13 Marketing Mistakes Business Owners Make Online and Offline
This article started out as “How To Increase Your Facebook Fan List” but I erased it because the article became too long. I decided to focus on the “Why” instead and tie in the “How” later.
Here are some very powerful reasons why a Facebook Fan Page is your friend:
1. It’s free advertising to a list of very targeted, very interested people
2. It’s better than email. On average, less than 20% of emails are opened even when they’ve opted-in to your email list. Your fans see your message when they look at Facebook
3. It’s easy for people to share what they “LIKE” on Facebook, comment on it and tell their Facebook friends. Most people have hundreds of Facebook friends. Some have thousands. Give them something to talk about and share and your audience and business can skyrocket.
Instead of going through a the long list of “How” to increase your Facebook Fan list, I decided to give you better advice: go to Youtube and search the term. There are dozens of video tutorials on the subject which are more thorough and easy to absorb through video.
There are tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people you can reach for little or no cost through the power of the internet & social media. You CAN learn the stuff and engage in it and grow your business.
Don’t go to the gold mine with a pocket knife. At least bring a shovel. Put out some effort. Apply yourself. The opportunities have never been so great to take advantage of technology.
Good Marketing.
Andrew (Modern Maze) Mazer
Founder of Affordable Online Marketing Systems
Creator of moderncoupon.com
CraigsList is an incredible FREE resource you can and SHOULD use as part of your small business marketing arsenal.
Thousands of people in your area refer to craiglist.org every day. There’s probably not a whole lot of people on Craigslist actually looking for a business like yours but fortunately, that’s not important. The important thing is that you have a listing with a good headline so when people are browsing around for OTHER stuff; they notice your headline and click on your post. Not unlike most other advertising.
Here’s what you do: Go to www.craigslist.org. Choose the geographical location where your business is located and review the index. Most likely, you’ll be interested in posting an ad under the “Services” category and in the “Small Biz Ads” subcategory. So go and review some of the ads already there.
If you’re unfamiliar with Craigslist, notice the brand new postings are at the top and the previous days’ postings drop down. There are about 100 listings per page and postings stay up for a whole month. Create a CraigList account. It’s free. Now click “post to classifieds”. It’s very self-explanatory so I won’t get into every minute detail.
Your headline is important. You want to grab attention with it because again, people probably aren’t there searching for what you’re selling. Then you describe your location or service area. You can name more than just your specific town. You can also name adjoining towns or otherwise describe the region you serve. Moving on to the body copy of your message-Now just tell prospective visitors your offer.
For example:
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SPECIAL FOR CRAIGSLIST USERS
FREE 2-litre COKE WITH A LARGE PIZZA
Go to (your moderncoupon.com website address), click a coupon and write “CRAIGSLIST” to receive the FREE COKE!
Big Deal Pizza
123 Main St Yourtown,
NY 555-555-5555
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A CraigList ad will expire in 30 days. It’s a good idea to write and save your ad on a WORD or some other document so you can just copy and paste it again once a month. You can keep ads going up every day if you change the headline and alter the message slightly. If you have identical ads, the CraigsList system will zap them.
A CraigList post is easy to do, it’s quick and it’s FREE. It may not set your world on fire but being “out there” in as many places as possible increases your chances of getting discovered. So put a CraigList post on your monthly to-do list and see what happens.
Check out our recent post to promote moderncoupon.com. http://southjersey.craigslist.org/biz/2201176342.html The format you see here is an advanced use of the CraigsList. It’s actually an image which is a clickable link to the moderncoupon sign-up page. We can help you create a CraigList post using this advanced technique for a very small fee. Please inquire.
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Andrew Mazer (Maze) is the owner of Affordable Online Marketing Systems and creator of moderncoupon.com. Maze delivers a 21st Century-Style Small Business Marketing System for about the price of a cup of coffee a day. Reach Maze at maze@moderncoupon.com
Many small business owners make their decision to advertise the day a sales rep walks through the door. Without a clear objective, the odds of a successful ad campaign are against you.
Advertising your business shouldn’t be looked upon as a “necessary evil”. Quite the opposite. It should be a quest for the magical formula that pulls in more value than the expenditure time after time.
Finding the right ad in the right media which turns your cost of advertising into a repeatable and continual income stream is the approach you want to take. Testing different messages and different media will help point you in the direction to getting the biggest bang for your buck.
One thing is for sure-you MUST be using a direct-response advertising style in order to quantify your results.
A small business marketing package with www.moderncoupon.com comes with a complimentary print-ad consultation.
Have Fun!
Andrew (ModernMaze) Mazer
creator of www.moderncoupon.com