Standing Out

The wonder and absolute genius of the online marketplace is that all businesses have a level playing field, of sorts. With a really cool website, you can *be* just about anyone you want to be. You can live in a cardboard box in an alley in Detroit, but appear to live in a 4500 sq ft pad in Laguna Beach. Am I right?

But, in the good and amazing way that the universe works, if you are lying about what you can do, you will be found out, eventually. In business, eventually comes when the flood rains pour in - when as a result of all of your marketing, your business is booming but you can’t actually produce because you don’t know what you’re doing.

I had an interview with a newspaper reporter yesterday to talk about my business. It’s amazing the clarity that comes when you really start to talk about who you are and what you do.

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Social networking (Facebook, Biznik, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) for business is all the rage right now, and while “trendy” things are usually frowned upon, you need to be where your target market is, trendy or not. Social networking will not only increase awareness of your product or service, it could lead to sales and to those priceless business connections we all need.

But do you know where to start? You don’t want to end up spending hours and hours maintaining your social networks because you didn’t have a solid social network marketing plan from the beginning.

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Ever feel like you’re in a race against the competition for clients? Let me tell you this: constantly hounding them for their business is not the way to go.

But there are three sure-fire things you can do to set up shop so that clients are coming to YOU instead of you running after them all the time.

1. ASK FOR IT.  It may seem like the simplest, silliest thing to mention here, but I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for your marketing materials (including website and blog) to include a “call to action.” It’s OK to assume that your visitors and prospective clients want to know how to get in touch with you. So, help them out by telling them how to do it! You’ll notice that on every main page of my website, I include a call to action near the bottom. On every single page.
2. DO A GOOD JOB. Another very simple (well, maybe not always) thing to do. This is not rocket science. If you do a good job, your clients will come back to you. You don’t even need a fancy shopping cart with autoresponders and all that jazz. Just be your amazingly fabulous self, do a great job, and you’ve locked in a client for life. Yes, it’s great to keep up with your clients to remind them that you’re still around, but you don’t need to chase them down with sales and discounts. In fact, your repeat clients will pay for you at a premium because they understand from experience how valuable you are.
3. CLEARLY EXPLAIN WHAT YOU DO. Even I am guilty of not clearly explaining what I do, which is why I’m in the process of creating clear-cut proposal for each of my services, and they will be available for prospective clients to download when they visit my services page. If your services are outlined clearly enough, clients will know what you do and won’t click away out of frustration, boredom or disinterest. If they need something you provide, they will contact you.

A fourth, bonus sure-fire way to get clients coming to you is to make sure you are easy to contact. Don’t be elusive. If you’re a virtual assistant, at least include an email address. But, including an actual contact form is best.

If you don’t have a contact form, download the freecontactform.com’s .zip file and get to work. You’ll need a webhost that supports .php (and not all plans do - don’t assume this - that’s why I like siteground).

Try these out! They work for me.

Cheers,

Tia Peterson
All American Admin

I posted this earlier and it magically disappeared!

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Craigslist is not dead.

It is one of those mega-sites that I figured would come in, sweep us off our feet, and then die. Why? Because the number of daily posts on Craigslist in some cities is so high that using it to find something (like a used car, or a dresser, or a babysitter) can be a nightmare!

Even so, it’s still a very useful site - even for business owners.

3 Ways to Use Craigslist

1. Location. Figure out WHERE you want to post, and depending on your business type, you may want to consider posting in a large city somewhere else. For example, your target audience may be located in California but you live in New York. No biggie. If your business is mainly online, just post in a larger city in California (or even a smaller, if you have a niche market).
2. Use images. USE IMAGES. Use images. I can’t say this enough. Listen, craigslist is really just a forum that doesn’t allow commenting. So, it can get VERY bland after awhile. Differentiate yourself from the thousands of others who won’t use any images. The best way to do it is to upload your link to a URL, and then put an <img> tag pointing to the location. If you need a place to store images, ask me. I am willing to host them on my site (first come, first serve). Remember, you use HTML in a craigslist posting, not CSS. Find a good tutorial for inserting an image tag here.
3. Use advertising language. Remember, these are ads. Ads use words like New, Now, Join, Call, Email, etc. You want to explain what you’re offering using flavorful language and a call to action.

Find a good tutorial for writing Craigslist ads here. There are some things I don’t agree with - (like not inserting images from an external source when you can upload them, because when you upload them you cannot play with the image placement in the post) but all-in-all it’s a good place to start.

Cheers! Happy posting.