Okay, get out your schedules. It's
time to pencil in the most important "appointments" you MUST attend as
a small business owner.
I'm sure you've heard over and over
that as a small business owner, most of your time should be spent on marketing.
And while this is true, pinning down the specifics can be a daunting task.
Unless you have a regular routine you can follow, your efforts will yield
inconsistent results at best.
So how do the most successful
marketers keep up with the constant chore of promotion? They follow a regular
schedule and attend their own "marketing maintenance appointments!"
Based on my own promotion, I've
worked up a mock schedule for you. This stuff really works for me, and may work
for you too. Naturally I don't expect you to follow it to the letter, but this
should help you develop your own "online marketing maintenance plan."
Here we go...
Daily:
- Answer email.
If this is not already your number
one priority online, it should be. People expect answers quickly in cyberspace.
If you show them that you are ready and willing to help, you'll earn their trust
and their business.
- Perform one marketing-related
task.
Even if it is fifteen minutes to
register at a search engine or post to a bulletin board, make a commitment to
perform at least one marketing-related task per day.
Weekly:
- Add a page to your website.
Even if it is a short report about
your area of expertise, adding pages regularly will increase your exposure by
giving your site more points of entry. This will also show customers that your
site is not stagnant.
- Add a dozen or so search terms to
your goto.com account. You DO have a "goto" account don't you?
www.GoTo.com lets you buy targeted clicks to your site for as little as a penny.
This marketing strategy is gaining popularity rapidly among many prominent
marketers. One of our private site members has utilized this strategy and added
15,000+ visitors by spending $150 a month. He never pays more than $0.01 for any
click! Enough said.
Monthly:
- Submit any new web pages you've
added to at least 5 new search engines.
Once you're in the major engines
like AltaVista, InfoSeek and Excite, go for the "next level" engines
like Thunderstone, MetaCrawler, LookSmart. These engines are included in
searches from multi-engine search sites such as dogpile.com and others. Your
site needs to be listed with as many search engines as possible.
- Find one new ezine to advertise
in.
Advertising in most ezines is still
one of the biggest bargains on the internet. In many cases your cost of
advertising is recouped with just one or two sales. A few ezines I've advertised
in with excellent results are DEMC and Web Marketing Today. If you have not
tried ezine advertising you may be surprised at the results. Each time you find
one that works, just add them to your regular advertising schedule and before
long you'll see a steady incline in profits. (Why not start with the one you're
reading right now - if YOU are reading it, your target audience may be reading
it too!)
- Submit an article to a list of
targeted ezine publishers.
Here's how effective this can be.
Just last month I released a tip I wrote for my BizWeb E-Gazette. The following
week it appeared at internetday.com and generated over 2000 visitors to my site.
Talk about effective promotion. Article submissions need to be on your schedule.
Quarterly:
- Set up one completely automated
marketing tool.
What is an automated marketing tool?
Something you implement, which promotes your site 24 hours a day and does 100%
of the work. (Isn't the web a great place to do business!) Here's an excellent
example of how to use this strategy... http://www.letemknow.com - This site sets
up a referral form for you to post on your site. Your visitors can then refer
their friends and associates to your site with a few clicks. letemknow.com
builds the forms for you in seconds and it'll take you just a few minutes have
the referral service on your site. Unlike many similar services, this one isn't
interested in grabbing your traffic. It simply helps you generate countless
referrals to your site.
- Sign on one joint-venture.
Joint ventures work great on the
internet. There are two ways you can utilize this to add profits. First, you can
contact webmasters who market similar products and services and ask them if they
would be interested in offering yours. Give them 25% - 50% of the profits and
it's a win-win situation. Another way to use this strategy is to promote another
webmasters' product or service (something you can get behind) to your
subscribers or customers. No matter which method you choose, doing this
quarterly can double your yearly income. If you haven't tried it yet, start by
keeping a notebook of possible joint venture candidates and contact them on
schedule.
There you have it. A real marketing
maintenance schedule that works. If you don't already have your own schedule, I
invite you to print this one out and use it as your own. As you find new
marketing resources that work, add them in and remember, always keep your
appointments!