Tag Archives: social media

3 Traditional Marketing Techniques That Still Make Sense Today

July 9, 2015 GDI Corporate Leave a comment

The best tactics for marketing a product or business seem to change everyday thanks to the internet and our constantly connected world. It can be overwhelming trying to keep up to date on all the new marketing trends and platforms you should be using. Though daunting, it is wise to stay up to date on marketing trends, but you can relax knowing that some long-used marketing tactics are still powerful and necessary today as ever. Read on for a few traditional marketing techniques that are still effective in our increasingly digital world.

Networking Events

Believe it or not, there are still some people who are successful in their business but aren’t on Facebook. Maybe they have a social media presence, but it’s run by someone else. The point is, some successful business people aren’t online as often as you, and that means if you do all of your marketing and network building online you’re missing them. Even if you connect with some people online, nothing can replace the power of building a relationship face to face.

Networking events are great for two reasons: you can build strong relationships in person and you can connect with people you may have never found online. Where can you find networking events? Check with your Chamber of Commerce to find out about networking events in your hometown, or search sites like Meetup.com or Eventbrite.com to find these kind of events near you. Conferences are also a great way to network. Conferences often feature talks during the day and networking opportunities during lunch or cocktail hour. Search for a conference related to your industry to learn new things and connect with new people. After you’ve done all this, how do you ensure you’ve built a solid connection with someone and they can reach out again? Business cards.

Business Cards

Business cards are not outdated, despite the best efforts on online resume and networking sites like LinkedIn. Though you can connect online easily with your smartphone, it’s still easier and more tangible to have and handout business cards. Have cards on you at all times, networking events are important, but you never know when you might strike up a conversation with a potential customer and team member at the mechanic or salon. Share your business cards to keep these connections.

Going for Coffee

Don’t worry if you don’t drink coffee. Going for coffee with a potential customer is just a great chance to connect and share ideas and see how you can help them. If you’re trying to seal the deal with someone in your area, consider taking them out for coffee instead of following up on the phone. Conversely, this is a great first step in marketing and networking. Reach out to someone you’d like to learn more from or have join your team and ask if you can take them out for coffee. Few people will turn down a free cappuccino and now you have a great chance to build a new business relationship.

Word of Mouth

Sites like Yelp, Google+ and Foursquare offer the digital equivalent of the most powerful form of marketing there is: Word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing is when someone recommends their favorite business with nothing to gain from it. You then consider this business because you trust that friend. That’s why it’s so powerful; you already have a relationship with the friend who frequents a business so now you’re one step closer to choosing that business. But how do you build word of mouth marketing? Providing excellent service is one way. Many customers will share your business if they’re happy. Offering incentives like referral discounts for new customers can also help. Lastly, if you’re customers express to you that they’re happy, ask them to share the positive sentiment with their friends. You never know what you can get just by asking.

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Marketing

Choosing the Right Content to Market Your Opportunity

April 30, 2015 GDI Corporate Leave a comment

We talk often about content marketing on this blog. As a quick refresher, content marketing is the practice of using content (blogs, video, lists) to market your business and get others interested. As there are many different content options, its easy to get overwhelmed with what to create for your website to attract and audience and build income. Below we break down different types of content and who this content is likely to attract. This will prove to be a handy guide when you’re at a loss for what to share on your website next.

Type: Case Study

A case study is an in depth look at a certain topic. One example of this would be your company’s success over a few months of trying a new approach to marketing or the results of a mailing campaign a pizza company did. This is a way to examine what creates (or doesn’t create) success with certain tactics while giving others ideas to do the same.

Potential Audience: People who are interested in bettering their own business and have some experience. Case studies are not usually for beginners as they are more in depth.

Type: Personal Update

A personal update is just what it sounds like–you checking in with your audience/ team. This can be you talking about recent successes, new business ideas or what you’ve got planned for the next few months. This lets your audience see the human side of you while getting ideas for what to do next.

