Social Media Marketing Success - Three Steps on How to Maximize Your Efforts

Social Media.

Social Media Marketing.

THOSE 2 things has been written and talked about the last 2 years a LOT. But believe it or not, not a lot of small businesses or home businesses are using this powerful business and marketing "Zone" yet. Many people, because it is on the internet, shy away for it as if it were the plague.

"I am not a geek" people tell me. Well, we have "ungeeked the geek" for many small and home business owners, and made social media make sense to them

But there are exceptions.

I was talking with a business owner the other day and she made the comment, "I don't go to those kind of sites. I don't have time to do that as my business is struggling and I need to go and find more customers."

That says it all.

That shows a total lack of understanding of what social media/web 2.0 is really about, and what it can do for the average small business and home business -even on a local basis. If people really "got it" about social media marketing, they would be running to the social media zone and staying there.

There is a lot of talk that it is not "proven" as it is too new and the jury is still out on it being a viable marketing process.

I totally disagree. The social media marketer is paving a path for those to follow through a jungle that has never been explored, nor walked. People like proof. People like results. But it is the social media marketer that will create the way that will birth new millionaires with business folks who do "get" the Web 2.0 world. It is not that hard to understand either.

If you can send an email, you can "do" social media marketing. You can master twitter, facebook, myspace, blogs, wikis, podcasts, article marketing, and all the other parts of the new media, if you can send an email. Yes, there is a learning curve, and yes, it does take a little effort-but what doesn't? We have expanded our business tremendously with social media tactics, and everyday, we wake up with dozens of new leads for our training and consulting business in our email box. How would you like to have that happen to you?

You can. You can tap into an endless pool of leads that will just keep increasing, if you decide to jump into the Social Media zone. And we will be glad to teach you how to maximize for maximum Success with your Social Media efforts.

All you need to do is make a decision that you will take the time and study and learn social media a little at a time, and learn the culture, and the processes of each website.

Here are 7 websites that you must register with to get started in social media if you have a small or home business. Each have "help" tutorials or videos about how to use them properly, and also there is a LOT of information on the web as well on "how to":

1) http://www.facebook.com

2) http://www.twitter.com

3) http://www.mashable.com (A GREAT website for learning generic social media.)

4) http://www.stumbleupon.com

5) http://www.digg.com

6) http://www.youtube.com

7) http://www.socialmediatrainingnetwork.com' (A GREAT social website for learning social media tactics for small and or home businesses.)

And then do three things after learning how the site works:

1) CONNECT.
2) COMFORTABLE.
3) CONSTRUCT.

1) CONNECT.

The main thing you need to do is connect with people on these sites, and become a friend with them. Most of these sites have a process to befriend folks. Follow their process. Sound easy enough? But there is a type of friend that we teach that you must become. An "Addition Friend." This is simply a friend that ADDS to people's lives, not takes.

On the social media scene, most people are looking to Add, Enhance, Increase, and Enlarge a part of their life. YOU must help them do that with connecting with them and showing them new information about what you do, and how what you do can help them and change them for the better. It MUST not ever be a sales pitch, but simply information that will impact them enough that they may want to connect with you further about that in their life.

If you are a real estate agent, give them info on the 5 Biggest mistakes made while buying a home. If you are a CPA, give them some info on the 3 biggest mistakes made on tax returns. If you are in skin care, give them the 7 best ways to keep your skin healthy. You get the idea. You can find this type of information all over the web. Just send them the web address (url) to the article or blog post with a short note saying you thought of them when you ran across this.

We call it "Connection Marketing" and it WORKS when you allow it to.

CONNECT with the person --> CONNECT with their goals --> then CONNECT them to valuable information that will help them achieve them. Then most of the people Will then connect with your interests and be willing to help you with yours.

2) COMFORTABLE.

You must get the people on the social media sites COMFORTABLE with you.

How?

Talk about them, and how you can help them reach their goals and dreams- either with what you do, or with what you know. We call it "Comfortable Conversation(TM)." You must hold online "conversations" with people and get them comfortable with you, and comfortable with staying connected with you. You do this by talking about what THEY are interested in, and then you PROVE to them you are serious about adding value to their life.

It is ALL about Value in the social media arena. People expect Value in your messages and communication, and if you give them things that will help them in their endeavors, (blog posts on their industry, articles on doing what they do better, etc,) they will get very comfortable with you, and even helping you with YOUR endeavors. They will be moving towards you quickly if you practice that focus in your social media efforts.

3) CONSTRUCT.

