A few weeks ago I had the chance to listen in on a seminar hosted by Shannon Cherry and Ready Talk. It was about increasing event attendance to Teleseminars and Webinars. And I just came across my notes and thought I’d share them with you.
1. Find your voice – Shannon said it is important to know what it is you want to accomplish with the event. Will the event position you as an expert at something? Will it add value to your audience? Will hosting it add to your database or bottom line (or both)? Do you know what you want to say? Who is webinar for? (Demographics)
2. Develop Key Messages ~ Attract more prospects. get more attendees. Make more money, become the expert in your field
3. Use marketing tools available such as press releases.
A. There are basically 3 types of press releases: 1) the basic announcement 2) a tips release with bullets and ideas to reinforce the event and 3) the bonus offered for sign up release.
She said to post on all release distribution sites and traditional media every 2.5 to 3 weeks 10 weeks prior. Some of the sites she recommended include: Theopenpress, pr buzz, prcompass, prurgent, press-base, pressabout, pressmethod, prleap, prlog.org,
B. Email campaigns - Event listings, feature write ups, articles on topic that link to event – 9 weeks prior
Also solo listings to announce event, benefits of event and a last call (Shannon said solo listings are much better than ezines etc.)
C. Joint Venture Opps – Find others with similar traffic market and ask if they will promote to their list ~ if event has a fee, have affiliate commission, if not offer to help promote their stuff as well
D. Write 3 articles on topics webinar covers ~ ezinearticles.com, amazines.com, ideamarketers.com, goarticles.com starting 8 weeks out – send out one per week.
E. Blogging ~ tweak content to make original, create six new pieces of content to post to blog 6 weeks out one per week
F. Social media ~ every time you post on your blog send a brief chatty post (headline) using ping.fm to post to all social media sites at once ~ go to startupspark.com – get code for free there
Go to www.beheardsolutions.com/ReadyTalkwebinar.htm for checklists and timeline
OTHER TIPS:
Put contact at bottom of release, not at top! News should be more important than you!
After registration: Send confirmation email thank you for registering, with details to attend ~ also the day before send a reminder follow up.
Post your event to Craig’s list.
How do we make money with free teleseminars? You can now market to list, they can sign up for your newsletter ~ they are now in the marketing funnel and will start getting your stuff…
CAUTION: Only send emails that would add value to your recipient. Otherwise you will be thought of as a spammer and folks will ask to be removed from your list. Be careful to respect their time and above all their privacy. Even when I get the registrant into my “funnel” they may only hear from me once every 3 to four months unless of course they sign up for one of my offerings and then it will depend on how often that system sends information and offers to the list.
BTW, on November 7th I interviewed Eddie Peters of 4Profit Marketing about this very subject. He gave some great tips and also made an incredible offer to our guests. He has a Marketing system worth over $1,200 and he offered it to anyone who signed up for his session for only $99. If you want to learn more, send me an email to heidi (at) redheadmarketingblog.com. I will pass on the details.
Also, on December 4th I will be speaking at the International Association of Hispanic Meeting Professionals on “How to Leverage Social Networking to Grow Your Business.” If you live in or will be in San Diego at that time, you can register for this event. It takes place Dec. 3-6th. Here’s the link: http://www.iahmp.org/iahmp_folder/annu_conference/iahmp_annual_conference.htm
Hope to see you there!
November 19th, 2008
If you have a website (of course you do) then you may have already experienced the power of digital coupons to drive business to your site and even to your brick and mortar locale.
Even if you don’t have a website, chances are good that you have downloaded a digital coupon once or twice, or dozens of times if you are my daughters. In fact, when my girls have to go shopping for anything that costs more than $10 they first go online to see what coupons are available. When they eat out, they look to their favorite restaurants for coupons offers. They check out the shoe store, the technology stores, department stores, specialty stores and more. They never leave home without at least a handful of coupons to use on their shopping “sprees.”
According to a marketing research study conducted by ICOM Research, coupon redemption rates rise when prices and unemployment go up. Knowing that and the fact that 67 percent of US shoppers say they are more likely to use coupons during a recession, it may just make sense to have a coupon program in place on your website.
The study goes on to say that digital coupons tend to have a much higher usage rate than traditional paper coupons. It sited that 58% of consumers responding said their coupon use would increse if they could download it from the internet to an electronically swiped frequent shopper card.
My newly designed retail website ~ Eden Florist ~ has a mechanism in place when anyone becomes a new customer they get a coupon as a thank you. They can use the coupon on their current purchase online or at a later date.
