Go figure, an unhappy prospect! I know, I know, we should be treating all of our suspects and prospects with respect, but this went a little far and has a good lesson attached to it.

So the email goes on to say that he sent an email promotion to his list of prospects that are on his newsletter list with a “Happy Holidays” promotion and discount. This prospect actually “opted-in” to his email list.

So my client is rattled. He has on prospect out of 800+ that have emailed him saying, “Please don’t send me any more of these sales emails. I am tired of being sold to and really don’t appreciate you sending me these promotionally emails all the time”.

Obviously had a bad day, no doubt. But here’s what shocked the heck out of me next.

My client asks me, “Should I keep sending email promotions to my list, it seems like people don’t appreciate it.”

And here’s where I lost it…and my response with a different name to protect the innocent.

“Hi Bob,

This is going to come across somewhat direct. That is the way I intended it.

If you are going to let one person that had a bad day stop you from achieving your goals and dreams you should go work for someone else.

I’m serious. Sales and Marketing your products and services is an honorable job. You create jobs. You support the economy.You have 1 prospect out of 800+ tell you to stop sending “sales promotions” and you want to hand up the towel?.

Don’t quit selling. Don’t ever quit marketing. And by all means, don’t let one single person or anyone for that matter get you off track. Insulate yourself from criticism and put the headphones on and keep doing what you are doing.

Your Coach,

Matt”

I bet Bob isn’t alone either. If you have a spouse, employee, friends, or families getting in your head put on the force fields.

NOTHING gets done until something is sold. NOTHING! I believe the business owner, sales person, and marketer is the most honorable job on the planet. If we don’t sell, nothing gets done.

Never stop marketing or selling. That is your number one job as a business owner.

To your success,

Matt

1) You have a list of short one and two phrase keywords that relate to your product or service. (at least the one’s you think are related)

2) You have done a little research online, trying to find a couple keyword phrases that have the “long tail” we are looking for

Ok, that’s a great start so let’s dive deeper.

The whole goal in this process is to find the pockets of online searches for content that are less competitive and you can compete with right out of the gate. So now that we have our short one and two word phrases we can start getting a list of our “long tail” keywords to attack.

Step #1: Use The Google Keyword Tool

The most extensive tool I’ve found with data from “actual” searches is from Google. Of course, seems pretty straight forward. I am going to encourage you right now to go open a Google Adwords account. Go to www.adwords.com and sign up. Don’t setup any campaigns, just get an account so we can use the keyword tool. We will move on to Pay Per Click advertising this coming month. Of which, the long tail keywords will help you.

If you don’t want to sign up for an Adwords account, you can use their free Keyword Tool The process will be pretty much the same. So all you are going to do is take the one and two phrase keywords you came up with in part 1 and start plugging them in to the tool. What I usually do is keep a spreadsheet that outlines the “main” keyword, then I branch off to the long tail keywords in a separate column.

This spreadsheet will act as your main keyword list for many online marketing efforts so don’t lose it. Repeat the process, until you have a good solid list of about 50 long tail keywords. Remember these are phrases that are typically 3 or more words in combination like “lead generation consultant Seattle, WA”. Or, “marketing consultant Seattle WA”.

Step #2 – Competitive Research

So now that we have our list of long tail phrases, it’s time to isolate the competition. I am going to give you the free, cheap and dirty route. There are tools that help automate this further but this method works well for just getting started.

The first step is to open up Google. Then, I want you to type each keyword in quotes and do a search. In your spreadsheet, I want you to write down the top 3 domains that are ranked 1,2, and 3. Then I want you to write down the number of competing pages. This is important because it will tell you where you will be able to compete quickly for traffic online.

Ok…take a breath. I know, this is a lot but if you want to get good at online marketing you have to go through the process.

So, now that we have the domain names of the top 3 for each search phrase, I want you to visit these sites. We are now going to do a little online “espionage”.

When you visit their page, I want you to go to web browser and go to VIEW then SOURCE. You will see a page that is a bunch of programming code that makes the website.

What we are interested in is everything at the top of the page between the <META NAME=”keywords” >

These are all the keywords that your competitor is optimizing their website for. So what you are going to do is add any to your list that you didn’t have already. If you focus on your top 5-10 keywords with your process, you will be miles ahead of many in your market.

So go ahead and take some time and do your research. In the next series, I am going to give you some additional ammo on how to use your list of keywords.

As a starter, you will start seeing trends develop in the keywords and phrases. Start outlining those and start including them in your Blog content, in your articles, and other Social Media posts. You will even want to use these keywords in your digital real estate. This includes images, audio, and video…

Have a prosperous week!

