Showing posts with label important. Show all posts
Showing posts with label important. Show all posts

Sunday, February 9, 2020

Importance of Social Media for eCommerce Business

The popularity of social media marketing has spread in almost every field. Those who run eCommerce businesses are also looking for opportunities to get a benefit out of this phenomenon. Suppose you run a business of eCommerce and you may have several customers who are active on the sites of social media sharing and social networks, irrespective of their age and gender. Therefore, it is wise to adopt the scope of this medium and make the most out of it to generate more revenue in your business.
Many eCommerce web design companies are adopting the various strategies of social media marketing so that the customers do not miss out on the possibility of getting new customers or develop business relationships online.
Consider some of the effective tips of the social media marketing that can be implemented to generate better results.
Let your business leverage from endless options. There are only a few things that promise plenty of choices and social media is one of them. There is no limitation of channels such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. that you can use to provide benefit to your business. Your eCommerce web design must choose the right channel so that your business can reach out to maximum possible prospects.
If you want to feel the pulse of your customers, then social media is the best platform. You cannot reach out to all your potential customers in person and get any feedback or knowledge that can provide a benefit to your business. However, on the social networks, you can run simple surveys to the customer in the form of polling or anything else. This will help you to get a big response and you can utilize the knowledge for the benefit of your business.
On social networks, you can regularly check the health of online marketing in your field. It means you can keep track of the news announcements, posting of new jobs, competitor keyword rankings, review of backlinks, etc. It helps you to maintain a competitive advantage as you can monitor the trend that your competitors are following. Some of the important aspects that you can follow are:
1 The type of content that competitors are publishing on social media.
2 Sites on which they are active.
3 The number of views, fans, and followers.
4 Way of promoting events, programs, and products.
While doing this you will get an idea of what works and what does not work for the benefit of eCommerce business by using social media.


P.S.
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Wednesday, November 6, 2019

5 Top Video Marketing Tips You Cannot Afford To Ignore

Are you deploying online video for marketing purposes? If not, then you should know that visual clips trump all other forms of online communication. Let us explore 5 top tips that you need to follow in order to succeed in this ever-growing online marketing segment.
1 - Visuals and Animated Clips Are Simply More Effective
If you have heard that the use of video clips for SEO and promotional purposes is the latest trend, then you have heard correctly! Streaming and generally animated content is the most effective marketing strategy when it comes to reaching your potential customers and creating an unforgettable impression.
A question might arise as to how a video marketing strategy can really increase organizational visibility and draw in more customers. If you are already in business, you most likely have the initial tools right at your fingertips.
2 - Video Is Far More Effective Than Pictures
We have all heard the expression, "a picture speaks a thousand words". So why use a photograph when we can now use video? Creating an online video clip for advertising purposes will always be a more dramatic marketing strategy when compared to articles and pictures.
The likelihood is that your video will leave a memorable image in your potential customer's mind. At the same time, it also sets yourself apart from your competition. Research has shown that short clips that are created for marketing purposes are more likely to be retained in one's memory. In addition, they are remembered far longer than descriptive writing or audio segments.
3 - They Convey More Information Than Articles
As opposed to merely reading about the benefits of your products or services, your visuals will be able to dramatically communicate this information. Customers will also be able to hear the enthusiasm in your commentary. To make this point, you probably have heard the following expression associated with this particular advertisement even though it was ten years ago.
This refers to the phrase "set it and forget it". It was used in a marketing clip created a good few years ago, but still relevant in modern-day marketing. The commentator continuously repeated the expression at various points during the presentation. This is an excellent example of how effective video marketing can be.
4 - Video Engages Your Site Visitors
As indicated, if you are already in business, no doubt you have an email contact list. Therefore, one of your daily functions revolves around emailing various individuals. With regards to your customers, you are most likely providing them with information pertaining to special deals, new products or services. What this means is that you now have the ability to send video emails as opposed to written ones.
Traditional platforms such as Outlook Express do not have the ability to fully accommodate online video. However, there are other relatively new business and advertising platforms that can and offers a phenomenal capability to interact with your customers and prospects.
5 - It Can Directly Increase Your Sales
Using active online imagery as part of your overall marketing strategy dramatically enhances the possibility of increased sales and your general success. Your product brand and promotional communication are far more likely to remain in your potential customer's mind's eye through clips or video streaming.
In addition, using visual imagery on your website and sending out video emails will prove to be the most direct and cost-efficient method to reach your market when compared to other marketing strategies.
Video marketing as a promotional platform is rapidly gaining momentum in the business arena and you now have the opportunity to implement your very own effective online campaign.
Still looking for a reputable source of Video Marketing Ideas [https://onlinevideoexperts.com]?. Stop being misled by online crooks who know nothing about Video Marketing Strategies. Simply go to [https://onlinevideoexperts.com]. This site will give you proven Video Marketing Tips to drive more visitors to your websites and boost your income.

