All I want for Christmas is…To sell more stuff?

I understand. You want some decent sales in time for the holidays.

I have a last-minute strategy for how to get people to your website ASAP. Before I get to that, here’s what NOT to do.

Do not send 5 emails in 7 days promoting one special deal (today only!) and then another. Yes, I just received this from a designer. And to be blunt, it smacks of desperation.

Do not rush out and buy a bunch of facebook ads and drive people straight to your shopping cart. Social media should be used to build relationships first (yes, even with a company) and conversion rates on facebook ads that go straight to a sales page are not very high. (They also cost more than ads that direct traffic to your facebook page, btw).

So what can you do?

Get yourself mentioned in blog posts. And get bloggers to Twitter about you.

But here’s the catch…

You cannot just barge in on someone’s blog and ask them to post about your line. You need to first think about who you already have a relationship with.

Look at it this way, if person X called you up and asked you to blurb about them in your blog…would you do it? Or would you do it if you could? Would you find it a strange request? Rude even? Presumptuous?

If the answer is YES, I’m happy to help X out, then get on the horn and call X up and remind them you’re here and ready for business. If you’re not that comfortable with X, then start working on that relationship now for next season.

You see, fans of bloggers already have a relationship with that person, so if the blogger recommends you, it means a lot. That prospect is much closer to the BUY than a cold lead ever will be – because they trust the blogger.

Getting exposure through blogs definitely drives traffic. And free traffic at that. FREE in terms of money but not in terms of time and effort it takes to build those relationships. It IS an investment but it can pay off tremendously when you give it the time and energy it deserves.

So think about it… Who can you reach out to? Who can you gently nudge with news about your line? Who can you give a good reason to help you promote? You can even print this and make your list here:

1) ______________________________________________________________

2) ______________________________________________________________

3) ______________________________________________________________

And remember… If you cannot come up with names for this list, don’t beat yourself up. Just think about ways to change the situation for next year and get back on track.

No more feast or famine marketing! If you market yourself and your line consistently, and authentically, I guarantee you won’t have this problem NEXT Holiday season.

by Jane Hamill

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Jane Hamill is the founder of Fashion Brain Academy, helping fashion designers on the BUSINESS side of things through online workshops and classes, private coaching, mentoring, and public speaking. Get her free report, “How to Find Fabric in Small Quantities and NOT Get Ripped Off in the Process” at www.janehamill.com

We absolutely love 3dCart’s platform – so far it is our favorite content management system with cart that makes running your online boutique a snap. They have just released a fabulous eBook geared toward the last minute things you can do to get your boutique ready for the holiday season. Check it out HERE.

Once you understand your brand you can focus on your brand strategy.  This strategy will define your approach and outline your methods for conveyance.  Then, you will be ready to work on the specific tactics to and steps of your action plan.

If you have followed the steps above, you should have a clear understanding of your customer and your competitive environment. Your strategy is built on this information. The first question to ask is Where will you position yourself? This is the time to decide how to approach your environment to successfully brand your company or your products.  Factors to consider are brick and mortar vs. online, stand alone stores vs. strip or indoor malls, creating your own store or wholesaling to retailers, and combinations of these.

As always, it is important to develop a brand that is distinct from your competitors. It is not enough to emulate a dominant brand. As the old saying goes “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”  In reality, you probably don’t have the resources necessary to duplicate their strategy, especially if they are a bigger, more established company. Seek out a niche of the dominant business’ market. You can successfully determine that niche by asking yourself, “Where are they vulnerable?”

If your business specializes in a specific product area, such as hairbows, build a brand of sweet, girly, pretty, and frilly.  If your advantage is consulting or ideas, make sure your brand is innovative, exciting, and cutting-edge. If you are the lowest price option, make sure to look conservative with money but still maintain a clean, easy to use website design.

Your branding strategy will set the overall limits of your branding “playing field”, now it’s time to design the game plan.

NEXT: Identify Your Branding Game Plan

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/34502
based on the article by Michele Schermerhorn

The value of your brand is in direct correlation with how well it meets the expectations of your customers. In order to build a strong brand people have to know what your business stands for and how it fits into their lives. In order to create this fit, you have to understand your customer. Survey your customer base, directly through email or surveys (check out Constant Contact for easy to use online survey software) or indirectly on facebook, twitter or a blog to understand how they perceive your business and more importantly what they value overall. With this understanding you can make sure your brand promise is important and valuable to the customers you want most.

Your brand promise is most easily conveyed through your tagline (although every facet of your business should speak to this promise). Think of some seemingly simple taglines that help get to the heart of what the company is promising: Serta, the mattress company, has a promise of “We Make The World’s Best Mattress”. Maytag with a lonely repairman, reinforces the promise of dependable service, stating simply that they are “Dependability People” with the headquarters located at #1 Dependability Way.

Your brand promise should be stated concisely so your customers as well as everyone in your organization understands the promise, just like Maytag’s and Serta’s promises. It should convey what you do well or what sets your brand apart. It should highlight your brand promise which in turn will convince people to purchase from you.

