I had a question come up recently with a prospective client that interestingly comes up a lot. The question was, “How do I know you’ll stick around to do these campaigns?” I’ve had some clients go so far as to ask for a contract for a dedicated length of time to work on their project. These questions and requests are
Read moreSuccessful online marketing is part art, part science, and a big part common sense. However, when we work on our online marketing campaigns everything makes sense to us. We clearly see the value proposition and truly believe in the product, service, or offer being made. That zeal can blind us to common sense. The most common unreasonable expectation that crops
Read moreCreating a sense of urgency is often noted as a best practice in marketing. We want prospects to take action on an offer now rather than filing it away for “later” and then forgetting about it. But urgency, like anything, can be abused. Many online marketers create arbitrary deadlines or dates to force urgency. Overusing the strategy causes problems in
Read moreMany consultants, trainers, and professional coaches seem to be stumped on where to get quality content for their online marketing campaigns. In reality, the content isn’t the real problem. Given the nature of training and consulting literally everything being offered is valuable content. The real problem is organizing the material to make a cohesive online campaign. Training and consulting businesses
Read moreEvery so often I encounter a trainer, consultant, or professional coach that is not comfortable using an email marketing service platform like Constant Contact, Exact Target, Swiftpage, iContact. Vertical Response etc. The most common reasons for this aversion is that the client doesn’t feel the price is warranted as they can do the same thing in-house with their database or
Read moreWhen trainers, consultants, and professional coaches set up or maintain an online marketing campaign, prospects are typically the focus. This makes sense as marketing to prospects is the most direct way of generating new business. Unfortunately this focus often blinds trainers, consultants, and professional coaches to another, likely more valuable, group; their clients. Including communications and exclusive offers to clients
Read moreAfter an email marketing campaign is running consistently and generating results a natural evolution is to segment the email list into groups and cater communications to the segments. This is easier said than done. Deciding which segments should exist and what individuals belong in which category is not an undertaking to be taken lightly. Identifying and performing the administration of
Read moreA question that trainers, consultants, and professional coaches ask is, “How will an online marketing campaign sell my services? The typical price is x thousands of dollars.” The simple answer is, “It won’t”. At least not directly. However, it is possible to break down the campaign into sections and make small sales/relationship builders that result in easier sales for the
Read moreThere seems to be a perceived conflict between email marketing and social media. The conflict is usually summed up as social media taking the place of email. The truth is that the two are intertwined and not at odds with one another. Well done online marketing integrates the two to communicate to diverse audiences in the way they want to
Read moreA social media post or a webpage can be immediately updated or removed if a mistake is present. Email, however, presents a unique challenge when an error is sent out. If an email platform has a retract feature, the results are typically spotty at best. This means that once an email is sent, there’s really no going back. When a
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