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The "Get Profitable Update" e-newsletter delivers original,

valuable and usable marketing information, success tips, and business strategies that you can use immediately to increase your revenues and profits.

Published by Clark Marketing Group, Inc. © 2000 Issue No. 0012-A

You are receiving this e-newsletter because you signed up for it at the GetProfitable.com website sometime in the last 12 months.

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Home Page Online Poll: Results

Marketing : How To Create a Powerful Marketing Campaign, Part 1 of 2

Entrepreneur Success Story: Teen Entrepreneur Teaches Seniors Internet

E-Commerce: New TLD's Approved by ICANN. What does this mean for the dot.com addresses?

On our home page at www.GetProfitable.com we have an online poll where we survey visitors about different related business and profitability topics. The following is the result of our most recent poll. When you get a moment, don't forget to go back to our home page and vote on our newest survey so your voice will be counted and represented in the next result.

Question:

How long have you been an entrepreneur in your current business?

Results:

1 - 6 months: 25.6%

6 - 12 months: 13.3%

1 - 2 years: 16.7%

2 - 5 years: 20%

5 or over: 24.4%

Wow, look at the new entrepreneur start rate! Good luck and good profits to all of you just getting started. I also congratulate the almost 45% of those surveyed that are still in business over two years with nearly 25% over 5 years. Great work fellow entrepreneurs!

Stay Profitable.

Creating a powerful marketing campaign for your business must first begin with understanding the needs of your prospective customer. Your prospect has specific needs and desires that relate to your product or service. While we all think we understand this simple concept, many business owners actually look right past it.

We try to impose our thoughts about what our customers want or need upon our targeted marketplace and then don't understand why they didn't rush out in droves to buy what we offer them. The reason is because until we can clearly identify those desires we are unable to precisely determine how to construct a meaningful marketing campaign.

There is an old marketing question that asks, "How can you aim your rifle when you don't know whom or what you are shooting at?" Yet I see it all the time with my clients that they do just that. Does it surprise you that many business owners waste a lot of expensive marketing money without ever hitting their targets?

You can be the exception. All is takes is a bit of logic and the willingness to invest a little time and effort. You can start by asking yourself these questions.

• If I were a prospect that was getting solicited by my own company, what would it take to get my attention?

• What promise would I want fulfilled?

• What needs am I really looking to have met?

After you have answered these questions, now ask yourself: "From my answers to the earlier questions, what needs and desires are my competitors missing? Now go back and list what needs and desires your competitors are satisfying. This exercise is a crucial element in planning a successful marketing campaign. The reason is that you must focus on that single need that you can fulfill that your business can perform better than your competitors.

This strength now becomes what you craft your "Brand" and your marketing campaign around. Your customer will see that you have designed your sales message around this promise for a result or benefit that you can offer better than anyone else.

This may sound hard but it really isn't. Let me reduce it to simple terms. Find out what needs and desires your prospect wants filled. Then do whatever you have to do to find out what optimum fulfillment promise would bring your prospect the maximum result, the most satisfaction or the best benefit. But don't make it harder than it has to be.

Let's pretend that you are creating a new marketing campaign for your business. In this case let's use a service business but if you are selling products you will get the point. Logical questions would include:

• What can I do to show more interest in my customers than my competition does?

• How much more service can I offer to customers than my competitors do?

• What specific added value benefits can I incorporate that others don't?

• What specific things can I do to insure that my customers understand how important they are to me?

• What specific needs should my service fulfill.

• How can I communicate my branding and marketing message to prospects so they know what differentiates me from my competition?

• How can I persuade my customers that they are being treated with professional interest and courtesy?

This is a good place to start when you are first designing any new marketing program. In our next issue we will get even more specific with some hard-hitting questions and information you can use to create your next new powerful marketing campaign.

A New Hampshire Teen Starts Business to Teach Seniors About the Internet

In the news recently I ran across an story about Cory Pierson who has gone from being a senior in high school to an entrepreneur who teaches senior citizens how to master e-mail and the Internet. In his new company called, "e-Magazine," the 19-year-old travels to retirement communities and conducts workshops on how to use computers to seniors.

According to the story, Cory has been using computers since he was 2 years old which makes him perfectly qualified for this new venture. You see learning how to talk was a challenge for Pierson, who was born with cerebral palsy, and so his software designer father developed programs to help him communicate. As a result e-mail is not only the focus of his career but an important form of communication for him as well.

Unsatisfied with the jobs available to him after graduation, Pierson decided to start his own business. He concluded that the idea for his business became clearer as professionals in the area couldn't offer him the type of job he was capable of according to his father, who is also named Cory.

