Category: Grow a Home Business

    How to Turn Your Best Customers into Your Biggest Assets

    Most consumers trust their friends, family, influencers and experts to make recommendations about products and services to them. In addition, there are many ways to make recommendations – from online testimonials, to affiliate links, to direct mentions from the customer. They all work to some degree.

    To encourage your customers to provide referrals, you can take some steps in advance that set everything up to turn your best customers into your biggest assets.

    1. Be Excellent – The better you do your job, the more pride with which your customers can recommend you to others. If you provide excellent products and services, your customers will be happy to provide referrals when asked to do so.

    2. Ask Customers to Refer You – Just ask your customers to please offer referrals to their friends and family who need your products or services. Give them some literature and information about your offerings so that they can easily share.

    3. Create an Active Online Community – Using either a message board, forum, or private Facebook group, creating an online community can help spread the word of your good services and products fast to those who have need of them.

    4. Build a Long-Term Relationship – Focus on relationship building over the long term and you will create true raving fans that are eager to recommend your business. When you have a real relationship with someone, they’re that much more likely to tell others about you.

    5. Create a Formal Referral Program – Offer discounts to friends and family recommended by customers, along with a coupon to the one who gave the referral. With a formal referral program you should let every customer know about it as soon as they become full customers.

    6. Use Social Media Strategically – Offer a coupon code for consumers “liking” or “following” your brand on social media, and encourage them to share. Offering sign-up incentives for newsletters and more always helps get the word out about your services.

    7. Market Your Testimonials – When someone gives you a raving testimonial, turn it into a meme, ask for a recording, put it into many formats and then publish it and market it across all channels. Market your testimonials as you could other types of content.

    8. Follow Up – Always follow up with customers who have provided referrals to you by offering them a discount, a thank you note, and acknowledgement. The more you follow up after a positive referral, the more likely they will to continue doing it.

    Word-of-mouth referrals are over 50 percent more effective than other forms of marketing. If you want to develop a long-term business, the best way to ensure that it really is a long-term business is to encourage word-of-mouth marketing in every way that you can.

    Many business owners find after years of being in business that most of their customers come from word-of-mouth, which lessens the need to expend more time, money and effort on other forms of marketing.

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

    Why You Need a Marketing Plan for Your Business

    A marketing plan is actually part of a business plan. It informs you how you’ll get the word out about your business to your audience. You don’t have to write a huge book about the marketing plan, but you do need to write out something to help you with marketing. Don’t move forward without a plan because it’s like shooting in the dark. With a plan you can actually plan for success instead of hope for success.

    * Helps You Complete Market Research – It’s imperative that you learn about the market you’re doing business in. You need to know about all aspects of the business, the competition, and your audience.

    * Helps You Determine Competition – Who your competition is, is just as important as what types of products or services they promote. It’s obviously not going to be just exactly like yours, so learning all you can about them helps you differentiate yourself and your products from theirs.

    * Helps Plan Marketing Strategies – One of the most important parts of the marketing plan is your strategies that you will use to get the word out about your business. Will you use a website, blogs, content marketing, brochures, online ads, offline ads, or something else entirely? What type of results do you believe you’ll get for each of these?

    * Helps You Create a Budget – When you learn more about your market and what it takes to get a customer, you can make a budget that is realistic to help you get more customers and make more money.

    * Helps You Make Goals – Without knowing a lot of information about your demographic, product, service and budget, it will be hard to make goals. But while creating the marketing plan you’ll determine this information, and it will help tremendously.

    * Helps You Evaluate the Plan and Results – One part of a marketing plan that is continuous, even after it’s put down in black and white, is the fact that periodically you need to evaluate where you are. What type of results are you getting, and are they what you expected? Can you change anything to make it better?

    * Helps You Determine Your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats – When you create a marketing plan, you are also doing research that helps you conduct what is called a SWOT analysis. This will help you get a 360 view of your business and the things that can affect your business, for good or bad.

    * Helps You Make Smarter Decisions – All of this information combined will help you make a lot smarter decisions about your business. The decisions you make will save you money and make you money.

    The marketing plan is one of the most important parts of your overall plan for your business. It helps you determine how you’ll get the word out about your offerings so that you can make more money and have a more successful business.

    Categories: Marketing Tags: Tags:

    How Mobile Marketing Affects Paid Advertising

    Mobile devices are outselling PCs by leaps and bounds. That is going to continue for 2015 and beyond. As you make plans for your advertising dollars in 2015, it’s important to take into consideration the effect mobile marketing has on paid advertising. With over two billion consumers using mobile devices, it’s time to pay close attention.

