Month: June 2012

Recovering from Google Penguin, Fast!

On FreeWeeklyMastermind.com a friend asked a question about recovering from Google Penguin. I couldn’t tell from her question whether she was even 100% sure Penguin was the problem. So here are the steps you need to take in the event you were hit by Penguin and you’re interested in recovering from Google Penguin.

Let’s do this on a Step-by-Step basis to make it easy:

Step 1.

Pull up your Google Analytics and look at April 23 – April 25. If your traffic dropped that day you got hit by Penguin. If it didn’t dive that day, you didn’t get hit. You have a different problem – but the recovery steps may be the same. Continue reading “Recovering from Google Penguin, Fast!”

Using Customer Feedback to Make your Business Better

Using customer feedback is critical to your success. I recently wrote a guest blog post on Savvyblogging.net about making sure you know what actions you’re going to take BEFORE you survey your audience. That kind of customer feedback can help you make changes and take action immediately.

But there are more important reasons to be using customer feedback.

Interviewing Customers

Nothing can take the place of interviewing your customers. What you really want to understand is the process your customers went through to get to you. And then what happened to get them to pull their wallet out and pay you money. Once you understand where they were mentally, you can craft your web copy, headlines and email subject lines. Continue reading “Using Customer Feedback to Make your Business Better”

A Marketing Calendar: More than holidays

Every December I see people peddling marketing calendars. Most of them are blank templates which I’ve always called a calendar. Others include lists of holidays to put on the calendar, and places for “important dates”. But planning your business is way more involved than labeling a few holidays.

While an editorial calendar is useful, it should be part of your overall plan – not THE plan. Whether you’re a scrapbooker, a service based business, a holiday decorations website or Nike – you need tie everything you know about marketing to a timeline from which you can plan your success. Assigning dates to your productivity makes you a ton more productive. Continue reading “A Marketing Calendar: More than holidays”

Red Hot Chili Peppers at Bonnaroo: Marketing Brilliance

I turned on YouTube the other night to catch the Red Hot Chili Peppers taking the stage at Bonnaroo. In fact, I turned it on a few minutes early and watched the stage hands finish up prepping the equipment. But what caught my eye and hopefully the eyes of millions of people watching around the world were the two screens on either side of the main stage.

Imagine the darkest night with only a few flashlights on an almost imperceptible stage. But then like a sun in blackness, two red billboards shown out over the crowd. Both said “Buy and download tonight’s concert, go to http://rhcp.com/live”. And history is made. Continue reading “Red Hot Chili Peppers at Bonnaroo: Marketing Brilliance”

Community Building Extras

I decided to go to BlogWorldExpo this year. I have had this impression that it’s just enormous with tons of vendor booths and people wandering this way and that. I just imagine being somewhat lost in this sea of people.

And then I was looking at the sessions “grid” and there seem to be 10 different ones going on every hour. Holy Moly! I better bring a friend. Honestly, can you really make friends at something so huge?

And then. . . I got a card in the mail. I got a handwritten card from one of the organizers. I can’t even get my friends and family to send handwritten Christmas cards. I immediately took a picture of it, uploaded it to Instagram and thanked them the for the card using the BlogWorldExpo hash tag.

Guess what? They replied and said they looked forward to seeing me. Hmmm. . . What a simple gesture that made me feel so welcome. I certainly wasn’t expecting a handwritten letter from this “giant” event.

Examples of Community Building Extras

Sending physical notes is hard if you don’t have your audience’s addresses. But don’t let that stop you. I have learned time and time again that even the small gesture of welcoming people to your audience is appreciated. At FreeWeeklyMastermind.com we welcome each person as they press the “join” button and have gotten many emails of appreciation because of it. Small isn’t bad.

When teleseminar coach Cyndi Dawson speaks she brings something special for those of her community members who happen to be at the event. And at the NAMS event in Atlanta I know Lynn Terry holds a dinner for her elite community members. Those are great community building gestures.

From the big business side of the world, Choice Hotels (the Comfort Inn / Sleep Inn folks) have little gift bags at the front desk for their frequent stay card holders. I believe the last one I got had an apple and a bottle of water in it. Simple, but most appreciated.

So what kinds of things can you do for your audience that will set you apart?

  • Open up a teleseminar line once/month for your community to call, chat or ask questions.
  • Take pictures with your fans in person. Upload and tag them on Facebook.
  • Friend your community members on other networks and initiate conversations.
  • Write an ebook and give your audience pre-publication access in exchange for comments and feedback. If you get their name and address in that process, send a real thank you note.
  • Send out TweetUp notices when you travel and invite your community members to come out and meet you. Do that in your own city too.
  • When you create products, give long-term community members an extra 10% affiliate commission

Got some other ideas of ways to reward your community? To praise your community? To serve your community? Share them with us.

Dan R Morris is the founder of LettersFromDan.com, a website dedicated to improving your revenue stream from online efforts. Dan is an infomercial producer, niche website owner, product developer, author and Mastermind leader. Dan actively encourages marketers to take that extra step so that “Hope” doesn’t become the marketing plan.