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Saturday, July 31, 2010

Raise Your Marketing To The Next Level

Saturday, July 31, 2010



I've been doing some marketing for a company that has a great product, great people, and a really good business model. When you can work for a company that has a lot to celebrate, marketing is an easy thing to do. That is, unless you have to move an entire brand from good, to great!

How exactly to you migrate a product or brand to a whole new marketing level?  You begin with your audience and positioning.  Said another way, determine the needs of your market and how your company addresses those needs.  More importantly, what's unique about your product or company?  This is where you have leverage.

Once you've determined what's unique about your product and brand, you can promote it using both traditional and new media.  With a clear understanding of your 'unique selling proposition', you can improve the effectiveness of all you do.

Here are a few ways to leverage your unique positioning among your target audience:

1.  Create marketing materials that reflect your unique selling proposition.

2.  Position your web site to include content and interactivity that reinforces your key messages.

3.  Leverage new medial like Social Media marketing to communicate your distinct advantages.

4.  Select advertising partners that support your messaging.

5.  Communicate key messages through blogs, affiliates, and other partners.

There are lots of ways to market your unique qualities as a brand or the products and services you offer.  Look at the competition.  What makes you unique?

Once you've determined your unique qualities, write them down.  The next step is to develop an integrated marketing plan that focused on your key differentiators - which should be in the form of key message points.  Choose media that will get your point across again and again.  Repetition is key.

Be unique.  Be different.  Deliver value.  Over time,  your brand will rise above the rest!


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Sunday, July 25, 2010

Internet Marketing Is Everywhere

Sunday, July 25, 2010




Most of you who have been reading my blog for some time know that I'm a big fan of getting the word out in any way possible. Whether you're using PR, direct mail, or pay-per-click marketing, being in front of your target audience whenever and wherever they may happen to be is good for your brand. I'm also a huge proponent of networking.

In combination, marketing effectively and networking, with those who can help your cause are a great way to elevate your brand. This creates awareness, interest, and desire. With the help of digital marketing (a.k.a. Internet marketing), these concepts of Networking and Brand Promotion are reaching new heights.

Internet Marketing on the Go!

A while back I published my first book, SEO Made Simple, to share my knowledge of search engine optimization with a segment of my marketing audience who were building web sites, launching blogs, and focused on affiliate marketing. Since then, the book has expanded to reach broader audiences interested in online marketing for themselves, their businesses and even their clients. What I never expected was that by delivering the content in a different format, I would be able to share it with so many more people interested in what I had to offer.

After relaunching my first book digitally (Amazon Kindle), and publishing my second book PPC Made Simple in both digital format and in print, I've discovered a new avenue for sharing information and improving online marketing.

Thinking about how this applies to the businesses that I consult with, I can't help but think about the portability and viewing of information. For example, how are you sharing your information with customers? Brochures and print materials are less important than they once were. Still producing that $40 catalog? Consider printing a smaller catalog and publishing your content online. There you can add reviews, comparisons, and other value adds.

Think Digital to Win the Marketing Game

When I saw my content on an iPad, I almost flipped. Even though it was published electronically, seeing it on an actual device made it real for me. Yet this is what more and more of our customers are interacting with on a regular basis. How will you compete? What's your digital strategy?

Think through all aspects of your marketing plan: Audience, Messaging, Timing, and Offer. Consider the modality that it needs to be delivered in. I'm not suggesting that you stop using print all together but rather consider offering multiple formats that your audience can consume when, where, and however they choose.

Today's take-a-way is that if you're not thinking .mobi or Today's take-a-way is that if you're not thinking .mobi or iPad or Smart phone, think again. How is the digital platform changing marketing? It already has!

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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Thursday, July 22, 2010



Whatever niche you're in you have probably gathered by now that without a significant e-mail list of potential prospects it's pretty difficult to generate sales online. This is because most people don't buy on the first visit to a Web site even if it offers exactly what they're looking for. In fact research has show in can take up to 7 or more marketing attempts before a customers gets his or her wallet out.

