Category: Online Business

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Online Business

3 Simple and Low Cost Marketing Ideas to Create Visibility

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Marketing your business is one of the biggest challenges for any solopreneur – it’s a task we all find quite daunting, and are simply overwhelmed by all the information that’s available. Below I have put together some information on 3 simple and low cost marketing ideas, which you can easily implement right away to create more visibility for your online business and web site. They all work well for me!

To help you decide which is the best strategy (or strategies) for you, I have listed the pros and cons of each one.

Create a Blog

Pros
:: You can really show off your expertise by posting on a regular basis.
:: Blog posts don’t need to be very long – approx. 200-350 words.
:: If you have some important information to share, you can instantly create a post – no waiting for your next newsletter to make your announcement!
:: If you use a blogging platform such as WordPress, this is hosted on your website. Each time you post to your blog you are creating fresh content for your website, which the search engines love!

Cons
:: You need to post regularly – at least once a week – in order for this to be an effective marketing strategy.
:: You need to feel confident that you will be able to write fresh content regularly.
:: It can be difficult to build a direct relationship with your reader.

Publish an Ezine

Pros
:: Unlike a blog, readers sign up to receive your newsletter so you already have a connection with them.
:: You can build a relationship with your newsletter reader and encourage one-on-one communication.
:: You can go into more depth in your newsletter article than you can with your blog posts.
:: Your clients/target audience can get to know you through your newsletter.

Cons
:: You have to make a commitment to publish on a regular basis, otherwise your subscribers will see you as unreliable, and may even forget about you!
:: There is more work involved in putting together a newsletter than writing a simple blog post.
:: You will need to subscribe to one of the ezine distribution services – I strongly recommend you do this and not send your ezine via your email client!

Article Marketing

Pros
:: If you are already blogging or publishing a newsletter, you have your articles written.
:: It is highly likely that once you submit your article to one of the article submission sites, it will be picked up and published on other article submission sites.
:: Regularly submitting your articles will elevate you to ‘expert’ status within your field/niche

Cons
:: You have to write the articles if you’re not publishing a newsletter or posting to a blog.
:: It takes time to manually research suitable article submission sites and submit articles.
:: In order for this strategy to be effective, you have to submit your articles regularly – at least once a month.

Conclusion: You can just pick one strategy to focus on, or you can do all three! Whichever one you choose make sure it’s the right one for you. The key is to be consistent in your approach. If you decide to go with a blog make sure you have the time and motivation to add new posts regularly – at least once a week. Don’t start a newsletter if you know you won’t be able to keep to a regular publishing schedule! And for article marketing to be effective you need to submit articles on a regular basis.

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Online Business

Autoresponders – Put Your Follow-up On Autopilot!

autoresponders.gif As a solopreneur being able to follow-up with your clients and potential clients is crucial in growing and sustaining your business, and keeping a steady flow of new clients coming on board. However the downside is the time it takes to follow-up with each and every one of your contacts – after all spending all day following up with clients isn’t a good use of your time; you also need to spend your time on income generating activities and generating cash flow for your business.

So what is a time-starved solopreneur to do in order to maintain follow-up with customers and clients?

Autoresponders are perfect for automating your follow-up and freeing up some of your time. If set up correctly they will follow up with EVERY SINGLE customer who has ever purchased a product from you; or EVERY SINGLE subscriber to your ezine list! Would you be able to undertake that task yourself? The answer is no, you couldn’t, it would be impossible.

This is where you need to get smart and take advantage of technology to automate your follow-up. Create the systems and let them run on autopilot.

What is an autoresponder?

Put simply an autoresponder is a piece of software that will allow you to send email messages to people on your list. Don’t confuse this with spam or unsolicited mail though. These messages are sent to people who have already confirmed that they want to receive email from you; they have either signed up to your ezine list or they have bought a product from you. They have given you permission to email them as they have confirmed their subscription to your list.

The autoresponder is an email that is sent out automatically in response to an action taken by your customer/subscriber, and it can either be just one message or a series of follow-up messages that you set up to go out at certain intervals – you choose what those intervals are.

For example, you could set the first message up so that it goes out immediately someone confirms their subscription to your list, the next message could go out seven days later, and the final one two weeks after that. The beauty of using this system is that you decide how often and what messages are sent out.

The autoresponder doesn’t write the messages for you, you have to do that yourself, but the opportunities using an autoresponder opens are invaluable.

Once you’ve taken the time to set up the autoresponder it all runs on autopilot!

How can you use autoresponders in your day-to-day business?

There are many ways you can use an autoresponder in your day-to-day business, but just to give you a couple of examples:
Ezine Signup. When someone signs up for your ezine you will generally create an autoresponder that immediately gets sent out to them welcoming them to your list – once they’ve confirmed their subscription, of course! Add a second message to go out a few days later, and ask them how they found your free taste, what their biggest challenge is, or if there is a particular topic that they would like to find out more about.

