Marketing Training

5 Things New Business Owners Must Know About Online Marketing

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Whether or not you believe it, there is not some hidden, illusive secret to online marketing. Once you have a firm grasp of the fundamentals, the rest will almost fall into place. The trick is to get started. This process can be quite intimidating if you have no prior experience in the marketing field. However, there is no reason to fear – when you are armed with the essentials you can be better prepared than most college graduates who have degrees in PR.

Five essential things you need to understand about marketing your business online are found here.

There are Numerous Valuable Tools that Cost Absolutely Nothing

A number of resources that are available to assist you with online marketing are available at no cost to you. For example, it costs absolutely nothing to create accounts on social media – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. This will provide you with links back to your website and also allow you to communicate directly with your customers.

Creating and running your social media presences will provide you with a simple, yet highly effective, method of promoting your business online. Some other free (and pretty cool) tools that are available for you to use include:

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Quick E-Commerce Fixes that Can Significantly Increase Your Conversions

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In the current era, growing your business online is not as easy as it was a few years back and you really have to take everything seriously if you want to hit the sales graph that you presented in your business plan. When in the e-commerce business, things become tougher as competition in the online retail business is getting higher.

According to Forrester Research, Inc. U.S. online retail sales can hit $370 billion by 2017, which is the 10% share of total retail sales:

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So, online retail business is tough and in order to hit the number in the sales graph you are doing everything from Social Media to PR, offline campaigns. You have even hired a new SEO company to build quality links back to your website but the results are not as “WOW” as you would have expected.

If this is the case, this post is exactly for you! There are literally tons of businesses I know that make silly mistakes on their website. These are stopping them from reaching out to wider audiences and increase their sales online. Even in the event where a website manages to attract the eyeballs of a wider targeted audience, they usually fail to convert those into customers. In this post I am going to discuss why and how one can fix these problems on their website and make it a number one choice for the audience.

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Online Entrepreneur – What Does It Take

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The first step to getting paid by companies as an Entrepreneur, called affiliate partners,  is to be a business. What do I mean by business?  Let me tell you a little about me. Well, let me tell you having owned 3 corporations and 3 limited liability corporations and 2 dba (doing business as), I may know a little bit about what a business is.

 

The short story is you need a name make up a name. Come up with a business legit name or add it to the end of your name example: Brian Brown Advertising.

Once you have established a real name you want as a business, now you have to make it official. The easiest and fastest way to do this is to Google this “fictitious name registration ohio” use your state of course. Now it’s going to be so competitive and confusing you’re going to just want to leave. I am sorry marketers have caused this industry to look really bad. Look for a url link at the bottom of the description that has your state in it. It is really not hard. Stay focused and don’t click on other people services…… they are going to charge you your left and right eye just to submit a stupid form.

 

 

As a business owner you want to have a clear purpose. Always have a goal in mind when you sit down at the pc or use your phone. Don’t get caught up with everyday minutia of life and distractions. Have a clear goal in your head and focus on that achievement.

 

Tangent…… whooo sorry, had to spew my thoughts just a tad. LOL

 

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Becoming a Professional Blogger: What Everybody Ought to Know

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I may not be Darren Rowse, but I'm still a professional blogger. That's because blogging is the main way I make my living as a writer. In the last 10 years I've written for sites covering everything from travel to business to social media marketing.  Some days I still can't believe that people pay me to do something I enjoy so much!

That said, it's been quite a ride. Apart from a brief flirtation with Blogger when it started up, in 2005 I'd never written a word for publication online and I had no idea that blogging would be a paying career. I had plenty of writing experience, gained from years as a reporter and editor. But blogging was an experiment.

At the time, not many companies had blogs and not many businesses took blogging seriously. But personal bloggers were everywhere, and I became one of them, honing my skills on a now-defunct site. That got me into the habit of writing daily, responding to comments and getting ideas for new posts from readers' comments and questions. And I learned about SEO, online writing and other useful skills.

Lesson one: hone your blogging skills

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5 Ways Solopreneurs Can Market On A Budget

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Solopreneurs often start businesses because they love doing a certain type of work or are good at doing a certain thing. They wrap themselves in their work, doing all they can to give customers and clients their best.

But they often fall down on one key element of running their businesses: Marketing. Many solopreneurs and online business owners struggle with getting the word out about what they do because they don’t have good marketing strategies and they don’t have marketing budgets. They do good work on the few client projects that come their way, but attracting more clients and projects would allow them to produce better income.

So what’s a marketing-shy solopreneur to do?

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How To Use Social Media For Lead Generation

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Small-business owners should approach social media with care. Without a marketing plan, social media activity can turn into a gargantuan time suck, drawing your attention away from critical business functions, like selling more of your products and/or services. Perhaps the best small-business social media objective is lead generation, and here are tips for how to do it:

Have Good Offers to Market on Social Media

Social media is loud and crowded. If you’re going to promote your business on social media, have something to promote that turns heads. A good offer has several characteristics:

  • It is easy to understand
  • It offers something of significant value
  • It has limited availability
  • It is easy for people to get more information or order

If your social media message is, “Buy from us, we’re great!” you’ll get sneers, not cheers. However, if your message is, “Try our new product during the month of May for no charge,” you’ll get plenty of interest.

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Tried and Tested Ways of Getting Your Small Business on the First Page of Google

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You had a dream, you set out to make it happen, and a new business was born. The birth of your brainchild was one of the most significant moments of your life. You put in lots of hours, marketed your business, but recognition was slow in coming. A few years later, you’re still working hard to create a name for yourself in the industry. However, did you know that you can grow your business by simply getting ranked well by Google? With over 95% of people searching for local products and services online, getting high rankings is the dream of every website owner. So, stop focusing on the wrong things and grow your business with Google.

Use these SEO tips for small businesses to enjoy high rankings on Google.

Provide Great Content

As a small business, your greatest challenge may be finding capital to invest in online marketing. However, you can start small by providing great and relevant content on your website. Post on your blog regularly to keep visitors coming back and Google will become your friend. Within no time, you will start making ripples in the business waters. These days, Google is everything. If you are not on the first page, you barely exist. Only a handful of people go beyond the first page.

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How to Grow Your Business through Social Media Marketing

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Now that you have a social media presence, are you taking the appropriate steps to capitalize on it? If not, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to gain new customers and grow your business. Not only is marketing on social media effective, it is extremely affordable when compared to other marketing options. Additionally, social media marketing has been proven as an effective and a convenient way to get exposure for your product or brand, attract new customers, make valuable connections with influencers and strengthen your relationships with existing clients. Even though it is extremely valuable, you must first learn how to leverage it for your benefit.

While using social media is rather simple, mastering it can be a bit tricky; however, it is worth the time and effort to figure out what type of content you want to publish and what platforms will be most beneficial to your business.

Some of the most effective ways to use social media marketing to grow your business are highlighted here.

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6 Ways to Avoid Distractions in Your Home-Based Business

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You’re working on your home-based business. You have a plan. You have the passion. You’re about to take one more step toward making your dream a reality. And then, distraction strikes: the phone rings the baby cries a friend texts you your spouse barges in to ask you a question your dog needs your attention … Read more

How To Find Clients For Your Location Independent Business

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location independent Business

The idea of location independence is appealing to many entrepreneurs. Imagine being able to run your business from anywhere in the world.  In practice, though, we begin to worry about our ability to support our business when we are miles away.  Namely, how do we find clients when we cannot approach them face to face? … Read more