Viral marketing can be a very effective strategy for your business

Viral marketing refers to the marketing method of using your existing website visitors or other website owners to send you new referrals, visitors, and subscribers.  This Viral marketing refers to the marketing method of using your existing website visitors or other website owners to send you new referrals, visitors, and subscribers.  This very effective strategy can be used in many different ways.

An easy way to get started with viral marketing is through article marketing.  You simply submit articles that you have written to article reprint directories.  These are sites that other website owners and bloggers visit in order to find free content for their web pages.

When you submit an article to a directory, you are allowing other people the option of publishing your article on their web page.  In exchange, they will include a link back to a site you have specified.  To get the best results, write articles that have something to do with the content found on your site, and make sure the link you include is a link that has the same type of information as the article, rather than simply sending the traffic to your home page.

Creating an ebook is another way to use viral marketing. You can sell the ebook and include resell rights or you may give the ebook and allow others to give the ebook away as well.  You will want to stipulate that while persons may resell the ebook or give it away for free, they do not have the right to change the information.

This is important.  If you create a title page that includes your URL (or if you add your URL to other places within the ebook), you will want to make sure that the persons who resell the ebook know that they cannot take your info out of the ebook and replace it with theirs.

A similar idea is to create a special report (sometimes referred to as a viral report).  A special report is anything longer than an article but shorter than an ebook.  They are very popular as they do not take much time to create.  And many people enjoy reading them as they can get a crash course on a subject in a short amount of time.  Again, you can choose to sell them with resell rights or simply give them away.

If you choose, you can create brandable eBooks and reports.  All you have to do is make some of the links inside the content can be changed to reflect a person’s individual affiliate link.

For instance, we’ll say that you created an information product on gardening. To gain publicity, you created a special report that contains some basic information and explains that if the readers want to learn more, they can purchase your information product.  Your affiliate can include their specific affiliate link and when one of the people they distribute the report to becomes a customer, you and the affiliate will both be paid.

Viral marketing is a great way to increase your traffic and your sales.

Positive thinking may sound like “mumbo-jumbo” to some people, but other people firmly believe in it.  Positive thinking is the act of staying optimistic, even when faced with difficulties or challenges.

Staying positive, even in the face of adversity, can help you conquer challenges.  When you think positively, you are envisioning your success.  Failure will not be an option; you will move past the obstacles in your way.  When a person thinks positively, they will attract positive people and positive outcomes in their life.

When you find yourself facing a roadblock, try to find a way around it.  It can be easy to give up.  Giving up will not bring you any closer to accomplishing your goals.  In fact, giving up can make you feel even worse and cause more stress.

Finding a way to forge ahead and reach your goal or accomplish your task will help you grow as a person.  You will feel more confident and able to take on new, more difficult challenges.

It can be difficult to take on a new positive personality.  It is not realistic to expect anyone to change completely overnight.  Taking small steps toward positive thinking will create big changes.

When you wake up in the morning, envision a few positive thoughts.  Imagine yourself having a great day.  Think about all of the wonderful things that will be happening to you.  Imagine yourself attracting new clients or being contacted by a reporter who wants to feature you in a magazine story.

You may want to consider creating a “dream board” or a “dream book”.  Write out all the things you would like to accomplish.  Look through magazines and find pictures that correspond with those goals.  When you find a picture you like, cut it out and pin it to a bulletin board or paste it into a scrapbook.

Don’t be afraid to reach for the stars with this project.  If you see a picture of a house you would love to live in, put it on your dream board.  Find a picture of a car you’ve always wanted or a picture of a place you would love to travel to.

Take a moment each day to look at your dream board or flip through your dream book.  Think positive thoughts such as one day, I will own a Humvee  or one day, I will take a vacation to the Cayman Islands.  This can inspire you and motivate you to work hard and achieve success.  Your dream book is giving you a glimpse of your rewards.  Now, it is up to you to take action.

Working with an assistant can provide many benefits for you and your business.  You will have more time to work on projects, yet the day-to-day activities of your business will still get done.  A good assistant can also provide great feedback and help you brainstorm new ways of managing your business activities.

When you find an assistant that you enjoy working with, it is important to keep them happy, productive and motivated. If they feel bored or taken for granted, they may look elsewhere for employment.  The following are some tips to help you keep your dream assistant.