Friday, November 1, 2019

What Really Matters When Measuring Email Marketing Results


It's important to pay attention to the numbers in your email marketing. But there are some things that are more important than others. Your email marketing will work better each time you fix any problems discovered via the types of data listed below.


Open Rate
Not only should you know your open rate, but you should also know some specifics about your open rate. For example, what time and date get more opens? What topics get more opens? This information can help guide you going forward if you pay attention to it.
Engagement
Do people respond to your email? What do they say? You should definitely use an email where your list members can simply hit reply. This is going to leave you open to getting your audience's opinion on the spot, and you're more likely to hear from them this way.
Click-Through Rate
How many people open the email, then click through to your offers or calls to action? This is important because if you have a high open-rate compared to a low click-through rate, or a high click-through rate and low conversions, you can analyze this information to figure out why.
Conversions
How many conversions do you get on average for all your offers? How many conversions did you get on a specific offer? What is the difference between the emails that convert compared to those that don't? All this information can help you improve.
Bounce Rate
This is very important to pay attention to because if you have a high bounce rate, your email autoresponder solution may punish you by ending your account. This is a good way to ensure you have good list hygiene.
Complaint Rate
Most people don't realize they can look at complaints and reports on their analytics for their autoresponder to find out if they've been reported. Plus, you can look in your email too. If you're getting a high number of complaints about anything, it's important to pay attention. It's hard to look at complaints but it can help you improve. You can't please everyone all the time, but you can improve to get close.
Spam Percentage
Before you send an email, your autoresponder will alert you to your spam percentage. It uses words, subject lines, and the information in the email to determine your spam rating. Try to keep this very low so that spam filters don't get triggered and send your message to spam.
Email marketing still works and works great. But, you do have to stick to the basic rules of engagement. Send information with subject lines that aren't tricky, don't spam your audience, and make good offers that solve problems, and you'll get better results every single time. Use the analytics so that you can improve.
Are you struggling to boost your income with email marketing? Do you feel like you're stalling out? Many entrepreneurs and small businesses hit income plateaus, but there are ways to push beyond them. Download my free checklist,12 Ideas For Making More Money In Your Business at https://jonallo.com/money

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

What Is A Podcast? Why Do I Need One?

Today, I will answer the question, "What is a Podcast?"
First, a podcast is a modern form of blogging. When blogging was introduced, it transformed the way information could be delivered to the masses. Instead of writers submitting countless articles to countless magazines, etc. in trying to get their articles published, blogging was created.
With the expansion of the internet, bloggers soon found they could bypass the corporate world of magazines and interact with their intended audiences directly. Some bloggers even monetized their content and created an entirely new career, without even trying to enter the magazine publishing world.
Podcasting is the audio version of blogging!
Just like blogging allowed anyone with a computer to become a reporter, podcasting allows anyone with a computer to become a talk show host or online radio personality.

