Category: Marketing

    Market Your Website Offline

    When a business owner builds a website, they often forget the one way to market a website that has nothing to do with technology. Marketing the website offline is a great way to get the word out about your website and what you offer. Using business cards, brochures, t-shirts and other premiums, plus being active in your local community, you can get the word out about your business.

    * Business Cards – Don’t forget to put the URL to your website on your business card. You can even put a QR code on the back of the card to encourage them to use their smartphone to visit the website.

    * Flyers and Brochures – Don’t discount flyers, brochures and other printed materials that you can create and give out when anyone asks questions about your business. Keep some in the car, and ask people to allow you to post your flyers in their business.

    * T-Shirts and Premiums – People love wearing t-shirts with different business names on them. Why not put your business on the t-shirts you wear instead of someone else’s? This is a great way; if you can create something a little different you’ll get more questions.

    * Window Decals – That real estate on your car can be put to great use when promoting your website offline. Be sure to make the information big enough so that people can really see it. Choose a catchy URL too so that people can remember it while driving.

    * Sponsor Events – Whether local or not, you can pay to sponsor events. This means you’ll appear in the brochure, perhaps on signs at the event, and maybe be mentioned by the hosts of the event by voice during speaking parts of the program.

    * Host an Event – When you host an event, you’re a very noticeable presence. Your business name will be everywhere, you will be everywhere and people will get to know you and come to visit your website.

    * Attend Events – When you attend live events, you can draw a lot of attention to your business by handing out cards, wearing t-shirts when appropriate, even giving out premium products like pens, cups, and so forth so people remember you when the event is over.

    * Teach Locally – You don’t have to be a certified teacher to teach classes. Some areas have lifelong learning centers that enable anyone who is an expert to teach something to people who want to learn something.

    When it comes to marketing, don’t leave any stone unturned. That includes marketing your website online and offline. Don’t forget that not everyone, even today, uses search engines or means online to find information. Some people still use old-fashioned information and paper to find the information they need.

    Categories: website Tags: Tags:

    Top Secrets for Creating a Mobile-Friendly Website that Passes Google Muster

    “Mobilegeddon” the masses cried when Google announced the mobile-friendly changes it would be making. Sites that passed the mobile-friendly test would be given a higher ranking than sites that were merely responsive or were not optimized in any way for mobile use.

    Google did make mention of the fact that the changes were specifically designed for mobile results, but the masses had already cried and few heard the calming words offered up by Google.

    Mobile-friendly is a GOOD THING. If your website is not currently mobile-friendly, then you are making it less likely that the largest percentage of users will ever visit your site. More people surf the internet through mobile devices than with any other method.

    Mobile-friendly can also be an easy thing. Google has set up an explanation of what makes a website mobile-friendly. Google also offers a test to insure that your website meets the Google requirements.

    Top Things to Include in Your Mobile-Friendly Website

    1. Create a strong call to action what is displayed front and center of mobile devices. Know what you want visitors to do and ask them to do it when they land on your website.

    2. Keep it simple. Clean and precise content that displays on the mobile device will make it more likely that mobile visitors will utilize your site.

    3. Keep it short. Remember that answering questions or filling out forms on mobile devices can be more challenging than for laptops and desktops. Minimize the number of fields or offer autofill when possible.

    4. Make “home” easy to find and use. Easy navigation is essential for mobile-friendly.

    5. Keep it about that initial call to action. Your company may run specials or feature events, but ultimately your website needs to be about that call to action.

    6. Make search easy. Keep the search button in an easy to find location.

    7. Create a user friendly site. Although it is all about your call to action, it is also all about the visitor. Allow the visitor to use your site before she is forced to commit to the call to action.

    8. Offer conversion buttons. Allow information to be easily accessed across platforms or sent to a second platform for use at another time.

    9. One or the other. If you are not ready to commit to the mobile-friendly way of life, stick to the traditional website. Avoid mixing in elements of mobile-friendly until you are ready to optimize for mobile users.

    10. Avoid making more work for the user. Create a site that will adjust the size of the screen appropriately so that users do not constantly have to adjust the size to get the information needed.

    There are a number of things that you can add to your website that will continue to enhance the mobile experience without detracting from the desktop experience. Work with a website designer to discover which elements work best for your company. Embrace the Google mobile-friendly changes and elevate your website for the largest percentage of users today.

    Categories: Mobile Tags: Tags:

    Using Social Media to Build Your Online Presence

    Your online presence is one of the most important ways to market your business to the world. It honestly doesn’t matter whether you have a strictly online business or a bricks and mortar business; using social media is a great way to get the word out about your business and to establish your identity online.

