Trends

Posted on

It’s scary out there! How to overcome bad times

It is scary out there! Many people fighting to make ends meet, people without a job. We are not living in easy times.
Every day it looks like we go to battle. some days we win, some days we loose.
We all need to have a secret weapon to overcome bad times. I believe acquiring new skills every now and then helps a lot.
Tomorrow is full moon and some say it is a day that energy changes. We decided to help with the change.
During the full moon week, or halloween week we are slashing the prices of 3 of our multi-media modular trainings. These are some of our mos popular programs with 7 modules each. These programs will show you how to master marketing and improve your business.
Normally they are sold for $247. During this week only, you will be able to take these programs for only $47. But only during this full moon week.
You can choose between:
Lead and online traffic generation for business
Social media marketing for business
Local Marketing

You have only a few days. Don’t let this opportunity pass you buy.
You have instant access and plenty of time to go through all modules.

Posted on

YouTube Marketing Tips – Using Playlists

This is part of a post by Reelseo that I think you guys would benefit from.

You’ve probably seen playlists in action. Many of you have likely created one for yourself. And YouTube thinks you should all be using them, because Playlists are fantastic ways to guide your new viewers through your content the way you prefer them to experience it. You can help them discover older videos they might have missed or highlight your personal greatest hits.

Here’s a real great nugget you might not have known: Playlists are indexed separately from individual videos. Which means that you double your chances of a video being found through search if you have it in a playlist. Outstanding. (Don’t forget to add the proper metadata to your playlist to increase its chances of being found!).

They also recommend creating themes to build your playlists around—rather than just lumping a bunch of unrelated videos together in a list. Good tip. Even if you have straggler videos that you want to roll into a playlist to try and get more attention, you’ve got to be sensible about how you group your playlist vids together if you want them to have the maximum impact.

Read more: http://www.reelseo.com/youtube-marketing-tips-partners-annotations-playlists/#ixzz12rnJyUyw
Subscribe: http:www.reelseo.com/feed/
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

Posted on

You Can Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul!

Many business owners would love to score free media publicity – who would say no to TV appearances, radio interviews or magazine and newspaper features?

But when it comes down to it, a good portion of entrepreneurs also feel uncomfortable about the hype, intimidated or fearful of reaching out to the media, and concerned that selling yourself means somehow selling out.

If you feel intimidated by the media, here’s how you can get out of your own way, become a star in the media and still be true to yourself.

Step 1: Overcome your fears and self sabotaging doubts by recognising your fear. Start by making a list of things you’d like to achieve in PR such as appear on TV or be featured in your local newspaper. If an automatic thought crosses your mind giving you a reason why you can’t do it, then that is the result of some sort of fear. Once you recognise your fears, you can work towards defeating them by taking action in the direction of your goal.

Step 2: Don’t be afraid to reveal yourself through your story Stepping in to your own power and greatness comes with firstly accepting who you are as a person. The media is looking for you to make a connection with their audience. The quickest and easiest way to connect is to reveal your true self. Highlight the things that are unique about you and your business. Tell your story in a way that inspires others. This strategy taps into the notion that if you can do it then others can too.

Step 3: Find a newsworthy story angle: Think yourself about the stories you see in the media and how you can shape what you provide to fit into am existing news story. Think about trends. What’s in the news right now? Can you offer a comment on any of these issues and relate it back to your product?

Step 4: Write a winning press release that focuses on the “Three C’s”:

*

Catchy: Use a headline that is short and sums up the contents of the press release
*

Conversational: Get to the main point of the press release in the first line – don’t bury it three or four sentences down. Use language that a 12 year old can understand – the simpler, the better.
*

Concise: A media release should be short – aim for one page of text, and no more than 1.5 pages or it just won’t be read.

Step 5: Determine your target media outlets Make a list of the media outlets that your consumers read, watch or listen to and create a list of journalists who regularly write about your topic. These are the media outlets you need to be contacting with your press release.

Step 6: Make the pitch and follow up Email first with a personalised greeting, a sentence about your story angle and where it fits into the media outlet, and a call to action for the journalist. Copy and paste your press release into the body of the email and send it. Wait a day and follow up with a phone call that’s made at a convenient time for a journalist. Be available to provide more information as soon as it’s requested.

Step 7: Maintain contact. Once you’ve made a media contact, keep the flow of information and communication going by sending them regular press releases or product updates.

The Final Word: Being a star in the media does not mean pretending to be someone you’re not. To have real impact means being your true self and tapping into your infinite power. A compelling story has the ability to touch lives and create a lasting emotional attachment between the audience and your business.

