Category Archives: Online Marketing Tips

Live Streaming for Business: 5 Ways to Get Started

You may already know that live streaming is a new and potentially powerful form of content. It provides an engagement and interaction that until now was limited to face to face conversations. Now, instead of having to host a live event, you can stream live online. The possibilities of how to leverage this content form are endless. To help you get your creative wheels turning, let’s talk about five general ways to use live streaming for business regularly.

Interviews

Interviews are a great way to help boost your own credibility and authority while providing value to your audience. Imagine a crafting blogger being able to live stream an interview with Martha Stewart or a self-help marketer interviewing Oprah. Instant credibility and notoriety, right?

You can also leverage the audience of a relevant business owner to help grow your following. For example, a personal trainer might interview a health food expert. The health food expert gets exposure to your audience and vice versa.

Interviewing customers is another option. You can do a sort of live case study to show how your product or service solves problems.

Live Events

It’s entirely possible to host a live webinar via a live streaming application. You can create a webinar format for the show and use the time to solve a problem, provide information, and drive viewers to take a specific action. This is a fun way to launch new products or services. It’s also a great way to build your email list and make sales.

Demonstrate Products

Live streaming is a prime opportunity to demonstrate how to use your products. Whether you sell one product or dozens, you can show people in real time how to use it and answer their questions as you go. Don’t forget to include a “buy” link and call to action.

Question and Answer

Consider hosting the occasional question and answer broadcast. Announce the broadcast and then start collecting questions. It’s a good idea to start the show with a few questions to get the ball rolling. You can then take questions from the audience. Keep a few additional questions aside just in case you experience a lull and want to keep providing information.

Trainings

Remember that Periscope allows you to host private broadcasts, right? This is a great opportunity to host trainings and use live streaming for business. You can train staff members, you can hold meetings, or you can train new customers on how to use their product. The latter is particularly helpful if you sell or market technology.

These five ideas are really the beginning of what’s possible. Start brainstorming options today. Who could you interview? Who might you partner with to host a live stream together? What questions can you answer via live streaming and how can you provide entertaining and informative content with this technology?

Live streaming for business just makes sense, and I hope these five ways will help you to launch this medium into your business quickly.

Connie Ragen Green is an online marketing strategist. Connect with her at ConnieRagenGreen.com

Connecting With Prospects to Grow Your Business

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Connecting With Prospects

Do you know that your prospects are waiting for you to connect with them? That’s right, the people you want to serve by sharing your knowledge, experience, and expertise on your chosen topic are just as anxious to connect with you as you are with them.

How can you do this quickly and easily? By leveraging the power of the internet with your writing, speaking, and presentations. Everything you write or say turns into an electronic salesperson seeking out your ideal prospects. Allow me to explain in further detail.

Your blog is your home on the internet, and as such provides you with the perfect platform for sharing what you know about your topic. Post to your blog at least twice a week for best results, and then share your post with your list, your social media connections, and with anyone who finds you online through the specific words (sometimes referred to as your keywords) you are using in your posts.

I’m finding that my prospects tend to be on LinkedIn more than on Facebook or Twitter, so that’s where I spend the majority of my effort in connecting with prospects. And the same person who is on all three of these sites tends to be more focused on business while they are on LinkedIn, even though I’m not sure exactly why this is the case.

I have two primary blogs and continue to post to each of them on a regular basis because the results continue to be spectacular. Over the past decade I’ve written more than two thousand posts that serve me well as my business grows.

But don’t stop there. Remember that people prefer to learn in different ways and that not everyone likes to read. What I am saying is that many people prefer to listen to the information they are seeking. Hosting your own teleseminars is an excellent way to get started with this, and you may also want to go a step further and turn your calls into podcasts.

I have been doing this regularly since the end of 2007 and find that it continues to help me connect with prospects on a daily basis.

Also, the more you write and speak the more proficient you become at each of these skills. Practice is an important part of becoming a successful online entrepreneur.

The final method of connecting with prospects is to create short videos to post to your YouTube channel. Keep them under five minutes in length and be sure to say your name and website at the beginning and at the end of each video. My videos tend to be more about my lifestyle, but I also use them to give training on specific parts of my business.

Connecting with prospects on a regular basis will help you to grow your business exponentially over a short period of time. It will also hone your skills as an author, speaker, and presenter. Becoming more skilled as a professional will serve you well for years to come and help you to help others more completely.

10 Steps to Greater Self Confidence

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10 Steps to Greater Self-Confidence

We all want more self-confidence. Self-confidence can mean the difference between enjoying life and being afraid. Not all of the factors that contribute to self-confidence are under your direct control. But enough of them are to make a huge difference. You can develop the habits and skills that make self-confidence automatic.

