marketing – Nicole Munoz Consulting

Stop Wasting Your Money Mindlessly with These 3 Facebook Marketing Tips!

My son is a reader.

I don’t mean an occasional reader. I mean a reader.

Here he is reading at the table during lunch:

He reads in the car… he also carries his books with him everywhere just in case he has an extra 5 minutes!

I absolutely love that he is a reader but….

…have you ever tried to keep up with purchasing books for a kid that can read a whole novel in less than 3 days. Yeah. I need a second job just to pay for his Kindle purchases! 🙂

Every now and then I look on my shelf for books I think he might be interested in and a few days ago I came across a book my mom gave me when I was about his age.

Maybe you have heard of it. It is called “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. 🙂

When I presented the book to my son I told him a story.

I told him how when my mom gave me the book when I was about 11 or 12 that the title put me off. I thought my mom was trying to tell me that I was a “loser” because only a “loser” would need to read a book about how to make friends! 🙂 I told him that it took me 2 years to read the book and when I finally did I was ready to kick myself.

I realized that the author was an amazing storyteller and had great advice for anyone in any walk of life. I told him that as soon as I read it I realized I had made a mistake and wished I had read it earlier.

(He is currently reading the book and is already on chapter three and has told me he really likes it!)

So what has this got to do with anything? Well over the last few weeks I have been taking a class by Amy Porterfield called “Facebook Marketing Profits” and all I can say is, “wow”.

When Amy and I met briefly at Infusioncon last year I was a little too proud. I thought … “well I already know all that stuff about Lead Magnets and Marketing Funnels. What is she going to teach me?” I figured I was only going to learn about 20% of new information from the course so I did not want to “waste” my time or money.

(After-all, as an Infusionsoft Certified Partner I help clients set-up Marketing Funnels all day long!)

I made the same mistake most business owners make. I got so focused on working IN my business… I forgot how important it is to always be learning and working ON my business!

I also forgot the golden rule of growth! It is not about how much a course “costs”, but how much you can leverage the information in the course to grow your business.

Lesson learned. 🙂

Although I can’t share with you all of the insider tips I am learning as a VIP member with Amy, I do want to share with you three things that I have learned from Amy Porterfields’s class Facebook Marketing Profits.

First, don’t do FB Ads for Likes.

There are two types of Facebook accounts. A personal profile and a fan page for businesses.

The personal profile is primarily used by individuals to connect with families and friends. Most of the time what you post on your personal profile is shown to only people you have accepted as friends.

The Fan page is meant for businesses. Fan pages are different in that anyone can “like” the fan page to stay up to date with the posts on that page. In the past, having a lot of people “like” your fan page meant that you could reach more people with your news and promotions. For example, a page that had 1,000 likes might reach 400-500 of their fans with each of their posts. Recently Facebook changed the algorithm they use to display updates to fans. Now if you have 1,000 fans, your post might only reach 50-80 people if that.

In other words, it used to be a benefit to have a lot of fans because it was like free advertising. The fan page was free, likes were free, and posting updates that got delivered to your fans was free. This is no longer the case.

There are still benefits to having your clients and prospects like your page… but the benefit is not so huge as to be worthy of a great advertising investment.

So what do we do? Instead of running Facebook ads for Likes… run the ads to OFFERS where you can capture the name and email address of your prospects so you can continue to market to them through email marketing!

What kinds of offers? There are many! When you offer something for free in exchange for the person’s contact information, this offer is called a “Lead Magnet”. You are “drawing” the lead to you! The offer is your magnet that draws leads to you!

Ebooks
Whitepapers
Teleseminar
Webinar
Free Demo
Free Trial
Coupon for a percentage off
Coupon for free shipping
Free T-Shirt
Free Book (They pay shipping)
Free Kindle Book
Free Consulting
Free Quote
Site Analysis
Custom Report
Many, many more!

Once you have decided on your Lead Magnet, the next step is to create a Landing Page to send people to. A landing page is different than a regular page on your site in that it usually only has ONE option. Well two. The visitor can submit their name and email or leave!

