Using Email Courses as a Way To Promote Products and Services
September 7, 2010 by Lisa Santos · Leave a Comment
Online courses, or email courses are becoming an increasingly popular way for savvy Internet marketers to promote their products and services. Online courses or email courses essentially include short online presentations or emails which include insightful information on a particular niche subject. These courses are usually offered in multiple, short segments to keep the students interested in the topic. This type of advertising serves a useful purpose and many of the participants do not even realize they are being subjected to a marketing campaign. This article will discuss creating and distributing an online or email course for the purposes of advertising your business.
The creation of an online course of an email course should begin with a solid idea for a series of educational articles which pertain to your business and will be of interest to your potential customers. Educational email courses can sometimes be sold for profit themselves but if you are interested in using the courses as marketing tools you will most likely be offering these courses free of charge in an effort to entice potential customers to purchase your products or services.
Determining the topic of your courses is very important because it can dictate the success of your marketing effort. Consider an online retailer of running shoes. This business owner may want to develop a series of email courses on subjects such as training for a marathon, preventing injuries, increasing speed and running for fun. Each of these courses may contain a few segments which offer different perspectives on the subject. These courses are ideal for this business because they are subjects which are likely to be of interest to the customers of the business. Likewise a real estate agent may opt to offer email courses on subjects such as understanding mortgage options, finding a lender or house hunting. Again these are all subjects which are likely to be of interest to the real estate agents clients.
The distribution list for your online or email courses should mostly include members of your target audience. This can be achieved by either offering the course as a download online where only interested Internet users will partake in the course or only emailing the course to recipients who have specifically expressed an interest in receiving more information about your products and services and have submitted their email address for this purpose.
Once you decide on a subject for your online or email course, seek out a qualified writer to create the content for your online or email course. This will help to give your copy a more professional appearance. The writer can assist you by creating copy which is informative and useful to your readers but is also well written, clear, concise and easy to understand. If your niche topic is highly specialized you might have to provide the writer with product information as well as research materials to ensure the content is informative and accurate. Additionally, you should review the content once it is completed to verify the accuracy.
When distributing your email course or launching your online course, it is helpful to request feedback from the users as the conclusion of the course. This is completely voluntary but when users respond they can provide you with useful feedback which will be extremely helpful if you intend to launch a similar marketing campaign in the future.
How Personal Branding Leads to Successful Affiliate Marketing
August 12, 2010 by Lisa Santos · 2 Comments
Personal branding your affiliate marketing campaigns can help you succeed in affiliate marketing. The market will recognize you among other players in the business. Connection is also properly established with customers with personal branding.
Why You Should Use Personal Branding
Personal branding adds your touch to the business. Personal branding goes well beyond a sleek logo or a perfect tag line. It is a way of sharing your expertise and own set of values with your target market.
Personal branding helps a lot in establishing rapport with your clients. A sense of connection is formed leading to trust and confidence of your market to get what they need from you.
In a business world where competition is very stiff, other marketers can steal your concept, your tools, and your system. There will also come a time when your patent for your product will expire. Personal branding attaches your identity with the goods or services that you sell.
People will know it is you when they see something on the market. If they trust you, they trust what you offer them.
Tips on Building your Personal Brand
Building a personal brand is not an easy task. It does not come in a package nor is it achieved overnight.
Here are some tips to get you started in building your brand:
- Run your own blog – If you want to be seen as an authority in the business, you should have a site devoted to it. You can also receive important feedback from your followers and potential clients.
- Distribute information online- You can write free ebooks or newsletter and distribute this to your list or potential customers. This can help you as an affiliate marketer in building trust with your market.
- Publish write-ups on trade publications- Print is still a very powerful medium. People can get their ideas and business sources by reading magazines and journals. You will develop the authority in your field through this effort.
- Give seminars and webinars- These talking engagements put the spotlight on you and serve as a good venue to show your expertise. You can also push for your services or products during these events.
Affiliate marketing is like standing in a crowded room where everyone is wearing a black suit, donning the same shoes, and sporting the same smile. It is a crowded business and people will have a hard time seeing you. Personal branding magnets the attention of the market to you and puts a spotlight on what you can give them.
The Power of Article Marketing is Through Your Author’s Resource Box
July 22, 2010 by Lisa Santos · 3 Comments
If you are using article marketing as one of your traffic building strategies, then there’s one important element you need to understand and master.
Your author’s resource box is the ONLY element of your article that allows for promotion, so it’s vital that you create a compelling resource box that invokes a call to action and entices every reader to follow through by clicking on your links.
With sites like Ezine Articles, you are able to create multiple resource boxes, choosing one that compliments each article that you write. You can also create multiple author’s accounts so that you can cover a large number of topics, all within one account.
