Online Marketing Plan 1

 1) To show you that internet marketing CAN work for a serious, reputable business like yours. It’s not about luck; it’s about strategy and consistency. 2) To lay out a step-by-step guide that shows you exactly how to leverage the internet to get more clients/customers… and increase profits! This guide is NOT for everyone. My assumption is that you already have a solid service (or are committed to building a practice that offers such). If you run a business with integrity and are committed to providing value, this marketing plan is going to help you get clients with ease! To make the most of this online marketing plan, I highly recommend printing this out. Feel free to take notes as you go along. ad, ...................................................This online marketing plan is broken down into 5 key areas: 1) 7 Keys to Online Marketing Success 2) ACT – The 3 Step Process to Getting Clients Online 3) How to Become the Go-To Expert in your Field 4) Website and Traffic 5) Blogs, eZines, Social Media Sites: Where to Start? 7 Keys to Online Marketing Success 3 Before we dive into the how-to of internet marketing, it’s important to understand the basic rules. If you take nothing else away from this plan but these rules, you will end up saving a lot of time and money. 1) Never implement a tactic without a strategy. It can be so tempting at times to just jump on the bandwagon of the next “big thing” without really understanding why. If you think you need a blog or a Facebook account or videos on YouTube, think again. When marketing online, always start with a goal in mind and then find the tool that fits. Never visa-versa. 2) Stick to what feels good. There are many tools that can be used to accomplish the same goal. Don’t feel tied to any one method. If you are uncomfortable with the technology, learn how to utilize it or have someone implement it for you. But if you can’t stand the practice itself, look elsewhere. 3) Attention IS scarce, but your prospects are still looking for the right information. Your prospects are being pulled in a million different directions online. Everything you have been hearing about information overload is true. Yet your prospects continue to search online for answers - and they want the information their way. (We will cover this in-depth later!) 4) Content is KING. Your online success is directly proportional to the quality of information you provide. You may get away with a lacking product or service once in a while, but repeat clients come to those who consistently provide a high quality service. 5) Embrace the editor within. The internet will always be a changing entity. You can’t setup a website and then sit back and relax. (Sorry to break that to you!). You have to constantly keep up with it and edit and update accordingly. 6) Advertising is Out. Expertise is In. Only 14% of people trust advertising. Personally, I think that number is too high. Online advertising definitely has its place when done right, but not always. When was the last time you chose a doctor or a lawyer because of an ad you saw? Establishing yourself as an expert is the KEY to attracting more clients online. 7) Community. Community. Community. For brick and mortar businesses (aka offline shops) it’s location, location, location. Location doesn’t matter to an online business. Community does. Your job is to build a fan base online-a community of people who LOVE what you have to offer. Appeal to the select few; appeal to your ideal clients. ACT Online: Attract, Convert, Transform 4 This methodology is what has allowed me to go from a solopreneur to running a 23 persona full-service digital marketing firm within 1 year! 90% of our clients find us online. ACT stands for Attract, Convert, and Transform. What do you need to attract prospects online? : A great BOD! No joke. : ) • Brand: If your brand could be summed up in one word, what would it be? (More on this in the next section). • Outcome: What’s the outcome you help clients achieve? Not the process you use, but the FINAL result. Sum it up in one line. • Differentiator: What makes you different than your competitors? And please don’t say price. What makes you INHERENTLY different? For example, the online marketing field is a competitive one. However, most companies offer piecemeal services. Some do web design, some consult, and some specialize in SEO. But, no one offered all the strategic and implementation services under one roof. It’s been an amazing differentiator for us! Okay, so you have a great BOD. Now how can you attract prospects online? Here are some tactics: • Blogging • Social Media Marketing (Facebook and Twitter) • Articles • SEO/PPC (More on this Below) • Videos • Short Sites • Giveaways • Joint Ventures • Social Bookmarking Boggled? Initially, choose 2, do your research, and implement consistently! So, what happens after attraction? You CONVERT. What do you need in order to CONVERT? 