Posts Tagged ‘online customers. marketing benefit’
Do Your Online Marketing Efforts Inspire Trust in Your Brand?
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Trust is imperative to the success of any business, and real estate is no exception. After all, people hire you to help them buy or sell their homes because they trust that you have the experience, knowledge, work ethic and integrity to do so. If you lose trust in your brand, then you lose business, and if you lose business, then let’s just say it: you’re out of business.
Part of our job as real estate virtual assistants is to help you implement more marketing efforts that will help you build your business. The main reason that we are successful at doing this virtually, not on-site, for all of our clients is because they trust us. They rely on us to guide them in the right direction, make suggestions that will benefit their business and get the job done to their standards. We’ve built and maintained that trust, and we advise our clients to utilize the resources available to them to build that too. This is one area that social media maintenance and blogging can actually really benefit your business.
Since social media is a platform in which your community can interact with you and ask questions, you can really utilize it to build trust in your brand. If you look like you’re taking the time to answer everyone’s questions, interact with your network and consistently post valuable information, then people will realize that you are a true expert in your field and you can be trusted to get the job done. Blogging demonstrates how knowledgeable you are about your field and showcases your involvement in your community, as well. If people who are looking for a real estate agent come across this, they will see that you are a trusted resource and that they can rely on you to help them through their real estate transaction.
These two marketing efforts will only help you build up trust in your brand, if you utilize them correctly. If you do them the wrong way, they can actually detract from your brand and make people question you. Here are a few ways that you can ensure that your online presence is building your brand’s trust instead of hindering it.
• Please check your work. As a writer, I can’t tell you how crazy it makes me when I see agents posting things on Facebook or their blog with a bunch of spelling and obvious grammatical errors. Sure, people make the occasional typo, but if your work is filled with spelling and grammar mistakes, it makes you look a lot less professional. Take the time to spell check, and your presence could start looking more credible and impressive to people who come across it.
• Answer questions and respond to feedback in a timely fashion. If someone posts a negative review of you on your Facebook wall or asks you a bunch of questions, don’t just ignore them. Take the time to address it in a professional, non-threatening manner. Answering questions does not mean that you have to plug your services. Answer their question as if they were just a friend asking for advice. Similarly, if someone posts a criticism or negative review of your services, then address it, but do so respectfully and if need be, apologetically. People will see that you do care about your clients, and they will respond well to that. After all, nobody has a perfect track record with clients, and it’s how you handle the negative things that show your true strength as an agent.
• Consistency is key. If you’re going to utilize online marketing as a way to build trust in your brand, then you need to be willing to commit to it. Communicating with your network as frequently as possible will show just how much you value your online network and their input. When customers feel valued, they feel that they can trust that you will do everything you can to make them happy in a business transaction. We know that posting to social media and blogging every day is a large investment of your time, but if you take the time to build the following, you will see how much it actually contributes to the trust people put in to your brand.
In today’s world, before people hire services of any kind, they hop online and look up the business or person they want to hire. Having an active online presence will publicly demonstrate that people value in your brand, and that will make others trust you, too. Your real estate virtual assistant can help you build your brand from the ground up, and they can also get people to respond and trust your brand through your online marketing efforts. After all, if there is one thing that you should want people to associate with your business, it is trust and honesty, right?
Take some time to think about it. Have a great day!
Contact Carrie
Visit us Online at RealSupportInc.com
The Truth Behind Untruth
Monday, November 14th, 2011
Ever have the rug yanked out from underneath you by someone you thought you knew and trusted? There is nothing like that kind of betrayal to put your world in a tumult. The blitz of emotions – shock, anger, confusion, disbelief, sorrow – churn over and over. The extent to which this happens depends on how close you felt to the person who stabbed you, but we all feel this to some degree in these kinds of situations. But the way you find your way through remains the same whether the betrayal came from a dear family member or a distant business associate.
Betrayal is the only truth that sticks. — Arthur Miller
Everyone suffers some kind of betrayal in their lifetime, it is one more thing that unites us. When we have to admit to ourselves what has happened, we desperately search for a way to prevent the inevitable disruption in our lives. You want the answer to one question… Why? But you are not likely to get the truth of this from your personal Brutus! So, you make justifications in order to rationalize what’s happening. In extreme cases you may even end up betraying yourself, your own instinct or intellect, in order to comfort yourself with more falsehoods.
