Category: Grow a Home Business

    Common Mobile Marketing Mistakes

    Even though mobile sales are outstripping PC sales, and over half of social media users are using mobile – and probably one third to half of your audience is using mobile to read your email messages, so many marketers are making serious mobile marketing mistakes. Thankfully, you can avoid these issues if you think ahead. Here are ten common mistakes to avoid:

    1. Creating Complicated Opt-in Processes – You can always get more information from customers later, but creating an easy and streamlined opt-in process is super important with mobile. When a customer is using a finger instead of a keyboard to click boxes and type in information, they will become frustrated if the procedure is too complicated. Make it easy; remember that less is more.

    2. Not Ensuring Links Work for Mobile – When you send any email link, it’s imperative that you assume it will be read on a mobile device and that the link works no matter which device your audience member is using. Can the user click through easily and then does the website work well using any device? Can the user get around the navigation?

    3. Not Being Targeted in Your Actions – Know why you’re sending any message or putting any content up for anyone to consume, and know to whom you’re sending it. You can use your email and website metrics to determine which devices your audience uses so that you can ensure that any user using any device can access the info and understands why they should.

    4. Not Understanding Laws, Rules and Regulations – Like with most things to do with marketing, there are laws, rules and regulations. Ensure that you become familiar with these laws so that you don’t break any of them. Opt-in regulations and privacy concerns are important to most people, and they should be to you too.

    5. Using Too Much Text for the Space – Remember the size of most mobile devices is about 3.3 inches of space. If that small space is overrun with text and your user has to stretch and scroll around to read the content, they’re going to get frustrated and give up. There are ways to optimize your content within the code to ensure that it automatically adjusts based on the device your audience is using.

    6. Not Creating Ongoing Value for Customers – As important as access is creating value. When you create an app, for example, if you don’t want to lose that customer eventually it’s important to remind the user about the app by offering updates, extensions and more to anyone who has downloaded it. The value of a long-term customer cannot be underestimated.

    7. Not Knowing Your Purpose before Sending a Message – Any message must have a point for being. Is it to get more opt-ins? Is it to get more sales? What is the purpose of the message and how can you be sure that your audience understands the purpose quickly?

    8. Building an App without a Planning for Marketing – Apps are a great way to involve yourself in the mobile marketing landscape; however, creating an app is like creating a whole other business. You not only need to create the app, but you also need a marketing plan for the app if you want to be successful.

    9. Not Having Clear Calls to Action – Once you know the purpose of a message, it’s imperative that you craft clear calls to action. Sometimes you may need to test different CTAs to find out which works best for your audience.

    10. Treating Mobile as a Separate Entity – While mobile is a huge consideration and should be for anyone who wants to market online today, it’s also important to remember that mobile devices are simply tools with which to access your content. Much like different browsers, different devices have different code requirements. Thankfully, though, by using HTML5 and responsive coding, you can make your websites work for all devices seamlessly.

    Avoiding these common mobile marketing mistakes will help you become a winner in the online marketing game, which is increasingly becoming more mobile. Don’t avoid the statistics when bringing your marketing campaigns into the present. Otherwise you’re going to be leaving money on the table.

    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.

    Categories: social media Tags: Tags:

    Sustainable Event Planning

    From big birthday parties to weddings and more, event planning seems to be a booming business that just keeps getting better. People and business alike will always have events to plan, and who doesn’t like helping make peoples’ dreams come true? Event planning is also an excellent opportunity to introduce a great chance to promote more environmentally friendly events to your area.

    Not only is a sustainable event planning business an easy sell to customers everywhere, but it is also easy to accomplish. Here are some ideas to start with for a sustainable event planning business:

    * Reusable Linens – Instead of using disposable napkins and throw-away table linens, exclusively offer reusable linens. They are easy to wash and maintain, and they will cut down on an amazing amount of waste.

    * Deluxe Dishware – Use only reusable dishes as well. This means everything from flatware, to cups, to plates. Not using disposable dishes can do a lot of good for the environment, and can save you money as well.

    * Sustainable Materials – You can use sustainable materials for fabrics, props, flooring, furniture and more. There are many materials, such as bamboo, hemp, and organic cotton that can be used for almost everything you need. These materials are also likely to be of great quality and last longer.

    * Recycled Materials – You can make a point to use recycled materials for all of these items as well. This will save you money on top of being environmentally friendly.

    * Bring Nature In – There is almost no better setting for an event than the great outdoors. You can throw your events in great outdoor locations, or bring the outdoors in with great nature-inspired decorations.

