Hello my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing and today we’re going to talk about a quick little tip that I don’t see some people doing when they upload marketing videos to YouTube, so I just want this to be a reminder. When you’re uploading your marketing videos to YouTube, this is something you should be doing on a regular basis, make sure in the description of your video you’re putting a link to your call to action. When you copy and paste your link to your call to action, make sure it has the http:// at the beginning; so, for example, instead of just putting DirectBusinessMarketing.com you should put https://directbusinessmarketing.com that way you can have a full URL. We’ve done many other video webinars talking about the power of YouTube, the power of video and search convergence.
Again, don’t forget to put a link to your call to action and when you put your links in don’t forget to put the http:// at the beginning of the link. Here’s my contact information, again my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing. You can reach me via email at [email protected] or give me a call at 602.571.5803. I would also like to remind you to join us every Wednesday at 10am PST for our Get Direct Webinars where we talk about different aspects of marketing and tips on how to make your marketing plan work better for your business. One last thing, to get your free marketing assessment document and questionnaire check out https://directbusinessmarketing.com/ma. This is a quick and easy questionnaire that will help you determine what the best types of marketing are for your specific business. Again, thank you for joining me today and I look forward to seeing you next week at our Get Direct marketing webinar.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-11-19 08:20:352012-11-15 21:22:38Don't Forget The Link!
Good morning; today we’re going to continue our conversation on Facebook marketing screwups. It’s going to be very important that you watch all of these videos because we’re doing this complete series and we’ll be adding supplementary videos in addition to our Wednesday webinars so we can hone in on some other topics, such as strategy.
Today we’re going to talk about having an incomplete business profile. You need to ensure that you have this complete. Why? Because I promise that if you like our page, we’ll like your page. Through this, however, we’ve noticed that a lot of these business profiles are incomplete. I want to address this issue and tell you to be committed to your business profile page.
To recap last week, it’s all about getting your friend’s friends to see what your content is by getting your friends to like or comment on your content. Why are we talking about your business profile? Because you have to have it completed because they’re going to get nosy and look at other things about your business. You want to have a few different things apparent: your cover photo with information about your business. For ours it’s sometimes information about our marketing webinars or a photo of myself or someone else. This photo should change when you have specific events coming up. The profile photo should be your business logo. It’s all about branding on Facebook so you want to make sure that you have your page sufficiently branded with your business information and logo. Remember people are going to potentially be going to your page from their smart phone, so you need to ensure it’s going to look nice even on a smaller device. Also complete your basic information such as when your business started, your URL, what your product and services are; you want to ensure you have all of this information complete otherwise you may be seen as a fly-by-night business.
If you have further questions you can contact us directly via telephone or email. Also don’t forget to download our marketing assessment questionnaire at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma to determine what your business’s marketing needs are.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-11-15 21:20:242012-11-15 21:20:24Successful Facebook Marketing: Have Your Business Profile Page Completed
Today on Direct Business Marketing’s webinar we’re going to talk about something we get asked rather frequently on Facebook, “How can I improve my Facebook presence? How can I attract and connect with more people on Facebook?”
One of the keys to doing that is your content and what you’re producing. One mistake that we see frequently is creating crappy content on Facebook. First you have to understand how Facebook works in order to be successful on Facebook. First, there’s you, then your friends, and then friends of your friends. The goal is to get content out to friends of your friends. You need to create content that will get ‘liked’ or ‘commented on’ by your friends so that it’ll get promoted to the next level and their friends will see it. The important thing to remember when you’re generating content, or doing anything on Facebook for that matter, it needs to be important enough to get a like or a comment on it. Here are some tips on how to avoid crappy content on Facebook.
Post content regularly, but not at the same time each day. If you know how Facebook works, there’s a News Feed that most people see when they log in that shows updates from their friends within the past few hours. If you produce content at the same time every day you’re only going to capture people that look at their News Feed at that time each day. Write content that has a personality; be yourself instead of just disseminating information out. Write content that will illicit a response from your friends. Whether this is specifically asking people to answer a question, taking a poll or writing content that will get people to respond to it. Write content that is social. People go on Facebook to be social and connect with others. One of the major reasons Facebook is successful is because it’s our nature to be a social species. If you continue to post things that aren’t social you’re going to turn people away. Look at it this way: if Facebook is a dinner party, you wouldn’t walk up to the people that are your friends and give them a sales pitch. You chit chat with them and ask them how they’re doing first.
If you would like some help with developing your marketing plan, I encourage you to download our marketing assessment questionnaire to help you with your business.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-11-08 15:28:442012-11-23 11:41:39Posting Unsocial Content On Facebook
Welcome to another marketing truth video where today we’re going to talk about video and why it’s so important in your online marketing plan. To see all of our marketing truths, go to our website, www.DirectBusinessMarketing.com/webinars, and check out the archive of our marketing truths.
There are a few reasons why you should implement using video into your business’ marketing plan. The first reason is simply because people love to watch video. How do we know this? Movies are viewed by billions of people every year and YouTube is one of the most viewed websites on the planet. People like to watch video about all kinds of things and typically people would prefer to watch a video of something rather than read a book. This isn’t the case for everyone as some people do enjoy reading books over watching a video but there’s so much more communication that happens through video as opposed to just reading text on a page. In this webinar, for example, you can see my body language, how I look and there’s much more communication that happens through my tonal and facial expressions.
