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John Assaraf’s blog is pretty nifty stuff. Here’s a post I came across of his that’s very timely.

There’s just a never ending blitz of data coming at business owners daily about ONLINE MARKETING – especially about SEO [Search Engine Optimization] tactics.

This was just a refreshing piece that I enjoyed, and illustrates one of the benefits of using a tool like the Ultimate Referral Marketing System. Online technology for Offline Relationship marketing.

The world of the Web is truly amazing, but let’s not forget about the offline world.

It’s easy to get sucked into Web traffic solutions and search engine optimization, but there’s still a massive audience, if not bigger, who’s not on the Web, with deep pockets, who might want your product. Don’t cut yourself off from that offline world, because it holds opportunities to enlarge your power and extend your reach.

Direct mail is still possibly the most powerful and persuasive way of doing business no matter who you are. The most obvious obstacle with direct mail is the cost. But if you implement a piece that really penetrates your market, then the results can be very lucrative. In order to create that stellar piece, you’ve got to conduct testing to find out which one of your sales letters is actually going to work. Because of the potential high cost for such a campaign, you must test before you dive in.

In addition, your direct mail piece doesn’t need to be a postal-size Rembrandt – you don’t need stunning imagery or a big sales letter or brochure. A simple postcard can be very effective; it gets read by everyone including the mail person delivering it. A specific type of postcard marketing involves a two-step approach by putting a teaser on the card which is answered on your Web site (getting your message out there and increasing site traffic).

With this two-step approach, you can ask a question that the recipient can only answer by visiting your Web site or going to your directed resource. This is an example of hypnotic marketing. It’s also the perfect situation for presenting a hook to get them to visit and read your longer sales copy.

You may want to do a little market research to find out the average number of direct mail pieces that people receive in your target area. Some regions are so flooded with direct mail that people aren’t even scanning or glancing at these piles but sending them directly to the trash. When you really need to stretch your marketing bucks, it’s smart to look at areas of low competition first. This is also an opportunity to take on college marketing interns to personally deliver your direct mail pieces right into the hands of your ideal clients, such as managers versus administrative assistants.

All in all, you can look at your marketing campaign as a fishing boat. Each marketing element – newsletters, news releases, radio spots – can be considered a line in the water. And with every additional line in the water, you increase your chances of catching a big one.
Next in this series: How much time to spend on marketing.

This post is the sixth in a series of excerpts from OneCoach CEO John Assaraf’s interview with copywriter Joe Vitale, author of The Attractor Factor and Life Missing Instruction Manual, The Guidebook You Didn’t Get at Birth. For more information about Joe Vitale, visit his site at www.mrfire.com.

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Did you know that 22 of the top 100 Web sites in the world are blogs?

Amazing, but true!

If your target audience does not consist of online users, blogging might not be the best strategy for your marketing. However, most businesses can derive great benefit from using a blog.

And as consumers continue to get more “search savvy,” it becomes increasingly important to create and publish online content that is relevant to your target audience and easy to find.

Who reads blogs? Consider the following:

• Currently, there are more than 70 million blogs on the Internet, with 120,000 new blogs being created daily. Each day, people add 1.5 million new posts to their existing blogs.
• A recent survey indicates that 75 percent of blog readers are over the age of 30. So it’s not just teenagers or kids in college with too much time on their hands.
• Research also indicates that the median income for blog readers tops $90K per year. Blog readers are more affluent and organized, and they know how to research purchasing decisions online.

Blogging is quickly evolving into the medium of choice for mature online users who make a lot of money. The majority of blog readers are people with money to burn who are looking for reliable information about products and services.

Connect with your ideal customer

Growing a business requires identifying your ideal customer, understanding how they make their buying decisions, and aligning your business with their decision-making process.

Blogging allows you to quickly connect with your ideal customers and insert yourself into their decision-making process. But only if you blog about what they are looking for.

The key is understanding how people search on the Internet.

In general, people search for the problem on their mind. For example, if someone suffers from migraine headaches, they will type in queries like “getting rid of a bad headache” or “how to get rid of a migraine.”

Once you figure out what your target audience is searching for, you can build content and websites that begin to address their problems. By testing different blogs, you can learn what your ideal customers talk about, what they type in when they go to the search box, and what they think about when considering your product or service.

Then you can start talking in their jargon instead of yours. There’s no better way to reach a prospect than to offer a solution to a problem in the language they’re thinking and talking in.