The landing page usually has a webform where you can capture their name and email. This webform connects to your email autoresponder so that you can now send out follow-up emails to pre-sell them on your products or services!

You can of course use Facebook ads to send people directly to your sales page with an offer to purchase as well! This works depending on the price point and how well your audience is already connected to you.

For example, in Facebook Ads, you can also create Custom Audiences that target only people that you import from an excel file. So for example, if you have a list of customers, you can upload that list to Facebook, create a custom audience, and send only those specific people directly to your sales page!

One final note here. After someone opts in by putting their name and email into your webform on your landing page, the page that they are re-directed to is called the “Thank-You” page. This is the page where you not only have an opportunity to say “thank-you” for opting in to my list or thank-you for requesting this pdf or for registering for this webinar… but a place where you can show them what to expect next.

Here are some things you can put on your thank-you page!

Video of you introducing yourself and thanking them
Screenshots of email that they are about to receive
Ask them to like your Page on Facebook or Share a Tweet on Twitter to get a bonus product.

Second, don’t Boost posts.

I have fallen into this trap so many times. When I post an important message on my page that I want to get more eyes on, the easiest thing to do is to hit “boost this post”. It is easy to justify as it is only $5-7 to get thousands of eyes on an offer! The problem with this is that the people you are advertising to is NOT targeted. You are letting Facebook decide who to show the ad to. It is always a much better strategy to setup a targeted Facebook marketing campaign so you can send out ads to exactly who you want to target!

Instead of boosting posts that target random people that Facebook chooses, you can create ads to promote your posts to specific audiences. But again, this goes back to the first point! Unless the post is to an offer or you have another strategic reason, it might be better to refrain!

Third, I need to rewrite my new subscriber email sequences… yesterday!

It was on one of the webinars in the course that Amy just casually mentioned that she probably rewrites and tweaks her email sequences about 20 times a year.

When I heard that I paused the video, took a deep breath and listened to that again. 20 times. Twenty. Not ten or fifteen. Twenty. Success is not by accident. It is by hard-work, determination, and testing and tweaking to try to get things right.

Writing email sequences has always been one of my least favorite jobs as a marketer! More than once I have paid out good money to have a copywriter write my emails for me. One time I paid $700 for a series of 7 emails to a copywriter that came very highly recommended. It resulted in 0 sales. ZERO! There are just some things that you cannot outsource easily. Maybe if I had invested in a copywriter at the rate of $3,000 or so I would have gotten better results but I don’t think so.

What your audience wants is YOU. They want to hear YOUR stories. YOUR voice. They signed on to your list because they felt a connection to you. You just can’t give them that close relationship when you outsource your copywriting!

Copywriting does not come easy but it is a skill you can learn!

If you are struggling with copywriting here are some suggestions:

Create a separate gmail account and optin to many offers of your favorite marketers
Study their optin sequences, nurture sequences, and sales sequences
Pinpoint what resonates with you. Find out which marketers you connect with most in regards to writing style and then identify what it is that you like about it!
Tell stories. The best salespeople always tell stories. If you have stories in your writing it is also more difficult for others to copy you!
Study your target market with intention. Intentionally try to find out what keeps them up at night. What are their fears or motivations? The more specifically you can address the needs of your target market, the more successful you will be!

Finally, here is a bonus tip for you!

Tip: Don’t ever stop learning!

I should have taken the class a long time ago.

Just like how I put off reading the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People for two years… I should have taken Amy’s class 2 years ago. A lot of what I have learned about lead magnets, marketing funnels, and setting up email sales sequences I have pieced together myself over the last few years. I could have learned it all in less than 6 weeks if I had just taken this course 2 years ago. (Facepalm) 🙂

So that is my story. What is yours? What have you been putting off?

Just send us a quick email to [email protected] and put “My Story for Nicole” in the subject line! Tell me what you are working on and what your biggest roadblock is right now to truly being successful!
Next, jump on over to Facebook, connect with me, and share this with your friends! If this has been helpful to you, help me help others!
And finally let me know you read this by leaving a comment!

