Call for a free consultation
888.826.5953
Ideas and Opinions from Donald Trump and The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative Instructors.
One hour traffic system with Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising - The Scientific Approach
What do an empty shopping mall and your brand new website have in common? If you guessed "zero traffic" then you are correct! Your website may have the most stunning design in the world, you may have the hottest product or service on the market, but without traffic you're going to make just as much as that empty mall: NOTHING. In order to jump start your marketing efforts without waiting for Google and the other search engines to rank your website, you need a secret weapon: pay per click marketing. Pay per click marketing allows you to test your product, service
more...
4 comments
Search Engine Optimization For Entrepreneurs and Investors
The internet seems to be abuzz with new buzzwords and catch phrases every day. Initially, it was all about chat, IRC and newsgroups; then came Google; and now, we hear of the term Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) almost everywhere. To the uninitiated, this seems to be a mere online epidemic. Magazines talk of websites using the best SEO techniques, and so many businesses have sprung up to offer professional SEO. It is generally agreed that without SEO, your website has far less chance of being discovered.
But what does all this mean? What is SEO, and why should it affect anyone
more...
3 comments
The Untapped Online Market - Beyond the Americas
Overseas Consumer and Business Landscape - at a glance...
As the internet economy is gravitating towards maturity and a global landscape, business owners have the opportunity to expand their customer base beyond the shores of America. The easy and democratic accessibility of portals like B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Customer) sites have made the consumers in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and South America a potential goldmine for marketers. The realization of targeting the local populace has dawned upon every internet business owner worth their salt. While Google is indisputably the grand daddy of search and sales, there are many
more...
8 comments
The Power of Video Marketing
Video marketing is the new king on the block among popular marketing channels - not without good reason. You may be familiar with commercials from the television era, which have progressed to commercials and ads on the Internet during the current era of web 2.0. By now, people have developed a resistance that blinds them automatically to repeat commercials when they recognize that “hey, this is not information I am searching for but an advertisement trying to sell me something I may not need!” Marketing videos, on the other hand, are power packed with product information, visual description, and sometimes instruction
more...
2 comments
Social Media Marketing Strategies and Benefits
Strategies That Guarantee Benefits for Small Businesses and Investors
The day of obscurity is no longer a challenge to overcome. Social media marketing (SMM) has wiped out the concept of obscurity or the need for feverish marketing strategies to be counted among the who’s who in the business or professional yellow pages.
Social media involvement can help you keep customers, find and develop new ones, and manage your business reputation among other benefits. SMM as a new addition to your traditional marketing method is not at all similar to buying the latest fashion accessory. If that is the approach or mindset you adopt,
more...
4 comments
Wrestling, Ratings and Guerrilla Marketing
Guerilla marketing is a term that was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book of 1984, Guerilla Marketing. This is a form of advertising and promotions that depends on the unconventional. Imagination is key, and a big budget isn’t always necessary. Entrepreneurs use this technique, and it’s considered to be non-traditional--just what entrepreneurs are known for being.
A very good example of this would be the June 22nd WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) event that drew 6.8 million viewers. That’s a 25% increase in viewers from an earlier broadcast in June. Some of you may have heard of Vince McMahon, who owns
more...
15 comments
Sales and Marketing is 24/7
Last week there was an article on Forbes.com titled Genuine Business Lessons from Donald Trump by Shaun Rein, who is the founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group. He writes for Forbes on strategy, leadership and marketing, and I found his insights to be right on.
All of them are helpful to anyone interested in success, and here are a few for your review:
Trump has mastered the art of defining the core values of his brand and leveraging his brand equity to appeal to a wide customer base. In a time when consumers are seeking to stretch their shopping
more...
13 comments
The World's Greatest Branding Seminar Is Free!
There’s a spectacular seminar on branding and marketing running in the United States right now. It costs millions of dollars to stage with public classes across the nation, and it continues until November 4. You’ve guessed the seminar’s title: it’s the Presidential election.
There are serious issues at stake, of course, and we don’t want to trivialize those. At the same time, who can miss the dimension of pure marketing? No one in business should ignore the daily lessons we are getting on building brands and winning customers, with instant market feedback from almost daily polls.
Here are some of the topics covered
more...
5 comments
Trusting the Press
Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with the press. Over the years, they’ve written some pretty great stories about me. And, over the years, there have been a lot of lies printed too. I’ve talked to some pretty incredible reporters and some who are just horrible and seem to make up whatever they want to write.
