The Bulls Roar » Website

Some things you just can’t fake!

Samyo Dalgarno — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:22:11 +0000

Woohoo!!!

Well Annie has gone & got herself productive on other things and she has given me back the keys to the ute (“the pick-up”, if you’re one of our American friends)

So I am left wondering where to go for my first drive. I could go downtown on some practical internet marketing mission or I could wander off into the scenic wilderness of cyberspace, on a Quest to discover something deep, meaningful and ultimately useful.

I like Quest’s …

So where to begin.

There is a lot of talk about authentic marketing, I know, we started it more than 3 years ago, but what does it really mean to be authentic?

To give you a background, I left the mainstream world in 1999 off on a personal quest to discover the answer to Life, The Universe & Everything. During that journey I came to understand and experience a lot of things about energy and about how we create and un-create our lives.

Everything is energy, this is a scientific fact. Deeper into that, like people and places, businesses also have an energy you might call it a vibe or a feeling. That vibe or feeling we get about a business is its most important asset and comes from several places.

Like a child, a business will have had an inspiration a first moment of conception, a seed or kernel that will contain the idea or possibility that is a business. Did that inspiration come from a desire to be of service, a desire to create a better widget, a desire just to make money or maybe a genuine place of interest or enthusiasm?

This is the first & most important question to ask yourself. What is the root of the tree that is your business?

Next it will be influenced by the people involved, the core group of players that are nurturing the tree to life and growth. Then the people you bring in to work with you, either as partners, employees, web designers or external contractors. The imagery the logo’s the furniture the building, and on and on .. (You get the picture).

Each and every piece of your business comes together to create an energy or entity that is a business, and your business is a reflection of the core, the inspiration, the conscious and the unconscious. That energy or vibe, we all feel to varying degrees, wether we know it consciously or not, it is this energy that will mean success or failure.

Sadly what I have seen in the last 30 years in the area of marketing & modern business is that the root or the core energy of a business gets lost or forgotten in the rush for profits or expansion. That is why we are now seeing major players in trouble and issues like the Global Financial Crisis.

What’s worse is that in recent times, major and minor marketing companies are jumping on the back of the shift in awareness and hijacking it in the rush for a new idea or an “Edge”. What happens is that some people take on the concept of “Authentic Marketing” but they do it with their head, so it is not real, they see it as a tool or a clever marketing trick.

I can tell you that you cannot fake authenticity, it does not work like that, authenticity does not come from your head and it is not just an idea, it is soooo much deeper than that.

I often hear business people scoff at many “New Thought” ideas and concepts, but let me assure you if you do it properly and in integrity with yourself (as a business leader) it works.

My current poster child for this is my good friend Tony Oliver of www.sacredskin.com.au . Tony currently runs two very successful Tattoo Studios and has online business selling Swashdrive tattoo machines www.qualitytattoomachines.com , he has become so successful, that he has to open a 3^rd studio. Tony has done this in a downturned market in an industry that most people might consider a luxury item.

His website traffic is growing daily, his statistics are enough to make any web developer or online entrepreneur shine with pride. (that’s why I am telling you his story)

How as he done it?

He has done it by ensuring every step is in alignment with his core values and his vision for his business and his life, and I don’t mean ideas in his head.

Authenticity is not a mental idea, it is not a concept or clever tool it is a genuine place of really understanding yourself and what motivates you at the deepest levels.

You cannot “do” authentic you have to “be” authentic, even when it is not comfortable.

To get there you have to peel away the layers of inner noise, the should’s and should nots, to discover that which genuinely sets you apart from the herd. Then you have to have the courage and the willingness to expose that aspect of yourself, take the steps and follow that energy for all it is worth.

How do you do that? ….. well that’s another post.

Stay Shiny
Samyo

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Post tags: Branding, Business, Marketing, Marketing plan, mission, Social Media, vision, Website

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Do You Have a Plan?

AnnieInfinite — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:21:50 +0000

: Image by Linda Nowakowski via Flickr

Well do you?

By this I mean a plan for your business? a plan for your website? a plan for your marketing? for your social media?

Planning means you get to take in both the big picture and the smaller steps it takes to achieve those long term goals, it also allows you to track your success!

