Self Employed Success

There are three email newsletters I read faithfully, every single time they enter my Inbox. I subscribe to over 20 newsletters, but only three are never-miss-reading newsletters.

Would you say email newsletters are dead because I don’t read 17 immediately, or would you say it’s very much alive because of the three I read right away? (Look at the bottom of this post for the three I love.)

There’s been lots of talk among my clients and students these days, speculating on the possible demise of the email newsletter as a powerful internet marketing tool. Funny thing: I remember having this discussion back in 2005 with my internet marketing colleagues, yet email marketing is still alive and well five years later.

Sending out weekly or monthly updates to your list has grown in popularity and importance as a marketing tool ever since the public Internet began. But now people are overwhelmed with the amount of email they’re getting, so what are you to do?

There are lots of pros and cons to using email newsletters and email marketing:

Pros

1. People can get to know you through your newsletters. Not just what services or products you offer, but how you think and feel about the topics you write on.
2. If you’re sending out HTML emails, you control the look and feel of your email newsletter, and can establish a solid brand and image in people’s minds
3. You can track to see who opened the email and how many people clicked on the links in the email. Statistics are a crucial measure of the success of email marketing.
4. You can customize your message to segments of your list. For example, if a group of students took an introductory-level class with me, I can offer them the advanced-level class. Or if people have expressed an interest in a specific topic, I can send just those people a new article I’ve written on that topic.
5. Never overlook the fact that most people are time-constrained and appreciate convenience. With the overwhelming number of places on the internet to search for information, having ONE source they can rely on is a blessing.

Cons

1. There are many ways to get in front of your target audience with your content and news now: social media sites, your own blog, article bank sites like www.ezinearticles.com, YouTube, etc. Your newsletter is just one of a mix.
2. Too much email, too much junk. People are inundated and often will ignore things in their Inbox that they can’t take care of right away or that have a lower priority. And don’t forget those nasty filters that whisk away your email before your reader even sees it!
3. If you don’t write regularly, people are apt to forget about you. Or worse, think you’re inconsistent and therefore unreliable. Ewwww.

Strategy

I still believe your mailing list is the hub of your internet marketing strategy. It’s the only place where people have raised their hands and said, “I want to hear from you.” (Tools like Feedburner allow people to subscribe to your blog and get updates via email, so your blog becomes your email newsletter…how simple!) But you need a strategy for your email marketing.

Here are some tips:

• Above all else, offer value. When you write an article for your email newsletter (or your blog, or your Facebook Notes area), make sure you’re giving good information. (Read your past five newsletters…did you serve your audience well?)
• Sixty-day rule. Remember that your subscribers are most responsive in the first 60 days of signing up for your list. Stay in contact with those folks more often than your once-a-month newsletter.
• Loyalty counts. Reward long-time subscribers with special freebies or discounts.
• One of many tools. Ask yourself, “What are ALL the different ways I can communicate with my audience and share my articles, advice, offers, and news?”
• One of many lists. Think of your email list as just one list of many. Your Facebook friends are a list, your Twitter followers are a list, and your blog subscribers are a list.
• Combine with human contact. Don’t just have an email list and think that’s enough for people to get to know you and trust you. Offer free teleclasses. Be available via Facebook or Twitter for ongoing conversations. Give live speeches both locally and nationally. Get out there and be seen – everywhere.

Email newsletters aren’t dead. They are a strategic component of your internet marketing plan. But having an integrated internet marketing strategy, mixed with some real-life connection to your audience, is what will bring success.

Oh, the three email newsletters I read faithfully?

Alan Weiss – http://www.summitconsulting.com/
Pamela Wilson – http://www.bigbrandsystem.com/
Nancy Marmolejo – http://vivavisibilityblog.com/

Not only do they use their email broadcasts to strengthen their brand image, but I love the way they think and write, too.

My client Mary called me and cried, “I need to find my niche!”

She had been told over and over again that she needed to find a narrow niche for her Life Coaching business so that she could be more noticeable among the pack of Life Coaches who market themselves to business professionals and managers.