5 The Holy Grail of Online Marketing: YOUR WEBSITE! We will get into the technical details of the website a bit later, but for now let’s focus on how to leverage your website to the max. Every visitor is unique! Some are looking for more information, while others are ready to buy. So, what does that mean for you? You have to cater to people on every spectrum of the marketing rainbow. A solid website will do all three. E M S (The Online Marketing Version of 911). Educate, Market, and Sell Some prospects need to be educated about your process (educate), others need to know why you are special (marketing), and the rest want to buy (sell!). When someone gets information from your website, they become consumers. Consumption + Conversion = Client Not everyone who consumes your information (by signing up for your newsletter, reading your blog, or downloading your article) will become a client immediately. Some may never become clients, but they may tell a friend who will. Your website has to cater to BOTH audiences: The Consumers and the (almost) Clients. The better your ONLINE conversion, the more clients you will have. Sometimes, conversion occurs over a period of time. For example, a new client signed on after being on our eZine list for over a year. Other times, conversion is immediate. One of our clients, K9Cuisine.com, has almost instant conversion. People visit and buy. So, what about the T? T stands for TRANSFORM. Once you attract a prospect and turn them into a consumer or client, you MUST deliver. Scratch that, you MUST OVER DELIVER. Provide A+ service. Then, harness case studies. You did a great job; now make sure you get that on record. Share these case studies on your website and blog. Use these case studies to attract and convert. 6 The process comes FULL circle. Doesn’t this process take a long time? Absolutely not. It just looks that way because it’s so detailed. Once your system is in place, it will run on autopilot. Imagine this scenario: An acquaintance from Facebook visits your website and signs up for your eZine. You have attracted an individual and turned him into a consumer of your information. At the same time, a veteran blog subscriber directly buys your new product after listening to a case study. You have a client. Yet, another individual downloads your free eBook. This can all happen simultaneously. You are constantly creating consumers and clients online. Online, you can move THOUSANDS of prospects at different junctures at the SAME TIME. All you need is systems. MAJOR TAKE AWAYS: 1) ACT stands for Attract, Convert, and Transform. It’s a process! 2) Once set up, it can happen seamlessly. 3) Your website has to do all 3: Educate, Market, and Sell. Otherwise, it’s not a marketing tool. It’s just a brochure site. My ACT Online Plan: Which current and past clients can I approach to obtain case studies from? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ How will I make my website into the “holy grail” of my online marketing? What do I need to do that? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ In what ways can I educate, market, and sell at the same time? (i.e. a blog for education, a direct product page to sell, etc.) 7 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Sum up your outcome in ONE line. What’s the bottom line difference you make? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ How to Become the Go-To Expert in Your Field The Attention Paradox: People are overwhelmed with all the information online but continue to seek out what they need. So, how do you stand out in such a maze? Do it by establishing yourself as the go-to-guy or gal in your industry. (This can apply to a company, as well a company owner. Coca-Cola is huge, but they are a leader in the soft drinks market). Experts are natural attention magnets. People are drawn to them because of the value they provide. Once you are an established expert, not only will people give you their attention, they will let you keep it. (Quick note: I know that some people feel uncomfortable with the term “expert.” It doesn’t mean you have to know everything. On the contrary, the ultimate expert is always teaching and learning at the same time!) Before we get into the how-to’s, let’s go over the benefits of leveraging the internet to set yourself up as the expert- • Everything you do will have a higher perceived value. Our society rewards experts. We pay the bigger bucks, gladly, to people we consider to be at the top of their game. • You attract highly desirable clients, consistently! Prospects will contact you ready to buy because they are presold by the perception they have of you. • Shorter sales cycle. The people who come to you won’t think of you as a stranger! In fact, they may act like they have known you a lot longer than you think. It’s not odd for people to approach me at conferences and ask about the business and even my personal life at times. They feel like they know me because of the blog. I have managed to take them from stranger to prospect just by writing my blog! 8 • More Joint Venture requests. When you are the expert, everyone wants in on the action! Don’t be surprised if other top experts want to partner with you or if you get requests from the media. It’s all part of being the expert. Okay, so now you just want to know HOW?! Before we get into the technical aspects of how to leverage the internet to build this expert-status, we have to go over the basic steps. This will serve as the foundation