Are you an entrepreneur who wants to make more sales and keep more profit in your business?

Good.

After reading this article, you will have the information you need to know to accomplish both of those goals.

So let’s get started…

How To Make More Sales in Your Business

Before I get into the detailed how-to information for this article, I want to tell you something that is really important for you to understand.

If you are committed to making more sales in your business, you have to consciously decide right now to stop listening to so-called gurus and consultants who are telling you that you need to implement “new marketing tactics” to make more sales.

Here’s why…

There are hundreds of tactics you can implement right now in your business to help you generate more sales…

But if you don’t have the key moving parts in place, and the right mindset to help you leverage each specific marketing tactic in the best way possible, you are going to just spin your wheels, waste your time, and end up spending money and resources that aren’t going to help you reach your goal.

Now before getting to the meat of this article, I have one more thing to say that I want you remember forever…

One of the biggest things that will help you generate more sales in your business is by understanding marketing, and the psychology of what makes people tick.

When you study and understand how these two concepts drive human behavior, you will literally be able to print money on demand in whatever business you are in (more on that later).

When you have a solid grasp on marketing and psychology, and how both concepts drive human behavior and motivation you will know…

1) exactly what product to create…
2) exactly how to position the product…
3) exactly how to put a profitable marketing system together for the product that will attract the right customer
4) exactly how to write copy for the marketing system that will resonate with the customer and generate the highest conversion rates
5) exactly what to “do” with that marketing system to generate more sales and a positive ROI when sending paid and free traffic to it and through it
6) exactly how to launch proven marketing pieces that generate the most amount of sales in the shortest period of time
7) exactly how to strategically integrate your marketing system into everything you do, so that it creates a predictable result every time in top line sales and bottom line profit

Let me give you the bigger picture…

If you decided to buy a product on “Facebook Advertising,” and then did everything that it told you to do WITHOUT tweaking the process of how you will handle and test that traffic source, you are going to end up with a huge charge on your credit card and a negative ROI (Return on Investment).

So now lets start moving in the direction of actually helping you make more sales and implementing the right actions to get you the desired result…

1) Ask Yourself Better Questions

If you are really serious about making more sales, you need to start asking yourself better questions. You know…questions that start with “How,” “Where,” and “What.”

When you ask yourself the right questions, it will lead you down the right path to figuring out what you need to do so that you can accomplish your goal of generating more sales.

Here are some key questions you can ask yourself right now that will help you begin the process…

Q1: Where is My Market?

Where can you reach your market, and begin to engage with them?

Once you know where and how your market can be reached, then you can start putting together strategic marketing campaigns targeted directly to them in those specific channels.

Depending on what business you run, will depend on how you will treat that audience and traffic source.

For example…

You are a restaurant owner, and your target market is located in the surrounding area near your location. You decide that placing a newspaper ad in the local paper is the best way to reach that target customer base.

Your ad’s call to action will most likely be to “visit (your restaurant) to experience a wonderful dinner with the family.”

Now another example…

You are a website owner selling a really valuable product for $19.99.

You also feel that your target market is located in the surrounding area where you live. You decide to run an ad in the local newspaper, and you are going to make your call to action be “visit the website to learn more, and to make a purchase.”

The Distinction: Both businesses are leveraging the same marketing tactic, but each of them are using the traffic source differently and uniquely catered to their specific line of business.

Q2: How Will I “Treat” The Targeted Traffic Being Exposed to My Ad to Generate the Best Response and Highest Conversion Rate Possible?

After you know where and how you can reach your market, then you need to figure out how you are going to “treat” the traffic that is driven either into your store (restaurant owner), or your website (internet business owner) to generate the best response.

For example…

If you are running a restaurant, will you have something in the entryway that let’s people know you were expecting them from the ad you placed?

Or…

If you are a website owner, are you sending the traffic to a specific page connected to the ad that ran in the paper, and cater the message accordingly to make them feel as special as possible (which will increase the conversion rate)?

As I stated in the few paragraphs above, if you just followed the “Facebook Advertising tips” that you received in the product you purchased, and just sent the pay per click traffic straight to your current website to buy your product, WITHOUT tweaking the process and page they were landing on KNOWING they were coming from Facebook…you are leaving a ton of money on the table, and will probably have a negative ROI when all is said and done.

Q3: How Can I Make More Money From Every Customer I Serve, and Deliver Even More Value?

As a business owner, one of the main things you should focus on is always adding value to your customer base.

But let me ask you…

Have you taken the time to ask yourself if there are other ways you can add even more value to customers than how you already are, and be able to integrate your ideas seamlessly into your entire sales process?

When you do this correctly, you will be able to make more sales, and do it with the same amount of customer flow. This will make your profit per customer shoot through the roof.

This is a relatively simple example but, you can easily implement a program where you ask a customer to buy another product before they finish their purchase on your website, or when checking out at the counter at your store.

Here is what I want you to realize…

There are so many hidden opportunities within your business that you may not be directly aware of right now, and the only reason you aren’t taking advantage of these opportunities is because you are so tied into the day-to-day operations that you are failing to see where other opportunities are.

Take a moment right now to sketch out a few ideas you can implement in your business to increase your profit per customer. The best way to do this is imagine you are a customer entering your business, and think about how you are serving that customer throughout the entire browsing and buying process.

Q4: What are the Pains, Desires and Frustrations my Market is Experiencing Right Now?

This one is simple…

The more you know about how your market thinks and operates, the more possibilities there will be for you to generate more sales from this intelligence.

One great way to do this is go to Twitter search.

Type in your browser bar… search.twitter.com and type in keywords and phrases you know your market is using in their tweets to see what they are saying. From this one activity alone you may just discover a new unmet need that your business could take some serious advantage of!

Take some time right now to write down what you know about your market, and think about if there is a way you can turn what you write down into an idea that will help you generate more sales with what you are currently working with.

Q5: What am I Not Leveraging Right Now that Is At My Disposal to Make More Sales?

You would be surprised at how many things are in your business right now that aren’t being utilized to their fullest potential to help you make more sales, expand your reach and make you more profitable.

I will give you one example to get your mind turning with possibility.

A client I was working with needed help growing their Facebook and Twitter audience. To effectively implement their campaign, they leveraged the thousands of pieces of product they were already shipping out every month. By putting a simple insert in the package for one month, letting telling their customers that if they wanted exclusive promotions and specials, they should follow them on those two sites (FB and Twitter)…The campaign was a raving success!

What is currently happening in your business that isn’t being leveraged to its fullest potential? What specific things can you leverage right now to help you make more sales?

Q6: How Can I Increase My Customer Lifetime Value?

The lifetime value of a customer is one of the most important metrics to track in your business. This number lets you know how much you can spend in marketing dollars to generate a customer, and still be profitable on that customer over the entire lifetime the customer does business with you.

While one of the questions above was about increasing the profit per customer every single time they purchase, this question deals with the aggregate number of purchases a client is going to make over the lifetime they do business with you.

