Category: Sales & Marketing

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Sales & Marketing

Your Website Marketing Plan — Your Guide to Launching Your Website to the World!

internet-marketing-channels

Congratulations! You’ve just completed the finishing touches on your brand new website, and now you’re ready to launch it to the world!

Except…how do you do that exactly? It’s not like you upload it and your ideal clients magically find you.

So, what you need is a launch guide for your new site. And you just happen to be in the right place, because I’m going to walk you through what you should do.

And the best part? This even works if you DON’T have a new site and all you’re looking for is a bump in traffic. Wahoo!

First off, you need a message. Your message could be “Hey check out my new site,” which is okay, but unless you’re only talking to people who have some sort of relationship with you (friends or those who have been following you awhile) they probably won’t go look.

A better message would be something around the free gift you’re giving away on your site. (What? You don’t have a free gift? Okay, that’s first on the list to get done!)

You could also write a blog post and/or shoot a video with some content in it from your freebie — maybe you highlight one tip or you include content that’s NOT in the freebie — and post in on your blog with a call to action to sign up for the full freebie to get the rest of the tips.

Once you know what your message is, now it’s time to start posting it. Places to start:

* Your list — send as an ezine or a message (although your list already has the freebie, so you may want to do a variation of the content piece)

* Post a blurb on Facebook with a link to the article or video

* Post the article or video itself on Facebook

* Create a graphic with a quote from the free gift with your branding on it — post that on both Facebook and Pinterest

* Tweet about the article or video

* Post a blurb on Linked In with a link to the article or video

* Post the article or video itself on Linked In

* Post a blurb or the content itself on any other social networking site you use

* Create a press release about either your new site and/or the piece of content you created and submit on both free and paid portals

* Talk about it on your podcast, if you have one. (On a separate note, podcasts are making a comeback so you may want to look into hosting one.)

* If you make a video, make sure you post it on YouTube (and you may want to create a video in addition to the blog post so you can create more traction)

* Create some Facebook ads around the content

* Be creative! Can you think of any other places to either post the content or post a blurb with a link to the content?

Hopefully this has given you some good ideas to start boosting traffic to your website even if you don’t have anything going on in your biz right now. Also, I want to make sure you see the big picture here — which is to find ways to take ONE thing (one piece of content, one event, etc.) and reuse and repackage it to give you visibility on multiple platforms. That’s the key — the more you can do this, the easier it’s going to be to leverage your online marketing.

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Sales & Marketing

Why Social Media Fans and Followers Matter

social-fans

Article Contributed by Kurt Smith

For a long time, articles in the news made fun of the way Facebook at work was a time sink. When companies blocked Facebook and Twitter on their computers, the general reaction in the media showed understanding. Reactions of this kind demonstrate how businesses and the media used to be out of touch with how central to modern marketing the social media are.

According to a report published in the MIT Sloan Management Review, 74% of businesses still fail to understand that a social media presence is important to their success. As large as this number is, though, it’s smaller than what it used to be in 2011. Businesses are only beginning to understand why the social media and followers on them matter. For those who find it difficult to take them seriously, here are the reasons why social media fans count.

To Google, social media fans are the new SEO

Google has tried many methods to judge websites for authority by in the past. While looking at a website’s backlinks is an important way for search engines to evaluate its stature, it is a method that can be abused. Perhaps this is the reason why Google has increasingly turned to the social media as a way to judge how useful websites are. The more social mentions a website gets, the more relevant it is seen to be.

Since Google doesn’t have access to the content that is present on Facebook, Facebook mentions can only indirectly help websites improve their search ranking. According to reports on Searchmetrics and Moz, though, Google sees Google+ differently.

It’s important for businesses to put content on Google+ because posts on this social network get crawled by Google very quickly.  Frequent posts can help a business get followers and mentions on this social network and also a search ranking boost.

The more you are present on the social networks, the more easily you are found on the search engines

When people need to search for a restaurant to eat out at or a store to buy contact lenses from, often, they search directly on social media sites like Facebook or Yelp for ideas. If they see good user reviews for a retailer like NextDayLenses.com, they are likely to head there. A sizable fan following on multiple social media sites is likely to help you gather reviews to help these searchers see you by. When a potential customer searches directly on Google, frequent mentions on some of these sites are likely to show up in Google’s search results, too.

You get brand recognition

One of the first lessons you learn in marketing is that brand recognition gets you better sales. According to a survey released by the marketing firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, one out of two people on Facebook and Twitter say that they feel more inclined to buy from a company that they follow on these social networks than they do from someone they don’t. They also believe that they are likely to buy from brands that their fellow Facebook friends believe in. A large Facebook following is the only way to get such action.