With greater sel-confidence, you’ll achieve more, too. Self-confidence is personal power.

Become more self-confident and enjoy all that life has to offer:

Keep track of your successes. Do this all day long. Start each day with a fresh sheet of paper and list your successes. It might be a good performance at a meeting or completing a report on time. This system will change your focus and increase your self-esteem.

You have plenty of successes each day, but you only notice a few spectacular successes each year. It’s also easy to notice every little failure. Make a list of all your successes, big and small. Avoid thinking about your failures.

Pay attention to your body language. Strong, confident people stand tall and sit up straight. Maintain good eye contact. Keep your body open. Smile. Pay attention to your surroundings. Imagine the most confident person or movie character you can think of. How do they stand, walk, and move?

Adopt the physiology of someone confident, and you’ll feel more confident. Try it! Pretend you’re a highly confident person and carry yourself as one.

Do something that makes you uncomfortable. Having success outside your comfort zone is a fast way to increase your self-confidence. Take a speech class or jump out of an airplane. When you can deal with discomfort and experience success, your self-confidence will grow rapidly. You have countless opportunities to test this theory each day.
Get rid of the negative voices in your head. Those self-defeating thoughts that never seem to stop can be a major drain on self-confidence. Catch yourself when you’re making negative comments to yourself. Change your self-talk to something more positive.
Be over prepared. A lack of preparation can sap your self-confidence. Whether you’re unprepared for a speech, a test at school, or a vacation, preparation is the key to confidence.
Make of list of all the great things about yourself. List them all: your smile, sense of humor, and ability to play the banjo are all fair game. List everything about yourself that’s even slightly positive. Notice how great you already are. Then notice how much more confident you feel after making the list.

You can probably rattle off all your faults. You’ll probably require more time and thought to make a list of your positive qualities.

Be assertive. When you ask for what you want, you feel more confident. When you go after the things you want, you feel more confident. Taking control of your life results in greater self-confidence.
Focus on others. By focusing on making a contribution to others, you don’t have time to worry about your own perceived flaws. One way to stop thinking negatively about yourself is to put your attention on something more important. The positive feelings and respect you’ll receive will also allow your self-confidence to grow.
Dress for success. I can’t tell you how much this step has made a difference in my life. I live in California and was used to the relaxed way many of us dress on a regular basis. Once I began interacting with business owners and thought leaders in my community and at live events across the country and finally around the world, I had to step up the way I looked. Immediately, I was taken more seriously and my income increased. Looking back, I can’t believe how I used to dress. Look in the mirror and evaluate your appearance before you leave your house each day.
Engage in positive thinking. I was guilty of negative self-talk during my first year as an online entrepreneur. Within five minutes of waking up in the morning I had convinced myself that what I intended to achieve that day was impossible. Once I came to the realization that this behavior was sabotaging my chances for success, I began engaging in positive thinking which led to greater self-confidence.

Be all that you can be. All you need is a little more self-confidence to kick-start your way to greater accomplishments and more peace of mind. Self-confidence ebbs and flows, depending on the situation, but a healthy level of self-confidence is a powerful trait to possess. If you’re feeling stuck, a little more self-confidence might be the cure.

I’ve written about the importance of self-confidence in the book I co-authored with the late Geoff Hoff. It’s entitled The Inner Game of Internet Marketing.

Thank You Pages to Build Your Online Business

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Strategic Thank You Pages

Few products stand alone. There is always something more to learn, tools to help us be more efficient, and related concepts to explore. Your download, or thank you page is the perfect place to help your buyers discover additional resources, and to build your passive income portfolio.

If you are not creating strategic thank you pages for your opt in pages and product/course/service download pages you are most definitely leaving money on the table. I did this during my first few years online and now know better.

Consider adding:

Coupon codes for additional purchases – I do this for my Internet Marketing Six Pack course
Recommendations for related products (yours or affiliate products)
Bonus downloads with promotional links

If it helps, think of this as adding value to your buyers (because you are) rather than selling them additional products. You don’t have to be pushy to create a solid passive income strategy, but you do have to care about your buyers’ experience. When you keep that in mind, sales come naturally.

You may also want to use your thank you pages to ask readers and clients to take a survey. Keep it short and ask specific questions you actually want answered to help you grow your business. For instance, you may want to ask them what products and courses they would most like to see you develop. Five to ten questions is a good length for a survey.

Another excellent addition to your thank you pages is asking them to tell you a little more about themselves by answering the following questions:

What are you struggling with (and how may I help you to fix it)
What are your goals (as specific as possible) for this year?
What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to [your topic]?

