Don’t just stand there! Fight the sluggish and bad economy with cheap posters! That is right! If you have a business that is having difficulty in today’s market environment you should try and think of going for the basics again when it comes to advertising and marketing locally. Full color posters can be your key to more local visibility as well as your chance to actually foster a nice local following for your products and services. So here are my tips in using some creative color posters to help fight the bad economy and succeed with your business.

1. Do some good old market research – First step to this fight is to do some intelligence work. You have to base your poster design decisions on good clear hard facts of course. So you will want to do some initial surveys of your posters competitors, the situation of your target markets and the overall trends in advertising poster design and deployment. Knowing this allows you to be better with your posters as you start designing them to fight this struggling economy and win with your business.

2. Develop market-targeted poster designs – Once you have the facts ready, it should be a lot more easy for you to develop market targeted poster designs. Just make sure that you take into account the current trends in posters, along with the competitive factors of other kinds of poster rivals.

It is of course important to always provide what the reader needs and wants to see in your posters to be able to engage them and hopefully market to those readers more effectively. Take your time in this and make sure all the elements are defined well.

3. Print cheap coverage posters – Now with your main design ready, it is time to print and deploy. First, you may want to print your coverage posters. These are your workhorse posters that will be deployed everywhere. It is good to be a bit cheap about this poster and even make it a bit smaller.

This helps you print a lot more pieces of this poster and fit them into more important areas as possible for marketing. So try to decide on a specific cost efficient printing configuration for your poster design and print them as your marketing coverage posters.

4. Print decent feature posters – You should also print more decent feature posters. These are the prints that are meant to impress people. You will deploy these at key high concentration areas where you are sure that your target markets always pass by. It is crucial that you use the best paper and inks possible in this kind of poster so make sure you set your choices for poster printing well.

5. Deployment – Finally of course you deploy according to your plans. It is best to post up those feature posters first in those more highly concentrated areas of people. Afterwards, deploy those coverage posters further and further from those concentrated areas.

Make sure of course that people are always passing by or hanging out in those locations, and of course ask permission if needed to post in those areas. Try to spread as much as you can in the widest area possible for the best and most effective impact with your color posters.

With these steps, you should have a good poster marketing campaign going. As long as you do your design right, you should get the best local opportunities possible for your business, helping you fight this ailing economy a lot more. Good Luck!

Marketing is one of the most important things you can do as a business owner. Without a marketing strategy and targeted advertising, many businesses simply do not make it. Many business owners think that simply having a store front or running an ad in the yellow pages is all they need to do and soon realize, it’s not that easy.

In today’s world, businesses big or small are finding more and more challenges when it comes to traditional marketing strategies. Running an ad in a local publication or paying for a spot in the yellow pages, just doesn’t produce the same results they once achieved and are very expensive.

The reason why this is happening is that we are in a rapid changing communication age. With the birth of the Internet and number of internet-ready cellphones expanding globally, the effects on marketing are tremendous and are taking the marketing challenges to a new level. International businesses large or small are facing the same challenges.

The technical requirements associated with setting up a website, understanding social media, creating campaigns that will promote brand and convert traffic into buyers, are all part of the requirements necessary to market a business in today’s world. The problem is many business owners need to focus on running the business and do not have the time, can’t manage, nor have all the skillset required to create and manage an effective marketing program.

One new marketing method that will have a tremendous impact on businesses globally has to do with mobile text marketing. Mobile text marketing targets cell phone users in a very unique way. Similar to the time when e-mail marketing was brand new, mobile text marketing has a much higher response rate. With response rates at 90% plus, business owners need pay attention and incorporate this strategy into the overall marketing strategy.

There are a lot of reasons for the high response rate in mobile text marketing. Here are a few:

* When a user receives a text message they almost never ignore it due to the alert features on cell phones.

* It’s considered more personal than an e-mail because it is used primarily by personal friends and family. So, the user always responds to a new text.

* Most businesses have not yet utilized this strategy so; the opportunity is here right now to be on the cutting edge of this new marketing concept.

* Users do not ignore the messages when received.

* Messages are short and to the point.

* Newer cell phones display the message right on the front of the screen.

* Users almost always have their cell phone on them.

* Cell phones do not require internet access to receive a text..

* Almost every cell phone made today has text messaging built in.

The most important factor is that cell phone users out number internet users worldwide. With the rapid increase in internet-capable phones, there will also be a proportional increase in a business’ ability to market to a cell phone user.

