Using Online Marketing Forums to Jumpstart Your Home Business

One of the most wonderful things that I have discovered about the network-marketing world during the past few months are online forums. These forums offer so much to enrich both your online working life and your knowledge of this sometimes confusing, often frustrating world of home-based business, internet marketing.

Being a home business, marketing entrepreneur can be an extremely lonely and isolating pursuit. Being an active part of online forums will make you feel much less alone out here and foster a sense of community in you that you will treasure if you participate fully with your peers in the profession.

Think of online business forums as your very own
Chamber of Commerce. Everyone has heard of the
Chamber of Commerce in their community. That is the
place where business owners go for all kinds of assistance. Assistance with marketing ideas, assistance with technical problems associated with running their businesses and for networking with other business owners in the community.

Chamber of Commerce members have a stake, or interest if you will, in the prosperity and survival of their particular business community because, if the community does not survive as a whole, neither will their own business. One difference between your local Chamber of Commerce and online forums is that membership in forums is almost always free, whereas a Chamber of Commerce membership generally requires a yearly dues payment.

Beyond networking with your peers and engendering a
sense of community, online forums can be the place where you can find answers to question about all facets of your business and assistance with things from web design to marketing strategies and tools to help you become a better person and a better marketer.

So, if you have not found or become part of these
communities yet, do so at the earliest possible moment.

Below you will find my favorite forums:

http://biz-whiz.com/

http://duchessr.powerfulintentions.com

http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/forum/


Peace out

About the author:
Mary Rita Earle is the owner of Duchess Marketing. A complete suite of work at home opportunities, ideas, tips, tools and strategies for the home
business entrepreneur. Sign up for her free newsletter at http://www.duchessr.biz

Secure Fall Speaking Opportunities Now

Summer is a great time to line up fall speaking gigs.

Public speaking is a great way to generate new business. However, it's not a time for a sales pitch. If you're able to share your inside secrets about your expertise in an organized fashion, with a confident and vibrant tone, you'll indirectly sell yourself and your products.

WHO TO PITCH
Summer is a great time to pitch your speaking services to professional organizations that begin their new membership calendar year or "season" in September. Keep in mind most professional organizations hold fewer meetings in the summer, since members are off gallivanting in the sunshine. However, organizations also survey their members during the summer about educational topics they'd like to hear about come the fall.

I've been a professional marketing speaker for sometime and have acquired a lot of marketing clients after presenting. Recently my speaking success compounded when I launched a second business two years ago called, http://www.VisitingGeeks.com In addition to describing marketing client campaign successes, I started sharing my Visiting Geeks success stories during my presentations. After every presentation I consistently receive new marketing consulting and Visiting Geeks business.

Amazingly I'm able to drive interest to both of my businesses, simply by talking in front of people about what I know! Public speaking works particularly well for any relationship-based business, or consultant-type businesses, such as:

- Financial
- Legal
- Health
- Technology

All four of the above specializations involve the customer sharing very personal information with the consultant, increasing the need for people to trust the expert they're seeking to hire. Public speaking is a great way to build trust -- prospects feel like they know you because they've "seen" you.

HOW TO PITCH
I like to pitch using email. I first scope out organizations whose members match my target audience demographics, and then I'll send a brief email introduction (3 or 4 sentences) about myself and my area of speaking expertise. You can usually find the appropriate contact of the person responsible for organizing speakers right at the association's Web site, or you can use the generic "contact" email and ask who the appropriate person is to contact. Either way, expect a delayed response, since the member responsible for checking the association's email is probably a volunteer, and therefore, only checks email once, maybe twice a week. On average, I've found most organizations respond within two days, three at the most.

Once you've found the right contact, ask her if she'd like to receive your bio. Don't just send your bio without permission, instead, be invited to do so. Why? By withholding your bio, it gives you another excuse to "touch" your contact. At minimum, you'll usually have four to five opportunities to contact the speaker coordinator, including:

- Initial introduction Email
- Would you like to review my bio? Email
- Follow up Email One
- Follow up Email Two
- Follow up Email Three

Remember every step of the way they're evaluating your professionalism. Stretch out your touch points, so to deepen the relationship. In other words, don't show your cards all at once. Hold on to them for a bit to build a relationship.