Keeping your lines of communication open will definitely help your assistant do her job.  When you want her to complete a job, explain exactly what you want.  Keep track of the progress of long projects to make sure things are moving along smoothly.  This will prevent any bad feelings if your assistant hands you a project that wasnít completed exactly as you had envisioned.

Coaching your assistant will help both you and your assistant.  Teaching your assistant to set goals will empower your assistant in their personal and professional life.  When your assistant feels empowered professionally, they will feel more confident and will be motivated to take on new challenges.

Keeping your assistant stimulated and helping them learn new skills will keep your assistant motivated and productive.  You can offer to teach them a new skill, such as blog customization or help them learn a new software program.  As your assistant learns new skills they can help you with more of your business tasks.  This can help you grow your business to new heights.

Give your assistant feedback on the work they have completed and praise your assistant when they have done a great job.  When assistants are not told if they are doing good work, they may assume that they have done badly or even failed.  This may cause them to suffer a lack of confidence and eventually, they may not try as hard as they could to do a good job. When they are praised and given encouragement, your assistant will work harder to do a good job.

Most importantly, telling an assistant thank you will make them feel appreciated and worthwhile. Being an assistant is hard work, and a little praise can go a long way.  These tips can help you keep your assistant motivated and productive.  If you ever feel that your assistant isn’t working as hard as they could be, don’t hesitate to ask them if there is anything you could do to help.  You and your assistant can work together to form a great working relationship.

If you offer a physical product for sell, having a website can help you bring many sales you wouldn’t have otherwise received.  People from all over the world can view your products, both day and night.  To make the most of your website (and your profits), you will want to display your highest quality product photos.

Many times, when it comes to your products, your website may be the only thing your customers have to go by.

They may never have had the chance to see your products in person.  It only makes sense to include photos that show several views of your product. You may want to include a shot of both the front and back views.  If you are offering something such as a purse, you may want to include a shot of the inside lining.

Depending on the type of product you are selling, you may want to include a model in your photos.  This is especially true if you are offering something such as clothing, jewelry, or handbags. If your visitor can “see” the image on someone else, they can more easily imagine it on themselves.

If you are offering some other type of item, you may not need a model, but you may want to include something that can help the visitor distinguish the object’s actual size.  This is true, even if you include measurements in your product description.

Make sure that your photos are in focus and that images can be clearly seen.  Another helpful tip would be to include a function that increases the size of the picture as the customer rolls their mouse over the image.

Having high-quality photos on your website will also add to your credibility and help to establish your reputation as a professional.  When a visitor comes to a website that features poorly lit photos that contain blurry images, they will most likely assume the owner of the website is a real amateur.

On the other hand, when they visit a website that contains lots of high-quality photos, they will assume that the owner of this website is very professional and takes pride in their work.

To achieve the best photo results, you may want to consider hiring a professional photographer. They will have high-resolution cameras that can really capture the detail of your products.  Not to mention, they also have access to great lighting, and they know how to make an image look great.

You can call the local portrait studios in your area to get an idea of what the average fee will be.  While it may involve some up-front cost it is well worth it.

The photos on your site will be “selling” your product. A picture may be worth a thousand words; over the course of time, it could also be worth several thousands of dollars.

80% of your business will come from 20% of your clients.

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule), states that, for many things, 80% of the consequences come from 20% of the causes.  For instance, you wear 20% of the clothes in your closet 80% of the time.  This equation also affects your business, as in 80% of your business will come from 20% of your clients.

Unfortunately, most people will spend 80% of their time dealing with the 80% of clients who are not bringing in business. You can use this theory to argue that only 20% of the tasks you work on will bring in the majority of your business. The following are some tips to help you streamline your schedule and spend time where it really counts.

Have you ever noticed that the people who ask the most questions or are the most difficult are the people who place the smallest orders?  While it is certainly important to provide great customer service, you can place a limit on your time.

For example, let’s say you sell cosmetics and a potential customer wanted to know if the product was tested on animals. Once you researched the answer and got back to them, they wanted to know if only organic materials were used, so then you research that answer and when you get back to them they have another question and then another question and so forth.  Sound familiar?

This exchange could go on for several days, and at the end of it, the potential customer may not become your customer at all.

If a potential customer is on the fence about a sale, go ahead and  ask them for the sale, and if they hesitate, to let them know you are available to help them place their order, once they are ready.

