digital marketing

30-Minute Day-to-Day Marketing Plan for Busy Solopreneurs

Craig De Borba

* Important note before your start reading: The points we’ll cover aren’t your run-of-the-mill marketing tips. Despite you being able to the execute the marketing plan within 30 minutes, I promise you that IF you take action on the tips, then you’d be able to garner fantastic results out of these strategies whether you’re trying to get more traffic, leads, or sales.

I get it: Being a solopreneur is no cake walk. Not only would you have to produce your actual products/services, but you’d also have to take care of your accounting, inventory, and client management (among other things).

With all the hats that you’d have to wear, you can’t help but set aside some aspects of your business to do your online presence management.

For most solopreneurs, marketing is the one aspect that they choose to neglect. They do this with a sting in their heart since they know full well how their ability to find and get more clients (more money) is tied directly to their internet marketing efforts.

And so the question becomes: How exactly are you supposed to find time to market your business, if you’re dead busy with all the things that you have to do as a solopreneur?

I’m glad you asked.

I’m going to share with you a 30-minute marketing plan that you can use daily. As I mentioned earlier, if you’ll stay committed to using them, I promise you that you’ll get amazing results out of these one way or the other.

Do you like what you’re reading, so far?

Let’s hop right in.

1. Offer to repurpose other people’s content.

Here’s how the process looks from a 30,000-foot perspective:

Step 1: Look for articles with a decent amount of traffic or shares.

Step 2: Reach out to the author of the articles. Thank them for sharing the helpful tips which they shared in their article, then offer to create an infographic version of the entire piece (for free).

Step 3: Wait for their reply. Once they say “yes,” ask if you can contribute to their already published article. Since you’re going to create a free infographic for them, their chances of accepting your offer and giving you a link drastically increase.

Step 4: Get someone to create the infographic for you.

Step 5: Send the author the free infographic and your contribution to their tip.

Looking at the steps that I shared above, I’m sure you can see how self-explanatory and easy they are to execute. You don’t need to learn any new fancy (let alone complicated) social media tools or to spend countless hours writing an article.

You just need to reach out to writers who wrote amazing content pieces, offer to create an infographic version of their content, then create a 1 – 2 paragraph write-up (with your website’s link in it) that the author can insert in their write-up.

To help you with finding the content pieces that have a significant number of shares (and their authors), you can use Buzzsumo.

When you have these details readily available, you won’t have to spend minutes looking for the high-quality articles that have garnered several shares. You can immediately proceed with sending outreach messages to the authors.

To help you with the infographic, you can hire someone from Fiverr.

Just enter the keyword “infographic” in the platform’s search box, so you’d be able to see all the sellers who can create the infographics for you.

If you scroll some more, you’ll find several more graphic designers who can create the infographics for $5.

* Bonus tip: Use a customizable outreach template. That way, you won’t have to keep on writing your outreach messages from scratch.

2. Connect with influencers through Twitter.

Before I go into the details of this strategy, I want to remind you that Twitter has limits when it comes to their daily following, the number of tweets a user can publish daily, or the number of daily direct messages that can be sent (among other things). That said, I urge you to be mindful of their guidelines lest your account gets suspended.

You can read about Twitter’s limits here.

This marketing strategy is pretty straightforward:

Step 1: Use Twitter’s search box to find the influencers within your niche.

Step 2: “Follow” the influencers.

Step 3: When they follow you back, send them a private message thanking them for the follow, then ask about what they do.

Step 4: After they tell you what their job or business is about, look for opportunities on how you can strategically pitch your services.

Through this marketing strategy, not only will you be able to grow your Twitter followers (which is always a good thing), but your chances of being able to find new customers, co-author a new ebook, or contribute to other people’s websites (and much more) drastically increases.

When using this strategy, remember to use Twitter’s filters so the platform will only show you the user profiles and not videos, photos, or news (among others).

Here’s how the search results would look if you don’t click the “People” filter.

If you click the “People” filter, however, you’ll see nothing but Twitter profiles that are relevant to your keywords.

When you’re on this page, you’ll find it a lot easier to follow other users.

* Bonus tip: Don’t pitch your services on the first direct message that you’ll send to the other user. Ask about who they are first, what it is they do, or if there’s anything you can help them with. Doing so will show the other person that you’re genuinely interested in them and are even willing to help them in any way you can.

