Lockdown is finally over and businesses are able to start meeting up again with potential clients and customer face to face.
Does this fill you with anticipation or simply with dread?
You know it’s critical to your business success, but are you doing it with planning and a solid strategy in place, or do you just “wing it and turn up on the day?”
Admittedly, most of us are squarely in the winging it category, but there are some quick and easy changes you can make that will put even your most important networking tasks on autopilot.
Research which Networking Groups may be relevant to your services or products
Don’t be tempted to pay out a lot of money and to join loads of different groups. If you do this, you may find that you are spending all of your time networking and none actually working on your business.
Don’t Sell, Sell, Sell….
Be yourself and try to think of it as an opportunity to help people and to connect with other businesses, rather than immediately trying to sell your products and services. People do business with people that they like and trust. This takes time, so let people know how you can help them but don’t overwhelm them with your sales pitch.
Outsource the research: If you are busy running your business, the first step is to hire a VA. Your VA can find and connect you with potential customers and clients, affiliates, guest interviews and all the other marketing options at your disposal.
All that you have to do is to type it into Google and bring back a list of hundreds of people you can then reach out to. What would a list of 100—or even 10—new customers or clients do for your business growth?
Automate the initial connection: Create a script or email template to use when you first reach out to potential partners. However, make sure that you take the time to personalize it and that you address it to their name. Your VA can send this in an email or make a call on your behalf, but having the script in place will accomplish two things:
The process will be much faster than if you have to think about what to say.
You’ll be able to tweak the script as you go to get better results. Just like you split test your emails, you can test your outreach process as well.
Automate the follow-up: Create an email or phone script to help speed the process. You or your VA (or your email autoresponder series) can send out a series of emails to follow up on that initial connection.
Automate your scheduling: Using a service such as TimeTrade or ScheduleOnce, you can easily set up your calendar with your preferred times for interviews, webinars and such. You can then send people who are interested in your services links to book time with you and the meetings will automatically appear on your calendar. No more endless back and forth to discuss potential meeting times, just a single click and your clients can choose the time that works for both of you.
Helpful hint: Be sure to use your calendar diligently, because if you don’t you run the risk of someone scheduling time with you when you already have another commitment. For example, don’t forget to put time in for your lunch break, time to travel to meetings, etc.
It will take a bit of work to get these systems in place, but once you do, you’ll find that attracting and working with clients and customers is much easier and more streamlined. Not only that, but with the time you save, you’ll be able to concentrate on creating new programs and services. Or maybe just have some leisure time for yourself.
Internet marketing for beginners is somewhat of an oxymoron. This is because while in theory the concepts behind Internet Marketing might be quite simple; executing effective strategies can be extremely difficult. With this in mind, this article will attempt to explain the concept of Internet Marketing for beginners and will outline some basic strategies which can help a business owner to launch his own Internet Marketing campaign. We will cover concepts such as creating a website, placing sending out e-newsletters, orchestrating an email marketing campaign and optimizing your website for search engines.
Where Do I Start?
One of the most basic steps for starting an Internet marketing campaign is to create a website. If you don’t have a website or have a poorly designed website you should consider creating or re-designing a website to adequately market your products. If you do not have experience in web design, there are a number of software packages which make it simple for those with no design experience to create a functional website. However, sometimes this can be a false economy. Hiring a web designer is worthwhile because he or she can work to create a website which is attractive, functional and suitable to your products and offerings. He or she can also help you include more advanced features on your website, such as connecting it to your autoresponder, setting up payment options, automating tasks, SEO and ensuring that you have the correct Meta tags and keywords.
Learning about Internet Marketing
Internet marketing is not overly complicated but it is also not a process in which anyone can excel without making attempts to learn more about the subject. Business owners who do not know a great deal about Internet marketing, but who wish to implement Internet Marketing into their overall marketing strategy should carefully study the basic principles of Internet Marketing before launching their online marketing campaign. Fortunately for these business owners there are a variety of options for learning about Internet marketing. These options may include online research, reading published books and studying successful Internet marketing campaigns.
E-newsletters
Sending out e-newsletters can also be a part of an effective Internet Marketing strategy. E-newsletters are essentially emails which may contain a variety of information including informative articles, special offers, product updates, relevant advertising or any other information which is deemed worthwhile for the recipients of the e-newsletter. The importance of these newsletters is that they can be used as marketing tools which are not viewed by the recipients as an advertisement. One way to do this is to incorporate links or other soft sale approaches into the copy of the e-newsletters. However, care should be taken to keep these references minimal so the e-newsletter is not viewed as spam.
Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing campaigns can be another successful aspect of an Internet marketing campaign. Email marketing essentially involves sending out emails to a group of individuals who may be interested in your products and services. Care should be taken in sending out these emails to avoid sending emails which are unsolicited and will be viewed as spam. The correct way to do this is to only send out the emails to users who have opted in to your email mailing list. Another way to do this is to provide value in the emails as opposed to just including advertisements. This can be done by offering relevant advice in your emails and other useful information which may be of interest to the recipients of the email.
Optimizing Your Website
Optimizing your website for search engines is a critical aspect of an Internet Marketing campaign. Search engines rank websites according to quality and relevance for particular search terms. Many Internet users appreciate the effort by search engines and use these search engines to find the best websites on a particular subject. This means the Internet users are likely to only visit websites which rank well with search engines. Therefore if your website is not high ranking, you are not likely to generate a great deal of traffic from Internet users. Top ranking websites are likely to obtain the most traffic from search engines and all websites falling on the first page of the search engine results will always get more traffic to their website.
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important aspects of any Internet marketing campaign. SEO is so important because it dictates the ranking of your website on popular search engines. Internet users value these results and are not likely to seek out websites which do not rank well with search engines. Conversely, high ranking websites can enjoy a great deal of increased website traffic as a result of these rankings.
Do Your Research
Researching Internet marketing online is one method which can be used for learning more about this topic. This type of research can be very informative and can provide the business owner with a great deal of advice and other information. However, it can also provide the business owner with a great deal of misinformation. When researching any subject online it is very important to note that not all of the information available online is accurate. This may be due to a variety of factors including content which is written by those who do not have a great deal of knowledge about the subject matter as well as content which was written years ago and is outdated. This can be frustrating but fortunately business owners can still learn from the Internet. This just means they should be more cautious about accepting information as being accurate and may wish to verify the information they obtain before implementing an Internet marketing strategy.
Published Books on Internet Marketing
Published books are another valuable resource for learning more about Internet marketing. There are a variety of books available which focus on this subject and provide a wealth of useful information. When selecting a book for use as research material it is important to seek out a book which received independent reviews which were positive. It is also important to seek out books which were published recently. This is important because the Internet marketing industry is evolving continuously and a book that was published only a few years ago may be outdated and may lack information on some of the new developments in the industry. The appeal of using published books to learn about Internet Marketing is you can keep the books on hand for easy reference when you launch your Internet Marketing campaign.
Study Successful Internet Marketing Campaigns
Finally business owners can learn a great deal about Internet marketing simply by studying successful Internet Marketing campaigns. If your business offers products and services in a particular niche consider entering relevant terms in popular search engines and studying the websites of some of the highest ranking businesses. This can provide you with a great deal of insight into what these business owners are doing which may be contributing to their success.
Examining everything from their website design to their search engine optimization strategies and even the content on their website can help you to determine why they are more successful than you. You should also consider how they are marketing their website which may include banner ads, affiliate marketing programs or other types of advertising. Armed with this information you can take the opportunity to implement changes to your own website and marketing strategy which may help you to gain a greater degree of success. Care should be taken to not copy anything directly from your competitors but to rather try to emulate their degree of success in your own way.
Market Research
Conducting market research can do a great deal to help you determine whether or not you should invest in an Internet Marketing campaign for your business. This step is very important because it will give you a good indication of whether or not you should even begin marketing your business on the Internet. Hiring a person or company who specialize in market research is recommended because they can conduct this research quickly and efficiently and will likely gain a great deal of valuable information as a result of their research efforts. If they determine your business can benefit from an Internet Marketing campaign, it is time to start thinking about how you want to advertise your business online.
Internet Marketing Success
The potential for success with an Internet Marketing campaign is virtually limitless. The success you enjoy is only limited by your ability to promote your products and services and execute effective marketing strategies. Some of the marketing strategies you may wish to employ may include optimizing your website for relevant search terms, placing links to your website judiciously on the Internet, writing and publishing e-newsletters and blogs and utilizing affiliates to promote your website.