If it’s that way about me, I know it’s that way about almost everything I read. So how do you know when to believe what you read in print or what you hear on the news?
If you’re skeptical, you’re not alone. Right now, more than half
more...
19 comments
Digg the Trump Challenge
As the person responsible for marketing at Trump Initiative I am always happy to find news about our company getting picked up on Digg.com. Today we found out a blogger wrote about one of our entrepreneurship tests. The test referenced in the blog rates your leadership skills against Donald Trump's qualities and the post received a Digg. If you are an active reader of this blog and want to help us push this particular story up we would appreciate if you could take a look at the posting and vote for us.
If you are not familiar with Digg you should check out the site since there are always interesting
more...
11 comments
Your Silly Business Idea Could Be Worth Millions
Think your business idea is sillier than Silly Putty? These days, I think it’s safe to say David Ogilvy’s contention that “it only takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers” no longer applies. The proof, my friends, is in the seemingly silly ideas that have managed to make these entrepreneurs extremely wealthy.
Christie Rein. In 2004, Christie Rein was over carrying her baby’s diapers around in a freezer bag. So, the 34-year-old mother decided to do something about it. She and her husband designed a custom diaper bag that was big enough to hold a travel pack of wipes
more...
5 comments
Make More Money from the Customers You Already Have
If you ask a group of entrepreneurs how their enterprises could make more money, nearly all of them will give you the same answer:
“We need more customers.”
That is a smart answer. The broader your customer base, the greater your profit potential. Yet smart entrepreneurs can also increase profits by targeting their current customers more effectively.
Growing with current customers has two main advantages over finding new ones:
1. You already know your current customers and what their needs and priorities are.
2. You are already in contact with them, so you have opportunities to persuade them to purchase more.
The key to making more from your current customers is to
more...
8 comments
Five Customers You Need to Know
If you’re a new entrepreneur, your daily to-do list is already a mile long. You’re hiring, managing your managers, getting your systems in place, bookkeeping and all the rest.
But how much time to you spend thinking about your customers?
If you’ve been too busy to think about them, you’re making a serious mistake. All business failures can be traced to a lack of knowledge about customers’ identities, wants and needs.
Here are five groups of customers you need to meet and get to know.
Current Customers
They could be past customers who are following you into your new enterprise, or the historical customers of a business you have
more...
7 comments
Why Customer Satisfaction is a Key to Effective Marketing
Customers are the source of all your financial returns - your revenue, profits and cash flow. Satisfying them while making a profit at the same time can be difficult. But doing so is the only way to remain successful over time.
Many books have been written about customer satisfaction, some of them quite complex. But any organization can manage customer satisfaction by following my COPS model, which stands for Culture, Organization, Process and Strategy.
My book The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative Marketing 101 explores the COPS model in depth. But here’s an overview that can help you review how effectively your organization is satisfying its customers
more...
4 comments
Sell to Your Decision-Maker
You have spent a lot of time thinking about who your customers are. Perhaps you sell educational products to young professionals with children. Or you sell moderately priced clothing to retired people on fixed incomes.
Yes, you know who your customers are, and that is essential. But the wisest marketers take it one level deeper. They sell more - by understanding the roles of all the decision-makers who participate in a decision to buy.
Let’s say, for example, that you own an auto dealership. One day a family of five comes into your showroom. They aren’t just a demographic group. They all are involved
more...
3 comments
Writing Good Advertising Copy Is Not as Easy as It Looks
Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw, John Marquand and Stephen Vincent all tried their hands at it and gave up. And even Aldous Huxley said it was easier to write a decent sonnet than an effective ad.
Writing good marketing copy is no easy, breezy walk in the park. And there are plenty of people who have tried to spin great marketing tales and failed miserably. Oh sure, there are plenty of people who call themselves copywriters, but that doesn’t mean they are any good at it.
Marketing writing is a specialized skill. One that requires the talent to stop prospects dead in their
more...
4 comments
Pinpoint Your Ideal Buyers and Renters
Who are the ideal buyers for your properties? Who are the ideal renters?
You may have heard other real estate investors divide their prospects into housing segments such as empty-nesters, yuppies, first-time home buyers, move-up buyers, the age 55+ market, and, more recently, the Hispanic market, the Asian market, and even the Islamic market.
Although any or all of these labels might stimulate your thinking, never let them determine your market segmentation strategy.
I learned that lesson during the 1990s while I was conducting my Stop Renting Now! Seminars throughout the country. My seminar attendees fit no specific demographic. Their ages ranged from 25 to
more...
