Data entry plays an important roll in Marketing.  Marketing is mostly the act of building lists, ideally targeted lists with a lot of really good information like email and phone and mailing addresses.

When a company is out marketing, they might go to a trade organization, show or other event where they get great lists and they have the best intention of entering all that valuable information into excel or some other database or a CRM.

But time goes by and the marketing data entry never gets done and the potential leads get cold.

It was not until recently that I realized that big data entry companies actually will often do a smaller job like just described as well.  In fact, I am currently working with a data entry company and they are doing a number of smaller jobs that surprised me.  They can enter survey results when you have collected paper surveys.  They will enter information for publishers when they get subscription cards back.  They can process rebate cards, customize mailings and key data from paper or electronic directories.

This might not be surprising to you.  But what did surprise me is that they are very efficient and much more affordable than I expected.  I see projects done for as little as $25 which in my world does not seem like it would be worth doing, but for a company that only does data entry, it is just one more project.

Especially if you are looking for a local, Ohio Data Entry Company, please go check out Coleman Data Solutions and get a quote.  They provide an important service for marketing firms in the Akron area and throughout Ohio.  No marketing agency should be doing data entry themselves.  Leave that part of the project to expert data entry professionals.  The nice thing about Coleman is that it is also a Non profit data entry business and proceeds go to funding mental health issues in Ohio.

The idea that you can pick from many lead capture options that are free is a loaded idea.

What I mean is, yes there are many free lead capture software options but you may be better off paying for something because it will look more professional and you can count on it a bit more.

One of my favorite free lead capture tools is Google Docs, as long as you do not mind it being branded by Google Docs and you are not looking for anything other than capturing the lead information.  You just choose the “forms” option and Google docs will build your a form, embed script to add it to your website and a Spreadsheet to capture the data.  I always set it to email me whenever the form is updates so that I know when I generate a lead.

Next would be the many WordPress lead capture plugins (search forms) that you can find.  My advice here is to test carefully and retest often.  All too often I have done an update on WordPress or on a plugin and then gone months not realizing that the form was no longer working.  It is a free lead capture option but I never really trust it.

Next would be to use a Free CRM like Sugar CRM.  This is not for the faint of heart as setting it up and configuring it can take some tech skills, but these tools, vTiger is another, also will give you free lead capture and an actual system for moving the lead through the sales process.

Lastly, you can use a low cost option like aWeber where you can capture the lead and set up automatic responses to them, as many as you want for as long as you want.  This is very effective at generating leads and is a great low cost lead capture option.  You can also get something like SalesForce.com or Zoho CRM and it will cost more, but they have support and reliable sales lead capture services.

Everything is a funnel.  When you are promoting your business or product you are out casting a net and bringing people that are interested or meet certain criteria into a funneling process.

I see a lot of small businesses fail because they are focused on building a better marketing funnel when they have not defined and refined their sales funnel yet.

Things that can be included in your sales funnel are:

CRM – I have used many CRM’s and they are critical to building a good sales funnel.  There are free CRM systems and higher priced ones with more features.

Productize – Even if you are a service company, create products for your services.  Give them names and definitions so you can talk about them and explain them in a way that is clear and easy in the sales process.

Templates – You have to have great templates, because once people are in the sales process they will start asking for more information on parts, and being able to quickly send them things is essential.

Case Studies – In many cases you want to have case studies you can use in your sales funnel.

There are more thing as well, but this is a good start.  Think about the process of selling and everything you might need along that path.  Find ways to illustrate your value and make the sale easier.  Keep refining your sales funnel all the time.

Then, once you get your sales funnel fully defined and running well, that is the time to start building your marketing funnels.  Internet Marketing will be one marketing funnel, but you should look at where your ideal prospects are and build multiple marketing funnels and measure things like lead generation, revenue, profitability, cost per lead, etc.  These will help you identify your best source of leads in your marketing funnels and focus on them, increasing profitability.

Too often the small business owner thinks of this as all one big funnel.  You can never identify your best marketing funnels unless you define each one separately.

While primarily a marketing guy now, my background is in technology.  But what does technology mean and how has is changed?

Honestly, if used to be frustrating because people would call me to fix their computer – and I was a coder.  I enjoyed troubleshooting a computer as much as I enjoy changing the oil on my car.

But most people did not realize that a person that codes is not the same person that fixes computers, although they may be able to help you with the basics.

Then in the coding world, there were several camps.  There were the hard core coders, game developers and then there were the software developers in two camps.  Enterprise Tools such as MicroSoft and Open Source Software such as WordPress, Sugar CRM and others.

But today I look around and I feel a bit sad.  I would love to work on the many devices that are out there but software development has become so fractured that it is impossible to do everything.  You have to specialize in certain technologies or you cannot be good at them.  For example, do you want someone building an app for your car that was just building a kitten website last week?

In many ways it has gotten easier to pick up the languages and tools – but because there are so many different things, including different devices, it is very hard to manage all the issues with all of them.

For your project, do not hire someone to help you because they are technical.  You need the technology specialization that comes with your particular project.  And the idea that one firm has those people on staff for every different possible option is not realistic.  Outsourcing to specialists is now required.

I do not usually mix non profit and business.  However, I have been involved with Coleman Professional Services for five years now and the time has come to give this a shot.

Between now and Dec. 25th, I am going to match donations that are given to Coleman through their Web Form up to the first $100 if you put Buzzoodle in the “This gift is in honor of…” field.

If you would have sent me a card or something, just go make the donation there instead of $5 or more.  It really does help people that need it.

Coleman Professional Services helps people all over Northeast Ohio with Behavioral Health.  I have had a chance to meet many of the people involved with the organization   This is not your average non profit, by the way.  They are very professional and really work hard to keep administrative costs down.  I believe around 90% of your donation goes to helping people directly.

