MDS Resource — Digital Ad Agency

Tag: sales leads

Online Reputation Repair Can Be Avoided By Effective Online Reviews and Reputation Management
Do You Know What People Are Saying About Your Business Online?
What Is Online Reputation Management?
Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of Online Reputation Management:
Online reputation management is the act of monitoring, addressing or mitigating search engine result pages or mentions in online media and Web sphere content. It primarily involves tracking what is written about a client on the Internet, then utilizing sophisticated online and offline techniques in promoting positive and neutral content, while at the same time pushing down those links the sponsor may not want to show when their name is searched.
Did you know the 2011 “Social Shopping Study” indicates that 50% of consumers spend 75% or more of their total shopping time conducting online product research? Furthermore:
- 92% of Adult Buyers Regularly Check Online Reviews Before Purchasing
- 70% of Consumers Trust Other Consumers’ Opinions That Are Posted Online
Why Is Online Reputation Management Important?
Marketing local business online flourishes because the whole world is coming online, too.
1. Your prospects are online
2. Your competitors are online
3. Your customers are online
4. That includes your unhappy customers, too!
The Internet Has Changed Everything !?!?
Local small business marketing has benefited in so many ways from the Internet. However, the online universe has also empowered consumers.
- Before the Internet, businesses delivered their messages to consumers via one-way communication channels that they controlled (think – TV commercials)
- Business NO longer completely control their message!
- Thanks to the Internet, everyone comments on business messages via blogs, social media, customer reviews, etc.
What Are People Saying About Your Business?
Your company’s online reputation is being discussed:
1. By former employees
2. By bloggers
3. On forums
4. On social media
5. In customer reviews
Online Reputation Is Crucial For The BIG BOYS, Too!
Don’t believe me? Google the company names for which these all too common
namesakes sprang up:
- www.walmartsucks.org
- www.homedepotsucks.com
What Are The Negative Effects Of A Bad Online Reputation?
1. Bad customer experience
2. Unresolved customer issues
3. Bad reputation
4. Lost revenue
What Can Happen If You Don’t Repair Your Tarnished Online Reputation?
Internet marketing for small business needs every advantage possible to succeed. A tarnished name puts you at great risk.
1. You could lose existing customers
2. New customers may be difficult to find
3. Your business can suffer financial loss
4. You could go out of business!
What Happens When You Repair & Defend Good Reputation?
1. Your positive good online reputation stands out from the crowd
2. You will retain existing customers
3. You will get new customers easily
4. Your positive brand image will be credible & authoritative!
How To Maintain Your Online Reputation
Marketing your business online is about building and nourishing relatinships. So, too, is reputation management.
1. Be proactive instead of reactive
2. Monitor online conversations about your business
3. Respond and interact with consumers online
4. Regularly create and distribute positive content
What Are The Benefits Of Actively Seeking Online Reviews?
Actively seeking online reviews from satisfied customers is certain to:
- Boost conversions, and
- Provide feedback about your product or service
Consumers trust and expect online reviews and, seeing them, will gravitate to your business.
How To Get Customer Reviews To Build Or Repair Reputation
Referrals and new sales leads continue to be your ultimate goal. What better way to build social proof than to ask for a review?
1. Survey all of your customers for feedback all of the time
2. Offer incentives in exchange for reviews (e.g., coupons, discounts, free samples)
3. Ask customers to review products by placing calls-to-action on your product pages
4. Send customers to your business listings on Google Places, Yelp, CitySearch, etc.
5. Link your business listing profiles to your website
Always Create Positive, Branded Content To Promote Reputation!
Flood the first search engine results pages with positive, branded content:
- Your well-ranked website must be the first result for your company name
- On-going search engine optimization (SEO) for all of your webpages
- Videos, press releases, photos, articles, etc. promoting your good name
- Tips, tools, helpful tutorials & other useful content for your visitors
Monitor Online Conversations For The First Line Of Reputation Defense
Find out what people are saying about your business:
- Do a Google search for your business name …
- What do you find when you search for you?
