If you haven’t read it yet, it contained information about how to best use 5 types of marketing systems to get more customers who spend more and buy more often. Assuming you have got your costing right, this leads to increasing profits.

The types of marketing system featured in the series were:

• Mailing lists
• Websites
• Networking
• Social Media Marketing
• Online Events

These systems are what I go into a whole lot more detail with in my entry level program Marketing #SOS. (Now re-vamped to take things at a more manageable pace AND cash flow friendly) Today, I want to go beyond the tools and tactics and take you to the reason why these things work…

 Brand Experience

You’re going to be hearing a whole lot more about brand experience over coming months for good reason.

• Want to know what makes your customers say YES! It’s your brand experience.
• Want to know what keeps them coming back for more? It’s your brand experience.
• Want to know why they tell their friends about your business? You guessed it, it’s your brand experience.

Ever felt like you are doing everything the ‘right’ way but it’s just not working?

Your tweets aren’t driving traffic.

Your newspaper ad didn’t get the phones ringing off the hook.

Your website visitors aren’t buying.

 Why isn’t your marketing getting results?

Quite simply, there is something out of alignment.

Something simple you can tweak that makes a whole lot of difference.

MindValley tested the order it presented different packages of a product and found that the order they thought would be the most effective and that simple change actually lowered sales by 71.92%. How you present yourself, your business and your products and services is the difference between success and failure and there’s definitely no ‘one size fits all’.

The words you use.

The price you charge.

Your method of communication.

The people and brands you associate with.

Each and every one of these things are pieces of the brand experience puzzle and there’s a lot more factors involved.

Past customers are already sold on who you are and what you offer.

Potential customers who you have been in contact with via various media or face to face understand more about who you are and what you offer and if you have tweaked your marketing system to drive people towards your strongest sales method

It’s so much easier to get sales when you have already done the hard work of developing the know, like and trust factor.

If you have ongoing low-cost and even no-cost methods that work to develop relationships with potential customers and keep you at the front of mind when it comes to current and past customers; you can dramatically cut the cost of marketing for each sale or as I like to say

You don’t have to be an accountant to know that lower costs = higher profits

Imagine if you could grow your business with the resources you are already using.

Imagine if you could get the maximum return from the investment of time and money you put into marketing your business.

When you make the decision to create a brand experience that draws in your ideal customer and then continue to involve that customer as part of the experience after the initial sale, this is exactly what happens.

The systems shared in Marketing #SOS are like a car. The brand experience you create (or fail to create!) is like the fuel in the tank. Get it wrong and you will splutter and stall. Get it right and you will fly down the track of success.

If you do not know the brand experience you would like to deliver and how to deliver it take advantage of the free report I am giving away.

Fill in the form below and you will receive instant access to your report where I share with you how entrepreneurs and public figures use brand experience to grow their success.

Video not showing? Click here to watch on YouTube

Would love your thoughts and any suggestions of topics to cover or questions to answer in the comments box below.

Average unique post views on facebook company page – image from Socialbakers.com

 It blocks the sharing of engagement with pages and disconnects friends of fans with the conversations they are having with people and brands.

I understand the worry that businesses with a company page on Facebook have right now. Time spent marketing is worth less and less and our time is such a precious resource.

I’m embarking on a mission to find out more about these changes and what you can do to improve your success. I already know how to organically reach 35-50% of Facebook page fans with each and every post. Now I’m tackling ‘virality’.

If you have a Facebook company page then you don’t want to miss this. Use the form at the right hand side of this page to sign up to the newsletter it’s where I share all the best stuff.

P.S. Want to create an end to end marketing system that brings in more customers who spend more and purchase more often by Christmas? You need to join me for Marketing #SOS where I’ll guide you through each step so you can streamline your marketing and get more sales. Visit http://working-freedom.co.uk/marketing-sos for more information.

When you strip it back to the core essence of effective marketing it can really guide you forward.

Marketing – Taking a clear, results based message to a targeted (and profitable!) market and demonstrating your businesses value and the action you want them to take. A.K.A. creating an effective brand experience.

1. What is your message?

Your mission and vision statements are more than ‘filling a box’ on your business plan. They are two pieces of information that are at the very centre of everything you do in your business. Connective marketing is all about aligning your offering with the needs of your customers. Your message displays your alignment.

2. What are the results?

People don’t want products or services,  they want solutions and fulfilment.

Needs and solutions fall into the practical and the emotional. Take cars for instance they ALL solve the practical solution of getting you from A-2-B but it’s the emotional aspect that makes the difference between an Smart car and say a Lamborghini Diablo.

