I haven’t written anything for a while now…I was scouring through the social networks and while I was there I made several posts named “How to build an audience” and they turned out quite successful.

People made comments and some of them urged me to make a detailed post about it, so here goes…

The process I described in my posts on LinkedIn has 4 stages that have to be followed in the exact order that is provided. Most companies have an email database of their clients and leads that they store. In most cases these kind of people are people the company has dealt with.

The biggest mistake a corporation or a company can make is to leave that database and not utilize it the proper way. This should be treated as a powerful tool in every company’s marketing arsenal. It is a valuable asset. If utilized properly a brand could build and expand its existing audience and spread its message across to a wider target audience

Let’s take a look at the 4 stages:

stage 1 – create your own community or blog or go to LinkedIn and start a group there. Giving incentives to your company’s employees to participate and add value to these communities is a must…if you or your employees do not go there no one else will. Having all your employees and people that you work with participate on there will eventually populate the community with content. Make sure that it is valuable one and make sure that there is something new added there each day. Creating a community that is busy and interesting will definitely attract other people.

Stage 2- put the email database that you have to good use. Send out invitations to your clients and leads, and make sure that you also send an invitation out to every single partner or affiliate of yours. Inviting them to your community will be something like helping them out, because you already have seeded it with useful info, remember The probability of them joining is pretty high because most of the times these are people you have done business with. They are in the same field of business and you have common interests… This database and these people will give your community a pretty good kick start.

stage 3 – Now, go on and find communities that have a relative focus, communities that target the same audience as yours… and just join them. When you join them you have to work your way up to the top and establish yourself or your profile as an authority in that field. It is not an easy task because it takes time, research and dedicated efforts. But once you achieve that you can easily invite the people of these communities to your own community and expand it to no limit. You are now somebody people want to follow and a person that people seek knowledge from.

stage 4 – When you reach this stage you are probably going to have a big community with lots of interesting posts and topics and a lot of members posting on a daily basis. You now have the ability to approach and invite people that you have never met and you do not know. Remember! The people you approach should be the ones looking for the information from your groups or communities. If you target these kind of people and send them an invitation to your personal or corporate community you will most probably be seen as someone providing interesting and precious information.

Following those 4 stages helped me build several communities online that are oriented in a specific niche and have a special focus. They are now pretty active with lots of interesting info on them and everyone who deals in these specific fields wants to join them…

The process described above does not cost that much!…a little bit of time and efforts on your side is just about enough. If you do not see it as something that you should do, then I would like to ask you this question…

What is the cost of doing nothing?

Having a great deal is not enough…you got to spread the word out. The winning ideas and concepts are the ones that spread well…and this process has exactly that purpose …help you build a big audience that will spread your ideas far and wide.

Since I wrote my last post Online Marketing Strategy Blueprint I got a lot of comments and requests to write a followup post that will go into more details. I will definitely do that but I couldn’t help myself the moment I saw this video. I decided to write a few words about it before I delve into more details regarding the Online marketing strategies.

I am a huge fan of copywriters like Gary Halbert and the way he expresess himself in his sales letters. Having read a lot of information and articles on the web I got to know that the most powerful tool that an online marketer could have in his/her arsenal is “WORDS”

Every time I want to start a promotional campaign on the web or just post something I think of three major things:

- the headline

- the opening paragraph

- the story

The headline is definitely the first thing that will most probably grab the attention of people. Often times questions or provoking statements do the job. Sometimes A how to guide or the whatever number of something is also eye-grabbing.

I have also tried asking a question and having several good keywords in the question itself that reveal to the reader what the real value I would like to provide them actually is. And let’s not forget that before you pinpoint the final version of the headline one should make some split testing and see what converts best and what gets the most clicks and readers.

Once you get people to read your stuff you have to keep the rhythm with a good opening paragraph something that will make people want to spend even more time with you and your story. Did I say story?

I did! Make sure you have a story to tell and share something that will appeal to your target audience…because Facts Tell and Stories Sell…

Have a look at the video…Enjoy it…and remember…be CREATIVE!

