Internet Marketing For Solopreneurs

Since I have been teaching teleclasses for a long time, I get questions on a regular basis on how to get started teaching teleclasses. I love teaching teleclasses - it is very rewarding to teach them and they provide a lot of information and value for my students!

If you are starting out with teaching teleseminars/teleclasses/teleseries or webinars, here are three points that should help you create an effective (and popular!) class:

- Find a topic for your class. The best topics are topics that your target market is interested in learning more about.

- Pick one of the topics your target market wants to learn more about and create an interesting, effective class around this topic. Decide on how long your class will be, what the format of the class is going to be, how much material to include, etc.

- Market the class so that you can get participants for it! I usually recommend creating a marketing plan for promoting your teleseclasses/teleseminars. That way you will have a marketing template every time you want to teach your teleclasses in the future.

Your marketing plan should include different venues for reaching people in the target market and promoting your class to them.

My clients usually have the most trouble with the third action item, promoting the teleseminars/teleclasses and getting more participants for them. Here is how to promote your teleclass to get more participants:

- Publish a newsletter for your target market and use your newsletter to announce your teleclass to your subscribers.

- Some of your target customers visit your web site. Use your web site to announce your teleclass to your web site visitors.

- Are you using social networking web sites? Some of them allow you to post your teleseminars and events for other members to see. Announce your teleclass to these groups and watch your teleseminar attendance increase!

- Use article marketing, search engine optimization and other online marketing techniques to get more newsletter subscribers. Once you have more subscribers, you will have more people to promote your teleclasses to.

It is extremely important to have a clear marketing plan when marketing your teleseminars or any other classes. When you have a marketing plan you will be more successful and you will be able to get many more people to attend your classes.

Need help with putting together and marketing your teleclasses/teleseminars? My How To Make Thousands Of Dollars With Teleseminars Home Study Guide teaches you the step-by-step system for creating and teaching extremely profitable teleseminars. You can see it at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zteleseminars

Biana Babinsky

When I did an informal survey last year on why many business professionals are still not blogging, many business owners told me that they don’t feel they can find the time to commit to blogging.

One of the responses I heard was: “I don’t think I have another 40 hours/week to dedicate to blogging.”

Truth is, you don’t need to spend 40 hours/week on your blog. You don’t even need 15 hours/week.
If you organize your blogging and if you know what you want to talk about on your blog, blogging should not take that long. Here is how you should organize your blogging:

- Decide on how often you will blog. I blog 2-3 times a week and sometimes even less. You do not have to blog 3-5 times a day for your blog to be successful and bring in clients.

- Create a list of blog topics that you can use. It takes a while to come up with a good blog topic, so if you do not have any topics lined up, your blogging can take time. Instead of searching for
topics when you actually need them, create a running list of topics. Every time you read or hear something that may make a good blog topic, add it to the list.

When you need to actually write a blog post, go through the list and pick a topic you feel like writing about. Having a topic list will save you hours every time you need to write a new post.

- Re-print other people’s articles. If you like an article that someone else wrote, contact them and ask permission to post it on your blog. Posting someone else’s article won’t take very much time at all.

Don’t overdo this, as your blog readers would like to hear from you. But reprinting other people’s articles once in a while will help you build relationships, offer a different perspective to your readership and save time on blogging.

During the Make Thousands Of Dollars With Your Blog Teleseminar Series you will discover many
more ideas that will help you spend less time on blogging, and still be able to use it to get clients and promote your business. You can register for the Teleseminar Series at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zbt

Biana Babinsky

I have heard many business owners say: “I want a nice looking web site for my business.”

They find a web designer and the web designer delivers exactly what the business owner asked for - a nice looking web site. The business owner really likes the look and feel of the web site, but after a month or so the business owner notices that nothing is happening with the web site. No one is using the web site to find out about the business and contact the business owner about his products and services.

It seems that when a business owner says: “I want a nice looking web site”, what the business owner really means is “I want a nice looking web site that brings in clients and markets my business”.

Once the business owners realize that their nice looking web site does not deliver clients, many opt to hire another designer for a re-design. I have talked to quite a few business owners, who have had their web sites designed and re-designed many times, all without producing the desired result (services and book/product sales).

The truth is, having a nice looking web site is just not enough to get sales. In addition to having a nice looking web site you need to heavily market it - optimize it for search engines, have a newsletter list, write and publish articles, start a blog and more.

Getting a web site designed is just like getting a brochure made for your business. It is nice to have a brochure, but until your potential customers see it and decide to buy your book, nothing will happen.

Exactly the same is true for a web site. Until you start getting your target customers to come to your web site and stick around long enough to buy your products and services, nothing is going to happen either.

Some web designers may include some marketing into their design package, but many don’t. This means that it is up to you to get your web site marketed. Here is what to do:

- Make sure that you know who your target market is. Your web site should speak to your target market, so your first step is knowing who your web site will be speaking to.

- Design a marketing plan for your web site. Yes, you may not have a web site yet, but knowing how you will market it will help you in the long run.

- Decide what you will need on your web site in order to market it properly. This may include a blog, pages optimized for search engines, articles, etc.

- Now, talk to web site designers and pick the one that will help you not only with design, but with marketing of your web site. It is very important that your designer is aware of your marketing plan, and will be able to implement the web site-related pieces of the plan.

Need help creating a marketing plan for your web site? Join my online business mentoring program to discover how to create a marketing plan for your web site.

Biana Babinsky

About Biana: Biana Babinsky is the online business coach, expert and author who teaches coaches, consultants and other business owners how to get more clients and make more money online. Join her online business mentoring program at http://www.MarketingSalad.com for online business coaching, support and masterminding with other members.

You may have noticed this phenomenon as well. Many years ago it happed to a client of mine. My client joined an online networking group to promote his expertise and get clients. This was a group frequented by his target market, so it was an ideal spot for him to network and promote his expertise and his business.

He jumped right in and was fairly active in this group from the very beginning. He posted messages every other day, answered questions and networked with many members. He really enjoyed talking about his subject matter and it showed through his messages as well. He became seen as an expert almost immediately and he became to reap rewards.

As a result of his actions, he started getting traffic from the group. Every week he would check his web site statistics and tell me that he was getting a nice amount of traffic. The traffic brought him sales as well - he did two consulting projects with people who met him through this group. He sold his e-books and got quite a few people from the group to attend his seminars.

But as more new clients and commitments came his way, he did not have time to participate as much. Some of the things he was doing had to be cut from his schedule, so he decided to cut back on his social networking. He started to participate less and less in the group.

After some time he reported that he was getting much less web site traffic from the group, now that he participated less. Once he stopped participating in the group, he stopped getting any traffic from it.

Things like that happen to business owners all the time. We get busier and stop participating in social networking groups, and stop getting the traffic from them as a result.

But there is a better way! You can continue to receive benefits from a social networking group, such as leads and sales, long after you stopped participating in those groups. To do that, you need to actively promote your newsletter while you are still a member of the group. That way, some of the members of the group will get on your list and you will be able to keep in touch with them long after you leave that group.

I still get sales from people who met me in groups that I haven’t been to in years. And one of my new one-on-one mentoring clients this year is someone I met in a group that was closed down four years ago. This person was on my list for many years, she has been to my teleseminars and now she is working with me one-on-one.

So if you want to keep in touch with people you meet through social networking for a long time, make sure you promote your newsletter! Promote it in your profile, link to it from your signature, post a link to it from your “About” page, etc. The more visible you make your newsletter, the more people will get on your list, and the more people you will be able to keep in touch with even if you stop using some social networking groups.

For more help with getting clients from social networking, join me for the How To Create Social Networking Plan That Gets You Clients Teleseminar at http://www.marketingsalad.com/social-networking.html

Biana Babinsky

About Biana: Biana Babinsky is the online business expert and author who teaches coaches, consultants and other business owners how to use social networking to get clients. Join her for the How To Create Social Networking Plan That Gets You Clients Teleseminar to discover how to use social networking to get newsletter subscribers and clients for your business. You can learn more and register at http://www.marketingsalad.com/social-networking.html

Yes, you read correctly. According to the article, Google to Connect Friends Across the Web, Google is working on a service that will let any web site become a social networking site. All you will have to do is embed some code into your web site, and your web site visitors will be able to connect and interact with each other.

Imagine having your web site visitors meet each other, interact, chat. What do you think?