    * Loving Lights – Use environmentally friendly and long-lasting LED lights to brighten up your events. They may cost a little more initially, but they will last longer and light up better than any other option.

    * Compostables – When cleaning up during and after an event, make sure to keep your trash, recyclables, and compostable material all separate. You can use, sell, or donate compost to many farms and other organizations to be reused.

    * Fresh Fare – When planning an event that involves food, choose local catering that focuses on the use of fresh, local produce. The meals will likely taste better than any other option, and you will be doing the environment and local economy good.

    * Conscious Cleaning – After a great party there is always a lot of clean-up. Avoid using harsh chemical cleaners and instead use all-natural and eco-friendly cleaning products exclusively.

    * Dedicated Decor – There are a vast number of ways that you can make recycled and natural décor look perfect. You can use leftover wine bottles for vases and lighting projects, potted plants as decoration and favors, and reusable chalkboards for signs and place cards. The ideas are literally endless, and will give your business that touch of creativity that will set you apart.

    These are just some of the many ways that you could turn a simple event planning business into a sustainable, Earth-saving business. Even better, with so many reusable and recycled elements, you can cut your overhead down exponentially.

    Categories: events Tags: Tags:

    Nine Ways to Market Online via Email

    Email marketing is one of the most important and effective forms of marketing to ever be invented. The conversion rate for appropriate email approaches four to seven percent over time. That’s because a new client needs to see a brand seven to eight times before they trust it enough to buy something. Email is the perfect way to do that.

    1. Use the Right Software – There are many different types of email marketing software available but you need to read the fine print to be sure that you can do what you want to do with it. It’s safer to use a cloud-based service than one you use that is self-hosted, although those exist too. Both provide code for your subscription form.

    2. Autoresponder Series – No matter what else you do when it comes to online marketing, when someone gets on your list be sure to send them something no less often than weekly. Less than that and they’re going to forget about you, and they might even think you’re spamming them because they forgot. Set up triggered emails in the service to go out on a regular basis.

    3. ECourses – A great way to fill up your email marketing autoresponder is with an eCourse that delivers daily or weekly with information and assignments for your audience. This is not only a good way to teach them something but also a good way to suggest other products.

    4. Easy Recurring Content – Autoresponders offer the ability to set up easy recurring content that goes out on a triggered basis, either by actually setting a date or by setting an interval.

    5. ENewsletter – Some marketers use newsletters to send information to their audience. Newsletters are often larger and also available on the site in HTML so a subscriber can view them via email or on the site. A newsletter can go out monthly or more often. Be sure to tell your audience how often they’ll get the newsletter so they know what to expect.

    6. Craft Effective Headlines – It’s very important that headlines and subject lines be specific, keyword rich, and something the audience will want to open and see. Don’t be tricky or too cheeky as people don’t click through unless they know what’s inside.

    7. Personalize Email – Autoresponder technology allows you to personalize an email based on the information you’ve gathered from your audience. You can collect first name and email, and then you can send your email to, “Dear Sally,” instead of no one.

    8. Use Double Opt-In – It’s really important to use a double opt-in procedure. This means that the person subscribes at your website, then they agree that they subscribed via their email. Using this method offers proof if it ever comes up that you are not sending SPAM.

    9. Don’t Forget the CTA – When you send emails to anyone for any reason, you should include a call to action. It might be to share the newsletter with others, to like you on social media, to try out software you recommend or something else entirely.

    You simply cannot have a good online marketing plan if you don’t involve yourself with email marketing. In fact, everything else you do marketing wise should all lead back to building your email list. A targeted email list will enable you to give yourself a raise whenever you want one.

    Categories: Email Subscribers Tags: Tags:

    Developing Exclusive Content for Memberships

    One of your first jobs when having a membership website is to keep it full of exclusive, relevant content. You might want to add a blog post each day, but only add eCourses each quarter, with a new white paper or report every month. If you’re not sure what type of content your membership needs, consider some of these.

    * Exclusive Interviews – You can use Skype and a plugin called Pamela to record interviews. Or do them live as an event with Google Hangouts On Air, record them, and use them in the membership later. You’re killing two birds with one stone in this manner.

    * Instructional Posts / Videos – Teaching your members to do something happens to be an important part of having a membership website. You can do instructional posts and videos and a combination of both. If you do any how to blog posts, you can also make a video out of it and vice versa.

    * Case Studies – A case study is an important aspect of a membership site. It enables members to see stories of those who have succeeded with the methods or issues that your membership website is about. A case study can be written in the form of a report, or as an interview.

