Marketing Minutes with Miss Kemya

You don’t need a big budget to launch a successful marketing campaign. With a repertoire of online marketing tactics and some time and effort, you can do exactly what the big brands do but without the budget. One great way to make the most of your marketing efforts is to get customer recommendations. Why Do Recommendations Work? Recommendations are a type of social proof. This is a psychological phenomenon where people see others get results and naturally conclude that if they perform the same actions, they will get the same results. For example, when your customer tells people how your product or service helped them, those people will want to try it themselves. Tune in to today's episode to learn How to Boost Your Marketing with Customer Recommendations. Visit https://bit.ly/2Fh0X5C to read the full blog post!

It’s tempting to try to run your business without a plan. It may seem like you can just get up each day and do what you want to do and the business will be successful. While that sometimes does happen, it’s not likely. Don’t let these seemingly viral overnight sensations fool you! The main reason most businesses fail is due to lack of a plan and lack of follow through. It doesn’t matter how large or small your business is; you really do need a plan. If you really want to have a successful business, then you will need to go through the effort to create a marketing plan.   Of course, wingin it can get you results. But do you really want to wing it with your business? Do you want to leave your revenue to chance? Of course not! Leaving your revenue to chance is not a safe or wise plan. Whether you are a solopreneur or you’re managing a team, you need to be able to see progress, forecast projections, and build your income. Why? Because this will give you the motivation to keep going. Your marketing plan is a living breathing document. It is not meant to be created and ignored. It can be updated as the business changes and your needs evolve. It should be used as a blueprint, so that you never have to ask, what am I supposed to be doing? when it comes to your marketing activities. If you are still not convinced, here are a few benefits of using a marketing plan. Visit https://marketingsparkler.com/yes-you-do-really-need-a-marketing-plan/ to read the full blog post! - - - Marketing Minutes with Miss Kemya Podcast Host: Miss Kemya Website: marketingsparkler.com

When you create content for your website, it needs to attract search engines by using the right type of keywords. But, it also needs to be engaging for your audience. After all, remember that humans are reading the content, not robots. Therefore, even though you need to use keywords in the text, it doesn't mean the content should be boring and generic. Your website should be at the center of all your online marketing activities, which means the content you put on the website, and in other places, is vital to the performance of your website. Without content, you have nothing. Content is still king, and always will be king. While content types change, the value of content never changes. When you realize the value of the content that you create, you'll take the time to create it right. Check Out Your Competitors How often does your competition post? Do they write it all themselves or do they have guest authors? Do you know whether they've hired a ghost writer or if they're all self-written? How do they share and promote their content? Understanding how your competition operates can help make you better because you can find a way to make yourself different. Create Unique Content with Value Every bit of content you create for your website or blog should be unique. There is a place for curated content, if you make it original with your own words and thoughts added, but most of the content on your website/blog should be unique to your brand and provide value to your audience. This doesn't mean you can't curate content - on the contrary; if you curate content well, your content will still be valuable and unique. Answer Questions You don't have to have people emailing you questions to answer them. Go to where your audience is: forums, message boards, other blogs, and find questions that are relevant to your niche and answer them on your blog. It's a great way to find content to write, and your audience will feel like you can read their mind. Ask Questions of Your Readers If you want to be more interactive with your audience, end every post, article and video with a question to the viewer. Invite them to answer questions, even give them incentives to do so such as random prizes or a special call out on Twitter. The more you interact with your readers over the content that you provide them, the more engaging your content will be. One thing feeds off another. Don't Forget to Promote Finally, don't forget to promote your content via social media. Due to the social nature of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, you can use social media in a way to elicit engagement from your followers. You can do this by continually sharing important content that you've created with them, answering their questions, and promoting those questions and answers as hard as you promote the content that prompted the questions and answers.

Owning a business and building it from scratch can be a worthy achievement for anyone who manages to be successful from it. However, there does come the point in your business where it’s beneficial to release the reigns slightly and to give control over to others so that they can continue to build and you can continue to grow. However, as a business owner, this can be tough, so here are some tips on learning to let go in business. Click here >> http://bit.ly/2m9HRof << to read the full blog post on the Marketing Sparkler blog.

There are several ways in which you can attract new clients to your service-based business. One of the most effective is via community involvement. Don’t get worried that you don’t have time to go to your local community meetings. Community involvement can happen both online and offline. There are communities that exist only online and there are communities that exist only offline. You can do both for best impact, but if there is a reason you can only participate online, that is fine too. There are two types of communities you can get involved in. You can involve yourself in a community of your peers, or a community of your audience. In terms of peer groups, there are peers with whom you are in direct competition, and those who offer complementary services to yours. Both can help you get clients. However, the complementary group will be more beneficial to you because they are not direct competition. Consider that when you get involved in any particular group.  Business focused groups, mastermind groups, industry focused groups and so forth all exist to help you educate yourself further and provide connections. You can get clients through word of mouth when a peer group member feels you would be right for a position because they have come to know you. Peer groups also offer opportunities for joint venture partnerships, which can widen and expand your audience. Click here >> http://bit.ly/2LdrgJa << to read the blog post on the Marketing Sparkler blog.