The real danger here is not in what happened between you and that person. It lays in the future – your future. Whether in a minor way (say a past client goes to a different agent), or in a major way (say your Mother goes to a different agent – ouch!) in the back of your mind you will hold this bitterness and it will cloud your interactions with potential future clients with self-doubt or mistrust.
Instead, recognize that betrayal is, as with all things, a conscious choice an individual makes. As personal as it feels, it has nothing to do with you and all to do with that person. Release the disappointment, assign the responsibility where it belongs – squarely on them! Do not allow bitterness to get settled in your heart and destroy your trust in others, don’t let that grace be taken away from you. Then you will hold your own truth in your hands ever after.
Increase Website Profitability by Instantly Testing It
Saturday, June 18th, 2011
When you build your Website you hope that it will be effective in engaging visitors so they pick you over your competitors. Perhaps you included several unique offers on your site that you hope will catch their eyes and cause them to start clicking on their way to doing business with you. This is all well and good except for one thing. You really don’t know how your visitors are going to react to any particular part of your Website until you test it. Typically, this was a process that only the “big boys” could afford to do. Now there is a way you can instantly test any aspect of your site’s ability to engage visitors, so you know for certain what works and what doesn’t.
A/B Testing on Steroids
A/B testing is the process of creating two or more versions of your Website that are delivered at random to your site visitors and then measures the click-through rate for each version. This is a proven way to have your visitors vote with their mouse as to which version engages them more. The traditional tool for this is Google Website Optimizer which is free. However, it requires that you (or your Webmaster) create the different versions of your Website that need testing which is time consuming, requires a fair amount of technical skill and therefor is definitely not free.
That has all changed now with a new online service called Optimizely. With Optimizely you can create different versions of any part of your Website instantly right from their Website. Its online WYSIWYG editor allows you to make create alternative versions of your site’s copy, images and even move whole sections around in just a few minutes. And the astounding thing is that this can be all done without creating different versions of your Website’s code.
After you have created the alternative versions of your site, you simply add a bit of Javascript code provided by Optimizely to the pages being tested. Once your A/B test is active, Optimizely will automatically and randomly send the different versions of your site to visitors and measure the click-through rate of each one. You just let it run until you’ve had sufficient numbers of visitors to give you a reasonably certain statistical answer to which version more effectively causes visitors to click or convert. And don’t worry about trying to remember your Statistics 101 class because Optimizely automatically calculates the statistical significance for you.
Since videos are worth a thousand screenshots, the following will demonstrate just how easy and powerful this new service is to use:
Your first 30 day’s use of Optimizely costs nothing, after that it is a very reasonable $19/month. Now here’s the thing, you can turn this service on and off at any time which means that for about $19 you can determine what kinds of changes to your site will produce greater conversion of visitors to new transactions. Not a bad ROI.
Of course all of this begs the question as to just what you should consider testing on your site…
Offers, Offers, Offers
Ideally your site has one or more “Irresistible Offers” that are designed to attract your visitors’ attention and compel them to take action. If you are a little fuzzy about what irresistible offers are just check out my earlier REALTOR Magazine article “Make An Offer They Can’t Refuse”.
Often what we think is irresistible is anything but from the consumer’s perspective. So creating different variations of your offers is the first thing you would want to test for conversion effectiveness. Here are some other things you might consider testing as well:
- Copy – create alternatives to copy that compels visitors to take action. For example, one Pennsylvania REALTOR found that he received a far greater click-through by changing “Featured Listings” to “Best Buys”.
- Images – perhaps a different kind of image in the body of your home page will cause more people to click on getting your special report or check out your IDX listings.
- Action Buttons – this is a subtle yet potentially very powerful test. Consider changing the shape, color and/or copy of your clickable buttons and see which version receives the most clicks.
- Reassurance Language – test different variations of the copy above your important forms that reassure your visitors that their privacy will be protected and see which ones cause the form to be filled out more often.
Avoid Build and Forget
The most profitable Websites are under a constant state of refinement. Far too many people just have their Website built and then do nothing to improve its ability to convert visitors into new business. The main reason for this is that it was just too time consuming and expensive to do it the old way. Now with Optimizely you have no excuse for having a site that “doesn’t work”. It’s just a matter of testing different variations until it does.
NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.
Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Website at http://www.OnlineDominance.com and Facebook page at Facebook.com/OnlineDominance
This article is reprinted in its entirety from the June 2011 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2011. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.
When Ugly Wins
Sunday, May 22nd, 2011
It’s a pretty safe bet, that when you first thought about having your website built, deliberately making it “ugly” was probably the furthest thing from your mind. Yet the very first thing that top producer Mark Seiden said to me when he joined my most recent ULTRA eTEAM was: “I want to have the ugliest real estate website in the industry!” Well, he achieved his goal and here’s why he’s going to make tons more money than most of those with so-called “beautiful” real estate websites…
SellingMyHomeSucks.com is unlike any real estate website you’ve ever laid eyes on before and it took nearly 6 months of planning to make it that ugly. Also, you’ll find no IDX, no property search, no tips for buyers or sellers and it contains not one word about local neighborhoods yet I will stake my reputation on this becoming one of the most profitable websites in the real estate sales industry. And that’s even after my wife took one look at it and declared it “tacky”!
So what’s happened here? Has the market change so much that we suddenly find ourselves in a “bizarro world” where ugly is good and beautiful is bad? Well, not really. If you substitute the word “distinctive” for ugly you get at the heart of what Mark was really trying to accomplish. You see, he understood immediately that the key to success online was standing out and being as different as possible from any of your competitors.
And after about six months a rigorous planning on what would appeal to his target market of sellers who have listings that expired, he empowered “distinction” with effectiveness. What makes SellingMyHomeSucks.com so powerful is that it is designed for one thing and one thing only: to have any and all sellers who experienced the failure of not selling want to immediately contact him to take over the marketing of their home. If you put yourself in the position of the expired seller and feel their frustration, anger and confusion then look at SellingMyHomeSucks.com with those eyes, you’ll get the point.
SellingMyHomeSucks.com was “soft launched” (i.e. mostly completed but with a few minor refinements still yet to be done) on May 17, 2011. Mark sent the link to his site to a few of his friends, one of whom forwarded to a friend of theirs who was going to expire in about three days. That person immediately contacted Mark for a listing appointment. Not a bad early indicator.
The take away here is don’t assume anything when it comes to building a website. If there are any fundamentals they are: a) make sure your website speaks to the needs, wants, fears and desires of your intended target market, and b) make it stand out as much is possible from the rest of the competition.
Effective marketing is not about being beautiful. It’s about being seen, standing out and compelling your intended target market to want to do business with you. From this perspective, ugly certainly can be quite beautiful.
How to Develop Your Online Kaizen
Monday, April 4th, 2011
If you had a choice between instant results and “slow and steady” implementation, which would you choose? Okay, now which one is reality? Well for most people it’s neither, but for the really smart ones it’s the latter.
Last night I had a chat with one of my all-time favorite students, Doug Newby. The purpose of the call was to get his permission to include his Website’s monthly unique visitor count for a Realtor Magazine article I’m writing (over 25,000/mo. in case you were wondering).
Our conversation quickly evolved into reminiscing about how we first got together. He was in the audience of a presentation I did on behalf of the Dallas Association of Realtors, way back in the 1990′s. After the session he came up to me and tried to hire me as a consultant (at several hundred dollars per hour) which I politely turned down.
Not one to be frustrated in his attempt to move his online business forward, Doug attended one of my first 3-Day Advanced Workshops in the early 2000′s. Even though he had made some changes to his Website (based upon my first presentation) it had a long ways to go. He volunteered to be on the “Hot Seat” in front of the entire workshop audience –which was a gutsy thing to do. There wasn’t much left of his Website by the time I was through with it, other than the possibilities of something much greater. Instead of feeling dejected, Doug literally glowed with the excitement of what could be. In fact he won a medal from my staff and me at the end of the 3 days for being the one attendee with the greatest possibilities of improvement.
The following year he attended yet another 3-Day Workshop (still in the early 2000′s) and proudly announced that his online business had shot up 300% from the previous year. He has continued to make small, incremental improvements over the years to his Website. And then in July 2009 he took the leap of creating his ModernHomes Facebook page. Though he was very uncertain about this whole “social media thing” he trudged onward with the advice of Brad Carroll and myself. In just over 18 months his fan base for this page went from zero to over 300,000. And as a result of his slow and steady approach to implementing other proven online principles, his Website now enjoys over 25,000 unique visitors a month and has higher Google rankings than even 500 agent firms in the Dallas area.
