Aug 21

Information Product Secrets: Tips to Brainstorm Titles


What is in a name?

One of the challenges that often holds coaches and speakers back from creating information products is selecting a title for their product.

You see, many people face indecision when selecting a title.

Oftentimes, they cannot even start on a product until they feel they have a great title.

I think that’s a mistake. Here’s my advice. Start by selecting a working title. Pick something that will work for right now. Then, get started on the product. That way, you will make progress.

A title will often emerge as part of the Product Creation process.

Let me share some ideas with you to create a great title.

There are several different approaches. You can select a title that explains exactly what you are offering. Or, you can pick something that is a little more ambiguous.

Also think about the possibility of branding your title and using it to create other products.

Jay Conrad Levinson created a very successful brand around the topic of Guerrilla Marketing. He started with a book and then built an empire around that one topic.

You can choose short titles or long titles. Short titles are often more memorable but you have to assign and communicate the value proposition so that people understand what it means.

Here are 4 Tips to Create an Amazing Product Title:

1. Use a number in the title

Think of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the bestselling book by Stephen Covey.

People like to know that there are a specific number of ideas they need to learn.

Try experimenting with a title using a number. At least, it will give you a different perspective. You can always use a number in the sub-title.

2. Pick memorable keywords

The title of your Information Product should be unique. It should easy to remember. And it should utilize keywords that people who would benefit from your product might search on.

Some of the best titles are often short. Gary Vaynerchuk wrote the best-seller Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion. Notice the title is only two words “Crush It” but the sub-title is longer and more descriptive. Plus, the title is also a subtle reference to his Wine Library TV site where he shared videos published on YouTube. He managed his parents wine distribution business for many years. Of course, crushing grapes is the beginning step in making wine. And the harvest season is often called Crush.

3. Add a sub-title

Books often have sub-titles. This is especially helpful when the title itself is short.

If you choose a title that is ambiguous, a sub-title can help to explain the value proposition.

That takes a little pressure off your title by allowing yourself to create a sub-title to explain your title.

4. Include a benefit in the title

One of the all-time favorite business books is Think and Grow Rich. The benefit in the title is to grow rich. The book appeals to those who want to make more money and build wealth. That’s a pretty big market.

It’s a short title and really says it all. It’s clear this is a book about Mindset and Money.

I would encourage you to create a Swipe File for book titles. Those are the easiest to find. This can help as you begin to consider and contemplate creation of your next Information Product.

Don’t worry too much about selecting the perfect title. That will only hold you back from making progress. Don’t get bogged down early in the process.

Come up with a few titles. Picking a working title and move forward.

Have an idea for an Information Product? Email me now with your idea.

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer

Apr 26

How to Create Engagement on Facebook Using Questions


There is a value in creating engagement with members of your social network.

Why is it important to create engagement? It’s just like meeting people in person. You will learn a lot more if you talk instead of just staring at each other.

There is an art in having conversations offline. And there is an art in having conversations online.

You can have conversations in Facebook Groups, on Facebook Pages and on your personal Facebook Wall.

My personal favorite way to have conversations is on my wall. I have an intention of creating conversations.

One of the best ways to stimulate conversations is through the use of questions.

Here are 4 Types of Questions you can Ask on Facebook:

1. Yes/No Questions

When asking questions, think about your audience and what they will respond to. You will learn by experimenting.

And remember that you need to train your audience to respond to you.

Yes/no questions are easy to ask.

Tweet: One of the best ways to stimulate online conversations is through the use of questions. https://ctt.ec/2HwoG+ via @RickCooper

Examples:

Do you like chocolate ice cream?

Do you have a website?

2. Either/Or Questions

One of the keys to asking a good question is to make it quick and easy for people to respond.

Another great technique is the either/or question.

Examples:

Chocolate or Vanilla?

Apple or Orange?

East Coast or West Coast?

Mac or PC?

3. Would You Rather Questions

Questions can be fun to answer. Some of your questions may fall flat and get no response. Other questions may spark a vigorous debate.

