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Three Internet Marketing Tips For Business Owners

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

When was the last time you tried to get new customers for your business?  What did you do, advertise?  How did that work out?

I’m guessing that since you are reading this, you are ready to find a way to increase your leads and customers by doing a bit of online marketing.  By now you realize that advertising doesn’t always work out the way you expected, and you have to pay for it whether you get results or not!

A while ago, I was in the same position, having blown a wad of dough on ads, and watching my business go down the tubes.  I didn’t have any money left for hiring professionals, and believed that it was time to take things into my own hands.  After all, I’m an entrepreneur and had mastered skills to create three successful businesses.  How hard could Internet marketing be?

Well, I was about to find out, the hard way, how much I didn’t know.  I had developed marketing and advertising skills over twenty-seven years of running professional services businesses and stores, but they were inadequate for what I wanted to do online.

I considered myself a fairly advanced Internet user, but as an Internet marketer, I was a rank novice.  I ended up wasting months floundering around on MySpace and social sites, and got absolutely nowhere.  I thought that I had a good website, but even though I could tell that people were going to it, I got no business from it.

When I stood back from this and examined what I was doing, I realized two things:  I didn’t have a clue what I was doing wrong, and I didn’t know what was wrong with my web site!  Yuck!

Well, it’s been a long road since then.  I got an education in how to market businesses online, and have turned the results dramatically.  Along the way, I learned some of the complexities of website design and lead generation, and also determined a few very simple steps that anyone can do to promote their businesses online.

Here are three free ones:

1.  Write press releases about anything newsworthy pertaining to your business or industry, and post them online to a free directory.  One I use is 24-7pressrelease.com. The releases can be as simple as describing new merchandise, announcing a new employee, or describing how you are at the forefront of an industry trend.  Online press releases often show up in searches for YEARS after they are posted, and using them puts you in control of your company’s image.

2.  Writing articles is another good way to get lasting publicity.  There are many article directories to post them on, for free.  One of the larger directories is EzineArticles.com.  Different from press releases, the articles are not about news or events, but can be reviews of products, “how-to” tips, or anything of interest to your potential customers.  Like press releases, these articles will often show up in searches for you, your business, or your industry.

3.  Make videos and post them for free on YouTube and many other video hosting sites.  Get in front of the camera and talk for a few minutes about anything of interest to your potential customers.  Make a series of related videos.  For example, if you’re a Real Estate Agent, talk about neighborhoods, condos, housing styles, etc.  These don’t have to be slick to be effective.  The whole idea is for people to get to know and like you.

In all of your marketing, include a link to your website, and a call to action.  For example, a simple one is “Go to my web site and get more info on XYZ.”

If you want to get leads, you need some way to collect the information.  Don’t rely on people going to your web site, picking up the phone and contacting you.  Your web site needs to be constructed to capture lead information (name, email, phone, etc.)  The simplest way to do that is by getting an email service (called an auto responder) and adding a lead capture form to the site.

You can offer a free report, or a consultation, newsletter or something in return for opting-in.  This establishes a relationship, and gives you something to reference when you contact the lead.  For example, if you gave a free report on seagulls, you could start a phone conversation or your follow-up email  with “Did you find that seagull report interesting?”

Without getting technical about lead capture forms and auto responders, all you need to know is that’s an easy thing for you to do yourself or have your web designer add it for you.  There are many auto responder services out there, and you’re probably getting emails from businesses using them right now.  One popular service is Constant Contact.
Whichever one you choose will provide the capture form and some basic installation instructions for you.

What I have listed here is the basics of an internet marketing campaign.  If you post one press release, one article and one video every week, you will achieve publicity which would cost you thousands of dollars if you paid an agency.

These very steps have been proven to work for many different types of businesses.  Of course, your marketing will be most effective if you get some additional instruction on how to structure your presentations and fine-tune your marketing, but the important thing is to actually start doing it.

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Do Small Business Owners Need Internet Marketing Education?

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Professional service providers and small business owners often know next-to-nothing about marketing. I know this is true, because after owning several businesses which spanned everything from financial services to retail stores, all I knew how to do was place ads in local media.

Advertising in newspapers, radio, television and magazines was my idea of marketing. Sure, every so often I’d send out a press release, if there was an event to publicise, but aside from that I didn’t have a clue.

