The CMO Council is promoting their newest research findings – a report entitled “Profitability from Customer Affinity”.

In an email promotion, they start the document with this finding from the research: “56% of vendors view themselves as being extremely customer-centric, but only 12% of customers agree. Despite an increased focus on customer engagement, most B2B technology companies continue to fall short of meeting customer expectations and commitments.”

What a gap!

The various business gaps are all too often taken for granted.

There is a gap between sales and marketing. This shows up as all those leads generated by marketing have a checked pattern of concise follow up.

In the trade show world, there is a statistic that 80% of trade shows leads are never followed up.

Many marketing departments just waste their precious dollars with little or no results demonstrated.

Why? The biggest reason is the lack of accountability within an organization.

Some one who is at the top of the organization should be asking the tough questions.

Your department – marketing – spent so much on these lead generation activities – what is the return on that investment?

If your management is not asking the questions, possibly you can start creating the metrics to show them what happen (the good, the bad and the ugly) on the last marketing campaign.

It is OK to test some ideas to see if they work.

Maybe you want to get into a new market space, so you try a few things to see if it generated any interest.

Afterwards you: Analyze – Learn – Improve

It is a constant process of reviewing the results to see if they were good enough and then what can you do that would improve the next campaign.

Duct Tape Marketing – John Jantsch in his blog posting on December 7, 2006 – has said so well what should take place:

“The gap between generating a high quality, ideal lead and that lead becoming a client requires harmony between sales and marketing and the joint development of an ideal client profile, core marketing message based on customer input, and the education based tools required to nurture a lead along an evolving, logical path to becoming a converted lead or client.

There is no money in us and them, sales and marketing. Get the sales folks, the marketing folks and a handful of ideal clients in a room for a day and figure out what really makes each one tick.”

This is the best first step to fix the gap.

WOW – what a novel idea – listening to the customer.

For 25 years Joyce McKee has helped companies succeed in the trade show and event world.
Keep up with the latest trends her new site at http://www.letstalktradeshows.com

Have you ever been a member of a crack commando unit? Have you ever been sent to prison for a crime you didn’t commit? Have you subsequently escaped from a maximum security stockade and taken residence in the Los Angeles underground? If you are a soldier of fortune and you think you can help then maybe you could be a member of the mystery shopping team.

Mystery shopping is a technique employed by an enormous range of companies that want to evaluate their staff and the services they offer. It is part of a company’s market research strategy in which a covert team of mystery shoppers are recruited and trained to evaluate the performance of the company’s customer service.

These mystery shoppers might be equipped with a video camera and will often be instructed to write a report on their experiences. It is the perfect option if you’ve always wanted to be a spy but don’t want to learn Arabic or how to handle a gun. It will also suit you if you value high levels of customer service.
A mystery shopper will generally work for an agency that dispatches the individual to different organisations depending on their age, sex, and socio-economic grouping to test the services offered by a company. The shopper will typically enter the store or workplace and without revealing that they are conducting research they will make a purchase or use a service as a normal customer would. They will then provide a written report on the quality and effectiveness of the staff they encountered. There are numerous roles that mystery shoppers play:

Covert Video Shoppers

Covert video shoppers are recruited and trained to record the performance of staff in an enormous range of different businesses. The mystery shopper is equipped with a small camera which they hide on their person. They then enter the businesses area of work as a customer and record the process. These types of shoppers are utilised in an enormous variety of situations including car salesrooms, high street shops, banks, offices and public services. In conjunction with the video footage the shopper will also provide a written report.

Report Only Mystery Shoppers

Report only mystery shoppers conduct a series of predetermined tasks at the place they are evaluating. They then complete a written questionnaire which will typically include both qualitative and quantitative data. They are often delivered instantly via email so that the client can immediately analyse the results and take action to rectify any problems they encounter quickly.

