To be really honest with you I do struggle with the holidays – in my middle age I seem to have gotten a little jaded in my thinking – the nice relaxing holidays of my youth do not seem to exist anymore. It is one big hurry here and hurry there. The ads are screaming at us with buy, buy, buy – get, get, get, me, me, me. And now it all seems to start in the beginning of October. Gives me a stomach ache just thinking about it.

Well this year I am praying that my family and I can slow down and enjoy this wonderful time of year. That we can reflect on all we have to be thankful for in our lives and to help those who are not as blessed as us and need some holiday cheer.

What I am thankful for:

To start I have a God in whom I trust. I am thankful that through His Son, Jesus Christ I can have a relationship with Him and I will be with Him in eternity. His hand is upon me and my family and He is just awesome! I cannot image life without Him. I am thankful that I can rest in HIM.

My hope and prayer is that for those who do not know the saving grace of Christ in this season of Hope that they will turn their hearts towards Him and start on a journey like no other.

I am thankful for my wife, Sally.

Talk about a woman. We have been married 21 years. (Mostly great) Without Sally at my side I am not sure where I would be. She is my inspiration, my encouragement, my lover, my friend, my business partner, she is the wind in my sail, she is the love in my heart and I could go on and on. I think you get the picture – she is my gift from God.

I am thankful for my three daughters, Hannah, Abbey and Grace.

I love being a girls’ daddy. I see all the boys out there and I am thankful I do not have one. My girls are, well AWESOME! I am amazed at how different they are and I treasure those differences in each of them. God has blessed each of them with unique gifts and talents, and it is so exciting to see each day how those are growing in each of them as they discover the plans and purpose God has for them.

I am thankful for my parents.

They are the best parents hands down on the planet. Without them I would not be who I am today. They set the example and showed the way for me to have a relationship with Christ. My dad showed me what it was to be a real man, how to honor and love my wife, how to raise my children. My mom showed me how to love and serve others, how to put others first – how to treat your neighbor.

I am thankful for my sisters and their families.

I have great sisters. They both have fantastic hearts and love their families. All of the children just love being together, and (at least ours) are always asking when the next time we can get together is. It is a joy to watch them grow up together.

I am thankful for Sally’s family.

Her parents of course gave me Sally. But they also are wonderful grandparents to our children. Her sister Susan is a great aunt and our kids just love her so much. She is also a great sister to Sally and is a wonderful support for her.

I am thankful for our country.

We still live a free land where we can pursue our dreams. America is still the greatest. We are going through a rough spot but I believe that we will remember our roots and return to the principles our founding fathers passed to us through the constitution. God Bless America.

Of course I am thankful for so many more things: great employees, (Tamara Rivers and Nathan Schaad); great customers (too many to list); great partners around the world; a group of terrific people that are praying for the success of RevBuilders and helping me stay the course (my Board of Accountability).

There are just too many small things I could start counting as blessings – God is so good to me and my family. If you do not know the saving grace of Jesus Christ and would like to understand the peace that only it can bring feel free to call me. I would love to talk to you about it.

I am just so thankful that I can be thankful. What are you thankful for? Let me know! I would love to hear.

Wow – that came out of nowhere.

It brought back all kinds of memories for me. Sally and I were out in San Francisco in1989 when the quake hit there, resulting in a major loss of life, and it destroyed many roads and buildings. The feelings came flooding back. I am still shaking some.

I have calmed down a bit, as I know all are safe and no one was injured.

So what can we learn from this experience?

Two things…

We need a plan for a real emergency.

Our plan at RevBuilders – RUN. That was it. Thank God it was all we needed this time around. But what about next time? I think we need to put together a little better plan, and include things like: How will we contact our loved ones if phones are down, if internet is down? Is our entire client’s information safe and stored off site? If the building were to collapse would I be able to continue with our business? If we were injured do we have first aid kits available? I’m sure there are many other questions we should be asking – do you have any suggestions or questions? Let us know.

Our Marketing Plans need to be this effective in creating buzz.

Talk about a successful marketing plan – imaging having something like this happen in your business on the positive side. Wow! They are still talking about it – hold on my daughter is calling. First thing out of her mouth was “Wow that was exciting!” That is how a 10 year old thinks –but again, dream with me about creating campaigns that could have this kind of impact. What would it do for your business? What would it do for just your attitude alone? You have any ideas? Let us know, and we’ll learn from each other.