    How Is Your Audience Using Mobile?

    It’s important to study your audience and find out how many of them are using mobile devices and how this affects the choices you make about where to spend your ad dollars. If your audience uses mobile for search and social media while on the go, or sitting on the couch while watching TV in the evenings, you need to know so that you can place your ad dollars where they need to be placed.

    Does Your Audience Use Paid Apps?

    Whether or not your audience will use paid apps, and will shop through their paid apps, is a question that should be on your mind. You can create two streams of income, or waste your ad dollars if you don’t answer the question accurately. Many mobile users love to use branded apps to do their shopping and searching. You should know if your audience is counted among them.

    How Social Is Your Audience?

    If your audience is super social, you may want to spend your ad dollars on social networks using PPC strategically where your audience lives. Mobile and social go hand-in-hand. Most marketers believe that social drives mobile and nothing can be truer than that statement. When you realize this, you’ll spend more ad money on social ads.

    When you consider these questions, you quickly realize how much mobile affects paid advertising because without mobile, social might not be as popular. Without those things, mobile wouldn’t be as useful as it has become with increased ability to read and consume content, interact with others, and even make purchases directly from mobile devices.

    Your Audience Matters Most

    No matter how much mobile is affecting ad dollar expenditures overall, it’s more important to look at your own audience to determine how it affects your business and your ad dollars. If your audience is highly mobile then you best be highly mobile. If they’re not, keep an eye out because more than likely they will be in future. And as the younger audience ages, they’re going to stay mobile.

    Keeping aware of the trends and the growth of technology is an important aspect of doing business today. If you want to be successful with your PPC campaigns, know who your audience is, what technology they use, and where they “hang out” and you’ll be that much more successful regardless of any trend.

    Categories: Mobile Tags: Tags:

    Why Social Media Matters to Your Small Business

    Social media is here to stay. It offers individuals and business owners alike a great deal of ability to get the word out about any event or happening. Most people use social media of some kind – and what’s more, they keep it close to them with their mobile devices at the ready. People share everything on social media, from their baby’s first steps to more mundane things like what they’re eating for dinner tonight.

    Being online and using social media to promote your business offer many benefits.

    * Brand Recognition – If you want people to recognize your brand, it’s important to develop a branded appearance that you use across all social media networks. Use the same logos, in different sizes, and stay true to your brand at all times.

    * Slow Marketing Converts – When you provide information over a long period of time, your audience becomes accustomed to your message. Over time they develop trust, and after being exposed to you a few times they are more likely to place an order.

    * Improves Authority – When you often post a lot of accurate and helpful information, people start viewing you as an authority on the topic. Once you’re viewed as an authority, you will start making even more money because people will be waiting to hire you or buy your products.

    * Increases Brand Loyalty – The more people see your brand out there, the more loyal they will become toward what you offer. Your offerings should represent what your brand stands for and you’ll find that people become more loyal to you as you stick to what you know and believe in.

    * Increases Traffic to Your Website – Use social media to share and promote your blog posts, and new offerings will increase the traffic to your website exponentially. One of the best ways to rank higher on search results is to be active on social media.

    * Is Inexpensive – Social media is not an expensive form of marketing. It can also be fun. Guard yourself from getting sidetracked, but always be interactive and engaging with your followers. Remember, time is money. Automate what is not direct communication so that you can get more done in less time.

    * Allows for Useful Consumer Engagement – Social media can let you engage with users in a very beneficial way. You can have deep conversations about many topics. Just remember to keep it professional and handle controversy carefully.

    * Works with Mobile Devices – Better than most websites and email, social media works effortlessly on mobile devices. Social media and mobile really go hand-in-hand. People take their devices on dates, and to bed – you’ve never been closer to your audience than now.

    If you’re not participating on social media then you need to change that right now. You don’t have to be everywhere; just find out where your audience hangs out and go there. Then, use that social network to your fullest ability.

    Categories: social media Tags: Tags:

    Ten Tips for Creating a Professional Podcast

    Podcasting is a great way to get information to your audience. They can download and take your message with them to the gym, listen in the car while traveling, or simply listen on their computer while they chat on Facebook. Podcasting makes your message more personal and tangible to your audience. Aim to make your podcast as professional as you can to give the best possible experience to your customers.

    1. Use the Right Mic – Purchase a mic that has noise canceling features, and that is of high quality. The best mic will be one connected via USB and not cordless, as the latter will mess with the quality of your mic. You want a directional mic that captures sound in front of it and not around it; this will make for a much better quality sound. Ask your guests to also have a good sounding mic if you’re recoding them over the internet or by phone.