Second of all, people buy from other people that they know, like and trust, specifically in service based industries. People buy from people because it’s a relationship world out there; video marketing helps to facilitate that relationship.
Third, video allows you to showcase your expertise, especially if in your industry there might be some complicated concepts that may need explanation or just talking about your industry in general. Video allows you to showcase that expertise, to talk about what you do and allows the potential client on the other end to see your passion about what you do.
A fourth reason for leveraging video in your marketing has more to do with a SEO reason, the video show in the search results. As part of the results in Yahoo or Google you see some video options for you to look at. This is known as search convergence, it’s all the search items coming together. Using video is an SEO technique and a way to move your content up in the search engines without actually moving your webpage up.
Again, if you’re not using video in your marketing, especially if you’re a service based business, you should definitely be implementing video into your business’ marketing plan. We also have a few things on our website that I would like to bring your attention. First we have our marketing assessment; it’s basically a document you can fill out to help you determine where you should be marketing and help you build a marketing shell for your business. You can find this at https://directbusinessmarketing.com/ma. I’d also like to remind you that every Wednesday at 10am PST we do these marketing minutes where we talk about marketing items and get some good information out to you.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-10-31 20:30:512012-11-23 11:41:25Marketing Truths: Using Video In Your Marketing Plan Can Mean Victory For Your Business
So many business owners are frustrated about marketing on Facebook. Why? Because it’s been like pulling teeth to get “Likes“, let alone “Leads“. They’ve been sold a bill of good that all they had to do was set up a Facebook Business Page, throw up a few posts, and an army of traffic would bust down the door to buy their products and services. Well, nothing could be further from the truth!!!
Sadly, no one took the time to tell them about a “social business” strategy, COBRAs, or eWOMs, plus which techniques to use to get to “third party Friends”, and so much more. All they’ve been doing up to date is mouthing off about their business thinking that some actually cares… Well, the results speak for themselves!
So, here’s the deal! We’ve set up a Limited Seating seminar where they’re going to share Facebook Marketing information to a hand-full of qualified business owners – 30 to be exact. And you’ll want to be one of the 30 or you can keep doing what you’re doing and getting the same dismal results – the choice is yours.
Below is the seminar information, then 1-by-1 over the next few days, I’m going to share a 5-part video series called – “The 5 Biggest Facebook Marketing Screw-Ups Businesses Make, Plus How You Can Avoid Them.” I’m going tell you the very common screw-ups business owners make when marketing on Facebook. Finally, Drew’s going to tell you how to debunk every single one at the seminar.
BTW – the seminar is NOT free!! You’re going to have to invest $40 (if you register early enough). But when you get to the seminar, we’re going to give you the opportunity to get back DOUBLE the money you invested in the seminar… OK? No worries! No fine print here – we’re serious…
Seminar Information:
Date: Tuesday, October 30th
Time: 9:00am – 11:00am
Location: Itericom Technologies – 250 S. Arizona Ave, Chandler, AZ
Investment: Early Bird Registration – $40 before 10/23/2012. $50 on or after 10/24/2012.
PS – “Like” us on Facebook at http://Facebook.com/DirectBusinessMarketing and we will “Like” your Facebook business page also. From there, we are going to launch a “Follow-the-Leader” Facebook marketing campaign. We’ll explain in a separate email…
Thanks again for coming to Direct Business Marketings Get Direct Webinar. Today we’re going to talk about another one of our marketing truths, Three Things to Tease. Marketing truths are things that we hold near and dear to our heart and have found that as long as we wash all of these over each of our campaigns our success rate goes up.
Today we’re going to talk about Three Things to Tease and this specifically has to do with a call to action. The type of marketing we do here at Direct Business Marketing is called direct response marketing. With this, we’re looking to have the prospect do some sort of action as acknowledgment that they’re interested in our products and services. When we talk about teasing in the title, we’re looking to get a call to action in place. For different products we’re going to have different calls to action, but you want to keep these three things in mind.
The first thing they are looking for is value added in advance, essentially getting something for nothing. If you can provide value in advance, whether it’s in the form of information, soft offer or even if you have a hard widget, this will help tease the client. The next thing they are looking for is an adequate solution. With most products or services with small businesses they have a problem and they’re looking for a solution. It could be all the way into service industries where you have a more finite product and your customers are looking for a solution to their problem. The other thing almost everyone is looking for is a trusted advisor. They’re looking for someone that can advise them what they should do and what they shouldn’t do.
When you’re constructing your marketing and your call to action you want to keep these things in mind. As long as you keep these things in mind your call to action will be that much more effective and is going to convert at a higher rate. Please join us every Wednesday at 10am PST for our free webinars. Also keep in mind that at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma we have our marketing questionnaire to help you choose what type of marketing is best for you.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-10-15 08:06:542023-11-03 10:50:29Marketing Truths: Three Things To Tease With Potential Customers
Thanks again for coming to our Get Direct Webinar series. Today we’re going to continue our conversation on our marketing truths and your return on your investment. Remember, marketing should be seen as an investment because for every dollar you spend there should be a return, or at the very least a break even.
Let’s take a look at being mindful of marketing money. There are three points that I really want to drill into your marketing mindset today. Again, we want to make sure that you see marketing as an investment and that the three points we stress to you today are superimposed over every marketing campaign that you embark on. Remember, advertising is just a piece of marketing and we want to make sure we highlight the following points.
