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7 Ways To Build A Subscriber List

By on May 20, 2013 in Affiliate Marketing, Blog, List Building, marketing, Product Creation, Product Reviews, productivity, Social Media

7 Ways To Build A Subscriber List

“Build a subscriber list” is no doubt something you may have heard over and over again as you start to grow your online business. The money is in the list. The money is in the list. The money is in the list.  Build a List of Subscribers

Your subscriber list IS your most valuable asset. And because of this, it’s important you understand how to build a good relationship with them and provide valuable content. However, before you can build a relationship with anyone – you need to know how you can acquire your list of subscribers in the first place – right?

How To Build A Subscriber List In 7 Different Ways

I’ve gathered together  some of the most successful ways to grow your email list.  These will work for you no matter whether you are just starting out or even if you’re a seasoned entrepreneur.

Register For A Reliable Email Service

As people become interested in what you have to offer, you need an effective way to gather their contact details so you can continue to build relationships and market to them. Gmail or Outlook is not going to cut it! While these tools might seem ok when you are first starting out, as you build your business you need to have tools in place that are scalable and can be automated. This way you can grow your audience without unnecessarily increasing your workload.

Whilst there are many email service providers out there, my two favourite ones are Aweber and iContact.

Aweberhas long been known for outstanding email deliverability rates and top-notch service. This is the email service I personally use. They have a great video tutorials and customer support if you need them, and their set up is super easy. Loads of templates are provided so you can create great looking optin boxes. You definitely can’t go wrong with Aweber.

iContact has some of the best email deliverability rates in the industry and it’s another great choice for anyone looking for the best autoresponder service.
Both Aweber and iContact both provide great low cost or free trial periods if you want to try them out.

MailChimp is another email service. It is a useful tool for people starting out who want to bootstrap. There are a few catches though. The free version is only applicable while your subscriber list is under 2000 with limited mailings. If you are serious about building your business you may outgrow this limit very very quickly. If at any time you want to transfer your subscriber list over to a higher performing service such as Aweber, they will generally not allow you to export/import your list from MailChimp so you would have to start from scratch anyway.

Giveaway Valuable FREE Content

Gone are the days when people could put an optin box on their website offering to ‘Sign Up For Newsletter”. Now more than ever you need to provide some sort of valuable free information as an ‘ethical bribe’ to get people to join your subscriber list. I like to call this an AFO (Awesome Free Offer). Don’t be afraid of sharing some of your very best content in your AFO. Some ideas for an AFO would be a short report, a series of videos or a recorded interview.

To grow a subscriber list you will need a way for visitors to your site to ‘optin’ to your email list and get this valuable free giveaway. Here are some ideas to help you gather new subscribers:

  • Add an optin box in the header or sidebar of your website. This can be created through your email provider or you can hire someone to create one for you from somewhere like fiverr.com
  • Install a pop up box that appears for every new visitor to your site – PopUpDomination is a very popular option here. Or, you can create one for free inside Aweber.
  • A free install of www.welcomegateapp.com which appears whenever someone visits the home page of your site for the first time.

Add An Opt-In Box To Your Videos

Lots of people have embraced the value of creating good video content to attract their audience. Sadly many people fail to have any effective call to action at the end of their video. Here’s where I love LeadPlayer.

Leadplayer is a tool that allows you to very easily add an optin box straight into your video so as your content finishes, the listener is encouraged to add their name and email address to your list. How awesome is that!
You can see an example of what I mean here….Build A Subscriber list with leadplayer

Facebook Landing Tabs

Social media makes it so much easier for you to reach your audience than ever before. But this modern day advantage is quickly lost if you don’t implement ways to capture some of the fans you work so hard to attract to your page and turn then into subscribers on your email marketing list.

At the top of your Facebook Fanpage you have a few little ‘tabs’. You can add a picture and a title that encourages visitors to your Fanpage to click on (see pic below). This takes them through to a landing page where they enter their name and email address in exchange for some valuable free content.
I’ve found one of the best people to learn how to implement these is from Jo Barnes at www.JoBarnesOnline.com
tabs

Giveaway Events

Participating in Giveaway Events is one of the easiest and most successful ways I have experienced to grow my subscriber list ever since I started online.

Giveaway Events work extremely well in the Internet Marketing Niche. If you do a Google search for “giveaway events” you’ll also find lots of events you can join in many other niches as well.

