Channels Networks Blog

There are several ways to get your business website noticed with internet marketing promotion. We will go over some options most of which are easy to do. What you are doing is finding ways to tell everyone about your business and giving them a link to your website. Some of these ideas will have a minimal cost but most are free.

One of the most important things you can do is advertise the website. You may advertise on classified ad sites simply place the website link along with a short description of your site. If you participate in forum discussions make up a signature line with your web link, these are allowed on most forums. Every time that you email someone use your web link in your signature line.

Let us discuss link exchanges. This is simply where you ask the owner of another website to place your link in their directory, and in turn you place their link in your web directory. It is nice the products you sell coincide with the products that your link exchange owner sells. For example if she sells crayons and you sell coloring books these two site coincide with one another.

To keep your business name in front of your customers why not start a newsletter. You may advertise sales, new products and articles relating to your business or products. Once in a while give your customers an incentive to visit your site such as a contest or something fun to get them interested in your products. Also include a couple of free items or a buy one get on free incentive.

In order for your business name to get noticed you need to do something totally different. Check other business sites to see what they do to get traffic. It could be a give away or a money saving sale. Keep your website looking fresh by changing the colors or adding content. Introduce a new product as least once a month. Your customers will continue to come back just to see what products are new.

You will find several other ways of promoting your business website online. Simply by doing a keyword search online and you will find hundreds of websites that literally teach you how to market you business. Think outside the box to get noticed people will love that. Do a little homework and before you know it you will have tons of website traffic.

Discover additional strategies on how you can grow your business fast with effective business promotion methods. Enjoy outstanding outcomes with these easy steps to start a successful Internet marketing promotion media campaign!

Hey, it’s time to down to work building our businesses as it seems the recession is not going anywhere. It’s time to empower ourselves, build our careers and businesses by kicking our marketing and publicity strategy up a notch! Is it as easy as it sounds? Anyone can add to the power of their influence and persuasion in their marketplace. If you want the edge, pack your professional bio and enhance your reputation by being the quoted or commenting expert in the news, on internet sites, on radio shows and on TV.

Use publicity, promotion and marketing strategies to stay visible to your target market. Demand your competitive edge by appearing in all the media that targets your market. Sure, this takes a lot of work but you can streamline the process by working with publicity professionals, at least for the big media. Businesses that are in a position to hire you are investing in outcomes that is, actually deliverable, you know – the ole “what’s in it for me”? Tell them what’s in it for them. Show them you are the only one they should hire as you are all over the internet and media as your industry’s pro. Now, this is competing to win!

How should you spend your public relations and marketing dollars? For the individual building a career or running a consulting/service oriented business the answer is to become known as an expert in your field, branding yourself as a thought leader and influencer. You want to be known as the person whose voice and opinions matter.

The secret to creating a strong presence in your field so get lots of radio interviews, TV interviews, quotes in magazines and newspapers and quotes on the internet news sites. These media opportunity allows you the opportunity to showcase your cutting edge, your ability to out-think and out-perform you competitors. Stay up to date with the news stories you can comment on, stay socially relevant and be sure whenever there is a story in your area of expertise, you are the quoted expert. Yes, it might be time to hire a publicist to help you as consistency is key once you are starting the momentum.

Imagine this scenario. You want to hire a financial money management advisor but you don’t know who to choose. You start asking for your friend’s referrals but then you notice a money management guy on your cities morning show. The expert looks great, sounds great and best of all, this expert seems to understand what your goals and objectives are as well as your worries. You will most likely give him a call, like to many others watching. This expert will enjoy the benefits of proving to you in advance that he is a good investment. Now, this expert should give you the service you expect and he’s got a new client!

Discover more strategy on how you can use the media strategy for business publicity please visit Annie Jennings PR. A good business strategy that uses TV appearances, radio appearances, expert quotes in newspapers, magazines and on the internet is key to enjoying substantial success in your goals.

If you write a book, chances are you want it to be successful in order that you are able to continue writing for a living. When you just start out, it may be difficult to be able to afford public relations services to promote your book. So how do you get your work known on little-to-no budget?

Some authors have realized there is a great need for information about writing books. They have therefore, cleverly, written books about how to advertise the book you have written. The tips in the books may or may not be useful, but what IS useful is how you have learned about their book in the first place. Make your own web page and fan site. No one needs to know that you do not have dedicated fans doing this for you. Write a blog. Make a funny video and put it on YouTube. Advertise on your social networking sites. Make your technology (especially free technology!) work for you.