Creating a plan for a business means knowing where your going by creating your vision and mission statements, have you done yours? Your vision and mission statements don't have to be on display to anyone, however they servce as a reminder to you about why you are in business, and as a road map to where your business is going.

A website plan is so important, we so often have people who come to us with no plan at all, we love to know your branding colours, taglines and branding statements – you do have branding don't you? Your vision also helps us to create the design that reflects your vision and passion out into the world. Know what you like not necessarily what you want, as your website designer can often come up with something far more amazing than you could dream yourself. However some very important things you must know about your website and structure into your plans are what you want your website to do!

Your marketing plan can include all your marketing, your branding statements and colours, your taglines, your marketing statements and words to use when marketing and it can include your where's as well. Where are you going to market? Where can you get the most bang or BUZZ for your buck? This takes research.

Your social marketing plan can be included within your larger marketing plan, however it also need to have planning in and of itself. Which social sites and types of site you will use, why you are going to use those, how often and how much time you will spend. Will you have a social marketing manager? Will you do it yourself? Where you will get the training you need to use social media efficiently.

Planning must of course include targets, goals and accountability. How else will you know whether you are on course and whether you are being sucessfull?

Make some plan and put them down on paper, draw up a mindmap of how all these plan fit together and help make you successful, then put the mindmap and your vison and mision statements up where you can see them every day.

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Post tags: Branding, Business, Marketing, Marketing plan, mission, Social Media, vision, Website

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Why Does My Business Need A Facebook Page?

AnnieInfinite — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:07:18 +0000

: Image by luc legay via Flickr

Just this week I had a little idea and put it into action immediately, I created a Facebook Page to help my clients and other locals Buzz Up their businesses on Facebook and Twitter.

Now what has come out of this for me was the astonishing number of people who have created a personal profile in their business name!

When I did ask a few of them why, I recieved a number of answers including:

“I didn’t know how to make a page”
“I wanted to be able to comment as my page”
“It was just easier”
“What’s the difference?”

This post is for you! All of you who do now know how much you can get out of having a page on Facebook, most especially if you have a website!

Facebook ‘Like’ Pages or Fan Pages as they used to be called are Facebooks answer to business profiles and they are created to represent a business, an identity or brand. In fact they are the perfect answer to doing business on Facebook, as there are a number of hidden perks for your business and your website in having a Page.

Pages are indexed by search engines, yes your Facebook comments, links and posts will show up in the search engines as being a representative of your brand, business and website and also serve as high quality back links to your site.
You can have mutiple Pages, all linked by Favoriting each other and this creates a web of indexible links back to your site.
You can have unlimited fans for a Page, but only 5,000 friends.
The box provided under your profile image can be filled with keywords which will also be indexed by the search engines and this includes your site URL
The “Like’ factor is like a vote for your page, the more ‘Like’s’ the more votes, and the higher ranked your Page and your own website which is linked to your fan page will be. This is great SEO for your page and your site!
When other pages Favorite your page, this is like another vote for your page and your ranking goes up even further and a pic of your Page shows up on their Page under the term Favorite Pages!
You can get away with a lot more marketing from a Page than you can from a profile, in face Facebook can and does ban you if you’re are caught using a personal Profile for marketing, too often.
You are allowed to message all fans at once, whereas on a personal profile you are allowed at most 20 people at once, and if you message the same message more than twice in batches your account can be suspended.
You can create a Welcome Tab for your Page which can look just a like a mini version of your website, and can gather readers for your blog, or Optins for your material.
It looks much more professional for your business than a using a personal profile, and it looks like you know what you are doing!
You can send every post on your Page directly to Twitter automatically
There are loads of great apps created just for pages!

You cannot get any of this from a personal profile and if you tried you might find Facebook Admin breathing down your neck!

If you have a business on Facebook, please do yourself and your business a favour and get yourself a Page!

The Zen Bull

Websites and Marketing

More Meat, less potatoes!

Creating and Optimizing a Facebook Fan Page for Your Business (slideshare.net)
Dummies Guide to Creating Facebook Pages (labnol.org)
3 Reasons Facebook Trumps Twitter for Business (socialmediaexaminer.com)

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business, Facebook, Facebook Page, Marketing, Twitter, Web search engine, Website

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11 Principles of Choosing the Perfect CMS for Your Needs

AnnieInfinite — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 23:13:13 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Content Manangement Systems are the webs most powerful site management tool for so many reasons. They allow an All-in-1 interface with many f eatures that older types of websites had to outsource, they allow for the non-tech user to update and change aspects of the site within an easy to manage back end and most of all they are filled with powerful add ons that create a complete user friendly interface with built-in features vital to the new entreprenuer.

