online marketing Archives - Page 4 of 8

In Marketing, One Size Does Not Fit All

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

Imagine that you went shopping to buy yourself a new shirt, and the salesperson offered you a garment three sizes too big, saying, “This is one of our most popular colors.” Or showed you a shirt in a child’s size, telling you, “This style is new this season.” You’d probably think the salesperson was crazy, right? And you certainly wouldn’t trust his or her judgement about what shirt might be right for you.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing goes on with marketing all the time. Without asking you a single question about your situation, an acquaintance describes the latest marketing idea they heard about, and urges you to try it. Or a workshop leader who knows nothing about your business explains the best way to market your services and recommends you adopt it. Or a consultant advises you to use a specific marketing approach with almost no understanding of your business.

You Already Know How to Market… So Why Don’t You Have All the Clients You Need?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

For the past twenty-plus years, I’ve been asking self-employed professionals to tell me the most effective ways they know to get clients. No matter where and when I ask this question, their answers are always the same: “networking,” “referrals,” “word of mouth.” These are the right answers. The professionals I ask know this to be true.

But then I ask a follow-up question: “What are you doing right now to market yourself?” And what I hear back is surprising, given the answers to my first question. More than half the people I ask tell me their primary focus is on something other than those answers. They’ll tell me they are building a new website, or mailing out postcards, or running pay-per-click ads, or cold calling strangers, or launching a Facebook page, or exhibiting at an expo, or posting promos on Twitter.

Here It Is At Last – The Secret to Marketing

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

Isn’t that what every self-employed professional is really looking for — that one magic formula that will take the effort out of marketing and bring you all the clients you need, forever?

Searching for this marketing silver bullet, they read articles and books, take seminars and home-study courses, and hire consultants and coaches. And in the process they learn about many, many so-called marketing secrets.

These “secrets” to marketing consist of supposedly surefire approaches like search engine optimization for your website, social media marketing, joining a leads group, sending postcards, and running pay-per-click ads. There are of course many more, and each of them is being touted by someone as the ultimate solution for marketing your business.

Who Has Time for Social Media?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

As my spouse Dave and I were sitting one morning at our respective computers, I wondered aloud what topic to choose for my monthly newsletter. Dave, staring at his own screen, complained, “Who has time to work and still keep up with Facebook? Hey, why don’t you write about that?” Now since Dave isn’t even working at this time of year, if he feels overwhelmed by the endless stream of social media posts to read and make, what’s it like for the rest of us?

For the average independent professional who is trying to serve existing clients, run a business, and market for new clients in multiple ways, social media can be only one small piece of the picture. Yet it seems that to use social media well, it can potentially consume an endless amount of time.

Here are five ideas to consider about where social media marketing may fit — or not — into your already busy life.

44 Ways to Follow Up with Your Prospects

by C.J. Hayden | Following Up

You know you need to follow up with prospective clients, but you often find yourself putting it off. “I already called them three times,” you think. Or, “They never answer my emails anyway.” Or, “I hate hearing no.” Or, “I don’t want to bug them.” Or, “What do I say that’s new?”

It’s only natural to resist placing phone calls or sending more emails to prospects who didn’t return your last call, never seem to reply, may not be ready to buy, or might say they’re not interested. But here’s the good news. Calling and emailing prospects and asking them to hire you is not the only way to follow up!

Yes, you can call or email your prospects and ask if they’re ready to work with you, but you can also send a letter or note by postal mail, overnight them a package, send a text message, tweet them, tag them on social media, or instant message them online. And those are just different communication channels you might use. The type of messages you deliver can be much more varied than simply asking prospects to do business.

Come in from the Cold: Warm Up Your Marketing

by C.J. Hayden | Sales Conversations

Do you feel uncomfortable trying to market your business to strangers? Most of us do. Making cold calls, knocking on doors, or attending networking mixers where you don’t know a soul can be challenging or even painful. Happily, cold approaches like these are not all there is to marketing. In fact, you may never need to use them at all.

Perhaps you already know this, and have been marketing your business in other ways. For example, launching a website, exhibiting at trade shows, running pay-per-click ads, distributing flyers, sending emails and letters to people who don’t know you, or posting promos on social media. But all of those approaches are “cold” as well, and many of them can be expensive.

Whenever you are trying to start a marketing conversation with a stranger — with no introduction, referral, or shared connection to help you — it’s a cold approach, whether you make it on the phone, in a room, by mail, or online. And cold approaches, across the board, are less effective than warm ones.

Five Steps to Getting Your Writing Published Beyond Your Own Blog or Site

by C.J. Hayden | Writing & Publicity

Writing and publishing articles or blog posts as an expert in your professional specialty can help you become more credible as well as more visible. A well-written piece on a subject of interest to your target market will get clients’ attention, demonstrate your expertise, and increase your name recognition. When your writing is published by someone other than yourself, the boost to your credibility can be substantial.

But if you’ve only ever published your writing on your own blog or website, the process of getting published elsewhere may seem intimidating. Here’s a step-by-step guide to publishing your writing with the aim of attracting more clients.

Seven Ways to Get Clients to See You as an Expert

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

As a self-employed professional, the view that prospective clients hold of you is crucial. What you want is for clients to see you as an expert. How clients perceive your level of expertise will influence not only whether or not they hire you, but also how much they’re willing to pay, how easy it is for you to close the sale, and whether clients award you big projects or small ones.

It may feel like you, the person to be hired, don’t have much power over clients’ perceptions. You may believe that clients will make their own decisions about how — or whether — to work with you, regardless of what you do. But that’s not true. There is much you can do to influence how potential clients view you before you ever have your first conversation with them. Here are seven ways you can influence clients to perceive you as an expert.

Yes, Writing Blog Posts and Articles CAN Bring You Clients

by C.J. Hayden | Writing & Publicity

“I’d like to attract clients by writing articles or a blog, but I’m not sure what to write about.”

“I tried blogging for a while, but it didn’t bring me any business.”

“When I write, people seem to like it, but I have only a handful of readers.”

These are some of the comments I hear from self-employed professionals who think that writing about their area of expertise might be a path to attracting clients… but feel like they don’t have a map. I understand their frustration. It’s easy to make crucial mistakes when using writing as a marketing strategy. But you CAN do this successfully. Here are six guidelines to make writing pay off.

Is Your Marketing Stuck for Words?

by C.J. Hayden | Success Ingredients & Tools

Many aspects of business are driven by numbers, but marketing often seems to be all about words. Whether it’s naming your business or brand, coming up with a tag line, or writing copy for your website, you probably spend a big chunk of your marketing time trying to find just the right words to use.

While you’re busy hunting for the perfect words, your business cards don’t get printed, your web copy doesn’t get posted, and your marketing emails don’t get sent. When you don’t have adequate marketing tools in place, you don’t market. No marketing; no clients. And all for the want of a few good words!

For major projects like a website, brochure, or postal direct mail campaign, hiring a copywriter may be a wise investment. But there are also steps you can take to improve your own ability to communicate about your business in writing. Here are four strategies you can use to break your marketing writer’s block without breaking the bank:

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