The Simplest Way To Market Your Business
SEO. PPC. Websites. Analytics. Hundreds of social media platforms. Should I use Groupon? How do I create a fan page? Who can I joint venture with? When it comes to marketing, there are a ton of tactics that you can use to market your business. You may feel a little overwhelmed just looking at all that you could do. So where should you start? That really is a million dollar question. There is one simple way that most business owners should start marketing their business that most are ignoring. The simple tactic you should use to market your business? Education. Specifically, using the knowledge that you have in your area
Is The Quickest Route To Your Business A Dead End?
You just spoke in front of 300 people at an industry event. At the end of your talk, 100 people take action on the book that you are offering them. You take these 100 names and give them to your sales team who then tries to up-sell them into a higher ticket product that you offer. 15 of those people buy making your time spent at the event profitable. You then proceed to ignore the other 85 people who had expressed some interest in what you do. Those 85 people just hit a dead end in your business. If you know anything about persuasion architecture then you know that there
8 Deadly Sins Of Website Design
Is my website making money? How often do you ask yourself the above question? For most business owners who have enough to worry about. Their website is often a forgotten tool specifically if you don’t rely on e-commerce to drive your business. I interview Richard Swart of Aspen Web Services late last year about what business owners can do to improve their website and make money from their website efforts. Richard gave me his 8 Deadly sins of website design. (I also recording this as a podcast which you can listen to below.) Sin #1: Confusing Graphics- We look at a website as a graphical piece but sometimes we forget
Make Your Life Easier With A Blog Schedule
Flying by the seat of your pants can be an exhausting journey. With all the demands that are placed upon business owners, it’s easy to see why we always seem to be responding to crises and jumping from fire-to-fire. When your schedule is like that blogging is usually one of the last things on your list. We are going to change that today. I am not going to sit here and tell you that blogging should be the most important part of your business (unless it is your business). I will say that there are ways to make creating blog content easier. One of those things is by creating a
The Underrated Marketing Tool
Business owners spend a lot of time worrying about bringing in new business and rightfully so. As we sit and worry about these customers we haven’t met, we often forget about the customers we already have. Introducing customer service, the most underrated and underutilized marketing and sales tool that a business owner has at his/her disposal. In the 1950s, Peter Drucker said that “there is no business without customers”. It seems as if we forget that in this day and age. We have all heard stories of good customer service, good and bad. The big question that so many have is, “why can’t businesses get customer service right?” This
No Website For Your Business? Here’s What You Are Missing
Apparently, there are still a lot of businesses out there who, for one reason or another, don’t have a website. The reason for this comes in different forms: I don’t have any money I hate technology I don’t have time And so on and so forth. By not having a website established for your business, you are missing out on some valuable resources for your business. This post was inspired by a great post by Lisa Barone titled Why Your Small Business Needs a Website in 2010. So here are a few of the things that you are missing out on by not having a website: 1. Differentiation- This is
The Best Business Marketers Are Online Experts
As a small business owner, you are most likely the first line of defense when it comes to sales and marketing for your business. The evolution of marketing to more of an online forum, means that business owners can market their businesses cheaper than ever before. The problem that business owners face is that some are technologically challenged and avoid these online avenues for marketing their business as a result. The reality is that to grow your business on a tight budget, you need to develop some online savvy. Don’t worry, I am not asking you to be a total online expert in every area but you should have a
Vision: See It, Live It
Creating a solid foundation for your business starts with clearly understanding your business. Your vision for your business is a great place to start. Once your organization has a clear vision you are able to see the vision and live it as well. When your organization has a clearly defined vision, you have answered the fundamental question of “Where am I going?”. When you have this set, everyone in your organization knows where the business is going and can use this to guide their decision making. By using a vision effectively, you can also better dictate the culture that you want to create in your organization. As far as building
Who’s Your Product/Service For?
You’ve decided to start your business and you feel that you have a great product/service to share with the world. The problem is, you aren’t sure if your product/service is really something that others want. How do you find out who your product/service is for? One of the fundamental questions to ask is, who is your customer? I have spoken to several new business owners who have proudly told me that their product/service was for everyone. Many of you have heard the adage, “If your business is for everyone then it’s for no one.” In some cases, when people tell you their business is for everyone they are indeed correct.
The proper steps to build your website
Ever spoke with a company and thought that after speaking with them that you had a good idea about what the company was about only to be confused after visiting their website? This happens to businesses and clients way more than it should. So how do you make sure that what you are taking the right approach? I will coming purely from the tactical angle of your approach and not the specifics and webite design and function as I leave those items for my web partners to handle. With that being said. There are 5 components of the website creation process. The first component is having a firm grasp on