Hire a Professional
Seeking the help of professionals can be an extremely worthwhile investment. If you are not well versed in the industry of Internet Marketing, hiring a firm with a great deal of expertise in this industry can be very helpful. They can assist you by consulting with you to determine which marketing strategies will be most effective, designing advertisements for your campaign, helping you to orchestrate your Internet Marketing campaign and evaluating the results of marketing efforts to determine which strategies are working and which are not. If you increase your customer base, sales and profits, any money that you have invested will be money well spent.
Branding, as a whole, is essential for any serious business because a company’s brand is what distinguishes it from its competitors. In today’s internet global age, it is necessary for most businesses to have an online presence to stay competitive. An effective internet branding strategy, just like its offline counterpart, helps bring awareness to your unique business offering and drives customer demand.
While Internet branding offers huge opportunities for business, in order for it to be effective one needs to attract and engage its customers. This isn’t easy on the internet. Branding is not as easy as putting up a website and adding your company logo and slogan. Your internet branding strategy should make your online brand noticeable and apparent.
Why Should You Worry About Branding Your Business?
Branding utilizes hi-tech tools to create an online presence for your business. Graphics and animation, a compelling web copy and overall website design that reflect your company are some of the important elements that will bring your online brand alive. An attractive website that helps customers easily and quickly find the information they need is the key to getting customer interaction and eventually, business. Your branding plan should include good design elements and ease of use to create an effective overall impression.
What Will Make Your Company Stand Out From the Crowd?
A strong online image will make the difference between a customer who buys from you online or switches to your competitors. Remember, that online customers can just leave your site and go to your competitors at the click of a mouse. A lot depends on the impression they get from your site. Branding seeks to convey an immediate unique message about your business to your target clients.
Basically you may know what your vision and offer are, but do your potential customers understand and will you immediately be able to capture their attention before they click away and go to your competitors.
As you can see, there are many requirements for a successful branding strategy. Hiring a branding specialist might be helpful to give you focus on your efforts in creating an online presence that will become a valuable asset to your business and make you stand out from the crowd.
Not everyone is your buyer. There may be a large amount of people that purchase your product, but that’s not everyone. You need to research your audience and be really clear of who they are.
Find out the answers to the following questions:
What are their spending habits?
Values?
Concerns?
Needs?
How does your product/service fit into their life?
By answering these direct questions you will begin to win over your key customer. The closer the focus, the more connected the buyer will feel with your brand. You want them to think that you designed the brand specifically for them.
It is imperative when communicating that you exchange information about the product in the same way your buyer talks. For example: if they are high class, intelligent and wealthy speak to them with sophistication and parallel their first-class style. Or for the free-spirited young adults don’t confuse them with words that they won’t understand or metaphors; simply connect with your audience on their level.
Employees, customers, friends, and clients must know the personality of your business. Everyone needs to be familiar with and understand the persona inside the brand. Some great ways to do this are to hire those you believe already possess the desired traits, attend company parties, being a part of community events and relaxed company meetings on implementing the brand through its employers.
How do you use your Branding?
Next, use your brand, logo and tagline on company material. These are: web sites, Social Media accounts, marketing, advertising, public relations, e-mail, letterheads, business cards, and product packaging. Place your brand on any objects related to your products or services.
Society is always changing. With that said, it’s important to evaluate and re-evaluate your brand. Simple changes without changing the overall message are needed for survival. Grow with and ahead of your buyer. Don’t let your brand get left behind.
Are you constantly feeling anxious and frustrated that you are not receiving all the internet traffic you would like to get to your web site?
Are you tormented from information overload listening to all the latest free website traffic tactics and not being able to understand any of it?
Are you dejected by people trying day and night who are harassing you to max out your credit card and get loans for Google clicks, and in the process losing your credit score?
Are you stupefied by the way your website just completely dropped out of the Google search results?
Or are you just too broke that all you have to rely on is getting some free website traffic tactics?
Well the good news is that you can employ website traffic tactics without spending any money whatsoever. However, knowing what to do and how to do it is crucial.
Here are some ways to get traffic to your website without spending any money on advertising or marketing:
1. Link it
Of all the effective website traffic tactics that can get you best results, linking to and from other websites is the one of the most widely-used method. Just make sure that the Internet business you are exchanging links with is relatively if not utterly related to your own business. And of course, don’t overkill by linking to too many websites as this might ban you from search engines.
2. Utilise Your Meta Tags
Another way of to acquire your desired traffic for your website is through having your Meta tags contain usually used keywords that target your business. Meta tags help search engines in describing your web page. If you’re quite adept with the HTML aspect of your web pages, manipulating your meta tags would be easy.