- Check articles, blogs, forums & customer review sites
- Frequently check your own blog & website for comments
- Pay close attention to the social network sites
Reputation Repair Requires Response & Interaction
1. Listen to what people are saying
2. Be respectful
3. Display a helpful & friendly demeanor
4. Respond to both positive and negative comments
5. Always quickly offer solutions to problems
Why Respond & Interact To Fix Online Reputations?
- It builds relationships
- It allows you to actively manage & control your brand
- It allows other people to see your point of view
- It shows that you care
You do care, don’t you?
How To Repair Your Reputation
Do you already have negative online comments and reviews?
1. Make brand optimization your main focus
2. Use SEO to drive negativity further down the SERP’s
3. Create and publish videos, press releases & articles
4. Create a blog — regularly publish fresh & unique content
5. Engage in social media to build a loyal & eager following
How to Improve & Fix Your Online Reputation
1. Ask for negative reviews to be removed
2. Promptly address issues
3. Don’t ignore unhappy customers
4. Don’t argue with customers
5. Know when to walk away
6. You cannot please everyone!
Call Now
Answer Reputation Management Questions: 612-235-6060
1 June 2012
Give Me Search Engine Optimization And I’ll Give You Targeted Sales Leads
Tweet
Targeted Sales Leads Are The Goal Of SEO
I talk with a lot of business owners and executives. One of the biggest problems I’ve been hearing is the dearth of targeted sales leads. There are, of course, plenty of books written on just this subject. Some will say, buying leads is the way to go. Others will say that success comes only through referrals. Lately we’re hearing about the Internet being a bountiful source of qualified leads.
Targeted Sales Leads Are On The Internet
The Internet is a big place. How do you go about finding sales leads on the Internet; or, rather, how do targeted leads go about finding you and your company? We’ve touched on this before: the Internet, in a sense, is an enormous library and search engines are its card catalogs. As we learn to search and find what we want on the Internet — when we want it — we respond less and less to offline media. How, then, can you be found by these eager buyers on the Internet?
Do You Need Targeted Sales Leads?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a tactic the goal of which is to get more business and more customers. Filling your sale funnel with sales leads is a marketing strategy accomplished online by three tasks:
1. Be found by search engines
2. Be found on 1st search engine results page
3. Maximize the number of website visitors
What Are The Requirements For Targeted Sales Leads?
Of course, nobody can know your business better than you. In order to attract targeted sales leads, we must understand the products and services you sell. Furthermore, your unique selling proposition allows prospects to see the difference between you and your competition. Who is your very best customer? Why do best customers stay with your company? We must identify your buyer personas before you can use the keywords that your best buyers actually use to search for you.
SEO Benefits Targeted Sales Leads
For many, that is a lot of work, especially all of this thinking about your business from your customer’s point of view. Why go to all this bother? Google recently remarked that every day four billion searches are conducted, one billion of which seek something local to buy. Done right, SEO benefits you in several ways:
- Search engines respect your website and place it on the first search results page for specific keywords.
- People searching for specific keywords will find your website on the first search results page.
- Being found by more searchers, more visitors will visit your website.
- More people visiting your website could translate into new business.
- Organizing your website to better be found makes your website more interesting to visitors.
- Organization of web pages and content to better be found makes your website more interesting to visitors.
SEO Deliverables Result In Targeted Sales Leads
Whether you do your SEO yourself or pay somebody to do it for you, you’re hoping for more customers, aren’t you? SEO sits on the marketing side of business and can deliver the following:
- A defined service area by which to be found in local business results;
- A manageable list of keywords and phrases for which great prospects are actually searching;
- Distribution of keywords by web page, focus and intent;
- Organization of web pages by intent, theme and relevance;
- Every web page detailed by keywords, title, headers, descriptions and service area; and
- Solid foundation and flexible design for ongoing and growing first page search engine exposure.
Some SEO Expectations Are Targeted Sales Leads
Although black hat wizardry may fool search engines quickly, the history of search engine algorithm changes indicates that these tactics are short lived tactics and not strategic. Following sound relationship marketing principles, your online properties will attract great customers and steadily build great new business over time. The time factor must not be underestimated and optimal progress may not be appreciated before three to six months. Some keywords are more competitive than others and will take longer to show first page search engine results. Competitors want first page search engine results, too, and some competition will slow your website progress.
