How Content Marketing Defines Your Internet Niche

The Internet is designed to share information. It is used for education, advancing new ideas, expressing personal opinions, enhancing name brand recognition, and promoting the sale of products or services. Article marketing sites, also called article directories, help improve the efficiency of this communication process. They establish a number of dedicated marketing outlets. Each article directory provides a multitude of users with the opportunity to give free information in exchange for valid Internet backlinks.

When successfully applied, content marketing is an effective means for expanding your business outreach. It can attract qualified Internet leads, establish long-term customer communications, and be used to define your precise market niche. Companies and individuals post articles that are specific to a given industry or targeted market niche. When the content of the article successfully:

• Engages the desired reader base your company prospers
• Relays relevant information your name brand identity expands
• Establishes a sense of honest information exchange, you gain a reputation for providing expert advice in a given field.

The math is simple. The Internet provides an abundance of free information. Prospective customers seek advice from trustworthy sources. Successful content marketing enables you to establish yourself and your business as an Internet authority in a given field of expertise. It works just as effectively as display ads or PPC, but the cost of playing is much less expensive.

Content Marketing Enhances the Power of Internet Selling

In a recent thread on how to be successful on the Internet, the author penned an eight-word answer: “Produce great stuff and sell it to people.” These words read slick, but they over simplify a very complex task. Unless you are marketing a self-promoting, self-selling product or service, you must engage in some manner of active product marketing.

Reliable business leads are not always easy to generate. The Internet is bloated with information, misinformation and overstuffed information. The competition comes and goes but it never dies. Internet selling may involve the most competitive arena the marketing world has ever faced.

Content marketing provides a cost-effective solution to the greater demands that Internet selling places on modern businesses.

The Concept Made Real: Using Content Marketing To Increase Your Business Leads and Your Internet Authority

Okay. You are now ready to use article marketing as a means of promoting your website or blog. Every content marketing strategy must be designed to meet two primary goals:

1. Targeted Traffic: Whether it relates to product sales, membership promotions, or content subscribers, you need traffic that will remain on your site, return to your site, and eventually become an income generating client in whatever format you have set as the focus.
2. Relevant Links: Article directories are designed to enable you to generate relevant links to your website. These matters pertain to search engine optimized (SEO) keywords. The purposes for search engine optimizing your content falls under a separate subheading of this document. For now, just remember that content marketing helps develop relevant backlinks to your website or blog.

Knowing the purpose of content posting is only half the battle. You must also understand the principles of how to produce content marketing that actually increases your business leads and your reputation as an Internet authority in a your given field of expertise. Furthermore, you must learn what it takes to bring your posted directory content to the top of the search engines. Here are some questions that will help you get started in the right direction:

• What is your area of expertise, your market niche?
• Who is your target market?
• What should be the primary topic for your articles?
• Is your target market large enough to support multiple subtopics?
• What are the subtopics that you might use for additional articles?
• Who is your primary competition?
• How well are they performing in the content marketing field?
• What is your competition doing right?
• What are they doing wrong?
• Which, if any, of your competitor’s articles are making it into the search engines?
• What keywords are they using?
• What synonyms and acronyms can be used to create the same keyword effect?
• What related keywords are producing desired search results through the inline search engines on various popular article directories?
• How much time are you willing to devote to writing and marketing your content?

The Value of Search Engine Optimized Article Content

Perhaps you know the ins and outs of your business niche better than most people know the details of a well-watched classic movie. You can write about it. You can talk about it. You can express the details in terms that most people don’t even understand. Now realize the insufficiency of knowledge alone.

Content marketing is not about being discovered. It is about pushing your content to the top of the information chain. For this, you must learn to utilize the power of search engine optimized keywords. This is a critical line to success. In order to establish your mark as an Internet authority in any field, Internet users must see and read your materials.