In a lot of cases, I find myself offering my services on my 3rd or 4th reply to the user.

What’s next?

Here’s the thing, while the strategies that I shared are tried and tested to work and will help your web growth, none of these will do you any good if you don’t look trustworthy enough. That being said, before you even attempt to use any of these strategies, please make sure that you have a professional looking website, email signature, and social profiles (among other things). That way, when your audience starts to do their homework by digging you up on the internet, they’d be more inclined to trust you with their time (and money), since you look like someone who can provide value.

If you found the 30-minute marketing plan that I shared to be useful, then please take three seconds of your time to share the post. Cheers!

Psychology-Backed Marketing Tips that can Skyrocket Your Conversion Rate

Craig De Borba

When you have truckloads of psychology-backed marketing tips in your conversion rate optimization bag o’ tricks, you’ll find that increasing your website’s conversion rate can be like biking downhill. It’s painless.

Sure. The increase in your conversion rates might not always be astronomical; however, you’ll find that most of the marketing strategies you’ll run — if they are psychology-backed — will, in most cases, yield positive results.

If you’ve been struggling with your website’s conversion rate, and are quite unsure of how to solve your problem, allow me to share with you these psychology-backed strategic marketing tips.

Note – The tips I’ll be sharing with you are tried and tested to yield positive results. These aren’t just experimental ideas that I came up with just now. A good number of marketers and business owners are using them and are reaping good results out of the strategies.

That being said, be sure to take the time to apply the things that you’ll learn from this post. Remember that simply reading and learning will get you nowhere. If you truly want to improve your website’s conversion rate, then you need to take action. And you need to take action now.

1. Increase your product’s’ perceived value.

Out of all the definition that I saw on the web of what perceived value is, no other resource explains it better than Investopedia. Here’s their definition of the term.

“Perceived value is the worth that a product or service has in the mind of the consumer. For the most part, consumers are unaware of the true cost of production for the products they buy; instead, they simply have an internal feeling for how much certain products are worth to them.”

The part where Investopedia mentions, “in the mind of the consumer” is a crucial bit.

If you’re wondering why other online sellers take the time to add ebooks, free training materials, or a free consultation — on top of the actual product that they’re selling — that’s simply because they want to increase their product’s perceived value.

The more items the customers can get from buying your products (whether the additional items are tangible or intangible), the higher your products’ perceived value becomes.

If you head over to the Warrior Forum to view their WSOs (Warrior Special Offers), you’ll see how a lot of sellers are using this strategy (for more about special promotions read Holiday email campaigns).

Here’s another example.

And another one…

While giving away additional items can certainly increase your product’s perceived value, there are other strategies you can use to help you with that end. For one thing, you can add exclusivity to your products. You can also add testimonials, a scarcity element to your offers, or you can improve your product’s aesthetics (among other things).

2. Deal with your customers’ fear of loss.

“The fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain.” – Zig Ziglar

That right there is a timeless lesson about closing a sale that we can learn from Zig Ziglar. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling your services over the phone, in newspapers, Google listings, or through your website, you need to address this roadblock if you want to improve your conversion rate drastically.

Here’s the thing, every time you pitch your products or services to your customers, they are going to have to make a decision on whether or not they are willing to “lose” their money in exchange for your products.

Since our natural tendencies as humans is to fear loss more than desire gain, it becomes challenging for us sellers to convince the customers to part (or lose) their money, in exchange for gaining something of value to them (our service and products).

And so the question becomes, how do I get over this hurdle?

While there are several ways to answer this question, a popular solution that most marketers and online sellers are using are money-back guarantees.

What makes money-back guarantees so powerful is it keeps your customers from feeling that they are about to “lose” something. After all, if they bought your product and your product managed to deliver value, then they’d feel like winners at that point.

If they feel that they aren’t satisfied with your product’s performance, however, then they can simply request their money back and not suffer any loss from the failed transaction.

(Note – While money-back guarantees are great, be careful with using this strategy since it can lower your product’s perceived value or damage your brand image.)

3. Add an element of scarcity in your pages.

Procrastination. That is one of the many reasons why your web visitors aren’t buying from you.

Your customers might have liked your product. However, if they don’t have any reason to make the purchase immediately, then the chances are they won’t.

They’ll just click away while keeping a mental note of your product and get back to it later once they feel the urgent need for it.