Postal monitor

A postal monitor secret shopper receives mail on behalf of the company and monitors the speed and accuracy of correspondence with the company. The mystery shopper receives a payment for the information they provide and all expenses are covered by the company.

Email mystery shopper

Email shoppers work in similar ways to postal monitors in that they monitor information sent by a business to their email account. They will report on the speed and accuracy of correspondence and they then report their findings back to the company.

Shaun Parker has been involved in the process of market research for many leading companies. He offers advice to businesses that want to utilise mystery shopping.

Customer service can be seen as vital in the sphere of modern business. There are few companies who do not regard the importance of service as paramount. In today’s consumer world it would be foolish for many companies to disregard the wishes of the customer. Often providing exceptional service is the only dividing factor between two companies, with the internet providing ever increasing amounts of review based information companies have once again found the importance of providing a service that will spread through word of mouth.

Customer satisfaction has become so important that a professional body; the Institute of Customer service has been formed. Operating through a membership system it provides industry standards for service whilst awarding those who meet these standards each year. The institute also undertakes the training of representatives and undertakes a nationwide customer satisfaction survey twice a year to assess the overall standard of service present in UK business.

As a customer today we are faced with unrivalled choice, those as close as two generations before us could not have imagined how different the world of consumerism is. Only fifty years ago the local cooperatives still existed providing almost anything a customer might need. Although a local service was guaranteed, this can be seen as a distant memory for many. The trend has been to provide the customer with an increase in specialist services and product providers.

These specialist traders have led to an increased focussed on customer satisfaction when it comes to advice on buying products. The purpose of modern shops is to advise their customer base on what is the best option, not for the good of the shareholders but for the customer. This is the essence of modern customer service, at least in its advisory role. To provide a customer with the best product taking into account their budget and needs is the primary objective.

Another major component of modern business is complaint handling. Many of the previous generation will remember a simple shrug of the shoulders if a complaint was raised. Today the customer is better protected by laws and hence larger companies have responded to this. Many companies now implement complaints handling procedures that all staff must be trained in; the idea of this is to always provide the customer with the best customer service possible, subsequently improving their reputation in a wider sense.

Some companies have undertaken customer satisfaction in a more proactive manner. Through post sales customer surveys it is possible to achieve valuable knowledge of various facets of a business. Gaining an idea of how a customer feels they were treated, how well they thought the service performed and whether or not they think they received a good deal are extremely precious when searching for that competitive edge.

Like so many elements of the modern world the internet has revolutionised the customer service received by consumers. Although many still like to have a real person at the end of the phone when making enquiries, websites with frequently required information and automated telephone services have arguably simplified customer requests. What can definitely be asserted is that these technologies have reduced the costs for many companies.

Companies that combine these elements to create superior service will truly feel the benefit. Admitting accountability is a major part of this as customers are far more forgiving when a company has recognised its mistakes and is pursuing to resolve them. Delivery of consistent results to consumers and resolving issues speedily will give that particular company a competitive edge over its rivals; this is why modern businesses really have no choice but to provide exemplary service.

Shaun Parker has been involved in the process of market research for many leading companies. He offers advice to businesses that want to analyse their customer service.

Often when working in the hospitality trade you will be informed by the manager that at some point a mystery shopper will be coming in. This usually puts everyone on tenterhooks but there is no real need for panic. You are not supposed to know when the mystery shopper is coming in, hence the ‘mystery’ part, but anyone with any common sense can see that with a visit every month and usually on the weekend only eight days out of the month are worth worrying about.

The point of any company’s mystery shopper program is to assess how customers are served and to assess their establishments on many different aspects. Firstly the mystery shopper would look at the appearance of the place, both the exterior and interior and mark it on how efficient the advertising is and how eye pleasing the decorations are.

This means as an employee your mornings work will be extended with tasks such as having to check and clean the advertising boards and keep the bar spic and span. To be honest when working in the trade I really hated days when we knew a mystery shopper would be attending for it stressed everyone out and increased my workload greatly.

