3 Things You Thought Mattered - And What Really Matters

There’s no denying that the Internet, including Social Media, has significantly changed the way people do business.  The attitudes of customers as a whole have shifted, and the power is moving into the hands of those customers more and more every day.  While some of the changes brought about by the move to online communications are more obvious than others, what’s clear is that the companies that will thrive going forward are those that learn to adapt their thinking as the business world changes.  If you’re a student of old-school business and marketing, you might still be clinging to some outdated beliefs about what’s important in your business.  To help illustrate the shift we’re talking about and provide some pointers on how to deal with the changes, following are three things that just don’t matter as much as they used to, and what really matters today.

1. Quality - What? Quality doesn’t matter?  Of course it does.  Quality is more of an expectation now though.  What that means is that you can no longer tout your product or service’s quality as the primary reason for doing business with your company.  You need to go beyond quality.

2. Price - Like quality, price is certainly important to some extent, but competing on price alone just won’t cut it.  If you’re the low-price leader, and that’s all you’ve got going for you, you’re in trouble.  With advances in manufacturing processes and the continued move to inexpensive, overseas solutions, “cheap” is easier to come by than true differentiation.

3. Testimonials - Have some customers who love you?  Guess what - so does your competition.  While there’s nothing wrong with displaying testimonials on your site, don’t expect them to be the thing that swings customers your way.  First of all, we’ve all become a little distrusting of testimonials.  Secondly, customers know that testimonials from a company are like references on your resume: You’re only going to list those you know have something great to say, so how much do they really matter?

What matters today…

1. Simplicity - Customers want processes to be simple.  This goes for every step of the customer experience, from ordering to paying, from shipping to customer service issues.  Make things too complicated, whether it’s with your order process or how people use your product, and they’ll go elsewhere.

2. Innovation - More strides in innovation have taken place in the past 20 years than in the previous 100, and we’re all eating it up.  People love the latest and greatest, and if it makes them look cool, all the better.  If your products and processes offer a new or better way of doing things, you’ll attract customers and keep them coming back for more.

3. Honesty - One word that has become more than just another buzzword lately is “transparency.”  It’s no secret that our current economic condition is at least in part due to a lack of transparency, and people are fed up with it.  Even a hint of impropriety or dishonesty will have your potential customers running for the hills.  People have always wanted to be treated with honesty, but today more than ever, they’re demanding it, and looking out for any chinks in the integrity armor.

4. Straight Talk - This goes along with honesty, but it’s a little different.  Straight talk has to do with getting rid of all the games that companies often play.  For example, when a guarantee or discount is offered, but the little asterisk next to the headline refers to a litany of conditions, restrictions, and limitations, it quickly deflates any excitement the original offer created.  This also goes back to the simplicity point.  Straight, simple talk is what will win customers over now, not perceived tricks and scams.

The companies that survive and thrive in the economy of today and the years to come will be able to identify these and other changes in public wants and needs and adjust their game plans accordingly.  Those that can’t or aren’t willing to adapt on the fly will simply go away.  It’s survival of the fittest, and the fittest in business are those who evolve the most efficiently.  What are your thoughts?  We’d love to continue the conversation in the comments section!

How to Generate More Referral Business

Getting new business is a constant struggle for many small companies. A lot of companies market aggressively and spend a lot of money to increase brand awareness and reel new customers in. Marketing is certainly important, but when you’re an entrepreneur on a tight budget, it’s also important to make sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck.

Today, I want to talk about the power of the referral. Referral business is my favorite kind of business because it shows that my customers are so happy with my services that they’ve told a friend about them. And well, the fact that it’s cheap to generate referral business is pretty nice too.

But how do you go about getting more referrals? Contrary to popular belief, they won’t always come naturally. It takes effort on your part to get customers talking about you, and I’m going to share some of my favorite tips with you for generating a steady stream of referrals.

