How and where to market yourself

So, you have used Brandzilla to work out your personal brand – your vision, goals, values and point of difference. You can describe your own brand in a few words. Great. So, what’s next? Telling your message as persuasively as possible to as many of the right people as possible.

The Internet has made it possible for people to reach audiences of millions for very little cost. You can build a website, create a Facebook presence, Tweet, broadcast videos, blog, publish articles and appear on web searches … and do it all for a few hundred dollars.

So, what are the basics?

 

Killer Words

 

Do network marketers need to be able to write? Come to think of it, in today’s world does anyone need to be able to write? Have texting and spellcheck killed the art of penmanship?

It would be easy to think so, but the written (or spoken) word is alive and kicking.

Choosing the right word for a situation, the right tone of a voice for an audience, the best way to describe your product’s features, present your business opportunity, even the best way to introduce yourself can make the difference between making an impact and making an exit.

A direct mail specialist will tell you that a simple change of phrase can dramatically affect the response rate. Two emails or two ads for the same service will have different results, depending on the words used, the typeface, the layout, even the colour palate.

Of course, words are useless without an idea, but a great idea cannot survive if delivered poorly.

 

Can I teach you to write?

I have spent decades writing advertising copy. My shortest piece of copy contains one word. My longest runs to more than 300 pages. I estimate I have written over 10 million words to help sell everything from tampons to mining equipment. I reckon I still have a few more persuasive phrases left in me yet.

I used to teach advertising writers how to write. I would always start by telling them that, honestly, I couldn’t make every single one of them a great writer – BUT I could show each of them how to avoid being a bad writer.

 

How to avoid being a bad writer

Most important of all, you must write for your audience, not for yourself. You can’t presume other people think the way you do.

Understand your audience – what they fear, love and dream of. You need these insights if you’re going to connect emotionally. Then choose an emotion – a deep human truth – that you can address.

For example, all network marketers want to earn big money, get lots of valuable leads, spend more time with their families, retire early … BUT if you simply claim to be able to help them achieve one of these goals you run the risk of getting lost amongst the thousands of others who claim to be able to do the same. People won’t hear you through the barrage of noise.

 

Find a less crowded space

So, my second tip would be to differentiate yourself from your competitors (and, yes, you are competing with other network marketers – as well as all other emailers, advertisers and bloggers). Find an area where your message can stand out.

Take some time to write down the areas of your expertise. What do you feel you know that others want to learn. Now search to see how many people have already covered that area. If there is a huge amount written on a subject, leave it alone – UNLESS you can bring a new spin.

 

Make them smile

Write with authority – but don’t shy away from humour (if humour comes naturally). Making people smile is a great way to get them to like you. People are more likely to buy from those they like. That’s a psychological fact.

 

Check you’re grammar

Notice the mistake in the subhead? Some people won’t. Spellcheck won’t. But some of your audience will – and they might trash your email because of careless spelling and grammar. If you’re uncertain about spelling and grammar, ask a friend to proofread for you.

 

Practise

It’s generally agreed that you need 10,000 hours at anything to become expert at it. Most of us have been writing since kindergarten. Some of us have done a lot more, and that extra practice – more than any natural talent – makes us better than average.

 

Get professional help

Advertising agencies exist for the sole purpose of writing persuasive messages about their clients’ products. Copywriters are the people in agencies that are ultimately responsible for the words that appear in an ad. A good copywriter can write about any product, service or subject. You can find freelance copywriters in most cities and on freelance websites like Elance. A small investment in a good idea and well-crafted words will repay itself in results.

Are you surprised that I’m suggesting network marketers employ copywriters? Don’t be. You have a product (you) to sell. An expert can sell you better than you can sell yourself.

 

Talk to Greg

Still unsure about how best to communicate with your audience and what to write? Feel free to contact me here – or visit my website.

 

Domains & Web Hosting

 

You cannot run a business in the 21st century without online presence. The Internet is now the first stop for information.