NEXT: Define Your Brand Strategy

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/34502
based on the article by Michele Schermerhorn

Brands, like people, have distinct personalities. Although other factors come into play, people often choose a brand because the characteristics of the company or product brand mesh with their own tastes or interests. I only shop at WalMart if absolutely necessary, but often find myself at Target because I like and identify with their branding.  My father, on the other hand, rarely sets foot in Target, preferring the budget wise branding of WalMart.  Our own personalities factor into our differing perspectives regarding the same business.


Once you can define your targeted customer well and understand your competition, you can choose a brand personality that fits your targeted client or customer.  As with any personality, your brand personality will have distinctive traits that are directly related to who you see as your main customer base. Focus on two or three personality traits and work to develop those.  Again, this is directly related to your customers.  A younger audience might look for traits that are more youthful, trendy and irreverent? A more upscale customer base and your brand traits might be modern, conservative and stylish.

After you flesh out two to three personality traits that reflect and define your business, they must be apparent in branding efforts. Your website, advertising, logo, emails and newsletters must mesh with your brand personality. These traits should extend into every facet of your business, including your collateral materials, the people you hire, and if applicable, your brick and mortar space.

Your brand must come through loud and clear at all times. The best way to insure this is to understand these traits so they are always apparent – your customers expect this. WalMart promises “ALWAYS low prices,” and they back this up in their policies and price structure.  What does your brand promise?

NEXT: Make a Brand Promise

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/34502
based on the article by Michele Schermerhorn

Your competitive environment directly impacts how you brand your products and company. For instance, in a highly competitive market like retail some companies deal in the high end of the market and some don’t. WalMart has chosen to compete in the low price arena of retailing. They work hard to build a brand of “low price, friendly company”. They don’t confuse this message by trying to cater to a higher end market.  Likewise, Target puts a spin on the idea of consumer savings by catering to their customers sense of style.  Both of these companies pay careful attention to their competitors to better understand how to be competitive in their market.

To find your niche within your competitive environment, start by asking your existing customers, “If you weren’t working with us, who would you be working with?” Identify companies that show up at the top of your search engine keywords.  Try to determine which companies you have lost business to. Learn as much as you can about these competitors, including how customers perceive them, what makes them unique, and why they win the business they do.  Follow their twitter feeds, check out their facebook pages and blogs or send surveys to your mailing list.  Keeping up with the competition can help you understand your own brand and how you can make it stand out above the crowd.

NEXT:  Define Your Brand Personality

based on the article by Michele Schermerhorn

Every company has a brand (how people think of them) whether they created it through design or accident. When you create your brand by design, you craft the way your company is viewed by customers and potential customers. Paying attention to your branding removes much of the uncertainty about what others expect from and say about you. Brand power is not a small detail; the Golden Arches are known worldwide.

It’s easy to confuse a logo with a brand. The logo is important and possibly your first step in branding, but it’s only a piece of the brand effort. After startup, when your brand is consistently communicated, your logo will be the medium through which your brand is seen. But, it is still just a part of the overall feel and face of your company, it can not replace your brand identity.

In order to really make your brand stand out, you have to understand that which makes your company or its products special.  If you don’t understand why your company is unique then you can’t fully establish a brand identity by design. Over the next week we will look at 7 different elements to help you beging to brand your company.

One: Know Your Customers

What makes a customer buy?  This is tantamount to understanding why they would buy from you.  They have their own reasons for making a purchase, that are distinct and most likely different from why you think they buy something.  In order to sell them a product, you have to get to the heart of what their concerns are.  Each and every part of your marketing must FOCUS on them.  If you don’t understand their language, you don’t get their sales.  In order to get them to understand your brand, you have to start by understanding them.

Try to put yourself in your targeted customer’s mindset. Understand what they think about the product, what they want from the product, and the alternatives they have to the product. Some ideas for gleaning this information from them are customer surverys (entice responses with a gift card drawing to anyone who responds to the survey), facebook conversations, twitter conversations, customer responses to blog articles – anything that helps you interact and understand your customer.

NEXT:  Understanding your competitive environment and your competitors.

based on the article by Michele Schermerhorn

There is no denying that having a great email marketing campaign can mean additional sales or clients for your business.  We love and recommend Constant Contact to help automate and streamline your email marketing.  This article highlights some tips on what not to do when coming up with your email subject line.  It’s a little counter intuitive – I thought that the worst performing subject lines would be obviously bad, but some of these look ok at first glance.  Take a look and see what you think!

For this month only – if you sign up for Constant Contact mailing list service, using my affiliate link, and make payment for your first month service, you will get a FREE newsletter template designed to match your existing website.  This is a great value.  A customized template can really help complete your look and tie in your branding.  Opt-in newsletters give you an excellent opportunity to keep in touch with your customers and in my experience can increase sales.

When using newsletter marketing it’s very important to build a quality email list and to keep that list current.  This special report from Constant Contact will give some tips and strategies for effective list building. Whether you decide to use their service or not, the report has valuable information relevant to any internet business so make sure to take a couple of minutes and look it over!

Building and Email List that Builds Your Business

To take advantage of this offer:

1) click HERE to sign up for Constant Contact

2) make your first payment to Constant Contact before March 1st, 2011

3) email me with your name, constant contact username and a contact email address

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Cohn