Self Employed Success

We think of branding and we instantly think of products. Let me tell you a story about the importance of good brand design when launching a new service.

For six months, my JV partner Pamela Wilson and I have been working on a new mastermind group program. We realized we wanted it to have its own brand, its own personality, separate from either of our existing businesses. Together we went through a series of steps to identify not only the brand, but the program itself. I’d like to share those steps with you now so that you have a checklist for branding your services.

Here are some things to think about when you’re creating a brand for your new service offering, whether it’s a group coaching program, a training class, a mastermind group, or a special package of services you’ve bundled together:

Ask the big questions first.

Start with the most important questions: Who is this service for? And what do they need?

This will help you to get a clear understanding of your target audience, and from that knowledge you may find that the name of your new service offering comes to the surface easily. For us, we said we wanted this mastermind group to be for small business owners who have been in business 3 or more years and were ready to take their business to the next level. The name Leap Year came easily once we defined our target audience and their needs. (It didn’t hurt that the Leap Year program would begin in 2012 – which is a leap year! )

Decide on the personality of the service.

Is it serious? Is it playful? Is it creative? Is it linear? Come up with five adjectives that describe how you want people to perceive the brand of your service. With Leap Year, we wanted it energetic, powerful and inspiring. So when Pamela created the logo, she melded those adjectives together and came up with the perfect logo:

Be consistent in everything you do around your brand.

Branding isn’t just about logos. It’s about the colors and graphic elements you use, about the words you choose, even about the music you select. Use your brand in all your marketing and communication materials, even down to the handouts you create or the ebook cover you design.

When putting together our website, we wanted to create an invitation video with an animation to start it out. Pamela used the logo and colors to create the animation, then enlisted her son Gabe Zurek (who is majoring in composition so that he can learn to write scores for films) to come up with several musical themese for the video. After watching the video with each of the different pieces of music, this one stood out as being perfect for how we wanted to portray our brand:

By putting all the branding elements together, you present a cohesive package to your customers through your time with them, from marketing through delivery. Start small: put a brand name to your service packages, groups and classes. From there, you can grow your brand with logos, colors, text…and maybe a little music, too!

P.S. Want to know more about Leap Year? Visit the Leap Year Mastermind Group website here.

According to Jakob Nielson, a website usability expert, one of the most important things that prospective customers are looking for on your website is pricing. Yet so many service businesses do not include their pricing on their site. This is understandable if your service is customized for each client and there’s a proposal process to bid on a client’s project, but if you have “packages” that you offer at a fixed rate, why not include them?

Nielson says, “The most user-hostile element of most B2B sites is a complete lack of pricing information. And yet, when we asked users to prioritize which of twenty-eight types of B2B site information mattered most to them, prices scored the highest by far (29% higher than product availability, which ranked second).”

I’ve heard many people say that their prices are flexible. I interpret that to mean: if I’m really hungry, I’ll lower my price for you. I believe in fair pricing: everyone is charged the same price for the same service. I also believe in pro bono (free) work if you really want to help out those who can’t afford your services.

Nielson goes on to say, “Sites have many excuses for not wanting to display prices, but they are just that: excuses. Users expect to get a basic understanding of products and services during their initial research, and they can’t do that without some idea of what it’s going to cost. Even if your company can’t list exact prices, there are several ways to indicate price level, which is really all people need initially.”

If you think that your prospective clients are going to call you to get your prices, think again. Not having prices on your website makes people feel uncomfortable and intimidated, and they’ll find another website where they know what things cost. Either give prospective customers the information they’re looking for, or they’ll go to your competitors site where they can get their questions answered. (Do you really want to come across as saying, “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford me?”)

Read his survey results here; while this particular survey is testing business-to-business (B2B) websites, the same holds true to business-to-consumer (B2C) website usability:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/b2b.html

And, yes, I list my prices for coaching and consulting on the Passion For Business website. Five years ago, I had a hard time finding other coaches and mentors who listed their prices. Recently I see more of them sharing their program and package pricing, which helps their prospects get a sense of what their costs will be. But here’s the correlation: I’m also seeing coaches and mentors get much better at describing their services and outcomes on their websites, which helps the prospect justify the fees in their own mind. When you can show your customer what they’re getting for their investment, you respect their ability to make decisions based on their wants and needs.

