Home Based Business Success

Johann Pachelbel, a composer of the Baroque era, died in 1706. In 1706 the world’s entire population was some 600 million people. In 1954, Leo Fender designed the Fender Stratocaster, one of the most popular electric guitars ever made.

Neither of those two would have guessed that in 2007, a Korean guitarist would use Fender’s invention to play an electric guitar version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, his most famous piece of music. Soon playing Canon on an electric guitar became a cult phenomenon, especially by Asian guitar players.

The popularity of Canon, the electric guitar version, soon exploded far beyond cult status. YouTube videos of guitarists doing their renditions of Canon have been viewed by millions world wide. In fact, the aforementioned Korean, known as FunTwO, went on to TV appearances and fame after his YouTube performance of Canon, although he really tried to sidestep the whole thing.

At last count, the most popular video of his Canon performance had been viewed by just shy of 50 million people on YouTube alone. Other videos showing the same performance have received upwards of 5 million views. Other guitarists playing this piece have also been seen by between 1 and 5 million people.

The insane growth in popularity of a simple guitar video demonstrates the amazing power of YouTube, and other so called Web 2.0 sites like Flickr, FaceBook, and  Digg. The power of users to contribute content and have others rate it, share it, and comment on it has created a media tidal wave that’s only beginning.

Pachelbel probably would have never imagined his composition would have been played by a Korean teenager, on a yet to be invented instrument. The mere idea that it would be subsequently viewed by what amounts to 12% of the world’s population when it was written would have probably caused him to collapse.

Pachelbel’s Canon on guitar is just one of the many videos and web sites that has exploded when the right people got a hold of it. If something strike a chord, as this guitar video clearly did, there’s no way of telling where it will go.

The “Canon Explosion” illustrates the potential of Web 2.0. When this amount of traffic is harnessed to a business, the potential is endless. It can be used to drive traffic, build a list, and ultimately deliver huge profits. While YouTube videos with 50 million viewers are obviously a best case scenario, many marketers have done very well with the medium and other 2.0 applications.

A compelling video with only 20,000 – 50,000 viewers can generate huge revenue and profits if that’s the goal. Getting continued views and generating revenue from them requires the same as with any marketing effort; compelling, valuable content. The more value you give the viewer, the more likely they’ll be to visit your site, sign up for your newsletter, and buy your products.

The even more powerful effect of quality content and strong value is the ability of your videos to go viral. Once they start getting passed around, your exposure will grow like those weeds you’re neglecting in your yard as you read this. That’s the real power behind YouTube and web 2.0 marketing in general, The go on and on, reaching far beond the creator’s expectations, just like those notes from FunTwO’s Strat.

 

Posted by HomeBusBlog at 05:02 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

How to get free traffic is one of the questions I'm asked the most by those starting out in their home based businesses. After all, if customers aren't coming through your door, weather you have a homebased business or a multinational corporation, you're not making any money. Another common question homebased business owners ask is “How can I increase my credibility?” Although there are now thousands of home based businesses in every major city in the country, gaining credibility is still something that many homebased business owners are worried about.

What if I could tell you how to supercharge your home based business marketing, get more free traffic and increase your business' credibility all at the same time? What if I also told you that none of this, not the increased traffic, the boost in cred, or the new customers banging down your door, would cost you a penny?

Would you be interested? I bet you would, because once you master this skill, the question of how to make money from your home based business will be answered once and for all. Did you know that there are thousands of hard working people whose job it is to help people find your business and learn more about it? Really! That's their job. They come to work, (or work from their home office) every day with the goal of helping you to grow your business.

Well actually that's not what their stated goal is, but it's the effect of what they do. Who is this army of professionals that are standing by, at the ready, waiting to help you succeed in your home based or small business?

They are publishers, reporters, bloggers, and anchors. One thing they need, unfailingly, each and every day, is fresh, new content. They will willingly write about you, your employees, your products, your industry, and your business if you give them a reason to do so. That's right, these people's job is to write about things, and in many cases your business, or something related to it, can be the object of their efforts.

