Now imagine an influx of your ideal customers. More angels who always pay their bills on time, who revere the work you do for them, and who provide word-of-mouth recommendations frequently. Wouldn't that help your business?

If you don't know what your ideal customer looks like, think about which of your current customers are most profitable. With whom do you most enjoy doing business? Who can benefit most from your product or service? It shouldn't take long to form a picture of your perfect client.

Putting It into Practice

Start taking dead aim with your marketing today. Here are some suggestions:

Targeting Your Website

• Review the content on your website. Are you addressing everyone or are you zeroed in on your target market?
• Make some changes to your pay-per-click advertising. Don't just use the same advertisement for everyone. Instead, create different advertisements for the different types of prospect you're targeting.
• Experiment with different landing pages. Landing pages are the pages that people who click on your advertisements are taken to. You should create targeted landing pages for each type of prospect in your target market.

Targeting Your Print Advertising

• Don't run the same advertisement everywhere. If you're targeting different types of customer, create an advertisement that addresses each customer type directly and then do everything you can to get the advertisement in front of the prospect it's targeted on.
• If your advertisements reference your website, you might consider setting up different landing pages for the different versions of your advertisements. Doing so would enable your prospects to continue experiencing highly-targeted communication.
• Experiment with different publications. One publication might have a smaller
  Ballot Box Allows Retailers to Develop A Relationship With Customers and Build Rapport
  The votes have been counted and the results are in. Ballot boxes are a priceless tool in the management of your retail store. Store promotions, contests, giveaways, and customer research are just a few examples of the ways a ballot box can come in handy in promoting your store and improving customer service. The ballot box is one of the most useful (and overlooked) tools for retail stores to build a connection with their customer base.A ballot box is such a versatile tool because it can be used in a wide variety of contexts within your store. It is the type of product that you typically don’t think of until the first time you need it. Then you begin to see all of the practical applications.I recommend retailers use creativity in determining how their business could benefit from a ballot box, but here are some suggestions to get you thinking:Promotional Contests: Everyone loves a contest. Your customers love it because they stand to win something. You love it because it draws customers into your store. Consider this as well: use promotional contests to gather contact information for future marketing endeavors. This will allow you to develop a list of active customers to whom you can market. For a contest, any acrylic ballot box will work.Customer Feedback: Have you ever wondered what your customers really thought of your store, sta
  What's the single most important factor in the success of a marketing campaign? How clever the advertisements are? How good the product or service is? The price being charged?

  If you said "none of the above", then I have to agree with you. The most important factor in marketing is targeting.

  You simply have to know what to sell, and to whom to sell it.

  If you're selling something that doesn't appeal to the people you're speaking to, then you can forget about a good return. Regardless of how good your product is, regardless of how brilliant the advertisements are, and regardless of the price you're charging, if your targeting is off, then your whole marketing campaign will be missing the mark.

  Moldy Grape Juice or Heavenly Elixir?

  If I offered you a bottle of 1995 Domaine de la Roman?e Conti La T?che for $500, would you buy? For the non-oenophiles among us, the Domaine de la Roman?e Conti is a producer of wine in Burgundy in France. They make some of the finest and most highly coveted wines in the world, and La T?che is one of their finest. But at $500, would you buy?

  Some people might, but many others wouldn't. And fair enough. Some would argue that no wine is worth that kind of price. Some people just don't like the taste of wine and wouldn't buy no matter how highly esteemed the wine was. And others, for whatever reason, just don't drink alcohol.

  But if I make my offer to some serious wine-lovers, to people who have no problem dropping a hefty wad of cash on a great bottle, then however many bottles I have available will be gone soon. That's because a bottle of 1995 La T?che for $500 is a steal.

  But it's only a steal to the people who are interested in that sort of thing. So if I want to sell my bottles, I have to do everything I can to make my offer to people who are interested.

  Targeting: The Key to Effective Marketing

  So how do I get my offer in front of people who are interested? That's where targeting comes in.

  If I were to advertise the bottles of wine that I wanted to sell in Car and Driver magazine, I'm sure you'd agree that I'd be wasting a lot of my advertising dollars.