Out of the gate you won’t know this number unless you start testing and tracking your marketing from day one.

Sit and think…is there anything else I can do right now to increase the customer lifetime value and make more sales in the process? Write down your answers and see what you can implement right now then go do it!

Q7: What is It Going To Cost Me To Generate A Customer?

Piggy-backing off of the customer lifetime value question, you should know what it will cost to help you generate a customer. You won’t know this number unless you are doing a good job at tracking your marketing spend every month.

Once you know this number, you can start thinking of ways to optimize how you spend your marketing dollars to make your future campaigns more effective, which will in turn make you more profitable in the process!

Q8: How Can I Leverage My Current Customer List To Make More Sales?

Your customer list is a goldmine.

The people on that list already know you, like you, and trust you, and even better they are easier to sell because they have bought something from you before.

Sit down right now and think about what you can do with your current customer list to start making more sales!

Are you going to run a “referral special” where you will give a 20% discount to everyone who refers someone to you, or are you going to leverage your customer list to help bring more people into your funnel using social media?

There are so many things you can do with your customer list. Really sit and think about this one.

Q9: How can I Communicate the Value I Provide my Target Market so that they Choose me Over my Competitors?

This is one of the final questions you should ask yourself if you really want to make more sales. If you aren’t doing a good job at communicating with your target market, they will take their business elsewhere.

Are you going to use better videos? Better copy? Change the message?

There are so many options here. Really sit and think about it!

As talked about above, knowing and understanding what makes your market tick is half the battle to effectively answering this question and implementing what you come up with in your business.

2) Create Better Marketing

If you want to make more sales, it really comes down to creating better marketing to attract customers.

When I say better marketing, I don’t mean that you need to make the pictures and graphics more beautiful on your website…far from it in fact.

What I mean is that you need to stop implementing marketing that sucks!

There…I said it…

Stop implementing marketing just to “get out there,” or to “increase brand exposure.”

Every time I hear a business owner say that I cringe.

I cringe because I know they are saying it just to look good, even though they are struggling to break even every month.

Instead, think about the questions you answered in the section above, and then take your answers and ask yourself this question…

“Knowing what I know about my market, where my target customers are reachable, and what their hot buttons are, what can I specifically do or create to increase the amount of sales I can make from that group every single month?”

Is it going to take sending a direct mail piece in a white envelope with their address written on it in what looks like a real pen, providing them the opportunity to come into my store with a coupon to experience 25% off their next meal (restaurant owners)?

Or is it going to take implementing a Google Adwords direct marketing campaign sending traffic into a capture page asking for peoples name and e-mails to build a targeted opt-in list of leads to follow up with to sell them the value you have created?

Stop just trying to “get out there” spending money like there’s no tomorrow. Instead sit down and really think about your marketing approach/sales funnel, and how the specific actions you plan to take will bring more sales into the door in the most profitable way possible.

There is no one size fits all solution. This is going to take some work!

3) Spend Time Studying What Makes People Tick

As I said earlier, if you want to print money in any business you run, understanding what makes people tick and how they operate is one of the best “informational assets” you can build for yourself.

When you know how to write words that make people read your entire ad, and create advertisements that get people to take action, you will never have any issues creating a customer base ever again.

Books like Influence, and Tested Advertising Methods are must reads if you truly want to learn the most you can about people, and building a solid customer base!

This will help you solve your sales problem, and create better marketing that gets results!

4) Focus on Lead Generation First Then Sales Second (Be Sure This Process is as Automated as Possible)

The difference between marketing and sales is that marketing is the activity of generating leads, where sales is the process you take an interested lead through to sell them what you have.

Take a moment right now and really let that sink in.

What specific things are you doing in your business right now to generate more leads?

What process are you taking those leads through to help you increase the chances they will convert into a sale?

Is this process automated and seamless, or does it suck up too much of your time every month, and create a lot of headaches?

If you really want to make more sales, you must have a solid lead generation funnel in place that then is connected to your sales process in the most automated way possible.

No matter what business you are in, your first focus should be to generate leads, and then sell them (convert them) the best way you can with the marketing assets you have at your disposal (people, copy, content, webinars etc.).

5) Focus on Generating Higher Conversion Rates

When you start generating leads for your product or service, you should always be tracking all of your metrics and optimizing as much as you can.

By testing, tweaking and improving your conversion rates throughout your entire funnel, your cost to acquire a customer will decrease, and in turn you will increase your profit and make more sales in the process putting in the same amount of effort.

For example…

If you are running a Google Adwords ad and you are able to increase the click through rate by 1%, and then increase the call to action on that page by 5%, but you still spent the same amount of money for the campaign you just decreased the cost to acquire a lead or sale substantially!

Here is an equation for you to commit to memory…

Higher Conversion Rates = Lower Cost To Acquire Customers = More Profit

Please don’t ever forget this.

6) Test Better

If you want to make more sales, another thing you must do is test better. Test everything you are doing so you can get baseline numbers to start from and focus on improving.

This principle to making more sales piggy-backs off of focusing on generating higher conversions.

By making sure every possible part to your lead generation and sales funnel is being tracked and monitored like a hawk, it allows you to test things effectively to see how “what you change” has a direct impact on lead generation or your conversion process from the front to the backend of your funnel.

7) Leverage Free PR

Another great way for you to make more sales is by leveraging free PR. Do everything you can to get in the local media in some way shape or form.

Once you generate the PR for you and your company, then make sure to integrate it into all of your marketing pieces, to bring greater credibility to you and your business.

The only other thing I want to say about leveraging PR for traffic is to be sure your marketing and sales funnel are set up appropriately for you to manage and treat the traffic accordingly, so you get the highest return possible for the time and effort you spent generating the free PR.

I can’t tell you how many times I see an article written about a company somewhere, or where someone appeared on a news program or huge national TV show only to find that their website wasn’t set up properly to manage the influx of visitors to the web property.

Please don’t make this mistake, or else you will waste your time!

8) Partner Strategically

Another great way to create more sales and new customers in your business is to partner strategically with other vendors or competitors in your geographic area or niche.

Depending on what business you are in will depend on how you structure a deal with the other business, and will also affect what you will be willing to do to create a win/win between the both of you.

If you are a restaurant owner, one idea that may work for you is reaching out to other local restaurant owners and asking if they would be interested in a collaborative promotional deal where you promote their restaurant while they promote yours.

There are many ways you can go about doing this without detracting from the experience you are trying to create for your restaurant. One creative way you can do this is by putting something in the check at the end of the meal that says, “We also recommend XYZ restaurant, and the other restaurant owner can do the same!”

You can follow this same principle if you run an online business also. Reach out to some competitors, or other people in your network that would make sense to create a joint venture with. You can choose to sell their product to your customer list, while they sell yours to theirs. You both can figure out a fair profit split to create a win/win.