The main difference between online radio and podcasting is the ability of a Podcast to generate subscribers. I had an online radio station that had thousands of listeners in over 160 nations. We were rated #1 in the world on several occasions by Shoutcast.com. But I could not ever contact any of them. I could not capture their emails nor offer them the ability to subscribe to new programming. I was at their mercy to keep coming back for more content.
Podcasting changes that dynamic. Through podcasting, you can offer a subscription alternative. You can offer free items in exchange for your listener's email address. You can grow your own, personal audience that only wants to hear from you!
I want to answer any questions you may have concerning podcasting. Go to https://podcast-training.com/contact. Fill out the form and be sure to send me your questions. If I use your question, I will send you a link to download by book, "The Complete Podcasting Guide."

Sunday, August 18, 2019

How to Calculate Twitter ROI

Get to Know Your Social Media Metrics
It doesn't matter which social media platforms you're using to promote your business?-if you're not measuring your results, you're wasting your time!
You need to be tracking things like which posts perform better than others, and which types of content your users like best.
According to Twitter, 336 million people use the platform every month. But early on, I was struggling to see the value of Tweeting. It was hard for me to justify the amount of time and effort I was spending on it, before I understood how to properly market there and calculate Twitter ROI (return on investment).
Yes, I saw many celebrities and big brands joining the platform, and it became an active community to Tweet about politics-Barack Obama even announced he'd won the 2012 presidential election on the platform.
But how could it work for me and my clients?
I see things differently now, and put a lot of effort into marketing on this platform (as you'll see by going to our account. I Tweet a lot)! But that's because I know how to calculate Twitter ROI, so I know what's working and what isn't.
Too many entrepreneurs don't effectively measure their efforts on social media. They also fail to realize how valuable their time is. They'll choose to DIY something to save money instead of hiring an expert to do it for them.
They don't consider the time they spend learning to do the task, the time they waste by not focusing on their business, and the fact that the expert probably could have gotten them far better results.
From my perspective, I see a lot of value in the social networking sites when it comes to visibility, brand enhancing, building relationships and being recognized as an expert in your industry.
But the key is to allocate your time wisely.
Put in enough time to achieve your goals and then move on to other important business-building activities. There's nothing wrong with spending some of your time on social networking, but spending hours a day at it is probably not the best thing for your business or your ROI.
Here's how to focus your time wisely on Twitter metrics:
Set up your goals.
Is it to get people to download a white paper on your website?
To fill out a form for a free consultation?
Only then can you effectively calculate ROI. You need to be able to see what people are doing, like clicking on a link you posted to get to your website.
Part of setting up analytics (Google Analytics or a paid platform) will be creating a tracking token per goal. Most marketers have more than one goal: on the home page it may be to sign up for a newsletter, while on an inside page it may be to download an eBook.
You want to be able to see which actions had which results, rather than ending up with a giant pool of stats you can't make sense of.
There are online tools that let you generate these tracking tokens, or you can hire a professional marketing company to make analyzing metrics much easier on yourself.
Get to know Twitter Analytics.
You'll find stats on everything from audience demographics to engagement rate here. I find some of the best insights here include:
? Tweet engagements and engagement rate. Engagements are the number of interactions a Tweet gets, while the engagement rate is engagements divided by impressions.
? Event and trending topic data. This shows you holidays and trending conversations so you can join in when and where it's relevant.
? Video content performance. According to Hootsuite, Tweets with video attract 10x as much engagement. When you've started Tweeting your video content, you can see how people are interacting with your videos, like if they're watching them to completion. Read 'Why Incorporating Video on Your Twitter Account is Good For Social Marketing'.
Don't forget the hashtags.
Hashtags can be a really effective marketing tool, but many marketers don't understand how to track their ROI.
Not sure what hashtags are? Check out 'A Newbie's Guide to Hashtags on Social Media'.
You can track the number of interactions with your hashtag (how many people like, share, comment or retweet the content) to see how well a particular tag is performing.
It's just one of the ways to see if the time and/or money you're putting into social media is paying off.
Check examples from the BizGalz, a global community of women and the men who support them as they "challenge the world, think big, & make change." During one of their recent Twitter Chats, they've asked people to name their favourite conference using the hashtag #BizGalz so they can easily see who's engaging with the chat.
Keep on tracking.
Depending on the size of your business, it may take some time to uncover viable stats. That's okay! Keep tracking and tweaking as you go along.
It's important not to lose focus on things like how many followers you're gaining or losing over time, how many shares your posts are getting, how certain hashtags are performing and so on.
While it may be a bit more difficult to calculate Twitter ROI than it is to simply see if someone has filled out a form on your site, it's worth it to spend some time focusing your marketing efforts there and getting familiar with your analytics. Chances are, your competitors are!
Find it challenging to find enough time in the day to get your business tasks done, never mind social media? Or maybe you're just not sure where to even start.
Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.
As a result of working with Susan and her team, clients feel confident and relieved knowing their online marketing is in trustworthy and caring hands so they can focus on building their business with peace of mind at having a perfect support system in place to guide them every step of the way.
Visit http://www.ultimatewebsiteguide.ca and download your FREE "Ultimate Guide to Improving Your Website's Profitability - 10 Critical Questions You Must Ask to Get Maximum Results".

