In a previous post on Authority Marketing, we talked about the importance of knowing your audience through market research so that you can position yourself in a way that people relate to, resonate with and believe in.
And one of the best things you can do to position yourself at the top of your market is to learn as much as possible about your competition, as well as what’s selling in your niche and what your customer base wants most from you.
Then later, you can expand.
That way you’re not only able to locate your customer base, but you’ll also have a clear focus and a solid action plan. Instead of trying to be everywhere at once, you’ll also be able to narrow down the places that you can best connect to your audience.
OK, so, the next logical step is to be where your market spends most of their time.
Creating your own forum or message board is great, but it’s always easier to connect with people within the social platforms and websites they are already familiar with and actively use.
What one social media platform is most commonly used by your core audience?
When conducting research for one of my markets, I discovered that most of my younger customers spend more time on Twitter or Instagram while the older generation seems to prefer Facebook.
You might even find that your ideal customer likes some other platform entirely, like Pinterest, Reddit or YouTube.
The point is: do your research and find out where they are spending their time online. Then join the discussion!
Set up accounts on these platforms and create a content plan that stays true to your brand. Don’t confuse your business brand with your personal life, either. You’ll want a separate account where you’re going to share expert advice and high-quality information that targets specific areas of your niche.
You don’t need family photos or your political views on that platform. Keep it separate and keep it focused!
Create a consistent theme across all platforms as well. Use the same color scheme and other components and elements so that you’re able to solidify your brand and become instantly recognizable. This is critical when it comes to creating a well-known brand that people identify.
Use a good professional photo and profile picture. If you need royalty-free images, try Dreamtime or Shutterstock. It’s usually best to spring for a good professional photo you can use on across your platform.
Create a killer bio, focusing on what really matters to your audience. This will include relevant keywords that instantly identify who you are and what your focus is. And of course, include a link to your website or squeeze page where you offer a free incentive for joining your inner circle.
Then, spend time connecting with your core audience! Offer quality information, link back to a blog or website as often as possible and focus on delivering value.
That’s how authorities are created.
Tip: Look for things like:
Now that you’re on most popular social media platforms that your customer base uses, pay attention. Follow trending hashtags (#) in your area of expertise to see what people are talking about.
“Friend” or “Follow” some other experts and read their posts. Always work towards staying engaged. Comment where appropriate so people begin to associate your brand to being a knowledgeable person and thought-leader.
Not particularly emotional pain, but what struggles are they facing in their personal or business lives?
This step takes a bit of time, but it’ll be worth it in the end because you’ll know, with certainty, exactly how to solve problems and position yourself as someone who can help them reach their goals.
You can’t possibly learn enough from your core audience based on one or two posts or comments.
Really dig down into these ongoing conversations and see what the majority of people are saying or needing help with within your market.
What do they already know and what do they need to become aware of?
What areas have been exhausted and where do you see a niche you can fit yourself into?
Remember, you’re looking at what the majority needs help with. Never focus your marketing campaigns on what one or two people need help with. Instead, always look for ways to solve the largest problem in your market.
Engage in conversations regularly. This goes beyond just social media as well. You should be frequently visiting authority blogs, or forums, as well as Facebook groups that include an active audience.
The point is to make yourself visible and to stay on people’s radar.
In fact, you’ll automatically build an audience just because you’ve dedicated time to addressing problems and consistently provided helpful content that resonated with them.
If you want to know more about leveraging the power of authority marketing, then check out the featured resource below for a free report that expands on this post; download, read and take action 🙂
In the first post in this series, you learnt about the importance of believing in yourself and you can find that post here
Nobody wants to waste time on a project that is doomed to failure, right?
You probably have tons of ideas. Some are good and – let’s face it – some aren’t. How can you tell the difference? By testing them!
Why Testing Ideas and Products is Important
Testing your ideas and products is essential – and it’s not that hard to understand why. Which would you rather do:
The answer’s clear, right? It’s a better use of your time to test things out first. Once you’ve tested, refined your idea, and re-tested it, you’ll have a pretty good idea of whether it’s going to work.