9) Find a Mentor

Last but not least, find a mentor who has been in your line of business before. They have most likely gone through many of the same challenges and hurdles you are facing, and will be able to guide you through them.

Every successful person has a mentor. If you don’t have one, start looking for one!

How To Keep More Profit in Your Business

Now that you know what you need to do to generate more sales every month in your business, lets switch gears and talk about how you can keep the most amount of profit in your business for the sales that you generate on the top line.

As a savvy business owner, you know a huge top line sales number may not always mean a positive net income (Your goal is to shoot for 20-30% as your net profit margin)!

What I mean is…

If you generate $1,000,000 in yearly sales, you want to make sure you are at least making $200,000 in net income by the end of the year for selling $1,000,000 worth of product.

When you are serious about bringing in the most amount of sales, in the shortest amount of time, and running as lean as possible to make sure the profit is the highest possible at the end of the year, life in your business really starts to get fun!

But you must be sitting there asking yourself, “I am doing everything I can to cut my ‘cost of doing business’ as low as I can, I don’t know what else I can cut further!”

This is why this section is going to be really valuable for you…

In the points below, I am going to highlight the specific things you can examine in your business right now to help you make sure you run as lean and effectively as possible to experience the greatest amount of profit flowing to the bottom line, without sacrificing the customer service experience, or your ability to deliver on your brand promise.

Lets get started…

1) Find A Credit Card Processor Who Actually Cares About Your Profitability Per Transaction, and A Sales Rep Who Will Provide High Quality Service and Truly Take Care of You

One place you can lower your costs substantially in your business, and keep more profit per sale is to stop doing business with a credit card processor who cares more about lining their own pockets than providing you a service that is a true win/win.

Most processors are out for themselves, and in most cases, entrepreneurs are paying more than they should in credit card processing fees…which is eating into the bottom line of your business every single month.

When I work with a client, not only do I focus on helping them increase their top line sales number without substantially increasing costs, but the next thing I do is ask to examine their credit card merchant statement to know how much they are being charged to make those sales via credit and debit cards.

Here is why this is important + A Little Story…

It was in May of 2012, when I realized that most entrepreneurs and merchants have no clue about what or how they are being charged to take credit cards, and in learning about this it made me very angry.

It made me angry because the truth is…

Most entrepreneurs are robbed right under their nose by their current processor without them even knowing it through deceptive pricing and confusing un-transparent monthly statements.

As someone who has always been focused on the increasing the top and bottom line for the people I work with, I was never fully aware how much this can and will eat into a business owners bottom line until I really took the time to understand every single moving part of the industry.

Entrepreneurs are taken advantage of because…

Most entrepreneurs go to sign up for a credit card processing service, and they typically take what they are given, or are suckered into a pricing plan that does not serve them or their business.

Most of the time they don’t know any better…which is how the credit card processing company is able to get away with charging you exorbitant fees right under your nose!

It’s not until entrepreneurs take a look at their statement when they realize they have been taken to the cleaners.

I decided to join the merchant services industry as well to help entrepreneurs all around the country stop being a victim to this scheme, while helping them pay lower monthly fees and providing better service.

As a matter of fact…

A couple weeks ago I showed a client how I was able to help them save over 30% on a monthly basis if they allowed me to help them switch over to a better processor.

2) Hire an Accountant Who Understands The Tax Law Inside and Out Who Will Help You Legally Pay Less Tax

Another way you can keep more profit in the bottom line is to work with an accountant who is going to help you legally pay less tax (following all the rules of course).

The truth is…

If you are a business owner who doesn’t have a good accountant that understands the tax law, and stays on top of all the rule changes, there is a higher likelihood that you are paying more than you should in taxes every year for the business.

By focusing on following the rules, and leveraging the current laws in place that will help you pay less tax, this help you keep more money in the bottom line, and more money in your pocket.

If you are looking for a better accountant please feel free to contact me! I would be happy to send you to the right place!

3) Have a Trusted Attorney on Hand to Consult When Necessary

Depending on what business you are in, will determine how often you will have to speak to an attorney.

Having exceptional attorneys and accountants on your team is a must if you want to ensure that you will be taken care of if you run into any matters that involve the law or your businesses finances.

If you need stuff created to protect intellectual property, or are being sued by someone or another organization, it is important to always have a trusted attorney to contact so that you are able to handle the situation in the best way possible to mitigate any future losses.

By mitigating any future losses, you will keep more profit in the bottom line.

4) Don’t Be Shady

This final principle goes without saying.

If you want to run a successful healthy business, don’t compromise your personal integrity doing something shady to only make a little progress in the short term, but have a lot of pain in the long run when it blows up in your face.

There was something that I learned from a venture capitalist when I was in college…

“Short term gain, long term pain”

and…

“Short term pain, long term gain.”

If you are given the choice, always choose the latter of the two. Even though it is harder to make that choice, you will be better because of it over the long run.

Being shady, and doing things that will cause a negative result later only hurts you, your employees and the bottom line altogether.

If you run into some financial problems, it is always best to consult your team of advisors to help you weather the storm.

Summary

After reading this post, I hope you feel excited to work on your business again! As someone who is passionate about helping entrepreneurs build a better more profitable business, while optimizing every moving part of their operation to serve the customer and help you accomplish your goals, I hope this post adds a ton of value to you.

If you are interested in learning how I can help you either increase your sales, or help you experience similar results helping a client decrease their credit card processing fees by 30% per month please contact me. I would love to learn more about you and your business, to see how I can help you reach your goals. Be sure to mention that you read this article!

If you are an online business owner looking for a more effective way to generate more social media shares for your blog content, you are going to love using Viral Content Buzz.

Viral Content Buzz is a website created by my friends Gerald Weber and Ann Smarty that works using a simple system where every user of the site wins…

Step #1
Share other people content and earn credits (credits you earn per share is based on the power of your social media sharing account)

Step #2
Submit your own content to be shared with the network of users so they can share blog posts and other content you create with their network

The thing that makes Viral Content Buzz so appealing to online business owners and entrepreneurs is that before any post is allowed to be shared, a moderator must approve it. This will help manage spam, and will keep the environment a safe place.

After building up your credits by sharing other publishers content for awhile, then you are able to submit your piece of content into the site and allocate a specific budget to having that content being shared by others who have an account.

What is great though is that people with Twitter and Facebook accounts that have more friends and followers earn more credits for sharing content, compared to others who may not have as many followers.

For example…

John who has 5000+ twitter followers will get more credits per share vs his friend Joe who only has 1000 twitter followers. This subtle tweak in the site will continually give people the right incentives to succeed in using the platform, and keep them coming back for more as they experience the benefits of using the platform!

I have been using Viral Content Buzz since it launched and couldn’t be happier.

Not only do I find great content to consume and share with my network, but also have found that my blog posts are shared with massive amounts of people for investing only five minutes per day being active on the site.

