5 Easy and Effective Holiday Marketing Ideas for Your Business

It seems that, at least in the US, the holiday season starts earlier and earlier, with Christmas cards taking over most of the card section of any store right after Halloween (if not before!).

And while it bugs me to hear holiday music over the store speakers while I'm shopping for my daughter's Halloween costume (because by the time Santa does visit, I'm quite tired of dreaming of a "White Christmas"), as far as planning on how to market for and during the holiday season for my business, it's almost never too early.

As you may know, one of the mantras of Client Abundance is "Giver's Get," in the sense that you are giving from a place of having no expectation of getting anything in return.

What follows are 5 ways that you can give in your business, feel really good about it, and reap the rewards from the Universe.

1. Thank your clients and customers.

An obvious one to do around Thanksgiving is to show your gratitude to your current clients and customers for their business. But you might be surprised at how few business owners actually take the time to do this.

It could be something as simple as expressing your thanks in a short email. Or you could send a thank you card in the mail. Or you could take it a step further and do what I'm doing this year - sending a postcard expressing my gratitude with a link to a special - and fr*e - gift to my VIP clients and customers.

Taking the time to say thank you goes a long way towards deepening that all-important relationship with your current clients and customers. If you do nothing else this holiday season, at least do this.

(See this article for many more ideas of how to show appreciation to your clients and customers.)

2. Give your ezine list a gift.

Your 'pot of gold' in your business in your email list of potential clients and customers. You should always be treating them well, but at least once a year, offer them a gift - no stings attached - just because...

This year, I'll be offering my second annual 12 Days of Christmas series to my ezine subscribers (that's you!), where they will receive something of value that will benefit them in building their business once a day for the 12 days leading up to Christmas. This was a huge hit last year, and it was a blast for me to come up with something new each day.

You don't have to offer 12 gifts, however. Just one will do very nicely as well.

3. Give a holiday coupon.

As a gift to your list as well as to give you a boost in your income, why not offer a coupon towards one or more of your offerings. You could offer a 2-for-1 coaching session, or a 20% off discount for one of your ebooks or ecourses, or you could offer a special price for the month of December only on one of your programs.

4. Give your affiliates a gift.

Your affiliates are also one of your greatest assets in your business. Show your gratitude to the folks who have chosen to join your 'sales force' by increasing their commissions for the holiday season.

Ideally, your commission rate should be at least 25%. Why not reward them further for promoting your offerings by doubling their commissions to 50%?

5. Give yourself a gift.

And don't forget yourself! If you haven't already, hire a virtual assistant*** to help you now so you can enjoy more of your holidays. You'll be so glad you did and you'll never go back to being a lone ranger!

I'd like to invite you to choose at least two of these ways of giving in your business to implement this holiday season. And then let me know how it goes - email me directly at alicia@clientabundance.com.

© 2006 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com

Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach™, founder of http://www.clientabundance.com/, and creator of "21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™, teaches coaches, consultants, online entrepreneurs, and self-employed professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit http://www.clientabundance.com/

What Makes Up YOUR Brand?

Your Two-Minute Brand Tip:
What Makes Up YOUR Brand?

Building a strong brand takes time. Even the most successful brands take years to develop…then refine…develop some more…and refine. So, what makes up a brand?

Here is your two-minute tip to building your brand.

• Explore and determine your core values and mission. What do you stand for in your business? Successful brands take a stand.
• Have a compelling story to tell. Why did you start your business? Some people start their business because they were seeking a better quality of life and health, so they found a business where they can enjoy optimum health and quality of life. Sharing your story helps make a connection with your ideal audience.
• Logo mark or word-mark. A logo is a graphic representation or symbol for a company name or product, often uniquely designed for immediate recognition. A word-mark is a logo created from type, such as FEDEX and Oprah.
• Clear, compelling tagline. Does every brand need a tagline? A tagline is useful to conveying what your brand is all about in a few words. The intention is to immediately connect and attract your ideal audience. A tagline is highly recommended, even if you are just personal branding yourself to apply to jobs.
• Build credibility and trust through consistent use of your visual and verbal brand messaging. This includes your colors, typography, images, logo, tagline, etc. Keeping these elements consistent through all of your brand communications is what helps build credibility, recognition, and makes your brand memorable.
• Communication style and reputation with your internal and external clients and vendors. Every interaction that you have online and offline contribute to your brand development. When building your brand, you always want to ensure that you are communicating in the way that you want your brand to be known.
• Build your professional biography and resume. An updated biography and resume is not just used for landing a job, it’s also utilized to attract clients and quality partners.

