Tag: small business marketing

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Cinnamon Rolls, Breast Cancer and Your Business — How Doing Good Can Grow Your Business

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It can make good marketing sense to partner with a nonprofit or cause.

Consider what my marathon friends did when they were raising money to participate in the 3-Day Walk (you walk 60 miles in 3 days to promote breast cancer awareness and raise money for research). They approached a local restaurant called Backburner, which was famous for their cinnamon rolls. For a week, every time someone bought a cinnamon roll, they donated $1 to my friends for their walk.

I personally hadn’t heard of the restaurant, but when I found this out, my husband and I went and had breakfast there (complete with a cinnamon roll of course!).

So this turned into a win-win for everyone. My friends won because they were able to get donations for their walk. Susan G Komen won because they got more money to donate to research. The restaurant won because they got additional promotion and good will, helping out a good cause. And I won because I got to eat a yummy breakfast and discover a new restaurant. (We’re ignoring the calories I consumed there.)

More than ever before, consumers are socially-minded. In many cases, they want to know the businesses they patronize are also socially- minded. Connecting your business to a good cause is about more than just making yourself “feel good”; it can also make good business sense. 

So what are some ways to start? (Other than writing a check.) Well, here are a few ideas you can use:

1. Jenn August did a whole telesummit around giving money to various causes. You could do the same.

2. If a summit is too much work, just do one teleclass, charge a low fee, and let people know proceeds will also help support your cause.

3. Have a sale and let people know a percentage of proceeds are going to support a nonprofit.

4. Offer to give a product of yours for free if people donate. Or, put together a special teleclass only for people who donate. (I would put a time frame around this if you do – for instance, allow 48 hours or a few days to donate.)

5. Put links to your favorite nonprofits in your newsletter or on your website. (But don’t make it so prominent you encourage people to click away from your site and not support YOU.)

6. Give away your time. If you’re a service professional and you find your client pipeline has slowed down or dried up, donating your time to a nonprofit can be a good way to jump-start your business. The exposure can help you find new clients, and you can make it known you support their cause. (And don’t forget to get a testimonial.) Now, be careful with this strategy. I’ve used it myself, but make sure you don’t go too crazy donating your time or you could end up getting really stressed- out when you client work picks up again.

But whatever you do, make sure this is coming from the heart. People can sense if you’re not being sincere, so make sure you truly do believe in the cause, if you’re going to publically help support it.

Categories
Entrepreneurs

3 Little-Known Biz Benefits to Writing & Publishing a Book

There’s a lot of excellent reasons to take the time to write and publish a book. Having authored a book gives you instant credibility as an expert, which immediately sets you apart from everyone else in your field, helps fill your pipeline with perfect clients and gives you a reason to raise your rates. Plus books make great giveaways and client gifts, which is another fabulous way to use them.

But there are also a few other reasons to author a book you may not have thought of. Here are 3 to keep in mind as you decide if it’s time to get that book written in between everything else on that to-do list:

* Book readers tend to be better clients. Even though you’re probably not going to get rich selling a $15 book, the people who take the time to read your book will be more likely to buy your other products and programs AND spend more money overall with you (either by buying multiple programs or just investing in the higher-priced programs). So if you have a good backend set up (and what I mean by that is if you have other products or programs to sell them) writing a book is the perfect way to position yourself and your ideal client to get them into your sales funnel.

* Kindle rocks! Okay this may not be so little-known anymore, but the reality is with all the options out there with Kindle and ebooks in general, you have more ways to get your books into your ideal clients hands than ever before and if you position a lead generating opt in correctly inside your book (and what I mean by that is offering more free resources if they go to a page on your website and enter their name and email address to get the download) you’re going to have a way to capture leads from folks who are truly interested in taking what you teach to a deeper level (which of course will lead to more sales).

Something else to consider — as an author you’ll have a presence on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, which in some cases is better than a presence on Google. Think about it — if someone is searching for resources on Google, they’re probably looking for something free. If they’re searching for resources on Amazon then they’re looking for something to buy — which means those are the buyers, not the looky loos.

