Why Your Small Business Needs a Content Marketing Mission Statement

Thursday is guest blog post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is Joe Pulizzi  - Enjoy!
Did you know that 94% of small businesses (less than 99 employees) use some form of content marketing to grow their businesses?  That’s a staggering number, and almost hard to believe.
But it’s true.  Yes, nearly every small business out there is creating blogs, articles, eBooks, white papers, newsletters and more to try to attract and retain customers. And then nearly all of those are pushing that content out in the form of tweets, Facebook posts and LinkedIn updates.
Here’s the bad news: just one in three believe it’s actually helping their businesses.

Here’s why it’s not working – Most of the content you are distributing is (to be nice about it) not very helpful or entertaining.  Your customers are most likely ignoring it.  It’s clutter.  You are spending time creating it and your customers are working to avoid it.  This is a problem.
But the reason isn’t just because your content is lackluster.  The issue goes deeper.
I’ve had the privilege of speaking in front of thousands of small business owners and marketers over the past year.  Do you know how many of those people have an actual strategy when it comes to their content marketing?  Try less than 10%.  How can we be effective with our content if we have no clear idea what the content should do – both for our business and for our customers?
For you, that stops right now.

Enter the Content Marketing Mission Statement

Marketing professionals from most small businesses get so fixated on channels such as blogs, Facebook or Pinterest that they honestly have no clue of the underlying content strategy. So, the why must come before the what? This seems obvious, but most marketers have no mission statement or core strategy behind the content they develop.
Think of it this way: What if you were the leading trade magazine for your niche area? What if your goal was not to first sell products and services but to impact your readers with amazing information that would change their lives and behaviors?
Inc. magazine has its mission statement in the first line of its About Us page.
Welcome to Inc.com, the place where entrepreneurs and business owners can find useful information, advice, insights, resources and inspiration for running and growing their businesses.
Let’s dissect this a bit. Inc’s mission statement includes:

• The core audience target: entrepreneurs and business owners
• What will be delivered to the audience: useful information, advice, insights, resources, and inspiration
• The outcome for the audience: growing their businesses

Inc’s mission statement is also incredibly simple and includes no words that could be misunderstood. This is our goal with the content marketing mission statement.
Before you develop any more unwanted content for your customers and prospects, you need to develop your own content marketing mission statement. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, and it doesn’t have to be written on stone tablets, but you do need it to point your content ship in the right direction.

How to Use Your Content Marketing Mission Statement

Remember, content marketing is not about “what you sell” it’s about “what you stand for.” The informational needs of your customers and prospects come first. Although there must be clear marketing objectives behind the mission statement, those should not be outlined here. The Inc. mission statement doesn’t say anything about selling more advertising or paid events. To work, your mission statement has to be all about the pain points of your readers and followers or it simply won’t work. Once you consistently deliver on this promise, your customers will reward you by buying your products and services.
After you create your mission statement, do the following:

• Post it: Include the mission statement where it can be found easily by your customers (perhaps, on your blog).
• Spread it: Make sure everyone creating content for your organization has a copy. Encourage them to print it out and pin it up on the wall.
• The litmus test: Use the mission statement to decide what content you will and won’t create. Often, a bad judgment in content creation can be fixed by running it by the mission statement.

Remember, your marketing goal should be to become the leading expert in your particular niche.  You can’t do that without truly epic content.  Start your journey by developing your mission. Do it now!
Joe Pulizzi is founder of Content Marketing Institute, the leading education and training organization for content marketing, which includes the largest in-person content marketing event in the world, Content Marketing World.  Joe’s third book, Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less takes small business owners A-to-Z toward creating a content marketing strategy that works to grow the business.  You can find Joe on Twitter @JoePulizzi. If you ever see Joe in person, he’ll be wearing orange.

Hearing the Internet Buzz Ears

grow bigger ears by Chris Brogan

I’m a huge proponent of professional listening as part of a business communication strategy. Lots of people will sell you ways to speak. They’ll give you lots of ways to get your message all over the place. Me? I’m passionate about listening as much as I am speaking. You know: two ears, one mouth, that stuff.
I love many of the professional products out there like Radian6, Techrigy, BuzzGain (just launched today!), and Crimson Hexagon to name just a few. But you know, there are ways to listen simply, and though they’re not perfect, they’re free.
I always recommend both. Use a professional platform to get the depth, the reporting, the other added value. But I recommend setting up a free listening station, too. Here’s a quick step by step to start that kind of station off. You might have more ideas for the comments section.

