Author Archive

By Barbara Rozgonyi (excepted from Success Secrets of The Social Media Marketing Superstars. Aug 2010 Entrepreneur Press)

At over 50 million worldwide users, LinkedIn is the place to search for, connect to and develop business online. To transform your LinkedIn profile into an always-on global networking hub, follow these 12 steps.

1. Use Keywords to Help People Find You.  Keywords are the search terms people use to find information online. The keywords people use to find you and your business might point to your profession, service, location, area of expertise or even the problems you solve. Optimize your LinkedIn profile with keywords in your headline, summary, expertise and your job title and descriptions.

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What Are Affiliate Programs?

Affiliate programs are the Internet’s version of a retail company’s commission-based sales program.  Simply put, you refer a customer through your affiliate link and get a check.

The beauty is that as an affiliate you won’t physically handle products, create marketing tools, set up the sales process or collect the money. It is all handled by the affiliate manager.  You just refer a potential customer (via email, social media, website or blog promotion). Nice and simple.  It is a perfect way to start developing multiple streams of income which is essential in these economic times.

Some Points to Remember

• Promote products you truly believe in and that are relevant to your target market. Ask yourself: What other products and services do my customers need?

• Pre-sell prospects with your own testimonial. It is important that you use or a very familiar with this product and truly believe in it (For example I resell my shopping cart because I use it daily and know others need this e-commerce solution too).

• Be transparent and tell prospects you are an affiliate (The FTC mandates this)

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People purchase products and services, but they buy dreams. Products are merely the delivery vehicles for them.

In other words, consumers purchase benefits – beauty, safety, financial freedom, island vacations, homes, popularity, sex appeal, and glowing health – not features – horsepower, sleek design, house color, or size.

Savvy marketers recognize that their single most important goal is to help their customers achieve their dreams. So, they find out exactly what their target audience is searching for, articulate it, and then deliver on their promises.

Many small business owners mistakenly talk more about themselves than their prospects! In other words, the public isn’t too interested in how long you’ve been in business, whether you’re family owned and operated, or if your warehouse is large or small.

They don’t want to hear a story about you, they want to hear a story about them. They want to know how you can help them save time, make more money, find their soul mates, improve their relationships, get promoted, reduce pain, or make them laugh.

Smart marketers know that their target audiences’ desires are usually not lofty, enduring, or huge. One valuable e-course, one shirt, one painting, or one tube of lipstick aren’t likely to have significant or lasting impact on their lives – but they may for a moment or two. And that’s okay, because for that brief period of time they shared a positive experience. And even though their customers might forget about the product, they will remember the feeling.

Savvy entrepreneurs realize that they’re not the only show in town and the main reason consumers buy from one company over the other, is because they have confidence in the seller. They have confidence in their ability to solve their most pressing problems. They have confidence that they won’t be abandoned after the sale. And they have confidence in their products’ quality, value, and selection.

Yet, if you can’t talk to them about these things, you might as well hang up your hat because you’ll just waste a lot of time, money, and energy.  The good news, however, is that you can learn to communicate more effectively with your intended audience if you study the masters and practice improving your communications every day.

Adapted from Guerrilla Marketing On The Internet by Mitch Meyerson, Jay Levinson and Mary Scarborough

The next Guerrilla Marketing Coach Certification Program is starting this summer.

People talk about transparency in social media.  Since I do play a lot of music I thought I’d share a slice of it with you.
Even though I play lots of styles from rock to jazz, I picked this one because of the words.  The goal of building a business over the Internet for me is creating a lifestyle you really enjoy.  This is my arrangement of a James Taylor song called the Secret of Life. The lyrics are simple but say a lot.

For more of my music visit:
www.MitchMeyersonMusic.com (hear some songs I wrote for Mark Victor Hansen, Michael Gerber and others)

Facebook Music Fan Page

The good news is that great marketers are not born, they are made.  Marketing is a very teachable skill and one that you can easily learn with some time, practice, and dedication.  The following six key tenets should guide you in converting your prospects into customers.

Simply put, your prospects will choose to become your customers based on:

1.  Their experiences with you. Your prospects will judge your worthiness based on how you make them feel. This includes how well you communicate, your content “depth,” your website’s quality and much more. Your prospects will also be more likely to engage in “conversations” with you when you allow them to interact in ways they prefer (i.e some may resonate with a blog post while others are more engaged by video or audio content).

2. Your product or service benefits. There are two basic reasons why people purchase anything – to increase pleasure (e.g. glowing health, freedom, popularity) or decrease pain (e.g. stress, financial problems, poor health). Therefore, focus on your product or service’s most compelling benefits as you communicate with your target audience – then, make sure you deliver on your promises. Be specific.

3. Your trustworthiness and reputation. Protect your good name and do everything in your power to ensure that your customers, prospects, friends, employees, and colleagues view you as a person of value. Keep in mind that your credibility, plausibility, and truthfulness will also win you far more customers than exaggerated claims and over-the-top promises.

Great reputations are among the biggest assets businesspeople have… even though they are one of the hardest things to build and one of the quickest things to destroy.

4. The value they receive. Although most consumers are price-conscious, the vast majority do not consider price alone when making their buying decisions. Rather, they consider value: the difference between what something costs and its worth to the buyer. What does value look like in the social media world? Answer: great content, expert advice and personal connections.