I recommend that if you are serious about using this tool to give your content more social shares and exposure, I suggest that you make it part of your routine every day to share at least 3 pieces of content from the site with your network to build up your credits. By making it a routine, you will be surprised at how fast your credits build up.

Then when it comes to leveraging the site for your own personal gain, make sure that every time you publish a blog post Viral Content Buzz is the first place you stop to start the social media promotion campaign!

Here is a video that will provide you with more information so you can start using the site correctly from the start!

Are you an entrepreneur who struggles with writing compelling copy that gets results? You are not alone! In fact there are thousands of entrepreneurs who struggle with this every single day.

This new book, The You Effect by my friend Tom Trush, will help you overcome many of the challenges entrepreneurs face when it comes to creating marketing that gets a positive ROI!

What I like most about the book is how short the chapters are (1-3 pages), and how valuable the information is within each section!

This book has definitely been written for the reader who doesn’t like to read, but still wants to get the information they want to generate positive results in their business.

Be sure to pick up this book, and listen to my interview with Tom below! There are some amazing gold nuggets in this interview that you will be able to take and run with to start creating results on the spot!

Click Here For The Interview

I know in my last post titled, “How to Create a Social Media Strategy: For Companies Who Already Have A Customer Base”, I mentioned that the next post to this blog would be about how to build a social media strategy for companies who are just starting out and need to generate new customers.

But I ran into a problem…

As I started thinking about the post I promised I would write for you, I had an inner conflict brewing.

The inner conflict centered around the realization that there is a no one-size fits all strategy for social media that will directly help everyone in the same manner because everyone is in a different business.

Each business has its own market, and depending on what market you are in, will depend on the various opportunities to leverage with social media when building a customer base from scratch.

I know this probably already makes sense to you but to clarify further…

If I write about how to create a social media strategy for an independent accountant, and think that the same strategies I recommend will work effectively for a local pizza parlor in town…the content just wouldn’t serve you in the best way possible.

Which leads me to this…

I want to write a post that is specifically tailored to your business, but for me to do this I need to know what business you are in, so I can tailor the tactics and strategies directly to your personal situation to generate the intended result you want to create (the generation of new customers.)

If you would like to participate in this great opportunity to be helped in a customized way, be sure to keep reading, and then leave a comment below!

One other cool thing about this offer to you is that I plan on writing more than one post about how to generate new customers using social media for new or start up companies…

Let me explain…

If in the comments section below you ask me to write a post for more than one type of business, I will write a post for both of them on the very same topic (growing a customer base from scratch using social media for both of those specific business).

Adding to this, I know more than one person will be leaving a comment…which means I will be writing more than one post for you and the rest of my audience!

To clarify further…

Lets say in your comment you share that you want me to write about how business X and business Y should go about generating brand new customers using social media as a new/startup business. I will write a post for business X and business Y.

Now in saying that…

Lets say someone wants me to write a post on how to use social media to build a new customer base as an accountant, while another person leaves a comment letting me know they are trying to grow a blog using social media. I will write a post for the accountant, and a another post for the person with the blog.

You simply can’t lose!

Isn’t that cool?

So you are probably asking… What’s in it for you Scott?

The bottom line is I want to create valuable content for you that will directly help you in your business. I know if I put out high quality content that serves you and your network it will generate more traffic to my website, and backlinks which creates higher google rankings for my site.

It is as simple as that…

Ok so here is what I want you to do.

1) Leave a comment below with what business you are in.

If I am able to and feel it will be valuable to my readers I will write a post specifically for you about how to create a social media strategy to generate new customers for that specific type of business (in the early stages of growth).

2) If there are other types of businesses that you would also like me to write a post for specifically focusing on how to use social media to build a brand new customer base, be sure to put those in there too!

Here is an example you can follow for your comment if you aren’t a good writer, or want to format your response in a way that will be best for me to understand what you need the most help with:

“Hi Scott I am in the XYZ business, and I would love for you to write a post about how I can use social media to grow my customer base as a startup. I would also love it if you could write about how to do the same thing for the X business, Y business and the Z business.

(Insert other content you would like me to know before writing the post…The best thing you can do in this section is provide any other background information that you feel I need to know to ensure that the post I create for you is as valuable as possible.)”

So that’s it!

I really hope that you can help me help you, I look forward to your comments, and am excited to see what content I will be creating for you in the next couple of months!

P.S. If you have friends who you know will eat this post up, and need some help be sure to share it with them on facebook/twitter/G+ (The buttons are on the left) :-)

As the social web begins to grow and evolve with time, there are still companies with a loyal customer base who are not effectively leveraging the immense power of this media.

With the ability to get instantaneous feedback, viral exposure for your brand, and the freedom to create a worthwhile profitable engagement experience for your customers, a company with a loyal customer base would be crazy to not focus on using the new media.

With all of this being said, companies who want to leverage social media to grow their business fall into two specific camps.

Camp #1
You are a company who already has an established customer base, and have grown some roots in the market you are serving. You are already generating revenue, and are looking to grow into a bigger more profitable company.

Camp #2
You are a startup that doesn’t have any customers right now, and you plan on using social media as the launching platform to build a loyal customer base, and also help you virally spread your brand to other people you can serve them effectively depending on what your product is.

For this post specifically, I am going to outline the process in creating an effective social media strategy for clients who are in Camp #1.

In my next post, I will cover the process I go through for those who are in Camp #2.

You may be asking yourself why I am only focusing on Camp #1 for now. The truth is that there is not a one-size fits all solution that will serve both camps in an effective manner, because those companies in both camps are dealing with completely different issues, and have completely different goals.

Most social media experts fail to approach creating a social media strategy with these two different camps in mind, and in doing so, cause the client a lot of frustration in the process because what they recommend doesn’t bring the results the client was promised.

When creating your social media strategy, you have to think about all of the moving parts of your company, and create something that is effective, profitable and worth your time to invest activity, time and resources into.

To create an effective social media strategy if you already have a business and customer base in place, be sure to follow the guide below…

Step #1) Determine what your goals are for using social media.

Before jumping into figuring out what tools you will be using in your social media strategy implementation, along with all the other key moving parts to the puzzle, you must first take the required amount of time to figure out what your goals are.

What do you really want to accomplish by using social media? What bottom line end result do you want to create by using these powerful tools? How does the social media strategy align with the goals for the entire organization?

Here is a sentence that you can fill in the blank to help you get started with your goals.

We want (YOUR COMPANY’S) social media strategy to __________________, and ______________________.

For Example
We want The John Smith Corporation’s social media strategy to generate more loyal paying customers for our product XYZ, and further help us reach new markets that need our products that we don’t directly have access to yet. We also want our strategy to have pieces in place that help serve our current customers, and give them an opportunity to get help in a more effective way.

Step #2 – Figure out the specific tools you will use, how you will use them, and how the activities you choose to implement are connected to the entire sales and marketing process.

