Biz Tips Blog: Online Marketing, Visibility and Business Blogging Tips

RIP Biz Tips Blog

It's been awhile coming, yet I've resisted it for months...I've decided to shut down this blog. :-(

My internal conflict stems from the fact this was my very first blog, started in September 2004. However, over the last few months, I decided to focus more of my content creation attention on my site over at DeniseWakeman.com. Initially it was simply going to be a site to get info about me and my products and services. But of course, to offer the most value and attract the most traffic, I knew I needed to integrate a blog with the site.

I realize I just don't have the bandwidth to write consistently on three blogs so something's got to go and this blog is the natural choice. Build a Better Blog will carry on with posts published a couple of times a week.

On DeniseWakeman.com I'll continue to focus my writing on how you can leverage the web to boost your visibility so you can get your important message out to the world!

If you subscribe to get Biz Tips Blog updates, you don't need to do anything. You won't miss any new content as I transfer my subscribe system to DeniseWakeman.com. Or you can manually subscribe to get updates here. (You can unsubscribe anytime via a link at the bottom of every email update.)

It's been a great ride and I invite you to continue on the journey with me.

BLOG ON!

Cool Tool Alert - Hundreds of Graphic Images for Your Sales Pages

I love a great deal and I was just turned on to one -- a suite of graphic images you can use on your sales pages, web sites, powerpoints, landing pages -- for only $10.95.

I'm not a graphic designer by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes I need images for my sales pages. A well designed call to action button can encourage more sales. A stylish check mark for your bullet points can turn a boring sales page into a credible tool to sell your product.

It can cost a fortune to have a designer create custom "buy now" or guarantee badges or cool check marks and arrows for your sales pages.

This package - the Marketing Graphics Toolkit - has hundreds of options and multiple color versions of every button and badge. For some of the images you will need Photoshop to manipulate them, but at least half are jpg or png files you can simply upload to your pages. For the images that require customization, give the files to your designer and that will save you time and money since she won't have to recreate the wheel (that's what I'm going to do!).

I realize this is a salesy blog post, but the package is a great deal and these kinds of graphic images are important for your business. I feel like it's my obligation to let you know about hot deals on tools you can use to do business better. Obviously you'll make up your own mind. But seriously, even if you use just a few of the images, you'll have made your investment back and then some. That's why I jumped on it and encourage you to at least check out what you get and see if you can use any of the graphic images for your websites.*

I've looked at other graphics packages in the past, but this one has the most variety and best range of color and styles.

Check out the Marketing Graphics Toolkit here.

 

Tweet

*I'm an affiliate for this product.

8 Hot Social Media Tips From Eight Industry Experts

This guest post by Amy Porterfield is reprinted with permission from Social Media Examiner and features tips from experts who will be speaking at Social Media Success Summit 2011.

Are you looking for some creative ideas to enhance your social media activities? If so, look no further.

To help you lay down tracks for social media success, here’s a solid list of strategies from eight top social media experts. Take a look, ask yourself what tips you can use and start reaping the rewards of real success.

#1: Offer live events on Facebook

“To provide additional value and fresh ways for your fans to interact with you, periodically conduct live chat sessions or live webinars or teleseminars. My co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day, Chris Treadaway, and I recently conducted what we called a ‘flash chat’ in order to crowdsource content for version two of our book,” explained Mari Smith.

“We used the awesome webinar platform Linqto and within a few minutes we had a large group of people interacting with us. Linqto allows presenters to be on webcam and mic and take turns ‘on the floor’ while participants interact via chat,” said Mari.

Mari also said you can keep it real by simply conducting a live Q&A right on your Facebook fan page wall. You’ll get extra visibility in the news feeds of your fans!

Build Marketing Momentum: Three Keys to More Profits

This is a guest post by Sydni Craig-Hart of www.SmartSimpleMarketing.com.

Most service professionals know that they need to market their business consistently to get great results. But knowing and doing are two very different things. It can seem challenging to market consistently when you're so busy serving your clients, running your company, and trying to take care of and enjoy the other aspects of your life.

Without a doubt, effective marketing requires your time, energy, and consistent effort, but not to the point that it becomes draining for you. It actually should be really easy - and it can be! Once you build momentum and get the right systems in place, you'll find that your marketing runs like a well-oiled machine. It will support you in filling your practice with ideal clients. You'll also create more visibility for the solutions you offer, and generating the income you need to enjoy the lifestyle of your choice.

Then you might be thinking, "that all sounds great, Sydni, how do I do that?" Let me answer that question for you.

Contest - Win a Copy of Seth Godin's Poke the Box

Over on DeniseWakeman.com I'm running a contest ... I'm giving away three copies of Seth Godin's new book, Poke the Box.

There are over 100 entries so far, each person posting the anwer to this question:

"Imagine that the world had no middlemen, no publishers, no bosses, no HR folks, no one telling you what you couldn't do.

If you lived in that world, what would you do to get your business in front of more people, get more visibility, so you can touch more lives and make a big difference in the world?

Go. Do that."

Get the details and enter here >>>

Tweet

8 Ways to Build Your Mailing List

Perusing the LinkedIn groups I belong to, I stumbled on this question:

"Here's a standard, oft repeated and elementary question, but one I could really use some answers to about now: What are some of the most effective and ethical ways of building one's mailing list for a relatively new coach?"

I've had conversations with two VIP clients about list building in the last couple of days and offered several ideas. Here's the answer I gave on LinkedIn: