How to Get Paying Customers
March 10, 2010 by LTruex
Filed under Direct Sales/MLM, Home Business Tips and Tools, Marketing, New Posts
Paying customers are the lifeblood of any business. So how does one identify and lure these customers in? Here’s some tips!
1. Target the right people. Who are the most probable people to buy your products or services? While many business owners think the whole world can benefit from what they have to sell, the reality is that you can’t sell to the whole world and generic one-size fits all marketing is ineffective. If your products or services fit an big audience, break that audience down into subgroups. For example, many people want to work at home, but for different reasons. Marketing to moms who want to stay home is very different than marketing to baby boomers worried about retirement income. So define your market(s).
2. Find your market. There’s a reason beer commercials aren’t shown during Oprah and why there’s tons of them during football. While beer drinkers and men may watch Oprah, the demographics overwhelmingly indicate that beer manufacturers should focus on putting their ads on male oriented programming. You want to do the same thing with your market. Find out where they are the most concentrated so you can focus your marketing efforts in those areas.
3. Write offers that appeal to the market. This goes back to the difference between moms and baby boomers when it comes to working at home. When I target moms my offers talk about being a mom and wanting to raise the kids. These are messages that mean something to moms, but wouldn’t do anything for a baby boomer. On the other hand, my marketing to baby boomers would talk about retirement concerns. You want to do the same for your market. What are its concerns? What language does it use?
4. Get lead information. Whenever possible (especially if marketing online), get contact information from potential customers. It is very rare that a customer will buy on the first visit to your “store”. Once they leave, they’re gone. But if you can entice them to give a name and email, now you have a prospect. You have a way to keep in touch, show them what kind of person you are and business you run. You can give them special offers, share tips, etc. It provides an opportunity to build a relationship so that your prospects will feel comfortable buying from you. To encourage people to give information, offer something helpful in return. It could be a free report, short consult, entry for a prize, etc.
5. Engage your network. A person is more likely to buy if they know you OR know someone who knows you. Join groups (online and off) that your target market belongs to. Use the opportunity to provide support or information and the customers will come. Don’t simply join groups to tout your business as that’s annoying.
6. Ask for referrals. Whenever I need a service, I ask someone I know and respect who she uses. And almost always I’ll work with the person referred to me. Why? Because businesses that have others talking about them and referring them must be pretty good. People are more likely to buy if someone referred them. So whenever you work with someone, ask if they know anyone else who could benefit from your product or service.
Getting Listed in Search Engines 101
Getting listed in search engines has evolved into a science. The gurus recommend all sorts of tricks and gimmicks to optimize your website (SEO). But some of these tricks can work against you.
Search engines are an important part of your Internet marketing strategy, however you can’t rely on search engines alone to drive traffic to your site. In fact, one of the ways search engines rank sites are how well they market using other methods. So search engines should be one of several marketing tactics you use to help people find your site.
Here are some tips to get you ranked in the search engines.
Step One: Make the Site Ready for Search Engine Spiders
Meta Tags
The first step to search engine ranking is use of your meta tags. Meta tags are information about your site that is hidden behind the scenes (viewable in the HTML view of your site) that lets the engines know what your site is about. At the very least you should have meta tags for the title, description and keywords of all your pages. These tags are placed in the <head></head> section in the code of your site:
Sample Header Code
<meta http-equiv=”Description” content=”Alchemy Copywriting offers results oriented, persuasive copy for internet, non-profit organizations and small business.”>
<meta http-equiv=”keywords” content=”copywriting, copywriter, direct sales, fundraising, sales copy, sales letters, advertising, promotion”>
<title>Alchemy Copy – Internet, Non-Profit and Small Business Copywriting</title>
When using the meta tags, you want to include your site’s name as well as keywords. But don’t over do it. And be honest. Include only the keywords and descriptions that are relevant to the page. For example, I wouldn’t include “work at home job” on a page that is about “home business”.
Text Copy on the Page
Include a heading to lead into the information on the page. Ideally it needs to include a keyword and be placed in heading tags (i.e. <H1></H1>)
Your text copy on the page should also include keywords and variations of keywords. Search engines don’t like pages that are stuffed to the brim with keywords. It likes real pages that offer real content. So your page should provide meaning full content that use variations of keywords. For example, if you were writing about “customer service” and using it as one of your keywords, you might substitute “customer relations” in some places.
Step Two: Submitting to Search Engines
Search Engine Submission
Whether or not you submit your site to search engines, they’ll eventually find you if you provide frequent relevant content and use your keywords. But you might as well help them out by letting them know you exist.
Below are some top search engines and directories at which you can register your website. Once you are at the home page, click on “Add URL” or “Add Your Site” which can frequently be found at the bottom of the site’s homepage. Be sure to have your name, site URL and keywords developed before you apply to add your site to the search engines and directories. You should probably submit your site individually at the top search engines.
- Google (many directories and engines pull from Google including Netscape and AOL)
- DMOZ Open Directory (AOL, Google, Netscape, Yahoo and others use Open Directory)
- MSN (many directories and engines pull from MSN including HotBot and Live Search)
- Yahoo
Sitemaps
Sitemaps are XML files that list your site’s pages that are ready to be crawled by search engines. If you use a content management platform such as WordPress, you can add plug-ins to create your sitemap and ping the search engines when they’re ready to be crawled.
If you’re not using a program that offers sitemap functions, here’s a free online sitemap generator from XML Sitemaps to create your sitemap file. It has some instructions on what to do with it when its done as well.
If you’re creating your own sitemap, you can submit the pages directly:
- Google http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping?sitemap=
- Yahoo http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/updateNotification?appid=SitemapWriter&url= and http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/ping?sitemap=
- Ask.com http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=
- Bing http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=
Step Three: Getting Ranked
Meta tags and sitemaps will get your site crawled, but not necessarily ranked on the first page of search engines. For each of your keywords your site is competing with thousands if not millions of other pages. So the search engines use other criteria to determine who gets the top spots. Below are the criteria and how to improve your chances of a good ranking.
Content – Your site content should fit the keywords provided, but also search engines like sites that have new content on a regular basis. That is why you find so many results from blogs and new/info sites that have new information posted several times a week or day. The important thing to remember is that quality of the content not the number of times a keyword is used is important.
Backlinks – Search engines also judge the quality of your site by how many other sites deem your information worthy of a link to your site. There are several ways to create backlinks to your site. The easiest ways include writing articles and submitting them to article directories, posting comments on other people’s sites/blogs, and negotiating link exchanges with other sites.
Search Engine Optimization Tools
A great tool to help with search engine optimization including evaluating your site for ranking as well as ways to improve SEO, check out WebCeo.
Home Business Marketing 101
You have researched and chosen your home business idea. You have obtained all necessary permits and licenses. Now you need customers. Many new business owners are disappointed to discover how long it can take to generate regular clientele particularly when using only print advertising and the yellow pages. Nevertheless there are many low cost, effective ways to get the word out about your business. Below is a list of some of those methods:
Make a plan: Promotion, publicity, marketing, advertising…whatever you want to call it, it works best if you have thought ahead and developed a plan. Haphazard marketing will only get you haphazard responses. The following ideas should be put together with any other marketing ideas you have into a marketing plan that also includes a budget and method for evaluating how each marketing method is working.
Business Cards: Every business book recommends business cards. But it takes more than just having them, they need to be distributed. Hand them out to anyone and everyone that will take it (give them several so they can share them too). Include business cards in your bill payments and other correspondence. Post them on community bulletin boards. Leave them on the table at cafes or restaurants.
Send Announcements: Send everyone in your target market an announcement regarding your service. You may even want to include a grand opening special.
Press Releases: The great thing about a press release is that it looks like news written by someone else thereby giving your business credibility. In Do It Yourself Publicity David Ramacitti suggests having a press release campaign in which press releases are sent monthly. Press releases should not be advertisements, but instead give some sort of information or news. Some ideas for press releases include a grand opening, a business anniversary, a major
milestone is reached such as the 1000th customer, personnel changes, winning an award, and to introduce a new product or service. In Ramacitti’s book he gives 50 excuses for writing a press release, how to write it and how to make the best use of it. Its a great book…if you can find it. Other books on press releases and publicity will also help you.
Network Join the chamber of commerce and other organizations in which other business people can exchange information and referrals. Don’t forget about networking online. Let your online buddies know about your business. Join groups in your target market to develop relationships (not just to post your ads) and let them know how you can help.
Community Service People always feel better about working with people who give something to the community. Not only will they choose your service over
a competitors, but they will refer you to others. Plus, your volunteer or community activities can make a great press release.
Write an article: Just like a press release gives you credibility, so does a published article. Many home business successes have taken this idea further and written successful books. It can take a long time to get published in traditional magazines; however, many website and ezine owners will happily publish your article. You won’t get paid, but you get free publicity. Many successful online marketers including myself have used this technique. To get your article out to as many websites and ezines as possible, I use Unique Article Wizard to help me create unique content and distribute my articles to thousands of resources.
Seminars Offering a course related to your business can help you look like an expert in your field. Give participants enough information to get something of value, but not so much that they don’t need your service. Contact your local adult education, community education, or community college resources about teaching a course. Teleseminars can be done from the comfort of your home. Free services such as Free Conference Call offer the phone line. You and your guests simply pay for long distance.
Go On-line More and more home based business owners are tapping into this great advertising source. Websites, blogs, e-mail, and discussion groups are a great way to get information about your products and services out beyond your community to the world! Further, the costs to promote your business online can be very inexpensive. Or visit the Internet Marketing Center to get one of the best resources for learning Internet marketing.
Great customer service Be sure to meet, better yet exceed your clients’ expectations. You want to offer great service, but don’t offer more than you can deliver. Use feedback surveys to help keep informed on how your customers feel about your service and to get ideas on how your service can be improved.