I know for a fact that if you not engaged in online marketing you are missing many WOW experiences. It is changing every day and new opportunities are abound. Check out one of the latest for our client Connor’s Pest Protection. We are having a naming contest for a new puppy they are training to find bed bugs. They are going to give away a free pair of Redskin tickets, so click here if you want to give it a try.

So what kind of marketing ideas could rattle your business (in a good way)? Or how did the earthquake affect you? Post a comment and let us know what’s going on in your mind.

If you know me at all, you know I do not hold back about my political and religious beliefs. I am who I am and you will either respect me for it or not. That is up to you. So when Dr. Luntz started off his third chapter with, “Say what you will, Bill Clinton is a winner,” he almost lost me. My first reaction was: Are you insane, Dr. Luntz?

Then I read on and he clarified the point he was making. See, Clinton was a master at understanding the American people and communicating back to them in a manner such that they believed he felt their pain. In this sense, Bill Clinton was most certainly a winner.

Luntz’s definition of people-centeredness is basically the ability to understand and connect with people—not necessarily on a social level, but on an internal drive level—to understand others better than they understand themselves.

According to Luntz, it is this ability that allows winners to fill the voids in people’s lives; voids that they themselves may not even realize exist. Think Steve Jobs.

Luntz asks you to answer five questions to determine if you have the essential attributes of a people-centered person. If you answer yes to 4 of the 5 he says you do:

• Do you look others right in the eye?
• Do you repeatedly ask “why”?
• Do you analyze what you can gain from each interaction?
• Do you actively look to improve products, results or situations?
• Do you apply your experiences?

What do you think of these questions? Personally, I think that an extremely important question is missing:

• Do you improve the human condition?

Admittedly, this could probably be wrapped in question four, but I believe that asking it more directly separates those who do all of those things for selfish reasons from those who are truly people-centered. What do you think?

Luntz goes on to describe several other skills that the people-centered possess: storytelling, listening and learning, asking the right questions, filling the void and addressing others’ fears.

Storytelling

He starts this section off with, “People-centered winners expertly employ imagery, metaphors, and stories. They make you step out of your perceptions, if only for a moment, to explore their vision on their terms.”

That is to say, they are masters at taking you someplace.  Then, when you get there, you believed all the time that this is exactly where you wanted to go.  They desire to connect, and they intuitively know that the best way to connect is through story.

Listening and Learning

I love this explanation: “People-centered winners respect our beliefs (even if they don’t agree with them), recognize the assumptions we make (even if they know we’re wrong), and realize how our past experiences influence actions we take today (even if they can’t truly relate to those experiences).”

When this happens, others will actually bare all, giving you the chance to listen. As they talk, the pains, needs and desires will spill out, and you will gain an understanding of how to help them.

How many times have you been in a conversation with someone who does nothing but disagree with you and try and change your mind? You can probably feel the resistance you had to it just thinking about it.

I am constantly speaking with my oldest daughter Hannah—who is highly intelligent (much smarter than her father)—about the desire to be right. It is my belief that this desire to be right is one of the biggest causes for strife in many relationships. We all hate being proved wrong; it brings up many feelings of unworthiness. What’s worse is that most of the time, even if we are proven wrong, we still hold to the same opinion. The belief does not change, thus leading to an adverse relationship instead of an open one where we listen and learn. This prevents us from moving our lives and relationships in a positive direction.

Asking the Right Questions

This is something I am trying to teach my kids: Asking the right questions has a significant effect on just about everything in your life. For instance, when my thirteen-year-old daughter gets up in the morning, if she asks herself the question: What am I going to wear today? That will not get her very far. She’ll figure out what she’s going to wear, and then… what? If instead she can train her mind to ask, first thing in the morning: What does the Lord want me to accomplish for Him today? It sets that day on a whole different focus and path. Now she has a goal and a mission! The questions we ask are powerful: asking the right ones makes all the difference in what we accomplish in our lives.

Dr. Luntz quotes Tony Robbins: “Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions and as a result, they get better question.”

Dr. Luntz goes on to talk about finding “The Truth.” Now, this can be a slippery subject because everyone today has their own truth. But that is precisely the point: we need to discover what someone’s truth is and understand how they came to that truth. This is critical if we want to win. Finding that truth requires expertise in asking questions, the ability to listen and understand, and the ability to do both of these things without passing judgment on them. If you judge, you will lose every time

Find Out What is Missing

This is nothing new; there has always been something missing in someone’s life. Dr. Luntz refers to it as the “void.” Discover this void and you can win big like some of the masters, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. One of my favorites whom Luntz references in his book is Fred Smith. With one simple line, he transformed FedEx and made it what it is today: “When it Absolutely, Positively Has to Be There Overnight” Genius!