    Ensure that Your Brand Matches Throughout

    While each social media network has its own personally, your brand is always your brand. You should keep your brand the same, but adjust it slightly to fit in with the personality of the platform. But don’t change it too much because you want your audience to recognize you and interact with you.

    Keep Your Profile Updated and Complete

    Social media networks are always changing so a complete profile today will be incomplete tomorrow. Keep it up-to-date by checking it often, updating the things you have changed, and adding in information as the platform creates new ways for you to share.

    Be Consistent with Your Posts

    One of the keys to making social media work for you to build your online presence, is putting up regular posts and updates. You want to do it more than once a day on social media such as LinkedIn or Twitter. For example, if you have a blog post you want to share, set it up to share twice in the day instead of only once.

    Become an Expert on One or Two Platforms

    You can’t be everyplace and do it well, so choose one or two platforms where your audience likes to hang out, and become an expert at those systems. You’ll do yourself a huge favor. If you can afford to outsource to every social network, it will be fine, but if it’s just you, take it easy and become an expert of one or two.

    Develop Content Specific for Each Platform

    You don’t want to rehash the exact same content in the exact same words on each social media network. For example, when you share a blog post you wrote promoting your widget, you want to share it with a special blurb for each different network.

    Engage with Others

    Don’t forget to talk to people on each network. Answer questions, share your knowledge, and interact and engage with them. Social media is supposed to be social. Automation is fine, but you do need to answer people and talk to people in real time, too.

    Share Other People’s Updates

    When someone shares something important that your audience will find interesting, share it. The people you share and congratulate and interact with will do the same for you. Plus, it’s another form of content that can help establish expertise.

    Join Groups

    Most social media networks right now have some forms of groups that you can join. Even Pinterest has group pin boards that you can join. Joining these, then interacting with the people, is a great way to network and get known better.

    Social media is an excellent way to build your online presence along with your website and blog. Use the social media to promote what you put on your website, as well as to stimulate sales of your products and services.

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    Home Based Business – Offline Marketing Strategies

    The Internet has become the largest medium of communication; and has presented a lot of business opportunities. Online home based business owners tend to limit themselves to online marketing methods. Nevertheless, there is a huge potential to promote your home based business through some cost effective offline marketing strategies. So what are the most effective offline marketing strategies for your home based business?

    1. Word of mouth in your circle of influence
    Word of mouth is one of the best free advertising channels. We all have people we interact with on a daily basis, and these are potential customers. Make a list of all the people you know or interact with and how can you best tell them about your internet business. Be passionate about your internet business and always be prepared to tell someone about it when an opportunity to do so presents itself!

    2. Mail-out newsletters and flyers
    Mail-out newsletter or flyers can be effective if you target it to a specific ‘group’. You could create one to distribute to local day care centers just as an example – and in your newsletter or flyer, highlight the benefits of an online business to the targeted group, for example earning money at home for stay at home moms or dads. Posting your home based business URL on bulletin boards can also be effective.

    3. Use and give away free branded ‘stuff’
    You can promote your business by having your URL on all your stationery, all written communication and other items you can give away for free. If you want to get a lot of people to know about your home based business, you will need to come up with some creative ways of promoting your URL. You can be limited only by your imagination. Have your business cards with your home based business URL. Give them out to people you meet, leave them about where you can, such as in your local coffee shop.

    4. Newspapers and magazines
    Local newspapers are good for advertising your online business. Most local papers have ‘home business opportunities’ section, so you run a regular classified advert. In addition, contact your local newspaper or business-oriented magazine and let the business editor know you have a new business and web site and what you offer. Local newspapers are frequently interested in featuring local business people and their accomplishments. This is free advertising and should always be used. You can also contact your local magazine and offer to write a monthly or weekly guest column for them, and include your ‘author bio’ and home based business URL.

    5. Joint ventures with offline business
    You can get into a joint venture partnership with an offline business which sells a complementary product or service to your home based business. If you can identify a partner that best fit your business, this is an important offline marketing strategy that can help you succeed in your home based business by enabling you to reach potential customers that you could not reach before. As an example, if you have a website selling fitness/health products or tips, you could prepare a leaflet and make a deal with an offline local fitness/health shop where they giveaway your leaflet to their shoppers with each purchase.

    The offline marketing strategies outlined above can help you grow your home based business. I have used these strategies alot and they work well. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and promote your business offline!!

