Most business owners hate the entire marketing process. I find marketing to be an energizing exercise to showcase my creativity, however, and enjoy it -- when I do it. However, I fall into the same trap as millions of other small business owners -- I'm so busy with clients (my profit-generating days) that I often push aside my marketing (my business development days). So, to aid me in my marketing efforts, I try and "get the most bang for the buck" out of what I actually end up doing -- and try to do that with a minimal amount of effort. These are 10 tools that I use in my marketing efforts that help me turbocharge my marketing: 1. Assessment Generator: Like to create an interactive survey or assessment that will help your visitor learn something about his/her life or business? With Assessment Generator, you can create online assessments that you can post to your website to increase your traffic and attract more clients. http://www.profcs.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=256129&u=www.assessmentgenerator.com 2. AudioAcrobat: AudioAcrobat makes audio streaming fast and simple, whether you want to add an audio greeting or audio testimonials to your website or send out an audio postcard or record a teleclass. http://dgunter.audioacrobat.com/ 3. Ezine Director: Ezine Director is a great service for creating, mailing and reporting back on the success of your newsletter. I love to be able to see how many readers opened my newsletter, who opened the newsletter, and what links they clicked on from the newsletters. EzineDirector offers the service free of charge if you send out less than 249 emails per month. http://www.ezinedirector.com?affiliate_id=250924 4. FreeAudioConferencing.com: Ever need to meet with colleagues, associates or even family members at a distance but don't want to do it face-to-face? A teleconference bridge line can bring up to 100 people together at one place over a teleconference phone line. You can also conduct classes and training this way. And best of all, it's free! www.freeaudioconferencing.com 5. Google News Alerts - Need a quick way to find out who's talking about you online? Want to know on what sites your content might end up? Need to discover what your competitors are up to? Google Alerts let you type in an unlimited number of search terms, like your name, your company name, your industry, the name of your competitors, etc. Google will then deliver an email alert for any mention of your search term online. This is a wonderful way to track your own PR as well as industry trends. http://www.google.com/alerts 6. Kickstart Cart: Kickstart Cart is easy to use and setup, and offers the ability to create affiliate programs, follow up with prospective and current customers with autoresponders, create coupons for limited-time offers, as well as enable buyers to immediately download electronic purchases (ebooks, audio files). There is a free 30-day trial, but don't sign up until you have the time to test drive it--30 days goes by fast! http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/?pr=31&id=59401 7. Press Release Distribution Services: A well-written press release about a new development in your company can earn you great amounts of free publicity, at little or no cost! I use the services that distribute the releases at no cost, and several of them offer a low-cost upgrade ($10-$30) to expand the reach of your release. To see the listing of the free services that I use, visit http://www.onlinebizcoachingcompany.com/resources.htm 8. Submit Your Article: If you've ever tried to manually submit your articles to article directories, you'll find it to be a time-consuming task. SubmitYourArticle.com automates this process by allowing you to submit up to four articles each month and then distributes the articles to hundreds of web sites, article directories and ezine publishers. I've just started using this service, and I'm already seeing results! http://www.submityourarticle.com 9. SalesLetter Generator: Need to create a quick one page website for a special program or product you're offering? I often need to do this, but need a bit of help in writing the content. Salesletter Generator asks you a series of questions about what you're offering, and when you've answered the questions, generates a one page sales letter in HTML that you can post immediately! It saves me lots of time and energy--much easier than trying to determine how to write this on my own! http://www.ebookgenerator.com/cmd.php?Clk=1227194 10. Typepad: I've tried out several blogging software services, and Typepad is the one that I found to be both simple to use and powerful. You can set up as many blogs as you desire with a Pro account, and you can customize your blog in an infinite number of ways. You can also password-protect your blog and use it as a client-only portal to share info and files with your client base. http://www.typepad.com Marketing can be a chore, or it can be a creative process that ignites your business. See how these tools can help you turbocharge your marketing plan! Copyright 2005 Donna Gunter |
