Marketing | BizSieve.com

Marketing with eBook – a Comprehensive Strategy

Do you know the bottom-line of running a business successfully? No, it is about being proactive or possessing a go-getter and killer attitude. It is about generating leads.

If you are incapable of generating leads for your business, your business is not going to make it. And probably for this reason, business owners go extreme and start doing weird things when they fail to get their business going.

They send their over-confident marketers to attend seminars to rub shoulders with marketer leaders with a desperate hope that they will be able to seal some crazy deals. Nevertheless, it rarely works. However, some others go extra miles. They invite affiliate marketers and try to make them believe that their product is going to change their lives for once and all. But this is not the way you should be marketing your business. This is definitely not going to help you generate any leads rather it will diminish your prospect.

Image Source – http://www.flickr.com/photos/libraryman/2048264201/

Rather than chasing your customers, you need to know how to provide value that will eventually draw more customers and businesses. And this can easily be achieved with eBook marketing. It is simple, cost effective and of course, it is environment friendly. However, before you jump onto the bandwagon, you need to know the rules of ebook marketing otherwise all your efforts will go wasted.

Image Source – http://www.flickr.com/photos/epw/4857693316

How eBook work as a lead generation machine?

When you pay a visit your nearby shopping mall, I hope you have certainly seen shop owners trying to sell their products by offering some samples to try. By doing so, they are trying to provide instant value to their targeted audience and thereby making a huge stride to get them converted them into customers. Now, you can apply the same tactic while promoting your service. Since there is no option available to let your customers ‘taste’ your service, you can offer them a small eBook that will help them come to term with your offer or service.

And you know eBook is being considered as a powerful marketing tool because people do not consider them as a marketing tool. They usually take it as a source of information and therefore, you would not have to persuade them.

Image Source – http://www.flickr.com/photos/benoitmeunier/3769104218

The Obvious Benefits of using eBook

eBook comes with a unique benefit. Since traditional forms of marketing are proving less effective, ebook marketing is capturing the attention of all. As I have already said, it does not even look like a form of marketing. However, ebook does not need to be informative only; you can change the tone to suit your purpose. Just do not overdo things because it will defeat the purpose of launching the ebook.

The biggest benefit of using eBook as a source of marketing is that it is highly cost effective. Compared to its physical counterpart i.e. print magazine, ebook will not cost you an arm and leg. And the best part of ebook is that it does not necessarily have to 100 pages long. In fact, if you make it 100 pages long, no one is going to read this. The shorter, the better. Since people do not have much time in hand to go through a 100 pages long ebook these days, you need to make it short and sweet.
eBooks can be made a bit more interactive. Rather than making it another book with dry information, you can add videos, cool graphics, interactive pie charts and more. And if this is not enough, you can email your customers if you happen to update the ebook that will give a nice feeling to your customers that you care for them.
Since all things digital can be tracked or at least to some extent, you can measure the success of your ebook marketing campaign quite efficiently and precisely. If you have added links of your website in the ebook, you will be able to track how many visitors are actually coming to your website via ebook and how many of them are making the purchase thanks to the powerful tracking application – Google Analytics.
You can include call to action in the middle of texts in your ebook and believe me it can help you see some conversions. Since here the readers do not have to memorize the coupon codes or the long URLs or any other complex thing. They have to do far simple thing. Yeah, all they have to do is to click on the link and there they go. They will get landed right on your website and if the lady luck favors you, you will see more conversions and more business.

However, just publishing an ebook is not end of the task. You need to make sure that it is well written and the presentation is good enough otherwise it will not click. Here are the few things that you need to be careful about to make the ebook acceptable to your audience –

Image Source – http://www.flickr.com/photos/tscherno/194189530/

Quality of images should not be compromised. Since most people are going to scan the pages, your ebook should look presentable with loads of interesting images. As the ebook is going to be your brand ambassador, you have to make sure that the formatting, writing, presentations etc are at par with market standard.
You are free to add logo or other brand-based images in the ebook but make sure that they are not making it look like a promotional pamphlet.
Do not ignore the difference between a traditional book and ebook. For say, if you are converting a slide presentation, you should not ignore the importance of incorporating images with the texts so that the readers can have the feeling of seeing the presentation. And the same goes with when you are converting spoken content. The conversational tone should be kept intact.