Product Purchase. When someone buys one of your products create an autoresponder and a series of follow-up messages to ask them how they are getting on with your product, are they working through it okay, send them a ‘surprise’ bonus, or ask for a testimonial. Span these messages so that they go out over the course of a few weeks. If you offer a home study system set the final message to check in with them about six/eight weeks after they’ve bought your product to see if they were able to implement the steps, or if there’s anything they need help with.

The secret to autoresponder success

Even though your autoresponder may be going out to several hundred customers (or even thousands), don’t let that deter you from making your messages personal – let your personality come through in your messages, encourage feedback from your recipient, give them a call to action in your messages.

When putting your autoresponder and follow-up messages together write them as though you are writing to just ONE person. Think about the tone you use. Do you keep it informal? Chatty? Light? If you find this task hard pick a contact/client you know really well and imagine you’re writing an email to them. What tone do you use when writing to this person?

Go one better, and actually send your messages to this contact/client and ask for feedback from them. Chances are if they really like the way you’ve written your messages your other customers and clients will too!

I rely on my autoresponders to follow up with my customers, clients, and ezine subscribers – without them I’d find it impossible to follow-up and may end up losing valuable relationships.

I know that many of my relationships with my clients/customers have been established as a result of them replying to one of my autoresponder messages. I would find it impossible to make contact with each and every one of these people personally; the autoresponder does that for me, but then I am able to create a relationship with those customers who do reply to my messages.

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Online Business

Do-it-Yourself vs. Hiring a Professional Web Designer

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This article is submitted by Heike Delmore, President of Jack in the Web – Web Design, www.jackintheweb.ca
We are living in a day and age where doing-it-yourself is all the rage, from do-it-yourself home renovation to do-it-yourself business card design. And now most recently, we have do-it-yourself website design. The question is, is doing it yourself web design better than getting a professional web designer to do it?
In this article we will examine the advantages and disadvantages to building a website yourself.
Complete Creative Power
When building your own website with either template software you have purchased, or a free online application, you get to choose from a set collection of colors, font styles, and fancy backgrounds etc. So it is easy to fully customize the look and feel of your website, right?
Well, not so fast. No doubt you are given a selection of styles and frills, but you are falling short on your company branding. What do these styles and frills say about your branding? Does your website illustrate a recognizable and professional brand that sets you apart from your competition? The answer is no.
Web surfers can easily tell a professional website from an unprofessional one. And when given the choice, web surfers may be more inclined to trust and do business with the more professional looking company.
If you are a student, hobbyist, or the purpose of your website is personal, a do-it-yourself templated website may be the perfect solution for your needs. However, if you are a business, or you are a selling a product or service, hiring a professional to create your website is a must for branding purposes and for setting yourself apart from the competition.
HTML is not that hard to learn
It’s true, basic HTML is not that hard to learn. If you have a lot of extra time and energy to pour into learning HTML, you could probably create your first webpage within a few days.
But what will that webpage look like? Professional or amateur? Chances are your webpage will look amateur in comparison your competition’s, if your competition used a professional web designer.
Also, what if your code has left serious security loop holes, or your webpage displays incorrectly in some web browsers? Not everyone uses Internet Explorer. And not everyone uses a PC.
If it is important to you that your website reach a large audience – and make a positive and professional impression, then it is a good idea to hire a professional web designer. There is a reason why web programming and web design are professions.
A professional web designer can ensure that there are no security loop holes in your code, make sure users across all platforms with different browsers will see your site correctly, and ensure that search engines such as Google will be able to read your code and index your website!
Let’s compare this scenario with that of a recreational photographer: Your Uncle just bought a new professional camera. He has no experience taking photos other than candid vacation snap shots. But he has read the manual and taught himself how this new camera functions. He says he is ready to start charging people to do their wedding photos. Do you hire him to do your wedding photos? The point is, just because someone learns how to use something new, doesn’t suddenly mean they have the creativity or expertise to use well.
A professional camera does not make a professional photographer. Just as learning to code HTML doesn’t mean your website will look professional.
So now that the HTML is out of the way, how will you create your professional looking logo and or customize the graphics for your website? To do this you will need a graphical software program such as Photoshop.
Is Photoshop hard to learn?
Again, if you have a lot of extra time to learn and master graphic programs such as Photoshop and learn programming languages such as HTML, designing a website yourself may be the perfect solution. Further, your new web design knowledge could be advantageous in understanding how, for example, coding and website content affects how your site will be indexed by Google or other search engines.
Saving Time and Money
If you bought a web design do-it-yourself kit, it probably seemed like an affordable and easy to use solution. Simply fill in the blanks and the program will do the rest for you. Seems quick and easy, right?
The first question you should consider is, how much money is your time worth? If you have a lot of extra time and taking on website design seems like a fun and reasonable thing to do, then this option may be right for you.
But you should keep one thing in mind before you start. What if you invest your time to create your own website and it doesn’t work properly, or doesn’t to look professional? Then what?
Let’s compare this scenario to a home renovation project: You went to Home Depot and bought new shingles for your roof. The price of the shingles were somewhat affordable and they came with a user manual – which is great because it is your first time roofing. Perfect you are on your way. So you take the time and learn how to re-shingle your roof and you complete the job. Congratulations! The only problem is that your neighbors and potential future home buyers can see that it doesn’t quite look professional… and when it rains parts of the roof leak… sometimes.
Now what? You have to find a professional to fix the mistakes and the leak. So not only do you have to pay a professional roofer to re-do the job, you also lose money on the shingles you purchased, and you wasted your time.
Doing it yourself may save you money at first, but if you have to hire a professional to correct any problems later, it may end up costing you even more money.
Either avenue you choose, whether you do-it-yourself or you hire a webdesign professional, we wish you the best of luck and all the success with your web design project.
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This article is submitted by Heike Delmore, President of Jack in the Web – Web Design, www.jackintheweb.ca