Understanding Fears

“You absolutely must identify with people’s fears as a means of demonstrating that you understand their needs.”
-Dr. Luntz

If you cannot do this you will never be able to help people move towards their hopes. I have found that most people move away from pain or fear faster than they move towards a hope or dream. It is even more powerful if you can tie the two together: showing and communicating that by achieving your hope and dreams or by filling that “void” you will also avoid your biggest fears and solve your biggest problems.

He wraps up the chapter with a list of words that work. I listed them here, but I would get the book so you can read the small print:

• I’m listening
• I hear you
• I get it
• I respect you
• My commitment
• You’re in control
• You decide

So what are your thoughts? I would love to hear from you!

“Win is designed to be an unprecedented examination of effective communication in America today as told by America great communicators.”

This is how Dr. Frank Lutz starts of his new book:  Win – The Key Principles to Take Your Business from Ordinary to Extraordinary. I picked it up on Sunday at Borders’ going out of business sale along with several other business books.

I just started reading the book and thought I would summarize it for you and add in my own humble insight as well along the way. Like many books of this sort, there is nothing new here. What it does, though, is it challenges you if you have a desire to win at a level that few people do. It’s really got my juices flowing again and I am only partway into chapter two. Thank you, Dr. Luntz, for your insights and skillful presentation.

In chapter one, Dr. Luntz asks two great questions:

1. How badly to you want to win?
2. Are you willing to do what it takes to move for the ordinary to the extraordinary?

Pow! He had me.

The first chapter is focused on the definition of winning. Pulling from 20 years of research, Dr. Luntz states that there are 15 universal attributes which he believes separates the genuine winners from everyone else.

The ability to grasp the human dimension of every situation
The ability to know what questions to ask and when to ask them

• The ability to see what doesn’t yet exist and bring it to life
• The ability to see the challenge, and the solution, from every angle
• The ability and the drive to do more and do it better
• The ability to communicate their vision passionately and persuasively
• The ability to move forward when everyone around them is retrenching or slipping backward
• The ability to connect with others spontaneously
• A curiosity about the unknown
• A passion for life’s adventure
• A chemistry with the people they work with and the people they want to influence
• The willingness to fail and the fortitude to get back up and try again
• A belief in luck and good fortune
• A love of life itself

After reading this list you say, “That makes a lot of sense. There’s nothing there I haven’t heard a million times before!” But the question is this: How many of these attributes can you confidently say you have? Or, barring that, how many of these characteristics are you working on and trying to learn? If you’re like me, it is easy to fall into the day to day hum drum of life and become self-absorbed, focusing only on ourselves and making ourselves better. If you read the list again you will see that many of the attributes are about connecting to others, about finding the needs of others and delivering it to them. This is an age-old principle written about by many in the past.

Tom Harrison, CEO and Chairman of Diversified Agency Services said in the book, “As long as I can keep my ears wide open, and my eyes wide open, and literally understand every word that they are saying, then it’s about them. The moment I translate it, it becomes about me – and that’s why others fail.”

I loved this quote! How true is it, and yet how many of us really live this out? What if more of us lived this out daily, what would happen to our respective spheres of influence?

I am looking forward to going deeper on these and the 9 P’s of winning he lays out in chapter two. It should be a fascinating and exhilarating journey. Join me.

What do you think of the list – which ones do yo want to work on? Let me know your thoughts.

I went to a great meeting held today at the PW Chamber led by Jeff Brown of Pangea Global. He did an excellent job at facilitating the meeting by keeping everyone involved and offering great advice.

Jeff talked about several aspects of forming a SBP from looking at the key motivators, the risks, the criteria, questions to ask, and much more. Developing SBPs is not an easy task and requires much thought and planning.

Jeff started with what is a SBP? Good place to start. There are several levels of business relationships but according to Jeff a SBP is defined as…

A relationship that bridges the gap between a full merger and a single length transaction.

