7 Ways to WRITE a BOOK for Beginners - #7Ways

They say we all have a least one book in us.  Check out Evan Carmichael's guide on how to.

Posting Your Blog Content on Facebook

Having a corporate blog is an important digital marketing strategy. It helps with SEO, gives your customers and clients important information, helps educate new customers and clients, and is a great platform to talk about what you do and how you do it.

Undoubtedly you spend a fair amount of time curating the content for your blog. You come up with ideas, write the content, optimize it for your website, and more. After it’s written, you want to make sure that people actually read it.

One of the best ways to get your blog content out there is to post it on your social media channels. Facebook is an especially powerful tool for posting your blog content and having people read and share it.

There are a few tactics that you can use to your advantage when you post your blog content on Facebook. Here are the ones that work the best:

Share your blog on Facebook

 First thing is first, you should share your blog on your corporate Facebook account fairly soon after publishing it on your website. This ensures that the content is timely and lets people know that you published a new blog.

As an added bonus, sharing your blog on Facebook is totally free and it has the potential to spread far and wide. Encourage people to share it. Share it with your friends and business associates. The more eyes that see your blog post on Facebook, the better.

Boost the blog post on Facebook

Using Facebook’s boosting options is a great way to get your blog content to the right people. When you boost a post, you choose who it goes to and can see how many people it can reach with a certain budget.

You can choose to pay per click, per 1000 impressions, or per engagement. This allows you to customize your boosted blog post to garner the action you want from your readers. Boosted posts can not only help ensure that your current customers and clients see your new blog content, they can also help new people see your blog and learn about what you do.

Use great headlines

When you post a blog on Facebook, the headline is one of the first things people see. In fact, almost 80% of people never even make it past the headline. Because of this, you want a powerful headline that encourages people to click into and read the whole blog post.

Keep the headlines short and to the point. Tell readers exactly what they should expect to get out of the blog. If there are any important or eye-catching numbers or facts, those can be great to incorporate into the headline.

Imaging matters

When you publish a blog post on Facebook, it is important to add an eye-catching image to make the link stand out in the newsfeed. Stock images are okay, but images that you take or create are better.

Whatever you choose to use, make sure all the images are high-contrast and colorful. That helps them pop in the hectic and crowded space of someone’s Facebook newsfeed.

Write top-notch copy

While there are some tricks and tactics that can help your blog get attention on Facebook, nothing can beat solid copy. You can have the best headline and imaging and people still may not click on your blog post due to weak or uninspiring Facebook ad or post copy.

Those 140 or so characters that you write to describe the blog post in the Facebook post or Facebook ad are vitally important to getting people to read your blog. Make the copy stand out.

Use testimonials, ask questions, give a solution to common problems, use a clear call to action, appeal to people’s emotions. You need to capture people’s attention with your copy to get them to read your blog.

Facebook can be a powerful tool in promoting your blog content if you want to learn more about how to make it work for you, check out my done-for-you system.

How To 10x Your Organic Reach On Facebook For Free

Great content shared here from Vince Reed..

5 Ways to Personalize Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Using a personalised approach to your marketing strategy can help increase conversions and boost customer retention. Though, this isn’t always easy. You need to consider every stage of your sales funnel, from emails to landing pages.

We’ll cover each of these areas and show you how to personalise your digital marketing strategy.

Create a Buyer Persona

The first step is to create a buyer persona. You want to start the personalisation before you even capture your customer’s name and information. This is done with a buyer persona, which is basically an outline of your typical customer.

The information used in a buyer persona includes age, location, income level, occupation, interests, hobbies, and any other details that you want to include. You can get as detailed as you want. The main idea is to create an image in your head of the type of customer that you want to attract.

You’ll use this buyer persona throughout your marketing campaign. You can even create multiple personas, each with their own campaign.

Customise Your Landing Pages

Once you’ve created your buyer personas, you can begin incorporating this into your landing pages and other marketing material. Basically, whenever you create content, imagine that you are speaking directly to the buyer persona that you created.

You’ll be surprised by how effective this step is. It helps you stick to your main point and address issues that your buyer cares about. Overall, this helps increase your conversion rates, after a visitor lands on a landing page.

So, starting with the title of your landing page, think about what it takes to grab the attention of the buyer that you created. What is the main problem that they face that your product or service addresses? Come up with a catchy title that directly speaks to this fear or issue.