On days when a mystery shopper is bound to come in you are left in the position of being unable to entertain regular customers. When you are rushed off your feet and have the manager on your back about keeping an eye out for the mystery shopper the stress level is soon raised. When I had been in the business it had annoyed me slightly, I knew exactly how to spot a mystery shopper as soon as they came into the bar for it was always the same formula.

It was often a couple, usually in their twenties or thirties who would order a pint of bitter and a coke. The coke was important for it always had to be served in a coke glass with ice and lemon.

Spotting any mystery shopper was not a hard task at all, my advice is to carry out your duties with no extra urgency, I had never made any special efforts for them. The way I see it is, if you are a decent enough bar person you can serve them how you would serve everyone else.

My past record with the mystery shopper program proved this, a consistent tally of 90 percent marks. But as always the manager will push you to get the hundred; personally I rarely thought this my concern for if I got a hundred in the mystery shopper score I would simply give the manager a fat addition to his pay slip.

When clocking a mystery shopper as soon as they walk in, look for the signs. If they are not regulars and you can see the both of them taking notes in their mind as they walk around the pub you have usually got a winner. As they approach the bar have no surprises when they order a bitter and coke, serve them according to the mystery shopper program code, complete with ice and lemon with a smile and a joke. As I said earlier do not give special treatment, as customers they should always be served with a smile and an affable nature anyway.

When the mystery shopper results come in and you are called in to go through them, usually on a day off when traipsing back to the pub early in the morning is not in your plans for the day attend and prepare to be accepting. If you arrive and the manager is beaming, the mystery shopper results must be good.

If you can gain a hundred for the pubs appearance and atmosphere a pat on the back is needed. As a bar person however your aim is to secure a hundred for your speed of service, good nature and proficiency with the products. After all the mystery shopper program is there to ensure impeccable standards are kept up, and while it is hard to give a hundred percent with every customer, your duty is to get it right at least ninety percent of the time.

Shaun Parker knows the hospitality trade intimately and advises on mystery shopper programs. To find out more please visit http://www.performanceinpeople.co.uk

The business world on or off the net, is very aggressive and you have the choice of eat or be eaten. A niche product is fair game and you are the director of operations, so do your homework and see how your competition is promoting their products.

There is a lot of money to be made this way. Think of a well defined focused market that is niche based, this is what you should go after. A niche market can come from your hobby or from your profession or job. Don’t know what it is that you want to promote do some research and see what is popular in the market.

Think, look around you and come up with ideas, ideas are all around you, search the web for some ideas, if you look you will see them. All ideas will not work out. Make sure that you’re always writing your ideas down. When you think of all the ideas make sure you start writing them down, you will have so many you will not remember them all. You need to give to your customers what they really want. Just offering a product which you think will sell will not get you anywhere.

It is hard to try to find products that appeal to all web surfers. The reason why focusing on a niche will help your business is because your customers will know what you offer. One of the keys to creating a successful business is finding a market niche that is small enough to corner the market but big enough to make money.

This method of trying to make money can work if you have an unlimited capacity for learning. Most popular ways through which you can earn money is from Google AdSense. If you have a website one of the most important part is optimizing it for traffic, one of the ways to do this is to get inbound links to your site. Finding the most suitable keywords is one of the major factors in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that can boost the website ratings, determined by a search engine, of your webpage. Your website should be brimming with appropriate keywords and phrases, to help promote its content.

There are all different kinds of niches, some are crowded with many people fighting over the same products and then there are very competitive niches. One of the most competitive niches are the work from home, make money online, these are very crowded and more and more people are trying to get into it. The only way to get visitors to your site and keep them is to put high quality content, this traffic will be targeted and revenue will increase. Whatever your home business venture is, writing articles and getting them published online will give you branding, web site traffic and credibility.

