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Your value proposition must be relevant to your target market. This means your target market must be identified and clearly defined. In my experience, it's not uncommon for a business to have to refocus and revisit their targeting, especially if it was not clearly identified in the beginning stages of business. It's important in this process to find the right balance when defining your target market in a...

What is a brand really worth? In companies where budgets are tight, how do you go about explaining the importance and the equity that brand can carry? A brand can often be seen as something intangible and it’s difficult for people to understand the value that brand brings into a company. It’s important when sitting down to create a brand valuation to determine what your brand...

Developing a brand strategy can be one of the most difficult steps in the marketing plan process. It's often the element that causes most businesses the biggest challenge, but it's a vital step in creating the company identity. Your brand identity will be repeatedly communicated, in multiple ways with frequency and consistency throughout the life of your business. Your brand strategy identifies three core components of your business, which...

Selecting a name for your new business is not easy. A name does more than identify your company. It tells customers who you are, what you do, and more than a little about how you do it. Your name differentiates you from your peers, peaks customer interest, and invites further investigation -- if you do it right. I Didn’t Do It Right. at Least, Not at...

Imagine being the media director for a state lottery. Unless something really, really goes wrong, your job is 100 percent good news. The press releases you send are about a grandmother winning $50,000 or a single dad working two jobs hitting the MegaMillions for $125 million. The real challenge is handling bad news, right? Disasters and scandals. Things you can't control. Except that's not the worst thing...

Affiliate marketing has been around for a long time — essentially, since the beginning of e-commerce. But this “old school” method of making money online is still going strong because of all the benefits it offers to small-scale, solo internet entrepreneurs. And it’s an especially powerful business model to those without much experience doing business online. Many successful online business owners make their first dollar online...

With all the buzz around Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram — not to mention mobile marketing to smartphones — it’s tempting to think that online entrepreneurs don’t have to use email marketing. Some pundits even say email marketing has fallen by the wayside. But they’ve been saying that for more than a decade, now. The fact is, email marketing — which is basically direct mail brought into the internet era...

It seems like everybody has a website these days. And why not? The low price of web hosting — both initial and ongoing costs — for your website has made it more affordable than ever. And web hosting is easy to set up and maintain, so anybody can do it. What Is Web Hosting? Web hosting is what makes it possible for your website to be live,...

You can’t escape it… no matter what business you’re in these days, you need to have an online presence to be successful. In every industry and in every niche, no matter what product you sell or service you provide… whether your business is bricks-and-mortar or completely on the Internet… prospects and customers need to be able to find you online. They’re already looking for you… so make...

Do have a beautiful website describing your products or services, but you’re not sure what to do from there? Do you pay a web designer large sums of money to make changes every month? It’s a widespread myth that the only people making money on the internet are the ones selling products about how to make money on the internet. Profitable websites come from all kinds...