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I read a great article about a company called ReviewSNAP, and got special permission to bring it to you here!

Go Green: Move Away From Paper-Based Reviews

By making a small step for your company and switching from manual performance reviews to ReviewSNAP, a Web-based performance management system, you are making a large contribution to the world’s green initiatives.

Since the environmental or “green” push started in the 1990s, organizations have been taking steps to decrease their carbon footprints.

Today, the momentum has not slowed and is viewed by many to be a valuable initiative. ReviewSNAP, a Web-based performance management system, provides organizations a way to make their employee-appraisal processes more environmentally friendly by making their reviews paperless.

“Having a Web-based performance system is an easy and small step organizations can do for the environment at a reasonable cost,” said Dave Arringdale. “While employee performance reviews are just one part of an organization’s paper output, it’s [Read more →]

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I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve heard and said, “The List is King!”

What’s “The List”? People you can market to directly, either through physical mail, the phone or email that have expressed interest in the products or services you offer.

The success of your business depends on the quality, quantity and responsiveness of your lists.

Where can I get a list like that? I was “stumbling” around online and always write down good resources, as you always want to stay abreast of what’s going on, and have back-up plans if companies you usually use are no longer operating.

I found a site, DCMG.com, that specializes in selling telemarketing lists. As I said earlier, it is important to have quality lists, and so I did a little bit of research on the site to find out that they have been operating online for 11 years. That gave them some clout in my books.

Not only do they sell telemarketing lists, but if you need a direct mailing list, this is a place to go to too! For example, do you want to send out postcards to promote something new or a discounted deal to drive more customers?

Even if you have an online business, you can still utilize a direct mail or telemarketing list. Your business is not just stuck on the internet if you don’t want it to be. People still respond extremely well to offline marketing, and in many cases, even better than online marketing.

* Remember: You’re always in business as long as you have your list or the ability to create one.

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I hope you enjoyed this Good Resource post on The Small Business Marketing Blog! Until next time…

The List is King,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Add me as a friend on Stumble Upon.

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, telemarketing list, telemarketing lists, telemarketing, direct mailing lists, direct mail list, direct mail, offline marketing

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We often surf & “stumble” around as frequent viewers of other blogs because they are a great way to keep up to date on today’s hype, news and info on marketing and business. About 1 week back, Kenney and I were intrigued when we found a post about a test that can potentially help you (and us) increase your backlinks, increase your pagerank, increase traffic, prestige, and more…

Here’s the crux of the experiment:

Brad Blogging had a vision that could help to increase one’s website/blog’s Technorati Authority. There are 4 easy steps in the experiment:

1. Make a blog post and copy the list below after the line.
2. Include your link at the end of the list.
3. In order for Brad Blogging to know that you have joined with his experiment, you have to make a comment from the original post.
4. Sit back and watch your Technorati Authority Increase…

