Internet Marketing Assistant

October 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I just wrote a post over on the Virtual Buzz Assistant blog called Internet Marketing Assistant.

It is very relevant to this group as well and includes a link to John Cow, where they are discussing the virtues of using oDesk to hire virtual assistants - and the challenges that it poses.

Go take a look

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Macro Marketing

October 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment

As I crossed the border into Mexico, I could not help but think about Macro Marketing.  First, let me say I really love coming to Mexico and I have spent nearly two years of my life living in Mexico on and off.  But since I have specialized in marketing, this has been my first trip back.

Never before have I thought about marketing in such a broad sense.  Forget advertising.  Forget social networks.  What is the macro experience you are creating?

The moment I crossed the border into Mexico I experienced uneccessary stress.  Poor directions, rude behavior (that I never encounter further south) and extra expenses and hassles.  Certainly getting back into the US is not always a picnic either.

I applaud Mexico for the commitment to create great, safe highways.  I would also make the experience of entering Mexico one that made people feel welcome and wanted. 

Marketing is as much the product as it is the message.  When you have a big, complex product such as a country, focusing on first impressions seems essential.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Branding 

Twitter for your Business

October 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment

The new social media platform Twitter has taken many bloggers by storm. We’ve found a lot of practical ways to use it, like for note-taking, time management, and setting up meetings. However, we’ve also found out that you can maximize its use for your business. Imagine, a free micro-blogging website doing wonders for your business. Not bad, eh?

Believe it or not, there are already plenty of companies who use Twitter in their business. For example, Cisco Systems and Whole Foods Market use Twitter to provide product or service information. You can also do the same for your business. If you have a new product that you’re about to launch in the market, you would want people to get excited about it. So, satisfy your customers’ cravings by letting them know what your product is about and when it’s going to be available. This is the modern way of spreading the news, so give it a shot!

You may also use Twitter for emergencies. In fact, the Los Angeles Fire Department used this technology during the California wildfires in October 2007. In the workplace, you will also experience emergency situations that need to be blasted to the right people immediately. Say you have a presentation with a client but the file on your thumb drive becomes corrupted ten minutes before the presentation, you would need somebody to send you a backup file ASAP, right? Through your mobile phone, you can blast a message to your team and let them know that you need a backup file sent to your email ASAP. That one simple message will be immediately sent to those who are subscribed to you or your group. One message sent to the rest of the team. No need to whip up your phone and make phone calls. No need to show your panic to your clients.

There’s a daily deal store called Woot that used Twitter to provide their customers and potential clients with snippets of information about their latest deals. You can actually do the same for your company. Is your company planning a big sale? Or will there be a conference or event where you want to invite potential customers? Blast it in Twitter and get their responses! You’ll be amazed by the replies that you will get, because some users might even give you an idea on how to make your product better.

Know what your customers want through Twitter. When you create a product, of course you want to make something that people would buy. And what else should help you figure out what your customers want? By asking them! A simple question that’s easy to answer should do the trick. For example, how much are you willing to spend for a career coaching session? That way, you’ll gain an alternative perspective of what people really want to spend their money on.

Finally, another great way to use Twitter is during your brainstorming with your team. Remember that you can opt to send a message to a particular group privately by using the direct message function. If you’re in the middle of your product development phase and an idea or concept pops in your mind, you can easily “tweet” this idea to the rest of the group so they can begin testing or analyzing its feasibility.

There are many other prominent uses of Twitter, these are just some of them. You can use Twitter as a business advantage. It’s free, convenient, and easy to use. Maximize the use of this free service today!

Guest Post By:

Maria Elena Duron, CEO, Buzz to Bucks, helps you build compelling connections through career upgrades, business growth and increased influence. Re-Invent, Re-Brand, and Re-Design YOU!

Buzz to Bucks provides online profile management services, social management and reputation management - helping key employees to establish higher visibility and provide consistency in branding as well as establishing the expertise in their industry for entrepreneurs.  Maria Elena Duron focuses on building visibility and a broader network for busy people who just don’t have the time to do it well.

Maria Elena Duron is Chief Buzz Agent™ and Inspiring Identity Coach with Buzz to Bucks Connections.  The agency focuses on visibility, credibility and profitability for individuals, professionals and small businesses with programs designed to Re-Invent, Rejuvenate and Re-Brand. To claim your FREE gift, Crafting Your On Brand Intro Toolkit, visit her site www.buzz2bucks.com . Join our online growing community of people inspired to develop their identity at www.inspiringidentity.com

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Marketing on Hold

October 14, 2008 | 1 Comment

Due to some family issues I will be taking a little time off.  Just letting you all know that I have not abandoned the blog. 