Sue Papadoulis is a contributing author to Align, Expand and Succeed; Shifting the Paradigm of Entrepreneurial Success. This “just released” book is based on the premise that the world is changing at a very rapid pace. We are starting to see that cooperation brings better results than old style competition. It’s a new era and we need to work together to create success for everyone, not just for a few.

This book features dozens of conscious entrepreneurs who share their wisdom, expertise, stories, lessons and insights about the new and exciting shifts that are happening for entrepreneurs worldwide.

This book is designed to raise the vibration of the planet like never before. Get your copy of Align, Expand and Succeed and enjoy an abundance of gifts with your purchase. http://www.aesbook.com

Posted on

Small business marketing and viral videos

There is no way to control if a video will become viral or not. No formula for this one. There are some hints like using animals, babies or fun videos. Companies can create funny videos or even use someone from their audience to create a fun video, but it doesn’t mean it will go viral either. Now, there are ways to get a lift and use a video that is already viral and promote your own company or use the same story.

For example, you probably saw the commercials from Old Spice that went viral online. (With a clever strategy of using Twitter as a tool to get ideas, engage and get m0ore videos out). The videos had great content and a good strategy and became viral. BYU did a video with the same concept and got a lot of media attention and got over 2 million views.

Another local company, BlendTec used the same idea, the actor from the BYU video and created their own version. This video didn’t appeal to me at all but in less than 24 hours had more than 52 thousand views only on YouTube.

Now, Sesame Street did another Old Spice spoof Smell like a monster and in just 5 days reached 3.7 million views.
One idea and some spoofs to sell deodorant, university courses, blenders and shows to kids.
When a video goes viral it can change the face of your company but when it doesn’t, it still brings awareness, reach people you wouldn’t reach otherwise and bring money to your pocket.

3 weeks ago, one of our videos went viral on YouTube. The YouTube x Search engines got more than 14.860 views. Most of our videos get a lot less, but they are all great marketing tools that bring prospects to our door.
Just imagine what online videos could do for your company.

Posted on

Attraction Marketing: Create an Irresistible business

Creating an irresistible business

You heard this one before: People are overwhelmed with information. Not only that, due to the recession, people are more anxious and more resistant to buy. They know we all have too much stuff and we don’t need more “stuff”.

If your services or products are seeing as “stuff” you are in trouble.

Add to this mix the fact that we are all ADD and just don’t pay attention anymore. In fact the average American adult has an attention span of 9 seconds. This is the same as a goldfish.

Yes, we are all selling to gold fish and they swim away really fast.

Combine the fact that people are not paying attention to the fact that they don’t want anything that is ordinary, that looks like more stuff and you find the reason why so many businesses are suffering.

The gold rush today is to get attention and to be found. Getting attention is difficult if you position yourself as a commodity. In fact, you need to work on your business and turn it into an irresistible business. A business that people notice, talk about and want to be a part of.

I know it looks like a complicated and expensive task but I can assure you this is not the case.

There are 7 components you need to make sure you have in your business and you will see how together they make your business irresistible to people, therefore attracting more and more clients with less effort on your part.

The components are:

1. Create an irresistible promise. A promise is not about how great you are but what do they get when buying from you. It needs to talk to an emotional level.
Ex: Disney promise is: The happiest place on Earth.

2. Unveil your core story. We as business owners need to master storytelling and need to have a story that will resonate with people. We need to be about something. People connect with companies that are about something they can relate to. Ex Thom shoes.

3. Find your unique voice. You need to find your voice in the crowd, need to show personality. Businesses that don’t have personality don’t do well in the new economy. you don’t need to please everyone, just the ones that would buy from you.
When marketing online choose a way to express your voice and become really good with the format. It can be audio, video or text. Ex: Innocent Drinks from the UK

4. Incorporate Mystery. Bring some suspense, tease with your audience. Leave some questions unanswered. The mind cannot live with unanswered questions, so they glue to you. Ex: The Coke formula

5. Become Uberpresent. Businesses today need to be everywhere. They need to be where their audience is. This is where you can use social media marketing and automation to do the work for you. Don’t forget to create a strategy that will not only create awareness but also conversion. Most businesses fail here. They assume that because social media marketing is free and seens easy to use all they need to do is set up accounts and give some tips. There is a lot more here and you need to design a path for people to buy or for you to build a list.

6. Incorporate business rituals. People stick to businesses that have rituals. Just take a look at multilevel companies and churches. Decide how you too can incorporate some rituals. Can be as simple as having an assessment before talking to a prospect.