Saturday, August 17, 2019

4 Tips For Creating The Perfect LinkedIn Profile for Your Business

When you run a business, or even if you're just starting a new business, one of the things that you should be thinking about now in the age of technology is social media. Every business should have its own pages on social media, whereby you can interact with customers, try and engage new leads and clients, and publish new information or products and services.
Creating the perfect LinkedIn profile for your business can take a while to get right at the beginning, but it can have a huge effect on generating traffic to your website and customers to your business.
1. Make Sure Your Logo Can Be Clearly Seen
Don't use a profile picture which is one of your products or a picture of your staff members. You can post images like this later on, but for now you should concentrate on your logo and making sure that the main images associated with your business become well-known. Once you have decided on a logo, you should stick with it rather than try to change it depending on the comments you receive online.
2. Stay Professional
Your LinkedIn profile should look professional in every single way. You wouldn't create a personal LinkedIn profile for employers to find which didn't look highly professional, so don't be tempted to do so from behind the curtain of your business. Respond to enquiries in a timely and polite manner, and build professional relationships with other users and businesses.
3. Include Some Information About Your Business
It's tempting to leave the 'About You' section until later, but when it comes to your business, you don't want to miss any opportunities. Waiting just a few days to update this section could mean that you miss out on several potential leads for the business. Before creating any social media profiles, you should have a website and mission statement set out, which you can use to provide LinkedIn users with more information about your business.
4. Appear Approachable
Some people are interested in contacting a business through LinkedIn, but just don't feel like the business is approachable. This is often a combination of many things, such as announcements that you are very busy lately, unfriendly-sounding updates or blog posts, and pictures which lack color and personality. It's almost like creating a personality for your business. You should try to achieve a personable, friendly, professional and credible appearance for your business.
Whether you're marketing direct to consumers or to other business professionals, LinkedIn can help your business. To get the most out of this potentially game changing social media site, you need to know how to market "the right way". To learn more on how to expand your circle of influence, grow your business and improve sales and profits download my free LinkedIn Marketing Guide at https://jonallo.com/linkedin

