What if there was a system that could help you develop a continuous stream of solid referrals and all you had to do is set it up one time, add contacts as you receive them and few clicks of the mouse start your referral building process?
Continue Reading Add comment October 30th, 2008
Excerpt from Promoting Your Business on the WEB Special Report.
Develop Linking Strategies. They include the use of Reciprocal Links. Find complementary websites and request a reciprocal link to your site. Although I do all link requests manually there are a couple of automated link building software programs I recommend you check out are Zeus (fee-based) and Auto Link Exchanger (free).
Be sure to only link to complementary sites, no matter how many requests you receive to exchange links. Be careful not to link with those that have absolutely nothing to do with your audience or market – they could do you absolutely no good unless they have tons of traffic and are considered a highly trusted source for referrals.
The best link partners include those that serve your audience or an audience closely related. Make it desirable to a potential link partner by offering something her clients or customers wants or needs. Adobe software is a perfect example. They offer a Free PDF reader for those documents we create and read online. This FREE program is just one of the reasons Adobe is one of the top 500 websites in the world (according to Alexa.com)
Get a FREE copy of the 8-page Special Report Promoting Your Business on the WEB TODAY!
1 comment August 30th, 2008
“Communities can extend the edge of the corporation in truly transformative ways — tapping into new talent, helping design products and services, providing customer support and, most importantly, building the brand with the customer.” Ed Moran
What if your website could be THE place where people connect online? Where they could meet one another, exchange ideas and leads, keep up with current trends, learn about new opportunities and develop relationships?
I’m not talking the traditional Social Networking Sites that are made exclusively for meeting, mingling and networking. Not another Facebook, Myspace or LinkedIn. Although that is not a bad idea ~ and a topic for another post.
I am talking about a website that sells something and offers their visitors a place to share ideas and discuss items of interest to them along the theme of what you are selling. Add a forum to your website to increase your prospects! Forums can generate traffic, provide valuable customer feedback and build loyalty to the brand. Forums can give your customers a voice, a place to express their opinions about the product.
But online forums are not for everyone. It all depends on what you sell and if the product has enough diversity to lend itself to forum topics that would interest enough customers/clients to make the effort worthwhile. Lawn and Garden sites, Network marketing companies, sports fans and sites that sell products for pets are likely highly successful because the visitors have a PASSION for the product or the topic. If you sell detergent or mailboxes or office supplies your site might not be the ideal site to create a community forum. In my opinion a blog might be a more ideal option, a place where you can share your expertise with your customers about how to use the products as well as place to offer advice on ancillary topics that would interest them. Also another topic for discussion.
So why have an online forum for your business site? According to Bobybuilding.com CEO Ryan DeLuca “It’s about becoming the place where people come to talk and learn and meet.”
Consulting companies like the David Allen Company have a growing number of followers and active participants to their forums. According to their site, they have 10,761 Members. And their forum activity looks robust. Why? I am sure it’s because the topics are things their visitors are interested in learning more about or sharing.
I also found GAMING sites with active forums. Sites like GameReplays.org have forums that allow their fans to discuss the Company of Heros game at http://www.gamereplays.org/community/-CoH-Section.html. According to their site they have 90,736 registered members.
And then there’s sites like Bodybuilding.com which espouses more than 1.1 million users!
The drawbacks to forums are many. And you should be aware of them as well. Spam is perhaps the biggest issue. People posting stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. I was on a forum the other day about how to turn an audio file into a podcast and one of the forum “members” posted the following: “I am searching for a partner to walk around the globe in support of our troups.” Well that may be a worthwhile post but had absolutely nothing to do with the topic. Of course everyone just ignored the poster. But I still find that sort of thing annoying and rude.
Other drawbacks include the cost of implementing a forum, the costs to monitor the forums, lack of participation, inappropriate participation and staying on topic (even for those who know and follow the rules this can sometimes be a challenge), marketing the forums so your target audience knows its available and also really expressing the benefits of participating so people want to be there. And let’s not forget the negative feedback that could occur from a dissatisfied customer. Too many of these can do more harm than good and be the downfall of a company. But then again, what’s wrong with that? If the company sells an inferior product then perhaps it shouldn’t be allowed to sell to unsuspecting buyers!
Building online forums is relatively inexpensive. If you’d like to try a do-it-yourself platform, try the Forum Co where you can set up a free forum at http://www.forumco.com/. vBulletin http://www.vbulletin.com/ is a professional, affordable community forum solution which according to their site has “Thousands of clients, including many industry leading blue chip companies, have chosen vBulletin - It’s the ideal choice for any size of community Or just ask your webmaster or webmistress to design it for you.”