They are an easy and great way to get your information in front of a highly targeted audience and are generally there is no cost to participate. You can often choose to pay around $17 to upgrade so your free offer is more visible, but this isn’t always necessary.
It is possible to add anywhere from 5 to 500 subscribers to your list in just a few days.
Many people are unsure exactly how a Giveaway Event operates, so I’ve done this short video to walk you through how it works.

I am currently participating in Kerry’s May Day Giveaway and expect big increase to my subscriber list during the event. You can join in too if you like 

Free Calls and Webinars

Build A Subscriber list with Free CallsWith all the valuable knowledge you have in your head, it would be easy for you to do a free call or webinar for your audience. Simply set up a squeeze page with an optin box and some information on what the call will include. This will add listeners to your subscriber list.

Send traffic to your squeeze page and you will see your list numbers increase.

It’s a great idea to add this method of list building to your regular marketing calendar to keep a constant flow of new subscribers coming into your business. I’ve found Instant Teleseminar one of the most reliable platforms to conduct calls. Your listeners are able to attend via their computer without incurring large call costs to international numbers. You can keep your listeners on mute or interact with them during the call. And after your call, a replay and download link can be made instantly available. After a low cost trial period, there is a small monthly fee to this service, but if you include this as a list building strategy on a regular basis, it is definitely worth it.

You can also use a free service like www.freeconferencecalling.com where your listeners will need to dial a US phone number to participate in the cal. Getting access to a replay is a little more clumsy than with Instant Teleseminar but it’s still a great option.

If you prefer a webinar format or want to present information directly from your computer and show what is on your screen, then GoToWebinar is very trusty although can be slightly hefty in pricing for someone starting out. Alternatively www.anymeeting.com or www.meetingburner.com is a great alternative for those more budget conscious

Forum Marketing

This is a favourite ‘old school method’ of driving traffic to your site. This method of increasing your subscriber list is often overlooked. It’s so very simple and most people under-estimate the power this list building strategy has.

This method puts your directly in front of your target market. Eg: a weight loss forum is full of people who can relate to your product if it is related to health and wellness. Forum marketing allows you to become seen as a reliable source of information on your topic and is also a great place to do market research on your audience by watching what questions are being asked by the participants.

Two methods to locate the biggest and most active forums in your market are:
Google your keyword + forums (or message boards); and
www.big-boards.com

Once you’ve found the biggest and most active forums for your audience, you should become an activate participant and post good helpful advice, comments and articles. Include a link in your signature file (check forum rules) which sends readers back to your squeeze page where you can add them to your subscriber list.

Allocating a set amount of time each day and being consistent in this free traffic method will reward you with an increase of traffic to your site, and new subscribers as you build a subscriber list.

Let’s Go Build A Subscriber List….

I’ve given you some of the most powerful, yet simple methods to add new subscribers to your list. Some of them are free list building strategies and others will take a small investment.

The rest is now up to you! Knowledge without action is worth nothing.

Your actions steps are:

  • Consider where your audience is most likely to be hanging out
  • Decide which one or two of the above methods suit your skills, appeal to you the most and fit your time and money budget
  • Allocate a set amount of time every single week to implement;
  • Enjoy your results as you see new names added as you build a subscriber list each and every day

Would love to hear your thoughts and share your favourite strategies in the comment section. Let’s have some fun with it…

Here’s to your success..

Fay

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trello for productivity

I’ve Been Wasting Time!

By on April 22, 2013 in Business Success, marketing, Outsourcing & Systems, productivity, Social Media

I’ve been wasting time!

I’m told it’s a good thing when you can face reality and take responsibility….

Well, I’m here to admit that I have finally taken responsibility for wasting time.

Like many people who work from home, I am at my desk for many hours each day being ‘busy’.

With the recent arrival of our lovely new grand daughter Molly, I am having lots of time away from my business. So when I’m ‘at work’, I want to be even more productive.

After reading Jason Fladlien’s Double Your Productivity For Life I decided to track how I was spending my day for a couple of weeks.

Then suddenly it hit me…. for far too long now I’ve allowed myself to get into the habit of starting my day by casually flipping through my phone messages, checking email and then social media for what’s going on. I’ve realized that although I’m at my desk by 8.30 or 9.00am, I haven’t begun to be productive till around 10.30am.

What a waste of time!!!