Jeff started out with the key motivators and listed several examples in his outline. He stressed the importance of understanding the “why” of building SBPs as the first step in developing effective SBPs. Other thought provoking questions he included were:

• What is it you want out of the relationship?
• How will it help both you and your potential partner?
• Will it allow you to compete for larger contracts and customers?
• Will it allow you to provide expanded solutions without added cost?

One has to understand the “why” of building SBPs before it can work for you.

Jeff then talked some about the risk involved with SBP. From new partners stealing clients to new partners not performing, and to who owns the relationship are just a few of the many risks Jeff mentioned when thinking about forming a SBP. Do any of you have any stories that we can learn from?

Because of the nature of relationship I develop with many of our clients I see many needs that go beyond what we would consider our sweet spot. But because my main goal is to help companies grow, I find myself diving into many different areas of a company. So for several years now I have tried to develop many different versions of a SBP, from a group of experts to service the client’s needs to partnering with specific companies to offer certain solutions that others can provide at a higher level then we can. I have various levels of success, but nothing to write home about.

One result of this event for RevBuilders is that it may be better for us to not develop SBPs, but instead develop the necessary capabilities internally to service our clients.

Jeff talked about many other aspects, but I would love to hear from others that attended his meeting and see what you learned. Please make comments and let us hear from you.

1. SEO
2. PPC
3. Facebook

So, lets just jump right in and review the last four.

4.  Twitter

In simple terms Twitter is a social networking and micro blogging service which allows its users to send cryptic messages known at tweets. When one Twitter user subscribes to another Twitter user, this is known as followers.

Twitter is a very young company which got underway in March of 2006. It was the brainchild of young Jack Dorsey, an entrepreneur and software designer. At the 2007 Austin music festival known as South by Southwest (SXBW), the Twitter people placed plasma screens in the hallways that streamed Twitter messages. It was an instant success and was touted by bloggers, and the panelists and speakers in attendance. Instantly Twitter messages tripled from 20,000 per day to 60,000 per day.

What does this mean for a business?  This small messaging service (SMS) gives every business the opportunity to send newsy updates along with a link to their main website. Or to their FaceBook fan page. A following on Twitter can be considered an extension of other strategies listed here. This is not a venue to be taken lightly since new users are signing up at the rate of 300,000 per day. And over 30% are Tweeting on mobile devices.

How can you make the best use of Twitter?

1. Get Good Followers. You will gain Twitter followers in the same way you build like fans for your FB fan page. Build relationships, offer value, and maintain integrity. Do that and you will gain respect and people will follow you on Twitter.
2. Get Re-Tweeted. A re-tweet is when you find a tweet that you feel has good information and you send it to your followers. This is great for the original Twitterer, but also sets you up as one who offers value-laden Tweets and not just the ordinary drivel. Likewise, when your original Tweets are content-rich and offer value, your followers may send your tweets to their followers.  How do you get re-tweets?  Ask for them. Just as you ask your FB fans to refer you to others, encourage your Twitter followers to do the same.

5.  Link Building

Yet another way to dominate your market in the coming year is to utilize a system of link building. Search engines recognize a link from other sites to your site as a vote of confidence in who you are and what you offer. The trick is to make sure those links are reputable sites from reputable companies and that it matches the theme of your own business. Hopefully, the linking site will be one that is ranked highly in Google.

Before the 2000’s, link exchanges were a way of life on the Internet. When the importance of search engine optimization came into play, link building took a new turn. Because high rankings directly related to links, link building became a business and also a technique for Spam. Links were connected with sites that had no relationship with one another – all for the prize of a high SE ranking.

The process has gone through a number of stages of refinement until it has come back to the original process when related businesses, organizations and individuals exchange links for the betterment of all concerned.

Links are still very important in the scheme of SEO. Here are a couple of pointers on how to do it well.

1. Get relevant links. Links to your website that are in no way related to your theme or business can be counter-productive. Some link-building strategies can be harmful to your SEO campaign. This is an area in which it’s important to tread softly.
2. Use article and press release marketing to gain links. A great way to attain viral growth, gain exposure, and bring outside links to your website is to write and publish articles and press releases. Both of these venues allow for contact information to be added.

Readers who are seeking further information will then link to your website. The more links the higher your SE ranking. With the recent “Panda” update the usefulness of this strategy could be short lived in the future.We are not talking about the article marketing that uses software to change a few words and then shoot it out to hundreds of sites. This is spam. What we are talking about is writing quality content for legitimate sites. Using only one article on one website.

