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5 Cost Effective Ways To Market Your Business Online…

Home Based Business, make money from home, making money from home, Online Marketing, social media marketing, , , , ,

Let’s be frank! Online marketing is not easy. You’re spending money, time, and energy hoping that something sticks and that you hopefully become the next big thing or you get some ROI on your investment. What works for my business isn’t going to necessarily work for another. You have to be creative, diligent, and always be watching to see what is working and what isn’t.

Not only is there a huge learning curve for beginners, but you have plenty of marketers coming after your wallet claiming to be experts in online marketing. If you decide to go at it alone, it will take you weeks, months, or even years to figure it out. If you hire someone you pray you made the right decision and don’t flush money down the toilet.

Personally, I have been marketing online since 2008 and have worked with many individuals and businesses on their online marketing. I wanted to take some time to share with you 5 of my favorite Cost Effective things you can do to market your business online that won’t waste your time or your hard-earned dollars if done correctly.

5 Cost-Effective Ways To Market Your Business Online

#1. Blogging — Even though blogging can takes months or even years to build up any sort of decent following, writing about things that are relevant to your audience can always increase traffic and in return get you more followers and customers for your business. If you choose to blog there are 2 things you will want to always remember — consistency leads to results and you will need to have patience — lots and lots of it. I personally, write 2 blogs for my business weekly (try to anyway). One is tailored for the solo entrepreneur and home based business professional and the other is tailored towards the small & mid-sized business owner. At times if it makes sense — I may share an article like this that could be relevant to both blogs. I have to admit it is harder than it sounds as you always have to scramble for good content and you need to be somewhat of a decent writer. If writing isn’t your thing you can always hire a freelancer to do it for you, or use an employee.

#2. Video Marketing— If you haven’t already consider setting up a YouTube Channel. This will be one of the best ways to reach out to people in your network and beyond. I really think that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) from Video is 10 times what it is for a website at least in speed. I can create a video and get it optimized in days vs. weeks, months, or years with a website. It’s hands down one of the cheapest and most effective ways to market your business. I have seen my clients including myself add hundreds and even thousands of dollars to their bottom line by simply creating a few videos and getting them to come up on the top of YouTube. I will add that this is a very competitive space, but if you learn how to optimize your videos or have a professional optimize them for you-you will be very pleased with the results. I have had a few videos come up #1 out of hundreds for search terms and this can be very beneficial for your business if done correctly.

#3. Email Marketing — Email marketing may not be what it once was years ago with all of the spam filters these days, but I still think that it is an effective way for you to stay in front of your customers and prospects on a regular basis. Like with blogging you will want to be consistent at least once a month, weekly, or bi-weekly. You will definitely want to sign up for one of the many email services to broadcast your emails (MailChimp, constant contact, Aweber, Icontact, etc.) My personal favorite is Icontact.com, but any one should work and they all cost about the same. Don’t be over the top with your marketing as many people will be turned off if you constantly send out emails. The key to email marketing is good copywriting skills (sales copy) and knowing the best times to send out your emails. If you’re promoting your business, probably not best to send out your emails on a Sunday. It’s also important to always be growing your email list. You want your subscriber base to grow so you have more people (hopefully targeted) to reach out to. One of the ways that we grow our email list is by giving away a free e-book on both of our websites.

#4. Social Media Marketing — If you’re running a business and you are not on at least Facebook (over 3 billion active users are now on Facebook worldwide), you are seriously jeopardizing the future of your business in my opinion. Those businesses that are active in social media will thrive in the future. I feel like a few years ago no one knew where it was really going, but today it shapes our lives from the news, to whats happening now, to sharing photographs of our latest vacation. It’s a phenomenon that is not going away anytime soon. Even if you don’t like it (and many people don’t) get involved if nothing less for your business. Your life depends on oxygen and water to survive. Your business nowadays depends on Social Media. Find one or two social media sites that you feel will best represent your business and be consistent and simply put yourself and your business out there. NO one ever made it big by playing it safe. This is your opportunity to share your business with the entire world and really connect with others in a much more personal way. Think of it like a giant party and you have an opportunity to not only promote your business but to make new friends.

#5 Content Marketing — similar to this site or even linkedin.com which now allows you the ability to publish articles. The great thing about using sites like medium or Linkedin to publish articles is it allows you the ability to share content beyond your social media networks, email, or blogs. A lot of times I will write my blog first on medium than copy and paste it to my blog. Make sure if you do copy & paste that you reference the article on your blog. I have found in the past that some of my best-written articles that got the most attention were not from my blogs, but from my articles that I wrote on these other sites away from my blog.

Well, there are 5 cost-effective ways to market online. I hope this helps you with your online marketing whether you are a newbie or a seasoned pro. Marketing is pretty much everything that happens prior to an exchange of money. If done well, it can make you a fortune, if done poorly it can waste a lot of time & money and in some cases even cost you your business. If you feel like you would rather stay away from marketing and focus more on the things you are good at — always feel free to reach out to myself or another online expert for help on making your business stand out in a noisy overpopulated online world.