Think of the monumentous job it is to produce fresh, new content for your newspaper, magazine, blog, e-zine, or TV program. It's not easy, and if you can help make their job easier by giving them good stories, than you'll be rewarded; well rewarded. The skill you must master to help these people, and by extension your business, is the skill of publicity.

Publicity is like free advertising, but better, far better. Why? Publicity is seen by the public (your customers) as coming from an unbiased source, the news and media. In other words, publicity has credibility. It has credibility that advertising can never match, not in a million years. With advertising, no matter how compelling the headline, or how good the ad copy, people are well aware they're being sold something. The beauty of publicity is that the sales pitch can be just as strong, yet far fewer people ever raise their “ad blocker” defenses against it. They know that it's news or valuable information, after all, and they should soak it up like a sponge. They do, and your message right along with it.

The other huge advantage of publicity is that, as I alluded to earlier, it's free. That's right you don't have to pay for this wonderous marketing tool. In fact sometimes you can even get paid for it! Really! I've made thousands of dollars over the last few years writing feature articles for consumer magazines about products and services that some of my business offered.

Not only does it increase awareness, interest and understanding of the products and services, but in most cases you get a nice little blurb explaining why you're so qualified to be spouting off about the item in question. You get to put the name and location of your company, the contact information and something about your background. Talk about pure marketing gold!!

Now you're positioned as The authority figure in the minds of the publication's readers. Who do you think they're going to turn to when they have a question, need advice, the services you offer or want to buy the type of products your company offers? That's right, they're going to go to the person who's article they just read. You provided value to them, they will return the favor. It works so well that I've had many people ask “How much did you have to pay for that?” They were amazed to discover that not only did I not have to pay the magazine for featuring the story, the magazine actually paid me to write it (and very nicely, too).

Weather you're spreading the news about a new product, service, opening a new office, hiring a key employee, unveiling your new website, or explaining a new process, there is a magazine, news outlet, special interest publication, or trade journal that is only too happy to help you do it. That is their job, remember? Your job as a business owner is to take advantage of that to help grow your business.

How can you do that? You need to discover the wonders of press releases, articles, and interviews. A well worded and timed press release can be worth far more than a picture or a thousand words, although either of those is nice too. Why do think the book tour was invented. Have you noticed the staple of the afternoon news magazine show in major TV markets is someone who just wrote a book?

There's a great reason for that. From the TV station's perspective, people are interested in what they have to say, so it it helps ratings. From the author's perspective, well you don't have to be no missile scientist to figure out how being on live TV in all the major markets helps the book's author, do you.

Almost anything can be a newsworthy event if it's presented correctly. Did you just promote someone from the community into a management role? Well, you can get that in the business section of your local paper. Are you introducing a new product? Depending upon the type of product, it's uniqueness and your market, that screams magazine article, or at should at least rate a paragraph or two. Are you holding or sponsoring a charity event, supporting local law enforcement, or helping out neighborhood schools? Properly structured, it can be a newsworthy event to someone, somewhere.

The point is that almost anything your business is involved in can be a news event or publicity worthy in some respect. If it's not, you can always create a publicity event around some aspect of your business. One skill you'll need to master is the press release. After all, you need to trumpet the fact to those that can help you the most, and the press release is one of the preferred formats to do just that.

I'll go more into this in a future post, including how to write press releases that will get read, and acted upon, rather than tossed, and who to send them to. Send your press release to the wrong person, at the wrong place, and you just wasted your time.

Stay tuned for more on how you can use this amazing power to increase your traffic, boost your credibility and supercharge your small business marketing. Until next time.....

Posted by HomeBusBlog at 01:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Customer loyalty is the key to reaching your business's profitability goal. The real money is on the back end of the customer relationship. It doesn't matter weather your home based business (or any other business, for that matter) exists primarily in the Internet marketing space, or weather you're running a home based business such as consulting, accounting, contracting, or computer repair. If you have a home based business you absolutely cannot afford to ignore where the lion's share of your sales and profit will come from; repeat business from your existing customers.