Targeted Sales Leads Are The Goal Of SEO
Being found is not enough; nor is being found by a lot of people. Being found by enough of the right people is the only true success in marketing, regardless of medium. Success is more a function of converting great leads into great customers than it is in simply attracting large numbers of random visitors to your website. Targeted sales leads, then, are the ultimate goal of search engine optimization.
Call Now
Answer Targeted Sales Leads Questions: 612-235-6060
12 April 2011
How Inbound Marketing Attracts New Sales Leads And You Give Them What They Want
New Sales Leads Are Looking For You
New sales leads, I am told, are the bane of small business today. Or, shall I say, there is a dearth of new sales leads everywhere struggling business looks. To what do we owe this sparsity? I talk with a lot of business owners. Lately, the two biggest problems I hear are too few targeted sales leads and poor return on advertising investments. Do either of these ring true with you?
How Rare Are New Sales Leads?
Was it always this way? Most business owners tell me, “No, in better times customers were plentiful.” Is this only a matter of good times versus bad times? They tell me that not too many years ago, new customers found them in the yellow pages and called for an appointment. New customers read a newspaper ad and came through their door ready to buy. New customers used to answer the telemarketer’s call eager to give up their credit card number. Really?
Did The Internet Destroy New Sales Leads?
Some bemoan the Internet. “The Internet is a scam!” they tell me. “There are so many hooligans out there selling Google salvation.” OK, now we’re getting somewhere. It’s true, Google is not in business to give you customers. Google is in business to make money and lots of money they are making. Their best customers, however, are not you and me, business owners, and not you and me, website owners. Google’s best customers are advertisers who pay Google to place their ads where eager shoppers will find them, click on them and see what they have to offer.
Does Google Eat New Sales Leads?
Why, then, is Google so large, so dominant and everywhere we look nowadays? They are in our smartphones. They are renting out commercial movies and competing with broadcast media. They are developing a driverless car. But, clearly, they started on the Internet and the Internet is the foundation on which they built this behemoth. Why? The Internet is where consumers have migrated. Yes, those consumers not flipping through yellow pages, those consumers not calling the classified ads, those consumers not answering their phones — those consumers are on the Internet. Eager shoppers are scouring the Internet to buy today’s whim. And they’re telling their friends and family what they found.
New Sales Leads Respond To Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing takes advantage of the Internet and the sea of shoppers there. Anticipate eager shoppers searching for what you offer. Identify the best of these shoppers, identify that most interesting of your offering and place your virtual kiosk directly in their path. Instead of intruding into their lives shrieking “Buy me!” and “Give me money!” demonstrate to them what you have to help them. Offer your visitors some token of your expertise with no strings attached. Show them that, indeed, sometimes lunch is free. New sales leads like that.
Can New Sales Leads Can Find You?
Inbound marketing success is predicated on three things:
1. Be found! Until you are found there is no chance new sales leads will come to you.
2. Be found by enough people. It’s truly unlikely that you will sell all of your prospects today. Some will buy, some will not and others may buy another day.
3. Be found by enough of the right people. At any given instant, some percent of the world is looking to purchase what you have to offer. Regardless the number, these are your prospects — nobody else. How likely are you to persuade a diaper shopper or diner looking for great Chinese food to open their wallets to you?
New Sales Leads Are Looking For You
Are new sales leads the bane of small business today? To what do we owe this sparsity? Many business owners say, “In better times customers were plentiful.” The problem is you are looking in the wrong places. Worse, your best prospects are looking for you and you’re nowhere they are looking. Inbound marketing attracts new sales leads and you can give them what they want.
Call Now
Answer New Sales Leads Questions: 612-235-6060
14 March 2011
Secrets Of Targeted Sales Leads Reside In Your Buyer Personae’s Eyes
Targeted Sales Leads Are Real People
I talk with a lot of business owners every week. One of the biggest problems I’m hearing over and over is too few targeted sales leads. We’re all facing extreme challenges in these trying times. Bottom line, there’s little going down that wouldn’t pale in light of simply finding more business. So long as we’re seeking more customers, why not aim for targeted sales leads?