If this sounds like you too then here’s a few things that I’ve been implementing (thanks to Jason’s advice) and they sure do work:

  1. Reconnect with the reason ‘why’ you are building your business. This will spur you on to take action to get the results you’re after, rather   than drifting through day by day.
  2. Find a productivity tool to help you organize your projects and tasks.  Some like a simple piece of paper and a ‘To Do’ list.  Don’t go to bed before you have created a list of the most important tasks that need completing the following day.
    Or, if you’re like me, as your business grows you have many projects all on the go at once and need something a little more robust.
    My fabulous Virtual Assistant Ana put me on to an awesome free tool called ‘Trello’. It’s a tool that will organize anything!   In one glance, know what’s being worked on, who’s working on a particular task and when it’s due. This super simple system has made life so much easier. I just love it.
  3. trello for productivityTrack your time usage for a week or two and see where you are losing momentum and where you seem to be most productive.  Everyone has a different body clock and you may find you are most alert and focused at a time of day you least expect.  When you recognize this time, you can maximise it. Schedule your ‘big’ tasks for your productive times.
  4. If you have created a bad habit (like I had) that is a time sucker, the first step is to be completely aware of it.  Next is to strategically work out a plan to avoid that bad habit. For example, I have set myself up a challenge, sort of like playing a game with myself, to see how many mornings I can get started onto my productive time immediately without even opening up emails or social media at all.  I’ve allocated a certain time slot later in them morning where it’s ok to do that stuff.   I’ll give myself a reward depending on what ‘score’ I achieve.  Seems silly I know, but sometimes you have to really focus and be a bit crazy to get what you want!

The more often I stay with the new habit, the less likely I am to go back to the old.
These days, in my keenness to get out and visit Molly each day I’ve been leaping into my office chair each morning with a fire and vigour to get my daily tasks done like you’ve never seen before.

Regardless of whether you have 40 hours or 4 hours to invest in your business, what is more important is how focused you are with that time. When you are in working mode – work. When you are in freedom mode – enjoy yourself!

I hope this was helpful and Jason has even more great ideas on how to increase your productivity if you need them.

LET’S HEAR FROM YOU BELOW
I’M REALLY INTERESTED TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS

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Freedom Lifestyle

Are You Creating a Freedom Lifestyle?

By on April 11, 2013 in Business Success, Internet Marketing, Product Creation, productivity, Social Media

This last week was so exciting for me…. We got to welcome into the world our new little grand daughter, Molly.  I know that I am biased, but she is absolutely perfect!  What do you think?

I’ve spent a lot of time away from my business this week, and fortunately didn’t have to worry about whether or not things were still moving forward.  Money is still arriving in my bank account even while I’m getting my ‘nana’ cuddles and I have to say it’s a wonderful feeling!

There’s been lots of time for reflection and I got to thinking about you….

There’s a good old saying “The grass is always greener on the other side.”

It’s this idea that often gives life to your initial desire to want to start your own online business.  You start imagining the possibility of being able to keep your own hours and not have to answer to a boss.  What a delight it would be to work from home and stay snug in your comfy clothes. No more suits and dresses to go to the office, or fighting daily traffic just to get there. Being able to take holidays or days off whenever you fancy. You can see yourself having the luxury of earning more money and to spend it on ‘wants’ rather than just ‘make do’ with paying for the ‘needs’.

All of these things seem attractive ‘on the other side’. When you put that together with your entrepreneurial spirit, the decision to start your own business, working from home and using the internet can become irresistible.

So let’s assume that you take the plunge.  You do start your own online business – and in fact, you are making progress. Yay!!

What does your business model look like?  In fact do you even HAVE a business model, or are you simply flying by the seat of your pants?

How do you spend your time each day?

Do you have a list of daily tasks that looks as long as a shopping list for a hungry family?

It’s very easy to have grand ideas of a freedom lifestyle when you run your own online business, but the reality is that many people simply create a ‘prison like’ environment for themselves.  It’s easy to suddenly find yourself chained to your desk for longer hours than you would ever have given a boss.  And often, for much less return than you had originally hoped for.

This dedication and commitment to your business comes easily when you are passionate about your topic – that doesn’t mean that it’s healthy.

Over the past six months, while we have been waiting for Molly’s arrival I’ve spent time analyzing my business, where my main income is generated and where all my effort is spent.

I’ve been stripping back, restructuring and rebuilding with ONLY what is absolutely necessary for me to reach my goals while at the same time providing YOU  with an even higher level of support.

You might be surprised to know that you can actually build a 6 figure online business with just ONE really well constructed sales funnel.

You don’t need six different products.  You don’t need 8 different programs and 5 different facebook groups!

I believe I can ‘have it all’ and I know that YOU can too!

