March 2010
Choosing Your Effective Marketing Methods Budgeting, Planning and Taking Action!
Meet Your Mentor
Sherry Lynn Simoes Founder & Director of Member Marketing Support E-mail: sherry@womenoftodayinc.ca Phone: 1-888-894-0636 ext 101 Website: www.sherrylynnsimoes/com
Step 1 – Defining Your Target Market Before you choose to embark on choosing your marketing methods you need to do a little research on your target market. Who is my target market(s)? To get a good feel for who your best target market(s) you should start by thinking about your current clients who are purchasing or dealing with you already. You might find some surprises. Don’t forget to take into consideration your Ideal Client that you want to attract as well as we determined last month with Julia Stege!
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My Target Market(s) ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________
Where does my target market hang out? What media they pay attention to. Do they search for your services online, in the local papers, the TV, on Facebook? If you have no ideas just ask – do a survey and send to your existing clients – you can use www.surveymonkey.com to collect and analyse your results free. Places to reach my Target Market q Networking Meetings q Online Forums q Online Social Networking Sites q Magazines q Newspapers q Doctors Offices Other_______________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________
Step 2 - Choosing the Best Methods to Market Your Business How many methods should you choose? Of course that is up to a few things such as budget, time and the amount of business you want to attract but I recommend 8-12 methods. What methods should I choose? When choosing the right methods to market your business there are several
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things to consider for each method. Please see the list on pages 7-11of suggested marketing methods. Put each method you think may work for you to the test starting by answering these questions. Worksheet 1 gives you a page you can print out – one copy for each method What do you know about this marketing method? Could you do it yourself or do you need outside help? Do other businesses in the same field as you use this method? What results do you expect to receive? Do you know anyone using this method you could ask how it works for them? Are there any risks involved? Is there a cost involved? What resources or tools would you need to implement this method? How will you track the success of this method? Would this method reach my target market? If the method you access passes the test add it to your list! My Methods 1___________________________________________________________________ 2___________________________________________________________________ 3___________________________________________________________________ 4___________________________________________________________________ 5___________________________________________________________________ 6___________________________________________________________________ 7___________________________________________________________________ 8___________________________________________________________________ 9___________________________________________________________________ 10__________________________________________________________________ 11__________________________________________________________________ 12__________________________________________________________________
Step 3 – Your Marketing Budget Planning your budget is an important step so you can keep control of your spending and know what you have budgeted when opportunities come your
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way. If you have budgeted $1000 per year for print advertising you can break it down to monthly or weekly and know how much you have to spend when opportunities come your way. My Yearly Marketing Budget $_______________ My Monthly Marketing Budget $_______________ My Weekly Marketing Budget $_______________ METHOD
BUDGET FOR THIS METHOD YEARLY MONTHLY WEEKLY 1___________________________________________________________________ 2___________________________________________________________________ 3___________________________________________________________________ 4___________________________________________________________________ 5___________________________________________________________________ 6___________________________________________________________________ 7___________________________________________________________________ 8___________________________________________________________________ 9___________________________________________________________________ 10__________________________________________________________________ 11__________________________________________________________________ 12__________________________________________________________________ TOTAL__________
Step 4 - Planning Your Marketing Schedule Determining your budget needs to be done before you plan your scheduling especially for the methods that cost you money. If you have a limited budget the things that are free can be done more regularly as long as they are methods that are working. Keep in mind your Ideal Week that you created in January! Remember to add these and consider choosing a marketing day each week to make the best of your time.
