The Art of Follow-up in the Science of Visibility

Some would say that internet visibility, ala web page content and SEO tools, is a science. I would tend to agree.  You can certainly measure page hits, calculate analytics, and derive "scores" for what tactics are most effective. But what about the end goal -- connecting with people?

Recently, a follow-up e-mail came from a sponsor of an event that I attended. It took a few days for it to cycle through their internal process. I'm sure someone entered all of the contact info into a database. Perhaps someone else formatted the e-mail message in their template. It's also likely that the originator approved the final version before it was sent. This was from the largest law firm in town, ergo they have deeper pockets that many companies. The nature of what they do also lends itself toward a certain attentiveness to minutia. 

Those details aside, when all is said and done, this guy did his follow-up in an impressive way. He thanked us for attending. A link to his PowerPoint presentation was included, along with links to related materials on the company site. Spammer-resistant contact information was there, as well. These folks were thorough! If there is any chance of our engaging his firm in the future, he moved at least a little closer to top of mind. 

How solid is your follow-up strategy? Are you building your visibility by remembering the simple things, such as follow-up? Make sure you cover this area. You can be sure that your competition will be. 

A word of advice:

Get to your follow-up quickly. The snail at the end of the line becomes a meal for creatures higher -- and faster -- in the food chain.

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This is what we can do for your business - Help you to get and use the best tools for:

1. Building and maintaining Internet Visibility for your business.
2. Channeling that visibility into Online Business revenues.
3. Measuring and Managing Results from being visible and online.

Are any of these familiar?

• Your website isn't bringing business to your door...
• Your e-marketing is expensive and cumbersome...
• You can't measure your results effectively...

Click this link to  Contact us now about solutions for those problems.

© 2010 DMMI Associates LLC – All rights reserved

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Manage Your Money Monday - Niche Focused Marketing Can Improve Visibility

Are you focused on a Niche Market?

...or are you aiming for whatever can bring revenues in the door? 

Consider an archer, with a quiver full of arrows. In a field filled with targets, will that archer pull out a bevvy of arrows, load them into the bow, and launch them... HOPING to reach one or more of the targets? 
Probably not and neither should you!

A few weeks ago, a blog entry was published on how your Business Model affects your top line. Answering those 5 W's will help you to define a niche. Once you do define your niche, however, it's usually in the best interest of your company to stick to it.  

A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product or service offering is focused.

Wikipedia

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A key reason to stick to your niche -- it makes it much simpler to market your product or service. This is especially true when it comes to the Who your target market is: the demographics. 
Have you ever been to a networking event and listened to various people introduce themselves? The format is often a 30-second or 1-minute Elevator Speech or Elevator Pitch. 

• The ones that make you sit up and take notice are which ones? 
• The person who starts with "I'm looking for anybody who..."  -or-  "My company helps very small businesses, owned by women who..." 
• The guy who says "We can help you get more customers."  -or  "If you've been thinking about finding time-saving ways for more potential customers to get to know you, we can help you with that."

Those are just a couple of examples. But, here's another question for you: 

How narrow can you make your market niche? 

The better you can define exactly what you're selling, the more likely it is that you will find your target market quickly. This is especially true of services providers -- the folks that sell intangibles. They must know what prospects' problems look like and what the symptoms are of an unsolved problem. That helps them to tell good stories and paint mental pictures for their prospects of them solving THEIR problems similarly.

A narrower niche may help you to hit your target more consistently, with a corresponding increase in revenues. You will likely find yourself spending less time, and marketing dollars, to get more customers with just a little more focus. Try it. Let us know how it works for you. 

Comments are welcome. Tell us what you think.
If you need help being more visible to your target market, click here and we can get started on solutions targeted for you!

© 2010 DMMI Associates LLC – All rights reserved

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Manage Your Money Monday - Visibility on the Level Playing Field Called Internet

Last week, we looked at your need for a viable business model - the road map for the journey to managing your money well. This entry for Manage Your Money Mondays focuses on how a strong visibility arsenal can help both the top and bottom lines of your income statement. 

Promoting your business is a basic requirement for its survival. How you promote it spells the difference between surviving and growing faster than your competition. More and better visibility content and visibility venues can give your company an edge. 

You must have an edge. What's yours?

"Whether you call it a commercial, elevator pitch, or 60 second presentation ... it's a must. If you have a product or service to sell, you must let others know who you are and what you offer."

Victoria Trafton, owner of Referral Institute of Central Arizona

I have referred to the internet as the great "playing field leveler" in other posts and presentations. This is borne out almost daily with an seemingly endless stream of web-based tools that can give smaller businesses their competitive edge. They are ever more flexible, often customizable, and most importantly AFFORDABLE.  
The service used to deploy the video below is an ideal example of an edge builder.





Disclosure: I was so impressed with the capabilities of this service that my company is now an affiliate. What do you think? Could this be the edge you need? 