And finally, ask for their feedback. Asking for specific feedback gives you a more complete picture about what, why and how your community interacts with your site, products and services. Getting the answers straight from your them is your secret weapon for spotting problems and opportunities in your business. Whatever you do, make sure to make the most of your thank you pages.

The Internet Marketing Lifestyle: Online Marketing Tips

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Online Marketing Tips

Recently I was asked to share what it means to me to have an online business. Tips I shared with the person I was discussing this topic with included details about the time and financial freedom one is able to enjoy as an online entrepreneur, as well as the lifestyle you are able to live when you can work from home, or from wherever you are in the world with an internet connection.

Long ago I worked as a classroom teacher, and to make ends meet I worked simultaneously as a real estate broker and residential appraiser. Over the years I grew weary of working six or seven days each week and still not being able to take time off or save much money. When I made the decision to leave that world behind in 2006 it was to live the internet lifestyle and to create a life for myself where I would have both the time and the income to call the shots every day. My life changed completely when I took action on my dream, and you can do the same thing if you understand what it takes to make it happen.

If this is a lifestyle you are interested in creating for yourself, here are some online marketing tips I will share with you:

Be prepared to work longer and harder than you ever have before for at least the first year so that you can “do for a year what others won’t; live the way others can’t, forever.”
Be the toughest boss you have ever had in the physical world. Focus and discipline will mean the difference between success and failure.
Take action every single day, if only for fifteen minutes. Keep what I refer to as a “dynamic to-do list” and get into creative mode by writing down your thoughts and ideas and then taking action to implement them.
Remember that online entrepreneurship is a business. Treat it like a business and it will pay you like a business. Treat it like a hobby and it will cost you like a hobby.
Know that the three parts of your business that are most important are posting to your blog at least twice a week, emailing your list as least twice a week, and creating simple information products to sell to others. Good enough is good enough, so do not complicate it.

I hope these online marketing tips have been helpful. You can achieve success and have time freedom and financial freedom if you follow my steps. Having an online business means you are in control of your own life and your destiny, and there can be no greater reward when it comes to your business.

Take a Look at My Internet Marketing Six Pack to Get Started as an Online Entrepreneur.

Live Streaming: Marketing Strategy

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Integrating a Live Streaming Marketing Strategy

Marketing tactics, channels, and efforts tend to be more powerful and effective when they are integrated. For example, you might share a blog post on your Facebook account. This is integrated marketing. You’re using Facebook to help promote your blog.

Chances are you might also have social media buttons on your blog, thus you’re using your blog to help build your social media audience. Everything is connected and works toward a common goal. That’s the power of integration.

As you begin to leverage live streaming, you’ll have better and faster results if you leverage your existing marketing tactics and channels. So let’s take a look at how to do that.

If You Don’t Have a Live Streaming Marketing Strategy and Plan, Create One

It’s quite difficult to create any type of consistency if you don’t have an existing strategy to work with. Your marketing strategy answers the following questions:

Who are you marketing to?
What are your marketing goals? (Hint, they should support your business plan and business goals)
How is your competition marketing?
What marketing channels will you use?
What are your goals for each specific channel?

Your marketing plan takes it a step further. Each marketing channel that you’re going to use will have specific goals and a plan of implementation. For example, your goal for your Facebook page might be to drive traffic to your opt-in offer. You might decide to post an original post every other day on Facebook and to interact with your followers and share on a daily basis.

Identify Opportunities

Taking a look at your existing marketing channels, identify opportunities to promote your live streaming and vice versa. For example, if you’re on twitter then that’s an easy one. Twitter is linked with both Meerkat and Periscope.

Automatic notifications are sent to followers. You can thus promote twitter in your live feeds and promote your live streaming show on Twitter. Both before, during, and after the show you can share tweets about the broadcast.

Measure and Track

Part of any good marketing strategy and integration is the ability to both track and measure results. That means setting goals that support your marketing goals and then implementing systems to evaluate your success. For example, if you want to use live streaming to drive traffic to your opt-in page, then consider creating a unique URL/landing page for that audience. Track how many visits you get to that site and how many sign-ups.

This information gives you the ability to evaluate your tactics and make changes to adapt to your audience. Live streaming can be incredibly powerful to build your business. However, it will generate better results if you make it part of your overall marketing strategy and integrate it with your other marketing tactics.

What is your live streaming marketing strategy?

How to Create an Autoresponder Series

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Learning How to Create an Autoresponder Series

When is the last time you reviewed your autoresponder messages? While it’s great that you can simply “set it and forget it,” if you don’t take the time to review your results, you’re very likely leaving money on the table.