7. Increase trust. You need to do everything you can to increase the level of trust with clients and prospects. People don’t buy if they don’t believe. Using testimonials is a good start.

These 7 components can change the face of your business and will create loyal customers and advocates that will spread the word about your business. To implement this system takes some brain power and testing but doesn’t cost money and will make all your marketing and advertising efforts more effective. Attracting clients is not about the tools you use but about the message you send.

Posted on

Small business marketing with Kindle

E-Book Devices Expected to Reach 10 Million U.S. Homes 10.3 million U.S. homes will have an e-reader by the end of this year, Forrester Research estimates. E-reader owners buy an average of 15 e-books per year, and two-thirds of the e-readers already in owners’ hands are Kindles.
I love to read and think holding a book in my hand provides a better experience, but I have to tell you, I love my Kindle. It is a lot easier to travel and have my e-book reader in my bag, it is a lot lighter and in one small device I can carry several books, magazines and blogs I love to read.Allows me to consume information when I want, where I want and from different media options.
No wonder so many people are buying e-book readers. Some say by 2011 e-books will outsold paper books.

Now why is this important to your business? Because here lies a huge opportunity to market to all Kindle owners for free.

See the paragraph above where I mentioned I can carry in my Kindle books, magazines and blogs? Yes, blogs.

If you have one, you can submit to Amazon and have it available for Kindle owners.

People will be able to subscribe to your blog, free for 14 days and after that pay a monthly subscription to read your content. Amazon will share this subscription with you. Here is a revenue opportunity for your blog, but I think the best part is the possibility to reach an audience you couldn’t reach before.

In order to have your blog available for Kindle owners you need to go to Amazon, Kindle Store and then click on Blogs and set up a publishing account. After that you will need to provide some basic information about your blog like the RSS feed, how often you publish, what is the blog about etc.

Submit and after a couple of days Amazon will review and approve your blog.

You will be able to check later how many people subscribe to your blog. Note that the real reason you are doing this is because your blog will be on the search engine in the Kindle store and on Amazon. This is great in itself because is giving you visibility.

Don’t forget that your blog needs to be updated consistently.

Posted on

How To Build Your Offline Business With Online Local Directories

by Bonnie Jo Davis

Every offline business wants more customers. That s why you hang signs in your window and outside your door, to attract people s attention and entice them to come in.

But if you are focusing solely on the people who walk past every day, you re missing out on the huge market that constantly looks for services online. There are 300 million internet searches performed every day and a whopping 3 billion of them are performed on a monthly basis! About half of these people are looking for local businesses to buy from. The question is whether or not they can find YOU.

This is why it s worth spending some time making sure you are listed in as many online local directories as possible. Don t restrict yourself to the people who are already walking down your street. Get yourself listed online in some of these directories and you can reel in people from further afield as well. Just imagine there are people out there who are driving around trying to find a business just like yours. If you re listed online they have the ability to find you immediately. And, if you have more than one location you can list them all so they can find the one nearest to where they are.

An offline business can list all the important information quite easily online. Your business name, address, phone number and location can all be listed. If someone searches for your kind of business online, they ll find you on search engines, online directories and local directories of all kinds. You can also make it easy for them to find you on social networking sites, which means you don t even have to have a website. Simply link to your Facebook or LinkedIn profile or whatever other social network you belong to.

In this way people can find you by using their computers or even their cell phones. Once they ve got your details they can find you with their mobile or GPS navigation devices. Could you imagine how many more customers you might get as a result of listing your business in these local directories?

You won t have to worry about customers finding incorrect information if you happen to change phone numbers or locations for some reason either. Quick changes are easy to make in order to keep your listing accurate. When you consider that most of these directories are free to use as well, you d be missing a trick if you didn t use them. The only reason you would pay to use some of them is if you wanted to have an enhanced listing to gain more visibility.

The majority of offline business owners know how important advertising is to keep their business going. But you don t want to spend more than necessary to get the results you want. These directories not only reduce PPC costs, they also reduce your overall advertising costs. So not only can you increase your revenue from being more visible to more customers, you can also do it for less cash.

What kind of savings are we talking about here? Well, think about the amount you spend on your print advertising every month. Whatever that amount might be, you ll be spending a lot less getting listed in hundreds of local directories online. These listings not only bring you direct traffic, they can also provide you with a way to brand your business on a consistent basis.

Having a website isn t necessary to enjoy all these benefits. But if you do have one you can get a one-way link back to that site further strengthening your position and credibility, especially with Google, with the search engines.