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    Methods of Conducting Market Research

    In order to conduct market research, you need to know a few different methods of research. Today, conducting market research is easier due to the relatively inexpensive technology you can take advantage of, some of which will be discussed below. The important thing is to learn about these methods, and commit to conducting market research on a regular basis.

    The times that are important to do market research are before creating and launching a new product, to analyze how your current marketing is working, and more.

    1. Surveys – Software like SurveyMonkey.com, and Zoho.com allow you to conduct web, email and mobile based surveys so that they can be taken by anyone, from anywhere, using any device. Surveys are good to use on your audience as well as to help find your audience.

    2. Online Communities and Forums – Finding industry-specific web communities and online message boards (forums) are a great way to observe a specific type of audience to find out answers to the questions you have.

    3. Social Media Analytics – Using social media analytics to find trends in the actions of your followers is a great way to conduct research. Want to figure out which kind of social media post gets more engagement? Use the analytics that comes with your software.

    4. Interviews – Due to high speed internet and webcams, you can use software like Skype and Google Hangouts to conduct and record online interviews. You can also conduct old-fashioned “paper” interviews via email.

    5. Crowdsourcing – This is a relatively new phenomenon; you can actually crowdsource any problem you have to find multiple solutions. You can even crowdsource as part of research to find whether or not there is a market for your product.

    6. Focus Groups – This is a group of potential target audience members who will sit and discuss the product and services or the ideas about the products and services.

    7. Behavioral Observation – A lot of times people will say one thing and do another. It’s important that you test this potential behavior by using the results of your survey to send a test to ensure survey honesty and integrity.

    8. Trial Sales – Once you’ve conducted some market research and you’ve found positive potential in a product, do some trial sales to see how it goes. Try different sales pages and different methods of selling to find out what works best.

    Using these methods of conducting market research will ensure successful research results. Don’t just conduct research once. You should be doing ongoing research and testing as long as you are in business. Businesses that understand the importance of research are very successful because they have some sort of idea about what will happen once they push out their products and services.

    Categories: Marketing Tags: Tags: ,

    Real-Time Search Strategies

    When you decide to implement a real-time marketing strategy, it’s important to understand how search plays into your efforts. Not only will you need to conduct searches to find out what is happening within your community, but your customers will conduct searches as well. As you conduct real-time marketing, you will want your audience to find the information and content that you push out.

    * Boost Your Facebook Posts – When you are using real-time marketing strategies, it’s important that you spend money to advance your real-time strategy. Since it is real time you don’t have the luxury of waiting for the information to gain momentum. Instead, spend the money to promote the post.

    * Pay for Ads on Google – Promote your real-time answers, products and services with Google so that the most audience members will see the information as quickly as possible. Using paid Google Ads and buying the right keywords, or displaying ads that will display where your audience goes, will make it that much more likely your efforts are noticed.

    * Use Popular Hashtags – When an event occurs, a hashtag is often developed. If you can relate your post to the hashtag, you’re more likely to get seen by those who are following that particular news when they search for information based on that hashtag.

    * Plan in Advance – This might seem contrary to the idea of real-time marketing but the truth is you can make an outline of actions to take in advance. Additionally you can plan in advance which products that you might push out based on various information that comes to light during the real-time marketing push.

    * Develop Guidelines – It’s important that guidelines are created based on knowledge of your products, services and audience so that nothing is pushed out that contradicts these values due to the real-time effort.

    * Monitor Customer Sentiment – One way to use search is to monitor real-time customer sentiment. Use social media like Twitter to search for keywords that relate to your products, service, industry or company to help.

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    – When you have sent out a real-time marketing message on social media, why not add the same information to an email newsletter blast, a blog post, or other areas so that you show up more in search.

    Real-time marketing is an important way to get to know your audience better, help them to get to know your business better, and to ensure that your values match. The more effort you spend on real-time marketing, the better all your online marketing collateral will work for you. Your website, blog, social media, groups, and communities will reflect the effort that you put into real-time marketing.

    Categories: Marketing, online advertising Tags: Tags:

    Use the Tools Facebook Offers

    Using the tools that are already offered in Facebook is important because they are really great. They are set up to help make it as easy as possible for you to market your business online. They are pretty much foolproof because they are made for Facebook.

    * Blueprint – You can learn straight from Facebook what works best for marketing your business on their platform. You can learn new skills, study fast or slow depending on how you want to do it, and you can access your courses from anyplace. On a side note, if you want to offer services for your clients on Facebook, getting these skills is in demand.