How does your brand compare?

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Article featured in the Hromada Brand Newsletter. Subscribe with Lisa Hromada at www.lisahromada.com and get a free e-book gift*

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Is your brand not up to par? We are about the change all that!
Rev-up for brand distinction beginning in 2010!

The Unearth Your Brand Excellence program is expected to arrive by the New Year. The Unearth Your Brand Excellence is a powerful preparatory course to building a brand foundation for your business to set you apart from competitors who seemingly offer the same products and services. In addition, the program is specifically designed to give you the tools to effectively communicate your unique brand promise. Are you ready for brand excellence?

Check out www.lisahromada.com for details coming soon

3 Keys to a Solid Brand For Your Business

Are you like many online business owners who are confused or stuck when it comes to creating a unique, memorable, and authentic brand? If so, you're not alone. I've been there myself, so I understand the frustration of feeling stuck on this whole branding thing.

But once I discovered that if I looked at it from a completely different perspective, that my brand wasn't just about my business, but about ME, everything shifted.

Creating your brand from the inside out allows you to fully step into your business identity in a truly authentic way. It's also the easiest way to stand out in the sea of others who do what you do.

So, if you're stuck, let me give you three things you must be clear on in order to create a truly compelling and unique business brand.

Strategy 1: What results do your clients experience from your service?

One of the exercises I do with my Platinum clients is have them generate a long list of the results their clients get from working with them.

You can easily do this right now. Just complete this sentence 30 times:

"The results my clients get from working with me are ___________________________."

If you get stuck, here's my secret: Send this question to your clients so they can tell you the kind of results you're helping them create!

For example, when I asked my own clients this question, here's some of what they shared:

"The results I get from working with Alicia are...

- clear, easy to follow instructions on strategic Internet marketing techniques

- insightful advice from a trusted mentor who understands my business

- generous knowledge and expertise, honest feedback and support, focus and direction

- more clarity on which steps to take to experience more alignment with my business/life purpose

- I now see the bigger picture and base my decisions on the 'whole' of my business, rather than just the next thing.

- stretching me in ways and areas that I could/would not do on my own.

- more clients, more money and more fun in working with my business.

- getting me out of my comfort zone so that I discover what is possible when I play a bigger game.

- more clarity and awareness around time sucking activities that I am engaging in so that I can STOP doing them.

Strategy 2: What are you an expert at? Once you have a solid and in-depth grasp of the value you bring to you clients and the results you help create with them, you should easily be able to define what it is you're an expert at.

Complete this sentence: "I'm an expert at________________________."

Strategy 3: What does your brand promise?

Let's take it one step further...

Your brand promise is a statement that is pretty specific. It's true regardless of the program, product or service you may offer. No matter what the program, product or service, it always fulfills your brand promise.

And just to be clear, I'm not talking about your marketing tagline. What I'm talking about goes much deeper than that, to the very core of what it is that you are so passionate about providing to others.

My brand promise is, "I passionately inspire women entrepreneurs to breakthroughs in their business so they create the life they ache for."

So, my Platinum programs, Online Business Breakthrough Brainery, 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System and Take Action Group, Coaching Cafe, and the rest of my offerings all fulfill this brand promise.

Here's one from one of my Online Business Breakthrough clients, Dale Carter at TransitionAgingParents.com:

"I provide trusted information and personal insight to inspire adult children to passionately pursue, for their aging parents, the quality of life their parents hunger for."

So everything that Dale offers to her specific market fulfills this overarching promise. Dale knows what she is an expert at and that shows up in her brand promise very clearly.

