Home For Your Personal Network Circle -- Grow Your Team!

All Blog Posts (970)

Social Media For Lead Generation?

What should you be doing when using the various Social Media Networking sites to generate business leads? Social Media Networking is about reaching people who know little or nothing about you and engage them on a person level with a friendly warm approach. And example would be if you sold running shoes. You could set up a facebook group or a Twitter feed showing your interest and knowledge in the area of specialty shoes. Of course only people how are looking to talk specialty running shoes wou… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on November 7, 2009 at 9:45am — No Comments

CRM Does Not Mean Customer Satisfaction

So you finally did it. You went out and made the investment in some fancy CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, Excelent Now what. You really think that is the key to giving you higher Customer Satisfaction ratings? Ha! Although companies continue to spend a fair amount of money on all sorts of CRM solutions their customer satisfaction ratings have seen little if any improvement. With traditional CRM technology the focus is on consolidation customer data not managing customer reques… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on November 6, 2009 at 4:33am — No Comments

Can-Spam Compliance is not Guaranteed Delivery

Just because you are a good soldier and comply with the Can-Spam act and guidelines does not mean you are getting through to your targeted addresses. Can you really be surprised to learn that this is not a guarantee that IPS’s can, will or must deliver your emails> ISP’ filters weed out both compliant and non-compliant email messages based on their criteria not yours. When a user hits the “spam” button (even if only to but the content in their bulk mail file) the ISP records this as a black… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on November 5, 2009 at 4:00am — No Comments

GET YOUR ISH TOGETHER, OH MY!!!!

GET YOUR ISH TOGETHER, OH MY!!!! Shynel Cooper Sykes, is unique in her presentation of some most spoke about subjects, love,money,realtionship,challenges. I find her observations and commentary to be refreshing. You have to listen her videoblogs. Some will have you smiling, other may make you say "ouch" (trust,you will be ok and much for the better), some will make you THINK!!! Make sure you check her web site http://stilettosinthekitchen.c… Continue

Added by Rickey on November 4, 2009 at 5:16pm — No Comments

Industrial Production Shows Big Gains

Better-than-expected gain suggests that economic growth in the third quarter could be stronger than anticipated Industrial production rose 0.7 percent in September after an upwardly revised gain of 1.2 percent in August, according to The Federal Reserve. For the third quarter as a whole, output advanced at an annual rate of 5.2 percent, the first quarterly gain since the first quarter of 2008 and the largest gain since the first quarter of 2005. Production in manufacturing increased 0.9 percen… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on November 4, 2009 at 2:18am — No Comments

The Week Ahead November 2-6, 2009

Monday: September Construction Spending, Pending Home Sales, Tuesday: Factory Orders, Auto & Truck Sales Wednesday: Federal Reserve Meeting Thursday: Weekly initial jobless claims, 3rd Quarter Productivity Friday: Consumer Credit, Wholesale Inventories Larson Notes: The government stimulus in cars grew the economy lst month together with home sales by 3.5%. That is mainly due to cash for clunkers and the $8000 home… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on November 3, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Direct Marketing and the Retail Market Place

What is the current state of direct marketing these days? Pretty good thank you. When you consider that 3 out of 4 consumers (76%) read the direct mail they receive. Women 35-49 and the heaviest readers at 86% with men above 50 the poorest at 65%. Direct Marketing Readership in Men Age 2003 2008 18-34 65% 67% 35-49 64% 77% +50 68% 65% Readership in direct mail among women of all ages has increased. As with men the largest increase is among woman in the 35-49. Direct Marketing Readership in Wo… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 31, 2009 at 1:10am — No Comments

Direct Mail Lives

18.8 billion pieces of direct mail went out in the 2nd quarter of this year. And most predictions I am reading predict that this will double by the year 2013. Mail might be a more expensive way to market than others that are out there, but a study that was done by the Winterberry Group that was released last March noted that direct mail were getting an improved ROI. Television did not kill radio. Direct mail did not kill newspaper ads. TiVo did not kill television. Paid search did not kill ema… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 30, 2009 at 12:30am — 1 Comment

Is Snail Mail More Effective Than E Mail?

E-Mail is the new junk mail. I use it. To a moderate degree but not like I use to. I’m pushing more and more of my marketing back to one-on-one emailing and targeted direct mail projects. So what has happened? E-mail is so fast, so cheap, so everywhere. Every inbox is filled with spam and everyone has signed or found themselves on who knows how many lists. We are all so overwhelmed by it all and routinely just switch once e-newsletters that were once important to the junk file. So why not do w… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 28, 2009 at 5:02am — No Comments

The Week Ahead October 26-30, 2009

Monday: Tuesday: Durable Goods Orders (B), Case-Shiller Home Price Index, Consumer Confidence (B) Wednesday: Durable Goods Orders (B), New Home Sales (C+), Crude Inventories Thursday: Weekly initial jobless claims (C+), Gross Domestic Product (B) Friday: Personal Income and Consumption (C+), Chicago Regional Manufacturing Surveys (B) *Rating Scale by Importance (A-F) Larson note: Last week we saw Home sales go up but new housing st… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 27, 2009 at 12:30am — No Comments