Simply, in Social media Marketing, you must Construct a bridge between you and the person that eventually leads OFFLINE and onto the telephone.

THAT is the secret to Success in social media marketing. We call it the "TIO Factor." Take It Offline and let the personalization begin.

You have connected with the person- in person-at least in voice.

You have gotten them comfortable with you by your interest in helping them achieve their goals.

Now you must construct a path that allows you to say, "What is your contact number? I would love to chat with you for real over the phone." Then just do that. It may take a few days or a couple of weeks. But if you could pick up 10 new customers with this conversation would it be worth it?

Of course it would be. And how would you do that?

Ahhh--That is another article on Social Media Marketing Success.

blessings...doug

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Email Marketing Software For Your Start-up Hair Salon

bet there wasn't a course in Hairstyling School about how email marketing software will help you boost sales and attain repeat business. As a start-up hair salon business owner, repeat business is tantamount to survival. On the one hand, repeat-customers establish consistent income. Secondly, retaining customers costs much less than getting new ones.

Email marketing software is the most effective tool in the pursuit of repeat business, and it is by far the least expensive method of keeping your initial clients. In building your contact list through your grand-opening promotions, you can set yourself up with life-long clients.

Gathering your email marketing software contact list is best done as soon as you open the doors to your new hair salon. Offering promotions for your very first customers in exchange for their contact information will develop your lifelong and repeat clients. A successful promotion to increase repeat business might include incentives. By giving the first 100 clients a discount the next time they come in, a preferred price on products or a free product or service in return for referring your salon to a friend, you have created a strong relationship to a client and started to get the buzz out about your salon (and this has nothing to do with the sounds of a hair clipper).

Another way to continue getting sign-ups is to add a container for business cards with a sign that indicates your promotions. Or, you can ask them when they are paying if they would like to sign-up to receive promotions via email.

Also, the top-rated email marketing software agencies will give you, free of charge, a web sign-up box. This is something you can place on your website so that your site visitors can sign-up for your email newsletter and promotions.

Once they have signed up, you will send reminders about your store, promotions on new in-store products or specials on cuts, highlights, manicures, or whatever seasonal promotion you decide to offer.

The best email marketing software packages for small businesses tend to be those that offer you a credit option instead of a monthly charge. The way a credit system works is similar to a bank account. First, you load up your account with as many credits as you want. Then, each time you send out an email, your account gets credited for the amount of email addresses you are sending out to. For example, if you send out one email to 150 clients, you will be using 150 credits. The reason this is a benefit is due to the control over your marketing scheme. It is also VERY easy on the wallet. When you are not tied into a monthly cost, YOU decide when you need to purchase more credits and do not have to incur a monthly charge for sending.

Also a credit package is beneficial to a small business in terms of the free trial. Credits do not expire, whereas monthly trials do. As a small business, it might take you more than two months to develop a list. So, slowly using up your free trial credits without having to incur any charge is more worth your while.

Email marketing software can make your start-up hair salon a success at a faster rate and at a cheaper cost than other forms of promotion. It is the most cost-effective method of retaining your current clients, and driving your repeat business. Your grand-opening promotions can be a highly effective way of achieving a contact list and therefore maintaining a business relationship with them. More repeat business means a successful business, with a price tag that has been trimmed.

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Email Marketing Sells Books

Matching up against the big box bookstores is typically a challenge for any local new or used bookstore, but with email marketing, it's a cinch. Email marketing has the unique capability to classify your patrons in terms of your marketing campaigns. During exams, school projects, or the holiday season, email marketing can help you divide your audiences according to their needs.

Now you will provide your customers with the scholastic, academic or gift opportunities they are looking for.

Because yours is a local bookstore, you are actually a step ahead of the "big box" stores. You have the ability to directly connect with your customers in a way that the big guys can only dream of replicating. By providing focused groups with special promotions geared to their interests, you will increase the traffic to your bookstore location, because you have gotten to know their needs and interests. Establishing this relationship, your customers will appreciate your store by shopping there. All you have to do is start signing your patrons up for your Email Marketing notifications during check-out and on your website.

In order to sign your customers up for your email marketing promotions, you first have to tap into their interests. It is important to get to know high school, university, and elementary school schedules: When do classes begin? When are exams? This way, you are not only segmenting your audience for holiday seasons (like the big boxes are going to do), you are going to offer your customers a discount when they really need it. Personalizing your service to your customers is going to go a long way in making sure they return to your store and are loyal to you instead of the other guys.

It starts with a few simple questions when customers are walking in and out of your store. For example: Do you want to receive an email offering you discounts on the books or authors you're interested in?

