Category: Grow a Home Business

    Ask Your Audience What They Would Like to See

    Generating topics for videos is something you will need to do if you’re going to produce regular videos for your audience. The best way to accomplish this is to ask your audience for ideas about the types of videos and what subjects they want you to cover. There are different ways you can ask or find out what your audience wants to see.

    * Warm Them Up – Most audiences are used to the one-way communication that most people provide to them. They get emails, they sit and watch a presentation, and they read blog posts. But they aren’t used to real engagement. You need to start small, warming them up by always ending every blog post, every social media post and so forth with a short question.

    * Encourage Interaction – Reward people who engage with you by thanking them, and by acting excited about their contribution. Give them a prize or a percent off coupon for coming up with such a great idea or question.

    * Send an Email – Use your email list to your advantage. When you are trying to come up with ideas, shoot them an email to ask for their input. Make it fun for them to respond by inviting them to a free Facebook brainstorming group, or offering points toward products and services for good ideas.

    * Stalk Discussion Groups – Remember that your audience lives in other places besides only on your lists, your groups, and your discussion boards. Go to other places where they like to hang out and read the discussions. Any question they ask can become fodder for a new video.

    * Conduct a Survey – A really good way to ask questions of your audience is to send a survey. With a short survey you can also get a little extra information about the group, plus input into what types of videos they’d like to see. Make it worth their while by promising and delivering a surprise at the end of the survey.

    * Ask on Social Media – Go straight to your social media accounts to ask questions of your audience. You can also send a poll via social media, or you can post an infographic with information and a question such as: “What is the next video you’d like me to make?” If you can give them a couple of choices to choose from, you’ll be more likely to get more answers.

    * Have a Contest – Let the audience pick the topic by giving five topics you want to talk about, then let them vote on which one they’d like to see most. The winning topic gets made, and the ones who voted on the winning topic get invite to submit more questions and maybe ask a question live at the event.

    * Frame the Question Right – You want to lead the choices in a certain direction so that you know you can make a video about the topic. For example, maybe you are confused about two different options; post only those two options. Or maybe you know the topic, but you want to know what they need to know about the topic; approach it that way instead.

    Asking your audience directly is one of the best ways to choose a topic for your next video. Don’t be afraid to ask them. It doesn’t mean you don’t know anything, but it does mean that you care about what your audience needs. They’ll appreciate being included.

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

    How to Develop an Email Course

    An email course is usually delivered in “drip” mode. This means that whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly, part of the course is delivered to those who signed up for it via their email, through an autoresponder service. An autoresponder service like Aweber.com, Mailchimp.com, or another one can get the job done delivering an email course.

    Determine What the Purpose of the Course Is

    Is this a free or paid course? Is the purpose of the course to encourage your audience to buy something from you when the course ends? If it’s a free course, what will the offer be at the end of the course? If it’s a paid course, how can you deliver exceptional value to your audience and make them feel as if they got their money’s worth?

    Decide What to Teach

    Teach your audience about or how to do something that is unclear, frustrating or hard to do for your audience. If you’re not sure what this could be, look be ask your audience for the answers. You can ask them directly, or you can find groups where they ask questions. Any question is a likely a good choice for an email course.

    Organize the Subject

    Choose your topic or question to answer so that you can now organize the subject into subtopics. You’ll want to pick one focused subtopic for each part of the email course. You don’t want to overwhelm your audience with too much information at one time. Instead, think of it like teaching one point of a problem at a time in a logical order.

    Choose How Long You Want the Course to Be

    Usually an email course consists of five to seven emails for free courses, but sometimes a topic will require a lot more than that – especially if it’s a paid course. Decide how long, but more than six to eight weeks might be too long. It’s important to consider your audience so that you know how they’ll deal with shorter or longer courses. Making it too long might mean a lot of people don’t finish, but you do want to give enough information that they learn the material.

