What Can I Do To Market My Business?

What Can I Do To Market My Business?

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“What can I do to market my business?”

This is the top question I get when meeting a business owner, or independent salesperson. As soon as I mention what I do for a living, inevitably people want free advice. So, I decided to put together some guidelines that helped me market my business.

  1. Make a List
    You must know who your potential customers are. So, make a list of everyone you know, everyone you’ve done business with, buy things from, family, friends, past clients, etc. Use a spreadsheet and capture all the basic details. (name, address, city, state, zip, phone, email, relationship, and notes). Add to this list every time you meet someone new, or make a new sale. Get into the habit and never stop doing this.
  2. Communicate with your List
    This is where most people scratch their heads. Communicating with your list is easy, but must be done effectively. This depends on what kind of business you are in. First, you want to get an email system like Outstand. I’ve loved this service ever since I found it, many years ago. Once you load all of your contacts, you create categories and just check mark them for each contact. Once you do that, you can segment your messages for any occasion. Personal holiday greetings, business proposals, announcing a new service, everything! Email is a great start, but a letter and phone call may also be good if you are in sales. Just remember that people want to be treated like….people. Not wallets with legs. So, just keep everything light and friendly.
  3. Get LISTED
    This is where a few services come in. Yelp comes to mind. It’s a great directory listing online, with reviews. Google Business is next. Then, TopLocal.org will top it off with a dynamic local referral network and an online listing. TopLocal is not a directory. It’s a way for businesses to work with each other, per zip code, to help promote each other. The directory is just to help. The real power is the monthly guides that each member prints and distributes. It’s like warm market referrals, put into the hands of paying local customers, every single month. This can have a huge impact over time. Members will distribute tens of thousands of local business guides each year, in every active zip code.
  4. Get CONNECTED
    Join the local Chamber of Commerce. It’s a must. There you will meet other business owners, attend functions, meet local politicians and influential people. These are colleagues from your own industry as well as others. Get active with the Chamber and volunteer.
  5. Treat People Right and Ask for Referrals
    Don’t be afraid to ask for referrals. But, you must earn it first and make it known that you value referrals from your favorite customers. Tell them you need help spreading the word about your business. Don’t wait until after the sale. Ask during the sale. Remember, people love you best while you are helping them…not after.

These are the basics and the firm foundation upon which to build your business. Do these things consistently, no matter what comes up. It helped me market my business and it can help you too.

January 29, 2018 |

How to Use Siri to Dictate Blog Posts to Your WordPress Website

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How to Use Siri to Dictate Blog Posts to Your WordPress Website

So you want to know How to Use Siri to Dictate Blog Posts to Your WordPress Website. You’ve come to the right place. And, I’ll make it easy for you.

As I wrote in a previous article, blogging regularly is important to your website rankings. You need to make writing posts as easy as possible.

When a good friend of mine shared his blogging method with me, I was intrigued. I love using Siri but I didn’t know how to use Siri to dictate blog posts from my phone.

Initially, it was easy to find how to use Siri to dictate blog posts to a Mac computer, and even directly on the screen inside the New Posts area of WordPress. But, how to use Siri to do it from my phone took a bit more creativity, which is where my friend Jeff really shines. He’s the most creative person I know… next to me of course.

So, here’s basically how it works.

How to Use Siri to Dictate Blog Posts to Your WordPress Website:

  1. Log in to your WordPress website admin dashboard and go to Settings > Writing

    How to use siri to dictate blog posts to your wordpress website

    Keep this tab open while you go to the next step. Now would be a good time to make sure you have a good default category to select for your posts. If not, just leave it for later.

  2. Create a special email address. You can do this anywhere but I used my site email.
    Use a difficult name like [email protected] and get the pop settings written down, along with your password. It should be port 110, but make sure to find out your pop port for incoming mail. Set the default mail category and make sure to save these settings.
  3. Enter your new email address, password, and incoming port from step 2.
    So, now you have the basics set up.
  4. Now, get on your phone and create a new contact. Under the business name put your <website name> blog. I set mine up for Top Local Blog. I separated TopLocal so it would make Siri commands more simple. I then entered my new special email address and saved the contact.

Now for the good part!

Open a new email to <your special email address>. It’s easy because you entered that really complicated email address into an easily identifiable contact.

Make the subject your new post title.

Now, when you’re ready with your thoughts, hit the microphone icon and start dictating.
use siri to dictate blog posts

You can say a variety of commands that will help you keep it formatted right, or you can do that later. I want my posts as clean as possible, so I use these to help:

  • New Line
  • New Paragraph
  • Cap
  • Space Bar
  • Period
  • Dot
  • Comma
  • Quote & End Quote
  • Exclamation Point
  • Question Mark
  • Ampersand
  • Asterisk
  • Open Parenthesis (or ‘left paren’)
  • Close Parenthesis (or ‘right paren’)
  • Dash (adds a space between)
  • Hyphen (no spaces between)

Keep in mind you only have 30 seconds to say what you want. Then, you need to hit the microphone again until you’ve finished your post. It’s not a much of a nuisance as I thought. Actually, it helps me collect my thoughts into 30 second bursts. The apps that let you dictate longer really don’t work as well and they’re kinda buggy. Plus, Siri is much more accurate than the ones I tried, like Dragon etc.

Now, when you send your email it will get posted to your site. You can then go in and edit it, adding pictures, tags, and optimize if you like.

See, wasn’t that easy?

I used this method to write this article. Then, I went back and edited for your benefit. You don’t need to edit unless you have time. Google likes new content, so anything is better than no post for the day.

Happy Blogging!

January 11, 2018 |

What a Business Website Is and Isn’t

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What a Business Website Is and Isn’t

Today we will discuss what a business website is and isn’t. Many business owners and salespeople think that, “If I build it, they will come”. That simply isn’t true.

If you build a business website, you should be very clear about what you want from it.
Among the many purposes of a website, they can be:

  • A digital calling card
  • A means of facilitating consumer inquiries or quote requests
  • A catalog of your items for sale
  • A way for consumers to buy items directly from your website
  • A means of distributing your thoughts on a particular subject
  • A way for people to find you when they search the internet

However, a business website will not bring you business without significant, consistent, effort to promote it and to write daily content. The search engines don’t recommend your website just because it exists. They recommend websites that feature content pertaining to the inquirer’s search terms. But, they only recommend this if your website has some authority to it. The only way to gain authority is to write content often, and to structure that content strategically. There are many tools out there to help you write SEO rich content. One that I love is called Yoast SEO. Yoast will tell you if you have your content structured correctly and it will offer suggestions for improvement.

If you want your business website to bring you business, there are several ways to achieve this:

  • Promote it with a Google pay-per-click campaign
  • Write daily SEO rich content
  • Promote your content on social media platforms
  • Add your business to directory websites
  • Get a link to your site, or content, featured on popular websites (backlinks)

In fact, the best strategy will incorporate many of these methods all at once. So don’t think that you will get business from a website simply because you build it. That will never happen. It takes diligence and effort to build an authoritative, feature rich, website that search engines will recommend to people who search for topics related to your site. Once you understand this, you can use your business website properly. If you don’t have the time or energy to develop steady content, then use your site as a digital calling card and promote it in other ways, like pay-per-click. However, organic traffic (traffic coming from search engines) is the Holy Grail of traffic. It grows slowly but steadily. Often times, it takes a year or more to begin seeing the fruits from your content posting labor. But, once your traffic starts, it will grow steadily and will bring you direct traffic you can count on. It’s very rewarding to see it happen and then you can say your site brings you business while you sleep.

What a Business Website Is and Isn’t

TopLocal.org is a young site, but incorporates these strategies. So, when you join TopLocal and generate your listing, make sure to feature your website address. Our SEO campaigns will benefit you more and more as our site increases in authority. Read our post on building a local referral network.

Add your business website to TopLocal.org

 

November 5, 2017 |

Marketing 101: Build a Local Referral Network

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Build a Local Referral Network

Why build a local referral network? Every salesperson and business owner dreams of a simple way to generate a steady flow of potential customers. Many turn to advertising, spending thousands of dollars, in hopes of making the phone ring or the customers coming in. There are many available options offered to business owners, some effective and some ineffective. Many expensive options are largely ineffective, which seams counter-intuitive. You’d think spending a bunch of money on advertising would bring in lots of business. However, often times it will simply drain your budget.

Much like building a local referral network, the most effective business generation strategies actually take some planning and work to implement. In fact, there may be a correlation between the effort required and the effectiveness because most people won’t do it. Have you ever heard the saying, “To have what others don’t have, you must do what others are unwilling to do” ? It makes sense. If most people take the easy way out, spending a bunch of money or using the mass email passive approach, then those methods will be saturated in the marketplace. If most people don’t go door to door, or spend time developing strategic partnerships, then those methods will be mostly unsaturated and will have lower competition. Get it?

The dawn of the internet and email brought attractive marketing methods with which business owners could broadcast their advertising to thousands of people. But, as more and more people adopt these passive methods, they become less and less effective. This breathes new life to the old-school methods of business promotion. Working smart requires experience and being faithful to time-tested marketing strategies.

As a young salesman, I learned that it’s better to spend time developing lead sources than single leads.

Eventually I met with a mentor and learned about a method of developing a whole group of lead sources, a local referral network. It involves networking with other business owners in a particular area, helping each other promote their businesses. Working as a team is always more effective than trying to “recreate the wheel” individually.

TopLocal.org was created as a small business marketing platform, with which every business owner can develop a group in their zip code. This group will not allow competing businesses within the zip code, so everyone can feel free to give their all to promote the group and not worry about promoting a competitor. TopLocal offers a printable zip code business guide that each member prints and distributes monthly. This guide features your business on the cover and the rest of the group inside, so you’ll want to pass them out to your customers.

Other business networking groups rely on each member actively recommending other businesses to their customers. But, who has that kind of time? Not me! TopLocal solves this problem by providing a way to promote your group and benefit your own business in the process. Plus, at only $20/month it’s cheap to lock down your exclusive category in your zip code.

Building a local referral network is very rewarding. Actively promoting the group to other non-competing businesses helps you get more and more advertising. With consistent effort you could have a hundred businesses in your group, providing you with an increasing number of guides distributed in your local area each month. Thousands of local consumers will see your business over and over again. In very little time, you will be effectively competing with those “big box” stores and their million dollar advertising budgets.

Now, let’s get building!

Start building a local referral network. Add your business to TopLocal.org

November 4, 2017 |
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