One way to improve your chances of success is to do market research before you spend valuable time and money trying to start your business. That might mean pitching your idea to a few valued friends or family members. It might mean asking your blog readers what they think of it.
With products, it’s a little trickier. But you might do a Google search for products in your niche or spend a few minutes on Amazon seeing what’s available. If there’s a product that does exactly what yours will do, you’ll need to reconceptualize it.
Your value proposition could be about functionality, or it could be about price. The main thing is to know how you’ll differentiate your product from others on the market.
One thing you should do for all your target audiences is to create a customer avatar.
This avatar should be your ideal customer and you should flesh it out as much as possible.
One you know your ideal customer intimately, it becomes much easier to identify what they want, and you can create products or services that meet these needs.
Plus, you will also know what struggles they face and can use your marketing to focus on these pain points and then offer them your solution and they will be much more likely to buy because they know they now have hope.
This leads on to…
You will be much more likely to succeed if you identify a product or service that provides a solution to a problem faced by your target audience. People go online to find answers. They ask questions and look for products that will help them.
You can find problems by searching a common keyword in your niche and looking at Google’s suggested searches. For example, say you want to create a project in the pet training niche and you’re looking for an angle for puppy training product. You might search “How to house train a puppy” and see this:
You can see there are some ideas there, including focusing on training with a bell or training with a crate.
It is also a good idea to hang out where your target market hangs out online. There may be specific forums or Facebook groups where they are asking questions, so these are great places to find out what they are struggling with.
You can give honest, helpful answers and position yourself as an authority, so when you do finally come to make an offer, you will have warmed the audience and they are much more likely to take a serious look at what you have to offer.
Tip: Once you’ve tested your ideas, use ProductDyno to deliver digital content, license apps and plugins, and manage your content delivery without a hassle.
Do you know how to set goals? It involves more saying “I want a successful business.” You may have heard about SMART goals. It means setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reasonable, and Timely. If you want to know more about SMART goals, read this post here
This series is about a success mindset, but “success” isn’t a specific enough word when you’re setting goals. Here are some examples of SMART goals:
When you set goals, ask if they’re SMART and if they’re not, fine-tune them until they are.
You’re probably thinking it sounds strange to plan for failure. It does – but it’s also a smart thing to do.
Everybody fails. Remember the story about Stephen King being rejected 30+ times by publishers? The reason he’s the beloved (and highly successful) author we know today is because what he did after those rejections.
He didn’t stop. He didn’t give up. He learned to cope with rejection, and he persisted.
Coming up next, we’ll talk about the next step, which is related to failure. Successful people learn from their mistakes – and you’ll learn how you can, too. See you in the next post…
As you can appreciate, changing the way you think can have a huge impact on your life, and if you want to know more about developing an inspirational mindset for success, please click on the featured resource below for a free Strong Mindset report; download, read it and take action 😊
If you’re an entrepreneur and into online marketing and planning to create a video-based digital marketing course, you’ll want to look at SkillShare. This is also a great place to start because they let you upload individual lessons rather than having to create a full-length course.
Lessons must be 10 minutes or longer, however most videos range from 15-25 minutes long, on average.
Best of all, there’s no approval process, so you can get started right away.
It’s one of the best places for those who are just starting out because there aren’t a lot of requirements and it’s really easy to put out a simple course just by uploading a single lesson.
Here’s the link:
Another course marketplace that I really like is Teachable.
Teachable provides you with the ability to fully brand your course, including creating and customizing a complete online school using their easy website building tool.
You are charged a 5-10% commission fee per sale unless you choose to upgrade to a paid membership plan but when just starting out I recommend testing out the free plan to get a feel for how things work, and then upgrading later.
You can find out more information here:
https://teachable.com/pricing/comparison
Now you have a platform to sell your course, you need to ensure that there is a market for it…
“Validating” your market simply means taking steps to ensure that the market is there and that there are people likely to pay for a course on your chosen topic.
It’s clear to see why validating your market is so important, right, and this is important for any business venture, including internet marketing?
