Every time I think I come across a weird niche, a stranger one comes across my screen.

So this week, I give the Marketing Maven Award of the Week to Belfry Sphinx. They appear to be breeders of two hairless cats: The Sphynx and The Kohona. Apparently there is a market for hairless cats. Soon, I expect to find a line of kitty costumes for hairless cats.

From the Belfry Sphinx website:

Sphynx have a high metabolism and they burn a lot of calories keeping warm. Besides having extremely good appetites they are extremely loving, extremely playful, extremely demanding, and extremely soft. Yes, soft! Their skin feels like the soft down on a child’s cheek. Extremely good natured…

Still I’m asked over and over again, “How could someone do that to a cat?” Someone didn’t… nature did! The Sphynx is a result of a spontaneous mutation, proving once again, that Mother Nature has the best sense of humor!

What IS a Kohana? The Kohana is the result of a mutation originating in Hawaii and is the ONLY true hairless breed of cat. It’s true! Kohana’s have no fuzz whatsoever… no hair follicles… Where a Sphynx feels like a warm peach, a Kohana feels more like a warm candle. To date, there are only 18 of these cats in existence, but they’ve stirred up a huge interest for such a small number.

So, I wonder how much a cat that feels like a warm candle costs?

Hugs, Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

Pssst… Hey You! Have you signed up for my ezine yet?

REMARKABLE MARKETING is a free ezine featuring more maven tips and strategies for business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. Click here to subscribe and get your free report: The Five Biggest Marketing Mistakes!

Twitter Love Me! 

So, Seth Godin has started a very interesting venture with Squidoo. It is a great concept that allows everyone to start their own “lens” even if they don’t have any HTML knowledge.

Squidoo is a community of lenses. An online lens is a single page highlighting one person’s view of the Web. It can be on ANY topic and features hundreds of modules from RSS feeds to Flickr photos to e-commerce links. What’s more, you can set up as many lenses as you like.

Seth Godin has written a free online book called “Everyone’s an Expert at Something” that you can get on the site (it’s in a PDF format).

In it he states,

“An Experiment: A big experiment. It’s an exercise in amplifying the voices of people with something to say, at the same time that we build a community, a site that’s free to use, a co-op that pays royalties to its members, and a way to raise millions of dollars for charity-from New Orleans to Tanzania.”

So, I am playing with lenses. They are simple and fast to set up. I set up two: Marketing Maven and Yoga Monkey. I started my yoga practice in 1995. Yoga is one of my ongoing passions so I thought it would be fun to set up a lens about yoga. Here’s a picture of me in One-Legged King Pigeon Pose or Eka Pada Rajakapotasana.

Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven (and Yoga Monkey)

Pssst… Hey You! Have you signed up for my ezine yet?

REMARKABLE MARKETING is a free ezine featuring more maven tips and strategies for business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. Click here to subscribe and get your free report: The Five Biggest Marketing Mistakes!

Twitter Love Me! 

What am I doing sitting up at 12:49 a.m. on a Saturday night? Good question.

Well, it’s true. I am a true geek these days. For the last two hours, I have been learning about how to install a forum, how to modify blog themes, and how to use Cute FTP to make these modifications.

And you know what else? I am excited about my progress. I LIKE doing it. So, yup - that pretty much confirms it. Full-blown geekdom. Next thing you know, I’ll be logging in by the hour to read the latest Slashdot updates.

Tomorrow? Off the computer and into my garden!

Hugs and success,

Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

Pssst… Hey You! Have you signed up for my ezine yet?

REMARKABLE MARKETING is a free ezine featuring more maven tips and strategies for business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. Click here to subscribe and get your free report: The Five Biggest Marketing Mistakes!

Twitter Love Me! 

Have you been trying to learn the ins and outs of online marketing? Well, so was I.

In the beginning of 2005, I decided to learn a LOT more about how to effectively market online. And so, I dove into the exciting realm of Internet marketing.

As a female business owner, I look to other women as mentors. “When I grow up, I want to be just like HER!”

So I began specifically digging for the most powerful female online marketers. I studied their websites, blogs, e-courses, ezines, and other information products.

And wow! I found women who play a BIG game and they earn a LOT of money online. I was so inspired that I asked these women to contribute their strategies and tactics so I could compile them together as a resource for others. And they said “YES!”