Taking the leap into starting a business can be a scary thing for anybody. It comes with risks, stresses, and responsibility of taking on the world while being responsible for a company and workforce. Imagine taking on this responsibility, but alone. This is the life of a solopreneur. The difference between a solopreneur and an entrepreneur is when you are a solopreneur, you do it all yourself. This means doing the operational side of the business, such a contracts to managing marketing campaigns, such as advertising and literally everything in between. While the business of being a solopreneur can seem overwhelming, there are different tactics you can employ in order to run a most efficient level. On today's episode, we are going to look at some ways we can succeed and thrive on our solopreneur's journey. Click here >> http://bit.ly/2Zogiuh << for the blog post on the Marketing Sparkler blog.

We’re all constantly ‘switched on’ and distracted these days, aren’t we? Scrolling through our phones, laptop by our side, loud noise everywhere. And that makes it a real challenge to get any marketing message across effectively.  Unless you understand the way people’s brains work – and form a real emotional connection. But how does an emotional connection help you rise above other distractions  – in a world that’s constantly switched on? Well, I'll tell you in today's episode! Click here >> http://bit.ly/2KHRDYw << to read the post on the Marketing Sparkler blog!

When starting out, the humble nature of your business can sometimes raise eyebrows. You might be selling an interesting product online, but how do people know they can trust you with their card information? You might be the mascot of your firm, but without good marketing around that, how are they to know? What registrations and security processes do you have? What are your plans for the future? And how might you settle those initial fears to prove that you are who you say you are? Listen to today's episode to learn easy ways to make your business look legitimate to your customers! Click here >> http://bit.ly/31SXHDr << to read the full post on the blog.

If you're a natural introvert, there's no reason at all to shy away from social media. Don't let the word 'social' throw you. Social media sites offer a great platform for introverts to be social on their own terms. You get to interact with other, but keep control at the same time. Many people are surprised when they find out I’m an introvert. My business is marketing and social media and yes, I’m an introvert! I know, on the surface this doesn’t even seem possible, but it’s true. If given the chance, I will happily sit in the corner by myself and curl up with a book. I can attend an event and not say a single word to anyone, and enjoy myself immensely just the same. This is me, I am she. And yet I’ve embraced social media, not only as a wonderfully efficient marketing tool, but it’s also allowed me to get in touch with my inner extrovert side online. I have figured out ways to interact with people on social media that are comfortable for me. Being an introvert does not have to be a burden for your business, if you don't let it. Click here >> http://bit.ly/1JheSn6 << to read the full post on the blog.

We have come to the end of our seven-day challenge to use business planning to create explosive growth in traffic, customers, and most important, income. Much of what we’ve discussed so far has been actionable steps like writing down your goals as well as mindset pieces like the one about stepping out of your comfort zone. Today is all about putting everything we’ve discussed so far, and combining it into something that can give you that explosive growth you want. Lesson 7: How To Engineer Explosive Growth By Stacking Your Efforts You see, when you use the basic concept of exponential growth to your advantage, it doesn’t take much progress in any one area to see big results. We briefly touched on this idea back on day three when we talked about increasing traffic, subscribers, and customers to add to our bottom line. Today we expand on this whole idea in a few different ways. Then we tie it all back into setting goals and business planning in general. Leverage Progress The idea is to make progress on your goals and stack them in a way that gives you leverage. One goal builds on the next and they all work together to generate exponential growth. This can work in a myriad of different ways and will of course differ from one business to the next. My point is this… If you start to think strategically and keep one eye on your next few moves, you can start to stack your efforts and engineer that explosive growth in a lot less time than you may think. Try it! Click here >> http://bit.ly/2H1jW1V << to visit the Marketing Sparkler blog and read this post!