  I'd have a better, more targeted audience if I were to advertise in a wine-oriented publication such as Wine Spectator. This magazine's readers are obviously interested wine, and many of them are probably even interested to the extent that a mere $500 for the wine I'm pitching would have them licking their lips and dusting off the Riedel glasses.

  All this stands to reason. You're obviously going to get a better response advertising high-end fine wine to an audience that is at least predisposed towards wine. But can we do better?

  While Wine Spectator caters to wine-lovers, not all of them will be sufficiently loaded to seriously contemplate dropping that kind of moolah on a single bottle of wine. In other words, I'll be paying for the privilege of advertising to Wine Spectator's millions of readers, when all I really want to do is advertise to the five percent or so who are likely to be interested in my offer.

  With Car and Driver I was way off-target. Wine Spectator is on-target, but I'm using a shotgun. To get the most bang for my buck, I want to find a way to put my offer only in front of people likely to be interested. I want to use a rifle to hit my target and nothing but my target.

  There are several ways I could do this. Obviously if there were a publication geared more specifically to wine-collectors, that would be a good place to advertise.

  Another excellent alternative would be to send a mailing to my existing customers. I could search through my customer database and select only those customers whose buying-history indicated an interest in the wines on sale, and send the mailing to them. If I didn't have a large customer list, I could find additional prospects by arranging for access to a related business' customer list. In this case, a company specializing in wine cellar installation might be a good choice.

  As you can see, the mailing would be going out to a very select group of people. By zeroing in on my target market, I can get the results I need much more cost-effectively than if I either failed to target altogether, or took the shotgun approach.

  And that's really all there is to it. The more you can target your offer, the better your response will be.

  How to Target Your Marketing

  As you can see, the concept of targeting is pretty simple. Take your product or service and offer it to people who are likely to be interested. But there are a few things you'll want to keep in mind.

  Narrow Your Niche

  I don't care what you sell; your market is smaller than you think. A large percentage of the population owns a car, but a much smaller percentage is in the market for a new car this month. Many people use an accountant, but far fewer are looking to switch accountants.

  If you blast away with the shotgun approach and try to hit everyone, you won't like the results.

  You might argue that even if people aren't in the market yet, you should still try to expose them to your advertisements so that when they are, your company's name will be at the top of their minds. This is a really dangerous approach for a small business to take for several reasons.

  1. The response to your advertisements (if there even is any) won't be immediate and will be much more difficult to track. You'll therefore have a much harder time determining whether the advertisement is working for you or not. Anytime you can't tell if your money is well-spent, you're dicing with death.
  2. The investment required to effectively achieve top-of-mind awareness is usually enormous. There are cheaper ways to get good results.
  3. People are really good at ignoring advertising. When an advertisement does finally get their attention, it's frequently because the advertisement is selling something that will be of immediate benefit to them. In other words, good luck getting them to pay attention to your advertisements and remember your name when they aren't even interested in what you're selling yet.

  To avoid these problems, do yourself a favor and take dead aim at a much smaller target by narrowing your niche.

  In the above example, we went from advertising a wine to millions of Wine Spectator readers, to sending out a mailing to only those people whose buying-history demonstrated an interest in the specific wine we were pitching. We went from everyone interested in wine to only those interested in high-end red Burgundy. That's a much smaller niche!

  The accountant mentioned above might market to people who are unhappy with their current accountant for one specific reason. Alternatively, she might narrow her niche by marketing directly to one specific type of customer, such as dentists.

  Narrowing your niche doesn't mean that you won't also do business with customers outside that niche, it just means that a given marketing campaign or an individual advertisement might not be aimed directly at them. Instead, your marketing takes dead aim at a much more specific target that is a whole lot easier to hit.

  Determine Your Ideal Customer

  One of the best ways to get your marketing aimed at a smaller target is to identify your ideal customer and market only to prospects that fit that profile.

  This is actually one of the healthiest things you can do for your business. We all end up doing business with customers who are not ideal. In many cases we do business with customers who are far from ideal. These customers are often difficult to deal with, unprofitable, and extremely hard to please.

