The Top 20 Business Reasons To Use Social Media Marketing
As I’m sure you’ve already discovered, it now takes more than your typical newspaper ad, radio spot and networking meeting to get the sales you used to get.
Why? Because the dynamics of the market have changed. Consumers are better educated and have more choices than ever before. In addition, there are fewer buyers out there and more intense competition from everywhere to capture their business.
It seems as though the worldwide recession changed the rules of marketing. Companies are now finding that the marketing tools and techniques considered valuable and effective just a few years ago, are no longer bringing in the sales they once were.
More and more companies are seeking out low cost “guerrilla” marketing techniques that they can implement quickly and easily. Social media is an easy and affordable way to do just that if you have the strategies in place.
But social media marketing is very different than traditional marketing methods. Don’t think for one minute that just because you have an in-house marketing staff or outside agencies handling your public relations, creating brochures or managing your ad campaigns that they automatically know how to create and manage your social media marketing efforts.
Social media marketing and traditional forms of marketing require different skill sets and strategies. Don’t assume that just because your agency can write great copy, and are whiz-kids when it comes to search engine optimization or creating websites that they can handle your social media marketing efforts.
I am often asked, “I don’t get how I can use social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to help my business.” To help you get your “creative juices flowing, ” I have listed 20 different ways that social media marketing can help your business. Future articles will go into more depth on how to get achieve resutls.
The Top 20 Business Reasons to Use Social Media Marketing
1 - Improve customer and prospect relationships
2 - Conduct inexpensive yet effective market research
3 - Build brand awareness, authority and credibility
4 - Drive traffic to your website
5 - Ability to obtain insight into targeted niche markets
6 - Find new distribution channels
7 - Improve search engine rankings through link building
8 - Find and research targeted decision makers, prospects, customers and contacts
9 - Monitor reputation - what are people saying about you or your company
10 - Attain expert status for you, your company or your brand
11 - An effective form of communicating with past, present and future clients
12 - Share information used to educate prospects
13 - Spy on your competition
14 - Provides increased visibility for you, your products or your brand
15 - Generate more leads
16 - Get more referrals
17 - Find joint venture partners
18 - A new vehicle to post PR, events and articles
19 - Provide better customer service
20 - And of course - INCREASE SALES!
For more articles and resources on social media marketing go to www.ExpertsInSocialMedia.com.
5 Reasons to Utilize Business Networking Websites
Business networking sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo are sprouting up like so many weeds all over the Internet. If you have held out joining these networks, thinking their popularity would blow over, I’ve got some bad news for you: they aren’t going away. It’s time to join up.
However, the good news is that joining these networks can do wonders for your business. They are great places to connect with former colleagues and find new people to bounce ideas off of. We have reached a point where you can’t really, in terms of business, afford not to be part of the appropriate business networks for your field. Here are the top five reasons why you need to become part of online business networking groups yesterday!
1 - Enhance Your Credibility
Putting a professional profile on business networking sites enhances your credibility in two ways.
First, it shows that you understand new marketing initiatives and can navigate around the Internet, harnessing its power for good in the business world. That might seem like a no-brainer, but it is important for potential clients to see that you are clued in to the way business works now.
The second way that posting a professional profile to a business-networking site can help your business credibility is that with many sites you can have your credentials verified by third parties. Your previous employment credentials, academic credentials and your professional affiliations can all be verified. That removes the ambiguity of a resume that has not been checked by outside sources.
I think all of us can remember how resumes without verification have surfaced during things like political campaigns and have been proved to be less than accurate.
2 - Improve your Reputation
The personal networking that these websites facilitate allows you to with LinkedIn, in particular, connect with or be “recommended” by others, who, by virtue of connecting with you or recommending you, solidify your standing in your particular professional field.
These people can write testimonials about your work and vouch for your contributions in your field. Interacting with others in your field, participating in the conversation and becoming better known will increase and improve your reputation.
3 - Publish Testimonials of Happy Clients
In addition to your website, Professional networking sites are great places to publish testimonials from happy clients. If you do not have testimonials, now is the time to request some! Most customers are more than happy to agree, especially if you include contact information, such as a website, for their business as well. Your testimonials are likely to get many more views on this type of site as people scan profiles in certain areas.