Targeted Sales Leads Seek Benefits
First, we need to focus clearly on the best possible target. We’ve all had customers who gave us so much grief, never meeting another might itself be success. Why take on more troublesome customers? Remember, instead, the best customer you have ever had. You know, she came to you with the perfect problem, you proposed the perfect solution and she asked to become your perfect customer. Describe in minute detail the persona of your best customer. Profiling your buyer persona includes gathering many facets of her personality, background, daily activities and current solutions for her problems. Seeking a solution to her problem, knowing the solution, you have what benefits her. What’s in it for her? You.
Buyer Personae Represent Targeted Sales Leads
Start by seeing every interpersonal interaction with a prospect, whether on-line or in-person, as an opportunity to listen and identify patterns. Really knowing how buyers think, what matters to them and where they are when they’re ready to buy, you no longer guess what to say, where and how to communicate with them. Have you ever noticed how much simpler and effective it is to listen before you talk to prospects? They will tell you just how bad their problem is. They will describe in great detail just how valuable the solution to that problem is. Indeed, they will tell you how long they’ll endure the problem and when and under what conditions they will buy the solution. Profiling buyer personae gives you a prime opportunity to truly empathize with target sales leads.
See Through Targeted Sales Leads Eyes
Stop promoting a product and see through buyers’ eyes, see clearly the circumstances driving their decision process. A buyer persona is a person, a short biography of whom describes your best targeted sales leads, not just their job description. Break all of your buyers into distinct groups. Catalog everything you know about each of your best customers. Buyer personae make it easier to create content targeted to important demographics.
Targeted Sales Leads Are Real People
High quality, relevant online content is the best and most effective way to communicate with and persuade targeted sales leads. Remembering that great customers are also real people, with real people problems, ought to simplify your side of the conversation. Simpler, though, only inasmuch as your audience is truly in need of what you offer. An archetype of your ideal buyer is a buyer persona, an example buyer representing a real audience, an audience eager to listen to you the more they need what you offer.
Be Found By Targeted Sales Leads
I talk with several business owners every day and I’m hearing over and over that too few targeted sales leads is a major concern. Bottom line, there’s little going down that wouldn’t pale in light of simply finding more business. If we’re truly seeking more customers, why not aim for targeted sales lead? By describing your buyer personae in great detail, you paint a clear picture of exactly who really needs what you offer. Anticipate eager buyers shopping for exactly what you offer and you can place yourself in front of them everywhere they look. Sufficient targeted sales leads are as simple as knowing who they are and be found where they are looking.
Call Now
Answer Your Targeted Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
24 February 2011
How Targeted Sales Leads Made Me Realize Who Are My Best Customers And Why They Do Business With Me
When Would Targeted Sales Leads Want To Be Pain Free?
Targeted sales leads are critical to your business. During hard times wasted time is far more expensive than during easy times. Right now, you need to know who among your prospects will further your goals of prosperity. Your problem is deciding with whom to spend your sales time. How can you simplify this essential process? Here are five questions you must answer to quench your dearth of targeted sales leads:
Targeted Sales Leads Are Your Buyer Personae
1. Who are your buyer personae? The biggest problem with business owners is that too often they focus on the wrong thing. Close your eyes and imagine the very best customer you have. You know, she came to you out of the blue, she’s loved everything you’ve done for you and she’s referred other customers to you, too. Think about this carefully. If you had ten more customers just like Lisa, what difference will that make in your bottom line? Why, then, are you laboring so long and hard on Tim whom you begged to buy, he’s always demanding order changes and he hasn’t had a good comment about you to anybody ever?
Targeted Sales Leads Are In Pain
1. Where is the biggest pain of your best buyers? I don’t know about you, but as I learn to search and find what I want on the Internet — when i want it — I respond less and less to offline media. When I have a problem I search for a solution. When I’m in pain I seek relief. At that moment I’m searching, I’m no more interested in features than advantages. Show me something that benefits me, that solves my problem, and I’m interested in you. When I’m an eager buyer and you’re my pain relief, I’m prepared to buy from you.
Targeted Sales Leads Value Pain Relief
1. What are the consequences of no pain relief? It’s true. You and your prospect may not be in the right place at the right time. Your company is not a great fit for every prospect. Not everybody is suitable to your business model. In fact, nobody cares about your business — except you. You, however, have the solution to their problem. If they do not buy from you now, the pain remains. Address that pain. Sometimes the problem is inconvenient, but not painful enough … yet.