A Content Management System is a user friendly online website software interface that allows you to create, edit, and store HTML content in a manageable way. It removes the hard work of creating a website in HTML and uploading it via FTP to the site, because you create all your content via the simple to use interface (should be easy just like working in Word using a WYSIWYG interface) right online without having to use any HTML or CSS at all. What you need to know about choosing the perfect CMS:

Choosing your Content Management System is all about choosing the one that will work best for the goals and outcomes you have for your site and your business. Ask yourself:
What are the my goals for having a website? (sell product, make my brand a household name, create trust and respect for my expertise…
What is the main function of my site? (selling product, getting more calls in my business, more bookings for my service, getting the word out about my business..)
What do I want my website to do? (blog, share photos, videos or audio, ecommerce, newsletters, auto-responders, members area, affiliate options, events calendar…)
Do I want to handle all or some of the work myself? (self editing, easy WYSIWYG interface..)
Once you have defined the answers to these questions you will know what to look for.
The back end should be easy to use, fully functional and intuitive. When the average newbie opens up the back end of the site they should be able to see almost everything at a glance, the navigation should be clear and easy to understand. Editing a new page should work a little like Word and customising the look and feel, size and functions of the site should be simple to learn with a little help.
The site needs to have all the aspects of site management at hand and have a well organised and easy to use interface. The functions you have deemed as important to your goals such as auto-responders need to be simple to set up and edit.
The right CMS should be simple for non-nerds to use and feature a WYSIWYG editor, and HMTL should be a thing of the past.
Keying in your all important keywords for each page, needs to be clear and simplified for the non-tech user and that goes for adding page and site descriptions and URl headings.
Adding images and image descriptions for search engine optimisation needs to be easy and straight forward, so that anyone can do it.
Your tech support and CMS updates need to be constant and on hand for any issues you have.
There should be a manual that goes with the site so that you can work your way through your education step by step.
Uploading content should be as easy as browsing and uploading without having to use complicated FTP transfers.
It should supply it’s own Site Map.
It should be relatively easy to create and design a site yourself, although you may want a more professional look.
It should supply all the functions you need such as auto-responders, affiliate set-up, invoicing, ecommerce store front, members area, video and audio hosting, PDF and eBook hosting, easy form creation… without your having to outsource them.

CMS system 1-with-everything

The Zen Bull

Keywords are words used by ordinary people

Questions to ask yourself before getting a website

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Post tags: Cascading Style Sheet, CMS, Content Management, ContentManagementSystem, HTML, Website, WYSIWYG

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Note to Self: keywords are words used by ordinary people

AnnieInfinite — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:00:17 +0000

: Image by Craig Key via Flickr

I was presenting a workshop on Social Media Marketing the other day and one of the biggest AHA! moments for the group was around how using social media search options and conversation could be a powerful research tool to help refine your site keywords, descriptions and metatags.

As we used the Twitter search tool to find users talking about the search terms (keywords) of some of the group, it became apparent that we can be so entrenched in our own niche we do not see the forest for the trees.

As an example one of our workshop group has a resort in Noosa Heads and he asked to search around one of his keywords “accomodation Noosa”, now as you and I know there is only room for 140 characters in a microblogging update and no-one is going to use them up with a big word like accomodation, they will use: holiday, resort, unit even holiday unit, instead.

This brought on a passionate discussion about how useful social media is as a tool for keyword research. After all, your keywords are search terms most likely to be used by a person searching for your business in a search engine. One of the tips I tell all my website owners about researching their keywords is to go to several of their friends and ask them what words they would use to search for their business. Why? because you can be too close to the industry to know what the average person is saying about your niche or business. You may even mistake the benefits your business provides as your keywords. Big mistake!

Your keywords need to be words used in ordinary (not industry) conversation about your niche, words the average person needed your service or product would use. One of the most invaluable tools to use is: ordinary people not associated with your niche, and that is where social media can be one of the most invaluable tools to use.