Oh, there is one thing I almost forgot to mention. Doug will be the first person to admit that he is anything but a techy. He can send and receive email and use a Web browser without getting lost, but that’s about it.
We live in an “instant” world. Instant news, instant pain relief, instant weight loss, instant wealth. There is no pill to take or silver bullet to purchase that will cause your business to flourish immediately.
Doug Newby, with his contagious enthusiasm, sense of wonder and commitment to consistent incremental improvements is a perfect example of what really does work. His Kaizen approach to business is an inspiration that we all could look up to and learn from.
Putting the “WOW!” Into Web Engagement
Monday, November 29th, 2010
When a prospect lands on your Website they are going to a) bounce right out; b) take your information and leave; c) become engaged. Only one of these outcomes is going to make you money from the Web. Clearly, the more engaging your site, the more likely it will turn casual visitors into closed transactions. Now there is an unbelievably easy way to make almost anything on your Website very engaging and unique.
MapsAlive is a very clever online service that let’s you take any kind of image (maps, photos, floor plans, diagrams, etc.) and turn them into highly interactive elements in just minutes without any technical knowledge. You really can’t appreciate the full breadth of what is possible until you view the recent Online Dominance Live Group Coaching session video (click image above) we had where MapsAlive co-founder Janice Kenyon do several live demonstrations. Also in this video you will see how incredibly versatile this service is and that its application to your business is limited only by your imagination.
Interactivity Challenge…
Here’s your chance to take this great new resource, try it out and set yourself apart without spending a dime and WIN —here’s how:
- View the video above for ideas.
- Sign up for the MapsAlive 30 Day Free Trial – no credit card required, and you have full functionality. Just go to http://www.mapsalive.com/User/SignUp.aspx
- Create something interactive using MapsAlive – it doesn’t need to be placed on your Website, just make note of its URL
- Post the link to your MapsAlive creation on Facebook – post your link on the Online Dominance Facebook page.
- Get your Facebook friends to “like” your post – send a request to all your real estate friends to “Like” your MapsAlive entry (they will thank you for turning them on to MapsAlive as well) CLICK HERE for an example of the request you can send them.
VERY IMPORTANT: the person with the most “likes” on their post (by Friday December 3rd at 9:00 pm EST) will win a full year’s worth of MapsAlive access via their Plus account (a $99 value!).
You know I share a lot of great ideas with you in this blog. Here’s your opportunity to try one out without risk or cost and very little time investment. The only ideas that have value are the ones that you put into practice —snooze you lose!
NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.
How to Be Many Places At Once
Sunday, October 24th, 2010
Real estate is such a “local” business that anything you can do to associate your business with your locality will help you stand out and be found more easily. Here’s a very cool free tool that will help your business get listed in multiple major online business directories faster than you can say “bi-location”…
First Check Your Business Listings Then Get Listed
Get Listed is a free site that a) first checks to see if you are listed in the major online business directories and search engines, b) helps you get listed in the ones you currently are not. After entering in your business name and zip code it takes just seconds for it to check six of the major search engines and business directory and then provide you a result page similar to the example below:
For the ones you are not currently listed it will allow you to enter your information right from their Website making the process very easy and convenient. And this is just the beginning because GetListed.org also provides additional guidance on how to maximize your online hyper-local presence that is so important for both SEO and professional credibility.
Take a few minutes to Get Listed now and in a few weeks or months you will be glad you did.
Seven Qualities of a High-Performance Website
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
The vast majority of real estate sales associate Websites fail miserably to come anywhere close to achieving their full business-producing potential online. Typically these sites fail in a number of different ways. Here is a powerful way you can self assess your own site to see what works, what doesn’t and what to do about it…
It’s Not Just About Driving Traffic
Driving traffic to your site is easy. Getting visitors to engage and convert into serious clients is not. In fact there are seven major qualities that your site needs to get right before it can be a fully productive online presence:
- Targeting & Branding – This is how well your site is targeted and differentiates itself to a specific niche market. Less than 2% of all real estate Websites are targeted. In their attempt to “speak to everyone” they end up talking to no one.
