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4 Must-Do’s For Entrepreneurs Before 2012

1. Claim Your Freedom With A Toll Free Number
What's the point in owning your own business if you can't enjoy your freedom, especially the freedom to travel or work from home during the holidays? If you don't have one yet, a toll free number is a must-have before we get too deep into the holidays. If you do have one make sure that you are utilizing all the toll free routing and forwarding features at your disposal.

2. Draft Your Marketing Plan

Back To Branding Basics - The 800 Vanity Number

With the surge in Internet marketing and the ability to launch virtual companies overnight without a massive budget, many entrepreneurs and business owners are sadly overlooking some of the basics and their branding in particular.

Branding is still more important than ever regardless of what industry you are in, whether you will have a local brick and mortar presence, and the size of your operation. When branding is mentioned, most people immediately think of logos and slogans; however, web domain names and 800 vanity numbers are just as important.

In fact, 800 vanity numbers could actually be the most essential and powerful part of your organization’s branding. It is no secret that some of the most successful, industry dominating companies right now have gained their influence and are enjoying such lofty revenues due to their 800 vanity numbers alone. But even if your goals aren’t that big, the bottom line is that anchoring your brand with a premium 800 vanity number will have a positive compounding effect on all areas of your business, resulting in better ROI and superior profit margins.

With a winning 800 vanity number as part of your core branding, your company will immediately benefit from increased credibility and recognition, which translates not only to more volume and customers seeking you out, but it makes closing deals a breeze. Of course, you can launch marketing campaigns without an 800 vanity number; you may even see some response although it is doubtful it will be anywhere near as successful as if you had one. The advantages of using toll free numbers and the impact they can have on advertising effectiveness are well known. So with premium vanity numbers available from as little $19 a month that will likely result in double digit improvements in response rates to your marketing, why would you even consider launching without one?

Image Credit: © Victor Correia | Dreamstime.com

Five Common Advertising Strategy Mistakes To Avoid

1. Not Developing a Brand

It doesn’t matter how creative and ingenious your advertising strategy is if you have not made the effort to develop a unified brand. Proper branding includes having a matching business name, web domain name, logo, and an easily recognizable and memorable vanity number. Don’t just have them either; make sure you use them!

2. Failure To Test

Whether your advertising strategy includes direct mail, telemarketing, or Internet marketing, those who do not test and ignore their metrics are asking for failure. You may need to temper the figures with a little common sense and insight into future trends, but the numbers do not lie. Use blocks of toll free numbers for split testing various elements of your campaigns and hone them.

3. Not Maximizing ROI

Many marketing channels and ideas that you can include in your overall advertising strategy may work, may generate leads, and may even bring in money. However, just generating some income is no longer enough to survive. You must strive to seek out those channels that provide maximum advertising effectiveness and the highest possible ROI for your marketing budget.

4. Working Harder Rather Than Smarter

Too many entrepreneurs and managers fail to harness the power of building blocks that can be re-purposed. This strategy means having to do a fraction of the work for much larger results; not only can it improve your advertising strategy profit margins, but it can enable your organization to reach more prospects for less money and grow faster than you ever imagined. This process can mean utilizing content more wisely and re-purposing article content for blogs, videos, and social media, or outsourcing your call center agents and using them to spin off new products and services.

5. Not Seeing The Full Potential

"If you are going to think, you might as well think big." Thinking big certainly doesn’t take any more effort. However, too many business owners and managers still fail to see the full potential of their businesses. With a little wider vision applied to an advertising strategy, and just a little more effort, the exponential rewards can make all the difference in being a one man band or the next Facebook.

Why You Should Not Create Your Own Advertising Strategy

Business columns and business coaches often dedicate much of their time to telling entrepreneurs and business owners that they must be revolutionary in their advertising strategy and be unique if they want to win.

 

However, the reality is that as an entrepreneur or marketing executive, achieving a successful advertising strategy can often be a difficult tightrope walk between doing what is working for others and offering a unique proposition.

