Social media has become firmly established as an effective way to market almost any business, but there are so many sites, tasks, profiles and publishing to manage every day, it is easy to feel overwhelmed.
See how many you’re already doing, and add those you aren’t to your day to see what a difference they can make.
Know what the people in your niche are most interested in, and come up with content that satisfies those needs.
For example, any new golfer will want to know about perfecting their swing.
Create a customer avatar to identify your ideal customer and target your marketing towards them.
Make an appointment each day with your social networking profiles.
Thirty minutes per day 2 or 3 times a day will prevent you from getting distracted and eating up your time.
For example, if you have a Tweet that is getting a lot of traction, don’t tweet more items that are just going to push it down the page. Instead, let it ride as long as it can.
Even a small budget can go far with the right content on the right network.
Also consider running a campaign to add more followers while the tweet is prominent, in order to give it more exposure to those interested in your niche who are on the network but not connected with you yet.
A growing number of tools will allow you to manage multiple social media accounts, with just a few clicks.
Do a search to find the best times to post on the various social media platforms to your audience for maximum impact. The best time will vary between platforms and this is where automation tools, such as ContentStudio make things so much easier.
Your content should have a high potential to evoke a response, such as a comment, like or share.
Here are some ideas for calls to action:
If you get a comment, reply to it as appropriate. Stuck with a troll? Don’t engage on their unprofessional level in front of the entire world, just delete their nonsense and block them.
In the posting, give a clear call to action, such as “Like or share if you agree.” For more details, invite them to share more with, “Let us know what you think in the comments box below.”
See what others are doing and be helpful in all your interactions online, and people will soon be checking out your profile and starting to follow you because you look like someone worth paying attention to.
You must engage with people or you will end up being ignored and people won’t even see your posts. It doesn’t take too much effort to like a few posts and to write a thoughtful comment or two does it?
Connect with the top people in your niche.
Your network can be a really valuable asset so try to grow and nurture it whenever possible.
See how many engagements you get from each activity.
So, there are 8 habits of successful marketers. Now let’s look at the flip side and look at some of the mistakes less experienced social media marketers may make.
Social media gives unprecedented access to people interested in your niche or industry, or the products and services you offer.
Here are the top 7 to watch out for if you are a newbie social media marketer.
Do you want sales, subscribers, followers?
By limiting the number of actions available in the message or campaign, you help to reduce returns, unsubscribes, and unfollows.
Make your profile as informative and professional as possible.
A logo and colors help you to be recognized at a glance, so be sure to add a unique and professional logo to your profile.
As soon as you sign on for most social sites, they ask you what you are interested in and give recommendations as to who you might like to follow.
Growing your network of likeminded people is important so don’t neglect this step.
Most newbies to social networking are there because they’ve heard it is a great way to reach millions of people.
Social networks are just that, social. It’s not about you hammering out promotion after promotion.
Focus on building relationships and connections that are based on your common personal and/or business interests.
Every social network attracts people who prefer a specific type of content or type of delivery.
For example, most Twitter users want very short and to-the-point messages.
Organize your material into folders for each network so you deliver the right type of content to each social media network, based on its specialties and the preferences of their users.
Conduct a quick search each day for a couple of your business’s keywords and/or brand products.
Look for mentions of your business, product, and/or your name. Also look for questions and positive or negative comments on other sites.
If you see negative, refer them to your customer service email for more details on what their issue is.
The offer of help will show good will to anyone who might have seen it and sort the real customers from those who might be doing nothing more than trying to damage your reputation online.
No matter how unfair they have been. Just don’t retaliate in public.
If you want to learn about even more mistakes you should avoid, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
Life can be very stressful for any number of reasons. Some of them are self-inflicted, while others are out of your control.
Regardless of why life is stressful for you, you need to be able to block it out when it’s time to get to work, otherwise you’re going to be pulled away from the projects you need to do in order to make money.
You might go to just check the top headlines on any news site, and just continuously scroll through looking at all the bad news you can, which ends up making you more stressed and upset.
This is one of the more self-inflicted burdens. Much like being addicted to social media, people have found themselves addicted to reading the most upsetting headlines constantly, which just ends up being bad for them.
If this type of behavior is inhibiting you from working well, you need to tune out from the news for a little while and focus on work, especially during hours that you should be working.
There are tons of burdens which are either out of your control or only partially in your control, such as marriage problems and concerns with friends, which can also negatively affect you in work.
You have to understand that there is a time to work on these problems, which is outside of work. If your job stresses productivity as most jobs do, you’re not going to fare very well if you’re constantly distracted by problems outside of work.
For one, they can make you stressed out and have you on edge, which can negatively affect your work performance in many ways.
You can end up being more intimidating to clients and co-workers if the perceive you to be stressed out, and you can also end up working much slower if you’re distracted, leading you to have much worse performance.
If you’re getting poor performance reviews and losing clients due to being stressed out, you’re going to be adding on more stress to what you already have, due to the financial problems that come along with lower bonuses and less clients at work. It is difficult, but you have to leave the problems you have at home behind when you go to work.
One way to do this is to study decision making and there is a great book that can help you do just that. It is called Mental Models and I have done a quick review of the book below.
If you’re like most people, you can often make decisions based on the wrong input. The information that you get can fools you into thinking that you must handle something when it doesn’t need to be handled at the moment.
In the book, Mental Models, the author shares valuable lessons ranging from how to make better decisions to how to approach those decisions. Readers will also learn how to handle problem solving when the need arises.
The book opens with a chapter on decision making. The first part teaches readers the importance of focusing on the things that are important, rather than things that are urgent.
You’ll discover that urgent matters can sometimes masquerade as important but aren’t. These are things that you think you must take care of right away but it’s not true. Usually, these urgent matters come up as a result of other people acting like the matter is urgent.
Or you can prioritize a matter as urgent when you want to put off doing something else – something you should be doing. The author shares the “Eisenhower Matrix” with readers.
This is a system that divides tasks into important and unimportant. Then it takes those tasks and further divides them according to what’s urgent and what’s not. The system teaches you what you need to do right now, what tasks you should plan to do, what someone else can handle and what you can ignore completely.
Another chapter shares with readers the importance of being able to correctly see. This part talks about using the brain’s second system. This system is where slow and deliberate choices are made, unlike in system one of the brain, which often makes decisions without thinking things through.
An interesting chapter in the book focuses on avoiding things and how doing this can actually help you to succeed. The information shared in this chapter goes against the most common advice you might have heard.
For example, one directive is on avoiding to-do lists. Another part tells readers to avoid dealing with direct goals. While this advice is contrary to some popular advice, the information in the book is solid and can help you learn to improve your decision making.
If you want to become a powerful decision maker, his book is a great place to start. Check out Mental Models here.
As you can appreciate, all of this decision making and maintaining focus can take a lot of self-discipline and a positive attitude. If you don’t have this, you will probably struggle to maintain any focus and creativity, so it is well worth your while to adopt the correct mindset; I know this may sound a little cliched, but it does really work.
If you want to develop more self-discipline, click on the featured resource below to get a free report, The Power Of Self-Discipline; download, read it and take action 😊
Have you ever wanted to create a course to teach others about a topic you are knowledgeable about but aren’t sure where to start or even whether it would be worth your time and effort?
Creating a course is a fantastic business model but you need to evaluate the niche/topic/subject first to ensure that your efforts would be profitable! After all, you are in business to make money, right?
And the truth is, there are few other opportunities quite as profitable as creating an online course on a hot topic.
People crave knowledge, and they’re willing to pay for it.
Think about just how many tutorials you’ve read or watched over the last year.
How many times have you searched YouTube for video tutorials on different topics?
How many books or reports have you read in the hopes of learning a new skill or empowering yourself?
Course creators and instructors put themselves in a very powerful position.
And think about just how powerful THAT can be.
So for today, I want you to think about the different courses you could create for your market.
Begin by digging deep into your niche or industry so you’re able to identify hot topics that people are interested in learning more about.
If you aren’t sure where to start, begin where courses are already proven to sell!
Udemy.com, Teachable.com and SkillShare.com are all fantastic places to begin your research.
Pay attention to the number of students enrolled in each course as it’s a clear indicator as to the overall popularity of the topic.
This could be a great entry point for your own course, and help you stand out from the crowd.
And finally, browse through the course outlines. These trainers have given you everything you need to come up with a solid outline for your own course!
The summaries and course descriptions can give you an unlimited number of ideas for your own modules as well as help you shape the foundation for your content.
When it comes to creating outstanding courses that attract attention and outsell the competition, you’ll want to make sure to pay attention to 3 main things:
Don’t stick with just one main format!
So obviously the more content formats you offer to students, the easier it will be to provide everyone with the type of training they’re most interested in.
A lot of course creators overlook the power of a killer title. In reality, your course title can help make or break the success of your course.
Don’t be afraid to play around with different titles.
The same goes for the description and summary of your course. You want to give people enough information to get them excited so they sign up, but you don’t want to bog them down with TOO much information.
Look to strike a healthy balance of giving them the details they need while using summary titles that provide a sense of mystery and intrigue.