Potential Audience: Anyone. Personal updates have a low barrier to entry, they should be written in a conversational tone and give visitors a peek into the inner workings of your business and some of your ideas.

Type: Industry News

This is sharing news relevant to your industry. This could be sharing affiliate marketing news and trends or news related to your business category. This is easy content to create and it can be a series of links or selected quotes from the news (with links to the original news site) with your comments.

Potential Audience: Other people in your same industry. This kind of content will appeal to people who already have an understanding of your business.

Type: Advice

This content isn’t too different from the personal update. This is a chance to respond to questions you have received in a larger format and offer your unique experience and expertise.

Potential Audience: Your current downline and team members. Often this advice is specific to people working in affiliate marketing or your business. Affiliates and those in the same business category will benefit most from this specific advice.

Type: How-To

This content can range from the simple, “How to sign up with GDI” to the more advanced “How to add a widget to your website.” This content can be shared in text or video.

Potential Audience: You stand to gain a broad audience with how-to content. You can attract people with a range of skills and interests. Use this content to help build your downline and also create an educated team.

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Marketing

7 Marketing Myths

March 19, 2015 GDI Corporate Leave a comment

As a GDI affiliate, you are a member of the affiliate marketing world. This means that marketing is often the key to your success as an affiliate. However, marketing, much like sales and advertising can get a bad rap for being pushy or annoying. While marketing can be seen as unfriendly sometimes, the work that goes into marketing is anything but. As you build relationships, that’s marketing. When you share news with others interested in GDI, that’s marketing. When you teach others about GDI’s tools and plugins, that’s marketing. Marketing doesn’t have to be overwhelming to you or to others. Read our list of marketing myths and get comfortable with earning income in the world of marketing!

Expensive

Many people think the only way to market is to pay for ads or to sign up for expensive email services. While those methods can be productive, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to be a successful marketer. Sites like Facebook and Twitter allow you to broadcast your marketing messages to many people at once for free, whether you’re promoting GDI or your own business. Creating videos and emails cost nothing more than your time. This is all marketing and it’s all free.

Time Consuming

Marketing does not have to be time consuming. Lots of marketing of GDI can actually be passive–meaning you don’t have to constantly work at it to see results. This kind of passive marketing can be in the form of helpful videos or informative blog posts. This content will live on your .WS website and can attract visitors without you spending hours promoting the content. Simply use the right keywords to drive traffic and link to your content on social media sites and visitors will see your videos and website without you doing extra work.

Confusing

As you can see from the examples above, marketing doesn’t have to be confusing. You don’t need to worry about audience reach and retention or email timing or anything professional marketing firms worry about. You just need to create great content that is valuable to others. Add the right keywords and share in many places and you’re already doing powerful content marketing.

Need to Pay for Ad Space

Before social networks and easy to build websites, this was true. The only way to get your content in front of people was to pay for it. Now that’s not true. Find out where people are spending most of their time online. Is it Facebook? YouTube? Tumblr? Take advantage of these free networks and promote your content on them. You’re essentially sharing an “ad” for your business, but your visitors actually get something out of the “ad” (like learning how to use a plugin) and you didn’t have to pay for people to see it.

Need a Whole Team

GDI offers many opportunities to work with a team and succeed with others. However, you only need one person to start marketing. Identify your strengths, like web design or video editing, for example, and start creating content that uses those strengths. The information you share about web design or the videos you create are both content marketing and can be done by just one person.

Need to be Everywhere

Marketing is all about being where your intended audience is. So before you decide how you are going to market, find out where potential prospects and customers are. Are these people in your town or business community? Consider flyers or attending local meetings. Are these people online? Use social networking and websites to connect with them. There is no need to be any place that your intended audience isn’t.

Anyone Can Do It

This is a partial myth. Many people will attempt affiliate marketing, but some will fail. Often this is the result of not putting enough time into marketing or cutting corners. If you produce quality content to market with and work on building relationships success is sure to follow.