    Tell the Subscriber What to Expect

    Before and after the subscriber signs up for the course, you should let them know what to expect. Be explicit about what is in the course so that they’ll know what’s coming and know what to look for. How many emails will be in the course? How often will they come? Will you send other emails and information to them? Let them know what to do if there is a problem. Probably the best place to do this is on the sales page, plus on the thank you page, plus in the first email.

    Format Each Email Similarly

    You want each email to look like part of the same course by branding it the same. Use the same fonts, images, colors, intro and exit. Always tell them what you have already told them, and then after the body of the email tell them what to expect for the next part of the course. This will help hone their expectations in a way that keeps them interested and involved.

    Make Each Email Simple and To the Point

    Once you’ve created a template for your course, it will be simple to fill in the details for the course. Give them one strong lesson each email, and keep the emails on the short side – no more than 700 to 1500 words per email. Otherwise it will be too overwhelming.

    Craft Subject Lines They’ll Recognize and Open

    The subject line is important because it will be key to ensuring that your subscribers know to open the email. You probably want to put the name of the course and the lesson name inside so that they know.

    Finally, give your audience a way to report problems and ask questions. You can do that via a special course email address or by making a private and closed Facebook group only for people who have signed up for the course. In addition, you can use eCourse software to help you make an eCourse without having to know any coding or even have a website.

    Link to eCourse software – https://coursecraft.net/

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

    Should You Outsource Your Market Research?

    At some point, every business owner must assess the benefits and disadvantages of outsourcing. A small business owner cannot hope to grow a business without outsourcing some aspects, or else the entire point of having a business will be lost. Losing all your freedom and making tons of money isn’t what you want. You want to have freedom and a balance of life and a business. Therefore when you want to outsource something, it’s important to look the pros and cons of outsourcing that particular project or task.

    Cons of Outsourcing Your Market Research

    * You must give up control – For some people this might enter into the pros of outsourcing marketing research. However, for most people giving up control is very difficult. You will have some say over the research and what deliverables you want but other than that you’ll have to be hands off and let the experts do what they need to do.

    * It can be pricy – Hiring experts to conduct marketing research isn’t cheap. But, you don’t want to lowball it either by hiring people who aren’t really experts, because that can also be pricy. If you don’t have the right budget, you may as well do it yourself.

    * They may survey or reach the wrong people – Research companies often have huge databases of consumers that they use to conduct the research with. This may miss the mark as it might not be the right people.

    * They don’t know your business like you do – The fact is, no one knows as much about your business as you do, and you cannot expect them to. When letting go of control over the research you’ll also lose some of the personalization that you can offer.

    Pros of Outsourcing Your Market Research

    * You don’t need to spend the time – The saying that “time is money” is true. If you are busy doing what you do best, it’s going to be really difficult to find the time to conduct market research at all, much less appropriately.

    * You get an objective source – Another company isn’t going to be as emotionally attached to the outcome of research as you are. Therefore, they may be able to get more accurate results.

    * Professionals have the right tools – Some research tools are super expensive for one business to pay for. Research companies have to buy software and mailing lists and other services that would not be feasible for one business to buy for its own research.

    * You can get fast results – Since this is what they do for income, they will have a team of people on your project and be able to offer fast turnaround times.

    Once you write down the pros and cons that are unique to your situation, assess your budget and determine how you will go forward. But, whatever you choose, do not skip conducting market research. It is one of the main differences between businesses that succeed long term and those that do not.

    Categories: Marketing Tags: Tags:

    Writing Blog Posts That Promote Your Videos

    After creating your video, one of the very first things you should do to promote it is to write a blog post about your video. From there you can promote the blog post to all your social media networks, ask your friends to share it, and even use pay per click and other means to promote the post, and in turn to promote the video. There are many ways to approach promoting your video via a blog post.

    * Describe the Problem – Usually a video is created due to a problem you’re trying to solve or an issue you want to discuss. You don’t have to get right to the video from day one; you can instead work on educating your audience about the problem so that when you provide the answer they’re ready.