3 comments
You Are Your Brand and Your Brand Is You
Brand-Building Wisdeom from Bud Bilanich, The Common Sense Guy
As a small business owner whose brand is me, I recognize the importance of personal branding. I am a keynote speaker, executive coach, organization effectiveness consultant, and author. I am my business; therefore, my brand needs to speak for me.
When I decided to brand myself, I began by asking everybody I know a simple question. “When you think of me, what is the first thing that comes to mind?” An overwhelming number of people said, “Your common sense approach to business and life.” My first reaction was, “Uh oh, common sense doesn’t make for much
more...
7 comments
The Color Purple: Marketing Lessons from a Revitalized Broadway Play
Nobody ever accused the Broadway play “The Color Purple” of being a masterpiece. After it opened its doors in New York in 2005 and got lukewarm reviews from the critics, it soldiered on like many New York shows do, attracting audiences of suburbanites, tourists and conventioneers.
Enter the Star
Then Fantasia Barrino came along and stepped into the lead role of Miss Celie. You remember her - the charismatic, sandpaper-voiced dynamo who won American Idol a few seasons ago.
Suddenly there was real star power in the cast. The show’s producers, much to their credit, didn’t wait for the world to beat a path to the
more...
4 comments
Don't Be the Missing Link
I had a conversation last month with the programming director of a radio station in Boston. He was complaining about how difficult it is to convince companies to advertise on his station.
“Why is it so tough?” I asked.
“Because we have no way to document how many people actually hear the ads we are trying to sell,” he replied. “So when a company advertises with us, they have very little idea what they are buying. There’s a missing link in our business, which is the direct and measureable connection with listeners. Cable TV has it, the Internet has it, but we don’t.”
He
more...
7 comments
Spend Your Marketing Dollars the Smart Way
Great advertising doesn't have to be expensive. Consider these low-cost, highly effective marketing strategies that Prof. Don Sexton teaches in his Marketing Mastery Program at The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative:
Identify your competitors’ weaknesses and target them directly. Be the only car dealership dealer in your region that offers Saturday service hours or wifi in your waiting room - or be the only health club in your region that has a babysitter on staff. Then trumpet that advantage in your ads.
Deliver your marketing message through tightly focused media. If you are targeting young families in just a few towns, putting handbills or posters in daycare centers can give you
more...
12 comments
Make Marketing Maestro Part of Your Day
If you’re eager to learn more about marketing without spending a cent, I’d urge you to visit Marketing Maestro, one of The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative’s family of blogs.
Created and moderated by Josef Katz, The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative's Director of Marketing, Marketing Maestro goes where wimpier blogs fear to tread. I'm not kidding! One recent post explored how a small company called TerraCycle, which makes a fertilizer that contains worm poop, is using its blog to do battle against a giant competitor, Scotts Miracle-Gro.
You’ll learn a lot from Marketing Maestro. Free and fun, it’s another part of The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative’s efforts to make useful, profit-maximizing information available to our members.
more...
3 comments
Build Your Personal Brand
Your brand is how people think of you. Tom Peters says that “a brand is a trust mark, it’s shorthand, it’s a sorting device.” Think of the well-known brands that you know - Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dell computers, iPods - all of them are shorthand for a product. When you think cola, you probably think Coke or Pepsi. When you think computers, Dell probably comes to mind. When you think portable music players, iPod is probably at the top of the list. Some brands are so strong that they have become a generic name for a type of product - think Aspirin, the
more...
10 comments
Two Marketing Mistakes that Kill New Businesses
What are the most disastrous marketing mistakes that new entrepreneurs make? Now that our Marketing Mastery Program is entering its second successful year and we have worked with hundreds of students, we can answer that question with some certainty.
The two marketing problems that most new entrepreneurs need to overcome are cockiness and laziness. Let’s take a closer look.
Cockiness - You can hear this attitude in the words of one student who told instructor Don Sexton, “I don’t need to worry about marketing. People would be crazy not to buy my product.” That’s backwards thinking - or worse. People will never be
more...
10 comments
Nine Simple Secrets of Great Advertising
The television show I was watching last night was punctuated by some pretty crazy ads. I saw flying cars and a talking toilet.
To judge from those ads, you might think that you need to be a creative advertising genius to get your customers to buy anything from you. Not so. These classic approaches can get your message across simply, without breaking your advertising budget:
Target the competition by giving facts about why your product or service works better, costs less, or has other basic advantages.
Just show your product attractively. (This doesn’t work if you have an ugly product.)