So, what does your brand promise? What is it that your clients can count on you for?

The formula for an effective, compelling, memorable, authentic, fun and fabulous brand is really very simple:

"I get X results for my clients, which makes me an expert at Y, which means they can count on me to provide Z."

Voila!

Alicia M Forest, MBA, 6-Figure Business Breakthrough Mentor, teaches self-employed professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create wild abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com

Power Up Your Brand: 4 Turbo-Charged Reasons to Brand Your Biz in 2010

Branding is a hot topic; When I attend networking events and introduce myself, I usually have at least a few people who come up to me at the end of the event to ask me what branding is all about, how it can benefit them, and what I do specifically as it relates to what they want to achieve professionally.

They often express that they want more people coming to their website, generate more sales, be able to express what they do without rambling on, and well...make more money. And those clients with whom I have worked in these networking groups to develop their brand have had tremendous positive feedback and noticed a significant difference in the success of their business.

So, how can branding yourself help you to achieve what you want?

First, a brief history of branding might help us get started on understanding why it is used. The term brand is defined as marking an object by burning into the surface indicating identity or ownership. Branding goes back thousands of years. Ranchers branded their cattle and potters branded their pottery and porcelain. As the concept of branding evolved throughout history, people began to associate branded items with certain characteristics and levels of quality, value, security, and honesty. Today, brands continue to play a fundamental role in expressing these same qualities and much more.

As a Personal Brand Strategist, I wholeheartedly believe that you need a strong brand to succeed in your business and stand out among all others offering seemingly similar products and services.


Here are four turbo-charged reasons to brand your biz to achieve more success in 2010:

1. Accelerate Your Market Valuation - The process of determining the value of a business's assets is not always dependent solely on the product (tangible asset), but the perceived value of the product through the emotional connection that is made with its brand (intangible asset). The market valuation of the majority of large corporations comes not from their tangible assets, but from the strength of their brand.

2. Attract and Preserve Quality Partners, Vendors, and Employees - Don't we all want to do business and be associated with strong brands? Think of the last time that you updated your resume to apply for a job or wrote up a proposal to bid for a large client project; we all want to list lavish experience with respected and well-known brands. It boosts our credibility and shines a light on our own professional brand. When you build a strong brand, others want to be a part of that.

3. Expand your product and services offerings - "The Global Superbrand" as he is called, Donald Trump exemplifies the meaning of a personal brand. From Trump real estate, television shows, hotels, and entertainment, to jewelry, books, vodka and even spring water, Trump's highly-recognized and well-established brand allows for easy access to successfully expand his product and service lines.

4. Charge more for the value of your brand - In a number of neuroscience marketing studies, it's been shown that people are willing to spend more for a branded product than a non-branded (generic) product. And don't we? Take Nike for instance: Ever think about why you'll pay more for a Nike or Adidas brand athletic gear, when there are multiple other comparable options at a portion of the price?

There is a strong sense of credibility, trust, and importance that accompanies a well-crafted brand, and it's not just for big corporations. Everything is branded; including you...you just may not know it yet.
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What's Lisa Up To In 2010?

Are you waiting to grow your business until the "right moment?"

That moment is here...and it's now.

The reason?
As a Personal Brand Strategist & Designer, I will be sharing my exclusive set of brand tips, secrets, and actions steps with you throughout 2010!

Who says branding yourself has to cost tens of thousands of dollars? Let the *big brands do that.

For years, I have been directly involved with an abundant array of marketing campaigns and brand development projects for corporations and now I am preparing to bring my techniques to you!

Consider the following high-yields programs, products, and celebrated services coming throughout 2010:

Services: Incomparable design packages you won't find with anyone else (including the majority of design agencies!)

Products: Take the guesswork out of brand marketing by immediately accessing resources, blueprints, guides and workbooks.

Programs: Expert advice, little-known techniques and a wealth of information await you in my 2010 programs. You may just achieve the remarkable and measurable results that you desire, beyond your expectations.