Use Twitter Search put in your keywords and see who is talking about your niche (a great way to start your follower list), it is also a great way to see what words are actually being used in conversation about your niche. Go find blogs by people not in the industry and take a look at their blog tags to give you another indicator. Ask your friends on Facebook for clues about how they would search for your business and use the search tool on Facebook in the same way as you did in Twitter Search. This will give you other groups and pages as well as conversations using your keywords and more ideas on what keywords you could be using.

As you must know your keywords need regular review and so this is one area in which your testing never ends: have your site stats gone up or down with this batch of keywords, change them and test again. When you find the perfect mix and your stats rise, only change one or two at a time to see which ones are working well and then test again.

Keywords need to be reviewed at least every 3 months, much more often at first to make sure they are still relevent. Remember when changing keywords on a page to be sure they are relevent to the copy (text) on the page at all times.

The Zen Bull

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Post tags: Facebook, keyword, Meta element, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, Web search engine, Website

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Anchoring Your Pages in the Google Pond

AnnieInfinite — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:13:13 +0000

After th definitive announcement the other day by Google that their search spiders and bots take no notice of Metatags, Google has also given us a new way to create more page ranking and get more click-thru’s from our organic Google listings.

Page Anchors! Yes, page anchors. You know those links that take you from one piece of information to another on the same page. Those cute little links that save you from having to scroll through lines and lines of information on a page to find what you want, often used on FAQ pages and other pages with lots of information.

This is what was announced on the Google blog a couple of days ago:

“For most search results, Google shows you a few lines of text to give you an idea of what the page is about — we call this a “search snippet.” Recently, we’ve enhanced the search snippet with two new features that make it easier to find information buried deep within a page.

Normally, a search snippet shows how a page, as a whole, relates to a your query by excerpting content that appears near and around where your query terms show on the page. But what if only one section of the page is relevant to your search?

That’s where these new features can help, by providing links within the snippet to relevant sections of the page, making it faster and easier to find what you’re looking for. Imagine, for example, that we’re researching trans fats and cholesterol, and their effects on the body. If we start with a generic query like [trans fats], Google returns several results with lots of information about trans fats in general, including this result from Wikipedia:

Google Search Results using Page Anchors

Now, included with the snippet are links to specific sections within the page, covering different subtopics of trans fats. Since we’re particularly interested in what’s healthy and what’s not, “Nutritional guidelines” is probably where the most relevant information is. Clicking this link will take you directly to that section, midway down the page.

Now imagine we’re particularly interested in learning about good cholesterol and what levels of it are healthy, so we try a more specific query, [good cholesterol level]. The top result is from the American Heart Association and has tons of information about cholesterol levels. The specific information about good (HDL) cholesterol, however, is contained in one section titled “Your HDL (good) cholesterol level”‎. Since the query was more specific, the snippet for this result now provides the option to “jump to” just this section of the website.

Clicking on “Jump to Your HDL (good) cholesterol level‎” takes you directly to the most relevant information on the page:

Clicking on the title of the snippet (”What Your Cholesterol Levels Mean”) still takes you to the top of the page, as always.”

and

“We just announced a couple of new features on the Official Google Blog that enable users to get to the information they want faster. Both features provide additional links in the result block, which allow users to jump directly to parts of a larger page. This is useful when a user has a specific interest in mind that is almost entirely covered in a single section of a page. Now they can navigate directly to the relevant section instead of scrolling through the page looking for their information.

We generate these deep links completely algorithmically, based on page structure, so they could be displayed for any site (and of course money isn’t involved in any way, so you can’t pay to get these links). There are a few things you can do to increase the chances that they might appear on your pages. First, ensure that long, multi-topic pages on your site are well-structured and broken into distinct logical sections. Second, ensure that each section has an associated anchor with a descriptive name (i.e., not just “Section 2.1″), and that your page includes a “table of contents” which links to the individual anchors. The new in-snippet links only appear for relevant queries, so you won’t see it on the results all the time — only when we think that a link to a section would be highly useful for a particular query.”

This information is invaluable to anyone configuring SEO on their site, it just goes to show how important it is to keep an eye on and update your SEO every couple of months.

Now go take a look at your site, which pages do you have that you could use Page Anchors on, if none could you create some FAQ’s or some content pages just to take advantage of the latest Google update?