Thursday, August 15, 2019

7 Instagram Story Ideas To Build Your Following

Keeping your Instagram busy is a good way to build your following. An active account is more interesting than an inactive one. Plus, using Instagram to share all types of content with your audience in many forms is going to be much more interesting to them than if you shared only one type.
Let's look at some ideas that you can incorporate into your stories to build your following.
1. Show a Day in the Life
A great use of Instagram stories is to take a day and show up a few different times of the day to share what you're doing as it relates to your audience and your business. For example, if you're a business coach, you might want to share how you run your own business and team with others.
2. Go Live
Take some time to go live each day even to share just one exciting tidbit of news. When you go live randomly, your audience will get notified if they signed up to be notified. They'll pay more attention to you and will even be sad if they miss it live, but they'll also watch the recording if you leave one.
3. Provide a Sneak Peek
Creating a new product or service? Provide a sneak peek about it. Trying out a new software you want to recommend? Do a story about it. The more reasons you can find to show up in stories, the better for your quest to find more followers.
4. Conduct a Poll
Instagram allows you to conduct polls, which is a good way to find out what your audience is thinking. Keep polls short and sweet to avoid any confusion, since these polls aren't very scientific. If you want accurate results, consider keeping choices limited.
5. Trade Instagram Stories for a Day
If you have a colleague that serves a similar or same audience as you do, you can trade Instagrams for a day. You run their stories, and they run yours. This is a wonderful way to get cross-promotion and more followers.
6. Count Down to Launch
If you have a launch or an event coming up, use Instagram stories to do a countdown for the launch. This is a fun way to get everyone excited about your new offer.
7. Use Stickers and Special Effects
Instagram has ways for you to grab your audience's attention; use them. Add special effects, use stickers, add great hashtags. Call out the right people. Make yourself known so that you can grab those followers who like you.
When you do share a story, always remember to include a call to action. Your audience will not act (or only very rarely) if you don't tell them what to do. Each time you make any content, you should know what you want the results to be after your audience views it.
Instagram's popularity continues to rocket as the cameras in smart phones become better at taking high-quality pics and videos. To learn more about this social media powerhouse and to get more tips to gain followers on Instagram, download my free Instagram Marketing Guide at http://jonallo.com/instagram

Sunday, August 11, 2019

So How Does SEO Work?

How Does SEO work?
Before we dive into SEO and find out more about how does SEO work, Let us first understand what exactly SEO is.
As we all know, digital landscape is evolving faster than ever before and thus creating an urgent and immediate need for all the online businesses to not just embrace but also capitalise on the rising online trends and the digital economy. Although, there are many digital marketing strategies to gain online business from, but the most effective and sustainable is the organic method, part of which is SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.
Search engine optimisation helps website, blogs or webpages to be found by the search engines for related keywords. SEO is also commonly referred to as "organic", "natural", "unpaid" or"earned" results.
How exactly does a Search Engine works?
There are two key steps responsible primarily for search engine results. They are as follows:
Crawling: Search engine bots crawl all the web pages linked to a website. Major search engines like Google crawl millions of pages on a daily basis.
Indexing: After fetching all the pages through crawling process, these pages are then indexed in the database for future retrieval. The process of indexation is extremely important. The more the number of indexed pages of your websites, the greater are the chances of improving your rankings. Although, it depends on the strategies you formulate.
Major Search engines update their algorithm on a regular basis and there are various factors that influence these results directly or indirectly. It is advisable to update sitemaps
How does SEO work and what are the best tips to improve SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation depends on a number of factors the influence the rankings directly or indirectly. We would uncover all of those factors in this article. Here are the key factors:
Content - It is one of the most important SEO factors. Anyone who has heard about digital marketing must have also heard that "Content is King". It is true. On numerous occasions Google has said that it rewards sites with great content. So if you want to outsmart other websites, when it comes to SEO, you might as well want to focus on its content. Wishing content section there are some important factors that must be kept in mind such as readability, use of H1/H2 as appropriate and keeping a check on use of passive as well as repetitive sentences.
On-page SEO - If you want to outwit your rivals, You need to work on your site's on page SEO. Get the fundamentals right. Work on the meta-description and keywords carefully. Focus on content as well as internal linking. Add relevant titles, optimise all the images (add alt-tag), Infuse a mix of H1, H2 headings and subheadings, add LSI keywords by keeping a check on keyword density. Length/description needs to be according to the keyword difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the detailed your content should be to outscore and please ensure you get the basic right.
Backlinks - Generating quality backlinks is extremely important to boost the domain authority and page authority of your website. Some of your efforts should also be focussed on creating enough great quality backlinks. Most of this should be achieved by creating compelling content because the better the content you produce, the higher are the chances of people linking to your website. Stick to the relevance because if the links are irrelevant then it would do more harm than good as far as Google rankings are concerned. It has to be generated through ethical methods only with the right types of backlinks(white hat strategies).
Website speed (Page Load Time) and user experience - Google rewards the sites that are faster. It focuses on user engagement more than anything else. What it means is - fundamentals of the site needs to be intact. Look at your site speed (page load time). This was made clear it the latest Google speed update. You need to adjust/arrange accordingly. You need to also work on the user engagement metrics such as the number of clicks/Out of total impressions. Focus on the bounce rate, page views, session and all these metrics to understand in great detail. Simply put "faster the site, better the results".
Mobile Friendliness - As we discussed in earlier part of the article that Search Engines update their algorithms regularly and as per the latest Google algorithm update it confirmed that the friendlier the site for mobile users, the higher the rankings of its pages. Therefore, Mobile Friendliness affects your SEO efforts. Do check if your site is mobile friendly or not. If it is not then that should be your first priority.
Domain Age, URL and Authority - Age of the website, URL and it's DA /PA (domain authority and Page Authority) are all important factors of SEO. DA/PA would improve with a number of strategies - backlinks, internal links quality of the content.
Image optimisation - Optimising all the images on your site is advisable as it improves your chances. Add relevant titles and alt tag to all the images. It adds a lot of value when it comes to image search results.
Social Signals - Social links or signals can not be overlooked when it comes to (search engine optimisation) SEO strategies. These are authority signals that not only increase your visibility but also generate links in the forms social signals. One can share its site on social media platforms to boost signals. The more, the better.
Structured Data - Focus on the structure of your web pages as they should be thoroughly aligned. Update the sitemap. Bottom-line is you have to think from your user's point of view since we know that user engagement cannot be overlooked.
Conclusion: Now, we know how does SEO work and what are the key factors that influence or expedite your organic digital marketing efforts, Keep these in mind and work on these parameters individually to outsmart others and rank your or your clients site on top of the SERP (search engine results page). Evidently, SEO is one of the most effective strategies to capitalise on the rising digital economy and it also gives your sustainable results as long as you follow the right strategies and keep the basics intact. It is an ongoing process and requires constant efforts.

