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Social Media Calls to Action: How to Generate More Engagement [Infographic]
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New Year – New Life: Motivation and Action
The New Year is for many of us a reason to change something in our lives. If you look in a magazine, or in the adverts in the media or on the web, there are resolutions everywhere: improve your image, lose weight, improve your diet, stop smoking, go to the gym, start a new hobby, etc.
But if we want to keep our resolutions, we need motivation and action
A very important factor is ‘why’ we decide to make that resolution. The ‘why’ determines the motivation; it is what will enable us to keep going even when the going gets tough. But ‘why’ has also to be effective.
If we make a resolution because everybody else does, or if we make a resolution because we have to, the chances are that we are not really motivated to keep it. And if we do not keep it, the chances are that we beat ourselves up for that.
So, in order to make an effective resolution, it has to be first of all our choice, and it is also very important how and why we decide to make that choice. We need motivation and action.
Have you made your resolutions yet? Why have you decided to make these particular changes? Have you chosen to make them for yourself or are you pleasing someone else? Do you think that if you are pleasing someone else, you will be able to follow through with your resolution?
If you have chosen to make the resolution for yourself, how have you chosen it? Let’s consider, for example, a new hobby. Have you decided to start a new hobby, because …everybody else does? Or have you chosen it because it is in your life plan?
If you decide to do something because other people are doing it, do you think you will have the long-term motivation to follow it through?
The truth is that if we want real motivation for something, it has to be part of the overall vision of our ideal life, of our perfect life, of the life that would make you truly happy and fulfilled.
Clarity actually counts for 80% of success.
If you don’t know what you want, you need to get clarity on the true desires of your heart, because if you know what you want, you can create it. So, what would your ideal life be? Do you have a mental picture of your ideal life?
If you don’t have it, create it and imagine you’re looking at it, and what you would have in all the different areas of your life – spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, relational, financial?
Now, if you have that mental picture, what you need to do is to simply modify your present life to create that picture.
And furthermore, if you know what your ideal life would look like, and you know the changes you need to make in order to create it when you decide to make those changes, how strongly do you think your motivation is going to be? What do you think you will feel, knowing that the changes you are going to make will create the life of your dreams? Do you think you will be motivated enough to follow through?
This is working smartly.
So, the recipe for true motivation is:
Decide what you want in your life, get clarity on your ideal life, see it, and create a mental picture of what you would see, how you would feel, what you would hear; see yourself living your ideal life, as if your ideal life is already happening NOW, and decide to make the changes necessary to create that picture.
You can do it; in fact, you can create anything you truly want.
Self Improvement and Success
Everything that happens to us happens in purpose. And sometimes, one thing leads to another. Instead of locking yourself up in your cage of fears and crying over past heartaches, embarrassment and failures, treat them as your teachers and they will become your tools in both self-improvement and success.
So, when does self-improvement become synonymous with success? Some tips you need to know.
*Stop thinking and feeling as if you’re a failure because you’re not. How can others accept you if YOU can’t accept YOU?
*When you see models on TV, think more on self-improvement, not self-pitying. Self-acceptance is not just about having nice slender legs, or great abs. Concentrate on inner beauty.
*When people feel so down and low about themselves, help them move up. Don’t go down with them. They’ll pull you down further and both of you will end up feeling inferior.
*The world is a large room for lessons, not mistakes. Don’t feel stupid and doomed forever just because you failed on a science quiz. There’s always the next time. Make rooms for self-improvement.
*Take things one at a time. Self-improvement is a long-term process.
* Self-improvement results to inner stability, personality development and success. It comes from self-confidence and self-esteem.
* Set meaningful and achievable goals. Self-improvement doesn’t turn you to be the exact replica of a very successful actor or businessman. It hopes and aims to result in an improved and better YOU.
*Little things mean BIG to other people. Sometimes, we don’t realize that the little things that we do like a pat on the back, saying “hi” or “hello”, greeting someone “good day” or telling Mr. Smith something like “hey, I love your tie!” are simple things that mean so much to other people.