However you decide to invest your marketing dollars, just make sure you get the best available set of benefits. Find tools with features that you will use to generate revenues or minimize costs.



If this thinkVISIBILITY service may help you to build your business, click here to sign up for a free trial.
Comments are welcome. Tell us what you think.

© 2010 DMMI Associates LLC – All rights reserved

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How Visible Is Your Business?

Is your business as visible as it should be?

"The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow."

Bill Gates

Can the global village of today find your business on the internet? For just a while longer, search engines still "like" businesses with multiple pages on the Web. Can your potential clients locate you? Or, are you web-invisible?

We have almost come to a point where even a small business will need an e-Community Manager or a Social Media Specialist and an internet guru on staff. Creating the content for blog pages, web pages, social networking sites and more is a time consuming process. Yet, all of those marketing tactics are becoming less of a luxury and more of a requirement. Your business must be visible in multiple web venues to truly leverage the power of the internet. Without that visibility, a competitor is sure to usurp a lot of web-initiated revenue dollars that could otherwise have been yours. What's a savvy business owner to do?

The rise in popularity of social media sites such as FaceBook, LinkedIn, and twitter -- along with many others -- helps connect people worldwide who have never met in person. Could some of those people be future clients? Have you made it simple for them to get to know not only you, but also: Your Company?



Bill Gates also said this "I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act."

So, you may act on the information in this post, if you choose to do so. One solution for increasing visibility is adding richer content to your company's web or blog pages. One way to add richer content is though a Webmercial. It just so happens that thinkVAULT produces affordable, high-quality, branded informational videos that you can use to increase your visibility on the internet.
Here's an example:

thinkVAULT Webmercial Demo and Promo

How can we help you to kick your Web Presence up a notch?

• Produce a Webmercial for you?
• Set up a blog site to house your Webmercials?
• Suggest a complete Web Business Solution for you?
  

If all you need is a single Webmercial, you can place your order to start the process below. We will contact you by e-mail and/or phone to get all the necessary details.
Your custom, branded Webmercial will be ready for you within just a few days.
** Some restrictions do apply.

Order your Webmercial

Select Length - Music Combination

Basic One (1) Minute, No Music $179.95 Basic One (1) Minute, with Music $199.95 Basic Two (2) Minutes, with Music $299.95 Multi-media Two (2) Minutes, with Music $349.95 Multimedia Three(3) Minutes, with music $449.95 Multimedia 4 or 5 Minutes, with music $499.95

Describe your message purpose:

Will you provide logo art?

Remember:
The internet is a marketing tool that never sleeps. Could you better utilize it to vault your business to the next level?
If a Webmercial can help you, be sure to place your order today!

E-mail us with your questions, or leave Comments below, about how to reach your business goals.

© 2010 DMMI Associates LLC – All rights reserved

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Starting Up Your Micro-Business.

Five Critical Factors for a Micro-Business Start-up.

If you are among the 25 million plus people that will be running a micro-business by the end of 2009 [Ref. SmallBizTrends.com] this entry is for you. Some will fold this year, but many more will start up. Here are a few tips for staying among the "thrivers" in the bunch.

1. Cash is the lifeblood of your business; therefore: 
• Know what the payback or return will be for planned expenditures.
  Base this on your own evaluations, not what the sales rep tells you. 
  
• If you have a paying job, keep it as long as possible. You may be sleep deprived, but your bank account and your household will suffer less. That being said,...
  
2. Get the highest quality (not most expensive) tools and equipment of your trade, that you can afford. 
• Good business cards. See this checklist. 
• A laptop computer, with wireless LAN, webcam, a big hard drive, and lots of RAM. 
• Make a "must have" and a "like to have" list of other items. 
• Avoid debt and credit card purchases. Use them prudently, if at all.
  
3. Lease what makes economic sense, to conserve cash and yield tax advantages. 
4. Invest in your web presence. The internet is the next great business growth frontier.
   
• Choose a logical domain name. Don't pay more than $15 for one year to register it. Avoid the super-cheap services; there are hidden, costly inconveniences. 
  
• Put up a website. It does not have to be fancy, but it must meet your business development needs. 
• Avoid using your kids, best friend, or neighbors' kids for this purpose. Use professionals or a user-friendly service.
  IMG Online Business, one of our technology partners, has excellent packages. You may try it from the link above. 
• Set up business-specific e-mail.
• If hosting stretches your budget too far, at first, use forwarding from your parked site's registrar. 
• Get set up to use e-mail software, such as Outlook, so you can send professional looking messages, A.S.A.P.. 
5. Learn your market quickly and sell, sell, sell. 
• Customers will not auto-magically appear. 
• If you cannot sell your product or service, get someone who can. 
• Sales skills will not guarantee success, but the business cannot grow without someone who has, and uses, them.
  

DMMI Associates believes in bringing world-class solutions and resources to you.  


E-mail us for help with any topics mentioned above.  

© 2009 DMMI Associates LLC – All rights reserved

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