Here are a few basic SEO tips:

• Keyword Research: Start by learning how to identify the keywords or key phrases that specifically define the content of your articles and your website. Measure the competition for those keywords or key phrases. Now pick your battleground with care.
• Keyword Tools: These are the doorways into your keyword research. Many Internet vendors present an array of keyword tools, include detailed “how to use” instructions. Start with the Google Keyword Tool.
• Keyword Strategies: This ties into keyword research. The number of free materials available on the subject of keyword strategies exceeds counting. But if you intend to produce content marketing that works, be sure to read up on keyword strategies.

Content Marketing Increases Your Business Leads and Your Presence as an Internet Authority

The conclusion to this discussion is obvious. The online evidence speaks for itself. Content marketing is a powerful and aggressive means for increasing your business leads and establishing yourself as an Internet expert in your given market niche. Don’t pass up this avenue to success. Even if you must hire a ghostwriter to clean up your content and to distribute your image to the article marketing websites, go for it. Content marketing pays off.

How To Tell the Good from the Bad

You are a go-getter woman. You have a work ethic that has propelled you to the forefront of your profession. You have come to the point in your life where you would like to be your own boss, selling products and services to the public.

Should you invest in a franchise?

If you are a woman seeking an entrepreneur venture, you may be interested in investing in a franchise. You will be selling a product that has already been created. The franchisor has also established itself as a brand-name company with a must-need and recognized product that has customer demand.

If you don’t have your own invention or product to market, a franchise can be your first stepping stone in getting involved with marketing and promoting an established product. You need to consider several factors concerning whether this route will suit you.

1: Does the product interest you?

You must decide on a product that captures your interest. You must feel eager to invest your time and money into promoting and selling the product in you locale.

Having personal knowledge concerning that product can give you an edge in how to best promote it and garner customer interest. Even if you have no knowledge, doing as much research as possible can help you decide if this is a franchise for you.

2: Is it within your budget?

You must invest capital into the franchise through franchise fees. These fees involve purchasing the right to use the brand-name and product for selling purposes. This initial fee may also involve training materials and programs concerning the product.

If the franchise fees are more than you wish to spend, or you receive little information concerning the nature of the product, be wary that you may be getting involved in a scam.

3: Does the franchise offer what you are looking for?

As a budding entrepreneur, do you seek to have a more flexible lifestyle? Would you like to make your own hours with more free time and control over your operations? Or are you looking to make more money than you could from your previous work?

The franchise you choose can effect all these factors. You need to decide just how much time you have to invest in selling the product, if it will provide a good balance between your work life and your free time, and what profits do you seek to earn during short-term and long-term goals.

4: Is there a market demand in your area?

Having a great franchise with a remarkable product won’t mean anything if you don’t have customers buying it. Before deciding on the franchise, you must determine if your location has a market for the product. If there are already a number of franchises selling similar products, you will have a hard time bringing in a profit in an oversaturated playing field.

Always do your research concerning whether a product will do well with the customers in your area. Just because a product is selling great in one part of the country does not necessarily mean it will do well in your location. Ask questions. Conduct surveys. Find out if your customers have a need for this product before investing in the franchise.

Also find out who your main competitors are. Determine your competitors selling tactics and product reach in the marketing area. This can also effect how many sells you’ll be able to make, or if you would have to expand your promotions in other avenues.

5: Is the franchise legit?

Before signing your signature on the franchise agreement, you must determine if the franchise is legit. You don’t really have to worry if the company is world-renown for its products. Yet smaller or new franchises just finding its selling legs can be more shady in its dealing.

Always perform the proper research with the franchisor. Request for a contact list of other franchisees. Ask them about the product, whether they received adequate training concerning the product, and how does the franchisor handle customer problems or complaints.

Check with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) concerning the company. Take note if there are a large number of complaints filed against the company and how the company responded to each.

Don’t ignore the warning signs of a bad franchise. If the franchisor fails to disclose a credit history, if they have a bad credit history, if the franchisor changes their contact information often or doesn’t have a permanent location for their main business operations, it’s better to keep your investment money safely in your wallet.