This article was taken from another article that was posted by John Lowery  at medium.com
Skype: jtlmusic
Email: john@johnlowery.biz
Facebook – Facebook.com/johnloweryfanpage

More Resources For You:

The Top 10 Best Success Quotes of All Time

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The Social Media Puzzle & How To Profit From it available on Amazon.

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How To Get More Followers To Your Facebook Fan Page

Branding, facebook, Instagram, Online Marketing, , , , , , ,

If you’re anything like me and want to use Facebook to market your business, you will need to set up a Facebook Business Page aka Fan Page. Why is this important? Because without it, you will have a difficult time promoting your brand, service, or product. The trick is what to do you do once you set up your page to get more followers?

To get more followers in the beginning you simply send a invite to everyone who is your friend on your personal page. This will get the ball rolling and should get you anywhere from 50 to 200 followers quickly. You also may want to post a status update on your personal page about your new fan page and/or group. You could also ask some of your friends with big followings or influencers if they would be willing to put a shout out for you. Once you do this — you are on your way.

Next you want to be sure that you post regularly. Always try and come up with good content and post once per day if you can. This will get people coming to your page often and should get you new followers weekly. I don’t think its necessary to post more than one time per day — less is bet on Facebook and consistency is very important.

If you plan on doing advertising to promote your page this is another great way to get followers. Keep in mind that you don’t want to pay too much per like, so test some different campaigns to see which works the best and try to keep each like to less than 50 cents each (preferably around 15 to 20 cents).

If you’re on Instagram make sure to connect your Instagram page to your Facebook Fan Page. This will also allow you to post pictures and videos from Instragram page directly to your Facebook Page and this should help you get more likes as well.
You may also try and follow some influencers in your niche from your Facebook Fan Page not your personal page and like and comment on interesting posts, this will also get you some likes.

If you really want to get a ton of followers fast you can always pay a social media expert to get you lots of likes. Typically you can pay anywhere from $50 to $1000 to jumpstart your page. The only downside with this strategy is it may be a lot of followers who really have no interest in your niche. I have used this strategy above with a few who just wanted a large following fast. If you do the latter strategy do not stop there always be promoting.
Finally, if you blog or do videos, make sure to always post those to your page as well. This is a great way to keep it interesting and build value with your audience on a regular basis.
If all the above seems too overwhelming or you simply just need a some direction you can always reach out to a social media expert to help implement some of these strategies for you and your business. Myself and my team are always available should you need any help email me at john@johnlowery.biz

This blog was copied from another article I wrote on http://medium.com

Why You Need a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Branding, Online Marketing, social media marketing, , , , , ,

If you’re a business owner and thinking of now putting your business on a social media platform or if you have already done so, but are not getting the results you had hoped for. You need to read this post.

Social media is not a place where you constantly want to post advertisements about your business, its a place to share ideas, business achievements, and most importantly learn to engage with others.

Social Media isn’t just a fad.

Honestly, a few years ago I often wondered if all the popular social media sites would come to an end or lose their popularity. It is now becoming apparent that surely is not the case. In fact, many social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and most recently Snapchat (Snap Inc.) are now publicly traded on The NYSE and Nasdaq.

Your Social Media Strategy in The Beginning

It’s actually very simple, you are either going to promote YOU, your Business, or both. Whatever you decide — the most important thing you can do is not overwhelm yourself with too many sites. You need to pick one or two of your favorite social platforms and simply get active. How do you get active? Just post 1 or 2 times per day and connect with others. Engage in conversations and spend a few minutes per day liking and commenting on others posts. By doing this strategy you will slowly but surely begin to build up a presence and a following. Once you get to where you have over a few hundred followers on any platform you will begin to see more and more likes and engagement on your posts.

Your Social Media Strategy Later on (Automate)

Once your following grows and you are on more than a few platforms you will want to consider using tools to automate your posts. A few that I like to use on a regular basis are Hootsuite, Socialoomph, Klout, and Facebook App & Facebook Page Manager (for smartphone). By using some of these tools you will save yourself time and money. As your goal with social media isn’t just to connect with others, but to be smart with your time, so you don’t waste hours online moving yourself further away from your business objectives.

Be Real and Pay Attention

Make sure that you promote your business only around 20% of the time or if you need to do more that its more informative marketing. People on social media like to see things and share things that inform them. I can promise you that if you constantly market your business and don’t offer creative innovative content that you will lose your audience. You wouldn’t run a TV Station and constantly air commercials. If you plan on using social media to get customers for your business — really pay attention and don’t over do it. Make sure to track leads and updates (especially the ones that you are paying for) so you know which types of posts are getting the most engagement. If you find that your posts are getting little or no engagement than simply change it up. Just like anything learn and become more effective with your messaging and this should help you get more of the results that you are looking for.

If you like this post be sure to sign up for my free ebook “Social Media Tips & Tricks” on this page.

This article was retrieved on 3/27/17 from another article I wrote at http://www.medium.com