—*–Copy Here - Technorati Authority–*>

1. Brad Blogging.com - Daily Blog Tips For The Masses

2. Daily Blogging Tips At The Daily Rambler

3. Blog Chews - Blog About Anything

4. Steve v4.6 - Big Made Small

5. GIVEAWAY CITY

6. Indo Contest.com - Find the Latest Contest Here

7. POTPOLITICS-We Smoke the Competition

8. ATA - AskTheAdmin.com

9. Dolly’s Daily Diary

10. The Tech Juice - Tech Tips And More

11. Wendy’s OBA, Blog Tips & Tricks

12. Wendy’s Reel - Fact And Fancy

13. A Grateful Heart

14. 50+Whatever..Just some Ramblings in Life

16. The Blog for DesignCreatology

17. Contest Whiz - The Blog Contest Expert

18. About Blog Contests

19. Esmeraldasblog - Como aumentar la Authority de Technorati

20. Best Widgets for free - Blog Widgets

21. New life by Pitonizza

22. Todo Seiya - Como aumentar la Authority de Technorati

23. Blog for Spanish Readers

24. The Blogger And The Blog

25. Hero Help

26. Makmalcyber

27. Forex Study

28. Techyplus

29. 8

30. Darn Good Reviews

31. Blogger Tips - DotBlogger

32. Lilyruths This and That

33. That Blog 4 Me

34. Pinoytek - Make Money Online and SEO Blog

35. Snigit(blogspot)

36. Snigit(.com)

37. Best Of The Web

38. Swat the Fly

39. Area3000

40. Shut Up And Eat

41. Find Torrent Blog

42. Cebu in the World

43. Web Design

44. Trestin Adventures

45. Ask Trestin

46. Trestin Autobiography

47. Trestin Ideas

48. Trestin Gallery

49. Trestin Games

50. Trestin Hall Of Fame

51. Trestin History

52. Parnell Forever

53. Trestin Political

54. Trestin Spiritual

55. Trestin Sports

56. Trestin Store - Yep, Each One Of These Are Different Blogs.

57. The Ordinary Agung

58. Il blog di Luca Marchi

59. What About Brazil?

60. Shri Rada Blog

61. Hawaiian Travel Blog

62. Hawaii Cruise Superstore

63. GadgetHeat

64. Over The Sky

65. Yavinator log

66. I Travel to Work do you?

67. Marketing Blog - Because Marketing Is Vital To Your Success!

68. Analyzed Marketing Solutions

69. The Small Business Marketing Blog

70. Add Your Blog Link Here!

*– End Copy - Paste This List And Join! –*

Don’t forget to comment on Brad’s original post. Also, why not leave a comment here!

***

Jump in on this experiment by copying & pasting, and adding your blog link at the end of the list. Be sure to leave a comment on the original post and also on this blog.

I hope you enjoyed this Internet Marketing post on The Small Business Marketing Blog! Until next time…

Happy Marketing,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Add me as a friend on Stumble Upon.

Technorati Tags: small business marketing, marketing experiment, technorati authority, internet marketing, marketing secrets

Popularity: 10% [?]

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We’ve been online for quite some time now, and have seen a lot of websites…

I don’t know if it’s just me, but when I get to a website and it has poor web design, it turns me right off of whatever they could possibly be telling me or teaching me…

If I came there with the intention of buying a product or service, I am immediately dissuaded from following through with the purchase…Why is that?

A website may be all that someone knows of you and/or your product or service. If they get there and it is messy, unorganized, poorly formatted, or simply not interesting, they are likely to leave and quickly! They’ll likely be looking for somewhere else to spend their money.

…The thing is, you may only have a few seconds to entice the customer to stay put and search through your site. Make it easy to find what they are looking for…make it visually appealing and interesting for them…Goodness knows, it’s not difficult to find some good looking sites out there, even with products that may be inferior to yours.

You may have the best product in all the world, but it if you have terrible web design, no one will ever know it…

Okay, so how in the world do I create an amazing web presence?

Maybe you don’t know programming, html or javascript, and that’s okay! Absolutely okay…It’s getting easier and easier to just plug in an application on your site, or simply find some great web templates to try out.

If you can, it’s always lucrative to use free templates, but it can now be quite inexpensive to find “thee” design you have to have for a reasonable price.

Kenney and I have created a bunch of websites in our day, and when we see a good resource, we take note…

???????? ????? ????????I “stumbled” upon a site called DreamTemplate.com and they give you 300 free templates to choose from and use…Not only that, they are selling unlimited access to all of their templates for $59.95.

From what I can tell, they have nearly 3000 web templates on the site in every category you could possibly think of…From vivid color and very creative, to super professional and conservative. Check out this one…It’s luscious: Apple & Sky

There are some really unique templates I’m crushing on in actuality…I’ve got my sights set on them for some new ideas I’m planning…

Considering, this is how you make your money if you’re an online business, it’s well worth that investment to ensure you have a website with good design, gains your reader or customer’s interests, and has good functionality.

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I hope you found website to be a Good Resource from The Small Business Marketing Blog! Until next time…

Happy Marketing,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Add me as a friend on Stumble Upon.