And lets not forget mobile coupons that you can download to you mobile device. Hundreds of merchants around the globe are already offering these to their clients and customers. Mobile coupons are a great way to gain new customers, offer specials to current customers, and grow your existing database. Mobile coupons are also a great way to reach prospects because they have instant access to them and don’t have to download or cut out coupons. They just carry them around on their cell phone or PDA to use when they need them.
Coupons also make a good incentive to purchase early and avoid the rush. What kind of coupon could you offer your customers to encourage them to buy now instead of later? Digital coupons can make sense to small business especially with the high costs of being in business, doing business and living today.
Here’s a couple of sites with digital coupons offered by hundreds/thousands of merchants around the country: DealWorker.com and RetailMeNot. Check them out for ideas and of course to save money!
November 17th, 2008
According to Urban Dictionary, shopportunity is a golden opportunity for shopping. When the opportunity for shopping arises at the same time as you find a parking space in front of the store and you have plenty of cash.
Check out the new book Shopportunity: How to be a Retail Revolutionary by Kate Newlin.
Here’s an excerpt from the back cover:
“Shopportunity: Instead of listening to customers and creating the goods and services they ask for, manufcturers and retailers have completely blundered. Customers shop in short staffed stores and buy inferior quality goods. Clerks are constantly overworked and underpaid, if not outright exploited. Shopping used to be fun.
In Shopportunity, Newlin looks behind the aisles of our best known retailers to demonstrate how what we find on the shelf falls far short of the promise of a brand. ”
Get a free download excerpt of Shopportunity at http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/eBookDetails.asp?BookID=59453
November 16th, 2008
On one of the social networks to which I belong, the question was asked:
Do you or does anyone else use or have recommendations for other affiliate programs? And if you offer affiliate commissions on your products and services I would love to know about your programs as well.
Here’s my reply:
What a great topic and one I have been doing lots of research on. I am most interested in good affiliate programs that are highly respected and have a decent payoff (at least 15% commission) because if I am going to market the product or service to my list, it needs to bring in a good ROE ~ return on effort.
I love Linkshare and Commission Junction for finding good programs to sign up for. For small business owners however, sometimes this is challenge as they have certain criteria such as number of hits, etc. So even though there are really good programs to sign up for, sometimes the companies that offer affiliate programs don’t approve the companies because they don’t meet the minimum standards they have established.
The other thing is that the programs you promote need to make sense to your audience. I just interviewed Tom Antion ~ The Internet Marketing Multi-Millionaire and he had a lot to say about affiliate programs. He told my listeners that he makes between 70,000 to 200,000 month after month from those affiliate products he offers that other people market for him on their sites. That means the products he sells have a built-in audience of interested buyers.
I used to be an affiliate for AMAZON but have never made any money with them so joined the Barnes and Noble program. We are making a small commission with them. If you refer books to your audience, I highly recommend you join Borders, Barnes and Noble, Alibris or another good online bookstore (if you know of any) to send your readers to.
I just launched an ebook called “Your Step by Step Guide to Making Money Online” and there are literally dozens of quality affiliate programs listed in the book.
BTW, if you click on any of the links I mentioned above, you will notice we are affiliates of those programs and if you buy something would make a small commission. Of course, we don’t make any money unless you buy something. But it is good to show the programs our click-through rates. So please do click through and check them out.
To your success… and then some,
Heidi
November 15th, 2008
The classic, Selling to Big Companies by Jill Konrath was selected by Fortune Magazine as a “must read” in their October issue. You can get a copy of Selling to Big Companies at Amazon.com.
Jill’s book is filled with great ideas for how to sell to large companies. And in today’s challenging sales environment, this is a book whose time has come.
You can get a preview of the book by downloading the first two chapters at Jill’s website at http://www.sellingtobigcompanies.com/content_display.jsp?top=8497&mid=8925
November 14th, 2008
Excerpt from Promoting Your Business on the WEB Special Report.
Cross Promote - Share costs and prospect lists with a complementary, non-competing business. For instance, if you are a realtor, you could share the cost of a direct-mail postcard with a mortgage or title company. Or put links to a complementary business site on your Web site, and ask the other business to do the same. For example, if you send out brochures, both partners could include a brochure and/or business card of the other’s business. Nothing is more powerful that a recommendation from a trusted source and if your cross-promotion partner has customers or clients, chances are they trust her or him and will listen when a suggestion to use another company is presented. When you cross-promote with another business you have the opportunity to reach a whole new circle of potential customers. Some of the companies you could consider include to collaborate with a well-known company, competitors (not in your area, but in the same industry that serve a different market) and nonprofits you support.
