Creating an Online Marketing Plan

Written on November 10, 2011 by in Internet Marketing, Marketing

Whether you are just starting out our have had your business for awhile, having a clear marketing plan is essential to keeping you on track and focused on what you should be doing to attract clients.

Creating your marketing plan doesn’t need to be complicated.  Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself.

  • Where are you now?
  • Where are you going?
  • How are you going to get there?

Before you can truly make a plan on how to get there, you really need to take the time and answer where are you now and where are you going.

Where are you now should be a pretty easy answer.  Once you have got that figured out, it is time to figure out where you are going.  Focus on your goals.  Where do you want to be this time next year?  How many clients do you want to have?  How many products do you want to sell?  How much money do you want to make?

Be Specific.  Be Realistic.  Make a Time Frame.

Once you have a focus on where you are going, it is easier to figure out how you are going to get there.  There are many ways to market yourself both online and offline.  We are going to focus on creating a social networking marketing plan.

Social Networking is a great tool for building your business through knowledge, connections, awareness, building your brand, building credibility and creating joint ventures.

1.  What are your Social Networking Goals?

  • Prospecting
  • Customers
  • Joint Venture Partnerships
  • Increase Awareness
  • Increases Credibility
  • Connect with Experts in your Industry
  • Drive Website or Blog Traffic

2.  Who is your target audience?

It’s important to be clear on this before you begin, so that you choose sites that are right for your business and your goals.

3.  What do you have to offer your audience?

What information are you going to offer and how are you going to participate?  Are you going to link to blog posts?  Post tips and information?  Post quotes?

4.  What social networking sites cater to your audience?

This step will involve some research and time, but is important to choose sites that your target market are going to be at.

5.  How often are you going to post/participate?

Create a realistic plan for posting and participating in your chosen social networking sites and schedule it into your day/week/month just like you would an in person networking event.

6.  How are you going to test and track your social networking efforts?

It is important to test and track your efforts.  This can be accomplished by sending followers to test pages, installing analytics on your sites so you know where people are coming from and by creating promotion and posts specifically for your social networking associates.

7.  Cross Promotion

It is important to cross promote your social networking efforts offline as well as promote your website, blog, etc.  Think about installing a banner on your website or blog that links them to your social networking sites, etc.

The key to any marketing plan is to have a clear goals and a map on how you are going to get there.  Remember when posting on social networking sites to be authentic, provide value and have fun.  You are your brand and social networking is a fabulous way to share it with the world.

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Does Your Website Need Some Love?

Written on October 28, 2011 by in Website and Blog Design

Websites, like any marketing materials and business processes, needs to keep up with the times. Whether that means tweaking your website from time to time to keep it up to date or completely redoing it, it’s a decision that can only be made by you. Here are some questions to help you decide if it’s time.

1. When was the last time you updated your website design or functionality? If it’s been more than a year since you’ve done anything to your website other than add content, then it’s probably time to at least give your website a few touch-ups.

2. Does your website design still accurately reflect your company personality, brand, vision and mission? Businesses change and grow and you can easily outgrow your website design. If it no longer represents who you are and where you’re going as a business, it’s time for a makeover… aka website love.

3. Is your website able to accomplish all that you need it to accomplish? Old platforms may not be able to handle all of the functions and features you’d like to offer your audience. For example, maybe you want to be able to offer a paid membership option.

4. Have you rebranded your business? If you’ve rebranded your business then your website most certainly needs an update.

5. Is your website poised to handle the future? If your website already has a retro look and feel, it may not be ready for what the future has in store. A touch-up now may prevent you from having to do a complete overhaul in the near future.

What you can do to give your website some love…

Design. When people think of makeover this is what often comes to mind and yes, you can change or update your colors, design, layout, logo, and graphics to give your website a fresh look and feel.

Search engine optimization. Hopefully you’ve been updating your keywords and SEO tactics as your business grows and your audience changes. This is more of a behind-the-scenes makeover and can be handled by a SEO professional/website designer,  by you or an educated assistant.

Upgrade or fix the navigation. Navigation, or how your users are able to get around on your website, is essential to them staying on your site and revisiting it. If things are difficult to find, you can bet impatient website visitors will not stay. Navigation is an important function and is a good way to update your website.

Functions and features. Today’s prospect likes to interact online and that means offering web 2.0 features and functions.  Most often this doesn’t require a complete overhaul but rather adding some user-friendly items to an already existing site.

To stay competitive, it’s important to assess your website on a regular basis. Every six months to a year is a good idea to keep things fresh, innovative and interesting to your audience.

