10 Ways To Market Your Business

Imagine that you recently started your business, how are you going to get your products to the market? Who knows about your business? You, your spouse and God. Most business fail within the first five years because of little or no marketing.

I strongly suggest that when you start a business, write a list of methods to use to market your business. Narrow it down to two methods that you are comfortable with, and another method that you are not. Yes, you will need to get out of your comfort zone, try a method that you are uncomfortable with. I suggest that you use three to five methods during the first year, and every year thereafter incorporate another method to market your business. Once you've made it to the fifth year, you will have at least seven methods to use for your marketing campaigns. Marketing is crucial for any business.

Here are ten methods I am currently using to market my business.

1. Word of Mouth
2. Blogging
3. Voice blogging
4. Placing online ads
5. Member of Social sites
6. Exchanging Business cards
7. Hosting House Parties
8. Email Campaigns
9. Attending the Big events
10. Requesting Referrals

I receive tons of emails asking me how I made it to the different postitions in my business, now you have a list! Choose two methods and master them, then move forward. Try the free methods first, but quickly invest in your business. If you are on the go, use the word of mouth method and exchange business cards. Passing out your business cards, will not drive traffic to your sites or bring you business. However, when you exchange business cards your are opening the door for communication with your prospect or customer.

Albeit, if you outsource your work you will become more productive. Outsourcing is essential to your business, it allows you to focus on the desired results. My friend, I know what you're thinking..."I do not have the money to outsource." When you attended college, did you invest in books, education? Invest in your business and educating yourself about your business. Imagine that someone is doing all the work for you, while you are spending time on taking your business to the next level. What would outsourcing do for your business? It will help you become more productive, and make more money. Yes, you should outsource all or most of the marketing methods whether you are on the go or work at home mom.

Here is the newest method I am using, voice blogging. Snapvine brings voice and mobility to social networks. Using the Snapvine Voice Player, Voice Blog, or Talking Photo, users are able to safely communicate -- in their own voices -- with their online communities. Once, you've decided on a Topic it's simple, takes only five minutes a day to set up and maybe five minutes to draw traffic. It allows you to connect with your prospects/customers. First set up a application such as http://www.ping.fm/ Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap. Try it set up your accounts today, and market your business. I will discuss the do and don'ts to marketing your business in upcoming post. Until then, get your marketing plan together, set up your accounts, and do not wave the flag of your company. Focus on marketing yourself first, and helping others.

While marketing your business remember to give great content, offer value, drive traffic, and monetize last. Do not try and sell your products first, it does not work online or offline. Think about the last time you had buyers remorse, or how you were sold on something you really did not need or want? Find out your prospects/customers needs and wants. Although, there are many methods to use in marketing your business, start planning now. What marketing methods are you using, or will start using and why? Please leave a comment. Happy marketing!

Should Leaders Follow on Twitter?

Twitter has become the fastest phenomenon on the Internet. Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?


My friend, sent me a message through Twitter. She suggested that, I should not follow everyone that's following me. She implied, "you do not appear to be a leader. "


Well, you decide if you want to appear to be a leader or lead. If you are in Network Marketing, Internet Marketing, Direct Sales or any field that involves recruiting, hiring, prospecting, or sales, you should follow your followers.


What are the advantages of following? You learn what your prospect/customer is thinking. You learn their hobbies, if they are married, have children. You learn what they do for a living. You learn their likes, and dislikes. They will tell you, what they need through tweetering. Do not think that, you will not learn from your followers. To think such thing, is the same as saying, you can't learn anything from a poor man.


You can use Twitter for marketing. What if your follower express a need, or have a question. You may be able to help them through giving them ideas, or pointing them in the right direction. What if you want to come up with a product launch, or new ideas for your business? Your Followers will tell you whats their need or wants.


When you are tweetering, make sure you are having fun. Although, you may work at home or have your own business try to talk about other things that you do. You can share where you traveling too, what you are eating for dinner, if you workout, or what books you like to read. Try not to be all about business, and show that you "take time to smell the roses".


Make sure that whenever you are tweetering, that it appears in the question "What are you doing?" Eg: "I am reading Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. Viewing this website http://www.easy6k.com, learning how to make $6,000 guaranteed! Giving away 3 Days, 2 Nights Hotel Accommodations www.wealthwithme.com or reading a testimonial about people who lost 7lbs within their first week!" www.ximohealth.com/stl



I find Twitter to be a great relationship building tool. You meet people worldwide, you learn what their life is like. It's as though you are traveling around the world.


Finally, If you are tweetering you may find that you and your follower have a common interest. He/she may want to connect with you outside of Twitter, they may know someone that can use your services or products. Lastly, you make new friends, customers, or business partners. Have fun tweetering!


What are your thoughts? What are the disadvantages of following your followers on Twitter?


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www.twitter.com/easy6k

Are you Anti-Social?

Social networking is all about sharing valuable content and making friends. We as human beings are social creatures. "Web 2.0 is a way to build credibility and make your personality known be consistently ‘alive’ and ‘in the now’ on the Internet. You can also accumulate more backlinks and subsequently more traffic to your sites.

