Not sure what to do after someone opts-into your email list?

Actually, before someone opts-in to your email list, you’ll want to have a series of follow-up emails or autoresponders ready.

Autoresponders are strategically designed to help you:

1. Build Know, Like, Trust with your potential customer or client

2. Sell your products and services.

In this video I help you to create a winning autoresponder series.

Cheers!

In this video I share with you a very common mistake that many marketers and business owners make. Are you? Watch and find out.

The Myth of Competition

There are two types of competition: the kind of healthy competition and good sportsmanship you see during a game, and then there’s the other kind of competition that produces night sweats, knots in your stomach, and just generalized anxiety.

The first kind of competition is healthy. When both competitors bring their “A” game to the field of play, there’s nothing more thrilling (when you win) or humbling (when you don’t win). Regardless of the outcome, there can be a deep sense of admiration.

In business, your goal should never be to directly compete with anyone, but to admire what they do really well, and strive to do it better.  The mantra of the smart Life Entrepreneur is not to compete, but to observe, adapt, and sell. This way, your focus is on your personal inner growth, your customer’s needs, and the growth of your company.

The other kind of competition is unhealthy, unproductive, and produces bad business karma. In this kind of competition, your focus is less on the value you provide to your clients and customers, but more on “winning the game.” Your customer, employees, and channel partners are only a means to an end and therefore lack intrinsic human value.  While this view of competition has been in play since the industrial revolution, it is now changing.

Companies like Toms (buy a pair of shoes, and they give a pair away); Tesla, whose focus is to usher in a new era of electric-only cars; and Costco, which demonstrates that you can treat your employees well and make a profit, are only a few demonstrations of conscious and profitable business models.

So let’s reframe what competition could mean for you and your business:

1. An opportunity to observe what others are doing well and adapt that to your own business model.
2. Observing and adapting saves you time, money, and effort from having to re-create the wheel yourself.
3. Gather more information, especially on the shopping habits of your potential clients.

Next week, we’ll talk about why people really buy.

Remember, your success starts from within

By Krista Magidson and Wei Houng

Krista Magidson is the Chief Content Creator at BoutiqueMarketingGroup.com
Krista helps entrepreneurs and small and medium sized business owners:
Get clarity on their marketing message, attract their ideal clients, customers, or patients to their business or practice, and create elegant and effective content for their websites, email campaigns, newsletter, brochures, videos, and more…

Contact her today for a free no-obligation 30 minute consultation at moreinfo@nullboutiquemarketinggroup.com

Wei Houng is the Co-Founder of The Life Oasis, Life and Business Solution Center, Founder of DigiWEI   Internet Marketing, and Creator of the High Performance Breakthrough System™. He specializes in helping Life Entrepreneurs increase their business revenue and personal income, improve their communication skills, Establish Power Goals, Increase Client Flow and Retention, and Achieve Optimal Work-Life Balance.

The one thing I really loved about working in the corporate world was the focus on systems and follow through. When I was in sales we were encouraged to keep call records, to dress appropriately for our market, and we grew our business through following through with our clients.

No matter what your business, you need good systems and follow through that may include delivering proposals to prospective clients.

There are two reasons why you should consider writing a proposal:

1. You have an expensive product or service that requires a long sales cycle. Many of the projects we work on at Boutique Marketing can be thousands of dollars, and usually requires that we call on several key managers before the final decision is made. Preparing a proposal demonstrates that we clearly understand their company and their needs, gives us an opportunity to clearly present our solutions, and opens the door to discuss their budgets.

2. You have a product or service that is complicated and may take time to implement. A dear friend of mine provides Feng Shui services for businesses and individuals. Although her clients are familiar with some of the benefits her service provides, the process is quite involved. Having a proposal allows her to educate her clients on the process, eliminates any misunderstandings, and gives them the opportunity to discover the additional benefits of her services.

There’s a saying that a good client is an educated client. The deeper their understanding about you, your product, and your service the more value you have.