This being the case, it's imperative that you build up a list of prospects that you can market to on a regular basis. All the big names in Internet marketing have huge lists hence the phrase "the money is in the list" although this isn't entirely true(a truer phrase would be "the money is in the relationship you have with your list). One thing is for sure is that without a good list your dead in the water.

Why? Think about it. If you don't have a list you're at the mercy of traffic generation techniques where the system can change at the drop of a hat. Consider pay-per-click advertising. It used to be cheap for selected keywords and you could bid for about 10-15 cents a click. Now you could pay $2 -$3 or even more a click depending on your niche.

With a large and growing list YOU control the traffic. You send out one broadcast to your list from your auto-responder and depending on your click through rate you can drive hundreds or even thousands of visitors to any site on the web.

So how do you go about doing it and how do the so called "guru's" build their list into the thousands so fast. In the Internet marketing niche one of the best ways is through Giveaway events. These events are held year round and usually coincide with holiday's such as the fourth of July, Thanksgiving, etc. Essentially a group of marketers get together and agree to giveaway gifts (either their own or someone else's) in exchange for members joining their lists via their squeeze or landing pages.

A big giveaway can have hundreds of people looking to join as members take advantage of what's being offered for free. If your gifts are good and most events allow you to add at least one product, then you may receive 50 to 100 or even more subscribers from each event. Often times these sites will allow you to upgrade as a contributor. This allows you to pay a fee in return for being able to list multiple products (more products, bigger list). It may also allow you to provide a one time offer.

A one time offer, as the name suggests, will only be offered once and is usually a lot cheaper than the member could buy anywhere else. This enables the gift contributor to earn some cash from the giveaway as well as building his list.

The second technique is a form of join venture (JV) known as an ad swap. Here two marketers both with similar size lists agree to e-mail each others lists thereby building subscribers together. The problem in the past is that it needed an element of trust that both parties will indeed do this and that they are being honest about the size of their lists. This problem has recently been rectified by a site called safe swaps where Internet marketer's can join and list sizes can be verified.

Finally probably the best way to build your list is to have your own in-house affiliate program if you own your own product or Web site. This way affiliates build your list for you in the hope that they will benefit from sales of your product. A good affiliate program which offers a high percentage commission to affiliates can truly build a list at lightning speed.

Use these techniques to build your lists, find partners and generate money online. By doing so, you can excel at Internet marketing and start building lasting relationships that will produce dividends for years to come. To learn about the system I've personally used to educate myself about these techniques, click here. Often times having someone else show you how to take advantage of these opportunities is the best and fastest way to start making money online.


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Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Biggest Event of My Career: July 21st, 8PM

Saturday, July 17, 2010




As many of you know, I've dedicated that last 15 years of my career to Internet marketing and search engine optimization. I've recently partnered with Internet marketing legend Greg Cesar to create SEO The Easy Way, an online program that reveals my most closely held search engine optimization secrets.

This coming Wednesday, July 21st, Greg and I are holding a live online event for the first 1,000 individuals who register click here. Due to the nature of this webinar, and the content being shared, we anticipate that it will fill up quickly. In fact, since this post has gone live, we only have about 172 spots left.

I've achieved #1 rankings for some of the Internet's most competitive keywords: "internet marketing expert", "marketing expert", "marketing blog", and dozens more. After launching a number of affiliate web sites and generating an online revenue stream that runs on autopilot (I get tons of organic traffic for free), I decided to share what I learned with the masses.

A couple of years ago I shared my expertise in SEO Made Simple. Since then, I've offered workshops and personal coaching. However, I was always looking for a way to share my search engine optimization techniques with the masses.

After meeting Greg, he encouraged me to start doing webinars, reaching larger numbers of people who wanted to improve the search engine rankings of their web site and blogs.  It wasn't long before I began sharing my experiences with those who genuinely wanted to see how I was achieving #1 rankings again and again!

If you want to learn about search engine optimization and are ready to start building a long term strategy for generating traffic (and online revenue), then register for Wednesday's webinar before it fills up.  Here's the registration link.

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Sunday, July 11, 2010

What's Marketing Without Customer Reviews?

