What’s Your Shtick?

A shtick is a Yiddish word that means your gimmick or unique talent. In the business world they call this your USP, Unique Selling Proposition. Essentially, what makes you different from your competition? What do you have to offer that they don’t? For example, a freelance writer might differentiate themselves by delivering any article or blog post project in 24 hours – the 24-Hour Article Service.

Narrow Your Focus

Trying to be all things to all people does one thing – it increases your competition. Specializing, on the other hand, narrows your competition. It also helps you become the best at what you do. For example, instead of offering information products on how to care for your pet, you might specialize in how to care for your aging dog. Or how to care for your aging Pomeranian. Specialization can virtually eliminate your competition.

Become Invaluable

Offer products, information, and resources that make you invaluable to your audience. When planning your business, ask yourself this single question – what can I do to offer more value to my audience? Of course, you have to know your audience well to answer this question.

Be Memorable

You cannot be boring in this competitive market and survive. Now that doesn’t mean you have to be over the top either. Instead, be yourself. Capture the interest of your audience and customers by sharing your personality with them in your content, interactions, and even in your products or services.

Pay Attention to Your Customers

Chances are you already have some very valuable information regarding what your customers respond to. Take a look at what they buy, when they buy, what emails they open and what links they click. This information will help you hone in on how to offer value and how to be memorable. It may also help you specialize.

Build a Community

Connect with your audience and customers on a regular basis. Invite them to get involved through a number of means. For example, invite them to connect with you on Facebook. Ask questions and invite comments.

Repeat Successes

Pay attention to what works for you and repeat it. For example, if you find that checklists are downloaded more than free reports you know that your audience enjoys checklists. If they buy more during the summer than in the winter then offer them more during the summer.

Staying ahead of your competition doesn’t just mean following their actions online and reacting to them. Instead, create a plan to be proactive. Differentiate yourself and focus on your customer. That’s how you’ll survive and thrive long term.

1. Come Up With the Core Concept

The core idea behind your viral campaign should be something that’s completely unique. Or it can be a twist on an extremely popular idea.

It helps to know your audience really well to come up with these ideas. Playing off existing memes can really help viral campaigns take off.

2. Know the Viral Space

What tends to go viral? As a rule of thumb, things that are really shocking, funny, interesting or unique can really go viral. Also, things that are geek-funny can do very well on Reddit and Digg.

If you don’t regularly visit sites like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon, start doing so right away. It’s the only way you’ll truly understand what your audience is looking for.

3. Plan Your Distribution

Before you create your content, plan where you want to distribute it.

Are you going to put it on StumbleUpon? On Digg? On Reddit? On YouTube?

There are specific strategies you can employ with each strategy to try to get more exposure. For example, StumbleUpon’s paid stumble system works quite well, while Reddit’s still needs some work.

On some systems, buying a high reputation account to post your content from can dramatically increase your chances of ranking.

4. Creating Your Content

Create your content. Put a lot of time, energy and attention into the actual content piece. It’s more important than anything else, including strategy planning.

If possible, try to create your content in such a way that there can be a Part 2. That way you can easily piggyback off a successful campaign.

Try not to brand your first run. Don’t put your logo on your infographics and don’t put your brand in your YouTube videos. Instead, come back and add them in later. Self-promotion is very much frowned upon in social bookmarking communities.

5. The Launch!

Launch your viral campaign and keep a very, very close eye on it. A lot of opportunities can float by if you’re not keeping tabs on it.

Anytime someone links to you, send them a “Thank You” note. Start to build a relationship with them. Don’t just get that one link from them; it can easily turn into many more links.

Watch your server closely. If you hit the front page of Reddit or Digg, you can literally receive 100,000+ hits in a few hours. That can easily crash shared hosting, VPS hosting and even dedicated servers.

If you watch your launch carefully and maximize your returns while minimizing problems, provided you have good content, you stand a good chance of going viral.

#1 What’s the Problem?

Always strive to answer this question first. What is the problem your prospect is facing? What is their pain? What are they experiencing and how is it making them feel?