If you want others to learn about who you are and what benefit you can bring to their lives, you need a website or a blog. Or both. And often a whole lot more.

If you’re like me, you’ll use the Internet a lot. However you might know very little about how to create a presence there. You know what? It’s a piece of cake. There are plenty of companies who have done all the hard work so now all you need to do is determine what you want and where to look to get it.

The advice here is a basic overview – enough to get you started in the right direction. I will add more detail in future blogs (sign up for RSS feeds or connect with me on Facebook, Better Networker, TribePro or Twitter).

 

Here are my tips:

 

1. Get a great domain name

You need a name for your domain. If you are the product, you can use your own name (IF it is reasonably easy to remember and pronounce).

Or create a unique business name. There are several ways to come up with a list of potential names. Think of ones that are short and memorable. Like Virgin or FCUK. Look for names that suggest a benefit to your market. Such as PayPal. Look for names that will appeal to your identified target market. Come up with names that have personality.

If you’re struggling, try this neat trick. Open up a magazine, open it to any page and write down a bunch of random adjectives in one column. Pick up a different kind of magazine and write down random nouns in another column. Let’s say you have red, mule, doctor, star, square and farm. Write down all the features and benefits and associated words for each of your words. For example, from red you might get fire, bull, passion, stop, communists, hot and so on. From farm you might get tractor, pig and green. You could easily have twenty extra words. Now combine any of these with your business or service. For example, if you supply and install glass two names I can think of instantly are The Glass Farm and White Hot Glass. Write down a lot of them. Why? Because you’ll find many won’t be available when you do the next step.

 

2. Register your domain

If you offer a product or a service, you need a website – even if yours is a home-based business and you’re the entire staff. Maybe ESPECIALLY so if that’s the case. You need a place people looking for what you have to offer can find you. You need a lot of potential domain names because when you start searching for available domain names you will find that many on your list are already taken. Ideally, what you want is yourbusinessname.com. Try .com for all of your domain names. If you have no luck, you could try .net. And there is now .co, which is what I had to use for my own name because another Greg Alder has gregalder.com. Pay the extra to register all multiple versions of your name – .com, .net, .co etcetera. Also think about different spellings of your domain name. You can create duplicate websites to capture those who enter the wrong URL. Or you can use each version to do a slightly different job. (And you prevent others from creating a confusing competitive website with a similar name.)

 

3. Select a web host

A web host simply provides somewhere for your website to live. They offer a host (sorry about the pun) of services from simple domain hosting to complete packages of website design, email hosting and more. Web hosting varies quite a bit in cost. Do some research into web hosting services. See how users rate them. Check that they are compatible with the design platform used to create your website (see below). And, if you’re a novice, check if they offer real time help. Both Host Gator and Just Host rate well and have good prices – which is why I recommend them. Click on the banners to visit their websites.

 

4. Get a website designed

This can be scary. It can also be costly. There are several ways you can keep the costs to a minimum. Use the free web builders offered by Host Gator and Just Host as part of their service.

Use one of the networks of freelance people around the world, such as Elance. To do this, decide how many pages you want on your website, whether you want videos, a product catalogue, and shopping facility, for example. This information should be part of your brief, along with examples of styles you like etc. Then you simply register with Elance and post your brief onto their website. Freelance website designers around the world will then bid on your job. You simply select a designer based on their quote, their previous work and their rating by past customers. Everything is done via the Elance website and email or Skype. It is quite simple.

Another way to get a good looking website at a bargain price is to use a standard WordPress template and then adapt it to your own needs. You can adapt the WordPress themes to create a beautiful website or blog. Many of the designs are free. The premium ones cost a small amount of money, but are well worth it, in my opinion. (Both Host Gator and Just Host support WordPress themes.)

The final way to get a web design at a reasonable price (but more expensive than WordPress, Host Gator or Just Host) is from local web designers. Best to get a recommendation from a friend whose website you like and have a look at past work to see if you like their style. The benefit of this route is that you can have a unique website. At a cost.

Even if you are a novice, getting a domain name registered, a website designed and your website hosted is really quite easy. In most cases you will get all the help you need from your web host.

So, start creating your killer domain.

 

Google Adwords

 

What are Adwords, why do you need to know about them and how do you use them?

Google Adwords are those ads that appear down the right hand side when your search results appear in Google.

They are a good way to build your business because your ad is designed using keywords relevant to your business, the ad only appears on the matching search results and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You reach people exactly where they are looking for information about what you have to offer. You don’t get more targeted than that!

The best way to learn about Google Adwords is from an expert, and PerryMarshall.com is the undisputed master for independent advice on Google’s advertising system.

What they do is help clients develop online marketing that basically looks after itself. “Marketing on autopilot” is how they describe it. They will create landing pages, testing & tracking systems, autoresponders, up-sells and cross-sells – a regular Swiss army knife of Google Adword services.

If you’re a business owner, affiliate marketer or entrepreneur, you really must read Perry Marshall’s The Definitive Guide To Google Adwords. This ebook will take you step-by-step through establishing and optimising a successful Adwords campaign.

 

Email Marketing

 

Do you still think of email as letter-writing’s less pleasant cousin? Do you have doubts about the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign? If so, then what you’re about to read will change your mind.

 

Spend $1. Earn $42.

Let’s start with this amazing statistic. Research by the Direct Marketing Association shows that email marketing generated a return of $42 for every dollar spent on it. Now I don’t know about you, but where I come from, a 4200% return on investment is worthy of my full attention.

This result was from last year. This wasn’t years ago, back before spam filters trashed most emails as soon as they landed in our inbox. This is now. And it’s not a fluke. The result was similar the previous year. And the one before that. In other words, email marketing shows no signs of losing its effectiveness.

And there’s more evidence to suggest email marketing is valuable. A survey by Forbes showed email to be second only to SEO in effectiveness. In another survey by Merchant Circle, email marketing ranked third behind SEO and social network marketing.

Now before you go charging off posting emails to everyone in your address book, just take a breath. My guess is that the Direct Marketing Association results are from members of their own association. I’d also guess that DMA members are sophisticated email marketers.

I bet there are plenty of network marketers that have embarked on email campaigns for ZERO result. So what are the secrets of a successful email marketing campaign?

 

Secrets of email marketing

1. What’s your message?

What do you write in the subject panel that makes sure your email is opened? You might think that’s easy.

“50% off all tyres”

“Make $1000 a week working from home”

“Learn the secrets that helped one woman go from homelessness to a millionaire in 12 months”

Okay, each of these has some interest. But they are not all equally appealing to everyone on your email list. 50% off tyres won’t help someone who doesn’t need tyres at that moment . If someone is already earning $2000 a month, you won’t get her with $1000. So what’s wrong with the third message? For starters it’s too long. It will be cut, so what a recipient might see will be “Learn the secrets that helped one woman go from …” Second, it’s about someone else, not me, the recipient.

 

2. Offer a benefit

This is basic stuff. Your email subject is your headline. It has to grab your recipient’s attention in the 1 second before she decides to trash the email.

“50% off. All stock must clear” says that you need to get rid of stuff – say furniture. It attracts bargain hunters keen to take advantage of your evident financial difficulty. “Furnish 2 rooms for the price of 1” suggests half price – but it also spells out a benefit to the recipient.

If it’s too difficult to get your benefit into a few words for your email subject, then take a different approach. Make your subject intriguing or provocative, so that your recipient cannot resist opening the email.

This is the approach favoured by the National Enquirer and other tabloid newspapers. For example, “WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO CHIMP” could lead into a story debunking unbelievable claims by competitors.

3. Organise your mailbox

Sort people into groups. Keep your friends separate from business contacts. If you have a business opportunity to sell, think about whether each person on your mailing list would realistically be a potential customer. If you offer multiple services, as I do, identify the services that might have appeal to each contact.

4. Collect contacts discriminately

As far as mailing lists go, quality beats quantity. Attract people who are genuinely interested in maintaining email contact and really want to know more about you, your products and your services. If you are collecting names via email forms on your website, set these up so that you know straight away which product or service sufficiently interested someone to add his or her name to your email list. You could simply have a checklist on the form so people can indicate what interests them. Far better, though, is to build this into the contact collection system. I have contact forms on several pages of my website. When I get email notification that John Smith has added his name to my email list, I know what product page he was on. You can do all of this via one of the great email management systems out there – AWeber, GetResponse or iContact.

4. Automate

Writing one to one emails becomes impossible as your contact list builds. If you want to advise a large number of people about a new service or a sale or send a monthly enewsletter or a survey, you’ll need some form of automated email marketing system. Three of the best, in my opinion, are AWeber, GetResponse and iContact. All offer email marketing solutions with lots of features. And they are fully scalable so they can grow as your contact list grows.

They are really easy to use. Once set up they are basically self-service. However there are experts available 7 days a week should you need help with creating and managing your emails. The great thing about these services is that you can set them up to email on a given day to a defined email list.

They also allow you to send video marketing campaigns. And they include autoresponders that automate the process of converting contacts into paying customers.

Basically, they do a host of stuff that takes time – time you could better spend developing your services. And they do it for a modest monthly subscription.

Remember, if you spend $20 a month on email marketing, it should generate $840 of income – based on the Direct Marketing Association figures.

 

Article marketing. Write your way to the top.

 

It used to be an unwritten law that if you wanted credibility in a subject, you needed to write a book. That is still true.

I am a professional writer. I find writing quite easy. But what if you’re not so confident with words? Can you still use writing to build your business? In a word, yes.

It is easier to get published today than it has ever been. As well as the traditional printed book, an author has other options. E-books, for example. Blogs. And numerous websites that make it easy to incorporate article marketing into your business strategy.

Here is a VERY crude introduction to article marketing.

 

Article marketing 101

Article marketing is e-book marketing condensed. Like ebook publishing, getting relevant articles published also builds credibility and builds a following. Article marketing isn’t new. Professionals have done it for centuries. The traditional model was to submit articles to trade and special interest magazines. Today, with the Internet playing the dominant role in information gathering, there are many electronic options available. So what do you need to know about article marketing?

 

1. Choose your topics

Don’t simply choose a category, but choose a topic within that category and have an opinion about that topic – even if your opinion flies in the face of popular opinion. I wrote an article entitled Is Facebook The New Tupperware Party? In this article I argue that the old Tupperware party business model is outdated and that social media are far more efficient ways to recruit people to a network marketing team. I could have called the article Network Marketing Recruiting, but I bet I would not have received any comments.

 

2. Be original

Google before you write. See what’s been written on your chosen subject. If someone has already covered your subject and done it well, then look elsewhere. The world does not need 20 versions of the same information. To simply regurgitate what has already been written will do nothing for your credibility or reputation.

 

3. Choose your medium

There are many websites now that will publish articles. Ezine and HubPages are two popular ones. You can only publish on Ezine after your article has been reviewed. With HubPages, other members vote for your articles. The better the quality of your articles, the higher your rating, the more followers you will have and the more people will learn about who you are and what you have to offer. The good thing about this is that you can see which articles appeal most to members – so you know what areas to cover in future articles. HubPages articles must be unique. That is, you cannot simply copy an article you have previously published elsewhere.

As well as general interest sites like these, there are others created specifically for certain business sectors. Better Networker, for instance, is a community of people working in network marketing.

There is an adage in network marketing that people join people, not business opportunities. Getting articles published on sites like Better Networker gives other network marketers a chance to get to know you. The quality of your articles and the advice contained in them will attract or repel network marketers.

Most sites favour articles from 400 to 1000 words in length.

 

Simultaneous & syndicated publishing

If you publish articles on a number of websites, you have a business Facebook page, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, it can get quite time-consuming co-ordinating all your article marketing activities. Fortunately, tools now exist that take the hassle out of this.

For example, if you publish a new article on one of the sites above, then TribePro allows you to post news of your article simultaneously on all of your social media pages. Additionally, with Tribepro you can join the ‘tribes’ of others you admire and you can give each other permission to publish each other’s articles – in a form of automated syndication. This way you gain not only exposure to your own followers and friends, but the followers of these other people as well. Of course, whether you are given that permission will depend entirely on the quality of your articles and the perceived value you add to the other person’s contacts.

Used creatively, article marketing is a great tool for building awareness, creating a client base, recruiting and generating income.

 

How to become a video marketing star

 

People post videos of themselves performing to karaoke backing tracks in the hope of being discovered and making millions as recording artists.

People post videos of themselves talking about their business, their products or their services in the hope of being discovered by potential clients or business partners.

In both cases, the failure rate is enormous.

YouTube isn’t just for wannabe recording artists. We have seen actors post rants. We have witnessed fights. We have seen videos of natural disasters and cute kids. Now we are seeing the rise of business videos. However, many of them have the opposite effect from the one intended. They actually leave warm prospects cold.

So, should you use video marketing to grow your business? And if so, how?

 

Video marketing 101

Okay, some basics.

 

1. Is video marketing right for you?

If you are a lawyer, I’d suggest no – unless you’re the ambulance-chasing kind. Make sure that a video won’t damage your credibility.

 

2. Do you present well?

Do not contemplate video marketing if you are not comfortable and confident in front of a camera. If not, consider using your voice only and showing relevant images such as graphs, key messages and facts – IF they will be interesting and they are well designed. If your voice isn’t strong, you might want to reconsider video marketing.

 

3. Choose your subject.

Do your research. What are people searching for? How can you help them? Has the subject been covered before?

 

4. Write a script.

Work out what you want to say. Practise it until you can do large chunks from memory. Avoid reading it.

 

5. Think about production values.

Will background activity distract or send the wrong message? Should you have a plain background? How should you dress? Do you need props? How is the lighting? Use a decent camera and microphone. If you want to include graphics, think about where they will appear. Will you cut away from yourself to show these or do you want them to appear on the screen beside you? These decisions will determine framing – how big or small you are on screen, centred or off to one side.

 

6. Practise.

Get used to delivering your lines. Review your performance. Or better still, ask someone impartial to review it. Do you have distracting mannerisms? Are you nervously looking off camera?

 

7. Edit.

If you aren’t comfortable with using iMovie and other video editing software, find someone who is. Get a designer to create an opening graphic and any words that will appear.

Remember this video is to promote your professional service. It has to look a whole lot better than a video of a kid’s birthday party.

 

8. How do you want people to view your video?

Do you want it to play on your own website or blog? Do you want it to sit on YouTube for the whole world to see? Do you want it only visible to people you select? You can control all of these elements.

 

YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler?

YouTube is the original video sharing website. It is still a fine medium for video marketing. However, you will need to know how to do a few things to use it properly. For example, you could easily find other videos (including those for competitors) appearing next to your own. And the YouTube watermark can be a distraction. However, when you know what you are doing, you can eliminate these.

You can upload a video to YouTube and place it in your own library, visible only to those with access. This is useful for sensitive product information videos, for example.

Vimeo and Viddler are more business-oriented websites. You will find fewer bedroom air guitarists on these sites. It is also easier to play videos devoid of watermarks, play buttons and other distractions. You will find you can upload and play in high definition. These are all features that add to a feeling of quality and professionalism – and if you don’t want these qualities in your business videos, see me after class.

 

Commercials for people who can’t afford commercials

I have made hundreds of commercials in my advertising career. The most expensive commercial cost $800,000 to make. Then my client spent millions putting that commercial on television.

YouTube, Viddler and Vimeo make it possible for people who couldn’t afford a 30 second TV commercial to create a video to sell themselves, their products or services.

Get it right and video marketing is a powerful tool for your business.