of all that you do online! STEP # 1- Cultivate an Attitude of Giving: I don’t know ONE expert online who doesn’t consistently give away valuable content. You don’t get points for keeping secrets. Giving away information is the FASTEST way to get the attention of strangers. There are no to-do action points for this step. It’s just a mindset you have to get comfortable with! Don’t worry about people “stealing” your information. In fact, make it easy for them to take the information and share it with others. You aren’t selling this information; you are leveraging it to get clients and customers. STEP # 2- Show them that you feel their pain: Online expertise starts with empathy. The only thing harder than getting people’s attention is getting their trust; in order to gain your prospects’ trust, you have to show them that you understand their pain. Better yet, put it in words for them. Then, offer them the solution. Experts provide solutions and solutions come only AFTER a problem is properly defined. Example: Businesses across industries struggle to understand and leverage the internet in a classy way. Most of them have heard about internet marketing but shy away from it because (1) they have no clue where to start or (2) wonder if it’s even worth their efforts. Internet marketing usually conjures up images of aggressive sales letters and pushy “last chance deals”. What they need: Someone to guide them to realistically and gracefully market their services online and consistently grow their business. Now you try: The Big Problem: _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ 9 __________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ What they need: _________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ STEP # 3- One Word Brand: This is probably the toughest exercise yet. I can describe every expert online using one word or one phrase. It’s what EVERY bit of their identity is built around. No long paragraphs or pages worth of “who you want to be seen as”. Just choose ONE word and let that be the essence of your expert-persona. Let’s look at some examples: Alexandria Brown (eZine Queen): Feminine. Everything about her online brand screams feminine. The long blond hair, the cute-outfits, her PINK eZine; this brand won’t work for everyone but it does for the eZine queen. Seth Godin: Innovator. Seth is an author of many marketing books and also writes a very successful blog. His take on marketing is the same as many others, but he conveys it in the most brilliant way. His latest book title: Meatball Sundae. Shama Kabani (that’s me!): Passionate. I LOVE marketing and I LOVE technology and I LOVE helping businesses leverage the internet. I am constantly speaking at conferences, learning new things, and testing ideas for our clients. I am passionate about businesses and technology…and it bleeds through in all that I do. Now, your turn: One word to describe my online brand is __________________. Because _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 10 _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ STEP # 4- Your Ultimate Vision: By now you have your target market’s problem defined and your one word brand. Now, it’s time to look at your ultimate vision. This is where you get to decide what outcome you will consistently try to deliver. Fed-Ex for example is all about overnight delivery. That’s their promise and their vision. They may offer other services and they may have certain processes in place but that doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. Their bottom-line promise is what matters. Dominoes Pizza promises to get your pizza to you in less than 30 minutes. How many toppings do they offer? How do their drivers get to you in time? That’s just details. Their main promise is that you won’t have to be hungry for longer than 30 minutes. The Marketing Zen Group is all about proving a one stop shop for online services. Essentially anything you need in regard to online marketing, we provide. You don’t have to go to 10 different sources. We’ve hired all the best experts, and put them under one roof. Now… What’s your vision? _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 11 _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Great, you now have all the basics to take the online world by storm. You have your giving mindset, your problem statement, your one word brand, and your ultimate vision. Now all you have to find is… Step #6- The Ultimate Communication Channel: This is where the rubber meets the road. You have to decide HOW you are going to convey all this information (Steps 1 to 5) to your prospects online. The beauty of internet marketing is that there are multiple ways to communicate the same ideas. Let’s take a look at an example: Gary Vaynerchuck: Gary was just a regular guy from New Jersey who used to help his family run a liquor store. He noticed that lots of people were shy about purchasing expensive wine because they thought it was snobby and didn’t know much about it. Now, Gary had a giving mindset. He wanted to educate people! He understood his target market’s problem. He was a regular guy from Jersey who liked wine-HIS BRAND. One word: Regular Joe. His ultimate vision was to get