Internet Marketing

  • Ideas for Visual Marketing in 2018

    What Is Visual Marketing?

    To be successful at creative visual marketing it’s important to understand what it means, how it works, and the tools that you need to make it work. That’s why it’s called “creative” and in 2018 that’s what audiences are looking for.

    We know that most people are visually oriented. According to David Hyerle, the brain can absorb 36,000 images every minute and 80-90 percent of information received from the brain is through the eyes. Wow, if that isn’t mind blowing. Keep in mind that the brain is a visual organ. So, to me it just makes since that using visual marketing should be a key factor in our marketing mix.

    Creative Visual Marketing

    Visual marketing allows us to use a variety of design elements, graphics, photographs and videos to tell the story of our brands. The visual cues we use to tell that story will help make our brand more memorable to everyone who views the information. No wonderful live streaming and broadcasting has become so popular and keeps growing.

    Pictures tell stories in ways that words cannot. Pictures combined with text will make your story come to life in a new way. Marketing is all about communicating a detailed message to a specific audience. And today’s online tools can help you create very effective images to help complete your marketing story and gain momentum online.

    There are free or low-cost options to help you integrate visual eye candy. There is Canva, PicMonkey or Stencil.

    https://getstencil.com


    Anytime you have the chance to include images in your marketing − whether it’s your social media profile, your website, your blog, or an advertisement, do so and give a lot of thought to every image that you put on your marketing material.

    Using visual prompts helps tell your story and will attract the people in your audience who are interested in the topic but who don’t want to read a long text-based story. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If this is the case, the graphic images you show will enable you to tell your audience a thousand words of information with just a simple glance from them. Keep in mind that a lot of people skim what they are reading these days.

    Plus, when you use graphics, photos, and/or video with your text information, blog posts, and sales pages, you make it easier and more likely that others will share the information via social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. In addition, it makes it easier for the search engines to locate the information due to the tags you place with the images. So be sure to use tags!

    Using all the visually creative marketing material that you can craft will help you get information out to more people, because they will be more likely to share something that is great to look at.

    Types of Visual Marketing

    There are many types of visual marketing that you can choose from such as:

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    • Banners
    • Blog posts
    • Books
    • Brochures
    • Business cards
    • Direct mail
    • Flyers
    • Games
    • Giveaways
    • Graphics
    • Infographics
    • Kiosks

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    • Letters
    • Live Streaming
    • Newsletters
    • Postcards
    • Premiums (tote bags, cups, shirts)
    • Presentations
    • Press releases
    • Social networking campaigns
    • Screen casting
    • Webinars
    • Widgets
    • YouTube videos

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    Creative Visual Marketing

    Depending on the marketing channel you’re using, you’ll use one or more of these visual marketing tactics. If you can figure out a way to add visual interest to every marketing campaign, you’ll experience more success and reach your goals faster than if you don’t.

    So, let’s look at how to stand out visually and best practices.

    Stand Out Visually

    Choosing the right images can make your content and marketing stand out better than plain textual content. You can use creative copy, gorgeous typography and graphical images that bring your content to life, and draw the eye through the copy quickly.

    • White Space – When you create anything graphical and textual it’s imperative to include plenty of white space by using bullets, spacing, and the right fonts. Choose images wisely and for a reason. Every word and every image should have a “why” for being in your marketing material.
    • Color – It might take a little research into your target audience to figure out which colors will get the most positive reaction. You may want to cause emotions to come forth in your audience that only color can elicit. But, every audience is different, so it’ll take some research, understanding and testing to pick the right colors.
    • Contrast – The more ways that you can make your call to action stand out from the rest of the copy and images, the better. By using contrast such as black/white, white/gray, or other colors that contrast but do not cause your audience’s retinas to burn, you can create the view you want to attract your audience’s eyes where you want them.
    • Surprise – Most people today are practically blind to advertisements, and anything that wants to sell them something. The way to overcome this ad blindness is to use visuals to surprise the viewer. Change the fonts; make the CTA stand out such that your audience cannot miss it.
    • Encapsulation – Use robust, vibrant shapes to highlight your call to action or anything you want to draw interest to. Put your call to action inside a highlighted, outlined box, or other form that will enclose it to draw attention to it.
    • Arrows – Using directional cues will also help draw the reader’s eye toward the information that you want them to see. Anytime you want your reader to imagine the future or some destination in the future, for example, you could show a picture of a road that will take them on a trip.

