We spoke in the last article about three ways to market yourself in a low cost or free way. Here are four more.

1. Set up joint ventures

Use joint venturing where you have one asset, and another business has a complementary one. You approach your clients (or theirs) jointly, and split the profits. For example, say you have a great product on how to decrease your golf handicap and you know the owners of a golf course who has a good list they can promote to, you get them to talk glowingly about your product. Each subsequent sale you make is more than you would have done otherwise, so it’s worth splitting the profits.

Say you sell cars: you could promote someone’s insurance and each time you sell the package, you get a ‘reward’ (payment). From the insurance firm’s point of view, they get another sales team that’s costing them nothing until you secure them a sale. Look out for non-competitive businesses that have the sort of customers you want to reach. You win because you’re getting a virtually overnight expansion of the amount of people you meet. They win as they get an immediate additional income stream and their customers are pleased.

What joint ventures could you do and with whom?

2. Email your ‘list’

Emailing your ‘list’ (the customers and prospects you have email addresses for and who have agreed to hear from you) at least twice a month. Split test your offers, content and types of emails. Personalised, simple emails are more read than long, convoluted newsletters. Of course, you could send out hard copy letters, but this is more time consuming, slower, and a lot more costly.

What offers could you email your list with?

And, if you don’t have a list, what steps will you take to build one?

3. Speak in public

This is a great marketing skill, so go and get training if needs be, or pick on a colleague who likes doing it and ask them to step in for you. Wherever you work, the chances are there are plenty of places crying out for speakers. So, go and give a 40 minute presentation to a group on your area of expertise: you’ll have a whole group focused on you – a marketer’s dream!

Give them a talk that will help them: for example, ‘The Ten Best Ways to Market Yourself’, or ‘Seven Things You Can Do to Ease a Stiff Back’. You can show the audience how your knowledge/product/service will help them, but keep the sales pitch to a minimum and put it at the end.

Do include a call to action, and make sure they take away your details. Say you’ll send them the seminar notes and a bonus report (or gift) if they sign up to your newsletter. DON’T go on about how long you’ve been in business, etc. The audience won’t care; they’ll want to know what you can say that will help them with their problems.

Research online, and at your local Chamber of Commerce, networking groups, library and tourist information office. Look further afield too. Somewhere out there your prospects will be meeting in groups: overweight teenagers, smokers, vintage car buffs, metal work enthusiasts, people with no clue how to fill in a tax return, rock climbers, whatever. It’s a numbers game – try 10 and get two, and keep at it. Your reputation will spread, you’ll be seen more and more as the expert to turn to (and buy from) and your diary will be full.

Which groups could you approach that would like to hear a presentation from you, and what would you speak on?

4. Improve your sales skills

(Or improve your sales team’s skills.) Yes, this is marketing: it’s marketing through talking, either face to face, over the phone, or through the written word. Read How To Master The Art Of Selling by Tom Hopkins and books by Richard Denny and Brad Sugars. Also read books by copywriting masters such as Dan Kennedy (and also apply what you learn about selling through the written word to what you say to your prospects).

Rather than leaping into trying all techniques at once, practice one skill at a time until it becomes second nature. Then work on the next skill. Most people aren’t prepared to put in the time to improve their sales skills, preferring to ‘wing it’, so if you’re willing to spend the time learning, you’ll have a great competitive advantage. There’s an initial investment, but thereafter your sales skills improvements can make a rapid improvement in your profits for no extra cost.

What step could you take this week improve your sales skills, and what will you start to sell?

There are many ways to get noticed by prospects and current clients for free or very little cost. Here are three of them.

1. Get on the phone and call your 21 best customers or prospects

… and ask them what they need and want rather than selling what you think they need to them. Talk to them and ask them questions about what you do for them and what they’d like done. Make them feel special and also find out what their current needs are – they may be different now from when they first bought from you. Act on what they say.

If you can, get out and meet your customers, especially the ones that bring you in the most profit. Look carefully at your accounts and you’ll see that about only 20% of your clients give you 80% of your income. Build and maintain these relationships, and think about dropping the rest. Use your meetings to try to get a buying decision.

If you can’t get out to meet your customers or can’t get them on the phone, they may be willing to help you out by filling in an online questionnaire: they’re quick, require very little effort, and you can bribe them with a free report. For example, ’7 Things you Must Know Before Buying a New Car’, which could be in PDF format. Or you could issue a voucher for them to print off. They get instant access to your ‘thank you gift’ as soon as they’ve filled in the questionnaire.

You can easily build your own questionnaire for free through sites such as Survey Monkey and Free Online Surveys. You don’t need to know how to code or design; it’s done for you. Even better, you get statistical feedback without having to do it yourself. You can send questionnaires through the post, but many people won’t be bothered unless they’re bored and looking for a diversion, or you have a hefty reward to make it worth their while, and a freepost envelope supplied.

What questions (face to face, by phone or online) will you ask your clients, and how will you thank them for giving you their time?

