I am copying over my article from the Virtual Buzz Assistant Blog.  You might want to follow the link for two reasons -

#1 – If you or someone you know is thinking about starting a business, that Free Business Launchpad eBook will help.

#2 – To download the eBook, you sign up for an email tip list on creative ways to use virtual assistants to enhance your Buzz Marketing.  Now all the visitors here should be interested in THAT.

30 Day Virtual Assistant Business Launch Pad

Thinking about launching a Virtual Assistant Business?

I started out writing this eBook as a members-only kind of resource.  Then I realized it could be very valuable to anyone starting any kind of home-based or small business.

People were getting lost in what seems like overwhelming issues, so we lay it out day by day and make it easy to move from idea to income in 30 days.

We are giving it away.  Click here to get your copy.

Since we have launched several ventures, we know the basic stuff you need to get in place, and how important it is to focus on generating revenue quickly.  If you are thinking about starting a business or are trying to figure out what things need done for a business you recently started, this resource is for you.

Well, this week I am super hard at work on a big eBook that will be offered free to people interested in having their own Virtual Buzz Assistant business.

And I also know that many of you are going to enjoy the holiday this long weekend, and you could not care less about Buzz Marketing – and you shouldn’t.  Go have fun.

But some of you are from other countries and couldn’t care about the 4th, so this is for you.

I added a floating window that is integrated with aWeber to the front of my blog and have doubled the conversion rate.  It is early yet, but I like how it is trending.

I know that the window could be built by hand, but for the $47 dollars it really sped up the process.  And I can keep going back and using it to build additional ads.

The only reason I did not roll it out on the sub-pages of the blog is because there is no way to make it only pop up once per session.  So I added it to the top page, and then use the older (and less fancy) aWeber pop-ups below that, because they can show up once and then not again until the next visit.

Long term I may or may not keep it.  Everything depends on the numbers, but I’ve been planning on doing something nicer like that for a long time, and that software made it super fast, so I stopped procrastinating.

OK, if you remember from the last article, we have assumed you are now sophisticated marketers that are blogging, writing and using social media effectively.

One of the big mistakes that I see people make, and that I have made, is by focusing on the big picture too much.

Lets take a business example of this first.  You probably know certain metrics for your business. 

• How many customers you have
• How much money you spend
• How much money you make
• How many hours you work

Good, you can calculate your profitability divided by your hours and get a clear sense of what you are earning.

But what would happen if you broke down each client as a profit center?

Unless you are selling widgets at the same price to everyone, you will see that some customers are much more profitable and take up less time than others.  If your business model is designed around maximizing value AND profit while minimizing your time involved PER client, you will have a successful business.

Internet Marketing is Exactly the Same

Instead of thinking of your Internet Marketing, start thinking about various Internet profit centers.  This can get tricky, because one could generate the lead and the second can generate the revenue.

Let me take my email course as an example.  It costs roughly $20 per month.  Our main website and several blogs generate the people that sign up for it, and this email system actually generates sales for us when people are interested in our products or affiliate links.  It has a high profit margin but by itself does not pay enough to support me.

I have other websites that do not sell anything, but they do generate leads for the eNewsletter, so the better they produce email subscribers, the more profitable they are even if they do not directly generate a penny.

This can all get fairly complex, which is why you have to think of each individual web effort on its own merit and with its own goals.

The outcome can be one of three things:

• Actual Revenue
• Links and Traffic
• Audience

Actual revenue might be a micro-site that is a one page website that sells something.  Since it probably costs less than $5 a month to host, you should be able to turn any website into at least a minor profit center with a solid product and good copywriting.

Links and Traffic are the currency of sites that you host, hopefully with minimal effort, that point to your higher value sites and drive traffic to them, as well as help them rank better.  These are “profitable” based on the total value of each visitor and link minus the cost to maintain.

Lastly, audience.  Also called the list and referred to as the most important asset a business has.  Have you given some thought to setting up a website that does nothing but offer a free white paper to build your list?  The long term value of your list, if used well should make your one page website & white paper download a big profit center, although not via direct sales.

Buzz Marketing is most effective with simple things that are easy to pass along.  If you keep focusing on the big picture, you are building bigger and more complex things and you may not know which parts are working.  If you create targeted efforts with clear potential for eventual profit, you will get more referrals and buzz.  It is just an easier message to communicate.
 

I have to admit, I am still figuring out the best formula for the Virtual Buzz Assistant project posts.  For now they are free.

I originally had them priced $199, but companies were worried they would not like the match and the money would be lost.

Then I dropped it to $19 – mostly to make sure people were serious about buying the service.  The problem with that price is I could not get involved, and if people did not get a quick match then they felt that they did not receive a value.

So now I am trying free.  I know that is going to lead to some requests that are not serious – but for now we are going to see how free works and make adjustments.

That means that if you are interested in having a virtual assistant do internet and Buzz Marketing activities for you, this is an excellent time to request some quotes.  http://virtualbuzzassistant.com

Please note, the virtual assistants are not free.  Only your project submission is – and who knows for how long.

The reason you communicate with people is to create relationships.  Maybe not directly, one to one, but connections none the less.

 Before you dash off your next email, consider if you are just answering the question or building a better relationship.

Email mistakes you may be making:

• Email too short: If you are just replying to a question, you may be losing an opportunity to create a better relationship.  What could you send that demonstrates value and caring?
• Email too long: If your email is too long, people will just skim it and get what they need.  Send the email with links that point to more information they might be interested in.
• Personal & Caring:  Address the person and make your message more about them and less about you.
• Email Signature: One of the ways I frequenly contact people is to look up a recent email and scroll to the bottom.  If you do not have a good email signature, you are missing out.