Customers like to express their complaints on the social media

In the past, when consumers had a complaint, they took it up over the phone or over email. These days, they often take their problems up on the social media. Each time a business finds a complaint turning up on Facebook, it is an opportunity in public relations. Quickly attending to a complaint on Facebook or Twitter and having other people see how efficiently the complaint is handled can be a powerful exercise in reputation building. A business can only get great mileage handling complaints on Facebook when it has a large following.

Finally…

Working towards a large fan following on the social media can important simply because it can generate better awareness of your brand. When a person likes your company enough to follow it on a social network, he is likely to mention it on his own social group.

About the Author

Kurt Smith is a marketing analyst and consultant. He enjoys using existing customer data to improve campaigns and his articles mainly appear on marketing blogs. Check NextDayLenses.com to see how a trusted retailer uses their site to get the best results.

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Sales & Marketing

Is There a 2×4 in Your Future? 3 Signs that the Universe Is Getting Tired of Waiting For You To Step Into Your Greatness

universe

Ah yes, the 2×4. The Universe’s version of tough love.

In case you aren’t familiar with the concept of the 2×4, let me explain. The 2×4 happens when all the gentle nudges and taps are being ignored, and the Universe decides sterner measures are necessary. 

Basically you have a feeling there’s something you should be doing — starting a biz, changing your biz, taking your biz to the next level, stepping out and becoming a speaker, writing a book, etc. — and you’re not doing it. Oh sure, there are plenty of fabulous reasons WHY you aren’t doing it (time being the biggest culprit with money coming in a close second — not to mention “getting ready to get ready” lurking around out there ready to pounce) but at the end of the day nothing is getting done.

So you live with those niggling feelings. Maybe you push them down. Maybe you make plans to start on that magical “someday.” But the end result is still the same. You aren’t moving forward.

Worst, you do all this despite the nudges and taps. Sometimes they’re positive — 3 people in one week confirm you should be offering a new program without any prompting from you; you get 2 requests for speaking gigs in one day. And sometimes they’re negative — your boss announces there’s a hiring freeze, which means you need to put in more hours at the same pay, so even though you hate your job you can’t possibly now find the time to start your biz because you have to focus on doing what you hate. Or maybe one of your core programs (one you know you really need to retire but you’re very nervous about the new program you’ll replace it with) is slowly losing steam — fewer and fewer people sign up for it, and the ones who do aren’t your perfect peeps.

So you make your excuses and keep on walking that path you’re on, even though you really don’t care for that path at all. It’s rocky and full of weeds, beer cans, broken bottles and cigarette butts. But hey — it’s the one we know and it’s better than that mysterious vine-covered trail peeking around the corner.

And that’s why the 2×4 needs to come out and give you a whack — right onto that enticing but oh-so-scary path you know in your gut you need to be on. 

Perhaps you break your leg so now you have a whole bunch more time to work on that book. Or that core program finally, completely, bombs in your last launch and now you have no choice but to do something else to bring some cash into the biz.

Whatever it is, if you’ve been ignoring the nudges and taps, the 2×4 may be right around the corner.

So how do you know if this is you? Well, here are 3 signs to watch out for:

1. Is there something in your life you know you need to be doing and you aren’t? (And if this is something that you have lots and lots of excuses for why you aren’t doing it, definitely listen up — I’m talking to you.) Or are you feeling like something is off — there’s something missing inside, you don’t feel complete or you keep wondering if this is “it” — this could also be you.

 2. Have you been getting nudges or taps to move you toward this path and you’ve been ignoring them? (It could be months or even years that you continue finding all sorts of reasons not to move forward.)

3. Something is upping the pressure. Maybe the nudges and taps have intensified, maybe you’re feeling like you need to do something NOW or maybe you’re in a funk. Whatever it is, something has changed.

So, if this is you, what do you do? Well I wish I could confidently tell you that I’ve managed to keep the 2×4 from hitting me, but alas you can’t really prove something that didn’t happen. But what I CAN say is if you recognize yourself here, get prepared. Start taking solid steps toward the path you need be on. Develop a plan, write down action steps and start IMPLEMENTING.

You may not be able to avoid the 2×4 completely but if you at least start changing directions you’ll probably lessen the blow when it does come.

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Sales & Marketing

Could Your Confidential Waste Policy Be Used As A Marketing Tool?

 

paper-waste

In today’s digital age, there are many new facets of conducting business that we never had to worry about in the past. A couple of the most important things that both consumers and companies need to worry about are identity theft and fraud. Nowadays, it is easier than ever from criminals to get ahold of sensitive information and then use that data to cause a major headache for the person whose identity has been stolen.