In this step, you will decide what tools you will be using to serve your goals, and at the same time will figure out how you will use them to achieve the results that you want to create. You must make sure that all of these are connected to your marketing and selling process somehow, so everything is in alignment, and nothing falls through the cracks.

For Example
John Smith Corporation is going to use a blog as part of their strategy, and with their blog they will put out content that will attract their customer through a search engine searching for these specific terms (term 1, term 2, term 3.) Once the visitor reads the piece of content, we want them to see banners for the products we sell on the right hand side panel, and at the bottom of the blog post.

The example above may be only one part to their social media plan. Depending on what your goals are, will depend on how many pieces and mini implementation strategies will be a part of the overall strategy.

Step #3 – Figure out the various things you will implement to engage your audience to help spread your brand’s message and products to new people that will then turn into fans, leads and ultimately customers.

Think about this step in a way where you you imagine already having all of your customers plugged into the platforms, and now you get to create specific things that you do that will engage them. The engagement that you have with them is strategically engineered in that it will then get your customers to spread your message to their friends and networks on your behalf in exchange for something else.

There are many ways to go about doing this, but there is not a one-size-fits-all solution for all companies. This is where the creativity of your social media strategist who understands marketing and the technology really pays off in the long run.

A couple of examples could be: add retweet and facebook share buttons on the blog content on your site. Create a customer referral program where only your social media fans who are customers can refer friends to you, and get a discount on their next order.

…Again the possibilities are endless.

This step will come in handy after you complete step #8 below.

Step #4 – Figure out your metrics and benchmarks.

For you to know if your social media strategy plan will be successful, you will have to determine your plan to measure the success, so 3-6 months from now you can see the improvement. Depending on what your goals are, will determine the main metrics you use to measure the success of your social media plan and strategy.

Examples
For some companies it will be the sales numbers, for others it will be the amount of qualified leads you generate that eventually turn into a sale. Another metric that may be tracked is the traffic through the website via social media channels if you are in the publishing niche.

There are many things to measure, but the key is to figure out what is important, and not important, while keeping the achievement of goals as the main focus

Step #5 – Determine the personal leveragable assets the company has at their disposal.

This part of the the social media plan will come in handy when you reach step #6 of creating your plan. I define a “Leveragable Asset” as any piece within your company’s organization that will either give you direct access to your customer base to communicate to them in a strategic way, or something that will help persuade a future prospect to do business with you.

Examples
Your customer list (addresses, phone numbers, emails, etc.), strategic partnerships with vendors suppliers and raving fans, customer testimonials, tools that you use to reach your customers (voice-blasting software), distribution of your product that will be placed on a retail shelf.

These levaragable assets will help you integrate your current customer base into the various social media platforms that you have decided to use in the implementation of your social media plan.

Step #6 – Determine what specifically needs to be changed or added into your marketing and sales process to support the integration of your social media plan and strategy.

Depending on what your goals are in your social media plan, will depend on the specific things you must have in place on your website. This also means that your physical marketing materials must be changed as well for the program to be as successful as possible.

If you have a fantastic plan, but don’t have the specific moving parts in place with them being seamlessly integrated into your entire marketing and selling process…you will just spin your wheels and not see any return on the time invested.

In certain instances, your website may have to be redesigned, and your marketing materials may have to be reprinted to integrate the various social media websites and programs you have added to your marketing mix.

Example
On your brochure you have a link to a specific place within your Facebook page that have a list of over 100 testimonials from happy satisfied customers who use your product. You know this is important to have because it creates social proof for the potential prospect you are selling, and further will give the potential customer confidence in your ability to deliver a superior product experience.

This step is probably the most crucial one of them all because those that only think that by “being on the various social media websites putting out content is enough…” need a huge reality check.

Things only work when they have been seamlessly integrated from the beginning to the end of the sales and marketing process. Those without a strategic marketing funnel in place will die a very slow death, or waste a ton of money jumping into this new media.

This is why having a key social media strategist on your team who also understands how to create and implement strategic activities in the medium to create positive marketing results on the back-end is so important.

Most social media strategists only focus on getting clients set up on the tools, without taking a detailed approach to figure out how the client will generate a positive ROI on the time and money invested in the plan they create for them. For most of them (the social media strategists,) it isn’t their fault because they just haven’t been put in the pressure-situation where they had to generate a return from the time invested in the medium.

They (most social media experts) typically justify their actions in a way where they tell the client “Your customers are there, don’t you want to be?” There is no talk about any ROI, or past proven experience, just fairy tail promises that what they will create for them will work, and that social media “isn’t really trackable to a proven ROI…but that you just have to be there because ‘everybody else is.'”

Sidenote
See my testimonial page to learn how I have helped companies (startup and businesses with a customer base dominate their market using the internet)

The key takeaway that I want you to get here is the company that integrates their social media plan the best, will generate the best results over the long term. To do this, you need someone with proven experience in generating a return with the technology to set up the strategic flow of activity and events, instead of just someone who can set up your facebook, twitter page, or blog and tell you what content you should publish.

Step #7 – Implement your plan by first plugging customers into your platforms.

After you have your platforms set up, and your marketing materials integrated with the strategy you have in place, the next step is to start integrating your current customer base into the tools, so that you can start the conversation in the medium with them.

You do this strategically with the leveragable assets that you listed in step #4.

There are many creative ways to do this, which is why having a social media strategist who understands marketing on your team is crucial. You can either hire this person as an independent contractor, or bring someone on board that understands how to do this in a way that will generate a positive result.

This process should happen over a 1-2 month period, depending on the time table you have created in the social media strategy.

Step #8 – Nurture customers and fans in the platform.

Once your customers and fans start to add themselves to the various platforms you have set up for your plan to be successful, then it is time to start engaging with them in the way that you felt would be best that you figured out in step #2.

On top of this, you should also implement the specific parts to your strategy that you figured out in step #3 to start creating the viral exposure within the medium. When your customers who are in your platforms start to engage their friends who don’t know you, and you give them an incentive to do so…that is where the magic happens with social media.

As you can see, to make “the magic” happen though…you must be strategic about it, and have the key moving parts in place with the right strategy to make it happen. Simply posting cute status updates and quotes to your twitter and facebook pages…is not enough. You must be more involved than merely posting stuff for the sake of posting stuff because that is what you see “everyone else” doing.

Step #9 – How will we generate a ROI for the time and money invested?

This step piggy backs off step #6. In step #6 you made sure that your marketing tools were in alignment with your strategy, but with step #9, it is about strategically thinking about, “How do we really generate revenue and a positive return on investment in time and capital.”

This comes down to ensuring that your marketing funnel is sound, and that you are treating the exposure and traffic within the social media platforms you use strategically, so that any and all exposure you receive in the medium creates a predictable measurable result in dollars and cents on the back-end.

I define a marketing funnel as the process by which your prospects follow a predefined marketing and sales process created by you, and in going through that process there is a reason for doing so…which usually equates to selling something in return, or to generate an interested lead to want to know more about what you sell.

