Tag: business

Jumpstart Your Thanks

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Wrapping up the year is the best time to review your business.

Strategizing based on analytics of what you have done all year to what you returned is clearer than ever at the years end. Then you base your roadmap for the upcoming year to match your goals you want to obtain throughout the year. Start simple and don’t forget to always follow the KISS rule. Refer back to our setting goals for help.

Tracking your sources and creating your focus will be easier once you have a blueprint of what you want to achieve. Now you create your marketing tools that will help you along your roadmap.

Here is a blank sample you can use and we will go over the areas together below!

Your tool box is broken into four components: Traditional, Social, Prospecting and Break. Yes Break! Let’s go over everything that should be in these sections to get the best use out of this exercise.

TRADITIONAL

This is the area all of your traditional ways of marketing go. Your direct mail, email, follow-ups, samples of work, personalized note cards, phone calls, and face to face meetings. Each one of these should be chosen and structured wisely around your time+budget. Email is very cost-effective but if you are not going to do the work after the statistics come back than put your money and your efforts into other options. As a side note, Email DOES work for anyone who is a non believer. I had two clients send out a promo within the past month and get an immediate job! So open your mind and hit send. Anyway, for other more personalized follow ups and emails you want to order your cards based on your brand and what you want your target market to feel when they receive it. You can also go ahead and create your email templates so they can be easily accessed and used for the proper sends. Face to face is based on your dream clients and where you are traveling so this is the best time to look at your wide open calendar and start planning!

SOCIAL

All of the social marketing aspects will go here. I am not going to bother throwing stats at you of how many people are where. We can all walk out side on any given day and see people’s faces stuck to their phones. They are on social! Use your opportunities wisely and pick the proper platforms for your industry. The main ones you should be one without negotiating with that drunk monkey in your head are: Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. These are key and they have great options to easily automate things so you can spend your time doing what you do best, not social media. If you prefer to go total auto pilot consider your dashboard options now or outsourcing this work to a pro that will get a return on the investment quicker.

PROSPECTING

The dreaded area where sales and marketing collide. It has to be done. Again, whether you do it or outsource it, someone has to do it. Plan accordingly or set this up as a goal by a specific deadline to get it off your plate. Your prospecting comes from many sources. I always recommend the foundation of a list provider. These people have the grueling task of keeping this information readily available and up to date for you! There are several other resources if you choose to be a night owl researcher in your spare time. Scrub industry related websites for newest changes and follow your brands of interest wherever you can. Social is perfect for that part too.

BREAK

When you are in the set up I always (always, always) recommend scheduling your break time in. Let’s face it, as entrepreneurs running our babies we sometimes forget to grab that air mask and give ourselves a boost. I put these right into my calendar. There are several apps that will also do this for you to make it more efficient for you.  I promise you will come back stronger and more revived!

 

To Jumpstart Your 2018 and get on track contact iHeart Marketing TODAY!

See Our Current Offers to Jump Start Your Marketing

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How To Hack Your SEO

SEO is always the a hot topic. In any industry, my number one questions with business owners is “How can I get to the top of the google page?” I love answering it. Keep in mind that SEO can be easily outsourced to competent people that do a great job. Unfortunately, running a small business means that you have to choose your own battles of which tasks you can do and which tasks are easier to pay someone to manage.

When I started iHeart Marketing, Inc. my bank account hated me. My dream and my vision definitely did not compare to the balance I had to invest in me. I had a huge task to manage AND I had no budget to pay anyone. Sound familiar? So like most entrepreneurs, I schooled myself, studied YouTube and found whatever instruction and insight on the web I can. I was very fortunate and came up with a solution for my problem. I vastly moved up the search engines and was able to wash away affiliations and prior associations I had to second and third pages.

The first step to this is knowing what your target market is going to type into the search engines. You can do a search on google, bing and yahoo to find the top searched ones. For instance and example, let’s use our own names for an exercise:

You will see the amount of time it takes the search engine to pull up the specific number of your key words used:

Underneath you can see your results unfold. As a side note, anyone who questions why they are on LinkedIn and Facebook can stop asking now…. Try to beat them to the top of any search engine. You are better off getting your profiles updated and inline with your branding and riding their party bus! They are the experts after all.  They come up first. But below [and hopefully] you should see anything else you are affiliated with. This is your target position for your company website.

So now that you found out where you rank this task can get real! Let’s jump in and show you how to work those web crawlers and bots to do their thing for you. The key word here is “Blog!”

Although the world is turning over to live videos and webinars Blogs serve a huge solution for all businesses no matter what their size. So until you are all sipping out of a pineapple from an island that you got to from your own company jet,  this is an easy FREE hack that takes a short amount of your time and life out of your day.

Start by creating a series of posts. Find your expertise, passion or even product line and start typing! More content will pull better however short and sweet will work too. Grab your keywords you searched earlier. These will fall into place in your hashtags and yes, I will convert you into a #hashtagbeliever if you are not one yet. Hopefully you have a nice list about ten to fifteen you can use throughout. Make sure you use them in your featured tags. If they are your top tags, like your name or type of business you want to create a category for them as well. You can select multiple choices in both areas but don’t go over board. A lot of people overuse hashtags because they don’t know how they work. Follow the K.I.S.S. rule here and keep it simple stupid.

After you start posting your blogs you will want to monitor your stats. The search time and results to the days. It shouldn’t take too long to work your way up. It does depend on many factors that vary though so be patient!

 

For additional SEO guidance or to get on track and run your business seamlessly,
schedule a FREE one-on-one consult with me TODAY!

For assistance staying in the right mindset2motivate yourself like our page on Facebook.

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How to Generate Leads

 

Let’s face it, we are all trying to generate leads these days. No matter what your business is or who your consumer is technology makes it easy to reach them. Here a few of my favorite low set-up time lead gathering fixes:

Create an eBook
If you are a company or a business that works in a very technical space, these are great lead generators! People love to read and gain expertise about their industry. Remember to remain neutral and non-salesy. You will shortly take a place in your future consumers eyesight of an industry leader. Share the eBook socially and ask your network to share it for you. Don’t forget to have your landing pages all set and ready for intake. I like Instapage for ease of use. Good information grows its own legs on the internet.

Newsletter
If you don’t have a monthly or quarterly newsletter you are missing out on an easy way to stay connected while generating new leads. Remember a newsletter is not about you. It is a chance to share your insights, recent wins you created for your customers and industry news. The information and non-salesy scheme goes well with this generator as well!

Blog
Some say in 2017 “Blogging is dead.” This is not necessarily the case. Blogging allows an easy avenue to exposure with some added technical features. Make sure that your blog is optimized to generate leads by having a sign-up section for your newsletter. This helps the web-crawlers advance your website as well. Again, non-salesy scheme… sorry have to add it!

Social Media
Social Media is the new MUST and for anyone selling anything the rush is greater to be in their top peers of competition. SM allows you to reach out to influencers, get social and also gain exposure to their peers too. You should follow trending subjects that pertain to your business and interact into the general discussion. Do not overuse #hashtags but practice @mentions of fellow industry leaders that pertain to your content.

Networking Events
Getting social and reaching out online is great but face-to-face still holds it’s genuine charm where it matters most! People are more likely to do business with someone they feel a loyalty to via personal relationships. Get social online but also get out there in real life! Join industry seminars, run one, or join local networking groups for peer support. If you are struggling with it I can guarantee you someone else is. Sometimes this is a great exercise for any business owner called reality. Don’t forget business cards and be ready to offer special discounts for being at a certain event!

Engaging Video
Get in front of the video to enhance your connection with your followers. Technology offers many opportunities to do this easy. If you have the budget you can get fancy but videos that are personable and “real” create a bigger connection with your followers. Remember, non-salesy sells. People love information not being sold too. Some great content based on your knowledge in your industry works.

Infographics
Yes infographics, people still share them and still stop and read them whenever they can.They are easy to produce after you come up with your own content campaign. Don’t forget to add your contact information on them and then share it socially. Also submit your infographics to publications that cover your industry. This allows a greater span of exposure when you are relevant.

Webinars
There are many services that make it easy to reach thousands of potential customers. Webinars are inexpensive and allow you to showcase great content while generating a ton of leads if you work it right. Come up with a great idea and if it’s a reoccurring event you will gain a stronger following. This also allows you to gain the foundation as an industry leader quick. Promote this into your other channels (instagram, newsletter, all social platforms, blog and even include your eBook for FREE to attendees!)

Media Coverage
Reach out to journalist in your industry with a personalized approach. Their days are spent dodging calls, filtering mass emails and trying to find good content. Being a business owner that reaches out genuinely to tell their story is like a cherry on top of their cake! By creating this connection and getting in the media your following will vastly increase. Media sells and your level of expertise multiplies ten-fold.

 

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