For those who don’t know, here is how mobile text marketing works in general. Let’s say you want to run a campaign to offer a discount for a product, service, or an event. As a business owner, you would target your existing customer base first. You would offer a coupon or discount, when a user sends a text message from their cell phone to your advertised campaign word. An example of this would look something like the following:

To receive a discount today, text “specialoffer” to 41242

What happens is the customer wants to receive a discount, so they text the word to the number. Then they immediately receive a response back with a promo code or message authorizing a discount. They are also informed they will receive future discount offers and can opt out anytime. Your customers are ok with this since they are already patrons of your business. This process all happens automatically.

Now, a month later you decide you want to have a sale or run a special on the weekend. If you didn’t have a mobile marketing strategy, and in order to let your customers know you’re having a sale, you would need to run an ad in the newspaper, pay for ads on TV, run an ad on the radio, send mail outs or some other means to let them know. This is expensive and takes time to plan and the customers response time may not coincide with time advertised was received.

But, as a smart business owner, you simply send out a text message to your existing customers and because you know they will read it, your sales are a success. You managed to increase business with the least amount of effort and greatest response.

With traditional marketing, the customer would need to read their junk mail, newspaper ads, or be in front of the TV at the exact time your ad ran. But with a cell phone in hand, your customer receives your promotion. You didn’t need to pay for expensive ad materials or hope the customer was in the right place at the right time.

Did I say this was powerful, cutting edge stuff?

There is an added benefit to marketing this way. Consumers do not receive junk mail from you and you won’t kill a tree to run an ad in the local paper.

Did I mention it is good for the environment?

In today’s world, a customer will jump at the opportunity to do something good for the environment. This is especially true when it doesn’t require much effort from them. I think most of us would be willing to receive a promo code to our cell phone in comparison to a bunch of junk mail at home that fills up our mailbox and usually gets tossed in the garbage and then finds its way to our landfills!

There is also another advantage over traditional advertising. I call it the on demand factor. This makes it a must strategy for restaurant owners or businesses that operate in a daily entertainment industry.

Here is an example of the on demand marketing factor. Let’s say you own a restaurant. You expect the coming weekend lunch crowd to be slow due to an event in the area during that time of day. So, you have a message sent out to your mobile list letting them know they can get a free appetizer at lunch – but for this weekend only. You do this two hours before lunch to a hundred people on your list. Then an hour later you decide that the response wasn’t enough to fill the seats up completely and you believe you will have a few open seats. So, you quickly have another message sent to another hundred people.

The result:

An hour later you have a small line at the door. You managed to let your customers know about your special for the weekend only. You also filled the seats and maximized your business without over promoting. You wouldn’t want customers that would have come to your restaurant without a promo code to be turned away due to an extra-long wait.

On demand marketing lends itself to maximum flexibility in timing and number variations. There is no other marketing strategy that has this type of on demand capability. I wonder what happened to the other restaurants in the area that didn’t have a mobile marketing strategy.

To this point we have only targeted existing customers. You can build your customer base in a more powerful way. All of the traditional marketing methods still work and can augment your mobile marketing strategy. It is important to not be tied to other marketing channels for all your marketing needs.

One reason to not be handcuffed to traditional marketing channels is that they dictate to you the options and the cost for advertisements. Most of them can be expensive because of the media that must be designed for the ads. The biggest factor is that the consumers of a particular media channel belong to that media company. But as a mobile text marketer, you can place your mobile text campaign word on printed ads, radio ads, and TV ads. This will enable you to capture more leads. When the consumer opts in to your mobile marketing list, you can then market to them over and over without paying the original media company another dime.

Building a list is one of the most important business strategies you can have. A mobile marketing list is the most effective.

Mobile text marketing may not work for every business. There are a few businesses where this strategy is very exciting. Here is a list of some businesses that could benefit:

1. Restaurants

2. Salons & Spas

3. Bars & Night Clubs

4. Florist

5. Theaters

6. Vacation Rentals

7. Events and Nightly Entertainment

8. Department Stores

9. Any service that the consumer does regularly

10. Most business that advertises a lot.

As you can see there are a lot of businesses that could save money on their advertising expenses while increasing their ROI.

So, how does a business owner get started?

Well if your business is a big brand, you can lease your own short code for $500 to $1000 a month. A short code is the number the campaign word is texted to. You will also need to pay web programmer money to develop a campaign management system to receive and respond to opt-ins. This can cost thousands of dollars to develop.

Option two; you can contact a mobile marketing consultant such as Rapid Action Marketing or Mobile Helpers and they will help tailor a marketing strategy to the size of your company and manage your campaigns for you. Plus they help build your list and leaving you to run the business. When you want to send a special offer out to your mobile list, you simply call and they will take it from there. They also implement various techniques to help increase opt-ins for your campaigns.

There are also many mobile text marketing platforms available. Most are tailored towards the big boys of marketing and priced accordingly. There are two in particular that I have found that offer all the features in the expensive services but at a price starting around $15 a month and as much as $1000 plus per month.

For the mid-size business, I recommend option two as the text marketing firm can get your mobile marketing campaign started right. But, for the smaller business a self-management option maybe the only option.

They will help tailor a marketing strategy to the size of your company and manage your campaigns for you. Plus they help build your list and leaving you to run the business. When you want to send a special offer out to your mobile list, you simply call and they will take it from there. They also implement various techniques to help increase opt-ins for your campaigns.

There are also many mobile text marketing platforms available. Most are tailored towards the big boys of marketing and priced accordingly. There are two in particular that I have found that offer all the features in the expensive services but at a price starting around $15 a month and as much as $1000 plus per month.For the mid-size business, I recommend option two as the text marketing firm can get your mobile marketing campaign started right. But, for the smaller business a self-management option maybe the only option. See Author Bio for recommended services…

Marketing on social networks requires more of a focus on the human element since its more about building relationships then it is your technical knowledge. There’s no way around it, social networking for business requires building trust with others which requires time and interpersonal skills. You notice I did not say effort since making ‘friends’ should be more an act of enjoyment and not regarded as labor!

In order to get the best results when social networking for business here are 3 things you will need to do.

Exercise Patience

Take off your selling shoes and pull up a chair so you can get to know people. Building relationships is an absolute must to even get notice on any social sites and as you know this takes time. Even if you are only social networking for business time must first be taken to develop some type of bond with others or you will be invisible to them and useless to your business!

Establish Credibility

The bonds you do develop need to be meaningful insofar as maintaining a knowledgeable, professional and always helpful profile. For any marketing attempts to be successful people must first have some confidence that you know what you are talking about and that your intentions are good and not all business. Your best results will come ONLY after you have taken the time to develop this good reputation with others.

Develop Trust

The most important ‘component’ of the reputation you develop is trust! As touched upon above your reputation must be a positive one that reflects credibility but building trust is just as, if not more important. If people can not trust in you then any efforts you put into social networking for business will be wasted. People can not be expected to part with their hard earned money if they lack faith in you so obviously building trust is a priority. The best way to achieve this trust is to make a habit of being helpful or freely offering any type of information that may be of use or interest to others. Do so without any expectations of receiving anything in return and people will quickly regard you in a trustworthy manner. Besides, it feels good to be helpful to other!

There is no need for technical skills when marketing on social networks just simply be willing to pull up a chair and stay for a while. Tapping into the viral potential of these communities will require building relationships with others first and this will take time and patience. By building trust with people in this way simply makes it easier to effectively promote to them in the future. It is very important to remember these are in fact social communities therefore your acceptance MUST precede any marketing efforts. Once this acceptance is earned by following the 3 suggested steps above it will make social networking for business a breeze for you!

When you send a bulk text message, your subscribers are instantly notified of your promotion.

This is great and really easy right? But there are some common mistakes when sending out text messages. Here are some of the most frequent mistakes that business owners make when they implement their sms marketing campaigns…

• With text message marketing, you only have 160 characters to get your entire message across,

so you must be very clear and concise when creating a text sms campaign. What is it that you are trying to get the person on the other end of the text to do and what is the best way to communicate that message?

• A lot of people mat not be willing to sign up for a text message subscription list unless

they have a good reason to do so, something that will be of benefit to them. The sms marketer should keep this in mind and develop a good call to action that delivers results.

• Right now group texting is in the early stages of popularity among local businesses and celebrities, but as it gains more traction in the marketplace, text message marketing will eventually have less of a “wow” effect. This will make it more difficult to get subscribers unless

your offer truly is unique and valuable.

If you keep these ideas in mind when creating your text ads campaign, you are almost certain to

attain and keep loyal subscribers and consistently grow your business or your fan base.

So what are some ways to use text message marketing?

Here at YepText, we want you to have the best success with sms advertising, so we put

together a list of creative ways that you can use text message marketing and group texting to get your

message out to the people that need to hear it.

• You could use your sms marketing to send people mobile games or free apps that correlate to your business. People with cell phones love games, and any creative way to engage users is a new possible advertising platform and a way to build brand awareness.

• A local business texting to its clients could run polls to figure out how to run their business more effectively, people love to give their opinions, and sms marketing would be a quick way to understand how customers view your business.

• You could use YepText text messaging to send out information that is time sensitive to your company, like when the next business meeting is, or that the company fundraiser has been changed to a different date.

• You could have your short code on your mobile real estate listings or other mobile advertising, which could be quite an effective way to get subscribers to your sms promotions considering that they are on their phone right already (right then) and it would take no time at all for them to sign up