One of the advantages of the Internet is that anyone can be successful. Yep, that's right. Anyone. But some of us need more help than others.That's why it's a good thing there are people like Nicole Dean who have a passion for helping busy marketers, specifically infoproduct sellers, so they can make more profit and have more life. She works with other small business owners who have written an ebook or who sell audios or videos online. Her focus is on teaching them how to use viral marketing to grow their business, how to set up an affiliate program to take advantage of the huge "virtual workforce" online, how to convert more leads into customers, ways to use outsourcing to grow and maintain your business and how to build an email list the "lazy" way.
Nicole has been in business since 2005 and loves every moment of it. Her business has transitioned over time and she's enjoyed the ride from her "then" business to her "now" business.
One of the things you might find surprising about Nicole is that she markets her business by offering free quality content. The trick is that most of the free content she offers is published on web sites other than her own -- she takes advantage of opportunities like this one to get the word out. Her goal is to do at least three interviews each week or more on informative sites like this one or on BlogTalkRadio.com
Here are some additional tactics Nicole uses to distribute her free content so she can be "found" and grow her business exponentially:
Videos: She has a channel on YouTube www.youtube.com/user/NicoleOntheNet to showcase her expertise.
Blog World Tour: Last year she traveled around the internet and provided guest posts on popular blogs in her niche which gained her a huge amount of exposure and credibility.
Online Business Success Podcast: By conducting information rich interviews with other successful small business owners, Nicole stays front and center for her target audience. Here podcast is listed on iTunes in addition to being available on her site.
The objective behind each of these tactics is to reach her target audience, get them to know, like, and trust her, and hopefully become fans. (Remember, people do business with people, not companies. This is a great strategy!)
To increase sales, Nicole places most of her focus on marketing. She says when coaching clients come to her, their focus is on 100% product creation -- and that's the wrong place. When she explains they should be focusing 90% of their efforts on marketing -- they get that light bulb moment. The key, she says, is doing a good bit of marketing every single day. (Look to the list above for ideas.)
What does Nicole recommend you do to help your business be successful during an economic downturn? For one thing, she thinks you have a huge opportunity. Right now, businesses are scaling back on marketing. So, ramp yours up. Whether you're doing free and cheap marketing tactics like article marketing - or even if you're spending money and are buying advertising -- you're going to be well ahead of the game once your competition starts marketing heavily again.
So there you have it. Don't try to climb the mountain in a single leap. Take a few steps every day and you'll soon reach the top.