    Link to Blueprint – https://www.facebook.com/blueprint?_rdr

    * Learn How – If you really want to get to the next level of learning how to succeed with Facebook on Facebook’s platform, learn how to make the most of your Facebook page, how Facebook ads work, how to measure results, and exactly how to create ads that target your audience.

    Link to Learn How – https://www.facebook.com/business/learn

    * Free Analytics Apps – Using the analytics that Facebook offers is important because it gives you the real insights that you need in order to know whether or not your efforts are working on Facebook or not. You can measure views, clicks, sales and more.

    * Use the Power Editor – Facebook has an advertisement editor so you don’t need to use any outside sources to create your ads that get results. Its Power Editor allows you to manage your ads easily. You do need to use Chrome to use the power editor but it’s simple to use and set up.

    Link to Power Editor – https://www.facebook.com/help/194355723944655/

    * Facebook Segmenting Tools – Facebook allows you to look at different groups of people according to their demographics and other segmentation modes. You can market directly to people who are on specific platforms, and even in particular states or in certain groups on Facebook.

    * Create Funnels – When you use Facebook to create a funnel, you can see how people move through your funnel and become customers. It will give you enormous insights into what your customers are doing once they enter your funnel.

    * Business Pages – Facebook allows you to create a business page for free. Once you create your business page, you’ll have new tools opened to you to help you promote it. You can create a call to action, put your newsletter sign-up on there, and more.

    * Communities – Using communities to market your business is a great way to use Facebook for marketing. You can not only communicate in a new way with your customers, but you can also promote the posts and more in the communities.

    Facebook is a wonderful platform to use to promote your business – whether it’s a bricks and mortar business or a digital business. It doesn’t matter because you can use it to market internationally or hyper locally when you use the tools they make available to businesses.

    Categories: Facebook, online advertising Tags: Tags:

    Nine Ways to Create Buzz about Your Business

    Creating buzz about your business means that you do something to get people talking about you and your business. Today, creating buzz about your business is important, especially as there are so many people to compete with. But, if you can set yourself apart in this way, you’ll win a lot of new customers. Here are nine ways to do that.

    1. Send Out a Press Release – Press releases are still viable and important ways to get buzz about your business, even in this day of social media and blogging. Press releases should be sent out to your contacts every time you have something newsworthy to share.

    2. Create and Share an Infographic – Infographics are long, pictorial graphics that tell a story about the data and information that you have. These are great ways to encourage sharing, especially if you include data that is relevant for your audience that they’ll enjoy.

    3. Release a Free eBook on Kindle – Having a book launch with a free Kindle book is a great way to create buzz. Ask the people who download the book free to give you a review and feedback, which will help move your book up on the list that Kindle recommends to people.

    4. Create Viral Videos – While you might not be able to just willfully create a viral video, if you create regular videos that are of interest to your audience then one of them is bound to resonate enough to go viral. Videos get shared more often than text, so you’re off to the right start when you create videos.

    5. Have a Facebook Contest – Contests are great way to create buzz about your business. You can have them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, your blog… however you want. Just follow the rules of the platform and make sure your prizes are relevant to your audience.

    6. Conduct a Blog Tour – A blog tour is where you plan to place a guest post that is original to the place where you put it, and which is about something you’re promoting. The way to set that up is to contact people to join the tour and allow you to post your information on their blog.

    7. Host a Webinar or Teleseminar – These are great ways to build your email list and get buzz about your business. A good way to do it is to ask other people to do them with you. That way you all promote to your own email lists too.

    8. Start a YouTube Channel – A YouTube channel can be almost as good as having a television show if you plan out the content you want to do, post content on a consistent basis, and try to be as professional as possible.

    9. Connect to a Charity – You don’t want to do charitable things just because you want to create buzz. But, if there is a charity that you like, you can donate a percentage of proceeds all the time to it, or you can have yearly sales where all proceeds go to the fundraiser.

    If you want to create buzz about your business, using social media is a great way to do it. Try these different ways and see what reactions you get. Keep doing new things as often as you can to keep the buzz going.

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    Eight Ways to Market Your Biz Online Cheaply

    Marketing your business online inexpensively is a real possibility. You can practically market your business for free if you know what to do. That’s why online marketing is so completely awesome and fun. The barriers to entry are low, and even the learning curve is small. So before you know it, you will bring your business to profit with free or cheap marketing.

