7 Key Marketing Skills You Should Work On

Author: Igor Kheifets

7 Key Marketing Areas

There are a total of seven key areas you should be focusing on if you want to breakout of mediocrity. Whether you\'re affiliate marketer, network marketer, blogger or web designer - these skills apply to you. In fact, they apply to anyone who is even remotely connected to marketing and sales.

90of Internet Marketers spend 90of their time on irrelevant and inefficient activities. The sad part, however, is that most of them don\'t even realize that they\'re leaving A LOT of money on the table. I believe that such behavior is caused by the fact that most of them lack Courage.

Courage of Being Honest With Thyself.

Becoming Aware of Your Weakest Skill

The first step of Personal Development in any area of life and business is admitting that there are areas that need improvement. In order to become great (or at least above average), you need to find out exactly which area needs the greatest improvement.

The same applies for marketing. You need to find out which one of the 7 Key Marketing Areas is the one that needs your immediate attention. Admitting that you have a weak point is essential because just like a weakest link in a chain, the weakest skill in the marketing skill set will be the first one to collapse and drag you down.

1. Lead Generation

Lead generation means that you need to attract qualified prospects that can and will buy your product or service within reasonable amount of time (preferably within minutes!)

Lead generation should be very focused. It is not enough to drive traffic - you need to monetize that traff very carefully. You should spend more time interacting with targeted prospects that are going to provide you with instant revenue to reinvest in other marketing areas.

2. Authority

Authority Rules. People will not buy from you unless they trust you, like you and believe that you\'re a trusted expert with a friendly agenda.

No one likes to be sold to, right? I bet you don\'t like it either. So don\'t try to 'sell' to others. Spend more time becoming an authority in your niche. You need to become a trusted source of information, give advice and provide guidance to those in need.

Only by giving a lot of value you can hope to get something in return. You need to give more than you expect to receive from your prospects. Most of them won\'t appreciate what you do, but there will be plenty of those who do, those who will become loyal to you for the work that you do which will eventually lead to a healthy business relationship.

3. Customer Needs

The single biggest mistake you can make is to assume that you know exactly what your prospect\'s needs are. Each and every prospect is unique. He may require the same product as the rest of your customers but his REASONS for purchase are Different!

Every prospect is unique, special and different. Each prospect has a different set of dreams than the one before him and the one before that one. You need to have genuine interest in the prospect in front of you. You need to address his every question, worry, need and desire in an unselfish manner so he feels that he has been understood - which is something we don\'t get much these days.

4. Sales Copy

This is where you need to address those needs, worries and desires in such a way that the prospect can\'t think of a single reason why he shouldn\'t buy your product or service. Moreover, it should describe your product\'s benefits in such a way that your prospect won\'t be able to imagine his life without it.

Sales copy is usually presented to a qualified prospect. Its job isn\'t to 'sell' your product or service to a 'cold' prospect, its job is to convince the 'hot' prospects who are familiar with your product yet hesitate to make the call.

5. Handling Objections

In order to be a truly effective marketer you need to learn to answer objections effectively. Most of the time it would be done via your sales copy, therefore you should spend a large chunk of your time talking to prospects face to face to find out what fears, worries and objections they might have.

Before you sit down to write your sales letter, it is best to show your product to several potential customers and simply ask them what questions they might have if they were presented with an offer to purchase it.

This is a simple yet very effective technique to get into your prospects head and address all their needs and worries at the moment of purchase. This will make their defenses go down faster than the value of the dollar.

6. Closing the Sale

Which one of those two types of marketers are you?

#1: You carefully thought through every single detail of the sales process. You know how to ask the right questions at the right time and your calls to action timed just right.

#2: When the time to close the sale approaches you suddenly break into cold sweat. Your feet start shaking and you go into a state of semi panic not knowing what to do next.

The customer senses your level of stress, fear, panic or any other sign of inconvenience you might project. It is very important to carefully plan the whole process of selling from start to finish so you don\'t feel lost in front of your prospective business partner.

You need to understand the art of selling before you can write a compelling sales copy, that\'s why all the Copywriting Experts always compare writing a sales copy to a door-to-door salesman. You need to get a feel of what it means to be standing in front of the customer to really get in touch with your inner Dan Kennedy.

7. Long Term Profits

Last but not least, you need to develop strong long term relationships with your existing buyers so they buy from you again in the future. You need to make sure your customers are ultra-satisfied so they can provide great testimonials as well as numerous referrals.

According to Seth Godin in 'The Purple Cow,' the 'sneezers' (satisfied customers who recommend your product to their associates and friends) are the key to a successful business. In fact, those 'sneezers' may be the only thing that will determine your success, because there is no better ad than a recommendation from a friend.

The Next Step

After you have carefully examined each and every key marketing area of your business it\'s time to take the weakest area and improve it. And when you\'re done with it - move to the second worse and work on that one. And the next. And the one after that.

That\'s a proven formula to at the very least double any business\' revenue in 30 days or less.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-business-articles/7-key-marketing-skills-you-should-work-on-1182938.html

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