The business world on or off the net, is very aggressive. So do your homework and make sure you are ready to start your business. Remember if you conduct your business in a positive and ethical way and you give the customers what they want, and the perceive they are getting more value out of the product then what the paid for it, there will be no competition for you.

David Marc Fishman helps webmasters by allowing them to submit articles to Myarticlezine and creating free content using free articles to Articleriot

When you want to sell products in retail, the first thing you need to do is to find a reliable and trustworthy wholesaler. This is because there are a lot of wholesalers who do not deliver on their promise once you want to do some transactions with them. In fact, wholesalers are getting a bad reputation because of the few companies that cheat on their customers. And added to this is the fact that the inventory you will buy from these wholesalers may not necessarily sell in the market. So before you enter into the retail business, here are some tips you may find helpful. You may also have a look at one of my affiliate programs.

The first thing you need to do is to conduct market research on your target market. You need to know if the product you wish to sell will actually be saleable to them or not. This is because while a particular product may sell well in one area does not necessarily mean it will also sell well in another area. So even before you search for a wholesaler, you must know if the product you intend to introduce to your target market is actually viable because it would be a waste of time if you spend too much time searching for a reliable wholesaler only to find out that the product you want to sell is not going to be saleable in the actual marketplace.

The next thing you should consider is the product choice. Once you had determined which industry you want to enter, it is now time to know which product you need to stock up on. You should note that it is more viable to enter a niche market that will buy your particular product than enter the mass market at once.

Meanwhile, the third step is finding the right wholesaler. There are many sources and directories you can look up to find suppliers. But the advertisements and the websites you visit may not necessarily contain reliable suppliers that will really deliver the kind of product you requested. So it is recommended that you put up safety measures in place even before you pay for these products. You can find these wholesalers from online directories and even sourcing agents but always remember never to pay in advance unless trust between the two of you had been established.

It is also important to have patience in order to find the right wholesaler with the best price. However, you should not expect these wholesalers to provide unrealistically low prices. If there are establishments that offer prices that are too low then you need to conduct thorough research first before doing business with these kinds of establishments.
Then the last step you need to remember is to have faith in yourself because having confidence is important for success to be possible.

To find the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home visit:
http://www.WealthyRich-Internet.com http://www.WealthyRich-Internet.com/articles

If you want to do marketing, you have to do research on it. For this, the best way to do this is to do Internet searches. If you type in the keywords “business marketing,” you’ll come up with a myriad of resources that can give you more information on this topic. Other terms you can use include “business research,” “business-to-business marketing research,” and “business marketing research.” This is also known as “problem-identification research” If you want to find out more about this kind of research, you can also use those words (“problem-identification research”) to simply find out more about the topic.

To test the effectiveness of advertisements, you do research in advertising. This also lets you know how efficient ads are when they are placed in any medium. It also tells you how much customer attention each it gets, the message it really delivers (as opposed to the one you intend to send, perhaps) and whether or not it motivates customers to buy the product and how strong this urge is. “Commercial eye tracking” helps advertisers understand the visual behavior the customer is exhibiting.

Web sites, ads, and the like are analyzed for these characteristics. Before an advertisement is placed into the market, advertisers can project its performance by using copy testing. This measures the customer’s level of attention, motivation to buy, whether or not they like the brand, and whether or not they are entertained by the ad into consideration.

When someone buys something online, he usually weighs the pros and cons in order to make his decision. This is one area in which consumer decision research is done. You can also do surveys and interviews to determine how satisfied customers are; this is called a consumer satisfaction study. Segmentation research studies the demographic and psychological makeup of those living within a particular geographical region.

If you want to analyze brand recognition, brand preference and awareness, or brand performance, this is when you do ad tracking. Brand equity research helps you determine whether a customer has a favorite brand. And name testing actually measures what customers think about a particular brand name. Whether or not a brand is in demand is measured by using brand estimation.