Don’t underprice your course trying to compete with existing programs. Instead, consider how many people equate a higher price with a superior product.
You can always lower it later on, but it is definitely worth testing at a higher price point.
One of the things that can drive in sales and help you stand out in the market is being able to get those review numbers up.
You’ve likely experienced the different a ton of reviews can make yourself when you’re considering what products or services to buy.
It removes buyers concerns by reassuring them that their decision to purchase will be one they won’t regret.
So, how can you bump up the number of reviews you have so your course stands out?
Ask for them!
The key is to prompt your students to leave reviews throughout the learning process rather than just at the end.
That way they’re reminded several times without being bombarded. If you only ask them to leave a review once, at the end of the training, you may never have the opportunity to ask them again.
You want your reviews to demonstrate the quality of your course and how useful your information is.
So, place your review requests at key points during the training after your student’s have completed a goal.
If you really want to ramp up reviews, consider offering something extra to those who leave them.
Here are a couple of easy ways to do that:
This is a common strategy used by course instructors who don’t yet have a large following.
You could also try YouTube too; why not do a video of an overview of the course and encourage your viewers to sign up for a free review copy in return for honest feedback?
You can increase the value of your course to those who take the time to leave reviews by offering additional content or modules in exchange for their time.
Can you think of other ways to encourage your students to leave reviews? Leave a comment and let me know!
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 😊
One of the ways a business builds its brand is to tug at the emotions of their audience.
The way a customer and client work together and communicate can build long-lasting, meaningful relationships that turn clients into fans, and fans into clients.
You can actually set out to build these relationships by using emotional marketing techniques.
The more research you do into the needs and desires of your target audience, the more your audience will be able to tell that you’re interested in them.
When you discover something about your audience, let them know through your content and your actions.
So many times business owners have sales and special events to get new clients.
Do something special for your existing client base or fan base that shows them that you care about them. Give them a discount, or a special freebie, or something else that attaches them to you in a special way.
One way to endear yourself to your audience is to always be transparent and honest.
Doing so will endear you to your audience and make you appear so much more trustworthy to them.
While you do things to help promote your business, it’s important to keep your morals and remember that people are more important than numbers.
The more people trust you, the more they’ll buy from you.
No one wants to feel as if they’re communicating with a robot or someone who is not real.
Your humanness will shine through when you add some humor and fun to posts, emails, and even sales pages.
Your customers expect to get an answer when they have a problem, and they expect it to be quickly.
Explain to your audience at each method how long they can expect to wait for a response. Then follow up and do what you said you’d do.
Find ways to engage with your audience. Ask for their advice or ideas when it comes to a new product or service you’re going to launch.
Your audience can also be your best source of word-of-mouth marketing.
Also, it’s important to try to get an understanding of how people communicate within their environment.
Communication online in chat, instant message, Twitter, or a blog, is far different from communicating on the telephone or in person.
Building customer relationships that last is part of the goal of emotional marketing. When you’ve formed an attachment with the consumer, they will stick with you for years – through price increases, trials and tribulations, and more. You can’t go wrong with building relationships.
And talking of relationships, do you network with other marketers to try to grow your influence and reach?
If you do, there is a right way and a wrong way to do this and if you get it wrong it can seriously hamper your growth so, just like your customer relationships, it’s important to build a network that lasts, so let’s look at the most common networking mistakes and how to avoid them.
When it comes to networking, you always want to make sure you do it right so you can grow your business. However, knowing what to do is one thing; knowing what not to do is something else entirely.
Here are some common networking mistakes and how you can avoid making them in the future.
Many people have a hard time asking other for help. Networking is all about making connections, though. People don’t know what you need unless you ask them.
The more people you have getting the word out about you, the better, so don’t be afraid to ask for help.
It’s very easy to fall out of touch with people. Maintaining contact with your current network and all of the people in it is going to help you grow.
Keep them up to date on you as well. Remember, don’t make it all about you; you will want them to know what you’re up to while also finding out what they’ve been up to.
We live in a day and time where networking is really everything we do every single day.
Start using LinkedIn to make professional connections. This isn’t the only social media platform you should be using, but it’s a great place to start and a way to get your name out there.
Yes, we are in a day and time where social media is super-important to networking, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop meeting people in person.
If your online connection is not local to you, then use a multitude of different technologies like Skype which are at your fingertips, to make the world a much smaller place and meet up with people on the other side of it.
Gratitude goes a long way. When someone helps you in whatever way, being grateful will go a long way.
It’s a small thing, but letting people know they are appreciated will go a long way and encourage them to want to speak with you again.