One of the biggest franchise scams out there is known as a pyramid scheme, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). For these scams, the franchisor is more interested in selling franchises than marketing any type of product. The heart of the scam is to have those people who invested in the franchise try to recoup their investment fees by getting more people into the franchise game who pay more initial fees to the franchisor. No product is ever sold during this scam.

Yet not every bad franchise is a potential scam. Mismanagement, poor planning or an unsellable product are other factors of a bad franchise. The franchisor simply may not have the knowledge on how to properly train others in the workings of the product, or the training manual may be too difficult to understand.

6: Take those first steps into success.

Once you’ve found that franchise that feels right for you, dedicate your time and energy in making it succeed. Create a marketing strategy to promote your product to the most number of potential customers to reach your yearly goals. With time and dedication, you will make profits as you watch your venture grow.

The Fashions Change, Target, Offer, Copy Remains

Are you a PC or a Mac?

We’ve heard that question since personal computing began to grow in popularity and in many ways people can be defined by which computer they prefer.

Or can they?

As you can see in this original PC vs Mac ad from over a decade ago, the perception is that the person that uses a PC is all business and no fun while the Mac user is creative, cutting edge and successful on their own terms.

Of course this generalization isn’t true. There are plenty of PC users that are a lot of fun and Mac users that can be buzz kills, but Apple wanted to appeal to a younger demographic and built an edgy, cool image of the Mac user, versus the stodgy, buttoned up idea of the corporate PC user, to grow their product.

The reason this campaign lasted as long as it did was that it worked. The target that Apple was looking to connect with didn’t want to be perceived as corporate types, even if they happened to work in a corporate environment.

Apple did a great job of understanding their target and building an offer they would be interested in through copy that connected with that target market.

But what made the campaign truly powerful is that, even as that target market got older (not too many people have the “casual Seinfeld-cut” anymore) they remained connected to the image of themselves as Mac users.

It wasn’t about the picture in the ad anymore. They remained loyal because being a “Mac” had become part of not only their life, but part of who they were.

The ultimate goal of marketing is to make it seem like a natural for customers to do business with you and unnatural if they don’t. Those loyal to the Mac would never convert because they are, in some respects, just as much a “Mac” as the computer itself.

Of course there are many steps on the path to brand loyalty that go beyond target, offer and copy. You have to have great customer service, deliver on what you promise and add value to your customer’s experience with your business to name a few.

But it all starts with target, offer and copy.

If your target is wrong, your offer doesn’t appeal to them or you copy doesn’t speak to their needs, you’ll never find the type of customers you need to build a strong small business.

Apple was able to reach their target market for more than a generation with this campaign and because they made those customers happy they built a loyal base that has helped make them one of the most successful companies in the world, even if that loyal base doesn’t think that “mandatory wacky watch” looks so cool anymore.

Defining your Ideal Customer

I hear from business owners all the time about their “customers from hell”. When I ask them what is wrong with those types of customers – the list is pretty long. Featuring heavily … things like complaining, difficult, rude, never pays on time, late for appointments, only shops when items are discounted.

Conversely – when I flip the question and ask them what a “customer from heaven” looks like their list is a lot smaller. No surprise there. Most people know what they don’t want – but it is hard to define exactly what they do want.

If you want to attract perfect customers – you need to be very clear on the qualities and traits of those customers – otherwise how will you ever know them when you meet them.

Here at ActionCOACH – we have a list of qualities we look for in a customer. The list is important so our coaches are always on the lookout for business owners ideal for coaching. So who makes an ideal ActionCOACH business coaching candidate … the list is below:

-They’ll generally be a business owner, manager or decision maker …

-They’ll be willing to learn, push their beliefs on what’s possible, and grow both personally and financially.

-They’ll be willing to pay us on time.

-They’ll understand that systems run a business and that people run the systems …

-They’ll be willing to offer honest feedback at all times.  This includes giving us praise when we deserve it, and offering suggestions …

-They’ll be honest, truthful and “up-front” with us at all times.

-They will take action on any strategy or suggestion we make (given that it is reasonable to do so at the time), even if that means to test an idea, or to make an investment with us.

-They’ll be just as committed to putting in time and effort to make their business dreams a reality as we are.

-They will do their absolute best to keep their agreements and appointments with us and will let us know well in advance if they have to make any changes.

-They will acknowledge communication with us before the end of the next working day.

-They will grow their business, grow their income and tell others of how ActionCOACH helped them do so.

-They will also refer appropriate friends or associates to us whenever possible, so we can continue to grow and bring them the business help they need.

If your business continues to attract the wrong customers … I urge you to create an ideal customer profile – and share with your TEAM. Then ask yourself and your TEAM are we doing everything to be an attractive business to that type of customer? If you want blue-ribbon clients and customers do you have a blue-ribbon business and team?

Four Lessons From Oprah

Over the course of her career, Oprah Winfrey has turned books into best-sellers, made unknown self-help gurus household names and she’s even affected the price of commodities with just a few words.

In fact, Oprah is such an influential force that Harvard Business School Professor Nancy F. Koehn says, “I’m hard-pressed to think of a stronger brand than Oprah and I’ve studied 200 years of brands.”

Oprah hasn’t become one of the strongest brands in the world by accident. She has built an image of authenticity, but what set Oprah apart is the fact that her brand is about something everyone is looking for, happiness.

So what can a marketer learn from Oprah?

Differentiate Yourself
Oprah differentiated herself from other talk show hosts by refusing to cater to the lowest common denominator, instead making her show uplifting and positive but when you look deeper you see how she has used that positive message to make a real economic impact.

Promote Only What You Believe In
It’s obvious in the most popular episodes of her show, her “Favorite Things” episode where she chooses a slew of items she loves and then gives them to her studio audience. Oprah never promotes in item she doesn’t love and really use. And the items featured inevitably see a huge rise in both their brand image and their sales.

Companies like Greenburg Smoked Turkey literally doubled their annual sales after appearing on the episode in 2003 and they are just one of dozens of companies that have benefitted from appearing on the special episode for less than a minute of actual screen time.

If a person were to buy each of Oprah’s favorite things from 2002 through 2010, they would’ve spent a total of $81,000 and you can be sure some people did just that.

What makes Oprah’s influence even more interesting is that she is anything but a conventional brand.

Celebrate Your Uniqueness
According to Forbes, Oprah is the world’s first female, black billionaire and she is the only black person to rank among the top 400 Richest People in America every year since 1995.

But Oprah had an acute awareness of the role she could fill to make the biggest impact. And she did it be accentuating the positive.

“Winfrey’s entire empire is built on the idea that miracles — not just good fortune or persistence or community but honest-to-God miracles — are within our reach every day,” Mary Elizabeth Williams wrote recently on Salon.com.

“There’s a reason her voice still stands out, even in a media world that’s been exponentially diluted by cable and Internet. It’s because unlike the Jerrys and the Maurys she began with — and unlike the reality show divas and intervention-needing hoarders who came after — Oprah traffics in just one commodity: happiness,” said Williams.

Understand What Your Customers Are Really Buying
Not only does Oprah fill a real need by selling happiness, but she does it in a way that is authentic and connects with her target market.

It’s a terrific lesson for anyone that wants to use the power of marketing to grow their own business.

Building a thriving business and a recognizable brand isn’t about selling products, it’s about filling needs.

When you understand what you customer is really looking for, whether it’s happiness, stability, leisure, freedom or any other need, you’ve gone a long way to connecting with them. Selling your products is a natural extension of the process and something those customers need to do.

This is what accomplished marketers understand and the reason Oprah is, arguably, the most recognizable brand in the world today.