I get hundreds of visitors per day to this website and I hope a few of you each day can spare $5 to help me meet this challenge.  Click Here to Give.

Thanks and have a wonderful holiday season.

What is the difference between buying leads and building your own lead generation website?

A lot.  However, this does not have to be a decision.  If you are buying leads from a lead generation company and making a positive ROI on the purchases, then you should never stop buying leads from them.  It is all about if you are getting quality leads and if you are successfully converting leads to customers.

However,  just because that works does not mean you should not build your own lead generation website for your company.

The good thing about building your own lead generation website is that you can generate free leads that are exclusively yours.  Again, this should not mean that you turn off your other lead generation efforts.  The disadvantage of building your lead generation website is that it takes time to get going, it takes some regular effort of writing some articles and getting links, and it requires some time and expertise to set up.

The Buzzoodle lead generation system does make it faster, easier and more effective because it has video on how to set things up and publishing tools to help you improve your publishing, linking and social media integration that will increase your inbound marketing effectiveness.

The good news is that generating leads on the web is not difficult.  But it does take a few months to get set up and to start seeing results – and most people give up before it kicks in.  That said, it is not going to usually produce large numbers of leads a day usually.  When executed properly, online lead generation can produce highly targeted leads that are likely to buy your product, but how many depends on your market and your competition.

Because of the low cost of building a lead generation site, every business serious about growth should have its own lead generation website, but they should also consider other lead generation strategies as well.

I keep one eye on Chris Brogan.  Often I just skim his stuff and do not worry too much about it.  I think he does a great job, but often it is a little light on specifics for someone with more experience.

However, I really must say that this article interested me.  How to Grow.

I can see him going through the same growth issues as an owner and as a person as I am.  Yes, he is executing better and is more well known, but the patterns he is following and building and discovering are the success patterns that every entrepreneur should follow.

He discovered in 2009 how important moving the needle was.  It is the same year I started talking about measurable lead generation instead of the importance of blogging.

And in 2010 he is discovering the importance of building systems where other people own the system, and he is just out promoting.  This is a direction I have gone this year as well, by building more automation and less hands on consulting.  In fact, now my consulting is more along the lines of helping people build the systems, not about technology as much.

The big take away in the Chris Brogan article is not to become exactly like him, but to learn from him sharing how he is improving his life and his businesses.  I hope you find it as useful and interesting as I did.

I am a sucker for well designed and implemented Internet Marketing software.  I have to say that Andy Jenkins does a great job and go look at Kajabi.  It wowed me so much I signed up to promote it and I usually do not spend my time doing that.

Of course, one of the trickiest things about doing a membership site is producing great content, and Kajabi does not do that for you.

But what Kajabi does do is speed up the process of building your professional membership site and also streamlining your marketing in an incredible way.

Now to be clear, I am just getting access myself to this system so it is too early to say how well I like it or how effective it is.  However, even thought I am capable of building most of these features myself, it is too time consuming.

Do not underestimate the importance of the Kajabi marketing features.  I have written on other websites about membership site software that picking the software, creating the content and setting up the entire thing is hard and it is only the beginning.  Marketing a membership site is also difficult and takes a lot of time to reach a critical mass.  I have seen friends struggle for years trying to build their membership site only to find at the end that now they have to learn marketing.  (I warn them, but they often do not listen)

As is to be expected at this point, Kajabi has a money back guarantee and even currently has a free Kajabi two week trial period to see if it is right for you.  Seems like a no brainer if you are interested in building a top tier Internet Marketing business.

This is a review of the book, Build Your Own Wicked WordPress Themes by Allan Cole, Raena Jackson Armitage, Brandon Jones and Jeffrey Way.

I am happy to write about anything related to WordPress because it is one of those tools that is fundamental to your online success.  Since it is free software, you can just play around with it and over time learn to build your own themes.  However, you can greatly increase the speed of your WordPress theme development with Wicked WordPress Themes.

This book is great for someone that is comfortable hacking a bit at the web. You know, the kind of people that are not intimidated when it comes to modifying a bit of php or updating a style sheet.

The advantage of this book for those people is that it quickly guides you through how WordPress works and how the site architecture is laid out. Trust me, I learned this the old fashion way – years of experimenting – and this book will help you hit the ground running.

The reason you want to learn this skill is worth mentioning. Even though WordPress is a blog platform, it is commonly used for websites as well and the skill to be able to build or modify a WordPress theme is in high demand. I have referred many graphic designers to WordPress and told them to learn it if they want to have a great marketable skill.

The advantages of Wicked WordPress Themes is that it has some code examples, but not too much. It has lots of pictures, so you see what they are talking about. And it is written in a very easy to follow format. If you are a little more advanced, you can skip ahead. If you are a beginner, start at the beginning.

The key is to not let the whole thing intimidate you. Set up a test site and just start going through the steps and learning to modify themes. You will have the book, Build Your Own Wicked WordPress Themes to thank for your new, hot skillset.

I am a huge advocate of multiple lines of online income.

I started putting together a list of ways people could make online income and the list got fairly long – and feel free to add ones I forgot to the comments area.

1. Article and Blog Writing
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Google Adsense and similar Ad networks
4. EBay
5. Consulting
6. Web Hosting
7. Website Design
8. Selling Themes for WordPress
9. Membership Websites
10. eBooks
11. Selling Video Training
12. Publish a Book (Kindle anyone?)
13. Joint Venture Broker
14. Social Media Manager
15. Virtual Assistant
16. Craigslist
17. Linking Services along with SEO
18. Webinars
19. Copywriting
20. Sales Page Designer
21. Niche Market Researching

The list goes on and on.  I think the key is to build a system for each one and then you can do multiple income sources at the same time.  If you build a measurable, repeatable system it will be much easier.