Do Targeted Sales Leads Need You?
1. Why do they need what you have? Once you identify five or seven compelling reasons for your prospect to alleviate their pain, the rest are mostly terms. Do they see you as pain relief? How are your conversations going? Are they comfortable confiding in you? Become a trusted authority and confidant and targeted sales leads will come to need you. Every relationship begins with a single conversation. The secret to business success is to parlay each new conversation into a succession of conversations, eventually converting your best prospects into great customers.
When Would Targeted Sales Leads Want To Be Pain Free?
1. When would they like pain relief? Hence, the crux of the matter. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make her drink. Everybody follows their own clock and their timing many not be yours. Nurture them, give them free advice and information, keep their interest and they will follow you until they buy. Once they see you as the solution, all that is left to decide is time. When the consequences to delaying pain relief are small, they will wait. Again, your matter is holding their attention and building great customers.
Value Your Targeted Sales Leads
There’s little doubt that targeted sales leads are critical to your business. During hard times you cannot afford to waste your time chasing poor prospects. Dead end leads have no value to you nor your business. Your problem is deciding with whom to spend your sales time. Targeted sales leads simplify this essential process.
Call Now
Answer Your Targeted Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
11 February 2011
Ten Ways Local Small Business Marketing Will Drive Eager Buyers To Your Door Day In And Day Out
The Price Is Right For Local Small Business Marketing
As if succeeding at small business weren’t hard enough simply making ends meet, local small business marketing can be quite perplexing, too. When you’re small, so is your budget. Eager buyers are shopping for solutions to their perplexing problems. So, where are they if they’re not here in your office? Here are ten local small business marketing tips to attract their attention.
Buyer Personae Love Local Small Business Marketing
1. Know your buyer personae. Who is your very best customer? Who is she? What does she do for a living? Where does she live, hang out and shop for groceries? How will she know the best solution to her problem? When you know your best customers exceptionally well, exceptional customers will come to you.
2. When you know your best customers, it’s little wonder that pleasing them, too, is so much easier. One size never fits all. When you’re shipping to customers perfectly suited to your products and services, meeting and exceeding expectations is the norm. Match your offering to those who need it most and you’re guaranteed to-die-for word of mouth accolades for your local small business marketing.
3. Regardless your small, medium or large company, networking is at the center of gathering targeted sales leads. Your local chamber of commerce is the logical first step out in your community. Who knows better what your business needs to succeed than other successful business leaders in your neighborhood? Sharing local referrals with them logically leads to reciprocal business.
4. In the online world, LinkedIn.com is the world’s largest professional network. It has numerous groups and categories with local focus eagerly seeking local solutions. Best of all, every Fortune 500 company’s executive management is represented on LinkedIn. Prospecting is as simple as participating in groups where local prospects hang out online.
5. Apparently, Social Media is here to stay. Facebook, for example, is the third largest country in the world and its membership has twice the population of America. Keep your business page up-to-date with events, new offerings and encourage your customers to contribute opinions and share referrals online.
6. Twitter is a mystery to many small business owners. How much can be said in 140 characters? The key is listening, listening and more listening. However, when you hear somebody comment on you and your brand you need to respond. Give thanks for kind comments. Appreciate the customer service opportunity to solve problems quickly when you hear about them.
7. In business, learning from your mistakes and duplicating success are vital. At the end of the day, the purpose of your business is to profit by satisfying human wants and needs. As you get better at building strong relationships with those whose problems are best solved by what you offer, you will succeed at attracting more of those best customer.
8. Continuous improvement means getting better and better at solving customer problems. Continuous improvement is also getting better and better customers, many of whom will refer you to others in need. The best possible local small business marketing results in great customers standing up in public and testifying to the greatness of your relationship.
9. Don’t sell yourself short. Price is rarely the real reason a prospect goes elsewhere. When you provide enormous value to eager buyers shopping for your solution, price is no object. It’s not the pain as much as it is the consequences of not relieving that pain that matters.
10. So, what is your benefit to your customers’ painful problem? How do they value that benefit? How much will it cost them to forego your solution? When you’re in front of your ideal buyers, yours is the perfect solution. Solve their problem and you’re a savior.