The true art in creating a strategic marketing funnel in social media is that you can’t create it like you would in a traditional business. This is why again having a proven social media strategist who understands marketing on your team is crucial if you really want this to work.

Let me give you an example to further communicate what I mean so that you understand it better…

Example
In step #2 John Smith Corporation was going to launch a blog on their site, and they were anticipating that the majority of the traffic to their blog posts would come from search engines. Within the blog post on the side bar and within the content there were going to be banners for their products…and if you noticed I stopped the example there. Step #9 focuses on what happens when they click the banners and enter the 2nd phase of the marketing funnel.

The first part of the marketing funnel was getting them to the blog post, and the second part of the marketing funnel is strategically setting up the process after they click one of the banners…that normally results in something being sold, or having a lead being generated wanting more info.

In this step, think about how you are going to leverage the traffic coming into your platforms, and the engagement you will have with fans, while strategically selling them through the process in a way that they don’t mind being sold. To most website visitors, they know by clicking on banners it will typically lead them to a sales or lead generation page where they will be encouraged to buy something, or sign up for something.

This again is why you need a social media person who has a proven track record on your team, if you really want to dominate your market using the social media channel. They will know how to think like this so that your front end social media processes don’t come off as “spammy,” but will also be set up in a way that once people are plugged into your platforms, the sales process you take your customers, leads and fans though will be set up in a way where the customers/prospects don’t mind being sold in the fashion that you have set up for them to consume the marketing messages.

Step #10 – What are the specific focused actions you will take on a daily and weekly basis to make your goals a reality?

This step piggy backs off of the work that you did in step #2. In step two you figured out what tools you would use and how you would use them.

In this step you want to drill your activities down to bite sized chunks that you can stick to actively executing each and every day throughout the week.

Rather than try to explain it to you, I am going to give you an example.

Example
In step #2 one of the things you put down was this sentence: “create a twitter account and post quotes, pieces of content relevant to my audience, and links to company videos.”

With this statement you have to drill down to figure out, what days during the week will you do this, and at what time of day?

So taking that all down you come up with this…

I will put out tweets two times per day from Monday through Friday in the morning and afternoon, and will post a video to twitter once per week via YouTube on Wednesday as a third tweet. The video content will be something valuable for our audience with a subtle call to action to check out more information about our products at the end. We will make the video on Monday, edit it on Tuesday, publish it to YouTube on Wednesday, and after it has finished uploading to YouTube we will tweet it out during the middle of the day (on Wednesday.)

The paragraph above will queue specific actions you can put into your calendar or planning mechanism during the week so that you ensure that nothing falls through the cracks, and so that you stay consistent with your activity in actively engaging and listening to your customer and fan base!

This again is why you need a proven social media strategist who understands marketing who can think like this for you, and even help you implement it over time to reach the goals that you determined in step #1.

Step #11 – Create and come up with other one-time marketing tactics to implement after everything above is in place and complete.

This is the step that takes everything to the 3rd level of your marketing and social media plan.

The first level is first getting your customers plugged into the platforms you are using.

The second level is getting your customers to push people who are not already customers to you.

The third and final level is using tactics and marketing strategies that start to approach the cold market in a way that works best with you.

Here are the various examples below.

Examples
TV Ads, Radio Ads, Magazine Ads, (Any Other Ad), Blog Reviews, Sponsorships…etc

This will be the “cherry on top” to your entire marketing plan. By implementing these various strategies and tactics, your new fans generated from these activities will enter into your entire funnel at step #8 (The nurturing and engaging part.)

This creates a closed marketing loop and the ultimate leverage in successfully implementing your social media plan.

This process shouldn’t happen until month 6 or later, but it is important that you create it now with the flexibility to change it later.

Step #12 – How will you exactly measurement and analyze results?

The final step to creating your social media strategy if you already have a customer base is to use the right tools to measure and track your activity

Depending on what you are tracking in step #4 will depend what you use to track the effectiveness of your campaign over the lifetime that you use the tools.

Most companies use google analytics for traffic and site behavior, and also use their shopping cart software to track sales.

Depending on the size of your company, will depend on the metrics you use to determine if your social media strategy is working or not.

Summary

As you can see, when creating a social media plan that generates results…it is more than just creating a twitter page, facebook page, and blog and posting content to them. This is a very involved process that you shouldn’t go down, unless you are truly committed to making the right changes that will yield the bottom line business results.

In simple terms you can’t half-ass it.

You have to either go all-in, or not go in at all.

Those companies with an already loyal customer base have an advantage to those who are just starting a company and using social media to launch it. I will go more into detail with this in my next post addressing the very same issue of creating a strategy for companies who don’t have a customer base.

In the end, if you want the best results, you want to hire the best people to create and implement it for you. If the people you are talking to are only focusing on helping you “increase twitter followers,” or “increasing Facebook fan base numbers,” turn the other way and run as fast as you can.

As someone who takes pride in helping companies and organizations follow this process that I have laid out above, I have helped various organizations create and implement plans that generate bottom-line-business oriented results.

If you are interested in potentially working together, and want to learn more about who I have worked with, and how I have helped them, please feel free to see my list of testimonials.

If those resonate with you, and you would like to talk further, please feel free to send me an e-mail to contact[at]scottbradley[dot]name.

I look forward to serving you, and hope that this post brought you some valuable insight and guidance if you are ready to either jump into the social media game for the first time, or already have a strategy in place that you know now needs to be fixed or modified.

As an entrepreneur and marketer, it is key that you know how to create effective advertisements that generate results.

Knowing how to create an effective advertisement takes time, but with practice it becomes easier and easier.

The key to creating an effective advertisement is by asking yourself the right questions beforehand, so that you are able to position the advertisement effectively in the specific medium that you are placing the ad in.

Below are the list of questions I ask myself before writing an ad that will be beneficial for you to use when creating your next marketing campaign.

1) What is the number one pain point of the audience this ad will be going to? (This helps you figure out the lead focus for the ad, so it garners the most attention.)

2) Where will this advertisement be placed? (This helps you format the ad.)

3) What is the format of the advertisement, and what rules do we need to follow to create it? (e.g. is this a Google adwords ad, or a Facebook ad?)

4) After the prospect clicks or sees the advertisement, what specific process will they be taken through? (This info helps you position the ad.)

5) What is the overall target market that will see this ad, and psychgraphically where will they be before they see the advertisement? (This info helps you include key persuasive factors in the ad.)

With this information in hand, it will allow you to craft the most effective ad possible.

When creating advertisements, I tend to focus on creating different variations of the same ad for testing and tracking purposes.

As a marketer you rarely if ever get it right on the first shot, which is why testing various creative elements in your ad is essential to create an effective advertising campaign!

If you need help creating effective advertisements, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me! I am here to serve.

Do you ask yourself any other questions before writing an ad? If so, please feel free to share them in the comments below!

Coming up with business ideas is an art in itself.

