Author: Dan Morris

Keywords for my client

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Every single job we do for clients starts with the this question:

“how does the client make money?”

Without FULLY understanding how you make money or how you want to make money, you’ll never know where to start with keywords or any type of optimization.

In the case of our tutoring client, they help everyone from elementary school students with reading issues to college kidsstudying for the LSAT. So where do we position them?

When you’re figuring that out for yourself, it’s very important to determine what kind of work you want to be doing long term. In the case of our tutor, we we really want to attract the college kid who’s studying for his last exam, as a test prep client? Or do we want the elementary school kid who has 10 years of exams and tutoring ahead of him? Continue reading “Keywords for my client”

Engagement on Facebook

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I recently met with a Realtor and spoke to them about their internet traffic. The conversation always comes back to Facebook for some reason.

I don’t know if you know this, but  I’m not a fan of Facebook Fan Pages because they require the owners to be diligent, sociable and engaging. I’ve found few able to do it well 6 months down the line.

So the question was asked, should they link their YouTube account, where they post all their real estate videos, to their Facebook account so that it automatically alerts their Facebook fans that a new video was uploaded. Here were my thoughts: Continue reading “Engagement on Facebook”

Repurposing Content and Screen Capture

cdsSo this week, I spent a good amount of time talking about repurposing content. If you have a bunch of stuff sitting around that you’ve already done (ie informative e-mails, recordings of phone calls, e-books, blog posts, etc)- you can reuse these.

You can take 5- 10 blog posts about a topic and turn them into an ebook. You can transcribe phone calls (webinars) and turn them into a real book, blog posts, articles, website material, a home study course, etc.

You could even sell real CD’s by uploading the info to kunaki.com and having them mail the recordings out – or turn them into a bound notebook and have vervante.com mail it for you.

Continue reading “Repurposing Content and Screen Capture”

Most Important Thing about Events

So I’m talking about doing events today. . .

There is no bigger waste of time than putting something big together, having it succeed and then helping to clean up with nary a plan in place to follow-up with the attendees.

If you’re going to put together a Tupperware Party, Weekend Retreat, Grand Opening, or Music Concert – don’t forget the follow-up. That’s the most important part.

You’ve got to be able to capture names and e-mail addresses at the minimum. Since the people attending have already overcome all the major hurdles to even get to your event, you might as well not waste what time and energy you’ve spent. Continue reading “Most Important Thing about Events”

Traffic From Blog Comments and New Tools

Let’s talk about traffic:

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If you use Google’s alerts or Talkwalker Google will track any word (or words) you tell them, and will send you a link anytime those words show up on the internet.

Many times someone will write about your topic on their blog. You can then go there and leave a comment and (if a conversation breaks out) perhaps a link. Plus it’s a good way to find business partners, because you’ll be able to find the obscure sites you didn’t previously know existed. Continue reading “Traffic From Blog Comments and New Tools”

Automated Marketing Efforts

1452544_191928000996731_275162544_nYou’ve heard about automating your marketing efforts, I’m sure. Have you thought about teleseminars? I’ve always associated them with office training calls for some reason, but seem to be on a lot of them lately.

The fact is webinars and teleseminars are about the coolest marketing strategy in a long time. And the thing is – the term teleseminars and webinars  just describe a type of group communication.

To have a teleseminar or webinar means to set a time that everyone is on the phone or computer. That doesn’t mean you have to lecture. That doesn’t mean you have to have powerpoint slides. Continue reading “Automated Marketing Efforts”

Gmail, Anchor Text and More

This past week we had a MeetUp Group Meeting and I met with two website owners looking to improve their business:

First we spoke about the power of Gmail. Gmail is Google’s e-mail client, like Hotmail or AOL or earthlink. But Gmail offers a few things the others do not. I consider Gmail to be an e-mail manager. You can send and receive e-mail from all your accounts in Gmail.

So if you work at Autozone and your e-mail is JoeJoe@autozone.com, you can receive all that e-mail in your Gmail account and you can reply to it (Re: JoeJoe@autozone.com) without the person ever knowing you use Gmail to manage your e-mail. I recommend that for its sheer simplicity and efficiency.

Another great part of Gmail is the “labs”. In the upper right corner of the Gmail screen, you’ll see a little circle that looks like a gear. Click it and drop down to Settings. Inside the Settings is a tab called Labs.

Click that and it will take you to tons of Gmail options – like e-mail recall, categorizing, filters, auto-replies and much more. Continue reading “Gmail, Anchor Text and More”

Groupon Problems

grouponSo you’re familiar with Groupon, I’m going to assume. It’s a great service for those of us that like 50% off – but like many lead generating services you’ve got to be prepared on the back-end.

Most companies that use Groupon get excited about all the traffic that’s coming to their front door, but don’t realize that unless that traffic is harnessed or brought back somehow, it can be a really big money losing proposition.

Groupon customers pay 50% for a service. So $20, for a $40 service. The company providing that service gets 50% of the $20 – so $10. Basically they sell a $40 service for $10. That only makes sense if your cost of goods is much less than $10 and if you’re able to make additional sales from the traffic.

And that’s true for any special or giveaway that you put together.

To make a Groupon or other giveaway a success, build the backend first. What do you plan to offer the customer next? How are you going to capture their information if the service your using isn’t going to give it to you? How are you going to harness their original interest and turn it into something bigger?

Many, many companies have complained about Groupon and have decided they would never do it again. While others flourish and do them over and over. Don’t let the tail-end catch you by surprise.

Build it in its entirety and then figure out how you’re going to get the customers into the funnel – whether that’s Groupon, banner ads, postcards or a blimp.

I’ve got a couple Groupon Case Studies on my blog: http://lettersfromdan.com/examples-of-bad-social-marketing-decisions/