Category Archives: Sales & Marketing

Unlock LinkedIn for Lancashire Business

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LinkedIn is one of the oldest social networks and is often considered the most professional. As businesses are embracing the power of social media sites, a lot of professionals see the advantages of taking their business and their personal brand online and making use of social media to help spread brand awareness. If you’re a direct seller, it can also help you in sharing your passion and your brand. It’s not to focus on recruiting as much as it is to focus on providing helpful information to your target audience and creating a community of people with common interests and goals.

Find Go Lancashire on LinkedIn today -search Groups ‘Go Lancashire’ and get regular updates omow hats happening in Lancashires business community.

Most professionals and employees from top companies have LinkedIn profiles. The site is designed to allow user interaction, and with most professionals using this site, you can just imagine the benefits that one can get by interacting with experts.

As a user, it’s important to realise that there is more than just following and contacting professionals; you can actually start your own group to take advantage of the site’s full potential in helping you with your business and brand needs. LinkedIn allows you to build your own network and attract users that share your interests; it allows you to build a community where you can learn and market.

Why did we start the Go Lancashire group?

As a professional, you want to continue learning, especially for your business. Whatever you are offering, products or services, innovation is important. When you create your own group and have gained members that share and understand your business needs, getting information and ideas will be easy for you. You have that advantage to quickly access information by asking your members and discussing ideas with them.

As a group manager, you are giving your members the chance to interact with other members. Facilitating a place where they can get the same benefits that you are getting from your members, ideas and helpful information, is a great way for others to sample your character and competence. Share your passions with your group and you will gain their respect, along with develop and grow relationships

Making Linkedin work to its full potential

It is easy to create a group, but it requires time and effort to actually feel the benefits of having one. Some groups do not succeed because their strategy in maintaining the group is not enough or their goal is focused on short term benefits.

Think of what your long term goals are before you join a group. How can you help your members by sharing what you know and giving them practical and useful information? Dedicate time to how you can provide content, articles and topics for discussions, in order to keep them interested. Be creative and make your group an interactive one. Make your fellow members feel like they really belong to a community

Contributing to a LinkedIn Group will help your brand in many ways if you are also willing to help your fellow members. Promote your brand in your group and at the same time give them something valuable like helpful information. Keep building your group and promote interaction at all times. Your group is a community of people who understands what your brand is about, and your members will help your business succeed.

Join up with the Go Lancashire LinkedIn Group today

Managing your Online Brand

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“Had a very long day today. Got into an argument with my boss and a client. All I want to do is drink a glass of wine and take it easy, but I have to do laundry tonight. Arrrgh!”

This is the text of a post I once read on a friend’s Facebook page. She was clearly frustrated after a tough day at the office.

There’s nothing earth-shattering about this post and certainly nothing unusual.

We all have periodic days we would rather forget. It’s common to come home from work tired out, feeling sick to your stomach, knowing you have important work to take care of at home.

That said, the Facebook post above does nothing to build my friend’s personal brand, and worse yet, it probably harms it. In the branding game, we need to paint a picture, cast a vision of ourselves as interesting, fascinating and anything but ordinary.

We should never lie when we make a post on the social media, but don’t focus on the mundane. Focus on those things that will make people want to know more about you, wish they were like you and want to go out of their way to work with you. Be special. Be fascinating. Be intriguing.

The Internet is the greatest marketplace ever invented, because it is available worldwide 24-hours a day, is so vast that every imaginable product or service is available, has low barriers to entry and is comprised of billions of prospective customers.

The Internet is also the worst marketplace ever invented, because it is available worldwide 24-hours a day, is so vast that every imaginable product or service is available, has low barriers to entry and is comprised of billions of prospective customers. It’s too loud and crowded, making it hard to be noticed.

While the Internet (and the social media that are a part of it) provides us with historically unprecedented access, it also provides us with unprecedented clutter. It is easy and challenging at the same time. It has the potential of bringing riches but is filled with land mines. You can’t afford to take missteps.