    1. Content Marketing

    This is one of your most important marketing weapons in your arsenal. In fact, you’ll use content for all types of marketing including every inexpensive way mentioned below. Content is needed that sells, educates, engages, informs and excites. You need content for all aspects of marketing – up to and including customer relations.

    2. Use Social Media

    Social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ all have a place in your online marketing endeavors. Well, they might. You have to determine which social media networks will work for you and it will depend on your niche and your audience. Where do they hang out? Be there.

    3. Blog Often

    Blogging is a big source of traffic, and in some instances the only source of traffic for many website owners. It’s a great way to get the message out to your audience while not spending much money. You can write the posts yourself or you can outsource. Most people write them themselves when starting out. It can take time to get used to doing it, but writing a post a day can help gain momentum. But you also want to consider doing longer blog posts, less often, to get results.

    4. Remember SEO

    If you are not familiar with SEO (search engine optimization), it’s important to learn. SEO changes constantly and is how you optimize your website for search engines. There is both on-page and off-page SEO that you can do for your business. Learn all you can about it.

    5. Send Out a Press Release

    The good, old-fashioned press release is still a thing, believe it or not. You can still get a lot of value out of sending out free press rereleases if you know how to do it. The trick is to have contacts to which you send the press release directly and not just out to never-never land.

    6. Perfect Your Website

    Your website is your store front, and even if you have a bricks and mortar store front, your website is the store front your customers will likely see first. If it doesn’t look great, why would anyone purchase from you?

    7. Join Relevant Communities

    Communities are a great way to get your name out there. There are communities you can join on Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as self-hosted and owned “inner circles” and mastermind clubs that you can join. They can help you get known as an expert, as well as help you get more links to your website.

    8. Get Listed

    There are directories that are free or inexpensive that you can join to help market your business. Ensure that the directory is niche oriented, and that it is run by a reputable person so that you are listed with other reputable business owners. You don’t want to be on a list that is associated with spam. Your local chamber of commerce is one such list that you can get on for the price of your membership.

    Finding inexpensive ways to market your business online is a great way to get started. But even after you have a great business, you’ll want to keep using these inexpensive ways to market your business.

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    Why the Numbers Matter

    Blogging is essential in today’s content marketing world. In fact, your blog is at the center of all of your content marketing efforts. Without an understanding of the ways in which you can ensure blogging success, you’re just shooting in the dark hoping for a miracle. Miracles do happen online, but it’s more likely to have success that is planned.

    Blogging provides many numbers that you can view and study. Viewing the numbers may help you do more of what is working, and less of what is not working.

    With the numbers you can tell how many people are visiting your blog, what they’re reading, where they came from and more. You can determine through statistics how many people come to your site and “bounce” off, and how many stick around to read more. Plus, if you have your analytics set up right, you can figure out how many you’re converting to subscribers and how many of those because customers.

    Here are some numbers you’ll want to look at:

    * How Many Visitors – This is pretty self-explanatory, but it’s a good indicator if your content marketing is working or not. If your number of visitors is steadily moving upwards then your content is doing its job.

    * How Many New Visitors – Knowing how many visitors are new is also an important number to notice. This helps you know if you’re getting a rise in notice and a wider audience.

    * Where the Visitors Came From – This is an important metric, because if you have more visitors from one place over another you can then put more effort in the place that is converting.

    * How Many Repeat Visitors – Having repeat visitors can be a good indication of having content that readers want to consume. If you have low repeat visitors, you may not be converting well or retargeting visitors well.

    * How Many Visitors Bounce Off – Most blogs have some bounces but if you have a super-high bounce rate, it can be a sign of poor targeting.

    * How Many Visitors Stay to Read – Look at how many people read your blog posts, and what they’re reading. Create more content that they like to read.

    * How Many Visitors Comment – Engagement is a great sign of good social media marketing and if you don’t have enough, do what you can to get more.

    And the two most important numbers of all:

    * How Many Visitors Sign Up for Email Lists b – One of the points of driving traffic to your website or blog is to get email subscribers. You should do what needs to be done to collect as many targeted subscribers as possible, because email is where you’ll earn repeat website and blog readers and where you’ll get customers.

    * How Many Subscribers Convert to Customers – The other number that is essential to know is how many subscribers convert to customers. This will help you know if what you’re doing is working in the way you hope.

    If you don’t know this information, it’s hard to know if what you’re doing is working. If you really want to make a business exceed expectations and run a successful online marketing campaign, then looking at these numbers and responding with appropriate actions will make all the difference.

    Categories: Marketing, Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: