Walt Goshert

How to Grow Your Small Business Got Ya Stumped?

Walt Goshert — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:25:11 +0000

Check out Ryan Healey’s 31 Ways To Grow a Business.

You’ll want to:

Print this post out…
Check out the links…
Study it…
Apply the ideas to your business…

And…

Do It!

Oh yeah, thanks to Jonathan Fields for Tweeting this post of Ryan’s today. Picked up Jonathan’s Tweet scanning through my Google Buzz stream.

Photo Credit: Flickr

Do It Yourself Online Reputation Management Toolkit- via John Jantsch

Walt Goshert — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:15:59 +0000

Listening to real time conversations for opportunities, leads, and reputation management is now a standard marketing item on the to-do list.

While there are services such as Radian6, Trackur and Jive Software (Filtrbox) that provide this kind of tracking for a fee, there are a number of tools that any do-it-yourselfer can employ to capture much of what’s being said about their brands, people, products, and industries in real time:

1. Google Alerts

This one is certainly not new, but I still find people who don’t tap into it. Google Alerts allows you to set up as many custom searches as you like and have Google alert you via email or RSS when any mentions of those search terms hits their radar. Not 100 percent foolproof, but very good.

2. Google Reader

Google Reader is an RSS reader, which means you can use it to subscribe, capture, read and display anything that produces an RSS feed. Most people use it to sort and read blogs, but anything with an RSS feed will show up here, so you can filter a great deal of content, including tags in bookmarking sites such as Delicious. Every customer and competitor blog feed should be in here.

3. MyReviews Page

Rating and review sites such as Google Places and Yelp have become essential marketing tools. Monitoring reviews is a big part of managing and building reputation on these sites. MyReviewsPage alerts you when a new review shows up on many of the more popular review sites.

4. Backtype

Backtype primarily focuses on blog comment streams and is a handy way to track this important content source.

5. Boardreader

Bulletin boards and forums have lost a lot of their buzz due to social networking sites, but many industries still have very strong and active ones. Boardreader is your alert tool for the most popular bulletin board and forum sites.

6. Social Mention

Social Mention is a real time search engine and important part of the mix because it not only catches things that others miss, it offers a wide variety of content types such as images, video and audio mentions, as well as giving some data about the influence and sentiment of the mentions.

7. Netvibes

Netvibes isn’t a tracking or listening tool, but it’s a nice way to manage viewing all of the data you collect. Netvibes allows you to create a custom dashboard of RSS feeds and other elements and can be a great way for you to bring all of the content created by the tools above into one handy viewing station.

John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine.

He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. You can find more information by visiting http://www.ducttapemarketing.com

Photo Credit

How to Turn 10 Bucks into One Million Dollars

Walt Goshert — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:48:22 +0000

Something quick for you today…

Troy White opened my marketing mind with his rewrite of a Bad Marketing Email message.

Some months ago I downloaded and read Troy’s Million Dollar Lobster Report… and promptly saved and filed it away on my computer hard-drive.

Do yourself a favor…

If you’re grappling with how to use the Internet to boost your local business sales, grab Troy’s Million Dollar Lobster Report.

It’s an entertaining story. Troy isn’t kidding… in the right hands, the information in the report is GOLD.

You just might catch an idea you can use in your local business… and turn it into a Million Dollars.

Or…

You’ll become a card-carrying member of the Ready brothers Lobster Club.

Enjoy!

Photo Credit:Flickr

3 Ways to Engage your Website Visitors

Walt Goshert — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:40:43 +0000

Here’s Daniel Levis on the 3 ways to engage your visitors to your website…

And…

Gain more opt-ins, phone calls, and sales.

Does Your Online Copy Talk?
THE UNSPOKEN DIALOGUE

When it comes to online copywriting, it’s not the words you use that count. It’s the reaction to those words in the mind of the reader, as he reads them on the screen…

And it’s your ability to anticipate and plan out those reactions that spells the difference between being able to get your web site visitors to opt-in or buy your product in sufficient numbers to make your business a success.

It’s like a dialogue between two people, divorced in time and space. You are feeding your reader images, ideas, and emotions across the continuum, in a carefully planned sequence… and he is feeding you back reactions.

You plan for certain reactions, and do your best to make them come about. You hope your reader will understand and agree with the assertions you put forward, and that he will share in the emotions you are suggesting he feel.

Included among these reactions are demands, questions, and anticipations, which must be answered, or your copy will fail…

When you’ve successfully aroused your prospect’s interest, his reaction may be to demand more information, more image, and more desire from your copy, as if to say… hmmm, tell me more? Where you have inflamed his desire, he will demand proof. And even when you demonstrate proof, he is likely to demand to know how those results are to be achieved, so he can judge for himself whether or not the product will work for HIM.

CREATIVE SCHIZOPHRENIA… So your challenge is to play a dual role. You must be copywriter and prospect at the same time. You must walk in his shoes, sense his reactions, feel what he feels at each point in the copy… so you can switch direction at the precise moment his demands arise, and answer them. This fracturing of your mind is one of the most difficult skills to master in copywriting. And naturally it demands a great deal of research into the product, and the market you’re working with. This sensitivity is one of the key distinctions between writing “good enough” copy… and writing grand slam home run copy that pulls in obscene returns.

Those anticipation points are crucial. If you miss them, you lose the interest of your reader.

Let’s examine one of these demands in more detail. At some point in your copy, your prospect generally will ask this question. “How does your product do all these good things you say it does?” First you must anticipate where this question will arise, and then answer it.

“REASON WHY”

Notice this a very specific kind of proof. It’s not a testimonial or an authoritative endorsement. Your prospect is asking for an explanation of the “reason why” something works, which may or may not be included in the aforementioned. It is an explanation of the mechanism behind the magic.

I have seen ads that included every conceivable proof element under the sun fail, because they left this simple device out. They failed to demonstrate the ‘reason why’ the product delivered the promised results.

Of course John E. Kennedy and Claude C. Hopkins are well known for popularizing the importance of this idea at the turn of the last century, and today many direct response ads make use of it to some degree. But how much ‘reason why’ is enough, how much is too much, and where in the copy does it belong?

WHEN TO USE LOGIC AND REASONING IN YOUR COPY

The answer to these questions comes from your market. Are you writing to those who already understand the reasons why your product can do what you claim? Do they accept those reasons as valid? If so, there is not much point in wasting the reader’s attention with a lot of ‘reason why’ copy. For example, if you are writing a car ad today, and the car you are writing about has ABS brakes, all you need do is name this mechanism. Millions of dollars of advertising, perhaps hundreds of millions that has gone before you, has distilled the logic and workings of this technology down to a three letter acronym that just about everyone with a license to drive understands. You simply name the feature, tie it to a benefit, and then move on.

But what about the vast array of products that present a new promise, but where the prospect does not yet understand the mechanism behind the claim? Here it is a simple matter of building a strong promise, backed up by a ‘reason why’ the product delivers on the claim. In the early days of ABS for example, the pioneers made the promise of greater safety, and then backed up that claim with a reason why. Safe, because you could now steer while braking in slippery conditions, and so on.

Of course, the cardinal sin is to make your ‘reason why’ copy dull and boring. It is not scientific discourse. It should sell the mechanism, just as hard as the opening sells the promise, and it must continue to captivate and engage the reader’s interest and build his desire.

In the later stages of product competition, where the market is sophisticated, and it seems that everyone has the same technology, the same promise, the same price, a new strategy is in order.

At this stage your ‘reason why’ should take center stage. Move it up from the anonymity of the body copy, and put it in your headline. It is now just as vital as your promise, no longer just a proof element, but a new, fresh incentive for your prospect to read your ad.

Another place in your copy where this reaction commonly arises is where you offer a special price or discount. Your prospect is suspicious. Many advertisers ignore this fact, and are shocked to discover that a price reduction does nothing to increase sales.

What you must realize is that a price cut, like a promise or a claim or a benefit is only as good as the words you use to describe it, and the strategy you use to present it. Price cuts should be justified. There must be a reason for them. A ‘reason why’ you are doing what you are doing. Without it, you are selling with only a fraction of the power.

About the Author
Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology “Masters of Copywriting” featuring the marketing wisdom of 44 of the world’s greatest copywriters, including Clayton Makepeace, Joe Sugarman, Joe Vitale,Bob Bly, and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt, click here.(affiliate link)

Your words can make a difference. Do it pro bono. (socialactions.net)
Resources Every Copywriter Must Have (lazerpromotions.com)
The Art of Zen Copywriting for Bloggers (copyblogger.com)
Copywriting Advertising Is Easy (wealthyways4you.com)
4 Things an Ethical Internet Marketer Can Learn from Spammers (copyblogger.com)
Get Business Buzzing with a Buzz Piece (freelanceswitch.com)
How The Marketing Rebel Can Help Your Business (marketingonlineinternet.com)

Photo Credit:Flickr

The Referral Engine: “Tune Up” Your Small Business Marketing

Walt Goshert — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:52:28 +0000

Is your small business “Referral Engine”…

… a sputtering, oil-leaking, smoke-spewing, back-firing, about to blow a gasket wreck?

Or…

… a fine-tuned, high-pitched, ear drum busting, screaming, turbo-charged, world-class racing machine?

Yes, as Chris Brogan says, it’s hard to believe John Jantsch could top Duct Tape Marketing…

But he has!

Indeed, John puts you in the drivers seat of your word-of-mouth marketing with The Referral Engine.

Buckle up, put on your helmet. Get in the race to win the hearts and minds of clients who know, like, and trust you… and Teach Your Business How to Market Itself with the The Referral Engine as your new Word-of-Mouth Owner’s Manual.

This Ain’t Grandpa’s Word-of-Mouth World

Sure, movers and shakers back-slapping over 3-hour, 3-martini lunches at the Club, mid-week, mid-day rounds of golf, volunteering on charity boards, and attending private big-wig cocktail parties still grease the skids of business… always will.

And, keeping your head down, minding your business, delivering good service at a fair price… well, that’s kinda expected in today’s New Economy.

You’ve no doubt noticed that newspaper ads, your Yellow page ads, Val-Pak mailers, Trade Shows, TV and Radio ads don’t seem to work the same magic as in the “Good Old Days”.

Yep, even getting a steady, consistent stream of quality referrals… the bread and butter of nearly all local small business marketing… is different now a days.

The Internet has Changed the Referral Race

Forever. And, for businesses who plug into John’s advice in The Referral Engine, for the better.

Yes, in the back of the book, John shares tons of real-world, practical “Snack-sized Suggestions” on how to get your clients and business community spreading the word about you that have little to do with SEO, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, or cutting a YouTube video.

But, before you get to John’s “Snack-sized Suggestions” and his Action Plan Workshop, John “refers” you to…

112 Online Case-Studies, Resources, and Tools

Throughout The Referral Engine, John points you to Case-Studies, Business Examples, practical SEO Resources, Social Media Marketing Resources and Tools, Business Blogging and Content Creation- Text, Audio, Video, Tools to Monitor and Spread the Conversation about your business, and Time-Saving Productivity Tools.

To help you take ACTION, implement, and build your race-ready Referral Engine, here are the links: (pretty much in the order as they appear in The Referral Engine)

The Referral Engine.

Buy it. Read it. Drive it. Use it to Build Your Business.

Disclosure: While, yes, I do have affiliate relationships with some of the links on this post and an affiliate relationship with Duct Tape Marketing, none of the links on this post are affiliate links. John was kind enough to give me a copy of The Referral Engine in return for this review.

Win Copies of John Jantsch’s “The Referral Engine” (marketingpilgrim.com)
10 Observations about Duct Tape Marketing’s Dirty Little Market Research Secret (inklingmarkets.com)
Weekend Reading: The Referral Engine, by John Jantsch (Preview) (readwriteweb.com)
Referral Engine Preview and Book Giveaway (ducttapemarketing.com)
“The Referral Engine” – New Book by John Jantsch (realestate.about.com)
Making Referrals As a Job Creation Engine (ducttapemarketing.com)
Making Referrals as a Small Business Job Creation Engine (prweb.com)
5 Creative Ways to Get More Referrals (ducttapemarketing.com)
The Referral Engine Overview (ducttapemarketing.com)