Value is merely a set of assumptions based around comparisons.

You have the power to control the assumptions by your product placement, target market, pricing structures, USP and everything else that makes up your brand.

3. Is it clear?

People don’t like buying when they can’t understand how it actually benefits them. It all goes back to assumptions, clarity ensures your target market is making the *right* assumptions.

4. Who is our target market?

Market too broad and you dilute your message and lose your appeal. Unless you want to spend an absolute fortune on marketing ineffectively to everyone; why not narrow the field and actually connect with the customers. Your conversion rates rise, people get what they expect and everyone wins. When it comes to target market less really is more.

“Facebook Tests Pages Feed, Letting Fans See All Posts Form Pages”

and

“Facebook tests ‘Pages Feed’ so fans can see all updates in separate stream”

Great eye-catching headlines, aren’t they!   I can hear Facebook page owners around the globe breathing a sigh of relief.   Don’t believe everything you read. Unfortunately these article titles do their job, get shared, get website views for the writers but they completely manipulate the facts in order to do so.

Here’s why:

• Do not let yourself be tricked into believing it is possible for all fans to see all posts as it is physically impossible unless they are fans of very few pages.
• The only difference between the pages feed and the standard feed is that it only contains business pages and no family or friends  or apps. It is a good thing for fans who would like to do a little bit of window shopping. They may impulse buy but many will not. Directing them to a newsletter where you can continue the conversation, you can build a relationship. Over time, these window shoppers can turn into customers and referrals.
•  Edgerank is a factor in the page feed. If you look at the timestamps of the posts you can see that they are not in chronological order therefore they are fed through the same Edgerank algorithm that prevents posts being seen by all fans. This is NOT some magic pill that will bypass the system.
• Fans are expected to remember to leave their news feed and go to the pages feed. Fans don’t often leave the news feed, infact it is reported that only 6% ever return to pages once liked.

This new feature could even lead to pages being filtered out of the normal newsfeed altogether now they have their own place. Just think about it.

If you want to succeed then forget the latest ‘system hacks’, ‘ninja tricks’ and ‘magic buttons’ that people are being sucked into and focus on creating your own unique brand experience that breeds engagement and draws ideal prospects directly to you.

A prospect that goes directly to your Fanpage or website eliminates the worry of Edgerank and not being seen.

Want to know how to beat Edgerank with tried and tested marketing techniques? Click here to learn more.

Click below to read the original articles

Could there be a more important element when it comes to marketing your business? I don’t think so!

In this 40 minute webinar I talk about:

What is brand experience and why your business needs it to thrive.

How you can create brand experience in your marketing.

How you can re-purpose content not only to save time but to also create a consistent brand experience.

Don’t forget to like, comment, share and anything else you do so that more people benefit from this video.

An asset earns you money and a liability burns your money.  - Robert Kiyosaki

Is your website an asset or a liability?

 Here’s how you turn your website into a profit magnet that works hard to bring you, qualified leads, self-selected customers, easy sales, media attention and more.

How do you feel about your website right now? Are you unhappy with the little results your website is getting for your business?

If you are unhappy, you aren’t alone. Many business owners are unsatisfied with their websites.

 Your website is your online headquarters.

Yes, you might have a buzzing Facebook page or do a lot of offline marketing but whatever you do to market your business a website is, or at least should be, at the very centre of it. It’s your little patch of land in the vast world of cyber space that you own, control and can do whatever you want with. It’s also the perfect place to tie all of the rest of your marketing together. For this reason your website should be working around the clock to drive leads and sales to your business.

There are 2 elements to a successful website

Traffic & Conversions

If you’re website is an unsatisfactory marketing tool then the problem will be with one or both of these elements.

The number one issue website owners have.

Now, I’m not going to tell you what you already know. Every time there is an article on website traffic and sales the old line from Field of Dreams gets trotted out ‘If you build it they will come’. Followed by the generic SEO and social media advice.

At the end of the day it’s a case of getting out there in a big way and giving prospects a good enough reason to follow you. Yes, that means active promotion of your website.

If I have to cut it down to top tips I would say –

• Pinpoint perfect prospects; don’t try marketing to everyone everywhere.
• Use social media to find and build a community
• Go find questions to answer; showcase your expertise and build the know, like and trust factor
• Use your newsletter to bring past visitors back to your site
• Optimise everything. If you can stick a label on it then make sure you do and it’s keyword relevant (images, headers, videos, articles, #’s on tweets etc)
• Place the link to your website on all social profiles and offline media

Ready to learn how to put all these profit increasing methods into one simple marketing system?