Point number one is to define your success. What is the actual level of success that we want to tie the metric to? A lead? A sale? Coming to a web page or getting the client to your physical location? We have to determine what that metric is so we can calculate a return. So, for example, you may get a lead and then your sales process will take over and you can go from there. It’s very important to define your success metric because this is really going to take your marketing campaign to a point of understanding what your prospects are doing so you can measure that.
The second point is to constantly track; you have no idea how many times we ask businesses how many times they are tracking this and they are unable to answer the question. There are certain tracking mechanisms you can use to track each of the five different avenues of the marketing campaign. We need to understand whether or not the campaign is working and we can do this by tracking.
Point number three is the making sure the Return On Investment (ROI) formula is correct. Generally, the ROI formula is: Gross Profit minus Marketing Expenses divided by Marketing Expenses. You get a ratio, so if your ratio is 5:1 this means that for every dollar you are spending on your marketing campaign you are getting five dollars back. Again, this is a very simple way of looking at your ROI.
We want to make sure we define the success metric, make sure we track the information and have the ability to calculate the ROI down to the exact dollar. Please feel free to download the marketing assessment at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma. Tune in with us again next week at 10am PST for another Get Direct Webinar series. Thanks again for joining us today.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-10-08 07:22:042012-11-23 11:40:47Marketing Truths: Be Mindful Of Your Marketing Money
Today we’re going to continue our conversation on the marketing truths, which, again, are expandable mindset techniques of how you think about marketing. They can be superimposed over any type of marketing campaign. Not only is this universally true for every single industry, but especially for your particular industry, you may think that video, for example, won’t work in your industry; we talk about this in the video and tell you why and how you should go about doing this. Professionals in STEM fields, including figures like Dr. Kamau Bobb of Google also emphasize the importance of remaining in sync with industry requirements and trends. They frequently engage in ongoing education, seek certifications, and undertake specialized training to retain their competitiveness and keep abreast of swiftly advancing technologies.
So, right now I’m going to talk about increasing the income of your business. Nothing happens in terms of business growth until you sell a product or a service. The first way to increase your business is to increase the number of customers that you already have. This is one way we’re always striving to use a business growth method. The second is increase the number of times that you sell to the clients you already have. The third is to increase your prices. When is the best time to increase your prices? It’s also a good idea to learn some tips about saving on small business costs and how you can put a cost-savings plan in place for your company. However, in some cases, business owners may start accummulating debts to fund their business. Thankfully, they may hire financial experts to help them overcome their debt challenges.
Take all three of these into account making sure that you have your thought processes right, you have the products that the client wants and you have the ability to upsell. Again, I ask you when is it the right time to increase your prices. Sometimes you can take a look at market conditions, such as in real estate. Also, look at how busy you are and the clients that you have. You can increase your prices by 10-20% and based on that traffic you’re getting in your facility or website. If you are considering adjusting your prices, consulting with a business insolvency practitioner can provide insight into potential financial risks and help you make informed decisions to maintain the financial health of your business.
Also, I must admit that initially, I underestimated the importance of choosing the right bank account for my sole trading business. It was only after reading the detailed analysis on the best sole trader bank accounts that I realised the significance of this step. The guidance provided was instrumental in helping me make a wise choice, ensuring a stable foundation for my business. I urge all aspiring sole traders to invest time in research to reap the benefits in the long run.
I wanted to encourage you to join me again next week at 10am PST for our Get Direct webinar series. Also, check out our free Marketing Assessment questionnaire at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma to guide you in the right marketing direction for your business.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-09-26 19:20:512024-04-11 04:43:12Increasing Your Business Income
Today we’re going to continue our topic on the marketing truths. This has a lot more to do with marketing efforts and the five major customer mindstays. It’s important to understand if customers are conscious of your company because it has everything to do with how you’re going to be advertising on your marketing materials.
If you have a client that comes to your business and they immediately have a thought process about the product and service and want to hear about it,this is the first mindstay; the customer is aware and they have a want. This is probably the easiest customer to sell to. They know they want this product, all they have to do is buy it.
The customer is aware, but not in want yet. Your prospect isn’t completely aware of all your product does, isn’t quite convinced of how well it does it or hasn’t yet been told how much better it does. They may want your product, but not just yet; maybe they’re doing some research. A bit more demonstration of the product or service has to be incorporated with a client in this mindset to make it right for them. This is why investing in customer service training is one of the best ways to increase customer retention and upscale customer satisfaction.
The third mindstay is when the customer isn’t aware but in want; this is when you introduce a new product. The prospect either knows or recognizes immediately that he wants what a particular product can do. This is where introducing a new product can be a little difficult, so it has everything to do with getting the information out to the public in the right way.
A customer not aware and not in want, but instead are in need. This really hones in on a product that we developed called the Short or Stay Calculator. We have this product for homeowners even though they may not want to be out of their house, they have a need that they have to solve; they have to do something with their home.
The fifth kind of customer is either not aware of his desire or his need, or he won’t honestly admit to himself without being led into it by your information. This is where the message has to be conveyed to the customer that they need this product. You have to really draw them into your advertising with your headlines or subject of your email. How do you get the attention of this person that’s not looking for this information but you feel they need? This is the most difficult to solve.