In general, discussion is good except where people begin to bicker and attack each other. You are responsible for making sure people play nice on your page.

“Would you Rather” questions can start some great conversations.

Examples:

Would you rather skydive or fly on a hot air balloon?

Would you rather be 3 inches taller or 3 years younger?

4. Open ended questions

It’s okay to ask questions from time to time that require a little more thought. You can craft questions that really get people thinking.

Open-ended questions give you a lot of flexibility.

You can ask questions that speak to people’s preferences or you can ask questions that are hypothetical and abstract.

Examples:

What is your favorite vacation spot?

Would you like to live in a world where there were no nuclear weapons?

Ask Away

These are just a few examples of the types of questions you can ask.

The biggest challenge In asking questions is simply coming up with questions to ask.

So, what do you say? Are you willing to give it a shot?

PLEASE COMMENT BELOW:

Come up with a question and post it below!

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer

Apr 19

Speaker Marketing Tips: Developing a Bundle


So, you are a public speaker. What do you have to offer potential clients?

As a speaker, you have an amazing array of options.

All you have to do is utilize your creativity. Are you a creative person?

Simply tap into your creativity and create something you can monetize.

Let me share a little secret with you. If you want to make more money as a public speaker, then you need to create bundled products.

What is a bundle? A bundle is simply a package of components.

What is a component? A component is an individual information product.

Let’s look at some examples of information products:

  • Audio program
  • Ebook
  • Checklist
  • Online video series
  • Articles
  • Templates
  • Special Report
  • Audio interview

By the way, you can also include services in your product bundle including coaching sessions and done for you services.

The key to a successful bundle is having a package of components that are aligned together to deliver value for your audience.

A bundle should also have a compelling title. Your audience should have a desire to own your product and like to call it by title. The title should ideally be short and catchy.

Another important aspect of a bundle is developing a brand. A brand has to do with the look and feel of your product. Your product needs a brand that is memorable and desirable.

Here are 5 Challenges to Creating a Bundle:

1. Can’t come up with an overall theme for your product bundle

You need a big idea for a bundle. It needs to be something that meets both a want and need of your prospective clients.

There needs to be some sex appeal for your topic. It needs to capture their attention and create desire.

2. Cannot select the right components for a compelling bundle offer

There may seem to be an endless array of products and services that could be included in a bundle. This endless series of components often shuts down the process. The question becomes how to move past this overwhelm and confusion.

3. Don’t know how to price the bundle

Pricing is always a sticking point. Trying to price your product so it is competitive but also feels like a value for your audience is important. This also factors in to your choice of products to include.

4. Don’t know how to market the bundled offer

Even if you get the bundle created, you still have the marketing and sales of your product to consider. This often leads people into a state of overwhelm.

How do you proceed so you inform your audience of your bundled offer and actually generate sales?

5. Feeling stuck and not able to make progress

Everywhere in this process are potential pitfalls and obstacles to overcome to actually reach completion.

There are many speakers who attempt to create bundled product offers. And there are very few who actually make it all the way through the process and actually earn sales.

The reward is worth the effort if you can reach the point of monetizing your product. It is a learning process and one that is worth it.

By the way, bundled products create leverage in many ways for you. For example, you can always bonus or comp someone with a bundled product as an incentive for a high-end program.

Please Comment Below:

Are you thinking about creating a bundled product? If so, what topic? Please share below.

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer

Apr 12

Strategies to Create Buzz Online: Teasers


How do you get people talking online about your product, service or program?

As a small business owner, you need to leverage every resource you have available to create buzz online.

First, consider that you should not try to create buzz too often. You can wear out your audience with constant hype. It is best to build buzz during a marketing cycle and then let things return to normal.

This is especially true on social media sites. People tire of constant hype and will “unlike” your business page or unfriend you on Facebook. Or they will unfollow you on Twitter.

Teasers Encourage Curiosity

A teaser often works best at the beginning of a marketing campaign as a way to signal something cool is coming.