- Design – Just because a site is beautiful doesn’t mean it will be effective (just ask any agent who has spent thousands on a “beautiful” site only to see it not produce a dime of new business). Design needs to take into account many factors including being consistent with the nature of your target market and branding.
- Copy & Content – The primary purpose of you copy and content is to engage the visitor and effectively answer the question “What’s in it for me?” from their perspective. It has been my experience that most real estate Web copy fails completely in this respect.
- Interactivity / Ability to Engage – Information, even great information is not enough. Your content needs to engineered to maximize engagement via irresistible offers.
- Navigation – Ease of use and consistency are the hallmarks of good Website navigation.
- “Internet Empowered Consumer” Friendliness – Reassurances of privacy throughout your site and explicitly not requiring consumers to reveal who they are when they complete a form are crucial for your visitors to feel safe and secure when using your site.
- Promotion & Tracking – How your site is promoted depends upon its target market focus. Keep in mind that some target markets will NOT use search engines to find your site.
NOTE: You can self-assess your own Website for these qualities by downloading a 40 Point Website Assessment form I use to evaluate agent sites. Just go to www.Facebook.com/OnlineDominance and click the “Cool Tools” tab at the top and follow the instructions on the assessment form.
Don’t Bother Calling a Web Designer –Yet
There is no such thing as perfect, only a constant state of refinement to continually improve a Website’s ability to generate business and differentiate you from your competition. It takes many months of planning before you even THINK about talking to a Web designer. Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite approach used by most people in the business.
Even the most gifted designer cannot make an effective Website that scores high in all of the above categories until you give them your written plan and vision for dominating a particular niche. Think of it this way: 90% planning, 10% building and execution. Once you give them your plan, the building of the site is actually fairly straightforward.
Here are some sites that score very high on the above mentioned assessment:
- www.DowntownLivingMiami.com
- www.ChevyChaseLiving.com
- FortSill.GoArmyHomes.com
- www.IntownLivingAtlanta.com
- www.SellingCantonHomes.com
- www.MilitaryMove.ca
- www.GotDreamNeedHome.com
Each of the above sites are highly targeted and required 3 – 6 months of intense planning before their owners even spoke to a Web designer. Take a few moments to examine each one carefully and you will see why they all score so high on the Website Assessment.
Improving your site’s performance starts with determining what its weaknesses are and then taking very well thought out and committed action to correct them, one at a time.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: another version of this article was first published in REALTOR Magazine Online a couple of weeks back. Despite the warning above about not seeking out a Web designer prior to planning your site, apparently that is what many people who read this article did. In speaking with Bobby Carroll of Dakno (the design firm for all of the above sites) he said their phone “rang off the hook” with agents wanting sites “just like the ones in the article”. Another example of how people look but don’t see and read but don’t get it…
The Secret to Online Lead Conversions
Monday, March 8th, 2010
For most sales professionals, converting online leads is the bane of their Internet world. Online consumers just don’t behave anything like those you meet face-to-face or on-the-phone. Now imagine if there was just one thing you could do that would suddenly convert cold online inquiries into serious clients.
Small Steps to Solve Big Problems
In their new book: “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard” authors Dan & Chip Heath explore how big problems don’t always require big solutions or worse, big changes in behavior. Big problems can often be solved by leveraging just one simple, small change in behavior. For example, real estate companies and their agents have been struggling with how to boost online lead conversion since the inception of the commercial Internet. They often approach this with massive training programs and/or constantly introducing even more complicated strategies (like social networking) when agents haven’t even mastered the basics of speaking the language of online consumers.
If companies and agents would use just one thing consistently, they would see their online lead conversions soar. That one thing is what I call the Critical First Response Email script. This is an email script engineered to be used specifically as the first response to online inquiries. I crafted this script and have been teaching it since the 1990′s and always receive email from incredulous agents who are astounded at how well it works. Here’s one that I just received a few days ago:
Last week I had used the email lead response script that was provided in the course. I had been going back and forth with the prospect and finally met to show her the rental property this week. Very nice, professional gal and we hit off very well.