Anchors Away! Google Now Has Search Results Within Search Results (techcrunch.com)
Jump to the Relevant Section of a Google Search Result (googlesystem.blogspot.com)

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Post tags: Google, PageRank, search, Web search engine, Website

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SEO Tactics to Use Even If You Can’t Use Metatags

AnnieInfinite — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 02:32:16 +0000

: Image by See-ming Lee 李思明 SML via Flickr

I got a call from a dear friend with a website the other day, her web designer had created her site on one of those generic create-a-site online software and hosting places (which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent). Now this site building software does not allow you to enter your own keywords or metatags, so what can she do to enhance SEO and Traffic? Everyone knows we need food in the form of keywords and metatags for the search engine spiders to feed on.

As we all should know our websites usually need to have our well researched and constantly updates keywords entered in the appropriate places and those keywords also need to be turned metatag descriptions for our site and our contnet pages and this needs to be done in a way that is like porridge – just right. When done well our keywords and metatags encourage and make it easy for the search engine spiders to find, catalogue and crawl our site – thus improving our ranking, searchability and traffic.

So what do we do if we have a generic site building software that claims to add the appropriate keywords and metatags for us? Well, some of us will be very happy we don’t have to go to all that trouble , and some of us will be worried that this just isn’t going to be good enough.

The lady in question was in the last group, she was very worried about it and like most of us cannot afford to have her site all redone on other software, at least not right now. She arranged to spend a couple of hours with me on Skype to sort out her options and this is what I advised her to do:

1. Create high ranking links to the site: Did you know that Google and many other search engines now count incoming links at least, if not more highly than keywords and metatags. The strategy behind this is that if you have high ranking links coming in to your site (one way) and some going out (reciprocal) that each of those is agreeing that your site is about what you say it is. A kind of verification, if you will that your site is kocher, almost like a recommendation, and the higher ranked the site the more impressed the search engines are.In this case web directories are your answer, the more highly ranked the better. Of course the easiest way to tell if they’re highly ranked is to choose the ones that are on the first page and at the top. What is really great is that as you are filling out the submission forms for these directories they ask for a site description (metatag) and your tags or keywords thus fulfilling your need to have keywords and metatags that are searchable by the search engines. General directories are great and the first one to go for is DMOZ.com which is a human edited directory with perhaps the highest Google ranking of all. When you have submitted your site to the general directores, the next ones to go for are those in your niche again looking for the highest ranking ones.

2. Claim your site/s and blog/s: Did you know in many cases your sites and blogs have already been noted by some sites and are just waiting to be claimed by you? Any blog whether it is a stand alone blog or one attached to a site, is ready to be claimed at Technorati (and other blogging directories) so go straight there and create an account and claim your blog, this counts as a very high ranked recommendation. If and when your blog is over 6 months old submit it to Best of The Web Blog Directory but remember it must be at least 6 months old. Now go to Alexa and claim your site, add information, keywords and tags etc..

3. Use social media to drive traffic and add incoming links to your site: via community sites like Facebook and Twitter, creating articles and pages on sites like eZine, Squidoo and HubPages with links to both your site and your blog, and internal pages on your site as deep links are needed for your site to be taken seriously. If you haven’t already get an account on all of these sites and learn to use them, add in some videos coming in from your YouTube account, and an online image album to your site with all the images tagged with your keywords and site url with Flckr and next thing you know your site will be high in the rankings and traffic will be increasing on a daily basis.

My motto in life is, “there is always another way”, and in my experience there always is. Use these tactics to improve SEO on any site, please don’t rely on just your keywords and metatags even if you have a site that allows you to add your own. This information is vital and in some cases even more important than getting your keywords and metatags exactly right!

Have fun!

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Facebook, Google, search engine optimization, SEO, Technorati, Web crawler, Web search engine, Website

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Branding You and Your Business Pt.2

AnnieInfinite — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:28:50 +0000

: Image by Nicola photographs……. via Flickr

Carrying on from Part 1, this list will grow in length and intensity according to priority. Be prepared to find some real gems in this list and some things that just might push a button or two.

11. Do good and Make a difference: create brand awareness for doing good in your niche, your community or globally. Host a community event, donate a part of every sale to charity, sponsor a scholarship, change the face of your niche by leading the way. You never know you could end up with television, newspaper headlines and more… plus the feeling of knowing that your organisation has made a difference.