regular folks to enjoy more wine. So, he started his own mini show on the web called WineLibraryTV.com. It was a HUGE hit. He did 5 to 15 minute segments on a different type of wine each time and he did it in his usual “regular Joe from Jersey” kind of style. Last I heard, his “liquor store” was grossing 15 million dollars in revenue. His communication channel fit his audience. You have to look at what fits your audience best. Sometimes you can even leverage multiple online channels to get your message across and establish expertise. What are some of the communication channels available? • Online Video • Blogging • Online newsletters (eZines) • Podcasting (online audio) • Social Media Sites • Online Forums • Wikis 12 • Online PR • White Papers • Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click • Webinars/Teleseminars Website and Traffic If you look closely you will see that website is NOT listed in the aforementioned communication channels. Why? Because a website is not an optional communication channel, it’s your home! You wouldn’t market a retail store that didn’t exist right? Your website is your store front, regardless of whether you are selling products or services. Better yet, think of your website as your online salesperson. Would you ever send a sales person out into the world without looking tip-top or without having all the information on your business? Let’s start from the top! The Basics Domain Name: Use your business name and keep it short. Shorter domain names are more memorable but don’t sacrifice a good name for this rule. You can book a domain name at www.1and1.com or www.GoDaddy.com. Always register a domain name for 3 years or more. Registering for just one year makes search engines (like Google and Yahoo) suspicious. Most spam sites register only for 1 year! Hosting: Your website needs to be hosted on a server. Depending on how much information you have on your website, you may need more server space. http:// www.MarketingZen.com is hosted by Host Gator. We pay 12 dollars a month for business hosting with great tech support and unlimited domains and email addresses. Business Email Address: Get one and use it. It’s that simple. Don’t email clients from yahoo or Gmail or any other free email provider. Design Get a Professional Web Designer: It doesn’t matter if you have an eye for design or color or anything else. Unless you are a web designer, don’t design your website yourself. Would you build your house yourself? (Okay…would your kids and spouse want to live in that house?) 13 Navigation: If visitors can’t navigate your website with ease, all they have to do is click the back button and go to another. This would be the worst reason to lose a potential client. Find a designer who isn’t just focused on what looks pretty, but also has an eye for what works. In the technical field this is called “user experience.” Solid navigation and clean design make for a pleasant user experience. Content Management System (CMS) What is it? Content management systems allow non-technical folks to update their own website content. You need a content management system if you are not technically inclined or have someone available who is. WordPress or Joomla: These are two of my favorite content management systems. They are both free, easy to install, and offer many options that allow you to customize your site to suit your needs. www.MarketingZen.com is fully built on WordPress. Content is KING! Your website MUST convey the following: • Your one-word brand. (It doesn’t have to ever state it explicitly, but it must be easy to discern your brand from looking at your website.) • Your vision. • The problem you are trying to solve. • Always excellent content that educates your visitors. Don’t try to skim on this part. • Your ideal client or audience. Who are you trying to reach? • Your services. What do you have to offer? • Social proof. Who have you helped and what results did they achieve? • About your company. Use this page to build credibility with your visitors. Remember, the website should be more about them than it is about you. • Contact Information. Give prospects at least 2 ways to reach you. (i.e. email AND phone number.) Traffic: 14 A website is worthless if there is no one visiting it. Traffic refers to the number of visitors that come to your website on any given day. How do you get traffic? • Links from other sites: o Sometimes other website owners and (usually) bloggers that like something you have to say will share your website with their visitors. You can also offer to write a guest post or article for another website. o You can submit articles to article directories and get links back. www.EzineArticles.com for example is a big article directory. The same goes for online press releases. o Social Media Sites and Social Bookmarking Sites o WARNING: Never buy or sell links. This is a very low level practice and if the search engines find out (which they have a way of doing), your site will be banned. Also, beware of people trying to sell you traffic for an x amount of dollars. Traffic cannot be bought in such a manner. • Search Engine Optimization (SEO): o Official definition: SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. Basically, it means tweaking website code and building links (ethically and legally!) in order to increase a website’s ranking on a search engine result’s page (SERP’s).  