Small businesses often don’t have a lot of money to spend on marketing activities so here are my top 10 suggestions for stretching that budget to get the best ROI. Most are free!

1. Use a word press platform for your website. Why, because it is free, and it is already search engine friendly. Over 4000 visitors have been to my blog and it has cost me nothing but the time to learn how to use the tool and the time to update it.

2. Install Skype to connect with people all over the world. This helps grow your business (especially if it is serviced based beyond your immediate geography.)

3. Use a tool like Snagit to grab screen images to bright up your web, blog or visual presentations.

4.Jing is a free software that allows you to record your voice and screen and is great for presentations or podcasts with a visual element.

5. Invest in a database capture system. I am using Microsoft small business CRM that comes with 1 user licence but for others you can even use a excel sheet to start with columns for customer content. Just put it somewhere!

5. Autoresponders. These are tools that allow you to send automated emails to customers. Great tools to build a training program with or touch base with a regular newsletter to customers. I use Aweber but there are heaps out there.

6. You need a survey tool so you can do forms and run surveys. I have tried them all but I think Wufoo is the best. Best reports, easy to use, more flexible and great design.  

7. Vistaprint is a great site to design your business cards, brochures and invitations. It is quick, pretty cheap and easy to use. It also keeps a record of all your creations so you can quickly update or make changes and then get more printed!

8.PRwire is a great tool for doing your own PR. It is free and you can set up your company’s profile quickly and then email blast your release to the relevant media in a short space of time. Also it works!

9.Use the web. It is great for research. Google yourself and you might be surprised what you find. Or use Bing another great search engine. There are so many free resources out there!

10. Networking is a big part of marketing and more than ever before you can network effectively from your study or home office. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, blogs. There are so many forums to gather information, test and idea or build a network of possible collaborators and again it is free!

So there you go my top 10 tools, get going! Another article I did on customer insight has some other good ideas that cost you little and can help your marketing also.

Funny thing……. I’ve been talking about “How to Generate Leads”, which many of you have said was helpful,  “Converting Leads to Buyers”, which cleared up the process for many, “Working on Your Buyers List”, which gave many of you new ideas and “Using Facebook to Increase Business”, which many of you are starting to master.

The one area I noticed I forgot to cover is how to present the very properties you are looking to wholesale to your database of buyers, now clients. I will cover 2 of the most effective ways that I present properties to clients. These 2 methods far out perform the standard that many other investors may use; ads in the local newspaper and “for sale by owner” signs.

I will show you how you can simply and easily get these properties to clients while not having to run all over town showing properties to each and every person who calls you. If you show it, you want it to be a serious buyer not just another tire kicker. I’ll show you how to have your email & and phone blowing up with these serious buyers contacting you. Last but not least, I’ll show you how you will save precious time doing this so you can enjoy doing the things you love.

Method #1 – Email Marketing

Assuming you have a website, which you should, but if you don’t get 1 TODAY!!! I buy my domain names from GoDaddy and I host them at HostGator. As far as my email marketing; I use Aweber, they have the best service in my opinion. Now back to the matter at hand, because I have my clients names and emails it makes it easy for me to reach them all with 1 email. I’ll compose the email and make sure I include a few things.

• a catchy title
• property picture
• property address
• property taxes
• property insurance (estimate)
• property features
• needed repairs & amount
• neighborhood features
• area comps
• an ARV
• purchase price
• property video (more later)
• a contact number
• a contact email

When my clients receive the email they have all the necessary information to decide if the property fits into what they want. They will either call or email me to let me know they are interested in the property. This gets my email and phone blowing up. It also saves me time, again I only had to send 1 email total and it went to my entire list. I did not have to send a separate email to each of them. Total time composing the email may take 5 to 10 minuets.

Method #2 – Video Distributing

There is a tool that I have used for some time now that I have kept to myself like a family treasure locked away in an old trunk in the attic. This tool is TubeMogul. TubeMogul is an online video distribution company and they automate uploading your videos to the Web’s top video sharing sites. They can distribute your video to sites like youtube, viddler, revver, myspace, twitter, facebook and many, many more.