During his workshop presentations, Pierson reads aloud from a notebook while an assistant named DeeDee Rice operates a computer slide show to illustrate his points.

Ms. Rice, who also works part-time in the Bow High School special education department, said Pierson's desire to help senior citizens drew her to the job. She is quoted as saying, "Here is a person who was told at a very young age that he would never walk or talk," she said. "To have come this far and have this marvelous skill that he wants to give back to people who were once active and are no longer is amazing," she said.

Like any entrepreneur now that the company is in place, Pierson's goal is to recruit more business. He also is seeking corporate support to keep the workshop fee low and to purchase computers for senior centers so his clients can access e-mail once they have learned the skills.

Merrimack County Telecom in Hopkinton was his first corporate sponsor. In deciding to support the young man Marc Violette, Director of telcom services said, "The thing that caught my eye was Cory's idea and how it would benefit people. Senior citizens are the fastest growing customers in the Internet market, so his business is on the right track."

If you need inspiration to get going or keep you going in your business, this ought to do it. This young man is doing the same things as his peers and maintaining control over his own life. He has done the things that any successful entrepreneur must do by capitalizing on his skills and abilities and creatively carving a niche for himself in the marketplace. And in doing what he loves I'm sure he will be profitable in more ways than one.

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Very recently ICANN the Internet domain name regulating body unanimously selected seven new top-level domains (TLD). They are: .biz, .info, .pro, .museum, .aero, .coop, and .name.

So the questions we must now ask ourselves are:

• How those of us with the current TLD names will be affected?

• Should we all rush to register the new TLD equivalents of our

current domains?

• Will dot.com remain the standard for online business, or will the

new domains gain traction?

• Will prices being paid for dot.com domains, already under pressure,

collapse as a result of the new TLDs?

• Will cybersquatters grab the new TLDs and extort holders of

dot.com, dot.net and dot.org equivalents? How will this be

policed?

Well this is all yet to be determined but I thought I would chirp in with my own opinion about the new suffixes. The statistics that I researched in writing my new book, "How To e-Brand Your Dot.Com Business" which will be published any day now, is that about 6,000 domain names get registered every day. That is why there is a much needed reason to approve the new TLD's.

But I do not think that just because we have these new names that it will relieve the demand for a dot.com URL address. The reason is that dot.com has become the flagship for Internet names and it will be very difficult to change that. It's just that this is a new industry and it is still growing in acceptance and use and the branding of the Internet has entirely been done (commercially) on the back of dot.com names.

On top of this, dot.com addresses have become pseudonyms for the "real" brands and, thus, the most attractive ending for domain addresses.

The most recognized brands have a dot.com suffix at the end of its address. You don't even have to look up the addresses for Nike, Barnes and Noble, Coke, Chevrolet, Snickers, or Yahoo because you know they all end in dot.com.

Even my international clients that have country specific addresses like dot.com.au for Australia and dot.com.ca for Canada, all want just a plain old dot.com address even if they have one of the others.

The reality is this: In the time it took for the Internet community to develop new address strategies, the old strategy became so solid, so well established, and so overused that no one is now willing to give it up. The result is likely to be that few will rush out to make any changes to their dot.com addresses.

I just can't imagine that companies will give up their existing dot.com addresses, and further I can't see where anyone will stop promoting them. And as long as all the big companies are using and promoting the dot.com address, all the small businesses will do the same. I bet you feel the same as many people do when mentioning a dot.net address. It's good to have, but not something as commercially understood as dot.com. It's all about branding. It's all about our common perception.

Very few of the large commercial companies use a dot.net address as their primary domain name address. I'm thinking that the new TLD system will be similar. Another thing to consider is that many companies have now affixed their web addresses to all their collateral marketing materials, advertising, and merchandising. More important is that consumers have been conditioned to remember dot.com web addresses.

So I'm sure we will see these new addresses bought, used and promoted. But... I do not think they will likely ever gain the value in the Internet real estate space as a dot.com address.

Let me here your thoughts on this. Mailto:kevin@getprofitable.com

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COMING VERY SOON NOW... Kevin's Hot New Book

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There is a special one-time pre-publication 50% off sales offer on my new book. Simply click here (or copy and paste into your browser) http://www.getprofitable.com/E_Brand.html

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Kevin M. Clark

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Kevin M. Clark is a small business marketing consultant and branding specialist and speaker to many nationally acclaimed groups.

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Written by Kevin M. Clark,

"Entrepreneur of The Year Award Recipient," (Regional

Winner) and President of Clark Marketing Group, Inc.

(c) Copyright 2000 Clark Marketing Group, Inc.