Masterful Marketing

Passion Simplifies the Sales Process

Debra — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:47:54 +0000

I’ve never been a great sales person. Heck I don’t even think I’m a good sales person. As a matter of fact, I hate selling. However this weekend at my golf club, people thought I was a great sales person (which I found rather humorous) because I was easily selling raffle tickets to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

On August 5^th, we are holding our annual Rally for the Cure Charity Golf Tournament. We instituted a member-only raffle to raise money. I had no trouble working the Player’s Lounge this weekend to sell tickets because I am passionate about this cause. I didn’t feel like I was selling something but rather offering people a chance to get something valuable and help our cause. People readily took out their wallets to buy their raffle ticket.

What made this an easy sell?

We were giving them something of value (a $20 raffle ticket could win their annual dues)
We could relate to everyone because many of us have experienced the effects of this disease either themselves, through a friend or a family member
We were passionate about this effort and want to beat our donation from 2009.

Tips to Make it Easy to Promote and Sell Your Services

I started thinking about how this relates to selling your products and services. Selling is sometimes very hard for most small business owners because sales is something we’re not good at or feel comfortable doing. When I’m talking with a prospect, I don’t sell – I market. What’s the difference? By having a marketing mindset, my conversations focus on helping the other person rather than closing the deal.

In order to make this necessary function easier for you, remember these tips:

Create a valuable package with benefits that are hard to resist – talk about how you can help them either solve a problem they have, improve something that is not working or move them toward a desired outcome that seems unreachable.
Build a solid relationship with your ideal target market – people are more likely to develop a business relationship with you if they know, like and trust you. Take time to get to know your prospects. Provide them valuable information with no strings attached. If you have a relationship and they need what you offer, you are more likely to make that sale.
Talk about how they will benefit from your products and services – remember people only care about “WII-FM” – what’s in it for me. Avoid talking about how you conduct your services and rather, focus on how these services will help your prospect achieve a desired outcome.
Project your passion for what you do – if you don’t love what you are doing, it is very hard to promote it to others as your audience will know you aren’t being honest with them. Build a business around your values and passions and it no longer feels like work. Then when you speak about what you do, you do so in a way that is not selling but rather educating, advising and helping those you meet. Working with you becomes a natural.

If you don’t believe in what you do, what you offer and how you can help others, you will never be able to sustain the time and effort it takes to build a successful business. But follow your passion, develop an expert reputation and educate your audience on how what you do can help them be more successful, and you will never have to sell your services again.

How passionate are you about what your business offers?

For those who want to read about Nancy Brinker, the woman behind the Susan G. Komen Foundation, there was a super article in More Magazine’s May 2010 issue.

Marketing is About Education, Not Sales

Don’t Wait Until it’s Too Late – Protect Your Online Assets

Debra — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:38:33 +0000

For many of us in service based businesses, our knowledge is our main asset. When we write about what we know, in our blog, in an ebook or out on the social web, we share that asset with many people to help them out and to attract them to our businesses. In addition, many of us have spent a lot of time and money on our Web or blog design, creating a brand identity that projects how we want people to perceive us and our businesses. So when I read about how someone’s blog or website was hacked and they lost their content, their brand and are trying to recover these assets, it’s time for a reminder post on WordPress security to protect your online assets. It’s something we all can do ourselves. We just need to remember!

Tips for protecting your WordPress Website or Blog

First, keep a backup. Yes, there are plugins to back up the database, but for us less than technical folks, doing the following items can be a lifesaver and have you back online in a few hours. Create a folder called Website backup. In it keep a copy of:

Your most recent theme, uploads and plugins folders. You can manually transfer them to your local computer, but the WordPress Backup plugin does a really nice job of creating zip files that you can then transfer to your local desktop (there’s an email option but the files can get rather big). I’ve set it to create a backup weekly but if you are doing regular changes, you can set it to daily.
An export of all your content to a local file. WordPress provides an export feature under tools that enables you to export all content, including the SEO information from the All-in-One SEO or FV All-in-One SEO plugin, to an XML file that can be uploaded into a recreated blog.
Any folders you have for images, documents or media that is outside of the /wp-content/uploads/ area.
All modifications you made to the plugin css files (just in case you need to install a plugin from scratch although the backup plugin should have all the necessary files).