6.  Social Book Marking

You may have noticed icons on web pages – some are easily recognizable such as Twitter and FaceBook. The others, the ones not so familiar are social bookmarking widgets. If you like the site, or an article or blog, you click on the icon. This publishes a backlink to your site which designates it as a popular social media site. That, in turn, increases search engine rankings.

Social Bookmarking first started in 1996 with a site known as itLists.com. This was the first site to offer the idea of shared bookmarks.  Several others followed; however none were able to make headway before the dot com crash of 2001. It was not until 2003 that del.icio.us launched a social bookmarking site which expanded quickly. Soon other companies followed such as Digg and Stumbleupon.

The major benefit of social bookmarking is that it allows your visitors to promote your site for you. Your job is to provide your site visitors with value-laden content. Let them do the rest.

1. Bookmark sites you like. Don’t just wait for others to find you. Interact with other sites and bookmark those you “connect with.”  Leave comments and make your presence known.
2. Share with clients and friend using bookmarking services. There are many bookmarking services available on the Net. It’s easy enough to search terms such as “Social Bookmarking” or “Social Networks” in order to find the one that best suits you and your needs. Some sites have these services rated so you can choose the ones that are the most effective.

7.  Email Marketing

Direct marketing has been around since the 1960s. Email direct marketing is a much younger marketing strategy. Marketing on the internet, especially via email first got underway in the mid-nineties. Marketers quickly saw this as an easy way to assess a growing audience without the massive expense of postage.

Fast forward a few years when “spam filters” greatly slowed the process. The high amount of bounces and mail not even opened has discouraged many marketers causing them to avoid this marketing strategy altogether. This is sad, because email is still one of the more effective ways of communicating with customers and potential customers. After all, it is free.

The key is to understand the changes that are coming about in technology and use these to your advantage and still make email marketing work for you. Below are a couple of tips:

1. Integrate Email with Social Media. Yes, everyone is Tweeting. Yes, everyone is dialoging on FaceBook. And through these mediums a business might be able to offer a coupon or a quick glance at their benefits. However, a business can use these as a bridge or connection, to bring those potential customers to an email. In the full scope of things, an email is the only online method of delivering more detailed information and offers. A newsletter, for example. Or educational information about your products or services. Email messages can also lead readers to your social sites thus further integrating the two.
2. Be Personable. One of the greatest advantages of social media is it allows you to become a real person or entity online. Transfer this over to email marketing. Let your personality, or the personality (brand) of your business, come through loud and clear. People want to do business with people they know, like and trust. That can happen through consistent sending of content-rich, value-laden, personable emails.

There you have it – seven strategies for powerful online marketing.  Use them and you can dominate your niche.  Ignore them, and you’ll be no different than the company who continued to manufacture buggy whips while cars were chugging down the street. The choice is yours.

What do you think – agree or disagree – would you add more to the list? Let me know.

It’s a similar scenario today. There are businesses that have everything going for them – or so it seems – but they’ve failed to get a grasp… on the changes that technology is bringing to the world of marketing. Will your business be left in the dust as venues such Social Media and Search Engine Optimization go zooming past?

There are a number of areas of online marketing that demand your attention in order for you to dominate your market. You may not use all of these at the outset, but the following list may trigger ideas of where you can begin.

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Anyone out there remember Alta Vista?  How about Excite?  Or HotBot?  Those are search engines that were once at the forefront of the known search engines in the mid-to-late nineties. Just as with any emerging industry, some fell by the wayside and new more successful ones emerged. Now Google and Yahoo! are the two most accepted search engines.

The practice of optimizing a search engine came into play even in those early days. The term “search engine optimization” was used as early as 1997. Marketers quickly learned that high rankings on search engines meant they were at the top of the page where they would be found quickly! Those who failed to grasp this concept might find their listings buried on page 50!

The importance of high rankings has not diminished. This in spite of the newer technology strategies such as FaceBook and Twitter. People are still searching the web (now in record numbers), and the strategy to be listed high on a Google search page is still vital for a business to gain needed exposure.

Two basic strategies for increasing the SEO of your site:

• Select the right keywords. Keyword selection cannot be chosen haphazardly and still be effective. It requires a knowledge of what terms and phrases are most commonly searched for. Past that, it requires a knowledge of how to place the key words in the copy. Stuffing copy full of keywords, to the point that it makes no sense, is a sure way to lose customer confidence.
• Use correct title tags. The title tag is an HTML tag that describes a specific web page – but is not visible on the actual page. Why is this little bit of text important?  Because it usually becomes the text link to the page found in search engine listings. Additionally, the title text is recognized by the search engine when indexing pages. This is a great place to use keywords and phrases.