A successful online business can be built with SIMPLICITY.  The less moving parts there are, the less overwhelm and overheads there is.  Most people over complicate things and end up in confusion and exhaustion. Or worst still, going round and round in circles and only wondering ‘what happened’ to the freedom, flexibility and financial abundance they hoped for.

Keep your eyes peeled because in the next few weeks I’ll be revealing to you exactly how you can create a simplified, successful online business that will give you a freedom lifestyle.  I know you’re just going to love it!

Creating Your Own Freedom Lifestyle

In the meantime, take the opportunity to really analyse some of the following things:

  • your business model
  • your process maps and systems
  • who you work with
  • how you reach and support your customers
  • what are your main money making activities

Perhaps you too can strip away some of the unnecessary, less productive activities. And instead, focus more on refining and tweaking one really awesome sales funnel that converts like crazy and gets your customers awesome results!

I just love hanging out with Molly when I want to!

Leave a comment or drop or email me and let me know how I can help YOU create the freedom lifestyle you need so you get to hang out with whoever is special in your life too!

 

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how to write autoresponders for email sequence

How To Write Autoresponders That Get A Response!

By on February 14, 2013 in Affiliate Marketing, Business Success, Internet Marketing, List Building, marketing, Product Creation, Social Media

Why Do I Need To Learn How to Write Auto responders?

If you don’t know how to write autoresponders this can be an early stumbling block for many people starting to build an online business.

As people visit your website or blog it’s your job to create a way to entice them to give you their email address in exchange for some awesome free content.  This will build you a list of loyal followers and subscribers. Building your list should be one of your top priorities in your business building activities.how to write autoresponders for email sequence

If you are not building a list of subscribers from your website or blog then you are already failing!

To use the word failing may seem a little harsh.  But the reality is, your subscribers are the lifeblood of your business. They are the people who connect with you, recommend you, buy from you, promote you and support you.

What is the biggest mistake most successful internet marketers have made?  Most will say they regret not building their list sooner.  You must understand that your list is your biggest asset in your online business.

When someone first lands on your web page or blog, you need a way of exchanging some awesome free content for their email address.  This exchange triggers an automated message from your email service to your visitor’s email inbox.   Within this message you will provide a link to the awesome free content. This process is the start of your Autoresponder Email Sequence.

There are many different email service providers and they all offer different features.  It’s fun to play around with them.  I like to use Aweber as it is easy, simple, cost effective and has great deliverability.

How to Write Autoresponders That Get A Response

Once you have an active subscriber the carefully created content in your  autoresponder email sequence will start to build a strong and trusting relationship with your prospect.

Your autoresponders are a chance for you to connect with your prospect at a deep level.  To let them know you understand their pain, and to provide them with a chance to reach out and connect with you.  A well planned autoresponder email sequence is also a chance to offer your subscriber a product or service that you feel is most suitable to move them from Point A to Point B.

The Biggest Mistake People Make When Learning How To Write Autoresponders….

is not having an autoresponder email sequence at all!

You may think it’s a good idea to reduce the number of emails your prospect is receiving, but in fact it will leave your subscriber feeling unloved, forgotten and before you know it – you will be lost from their mind and they will go shopping for their solution on someone else’s site!

Here are 5 tips which will help you create a great auto responder sequence and build relationships

1. Don’t build a huge list of offers! The best content for your autoresponders will be valuable, free content. Your subscribers are real people. Never forget this. They don’t need to be hit with offer after offer after offer. Yes you can send offers but not all of the time. Focus on relationship building FIRST and offers later on.

2. Your auto responder sequence should be fresh. It’s easy for time to pass and your content to get out of date.  Be sure to check dates attached to any offers you may send out.  Be aware of exactly what you are communicating and what you are promoting.

3. Limit your initial autoresponder email sequence  to around 6 or 7 messages. Limiting your messages will allow you to email your subscribers without the fear of an auto responder messages going out at the same time. If you are running a busy online business or blog such as this one, and you email your subscribers regularly, you don’t need to have a huge auto responder list. Keep it simple.

4. GIVE first, SELL second. Imagine the scene here. You have just subscribed to my blog or free offer of some kind, then bam I hit you with an offer to buy something! How are you going to feel about this? Yes some people will buy, but 90% will unsubscribe before you even get a chance to send another email or auto responder sequence. We are all real people here, treat your subscribers with respect and build trust. I find it helps to imagine you are emailing yourself when compiling email sequences.