Cross promoting or partnering reduces a small business marketing and promotion costs and also opens the door to implement techniques you could not previously consider because of the expense of doing so. Read It Takes Two - How to Cultivate Profitable, Strategic Alliances To Increase Your Market Share for more tips on how to find Cross-promotion partners to serve your target niche.
Want more ideas to promote your business on the WEB? Get a FREE copy of the 8-page Special Report Promoting Your Business on the WEB TODAY!
November 13th, 2008
Last week Heidi Caswell of Connect Simply, and yours truly Heidi Richards Mooney did a teleseminar on follow up strategies in business.
Remember when you were young and started making friends or dating, you knew instinctively that if someone didn’t “make a move” you’d probably loose the opportunity to get to know that person better. And yet, when it comes to business we may understand the importance of “making a move” (follow up) but many times we simply don’t do it. In this session we talked about that and more.
Here are jsut a few of the ideas Heidi and I shared:
Follow up strategies, what works and what doesn’t
Why “high touch” marketing is so important especially today
When you should follow up with someone
One great strategy that always works ~ that strategy is greeting cards and postcards (I’ll write more later about how I am using it to promote all 3 of my businesses)
Stories of business owners who used that one strategy to really grow their business
And other great tips.
In fact, we are sharing this audio with the readers of Redhead Marketing Blog. Go here and grab your copy: www.redheadmarketingblog.com/audio/FollowUpDivas.mp3.
You can contact Heidi Caswell at www.ConnectSimply.com. Feel free to drop me a line at heidi (at) redheadmarketing.com if you’d like us to give you a personal tour of our Greeting Cards System.
November 12th, 2008
Florists Review Interviews the Chief Goddess!
Several weeks ago Glynnis Wright a journalist with Florists Review Magazine called me for a brief interview about how we market our gift baskets.
Funny, I had not thought about what we would be doing this year until she called. Talk about perfect timing! So I told her what we have done in the past and what we planned to do this year.
We use email marketing a lot. We send an email special to our customers at least once a month. To market the gift baskets we will take a few photos, put them into an html email message with links to the product sales page and a teaser message about ordering gift baskets for the holidays.
In the past we have also created a brochure on CD to mail and pass out at networking events. The CD has a variety of our gift baskets along with tips and articles we feel our prospects and customers would be interested in. These might include the Meaning of Flowers, Top Ten Gifts to Give for the Holidays, 101 ways to Say Thank you and more. The reason we do our brochure on CD is that we think people are more likely to KEEP IT. A CD has a higher perceived value than a simple brochure and even if they hold onto it and don’t look at it for awhile, eventually they will. I know. I have received marketing CD’s from vendors and have a hard time throwing them away without first looking at them. And if I find information on the CD that I can refer to over and over I will keep it. We plan to do the same thing this year and add a few things to the CD.
Another way we promote our gift baskets is by giving companies a taste of our product. For instance, when a new company opens or joins the local chamber of commerce we might put together a small fruit basket (we call it our nibbler basket) with a note that says – we wanted to welcome you to the chamber and give you a “taste” of our products. It has worked extremely well to open more corporate accounts and close more sales. We do this year round and plan to ramp it up during the holiday season by also sending these to our best clients with a note reminding them we carry fruit and gourmet gift baskets for their gift-giving needs.
What do you plan to promote for the holiday season? How do you plan to promote your products? Leave a comment and let me know what you do in your business and I will send you a link to what we include in our Holiday CD!
November 11th, 2008
Virtual events are a great way to build a reputation, increase credibility and increase your own “circle of influence” in the marketplace. And there are dozens of ways to do so with little or no investment.
Continue Reading November 10th, 2008
November 10-17 is World Kindness Week - Citizens Bank wants to promote good intentions by partnering with its employees and customers to volunteer in their communities. They do so by inviting their customers to participate in “Join Us” a volunteer program they originally designed for their internal customers, their employees.According to the bank “Asking customers to volunteer – is a great way to align your company with a variety of worthwhile causes and boost your brand identity.”
Join Us uses the tagline “We’ve noticed working in the community hardly ever feels like work,” and is promoted on their website with a listing of local nonprofits and projects their customers can get involved in. The program has garnered Citizens over a million hits as well as media attention. Mudd Jeans does something similar highlighting the community commitments of extraordinary teens and MINI has used similar campaigns directed toward its passionately loyal customer base.
November 9th, 2008
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