Taking my struggling consulting business online and following the business model I now do turned everything around for me, financially and otherwise. So when I started hearing from my mentors that I might want to add some offline marketing tactics back into the mix, I was hesitant to say the least.
But then I started studying and learning more about some specific direct mail strategies, and recognizing the power they have, I started wondering in maybe I wasn’t missing an important piece of the puzzle to take my business up another notch.
Then I started seeing some amazing results from my colleagues who were using direct mail in addition to their online marketing efforts – things as simple as a postcard – and I decided I needed to get into this game myself. (I’ll keep you posted on my own results in a future article.)
How do you get started adding direct mail marketing to your mix? Here are 5 simple steps:
1. Start collecting physical addresses
You may have the addresses of those clients and customers who have purchased from you already, which is a great start. But you also want to start collecting snail mail addresses from those people who sign up for your list. This way, when you’re ready to send a physical mailing out, you’ll have all the information you need. AND, as email deliverability gets muddier, you’ll always have this other option of reaching your audience.
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When I first went into business for myself six years ago as a marketing and public relations consultant, I struggled with setting my fees. Even though I had been making a good salary working for someone else in this capacity, at first I found it difficult to set my fees at what they truly were worth (plus the added 20%-30% for overhead for being an sole proprietor!).
Then I learned about "dollarizing" (a topic for another article) and about looking at the results that I was creating for my clients. I also had to build my confidence and comfortability in telling prospective clients what my fees were without stammering… 🙂
I don’t struggle with this anymore, for a few reasons. One reason is because I KNOW what a difference I can and do make in my client’s business. And another reason is that I have loads of clients, past and present, who continue to tell me what a difference I’ve made for them in their business. Both of these have helped to build my confidence and comfortability factors in setting my rates.
Now it’s easy for me to say that my coaching rates are $350 an hour, or that a private mentorship with me starts at $5000. Obviously that means I have fewer clients than I did when I was charging $350 a month (as opposed to an hour), but it also means I work one-on-one a lot less, which frees up an incredible amount of time to put towards other profit-producing activities.
And, by packaging my knowledge into information products, I actually help MORE people now than ever before, and I love that!
Now, my business has gone through more than one iteration over the last six years, so I don’t want to give the impression that this happened quickly for me, because it didn’t. But it could happen for you a lot faster if you implement some of the tips I’ve given you here:
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Building a responsive, high-quality list of email subscribers is the key to leveraging your marketing time and increasing your in^come. Here’s 6 specific ways to show you how:
1. Don’t Hide Your Opt^In Form
Don’t make your website visitors search for the opt^in form to your list. To make it super-simple for your visitors to sign up, do what I recommend to my clients – just a simple one-page website, that I call an Invite Site, where the only thing you’re doing on the site is inviting your visitors to sign up for your list.
Then there’s no confusion or question about what it is they should do. Once they sign up, you can redirect them to another page where they can gain access to more information from you.
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Do you do everything yourself when it comes to running your business? Or are you like I used to be and find it difficult to delegate to others, at least sometimes? Do you think you don’t have the money to hire help? Well, I’m going to show you how hiring help can help increase your bottom line dramatically.
Not delegating is one of the major hurdles my private clients seem to struggle with. They are doing everything themselves and are so busy with the little administrative things that they have little time to devote to their "genius" work – developing products and services for their niche and working directly with their clients. Once they’ve hired help, either a virtual assistant or an in-office assistant, and move through the growing pains of delegating and trusting that the work will get done (and might even get done faster and better than they could do it themselves), I can always sense a feeling of freedom and excitement as the space opens up for them to work on the things that are really creative and inspiring to them, instead of dealing with invoices or fixing a glitch with their web page. And very soon after, their business really starts to move forward because they have the time and focus to dedicate to increasing their product and services line, which, of course, translates into more profits.
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Is your website producing leads for you or is it just sitting out there in cyberspace looking pretty? Obviously, you want your website to work for you to generate leads and make sales, not just be a pretty brochure for your business.
Here are 5 simple ways you can make your website make more sales for you.
1. A Professional Look
It needs to LOOK professional – which is different than it being created by a professional (although that is certainly an option). By looking professional, I mean that there are NO ADS, especially anything that flashes, jumps around, or otherwise looks like a casino.
2. A Way For Prospects to Contact You
You want to make sure you give your visitors a way to contact you, preferably in the upper top right corner or sidebar on the left – but still above the fold (no scrolling down to try to find out how to hire you!). Include your dedicated email address* and your business phone number. Add a physical address at the bottom of your page to solidify your existence.
*You need to have a dedicated email address – which means that your email is something like alicia@clientabundance.com and not allyoop@yahoo.com. A dedicated email address comes with your web host. Follow their instructions on how to set one up.
You don’t want a potential client slipping away because he or she can’t locate your email address or phone number.
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If you’re currently using an ezine as a way to build your list, and you’re frustrated with the trickle of new subscribers you get each month, then you’ll want to seriously consider using co-registration as a way bump those numbers up significantly. My own co-registration partnerships have TRIPLED my subscriber numbers in a matter of weeks, so I know first-hand that this process works.
I want to make an important distinction here – there’s pay-per-subscriber and then there’s co-registration. What I’m NOT talking about is buying email subscribers, nor do I recommend you do so.
What I am talking about is a collaboration between you and one or more colleagues whose offerings complement yours and where you share subscribers with (usually) no financial cost to either side.
The easiest way to implement this is to trade ‘thank you’ page space with your colleague. A simple referral from you with a brief description of their ezine with a link to your colleague’s sign-up page (and vice versa) is really all you need to start sharing traffic and subscribers.
You can probably think of at least two or three of your colleagues who might be interested in doing this. I’d like to encourage you to make a list of ten, compose a short email with your request, and send them out. You’ll get some ‘no’s’ but you’ll also get some ‘yes’s’. Follow up with those who agreed, add their info to your ‘thanks for subscribing’ page, and you’ll start adding more subscribers to your list right away.
The power of using co-registration to build your list is that you’re increasing your exposure by the number of people who are subscribing to your partner’s ezine. So, the more people you bring on as co-registration partners, the more people who will see your offer and who will sign up for your ezine.
Research shows that you can have an average of 10 partners before registrations begin to fall off. Think about the exposure you’ll get if you partner with just 5 others in your market – you get all their traffic and they get yours – it’s a great win-win.
For that reason, and because this is a ‘set it and forget it’ tactic, this has quickly become one of my favorite marketing strategies. Try it and I’m sure you’ll find the same to be true.
© 2007 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com
Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach™, founder of ClientAbundance.com and creator of 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™, teaches professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com.
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