You don’t want to spend a lot of time working on a course that no one is willing to pay for.
Here’s how to validate your topic:
Then, run a test by entering these questions into places like:
Google.com
Why not start with the major search engine? You’ll be able to quickly spot the number of blog posts that address these questions as well as uncover social media accounts, and websites that cover this topic.
Pay attention to all of the following:
Are there any actual courses already available?
Try adding “course,” “lessons,” and “training” to your search terms in order to come up with relevant results.
Are there relevant ads on the page?
If so, chances are it’s a profitable niche market and one worth taking a closer look at.
Do videos appear on the first page?
If you’re finding lots of links to YouTube videos after running your search, it’s a good sign that the topic is in-demand.
Amazon.com
Run your searches through Amazon and pay attention to the number of books available on the topic.
Take things a step further by reading reviews left by customers, as well as the overall ranking of the top 50 books.
Udemy.com
Udemy is one of the leading marketplaces online when it comes to selling courses, but it’s also a goldmine of information when researching niche markets and possible digital products.
In fact, Udemy is one of the easiest ways to not only evaluate the profitability of any course topic you’re interested in, but you’ll be able to instantly come up with a complete outline in a matter of minutes.
Quora.com
Question and answer websites like Quora make it easy to conduct niche research and get a feel for what your market is most interested in. Browse for trending questions and open discussions, paying close attention to the thought leaders who commonly provide answers.
I hope this has helped you come up with a few ways to validate your topic.
Next, let’s look at a powerful way to deliver your course…
Have you ever seen a live session in action?
One of the most powerful ways to deliver your course related content is with live session training.
This lets you schedule meetings with all of your students which obviously will increase engagement and get people excited about your information.
Live sessions have huge impact on the overall value of your course and can really help you stand out in competitive markets.
The more you engage your audience – the more popular your course will be.
Make sense?
Here’s a great marketplaces where you can create a course designed around live sessions:
WizIQ: https://www.wiziq.com/
WizIQ has been around for more than 10 years and continues to thrive as a centralized community for live classes and popular courses.
WizIQ supports all file formats, so you can create a course that offers a variety of content ranging from video to audio, as well as include quizzes, surveys and tests that serve as auxiliary components.
Finally, let’s look at some ways to ensure your course is profitable from the very beginning…
I’ll leave you with a few last-minute tips and strategies to help you launch your course and maximize your income.
These 3 or 4 tips can really make a difference to the profitability of your online courses so please consider them carefully.
The four main content formats you typically see in online courses include: video, audio, text and digital downloads (like PDF’s, workbooks, spreadsheets, etc.)
For that reason, you should always include at least a few video based modules in your course.
Successful courses always have a targeted, clear title that appeals to the majority of their market.
It tells your prospect what the course is about and gets them excited about the possibility of earning 6-figures a year.
Don’t stick a price tag on your course without doing research. You want to make sure that you’re focusing on goal-oriented pricing.
You want to set a reasonable price without under valuing your content.
You also need to keep your personal goals in mind, such as:
And finally,
A course is a natural steppingstone to upsell from so keep this in mind when creating and pricing your course.
A course lets your leads get to know you!
I’ll leave you with a course checklist that will help you create a profitable course that will stand out to your audience.
Step 1: Validate your topic idea
Make sure you’ve researched your market in order to verify overall demand and give your course the best chance at success.
Step 2: Create your Course Outline
Building a course from scratch can take time but if you work with an outline you’ll have a strong foundation for your training product. It will also help ensure you stay focused while covering the most important steps needed for your students to be successful.
Step 3: Create your Course Content
Try to provide a variety of formats, and always include at least one video module in your training program.
Step 4: Give your course a sexy title
Come up with a powerful, attention-grabbing title that will stand out in the market while giving students a clear idea as to what your course is about.
Step 5: Launch your course!
Chances are you’ll sell access without doing any off-site marketing of your own, but if you really want to maximize your income you should do your best to connect with your audience and make them aware of your training program.