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5 Must Have’s for your Website

Written on October 20, 2011 by in Marketing, Website and Blog Design

Are you utilizing your website to it’s best ability? Remember that your website is an investment and it is supposed to do much more than just look pretty! Make sure it is working for you and making it easy for you to attract and engage your clients. Check out these 5 Must Have’s for your website… oh and bye the way… I have a special offer at the end, so make sure to watch it!

Leave a comment below and let us know what you think of the tips… or share your favorite tip!

Smiles,
Amy D

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Attract More Clients by Creating Emotional Triggers through Copy

Written on May 23, 2011 by in Internet Marketing

Sales copy has a single purpose, to motivate the reader to take action. That action could be to make a purchase, or it may also be to motivate an inquiry, to inspire a click-through or to generate a subscriber. Regardless of the ultimate goal, using emotions to motivate action is a great way to increase your conversion rate.

We buy for emotional reasons, plain and simple. We justify our purchase based on logic but the initial purchase is always triggered by emotions. We want to feel better, look better, be more respected, and a whole host of needs and desires. It’s your job when you’re writing your sales copy to tap into these needs and desires with emotional copy.

1.  Position emotion in the problem. What is your prospect’s problem, the one your product solves? Write down a list of problems your prospect is having and see how you can inject emotion into the problem.

For example, “Frustrated that your business isn’t making as much money as you want it to?” “Overwhelmed by technology and looking for a simple solution to make more sales?”

Frustrated and overwhelmed are emotional words.

2.  Position emotion in the possibility you present. For example, “How would you feel if your business were meeting or exceeding your profit goals?” “Imagine how easy your life would be if all you needed was one simple tool to increase sales by 10%.”

3.  Use emotional words in your body copy. For example:

  • Afraid
  • Overwhelmed
  • Hopeless
  • Triumphant
  • Young
  • Sexy
  • Love
  • Satisfying
  • Secrets
  • Trailblazing
  • Urgent
  • Exciting
  • Lucky

 

4.  Understand the difference between rational words and emotional words. There’s actually a really useful tool available online. Simply search for “Paul Galloway Emotional words”. You’ll find a tool that lets you plug in your sales page and it will show you where you can replace rational words with more emotional words. Don’t just take the tool at its word, however, test and track the changes to see if your conversion rate increases.

5.  Make sure your headline, promise and your call to action are also tapping into emotions. Urgency, big promises and other headlines or call to action tactics usually embrace the power of emotional words. For example, if you say “Buy now before the last copy is gone,” you’re tapping into the fear of emotion. People will be afraid they’re not going to have access to a copy of your book and will click through to make a purchase now, which is what you want.

Remember when you’re writing your sales copy that we buy for emotional reasons. What emotions is your reader or prospect feeling? What emotions do they want to feel? How can you use emotion to make them purchase? Consider the emotions you have when you make a purchase and then put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Great sales copy speaks to these emotions to make it happen.

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Why Does Your Business Need a Facebook Business Page?

Written on May 16, 2011 by in Internet Marketing, Social Media

Why Does Your Business Need a Facebook Business Page?

A Facebook business page is more than just another way to connect with prospects and customers online. Your Facebook business page can:

  • Drive more traffic to your website
  • Build your email list
  • Sell more products/services
  • Announce special offers and promotions
  • Announce events
  • Share news
  • Provide value to your prospects and customers
  • Share photos and videos
  • Get feedback from clients and prospects
  • Improve your relationships with your prospects and customers
  • Improve SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Additionally:

  • Facebook fan pages are public
  • You can communicate directly with your “fans”.
  • When a person joins your fan page, it’s published in their News feed – this gives a viral quality to your fan page.
  • You have access to more than 500 million active users who log onto Facebook regularly and spend an average of 55 minutes per day on the site.
  • Facebook is now the 2nd most visited site in the world after Google
  • And Facebook fan pages are free!

Plain and simple, Facebook offers a huge potential to brand, profit, and grow your business.  If your not sure where to start or it is just one more thing to add to your list, consider using a facebook manager.  Using facebook for business marketing is a great strategy and a facebook manager can help support you and your facebook page for business.

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Simple Design Tips for your Website or Blog

Written on May 9, 2011 by in Blogging, Website and Blog Design

Ready to jump into the Web 2.0 world? Whether you are just starting out fresh or you have a basic brochure site that you would like to update to the current century… the options are endless. It can be overwhelming when getting going on a new website or blog.

