Some advertisers make promises so huge that you shake your head and click away or turn the page. Sometimes our kids do that too! (I promise I’ll take care of this puppy, Mom!) Luckily for our kids we give them the benefit of good intentions and usually go along with the plan.

But we don’t give the advertisers that benefit of the doubt. When the promise is ridiculous, most of us will ignore it.

While over done promises send you running the other way, there has to be some kind of promise, either stated or implied, or you still aren’t going to buy.

Promises are important. Without them, no one is interested. You don’t buy something or support a cause or a candidate just because they’re there. You have to have a reason, and the big promise conveys the reason.

If you promise me great taste, and something specific that will benefit the kids, I’ll buy your Girl Scout Cookies.

If you promise I’ll have fun, or get to meet a celebrity, or learn something I really want to know – I’ll come to your event.

If you promise to change the world in ways that I think it should be changed, I’ll vote for your candidate.

If you promise to solve a social ill – one that matters to ME – I’ll donate to your cause.

If you promise to make my life happier or easier in some way, I’ll use the service you offer.

Do you see how that works? None of us are just going to say “Yes” to something without a great promise first. We all need reasons.

We all need the answer to that age-old question “What’s in it for me?” before we’ll consider buying your product, using your service, or donating to your cause. Your promise has to offer the answer to that question.

You can use promises in your personal life, too. For instance, if you’re selling a couch and you promise to deliver it, that’s a great selling point. If the kids want to go to the mall, but promise to mow the lawn if you’ll take them, you might say yes.

Whatever you’re selling, decide on the biggest (true) promise you can make. Then put it in the headline or the first sentence of your ad.

And in your daily life… when you want something from someone else, first decide what you can give in return and promise it.

I promise you’ll get better results than you would by merely asking.

Marte Cliff is a Freelance Copywriter who specializes in making people feel good about buying your products or services.

She has extensive experience in writing search engine optimized web copy, e-mail campaigns, direct sales letters, postcards, newsletters, press releases, and more. She is also available for marketing plan creation and editing services.

You can visit her at http://www.marte-cliff.com. While you’re there, sign up for one of her marketing ezines. She promises to gently nag you about ways to make your own marketing efforts more productive – whether you’re selling a product or providing a service.

Public speaking is only as difficult as you allow it to be. Unfortunately, many people make it more difficult than it is because their fear or their nervousness is in control. If such is the case with you, then you should consider changing your approach so that you have the upper hand over your nervousness.

Personally, I love nervousness. That adrenaline rush helps me be more dynamic and allows for my passion and enthusiasm to be seen and heard. And, because I am in control of it, my audiences have no idea that I am nervous. They neither see it nor do they hear it in my voice.

By implement the following 5 steps into your presentation, you will discover that you are able to focus on your delivery and not on your fear:

1. Treat your audience as if you were having a conversation in your living room. Imagine your speech or presentation as being one side of the conversation and your audience’s reaction to you, the other. If you can visualize yourself standing at the lectern, at the head of the conference table, or in the front of the room in this manner, you will feel much more confident.
2. Speak to your audience with express, not only in the tonal variety of your voice but also your facial expression and your body language. Standing perfectly still with no physical or aural expression is a quick means of putting your audience to sleep.
3. Know your material inside and out. This means practicing it out loud several days (if not weeks) in advance of your scheduled date. Reading it over in your mind is not practice. Only fools treat their material in that manner.
4. Breathe with the support of your diaphragm. It is the best means of controlling nervousness you have. It is free; it is healthy; and, it will put an end to your breathlessness.
5. Believe in yourself. If you approach your audience believing that you cannot do it, how successful do you think you will be? Do not aim for perfection. Strive to do the best job that you can do by incorporating the above 4 methods into your delivery. If you can accomplish that, then you will succeed.

Public speaking does not have to be your greatest fear. If you want to take control of your nervousness and actually allow it to work for you, I guarantee that these social, emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual components are all that you need to deliver a dynamic speech or presentation.

The Voice Lady Nancy Daniels offers private, group and corporate training in voice and presentation skills as well as Voicing It!, the only video training program on voice improvement. Visit her website at Voice Dynamic and watch as Nancy describes the best means of controlling nervousness in any form of public speaking.