Then the Internet blossomed. I looked at it as just another kind of advertising vehicle, and that impression was bolstered by the reps from all of the media I had been advertising with. They all were flogging online ads on their respective websites. Some even offered “online marketing plans” which were almost entirely composed of different styles of paid ads, bundled together.

Results from my offline ads were slowing down. Even ads in the papers which used to bring immediate results stopped producing. So, I dove in and spent thousands on Internet advertising. I should have thrown the money into a sewer. I had no idea what I was doing, and tried to use the same approach which once worked in my offline ads. The results were nonexistent.

In desperation, I tried one website after another, tossing dollar after dollar and watching the business in my stores grind to a halt.

That is when I knew that there had to be another way. I went onto the Internet looking for a better site to advertise on, and ran across an article about Internet marketing. It was full of terms like auto responder, SEO and social media, and it also mentioned a magic word. “FREE.”

My curiosity was piqued. I made a project of getting educated on “Internet marketing,” and found a variety of sites which all gave the best marketing tips for small business professionals. Eventually I was able to get glimpses into what techniques were free, and which ones cost money.

It did take a while, and a lot of effort, to sort things out. It seemed that some of the “gurus” I found were having a blast making every tip and technique convoluted and “secret.” And it was also glaringly clear that they were all either self-taught or hiding the source of their own Internet marketing education.

After months of digging, I discovered a single source for all kinds of Internet marketing education. It is perfectly suited for professionals and small business owners, and was exactly what I was looking for. I signed up.

At last I was armed with the ability to find new business leads online without spending a fortune to get them.

However, I had to adjust my expectations when it came to the timing of results. You see, when I relied on advertising, I expected quick response from the customers. I still like direct response advertising for that. But with online marketing, things were different. It was like watching a slow motion movie of a flower growing.

The closest analogy I can think of is that Internet marketing is like planting seeds. The marketer cannot expect to harvest a crop until it has grown. And notice that I say “seeds.” Plural. Planting one seed will not yield a crop.

That was a difficult lesson. For Internet marketing to work for any business, the marketer must do a lot of it, over a period of time, consistently.

Eventually, intelligent marketing action will start to yield the desired results, and make all the effort worthwhile.

It all starts with getting a solid Internet marketing education.

Click here to Join Our Marketing Community

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Newspapers Are For Burning.

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Are You The Owner Of A Small Business?  What happened when you last advertized in a newspaper?  Did it get the results you expected, or not?

In many households, including mine (and maybe yours), newspapers are subscribed to out of habit and embedded tradition. However, most of the editions stack up unread and end up in the recycle bin, or in the fireplace.

There is no way, if you have been in business longer than a week, that you do not know about internet advertising.  Have you ever tried it?  Got any results?

As owner of several stores, my original thoughts on internet marketing all centered around having a great website.  Eventually I had several.  The shops had websites, but it seemed that only our existing customers visited them.

I had no idea how to drive traffic to the sites, and the professionals I consulted with only knew about web site design and advertising, not marketing.

You see, there is a huge difference between advertising and marketing.

What I learned is that having a great web site is a form of advertising. But it’s like advertising in the middle of a newspaper which is never opened.  If no one goes there, what’s the sense?

It takes marketing to get new customers to your website.

If you advertise, and the business traffic doesn’t pick up, it’s time to learn about marketing or to hire an agency to handle the problem.

How’s traffic on your websites?  Is anyone finding them?  Have you considered hiring a professional internet marketing company to help out?

Before You Hire A Marketing Company To Handle Your Online Presence,

Ask Yourself A Few Questions:

1.  How many thousands of dollars will you spend on marketing each year if you contract with an agency? (Not advertising, just marketing)

2.  Do you know the difference between marketing and advertising?

3.  Are you willing to trust the future growth of your business to “professionals” who are not specialists in your industry?

4.  If you do not market your business, what will happen?

5.  How can you grow your business on a tight budget?

6.  Are you willing to learn a new skill set which can easily save you thousands of dollars and get new customers for your business?

Internet marketing can be easily learned.  It is not rocket science, and several online training courses are available for small business owners who want  a do-it-yourself solution to promoting their businesses.

One training program can be found here.

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