Use E-coupons to Increase Your Sales

Coupons are a great way to reward your customers, invite new customers, and increase your sales. Consider how implementing coupons in your business can help your company grow.

E-coupons are easy to use in e-commerce sites. You will need a shopping cart system that allows you to implement a coupon code.

Even if you don’t have an e-commerce site, you can offer coupons that your customers redeem in your store. Make sure that the same person is not coming in again and again.

There are several different kinds of coupons you can use:

• First-Time Customers: Entice new customers with coupons. You can offer a certain percentage off of their first purchase or offer free shipping for new accounts. The sky is the limit on possibilities you could do for your coupon.
• Returning customers: Reward your returning customers with an e-coupon for their next purchase. You can give them their coupon after they finished a purchase or through e-mail.
• Loyal customers: Reward the customers who loyally buy from you again and again. If you keep good accounts on purchases, send out an e-coupon to those that have made a certain amount of purchases from you.
• General incentives: If your sales are going a little slow, offer coupons to everyone to comes to the store. You can do this with a mass e-mail or offer a coupon code on the home page. This is a great way to boost your sales and satisfy your customers.

Brad Harmon is the President at a leading financing company, First Star Capital (www.firststarcapital.com). Brad is a frequent contributor to online publications and newsletters, and is the author of this blog on commercial financing topics.

Get Your News Out

When your company has news, don't you want every one to know? The quickest, easiest, cheapest, and perhaps most effective way is to submit your press release to a free press release site. This free method of advertising can attract many visitors as well as increase your site's links.

Note: Just because these sites offer free services, that does not mean that they accept everything. Make sure that your press release is legitimate and not just advertising.

Here is a list of some free press release web sites that can help boost your business:

• i-NewsWire.com
• PR.com
• Free-Press-Release.com
• PRWeb.com
• PRLog.org
• 1888PressRelease.com
• 24-7PressRelease.com
• ClickPress.com
• PRUrgent.com
• BetaNews.com - IT and Technology Press Releases

Brad Harmon is the President at a leading financing company, First Star Capital (www.firststarcapital.com). Brad is a frequent contributor to online publications and newsletters, and is the author of this blog on commercial financing topics.

Strengthen Your Website with Videos

Improving your website should always be priority. Visitors (and search engines) love new content. Visitors especially enjoy interactive material. These elements not only allow the viewer to look but to interact and become part of it.

Videos are no new thing to the Internet. However, you can always put videos on your website. It will increase your traffic and sales as the visitor interacts with the content.

Adding a video to your homepage will increase click-throughs. A human's mind can process information extremely quickly. Having only static images and text can turn away a visitor in less than a second. Motion will cause the visitor to stay longer to see everything. It will intrigue the viewer to either stay on the page longer or to move on to another page in your site. Although it will not make all visitors stay, it can most certainly increase your overall traffic.

Uploading videos is as simple as uploading a photo. In your website program, simply add a video in the place you need. Or, find a video website, like YouTube, that can host the video. You can then take the code and plug it into your website.

Watch the improvement in your sales and traffic when you add videos on your website. It could be just what you need to keep up with or beat your competitors.

Brad Harmon is the President at a leading financing company, First Star Capital (www.firststarcapital.com). Brad is a frequent contributor to online publications and newsletters, and is the author of this blog on commercial financing topics.

Attack the New Year with an Advertising Plan

With each new year comes new opportunities. How your company will grow depends upon how you want your company to grow. Sit down and spend some time brainstorming on new marketing approaches and goals for the year.

Ask yourself some of these questions:

• What are your long-term goals?
• What are your short-term goals?
• What is your elevator pitch? Has it changed from the last year?
• What message do you want to get across to your clients? How can you better portray that message?
• How will you introduce potential clients to your company? Will you increase e-mail newsletters, postcards, trade show exhibits, etc? Set a goal for all of your marketing material.
• What products/services will you offer that are different from the older products/services? How will you promote them better than the year before?

Brad Harmon is the President at a leading financing company, First Star Capital (www.firststarcapital.com). Brad is a frequent contributor to online publications and newsletters, and is the author of this blog on commercial financing topics.

Using Social Network Sites to Promote Your Business

To help your company continue to grow in the expansive Internet, try social networking web sites. Social networking sites create human connections. They help you to make new relationships with other businesses. You can effectively promote your business. In addition, they allow you to have a strong link back to your website.