If you’re seriously interested in using Facebook for marketing, you may be heading for trouble.

The solution is easier than you think.

If you make class announcements, offer products or services, or in any way do marketing for your business on your personal profile, Facebook could remove your account completely.

According to the Facebook Terms of Service, you are not allowed to use your personal profile to post commercial messages. They say, “You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain.”

So if you’re using Facebook for social media marketing, be aware that your Facebook account could get terminated (ouch!), and you’ll lose all the Friend connections you’ve made and all the content you’ve posted.

So what’s a biz owner to do?

The answer is Pages.

I’m going to be offering a free webinar next month on this topic and share my Page strategies and examples with you, but in the meanwhile I want to give you some tips to get you started.

(I’d love to know what questions you have about creating Pages and using them as part of your overall marketing strategy. Please post your questions here and I’ll answer as many questions as possible in my webinar.)

To get you all warm and fuzzy about Facebook Pages, here are some tips:

1. Think about the reason you’re using Facebook and Pages for your marketing. Typically biz owners say, “To communicate with and form a relationship with my audience,” and that’s one great reason.

But another great reason is to build up a fan base and then offer them a freebie in exchange for their email address, thus building your mailing list and allowing you to do greater email marketing.

Ask yourself, “What business and marketing outcome(s) do I want from my Page?”

2. What will you name your Page? You only get one shot at this, and you can’t edit it later, so choose wisely. If people know you and your name, then you might want to use your name. However if you’re also trying to promote your business name, or the type of work you do, then you might want to include this in your Page name. For instance, here are some I’ve seen lately:

• Karyn Greenstreet – Passion For Business (personal name plus business name)
• Nancy Marmolejo – Online Visibility Expert (personal name plus area of expertise)
• Louise L. Hay (personal name of a celebrity or someone well-known or when your personal name is your brand)
• The Big Brand System (product/business brand name)
• Solo-E.com: The Solo Entrepreneur Lifestyle via Multiple Streams of Income (business name plus tagline)
• Think and Grow Rich (book name)
• Breakthrough with Tony Robbins (name of a TV show, internet radio program, etc.)

3. What strategy will you use to get people to “Like” your Page? Here’s why it’s important: If people Like your Page, it will show up in their Newsfeed; but if they don’t Like your page, they’ll never be automatically reminded of the new posts you’ve added. One of your key strategies must be to get people to Like your Page.

My strategic thinking about Facebook Pages

One of my key Page strategies starts with a “Like Gate.” A like gate is software you place on your Page which allows you to offer exclusive content to people — but ONLY to those who Like your Page.

Remember, whatever you put on your Page Wall is visible to everyone, even those who have not Liked your Page yet.

So if you want to offer exclusive content to your true fans who have Liked your Page, don’t announce it on your Wall. Instead, use special coding or apps that allow content to remain hidden until someone Likes your Page…a Like Gate.

(Pages are different than your Personal Profile. In your Personal Profile, you are able to set Privacy Settings to indicate who could and could not see your Wall. In Pages, everyone can see your Wall.)

In my case, the free, exclusive offering to those who Like my Page is a 1-hour video training class on Personal Branding for Small Biz Owners:

http://www.facebook.com/KarynGreenstreetFan

When you go to my Page, watch carefully how the graphics change pre-Like and post-Like. That’s what a Like Gate will look like to the visitors of your Page.

My thinking is that I’ll first get my 3,900 “friends” on my personal profile moved over to become “fans” of my Page, by announcing the free Personal Branding video training and posting a link to my Page on my personal profile Wall. This should encourage people who want to continue to follow me on Facebook to Like my Page.

I’ll keep the fans happy with exclusive coupons, contests, free content, free classes, etc.

The power of marketing and communicating on Facebook

I think there’s more power than ever in using Facebook for staying connected to my community. My tribe seems to prefer Facebook over Twitter; I’ve tested it for a year and watched the results. There’s much more (and deeper) conversation on Facebook than on Twitter among my community.

