There are many people who think that there is some big secret to marketing online. Really there is not. Many of those same people trying to figure out marketing are already doing it, but may not aware of it. They just need to tweak their efforts a little bit.

Just about any business owner who utilizes the Internet for any purpose, will likely find that whether or not they intentionally organized an Internet marketing campaign; they may already be marketing their products and services on the Internet.

Do you have a website for your business?

Business owners who answer yes to this question are already marketing their products or services online.  Having a live website means there is the potential for curious Internet users to access your website. You may not be actively promoting your website, but you may still find that your website generates interest in your products despite the lack of promotional endeavors.

However, it takes more than simply having a website to increase your online presence and gain a loyal market that will buy from you again and again.

Do you participate in message boards and include a link to your website in your signature?

If you answered yes to this question then you are taking an extra step towards marketing your website online. Savvy business owners realize the importance of participation in industry related message boards. They know that these boards (forums) can be used  to create an interest in their products and services, establish themselves as an expert in their industry, and offer a link to their own website even if it is in the signature line of their posts.

If you are participating in message board and people know about your products, services, and website then you are inadvertently enjoying the benefits of Internet marketing. You may just be a part of the community because you enjoy it; but you are, in essence, marketing your business.

Now in order to reach your bottom line goals you need to make sure that when they click on the URL that leads to your site, that the landing page is marketing ready. You can do this by making sure that you site has everything it needs so that people know all about what you offer. Create some calls to action, have an optin box, and make sure that your content compels your market to pay attention. Present value for your visitors so that they want to come back to your website again and again.

Do you solicit feedback from your customers online?

Most business owners realize the importance of soliciting feedback from customers for business purposes. Whether it be via online polls, email, or client testimonials it is understood that client feedback is an integral part of business. Although the business owners may be doing this simply for a business purpose it is a part of online marketing.

There are several other ways that you may be marketing and did not know it. What you have to do is look at your overall plan, see exactly where you are marketing and how you can enhance the experience for full marketing opportunities. Discover those ways that you can leverage what you are already doing and add it to the market portion of your overall business plan. If you are not quite sure how to further benefit from what you are doing, it is a good idea to enlist the help of an online marketing consultant who can show you the way.

What are some of the ways you have been marketing and did not know it?

If you are reading this and you know how to market online, share your insights as well.

I was speaking with a client who told me a coach informed her that with all she does her list should be in the 1000’s and that she needs to partner with some big list people to get more folks on her own list. She then told her to do a one day give away of all her products or a day of coaching in her key areas of focus.

Here was my reply to her…

YOU DO YOU!!!

Why did I say that? While I don’t totally disagree with the coach, I do not agree with aligning yourself with people for the sake of a growing list. When you align yourself with folks for the sake of just growing your list, you can find yourself in some serious trouble.

Everything you do in business should come from the standpoint of quality for quality results. It makes no difference if you align yourself with Mr. Guru 123 if he is a crook and all about self. He could have the list but may be receiving horrible results because his marketing effort involve no true communication and connection power.

The bottom line is that in order to get quality results you have to produce quality marketing strategies. You need to understand what you want to get back for your efforts before you start giving one day coaching sessions for an entire day or give away all your products for free. Free is good but it is not all gold.

Sorry, but I think the coach gave my client some very bad insight into how to build her list and I told her such.

What she should have told her was to consider her marketing plan and find ways to connect to your market that will benefit all involved. She should have suggested that she look at what she is doing that works and keep at it; and take a look at what does not work and toss it.

Maybe the client has too many irons in the fire and needs to focus on some key areas of her business and grow her list in that area. Sometimes if a person has a plate full of stuff and no one to help her eat it then she ends up throwing the stuff away or getting sick from eating too much.

Here are some hidden dangers of not focusing on quality marketing:

• You get a list of a 1000 people but 75% are freebie seekers. They only joined your list for the free stuff. You never make a dime off of them and they never tell anyone about you because they really don’t care. They just want the free stuff they will probably never use.
• You align yourself with Mr. Guru 123 only to discover that he has been blacklisted and banned from many networks. His list is a one that he purchased and the people on it never opted in or they simply don’t exist. Oh yeah, they still do that. I had to help a client get out of a mess like that about three months ago…so yes it does happen!