You will need to have a sign up list at your checkout counter. On this list, you ask them to include the information that is relevant about why they are shopping for books, what kind of updates they would be interested in, which authors they like, etc.

Don't forget that email marketing programs have a built-in "forward-to-friends" option that will expand your current customer base. The better email marketing packages have tracking capabilities that allow you to see which of your customers are viewing your emails, who is clicking to see your promotions, and which readers are forwarding your emails to friends and family. This offers you a renewed focus for future marketing campaigns.

Through email marketing, your local bookstore can increase its amount of traffic by leaps and bounds. Offering your customers promotions based on their needs gives you an extra edge that larger stores are unable to achieve. The big stores make offers to the general public based on general interest. Your new or used local bookstore can speak directly, specifically, to your customers as people, and not commodities. With efficient email marketing, your message will get out to your important customers. And to you, EVERY customer is important. Having focused groups based on customer interests creates a far greater likelihood that customers will come in more often. They will feel they are being appreciated for their needs. Email marketing is the tool of smart businesses who know the importance of connecting with people.

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10 Things to Look For in an Affiliate Management System

There are many different affiliate management systems available. You have to select the best one so that you can get good profit and your affiliates are also happy.

This article explains 10 most important things that should be present in a great affiliate management system, so you would be able to run your affiliate marketing business easily:

1) Complete control over recruitment of Affiliates:

This is the basic requirement of any affiliate management system because if you don't have control over the number of affiliates joining and promoting your affiliate program you might be soon end up in loss or some spammers or your competitor may try to break down your affiliate system and create loss in your business. So, wisely choose the affiliate management system which provides complete control over the affiliates so you would be able to contact them, offer them help, request information and keep in-touch.

2) Offer multiple payment options for your customers and affiliates:

Your affiliates are distributed geographically all over the world. In one region particular payment option will be available and the same will not be available in some other region. PayPal is a good option because they are almost present in all countries but you can't withdraw the money in some countries like Egypt where you can use MoneyBookers to withdraw the money. So, your affiliate management system should enable your affiliates to receive the payment via lot of payment processors else they will not work for you. Offer as much affiliate payment options as possible and then you will have no problem getting your product promoted!

3) Affiliate visitor and sales tracking is a must - track as much details as possible:

The affiliate management system should be able to provide you the ratio between the number of visitors and the sales made by them. This can help you to find out your best affiliate and reward your best affiliate every month it will create a healthy competition among your affiliates and you will enjoy the benefits of it. You must be able to track all details of your affiliates activities: views and visitors that your affiliates bring, the number of sales, conversion rates of your promotional partners, refund rates. Some systems even allow you to track the websites referring sales to your website and even keywords used on search engines to find and buy your products.

4) Affiliate reward system based on their performance:

The affiliate management system should not give the same amount of commission to all your affiliates i.e., it should provide more commission to those who bring quality traffic and make good sales and should give somewhat less commission to poor performers. So, that your good affiliates will try to work even harder to get more commission per sale. Make sure to select the system that allows you to set custom affiliate commission percentages for each certain affiliate. Then you will be able to reward your best performing ones!

5) Ban the affiliates if they use illegal methods - Affiliate BAN mechanism :

Some of your affiliates may bring traffic to your site by spamming or by redirecting their browser in malicious manner and some may buy your product if they like it but more than 95% visitors will consider your site to be malicious site and trying to spam them. So, it will bring bad reputation to your business hence, your affiliate management system should identify these affiliates and ban them. Your affiliate management system should allow you to identify these scammers - by allowing you to track number of visitors, websites used by affiliate to refer visitors - and then ban if you feel that certain affiliate hurts your reputation.

6) Be in contact with your affiliates - always stay in touch with them:

Money is the main factor for which your affiliates are working for you, but it isn't the only factor which helps you to retain your affiliates. More or less all the affiliate programs offered by different product sellers are almost the same, so you can have an advantage if you do something different than what others do, you can do this by being in contact with your affiliates try to understand their problem and help them whenever they need your support and get their suggestions to improve your product. Always help your affiliates by contacting them personally, asking if they need some help. This way they will reward you with a lot of sales!

7) Keep track the refund rates of each certain affiliate:

When your customer is not happy with your product they request you to refund the money and you have to do this to maintain good reputation. There are basically two reasons for which your customers will ask you to refund: first is when the product is not really worth the other reason is they might be given some wrong information about the product by your affiliates and when they didn't find that feature in your product they will request you to refund. So, your system should be able to track down those affiliates and ban them if they bring too many sales that ends up as a refund request - in order to protect your product and online reputation.

