What's the American Marketing Association Doing Now? (A Guide to Upcoming Events)

Hello everyone! The American Marketing Association has published its schedule of upcoming events on its website, and while I realize everyone could just as easily log on to the site and dig up their calendar I also realize that many of you are going to be too busy to do so. With summer right around the corner your marketing team is probably far too busy to actively search for seminars and conventions that are going to make them even busier! That's why I wanted to include their upcoming events here.

If you and your team have the opportunity to take advantage of any or all of these you'll find that they're a tremendous addition to your marketing repertoire. You'll have the chance to hear from and speak with some of the best marketing professionals in the world, and the advice these marketing gurus have to pass on could prove to be indispensible to the future success of your business.

June 1 & 2, 2009 Social Media Marketing. Located in Chicago, IL, the Social Media Marketing Workshop will allow marketers to work with social media guru Dave Evans, author of "Social media Marketing: An Hour a Day"…coincidentally among the top ranking titles on Amazon. Here you'll learn how to use social media to maximize your business's marketing efforts.

June 3 & 4, 2009. Strategic Brand Development. Travel to Toronto to work with Fortune 500 consultant Robert Kincaide to discover why strategic brand development is a must for all of today's companies, and why the old methods of brand development simply won't do in today's fast paced digital economy.

June 4 & 5. Marketing Boot Camp: Los Angeles. Travel to L.A. for an intense two day seminar that delves into the depths of today's marketing environment with one of AMA's experienced marketing instructors.

I'll try to keep all of you updated weekly on what events the AMA has coming up in the near future. To check out their complete calendar, visit them on the web at MarketingPower.com.

AMA Guidelines for Trimming Your Budget

When it comes to marketing nobody does it better than the members of the AMA (American Marketing Association). Every member is an expert in their field, and in an economy where getting maximum results with minimum damage to your marketing budget is becoming increasingly important it's vital for marketing teams to learn where they can stretch their efforts and where they need to cut back. Click here to see what the American Marketing Association has to say about trimming your budget.

I know, you weren't expecting to be sent to another article. I started to trim this down to make the key points fit in this blog, then realized it was impossible. To omit any of these guidelines would leave marketing managers floundering when they tried to use the advice I passed along, because they wouldn't have all of the information. Which is the key guideline when it comes to cutting your budgets in the first place-have all the information.

Know where you can afford to cut costs and where you're going to be digging yourself an early grave. The problem many companies run into when it comes to their budget cuts is the fact that they don't take the time to gather all the information they need and weigh the consequences appropriately. They're essentially operating blind while severing the support strings of their internal framework, which is going to leave your marketing budget trembling on the edge of failure before you've even really had a chance to begin.

My best advice to marketing teams and private entrepreneurs looking for ways to cut their marketing budgets is to get all the information. Weigh the potential benefits and consequences. Then go for the one that's going to do what's best for your business, not the one that's going to step on the least amount of toes. Toes heal, but the damage poor budget cutting can do to your profits can leave your business floundering for years.

Audio Files: A Necessary Evil or an Unnecessary Annoyance?

When the capability to automatically attach an audio file to a website was first presented it sounded like a great idea. After all, the most difficult part of any Internet marketing endeavor is the fact that you're not able to personally interact with your consumers. Unfortunately it was a little too good an idea. Now companies all over the world are attaching audio files to their websites, including a personalized speaking presentation to introduce their services and products, and consumers are getting so annoyed that the minute they enter a site and it starts speaking to them they log out again just as quickly.

What's a good businessman to do?

There are some things that just aren't the same in print, so including an audio file with a spoken presentation can be a tremendous benefit to your site. The important thing to remember is to give your viewers a choice. Put the audio file in a spot where it's readily apparent and they can find the "play" button with ease, along with a quick summary of the content inside. That way, if they don't want to hear you speak it's their own fault!

Of course, the quality of your audio presentation is going to play a major role in how it's received. From a technical end you want to use a good software program to record, and speak slowly. Audio files that are blurry and difficult to understand are going to be rejected almost immediately. Resist the urge to launch into your "used car salesman" persona. Consumers visit these files looking for information. Your pitch should be on your site. Audio files should be used for supporting details.

So are audio files a necessary evil? Yes-and no. If you don't want to incorporate an audio file into your website you are in no way, shape or form obligated to. When done correctly, however, an audio file can be a very valuable addition to your website.

Choosing a Host for Your Website

One of the most valuable assets to any business is their ability to launch a reliable, effective website out on the web. The problem is, if your website isn't up and running half the time you're not going to be able to attract and keep your customers. That's why it's important to choose your website host with care.

If you're an experienced website administrator you probably don't have any trouble identifying an effective web hosting solution. When you're first beginning, however, and a majority of your decision making criteria involves how big a bite it's going to take out of your budget, it can be tempting to sign on the dotted line with the first web hosting solution that's willing to offer you a decent deal.