Let’s make 2014 a super successful year!

5 Ways to Promote Your Book Using Facebook

by Nicole Munoz

Facebook is one of the most useful resources on the Internet when it comes to marketing anything. But, if you want to market and promote your book on Facebook you’re in luck because Facebook is practically tailor made for just such a thing.

1. Create a Facebook Page for Your Book

That’s right, you want to create a Facebook Page just for your book. It will be under Entertainment. Simply go to home on Facebook, Create Page, and choose Entertainment. Choose Book for category, and then put in the name of your book and agree to the terms and conditions. Go through all the steps and don’t forget to pick a unique URL for your book.

2. Invite Friends to Your Page

Now you want to get some followers on your page, so use the tool on the page after you’ve created it to invite your Friends. This is a good start to building a fan base for your book. Ask your friends to share with and invite their friends too. You need to get at least 30 likes to have access to page insights and other features.

3. Connect Your Blog

If you have a blog, and an Author’s Facebook page connect your blog so that you can automatically post excerpts from your blog right on your Author’s page. You can use a number of different technologies to do this, one is called Networked Blogs. Once you set it up, each time you publish a blog post, it will post directly to any Facebook Page that you own as you’ve set it up. This is a great way to automate the sharing of some content.

4. Promote Your Page

Use the handy and easy Create Ads feature to promote your page. You can easily segment the audience that you choose to promote your page to. You can choose not to promote it to the people who already have joined or are your friends, and only promote it to just the right audience choosing your daily budget.

5. Update Daily

One of the keys to keeping your page active and attracting likes is to keep content going on your page every day. Not just any content, it needs to be relevant and useful content that is focused on the type of audience you want to attract. You can share your blog posts, YouTube.com videos and more using your Facebook Page. Your page needs to be updated enough to make people take notice but not so much that you annoy people. Most of all, keep it as close to the topic as you can.

Marketing and promoting your book on Facebook is fun and simple. It’s a truly essential element in ensuring that you can build a following. A lot of people don’t realize that even if you’ve been published by a publishing company you still need to do a lot of marketing on your own, so whether you’re self-published or not, using Facebook to market and promote your book is an essential component in book marketing today.

If you’d like to know more about Promoting Your Book Using Facebook , then don’t miss our free Webinar on December 12th, “How to Market & Promote Your Book Using Facebook”.

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How to Create a Consistent Brand

by Nicole Munoz

Visuals play an important role in creating a consistent brand. Changing a logo can create confusion so it is best to choose the appropriate one when starting a new business. Follow these steps to make sure you will not have to double the work in the future.

1. Choose an appropriate logo and tagline that describes your services to your target audience.

2. Ensure that the colors, text, and usability of your website are topnotch. Then, carry over this design to your social media, business cards, and any marketing collateral that you have. By keeping colors, fonts, logos and the style the same you’ll start projecting a particular image or brand of your business. Whatever you create, remember that you’ll use it across all your online marketing channels and in any print materials that you will use.

Choose wisely and seek expert help if you’re not sure. In general with websites and with offline marketing collateral you don’t want anything too busy, and you want to use colors and white space to your advantage. The trick is to always think about your target audience when you create anything. This will keep your design as well as your copy in line with what your audience expects.

Market Your Skills into an Online Business

by Nicole Munoz

Do you want to start an online business and don’t know what to do? In order to pick a service it’s best to go by the skills you currently have. You can translate most of what you have done in the working world, volunteer world, or as a parent into an income producing service. Get a piece of paper and write down what your skills are.

expert

A few more ideas for service businesses are:

Graphic Designer
Web Designer
Social Media Marketing
Programming
Data Entry
Copywriting
Online Marketing
WordPress Websites Services
Online Research
Online Bookkeeper

Don’t worry; if you have gaps in your skills, there is a lot of training online available to you. There is, for instance, a vast network of Virtual Assistants out there who have organized and created training to help you learn how to provide almost any type of service you want to provide. But, starting with your own skills and choosing something you can see yourself doing, day in and day out is an important first step. Next identify your gaps and seek out the training necessary.