8) Track all websites that bring you visitors and sales via affiliate links:

Tracing down the source from where visitors arrive. Your affiliate management system should be able to trace out from where your customers are coming from i.e., the source which directs them to find the sales page and buy your product. After pinpointing it you have to focus advertising there to boost your sales. Such tracking capabilities allow you to identify the most profitable 'traffic sources' and concentrate on them (if it's an affiliate - offer additional help, etc.). This way you can easily make your profits soar!

9) Flexible affiliate training capabilities:

You should provide training to your affiliates about your product so that they can understand what they are selling, its advantages and disadvantages. This will help them greatly to convince their visitors to make them buy your product. Provide all possible promotional materials - banners, pre-written articles, e-mail letters and other content for your affiliates. Your affiliate management system should allow you to place and manage all promotional tools and thus enable your affiliates to access them easily whenever they need to.

10) Track all keywords that bring you visitors and sales and manage affiliates effectively:

Your affiliate management system should be able to find out the keywords used by the visitors to find your product on search engines like Google, yahoo or other search engines. This report can be used to stress these words more in other search engines by using the Meta tags and using ad services of Google, yahoo or other ad service providers. You should be able to track all keywords that people use to find your product via pay per click campaigns such as Google Adwords or Y! Search marketing or regular search engines. Once you find keywords that bring sales, you can easily concentrate on them, bid higher to get even more traffic and sales!

If your affiliate management system has these 10 things then you can be assured that you will make good profit, but always try to improve your system according to the latest technology so that you are always ahead of your competitors. We would recommend you to join Click2Sell.EU (http://www.click2sell.eu) affiliate management system. It allows you to sell your products online, run your affiliate marketing business and manage all your affiliates easily with a help of great statistical and analytics features. Choose a good affiliate manage system that will enable you succeed online!

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How to Conduct Personalized and Group MLM Training

If one of your responsibilities as an network marketer involve recruiting people and getting them interested, you need a plan to get started. We've all been in boring MLM training exercises where ill-prepared speakers show up, give us information that we might have just as well read out of a pamphlet and then have to do their best to fight the growing boredom of the crowd. These cringe-worthy events are why MLM occasionally gets a bad rap, but by just keeping a few simple things in mind, MLM training can be a great experience and a great way to get information across.

If you are holding a small group or a one-on-one MLM training session in your own home, make sure that you are well prepared for it. Your home should be tidy, with the small kids sent off to a baby sitter and any animals secured in another part of the house. Don't serve alcohol or large meals, or you'll find your guests drifting off half an hour in but do keep light refreshments on hand to keep the energy up.

When holding a MLM training session in your home, it is still no excuse to not have visual aids. A simple whiteboard, easily purchased from your local home office supply store, or a large presentation board works, and if you have the cash to spare, look into getting a projector that will hook to your laptop and allow you to create Power Point presentations. One of the best ways to keep everyone interested is to provide plenty of things to look at.

When you are presenting an MLM training session, remember that you will need to make sure to keep things moving ahead and snappy. Your presentation should come in around forty minutes; any longer and the people will no longer be as apt to to stick around and listen if it just keeps dragging on. Spend the first five minutes or less introducing yourself and telling them what your upline team leaders can do to help them achieve their dreams. Introduce your company and your products for about ten minutes. Keep bringing your audience back to the idea of how this can help them achieve their dreams, whether it is in terms of health, wealth or life success.

In your MLM training session, show them how your compensation plan will help them solve their fiancial woes. This is the most important part, so be careful to make sure that you emphasize the benefits. Similarly, if your pay plan takes more than ten minutes to explain, it is too complicated! For the last fifteen minutes or so, talk about the support system that is involved, why the time is right to join and how quickly they can be on the road to success.

Remember to engage your audience, whether it is by telling them to shout "Yes!" along with you or by asking them questions. Keep an eye on the enthusiastic participants, as there's a good chance that they'll be your future downline. MLM training isn't for the shy, but with a little bit of work, you'll find that it's a piece of cake.

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Why Do People Join MLM Work From Home Opportunities?

MLM work from home opportunities have taken the home business world by storm. There are so many companies to choose from and so many unique products and services to sell. However, these are not the only reasons why people are signing up for MLM work from home opportunities. There are many benefits that factor into a person's decision to join an MLM company. Below we will discuss why this has become such a booming industry.