  Now imagine an influx of your ideal customers. More angels who always pay their bills on time, who revere the work you do for them, and who provide word-of-mouth recommendations frequently. Wouldn't that help your business?

  If you don't know what your ideal customer looks like, think about which of your current customers are most profitable. With whom do you most enjoy doing business? Who can benefit most from your product or service? It shouldn't take long to form a picture of your perfect client.

  Putting It into Practice

  Start taking dead aim with your marketing today. Here are some suggestions:

  Targeting Your Website

  • Review the content on your website. Are you addressing everyone or are you zeroed in on your target market?
  • Make some changes to your pay-per-click advertising. Don't just use the same advertisement for everyone. Instead, create different advertisements for the different types of prospect you're targeting.
  • Experiment with different landing pages. Landing pages are the pages that people who click on your advertisements are taken to. You should create targeted landing pages for each type of prospect in your target market.

  Targeting Your Print Advertising

  • Don't run the same advertisement everywhere. If you're targeting different types of customer, create an advertisement that addresses each customer type directly and then do everything you can to get the advertisement in front of the prospect it's targeted on.
  • If your advertisements reference your website, you might consider setting up different landing pages for the different versions of your advertisements. Doing so would enable your prospects to continue experiencing highly-targeted communication.
  • Experiment with different publications. One publication might have a smaller c
    Barter - An Introduction to the Oldest Marketing Tool for Business
    When you hear the word 'Barter' do you instinctively think of two farmers trading a horse for a cow, or the likes of latter-day trappers carrying furs to a trading post to exchange them for food and provisions, or like millions of savvy business owners around the globe, do you think of a high-tech way of marketing your goods and services beyond your usual scope, and becoming more efficient in the process?It's strange that during my entire business education at university (and I was fortunate enough to be educated in some of the best business establishments in London, Munich and Florence)not once did the word nor concept of barter ever surface - even in economics. Strange, don't you think, when barter was the foundation of all modern commerce?So, how has barter stayed the 'best kept marketing secret in business'? Simple, it has never been perfected on a larger scale until recently with the advancement of computers. Globally barter accounts for almost $1 trillion in annual business. Little 'mom and pop' stores all the way up to Super Power governments barter, some with more success than others. Most recently, in fact, the entire country of Argentina had to utilize the incredible power of barter to pull itself out of bankruptcy, and today over 500,000 companies barter there on a regular basis.Bartering is a very simple concept: it is the exchange of goods and se
    front of people who are interested? That's where targeting comes in.

    If I were to advertise the bottles of wine that I wanted to sell in Car and Driver magazine, I'm sure you'd agree that I'd be wasting a lot of my advertising dollars.

    I'd have a better, more targeted audience if I were to advertise in a wine-oriented publication such as Wine Spectator. This magazine's readers are obviously interested wine, and many of them are probably even interested to the extent that a mere $500 for the wine I'm pitching would have them licking their lips and dusting off the Riedel glasses.

    All this stands to reason. You're obviously going to get a better response advertising high-end fine wine to an audience that is at least predisposed towards wine. But can we do better?

    While Wine Spectator caters to wine-lovers, not all of them will be sufficiently loaded to seriously contemplate dropping that kind of moolah on a single bottle of wine. In other words, I'll be paying for the privilege of advertising to Wine Spectator's millions of readers, when all I really want to do is advertise to the five percent or so who are likely to be interested in my offer.

    With Car and Driver I was way off-target. Wine Spectator is on-target, but I'm using a shotgun. To get the most bang for my buck, I want to find a way to put my offer only in front of people likely to be interested. I want to use a rifle to hit my target and nothing but my target.

    There are several ways I could do this. Obviously if there were a publication geared more specifically to wine-collectors, that would be a good place to advertise.

    Another excellent alternative would be to send a mailing to my existing customers. I could search through my customer database and select only those customers whose buying-history indicated an interest in the wines on sale, and send the mailing to them. If I didn't have a large customer list, I could find additional prospects by arranging for access to a related business' customer list. In this case, a company specializing in wine cellar installation might be a good choice.