And lastly, don’t give away the farm.

You should build resources that you can send people to if you get common inquiries.  For example, I could have sent a recent group of inquiries the link to our blog post on 99 ways to create buzz.  Instead, I let them know they get that link if they sign up for our free Buzz Marketing email course.  The link was shorter, the message was shorter and the relationship is stronger because they sign up for our course.

Don’t get me wrong here – don’t double the time required to answer emails.  Simply have resources available that you can send or link to that strengthen the relationship beyond a yes or no.

Yahoo Answers is a tool that you may not have heard about, but it is a good tool for some people to build traffic, develop more search engine visibility and position yourself as an expert.

Saying that, 90% of the questions are not all that serious or professional.  But if you take a few moments and find good questions, and give good answers, this tool can be effective – and addictive.

******************

Here is why you want to consider participating.

1.  Search Engine Visibility

Each question becomes a webpage with the question at the top and the responses below.  These pages are optimized for the question and they are on Yahoo, so they rank very well very quickly.  If you have answered a question and it contains a link to your website, you could be getting traffic for years to come.  If your answer is selected as the best answer, it is moved to the top.

2. Traffic

Each time you answer a good question, other people are checking it out as well.  You could see steady traffic from a good and interesting answer.

3. Expert Status

Yahoo will not make you an expert by itself, but it is a good place to hone your Q&A.  Plus, you could always point to your expert site as a part of your answer.  If people like your answer and you have a link like:  Need more information about Buzz Marketing?  Sign up for my newsletter….

You cannot do this every time as it is rather spammy, but if it is relevant to the question, you should do it.

4. Ask Questions

You can also ask your own questions.  This helps you capture all of the stuff above and keep it at the top.

Note of Caution:  I have found that the less complex a question is the more it will get responses.  Even though the general questions have been asked many times before, it is probably your best bet.

Years ago, I worked at a university where we created an online community (before it was super easy) and used it to help students get to know each other before arriving at the school.  It was a big success but with some unexpected usages.  Students were using the site to plan parties and other kinds of activities.  The developers later started referring to it as the orgy board.

LinkedIn was developed to organize your network.  People you really know.  But by nature, some people like to connect with lots of people far and wide.  I see value in either option – having a strong network or having a broad network both have some great positives.

The trick to creating a broad network in LinkedIn is to have your email in your title and LION (Linked In Open Networker) also in your top portion.  These two things are an invitation to connect to strangers.  – See my profile

LinkedIn  could put a stop to this.  It is certainly not their intention, but why fight nature?  Wouldn’t people just find another way to hook up eventually?

Now, if you want people to pay attention to your invitations, write one that shows you took a real look at them.  Today I got this:

Ron

-Dario

How could I not connect to Dario!?!?  That is how you spend 10 extra seconds and get a much bigger bang for your buck.

We just started helping a new client with a great new website:  Showroom 411

I do not write about every client here, because I try to keep this blog relevant to Buzz Marketing.  However, showroom 411 has a very relevant story that could be an inspiration to you.

Rick Maselli is a builder.  Not terribly web-savvy and not a marketer.

Years ago, he improved his project outcomes by using links on the web to help clients pick out the fixtures and materials they wanted.  This grew into an access database, and now has launched a very comprehensive online community around DIY Home Improvement.  It brings together home improvement people, products with public reviews and contractors that are there to help if needed.

My question to you is this:  How many companies are out there sitting on all kinds of great information and simply do not know they can leverage that for buzz, visibility or to launch a whole new company?

Showroom 411 includes:

• How to videos
• How to guides
• Product reviews
• Contractor profiles
• And much more

Take a look and think – do you have another company in the making?

Even when you have a strong brand, people do not appreciate being treated like a number:  Seth Godin blog post about Forbes.

Remember when you are contacting people – the more they feel like they are the only person you are talking to that day, the more likely they are to respond in a positive manner. 

Does this mean that the Virtual Buzz Assistant Network we run doing the same thing? 

Sure, Virtual Buzz Assistants are short-cutting the relationship – but the point you need to remember is that companies that hire Virtual Buzz Assistants respect and care about online relationships – so much so that they have an assistant that helps them maintain them. 

Caring about the relationships and full disclosure is what makes the marketing services a Virtual Buzz Assistant offers unique. 

I have worked with a lot of people that come to us and say, “I want buzz!”

Some succeed, and some fail.  Buzz itself is not an acceptable goal.  If you just know you want buzz, you are dooming your effort.  The success factor has little to do with buzz, and everything to do with understanding what a reasonable goal is in the first place.

So what are some examples of good buzz goals I have seen?

Goal:  Increase search engine saturation for our brand.

Goal:  Increase local word of mouth to pass a levy that is too close to call.

Goal: Increase website traffic by creating links and referrals.

Goal:  Establish our expertise over the next 24 months in the ______ industry.

Goal:  Generate 10% more referrals by facilitating word of mouth on the web.

Goal: Build an audience that wants to hear from us – add a minimum of 500 names per month.

Goal: CEO to be interviewed by 4 bloggers per month.

Now some examples of bad goals:

Bad Goal:  I want to create buzz to blow the sales off the roof.

Bad Goal:  I want to be #1 in Google for a general term.

Bad Goal:  I want to have a blog/myspace page/facebook profile because I read about it and I have to.

Bad Goal:  I want people to go into Walmart and demand that they carry my product.

The list goes on.

Here is the simple key:  It is great to have long term goals that are big, but your short term buzz efforts must be achievable steps to realizing those dreams, not the dream itself.  Focus on things that will interest your target audience and be valuable (and/or) easy to pass on.