Use your resource boxes wisely, and make sure that you offer your reader with an incentive to click through.
One way of doing this is by offering a free giveaway in your author’s resource box that is relevant to the topic or market that your article is focused on.
If you are not sure what you can offer within your resource box, here are a few things I have used successfully for over a year now:
- Free Report
- Newsletter or Ezine subscription
- Free ebook
- Free sample of a paid product
- Free Trial Membership
When creating your author’s resource box, make sure to use anchor text whenever possible. This will help you rank for specific keyword phrases within the search engines.
Google’s Local Business Center: A Major Update & A New Name – ‘Places’
June 2, 2010 by Lisa Santos · 1 Comment
If you have a brick and mortar store, and rely on walk-in traffic for your survival, you may be wondering what the Internet can do for your business. Believe it or not, a lot – and you don’t even need a website.
In the “old days”, the bulk of businesses relied on the Yellow Pages to get the phone ringing. The majority of marketing dollars were spent getting listed in this ten pound paperweight. With the popularity of the Net, less people let “their fingers do the walking” when they need something, and more are letting their mouse do the talking.
Online search has gone mainstream when it comes to searching for local businesses. Google states that 73% of searches are done for local content. Another study by BIA/Kelsey and Constat report that 97% of consumers use online resources when doing research for products/services in their local area. See www.kelseygroup.com/press/pr100310.asp.
Google has always understood the power of local search, and years ago launched its Local Business Center where any business can get a listing for free. Recently, they’ve done a major overhaul and have re-launched with a new name of “Google Places”, showcasing a host of new features. The name change was done to tie in with Google’s Place Pages which were launched over a year ago and include over 50 million places worldwide. Official Google Blog
If you want customers to be able to find you, and haven’t listed your offline store here yet, you need to get with the program. You are missing out on the chance to reach millions of Google users, including Google Map users, Google’s 800 Voice Directory Search and even Google Earth. And all of this exposure won’t cost you a dime. It’s totally free.
Now that I have your attention, let’s go over the steps for inclusion. As with all things Google, you’ll need to sign into Google Places with your Google Account. Up to 100 single locations can be added but, if you have more than ten to list you’ll need to use their “Bulk Upload Tool”.
There is a verification process that must be done to prove you’re the owner of the business being listed. The choice is yours, it’s by phone or mail. Once this is done, your listing goes live.
Now in case you’re thinking all that’s included in a listing is an address and phone number, hold onto your hat. Here are some of the listing options.
1) Show the geographic area you service.
2) Photos: Upload yours, up to ten images per listing, in JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, BMP. A professional photo shoot can also be requested for your business.
3) Place Page Posts: You can post real time updates here, up to 160 characters, announcing special sales, events, and new products. One post appears at a time.
4) Custom QR Codes: For use with smart phones to take users to your mobile website.
5) Advertise: They do have a “Tags Program” in select cities for $25.00 a month where your business will be highlighted on Google.com and Google Maps.
6) List your operating hours. Biz description and even reviews.
7) Post Videos: Up to five videos can be posted, but you’ll need to publish them to YouTube first, then include the URL’s on your Place Page.
Payment Types Taken
9) Coupons: Create online coupons to give people incentive to visit your site. There’s a separate “coupon tab” that appears on your listing page.
10) Privacy: If you work at home and have no storefront you can choose to make your address private in your listing.
At this point you should be realizing how important being listed in Google Places is to your business. If you’d like to see what your listing looks like to a searcher, log into Google Places and click on “see your listing on Google Maps”.
Now remember, search results are based on relevance and “geographic distance”, so you can’t buy your way to the top of the list as with pay-per-click advertising. As previously mentioned, the “tags program”, if available in your area, can be utilized for having your business show up highlighted for $25.00 a month.
If you’re interested in paying for your links to show up on the Google Maps search results page, if related to the search terms and location searched, that can be done using Google’s Adwords program with what’s called “Local Targeted Ads”.
By the way, Google also includes a “Reporting Dashboard” that will tell you how people find you, and what keywords they used to search. It’s powerful stuff that can also be used in your local search engine optimization work.
Do yourself a favor – if you’re not listed with “Google Places”, now is a good time. It’s targeted, free traffic. Now where else can you say that when it comes to marketing on the Internet. People are looking for your business online and with Google Places you can make it easier for them to find you. Website or not – it simply doesn’t matter – but getting people in the door does, and Google is there to help.
About The Author
Merle’s Mission Blog – “Rants, Raves and Random Acts of Kindness”. A self-proclaimed “Internet Junkie” with a passion for net marketing, affiliate marketing, and social networking. An avid Blogger and writer with several niche sites. Find out more at merlesworld.blogspot.com . Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/msmerle
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