12. Speak up: Get out into your community and speak to groups, associations and give valuable advice, become known for giving great advice not just speaking in generalisations or hinting at an expert tip as so many speakers do. Your company will gain respect as a trusted source of expertise – invaluable!

13. Be unforgettable: create a unique experience for your clients or customers. Do something so unexpected that your customers spread the word (in a good way). Throw in something for free, add in a free glass of champers somewhere unexpected – like when having your windscreen changed or serenade your customers as they wait for their oil change. Create that unforgettable experience and good will and your business name will be spread far and wide.

14. Allow your customers to market for you: Create opportunities for your clients/customers to be a part of your marketing, use video testimonials and let your customers tell the world why you are better than your competition. Play these in store, and on your website – nothing beats the power of genuinely happy customers.

15. Utilise the WOW factor: Push the boundaries (without offending your customers), surprise your customers, get them to think, “WOW that’s gutzy!” Again this uses the power of the unusual to keep your company’s brand on everyones’ lips.

16. Use competitions: give your customer the chance to compete in your arena. I once played a new Playstation game instore and ended up with the highest score of the day and won the game. Everyone else who played also bought the game, and most of the audience did too because of the enjoyment, the spirit of competition and the excitement creating just the right atmosphere that everyone wanted to take that new game home. How can you create the same marketing vibe through a competition in your business?

17. Ask what your customer needs or wants: the simplest way to find out what your customer needs or wants from you is – to ask them. Find out what causes them pain, what lights their candle and create a campaign or product that addresses these issues. Knowing your customer and responding to their needs is vital for establishing a rapport with them that will create a loyal customer base. That way even if your prices go up, your customers will stay and pay just to know that their needs will be met.

18. Add spiritual element to your marketing: Set your organisation apart from the rest by showing your company as caring, heart centred, trustworthy and conscious.

19. Don’t sell!: People never buy products they buy relationships, let people get to know you before pitching to them. Offer your business as a recommendation in response to something in the conversation rather than pitching it up front. In face if you are really game, you can avoid talking about your business altogether until they ask and even then say little and ask instead how you can help your new aquaintence to build their business. Your rep will grow amazingly and everyone will want to do business with you.

20. Be the brand: let you as an individual stand as the brand of your business. When you allow your real authentic self to represent your company, your company never has to hard sell itself. You will never need to advertise, merely market as an aside to standing in your truth and allowing the passion you have for what you do spill over into everything you do and everyone you meet.

Let me know if you can add to this list by commenting below, I would love for these posts to become a real resource for everyone who has ever had a question about branding.

Brand Booster 21 Day 19: Get Out There & Nuture Your Brand (smallbusinessbranding.com)

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising and Marketing, Brand, Business, Competition, Customer base, Marketing, Website

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Branding You and Your Business – Get Noticed! Pt.1

AnnieInfinite — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:25:52 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

As we all know branding is very important in business, however your brand is not just your logo or company name, it is who you are percieved to be on and offline.

It is the sum total of your identity your company’s identity and your own, you cannot have one without the other. Do you know how your company is percieved? What about yourself, do you know how you are percieved by your clients and customers?

If not find out and if you are not completely happy about your ‘branding’ take steps to change it to one you do want your company and yourself percieved as. This may mean making more effort to figure out exactly what your intended company and personal profile is, what you would like people to be saying about you and your company.

Once you have done that you will be able to use some of this list to -GET NOTICED!