Analyze and understand the business and the industry niche:

-          Identify the goals and set up milestones

-          Prepare a SWOT analysis

-          Identify the target audience, find out valuable communities where they exchange information

-          Create messages that will have a strong value proposition and that correspond to what the company goals should achieve

-          Set achievable objectives

-          Prepare an online strategy that will penetrate the market

-          Outline an action plan that will include and describe different activities and the timeframe that is needed in order to complete them

Competitive analysis:

-          Analyze the competition and their websites

-          Compare marketing tactics with the competition

-          Eliminate methods and activities that do not provide results and focus on the ones that does

The online marketing mix

-          The online marketing mix should correspond to mile stones that the company has set up and to the objectives it has listed

-          Has to match the budget of the company and be effective

-          Has to be measured in order to track the ROI from the different campaigns

Key Points

Traffic generation

Generate buzz – this could happen via forums, blog comments and group discussion on LinkedIn

Viral marketing and word of mouth – this could occur if the above mentioned has been done in advance

Boost the company popularity – blog comments, guest blogging and forum postings could do that just fine

Web analytics

Track marketing campaigns – track all the efforts online in order to see what converts best and what works for the line of business products promoted on the web

Monitor website performance – analytics and metrics, it is always good to know where people come from, how they land on your site and what they expect to find

Optimize results – measure, learn and improve. Use this data to advance and cater to the needs of the target audience

Social media

(Blogs, forums, social platforms)

Generate some buzz – create an authoritative image/profile and provide quality information

Viral marketing and word of mouth – this could occur if the above mentioned has been done in advance

Additional sources for traffic – drive traffic through articles and discussions

List building

Establish an online community – after having established a quality community online the efforts should be focused on increasing in so that the company has a bigger pool of quality leads

Maintain the loyalty – maintaining high and professional quality in that community and providing useful information is a MUST

Repetitive sales plan – this process will come if the line of business products has a good added value for the customer, creating one is what will differentiate us from the competition. This could be additional services, information like analytics and statistics and so forth.

Articles and PR News

Build reputation online – provide quality and interesting info from the industry and prepare a list for future marketing campaigns and efforts

Marketing and Brand management Process

Define the brand

Design and position the website in such a way so that visitors immediately understand what the website is all about. This aims at explaining them why they should care about the stuff the company is offering. The website does not need flashy graphics and ambiguous slogans. We have to tell the visitors what the company does. There should be a slogan on the website and it should speak for itself and the services and products the site is offering.

Create an evangelist profile online

Creating this profile aims at only one thing…adding a human touch to the whole social media communication. This person should be established as an authority, someone who has credibility and can be trusted. This person should have a higher status like a CEO, GM, CFO, Head of sales/marketing etc. There is a higher probability to get approached by other decision makers form other companies with a business proposition if that is all in place.

Create an inner circle

This is the most powerful tool right know. Instead of attracting visitors, users or just surfers our marketing efforts should be focused on creating and converting people into fans. Users and visitors are people who just visit a website; however fans are the people who care about you, the ones who give you priceless feedback on how to develop your business and product.

Create a niche oriented community

LinkedIn has various communities focused on different fields and areas. How to create such a community? This process has 4 stages. Stage 1 – build the community and encourage everyone in the organization to join it. Create a company policy that encourages employees to use social media platforms and serve as advocates for your company. Stage 2- use existing email databases and grow the community. Databases usually comprise of company leads and clients. Common practices show that the conversion rates with one company’s clients and leads is higher compared to other databases. Stage 3 – find out other related groups and invite their members to join the company community – this usually gives good results as people have already joined a community of that kind and they are more than likely to join another one in order to learn new information about what they are doing or interested in. Stage 4 – approach people you do not know, people who are looking for solutions like your but have not heard about you.

Free newsletter

Creating a subscription form for news and articles on our blog or corporate site is something that needs no discussion. Offering this kind of information in the form of a free newsletter will help us build a strong list of people who are interested in the field of business the company operates and we can easily approach them with offers, promos and newsworthy information. Being able to provide such info frequently will show the target audience in question that the company is constantly developing and catering to the needs of people and organizations thus create a good brand image among them.

Online forum visibility

Online forums are yet another platform that needs to be utilized. Creating and establishing authority on there is something that will have great impact on people who are looking for solutions online. Facilitating relevant topics in order to reach out to that audience could create a good worth of mouth effect.

