Business Growth Insights

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. It lets you post up to 140 characters at a time. Some people post their status  every 5 minutes (“Waiting for the bus”, “On the bus”, “Walking home”) and  companies use Twitter to get the word out about new products, blog posts, and other random stuff.

Companies from all over the world have Twitter accounts and thousands of people following them. Some of these companies are Apple, Intel, H&R Block, and Zappos. Barrack Obama has over 8,000 followers!

To leverage the Twitter potential you need to have people following you. That is, people that want to be updated on what you are up to.

Step 1: Importing Contacts
When you sign up for Twitter you will have a chance to import contacts from Gmail, Hotmail, and your own address book. Do it.

Step 2: Complete Your Profile
Make sure all your profile is complete and include a link to your website. Add “http” at the beginning of it to make it clickable. Personalize the colors and the sidebar on your profile page. Use keywords in your profile so others can find you.

Step 3: Understand the Dynamics of Twitter
Twitter is not a marketing tool; it’s a social tool. That means:

• Don’t spam
• Follow other users
• Be active in the community (comment and post frequently)
• Post useful information
• Don’t post every 10 minutes
• Engage in conversations. Retweet (reply to other tweets) often
• Don’t promote yourself. Share cool stuff. To give your company exposure, do it the smart way. Direct your followers to a blog post with useful information and have that post invite users to take action. Don’t try to take people from Twitter to your checkout page directly.

Step 4: Build Your Audience
There are several things that you can do to build your audience:

• Put a link to “Follow Me on Twitter” in your email signature, forums signature, website, and maybe even your business cards
• Invite people to follow you on Twitter at the end of each blog post you create
• Find Twitter users that you really look up to and see who is following them. Follow these people. Once they see you are following them, they will follow you.
• See who is following your friends and follow them. They will follow you too.
• Use Twitter directories to find members who are likely to follow you. My favorites are Just Tweet It and Twellow.
• Use the search feature to find profiles that you want to follow. You can use Twitter’s RSS feed to be notified every time a tweet is made containing a certain keyword.

Step 5: Watch Your Following/Followers Ratio
Try to have a balance between people you follow and people that follow you. If 1,000 people follow you and you only follow 10 folks, you will be seen as selfish and snob. If 10 people follow you and you follow 1,000, you will be seen as a spammer.

Some tips that will help you keep both numbers balanced:

• Grow slow. Instead of adding 500 new friends in one day, add maybe 50 and wait for them to follow you. Then do another 50.
• Use a tool like Friend or Follow to see who is following you that you are not following and who you are following that is not following you. This tool is very useful to balance the number of following/followers.
• Avoid the “follow/no follow” tactic. Some people follow others so they follow them and then they stop following those folks. Avoid this practice if you don’t want to look like a spammer.

Step 6: Post Useful Tweets
Make it worthwhile to follow you. If you’ve found something that your audience might find useful, tweet it. You can use Twitter tools to automatically tweet your blog posts.

Share what you do but avoid “selling”. For example, if you are a web developer you can tweet “we just finished designing the website for ABC Widgets” but avoid something like “Custom Web Design from $899”.

Step 7: Learn from the Experts
Find 10-20 users with over 300 followers and see what they are doing right. Get ideas and implement them.

Do you have any more ideas on how to use Twitter for your small business? Please share them with us by commenting below!

Even if you are swamped with work, as a small business owner it is critical that you devote time to create a sales and marketing plan for your company. It is a key component of your business plan, the one that will map out and enhance your business growth.

The object of such a plan is to help you focus on the right things at the right time, and to measure the progress you are making in achieving your goals. What marketing does is produce good sales indicators, and it can do it through many ways; however, you need a plan to know which ways will give you the best results. You have to know how much money you have to invest and what goals you want to achieve.

It may sound complicated, but in reality, there is an easy way to create a marketing and sales plan:

Marketing Plan

• Write down your business goals for the next six months or next year. You probably already know what they are, but if you don’t, better stop and define them, because you are flying blind.
• Define what marketing goals match your business ones. For example, how many new sales you need per month to reach your profits goal.
• Define what strategies can get you those new sales. Maybe you have to reach for a new niche, or more people in your current one, or maybe you have to advertise more.
• Once you have the above, you will know where you are going and how to get there, and it will be easy to define specific activities to reach your goals.

Here’s where you select, from all the marketing activities there are, the ones that will give you the best results. For example, you may decide to throw a networking event, or you may need to enhance your website, or you may try to give your product or service a new look to entice your current customers.

• Bring what you chose all together into an integral program and work to define target metrics.

Sales Plan

This plan centers on the indicators produced by the marketing efforts, specifically, how this will be turned into clients and how you will sell to these clients. Your sales metrics should be expressed in conversion rates, total profits, and profits per client.

At this point, you have a base for measurement, and you can check if you are on the right track to reach your business goals. If you’re not, you can adjust.

Your sales and marketing plan can be simple, and the benefits will be enormous. You will be prepared to face the market and to make fast and relevant adjustments when they are needed.

If you need more help in creating your sales and marketing plan, consult with an executive business coaching firm. No one is better prepared to take you down the road of creating a successful plan that centers on your company’s specific needs.

Having a beautiful website will not guarantee that you make money. The success of a website is not in its design, content, or approach; the only thing that turns your website into a success is the people visiting it. Your website catches people’s attention, and the relationship you create with them makes them buy from you.

Small business coaching experts agree that the secret to having a successful e-business is building a mailing list of potential clients, people who are interested in what you have to say and teach. Eventually, some of these people will buy from you; the key is to keep them interested in visiting your website, thus, with a mailing list, you can inform them about new information, articles, and offers you have in it. It will increase your visitors, and with an effective offer, your sales.

Your mailing list must be composed of people who truly care about what you offer and who are interested in creating a relationship with you. Those are the ones who most likely will buy from you at some point and will eventually become your clients.

Here are 10 effective approaches to build a valuable mailing list:

1. Offer more
   If people are genuinely interested in your products or services, they will love to sign up for your mailing list, however, most people receive too many emails and newsletters, thus, offer something different, offer them more value. It can be an interesting e-book or e-course. These are easy to create and deliver, and they are perceived as very valuable.
2. Use forms, and make sure they’re hard to miss
   There are plenty of places you might consider using a form to capture prospects’ information. The homepage of your website is an obvious choice, but other great options are: targeted landing pages, product/service description pages and your blog. Just be sure you don’t ask for too much information, or your prospects may be hesitant to complete it. Typically forms with only fields for name and email address receive the highest rate of completion.
3. Make it your signature
   On every email you send, below your name or signature, always invite people to join your mailing list. Don’t forget to tell them how to sign up, and make it easy. Never, ever, add someone automatically to your mailing list; let him or her decide if they are interested.
4. Make winning speeches
   Conferences are great ways to get acknowledged and to collect valuable names for your mailing list; you just have to give good speeches. While you’re talking, pass a sign-up sheet around, or have people sign up to receive a free gift. If you aren’t comfortable on stage, consider having a booth or table at the conference to promote your product or service and encourage people to sign up for your list – a free gift or giveaway is a great way to do this. Also be sure to mention your offer or website in any interviews you may do.
5. Newsletter it
   Many people may forward your newsletter to others who may not know how to subscribe, thus, make sure you specify the way to join your mailing list in every newsletter you send out.
6. Promote your offer to your Social Media networks
   If you’ve built a network of followers, fans, friends, or other connections on your social media networks, make sure you’re giving them the opportunity to join your list. Hard selling may not be effective, but inviting your connections to receive your gift, content, etc, by joining your list may prove to be a great strategy.
7. Put your business card to good use
   On its blank side, post an offer for a gift and the instructions on how to sign up to get it.
8. Write about yourself
   When you write an article or contributing blog, include an “about the author” paragraph to explain what you’re all about; make your offer there and give easy instructions.
9. Make it a habit to thank
   Every time someone buys something from you, send him or her a thank you email or note, and ask if they would like to join your mailing list. You could offer them a discount coupon or giveaway as an incentive.
10. Leave it in the message
    When you record your voicemail message, include your newsletter offer and tell them where they have to go to sign up.

Do you have other great list-building tips? We would love to hear them…please share them in the comment box below!

This is the final part of the article based on a portion of the OneCoach Expert Interview with Robert Grant, Facebook Expert and Marketing Mastermind.

Be sure to read the first post in this series if you haven’t already.

Now that we’ve outlined the importance of understanding social media, here are some tips for using it in your business:

Immediately connect with key influencers and piggy back on their networks. Find a way to connect with them, find a way to contribute to them, find out what it is that they need and give it to them. Don’t sell them anything, and don’t send anyone a free report or to your blog. Nobody is interested.

The approach to do things the right way and position yourself as an educator (not a salesman) is important. You should become an educator and only give information that you truly believe in. People will come to you for advice in your niche. Go into communities and share knowledge and wisdom, and connect with people by giving instead of seeing what you can get.

Once you have a following, start monetizing the social media movement. One of the most powerful mediums that has come into play at the moment is Facebook fan pages, which are essentially business pages. Facebook won’t allow you to sell directly off the page, but whenever someone joins your fan page, their entire network sees that they have joined your fan page (an endorsement) — this will help you to grow your network exponentially.

People need to understand one fundamental thing: The first thing we look for is familiarity. We pay attention to what we know (reticular activation system).

If you are brand new to Facebook then:

• Know what will get you banned (spamming, adding 25 or more friends a day, etc.) by viewing the Facebook terms of service.
• Find key influencers in your niche.
• Learn how people are receiving your message.
• Show that you have expertise and passion about a certain area in your business.
• Advertise your fan page on Facebook and other social networks.

Make sure you also understand that:

• It is important to show you are human by using video (people are a 1000 times more likely to trust you).
• If you don’t have video at least try to use interesting pictures.

Give yourself some time to really understand what is going on. Start easy and learn the fundamentals first. You can build on from there once you have a better understanding of social media.

This should get you started off on the right foot. Give people great stuff. Make sure your content is remarkable, and people will remark about it.

Members of the OneCoach Business Coaching program have unlimited access to hundreds of interviews like this one — see OneCoach.com to learn more about building your business fast.

If you are a new business owner, one of your first objectives must be to brand yourself. Business coaches and consultants alike will all tell you how important it is to establish your identity. You want to be noticed. You want to be remembered. You want to stand out from the rest. You want your business to grow. Just what will creating a brand accomplish for you and your business? Consider these points:

A brand makes you memorable
Obviously, for clients or customers to come to you, they have to first remember you. By creating a brand that sticks in their minds, you increase the odds that yours will be the name that pops into their head when they’re looking for the types of services you provide. Whether it’s your logo design, add campaign or radio jingle, creating a solid brand will help drive business in your direction.

A brand creates credibility
Whether it’s factual or simply perceived, branding lends credibility to your business. When people see or hear about you over and over in a positive context they naturally believe that you must be good, reliable, trustworthy, etc. After all, they see your logo everywhere. They hear your ads repeated on the radio, or they simply hear your name connected with something they need or want. Therefore, you must be the go to person for that service.

A good brand saves you time
In business, time is money. Establishing a good brand for your company right from the start can save you hours of introduction time that can be better used as selling time. Imagine if every time you met with a potential customer you first had to explain who you are, what you do, and how you do it, before you even begin your sales pitch! Now imagine meeting with that same customer who has already been exposed to your brand and knows that information already! The time you save there is time you can put into giving a good sales presentation and getting the business.

A good brand helps you attract the right kinds of clients
A well thought out and relevant brand will make it easy for clients to connect you with the product or service they are looking for. To use a very simple example, if you were to brand your company as an insurance company for seniors, you won’t likely be the company Mom calls when her teens start to drive, but you will be the one that all those folks over 50 will call to get some reward for their years of good driving.

A brand provides a solid base from which your business can expand
A good business does not remain stagnant but grows and changes over time. Once you’ve established a memorable brand, it’s much easier to incorporate change under that same umbrella than it would be to try to create a whole new business. By expanding within your brand you never lose the valuable customer base that you have spent so much time developing.

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention www.onecoach.com as the original source).