Although online communities are thought of as something for just those 25 year and younger, these sites have been pushing the boundaries. They become such a powerful asset that companies who shrug them off are most certainly losing out in the long run.

Online communities basically give you a page to write about yourself and/or your company. You can write about anything you want on your page. Make sure you have a link to your company's web site. This will really strengthen your external links and your PageRank. Depending on the site, you will be able to make friends, join groups, or even have other people become a fan of your company.

Here is a list of some social networking sites that are free:

• LinkedIn - Connects professionals - www.linkedin.com
• Spoke - Connects companies - www.spoke.com
• Facebook - Connects individuals - www.facebook.com
• MySpace - Connects individuals (usually a younger audience) - www.myspace.com

Seeing that the sites are free and the outcome is great, you really have nothing to lose.

Brad Harmon is the President at a leading financing company, First Star Capital (www.firststarcapital.com). Brad is a frequent contributor to online publications and newsletters, and is the author of this blog on commercial financing topics.

Wise Tips to Sending E-mails

Marketing through E-mail, despite its bad reputation, can be an effective way to promote your business. How and when you send the message will greatly affect whether it gets viewed or not. Consider the following questions when developing your e-mail marketing campaign:

• What type of e-mail are you sending? Are you sending e-coupons, newsletters, customer success stories, or an ad of a new product? Depending on your business, you can implement many different types of approaches. Varying the type of e-mail will keep the viewer interested and intrigued.
• When your customers will look at e-mail positively? Would they be more likely to view the e-mail in the morning during work hours, afternoon at their lunch break, or evening at home? Would they be more willing to view the message on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday?
• How often will you send email? Do you plan on sending it once a week, once a month, etc? Consistency is key here. If you plan to send out an e-mail a week, make sure you send out an e-mail a week.
• Always have holidays and special events in mind. Including them proves that the e-mail has been well thought out and is thus not a generic template.
• If you have an e-mail with a link to your website, provide a special page and, using a website analytical program (Google offers one for free), see how many people visit that page. This will measure the success of your e-mail.
  

Considering these few ideas will strengthen your marketing campaign. Experiment to see what works for your company.

Brad Harmon is the President at a leading financing company, First Star Capital (www.firststarcapital.com). Brad is a frequent contributor to online publications and newsletters, and is the author of this blog on commercial financing topics.

E-mail Campaigns

E-mail is one of many ways to promote your business. It can be your strongest asset if handled correctly. Marketing campaigns via email can really help to strengthen a business. You can promote new products/services, give away coupons, or offer words of wisdom. There are a few things that can really help save time, promote your business,and keep your customers interested.

Firstly, remember to ALWAYS put a link to your website in your e-mails. You want your customers to get excited and visit your site for more information. Think how detrimental that could be if you did not include a link to your site.

One thing that will save time and effort is to plan ahead. Write, design, and complete all the e-mails you are sending out that year. If you want to do a twice-a-month e-mail, make 24 designs. To get started, you can set up the campaigns like this:

Month: (use the date which you will send the e-mail)

Subject: (title of the e-mail)

Body: (all the content used in the body of the e-mail. Specify the pictures, colors, and the exact wording.)

Tips for the Subject:

• Keep it short and simple. Never use more than 10 words. Using 5 words is even better. Use strong and direct words, never "fluff" adjectives like "very."
  
• Ask a question. This will entice the viewer to want to see more. Use seasons and holidays in your title. Something like "Lose 10 pounds for the summer" or "Back to school tips" will helped the e-mail to be viewed more.
• Never use the word "free," "limited time offer," "buy now," or other sales terms. These are considered spam keywords and your e-mail will most likely be blocked. Also, don't make the words in all caps or end in multiple exclamation points.

Tips for the Body:

• Show the benefits of your product/service/advice.
• Never make the e-mail apparently generic. Try to make the e-mail personal, like you wrote it just for them.
• Like the season/holiday-related subject, make your body be similar.Use bright yellows and blues for summer. Use fall leaf images in autumn or emerald evergreen trees in December.
• Again, don't use the spam keywords.

When you plan ahead with you e-mail campaigns, you will never run into the "it's the end of the day and I forgot to send out our monthly e-mail." Your e-mails will be more thought through if you take the time to sit down once and write them all out. You will be glad you planned ahead when your day is busy.

Brad Harmon is the President at a leading financing company, First Star Capital (www.firststarcapital.com). Brad is a frequent contributor to online publications and newsletters, and is the author of this blog on commercial financing topics.