WordPress Training Expert

Author: WP Training Expert

  • Social Networking Into a Niche

    You’re probably well aware of how helpful social networking tools can be when it comes to getting attention for your business. In fact, social networking has become such a salient topic in recent years that it’s developed its own marketing acronym– just as Search Engine Optimization has SEO, social networking has Social Media Optimization, or SMO.

    Yes, it’s true – there are people who make their living by controlling the Twitter accounts and Facebook profiles of people and businesses. The good news is that if you’re a small operation, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t manage your own social media optimization. There’s very little about the process that’s acutely difficult – the most annoying thing about it is that it can be time consuming, which is why some companies choose to outsource the work. Once your social media optimization reaches a certain point, you might deem it necessary to outsource it as well, but for people who are just starting on the path to social medial optimization, it’s recommended that you take control of it yourself.

    The reason why social networking is so pivotal when it comes to niche marketing is that the entire point of social networking in the first place is to find a niche. Think of it this way – when you create a personal profile on these sites, you’re seeking to find people who you can network and connect with. On personal profiles, these are likely friends that you know in real life, so you can build up your communication methods with them. In essence, you’re creating your own little niche where you can find others easily through social networking, and others can find you.

    Working through social networking with a business is the exact same thing. You’re putting your business out on the waves, looking for people who might be interested in your goods and services, or what you have to say. The art behind using Twitter and LinkedIn is the same as it would be with email advertising or working on forums. Post regularly enough so that your account is obviously an active account and people stay aware of your existence, but don’t spam the accounts of your friends and colleagues multiple times a day. To do so is to becoming annoying, and even though you’re looking to keep a steady stream of conversation going, if you become irritating, people will “defriend” your social network account.

    Good things to make your “friends” on social networking sites aware of are promotions, blog updates, sales, discrepancies in business (like if you will be away from the computer for a while or the business will be closing for a period of time), or tips and tricks. Keep your updates fun, interesting, and relevant. A good rule of thumb is that if you don’t have anything to say, don’t say it. However, you should have something to say about your business at least two times a month – should this not be the case, you need to work on making your business more dynamic!

  • 3 Perfectly Effective Ways to Lose Customers

    1. Let Them Procrastinate

    Yeah, procrastination has stolen millions of dollars from the pockets of business men and women just like yourself. The longer it works on the customer, the less likely they will be to open their wallet and hand over the dinero they’ve been hoarding there.

    Here’s how it works… First, the customer leaves your store without making the purchase. Second, time causes the desire for the product to fade, and distracts them from making their way back. Finally, your “almost customer” totally forgets about making the purchase, and you can kiss potential profits good-bye.

    Don’t let it happen to you! Make deals so irresistible they just can’t say no, and set an expiration date. Yes, put a little press on them to buy TODAY! Reward them for complying, and make sure they forfeit the deal if they don’t. Don’t be victimized by “almost sales” that could be turned into REAL profits!

    2. Stay Off The Top Of Their Priority List

    Hey, sometimes we need to be reminded of exactly what is and what isn’t important in life. Where we spend our money indicates its level of importance. Are your customers telling you that your product isn’t significant to them?

    Put them where you want them to be with a dramatic word picture that evokes the emotions that drive purchases. Let me say it this way… If you’re trying to sell them a home business… let them feel the freedom of being their own boss, and setting their own schedule. Are you selling water skis?

    Get them on the water in the hot summer sun with the wind blowing their hair and water spraying around them. Let them FEEL the importance of the decision.

    You CAN motivate buyers to put a high priority on your product!

    3. Don’t Build Trust

    Do your customers feel confident that your company will provide the services that it says it will? How many times have you raised an eyebrow at an offer that makes big promises? Yeah, if you don’t already know they are a reputable company, you’re likely to take claims with a grain of salt.

    Unconditional guarantees give credence to your desire to please customers. Testimonials are evidence that you have a proven track record. Put some facts in front of your “almost customers.” Let them know a little bit about you and your staff.

    It’s always easier to trust a person, than a business.

    Internet customers are at especially high risks for feeling a legitimate amount of distrust. After all, anyone can make grand claims, but who is responsible for upholding them? A personal photo, a little information, and a phone number where a contact can be reached go a long ways toward building trust on the Web.

    How many “almost customers” have slipped through your fingers? You can effectively turn them into loyal customers who regularly frequent your place of business with the business savvy insights we’ve talked about in this article.

  • What is Article Marketing?

    Video: Brad discusses article and press release marketing and shows the most effective ways to distribute your article and press releases.