When we’re being appreciative about beautiful things around us and other people, we also become beautiful to them.
*When you’re willing to accept change and go through the process of self-improvement, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is. The world is a place where people of different values and attitude hang out.
Sometimes, even if you think you and your best friend always like to do the same thing together at the same time, he would most likely decline an invitation for self-improvement.
We should always remember that there’s no such thing as ‘overnight success’. Its always a wonderful feeling to hold on to the things that you already have now, realizing that those are just one of the things you once wished for. A very nice quote says that “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
We are all here to learn our lessons. Our parents, school teachers, friends, colleagues, neighbors… they are our teachers. When we open our doors for self-improvement, we increase our chances to become successful and happy.
The Reasons Why to Use A Call to Action for Better Results
There is a simple but extremely powerful way to pump up sales, get better quality leads, and practically eliminate advertising waste.
But what may surprise you is that very few business owners employ this simple but powerful “tool” in their advertising.
This tool is the call to action.
If you don’t ask, then you don’t get. Sounds reasonable, right? But very few business owners use this simple tactic to boost sales.
Why Use A Call To Action (CTA)?
First of all, it works. It’s a great way to move people down the sales funnel.
Second, it measures the effectiveness of your copywriting.
When you think about your “call to action” think about what objective you want the reader to do…
… sign up for a webinar, download some information, visit your store or call now.
Pretty simple, right?
If you’re stuck or just can’t find good ideas for your call to action, then start an advertising swipe file.
A swipe file is a collection of good ads that are producing good results. And how you’ll know that these are “good” ads is that you’ll see them running over and over again.
Savvy marketers do not like to spend money on advertising that is not producing. It’s all about a good ROI (return on investment). And only good direct response marketing gives you this opportunity.
Here are a few examples that produce results:
Register
Subscribe
Buy
Download
These are much better than the plain old ‘click here’ and be sure to tell your reader what benefits she/he getting, for example…
Download your free copy of our business survival guide
Subscribe to get your free reports
Register now to get in on this webinar
And so on.
Now let’s add some urgency to the mix.
We humans sometimes need a bit of pushing sometimes. Adding some sincere urgency to drive the funnel can be just what’s needed to get us moving.
Here are a few examples to get your creative juices flowing…
Offer expires
First 50 people only
Hurry, the price goes up at noon today
While supplies last
And very effective is ‘Immediate Download.’ It’s a great call to action because folks like downloads and they like immediacy. Bam. Here you got both.
Last, how to removing risk from your offer or call to action.
As you can imagine, risk removal or reversal is a powerful marketing tool.
How do we lower the risk?
Oftentimes doing business for the first time with a new company is a scary deal. After all, you know or trust this “new company.” And who hasn’t been burnt before? Heck, these days trust has flown out the window, right?
So why not start by truly focusing and empathizing with your prospect and clients. Put yourself in their shoes. Again, they do not know you and they don’t trust you. Make a point to earn their trust… and keep earning their trust.
Prove that you truly care by showing them you’ll shoulder the risk. Communicate this in all your marketing messages.
Here are a few examples…
“Start your no-obligation 30-day free trial”
“You have a no-hassle, no-questions-asked, 100% money back guarantee”
“Not Satisfied? No Problem! We’re double your money back immediately”
You get the idea.
Use these ideas to create a strong “call to action” in your next advertising pitch.
Local Business Advertising Tips
Small business advertising has changed dramatically in the past five years due to a number of factors. The first being the changes in technology allowing local businesses to target their market more effectively and the second being the downturn in the economy.
Technology has actually been a double edge sword in the marketing world. On one hand, DVR’s and TIVO’s give the consumer the power to filter out a for air commercials, on the other hand, if you are running commercials utilizing Google TV your spot can become more cost effective and have a lot larger audience.