Workshops: Customized workshops created to build and enhance your company's image and find the balance and success that you desire.

All the tools you need to succeed and stand out!

My goal is to make 2010 purposeful and profitable for you as you create your power in the marketplace.

http://www.lisahromada.com for more information

10 Simple Tips to Creating a Strong and Memorable Brand

Creative and dependable brands trigger positive emotional responses and make a product and service memorable. Think of your brand as the sum of all of the meaningful elements of your business and who you are at your core. There is a reason why you do what you do; your business is part of who you are, thus your brand is in large part a representation of you. A well-defined brand identity becomes the foundation for effective marketing. The visual and verbal elements of your brand will create a substantial impression in the minds of your clients and the public at large.

Tell a compelling story about you and your business. Your clients and potential clients want to know your story. Stories help you relate to your audience personally and intimately. Your story will develop over time as you and your business grow. So, what is your story? Why did you start your business? How does your story relate to how you can help your clients?

Maintain reliable product and service. This is so important. Your brand builds over time and over time you build a reputation. Your reputation depends upon the consistent value you provide through your products and services. Take special care to always be aware of how valuable your unique products and services are to your clients.

Be sure that your online and offline communications are user-friendly. Exceptional client-service is also another important element to the value of your brand. Your clients want to feel special; they want to feel that in that moment that they need you, you will be there when you say that you will. For example, a client sends you an email because they have a question. Your auto-responder expresses that you will get back to this client within 24 hours; be sure that you do. This is one of your brand promises that you make to your client, and you always want to keep your brand promises.

Creatively express your message. When you know who your ideal clients are, you know what they value; you know what they respond best to when they encounter effective marketing. Knowing this, it is easy (and fun) to brainstorm ideas and images that you can use to reach out to your ideal clients. Your brainstorming sessions will give you creative ideas, and your clients, no matter who they are, appreciate creative ideas.

Consistent use of your brand elements—logo, colors, graphics, photography, and typography. Consistency builds trust and loyalty. It expresses that you know who you are and who are your ideal clients. Be sure that whatever application you use when marketing your brand (whether it is an online or offline application), that you are consistent in the use of your brand elements.

Communicate often, directly and personally, and listen to the desires and needs of your clients. Again, your clients want to feel special when working with you. Depending on who your clients are, the more personalized time that you offer, the more valuable is your service. In addition, the more attentively you pay attention to the desires and needs of your clients, the more valuable you are and this value may be the single element that sets you apart from others who offer the same services.

Offer a total brand experience. The most successful brands are those that stimulate all 5 senses. People remember better when more of their senses are stimulated when interacting with a brand. For example, if you offer an online article, you may also want to offer an audio version of the article. Some people connect better when they hear information and a person’s voice. In addition, because you are also offering the text version of the article, they are able to keep it and refer back to it.

Clearly communicate your values. Mom always said, “Actions speak louder than words.” This is especially true for your brand communications. For example, it’s one thing to say that you value your clients, and it’s another thing to actually show them in a special way that you value them. I recently ordered a program on CD and when I received it, I found that it was wrapped in pretty tissue paper with a “thank you” card attached.

Compassionately communicate and value the work you do with your partners and vendors. Your clients are not the only individuals who relate and create a relationship with your brand. Anyone with whom you work make a connection with your brand and you want that connection to be a strong and healthy one. Your partners and vendors also bring value to your brand by providing you with quality services that help you to provide the best for your clients.

Offer unique solutions to fulfill your client’s needs. Often, price is not the deciding factor for those interested in your products and services; it is the unique value and results that they get from working with you or purchasing your products. Be sure that every communication clearly describes the unique value of the results that you intend for your clients. You may offer the same type of service as someone else, but it is how you deliver those results that will set you apart and attract more clients.

Known to her clients as creative, enthusiastic and passionate, Lisa Hromada, personal brand strategist, designer, and creator of Brand Essentials Home Study Program, specializes in brand communication and design for women entrepreneurs and small business owners. For more information about Lisa's products, programs, and services, visit http://www.lisahromada.com