It may stimulate interest with people asking what you are going to share. You are building anticipation.

The movie industry does this well. When they are first announcing a movie, they will often release short trailers that serve as teasers. They will often reveal some mysterious details without context. It can cause a stir in fan communities as people try to interpret what they just saw. Star Wars does this really well.

Methods to Release Teasers

You can do this on a website through the use of banner ads which build interest and anticipation.

You can accomplish this through email by announcing something that is coming soon.

You can also follow the concept of a movie trailer and release a video.

Build Anticipation with a Teaser

The traditional Product Launch Model relies heavily on the use of video to build interest and anticipation for the launch.

A teaser should focus on the needs of audience. What problem are they trying to solve. You can call attention to this need in your marketing without revealing the product you are offering.

In a future post, I will share some examples of ways to create teasers. So, check back soon for details.

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer

Apr 05

Tips to Leverage Marketing Swipe Files


When it comes to creating marketing copy, you don’t have to start from scratch.

You can find inspiration from your own past marketing efforts.

And you can borrow ideas from others.

The most common method is by creating a swipe file.

Let me give you a simple example. Have you ever been to a trade show, gotten a bag and then filled it with marketing collateral such as flyers, postcards and forms?

Well, that is a good start for a swipe file. You can take all of the postcards you picked up and put them in a manila folder. That is a swipe file.

How to Use a Swipe File

Let’s say you want to create a postcard. Pull out your swipe file. Take out all of the postcards you have collected over the years and lay them out. Then, look at the designs and look at the copy. Pick a few you like and put the rest away. Now, with the remaining postcards in front of you, take a blank sheet of paper and start sketching out a design for your postcard.

Remember to design both the front and back of the postcard.

Instead of starting with a blank page, you can draw inspiration from the designs of others.

This is a great technique to get a marketing project started.

Let Swipe Files Inspire You

A good marketing project is an iterative effort. In other words, it may take a few revisions before you get exactly what you want. If you are working with a graphic designer, be sure to share your design as well as the swipe examples for inspiration. Tell them what you like about each.

Once you have the first design done, you can make more edits.

You can create swipe files for:

  • Website designs
  • Email copy
  • Flyers
  • Direct mail sales letters
  • Postcards
  • Ezines
  • Doorhangers
  • Forms
  • Articles
  • Magalog
  • Newspaper ads
  • Magazine ads
  • Website banner ads
  • Facebook ads
  • LinkedIn ads
  • Twitter ads
  • Google Adwords
  • Lead Capture Pages
  • Online Sales Pages
  • Opt in forms
  • Etc.

Remember to save samples of your own work. That can be added to your swipe file too.

You can create swipe files by:

  • Adding physical samples
  • Printing hardcopy
  • Saving files to pdf
  • Copy and paste text into a notepad file

Tips to Use Swipe Files

A swipe file can take on many forms depending on what you are using.

You might be interested in the design or the copy (words).

You can also save links to web pages to use for swipe copy. Just be aware that the web page might disappear one day. That’s why I prefer to save to pdf. You will likely lose some of the formatting but at least you will have the web copy.

Now keep in mind I am not suggesting that you plagiarize someone else’s copy.

I am suggesting that you analyze the format and design to inspire your own work.

I am suggesting that you look at the length of the copy, keywords and structure of the words for inspiration.

Swipe files give you a jumping off point.

Getting Started with Swipe Files

What kind of swipe files should you create? It depends on what projects you plan to work over the next few months or next few years.

Just get started in collecting samples both online and offline.

Then, whenever you start a new marketing project, pull out your swipe file and get started.

What is the next marketing project you plan to work on?

Why not take 15 minutes to start a swipe file now?

Please comment below to let me know what kind of swipe file you want to create.

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer

Mar 24

The Magic of Email Marketing and Why You Need to Build Your Email List


I am still surprised at how few small business owners take advantage of the power of Email Marketing.