5. Build a relationship with your subscribers. The first 2 or 3 email sequences are very important, so you should always start off with some kind of welcome or information on how to get something for free. When it comes to setting up your auto responder sequence think about communicating and building relationships rather than building your bank balance.

i) Compile a welcome email in your first email with some details of where they can access their awesome free content.  Also let them know how to contact you.

ii) In your second email, ask a question which your subscribes can respond to get to know them. Also direct them to your Facebook or Twitter page to get to know them on a social level.

iii) Give something away for free to show your appreciation. People like nothing more than free stuff that helps them improve their business or lifestyle. If you don’t have free content yet, direct them to a previous blog post which provides some really cool info.

iv) When it does come to promoting products, you should always be sure to promote the stuff which works and the products you have used or use. Don’t promote something just because it has a high earning commission.

When it comes to using an auto responder within your business you do need to be mindful about the messages you are sending out to your subscribers. The bottom line is treat them with respect and trust will be earned. Treat them poorly and that respect will be gone as quickly as they subscribed!

What do you think? Do you have a ton of email added to your auto responder sequence? Do have nothing in there at all? How do you communicate with your subscribers?

Learning how to write autoresponders is not difficult and can be one of the smartest marketing tactics you can implement today, starting here……

Thanks for reading and please don’t forget to ‘Like’ and ‘Tweet’. Sharing is fun

LEAVE ME YOUR COMMENTS AND THOUGHTS BELOW!

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Create a Facebook Ad

Using Facebook Ads for Added Exposure

By on August 31, 2012 in Affiliate Marketing, Business Success, Internet Marketing, marketing, Sales Skills, Social Media

Things have changed – I’m doing Facebook Ads! I am in the processing of embracing a new marketing strategy that I have to admit, I had never been interested before.  I’d seen all the ad’s down my Facebook page but hadn’t yet considered the concept of Facebook Ads for my own business.  After reading IM Revolution by Matt Lloyd, I knew that I just had to step outside of my comfort zone and embrace this new advertising opportunity.  I believe Facebook advertising is still in its early days and those who master it now, will be leaps and bounds ahead of their competition.

I’ve committed to a very intense mentoring structure and paid some big $ to learn this process and I want to take you along the journey with me so you can too can learn to generate leads into any business.

Why Do Facebook Ads?

Did you know that more than 1/3 of Facebook users earn more than $100k per year?? And 30% earn $60-100k! That means more than 60% of Facebook users earn more than $ 60,000 per year?? So… did you THINK you might want to consider doing some Facebook Ads?

Facebook offers an advertising service that has a price attached to it but could be worthwhile to test in an effort to increase fans to your  Facebook Ads, Facebook page, promote an event, your product or service.

You can create Facebook ads using your own text and images, and you can target who will see your ads based on location, occupation, and a variety of other demographic criteria.  Ads are displayed to users who meet your criteria.

That’s why you will have noticed that all the ads that appear on your page are relevant to your interests, likes, location etc and will be completely different from another user who has different interests, likes and location.

What Do Facebook Ads Cost?

When you create Facebook ads, you determine how high you’d like to bid for space to display your ad.  Facebook uses your ad-targeting criteria and your maximum bid price to serve ads to Facebook users.  You can set up your ad so you either pay whenever someone clicks on your ad (pay per click) or whenever your ad is served (pay per impression.)  You can control your budget, so the risk is limited.  I recommend starting out at $1.00 per bid, and then adjusting this down as you get good results.  To start off with you need to keep your bid price around the $1.00 mark so that you are able to compete against others for the advertising space.  As your Facebook ads start to get show and gets clicks, then Facebook will reward you by still showing your ad, even if you reduce your bid price.

To create Facebook ads, simply click on the Advertising link at the bottom right side of any Facebook page.

Create a Facebook Ad

The Facebook Advertising page opens up.  Next, click on the Create an Ad button near the top right of your screen to open the Advertise on Facebook page when you can enter the text for your an and upload your ad image.  Once your ad is set up, you can set your budget and configure your targeting criteria.  Facebook offers a variety of reports to help you track the performance of your ads, and you can make changes at any time in order to maximize the return on your investment.

My Results With Facebook Ads So Far..

I have been promoting two different products using Facebook Ads.  The first has had 24 new opt-ins that will be lead into a sales funnel for a $997 product.  The second lead capture page has had 22 new opt-ins and will be lead into a $297 product.    Would you like to have had 46 people join your list in the last two weeks?

My Fanpage ‘likes’ has gone from 357 to 680 and my audience reach on this page has skyrocketed from 178 people to 48,874 people.

Facebook ads results

It’s important to track your statistics and I’ll be looking forward to getting an even better conversion rate for my dollar spent, but for the moment I’m happy with my first results.