So, if you can manage to follow these simple tips, you will be able to make the most of ebook marketing campaign. It is powerful and highly effective and all you have to learn is to how to use it.

Author Bio
Stark Jensen is a passionate writer and he has written several articles on web hosting. You can check his latest articles on Hosting Review: iPage.

The value of Outsourcing your Marketing

One foot here and the other foot there can’t help you in achieving what you actually deserve. Hire a marketing consultant and get back to focusing on YOUR areas.

As they say serving and satisfying an old and important client is not expensive as is going out to seek a new one in the market. Focus on taking care of your immediate business needs that you have taken charge of and divert your mind from the things that can be delegated to someone you can trust. One of the most important tasks that can enhance and widen your business (and should be the top item on your list) is hiring a marketing consultant. You need to take care of your acquired clients, but you can’t rely on them only. Here is an important business rule: never put all of your eggs in one basket. You can’t rely on that one client or those few to give you a large percentage of business; you need diversity!

Before you use outsourced marketing, you need to ensure the following points are considered;

How do you want to expand your business – geographically, product-wise, age-wise, by number of sales?
Do you need a marketing specialist, day-to-day consultant, or a general representative?
Do you want to set a deadline to achieve a certain target ie/ increased sales revenue
Do you want them to work remotely, or work in-house?

Fortunately, much of these answers are provided by an outsourced marketing consultant. But make sure that person/company has the qualities that you really need. A good consultant should have the following traits:

analyzes things well, thinks creatively and markets effectively
comes from a varied and experienced background to provide a wider scope of your business
can extract data from past trends, understands consumer behavior and identifies the medium through which your products can be easily approached by your targeted audience
can help determine pricing, packaging, distribution, advertising, to appeal and cater to therequired demographics of your customers
can also help build and implement a turn-around strategy.

It is always a better choice to outsource a marketing consultant as it frees up your valuable time and cuts down on your expenses. A full-time employee requires extra expenses such as allowances, promotions, year-end bonuses and perks, but this is not the case here. You can instead allocate resources on product development and promotions, as your consultant advises how to make the strategies work. This will in turn increase revenue and thus profitability over time.

Marketing may seem small to you when there are so many obstacles in the business world, but once you actually hire a marketer, you will soon realize how much you can increase business in so many ways that you couldn’t before.

Your Viable Service: Maximum vs Minimum

The way in which you market yourself is obviously an integral part of your business. You can’t rely on jobs just falling into your lap of their own accord, you need to go out there and pull them in. There are plenty of different techniques and styles of marketing, but there is an underlying choice you have to make first before bombarding the world with your amazing adverts and website. This is all based on the viable services you are able to offer. Do you want to stick to one specific part of your field, or do you want to be able to offer as much as you’re able to do. Let’s look and the advantages and disadvantages of both.

wedding photography niche — Wedding photography – an example of minimum viable service. Image by Mike Baird / Flickr

Offering a minimum viable service can easily be summed up by a photographer who chooses solely to do wedding photography. Essentially, rather than being a something (copywriter, filmmaker, composer) you are a type of something (product copywriter, documentary maker, film music composer).

One of the benefits of this is that you’ll find it much easier to build a portfolio. If you’re concentrating on one field then you don’t need to show a wide range of examples. Get a few jobs and your portfolio will already be looking great. It is a lot more focused too. Prospective clients will be able to get a much clearer picture of your style and vision this way.

You’ll also find it much, much easier to market yourself. Your website and adverts will concentrate on the one thing you offer and that means you can target your marketing much more efficiently. Rather than advertising across a broad selection of sites and publications, you can now just pick out the ones that are relevant.

Of course, there are some downsides. First up is actually deciding on the specific service you want to offer. If it isn’t something you’ve thought about, it may take some time to really decide. There is also a bit of trial and error in this too as you try out services which just don’t work for you. Time is valuable and you can end up wasting a lot of time trying to figure out what you want to do.