Spread your marketing message via social media, create a Facebook group only for students, create a lead page that offers a free incentive for those who subscribe to your list and always be on the lookout for new ways to increase visibility.
If you want to know more about creating a profitable online course, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
We all dream of success. If you’re like most people, you’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about what constitutes success, how you’ll achieve it, and how good you’ll feel when you’ve achieved your goals.
The secret is taking 5 key steps that will help you reach your goals and accomplish what you’ve set out to do. The first step is believing in yourself, and we will be covering this in this post, and the other steps will be covered in subsequent posts, so let’s begin.
Being successful is as much about self-confidence as it is about anything else. People who constantly doubt themselves often can’t reach their goals because their negative thoughts act as saboteurs, preventing them from doing the things they want to do; they effectively have a fixed mindset, rather than an open mindset that is ready to be programmed for success.
Try the 5 ways listed below to start believing in yourself and achieving the kind of results you really want.
When you set a goal, you may find that people in your life express doubts or dismiss your goal as unreasonable or unattainable. You may also hear a little voice in your head that says you can’t do what you want to do.
With the naysayers, you’ve got three options:
The right choice may vary from person to person. Sometimes, friends and family don’t realize they’re being negative. When that’s the case, a simple, “Hey, I’d appreciate it if you’d find a way to be positive about my goals” might do the trick.
Some people might be unwilling or unable to curb their negativity. When that’s the case, you’ll have to decide if you can ignore it or if you’re better off avoiding their company. Choose the option that’s right for you.
Avoiding the inner critic is more challenging because you carry it around with you. A good option is to reframe the negativity and imagine that instead of talking to yourself, you’re talking to a dear friend. You wouldn’t be rude or insensitive to a friend, so don’t treat yourself that way either!
Believing in yourself is easier when you recognize your strengths. We’ve all got things we do well, so why not celebrate them?
Write down your strongest traits and abilities and then turn them into affirmations. When you’re heading into a meeting or negotiation or planning session, read the list and remind yourself that you’re a terrific negotiator or a strong speaker. It’ll put a spring in your step and help you maintain a positive outlook.
The flipside of acknowledging your strengths is looking at your fears and negative thoughts and finding ways to overcome them. We’re all afraid of something. What sets us apart is how we handle those fears.
Fears are a little trickier. You’re going to need to face them. Look for ways to give yourself the tools you need to overcome your fears. For example, someone with a fear of public speaking might join Toastmasters to get critiques and encouragements from fellow members.
Sometimes people fail due to a lack of planning. You’ll have a better chance of achieving your goals if you lay out a concrete plan for achieving them.
The benefit of writing a business plan is that it will:
It might be a lot of work, but the time you spend on your business plan will help you achieve a success mindset.
When you’re aiming for a lofty goal, it’s easy to get discouraged. It’s also easy to look at other successful people and tell yourself that you can’t do what they did – or that they were never where you are.
The truth is everybody struggles in some way. You can find inspiration by seeking out stories about successful people who overcame negative thinking or other obstacles.
Did you know that Bill Gates had a failed company before he started Microsoft? And that Walt Disney was fired by the Kansas City Star because his editor said he lacked imagination and had no good ideas?
The point here is that if you let the naysayers hold you back, you won’t be successful. The only way to succeed is to believe in yourself.
As an entrepreneur, the next step to building a success mindset is to test your ideas to make sure they are worth pursuing and we’ll look at that in the next part in this series…
As you can appreciate, changing the way you think can have a huge impact on your life, and if you want to know more about developing an inspirational mindset for success, please click on the featured resource below for a free Strong Mindset report; download, read it and take action 😊
Are you a social marketer? One thing that is hard to do sometimes is to interpret what actions mean on social media. The fact is, not all actions even matter. It’s important to know what matters and what doesn’t and this may vary between the various social media platforms.
* Leads – How many new leads did you get from the action you performed? If you set up a freebie guide and marketed that, how many people signed up and downloaded it? If people downloaded a freebie, how many who did that took further action?