Don't let yourself get sucked in by cheap hosting solutions. An ineffective host can cost you much more in lost business than you're going to pay to work with a well established and dependable organization. Regardless of the amount of SEO work you do, blogs you start or bookmarking you do, you're going to be completely lost if your site isn't there for your customers to find.

Check the reputation of any company you work with, and ask them about what kind of compensation they'll offer you when your site is down more than a few hours. A good host will offer their clients discounts on their coverage for extended unscheduled downtime not related to standard maintenance; technical glitches are inevitable, but if you're constantly paying for a hosting solution that leaves your site offline more than it's on you can be left hanging out to dry with huge chunks of profits lost.

A good hosting solution is probably the single most important part of any web based business, so make sure you choose yours with care. There are hundreds of companies around the country that will offer you a dedicated business hosting solution for less than $50 a month. You should never have to sacrifice quality just to keep your hosting solution within the parameters of your budget.

Profitable Suggestions for Adding Video to Your Website

Audio files can be a valuable addition to your website, but if you want to go for the big money solution it's time to consider adding streaming video to your website. Businesses around the world are discovering the value of including a video presentation of one form or another to their website. A personalized video presentation allows you to:

1) Reach out and make a personal connection with your audience.
2) Give them a front seat view of the product or service you're offering.
3) Legitimize your campaign. The negative press most Internet businesses have received in the past have been spawned by con artists taking advantage of the anonymity offered through the web. By giving your clientele the opportunity to "speak" with you personally (even if you're the one doing all the speaking) you can dramatically decrease the amount of fear that your site visitors will associate with your business and build trust with your clientele.
4) Add some pizzazz to your website!

The ability to jazz up a website with the addition of live video is a big part of what makes this an appealing option for Internet marketers. Most consumers view millions of websites over the course of their lifetime. Remember, many of today's consumers barely remember life before the Internet, and they spend hours a day on it looking for news, products, etc. When you consider the fact that most websites are almost a carbon copy of each other you understand the true challenge faced by today's online business.

Their websites are utterly forgettable.

Since no one wants to be forgettable every site developer is looking for a way to distinguish their website and stand out in the eyes of their visitors to keep them coming back. Adding video to your site is a great way to do precisely that.

What a Jump Page Can Do for Your Affiliate Marketing Campaign

Amazon.com. Ebay.com. CDC.gov. These are all well known addresses to most Americans, not necessarily because they are exceptional or unique but because the company is well known and their URL is simple enough that they're easy to remember. They reflect the business name. They're short. They're simple.

They're a lot easier to work with than your average affiliate URL.

The fact that most affiliate URLs are plagued with extended addresses and numerous symbols (many of which aren't accepted by today's distribution services) and often have no relation at all to the affiliate business they're supposed to be associated with make them difficult to work with. Consumers can't remember them, which means they'll often jump straight to the homepage of the company you're affiliated with instead of visiting yours. That's why many affiliates are choosing to use a jump page to boost their affiliate marketing campaign.

A jump page is a digital redirect that can send people from one place to another; in this case, from an ordinary, short, simple URL to your affiliate URL. Many businesses use this to direct their consumers around their site for multiple reasons; however, jump pages have a special distinction for affiliates. It allows them to legitimize their campaign with a short, simple URL (rather than one that looks like it could be anything) that keeps clients coming back rather than driving them away.

There are a few words of caution associated with a jump page, however. Some distribution services will flag this for fear that you're a chronic SPAMMER instead of an affiliate just trying to do your job. Some customers may be wary of jumping from one site to another in the blink of an eye, believing they've landed in the wrong place. As a general rule, however, a jump page is a fantastic addition to your affiliate marketing campaign.

What Your Competition Has To Do With Your Pricing Practices

When it comes to your company's success almost nothing figures more predominantly than your pricing practices. Why? Because if you're pricing your goods and services way over your competition and your consumers find out about it the piper's going to be asking for more than his due. That's why it's important to keep your competition in mind when you're choosing your pricing.

When a new product hits the market many uneducated companies think they have carte blanche when it comes to pricing-after all, they don't have any competition. They can start out with a bang and then lower their prices when a pricing war begins. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. Regardless of what product or service you're releasing you're always going to have competition of one type of another. Forgetting that is almost always the first nail in your coffin.

Is it really fair to do that to your business before you've even had a chance to get started?

What you have to remember is that not all competition is direct. Apple may have been the first to offer the iPod, but that doesn't mean they weren't competing with laptops, Walkman and CDs for their fair share of the music industry. If their iPods had been ludicrously priced they wouldn't have even had the chance to get out of the starting gate, much less dominate the digital music industry the way they do today despite the attempts of their competition. They took into account what people were already paying and kept that in the back of their mind during their production process.

The result? The iPod was a little more expensive than the average music player, but not so much that people weren't willing to pay for the novelty. That's the kind of ideal you want to keep in mind when establishing your own pricing practices.