But she had also been told that using words like “meaning” and “purpose” to describe what clients were looking for was over-used; all life coaches were using those terms and they had lost their power when it came to writing marketing text.

To find your niche, you need a tailor-made approach. Here is my reply to Mary in regards to identifying her niche and writing her marketing text towards that niche:

Finding The Right Words

Remember, WITHIN the coaching industry, words like “soul,” “meaning,” and “fulfillment” are used constantly and we’re used to them and don’t think they’re special.

But, OUTSIDE the coaching industry, people are just awakening to these words. They love these words. And people ARE looking for meaning and fulfillment in their lives. (Just because you are used to seeing those words everyday doesn’t automatically make them powerless or boring.)

So you may be tired of hearing catch-words in YOUR industry, but that doesn’t mean that customers aren’t still searching for those very same ideas.

If you want to know if people are interested in these words, go to the Google Keyword Tool  and type them in. You’ll see for yourself how popular they really are.

As a life coach, saying you don’t want to market yourself using the words “fulfillment” and “meaning,” is like saying you’re a dentist, but you don’t want to have the niche of “filling cavities” because every dentist does that.

Sometimes your niche isn’t just what topics you talk about with clients; sometimes your niche is the combination of what topics you talk about AND the people/groups you talk to.

Finding The Right Niche

The whole purpose of choosing a niche is so you can find a central place that potential clients congregate — so that you can get in front of them to introduce your business via your marketing techniques. You can find “professionals” or “mid-level managers” or “upper level executives” in specific industry associations, magazines, websites, newspapers, peer groups, etc.

But say you want your niche to be “Hyper Ambitious Stress Coaching.” There is no industry association for Hyper Ambitious people…how will you locate them?

Do you really want to be known as the “Hyper Ambitious Stress Coach?” (Do people really type in “hyper ambitious stress coach” into Google when they’re looking for help?) It implies that you work with only people who are hyper-ambitious, and only stressed ones at that. There are plenty of “non-hyper-ambitious” professionals who are want to achieve great things and be successful (and are stressed), they just don’t go overboard into “hyper” behaviors that create unbalance.

One caveat: labeling yourself the “Hyper Ambitious Stress Coach” is great for PR. The news media loves a specialist. But clients may not be looking for a Hyper Ambitious Stress Coach; they’re just looking for help with stress, over-scheduling, high demands, etc. So unless you’re going to get all your prospective clients via news media interviews, you might want to re-think that narrow niche.

Choosing a niche is not an exercise in finding a place where you have no competition. It’s okay if you have competition in your niche: it shows there’s a thriving market there.

Differentiation vs. Niche

If you’re simply looking to differentiate yourself from your competition, then that’s not done by choosing a niche market. Differentiation and Niche are two separate marketing steps. You can differentiate yourself based on:

• your personality
• your processes
• your techniques
• your classes and products
• your background
• your experience
• your skill set & knowledge
• your availability
• your fees
• your style

Differentiation asks, “Why would they buy from ME versus my competition?”

Niche asks, “Where will I find THEM so I can introduce myself?”

This entry in Wikipedia may help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_market

I’m not saying, “Don’t go in that niche direction.” What I am saying is this: if you define your niche too narrowly, you’ll have a hard time getting in front of them with your marketing techniques. And along the way, you might not be following your own soul purpose.

So, how do you define your own niche? I’d love to hear about your target audience and how you help them!

Getting a Top 10 listing on Google take a bit of doing…getting a Top 3 listing is a real accomplishment! So we offer huge congratulations to Kate Nasser, who implemented our SEO suggestions on her website after we did an SEO Review of her site, and now lists as #3 on Google for the keyword phrase Professional Soft Skills, and #9 on Google for Professional Soft Skills Training!

Aly reviewed Kate’s sight and found lots of SEO ideas that could boost Kate’s search engine rankings. After producing a written report for her, we got on the phone with Kate and her web designer and brainstormed an implementation plan, which they undertook immediately. (I just love Kate’s “can do” attitude…she jumped in and made the changes even though the holidays were upon us!) That phone call was on December 21, and by January 10 Kate had emailed us with the good news – she was on Page 1 of the search results for her chosen keywords!