This same practice can be applied to all your marketing content. In addition to landing pages, you’ll use your buyer persona when creating targeted ads, social media posts, and blog articles.

Create Personalised Email Campaigns

The next step uses real personalisation. Here’s where you’ll actually use your potential customer’s name in the content. Using an email marketing program or software, you can easily set the campaign to automatically insert the subscriber’s name into the email or subject line.

In addition to inserting their name into the email, remember to write the body of the email while focusing on your buyer persona.

Also, you can use this opportunity to provide product or service recommendations based on their past purchases or the pages that they’ve visited. The recommendations provide a simple solution for personalising your marketing efforts.

Use Location-Based Advertising and Marketing

By tracking the physical location of your visitors, you can direct them to pages or content that’s geared towards a specific market.

For example, visitors from Maine may not have the exact same interests as visitors from Florida. You could use to offer different products or simply incorporate different manner of speech that appeals to a specific region.

Use Personalised Surveys to Learn More

The final step is to use personalised surveys to learn more about the interests of your customers. This offers two major benefits. These surveys help build trust with your customers, due to the fact that you’re showing them that you care about their interests and needs.

In addition to building trust, it also provides you with valuable insight. You’ll be able to learn more about their specific needs and desires, which can be used to enhance your marketing content or revise your buyer personas.

Personalising your digital marketing strategy can be difficult, but it is definitely beneficial. It’s an extra step with major rewards. If you’d like to have access to more powerful marketing tips and suggestions, as well as a way to gain conversion-ready internet marketing prospects each month, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Additional Ways to Utilize Your Keyword Research to Boost Sales

Keyword research is a necessary part of online marketing. In fact, you may spend hours researching keywords and deciding which ones to target. You’ll use these keywords in your content, marketing material, and advertisements. Though, these aren’t the only uses for your keyword research.

You should take advantage of the time that you’ve put into keyword research. Here are a few ways to utilize your keywords to boost sales, drive traffic, and build your online reputation.

Keyword Research is a Type of Customer Research

When you perform keyword research, you’re also performing customer research. You’re finding out what your potential customers are interested in. This will give you a general idea of the types of topics that you should be discussing in your blogs and eBooks.

Looking at the terms that people use gives insight into their interests. So, not only will use these keywords in your content, you can mine these keywords for topics.

Find Content to Curate and Share on Social Media

You can use your keyword research to help with content curation. Content curation should comprise about 80% of your social media marketing. This includes articles and news from outside sources that you think your followers will enjoy.

Entering your chosen keywords into Facebook or Twitter will help cut down on the time that you spend finding curated content.

Improve Your Existing Content with New Keywords

Use your latest keyword research to update your existing content. If you have blog posts that haven’t been viewed in months, then give the posts an update. Add additional content, more information, and new details. Then, optimize your updated posts with your latest keyword research.

Find Frequently Asked Questions That You Can Answer

When you perform keyword research, pay attention to the keyword suggestions that are phrased in the form of a question. These queries show that people are searching for an answer to these questions.

Take these keyword phrases and perform your own search. You should be able to find forums, communities, and websites where people have asked these exact questions.

Offer your input and give an answer. This helps you establish yourself as a voice of authority in your field while providing another use for these keywords.

Learn How People Search for Your Products or Services

As mentioned, your keyword research is a type of customer research. One of the things that you’ll learn is how people search for your products or services. You might find that they commonly use terms that you wouldn’t normally use.

For example, if you sell running shoes, you might find that people are more likely to search for running sneakers.

By looking at the most common search terms, you gain insight into the language used by your customers. These small nuances can be useful in creating marketing material that connects and engages.

Find Ideas for Future Products or Services

During your keyword research, you may come across search terms that you haven’t thought of. This could provide ideas for future products or services.

Using running shoes as an example, you might find that people also search for shoelaces for running shoes. If you hadn’t previously sold shoelaces, you now have an idea for your next product.

The bottom line is that keyword research can be used for so much more than just optimizing your web pages and advertisements. You can perform customer research, improve your content, and develop ideas for new products or services.

Maximize your marketing potential by making better use of your keyword research. If you’d like to receive more powerful marketing tips, and a way to generate conversion-ready internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Own Your Domain Before Your Competitors Do

Just because you purchased a domain name does not necessarily mean that you own it.

