Everything Is Marketing

No matter what your business is, you are a marketer. Marketing is a lot more than advertising. It includes how you design your product, your packaging, your customer service. It's all related.

Everything your business does affects your place in the market. The goal of marketing is a concept called "Top of Mind." This can be described by saying that you want your potential customers to think of you / your company immediately when they realize or decide they need what you have to offer.

Virtual Phone Services

As a small business owner, what do you need in your phone system or service?

I recommend Ring Central's virtual phone services. Here's why:

Reliability: When someone wants to call you, you've got to get that call. Toll-Free Number: Although land line and mobile phones have diminished the cost of long distance, a toll-free number still sends the message that you want to talk to your customers, and you'll do it on your own dime. Local Number: Having both a local number and a toll-free number is the standard. Voicemail: If you can't pick up, having voicemail is expected. It lets the customer know you can handle their needs. Fax: Sending and receiving faxes may at first seem unneeded with all the other forms of communication available. You need it. You need it so you can offer and sign contracts. You need it because some customer's needs will be met better if you have a fax. Extensions: Even a small business of 10 to 20 employees needs extensions. People buy people, not stuff. Much of your business will happen because of the relationships you and your employees develop one-on-one with customers. If you've got more than one person, give your customers the ability to reach the person they need.

Marketing Strategy
Your phone system is part of your marketing strategy. Marketing is the entire image your company presents. Your phone system is part of that presentation. You do so much work to get customers to call you, a bad impression cannot be afforded. When a customer calls you with new business, there is one thing on their mind: Are you the right one to meet their need? If your phone doesn't give the impression of a professional, you will lose credibility. It could cost you a sale.

Customer Service
What is the most important phone call that you will ever receive? When a customer has a problem. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising, even in this technology age. It works both ways, more so when it is negative. If a customer has a problem, you've got to get that call or that message. Customer service is also part of your marketing strategy.

Why Virtual?
Virtual phone services do not require any system hardware; they can be activated instantly with your existing phones. Best of all, RingCentral gives you all this for free during your trial. This way you can test it out before making the final decision for meeting your virtual phone service need.

Which is Better? Natural Traffic or Pay Per Click?

And the answer is: Yes.

After seven years of off again on again Internet Marketing, I have finally become convince that I should learn Pay Per Click. Now, maybe you think “Duh, what took you so long?” Here's the thing: There are enough free ways to get traffic that I wanted to champion the natural (also called organic) search engine optimization. I felt that people already spent enough money on scams and training that good content and sound elbow grease would be the hallmark of my expertise.

Where did things change for me? Right where they do for most businesses: my bottom line. As more and more people are making money online, the competition has increased. To keep myself marketable as a mentor for Internet Marketing, I no longer wish to turn away customers who want PPC. So now I embark on a learning curve and become, again, the student.

I still champion free traftic. Just like Word-Of-Mouth Marketing, it's one of the axioms of Internet Marketing. If someone finds me because of a referral, and if I have exactly what they want, the profit from the sale still tastes sweeter.

I don't believe good content will ever go away. Even with mobile media on the horizon. Now, I have to admit I may be wrong. One of my mentors once said that blogging was a fad and would soon fade. I'll folllow his example and state my best guess, stake my profits on it to some extent.

I challenge you to do the same. Become committed to life-long learning of your field. It used to be said that computers and programming were the primary fields where life-long learning was required. Now it is every field. If you don't learn more as you go, you'll miss out to someone who has been.

What Do You Remember After Christmas?

Christmas morning comes, the kids open tons of presents and what then? The excitement is over, the mess is big, and the credit card is maxed out.

What do I remember today of yesterday's holiday? The people. My kids. The realization that my 5-year-old is very nurturing. She was very concerned that her new baby only came with one diaper--not because she wanted more toys, because the baby needed to be cared for.

Like many families of today, we are an Internet family. Much of our time is spent in the same house each on our separate computers, sometimes talking on MSN even though we are in the same home. The key is still to connect with people, especially family.

My oldest son gets this deep down in his soul. His present to me was one of time with him--online. Two years ago he got me hooked on playing an MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game). The one he plays is Final Fantasy XI. Now I have my own character again (I had left playing the game to spend more time Internet Marketing).

The two years since I last played has taught me the importance of relationships. One of my favorite marketing slogans is: People Buy People, not Stuff.

How is marketing related to playing an MMORPG? Relationships. In Final Fantasy XI, your character is out in the wilderness fighting monsters. At a certain point, you must band together with other characters (operated by other players around the world) in order to kill the monsters. This requires meeting people and working well in small groups. The connections my son has made over the last few years he has played this game have impressed me. He has gotten some business, yes, but of course that isn't the reason he plays. Still, I see playing this MMORPG will help my Internet Marketing in at least two ways: 1) It will increase my experience building relationships, and 2) It will increase my awareness of the cyber world. We live in a time where a significant percentage of our customer's time is spent online, we need to understand that culture by living it.

One last thing: Playing computer games can drain your time very easily. In fact, the makers of Final Fantasy IX have placed this warning as one enters the game.

I told myself I would not play until I got my blogging done for today. I have several blogs I write in, some I have neglected to the detriment of one of my own goals: to post 4 times per week on each blog. Well, with this motivation I've posted on each one. Now off to fight monsters!

Commenting On Blogs

One of the primary tasks of Internet Marketing is commenting on other people's blogs. Find blogs that match your niche and comment on them regularly. This should be a weekly thing. This is one of those things that is easy to do. The caveat is that it is also easy not to do. Just like posting new blog posts (which I struggle with), commenting on blogs is one of those things that you ought to do regularly, following the philosophy of The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life.

