Category: Grow a Home Business

    Social Media Marketing – Are You Controlling It or Is It Controlling You?

    Social media marketing is a good way to get the word out about your business, products and/or services. But, there are times when you have to be cognizant of the fact that social media marketing has the potential to draw you in and become a major time sucker. If you want to ensure that social media is not controlling you, follow these tips.

    * Have a Plan of Action – Don’t do anything without a plan. You need a GPS to get to your destination; you also need a plan to ensure that social media marketing will work well for your business.

    * Create a Social Media Publication Calendar – Plan ahead according to the products and services you want to promote to craft posts and updates that have a purpose. If you have a calendar with pre-written posts, you can easily schedule them to work with your product launches.

    * Avoid Time-Sucking Activities – You know it is simple to get sucked into yet another personality quiz or discussions about that delicious plate of pasta your friend just made, not to mention all the games – but don’t do it. It’s fine to have fun, but do it after your work is complete.

    * Outsource Scheduling – Once you create a publication calendar that matches your promotions you can give the list of updates to someone else to schedule and monitor. However, don’t make that an excuse not to engage personally.

    * Take Time to Comment and Engage – Even if you outsource parts of your social media marketing, be sure to personally comment and engage your followers so that they know you are a real person to trust and know.

    * Do More of What Works – If you do something that works, do more of it and less of what doesn’t. Monitor the metrics of everything that you do so that you are positive about what is working and what is not working.

    * Each Post Needs a Reason for Being – Don’t post something without a purpose. If you don’t know why you are posting it, don’t bother.

    * Don’t Forget Your Call to Action – Everything you do should have a CTA. Whether it is to share, follow, or click, ensure clarity about what you want your audience members to do. If they know what you want them to do, they’re more likely to do it.

    Using social media correctly to market your business is an essential element today in the world of advertising and marketing. Social media marketing can be very effective and inexpensive if you are careful not to waste time and effort on messing around and doing things that have no purpose.

    Categories: social media Tags: Tags:

    Mobile-friendly and Responsive are NOT the Same

    The world of internet viewing has been shifting – first from desktops to more portable laptops. Now the shift is from desktops/laptops to on-the-go functionality from mobile devices. Your visitors and customers are on the move, and your website needs to accommodate that activity.

    Web designers, webmasters, and theme designers have been focused on creating websites that would cross from different computers and screen sizes without hindering the experience. The goal for many years was to have a website that would respond to the device where it was being viewed.

    Screens on mobile devices are larger than they have been, but they still require even more adjustment to make websites easier to use for the viewer. This is one of the reasons that Google released the new algorithm designed to award websites that make mobile viewing a better experience.

    Mobile-Friendly or Responsive

    Responsive designs were crafted to create a pleasant viewing experience. The webpage recognizes the size of the viewing screen and then adjusts to fit that screen. It will also adjust to the orientation of the screen. Responsive makes use of flexible layouts, images, and style sheets. A mobile-friendly website will always be responsive, but all responsive websites are not mobile-friendly.

    Simple responsive sites can feel clunky and require more work for the mobile viewer. Although the information is technically available on a responsive site, it is not easy to access for the mobile user and so would not quality as mobile-friendly.

    Mobile-friendly websites render content in a manner that is convenient to use and read on mobile devices – including smart phones and tablets. Search options, share buttons, and other navigation features are display in a way that requires less scrolling for the mobile users. Mobile-friendly websites were created to optimize the mobile experience and will often include single screen, single column designs, simple navigations, and reduced images or clutter.

    Several major companies designed two websites – one for mobile users and one for desktop/laptop users. This brought along the surge of m. sites. The roll-up to and ultimate release of “mobilegeddon” frowned on this pattern (although Google has said it does not penalize companies that choose to go this route). The goal is to create a website that will know who is watching and from what device and will provide quality and engaging content optimized for that particular device.