 

There are two problems with developing your own advertising strategy from scratch. First, it can mean ignoring the facts and figures and the tried and true methods that are working in the current market. Choosing just to learn from your own mistakes rather than others is costly and can result in losing any lead time you had on your competitors. Secondly, creating an advertising strategy that is too far away from the norm can be confusing to prospects and consumers, not only reducing your advertising effectiveness and the ROI of your marketing budget but alienating many viable customers.

 

In order to develop a truly successful advertising strategy, you really should take the best of both worlds. If a certain marketing strategy, channel, or platform is proving to be incredibly profitable in your industry, you shouldn’t ignore it. Consumers will be looking for some of the similar attributes in order to find your product or service and judge it’s value and credibility. However, at the same time you need to be different enough from your competition to differentiate enterprise and stand out from the crowd. The perfect example is books. While self-publishing is becoming more popular than ever and has turned out many of the best sellers in the last couple of years, it remains an independent way to produce books; nevertheless, authors can definitely benefit from promoting their books on reputable sites like Amazon or by using Facebook likes and a familiar blog or website format for promoting it. What will you take from the proven and comfortable way of doing business in your industry and what will you do differently to develop the ultimate advertising strategy?

Image Credit: © Ali Mazraie shadi | Dreamstime.com

Five Ways Toll Free Numbers Offer More Freedom

1. Toll Free Numbers- A Quick Escape From Corporate Chains

Today, entrepreneurs and executives are not only starting new ventures because they have been forced to by the economy. Rather we are seeing a new era where people are actively seeking to start new businesses that fulfill their needs and involve things they enjoy, instead of just taking jobs out of necessity. The branding and marketing benefits of toll free numbers allow for the quick launch of new enterprises and rapid success.

2. Freedom To Work From Anywhere

People are now craving the ability to travel more and even relocate to destinations that offer higher quality lifestyles for less. Toll free numbers provide the ability to travel and work from anywhere in the world while maintaining a professional local presence.

3. Freedom For Employees

Not only do free phone numbers  give owners and managers more freedom, but they enable all types of employees to work remotely. This lowers overhead for employers and creates a happier and more productive work force, which in turn means higher profits, happy customers, more referrals, and repeat business.

4. Bigger Profits

The proven advantages toll free numbers offer for increasing advertising effectiveness and maximizing marketing ROI  mean more available cash. More cash for the company means the freedom to enter new markets and spin off new divisions. At the same time, bigger paychecks for executives means the freedom to take more time off and discover new travel destinations.

5. Ability To Run Multiple Businesses

The flexibility that toll free numbers and the latest and most advanced routing options offer means that you can easily run more than one enterprise at the same time. While more work may not sound like more freedom, it does give you the ability to work on all the things you are passionate about simultaneously without actually having to put in too many more hours.

Why Choose The 855 Prefix For Your Toll Free Numbers

The release of the much anticipated 855 prefix for toll free numbers is almost here, but why choose an 855 number? For many companies and entrepreneurs, 855 numbers are the best option simply due to the ease of acquiring them. Premium vanity numbers for all of the previous toll free number prefixes are almost all taken. While leading toll free service providers can assist you with tracking down the owners of these coveted numbers and assist in negotiations, you will often find that 855 numbers are more cost-effective or your only option in many industries. This situation is especially true for new start-ups and small businesses who have realized that they need to improve their branding or correct it to match the new directions the opportunities in their industries are leading them in.

Business Marketing Metrics vs. Common Sense

The world is full of entrepreneurs with revolutionary business ideas and great product inventions. Unfortunately, no matter how great these services or products are, without effective advertising, these companies are probably doomed to fail. And while these visionaries may have great ideas, they are often not the most savvy marketers. The reason may be they are too focused on the technical side of the product to understand how it really appeals to prospective customers or will fulfill customers' needs, or simply because their business marketing ideas are out of date.

 
 
What is a Shared Number?
What is a Shared Number?
 
 
Why Vanities Work Why Vanities Work
 

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