1. Get a gmail account. – http://www.gmail.com
2. Log in to Google Reader. This will become your home base for listening. Note the position of the “Add Subscriptions” button (mid top left) – http://www.google.com/reader
3. Now, go to Google Blogsearch. Type in your query about your company, your organization, your competitors, and the like. We’ll use the results in the next step. – http://blogsearch.google.com.
4. Note the “Subscribe” links on the bottom left of the page. Right-click the RSS link, and select copy.
5. Go back to Google Reader, click Add Subscription, and select paste.
6. Repeat this for as many variations of searches you want for blogs.
7. UPDATE: I hear this feature is going away. You can do the same thing at IceRocket, if so, just do this step at Icerocket instead of Technorati. Go to Technorati. Perform the same queries there. Neither Google nor Technorati finds it all, so cross-posting works. – http://www.technorati.com
8. Go to Twitter Search. Do the same. – http://search.twitter.com
9. Fine tune your searches by seeing what inaccurate results come from your first attempts, and replace bad searches with better ones.
10. Take the payload of all that raw searching and SORT it using Google Reader. By this, I mean the following: when you find something to note, either Share it (Shift S), or email it to a core team ( type E on the keyboard). Send only the important stuff. Then, let internal employees see the RSS feed of the shared items, or just use the email feature. Whichever works best. This is how you sort the larger pile of info into the smaller and more useful packets that your organization can consume.
11. Most important to the process – DO something with what you’re learning. Figure out the business value of the listening you’re doing, and route it to the right places. Listening isn’t for marketers. It’s for the organization. It’s for customer service, for product management, for the senior team, etc.

In a nutshell, that’s the plan. You can do this. It’s not especially tricky (though the tuning can be challenging). My question to you: why wouldn’t you?

Growing Business not Spinning Wheels

Posted by Susan Brown on September 10, 2013

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Thinking about building a business from scratch or have a business that desperately needs attention, but having a hard time getting started? Getting your act together does not have to be this big, overwhelming process. Taking the tiniest, most simple-looking steps could be just what you need to get into gear and jump start your business.
The following are ten practical steps to building a business or starting a new project that anyone can do. With a little willpower you’ll be able to achieve goals you may have never thought possible.
Skeptical?
Go through the steps below, and give it a try. You may be surprised by the difference a systematic approach can make.
Recognize what you are ultimately trying to accomplish and why. The very first step is clearly mapping out your goals. Merely having a rough idea of where you are heading is not enough. Write down exactly what you want to accomplish, and more importantly, why you want to accomplish it. I personally am a very visual person, and I’ve found that mind mapping is really helpful in this process. I use FreeMind, which you can download for free here.
Make sure your business goals are manageable. If your goals are too broad or the bar is being set too high, then you will be much more likely to get overwhelmed or burnt out. The trick is knowing how to break down your goals into manageable steps or focus areas. For example, if one of your goals is to learn how to successfully promote your business via social media, you’ll need to break this down into small steps such as:

• Step 1: Getting a basic understanding what each of the major social networking platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest) will allow you to do.
• Step 2: Determining which platforms attract your target audience
• Step 3: Picking ONE social network platform and then….
• Step 4: Learning about how your target audience uses the network
• Step 5: Learning how to optimize your profile
• Step 6: Learning how to optimize posts for targeted reach and exposure

…You get the point? Each step becomes a goal in and of itself that requires sufficient mastery.
Pick a starting point… and start immediately. Let me begin by saying that the actual starting point in and of itself is NOT so important. I know that may seem counter-intuitive, but in practice it’s not. It is much more important to just commit yourself to one area and get going since the biggest hump for most people is taking those first steps. Even if these steps are small and far from perfect, you’ve already put yourself on the road to growth and development merely by starting, and that is no small thing. You also want that start to happen right away, as in TODAY! Pick a very small thing that you can do right now, and just do it.