Biana Babinsky

About Biana: Biana Babinsky is the online business coach who teaches her clients how to get more web site traffic and clients online. Join her online business mentoring program to discover how to use the Internet to get over 98% of your clients! Join now at http://www.MarketingSalad.com

Just read an article, MySpace, Facebook: Big not always better about how Internet users like to use smaller, more targeted social networking web sites and groups.

Personally I like both types of groups. I am a member of small networking groups where membership is very targeted. For example, we have a very targeted networking group at MarketingSalad.com, my online business mentoring web site. In addition to learning about online marketing, members of MarketingSalad.com also network with each other and do business with each other on a regular basis. This group is very targeted - members are are coaches, consultants, virtual assistants and other online business owners who are serious about building profitable online businesses.

But I also like much larger networking web sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The key to using those really large sites is to still find smaller groups of people you want to socialize with. For example, if you like skiing, search for skiing groups. If you want to become known to your target market, search for groups/places where your target market is and start the conversation going.

It does not matter how big or small a group is, as long as you can create a strategy to increase your visibility and reach your market effectively.

Biana Babinsky

Online social networking is very hot right now, so join us for MarketingSalad.com Social Networking event on April 1st and 2nd. During this event you will be able to network with your potential customers and other solopreneurs and learn how to use social networking to promote your business.

Many participants reported creating business connections and getting clients during our past events, and this one is no exception! I am committed to helping 100 business owners to use social networking to market their business!

You can learn more and register for the social networking event at http://www.marketingsalad.com/networking.html

Biana Babinsky

Your web site is the place where you do business online. That is where people can sign up for your newsletter, read your blog, buy your products and register for your teleseminars. You need people to come to your place of business to transact business online, which means you need web site traffic.

And you don’t need just any web site traffic. Random, untargeted web site traffic will not produce any results. If you want to sell your products and services you need your target customers to come to your web site, learn about you and contact you about your products and services…

Continue Reading How To Get More Web Site Traffic With Articles

There are many social networking web sites online. I am sure you have heard of LinkedIn, Ryze, Facebook, MySpace and many other social networking sites.

I am a member of a few of them, and we also do a lot of networking at my online business mentoring web site, http://www.MarketingSalad.com. I also run my own social networking events for business owners.

Lately I have been getting lots of questions about social media and online networking from coaches, consultants and other solopreneurs. It seems that social networking is becoming more popular and more business owners want to take advantage of social networking to get more clients for their businesses.

You have to remember that just like regular networking, using social media does take time. You are looking for results for your business and it takes time to get those results.

Some of the things i do when I use social media are: I run groups and networking events for people I meet on social networking sites, I keep in touch and network, I write and optimize my blog, etc.

Two main things to remember if you want to get results from social media are:

- Correctly define your goals for social networking. You have to know know exactly what you want to happen from your involvement in social media and how to follow up and build on that involvement.

- You need to find ways (and time!) to do social media marketing on a regular basis.

More tips on using social media:

- Use Web 2.0 And Online Networking To Promote A Coaching Business

- How To Get Results From Online Networking

- Are You Wasting Time Or Networking?

Biana Babinsky

In the winter it looks like soup is everywhere! I have been reading magazine articles on how to cook soup. I keep seeing lots of soup commercials. Many restaurants are offering hearty soups on their winter menus.

While I like soup just fine, it’s not my favorite food. I do like soups in the winter; they do make you feel warmer, but the reason I am not that crazy about soups is because the majority of soups I have had are just blah. They are fine, but nothing special.

But every once in a while I come across very tasty soups, soups whose taste makes them much more memorable. After I eat them, I remember these soups for a while. And if someone I know made that particular soup, you can be sure that I had asked for a recipe.

What if the articles that you write are just like these two types of soups? You do not want your article to be fine but forgettable like the first type of soup. You want it to be like the second type of soup. You want those who have read your article to remember it and to ask for
more of your products and services.

Tomorrow I will be teaching How To Create Article Resource Boxes That Get You More Attention And More Clients Teleseminar. During this teleseminar you will learn how to get more leads and clients from your articles by creating effective and memorable resource boxes. I will also show you examples of Resource Boxes that have brought results.

The teleseminar is only for members of my online marketing mentoring program, MarketingSalad.com. Find out how to become a member and attend the teleseminar at

http://www.marketingsalad.com/articles.html

Biana Babinsky