    We looked at what creative visual marketing is and its value for our future marketing efforts online.  The psychological factor and how the brain works in absorbing visual information. We also looked at how pictures tell stories and when combined with text attract readers attention. And we know that visually appealing images results in more social media shares.

    Also, we looked at the different types of visual marketing options and how we can engage the reader’s imagination with our marketing efforts through well-known visual cues that help your reader get to the mindset that you want. And over time, as you study your audience, you’ll come to know what types of visual cues will work best with them.

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  • 7 Ideas for Your Live Streams

    I’ve been blogging about LIVE streaming a lot and will continue to do so because it’s such a HOT way for you to market your business and it’s only going to get bigger according to all the experts out there like Buffer. Check out their post “The State of Social Media 2016” where they talk about how video content marketing is only going to be growing even bigger in 2017.

    Twitter saw the value in this and bought Periscope before it even released its product. Facebook invested a lot and continues to do so in Facebook LIVE. Be prepared to see a lot of video in your feeds.

    I know that most people are confused as to what to broadcast since many people can find being in front of a video camera intimidating enough so I thought I would put some ideas together for you. It’s easier when you have a plan.

    Repurposed Content

    PeriscopeIf you have been doing online marketing for a long period, there is a pretty good chance you already have a blog or website and have been actively filling it with content. If so, you can use the content from your website as material for your broadcasts. In fact, you can set up a weekly broadcast and discuss one post each week.

    The key to doing this correctly is to make sure you are consistent with your broadcasts. Do them the same day and same time every week. Make sure to have a question and answer period at the end as this is how to get people coming back.

    One way to entice them to join the broadcasts is to offer to give something away but only to those who attend the broadcast. The freebie will be announced at the end. It’s a good idea to make the freebies valuable so they will want to get one each week. A list of great tips is one idea on what to give away.

    Content from Private Label Rights (PLR)

    A lot of people are not familiar with PLR or Private Label Rights/White Label Content. It’s a less expense option than having a ghost writer especially if your trying to keep your budget low. PLR offers you content that you are licensed to make your own so you don’t have to always write from scratch. Our sister company PLR for Business  is committed to producing quality information and products for your business content needs.

    The great thing is that you can take a PLR product and use it in many ways to like live streaming topics. This will help you stand out as an authority which builds the trust needed for your audience to keep coming back.

    Tutorials

    People love to learn new skills. By using broadcasts to teach them something new is going to bring them back repeatedly. This is a great method for engaging your audience with valuable information.

    The topics that you can broadcast about are only limited by your imagination. This is one of those situations where you want to think outside the box to come up with ideas that others are not.

    Roundups and Industry News

    People often don’t have time to find information online or don’t know how to do much more than a simple Google search. If you provide regular broadcasts containing information about the key companies within your industry, you will find your audience to be quite receptive to this.

    You want to make yourself the authority in your industry. Be the person that everyone goes to for information surrounding your niche or market. Scan for news stories and interesting facts about the people in the industry. This can also be a great way to network with these people by letting them know ahead of time that you plan on talking about them in your broadcast. They may even invite people in their own network and lists to sit in on the broadcasts.

    video streamingProduct Reviews

    Most people look for reviews when they are researching products online. Doing so in a broadcast takes it to a whole new level. People will pick up on your emotions as you tell them what’s good or bad about the product being reviewed.

    Product Demonstrations

    It’s one thing to read about the features of a product, but another altogether to see it demonstrated live. The difficulty here is that you need access to the products being demonstrated. But guess what? You can reach out to the product creators and ask if they will send you the products for free. They may be quite receptive to doing this, especially if you are showing the features of their products live on a broadcast. Don’t expect them to be receptive if you don’t have good things to say about the products, though.

    Interviews

    I’ve mentioned this one before but it’s a good one. People love to hear from industry experts via interviews. If you can manage to invite someone who is an expert, this can make for a great broadcast. You will probably need a selfie stick to pass the camera back and forth or just seat next to each other.