You may actually be in a better situation financially if you live in a small town instead of a big city. Someone from a small town getting a book published is big news in that area. Residents will rush out to see what their neighbor was able to create. Local media and papers will focus stories on you, which is always excellent and free advertising. In a big city, no one would care. You must use every single chance you get in order to get your name out there.

That said, keep a little mystery around you and be very aware of your own appearance. You are selling both your book and yourself. If you are dumpy or trashy looking, do not speak articulately, tell dumb jokes, or reveal everything about your book during an interview, who is going to want to buy your novel?

You must play on everyone’s memories of you. Talk about the town’s influence on your writing, or your high school, or other local celebrities in order to give a place pride. Be humble. Remember that people will know your parents or remember you from school and will be eager to see what you have done.

Promote yourself as much as you can without becoming irritating. Do television commercials and put up posters. Making deals with local businesses can be a great business move. You just want your book to get out there, even if you are not making much money on it yet. It takes a while for books to pass from hand to hand and for viral advertising to happen.

Get more important information on how to implement book marketing principles to get lots of publicity. Enjoy the tremendous fun and success of a professional media campaign that focimplements on promoting books. You can reach your goals when you know the right strategy to implement.

If you write a book, chances are you want it to be successful in order that you are able to continue writing for a living. When you just start out, it may be difficult to be able to afford public relations services to promote your book. So how do you get your work known on little-to-no budget?

Some authors have realized there is a great need for information about writing books. They have therefore, cleverly, written books about how to advertise the book you have written. The tips in the books may or may not be useful, but what IS useful is how you have learned about their book in the first place. Make your own web page and fan site. No one needs to know that you do not have dedicated fans doing this for you. Write a blog. Make a funny video and put it on YouTube. Advertise on your social networking sites. Make your technology (especially free technology!) work for you.

Authors living in rural areas may actually sell more copies. It is nothing for someone from New York city to write a book and be published. Hundreds do it every week. But when you are from a small village in New England, people in your area will pay attention. You will get interviewed on local channels and by local papers. Use all of these opportunities, especially because it costs you nothing. Being a mysterious, reclusive writer should be saved for once you have actually become well-known. Then you can pick and choose your public appearances.

You must think about your own image when you promote yourself. Be a professional, above all else. Off-color or non-funny jokes will hurt your image, as well as if you dress like a slob. You also need to know just how much you should tell about your book. If you reveal the whole story, no one is going to bother reading it. Speak intelligently but do not alienate people with intellectual babble. You must be personable and just a tiny bit mysterious while still forcing yourself onto people’s radar.

Be professional, be courteous, be humble, and make your audience wonder a little. Remember that if you are in a rural area, people will say, “I remember that person from high school!” or “That’s So-and-So’s child!” They will want to see what you have accomplished because there is a definite history there.

You cannot be shy when it comes to advertising. Do absolutely anything you can (without making a negative impression of yourself). Do commercials, be in local magazines, even put up fliers yourself. You must be a business person. Sign autographs at a local book store. Make deals with companies who promote you and give them a cut of books they help you sell. You goal is to climb to the next tier of celebrity and then the next, as selling your book is your livelihood.

Access additional tips about appearing on TV shows, Radio Publicity and Business Strategy using the media now. Enjoy the substantial benefits of publicity and promotion for yourself and your business.

Most organizations use tools such as the intranet, emails from the CEO, Town Hall meetings and blogs as a means for the CEO to communicate with employees. However this focus on information tools whilst necessary in letting employees know the details of what is happening do little to engage employees with the reason for change. This is especially true when those changes relate to a merger or acquisition, a restructure of the organization, the announcement of financial results or other complex change messages. In these instances an engagement strategy needs to be designed to ensure that employees truly embrace the reason for change.

Transformational leadership is about engaging employees in changing behaviours to support the new business objectives. However whilst information is important, as part of leadership communication it only serves to provide information on what is changing and when, it is not an engagement tool.

Here are 5 tips that will ensure that your leadership communication methods do achieve those outcomes.

1. Step one is reviewing all the current tools and methods you use to communicate with employees. You need to scrutinize the content of that communication and determine whether it is one way information or whether some could be adapted as an engagement tool.

2. The second tip is important because your ultimate aim as a leader has to be to create the “Aha Moment” for employees. The “Aha Moment” is based on information that challenges the employee’s belief about an aspect of the business. The information that suddenly helps employees say, “Now it makes sense”, “Now I understand”, “Now I can do something about it”. Once you know what the “Aha Moment” is this will form your key message and the basis of your design of your employee communication strategy.

3. This third step is about conducting focus group research to find out what employees actually think about a particular topic and then what information you have to counter their views and to create a change in how they think. The objective is to find out what information will make employees stop and say, “Aha! now I get it”. Once you have the answer to this it is easy to design engagement strategies that will focus employees on the change to the organization and the work that they do.