Since you also have to measure the quality of a given product from time to time, mystery shoppers employed by research firms do this particular type of measurement. A mystery shopper will buy goods through a salesperson and take down his experience. If a mystery shopper, for example, buys competitors’ products, then he or she can also measure how effective a rival company’s products are, thus helping to determine what and how strong the competition in the marketplace is.

Before you take a concept into actual application, most marketing research companies do concept testing, to determine whether the target audience will like the idea. This type of test marketing is done when a product is introduced in limited numbers in a particular market. Then, results are observed via sales. If sales are strong, then the product is launched on a large-scale basis.

After this first phase, the company may think of increasing the price of the product to more profitable levels (as opposed to simply getting people to try a product that is very modestly priced); then, a price elasticity testing is done. This shows whether customers will accept price fluctuations, namely, price increases. Marketers also have to test what retailers and distributors feel about a particular product. This is when distribution channel audits are conducted.

Finally, a great tech savvy form of marketing research is called Internet strategic intelligence. Through this method, customers’ likes and dislikes are measured by visiting chats, blogs, and forums to read what they actually say a particular type of product. Another way to do Internet strategic intelligence is to conduct online panels with a group of experts that accept marketing research done online.

All of this type of research carried out firsthand is classified as primary research. This is original research gathered at its source. Secondary research is research that has been taken from primary research but not done firsthand. This costs less than primary research, but it’s not as effective because it has been distilled from primary research.

Research designs used by marketing research either comes from questioning subjects or from observational data. Quantitative and qualitative marketing research utilizes questioning to gather information. Quantitative marketing research uses questionnaires and surveys to draw conclusions from data. It usually utilizes a high number of subjects to gather the information. Qualitative marketing research uses in-depth interviews and projective techniques to gather in-depth information from a few subjects.

If marketing research is based on observational data, this is called experimental techniques and ethnographic study. Test markets and purchase laboratories utilize experimental techniques by measuring the factors responsible for a product’s success. This is done by using one set of factors, observing results, changing a specific set of factors and then observing the result obtained by the change. With ethnographic studies, observations are done over time, longitudinally, or with several subjects cross-sectionally, at one particular time.

Marketing research can be compared to the exit polling done in politics. The market is studied exhaustively from different angles at different times, and under different circumstances.

Discover Kevin Sinclair’s system for making profits regardless of whether anyone joins your network marketing business.

The key to getting paid to fill out online surveys is perseverance and research. This is not a simple process that is as easy as signing up, filling out and getting paid. Unfortunately, this market is flooded with phony surveys, companies and scammers. So, the best way to make real cash doing this is to get organized and investigate.

Make certain that you create an email address exclusively for your surveys. You do not want to end up having to sort out every survey offer, junk mail and the spam mess from your personal email account. Trust me, when you start rolling with surveys, you will be bombarded with junk email in abundance.

Check your junk mail or spam folder on a regular basis if you filter emails. For myself, I just have everything emailed to my inbox and I sort through it myself. You will get good at selecting spam from the real stuff as you go.

I also set up folders within my email account to store information and emails from the different companies that I do surveys for. This makes things very easy for me; which, as you will see, becomes imperative as your list of money makers grows.

Finding the right company or program to gather your surveys from can take up much more time than actually doing the surveys. That is why I sharply recommend choosing a genuine and verified survey organization to support you in getting this done quickly and correctly without having to sort out what is real from what is not.

Survey database companies put together continuing lists of legitimate surveys and outfits that really pay cash for your hard work. Many of them give away contributions, product samples and much more to their survey takers. This is exhilarating and many times the value of the products given is even better than cash.

These companies also request things such as phone interviews; which pay very well when you get selected to participate. All you have to do is be available, and in these days, that is as simple as having a cell phone handy. Make it your job and priority and I promise you that you will be successful and thoroughly enjoy taking part in the huge industry of market research.