What’s more powerful than having ongoing access to prospective clients so you can add value, build trust and rapport and lead them to a next step in working with you?

Email Marketing is an extremely cost effective solution for small business owners trying to grow their business online.

Sophisticated Email Marketing tools give you a high degree of automation that can create and support sustainable Online Marketing systems to generate leads and earn sales.

The only question is when are you going to get started.

Still on the fence?

Here are 3 Reasons to Build your Email List:

1. It takes time to build relationships

One of the mistakes that small business owners make is expecting to be able to earn a sale too quickly.

Sure, you will have some instances where people learn about what you do and then say, “I need that.” However, the other 99% of the time, that doesn’t work.

You need a simple, cost-effective way to stay in touch with people over time.

Email marketing allows you to implement a drip marketing strategy where you add value over time.

And that also gives you a chance to build relationships.

Remember that people do business with people they know, like and trust.

How can you expect to just pick up the phone and call a person a few times a year and try to sell them over the phone. You haven’t done anything to earn the right to ask for a sale.

And that assumes you have the guts to actually pick up the phone and follow up with people. Many don’t!

2. Creates referral opportunities

One reason people often overlook for building an email list is that it creates referral opportunities.

People love to share. When they find someone who adds value or a great company, they are happy to share them with friends.

You need to create opportunities for other people to share you.

This is a powerful strategy.

What is holding you back from accomplishing this?

How many referrals would you like to receive each week?

What actions are you taking to create spontaneous referrals?

Think about it!

3. People need to see multiple offers

Another reason why you need to keep reaching out to people is that you are faced with a conundrum.

If you have a mix of products and services, let’s say, 10 products for the sake of simplicity, then you will have trouble introducing your products without overwhelming people.

Remember that the confused mind doesn’t buy. If you talk to someone and say, ‘I have these 10 products, which one do you want?” They won’t know what to select. They’ll say something like, “Let me think about it.” Or, “I don’t need any right now.” The decision is too complicated. You wasted your opportunity.

A better approach is to let people know about each product, one at a time, over time. Allow them to think about it, process it and make a decision one by one.

Part of the process of marketing is to create desire for your products and services. If you overwhelm them, they won’t have an opportunity.

Email Marketing Builds Relationships and Creates Sales Opportunities

The fact of the matter is that Email Marketing is still one of the most effective ways of consistently communicating with prospective clients.

It allows you to create a personal connection with people and communicate your value proposition.

Email Marketing has the potential to create a two way dialogue with prospects.

You can leverage email to quickly get the word out about an upcoming event, product launch or announcement.

Email Marketing can have a magical effect in being able to systemically develop new relationships, educate prospects about your products and services, generate new referrals and lead people to buy from you.

What is your plan to leverage Email Marketing?

Get started on it now.

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer

Mar 21

How to Prepare for Calls Using Social Media Sites

Social Media is a great tool for building relationships. And not only is it useful for building relationships online, you can also use it to build relationships by phone.

You can learn a lot about people just by visiting their social media profiles. You can learn where they live, what they are interested in and even who their friends and business connections are.

It’s really insane when you think about how much information you have access to now compared to say 20 years ago.

Of course, that also sets the bar higher than ever before.

So, how can you use social media to build relationships?

Here are 5 Powerful Strategies to Use Social Media to Prepare for Calls:

1. Review social media profiles

Before picking up the phone, take a few minutes to review someone’s Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profile. I add social media links into my Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system which makes this process very easy. I instantly know which social media sites to check.

Remember that when you make a call, there is a good chance you will simply get voicemail. However, you may end up chatting in the next few weeks so anytime spent preparing can be beneficial.

I would recommend spending about 2-3 minutes reviewing someone’s profile. Don’t spend 15 minutes reading everything on their page. That would probably be a waste of time.

You might find it helpful to allocate about 15-20 minutes total to review the profiles for all of the people on your call list.

Let’s say you have 10 people on your call list. You can either do this all at once for each of your contacts. Or you can do this one by one prior to each call.

