Monday, May 26, 2008

Overcoming Distractions

I am having a difficult time of late staying focused on my goals and intentions with my online interactions. I find it hard to focus on many tasks at once when trying to keep up multiple websites.

If you have been reading any of my previous posts on the blog, you will know I recently went through an intern program for internet marketing. I learned enough from this endeavor to know this is something that I want to research further and grow my own business.

Through this short period of time I learned there was money to be made as long as you persevere, have goals and tracking procedures in place, and keep focused on the task at hand. Being a business coach, I preach this to my mastermind group, my clients that have come to me with specific projects, and those who have an inquiries about moving forward.

I recently purchased a program offered by Terry Dean, the Internet Coach. The program is the
Internet Lifestyle Retirement System
. It is filled with so much information that I have decided to focus the majority of my time getting through his program and successfully implementing the techniques.

When I received the box via UPS, I was overwhelmed with the amount of information in the box. There are DVD's and CD's, not to mention the files you download upon ordering the information. It can never be said when you order products from Terry Dean that you do not get your money's worth.

I learned through his intern program that there is a lot involved but it is manageable if you stay focused and write your goals down daily. If you do not, you will be like me and start to wonder what you are accomplishing day-to-day.

So today, I am starting step one and cutting back on my subscriptions to blogs and newsletter. At this time I have about 8 different subscriptions and I am cutting back to three.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

What If...?

“The next time you make an assumption, see what happens when you do the opposite.” ~Brian Clark.

I subscribe to the feed from Copyblogger and the post today What's The Ultimate Creativity Killer? is worth sharing with everyone.

It made me think what if they had listened to the nay sayers.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Great Advice for Website Publicity

You have launched your website so now what. Having website presence in business today is important and can be done fairly inexpensively. But for proper utilization there is more to it than just having a website. As in the movie Field of Dreams where the man kept saying "If you build it they will come"--this normally does not happen. You might get a chance visitor but to draw traffic requires some work.

In the article below, Sue Currie has given some great information on creating publicity for your website. I hope you get great ideas from what she has written.

Create Website Publicity Buzz

Having a website is an important element of your public relations mix but it needs to be working for you. What else can you do to get people to click on your site? Well you could incorporate some PR activities around your site. Public relations is essentially communication, letting people know what your do, why you do it and how you make a difference.

One aspect of PR is publicity. Creating word of mouth interest in your business by getting free editorial coverage of your business in the media.

Publicity stories in the media are very effective but you won't get one for your website unless you have a new idea, controversial story, sensational aspect to your website, something unusual or completely different. Get the idea? Some story ideas: are you the first to use this technology? Have you made a huge sale through your website? Does your website help or benefit people in any way? Are you running a unique online competition or survey? Have you a heart-warming personal story to tell? My point is that you need to have a point.

Let me give you an example of publicity that was designed specifically to attract people to a particular website.

There's an online travel company Zuji.com.au and what they did was implement a publicity campaign to drive traffic to their website. It was a simple idea really. They put together on online competition asking people to write in their travel secrets of their favourite destinations throughout the world and they could win a valuable travel prize. They told the media about it and although a simple idea it captured the attention of the travel media.

Consequently the media promoted the competition quite heavily resulting in heaps of visitors to the Zuji website. And of course it involved real people telling their own stories so the human interest element worked. It worked brilliantly for the company. Firstly they were successful in getting lots of free publicity from the competition and they also collected the email addresses of all of the people that visited their website. Plus they captured some really interesting stories and content to put on their site. So an online competition works well but you do need tell the media about it. Once you've developed a good newsworthy story you'll need to contact the relevant journalists who will help you reach your target market. Don't contact everyone, just the media that are appropriate to you and your product.

Contact them by sending a media release (it of course includes your website address) or just telephone them. Research your target media by checking out the newspapers, magazines and wherever else your competitors are being featured. You can buy media directories.

Don't forget to let journalists know there is a media room on your website where they can obtain further information.

Another way to publicise your website is to put your domain address everywhere. Anytime you do send out a media release or newsletter or write a letter to a potential client or sponsor an event, not only is it really important to put your name on everything but put your website address there as well. So for instance you might have some fantastic caps or t-shirts designed for your business that you want people to wear that look great and effective and but why not on the back of that cap put your domain name. Every where that you communicate, put your web address. Include on your voice mail, stickers, business cards, your car, caps, t-shirts on everything!



Sue Currie, the director of Shine Communications Consultancy and author of Apprentice to Business Ace ' your inside-out guide to personal branding, is a business educator and speaker on personal branding through image and media. To learn more about how you can achieve recognition, enhance your image and shine, sign up for free monthly tips at http://www.shinecomms.com.au/subscriber.html

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Customer Satisfaction Survey

I believe feedback is one of the best ways to learn, improve, and grow in your business. When working with clients I frequently ask them if they have ever done a customer satisfaction survey or asked for feedback from their customers. The majority of them tell me no. They had thought of it but just had not gotten around to it.

I am currently in the process of surveying a current client's customer database and am preparing the survey. I have written many surveys but had never thought of asking opinions on what should be on the survey. So today I want to learn from you. Would you put a comment on this post listing the most important question, in your opinion, that should be asked on a customer satisfaction survey?

Customer Feedback


I appreciate any and all comments that are made!