I couldn’t resist

Keeping yourself accountable. Defining your goals and finding a starting point may not be enough to keep you motivated over the long run. For this reason, you should create additional, “outside” motivators. Depending on your personality, there are several things that you could do. You could make a monetary investment into the business (for example, registering a domain or buying a piece of equipment that you know you’re going to need). You could also get others involved: you could join a support group, find a mentor, or even call on a friend or family member to help keep you accountable to your goals.
Don’t consult too many resources. Another reason why people tend to put off building a business or taking their current business to the next level is that they are overwhelmed by the shear amount of information available, and depending on the topic, a lot of it may be contradictory or unclear. There is just way too much noise: too many “experts,” too many resources, and too much data for a person to possibly go through. You’ll have much to gain by just picking one or two sources to follow and consult. Look to learn from those who have mastered their skills enough that they can teach it to you in a way that you can receive it.
Make sure you have what you need. Before you get started you need to be certain that all the resources you need to accomplish your goals are in place. This includes things like equipment, materials, supplies, and even qualified workers.
Make a commitment to your goals. This may sound simple, but it’s one of the most common pitfalls people have when trying to build their businesses. It’s not just that you need clear goals and the resources to fulfill them, but you have to actively commit yourself to using these resources for the process. This means setting aside the necessary time, attention, and money and doing so consistently.
Don’t move on till you’ve achieved sufficient mastery. Following on the heels of the point above, don’t run after content for content’s sake. Seek to master the gaps in what you already know in a given area. Once you’ve reached a sufficient level of mastery, you can then move on to something else. Again, this is about focus. If you are constantly scattering your attention and resources, you simply won’t get so far.
Work with your natural rhythm and learning style. When are you most productive? What is your ideal learning style? How long can you focus on the given task? Knowing this information and acting on it can make the whole process go much quicker. It will help you to maximize your efforts. To help you find out this information about yourself, you could take a look at the site Qualified Mind. It allows you to conduct experiments on yourself to determine your peak mental performance. To find out your learning style, there are many free online tests you can take. Here is a sampling of some good ones:

• http://homeworktips.about.com/od/homeworkhelp/a/lstyleqz.htm
• http://www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/
• http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz
• http://www.acceleratedlearning.com/method/test_flash.html
• http://sunburst.usd.edu/~bwjames/tut/learning-style/stylest.html
• http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire

Record your progress, test, and get feedback. Building a business from scratch is not a static process. If you really want results, then you need to be testing, reporting, and generating feedback along the way. Obviously, the kinds of reporting and testing will vary depending on what you are trying to accomplish, but it may include things like: A/B testing, looking at site analytics, and other performance tests and reports- all in the name of keeping tabs on your progress. This will help you to stay on course so that you can pursue the activities and strategies that are really working and be alerted to the things that aren’t.
In closing, building a business is a process like anything else. If you know how to approach this process properly, you can avoid a whole lot of wasted time and other resources and end up accomplishing much more than you may have thought possible.

Monetize Blog

it. Create content. Forget it. I need not spend precious hours starting over, or learning a new opportunity, or product, or service, inside out. Nope. I can simply create and allow advertisers to do the work for me. I help, I create value, I solve problems, and the income flows in to me, without any fiddling on the back end.

If you are struggling to make money with your blog, or heck, if you are just struggling to make money at all....this post is for you!

Imagine how quickly your life would improve if you opened 11 income streams through your blogging efforts? If you are feeling pinched – or outright disgusted – by your financial situation it is time for a change. You know my story. I have fleshed it out. Broke joke to prospering online business entrepreneur. Struggling, miserable, fired security officer to swashbuckling, island-hopping, tiger-taming world traveler. I did it. You can do it too.

If you are frustrated with your blogging career, if you are lost on figuring out how to effectively monetize your blog, if you crave financial freedom more than you crave, um, breathing, if you dream of spending more time with your family or friends, or if you want to live in Phuket for 4 months like I did, or if you want to live in Bali for 3 months like me, do this: embrace the idea used by happy, healthy, wealthy people the world over.

MULTIPLE SOURCES OF INCOME. MSI.

How do wealthy people become wealthy? Easy. Wealthy people create value to receive value. This is easy enough to understand but the problem arises when dwelling on the idea of how to open income channels. Sure, you are creating valuable blog posts. Each one solves a problem. Each one provide readers with a tangible, workable, practical solution to some pressing cash gifting, Peoples Program, hostmonster, hootsuite, affiliate marketing, mlm issue.

You are solving problems but you ain’t getting paid. Frustrating as hell. I have been there. I remember seeing my Adsense tab for the month; $7. Or $2. Add a few cents for a little more salt in the wound. Boy was I pissed. My fault. Totally. I had AFSOI: a few streams of income. Not gonna cut it. Why? Each income stream generally takes at least a few months to yield results.

The Programming Effect

Have you noticed how TV commercials program you? How radio songs program you? In no time, you are singing along with the catchy tune or catchy slogan. You have been programmed on a subconscious level by the message being conveyed. You hear it. Again and again. Over and over. Repetition creates patterns. You cannot help but to be influenced by a persistent, consistent message which vibes with you.