Campaign activities

Aims and implementation

FACEBOOK

Create a corporate page on Facebook. The next step is to prepare and build a marketing page that will cater to the needs of the specific target audiences. Set the online marketing plan as a page and divide it into different tabs providing information for every single package the company offer.  Each tab will lead to a specific landing page providing additional info and trying to convert every lead from a campaign into a client.

Creation of tab on existing Facebook fan page for the needs of the camping:

-          Adding friends to profile account or the corporate page

-          Creation of a Facebook campaign – for example (free tickets or some other free products, maybe a campaign for a product or a service that will give discount to all people who become fans etc.)

-          Adding friends to your page account could include Monthly support activities too

-          Managing existing fan page - status changes, adding new pictures, videos and starting discussions

-          Adding additional friends to the page account

LINKEDIN

Establishing your business brand online and spreading your messages via different marketing channels online. The ultimate goal of all this is to generate more traffic towards your corporate site, as well as attract more clients.

This way we deliver the end product to as many potential clients as possible we build that way a strong relationship between the company and its clients and we establish the brand online.

Creation of groups and communities

- Creation of a group that caters to specific users

- attracting more and more people to the specific group

- Promotion of groups and communities among other relevant groups

- Creation of corporate and company profiles; optimization of profiles for specific keywords;

Generating Leads on LinkedIn is done via various methods and communication approaches. Once a person is contacted then the conversation has to be taken outside of the network. This is the process of following up with connections outside of LinkedIn via email exchange or a phone call.

The essentials of submitting and posting information on LinkedIn include submitting things the proper way, etiquette when writing to high profile professionals and key people from a specific industry.  It is really important to speak the language that others speak, the language of the target audience. Using comments to generate leads, posting articles and answering questions are yet another way of spreading the word and establishing a person or a company as a credible, trustworthy and authoritative source.

A trustworthy profile could be accomplished only by setting up your profile page the right way. You have to have connections that are within your niche of expertise. It is recommendable to have at least several recommendations let us say 5/6 so that you profile looks credible like you are the VP of something.

Generating leads could be boosted if one creates an inner circle. One has to make people want to be a part of this inner circle. This could be done via creating niche oriented groups in LinkedIn catering to the specific needs of the target audience in question.

Communication methods

Invitations

These can be sent to anyone you have an e-mail address for, whether or not they happen to already be on LinkedIn. Once the parties you invite accept your Invitations, they become your 1st degree connections, and you can send messages directly to them through LinkedIn.

Messages

These are used to communicate directly with the people already in your network. One of the biggest advantages of using Messages is that once you’ve made a connection on LinkedIn, you never have to track that person’s e-mail address again. You will always be able to reach the person directly through the site.

Introductions

You can use Introductions to get in touch with people who are connected to your 1st degree connections but not directly to you. With the basic free membership on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to request five Introductions per month. If you find that you need more, you’ll know you’re ready to upgrade to a paid LinkedIn subscription.

Inmails

These are private messages that allow you to directly contact any LinkedIn user while protecting the recipient’s privacy. If the person you send an InMail to is not in your network, you’ll only be able to view his or her name and e-mail address, and then only if he or she accepts the InMail. With a free account, InMails are only available when purchased individually at the cost of $10 each. You will gain access to InMails with the premium LinkedIn accounts.

Posting messages in groups. Different messages associated with our products. Groups we own on LinkedIn

Posting discussions in the groups associated with each specific product

-          Posting discussions in groups that relate to the product

-          Message: The initial message has the task to generate interest towards the product or service being advertised or promoted.

-          The follow up message has the intention to take the  conversation outside of LinkedIn and urge the potential client to send his/her contact details

Engage discussions that will create desire in the target audience…after getting positive responses create a profile for each single person that has shown interests.

After the potential client replies the person dealing with this task has to prepare a profile:

Each profile includes:

-          Name

-          Email and telephone

-          Position and Company

-          Location

-          Industry

-          Message history

Lead profile preparation.

Tasks:

-          Collect information from the profile page of each person – full name, position, company and industry.