That’s why savvy professionals carefully manage their online brands just as they manage how their personal brands appear everywhere else. Below are a few pieces of advice to keep in mind as you promote your personal brand online and take advantage of the countless benefits that come from the world’s greatest AND worst marketplace.

It’s a Game of Fundamentals -

Regardless of the medium used, your personal branding must be of value and stand on its own merit. In other words, nobody is impressed just because you have a presence online. People are impressed if your presence is interesting, fresh and provides value to them. When determining what you’ll write or say online, think back to your area of self-marketing expertise, the part of your professional self that is most interesting to other people. That’s what you talk about when you make posts on the social media.

The Invisible Man or Woman – I will periodically receive a call from a stranger, who says, “Jeff, I’d like to meet with you, get to know you and pick your brain. Do you have time for lunch next week?” As soon as I hang up, the first thing I do is Google that person. I want to know who I’m dealing with and what he or she is all about. This may not be fair, but if nothing or very little pops up after I Google someone, I’m unimpressed. My assumption is that they don’t have much going on; they’re not involved in their profession or community.

It’s safe to assume people are Googling you too. When that happens, you MUST have a presence. A number of positive things about you should show up in their search results. To be safe, I recommend you Google your own name at least once a month. Also check Bing, Yahoo and other search engines just to make sure you cover all the bases.

If you are not satisfied with your search results, start building a better online presence now. Deliberately build a “Google trail” that people can follow to get to you:

1. Maximize social media. Postings, links and photographs show up in many searches.

2. Become a blogger. Write interesting articles about your area of self-marketing expertise. You can also comment on others’ blogs.

3. Once you have a blog, submit your articles to the countless websites that publish articles written by a wide variety of people. Just make sure your writing is of high quality.

4. Tell everyone about each of your new blog articles via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

5. Shoot short but interesting videos related to your area of self-marketing expertise and make them available on YouTube.

6. Post messages using your real name on discussion forums that relate to your profession. Just make sure the forums are legitimate.

7. Write reviews of products and services on various websites using your real name.

8. Develop your own personal website, where you post articles, photos and information about yourself in a flattering way.

9. If you are an officer in an organisation, or if you sit on a board of directors, see if the organization will include your name, bio and photo on its website.

10. Start a regular podcast.
Live Socially- The social media are such an important part of online branding, they deserve their own section:

1. Develop a nice list of friends, connections and followers on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Don’t just invite people willy-nilly. Make sure you know them or have had a professional interaction with them.

2. Participate in LinkedIn discussion groups

3. Ask and answer questions on LinkedIn. This has generated powerful results for many professionals.
4. Keep your profile information up to date especially on LinkedIn and include all your accomplishments. In a lot of ways, a LinkedIn profile is akin to your resume or professional bio.

5. Don’t just tweet. Re-tweet the tweets of other Twitter tweeters.

Avoid the Gotcha’s – A few words of caution are in order:

1. Don’t succumb to the temptation and do anything online that would undo the hard work you put into building your personal brand.

2. Never slander or libel someone else.

3. You may want to disconnect from or de-friend anyone whose online behavior is unbecoming or unprofessional.

4. Carefully manage how you are depicted in photographs. Keep in mind that undesired photos of you may appear in someone else’s social media.

5. If you want to participate in non-professional discussion forums, consider using an alias or a pseudonym.

In conclusion, remember that your Internet presence is to you what a big advertisement in the yellow pages was for large companies 20 years ago. If you’re not easy to find, you might as well not exist. But just don’t put yourself out there for the sake of “existing.” Manage your online brand and carefully control your online presence. Be interesting and relevant, while always remembering that the most effective messages you can deliver are the ones that bring value to your readers, listeners and viewers.

How to get your Blog registered with Google

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Google news is a cool little tool for keeping you informed about what is going on in your area of business. The process is simple you tell Google what it is you want to know about and it will email you all the latest posts that reach the top ten rankings in the search engine. So if you are wondering Why my blog posts are not registering in Google alerts, then read below.