For example, if you offer a ghost writing service, then your prospect may be feeling the pains of not enough time to get all their writing done. If you are selling a book on how to find the best coffee maker, then the problem your prospect may have is that their coffee pot keeps breaking or makes terrible coffee.

The problem that your prospect is feeling or trying to overcome will be identified very early on your sales page. In fact, it is often stated right in the headline. For example, “Tired of Replacing that Cheap Coffee Pot?”

#2 Incite Emotion

People buy for emotional reasons. They justify their purchase with logic. SO that means you want to first appeal to their emotions. You want your prospect to make the decision to buy right away. Then you can spend some time justifying their decision with facts, testimonials and other tactics. Use emotional words in your headline, subheadings and throughout your copy. In the example used above, “Tired” is an emotional word. It describes how your prospect is feeling.

#3 A Call to Action above the Fold

Often, a person will visit your sales page and make an instant decision based on reading your headline and a quick glance of their screen. They may not ever scroll down. Take advantage of these quick decision makers, and support them, by providing a call to action above the fold. The fold is the point at which your visitor has to start scrolling down to see the rest of your page. It’s the bottom of their computer screen.

#4 Use Formatting Wisely

Have you ever visited a sales page where everything is bolded or in all caps? It makes it very difficult to know what you’re supposed to pay attention to. The result? You don’t pay attention to anything.

First and foremost, make sure your headlines and subheadings stand out. Use bold fonts, larger fonts and you might want to try a different color. Make sure your page is easy to read with plenty of white space between sentences and paragraphs. And simply highlight, bold, or underline those keywords that draw the eye down toward your call to action. These will be words or phrases that promise or stress a benefit to your prospect.

#5 Call to Action

Test and track your call to action. Try various phrasing to see which works best. For example, does a call to action with a post script, PS, work better for conversions? Does your audience prefer a button to click or a link?

When it comes to writing top-notch sales copy, remember that we buy for emotional reasons and justify our purchases based on logic. Hook your prospect by calling out their problem, promising a solution and then showing them why and how your solution works.

Here are four smart ways of engaging potential customers online.

#1 Games/Applications

Many businesses are realizing the value of creating a useful application for a mobile device. They’re not charging for the application and by making it available for free they’re engaging new potential customers.

For example, an information site on coffee makers might create a mobile application that helps buyers buy the right coffee. A professional coach might create an application that helps users create their vision of the ideal business. These applications don’t have to cost much to create either.

#2 Quizzes and Questionnaires

For some reason we all love filling out questionnaires and taking quizzes. We like to share our opinion and we like to see where we rank against our peers. You can engage your potential customers online by publishing fun and/or interesting quizzes. There are many services that enable you to publish a quiz on your blog or website for free. You can also glean a lot of valuable information about your prospects from these quizzes and surveys.

And don’t forget about social networking. There are thousands of quizzes on Facebook and it’s easy to create your own.

#3 User Feedback

Whenever you get user feedback, comments, or interesting information from your prospects and customers, share it with your audience. For example, if you receive a comment from a customer on Facebook, thank them for the comment. Publish it on your blog, website and/or email newsletter.

You might also consider publishing an article or blog post that relates to the comment. When you embrace your feedback you begin to build a community. Your prospects feel as if you’re listening to them and responding. It’s quite powerful.

#4 Ask Questions

Start engaging your audience both on your blog and via social networking, but also ask questions. Ask them what their biggest problem is. Ask them what they think about the latest controversy. Ask them how you can help them live a better life? Ask what makes them feel happy and fulfilled.

Asking questions won’t guarantee that you always get an abundance of responses, but people will take notice. They will respond and you will engage. You’ll also learn a lot about your audience.

1. How Passionate and Interested Are You?

Spend some time honestly contemplating your actual interest in the potential business idea. Just because it’s a good idea doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for you. In order for any business to be successful long term you want to be able to be interested and passionate about the topic for years to come. So is this new business idea something you could be excited about ten years from now? If so, it deserves further examination.