A Sure Way to Lose Business

Getting business with proposals is all about timing and following-up with prospective clients during and after receiving the proposal.

Lack of follow through is a sure way to tell your prospect that you don’t really want their business. Now, you and I know that isn’t the case. Maybe you’re uncomfortable talking about money and budgets or you don’t want to seem too pushy. But ultimately what happens is you seem unprofessional.

Look at it from your prospects perspective: if you don’t follow-up on your proposal, how can they be sure that you’ll follow through with your service, or provide good customer service for the product they’re purchasing from you?

Here’s my fool proof process

1. After you meet with a prospect, you end the conversation with “Based on what we’ve discussed today I’ll write you a proposal and I’ll have it to you by noon on Friday.” Or whatever time frame works for you.

Here’s another tip: after the meeting send them an email recapping your conversation and noting the date they should expect to receive the proposal.

2. On or before noon on Friday, you send them the proposal with a firm date to follow-up. Ideally you’ll want to make an appointment to walk them through the proposal either in-person or on the phone. In my experience most people will not take the time to read your proposal thoroughly, and this is where most people lose the sale.

3. Here’s the secret sauce: once you’re at the appointment you read through the proposal together and do your best to keep them on the same page with you.

A proposal should be written to build. Remember you’re educating your client on your product and you’re demonstrating knowledge of their company and what their issues are.

Some prospects will jump ahead to price…and if I can give you another piece of advice, the clients that do that are going to “nickel and dime” you on price. When a client negotiates pricing, either you haven’t created sufficient value for your services or they’re cheap.

Rather than give in on price, you’ll want to give them the option of buying a smaller service package or another product. I also invite prospects to do their due diligence and shop around.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORK WITH EVERYONE.

So the proposal writing process can be an opportunity for you to learn more about your prospect and whether or not you want to work with them.

4. During the proposal you’ll find that some of your points will have to be amended. If you can, it’s best to close the call or ask for the sale then. But if they have to pass it up to another level of management or another partner then you refine the proposal and start the process over again.

The prospects who go through the process with you usually turn out to be your best clients, and it’s been my experience that they’ll ask you, “When do we start.”

I hope that I’ve convinced you to take some of the structure and professionalism from your corporate days and use it for the good of your business. I also hope I’ve convinced you to take the time to write proposals and follow through.

Questions? Let me know.

Cheers!

Krista Magidson is the Chief Content Creator at BoutiqueMarketingGroup.com
Krista helps entrepreneurs and small and medium sized business owners:
Get clarity on their marketing message, attract their ideal clients, customers, or patients to their business or practice, and create elegant and effective content for their websites, email campaigns, newsletter, brochures, videos, and more…

Contact her today for a free no-obligation 30 minute consultation at moreinfo@nullboutiquemarketinggroup.com

Write Great Content, Get Your Company Noticed,
and Attract Your Ideal Clients!

At this COMPLIMENTARY one night event, Copywriter and Content Creation Specialist Krista Magidson will take the mystery out of marketing media, and show you how to quickly and easily create branded content for your:

• Website
• Emails
• Blogs
• And brochures.

When: Thursday, January 30th 2014

7:00pm – 8:00pm

Where: The Life Oasis
2421 W. 205th Street, Suite D102
Torrance, CA 90501

Cost: GRATIS!

Register Today!

Your email ends with “to learn more about this exciting opportunity, click here.”

You check the analytics and you have 15% click throughs, but hardly any sales.

Imagine, all that time and effort wasted…not to mention your product is gathering dust on the shelf. What went wrong?

Here are 5 landing page mistakes that sap your sales, and how to avoid them.

1. You took your visitor back to your homepage or a similarly designed page on your website. The last thing you want to do is distract your visitor with navigation links that take them to other places in the site, or with pictures of unrelated products. Instead design a clean, dedicated page that keeps them focused.

Example Landing Page from AWAI Online

2. You gave them too many options. If you’re selling your new coaching program, then don’t write about the five other coaching programs you offer on that page. Your landing page is not a product or service catalogue. Instead keep your landing page to one product offering at a time. If you have good rapport with your clients then you’ll have other opportunities to sell more products and services.

3. You assumed the sale instead of asking for the sale. People need to be told exactly what to do when they come to your landing page. So when you start crafting your landing page copy, think about the action you want your visitor to take. Do you want them to purchase your software program, an e-book, or set an appointment? Don’t assume they’ll call you, tell them to call you.

Example Landing Page from Insanity Workout.

4. Your copy was inconsistent. Consistency builds credibility. Remember the awesome email series you created? Make sure that the tone and subject of your emails match with the tone, subject, and headline of your landing page. If you’ve intrigued your prospect by telling them the story “You can lose 10lbs in three days” but the headline of your landing page says, “Marathon Training Made Easy” then you’ve confused your prospect, and lost the sale.

5. You made a weak offer. It’s your job to make the prospect feel that the purchase they’re making is risk free. The last thing anyone wants to feel is foolish. So by offering a money back guarantee, an easy payment plan, and a couple of bonuses you’ll reassure your prospect; you’ll also give them the feeling that you believe enough in your service or product to make such a bold offer.

By avoiding these common mistakes you will craft winning landing pages and increase your online conversion rates. Yay!

Krista Magidson is the Chief Content Creator at BoutiqueMarketingGroup.com
Krista helps entrepreneurs and small and medium sized business owners:
Get clarity on their marketing message, attract their ideal clients, customers, or patients to their business or practice, and create elegant and effective content for their websites, email campaigns, newsletter, brochures, videos, and more…

Contact her today for a free no-obligation 30 minute consultation at moreinfo@nullboutiquemarketinggroup.com

We were all fascinated by his ability to transform these sometimes dangerous animals into wonderful loving pets.

But what really amazed me is how he re-trained the dog’s owners.

In every episode he basically tells the owners, “The dog is not the problem. You are the problem. ”

The dogs were neurotic, aggressive, and/or fearful because of the way their humans interacted with them.

To rehabilitate the dog, Cesar would start with the owners. Specifically, he helped them to think of themselves as “pack leader.”

You are the leader of your mind.

The reason why your mind doesn’t obey you, why it’s out of control, unruly, frustrating, or filled with fear, worry, and anxiety is because you have not asserted your authority as the leader of your mind.

You are not meant to follow the mind, the mind is meant to follow you.

The mind is meant to be a friend and a helpmate, not a tormentor.

Its job is to help you visualize and implement creative ideas, make plans, and be a cheerleader.

Its job is not to run your life, make decisions for you, or tell you that you’re not good enough.

Just as Cesar shows the owners that the dogs are happiest when order is restored and their person has assumed the leadership position of the pack; your mind (and you) will also be happiest when you assume authority and leadership.

Try This Exercise:

1.Imagine, if your mind were a dog, how would you characterize it? Is it fearful or aggressive? Does it bark all of the time? Is it intimating or timid? My husband describes his mind as a Jack-Russell Terrier, full of energy and going in a million directions.

2.Try it, close your eyes and imagine what kind of dog-mind you have? Write it down. Don’t get too attached or over analyze what kind of dog-mind you have.

3.Now imagine what the dog is doing. Is it lying down? Is it digging up someone’s yard? Has it wandered far away from you?

4.Now, imagine that the dog has a leash around its neck and that you are holding the other end of the leash.

5.In your mind’s eye, imagine feeling strong and authoritative. Tug on the leash and bring the dog over to your side.

6.Tell it to sit. Tell it to lie down.

7.Breathe.

8.Tell yourself and the dog, “I am the master of mind.”

Once you get the hang of this visualization, try it at work or wherever you feel like your dog/mind gets off its leash.

Just very simply check-in with it, and bring it back to your side.

You are the master of mind.