Blogging also provides an excellent platform for reaching out to the media. In today’s business world, you can’t just focus on clients and prospects. You must also cultivate media contacts who can help communicate your difference in the marketplace. Increasingly, journalists are turning to blogs as credible sources of information and as a way to make their jobs easier.

Bottom line: if you want to reach mature consumers with plenty of disposable income, you can’t do it faster, easier or more effectively than with a blog.

Next in this series: How to make money with your blog

This post is the third in a series of excerpts from OneCoach CEO John Assaraf’s interview with award-winning blogger Andy Wibbels, author of “Blog Wild.” You can see his blog here.

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I’m wondering how many of my fellow agents are blogging?  Niche Blogging, or creating an Authority Site for your Agency’s strong suits might be a valuable piece of internet real estate over time.  Are your producers strong on Work Comp, Group Benefits, Prevailing Wage Contractors …  High Net Worth Individuals?  Crane Companies?  Landscape Contractors? – You get the point.  Leverage your expertise in a certain niche and become the insurance authority. As of late I have been really enjoying John Assaraf’s newsletter blog.  He talks about some interesting ideas and benefits of blogging.  I think he’s on the money.

Check it out below.

I appreciate you,

Steve

A blog can make you money in two ways: directly and indirectly.

Indirectly, a blog extends your existing marketing efforts.  It enables you to save time, move faster and generate better search engine rankings, so that more people find you.

Once people find you, they can grab your white paper, sign up for your newsletter, join your online forum, or attend your seminars.  They can also see that you have upcoming events or new products and services, so they’ll go to your main Web site more often.

By using your blog to get more people engaged with your Web site, you can convert more prospects into paying customers.

One of the great things about a blog is that you can link back and forth from your blog to your Web site.  You can also use a blog to poll your audience and conduct customer research that assists with the development of new products and service.

A blog should be more than a one-way communication tool.  Of course, you give people relevant information in the form of white papers, product updates and newsletters. But to build your business, a blog needs to be interactive.  Think of it as a customer-service survey that never ends, so that you’re always getting feedback from your target audience.

Perhaps most important, a blog can be a powerful lead-generation tool.  Use it to increase readership for your newsletter, build your client database, and get more prospects to the place where you can convert them into paying customers.

Cha-Ching!

How do you make money directly with a blog?

Through advertising or affiliate commission-based products.

Visitors come to your blog to get information about a certain topic.  If they see advertising or affiliate products that are in line with that topic, they will click on those links, making you money in the process.

For example, suppose your blog deals with debilitating foot pain.  On the right side of the page, you might have a large banner ad for a new kind of orthopedic shoe.  People won’t consider the ad intrusive or inappropriate because it relates to the content they’re looking for.

In fact, many will click on the ad to see if it presents a solution to their problem.  You then get paid, either by the click or as a percentage of the sale if the visitor actually buys the product.

To maximize your blog’s earning potential, avoid “interruption” advertising.  Online, people want fast access to information, but only if it is relevant.  Anything that interrupts their attention by not being relevant is a waste of their time.  Not only will people not click on the ad, they will likely not return to your blog.

Remember that you’re building a loyal fan base with your blog.  These are people who come to you for reliable information on the subject they’re interested in.  If your advertising doesn’t align with the content of your blog, it will destroy your credibility as a provider of reliable information, and people won’t come back to your blog.

This post is the fourth in a series of excerpts from OneCoach CEO John Assaraf’s interview with award-winning blogger Andy Wibbels, author of “Blog Wild.” You can see his blog here.

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HomeBusinessWiz:

Networking. Does the word strike fear into your heart, or does it excite you with its possibilities?

Let’s face it, it doesn’t matter if you have the world’s best widget at the lowest possible price. If nobody knows about it, your business won’t be successful. That’s why networking is so important.

Here are five of the best networking organizations designed to benefit the small business owner.

1. Business Networks International (BNI)
Primarily devoted to referral exchange, BNI provides members with the opportunity to share ideas, contacts and networking tools. A strong advocate of word-of-mouth advertising, BNI promotes marketing strategies for its members via networking opportunities.

BNI groups work like this: Each group is small, typically about 20 people. Only one person from each type of business is allowed in the group. For example, one web designer, one dentist, one heavy equipment operator.

2. Chamber of Commerce
Sometimes referred to as a Board of Trade, the Chamber of Commerce is one of the more universally accepted business networks. Primarily concerned with business at a local level, Chamber of Commerce members work hard to enhance business, both large and small, in their local area.