    * Member Profiles – People love seeing profiles of others who are part of the group. You can have members fill out their own public profiles in text, but you can also encourage each member to make a short video about them to include.

    * User Generated Content – One of the biggest driving factors in most membership websites is a group or community of some form such as a message board, or a private Facebook group. There are pros and cons of both. If you have a message board on your website, you own the content and always control it. If not, you don’t.

    * Curated Content – All the content you share doesn’t have to be original. You can also include content that has been created by other people in the form of curation. A simple blog post that provides a short description of the content, why it’s relevant, and a link to the original content is a great way to share important curated content. Hint: Some affiliate programs allow you to link to any page of the website and get credit for sales.

    * Infographics – An infographic is an excellent way to share important data with members in a way that is understandable. If you have any data-centric blog posts or articles, try turning that data into an infographic and put it with the text content to help increase understanding. If you make the infographics sharable (watermark them), you can even attract new members with them.

    * Motivational Memes – People often join membership groups to commiserate with, and be motivated by, like-minded people. Creating a daily meme with a quote that is relevant can make members feel connected.

    * White Papers – A white paper usually explains a hard concept to grasp with a lot of research and images. The paper describes the problem, and then recommends several solutions that are popular, including your solution which is highlighted more than the others.

    * Courses – ECourses, or “drip” courses, are not that difficult to add to your membership website if you have the right software. These are courses that your members can sign up for which are included in membership, or can be offered at a discount to members over what you charge the public. You can host the courses yourself if you use aMember.com, rainmakerplatform.com or another membership option. You can also put them on a system like CourseCraft.net.

    Creating new content on a regular basis is crucial to maintaining a profitable membership website that provides value to the members. The value of the content is what will encourage members to stick around. You don’t have to add massive content daily, but you should add something on a regular and planned basis.

    Categories: Grow a Home Business, membership Tags: Tags:

    How to Turn an Unsubscribe Back into a Subscribe

    Once in a while you’ll have someone unsubscribe from your email list. In reality, you want to get some unsubscribes because that means your list is super focused and it might not be right for that particular person. However, the unsubscribe process is also another opportunity to refocus that person and better target your audience.

    Follow the Law – By law you must offer an easy to use unsubscribe button. Don’t force them to re-enter their email addresses to unsubscribe. Just give them the button, and let them go without doing so grudgingly. However, you can remind them of why they joined your list at the same time by sending them to a special offer sales page when they click unsubscribe.

    Keep It Simple – Don’t make it tricky to unsubscribe. Prepopulate the unsubscribe buttons but also offer the alternatives to the reader to choose different lists or information they may want that might be more accurate for them.

    Ask Them Why They’re Leaving – Using the unsubscribe page as a way to find out why they want to unsubscribe can help you better focus your email messages and opt-in offers in the future. Plus, it can give the person unsubbing new insight into what you offer your lists and they may change their mind.

    Offer Alternatives – On the unsubscribe page, don’t make them jump through hoops but do offer them some options such as lower frequency of email (such as a monthly option) and/or different newsletters they can sign up for, or other offers that you have that they may not know about.

    Take It in Your Stride – It’s really not personal. If you can take the unsubscribe for what it is, a simple request not to get more email from the list they’ve subscribed to and not a personal attack on you, then you’ll be able to handle the unsubs better. Honestly, a clean list is better than a list full of inactive users, so some people are doing you a favor by unsubscribing.

    Send High Quality Information – Stop unsubscribes before they start by providing high quality information that is very targeted toward your audience from the start. When someone subscribes to your list, let them know what to expect up front, then be sure to deliver what you promised.

    Send a Free Parting Gift – When someone unsubs from your list, your autoresponder email will send them an unsubscribe confirmation email which is your chance to say goodbye. Within that you can offer them a parting gift which will then put them on a different list that might be more appropriate for them.

    Ask Them to Reconsider – On the unsubscribe page you can also simply ask them straight out to reconsider unsubscribing. Offer them a gift if they stick around a little longer such as one more week or a month. Some people are only unsubscribing because they forgot why they signed up for your list. This is a chance to remind them.

    You have to tread lightly when it comes to unsubscribing because you don’t want to make it really difficult and make them jump through hoops to finally get off your list. But, you do want to ensure that you remind your audience why they signed up for your list. Make it clear that you’re sorry they’re leaving, and finally ask them for another chance at pleasing them.

    Categories: Email Subscribers, Grow a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    What You Can Learn from Your Competitors’ Copy 

    While you should not steal your competitors’ copy, it’s important to read it as often as possible. Sign up for their email lists, follow them on social media, and get reminders about new blog posts. Also follow your competitors when they post a guest article or blog post or conduct an interview. Why? You might learn something important that you can use to make your own copy work better.

