Questions before you start:
1. What is your business? This is more in depth than a simple “I am in the plumbing business” answer. You need to define what area and focus your business has now…and where you see yourself going within the next 5 years or so. The reason for this is you need to focus on specifics, not just generalities. Everyone marketing a plumbing business is in the plumbing business. What do you do, or want to market, that makes you stand out from the others?
2. Do you have a website? This is critical to every business in today’s marketplace. If you don’t have a website, you might just as well be conducting your business out of the trunk of your car. If you are operating out of your car trunk, then a website makes you look like you’re business is much larger than it really is. ViralHosts, Host Gator and GoDaddy are excellent hosting programs for your site.
3. Do you have a Portfolio or Catalogue of your products or services? You need to show off what you can do, based on what you have already done. This builds your credibility as well as becomes a source for samples of what the client can also have done. No matter how many years you have been in business, if you don’t have one put together, you look no different than someone else just starting out.
4. Can you take payment on your site? If you sell anything directly from your site, you will need a secure way of doing this. Make sure the source you use is flexible to your needs, and doesn’t take all your profits.
5. Can you make money from the clients that don’t buy your product or service? Strange as this may seem, this is a very important part of the development of your credibility. Since your credibility takes time to develop, you need to find a way to pay for that process until you can use your credibility to sell yourself. This will be explained in greater detail in a future chapter.
Now, to get started:
Once your website is up and running, you will need to add a few things to it:
1. Sign up for Affiliate Programs. These are free links from other businesses that allow you to sell their products or services through your website and they pay you a commission per sale. You just put the coded (in your name) links provided from them on your site. The client clicks on these links and will be taken to the affiliate’s site where they buy something, the same way they would have if they went there direct, but since they arrived there from your site…you get paid a commission. How great is that? You don’t deal with the client, the money, delivery, complaints or returns…you just cash the check. Remember when choosing which affiliate sites to promote to pick products and services that compliment yours…and not the competition.
2. Sign up for MLM’s. Same rules apply as for the Affiliate Programs, but these usually pay out more money to you, but also involve more work…and you usually need to do your own marketing with them. On the plus side, they also usually have some great business education and support, that can be applied to any business.
3. Start and online photo Gallery. There are a number of free and pay sites that will host your portfolio. Start with the free ones and work your way up to the pay ones. The free ones are just that…free. They have a number of great features, but the pay sites have many more. By starting your own portfolio site you can link to it from many different sources including your own website as well as blogs…and even other sites that you don’t own, but give permission to link to your portfolio. The more links you have going to your site, any site, increases relevance in the eyes of the search engines and increases your SEO (search engine optimization). Plus, you only need to change pictures in one place, and it automatically changes them on all linking sites.
Education is the Key:
Education is the key to success in anything, especially in business…and by extension marketing. Using Attraction Marketing as your focus means you will be using an entirely new set of tools and rules to market your business online. The importance of developing a systematic, cohesive strategy to place yourself in the front of everyone you want to as an “expert” in the field you’re business is in cannot be minimized. If you want to be known as the “go to person”, you need to prove you are worth going to…thus the “expert” tag needs to be believed by the client viewing what you are presenting to them. Make it count, and make it organized…cohesive. A sloppy, disjointed approach can do you more harm than good.
Like I said initially, it all comes down to education, and the first steps to that end is to learn what it is all about and how to implement it. There are a number of “social” sites that you will use for different reasons, but they all must link together to complement each other and thus feed off each other so they can all act to capture clients interest, develop that interest, and then lead that client to you as the expert as to how to provide what the client is looking for. You need to learn the “why’s and how’s”, and the best site for this is www.automateyourmlmnow.com. They provide the education for everything that I speak of in this eBook and much more. Plus, they provide the means to implement that education as well as a way to make money while you’re learning. Can’t beat that.
Here are some of those Social Media sites you will be using:
1. FaceBook and MySpace. Establish your “business” presence, not your “personal” presence on these sites. These sites will allow you to place what amounts to your business resume’ on the internet for all to see…with pictures, links and all…for free.
2. LinkedIn, PartnerUp and MeetUp. These are just a few of the many good business networking sites on the web…and they are free to join. You can put up your “profile” in detail and participate in group discussions on topics that are relevant to your business. This is crucial to developing your credibility on the internet…and all it takes is a few minutes of your time each day. Your name is visible, your answers are visible, and your “expertise” grows with each posting. The key here is you are NOT marketing yourself. Don’t advertise here, just answer the questions with valuable information, and sign your name…with a link to your blog, email and/or website. That signature is how they will contact you to get more information from the “expert”, and that is a very subtle way to advertise…without really doing so. That is very important.
3. Blogging. Here you have a great opportunity to keep new information updates coming on a regular basis…or as needed. This is a great tool to use in conjunction with your discussion group participation. When you are ready to answer a question on a group post you can refer to one of your blog posts as a source for added info. Don’t have a post for that info yet? Write it, then answer the group questions and refer to the blog post you just wrote. Can’t be more current and effective than that, can you. Link to your blog from everywhere you can, and make sure that link is in any group postings and in your email signature.