Here are some tips on how you can save more money and be more effective with your local business advertising strategy.
Advertising Using Social Media
Many studies tell that the social networks are the most effective. Facebook continues to be the most popular with LinkedIn and Twitter not far behind.
Facebook Tips For Small Business
Facebook can be little confusing at first but like any learning curve, the more you press through the more you learn what to do. There are at least four areas that business owners can get very cheap local business marketing with Facebook.
Creating a profile, creating a like or fan page, creating a places page and utilizing the Facebook marketplace. Once a place or fan page has been created business owners can utilize Facebook’s vast database to target specific users based on demographic data that is entered at the time an ad is set up.
The more effective ways to utilize Facebook to market your product or service is to keep people on Facebook with your fan page and promote your product or service from within the site.
A good way to start your small business marketing with Facebook is to offer something of value like a video or free report in turn for others clicking the like button your page. This is a cheap way to build your list similar to building an email list.
Once you have the following sending out updates on discounted services or new products you are carrying becomes very effective. Facebook places can be used for local businesses similar to Google places being that it is a geographically targeted listing on Facebook.
Local listing sites.
The top local listing sites Google places, Yahoo local and Bing local are great cheap ways for small business exposure. Taking ownership and optimizing your local listing does a couple different things to increase your exposure and enhance your small business marketing strategy.
For local brick and mortar businesses that don’t have a web presence or a website, the places pages can be an inexpensive way to not only get exposure but also get listed on the search engine maps.
For businesses that do have websites and are working at SEO to get them listed on the top of a search result, having your local listing optimized will help with your SEO strategy as well.
Taking ownership and optimizing your business local listing will also allow your business to be found on mobile devices. Getting your business listed on mobile devices is the next critical task for your small business advertising.
Taking advantage of these cheap and effective resources can decrease your marketing budget sometimes by 50 percent or more while being more effective in helping you attract more customers as well as staying in contact with your current customers.
The next thing you should do is take action with these resources and implement your local marketing strategy.
Don’t forget. No Action, No Business. Also, if you want to succeed, Never Quit! Very Simple.
Content Marketing: Theory and Action
What is the Content Marketing
Content marketing is marketing anything by using the content. This type of digital marketing is all about creating videos, blog posts, images, infographics, webinars, podcast, and other forms of media that attracts people and builds a positive association with the brand.
Content marketing is a strategy that creating long-lasting relationships with your target market. On the other hand, content promotion is about the needs and thoughts of the customer.
Your blog posts, videos, articles, and images become the face of the business showing your authority and personality and building customer connection with your business.
After understanding the theoretical basis for content marketing, the next thing to do is to take a closer look at the action of this theory.
The implementation of the content strategy is a matter of searching, forming, and developing relationships with customers through different platforms. Marketing research reveals that customers spend about 60% of their time on this platform before they decide what to do.
Content is important in providing answers to their questions and concerns. Your content has to help and give solutions to your customers.
Blogging is an all-important tool for content promotions. About 80% of digital marketers who run a blog received bigger ROIs for their inbound marketing campaigns. Blogging covers the development and keeping track of visual and textual articles, created to deliver value to customers.
In addition, bloggers should also respond to comments on the blog as well as social media.
The top platforms are videos, articles, and webinars.
Content Marketing Strategy
As you are thinking about your content marketing strategy, you need to invest time in creating it. You will spend time on making it work and on keeping it fresh. It is also important to always have the big picture in your mind.
A content marketing strategy can take up a lot of your time and energy if you don’t go about it in the most efficient, more sensible way possible.
The first thing that you need to realize is that you don’t need to handle everything on your own. You can get support from other people who you trust. A good approach is to devote an hour at a time to develop your strategy.
That includes the work that you do yourself as well as the discussions that you have with other people who are working with you to develop that strategy.
Considering that there will probably be a lot of moving parts in your content marketing strategy, a checklist may help a lot. If you have a thorough checklist, you will probably not allow anything important to fall through the cracks. That is critical to your success.