How to Comment on Blogs
When you find a blog post that matches your niche, read it. This may seem obvious, but a common faux pas in blogging is a commenter who obviously has not read the post. Read the post. At the bottom of the post there is usually a link that says how many comments there are or to leave a comment. The etiquette is that your comment must add value to the conversation. You do not want to simply put in a plug for your website. If you are commenting on a blog that allows you to enter your URL along with your name, then your name will become a link to the URL you enter. There is no need to plug your website. Simply write a sincere, valuable comment and let the link do its work.

In a college class about the literature of the Renaissance, the professor pointed out that at the beginning of this period, the world was changing so rapidly that people could choose whether to live the new way or the old. This is where the term, Renaissance Man came from, to describe someone who was embracing the ideas of the Renaissance: the importance of learning, the ideas of progress, and the improvement of life through education and innovation.

Professor Lee said that we live in such a time today, at the beginning of "The Information Age." People could choose whether to use computers, the Internet, and other technology ... or not.

This ability of choice is going away. Whether because eventually those of us born before the 1980's or 90's will pass on, or because The Information Age will permeate everything to such a degree that such a choice is impossible.

Here is an example of how today's world is very different, but at the same time, the more things change, the more they stay the same:

This statement is attributed to Boyd K. Packer, a leader in my faith. I mention it here because I want to share his description of "The Great Depression" of the 1930's:

We live in troubled times. There is great financial crisis
and we've seen something that hasn't happened in the last 60 years:
the world's financial markets are collapsing. I was six years old
when the Great Depression began: the 10th of 11 children. My father
was a mechanic and times were difficult for all of us. Many families
were suddenly out of work all at once. There were large public
projects to try and provide employment.

We today may or may not be on the brink of another great depression. No matter what you call it, things are tough. Here is another statement. This one is of one of the Internet Marketing gurus I follow, Ken Evoy of SiteSell Services:

Bailouts only delay the pain for as long as we live in a world where people (and companies) depend upon governments to bail them out and we are all encouraged to live beyond our means. SBI! is a tremendous way to set yourself apart from this mess and build a life and future that you own.

Of course Ken is promoting his product, SBI. Go beyond an answer that would make me or you money, and think about what's different now versus 1929:

• With the Internet, there is a global marketplace. I primarily mean it's big.
• We can reach customers wherever they are.
• In troubled times, people will be looking for ways to make extra money.
• Things change more rapidly than they did in the 1930's.
• Technology is introduced more quickly and adopted by the planet more quickly. Exponentially more quickly.

So what does this all mean for Internet Marketers? I say it means we have a fighting chance to put and keep our financial houses in order, and we have a huge responsibility to help others do the same.

Let me point, yet again, to the words of Napoleon Hill from Think and Grow Rich:

The business depression started in 1929, and continued on to an all time
record of destruction, until sometime after President Roosevelt entered office.
Then the depression began to fade into nothingness. Just as an electrician in a
theatre raises the lights so gradually that darkness is transmuted into light
before you realize it, so did the spell of fear in the minds of the people
gradually fade away and become faith.

***

The business depression marked the death of one age, and the birth of another.
This changed world requires practical dreamers who can, and will put their
dreams into action. The practical dreamers have always been, and always will
be the pattern-makers of civilization.

Do not give into the fear. Riches begin with thoughts, desires, plans, and action. Whether you are seeking riches via Internet Marketing or some other vocation, believe, dream, pray, and work. You will find your reward.

Network Marketing

I used to think Multi-Level Marketing was bad. All of it. All the companies. My parents joined one and had a terrible experience, and several people pitched me over the years. Very pushy. I joined one a few years ago, and was told to be pushy.

I'm not pushy. I don't believe in pushy.

As you might read in my blog, I am an Instructional Designer by trade. I was given the assignment to develop a course of instruction that would teach people how to be successful in Multi-Level Marketing companies, so off I went to do research. I found an organization, Mentoring -for-Free, that convinced me that Multi-Level Marketing is by itself not bad or evil. There are scams and unscrupulous people, but if you have the right information you can choose a good company to join and you can find success. I joined Mentoring-for-Free, and promote it.

Mentoring-for-Free is not an MLM. It is a teaching organization that will train anyone from any company. There are even parts of the training that are relevant and open to people who want to succeed in other industries - not MLM at all. If you are interested, click the image to the right and download the eBook, Success in Ten Steps.

If you do, you will learn that only 15% of the general population likes pushy and thinks a pushy salesman is a good one.

My mentor, Michael Puskas, has as his "day job" a sales job. He has been in traditional sales full time for over 15 years. He has been very successful. He taught me yesterday that his success comes from not being pushy, but by finding the true need of potential clients and offering a sincere, valuable solution to their need. "They sell themselves," he says.

The same goes for Internet Marketing. You see a lot of hype on the Internet. Hype must work, because like spam, it would cease to exist if it didn't work. But I couldn't sleep at night if I used hype in promoting my network marketing (MLM) business or on my websites. Not only do I not like pushy, I think it is wrong. At least when it results in a customer buying something they don't really want, that isn't what is promised, or isn't what they really need.

It is possible, and in my opinion more lucrative in the long run, to present what you have to offer and let people sell themselves. If your product or service is of value, it will happen value is always rewarded. Your marketing purpose is to get potential customers to see you. You need them to see you often enough to remember you. This way, in the moment when they realize they need what you offer they will then buy you. This is the source my pen-name for this blog. I say buy "you" because people buy people, not stuff. If they are going to buy stuff they will go to Wal-Mart or Amazon.

You can get people to see you, remember you, and buy you without being pushy. Here are some sound tips to sponsoring.