I already have some new fodder for some posts that will be interesting, but you are just going to have to stop back.

Thanks,

Ron

PS:  Ever wanted to do a guest post on this blog, this would be a good time.  Just email me a marketing article that you would like to post and as long as it is not too salesy, I will be happy to post it.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Virtual Marketing Assistant

October 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment

As you probably know, I started a Virtual Marketing Assistant network that trains virtual assistants in internet marketing.  But more than half the members of the network are not virtual assistants.  They are consulting professionals that are happy to help with internet marketing tasks.

The reason that you want to request a free interent marketing quote from the network is because you are going to get more results for less money.  If you go after a specialist, you will pay specialist rates.  If you go after an assistant, you will get quotes from specialists that are looking for some internet marketing work and want will work at a lower rate because they know they are competing with other virtual assistants that can do internet marketing.

Here are some of the tasks the Virtual Marketing Assistants can do:

  • Affiliate Management
  • Blog Writing
  • Blog Commenting
  • Social Media Exposure
  • Online Advocacy (Contacting bloggers and asking them to write about your product)
  • Article Writing and submission
  • Website updates
  • Podcasts, Video

And there is a virtual marketing assistant there that can do just about any virual internet marketing task you need.  Since it does not cost anything to submit your project, why not go see if there is someone that can help you out?

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzzoodle 

Marketing Plan a MUST

October 8, 2008 | 3 Comments

In some ways, this post is a “Most Embarrasing Moments” post.  You come here because I am a marketing expert, but the only way this post if effective is if I am willing to write about my failures.

How to Avoid Costly Marketing Mistakes

#1 Have a Maketing Plan

I do not mean a big plan, but I do mean a clear plan.  If you do not know what you are trying to achieve, you will not know what marketing is working.

#2 Don’t Buy Marketing that Finds You

I dabble with new things occasionally.  But I have NEVER made money when marketing found me instead of the other way around.  For example, I had someone cold call me and offer to sell me ad space in Sky Magazine.  Originally he wanted $2,500.  I told him if he had any remainder space I would pay $500.  He ended up having the remainder space so I gave it a try.  Result?  Book sales dropped that month because money was diverted from the strategy to a random ad that people could not take action on.

Another example is Northwest Publishing.  A salesman walked into our office and talked us into an ad that would appear in a bunch of restaurants.  We decided to try it for one of our clients.  The end result was that the company is fraudulant, traps you into a contract and does not run the ad you send to them (3 times, because they kept losing it.)  If I did the research, I would have seen that they do not have a website and go by a variety of names including, Table Topics, Northwest Publishing and The Trivia Pages.  Lots of smoke and mirrors to get money.  The sales guy was good, though.

The news here is that I was smart enough to hedge my bets and only pay what I could afford to lose.  But the reality is that when marketing finds me and not the other way around, it is always a loss.  Never let the marketing find you.

#3 Decide what you want and go find it

If you have a good marketing plan, you know the audiences you are trying to reach.  Then you start researching and finding the best places to reach those people.  It could be Sky Magazine or an ad on a blog, but the point is that you are going to be much more successful with marketing if you chose the marketing and the marketing does not chose you.

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Marketing ROI, Small Business 

Twilight - Stephanie Meyers

October 5, 2008 | 8 Comments

NEW YORK - AUGUST 01: Stephenie Meyer poses o...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This is not a book review of Twilight by Stephanie Meyers.







 Instead, it is a look at how a product can be so exceptional that the product takes on a life of its own.

I have not read Twilight.  I have read some of the things about Twilight on Stephanie Meyer’s Website.  But while I was in Denver to speak at a convention I happened to have CNN on and they showed the book, and all the raving fans of the book, and an interview with Stephanie Meyers.  The Twilight movie is coming soon.

I’d seen the books on display in the book store before, but never thought that vampire books would be appropriate for my 11 year old.

So long story short, after seeing the interview with the vampire book writer, I decided to get it from the library and see if my wife and daughter wanted to give it a try.

Stay with me here, there is a very strong marketing message coming

Now they both really liked Harry Potter and have read them multiple times. So since the interview mentioned a comparison I had high hopes I’d found another winner that they would really enjoy.  Oddly enough, with 1,000’s of books published every day, there are few that really stand out beyond decent entertainment.  One of my missions in life is to find them good books regularly, which is no easy task.