PREPARE SPEAKER RESOURCES BEFOREHAND
It's imperative you have a professional speaker bio before you pitch your speaking services. Feel free to check out my format at http://www.SharronSenter.com/s.htm A standard bio is usually one, 8.5 X 11 page.

Your bio should include the following:

- Professional Headshot
- Credentials - education, certifications, awards
- Experience - past speaking gigs
- Testimonials
- Sample Presentation/Workshop
- Contact Information - phone, Web site and email

Sharron Senter is a New England-based marketing consultant, speaker, writer and founder of Senter & Associates, a marketing communications firm that helps small businesses deploy low-cost online and offline marketing tactics. Senter is well known for her free monthly emailed marketing tips found at http://www.sharronsenter.com She’s also the cofounder of http://www.VisitingGeeks.com


About the author:
Sharron Senter is a New England-based marketing consultant, speaker, writer and founder of Senter & Associates, a marketing communications firm that helps small businesses deploy low-cost online and offline marketing tactics. Senter is well known for her free monthly emailed marketing tips found at http://www.sharronsenter.comShe’s also the cofounder of http://www.VisitingGeeks.com

Free Internet Marketing Methods That Will Save Your Internet Business

Best things in life are free, as many would say. This especially holds true with efforts in advertising one's products or services. With free Internet marketing services, one can save a lot. Instead of shelling out for the marketing aspect of your product or services, that chunk of money could be put to other important elements of your business since many information websites now offer knowledge regarding Internet marketing services that comes with no price tag at all.

This is not to tell you that better focus on plain Internet marketing. It still will do your business a lot good if you mix traditional advertisement efforts such as traditional and new marketing media.

Here are few of the free methods that you could employ to make your products and services be in their most visible, thus saleable, form.

1. Promote your business through free search engine submission and optimization.

Submit your website to various search engines monthly. This will make many more people know that your website actually exists. Aiming for the top search engines will help a lot in this endeavor.

2. Improve your articles.

Remember that information on articles with good content as traffic-bringer of websites? This time it's about making these articles serve your website better by using keyword suggestion tools that are offered for free. Update your web site's content by regularly checking the standing of your keywords with the current market.

3. Acquire free content.

If you have no time to increase the SEO or search engine optimization-friendliness of your articles, you can look for free content from article directories. All you need to do is retain the resource box of those write-ups.

4. Avail of free comprehensive web traffic analyzers.

These are tools that you can make use of without costing you a cent. Your website's hits statistics will be produced by this kind of Internet marketing tool for your own analysis.

5. Learn to manipulate web design templates.

You don't have to be too techie-geeky to be able to design your web site. Oftentimes, web design templates or custom-made layouts are available for the Internet marketer to use.

6. Monitor your website's visibility.

Tools such as search engine position trackers may be used to see your website's standing.

These processes are very convenient to use as long as you keep in mind that you use and try to master their use for your own benefit. Just don't get obsessed with your achievements when you finally learn how to use them and incorporate them in your Internet marketing feat.

About the author:
Little Known Minnesota Man Making Six Figures Per Year Online, From the Comfort of Home, Reveals His Top Internet Money-Makers. http://www.push-button-online-income.com/pbi

Why Hire an Advertising/Marketing Consultant?

As a business owner, you have the option of taking several different approaches to handling your Marketing and Advertising. You may choose to handle the responsibility yourself, with the idea that no one understands your business quite the way you do.. You may also consider hiring a full time marketing manager or even assigning the tasks, as they arise, to someone already working within your organization. Consider this… When your business needs plumbing work do you do it yourself? Hire a plumber to be on staff full time? Or ask your accountant to handle it?

Call in the Experts.

Though some advertising and marketing ventures seems simple enough to be handled ‘’in house’’, nothing is as costly as a marketing misfire. Not only may you be sending out the wrong messages, to the wrong markets, but also by the time you catch it, your budget may be in no shape to recover and redirect. The truth is, no one can do the job as effectively and efficiently as someone who lives and breathes the industry everyday. Plus, the added perk of consistent media contacts that will prove to be financially beneficial to your business.


Seeing the forest and the trees.