Why are links important? Search Engines rank sites according to their credibility. They call this a page rank. A site’s credibility is measured by how many other websites link to it. The more inbound links you get, the better your page rank.  Check out this video on What Is SEO? • Pay Per Click (PPC) ads o An online advertising model where you pay for each click your website receives. Google’s PPC service is known as AdWords. • Direct visitors o This is when visitors directly type in your website address into the address bar of their browser. This is what happens when you hand someone your business card and they go home and type in your website address. 15 Website Marketing Plan Domain Name: ____________________________________________________ Hosted By: _______________________________________________________ Business Email Address: ____________________________________________ Website will be Designed/Re-Designed By: ______________________________ Content Management System: ________________________________________ Does Content Meet the Requirements laid out on Pg. 15 of this plan? _________ Traffic Obtaining Strategies (Start with one of the Above Mentioned Strategies and then Build On It). ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ 16 ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ Blogs, eZines, Social Media Sites: Where to Start? I have a website. Why do I need more? Good question. 1) A website is no good unless it actually gets visitors. Some of these strategies help drive traffic to your site. 2) One time visitors aren’t very helpful. You want people to keep coming back to your site or find some way to keep in constant contact with them. Why? a. Because people forget. It’s your job to stay connected. The internet makes this VERY easy because you can stay in touch with lots of people at the same time. You can practically put a follow-up system on autopilot. b. Most people need to hear from you an average of 7 times before they will actually make a purchase. This holds especially true for people looking to purchase services. You have to educate them, establish your expertise, and then make an offer. Let’s take a look at the 3 most popular ways to keep in touch with visitors and prospects. eZines or Online Newsletters: • An eZine (a.k.a. e-Zine, email newsletter, e-mail newsletter, or e-newsletter) is a newsletter that is delivered via email that you can subscribe or opt-in to. • There are many services that assist you in building and delivering an eZine. Our favorite service is InfusionSoft. It is extremely robust, and we use it for all our clients. • Key Things to Remember: o You must always get permission from someone before adding them to your list. Otherwise it’s considered spamming and can get you in trouble. o Again, content is KEY. Your eZine will only be as good as what’s inside it. You have to be comfortable writing or find someone who is. 17 o It’s best to send out eZines at LEAST once a month. Any less and it may not be worth it. The most should be once a week. Find the balance that suits your audience. Blogging: • The Wikipedia definition: A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, such as small business or marketing. Some blogs discuss personal experiences. • There are many platforms that will allow you to build your own blog. WordPress and Joomla (as listed above) are two of my favorites. A simpler platform may also be www.blogger.com. • Key Things to Remember: o Don’t start a blog if you cannot at least write 2 solid entries or posts a week. A blog takes more commitment than an eZine because you also have to drive traffic to it. o If you do choose to start blogging, allow readers to subscribe to your posts by email or RSS feed. (What is RSS? Visit www.whatisrss.com. ) o Make friends with other bloggers. It’s a great community! Social Media Sites: • The Wikipedia definition: Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, video blogs (v-logs), wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowd sourcing36, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo 18 sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging) and other microblogs like Jaiku and Pownce. • Social Networking Sites allow you to create your own page or profile and then network online with others. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter are some examples. • Key Things to Remember: o Start with one social media site and then branch out. I highly recommend signing up at Facebook when first starting out. Here is an article on The Changing Face of Facebook Marketing. o Manage your time. It’s very easy to spend hours on these sites without accomplishing much in terms of marketing. o These are all relationship building tools. Social media marketing is best for building affiliations with strangers. Don’t try to sell people directly. You can’t go straight to home. It’s your job to get their attention, to give them information, and then provide an experience. Social Media Marketing Plan Social Media Methods I Want to Research: