Work At Home Business Opportunities Weblog
Happy Thanksgiving – I hope that despite the obstacles many are facing in our economy that we still find this to be a day of Thanksgiving to God for the benefits we have received.
I was speaking with someone yesterday who – at least for the moment – is down and out and dependent on others for her survival. A chain of events beyond her control lead to this point, but her resolve was stunning and as she left she wished me a “Happy Thanksgiving”.
I wish for us the same resolve and good cheer to persevere in the days ahead!
Employee Engagement is a strategy enlightened companies pursue to cultivate and harness the inner drive of their employees for the common welfare of the company.
Here, Dilbert’s management deftly seeks to apply these insights to his own company’s success! Yeah, this is about how it works…
What is List Building?
by Dave Lovelace
One of the hardest things in business is actually drumming up the business. Whether online or off, you need people to DO SOMETHING if you want your business to be a success. For online business, one way to reach the people that will be most interested in your product or service is through list building.
What is List Building?
In the fewest words possible, list building is the process used to create an inventory of people who fit the niche market you are promoting. The assumption usually is that if you cast a wide enough net, you will eventually find who you are looking for. This method is not only backwards but also costly. Instead, start with your business market and go smaller.
There is more than one way to develop a list for your business. Here are just a few of the more popular (and successful might I add) ways:
• Opt-ins
• Free Giveaways
• Contests
• Email Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Blogging
Whatever methods you use, it is important to know where you are coming from and where you are going before others will follow you.
Getting Your Name Out There
In order for others to follow you they need to know who you are and what you stand for. To that end, you will want to network with others. Your time is better spent building your brand before you build your list.
Do you routinely buy from someone you’ve just heard of? Not normally right?
Neither does anyone else. That is expected in business. Trust is earned over time and you must begin with curiosity in order to build up to trust.
Viral marketing is one of your best assets when it comes to getting noticed and building your list. Ask friends, family members, school chums, business owners, and others to help you out. If they have websites, blogs or are a part of forums, let them pass the word around about you and what you do.
On your end, visit websites and blogs associated with the product or service that you sell. Get involved, ask questions, and show your face. These are the people you will ask to endorse you to lend credibility to your products.
During your promotion, your traffic will increase. People will sniff you out and see what you offer. Now you can use one, two or all of the above bulleted methods to begin building your list. Visitors will lend you their personal information (name and email) if they like what they see. From that point, it is up to you to keep them interested enough to become a loyal customer.
Confused about List Building and Email Marketing? Save time and money. Discover the secret List Marketing profit tactics of the Internet’s top earning marketers. Click here now.. List Building Information
How do you use Twitter to augment a presentation or get feedback from a presentation?
Frankly, I’d never considered it. In fact I’d like to say I understood it all perfectly, but I’m still taking it in.
If you’d like to read this free presentation (no affiliate link just an offsite PDF), it’s here:
How To Present With Twitter and Other BackChannels by Olivia Mitchell
Here’s the Table of Contents:
How Twitter changes presentations …… 4
The benefits of presenting with Twitter …… 6
Audience benefits ….. 7
Presenter benefits….. 9
Presenter control ….. 10
The three stages of presenting with the backchannel …… 11
Stage One – Survive the experience …… 12
Audit your presentation ….. 14
Prepare psychologically ….. 16
Ask for what you need …… 19
Connect with your audience…. 20
Read the Twitterstream…… 21
Stage Two – Respond to the audience’s needs …… 22
Getting started on Twitter ……. 22
Create a hashtag …… 24
Monitor the Twitterstream …… 25
Types of tweets to respond to……. 30
Follow-up …….. 33
Learning from the Twitterstream …… 34
Stage Three – Engage with the backchannel …… 36
Build relationships pre-presentation …… 36
Make your presentation tweetable….. 38
Set-up a home-page for your presentation …… 42
Which backchannel should you use? ……. 43
Introduce the backchannel …….. 45
Displaying the backchannel …….46
Audience participation with the backchannel…. 58
How To Present With Twitter and Other BackChannels by Olivia Mitchell
As I’ve told you before, I’m dipping my toe in the Kindle Publishing world. Here is the product I refer people to in order to learn how to enter that market: Kindle Publishing. This is an affiliate link and if you like the idea, I’d appreciate you buying it through my link. You can receive a free list of the top 5 types of books that sell on Kindle – that’s invaluable if you don’t want to waste a lot of time. As a hint “Internet Marketing” is NOT a type of book to normally sell on Kindle.
One part of the Kindle Publishing process is to designate keywords for your books.
As the old saying goes, “never assume”. Never assume you know the right keywords for your book. You want to make sure you’re using keywords that
1. Get Searches and
2. Get Buyers
Here’s how to do that:
A. Use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool
B. After generating a search for raw keywords, sort the keywords by average “Cost Per Click”. The higher the cost per click an advertiser is paying, the more likely that keyword – in practice not theory – means the searcher is a “buyer”
If you can find appropriate keywords for your product that have a high number of searches on Google, plus have a high “Cost Per Click”, that can help you choose the right keyword to use on Kindle to bring paying customers to your book.
Try it, you’ll like it!
For more information, check out my affiliate link for Kindle Publishing! Thanks!
SmallBizBee makes a great point in their blog post entitled A Quick-Hitting 3-Step Content Marketing Campaign to get Customers this Month.
So much of the advice in applying “online marketing” strategies to brick and mortar business is about “maybe”.
Maybe someone will wander to your website.
Maybe a search engine will not list you on page 10,002 of the search results.
Maybe someone will read what you wrote.
Maybe some philanthropist will send you a check … one day.
Maybe.
This article is about getting as far away from “maybe” and making some money as possible. It’s about people with a real world product or service – not someone hoping for a click on a high dollar Pay Per Click ad.
It’s about how to use a free commodity… an ebook to turn your current subscribers into paying customers and how to use direct response marketing to find new readers for your online offering and, as a result, make some money.
Unlike most online strategies, it assumes you will actually reach out in ways beyond the free download… by calling a prospect.
Read: A Quick-Hitting 3-Step Content Marketing Campaign to get Customers this Month.
Could this work for you? It’s more likely to work than “Maybe”!
List Building 101 – Create Squeeze Pages
by Dave Lovelace
There are dozens of them on the Internet. We read them every day but are they effective? Do they make you want to actually do the thing they are asking you to do – which is normally to sign up for an email list? What are we talking about? Why, squeeze pages, of course.
What is a Squeeze Page?
It sounds like it has something to do with fruit. What you are squeezing is not produce but people. You want their information for your list. Whether you are looking for sales leads or subscribers, a squeeze page is an effective way to get what you seek.
A squeeze page is essentially a landing page. It can be your home page on your site, but if you are running more than one marketing campaign, it can be a separate page, the purpose of which is to get people to opt-in to your list in exchange for something.
What can they opt-in for? It can be newsletters, free reports, free analysis, catalogs and the like. You choose who you are looking for and what media will get the names and email addresses for you.
These pages are important because their sole purpose is to get the reader to perform an act that has been predetermined by you. The “act” does not involve sales directly. You want to gain the trust of your potential customer before you ask them to consider buying something from you.
One benefit you will gain here is a list of subscribers that are within your target market. Someone who is not interested will not sign up. Using a squeeze page as a sales page can draw people who are not within your target market. If you post a page that offers “get rich quick” scenarios, you are guaranteed to get lots of takers but not the ones you want.
Characteristics of a Squeeze Page
People pay a lot of money to have squeeze pages constructed for them. With this page, you want to pull out all of the stops to get noticed by your niche. So, let’s start at the top, the top of the page that is.
1. Headline. People glance over pages when they read on the Internet. Your headline may be the only chance to gain their attention. Sum that up in a few words and use it as your headline: “Researchers Say it takes Two Weeks to Make or Break a Habit.” Don’t forget to use the same keywords you researched for your website.
2. Get personal. Share a story that is relevant to your subject matter. Maybe you had a habit you wanted to create. Give the reader insight into your issue and how you solved it.
3. Get user-friendly. Use bullet points and numbered passages to gain the reader’s attention. Emboldened wording stands out and lets the reader glance to see if you have to say anything that they want to hear.
4. The action. Don’t forget to include what you want them to do. If it is signing up for something, tell them how to do it and what they will gain. Have your opt-in form clearly labeled with a link to your site.
Squeeze pages are one way of creating a targeted list of interested people who will hopefully become customers. They are a great way to not only grow your list, but potentially your profits too.
Confused about List Building and Email Marketing? Save time and money. Discover the secret List Marketing profit tactics of the Internet’s top earning marketers. Click here now.. List Building Information
Why Do You Need to Build a List?
by Dave Lovelace
Most business owners would agree that without a plan, their enterprise doesn’t stand a chance. It is like firing a shot in the dark hoping to hit a target. Part of that “road map” you build your business upon includes finding people who will become the base on which you will grow.
List building is essential to finding your customer base. Why do you need a list? Without it, there is no way to predict what the outcome will be month to month, let alone year to year.
One school of thought says that if you have a big enough campaign people will come. That may be true, but they will only come once. Even making a million dollars on one promotion won’t sustain your business forever if none of those customers ever comes back again.
Now, we aren’t talking money like that (at least not yet). So, to keep things real, one-time sales are not the stuff of solid business foundations. Building relationships with people is the key to a sound future for your enterprise.
What a List Can Do for You & Your Business
Let’s say that you want to sell a product door-to-door. The first time through the neighborhood, you visit every house on the block because you don’t know who might be interested in what you are selling. After chatting a few moments, you quickly learn which people are interested in your product enough to buy. From those customers, you ask for further contact information.
A month from then, you decide to offer a new product. Instead of canvassing the entire neighborhood again, you visit the people who purchased the first time. In addition to information about the new product, you also bring a flyer offering them a free gift if they can recommend two friends who would be interested in the product. Now, instead of twenty names, you have forty more to add to the list in your hand.