• Provide consistently great service-Let’s face it: No one is going to refer you if your products and services are average or vary in quality. Remember, when someone refers your business to a friend, that person is putting his name on the line too. That’s not something to be taken lightly. So, if you want to get more referrals, you need to first make sure your services are truly worth referring. Give every customer the best service you’re capable of providing.
• Give customers incentives for referrals-Your customers have a lot going on in their lives. Hate to break it to you, but telling other people about your business is on the bottom of their to-do list, right below cleaning the mouse poop out of the attic. This means you need to motivate them into referring you, and the best way to do this is to give them something in return for doing so. You can give them a discount on future purchases for each referral they give, or you can even offer cash rewards.
• Don’t be afraid to ask-Again, your customers have a lot going on, so they’re probably not thinking about you. The thought of referring you to a friend may not have even crossed their mind. There’s nothing wrong with asking for referrals. If you’ve provided great service and the customer is happy, ask them to please tell their friends and colleagues about your products and services. Many times, they’ll be happy to do it. One note: Don’t ask for the referral right when you send your bill. That’s a bit pushy.
• Partner with complementary businesses-Let’s say you run a web design business, and you want to get more clients. One way you could get more referrals would be to partner with copywriters who have clients that may also be looking for design services. Look for complementary businesses that you can swap referrals with.
• Look for networking opportunities-You don’t want to be “that guy” who is always pitching and selling, even in relaxed social situations. However, you should let people know who you are and what you do. Even if they don’t need your services, they may know someone who does. Keep your business card on you at all times!

Does your business generate a lot of referrals? What have you done to get all these referrals? Share your favorite tips by leaving a comment. You could be helping a fellow entrepreneur!

3 Steps and 3 Resources for Finding Profitable Niches

Finding a profitable niche is the best way to make money online without working in a highly competitive market. For those who want to make money without competing with the “big dogs” then learning how to find profitable niches is a lesson that shouldn’t be missed.

Learning how to find profitable niches becomes something that every experienced internet marketer must learn at one point or another. Since one of the more lucrative aspects of internet marketing is offering your own products and services why not learn how to spot a valuable niche to take over? Simply being an affiliate your entire online marketing career can get boring and more competitive-so why not pave the way in your own niches? Generally speaking learning how to identify and exploit a new niche is relatively easy to do. Let’s take a look at a few simple steps to get started.

Step #1 - Start researching and communicating with consumers. If you’re going to uncover a niche a good way to get started is to find out what people want or need that they can’t currently get. This can be anything from a way to cure their headaches to a way to start their own lawn mowing business. Find information, a product or service that people want and see if there is a demand for it.

Step #2 - Find a way to get these people what they want or need. If you can’t offer the product or service to a hungry consumer base then someone else will-it’s just a matter of time. When you’re the first in a new niche that you think might be profitable it’s important you offer something that will fix their problem and fill their needs. Can you write an eBook and sell it to your market? Can you offer them a program or software application that fixes their problem? Figure out a way to generate something you can sell to this market that will fill their need and make you money.

Step #3 - Make sure you can make money long term with your niche. If you create a product and start offering it in your niche and you’re not making sales, there could be a problem. Assuming everything else is good (your landing page, your sales copy, your product, etc.) this might not be a “buying niche”-meaning you may have tapped into traffic that does in fact have a problem but they aren’t willing to pay money for the solution. If this is the case you’re in trouble and should evaluate any other potential niche to make sure it’s a “buying niche” before trying to break into it. This can be done by targeting what’s called “desperate buyers”-or people who have no choice but to pay for the solution. Niches that are an example of this include male enhancement, weight loss and acne cures but there are many others.

Learning how to find profitable niches seems simple and obvious on the surface but there’s a lot more than meets the eye. As you can see it really is as simple as finding a hungry niche and providing a solution, but it’s also important to look deeper and make sure that niche is willing to pay money for the solution and will be a viable long term strategy. There are a few tools that can actually make finding profitable niches a lot easier, let’s take a look at a few of them.

