By Tanya Handy

The U.S. Small Business Administration has cited poor marketing as a top cause for weak sales in businesses.

Why is this so? Yes, each business will have its differences.

However, to combat THIS problem, you the small business owner must not neglect to ensure that:

1) You are in charge of selling for your business, and
2) You devote enough time to selling on a consistent basis.

When you take charge of selling consistently, you'll be doing what's needed to bring in the type of sales that stimulates cash flow.

But what if you don't know the first thing about selling? No problem. I'm about to show you a way to jump over that hurdle right now.

I'd like to introduce you to direct response marketing.

Direct response marketing is the attempt to persuade potential buyers to respond to your sales message in a measurable way. It begins with getting the attention of potential buyers, and ends with obtaining a response in the way you need.

You can use media channels like the internet, television, postal mail, radio and others to do this. It takes a certain knack to get a potential buyer to respond directly to your sales offer, though.

Mainly it's because you don't have the benefit of face-to-face contact. And since you don't, you'll have to use an array of persuasion techniques to replace the intimate, personal influence you COULD produce if you were standing in front of the potential buyer.

Some trends in direct response include multichannel marketing (which expands the reach and market penetration of your product or service) and automation (which cuts costs and saves time).

Both require a more in depth understanding of how each can be applied in your business.

NOTE: Direct response marketing differs from brand advertising. Brand advertising focuses on generating awareness in a product or service. Brand advertising doesn't try to motivate a direct, measurable response.

Decide to use direct response marketing today. You'll have a tool for combatting one of the top reasons businesses fail.

To get started producing your own results-driven direct response marketing, claim your FREE instant access to "Seven Steps To Online Marketing Success".