    You may want to work with a website design specialist to create the best optimized website for your company. Making the shift from responsive to mobile-friendly can have some unique challenges, but in the end it should not be too difficult. The best thing about “mobilegeddon” is the focus on the user. By creating a website friendlier to mobile users, you will be in a position to better meet the needs of those users (and ultimately convert users to customers).

    The important thing to remember is that your website can be responsive and not be mobile-friendly, but your website cannot be mobile-friendly and not be responsive. Optimize the mobile experience to insure that your website passes the Google mobile-friendly test.

    Categories: mobile Tags: Tags:

    Types of Content You Can Send via Your Email List

    Many people get stuck trying to figure out what type of content to send their subscribers via email. But, today there really is no limit to the form in which the email can be sent, so you are less limited by the types. You can send videos, text, beautiful HTML newsletters and more. The types of emails you should be sending via your email list include all of the below but this list is not exhaustive. You should be able to get some ideas, though.

    1. Welcome Emails – You should always send a welcome email to explain to your audience what to expect from being on your email list. Tell them how often they’ll get messages from you, plus what type of messages they’ll get.

    2. Thank You Emails – Whenever someone signs up, or you have a huge response to an offer, send a thank you to the entire list. It will make those who took you up on the offer feel great and make those who didn’t more curious about the offer.

    3. ECourses – An email is a great way to send lessons about how to do something to your audience. You can make a series of emails that give tasks to them on things to do that ultimately leads them to a goal.

    4. Promotional Emails – While you do not want every email you send to be promotional in nature, you do want to promote; that’s how you’re going to earn money. Use the other emails as a way to build up to a promotional email.

    5. Announcements – If you have a new blog post, new video, new eCourse, new anything to offer your audience, or even some personal announcement to make about your life (when relevant), then you should send an announcement to your list.

    6. Newsletters – Having a regular weekly or monthly newsletter is an important component to having a profitable email list. There are many different things you can include in a newsletter, such as a reminder of other emails, blog posts, round-ups of information and so forth. All of these will work very well in a newsletter.

    7. Advice – If someone asks a question in person, in a coaching call, on a message board or email, sometimes you can turn it into a message to send out to your email list. Giving advice to everyone on your list about something will add a lot of value to the list members.

    8. Educational – One of the things you should do for your list members is to educate them on your niche, which is something they’re interested in. Tell them about problems and solutions that would be of interest to them.

    Sending a variety of types of emails via your email list, and in different forms, will keep your audience excited to open each email that you send to them. Pick a few of these types of emails to send to your audience. Test out how each one does in terms of getting opens, click-throughs, and results.

    Categories: Email Subscribers Tags: Tags:

    Creating Copy for Different Stages of Prospect Awareness

    Anytime you create copy it’s important to consider who your audience is. You’re always going to have new people, middle-of-the-road and advanced users. As you write various types of copy you will need to address the needs of these different levels of users based on their awareness of your products.

    Newbies

    When writing copy for someone who has no idea about you, your products or services, the copy has to educate, inform, engage and inspire. The types of copy you may want to write for a newbie are informative and educational like white papers and how-to articles. You want to tell a story that weaves in your why with your audience’s why, while at the same time educating them. Because remember – it’s all about them.

    Intermediates

    Other people you will have to write copy for within your niche are those who know about you and your products (as well as why they need them) but who haven’t actually purchased from you yet. They’ve done their research, understand their needs and what will solve them, and now are trying to decide who will fill their needs. If you want to be that person they buy from, you’ll need to explain why you are the right one for the job.

    Advanced Users

    Finally, you’ll also need to write copy for those who have already purchased from you. If you want to increase the lifetime income of each customer, this type of copy is very important too. The type of content you will write for these prospects makes assumptions about the knowledge they have about how great your products are, as well as the next thing they will need. It assumes they trust you due to the prior purchase, and it assumes they know their problems and that you have the solutions. You simply need to offer it to them.

    Types of Content

    You can write content in all its forms for any stage of prospect awareness, but the words that you use will be different.

