Archive | September, 2022

“I want to start an online business but I don’t know how.”

“I want to start my own blog and list build but I don’t know how.”

“I want to create a product but I don’t know how.”

I want to [insert whatever it is you want to do] but I don’t know how.”

Well guess what… neither did every single person who did it for the first time.

But you’re got to take the leap anyway, and take it on faith that you will land on your feet.

Figuring things out on the fly is a learned skill.

And the more often you take the leap – any leap – without knowing exactly where you’re going to land, the better you get at it. Plus, each time makes you better equipped to leap again and again and again.

Learning to operate at a high level within unknown scenarios is more valuable than learning a specific set of skills for a specific situation.

Prepare yourself mentally for being unprepared. 

You can never anticipate the exact skills you will need until you need them. In fact, you don’t know what you don’t know until you find out you don’t know it.

You’re going to hit roadblocks. Expect them. And expect to crash through those roadblock to the other side, too.

Expect challenges. Expect setbacks.

They are coming for you, so be prepared mentally.

Go in fighting, not retreating. 

Keep your eye on the goal and nothing will stop you…

…but if you look only at the obstacles, you will never get far.

Think about this – your entire life you have been flying by the seat of your pants in one fashion or another.

Don’t stop now.

When they tell you to seize the day, they don’t mean tomorrow – they mean TODAY.

Take the leap, because you got this!

We all make mistakes, errors, blunders and things we really wish we hadn’t done.

Remember the last time you facepalmed?

Yeah, me too.

Let’s see if we can catch the next mistake BEFORE you make it.

And let’s also see if you’re already making one or more of these marketing mistakes.

If you are, you’re not alone.

Targeting Everyone

Who are you targeting with your online marketing campaigns? Everyone with internet access? Everyone who needs to lose weight? Every parent on the planet?

You need to narrow your target market.

If you look at the demographics of your current customers, that will tell you who to target. Don’t make assumptions about the demographics of your customer base. Women do search for sporting goods and men are interested in hair care, for example. Get to know who your customers are and you’ll do a better job of targeting.

Or if you are just starting out in a niche, it gets even easier. You get to decide exactly who you want to target and find out where those people are found.

Not Having a Blog for Your Website

Your website needs a blog, because blogs increase traffic. Businesses with blogs tend to have over 90% more inbound links, which helps you to get found by the search engines.

Blogs also help you to build a relationship with your prospects and customers, while giving you credibility and visibility. You write a post with great info, your prospects see and realize you know what you’re talking about, and they start reading more of your posts. Pretty soon they realize they like you. They trust you. And they buy from you.

Blogs are also a place where you can interact with your customers and prospects. You make a post and they get to respond. Then you get to respond to their comments. You can use your blog to get feedback on ideas and products.

And you can integrate your blog with social media, driving more traffic to your blog and website from social media, while driving visitors to your social media pages for even more interaction.

Lastly, you can share links to all of your blog posts on social media, not just your new posts. This is a great way to keep all of your pages alive.

Not Tracking Return on Investment

Do you know how much money you’re spending on your online marketing strategies and what kind of return you’re getting?

You don’t want to blindly throw money at digital marketing strategies without measuring the return on investment. And if you don’t measure your return on investment, you won’t know how successful (or unsuccessful) your strategy is. The key is to stick to what’s working and modify what’s not working. And to know this, you’ve got to track and measure.

To calculate your return on investment, you’ll first figure out what you’re measuring. Is it traffic? Leads? Click-through rates? Conversions? Once you know your campaign goal, you can calculate your ROI.

Take the financial gain and subtract the cost of your investment. Divide that number by the total cost of your investment, and that’s how you calculate return on investment.

Be diligent about tracking ROI on all of your campaigns from here on out, because it’s the only way to see if your strategies are successful.

Not Using Videos

Videos are engaging and capture attention like no other medium. And video content can be a great way to get people to go to your website.

In a recent survey, 43% of people who watched a video in the past month also checked out a website because of a video. 22% said they requested information on a product. And 15% made a purchase – because they saw a video.

Get your own YouTube channel and take advantage of the second highest trafficked website on the internet. Then post your videos on Facebook, and even make 1 minute videos for Instagram. Videos can generate new prospects for you, and ultimately lead to new customers as well.

Forgetting About Mobile Users

Depending on your niche, it’s entirely possible you’re getting more visitors from mobile devices than laptops and computers. This is exactly why your website needs to be optimized for mobile devices.

50% of people say they will use a company less often if the website isn’t mobile friendly, even if they like the brand. 48% of people think you don’t care about them if your website isn’t optimized for mobile users.

