2m.

etrade commercials

I usually complain about the TV commercials I see, but every once and awhile I see a good one. Today I want to talk about the E*Trade TV commercials with the smart ass talking toddler.

At first when I saw these commercials about a year ago, maybe longer, I thought they were cute and funny but so-so is salesmanship. However, E*Trade and their ad agency have been smart and they have continued to use the wise talking toddler and it's working to build brand recognition. The commercials are enjoyable to watch, memorable, and they sell the benefits of using E*Trade with all of E*Trade's analytical research tools for investments.

The key here is they are sticking with their concept and character (the talking toddler) instead of every 3-4 months coming out with a new concept. By sticking to a concept and using the same character, it builds name recognition, brand, and sales.

The lesson here is to choose a concept and stick to it for years (decades+). Think Jolly Green Giant, the Pillsbury Doe Boy, etc. This is how to brand and get long term name recognition for your product. The worst thing you can do is switch concepts and characters every few months because when you do so you are starting from scratch each time and you kill the branding momentum you have been building. Branding takes years to achieve and requires sticking to a concept and not changing your mind on how to advertise your product every quarter.

To your business success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing company
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Marketing Survey

This is Peter Geisheker, your favorite marketing guy. Can you do me
a HUGE favor and complete a brief 3 question marketing survey for
me?

I am customizing my business to provide the best service I possibly
can to business owners and your response to my 3 marketing
questions will help me a lot.

You can answer my 3 short questions at the following link:

http://geisheker.com/survey.htm

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638

Bill Glazer Marketing Book

This post will be short and sweet. I just read one of the best marketing books in my life by Bill Glazer titled, "Outrageous Advertising That's Outrageously Successful."

All I can say is NO business owner or marketing professional should be without this book. Buy it, study it, and then study it some more! You can get it at amazon.com.

To your business success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing company
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"

Search Engine Optimization Services

If you have a website, you need to drive traffic to it. Without
traffic, you won't make money, sales, get subscribers, etc. What
good is a website without any traffic? And if the site is getting
traffic, what good is it if it's the wrong type of traffic?

The best way to get highly targeted traffic to your website is by
performing Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the art and
science of making Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) to rank your
website on the first page of results when a person conducts a web
search.

For example, let's say your website sells motorcycle tires. Your
goal with SEO is that when a person goes to a search engine and
searches for motorcycle tires, your websites is one of the top 10
results that are displayed, and preferably, your website is one of
the top 3 ranked websites.

In my experience there is no form of Internet marketing that
produces the financial results and positive return on investment
that SEO does. It is how I built my company and why I rarely pay to
advertise. Because of my top 5 rankings, I get a steady supply of
leads contacting my marketing firm every single day.

The question you are asking now is, "Ok, this sounds good, but I
don't know how to do SEO." No problem. I have a colleague that is
an expert at SEO and he has been performing SEO for a couple of my
clients. He has been getting great results for them and my clients
are thrilled and the fee they pay for SEO is quite reasonable.

Because of the great work he has done for my clients, I now feel
very comfortable recommending his SEO services to you. His name is
Hakan and you can reach his company by calling 305-654-0419 or by
visiting his website at http://jump2top.com.

Please make sure to say Peter Geisheker recommended you when you
contact them. You'll get preferential treatment if you do!

To your business success!

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group marketing firm
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate!"