    * Newbies – You’ll need to word everything from a teaching mode without being condescending. A great way is to use testimonials, how-to videos, and educational emails and e-courses to help your newbie prospects learn about the problems they share with others, the solutions that exist and why yours is better.

    * Intermediate – These prospects need to receive reassurance, as well as proof that you have the solution that they seek. They know that they have a problem, they know about all the solutions that exist, so now you have to show them how your solution is the best. You can do this via testimonials and stories that demonstrate your product’s effectiveness.

    * Advanced – This copywriting is all about getting current customers to buy from you again. You can accomplish this by sending them information about new products that you offer. But you can also engage with them about how they use the product they purchased. This will not only remind them of how well made and perfect your product is, it will also instill trust about other products and services.

    Creating copy for people at any stage of awareness takes an understanding of your audience as a whole, as well as your products in general and in particular. You’ll need to be able to create regular content for each stage of awareness, and then be able to break it down clearly for anyone at any stage.

    Categories: Grow a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    How to Identify Your Ideal Customer

    The fact is about 20 percent of all your customers will generate 80 percent of your income. That is because the other 80 percent aren’t totally in line with your ideal customer. There is a way to improve your income exponentially, and that’s by hyper focusing on your ideal customer so that you can attract more ideal customers and fewer who aren’t ideal.

    1. What Benefits Does Your Product or Service Offer? – Make a list of all the benefits that your product or service has. When you are thinking like your customer, you will always think about “what’s in it for me?” Your customer wants to know why they should use that product.

    2. Identify Pain Points That You Can Solve – What sort of pain points does your product or service solve? Does it free up time? Does it end boredom?

    3. Determine Who Needs These Issues Solved – Once you’ve gathered a list of benefits your product offers and pain points that your product solves, you need to figure out who needs those benefits and has those pain points.

    4. Determine Your Customers’ Potential Characteristics – Once you have a list of those who might benefit from your product or service, you can make a list of demographics and other factors that people in that group share.

    5. Determine Your Customers’ Behavior – Find ways to research the list of people you made above so that you can get a better idea of the type of behavior your target audience displays.

    6. What Career Does Your Ideal Customer Have? – Can you determine what type of career your ideal client has from the information you’ve gathered above?

    7. What Price Point Can They Afford? – Once you know what type of career your ideal client has, you can also determine a fair price point for your product or service based on what they can afford to pay and the value of your offering.

    8. Test Your Assumptions – Once you have a fair idea of who your ideal client is, you can test your assumptions by identifying some influencers within your audience and asking them to try your product or service.

    9. Repeat – Take the answers you get from the information above and the test and improve upon your offerings so that you can truly please your ideal customer.

    Using the information learned from all of the above actions, you can truly focus your marketing efforts toward your ideal client. In addition, you can use the information to retain the right customers in order to take advantage of repeat customers and a high level of customer satisfaction.

    Categories: Customer Defined, Grow a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    Eight Ways to Use a Book to Market Your Business

    Marketing your business with a book is a great way to prove your knowledge and develop some credibility within your niche. The act of publishing a book sets you up with expert status almost automatically. Of course, the book needs to be good too, but the idea is that the book is not the main product. The book is just a way to market the main product which is you, or your business.

    1. Sell It Inexpensively on Kindle – You can give it away by signing the book up exclusively on Kindle, and then allow it to be given away. Alternatively you can sell it for $2.99 or even more. It’s up to you. If the book is good, and you want to make money off it, it doesn’t exclude you from using the book as a marketing tool. This only works if you also include links and information about your website and other information inside the book.

    2. Collect Leads by Giving It Away – As mentioned above, you can give it away on Kindle. You can also give it away as lead bait or incentive to your customer to sign up for your email list. Still include links in your book because your audience will want to buy what you suggest, and come back to your website if they know where it is.

    3. Use It to Get Speaking Opportunities – A book’s topic is a great platform to get speaking engagements. When you’re a published author, people will want to know what you know, and speaking is a great way to market your business.