    2. Invest in Good Software – Software made for podcasting like Audacity is good a choice to record your podcast. Be careful using software like Skype and Pamela for your podcast because the quality will be affected due to talking over the internet. But, if you do choose to use something like that, ask that your guests are plugged into the internet by USB and not wireless.

    Links:
    Audacity – http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
    Skype – http://www.skype.com/
    Pamela – http://www.pamela.biz/

    3. Edit the Final Results – Everyone makes mistakes, so it’s not as if you have to make every answer and every last part of your podcast perfect and whitewashed. But, some editing will need to be done so that everyone sounds professional and long-winded answers can be cut down for time’s sake.

    4. Keep the Room Quiet – Yes, you have a life and you are probably recording your podcast in your bedroom or home office, but you don’t want it to sound like you are. You don’t want to have to take time out to shush a child, or quiet a barking dog. Instead, do what you can to make sure the room stays quiet while you record your show.

    5. Practice – When you first start out it might take some practice to get used to the technology, the quiet time in the recording room, and a lot of other things. Take the time to have a few practice shows before you put your show live so that you can learn how to use the new technology.

    6. Pay for an Introduction – Find someone to do a professional voice-over, and make some intro music to take you in and out of commercials. Some people have music for the end of the show as well. It helps the listener to get ready to listen, and helps let them down easily when the show is over.

    7. Sell Advertising – As your show becomes more popular, sell advertising. In the meantime, you might consider giving away some advertising so that people who are listening gets used to ads being in the show. And if anyone who listens wants to place an advertisement, they can hear the type of quality you expect.

    8. Invite Rock Star Guests – People love listening to podcasts more if there is a conversation instead of just one person talking. Try to invite guests who are masters of their niche and their businesses. This will rub off onto you by association. If you hang out with those who are doing well, you’ll be seen as someone who is doing well too. Think: Oprah.

    9. Be Consistent – Putting out a podcast irregularly is the kiss of death for your podcast. It’s important that your audience become dependent on hearing your podcast on a certain date and time. It sometimes takes a bit for a good audience to catch on, and if you aren’t regularly posting podcasts you’ll never catch on.

    10. Stay on Niche – This can be hard when you are doing a podcast because of having to repeatedly come up with subject matter for shows. But, you want anyone who listens to understand who you’re speaking to and not to end up bored due to targeting the wrong audience.

    You really can produce a professional-sounding podcast from your home office. You just need to have a good niche, understand the audience, and post podcasts on a regular basis using subject matter that your audience wants to hear.

    Categories: podcasting Tags: Tags:

    Why Email List Segmentation Is Important

    Consumers today are smart. They do their research before doing anything else. They know who your competition is, and they’re all too ready to jump ship and move to them if they have to. Any slight can seem like a big deal and the ease with which they can change course is increasing each day due to the global economy we live in. You have to compete in some way, and it cannot always be on price. If you compete on value instead, you can end up the top choice of your market every time.

    * Helps Your Messages Become More Targeted – When you know that your list has already taken some action such as downloaded your lead magnet, or purchased a specific item, then you can focus on sending very specific emails to them that not only discuss the purchase they made, but also discuss the next steps they can take.

    * You’ll Increase Sales – By sending more relevant messages, you’ll ensure that your list members feel special. This will then help develop that “know, like, trust” connection that is so important. Thus, you’ll increase sales.

    * You’ll Increase Conversions – It doesn’t matter whether you are trying to make a sale, or get people to join a contest, or join you on social media. A more targeted list will mean more conversions all the way around.

    * You’ll Avoid Marketing to Unresponsive People – Sometimes people initially join a list just to get a free thing you’re giving away. They have no intentions of acting further. So, if you move those who do act into another list, you can then market more aggressively to the unresponsive ones or even remove them from the list.

    * Your Emails Will Be More Personalized – When you have a specific segmented list, whether it’s due to behavior or demographics, the messages can be much more specific. You can discuss the things they have done, or name something personal about the group they’re part of (women, men, moms, dads, etc…) and that makes them feel important and included.

    * Subscribers Are Less Likely to Leave – People think they’re on the wrong list if they see marketing messages or educational messages about a product or solution they’ve already purchased. That makes them leave the list. In reality, you want them to leave, but to a new list that’s more appropriate.

    * You’ll Improve Response Rate – When an email is more targeted due to segmentation, you’ll see a huge improvement in response rate for things you ask them to do, such as fill out a survey. The reason is that they feel as if the information is more directed to them and not just generic for everyone.