43Things.com - This website is a great place to go to see what people want to learn more about or find a solution for. On the website there are different things that people want to do that they’ve collectively voted on. The larger the word or phrase in the tag cloud is the more people are interested in it. This is a great way to find out what a good profitable niche might be since people list things like “learn how to play basketball” and “finally discover how to make a gourmet pizza.”

Yahoo! Answers - Another excellent way to find out what people want is to go through Yahoo! answers and see what people are asking about. Users will post questions like “How do I fix my computer to make it run faster?” or “How can I make French fries at home?” While these questions seem basic and boring they are questions that a large number of people want to know the answer to. Perusing the questions and answers on Yahoo! is a great way to get ideas for possible profitable niches.

Ask500People.com - This website is a great way to take a possible profitable niche and see if there’s a demand for it. Let’s say you think it’d be a good idea to target a new niche that involves teaching people how to make their own chess boards. Heading on over to this website will allow you to post a question like “Would you prefer to learn how to create your own chess board or just purchase a low quality one from a store?” and then receive feedback one way or another on the proposed question. Think of this website as your profitable niche “barometer” allowing you to see what unbiased people think of your idea.

Using online tools and carefully researching different niches is the only sure-fire way for finding a good profitable niche. Once you discover how to find profitable niches over time it’ll become easier and almost second nature to identify potentially profitable markets. Making money from new niches can be difficult and there is a certain risk involved so try to minimize your losses and maximize your gains as much as possible. In other words, don’t invest too much until you know it’s worth the money.

Whether you want to find a profitable niche to create your own product in or a profitable niche to promote an affiliate product in the process and technique really is the same. Make sure there’s a need for the product and make sure people are prepared to spend money for the solution. Without these two requirements there’s little room to make money in a niche.

Jason Acidre is a Marketing Consultant for Affilorama, an affiliate marketing portal. They provide affiliate marketing education and advanced affiliate marketing tools for beginning and advance affiliates.

5 Steps to Conducting a Wildly Successful Webinar

If you have information you want to deliver to any group of people - customers, prospects, colleagues, etc. - conducting webinars is a great way to do it.  In fact, webinars offer tremendous advantages over many other delivery methods.  Webinars can be offered for free to get people interested in what you have to offer; they can be a paid product in themselves - both live and recorded; you can use them to bring together several experts on a given topic; webinars allow you to share video, audio, text or any program or application you want with your audience; they let you interact with your audience; people can attend your “live event” from anywhere in the world; and when you conduct a webinar it serves to add to your credibility.  So, yeah, they’re pretty cool.  But what do you need to do to put on a successful webinar?  Glad you asked!

1. Plan - It seems like this is always a step in these lists, doesn’t it?  In this case (and in most cases really), it’s with very good reason.  Preparing properly for your webinar will be the make or break difference for the event.  Here are the factors to consider in this step:

• Target Audience. Obviously you need to know who your target audience is, but you’ll also want to make an estimation of how many people will attend.  This is important because depending on which provider you use to conduct your webinar, you might need to pay more for more “seats.”
• Schedule. Knowing your target market will help you determine the date and time of your webinar.  For instance, if your audience will be coast to coast in the US, you probably won’t want to hold it at 8:00 a.m. EST, which is 5:00 a.m. on the west coast.  Or if you’re targeting people who work 9-5, you might want to think about a Saturday webinar.
• Content. This is the most important piece of preparing for your webinar.  Know and practice what you’re going to say and how you will present the information.  If you haven’t done a webinar before and you’re nervous, just keep it simple and reduce the amount of things that can go wrong by holding off on video or app sharing, etc.  You can always make your webinars more feature rich as you progress.  This is also the step where you’ll decide on guest speakers.  Adding one or more experienced presenters to the roster is a great idea for your first few webinars.  Also figure out how long your presentation will be in this step.  Generally, it’s a good idea to keep it under an hour.
• Fees. Decide if you’ll charge a fee for the webinar or if it will be a free presentation.  It’s probably a good idea to present for free when you’re starting out, but if you feel confident, and you’re delivering valuable content, don’t be afraid to charge.  Some people make a very good living just through webinars.
• Marketing. Devise a marketing plan that will reach your target audience to get them to the webinar.  Social media and your existing marketing list are no-brainers for this one.  In addition to that, this is another area where guest speakers can help.  If they have a large list, you get that exposure as well!
• Service provider. You’ll need to decide on a service provider for your webinar.  Your provider will not only provide the service on the day of the webinar, most will also provide you with custom landing pages and sign-up forms, and auto-responders for those who register with, in most cases, reminder emails.  Here is a list of several possible providers:
  • GoToWebinar
  • MeetingBridge
  • MegaMeeting
  • InstantPresenter