Showcase your brand. Just
more...
5 comments
A Georgetown Eatery that's a Marketing Masterpiece Too
I’m writing from Washington, DC. Two nights ago, my family and I had dinner at a terrific Georgetown eatery called Martin’s Tavern. This morning, we went back for breakfast. And if we were staying another day - you guessed it - we’d be going back for lunch.
It has been a long time since I’ve come across a restaurant with that much “pull,” as marketers like to say. In part, it’s due to the fact that Martin’s delivers great food, attentive service, spotlessness and all the other make-or-break restaurant essentials. But that’s only part of what has kept Martin’s going strong since
more...
8 comments
Your Small Company Can Market as Effectively as the Big Boys
If you're a small business owner, the word “marketing” can be scary. How can you compete with the big companies in your line of business? How can you catch up with competitors who have a head start in the race for customers?
The good news is, you don’t have to compete with them. You can set your own course and outdistance them.
In fact, there is a secret of marketing success that will actually give you an advantage if you are a small, new business. And that secret is focus. If you focus on your customer and focus your marketing efforts, you
more...
23 comments
Don't Drop the Marketing Ball
Five years ago I interviewed the man who founded a rather famous brand of outdoor clothing. Actually, he is pretty famous too, because his company grew out of his own activities as an explorer.
During our interview, he talked at great length about his company and his products. All his employees, he said, were hikers, snowboarders, sailors and explorers of other kinds. They wilderness tested every product before it went on the market. That was why every detail on his company’s garments worked so well. The special zippers could be opened and closed with your gloves on in a blizzard, for
more...
7 comments
What Public Relations Gives You that Advertising Never Can
A post on this blog a few weeks ago described the marketing traction that small businesses can develop by sending out press releases to local media. Today, I would like to add to that strategy.
The first step is to have your company contribute to the quality of life in your community. You could buy a new piece of medical equipment for a local hospital, offer jobs to local retirees, or sponsor a new playground. Once you have done your good deeds, send out press releases about your activities to local media - newspapers, radio stations, regional cable networks. They will be
more...
8 comments
Don't Leave Your Customers Stuck on the Runway
Customer service lessons from the JetBlue disaster
JetBlue is still recovering from its February fiasco at JFK Airport in New York. You remember - snow and extreme cold brought air travel to a standstill, but JetBlue decided to keep flying anyway. Its planes rolled out onto the tarmac and got stuck there, stranding passengers within view of the terminal. It was 11 hours until the airline figured out a way to get them back indoors. Then things got even worse the next day, when flight cancellations inconvenienced 100,000 more JetBlue customers.
Afterwards, JetBlue took steps to rebuild its customer relationships. The CEO, David Neeleman,
more...
11 comments
You Are Your Brand and Your Brand Is You
Insights from Bud Bilanich, The Common Sense Guy
As a small business owner whose brand is me, I recognize the importance of personal branding. I am a keynote speaker, executive coach, organization effectiveness consultant, and author. I am my business; therefore, my brand needs to speak for me.
When I decided to brand myself, I began by asking everybody I know a simple question. “When you think of me, what is the first thing that comes to mind?” An overwhelming number of people said, “Your common sense approach to business and life.” My first reaction was, “Uh oh, common sense doesn’t make for much
more...
1 comment
Learning from Lonely Farmers
It’s no big news that there are a lot of single people in the world hoping to hook up with that special someone. Some of them join dating services. Some go online. Some ask friends to fix them up on blind dates.
A group of lonely Welsh farmers came up with an interesting idea. They put singles ads on milk cartons with their photos and the slogan, “Fancy a farmer?”
The single farmers say that they don’t meet many people of the opposite sex. It’s no wonder. They spend their days out in the countryside feeding, milking and cleaning up after cows.
I hope
more...
43 comments
Create Wealth from the Customers You Already Have
You probably don’t think of your customers as expenses. But if you add up all the money you spent to win their business, you will discover how costly they really are. To win them, you spent a lot of money on advertising, salespeople, a Website and other marketing initiatives too.
Customers are costly. In fact, many businesses report that it takes more than a year before a typical customer represents a profit, not an expense.
What is the solution? You could go on spending money to win more customers - and you should. But you need to do something else too:
You need to
more...
15 comments
The Art of Driving Your Competition Crazy
“The purpose of competition is not to beat someone down, but to bring out the best in every player.” - Walter Wheeler
One of the signs of a boom - or at least a boomlet - is that companies start wanting to drive their competition crazy. This occurs when “survival” is no longer an issue and optimization or maximization can become a corporate goal. However, the desire to do things to the competition can lead a company astray - or drive it to even greater heights.
