Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I have found 14 things that most of my clients (professional speakers, consultants, and professional services firms) can turn to that will keep your e‐zines and blogs timely and fresh.

Here's the list for you - and please use the COMMENTS section below to add your own great ideas... 

1. How‐To Tips. Everybody loves to read “how to’s.” A very short pithy practical tip your reader can use that day. For example, say you were writing to employers interested in OSHA regulations. You may have an article like, 10 Tips You Can Use to Pass Your Safety Inspections.

2. Dialogue with the Reader, Soliciting Feedback and Participation. I love this; it works equally well for an ezine or blog. This allows two‐way communication with your reader. You get to build a real bond with your readers. Your readers can be your best source of material. Pose questions to your readers and promise to publish the answers. For example: In one of my e‐zines I asked my readers to tell me some of their success stories, involving giving out free information. I told them that if I used their information I would give them full credit in my e‐zine.

3. Tips from Friends and Colleagues. This gives you the opportunity to “be seen” as an unbiased source of information. I love to bring in experts covering all sorts of topics. Lets be honest: you and I don’t know everything. If you can bring in experts covering a wide range of topics you become a source of information that your reader can always look to. In one of my e‐zines my friend Paul Karasik gave a great networking tip from his new book “How to Market to High Net‐Worth Households”

4. Plugs for Friends and Clients’ books, e‐books, reports, products and services. Make extra money by creating affiliate relationships, or joint ventures. Becoming an affiliate for someone can be the easiest way to make money. All you do is promote their products for a commission. Alternatively, you can promote a friends product as a favor because you believe your readers would benefit from it. (I do this regularly with a lot of my NSA speaker buddies who offer excellent programs and products to the same target market that I serve. No money changes hands. Just love and referrals.) 

5. Reader Feedback and Contributions. This gives you a chance to create a buzz, controversy and argument. There have been times I have posted information, only to be inundated by readers telling me they agree, or disagree. Either way that is good. It means people are reading.

6. Upcoming Speaking Engagements, Seminars, and Tele‐conferences. If you do any public appearances, some of your readers will want to attend. This is your chance to let them know where you will be and what you will be doing. It is also a great way to meet some of your most loyal readers. Include links to Websites where the reader can register for the event. 

7. What I’ve Done Lately. Your readers will want to see what you have been working on; it is like reality TV. It gives them a sneak peak in to your life and lets prospective new clients see your work.

8. Recommended Vendors. Sometimes you come across a service provider that has helped you out, and you feel would be a godsend to your readers, why not return the favor and promote him in your e‐zine? A copywriter friend of mine recently had a problem with his computer, and a company called Rescue.com saved his bacon.  

9. Useful and Relevant Websites. While you are cruising the net, you may find a Website others don’t know about, that you find useful. Let the world know, get the word out. For example, this ezine marketing course may be exactly what you need to get your ezine marketing back on track!!

10. Mini Book Reviews. If you read a book that you feel may be valuable to your readers let them know, post a link to Amazon and make yourself a couple of bucks if they buy.

11. News Nuggets of Interest. Clip excerpts from industry trade journals that you believe may be relevant to your readers.

12. News About Your New Books. Let your readers know about any books you might be working on.

13. Plugs for Your Own Products. This is where you get a chance to plug your own products. You do not have to feel guilty about selling your products and professional services; your readers want to know what you have to offer. Look at it as a fair trade. You give your reader valuable information, and in return he rewards you by purchasing some of your products. It is totally win/win.

14. Quotations. Many people love to read quotes. A good quote can be inspirational. If you find one you like include it in your next issue.

That's it - so now you have no more excuses NOT to crank out terrific, value-rich ezines and blogs with a lot less effort than you thought.

Got more ideas? Share them in the COMMENTS area below.  

p.s. If you'd like some personalized help - and your very own customized email and phone outreach tools, social media scripts, a killer email signature file, a polished referral blurb and more, check out the Small Biz Outreach Action Packs.

Testimonials are among the most powerful marketing ammunition in your marketing arsenal. As a small business marketing speaker, I'm often asked if testimonials are important - and if so, why?

Testimonials have the power to achieve a variety of things for your marketing and customer retention programs.

Each time you use a testimonial you need to decide what you are trying to accomplish or what message you are trying to support. For example, they can:

* Overcome buyer skepticism. Use a testimonial to shine light on your credibility, or on the quality of your product or service. This type of testimonial builds trust and overcomes natural barriers. In the example above, the testimonial could have read: "Best product I've tried in this price bracket - and I've tried many. Great value for money, and no shortcuts on quality."

 * Overcome objections. Your readers are going to be naturally skeptical of any claims, promises or bold statements. As much as you can back yourself up with facts, a third party experience or opinion will work wonders to overcome unspoken objections in the customer's mind. "It all sounded too good to be true, but when I used the hair straightener, there was more shine and less breakage."

* Simplify or make a point. A customer's personal experience with your product or service will work to persuade your audience like a story does. Complex explanations or abstract applications will make more sense when applied to real life examples. This works well with highly technical products or complex services where the customer doesn't need to understand all the details.