Would you like to learn to generate your own leads for ANY business?

Would you also like to learn how to do Facebook Ads, as a beginner, learning step by step strategies that not only work but save you A TON of money along the way? I’ve put together everything I’ve learned so far in this video series The Secrets to Success With Facebook Marketing as part of Ellen Britt’s special event (that finishes this Sunday!)

Feel free to share this post with a ‘like’, ‘tweet’ or ‘google+’ so that your friends can start to understand and embrace this new opportunity too!

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Online Marketing

Online Marketing Secrets (Most Don’t Know These)

By on June 14, 2012 in Internet Marketing, marketing, mindset, Sales Skills, Social Media

In this short post I will share some online marketing secrets that goo-roos are afraid to tell you. For some people trying to do  marketing online, it’s no wonder you have been frustrated and have struggled; this post will help.  Online Marketing

Isn’t Online Marketing Easier?

I remember when I first started working my new marketing business back in 2009 and I hit my first four figure week.  I  was speaking to a friend and prospect telling her that I was looking for clients like a crazy woman; going to networking events, chatting to people on Facebook and working my butt off to get ahead and into making some serious money in this new business venture.

When I was explaining to this friend about what I was doing she said, “That sounds like the hard way, I thought you were just going to use the Internet”. And there goes unrealistic expectation person off to their doom…

What it does do though is prove my point. Most small business entrepreneurs go to the Internet out of weakness. They use it because they do NOT want to improve their skills in connecting with people.  Many of them use the internet because they believe it will be simpler and easier. The fact of the matter is learning online  marketing takes longer, has a huge learning curve and has the potential to be more costly than the traditional methods. Does this mean I just don’t like Marketing online? Absolutely NOT!  I just want to be sure you know some secrets that the guru’s know but don’t tell you…

Truth About Online Marketing

Online Marketing SecretsMarketing in of itself takes a long time to learn. Identifying your target market and ideal prospect,  attracting people with good copy and creating a website, your email autoresponder messages, hosting and your social media accounts will put a STOP to about 42% of all folks from ever moving forward. If you DO possess skills in the technical department, you might still find challenges on what to communicate to your target prospects to attract them. All of this takes patience, time and determination. Especially if you don’t have mentorship, guidance or a system to follow.

IF you want to get fast results for your online business you will need to move your focus from CHASING to attraction marketing. To get better at attracting more leads and clients you will want to simply get better at just connecting with other human beings and offering greater value. Also, if you offer more value to people you won’t have to get a hundred leads per day just to make a sale. You will convert a whole lot more than that.

Gameplan for Online Marketing Success

1. Make a commitment to create ONE  piece of content everyday but don’t bank on it getting you instant results at first.

2. Connect with 5-10 potential clients or customers every day.  Either on twitter, you tube, Facebook, linkedin. This is a number to aim for if you are working your business part time.  If you are full time – you should be contacting 20-100 per day  IF you have a determination to make good money quickly.

3. Get out and about. Attend any major event that happens for your industry and live events that put you amongst other online marketing experts.  Understand that you don’t need to buy everything, but instead, absorb the knowledge and network with those of success.

If you enjoyed this post please comment and share if you want more content like this

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Using LinkedIn To Increase Traffic, Leads and Sales

By on October 31, 2011 in Blog, Business Success, marketing, Social Media

This week, one of my clients was asking how they could make better use of LinkedIn as part of their marketing strategy. As you know, if one person is asking, then there are generally lots of others that would like the same information too.

There are many ways for businesses to reach a wider audience and gain greater exposure in the market place today than ever before. Using internet marketing for online exposure to a global audience is a quick and easy way to get momentum for your home based or small business.

LinkedIn is the largest Social Networking site for Business Professionals looking to do more business. It is possible to attract high quality clients and drive targeted traffic to your website or business opportunity.

Even before Facebook arrived, LinkedIn was already a hit with business people with it’s ability to link professionals in their specific fields with over 150 industries. This continues to make LinkedIn a rapidly growing networking site and an important piece of any marketing strategy.

Currently, LinkedIn boasts of over 120 million members and wonderful features that can help your business succeed in social networking with little effort. Other than building connections, members also have the opportunity to promote their companies, recruit new staff, recommend colleagues, search and add contacts and maintain their business network.

Here are seven helpful tips you can use. consider using them when looking to expand your network.