Marketing #SOS shows you how!

What if you have already got the traffic coming to your website?

If you already have traffic coming to your website, there are 2 simple options that could be stopping this traffic from becoming customers or potential customers. Always remember that business isn’t easy but it is simple.

Marketing: Delivering a message based on results and simplicity that delivers value to an audience at their meeting points and gives them a purpose to follow you.

You have obviously achieved this with the marketing that has originally brought them to your website so what is stopping them from taking the next step? Unfortunately I cannot cover as much as I would like to in a single article. I can’t wait to delve deep into effective online marketing in the next Marketing #SOS : Simple Online Strategies To Build Your Business & Live A Life You Love.

What I can do for you is pick out the top 3 things to consider when marketing and apply these to your situation.

Clarity

Other than it not being right for them and their current situation; the main reason why a prospect won’t buy is because they are unsure of the offer and how it applies to their own life. Particularly if you are offering higher ticket items because people aren’t going to pay thousands of pounds on something that they aren’t sure about.

Pre-clarity I found I had a little interest but not much and a few people asking what I actually did, the rest didn’t ask they just disappeared into the vast world of the internet. Gaining clarity has lead to me growing in all ways and now I have people who have never known or heard of me enquiring about V.I.P. coaching days and more. This is the kind of results I want for you.

Consistency

Once you are clear on the message you are trying to deliver it is important that you are consistent with that message throughout your marketing. Each message must build upon that core idea so that it strengthens your brand identity and develops that oh so important ‘know, like and trust’ factor.

If your adverts, printed materials and social media posts are bringing traffic to your website but that traffic isn’t converting into sales or subscribers then it may be due to a lack of consistency with your message.

By tracking your marketing you can find out which type of people are visiting and what exactly is driving them to your website in the first place. You can use this information to craft your brand message so it is consistent with the traffic driving marketing or to alter your marketing so that it now drives traffic that is right for your brand.

Call To Action

So you’ve identified the message that your marketing wants to deliver. They have found it clear to understand and think it is of value and something that they could do with having in their lives. Then what?

They need to know what the next step is and your call to action does that. It is one of the 7 key elements to successful marketing for a very good reason. If you don’t suggest the sale then people will continue browsing. They might browse further onto your site or they might move on to a competitor who then gets an easy sale. You have done all the hard work of spending time and money to get that visitor to your website and then created compelling content that assures them that the solution you offer is what they need.

Once you have got your message out to bring the right people to your website then it is simply a case of following these three C’s to ensure visitors turn into subscribers and customers.

P.S.  For information about your chance to join the next group of business women taking part in Marketing #SOS simply click here.

Maybe you’re committing one of these epic fails when it comes to your social media marketing.

Social Media ROI Fail N⁰1

One mistake I see so many business owners make is taking ‘don’t always be promoting’ too far.

Yes, cute animals get responses.

Yes, everyone loves to look good by sharing a thought provoking quote.

Yes, memes travel far and wide.

‘What on earth’s a webinar?’

A webinar is a web-based seminar or presentation. A host uses online software to do a live presentation using webcam or screen capture software to an audience from all over the world. The audience can dial in to a bridge line or watch online via pc. Audiences can range from a handful of people to 1000+

The best part is you DON’T have to be tech savvy to use most of the systems out there and sharing a presentation from your screen (screen captures) are great if you are self-conscious as you aren’t on the screen. Screen captures are also great for showing visuals.

…and that helps how?

Webinars give you the opportunity to present your products, services and or expertise to a captive audience. You are then working with a large number of pre-qualified prospects, building up your ‘know, like and trust’ factor and dispelling and doubts or objections.

Leverage point 1 – Reach

When it comes to marketing your business webinars are a great way to increase reach in a high quality way. Think about it, you have a captive audience of up to (maybe exceeding) 1000 people who have all chosen to be there to listen to what you have to share. A thousand people who have already said YES!

Leverage point 2 – Opportunity

Not only can you reach a large audience at once but you have an opportunity to truly engage with your potential customers. Get feedback an answer some of the questions that may have otherwise prevented them from purchasing. Not all of your prospects might be comfortable in asking the questions that have prevented them purchasing your product. With webinars they don’t have to be. They can simply sit back, learn something useful, become more aware of your products/service and listen to your responses to questions from other potential customers.