 

As a business owner, preventing private information from leaking out should be one of you highest priorities. This data could be transaction records, personal data for your clients or even proprietary information regarding your company. By having a solid confidential waste policy in effect, you can ensure that all of your business’ data is safe. Not only does this protect your company from a legal standpoint, but it can also be used as a powerful way to promote your business.

 

What Exactly Is A Confidential Waste Policy?

 

Your company’s confidential waste policy is the protocol you have in place to destroy documents and other data sources which contain information that should not be seen by unapproved eyes. There are a number of things which should be kept confidential, including:

 

  • Accounting Records
  • Strategic Business Documents
  • Client Data
  • Customers’ Personal Information
  • Credit Card and Bank Account Records
  • Medical Records

 

All of these types of data can be very detrimental to your company and to your clients if they were released into the wrong hands. Because of this, your confidential waste policy should not only include how to safely store and secure this information, but also how to destroy it. Confidential waste can by shredded or disintegrated by document shredding and storage services specializing in making sure that the destroy data is not recoverable.

 

Many business owners opt to have confidential data destroyed on-site, a method which allows then to witness the destruction with the shredding services bringing their portable equipment to the company’s location. Off-site destruction is also a secure option and provides your company with a certificate of destruction and chain-of-possession of your documents all of the way from your hands to their destruction.

 

Using Your Confidential Waste Policy To Promote Your Business

 

With the threat of identity theft and fraud so prevalent, many consumers hold a company’s confidential waste policy in very high regards. If you’re aiming to attract new customers, then promoting your company’s rock-solid policy may be an efficient way to do so. Faced with multiple options, many careful customers will choose the option which is the most secure with their personal information. This is exceptionally important for smaller companies who may not quite have the public support of their larger counterparts.

 

A few of the things that you need to make sure to mention to clients about your confidential waste policy are:

 

  • How long you keep your client’s data.
  • What method you use to destroy it.
  • How the data is secured until it is destroyed.
  • Your company’s proven track record of data security.
  • Secure transport methods for your documents such as an armored car or chain-of-possession documentation.

 

With the world’s digital, global marketplace, secure information is constantly being transferred around and left in the care of businesses all over the world. By ensuring consumers that their identity is safe with you, your company can use your confidential waste policy to reaffirm customers. The security associated with your confidential documents can not only keep your customers safe, but also act as a source to bring in new clients.

About The Author

Leilah Osher writes for www.ironmountain.co.uk and apart of writing about confidential waste and document storage she works as a business consultant for a wide range of different firms. In addition, she contributes articles to a number of business blogs around the internet, including GetEntrepreneurial.com

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Sales & Marketing

3 Keys to Building a Profitable E-mail List

3 Keys to Building a Profitable E-mail List

The easiest and most effective way to follow up and nurture relationships with your clients and potential clients is to build an e-mail list  of people who have “opted in” and given you permission to send them e-mails.

With a profitable e-mail list you can:

  • Fill your seminars and programs
  • Attract more clients and sales
  • Turn current clients into repeat clients
  • Promote other peoples’ programs that you believe in and earn $1,000?s in affiliate commissions

Here are 3 basic keys to building a successful e-mail list:

First of all, you need to have one in the first place.  That means that you need an e-mail delivery system, which is commonly called a CRM (Contact Relationship Manager).

There are MANY systems to choose from.  I recommend Mail Chimp or Constant Contact if you’re just starting out and don’t have a lot of funds to work with.  I recommend 1ShoppingCart if you want to be able to process credit cards online.  Once you have 500 people on your list and are making $100,000 or more in revenue, it’s time to consider switching to Infusionsoft, which is more pricey but much more advanced.

You also need an Opt In Page where people can sign up to be on your list.  When people opt in, their contact information gets entered into your CRM automatically.

Next, it’s important to nurture relationships with people on your list by offering them something of value, other than sales, sales, and more sales.

Your list is a community of people who have put their trust in you.  They’ve trusted you with their name and e-mail address.  Since many people change their physical address more often than their e-mail address nowadays, that’s actually a generous show of trust.

They’ve trusted you to provide them with valuable information and not to sell their contact information or spam them.  Honor that trust by sending them articles (like this one), helpful tips, or inspiring quotes.

One of my colleagues runs an auto repair center, and he realized that his clients didn’t want to learn about auto repair (that’s why they hired him) so he just sends them funny quotes, comics, and stories that have nothing to do with auto repair but make them laugh.

Finally, you need to continually build your e-mail list by having new potential clients opt in.  Focus on attracting your tribe of ideal clients, not just anyone.  That way, the people who join your list will be more likely to actually invest in your products and services.