Local small business marketing is all about exchanging the right solution at the right price. Driving eager buyers to your door day in and day out is easy once you stop trying to sell to everybody. Anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer and local small business marketing puts you everywhere they look.
Call Now
Answer Your Local Small Business Marketing Question: 612-235-6060
9 February 2011
Give Me New Sales Leads That Immediately Convert Into Loyal Customers & I’ll Burst Through Doldrums
Call New Sales Leads To Action
Are you a business owner in desperate need of fresh new sales leads? Leads are the lifeline of just about any business. No matter what market you’re in every business owner knows that there will be dry spells from time to time. But we’re living in very tough times. Business is tough because unemployment is depressing, many are losing their homes in droves and people just generally aren’t lining up to part with their money.
New Sales Leads Are On The Internet
Although, there may be many answers to this problem, for the purpose of this article we’ll discuss using the Internet to generate new sales leads. Do you think that the Internet is just a fad? What can this crazy caprice, this virtual amusement park for kids and geeks have to offer your local small business? How can this haven for spammers, hackers and Amazon.com stimulate your business’ economy? Simply said, the Internet is where eager buyers are shopping for what you offer. Right this minute they are shopping online and they are going to buy from somebody. How much of that business do you want?
Can New Sales Leads Find You?
So, what’s the secret to producing new sales leads on the Internet? First, your business must be found. You must be found by eager buyers. You must be found where eager buyers are looking. Anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer and everywhere they look you can be there. Furthermore, the more people are shopping there, the more targeted sales leads will enter your sales funnel. If you want a lot of leads, make sure you’re offering something in great demand. This combination of great demand and being found everywhere those demanding are looking is critical to success.
Respect New Sales Leads
Second, treat your visitors like the honored guests they are. Once found, be worthy of their visits. Consider what’s interesting about you and your company. Why do existing customers like to do business with you? How are you unique? Tell your story online and leverage your interesting and unique business character. Never talk about services and products again — instead, focus on eager buyers and how you can solve problems for them.
How can you push the envelope of what is tried and true in your market? Remember, your guests are visiting because they want a solution to their problem. How can you benefit them? Tell them about benefits and they will stay; otherwise they will go elsewhere. Give them valuable and relevant information and you grow in credibility. If it’s easy it’s already been done and it’s no longer valuable.
Call New Sales Leads To Action
Third, at the height of your guests interest, ask them to take action. Think about how information spreads online. What valuable content can you offer totally free? Think in terms of spreading ideas — not generating leads. Make your content easy to find and consume.
In exchange for a little information about your guest, you offer them an opportunity to receive more valuable information. Take them to your squeeze page where they give you permission to continue this relationship. An eBook, consultation and samples can nurture their interest until they’re ready to purchase. Every company has something fascinating, unique or funny that can be turned into a video that people will want to share. You do, too. As long as you hold their interest they’re not going to buy elsewhere.
New Sales Leads Cure Doldrums
Don’t be in desperate need of fresh new sales leads. Leads are the lifeline of your business, too. Great new customers always cure the doldrums. Still think that the Internet is just a fad? This crazy caprice, this virtual amusement park for kids and geeks also offers salvation to your local small business. Simply said, the Internet is where new sales leads congregate when they are ready to buy.
Call Now
Answer Your New Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
2 February 2011
How I Targeted Sales Leads And Burned Down The House With Sale After Sale To Eager Buyers
Targeted Sales Leads Burn Down The House
Wanna hear a story of how one entrepreneur easily attracts targeted sales leads and creates a sales inferno? There’s no rocket science in duplicating this story and its success. If qualified leads are a means to your serious business growth in 2011, this is an outline of examples.
Share Your Story With Targeted Sales Leads
Reread the first line of this article. I bet you’re pretty good with your story. Put a good business owner eyeball-to-eyeball with a qualified prospect and odds are good they will hammer out a deal. Great stories have long been among the most effective sales tools. Why? Stories are an effective way to establish rapport and to build a relationship with your prospect. Take great care in crafting your story about you, your business and products and service. Your story adds personality, depth and substance to your brand. Good, bad or otherwise, you are building your brand in the prospect’s mind and what she remembers when you part is her brand recognition.