This is roughly how list building works online. Your first efforts will cast a net over a larger group of people. The catch will consist of people interested in your market, but not necessarily the product you want to provide. Through marketing efforts on your website and through other sites, you will weed out those who are really outside of your market. Leaving you with a group of people who ARE interested in what you have to offer.
For subsequent offerings, you can go straight to the most interested parties and make your pitch. Each time, you can find more and more people to add to your list.
List building takes the guess work out of marketing. The money you spend is more effective if you know where to concentrate your efforts. Once you build a substantial list, it can seem like you make the sale every time. Sales will increase, but not because you are lucky – it’s because you were smart. Like a fisherman, you learned the best place to find what you are looking for, so you dropped your line and came up with the catch of the day!
Confused about List Building and Email Marketing? Save time and money. Discover the secret List Marketing profit tactics of the Internet’s top earning marketers. Click here now.. List Building Information
Autoresponders and Email List Building
by Dave Lovelace
Everyone has received an email. Everyone has also received unsolicited emails. That makes it all the more important to build a list of subscribers who won’t mind you communicating with them this way.
One of the most common ways that online business owners connect with their potential customers is through email. You can reach people easier that way than you can by ringing them up on the phone. Email can be accessed from laptops in Wi-Fi hotspots, cellular phones and WebTV to name a few. So, you could say that it is pretty important to manage this marketing tool just right.
Email Lists
Here’s how it usually works, you include an opt-in page on your website. It could be for free stuff, discounted merchandise, or additional information on something they read on your site. Readers are asked to become subscribers in some way to your website by providing their name and email address.
Along with that address you also include a disclaimer to put them at ease. Anyone who signs up knows that you won’t sell their information to a third party or send them unwanted spamming emails.
Your initial list will be mixed with those who are in your target market and people who are interested in more general information. If you are trying to reach people who are into dog accessories, you may reach those who are seeking information on pet accessories in general. They will soon be weeded out and hopefully they won’t make up the bulk of your list.
Autoresponders
Now, it’s time to contact those people. You have the list and something has to be done with it. Your subscribers are waiting.
You can use a series of emails that highlight your product offerings as a way to transition subscribers into the realm of customers. The goal of these emails is to provide additional information on the topic of your website business and not to necessarily sell a product directly.
The emails can be set up automatically to go out on a pre-set schedule using autoresponder programs and services. These services give you a way to distribute those emails. You can even add the personal touch of addressing your list by name instead of a blanket greeting with certain autoresponder services.
But, we are getting ahead of ourselves here. You need something to load into the autoresponder program. Create a series of emails that speak directly to each list member as if they were the only one on your list. You can even outsource the autoresponder emails if you need to.
Now that you have a list of subscribers, your next step is keeping them your number one priority. Use autoresponder emails to contact them on a regular basis with the purpose of building a solid relationship for future business.
Confused About List Building and Email Marketing? Save Time and Money. Discover The Secret List Marketing Profit Tactics of The Internet’s Top Earning Marketers. Click Here Now.. List Building Information
A New Study claims to have discovered the “secret” of being a successful entrepreneur. It’s from the Kauffman Foundation a resource I trust on the matter.
In other words, the successful entrepreneurs built on what they already possessed or had acquired through life experience, work experience, and combined it with a willingness to take a calculated risk.
Here are some bullet points from the report:
Nearly all of the company founders surveyed – 98 percent – ranked prior work experience as an important success factor, and 58 percent ranked it as extremely important. Learning from both successes (88 percent) and failures (78 percent) also played a key role in respondents’ current successes. In fact, 40 percent cited lessons learned from failures as extremely important – the second-highest “extremely important” rating.
The company’s management team contributed to success for 82 percent of those surveyed, with 35 percent ranking this factor as extremely important. For 73 percent of the entrepreneurs surveyed, luck was an important factor in success; 22 percent ranked good fortune as extremely important.
The survey also found that:
- Professional networks were important to the success of their current businesses for 73 percent of the entrepreneurs. In comparison, 62 percent felt the same way about personal networks. University or alumni networks, on the other hand, were important to only 19 percent of the respondents. Among Ivy-League graduates, 29 percent placed importance on alumni networks.
- Only 11 percent of the first-time entrepreneurs received venture capital, and 9 percent received private/angel financing. Of the overall sample, 68 percent considered availability of financing/capital as important. Of the entrepreneurs who had raised venture capital for their most recent businesses, 96 percent considered financing important.
- Eighty-six percent of Ivy-League graduates ranked university education as important, as compared with 70 percent of the overall sample. Only 20 percent of entrepreneurs and 18 percent of Ivy-League graduates ranked university education as extremely important.
- Most company founders (86 percent) ranked state or regional assistance as slightly or not at all important.
- In identifying barriers to entrepreneurial success, the most commonly named factor – by 98 percent of respondents – was lack of willingness or ability to take risks. Other barriers cited by respondents were the time and effort required (93 percent), difficulty raising capital (91 percent), business management skills (89 percent), knowledge about how to start a business (84 percent), industry and market knowledge (83 percent), and family/financial pressures to keep a traditional, steady job (73 percent).