Another method of choosing services to offer is to identify your target audience first, then create a service for them that solves a specific problem that they have. If you enjoy working with children for instance, and you have a lot of insight on children you might find a service to offer Moms that solves a problem or issue that they have with their children. If you focus on solving a problem of your target audience your services will always be in demand.

In fact, even if you choose a service to provide from the list on the first page, you will still need to choose a target audience for whom you wish to provide those services. It will make your marketing efforts a lot easier when you know who you want to work with. Your target audience never will be “anyone” it will always be a sub group that you can identify by demographics information. It will help you run your business leaner, with less stress, and even help you know what to charge.

50 Tips for Starting and Marketing a Membership Site

by Nicole Munoz

Use a CMS (content management system) – Don’t do it by hand, unless you are HTML proficient. Trying to manage a membership site by hand is incredibly difficult.
Do your market research. Look for unsolved problems or sub-niches that nobody else is addressing. Don’t do a membership site that’s the same as another established site on the market.
Have a launch budget. It’s easy to accidentally spend way more money than you planned to if you don’t budget carefully.
Do a test buy with a real credit card. Make sure your shopping cart is properly integrated with your membership site software.

Try buying banner ads on related websites. Look for sites that your target market would browse and post ads on them.
Have a SEOed site that feeds into your membership site. Most membership sites block their content from search engines, so make sure you do have a content based site that search engines can see.
Get someone on Odesk to configure a WordPress multi-site for you or consider using a plugin like ManageWP. If you’re using WordPress and you own multiple sites, a multisite will allow you to control all your sites from one control panel.

Try out PPC traffic. Once you have a few sales and have a proven funnel, use PPC traffic to drive new people to your sales page.
Contact others in the industry to do JVs. Get them to promote your membership site.

Offer an affiliate program that pays out every month. Alternatively, you can offer an upfront payment for their subscription. For example, for a $40 a month membership program, you can pay out $100 upfront for that subscriber.
Give a lot of free content away. Don’t make the mistake of thinking your best content has to be reserved only for your free membership site. Free content helps build credibility.
Recycle old content for SEO. Any content that you don’t use anymore, put it up for free.
Don’t sell your membership right upfront. Instead, collect an email and let people get to know you before asking them for their money.
Split test different price points. Don’t just assume you know the best amount to charge.
Don’t be attached to high prices. Sometimes you’ll make more with a $7 a month membership program than a $20 one, because so many more people will sign up.
Split test different delivery models. For example, if you do audios, try a $40 a month subscription where you actually send them CDs, as well as a $15 a month program where they just download the MP3s.

Avoid open archives. Don’t let existing members have access to all your old content, or people will just wait to sign up so they can get more content when they sign up.
Followup, followup, followup. If you don’t make the sale the first time, keep adding value and keep asking for the sale.
Sell your specific month’s content each month. If you’re doing a download this month about “The 5 Top Running Mistakes People Make,” then do an email blast talking about how harmful these problems are and talk up this month’s program. Often time’s people won’t necessarily want to be on your subscription in general, but might sign up just so they can get this month’s program – And end up staying on.
Give them a free trial. This often helps enrolment.
Package it with a product. If you sell a $47 product, why not throw in a month or two to your subscription for free? If they don’t cancel, they’ll get billed, but make sure this is very clear in your marketing materials.
Have more than one front end product. The more products you have feeding into your membership program, the more members you’ll have.
Make it seem like an off hand add-on. Try selling your program hard, as well as try just mentioning it very briefly at the end of the salesletter.
Deliver incredible content. This is really the best way to keep people subscribed.
Vary your content so people don’t get bored.
Give an unexpected bonus around the 3 month mark. Many marketers see a sharp dropoff at the three month mark. Giving an unexpected bonus can help keep people who’re on the fence on your program.

Time monthly content with product launches. If you’re launching a product on “How to Increase Your Productivity,” this month’s content might be about “7 Productivity Tricks.” The buzz from your membership can help promote your launch.
Do a content piece on a hot topic for your members.
Use real world examples. People love hearing how people did things in the real world.
Build your credibility through other avenues, like speaking and writing. This helps increase your conversions and your retention through increased name recognition.