Your blog is no different. Some readers soak up your content and purchase hostmonster hosting through you. Today. They have been effectively programmed. Other readers need a few days, or weeks, or months, to become programmed by your value, to make the purchase. This is why income streams develop gradually, slowly. Patience, grasshopper. $60 here after a hostmonster purchase, a few bucks there after a solid nRelate day, a few more bucks after a hootsuite buy.

Then, somebody hires me out – ghostwriting style – and I bag a quick $140. Somebody joins my Peoples Program cash gifting team; sends me a $125 pledge. Somebody signs up for sponsored tweets, referencing me. A few more ducats. I accept a sponsored post: $100. Can you see how multiple streams of income add up?

Add in a few extra streams: Chitika, writing paid guest posts for an SEO company, Google Adsense, paypal donations, and VigLink(for my blogger blog), and you have a serious inflow of cash heading your way each month. Increasing online business income streams forces you to think abundantly and abundant thinking and feeling people tune into abundance effortlessly. I admit though, I screwed up in this department.

The Most Insidious Block to Monetizing Your Blog

I do not want to be sales-ey!

This type of insanity is code for: “I am nice, comfy and broke, so why add streams of online business income to my life if it means being criticized…..and being free too?”

Anybody who criticizes you for selling lacks the balls to sell, or is unclear on their venture, on some level. A millionaire might criticize your ad set up, or the fact that you are promoting so many opps. This means that said millionaire is unclear on their choice of business, on some level. Do not let it bother you for too long. You deserve to get paid. Carry on.

The 2 Step Process

1: Create astoundingly intense, resource-style, in-depth value. The content is the money-generator, the pump-primer, the straw which stirs the monetizing drink.

2: Choose channels through which to prosper. Each channel should be relevant to your blog.

The content inspires people to buy. The channels give people the chance to buy. Easy 1-2 punch here. But the content must be really, really, really informative to make your ads clickable. Focus on creating good content. Problem solving content. Follow up by opening channels. Say “screw you” to people who have an issue with how you choose to make a living.

I do not stand outside of corporations, complaining about office workers collecting a paycheck. So, how I choose to make money online is none of these critic’s business, correct? If another blogger questions how I monetize I blog, they question themselves. They display lack of clarity in what they do, online business wise, or cash gifting wise, or affiliate marketing wise. Always a reflection of what you feel within, your feelings have nothing to do with other people.

Why Monetize Your Blog?

Why would you want to monetize your blog? Well for starters, you might as well write a diary for yourself, if you plan to spend countless hours building a blog and community without expecting any monetary reward. As Gordon Gecko said, what’s worth doing is worth doing for money.

Money helps you have more, do more and be more. Money can be offered through philanthropy. You can help people who have little money by generously supporting causes which help people to empower themselves. That sounds good to me, right?

Also, you can hang out with monkeys in Monkey Temple, Kathmandu, Nepal, like I did a few days ago, if you effectively monetize your blog…

It is kind of tough to travel the world, or pay bills, or take care of loved ones, or visit monkey temples, or eat, or sleep in comfort, without money, so if you are going to spend thousands of hours providing value, building a blogging community and helping people, you might as well make money blogging.

OK, on to ideas. Incidentally I monetize through each of these channels on this blog (save VigLink which is on my blogger blog).

1: The Peoples Program Cash Gifting

I wrote a rocking post about The Peoples Program cash gifting a few days back. Perfect way to open a passive cash flow stream through your blog. No selling. No recruiting. Share and prosper.

You can also share TPP through social sites; Facebook, twitter, wherever. Monetizing your blog takes effort but you should add as many passive streams as possible. Like, post an ad, explain how you can prosper through the activity, write a review, and…..prosper.

Gifts flow to you online or offline. The private activity dictates that you choose how to prosper.

Learn more Here: The Peoples Program

2: Google Adsense

Ah, good old Google Adsense. Use GA to develop a purely passive income stream through your blog. Absolutely, positively no work on your end. Place ads. Write content. Google matches ads based on what you write about. Some tweaking might be necessary; check out your metrics, and adjust accordingly. But overall this is a purely passive income stream. Wonderful way to monetize your blog.

One note; to get approved create good, valuable, practical content for a period of weeks. Google has a rep to uphold; if your blog is ad worthy, and this should be no problem if you are doing your job, creating good content, Google will approve you.

Each time someone clicks on a Google Ad you will be paid anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars. As you can imagine the clicks and cash add up over weeks, months and years.