    Keep in mind there are new apps being worked on as we speak to bring you together with a co-host via your smartphones and desktop for Facebook LIVE. But don’t forget Google Hangouts on Air still lives as part of YouTube Livesteaming options so you can still do them there for now.

    As you can see, the only limits on what to broadcast are the ones you put on yourself. Use these ideas as well as others to become a leader in the live streaming space.

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  • Key Branding Essentials

    Branding Branding your business helps you develop a relationship with your potential and current customers by helping them understand your business’s personality, products and/or services. By developing a brand that people feel they know and understand, you can start to compete with other businesses in a whole new way. You can compete based on the essential value of your products and services rather than simply the cost of them.

     

    You have many different types of tools that you can use for branding your business. Some obvious and some not so obvious.

    • Business cards
    • Brochures
    • T-Shirts
    • Mugs
    • Sample Products
    • The business itself if it’s a bricks and mortar business (how it’s decorated),
    • Your Pricing Structure
    • Customer Service Style
    • Even your contract can be a branding tool in your business.
    • While some of these tools aren’t as obvious as others, they are all evoke feelings about your business in the customer.

     

    All of these tools need to have a consistent style to them. By being consistent across all of the tools that you can use to brand your business, you will increase your brand image even more. Your brand has a core value to your entire business. It helps people understand what you do, how you do it, why you do it and will bring feelings of goodwill (or bad) to your clients or potential clients.

     

    One of the branding tools that is most useful is your website. Often times when a business that has been around awhile decides to build a website, the owners get carried away and forget that they already have an established brand. Unless you want to re-brand yourself, essentially starting from scratch as a new business, it is best if you carry forth the brand you’ve already created into your web design.

     

    BrandingAfter all, it takes time to develop a brand. You don’t want to confuse your current customers and catch them off guard by changing your image in their minds. After all, a customer’s belief in your brand can change on a dime if you’re not careful. You could lose customers, and we all know that keeping customers is one of the best marketing methods there is. Getting a new customer is much more expensive.

     

    Your website, if designed well, can evoke the same feelings in new and old customers alike. Using your website to tell your story and expand your reach is an excellent use of the marketing tool, but it’s not a time to switch it all up and change everything. Instead look at the colors, images, and feelings you evoke now with the marketing collateral that you have and pull it in to your web design. Sometimes just using the same logos, the same colors, and the same font can go far in bringing the look and feel of your brand to the web.

     

    Consider allowing your customers to tell their story about your brand. Your website is an excellent place to bring in customer testimonials, whether written or in video. Who is better at explaining your brand to others than people who already know you? By expanding your brand using consistent design practices across all your marketing media, you’ll be able to engage clients and potential clients in a new way – without reinventing the wheel.

     

    Need help with your branding? Contact me today for a private coaching session.

     

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  • What You Need to Know for Your Website Design

    website development

     

    When you first start out creating your website, or talking to a company like ours to develop one for you you’re going to have to stop and ask yourself, “What is the purpose of your website?” If you don’t know, it’s hard to create the website because without a purpose it’s impossible to get started. Not only that, it’s hard to use your website the right way if you don’t even know why you have it.

     

     

    Do You Want a Niche Affiliate Website?

     

     

    This is generally like an authority or expert website that is devoted to promoting someone else’s products or services using the code that they provide. This type of site requires the ability to place a lot of content and information on it, as well as a lead capturing service like AWeber.com, and it needs to be devoted specifically to the niche you want to support. It’s a lot like an authority website except it will promote other people’s products or services.

     

     

    Do You Want to Sell Products or Services?

     

     

    If this is the point of your website, then you’ll need an e-commerce website. It will need shopping cart technology, the proper security, the right type of server capacity, and a way to pull traffic and handle leads that don’t purchase right away. Knowing up front that you want to sell products or services directly from your site will help you explain to a web designer what you need.

     

     

    Do You Want to Generate Leads?

     

     

    Building a lead-generating website requires a little less technology than the e-commerce site, but it still requires such things as an autoresponder, special landing pages, attractive design and keyword-rich content that is devoted to educating the audience and collecting names to market to later (usually via an autoresponder system like AWeber.com or MailChimp.com).

     

    website development

     

    Do You Want an Authority Website?