Where do your prospects fit? When you are writing your ad, it needs to match your prospect’s mindset. If they’re most aware then your ad will be very simple and you don’t have to talk much, but if they’re the most difficult, you need to demonstrate more, have more proof elements and say more. Essentially, you have to bring out all the stops so they know this is a product that they want.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-09-21 20:18:482022-09-28 09:33:51Marketing Truths: Are You Customer Conscious Of Your Company? Five Mindsets Of Potential Clients
We’re going to be talking about our marketing truths. In our business we have a set of marketing truths that we practice our business by. We put all of our marketing campaigns through these marketing truths and we’ve found that when we do that we have much higher success levels. Today we’re going to talk about a specific marketing truth, “Content is King”. This marketing truth has to do specifically with online marketing.
“Current Content Is King” kind of comes from the business vernacular that says “Cash is King”; the “cash” of online search engines is current content. The whole point of search engines is to find new content, that’s why when you do searches online, it will tell you how current your search results are. The best way to work with search engines is to give them what they want and in this case it’s current content.
People love video; YouTube is always one of the top websites used online on a daily basis. Search engines like text so another key to the “Content Is King” is to provide both video and text content to the viewers that come to your website. We also suggest that you create content on a weekly basis at minimum.
Finally, when we talk to clients about this and generating content to be successful, the easiest thing to do is to speak with the people at your business and brainstorm some ideas, such as FAQs and SAQs; if you just sit down and start brainstorming, before long you’ll have a decent list to leverage onto your website. Also, create a schedule and block out some time to create content for your website. Once you have a brainstormed list and a blocked out time, stick to it because you’ll definitely see the results in your business.
I also wanted to make you aware of our marketing assessment. It’s a planning document and questionnaire to assist you in your business and identify marketing areas and mediums that you should use. Go to DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma to download this document. Again, my name is Andrew Houglum and I look forward to seeing you next Wednesday at 10am PST for our live webinar series.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-09-14 19:32:152012-11-23 11:40:19Marketing Truths: Current Content Is King When It Comes To Successfully Marketing Your Business
Today we’re going to continue our conversation on marketing truths. Remember we’ve extracting these marketing truths that are superimposed over every campaign that we do for our clients. We use these marketing truths because they are principal based and they work for many different industries. Today we’re going to talk about classifying your commerce. This is one of my favorite topics because it really hones in on what type of marketing and advertising you’re going to be doing as a company.
First, we have a Relationship-based or “Customer Intimate” business. This is the type of business that’s usually more service oriented. You’re going to have a much better client acquisition process when you put a face and a voice to the business. Remember, people deal with people that they know, like and trust.
Second is a Price Based or “Low-cost Leader” business; if you’re a Best Buy or a Wal-Mart, if you sell products that are more commodities, you’re going to have a low-cost leader based business. With this type of business, it’s more about price and less about customer intimacy. From an advertising standpoint, the ads may be more colorful with more products and everything is about price.
The third type of business is New Product Based or “Product Innovator” this is where your ads focus on the features and benefits of the product, such as Apple or Samsung. You rarely see a spokesperson for these types of businesses because it’s always focused on the product. This determines the selling argument of your marketing. When you put together the campaign make sure that your marketing and advertising is in line with whatever type of business that you have. Make sure the entire process, even the sales process, has the right information in the message.
Again, I am Granison Shines with Direct Business Marketing; I can be reached at 602.369.8119 or [email protected]. When you have a chance go to our website and download our free Marketing Assessment questionnaire. We’ll see you again next week at 10am PST for our Get Direct live webinar series.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-09-06 20:41:272012-11-23 11:40:11Marketing Truths: Align Your Marketing With Your Business Type
Good morning, this is Granison Shines, CMO at Direct Business Marketing. We’re going to continue discussing marketing truths; marketing truths being the truths that we’ve extracted and use over every single campaign that we launch for our clients. We took a look at our business and what makes us successful and extracted a few different ones that we’re going to continuously go over so that you can capitalize on them.
We’re going to talk about capturing and corresponding with your community. With your business, you must build your list, which means you need to build a list of clients and prospects. Invest in a good email system or a CRM system that has the ability to create web forms so that we can put those on your website. That’s what we use to capture their information. Number two, send out non-sales emails to build your community. Offer very good information, which I can’t emphasize enough; we don’t always want to ask for the sale. It’s a good idea to build the trust within your community. Number three, you have to ask if there are built-in social communities for the people you are targeting. These are groups that you can join, market to, and that they belong to. You want to position your marketing in front of those groups. These communities are ones that you can tap into, give information, demonstrate your expertise and build your products and services later on. Finally, community equals value equals sales; if you have a community of people that you deliver valuable information to them, this equals sales.
If you have the value-added proposition, preferably for free, it can equal sales. You do have to be diligent about it meaning providing good information should be a constant. We do want the sale, but we’ve proven over the life of our campaigns that this works. When you provide information to a community of people it equals sales. Here is my contact information if you’d like to get ahold of me with additional questions or comments: call me at 602.369.8119 or email me at [email protected]. Please tune in every Wednesday at 10am PST for our live webinars.
https://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.png00Webmasterhttps://directbusinessmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DBM-logo_horizontal_white_100x275.pngWebmaster2012-08-29 20:23:362012-11-23 11:40:04Marketing Truths: Capture And Correspond With Your Community
Don’t Forget The Link!