There's a saying in the so-called Internet marketing industry; “The money is in the list.” Leaving aside for a minute that the term “Internet marketing” describes a communication medium applied to marketing, not an actual industry, that's true not only for those of you selling online, but to any other type of business as well. A large part of the intrinsic value of your company is in your customer list. If selling your company is part of your exit strategy, having a long list of existing customers is going to be a large component of the value others see in your business. Simply put, you'll be able to sell your business for a much high price if you have a long list of satisfied customers.

When considering ongoing operations, having a list of loyal customers makes reaching your business profitability goals so much easier. Instead of focusing your marketing efforts on creating new customers within your target market, you can aim at a list of proven buyers. You're much more likely to generate another sale from a customer who you have an ongoing relationship with, and who has bought from you in the past, than one who knows little about your business, products, or services.

Think about it, would you rather have a list of 500 prospects, or a list of 500 accounts? I thought so. Weather you have a contracting business, accounting firm, or consulting company, having an ongoing business relationship means the customer will call you first when they need something, rather than seeking out someone new. People generally take the path of least resistance when trying to get something done. It's just human behavior, and marketing is nothing if not the study of human behavior. Calling your business when they need what you provide should be that path for your existing customers.

If your business exists in the online space, the ability to mine a list of existing customers for new sales is of incalculable value. Weather you're an Internet marketing newbie or a “Guru” building a list is of primary importance. One of the first thing that any new Internet marketer is told is “capture that email” so they can begin an email marketing campaign. While that is definitely an important part of generating sales and profits, a list of actual customers, not just prospects, is of much greater importance.

When someone gives you their email address in exchange for a report, e-book, or newsletter, all you know is that they have some level of interest in what you do. You really know little else about them. How qualified a prospect they are you'll not know until you begin your email marketing campaign. A list of actual customers, those who have already purchased from you is infinitely more valuable. You absolutely know they are a qualified lead because they have demonstrated such by handing over their hard earned money to your business in the past.

The reality is that if you have no customer loyalty, your business is just creating a marketing and promotional campaign, not a viable, long term business. Eventually you'll exhaust the supply of new customers in your market, or the ROI of your marketing efforts will be too high to sustain your operations.

Given the importance of customer loyalty, it's amazing that so few businesses create a formal customer loyalty strategy. Sure, many businesses have a rough idea about creating customer loyalty, but few formalize the strategy. Business owners will talk about good customer service, selling quality products, delivering them on time, exceeding customer expectations, and making sure they attend to the details that keep customers coming back. While all that is certainly important, it's not a formal strategy that can be refined over time to maximize performance.

To have a formal customer loyalty strategy, you need metrics that can be measured to determine the effectiveness of your efforts. That way you can see if your strategy is effective, and make changes in an effort to improve it. You'll know weather or not your changes are working or not and be able to create an actionable strategy. It points to discovering as much as possible about your customers, what motivates them to buy from you, and why they return. You'll want to measure their overall customer experience, and if possible, improve upon it. Your business depends upon it. A 1997 study by Patterson, Johnson, and Spreng found 78% of the decision to repurchase something from a business was based on customer satisfaction.

How can you measure and increase customer satisfaction and use it create a customer loyalty strategy? It depends on the metrics you use to define your customer's experience, but some of the more effective ones are delivery time, product selection, relative price, ease of use of your website, call back time, ease of contact, and satisfaction with the product / service as delivered . Some things, such as time can be directly measured and assigned a value. Others must be measured on a scale with multiple points. In many cases a 5 or 7 point scale is used to define such variables, with responses ranging from extremely unsatisfied to extremely satisfied or some variation thereof. You get the point.

To make your measurements even more effective, the different attributes should be weighted. This will help in defining which components have the greatest impact in the overall level of customer satisfaction. For example, satisfaction with the product or service may have more weight than delivery time. That will depend upon your customer base and the type of business you're operating.