-          Gather the contact details from each reply

-          Copy the message history

People that comment on topics related to the industry are being contacted. People that have previously showed interest in that industry or the solutions we offer are more likely to respond and be interested in purchasing such a solution. For that reason they should be approached with a personal private message through the LinkedIn platform.

TWITTER

Set up a corporate profile on twitter. Search and analyze the twitter users who are interested in the products and services from our niche. Investigate and find out the top influencers from the niche and add them as friends. This way every time we tweet about us their followers will get to see what we are dealing with.

Having several twitter accounts and participating actively on twitter, engaging with clients via tweets and taking into account their feedback is a MUST! For example, a company could have an account for its fans, a Q&A account, FAQ account and so forth.

Account creation and followers attraction. Focusing on a specific target group of people and traffic generation the end goal is to increase sales and generate more revenue.

BLOGGING

Blog creation and promotion as well as corporate PR. Creating unique content or modifying existing content based on the keywords being optimized. Keywords will be strategically used within the content based on various keyword densities. All marketing and design aspects of the site will be respected and maintained to its fullest potential.

Submit the content to various niche oriented sources such as search engines, directories, forums other blogs, social networks, bookmarking platforms etc.

Guest blogging should also be considered as well as partnerships with other related blogs. This increases not only the credibility of the blog but also the way people perceive it.

Follow the news topics in the industry and rewrite the quality news into our own posts, posts that will later be distributed to our own communities and platforms where we market position the brand and services we offer.

PPC

Target the right keywords – identify the keywords and carefully select words for the campaigns

Traffic results – track and analyze the results.

Split testing is a MUST. Set different ad texts and see which one converts better. Prepare an analysis of the following key elements:

-          paid ads versus non paid ads

-          headlines

-          test different words

-          diversify

LINK EXCHANGE

The link exchange will involve looking for similar sites in the industry and contacting them to see if they would agree to exchange links. I will only look for high quality sites having a good Google PR. Build a link page that is hosted on your site and place links to other sites in return for reciprocal link.

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING

Distribute content to sites like StumbleUpon and del.icio.us, which also include some social bookmarking tools, allowing members to tag content, share it with others, and find similar information.

Increase the traffic to the services page and convert visitors to clients. This should be the main goal when people read our bookmarked posts and articles. The other goal is to tap into the power of crowdsourcing. Create viral content and make others distribute it and share it through all those social platforms. This could be articles written by us or rewritten by us that share interesting or thought-provoking info as well as provoking content.

FORUMS MARKETING

Marketing and PR in forums related to the niche. Establish trustworthy profiles in high traffic forums. Drive the attention of people towards a specific website. Corporate PR and Brand management as well as press release distribution and campaigns.

We have to focus in the right forums. That is what is going to make the difference and make our efforts there successful.

We have to define the most successful forums and make sure that we are there. We can find that information by using sites like Board Reader, Big Boards, and Board Tracker

After having made a search in the sites above we have to select the top 5 or the top 10 not more than that. This could be achieved only if we look for forums that have the following characteristics:

-          1,000 members

-          at least 10,000 posts.

-          at least 10 to 15 new posts a day

-          disregard spammy forums full with spammy posts

-          do not join corporate forums owned by the competition

Generating Leads through LinkedIn involves different approaches and communication methods. Once a person is contacted then the conversation has to be taken outside of the network. This is the process of following up with connections outside of LinkedIn via email exchange or a phone call.

The basics of posting and submitting information on LinkedIn include submitting things the proper way, etiquette when writing to high profile professionals and key people from a specific industry.  It is really important to speak the language that others speak, the language of the target audience. Using comments to generate leads, posting articles and answering questions are yet another way of spreading the word and establishing a person or a company as a credible, trustworthy and authoritative source.

A trustworthy profile could be accomplished only by setting up your profile page the right way. You have to have connections that are within your niche of expertise. It is recommendable to have at least 3 to 5 recommendations so that you profile looks credible like you are the VP of something.

Generating leads could be boosted if one creates an inner circle. One has to make people want to be a part of this inner circle. This could be done via creating niche oriented groups in LinkedIn catering to the specific needs of the target audience in question.

Communications Methods in LinkedIn

Invitations

These can be sent to anyone you have an e-mail address for, whether or not they happen to already be on LinkedIn. Once the parties you invite accept your Invitations, they become your 1st degree connections, and you can send messages directly to them through LinkedIn.