4 - Link to Your own Website
Links from professional and business networking sites to your website are high in quality and can result in more traffic to your website. These links improve your search engine ranking, which always helps to gain new customers. In addition, any place that you can have your website information displayed helps spread the word about your business.
If you do not have a website, it is a good idea to start one, even a simple website or blog that you update frequently. You can put more information on your own website than you generally can on a networking site. Also, a website is increasingly seen as an indicator of credibility in and of itself. You can display testimonials, samples, and your resume and provide an additional means for potential clients to contact you.
5 - Allow Prospects to Interact with You
A good way to get more business is to provide an easy way for potential prospects to interact with you online. If you feel unsure about giving your contact information to random strangers (and who wouldn’t, really?), professional networking sites online are a good way to have a third party help moderate and filter contacts for you. You do need to provide some kind of access, and receiving emails through a double blind system helps keep spam out of your primary inbox, and helps you keep your contacts categorized.
Joining business networking websites is easy and can bring great rewards for the little time you must spend to keep your profile and communication up to date. Find one and join!
To Your Continued Success!
Dave
Unveiling the “Sixth Sense,” Game-Changing Wearable Tech
You gotta watch this video - it’s the most frekin’ amazing technology to come along in years. It’s “Minority Report Movie” stuff and it’s real. Enjoy!
5 Critical Questions You Must Ask Yourself Before Starting a Social Media Marketing Plan
#1 - Are you Ready and Committed to your Social Media Marketing Plan?
Once you begin your social media marketing plan, you have to go, no holds barred. It is all or nothing because when people become part of your social media circle, they will expect you to interact with them on a regular basis.
Doing social media the right way is like being in a committed relationship. Your social media connections will start to know your rhythms and habits and expect for you to be available for conversation and help. But, you don’t have to be the only social butterfly enacting your social media plan. You can enlist others from your organization to help, as long as you give them clear guidelines. Before you get rolling on your social media initiatives, consider the following to make your plan.
#2 - What are your Social Media Marketing Goals?
Some people enter into the social media with the goal of accumulating as many “friends” or connections as possible. Does that remind you of the popular kid from high school that was all style and no substance? (Yeah, me too) In order to have success with your social media ventures, you need to make sure that you have style and substance.
Just like any other marketing strategy, you need to start your social media efforts with an outcome in mind. Do you want to raise band awareness? Do you want to sell things? Are you going to offer coupons? Do you hope to drive traffic to your website or a landing page? Social Media marketing can help with networking or with link building, or a combination of both. You just need to establish your objectives in order to make the most of your time.
#3 - Who will Manage your Social Media Marketing Efforts?
You will find, once you begin your social media efforts, that they can take a large amount of time. To really make your brand visible in the social media sphere, you may want to find an assistant to help you that you can trust to be the voice of your brand. The good thing about social media is that it can be viral. The bad thing about social media is that it can be viral. Every single post, comment or interaction on the Internet must be something that you, yourself can back up.
The best assistants to help with social media initiatives are people who are honestly and sincerely passionate about your brand. They also understand the company’s overall “voice” in promotional materials and communications. They need to be good problem solvers and decision makers, understanding when they can handle a problem that might come up, and when they need for someone else to step in. When you find this person, watch their efforts for a while, and then let them run with it. Check up occasionally to make sure your goals are being met, and brainstorm new strategies and arenas to pursue.
Word of Caution - your assistants should not “be you” on these sites. That goes against everything “holy” about social networking. You should be using them more to update events pages, group announcements, handling customer service related issues, etc.
#4 - How Much Have You Budgeted for Social Media?
The best part about most social media initiatives is that they are free; except for the time it takes to participate in the forums, etc. If you decide to hire an assistant to handle specific parts of your social media efforts, be sure to allocate the appropriate funds to do so.
Aside from the salary, the only money you might spend to participate in social media efforts is to advertise on social sites although at this point though the effectiveness of these ads is debatable. In addition, you may also want to upgrade to professional status on such websites as LinkedIn, FastPitch, etc.
Overall, it is much better to produce a good product and then connect with your friends, fans and followers than to advertise on these sites. Social media marketing takes a high degree of commitment and time, but it offers benefits that are worth the nominal cost.
#5 - How will you measure your success?
Marketers are all about measuring and it is difficult, if not impossible, to measure direct activity to success with social media marketing. However, it is pretty hard to know whether a multi-million dollar billboard in Times Square helps the brand very much either - in terms of direct sales.