In most of our recent articles we have argued that if you are not utilizing online social media for advertising and marketing, you are wasting a unique opportunity. As one of our faithful and dedicated readers recently pointed out to us – perhaps there are some people out there who do not have the full one-hundred percent knowledge to apply this to.

With that in mind, we have created a useful sample list of most forms (if not all) of online social media advertising that most companies and individuals can use at no or minimal financial cost.

We hope you enjoy them and more importantly, find them useful!

1: Website
Straight out of the gates is one of the earliest and most recognised forms of advertising and self-promotion on the internet for as long as the internet itself has been around.

A website is a definite MUST for your business, regardless of size.

These can range in definition from your most basic of sites including Name, Location, Business Hours etc… to your fancy, full graphical interactive type website or one with an online store that you can use to capture sales.

We always advocate letting professionals do what they are best at. A backyard, thrown together site will look exactly like what it is. A professional site on the other hand, will be designed in such a way as to make it upscale-able cutting edge, as long as the time and effort are taken to ensure that this form of advertising and marketing is kept up to date.

2: Search Advertising
Can anyone say ‘Google’? Yep, Google is the undisputed king in this kind of advertising and marketing.

They have made this type of marketing and advertising popular using short ‘Promoted Links’ when users of their services go searching on the Google site.

This is a possible ‘low-cost’ mechanism to allow you and your business to reach potentially millions of users.

Unlike most traditional forms of advertising, these types of marketing and advertising only makes you pay when a user clicks on the ‘Promoted Link’. Return On Investment in this type of marketing and advertising is great!

You can also, as part of the Google service, ensure that your advertisements are ‘Targeted’ to particular parts of the market.

So, for instance, you sell used cars. You can set up your advertisements to target ‘Keywords’ that will be the type of search criteria that someone looking for a new used car may be searching for.

3: Blogs
Blogs have become much more noticeable of late and for good reason.

A useful Blog enables you to create an ongoing conversation with your customers and readers of your blog.

Blogs are used for a large variety of reasons from personal ones to business.

Promoting your new line of products or achievements on your blog enables your readers and clients to know exactly what you are up to at any given point, as well as perhaps gaining some useful knowledge in certain areas.

Perhaps your company sells gardening equipment. Your blog may perhaps be set up so that you can answer peoples questions regarding their gardens, garden designs etc…, all the while marketing and advertising your company as the undisputed expert in that area of expertise.

4: Mailing Lists / Emails
Mailing lists and email newsletters and promotions are somewhat akin to a blog. The basic difference between the two is that while users and readers must visit your site to read your blog updates, with a mailing list they decide to receive your news in an email format.

This format allows you stay in touch with your customers periodically without the need for the customer to visit your site.

Great caution and care needs to be used when you are thinking of using a Mailing List / Email Newsletter form of advertising though.

Most countries nowadays have very strict guidelines on the use and updating of peoples’ personal email addresses and information. They must ‘Opt-In’, which in a nutshell means that they must ask to be put on your list and there also has to be a very simple ‘Opt-Out’ solution to enable people to remove themselves from your list.

We always advocate the use of extreme care when handling customers and readers email addresses. DO NOT SELL these lists as 99% of the time they will be used by unscrupulous individuals to send SPAM out.

Treat these email addresses in the same confidentiality status as your existing customer base.

5: Social Media
Which brings us to the current Grand Daddy of online advertising and marketing.

This latest trend in marketing is becoming more popular with each passing day. The social media presence is not really new, it has been around for years, but lately people and businesses have seen the opportunity that this form of media presents to business, no matter what size.

In our view, if you do not have a Facebook or Twitter account then you are passing up an opportunity to indirectly and directly interact with millions of possible clients.

These form the 5 basic principles of online advertising and marketing, as they stand today.

Things to keep in mind using online marketing in today’s world:

- Be Patient.
These forms of advertising, especially Blogs and Social Media, will take a while to get up to speed. It will NOT happen overnight.

- Persevere
You believe in your product and company right? Believe in this process. It will not disappoint you.

- Treat This As Other Marketing And Advertising
You would not hand out a blank cheque to an advertising or promotion company so do the same thing here. Set a target budget, both in monetary terms and time/effort spent, and stick to it!