    As you can see, the mailing would be going out to a very select group of people. By zeroing in on my target market, I can get the results I need much more cost-effectively than if I either failed to target altogether, or took the shotgun approach.

    And that's really all there is to it. The more you can target your offer, the better your response will be.

    How to Target Your Marketing

    As you can see, the concept of targeting is pretty simple. Take your product or service and offer it to people who are likely to be interested. But there are a few things you'll want to keep in mind.

    Narrow Your Niche

    I don't care what you sell; your market is smaller than you think. A large percentage of the population owns a car, but a much smaller percentage is in the market for a new car this month. Many people use an accountant, but far fewer are looking to switch accountants.

    If you blast away with the shotgun approach and try to hit everyone, you won't like the results.

    You might argue that even if people aren't in the market yet, you should still try to expose them to your advertisements so that when they are, your company's name will be at the top of their minds. This is a really dangerous approach for a small business to take for several reasons.

    1. The response to your advertisements (if there even is any) won't be immediate and will be much more difficult to track. You'll therefore have a much harder time determining whether the advertisement is working for you or not. Anytime you can't tell if your money is well-spent, you're dicing with death.
    2. The investment required to effectively achieve top-of-mind awareness is usually enormous. There are cheaper ways to get good results.
    3. People are really good at ignoring advertising. When an advertisement does finally get their attention, it's frequently because the advertisement is selling something that will be of immediate benefit to them. In other words, good luck getting them to pay attention to your advertisements and remember your name when they aren't even interested in what you're selling yet.

    To avoid these problems, do yourself a favor and take dead aim at a much smaller target by narrowing your niche.

    In the above example, we went from advertising a wine to millions of Wine Spectator readers, to sending out a mailing to only those people whose buying-history demonstrated an interest in the specific wine we were pitching. We went from everyone interested in wine to only those interested in high-end red Burgundy. That's a much smaller niche!

    The accountant mentioned above might market to people who are unhappy with their current accountant for one specific reason. Alternatively, she might narrow her niche by marketing directly to one specific type of customer, such as dentists.

    Narrowing your niche doesn't mean that you won't also do business with customers outside that niche, it just means that a given marketing campaign or an individual advertisement might not be aimed directly at them. Instead, your marketing takes dead aim at a much more specific target that is a whole lot easier to hit.

    Determine Your Ideal Customer

    One of the best ways to get your marketing aimed at a smaller target is to identify your ideal customer and market only to prospects that fit that profile.

    This is actually one of the healthiest things you can do for your business. We all end up doing business with customers who are not ideal. In many cases we do business with customers who are far from ideal. These customers are often difficult to deal with, unprofitable, and extremely hard to please.

    Now imagine an influx of your ideal customers. More angels who always pay their bills on time, who revere the work you do for them, and who provide word-of-mouth recommendations frequently. Wouldn't that help your business?

    If you don't know what your ideal customer looks like, think about which of your current customers are most profitable. With whom do you most enjoy doing business? Who can benefit most from your product or service? It shouldn't take long to form a picture of your perfect client.

    Putting It into Practice

    Start taking dead aim with your marketing today. Here are some suggestions:

    Targeting Your Website

    • Review the content on your website. Are you addressing everyone or are you zeroed in on your target market?
    • Make some changes to your pay-per-click advertising. Don't just use the same advertisement for everyone. Instead, create different advertisements for the different types of prospect you're targeting.
    • Experiment with different landing pages. Landing pages are the pages that people who click on your advertisements are taken to. You should create targeted landing pages for each type of prospect in your target market.