* Break up and maintain interest in long copy. Readers have short attention spans and they will get bored unless you can change up the structure on a regular basis. Quotations and testimonials will break up the tone or voice of the copy, and sound like the customer is reading dialogue, which will keep them engaged. You can also break up paragraphs with a testimonial that supports the point you have just made.

* Target anxieties or doubts. Just like they can overcome skepticism and objections, they can also overcome hidden anxieties or doubts at each stage of the sales process. Anticipate questions like "is this worth my money?", "do I really need this?", "can I trust the guarantee?" and "will they sell my information?", and place testimonials accordingly.

Use testimonials in your marketing efforts and you'll unleash the power of social proof, reduce risk, and induce the "I gotta get me some o' that" factor!

What has been your experience with testimonials? Use the comments area below to share your thoughts...

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach to other professional speakers, CEOs, and business owners - and certainly from my own experience - I can safely say that too often, we get caught up in trying to get everything just perfect.

While you are working on “perfect,” someone else with “just okay” is raking in all the money. 

Face it - Reading the next book, attending the next seminar, or trying the latest software alone will do nothing for you. This is the classic "Ready, Aim, Aim, and Aim" syndrome. Always aiming and never pulling the trigger.

The key lies in taking action. I would like to invite you to try a technique suggested by my colleague Michael Masterson—the Ready, Fire, Aim technique. Do something; even if it is wrong, go ahead take the shot -- screw up.

At the very least, you are moving in the right direction.Fellow speaker and prosperity guru Joe Vitale says, “Money loves speed” those who take the swiftest action make the most amount of money.

Go ahead -- DO IT, and once you're moving, then worry about making it perfect.

Let's take the specific context of internet marketing as an example. And we'll start with your e-zine or blog...

In its simplest form an e‐zine or blog is all about information. Give your reader the information he wants to read about, and he will reward you with his trust and eventually his money.

There are five phases for any Internet marketing entrepreneur. In phase one, you read and study Internet marketing, go to conferences, devour e‐books and courses. At this stage, you are thinking about internet marketing all the time, yet you are not actually in it yet—not actually doing it. You don’t have a list, product, or the infrastructure in place to do business online.

In phase two, you dip your toe in the water—developing a product and making a few sales. The income is not significant. Except now, the idea of making money online is no longer merely a dream, an idea in your head. It’s reality. Making your first few sales will energize you and propel you forward to phase three.

In phase three, you develop more products, build your e‐zine subscriber list, and start making a significant spare‐time income online. Maybe it’s a thousand dollars a month in sales. Maybe it’s a thousand dollars a week. It’s not enough to live on, yet. But the extra money allows you to buy nicer things and become more financially secure.

In phase four, you reach a point where your Internet business makes enough money for you to live on—enough for you to quit your job and leave the rat race behind forever. For some people, this might be $2,000 to $3,000 a week in net online revenues.

In phase five, you double or triple the size of your list, add more products make more deals, and start making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, or even a million dollars or more. You become an Internet millionaire.

The problem is that the large majority of people who explore Internet marketing never get past phase one. They get addicted to reading “make money on the Internet” materials and attending conferences and tele‐seminars on the subject. But they never actually do something.

No matter what the marketing strategy, tactic, or business development effort - get going with baby step... RIGHT NOW.

You want an inbound link back to your blog or website? Great - leave a comment below with your reactions to the "Ready, Fire, Aim" technique - and you'll have DONE something to build your business. Do it!!!

Are you are getting visitors, but Google Analytics are telling you that they are there one minute and gone the next? Getting traffic is only half the battle. Next you must convert them!

Here are some great ways to drive visitors AWAY!

1. Lose their trust right off by not having easy contact
information!

2. Offer so many choices to your customer they simply get
overloaded and leave.

3. Make a visitor click 18 times (well, 3 or 4 anyway) to get to the meat of what you are offering.

4. Have a great freebie to offer and require them to fill out more information than necessary... (their first name and email address is probably enough).

5. Create a really unique navigation system which no one has ever seen before. Have them figure out how to use your new whiz bang system.

6. Have a whole paragraph of instruction on how to perform a simple action...like ordering!

7. Go ahead and put some links on the page to some of your favorite sites so they will have a good excuse to click off your site. Who knows, they might want to check the weather while they are on your site!

8. Put several thousand words of text on your home page.

9. You have a great site about fixing computers and you can't wait to show a picture of your new puppy on the home page. Go ahead and put the picture on your computer site's home page along with a description of how smart the puppy is!

10. Create as many blinking gifs as possible and paste them all over the page to really make it stand out. While you are at it, use something like red font on a black background. Doesn't that look cool!

Don't let yourself go down these wrong design roads. Keep your site simple and focused!

Check at my radio show for more Internet Marketing Dos and Don'ts:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/steve-weber

Happy Internet Marketing to You!

Steve Weber
http://www.StevesClassroom.com