Small Business Marketing Blog

As I share with my clients and colleagues about how useful Twitter has been for promoting my business this year, many people are asking me questions about Twitter. Here are the seven most popular questions that I have received about Twitter:

1. What Is Twitter?

Twitter is a social networking web site where you can network with others. You are networking in real time and your have to fit what you want to say into 140 characters.

The beauty of Twitter is that unline many social networking web sites it offers very few options. But this simplicity also makes Twitter a very powerful social networking tool.

2. How do I use Twitter to promote my business?

You can use Twitter to connect with your target market, share your blog posts, promote your expertise, build relationships, gain affiliates and many more things. You are only limited by your imagination.

3. How to use Twitter to promote my website?

- ...

I have been participating in coaching social networks and lists for many years, and have seen many new coaches asking the following questions:

How to become a certified life coach?

How to become a life coach?

And many more questions just like these.

These are all good questions, but what these coaches should be asking about is:

How do I get clients for my coaching business?

This is the most important question that all the coaches - new and seasoned - should be asking. Without clients, it does not matter what kind of title, preparation, education or certification you have. Without clients you will not be able to share your coaching gifts with anyone.

So my challenge to you today is to fist ask yourself - how do I get clients for my coaching business? If you don’t have a satisfactory answer to this question, ...

Many business owners are very concerned about their revenues in today’s economy. They usually have only one source of revenue - their services. So when just a few of their clients stop paying for their services, their revenue takes a big hit. If your revenue will take a huge hit if just a few of your current customers stop doing business with you, listen up! You must create more income that you can
add to your revenue model. Doing this will help you shield yourself from revenue going down dramatically when just a few of your clients decide to stop doing business with you.

Here are other income streams you can add to your business immediately:

- E-books. An e-book is a digital document that is anywhere from 30 to 500 pages. Create e-books on topics that are of interest to your target market and increase your revenue with every e-book sale.

- Teleclasses. Teleclasses are classes that taught over the phone. Teaching teleclasses is a good way ...

When I got online in the 90s, the Internet became a hobby of mine. I discovered e-mail and the web, forums and social networking, and really enjoyed the Internet. As I was using the Internet, I saw huge possibilities for doing business online. I started looking into running an online business. After some time my hobby became a business.

I love my business - I help business owners get more clients and make more money online. My business model is creating multiple streams of income, by offering both products and services to my clients.

As my hobby became a business, I was in need of a new hobby. In early 2000’s cooking became my new hobby. It started with me wanting to replicate different foods that I had tried at restaurants. But as I started cooking, I started to really enjoy it. I also realized that being able to cook meant that I could create food that was both healthy and delicious. Cooking has been my hobby for some time, and in this time, I have given out a ...

Have you heard this expression before? “Do You Eat Your Own Dog Food?” usually means “do you use your own products?”. When it is used in tech circles, it usually refers to a company using the products that it has created.

When I adopted this phrase to use with my coaching clients, I usually use it to discuss if the client walks his or her own talk. For example, if a financial coach who teaches others not to have debt is in a lot of debt himself, he is not eating his own dog food. And if a relationship coach teaches others how to find a fulfilling relationship, but does not have a fulfilling relationship herself, she is not walking her talk either.

It is extremely important to walk your talk and to be authentic when you are in business for yourself. When you are not walking your talk your potential customers will realize that you are not being authentic with them and will not be able to trust you. And if a potential client does not trust you, how ...

After last week’s post on Three Step Online Marketing System For Getting Clients, I got a few questions from coaches who tell me that they are using a similar system to promote their business already. They now want to leverage the system to increase the number of clients they have, and they are wondering which step they should be working on.

First, let me remind you what the Three Step Online Marketing System For Getting Clients is:

Step 1: Identify your target market and drive your target market to your web site.

Step 2: The web site visitors that you have acquired in Step 1 are now browsing your web site. Turn them into leads!.

Step 3: Turn your leads from Step 2 into clients.

So, which step do you work on if you ...

I have seen thousands of business owners do it. A business owner, let’s call her Carol, offers a great service, and she designs a whole system for her clients to get through her service and achieve amazing results. Carol sees the amazing results her clients are getting and, quite correctly, attributes the results to the system that she has created for them.

However, when it comes to her own business, Carol resists setting up a marketing system. Instead, she just tries using different marketing techniques, hoping that one of them will turn out to be the technique that will bring her all the clients that she would ever need.

She tries blogging, article marketing, social networking, search engine optimization, using each technique for a few days and then moving on to the next one. She starts her own list for which she now has 24 or so subscribers.

None of the techniques have really brought in customers, so three months later she goes back and starts from the very ...

After I announced the How To Use Twitter To Promote Your Business Teleseminar, I started getting questions from many business owners asking me how can one promote their business in 140 characters or less.

Here is a list of 7 things you can do to promote your business on Twitter:

1. Use Your Profile To Display The Link To Your Web Site. It will help you get more traffic to your web site and it will let others on Twitter learn more about you.

2. Share Information About Your Events. I had 473 people register for my Online Marketing Plan teleseminar last week. Some of the people found out about the teleseminar on Twitter.

3. Share What You Do. But don’t keep saying “Hire me!” - doing this will not get you any clients. But naturally sharing what you do and who your perfect clients are will get you great results.

4. Post Your Blog Posts To Your Twitter Account. ...

As you know, I am a bit proponent of using article marketing to market your business. This is why I am very excited to interview Christopher Knight, the CEO of EzineArticles.com:

Biana: Many of us have had careers before getting into online marketing. What is your background? What did you do before starting EzineArticles.com?

Christopher: Before EzineArticles I was the Founder & CEO of SparkLIST, a permission-based email newsletter hosting service provider. I’ve been involved in several dot com companies since the mid 1990s ranging from website design, web hosting, running an ISP and an email newsletter advertising network.

Biana: Please tell us how EzineArticles.com got started. How did you get the idea for it? When did you launch it? What inspired you to start it?

Christopher: EzineArticles.com started in November of 1999 and our team acquired the site from its original owner ...

I recently heard from a business owner who said that she watched TV for just an hour and it left her very scared of the state of the economy and how it was going to affect her business. My first recommendation was to turn off the TV and concentrate on her business and her customers instead.

But then I started thinking - what could she have in that one hour instead of watching the news that would have helped her with her business? Here are 10 things that take just 1 hour to do and that help you market your business:

1. Write an article that you can submit to article directories to market your business.

2. Spend an hour on Twitter networking and getting to know your followers.

3. Review your web site statistics to learn how your web site visitors are using your site.

4. Write a blog post.

5. Approve and welcome new Facebook friends.

6. Listen to a marketing teleseminar or audio recording. Here is ...