Cheers,

Matt

If you are a small business, you need to be riding the “long tail” in all of your online marketing. Why is it important?

Here’s why…

See Al Gore invented the Internet some time ago (joke), and I think you will agree it is a pretty competitive place these days. To compete (especially when you are getting started online) with your blog or website you need to compete in a smaller pond so to speak.

So, here’s where the long tail comes in…

If I optimize my website for the term “Marketing Consultant” I am competing with potentially millions of sites with years of history. Not that I am not going to try of course, but it will take me some time. That is a great long term goal, but like you I want leads NOW dang it!

So, here’s how you can win in that game. Leverage the long tail. Optimize your site for a term like “Marketing Consultant Tampa, FL” for instance. Or even get more specific, and use a keyword like “Marketing and Branding Consultant Tampa Bay” for instance.

Here’s a good way to do a little research. Go into Google and put your keywords in quotes. See my example below. You will notice there are only 12,300 competing sites. Now we are on to something here…

So…When you are optimizing all of your online digital assets you need to be leveraging the long tail. This includes images, video, audio and of course your blog posts. So how do I do that you ask? Well, in part 2 we are going to dive into that deeper and go into long tail research for your small business.

Start by writing down all of the top level phrases related to your service, product, or industry. These are usually one or two word phrases or keywords that are commonly used by your prospects when searching for your product or service.

Start there, and you will be ready for part 2…

Now…Get back to work and Target, Attack, and Profit!

To Your Success,

What should you be using of Pay Per Click?

The short answer is, it depends…

I would say that while Facebook is fairly young in terms of the PPC game, they are a very viable player. In the testing that I am doing now, I am seeing some promising results.

Here are a couple reasons I would consider Facebook ads over Adwords:

1) Less Expensive – Facebook ads are costing me less per click than my Adwords accounts that I manage for clients.

2) Laser Targeted – With Facebooks 380+ million user base, they have much deeper and more relevant demographic data than Google does. I can actually target the users age, gender, and geographic location much easier than on Adwords. With Adwords I can’t always tell by just the context of keywords that were used.

3) No Slaps – So far, I haven’t seen the same wrath that I have experienced in the path from Google. It seems to be more user friendly with less restrictions for landing page content etc..I imagine that will change over time, but so far so good.

The bottom line is that as a small business owner I would for sure give it a shot. The same principles still apply for Facebook Ads for the most part. The biggest benefit is the ability to filter your ads for the exact audience.This ultimately save money as you have a higher conversion and a lower acquisition cost than Adwords.

If you dive into the Facebook PPC system and you have questions let me know. Would love to help!

Cheers,

Matt

What’s a Lasso for anyways? You got it, rounding up your herd. Or in marketing terms, turning “suspects” into prospects that tune into your channel and start getting to know you as you gain their trust.

Ok, so what’s the relationship with Twitter?

Here you go…

Twitter as a Social Media tool is an effective means to find “suspects” across the globe that are interested in what you have to say. You can go to search.twitter.com and in seconds find people that might have an interest or are currently looking for advice in your area of expertise.

Or, you can find thought leaders in your market and start a conversation with their followers. Here’s where the Lasso comes in…

It isn’t enough to just find them and start a communication on Twitter. Or add them to your list of followers for that matter…

You need to bring them into your “herd”. Get them on your newsletter list and bring them into the private conversations you are having with your customers and prospects. Twitter is an excellent and efficient tool for list building. Start building the trust, then move them into your herd. Throw a free offer out there, listen to their needs, and respond with something valuable they can’t ignore.

So next time you get on Twitter. Start thinking more strategically how you can move your followers from your followers list to your email list. Then from your email list to your customer list…

Now Go Target, Attack, and Profit!

As a small business owner you need every marketing dollar to pack the biggest punch possible. You don’t have the marketing muscle and budget of a Fortune 500 company. As such, your marketing system must have a split testing company to verify you are maximizing your results and ROI on every dollar spent.

The obvious goal is you put $1 of marketing in and you get $2 out. Otherwise known as 100% ROI.

Do you even know what the ROI is on your existing marketing? Do you track your performance?

If not, you aren’t being a good steward of your marketing dollars. Worst yet, you may have a piece of marketing that is pulling and converting leads into paying customers but it hasn’t reached it’s full potential. Imagine if you increase the performance of each piece of marketing by 10-20%. Imagine what that would do for your revenues and profits.

Bring in A/B split testing…

Split testing has been used by sophisticated marketers for a long time. The thought is that you take your first piece of marketing and establish a “control”. The key part of establishing the control is gathering the data and the metrics in the first place. If you aren’t doing this right now, build that into your system now.

