Why do you do any marketing or advertising?It’s probably not just to put pretty pictures into the world… Or kill trees…

You want to get clients or customers, right?

Sure, a big goal is getting the attention of your ideal client and letting them know what you have to offer. But just doing that is not enough.

The real goal of marketing and advertising is to get people to take action. Whether that’s calling for an appointment, going to your Website, walking in your store, or busting out a credit card and buying something right now.

The thing is, most entrepreneurs forget all about this when they put together their marketing materials. So they spend a ton of time and money creating attractive pieces that are basically just a bunch of company info.

They talk about their company, what they do, how they do it and who their clients are. Then stick their contact info on there, send it out into the world, and wait for something to happen.

Only it never does. Or if it does, the results are nowhere near what you’d hoped for. Sound familiar????

If so then you’re probably asking . . . —– Why aren’t I getting good results? —–

Well, it could be the benefits of what you offered weren’t clear and compelling.

Or your writing style wasn’t friendly, readable and engaging.

It could also be you didn’t get it in front of the right People often enough.

But let’s say you did all those things, and still didn’t get any response. There is one more, critical thing that might be missing. And you can add it to every piece of your marketing and advertising to dramatically increase response rates.

What is the magic, response boosting item????

A “call to action”!

—– What, exactly, is a call to action? —–

Fundamentally, it’s where you tell someone exactly what to do next if they are interested in getting what you’re offering.

On TV infomercials, it’s where the announcer says “Call 1-800-buy-this within the next 30 seconds to get your super juicer and the special, bonus slicer-thingy for just $9.95″.

In a print ad, it might be “Visit www.dogtricks.com to get your F*ree report 7 Fun Tricks You Can Teach Any Dog”

Or “Call Jennie at 867-5309 and mention this offer to save 50 percent on your first massage” on a brochure.

On a Website, it could be as simple as “Visit my services page (insert link) to learn more about what I can do for your business…” Even a “Buy Now” button is a call to action.

—– Why is a call to action so darned important? —–

I always say, “If you don’t tell someone what to do next, there’s no telling what they might do.”

Life is busy and full of interruptions. Even if someone is ready and willing to buy, they might not be sure what to do next if you don’t tell them. Or they could end up going to the bathroom, answering the phone, or clicking to another Website as easily as calling you.

That’s where a clear call to action comes in!

—– How do you create a powerful call to action? —–

STEP 1: Decide exactly what you want someone to do after they read your ad, brochure, Webpage or whatever.

STEP 2: Make them an offer they can’t refuse. These days, a free consultation isn’t enough. A lot of folks think this will just be a sales pitch-filled waste of time. Ditto for just saying sign up for my f*ree e-newsletter.

STEP 3: Tell them exactly what to do to take advantage of your offer. IE: Do X to get Y

STEP 4: Make it painfully easy. Put the phone number, link, Web address or BUY NOW button right there. Don’t assume they’ll take time to find it in the small print on the back of your brochure or your contact page.

STEP 5: Whenever possible, add an incentive like limited availability (only 10 left!), deadlines, or special sale prices. People are busy. The more reasons you can give them to take action now, the more likely they are to do so. Just don’t lie.

That’s it. Give ‘em a good reason to take action . . . Tell ‘em what to do . . . And make it easy as pie to do so. You’ll be amazed at how many people take action once you do.

Source: IdeaMarketers.com

No business in the 21st Century is successful without effective marketing campaigns directed to promoting the products or services it offers. Many organizations realizing the importance of marketing, have dedicated separate departments to this faction of the business. A similar scene has unfolded on the internet, nowadays all the major and minor websites and blog owners are looking to somehow increase the number of visitors. While some want to sell their online products others are simply advertising on their websites and want to earn through more people clicking on these ads.

Several new techniques and ways are being employed by webmasters and bloggers to attract more and more visitors which will have a great effect on their earning. Many webmasters hire professional free lance writers in order to submit fresh and inquisitive articles about topics of common interest. Another popular method to pull huge number of visitors to your web site is by organizing an online contest. Such contests not only have an official sponsor but also attract people who want to earn easy money. The contest can be of any type including online games and puzzles; the most popular and common contests organized on websites are involving games of pool and snooker.

But starting a contest is not enough as you will have to make efforts to promote it as nobody is aware of its existence. Effective marketing strategies can be utilized to promote and boost your online contest. First of all the basic step is to announce the contest on the Homepage of your web site or blog. But it is also essential to do so, on every page of the website as many visitors miss the starting page as they follow links from search engines.

Another major way of creating awareness of your contest is to inform your subscribers through newsletters and messages but you must make sure that your message is not taken as a spam. Such a mistake can backfire as the reputation of your website is on the line. An additional line explaining about the latest contest started on your website can be added to your email signature as well. By doing so you will make sure that every receiver of your email knows about the details of your contest.

Many people have also started online stores where their digital products and other items are on-sale online. In order to cause increment in the sales it is important that the number of visitors on such websites must be increased. ‘Firesale’ or ‘Blowout’ is an essential marketing strategy that ensures that more and more customers are attracted to your online products.

‘Firesale’ means to lower your product prices to the lowest level in order to pull customers, and after substantial market of your products is created, you start asking for the price that your product really deserves. This marketing technique is similar to the ‘Dumping’ done by many nations of the world in order to create solid markets of their products abroad.

‘Firesale’ is extremely well received by buyers as they get good products at the lowest prices and in turn they become your marketers, letting their friends and relatives know about your products. But it is essential that the quality of products that you offer are up to the mark otherwise your whole ‘firesale’ campaign may end up in smoke.

Effective marketing skills are also required in order to ensure that ‘firesale’ attracts maximum customers. You may even have to spend a bit in order to advertise about your products on good websites but soon all the revenue will return as the chain of events started by a firesale will create a solid market share for your products and loyal customers will continue to buy them even when you raise the prices to the required level. The use of these marketing techniques is the key to promoting your websites and blogs and through their effective use huge number of traffic can be directed to your place on the web.

This article is courtesy of BiggestFiresaleEver.com. BiggestFiresaleEver.com has brought together the top 100 internet marketing experts.This will be the biggest internet marketing contest of its kind and the biggest firesale will also include some of the best selling marketing products on the internet contributed by 100 top marketers.