Here are a few things to think about when building your website or blog:

1. Keep it Simple

Design on the internet needs to be easy on the eye, user friendly and make sense to the average user. Never assume your customers will be as web savvy as you – many may just be familiarizing themselves with online surfing while others may simply have come to expect traditional navigation on a website.

Simplicity always rules on the net. Let your website stand out by making it easy for the visitor to find what they’re looking for, and most importantly by providing great value and content within your site. Then simply follow a few basic good design rules and you’re set to go. Here are the most important rules to follow:

• Don’t use color for the background. Keep the background of your website or blog white. In some instance a light color will work but avoid dark colors. Black can be especially difficult on the eyes. When in doubt, go with a white background and black text.

• Don’t use too many graphics or flash images. Flash images can make a website slow to load and be downright annoying in some cases. Use images sparingly and make sure you use Alt tags in your images to make them search engine friendly. A few well-placed girly graphics can make a good impression and add to the actual content of the website – graphics should always enhance your text, not take away from it.

• Don’t use music or audio without controls. An audio welcome can be a great addition to your website but always give visitors the option to click to hear the audio if they choose to. Otherwise, you may startle or annoy your customers when they suddenly hear a message they weren’t expecting.

• Don’t use too many text colors. As with the background and design of a site, text color should be kept simple. At most use three colors within your site, preferably two – one for the standard text and one for headlines. This will make reading easy on the eye and look more professional. Using two colors also means that your headlines will stand out to the reader and draw them into the text.

• Break it up. Text can be very difficult to read online. Make it easy on your visitors’ eyes by breaking up the text into small, manageable sentences. It also helps to add bullet points and sub-headlines throughout the text as many readers on the net skim pages rather than absorb them in full.

2. Don’t Forget the Content

Good girly website design is important but great content can make all the difference to your internet success. The best approach is to gel good girly website design with stellar content and you’ll have a sure winner on your hands.

Always give a little more than other websites and keep your content fresh and up-to-date. Add interesting stories, articles, downloads, videos and information that will help your visitors achieve their goals.

3. Don’t Avoid Feedback

Feedback – good or bad – is important to your business. Ask visitors to fill in a poll, reply to your newsletter or give them feedback in general. Use this feedback to improve your site further and to help your visitors achieve their goals. This will pay off nicely for you too in the long run.

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The Benefits of Utilizing a Savvy Girly Website Designer

Written on April 20, 2011 by in Blogging, Internet Marketing, Services and Products, Website and Blog Design

Ever wonder how web designers can stay in business? With hosting companies offering easy to customize website templates and WordPress being so very easy to use and customize, how is it that there is any work for a web designer? It is really quite simple, savvy, girly, website designers offer a number of “extras” you just can’t get on your own.

In today’s market, savvy, girly website designers know that offering benefits to potential customers is the key to finding work. In today’s marketplace, a web designer often offers many other services besides website design.  Often then can provide a list of services including:

SEO Services - Many web designers are also knowledgeable about search engine optimization. This can be extremely helpful if you’re building an online presence or internet business. Clients can count on them to not only design their website with their audience in mind but also to take those important initial steps to optimize it for the search engines. A web designer can become more of a consultant than just a service provider.

Graphic Design – Being able to go to one location for a website design that includes a logo, a custom header, and other graphic elements makes building an online presence or internet business a breeze.

Social Media – Many web designers can also help kick off your social media branding and get set with a strategy that can help build your online presence or internet business.

Connections - When someone needs a website designed and created they also often need a host of other services including writers, administrative help and so on. A website designer who can offer a list of resources and providers they’ve worked with and can recommend is a great help to a new or experienced business owner.

Speed and Experience – While creating a website may be something many people can handle on their own, the truth of the matter is that speed and experience are a great asset and worth paying for. People are busy and don’t have the time to wade through the experience of building their own website. The learning curve may be steep for them or they just may want to spend their time on things they do well. It’s why most of us don’t change the oil in our cars or even tend to our own lawns. It’s not difficult, it’s just that there are other things we’d rather do and it’s worth it to pay for the expertise.

Additionally, while many people can create their own website, they may doubt their skills and ability to do so. Being able to pay a professional takes the pressure off them. They can rest easy knowing their website will be the best it can be.

When searching for your website designer that specializes in girly, boutique or hip websites, look for someone who can offer a few extra services.  Working with a designer who can be a consultant to you, rather than just a service provider will make it easy for you to sit back and relax.