    * Different Forms of Marketing Work for Different People – Another reason that segmentation works so well is that each type of person responds to different forms of marketing. You can determine this by their behavior. If you segment based on behavior, you’ll notice an enormous increase in ROI moving forward.

    When you segment your list, you can send more personalized and relevant messages to the list members. This will cut down on unsubscribes, and you’ll see an increase in return on investment. Your autoresponder software has features that will help you segment lists for best results. As always, follow the laws regarding spam in your country.

    Categories: Email Subscribers Tags: Tags:

    Ten Reasons Membership Is Lucrative 

    The reasons memberships are lucrative are many and varied. But, the fact is, with the right plan you can make a full-time living online adding membership to your product list. Having a continuity plan can change your business life for the better. You know it works because big business does it too. Think about Netflix, Amazon Prime, and even your local Massage Envy which offers membership programs.

    Here are ten reasons why membership is lucrative.

    1. You’ll Feel Good – When you can offer something to others that they need, you’re going to feel great about it. This makes a membership more lucrative because you’re going to not only make money, but you are also going to want to keep adding to it. Going to work will feel like a joy.

    2. Inexpensive Start-Up Costs – Relatively speaking, if you choose your software properly and take into consideration your own level of knowledge, the start-up costs are low, which means your profits will be higher.

    3. Steady Income – If you haven’t experienced the consistency of regular income, you will when you start a successful membership site. People start them for a reason, and people also join them for the same reason.

    4. People Love Privacy – Members join a club for privacy. They can go to a membership site and talk about what they want to without worry that it’s searchable on the net.

    5. You Can Do It Alone – You don’t need a huge staff to help you build or run a successful membership website. Once you get the technology set up, you just have to add to it on a regular basis and participate in the forums if you choose. If you do a drip membership, you can set it up and forget it. Less staff equals more profit.

    6. You Have Something to Offer – Anyone who has something to offer, even the smallest niche, can start a membership site that is successful.

    7. Add Value to Your Current Business – If you already have a business online, adding a continuity program will take your business to the next level.

    8. People Want Exclusivity – Membership makes people feel special as if they’re part of a secret group of movers and shakers. Therefore, getting people to join isn’t hard. Getting them to stay is a little more work but if you focus on value, you can do it.

    9. People Expect a ROI – People join membership sites expecting to get huge value out of the membership. And as long as you can provide that to them, then not only will they feel they’re getting a return on their investment, you will too.

    10. People Are Curious – People will join simply out of curiosity to see what’s inside. It’s up to you to hold them there to increase your profits.

    If you market your membership correctly, you will have a successful online membership business – provided that you’ve done your homework on starting it in the right niche. People want to feel as if they belong, and they like having privacy. If you have information to offer, membership is the best way to do it.

    Categories: Membership Tags: Tags:

    Eight Resources to Include in Your Membership 

    Creating a membership site is an exciting process, but it can be hard to think of what to include in your membership. Most memberships have similar offerings, and you should at least stick to the basics. But, don’t stop there. The more you can pack into your membership, the more in demand your membership will become.

    1. Glossary – This could be a list of terms, as well as a list of resources for the members to better understand the terms used in the content, information products, videos, and forum. Let them know up front everything that you can.

    2. Message Board – The most popular membership websites have a forum or message board for members to speak to each other as well as to the leaders and coaches who are running the membership site. It builds community, and some people will stay long past using the other resources just for the message board if it’s active.

    3. Permanent and Temporary Content – You want both permanent and temporary content to continuously flow through the membership site. Some content should be around all the time and some should drip in based on where the person is in the membership. This will keep people at your membership and wondering what’s coming up next.

    4. Videos – Including video is always a good thing in a membership site. Whether it’s a “how to” do something, interviews, courses, or something else, video always livens up a membership site. You can use PowerPoint and your own voice to product videos easily.

    5. ECourses – Learning how to do something is a good reason to join a membership site and if you have a few courses that your members can get a certificate for finishing, all the better. It will make them want to stick around.

    6. Information Products – At least once a month, include a full-fledged new information product for the membership to use and implement. Information products can include eBooks, video, eCourses, and more but can also be sold individually on their own outside of the membership.

    7. Checklists – People love having checklists that they can follow along with to get things done. You can include checklists about how to use the membership as well as checklists about how to do something your niche wants to do. There are so many options for you to fill your membership with useful things for your audience.

