Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category

Mistake No.4

Getting Advice From or Using Companies That Don’t Know What They’re Talking About

In the early days when I didn’t know how to generate all the leads I wanted, the temptation was to hire a marketing company. In fact, I hired not one but six marketing companies in total. It seems that their expertise was in squandering my money rather then being accountable for the results that I wanted them to generate.

Each time, they would promise the earth and then make feeble excuses as to why they hadn’t achieved results. Two that stick in my mind, “I can’t believe it, this has never happened to us before…”, and the other was, “well there are no guarantees in marketing!”

I realise now that this is complete rubbish. If you follow a tried, tested and proven strategy that works for others, it will work for you too. That’s why for example, in our Profit Booster Kit, we are prepared to put our money where our mouth is. If you are going to use a marketing company, make sure that they give you a guarantee

- Keith Banfield

How To Meet Famous People
Sunday, August 9th, 2009

Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss on the topic of How To Meet Famous People

NOTES:

  • Never contact someone with a request or favour
  • Volunteering your time for organisations which open up opportunities to meet famous people
  • Befriend someone who has 1 degree of separation from the famous person, someone you can establish trust with
  • Establish your network before you use it
  • Find common ground (don’t talk business) and keep in contact with them
  • Put yourself in their shoes – research what they want
  • Know why you want to meet them – Be specific
  • Make them interested in you so they will want to meet you

Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss on the topic of How To Get Traffic

NOTES:

  • Find unique niche, be passionate and know where they hangout!
  • Find your taget and tell them about yourself – build credibility
  • Credibility is perception, how can you gain trust (acceptance, recognition)

Mistake No.3

Wasting Money On Marketing That Doesn’t Work

I would like to clarify this mistake a little more by saying that all businesses will spend money on ineffective marketing, but it is a matter of learning from that mistake which will allow a business to grow and be successful. The best way to avoid continually spending money on marketing which doesn’t work is to test and measure, then tweaking your marketing efforts to get a better result.

Virtually everyone I speak to has spent money on marketing that doesn’t work. I’ll include myself in that because over the years I’ve spend tens of thousands of dollars on advertisements, faxes, direct mail and other marketing that has pulled little or no response. When it happens, you think yourself, “I am not going to do that again”. But then sooner or later a magazine will phone up with a last-minute offer that seems just too good to be true. If you can relate to this, you’ll like the solution. You see I eventually discovered the right way to spend my marketing budget so that it gets results rather than flushing it down the toilet. To achieve this, I have
read hundreds of books on marketing, sought out some of the best marketing experts in the world and had them coach me.

Having learnt what works and what doesn’t, I then spent nine years testing all the different strategies and then working with over 1000 other companies to share information with them too. Finally, I recently teamed up with Australian marketing expert Carolyn Phillips and between us we have put all the information into a Training programme entitled, ‘Profit Booster Kit’. Of course you don’t need to buy the profit booster Kit, but if you choose to, it will show you how to double your profits in only 49 days and gives you over 297 tried, tested and proven strategies on a plate ready to use.

- Keith Banfield

Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss on the topic of Writing About What You’re Passionate About

NOTES:

  • You’ll find it easiest to write something you’re passionate about, and it will generally receive a better response from readers.
  • It’s important to have content which readers find of interest and/or can relate to.
More Blogging Tactics
Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss on the topic of Specific Times And Day To Post

NOTES:

  • Very early or very late, depends on your audience
  • Re-date unpopular posts because first impressions count

Personally, I think that there is no clearcut “optimal” time to post because of the lack of time limitations of the internet (ie. there’s always going to be people surfing the net at any given time).

Instead, you have to think about what time and what days your audience would be online.

Mistake No.2

Not Allocating Any Money For Marketing

Not putting aside a budget for marketing is a grave mistake which many businesses make. Usually this is because business owners haven’t quite grasped the benefits of marketing, and somehow believes that their business will survive by shear WOM (Word of Mouth) or luck. Of course WOM is an extremely effective way of drawing attention to your business, but it wouldn’t be possible if no one even knows your business exists! Even businesses which already have existing customers need to spend on marketing in order to draw in more customers as well as keeping competition out of their way.

Think of your business like a brand new shiny car sitting out there on your driveway. Doesn’t it look great? So where would you like to go in your car? Certainly, if you want it to go forward, you’ll need to put some petrol or diesel into it. Indeed, it doesn’t matter how good your car is, unless it is moving forward you’ll never get the full value from it.

Now let’s liken that to your business. The petrol or diesel is your marketing, because without it your business will be going nowhere fast. So why is it, that so many small business owners simply do not have a budget allocated for marketing? How can they hope to drive their business without a marketing budget? The truth is that many small business owners have picked at a bit of advertising, perhaps tried sending out some glossy brochures only to find that they received little or nothing back from it, leaving them feeling despondent, annoyed at losing the money they spent and of course frustrated at not knowing how to get it right.

If you want your business to be successful, you need to allocate a marketing budget and spend it wisely. Which leads us nicely onto the next biggest mistake made by small business owners.

- Keith Banfield

Write What You’re Passionate About
Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss on the topic of Write Interesting Content

NOTES:

  • Write about what you’re passionate about. You’ll find it easiest to write, and it will receive a better response.
  • Important to have content which readers find of interest

Mistake No.1

Not Knowing Who Your Customers Really Are

Any marketer would know that knowing who your customers are is essential to your success in business. Besides the obvious demographic information (age, sex, geographic location), you need to know very specifically what characteristics make your customer. In another words, what interests your customers so that you know exactly what will grab their attention.

Whatever business you are running, it is essential to know who your customers are. Amazingly, one of the biggest mistakes made by small business owners is to not know who their customers specifically are. For example, if you were to ask the question, “who would you like as a customer?” Sadly, the all too common response is, “well anyone will do”.

So what do your customers look like? How old are they? What business are they in? Where are they geographically? Are they male or female? In other words, how could you specifically define who you are trying to attract as a potential customer?

- Keith Banfield

How Do You Get More Readers?
Monday, May 11th, 2009

Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss on the topic of How To Get More Traffic

NOTES:

Misconception: You need a lot of readers
You don’t, it depends on the type of readers (like attract like)

  • Combine online and offline = cheap
  • SEO strategies: good content which become default guide ppl refer to, page rank & google rank – page title, links, anchor text
  • Use Google keyword tool

Misconceptions: There’s a magic formula to post length
There is no magic formula, it depends what type of content you want

  • Post length: Short post length is better for getting your page on bookmarking sites like Digg or StumbleUpon.
  • Post frequency: high frequency = high traffic, but it depends more on the quality of content
  • Readers conditioned to expect regular posts