So I got the book from the library.   Within a day or two my wife picked it up and started browsing it, not sure if she wanted to read it.

She did not sleep that night and finished the Twilight in one sitting.  Within 3-4 days she’d finished all four books in the series.  Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.  One night she read because she was so upset with the book because of the decisions the one character, Bella, was making.

While my daughter did not read it in one sitting, she did finish it within 2 days.  And when I asked them if they were better than Harry Potter, they both agreed that yes, they were better.

This was nuts, I was thinking.

They read twilight and breaking dawn (their two favorites) over and over until the two weeks was up and we had to return them to the library.  Then, for one day they took a break and then on the second day my wife asked me to go to Walmart and buy them for her.

They’d already read them multiple times!

So I bought twilight and breaking dawn, and I am sure we will get the middle two at some point as well.

The Marketing Message

I promised a marketing message and here it is.  I frequently say there is no trick, no secret formula, you just have to have a clear marketing strategy and keep doing it long enough and making adjustments.  Well I lied.  The secret formula is to make a product that is so exceptional and creates a strong emotional connection so that it generates the kind of raving fan base that these books are creating.

I hope Stephanie Meyers is very rich.  We paid much less for her books than we would to see a movie or go to an amusement part, and my wife and daughter have gotten an amazing number of hours of enjoyment reading, and rereading the books.  They will be in line on the first day to see the twilight movie coming out next month.

At some point I am going to read these books, not for the pure pleasure, but to study how it is written and understand how she used words to create such a compelling connection with the reader.  Twilight has the secret formula and it may be required reading for any marketer.
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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Branding, Networking, Word of Mouth Marketing 

How to hire a blog writer

October 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment

A Blog Writer is one of the best things your business can do with a virtual assistant.

However, blog writing skills are as diverse as hiring someone that is in construction.

Do you need a handy man to repair your shed?  Or do you need a construction crew to build your garage?

Blog writing is just as diverse.  Before you start shopping for a virtual assistant Blog Writer, begin by understanding what your goals are.  Here are some possible goals for a business blog.

  1. Provide news and industry information - people come back frequently to the blog.
  2. Get great search engine traffic for your keywords and generate leads.
  3. Lock down additional slots in search engines to control your brand identity better.
  4. Create buzz and linking to the blog with great link bait articles.

All four of these are good goals, and they can all happen to some extent, but it is a lot of work to do these things well.  For example, if you want good keyword written blog posts, you need to do research, measure the results you get and maybe do minor rewrites over time to improve performance.

Writing good link bait articles could take days of research and writing.  You would not expect a cheap blog writer to be able to produce that kind of article.

What are your Blog Writing Goals?

To get the most out of hiring a virtual assistant that is a blog copywriter, you need to understand what the goals are and craft your interview questions accordingly.  Here are some sample questions.

  1. What tools have you use to do keyword research before writing a blog post?
  2. What is your strategy for writing headlines and explain why?
  3. Show some examples of link bait articles you have written.  (You can then measure the number of links to that page to see how successful it is)
  4. Send me a link to a post you wrote that had target keywords and tell me what those keywords are.
  5. How do you handle writers block?
  6. How do you work?  If I want 10 blog posts per month, how would you produce them?

These blog writer interview questions are going to eliminate 90% or more of the potential writer (unless they are trying to BS you) because most blog writers are not writing with a clear strategy and do not know how to do many of these things effectively.  They see blog writing as just writing a few paragraphs to keep the blog current.  That is fine if you are not expecting much out of the blog, but you can get better results with a blog writing strategy and serious writing with a trained professional.

Once you hire a good virtual assistant blog writer, be sure to pay them well and treat them very well.  While there are lots of virtual assistants available, getting one that is a good blog copywriter that can produce great results is very special.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Buzz with Blogs, Buzzoodle, Internet Marketing 

Internet Marketing Results

October 2, 2008 | 1 Comment

More than 10 years ago I began doing internet marketing.  Not like those crazy guru internet marketers that blast you with affiliate links and offers all the time, although I would probably be more wealthy today had I went that route.  Instead, it was 10 years ago I started helping companies build websites, publish eMagazines, and built audiences on the internet.

I am telling you this for a couple of reasons.  I am going to tell you a secret that will change the way you think about internet marketing, whether you are selling internet marketing services or looking to get internet marketing results.

The internet marketing secret is: To do internet market right, you have to continually do it and add to it and keep up with technology.  And you need a lot of hours or money to do it well.

