James Brown Marketing » Business World

How To CRUSH Your Competition

JB — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:37:36 +0000

Online and off, competition is fierce. Consumers are holding onto their money more carefully. In order to thrive in this highly competitive market it’s important to pay attention to your competition.

What’s Your Shtick?

A shtick is a Yiddish word that means your gimmick or unique talent. In the business world they call this your USP, Unique Selling Proposition. Essentially, what makes you different from your competition? What do you have to offer that they don’t? For example, a freelance writer might differentiate themselves by delivering any article or blog post project in 24 hours – the 24-Hour Article Service.

Narrow Your Focus

Trying to be all things to all people does one thing – it increases your competition. Specializing, on the other hand, narrows your competition. It also helps you become the best at what you do. For example, instead of offering information products on how to care for your pet, you might specialize in how to care for your aging dog. Or how to care for your aging Pomeranian. Specialization can virtually eliminate your competition.

Become Invaluable

Offer products, information, and resources that make you invaluable to your audience. When planning your business, ask yourself this single question – what can I do to offer more value to my audience? Of course, you have to know your audience well to answer this question.

Be Memorable

You cannot be boring in this competitive market and survive. Now that doesn’t mean you have to be over the top either. Instead, be yourself. Capture the interest of your audience and customers by sharing your personality with them in your content, interactions, and even in your products or services.

Pay Attention to Your Customers

Chances are you already have some very valuable information regarding what your customers respond to. Take a look at what they buy, when they buy, what emails they open and what links they click. This information will help you hone in on how to offer value and how to be memorable. It may also help you specialize.

Build a Community

Connect with your audience and customers on a regular basis. Invite them to get involved through a number of means. For example, invite them to connect with you on Facebook. Ask questions and invite comments.

Repeat Successes

Pay attention to what works for you and repeat it. For example, if you find that checklists are downloaded more than free reports you know that your audience enjoys checklists. If they buy more during the summer than in the winter then offer them more during the summer.

Staying ahead of your competition doesn’t just mean following their actions online and reacting to them. Instead, create a plan to be proactive. Differentiate yourself and focus on your customer. That’s how you’ll survive and thrive long term.

Personal Branding Helps in Successful Affiliate Marketing

JB — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:11:24 +0000

Personal branding your affiliate marketing campaigns can help you succeed in affiliate marketing. The market will recognize you among other players in the business. Connection is also properly established with customers with personal branding.

Why You Should Use Personal Branding

Personal branding adds your touch to the business. Personal branding goes well beyond a sleek logo or a perfect tag line. It is a way of sharing your expertise and own set of values with your target market.

Personal branding helps a lot in establishing rapport with your clients. A sense of connection is formed leading to trust and confidence of your market to get what they need from you.

In a business world where competition is very stiff, other marketers can steal your concept, your tools, and your system. There will also come a time when your patent for your product will expire. Personal branding attaches your identity with the goods or services that you sell.

People will know it is you when they see something on the market. If they trust you, they trust what you offer them.

Tips on Building your Personal Brand

Building a personal brand is not an easy task. It does not come in a package nor is it achieved overnight.

Here are some tips to get you started in building your brand:

Run your own blog – If you want to be seen as an authority in the business, you should have a site devoted to it. You can also receive important feedback from your followers and potential clients.
Distribute information online – You can write free ebooks or newsletter and distribute this to your list or potential customers. This can help you as an affiliate marketer in building trust with your market.
Publish write-ups on trade publications – Print is still a very powerful medium. People can get their ideas and business sources by reading magazines and journals. You will develop the authority in your field through this effort.
Give seminars and webinars – These talking engagements put the spotlight on you and serve as a good venue to show your expertise. You can also push for your services or products during these events.

Affiliate marketing is like standing in a crowded room where everyone is wearing a black suit, donning the same shoes, and sporting the same smile. It is a crowded business and people will have a hard time seeing you. Personal branding magnets the attention of the market to you and puts a spotlight on what you can give them.

Improving Productivity with Google Docs

JB — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:04:23 +0000

I recently read an article in which the author suggested replacing traditional word processing with MS Word or the software of your choice with Google Docs. The author argued that using Google Docs can help with productivity in cases where a single document needs to be reviewed edited by one or more people other than the author, as is the case with a great number of the documents written up on a day to day basis in the business world.

The basis for this comment was that Google Docs has a collaborative function built in, and that using it over traditional word processing could help alleviate the back and forth sending of emails and attachments that has always come along with collaborative writing. I thought the idea was intriguing and decided to check out Google Docs for myself. I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Google Docs offers all the features necessary to draw up most types of documents you’ll write on a day to day basis. It lacks many of the features of Word 2007, but only those that are there as an extra convenience without being really necessary. If you’re coming from Word 2000, you probably won’t notice anything missing. You can save in a variety of formats including .doc, open document, PDF and HTML.

You can upload documents from your computer to edit and you can send documents by email or publish them right from the online interface. The feature that really makes Google Docs worth using though is the sharing function. Once you’ve created your document, you can share it with others and invite them on to be contributors.

Those added as contributors can then edit the document directly from their own Google account. Of course, as the “owner” of the document, you have the final say on edits. The value of this is that now on a document that might require three or four revisions from one of more people other than the author, the author of the document can simply upload or write their document in Google Docs and then invite in the editors or reviewers as contributors to the document. This could save a ton of back and forth emails with edited drafts attached, helping reduce the inbox clutter that often goes hand in hand with collaborative writing.

I’d suggest anyone that does any volume of writing check out this app., as there may be times when it makes your writing process significantly easier. By simply logging in with your Google account, you can access this useful web 2.0 app. completely free. I’d say this one is definitely one of Google’s winners.