Friday, August 9, 2019

7 Tips For an Effective Lead Generation Strategy

For any marketer, lead generation is the biggest goal. Apart from this, this task requires a good deal of time and effort. You may be surprised to know that only a fraction of marketers say that their campaigns for lead generation are working effectively. If this sounds like you, below are 7 tips that may help you with your lead generation strategy.
1. Use the correct data for best targeting
If you have the right data, you can target the right audience. In fact, the more you know about your target customers, the better it will be. Apart from this, communicating with your customers in the right tone is also very important if you want them to pay attention to you.
2. Use some tools to track your leads
Make sure you know how to find out your ROI. Besides, you should set aside some money to measure and trace channels to attract your customers whether you are going to use your site, email, direct marketing or social media to attract them.
With Google analytics, for instance, you can identify the pages that are generating a good deal of traffic for you. You can also use other lead generation software as well.
3. Focus on quality
This is obvious; however, most people just don't give any importance to this factor. Make sure you focus on quality instead of quantity. In other words, your sales force shouldn't spend too much time on people who just won't buy from you no matter what you do. You should only target potential customers or clients.
4. Have a solid grading structure
Your activity should have a solid structure, such as a short-term and a long-term campaign. This will help you concentrate on one type of prospects at a time. Aside from this, you may want to have a criterion to find out who can be your potential clients.
It's also a good idea to nurture your leads. You should also educate your customers using information so they can understand your products better.
5. Research your competition
You need to find out more about a product or service that your competitors have launched recently. You should keep an eye on the activities of your competitors and use the information you collected to run circles around them.
6. Develop relationships
You should aim high. You may want to create a list of customers that have gone through a chance in circumstances like a merger or a restructure. Apart from this, you should make sure you have a few big organizations that you can work with.
7. Use your site
You need traffic if you want to generate leads from your own business site. According to experts, you can use a number of techniques in order to make visitors click on your site. Below are two basic techniques that can help a lot.
  • Use forums: you can use forums in order to capture the data of your prospect customers, especially smart forms that can help you develop your database.
  • Make an effective call-to-action: your CTAs should be effective enough to turn visitors into customers. This is the only way you can make more sales.
Hopefully, these 7 tips will help you with your lead generation strategy.
Do you want to generate a few sales leads lists? Do you want to collect business contact data? If so, you should check out Sales Ripe.

