Success Point Consulting

Helping Small Business Owners Rule the Web

28 Jul

Meet Meetup.com — Relationship Building Made Easy

Posted in business success, internet marketing, marketing, online marketer, online marketing, online success, small business, small business marketing, small business success, social media marketing, success point consulting on 28.07.10

Hi, thought I’d do something different today and do a Video Blog (or Vlog as they are called).

Enjoy!

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

I now have a Mobile Marketing Channel:

Just text

To:  90210

Message:  successpoint

to subscribe to Trina’s Monday Morning Marketing Tips

Every Moday morning, right to your cellphone, you’ll get a short marketing tip that you can use right away to market your business.  How fun is that?  Subscribe today!

 

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14 Jul

An Often Overlooked Little Marketing Success Engine: Classified Ads

Posted in business success, internet marketing, marketing, small business success on 14.07.10

WOW! That’s all I could say after I heard the results.  Twelve inquiries and 3 sales of a downloadable e-book from a series of classified ads – that was pretty good for just about three hours of work.  I had almost forgotten completely about classifed ads until I was speaking with a small business owner who uses them regularly — but now I’m beginning to use them for my own business, and helping more clients plug into this little marketing success secret.

Online classified ads are a very simple, but often overlooked, marketing technique to get your business message out.  It is easy, it is inexpensive, and a recent study showed that 47% of all internet users browse at least one classified ad site a week. It takes a little bit of time to register and submit your ad to alot of sites, but if your competitors AREN’T taking full advantage of those potential inquiries, you may want to consider at least testing a few sites to see what happens.  Some of the sites offer a paid submission service and it is my understanding that for a winning ad, it pays to use a submission service.  But don’t do it until you are convinced the ad will pull in response.  No reason to pay to have a non-performing ad mass distributed.

Besides generating sales and inquiries, another great use for classified ads is testing of offers, headlines, and messages.  You’d be better off failing to connect with customers with a classified than with a pay-per-click ad.  Many of the top internet sellers use classified ads merely as a testing ground before they launch a PPC campaign.  Put out several different versions of ads and see which ones garner the most response.  Then keep tweaking the ad until you have the best ad you can make.  Then transfer it to a pay-per-click campaign, and you’ll likely see better response than if you had started with PPC.

As with all online marketing strategies, you need to use target keywords in your ads.  Most classified ad sites are searchable, so make sure you are using words your potential customers are looking for.  And yes, major search engines like Google and Yahoo scan the classified ad sites and will note your backlink. 

Try to grab attention of your readers.  Funny or odd subject lines that cause people to stop and go “Huh?” often work.  I recently stopped and read an ad with the headline “If a frog asked you to go to the movies, would you say Yes?”  It caught my attention at least. 

Here are some of the bigger Free Classified sites that you may want to try:

 Each site has their loyal following, so you have to research a little to find out where your product or service would perform the best, but it’s worth trying.

Good luck and let me know if you have had any classified ad success stories.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  Special Offer:  I’ll write 5 versions of a classified ad and submit them to all ten of the classified ad sites listed above for only $100.00.  That’s 50 submitted ads.  What’s your time worth?   If you are interested, please email me at Trina@SuccessPointConsulting.com.

 

 

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29 Jun

Why I’m Embracing Mobile Marketing

Posted in business success, marketing, mobile marketing on 29.06.10

Ok, I admit it.  I am not an early adopter of all things digital or electronic.  I’ve only been on Facebook for about 9 months, Twitter for less time than that.  I do not own a big-screen TV, nor do I TiVo.   

At my house, not that long ago ...

  Heck, for that matter, I don’t even get HBO or Showtime.  I don’t own an iPod.  I don’t have a “smart” phone or Blackberry.  I resisted getting a phone with a camera for quite a while because I couldn’t imagine walking around taking random photos.  However, now, if anyone asks about my nieces, I can whip out my phone (that is always with me) and show them pictures from the latest cook-out.  And believe it or not, I now often appreciate getting photos emailed to me from friends and family, straight from their phones. 

I also resisted text messaging for quite a while.  I used to get annoyed with certain friends and colleagues who refused to answer their phones and talk, but would respond to a text within seconds.  Now, oddly enough, I find myself being more and more like them.  I am discovering the appeal of text messaging.  (Though I still don’t approve of texting and driving, my dear friends — and you know who you are!)

So when a friend suggested I look at a new mobile marketing company that is about to launch, I was a little skeptical.  But I went, I looked, I listened. And I walked away a believer.  Mobile marketing is going to be big.  I knew that print and direct mail marketing that I did for so many years of my career was becoming less and less effective.  When is the last time you actually used those yellow page books to look up a business?  I don’t get magazines sent to my house anymore, but I still read the headlines and certain articles online.  Just think about all those advertisers that no longer  have access to me.   Not all of them followed where my eyes went.  

I have seen the full potential of websites, blogs, and social media outlets like Facebook, and Twitter, and LinkedIn for business.  I watch in fascination the people who are embracing FourSquare.  And what I see are the people who are really good at marketing, really good at understanding human behavior, and who really know who they are and what their brand represents, are the ones taking advantage.  I think the same is going to be true of mobile marketing.  You have to get your message in front of people — you have to go to where their eyes are.  Why do Super Bowl ads work?  Because of the eyes.

For those companies who have, or want, repeat business, mobile marketing could be a no-brainer.  Restaurants, bars, stores.  Having a slow day?  Text a special offer to everyone who has opted-in previously – ”Unadvertised Special: 20% off all blue jeans until 6 p.m.”   Or “Buy one Get One Free Entrees tonight.”  Any organization with members, like a gym or church, can send out reminders about special events or encouraging words on a regular basis.  And what about the daycare center or school that has to close because of bad weather?  Public speakers and bands can notify their followers of the appearance dates and locations.  The possibilities are endless.  I can’t wait to see what kind of small business success can be generated from the phone.

Those companies who want a competitive advantage, who are willing to be creative and take a chance, and who know their customers and their brand, are going to embrace mobile marketing, quickly.  I think this new company,                     iZigg Mobile Marketing, has got it right.    

Go to where the eyes are, and the eyes are on the cellphone.  It’s coming.  There are some folks doing it now, but not nearly at the scale that it’s going to be.  Remember when companies didn’t put a website or email address on all their marketing materials?  But now, it’s automatic for most.  Soon it’s going to be the mobile marketing short code.

Some of the things I like about iZigg:  1)  It’s the right kind of product at the right time; 2) I think the packages seem pretty competitively priced from what I’ve seen; 3) They seem to have financing, technology, relationships, and leadership that position them ahead of any current players in the market; 4) They have purchased the exclusive rights to short code 90210, which means their branding is going to be recognizable very quickly.  Not only is it memorable for the promoting business, it’s going to be universally associated with iZigg; and 5) They have chosen to take it to market using network marketing, which means that it will grow fast everywhere.  There’s a reason Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, Warren Buffet, and Richard Branson (all billionaires) have all come out in the past few years and announced that network marketing is the most powerful business model at work in today’s economy.  Because it works.

So, I’m getting involved.  I am going to be encouraging all of my business clients to try it.  I’m going to help them set up campaigns to test it out.  I will have several test accounts available, so if you are interested, please let me know.  Some won’t work, but some will.  And we’ll start learning about this new marketing method.  I’m excited about the possibilities.

If you want more information on iZigg, or if you know anyone who is looking for a network marketing or mobile marketing sales opportunity, just email me at SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com and I’ll get you hooked up with more information.

Until next week,  here’s to your success,

 

Trina 

 

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