Social media marketing can still produce a high ROI, but in this case, ROI is “return on influence” versus return on investment. Return on influence essentially means, how did your social media efforts affect your brand. Are people talking about you or your company? Are they “re-tweeting”, attending your events and joining your groups? Are you engaged in conversations about who you are, what you do and how you can solve problems. All of these things eventually lead to increased sales.
I would suggest that you start, first, to measure activity - put together metrics for activity in social media. Set goals or schedules for blogging, amount of content bookmarked, commenting to other blogs, tweeting, etc. Once you have been social media marketing for a while, you will be able to survey your customers, review your web traffic and “clicks” and see if certain methods are working better than others.
I would argue that, if you are not into social media marketing at all right now, just starting will be a big success! Get out there and get your feet wet. You’ll have nothing to measure if you don’t start.
The Benefits of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is no longer a buzzword, fad or a trend. It is essential for every business that wants to survive and thrive during and beyond tough economic times. The best part of social media marketing is that it is essentially free, with the exception of the time spent on it. It is accessible to anyone with a computer—anyone who can read a blog, e-mail, article or website. The benefits are almost too numerous to cover in one blog post, but I’ll try. Fasten your seatbelts! Here is a whirlwind tour of Social Media Marketing benefits.
Social Media Marketing is Practically Free!
One of the best things about social media marketing is that it is practically free. The only cost to you to engage in social media marketing is your time. This can be a double-edged sword. In order to make sure that you make the most of your time and reap the benefits of your efforts, you do need to develop a plan and a focus so that you do not become endlessly mired in fruitless ventures.
Everyone Else is Doing it
Normally, that would not be my main reason for recommending any sort of activity; however, in the business world, if you do not secure a social media presence in your field, other businesses in your field will crowd you out. There may never come a time when it is entirely too late to enter into social media marketing on your own behalf, but there may come a time when it is more difficult to stand out and gain recognition for your company because the media landscape is already too crowded. Social media is still new enough that there is still more or less enough room for anyone who wants to participate. Best to jump in while there is still room in the pool!
Another take on the “everyone else is doing it” portion of advice is that consumers have come to expect that they can interact with their favorite brands and services online. If they can’t interact with you, they might just switch to a different service or company that allows them to communicate in this way. If your audience really likes you, and you don’t participate in the social media, you run the risk of leaving your position of neutrality online and entering the position of being loudly and publically panned. It is much better to be involved in the back and forth than to ignore it.
Social Media Marketing is great for Unobtrusive Spying!
It isn’t called “spying” if you are considered a friend, contact or trusted source of information, is it? Well, that depends upon your definition. However, a tremendous benefit of social media marketing is that, as a contact or friend of someone, you have an unprecedented window into their daily lives. You can see what they do, and what they like. By participating, you receive, literally, tons of data about your audience and potential consumers. You don’t have to ask people what they like, want or need, they will tell you freely-either through online polls (everyone loves a poll) or by letting you see what they are telling others, via social networking, that they want. It is up to you to figure out how to use all of that data to your advantage.
A more overt way of seeking information from social media marketing efforts is to ask your followers, contacts or friends to complete online polls or surveys, or to just answer questions you might post. Twitter is a great for that type of interaction. You can solicit responses for a variety of people relatively quickly. Simply ask a question and wait for your “followers” to answer it.
“Reality Marketing”
Social media marketing provides customers with a more personal link to the business or organization. It provides the highly sought after “transparency” factor. Consumers like to know as much as possible about the companies with which they do business, and social media provides a less formal way to interact. By participating in forums and online networks, you get to see the equivalent of “reality focus groups.” Instead of convening focus groups within an artificial environment, with social media marketing and relationship building, you get to participate and observe consumers chatting about what they are doing with something in real time, in real life.
Social media marketing is a win-win avenue for your business, as long as you participate. Don’t get left in the dirt. Begin a social media marketing plan now!
For more information on how you can integrate social media into your current marketing plan, go to http://www.IncreaseSalesWithSocialMedia.com
Increase Sales With Social Media - Live Workshop 2/27-28 - Newport Beach, CA
Discover how to unleash the power of
Social Networking. Learn from 10 leading
experts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter,
Podcasting, YouTube, Squidoo and more!