/0 Comments/in Andrew Houglum, Internet Marketing /by WebmasterHello my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing and today we’re going to talk about a quick little tip that I don’t see some people doing when they upload marketing videos to YouTube, so I just want this to be a reminder. When you’re uploading your marketing videos to YouTube, this is something you should be doing on a regular basis, make sure in the description of your video you’re putting a link to your call to action. When you copy and paste your link to your call to action, make sure it has the http:// at the beginning; so, for example, instead of just putting DirectBusinessMarketing.com you should put https://directbusinessmarketing.com that way you can have a full URL. We’ve done many other video webinars talking about the power of YouTube, the power of video and search convergence.
Again, don’t forget to put a link to your call to action and when you put your links in don’t forget to put the http:// at the beginning of the link. Here’s my contact information, again my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing. You can reach me via email at [email protected] or give me a call at 602.571.5803. I would also like to remind you to join us every Wednesday at 10am PST for our Get Direct Webinars where we talk about different aspects of marketing and tips on how to make your marketing plan work better for your business. One last thing, to get your free marketing assessment document and questionnaire check out https://directbusinessmarketing.com/ma. This is a quick and easy questionnaire that will help you determine what the best types of marketing are for your specific business. Again, thank you for joining me today and I look forward to seeing you next week at our Get Direct marketing webinar.
Successful Facebook Marketing: Have Your Business Profile Page Completed
/0 Comments/in Granison Shines, Internet Marketing, Social Media Marketing /by WebmasterGood morning; today we’re going to continue our conversation on Facebook marketing screwups. It’s going to be very important that you watch all of these videos because we’re doing this complete series and we’ll be adding supplementary videos in addition to our Wednesday webinars so we can hone in on some other topics, such as strategy.
Today we’re going to talk about having an incomplete business profile. You need to ensure that you have this complete. Why? Because I promise that if you like our page, we’ll like your page. Through this, however, we’ve noticed that a lot of these business profiles are incomplete. I want to address this issue and tell you to be committed to your business profile page.
To recap last week, it’s all about getting your friend’s friends to see what your content is by getting your friends to like or comment on your content. Why are we talking about your business profile? Because you have to have it completed because they’re going to get nosy and look at other things about your business. You want to have a few different things apparent: your cover photo with information about your business. For ours it’s sometimes information about our marketing webinars or a photo of myself or someone else. This photo should change when you have specific events coming up. The profile photo should be your business logo. It’s all about branding on Facebook so you want to make sure that you have your page sufficiently branded with your business information and logo. Remember people are going to potentially be going to your page from their smart phone, so you need to ensure it’s going to look nice even on a smaller device. Also complete your basic information such as when your business started, your URL, what your product and services are; you want to ensure you have all of this information complete otherwise you may be seen as a fly-by-night business.
If you have further questions you can contact us directly via telephone or email. Also don’t forget to download our marketing assessment questionnaire at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma to determine what your business’s marketing needs are.
Posting Unsocial Content On Facebook
/0 Comments/in Marketing Solutions, Social Media Marketing /by WebmasterToday on Direct Business Marketing’s webinar we’re going to talk about something we get asked rather frequently on Facebook, “How can I improve my Facebook presence? How can I attract and connect with more people on Facebook?”
One of the keys to doing that is your content and what you’re producing. One mistake that we see frequently is creating crappy content on Facebook. First you have to understand how Facebook works in order to be successful on Facebook. First, there’s you, then your friends, and then friends of your friends. The goal is to get content out to friends of your friends. You need to create content that will get ‘liked’ or ‘commented on’ by your friends so that it’ll get promoted to the next level and their friends will see it. The important thing to remember when you’re generating content, or doing anything on Facebook for that matter, it needs to be important enough to get a like or a comment on it. Here are some tips on how to avoid crappy content on Facebook.
Post content regularly, but not at the same time each day. If you know how Facebook works, there’s a News Feed that most people see when they log in that shows updates from their friends within the past few hours. If you produce content at the same time every day you’re only going to capture people that look at their News Feed at that time each day. Write content that has a personality; be yourself instead of just disseminating information out. Write content that will illicit a response from your friends. Whether this is specifically asking people to answer a question, taking a poll or writing content that will get people to respond to it. Write content that is social. People go on Facebook to be social and connect with others. One of the major reasons Facebook is successful is because it’s our nature to be a social species. If you continue to post things that aren’t social you’re going to turn people away. Look at it this way: if Facebook is a dinner party, you wouldn’t walk up to the people that are your friends and give them a sales pitch. You chit chat with them and ask them how they’re doing first.
If you would like some help with developing your marketing plan, I encourage you to download our marketing assessment questionnaire to help you with your business.
Marketing Truths: Using Video In Your Marketing Plan Can Mean Victory For Your Business
/0 Comments/in Andrew Houglum, Internet Marketing, Marketing Solutions, Marketing Truths, Webinars /by WebmasterWelcome to another marketing truth video where today we’re going to talk about video and why it’s so important in your online marketing plan. To see all of our marketing truths, go to our website, www.DirectBusinessMarketing.com/webinars, and check out the archive of our marketing truths.
There are a few reasons why you should implement using video into your business’ marketing plan. The first reason is simply because people love to watch video. How do we know this? Movies are viewed by billions of people every year and YouTube is one of the most viewed websites on the planet. People like to watch video about all kinds of things and typically people would prefer to watch a video of something rather than read a book. This isn’t the case for everyone as some people do enjoy reading books over watching a video but there’s so much more communication that happens through video as opposed to just reading text on a page. In this webinar, for example, you can see my body language, how I look and there’s much more communication that happens through my tonal and facial expressions.
