Each of these 11 marketing tips is based on a marketing strategy or tactic proven to boost sales. How many are you using?

Tip 1: Your customers buy your product or service to feel a certain way after their purchase. Keep this in mind as you develop your ads, web pages and other sales tools. Use vivid word pictures to dramatize the pleasant feelings your customers experience when they use what you are selling. It intensifies their desire to have it and motivates them to buy now.

Tip 2: Continually test new advertising and marketing methods ...and old methods you never tried before. A good guideline to follow is to allocate 80 percent of your budget to proven promotions and 20 percent to testing new things. Most businesses using this formula keep growing regardless of changing market conditions and intense competition.

Tip 3: Reduce the size of your ads so you can run more ads for the same cost. Don't be surprised if your short ads generate a higher response than long ads - giving you a bigger return for your expense. One of the most effective ads I ever used was only 11 words.

Tip 4: Print your best small ad on a postcard and mail it to prospects in your targeted market. People read postcards when the message is brief. A small ad on a postcard can drive a high volume of traffic to your web site and generate a flood of sales leads for a very small cost.

Tip 5: Active, stimulating words and phrases keep prospects interested in reading your sales copy. Look for dull passive words and phrases and replace them with active ones. For example, change a phrase like "...it's practical and inexpensive" to "...it's fast, easy and you save $99".

Tip 6: After telling prospects what they gain when they buy your product or service, tell them what they lose if they do not buy it. Most people fear loss more than they desire gain. Customers want your product or service so they can enjoy the benefits it provides. But they will want it even more if you remind them of what they lose by not buying it.

Tip 7: You can eliminate any last minute hesitation prospective customers may have by announcing a pleasant surprise near the end of every selling procedure. For example, add an unexpected bonus to each transaction immediately before the final action that completes the sale.

Tip 8: You can boost your total sales volume and your average size sale at the same time by combining 2 or more related products or services into a Special Combination Package. Set the price lower than the cost of buying each item separately. This "special deal" will motivate both procrastinators and bargain hunters to buy now.

Tip 9: You always need to find new customers. But don't overlook the sales you can easily get from your existing customers. It's easier to get more business from them than it is to get any business from new prospects. Follow up with your existing customers to get more sales of the same product or to offer them additional products and services.

Tip 10: How would you react if you got a personal "thank you" from a business several days after you spent money with them? You'd feel good and probably want to do more business with them. Give that same feeling to your customers. They will reward you with more business - and a flood of referrals.

Tip 11: Convert your customers into publicity agents. Develop an incentive for them to tell associates and friends about the value of your products or services. An endorsement from them can produce sales you would never get with any amount of advertising.

How many of these 11 marketing tactics are you using? How many have you overlooked? You are losing sales if you don't use all of them.