* What about your ideal clients who aren’t book readers? Well you can also turn your book into an audio book, which means you’ll reach another segment of your ideal clients. Now if they really aren’t book readers (or book listeners) at all, just the sheer fact you’ve written a book will still add to your credibility and expert status with them.

* And a bonus tip — for many entrepreneurs, one of the big reasons why you went into business for yourself in the first place was because you wanted to make a difference in the world. What better way to spread your message and get your gifts out there is by writing and publishing a book? Think about your book as a little messenger — spreading your message and transformation everywhere it goes. Now isn’t THAT a great reason to finally sit down and finish that book?

Categories
Sales & Marketing

3 Marketing Habits You MUST Cultivate for Biz Success

If you’re like many entrepreneurs, marketing is not one of your fave activities. (In fact, I would bet the only thing you detest more than marketing is sales.)

The problem is if you aren’t regularly marketing your business, your cash flow is also not that regular (and there’s nothing worse than a feast-or-famine business model).

So what can you do? Well, the easiest fix is to start marketing regularly. And the easiest way to start doing THAT is to make marketing a habit. To help you get started I’ve given you 3 marketing habits that are essential to business success:

1.  Do 1 lead-generating activity a week. Maybe it’s posting an article to your blog. Maybe you record a video. Maybe someone interviews you to their list. Maybe it’s spending a half-hour on Facebook. Maybe you mix it up and do something different each week. Whatever you decide doesn’t matter as much as doing something.

2. Do 1 nurturing activity to your list each week. This could be anything from sending an ezine or hosting a free call or even just sending your list a few tips or a content-rich video. The idea behind this is to provide content to your list (and by your list, I mean the list of emails you’ve hopefully been collecting at your website).

No one wants to be on an email list and just get constantly sold to. You want to be giving them value and giving them a reason to not just stay on your list but also pay attention to you.

3. Do 1 selling activity each month. Yes I know I just said not to sell constantly to your list, but if you never do any selling than you end up with a list that doesn’t buy from you. You need to balance selling and giving, that’s how you end up with a warm responsive list.

Selling activities include selling your own products, programs or services (for instance launching a new program to your list or maybe doing a quick email-only sale) or offering an affiliate or joint venture product or program to your list.  (Affiliate means you offer something to your list and get a commission for each sale you make.)

My suggestion is to balance your own launches with affiliate or joint venture launches.  Even though you make more money with your own launches, they’re quite exhausting to do not to mention taxing your list. By mixing it up you can give both yourself and your list a break while still being able to sell.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself “with everything else on my to-do list, how am I possibly going to develop these marketing habits?”

Well, there’s no reason it has to be you personally. You can certainly have your team help. In fact, I would encourage delegating as much as possible. And if you do, then it becomes less a personal habit for you and instead it turns into a habit for your business. (Doesn’t that sound better? Your business has 3 marketing habits that are regularly done regardless of how involved you end up being.)

Now you’re on your way to building a successful, thriving business.

Categories
Online Business

3 Simple Sign-up Strategies Revealed to Grow Your Email List!

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Driving traffic to your website is only one side of the coin; once you’ve got visitors there you then need to get them onto your list! Having a sign-up box on your website detailing your ‘free taste’ in exchange for their name/email address is one way that you can do this, but deciding WHERE to place your all-important sign-up box for maximum impact is also just as important.

Depending on whether your page is a sales page, an information page, or some other type of web page will determine the strategy you use for enticing your web site visitors to sign up to your list.

I’d like to share three different, but very effective, sign-up page strategies with you.

1. At The Top Of Every Web Page

Your sign-up box should appear at the top of every single webpage on your website – the top right-hand corner has been researched to be the most effective place to put this.

Why?

Because you never know where someone will enter your website from. As your site grows and more pages get added, it will be getting picked up by the search engines for different terms or key phrases – and they might be phrases that aren’t on your home page, but on one of your other pages instead.

Someone could enter your website and leave via the same page (in other words they don’t stop to look around), and if you haven’t got a sign-up box on that page, you’ve got no chance of getting their name and email address – and they won’t know you offer a ‘free taste’.

2. Using Exit Grabber Software

Another sign-up strategy that I’m currently using is Exit Grabber software. This is a clever piece of software that knows when a visitor is about to leave my website and only pops up just before they leave.