Sunday, July 11, 2010




We've all been exposed to them. Some of you may even have left them after using a product or making a purchase from Amazon.com. Online customer reviews are a part of any business today. Unfortunately, I'm usually called in once a company has experienced a number of bad reviews that tarnish their products and reputation.

The question you might be asking yourself is how to avoid bad reviews or eliminate them all together. The difficulty is that once a bad review is posted online and indexed by search engines, it may begin appearing in search results. Once there, it could be difficult (but not impossible to remove).

Here are a few strategies you can use to manage reputation and improve the customer review process:

1. Set up a customer forum on your website. Inviting customer feedback is a great way to monitor feedback and it gives you excellent control. Don't shy away from feedback, invite it. By doing so you can recognize and address problems before they are distributed all over the internet.

2. Give your customers access to popular review sites. A bit risky you might be thinking? Not if you're selective with regard to which customers you invite to comment. Be sure that customer service representatives email a list of review sites and an invite to comment to those individuals with whom they've had a positive interaction.

3. Focus on improving the ranking of third party assets. Do you have a Squidoo lens? Article on EzineArticles? Profile on a social media site like Facebook? Use search engine optimization best practices to improve rankings of these assets to push down negative listings.

4. If a particular comment is slanderous, contact the web site on which it's posted. In some cases, particularly negative comments can be removed. However, most sites will only remove if they've broken the site posting rules. It never hurts to ask to have a listing removed however. Don't hesitate. Reach out to the site and explain why the listing should be removed and the negative impact it's having on your business.

5. Take advantage of universal search. Produce content across a number of different outlets. Generate news by submitting a press release or create instructional videos that show how to use your product. By submitting this content to various distribution sites (youtube, prweb, etc.) you can get them indexed and showing up on search results.

Don't wait until it's too late. Start managing your online reputation today. Begin by proactively soliciting feedback from your customers and asking those with positive experiences to leave comments on your forum, blog, or popular review sites. In addition, work to replace negative comments with positive online assets like social media profiles and more. Just apply basic optimization techniques and watch your reputation sore.

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Sunday, July 04, 2010

Internet Marketing For Free: Are You Kidding Me?

Sunday, July 04, 2010




This past week I met up with a good friend of mine who owns his own Internet marketing business.  We started talking about our client list and he told me a story about a particular client that we getting Internet marketing for free.  When I asked him exactly what he meant by that, he told me that the kind of marketing he was getting was all local and driving a significant amount of traffic to his Web site and retail store.

How was he generating traffic at no cost?  The answer was simple.  Google Places.  If you don't have your business listed on Google Places, you're missing out.  Not only is Google Places appropriate for local retailers, but anyone doing business today.  Even if you are an online business, by identifying your location and getting a listing in Google Places, you can benefit from improved search engine rankings and additional exposure when prospects are searching for your services.

The best way to get started with Google Places is by visiting http://www.google.com/localadd/businessCenter
and "Add New Business".  What's great about the submission process is that Google makes it easy.  Simply follow the steps for entering your business and be sure to optimize your business description.  I suggest taking the time to complete the time to thoroughly complete all of the information provided including hours of operation, regardless of business type.

Once you've submitted your listing, Google will send you (in the mail) a letter with a special code that is used to confirm your listing.  After you revisit your online account and complete the confirmation process with your special code, your listing will appear within a few days.  In addition to information regarding your actual location, Google takes other factors into consideration before posting appropriate search results for those in a given area.  The next step is getting your customers to submit online reviews.

One of the best methods for obtaining reviews, which can improve your listing and search rankings, is by asking.  That's right... you need to ask if you want reviews.  I know many companies are reluctant to ask for reviews but in my mind, reviews are only positive.  If the review itself has a negative tone, then you know who you need to reach out to, how your service can be improved, and how to enhance your overall business.

If your company or web site is not taking advantage of Google Places, then get started today.  It takes just a few minutes and can pay huge dividends.  Just like my friend told me, a number of businesses who take the time to leverage Google Places are getting business for free.  Their web site and company name come up again and again, building brand awareness and generating qualified leads.


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