Marketing
Operational Marketing

This is the part of marketing where you devise you strategy to attract your client/customers and to satisfy the needs of those customers in a way that will retain their loyalty to your business.

You can spend/waste; thousands of dollars in this area or, on the other hand you can spend a couple of hundred dollars a month and get fantastic returns on you investment. (ROI)

There is one web site that I know the owner of personally that has his web site is on the 1st page of GOOGLE, 1st page of MSN and at the moment 2nd page of YAHOO.

He has been constantly listed on the 1st page of GOOGLE and MSN for the last 4 years. His site was normally listed on the 1st page of YAHOO however, at the moment it is languishing on the 2nd page.

The point of this is that he has not spent a penny on advertising his websites. All he has done is submitted them to the above search engines.

Type, into GOOGLE, MSN and YAHOO the word, jewellery manufacturers, please note the spelling of the word, jewellery. This is very important, I shall come back to the reason later.
Why do I not just tell you the name of the web site?

Well, I am hopeful that you will find this site instructional and I keep emphasizing the importance of doing your own; due diligence and this is a good time to start.
See if you can work out which web site I am talking about and try and work out why, his site is constantly on the first page of GOOGLE, MSN and YAHOO?

If you think that you have the correct web site, send me an email and give your reasons as to why you think his site is on page one.

I digressed.

When promoting/advertising your web site/business, your objective is to get the best ROI (return on investment) for your money.

My objective are?
1. Identify the people that I want to connect with.
2. Target that market.
3. Offer the opportunity.
4. Support.

Identify the people:
In the case of this web site, the people that I want to connect with are the people that are looking for

1. Passive income opportunities.
2. Business opportunities.
2a. Home business opportunities.
3. Investment opportunities.
a. High yield, high risk.
b. Low start up.
4. Extra income. etc.

The one thing that I am NOT looking for is tyre (tire) kickers or professional surfers.

Example: Tyre kickers are interested in the idea but have no intention of getting involved or, do not have the courage to get started. They have convinced themselves that they will start investing as soon as they know enough about it. That will never happen. Or for instance people that are interested in reading about health care, you have two types. The healthy ones who have no intention of buying your product, they just like being kept up to date or, the healthy ones that are actively purchasing health product to stay healthy. Which would you prefer?

Professional surfers: These are the people that get involved with companies that pay people to look at web sites. They get paid a couple of cents to look at a web site for 15 seconds or so. Do you really think that they are interested in what your paid advertisement has to say?
They probably have 8 or 9 pages open at a time and click between each of them in sequence so they are probably only on one page long enough for it to load, then click on the next page and so on, then back to the first page to close it and repeat the operation.

Click thru’s like the above do have their uses if you are looking for hits on your site to help with page ranking and maybe, just maybe, gain a competitive edge over your competitors. But are you selling your product or services?

So who am I looking for?
Example:
I am selling drills; we all know that drills are for boring (drilling) holes.
So my target market would NOT be someone looking for Perfume or ladies lingerie?

My Target Market?
I would target my product at the market for people that need a drill for making holes,
men, builders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, D.I.Y’r's, etc.

What would be my competitive edge?
1. Competitive price?
2. Quality of product?
3. Quality of Customer service?(Pre-sale, first contact point with the customer, Courteous, amenable, efficient, Knowledgeable about every aspect of your product range).
4. No quibble money back guarantee?
5. Quality of customer care?(After Sales, again Courteous, amenable, efficient, Knowledgeable about every aspect of your business, your returns policy).
6. I would be an expert on drills, holes and the type of material that holes would be made in, and so would my customer service and care staff be experts on drills, holes and materials. That is what a drill is for, for drilling holes in different type of materials.
You need to be able to answer any question put to you by a potential client or an existing customer.

Your client begins to rely upon you for accurate and the correct information, such as what size, type of drill or drill bit for various materials and situations.
The next time he needs a drill or a drill bit or maybe another product that you sell, where is he going to go?
He’s going to go back to someone that he knows he can trust.

This is the reputation that you want to attain.

And don’t forget, word of mouth is the best and cheapest form of advertising.