Have a higher end tier. Don’t just charge one price for your membership program.
Think twice before starting a member forum. It’s very hard to populate a forum.
Get it launched. Don’t spend ages getting it perfect. You can launch with just a simple autoresponder drip feed system.

Ask your customers for feedback. Ask them how you can improve the program, or what content they’d like you to offer.

Launch with a good amount of content. People shouldn’t feel disappointed when they first see your member’s area.
Your member area should be well designed. Just because it’s not part of your main site doesn’t mean you can skimp on design. Remember: Paying members can cancel any time.
Promise small and over deliver, rather than over promise and under deliver.
Have a few months of backup content. This helps prevent dropped balls and missed content dates.
Stay ahead of your earliest member. If you have a member that’s been around for 1 years and 2 months, you better have autoresponder content for at least 1 year and 2 months.
Get a top notch copywriter to write your salesletter. It makes a big difference.
Include a welcome package. Give people a ton of value the moment they join your program
Give them discounts on your other products. This increases the value of the membership, as well as helps sell other products.
Test a sales video. They often out convert pure text salesletters.

Have members only contests. This builds a lot of buzz and excitement.
Give surprise bonuses and content as often as you can.
Get people from your offline network on your membership program. Send anyone who expresses curiosity about it to your site.
Consider getting your program on Clickbank. A lot of affiliates use Clickbank as a resource for finding affiliate programs to promote.

If you’re shipping CDs, make sure you get the CDs to fulfillment as early as possible. The time between getting them to audio and them being ready to shop can be longer than you think.
Every once in a while, do something that focuses on you rather than your audience. For example, your background story or your personal thoughts and tips.
Use a service like CloudFlare to ensure the uptime of your membership site. Among other features, CloudFlare will jump in anytime your site goes down to make sure your users can still access an archived version of your site.

Stop Drinking Water from a Fire Hose

by Nicole Munoz

If you’re struggling to get the most out of social media, you’re not alone. The sheer volume of information and conversations you can collect from various social media channels is overwhelming. As a business owner, you are able to connect with your customers, clients and prospects in real time, but what good does it do if you are deluged with so much information that making sense of it consumes your day?

For example, if you simply have a Twitter and Facebook account with 150 friends / followers on each, you now have 300 more people who can talk to you directly, at any hour of the day or night. Much of that conversation has no value to your day-to-day business activities. However, the few people who reach out to you and want to find out information, or want to give a review of their experience with your company expect to hear back from you. Misusing social media by not paying attention to those who connect with you is worse than not having a social media presence at all.

So how to you sort the non-stop social media data stream? Trying to consume it all from your Facebook Wall or Twitter Dashboard is like trying to take a drink from a fire hose. In the same way classic literature’s heroes had a tragic flaw, social media’s benefit is its biggest downfall. Once you get past a few friends, fans and followers, you’re buried under digital comments, tweets, instagrams and pings.

Hootsuite is my favourite dashboard to manage multiple social media channels. Hootsuite allows you to connect with social media accounts from Facebook, Twitter,Ping, WordPress, Linked In and more, and see them all on a single, customizable desktop. While a few competing dashboards are out there, these features put Hootsuite at the top of my list.

Hootsuite is web-based, not an application I download to my desktop. This means that if I’m a guest on a computer, or at the local Internet Café, I can log onto my account and see the same thing that is on my trusty laptop.
Hootsuite has a mobile app that syncs with my account. So if I am on the run or sitting with my pad waiting for a client, I can log on and stay connected.
Hootsuite has a “Hootlet” app that integrated into Chrome or Firefox. From any page, at any time, I can click the Hootlet, and a miniature HootSuite application pops up. The URL is automatically shortened, and I can broadcast my latest find out to any of my Hootsuite channels.
Hootsuite allows me to create lists, based on groups of users, keywords, hashtags, or trending idea. I can look for information that is important, or listen to the voices that move my industry forward.