The advantage of reviewing profiles in one time block is that you will likely be more efficient. Block about 15-20 minutes for the task and set a timer. That way, you will move quickly through the profiles. Then, make your calls.

If you review the profiles prior to each call, it may become a delay tactic that causes you to not pick up the phone. Remember that for every 10 calls, you will reach voicemail 7-8 times. So, time reviewing profiles could end up being wasted at least in the short term.

2. Message someone 1-2 days before you call them

If you are really organized, you can actually try to reach people through social media prior to calling them. This helps you to create visibility and add value.

It creates greater familiarity so that when you call, they are more likely to talk with you.

3. Comment on their page

Another great strategy is to simply comment on their page.

Most people don’t receive too many comments on their Facebook posts, so if you comment, it Is more likely to get noticed.

Plus, it allows you to become a participant in their network and to become visible to their friends.

4. Connect on social media

In the course of your research, you will probably discover a few people you are not connected to on social media. In this case, take a few minutes to find and connect with them online.

Now don’t use this opportunity as a crusade to go find all of their accounts. That would just be a waste of time. If you can find a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account, connect with them on one of the accounts.

By the way, I do recommend setting up a spreadsheet to track any activities related to social media. Or, you can use a CRM to add notes. The point is, if you looked for a Facebook account and couldn’t find it, make a note. Then, next time you look up the contact, you will see that you already spent time looking for a Facebook account and couldn’t find it.

You may find it a better use of time to hire someone to do the research for you. You can give them a list of names and email addresses and ask them to search for social media accounts online.

Unless they are logging in using your social media accounts, they may have problems finding people that you would be able to easily locate. The reason for this is that when you search for someone on Facebook or LinkedIn, your search results will reflect the people who are already in your network.

In other words, Facebook will look at your friends and who they are connected to. There is an interconnected nature to online relationships. For example, most people tend to develop strong relationships in their local community. So, it becomes easier to find and connect with other people in that community.

When you hire someone who lives outside the area using their own accounts to look for contacts, they will not be connected to the same people as you. If they search for “Joe Smith” on Facebook, they will find Joe Smith’s in their own city not in yours.

If you have trouble finding someone online, another strategy would be to email them and ask them to friend you on Facebook. Include the link to your personal Facebook page.

Over time, as you make contact, you will be able to connect with them on more social media sites.

5. Create Social Currency through Social Sharing

Everyone likes recognition, right?

A simple way to acknowledge people on social media is to share their content. You can retweet someone on Twitter and they will receive a mention. That will notify them you shared their content. It’s a simple way to add value and get on their radar. They will start paying more attention to you.

One other strategy I use is to look for blog posts from the person I can share. I work with a lot of business owners and they tend to have blogs. If your audience is consumers, you won’t necessarily have this opportunity.

You can find another way to create social currency. One person I know creates a graphic with a person’s name and says something positive about them. Then, they tweet that graphic. It’s a simple technique. It works best when you know the other person and can pay them a genuine compliment. Be sure to add their Twitter ID in the post. On Facebook, you can tag them in the post. The graphic might even show up on their page, depending on their privacy settings.

I would encourage you to think strategically about how you use social media to build relationships.

If you learn something about a person, you can bring it up in conversation. Just don’t be creepy about it.

Here are 8 Interesting Insights You Can Discover about People on Social Media:

  • A recent success
  • A personal challenge
  • A recent vacation
  • A death in the family
  • A goal
  • What they like
  • What they don’t like
  • Their mindset about life

Building relationships starts with finding common ground. And this is easier than ever with social media.

When you find something about a person that is meaningful, note that in your CRM. It might not be important now, but it could be down the line. It just takes a moment.

In fact, I would recommend that whenever you spend time on social media, you should have your CRM open in another tab. Be ready to capture notes.

So, how many calls do you plan to make this week?

How much time will you block out to do your research on social media?

And what should do if you are not connected on social media?

