$100 Monthly Marketing, Online Search Optimizing Best Budget Option

One of the major marketing considerations for a small business stems from increasing your personal visibility online without breaking the bank.  From the creators of www.uniquenessispower.com comes a value filled $100 monthly package of services, which when leveraged together, work synergistically to help increase your personal brand online.  Since most people buy from people, not companies, this results in an effective way to network and grow your business.

Currently, when someone meets you, one of the first things they are likely to do, is google you.  So, what happens when they do?  If you don’t come up in that first page, or there is old or bad information out there, it can reflect poorly on you.  This is the first deep impression people get of you, in many cases.So, what can you do to make that impression as controlled and positive as possible? We recommend the following tools (totaling to $100 a month) for how to make your name the top listing in Google, how to leverage Web 2.0 technology and how to network online like a pro.  Here’s how it all comes together: For $50 a month, become a member of Fast Pitch! one of the fastest growing online business networks in the world.  Fast Pitch! helps you get connected to thousands of other professionals in your region and globally.  Fast Pitch! also helps you promote and share your business-related content with other members including press, blogs, videos, podcasts and more.  On the radio show, we’ve described FastPitch! as a combination of Linked In, YouTube, PR Web and happy hour.  It’s literally a one-stop shop to network and market your business!  When you create your profile, make sure you mention “Uniqueness is Power” co-host Lee Kantor’s name in the “referred by” box.

Then, for $40 a month on Hello World you get all the web 2.0 you need and more – with potentials for trainings and demos, both live and recorded (an alternative to WebEx and GoToMeeting), a great new business tool in video mail, a quick meeting alternative in video im, plus a one stop locations for your blog, podcasts and vcasts. 

Next, to attain the top ranking on Google under your name, check out the $10 a month solution with QAlias – this allows you control over what is being said about you online, in that first impression, to some degree. 

Finally, as a small business, do not forget  - ads on Craigs List are free for services and are a great way to leverage and distribute this new information you can now create to the general public.

The Publicity Formula gives 5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Should Hire a Publicity Coach instead of a Publicist

By Guest Columnist Yoshi Simms

 

Have you considered hiring a publicist but their fees are way out of your price range? 

Do you need a publicist but you’ve heard the horror stories of “I paid my retainers and got nothing?”

Regardless of the fact that this may all be true, at some point people need to know about your business other than by word of mouth.  Publicity has served and still today is the best avenue in getting the word out.

Yes indeed, publicity is the most respected and credible way to get your business seen, but the cost of hiring a publicist can sometimes put a real strain on a small business.  This is one of the main reasons a lot of businesses have turned to Publicity Coaching.

Publicity Coaches teach entrepreneurs to be their own publicist, for their own business.  You have a coach that shows you step by step, exactly how to do your own publicity just like the pros.  You actually become the publicist for your business.

Let’s check out these 5 reasons why you may want to consider Publicity Coaching:

#1 – Cost

This is the number one reason companies have turned to publicity coaching.  The usual fees for a publicist range from $1500-$5,000, depending on the publicist and the number of hours required to publicize the business.

#2 – Customized Plan

When you work with a publicity coach, your publicity plan is customized just for your business, not some template used for all other businesses.

#3 – Media Savvy

You will learn everything there is to know about the various forms of media and how to get your business noticed by them.

#4 – Product or Service Leveraging

Create relationships that turn into clients by leveraging your products or services.

#5 – Media Publicity vs. Public Publicity vs. B to B Publicity

In today’s society, mainly because of the Internet, there is more than just media publicity.  Learn how to get to all 3!

So as you see, Publicity Coaching is a great alternative to hiring a publicist or a public relations firm.

Yoshi Simms

Publicity Coach

The Publicity Formula

www.thepublicityformula.com

info@thepublicityformula.com

678-318-3632

Tops 10 Tips on Building Your Blog – and Advancing Your Business Online

We all want to have a better blog – and we all want to help drive traffic to the blog we create – so how do you do that?  Here are 10 tips on how to build your business by better blogging (alliteration is so much fun!) 1. Show how you were a super hero – with case studies…take a few minutes to explain how you helped clients and what you did for them that no one else could do.

2. Find areas you can carve a niche in – specialties you know you are good at, and that can benefit you both in pay and in consistent business.  Focus on those in special features on your blog – it helps with your SEO and helps with your referral-ability.

3. Write articles about things that are hot industry topics – and be someone that stands out – make a statement – even if they don’t agree, they’ll often listen.  Some of the best clients I’ve ever had were people who didn’t agree with me, either to start, or ever – at least not on the issue they found me through.

4. Forumlate a Top 10 “Questions I Always Answer” – and then replies and a quick 2-3 paragraphs on all of them, to give the standard reponse – yes it’s a BLOG-FAQ. 

5. Pass along the best of what you’ve heard and learned.  It is very helpful to the readers of your blog to know that you also credit others – for instance, a lot of what we learn here comes from blogs out there – and when we borrow info, we give credit – so here we will thank the E-zine Queen, the folks at Duct Tape Marketing and Yanik Silver.

6. Letterman isn’t the only one to make Top 10 Lists that are popular.  Call it the “ADD” or “Follow the Shiny Object” syndrome of America, but people love top 5 or 10 lists.  Build a list of things people need to know about and place it on your blog.  C’mon, it isn’t that hard.  There are plenty of things you know about that, broken down into 10 subsets, makes for an interesting entry in your blog.

7. Post reviews of products or services that compliment what you do for a business – and see if you can work out reciprical blogroll links with the people on the other end, or perhaps some sort of shared referral agreement.
8.  Interview a competing associate for a blog spot – ask 3-5 questions that matter to the readers of your blog – and get their input on how THEY would handle things (I’d use this tip about once a month, personally.)

9. Find Books,  Blogs, Speakers, others, that you can write reviews of, and that you can crosslink with.  This ties into #7 but is different in the fundamental approach and reason for doing.  With Authors, Bloggers and Speakers, you have an unlimited audience of people who will Google that person’s name and find your review or comments.

10. Actually ask for people to write you – and listen to the people you write for each week – take questions – answer and post.  This is a great way to lend credibility to your blog and to your audience.  I try to answer posts whenever I can on the blogs I help maintain.

BONUS TIP:  Be sure to do “reader activities” or “spotlights” – guest articles, testimonials and other info is vital to the continued success of your blog.  This is another great weekly, bi-weekly or monthly feature on your blog. And then, to go Gitomer on you – here’s 10.5 – be consistent with your output – be sure to post one or two times a week, at minimum.  And finally, when we figure it out, we’ll post about WordPress’s widget for expanding your blog even further. Thanks for listening!

Andy, Lee and the crew at www.uniquenessispower.com

Live Thursdays at 6 pm est – www.uiplive.com

 

Remove Your Opinion, Increase Your Sales

While there is very little that gives more satisfaction to a small business owner than hearing their radio ad on air, there is ONE thing that certainly surpasses it – hearing the register ring as a result of that ad. 

Ironically, most of the time, the spot that earns the sweet cha-ching sound, isn’t always the one the owner would have picked.  Most people are not born marketers.  Yet, so many C-Level executives and small business owners assume since they know how to run their business, they know how to market it as well.  Thus, they have trouble keeping their personalities and individual likes and dislikes out of the mix when it comes to crafting spots, placing ads or designing other creative to support their company. 

Would you rather have ads that you like or one that drives traffic consistently to your business?Often, the best copy and creative gets left on the cutting room floor, not because it wasn’t the best for the job, but because the head honcho didn’t “like it.”   It’s reasonable that because emotions drive our likes and dislikes that they can get in the way of logic. 

So, how would you know if in the event you don’t like an ad – that it has potential to be effective? Simply put – place yourself in the shoes of your audience.  If only the decision maker could remember, they aren’t very often the end user.  Simply because the spot is running on a station they don’t listen to, or using colors they don’t like, is irrelevant.  The owner’s like or dislike of the ad represents the tree, not the forest.  The massive forest is the target audience – the end user.

If you allow personal marketing preferences to interfere and simply address “your tree”, the money spent on the effort will not be anywhere nearly as fruitful, if it succeeds at all once it goes out to the proverbial forest.

Don’t get wrapped up in whether you like the creative or not – worry about if the creative will drive sales.  This isn’t, after all, about you (unless you are the sole customer of your company.)  It is about most effectively reaching your target customer and growing your business.  It is about finding the best manners and methods with which to earn your customer’s actions and loyalty.

It is about all these things, but ultimately, it is about making the register ring.