Now I want to leverage that power to build it into my overall marketing strategy. How about you?

I have so many more tips and strategies to share with you about using Facebook Pages! I’m putting together a free webinar in July with my special guest, Michele Quinn, to share more great ideas. Please post your questions and comments about Facebook Pages here. I’ll gather up the comments and questions, and answer as many as possible in my free webinar.

In order to grow your business, you must understand women’s lifestyles and what their specific wants, needs and desires are.

The Marketing To Women teleseminar series can teach you!

Quick Quiz: What’s more important?

1. Learning about how women buy
2. The product or service you are selling

(Hint: the answer is #1.)

Women have power in the marketplace like never before:

• Nearly 80% of the consumer purchases are made or influenced by women.
• 89% of bank accounts are owned by women.

Women want you to communicate with them in a way that is authentic. They want you to connect with them. Speak with them about what matters to them.

In this teleseminar series, you will learn to re-define your marketing strategy and re-design your marketing copy to speak directly to women. And by modifying your marketing to encompass women you make your marketing better for all your customers.

In this three-week teleseminar, you will learn about:

• What women buy – and why
• The Number 1 thing you must do in your marketing to women
• The 10 (HUGE) mistakes we make when marketing to women
• The keys to creating a woman-friendly website
• How to market to women without alienating men
• What women want and need from a shopping experience
• How to re-write your marketing text so that it’s inviting to women

Class Details:

Class date:  This 3-week teleseminar begins May 10

Time: 1:00 PM eastern

Registration Fee:  $129 for the 3-week teleseminar series

Class will be recorded, so if you can’t make it live, you can listen to it later at your convenience.

For more details, and to register for this teleseminar series:

http://www.passionforbusiness.com/mtw/

See you in class!

Last week, I promised you a story about a  thief.

There are some extraordinarily lazy people out there who would rather steal the carefully-crafted text from your site and put it on their own, rather than do the work on describing their own services and products.

Think it doesn’t happen or won’t happen to you? Think again.

Back in 2004, I wrote an article about how to create and run a mastermind group. The first sentence goes like this:

“There is synergy of energy, commitment, and excitement that participants bring to a Mastermind Group.”

When I type that phrase into Google today, there are 7,330 OTHER websites with that phrase on it. Wow! Is it possible that 7,330 other people all had a collective zeitgeist-intuitive moment where we all read each others’ minds and wrote the same phrase?

Now, truthfully, some of these sites are people who asked permission to reprint my article and who attributed the article to me (38 of them).

The rest took (STOLE!) the text from my article, in part or in whole, and simply put it on their site to describe their own mastermind group.

Here’s a quick test you can try:

1. Pick a phrase from your website that you feel is uniquely you.
2. Copy and paste that phrase into Google in quotation marks. The quotation marks tell Google that you’re looking for the exact phrase, all the words in the same order right next to each other.
3. Note the number of pages with exact phrase on it from the Google results.
4. To find the websites that also have your name on them (after all, if someone is copying your text, shouldn’t they say who wrote it?), type the phrase again in quotations, and AFTER the last quotation mark, type a plus sign (+) and your full name in quotations. It looks something like this in the Google Search box:

“There is synergy of energy, commitment, and excitement that participants bring to a Mastermind Group”  + “Karyn Greenstreet”

So What To Do Next?

The longer your text has been on the internet, the more likely someone will copy it. You have two choices:

1. Ignore it, knowing that that Google frowns on duplicate content, so their sites will be penalized for having the same content as your own site, giving them poor SEO results.
2. Go after the most egregious thieves, especially those who are direct competitors.  Here’s what to do once you discover your text has been stolen.

Whichever you decide to do, always, always remember to copyright your website with the Federal Copyright office. In the USA, you can find out how to copyright your website at www.copyright.gov. It’s only $45, and the best investment you can make.

If you put a lot of work into the quality of the text on your website, consider creating a Google Alert to notify you when that exact text shows up on someone else’s website. Then you can make a decision what to do about the results. You can also use Copyscape.com to find marauders.