Love it or hate it, an effective marketing plan can make or break your business. Great advertising equals power in the marketplace. Potential customers tend to relate your product, services and abilities to the ads they see. In other words, if you have a great campaign, they’ll probably have a better opinion of you-versus no opinion at all if they don’t know you exist.

The most important thing to remember is that the goal of marketing is to generate results for your business. If you don’t see benefits from a particular marketing expenditure, reconsider it. Advertising is expensive no matter where and how you do it. Having a balanced and effective strategy you can track is the best way to reach your audience while getting the most for your money.

Have a plan - Having no plan is a plan. It’s just not a very good one. Sit down and think about your budget and target audience (customers). Think about where else you could allocate funds, and who you want to notice your business.

Size it up - Develop a plan that stays within your financial and strategic guidelines. One suggestion is to set aside a set percentage of your annual net profit. As your business grows, so will your marketing budget.

Be consistent - Your marketing reaches a lot of people who don’t need you today. They need to know who you are, what services you provide and why you’re the best option for them-and they must be reminded on a regular basis.

Track your efforts - If you don’t know whether your ads are bringing in business, you have some work to do. Ask clients where they heard of you. Monitor incoming inquiries to learn if a promotional giveaway, yard sign or ad was responsible for the calls.

Focus on quality - Converting inquiries into real business is an important part of marketing. In other words, the quality of the leads matters more than the leads themselves.

Market online - While marketing online can be cost-effective, it is not necessarily the be-all-and-end-all of brand awareness. In fact, nearly three-fourths of respondents to Deloitte & Touche’s “State of the Media Democracy” study said they would rather read the printed version of a magazine even if they can get the same information online.

Does this mean you should cut off your online marketing efforts? Absolutely not. The message here is: Keep your campaign balanced.

Eliminate poor investments - Don’t keep marketing in a certain media or sponsoring events just because you always have. Take a hard look at your return on investment each year, and drop ineffective strategies. Keep your money where it will benefit you most.

Source: Margaret Kelly, RISMedia

Jonathan Budd shares some extra money making tips for online businesses and marketers out there!

Have you ever read the book Richest Man In Babylon? It’s a great book and I highly recommend it. Once you have completed the book you’ll look back and think, why didn’t I already know this. It isn’t rocket science, but the knowledge in the book is priceless.

I wanted to talk about one idea within the book that has really made an impact on my life. Here is the thought: “A Part Of All You Earn Is Yours To Keep”. Basically this means that when you get a paycheck or any type of earnings you need to pay yourself first. For example lets say you pay yourself 10% of all you earn. You’ll want to take this 10% and put this money to work for you. Re-invest it into possible businesses, stocks or bonds, any type of investment that will create some value to you over time.

I personally prefer re-investing this % into ideas that will provide a passive income for me. Passive income is an income that will pay me each month, without me having to work for it. A lot of people have created a nice passive income in using rental properties, each month when they receive their rent check and subtract the mortgage payment, the extra cash is theirs to put where they please.

I recently found a website that is currently earning me a passive income as well, it’s called Prosper.com. This website has opened up a whole new outlook on financial lending. It’s a consumer to consumer lending service, that cuts out the bank and the higher interest. There are plenty of good people out there looking for a business loan, but don’t want to pay the interest rate. Also there are a lot of people that are tired of paying the high interest rate on the credit cards, so they come to the site consolidate them all into one payment.

I used to put my money in an ING Direct savings account at 4.5%. But now I currently earning back a 14.5% annual return on my money, over a 3 year period of time. The site is an awesome concept, and I am really enjoying help other people out.