2. Is There a Legitimate Demand for Your New Idea?

How much demand actually exists for your new business idea? Use keyword tools to begin your research. If it seems like there is potential, consider also using a flycatcher page to evaluate demand. Create a quick product or publish a quiz to evaluate demand for your idea and to learn more about your potential audience.

3. Who Is Your Competition?

Once you’ve established demand, consider your competition. Again, use those keyword research tools to first determine how much competition is present. Then use keyword searching and competitive analysis tools to evaluate who your competition is and how well they’re doing. You may have a lot of competition, but if you can differentiate yourself then it may still be a good idea.

4. Time versus Money

Next, if the idea still has merit then it’s time to consider the time versus money equation. How long will it take you to reach your financial goals? If there is a lot of competition then it can take some time to reach your goals. Also, how much money will it take you to start and grow this business? Is this money you have on hand or will you need to find a way to raise the funds? Consider your budget.

5. Is It Realistic?

Finally, is this business complimentary to any business you already own? For example, if you own a service-based business then an information marketing business in the same industry might make sense. If the business is an entirely new endeavor then it might not realistically fit into your lifestyle. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a business idea to pursue. It is simply something to weigh when you’re evaluating the idea.

You’re an entrepreneur. You’re bound to have a lot of business ideas. Some of them will be gone ones. Some not so much. Use this five-step process to determine whether it is the right new business idea for you.

However, many business owners don’t know the simple secrets to writing effective pay-per-click ads. Here are three secrets to writing effective PPC ads.

#1 Place your keywords in your headline. You have twenty-five characters to use in your headline. Make sure that your keywords are there before you worry about the remaining characters. Once you have your keywords chosen and placed in your headline, then focus on the goal for your advertisement.

For example, are you giving away information? Then consider power words like Discover, Learn, Secrets and so on. Spend some time crafting two headlines that will capture the attention of your audience. Split test the headlines for maximum effectiveness and return on investment.

#2 Use your two body copy lines effectively. For your two body copy lines you have thirty five characters for each line. That gives you a total of seventy to work with. PPC experts have found that most ads are more effective if you list benefits first and then your offer.

For example, if you’re offering a free parenting report to build your opt in list for your parenting website then your benefit and offer might be:

Discover how to talk to your kids so they
will listen – Download Your Free Report

Download your free report is your offer and call to action combined. The benefit is that children will listen to their parents. Learn to identify the benefits for your product or service and to explain them succinctly. The benefit must match the keyword used in the headline and targeted in the advertisement.

#3 The final piece of your PPC ad puzzle is your URL. The URL displayed can be different from the actual URL. This is another piece to test along with everything else about your advertisement. Make sure the URL is relevant to your advertisement.

For example, continuing with the parenting report advertisement example a URL that looks like this: www.sarajaneschatblog.com/free_report isn’t going to grab as much attention as www.freeparentingreport.com

Finally, writing your pay-per-click ad is only the beginning. You won’t know what’s truly effective for your audience until you run split tests for your ads. Test your headline, benefits, call to action and offer. And don’t forget to split test your URL too. Every percentage increase in your click through rate is more traffic, more profits and one step closer to your business goals.

How can you use smart brand-building techniques to improve your brand with social media? Here’s how.

Define Your Brand First

Before you post anything – before you even sign up for a social network, define your brand.

What does your brand stand for? What’s the “vibe” of your brand? What are your primary spoken and unspoken messages? Who are you targeting?

Answer these questions. Everything else moving forward needs to fall in line with the brand you define. Your profile photos, the color of your pages, the content you post and everything else should all match up to the brand you want to create.

Choosing Your Social Networks

There are dozens of social networks you can join, many of them specific to your industry or topic. Unfortunately, usually it just doesn’t make sense to join them all. Depending on your time and resources, you’ll usually only want to establish a presence in one or two social networks.

Pick the social networks that make the most sense for your audience. If you’re in a corporate setting, you might choose Facebook and LinkedIn. If you’re in a tech-savvy industry, you might choose Twitter and Facebook. If you’re primarily targeting music fans, you might choose just MySpace.