4. Group Discussion. This is an extension from the networking sites above. Start your own group and group discussion either on other group sites or start your own group on one or more of the group networking sites. Want to get a point across or a new product/service presented? Start a discussion that you know will lead naturally to you “needing” to present that new product or service in that discussion. Make it natural and it works much more effectively than just saying, “Here is what I’m selling, what do you want to know about it and how many do you want?”…not going to work. You make yourself an “expert” by presenting answers to questions, providing a service of knowledge if you will, and the sales will follow since buyers will buy from people they trust and are knowledgeable rather than someone that is just selling to them.
Here are some more advanced Social Media sites you will be using:
1. Writing Articles. This is a more advanced form of writing a blog and a great way to express your knowledge and spread that around the internet. There are many directories on the internet that post articles that are freefrom owners of website to download and add (as is, with NO CHANGES…including links) to their website as content. You get published and your words and knowledge, and linking power for SOE, gets spread all over the internet. Make sure you have links to your affiliate programs, an your websites an blogs embedded in the articles. Not everyone is a writer, or has the time to keep their websites updated and current, so they rely on this method of adding content to their sites. How cool for you.
2. Write your own eBooks. This can be all new material or just a series of articles put together in book form and made available for free or at a cost to those wanting more info. It also increases your exposure and thus increases your expertise…and your income if you are selling it. Provide the first 2 chapters for free, then have a link on the last page of the last chapter that allows them to buy the rest of that book…and maybe other books or memberships ore whatever you can add to make a sale more appealing. If everything is downloaded by the client instead of printed and mailed by you, the cost is non-existent…and the profits are all yours. You can take this to the next level and turn this into a Private Label Program, which is a combination of the Article Directory concept applied to eBooks, but that is a discussion for another day. Suffice to say, this program has you allowing others to sell your eBook in their name, without changing anything, and they keep all the profits, but you get all the free advertising through the many times this is distributed.
3. Video Marketing. The only thing more powerful than the written word, is the video. People love to watch to get their information. Especially when you in provide it in the form of a Power Point presentation, a speaker presentation, a “white board” presentation, or any combination of them. Very, very powerful. Approach it just like you would a blog, but it’s a video instead of just words on paper or screen. In other words, a video blog. Did I mention this was very powerful?
4. Online Catalogue/Portfolio. This is who you are and what you can do. There are many different sites to post your portfolio, and many different forms it can take. The photos can be in a simple slide show format, or a very elaborate series of photos with detailed descriptions and even client comments. You can organize them in one slide show, or in many different “folders” linked to each other…and linked to either in its individual sections or as a whole.
Action Plan and Following through:
Once you learn what all these sites are about, you need to put them into action…and if you follow the rules laid out in the education, the leads…and the clients, will come. The better you get at implementing the education in the form of a cohesive system, the bigger the quantity of leads you will see…and the quality will improve as well.
1. Start with the Social Media Sites…the FaceBook and MySpace sites to “register” yourself and your business on the internet. Make sure you set these profiles based on your business and not your family…do that with another profile.
2. Start your blogs. Notice that is plural, as in more than one. Don’t try to cram everything into one blog. Why? It is better to separate them based on content, and then link them together as needed.
3. Add Groups to these sites. Join the groups that are part of these sites first, then join the specific group sites and network, network, network. Answer and ask questions. Start your own group and post your own topics taking the group in the direction you want to market. This allows you to control the direction of the group which in turn allows you to “soft sell” your product or service in a subtle way…but very effective. Don’t forget to link to your blogs at every opportunity.
4. Put together your Portfolio. Link to your portfolio at every opportunity. Remember the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words”, imagine what a slide show of pictures, with descriptions, is worth?
… and, the Follow Through…What you do with these leads…
… and, the Follow Through…What you do with these leads…
5. Email programs. Auto responders and aggressive email are parts of a critical ingredient to any marketing campaign. Why? You can’t possibly follow through on all the leads you get, especially when you come across the one lead that won’t stop asking questions…or talking about how much they know, but in no way intend to buy anything. Auto responders allow you to filter your leads before you make physical contact, or phone contact, with them.
6. Cards and other mailers. This may sound like “old school”, and it is, but people still like to “touch and feel” sometimes before they buy. Cards, like thank-you and giveaways, and post card flyers and other “reach out” methods can keep the client feeling important, and get your message out. Make sure all of your printed material has links to your blog, website, portfolio’s and email addresses as well as the usual telephone number. Always give them a way to see more marketing of yours.
7. Paid marketing like SEO programs, professional attraction marketing programs, Pay Per Click programs and List Building programs can cost money and should be reserved for use when you think you are ready to move into, and are able to handle, the budget for these…but they work, and should be a very important part of your marketing programs.
Updating your Material:
You can’t just post and leave it. You have to keep everything up to date with new posts…especially on your blogs. If you want to keep people coming back, and the more times you can present yourself to them the odds of a sale go up, you have to give them a reason. Provide a membership option that has built in incentives to come back and join. Things like free items, eBooks, discounts on other sites and programs (you can negotiate this with other sites since this is advertising for them as well).
If they keep coming back, they will eventually buy, but you have to attract them to your sites the first time…then keep them there. Present yourself as a very knowledgeable source…an expert, and they will…especially if the start of that information is free.
Chapter 1: Make Money Without Converting Leads to Clients