If you ever doubt that you can achieve high search engine rankings, or think it’s going to take six months for your site to crawl to the top of the listings, Kate’s success shows you that you can do it, too. (I’ve had situations where I’ve done a major SEO edit on a site on Friday, and by Monday I was on Page 1 of the Google results for my chosen keyword….zoom, zoom, zoom!)

Check out Kate’s website at  www.katenasser.com (and don’t forget to go to Google and type in her keywords, so you can see her rankings!).

Need more information about our Website and SEO Reviews, and how we can help you get the marketing results you want from your website? 

Visit our site:
http://www.passionforbusiness.com/website-review.htm

A few months ago,  I posted a note on my Facebook page about how our cat brought a dead mouse into the house, got chased around by us (looking like idiots), and eventually dropped the dead mouse in the cat toy box alongside her catnip toys.

My peeps loved that note and shared so many stories of the cool things their cats have done (with and without dead critters).

It was a great non-business, non-marketing post – just a funny story I wanted to share. I got THREE emails from people who had seen or commented about that post, thanking me for it, and asking me if I had any openings for private clients. One person even said, “If you have six cats, you’re my kind of business coach!” (Kitties got an extra treat that night for giving me the funny story, too.)

It’s not just the “here is what I offer in my business” posts that get attention. When we’re acting real, authentic, human…people can see and touch us in a new way. And we get to connect so beautifully with our clients and students, really communicating about ALL that matters to us in our worlds.

How to Turn Followers Into Fans (and Fans Into Leads!) With Social Networking

November 4, 2009, 1:00 – 2:00 PM eastern

(Yes, the call will be recorded, so if you want the recording and can’t attend live, register anyway!)

You know that social networking is THE place to be for online marketing, but how do you know if your followers want to do business with you?

In this teleseminar, social media strategist Nancy Marmolejo will share how to attract ideally matched followers and turn them into your biggest fans (and easiest clients!)

For more details on the class, and to register for this free teleclass:

http://www.passionforbusinesslearning.com/free-teleclasses.html

SEO For Everyone class begins Tuesday

Since 84% of internet traffic goes through search engines, being ranked highly by search engines sends you a huge number of prospective customers.

For instance, for the phrase “mastermind group” (which I rank #1), Google sends me 23,000 visitors per year. For the phrase “small business coach” (which I also rank #1), Google sends me over 10,000 visitors per year. Just those two search phrases alone send 30,000 NEW visitors to my site each year.

In order to achieve high rankings on search engines, you need to know and use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

In this 5-week teleclass, you will learn:

• What to do to get a higher ranking
• How to choose the absolute BEST keywords for optimum results
• How to figure out what your competition is doing — and how you can beat them at the SEO game
• The secret places on your website where you can optimize for keywords
• How to stay out of trouble with the search engines
• How to optimize your website AND all the places you can optimize online
• Powerful (and free) tools you can use to setup and track the results of your SEO campaigns

For more class details and to register:

http://www.passionforbusinesslearning.com/seo/

This class is designed for small business owners, to learn the basics of SEO, whether you do the work yourself or hire someone to implement your SEO plan for you.

Join us for this five week teleclass series where we cover some of the most important things you can do to improve your search rankings.

This five-week teleclass begins
October 27, 2009

For more class details and to register:

http://www.passionforbusinesslearning.com/seo/

Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released new guidelines on what’s acceptable practice for businesses using testimonials and “celebrity” endorsements. You can see the summary news release here.

So why do we care? Because the FTC clearly states that results that are NOT typical, even if they use the disclaimer “results not typical” (like all those diet ads you see), are not acceptable. Per the FTC, “…advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect.”

That is so cool!!  What this means is that all those ads that promise you will lose 100 pounds or make $1,000,000 in 30 days can’t promise that anymore, if those results aren’t typical. This is especially importantant in the world of internet marketing, where some (not all, but some) gurus make exaggerated claims about what their product or service can do for you, and only choose those testimonials that back up the exaggerated claims.