2.  PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

We here at RevBuilders find that one of the online strategies least understood by the businesses we serve is the use of Pay Per Click, or PPC advertising. PPC is used on websites where the advertiser pays the host only when their ad is clicked. It is also used on search engines where keywords and phrases are used in an ad that is relevant to their selected market.

The idea of paying for keywords and phrases first came about in 1998. Yahoo offered such services when they purchased Overture Services, Inc. (formerly GoTo.com). GoTo.com was actually the original company that proved such a concept would truly work. Later the name Overture was dropped and it became Yahoo Search Marketing. Google quickly entered the arena with their version called AdWords.

While there is a cost involved, when used correctly PPC can precisely aim at target markets and create a great draw to a website. The uninitiated, however, can run through a pile of money very quickly with little or no profitable results. The following tips may help guide you in the right direction.

• Write Grabber Ads. Writing effective ads for PPC is a learned art. You won’t start off writing the best ad. It takes time and patience. The good thing is, you can change the wording of your ads on an ongoing basis. PPC advertisers have discovered that sometimes the change of one word can make a vast difference in number of clicks. Mention benefits in your ad as opposed to simply telling what your product or service is. People want to know what’s in it for them.
• Have Relevant Landing Pages. Do your landing pages serve up what your ad promised?  If not, say good-bye to your visitors. You did well with the ad. The searcher clicked. Now they are at your landing page. You have only a few seconds to grab their attention and hold them there. It’s a good idea to create the pages titles and the web copy to include the key phrase used in the ad. This allows your searcher to make a connection between why they clicked your ad, and what you offer on the landing page. When the landing page is heavy with copy that doesn’t seem to match the PPC ad, you’ve just wasted your advertising dollars.

3.  FaceBook

The social media site of FaceBook was first started by a group of Harvard dorm roommates in 2004. From there it expanded to other colleges as a means for young people to communicate with one another. Within a few years it has grown to the most-visited sites on the Internet, crowding out Google.

In the beginning it was merely a way to socialize, meet new people, and contact old friends. However, it is quickly becoming an important aspect of online marketing for all types of businesses.

FaceBook offers the ability to advertise with precise niche target marketing. This is because people offer much of their personal information on their profiles, thus allowing the demographics to be easily de-coded and used by advertisers.
Any business not considering how to best use FaceBook as part of their online marketing strategy is definitely still in the buggy whip mindset. Rather than a profile page, a business creates a FaceBook fan page. Nike has a fan page, as does Ford and General Motors. This is the tip of the iceberg of what’s happening in this venue. Here are tips to get started:

• Get Likes. The official FaceBook Nike fan page has over three million likes. While your business may never reach that number, still you can build a close following by using this strategy. It’s possible to incentivize the likes on your fan page by offering a free report or coupons. Be creative here. This is all about building relationships.
• Have Power Fans. Your FB fan page may draw many visitors, but the most valuable ones will be those who actually interact with you. These are your power fans. They may leave a comment, or add your link to their page, or refer your page to all of their friends and business acquaintances. There are many ways to develop your power fans. The most obvious will be your satisfied clients who have used your products or services. Next might be complementary business entities that are not in direct competition with you.

There you have it 3 of the 7 strategies to help you dominate your market. Next post will reveal the final 4 strategies. Any thoughts? Do you have any input on where businesses should be investing their time and money? Can you guess what the next four will be?

The RevMan

Are Forums Only for the Geeks?
One of the more interesting and intriguing aspects of online marketing is forums.  For a long time, most companies – both large and small – looked with distain at the world of forums.  Forums were viewed as a place where computer geeks hung out after dark.

If that were ever true – no proof that it ever was – it certainly is not now.  But as long as that opinion exists, it gives the business owner an excuse to ignore them.  Consider the fact that next to watching videos, reading forums is the #2 online activity.  Also consider the fact that more people in the U.S. read online forums than visit social networking sites.

Hidden Goldmines
This should sound the clarion that forums are like hidden goldmines, full of potential customers chatting and asking questions. They have no qualms about speaking their minds and many are there to take part in the virtual community feel that can be established.
The business owner who is looking to become that “go-to” expert in a specific niche could easily (and at no cost) develop an online presence within those specific forums.  Look for the questions and begin answering them.