Sunday, August 4, 2019

3 Things to Consider While Selecting Your Marketing Automation Tools

If you're new to marketing automation, you might want to think about how you and your team will want to adopt those automated processes in the right way. Considering how the marketing automation industry is growing with increased adoption rates, it's important to ensure automation is done efficiently. For starters, let's consider a few statistics:
a. About 49% of businesses use some form of email automation. (Email monday, 2018)
b. In the next two years, an additional 21% of marketing leaders plan to use a marketing automation platform. (Salesforce, 2017)
c. Spending for marketing automation tools is expected to reach $25.1 billion annually by 2023. (Martech Today, 2018)
d. 79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for three or more years. (Venture Harbour, 2017)
e. 80% of marketers using automation software generate more leads. (LinkedIn, 2016)
Source: HubSpot Marketing Statistics
Clearly, many industries are adopting marketing automation software and technology tools;these are few really important things that you need to keep in mind while making your choices:
1. Don't automate bad processes and beware of outsourced lists
Map your marketing processes that drive traffic and leads thoroughly. Flow of leads through the funnel, including allocation and their sources are key. Hence, map those properties accurately. Make sure that the members of your team who run these processes are on-board with any changes that such automation will bring to their day-to-day work. Appointing a change manager (champion) who is a marketing process specialist will save you time and money. Identify and eliminate poor processes - fix the process before you can automate it.
2. Beware of outsourced lists and automate lead qualification to stay compliant
Avoid buying email lists and sending them automated email campaigns. These will fail and become costly to resolve. Especially now, with GDPR, this can get your business into a whole lot of trouble. Automation tools can be a life-saver with their inbuilt measures to ensure that some of your processes are compliant with the new laws. That said, the software is an only enabler and you must do the work to stay compliant. To further help the process, focus on creating exciting content that will motivate people to sign up for your content offerings (say, eBooks and animated GIFs) and build + grow your own opt-in database that can deliver better lead conversion.
Email databases will expire as the years roll by so it's important to keep generating new leads at a higher rate than the expiry rate; which is about 25% per year. To generate new leads, you need to consistently create better content, design interesting calls-to-actions &landing pages, write engaging blogs and optimize your website for the search engines. Automation is great for nurturing leads, but you need to generate those leads first for the next step to happen.
3. Don't let fancy features fool you
When deploying a marketing automation for your needs, don't let fancy features fool you. Each software will have different learning curve, and maybe using a software with an easier UI might speed up processes. But, if it doesn't solve your marketing process related (specific) problems, then it might not be the software for you.

Friday, August 2, 2019

Nail Your Marketing Message in Your LinkedIn Profile

Your marketing message communicates to the world what your business is about. And your LinkedIn profile is the perfect place to both develop and spotlight your most focused marketing message.
LinkedIn is one of the most important online tools for marketing your professional services. However, only a very small percentage of users post effective summaries of their business on their LinkedIn profile.
Your LinkedIn profile needs to telegraph the essential message and value of your business. This article shows you exactly how to do that.