When that happens, you have most likely lost the sale.

Don’t count on them to come back to your site (too much) to buy your product at a later date. With all the distractions online, they will most likely forget about you. Also, with how cutthroat the competition is on the internet, it’s highly likely for them to find your competitors products/services and be influenced by your competitors to buy their products. Because of this, you need to find ways to compel them to buy your products immediately when they are on your product pages.

Of course, adding an element of scarcity to your product pages can help you with just that. Remember that human beings have a strong inclination towards the fear of loss. If you add an element of scarcity, you’re practically telling them that they’re about to lose the opportunity of having your product if they don’t take action now.

Since they fear losing the opportunity of buying your product, then it compels them to take immediate action on your offers.

While there are several ways to add an element of scarcity to your pages, I have found that adding a countdown timer or showing the number of stocks available for your products can do wonders for online sellers.

Here are some samples.

Looking at the second screenshot (the one from Amazon), you’d be pretty compelled to buy the laptop immediately if you were thinking of buying it. After all, there’s only one in stock left. If you don’t buy it right then and there, then you might lose the opportunity of having the laptop since others might buy it first.

What’s next?

If you’re looking for a team of trustworthy marketing professionals who can help you with improving your business’ conversion rate, then please reach out to us using this contact form now.

Build A Strong Online Presence Using This 3 Pronged Approach

Craig De Borba

Often I get asked by business owners, “how to get people to find me?” and the short answer years ago would have been get ranked in Google. Today the internet is more diverse and people are gathering data from multiple sources. Yelp, LinkedIn, Facebook, and organic search. Customers are distracted these days, from texting, Snapchat, Yelp, Facebook, and the advertisements we see and hear daily at the newstand on TV and radio, that we’ve almost become numb to.

It is to the advantage of every business owner that wants to survive to be engaging with their market in every platform. This would be considered online presence management. There’s an approach to online presence management that assumes your entire online persona or brand, all the platforms and keeps them active, running, and producing engagement for your brand.

Here are 3 approaches to creating this multi-touch outflow.

SEO – Most of you know what this is and the importance of this, but what most of you don’t know is how to use it so it parallels your content marketing strategy. All strategies must align in a forward force in order to create momentum. Content marketing using blog posts, pdf, podcasts, videos etc. should all be sent over to your SEO for ranking
Social Media – A social media marketing service should be used to engage users on these channels directly and indirectly so they can then be directed back to the website. Ways to do this can be ads, and my favorite, sharing your blog content.
This increases “social “signals” in the way of traffic from social media as well as Likes, Shares, tweets, and so forth.
PPC Retargeting – Some business owners have a real aversion to pay per click, I don’t get this. Why? By running PPC you can automatically have one more spot on the first page and one more channel to capture a lead. Regardless of your opinion of paid ads, you should at least be retargeting. For those of you who do not know how this works, it simply works by remarketing to visitors who come to your site. When a visitor goes to your website from any source (social, organic,offline) a cookie is dropped on their computer and now they will see your ads wherever they go. This is a great way to make the most out of your traffic.

There are more ways to increase your reach but if you just did these three you would be way ahead of your competition. Most businesses only focus their efforts on one of the top methods, imagine how much more business you could capture if you were fully utilizing all three. I promise to follow this post up with some more strategies. If you liked this post please share it, Like it, and Tweet it.

To your online success!
Craig

5 Tips For a Better Holiday Email Campaign

Craig De Borba

The holidays are a great time to reach out and attract attention to your brand, product, or service. However, with countless companies sending emails this time of year, how can you possibly stand out and capture reader attention? We’ve put together 5 tips to help you reach your audience and increase your clicks and conversion rates this holiday season.

Get noticed. Most people are constantly bombarded with a flood of promotional emails this time of year. If you’re unable to capture the reader’s attention with a subject line, the content inside is completely moot. Your subject line should pique interest and create urgency, while briefly explaining exactly what can be expected in the body of the message. Here are a few examples:
- “Flash Sale! 50% OFF Cameras – Today Only!”
- “Today Only: Save 20% Storewide w/ Free Shipping!”
- “How To Reach More Customers in Just 2 Weeks!”

Make an offer too good to pass. Note that we didn’t say “too good to be true.” Make sure that you’re able to follow through with the deals and specials you promote, otherwise it could hurt your business in the long run. Create deals that offer a superior value to the reader, such as saving money on a product or service, growing the brand, or saving time. Creating a sense of urgency will spark more interest and cause many people to respond right away instead of letting the deal sit in the back of their mind until it’s forgotten.