    Targeting Your Print Advertising

    • Don't run the same advertisement everywhere. If you're targeting different types of customer, create an advertisement that addresses each customer type directly and then do everything you can to get the advertisement in front of the prospect it's targeted on.
    • If your advertisements reference your website, you might consider setting up different landing pages for the different versions of your advertisements. Doing so would enable your prospects to continue experiencing highly-targeted communication.
    • Experiment with different publications. One publication might have a smaller
      Check Yourself for Outstanding Customer Service
      Recently, a business associate, Mike, mentioned that he was doing a show at a local university and stopped by the faculty dining hall to get lunch. He said that, while waiting on line, the service was poor. The line moved slowly, the counterperson was disinterested in what she was doing…and it showed. It was not a pleasant customer experience.It was Mike’s turn to order and the counterperson continued to show her disinterest…no eye contact, moving like it pained her, and no enthusiasm in her voice. Then when she finally looked up to give Mike his food, she noticed his nametag with his name and company. She realized that Mike worked for a bank where she just opened an account. Well, she turned into another person. She was excited when telling Mike about her excellent experience at his bank. In an instant she was vibrant, alert, smiling, and alive!The question is, "Why couldn’t she behave that way whenever she interacts with a customer?" We can ask this question whenever we interact with people in customer service situations. In many situations, the persons serving us act like they are auditioning for the role of a zombie in the movie, "Dawn of the Dead." Whereas they can use less energy being lively and produce a great experience for everyone involved.The reason this happens is because the customer service persons do not "check
      ve a large customer list, I could find additional prospects by arranging for access to a related business' customer list. In this case, a company specializing in wine cellar installation might be a good choice.

      As you can see, the mailing would be going out to a very select group of people. By zeroing in on my target market, I can get the results I need much more cost-effectively than if I either failed to target altogether, or took the shotgun approach.

      And that's really all there is to it. The more you can target your offer, the better your response will be.

      How to Target Your Marketing

      As you can see, the concept of targeting is pretty simple. Take your product or service and offer it to people who are likely to be interested. But there are a few things you'll want to keep in mind.

      Narrow Your Niche

      I don't care what you sell; your market is smaller than you think. A large percentage of the population owns a car, but a much smaller percentage is in the market for a new car this month. Many people use an accountant, but far fewer are looking to switch accountants.

      If you blast away with the shotgun approach and try to hit everyone, you won't like the results.

      You might argue that even if people aren't in the market yet, you should still try to expose them to your advertisements so that when they are, your company's name will be at the top of their minds. This is a really dangerous approach for a small business to take for several reasons.

      1. The response to your advertisements (if there even is any) won't be immediate and will be much more difficult to track. You'll therefore have a much harder time determining whether the advertisement is working for you or not. Anytime you can't tell if your money is well-spent, you're dicing with death.
      2. The investment required to effectively achieve top-of-mind awareness is usually enormous. There are cheaper ways to get good results.
      3. People are really good at ignoring advertising. When an advertisement does finally get their attention, it's frequently because the advertisement is selling something that will be of immediate benefit to them. In other words, good luck getting them to pay attention to your advertisements and remember your name when they aren't even interested in what you're selling yet.

      To avoid these problems, do yourself a favor and take dead aim at a much smaller target by narrowing your niche.

      In the above example, we went from advertising a wine to millions of Wine Spectator readers, to sending out a mailing to only those people whose buying-history demonstrated an interest in the specific wine we were pitching. We went from everyone interested in wine to only those interested in high-end red Burgundy. That's a much smaller niche!

      The accountant mentioned above might market to people who are unhappy with their current accountant for one specific reason. Alternatively, she might narrow her niche by marketing directly to one specific type of customer, such as dentists.

      Narrowing your niche doesn't mean that you won't also do business with customers outside that niche, it just means that a given marketing campaign or an individual advertisement might not be aimed directly at them. Instead, your marketing takes dead aim at a much more specific target that is a whole lot easier to hit.

      Determine Your Ideal Customer

      One of the best ways to get your marketing aimed at a smaller target is to identify your ideal customer and market only to prospects that fit that profile.

      This is actually one of the healthiest things you can do for your business. We all end up doing business with customers who are not ideal. In many cases we do business with customers who are far from ideal. These customers are often difficult to deal with, unprofitable, and extremely hard to please.

      Now imagine an influx of your ideal customers. More angels who always pay their bills on time, who revere the work you do for them, and who provide word-of-mouth recommendations frequently. Wouldn't that help your business?

      If you don't know what your ideal customer looks like, think about which of your current customers are most profitable. With whom do you most enjoy doing business? Who can benefit most from your product or service? It shouldn't take long to form a picture of your perfect client.