You can stay right on top of what is happening in your niche. For those that get to have their message emailed to people it can bring an untold amount of traffic. Imagine having your postsings emailed directly to people that are actually requesting to read them, that is amazing targeted traffic. The search engine only sends the postsings that make it to the top 10 in the search engines so you only get sent the most relevant content.

So to get your blog posts sent out you need to have relevant news content that is going to be in the top ten, and you need to have your site submitted to the News section. Below are the steps that you should follow to see if you can get your site emailed out to thousands of inboxes.

The very first thing you need to do is find out if your site is being picked up by the news section. Simply type site: your url into the address bar and see if it comes up in the news, if not you need to suggest it to the search engine as a possible news site.

Once this is accomplished you need to load a news site map onto your blog. This is what Google will crawl to find the news articles. Load the news site map into the root files of your postings or use a word press plug in.

Now you need to submit your entire site through the webmaster tools. Sign into the search engine with your email account. Log into the webmaster tools and submit your URL, they will give you a few option for you to verify the message is yours; choose the best one for you and carry out the instructions. Verify your site.

The last step is to submit your news site map that you created earlier in the dashboard of the URL that you just submitted click on the configuration tab then on site maps. There will be a place for you to enter the file location of your site map click on continue and you are done, now all you have to do is wait for Google to crawl your site.

The Power of Network Marketing

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Network Marketing: Get A Road Map

Most people fail in network marketing because they are not given a clear road map, a system, to follow. Without this type of well-defined system, many new independent representatives can quickly become discouraged. They do not experience the success that first enticed them to become involved in our industry and quickly lose passion, excitement, and commitment.

Did you know that, according to industry averages, 8 out of 10 people sign up with a direct-sales/network marketing company stay less than one year? Most people would agree that they work too hard recruiting to experience that level of loss and frustration. An effective system can be instrumental in addressing two essential areas–first, it will help equip new enrollees to achieve quick and consistent success, and second, it sets the stage for long-term retention. As all network marketers know, the more positive and rewarding the experience, the longer people will remain active in the opportunity.

Statistics show that the new enrollee’s first 90 days are absolutely vi­tal. To really drive home how important these first 90 days are, consider statistics showing that of those 8 out of 10 people who stay less than a year, most companies lose 40 percent to 60 percent of them in the first 90 clays. So, doing the right things as an enroller begins when you first intro­duce the business to your friends.

Network Marketing: Make An Easy To Follow Plan

A well-planned, easy-to-follow system creates a partnership between the company and you to help ensure that new enrollees have early, essential success experiences. This system must be simple and duplicable, and never overwhelming. The emphasis should al­ways be that anyone willing to be persistent and consistent can do it if they just follow the clearly defined steps. It is vital that people realise the power of following a system that in­cludes a fast way to get started.

Always help people realize that they starting an actual business. Help them understand that they are not just buying product; they are the CEO of their own national or worldwide business. Build up the integrity ol the business they are involved in as well as the network marketing industry, and the vast potential of both their business and this industry. The network marketing industry has created more millionaires than any other industry, in­cluding real estate, and has attained a high level of respect as a very viable and legitimate industry.

Additionally, this exciting industry offers individuals an opportunity to create very formidable network marketing businesses with incomes rivaling those of highly paid executives.

The Value of Good PR for Business

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Charles Darwin’s words “Survival of the fittest” can never go out of context. In the fiercely competitive business world of today, it is of paramount importance to grab eyeballs for a venture to be successful and then to continue having good relations with those eyeballs or the audiences. Herein lies the role of a public relations firm. Public relations, as the name suggests, is the method or science of developing favorable relations with the public or the target audience.

To facilitate this process is the work of the public relations firm. A public relations firm can be hired on a contractual basis or on a full time basis depending on your needs. If you are looking for publicity for a one off event, it would be profitable to hire a public relations firm on a contractual basis.