I’ll shoot a video of the property, this is in my opinion the best way to get properties to clients. On a side note, if you think you can not afford a good video camera no need to worry. Stop by your local electronic store and buy a Flip Video camera, they range in price from $100 to $250. Ok, Ok, let’s get back to it. I shoot videos for several reasons, the 2 most important are 1. It gives the viewer a look at the property just as I have seen it in its present state. Pictures do not always do this. 2. By using Tubemogul, the distribution goes to so many sites it may attract new clients I may have never reached using other means (newspaper ads, for sale sign). See I’m always working to build my buyers list. There are a few things I always make sure to do when making a video.

• title screen with company name and property address (when editing)
• shoot the outside of the house and give a view of the neighborhood
• pan each room so the viewer gets a feel for the size of the room
• mention what rooms I’m going into
• mention needed repairs
• mention property features
• credits screen with my website & contact number (when editing)

This method gets your email and phone blowing up while creating activity on your website. It does not get any easier than this. It saves you time because you do not have to go all over town showing a property, your clients see it inside and out. This again gives you more time to do the things you love.  The time it takes to shoot and edit the video can vary, depending on how creative you get. I usually spend about and hour total, shooting the video, editing, making changes and watching the final product. Apply these closely guarded secrets and watch your business take off.

I’ve included an example of what your video should look like. Unlike me when doing your videos try to keep them under 5 minutes. Remember these are to 2 best methods for getting properties to clients.

Probably one of the most crucial and important thing in internet marketing is to build a list. You will hear everyone say again and again “the money is in the list”. This is definitely true.

Some might already have a list and some might not but you should take a few minutes and read through this post because you deserve it.

There are a couple of steps in actually starting your very own list. These steps are actually proven marketing strategies to help you increase sales.

First Strategy – Creating an Autoresponder

When you have an Autoresponder, you are able to deliver messages or e-mails to the people who have subscribe to your list.

Why is this important?

Well, when someone opts into your list, they will receive an email immediately, then another one tomorrow, then next day, then 3 days later and so forth. The timing and intervals of messages are all set up by you. You choose when each message should be send.

This is essential to give you an extra opportunity to make sales. The best part of it all is that, it is all automated.

If you do not have an Autoresponder, please do get your very own here.

http://www.aweber.com/?335508

I personally suggest this Autoresponder because it has a very good easy to use system which I’m sure you will be satisfied.

Second Strategy – How many e-mails to send?

This question is often asked by people and the answer that I usually give to them is; to promote 1 product, try to prepare at least 3 e-mails. This is because people often need to know more about the product that you are selling. Don’t give up on your first e-mail. If there is no response, try and send your second e-mail then your third.

Usually your second and third e-mail will have higher sales.

Third Strategy – What product to sell?

Try and find proven quality products that works and is up to date. The product can be either from affiliate products, or any of your own products which you are selling. Setting up e-mails for each of these products is very important. Besides that, take time when finding good products to sell on the web.

Fourth Strategy – Choosing the right words

Just like reading the first few pages of a book, if the words do not capture your attention, then it is likely that you will put down the book. Similar to writing your e-mails, a poorly written e-mail will lead to less sales where a well written email will produce large amounts of sales from the same list.

Writing hypnotic e-mails that can put the audience into buying your products takes a lot of skills. Thus, I suggest you to take on a bit of reading on copywriting. Understanding the skills will definitely help in writing a more sales-catching e-mail.

Start building your list now. http://www.aweber.com/?335508

Best of luck to you.

Let Aweber Do it For You

As an Internet Marketer, it is vitally important to utilize your money-time wisely.  Your money-time is the time you spend working your business.  At the same time, you are always building your list.  What is your list; it is the life blood of your business.  Every time you connect with a prospect, you want to have the ability to do repeat attempts at connecting until you have completed the transaction.  That transaction can be an opt-in to a free offer, giving information, or closing a sale with a purchase.  Utilizing a program like Aweber, can help you maintain your list while building it at the same time.

So how do you stop following leads?  Well, once you’ve planted the seed for a prospect to request more information by using an opt-in, Aweber’s autoresponder will do the rest by sending a series of emails that you set up to capture their attention and creating a Call to Action.  The call to action, can be asking for their name and email address for more information or to make a purchase.  The statics show that the majority of people do not make a purchase the first time they visit your website, so an autoresponder like Aweber makes sure your site gets multiple exposure, thus increasing sales.