3: Ghostwriting

If you are blogging you might as well blog for money. Meaning, offer your ghostwriting services to busy or lazy bloggers. Help your fellow blogger generate cash online on auto pilot. Write usable, helpful content for your clients. Bloggers can publish the content under their name, generate leads, pull in ad revenue and you will be paid for your ghostwriting services.

Charge $25 for a 500 word post. Or more. Bump up to $35 or $45 an article after gaining some experience in the ghostwriting game. Advertise your services through a blog page. Like. Here: Ghostwriting Services

Ghostwriting is a fun and easy way to help bloggers and get paid handsomely. I suggest offering bulk articles; bloggers will rarely see appreciable returns by hiring you out for an article. Offer 4, 500 word articles at your rate. If bloggers desire you to write one article, make it a 1000 word piece. Like the model who said she does not get out of bed for anything less than $10,000 an hour…well….you will work for less, but if you are spending 30 minutes or more creating a 1000 word article you better get paid at least $70, or, looking at that $140 rate for a full hour. NEVER undercharge, EVER!

4: Sponsored Posts

I am excited to announce I landed my first sponsored post last week. Heineken selected me to promote their campaign. I accept the offer along with a quick $100. Not a bad deal. One note; landing sponsored posts is easier if you create truly epic content. Big money businesses want to associate with reputable bloggers who bring it, on the content creation side of things.

Also make sure that the post vibes with your blog’s message. I am about pushing yourself to your limits. The campaign matched my message. Good match. Publish. Monetize.

Where can sponsors find you? Heineken found me via Post Joint. Sign up for an account. Set up your profile. Allow the guest blogging and sponsored post opportunities to flow to you.

5: Hootsuite Affiliate

Rather than suggest “affiliate marketing” which can be a confusing piece of advice I want to offer you specific opportunities. People need tools. People need to save time. People need to leverage their presence. Sell on the affiliate side, offering hootsuite pro through your blog to solve these problems and monetize your blog.

Of course, pony up and buy the product – and use it – before you promote the service. Sell only what you believe in. Sell only what has solved your problems. Monetize your blog from an ethical, high energy, prospering space.

6: Hostmonster Affiliate

I also use and sell hostmonster services. Why? Because I have been impressed with HM’s reliability, professional support and overall presentation for the past 4 years. I also desired to open another income stream through my blog. So here we go.

Affiliate marketing opportunities fit seamlessly into your blog. Think about it; if you use a product already why not write a simple review and get paid for your efforts? Why not spread the word, help people solve their problems, and prosper? After asking many fellow bloggers about their hosting solutions more than a few were fed up. Enter hostmonster.

OK Time for a Rant Break

No more tips for now…..I got to thinking about the masses of bloggers who fail miserably. I thought about talented, driven, focused bloggers who make a pittance through their blogging efforts. What holds this crew back?

THEY FEAR TO SELL! Instead of *not wanting* to be like a salesperson how about wanting to help someone? Change your perspective. Change your life. You see, instead of bothering someone, or bugging someone, or selling to someone, you are HELPING someone through your affiliate ventures.

If somebody is disgusted with spending 3 hours each day manually updating to over 50 groups between Facebook and Twitter you darn well better believe these folks will be helped, and relieved, by using a tool like hootsuite pro. See? I am helping you. This is an honorable, but karma generating type deal here.

But the masses of struggling bloggers are allergic to money and opportunity. They FEAR selling instead of having FAITH in the fact that they are helping someone with a pressing problem by offering a product or service.

Change your perspective. Your selling is helping. OK, rant done  To make us both feel better, please observe me, chilling by Monkey Temple in Kathmandu, with my Joe Cool shades. Thank You.

7: Sponsored Tweets

Why not tweet for money? Why not place an ad on your blog sharing this opp with readers so you can get paid for offering a valuable service? Sponsored Tweets advertisers find you, pay you, you tweet.

This simple means of monetizing your blog is a quick and easy add on to your current blogging income streams. Sign up. It takes like a minute to do. Sit back. Allow advertisers to find you. Payment through paypal.

Not much to expand on here. Just sign up

8: nRelate Related Posts

Do you see my related posts thumbnails below my posts? Excellent. I signed up as an affiliate with nRelate. The service posts related pieces of content to your blog and you can choose to add advertising as well. Of course you get paid for advertising their ads.

Sign up. You have nothing to lose. You will only be directing readers to related posts and getting paid for posting 1 little thumbnail by your related posts.