The network you choose depends entirely on where your audience is. Figure out what networks your audience uses the most and be on those networks.

Post Brand Relevant, Value-Added Content Regularly

If you don’t stay in contact with people regularly, they’ll forget you exist pretty quickly. Make sure they’re continually aware of your brand by posting regularly. Build up brand loyalty by posting content that your audience will really love. And what they will love really depends on who your audience is.

If you’re targeting a corporate or professional audience, they might love a daily three-minute video giving powerful tips on public speaking.

If you’re targeting a college-age crowd, they might be more interested in shocking or humorous pictures and/or videos.

If you’re targeting a political audience, they might appreciate links to news stories not covered by American media.

Know your audience. Post the type of content that your specific audience will love. Focus on providing value rather than trying to get people to buy or pass on your profile. Build up real loyalty rather than going for the quick sale.

Building a strong brand using social media involves first clearly defining your brand, then choosing the right social networks to be on and finally posting content that your audience loves. If you do this on a consistent basis while being true to your brand, your brand will become stronger and stronger both in your customer’s mind and in your market in general.

If you’re not interested in selling your e-book, then consider these fantastic benefits you gain whether you sell it or give it away.

A Credibility and Authority Boost

We give authors our confidence. Writing and publishing an e-book will give you and your business a credibility boost. It essentially establishes you as an expert in your industry. When you write a book that helps your customers and prospects solve their problems, people consider you a credible authority on your subject. They’ll turn to you for advice and assistance. Additionally, credibility and authority are both buying triggers. You’ll earn customers when you write a book.

Branding, Exposure and Awareness

When you write an e-book your business brand is enhanced. You’re going to reach more people through publication so your exposure and awareness will also be increased. Branding, exposure and awareness all help you grow your business. Through your book marketing efforts, press and publicity and through word of mouth, it’s not unheard of to triple your audience. You just have to write a book.

More Opportunities

Through both the press you receive for your book and through increased credibility, awareness and exposure, you’re going to catch the eye of the public. Some of the people who read or learn about your book are going to be interested in working with you. You’ll receive new opportunities. Through these opportunities you can grow your business.

For example, you may have an opportunity to be interviewed for your local newspaper. A fellow business owner may contact you through this press and offer you a partnership opportunity. There’s no telling what opportunities are in store for you when you write a book.

Finally, writing a book provides you with an entry into your sales funnel if you give it away for free. If you sell the book then you have another product to market and profit from. There really is no downside to writing an e-book. They’re easy to create and even easier to distribute. All you need is a sales page and a download link. A little marketing and you have yourself an amazing business-building tool.

Many people hesitate to write an e-book. They think it’s going to be a lot of work, or they’re afraid they’re not qualified to write a book. Writing a book is much like writing copy for your website. With a plan, passion for your topic, and the ability to write conversationally, you can write a book.

#1 Make sure your article has a purpose

Many people write articles and publish them online without considering the purpose for the article. Sure, it’s to inform and hopefully drive traffic to your website. However, a more strategic approach will help you optimize your results.

For example, if you want to drive traffic to your website then a few things need to be in place. You’ll want to test and track various headlines and article types to find out which articles are effectively driving traffic. You’ll also want to include a call to action in your author’s resource box that fits your purpose. If you’re driving traffic to your website, then you wouldn’t want to send them to a sales page or opt-in page. Your landing page may be a better destination.

#2 Make sure you include a call to action

Your article marketing content also needs to include a call to action. What do you want your readers to do when they’ve read your article? Your call to action will depend on your article’s purpose. If you’re trying to grow your lead list, then you’ll send readers to an opt-in page. If you’re selling a product or service and trying to boost sales, then you’ll send them to a product sales page. Always include a call to action in your content.

#3 Target the appropriate audience

There are many ways to publish your content for article marketing purposes. You can publish on article directories. You can publish in a newsletter. You can publish on someone else’s website. And of course you can publish on your own website. Where you publish will be determined by your article’s purpose.