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My Schedule METHOD FREQUENCY DAY(s) OF THE WEEK/MONTH BUDGET 1___________________________________________________________________ 2___________________________________________________________________ 3___________________________________________________________________ 4___________________________________________________________________ 5___________________________________________________________________ 6___________________________________________________________________ 7___________________________________________________________________ 8___________________________________________________________________ 9___________________________________________________________________ 10__________________________________________________________________ 11__________________________________________________________________ 12__________________________________________________________________
Step 5 – Take Action Now that you have your perfect methods chosen for your business it is time to implement them and take action! Women of Today now offers my coaching and marketing support at a special member rate of just $25 per hour. If you need help with implementing your plan or any of your marketing methods this is the answer. I can help you with fine tuning your campaigns, finding the right resources and suppliers, adding accountability with my Action Coaching which feeds you instructions on how to reach your goals on a weekly or monthly basis. Just $25 per hour gives you the support you need to succeed. Others pay over 3 times this amount! Book a time to chat today at http://tungle.me/SherrySimoes
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A Word on Marketing Campaigns Remember when planning your marketing that you should create campaigns once in a while to create and refresh your material so that you don’t get stale to your audience. When you create a campaign make sure it is reflected in all areas of your marketing. For instance; if you create a special Valentines Promotion then you would make sure you have it on your website, in your newsletter and all other material.
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MARKETING METHODS This is a list of the most popular types of marketing. No doubt you will think of more as you plan! Website Marketing It is important to have a website if you are a freelancer. Your website will help your clients to know about you and it will make them clear that you are a serious business owner. There are several types of websites; a brochure (static) style, a blog style, a CMS style (date base driven), a membership site and more. If you do not have a website ask about the options WOT has to offer you. Don’t forget that you just can’t put a website up there and hope it gets seen, you must also implement a marketing plan for your website. Article Marketing Article marketing implies writing articles and submitting them to web article directories. When you write article, you are allowed to put a backlink to your website in author's bio box. People looking for information will come and read your article. if it interests them, they would visit your web site for more information. Article marketing is a very good method to build links for your site, enhance your website's search engine ranking and getting traffic. What is more, it is absolutely free until you wish to use paid services. Don’t forget about the WOT Learning Den! Blog Marketing Blogging is a newer form of online marketing that became popular in the late 1990's. Blog is short for weblog and is an online publication in the form of a log or journal. Blogs can increase your customer base, your traffic and your search engine ranking, thus increasing your sales. Be sure and update your blog regularly; every day would be best as people like fresh content, ideas and information. WOT offers a Blog Special $99 for a Domain Name, Hosting for 1 Year and your blog set up. Ask me more if you need a blog.
Networking Everyone knows that I regard networking as one of the most important methods of marketing your business. Why? Because of the connections you make, the relationships you build, referrals that will come your way because of these relationships. Choose no more than two groups to commit to and seriously get
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involved or you are wasting your time. If you do not build deep relationships you will not be referred! Online (Social) Networking Online networking, as with offline networking, is very important to your business. This is where you connect with as many people as possible to learn more and share information about your business. Many leads can come from networking. There are several ways to do this online. Email Discussion Groups, Message Boards and Social Sites such as MySpace.com, Ryze, LinkedIn, Merchant Circle, etc. Publication Marketing Advertising in the right publications is key to the success of this type of marketing. Think about your target market and what type of publication they would read before you embark on spending these dollars as it can be one of the most costly. Also, make sure you ask if you can submit a column or article along with it to magnify your exposure and have the opportunity to show people you know your stuff in a well written article. Of course you have a cost affordable and effective publication which is our own WOT Magazine that offers every member a column along with their ad for just $99 an issue! Email Marketing Electronic mail sending is the best way to marketing. Collect list of email addresses and email about your business. Your Email should be attractive in such a way that your recipient will be impressed to get back to you. Don’t forget that you must be spam compliant and collect names properly. You can email someone without permission but you must ask them or give them an opportunity to join your list if you are going to e-mail them frequently. Newsletter or Ezine Marketing Your ezine needs to contain helpful resources and information, not just sales pitches. It's important to develop a relationship with your readers. Let them know they can trust you and rely on you when they need your help. WOT offers WOT Web Connect as an affordable method to have your own Contact Management System to build your subscriber base. Phonebook Advertising Yellow Pages continue to lose effectiveness when it comes to reaching customers. We no longer reach for the Yellow Pages when we are looking for a
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product or service. Instead, we grab our keyboards and do a search. We are information seekers and the Yellow Pages fail to give us all the information that we desire. An address and telephone number coupled with a graphical ad are no longer enough, and therefore, we go online so think carefully before purchasing an ad. When is the last time you used the Yellow Pages in print? Catalog Marketing This method is beginning to be very outdated. When consumers are ready to buy they now go online to find information about the product and to read reviews from other consumers. Catalogs do not provide us with the in-depth information consumers seek. This reason doesn't even take into account that we are becoming an environmentally conscious society that no longer wants the waste when we can use other means to find the information we need immediately. Proceed with caution before printing a costly catalogue.
