Internet Marketing Tips from Denise Wakeman

Attention Coaches and Consultants...

Last week Patsi and I quietly launched Content for Coaches and Consultants, a revamped, redesigned and renamed site for Patsi's original business, Customized Newsletter Services. The site is aimed at busy executive and business coaches and consultants who need high quality, professionally written and edited content for their ezines, websites and blogs.

Patsi gives a short history of her business here, if you're not familiar with her background as a psychologist and journalist.

The media release has more info.

And, if you're unsure about what content marketing is, read Patsi's posts on Content or Marketing or Both? All Content Is Marketing andContent Marketing: a primer for business people who want to get found quickly on the Web.

By the way, the new site is built on the Wordpress platform. You see, we're not totally stuck in our old ways. We wanted to build the site on a platform that would allows us to easily organize the content since we add new articles every month. We could have built the site on TypePad, but we do want to learn other platforms so this is our first foray into wordpress, though we're not using it as a blog in the conventional sense.

If you're in the market for content around leadership, management, emotional intelligence, team dynamics, etc., check out Content for Coaches and Consultants.

Online Promotion Tips: Use Facebook

Online promotion means using all available resources online.

Update: It's been about 24 hours since we sent our first email announcement about the free teleseminar we're presenting as an intro to our Law of Action 2.0 program. Remember, as I mentioned in my last post our goal is 1,000 registrations. As of this posting, we have 304 registrations. Woot! A testament to the power of a well written email AND the joint venturing with a colleague who also has a big list.

We've also reached 11% of our goal for LOA registrations from alumni of our first program.

OK, now what?

Use Facebook to Extend Your Reach

The next order of business, after the email promo went out was to get the teleseminar posted on Facebook. I set up an Event page for the 5 Internet Marketing Traps class. I used some of the copy from the landing page and some from the email promo. Then, I invited all my "friends." I currently have 1,062 Facebook friends.  You can only invite 100 people at a time so it takes awhile. 

A couple of things to remember when setting up an event and inviting friends:

Online Promotion Tips: Go Offline with a TeleSeminar

Online promotion involves more than the Internet. Of course the Internet is one of the most powerful ways to promote anything, but sometimes you have to go offline.

In my previous post, I stressed the need for a list.  And, for our upcoming 4 week mentoring program, Law of Action 2.0, I wrote about using email to promote an early bird, VIP offer to alumni of the first program.

Once that promotion is complete, it's time to move on.

Promote Your Program with a Free Teleseminar

Our next step in promoting Law of Action 2.0 is to offer a free info teleseminar.

To attract more people into the program, we're offering a free teleseminar called 5 Internet Marketing Traps That Can Derail Your Business. Of course to promote the free teleseminar we have to do all the same steps as we do to promote the 4 week program and the first order of business was to send an email out to our entire client database.

Our goal for the free class is to have 1,000 registrations.  Less than an hour after sending the email, we have 95 registered participants. The free class is in 2 weeks (June 24) so that's not a bad start.

But let's go back to the teleseminar.

Why would we do a free teleseminar to promote a fee-based teleseminar?

Online Promotion Tips: How to Get the Word Out

Promoting your product, service, book, cause, teleseminar -- whatever it is -- takes ongoing work and using multiple channels. Our company is always promoting something because we create a lot of programs and products. Over the next few days I'm going to share the multiple ways we promote our stuff. It's something you cannot be afraid or reluctant to do if you want to have a successful business of ANY kind.

You Need a List

The very foundation of all online promotion is YOUR LIST. Everything you do needs to be focused around building your list. All of our promotion starts and usually ends with our list. We use KickStartCart as our database management/ecommerce system.

A good list doesn't get built overnight. It takes time, the right offers (ethical bribes), good segmentation. But this isn't a list building post and this information is well documented by many, many savvy marketers all over the Web.

As as example of how we promote our programs, I'm going to use a 4-week program that we have starting in July. That's about 3 weeks from now so I'll document for you how we're planning to fill that program. Our goal is a minimum of 100 participants.

The Trust Factor: 7 Ways to Build It

How do you build trust over the Internet with visitors to your sites? If you're selling anything over the Web, people don't usually have personal contact with you, so your written words have to create confidence with potential buyers.

This is one of the reasons we advocate blogging for your business. When you are writing frequently, people get to know you on a level that is beyond your web page brochures and sales copy.

There are other things that go into creating an impression of reliability and trust with people. Here are a few things to consider:

1. You write in a clear and transparent way
2. You show you're fallible and make mistakes, and admit and correct them
3. You provide free reports, teleseminar access, and other info for free
4. You don't over-hype your products but deliver your sales copy with research, case studies and valid testimonials