In the above video from WebProNews, Sheila Dahlgren of Adobe lets us in on some e-Commerce predictions for the future–particularly in retail.

For example, if you own a travel company that specializes in family vacations, you may think that your clients view you as simply a family vacation provider. Au contraire.

When people are looking for a family vacation, they don’t view a travel company as simply a vacation provider. They view the travel company as a facilitator. In the clients’ mind, a travel company has the ability to provide their family with a time and place to spend quality time together, on a safe and fun vacation, as well as a great price for their trip. See the difference?

Your target audience isn’t coming to you because you provide family vacations—they’re coming to you because they believe you will fulfill their family bonding needs, provide them with a happy and stress-free experience, and meet their vacation standards and criteria. The more specific you are with what you are actually providing for your clients, the easier it will be to connect with them.

Here’s a challenge for you:

1. Analyze your website copy, social media site profiles, past press releases, blog posts, and print marketing materials. Are you speaking to the needs and desires of your target audience? Are you reaching deep down into what you are truly providing them? Remember that you may perceive yourself as a travel company, but that’s not necessarily how you want your prospective clients to see your company—if this is how you’re projecting your company to your target audience, you may find you have no clients.

2. If it appears you’re simply trying to make the sale and not hitting your target market’s sweet spot with your marketing materials, you may be spending tons of precious time with no results—running yourself into the ground.

3. Step back, take a deep breath, and start brainstorming. What exactly do you provide to your audience? How do you satisfy their needs?

4. Now, the trick is to touch your prospective clients with the right marketing strategies and materials. Once you’ve hit the sweet spot, you’ll start to attract more clients, build online exposure, and have a clear brand message that speaks volumes to prospective clients.

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If you’re on the fence, if you think you don’t have the time, if you don’t think you need to promote online . . . here are 5 reasons why you should join me on this free call:

1. You’ll learn proven PR integration tips and strategies that you can easily implement on your own today.

2. You’ll learn how to save thousands of marketing and promotional dollars while maximizing your online exposure.

3. You’ll get the tips you need to stand apart from the competition and gain massive online exposure across a variety of channels.

4. You’ll discover exactly how to interact with your target market online and where to interact with them.

5. You’ll learn what you can to today to get more online exposure.

Register today for “The Ultimate Strategies to Boost Your Online Presence.”

You may be thinking that a Sidewiki is some strange creature from Star Wars—I’ll admit, that’s what I thought it was when I first saw it—but it’s actually an online tool that allows you to share your expertise, opinions, and knowledge with the Internet community on any webpage.

For example, if you were a real estate agent and wanted to comment on real estate web pages, you could do so using Google Sidewiki. The comment can be made within the same browser as the web page, and you can read what others are saying as well. You can also share your Sidewiki comments with your Facebook and Twitter friends.

See the video below for a greater insight into this exceptional online marketing tool. 

Where most companies use Facebook for promoting their businesses, Charleston’s own surf apparel shop Las Olas took Facebook to a whole new level. Below is the incident report.

Incident Report

Report Entered: 2009

Case Title: To Catch a Shorts Thief

Reporting Officer: Las Olas Facebook Page

Persons:

Role Name

Las Olas Store Owner Daniel James

Offenders:

Status Name

Shorts Thief Mr. Pánts-Stuffer

Narrative:

I was in Las Olas when a group of teenage skateboarders came in to browse. I had met one of the boys before and wasn’t suspicious of anything. They came in and started browsing; meanwhile, I had a friend asking about surf trip pointers as I rearranged merchandise—so I was a little busy. I was at the counter, and the boys were in the back looking at shoes. I had just rearranged the men’s shorts, and when they left, I noticed a pair was missing. At this point I called the police who showed up very quickly. I reviewed my security video from my computer and saw one of the boys had stuffed some shorts down his pants. The police did a sweep based on my descriptions but to no avail. So, I took still pictures from the video, enhanced them, and made a Facebook photo album with a reward for whoever could identify the thief.

Within about one hour, I had a dozen or so responses and suggestions. I followed the leads and found out the thief’s name. I then called the detective working on the case and gave him the information. I wasn’t too surprised that people recognized this boy from the Facebook album I created. Charleston is a small town, and if you live here, someone has seen your face before.

Report Status:

THIEVES CAUGHT—CASE CLOSED

Las Olas was opened in May 2007, during a time in which mainstream surf clothing had evaporated everything unique. Las Olas tries to promote unfiltered products to let the customer decide what is in fashion. Bringing Southern California style to Charleston, SC, Las Olas has now been open for two years, despite a fluctuating economy. You can reach the Las Olas store via phone at 843.737.0488, or visit them at 441 King Street in Charleston, SC.