Try to get two referrals from each client you contact – this can be a natural part of the conversation if you have a good rapport with them. A referral means they recommend you to someone else, or give you someone’s name for you to call. If possible, get them to tell the person you’ll be contacting them, and why.

2. Upsell

Upselling means selling something more/extra at the moment they buy from you. You’ll be familiar with the, ‘Would you like fries with that?’ upsell. The initial marketing costs are the same, but at the point of purchase it costs no more to add some sales on. Even if only 16 out of every 100 customers say yes, you have 16 more sales for virtually no extra cost and a few seconds’ effort.

When people buy their first product or service from you, what could you be offering to them that they need/want? (If you have nothing, create it, or team up with someone. For example, if you’re selling houses, you could offer decoration, removal and carpeting services. Amazon are brilliant at upsells, offering you other books you might be interested in, a first class post, and the option of adding gift wrap and a message.)

3. Network

If you believe that your time can be as an important an asset in marketing your business as money is, you’ll get a lot of free marketing through networking. Yes, you are losing working hours, but if you network well, what you gain should be worth more than what you ‘lose’. Use the networking time to deliver your marketing message to new and current contacts rather than have a cosy gossip with your friends. When we say, ‘deliver your marketing message’, we don’t mean go straight up to someone and start pitching to them!

Find out about people’s business and how you can help them (you may have a contact they can benefit from). When they ask you in turn about you and your business, have your message prepared. Get your marketing in a nutshell (don’t ramble and drone), and speak in benefits rather than features. For example, instead of saying, ‘I’m an accountant’ say, ‘I help businesses save 27% on their tax bills.’ Networking is also great for setting up joint ventures (JVs), or at least finding the contacts for them.

Who do you want to meet, and what will you say at your networking meetings?

We’ll cover more low cost and free ways in the next article.

When you’re working out what marketing you’re going to do when, keep in mind future scenarios, and play a ‘what if’ game.

Ask other business and non-business people to come up with some ‘what if’ situations and ‘yes, but’ objections. Write them all down, no matter how daft sounding and decide on a plan. Obviously these plans needn’t be set in stone, but they do help you to be aware of the possibilities. Here’s an example: 

• At the moment, I am the only cobbler in the town. What if a competitor moves into the area?
• How might I make sure I know before it happens?
• How will I make sure I keep my existing clients?
• How will I step up my marketing? (And why aren’t I doing that now?)
• Will this affect my staffing levels?

In addition, ask yourself, “What ‘yes, buts’ can I think of and how can I answer them from a marketing point of view?” (For example, “Yes, but I’m the best there is in the industry” could be answered with, “So how will I let people know that, and who is it I want to know?”) 

Here are a few more scenarios that could affect you: 

• What if a competitor fails?
• What if there’s a technological breakthrough? Would you use it?
• What if there’s a technological breakthrough and your competitors start using it before you?
• What if you half your advertising spending?
• What if you double your advertising spending?
• What if new laws come in that affect your business?
• What if some laws are relaxed/deregulated in your industry?
• What if you want to buy out a competitor?
• What if you want to take on extra staff?
• What if you want to move much of your business online?
• What if several of your staff leave/go on holiday/go off sick at the same time?
• What if you broke your leg or developed a long-term illness?
• What if you wanted to sell your business?

 Once you have answers to these questions, think about how you would let people know if there were a change. A few very easy ways are to change your web pages, send out offline and online press releases, and alert people through your mailing list and/or email lists and/or Twitter (and other social media). 

 Other ways will be through blogs, articles, You Tube and SlideShare. The main thing is to keep clients, customers and prospects informed, and to keep them on your side. And any changes are always a good opportunity for some marketing. 

Enjoy.

 PPC marketing is best well suited for those websites that have not yet established themselves in the world of the organic search engine results, or if you have something that is time-sensitive and you want to promote it now! 

But PPC does have a downside as well. PPC can cost you thousands of dollars in marketing dollars if you do not take time to carefully plan out your PPC marketing campaign. Against popular PPC marketing is not just selecting a few keywords and designing your advertisement, actually there is much more involved. There are tips though that you can use to reduce your PPC marketing cost and create a great marketing campaign as a result.

1. Competitors
The best way that you can start off your PPC marketing campaign is to check out the competitors.  Look and see what kind of strategies that they may be using to market their business. There are tools that you can purchase that will help you have a fair idea of the advertising strategies of your competitors.  The most important thing for you to pay attention to when you are looking at the competitors ads are the keyword placement, ad body, and where the ads are being placed on their site.

2. Keyword Variations
It is important for your PPC marketing campaign to incorporate proper keywords in suitable variations throughout your website. If your keywords are not placed properly then all your other efforts will be effortless.  You need to take considerable time when you are creating your keywords. Careful research of what keywords people are searching for will aide you in your keyword search.

3.Keywords to avoid
If you begin your PPC campaign off by using hypercompetitive keywords you are setting yourself up for spending tons of money and your marketing budget will dry up quickly.  However, there are a lot of low cost keywords that you can use with proper matching techniques that will be able to save you money in the long run.