      Putting It into Practice

      Start taking dead aim with your marketing today. Here are some suggestions:

      Targeting Your Website

      • Review the content on your website. Are you addressing everyone or are you zeroed in on your target market?
      • Make some changes to your pay-per-click advertising. Don't just use the same advertisement for everyone. Instead, create different advertisements for the different types of prospect you're targeting.
      • Experiment with different landing pages. Landing pages are the pages that people who click on your advertisements are taken to. You should create targeted landing pages for each type of prospect in your target market.

      Targeting Your Print Advertising

      • Don't run the same advertisement everywhere. If you're targeting different types of customer, create an advertisement that addresses each customer type directly and then do everything you can to get the advertisement in front of the prospect it's targeted on.
      • If your advertisements reference your website, you might consider setting up different landing pages for the different versions of your advertisements. Doing so would enable your prospects to continue experiencing highly-targeted communication.
      • Experiment with different publications. One publication might have a smaller
        Steps Involved In Making Your Business Competitive
        These are the fundamental steps that lead a business to a path of progress and competitiveness enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of the business. There are 7 steps that are discussed below:1. Finding the Gaps It includes the skills and knowledge your company possesses and is a major determinant of your success. In this step you need to identify your strengths, areas needing further study and areas of concern that could seriously affect your ability to stay competitive. Once you are through with this step, you would have access to practicable online information and other references that will help you bridge any knowledge and skill gaps. Filling these gaps will help in making your organization better prepared and to ascertain benefit from valuable information relating to the various management functions.2. Pre-Planning Pre-Planning is the process by which the management of an organization foresee its future and develop the necessary measures and operations to achieve the goals of future. It includes development of the purpose, mission, vision, and value statements of the managing teams; communication of these documents and suggestions for improvement, culture survey to create a base against which change can be compared and last but not the least celebrating achievements and learning from mistakes. After Pre-Planning the team needs to formulate strategies and,
        re cheaper ways to get good results.
      • People are really good at ignoring advertising. When an advertisement does finally get their attention, it's frequently because the advertisement is selling something that will be of immediate benefit to them. In other words, good luck getting them to pay attention to your advertisements and remember your name when they aren't even interested in what you're selling yet.

      To avoid these problems, do yourself a favor and take dead aim at a much smaller target by narrowing your niche.

      In the above example, we went from advertising a wine to millions of Wine Spectator readers, to sending out a mailing to only those people whose buying-history demonstrated an interest in the specific wine we were pitching. We went from everyone interested in wine to only those interested in high-end red Burgundy. That's a much smaller niche!

      The accountant mentioned above might market to people who are unhappy with their current accountant for one specific reason. Alternatively, she might narrow her niche by marketing directly to one specific type of customer, such as dentists.

      Narrowing your niche doesn't mean that you won't also do business with customers outside that niche, it just means that a given marketing campaign or an individual advertisement might not be aimed directly at them. Instead, your marketing takes dead aim at a much more specific target that is a whole lot easier to hit.

      Determine Your Ideal Customer

      One of the best ways to get your marketing aimed at a smaller target is to identify your ideal customer and market only to prospects that fit that profile.

      This is actually one of the healthiest things you can do for your business. We all end up doing business with customers who are not ideal. In many cases we do business with customers who are far from ideal. These customers are often difficult to deal with, unprofitable, and extremely hard to please.

      Now imagine an influx of your ideal customers. More angels who always pay their bills on time, who revere the work you do for them, and who provide word-of-mouth recommendations frequently. Wouldn't that help your business?

      If you don't know what your ideal customer looks like, think about which of your current customers are most profitable. With whom do you most enjoy doing business? Who can benefit most from your product or service? It shouldn't take long to form a picture of your perfect client.

      Putting It into Practice

      Start taking dead aim with your marketing today. Here are some suggestions:

      Targeting Your Website

      • Review the content on your website. Are you addressing everyone or are you zeroed in on your target market?
      • Make some changes to your pay-per-click advertising. Don't just use the same advertisement for everyone. Instead, create different advertisements for the different types of prospect you're targeting.
      • Experiment with different landing pages. Landing pages are the pages that people who click on your advertisements are taken to. You should create targeted landing pages for each type of prospect in your target market.