Sign up here: nRelate

9: Paypal Donations

I stumbled upon this idea after reading Steve Pavlina‘s blog yesterday. Smart guy, Stevey P is, because he knows that setting up a simple donate button on your blog can boost your cash flow.

Some readers will want to express their gratitude through a cash gift. Make it easy for readers to donate by setting up a donation page. Like this.

Nothing fancy here guys. If people find your work helpful offer them the option to show their support.

10: Chitika Ad Networks

See the large ad posted mid-post? Chitika time. These ads are similar to Adsense. Simply post to different spots on your blog and get paid per click.

Ads will be relevant to post content. This ensures that you will attract targeted, hungry to click viewers to your posts.

Click this ad to sign up:

11: Viglink

I use this one on my blogger blog. Click Here to See it

Simple concept. You sign up and VL links up through relevant text. Example; in the post I linked to I noted “Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones” as being an absolute God-send during my 17 hour flight from New York JFK to Bangkok. So, Viglink links up to advertisers through the word, “Bose”.

Totally hands free, totally passive. You write the content and the service links up to appropriate advertisers through your text.

The Money Maker

Your content. Your content drives cash flow. If people like what they see, they come to know, like and trust you. If people trust you they click on your ads. This generates some blogging revenue for you. If people join up after clicking your ads you just generated more revenue through blogging. Content is the real driver. Create good stuff. Then busy yourself with creating as many income streams as humanly possible, and really there is no limit.

Your Turn

Are you struggling to make money blogging?

Why?

How many income streams have you opened up?

Please Share This Post on All Your Social Networks!

- Image http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/lightbulb-in-hand-photo-p185039

If you found value in this newsletter please share this link with your buddies:   The Peoples Program Cash Gifting

Ryan Biddulph

The Peoples Program

Phone 908-315-5482

Skype ryan.biddulph2

PS.....Stop waiting. Act on. Monetize your blog. Click Here

The 10 Things You Should Do On LinkedIn Each And Every Week

The 10 Things You Should Do On LinkedIn Each And Every Week

Promoting Blog

120 Ways to Promote Your Blog [Infographic]

Ready for some great promotion ideas for your blog?  Try this infographic!
And leave a comment to share what tactics are working for you right now, or what you’re going to test out next.

Source: http://digitalphilippines.net/how-to-promote-your-blog/

8 Tips to Create a Killer Gamification Strategy

8 Tips to Create a Killer Gamification Strategy

How to Get Prospects to Stampede to Your Trade Show Booth

by Robert Moskowitz on August 28, 2013

If your small business exhibits at trade shows or conferences, you know both the importance — and the difficulty — of generating substantial traffic from attendees. To bring more people to your booth, try one or more of these tactics.

• Ask for tweets or text messages as entries in a contest. Raffles and other prize giveaways can dramatically increase the footfalls at your booth. Make it easy for people to enter your contest by asking for a tweet or a text message with the person’s contact information. To attract the greatest number of prospects, keep the contest closely aligned with your product, service, or brand.
• Give away valuable information. Another angle on the freebie is to disseminate sought-after information at your booth. Most people willingly yield their contact information in return for a white paper, an e-book, an industry report, and the like. In fact, if contact information is all you seek, you could deliver the goods wirelessly and remotely via email, text, or other means. To draw people to your booth, provide the information in a tangible format, such as providing a printed report, a prerecorded CD, or a download to the recipient’s flash drive.
• Hire an extrovert in a costume. Draw traffic to your booth by hiring an interesting character to pose for photographs with attendees who leave a business card or otherwise share their contact details. Your extrovert should pose in front of a large sign touting your brand, product, or service. It’s also helpful to ask your character to put a flyer, a coupon, or a spec sheet into the hands of each person. Be sure to snap your own pics, too; you’ll get even more marketing mileage out of these shots by streaming or posting these photos online.
• Supply free Wi-Fi. You’d think that every exhibit hall or trade show venue would offer free Wi-Fi to all comers, yet connectivity remains a major issue at many industry gatherings. Capitalize on this shortcoming by providing wireless access at your booth, trading the password for people’s contact info and providing a place to sit. 
• Provide a charging station. At many trade shows and exhibitions, the only things in shorter supply than free Wi-Fi are electricity and a place to set devices while they recharge. You can earn a lot of appreciation from attendees by providing extra AC outlets and shelf space — and if the area happens to be boldly branded with your logo, they’re unlikely to complain.
• Donate to charity for each visitor. Giving your time or money to a worthy cause sends a positive message about your company and influences people’s attitudes toward you, your product or service, and your unique selling proposition. Donating $1 per business card collected isn’t likely to break the bank, but it makes a powerful statement. This tactic will be even more powerful if the charity you select ties in with your brand.
• Give live talks on interesting topics. Does your company have interesting insights to share? Dynamic mini-lectures on topics related to your offering can quickly draw a crowd around your booth. Line up a charismatic speaker to offer a 10- to 15-minute talk every hour — or give the presentations yourself.