The popup box reminds a visitor not to leave without first grabbing their free report.

3. Adding A PS To A Sales Page

Internet marketers have done their research and the conclusion is that a lot of visitors to your sales page are going to scroll straight down to the bottom of your sales page first to read your PS’s!

So, if the first two strategies aren’t suitable for a particular page on your website or one of your sales pages, be sure to include a PS that tells your visitor what your ‘free taste’ is. And rather than include the sign-up box in the PS, provide a hyperlink that takes them to your sign-up page.

All three sign-up page strategies offer something slightly different, depending on your particular web page, and are very effective for getting your web site visitors to sign up to your list.

So once you’ve got traffic coming to your website ensure that you’re capturing your visitor’s information by implementing at least one of the three different strategies I’ve shared with you today.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

3 Ways to Overcome Marketing Overwhelm

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If you’re like many entrepreneurs, the thought of marketing makes you slightly sick to your stomach. And it’s more then a simple like or dislike of marketing, it’s the idea of trying to fit it into your to-do list. You already have a million things going on, how can you possibly fitmarketing in?

So, instead, you end up not doing anything…until you run out of work that is. Then you desperately race around, trying to cram as much marketing as possible into as short amount of time as possible to try and ramp up your business.

Business picks up, you stop marketing again.

As I’m sure you already know, this isn’t a great way to grow a business on any level. But what do you do? You’re already overwhelmed with everything you have to do in your business, not to mention everything you have to do in your life, so how can you possibly fit marketing into that?

Never fear, that’s what the below 3 tips are designed to do, get you out of marketing overwhelm and into marketing superstar.

1. Make marketing a priority.
Okay, don’t stop reading yet. This one might be tough to swallow but it has to be said. Marketing your business HAS to be a priority. If it’s not, then you will doom yourself to a “feast or famine” business model (where you oscillate between too many and too few clients, and because you’re in a constant roller coaster, you can never get enough traction to actually start growing your business).

But, I can hear you say, my priority needs to be on getting the work done. That’s what my clients are paying me for, and because they’re paying, then they have to be my top priority.

My response to that is well, not exactly. You’re right, you need to get the work done, and do a good job, or you’re going to run out of income pretty quickly. But, if you trade doing the client work over marketing, then you’re never going to get ahead.
(And, to be honest, it’s not fair to your clients either to have you constantly stressed about your business because you don’t know what’s in the pipeline. You owe it to yourself AND your clients to have a successful, thriving business.)

You need to have the mindset that marketing your business is JUST as important as doing the client work. Without the marketing, you WILL always struggle.

However, with that said, there’s no need to panic because…

2. You don’t have to do it all alone.
There’s no law that says just because marketing is a priority means you need to do everything yourself. You can (and should) build a team. In fact, I would go one step further and tell you your team can ALSO help you with client work or admin work or just about anything.

Now with marketing, as with anything, there will probably be tasks you need to do yourself. But there will be many tasks you can easily outsource. The trick is to figure out what tasks you really need to do (and make time to do them) then outsource the rest.

But, I can hear you saying, what if I don’t have the cash flow to outsource? See, that’s the beauty of outsourcing marketing. There’s a very clear ROI. So let’s say one new client is worth $500 a month. Do you think regular marketing will bring you at least one new client? Of course. So maybe you set aside $250 a month for a virtual assistant to help you with some marketing tasks, knowing one new client will more than pay for your VA and any more clients above and beyond will be gravy.

(If you need help with marketing strategy to know what to outsource, drop me an email. I create marketing strategies for my clients, as well as do the work for them.)

3. Start small.
This is what I did in my own business. You’ll notice I have a lot of marketing tasks going on right now — I have my newsletter, I blog, I podcast, I’m on social networking sites, I’m doing direct mail. I didn’t wake up one morning and say “I’m going to start everything today.”

No, I did things one at a time. I started with my newsletter, then I added blogging, then podcasting, then social networking, etc. After I mastered one task, I went on to add another. So my marketing wouldn’t seem so overwhelming to me.

But remember, the biggest thing is to actually DO something. Start taking some action in your marketing, and the rest of the pieces should start to fall into place.