Less is more. We’ve all heard this term before, but it rings true on so many levels. We now live in a world where more people view emails and websites from mobile devices than a desktop computer. This means that what may seem easy to digest on a large screen is actually quite a turn-off for the mobile user. Keep verbiage concise and be clear about the intent of your message.

Use Quality Images. Graphics are a fantastic way to grab attention once the viewer has opened your email. When executed properly, including a simple graphic that explains the intent of your announcement can help your email look more professional and thought-out.

Avoid the spam. An easy way to lose subscribers is to send out too many emails in a short period of time. If you have 5 different products on sale, look for ways to consolidate content into one email announcement as opposed to sending out 5 separate emails.

For an improved customer experience, more click-through views, and improved holiday sales, consider implementing these 5 tactics into your holiday just as you start a seo campaign . If you’re interested in taking your email campaigns and digital marketing to the next level connect with OnPoint. We can help your business reach the next level of success. Happy Holidays!

Sacramento Online Marketing Strategies For Lead Generation

Craig De Borba

Internet marketing strategies differ considerably, depending on goals, ethics, and numerous other factors. The Internet is an incredibly competitive place and growing increasingly so every day. Small business owners in Sacramento with modest budgets are in direct competition not only with other small businesses but also larger corporations with their richly funded Sacramento marketing departments. Attracting their attention is a difficult task as prospects are easily distracted on the information highway and on the various social media platforms.

Market the small business with affordable and practical solutions, as by joining LinkedIn. Free to use, it allows entrepreneurs to create a group where they can share valuable information and resources, and receive compensation through increased traffic to their sites.

Aim to be featured in a popular niche blog. Seek out the best blogs in the chosen niche and contact each owner. Suggest ideas and articles to write that would benefit their readers.

Write an E-book about a niche, or about particular industry-related issues. E-book sales can deliver impressive profits when uploaded to Amazon, but the ultimate goal is geared toward lead generation to lure readers to the desired website by generating interest from consumers for different purposes. Busy entrepreneurs or those who lack confidence in their writing skills should hire ghostwriters to produce their professionally written material.

An affordable book price will reach a wider audience. Use SEO services and direct marketing strategies, like email list marketing, to generate more leads. Businesses of all sizes use direct marketing because it seeks a call to action and emphasizes easily tracked and measurable responses and results. An Amazon E-book provides more than sale profits when the giant retailer is permitted to have a sneak peek of the book. Embedding those pages with links provides the opportunity to apply direct marketing strategies focused on the shoppers who did not purchase the book.

Create a sophisticated and smart YouTube video to market a business, on what may be the most powerful platform available today. Choose a headline that consists of popular niche-related keywords, with a clear message and a call to action. As most entrepreneurs already have the necessary equipment and software to create a decent online video, no further investment would be required.

Multiple ways of attracting targeted traffic to a website exist, with each one potentially increasing revenue-generating opportunities. Applying numerous techniques and strategies will continuously grow the list of leads to survive and thrive in the highly competitive business landscape.

The Basics of Internet Marketing

Craig De Borba

When it comes to marketing your business online, there are a few basics to consider. You will need to make decisions about how to portray yourself, where you want your brand listed and how you want people to hear about you. In order to understand your options, you’ll need to understand the types of digital marketing available.

Types of Digital Marketing

There are few different areas of internet marketing that you may want to consider deploying for your business.

Paid Advertising
Email Marketing
Social Media
Affiliate Marketing
SEO or Search Engine Optimization
Local marketing

Each type of marketing listed above is ideal for different purposes. Typically you would want to have a good overall mix fitting your brand needs. Let’s explore each area in more detail.

Website SEO is the Art of making small adjustments your website to ensure you show up in search engines when people are searching for certain words. For example, if you sell pet food, you would want your website to show up if someone were to type in “pet food stores”. There are both technical and creative elements of a good SEO strategy.

First, you have to make sure your site is functioning well from a technical perspective. Search engines such as Google want to make sure you are a useful website that will provide visitors with a good experience. For this reason, they give sites with good overall technical structure preference in search engines. Additionally, search engines are looking for sites with content matching what users are searching.

