Tip One:  Use an Email Service

Do not send bulk emails from your personal email account.  Outlook, gmail, yahoo, hotmail etc. are not designed to send bulk emails.  If you send emails from your email account,  you run the risk of being labeled as a spammer and your email can be blocked by your ISP provider.   Bulk emails should be sent from  recognized email broadcasters such as mailchimp, madmimi, constantcontact, aweber, 1shoppingcart etc. Most email services are  reasonably priced and worth paying for.   Mailchimp is free up to 2000 subscribers.

Using an email services also give you the ability to create a signup for your newsletter on your site and depending on the service you choose, do autoresponders. An Autoresponder is an email that goes out automatically to the subscriber after they sign up for your newsletter or purchase a product or service.   The autoresponders are set up once and then the email service will do the rest. Some email services give you the ability to do an autoresponder series where you can schedule a series of autoresponders to go out over the course of  period of time, i.e.., 2 days, 6 days etc. Autoresponders are a great way to stay in touch with your subscribers and upsell products and services.  All email services provide at least one autoresponder, the one that goes out after the subscriber signs up.  If you require additional autoresponders, an upgrade from the basic package may be required.

Most email services also have an opt in process in place which is a good email marketing practice.  When the subscriber signs up for your newsletter they receive an email from the email service asking them to confirm their subscription. The opt in message insures that the subscriber  is not being spammed and signed up to receive the newsletter.  Email services also give the subscriber the ability to unsubscribe at any time which is a requirement of the CAN-SPAM Act.

A little research is all you need to do to find the email service that is right for you.

Happy searching!

For example, I am working with a client that has some strong competition in another town which is drawing potential clients away from his business.  These clients want this service enough to travel outside their home area to that area.  Of course, my client can provide this service within his own town, but it is not cost effective for him to do so at this time. With a little research, I found that, within his target market, there are clients that do not want to travel for this service and, therefore, are not being targeted.  With this information, we were able to come up with a service for this target market which is similar, but cheaper than the competition’s service. So by creating this service not only has he created his own niche within his town and increased his target market, he is helping other businesses by keeping potential customers within his own town.

When you are trying to identify a niche for your business,  look for a product or service where you will dominate, stand out and make a difference.  What product or service can you provide that your competition isn’t providing or isn’t providing in a satisfactory matter?

So, are you niched?

Establishing your target market is very important to your marketing campaign. When you know exactly who you are trying to sell your product and/or services to, you will have an easier time marketing to them. Once you know who your target market is, you can do research and find out what magazines they read, what organizations they belong to, what conferences they attend, what websites they visit and where they “hang” out. With this knowledge, you now know where to focus your attention. Instead of being everywhere, you now have a plan. Your marketing campaign just got a lot easier.

The trick to target marketing is getting as specific as possible. If you are not specific,  it will be harder to sell your product or service. Not impossible, just harder. We don’t want harder so get specific.  However, that being said also note that you don’t want your target market to be so small that you are not making any money.  Make sure that your target market is a large enough to make money.

Target marketing scares many business owners because they believe they are missing potential customers or clients. When, in  fact, the reality is, that you just created a larger market for yourself. Because your marketing campaign is geared toward a specific audience, you increase the likelihood they will purchase your product and/or service.

Do you know who your target market is, and I am going to take this blog one step further… does the content on your site speak to them?

So why should you join the masses and get on the social media band wagon? Here is a list of reasons why you should make social media part of your marketing campaign:

1. Everyone else is doing it. I know that may sound a little crazy but those little badges you see on websites everywhere have become an endorsement of sorts, and if you choose not to join the mania you will leave your target market thinking you are out of touch.

2. Helps you keep in touch with your target market. Knowing what you target audience wants and needs is crucial to your marketing campaign. Customers and/or clients can communicate with you and leave feedback providing you with the information you need to better service your target market. SMM can ultimately save you time and money.

3. Reach more of your target audience. Unless you are going to do paid advertising in your target market, SMM is an easy way to reach millions of people.

4. Increases website traffic and web presence. There is no doubt about it; posting creates traffic. As with blogging, every time you post and respond to other posts you are also increasing your web presence.