One of the most important findings in the 1997 study was that meeting or exceeding customer expectations was the prime factor in reported customer satisfaction. It makes perfect sense, but if your business meets or exceeds customer expectations, they'll give little thought to using your services again, fail to do so and you create a disconnect in their minds that soon extends to their wallets. Basically you'll not get them to extract that Visa from their wallet again if they weren't happy the first time.

On the flip side, studies indicate that customers give little or no thought to using your business again if you exceeded their expectations. That's the best thing you can have, a loyal, repeat customer that automatically buys from you. Your strategy to create customer loyalty at that level should focus first on customer satisfaction and the customer experience, and second on ensuring that you are staying at the forefront of offerings in your field. As trends emerge, you need to be at the front of them in order to give your customers no reason to turn elsewhere to satisfy their future needs. They'll be your loyal customers untill the end, and that's the real key to reaching your buisness profitibility goal.

Have a great weekend, and here's to your home based business success!

Posted by HomeBusBlog at 02:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Getting free blog traffic can be one of the bset marketing moves you make. Your blog can be one of your most important marketing tools. It gives you a presence on the web, and you don’t have to know a lick of HTML, or master any software applications, such as Dreamweaver, to make a blog post. You can make a blog post extremely quickly, and use your posts to do any number of marketing tasks, from informing about your company, products and services, to announcing sales and special events.

The question faced by most marketers is “how to get more traffic to your blog?”. After all many niches are extremely competitive these days and without good, targeted traffic, your blog may as well be notes in your journal.

There are some things to consider before you initiate your free traffic generating plan. You could always pay for your traffic, through paid links and PPC ads, but this is about the kind of traffic you get fo’ nuttin’. If you’re starting out inour business with a minimal budget, that's the kind of traffic you need.

Where is your free traffic going to come from? You’ll have 2 main free sources; links from other websites, directories, and blogs, and SERPs. You want to get balanced traffic and not be too dependent on the search engines, who are notoriously fickle. You can be getting great traffic numbers from them one day, and way down in the results the next.

Links are great for two reasons. You’ll get visitors from the link itself, and you’ll get a vaunted backlink, one of the most important things in the algorithms most search engines use to rank web pages. To get targeted links in to your blog there is one tool that I’ve found to be extremely effective; the blog carnival.

Blog carnivals are themed blog events that are hosted by bloggers. In such an event other bloggers are invited to submit their postings to the host blogger, who then posts links to the submitted posts in a post of their own called a carnival. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the potential of such an event, especially for a business owner with a new blog, and relatively few inbound links.

Some carnivals will include any post that’s submitted, while others are extremely picky and only include the best 5 or 10 posts they receive. The great thing about carnivals is that they themselves tend to get ranked fairly highly by the search engines, and you can get traffic from them.

Where they shine however, is that they generate inbound links, and some bloggers have removed the “nofollow” tags from their blogs, meaning that you’ll get the full benefit of said links from the search engines to help increase your search engine rankings. In addition, you can choose the anchor text of the links, allowing you to build search engine rankings for your selected keywords and phrases.

Some of the carnivals have fairly high readership and you can get significant traffic from them if you have compelling post titles. You should also include a brief description of your post, both to assist the host, (although sometimes they’ll not use it, due to the theme of the carnival) and to provide exactly the content you want around your link. You’ll also get to showcase your writing talent and post content, which can help you get regular readership and subscribers, a real boon to your marketing efforts.

The other thing that you must do to ensure high rankings in the search engines is to optimize your posts, including the post titles. I wrote about this in a previous post with regard to search engine optimization. It is key that you title your posts so they read exactly as the keyword phrases people are searching for. There is a more in depth discussion of keyword optimization in a previous post on how to increase targeted web site traffic. The same thing applies to blog post titles as the titles for web pages.

These things should help you get more free traffic to your blog. Good luck and Good Business! 

Posted by HomeBusBlog at 06:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)