4. Call to action terms
Your call to action terms is very important to your PPC marketing campaign.  If you use words such as ‘click here’ or ‘buy here’ customers will not be as apt to follow the directions because they feel it is just a high priced gimmick.  However, if you use the words ‘sale’, ‘discount’, ‘great tips to use your flip cam’, or exact models like ‘Zophia 3-2-X-A”, you will do better – these are terms that the customers are looking for and are more apt to click on the links as long as you deliver what you promise on the other side.

By the way, if you don’t want people who are just seeking freebies, you can instruct your campaign not to show your ad when people type in ‘free’ in the search box.

5. Honest
It is ok to make a mistake but be honest and correct it and apologize to your visitor. Also when you are using PPC marketing all your information should be honest with no false information. The false information will turn your customer away. It will also leave your site with a negative reputation. If you are practicing dishonesty in your site you are only going to accrue the cost with no returns in the end result. Make sure your link leads to the promised site – and perferably to the exact page (so they don’t have to search).

6. Review your ad performance
Make sure you check on your PPC ads on a daily basis. This will allow you room for fixing any errors that you may inquire.  It will also allow you time to optimize your site if you are not seeing the results that you are seeking.

Making money with your PPC marketing campaign can make you tons of cash if it is done correctly. The more time and effort that you put into the PPC marketing campaign the more revenue you stand to generate in the end. If you do use PPC to send people to a squeeze (sign-up) page, make sure there is plenty of content on it as well (below the form, of course), as Google doesn’t favour pages with little content when you’re4 using PPC.

Brad Gosse says it for us:

And just using SEO to solve all your business problems won’t work either! Think carefully, and include it as just a part of your marketing mix.

Having an opt-in list will help you build a list of prospects who are interested in your service or product. Once you build your list, you can send out emails and letters to promote to your ‘subscribers’.

In the sidebar of this site, you can see the form we use for one of our opt-in lists.

 This and following articles will tell you about building your lists.

 You finally realise that you need a good opt-in list. After reading countless articles and sought expert advices and have read many success stories of people creating a small fortune with opt-in lists you finally decide to have one of your own. Then it happens, you think you have known everything there is to know about opt-in lists and have followed their advices to the T and you still weren’t able to make a profit. 

 In fact, you may be losing money. You may be hiring writers to help you out, or there are some expenses incurred, even if you have a big list, but only a very small percentage actually buys from you, you’re still losing profit. You’ll realise that after a few months when you see your statistics and sales figures. 

 So what could have gone wrong? Why have others succeeded where you have failed? The most common mistake is that you dived straight right in. You chose a topic where you think could be quite popular and would earn you money. This just not the case. Just because you wrote people from the list doesn’t mean they are going to buy instantly.

 Here I will offer more advice, for those who have started an opt-in list and have failed, you can rejuvenate your failed venture. For those who are starting, here are three quick and easy ways to build a profitable opt-in list.

 1)   Get your customers to trust you and your products first

Just launching your opt-in list would not make you an expert and a believable seller. Put many articles first before you start an opt-in list. Write about the topic you know and have started and used for your site. Try to put forums first to gain knowledge about your customers about their wants and needs and target those wants and needs.

 Join forums from other sites as well. Provide expert advices and recommendations. When you feel that people trust you already, you will be able to start your own opt-in list. You can build a base as well with other forum users. You can ask them to join your list. Friends are always good customers. Put up a link to your site so that they may be able to see what you’re business is all about.

 The certain truth is, the money will only come in when the consumers and subscribers believe and trust in you. They want a product or service that could be a good exchange for their money. People are not going to buy something out of your recommendation if they don’t know you.

 2)   Find a product or service that people want and need

Although it may not be your forte, if you provide a service and product that you have researched and learned about well, you can carry it on forward. Invest your time, effort and money that you could sell as well as the buyers or subscribers of your opt-in list can use.

 While it is true that it is best to sell something that you have interest in, there are not many people who have the same interest as you if you decide to sell something that is not entirely popular or profitable. Do your research well and you would see the profits come in. Also provide your subscribers with promotional material that they could actually use and spread around. 

3)   Set up alliances with other opt-in list users

This is basically beneficial especially if it is someone who has already launched a successful opt-in list. These are people that have the experience in this venture and experience is still the best teacher. While there are many articles available for you in the internet to use, there is nothing like getting a first hand account from someone you trust.

 Experienced opt-in list users will be able to tell you what to do and what not to do because they have gone through it. While different situations occur for different people, the general concept can still be very helpful. There are many things to avoid and these people will be able to tell you which ones. 

 Building a profitable opt-in list don’t just happen overnight. There are many preparations and effort to do. Opt-in lists are built from scratch, as your list grows, you should also maintain the quality of your list. Keep it organised and manageable. Get or hire help if need be, just make sure that your subscribers are happy and satisfied and they will be willing to buy from you.  

Remember, this strategy can be used for any sort of business.

A bit short of time? We can do your SEO, online marketing, offline marketing and websites for you.