Blah, Blah, Blog

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It’s so great to get a lot of wonderful feedback from the teleseminar I hosted Monday. It helped that I had a great audience who was energetic and had some awesome questions!

Just one of the emails I’ve gotten since then:

Hi Carrie,

I wanted to thank you for the wonderful call.  I was thoroughly impressed. You had a lot of great resources and tips to give.  You handled yourself wonderfully on the on spot questions and the answers you pulled out of your hat.  Great Job!!

I look forward to attending another call.
Regina Smola
www.yourvirtualtypist.com

If you need some help formulating a traffic plan, contact me about one-on-one coaching.

We can discuss:

• Getting more out of blogging (one of my favorite topics!)
• Brainstorming publicity ideas
• Highlighting your expertise
• Enjoying more search engine traffic

Email me and we can discuss a plan.

P.S. If you love learning from teleseminars as much as I do, have you seen what the ladies at Spark Plug U have up their sleeves?

If you are looking for some awesome content for your website, Tiffany and I have just wrapped up another natural product reviews pack for your liking.

It includes reviews of the following products:

* BabyLegs (this term gets over 15,000 searches a month according to Google’s keyword research tool!)

* Crayon Rocks

* gDiapers (approx. 9,000 searches a month!)

* Melissa and Doug Chore Charts

* Natursutten Natural Pacifiers

* Preserve Recycled Razor (approx. 400 searches)

* Preserve Recycled Toothbrush

* J. R. Liggett’s Shampoo Bar

* Vegetarian Times (18,000 searches!)

* Video Games & Your Kids Book

 Most of these reviews can be monetized with Amazon.com affiliate links. Go grab your pack and start earning more - and giving your visitors more value - with these reviews.

One thing that so many online marketers do is put off launching their first product. I’ll admit, it is a little scary and intimidating to put the virtual “open” sign up on your sales page. 

I know I’ve been guilty of this, and it mostly shows up as me giving away a lot of free reports and ebooks that I could easily charge for. It’s the “not good enough” fear showing up.

But - I’m getting over it quickly - and these days I’m anxious about getting more products completed and can hardly wait to launch them! So, you’ll get over that fear too eventually, trust me.

One way to get over it even faster is to build some accountability into the picture. Kelly McCausey is offering a Product Launch Coaching Pack that looks like it would rock your world if any of the following apply to you:

• You have an info product sitting on your desktop. Just sitting there. Gathering virtual dust.
• You have launched your product but it was more like a whisper not a shout.
• You launched your product but aren’t making any sales.

Kelly rocks as a coach and I’ve credited her for helping me many times in my business, so I’m thrilled to recommend her here.

Check out what kind of intensive, get out of your comfy zone product launch booty kicking she’s offering.

Again, the link: Product Launch Coaching Pack

You won’t be sorry!

 (p.s. if you’re on my newsletter, you might have noticed I sent you the wrong link for the free teleseminars today. The correct one is here.)

I already mentioned my Free Marketing Your Website Online Teleseminar scheduled for Monday, July 21.

Also happening that week is a Free Starting an Affiliate Commotion Webinar hosted by Angela Wills. Angela specializes in helping internet marketers get better results from their affiliate programs. I will be on this one because I’m always looking for more ways to improve my affiliate program.

Ok I lied. Here’s one more free thing, but it doesn’t require a telephone. It’s a free report with 15 tips and ideas to help you generate publicity and buzz for your business. You can download it here:

 15 Buzz Tips

Enjoy

I thought this article on asking your target market questions was fantastic, so I’m publishing it here.
Check out the Easy Site Builder recommendation at the end too. I have a site that I built using that tool and it’s very easy to set up surveys and polls and such… I actually use that feature all the time!

Who Are You Really Selling To? Must-Have Target Market Tips

If you don’t know the type of customer you are selling to with your online business, the chances of success are very slim. How can you sell to someone you don’t know or understand?

Unfortunately, that’s pretty darned difficult until you have determined who your target market is and what they want and need from you. So, how do you find out what type of person readily buys your products or services? Keep reading for tips to aid in growing your online business by getting to know your target customer.

Talk to Your Current Customers

The first thing you can do, if you already have paying customers, is find out what they really are all about. Determine what they want and need from you. There are many ways to do this. A few of which include:

• q Creating surveys and asking for their thoughts and opinions on your product or service after they make a purchase.
• q Another way is to utilize your mailing list and ask them what they would like to see more of from you in an email.

You Can Still Research Even if You Don’t Have Any Customers…YET.

So, what happens if you haven’t sold your first product yet or you want to additional exploration? A great way to determine who your target customer is to make a list of your product or service’s benefits. Find out what your product or service does for a person.  Some examples of this include saving them time, getting them in shape, etc. (i.e. helping them fix a particular problem or fulfill a burning desire)  and more. Figure out what you can do for your future customers to make their lives easier, better, longer, etc. 

