That’s right EASIER.

online marketing consultant

In the “old” days you had to spend money on an ad in the paper, radio, tv.

The problems were: Which one? All? How big? How often? What can I say in such a small space? Will anyone see it? How will you ever know it worked?

Many business owners felt like they threw money at advertising and didn’t get much back.

Now, with the internet, a one time investment getting a basic website online with some good, helpful to people content (big hint) will serve your business, day after day, week after week, on autopilot generating your business leads and sales.

Your business can become THE business in .

With a little monthly maintenance you can be assured of making money from your website because EVERYTHING can be tracked. No more guessing.

It does takes some effort upfront, but will payoff with the right plan and good execution, not perfect, good works fine.

If your business is not online…. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

People in your city are literally looking for you, and you’re not there.

People WANT to give you money and they can’t find you.

69% of buyers look online FIRST with the Google/Bing/Yahoo searches to find out who is in and what you have to offer.

FIRST….

Can they find your business online? If you have a website, does it actually show up in search results first page? (we can help)

SECOND….

Does your website clearly communicate what you offer and why you are the best business in to actually do business with? (we can help)

Third…

Does your website offer free, helpful information about the buyers needs and your business, that people will appreciate getting access to? This is building the KNOW, LIKE, TRUST factors with people. Buyers want to know, like and trust BEFORE they will buy happily from you.  (we can help)

It’s not too tough. Some planning and proper execution IS needed to get your business online and in front of buyers. Having someone walk you through the process and mine the hidden gems of information in your business can make all the difference.

It won’t even cost you much, if anything, by reallocating some other marketing dollars to get online the right way.

We can help you define your best marketing strategy and build your successful online presence. Check out some of our free information on marketing your business online.

Leave your email (above) and receive our eBook and access to 7 free training videos that will help you understand how to market your business in a whole new way.

Right up there…top left corner…go now and leave your email  :-)

Wishing you all the success in your business.

Marketing Always Everywhere Secrets For Your Business

And it works!

You’ve seen YouTube videos right? How cool would it be if in the middle of the video it paused and gave people a chance to Tweet about your video? How cool would it be to make it “required” if the viewer wanted to finish the video?

Now you can!

1. Add a short message to your videos that viewers must/can tweet – to turn them VIRAL!
2. Add an optin form so viewers must/can opt into your list – for MORE OPTINS!
3. Add a built-in poll so viewers must/can vote – for more respondents and data
4. Add a message with a link that viewers must/can click – for MORE CLICKS!

…and you get to choose EXACTLY when the script appears, accurate to the second! If your video content is of great value, you will have no problem in getting your viewers to perform any of those actions so they can watch the video in full…

…and you have the option to make this compulsory or optional! In other words: YOU have the choice to make those viral actions compulsory or optional. In the first case, viewers will HAVE TO perform the action to be able to watch the rest of the video. In the second case, viewers can just skip the viral action and continue watching the video. How much more freedom could you have?

1) Use the power Twitter to turn your videos viral - With the Twitter option, you can add a message to any YouTube or self-hosted videos, whenever you want it to show so viewers must tweet your message before they can watch the rest of the video… Remember you can make it compulsory or optional! You can choose to show it at the beginning, or at the end… whenever you want!

2) Turn your videos into killer optin forms - You can also add an optin form so viewers must opt in, either before, during or after the video. If your video content is of great value, people WILL opt in, because they want to watch the rest of the video. That’s a win-win situation! They get to watch the video, and you get more optins!

3) Add a poll to ANY YouTube or self-hosted video - With this option you can add a poll to any video, and viewers must vote to be able to watch the video. If you’re struggling to get people to respond to your polls, this is a must-have! You will easily get more respondents, and more data! What else could you ask for?

4) Get viewers to go exactly where you want them to - You can also go the simple way with a message and a link that viewers must click so they can watch the video. You can direct your viewers to the page of your choice: a capture page, a sales page… or even to another video. This is totally up to you! Remember, you can decide exactly when you want the script to appear.

It creates a built in FaceBook like button and optional “Tweet to continue” feature. If people like what they are watching they will tell their Twitterverse about the video and drive traffic to it, for free (it can be set so the have to Tweet the video to finish watching it or make it just a suggestion). Quality content will be even more valuable and easy to spread the word.

Here’s an existing video I created and later added one of the special links that allows people to go directly to any URL you choose (like your home page), to drive interested buyers at the click of a button. Check it out.

Sound interesting. Contact me for more details and how to upgrade your videos to VIRAL VIDEO status! Ask about the live polling feature, great for customer feedback.