However, once you have signed up and joined the program, your work is just commencing. You have much more registering and reading to do. When you start going through the list of surveys, companies and organization provided to you by the company that you registered with, you will have to go through these and fill out there own information.

If this intimidates or kills you enthusiasm for making money by doing online surveys, it may not be for you. This is a job; you have to stay on top of it and get registered everywhere you can. Getting the paid survey business going requires a dedicated and consistent amount of work. You have to put your best effort into getting this kicked off or it will not work for you.

You will find that even using a legitimate survey database company will have a few bad apple surveys and companies that slip through the cracks by changing their payouts and such. So, ensure that you read the agreements when signing up, always. This is critical to your paid online survey success.

You will find a slew of free tools available to help make your daily survey duties easier. There are many programs that help you autofill information, store information and much more. Take advantage and learn these tools. Do not allow yourself to get in a major hurry to make money. That will only serve to self-destruct your money making abilities.

Online survey work requires the building of momentum to get you going strong and stable. Do not take short cuts. Do not skip reading over rules, policies and regulations. Build your toolbox of programs to make your job easier. Do not allow yourself to be frustrated by the little things such as complications and obstacles along the way. These are going to happen just like any job out there.

Learn to use your email account and make contacts. Be in contact with people and companies that need marketing survey work done. Send emails to section heads and employees at the different companies you do surveys for offering your additional services. This is crucial and will build your standing.

If you keep to my tips above, I can assure your paid online survey success. There is nothing more pleasurable than sitting in front of the computer with a hot cup of coffee in the morning and going to work.

William “Cole” Doggett is a paid online survey guru and participant. He has structured a process to ensure the greatest success and extract the most Cash at taking the Paid Online Survey. Want to learn the tips and trick and Get Paid to Fill Out Survey, well Stop By and change your future.

More than a billion people use the Internet worldwide, reports “PC Magazine.”

In America, 88 percent of the population state that the Internet has a role in their lives and 53 percent report that they do more of certain everyday activities” simply because they can do them on the Internet,says Ronald Roach, who recently did a survey of Internet users for Black Issues in Higher Education.

Understanding Internet users is important to thousands of people with Internet businesses and others who use the Internet to complement their off line businesses. Business owners can better understand Internet users and any market or group of people by using a new Matrix Market Segmentation process.

This process involves gathering facts about a market and from those facts, determining personality and social characteristics. For example, age, education level, income, and social class facts about a market reveal other characteristics that can improve a business owner’s ability to communicate with and relate to market members more effectively.

Age
Almost two-thirds of Internet users are older than 35. Yet few are elderly. This indicates that Baby Boomers comprise the majority of Internet users. The early adulthood and middlescense life stages dominate.

Baby Boomers differ by when they were born. The Vietnam Group was born between 1946 and 1955, and the Me Group was born between 1956 and 1965). Because their attitudes about finances, social activity and spirituality differ considerably, knowing their age provides personality and social characteristics that enable business owners to separate them into niches.

Similarly, life stages provide characteristics that can be used to segment markets.

Two life stages – Early Adulthood (ages 30 to 45) and Middlescense (ages 45 to 55) – include the majority of Internet users. Life stage information deals with tasks that are important during each stage. Differences between the two stages include that people in early adulthood often sacrifice themselves for family and jobs, but by Middlescense, people reevaluate these sacrifices, questioning their earlier choices.

Education
A little less than a third of Internet users have a college degree. According to an article on Internet connectedness, High School students use the Internet for social interaction and entertainment rather than to gather information. Thus, they do not comprise potential customers for Internet businesses.

Because Internet connectedness has been positively related to increased education, better-educated people are more likely to find and buy products online.

Most education characteristics relate to social class, but some differ strictly by amount of education. Characteristics for college graduates and people with some college differ significantly. For instance, people with some college watch more television, save their money rather than invest it, and value what is hot more than price. College graduates read more newspapers, invest more of their money, and spend money on cultural and aesthetic products.