Focus groups are a good format as they allow issues to be explored further and sometimes will uncover issues or ideas which hadn’t been considered prior to the session. Focus groups generally are held for one and a half hours duration and in groups of 8 – 10 participants. The facilitator’s role is to lead the discussion but leave the actual dialogue to the participants, bringing them back to the main issue if they have gone off on a tangent or to ensure that all the topics that you wanted to cover within the allocated timeframe are covered. A well facilitated focus group will identify the key messages for your communication strategies as they relate to a particular business issue.

4. The fourth tip is that once you have the focus group outcomes, you can then begin designing leadership communication strategies that engage employees. You should have a clear understanding about what employees know and what the facts are, and the gap between the business facts and staff perceptions. This forms your key message to create the “Aha Moment”.

5. The fifth step is to take the key information that you have gathered from the focus groups and then identify a business issue that you feel certain your transformational leadership strategies can impact. The advantage is that by making use of that information you are then able to create a personalized leadership communication approach that will be measured against business results.

When you have gathered all the outcomes of the focus groups you will then be in a position to identify the key messages and data to bring about change in your organizaiton. Transformational leadership is about understanding what is of concern to your employees and what they need to know to support your business objectives. Development of an employee engagement strategy that focuses on “Aha!” moments and information is the essence of transformational leadership.

For more information make sure you obtain our excellent free report on how to design transformational leadership strategies.

Don’t worry, you dont’ need a lot of money to edge out your competitors when targeting and marketing to land new clients. It’s about branding and marketing for success. The foundation of a strong branding and marketing program begins with the concept of over-delivery. Make sure you are prepared to do more for the client than any of your competitors can deliver.

Put yourself in your client’s mindset. Do they want to throw their money away on useless products and services. Of course not. Your target clients want to know what they are buying and how doing business with you can increase their desire to provide strong and more powerful benefits to their clients.

A very powerful branding and marketing strategy is to get booked on TV shows, radio shows, in print such as newspapers and magazines. This sets you way apart from you competitors, creates expert status for you and is a very smart and fast way to rise to the top.

Make a difference in the lives of your clients. Teach them what they need to know to excel using your products and services. This way, your business becomes an investment for them in that they expect to earn a return on their purchase with your company. Also, by actively engaging in your client’s success, you fuel your creativity to build new products and services that truly meet the needs of your marketplace and avoid the products and services that lead to nowhere.

The idea is to stay aware of how you fit into your client’s success model. Stay invested in your clients success and their desire to build a stronger more powerful set of services or products to offer to their target market. If your goal is to help your clients grow you will become essential to their business strategy. Be a critical part of their ability to serve their market.

Access more key branding and marketing strategies to experience your ultimate competitive advantage. Hear real stories of experts, consultants and businesses that accomplished tremendous success at real branding and marketing success stories Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory

This publicity and book promotion article includes publicity media strategy and book promotion tips to use while working with the media and getting publicity for yourself. You’ll learn the importance building expert status and of creating a media website that showcases your expertise, the importance of getting top notch testimonials to put on your site and in your media materials, why you should strive to know the news of the day so you can be a socially relevant book author and expert who can talk about the issues of the day. Plus you will learn why media training is a major key to your success.

Book authors and experts can create a powerful and effective media and publicity strategy. However, to do so, the author or expert will need to understand the basics of publicity and media strategy so they can create the most relevant publicity outcome.

One of the publicity tools is to create a website especially for the media. This website should showcase what the media needs to know about you. The author expert media site includes information about yourself, your book and includes additional material such as your professional photo, a demo video of a previous media experience, your media bio that links to any media coverage you may have secured, your professional bio that showcases your education, experience, credentials and accomplishments. Testimonals are important too so be sure to use the ones from influential sources as they will empower you as well.

One of the secrets of a successful media outreach to to become a socially relevant author or expert who can comment on the news of the day. Follow the news stories that allow you to tie in your expertise and offer commentary. Blogging is a great way to learn how to comment on the news and apply your knowledge and experience to the issues

Get comfortable speaking to the media and sharing your thoughts by getting some practice and training before you get started with your pubicity strategy. Media training is the key to being ready to speak to the media in a way the positively showcase your talent and expertise. You’ll want to show the media that you are media savvy, professional and are able to discuss your commentary with them.

Knowing the tools of the trade will help you avoid the mistakes that many authors and experts make in their publicity and book promotion efforts. Once you create and apply the publicity tools necessary you will be able to enjoy media exposure with confidence.

