When the original Dot COM businesses came online, there generally was no product just a lot of hype. Many people made a fortune with smoke and mirrors. The possibility of making a fortune gave fuel to the fire of being an instant millionaire.

Dot Com is Born
Things went wild and everyone started taking a good look at the Internet. Advertising wasn’t really serious but did take up a little space. Things were too good to be true and that was the start of a new business forum. Then the Dot COM bubble burst and the illusion of get rich quick died out.

The interesting thing that happened was that it created a lot of attention. The public was becoming aware of the power the Internet could possess. When the public gets interested, so does business. Business started a rush t get their web sights up. The new way of doing business was being born.

How Business Caught On
Business relies on advertising to get people to buy products and services. Being new to business, Internet sales required Internet savvy people. This would create new jobs and give a new life to business, if only they could figure out how to make it work for them.

Internet Marketing Starts
Internet marketing became a buzz word for businessmen. Creating web sites would become a new carrier for many people.

Internet marketing is vastly becoming the leading factor in businesses. If you don’t have a web site, you are missing out on a huge chunk of business. No businessman in his right mind will blow off Internet sales. Using the Internet to enhance and bring in customers to the traditional brick and mortar stores is essential to sustaining a modern business.

Drop Shipping Goes Wild
Now there are two kinds of sales, direct sales, which require face to face interaction and indirect sales, by intriguing customers to buy direct from a business or person online and having product sent directly to them. The latter created a new type of business called drop shipping. Drop shipping became a multibillion-dollar business that nearly every major manufacture is now using.

Advertising is revitalizing, modernizing and keeping up with the times. The salesman who is Internet savvy, posses the ability to attract attention, and motivate people to buy will be the future millionaire. If you are interested in being a sales person, it is in your best interest to become Internet savvy. Internet sales and marketing are the future.

Computer generated sales will take over marketing. Salesman are the backbone of business, if you want a future learn how to sale. Internet marketers will always be sought after.

Education based marketing, EBM, is another aspect of inbound marketing. There are two classes of marketing:

• Sales based marketing, in which you take the role of a salesperson and deliver a sales message.
• Education based marketing, where you take the role of an expert or educator to help prospects understand their problems and the solutions to them.

Sales based marketing is based on a sales pitch or selling message. It is used to help a salesperson reach out to prospective customers, such as cold calling, telephone solicitation, and direct mail.

These kinds of activities today are called interruption marketing. We are inundated with Emails, television commercials, junk mail, and telephone solicitors. There is so much noise generated by sales based activities that the average prospect no longer listens. My personal method when watching my favorite hockey team is the mute button. I just don’t listen. I also use SPAM blockers, junk mail folders and any other method I can to cut down the volume.

So how do you get through the massive amount of “noise” being generated by millions of companies and directed at your prospect?

Simply put you don’t. Even if a prospect likes your product and your message most won’t take the time to sift through the pile to see what’s worth looking at.

Most prospects today don’t look or read much of anything sent to them, if they have a need or want they do an Internet search, find the product or service they are interested in and learn about it.

What do they learn? In a word everything. They can find shopping services that compare features and price. They can find consumer driven quality reviews. They can study head-to-head comparisons between competitors.

For example is there a more sales driven industry than auto sales? How do the majority or people buy a car today? Speaking for myself, I research what I want on-line. I go to Kelly Blue book and price the vehicle with the options I want and print the summary. I then use Kelly again to get a realistic value for my trade and print that. I go to the dealer armed with my information knowing what I want, what it will cost me and what I am willing to pay. The traditional back room haggling is eliminated, if it starts in that direction I get up to leave. The last three vehicles we’ve purchased no one has allowed me to walk out the door. I got my deal because I educated myself.

So education based marketing simply put is educating your customs that you understand their wants or needs, and that your solution is the beat value for their money. Better marketing results today mean getting your message heard because prospects seek you out as a subject matter expert.

We need to acknowledge the fact that marketing has changed. They are going to look for the information somewhere, it’s readily available, how much can you gain if they get it from you?

I have an entire chapter in my book, “Bottom Line Focus” on education for better marketing results, I think it’s a critical piece of any current strategy.

Martin Harshberger is President of Measurable Results LLC, and Bottom Line Coach. His coaching practice works with businesses to clarify strategy, develop new products and services, and improve bottom line results. He helps businesses develop options through improved profitability and cash flow.