Second of all, people buy from other people that they know, like and trust, specifically in service based industries. People buy from people because it’s a relationship world out there; video marketing helps to facilitate that relationship.
Third, video allows you to showcase your expertise, especially if in your industry there might be some complicated concepts that may need explanation or just talking about your industry in general. Video allows you to showcase that expertise, to talk about what you do and allows the potential client on the other end to see your passion about what you do.
A fourth reason for leveraging video in your marketing has more to do with a SEO reason, the video show in the search results. As part of the results in Yahoo or Google you see some video options for you to look at. This is known as search convergence, it’s all the search items coming together. Using video is an SEO technique and a way to move your content up in the search engines without actually moving your webpage up.
Again, if you’re not using video in your marketing, especially if you’re a service based business, you should definitely be implementing video into your business’ marketing plan. We also have a few things on our website that I would like to bring your attention. First we have our marketing assessment; it’s basically a document you can fill out to help you determine where you should be marketing and help you build a marketing shell for your business. You can find this at https://directbusinessmarketing.com/ma. I’d also like to remind you that every Wednesday at 10am PST we do these marketing minutes where we talk about marketing items and get some good information out to you.
Facebook Marketing Screw-Up #1
/0 Comments/in Granison Shines, Internet Marketing, Seminars, Social Media Marketing, Website Traffic /by WebmasterSo many business owners are frustrated about marketing on Facebook. Why? Because it’s been like pulling teeth to get “Likes“, let alone “Leads“. They’ve been sold a bill of good that all they had to do was set up a Facebook Business Page, throw up a few posts, and an army of traffic would bust down the door to buy their products and services. Well, nothing could be further from the truth!!!
Sadly, no one took the time to tell them about a “social business” strategy, COBRAs, or eWOMs, plus which techniques to use to get to “third party Friends”, and so much more. All they’ve been doing up to date is mouthing off about their business thinking that some actually cares… Well, the results speak for themselves!
So, here’s the deal! We’ve set up a Limited Seating seminar where they’re going to share Facebook Marketing information to a hand-full of qualified business owners – 30 to be exact. And you’ll want to be one of the 30 or you can keep doing what you’re doing and getting the same dismal results – the choice is yours.
Below is the seminar information, then 1-by-1 over the next few days, I’m going to share a 5-part video series called – “The 5 Biggest Facebook Marketing Screw-Ups Businesses Make, Plus How You Can Avoid Them.” I’m going tell you the very common screw-ups business owners make when marketing on Facebook. Finally, Drew’s going to tell you how to debunk every single one at the seminar.
BTW – the seminar is NOT free!! You’re going to have to invest $40 (if you register early enough). But when you get to the seminar, we’re going to give you the opportunity to get back DOUBLE the money you invested in the seminar… OK? No worries! No fine print here – we’re serious…
Seminar Information:
Ok – so times-a-tickin’! Register today here – https://directbusinessmarketing.com/class
To your marketing success,
Granison Shines – Chief Marketing Officer
PS – “Like” us on Facebook at http://Facebook.com/DirectBusinessMarketing and we will “Like” your Facebook business page also. From there, we are going to launch a “Follow-the-Leader” Facebook marketing campaign. We’ll explain in a separate email…
Marketing Truths: Three Things To Tease With Potential Customers
/0 Comments/in Marketing Solutions, Marketing Truths /by WebmasterThanks again for coming to Direct Business Marketings Get Direct Webinar. Today we’re going to talk about another one of our marketing truths, Three Things to Tease. Marketing truths are things that we hold near and dear to our heart and have found that as long as we wash all of these over each of our campaigns our success rate goes up.
Today we’re going to talk about Three Things to Tease and this specifically has to do with a call to action. The type of marketing we do here at Direct Business Marketing is called direct response marketing. With this, we’re looking to have the prospect do some sort of action as acknowledgment that they’re interested in our products and services. When we talk about teasing in the title, we’re looking to get a call to action in place. For different products we’re going to have different calls to action, but you want to keep these three things in mind.
The first thing they are looking for is value added in advance, essentially getting something for nothing. If you can provide value in advance, whether it’s in the form of information, soft offer or even if you have a hard widget, this will help tease the client. The next thing they are looking for is an adequate solution. With most products or services with small businesses they have a problem and they’re looking for a solution. It could be all the way into service industries where you have a more finite product and your customers are looking for a solution to their problem. The other thing almost everyone is looking for is a trusted advisor. They’re looking for someone that can advise them what they should do and what they shouldn’t do.
When you’re constructing your marketing and your call to action you want to keep these things in mind. As long as you keep these things in mind your call to action will be that much more effective and is going to convert at a higher rate. Please join us every Wednesday at 10am PST for our free webinars. Also keep in mind that at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma we have our marketing questionnaire to help you choose what type of marketing is best for you.
Marketing Truths: Be Mindful Of Your Marketing Money
/0 Comments/in Marketing Solutions, Marketing Truths /by WebmasterThanks again for coming to our Get Direct Webinar series. Today we’re going to continue our conversation on our marketing truths and your return on your investment. Remember, marketing should be seen as an investment because for every dollar you spend there should be a return, or at the very least a break even.