There are some key points to consider if you list is not growing or your marketing efforts are not working:

• What does you marketing funnel look like? Does it have enough quality freebies, great low cost options, residual opportunities?
• What are your promotional efforts like? I wrote a post on this a couple of months ago. It is a great post all about creating tons of products and doing nothing with them.
• How do you communicate to your market? What do they know about you? How often  and what do they hear from you?
• What is the quality of your content? Are you re-purposing more and creating fresh content less? Re-purposing is good, but it can get stale.
• Who are you aligning yourself with? I never said don’t do it. I simply said be careful how you do it. Are you aligning yourself with people who share your core values and principles in business? Are you creating alliances with people who are about quality over quantity? What is your purpose for alignment? What is theirs?

There are so many facets to creating quality marketing strategies but please don’t let the main one be to simply grow your list. If you are marketing the right way, they will come. For some it takes more time than others to grow a list by number. However, you can have a list of 100 good folks who will buy your products, promote you, and stay loyal to you just because you took the time to provide quality marketing efforts that paid off.

A virtual blog tour is a good way to get your product or service out to the masses. With the right tools, the right blogs, and the right content you can present a tour that will bring you more traffic and sales. Many book authors are successfully utilizing blog tours to promote their books. Even big companies like Frigidaire are inadvertently using the power of blog tours when they have Mom Bloggers review their products.

Why not present your product or services to your potential market via a Virtual Blog Tour?

Here are a few benefits:

• Easy Marketing: Blog tours help to make your marketing efforts easy. A few well formatted posts, a giveaway, or an interview are great ways to promote on other blogs.
• Inexpensive Way of Advertising: The cost for advertising is low as the most you put out are a few of your products and maybe the cost of paying a Virtual Tour manager to pull the tour together for you.
• Global Exposure: Remember that with the internet you have the opportunity to reach people from all over the globe and let them know about what you have to offer.
• No Travel: All you do is deliver message online. That simple! No need to pay additional money just to be allowed to bring a carry on bag on your trip.

If you have been thinking about traveling the world to share your product with others, consider taking the trip virtual. If you are not quite sure how to accomplish a tour via the internet, find out about the services we offer.

Many people have asked me what is my attraction to Twitter and how has it really helped my business. It is funny to hear because all I can really say is that I am just being me. There is really no other way around that fact. I am the type of person who is me 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

However, if I were to give an interview or be invited to speak on the subject of “How Twitter Can Help Your Business”, I guess I would have to give a few pointers and perhaps relate it to twitter being channels to success. So let’s imagine that this is a huge arena and I am about to speak on the subject.

• Twitter is a channel for communicating in real time with people from all over the world. When I first joined Twitter I was doing it as a way to connect to my work at home mom buddies like me. Being a work at home mom, I also wanted some adult company through the day. But then one day I began to look at Twitter as a tool that I could use to actually reach my market. At the time I was running a site about vegan living and had a weekly Podcast as well. I noticed that the people who started following me were vegans, natural health and living folks, and those interested in what a vegan eats or how they cook. That is when I saw Twitter as this huge communicating channel for conveying so much more than just conversation with my fellow mom friends.
• Twitter is a channel for communicating your marketing messages to the masses. The key to using Twitter as a channel of this sort is not to be pitchy, pushy, or a prudish. People will only care about what you do if they know that you care too. Not about your business, but rather about the people themselves. Your marketing should not be about pushing advertising messages and getting the sale. It needs to be magnetically relational (you will hear me speak about relationship often). If you look at the current marketing trends they are all leading towards CONNECTING TO the people; not TALKING AT the people. So you want to focus on marketing your message adding your personality to the mix.
• Twitter is a channel for meeting people and making connections that will last. When you market with your personality you will draw people to you who want to be a part of what you do. This is where you can find your TEAM. A team of supporters on many levels. Your personality will draw the people to you as they see who you are, what you need, and what they possibly can do for you or vice verse. Again, this does not mean you need to be pushy or pitchy. Just be you. When I was making the switch and re-branding myself as a content writer and then a VA, people on Twitter knew who LaTara Ham-Ying was. When I opened for business I had clients the first week. It was not just because I am a good writer (tooting my own horn), but because people knew my personality, style and work ethic. They learned all of this by reading my blogs, tweets, and of course by word of mouth.

Contrary to what many of my clients believe, I am not a Twitter Guru yet;  but I can say that about 90% of my online business comes from the way I relate on Twitter. That tells me that I must be doing something right. I cannot stress enough the value of relational marketing and what it will do for your business when you learn to CONNECT to people in the right way.

Are you a relational marketer on Twitter?
Are you missing the point of relating to people for marketing purposes?
What type of channel to success has Twitter been for you?