But if you are looking for a complete image makeover or you are looking to launch a new product in market, a full time public relations firm acting on your behalf would fetch you the desired results.

There are many tools which a public relations firm uses to attract the audience like press releases, blogs, media presentations, community service programs et al. While most of this can be done by an organisation itself, it is better to get the help of experts as timing plays a key role in generating user interest. A good public relations firm knows when to use a particular tool to get coverage. Different public relations firms have different ways of implementing the pr strategy, but most of the firms have a common preliminary process prior to implementation.

First of all, the public relations firm gathers as much information as possible from its clients about its needs, so as to clearly understand the objective of the pr strategy. Once they have all the pertinent information, the concerned professionals at the public relations firm conduct the market research to collate information about the competitors present in the market if any. After the completion of these two fundamental steps, the public relations firm knuckles down to creating an effective pr strategy within the budget specified by the client.

But what sets apart an excellent public relations firm from the good public relations firm is the ability to be flexible while creating an image for the client. An excellent public relations firm never lets an opportunity for positive exposure go by. It is imperative that one hires such a public relations firm to ensure great returns on your investment.

OMG Social Media

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There are so many different pressures business owners face today without another one to think about, but here we are at the beginning of another rise in the wave of popular technology and if business owners are not careful, they will find themselves left behind.

Have you heard of this phenomenon called “Social Media”? Do you know how it could help your business gain visibility, client base and an increase in referred customers?

Companies are actually all Sales and Marketing businesses. It doesn’t matter if what you sell is windows and conservatories, bespoke furniture solutions, massage or reiki therapy, if you cannot sell and promote your business through marketing, you may find you are soon left wondering where the hordes of clients are that so desperately need your services?

Many business owners we have spoken are not seeing the bigger picture yet, the view is that Facebook, Twitter and such websites are toys used by their kids to keep in touch with their friends when they should be doing homework.

Maybe the real question is when is a toy not a toy? This is the danger with social media, many businesses will view it as a toy and only when Pandora’s box has been opened and it is too late will they see the opportunities that lay before them – now.

It does not need to cost you thousands of pounds to get someone to run your social media network for you. Would you trust the copyrighting of your website to someone who didn’t understand your ethics, your business – you? Anyone can easily learn to use the social media tools for business effectively; all you need is to be shown the best way to go about it for you.

There is no “right way” to participate in social media for business; each solution is as unique as the business and the people within that business. In this case, whilst certain guidelines are applicable it is definitely a case of “one size does not fit all”!

Twitter launches new look to appeal to business

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In a world where approximately 100 million people are sending out more than 200 million Tweets each day, businesses know that they need to utilize Twitter, somehow. But they’ve struggled to figure out exactly how.

Similarly, Twitter has had difficulty figuring out how to make the site work for both businesses and regular users.
With the rollout of a new look that includes brand pages for businesses, that is likely to change.

Twenty-one of Twitter’s advertising partners, including American Express and Disney, are being given first crack at the new brand pages, with the opportunity being expanded to more businesses in the next few weeks.

The new brand pages are completely customizable with colors, logos, and photos, and they allow a company to keep a featured Tweet at the top of the timeline while continuing to interact with others.

This gives businesses the opportunity to continually direct attention to a specific idea or item, or even a job posting.

So how does the new-look Twitter fit into your recruiting plans?

“Historically, Twitter has been person to person, or a company or brand throwing their information out there,” says Hillary Chybinski, a social media strategist in suburban Philadelphia.
“With the new Twitter brand pages, companies and brands really have the opportunity to show their hip factor. It should be easy for potential employees, particularly younger ones who have grown up with social media technology, to identify the ones that ‘get it,’ from the ones that don’t.”

Many businesses already make use of Facebook pages and Google+ has recently jumped into brand pages. too
But for now, Chybinski says LinkedIn is the best bet for companies looking to hire, and that expanding beyond that should be done only if the time and money commitment are there.