Annie Jennings is a recognized expert in book promotion. To set up a free consultation please go to book promotion. To listen to audio recordings of book promotion success please go to publicity. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

If you want to dispel the anxiety growing in your workplace, build a foundation of trust built on communication. When times are tough, the workplace rumor mill swings into action act quickly. Therefore, managers need to communicate openly and honestly with employees to stop rumors in their tracks. Here are five tips to help managers ease employee anxiety.

1. Availability

As a senior leader, you need to be accessible and visible to your employees. When there is a problem, don’t wait until all the details of the solution have been fleshed out before informing your workers. Instead, inform them of your progress along the way as the decisions are being made. In uncertain times, it is more important than ever to be accessible. You’re not just there to share information with the workforce, but to build trust with them along the way, and dispel rumors as they spring up.

2. Don’t Hide From Bad News

Your workforce knows times are rough and that the company will need to make changes to adapt, so there is no reason to keep bad news from them. Trying to pretend that all is well will only result in a distrustful workforce, and communicating with them will become even more tough. The best course of action to stop rumors and gossip is to communicate openly with your employees about the changes that are planned. If they trust that you will give them the updates and information they seek, your employees will stop gossiping and wait to hear the truth from you.

3. Aim to Give Personal Information

Its easy to deliver bad news via memos or e-mail communication. While personal communication takes more time, it is key to the continued productivity of your employees, which is a core priority. Studies have shown that trust is developed through face-to-face communication as well as that your message is more clearly understood via personal delivery methods. While there is always the chance that you are asked a question you don’t have a good answer to, this should not be an area of concern. Your employees are much less concerned with your perfection as they are with your honest effort to communicate directly and keep them in the loop.

4. Be Attentive

It is a massive advantage of face-to-face conversations that the communication is two-way. Your employees may be able to suggest solutions that will help the situation, but this is not the only advantage of listening. Knowing that their thoughts and reactions have value to you will inspire your workforce, and will help them to feel a part of the company and with you as their manager.

5. Acknowledge the Unknowns

Be honest with your employees about the knowns and the unknowns. They will understand that you don’t know all the answers yet, and will trust you more and understand the situation better by being told where the uncertainties lie. It is not productive to promise things you can’t yet deliver, it is better to discuss the chances and prospects for success.

Communication is the foundation of a good management team, and the only way you will get your employee’s best performance. Above all else, make it a priority to communicate truthfully, candidly, and without hesitation.

Wendy Mack is a professional mentor, trainer, and author focusing on leading and communicating change. Contact Wendy at, or get her free e-book, Transforming Anxiety into Energy at www.WendyMack.com.

The current state of the economy makes it very difficult to inspire employees to perform at their peak levels. They are concerned they may lose their job, and the negative emotions keep them from performing at the peak levels needed to keep the company operating successfully.

You must help your employees discover the best course of action to stay focused on producing results for the company. My experiences have taught me that there are four areas of emotion that help people move from disabling fear to empowering action. These are:

Control Optimism Purpose Engagement

Here are tips for helping employees move from anxiety to COPE feelings.

1. Control

The prosperity of our country seems out of control, and this is a key reason for so many people’s fear. No one wants to feel out of control. As a manager, a critical job is to help your staff cope with the uncertainty they face by helping them see where they can regain some control over their futures.

It’s true that many parts of our current economy arte difficult to deal with, but there is really nothing to gain by worrying over something that is out of our control. It would be much more productive to concentrate on empowering your employees to improve productivity and customer service, specific areas that they do have an impact on and control.

As a leader, it may be necessary to relinquish some of your personal control to give your employees the empowerment they need to feel they are making decisions that will improve the company and their lives. A manager that tries to force their opinions on a staff will create nothing but suspicion and antipathy from their staff. It is critical that your employees are fully involved where they can make a difference.

2. Optimism

Optimism never fails as a key tactic of leaders throughout history in inspiring troops, transforming floundering companies and even revolutionizing nations.

It’s your job as a leader to motivate your employees to keep a positive outlook and give their best performance. Studies show that hope, optimism, and other positive emotions promote the qualities your company needs to cope with the economic downturn, such as innovation and creativity. Employees who address problems with and attitude geared toward action and solution will produce the results you need for your business to be successful.

3. Purpose

When people are working on the tactical details of day-to-day operations it’s easy to become myopic and stressed about the short-term. Look for opportunities to remind employees of the greater purpose behind their work and the organization. The simple act of stating, “what you do, matters” helps to energize people and inspire action.