Additionally, you should keep in mind that everything that you do should be written down. You will need to revisit whatever you write and it will make it easier for you down the road. After all, you want your strategy to not only exist but you also want it to be effective.
Your content strategy is critical but it doesn’t need to be painful.
Remember that the hour that you have designated will not be enough to create an effective content marketing strategy from start to finish. However, it will be enough to set the process in motion and to lay the foundation for what you will do later on.
Also, you need to come prepared when you first sit down to propose the strategy that you want to execute. Here are the steps you need to take.
Define the goals of your business:
You will need to state exactly how you hope your business will benefit from your strategy. Remember not to take too much time for this part of the discussion. It should be a simple statement
It is very important that you understand that your content is a tool. It’s a powerful tool that can really help your business to accomplish a great deal.
Know Details About Your Target Audience.
Not only do you need to identify your target audience but you need to know details about them. That means that you need to have information such as, where they live, what issues are they experiencing that you can help them to solve, how likely are they to become loyal customers to your business, etc.
Know Your Competition
It is important to embrace your competitors. You will not be doing your business (or you) and good by sitting in the dark and convincing yourself that you don’t have any competition. That is just plain naive and it is a sure way for your business to fail.
Create Effective Content
If you are a strong writer, you will have absolutely no problem with that. On the other hand, if you don’t feel confident about your writing, you need to find someone else who is very good at writing.
How to Use Your Content:
You don’t necessarily post content and that is the last time that you can do anything with it. It can be recycled (or repurposed) on many occasions. You just need to make sure that it is not time-sensitive. If you can do that, you will use your content many times
Set Up Success Points
You will need to set up success points as part of your strategy. The first one is watching how your traffic increases. Another point is generating a robust number of leads and sales.
The success points will help you to understand how effective is your strategy and how to create a better content marketing for your business.
4 Great Tips For New Entrepreneurs
Its a great time to be an entrepreneur. The technology has changed the playing field and propelled an entrepreneurial revolution. As an entrepreneur, you now have more access to information that enables you to make more intelligent choices more quickly. You have an advantage over big businesses in that youre lighter, more flexible, and faster. You can target new markets more quickly, and you can take action pretty fast!!
But being a successful entrepreneur requires that you look at the big picture and follow a plan through from beginning to end. There are 4 great tips to become a successful entrepreneur and can help you when beginning your own enterprise:
1.Dont Quit Your Day Job.
Consider starting your business part-time, especially if its online, while youre working and have a steady income. It usually takes six months to a year to get a business going and you dont want your ability to make your house payment to hinge upon your company being an overnight success. Start with what you can manage, financially and time-wise, and scale up as your business grows.
2.Find Your Niche.
The days of general stores are over. Particularly online, consumers are looking for stores that specialize. You have to find a product or service a specific group of people want. You cant compete with the big companies, so you have to find what the big guys have not and go into your niches.
3.Have an Online Presence.
Even if youre not planning to start an online retail business, consider that the internet can still play a valuable role in your company. Having an online presence eliminates the limitations of physical location and broadens your customer base by, literally, millions. Its also a great tool for promoting yourself and letting people, even in your own area, know that youre there, and what youre doing.
All the people searching online now for the products or services they want. So it’s important for your business to have online presence. You can’t survive if your business is out of internet.
4.Refuse to Quit.
Successful entrepreneurship requires creativity, energy, and a drive to keep going when you fail. Few people realize that before Bill Gates created the extremely successful Microsoft 3.0, he created a Microsoft 1.0 and 2.0, both of which flopped but he kept at it. And that determination and refusal to give up is what will separate successful entrepreneurs from unsuccessful ones. Arm yourself with optimism to get beyond the No or the trouble. Theres nothing wrong in failure just dont repeat the same mistake!
Take action now and never quit or give up. It’s the only way to become a sucessful entrepreneur..