And, so I put it together into a single report. It’s now available online on my site: Women Marketing Online. you won’t find this anywhere else. This report is dynamite. It includes practically everything you need to start an online business.

I cannot believe how many things I have learned and how much I have grown as an online marketer since beginning upon my journey. I now have a blog, two online ezines, two websites, and I am in the process of creating a whole series of information-based products.

Hugs and success, Wendy

P.S. For those of you who are interested in promoting this product, there is an affiliate link on my site.

Twitter Love Me! 

To make more money with what you are already offering, consider different strategies to make it easier for people to purchase what you offer. Restructuring your pricing and packaging creates more options for your customers. Here are some examples:

1) Bundle ‘em. Offer your services in monthly increments. Instead of working with people on a session-by-session basis, offer a bundle of services. For instance, a personal trainer can offer sets of workouts for 3 months, 6 months, or a year. Add value by including a workbook to chart workout progress. You can also create levels of advancement to create more options for clients. Consider a silver, gold, and platinum program. Each level is a higher price and offers more value to your clients.

If you offer products, consider other ways to bundle things. For instance, a garden shop can put together a spring garden package that includes flower bulbs, a trowel, wildflower seeds, and gardeners’ gloves. A restaurant could start packaging their sauces and selling them to customers to take home. A life coach could put together a notebook and CD set to sell online.

2) Change product usage. Railroad ties are now used as decorative items for landscaping. I’ve also noticed that antique stores are offering faucets as coat hangers. And how about those stretchy bands that people use for workouts?

Arm & Hammer Baking Soda has this strategy dialed in. The product was originally for baking. On their website, the company also suggests you use baking soda for brushing your teeth, deodorizing your dog, extinguishing fires, cleansing your hands, rinsing your mouth, and for children’s crafts. As a result, a simple product that might only be purchased once in a while has been transformed into a must-have product.

3) Change your pricing options. Offer your customers an option of paying in installments. Give a discount if customers buy a service early or in bulk. Offer a credit card option or allow people to buy online. Give people coupons, discounts, frequent-buyer rewards, or loyal-customer rebates.

4) Offer it in a new way. A book or a workshop can be turned into a CD program. Certain prospects may not have time to read a book or attend a workshop; but with your new packaging option, they can listen to your program during their commute or at the gym on their mp3 player. A used furniture store could paint some of its chairs or old frames in creative colors and sell them as functional art.

5) “Plus” it. There is a term called “plussing” that comes from Walt Disney’s constant efforts to continually make an good idea even better. An example of this is adding a scavenger hunt game to the waiting area of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland Park. Hallmark Cards also uses the concept of plussing. When their creative team develops a new product idea, they invite all of their other divisions to follow a concept and spin off additional new products.

ACTION STEP: Take a look at your packaging and pricing. What well right now, but can be plussed or made better? How can your services or products be bundled? What pricing options can you add? How can your products/services be made to be even more remarkable? By providing a variety of options to customers, you will make more sales.

Sign up for REMARKABLE MARKETING: This free ezine featuring more maven tips and strategies for business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. Click here to subscribe and get your free report: The Five Biggest Marketing Mistakes!

Twitter Love Me! 

Lorrie Morgan-Ferraro of Red Hot Copy is an expert at teaching how to become a great copywriter. Copywriting is the single most expensive business skill to outsource. . . and the one directly responsible for making the most money in your business. Get this skill in your back pocket.

She has two cool events coming up (these events fill up fast!):

Lorrie’s Red-Hot Copy Bootcamp: A six-week group teleseminar. By the end of the course, you’ll know skills no one can ever take away from you. And you’ll find yourself tapping into them over and over again for the life of your business. (Heck, you may even want to take up copywriting yourself.)

Her live Speed Copywriting Workshop: At this event, Lorrie will teach you how to master the kingpin of all your copy – the sales letter as well as the strategic web of copy that supports it including order forms, autoresponders, confirmation letters, landing page copy, and stick letters. She is going to give participants the step-by-step layout of how to plug these pieces of copy together for maximum profitability.