Another way to generate new leads and build your list with Aweber is with a Newsletter campaign.  Each time you add new content to your newsletter, and you send it out to the members of your mailing list, make sure to have an Opt-in Box and an RSS Feed for any new leads that may receive your newsletter.  The new leads generated from your newsletter will give you the opportunity to start a new email campaign to market your product or service. 

Aweber has many features that have made it popular with many large companies.  The click tracking feature, let’s you see what links your viewers are clicking on, thereby giving you the advantage of knowing the marketing campaigns that are working and which ones are not. 

One of the best services Aweber provides is that all correspondence and autoresponders come from the Aweber domain, providing a significant advantage.  Aweber makes sure only people that have requested your information receive it, therefore it won’t be looked at as spam.  Confirmation of their email is required prior to receiving any mailings. 

Although they weren’t all mentioned in this article, the many features Aweber has to offer, makes it a useful tool that will enhance the way you do business.  If an easier way to generate leads and build your list is what you looking for Aweber is the answer.

Your business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know in your heart that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly.

But after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect do you send him any further information? If you are like most marketers you don’t. When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp.

This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him. Often a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you he will take his business elsewhere.

Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY. Research shows prospects need to hear from potential suppliers 5-7 times before a purchase.

If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, REPEATEDLY and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process. Consistent follow up gets results.

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that some call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method.

Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their company has “big news”. List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a general newsletter.

If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters. List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew. I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow-up method really works?

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales. Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products. In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter.

Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow-up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!

Try to phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is too high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.

Get the timing right

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up. Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions. Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around. Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors. If they’ve still not bought then send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect. Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.

Move them from the prospect to the customer list when they buy!

A crucial step this, make sure that when they buy you take them off the prospect list and put them onto the customer list. There are two massive benefits here. Firstly, you show you care by not annoying them with the later buying sequence messages. Secondly, you can now send them positive messages about the new purchase and how to gain the most benefit from it in a new sequence of automated emails.

Following up effectively may seem complicated but it doesn’t have to be! And there are enormous benefits. So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow-up – don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

Adapted from an original post by Tom Kulzer, CEO at AWeber

Visit the website at Hosted Apps and Tools for more tips and solutions.

Posted by Rebecca Swayze from Inbox Ideas (AWeber)

When you are the sole creator of an email marketing campaign, the content of your messages is near and dear to your heart.

You spend countless hours pruning your emails to perfection, finding the perfect content to drive subscribers to engage with your brand and product.

You might think your messages are the best they can be, but what do your subscribers think?

Invite Feedback: Let Subscribers Rate You

There are a few ways that you can find out what your subscribers are thinking.

Maybe in the past you’ve used subscriber preferences or reviewed unsubscribe comments from previous subscribers to formulate your message content.

Now there’s an even simpler way to measure the effectiveness of particular messages in your campaign and gauge your subscribers interest before subscribers get to the point of unsubscribing.

Add a rating scale to your messages and allow subscribers to effortlessly give feedback just by clicking on a link.

For Example:

A rating scale consists of a few links inserted in a logical order in your message, but there are different ways that you can approach the rating of your messages.

• Use images that correlate with your product or service to create your scale, or use happy/sad faces to cover the range of performance.

Your rating could be as simple as a thumbs up or thumbs down.

In fact, you can use these exact images if you would like!

Just save them, upload to your site, and then put them into your emails.

• Try a rating scale that explicitly assesses your message using descriptive language; sometimes people identify better with words.

Subscribers may identify better with descriptive choices.

Feel free to copy and reuse any of these images as well.

• Simply pose a question about the effectiveness of your campaign, type the numbers 1-5 at the bottom of your email and link those numbers to your thank you page.

Not sure if it’s worth the hassle of inserting images or coming up with clever text? Create a foolproof rating scale in under 2 minutes.

Thank Them for Their Feedback

No matter what type of scale you choose, each of the links on the scale has to go to a thank you page. This will be the same for every link on the scale.

The thank you page should be a simple page that you create on your website to thank subscribers for their response and assure them that their actions will help you create better messages in the future.

There’s no need to be elaborate, but you can certainly use the thank you page to further engage your readers once they have rated your message.

Because the thank you page is the same for each link, when you are inserting the links in your message you have to differentiate between the links so that you can properly track your ratings.

Add ?r=something to the end of each link when you are inserting it into to your message.