Your Business Headline
The very first item someone reads on your profile is your business headline. And almost all of them are bad.
They are typically titles (Patent Attorney, Management Consultant, Personal Chef) or labels of what people do (tax preparation specialist, training in communication skills). None of these are effective messages because they don't communicate how the professional can help their clients.
Instead, you want something like John Nemo's:
"I Show B2B Sales Professionals, Business Coaches and Consultants How To Generate Leads + Add Clients using LinkedIn"
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John's profile headline tells whom he works with and the specific outcomes he helps them achieve. Any reader will immediately know if they're interested in knowing more. His headline taps into "WIFM" - What's in it for me.
I use John Nemo as an example because I learned how to create a great LinkedIn profile from him. His business (and book), LinkedIn Riches, specializes in, well, exactly what that headline says.
He's one of the top experts on how to use LinkedIn to attract new business. Ignore him at your peril.
He emphasizes that you don't want to have people guess what your benefit is to them, but to telegraph it in clear, simple, results-oriented language.
Then he goes on to outline what should be in the Summary Section of your LinkedIn Profile.
First of all, the Summary has limitations. You can't use bold or colored or large size type. But you can use all caps for the headings for each paragraph that makes your summary sections pop out, increasing readability.
For instance, the first section should be titled WHAT I DO (or WHAT WE DO) and simply expands on your headline.
This is what John's looks like:
WHAT I DO: Since 2012, I've helped B2B Sales Professionals, Business Coaches, Consultants and other professionals all over the world leverage LinkedIn and Webinars to generate leads, add clients and increase revenue.
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Pretty clear and simple right? Who I help and how I help 'em.
Then he writes about how he does it:
HOW I DO IT: I provide "do it yourself" online courses, 1-on-1 private and group coaching and written materials that help Business Coaches & Consultants discover how to generate more business for themselves using LinkedIn and Webinars.
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Note that this section mentions the services he offers and then comes back to the outcomes he helps his clients achieve. The value is as clear as day.
Next is about where you've seen John. This is all about credibility or "social proof":
WHERE YOU'VE SEEN ME: I regularly blog for and have been featured by national publications, podcasts and organizations including:
• Business Insider
• Entrepreneur On Fire
• Inc. Magazine
• LinkedIn
• Social Media Examiner
• The Business Journals
• The Huffington Post
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These are all the places where John has published articles. If you don't have places you've been published yet, don't worry, you can leave out this section or add it at a later time.
This is the fourth of five articles about the 5 Pillars of Marketing, my marketing model that helps get your marketing on track. 5 Pillars article here.
Next, write about the people and companies you work with:
WHO I WORK WITH: I've personally rewritten and optimized the LinkedIn profiles of A-List Entrepreneurs, Bestselling Authors, Business Coaches and Consultants including:
• Chris Brogan
• Bob Burg
• John Lee Dumas
• Mari Smith
• Tom Ziglar
• Dan Miller
• Jairek Robbins
• Ray Edwards
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Now, if you're a self-employed professional with any online savvy, you've probably heard of some of these people. For your summary, mention the kinds of people or organizations you've worked with and also a list of some of your clients.
Next, insert a couple of quotes from your happy clients:
WHAT OTHERS SAY:
• "When it comes to LinkedIn, there are pretty much three people I listen to, but only one has ever dropped new business right into my lap the way John Nemo did. You know me. I don't recommend people lightly. John Nemo is worth your time. Jump on this!" - Chris Brogan | New York Times Bestselling Author, Consultant & Speaker
• "John Nemo took my LinkedIn profile page and ignited it in a way I hadn't seen done before. After witnessing John's expertise up close and personal, it's easy to see why he's been crushing it on LinkedIn the past few years. Simply put, when it comes to LinkedIn, John Nemo is the real deal. Can't wait to share more of his LinkedIn knowledge bombs with the rest of Fire Nation soon!" - John Lee Dumas | Host, Award-Winning "Entrepreneur on Fire" Podcast
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With a little work, almost any self-employed professional should be able to come up with a few good testimonial quotes like these. And you only need two!
Finally, a little on your background:
MY BACKGROUND: Author of 7 books, former Associated Press Reporter, Award-Winning PR Director and Social Media Consultant, Talk Radio Producer.
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John has helped many self-employed professionals craft a powerful business summary on LinkedIn. He really gets what a clear marketing message is all about.
Notice that there's virtually nothing about the process of what he does; his writeup all about results. It's concise and focused and it's a fast read which is so important online.
Now you know what your LinkedIn Profile Summary should look like. Time to sit down and emulate John Nemo's approach for your own LinkedIn Profile.
Cheers, Robert
Action Plan Marketing helps self-employed people attract more clients through action-oriented marketing strategies that get you in front of prospective clients. Get our free report on how you can attract more of your ideal clients at this link: http://actionplan.club/free-stuff.

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