Create a completed and attractive profile

Initially, you need to establish your own professional profile. Make sure the details you provide are accurate, such as your company name and your real name. People always want to know the person behind a particular company so introduce yourself in an interesting way. It is also best to post a photo of yourself. You can then add your blog, your website links and even your interests to your profile if you wish. Customise your profile to best suit your target market and your marketing strategy.

Build relationships first

After you’ve completed your profile, it’s time to start making friends to build your contact list. An easy place to start is with your personal contacts and people in the same industry. Then move on to connect with those who you think would be beneficial to your business. Avoid being flagged as a spammer by requesting your friends gradually. See who the influencers in your industry are connecting with and follow suit.

Provide valuable and interesting content

Post messages that are of value to other people. Sharing knowledge and tips for success in your area of expertise is a great way to capture people’s attention. no one wants to be sold to. Try to avoid selling your products and services to people upfront. Social networking is about building relationships and getting to know people. As people grow to respect and value your knowledge, they will be the ones to ask you about your business and they’ll contact you when they’re interested about your products and services. Providing tips is a great way to showcase your area of expertise.

Listen rather than talk

Social networking sites are not about “me, myself and I”. It’s about connecting with like minded people and sharing experiences and views that can influence them in a positive way. When you are able to give them amazing value, you’re on your way to gaining their trust and building win:win relationships going forward. Share, don’t sell.

Join group discussions

Being active in group discussions will let people experience your background and expertise. You can provide answers to questions that will get people thinking and help them achieve their goals. This is one effective way of increasing their interest in discovering more about the products and services that you offer. Be proactive and contribute. Spending time commenting in group discussions can be part of your specific marketing strategy.

Share your expertise

Meeting people through social networking sites and sharing ideas can be of great value to your business. I love the internet and I love conversing with people on ways to succeed using the web, I am honoured to be able to share my experiences with so many people.

When you love what you do and happily share your knowledge, people will naturally find you interesting. As this happens, people naturally grow to like and trust you, which provides the opportunity to develop win:win relationships going forward. Seek recommendations and recommend others.

Don’t send too many emails

Be cautious about sending emails to your followers. If you send emails several times a week, chances are you will only discourage people. Always make sure that messages you’re sharing are useful to your followers. Tailor your email frequency to what suits your target market.

Be consistent in what you do on LinkedIn and you will establish a loyal following.

I was thrilled with my results when I began to use the powerful information in LinkedInfluence from the master Lewis Howe, to take things to the next level using LinkedIn.

Remember, Social Networking is essential to your success as a business professional today. LinkedIn is an incredibly effective source for creating profitable business relationships, clients and customers.

Start building your success today.

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Boost Your Google Rankings with This Simple 5 Step Checklist

By on October 17, 2011 in Blog, Business Success, marketing, Social Media

If you want to learn to make money online, you need to also learn how to get friendly with Google!  The most trafficked site on the planet is Google… and if you can find a way to get your business listed within the top 10 search results (on page 1), this will drive loads of ideal prospects to your lead capture pages, websites and blog.

Your first task is to spend some time doing a bit of keyword research. This will serve as a good foundation for all the blog posts, articles or videos you create. This way you will get maximum exposure and be found by hundreds and thousands of people as they use the most popular search engine around.

If you need to set up your first Google account you can go here: http://google.com

Here are 5 easy steps to making your way into top search rankings:

Step #1 Do Your Keyword Research: You’ve probably heard this time and time again. The question is though – have you done it recently?   This step is essential is you want to learn to make money online. There are several tools to help you research popular keywords. I like using a combination of Google Keyword Tool and Market Samurai.

Some guidelines to follow are to look for words or phrases that have low competition (less than 100,000 SEOC), but are also getting a minimum of 10 clicks. This is the number of clicks you could expect per day if you were positioned in the top placing on Google.

Step #2:  Write and Publish Blog Posts: Select one or two keywords from the list you have created in Step #1.  Don’t focus on more than one or two for any individual post or article.  Write a post that includes your keywords or phrases about every 100 words. Your post should ideally be around 400 words long. Create a trackable link using Google url builder, bit.ly or hypertracker).  Use this trackable link to link your image and call to action at the end of your post to your opt in page.  Install the All in One SEO Pack Plug-in to optimize your posts by including your target keywords into the title, description and keywords area.