And because 90% of time on mobile is spent in apps, you may want to consider making a mobile application for your business. But even if you’re not going to create an app, you’ll want to at least make certain your site is mobile friendly. Not sure if it is? Pull out your phone and check right now.

Having a Slow Website

Slow websites drive visitors away. You work hard to get people to your website – why send them away before they even get to see it? Your visitors will abandon your site if it takes too long to load. If you need to spend more money for faster web hosting, then do it. Every second counts and you cannot afford to lose customers.

Not Offering Discounts to Your Best Customers

Frankly, I think you should offer coupons and discounts to everyone from time to time. This way people who are on the fence may jump in, order, and realize they love your products.

But you should at the very least be offering discounts to your current customers. They deserve to be rewarded for patronizing you.

When you bring out a new product, offer it to them at a discount. Ask nicely for feedback and testimonials, and you’ll likely get both. The feedback can be key to tweaking your product and making it even better. And the testimonials can earn you many more sales in the future.

Shunning Social Media

I’m surprised by the number of marketers who still avoid social media. It doesn’t cost you anything to make a Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account. And it is a great way to interact with your customers at low or no cost to you.

You can use social media for brand building, interactivity, buzz building, consumer insights, enhanced marketing effectiveness and broad reach. And because your customers are on these platforms, you need to be on them as well. In fact, 81% of people in the US have a social media profile.

When you do create your profiles, don’t buy followers. If you get caught, you’ll lose your reputation. Plus, it looks darn suspicious if you have 10,000 followers and not a single one of them engages with your content.

Not Commenting on Blogs

This applies to your own blogs and other blogs, too. On your own blog, you should engage with readers by answering their comments. Your subscribers will be surprised and pleased. And in return they will begin commenting more often. Plus, blog comments help with SEO to rank higher and get found by more traffic.

Keep your comments appropriate and professional at all times. And don’t forget to comment on other people’s blogs, too. It’s a way to subtly promote your own brand.

Your comments should be natural and informative to establish your credibility and likeability. Remember to use your full name and your face avatar, as well.

Not Guest Blogging

Why would you want to go to the trouble of writing an entire post of great content, just to post it on someone else’s website?

Three reasons:

First, you get exposed to an entirely new audience who may not have even heard of you. And yes, some of them will click your link and go to your website to grab your free lead magnet, thus joining your list. And some of those folks will become your customers.

Second, you’ll create a connection with a peer in your niche. And you never know what can happen if you continue to grow this relationship – it could eventually become very fruitful.

Third, because you can link back to your website or blog, you’ll be improving your SEO by increasing your domain authority.

How many of these mistakes are you guilty of? No worries, because now you can take action, get busy and correct them. Just pick one for now to work on, and when that’s in motion, you can begin working on the second one. No need to feel overwhelmed if you have several of these to do. Remember, inch by inch it’s a cinch.

Regardless of what niche you are in, there is no doubt that building a list of prospects and customers who know you, like you and trust you is your most powerful business marketing strategy.

So what’s the second most powerful business marketing strategy? It’s up for debate, but I’d like to suggest the following:

Writing a book in your niche to give away to your prospective customers.

And no, I don’t mean a 20 page report, although that’s far better than nothing. Nor am I suggesting you write a “book” that’s nothing more than a cleverly disguised sales letter, although those can be useful as well.

Let’s stand in our prospect’s shoes for just a moment. Let’s say you live in Chicago and you’re looking to invest a substantial amount of money in marketing your brick and mortar business online. Obviously you don’t want to hand the work over to just anyone – you want someone who clearly knows exactly what they’re doing and can deliver the results you seek. Someone who will get customers streaming through the door and the cash register ringing non-stop. Bottom Line: Someone who won’t waste your time and money.

A fellow drops by out of the clear blue and offers to do your marketing. You’ve never heard of this guy and you’re cautious. You do some research, ask your fellow business people, and locate 3 more small business marketing types who all say they’re experts at marketing small businesses online. They even have references. Still, you’re cautious.

Then one day you’re at a friend’s place of business when you spot a book on his desk. The title immediately grabs your attention: Effective Online Marketing For Small Businesses In The Chicago Area.

It’s not a snappy title by any means, but you don’t care. You’re riveted. You want to know everything in the book and you especially want to know who the author is and can you hire him.

And all you’ve seen so far is a book title. So why are you so interested in hiring THIS guy? Why does he stand head and shoulders above all the other small business online marketers you’ve already spoken to?

First, he’s an author. And like it or not, author’s carry a mystique and an air of credibility virtually untouchable by any peers who haven’t authored a book.