“The more avenues you can leverage, the further your reach,” Chybinski said. “But if you only have limited resources it’s better to choose one and do it really well, than choose four and do a mediocre, or worse, job.”

Chybinski says it will be interesting to see how companies nurture and grow the new Twitter pages.

“It’s one thing to have a Twitter account where you post specials and coupons but it’s quite another thing to have a Twitter identity where you showcase your brand and your mission,” she said.
In addition to brand pages, the new Twitter look will change each user’s home page, adding tabs and more video opportunities. Twitter is migrating users over gradually, so not everyone can see the new look, but there is a sneak peek available by grabbing the official mobile apps for iPhone or Android on the Twitter site.

Reasons Why Local Business Owners Should Know About Google +

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Despite the fact that Google+ is still in the beta testing stages, it is looking to be one of best tools for local business owners to use to help increase public awareness of their businesses and their brands.

One of the things that makes Google+ such a valuable tool for local business owners is the fact that business owners are able to use the +1 feature to enhance their SEO. Local businesses often rely on internet marketing via their website to drive customers to their physical stores, and nothing is as effective as SEO for driving traffic to a website. In order to increase traffic to a website, the Google+ social network allows people to +1 a post or website, which is similar to the “Like” feature of Facebook. The more +1s a website or blog post gets, the higher it will be ranked on Google. This makes this aspect of Google+ a much better use for local businesses, as they can stay away from unethical SEO practices by using the Google+ social network.

Another reason for local business owners to find out as much as possible about Google+ is the fact that they are much more easily able to find their target markets. Social networking is one of the best ways for business owners to reach their demographic and target customers, and the Google+ social network is shaping up to be one of the largest and most advanced of the social networks.

By using Google+, you are able to send out your information and content to as many people as possible, and more people will be able to find this interesting content thanks to the wide reaching network that Google+ will offer. By using Google+ more and more, the programming of Google+ will be able to find and present you with more original content that you will find useful. The content brought back to you by Google+ will be more targeted, meaning that the people who use Google+ will be more easily able to find valuable information.

As with Facebook, Google+ will have communities which will be called “Circles”. These Circles will act just like the Facebook communities where people can share content and information much more easily. Marketers are able to target their customers much more easily thanks to these specific circles, and they are able to direct the marketing at only the people who will be interested in what they have to offer. This means that few people will “un-follow” or dislike a certain type of marketing, which usually contributes to lower SEO rankings. Being able to customize a marketing campaign or promotion to reach specific “Circles” will make internet marketing much easier and much more targeted as well.

Another advantage to using Google+ is that Google is much more likely to keep a tight rein on spamming and spam content than Facebook or Twitter have been able to. This means that fewer spam messages will be sent out to people, which will make the market conditions much easier for internet marketers. An overload of spam causes people to become jaded to be advertisements and marketing campaigns that they see, but keeping the amount of spam reduced will help Google+ to be a much more conducive environment for those who are looking to do internet marketing via Google’s upcoming social network.

One of the things that makes the content on Twitter slightly less trustworthy than on other sites is the fact that information can be auto posted. This means that posts can be automatically done without the content being revised or checked for value. Google+ is not giving the option of auto posting, something that is being greeted with mixed reactions. In a way this makes it more difficult for frequent posters, as they are being forced to actually post manually. However, this ensures that the quality of posts will be much higher, as only content that is actually valuable will be worth taking the time to post manually on the Google+ network.

The contextual relevance of the Circles on Google+ will make it much easier for people to obtain useful links, thus making link building on Google+ much more effective than on Facebook. Google+ will offer the Circles feature, which will enable users to establish communities and find topical authorities on subjects of interest. This will mean that any links posted by these topical authorities will be treated with much more attention, which will in turn lead to much more effective link building for those who can be considered authorities on a particular topic. This helps to indicate how large a person’s sphere of influence is.