- Update, Update and Update!
Keep yourself and your business at the forefront by ensuring constant, relevant information! Update your blog, newsletter and website as much as possible!

- Ensure You Have An Consistent Online Presence!
Make sure that anyone who has the ability to update, answer questions or promote your business in the online world knows what the image you want to portray about your company is!

Elite Business Solutions Frank Perez has successfully combined all the skills of a designer, programmer, and marketer to continuously and consistently deliver business solutions entailing everything from marketing to software. He is highly regarded and sought after for his professionalism and integrity.

Frank runs an elite business marketing and software design firm based out of Melbourne, Australia. Frank is available for guest blogging, article writing, speaking events and software projects.

Frank Perez
Owner
Tazz 1 Pty Ltd
Follow Franks Blog on http://tazz1.com.au/b2evolution/blog1.php
Join Our Mailing List on http://www.tazz1.com.au/custom.html

So, you want to increase your business sales? Marketing the right way can cause this to become a reality. One of the biggest problems most small business owners have is not knowing how to market their business the right way. Here’s the thing guys and girls. You don’t have to be a genus to market effectively. Marketing comes down to standing out from the rest of the crowd. Do things that get noticed! That’s effective marketing. Here are 7 ways to increase your businesses sales:

• Create media advertising that catches people’s attention.

You can go and waste a couple thousand dollars right now and buy a yellow page ad or a radio commercial if you want, or you can take a couple minutes (or hours…sorry, sometimes it takes some time) and create something that is going to work. Your media advertising needs to point out your market’s problems. Then, it needs to agitate those problems. Then, it needs to offer a solution to those problems (YOUR BUSINESS).

It’s really that simple. If you create something that doesn’t work, then tweak it a little bit and try again. Keep doing this until you have some compelling sales copy.

• Use your database.

Most business owners I’ve worked with have a database (usually a large database) but never use it. This is a very valuable tool that needs to be taken advantage of. Send out a direct mail campaign to your lists addresses. Start a compelling email campaign for their email addresses. You can even have your sales people cold call the list. Either way, you are going to get a percentage of that database to buy your goods.

• Work with other businesses.

I feel like I’m just a broken record sometimes, but these things need to be said over and over. Working with other businesses that are not competing with you is a gold mine in itself. A business can excel with joint ventures alone.

• Help your community.

Buyers like nothing more then a generous business owner. You want to increase your sales? Market your business by giving free events at your location, or a local park. You could call up your favorite local charity and set up a deal that benefits both of you. This works like magic. People love generous people. They will love you so much, they will give you their money.

• Get yourself on the internet.

I don’t think I need to go deep into this issue. I know all of you realize the potential in the internet. It might be confusing. It might be over your head. That still doesn’t make it impossible to implement in your business. Hire an outside source to do your internet marketing if you don’t have the time or knowledge to do it yourself. It’s worth it.

• Become the authority in your industry.

Every business has to display to prospects why they should buy from you and not your competitors. I haven’t found an easier way to show this then becoming the largest authority in your industry. How you ask? Get published in the newspaper or magazines. Get hosted on a talk radio show. Write a book. Have a seminar for locals. All of these build your credibility and build your customer base as well.

This method alone brought me from making 6 figures a year to 6 figures a month. My business is no different then yours. You can implement the same technique to achieve huge success.

• Perfect the small things in your system.

One of the quickest ways to improve your sales is to improve what you already have going. Check your sales funnel. Is there a step that would be confusing to your customers? Then fix it. Have a friend call your business. Does the receptionist answering the phone sound upset or like she hates her job? Then fix it. There are many areas of everyone’s business that can be improved slightly. Those slight improvements could mean an extra 20-30% in revenue.

All of these methods will improve your sales. Marketing is more then just placing ads in a newspaper. Be creative and stand out from the crowd. Improve each step in your business and you won’t fail. I don’t care what the economy is like.

Do you want to blast your sales to huge growth this next quarter? Then you need to perfect your business. You can do this with my guide on the Five Step Formula For Explosive Growth. Grab your free copy TODAY! Small business help is right around the corner. You just have to ask.