Messages

These are used to communicate directly with the people already in your network. One of the biggest advantages of using Messages is that once you’ve made a connection on LinkedIn, you never have to track that person’s e-mail address again. You will always be able to reach the person directly through the site.

Introductions

You can use Introductions to get in touch with people who are connected to your 1st degree connections but not directly to you. With the basic free membership on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to request five Introductions per month. If you find that you need more, you’ll know you’re ready to upgrade to a paid LinkedIn subscription.

Inmails

These are private messages that allow you to directly contact any LinkedIn user while protecting the recipient’s privacy. If the person you send an InMail to is not in your network, you’ll only be able to view his or her name and e-mail address, and then only if he or she accepts the InMail. With a free account, InMails are only available when purchased individually at the cost of $10 each. You will gain access to InMails with the premium LinkedIn accounts.

LinkedIn Lead Generation Channels

LinkedIn Groups

Some of the lead generation methods could be linked with posting relevant discussions to the groups where your target audience is participating. Groups where people share, discuss and talk about the products and services that you or your business is offering.

Connect with Twitter

Linking your site or blog with twitter and then connecting your twitter account to your LinkedIn profile is a Must. Not only do you get more readers and visitors for your site but you actually become a LinkedIn member who is regarded as an authority and someone who always shares and exposes his connections and target audience to useful and updated information.

Questions and Answers

The Answers section on LinkedIn is yet another fine place where you could show off with some of your expertise and knowledge. This will be a great opportunity for almost everybody to become an influencer and a leader in the specific niche or field he or she is dealing in.

Presentations

Adding a nice power point presentation…This could be your chance to persuade people that you really do know your field and you are a person who is dedicated to what he or she is doing and a person who has innovative and groundbreaking  ideas.

And like all the other networks, platforms and sites that got big the purpose of twitter evolved. Now companies like Dell are leveraging such sites to generate more revenue for their business.

Dell, Inc. has made some $6.5 million.  All that money came from the tweets that were promoting the company on the web. How did they do it? They hired 100 people to tweet in different channels. The channels some say are 35 in number and focused on different markets in 12 different countries.

If Dell can afford to spend that much money and hire 100 people then it is really worth going that path. Another good thing Twiter does is that it brings targeted and quality traffic to a particular website. With tools such as Buzzom ( an application that manages your brand marketing and awareness on twitter) and Twitter Lists ( a tool that helps you to find like minded people) you can now grow bigger, attract more loyal followers and most importantly people who are really looking for your product, service or solution). The Twitter Lists tool has a huge database listing all twitter lists where you could manage the lists and look for people or a group of people you consider your target audience.

If you are a big company or corporation, having several twitter accounts and participating actively on twitter, engaging with clients via  tweets and taking into account their feedback is a MUST! For example, a company could have an account for its fans, a Q&A account, FAQ account and so forth.

Bottom line, if you are a big company or you have the desire to grow big you have to have your online brand presented on the web via Twitter!

How can this be accomplished on the web?

As a start you should find where your target audience “hangs around” on the web:

- blogs
- forums
- social networks
- other web platforms or communities

The next step is to create your account or post messages from a profile that has been “Polished” and established as an authority in the field you are dealing in. Connecting to all the people you know, current and past contacts/friends will help you build that image even faster.

Next, if you are on blogs, forums or social networks you should consider joining groups, posting in threads where your present/potential clients are gathering.

Posting relevant, helpful, thought-provoking content will build your profile as a profile that is credible and trustworthy. Keep close attention to the way and the dynamics of the forums and the groups in the social networks. Every time someone posts a comment or asks for something just make sure that you provide these people with your response. That way your thread or discussion will stay on top as a hot topic.

This will actually help you to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise. The relevant information you give them is something of great importance. If you help all these people chances are that they will be much more responsive when you approach them with the intention to pitch them your products or services.

And last but not least, creating your own groups in the social networks, where possible, will boost your online presence and spread your ideas even better. Ideas that spread win!!! This will actually give you the possibility to have control over the specific niche.

Make sure that you stay as close as possible to your potential clients and customers!