3. Industry Trade Associations
Trade associations promote their particular industry through advertising, educational seminars, publishing, conferences, trade shows (and sometimes political lobbying). Primarily non-profit organizations, trade associations are governed by a Board of Directors, made up of members who must adhere to a set of specific, agreed upon bylaws.

4. Toastmasters
When most people think of Toastmasters, they think public speaking. Although this is their main mandate, there are additional networking benefits to becoming a member of this group.

Toastmasters provides a variety of communication tools that promote spontaneity in both thoughts and actions. It is also designed to provide its members with performance improvements guaranteed to hone leadership skills, build confidence and improve self-image.

5. On-Line Networking Groups
There are tons of on-line networking groups for small business. The trick is to find one that is useful and active. A good place to start is MerchantCircle.com, which provides members with the tools and expertise required to develop trade with other businesses in their local area. MerchantCircle also provides information on topics such as on-line advertising, developing email newsletters, and blogging.

Internet business networking can also be found simply by doing a search at Google or Yahoo. Two of the more well-known online business networking sites are InsiderPages and LinkedIn.

Photo by CaptPiper.

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One of the tools that took Facebook into the stratosphere … virology, appears to be at play here for Twitter, users, followers, tweets .. whatever

Word of Mouth Viral marketing circa 2008 … Tweet Tweet!

Check out the last sentence of this interesting blog post. Then, checkout how you can use  similar web 2.0 technology on your site[s] …

Go Viral Young Broker, Go Viral <– click

Venture Beat:

Everyone loves talking about Twitter’s business model — because there isn’t one yet, and they’ll keep talking about it until there is one.

But it’s becoming more clear that while a business model is of course important, Twitter is perhaps the perfect example of a company that can afford to take its time in finding the one that is perfect for it.

That’s because other businesses are building so much on top of the micro-messaging service and using it for their own services.

Less altruistically, some businesses have discovered that Twitter is an effective way of communicating with consumers.

Dell says Twitter has produced $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available the company’s Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others.

Photo by Twitter.

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Hi everyone … another interesting FEED post by Seth Godin. I wanted to share this short not with you because – like he points out, I’ve lost a favorite little store or vendor I really liked.

Now I miss them a great deal. What did I do to spread the word about them? Rarely anything. Shame on me.

Imagine if ALL you clients somehow got the point that “My Agent – who has been there for me since I was on my parent auto policy, or since I was the beneficiary of my Father’s Will etc … and they might not be there next year.”

So as creative Referral Marketers, how do we utilize what we’re going to read below to gently inform our clientele of this, and spin a marketing opportunity out of the concept?

What if we were to more frequently add P.S. messages or closing sentences to correspondence with something like …

“It is through your generous referrals and trust that our business thrives through the most challenging of times.

Please don’t keep Us/Me a Secret …

We appreciate the trust, confidence and loyalty you’ve shown our firm over the years. We will strive to continually earn and keep it, and that of the friends, family and associates your refer to us!”

A little wordy … and a bit over the top – but it was for emphasis and idea. You get the point.

I like to put a little something heart felt and impactful from time to into to some of the drip campaigns I’m using with the Ultimate Referral System.

Enjoy …

Steve

IWantSandy is folding, as are a number of web companies. So is that restaurant you loved down the street. Users are outraged. Outraged!

When you find a service or establishment or product that gives you joy, it’s tempting to keep it to yourself. Perhaps it’s uncomfortable to recommend it to a friend (after all, you might seem silly) and even more uncomfortable to recommend it to a stranger (after all, you might seem like a shill).

Plenty of people hesitate before spreading the word about a political candidate or a business or a medical device. We’re worried that we’ll look silly, or that the place will end up being too crowded and now we won’t be able to get in. Or perhaps we’re concerned about losing our uniqueness…

Anyway, the outcry that accompanies the closing of one of these businesses should be enough to remind you that your hesitation has a cost.

It’s simple, I think. In a world where consumers have so much power, we now have two responsibilities:

• If you don’t like what an organization stands for, work actively to spread the word and force them to change

and

• If you will miss a product, a service, a book, a site or a professional when they close up shop, stand up, speak up and bring them masses of new business.

We get what we promote.

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Interesting read from Seth Godin.