     

     

    Many experts like to establish their online presence by creating an authority website. Usually they will fill the site with articles, blog posts, and information relating to their specific niche as well as possibly a portfolio and links to other work they’ve done that establishes their expertise more fully. This website basically requires the same technology as the lead-generating site, but it will be set up in a more personal way with the expert as the center of the website.

     

     

    Do You Want a Locally or Nationally Focused Website?

     

     

    Another important factor in considering the purpose of your site is whether you want to attract a local or national audience? If you have a local business where all of your foot traffic will come from people passing through or who live in your city, then of course you want a locally focused site. If you have a business that can be recognized nationally such as being an author, or selling products online, then you want to focus your website nationally. There are a lot of differences to the two that need to be understood before getting started.

     

     

    The makeup of your site also has many characteristics that are always important, regardless of the purpose. All need a lead capturing system with an autoresponder like AWeber.com and all need to have a beautiful and responsive design. But they each have their own purpose that needs to be clear when someone visits the site. Knowing your purpose will increase the marketability of your website exponentially. After reading this, do you know the purpose of your website? If not, contact me and I would be glad to help you figure out what direction to take.

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  • Does Your Social Networking Need Improving in 2016?

    Social Media

     

    Social networking has opened up the world for entrepreneurs and small business owners. You can reach out online and have access to people thousands of miles away, in different countries and different time zones. Isn’t that awesome!

     

     

    How’s your social networking working for you? Are you making headway and developing relationships and growing your business? Or are you struggling to understand how it all works?

     

     

    For most businesses it’s made it faster and easier to do business. Plus, lots of people have made it a great tool for building relationships. Like any tool, though, you have to know how to use it well in order for it to perform for you.

     

     

    Nowadays it seems that there are too many people who come across as uninteresting, too business focused or too distant and they turn their audience off.

     

     

    These are the entrepreneurs who fall into relative obscurity while their competition builds thousands of followers. You have the ability to make social networking a powerful tool if you use it right. So you may be asking how do I do that?

     

     

    First, when you’re online, don’t retreat into yourself. Don’t clam up and let self-doubt have a field day with you. This is what happens when that internal thought track tells you that you’re not interesting and that people don’t want to hear what you have to say. A positive mindset is a powerful tool!

     

    Social Media

     

    Don’t sign up for social media and then stay behind the scenes. That defeats the purpose of having the accounts to begin with. Once you sign up with various social media sites, start to engage with people and let your personality shine through.

     

     

    That’s how you build your audience, your mailing list and basically your business. Let people feel as if they know you, as if they have a peek inside your life. Share both personal and business stuff on social media.

     

     

    Personal doesn’t mean that you have to get too personal. Remember to keep it light and on a positive note. I’ve seen people lose business because they voiced too many negative comments on a particular subject.  It’s okay to share things but like any other conversation you have but try and stay away from controversy unless that’s your online persona.

     

     

    So what are some common topics that are OK to talk about? You can start conversations about foods that you like, about a movie you recently saw (I just saw Star Wars!) or a book that you read. Of course it depends on the social networking site you’re using. Some are better on personal topics like Facebook while others are going to not want to hear about your kids, like LinkedIn.

     

     

    A great example is Pinterest. It’s a good platform for someone in the wedding or fitness niche. You can post pictures of weddings and wedding accessories. Or you can post workout gear, before and after shots, or pictures of workouts.

     

     

    Facebook is good for niches that use videos or tutorials and you can create a group dedicated to that particular niche – such as Marketing. You can share information about products, how-to train videos, etc.

     

    Social Media

     

    Google+ has a lot of tech people and professionals. It’s primarily male dominated. It’s not used by the baby boomer crowd as much. So this would be a good social media site for niches that are into information products and internet marketing.

     

     

     

    When you post on social media, pay attention to which ones get the most interaction. If you post a video and then a picture, if one got more interaction and more views, then you know what the audience prefers. I’ve seen this with our clients and my own business.

     

     

    The timing of your posts is important too. Don’t push any sales or information when there’s a national crisis going on. You’ll look insensitive. Likewise, you can use stats to tell you when your audience is most active on the social platform.