5 Practices for Digital Marketing

How can you start to unleash the power of your web site? There is no magic formula for successfully moving from an email blasting program as your communication and online marketing tool to one that features real-time interactions between your the marketer and your prospect customer. There is however some common elements that separates a successful to mediocre to poor program. Here are 5 of the best practices I have come across. 1. Leveraging interactions to collect customer informatio… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 24, 2009 at 3:27am — No Comments

Unleashing Web Site Marketing

How can you start to unleash the power of your web site? Now, as if you did not need to before, you really need to be creative with every dollar you spend and with every minute you spend on your marketing. So here are 3 simple things you need to be doing. 1st. make it easy to help your customers find exactly what they want on the first click, if possible! This often means directing them to a landing page rather than your front or home page but it is worth the effort. 2nd.… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 21, 2009 at 6:21am — No Comments

The Week Ahead October 19-23, 2009

Monday: Tuesday: Sept. Producer Price Index (B-), Sept. Housing Starts and Building Permits (B-) Wednesday: Thursday: Weekly initial jobless claims (C+), Sept Leading Indicators (D-) Friday: Sept Existing Home Sales (C+) Larson note: Looking to keep the upward outlook this week. I am looking for producer pricing so say flat and housing starts to continue to go up and home sales to contintue strong as though the end of November with the government tax credit of $8000… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 20, 2009 at 12:30am — No Comments

When Promoting Your Business Think "Better Together"

Thinking "better together" is a wise business strategy. It has fostered the emergence of Wikinomics and Web 2.0 innovation. And now, both seems to be flying under the banner of "Social Media." But, this "better together" strategy is not new. It predates the existence of the Internet. Signature pages, for example, are an excellent example of the "better together" idea...and they have been around for centuries. You have a display ad, but do not want to pay the newspaper's going rate, what can you… Continue

Added by Lamar Morgan on October 18, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Get Upfront and Personal

Today more than ever in a marketplace that is filled with media overload, it is critical for businesses to be able to cut through the clutter. But how? Get personal. Personalization goes beyond inserting a name of someone in your copy. It is true customization utilizing variable data and giving a customer an entirely new perception of feeling appreciated. Once you engage your audience it is then time to work on building a lifetime relationship. Remember Harvey MacKay’s 66? Ok, so now what. Tak… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 16, 2009 at 2:15am — No Comments

5 Fundamentals for Email Success

E-Mail markets are always well served by remembering the basics. When you forget the basic rules of email marketing you get in trouble big time. First, focus on the call to action. If you first identify your goal for the e-mail then determine what you want to subscribers to do and carry this though from the subject line to the e-mail design to the landing page, you’re in good shape. Keep the call to action simple, prominent and neat the top of your message. Second, craft yo… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 15, 2009 at 2:26am — No Comments

The Exploitation of Social Media

Facebook, twitter, ning sites and other social medial sites are great ways to engage your customers. There are many ways you as a marketer can take advantage of this new and misunderstood phenomenon. 1. Incorporate social media networking into a header or footer in your email template. You can keep it simple with a little link to your facebook fan page of your business twitter account; of you can make it quite complex and encourage sharing to Digg, Delicious or other sites. If you want t… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 13, 2009 at 11:30pm — No Comments

The Week Ahead October 12-16, 2009

Monday: Tuesday: Wednesday: Retail Sales, Business Inventories Thursday: Weekly initial jobless claims, Consumer Price Index, Crude Inventories Friday: Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization Larson note: I was a little surprised by the retail sales report for September as were a lot of people. I guess school supplies were really selling like hot cakes. That and consumer bowering going down will only help in the long run. But it is still employment. Do you add pe… Continue

Added by Howard Larson on October 13, 2009 at 11:34am — No Comments

Cool Campaigns - and how small business can learn

I've just copy pasted this from my blog, alexblom.com/blog . Hope it is enjoyed :) I don't copy paste all my articles and I appreciate any feedback and support, here or there. ------- I always love seeing it when people really get it. By any indication Volkswagen & Coca Cola do. Starting with Volkswagens’ TheFunTheory.com, the marketing message is mundane tasks and habits can be changed by making them fun. Clearly we associate this with Volkswagen being fun; or making the… Continue

Added by Alex Blom on October 13, 2009 at 10:53am — No Comments

Ok You Have An Online Business, Now What?

I train my team how to avoid the BIG MISTAKES in network marketing, I realise they're excited to get started. After all, most of them were told in the past by other sponsors that all they had to do was make a list and start calling everyone they know right? Well I'm here to tell you that its the first BIG mistake and if you follow this advice you'll be having Christmas dinner alone this holiday season and an honorary member of the NFL club. The no friends left club. So what's the first thing… Continue

Added by Paul Hines on October 11, 2009 at 1:10am — No Comments