Establish Your Presence and Identity
As with articles and blogs, this is not the place to sell.  While there can be a website link as part of the signature, that’s not the reason for taking part.  Forums offer an unequaled opportunity to make your presence known and to build your online brand and identity.

No need to be overwhelmed.  Seek out two or three key forums within your particular industry.  (Check how long they have been in existence, and if they have a vast following.) Next, set a time once or twice a week to read the newest posts.  Add your own post to identify yourself.  Watch for specific questions that, because of your expertise, you can answer.  Do this consistently and watch your following grow.

Come join us for some good food and drink as we begin a new chapter in RevBuilders Marketing. Meet our new team members and learn about some of the new and exciting business growth solutions we will be offering soon.

Also enter for a chance to win some fantastic prizes – more info on these to come soon – but it will be worth the wait. Check back here for update.

This will be one of the best networking events of the year – we are inviting all the local chambers plus the Local Realtor Associations as we are partnering with Charles Fincher, a Real Estate Attorney, in some exciting ventures you can learn about at the Grand Opening.

Hope to see you there – please register so we have enough food and drink. Thank you.

Great things are happening at RevBuilders Marketing.

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But first you have to get them to the site. You have to promote your blog. In a sense you have to market your marketing vehicle.

In order to promote your blog and make it a successful marketing tool you have to ensure three things…

1. People will want to view it
2. People will be able to find it
3. people will be able to pass it on.

No one will read your blog for long if it does not offer them something that they find useful or desirable. This means that in order to appeal to your market, your blog has to be interesting, insightful, helpful, and entertaining or, better yet, all of these things.

You cannot forget that your blog is the vehicle for your marketing message. Make it interesting and useful to the reader so that they have a reason to read or view it. People will watch commercials because they are sandwiched between segments of a television show. Use the same concept.

Create a captive audience.
I want to learn what this music producer thinks about a new piracy law and if reading his opinion means also hearing about a new artist he’s promoting then that’s fine, I’ll take in both messages.

Think about it like – they say that when you give you’re dog a pill you should put it in peanut butter or some other treat. They find the treat so desirable that they’ll accept the pill in order to get the peanut butter. Your blog must work the same way: Give people something that they find desirable and they will accept your marketing message as well. But use caution – do not over market.

To make your blog interesting you have to provide your audience with things that are the relevant to them. Pampers will talk about issues related to babies and new parents, Sony will talk about technology developments, what will you talk about to connect with your market?

Now, not only must the blog be interesting, it must also be findable. The greatest information on the entire internet is not worth a thing if the viewers cannot find it. Assuming that your blog will become part of your already existing site, those who visit your web page are going to be introduced to your new addition by a link on the homepage. In this way, the webpage is promoting the blog.

But it can also work the other way as well. Your blog can bring people to your web page if the blog can be found through the search engines.

This means optimizing your blog. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a strategy to get a web page to the top of the search engines list. Its goal is to make your site show up on the first page of Google’s search return.

Your blog should be optimized in the same manner that your site is, using the same strategies and techniques. However, there are additional, blog-specific search engines that will also help people find your blog. There are several of these engines, with Google’s being one of the largest.

You can also help people find your blog by promoting it through other avenues. Talk about it in newsletters, build a buzz on affiliated sites, put the domain directly on your product. Build your blog up until it is the authority in your industry. Until it becomes the place to go when people want up-to-the-minute information.

The final promotional consideration that you have to keep in mind is that those who view your blog should have a way to forward it to others. If you have done an effective job in creating interesting content then people are going to want to share what they have found and you want to promote this.

By enabling viewers to send a copy or a link to their own associates you are enabling them to do your promoting for you. They are sending your advertising message to other members of your target market.

This is one of the greatest benefits of couching your marketing campaign in an informative blog – people not only respond to it in a more favorable manner, they promote it for you.

Recap

For all of this to work, the marketing message has to be there and it has to be integrated into the blog’s information. You can’t just paste an ad in the middle of the article and expect it to be effective.

People’s eyes will skip right over it. You don’t watch a commercial if you have the option of fast forwarding through it and people don’t read ads if they can avoid them. So make sure that you are maximizing your blog’s marketing abilities by integrating the message into the content.

It’s much more effective than advertising on a pregnant woman’s stomach.

Oh did I say make your blog interesting?