Teenagers and adults mostly use social networking sites. There are now niche social networking sites, which target people who share common interests like parenting or investing. In addition to teenagers and adults, social networks are increasingly becoming used by another group—businesses. That's right, many businesses are now using social networks to advertise in some subtle manner—and then replicate their message through systems that are already available within the social network.

I’ll discuss how to advertise without the in-your-face approach with tact. The most well known social network is MySpace, which membership base is well over one hundred million and it grows daily. If your product or services you are offering has a broad appeal, you may want to use MySpace to market your product, as you will be able to reach the largest crowd quickly.

Now, there are a number of different ways in which you can market your product or services through MySpace. One way is to setup a profile, and then begin adding friends to your list on a daily basis. You can include a direct link to your Social Networking Site, when you send emails. Depending on your goals, you may want to add a personal profile for yourself and then talk about your business/product on your page; or you may want to simply create a profile for your business and use that to market your product or services.

While you can send out bulletins advertising your product or services through MySpace, this is generally discouraged by the Myspace staff which could lead to you getting banned. It is probably a good idea to avoid this; instead, post related bulletins that don't advertise your product, but talk about something similar. This will drive interested visitors to your page, where they can learn more about the product or services you are offering. Note however, that you will have to use your domain or link to a non-affiliate page, as affiliate links are forbidden on MySpace.


Once you have had some experience marketing to the MySpace crowd, you will want to consider looking at other social networking sites. One other fastest growing phenomenon site is Twitter. Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Facebook is another large social networking site, which caters specifically to college and high school students. You will also want to look for niche networking sites, such as BetterNetworker.com, or Warrior which will afford you an opportunity to capture a more targeted audience.

Whichever sites you decide to use, keep the following in mind:

1) Your goal should be to develop a network of people who, first and foremost, share a common interest. For this reason, it is always a good idea to think long term (i.e. don't do things that are going to get you banned). Selling your products or services can always come later. Take the time to read everything that is available, the rules, regulations and protocol, and get a feel for how members interact with one another on the site.

2) When you are ready to talk, always ‘say’ things with a smile; think customer service. Compliment members about themselves. You can do this through visiting their websites or blogs, go through their content, understand what they are all about and praise them for their expertise or knowledge in the subject matter. Now this is only the first part…

3) The second part of your remark offers a benefit for visiting your site in kind, like a free download, or a free vacation voucher. Here is an example: "Hi xxx, I really like the things you write about your travels. You sure travel far and wide. You can receive a 3 day 2 night Hotel Accommodation for two at http://www.wealthwithme.com/ (of course use your website) Thanks for visiting!"

Sometimes you may not have anything to offer, but just leaving a comment on the other member’s account is good enough to stamp a presence for other future members to come by and take notice of you. You just have to do it consistently. Be active and in the "now".

One thing to bear in mind is you are not going to befriend everyone depending on how you project your image through the avatar (photo) and how you ‘sound’ like through your comments, but you are going to attract a certain type of people who are likely to become repeat visitors to your sites. One very useful tool can help you identify who these people are…

4) This tool is the widget. A widget is a proprietary HTML code offered by the social networking site which you publish on your site and it tracks a variety of data like daily visitor count, which countries or sites visitors are coming from (knowing this can help you tailor content to target specific countries), your most popularly read blog posts, and especially who visits your site. If you keep seeing a "same old" avatar and username who keeps popping up on your site, you’d better pay attention to this visitor because s/he is already paying attention to you! This effect is reciprocal. Write to him/her further to forge a closer relationship, dig deep whenever possible to find out what s/he wants and give him/her the value s/he is looking for. The most straightforward manner is to invite them to an opt-in page on your website, blog, lens or Hub pages. Doing this helps you build relationships, and build your list. Remember, The fortune is in the list.

5) Address your visitors by their names. Simply go to their sites and look for an ‘about’ page or a profile page. You may find both of you share common interests and an opportunity to collaborate from here. Why not comment your Spaniard, or European visitors in their native languages too? You can simply go to Google Translate and translate simple sentences like "thank you for visiting" or "good morning". They will be impressed!

I used to think it would be hard to run your own Web 2.0 domain, but not anymore. You can simply Google "free social networking site script" You can use Ping.fm. Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap, you can update from anywhere! You can download *Boonex, which is a Free Software that makes it easy to deploy and manage dating sites, social networks, online clubs, or virtual communities. If you’re serious about building relationships, and creating customers, uses services that will allow you to leverage your time while you focus on building your business. For an immediate list of 79 top social networking sites, check out Jeff Johnson’s list.

* There is ongoing controversy over the use of this software. While the management behind MySpace once declared that their site can detect and remove such usage, still there are few more products coming out. I am unsure of their effectiveness. My next question is: would you be happy adding 100 friends a day instead of 300? There is such a thing as "going overboard". Read the terms and conditions for limits. My last question concerns with targeting: How inclined are your ‘friends’ towards paying attention to you? It’s not just that adder software add friends without sense; more so in a cultural sense, people add friends to chalk up the numbers, then they boast, "Oh, I have 10,000 friends!" Remember, the old-school idea of loving friendship and remain sociable.

Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment.

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