Before you can start planning an email campaign, you need to clearly define your audience. Once you get a good idea who you are writing to, it will be easier to decide what you want to send to them and how often they want to hear from you. This is similar to the process you should go through to determine the content for your blog.

What are some words that describe the people you are writing to? The more specific you can be in understanding your niche, the better you will be in targeting your content to their particular needs. [Read more...]

The goal for a lot of small business websites is to build relationships just like you would if people came to your shop or met you at a chamber of commerce meeting.

In real life, we build business relationships by going where our potential clients or customers are or inviting them to visit us, being personal and approachable, listening to what they say they need and showing them that we get them, and share some helpful information with them.

It may not happen all at once, but if we continue to keep in touch, we build a trusting relationship that leads to making a sale or signing up a new client.

We want to do the same thing online. Presenting an attractive website that puts our best foot forward, we show our visitors that we understand their issues and give them some information about the issues in a way that the feel like they can trust us enough to do business with us. [Read more...]

This week, find a buddy or two to check out your site.  Sometimes we are so close to our own work we have difficulty seeing what might make it work better.  Be ready to take notes so you remember what was said. This feedback ought to give you some food for thought and possibly be what you need to improve your site results.

Here are a few things to look for:
1. Is it clear what you do and, if applicable, where you do it?
2. It is clear who would use your services and why?
3. Do you describe your services in an understandable manner and language?
4. Do you provide enough information for a visitor to [Read more...]

If you are looking to get your business off the ground, start a Meetup to find people that are interested in your services. Meetup not only allows you to post a meeting, you can also post 15 relevant topic areas so that people may find your Meetup. You can design a workshop or seminar and use the Meetup as a vehicle for people to get to know you and sign up for your other services.

Meetup charges the organizers a fee when they start a meetup and they can run up to 3 Meetup Groups at any one time under their plan.

Their 3 different fee plans are: [Read more...]

When you are putting on a paid seminar for your business, there is a process to go through so that your prospects will be able to hear about your offer, find out more about it, sign up, pay for it, and then have their contact information go to a MailChimp list so they can receive updates about the event.

Here is how you do it.

Landing Sales Pages
Create a sales landing page on your website. This is a page that only contains information about the offer without distractions such as sidebars. You will write compelling copy, describing why someone would want to take your seminar and offer testimonials and guarantees (example: http://newtricks.me/wordpress-with-the-big-dogs/ ). There are many online tutorials which will give you tips for this type of writing such as this post from Copyblogger.  I created my landing page using a premium WordPress plugin, Premise, made by the folks at Copyblogger.  The cost $165, but it gives your WordPress site a lot of added functionality. It even includes online copywriting help.

Signup Forms
Your words will lead them down the page where there will be a signup form. We suggest using Gravity Forms, a super easy to use, premium WordPress plugin. You will want to link your form to Paypal and to MailChimp which means you will need the developers license at $199. The form you create then can be linked to your Paypal account so that when people register, they can fill out the form and pay all in one step. Then, if you have the developer’s license for Gravity forms, you can also have their form information automatically funneled into one of your MailChimp lists. This allows you to keep track of your attendees and also send them out updates about the event. I always let people know on my sign up form that they will also be added to my newsletter. When someone fills out the form and pays, they will receive a notification that they signed up and a receipt from Paypal confirming payment.

Let People Know About Your Offer
It is best to get the word out about your event in several ways. I suggest that you create an enticing e-mail to send to your list with a link to your Sales Landing page. It does not have to be very detailed. Provide enough information to have them click to the link if they are interested in finding out more. You should also let your followers on Twitter and Facebook know and ask them to share the information. Be sure to include a short-link to your Sales Landing page.

It seems like a lot at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will use this method time and again for workshops and webinars and information products.