    * Discuss Why You Have the Answers – Blog posts that prove your intelligence on the issue will go far in helping your audience see you as an authority on the topic. Spend some time not only addressing your audience’s thirst for knowledge but also their need to understand who you are, without appearing as if you’re bragging. Remember, when it’s about you, it’s really about them.

    * Talk about Probable Answers – Before giving the video, you can talk about potential answers to the problem in a blog post or two. You can hint about or lead up to what may be in the video in a way that helps the audience be ready for the video.

    * Introduce Your Video – A good blog post is one that also introduces your video to your audience. Write about the problem, the solutions, why you’re the right one to offer the solution, and then embed the video for viewing. Ask for comments, likes, shares and suggestions.

    * Describe a Problem and Provide the Video as an Answer – You can also approach it from a problem / solution standpoint. Describe the problem, and then give the video as an answer to the problem.

    * Transcribe the Video – Another great way to create a blog post to promote your video is to make an actual word-for-word transcription of the video. Embed the video, and then under it post the transcription. Search engines will pick it up and you will get more viewers.

    * Expand on the Video – In addition to posting the video with a description, you can expand on the video with more information such as links to the resources you used and more. Provide some behind-the-scenes information that the people who watch the video directly won’t see.

    * Add Images to the Post from the Video – Clip some images from the video to add to the blog post about the video. This will give those who view the video via your blog a little more incentive to watch the video by getting a sneak peek.

    * Create Effective Headlines – Don’t forget to create headlines for your blog, along with sub-headlines and bullet points. This will help draw the reader into the blog post and then toward the video based on their initial scan of the video.

    Finally, don’t forget the CTA. If you embed the video into one of the blog posts about the video, you can make more CTAs than just “watch” the video. You can ask people to comment, subscribe, and/or buy something based on your video.

    Categories: Video Tags: Tags:

    The Importance of Having a Website with Regularly Updated Content

    If you want to have a successful business today, you must have a website with regularly updated content. The reason is that this is how your audience will find you. Search engines love new content, and your audience will love new content. New content adds value to your website and blog for your audience as well as for the search engines.

    * They Have a Website So You’d Better – It’s a fact that your competition likely has a website. If you want your audience to patronize you over your competition, then it’s imperative that you have a website. It will help you stand out among the crowd.

    * Websites Help You Provide Better Service – With the technology that exists today, you can create a helpdesk easily that will automate a lot of customer service issues and education. For example, you can set up a course on your website for your audience to sign up for or download. Or, you can provide a FAQ for your audience to help them with common concerns and problems.

    * You Can Educate Your Audience – A fabulous way to educate your audience is via your website and blog. You can post articles, videos, podcasts and more about different issues that affect your customers and audience. This enables them to self-help before seeking out direct help from you.

    * Websites Are a Number One Advertising Method – Most people use their mobile devices more than any other method to search for businesses to patronize. Because of this fact, if you don’t have a website and online presence you may miss out on a lot of business.

    * Websites Never Close – This is especially true if you sell products over services. People can order from your website 24/7. You can be open all the time instead of only when you’re present.

    * Everyone Is Online – Well okay, maybe not everyone, but most people are online today using smartphones and mobile devices. This means having a website gives you a good opportunity to get information to your audience if you’re online too.

    * You Can Make Income When You’re Sleeping – Want money deposited into your PayPal account while you’re asleep? Then get a website and sell your products on it and you’ll be cashing in while you’re dreaming of the beach.

    * Enables You to Deliver Info to Your Audience – A website is a lot of things. It’s a brochure, a blog, a community, and interactive educational space. It’s also a way to deliver information to your audience in a way that they will understand and like.

    The fact is, if you don’t have a website, you’re missing out on more than half of your audience. Some people won’t even do businesses with you if you don’t have a professional-looking website. Therefore, you need to do what you can to ensure that you have the best website you can afford. Fortunately, you can either create a website yourself or pay someone to make one for you relatively inexpensively.