First, follow them on Twitter. This is usually the easiest site to use in making a connection. You can also add them as a friend on Facebook or as a connection on LinkedIn.

In fact, you can even bring this up in conversation.

You can say, “By the way, I just noticed we are not yet connected on LinkedIn. I’ll send over a request right now. Can you approve it?”

This will help to get their buy in and encourage them to follow through. They might even do it before the call is over.

Take action and good luck!

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer

Feb 03

Website Tips to Use Hyperlinks


I remember back in the early days of the internet when people first called it the World Wide Web. That was many decades ago. A lot has changed since then, but some things have stayed the same.

One of the most exciting aspects of the internet early on was the interconnected nature of the web.

Whereas a book or article is a standalone document, the web provides an opportunity for you to click and be whisked off across the world to another related page.

Do you have a website? If so, are you taking advantage of the interconnected nature of the web?

Personally, I know I don’t include enough links on my website to share other valuable content.

So, the ideas I’m going to share with you here are as much a reminder for me as it is an encouragement to you. Consider it a list of best practices.

As a side note, I use WordPress for my own site and also for developing websites for my clients. I find it’s the most powerful platform for building websites online.

Best Practices for Using Hyperlinks on your Website:

1. Think strategically about how to use links in a way that will add value to your readers

2. Link to internal pages on your website to increase clickthrough traffic on your site

3. Link to lead capture pages to increase opt ins

4. Link to joint venture partner websites to support your colleagues

5. Link to high profile blogs

6. Don’t overuse links

One of the most common places to add hyperlinks is in your blog posts.

Consider these two strategies for inserting hyperlinks:

1. Identify other related blog posts on your site to link to

2. Identify links to value added content on other sites

Use a variety of links on your site. Internal links on your website will keep people on your site. External links will send people to other websites. If you insert an external hyperlink, consider opening the link in a new tab. That way, people can still return back to your website using the original tab. That works well for desktop and laptop computers but doesn’t always work on a mobile device.

Hyperlink Example

In most cases, you will insert the hyperlink over a text phrase.

Let’s say I wrote a blog post about email marketing. I might find another blog post I wrote on building your email list and want to link to it. I would then look for a phrase in the blog post that I could hyperlink. Or write a new phrase that would work.

For example, “One important strategy in email marketing is building your email list.”

I would hyperlink the phrase, “building your email list” by highlighting the text, selecting the hyperlink button within WordPress and then pasting in the link to the appropriate web page.

As time goes by, you will begin to anticipate opportunities to insert hyperlinks.

Blog Post Series

Another strategy is to create hyperlinks to a multi-part blog post series.

Let’s say you write a 3 part series of blog posts on a particular topic.

You would then include links to each of the other two blog posts in each post. This strategy will require publishing each blog post and then going back and editing each post to add the appropriate links.

Quote another blog post

Another great strategy is to include an excerpt from another blog post and then include a hyperlink. In this instance, you would copy and paste one or more paragraphs from someone else’s blog post and paste it into your own blog post.

Next, mention the author of the blog post, the name of their blog post and include a link to their post. You may also want to include the exact website address and hyperlink that as well. That makes it easy for anyone to remember the address in case they want to type it in themselves.

Adding hyperlinks to your blog posts is easy to do, but you need to put a focus on doing it. You need to be intentional about adding links. For example, you might decide to include two hyperlinks in every blog post. That way you have a goal to work towards.

Give it a shot!

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer

Email me at rick@socialmediaoutcomes.com for a FREE Report on How to Grow your Business Online.

Jan 30

Tips to Plan an Online Marketing Strategy

tips-to-plan-an-online-marketing-strategy
One of the mistakes small business owners often make is to hesitate before taking action on online marketing strategies.

Why do they hesitate?

Why Small Business Hesitate to Take Action

They want to develop a comprehensive online marketing strategy that will work for now and years to come.

Yes, there is a value to doing long-term planning. The challenge is that new business owners often plan in a vacuum. They do not have a basis of understanding what will work for them. They can come up with a grand plan, take years to implement it and still get zero to no results.