  • How to Change Permalinks in WordPress

    Video: How to change your permalinks in WordPress.

  • Long-Term Customers into Affiliates

    So, let’s take a look at what you’re going to do with your long term customers in regards to turning them into affiliates. Understand that when we talk about this, it may not be suitable to do so depending on your product. Turning any one of these resources into affiliates is especially important in the world of online marketing software or info selling, because after all, affiliate marketing is at least 20% of the whole picture. That’s a huge chunk.

    Well, after telling you that I’m going to have to turn around now and tell you straight up that turning your long-term customers into affiliates, (or trying to) is a bad idea. Remember, these people have already spent their money with you, and have seen your affiliate offers several times. Many of them will be on your list receiving the ads for your affiliate program solely, as we talked about earlier. For this reason there is absolutely no need to hassle these people directly with anything unnecessary.

    Remember, this group has already spent a whole lot of money on your stuff, and if you want to keep them coming back, every time you contact them it has to be your best work. You need to be giving them something that they want, not just sending them ads, ads, ads. Also keep in mind, this particular list of yours should be the least numerous, but the biggest spenders.

    Some of these people may come along to you and buy two thousand dollar product after two thousand dollar product. You can immediately see how valuable they are.

    You can also see through a little math how much more devastating it is to annoy anyone on this list or cause them to leave for any reason. Granted, you may argue there’s plenty more out there, but this is where most of your advertising funds are going. Getting people to buy your products that are going to be bringing you in a mighty profit in the first place isn’t a short or easy task. Be very careful what you do with this list. This is going to be the long running theme in this section about your long term customers.

  • Internet Marketing Glossary

    Video: Brad explains what all the different internet marketing terms and acronyms are and what they mean.

  • Easy Profits From Expired Domains

    “The dot com crash may have scared many people into believing there is no money to be made buying and selling domain names. But in reality the dot com crash is the reason there are so many abandoned websites that are removed and available to purchase in auctions.

    Automated tools available online are used for locating, and appraising these domain names. These automated tools can even buy qualifying domain names.

    Many people buy expired domain names for profit. Expired domain names are sites that have been previously registered by another owner who had lost them commonly due to non-payment of domain name renewal fees. Commonly these domain names will be back up about 45 days after the expiration date.

    There are countless numbers of other domain names that expired before the website was developed, and do not appear online. The majority of these sites have owners who don’t follow through with development and allow the domain name to expire.

    The best type of domain name to invest in is an expired site that is fully functioning and receiving daily traffic from search engines. These larger websites also likely have links and banner ads. The websites can earn major cash revenue if the new owner redirects the traffic to a different website.

    You can be a part of the profitable effortless market of buying and selling domain names to speculators and developers. Try to find expiring domain registration on a new technology or other popular trend.

    Many investors buy expiring domain names for the point of redirecting the traffic. You can also buy an expired domain name and then put up a mimic website. There are many tools available to help you complete this task including easy to use website building software, third part payment processors, and auto responders.”

  • 6 Keys To Business Email Marketing

    There are a lot of myths about online marketing. Now a few misconceptions may not matter all that much if they were harmless, but when it comes to your money, then it’s always better to be well-informed. Some of the worst, most damaging myths out there revolve around business to business email marketing. With that in mind, here are some things you should be aware of before running your next email campaign.

    1. Know your customer. The more you know about your customer, the better. What are their problems? What are their current solutions? How can you help them? What do you know about their business? All of these questions need to be answered before you send a company an email message. First, you need to make sure they are a good customer for your offer. Second, it shows respect and they will appreciate that you know something about who they are.

    2. Get to the point. Imagine you are meeting with your prospective customer at their place of business. You may start with a bit of small talk, but you wouldn’t linger on it. In other words, you can start your business to business email marketing with a friendly tone, but you also have to stick with a no-nonsense approach at the same time.

    3. Remember who the message is for. Yes, you are sending out the email to generate profits for your own business, but the message it contains is for the person receiving it. In other words, you have to be very clear about how your offer benefits them.

    4. Ask for their business. One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to business to business email marketing is not being bold enough in closing the deal. You don’t have the benefit of making your presentation in a face-to-face setting, so you need to be clear and direct in what you want the reader of your message to do.

    5. Don’t use trickery to get them to open your email. Sure, you may get them to open your message, but you will have done so through dishonesty. That will kill the sale before you ever get a chance to present your offer. You also need to bear in mind that there is a fine line between being clever and being deceitful; make sure you don’t cross it.