    Categories: website Tags: Tags:

    Secrets of Highly Effective Social Media Experts

    Successful social media experts know what it takes to make social media work for you. Aside from including regular updates, relevant posts, and stand-out content, make sure that you stay involved in each social media network in a personal way.

    * Make Your Social Media Profiles Stand Out – Fill out your social media profiles in full, and learn what constitutes best practices for social media profiles on that particular network. Each network has its own personality that you should mind, but let your personality shine through too.

    * Make the Right Connections – If you can connect with other experts and movers and shakers, you’ll be able to get more traction because if you can have a conversation with them, all their followers will see it.

    * Make Your Business Pages Interactive and Informative – Don’t skimp on making your pages represent your business appropriately. On each social media network you can create pages that look awesome and get results.

    * Share Relevant Industry Topics – If you want to quickly become a go-to expert, find relevant industry news and share it with your followers. Don’t worry; giving it away works.

    * Join the Conversation – Don’t just be a robot by posting things without ever commenting and entering into discussions with others. You want to jump right in and talk to others just like you would if you were at a live social gathering.

    * Learn to Use Hashtags Correctly – Hashtags help you organize and search for relevant content on social media. Always use the # before the word, use no punctuation, keep it as short as possible and use letters and numbers.

    * Advertise Strategically – Running advertisements on social media is a great way to get the word out about a new product or service. However, be strategic when running an advertisement so that you know exactly what you expect to achieve with it.

    * Use Sponsored Ads and Posts – When you have something important to get across to your audience, it’s important to use sponsored ads where many eyes are on the post. Mind your budget.

    * Hire an Experienced Copywriter – For some of the posts, it’s imperative that you work with a copywriter who understands your business and your voice, to help you with many of the posts and get them right within the space needed.

    * Be Yourself When You Post – When you are in a discussion on social media, outside of representing your business you are also representing yourself. Be who you are so that your social media presence has a personality.

    You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when you get involved with social media marketing. Follow the experts and do what they are doing. Focus on differentiating yourself and being a real person with a unique voice that represents your business.

    Categories: social media Tags: Tags:

    Why Google Mobile Friendly Changes Matter

    Google made a change to their algorithm yet again – which will either leave you scratching your head in oblivious wonder or stomping your feet in frustration (or most likely a combination of the two).

    Google wants to be certain that when people utilize its search engine those people are getting the best and most relevant information for that search. The great minds at Google tweak and modify their “search equation” to make that possible.

    The latest change involved the mobile friendly aspect of your website. According to most reports, people now do more of their online activity utilizing a mobile device than on desktops and laptops combined. Experts predicted this would happen, but they also predicted it would not happen until well into 2016.

    Google wanted to insure that its search engine algorithm matched up with those new measurements. Although nobody outside of Google knows the exact details of the algorithm, Google does offer a tool that will let you test your website to see if it meets the Google determined threshold.

    The good news of this Google change is that if your company has a mobile friendly website then Google will give you bonus points for making it easy for your visitors to use that website.

    The better news of this Google change is that if your company has not yet upgraded to a mobile friendly site then it brings attention to the importance of accommodating the habits and devices of the highest percentage of internet users.

    The KEYS to the Google Mobile Friendly Changes

    1. Google determines if it considers your website to be mobile friendly. Make use of the Google Mobile-Friendly test to determine if your website passes. The name of the theme or design of your website has little to do with whether or not your site will pass.

    2. The change started on April 21st but may take a while before it reaches all areas. Despite the stretched out time frame, it is important to work out the kinks in the mobile-friendly status of your site.

    3. Your site will benefit from being mobile-friendly. The largest percentage of your readers visits from mobile devices. The Google changes make sure that your site will be easier for those visitors to make the most of your website.