In the event of a major issue, you have everything in one place to rebuild the site quickly:

Re-install WordPress
Upload your theme
Upload your images, documents and other media
Upload the uploads directory
Upload your plugins
Import your content

Activate your theme and plugins, update the setup options (permalinks, search engines, and test. Having all of this information saved locally is a quick insurance policy against something catastrophic happening to your site and its valuable content.

More WordPress Security Tips

Update your WordPress version in a timely manner. As long as you don’t touch the WordPress files (edit only theme files), upgrades are simple. Depending on your host, “one click upgrades” take seconds and work extremely well. You can also upgrade your WordPress version manually through the dashboard. I will do a manual upgrade on a test machine and wait until my hosting provider has the latest version available.
Add the following to your .htaccess file:

# Prevent directory listing

IndexIgnore *

# Protect .htaccess files

order allow,deny
deny from all

# Protect wp-config.php

deny from all

Reset all theme and plugin files back to read and execute only (755 for the property attributes) before you go live.
Research plugins and themes before you download and use them. Hackers will put out free themes and plugins that contain malicious code.
Remove the WordPress version from your theme. I know it says keep it for stats, but I’d rather not open any doors to hackers. Look for “” />” and remove that line completely.
Create administrator accounts other than “admin” and choose strong passwords. Letting someone into your WordPress dashboard as an administrator can wreak havoc. I normally install WordPress with different administrator account names.

There is definitely a lot more you can do with plugins and more advanced security techniques and would love to hear from you. For other platforms, if someone is an expert in Blogger, Typepad or Expression Engine and has a security post, feel free to put a link to it in the comments section.

Don’t think it won’t happen to you because you’re new, have a small subscriber list or any other excuse. Remember, hackers will hack your site because they can.

Marketing – Always On 24×7

Debra — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 02:43:55 +0000

As many of us get into summer activities, one thing we need to remember is that as a small business owner, we are always creating an impression of our business, affecting our brand and reputation. Whether we are out to dinner with family and friends, socializing at the golf course, tennis courts or beaches, how we behave at all events, whether fun or business oriented, is something we need to recognize as part of our marketing activities.

What encouraged me to write this post was something that happened at a business golf outing I recently attended. All the people at this function were either small business owners or people who worked for small businesses. The group of men playing behind us became loud, rude and somewhat obnoxious. Their behavior was not something that encouraged me to want to get to know them and their businesses. My reaction was:

“What is your business? I don’t think I want to do business with you.”

Reminders for small business owners attending social events

Remember that you are marketing your business 24×7. Regardless of where you are you should be “networking” with people you meet.

Everything you do makes an impression. Just because you are at a casual social event does not mean you can behave badly.
Limit your alcohol intake. I know I probably don’t need to say this but over indulging in alcohol rarely has a positive effect on your business.
Socialize with your colleagues. Notice I said socialize rather than network. At a fun outing, you are relaxing and getting to know people socially.

The above reminders work for both physical events and online social networking. Remember to socialize with your colleagues on Facebook and Twitter when possible to show a personal side that helps complete the entire picture of you. People want to do business with people. Give people a reason to get to know, like and trust you.

When we started our businesses, most of us probably didn’t realize that when we are out and about, we are always sending a message and creating an image for our company. Unlike being a public official or celebrity, we may not always be recognized, but bad behavior is memorable. People will remember the person who treated them badly or behaved unprofessionally. Don’t give people a reason to not do business with you.

What are your tips for small business owners at social events?

No related posts.

Content Strategy: Helping Your Small Business Blog Stay Visible

Debra — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:03:00 +0000

A consistent flow of content is critical to developing a community of followers that will support your brand and most likely become a customer or client. But one of the most common challenges small business owners face is how to create that compelling and relevant content on a regular basis in order to remain visible to their ideal clients.

Let me be clear that blogging is not for every small business owner. Be honest with yourself before you get started on why you want to blog. If you can’t answer that question, you may wish to try other social media activities that are more aligned with what you are trying to accomplish.

How to create a content strategy

A content strategy helps you determine what content you will provide, why you want to provide it, where the content will be distributed and to what target market. To develop your content strategy, consider the following:

Define your goals – Knowing what you are trying to achieve before you start writing will help you focus your efforts. For most small businesses, blogging helps you create visibility, generate traffic to your website and establish an expert reputation making your business stand out from the rest. Ultimately being visible as an expert will generate inbound leads.
Understand your client’s challenges – One of the reasons I encourage small business owners to develop a brief marketing plan is to understand the wants and needs of their target market. By knowing the types of challenges their prospects face, you can develop a list of topics that will attract and retain an audience that is interested in what you have to say.
List your content categories – Determine the areas where you will focus your content development efforts. WordPress and other blogging platforms enable you to categorize your posts, so knowing before you start writing what your categories are will make it easier to develop ideas that fit within these topics.
Define your frequency – Writing requires creative thinking. Some people can create a blog post in minutes. For others (like myself), writing takes more time. Some write short daily posts, others writer longer posts less often. Know which type you are and schedule your writing time accordingly. Commit to no more than one to three posts per week, again depending on how quickly you can write. To stay on track, try some of the following tips:
- Schedule time in your calendar to write
- Note ideas and topics that you want to write about and start a draft post
- Use your categories to organize topics to write
- Subscribe to blogs that may help generate ideas
Define your content type – content is not just words. It can be video, audio, images and text. Use what is comfortable for you and develop a good mix that makes your content interesting and easy to read.
Determine your distribution strategy – Besides your blog and its RSS feed, where else will your content be distributed? Consider posting a link to your content on Twitter, your Facebook Business Page and LinkedIn, depending on where it makes the most sense. Consider having your content feed syndicated to other reputable sites. In order to drive people to your Website, you need to cast a wider presence by getting your content out to where your target audience is spending time.

Don’t make this a complicated exercise. Spend an hour or two putting the strategy in place, making an agreement with yourself to implement the strategy as a key marketing activity that will benefit your business. The next post will discuss how to write for your blog.

If you don’t have a content strategy today, will you be creating one for your small business?

Power of Three in Marketing

Debra — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 02:54:12 +0000

I was asked an interesting question during one of my coaching sessions:

As a small business owner, if you were to focus on only three marketing activities over the next six months, what would they be?

That made me stop and think for a bit. Putting the gears in motion and applying the power of threes, I realized that this question and its answer would help other small business owners focus on what is important for them to be found. My recommendation for three marketing activities include:

#1 Building a first-class Web presence to develop your expert reputation

Today’s small business needs to have a solid presence on the Internet to help build your expert reputation. Building a first-class presence includes:

Building a website and blog on WordPress
Creating compelling profiles on Google, Facebook and LinkedIn
Establishing local business listings on Google, Yahoo, Bing and Best of the Web
Launching a Facebook Business Page
Setting up a Twitter account with a custom, branded background
Syndicating your content out to relevant sites

In order for this to all work, all the gears need to be moving in unison in order for all the pieces to create one unified image.

Without a quality web presence, you run the risk of people finding you and quickly eliminating you from their list of potential suppliers. Fair or not, people do judge a book by its cover. When your business success depends on building your expert reputation and proving to your target market that you are the best person for them to work with, you can’t take a chance on mediocre Website, blog, Facebook Page, social media profiles, content and the brand identity it projects. Make this activity a priority.

#2 Incorporating search engine marketing activities

Now that you have your first-class presence established, you need to be sure people who are searching for what you offer are directed your way. Understanding how your target market searches for your products or services, what keywords they use and how to make your website rank higher in the search engines can be the difference between finding your ideal client or having your ideal client find you! These activities include:

Researching your best keywords
Optimizing your website
Writing content that utilizes your keywords and helps with optimization
Creating a linking strategy
Using pay-per-click to boost your visibility for specific keywords

For most businesses, keyword research and organic search engine optimization of your site and content will be the most effective part of this marketing activity. However, some local consumer businesses do very well with a budgeted and managed pay-per-click campaign to get more people who are ready to buy to your website.

#3 Identifying your top referral sources and meet as many as you can, both off-line and on-line

Meeting, nurturing and building solid relationships with people who are your best referral sources is a marketing activity that is always top of the list for small business owners. The best clients usually come as a referral and when they are a qualified referral, the work you need to do to turn them into a client is minimal. If you succeed in creating that quality Website with a blog that demonstrates your expertise, referral sources can introduce you to their connections through your Web presence first. If the connection likes what they see, your referral source can then make the introduction.

These activities include:

Online networking using LinkedIn and Facebook to establish meaningful connections and develop beneficial relationships.
Joining groups on social networks that are locally focused and network both online and off-line
Attending one live networking meeting a month
Joining a referral organization

Developing a solid network of local connections generates more opportunities for your business by developing new, beneficial relationships with people in your geographic location. Depending on your business, you may also benefit from connecting more broadly, but start with your local networks and get out and get noticed.

What are your three picks?

Spending time implementing these marketing activities will create better visibility, establish your expert reputation and introduce you to people who can benefit from what you have to offer.

What would be your three activities of choice for your business?

Social Media Revolution – Its Affect On Small Businesses

Debra — Wed, 26 May 2010 01:48:47 +0000

Erik Qualman, author of the book Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, created a video called the Social Media Revolution in August 2009. He updated the video less than a year later to demonstrate how quickly the social media landscape moves. Some of the statistics are definitely eye-opening as well as exciting for small business owners. You can read the entire list and credits on Erik’s post Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh).

“Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.”

What does this mean?

Social media is not a trend and its use is growing exponentially. The tools will evolve and may in fact change, but the need for businesses to incorporate the Internet in general, and social media specifically, into their overall marketing strategy in order to achieve their goals is not going away. Social media will continue to change the way businesses market their brand, products and services because a savvy business is able to be proactive with its consumers, listening to what they want and need and responding to those needs quickly.

Small business owners should be excited about the opportunities available using the Internet and social media to grow your brand and become more visible to your target market. Social media will enable you to reach more people interested in your products and services faster and more effectively without the huge marketing budget that traditional media requires. Social media gives you the chance to reach out, talk with your customers, give them a reason to talk about you and happily share their recommendation with their friends or better, your community. As pointed out in the video, consumers will “no longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media“.

The good news is that according to a study by AMI-Partners, nearly 70 percent of the small businesses in the United States use social media. The bad news is that only 30 percent of small businesses perceive social media as strategically important to their continued business success because they are unsure how to best utilize the sites’ services to grow their business.

What does this mean for your business?

If you haven’t stuck your toe in the social media waters yet, you need to seriously think about doing so. If you have started to use social media but are unsure of whether it is helping, make sure you have defined your goals for social media so you have something to measure your efforts against. As with all marketing activities, you must develop a marketing plan that integrates online and social media marketing strategies and set goals for what you want to achieve.

How will your business take advantage of social media for gaining visibility and growing revenue?

Showcase Your Skills with Social Media

Debra — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:40:43 +0000

The competitive environment surrounding us encourages those who wish to succeed to learn how to market themselves effectively. Whether you are applying for a job, trying to win a client, or in some cases, applying to a university, using social media to present the real you can make be difference between you getting noticed or being overlooked.

Social media enables many to showcase skills that may not be evident otherwise. Using only the written word is sometimes not enough to evaluate a candidate, especially when it may be more important for a person to fit into the organization from a personality, culture and attitude perspective than just in aptitude. By using social media, people can get a sense of who you are, what you do, how you will add value to them or their organization long before ever meeting you in person.

I was asked by Fox25 News to comment on the one minute video supplement to Tufts University’s admission process and social media in general for a special report on How YouTube Can Help You Get Into College. The students could submit an optional essay using one of eight topics, one of which was a one minute video about themselves uploaded to YouTube. I found this an exciting addition to the standard application process and one that will become more common in the future.

Developing your online presence or personal brand by incorporating various aspects of social media into your activities enable you to show a multi-faceted person rather than a single dimension. Writing is an important skill, but it’s not the only one. Some people are good at showing their personality through their writing styles, but others don’t have that flair. Social media levels the playing field for those who are comfortable using other types of media to demonstrate their skills.

Tips for Building Your Personal Brand

Whether you are already in the workplace, starting a business or graduating from high school or college, you’ve already started to develop a personal brand. If you haven’t paid much attention to how you are perceived through your Web presence, you may want to do a reputation check and then spend a little time working on developing it further.

Have a strategy – understand what you want your image to be publicly and stay consistent. This is no different than a company trying to market their company and build brand awareness. Successful organizations consistently portray the same image. Those that veer from their brand, confuse the market and lose opportunities. Your personal brand is no different.
Know who you are – don’t try to be something you’re not. Figure out who you are, what is comfortable for you to project and then stay on course.
Show a little personality – Too many people try to hide their real selves from the public in their social media profiles. Show what makes you unique, both professionally and personally. It’s what will attract the right people to you who then want to connect with you.

As Brian McLaughlin stated in the report, social media is their generation’s way of speaking, and allowing them to use these tools to present themselves is a way of seeing the world through their eyes. Give people a way to see the true you through creative use of social media.

How have you used social media to build your online presence and reputation? Have you been able to use it successfully to gain visibility in whatever you were pursuing? Share your success stories!

Lead Generation: What Works Today

Debra — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:15:02 +0000

I recently presented a workshop at the New England Business Brokers Association meeting about how to integrate online and social media marketing for lead generation. As professional service business owners, we build our credibility by demonstrating our expertise and knowledge of our discipline and the use of social media makes building your reputation much simpler than before.

As a small business owner, how you approach online marketing can make the difference between a successful campaign and an overwhelming exercise. Learning how to use online marketing to drive visitors to your Website and generate leads is going to impact your marketing and ultimately the success of your business.

Here is a summary of the slides:

Slide 3: Small Business Marketing – What has changed?

Social media and the Internet channel has opened up opportunities to reach more potential customers that were unavailable to most small businesses not too long ago. What has changed in the market is the ability for the customer to:

Research service providers long before engaging in the sales process
Obtain reviews about the service provider that may influence the purchase decision
Acquire a perception about the business based on what they do and don’t find about you
Engage with the business through social networks to learn more about you

Slide 4: Small Business Marketing – What has not changed?

What has not changed, however, is the need to develop a brief, but focused marketing plan to help you effectively reach your prospects.

Slide 5: Benefits of Online Marketing

Levels the playing field
Positions you as the expert in your industry
Increases online exposure
Develops relationships / grows contact list
Encourages online WOM
Influences purchase decisions
Increases your reach
Drives visitors / generate leads

Slide 6: Challenges of Online Marketing

Not understanding what you are trying to accomplish with online and social media marketing can lead to activities that are disjointed, inconsistent and totally ineffective. Online marketing requires:

A strategy on how to approach it for your business
A marketing system to ensure consistency
A definition of what makes you different to stand out from the crowd
A valuable offer (content, information) to get attention
Understanding how to sell without selling
A plan for how to prioritize time, energy and money for best results

Slide 7: Online Lead Generation

Acquiring leads is accomplished by doing something that gets a person to take some action, such as:

Fills out a form on your website
Signs up for your mailing list
Calls you to initiate the relationship
Likes your Facebook Business Page
Connects with you on LinkedIn
Takes an action based on something you do online

Slide 8: Online Lead Generation

As with all marketing activities, if you establish a goal, the strategies and tactics will be more apparent and cohesive.

Getting Started with Online Marketing

Slide 10: Do you have a Web presence?

Evaluate your presence on the Internet by conducting a “vanity search” – search your name and business name. What is your first impression of what you find?
Do a review your brand – name, logo, color scheme – to ensure that it is aligned with who you really are and that it is consistent across all your web properties.
Review your website for brand consistency, fresh and relevant content and whether it is developed so that you can easily update it.
Review your existing profiles on social networks – are they consistent and project your value?

Slide 11: Define your Internet Marketing Strategy

The hub of your online marketing strategy is a professional website and/or blog where the goal of all marketing activities is to drive visitors to your website. Do your keyword research and ensure you have a list that you use consistently.

Slide 12: Establish Your Home Base

Spend some time on ensuring your Website has been appropriately optimized. Then develop a content strategy: Know what you want to achieve and the content that will attract your ideal prospect. Take an inventory of the content you have and re-purpose for different uses. Create new when needed.

Develop a comment strategy to become visible. Develop a list building strategy that you can use to market your information products. Syndicate your content via the RSS Feeds or through Article marketing sites

Slide 13: Social Media Strategy

Research your target audience and listen to what they have to say.
Find out where your target hangs out online.
Determine how you can help, educate and gain visibility.
Identify the tactics for engaging your target audience and attract them to you.
Create your complete and keyword rich profile that sets you apart and projects your human side.
Integrate your valuable content – blog posts, eBook, presentations, audio, video posts, advice – to attract your target market
Upload a quality picture that projects YOU!

Slide 14 – 21: Social Media Tools

Google Profile – Shows up when people search for your name. Provides a portal to your online identity.

Facebook Business Page – Profiles your business and enables your clients / prospects to get to know you through your content. To grow your supporters:

Add Like Box to your blog / website
Invite your opt-in email list to like your Facebook Page
Start a discussion so fans can interact with each other
Acknowledge fans when they write on your Page Wall
Create and promote events to your fans and friends
Incorporate your Blog posts
Welcome new fans with a welcome tab
Update your Page status with tips, advice and other useful information

Twitter for Business – Connect and network with people who share your industry, share your views or share quality information and ideas. Get instant access to what’s being said about you or your industry. Extend the reach of your thought leadership by communicating your blog posts and other content

LinkedIn Profile – Create a compelling, keyword rich profile. Make the full view public enabling Google, Yahoo and Bing to index. Get your vanity URL. Claim and update your company page. Marketing using LinkedIn:

Get and give recommendations
Join or create groups of interest, participate in discussions and display your expertise whenever possible
Update your status with content relevant to your connections
Participate in Questions & Answers to attract a targeted audience and make new connections.
Share your expertise and help people
Create & promote events
Incorporate your blog, presentations or e-books on your profile

Slide 22: Integrating it All

Connect LinkedIn to Twitter, Facebook to Twitter
Use Friendfeed for integrating other networks
Use HootSuite for a single dashboard

Slide 23: Internet Marketing System to ensure a Consistent Flow of Information

Daily:

Update Facebook page
Update status messages across networks
Scan Google Reader subscriptions and share content that would be valuable to your followers (add to Friendfeed to ensure it goes out to all social networks)
Check Google Alerts for mentions of your name and business name
Respond to new Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook connection requests

Weekly:

Blog once a week at a minimum
Scan LinkedIn Q&A and answer a few questions
Review content for new uses (presentations, videos, screencams, articles, ebooks, etc)

Monthly:

Tweak profiles
Check Webmaster tools
Check Google analytics for information on traffic
Write a recommendation for a contact in LinkedIn, request one in return
Review Facebook Business Page, update and add new features

Slide 24: Get Connected, Get Found™

Schedule time to work on your marketing and make social media part of it. Don’t overlook any content you create that can be useful to your followers. Set your system up and work it – the value of social media on your marketing will become evident. Be realistic on what you can do with the resources you have available.

What lead generation activities do you use? How do they work?

I am available to present this and other marketing topics for your organization. Please contact me if you are interested in discussing your presentation needs.

6 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page

Debra — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:29:22 +0000

Creating a Facebook Page for your business is one of the more valuable exercises you can do as a small business owner. But once you have the page set up and you are providing valuable, relative content, how do you get people to like your page?

Invite your Facebook friends that fit your target market profile

To invite connections you think would be interested in your Facebook Page, use the Suggest to Friends link.

If you have connected with clients via Facebook, invite them first as your clients should already be supportive of you. Next invite other connections that fit your target market that may be interested in finding out more about what you offer. If you have done a good job of organizing your professional colleagues, customers and prospects into Friend Lists, you can invite these lists as groups to your Facebook fan page instead of sending individual invites.

Be selective in who you invite and as a courtesy, invite them once only. Don’t annoy people with Facebook Page invitations that aren’t interested in your business or know nothing about you. If a person rejects the request, be careful not to send them another invitation.

Invite your email newsletter subscribers

When you are ready to send out your next email newsletter, include an incentive to get your subscribers to visit your Facebook Page and become a fan. Put a free download on your landing page tab for non-fans that will appeal to your subscribers.

To set up your landing tab, use the Facebook Static FBML application. FBML is similar to HTML and can be used to enhance a user’s Facebook experience on your Page. Then edit the Wall settings for your page and select that tab as the landing page for “everyone else”.

Include your Facebook Page URL in your marketing materials

Once you reach 25 people who have liked your Page, create your vanity URL that makes it easy for you to promote the Page and for people to recognize your brand.

Now it will be easier to promote your Facebook Page by including your vanity URL in all your sales tools, such as business cards, brochures, email signature or other marketing and promotion tools you use to help you drive more visitors to your Business Page and connect with them. All of these tools can be used to cross connect you with your communities and make you more visible to those who are interested in what you have to say.

Place a Facebook Like Box Widget on your Website / Blog

The Facebook Like Box is a social plugin that helps you promote your Page to your website visitors. To create your Like Box, fill in the Facebook Page ID for your Page, the height and width of the box, whether you want your stream included and the number of fans to show.

Facebook Like Box Generator (Click to enlarge)

To get your Facebook Page ID, hover over the picture on your Page and the link contains the number. It should look like: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?profile=1&id=12345678912 (the 11 digit number is the id). When you are done, the form will generate the code you need to paste into your Website.

Use Facebook Social Ads

Depending on your business, Facebook Advertising can be beneficial to building your base of prospects because it enables you to tightly target your best prospect based on a number of variables, including geography, age, gender, education, relationship status, workplace and keywords. With this type of pinpoint targeting, you can create and deliver advertising to only those who you feel would benefit from what you have to offer.

A local retail business like a spa, hairdresser or restaurant could run an ad that has an incentive for fans to come in to your store and try your services or purchase your products.
A local service business like a plumber, landscaper or electrician could run an ad that contained an incentive only for new fans (and customers) such as a discount on a maintenance agreement.

Rather than placing ads in the local papers, Facebook advertising can be much more cost-effective in generating leads and growing your business.

Promote your Page on other Social Sites

Most social sites give you the opportunity to promote multiple websites. LinkedIn allows three links and Google profiles are unlimited. Use these opportunities to promote your Facebook Page as one of your key web properties. Don’t forget to use the “Other” feature when editing your additional information in LinkedIn to name the link appropriately.

In addition, integrate Twitter with your Facebook Page to communicate what you have posted to your Twitter followers.

So how will you promote your Facebook Business Page? Let us know what you have tried and how it works for you.

Top Search Queries: Data to Help You Know How to Get Found

Debra — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:25:35 +0000

As I reviewed the information in the Google Webmaster Tools for one of my clients today, I noticed something different in the information being presented in the Top Search Queries report – it has expanded and now contains a lot of great information on how your site appears in the search results for various keywords. It just so happens that Google reported this new feature update in their blog just today: More Data & Charts in Top Search Queries. I love stumbling into something new!

Not only have they improved this report by giving you a significantly larger number of queries in the report, they have also provided detail that can help you determine how to improve your site’s ranking. And from a marketing perspective, this will help many small business owners determine how their websites are doing and what types of improvements they need to make to get better rankings.

What you get

You get the number of impressions and click-through information for each search query and each position that your site’s pages appeared at in the search results associated with that query. Plus you also get the pages that were linked to from the search results for that search query.

What can you do with this information?

Review the results for the top keywords to see how and why visitors are coming to your site. Make sure your site is being found for keywords associated with your business. Then find your top keywords using the search feature and review how they are working. Look at your position in the search results. If you see “3rd page +”, your site needs work for that keyword. Now use this information to:

Determine how to get better ranking for your important keywords.
Review your SEO for each page of your website to ensure you are including the right keywords on each page in the right places.
Review your blog posts to ensure you include the appropriate tags and get into the habit of creating tags for your posts on a regular basis.
Develop a content strategy to help you gain more visibility for your more important keywords.

Don’t forget to use the Google AdWords External Keyword Tool to get the search volume for keywords it determines from your website.

Let’s just say I learned a lot about my own website ranking and which keywords need some work while I was reviewing the changes to help you take advantage of this information. Now it’s time for you to do the same. What does your Tops Search Queries report tell you?