The good news is that you can start small and grow your internet marketing effort over time.  But you need to have realistic expectations.  Starting small probably means getting small results.  You have to be disciplined and keep doing it.

Now you may wonder why I am telling you it is expensive and time consuming.  I am not doing a very good job of selling internet marketing services, am I?

Well, ten years ago when we started doing Internet Marketing, we were thrilled when we got our first client willing to spend $500 per month with us to do Internet Marketing.  Of course, we were fairly new at it and we tried everything to see what worked.  Eventually, he saw he was not going to get the marketing cost back each month in sales - he was selling a book -  and we lost the account.

What I learned from that is that Internet Marketing is hard if you are starting from scratch.  And while $500 may seem like a lot to some people, it is usually not nearly enough to make an impact.

How to get Internet Marketing Results

I am going to list the ways that you can get real internet marketing results.  You have a lot of options, but if you are looking for a quick, easy and cheap fix, it is not in the list.

#1 DIY Internet Marketing

You can do it all yourself.  However, there is a catch.  You have to have an automated business that is profitable and runs itself with little effort from you.  Why?  Because internet marketing is now your full time job.  You also should have some good money coming in, because to get good results you will need to do training courses, attend workshops and buy lots of books. Plus you will loose money experimenting with tool and advertising until you get your techniques down.

#2 Outsource Internet Marketing Tasks

If you have the time and desire to do strategy and management, but do not want to spend your days writing blog posts, doing keyword research and hanging out in social media sites, then you need to craft your strategy, identify your high value tasks and hire a team of virtual assistants to help you.

The mistake someone makes here is thinking one person working ten hours a month is going to make a big fast difference.  Remember what I said earlier, Internet Marketing gets results when you make a big effort.  I love the virtual assistant route, but you need a good plan, patience to find the right virtual assistants and to built a team that work on your behalf.

#3 Hire a Full Time Internet Marketing Employee

Certainly hiring and training a full time internet marketing employee is a great option for some people.  Just be sure that you document everything (right, I have never seen this happen) and cross train people.  The problem with hiring a full time internet marketer is that as soon as they get good at their job, they have the skills to go out and make a lot of money for themselves.  So there is a good chance that once you get them where you want them, you will lose them.

#4 Hiring a Professional Internet Marketer

When you hire a professional internet marketer, you are paying a lot more.  But don’t feel like you are getting a bad deal because of the cost.  If they are any good at their profession, they have spent MANY hours researching, learning and experimenting with internet marketing.  Trust me, I spend most of my day doing non-billable internet marketing activities to learn and increase my own income.  When I am billable, you are paying for the experience, not just the hours.

Remember that internet marketing secret?

Remember that unfortunate internet marketing secret?  It is not fast and cheap, despite the hype you read from people trying to sell you things.  It is going to either be someone’s full time job or you are going to have to assemble a team or hire someone that can do the full time job in less time (but at a higher rate).

The good news about Internet Marketing is that it grows and builds on itself and gets stronger when done well.  An advertisement starts at zero every month and you hope to get ROI.  An email list just keeps getting more powerful for you.  A blog will keep getting more search engine traffic if you work on it.  You can keep modifying your adwords and landing pages to increase profits until you get the perfect formula.

Internet Marketing has the best long term ROI, but getting from here to there is no easy task.  And it is definitely not something you buy once and forget about.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Internet Marketing, Small Business, Viral Marketing 

Are you confusing your visitors?

October 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I was recently asked to do a review for a new launch and in a matter of 2-3 minutes I was able to send them back information that was very valuable.  Why?  Because they were too close to the project and were not able to think like a new, curious visitor.

Here are 10 questions you need to answer as you review your website, assuming you are selling something. 

  1. Is it clear what you are selling, including the benefit someone will get?
  2. Is it easy to contact you?
  3. Are you tricking people into the purchase and finding most of your sales are abandoned part way through?
  4. Is there something free to help you start the relationship?  A white paper or email course?
  5. Are you transparent?  Can people read your blog, find you on twitter and facebook?
  6. Is pricing clear?
  7. Is payment clear if you are paying them an affiliate fee?
  8. Do you have a good FAQ? 
  9. Do you have great white space and is it easy to find things?
  10. Do you have video tutorals?

Even when you think you have all these bases covered, be sure to ask someone that does not know what you are doing to review the site and make a list of questions that they would want answered.  Ideally someone that is in the demographic of your customer.

And even after you are doing well, consider adding a survey to the site occasionally and ask people what they would like to see and if there was anything they had trouble finding.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

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