Companies go astray when defeating the competition becomes more important than taking care of customers. When companies become
more...
12 comments
The Great Marketing Information Giveaway
You’ll be glad that you stopped by today, because The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative is giving away some of the most powerful marketing ideas available anywhere - information that can make your enterprise vastly successful in today’s competitive marketplace.
Better yet, we are not giving away this information next week or next month. You don’t have to send us an email to request it either, because we have already given you all this information in recent postings on this page.
In case you missed it, here it is for you. So grab that mouse and get clicking.
Learn how to build your brand. (Trump Blog Post of
more...
6 comments
Press Release Power: How to Get $Millions Worth of Advertising Oomph for Free
Here’s a marketing strategy that’s literally too good to be true, because . . .
You can master it in an afternoon.
It costs you nothing - literally zilch.
It performs as well as expensive advertising.
It is renewable, meaning that with just a little ongoing effort from you, it will keep producing good results.
I am talking about writing press releases. If you spend just a little time reviewing the information in this post today, you can achieve the results I describe above, or even better. Plus, you can get started today.
What You Need to Know
What are
more...
6 comments
Know Your Customer, Create Your Success
I'd like to ask you a very basic question today:
When you become an entrepreneur, will you know who your customers are?
That's an interesting question, because there are so many ways to answer it. As an experiment, I asked our Executive Editor Barry Lenson to call three entrepreneurs and ask them that question. Here is what they told Barry:
Entrepreneur #1 answered, --Well, I know who my customers are, but I have never actually spoken to any of them.--
Entrepreneur #2 said, --I have spent a lot of money on focus groups that told me what my customers like, and don't like, about my
more...
3 comments
Your Marketing Is Your Company
In my blog post this morning, I would like to confront a rampant misconception about marketing.
It is that marketing is something that a company does - just another activity like HR, accounting, training or product development.
I would like to blow that misconception to bits. Because marketing is not something your company does.
Marketing is your company
Nor is your company bricks and mortar, or even a Web page. Which leads me to another statement.
Your company is your customer
If you don't orient everything you do around your customer, you don't have a business. If you doubt what I am saying, let's consider the life
more...
5 comments
The 101 Percent Formula for Entrepreneurial Success
If you are starting a new business, the day will finally come to stop planning and start interacting with your customers. That day is of critical importance. Ultimately, it will determine your success or failure.
To get the most from that moment, I recommend an approach that I call giving your customers 100 percent of your promise, plus an additional one percent. How can you deliver101 percent of your promise? Let me explain.
You start by answering this question:
What is my promise to my customers?
Let's say, for example, that you are starting a company that will install swimming pools. If that is your
more...
3 comments
Marketing: Tapping the Well of Desire
Thousands of years ago Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, "There's nothing new under the sun."
Was he right? Depending on your frame of reference, we might agree wholeheartedly that nothing changes. People still care most today about the same things they cared about then: what they eat, who they marry, what they buy, what they wear. They called it vanity then, and we call it vanity today. But if we look into the big picture, we can see that everything changes. Can we ignore thousands of years of human innovation, technical progress, scientific understanding? And what about our cell phones, TVs, and computers?
more...
5 comments
Categories
Technology
Self Improvement
Management
Networking
Finanical planning
Negotiating
Commercial Real Estate
Success
Television
Foreclosure
Client of the Month
Trump Organization
Leadership
The Apprentice
Mobile Marketing
Ask Donald Trump
Careers
online marketing
Financial planning
Wealth Creation
Career
Housing Market
Sales
Wealth Building
Career Planning
Entrepreneurship
Selling
Current Events
Real Estate Investing
Investments
Apprentice
Financing
Real Estate
Trump Blog
Asset Protection
Education
Tax Lien Investing
Donald Trump
This week at The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative
Buying a Business
Personal Finance
Property Management
Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Search This Blog
See how you stack up against Donald Trump take our FREE entrepreneurship test.
Blog Roll
Trump's Official Apprentice Blog
Trump Initiative's Marketing Blog
How to Change the World
Tom Peters
Conversation Marketing
Freakonomics
Marketing Excellence Blog
Rajesh Shakya
Trump Initiative Books
The Trump Initiative Real Estate 101 Building Wealth with Real Estate Investments
Commercial Real Estate Investment 101 How Small Investors Can Get Started and Make It Big
Archive
Copyright © 2010 The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative
