Marketing a Business Online

The purpose for marketing a business is to let people know you are in business. Your most wanted response from your marketing efforts is lots and lots of targeted leads.

So let's take a look at the ways to generate leads:

Funded Proposal is a great way to not only generate high-quality leads, but it funds your marketing efforts at the same time. This is my most favorite, most effective, most inexpensive way to market my business. Marketing a business with a funded proposal is brilliant.

Co-ops are group efforts. A group of marketers get together to pay for an ad, then you are put in rotation for leads. You are able to generate targeted leads, and they are mostly exclusive. These can cost a lot of money, depending on how many marketers are pitching in. I wouldn't recommend starting with this method, but it's a good one to do when you have it in your budget.

Social Networking is a fun and free way to let people know you are in business. Building relationships with others, and letting people know what you are doing through updating your status are just some of the ways of marketing a business through these sites. Your business-in-a-box, the Lighthouse Marketing System has great training on how to market on these sites and make money.

Website Content is a fantastic way to generate your own leads. Having a site with keyword-specific pages and good content is one piece of the lead-generating, monetizing formula. This method is another one of my favorites because it's fun, effective and inexpensive. But it was only fun because I used SBI! to build it. I could not imagine what it would have been like building without it. SBI! eliminates all the tedious complexities so you can focus on content. So, I would only recommend to do a content website if you utilize SBI! to build it. You don't have time for tedious, do you?

Writing articles and submitting them to sites such as ezinearticles.com, is an awesome way to brand yourself as an expert in the industry. The only cost is the time to write it and it is time well spent. It doesn't have to be long at all. Again, people really value good, helpful content. You will add a link from the article to your website (SBI! Site :-)) and, voila! Traffic!

Purchasing Leads is great, if you know what you are doing, and if it's in your budget. I have bought thousands of leads, and wasted lots of money doing it. There are tons of lead sources out there and it's hard to know which ones to trust. Lead sources make money selling leads, so if they can sell one lead to 10 or 20 people, they will. And the more exclusive, the more expensive. It's a buyer beware situation. I do buy leads on occasion, and I only buy from two places (I bet you can guess what one of them is): Tim Sales and through (tah-dah!) the Lighthouse Marketing System. The LMS partnered with EmpowerLeads, and it is integrated within the system, which makes it convenient and organized. By the way, Tim Sales offers an amazing training CD called Professional Inviter. My team follows it like the Holy Grail and it's powerful. I highly recommend studying it before you spend any more of your hard-earned money on one more lead.

Submitting your website to directories is not only a terrific way to generate traffic to your website, it also builds credibility for your site. Editors actually evaluate each site submitted and either approves or rejects sites based on the content and opinion. There are lots of directories in a variety of price ranges to choose from.

Pay-Per-Click is a method of marketing a business where by you pay a search engine every time someone clicks on your link for your site. This can be very effective, but it takes a bit of skill. This short ad of less than 75 characters needs to call people to click. Then your landing page needs to also be enticing enough for them to ultimately buy what you are selling. Otherwise, you will pay for a lot of clicks. This method is not for the beginner internet marketer. But when you develop your skill of writing, watch out! This turns out to be a great source of income.

I recommend reading, "The Ultimate Sales Letter" by Dan S. Kennedy to learn sales copy. This book is worth it's weight in gold!

Word of Mouth. For marketing a business, it's always the best way to advertise because it's free. But, unless you are Oprah, it's limited. For global enterprises such as what we have, incorporating other methods will generate more leads faster. Keep workin' it, though. Just mix it with other methods.

Direct Mail. This is very expensive and the return on investment is low. I tried direct mail once and got burned more than I want to remember. This is a tough method. There are other methods that are no where near as expensive that reap greater results.

For me, the greatest two main tools I utilize for my marketing efforts are the LMS and SBI!. As I read and listened to all the training modules within each system (both modules are so easy to follow), it opened up other sources of marketing and income.

If you haven't already, reading The Renegade Network Marketer is a wealth of information. Ann Sieg certainly mastered the art of marketing a business.

Which ever method(s) you decide to use, make sure to stay within your marketing budget. As I mentioned before, one of the biggest reasons people fail at network marketing is exceeding their marketing budget. Your marketing budget can be calculated by taking a percentage of your income. For example, I take 20% of my commission check and put it towards my marketing budget.

Marketing a business is a lot fun. I love how creative one can be with it. Research your options, figure out the return on investment, and plan accordingly. If you have any questions, or you want to do a little brainstorming, feel free to contact me. I absolutely love to brainstorm!

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