1. Be Unique! – Decide what your company’s USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is. What is it about your business that differentiates it from all the other businesses in your field? If you haven’t got that figured out you have no basis to begin branding yourself. I have seen some very strange branding in my time (e.g. “The Go Getting Granny”, “The Lazy Entrepreneur”) but even strange branding is better than no branding!
2. Be Yourself! – Please stay yourself, be real, be authentically you in all that you do. Be honest and ethical at all times. Creating trust in you and your brand is more than half the battle when it comes to marketing, if people don’t trust you they will not recommend you and word of mouth marketing is marketings holy grail. Please don’t brand yourself as unethical, dishonest and therefore untrustworthy.
3. Support Your Customers! – A great man once said, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” -(Zig Ziglar ) You can do this by supporting your customers business, cross marketing with your customers and investing in your customers success. Look for win/win outcomes in your dealings with them.
4. Create a Value Niche! – Get together with others and brain storm ways in which you can create a unique value add to your product or service. Make it something you know everybody needs or wants, find a way to add such value to your selling proposition that it is impossible to say no.
5. Be your Company’s Best Asset! – Do whatever it takes to be your company’s best asset, educate yourself, be outgoing, make sure you connect with your customers personally in some way. Doing this means that your customers feel important to you, get out and do your own presentations, answer questions on social media, be available in some way to your customers. One of the best examples of this is Richard Branson who makes it his mission to shake hands for 20 mintues or so at each of his airports every year and holds parties annually in each major city for members of his airlines frequent flyer clubs.
6. Know what you customers want and need and then give it to them! - Do this whether you have the product or service they need or not. If you cannot personally provide the product or service make sure you and your company become a resource for your customers by forging alliances with firms all around your niche and recommending them and they you, this will pay off in spades!
7. Put the extra in Extraordinary! – Offer a package of products or services out of those that are often purchased together. If needed JV with another company to offer something outstanding that is offered nowhere else. Make your company the most convenient option.
8. Become a Movement! – Turn your company into a movement rather than just another business. We brand ourselves as ‘The Authentreprenuers Resource’ a place where you can educate yourself on authentic marketing and business strategies and ethical hosting and website design. Our mission is to change the face of online marketing and create a new paradigm where authenticity is the new norm and hype a thing of the past We attract everyone who wants authenticity as their bottom line vision for their businesses therefore we are a business that is a movement.
9. Be the Guarantee! – simple and totally effective. You and your company guarantees your guarantee! When you make a promise you and all of your employees do what you said you were going to do and do it when they say they were going to do it.
10. Anticipate your customers needs and wants! – Know what the upcoming trends are and offer them before anyone else. Know what products or services are most often needed together and offer those as a package, know when your clients or customers might need to update, renew or reschedule the product or service and send them a reminder.

Part 1 – part 2 coming soon!

How To Develop a Unique Selling Proposition (digitalprintink.wordpress.com)
Four reasons why new websites flop (woorkup.com)

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising and Marketing, Business, Internet marketing, Marketing, Richard Branson, Unique Selling Proposition, Website, Word of mouth

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21 Questions to ask Yourself BEFORE Getting a Website

AnnieInfinite — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:19:29 +0000

: Image of The Zen Bull

I talk to people every day about getting a website for their business and one of the things I find most is that businesses of all sizes have the same problem: They don’t really know what a website is for!

Do you know? Or like many of my clients do you just have some unformed idea that it is a good idea, lots of other businesses are dong it, and it seems to be the thing to do?

My advice is this: You MUST know what your outcomes for having a website are long before hiring the designer or finding the right software and hosting.

If you do not know your outcomes you will end up, like many business both large and small with a site that has to be fixed, changed to suit your purpose, the wrong hosting package, the wrong kind of software package…..

Here are some questions we ask all our clients well before designing anything for them, please if you are thinking about having a website for your business, sit down and write out the answers to these questions as best as you can:

1. Why do you want a website for your business?
2. What outcomes do you want your website to fill?
3. Do you want a brochure site, an online shop or a site that becomes the main ‘go to’ site for everything in your niche?
4. Do you want to send newsletters?
5. Do you want a blog?
6. Will you want to have a membership area?
7. Will you want to use video?
8. Will you want some social areas e.g. where members can interact with each other on your site, like a forum or chat area?
9. Do you want to be able to have affiliates, to help market your product or service?
10. Will you need autoresponders?
11. What do you plan to do with your site over time? What expansions do you think you will need later?
12. What are the main objectives starting out?
13. What are the main objectives long term?]
14. What type of visitors do you want to attract?
15. What is the most important action for your visitors to complete on their first visit?
16. What outcome is the most important one for your site to fill for you?
17. What is your budget?
18. How do you want to brand yourself?
19. Where will the content come from?
20. Which sites have you seen that appeal to you? and why?
21. Which sites have features you would like to include on yours site and why?

It is really important to do your research and ask these questions, if you do not know what some of the terms mean, then your website provider should be able to explain and discuss them with you and give you a reason why you need or do not need that particular addon.

The Zen Bull

© AnnieInfinite for The Bulls Roar, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ask an Expert, Brand, Business, Online shopping, Research, Small business, Website

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