Step #3 Spread Your Article Around: The more places you can put your post the more likely it is to be found by people searching for your targeted keywords which will help your rankings.  The first place of course, is to place it onto your own website.  Then you can use an article submission tool or select to simply manually upload your article to 4 or 5 of the main authority article sites such as http://www.ezinearticles.com/ http://www.goarticles.com or http://www.articlesbase.com

Step #4 Submit Your Post to Social Media Sites: Now that you have your post or article uploaded onto your own website, and have submitted it to the main article directories, it’s time to send links to other major social media sites.  Post a comment on Facebook, a tweet on Twitter as well as send your post to any groups you are connected to on LinkedIn.  But don’t stop there. There is enormous power by adding your post to sites such as Digg.com, Stumble Upon and Technorati.  These sites have incredible traffic and can be great sources of massive lead generation.  These sites are all free to create an account and add content to.

Step #5:  More Google Juice With Backlinks: In short, backlinks are incoming links to a website from another site.  The more backlinks you can create the stronger your ranking position will be.  As well as the social media sites, research other well visited sites in your niche or industry where you are able to comment, post or add value.  For search engines, backlinks are a way to see which sites are recommending one another and play a key role in calculating a sites’ ”rank”.  When you are trying to get more links to your site, the first thing you will want to do is find other sites that are talking about things that are similar to you.

Create several new blog posts or articles each week and follow this simple routine each time and you will find yourself jumping up in the Google rankings for many of your niche related keywords, driving more traffic and creating massive lead generation for your business.  This is just one success factor when you learn to make money online!

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Maximize Your Facebook Pages for Small Business

By on May 30, 2011 in Business Success, marketing, Social Media

You keep hearing more and more about how essential it is to be on Social Media and maybe you’ve gone ahead and made a start on getting out there on Facebook.  People said it would help your business – but you’re still waiting, and waiting, and waiting……..

It’s not so easy is it!

Facebook Pages are the most straightforward way for businesses to have a presence on the Facebook social networking website. They are a great way to get more clients to your website. A Page is similar in its appearance to a standard Facebook profile (which are used by individual who join Facebook), except that it’s designed to be the Facebook profile of a business.

Whether you are a solopreneur, a small business with employees or larger company, it’s becoming essential that you have a Facebook presence.  You only need to take a look at all the popular television shows; News, Dancing with the Stars, My Kitchen Rules – they all encourage you to communicate with them on Facebook and Twitter.

People are becoming comfortable with conducting an increasing amount of their online activities exclusively on Facebook. Rather than using a search engine to find a product or service they need, some people are simply asking their Facebook friends for recommendations, or doing a search on Facebook itself. If you don’t have a Page set up for your business, you’ll be limited in how many of these potential customers can find you.

Begin the sign-up process by visiting the Pages area of Facebook. When you create a new account, try to choose a Page name that is as close to your real business name as possible. This will make it easier for people who you already do business with to find you on Facebook.

Once you’ve set up your Page, you can begin to build a following for your business. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that social networking tools such as Facebook are generally not very effective sales tools – at least in the traditional sense of the term “sales.”  Facebook users that receive sales pitches on their Facebook walls tend to view the companies making them rather negatively. In fact, companies that try to use Facebook as a direct sales tool are quite often viewed– rightly or wrongly –as “spammers.”

Instead, you would be better served by viewing your Facebook Page as an opportunity to build a following or community around your business. For example, whenever someone follows or becomes a “fan” of your company’s Facebook Page, any time you post a status update or link or other item to your Page, your followers will get a notification in their main news feed. You can use your Page to announce new product offerings, sales or special offers that you may be conducting, or other interesting news about your business.

Resist the temptation to try to sell to these people by posting multiple status updates or notes every day. If your followers feel overwhelmed by the volume of updates from you (especially if it seems to them like some of the updates are “forced”, or not noteworthy information), there’s a good chance that they’ll simply un-follow you, and you’ll lose Facebook as a means of reaching that customer.

You should also consider how your business’ Facebook Page provides a new way to engage in a dialogue with your customers and potential customers. Get more customers to tell you what kind of new products and services they’d like to see from you, or how they might want you to refine your existing offerings. Once the conversation is underway, you may find that a greater number of people participate.

Sometimes the “business intelligence” you’ll gain from your Facebook Page is something you’d never be able to get any other way.

Still confused?  I can understand that. I was at the beginning too!  That’s why I want to share with you a really easy, step-by-step process that will take you from start with how to successfully use Facebook for your business.

Client Building Action Steps:

  • Set up your Facebook Page for your business
  • Allocate no more than 15-30 minutes per day to interact on Social Media platforms
  • Tell all your business community about your Facebook page and encourage them to ‘Like’ it

 

Come on over and say “Hi” on our Facebook page and tell me about your business there (what great exposure for you!)

 

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