     

     

    I hope you found this blog helpful. If you are having challenges in this area and could use help with your marketing reach out to me thru our contact form. Also, be sure to read my other blog posts or attend one my training webinars.

     

     

    Wanda

     

     

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  • 6 Considerations to Ponder When Choosing an Email List Service

    One of the most important choices you’ll make when you embark on adding email marketing to your plan is which email list technology to pick. There are many very good technologies available from which to choose. In order to find the right one for your business, you will need to answer some very important questions.

    How Will You Use the Technology?

    Are you going to send out automatic message to all subscribers such as an e-course, or a regular, full-featured newsletter? Exactly what are your plans with your email list? You need to write down a list of the ways in which you hope to use the technology so you can determine which technology fits those needs.

    What Is Your Marketing Budget?

    As always, knowing your budget in advance is an important component of choosing any technology. It’s hard to pick anything if you don’t actually have a budget decided. An email list service can be free in some cases to hundreds of dollars each month. While it’s not really suggested you go with a free option, you have quite a scale to work with when choosing your budget.

    How User Friendly Is the Service?

    Once you find several options within your budget that offer the features that you need, take advantage of their free offers or low-cost sign-up rates to start a new account and test them out. Some software will be easier for you to use than others. It’s good if you know how to use it, and it seems intuitive to you. Also, check to see what type of training they offer new subscribers.

    email marketing

    Will You Outsource?

    You might want to answer this question before the user-friendly question, if only because if you are going to outsource it’s probably better to get help before you choose your technology. If you already have a virtual assistant or an online business manager, you might want to inquire with them to find out which email list service they recommend. It’ll be easier for them to work with what they’re accustomed to. Be sure to ask them why they prefer it over another type of software.

    What Is the Delivery Rate?

    This is a very important thing to know. There are some software packages that you can put on your own servers which will not have as high of a delivery rate as some of the email list services that use their servers instead of yours. Understanding delivery rate, and how this technology works, is going to help you make the best choice for your business.

    What Features Are Available?

    • Sign-Up Forms
    • Email Newsletters
    • Multi-List Management
    • Subscriber Management
    • Attractive Email Templates
    • Personalization
    • Allows HTML
    • Autoresponder Technology
    • RSS to E-mail
    • Social Media Integration
    • Tracking Features
    • Email Marketing API
    • Subscriber Segmenting
    • High Deliverability Rate
    • Great Customer Service
    • Fair Pricing Plans

    The above is a list of various features that you might find offered with different email list services out there. You’ll need to understand how you’re going to use the technology and how large your list will become to know which is best for you to choose. Once you answer all the other questions you’ll be able to know which features you need.

    In conclusion, know what you need before you start looking. Know whether you want software that is on your own server or if it can be a service that uses their server and understand how that affects functionality, price, and your own technology preparedness.

    If all of this is too overwhelming please reach out to me. We offer coaching, consulting and outsourcing services to help you in your business.

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  • How Blogging Can Help Build Your Local Business

    Blogging
    Today, marketing has many more elements outside of the traditional yellow pages, newspaper, radio and TV advertisements. Local businesses can take advantage of many different types of Internet or online marketing just like national businesses can. In fact, most shoppers go online today to research products before they buy them. I know my family does. How about you? And, did you know that most searches for products online result in an offline purchase?

     

    This means that you need to have a website. And in order for search engines to send shoppers your way, you also need to have a blog on your website. Don’t be tempted to create a free blog with Blogger, or WordPress.com; instead, add a blog to your website using the open source self-hosted WordPress. It’s the same software that WordPress.com runs off of and is just as easy to use. The difference is that you load it on your own server along with your website (and it can even be used to make your entire website). You own all aspects of your blog, and no one can tell you what you can and cannot write on it. The best part is that you can monetize it. Which means you can sell products and services!

     

    Most businesses who embark on blogging for marketing find that they don’t even need some of the other expensive advertising that they were doing before. Many stop paying for the expensive Yellow Pages display, and slow down their newspaper and TV advertising substantially because using online marketing and blogging to do that online marketing works so well. There are many reasons for this but a few are that it costs less, reaches more people, and is measurable.blogging

     

    Through your blog you’ll be able to connect with people who want to do business with you. You’ll be able to covert readers of your blog to happy customers who remain with you long term. In fact, they may become fans of your business and help promote you online too by sharing your blog posts and other online marketing information. As a regular blogger you’ll become the online authority for your products and/or services. People will see you as an expert and go to you for advice.