Your website, social media and other interactive online gathering places are opportunities waiting for your story. A big difference between the Internet and offline media is the window of opportunity. Tell your story in a journal article, tell your story over the phone, tell your story at a seminar — how long is your story available to be heard? Next month’s journal has new stories. Only those on the other end of the phone line can hear you. When you and everybody leave the seminar, your story leaves, too. Tell your story in a blog post, tell your story on Youtube, tell your story on Facebook — now, anybody any time can stumble across your story … today, next month or ten years hence.
Give Targeted Sales Leads Reason To Return
Even better, divide your story into chapters and publish them over time. Cliff hangers work on television and they’re great for breaking your story into bite-sized pieces. This will keep those most interested coming back time and again for more and more and more of your compelling story. Consider also repurposing your story properties into different online media such as video, podcasts, audio, articles, blog posts, etc. Some of your best prospects prefer video, some prefer audio, some prefer text … some may digest it all. Furthermore, syndicate each of these various story properties across multiple sites. Remember Hansel and Gretel? The more bread crumbs you scatter across the Internet, the more likely that a great new customer will find one and follow it back to you.
One common mistake I made was limiting where my business can be found. By publishing content only on my website I was dependent on the search engines to find enough of it before they ranked me high enough for me to be found. It’s easy to promote your story to a larger audience by writing guest posts on other blogs, participating in forums and webinars, being interviewed online and contributing to social media Q&A. Your story reaches an audience you wouldn’t normally reach through your website alone. In the case of online interviews, you have the opportunity to answer questions and focus on your solutions to real problems in the real world.
Targeted Sales Leads Are Searching For Solutions
Highly targeted sales leads are interested in you because they have a problem and they come to know that you have a solution to their problem. They are interested in you and your company to solve their problem. What can you do for them?
Let your story tell them how you have solved similar problems for real people. Tell them how your customers have benefited from your product and service. These case studies build credibility and kindle the first sparks of trust in prospects. Outline the struggles you went through, the experiments and the successes you’ve had with great customers. Give away How-To articles that help people with the basics. Mention similar situations that might also benefit from what you do best. Refer to testimonials and endorsements made by your best customers regarding this success.
Targeted Sales Leads Are Hot For Your Story
How easy is it to attract targeted leads online and create a sales inferno? There’s no rocket science in telling your story to eager buyers. Put you eyeball-to-eyeball with a qualified prospect and odds are you will close the deal. All you need to burn down the house is to gather targeted sales leads around your bonfire and tell a great story.
Call Now
Answer Your Targeted Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
21 January 2011
Secrets Of Local Small Business Marketing – Funnel Eager Buyers Through Your Sales Funnel In Droves
Diversify Local Small Business Marketing
Local Small Business Marketing Thinks Big
The first secret of local small business marketing is to not think like a small business. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if your brick and mortar business made you money even if none of your employees showed up for work and your door never even opened? Do you sometimes have nightmares of your company shutting down because your referral system dried up and blew away? If you answer yes to either of these questions, then you must consider the benefits of building an inbound marketing system to anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer and everywhere they look you are there. Instead of tossing and turning at night, with these cutting edge methods of marketing your local business you’ll sleep like a baby and your company will thrive. If the old saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” applies to you, you may want to consider a total overhaul. Changing your marketing strategy can mean the difference between reaching new record sales highs or shutting down and filing for bankruptcy.
Imagine for a moment marketing in a way that targets your best customer in her natural environment. Offer her valuable information that she’s already seeking for free. Imagine she’s so delighted by what you’ve given her that she returns time and again to pay you for what you do best. Sounds like a dream does it? Unfortunately for many businesses stuck in their ways, that is all successful business will ever be — a dream. Let’s face it, the profits of traditional marketing tactics — yellow pages, newspaper ads, telemarketing, etc. — are drying up and blowing away. Where did all of the customers go? Yes, the economy is dragging; but, we all know, consumers are still consuming. So, where did they go?