Read more: http://blog.intuit.com/marketing/how-to-get-prospects-to-stampede-to-your-trade-show-booth/#ixzz2dqSqB9to

Optimize Your Website Content with Calls to Action: Tips for Small Businesses

By Mike Murray published September 1, 2013

Many small businesses have a long way to go when it comes to providing the calls to action that are essential for driving conversions from their content marketing efforts.
For example, I regularly find websites that lack easy-to-find phone numbers; or they fail to display offers targeted at engaging prospects who may leave after a few seconds without picking up the phone or sharing their names and email addresses.
To document the issues I’ve come across, I randomly selected 200 U.S.-based small businesses from the ReferenceUSA database (including companies with fewer than 100 employees in such industries as construction, manufacturing, and professional services), and compiled my findings into the Small Business B2B Call to Action Study.
The study, presented by Small Business Trends, also includes a small business B2B call-to-action checklist, which details more than 30 conversion topics that small businesses should review and implement when optimizing their website content.
Here are some of the key observations on how small businesses are failing to benefit from calls to action:

• 96 percent don’t feature any industry how-to guide or white papers on their home pages.
• 70 percent don’t reference any notable calls to action on their home pages (other than a phone number and a “contact us” option in the navigation).
• 72 percent don’t have any calls to action on their interior pages.
• 82 percent don’t reference their social media profiles (text or images).
• 27 percent don’t include a phone number on their home pages.
• 70 percent of websites with a phone number don’t display it in a prominent place.
• 68 percent don’t include an email address on their home pages.
• 38 percent of websites with an email address bury it on the home page (often in the footer).

These findings are somewhat surprising, given that commercial websites have been around for
about 20 years — ample time to have begun to put best practices in place.
You can get excellent tips by reading Mark Sherbin’s CMI post, Are Your Calls to Action Missing These Proven Formulas? Among other ideas, he offers three steps based on conversion experts’ experience:

Step 1: Write copy that gets specific, touts benefits, and uses keywords

Actionable, specific language is the most important part of writing your call-to-action copy. For example, a specific call to action might mention the number of pages in an eBook or the length of a webinar.

Step 2: Design contrasting buttons and shallow navigation

Call to action buttons and banners should stand out through contrasting colors — but which colors you use may be less important than you think.
“Someone once told me, ‘I’ve never not clicked a call to action because it was deep purple instead of bright blue,’” Katherine Griwert of Brafton explains in the article. “Content marketers should consider other design priorities, like using brand-appropriate colors or creating a recognizable custom icon to pair with your CTAs.”

Step 3: Weigh your call to actions and prioritize them

Assuming your “Buy Now” command is your most important isn’t always correct. Your highest priority call to action should be paired with the content, depending on where your prospect is in the sales process.
For example, if your visitor reads an introductory blog post, chances are they are unfamiliar with your brand and not quite ready to buy. The call to action should point them toward more advanced content — instead of the contact page or shopping cart.
You can also get great pointers from Brian Massey in his article, Landing Page Basics: Making Your Content Marketing Convert.
In my small business call to action study, I found that typically nothing stands out on the websites. Even the “Contact Us” statement is often just another navigation option among many page elements (a different color or larger font would help call attention).

Things to know to Make Money Online

Posted by Andrew on August 30, 2013 | Reply

While there are wonderful opportunities to generate wealth online, people continue to face problems achieving this. These problems are often attributed to information overload, unscrupulous gurus, and complicated technology.

Agreed, those are some of the symptoms, but they’re not the disease. These symptoms don’t just affect new marketers. I have seen people who’ve been at this online marketing game for a long time, and who do very well, but they suffer from these limitations. They have found something that works and they make money by scaling what works. But they are missing the concepts that could elevate them to the next level.

What are those concepts?

I know your mind instinctively may have gone to the various make money online tactics you would have seen in some book. There are plenty of books out there, and few offer real strategic principles, but even fewer offer things that can propel you to the top.
Most of them just do the job of motivating you enough to get you to leave your boss and becoming a business owner.
Being your own boss can be wonderful, but that can be a good thing only if your online business proves to be better than your boss. If not, you’ll end up with a feeling that your boss wasn’t that bad after all.