     

    A blog added to your website will allow for easy content uploading, attract search engines, and offer your visitors the information they crave while building trust with your audience. Not only that; you’ll be able to study the metrics yourself to see how many visitors you have, who is interacting with your blog, and more. As mentioned earlier you will be the owner of your content if you build your blog on a self-hosted WordPress platform in addition to your website.

     

    If you have a website out there without a blog, you’re spending too much time and wasted effort. A website alone will not attract search engine traffic that can convert visitors into customers. Your website cannot get at the top of the search engine all by itself. Why? Because Google loves fresh content so you must have a blog that is updated frequently, and it must be interactive (i.e. allow comments on the blog) to be truly effective. If you want a lot of visitors to your website that you can convert to real business, start blogging today.

     

    If you need help with blogging, content or website development let us know. We build WordPress sites but also offer a variety of services that help you build your business.

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  • The Challenge of Keeping up with the Latest Marketing Trends

    Trends
    Staying on top of the latest marketing trends can present quite a challenge. I’m sure that if you have been in business for a while you are aware of that challenge. With that being said, there are a few ways that you can stay on top of the marketing game and make sure you are using the most up-to-date methods of marketing your business.

     

    As a business, it is essential to make your presence known. Keeping a professional website is the first step of course. Your website is the “storefront” for your business and this is what actually sets the tone for those that express an interest in your business and what you have to offer. Make sure your website is search engine optimized (SEO) and mobile friendly.

     

    Let’s look at some tactics that you can use that will help you know what marketing opportunities exist and how you can keep your business marketing one step ahead.

    trending

     

    Having a perfectly optimized website is awesome, but make sure you gain the right exposure. Here are some ways you can find out more about the latest and greatest marketing opportunities available for you and your business:

     

    • Visit Internet marketing forums and blogs.

    Interact with others in the community and read posts by others regarding marketing methods they have tried or those they intend to try. If you see a new opportunity that arises, take advantage of it if it works for your type of business.

     

    • Participate in conferences.

      This will allow you to meet other people, many of whom are right on top of the game. This is a great way to gain useful insight and information that will prove to be invaluable for you and your business.

     

    • Take time to network with other business marketers.

      Share information with others and gather information from those who are trying to do the same thing you are. This allows you to stay on top of the latest marketing trends, and extract information from others as to their experiences with certain methods.

     

    • Research is one of the most important actions you can take that will help you gain knowledge about current marketing trends.

      Put your research skills to use and find information about the newest marketing trends. If anything in life is certain, it’s the fact that marketing trends are always changing. Keeping up-to-date can really be like a rat race if you don’t do your homework and commit time and effort in keeping up with the changes presented into today’s marketing world.

     

    • Make yourself readily available for change. Be resilient and flexible.

      Don’t forget what the main goals of your business really are. Think outside the box. Those are all ways of motivating yourself to entire ownership of the actions you take in marketing your business.

     

    Your success really is based on your efforts in putting your business name right in front of your intended audience. Using the information given will give you the insight and knowledge you need in order to help you keep up with the latest marketing trends for your business.

     

    Don’t have time to keep up with the marketing trends and information out there? Outsource your marketing to us. We are a full service online marketing firm ready and able to help you with all your marketing pain points.

    Get Started

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  • How Group Learning Events Can Add to Your Bottom Line

    webinars
    Do you ever wonder why some businesses host so many webinars, seminars and online workshops? The reason may surprise you. The truth is that these group learning events can generate big profits. Let’s take a look at what live learning events are and how they can help you increase your bottom line.

     

    Group Learning Events

     

    Group learning events are just that – they’re events that are usually held online and they’re designed to teach a subject to a group of people. Webinars, organized social chats, and Yahoo group conferences are just a few examples of group learning events. People organize at a specific time to learn about and discuss a topic.

     

    Why Are These Events so Profitable?

     

    There are many reasons why group learning events are profitable. Let’s remember first that a group of people has signed up for or joined a learning event because they’re interested in the information. They’re pre-qualified prospects. It’s significantly easier to sell to a pre-qualified prospect than it is to a cold one.