Krista Magidson is the Chief Content Creator at BoutiqueMarketingGroup.com
Krista helps entrepreneurs and small and medium sized business owners:
Get clarity on their marketing message, attract their ideal clients, customers, or patients to their business or practice, and create elegant and effective content for their websites, email campaigns, newsletter, brochures, videos, and more…

She has also been teaching meditation and mindfulness techniques since 2001.

Contact her today for a free no-obligation 30 minute consultation at moreinfo@nullboutiquemarketinggroup.com

If the page isn’t a match, then you go back to the search results and try another page, and another page, and so on.

Google wants to eliminate this process with semantic search.

Google has complex algorithms that help Internet users find whatever it is they’re looking.

In the past, Google relied on the website owners to provide keywords to match users with relevant pages. Unfortunately, this resulted in website owners using techniques like key word stuffing to help improve the rankings of their pages. While effective for marketers, the content wasn’t useful to users.

So Google started to devise newer better algorithms to help internet users find what they’re looking for, and to penalize the website owners who wrote spammy pages for rankings ( How search works).

One of the first of these algorithms was Panda.  According to Moz.com

A major algorithm update hit sites hard, affecting up to 12% of search results (a number that came directly from Google). Panda seemed to crack down on thin content, content farms, sites with high ad-to-content ratios, and a number of other quality issues. Panda rolled out over at least a couple of months, hitting Europe in April 2011.”

What Exactly is Semantic Search?

Google is striving to create an algorithm or series of algorithms that understand the meaning behind your search query, not just the keywords.

For example: If I search “plants” you’ll see that the auto-finish results include “plant vs. zombies2” and that “plants” is at the bottom. This is based on what is most frequently asked related to the search term “plants.” Since I’ve never heard of “plants vs. zombies” this isn’t relevant to me.

However, once I click “plants” Google now knows what I mean by “plants” so the next time I type this query, the auto-finish changes to reflect what it thinks I mean.

This meaning based search is what’s called “semantic search.”

Over time, based on my search preferences, Google will know exactly what I mean when I type in certain words, and give me the pages that are a match; eventually eliminating the need to search.

How Search Engine Optimization is Changing

Google, “…sorts pages by their content and other factors.”  These other factors include relevance, freshness, site and page quality.

According to Wordtraker, when searching for quality pages, Google looks for how many other quality sites backlink to your site. They also look for:

• Duplicate content in high quantities.
• Low amounts of original content.
• Page content not matching the Google snippet in the SERPs.
• Unnatural language (over-optimization) of copy/content (also a Penguin issue).
• Boilerplate content (citation).

They key for optimizing your site today and moving forward is providing quality content, that is fresh and that people want to share.

Of course, keyword optimization is vitally important to how your website is ranked, but it is no longer the only factor to determine search engine ranking.

Want to learn how to write great content with confidence and purpose?

Krista Magidson is the Chief Content Creator at BoutiqueMarketingGroup.com
Krista helps entrepreneurs and small and medium sized business owners:
Get clarity on their marketing message, attract their ideal clients, customers, or patients to their business or practice, and create elegant and effective content for their websites, email campaigns, newsletter, brochures, videos, and more…

Contact her today for a free no-obligation 30 minute consultation at moreinfo@nullboutiquemarketinggroup.com

Do your emails have low open rates and even lower click through rates?

Does your homepage have high bounce rates?

Your website, blog, and emails are a mighty vehicle to sell your products and services. In fact, content creation is the future of marketing.

And guess what? Someone has to write all of that content.

Is that someone you?

Would you like to learn how to write more compelling content, easier and faster than before?

Well starting February 27th, 2014 I am having a four-part workshop where you will:

• Learn how to create content easily
• Create a quarter 3 or 4 marketing strategy and editorial schedule for your content.
• Create at least one blog post.
• Optimize a cornerstone web page.
• Create an autoresponder series.

The Series is called, “Professional Content Writing in 7 Simple Steps”

During week 1: We’ll discuss your product or service, and help you to develop a rock-solid brand message.

During week 2: We’ll devise a content marketing strategy for the next quarter, create a detailed avatar of your ideal client, and optimize one of your corner stone pages of your website.