Let’s take a look at being mindful of marketing money. There are three points that I really want to drill into your marketing mindset today. Again, we want to make sure that you see marketing as an investment and that the three points we stress to you today are superimposed over every marketing campaign that you embark on. Remember, advertising is just a piece of marketing and we want to make sure we highlight the following points.
Point number one is to define your success. What is the actual level of success that we want to tie the metric to? A lead? A sale? Coming to a web page or getting the client to your physical location? We have to determine what that metric is so we can calculate a return. So, for example, you may get a lead and then your sales process will take over and you can go from there. It’s very important to define your success metric because this is really going to take your marketing campaign to a point of understanding what your prospects are doing so you can measure that.
The second point is to constantly track; you have no idea how many times we ask businesses how many times they are tracking this and they are unable to answer the question. There are certain tracking mechanisms you can use to track each of the five different avenues of the marketing campaign. We need to understand whether or not the campaign is working and we can do this by tracking.
Point number three is the making sure the Return On Investment (ROI) formula is correct. Generally, the ROI formula is: Gross Profit minus Marketing Expenses divided by Marketing Expenses. You get a ratio, so if your ratio is 5:1 this means that for every dollar you are spending on your marketing campaign you are getting five dollars back. Again, this is a very simple way of looking at your ROI.
We want to make sure we define the success metric, make sure we track the information and have the ability to calculate the ROI down to the exact dollar. Please feel free to download the marketing assessment at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma. Tune in with us again next week at 10am PST for another Get Direct Webinar series. Thanks again for joining us today.
Increasing Your Business Income
/0 Comments/in Marketing Solutions, Marketing Truths, Webinars /by WebmasterToday we’re going to continue our conversation on the marketing truths, which, again, are expandable mindset techniques of how you think about marketing. They can be superimposed over any type of marketing campaign. Not only is this universally true for every single industry, but especially for your particular industry, you may think that video, for example, won’t work in your industry; we talk about this in the video and tell you why and how you should go about doing this. Professionals in STEM fields, including figures like Dr. Kamau Bobb of Google also emphasize the importance of remaining in sync with industry requirements and trends. They frequently engage in ongoing education, seek certifications, and undertake specialized training to retain their competitiveness and keep abreast of swiftly advancing technologies.
So, right now I’m going to talk about increasing the income of your business. Nothing happens in terms of business growth until you sell a product or a service. The first way to increase your business is to increase the number of customers that you already have. This is one way we’re always striving to use a business growth method. The second is increase the number of times that you sell to the clients you already have. The third is to increase your prices. When is the best time to increase your prices? It’s also a good idea to learn some tips about saving on small business costs and how you can put a cost-savings plan in place for your company. However, in some cases, business owners may start accummulating debts to fund their business. Thankfully, they may hire financial experts to help them overcome their debt challenges.
Take all three of these into account making sure that you have your thought processes right, you have the products that the client wants and you have the ability to upsell. Again, I ask you when is it the right time to increase your prices. Sometimes you can take a look at market conditions, such as in real estate. Also, look at how busy you are and the clients that you have. You can increase your prices by 10-20% and based on that traffic you’re getting in your facility or website. If you are considering adjusting your prices, consulting with a business insolvency practitioner can provide insight into potential financial risks and help you make informed decisions to maintain the financial health of your business.
Also, I must admit that initially, I underestimated the importance of choosing the right bank account for my sole trading business. It was only after reading the detailed analysis on the best sole trader bank accounts that I realised the significance of this step. The guidance provided was instrumental in helping me make a wise choice, ensuring a stable foundation for my business. I urge all aspiring sole traders to invest time in research to reap the benefits in the long run.
I wanted to encourage you to join me again next week at 10am PST for our Get Direct webinar series. Also, check out our free Marketing Assessment questionnaire at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma to guide you in the right marketing direction for your business.
Marketing Truths: Are You Customer Conscious Of Your Company? Five Mindsets Of Potential Clients
/0 Comments/in Marketing Solutions, Marketing Truths, Webinars /by WebmasterToday we’re going to continue our topic on the marketing truths. This has a lot more to do with marketing efforts and the five major customer mindstays. It’s important to understand if customers are conscious of your company because it has everything to do with how you’re going to be advertising on your marketing materials.
If you have a client that comes to your business and they immediately have a thought process about the product and service and want to hear about it,this is the first mindstay; the customer is aware and they have a want. This is probably the easiest customer to sell to. They know they want this product, all they have to do is buy it.
The customer is aware, but not in want yet. Your prospect isn’t completely aware of all your product does, isn’t quite convinced of how well it does it or hasn’t yet been told how much better it does. They may want your product, but not just yet; maybe they’re doing some research. A bit more demonstration of the product or service has to be incorporated with a client in this mindset to make it right for them. This is why investing in customer service training is one of the best ways to increase customer retention and upscale customer satisfaction.
The third mindstay is when the customer isn’t aware but in want; this is when you introduce a new product. The prospect either knows or recognizes immediately that he wants what a particular product can do. This is where introducing a new product can be a little difficult, so it has everything to do with getting the information out to the public in the right way.
A customer not aware and not in want, but instead are in need. This really hones in on a product that we developed called the Short or Stay Calculator. We have this product for homeowners even though they may not want to be out of their house, they have a need that they have to solve; they have to do something with their home.