One simple way to get started is to identify one strategy to work on and then start it.

Confusion comes when you try to implement too many strategies at once.

Do It Yourself or Get Help

You will certainly fail if you attempt to launch a blog, publish videos on YouTube, begin email marketing and start a social media marketing campaign. Unless you have help from someone who has been there and done that, attempting too much will cause you to crash and burn.

And for someone with a limited budget, help is usually not an option.

So, what does that leave?

Let’s take a quick example. Let’s say that you decide you want to launch an email marketing promotion. What are the steps?

How to Get Started Now

First, before using email to promote a product, service or program, I would recommend making a commitment to email marketing that includes adding value by sending nurturing messages that also build trust and rapport.

Second, decide how many email messages to send out per week. I do recommend emailing your list consistently over time. That requires thought, planning and follow through.

Notice, by selecting one online marketing strategy, email marketing, things begin to fall in place. And notice the amount of time and effort that will be required to support that strategy.

When you make a commitment, be prepared to follow through over time. Each strategy adds a new layer of effort in your business.

Once you are writing and sending value added messages each week, now it’s time to plan an email marketing campaign.

Identify your goals, select a specific product, service or program to offer and then begin the process to write copy for the emails.

Are there any drawbacks to this method? I think the biggest downside is that marketing often works best when you are reaching people across multiple channels of communication.

In an ideal world, you would launch a marketing campaign and reach people through email, social media, direct mail, online advertising and even by phone. Plus, you could also add in a live event for good measure.

For many small business owners this would be very overwhelming. Even if they had a plan, it would be difficult to execute it.

So, I want to encourage you that it is important to simply do what you can. Don’t feel you have to create the best marketing campaign ever. Marketing planning and execution is a skillset.

You can learn as you go. Try something. Measure your results. And then try something else.

Give it a shot.

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer

Jan 21

Where to Focus your Marketing for Growth

where-to-focus-your-marketing-for-growthAre you focused?

Are you taking the right actions to accomplish your goals?

Would you like to increase sales and build your client base?

Let’s consider a few of the sales and marketing tasks you should be completing on a weekly basis.

Here are 3 Critical Sales and Marketing Tasks You Should Focus on:

1. Sending email messages

Do you have an email list? Are you sending 1 or more messages weekly to your list? If not, why not?

Communicating with your clients, prospects and other members of your list is of critical importance.

You need to take a high-level view when planning your email marketing. It’s important to be guided by a plan rather than simply taking one-off random actions.

I would encourage you to embrace email marketing and step up your level of activity.

And don’t forget to build your email list.

2. Posting on social media

Much of social media marketing is simply focused on creating awareness and attracting people.

Remember that people do business with people they know, like and trust.

Unless you are actually buying pay per click (PPC) ads that are driving traffic to a targeted lead capture page, then most of your posts will simply focus on engagement.

Nonetheless, in today’s age, you need to reach people where they are.

I refer to this type of communication as social networking. Post public messages and also send private messages.

3. Setting and running appointments

If you have a desire to grow your business and by that I mean making sales, then you need to be proactive in meeting with people.

That includes meeting with people one-on-one as well as one to many.

The phone is your friend. Most small business owners need to be making more phone calls to achieve their goals. In today’s social media driven age, people overlook tried and true techniques. They take the path of least resistance.

Challenge yourself to make more calls.

And don’t forget about the value of leading teleseminars and webinars. Livestreaming is great using Facebook Live, YouTube Live and Periscope, but you should also host dedicated training events via teleseminar and webinar.

So, I ask again, “Are you focused?”

Are you taking consistent action? Or does day after day go by where you do not communicate with people either by phone, through email or on social media.

Do you expect people to just randomly contact you to buy something? How is that working for you?

Isn’t it time to be more proactive in taking the right actions at the right time to get the right results?

So, what actions are you committed to taking in the next week?

Get on it!

Rick Cooper
Online Marketing and Social Media Trainer