During week 3: You’ll work on developing at least one blog post, and develop a 12-week posting schedule.

During week 4: You’ll create an email campaign to support your Q3 or Q4 product or service launch.

For a small company, Boutique Marketing Group would charge $3,000-$5,000 to do all this work for you.

But I’m going to give you the tools and support you need to create this content yourself for only $299.00

Register before February 20th you’ll pay only $249.00.

This will be a hands-on workshop, not a lecture series. So you are guaranteed to get lots of attention, guidance, and assistance.

If you’re ready to take your business and your content marketing strategy to the next level, then register today at:
EventBrite.com

Krista Magidson is the Chief Content Creator at BoutiqueMarketingGroup.com
Krista helps entrepreneurs and small and medium sized business owners:
Get clarity on their marketing message, attract their ideal clients, customers, or patients to their business or practice, and create elegant and effective content for their websites, email campaigns, newsletter, brochures, videos, and more…

Contact her today for a free no-obligation 30 minute consultation at moreinfo@nullboutiquemarketinggroup.com

The Content Creation System: 7 Simple Steps to Creating Great Content

Writing Great Content Doesn’t Have to Be Overwhelming

I know how overwhelming it is to be the person who is responsible for bringing in new business,while at the same time having to create a content marketing strategy that includes:

• blogging
• emails
• newsletters
• reports
• flyers
• brochures
• direct mail
• and more..

I also understand how difficult writing can be if you consider yourself a non-writer (BTW, writer’s find writing difficult too).

Writing can be intimidating.

Well, I have a secret to share with you; writing doesn’t come naturally to me either.

All through school I struggled with reading comprehension and writing.  My temperament was much better suited to mathematics and physics.

However, my belief that I was hopelessly bad at writing started to change during my first semester in college.

While taking a creative writing course, the class was asked to write a paper describing an activity that we enjoyed.  I wrote about playing soccer.  I remember writing about sunshine, the smell of fresh cut grass, and the way my lungs would burn during the first fifteen minutes of play.

After that assignment, my professor pulls me aside and asks, “What’s your major?

“Marketing,” I replied.

“That’s too bad, because you can write.”

It was the first time anyone, including my parents (I’ll leave my parental issues for another post), had complemented my writing. And the seed was planted.

Years later I decided that I wanted to make a living as a writer. So I began studying the art of writing.  I read books on script writing, novel writing, non-fiction writing, copywriting, and journaling. I’ve taken writing courses, and I worked with a wonderful writing coach for about 18 months. Oh, I also started the habit of writing everyday.

The Three Most Important Things About Writing:

1.  Anyone can learn to write well.

2. You need  a system.

3. Writing is a craft that requires practice.

Why You Need A System

My oldest daughter is a naturally gifted musician. When she was ten she picked up a long forgotten guitar that was a Christmas gift and started playing a lick she’d heard on Guitar Hero.  She’d never had a lesson, and didn’t learn to read music for another few years.

If I asked her how she is able to hear a song and figure out which chords to play on the guitar, she couldn’t tell me. She just knows how to do it.

In fact, ask anyone who is naturally gifted at anything, whether it’s baking, playing sports, or writing, and they probably wouldn’t be able to break down their process.

It’s people who don’t have a natural talent, but who instead have persistence and desire, who are able to watch the greats and glean a process. Or if they are truly persistent, create a process of their own.

Which is what I’ve done for you.

I have a process when I write. I use this process 90 percent of the time when I’m creating a piece of content.

I call it, ‘The Content Creation System.”

Without it, I’d wander around in a creative wasteland, wondering what the heck I’m going say.

This process helps me to stay focused, and it helps me to manage my time.

I want you to have this process, and adapt it as you see fit.

Writing for my personal use and for my clients is a gift. And in an age where everyone is hungry for information, learning how to communicate your ideas, process, and products either visually or with the written word, is more imperative than ever.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please don’t hesitate to ask.