Income
A 2001 study found that half of Internet users earn more than $40,000 per year while the other half earn less. A later study reported higher incomes with the vast majority earning between $35,000 and $75,000, and less than 20 percent earning more than $75,000.

Social Class
Income and education demographics reveal that the middle classes comprise the majority of Internet users. Middle Class characteristics include being conservative and traditional, valuing education and substance over style, living graciously and bettering careers.

Gender and National Origin
Although most early Internet adopters were male, gender ratios now almost represent the population. Caucasians make up three-quarters of Internet users, with Asians comprising the largest non-Caucasian group, according to an article in “The Information Society.”

Putting the Characteristics Together
By putting these characteristics into a matrix, the Matrix Market Segmenting process reveals those characteristics most shared across segments.

Linda P. Morton, Ed.D., APR, is a professor emeritus, the University of Oklahoma. She is also author of Strategic Publications: Designing for Target Publics. To get a FREE copy of the Matrix Market Segmentation process report click on http://www.TargetPublics.com/SegmentReport.html

With millions of websites out there being visited by millions of computer users, how can you make sure that your ad can be seen by your target customers and that your leads will be followed by these users? Here are a few tips.

1. Place an ad on the websites frequented by your target customers. Before doing this, you need to define who will be your target customers. Placing an ad on sites that they usually visit will increase the possibility that your ad will gain the attention and will be followed your target customers.

Also, consider the website’s search engine placement, traffic, external linking and the other ads placed on it. External linking will determine if there are other sites that link to this site. This will mean that people can get to the site where your ad is placed, even if they are browsing a different site. Check if many of your competitors have ads on this site.

2. Placing ads on some sites cost some money. However, there are also sites that can place a link to your site, product or service in exchange of having their link being displayed on your site. This is also true about the newsletters sent by site owners to its mailing list members regularly.

Also, having helpful links placed on your site and having sites link to your pages help in boosting search engine ranking. This is similar to making a statement that your site’s content is important that other sites have links to your web pages.

3. Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a good method in Internet marketing. You will only need to pay for the ad if the link is clicked. If you prefer this method of advertisement, make sure that you are using services that set limits on daily expenses. There are also services that help you determine effective keywords and monitor the PPC results.

4. Choose your domain name wisely. It is still being debated if domain names matter when it comes to search engine placement. Whether it does or not, having product related domain names help consumers remember your domain, that they can go back to your site even without the links.

5. Make sure you have useful content on your sites. While keyword density is important in search engine placement, having useless information or annoying repetition of keywords will not increase your customer’s confidence in your site. It may even affect your sites traffic and can get your site removed from search engines. So make sure that keywords are used strategically.

6. When thinking of keywords, think like your target customers. What do you think are they going to search so they can get to your site? Also, use specific keywords or key phrases. Submitting a single word or a very general phrase to a search engine will not get you to the top of the search results compared to submitting specific keywords that describe your product and services perfectly.

7. Track your ads. Always check how much you have spent on placing links on frequently visited sites and on PPC. There are services that allow you to monitor PPC transactions and how many of these end in sales. You always need to consider if the ads that you have placed on these websites are getting you to your target consumers and if these ads can lead to revenue.

One final tip on marketing products and services, sell the benefits. It will help your marketing strategies a lot if you highlight the benefits of choosing your products and services instead of merely discussing the product specifications. Product specifications may not mean much to customers, unless they know what these stand for (how these specifications affect the quality of the product or service).

Many people say getting to the top of search engine results is difficult since millions of websites exist, which can be using the same keywords. While this is true, this doesn’t mean that your website has to stacked under your competitors’ websites when presenting search engine results. Strategic advertising and linking, together with useful content, can also get you to the top of the search results.

Samizr Khan teaches Integrity Marketing with blogs. Learn how to build a list & make more money online, visit his blog at www.samizrkhan.name.