If you have a product or service on the Internet….chances are, you're a marketer.
Now, I know that lots of folks really do abhor that concept – the idea of 'sales' and 'salesmanship' and 'fighting off hordes of ravenous customers who are SCREAMING to plaster your SOUL with hundred dollar BILLS' writing compelling sales copy is something many folks shun.
But….look at it this way.
You have a 'market' who is interested in your product/service, no? And you deal with said market, right?
So….you really ARE a marketer. But what kind of marketers….ah, now there is the 3,141,590 dollar question!
There's lots of marketing types, you know….that by itself could be a delightful topic on which to expound at a later date!
But right now, I'd like to focus upon 3 teeny tiny itsy bitsy dumby wumby (hey, I have 4 kids, okay?) marketing mistakes you might be making right now…and how to fix that today.
Ready? Here we go!
Dumb Marketing Mistake #1.) You have no way of automatically following up with customers.
Ever see those cute little boxes that take over your screen when visiting a website that read, sign up for our FREE NEWSLETTER or our AWESOME EBOOK or our WAY TO SEND YOU AFFILIATE LINKS EVERY 4 MINUTES etc.?
Ever wonder what their purpose is?
It's so the owner of the site can legally interact with you in the future.
Sure, that 'legal interaction' might be, sending out a weekly newsletter, or offering you tips/etc. regarding your niche or what have you, but make no mistake about it. When you give your email address out, you're giving the site owner to contact you in the future (ie, future emails aren't spam).
But….you know….you can do so much MORE with automatic followsup!
- You can send out a customer care followup sequence once someone has bought your product/service.
- You can craft a free 7 day eCourse to help showcase your expert knowledge.
- You can devise a 365 tip-a-day series.
And much much more!
Tell me now. Does that reek to you of the typical marketing angst lots of folks have?
I didn't think so.
Solution: Get an autoresponder or…
The best way to fix this is to get an autoresponder like aWeber or GetResponse. Do NOT get a free service – they'll append their marketing message to all of your emails too (a very bad thing!).
But if you do NOT want to spend money yet (and honestly, I personally feel that if you do not invest in an autoresponder, you're not serious about being successful online – it's like not exercising/eating right when you want to be healthy), you can instead look into setting up a Facebook Fan Page, a Yahoo Group, a niche network etc. No matter what…you really do need to be doing something (anything!) to ensure you can interact with customers in the future.
Dumb Marketing Mistake #2.) Your site has zero SEO goodness.
Is your site built off of WordPress? Is it "Just another WordPress blog" like so:
Sites that still HAVE "Just another WordPress weblog" in the title
Hmmm?
And in your posts, do you have the title of your post BEFORE the name of your site?
Hmmmm?
The goodness of WordPress makes fixing such things easier than boiling water without burning it.
Solution: Do the following.
First, fix your tag line. Go to your WordPress Dashboard and select
Settings | General Settings
and add in your tag line.
Wasn't that simple? For more help on that, check out:
How To remove wordpress “Just another wordpress blog”
Next, download/install the All in One SEO Pack WordPress Plugin. You can instruct the page titles to show up before the site name in your search engines.
Want to grab some grand ideas regarding SEO? Check out:
- Yoast WordPress SEO (wonderfully comprehensive!)
- ViperChill – The ONLY SEO guide you'll need
Even though SEO is generally seen only by search engines….it's still a Good Thing to include. The above ideas make that easy!
Dumb Marketing Mistake #3.) You don't have a reputation for being helpful
With today's social marketing frenzy spouting all over the known galaxy, what you do…gets known.
BIG TIME!
And your friends on Twitter and Facebook and the like….if they like you, they'll talk about you.
Same thing goes if they feel like you've been a twit to them as well.
When you're known as a helpful individual, people tend to talk positively about your goodness to their friends…who might be inspired to see what YOU have to offer.
Solution: Help out whenever the opportunity presents itself.
It's that easy.
For example, I'm rather good at removing malware when it infects sites. Last week, a malware injection hit bunches of GoDaddy sites and a friend of mine was infected. When I saw her post on Facebook, I dropped what I was doing, searched out the answer, asked for permission to access her site and fixed the problem for her.
What are YOU good at? Whenever you see your friends/network encountering problems that are childs' play for you to solve….what do YOU do?
If you can carve out the time to lend a hand, it's simply good karma.
I call that being a 'covert angel' – you can read more over at
- Covert Angel time – Rescuing your friends’ personal domain name site!
- Be a hero and proactively avert online disaster for your real life friends
- Be a covert angel and help YOUR friends help THEIR causes
What goes around…comes around….and if you can look for the long-term goodness of your network and friends, that will end up repaying you more than you can imagine.
So there you have it – 3 dumb marketing mistakes you might be making, and how to fix them today. Hope you find them useful! What do YOU think should be added….share them below. I'd love to read your ideas.
Enjoy,
Barbara Ling
Get Started Here
You’ll love what you learn… Promise!