It definitely feels good to get a sale and gain a new customer, but the time you spend chasing down small sales could be spent on the “big clients” who are willing to place large orders.

Another smart thing to do is create a thorough FAQ and standard answers that could be cut and pasted into a support email.  Always direct your customers to your FAQ first, then support.

Email can be another big time waster. Setting aside a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the evening to respond to your email can save you time during the day.  Another option is to hire a virtual assistant to answer general business email.  There may be some things you need to respond to yourself, but the vast majority can probably be handled by someone else.

You may want to experiment  by tracking the time you spend on various tasks to determine which ones are actually making you money.  It only stands to reason that devoting more time to those activities will greatly increase your profits.

If you are looking for a fun, new way to market your business, why not try promotional products?  Many traditional businesses use them, and for good reason: they work.  As a online marketer,  you may not have thought of using them.

Promotional products are everyday items, such as t-shirts, pens, magnets, USB drives, water bottles, etc that have been personalized with your business name, logo, website address, or any other message you want to send.

Most people love to receive free things. People will go out of their way to be one of the first in line if a store is giving something away to their first 100 customers or they will enter a crazy contest for a chance to win a prize.

When they get something for free, many people will keep the item for a long time.  Every time they look at your promotional item, they are receiving an advertising message about your business. This is why promotional items are so cost effective.  You only have to pay for the item once, but the advertising message is always there.

To be effective, try to find a promotional item that ties in closely with your business. What kind of item would your target market find helpful and what would they be likely to use on a regular basis?  Many popular items are pens, t-shirts, umbrellas, key-chains, magnets and coffee mugs.

The owner of a website filled with content related to babies may want to give away a bib with their logo and URL printed on it.  An event planner may choose to give away a calendar with various holidays or reasons to have a party imprinted on it.

You can distribute your promotional ideas in a variety of ways. You can include them in your orders, reserve them for your best customers, send them to the media, or use them as contest prizes.

You can even give promotional items to perfect strangers. For example, a personalized ink pen is relatively inexpensive and can be given out in lieu of a business card.  You can even leave them behind at the bank, grocery store, or laundry mat.  People are always looking for pens and will happily scoop yours up.  Once they get home, they may decide to look up your URL.

Promotional items can serve as great marketing tools. There are many types of items to choose from, and they can be worked into any budget.  You can perform a Google search to find items that relate to your business and target market.  It is okay to start out slow and order what is within your budget.  When you run out of items, you can always go back and order more.

This week’s  question comes from James P. from Des Moines, IA .

Question : “I attended your recent workshop about Internet Marketing and I loved it. I was really intrigued about the ASK campaign idea you spoke about. Can you give more details?  Thanks- James ”

Answer:

Thanks so much for your question, James!  You may have heard of the saying, if you don’t ask for it, you’re not going to get it.   An “Ask Campaign”is a marketing strategy that you can use time and time again to create (and sell) more products and services.

If you have a website devoted to the topic of scrapbooking , for example, and are thinking about creating an information product, but are not sure what your customers are looking for, you can set up an ask campaign with the question, “what is your biggest question about scrapbooking?” or”What is holding you back from completing your albums?”, or any other question that you can think of.

You can send out an email to your mailing list, asking them to take part in your survey. You may want to dangle something free in front of them, such as a small report.  You simply include a link in the email to your survey page, and then they fill out the questions.  Once they have submitted the questions, you can have an autoresponder set up to send them a thank you email with the link to the free report.

As you read through the responses, you will notice that some questions get asked many times.  Those are the questions that the majority of your visitors want answered, and those are the topics that should be included in your information product.

You can create anything from a special report to an ebook to a teleseminar using this method.  You may want to take some time to create the written information and then hold a free teleseminar (and record it).  Have someone “interview” you.  You can give them the list of frequently asked questions and simply go down the list of questions together.  You can do this on a conference line and open the telephone lines at the end of the call in case any of the guests have questions.

You can let your guests know that you have created an ebook or special report on the same subject and that you are going to record that night’s call and include it as a special free bonus for those that buy the special report or ebook.  You can even announce the landing page URL on the call and start receiving orders before you are even done with the teleseminar.

An Ask Campaign can help you figure out exactly what your customers want.  This will save you the time of researching various projects, only to find out that they want information on totally different topics.  By using this marketing strategy, you are able to deliver the information they want, plus they will enjoy the fact that you took the time to ask them what they wanted.