* Engagement – When you make a post, how many people respond in some way to the engagement? What was the point of the engagement? Did the audience do what you thought they’d do?
* Reach – How many people shared your post? How far did the post reach, meaning how many people laid eyes on it and shared it? If a lot of people shared it, you might consider adding more content like that.
* Impressions – When you boost a post on Facebook, how many impressions did it make versus how many people saw it, shared it, and engaged with it? What did they do afterwards?
* Funnels – With your analytics software you can set up a means to testing out your funnels to find out which type of funnel works best. This can help you identify holes in your plans to reach your goals.
* Unique Visits – It’s important to know how many unique visits you get each day, where they came from, and what they did after they got there. Did they convert? Did they sign up for anything? Did they download something? Did they search your site?
* Repeat Visits – Having a lot of repeat visitors is a sign of a healthy site with a lot of content for the audience to read and look at. What is the percentage of repeat visitors versus new traffic? If it’s low, what can you change? Are you targeting your audience correctly?
* Bounces – Are people coming to your website and then leaving before doing anything? If this rate is high, then that means something is wrong. Find out where the links are coming from and try to determine if the content is badly targeted or not.
* Exits – How and what page are people using to exit your website, and if they came from social media where did they come from? Can you pinpoint what is making them leave? What you can do to encourage them to stay or to convert them in some way, for example by using an exit pop-under?
* Time on Site – How long are your visitors staying on your page and what exactly are they doing while they are there? What do they read the most? What do they watch the most? What exactly are they doing that keeps them on the social media site? If they’re only there a short time, what did they do?
* Growth – How fast are the visitors to your social media page/platform improving each month? Is it going up or down? What actions affect growth? How can you do more of those things to keep growing your website and your influence?
* Response – When you create a post, how long does it take your audience to respond and what type of responses do you get? Are they commenting, liking, sharing, retweeting and so forth?
* Inbound Links – How many others are sharing your social networks and causing people to link to your social media networks? Who is sharing your platform more and why?
You may be tracking email sign-ups, clicks or sales. It’s up to you what a conversion means and if your social networking is deemed successful or not.
The more you can understand your competition, the better business you’re going to have. You can learn so much from them – especially if they’ve been around longer than you have.
* Google Alerts – This is an excellent, free service. Sign in and choose keywords, names, and more to search for. Then, set up how often you want to receive the alerts in your email inbox. You can scan each email to find information about your competition that you can use in your own business.
Link – https://www.google.com/alerts
* Social Mention – Use this cloud-based search engine to search websites, blogs and more for mentions about your competition. Then you can go take a look at what they’re doing. Identify the gaps in their offerings and you can outshine your competition in no time.
Link – http://socialmention.com/
* Website Grader – While it does ask for your website and not your competition’s (and your email address), you can still use it to check the health of someone else’s website. The information you will receive is page size, page speed, redirects and more, including how many requests for the site have been made. It also tells you how they’re doing on SEO and more.
Link – https://website.grader.com/
* Link-Assistant.com – Using this downloadable software you can study keywords of your competitor’s site so that you will know what keywords they’re using. You can then use them on your own website to nab their traffic.
Link – http://www.link-assistant.com/
* SocialAdNinja – You can use this software to copy and make your competitor’s ads your own. Of course, you don’t copy them exactly, as you are selling your own products, but this will help you duplicate the most successful ads online.
Link – http://www.socialadninja.com/
* KeywordSpy – This software is an amazing way to profit from your competition’s hard work and research. You can find out what keywords they’re using, what they’re spending for AdWords, their ROI estimate, and much more.
Link – http://www.keywordspy.com/
* Open Site Explorer by MOZ – You can get a lot of information about your competition from this cloud-based option. You can get information about the links that come into the site and the anchor text used, and you can even compare five sites. What’s more, it’s free when you sign up.
Link – https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/
While social media marketing is powerful, it is important to try to get them off these platforms and onto an email list that you own. If you want to know more about growing and nurturing an email list the right way, check out the featured resource below for a free Simple List Building report; download, read it and take action 😊