    4. Publicity through Authorship – Just becoming a published author carries some clout. And, don’t let anyone tell you that self-publishing is “less than” any other type of publishing. Self-publishing is actually more lucrative today than finding a publisher unless you are already famous and want to outsource some aspects. Publishers will not do much to help someone who is not already known; therefore you may as well self-publish and use the proof of your knowledge (your book) to market your business.

    5. Viral Marketing Campaigns – An eBook can be a great way to “go viral” if you know how to promote it. Use social media, book trailers, and excerpts of the book to market on social media to get the word out about the book and your business at the same time.

    6. Create a Book Trailer Video – A great way to both market your book and your business is to use the book to make a book trailer video to post on YouTube. This video can then be posted on your website and social media networks as a way to promote the book and also your business.

    7. Put Links inside Your EBook – This is the most important thing outside of marketing your eBook. Ensure that you include links inside your eBook because this is how the people who buy or download your eBook (or even if they steal it) will give you business from it.

    8. Promote It on Social Media – Don’t forget to market your business and book on social media using all means available, such as infographics, the book trailer, memes and infographics.

    Using a book to market your business is an excellent idea. It’s something that’s been done long before online marketing. A book can be a great calling card for your business with proof of your expertise.

    Categories: Marketing Tags: Tags:

    Best Fixes for the Google Mobile-Friendly Changes

    Google makes changes and adjustments to the algorithm that ranks websites all the time. Many website owners grumble that the changes are designed to either make money for the designers or to drive the owners insane.

    While both may feel true, Google makes the changes to create the best experience for the users. The goal for Google is to provide the most relevant search results that provide the best quality content for the one doing the searching.

    The newest changes, that began launching on April 21st, are the attempt of Google to provide the same quality results but specific for mobile device users. Mobile devices became the leading way that people search the internet at the beginning of 2014 (a full two years before most experts predicted that shift would occur). The numbers are sure to continue to rise as mobile devices get smaller, more powerful, and easier to use.

    Google sent out mass scale notifications to alert webmasters if a site was not considered mobile-friendly. You can also use the Google mobile-friendly test from the tools to see if your site makes the cut. If it fails, then you have several things that you can do to fix your site and bring it up to the Google mobile-friendly standards.

    Top Fixes for Google Mobile Standard Fail

    – Upgrade your theme. The skin of your website (the theme) dictates a great deal of what goes on within your website. This includes the mobile-friendly quality of your website. Check to see that your theme is the current release. A simple update of your theme could correct any mobile-friendly issues.

    – Change your theme. Some themes will never make the cut. The designers have stopped upgrading and moved on to other projects or created a similar theme that will meet more up and coming needs of the changing internet world (including the Google mobile-friendly tests). Be certain that your current website is backed up before you begin making any changes to your theme. Also remember that a name of a theme does not mean it is mobile-friendly according to Google standards. You should review the theme before making the move and you still need to run the new website through the Google mobile-friendly test.

    – Add a plugin. You may not be in a financial position to make a big change. You may not want to go through the hassle of a big change at the moment. No matter what your reason, there are plugins and software specifically designed to fix the mobile-friendly issues of a website. Again, be sure you back up your website before installing new plug-ins or other software that can affect the function of your website.

    Google makes changes to make things better, even if it may not feel like it at the time. These recent adjustments to make websites more mobile-friendly have come in the wake of a shift to more mobile device usage. Making the changes necessary to pass the Google mobile-friendly test will be good for your website and your visitors in the end.

    Categories: Mobile Tags: Tags:

    Social Media Marketing Mistakes

    Social media marketing is an excellent way to increase your following and make more money. However, there are many common mistakes that people make when engaging in social media marketing. If you are making any of these mistakes, don’t worry; it’s never too late to correct your social media marketing and make it better.

    * Not Engaging with Your Followers – When your followers make a comment on something, share or ask a question, don’t wait too long to respond. If you have someone monitoring your social media, have them inform you of ongoing conversations and potential areas of engagement.