2. Invite - Ok, so you’ve planned your webinar.  Now it’s time to invite your target audience and put that marketing plan from the previous step into action.  Many providers offer email templates, but make sure you’re able to customize enough to make it look like it’s from you and your company.  In your email invitations, be sure to include a summary of what will be presented, and always remember: SELL THE SIZZLE, NOT THE STEAK.  You’re asking people to take time out of their busy day, and in some cases pay a fee, so you need to entice them.  This is yet another time when having great guest speakers can help build the event.  One important tip: Be sure you prominently present a way for recipients to forward the invitation to friends and colleagues.  Remember that the sphere of influence of your target audience is almost always largely made up of more of your target audience.

3. Register - You’ve written and sent a killer invitation, so get ready for people to begin registering.  But first, get ready for questions.  Even though you can reduce the number of questions people will have by thoroughly explaining the webinar in your invitation and landing pages, you’ll still get a lot of questions.  Think of these - every contact with a customer - as opportunities to connect.  As people register, be sure they’re getting the auto-responders, and it’s also a good idea to send a more personal thank you a day or two later, even if it’s an auto-responder too.

4. Present - The big day has arrived.  It’s time to present your webinar.  You’ve practiced what you’re going to say to and show your participants, and you’ve practiced with the software you’ve chosen, so you can put on the webinar without a hitch.  Now, expect a hitch.  That’s not said to be negative in any way.  It’s just that things happen that you didn’t plan for, and if you know that, you’ll be more likely to handle it well.  The key is to relax and go with the flow.  If it’s not perfect, it’s ok.  You’ll get better the more you do.  On the day of the webinar, you’ll log into the system, along with your guest speaker(s) about 20-30 minutes before the event starts.  This gives you a chance to make sure everything is working and go over any last minute questions before the start.  Some providers will supply an “event specialist” to be available during the webinar if any issues arise.  This is obviously very good to have.

5. Follow up - People who don’t follow up with their attendees after presenting a webinar are missing out on a great opportunity.  These are people who now know what you’re all about and what you have to offer.  Follow up while your presentation is fresh in their minds.  It’s also a good idea to send a link to the recording of the webinar, so they can refer back to it.  Especially when you’re first starting out, but even after you’re a webinar pro, it’s also a great idea to send a feedback form or survey link so you know what people liked and where you can improve for next time.

For a low-cost, high-tech, high-touch way to present content, webinars are hard to beat.  If you’ve had success with this great medium, we’d love to hear about it.  Tell us your experiences in the comments below!

Niches to Riches in 4 Simple Steps!

What if you could optimize your marketing in a way that would allow you to save time and money while increasing your conversion rates and your bottom line?  Sounds too good to be true?  Not at all.  The secret is to identify a specific segment within your overall market and change your strategy to speak directly to this niche.  It really is that simple, but of course there are some specific steps to take to make this happen, and they’re listed below.