If it is direct mail you are using, start using a unique 1-800 number, or on your marketing piece specify an extension. Make sure your office tracks these individually so you have a better understanding as to what ad, direct mail piece, or online advertisement created the lead in the first place.

Now that we have our control, it’s time to tweak our original offer. If this is a display ad or direct mail piece, my advice is to start with the headline. If you aren’t grabbing their attention, they won’t read any further. The 2nd item I usually focus on is the offer itself, and the call to action.

It is shocking how many marketing pieces I see from small business owners don’t even have an offer, let alone a strong call to action.

The key here is to change one item at a time, and start comparing your results to the control. When you find a new winner, THAT is now your new control. Your marketing system should be a process of continuous improvement. If you are happy with the results in one marketing campaign, advertisement, or promotion move onto the next one and leverage A/B testing to maximize profits there as well.

The key here is to integrate A/B testing as part of your marketing system, not a one time event that you do once a year.

To Your Prosperity,

If you have a website, and aren’t looking at your analytics you are leaving money on the table. Period.

If you don’t know what keywords your visitors are finding your website with, and what information they migrate to once on your site you are flying blind. If you have a blog, and you aren’t looking at the analytics you are flat out missing on juicy topics that your prospects want more of.

So first off, go get yourself a free Google Analytics account. You can’t go wrong here and it takes about 5 minutes to get up and running. For those technically challenged, your web guy or gal can help you out.

Here are few metrics you should be looking at:

1) Absolute Unique Visits – This is the most basic metric that will tell you the number of “unique visitors” visiting your website on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. This is important to understand when you start feeding these numbers in your online marketing strategy to determine how many leads you need to meet your goals.

2) Content | Top Content – The next metric I usually look at is content and the pages that my prospects are visiting most frequently. I find that many small business owners are surprised as to which pages actually get the most traffic. Use this as an indicator to get your most relevant content in front of your prospects directly from your main page.

3) Avg. Time On Page – It is always useful to know what pages your prospects are hanging out on the most. This metric will tell you those pages that prospects actually hang out and read. Typically a good gauge that you are hitting the mark with relevant content. If you mine the top 5 pages, this would be a good start for promoting in Social Media, Article Directories, and even your own blog posts.

4) Traffic Sources – My favorite is to look at where the traffic is coming from. From this screen you will be able to see what % of traffic comes from organic search vs. direct traffic. And you can also see traffic that is referred from partners, association websites etc. Before you allocate dollars to online advertising it is critical to understand the current state of where your traffic comes from. As you implement your marketing strategy, keep an eye on how the mix of your traffic sources change with each campaign.

5) Traffic Sources | Keywords – Without understanding the keywords prospects are using to actually find, you are not positioning your website tactically for lead conversion online. Many times you will find users searching for long tail keywords in combination that you may have never thought of. An example of this might be marketing consultant Seattle vs. marketing Seattle. Most times this occurs by accident. A great strategy is to use these keywords for further positioning. Write a blog post, article, or even a press release and integrate these keywords in the title and in the body and you will drive more traffic to relevant pages for your readers.

Hopefully you found this useful. Stay tuned for a how to video on leveraging Google Analytics on your website.

Now…

Go Target, Attack, and Profit!

Are you going to GO BIG this year? Are you going to stretch yourself and see what you can really accomplish? Or..are you going to hunker down in your bunker and wait for the storm to blow over? Hopefully the former, and not the latter…

Here’s the deal…As a small business owner and operator you have a huge advantage over the larger businesses in many ways. You can react quickly to change, create transparent relationships with you and your company and not just a brand. People like this, and so do your prospects. The marketing tools online have level set the playing field for the little guy, but you have to big, and think bigger than you are currently.

You have the entire globe at your fingertips. They are looking for products and services from businesses regardless of location. The world is flat, and getting flatter by the day…

THINK BIG, think about how your can morph your product or service and reach businesses outside your local area. Transform your business, start providing valuable information about your trade or skill. Open up opportunities for your business and listen to your prospects.

Hopefully your marketing strategy for 2010 includes GOING BIG! If not, tear it up and think bigger, have some fun and challenge the boundaries of what your brain tells you is possible.

And more importantly, quit listening to the bad news, fear mongering, and BS on the TV and focus on what you are going to get done in this new economy.

Now…

Go Target, Attack, And Profit!

Enjoy the video, and let me know if you have any questions on how to implement this quick tip.

Facebook Fan Box from John Jantsch on Vimeo.

~Matt