    * Not Filling Out Your Profile Completely – Incomplete profiles make your business look either sloppy, or fake. If you want to be taken seriously, fill out a complete profile with a good profile picture, your company logo/banner and information so that you can be contacted outside of the network.

    * Not Focusing on Follower Quality – Some people make the mistake of focusing on the quantity of followers rather than the quality. You want to concern yourself with finding followers who are potential customers.

    * Not Posting Regular, Relevant Updates – If you aren’t active on social media posting things that resonate with your audience, then you’re not going to get any traction. If you plan to be successful with social media marketing it takes perseverance and patience, not one-hit wonders.

    * Not Choosing Your Channels Wisely – You don’t need to be on every single social media channel. Be on the channels that your audience love and that will work out fine.

    * Not Automating Some Actions – There are a lot of things, such as scheduled updates, that you can automate on social media. Be sure to use scheduling when possible as long as it doesn’t make you look robotic.

    * Not Interacting Personally – Every chance you get, it’s important to make spur-of-the-moment updates that are relevant to your business and your goals. This will make you look more real in the eyes of your followers.

    * Not Personalizing Messages for the Channel – Sending out a mass message, using software, to all of your social media networks that you’ve connected with, is a big mistake. Most of the time, you’ll have leads who are on more than one account. If you do this they’ll quickly feel bored or worse, spammed.

    Using social media to market your business is a proven technique to get more customers, make more sales, and increase your bottom line, but only if you avoid these mistakes. Take one at a time and make the improvements needed to get on the right track so that you make your social media marketing profitable for your business.

    Categories: social media Tags: Tags:

    14 Ways to Build Your Email Lists

    Building an email list is crucial to the survival and advancement of your business. It doesn’t matter if you have an online business or a bricks and mortar business; email marketing is an exceedingly effective form of marketing and should never be overlooked. It is, in fact, one of the most effective forms of marketing that has ever existed. Here are fourteen ways to build your email list.

    1. Create Value-Filled Content – While they won’t see the content until they subscribe and open the email, the content needs to be very well written, engaging, and relevant to the audience. You want them to love it so much that they keep opening and that they share your emails with their friends.

    2. Make Emails Sharable with Social Icons – It’s easy to add social icons to your email messages now, so be sure to do that. Add that to your email at the bottom, but also add a CTA asking your readers to share the email.

    3. Create Segmented Email Lists – The more focused each email list is, the more relevant the messages can be for the subscribers. By segmenting your lists when people make a purchase or click through to answer a CTA, you can make each email much more customized.

    4. Create a Lead Magnet – Some sort of incentive is very helpful for getting people to want to give up their email address. However, you should be very careful to make the incentive specific to your target market, to avoid visitors who just want the freebie and have no intention of ever buying anything.

    5. Create a Sign-Up on Facebook – Facebook is a great place to add an email sign-up form. You can create a CTA on Facebook easily, and people who will follow you on Facebook will likely want the information you have in your emails.

    6. Host a Contest – Contests can be a great way to get more people to sign up for your email list, especially if you run an affiliate contest on a product or service that you’re offering. In addition, you can give people a chance to win one of your books or products if they sign up, share, follow, and like.

    7. Create YouTube Videos – YouTube videos are a great way to attract more visitors. They have a lot of built-in viewers who search for things, so create short videos directed toward your audience.

    8. Use Creative Twitter Welcomes – You can get software to send automatic welcome messages to people who follow you on Twitter, like SocialOomph. While people complain about them, they’re still effective. Although if you are able to send personal welcome messages by hiring a virtual assistant, please do.

    Link to Social Oomph – https://www.socialoomph.com/

    9. Conduct Interviews – Find people who need to interview experts in your niche and pitch yourself as a guest. Most of the time when you are a guest you’re expected to bring with you an offer to their audience. This offer can require an email address to receive it.

    10. Host a Webinar – Webinars are on fire right now, and a great way to build an email list fast. Everyone who wants to attend the webinar has to sign up for your email list. People see personal webinars as valuable and are more willing to give up their email address for them.

    11. Find Joint Venture Partners – Partner up with others to do a multi-person webinar, or host another type of event such as an in-person event. When each of you promote to your own lists, it helps build all your lists.

    12. Publish a Book – A physical book or an eBook published via Kindle is a great way to get your name out there as an expert. The book can mention your email list and website too. You can even provide a special landing page for book buyers.

    13. Speak Offline – Host or become a speaker at offline events. This works especially well if you do have a physical book to show to people. If you have a good talk, you can get people clamoring to sign up for your list.

    14. Paid Promotions – Try using paid promotions on Facebook to collect email addresses, by giving away something free or requiring an email to watch all of a video.

    Using these methods will build your email list. You should do all of these methods (although not all at one time) over the course of your business to help build your email list. Keep building the list – never stop. Because the larger your email list, and the more targeted it is, the more successful you’ll be.

    Categories: Email Subscribers Tags: Tags:

    Nine Creative Ways to Personalize Emails

    Depending on the email marketing software you use, it’s important to learn all the features that it has so that you can use it to its fullest potential. You might not even be aware of all the things your email marketing software is capable of doing. If you aren’t sure, consider seeking out someone who is an expert with your particular software choice so that everything can be set up to be the most effective and the most personal in nature.

    1. Craft Interest-Targeted Email Messages – Use the software to capture the information needed to personalize and craft email messages toward what your subscriber wants to know about. This is an important way to move your subscribers enough to purchase from you. Capturing the right information will enable you to point your subscribers to products and services that they want.

    2. Create Geocentric Messages – It is likely that your email software allows you to capture location-based information from subscribers. This location-based information can be used for a variety of purposes, from marketing events in their area, to encouraging them to visit your location if you have a local bricks-and-mortar business.

    3. Let Them Define What Information They Want – Sending a poll or checklist to subscribers that lets them define what information they want to get is a good way to find out exactly what your subscribers need and want to hear from you.

    4. Acknowledge Purchases Made – Each time a purchase is made it’s important to acknowledge it with a thank you, but to also move them off a list that keeps promoting that item. If they feel like you’re harassing them to buy something they already have, they won’t respond to well when you market something new to them.

    5. Encourage Social Sharing – Put social share buttons on appropriate email messages so that your subscribers can help you get more people to sign up for your email marketing lists. This is a type of personalization that encourages them to share with their friends, but also encourages them to friend, like and follow you on other social channels.

    6. Insert Predefined Fields – Most email programs allow you to insert different predefined fields. For example, if you have a website that is devoted to selling art, you could send a questionnaire to your audience asking them what their favorite style is. Then the software will not only trigger the right emails to go out based on that style, but it will also mention the style within the email message. If they don’t fill it out, it will insert some other value that you choose into that predefined field.

    7. Use Date Insert Fields – It’s important for many of your emails to be pre-crafted, but you can make the email message look as if it was just created by using the date insert field. Then the email message looks timelier. With that function, in conjunction with special sales pages that also show the current date, you can personalize by keeping everything looking current.

    8. Use Retargeting Technology – When someone visits your website, or buys something, it’s important to use the technology available to you to retarget them for buying something more. When your user receives your email and opens it, a software program can be used to install a cookie that will then allow specialized ads to be delivered to the user when they visit various webpages.

    9. Ask for Reviews for Products Purchased – Whenever a customer buys a product, send them a thank you message and then a series of follow-up messages. One of these can be a request for a product review, after giving them enough time to try and use your product or service. The form they fill out for the review will also ask for more information about them that you can use for further targeted marketing.

    Even though most consumers are savvy enough to realize that a lot of email marketing is automated today, they still respond better to more personalization than less. Therefore, if you want to compete with others it’s imperative that you use your software to its fullest potential by using as much personalization as it’s capable of.

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