    4. Not being mobile-friendly only effects your ranking for mobile devices – this according to Google. Again, the goal of Google is to provide the best user experience so there are some experts that are suggesting that mobile specific algorithm may be the result.
    Google changes can seem like a nightmare waiting to happen. Most of the time the new changes feel like they come just when you finish the redesign from the last changes. Although Google is here to spotlight your website, the ultimate purpose of Google (and therefore their loyalty) lies with the searcher. The changes that Google made to the algorithm make it easier for mobile searchers to find what they need. The changes also help you to create an atmosphere friendly for those users.

    Categories: mobile Tags: Tags:

    Ten Lead Nurturing Tips

    A lead is someone who has in some way expressed interest in something you have to offer to sale. If you put everything in a funnel with the wide side up, it would look like this: Leads > Prospects > Customers. You’re going to have many more leads than prospects, and many more prospects than customers. When you get a lead your goal is to qualify them, turning them into a real prospect and then converting the prospect into a customer.

    In order to do that, you need to nurture your leads from day one. There are many ways to do this. You can start with these ten most important ways to nurture leads and work from there.

    1. Start with a Goal – Do you want to increase sales, educate prospects, get people to download your free trial, or do you want to accomplish something else? It’s important to know what your intentions are from the start so that you can design your lead nurturing campaign to fit in with the goal.

    2. Edit, Edit, Edit – Every bit of content that you want to be consumed by your leads needs to be edited for grammar, clarity, and format. You want the information you send them free to represent the type of products and services you offer. If you make silly mistakes, they will notice and yes, they will judge you for it.

    3. Outsource – If you are unsure about how to set up a lead nurturing campaign, seek out the help of a professional. There are many professionals that can take a look at your goals and help guide you through the process of what type of information you should push out to your leads.

    4. Remember the Drip – Don’t send everything all at once to your leads. Instead, practice the drip system of sending just a little bit of information at a time. Tease them, heighten their desires, and make them want what you have to offer before you give it to them.

    5. Consistency Wins the Day – Like with the drip, you need to send out messages and information to your leads on a regular and consistent basis. If someone signs up for your email list, they are expecting to get regular, if not daily messages from you. If you make them short, to the point, and informative, they’ll be happy to get the messages.

    6. Use Your Blog – Don’t forget about your blog, too. While you will use your email list to send information out to leads, you can also use your blog, and use the blog update feature within your email marketing system to notify leads of new blog posts. Write some of your blog posts directly to leads as the audience.

    7. Know the Buy Cycle – Every audience has a buy cycle according to the products and/or services that a seller is promoting. You should have information going out to leads at every stage of the buying cycle in order to qualify them and ultimately convert them.

    8. Understand Your Audience – Nurturing a lead is different from talking to someone who has already purchased from you. Ensure that you separate leads from interested parties and from actual prospects or customers. In this way, you’ll be able to target your messages correctly for the audience.

    9. Know Your Products – It should go without saying that you need to know your products and services backwards and forwards. Know how a product or service impacts your audience. Also, remember if you outsource some of this work you’ll need to help your contractors understand your products and services too.

    10. Study Your Metrics – As they say, nothing is done without the paperwork. It’s very true about lead nurturing. If you want to be certain that what you’re doing is working, go by the numbers. Before you even start, determine what metrics you’ll study to determine success or failure.

    When you embark on a lead nurturing campaign, slow and steady wins the race. Deliver informative and engaging information to your leads on a regular and consistent basis and over time you will convert very happy buyers.

    Categories: Email Subscribers Tags: Tags:

    Conditioning Your Prospects and Customers

    When you have prospects and customers, it’s important to stay in touch as often as possible. Get them on your email lists, segmented according to where they are in the buying cycle so that you can target your messages accordingly.

    * Tell Them What to Expect – When someone buys from you or signs up for one of your email lists, send a thank you note with an explanation of what to expect from you in the future. How often will they hear from you? What about? Make some promises and assurances to them.