Leverage point 3 – Impact

Webinars have massive impact. Social media and e-mail marketing takes weeks, sometimes months, to convert potential customers into buyers. They have to get to know you. Make sure you are real. Consider who could possibly be at the other side of the computer screen. Learn bit by bit one status update at a time…. Webinars convert months of marketing into 60 minutes.

Now we have the ROI covered; here’s 7 uses for your webinars

Leverage point 4 – Market Research Tool

Sales not as you expected? Been there, done that!

Sales only happen when you bring the right product to the right people and show them its value in a way that speaks to them. How do you do this? Each market is unique and products can fly or flop in an instant. Not only can you test your registration pages to see which wording gets better response from your audience but you can also answer questions in a Q&A session to find out what they want to know and any concerns they may have directly from them.

Finally you can pre-sell the product in your webinar. This is the difference between creating a product they say they are interested in (and all the hassle of creating, collecting responses and analysing surveys) and undeniable evidence that they will buy it or changes need to be made.

Create products and services people WANT to buy [tweet this]

Leverage point 5 – Continuity Income

You can use webinars to create a members program where you can deliver content on a regular basis and get paid each and every month for it. I went to Joanna Martins Presentation Secrets earlier this year. It was pretty amazing to see someone make around £250,000 in sales in a day BUT when I learnt that her membership program covers all her expenses and anything from events, coaching or other income streams is pure profit it’s pretty incredible!

How would you feel if all your expenses were covered by a membership program and anything else you did was pure profit?

You can add a continuity element (with or without webinars) to every business. Don’t know how? Book a complimentary strategy session with me and we can talk about it.

Leverage point 6 –  Product Demonstrations

To sell products/services you have to show people how they add value to their lives. Text and pictures do work BUT taking the time to demonstrate the product, answer questions so that potential customers can see it in action and better see how it fits into their own life then it has so much more impact.

Leverage point 7 – High Ticket Sales

I need something more substantial than a page of text and a few pictures to part with large sums of money. How about you?

It’s quite simple really. If you want to sell high value products online and you aren’t a major brand then you have to prove yourself and build credibility and the ‘know, like and trust’ factor.

Leverage point 8 – Build Buzz

Webinars aren’t just for selling. In fact it’s bad to be constantly pitching especially in membership programs. I’ve signed up for a couple before and each month there would be a guest sharing a bit about what they do and then pitching their latest offering. Eurgh! Seriously there’s plenty of places online that I could go to and be promoted to and it wouldn’t cost me a penny, I don’t want to pay for it!

That said you can use them to build buzz for an upcoming project and get people onto a separate list who are interested in hearing more. You can then  keep them updated and get them involved by allowing them to give their views on what they would like to see in your next product.

Leverage point 9 – Promote Other Peoples Products

There are so many elements to growing a successful business, particularly if you are a solopreneur. You have to create and deliver your product or service to potential customers that you find, nurture, market to, convert into sales and look after them with an ongoing customer service program. What if you could add an additional stream of income where you didn’t have to do all that? If you have a contact who is offering a complimentary product or service of a suitable quality and price point, why not become an affiliate and use webinars to promote their product to your list?

If you can help your customers further it would be a disservice not to. [tweet this]

Here’s 4 things your webinars will allow you to do

Leverage point 10 – Give Value

Your income is directly proportional to the value you provide to others. Want more income? Provide more value! Webinars allow you to give a whole lot of value to a whole lot of people in a cost-effective and time efficient way.

Leverage point 11 – Connect and Engage

Social media experts always say ‘be authentic’ and ‘be a real person not just a company’ . Tell me a better way to be a real person (other than being right there in a room with them) than to actively be talking to your customers and potential customers in real-time, answering a few questions and being the face of your company.

There’s no better way market authentically [tweet this]

Leverage point 12 – Showcase Expertise

This is how you show you know what you are talking about when it comes to your products and services and how you define your place in the market. Look, there’s thousands of business experts out there, I’m under no illusion that I am the only one or the very best business expert there is. I got a whole lot of learning and experiences ahead of me. What I do know is it’s undeniable that there is only one me and I am the very best at doing what I do.

Leverage point 13 – Increase Profits

Well this article is called increase profits with webinars. If you can

• Get more leads
• Turn them into customers quickly and easily
• Keep marketing costs low.
•  Sell more higher ticket items
• Provide membership so you are being paid month on month

Ready to learn how to put all these profit increasing methods into one simple marketing system?

Marketing #SOS shows you how!