Get Client Testimonials

The biggest benefit of your website to the success of your business is that hundreds of potential buyers of your product or service can actually FIND your business when they are actually looking for what you sell.

The search engines, like Google and Yahoo, are there to match your buyers with YOU for free!

You would like more cash in hand buyers finding your business right?

Search engines need good content to be able to find your website and the better and fresher your content is the better chance you will end up on page one of the search results of hungry buyers.

The second benefit of you having a website is that that same motivated shopper can meet you, preview your business and be sold on you without ever having to leave home. They can get to know you, like you and trust you 24/7 on their own time. So when they contact you, or come to your store, they are already pre-sold!

Many business do not have a website yet. Unbelievable. No marketing means fewer new customers and many business owners leave the marketing to last. Big mistake.

If all you do is have a single page with basic info, and the most important sales tool testimonials, then you will increase your sales.

Testimonials sell better than anything you can say. If you have happy customers telling their story then people are far more likely to believe and trust that they too will have a good experience.

Absolutely make sure to collect and promote your customer testimonials. They are powerful.

Written testimonials are good, but video testimonials are GREAT!

Here’s a quick video I just produced. It is videoed on an iPhone 3gs in front of a window and a little basic editing in iMovie on a Mac. Nothing fancy, but it works.

It’s not Hollywood but it can be real, honest and compelling for people watch and get the facts from your happy customers too.

Make collecting and promoting testimonials your #1 priority.

Using a simple online interface you can now buy tv commercial time on a wide range of networks, pick the shows you want it to air on and select the time of day you want to get to air…all for very little money.

It’s a great idea and lets you test tv responses to your commercials quickly and easily.

One more way your business can be marketing, always, everywhere.

Here’s a fun and fast intro to the concept:

And a link to Google’s site: air your tv commercial

Here’s Google’s guide to using their service:

TV Ads Strategy Guide

Promote your business on TV

Google TV Ads allows businesses of all sizes to advertise on national television. TV advertising is a compelling medium, but if you’re new to TV it can be difficult to understand how to set up ads and campaigns to ensure success. This handbook has been designed as a guide to understanding:

• Whether television is the right advertising medium for your business
• The TV ad creation process and best practices
• How to create and manage successful TV campaigns
• Methods to track and analyze TV campaign performance

You can be the best at what you do but if the people who want what you have don’t know you exist, then everyone loses out.

One of the most powerful ways of marketing your business all the time is by choosing to network. Not the in your face, pushy, always talking about yourself  ”sales promo”, but with respectful and purposeful, networking principles and skills.

You owe it to yourself, your market and the world to get out and network, otherwise your gifts, talents and knowledge lie wasted, alone. Sad huh?

Enter the networking expert offering you the chance to learn some great stuff on a free webinar, which you can watch below…Donna Willon of Focussed Networking. That’s right another expert, but hey we all need help in areas were we are weak in, or know nothing about, or are even afraid of doing.

Donna has decades of experience in creating networks and helping people understand the power and importance of networking to your business, the right way.

Instead of spending years of struggle ignoring, failing, or wondering how the heck to do it the easy way, attend Donna Willon’s Focussed Networking free webinar, where she will give you insights into networking the right way, with her knowledge and skill in this hugely important area for your business success.

If you pick up one tip, it could change your life. This is not a sales pitch but an educational opportunity from a lady who really knows her stuff.

Here’s the link to Donna’s website: http://www.focusednetworking.com

Everything we teach businesses to do is about communication. Make sure your business is regularly communicating to the market, your customers and your prospects about what your business is doing, events, sales, announcements and training you offer.

Keep people informed, connected and interested in your business with press releases.

An incredible business building bonus these days is that there are multiple websites that will host every press release you put out and that helps drive traffic to your website in three key ways.

FIRST, each press release may be found and read by clients and prospects when they search online for information that your press release talks about.

SECOND, Google LOVES news, and press releases are news. Your press release may come up in Google’s free search results and drive free traffic to your press release and website. This will happen with far greater certainty if press releases are one part of your communication strategy. If Google finds recent blog entries, new videos and relevant articles on your site as well….bingo… first page Google search results.

THIRD, some news agencies may consider it worthy of reporting and your news could be mentioned in newspapers, radio and TV.

Marketing always, everywhere has never been easier, more affordable or garnered greater potential results.

Make your plans to communicate regularily via the internet with articles, videos, blogging and press releases. You can provide great, valuable information to your clients and prospects and receive plenty of business as a result.

To get you started with the basics of writing a press release here’s a process you may find helpful for planning it before your write it, or you can ask us to write it for you. Be clear in your message, make it interesting and then spread it far and wide:

Follow these 5 steps to write leads that will showcase your newsworthy story to its fullest potential:

1. Know Your Angle - Determining your angle is the most crucial step you must take before you even begin writing your press release.  Ask yourself what about this story will get people’s attention and leave them wanting to know more.  While all the scientists at your pharmaceutical company may be enamored with the unusual chemical properties of a new drug, the general public is going to want to know less about that and more about the fact that it cures cancer.

2. Know Your Audience – On the other hand, if you are hoping for coverage in scientific publications, your audience may indeed be more concerned about the chemical properties of your new drug than its efficacy. When preparing to write the lead paragraph in your press release, imagine your target audience and craft a lead that will appeal to his or her sensibilities.

3. Include the 5 W’s and the H – Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Journalists are trained to think this way and will appreciate getting all the pertinent information up front. Reporters often cover specific beats, so featuring the 5 W’s in your lead lets them determine if they want to know more about your story without wasting their time if they don’t.  Remember, newsrooms can receive hundreds of press releases per day.

4. Reveal Your Angle Right Away – Which opening sentence captures your attention? “Space aliens touched down at a Des Moines farm yesterday…” or “Des Moines citizens were agape yesterday when Farmer McDonald confirmed that something amazing from the sky had appeared in his cornfield.” The first sentence is direct and to the point. It reveals “what,” “where” and “when” in just 10 words, while the second sentence doesn’t even state the newsworthy angle.  Don’t try to build suspense, and don’t be too wordy. Leave it to reporters to add local color and flair to your story. You want to grab attention from the very first word and then, once you have it, hang on to it.

5. Watch Your Language – That doesn’t mean no swearing, even though you should avoid that, too. It means watch your writing style. Are you using active instead of passive voice? (Active voice: “Space aliens landed in Des Moines.” Passive voice:  ”Des Moines is the place where space aliens landed.”) Active voice allows you to say more in fewer words and is always preferable to passive voice. Also be sure to employ economy with words. If a phrase or sentence adds no new information, cut it out.  There will always be time to elaborate on certain points in the body of the press release or on the phone with reporters.  Also avoid industry lingo when possible. Industry insiders may appreciate it, but an acronym-laden press release will limit hold limited appeal for the general public.

Those are two statements that still carry a mystique, a cachet, almost everywhere except a writers convention. If you want people to sit up and take notice of you, there is little doubt that being a published author will catapult you into the “expert worth listening to category”.

“I can’t write a book”, you say? Tsk, Tsk. It’s not that hard if you are an expert in any area of knowledge. We’re not talking Steven King or Jaclyn Suzanne here.

If you write articles, hold workshops, coach people or train on ANYTHING… you can write a book.

Its a process like anything else and it has very specific formulas to guide you. You could struggle to create a new formula but why bother? Get your FIRST book out of the way and find out how easy it can be, then get more creative.

Let’s hit some super simple highlights of how to write a book:

1. Have a topic or a specifc thing you want say
2. Create a chapter subject title based outline
3. Write an intro paragraph for each chapter – what’s it about
4. Expand on the idea in each chapter – keep it simple
5. Conclude your ideas and summarize

Your book can be 20 pages or 120 pages. It’s really OK. The million selling book “The One Minute Salesperson” set a new publishing standard for “short and sweet sells” AND at full price! Value of content versus book length became a key buying factor.

Any seminar, workshop or coaching process you have is a book waiting to be formatted.

Give it some thought and know that by selling your $1,000 seminar in a $20 book will in fact help you have more people buy into your $1,000 seminar. Why? Because you’ll reach thousands with your book and some will come to learn from you live, people you never would have reached before.

As an author you can have more press releases, book events and the best calling card of all to high value prospects… a free copy of your signed book.

Think about. Its not hard to write if you already have material to reformat. You can appropriately place references to your workshops, website and other services throughout the book and drive traffic with not just warm leads but buyers who are developing a relationship with you and your message.

Affordable editors are available to proof and edit your work.

On demand printing is amazing these days. You can be published in about a week with all the technical work, printing and shipping taken care for you. No more ordering 2,000 books to sit in your garage and ship out one by one.

Anyone can publish today for a small cost and no inventory, with great returns.

Watch for the next post on a quick look at the self publishing process.

Cash Tap Marketing To Your Lists

One of the best ways to make your local business website actually add to your bottom line immediately is to take a proactive position… instead of a reactive one.

Sadly, most local businesses leave it up to the customer to return back to the website, or take the next action and contact you to provide your services and products to them.

That’s not the smartest approach if you want to make more money in your business in the next 90 days than you did the previous 9 months.