Not only do you have to think about what you are going to sell a hungry market, but more so, to come to that conclusion, you have to focus on looking at all the appropriate conditions in the marketplace before dedicating time and money to your venture.

I created this infographic below to help you come up with an effective entrepreneurial idea that will be successful in the marketplace.

Again – it takes a lot of thinking, but this infographic should serve as an initial roadmap to help you get started.

To Access the graphic click the image below to see the full size image.

If you have trouble zooming into the image to read the text on the next page, you can also download the PDF which allows you to zoom in better.

Click Here To Access The PDF image.

Please leave your comments below with your thoughts! I look forward to the discussion :).

Have you ever asked yourself these very important questions about your business?

Question #1
Why are people buying/using my product? (What need/want/desire is it fulfilling…)

Question #2
How are the people that are buying/using my product initially finding out about my product?

Question #3
What specifically is making these people buy my product after they find out about it? (reasons, justifications, emotions, proof, past stories)

If you have never asked yourself these questions before, take 30 seconds right now and write down what you think the answers are for your current business venture. Be as specific as possible. You will see why this is important as you read this post.

How and Why I Came Up With These Questions This Morning

When I woke up this morning, this very specific question hit me like a ton of bricks…

“What makes people buy my products/services, and how can I effectively use my marketing dollars to reach my market at the right time, so that when they are exposed to my offer they are in the frame of mind where it will be a no brainier for them to purchase and/or seek out more information about what I am offering?”

My motives for asking myself this question this morning were simple.

1) I only want to only use my marketing dollars in a way where I generate a positive return on my marketing spend.
2) I want to attract the right customers, who really need what I am selling.
3) I don’t want to expose my offer to people who will never be interested in what I am selling.

Do you have the same motivations as I do?

I thought so!

Now, with this in mind consider this…

Successful People Ask Themselves The Right Questions

Have you ever noticed that most successful people you meet focus on asking themselves the right questions, to help them figure out the things they don’t know, so that they can continue making progress in their personal and business life?

As I am sure you have probably heard before, success leaves clues, and on my personal journey this is one clue I have learned after being around many successful people.

Here is one example of this…

If you have read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, you will remember in his book that he says most people see something they want to buy, but don’t have the funds to buy it in that moment. Most think to themselves in that moment, “I can’t afford it.”

When they say that to themselves, it immediately shuts down the thought process in their mind, and they move on to the next thing.

Robert personally approaches this same scenario in a completely different way. He mentions in his book that when he sees something he wants to buy, but he can’t afford it in the moment instead of thinking to himself, “I can’t afford it,” he instead asks himself the question, “How can I afford it?”

By starting the question with the word “How” it opens his mind up to find a solution to the question he posed to his brain. Even though in the moment he may not know the answer, his brain will go to work on how to make it possible so he can purchase what he can’t buy right now.

How Does This Thinking Help Me Market and Sell My Product?

Ok, now take what you read above one step further and dive deeper with me because there is a key distinction that I want to make sure you grasp, so that you can absorb this key distinction and start using it to guide you in implementing effective marketing that generates better results in your business.

The KEY distinction…(How to think so that you can create a strategically implementable plan)

By asking yourself the three key questions about your business at the beginning of this post, the details and answers you flush out for each question will help you strategically come up with HOW and WHERE you will position your products and advertisements in the marketplace, so that when your ideal prospect needs/wants what you sell, and/or hears your advertisement in a specific media at a specific moment in time, they will be most likely take action by purchasing your product or service in that given moment and/or at your desirable time in the future.

I know that was a detailed paragraph, so read it again and really take the time to grasp each moving part within it to fully grasp and understand what I am saying.

If it still isn’t clear for you, let me work through an example with you…

I am going to answer the three questions at the beginning of this post for someone who sells information about how to be more effective when growing a garden in your backyard.

Question #1: Why are people buying or using my product? (What need/want/desire is it fulfilling)

Answer: People want to learn how to grow a garden in their backyard, and in doing so have enough fruits and vegetables throughout the year on hand, so they don’t have to go to the store to buy them.

(This may or may not be true…only you will know the true answer to why people are buying your product…and if you don’t know this information, ASK THEM!)

Question #2: How are the people that are buying/using my product initially finding out about my product?

Answer: Customers found out about my product because I am running a google adwords campaign for the keyword “gardening tips,” people are clicking my ad and dropping onto my sales page where the product is for sale. I also know that people have purchased the product based on their other gardening friends recommending it to them via phone calls, and through conversations within facebook and twitter in gardening groups discussion forums and blogs.

(This marketing tactic (google adwords) may or may not be effective in this niche, I am just using this as an example to show you how I am thinking about this. If you have more than one marketing channel you are using, be sure that you are tracking each channels effectiveness, so you are able to know, what is working, and what isn’t in converting traffic to sales.)

Question #3: What specifically is making these people buy my product after they find out about it? (reasons, justifications, emotions, proof, past stories)

Answer: I have successfully grown my garden in the past, and my information has gotten results for other people that have used the product. My sales copy is meeting them in the frame of mind where they are already searching for gardening tips and because I offer a 30 day money back guarantee on the information, there is no risk for them to purchase the product. One other thing I know about why people are buying my product after learning about it is because I have a support staff on hand to answer any question the person may have.

(Again this is just for illustration purposes and this may or may not be right. If you don’t know ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS! The key for you with this simple example is to see where I am going with this so you can take this way of thinking and integrate it into your own business.)

Based on what you discover throughout this process, it will show you the massive opportunities you aren’t taking advantage of, and further will illustrate clearly to you where you are completely wasting your marketing dollars.

Make sense?

How To Take Question #2 One Step Further To Make Your Marketing More Effective in Generating Results (Time To Dive Even Deeper)

When it is time to tackle question #2, this is where you will take everything in this post and take it one step further. The question beyond the question you need to ask yourself to help you come up with the effective way to strategically spend your money with marketing is as follows.

The Golden Question…

Where specifically is my market (mentally and psychographically) when they realize they need the product I am offering (but don’t know I exist yet), and what specific media channels can I position myself in so that when they have the need/desire/want, I come up front and center when they actively seek out the solution to their problem/need/desire?

Sit and think about this for a second before moving on. Where are you currently positioned, and are the right prospects finding you?

Now there are a couple things to consider when diving deeper with this question…

1) There may be a chance that the person has heard about you before in another medium, but at the time they didn’t need/want what you were selling…in this case, make sure you are in the places that you know people search to find you so that you can be positioned accordingly in a way where when they see your ads they say to themselves, “I remember hearing that name before from a friend, or from a past ad.”

2) If the person hasn’t heard about your business or products before, you have to make sure that your ads are effective as possible to convert the traffic when they first see you, and also positioned in the most effective place above your competitors so that they choose you, instead of choosing one of your competitors.

3) There are also a number of other variables to consider with this question, which involves your active and reactive ways of marketing…which is covered in the two sections below.