    8. You – The most important resource to include in your membership site is you. You must be directly involved with the forum, with making videos, with writing content and as a cheerleader for your members. That’s why they are joining, after all.

    Filling your membership with useful and unique resources will become your goal and passion as your membership grows. You’ll get ideas directly from the members, so don’t worry. The important thing is to get started with a minimum and build as you go to make your membership more valuable with each passing month.

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

    Increase Conversion by Keeping Emails Simple

    Email marketing is an effective way to market your products, services and information to your audience. But, it can be easy to confuse your readers to the point that they do not take action. If you want to improve conversions, consider the following.

    Know Your Audience – The best thing you can do for your business is to understand your audience backwards and forwards. The more you know who you’re crafting emails for, the better you can word everything to get the response you want.

    Craft Subject Lines That Create Curiosity – Your first line of defense is the subject line of your email. If your subject line doesn’t make the reader curious enough to open the email to read the rest, nothing else matters.

    Create Attention-Grabbing Headlines – When someone opens an email, the headline is the first thing they will see after the subject line that enticed them to open the email in the first place. If this doesn’t grab their attention, they probably won’t continue reading.

    Use Bulleted Information – Inside the email message, be sure to make the information easy to absorb. One way to do this is to use bulleted information and lists. People read online differently than they read a book. They read vertically instead of horizontally; therefore, make the information match where the eye goes.

    Have One Focus per Email – Instead of giving too much information and many options for purchasing something, make your email focused on one item and one offer. You can always upsell and cross-sell at the point of checkout but for the purposes of the email, make the focus on one thing only.

    Provide One Link per Email – Don’t overwhelm your audience with ten links to different items in your emails. Instead, provide one link for the focused information that you want to get across to your audience. One link gives them one thing to do.

    Know Your Specific Call to Action – If you can identify the one thing you want your audience to do after reading your email then it will be easier for you to design the subject line, headline and email to match.

    Keep It Short and Simple – Super long emails don’t translate well because most people just want to know what the point is and move on from the email. Take out extraneous words and get to the point in your emails for faster action.

    Understanding that you can increase conversions by being more focused in each email that you send doesn’t mean you can’t promote more than one item in your email messages. However, focusing each message on one promotion will get you further than too many promotions in one email. The reason is that you avoid confusion and increase conversions by telling your audience about one offer at a time.

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

    Why Your Business Needs Online Marketing

    Over 90 percent of consumers now search online before buying something. Approximately 40 percent of searches result in offline purchases locally. These are important facts to realize if you’re a business owner. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you have – you can benefit from online marketing.

    With online marketing you can:

    Control the Buzz

    Whether you like it or not, people are talking about you. If you’re not online monitoring the buzz about your business, you won’t be able to know how to control it. You can control the buzz by providing a continuous stream of positive information about your business via your website, blog, social media and other methods.

    Expand Your Market

    When you engage in online marketing, as long as you can ship it or deliver your product digitally, you can expand your market across the country and even across borders. Your market is now international.

    Get the Word Out about Your Business

    No one will know about your business if you don’t tell them about it. Since so many people first search online rather than look in the phone book for a business, you can get the word out about your business easier with an online presence.

    Market Inexpensively

    Once you have a good online infrastructure, you can start marketing your business. All you need to get started is a Facebook page for your business and you can now market at least to people who are on Facebook. If you want to go further, just create an easy Website with a blog and you’ll soon be known near and far.

    Do Business 24/7 Online

    Unlike a bricks and mortar store, your online location is open 24/7. You can collect orders and make money while you’re sleeping, at your child’s soccer game, or while you’re on vacation. Being online is suddenly like having a 24-hour store open and ready for business.

    Get Started Fast

    It’s not hard to get started; you simply need to make a presence on social media, create an easy website with a blog, and start promoting your online presence. You may need a shopping cart if you want to make sales while you’re sleeping.

    Target Locally

    By using the right geographical keywords and tools, you can target your local area. Sign up on local review sites; ensure that your location is mentioned on social media and on websites so that when someone searches for your business on their smartphone they will find it.

    Stop Your Competitors from Winning

    If you’re not marketing online, you can be sure that your competitors are doing it. If they are and you’re not, it won’t be long before you notice a huge difference in your own traffic and sales. Start marketing online to stop your competitors from beating you with innovative marketing techniques.

    You can market online without having a lot of knowledge, but you can also hire a professional to help you. Before hiring any service, ensure that they really do understand the online market before you choose them. Most marketing companies that place their focus on online marketing usually use online exclusively because it works so well.

    Categories: Marketing