Can you think back on a time of real growth, be it in business, in your personal life, or anywhere else? More than likely, you had to step out of your comfort zone for that growth to happen. Yes, we can make progress by doing what we’ve always done. But it will be slow and more importantly, by staying within your comfort zone, you are limiting your potential growth. It’s when we step out of that zone, try something new, take a bit of a risk, and allow for personal and professional growth that we start to see big changes for the better.  The comfort zone  Let’s say your goal is to grow your reach and get out in front of a larger audience. What you’ve done so far, and what feels comfortable is writing a blog post a week and then sharing it on social media. Yes, some readers will find you. Yes, if you double or triple your efforts, publishing more posts per week and sharing more often across all your social media accounts, you will see some growth and engagement. But you’re staying in your comfort zone. Stepping outside of the zone What if instead, you used the time you would have spent writing another blog post or two per week and promoting it on Facebook, you took the time to write a guest blog post for someone else’s blog with a bigger reach. What if you sat down and recorded a fun and informational video that you can then share on YouTube, embed in a blog post, and of course share via your favorite social media outlets. What if you used the time to set up and tested a Facebook ad that continually sends new leads into your funnel. If any of these things are new to you, this may seem like a pretty scary proposition. But getting uncomfortable and doing it anyway can have some huge rewards. Guest blogging Writing and submitting the guest blog post can give you a lot of added exposure by allowing you to get in front of an established audience. It also gives you the change to start a relationship with a fellow blogger that may lead to all sorts of other opportunities and collaborations. Video series Recording a series of videos gives you the opportunity to reach a completely different subset of your target audience. There are plenty of people who prefer video content to written posts and articles. There are people who spend hours each day watching YouTube videos who would never stumble across you and your blog otherwise. Spending money on ads Spending money on paid ads can sound like a scary proposition, but once you crack it and find something that converts well for you, you will get a steady stream of new leads in front of you without any added work. Bottom Line There’s something else I want to mention, just in case I don’t have you convinced yet that getting out of your comfort zone is something you should be doing regularly. You won’t stay uncomfortable for very long. After recording those first few videos, submitting a couple of blog posts, and spending those first few dollars on ads, you start to get comfortable with the processes. Before you know it, they become second nature and yet another tool in your virtual tool belt. Once that happens, you know it’s time to explore some other marketing strategies and ideas. Click here >> http://bit.ly/2Tx243K << to read this post on the blog and sign up for the full   7 Days of Biz Planning to Rock Your Year Mini Challenge! 

Throughout this short little series on setting business goals, I’ve mentioned the importance of writing said goals down. That isn’t just because it’s easy to forget. There’s a lot more to it and there are some very important reasons why you have to write them down. I thought in today’s blog post, I’d share my thoughts on this and hopefully inspire you to write down your own goals going forward. By the way, this works for any type of goal, not just the business ones. The simple act of setting a goal, even if it’s just in your mind, doubles your chances of success. That’s a pretty big deal in itself, isn’t it? If you take it a step further, and actually write those goals down, you’re 10 times as likely to succeed. Read that last line again please. That’s right…you can increase your chances of making it by 1,000%. That’s mind-blowing!   Click here >> http://bit.ly/33BSMbp << to read this post on the blog and sign up for the  7 Days of Biz Planning to Rock Your Year Mini Challenge. 

Today I want to share my thinking process for setting smart business goals with you. I like to work backwards from a financial goal all the way down to daily to-do lists. Every smart business goal should be quantifiable, as in have a specific number attached to it. In this way, you can measure your success rate, and see what and if you need to tweak your approach. So here’s how that works: It always starts with a money goal. Because let’s face it, business success is tied to revenue, pure and simple. It helps if that goal has a meaning beyond the dollar figure. This helps to keep us motivated on the end goal! Click here >> http://bit.ly/2JJ7K7B << to read this post on the blog and sign up for the  7 Days of Biz Planning to Rock Your Year Mini Challenge.

We're all in business to make a profit. Making money is not a topic that's talked about ENOUGH with small business owners. After all, the spotlight is often shining on how many followers and likes you can get on social media. Or how many times you go LIVE on Facebook every week. All of this talk about social media follower counts is focused on ego-driven metrics. We need to shift the dialogue to focus on CONVERSIONS, which lead to the one thing your business needs to stay in business: INCOME. There is little reason to be in business if you are not generating an income. All of the altruistic energy in the world will not keep your refrigerator stocked and your lights on. So we're going to live in the real world and talk about growing income today, okay? Click here >> http://bit.ly/32EtzwC << to read the full blog post and sign up for the free 7 day biz challenge!

Are you ready to take your online business to the next level and watch some explosive growth unfold over the coming months? Great! Before you start to plot and plan what you want to do to make that happen, it’s important to stop and look at where you are right now. Business planning for future success is all about data. You can work most efficiently and spend your time and money most effectively if you know exactly where you are starting from. By recording data, you can start to see what’s working, what isn’t, and what trends are starting to play out. And it all starts with recording where you’re at right now. First though, you should decide how you want to record this information. Now, let’s take a look at some of the things you want to record. Click here >> http://bit.ly/2XJCEW2 << to read this post on the Marketing Sparkler blog and sign up for the  7 Days of Biz Planning to Rock Your Year Mini Challenge.