But first, let’s address why you would want to niche your business. It might seem strange to some people to narrow your market.  After all, don’t you want to sell to as wide an audience as possible?  While that might make sense at first glance, think about what it means.  First, you need to be able to effectively market to that wide audience.  The wider the demographics of the group, the more avenues you’ll need to take to get your business name and offerings in front of them.  For instance, Wal-Mart and McDonald’s each spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to reach their target markets, because their markets are massive - pretty much anyone who doesn’t hate them.  They can afford this kind of marketing, so it works for them, but most of us aren’t in the same boat.  Notice also that these companies tend to be low-price leaders, taking smaller margins to appeal to a wider audience.

On the other hand, look at a guy named Fred Gleeck.  Fred is a marketing expert who had an all-around, general marketing expertise.  Somewhere along his marketing career, he recognized the power of a niche market.  He could have targeted his services at anyone in need of marketing, which is pretty much every business everywhere.  That would have meant spending a lot of marketing dollars to reach his audience in hopes of converting enough people to make a living, and it would also have meant competing with the throngs of other marketing firms, all trying to attract the same prospects.  Instead, Fred decided to niche.  He ended up targeting the self-storage industry.  He changed all his material to focus on this niche and created products that addressed the specific needs of self-storage facility owners.  The result is that Fred became the recognized expert on the topic.  He ended up as a sought-after speaker at industry events and even wrote a book about how to market your self-storage facility.   Not only that, but because he chose an underserved market, he had literally no competition, so he was able to charge considerably more for his products and services than he ever could have as just another marketing guy.

So you can see that finding and targeting your niche can allow you to stand out from the crowd, save money on marketing, and charge more for your products and services.  Now, here are the steps to niche your business:

1. Identify your big target. Who is your overall target audience?  You’re going to get more specific, but start with a wider target first.  Begin by just nailing down who your overall target audience is, from a big picture perspective.  The answer to this question might be “business owners”, or “parents”.  It’s probably a very big group and might cover a very wide age range, both genders, and a wide geographic area.

2. Narrow down your niche. Somewhere within your wider target market is a sub-group of people who have specific wants, needs and characteristics that don’t match up with the rest of the market.  For example, if your wide target market is parents, within that group is the group consisting of single mothers.  While single mothers share a lot of the same wants and needs as all parents, they also have certain wants and needs that married fathers, for instance, don’t have.  You’re not done yet though.  Within the smaller niche, there is often an even more focused niche.  In the example of single mothers, what about single mothers of teens?  Want to get really crazy?  How about single mothers of troubled teen boys?  Obviously, it can get to the point where it’s just ridiculous (southwest Indiana single mothers of troubled teen boys whose favorite color is green…), but the point is to narrow your niche down as far as it makes sense for your business and your market.

3. Analyze your niche market. Get clear on who this customer base really is.  If your answer to the first question was “business owners”, and you identified a niche market of retail clothing store owners, now’s the time to ask what those business owners really want and need.  Are there universal wants that apply to everyone in your target niche?  What are those, and how can your product or service address them?  In addition to analyzing who this group is, it’s important to look deeper and determine the habits of the market - even if it’s not related to what you’re offering.  Where do they hang out online and in the real world?  What’s important to them?  What trade associations serve this niche? Getting inside the heads of your target audience is important to be able to effectively market to them.  If you’re having trouble nailing down a niche, think of it this way:  Chances are the niche that suits you best is the group of people who you can most relate to.  For instance, if you yourself are a single mother of a troubled teen, you’re going to be able to more easily create a plan to market to that group.

4. Build and execute a plan. This is the fun part!  Now that you have identified your niche, it’s time to figure out how you’ll reach them and what you’ll offer to address their specific needs.  This step is very much specific to your business and your niche, so it’s difficult to detail what you’ll end up with.  What we can say, is that step 3 is the key to making step 4 effective.  Once you know your niche market inside and out, you’ll know how to reach them and what to offer them to solve their unique problems.

Remember, the title of this post indicates these are simple steps, but not necessarily easy.  It will take time and effort in the beginning to execute this strategy.  The payoff in the end more than makes up for the work though, so go find your niches, and then count your riches!

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