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How to Find Blogs that Need Guests Posts

Written on April 15, 2011 by in Blogging, Internet Marketing

Don’t waste time on blogs that are not active. If the last post was written a year ago, and there are exactly two comments for the last six months (both by the owner’s mother) it’s going to be more pain than gain. Furthermore, it’s a sure sign the owner may just be too busy (or too disorganized) to promote it.

Not only should regular posts be a hallmark of the blog you’re considering, but it should have character and be an entity unto itself. (One you’re in sync with, and enjoy.)

That’s the easy part. How do you find out if a blog needs a guest poster?

Many will let you know they need guests.

They’ll have a spot in plain sight (often the sidebar) letting you know that guest bloggers are welcome and telling you how to apply.

The best ones also will often have a section with clear guidelines about whether or not:

• Photos are allowed
• Bylines, resource boxes or bio clips are encouraged
• Linking is permitted

They will often also state clearly:

• What topics and types of posts they are looking for
• What article length is preferred
• Guidelines for style

But don’t sit there meekly waiting for your favorite blog to follow this formula. You may have to be assertive and proactive about putting the idea in the owner’s head. In that case, it’s up to you to point out to the owner that you’re the solution to her problem!

Here are your clues that a blog may be ripe for a guest writer. The blog owner is talking up:

1. Going on that cruise to Alaska next month
2. Heading off to an upcoming industry conference
3. Complaining about being overwhelmed with projects
4. Talking about their upcoming surgery
5. Talking about the impending birth of baby number three

In other words, get into the habit of following likely blogs and looking for opportunities – and clues.

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Hibernating is a Good Thing

Written on April 13, 2011 by in Productivity Tools

Sometimes… we just need to hibernate.  As entrepreneurs we are blessed with the constant flow of creative ideas.  We can constantly be in a state of excitement and full force kick-azz mode because we literally can’t wait to jump onto the next project, idea, e-book or whatever it might be. 

As wonderful as this is… it can also be a complete and utter detriment.

The reality of it is, if we spend too much time wrapped up in creation mode… it almost keeps us trapped in creation mode.  Make sense?  Because we are always creating… we are never really fully implementing.

Ultimately, I think creation mode can even end you up in burn-out mode.  Have you ever been there?

So, when I say hibernating is a good thing… It is a really good and yummy thing.  You know the saying that we need to take time to smell the flowers?  This applies to our business too!  We need to take time to slow down, reflect, acknowledge our accomplishments and give ourselves a chance to physically catch up to our constant flow of ideas.

One of my favorite things… a notebook!  Or better yet… my Girlfriend’s Biz Planner.  I carry this everywhere I go!  EVERYWHERE!  That way I can jot down my ideas as I go and when I have time to start implementing something new, I can go through my ideas and pick out something that feels like the best fit for that time.

I am excited to be coming back out of hibernation.  My hibernation was induced by both over stimulation of ideas, not enough “me’s” to implement them, and a drastic personal change in my world. 

I am happy to say with a big SMILE… Hello World J  Spring is an amazing time to step out, step up and bloom just like the rest of the universe is doing!  Can you feel the energy?

Looking forward to sharing some of the fun things I have been playing with as I have been hibernating over the past few months.  One thing you can check out now… is my new branding for the website www.girlfriendsbizassistant.com and new slogan… “Helping You and Your Biz Shine Online”!  I love the new look and feel.  What do you think?  Would love to hear your feedback!

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Why Guest Blogging is a Strong Marketing Strategy You Shouldn’t Ignore

Written on April 12, 2011 by in Blogging, Internet Marketing

As an online entrepreneur, you’re used to thinking of as many different strategies as possible to promote your presence on the web and increase your traffic and subscriber list.  One strategy often overlooked, however, is guest blogging:  Yet those who have tried it agree that it can quantum-leap your prominence and popularity within your niche very quickly, bringing rewards all round. 

As with most strategies, there is a wrong way and a right way to do things.  Simply knowing a few key conventions and principles and following a simple action plan, can turn modest benefits into huge ones with speedy, far-reaching impact on your career.

If you approach guest blogging intelligently, with even the barest minimum of preparation, becoming a guest blogger can provide an increase in:

  • Social proof of your expert status
  • Awareness from important authority figures
  • Emotional connection and engagement
  • Inbound links to your own blog
  • Joint Venture opportunities
  • Fresh traffic
  • Visibility

 

What guest blogging does for you:

  • Allows you to provide value to your online community
  • Encourages others to promote you and your guest posts
  • Allows you to get to know other key players in your niche
  • Build a strong networking base
  • Share information
  • Let people get to know you
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