     

    Dynamic

     

    When you’re teaching a large group, there’s a connection to your audience that is much different than what they’d receive by simply visiting your website. You’re talking to them. You may be interacting and answering questions as well. There’s a different dynamic. Assuming the prospect already likes you and you have established credibility, then they’re much more likely to take the next step – your call to action – at the end of the event.

     

    Speaking of Credibility…

     

    Group learning events put you in the position of teacher. In general, we give a certain degree of authority and credibility to our teachers. We believe what they tell us, for the most part, and we respect their knowledge. Credibility, authority, and liking are all buying triggers. We buy from people we like; people who we believe are credible sources of information, and people we believe to be experts or authorities on their subject.

    online events
    The Next Step Is Easy

     

    Most group learning events are set up so that they deliver only a portion of the information. To gain the full value, an attendee needs to take the next step. For example, if you attend an online seminar about how to use Twitter to market your romance novel, you’ll probably be willing or interested in buying a book or course on how to market your romance novel. Assuming the teacher delivered valuable information, you’ll be interested in gaining more of it.

     

    Finally, there is some immediacy to a group learning event. The call to action is usually a special deal offered for only those who attended the event, and it’s only available for a limited time. So your prospects feel as if they belong to a special group and there is a time limit on the offer. These two triggers often motivate more sales. But remember this deal has to be exclusive and not one you offer all the time. It could be a deep discount or a product specifically put together for only this specific event.

     

    If you’re seeking a nice boost in profits, consider planning and hosting a live event. This may turn into your most profitable marketing tactic.

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  • 4 Tips on How to Use Your Blog to Build Your Email List

    One of the most important aspects of having an active blog is building your email list. You want almost everyone who visits your blog to feel compelled to sign up for your list. Your email list is one of the most powerful pieces of your online business. It allows you to have a closer relationship with your followers.

    So you need to think of your blog as a gateway to building your list which is essential. That’s why your blog needs to provide excellent, varied, regular and targeted content. Plus, don’t be shy, ask them to sign up. Make it apparent.

    4 Tips on How to Use Your Blog to Build Your Email List

    Excellent Content —

    For content to be excellent it has to be well-written, and targeted to a particular audience. Everything on your site needs to be accurate and above average from the normal site content such as your about page, to the rest of the content you put on your page from a blog post, to articles, to images and more.

    Tip: Get it edited, or hire a writer or VA, then you edit it. No one can write perfect content without editing. You also need to make sure that your voice is infused into everything you put out.

    Varied Content —

    If you put up the same form and type of content every week, people will get bored. Mix it up a bit and use slideshows, podcasts, video casts, eBooks, PDF downloads, apps and more. Your audience will be more excited to check out your content if they’re not sure what type it will be as long as it’s relevant to them.

    Tip: You can re-use content in one form and transfer it to the new form. A blog post can become a podcast, can become a videocast, and can become an infographic.

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    Regular Content —

    If you aren’t going to focus on putting up content on a regular basis, focus on at least 4 blog posts a month. By doing so, you’re going to get the bang for your buck you’re hoping to achieve. Shoot for at minimum 4 blog posts a month and you will reap the rewards with a bigger email list and higher targeted traffic that is ready to purchase from you.

    Tip: To be sure you have plenty of regular content, brainstorm in advance using a calendar so you know what you need before you sit down to write it or hire a writer.

    Call To Action —

    Never forget your call to action. If you want people to sign up for your email list, you need to ask them. Your email list is the lifeblood of your business. If you build a targeted list you can give yourself a raise whenever you want to by promoting a sale, promoting your new blog posts, and getting your audience involved in product creation. The key is to ask them to do what you want them to do.

    Tip: Make it a habit after every blog, podcast, videocast, and so forth to remind users of your newsletter and your other offerings. If they read all the way to the bottom, or listened all the way to the end, then they’re going to want to know more.

     

    Using your blog to build your email list is one of the easiest ways to get action and a good return on investment from your blog. Fill your blog with useful, original, credible and friendly blogs that speak directly to your audience and you’ll discover that being a blogger is profitable and fun.

     

     

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