Once you have decided on what you’ll offer, prepare yourself for letting jobs that you can do pass by. You might see an advert on Gumtree for something you know you could do really well, but as soon as you show your client a portfolio concentrating on something else, they’ll be put off and consider you unfocused. On top of that, taking on other types of jobs defeats the whole point of offering a minimum viable service.

On the other side of the coin you could decide to other a wide range of services. This means, for example, that as a photographer you will make yourself available for any kind of job you can do, be it band, sport, nature or press photography.

One advantage is quite obvious. Advertising yourself as a photographer with wide-ranging skills means you have a bigger pool of clients to attract. This should mean more business for you and the ability to build up a very varied portfolio. Another little positive is that you might be able to get those more niche or obscure jobs that appear from time to time. The people advertising these jobs are likely to more interested in someone who has a varied skill set.

There’s a phrase that is quite relevant to this. “Jack of all trades, but master of none.” Simply put, some people will want a specialist for their job. To them, this is paramount, no matter how good your portfolio is. They don’t want to take any risk so they want the person they hire to be a safe bet. They won’t see you as a photographer, so much as an ‘all-round photographer’ which, unfortunately, just doesn’t sound good.

Have a good think about how you want to approach your marketing. Both ways have their pros and cons and it is simply down to your preference. Choose wisely!

About the Author: Joshua Danton Boyd is an in-house copywriter for the online accounting firm Crunch. He also regularly contributes to Freelance Advisor and Urban Times.

Promoting Your Small Business On A Budget: 5 Tips For Success

As a small business owner, you’ve probably struggled with ways that you can promote your business without a huge amount of outlay. While “traditional” methods such as advertising in print directories and magazines are still viable today, there are several other options you can promote your business, especially if you utilize the Internet to your advantage.

social media apps
Image by Jason A. Howie

Tip #1: Using Social Media

With the rise of Facebook, Twitter and various other social media outlets – many businesses both large and small have seen the advantage of being able to readily connect with new and existing customers online. If you have a Facebook page or Twitter account for your business, you can easily push out updates to your audience by using a quick Facebook update or tweet to announce a new product you’ve just released or a deal you’re offering. If customers like or retweet your updates, that’s even more advertising for your business since they’re likely to have friends or followers who will see the update, resulting in a potentially unlimited chain of exposure for your business.

linkedin swag
Image by Sheila Scarborough

Tip #2: Free or Inexpensive Promotional Items

T-shirts, bumper stickers and other small items like promotional coffee mugs are always a big hit with customers. This can be especially true if you tie them into another promotion you’re running, such as offering a free T-shirt to any customers who simply sign up for a free trial of a product or service you offer. T-shirts and bumper stickers in addition have the advantage of potentially being seen in public by thousands of other people.

business networking
Image by Jodi Womack

Tip #3: Connect With Other Businesses In Related Niches

If you offer a product or service in a specific niche such as home improvement, look at how you can connect with businesses that offer products or services that naturally complement yours without directly competing with you. For example, a home remodeling company might want to use their website and social media presence to help promote a building supply company that they personally use for tile and other related products, in return for the other company agreeing to promote them in turn. It’s a win-win situation for both sides and builds confidence in both company’s brands as well as exposure.

blogging
Image by Maria Reyes-McDavis

Tip #4: Guest Blogging

Guest blogging has seen rapid adoption in recent times and this can be a very handy tool for increasing your potential exposure to new customers. Connecting with other websites related to your niche and lending your expertise on a given topic is a win-win situation: The website you’re guest blogging for will have value added to their site, while you can demonstrate your authority and know-how about your products and services, giving you exposure for your company and often even a link back to your site that readers can follow if they want to know more.

google places
Image by Craighton Miller

Tip #5: Use Google Places

This is a free service that allows any brick-and-mortar business to set up a listing with Google that is specific to their local area. What this means is that when customers search for a given search term such as “car repair San Diego”, your business can pop up in the local Google Places listings for that particular search term – allowing your potential customers to find you much more easily and give you a leg up over the local competition. Google Places also offers the ability to include basic information about your company including hours, your physical address, services offered and your website address, should they need additional information about your company.

About the Author: Sara Fletcher is a professional blogger who writes on a variety of topics, ranging from business, SEO, and social media. She loves to learn about small business tips, and is always looking for the next writing opportunity.

Do not chase people – tips to persuade people to opt for your service

Everyone wants to have the gift of convincing people to do certain tasks. And probably this is the reason why people still go as far as trying black magic in the hope of controlling their future or getting a person under his control. But here I am not going to reveal the secrets of black magic. Sorry dude, rather here I am going to tell you some secrets that can help you convert people into paying customers. Ok, I can feel that you just cannot wait right? Ok here they go:

dont be shy

Do not be a shy Guy: I remember a saying – “When You cannot convince people, just confuse them”. Yup, this may sounds a bit naughty but this really works when you are into the domain of sales and marketing. When you are into the middle of audience who seem to disagree with what you are saying, you need to try a technique. You should be talking fast, giving little scope to them to disagree. When you are speaking fast very fast, listeners need to ignore obvious flaws in the argument. However, when you are talking to agreeable audience, you need to slow down, tone down a bit and give the audience some time to agree with your views.

Ok, ok you want to have the persuasive power right. Ok, in that case you need to master the art of talking with confidence. It may happen that you are not sure about the accuracy of a subject, but do not let that make you feel down. You need to show supreme level of confidence while speaking to prospective customers. Since you know your products very well, you should be speaking with confidence. To be able to persuade others, we need to communicate confidence to others. So, please do not be a shy guy. Get out of your closet and have some serious fun.

dont swear

I Swear: I personally do not believe in any such theory that swearing a lot can help you draw some attention but the thing is that they do seem to help in persuade people. But the word of caution – do not go overboard with this swearing thing because it will lead to the loss of credibility. Use of mild curse words while addressing an audience may help you but the intensity should be checked carefully. Don’t be offensive, speaking lightly and friendly way.

i agree

Make People agree with you first: If you want make people buy your theory and your products of course, you need to say something that they will agree with you. It is not necessary that you should be always talking something related to your products or service. You can start off with anything that people can easily agree with you and then move the topic smartly to something that relates to your product or service and you will see people, in most cases, will be agreeing with you are saying.

upsell

Upsell Things but with Plan: If a customer has decided to buy something, he has already put faith in your service. So, this is the perfect time to sell more. But do not be in a hurry. Be nice to customers while giving him some awesome offers. Now, if a customer has bought a pair of shoes, you should be wasting your time persuading him buying another one (please, he does not have four legs to use them) rather you can offer some kind of especial discount for him on Socks or something of that kind. He will be more than delighted to redeem that discount. So, finally you will be able to persuade that guy into buying products and he will be happy enough to accept this since he is getting value for the money he is about to spend.

boring

Do not make people bore with data, tell a nice story instead: People love listening to stories and which is why you should be putting more weight to stories while persuading people to opt for your service rather than stuffing them with raw data. For say, if you are running a campaign for flood victims, you should be using only data to gather donation. Rather you should give the entire thing a personal touch. You may use image of a small girl in difficulties and asking for help of others. This will make people instantly attached to the campaign. Now, things may not turn in your favor, if you focus only on data and data. Help your audience get connected with the campaign emotionally and probably, this is the reason why you need to learn how to narrate a story.

vulerable

Make Leaders Feel Vulnerable: You cannot argue with powerful people, I mean you cannot make them buy your theory unless you make them feel less powerful. The only way, you can make this happen is by getting them outside of their areas of expertise and show some of your brilliance and you will see marked difference in their approach. They will be less aggressive and more amiable in approach. So, rather than showing your gentle side, you need to dominate while speaking and believe me you will be rocking.

Author Bio: Michael Evans is a passionate writer and social media addict. He is helping business owners having a prominent online presence. You can contact him if you wish to make a website with Site2You.