First off, the MLM or multi-level marketing business is all about people. It revolves around the visions set forth by the people who created the business, the hard work done by the people who carry out those visions and the relationships developed along the way. When you become involved with an MLM work from home opportunity you have to work directly with people in order to succeed.

Relationships are developed when you recruit other members into your downline. This allows people to reach out and get to know new people and establish a friendly relationship by motivating one another and helping each other succeed. Besides this, most MLM companies have large gatherings including cookouts, training meetings and special cruises where people can meet new friends who share the same interests.

In addition to making new friends in a supportive environment, many folks seek out MLM work from home opportunities as an alternative or addition to retirement. These people are looking to build themselves a nice safety net of income that they can fall back on later in life. Medical costs, house payments, food and other expenses are not getting any cheaper as the years roll on and most people just do not have the funds they need for retirement or in case of emergency.

Some people just want to be able to be in business with themselves. Working with an MLM company provides all the necessary tools to help a struggling entrepreneur get their own business off the ground.

Others seek out MLM work from home opportunities in order to replace their boring day jobs. Many people feel trapped by working a regular job with no way out because they have bills that need to be paid in order to survive. MLM offers these people a chance to break away from those surroundings and create their own work environment.

Then there are the big dreamers. These people have high hopes of achieving all their aspirations but have no idea where to begin or do not have the money to pursue what they love. MLM work from home jobs give them a chance to work on their own schedule, earn an income and have time to fulfill all of their dreams.

Finally, who could ignore the folks who are seeking wealth? Are you one of them? Working at home in the MLM industry provides a means to create wealth with very minimal start-up costs. It allows people to be their own boss without having to empty their life savings or having to repay huge bank loans. Becoming wealthy takes hard work, patience and determination but anything is possible with the right attitude.

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Email Marketing and Mailing List Management Options - Which One is Right For You?

Email marketing is the most cost effective form of marketing. Actually, it doesn't cost anything to send emails, unless you consider internet bandwidth as a cost! However, you do need to have systems to send emails to your mailing list.

There are many ways you can do this, ranging from free hosted services and free software, to one time payment owned products, to monthly payment hosted solutions. All systems have their own pros and cons, their own features and advantages. Let us discuss these in detail so that we can decide which one is best for you:

Free Hosted Solution: There are several free autoresponder services available online, if you search on google. One of them is sendfree.com. The problem with these services is that they have very limited features and at some point of time you will require to upgrade to their paid solution, as your business expands. I wouldn't advice to go for it, unless you're doing it for entertainment purposes only.

Free Mailing Software: There are quite a few softwares available that you can install on your own server. This is OK to start with. But since it is free, you may be limited with features. Additionally, you won't get any support and neither will they hold responsibility for any bugs or security holes. You can opt for this solution if you're just trying your hand at it and are not very serious about it.

Paid Mailing Software: If you prefer to have complete control over your subscriber list and would prefer to pay a one time fee (and maybe a small annual fee for support and upgrades) instead of a monthly fee, this is a good option to choose. Depending on the software you purchase, there are a range of features to choose from, so do your research before taking a decision. Remember, taking backup of your lists is your responsibility. Depending on the number of subscribers you add to your lists on a regular basis, you should take a backup accordingly, like weekly, daily or even every few hours. Your list is your most important business asset, so take care of it. Autoresponse Plus is a good option to choose, if you opt for this solution.

Hosted Solutions: There are a whole range of hosted list management and autoresponder solutions available on the internet. A few of them are aweber, getresponse, emailaces, 123response, etc. Some of these solutions also offer an inbuilt ecommerce module like the 1shoppingcart. In fact, the professional package of 1shoppingcart has a complete online marketing system including digital delivery of downloadable products, affiliate tracking software, shopping cart, ad tracking, multiple payment gateway integration, etc.

Most popular hosted email solutions providers also maintain very good relationships with many ISPs, which is certainly an advantage when it comes to email deliverability. The chances of getting your email lost in a junk folder or not getting delivered at all decreases drastically, when you choose this option. However, this tends to be an expensive option and you need to fork out anything ranging from $10 to a few hundred dollars a month. The cost depends on which provider you choose and also the number of subscribers that you have / expect to have. Choose this option if you're confident of taking full commercial advantage of your list. Another good but very expensive hosted solution is infusionsoft. It has all the bells and whistles like open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate, and other statistics.

Whatever solution you choose, remember to educate yourself with the spam laws and also keep your knowledge updated. You never know when an unintentional goof up can land you in serious trouble. Most importantly, use double optin, have your complete address in all emails, and have a genuine unsubscribe link within your emails.

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