    1. Identify Content Marketing Gaps – When you go to your competitors’ websites, how do you feel as you read the copy? Are you confused by the navigation or does it lead you right where you want to go? What do you like about the website copy and what do you dislike? Take notes so that you can find deficiencies in your own website that can be fixed.

    2. Determine Effective Content Types – By watching the amount of engagement on any article or blog post, you can see first-hand what types of content works best for your audience. Since you share an audience, you can be reasonably sure that this method will work. On their blog, notice which types of blog posts get more likes, shares and comments. If you can identify popular topics and types of content, use these in your own work.

    3. Help You Find Your Voice – If you’ve identified more competitors, you can compare which type of content is more fun to read. Which one is closest to a style you’d like to write? As you read, take notes on styles that you like and those that you do not like. Is there a missing component of style that you can add to your copy to make it more interesting and feel more like part of you?

    4. Push You to Do More – When you observe how your competition is motivating, engaging, and grabbing customers right out from under you, it will make you do more. You’ll produce more content, post more on social media, create more products, develop more services and just do more. Because when you see someone else doing it, you know you can do it better.

    5. Teach You What Not to Do – When you read copy that is poorly written, or fails to reach its potential, you’ll be able to tell that it’s bad. When you realize your competitor has made a mistake, you’ll be able to avoid those mistakes.

    6. Teach You What to Do – Sometimes your competitor will do something right. That’s great, for you too. When you see your competition delivering effective copy to customers, you see what can be accomplished. Remember that competition is never bad. Have you ever noticed that gas stations and coffee shops tend to open in pairs? There is a reason. If there is a profitable coffee shop or business on the street and you open one that’s just a little better or different across the street, you’ll be successful too.

    7. Help You Find New Resources – As you read your competitors’ copy, you will be introduced to new resources that will help you in your business. You may find resources that are great, and you may find some to avoid.

    8. Learn New Keywords – A really useful aspect of your competitors’ copy is the keywords that they choose to use. They may use some keywords that you didn’t think about before. You don’t have to copy their content in order to use the keywords in your copy.

    You can learn a lot from your competitors’ copy. You can learn what to do and not to do, new resources, keywords and more. Keeping track of your competition is an important part of making your business better. It helps you craft better copy that gets your message across effectively.

    Categories: Content, Marketing Tags: Tags:

    Habits of Highly Successful Mobile Marketers

    Successful mobile marketers share many characteristics with other successful marketers – such as the ability to stay ahead of their market, understanding their audience, knowing their niche inside and out, and then knowing how to impart their message onto the world in a unique way that resonates with their audience.

    1. They Listen to Their Audience – No marketer worth their salt will ignore their audience. Everything they do is about the audience, from product creation, to services they choose to provide, to promotions they push out to their audience. It’s all about them, so they find ways to listen from watching via social media, to surveys, to being involved with the community.

    2. They Know How to Be Authentic – Successful people in general seem to draw others to them in a way that seems almost supernatural. But, the truth is, they just know how to appear authentic. You can appear authentic too by actually being authentically you. If you’re not sure who that is yet, devote some time to self-discovery.

    3. They Use Personalization – All marketing works better when it’s more personal. What’s more is that it doesn’t matter that people know that a lot of personalization is now automated. Consumers still respond better to personalization. So, the more personal you can be with your audience, the more successful you will be.

    4. They Ensure Each Message Is Relevant – Don’t just send out messages to get a message sent out. This is a mistake that content-centric marketing often causes. You do want a lot of content on a regular basis, but you also want content that has a point with a relevant message.

    5. They Are Always Unique – This isn’t to say you can’t use PLR or get ideas from others, but you must put your own unique and personalized touch on every bit of content that you put out to the world along with your products and services.

    6. They Update Content Consistently – Sending out content on a consistent and expected basis is one of the keys to maintaining audience appeal. If that content is also relevant, speaks to the audience, and has a point, you’ll be even more compelling and successful.

    7. They Make It Simple for Their Audience – Mobile devices are harder to use than a PC since mostly people are using fingers on a small keypad or more commonly a touchpad. Asking your audience to enter too much information will only cause them to stall in their purchases and consumption of your content.

    8. They Pay Attention to Trends – Successful mobile marketers keep one ear to the ground at all times in order to pay specific attention to niche trends in regard to mobile marketing. They read industry news, learn all they can about mobile marketing and how it affects their niche and their audience.

