You should set up a system so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel for every customer. It is useful to use different types of media in that system (email, video, direct mail, phone calls, faxes, text messaging). Tie them together by letting people know to look for the next email, video, text message, etc. You should also have each message in they system build on the last.

This is Pitfall #3 from the webinar I introduced in “Stop Wasting Marketing Money“.

1. People buy on emotion, they don’t buy features. Instead of spouting off all of the features of your product, take a minute to explore what need your product will fill for your customers.
2. When you are creating the copy for your website or email campaign, present the need in the form of a problem and present the “pains” associated with the problem.
3. After you have presented the problem and all the negative ways it impacts their life, then you can present your product as the solution.
4. Last, sell the benefits. Just remember to do this from an emotional perspective, not as a list of features. Tell them how happy they will feel and how much better their life will be because of your product.

Some examples of calls to action are:

• “Read my blog post”
• “Buy my book”
• “Take a poll on my website”
• “Sign up for my email list/newsletter”

You could be asking them to do just about anything, but take a few moments to consider what the best call to action would be for you right now. What will bring you the most profit?

A call to action should be included:

• On the home page of your website
• In your marketing email
• In some of your social media posts (Facebook updates, Tweets, LinkedIn updates, etc.) (see “Facebook Success” for more info)
• In all of your videos (if you have any)

Finally, consider how you will present your call to action. Some options are:

• A simple line of text that links to the page you want them to visit
• A colorful button contained in your email marketing
• A poll created on Facebook so people can give you feedback without leaving the site

Most of all, make sure that your calls to action are:

CLEAR (meaning they should be simple and direct and shouldn’t be cluttered with other things that will confuse the reader),

EASILY SEEN (make them prominent and repeat them in multiple places if appropriate), and

ENGAGING (color, design, and copy (what the actual text says) will all contribute to this).

Here’s a short little video for your viewing pleasure…

“For small businesses it’s a bad idea to spend money on “brand identity” or getting your name out there. You need people to take action, to buy. Spend money marketing your product or service, not your brand.”

I recently watched an hour long webinar from Infusionsoft on the “Top 5 Marketing Pitfalls”. They had some great information which I plan to share with you here in bite-sized pieces. Pitfall #1 is this,

Pitfall #2 is this:

“Don’t spend money on SEO (Search Engine Optimization or PPC (Pay Per Click) to drive traffic to your website until you are ready to turn those leads into sales right away. You need a systematic way to convert leads into sales.”

Before you get too concerned about driving a lot of traffic to your website, make sure that you have the right things in place so that the people who visit your website will buy product, or at the very least, sign up for your email list (allowing you to market your product to them in the future). Promote your product or email list on the home page in a way that is clean, clear, and engaging. Then make it EASY for them to complete a purchase or sign up on your list; offer simple and clear directions and don’t make them click through too many pages to complete the action.

Notes:

You can watch the full hour webinar at www.infusionsoft.com/marketing-pitfalls-webinar. If you have an hour, I would certainly recommend it.

Infusionsoft offers a unique product that allows small businesses to manage both their eCommerce and eMarketing systems from the same place which makes marketing follow up much more simple and effective. The price is a little high for my budget currently, but if you have the money for it, it looks like a great product. I haven’t seen any other product that offers the ability to both gain contacts so effectively and follow up with every contact based on their unique behavior (instead of sending mass emails that really only target a small percentage of the recipients).

In this video interview social media expert Erik Bratt focuses on business uses for Twitter — and for each use offers examples of companies that are using Twitter effectively. He explains how Twitter can be used for customer service (Zappos), selling (Dell, Souplantation.com), and fundraising (12for12k.org).

Twitter’s search feature can also be used for a real-time glimpse at what people are talking about online to sample customer opinions. This makes it especially useful for prospecting, engaging people in conversation, and offering to help, such as to set up a demo.

Erik Bratt is president of Engage Social Media, a digital PR, social media marketing, and measurement firm.