Here is a guest article from Lorrie:

7 Steps You MUST Take Before Writing a Word of Copy

One of the biggest misconceptions new clients have when they come to me is I can whip out a sales letter in a few days. Wrong, wrong and wrong. A lot of preparation goes into writing copy. I spend on average 50% - 70% of my time PREPARING to write copy. If you don’t do your homework, the chances go up exponentially that your copy will fall flat on its face. Use this simple checklist to get you prepared for writing your own sales copy.

- Use the product or service yourself. I wouldn’t dream of writing copy about something I had never experienced. (If it’s your product, you may want to let someone else test it, then interview her about her experience.) It’s one of the fastest ways to get a complete understanding of its strengths and weaknesses.

- Research your target market thoroughly. If you know anything about the way I help others write their own copy, you know about the “tarket” concept. Basically it goes like this. Segment your market down by age, income, marital status, etc. Then write out a detailed description of ONE PERSON in your target market - your “tarket”. When you write, speak only to that person.

- Spy on the competitors. Make yourself a customer to your competition. Then study how they handle marketing and customer service from A to Z. Sign up for their ezines, study their websites, collect their direct marketing campaigns. Learn to think like they do. Soon the differences between your company and theirs begin to reveal themselves. Your unique selling position pops its head out!

- Anticipate objections by writing out the FAQs ahead of time. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think like she does. What questions come up for her that would stop her from buying? Expect those frequently asked questions to come up and address them in your copy.

- Identify the features and benefits. We already know people buy more on emotion than logic. So have a list of what your product or service does (features) and how each feature makes your customer’s life better (benefits). The more you can stimulate an emotional response in your client with benefits, the deeper the connection goes.

- Collect compelling stories from the client. Nothing pulls us in psychologically more than a good story. Humans are a storytelling society. It’s in our genes. So give them what they want. Get the reader entranced by your copy with a hard-hitting short story. Then connect it back to what you’re selling.

- Gather testimonials from happy customers. How often do you read a testimonial about how badly this product stunk? Not very often. Testimonials are designed to increase credibility. To put a face on people who have had success with your product. How it made them richer, happier, thinner. Let them speak for you. Your trust quotient goes way up!

If you follow each of these steps thoroughly BEFORE you sit down in front of a blank screen, you have all the elements you need for a successful sales letter. I know. I know. Putting the pieces to the puzzle together can be easier said than done. But no matter what your skill level is at today for writing copy, we all start from these same basic steps.

Thanks for the tips, Lorrie!!!

Hugs and success,

Wendy Maynard, Your friendly marketing maven

Twitter Love Me! 

Hi there and Happy Valentine’s Day! My sweetie, Nathan, brought my the most beautiful orchid to my office. It’s a deep purple.

Alice Seba is an incredible online marketer and her foundation for success is being sweet. She is offering an amazing special on her “Internet Sweetie” marketing system today only (February 14th)! It’s less than half off her regular price.

Click here to check out Alice’s Internet Marketing Sweetie Sale

Alice also has an information-packed FREE report that she put together on effective ways to get more visitors to your site. I highly recommend you read it. Click here to get Truth About Traffic.

Have a wonderful day and treat yourself to some chocolate. Mmmmmm…chocolate.

Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard,
Your friendly marketing maven

Sign up for REMARKABLE MARKETING: This free ezine featuring more maven tips and strategies for business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. Click here to subscribe and get your free report: The Five Biggest Marketing Mistakes!

Twitter Love Me! 

Well, I never cease to be amazed at the niches companies find to dive into. So, this week I give the Marketing Maven Award to a really interesting product.

Take a look at Cheerleader Hairpieces. And instead of trying to explain what these hair accessories do, I’ll just pull a quote from their site:

Cheerleader hairpieces have become part of your cheerleading uniform in most states they add style and a finalized neat appearance that is to any competitors advantage. Even cheerleaders not attending an event choose to add our pieces as cheerleading accessories. Our cheerleaderhairpieces brand has been called many style names such as cheer hair, cheerleading curls, cheer curls, competition curls and now with the introduction of our new straight styles we expect you will come up with more style names. What ever you call them , we know you will love them and have fun as a cheerleader above all…

Hmmm…if only I was a cheerleader.

Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard

Your friendly marketing maven

Sign up for REMARKABLE MARKETING: This free ezine featuring more maven tips and strategies for business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. Click here to subscribe and get your free report: The Five Biggest Marketing Mistakes!

Twitter Love Me!