It’ll also be determined by your audience. You want to make sure you’re publishing where your prospect will find you. If you’re using an article directory, that means properly tagging and categorizing your article. It also means testing and tracking. Some categories may attract your audience better than others.

Successful article marketing requires a few steps. Identify the goal or purpose for your article. Create a plan to achieve that goal by testing and tracking, identifying your audience and including a call to action. Study the results and fine-tune your article marketing campaign for the best results. Oh, and always write the best content possible! To your success!

One advertising medium that it is very easy to overlook though is the advertising program run by Facebook. Advertising on Facebook gives companies the ability to target their advertising efforts with laser accuracy while staying within almost any budget.

While Facebook does offer larger, more expensive campaigns for companies willing to shell out the kind of big bucks necessary for a large campaign with such a popular site, in this article we’ll focus on the benefits of using Facebook’s user ad publishing system, which any Facebook user can utilize.

The types of ads produced by Facebook’s user ad manager are the ones you’ll see on the far right hand side of the page while you’re surfing Facebook profiles. They are simple box ads with a title/link, a short description and an optional image.

Targeting:

The real attraction with Facebook ads is the ability for the user to target their ads with exceptional precision. Facebook ads can be targeted using the following parameters.

Geographic: When creating a Facebook ad, you begin by targeting geographically by country, state/province or city, depending on how narrow you want your geographical focus to be.

Age and Sex: You can specify your audience to be male, female or both, within any age range between 13 to 65. If you want your ad to show only to 23 year old men, then your ads won’t be shown to anyone outside of that demographic.

Keywords: This optional field will narrow your audience based on trigger words that occur in their Facebook profiles. Using a lot of keywords will generally drastically narrow your audience.

Education: You can choose to target by education with options including college grad, in college and in high school. If you select a single option, you can further narrow your targeting down to specific schools and even specific majors.

Workplaces: While Facebook is populated mostly by students, many workplaces have their own Facebook groups where employees chat and post information. You can use this field to target specific workplaces.

Relationship Status and Sexual Orientation: Finally, you can target your audience using relationship status (single, in a relationship, engaged, married) and sexual orientation (interested in men or interested in women).

After choosing all of the targeting factors for your ad, the Facebook ad manager will display the approximate number of users your that make up your targeted group. For instance, targeting people in the United States of all ages and all sexes, with no limiting factors chosen gives an approximate audience size of just over 42 million people. Meanwhile, choosing to target single men between the ages of 18 and 25 in Providence, Rhode Island yields an approximate audience size of 12,480 people.

Payment:

When putting up a Facebook ad, you have a couple of options as to how you want to pay for your message to be distributed among your target audience. The first option is Pay Per Click or PPC for short. This is the same system as most Google Adwords users will be familiar with, in which you bid a certain price that is the maximum you’re willing to pay for someone to click on your link and come to your site, and you’re charged a certain price at or below that bid (depending on competition) every time your ad is clicked through. This model works very well for campaigns in which your goal is to bring traffic to your website or landing page. The real benefit is that you only pay when a viewer takes action by clicking on your ad.

The second option is the CPM option, in which you pay not for clicks, but for views. In this option you set a bid that is the highest price you are willing to spend for your ad to be viewed 1000 times. A view constitutes any time your ad is shown on a users screen and 1000 views normally goes by very quickly! This model works very well for ads that have been proven to have exceptionally high click through rates. If you know that your ad will receive a lot of clicks, choosing the PPC model could end up costing an arm and a leg, whereas choosing the CPM model may cost you significantly less.

Optimization:

Writing Facebook ads optimally is generally the same as writing most other small format ads for the internet, which is covered in other posts and as such will not be discussed in detail here. However, one unique aspect of Facebook ads in relation to many other ad services is the ability to include a picture with your ad. This is an often overlooked, but extremely valuable option. When making facebook ads, always opt to put in an image. The better the image matches your ad, the better it will do, but overall, leaving an image out is normally a good way to make sure your ad doesn’t get noticed.