5. Make transactions easy, safe, and secure. People are more likely to hand over their money when they perceive the risk as minimal. It’s best to reassure potential customers with robust guarantees, a solid privacy policy, and secure payment procedures.

6. How well you articulate their most pressing concerns. To market effectively you must get into your prospects’ heads. Listen carefully (and social media forums and blogs make this very easy) to your target audiences’ expressed opinions and feelings – particularly as they relate to your products or services – and be sure to address them directly. Research the marketplace to discover new trends and golden opportunities that you can leverage to benefit your business.

As any savvy online business owner knows …  your database of prospects and customers is probably the most essential asset to your business.

Today you will learn some specific tips for improving your opt-in conversions (getting more people to actually sign up for your mailing list).

But keep this in mind as you read through these tips: the size of your list is not nearly as important as the quality! You’ll be better off having fewer qualified and interested prospects (your target market!) than tons of “warm bodies.”

It’s not about getting everyone on the bus… it’s about getting the right people on the bus. For example, if you’re selling e-books on boats, having a list filled with people who live in the desert and are searching for cars will do you no good.

Here are some specific visual tactics you can use for improving your conversion rates:

1. Location, Location, Location… Make sure your opt-in box is positioned “above the fold” – the section of your web site that can be read without scrolling up or down. Many online experts agree that most online visitors look at the top right hand corner of a web page first, so you should consider using this area for your opt-in box.

2. Attention-Grabbing Graphics… Don’t confuse your visitors with too many pictures and graphics. While your web page itself should be softly colored, feel free to go bold on graphics (e.g. stronger colors, more daring designs, arrows, etc.) that direct their eyes to the most important information.

3. An Irresistible Offer… often referred to as an “ethical bribe,” this is your opportunity to offer valuable “freebies” which include things such as:  e-courses; members-only area access; surveys; software downloads; white papers; e-books, etc.  Over-deliver here and make sure it is relevant, specific and enticing.   (See example of the Toolkit on the right column of this blog)

Applying these tactics to your e-mailing list and website will definitely increase the likeliness of your readers spotting the opt-in, and consequently the amount of people on your email list.

This excerpt was adapted from Mastering Online Marketing by Mitch Meyerson and Mary Eule Scarborough

Social bookmarking sites are sometimes called content “aggregators”. Internet marketers see them as places where users “store” their favorite website links and share them with others. Although many Internet users “bookmark” interesting website links in their browser lists, more and more people are using social bookmarking sites to help them keep track of interesting websites and to learn which ones their friends like.

How Do Social Bookmarking Sites Work?

By design, social bookmarking sites aggregate content submitted from multiple sources and display the most popular on their home pages. Many of these sites actually “read” like online magazines. You find an interesting site, add it to your bookmarks, and give it an appropriate “tag”.

Begin Sidebar A tag is like a category, and a single article could be given dozens of different tags. A story about Star Wars would be tagged “film,” “science fiction,” “george lucas,” “robots,” and so on. End Sidebar Most social bookmarking sites allow members to vote for their favorite links. The website links that receive the most votes receive greater visibility and appear at or near the tops of the first result pages for tag searches.

The Difference Between Social Networking and Social Bookmarking

People use social networking to interact with others and make business connections. The major purpose of social networking is to make contacts and interact. Social bookmarking, however, is all about information sharing. Social bookmarking sites are specific sub-categories of social networking and social media sites. Users share links, add stories, vote, tag content, and participate in discussions about specific content. Unlike most other forms of social media, social bookmarking is not about developing and sharing original content; it’s almost exclusively about discussion or reviewing content that exists elsewhere online, including articles from newspaper and magazine sites, blog posts, and the like.

Social bookmarking sites are about sharing content, but do not overlook the fact they can be useful networking too! Get “influencers” to notice you and they will be more inclined to make a connection. After you decide whom you’d like to “befriend” on these sites, you should vote for and comment on their articles, interact with them, and promote their best content. These sites are an excellent electronic way of doing favors for people.

Top 4 Social Bookmarking Sites

Every niche, subject or, audience type is likely to have one or more social bookmarking site catering to them. You should, however, start somewhere at the top of the chain. Although there are many sites we could list among the ‘top’ social bookmarking sites, I suggest you begin with these first.

Digg.com – Currently the most popular of all the social bookmarking sites in terms of delivering raw traffic, although the site’s popularity means it is currently very difficult to garner much attention if you are new to the site.

Delicious.com – One of the older social bookmarking sites, it is the site most used as a bookmarking tool rather than for social voting or news aggregation.

Reddit.com – Much like Digg.com this site is used as both a source of news and as a traffic generator. Unlike Digg, however, it still is possible for new users to make their stories “popular” on merit. StumbleUpon.com – With StumbleUpon (also called “SU”), it is relatively easy to get traffic. This site is also the easiest to use. A browser toolbar makes submitting links and voting very straight forward.

Mixx.com – Mixx is vying to be just like Digg when it grows up, but has a long way to go. If you want to get your fit in the door for the next big thing in social bookmarking, however, Mixx is definitely one to watch.

The preceding was excerpted from Chris Garrett’s Social Bookmarking chapter in Success Secrets Of The Social Media Marketing Superstars (July 2010 Entrepreneur Press)