Grow your list with Facebook

If you’re only using email to followup with your customers, you are leaving a ton of money on the table. If you see Facebook as “just another way” to followup with your customers, then you’re missing out on the true power of Facebook.

Implementing a proper Facebook campaign can do absolute wonders for your business. Your exposure can quite literally go overnight from small thousands to hundreds of thousands.

How? Through the power of your customer’s FRIENDS and NETWORK.

Why Facebook Pages Spread Quickly

Which do you lend more weight to: A TV commercial about an upcoming movie, or a friend’s personal recommendation?

In pretty much every single case, a friend’s recommendation has FAR more weight than any company’s advertising. This is because there’s already trust with the friend. You know them.
This is the power you’re harnessing when you use Facebook.

Instead of a Google AdWords ad or a link on a website somewhere, people arrive at your Facebook page through a FRIEND’S recommendation.

How to Tap Into Your Customer’s Network

So what’s the “secret sauce” that makes some Facebook pages succeed while fail?

The answer: Customer loyalty.

Not just “loyalty,” but the respect of your customers. If your product is of such a quality that customers rave about your products, then your Facebook page will spread like wildfire.
People will post your page and your  announcements on their walls, exposing your page to hundreds or thousands of people at a time.

Take the example of Apple. Their fan base is RABID about their products.  (yes we are one of them — we only have Mac products in our office! ) If Apple started a fan page when they launched the Apple iPad, how would the page have spread? Like wildfire.

The same principle applies to smaller businesses. Basically, do your customers love you enough that they want to talk about your product? If so, then you have a Facebook page that will
spread.

Case Study: $5 Million in 4 Years

One very successful example is Gary Vaynerchuck who built a $5 million dollar wine business almost entirely through social media marketing. He used video blogging to distribute his content and used social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about what he was doing.

At first he only had a few viewers for every video he made – Less than 20. Then his following grew and grew exponentially because his viewers kept passing on his videos. In just a few years,
he has a multi-million dollar business and is now a recognized business teacher.

Start Growing Your List Today

That’s just one example of the kind of success you can experience if you started working with Facebook correctly.

The best way to learn how to use Facebook successfully is to learn from someone who’s “been there and done that.” One great place to learn these strategies and actually get coached on the step by steps of how to implement them is by joining our 4 week coaching program.

Communication is the key to keeping great clients or customers!

When you first begin your business, it can take a lot of time and effort to land your first few clients.  As your business develops, you’ll find that securing new clients takes less time; however, it is a lot easier to stay in contact with your current clients and develop long term relationships, than to constantly seek out new clients.

Communication is very important in all aspects of life, business is no exception. Developing long-term client relationships is very important, and without communication, it will be difficult to achieve.

When you are working with a client, it is best to keep communication open, as a way to keep them informed.  This is especially true if you haven’t worked together before or if you are working on an extensive project.  The client can’t see you and doesn’t know the status of the project unless you let them know what is going on.  Keeping them informed of your progress will ease any worries they have.

Staying in regular contact with your client can also clear up any miscommunication that may arise.  Miscommunication can be detrimental to your business. If you thought a deadline was set for the 17th, but the client thought the deadline was set for the 7th,  they will be angry and frustrated at not receiving the work on time. By communicating regularly, you will both be on the same page and know what is expected.

Simply taking the time to email past clients and inquire as to how they are doing and if they need your services can spur them into contacting you for a new project.  Sometimes people simply get caught up in other things and your simple hello reminder can remind them of a project they wanted to finish and need assistance on.

Keeping your name in front of your past clients can also help you achieve positive word of mouth advertising.  Word-of-mouth advertising happens when a past or current client is talking to someone in need of the products or services you offer, and they refer you and your business.  By staying in touch with your customers, you increase the odds of them remembering your name in upcoming conversations.

You don’t have to call each and every client on the phone as way to communicate, use email as well as email newsletters.  In fact, newsletters are a great way to promote your new products and services to prior customers.  Once someone has bought from you in the past, they are more likely to buy from you in the future.

Creating a monthly newsletter for your customers doesn’t take a lot of time, and it can even be outsourced to a virtual assistant.  Your newsletter can be emailed to your clients once per month, and you can use this time to let them know of any new products or services you will be offering, as well as special sales and other items of interest to them.

Not sure the best way to utilize email marketing ? Sign up for our FREE  Email Marketing Webinar  on April 19th .