She thanked me profusely for my quick replies to her emails AND said, the first email I sent to her was the reason why she trusted me!!! It was non-threatening and she felt I totally understood where she was coming from making an internet inquiry. It was EXACTLY as you and Michael said!!! Amazing…
RuthAnne Salvatore, REALTOR/Broker Associate
C.R.S. Certified Residential Specialist
ERA Goodfellow Homes
203.994.4860 (Mobile)
Just One Thing…
Remember the movie “City Slickers”? Billy Crystal’s character asks “Curly” the trail boss (played with dead-eye aplomb by Jack Palance) “What’s the secret to life?” And Curly responds by holding up his finger and says “Just one thing…” Well, I don’t know about the secret to life, but I sure as hell know the secret to boosting online lead conversions and it’s just one thing —consistently using the Critical First Response Script for every initial inquiry that comes your way via the Net.
Here’s Where You Find It
If you’ve read this far then you deserve to have access to this incredibly powerful, yet simple tool. Just go to www.FaceBook.com/OnlineDominance and click on the “Cool Tools” tab at the top (you will need to be a fan of Online Dominance to get access to this tab’s contents.) You will be able to immediately download this script right from there.
Remember, big problems can often be solved by very small changes in behavior. Here’s your chance to find out just how powerful this thinking really is…
Explode Your Facebook Fan Page Base For No Cost
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
Douglas Newby is one of my long-time students who had zero (0) fans for his FaceBook fan page last September (2009). As of the date of this post he has well over 48,000 fans, each of which contributes to his search engine rankings. Here’s how he did it and how you can explode your fan base without spending a dime. NOTE: if you already have a fan page and want to learn the secret of explosively growing your fan base for no cost without having to read this whole article, just go to www.FaceBook.com/OnlineDominance and click the “Cool Tools!” tab.
Personal Profile vs. Fan Page
There are two primary ways you can represent yourself on FaceBook:
- Personal Profile – everyone who has a FaceBook account has a profile page. This is your “home base” for all your friends and family to connect with you in a personal way on personal (i.e. not business) matters. While how you grow and manage your “friend base” is a topic for another post, suffice it to say it doesn’t even come close to helping your business as the next way.
- Fan Page – sometimes also referred to as your business page. This is where you try to attract and interact with people who are part of your target market or at least connected to it in some way. Now this next part is very important: The more targeted fans you have, the more Google will see you as being relevant and important in your field of real estate expertise. And this translates to significant gains for your search engine rankings. For example, Douglas Newby is essentially a one-man shop in Dallas, yet his site consistently out-ranks those of companies in his area with 1,000 or more agents.
To create a Fan page in FaceBook simply go to www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and follow the simple steps. Now there are some things you might want to do jazz it up so it looks attractive and engaging. There are plenty of articles written about this that go into more depth (just Google “How do you create a fan page on FaceBook”).
Once created, Facebook will give your fan page an innocuous looking URL that no one would ever remember. However, once you have at least 25 fans, you can get your own URL that is tied to your brand. This is crucial that you do this ASAP!! Get your friends and family to become fans so you hit your 25 fan threshold as quickly as possible. Then go to NameChk.com to see if your intended name (i.e. brand name) is still available on nearly every social media portal on the Net. If so, grab it immediately on FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube at the very least.
Growing Your Fan Base
Douglas Newby did something rather clever to build his fan base from 25 to about 2,000 in a short period of time. He simply created a FaceBook ad targeted to people on FaceBook who are interested in modern architecture. His ads were set up as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) which means if they clicked on his ad, they automatically became a fan. Keep in mind however, this method is not free and each fan you bring in this way costs you money. Once he hit the 2,000 mark, his fan page went wildly viral and started growing exponentially by word of mouth from his initial base. The reason his fan base grew so quickly after that is a) his content is extremely interesting to his target market, and b) there are millions of people all over the world that are interested in fine modern architecture.
Here are several ways you can grow your fan base without spending money:
- Send emails to your clients and prospects suggesting that they become a fan;
- Place a “Become a Fan!” widget on your Websites and blogs.
While these methods may add marginally to your fan base, don’t expect rapid growth this way. The key to explosively growing your fan base consists of two parts: 1) make sure you have something of extreme value in the eyes of your target market, and 2) well, it will have more impact if I demonstrate it for you —just go to www.FaceBook.com/OnlineDominance and click the “Cool Tools!” tab and you will instantly see how this second part works :0)
You will find that taking the time to aggressively grow your targeted fan base will have a dramatically positive impact on your online bottom line. There is simply nothing more powerful in marketing than having a bunch of raving fans…