Expanding on Question #2 To The Outer Limits of The Concept

Below is a list of specific ways people are finding out about products and services in the current world we live in. Although there are probably more, these are the most well known ways people are learning about products and services. This section of the blog post has been created to get you thinking about various things you can do to get better results in your marketing.

What Ignites The Desire Within Someone in Your Market To Buy Your Product, and Where and How Do They Find You?

Key:
Reactive Marketing –> This marketing happens without your ability to control it (normally a result of creating something the market loves)

Proactive Marketing –> You actively trying to get people to buy by placing ads, or doing something active to inspire people to buy.

The List

1) They see your product being used by someone else, and after seeing and using it they want it for themselves (e.g. iPhone) (Location: Physical world) (Action: Reactive Marketing)

2) They see or hear your product advertised on the radio or TV without any prior knowledge of it (Location: Car/Home)(Action: Proactive Marketing)

3) They see your product advertised in the Sunday circular ads (Location: Home)(Action: Proactive Marketing)

4) They start searching for solutions to their problem using the internet search engines (e.g. Need help making more money)(Location: Home/Smart Phone/Tablet)(Action: Proactive and Reactive Marketing)

5) They see a conversation about your product within social media (Location: Home/Smart Phone/Tablet)(Action: Reactive Marketing)

6) They talk to a friend about what they are struggling with, and the friend gives them a recommendation (Location: Anywhere)(Action: Reactive Marketing)

7) They know what they need because of their prior knowledge of using it before, then they search for that thing or place or service (e.g. Plumber)(Location: Home/Internet)(Action: Proactive and Reactive Marketing)

8) They hear about your product because of a radio or tv segment within the show. (e.g. Today show covers fun cooking tools)(Location: Home/Tablets)(Action: Proactive Marketing)

9) Something happens to them, forcing them to look for something, but they don’t exactly know what the solution is. (e.g. They lose their job)(Location: Home/Internet/Referrals)(Action: Reactive Marketing)

10) They walk through a store, or the mall and find out about it with a display or free samples if it is a food product. (Location: In retail location)(Action: Proactive and Reactive Marketing)

11) They know what they need and ask a friend for a referral. (e.g. Doctor)(Location: anywhere)(Action: Reactive Marketing)

12) They find out about your product or location through a Groupon-Like coupon buying website. (e.g. Yoga Studio)(Location: Internet)(Action: Proactive/Reactive Marketing)

13) They read a blog post written by someone in your company, and find it searching for keywords in Google. (e.g. lose weight)(Location: Internet)(Action: Reactive Marketing)

14) They find out about you and your products in a forum. (Location: Internet)(Action: Reactive Marketing)

15) They get a direct mail piece from you (Location: House/Work)(Action: Proactive Marketing)

There are obviously many more…these are here just to get you thinking in a different way about your marketing, so that you can make it more effective.

The Most Important Takeaways You Can Get From This Post

I know I have covered a lot in this post, but when it comes down to it, the key points I am trying to get across are as follows…

KEY POINT: Focus on where your market mentally is when they need/want/desire your product first, so that you can strategically meet them where they are with the right message, the right media, at the right time so you can experience a greater success at converting them into a customer of your product or service at the time they need you most.

KEY POINT: By living in your prospects shoes, and strategically thinking about what you would do, if you were experiencing the pain and frustration your prospect faces before they find out about your product, the more effective you will be in creating marketing that works, and further will be able to place marketing advertisements in strategic places in so much that you are able to effectively convert the traffic to your ads into product purchasers and life-long customers.

KEY POINT: Make your proactive marketing initiatives create reactive marketing results. (Create a strategic snowball that gets bigger as it rolls down the hill faster).

Please feel free to leave your comments below. I look forward to the discussion! :)

If you are an entrepreneur who wants to get your advertisements in front of your target audience, Facebook ads are an effective way to do this for many reasons. If you have considered Facebook advertising in the past, but weren’t sure if it was worth it or not, this article is for you.

1. Super Targeted Ads

Facebook gives you the ability to target your ads in a way that allows you to touch everyone on Facebook who fits your target market’s criteria.

You can choose to target people based on their demographic information, what the like, what they read, people that they enjoy following, activities they enjoy participating in, and so much more.

By being able to effectively target your audience, you get a higher click through rate, better conversions, and achieve a better ROI on your ads, compared to other mass marketing advertisements you may have placed in the past.

With higher click through rates, you also pay a lower cost per click!

2. Easily Control Your Budget

Facebook makes it incredibly easy to control your budget when buying facebook ads. They give you the option to pay for your ads on a cost per click, or cost per thousand impressions basis, and also give you the ability to start and stop campaigns with a simple click of a button. You can also set a targeted daily budget so you are never spending too much or too little depending on your marketing needs.

When starting your campaign, it is always better to select the cost per click option so you know what to expect for a click through rate. The only time you would want to switch over to purchasing your ads on a cost per thousand impressions model is if your cost per click is less than your cost per thousand cost.

3. Amazing Feedback on Ads

The analytics in the back office of your campaign are really helpful, and are only getting better and better as Facebook makes buying Facebook ads easier for everybody. Being able to see the analytics of your campaigns, allows you to create more effective campaigns in the future.

It is fun seeing what happened after you did a campaign because you get to measure your initial expectations, compared to what really happened.

In summary, Facebook ads are a fantastic way to reach your audience to sell your products and services to. Before doing Facebook ads, it is key that you have the proper training though, or else you may make some rookie mistakes that will end up costing you a lot of time and money.

Because I don’t want that to happen to you…

I have put together a class designed to help you get the information you need to put together effective Facebook marketing campaigns. To learn more about this class please click here to visit the site that will tell you more about it!

Last week I sat down with my friends Laura Rubinstein and Kathryn Rose to talk about their brand new company Social Buzz Club.

Kathryn and Laura have created an innovative marketing platform for social media professionals and marketers to leverage for themselves and their clients to drive more traffic through websites and specific offers using a reciprocity based sharing platform that connects social media professionals and marketers together.

Here are just some of the benefits of using this tool in your business…

With the Social Buzz Club you will…
1. Connect with hundred of influential social media networkers who will explode your visibility and credibility
2. Multiply the traffic to your websites by leveraging the win/win sharing environment
3. Receive public endorsements by key industry leaders who have a strong following and positive reputation
4. Position yourself as an expert in your field
5. Substantially increase visibility for you and your client’s blogs, websites, coupons, tips, videos and more

I am really excited about this tool, and after hearing more about it I am sure you will too. Be sure to take some time to listen to the interview that I did with them, and watch the videos below to learn more about how you can leverage this tool for yourself and your clients.

Click Here To Listen To The Interview About This Awesome Tool

Below you will find two videos that explain more about this amazing tool, and will learn how it will benefit you as a marketer and professional.

Get a free 60 DAY trial account to test out the system yourself by going to Social Buzz Club(Non-Affiliate Link).