In this economy, companies big and small are
looking for unique, effective and inexpensive
ways to find more leads, get more referrals and of
course increase sales. Social media is an
easy and affordable way to do just that if you
understand how to use it.
Most companies know they should be doing
something with social media marketing, but
many just don’t know what to do or how to get
started.
This 2-day “crash course” focuses on
social sites and strategies that provide the
highest ROI in the shortest amount of time.
Just take a look at the list of industry
experts speaking at this event:
+ Facebook - Shama Hyder
+ LinkedIn - Chip Lambert
+ Twitter - Dan Hollings
+ Podcasting - Paul Colligan
+ Integrating Social Media - Matt Bacak
+ Social Bookmarking - Dr. Ron Capps
+ Expert Marketing Using Social Media - Nancy Marmolejo
+ Linkbait Marketing - David Carleton
+ YouTube - Mike Koenigs
+ Squidoo - Bill Wardell
If your sales have been down or you just
want to get more, believe me, this is not
an event you want to miss!
The Workshop Will be Held on:
February 27-28
8 AM - 5:30 PM
Marriott Hotel & Spa
900 Newport Center Drive
Newport Beach, CA 92660
To Register or See a Detailed Agenda Visit:
http://www.IncreaseSalesWithSocialMedia.com
PS - Register early and get 7 hours of MP3
audio of the December 2008 social media marketing
workshop.
To your continued success,
David Carleton
The 6 Myths of Social Media Marketing
With the advent of such websites as LinkedIn, Facebook,
MySpace, Twitter, etc. many are calling Web 2.0
the Social Media Revolution. It’s time to demystify
social media marketing
Social Media Myth #1 - Social Sites Are Just For Teenagers
Nothing could be further from the truth. While there are
some sites like MySpace and others that were originally
created to cater exclusively to teenagers, many of them
are now attracting older participants.
And although there are literally thousands of social
sites out there today, once you determine the goals
and objectives of your social media efforts, you’ll
be able to narrow down the list to a select few that
will concentrate on your target market.
Social Media Myth #2 - Social Media is Just a Fad
When the Internet first arrived on the scene, it was all
about providing information and selling “stuff”. And
while that is still a large part, Web 2.0 is all about
users interacting with each other and consumer generated
content.
When 6 out the top 10 websites in the world are social
sites and they are getting 1 billion visitors a month
and growing, I guarantee this is not a fad. This is
Web 2.0, the future! And the best part is, that you
have the opportunity to learn about it and get involved
in it while it is still relatively new.
Social Media Myth #3 - Social Strategies Are Just for Big Companies
The Internet is the great equalizer. You are what your customers
and prospects see, hear and read on line. If you make great products
or provide great services and you can reach the right audience
through a compelling social media strategy, then your company
will benefit with more exposure, higher brand awareness and of
course increased sales.
My advice is not to worry about what the big boys are doing,
do what you need to do to grow your business and believe me
you need to be doing social media marketing. Social media is a
great “guerrilla marketing” tool that you can take advantage
of and start reaping the benefits from very quickly.
Social Media Myth #4 - Social Media Marketing Will Cost a Lot
of Money to Implement
The good news is that creating and implementing a social
media-marketing plan does not have to cost a lot of money.
As a matter of fact most social media websites cost nothing
to join.
Now don’t get me wrong, as with anything, you’ll certainly
have to devote an adequate amount of time and resources to
be effective, but in actual hard dollars and cents, your
investment can be quite minimal.
Social Media Myth #5 - Social Media Marketing is Primarily
Used for Finding Friends and Sharing Video and Photos
While YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and other similar sites are
indeed used to find friends and share experiences, photos
and videos, many savvy marketers are finding that they can
connect with groups, users, fans and enthusiasts.
How? By providing free information that members might find
useful or enhance their experiences. These types of sites
should not be overlooked as a way to open 2-way dialogs
with your target market
Social Media Myth #6 - You Have to be a Marketing Whiz or Computer Geek to Effectively Use Social Media
Once again, not true. If you can surf the Internet, buy a book
on Amazon and read blogs, you have the skills needed to benefit
from social media. Frankly, the most important thing you need
to help your company get involved in social media marketing is
the desire to learn and the time to implement some very basic
ideas and strategies.
Now, are there more advanced features on some of these sites?
Sure, but even those can be applied by just asking current
users or reading instructions that many of the sites themselves
provide. I’m telling you, this is not rocket science!
To learn more about social media marketing go to
http://www.IncreaseSalesWithSocialMedia.com
To Your Continued Success,
David Carleton
How is Social Media Marketing Different From Other Marketing?
What is Social Media Marketing and How is it Different
Than Traditional Marketing Strategies?
Now that our new president elect in place, many experts
refer to some of his followers as Generation “O” because
Obama reached out to new constituents using the power
of social media marketing.
Marketing is no longer a one-way conversation. Consumers
are talking back in record numbers and giving their opinions
on everything. From politics, to music to what they buy and
who they buy it from. Almost anyone can now produce and
publish articles, pictures and video and send it out to a
global audience within a matter of seconds with the simply
“push of a button” and for zero cost!
Social media marketing is a method of promoting your brand,
product, service or company by making your presence known
via a variety of social media networks.
Social media marketing is much more viral than traditional
forms of marketing because users now become content producers
by posting blogs, writing articles, leaving short comments
and messages. This relatively new marketing allows you
to enter the minds of your consumers and prospects and
have a real conversation and/or tell them a story about
your company, products or services.
The bottom line is that consumers trust referrals from
friends more than they trust advertising. In this case,
friends are those they’ve met and built a relationship
with within their specific community or network. And even
though they’ve never met, a bond and level of trust has
been built up over time and multiple interactions and
“conversations”.
Social media websites are changing where consumers are
getting their information before, during and after they
buy products and services. According to a 2008 Harris
Interactive Poll, 54% of Americans do not trust the media.
In a different study conducted by Nielson, 78% of survey
respondents said they trusted, either completely or somewhat,
the recommendations of other consumers.
To learn more about social media marketing go to
http://www.IncreaseSalesWithSocialMedia.com
To your continued success,
David Carleton
President, Street Smart Sales And Marketing
http://www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com
What Ronald McDonald Can Teach Companies That Sell “Big Ticket” Products or Services
No matter what you sell, how high the retail price, what
time of year or how bad the economy is, people are still
buying - Houses, Cars, Boats, Seminars, Kitchens, Pools,
Insurance policies, etc.
Are they buying as many as last year. Maybe not. Are
they buying less expensive options than they used to?
Could be. Are there fewer buyers on the market right
now? Probably - so what!
I have purchased 9 homes in my life. Two of these homes
I bought on the 24-25th of December. Who the heck buys
homes on Christmas or Christmas Eve? Not as many as the
weeks before or the weeks after Christmas, but homes still
get sold then. I even bought a home when mortgage rates
were over 12%!
Despite what you’ve heard or read, people ARE still buying.
Your job is to stop justifying why your sales are flat or
down and find a way to get those people to buy from you.
Now is NOT the time to give into what I call “the down
disease” - (everyone is down in sales so I don’t feel so
bad that my sales are down too).
In times like these, your competitors will slow down or
even eliminate some or all of their marketing efforts.
This creates an opportunity for you to capture their
customers if you already have systems in place to do so.
Your job is to take advantage of this opportunity and
find those prospects that ARE ready, willing and able
to buy and make sure that they buy from you, not your
competition. Sounds logical and simple enough. But
if it was that simple, wouldn’t more companies be doing
it?
The sad truth is that many small businesses continue to
do what they’ve always done in the past regardless of
the mediocre results they are now getting.
You Don’t Necessarily Need More Marketing Money to Increase Sales
Instead, it’s your ability to use the marketing money
and resources you already have more effectively. What
it really comes down to is not having sales generating
systems in place that they can use to get a predictable
and constant stream of sales regardless of what is
going on around the block or around the world.
These systems can do more to increase your sales than
just about anything else you could invest in. Why?
Because it concentrates on the one thing that ALL
businesses can’t get enough of…new customers.
Doesn’t that make sense?
Systems are what make so many franchises successful.
Why do you think McDonalds®, Dunkin Donuts® and
Kinko’s® stores and franchises are so successful?
Because they have, over time, developed systems
that work.
Make no mistake about it, people who buy a franchise
aren’t buying hamburgers, donuts or copy machines,
they’re buying a program that has proven the test of
time, they are buying a successful system.
That’s why the most successful franchises cost so
much…because if you do what they tell you to do,
f you “connect the dots”, if you “paint by their
numbers”, your odds of success go up dramatically.