When someone helps you out and makes a positive connection for you, then you have to be sure that you give back in some way.
You especially can’t keep going back and asking for help without giving back in return.
All this networking and customer relationship building can leave you exhausted and you need to ensure you have enough energy. Click on the featured resource below to help you with that and grab a free report, How To Energize Your Life; download, read it and take action 🙂
This post is a continuation of looking into the common elements present in highly converting sales copy (you can see the first post here). In it we looked at the headline, storyline, sub-headlines, testimonials, and statistics to increase confidence.
Now lets’s continue and firstly let’s look at using media such as video and images.
Sticking to text alone in your sales copy will be a big turn off for most prospective customers. Big, long blocks of text look boring and overwhelming. People have short attention spans now, so you need to break that text up with images and videos.
You can use stock photo sites like iStockPhoto or DepositPhotos to break up the text. If you want to use free stock photo sites you can check out Pixabay, Pexels or Unsplash, but if you can afford to pay for your images ,they will be better and more unique.
For example, if you’re in a section where the sub-headline and storyline are discussion frustration for diet failures, you might want to use an image of a man or woman feeling frustrated in front of a plate of food or on a weight scale.
With video, keep it short if you’re using it to break up the text sales copy. You don’t want to have five 20-minute videos on the page. Just keep it under 3 minutes each. Sometimes, it might require more, such as if it’s a demo of a software.
Don’t have the videos auto-play. Some marketers do prefer this, but most consumers don’t. If they have their volume up and they’re at work or somewhere quiet, and suddenly your sales page starts blaring, they’ll leave quickly.
When you host your video, make sure you eliminate as many click out options as possible. For example, if you host on Vimeo, it automatically defaults to make the Vimeo logo clickable, your name, the title of the video, and more clickable – all taking your customer away from the sales copy.
Bullet points are a blessing to most consumers who are short on time and who want to just get a quick rundown of what your product can do for them. The benefits are what many marketers focus on with their bullet points.
But you can also include pain points as bullet points. For example, you might have a sentence that says, “Wouldn’t you love to…” and then have bullet points addressing their pain points – stop having to shop in plus sized stores, avoid the shame and embarrassment of swimsuit season, etc.
Another way to strategically use bullet points is to have a rundown of what all is included in your product. You can say, “In this bundle, you’ll get…” and then go into detail about what all is included, such as – a 38-page PDF guide, 10 checklists, 5 videos you can refer to whenever you need them, and so on.
A guarantee can be both an image and text explanation. You can get stock photos that say “Money Back Guarantee 100%” or instead of 100%, they may say 7 days, 30 days, 90 days and so on.
You can use bold text and a note that simply explains your guarantee (or lack thereof if you decide not to offer one). The main thing you need to do is remember which guarantee you chose and abide by it.
Don’t offer a 60-day no questions asked guarantee if you’re going to harass your customer about why they want a refund and then refuse to give it to them. When you do this, word gets around and it could even put your accounts on various platforms at risk.
Authentic urgency is lacking in the online marketing industry. Too many unethical sellers use false urgency to try to get a sale. Instead, create real urgency and scarcity because in future launches, people will know not to wait.
Never expect people to automatically know to click the buy button, download now, and get started. You have to state it and guide the customer through every step along the way.
With buy buttons, you have the option to use a button that a platform provides for you – like PayPal, Warrior Plus or JVZoo. But you can also download and use a button of your choosing.
For example, on JVZoo, there’s a button option that says 100% satisfaction guaranteed, so it would need to match what you want to stand behind.
If you want to have a bit more freedom, you can use a payment processor such as Thrivecart and this is probably more advantageous in the long run.
As far as placement, some people only put one buy button at the very bottom of the page, while others place them throughout the sales copy. You may want to have it at the bottom with a countdown timer right above it, showing when the launch pricing or sale ends.
Somewhere at the bottom, make sure you have a digital signature along with your image. People like to know who they’re buying from. You can either upload your real signature or create one from a variety of fonts online.
A good way to craft them is to use the first P.S. to restate the main benefits and what’s included. Use the second P.S. to reiterate the sense of urgency and what happens if they miss out on this great deal.
OK, so there you have the most common elements in highly converting sales copy. Add these to your sales pages and you should see immediate results!
And remember, if you want to have great results writing highly converting copy, you need to understand that this is difficult for many people as there are so many mistakes that can have a dramatic effect on conversions.
To help you avoid these mistakes, take a look at the featured resource below where you can download a copy of a free report, Copywriting Blunders, so you will be forewarned. Download, read it and take action 😊