For example:

Weigh the Results

With click tracking enabled, once you send messages that contain your rating scale you will be able to view reports that illustrate how many subscribers clicked on the particular links on your scale.

You can also examine the number of subscribers who opened your message, and the number of subscribers that clicked on certain links on your rating scale.

While you can use click-through statistics for any links in your message to measure the effectiveness of your language and particular link text, using a rating scale allows you to explicitly ask subscribers to participate in your campaign.

You don’t ask subscribers outright to click on each and every link in your message by posing a question or asking for a response. The call to action is what makes the rating scale an effective method that differs from regular click-through stats.

What Do You Think?

Have you ever given a company your feedback on a rating scale? Do you think your subscribers would be inclined to give you feedback this way?

- ‘MailChimp’ vs. ‘Aweber’

- ‘Constant Contact’ vs. ‘iContact’ vs. ‘Vertical Response’ vs. …

J’ai décidé d’essayer Aweber avec le premier mois à 1$.

L’inscription et l’accès à la plateforme utilisateur est vraiment simple et rapide.

La création de la première liste est facilitée par un “Wizard” et il n’y a qu’à lire ce qui est écrit, super simple !!!

De plus, la création de formulaires de captures d’Email est intuitive et vous pouvez donner libre cours à votre imagination pour le “look” avec les nombreuses propositions d’allure professionnelle. Le code fournit pour être inséré dans vos pages Web ou blogs est de format script (une seule ligne de code) ou encore Html pour personnaliser encore plus. Lorsque le code script est inséré, plus besoin de resaisir le code pour une éventuelle modification. Une petite modification du formulaire dans Aweber et tout est modifié automatiquement dans vos pages web, pas mal cool.

Rien à voir avec celui que j’utilisais. Je le recommande vraiment.

La seule petite chose un peu embêtante pour un francophone est la langue. Mais je peux vous aider sans problème et j’ai réalisé quelques vidéos explicatives (vous pouvez en trouver sur le Web également).

Essayez cet autorépondeur utilisé par les professionnels en cliquant sur la bannière suivante :

A lot of us home-based entrepreneurs still have a full-time job. That sure does make growing one’s business kind of difficult. However, difficult is not impossible. Especially in 2010 and beyond.

After reading books like Tim Ferris’ The 4-Hour Work Week and Scott Fox’s e-Riches 2.0, and joining great online communities like The Perfect Biz Finder and Click Millionaires, I picked up a couple of ideas on how to automate your initial contact and follow-up.

I discuss a few of them in the below video.

Check out the video and click through the links for more information on these free and low-cost services.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

• GetResponse
• uReach
• Phonevite
• Send Out Cards
• Ping.fm
• Post Scheduler
• Desk Ping

Let me know how these tools work out for you.

There’s nothing wrong with saving hours on your clock and putting a few more bucks in your pocket. Isn’t that part of the reason why you got into the Network Marketing Industry anyway? If you’re one of the many individuals searching for a specific mailing list provider that deals with MLM leads, take a second to reconsider.

Don’t waste time trying to recruit friends and family members, this (as I’m sure many of you have already found out) is not a very successful method and even when it works, you’ve only got so many kin to join you, so the list may be short. However there is an alternative.

Did you know that its not that tough to generate your very own fresh lists of MLM leads from home? Its true, and the method has been implemented for years by people who are involved in the industry. Plus, these are the very finest of leads not only because they’re FREE, but because you simply won’t have to put forth much effort to aquire them.

Ever heard of something called an email auto responder? Its a fantastic little piece of software that spits out automated forms to people as a response to incoming email traffic. No, it doesn’t write the emails for you and it doesn’t have anything to do with spam or unwelcomed information. Instead, it acts as a kind of daily ad and lead generator that gathers members through a sequence of pre-written reports.

These prospects, whom subscribe, will be subject to free information about your product or service and given daily opportunities to learn about relevant material. The best part? It does all of the work on its own without the need of much management. Even if your subscribers choose to unsubscribe, this is all taken care of on its own.

To build success in this way, you must first have your own website developed to aid your cause. It’ll allow you to build integrity, create personal connections with prospects, help you to stand out amongst rivals, and serve as a base for you, your product/service, your company, style of living, cause, etc.