      Targeting Your Print Advertising

      • Don't run the same advertisement everywhere. If you're targeting different types of customer, create an advertisement that addresses each customer type directly and then do everything you can to get the advertisement in front of the prospect it's targeted on.
      • If your advertisements reference your website, you might consider setting up different landing pages for the different versions of your advertisements. Doing so would enable your prospects to continue experiencing highly-targeted communication.
      • Experiment with different publications. One publication might have a smaller
        Maine's Economic Recovery; Market Sectors for Economic Growth
        I would like to discuss the issues concerning Maine and it’s economy. For this most important discussion we are going to focus on jobs and money flow. Well first we should discuss tourism in the coastal areas. They are not breaking any speed records in Kennebunkport or Bar Harbor, but things are doing a lot better now that the late winter is over, that was a bad one, not the worst but relatively tough. If you check into the area around Cape Cod or Plymouth Rock, you will see a little better than last years numbers. But then again everyone in Boston wants to ditch that traffic as downtown area is worse than Denver’s Cluster Fustermuck. Also it is much closer to NYC or NJ for the weekend.In Bar Harbor things are okay, ferry has full loads to Nova Scotia as does Portland Maine’s ferry departure point. Portland has much foot traffic down town and around the port and boardwalk. Along the Hwy 1 and the offshoot 1As we see good weekend traffic, yet take your self off the main drag inland and within 5 miles you find all those towns a little deprived of cash flow. Along the 95 we are seeing slow return to economic viability for many small businesses and basic industry, which have made it through the rain. The late Strawberry Crop was pushed into summer harvest and causing increased water use, but they had a good snowmelt in the region.Maine business community is strong heart
        e, and extremely hard to please.

        Now imagine an influx of your ideal customers. More angels who always pay their bills on time, who revere the work you do for them, and who provide word-of-mouth recommendations frequently. Wouldn't that help your business?

        If you don't know what your ideal customer looks like, think about which of your current customers are most profitable. With whom do you most enjoy doing business? Who can benefit most from your product or service? It shouldn't take long to form a picture of your perfect client.

        Putting It into Practice

        Start taking dead aim with your marketing today. Here are some suggestions:

        Targeting Your Website

        • Review the content on your website. Are you addressing everyone or are you zeroed in on your target market?
        • Make some changes to your pay-per-click advertising. Don't just use the same advertisement for everyone. Instead, create different advertisements for the different types of prospect you're targeting.
        • Experiment with different landing pages. Landing pages are the pages that people who click on your advertisements are taken to. You should create targeted landing pages for each type of prospect in your target market.

        Targeting Your Print Advertising

        • Don't run the same advertisement everywhere. If you're targeting different types of customer, create an advertisement that addresses each customer type directly and then do everything you can to get the advertisement in front of the prospect it's targeted on.
        • If your advertisements reference your website, you might consider setting up different landing pages for the different versions of your advertisements. Doing so would enable your prospects to continue experiencing highly-targeted communication.
        • Experiment with different publications. One publication might have a smaller circulation, but it could be much more targeted for your advertising.

        Targeting Your Direct Mail

        • Break your mailing list into segments based on demographics such as the type and size of business or the income level of the household. Any actual buying-history data should also be factored in. You can then target your mailings based on these factors. If your offer is likely to appeal to customers who have purchased a specific product before, you can extract those names from the list and send the offer only to them.
        • Establish relationships with non-competing, but related businesses and get permission to market to their clients. In the wine example above, I suggested building a mailing list by gaining access to the customer database of a wine cellar installation firm. If you can arrange for a letter from the other company introducing you (and recommending you) your response will soar. Just be sure you've agreed details such as a commission on any sales and what happens to the list after the campaign is over. Typically you'll get to keep any customers who respond to your mailing, but the master list stays with the other business.
        • If you direct people to the website for more information, don't let the targeting stop with your letter. Create mailing-specific landing pages so that prospects continue to experience highly targeted communication.