Concepts For A Successful Online Business

As you probably guess from the title, there are five concepts you must be aware of, in order to build a really successful online business.
* A product offering immense value
* Communication of that value through your site
* Visitors already looking for your product
* Leverage
* Focus
The first three are something many successful marketers focus on to make money online:

#1 – A Product Offering Immense Value

The core of our vision-based strategy is “cross-selling”— the process of offering customers the products and services they need, when they need them, to help them succeed financially. The more we give our customers what they need, the more we know about them. The more we know about their financial needs, the easier it is for us to work together for them to bring us more of their business. The more business they do with us, the better value they receive and the more loyal they become. The longer they stay with us, the more opportunities we have to satisfy even more of their financial needs. That’s the mutual benefit of cross-sell. ~ Wells Fargo
Although the above is a beautifully written bank strategy, it makes perfect sense in the marketing community.
This is the easiest, as long as you understand the definition of value from the perspective of your potential customers.
Not you.
It really doesn’t matter how “cool” you think a product on creating widgets is, if you try to sell them to people who don’t know anything about widgets or why they need to create them.
Remember – if your product solves the problem of 100% of the people, and 0% of the people care about it, it’s of no use to them and it just won’t sell.

Value is defined as what people “want.”

Not what they need.

Not what you think they need.

Not what you think they should have.

Not what you think will make them happy.
Yes, there is another line of thought that says “make them want” your product, and to a certain extent this is possible. But it is time-taking and may as easily backfire if you don’t do it right, with unhappy customers “crying over spilt milk.” They will wonder why they bought your product in the first place. You don’t want that.
What do they want?
How powerful is their want?
The more powerful their want, the better your product will sell, and the happier people who buy from you are.
Your job is to fulfill that want in the best way possible. Making sure it offers value is the surest way to make money online.

#2 – Communicate That Value Through Your Site

Create a site that shows them what’s in it for them. Communicate the benefits. Don’t mistake features for benefits. You can take a look at the articles on our website that talk about this.
Here’s a definition: Benefits exist in the head as well as in the heart, and everything else is a feature.
Create an excellent sales page that shows things people perceive as benefits. Things that make them feel better. Everything else is fluff.
Your site should have great content that revolves around the goal of communicating to your visitors that you have what they’re looking for.

#3 – Visitors Already Looking For Your Product

When you’ve convinced people that you can satisfy their longings (the deeper, the better) — then people will not only fall in love with and buy your products, they will become unstoppable evangelists as well. ~ Demian Farnworth via copyblogger.com

This is the kind of traffic you need. This is the traffic you’re trying to find. This is the magic wand that opens up locked doors to a treasure not many can get their hands on.
This is where most marketers go wrong. “Any traffic is good traffic” is something they believe in and end up unsuccessful.
Irrespective to what your product is, it’s important to create a plan to find and attract people who already want your project. Make sure what you spend in getting them to your site is less than what you’re going to profit from selling your product.
This is easily done if you have created a product that has a huge demand, and you’ve already identified the sources you’re going to be driving traffic from.
Watch your “visitor value.” You need to see the income generated on an average, for every person visiting your website. You must see which traffic source is sending people who buy from you. Use analytics and do the math to ensure you make money online.

#4 – Leverage

The ability to share a message with a few and have it reach the many has never been so available. As marketers we have to start thinking about exponential reach. ~ Jolina Pettice via toprankblog.com.
This is a simple concept. This involves getting better results from a specific effort than what you would normally get.
For example, if you write an article and submit it to different ezines. If people like it, you will get decent traffic from it. That’s a good thing.
But how can you make it better?
* Create a small report and offer a small article. Tell readers to visitor your website for the report and tell them to go there. Offer it as a bonus for subscribing to your list.
* Include a link to your product in your article and give it to your affiliates to use on their sites or mailing lists.
These are just a couple of examples. You can do it several ways.
Whatever you create, think of ways how you can use it in different ways to get more for your effort.

#5 – Focus (To Make Money Online)

But the landscape evolves faster than ever. In the field of marketing, the lines will continue to blur. The tools and tactics we rely on will continue to change. The need to focus on the customer will not. ~ Barry Feldman via copyblogger.com

I don’t need to explain this to you. We’ve discussed this many times.
Anyway, I’ll say it again – Focus means desperately wanting something, so every action of yours should answer the question: Am I moving closer to what I want faster than other methods?”
Focus is what separates the successful marketers from the “almost” successful people.