    6. Track results. When doing business to business email marketing you should keep track of and measure everything you can. When you sent out each message, to whom, what the subject line was, the body of the email, open rates, click-through rates, how many previous messages you have sent, and so on. You can use any and all of this data to refine your sales message and improve your results over time.

    In today’s world, mastering the art and science of business to business email marketing is one of the most important keys to success. It’s relatively inexpensive, especially when compared to traditional forms of advertising, and it can give you a very robust return on your investment.

  • SEO And Niche Marketing

    Search engine optimization is one of the most important methods of marketing that a business can invest time and money into. In fact, for those who would like to trim the fat as well as possible and get to the most effective means of marketing, here they are: blogging, search engine optimization, and email advertising.

    Search engine optimization goes hand in hand with a niche. This is because the very act of sharpening your SEO is essentially you carving a niche out for yourself and your business in the world of the Internet. SEO determines where your site pops up when keywords pertaining to your business are keyed into a search engine. Recent research shows that over 85% of all traffic to sites is generated by search engines, so having your website show up on that first page (or even the coveted first spot on the first page) is key to your site getting a lot of traffic and a lot of conversions.

    You can make this happen with SEO. The issue is knowing how to relates to niche marketing and how to use SEO to bolster both your niche and the amount of hits your site gets.

    There are many ways to improve your SEO – there are quite literally libraries of books out there with information on the subject. For those of you who would like the quick and dirty on SEO, however, we’ve compiled a bullet list of points that will help you understand what SEO actually means and how to improve it.

    – The first way to improve SEO is through code. This means using something called a meta tag – and if you don’t know what this is, look it up. If it still seems like Greek to you, find a business that specializes in SEO and get them to up the code on your site. This is one of the most important things you can do insofar as SEO is concerned and is certainly worth the money you’ll pay to have it done if you’re not interested in/can’t do it yourself.

    – Page content. This refers to the stuff on the webpages that mostly doesn’t change – product and company descriptions are great examples. What helps SEO here is keyword frequency and placement – there’s a specific style of writing that helps improve a site’s SEO by balancing the amount and placement of keywords with informative content. There’s plenty of free information on the Internet about this, and if it seems like too much trouble to have SEO-attuned page content, find a copy company and outsource it. It’s worth the cost.

    The reality of the situation is that calibrating your business’ SEO is a complicated science that’s rather hard to sum up in two bullet points. This is just a starting point. But if you want to advertise to the niche, the niche has to be able to find you. Better your SEO and you better your chance of landing customers!

  • Advertising through Apps

    Smartphones have become a ubiquitous part of daily life, particularly for the younger set. Those of us who remember when cell phones first came out, roughly the size of a brick and just as heavy might be a bit bemused by the latest advances in technology. Nowadays, it seems as though the latest smartphones can do everything but physically make you dinner. There are definitely enough apps out there, however, to have the phone tell you how to make dinner, at the very least.

    On that note, apps are another way to harness the power of mobile marketing. This is an especially good one for startups to consider, as app development and implementation is actually one of the best ways to get the most out of mobile marketing for your money. For those who aren’t exactly in the know, an “app” is short for the word “application.” Since smartphones are like mini computers but don’t work in the exact same way, there are certain programs that companies have developed to help smartphones function more like a traditional computer. These programs are the apps.

    Apps are extremely popular in today’s day and age, particularly given the prevalence of smartphones. There are apps that specialize on everything from coupons to fashion to locating others in the area for potential dates. What does this mean for people who are interested in mobile marketing? Creating an app is a great way to get your message across to users and help enhance your overall marketing presence.

    Companies can use apps to great advantage. Many larger companies either sell or give away apps to interested consumers, and then they pack those apps with either deals or great content to share with the consumers who have installed the apps on their phones. Having an app that centers around your business and products is a great way to keep your loyal customers up to date on what your company is doing and how they can serve the consumer better.

    Not to mention, apps are definitely cutting-edge insofar as technology is concerned. If you are able to offer you consumers an app for their smartphones, you’re signaling to the consumer that both you and your company are hip to the technological savvy of the populace. You’ll be able to get your customers information on an as-needed basis. Apps can even help customers locate your stores or outlets if they should happen to be in an unfamiliar area and have a sudden Jones for your product.

    So if you’re looking to break into the world of mobile marketing, you should most certainly give app development a second look. If you can get your idea into an app and onto the phones of your consumers, your consumers will most certainly be giving you a second look as well – and a third, a fourth, a fifth, and as many more as fast as technology can travel.