The best thing about being listed in every appropriate directory is that your customers can review your business online too. Monitor the feedback and respond to it quickly, making changes for the better as you do. As you gain more feedback and reviews you ll find you get ranked more highly in Google Places as well, so you ll be found even more often.

The only question that s left is why you haven t already started listing your business with all the online local directories?

© 2010 Davis Virtual Assistance. Publication rights granted so long as article and byline are reprinted intact, with all links made live.

Bonnie Jo Davis submits and manages offline business listings to local internet directories. She is a published author, expert in article marketing, and feels comfortable working in a virtual environment. If you need help getting your business into local directories visit http://local-map-listings.com/services-2/local-directory-submission for more information.

Posted on

Danger, Villain on the Loose

Here is an awesome post by Therese Kienast from Radical leadership

“You are so god awful stupid! When are you ever going to get your act together!”

Three seconds had passed since the last venomous assault. I continued to count. Another blow struck full force, like a pro baseball player using my head for batting practice: “You don’t do crap; you’re worthless!” the voice screamed once again. It had been less than seven seconds this time but was never longer than ten before it smite me once more, violently shaking my confidence and undoing any plans I had for the day.

Any sane person would tell me to get out; to save my life; to not tolerate the abuse another minute but instead I tried to regain my balance before meekly picking up my things-to-do list, sighed and went on my way. “Clearly”, I agreed, “I was stupid or I would STOP the insanity.” I was worthless or I wouldn’t negotiate this jerk. My addiction to violence was obvious; even to me. But I wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave. This voice was my own.

Hard to believe this was happening to a woman highly held by her colleagues and clients to be a personal transformation expert; a leadership guru, a master coach and a successful entrepreneur. How had I been able to do THAT when THIS was happening in my life???

I had known for a long time that if I treated other people the way I treated myself, I’d be in jail right now. And metaphorically I was in jail. This voice was keeping me prisoner to a part of me that was constantly in the dark and contracting by the minute. This part of me had no plans to extend itself beyond the prison walls I’d created mentally, emotionally and even physically.

Oddly enough, simultaneously there was another part of me that had inspired others, transformed hearts and lives, helped people own their power and find their freedom and achieved what many would consider to be “great success”? I had a beautiful home, a comfortable bank account, great friends, a thriving business, I was doing what I loved and still, this internal terrorist would suck most of the life out of me day in and day out!

I thought about one of my corporate clients. Gail (not her real name) had come to me in a state of confusion and chaos and wanted “Out!” of her Fortune 100 company. She had spent 28 years growing her career and positioning herself favorably among her peers in an executive position; had just been given a performance appraisal that reflected the highest score possible and still she said, “I am ‘Dead Woman Walking.'” She was numb, burned out, emotionally unavailable and trying to do whatever she could to get through the next 2 years to retirement.

Here was that same “oddity” I was experiencing. She was extremely well liked by family, friends and peers; highly successful in every way and still there was an internal anxiousness and unsettled feeling haunting her every moment and sucking the life out of her physically, emotionally and mentally. She thought it was the job. I knew, given that I loved my job and had the same internal experience, it wasn’t!

It was then that I decided to add “Private Eye” to my skill-set and turn up the magnifying glass on her life and mine at heightened levels; and it was through that magnifying glass that I began to see a whole world that existed behind and below the one I was managing; behind and below the one visible to the naked eye.

Step back and become a “Private Eye” with me on a three day retreat coming up October 6-8th, 2010 on the beautiful shores of Lake Geneva, WI. There are only a couple spots left, and I want YOU there!

Here what Michael Charest, President of Business Growth Solutions had to say about attending Radical Leadership!

“Attending Radical Leadership was the single best personal development course I have taken in my life. Therese Kienast and her team are, in a word…AMAZING. Or better yet, “In Full Essence.”

You will learn in the training that this is the ultimate in self awareness, peace of mind, and self mastery! There are a lot of Leadership programs on the market, but simply put…none like this. Words do not adequately describe the impact this will have on your personal and professional life. You simply must experience it. I urge you to attend this life-changing program.

I also fully appreciate the value of my services…I came back from Radical Leadership and had the best sales week of my entire business career, including a $26,000 day! Talk about an impact…Mentally, Spiritually, and Financially! Please, get to Radical Leadership!”

Michael Charest President, Business Growth Solutions Business Coach, Speaker, Author

If you are feeling called to join us, jump on over to www.radicalleadership.com/programs-products/retreats/ and check it out