And if you don’t have a solid autoresponder series in place, you’re definitely missing out!

Start by considering why your subscribers joined your list in the first place. What was the offer she opted in for? Your autoresponder sequence should build on that, leading naturally from one offer to the next while providing additional value.

For example, if you offer a quick start guide to Facebook advertising as your opt-in incentive, then in your follow-up emails you can add value and build your passive income by:

Sharing resources for graphics—both free and paid
Reviewing a course you took on advertising
Sharing copywriting tips and a link to a great book about the subject
Providing case studies about your success with ads, with an offer for a full-training program
Detailing your opinion on a new tool, such as a retargeting pixel manager

All of this content is a natural follow-up to the guide your readers initially opted in to receive, so it’s welcome information for them, as well as an opportunity for you to earn some passive income by including affiliate links.

If you don’t yet have an opt-in offer on your website, you can create one in just a few hours. It doesn’t have to be complex or even comprehensive. In fact, short content often makes a more compelling offer, so consider:

Checklists
Worksheets
Mindmaps
Resource guides
Audio or video replays

If you’re lacking for ideas or content, check out some PLR (private label rights) content from Coaching Sticky Glue or Lead Magnets as a starting point. This can be quite helpful whether you’re a new online entrepreneur or a seasoned marketer. Then all you need to do is drive traffic to your free offer. What could be easier? (Or more passive!)

Knowing how to create an autoresponder series and then actually setting it up is invaluable to your business. What are your thoughts on this topic?

The Art of Writing Persuasive Sales Copy

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Are You Writing Persuasive Sales Copy?

Writing persuasive sales copy can change the way your online business is perceived, as well as increase your bottom line. Learning how to write in this way is a skill that can be learned and I will share some tips on that here with you.

Storytelling – We all grew up listening to and learning from stories, so it just makes sense that storytelling would be the magic ingredient in writing persuasive sales copy. Your stories enable you to take complex or abstract ideas and present them in a simple and easy to understand format.
Write Like You Speak – Writing your sales copy in a conversational tone is key. Instead of writing to impress your reader, simple write the way you would naturally speak to them. Writing persuasive sales copy is about communicating one to one through your words.
Features and Benefits – No one really cares about the features of what you are selling; it’s the benefits those features will bring to your prospect that will make them more likely to buy. I have found that by presenting the benefits first, and then relating them to the features, your reader will understand exactly what’s in it for him if he takes the action you are suggesting.
Sub-Headings, Bulleted Lists, and Short Paragraphs – Most of us are “scanners” when it comes to reading through large chunks of writing. If you take the time to break it up into sections and divide the text into short paragraphs, your reader will be able to work their way through your sales copy more easily. They will also be far more likely to purchase. I also recommend sub-headings for each section and bulleted lists that explain exactly what you are offering and what will be included.

I hope this post has been helpful and that you have more clarity when it comes to writing persuasive sales copy.

Live Streaming – Best Practices

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Live Streaming – Best Practices

Live streaming is a lot like live television, but it’s also part of your marketing plan. So while you can wing it and just turn on your phone and start streaming, you probably want to embrace some best practices so that you can put your best foot, or face, forward.

Plan it Out

Know what you’re going to say, how long you’re going to broadcast, and what your goals are for the broadcast. To put it simply, plan your content. Make sure that the information you are providing offers value to your audience. Approach it like any other content marketing that you use to grow your business.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Practice your broadcast. You can, and absolutely should, be authentic and natural. However, you also want to make sure that you are comfortable in front of an audience. Practice can help you calm the nerves. You can never have too much practice.

Notes

You don’t want to read your broadcast so it is not a great idea to write out your script and to read it verbatim. However, it is a good idea to create some short notes. Identify the bullet points that you want to cover in the order that you want to cover them.

This will help you stay on track. It will also help ensure that you can continue where you left off after interacting with your audience. Remember that viewers can post questions and you can respond to them. Notes help you stay focused.

Present Yourself Professionally

While you don’t have to wear formal business attire, you can. You do want to make sure that you present yourself in a way that best represents your brand and your business. Brush your hair. Make sure that the lighting is good and your audience can see and hear you. Also make sure that anything else the viewers can see supports you and your brand.

Engage Your Viewers

If people are commenting during your presentation, that’s great. Engage with them. The beauty of live streaming is this interaction. Don’t ignore your viewers. Identify them, and where they’re from, if possible. Address them by name and connect.

Live streaming best practices are designed to help you create the most professional and engaging live streaming broadcast possible. Follow them and you will achieve better marketing results from your very first show.

These live streaming best practices will serve you well over time.