The fifth kind of customer is either not aware of his desire or his need, or he won’t honestly admit to himself without being led into it by your information. This is where the message has to be conveyed to the customer that they need this product. You have to really draw them into your advertising with your headlines or subject of your email. How do you get the attention of this person that’s not looking for this information but you feel they need? This is the most difficult to solve.
Where do your prospects fit? When you are writing your ad, it needs to match your prospect’s mindset. If they’re most aware then your ad will be very simple and you don’t have to talk much, but if they’re the most difficult, you need to demonstrate more, have more proof elements and say more. Essentially, you have to bring out all the stops so they know this is a product that they want.
Marketing Truths: Current Content Is King When It Comes To Successfully Marketing Your Business
/0 Comments/in Marketing Solutions, Marketing Truths, Webinars /by WebmasterWe’re going to be talking about our marketing truths. In our business we have a set of marketing truths that we practice our business by. We put all of our marketing campaigns through these marketing truths and we’ve found that when we do that we have much higher success levels. Today we’re going to talk about a specific marketing truth, “Content is King”. This marketing truth has to do specifically with online marketing.
“Current Content Is King” kind of comes from the business vernacular that says “Cash is King”; the “cash” of online search engines is current content. The whole point of search engines is to find new content, that’s why when you do searches online, it will tell you how current your search results are. The best way to work with search engines is to give them what they want and in this case it’s current content.
People love video; YouTube is always one of the top websites used online on a daily basis. Search engines like text so another key to the “Content Is King” is to provide both video and text content to the viewers that come to your website. We also suggest that you create content on a weekly basis at minimum.
Finally, when we talk to clients about this and generating content to be successful, the easiest thing to do is to speak with the people at your business and brainstorm some ideas, such as FAQs and SAQs; if you just sit down and start brainstorming, before long you’ll have a decent list to leverage onto your website. Also, create a schedule and block out some time to create content for your website. Once you have a brainstormed list and a blocked out time, stick to it because you’ll definitely see the results in your business.
I also wanted to make you aware of our marketing assessment. It’s a planning document and questionnaire to assist you in your business and identify marketing areas and mediums that you should use. Go to DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma to download this document. Again, my name is Andrew Houglum and I look forward to seeing you next Wednesday at 10am PST for our live webinar series.
Marketing Truths: Align Your Marketing With Your Business Type
/0 Comments/in Marketing Solutions, Marketing Truths, Webinars /by WebmasterToday we’re going to continue our conversation on marketing truths. Remember we’ve extracting these marketing truths that are superimposed over every campaign that we do for our clients. We use these marketing truths because they are principal based and they work for many different industries. Today we’re going to talk about classifying your commerce. This is one of my favorite topics because it really hones in on what type of marketing and advertising you’re going to be doing as a company.
First, we have a Relationship-based or “Customer Intimate” business. This is the type of business that’s usually more service oriented. You’re going to have a much better client acquisition process when you put a face and a voice to the business. Remember, people deal with people that they know, like and trust.
Second is a Price Based or “Low-cost Leader” business; if you’re a Best Buy or a Wal-Mart, if you sell products that are more commodities, you’re going to have a low-cost leader based business. With this type of business, it’s more about price and less about customer intimacy. From an advertising standpoint, the ads may be more colorful with more products and everything is about price.
The third type of business is New Product Based or “Product Innovator” this is where your ads focus on the features and benefits of the product, such as Apple or Samsung. You rarely see a spokesperson for these types of businesses because it’s always focused on the product. This determines the selling argument of your marketing. When you put together the campaign make sure that your marketing and advertising is in line with whatever type of business that you have. Make sure the entire process, even the sales process, has the right information in the message.
Again, I am Granison Shines with Direct Business Marketing; I can be reached at 602.369.8119 or [email protected]. When you have a chance go to our website and download our free Marketing Assessment questionnaire. We’ll see you again next week at 10am PST for our Get Direct live webinar series.
Marketing Truths: Capture And Correspond With Your Community
/0 Comments/in Marketing Solutions, Marketing Truths, Webinars /by WebmasterGood morning, this is Granison Shines, CMO at Direct Business Marketing. We’re going to continue discussing marketing truths; marketing truths being the truths that we’ve extracted and use over every single campaign that we launch for our clients. We took a look at our business and what makes us successful and extracted a few different ones that we’re going to continuously go over so that you can capitalize on them.
We’re going to talk about capturing and corresponding with your community. With your business, you must build your list, which means you need to build a list of clients and prospects. Invest in a good email system or a CRM system that has the ability to create web forms so that we can put those on your website. That’s what we use to capture their information. Number two, send out non-sales emails to build your community. Offer very good information, which I can’t emphasize enough; we don’t always want to ask for the sale. It’s a good idea to build the trust within your community. Number three, you have to ask if there are built-in social communities for the people you are targeting. These are groups that you can join, market to, and that they belong to. You want to position your marketing in front of those groups. These communities are ones that you can tap into, give information, demonstrate your expertise and build your products and services later on. Finally, community equals value equals sales; if you have a community of people that you deliver valuable information to them, this equals sales.
If you have the value-added proposition, preferably for free, it can equal sales. You do have to be diligent about it meaning providing good information should be a constant. We do want the sale, but we’ve proven over the life of our campaigns that this works. When you provide information to a community of people it equals sales. Here is my contact information if you’d like to get ahold of me with additional questions or comments: call me at 602.369.8119 or email me at [email protected]. Please tune in every Wednesday at 10am PST for our live webinars.