With all the hoopla surrounding viral YouTube videos, and other such ads, which frankly I can’t see they get a lot of real traction. Traction in this context, meaning people actually taking an action that generates revenue for the viral ad creator … Here’s some examples of viral “products” and “services” that went ballistic because the viral component was built in by design.

Enjoy,

Steve

Viral marketing is an idea that spreads–and an idea that while it is spreading actually helps market your business or cause.

Two kinds of viral marketing: The original classic sort in which the marketing is the product and which a self-amplifying cycle occurs. Hotmail, for example, or YouTube. The more people use them, the more people see them. The more people see them, the more people use them. The product or service must be something that improves once more people use it.

A second kind has evolved over the last few years, and that’s a marketing campaign that spreads but isn’t the product itself. Shepard Fairey‘s poster of Barack Obama was everywhere, because people chose to spread it. It was viral (it spread) and it was marketing (because it made an argument–a visual one–for a candidate.)

Something being viral is not, in an of itself, viral marketing. Who cares that 32,000,000 people saw your stupid video? It didn’t market you or your business in a tangible, useful way.

Marketers are obsessed with free media, and, as is often the case, we blow it in our rush to get our share. We create content that is hampered or selfish or boring. Or we create something completely viral that doesn’t do any marketing at all.

I wrote the first mainstream book about viral marketing. It’s free (still) eight years (and millions of downloads) later.

Download 2000Ideavirus.pdf

I haven’t updated it or made it pretty, but I think the core ideas stand up pretty well. (I even talk about the Zipf’s Law and the long tail, but didn’t realize it at the time).

Here’s how the book itself is an example of viral marketing:

1. I posted the PDF for free. Three thousand people downloaded it on day one.

2. The file is small enough to email to your friends. I encouraged people to do just that.

3. Some people mailed it to fifty or a hundred people. It spread.

4. That’s just viral. The marketing part? I released a $40 souvenir hardcover edition. People knew the idea but didn’t like the format or my design skills. So they paid a lot for a book they had already read. It went to #5 on Amazon (#4 in Japan). We sold the rights in dozens of languages. And the paperback rights. And it helped me get speaking gigs.

BUT! 5. That’s not why I did it. If I had done it as a clever way to sell books, it would have failed. It would have failed because I would have somehow tried to track it, or added friction, or tried to profit in some way from the idea. I was way too dumb at the time to have done it right if my goal was to do it ‘right’.

The critical element of viral marketing is this: it’s built in. It was built into Hotmail and built into YouTube. The more people used the camera on their cell phones, the more the idea spread, the more people wanted a camera.

If you want to do viral marketing, you can try to come up with a viral ad, but you’ll probably fail. You’re better off building the viral right into the product, creating a product that spreads because you designed it that way.

Viral marketing only works well when you plan for it, when you build it in, when you organize your offering to be spreadable, interesting and to work better for everyone involved when it spreads. If I don’t benefit from spreading it, why should I spread it? I won’t. If you don’t benefit from your users spreading the idea, it might spread, but it won’t help you much. So both elements have to be present.

The reason for this post is that viral marketing is getting a bad name, largely from clueless marketing agencies and clueless marketers. Here’s what they do: they get a lame product, or a semi-lame product, and they don’t have enough time or money to run a nationwide ad campaign. So, instead, they slap some goofy viral thing on top of it and wait for it to spread. And if it doesn’t spread, they create a faux controversy or engage a PR firm or some bloggers and then it still doesn’t work.

Being viral isn’t the hard part. The hard part is making that viral element actually produce something of value, not just entertainment for the client or your boss.

Seth;s blog is here http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog

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Testing this out a little to see if its working as intended …

If you know us, you know we’re nuts for cloud computing (and also, and relatedly, for the paperless office). It’s vastly cheaper, it enables bigger things to get done by smaller and more disparate groups, and, if you do it right, it’s even more secure.

Of course, one of the few obstacles to going the cloud computing route is lack of technical know-how. Not that it’s particularly complicated; it’s just that some of us are particularly unsavvy. Which is why we loved this piece on everything you always wanted to know about using Google Docs (Google Docs being Google’s cloud-based word processor). Some of our favorite tips follow.

You can upload Microsoft Office documents onto Google Docs via a variety of programs: the article recommends List Uploader among others.
Create a script of all your Google Docs documents for download onto a CD with this Grease Monkey program.
Track who visited your shared Google Docs document and when (really!) by going here and clicking “Track visits to my documents using Google Analytics.”

Check the whole thing out.