We’ve all heard the idea that it takes multiple contacts to develop a prospect to the point of buying, that means your business, using automated systems, being proactive to make regular contact with valuable information.

So how can you be proactive automatically? The first way is to develop an “online e-newsletter” or a valuable free offer that people can gain access to if they put their email address into a form on your site. (Have you left your email in MY “opt-in offer” yet? Its right there….  ––––––––––––––––––––––> ).

If you do it right, many website visitors will sign up for your free info because your website explains, in a compelling way, the benefits that your free offer promises to provide.

Then, all email addresses are put into an “email database” that you can contact any time you wish, whenever you want to send out special offers or educational info.

Your prospect database and your client database are your most valuable assets. You do have both, right? You can communicate to them each list on a regular basis and turn on the cash-flow-tap whenever you have a great offer.

You could provide special offers, discounts, coupons, notifications of sales and all kinds of other stuff that will help your business bring in more cash flow. This is a service we provide for clients and we can explain this more fully in a 15 minute free consultation.

Ask us about developing, building and mining your databases of clients and prospects.

Contact us for your free 15 minute website review and input your email into the form on the right to request our report “4 Secrets to Getting the Web to Work For You” which also includes access to 7 free videos to help your understanding of what is possible and how it REALLY can work for you.

Google Maps Search Results

If you’re a small business who is looking to gain a dominant online presence in your local market – you’ve come to the right place.  We pride ourselves both in the free information on this site – as well as the services we perform for clients – to help you be at the top of the search engines for the terms your customers are searching for.

One way to get immediate customers is to get your business listing on Google Maps for local search terms. If you’re already on on the map, have you claimed your listing? If you have then you can improve your ranking with a few smart tips like adding a coupon, adding customer reviews and even responding to customer reviews.

Did I mention claiming your Google Map listing is FREE. Go get it, make it yours and take action to improve it, now.

One last thing, reviews from customers will help get your Google Map listing to the top of the list. Either the customer can go online to input the review or. if you get written reviews. you can transcribe it to your listing, just keep the written reviews on file.

Contact us to set up a free 15 minute consult where we can help you do it and or review your website and make some suggestions to drive traffic to it, get on first page Google or improve its conversion of visitors to buyers.

Contact us for a free 15 minute website review and input your email into the form on the right to request our report “4 Secrets to Getting the Web to Work For You” which also includes access to 7 free videos to help your understanding of what is possible and how it REALLY works.

Websites that produce no results.

9 out of 10 small business websites will never be help the business make any money.

Why? Because there are a few fundamental mistakes being committed, simply because business owners, and even many website designers, don’t know any better!

You’d think your web designer would know about these website no-no’s… but they often don’t! In fact, they’re partly to blame! Most “online consultants” aren’t aware of these everyday blunders either. What am I talking about?

I’m refering to mindset. Most small business brick ‘n mortar owners approach a website from a mindset of desperation. They know that it’s important to have their own website. They may even know that way more people are now using search engines to find a business than looking in the yellow pages (which usually get tossed out the day it arrives).

And they know they need a website as well. So they rush out and find a web designer who is all too happy to charge them an inflated figure to quickly throw together a web site that may look pretty, but completely fails to enhance their business.

Why? It’s an easy sell for these web designers! There is a difference between designing a website and creating a website that MARKETS your business on auto pilot.

A much better approach is to come up with a marketing plan before you even consider getting a website built. The second thing you can do is seek out small business owners who already have websites and talk to a few of them.

You’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn. They’ll give you an inside perspective of what it’s like to have a website, what works and what doesn’t work. At the very least you’ll learn what to avoid.

At the same time, they may be able to recommend a good graphic designer at a reasonable fee. However, before you hire one, there is something else you should do as well…

Research how search engines index websites! Why is this important? Well most techy and eye-candy rich websites can’t even be read by the search engines. If they can’t read your site, they can’t rank it for searches!

What’s more important… understand the differences between beauty, getting visitors to your site, and pre-conditioning website visitors to respond to your offers? As a business person, I’ll take the pre-conditioning any day, which means that while people visit your website you want them to convince themselves that they WANT to do business with YOU.

And that means you need to provide valuable content that builds the “know, like, trust” factor. Check out our other article “Great Content Leads to Sales“

The key takeaway from this article is simple – do your homework. Before rushing out to get a website built, or improving an existing website, understand that a little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

Contact us for a free 15 minute website review and input your email into the form on the right to request our report “4 Secrets to Getting the Web to Work For You” which also includes access to 7 free videos to help your understanding of what is possible and how it REALLY works.