It’s terrible, but many people are still operating under poor understandings of what chiropractors are, and what it is that they do. Unfortunately, the average person still looks at a chiropractor as some ‘quack’ that snaps a joint back into place, puts a neck brace on them after an auto accident, sends a bill to their insurance company, and sends them on their way. That sounds terrible doesn’t it?

We all know that Chiropractic is so much more, but the problem remains that if you are going to build a lucrative practice, it is important to promote a basic understanding of exactly what Chiropractors can do for patients, and more particularly, what your Chiropractic office can do for them. It is important to alleviate their fears that Chiropractic isn’t real medical treatment and that it’s more than popping joints back into place.

In order to get your advertising campaign off the ground running, the first thing you probably will do is saturate your market with flyers in order to make your presence in the community known. You will introduce your Chiropractic office, make a few key points about what it is you have to offer, and establish a reference point to base further advertising on. This is the beginning of ‘branding’ your practice. When people in your market hear the words “Chiropractor” or “Chiropractic” you want them to immediately associate it with your practice. But that still might not get them in the door because of some innate fear that Chiropractic isn’t real “medical” treatment or therapy. This is where you can effectively use brochures to relieve their fears in order to substantially begin building up your practice.

Advertising with a flyer is the necessary first step in your advertising campaign but now that you are ready to literally ‘flood’ your market it is essential to design an informational brochure that will calm any remaining fears your targeted market may have regarding Chiropractics. There are three main tools that can be utilized when using a brochure for this purpose:

1. Information
2. Graphics
3. References

When advertising with a chiropractic flyer space is limited, however, brochures can go into much greater detail. There is plenty of room to be informative in a brochure so you can go into much greater detail. Use graphics (photos) to show them equipment that you commonly use and what it is used for. Show them your office! When you get them in the door they will feel much more comfortable because it will be a familiar space. And by all means, give them online references where they can go to research Chiropractics. If you don’t have a website set up with informative articles, then simply direct them to sites such as the American Chiropractic Association that has a whole area set up for patients to read and learn about Chiropractics.

Because there is still a significant amount of misunderstanding and fear of Chiropractics in the community it is essential that you provide enough information to combat those fears in order to promote a successful advertising campaign. Brochures can address those fears by providing information, showing prospective patients what they can expect on their first visit and giving them references to research so they have a better understanding of Chiropractics in general. Brochures can be your ‘sign on the dotted line’ technique. Flyers introduce you and brochures close the deal.

Chris Barr is a marketing professional and graduate of Christopher Newport University. His areas of expertise include direct mail, internet marketing, copy writing, SEO, and new business development. Chris currently serves as Marketing Director for Taradel LLC in Richmond, VA.

For network marketers, the role models can be the so-called gurus or the top network marketing companies. The companies make great sources of inspiration, and studying them in depth will also reveal quite a few things that can be used to improve one’s own network marketing business. So what makes these companies the top contenders in their fields? How can you use that knowledge to profit yourself?

Today’s top network marketing companies include Amway, Herbalife, and Avon – the latter being one of the longest-running direct sales entities. These companies do not produce items that are strictly necessary for life however they are always popular and salable. The volume of their sales relies on the skills of their members, as well as the quality of the advertising material and catalogs that they use. Those might sound like little things, but they count for a lot, especially since direct sales via network marketing are very personal in the approach.

The products distributed by these companies and sold to customers by low-level members are of good quality. This makes them more attractive, and can turn the choice of a person thinking about buying from a retail outlet. Aside from being of good quality, many of these goods are lower in price, because the company does not have to pay for rent and utilities – the members take their portions of inventory and keep them at home. Producing in large batches applies economies of scale, which reduces the profit margin even further, which is what gives these products their competitive prices.

Many of the top network marketing companies also offer good compensation packages or rewards for their members. Thus, their image is improved, increasing member loyalty and increasing the interest of prospective members looking to join a company. In the end, a network marketing endeavor runs on the backs of its members, and the companies, knowing this, keep their members happy. Of course you do have to work for your rewards, but what makes you happy is how prompt and “real” the rewards are.

If the network in your area is not yet saturated with other members, then you may want to think about joining one of these top network marketing companies. At the very least, they can get you to direct selling right away, skipping the steps of thinking up the right product and setting up inventory. Then again, if you already have a network marketing business, just learning how these companies do their magic can help you get some magic of your own.