Have you ever seen great results for your business through Facebook? Tell us about them!

This Twitter themed T-shirt is being sold by Bouhammer.com in conjunction with KissMyGumbo.com and Vision Strike Wear, in honor of #MilitaryMon. All procedes from this shirt benefit Project Valour-IT, which ”helps provide voice-controlled / adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries.”

Purchase yours today and support our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

If you want to increase your website traffic, convert more visitors to customers, and stop working so dang hard on trying to figure out how to market online . . .

If you want to have a business that works for you . . .

Then you want to attend my F.ree Teleclass on December 10, 2008, at 8 pm ET. It may just be the best decision you’ll ever make.

Here’s why . . .

I’m going to show you simple, step-by-step strategies that you can use to maximize your online marketing efforts—strategies you can implement right now and do on your own.

You’ll learn some of the exact same strategies, tactics, and tips that my clients and I used to build our same businesses—using nothing but the Internet to market and attract tons of prospects.

And market in ANY ECONOMY.

The time is now to build your business. According to the United States Census Bureau, ecommerce sales were up $2,058 billion (approximately a 3.8% increase) during this supposed economic crisis.

Want to grab your share of that?  SIGN UP NOW! marketingonlinebootcamp.com/preview.html

In this 60-minute Teleclass, I’ll reveal . . .

• 3 things most businesses do to waste their marketing dollars.
• The 2 most important questions you must ask and answer if you want to attract clients. 
• Powerful tips on how to drive targeted traffic to your website.
• What you can do today to get more online exposure.

On the call, I’ll also be announcing the details of my awesome 8-Week Online Business Marketing Bootcamp for Beginners.

This intensive bootcamp will show you the exact step-by-step online marketing process that has worked for my clients and me. Because I want each participant to succeed and because I’m offering one-on-one coaching with me, I’m only taking 15 people.

During the course of 8 weeks, you’ll learn the fundamentals of marketing your business online as I lead you through my proven process of how to implement these strategies easily and on your own (this alone will save you thousands in what it would cost you to hire professionals).

If you’re ready to take your business online and to the next level, then you’ll want to register for this Teleclass . . . immediately!

Consumers are motivated by feelings and instincts that can be conscious or subconscious. Whether it’s the need to feel sexy, smart, confident, or strong— emotional needs drive people to take certain actions that will make them feel accepted by others.  

When marketing your company, it’s important to fulfill the customer’s sought-after emotion in the product / service you are selling. A successful marketing campaign taps into consumers’ subconscious desires with an emotional spin, further persuading them to buy a product / service for the emotional fulfillment. It’s all about identifying the lifestyle of your target market to develop a sense of their needs and what makes them happy, angry, sad, confident, and satisfied.

Once you persuade consumers to buy your product / service based on a connection with their emotional needs, they will develop a certain mental correlation to your company’s image. It’s important to associate excellent customer service, strong company values, and a well-crafted company image with the product / service you’re selling, in order to ignite positive feelings in consumers.  

If you want to increase your website traffic, convert more visitors to customers, and stop working so dang hard on trying to figure out how to market online, check out my bimonthly ezine, Your Business Marketing Solution and learn how to market in any economy.

In fact, quite the opposite. It’s an opportunity for your company to flourish.

Economic obstacles can be beneficial to companies because they force businesses to reevaluate marketing campaigns, business transactions, target markets, and products / services. After developing a stronger focus, the improvements will make your business more successful, increasing customers and profits.

Some businesses may think reassessing and changing business activities means more money out of their budget. This is a myth.

It’ll take a bit more time and effort to change the direction of your business in this troubled economy, but not necessarily more money.

Here are 3 free ways you can make your business thrive in uneasy times:

·       Submitting online articles to article directories are free. They’re an excellent way to appeal to potential clients and be viewed as an expert in your field. Putting inbound links to your website at the end of the article allows for more clicks to your website and provides a solid, quality link.

·       Blog. Creating a blog is free and produces similar benefits to those of an article. A constantly updated blog can also provide customers tips and news relevant to your company.

·       Frequency marketing programs can be extremely beneficial to your company since they’re used to increase sales, referrals, and your frequent-customer list. For example, a frequency marketing program can use a point system. Every dollar a customer spends earns them points, and once they reach 100 points, they receive 25% off the next purchase. There are numerous variations on frequency marketing programs, and many are implemented through sending emails to current clients.

For more tips on how to market your business, sign up for Your Business Marketing Solution, a biweekly ezine filled with marketing stats, news, and tips.

I would love some feedback to the following questions:

1. What is the most important aspect in growing your business? And why.

2. If an expert were to offer free advice on two online marketing problems you face, what would those two problems be?

If you took the time to leave a comment, that would be great. Thanks for reading!