Domain names are used to identify one or more IP address that is typed into the URL search bar. Companies have the ability to purchase multiple domain names, often relating to competition or services, and repoint the URL to point to their own website ��" this is why you should buy relating domain names before your competitors do! By owning multiple domains you will increase the overall traffic to your website and have higher visibility on search platforms.

For example, Kirk’s domain name is kirkcommunications.com. Since Kirk Communications owns that web domain, no other business can use it. However, competing companies could attempt to purchase relating domain names, such as ��kirkcommunication�� with the domain name missing the ��s�� at the end, and have individuals who were searching for Kirk’s services now redirected to their (a competitor’s) site. We may be Kirk Communications, but we did not own our name in this hypothetical domain situation.

Protect your business, and brand, by ensuring that you own the rights to your domain. In order to protect your brand, the best website and development practice would be to ensure that you own your website domain.

There are many advantages to owning your company’s domain. These are just a few of the most important benefits to consider:

1. Increase your Search Ranking
Amongst the hundreds of search ranking factors Google takes into consideration, one of them weighs heavily on domain names. If you own your unique business domain, Google will rank your website higher than those that use free domain names from web hosting sites.

2. It’s All Yours
By owning your own domain, you own your company name on the web. This sense of ownership will increase brand awareness and project your company as professional in the digital marketplace which will help grow your business online. Your brand will also build up its credibility. By having a clean domain name your company will stand out and be cohesive throughout your digital strategy and marketing materials.

3. Company Email Accounts
Emailing is a critical activity that every business partakes in, so it is important to have a company email that matches your domain name. For example, your company emails will follow yourname@yourcompany.com. By linking the two you will have instant brand recognition from customers who are trying to contact you. Email marketing campaigns will also be coming from your reputable company email accounts. By having your company name after the @ symbol, you will increase the trust in your customer relationships and have consistent contact information across every employee.

4. Flexibility
When you own your domain you have the flexibility to switch web hosts at any time. You will take your domain name and company email addresses with you. If another web hosting company owns your domain, you will not have the option to switch to another website hosting with your domain. Website design and development is constantly changing, along with the web hosting websites, so it is crucial to own your domain.

Article Source: http://www.eArticlesOnline.com

What is Marketing & Brand Strategy?

See in this video how branding has evolved over the years and how it has now become relevant to YOU!

Have you found your brand?  Let me know in the comments below.

5 Rules of Marketing That Will Help You Find the Right Niche and Thrive

In 2016 the internet is filled to brimming with white papers and ebooks on how to create an optimal landing page, set up an inbound marketing funnel, map out an email nurturing campaign, etc.

But we don’t often hear clients asking about the basics of marketing. It’s almost as if, in this era of Internet specialization, marketing has become a series of systems rather than a single conceptual framework.

So, here’s the billion-dollar question: Does marketing have “rules” that are true whether your audience is online or off?

Over the next few decades, marketing will evolve in a dramatic fashion; big data is already changing everything. The Internet of Everything will bring even more variables into the mix. And virtual reality will change everything yet again.

But, no matter what happens, it’s likely that the following five rules of marketing will never change because they are firmly grounded in consumer psychology. And they have implications for business strategy, product development and, especially, growth:

1. Being first matters more than being better.

Whenever a company is “first” in a new category, as Coke was with carbonated soft drinks, the impression it makes lasts for generations.

Coca-Cola was founded in 1892. In the 124 years since, countless rival brands have come and gone. Only Pepsi (founded in 1898, only six years after Coke) remains a real competitor. Yet, in 2015, Coke owned 42.7 percent of the U.S. market for soft drinks, while Pepsi owned only 31.1 percent.

In other words, that six-year difference in being “first” in a market still amounts to an 11.6 percent advantage 124 years later. This is true despite the fact that Pepsi actually wins in taste tests.

Apparently, first impressions last much longer than you think.

2. If you can’t be first in a category, create a new one.

In just about every new category that’s ever been invented, there’s a company that’s first, and there are countless imitators. But, as with Coke and Pepsi, decades-long competitions eventually normalize into a two-company race.