Local Small Business Marketing Prospers Online
The second secret of local small business marketing is to stake your claim on the Internet. Why the Internet you may be wondering? The Internet is where consumers gather to search, to buy and to share their experiences with other consumers. Web searchers are becoming more sophisticated everyday. Everyday, more and more people search the Internet to find and buy more and more. As we learn to search and find what we want on the Internet — when we want it — we respond less and less to offline media. Literally, billions of searches are conducted every singe month by eager buyers looking to purchase locally. More to the point, when was the last time you flipped through your yellow pages?
Diversify Local Small Business Marketing
The third secret of local small business marketing is to diversify your online promotional portfolio. Ten years ago, it was extraordinary simply to publish your online business card. Woo-hoo! You were on the Internet and everybody was so proud and excited and everybody told everybody that your business is on the Internet! Today, your online business card is a fossil. Nobody cares about your company, except you. What have you done for me lately?
Promote your company on interactive social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. It’s no longer enough to trumpet your features and advantages to the world. As we learn to search and find what we want on the Internet we respond less and less to intrusive messages. I am a consumer and when I’m in the market for a new thing I will search for it. What’s in it for me? When I find your interesting product or service, I’m going to ask my online brothers and sisters about you. I’m going to check you out on LinkedIn; and then I’m going to do the same for your company. I’m likely to watch your and your competitors’s videos and read all of the articles I can find published online. How many fans Like your fan pages and Like your blog posts?
Local Marketing Is Effective
Are you still thinking like a small business? What if none of your employees showed up for work and your door never even opened? What if your nightmares came true and your business dried up and blew away? Inbound marketing anticipates eager buyers shopping for what you offer. Changing your marketing strategy can mean the difference between reaching new record sales highs or shutting down and filing for bankruptcy. Local small business marketing is effective online because it funnels eager buyers through your sales funnel in droves.
Call Now
Answer Local Small Business Marketing Question: 612-235-6060
18 January 2011
WARNING: New Sales Leads Will Ignite Your Business Into A Bonfire Through Which You Cannot Sleep
New Sales Leads Burn Brightly
The Internet is the prime tool for generating new sales leads today. You may have heard this a million times before and ignored it, but I’m really serious. The old ways of getting sales leads flat out do not work anymore. There’s little spark left, far more smoke than flame. Honestly, how antiquated can the old ways be?
Are New Sales Leads Scarce?
How many new customers did you make last month due to yellow pages or telemarketing? Does anybody really watch commercials on Tivo? Although trade fairs are still viable for promoting interest in your booth visitors. Am I the only one questioning the quantity of quality leads trade shows produce? Perhaps, it’s best to use offline media as kindling for a new, hotter fire.
A Multitude Of Quality Leads
Really, the most effective way to get new sales leads today is on the Internet. Not all website visitors are online leads; and not all sales become customers. But, with billions — billions more than millions — of online page views every month, your sales can explode practically overnight. The trick is visibility, findability and conversion. These are the embers from which your bonfire will roar to life. You need to get your business seen by as many eager buyers as possible.
Call New Sales Leads To Action
That’s why the Internet is just so great! Honestly, how many people will actually read your yellow page or newspaper ad? How many eager buyers will stop by your booth at a trade show? Anticipate how eager buyers shopping for what you offer seek you online and what’s stopping you from being everywhere they look? For example, thousands of people are searching Google for your products and services every single day. You need to ask these visitors to stick around, to interact with you and call them to action. Which is easier seen, an open flame or the glimmer of an old reflection?
Start A New Sales Leads Frenzy
Internet marketing can be far, far cheaper than any traditional marketing. When some tactic disappoints you, simply change your message mid-campaign until you find that glorious log that really stokes a fire. Well, of course you want new sales leads! What are you going to do with great leads once you have them? After you give them free information, collect their email address and receive their permission to help them, you need to nurture these prospects and convert them to great customers.
Fan the flames. Create a frenzy of eager buyers clamoring for your attention. Let new sales leads compete with each other to become your next greatest customer.
New Sales Leads Burn Brightly
The Internet is the location of new sales leads today. You’ve heard this million of times before. You ignored it. The old ways of getting sales leads have burned out, far more smoke than flame. If you want to party all the way to the bank, start an Internet fire with terrific customers. Let new sales leads dance around the online inferno you create together. Let them fan the social media flames and, together, you celebrate successful business with new sales leads.
Call Now
Answer Your New Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
12 January 2011