3. Keyword-rich And Sensible Content
Writing or acquiring articles that provide solid information regarding your business is one of the best ways of increasing traffic to your website. Making use of free keyword suggestion tools such as Google AdWords Keyword Planner, Overture, Wordstream, or Wordtracker will help you on which keyword or phrases to work on to better lead more traffic to your website. Making these write-ups very readable and genuinely informative will help you to gain trust and repeat visitors who will subsequently become repeat customers or clients.
Submitting these articles to various article directory listings will provide more visibility for your business as long as you keep your resource box intact to create for yourself numerous back links.
These methods, if employed properly, will not only make your web site popular but will make you achieve your most desirable result – higher conversion rate, therefore more customers or clients.
More leads, more customers, more sales, more revenue!
Perhaps you have followed the trend in business to create an internet web site for your business that can be used to supplement your marketing efforts. If so, you have joined the momentum of the majority of businesses nowadays to create a corresponding “place” in cyberspace that can be used to reach customers online. The need for such an internet presence is entirely market driven and now more than any time, this is the place where you should have a presence and been seen.
Internet sales have soared during the last 6 months of the Coronavirus Pandemic outbreak, particularly in certain market segments and more and more, the first place people go to in order to learn about your business is the internet. If they find a well-designed web site that is full of features, that works fast and draws them in, that can be a tremendous tool for promoting your business. It doesn’t have to necessarily be an online business to have an internet presence, but it is the most cost effective and successful way of marketing any business.
When you set up a marketing tool outside of cyberspace, the first concern is how will that new marketing effort get noticed. So we would traditionally have been drawn to places where there is already an active traffic of people who would qualify as our customers. That may mean putting up a billboard where it will be seen by people going to work. That target audience may be the best population to respond to your message. Or if your business appeals to youth, advertising on MTV or on popular radio stations is a natural place to put your marketing money because the traffic is already there. However, these methods are extremely expensive and nowadays when a large proportion of the population is either working from home or on the internet, it is really touch and go as to whether you will ever capture their attention and interest.
We have to approach the internet differently. Yes, the traffic is already there but we have to enter the world of cyberspace marketing with a different kind of strategy so we can reach the customers who are traveling certain “internet roads” and make sure those roads lead to our web site.
There is a whole industry that has sprung up around the need for knowledgeable internet marketing gurus. It’s a good idea to use their talents to make sure the search engines put your web site in front of the right kind of client or customer. These talented internet geeks can put your business web site into the flow of web surfers so you get your share of that traffic.
That said, you don’t have to wait for the internet marketing experts to make your web site more successful. If the business has made the effort to put that web site up, you want to see it start to pay off right away. That is why you should consider some creative ways to drive people to your web site from your traditional markets thus educating your current customers, clients and partners about the site.
Ways to do that include:-
Promote the web site at every opportunity that you have. Have some business cards printed with your website details on including your email address and contact telephone number. Make sure that you give them out to anyone that you meet who may be a potential customer. Some creative signage such as flyers or brochures at your relevant retail locations can create some momentum and interest in customers to visit your exciting new web site.
Put the link on all correspondence. If you have flyers, a magazine or other current means of communications, your URL should always be listed there, as well as your email address and contact telephone number. Add your URL to your email signature and on business cards and all other forms of communication so your community of clients, customers and partners get used to associating that web site with you as much as they do your business name.
Create excitement. It is easy to operate a discount code or special offer from your website and Social Media as well as your business site that drives people to the web site for discounts or special offers. That kind of momentum can create huge surges of traffic through your web site with the corresponding surge of sales and leads.
The modern customer or client is used to seeing the promotion of a web site included with other forms of promotion and advertising. You are not “assaulting” your customer base with this information. If anything, when your audience sees that the business has burst into the cyberspace world in a big way, they will be thrilled and as likely to respond with, “It’s about time.”. A lot of people will now do their shopping or purchasing when they are at home or in the evening either on their computer or on their phone.
You know how much you depend on the internet to keep you informed about areas of interest and about businesses you like to patronize. So you can see that not only putting up a good web site but letting people know that it is there and that there are big things there for them to enjoy is doing them a favour as much as it is creating new marketing opportunities for your business.
If you would like any help or assistance with any of the above, please email me on ali@alimcoaching.com and let me help you.
