What makes you stand out from other businesses in your industry? This is one of the most basic yet most important questions any business has to be able to answer in order to get ahead and run a successful business. You need to be known as the expert in your industry. So how do you do this?

One of the easiest ways to do this is to write a regular column for a local publication on a regular basis. If you are an expert in your industry, and you should be if you are in business, you’re ability to give valuable information to others and educate them on the aspects of your business can easily be one of the easiest ways to get your name known out there and quickly become known as the expert in your industry.
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In any business, top of mind awareness is critical to keep ahead of your competition. Using newsletters in your marketing mix is a great way to keep in touch with customers and prospects alike. Using newsletters in your marketing allows you to communicate with your customers on a regular basis by educating them, sharing great useful information with them and announcing any new products, services or specials your company has on a timed schedule.

You will have to decide if you want a printed newsletter or an electronic newsletter (or ezine). Though printed newsletters are more costly than electronic newsletters you might want to look at adding this in to your budget as you will get a much higher return and open rate from a physical printed newsletter than an ezine.

Ezines are great because there is no print cost and you can automate the process quite easily. It doesn’t cost any more to do a full color ezine than a plain text ezine which is great. They also can be delivered automatically and you don’t have to worry about postage costs along with print costs.
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One of the most overlooked ways of marketing a small business owner in the  traditional world is to build yourself as the authority in your industry. In the online world this is very common but most small business owners don’t realize how easy this is or how much this can impact their business.

What I’m talking about here is writing articles and publishing them. Most of the time when I talk to small groups I ask the question if they think they are writers. Almost no one says yes. Most of them actually look scared when they even think about this.

So why are articles so great to use to market your business?
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Today let’s start with proof reading the article you have been working so hard on.

When you have finished writing your article make sure that you proof read it at least twice, then set it aside for a day or two, so that you can go over it again when you are in a different frame of mind. That way you can view it as though you were the reader and this can help you to get a better prospective.
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Okay so you should have a good start on your article by now. You should have picked your topic, brainstormed some titles and even gotten a start on your opening paragraph.

Today we are going to start with credibility.

It is important to establish credibility with the reader. After all why should they listen to you, have you had this problem and if so how did it affect you and your business? When you solved the problem, what benefits did it bring you and how did it make things better?
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So did you know that you can boost your search engine rank without even having your own web site? Obviously the best thing is to have a web site where your customers can go and learn about your company, find out how to contact you and even purchase your product right from your web site.

But some people are still a little scared of getting their company “on the internet” so we thought we would take about a way that you can kind of get your feet wet without having to jump into the pool head first.

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