Technorati Tags: web templates, web design, web template, free web templates, free templates, website template, website, internet marketing

Popularity: 19% [?]

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There’s an old saying that you should find a need, fill it, and you’ll get rich.

It’s not really true. You need to find a want and fill it. People don’t always want what they need. They need to eat right, but they don’t. They need to stop smoking, but they don’t. They want to be more healthy. You want to sell them what they want, but give them what they need.

Your prospects and customers are people just like you and me and they’re going to respond to messages similar to ones we might respond to. They’ll get turned off by the same things and exaggerations that we do. Filling their needs and wants typically involve things that we’ve talked about - convenience, long-lasting, time-saving, better-looking, more functional stronger guarantees, better service, etc.

We never know which hot button is their buying button. We need to test one feature or benefit against another until we discover what their hot buttons are. Your objective is simply one of matching your marketing mission to the functions of the products or services that your business offers. If your business offers products and services that by design are problem solvers, then you need to use this function in your marketing approach.

You want to exaggerate and accentuate the types of problems they may have because your product or service will solve them. Point out a problem in detail and tell just how your product or service is designed to solve that problem.

Here’s an example. A diet program. You don’t want to sell the powder or the vitamin, but you want to sell better confidence, better health, greater attraction, and long life.

How do you uncover their real wants and desires? If you listen, you’ll discover the customer talking back to you in many ways. They might speak directly with you, your employees, the media, other customers. You have to pay attention. You’ll hear more of what they don’t want instead of what they do want.

They might say prices are too high or there’s not a big enough selection or the quality isn’t high enough. That’s telling you the opposite of what they really want. However and whatever they say - listen to them! You’ll learn something every time you do.

Happy Marketing,

Kenneth & Kimberly Edwards
Founders of FinancialBreakthrough102.com

P.S. Free Report for Business Owners. Tired of not enough sales and profits? Discover ways to sell more, cut cost and double profits with tons of low-cost marketing strategies revealed all in detail…

Financial Breakthrough 102

Technorati Tags: FinancialBreakthrough102.com, Financial Breakthrough 102, marketing, small business marketing, small business

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Since those of you who read this blog are business owners, you must be concerned with hiring employees, and making sure those people are fine, upstanding individuals to keep your business on the “up and up”!

The hard work you put into marketing your business can be shattered if you have some Better Business Bureau complaints, investigations commenced, or charges filed against you, etc.

Problem is, how do you find out what type of people you are hiring?

Many business are turning towards Criminal Background Checks.

A little extreme, you may think…Well, not really…If you have a business that has anything to do with children or children’s products, you probably aren’t going to want to accidentally let a known child sex offender on board…That’s a vivid case…

However, if your business is one of financial services or requires employees to acquire payment information, you may not want a convicted felon for fraud taking orders…Criminal Checks could alleviate some problems you might encounter in situations such as these…

I say all of this to tell you that I “stumbled upon” a neat service online at a site called SentryLink.com, which does National Criminal Background Checks.

They can check felonies, misdemeanors, sex offenders and more at state and county levels. Their services also include the ability to pull credit reports and driving records.

I guess I don’t need to harp on why this is so important, I just wanted to share it with you because I thought it could be indispensable when hiring for your company.

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I hope you find this a Good Resource from The Small Business Marketing Blog! Until next time…

Happy Marketing,

Kimberly Edwards

P.S. Add me as a friend on Stumble Upon.

Technorati Tags: criminal background checks, background checks, criminal checks, pulling credit reports, driving records, credit reports, private investigating, hiring employees

Popularity: 21% [?]

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Well, just wanted to say “Hello” since I’ve been away for 1 week up in cottage country in Ontario!

I had a very relaxing time “Up North”, spending most of my time on the beach and in the hot tub!

I’ll be back on it tomorrow with some great posting for the week! I’m looking forward to it!

Until next time…

Happy Marketing,

Kimberly Edwards

Technorati Tags: vacation, Ontario vacation, travel Ontario

Popularity: 49% [?]

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