That happened in the personal computing category, with Hewlett-Packard and Dell (28.1 percent U.S. market share versus. 23.9 precent). And it happened in the automobile industry, with GM and Ford (17.4 percent vs. 15.3 percent). If you’re third, fourth or fifth in any of these categories -- good luck.

But is it possible to not be first or second in a category and still win? Yes, if you create a new category entirely. You can do that either by specializing in the existing category or opening a new geographic market.

For example, Apple knew that it wouldn’t be able to significantly penetrate the worldwide notebook category dominated by HP and Lenovo (20.7 percent versus 20 percent) because it entered too late. So, in 2012, it created a new, specialized notebook category: tablets. Today, Apple is first worldwide in tablets, with 29.6 percent of the market.

3. Perceptions matter more than products.

It’s human nature to believe that we can improve on something that’s already on the market by creating a better product in an existing category. That’s why so many new startups tout a specific feature that distinguishes them from the trendsetters. These startups usually disappear.

Consumers probably don't care that you’ve made a better product. They won’t notice, and you can’t convince them. That’s why Pepsi beats Coke in taste tests and it doesn’t matter. Quite frankly, if you’re not first, you’re probably worse in the consumer’s mind.

But, as long as you understand the law of perceptions, you can work it in your favor even if you aren’t first.

For example, Apple wasn’t first in personal computers, digital music players or even touch-screen smartphones. Yet it’s revolutionized each one of those categories because the perception of value is more important than the facts.

4. When you own a word, you own a feeling.

Remember all those TV and radio jingles you heard in the '80s and '90s? McDonald’s has more jingles and slogans than just about any company on the planet, which is why you don’t remember most of them. But Folger’s has kept the same slogan (and jingle) since 1908.

Yup, it’s the one you’re thinking of right now. Why does this matter? Because when you own a word, a phrase, or a jingle, you effectively own real estate in your consumer’s mind. You own an invoked feeling, which is priceless. 

Nike’s “Just do it” slogan is a great example of a brand owning a feeling. Nike’s been running “Just do it” commercials and ads since 1988. Today, when people think of the brand, they think of lacing up their sneakers and just doing it -- whether that means playing pickup basketball or buying an expensive pair of kicks.

It’s no surprise, then, that Nike has managed to surge past former sneaker market leader Adidas. Today, Nike owns 27.2 percent of the global footwear market while Adidas owns just 8.7 percent of the U.S. market.

What’s the Adidas slogan, again?

5. Competing at everything often means winning at nothing.

Following the first four rules of marketing can help you become successful. But the fifth rule will help you stay on top.

What happens whenever a company reaches a certain size? It goes public. And what happens then? Shareholders want it to keep increasing profits (often unrealistically). Inevitably, the company’s executives arrive at the same conclusion: The only way to satisfy shareholders is to extend the brand and create a new line of products.

While this may work in the short run and skyrocket profits, it almost always leads to the company’s diminishment. That happened when IBM decided to extend its line beyond mainframe computers. It also happened when GM decided to make all its cars look the same. Foreign automakers like Toyota swooped in for the kill.

Which brings up another observation: Plenty of successful companies are still successful because of their “first” product or service, yet they continue to brand everything else under the same name.

Microsoft has a huge software brand but is only a significant market leader in its first offering: operating systems. As a brand name, Kraft isn’t the market leader of anything anymore despite everything it sells. Yet it leads the cream cheese market because it sells that product under a different label: Philadelphia.

Whenever you try to bucket too many products, services or ideas under the same brand name, consumers just get confused and the brand name loses value. People will always associate the name with the product, perception or feeling that first made it famous. That’s why you’d be better off branding each new product under a different name, instead.

Can these marketing laws ever be broken?

Of course they can! As in science, laws are true only until someone finds a significant exception. But they still matter to businesses large and small because they’re the best we’ve come up with, given our present observations. For over 100 years, these laws of marketing have held true.

So ask yourself:

• Are you “first” in your category, or should you create a new category?
• Do you own a word, feeling or perception in your consumer’s mind?
• Are you overextending your brand or staying focused on your niche?

These are questions all business owners should be asking themselves far more often. Knowing the answers will save them a lot of energy, time and money.

Article source

#1 Online Marketing Strategy to Grow Your Business

A short but informative video explaining the basics of Internet Marketing, definitely worth a watch.




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