5. It is free and easy marketing. Social media sites are easy to set up. However, there is a lot to know about social media and a good VA with SMM experience can help you navigate this process. At the very least if you are unable to do it, hire someone to do a custom Twitter page.

As I keep saying, marketing takes time and consistency so you like everything else, you need to take the time to post regularly. To save time you can use a service like www.ping.fm where you only have to post once and the service pings all the services you list.

• www.wordpress.com
• www.typepad.com (paid)
• www.blogger.com.com
• www.squarespace.com (paid)
• www.myspace.com

You can get full reviews of the above blogging services at: http://blog-services-review.toptenreviews.com/

Once you start blogging, the next step is to list your blog in directories.  Just like with article writing, there are free blog directories where you can list your blog.    If  you google “blog directories” you will find an extensive list.  Most blog directories are free but some may require a reciprocal link.  Here is a list of five (5) popular blog directories:

• Technorati.com
• BlogCatalog.com
• Blogarama.com
• Bloggapedia.com
• www.BlogHints.com

I suggest that you blog at least once a week.    Of course, if you can blog everyday more power to you!    As with marketing in general, blogging requires consistency.  If you are not blogging regularly you will have a difficult time establishing a  following.   Of course, things happen and  you may find yourself unable to blog one week.   A good solution to that problem is to have a couple of backups.  If you take the time to write everyday you can have another blog ready to go in no time.  Most blogging services give you the ability to create posts and save them as drafts until you are ready to publish. When you have some free time, write a couple of blogs so when you have one of those hectic weeks you have a backup.

Blogging is a free and an easy way to increase your email list, web presence, website traffic and establish your expertise in an area… so get blogging!

• www.amazines.com
• www.articlealley.com
• www.articlecity.com
• www.ezinearticles.com
• www.ideamarketers.com

Most article banks require you to open an account to submit your articles. Many also offer you the option, for a fee, to “showcase” your article. What this usually means is that they will put your article on the home page or in another prominent area of the site so that it will get more views. Of course, showcasing your article is a great way to increase your web presence and promote your article, but it is not required. If you are consistent in article writing (at least one a month), social media posting and blogging you will get the results you want, it will just take time and persistence. Quick results are nice but getting there can be costly and may not have staying power. Being consistent and providing good solid content is the key to not only building your web presence and email list, but establishing yourself as an expert in your field.

Posting to article banks can be time consuming so another option is to subscribe to a service like isnare.com, an article distribution center. The way this service works is you purchase distribution credits or a membership and submit your article. Once your article is approved it will be edited and placed in the article directory becoming available to a network of opt-in publishers. A complete list of these publishers can be found on the website.

Other places to post your articles are websites like www.selfgrowth.com which is a great free site that covers all types of subjects relating to self-growth. You can create a profile page, post a bio, list your websites and post your articles.

Happy posting!

I am so happy that you are taking the time to read my blog, my first one! The purpose of this blog is to provide tips, ideas and techniques to new entrepreneurs, authors, coaches and small business owners on how to grow their business and take it to the next level. Much of what I will talk about may seem like stuff everyone should already know and be doing and if you are doing it, good for you! However, I find it amazing how many new entrepreneurs and small business owners are not doing any marketing at all. I take on new clients all the time that are not doing some very simple and fundamental things to grow their business. Putting up a website is important but if you are not doing anything to let people know about your website, what good is your website? You cannot just throw up a website and expect people to show up. Won’t happen. What many new and small business owners don’t know is that there is much you can do to market your business without it costing any money at all. Of course, it will take time and time is money but if you want to grow your business and take it to the next level you need to do some marketing. This is where a good virtual assistant can make the difference.

In my free report, Email Marketing – Five “Must Dos” to Build a Solid Email List, I talk about five things that you can do to build an email list that you can easily implement yourself. Go to my website, www.OnTargetAssistance.com and sign up for my free report and continue to check back on my blog. Every week I will be taking one of the five (5) tips in the report and going into more detail so that you have a clear understanding on how to implement these steps and start to make your business happen.

Looking forward to 2012! Let’s make this your year!