    9. They Are Mobile Obsessed – Instead of making mobile an afterthought, successful mobile markets are focused first on mobile and then everything else. After all, good design is good design. If it works well on mobile it will work well via PCs too.

    If you want to be a highly successful mobile marketer, it’s imperative to incorporate these nine habits into your life as a mobile marketer. In fact, most of these habits can be important for any type of marketing.

    Categories: Mobile Tags: Tags:

    Using Social Media to Promote Videos

    Promoting videos on social media is a sure-fire way to get more views and find more of your audience. But, when using social media to promote your videos you want to be sure that you do it in such a way as to get more views and more action, rather than bore your followers.

    Spruce Up Your Facebook Posts

    When you share something on Facebook, you have a lot more control than you may think over the title of the piece and the image. You can learn how to edit the Facebook post so that it’s not just the same image or the same title as every other Facebook share.

    Make Your Pinterest Posts Interesting

    When you want to promote a video on Pinterest, create a theme pinboard that includes the video you want to promote along with other images, quotes and information you want to share. Creating a themed pinboard will do a lot more for your sharing efforts than just random shares.

    Share More than Once on Twitter

    There are some people who will say that you should share something every hour on Twitter, although that might be overkill. But, it is true that you should share the same thing more than once on Twitter. Don’t do it all in the same way, though. Share three or more times but use different words each time for your link to attract different portions of your audience.

    Use Your Blog

    You may not realize it, but your blog is a type of social media too. This is especially true if you open up your blog posts to comments. When you create a new video, you should definitely promote it via your blog by writing a post about the video and then embedding the video into the blog.

    As a Comment

    If your video is not too promotional but rather a good resource or answer to someone’s question on another person’s video, social media post, forum, or blog post, then you can post a link to the video with a comment about why this video will help them.

    Make It Different

    Each time you make a post about your video, make the blurb a little different so that it will not appear to be unthoughtful or hurried. You want to attract your ideal audience to view the videos, and that audience might be slightly different on each social media network. They’ll respond to different prompts.

    Use Images

    Images are more likely to be shared on social media. Pick a good thumbnail for your video and use that to share on social media as an image to go with your video. The image will get the attention of your audience better than any words you can use.

    Be Consistent

    Never give up promoting your videos. Sometimes, it can seem like everything is so slow going and you’re not getting anywhere in more views for your videos. But, when you keep doing a little bit each and every single day, you will break through and see success.

    Using social media to promote your videos is an important way to get the word out about your videos to your audience. In fact, if you want anyone to view your videos, the best way to do so is via social media marketing.

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    Using Shows and Events as Content Generators

    Live events are fabulous content generators. Everything you see, hear, smell and do is ripe for taking as a content idea. It’s important that you take a notebook or other technology that enables you to keep notes of everything. Don’t rely on your memory as you’ll likely be a little overwhelmed during the event. To get your creative juices flowing, here are a few ideas for content ideas that you can generate from shows and events.

    * Videos – At live events people are ripe for sharing. Ask people to be interviewed on camera. Try to get the speakers and event leaders as well as guests to answer one question for your video. Then you can combine them as a video and then repurpose them as other types of content, including blog posts, tweets, and even an eBook.

    * Audio – Record people’s voices only answering the questions you have so that you can put them on a podcast. You can also use the audio as notes for blog posts, articles and press releases.

    * Transcripts – Make transcripts of every video and audio so that you can use it to publish as an eBook, report, white paper, or under the podcast or video as a way to help with website traffic.

    * Q & A – When anyone asks a question during the event, that question can now be used as fodder for new content from blog posts to eBooks, regardless of the answers given at the time.

    * Testimonials – Get people to give you video testimonials that you can use in support of attending the event next year. This is especially great if you plan to promote the event as an affiliate, or if it’s already your event.

    * Stories – Collect stories of people who are attending the event that you can use as information to create more content such as books, blog posts, articles and more.

    * Product Reviews – You can do reviews of the event and the speakers, as well as any products that are sold or promoted at the event. These are always great blog posts.

    * Live Tweets – During the event you can tweet what is happening via text or images. Later you can use those tweets if you put a telling hashtag with them, to help you remember what happened so you can make even more content.

    Keep your eyes and ears open, listen more than you talk, and so many ideas will come to light that you can use for content after the event. Content ideas can come from everywhere – even your hotel room or the side trip to local tourist destinations – as much as they can come from the event itself. But mostly, the ideas you get will come from the people who are at the event. Immerse yourself in the event, take notes, and the ideas will flow naturally.

    Categories: events Tags: Tags: