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Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’
Creating ‘Buzz’ With a Business Blog
I found a lot of really good information about marketing in a recent article, Build Buzz With a Business Blog, written by Susan Gunelius and published on Entrepreneur on the 25 June 2010, but I would like to expand on it a little.
Sales and marketing is extremely important to the success of our business, I feel though that an extremely important ingredient to ‘building buzz with a business blog’ might be added to take the concept that Susan has provided to the next level.
What is that important ingredient?
There are two actually that immediately spring to mind – focus and innovation! We need to ‘create’ the buzz first, once we have the buzz we can build on it further:
- Establish yourself as an expert in a particular field.
- Provide confirmation to your readers that you know and understand the topic.
- Make the predominant focus of your blog the topics covered within that particular niche.
- Think outside the box – continue to learn new ideas and try to be creative in how you implement these ideas. Don’t stay stagnant, continue to learn, move, shake and grow.
Do you think that the customer or reader will be interested in our sales pitches unless they see us as a trustworthy and reliable source?
Do you think that it will predominately be the new reader or the returning reader that will likely purchase the product or service?
Without focus and innovation I feel that it is unlikely that our readers will become intrigued by or stay interested in what we have to say in our blog and the information that we post there.
I would love to hear your thoughts on how to create or build ‘BUZZ’ with a business blog.
Niche Marketing Opportunity
It probably wasn’t obvious to you as a reader up until now that this blog is destined to become a blog about niche marketing.
Through discussions with other business owners in the last few years I have come to know and understand just how important a niche is to growing ones business. This comes on a number of different levels.
I have come to realize is that it is much harder to promote your business to ‘the world’, but much easier to promote yourself to a smaller, much more defined group of people. In addition to this it gives you a really good opportunity to prove to them why you are a cut above the rest; what sets your business apart from all those other businesses in that field of expertise.
I myself have finally decided on a niche area for my parent company Proactive Admin Services, and are already starting to guide my business in that direction. My niche area will be to provide administrative assistance to Speakers. We have plenty to do… we will need to look at updating our website, training and development, marketing etc.
What we are hoping is that through Virtual Marketeers we will be able to help you with the following:
- Provide information about niche ideas and marketing so people who stumble upon this site, who do not yet have a defined niche might realize what an important marketing tool this might be to their business… hopefully earlier rather than later;
Should Marketing be Based on Trust or Fear?
Maybe it’s just me that finds it to be quite stressful reading some (not all) newsletters and sales pages; or maybe you’ve had some similar experiences… I don’t know?
Both my personal and business experience tells me that [big breath] the “sign up right now, there is never going to be another offer like this, you are going to kick yourself if you do not buy it NOW” type of request that tenses up our shoulders and throws the butterflies around in our tummy are so not worth those feelings.
I have come to learn that when a person uses a sales pitch like this, there is a probability the person on the other end of the computer is trying to make you purchase with your emotions – on a whim! This person really, really, really doesn’t want you to purchase with your brain, because there is a less likely chance of a sale right now.
With this tactic, these people might capture an instant sale with a good many of their customers, but I question how many customers will be repeat customers and whether there might be a bad taste left in the mouth if I was to knowingly push a sale onto a customer?
Got some thoughts on this? I would love to hear your thoughts on how to best retain clients, and whether you would consider the “you must buy right now” sales pitch to be moral.
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Building Email Marketing Lists
Maintaining a good reputation is so important in business; cause and effect.
In reading this article please have a think about whether those people added to your email marketing list have requested and confirmed their continued inclusion in your email marketing list.
If they did not have the opportunity to opt in to receive your emails, then the emails sent may be considered to be, and treated as spam email by the authorities. I am talking actual authorities and whole police units set up for handling spam, and from what I have heard spam is not handled lightly by these authorities.
So that you and your business is not subject to these types of problems, you might like to now look at whether you have received the appropriate permissions from your readers prior to adding them to your list. The absolute best way is by using an automated double opt in process through a reputable email communications web program, such as AWeber, iContact etc.
These programs sometimes offer feedback, prior to you even sending the email, as to whether the email content that you are about to send might be considered by readers to contain spam content, allowing for you to further edit it if need be.
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Introduction to Copywriting
Eric Holmlund provides straight forward and really useful information to those interested in understanding and expanding their online business.
The following articles about copywriting were written by Eric, for virtual marketers like yourselves, and I thought they may be of interest:
I find the last topic, about outsourcing copywriting quite interesting.
I am aware that copywriting is one of those extremely important things – it can be the difference between customers staying and customers going somewhere else.
And although I do not provide copywriting services myself, I do know people who provide this service and are really good at what they do. I know that there is quality, and well… less than quality.
Yes, I am sure that there are things in our lives that we can afford to scrimp and save on, I don’t believe that copywriting is one of those things.
Virtual Assistant in Niche Areas
Developing a niche area can be a really good marketing tool for not just Virtual Assistants, but for all business owners. If you haven’t already, you might like to read the article ‘What is Niche Marketing?‘ where I covered why and when business owners should establish a niche area.
This article is especially focused towards Virtual Assistants. It provides you with a comprehensive list of ideas for niche areas:
- Affiliate Marketers (assistance to)
- Appraisers (assistance to)
- Architects (assistance to)
- Association Management
- Authors (assistance to)
- Bankruptcy (assistance to bankruptcy firms)
- Blog Design and Maintenance
- Bookkeeping
- Business Writing
- Churches
- Coaches
- Concierge
- Conference and Event Organization
- Confidentiality (a Virtual Assistant who places special emphasis on confidentiality)
- Construction Industry
- Copywriting
What is Niche Marketing?
Niche marketing can be pretty much summed up by your refining a specialty in your business. It is usually, but not always, something that the person establishing the business/blog is good at, maybe has a love for. It could be a hobby, it could be something you enjoy, or something that you are really good at, maybe you are a professional and have done a degree in this particular area. The selection of niche areas possible is huge; larger than anyone can ever imagine. Actually I am certain that their are currently niche areas that haven’t been recognised yet, especially in areas such as science and technology where knowledge and hardware are continually developing, changing and growing.
Some people starting out in business know exactly what their niche is going to be. Some example might be an Business Accountant, or a Web Marketer, or Environmental Consultancy, or Association Management… the list goes on for miles and miles and miles! Others will most certainly start out broader and then eventually they will refine the niche area for their business.
Why Establish a Niche Area?
Establishing a niche is a marketing tool for telling the world that you are a specialist in that particular field.
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Who Are We and What Are We About?
…and what are we about you might be asking right about now!
Virtual Marketeers is a blog (weblog) website aimed at those with an Internet or Home-Based Business with a focus on providing business and marketing information to business owners. We also have a vision to provide to businesses a means where they can market their own goods or services in a very unique way.
Who is Rachel Reeves?
Virtual Marketers content is produced, or sourced by business entrepreneur, Rachel Reeves. Rachel also owns a Virtual Assistance business, Proactive Admin Services where she, with over ten years experience, provides administrative support to her clients.
Rachel operates mainly from her home office. She draws on her passion understanding of web and home-based business to bring to the table helpful information about business and outsources, and a unique way to market business goods and services.
Learn more about Rachel’s life and business journey by reading the next few articles which will be about her business life and career.
Watch this space…