• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Welcome!
You’re busy. That makes it easy to put off marketing. Don't. Every day you put it off requires five to catch up. So let us help keep you on target. Our new quarterly e-newsletter is designed to make you more profitable...now
—Shannon Wilkinson, President, Cultural Communications
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Get
Visible.
If your name,
contact information and professional biography aren’t among the first results
when prospects Google you, you’re invisible.
Check
out these tips to get visible on search engines:
LinkedIn
is a free business-networking site used by 13 million professionals.
Post a detailed profile of your business or professional experience and
link with your colleagues and new business acquaintances to create a
network that grows exponentially. That visibility spreads to search engines:
Whenever someone searches for your name or your company, your LinkedIn
profile comes up. For best results, fill out your profile completely.
(www.linkedin.com)
Wikipedia
is the biggest free-content encyclopedia on the Internet,
with more than 7 million articles in over 200 languages. If Wikipedia
includes an entry directly related to your specialty, try to link your
Web site under the “External Links” section at the end of that category.
This is especially useful for people who have written books related to
specific Wikipedia topics. (www.wikipedia.org)
ZoomInfo
is a "people search" engine that hosts millions of
free and focused summaries of professionals and companies. By creating
your own profile, you increase your visibility online...as well as the
likelihood of being found by Google and other search engines when prospects
look for you. (www.zoominfo.com)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
 Priceless.
That’s how valuable your email addresses are. Email address
lists have replaced the database as businesses’ most important marketing
tool, and they are the most critical component of your marketing plan.
An up-to-date email list allows you to implement an instant, sophisticated
and effective e-marketing campaign.
To create a list that can be utilized by email marketing companies like
Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com) and PatronMail (www.patrontechnology.com),
create an Excel spreadsheet listing the first and last names and email
addresses of your contacts. Initiate your campaign as soon as it is complete,
and add to your list religiously.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Too Busy to Market?
Think
again. The most important time to market your business is when you think
you don’t need to. Here are four marketing steps to take now:
Announce.
Launch
a monthly e-letter or e-postcard targeting your VIP contact list. In
addition to an update from your company, include a helpful tip – such
as a recommended industry resource – to make it genuinely useful
to your recipients.
Inform.
Plan
one-year's worth of quarterly e-newsletters. Write the first one, have
it professionally edited and use a professional e-marketing company
to release it to your newly updated marketing list.
Publish.
Identify
five trade magazines that reach your biggest prospect groups. Contact
the editor of each one to pitch an article that you will write. Address
issues that will most interest their readers. Keep your initial query
short—one or two paragraphs. Follow up by phone within two weeks.
(For exposure in the most prestigious publications, try submitting
a letter to the editor…and make sure to include your title and company
name.)
Write...and
Post.
Write a position paper addressing hot issues in your industry.
Post it on your Web site and email a summary to your contact list.
Try distributing your paper as an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed.
Visit www.press-feed.com to
learn about setting up RSS feeds.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Don't
Wait.
Marketers are winners…and your prospects want
to do business with winners. Winners are visible, proactive and accessible.
They are up to speed with tech-savvy marketing, maintain appealing Web
sites with timely content and, not coincidentally, attract streams of new
business inquiries. Winners make it look easy…because they don’t make excuses
not to market.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
P.S.
Remember: if it looks like it's not important, it won't get read.
Up to 70% of snail mailings get discarded in seconds...and nuisance emails
are obliterated at warp speed. So, whatever you do, make it look important.
|