In addition to testimonials, the new guidelines also cover endorsements. So if a blogger says that XYZ Product is the best they’ve every used, they have to disclose that they got paid by the XYZ company for that endorsement, or even got a free copy of XYZ Product or some other freebie (like a free vacation) in exchange for their endorsement. They must also disclose any “material connection” with the XYZ company.  In their summary, the FTC says, “…connections that consumers would not expect.”

Yesterday, we released some testimonial videos from mastermind group participants where they talk about their experience with mastermind groups. I guess we’d better put in there that we gave them a free lunch as part of the mastermind group session, in return for their testimonial.

Resources:

• FTC’s summary news release
• The  full PDF of Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising
• The Wall Street Journal’s article on the topic

Is a mastermind group right for you?

My NEW Mastermind Groups promo video on YouTube can help answer those questions. We filmed in in August, then did a lot of brainstorming about what to include. I think the video folks did a great job! What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boGSOmzGCgo

Everyone needs a little help with implementing and tracking their internet marketing endeavors.

Here are 10 tools that will make it easier. I use these every day, so I can vouch for their effectiveness:

1. Google Analytics — If you don’t track the results of your marketing, you might as well not be marketing at all. Google Analytics gives you a great overview of your site’s statistics plus some very nitty-gritty details that help you track internet marketing campaigns.

2. XML Sitemap Generator — If you want good search engine rankings, Google likes it if you have an XML sitemap on your site. You don’t have to worry about what XML is, just use this generator and it will create the XML file for your site (up to 500 pages per site).

3. BrowserShots — Are you aware that your site looks completely different on some browsers? Use this browser compatibility tool to see how your site looks in Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome, and Internet Explorer. For some real comparisons, check older versions with newer ones (like IE6 versus IE8). Why check older versions? Because 20 percent of people have IE6 loaded on their computer, even though it was created in 2001 and is not fully CSS compliant. Better safe than sorry.

4. Google Keyword Tool — Want to know which keywords are popular and what people are searching for via Google’s search engine? This tool allows you to do some great market research.

5. Alexa.com — Alexa allows you to see the traffic rank for your site and your competitor’s sites. When you enter the Alexa site, click on the Site Info link at the top.

6. Compete.com – Compete also allows you to see ranking information about your site and your competition. Use Alexa and Compete together to get a fuller picture.

7. SurveyMonkey — If you’ve been looking for an easy way to do market research, SurveyMonkey is the tool for you. It allows you to do online surveys, and I also use it for course evaluations and brainstorming in my mastermind groups.

8. Search Engine Spider Simulator — Want to know how the search engines really see your site? Are they picking up all your keywords? Use a search engine spider simulator and see for yourself if your site is search engine friendly or not.

9. WordPress — You can host your blog for free on WordPress.com or use their free software on your own domain via WordPress.org (note the different domain names…WordPress has two of them).

10. SpamCheck — There’s nothing worse than sending an email that gets caught in filters and never reaches the recipients. This tool will show you which parts of your email text will trigger a filter.

If your website is not giving you the results you want, or if your business has grown and changed over the past few years, many business owners start asking, Should I redesign my website now?

Your website is the front door by which your customers enter. If it’s amateurish, hard to read, difficult to navigate, or poorly designed, your customers will walk right out the door without looking around. The professionalism you display on your website leads to trust and respect; customers are looking for legitimate people to do business with.

The quiz asks questions like:

• Are you getting prospects, leads and sales from your website on a consistent basis?
• Have your business offerings changed since the last time you designed your site?
• Are your high-traffic pages easy to find?
• Can customers find you via search engines?
• Does your text appeal to your target audience?

Here’s a self-quiz to help you figure out if it’s time to get a website facelift:

 http://www.passionforbusiness.com/quiz

(Note: the quiz is in PDF format so that you can print it out and take it offline.)

If it IS time to re-design your site, consider taking the Website Planning class that starts September 17. It will lead you step-by-step through the process.