It is important to create carefully worded, and useful information for your website because you want search engines to view your site as valuable. Additionally, providing good content is a great way to increase links to your website from other websites. Links from reputable sites are another factor search engines consider when evaluating your site for inclusion in search results.

1. Paid Advertising is paid placement on a website, blog and search engine. Banner advertisements and Google ads are the most commonly recognized forms of paid digital advertising. There is a wide variety of options for paid placement online. The foundation of this strategy is to make sure that your product or service is showing up when people are visiting websites or pages indicating they may have an interest in what you sell. For example, if you sell pet food, you may want an ad for your website to show up on a blog post talking about how to choose pet food. When someone clicked on your ad, it would take them directly to a page where they could purchase your products.

2. Email marketing is collecting email addresses with the intention of sending useful information to your followers in the future. Typically emails are collected for a mailing list or when a user enters it into a form on your website. You can then send things such as newsletters full of helpful information, updates about your company or even the occasional advertisement for a product or service. Keeping your emails fresh, informative and timely is the key to ensuring a healthy email marketing list.

It is important to always use permission-based email marketing when reaching out to your email list. Permission-based marketing means the user has made the decision to receive your email. Buying email lists is something we strongly recommend avoiding.

3. Social Media is everywhere these days, but did you know you can effectively use it to market your business? First and foremost you must remember that local social media in Sacramento is meant to be social. You should be interacting with your followers by asking them questions, responding to their contributions to your social networks and responding to any of their questions. Next, you want to make sure you create informative and engaging content. People will only want to connect with you if you have something interesting to offer them. Social media is a great way to position your brand, grow your audience and improve your brand image online.

4. Affiliate Marketing is a form of marketing where you earn commission for selling products for other companies. Affiliate marketing is a very common form of marketing for bloggers. Typically bloggers are drawing in the audiences with their free and informative content. They then sell related products and services on their website. An example of this would be a food blogger who writes a lot of content about various recipes. They could then sell products such as kitchen utensils on their site. Each time they sold one, they are paid a commission.

Of course we’ve barely just scratched the surface of Sacramento web marketing, but hopefully you have a better idea as to your options for marketing your business online. If you need help, be sure to reach out to the experts at OnPoint Internet Marketing.

If you liked this post be sire to read Social Media for Business

Make Your Brand Stand Out

Craig De Borba

When it comes down to choosing the products and services we buy, it is quite often determined by one thing: brand. So how do you make your brand stand out?

Know your brand

Understanding your brand sounds like common sense, but it’s true! If you are going to communicate to potential customers the value you can bring, you first have to know what that value is. The only way to know your value is to have a deep understanding of the company, how customers perceive you and why customers do or do not select you.

Check out the competition

It is very important to keep an eye on the competition. In business, it is important to be constantly learning and improving. When assessing the competition you can learn and evolve. You may be able to spot areas that are weak which presents an opportunity for you to step in. The competition may even be beating you in some areas, which means you can find ways to improve your business. Even if you think you are light years ahead of the competition, you have to make sure they don’t sneak up on you!

Seek out problems

One of the fastest ways to make your brand stand out is to find a problem and figure out how to solve it. If you can do something new, more efficiently or in a better way than anyone else has in the past you put your business in a strong position. There is a consistent need in the common business world for excellent problem-solvers, so if you can shine there you help strongly position your brand.

Communicate clearly

Communication is obviously important, but what does it really mean? It’s important to stop and think about the way you present yourself to potential customers. The words you use should carefully communicate things about your brand. The tone of your writing and the clarity of what you are saying should always be top of mind. Careful consideration is important on your marketing materials such as the website and social media, as well as in your email and in-person interaction with customers.

Pay Attention To Detail

Everyone is moving so quickly these days; it’s easy to rush through things just to get caught up. Don’t do this! By watching the details, you add value to your brand in the eyes of your customers. Make your brand stand out by being the best!

Be Adaptive

Sometimes you have to know when to make adjustments. If your brand isn’t resonating with customers, make a change. There are a number of difference changes you can make to adjust your brand. You could make cosmetic changes such as revising your logo or website, or you could make changes to the structure of your business by adjusting your offerings to customers. Just make sure that you communicate clearly any time you make changes to your brand.

Hire a Pro

If you need additional help with your branding, OnPoint Internet Marketing has a variety of options to meet your needs. Give us a call today!