The Wall Street Journal wrote a great article “Why Most Online Communities Fail. According to the article Ed Moran, a Deloitte consultant who just completed a study of more than 100 businesses with online communities said: “Not surprisingly, these sites failed to gain traction with customers. Thirty-five percent of the online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members … The article said one of the reasons for failure was that “Businesses are focusing on the value an online community can provide to themselves, not the community.” You can read the rest of the article here: http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/07/16/why-most-online-communities-fail/
Before you do consider adding a forum, think about your goals for the forum. What is the aim or purpose of the forum? What do you want your forum to look like? Who would you like to participate? How will you market the forum? And the big question: WHY? Why do you want a forum in the first place?
Forums are one of the original social networking platforms for building communities online. Once you have done your due dilligent, answered the questons above and studied your target audience for receptivity, you will be able to make a better decision about marketing your online business with a forum. Your forum can help you build word of mouth referrals for your small business, help you develop and perfect your brand, your business operations and your business offerings and more than that you will be able to help your targe market have, do or be better at something.
2 comments August 25th, 2008
Sometimes we do such a good job marketing our companies to new people we forget that we already have a built-in audience of former clients who for one reason or another don’t need our services right now. Don’t let that stop you from reconnecting with them and asking them for business ~ either directly or indirectly.
Here are 5 Tips to Get Business from Former Clients
1. One of the best ways you can get former clients to refer you is to offer your services to them for free. You could take 3 or 4 of your top former colleagues (the ones you feel have the best potential to refer you to your target audience). This is how many coaches build a client base and I personally have found it to be one of the most successful ways for me.
2. Ask them to write a letter of recommendation. You did a good job for them, now let them tell others.
3. Educate them. Tell them who your ideal client is so they will be on the lookout for you.
4. Stay in touch with them. Drop them notes, postcards, call to say HI – the most important thing is to stay on “top of mind” with them so if and when the opportunity to refer you presents itself, you will be the only person they think of.
5. Start gathering testimonials of everyone whom you have worked with. These will come in handy for getting new clients and referrals. People feel more comfortable refering people when they perceive they are already successful. You may not yet have the ideal number of clients, however you are already successful. SHOW IT!
Add comment August 13th, 2008
Last week on HER Mastermind Network Dr. Leah Jackman-Wheitner, Ph.D. posted some thought-provoking questions to the group. The responses were interesting and helpful so I thought I’d post my responses here.
Q1. “What do you do to market when holding your head above the water is your primary goal?”
I think that if people are experiencing the negative impacts of the economy as far as their businesses are concerned then “holding your head above water” seems fitting. The most important thing to remember is to ALWAYS BE MARKETING ~ it is the #1 way to recession-proof your business. And #2 is something I was recently reminded of and that is when a marketing program is working well… keep doing it. I for one, will start something, see it through to a certain point and when I get bored with it will stop doing it. Our customers and clients EXPECT us to keep our name in front of them. When we don’t, they often forget about us and go elsewhere.
When times are tough I tend to get more involved locally to reaquaint others with my products and services. I give away samples and I offer incentives (not discounts per se). In February we created the Daisy Dollars program to reward customers who refer others to us. So far, we have invested about 3 hours coming up with and promoting the program and have seen at least a 10% increase in referrals since it’s implementation. And, we have sent the “Daisy Dollars™” to the referring parties and only one out of about 20 have redeemed them so far ($50 worth).
Note: Did you know that only about 5% of all discount offers, gift certificates ever get redeemed? I’m not sure that is good, because that may mean they are not coming back to you ~ so my next suggestion would be that if you keep track of who you send them to, then make it a part of your program to remind your clients of their incentive and ask them if they would like to redeem them? Since people forget they have them, they appreciate the reminder and you see an increase in business ~ and more importantly Referrals!
Q2. How do you pick and choose your marketing and networking commitments when time and energy are tight?
I choose those that have worked in the past as well as find fun new programs to showcase our products (see above answer). When time and energy are tight, it is just as important to market as not. If you are busy because of all your marketing efforts never think that it will last forever. Marketing is an ongoing effort. When times are good some people slack off on marketing and then wonder what happened when times get slow.
Q3. How do you know which activities are going to be best for you?
That is a tough question and the one marketers have asked since the beginning of time (or at least since there was something to be sold to someone who needed to buy…)
That’s why its so important to TEST the waters ~ if you are doubtful of the success of a program, test it on a small basis and see if it workings. If not, it gives you a chance to either modify the direction or plan or to drop it for something else. Before I do anything new I always run it by my mastermind group, my staff, a couple of friends I think will be impartial as well as my husband whom I consider my VOR (voice of reason). Sometimes I am so excited about a new program, I don’t fully analyze the cost versus benefits (ROI). Of course if it’s a very simple campaign that has a small financial investment to get off the ground such as the Daisy Dollars™ Program, I just run it by my staff.
You will read about some of the other contributions over the next few days.
Add comment July 28th, 2008
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