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Online Business

Internet Marketing Dilemma – Improving Your Double Opt-In Rates

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You know that having a double opt-in* process for your newsletter/ezine list is a “best practice” in permission based email marketing. Several reasons:

  • less chance of being called a spammer by someone who doesn’t remember filling in the form (or because someone else filled out the form with their email address);
  • fewer bad email addresses in your list;
  • some mailing list delivery services require it!

BUT–sometimes your subscribers don’t click that link they receive from you in the confirmation email. And so you lose 10, 20, even 50% of your “subscribers”. Arghh!

How can you improve your opt-in rates?

Generally, the more compelling and relevant your “offer” is to folks, and the easier it is for them to complete the process, the better opt-in rate you will enjoy.

  • Have some really strong copy that describes your ezine and the benefits they will receive.
  • Provide an incentive for folks to subscribe. A free ebook, ecourse, etc.
  • Remind folks that they must confirm (click the link in the confirmation email) to receive the incentive. You can do this on the signup or thank you page.
  • Help them make sure they receive the confirmation email, by offering a page explaining how to add your ezine to their whitelist.
  • Show them how to confirm. A snapshot of the confirmation email, with the confirmation link circled, is one way to make it crystal-clear.
  • Make sure your confirmation email matches the description of your ezine. Use the same wording, etc. Nothing will reduce your confirmation rates like using the generic confirmation email text!

Get more marketing and small business tips for Solo Entrepreneurs

*Double opt-in defined:

  1. new subscriber fills out a form on your site
  2. your list management software sends a confirmation email with a special coded link
  3. new subscriber clicks the link
  4. subscriber is added to your list

Single opt-in eliminates steps 2 and 3.

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Online Business

Telecommuting – Five Ways To Find Your Next Job

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The trend of telecommuting is on the rise as employers begin to see the savings involved in both gas and office space. With gas prices at an all-time high, many Americans are looking for ways to do less driving and more companies than ever before are offering telecommuting options to their current employees and searching for at-home employees to fill open positions. The question for the job seeker is now how to find these opportunities. Below are five methods you can use to find a telecommuting position.

First, check your local newspaper. When I began my search for an at-home career, I found my first employer through the Classified Ads section of our hometown paper. I was wary at first, but after thoroughly researching the company through means such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB), visiting the corporate office and meeting some of their current employees I found the company to be legitimate.

Second, search online using website such as Monster.com and Dice.com. However, listings found online must be researched carefully to avoid the scams that abound on the Internet. There are also websites that will you allow to do job research in your own community. One such website is Craigslist.com on which you can choose a city and then refine your search with keywords such as “telecommute.”

Posting your resume on websites such as Hotjobs.com is a third way to locate at work-at-home job. Putting your resume online can bring employers to you, depending on your skills and qualifications. Another bonus of an online resume is that you can easily direct prospective employers to view it. It also makes life a bit simpler when applying for jobs, because you can attach your online resume instead of typing out your job history, qualifications, and so on, each time you apply for a job.

When posting your resume on the web, be sure to create an accurate and impressive representation of your abilities. You don’t want to be wordy when describing past job experience, but you do want to be specific about the roles you’ve held as well as your accomplishments.

A fourth option when looking for at-home employment is to open a phone book and call businesses in your area. For example, if you’re interested in doing administrative work, you might contact churches and small businesses in your area to see if they are looking for office help. Even if they are not currently seeking help, they may know of another business owner who is.

Along those same lines, the fifth way to become a telecommuter is to create your own opportunity. For example, instead of finding a company that will hire you as an administrative assistant from home, consider starting your own business as a Virtual Assistant. You can offer your services to many companies, which can both increase your income potential and allow you the flexibility of deciding which jobs you’d like to accept.

You can also create your own telecommuting position by talking with your current employer about work-at-home possibilities. More and more companies are finding that at-home employees are just as productive as those in the office, if not more. Companies also benefit financially by lessening office space and avoiding the costs of many office supplies. Many companies who are not ready to hire at-home workers will allow their current employees to work one or two days from a home office, so be sure to discuss this option.

The telecommuting field has become highly competitive as more and more people find that working from home is a possibility. Searching for a telecommuting position can be daunting, but by looking in strategic places such as online and in your local newspaper, you’ll have a much better chance. No matter, how you find your telecommuting position, make sure it’s something you would enjoy doing and also something you can make money at.