Second, not only did he write a book on marketing your small business online – he wrote about marketing your small business online in the area in which you live.

It’s akin to having the name Abdul Anderson and finding a book titled: What Abdul Anderson Should Do Right Now to Solve His Problems. Tell me you wouldn’t pick that book up in a heartbeat if your name was Abdul Anderson!

Okay, you’ve got the point. When you write a book, you’ve got instant star attraction and a ton of perceived credibility. People are no longer asking, “Can I see 5 references?” They’re not asking, “What if you can’t do what you say you will do?” They’re not asking about your guarantee, how long you’ve been in business, and all those other questions.

Instead, they’re asking how much you charge and when can you start.

And this isn’t just for marketers working with offline businesses – this is for almost anyone offering a service or even a product.

Imagine someone comes to your website – has never heard of you before or been to your website before – and there on the home page sees the book that you’ve written. Do you think you’ve just scored some serious credibility with that new visitor? Absolutely.

Or what if you’re sending traffic to a squeeze page to capture their email address. Do you think offering them the e-version of a REAL book that is currently being sold on Amazon will increase your conversion rate? You bet!

Back to marketing to offline businesses – if you hand a prospect a copy of your book, do you think you’ve increased the odds you’ll close them on a $5,000 marketing package? Of course.

Your book should contain tons of dynamite information and no sales pitch. Yes, it’s fine to refer them to your website, but the main focus should be on educating your reader. The more you tell, the more of an instant expert you become in your reader’s mind.

Make the book comprehensive, covering a great deal about your particular niche. Don’t be afraid of telling too much – generally when a prospect realizes how complex your service is, if they can afford you then they will hire you rather than attempt it themselves.

Include your contact information, including phone number, address and of course your website. Realize that people hang onto books, and even if they don’t need your service right now, they might refer back to it in a year or even in 5 years, so don’t change your contact information unless you absolutely have to. The book you give to someone today could result in a $20,000 sale 5 years from now, but only IF they can easily find you.

Make it easy to read. Just like a sales letter, you don’t want page after page of fat paragraphs. Use plenty of headings, bullet points and space to break it up.

And by all means edit it. Get someone else to read it over and tell you if there are any errors or places where it’s difficult to follow. You want it to read as professionally as possible because it is a direct reflection of you and your business.

If you are giving away the e-version of your book on your squeeze page or website, by all means either give them a link or a screenshot that shows your book on Amazon. Anyone can SAY they are giving away a $19.95 ebook, but when they see that you really do charge that much on Amazon, your free gift suddenly becomes much more valuable in their eyes, increasing the likelihood that they will opt into your list AND read your book.

Do encourage your readers to review your book on Amazon. The more reviews you get and the better reviews you get, the more credibility you build up. After all, if you see a book on Amazon with 1 or 2 reviews, and another with 50 reviews, which seems to be the more popular? People tend to be followers, not leaders. That’s why they look for social affirmation that others are reading and liking your book. You might even offer a free gift for every unbiased review you receive. Just be sure not to offer a free gift for every POSITIVE review you receive, or you will lose much of the credibility you’ve worked to achieve.

Is writing a book hard? Yes and no. For some people it’s extremely difficult, not because they’re not intelligent, but because their intelligence lies elsewhere. We all have particular skills we’re good at and others that we really should leave to the “experts.” So if you don’t like to write, consider hiring a ghostwriter to write your book.

If you’re going to write it yourself, set a deadline by which you’ll have it finished, and then decide to write 2 to 5 pages a day, every day. If you’re writing a 200 page book at 2 pages per day, you’ll be finished in 100 days. At 5 pages per day, you’ll be done in just 40 days. See? It doesn’t take long if you stay consistent.

The secret to writing a book? Write your table of contents first. This will become your outline, and it’ll break the book up into manageable pieces. It seems like a daunting task to write 200 pages about your subject, but 10 pages about one particular facet of your niche is a breeze.

For your book cover design, I recommend hiring a professional. People really, truly do judge your book by its cover. Sure, you can create your own, and if you’re a graphic artist then maybe that’s the way to go. For the rest of us, we put too much time and effort into our book to make do with our own amateurish cover. So do some research and find a professional book cover designer with a portfolio you like, and spend the extra money to get it done correctly.

Once you get your book finished, I believe you’ll find it’s the second most important tool in your marketing arsenal, right behind your list of customers and prospects. Your book has the potential to generate more business for you than perhaps a dozen full time sales people, and through the power of the Internet it can be working for you 24/7, making you an instant expert and the go-to person in the eyes of your prospects.