From: www.wilsonweb.com

1. Use a reputable service to send your emails.
   • Companies like iContact and Constant Contact have agreements with most major email services (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc.) that allow their emails through to the subscribers’ inbox. If you don’t use a reputable service, your emails may be thrown out as spam before your subscribers ever even see it.
2. Make sure everyone on your list has opted in.
   • Don’t just assume that because you have their email address they want to be signed up for your list. Allow them to opt in. If you don’t, chances are that many of those people will report your email as spam. In most cases it is appropriate to send them an email and let them know that you have a newsletter you think they would be interested in (and include directions to subscribe) but don’t sign them up automatically. Also, NEVER try to buy or rent email addresses. It’s not only not effective, it’s illegal.
3. Set an expectation.
   • When someone signs up to receive your emails, let them know what to expect. Will you send one email per week? Per month? Whatever it is, let your subscribers know and then stay consistent (or let them know if you decide to switch it up). Also let them know what kind of emails they will be getting. Will it be strictly product promotions? Strictly informational? Some combination of both? You can let them know what to expect on the same page as your sign-up box or in your first email.
4. Make sure your subscribers know who the email is coming from.
   • Set the “From” email address and “From” name to something your subscribers will recognize. If your email list is reaching beyond those people who already know you, let them know who the emails will be coming from when you set the expectations (See #3). People are getting so much email these days that they are more likely than ever to delete an email without even opening it if they don’t know who it is from.

I recently found a great list of specific things you can do to help “optimize” your website for search engines. I’ll post a few here (I’ve bold-ed the ones I think are particularly important), or you can read the full article called “55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love“. If you want to know more about what “SEO” (Search Engine Optimization) and its general components are, read my “Optimize Your Website/Blog” post. If you don’t understand some of the terms the author uses below you should also read my “Optimize Your Website/Blog” post.

2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html. Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.

19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.

24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.

25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.

26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.

33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.

34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.

45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.

51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/55-quick-seo-tips-even-your-mother-would-love/6760/

* I discovered that some of the links in this article were not working. This update includes working links.

Click to view or download the HolidayChecklist2009 (PDF).

iContact offers a low stress way to organize your email marketing list and send professional emails.  Their tag line is “Email Marketing Simplified” and they do a great job of doing just that; I have found it much easier to use than their competitors’ software. You can separate your list into different categories (for example maybe you want to market to prospects differently than customers who have already bought some of your products) which makes it much easier to keep track of who’s who. They also offer easy to understand stat tracking (how many of your emails were opened, which links were clicked, etc.) which is a must if you’re sending any kind of marketing emails.

LinkedIn

If you’re an entrepreneur, especially one who is looking for more clients or more contract/consulting work, LinkedIn can be a very beneficial place for you to be. “Marketing Therapist” Lorrie Thomas wrote a great article on developing your profile to get noticed. Take a look at it if you’re at all interested in taking advantage of what LinkedIn has to offer.

Keywords or Keyword Phrases:

This is important. You should come up with a few words or phrases that clearly define what your business is about and then use those words or phrases in the text of your website. This ensures that people have a clear understanding of your business and helps  the search engines (such as Google and Yahoo) correctly categorize your site.

Content:

This is a general term referring to any information contained in your website. Could include text, audio, video, pictures, etc.

Text: Your website’s “copy” (or the text contained in your website) should be clear and succinct. The first paragraph on your home page should give the visitor a good sense of what your company is about and why they should be interested.

You should include all of your keywords or keyword phrases (from above) in the copy on your home page but make sure that it flows well.

Every other page on your site should focus on one keyword or phrase. That keyword or phrase should also be in the title of the blog post or page.

Keep it fresh: Search engines prefer sites that have regularly updated content. Well constructed blogs will have an edge over static websites. If you have a more static website, you can improve your ranking by regularly publishing a snippet of your blog posts or Twitter posts on your home page (this will also drive more traffic to your blog or Twitter page which is a bonus) or creating some other section of your site that you update regularly with fresh content.

Pictures: Use pictures that support the text they are next to and use your keywords or phrases in your pictures titles. Well chosen and well placed pictures are also a vital component in gaining and keeping human visitors. Your site needs to be visually appealing.

Audio and Video: Search engines love sites that include audio and video so include this whenever possible, just make sure that it flows well with the other content on your site. Audio or video (or any other content for that matter) that is awkward or seems out of place will turn off both human visitors and search engines.

Viral Content:

This refers to content that is designed in such a way that allows your website visitors to easily share your information with others. This would include:

• Functions that allow your visitors to email your content to others or to publish your content on Facebook, Twitter, etc
• Links to your accounts at Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Del.icio.us, and other social networking sites
• YouTube videos
• Anything else that promotes the viral spread of your content

Backlinks:

Links on other sites that send visitors to your website. The more of these you can get from reputable sites, the more important the search engines think your site is. However, sheer numbers aren’t the answer. Focus on getting a few backlinks from highly ranked sites as opposed to getting a lot of links from sites that are not very well respected.