Direct-Mail Pieces It's true many companies still swear by direct-mail pieces, but if you are sending out a solo direct-mail piece and you are not integrating it with an online campaign it spells failure. People have been bombarded with direct-mail advertisements so if you choose this method you must do something extraordinary that gets their attention or those direct-mail pieces into the trash. Television I don't think print and television will ever completely go away but I believe that in the next decade you will begin to see print and television integrated more with online marketing campaigns and they will work to drive the consumers online to purchase, request information or contact the company. We've already begun to see this with major brands today. Forum Marketing Forum is a place where people gather and discuss their problems, strategies etc. There are many forums on the web that you can join and participate in discussion. Most of the forums allow a link back to your website in your signature text which would appear below the post you make. Again a good traffic builder. Pay Per Click Advertising This is a paid service where you pay the service provider every time your link is
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clicked. This kind of marketing is quite popular with internet marketers. Apart from Google and Yahoo there are many other pay per click services available Classified Advertising You can advertise your website on Classifieds websites on the web like Craigslist.com and USfreeads.com. Both paid and free services are available. Press Releases Here, you build a press release for your business and submit it to one or more press release sites like prweb.com (US). Press releases are done to create awareness and can also be displayed on various news channels or sites on the net by using services which builds increased back links to your website. Both free and paid submissions are available. You can also submit to your local papers as they are always looking for copy to fill their papers! Make sure your press releases are professionally written. Don’t forget we have a few members that can help with this! Joint Ventures When two or more marketers come together and promote a product or service in a way that it will benefit them all. Joint ventures are a great way to build your business because the marketing efforts are combined and results are always more than individual efforts. These can be online or in print. WOT will look at any of your co-op ideas and help implement them for you. Affiliate Program You can launch your own affiliate program where people can join. Then they would advertise your product with their affiliate link. When a sale is made, they get a preset commission. You will need an affiliate program manager to do this. Clickbank.com offers an easy alternative. Resell Rights Marketing: You can offer resell rights to your product where people would be able to sell it and keep all the money. It increases your product value and helps in building in name because more sales are made than when you sell it just on your own. Helps in branding too. Podcasting Podcasting uses digital media files which are distributed all over the Internet via syndication feeds. Podcasting is still a fairly new way of online marketing and has great potential. Podcasting can be powerful because it uses voice, instead of written words to get the message across. Offer your articles, do
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voice interviews, offer a chapter in your ebook via podcast, etc. Again, use your imagination to create new ways to spread the word about your business. Video Marketing Use several video distribution websites for your marketing. These websites uploads your service to the whole world. All that you need to do is film a video about you or your service or more popular – a great tip and send it to video uploading sites like You Tube. It seems it is the easiest way of marketing than any other modes since many people will be interested in view videos rather than word form of advertisement. Here is a great example by WOT Member Stephanie Ward http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsP9aO4bj7g.
Worksheet 1 - Testing Your Marketing Methods Instructions: Print 1 Sheet for each method you test. What do you know about this marketing method? __________________________________________________________________________ Could you do it yourself or do you need outside help? __________________________________________________________________________ Do other businesses in the same field as you use this method? __________________________________________________________________________ What results do you expect to receive? __________________________________________________________________________ Do you know anyone using this method you could ask how it works for them? __________________________________________________________________________ Are there any risks involved? __________________________________________________________________________ Is there a cost involved? __________________________________________________________________________ What resources or tools would you need to implement this method? __________________________________________________________________________ How will you track the success of this method? __________________________________________________________________________ Would this method reach my target market? __________________________________________________________________________ Does this method pass the test? If so add it to your list!
qYES qNO