Archives for May 2017

Generally I write about topics that I think will help you and I do it by answering your questions.

After completing last week’s post, I realized that I have not written much about email marketing.

Email marketing should be an important part of your strategy because it helps you convert free traffic into customers.

If there is something that I hear frequently is how people with successful businesses on the Internet regret not having started their email marketing strategy before.

And I have to admit that the same thing happened to me.

If I had to choose my favorite part of my strategy or the one I enjoy the most, it would be email marketing.

Being able to communicate with you weekly helps me feel connected to my audience.

Although we are all in different parts of the world, I have been able to develop relationships with my subscribers thanks to email marketing.

It’s not unusual to receive weekly messages from you.

In some cases the messages are short and include a single word, thanking me (gracias).

Those little messages motivate me to continue creating valuable content for you.

Why does your service based business need an email marketing strategy

• Email marketing is the best way to have direct communication with your audience
• It works effectively and regardless of the device your audience uses
• It allows you to customize the messages for your audience. In other words you have the option to send relevant messages to those people who are interested in specific topics.
• You can also send different messages depending on which stage of the purchase process your audience is in.

According to Radicati :

“In 2017, the number of worldwide email users will top 3.7 billion. By the end of 2021, the number of worldwide email users will be over 4.1 billion. Approximately half of the worldwide population uses email in 2017”

In my opinion these numbers paint a picture of the global market.

Email marketing for service based businesses (3 steps to get started)

1. Choose an Email Marketing Provider

When I talk about providers I mean the program or service you need to use to send messages and maintain your subscriber list.

Depending on the stage of your business your needs will be different.

Some examples are: Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Aweber, Drip, Convertkit, Getresponse and Infusionsoft.

2. Capture the email address of your website visitors

By now you know how hard it is to get people to visit your website, so t’s important to think about the next step.

One way to do this is to think about what is it that you can offer your website visitors so they want to give you their email address voluntarily.

You must include in your website forms that invite the visitors of your web page to subscribe in exchange of something such as a guide, ebook, video, etc.

Consider this

It is important to mention that there are regulations to protect consumers from receiving spam in their mailboxes.

Each country has different regulations, for more information you can consult an infographic of Litmus that explains international regulations for Email Marketing.

3. Plan to communicate with your subscribers

It’s no use capturing the email address of your website visitors if you don’t have a plan to communicate with your subscribers.

Consistency vs. Frequency

The frequency with which you decide to communicate with your subscribers is not as important as how consistent you are.
What this means is that it does not matter if you decide to communicate with your subscribers monthly, 2 times a month or weekly. The important thing is to be consistent once you make that decision.

The Value vs. Promotion

It is not about flooding your subscribers with sales messages only, you need find to the perfect balance between offering useful information and promoting your services.

The call to action

Each message needs to have a call to action, in other words you must think what you want people to do when they receive the message, in addition you also need to think how you want them to feel once they read the email message.

I’ve created the following infographic: Email marketing for service based businesses (3 steps to get started).

Please attribute the infographics to Netklik.com
Use the embed code I’ve included

<div>
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/email-marketing-service-based-businesses/"><br>
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1359" src="https://www.netklik.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/email-marketing-for-service-based-business-infographic.png" alt="email marketing for service based businesses " width="500" height="1250" /></a>
</div>
<div>
Infographic by: 
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/email-marketing-service-based-businesses/">Netklik</a>
</div>

How to use a newsletter in your Email Marketing strategy

Creating a newsletter gives you a perfect opportunity to create content on a regular basis that you can share with your subscribers and that’s exactly what I do in my business.

Every week I write a blog post that I share with my subscribers.

Communication with your subscribers not only allows you to develop the trust relationship but also allows you to generate direct traffic to your website.

Additionally email marketing also allows you to automate your business, in other words you can program email sequences that your subscribers will receive once they take certain actions.

Conclusion
Remember that your email marketing strategy is part of the long-term strategy.
Think about the types of content you are interested in receiving as a consumer.

Before you start, just remember you need to have clear goals and an easy way to measure your results.

I have to confess, one of my weaknesses is ice cream.

I am sure you have probably noticed how sometimes there is other ice cream shop next to your favorite ice cream shop.

The reason is location.

Changing the location might have a direct effect in ice cream sales.

Having the right traffic to an ice cream shop is a key part of the success of the business and with this example we can begin to see how there can be a big difference in the number of people who visit an ice cream shop depending on location of the shop.

The same thing applies to your website traffic.

It is possible that your dream is to position your website in the first results of Google so you always have a flow of free traffic to your website.

If this is the case, the best way to get free traffic is by creating the unique types of content that people are looking for and need.

However there are 2 things to keep in mind:

1. Time Vs. Money

Although you do not have to pay Google directly to get free traffic, you definately need to spend time designing and implementing your strategy.
In other words free traffic does not have an economic cost, but if it involves a time cost.

2. There are many types of free traffic (and not all are equal)
Don’t get me wrong, having free traffic is not only excellent but also wonderful and that is why it’ss the dream for many.

But if the traffic is not well directed or the source is not the desired one, the traffic has no value for your business.

The idea of free traffic is to attract your audience to your services.

In order for the traffic to be effective, you need to make sure that the people you are attracting are really in your audience and interested in your services.

The type of searches that people do are very different depending on the stage in which they are in their buying process (customer journey).

How searches may vary during the customer journey

For example, when deciding to go on vacation with my family to Washington D.C., I might do searches like: family vacation in Washington D.C..

But if the decision about going to vacation to Washington D.C. has already been made, the information I will search for will be different and more specific to what I’m really looking for:

For example:

Washington D.C Bike Tour

Where to eat the best ice cream in Washington D.C.

The key is to create an combined strategy where through general and specific content you attract your audience to your services.

In other words, having free traffic is not enough when you do not know how to develop the strategy.

Even though when we we think of free traffic the first thing that comes to mind is Google, there are other ways to generate free traffic to your website.

How to use free traffic to attract clients (3 traffic sources you need consider)

My recommendation is to develop a strategy for each of the 3 sources of free traffic.

1. Search Engines (Google)

The goal should be to develop an SEO strategy.
This is something you need to think about even before designing your website. The benefits of doing this early on go beyond appearing in the first results of Google. Working on your SEO strategy will allow you to better understand your audience.

In addition to Google, there are other search engines (bing, yahoo, etc) and other sites where you can answer the questions your audience has (quora, ask).

What You Should Know
Positioning your website in Google takes time and should be part of your long-term strategy. Again, remember to include this as a top of your priorities before designing your website.

I have not experimented with quora or ask, but I know people who have had very good results.

2. Social Media

Social media allows you to attract your audience to your services almost immediately.

Think of social media as a way to start the conversation with your audience.

It is possible that not all social media networks are equally effective for your business, it is up to you to identify in which one you want to spend your time and develop an effective strategy.

What You Should Know
Free traffic from social media should be part of your short-term strategy. It is not only about generating traffic by increasing visitors, you need to have a strategy that allows you to convert traffic into clients.

Additionally having a social media strategy will also help you position your content on Google.

I’ve created an infographic illustrating How to use free traffic to attract clients (3 traffic sources you need consider).

Please attribute the infographics to Netklik.com
Use the embed code I’ve included

<div>
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/how-to-use-free-traffic-to-attract-clients/"><br>
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1345" src="https://www.netklik.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/how-to-use-free-traffic-to-attract-clients-infographic.png" alt="How to use free traffic to attract clients" width="500" height="2389" /></a>
</div>
<div>
Infographic by: 
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/how-to-use-free-traffic-to-attract-clients/">Netklik</a>
</div>

 

3. Email Marketing

How to use free traffic to get customers
This is a topic that is not talked about enough, but email marketing is also a way to generate free traffic to your content.

It is true that perhaps before implementing your email marketing strategy you need to learn how to generate free traffic, but really both strategies can and should go hand in hand.

Of course the first step is to attract people who do searches related to your services on Google or start the conversation in social media.

But definitely that step must be followed by a conversation via email and this will only be possible if you capture the email address of your visitors.

What You Should Know
Email marketing is the most effective way to convert traffic into clients because it allows you to develop the relationship with your audience in a way that you can not do with your website alone.

The best way to generate free traffic using email marketing is to communicate regularly with your list of subscribers and invite them to consume valuable content.

A common mistake is to think that traffic is a problem that you can solve after designing your website.

When in fact you should think about how you are going to attract your audience before you think about the designing your website.

Conclusion
Your goal should be to experiment with the 3 sources of free traffic and accumulate data that allows you to make the best decisions about what type of free traffic is more effective for your business.

Remember that there are different types of free traffic and your goal is to know which is the best for your business.

 

This is a common question when it comes to thinking about the best way to drive traffic to your services.

And the answer is that it really depends.

Before going into detail about the advantages and disadvantages of both types of traffic, I want to clarify exactly what I mean by these two terms.

Lets start with free traffic.

What is free traffic?

When we talk about free traffic we refer to the website traffic that you did not have to pay for.

Examples of types of free traffic

Some examples of free traffic are: traffic coming directly from Google or social media.

Advantages of free traffic

I don’t know any business who does not want their phone constantly ringing because they have a consistent flow of visitors coming to their website without having to pay for it.

If we have to mention some disadvantages it is important to be clear that building free organic takes time and should be part of a medium- or long-term strategy.

What is Paid Traffic?

Paid traffic is that traffic your website receives as a direct result of paying for ads.

Examples of types of paid traffic

Some examples of paid traffic are the traffic coming directly from Google Adwords, paid Facebook ads, Instagram ads, LinkedIn ads, etc.

Advantages of paid traffic

Although we sometimes think that it is not ideal to have to pay for traffic, especially when you are starting a new business.

The paid traffic is essential to growing your business.

You only have a problem when you pay for traffic before you know how to convert traffic into clients.

Nowadays there are so many alternatives to generate traffic that the important thing is to focus and know where your customers really are and what you think is the best strategy for your business.

I have been able to experiment with both types of traffic and what I have learned is that there is a very close relationship between the two types of traffic.

The relationship between organic traffic and paid traffic

What I have seen happened is that the content that is positioned in Google also performs well in social media and vice versa so in my opinion mixing both strategies is the answer to the question about what is the best strategy.

For example, if a post is positioned in Google, it is probably a good idea to invest in Facebook ads for that specific post.

Paid vs. free traffic (3 keys to design an integrated strategy)

1. The message is everything

Regardless of the source of traffic, whether organic or paid, if the message is unclear and does not connect with your audience, the result will not be good.

The reality is that no one likes to be sold.

The same is true of paid ads.

The goal of the ad should be to offer free valuable content that will allow you to help and connect with your audience instead of selling.

In a nutshell, the idea is to use content to monetize.

A great example of a business that does this well is: bumblebeelinens.com , this business is dedicated to sell handkerchiefs and the content of the blog talks about the different applications of handkerchiefs.

That is why it is so important to work on developing the right message.

2.The magic of combining organic traffic and paid traffic

The magic happens when we learn to combine both strategies.

This is an area where I still have a lot to learn, but I will share with you some ideas that you can use as a starting point.

When a post performs well on social meda, this is a sign that you should create more related content on your blog or website.

The idea behind this is that the likelihood of these content being well positioned in Google is high.

At the same time you can also consider including the post that generates organic traffic effectively as part of your paid ad strategy.

In the same way when the content is positioned well in Google, this also means that it has high probabilities of having good engagement in social media and it’s content that will be also shared.

So you can also consider using the same content as part of your paid traffic strategy.

I have created an infographic that illustrates the 3 keys to design an integrated strategy using paid traffic and free traffic.

Please attribute the infographics to Netklik.com
Use the embed code I’ve included

<div>
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/paid-traffic-vs-free-traffic/"><br>
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1339" src="https://www.netklik.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/paid-traffic-vs-free-traffic-infographic.png" alt="paid traffic vs free traffic" width="500" height="2389" /></a>
</div>
<div>
Infographic by: 
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/paid-traffic-vs-free-traffic/">Netklik</a>
</div>

 

3. Experimenting is key

To get the most out of your content that performs well, the key is to experiment.

The question becomes how to reuse content that performs well in Google organic search with paid and vice versa.

Once we learn how to do this, it is very easy to make the decision to pay for traffic because the risk is much lower.

Conclusion
There seems to be a relationship between the performance of paid traffic vs. free traffic.

Unless you have a generous budget, my recommendation is to understand that it is probably best to use a combination of paid and free traffic.

Surely some times you have had the opportunity to observe the happiness of a child when he finally receives a gift that he has been longing for.

What’s more, maybe it happened to you and you remember the moment.

Sometimes that moment is followed by a great frustration.

Either because the packaging is complicated to open or opening the gift and putting it to work takes more time than originally thought.

These minutes of frustration have nothing to do with the end result, the gift as such; however learning to handle frustration can make all the difference.

You may be wondering what the reason for this example is.

Being an entrepreneur is not easy

I have had the opportunity to talk with people who often feel misunderstood within their own family and circle of friends.

Sometimes it happens that what the obstacle that stands in our way can also be the source of great opportunity.

Online marketing sometimes generates frustration, but I want you to understand that just below frustration lies the hidden opportunity.

That’s probably what attracted you to online marketing in the first place.

If you feel that online marketing is difficult, please continue to read

It often happens that the more you learn online marketing, the more you loose perspective of what you really want and should see.

When you think that your biggest problem is to understand and learn how to use the latest technologies to grow your business, and you dedicate much of your energy in doing so, without realizing you lose sight of the vision of your business and the impact you want to achieve.

I have spent the last few days learning and absorbing from people who have already gone through the stage where my business is currently, and I have realized that the most important thing is not to loose perspective.

The truth is that it is of no use to be an expert in SEO, a master in Facebook Ads, a specialist in social media, have the best camera or the best recording studio if you do not have a clear vision of your business and how the services you offer help others.

The online marketing opportunity (3 unusual tips that your competition does not know)

1. Learn marketing online from others who have already solved the problems you are trying to solve

It is true that online marketing is not super easy, but it is also true that it does not have to be complicated.

I think it’s important to learn to re-frame or rethink how we learn online marketing.

The moment we stop being afraid of technology and online marketing, we realize that online marketing is not the problem or the obstacle but rather it is an opportunity to grow your business.

It is an opportunity to attract your potential client and develop the relationship with your audience.

What you should do

Learning online marketing is not something you can delegate. If you do, your luck will depend on others. This does not mean that you need to be responsible for implementing your strategy, but you must understand enough to understand what your strategy is.

2.The importance of making connections

The purpose of the online world is to offer us the possibility of connecting with other people regardless of our geographical location.

After all, that’s the most important thing.

The online world removes language barriers and geographical location.

For business owners this translates into being able to attract people who are interested in learning more about our message and it is up to us to develop that relationship and create a community around our message.

What you should do

Think about what you are doing today to attract your audience, to offer added value.

No matter what your business is, your services must solve the problems that your audience has. Your audience is made up of real people, with real problems.

Now think about how you could improve and more importantly what is the first step you should take is.

I created an infographic that illustrates the opportunity of online marketing (3 unusual tips that your competition does not know.

Please attribute the infographics to Netklik.com
Use the embed code I’ve included

<div>
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/online-marketing-opportunity/"><br>
<img src="https://www.netklik.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/the-online-marketing-opportunity-infographic.png" alt="the online marketing opportunity" width="500" height="1250" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1310" /></a>
</div>
<div>
Infographic by: 
<a href="https://www.netklik.com/online-marketing-strategies/online-marketing-opportunity/">Netklik</a>
</div>

3.Do not try to do it alone

When we try to solve problems alone, it is difficult to realize that we let the problems seem bigger than they really are and this makes you feel stuck.

When you share concerns or questions with other people, you can hear other views and opinions that can help you approach the problem from another angle.

What you should do

When you stop sharing your problems with others who are in a situation similar to yours, it is a bit like drowning in a glass of water.

There is nothing more powerful than listening to feedback from others to realize that things are not as complicated or difficult as you think.

This makes all the difference in the world.

Remember the example with which I started this post, do not let the frustration and discomfort of having to learn online marketing become an obstacle.

It may be that your website is not working as you expected or that your social media strategy does not produce results.

No matter what the problem is, remember that opportunity is waiting for you.

If you already know me, you know that I write about what I learn or what I am learning in my business.

It’s a habit that I started doing around 3 years ago and the rest is history.

Sometimes I just write on what I want to learn and this helps me organize my ideas and process new information.

If there is something I have discovered is that every time I learn something new, I realize how little I know.

It’s not about learning anything; the key is to be clear about which areas will bring the most benefit to your business.

The first months of this year have been incredible and I will soon share the projects I have been working on.

Last week I wrote about How to learn marketing online (without dying in the process) and this is definitely an area that also affects me and that I take very seriously.

Next week I will be participating in  live training session. So this week instead of sharing new content with you, I am including 4 of most popular posts from the last few months.

1. Why your online marketing strategy is not working (and how to fix it using a visual map)

 

2. How to write an article for your blog (3 tips to start writing today)

3. How to boost your online marketing results (5 lessons to put into practice) 

4. Why social media followers don’t matter

Of course it is not easy to find the time and stop everything that you are doing so you can learn, however it is something we all have to do if we are looking to improve our results.

I can not wait to share with you what I’m going to learn this week.