As a social media marketing company, Hootsuite is essential for managing our own social media message, and our clients’. From my Hootsuite desktop, I can zero in on any of the 20+ social media channels I manage, connect with that business’ tribe, and build their brand.

Rather than give you a systematic tutorial, check out www.hootsuite.com, or visit YouTube.com and search for tutorials. Easily managing your social media message and clearly connecting with your tribe is just a few clicks away.

This is a Guest Blog Post by Timothy Burns from StartRankingNow.com

Hubpages, One More Thing To Outsource Now

by Nicole Munoz

As you are probably well aware by now, hubpages are one more avenue you can travel down to increase the traffic coming to your website. However, there may be many who have yet to turn down Hubpage Street due to lack of knowledge or just plain lack of time. Let’s be clear, there is no good reason for you NOT to take advantage of every single road that will bring more visitors to your site. Higher traffic equals soaring profits equals the success you set out for. So let’s get to it!

If you have not begun your walk down the Social media path, starting that walk with hubpages may be a great idea. And here’s the way to get started today. Outsource this task to a writer or company who can write effective articles for you. Writing quality articles is one way that many online businesses gain visibility. But the thing with articles is that they are time consuming. You as the business owner are dedicated to those tasks which directly build your business. Therefore, you are to assign writing tasks, not attempt to complete them yourself.

Outsourcing hubpages is a task you can do relatively quickly. Through word of mouth, online directories, or companies which specialize in SEO and marketing, you can find quality writers to create articles directly related submission. So while you want a quality writer, you will also want to make sure you work with a person or company that can handle the behind-the-scenes portion of hubpages as well.

In order to find the right tags to use in your hubpages, some research is necessary. It is not difficult. In fact, it is a simple Google search. But the real issue here is not the level of difficulty of the task; but the amount of time it will take you to research both keywords and tags for your hubpages. This is why it is highly recommended to find a quality writer or company that will invest the necessary time.

While you may pay a little bit more for a professional company to handle these sorts of tasks (I know how tempting it can be to outsource to the lowest bidder), this is just another investment into your business – your future. When you continually look at the big picture, which is to drive as much quality traffic to your site as possible, then you can easily see the necessity in hiring the right person or company to write your articles and hubpages the first time around.

In building a high functioning, profitable website, outsourcing is a must. It is the fastest way to get ahead of the competition that may be lagging in taking a step towards their success. Outsourcing to quality professionals can move you in the right direction quickly and consistently. Your job is to seek out the right people to do the job and then let them run with it. Hubpages and other articles are some of the easiest things that you can outsource, but also some of the most important tasks you will assign. Do it right the first time and you will quickly reap the rewards of outsourcing to your business.

Hubpages, One More Thing To Outsource Now

by Nicole Munoz

Dan Kennedy’s NO BS Books

by Nicole Munoz

If you have any desire to be a success in marketing, then Dan Kennedy’s NO BS Books need to put at the top of your Must Read Books for 2009 list. One of the key things I took away from reading his books was that absolutely no marketing material should ever leave your office without a specific call to action. He had an example of what he called “yellow pages marketing”. Basically the concept is that your ad in the Yellow Pages should have an offer with a call to action. The call to action should be compelling and move Mr. Couch Potatoe to get up and visit that website, call that phone number, and best case, make that purchase!

We put our heads together and a few days after reading the books the Yellow Pages representative called us up about renewing our ad for 2009. We quickly redid our bland bullet point ad and put in an offer for a free gift if they visit a specific url on our church website. We did not put what the offer was as we need to have the ability to change the offer depending on the response rate. By telling people to visit our website, it gives us another opportunity to present our offer and also gives us an opportunity to try to get their email and even possibly their address so we can follow up with a real live visit. What is better than letting your leads come to you?

Insert Success Story Here Later 🙂

As the Stompernet Live 7 conference is coming up, it is time to make some more business cards before the trip. Following the idea that every piece of marketing material should have an offer.. we got really creative here! Don’t want to spoil the surprise so check back after the first weekend in March to see what we did!