    * Do What You Say You’ll Do – It’s very important that you do whatever you said you’d do. For example if you say you will send them a newsletter every Friday, send them a newsletter every single Friday. If you skip days or switch the days, they may be confused. A lot of people actually forget they signed up for a list and when you don’t stay active they will report you for spamming them.

    * Remind Them of What You Said – Periodically, within other messages, be sure to remind your prospects and customers about your previous promises and assurances. This will help them remember who you are, and what you said. It will build more trust.

    * Let Them Know When You Follow Through – When you do something you said you would do, tell them. “I told you I would send you an update on my xyz product, as promised, here it is.” This again, reinforces the point that you stick to your word and can be trusted.

    * Ask Them for Input and Opinions – Once in a while invite your prospects and customers to submit their ideas and input. If you have a new product idea, tell them about it. Ask them what they think. Ask them what they’d pay for such a product or service. Ask them if they would like to see something from you that you’ve not delivered.

    * Tease Them about New Products – Never pass up an opportunity to give them some hints and small bits of information about a new product, service or event. As you hint about it, make them really want it by explaining what’s in it for them.

    * Thank Them for Buying – When someone buys something from you (or answers any call to action), be sure to thank them. The thank you is always a nice thing to do, plus it gives you just that little bit more real estate to give them more information about you and your products and/or services.

    * Follow Up Regularly – Even after someone has purchased, and you’ve thanked them, it’s not over. It costs a lot less to create a repeat buyer than to turn a lead into a buyer. Cultivate your relationship with buyers even more consistently than you do leads and prospects.

    Using the pattern of telling them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them will do wonders for all your marketing. Most people need to hear things multiple times before it sinks in. The more you stick to your word and the more value you can provide your audience, the more they’ll look forward to whatever you offer them.

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

    How to Get Paid for an Email Course

    An important aspect of having an email course is finding a way to monetize it. Making money for your hard work is important. When you make money doing something you love, and that you really know how to do, it will enable you to do more of it – thus helping more people learn the information that they need to know.

    * Moon Clerk – This works with MadMimi.com, Aweber.com, GetResponse.com and other autoresponder services, which will enable you to collect one-time and recurring payments for your courses. You’ll need a stripe account as well to get started with using Moon Clerk.

    Link to Moon Clerk – http://www.moonclerk.com/

    * PayPal – You can set up a PayPal subscription payment with a simple link to set up an eCourse, using either ClickBank.com or another shopping cart system. Set up a sales page with the payment option, and then send them to a thank you page with a sign-up sheet. That will sign them up for the autoresponder with the eCourse.

    * aMember.com – This is a membership software, which you don’t need to run an eCourse, but it is a good way to set them up to avoid issues with people unsubscribing and still being on the course list, as can happen with the PayPal / ClickBank idea.

    * Upsells – A great way to make money from a free email course is to offer an upsell of some kind. This could be a product you’ve shown them that they need, such as a private membership group and other related products to the course.

    * Affiliate Programs – Your course may suggest different types of tools, software and services to your audience. This is a good opportunity to include an affiliate link. You do need to disclose in your terms of service on the sign-up page for the course that some links will be affiliate links. However, most people will not mind if you are suggesting things you’ve tried that work.

    * Exclusive Offers – People on your list will love feeling exclusive. Use the list to make “list member only” special offers. When you hype up these offers to let them know that they are honestly the only ones getting a “sneak peek exclusive offer” and an inside view of your products and services, they’ll be excited to get the chance.

    * Cross-Promote – If you have other offers outside of this course, such as more courses, you can cross-promote. This is an offer that is related to the course your customer is taking, but is not a sale that’s directly related to the course they’re in now.

    * Coaching – If you’ve given a good eCourse to your audience, you can offer to give them extra help with one-on-one coaching or group coaching calls for a fee. Make the offer through the course in the beginning, toward the middle and at the end.

    If you give it some thought, you’ll be able to cash in on email courses. You can make it as simple as you want, or as complicated as you want, depending on which software you choose to use. But, one thing is for sure; you can make money and get paid for an email course.

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