When your list is complete, evaluate it. Let’s say for instance you sold beauty products that reduced wrinkles and made your customer look younger. Your target market would probably be women in their 40s or older. By listing even more benefits you can go even more specific with your market and really zone in on the perfect customer for your beauty products. You might even realize you can have more than one target market and that’s ok, especially since you are doing business online. This makes advertising and creating more than one site for each of your markets easy and inexpensive.

Finding Out What’s Already Out There

You can also conduct keyword and/or market research. There are many ways to do this including keyword research, reading magazines, reading reviews and visiting forums, social networking sites and other discussion groups. Browse around and see what it is people are looking for by visiting other websites. Even your competitors can give you great insight.

No matter how you come up with your target market, remember to take the time to put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes. Whether you’re just starting out with a new product or are making changes to your existing service, don’t be afraid to talk to people out there to find out just exactly who the target market for your online business really is.

Need to Build Your Website?

Looking for an even easier option to build your web pages? Take the comprehensive website builder at, Internet Based Family  for a 10-day test trial. You can choose from over 1200 templates and your account includes all kinds of interactive features including: message board, shopping cart, mailing list, coupons and more.

I get spam on the blog from two website owners over and over and over. You think they would get the point. I delete their spam repeatedly so you think they would just get a clue and learn some REAL marketing and stop.

But alas, they don’t.

This morning I got really fed up with one who is named Daniel. Yes, his real name. I hope by that posting the little email I sent to him earlier he might feel some shame (if he has a conscience at all that is).

Daniel,

Would you please stop spamming my blog with these useless comments?
They get deleted every.single.time.

In case you think you’re wasting the time of some faceless, nameless
“rich jerk” online, you’re not.

I’m a single Mom of 4 kids who is going through a divorce and earning
a living (all my myself I might add) with her online business. Every
time I have to go in and delete your spam is a moment I am not: earning
money or: playing with my kids.

Shame On You.

Of course, the email bounced. But in case you want to actually visit his site, go to social-marketer.org. Hey maybe he has a blog you can spam!

But wait, I forgot. You are an actual MARKETER with a CLUE who gets traffic by providing VALUE to your target market. What a concept!!!

There are a couple of resources I mention here over and over again. And perhaps you’ve thought in the past about using one or both of these resources.

Well, now would be a great time to get off the fence and make a decision, because both of them are going to go up in price soon.

I’m talking about Mom Masterminds and WahmCart.

Mom Masterminds is going through some exciting changes. For one, the “graduate” program is expiring, and this means that members will no longer enjoy free membership after one year or 18 months like they do currently.

JOIN NOW if you have been considering joining! You’ll be grandfathered in at the current structure, meaning you’ll graduate after 18 months and get free membership for a lifetime.

Another change at MM is the resources that will be available. MM has long been one of the best deals on the Internet (read: it’s a STEAL). The Premium learning resources will no longer be available as part of membership. These are a few tools that are available for purchase outside MM.

JOIN NOW if you have been considering joining and you will be able to download these resources - collectively worth hundreds (thousands? I haven’t done the math) of dollars - before they disappear.

Note: The price of the monthly subscription to MM once these changes take effect will actually go DOWN… but since the graduation program will be no longer, your actual lifetime price will go UP. Clear as mud?

WahmCart is experiencing a price hike on August 15th - from 29.99 a month to 39.99 a month. Good grief, 39.99 is still a great price for all that WahmCart offers, but again:

JOIN NOW if you’ve been considering joining and you’ll enjoy the current price forever.

Read more about what I’ve said in the past about WahmCart and Mom Masterminds and feel free to ask questions below:

Well, not according to Alyssa Avant of Life From My Laptop. Here is what she said about her recent experiences with coaches.

She has been Tweeting my praises since our coaching session.

If you’re curious, don’t forget to listen to Dr. Daisy’s website review for free here. (Note some of her feedback in the comments too!)

Cause if you love it a lot, you can earn an additional stream of income (or even set up an entirely new business) as a Blog Evangelist.

Preach it, sista!

I joined Blog Evangelists because I want to offer blogging coaching and Wordpress installs as part of my services.

Kelly McCausey, being the High Priestess of Blogging, launched this today to teach people how to become the blogging expert in their communities. If you’re a current service provider, you owe it to yourself to see what she has going on.

She was preaching to the choir when she told me about this project. I love blogging and am willing to sing its praises to anyone who will listen. Blogging is great for business!

I’ve gotten two lessons so far and can see immense value already. I’ll come back in a few weeks and give a more compelling testimonial.

Ok, enough puns. Go check out Blog Evangelists!

Did you know I recently started offering Website Reviews?

It’s amazing how valuable it can be to have a fresh pair of eyes take a look at your site.

Especially if you’re newer to the internet marketing game, you can gain valuable perspective on things with a little coaching.

Dr. Daisy of Dr. Mommy Chronicles gave me permission to share the review I did for her blogs.

She’s an awesome writer - and wants her blog income to show that!

You can download the mp3 link here so you can see how a website review might help your business.

… and yes I know, I say the word “content” funny.

Keep in mind that Dr. Daisy’s websites may look completely different when you hear this because she is already hard at work implementing the suggestions I made!