According to the Sr. Vice President for North American Operations of H.B. Fuller, Jim Owens, senior management’s job is to be clear with the employees as to what goals they, and the company as a whole, should have, as well as to provide a positive way to achieve those goals. Jim stresses that it is critical for a manager to make sure the employees are not left to interpret their and the company’s purpose and fill in the blanks themselves.

4. Engagement

The final element of the COPE model is engagement. Engaged employees understand and care about what is happening and what the company’s strategy is for moving forward. They also feel that they have meaningful ways to contribute.

Engagement means actively involving your employees in looking for solutions. When your organization is dealing with challenges, provide opportunities for your employees to get involved in problem-solving. Doing so not only increases employees’ sense of control, it also unites your organization and helps you come up with solutions!

Sashco Sealants, a Denver based company just recently asked the staff to provide their ideas for cost saving within the organization. They received dozens of ideas, which they shared weekly with the team leaders of each function within the company. Senior management encouraged the team leaders to take the ideas to their team to implement and report back the results. Significant savings within the company have already been achieved.

The COPE model of leadership in change is a positive, proactive leadership tool that will help you to realize the most from your employees, as well as provide a creative, innovative, purposeful and productive work environment to your staff.

Wendy Mack is a professional mentor, coach, and author with a focus in leadership and change management. Contact Wendy at, or Download her free e-book, Transforming Anxiety into Energy at www.WendyMack.com.

Since our current recession officially started in December, 2007, more than 40,000 employees have been laid off by US organizations as part of their overall strategy to improve shareholder value through cost cutting and profit increasing measures. Unfortunately, studies over the past two decades have shown that most of the time layoff initiatives rarely actually achieve those objectives. Rather, the studies have shown that less than 50% of organizations that cut staff and employees actually increase their earnings, and about a quarter of those companies realize a decline in profits instead.

Why don’t layoffs produce the returns executives hope they will? It’s the people factor. Employees are emotionally and psychologically traumatized by layoffs. At a time when it’s critical for employees to be engaged and productive, they are demoralized, fearful, and distrustful. That doesn’t add up to a recipe for business success.

I, along with my colleague, Deanna Banks, Ph.D., have researched over the past 6 months various techniques available to leaders to invigorate their employees after a downsizing has occurred. We found that certain types of leaders are more successful than others at enabling staff to recuperate from the damage that layoffs cause.

What Not to Do

Many employees we interviewed told stories of managers attempting to extinguish any opportunities for the remaining staff to express their emotions resulting from a layoff. One example went as far as a ban on employee socialization at coffee breaks, or in hallways and offices. It is a common desire among senior management that their employees “get over it”, and the sooner the better, and they don’t understand or make any provisions to deal with the anger, frustration and fear their employees are feeling. Their solution is to move on and accept that it is what it is.

It is a fact that in highly emotional situations such as that caused by a layoff, people can’t just shake it off and move on. It is critical they are given the chance to mourn for a period, share their concerns and frustrations, and work through the confusing emotions they are experiencing. If management tries to rush this process and stifle the concerns the employees are expressing, the situation will only become more turbulent.

What To Do

Whenever a layoff takes place, everyone involved is forced into a state of disruptive change. Most researchers agree that people’s emotional responses to change follow a fairly predictable pattern.

If people on your team are suffering through emotional reactions to layoffs, you can’t force them to skip ahead. You may be ready to charge the hill, but they won’t rally behind you. Rather than trying to get people to immediately move forward, your job is to help them progress through the normal cycle of change.

I found it interesting to learn that the best tactic a manager can take is to match his or her actions to the employee’s emotions. However, this does not mean that the manager should respond to an employees emotion with the same emotion (e.g. resentment with resentment). Rather, the manager’s goal is to distinguish the underlying need that the employee is communicating with their behavior, and do his best to meet that need, which will allow the employee to move on.

Our studies discovered that those leaders who are successful:

1. Minimize panic by communicating often.

2. Express concern when faced with anger.

3. Answer anxiety by being clear and concise.

4. Reduce grief and hopelessness by using supporting behaviors.

It will be much easier for emotionally supported employees to focus on the job at hand and remain committed to the organization. They will look to you as their manager for direction rather than feeling suspicious and sad. They will also be much more likely to take risks and work creatively rather than become stalled in the what-ifs that could take over their thinking.

It’s true that there is no magic cure to successfully survive a downsizing, however, the chance of a company’s ultimate success can be highly improved through the method in which the layoff is approached, how those staff members let go are treated, and how management supports the surviving workforce.

Wendy Mack is a professional advisor, mentor, and author focusing on leading and communicating change. Contact Wendy at, or Download her free e-book, Transforming Anxiety into Energy at www.WendyMack.com.