As the world of social networking is becoming more and more important for local business owners, most business owners will find that Google+ is one of the most valuable online tools that they have at their disposal to help enhance public awareness of their business and their brand. Though Google+ is still in the works and fairly far off, business owners will find that the options open to them through Google+ will be well worth the wait as the social network in launched in the distant future. Google has not yet released an established timeline for the release of Google+, but social network users and local business owners around the world are waiting with baited breath for the new tool that will make their marketing campaigns much easier.

Small Business Marketing on a Shoe String

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We have all seen how the internet suddenly boomed right in front of us. Some years back, the internet was a novelty that not many people enjoyed. These days however, people’s perception towards the internet is worlds away from that school of thinking. We have become more and more dependent on this network that most of our everyday activities involve the internet or may be replaced by online activities. Such is the case with small business marketing. Obviously, we know that marketing a small business does not always have to be done online but a lot of small businesses still choose to begin marketing their services this way.

If you really think about it, small business marketing involves a lot of expenses. Of course, one may argue that simple word-of-mouth is enough to market any business; but the truth is, if one wants to aggressively market his store, product, or service, then he or she must do something about it. Unfortunately, “doing something about it” always means spending some amount of cash. Of course, the amount of cash one expends for marketing will ultimately turn into profit, given that the marketing strategies that were implemented were truly effective.

However, the problem for a small business is not that risking finances for marketing strategies; it is more of no having enough finances to spare for marketing. Now the internet cleverly solves this problem as it is definitely a more cost-efficient marketing platform. In fact, if an awareness campaign is all one needs, it might not require any expenses at all.

Small business marketing may just be as simple as joining a social networking site. Think of it this way: if it is easy enough to join a social networking site, gain new online friends, and basically market yourself (all for free), then it must be equally easy for to market your business online. And it is. Joining social mediums like Facebook, Twitter, Multiply, and creating a blog may be transformed into marketing tools, when done correctly.

So do not be intimidated with taking your business online. The reason why many people are online anyways is because it is fairly easy to use, it is convenient, and it is filled with great opportunities. Small business marketing should not be more complicated in the digital world as it is in the offline world.

Why submit articles online?

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Why submitting articles is a great strategy to drive traffic to your site. Have a Website is just like opening a shop, you must have customers visiting your shop if you want to generate some sales.

When you submit articles that offer good content and interesting information, your readers will read the resource box where you have information about your and your Website link, your readers will click on the link to find out more information!

What you want is targeted and qualified traffic to your sites and submitting great articles will help you to do just that. There are many article directories where you can join for free and submit your articles. You can also leverage on services that help you to submit articles to hundreds of article directories at one time because doing it manually will certainly take up a lot of your precious time.

You must leverage and make use of the latest technology to communicate and build relationship. When was the last time you send a video email or participate in a web conferences. When a new techology arrives it always take some time to adjust to it and you will find very soon everyone is using it! Remember the time when the mobile phone was introduced, some even have doubts of buying one but now everyone must have it!

I enjoy submitting articles because I love to write and share my knowledge and experience. If you have 5 to 10 years of experience or you are passionate about certain hobbies, you will find it is easy to write an article from 300 to 700 words on the things you love to do! Your articles will be shared widely by people who are interested in what you have to share.

The title of your article is very important, it is similar to the title of a book or a headline of an advertisement. If your title is not interesting, people are not going to read your article. Invest some time reading on how to write effective headlines for advertisement.

Marketing is about delivering value and benefits and building lifetime relationship. You want to have a customer for life and how do you do that? You have to put yourself in their shoes and have their interest at heart and always think of ways to give them more value and benefits!

When your readers read your articles, they will also be able to get to know you, your character, personality and values will show through what you write. After some time you will be known in the market for your areas of expertise and what you are passionate about.

By submitting your articles you can build your own brand and attract people who share your core values and beliefs. Joe Girard said that people do not buy products or services, people buy people!

Submitting articles is not only a great way to drive traffic to your site, it is a great way to build relationship with people who share your interest and beliefs!