What Type of Sales Generating Systems Do You Have in Your Business?
Listed below are 4 easy-to-implement systems that
you can introduce into your business fairly easily.
1 - Website Lead Capture System
One of the most effective lead-capture systems
is the humble newsletter. Electronic newsletters
(e-Zines) are much like paper-based newsletters in
that they inform, entertain, and make product or
service recommendations. The difference is that
you can send an electronic newsletter instantly to
thousands of people with the simple push of a
button for almost no cost whatsoever. It’s truly
amazing.
Of course you need people to send your newsletter
to so you should start collecting the email addresses
of your prospects and clients today. A surefire
way to persuade a prospect to share their personal
email address with you is to offer them a low cost
premium such as a free report about how to buy a
your product or service.
The key to making electronic newsletters work is
to write, in a personal voice, as though you were
talking to your prospect or customer face-to-face.
Also, provide interesting and useful content so
that your reader looks forward to receiving your
newsletter. Be consistent. Send your newsletter
on a bi-weekly basis, such as the 1st and 15th
of every month.
If you want all the fuss taken out of the
newsletter process you can use an all-in-one tool
such as http://www.1ShoppingCart.com (that’s what
I use) or ConstantContact.com or Aweber.com.
For a lower cost option you can have a newsletter
template designed for you at e-Lance and then
use an online autoresponder service such as
Aweber.com or with desktop software such as
Gammadyne.com.
2 - Telephone Lead Capture System
How would you like to capture the name and address
of all your lead sources and know exactly where
they all came from? Capturing this information
would allow you to do follow up marketing with
your prospects and compute the exact return-on
-investment of each of your marketing and
advertising campaigns. Telephone hotlines allow
you to do just that - and more.
A telephone hotline is simply a recorded telephone
message that can either, (1) ask for and record a
prospect’s contact information that can later be
transcribed, (2) play back a pre-recorded educational
or sales message, or (3) allow the caller to be
directly transferred to a live person after
listening to a message.
Most telephone hotlines use toll-free telephone
numbers that are rented to your business on a
monthly basis. You’ll also receive multiple
extension numbers with “message boxes” that can
play different messages depending on the marketing
campaign. I use http://www.AutomateMarketingSolutions.com
for my telephone hotline services.
Imagine offering an interesting free report
(or audio / video) in your advertising by asking the
prospect to simply call your toll-free number
and a specific extension number to request your
information product. The prospect calls up the
advertised phone number with its unique extension
number and then requests the report by leaving
their name and address. Their name and address
gets transcribed that night, entered into an MS
Excel spreadsheet, and then sent to you in the
morning ready for you to follow up on.
At the end of the month you go online, click a
button, and a report spits out the exact source
of each of your leads and when they came in.
Now you have some powerful information that will
allow you to precisely track the return on each
marketing campaign.
3 - Internet Pay-Per-Click Advertising System
More and more people are going to the Internet
to search for big ticket product product information
before they decide to buy. It’s critical to be
the first company that your prospect finds in their
search. Pay-per-click advertising allows you to
do that in a low risk way. Let me explain.
Pay-per-click advertising programs such as Yahoo
and Google’s Adwords program allow you to bid for
search engine placement. If you’ve ever searched
for something in Google and saw those text ads on
the right side of the screen you’ve seen Google
Adwords. With Google AdWords or Yahoo you create
your own ads, choose keywords to match your ads to
your audience and pay only when someone clicks on
them.
For instance, suppose you are a power sports dealer
in Chicago. You might bid on the keywords “Chicago”
and “motorcycle,” which is a likely keyword
combination for a Chicago resident looking for a
motorcycle. You may only have to pay $.10 per
click to be at the top of the search engines. In less
than one hour any business can launch their
own pay-per-click Internet advertising program.
4 - Follow-Up Marketing System
Now that you’ve generated interest and prospects
are coming to your website or responding to your
advertising, you need an effective lead follow up
system. In the previous paragraph I referred to an
“autoresponder service” and now it’s time to learn
what they are and why they’re important. An
autoresponder service automatically sends multiple
email messages that you create on a scheduled basis
that you define.
For instance, imagine that you offered a free 6-part
email course on your website titled, “How to Select
the Perfect Home Remodeler.” After your website visitor
signed up to receive your email course by sharing
their email address with you, your autoresponder
service would automatically send them one email
containing your course content every other day over
the next 12 days.
Every other day your prospect would automatically
receive a useful tip or technique for selecting the
right home remodeler, without any manual intervention
from you. Included in each day’s tip could be an
offer to visit your website to take advantage
of a special offer or to visit your store to
receive a personalized educational session.
There’s no magic to how many emails you can set up
in your autoresponder system. I know of one pool
builder who has over six months of weekly emails
pre-written and set up to automatically be sent
in his autoresponder system. Each email has a unique
teaser that drives prospects back to their website.
For instance, one email says, “Click here to see
one of the most unique pool ever built.”
The link then takes the reader to a page with a
beautiful pool on it and and also includes a
story about some of the problems that other
pool owners encounter and how this new pool
overcame those issues. It may also include
a testimonial from the prospect raving about the
pool. It’s quite powerful.
One last thought, for sales or marketing system
to be effective it must:
1. Be quick to get started, easy to implement,
and simple to maintain
2. Leverage all your other sales and marketing
efforts and be capable of producing
fast results
3. Continue to produce good results for long
periods of time - it must be “viral”
The 3 systems I’ve shown you certainly meet these
3 criteria. Now go out there and start systemizing.
If Ronald McDonald can do it, so can you!
To your continued success,
David Carleton
President, Street Smart Sales And Marketing
http://www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com
7 Secrets to Stay Focused and Grow Your Business
Secret #1 - Create an image of your final business goal and write it down.
The bottom line here is that if you haven’t got a final destination or goal, it’s hard to plot a course. So take the time to create an image of your business goal and create a plan to get there.
All great athletes and successful business people, visualize their final destination. Take time to visualize and keep your perspective.
Also, like they say, a goal not written is only a wish. For some reason, if we write it, it’s more real and we can stay better focused. Before we decide to revise or adapt our goal, we need to start with something to expand upon if the need arises.
Secret #2 - Know your market and your competition.
You may have a brilliant business idea. But if you don’t spend some time researching your market, which includes researching your competition, then you will most likely have a business doomed for failure.
Your idea may be brilliant, but it may need some important tweeks that you will only realize and resolve when you are doing your research to understand your market.
Secret #3 - Stay focused on one dream at a time.
Sometimes as we get excited about our dream, other business ideas may pop into our head. Write the ideas down in a “To Do” file, and leave them alone until you have COMPLETED your current business effort and it is producing good returns.
Many people get distracted with other opportunities and ideas and never complete one dream, this is very costly and in many instances financially counter productive.
Secret #4 - Remember, no man is an island, you need others to help compliment your business plan.
Networking with others can be very valuable in getting your name out there, but more importantly, you may gain some great insights and strategies to help grow your business faster.
Additionally, hire and develop employees that you can delegate assignments to in areas that you are weak or not as interested in performing. Then you can keep yourself focused on things that are in line with your natural talents. Make efforts to enhance your talents to become even more effective.
Secret #5 – Keep yourself from becoming stagnant by keeping yourself educated
The wise entrepreneur will reduce the amount of time it takes to learn the necessary elements in their business by talking with and gleaning insights from those at the top of their market. Learn from someone with a proven success record and then you don’t have to learn from trial and error. Take courses, read books and be open to new ideas.
Secret #6 - Take one day at a time and don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed with the magnitude or your goal or challenges.
Although you need to have long-term goals and strategies, your days can only be productive if you focus on one step at a time. Then you can do a great job on that effort and easily progress to the next step (and bring your sanity along with you too.)
Secret #7 – Leverage your time and resources by implementing systems throughout your business
Why do you think McDonalds®, Dunkin Donuts® and other franchises are so successful? Because they have, over time, developed systems that work.
Make no mistake about it, people who buy a franchise aren’t buying hamburgers or donuts, they’re buying a program that has proven the test of time, they are buying a successful system.
That’s why the most successful franchises cost so much…because if you do what they tell you to do, if you “connect the dots”, if you “paint by their numbers”, your odds of success go up dramatically.
There are obviously more than just 7 “secrets” to business success, but if you follow these you’ll be way ahead of most of your competitors.
To your continued success,
David Carleton
President, Street Smart Sales And Marketing
http://www.StreetSmartSalesAndMarketing.com
Discover How to Use Social Media Marketing to Drive Traffic, Generate Leads and Increase Sales