Just be sure to create some sort of invitation to request free information from you. This is done by setting up a subscription form someplace on your website that asks your visitors to input their name and email address. In doing so, they’ll become eligible to receive free information about how they can make money online through your service, or how your product can help them. If you don’t know how to build your own, they’re available to be designed and ordered through a few sites. I highly recommend going through www.customlander.com or do what I have done, which is get a complete training program for your business through MLMLeadStstemPRO, and have your potential business partners go to your training through the forms provided by AWeber. These opt-in forms are located on this website for you to receive my business training which I highly recommend.

Anyhow, once an interested person fills out your subscription form, they’ll begin to receive your training or report. Within it, you should underline some industry trends, rumors, news, traditions, common scenarios, and when you can, provide solutions to discrepancies or issues that are tangible. These messages sent by the auto responder should include links to other sites and information regarding your online business enterprise.

Posted by: David Lloyd – Professional Wealth League Network.inc ©

Aweber (www.aweber.com) е моя ипотпал имейл бюлетин инструмент за управление. Те правят страхотна работа получаване на електронна поща в кутии (най-вече, защото те мразя спамерите още по-зле от теб). Те са полезни инструменти, фантастично как да блог, лесен за разбиране интерфейс, и не мога да ги препоръча достатъчно силно.

А голяма последователност имейл автоматичен ми е едно предпочитано маркетингов инструмент (над един блог, дори), както и Aweber е инструмент, мисля, че е най-подходящ за тази работа.

From my business blog:

Yesterday I asked you to share your “vacation work” with me, and I said I would tell you what I’m doing over the holidays. Here’s the first thing: Setting up AWeber Email Lists. Below is a screenshot of their “how to begin” video.

I learned about AWeber from @RealScottsdale. My first goal is to create a weekly and montly round-up lists, kind of like the weekly one I receive from Brad Rourke. This may be appealing to people who are not subscribing to my blog with a feed reader.

(If you’re wondering, “What’s a feed reader?”, please add a comment to this post and I will discuss that soon!)

I won’t just list the articles I have posted in this blog, but also point out some articles, websites and Twitter posts by other people that I think my clients and readers will like. Here’s my welcome message for the weekly letter, in progress:

I also had to create a “you have subscribed” page on my website. Here’s how it looks so far:

Actually, I don’t think it will get any fancier than that — unless I create some sort of cool graphic for it. Which I probably will.

[ Shortlink: http://tinyurl.com/ygrxlpg ]

If you don’t care who comes to your website or what drove them there, you don’t need landing pages. On the other hand, if you need to know what drew them to your website then landing pages are a necessity.

In order to have successful landing pages there are some simple rules to follow.

Of course, you need an effective call to action to drive traffic to your website, but that is a different topic. If your goal is to drive traffic then you have to track it and the only way to do that is with landing pages.

Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter at roday.com!

Every person who makes a living online will tell you when it comes to making money online your greatest asset is YOUR LIST! But almost as valuable as your list is YOUR TIME!

That’s why I was thrilled this week when I added 357 new leads to one list, 279 new leads to another list, and sent 5 follow-up email messages to a combined 3,127 eager buyers … without even logging into my autoresponder!

If you use Aweber autoresponders (or one of their private label versions like Mike Filsaime’s Prosender) then you already know that Aweber is the undisputed, most powerful autoresponder available today.

The problem is most people who pay to use Aweber either let their autoresponders sit and collect virtual dust – hoping that some day it will magically spring into action and build a massive list for them – or they only make use of the very basic features, and they never take full advantage of this simple, yet incredibly powerful tool.

Continue Reading…

This is a brand new template package – and ALL the work has been done for you – all you do is insert YOUR own copy, and add YOUR autoresponder info.

Grab 5, brand new professionally designed video landing page templates, in seven Web 2.0 colors that will have your visitors thinking out loud, “Wow!” They’ll be impressed – and they’ll want to watch your video and opt-in to your list!

These templates are professionally designed, sliced and already html optimized, and there’s no graphic editing required! All you need is an autoresponder account like Aweber or GetResponse, and a video for your opt-in page. YouTube videos are the easiest to insert, or you can use your own custom videos!

It’s as easy as 1-2-3!

Just open up the templates in your favorite webpage editor and …

1. Edit the text
2. Insert your video code
3. Tweak the autoresponder code

That’s it!

Now you have a stunning landing page, professionally designed to showcase your opt-in video and reel in new subscribers!

But that’s not all …  Continue reading…