Women Entrepreneurs The Secrets of Success for Monday, October 11th

Anita Campbell

Anita Campbell is the founder, CEO, and editor of Small Business Trends, a popular website where small businesses and entrepreneurs can stay on top of trends driving the small business market. She also hosts Small Business Trends Radio and is a respected business speaker.

More recently, Anita acquired the website BizSugar, a social bookmarking and networking site for small and medium-sized business owners and managers. Through the site, users can meet other business owners with whom they can share interests and knowledge. As well, users can discover websites and articles that provide answers to common business challenges and share useful ideas.

http://www.bizsugar.com/
http://smallbiztrends.com/



8:00 pm EDT
Listen to the live or archived show at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/CoachDeb

How to Create a Squeeze Page that Gets Strong Results

by Kristin Marquet

The Internet is saturated with content, sales pitches and products. As a result, you have to make your business standout from the rest of the businesses out there.

Squeeze pages are one of the best ways to do this. They are mini web pages with opt in forms to catch the name and email addresses of prospects. They are used to build email subscriber lists.

Your squeeze page should look something like this:

• Use a headline (in red size 18 or larger font), a sub-headline (in black size 16 or larger font), followed by 5 to 7 bullets (in black font)
• Keep your sales copy concise. The entire objective is to get the prospect to sign up through the opt in form
• Use 200 to 300 words on the page
• Use headline generator software to help come up with compelling headlines
• Use a keyword selector tool to help pick the best keyword search phrases for SEO purposes
• Use video to personalize your message. This helps you connect with prospects. (Check out www.marketingmakeovergenerator.com)
• Use product or service benefits as bullet points
• Use a simple opt in form from www.aweber.com, www.constantcontact.com or www.verticalresponse.com
• Adding bonus products with (high perceived values) will help convert prospects
• Use a privacy policy. Let prospects know that you respect their privacy and will never sell, rent, or lend out their personal information

If you're in a market where prospects are used to filling out opt in forms, consider using a longer squeeze page. You have to sell prospects to opt-in. Use a strong headline and sub-headline. Highlight all of the benefits of your product or service.

Answer these questions:
How can your business help your market?
Why is your business better than the rest?
What are you offering? Make sure it is something that is useful.

Kristin Marquet is a regular contributor to the Secrets of Success blog.

Marketing VA's: How They Help Entrepreneurs Grow Their Business

by Sydni Craig-Hart

One of the best ways to grow your business and increase your income is to specialize in a specific type of virtual assistance.  One option is to offer marketing support services.  There is an ever growing need for marketing virtual assistants, particularly those who specialize in Internet marketing. 

The two things EVERY business owner wants are 1) to make more mo.ney in their business and 2) to have more time to enjoy being self-employed.  A VA who specializes in marketing and is directly connected to creating more profits and increased productivity will make herself invaluable to her clients.  This type of virtual assistance is not just about supporting the entrepreneur to run their business effectively or waiting for the client to ask for help.  It's about taking initiative and being proactive about completing tasks and projects that create more opportunities for exposure and revenue in the client's business.

Speakers, authors, coaches and consultants are part of the growing group of business owners who are hiring VA's to help them market their business effectively. They've found that they just don't have the time or the expertise to market themselves and their services. To create the desired results, marketing needs to be done in a focused and consistent way. By hiring a VA who specializes in marketing support, business owners can focus on their gifts and developing their business, while the VA executes their marketing plan to attract more clients and customers.

The marketing VA can do so many things for their client such as:

• Blogging - Setup, maintenance and promotion
• Email marketing  - Email blasts, ezines, setting up autoresponders and more
• Research, secure and prepare for speaking engagements
• Email marketing  - Email blasts, ezines, setting up autoresponders and more
• Research, secure and prepare for speaking engagements
• Research and coordinate  joint venture partnerships
• Social media marketing - Research networking opportunities, increase exposure, maintain/update profiles and more
• Create and help to launch information products
• Manage the client's affiliate program and relationships
• and so much more!
  

The skilled small business marketing VA is a powerful business partner for her clients.  As a marketing VA, you can solve your client's two biggest challenges - how to market effectively and consistently increasing their revenue.

 

The skills needed to be a great marketing VA (meaning one who creates results for her clients) are quite varied, depending on what niche you want to serve.  But in general you need great communication and writing skills, analytical and problem solving skills, advanced knowledge of Internet marketing techniques and advanced people and negotiating skills.  By providing marketing services for your client, you can help them increase their revenues and even help them expand their business. Your expertise and knowledge will yield greater results than if the client tried to do it on their own, and you can help them prepare for their business growth.   Keeping up to date with your training and skills by investing in training and coaching will ensure that you are able to help your clients efficiently and effectively.  

 

If you want more information about how to tap into this popular and lucrative market, you can learn more by investing in some professional training courses. The popular and comprehensive courses offered by SharonBroughtonAcademy.com and VAClassroom.com have helped many VA's expand their business and increase their earning potential. Remember, investing in your business development and education is key to a successful VA business - make sure you allocate the resources to stand out from the crowd.   

© 2010 Executive Assistant to Virtual Assistant! All rights reserved.

Sydni Craig-Hart, The VA Success Coach™, is Founder of Executive Assistant to Virtual Assistant!, a company dedicated to providing Administrative Professionals with the support, tools and resources they need to create a highly successful, profitable Virtual Assistant business.  Visit www.VASuccessSecrets.com to listen to Sydni’s FREE audio class “How to Start and Grow A Profitable Virtual Assistant Business ...In Less Than Six Months”.

Are You Throwing Money Out of the Window?

by Sandra Martini
 
You know that feeling when you sign up for a new program or service -- this is THE one, the one which will answer all your questions, particularly if it comes with a resource library of some sort.

You go in all bright-eyed and then it happens. . .life interferes.

Perhaps another program caught your eye (and wallet) or a well-meaning coach told you you're spending too much time working "in" your business and not "on" it.

Regardless, you're pulled off course and don't use the benefits you've paid for.

There it goes. . .more money out the window. . .and you?

You're wondering why you didn't achieve everything the program/service promised or you know why and you're frustrated with yourself for once again drowning in overwhelm.

The solution?

• Review the program and make a decision about what you're going to accomplish as a result of it BEFORE you sign up.
• Review the program benefits and determine how and when you're going to use them.
• Recognize that you have to work IN your business so that you have a business to work ON -- too many people advise against working "in" your business and, quite frankly, that's a mistake.
• Do the work.  Whatever program you sign up for is going to require you to do more than simply show up to the calls, take info in via osmosis and have instant results. 
• Doing the above sounds like a no brainer when you read it here, but I can count on one hand the number of programs I've managed/been part of where members used all their benefits.

My Request to You

While signing up for new programs and services is exciting and often motivating in and of itself, know WHY you're doing it and go through each of the above steps to ensure you're getting the absolute most from every program you're a part of.

After all, your business deserves your best. 


Sandra Martini is a strategic marketing and productivity consultant who helps entrepreneurs create and implement the systems to achieve their visions, with services such as coaching, client systems development, consulting and Team Sandy Done 4 You Online Business Marketing & Management as well as a variety of informational products. For more business building strategies and to get your free audio series “5 Simple & Easy Ways to Put Your Marketing on Autopilot,” visit Sandy’s site at http://www.SandraMartini.com today.

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to the Search Engine Marketing Plan

by Kristin Marquet

Who wants to double or triple their website traffic almost immediately?

Are you getting the most out of your online marketing?

So many people pose to be marketing experts, when in fact, some may actually be, but in my experience, I’ve come to find that most are full of hot air. They claim you will get thousands of visitors and increase your conversion rates by 100% if you purchase their program and follow their directions. Nevertheless, the problem is many small businesses, both startups and established lack the funds to spend on marketing and they don’t know whom to trust.

To make your marketing road a little easier, here is a blueprint for you to follow. Here are the elements you need to include in your marketing plan.

Please sure to include the following list in your marketing plan:

Analytics - use analytics programs such as Google Analytics for tracking. You should know the exact amount of visitors that come, where they come from, and how long they stay on your website. Many programs also tell you where visitors click off.

Blogging – Blogs are often used in conjunction with or as substitutes for company websites because they are more user-friendly, cost-efficient, and personal than traditional websites. In fact, most blogs are free, while customized websites can cost thousands of dollars

Building a Brand – Microblogging and social media are two of the greatest ways to build online brands. Mircoblogging, using an application such as Twitter, helps position you as an expert in your field (additionally, there are a few ways to monetize the Twitter application). Moreover, using social media applications such as Facebook and Squidoo enable you to interact with prospective as well as existing customers.

Keywords – Keywords are used when people are searching for certain product, service, or information on search engines. Using the right keywords/keyword phrases for your site and integrating them into the title, tags, and headlines improve search engine rankings and your search engine positioning

Link Building – Link building is a great way to get better search engine rankings. Search engines use links as tools for determining how valuable and relevant the site’s content is to a search.

Online Public Relations – It doesn’t matter the size of your company, PR should always be used. If a few angry customers have tainted your online brand, it could damage your business, thus online monitoring is imperative. Nonetheless, online PR could also be very effective – distributing online press releases, doing interviews (explore blogtalkradio.com) and writing bylined articles help increase a brand’s visibility.

Pay Per Click Advertising – Pay per Click advertising is when certain keywords are purchased on major search engines such Google or Yahoo. It is paid placement, usually on the top or right side of the search engine results. Keywords are targeted toward certain markets. It could be very expensive but also very effective if planning effectively.

Contact Kristin at km@marquet-communications.com.

Kristin Marquet is a regular contributor to the Secrets of Success blog.