When you hire a consultant you hire an objective opinion, as well as a fresh point of view. Sometimes a business may lose perspective on itself by being too heavily immersed in the day-to-day operations, and lose itself in the big picture, missing the small details… or vice-versa. Sadly, sometimes a business’s marketing will clearly reflect this. The president of a private jet company’s focus is on the bells and whistles of his fleet. It’s what he sees as important in his view of his business. Inevitably, his marketing may also focus on this portion of his business, ignoring what he is really selling to his potential clients: The feeling and the status of private jets.

If you add another ball, technically it is juggling.

If you, as a business owner, or an employee take on the added tasks of the marketing of the business, attention is being taken from other projects and responsibilities. Inescapably, focus and demands are bound to pull from one and take away from others until something falls to the floor. Consultants are dedicated to one, and only one, portion of your business. Their focus is committed, and they allow you to keep yours where it should be.

The Gumby Factor.

Consultants are very flexible. Immediately ready and available to take on assignments at a moment’s notice. Accessibility to getting a new project off the ground is just a phone call away. On the other hand, trying to hire a new employee specifically to handle your marketing needs takes valuable time to places ads; conduct interviews and then sort through applicants, hoping to find the right person for the job.

The M –Word Money.

When you total up the actual cost of bringing on a new employee, you will most likely find that hiring a consultant is much more cost effective. The hourly rates may seem to favor a full time employee, but when you factor in employee benefits, training time, vacation/sick time, 401(k), the added overhead involved in situating a new employee, and the sheer fact that you may be paying full time wages for something that may not need full time attention, the cost effectiveness will fall in favor of a consultant. Which bring us to....

The C- Word Commitment.

Hiring a full time employee is a commitment. And bringing on an employee to handle a special marketing project, or set up an initial marketing plan, may in the long run leave you scrambling to find a new project or position for that employee. Or worse yet, you find yourself paying a full time marketing director to do basic maintenance. Hiring a consultant requires no long-term commitment. When a consultant completes a project, they have the flexibility to move into whatever position you need them, from quarterly analysis, to basic maintenance, to completely out of the picture, but on the sidelines when you’re ready to take a new step forward.




"There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still." -Franklin D. Roosevelt



About the author:
Mary Ellen Martelli is President of MareMax Consulting, a full service Advertising, Marketing & Website Consulting firm, located in the Southern New Jersey / Philadelphia area. You can reach her via her website http://maremaxconsulting.com/or email: maremaxconsulting@comcast.net

Finally, A Little Sexual Marketing Humor!

Want to know how to use direct-response in your personal
life, for your next romantic "Hook-Up"?

I saw this posted somewhere on a marketing board a long time
ago and I thought it'd give you a good laugh going into
your weekend.

You see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and
say, "I'm fantastic in bed."

That's Direct Marketing.

You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a handsome
guy. One of your friends goes up to him and, pointing at
you, says, "She's fantastic in bed."

That's Advertising.

You see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and get
his telephone number. The next day you call and say, "Hi,
I'm fantastic in bed."

That's Telemarketing.

You're at a party and see a handsome guy. You get up and
straighten your dress. You walk up to him and pour him a
drink. You say "May I?" and reach up to straighten his tie,
brushing your breast lightly against his arm, and then
say, "By the way, I'm fantastic in bed."

That's Public Relations.

You're at a party and see a handsome guy. He walks up to
you and says, "I hear you're fantastic in bed."

That's Brand Name Recognition.

You're at a party and see a handsome guy. You talk him into
going home with your friend.

That's a Sales Rep.

Your friend can't satisfy him so he calls you.

That's Tech Support.

You're on your way to a party when you realize that there
could be handsome men in all these houses you're passing.
So you climb onto the roof of one situated toward the
center and shout out at the top of your lungs, "I'm
fantastic in bed!"

That's SPAM!

Now go sell something,

Craig Garber
http://www.KingOfCopy.com

P.S. Check out all the prior archives you've been
missing, right here at:
http://www.kingofcopy.com/tips/tiparchives.html

About the author:
Craig Garber is America's Top Direct-Response Copywriter. Uncover hundreds of FREE direct-response copywriting and marketing tips that dramatically boost your sales and lift the response of your marketing, on his website: http://www.kingofcopy.com