What Is Marketing

Simply put, marketing is creating a need for your product or services.  This can be done in many ways - press releases, newspaper advertisements, tv or radio, flyers, brochures, free samples, etc.  The list of potential strategies is only limited by your imagination.

To do this, you have to make people believe that they want or need what you have to sell, or that they will benefit from purchasing your products.  You don't need to throw words like "new and improved" or "this will change your life" at them.  You simply use words that will make them believe that you are offering a product or service that is worth paying for.

To start with, the old adage "Honesty is the best policy" is true in advertising.  Enthusiasm is great!  However, how many times have you heard the hard sells on tv or radio?  When writing your ad, put yourself in your customer's shoes.  Would you believe you couldn't live without this product?  Probably not.  So, as a small business, don't put yourself in K'tel or Ramco's position and blast away at your target.

After all, you want people to believe that "smaller is better", that they'll receive better service, a more unique product and a better quality product.  In short, a company that means what it says and a product that does what it's supposed to do.

Int he end, as a small business, your best marketing tool is word of mouth from a satisfied customer.  It is also the easiest on your budget!

Use your enthusiasm for your business whenever you write or talk to anyone about your product.  Enthusiasm is very contagious and should never be underestimated.

There are many online and offline ways to market your business for very little or no cost to you.  I don't mean giving away endless freebies that cut into your supply costs of ink, paper and time.  What if I told you that you could easily get free advertising online, through other people's websites, or even on the radio or tv?  Were you aware that you can even use Paypal to advertise your business?

I'm going to do a couple of more posts on marketing, for those who are interested.

However, marketing is a major issue and the number one reason for businesses succeeding or failing.  After all, you can have the best product in the world, but if no one knows about, how do they know to buy it, never mind where to buy it?

This is where my Marketing Retreat comes in.  Now, I know that we all can't meet at some resort for a week, to relax and discuss marketing strategies, so what I've done is put together a 6 day workshop just on How to Market You Business For Minimal To No Cost.


This Marketing Retreat covers both online and offline strategies.  And, because there's so much to cover, it takes 6 evenings.  I've broken it down to 3 evenings one week for online and 3 evenings the next week for offline marketing strategies.

You are guaranteed that I have tried and tested every single marketing strategy that we cover and I only included the ones that really worked.  I'm not talking about giving away endless freebies and I'm not talking about surfing message boards and spamming people "looking for ....".  But you will learn how to use those messageboards to your advantage, how to choose what online strategies bring the best return and which offline marketing gives your business the biggest boost for least amount of work and dollars.

If any of you are interested, just post here that you want to register.  Now, here's my deal that I'm going to offer you.  This Marketing Retreat is normally $75.00 at an online seminar and $250.00 when I hold it at a convention.  It does include a downloadable workbook, seminar and question periods at the end of each session.

If you sign up for the 6 evening Marketing Retreat, it's a cost of $10.00.  However, if you refer a friend and they sign up, then I'll split the cost.  That means $5.00 each.

I will only hold this seminar if I receive a minimum of 20 people who are interested.  So gather up your friends, talk it over and let me know.  I refer you to past participants, if you wish to ask anyone if they found the Marketing Retreat useful and there have been many Wrapcandy members who have attended and I'm absolutely confident will be willing to give you an honest opinion about the Retreat.

Give me a shout at terrijames40@hotmail.com, let me know.  As I said at the beginning of this post "Honest is the best policy" and I stand by that completely.