Marketing A Service Based Business & Finding Clients

Marketing Your Service-Based Business & Finding Clients
Erin Blaskie
www.erinblaskie.com
@ErinBlaskie (Twitter)

A Little About Me
Launched my virtual assistance firm, BSETC (www.bsetc.com) in 2004
Have serviced over 300 entrepreneurs around the globe with their online business
Currently have a team of nineteen service professionals

A Little About You
Entrepreneur looking for clients.
Entrepreneur looking for increased visibility.
Entrepreneur unsure about where to start when it comes to marketing their business.
Entrepreneur looking to sell products.

Marketing Starts With a Message
Be really clear about your goals.
Your goals will begin to paint the picture of what you need to do, where you need to start and what you need to achieve.
Be really clear about your message.
Make sure that your message clearly states what you do and what you’re about.
Make sure it is consistent throughout your websites, blog, social media, branding and anywhere else you “play” online.

What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
-- David Ogilvy

Telling You About Me is Just One Side
Think about the conversation you are having with your target market:
How can they get to know you?
Where do you engage most with your tribe?
How transparent are you in your activities?
What sort of tools are you utilizing in your biz to help spread that message?

Why Effective Marketing Matters
Shortens the “know, like and trust” timeline
People buy from people, not businesses
Your target market has to know you to be able to like and trust you
Spread your message and solidify your brand out in your industry

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What Does Marketing Today Look Like?
Blogging
Social media
Speaking engagements
Media (traditional or new)
Connecting with your peers / industry
Marketing (offline and online)

Blogging
Create a blog that showcases your expertise and offers interactivity
Create interesting, compelling and engaging blog posts by asking questions and encouraging comments
Carve out a niche topic area where you can really showcase your expertise
Spread the word about every blog post

Quick Blogging Tips
With your blog, you can:
Add articles you’ve written, or others have written, with relevant content to help build up a good resource for search engines.
You can post your upcoming events or, events and promotions for your clients.
Post videos to the blog as entries.
Post your audio recordings.
Use Posterous.com to post articles and resources from other sites around the web.

Social Media
Focus on the primary three
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
Create accounts in your name and your company name
Use Tools to Keep Responsiveness High But Not Distracting
Reach Out to People You Don’t Know

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter <3
Twitter can be an excellent source of leads!
Use websites like WeFollow.com and Twellow.com to do searches for Twitterers.
You can search on location, keyword and a myriad of other search terms.
If you are looking for something specific like “real estate agents”, look up the associations on Twitter and see who is following them. You can then choose who to follow from that list.
Once you are following them, reach out but NOT only about what YOU do to make money. Have conversations and build connections.

The Power of Facebook
Facebook is second in my book to Twitter but it is still a very important tool to be using.
Facebook’s power lies in its groups, fan pages and search functionality.
Micro-communities exist within Facebook that you can become a part of and attract new business.
The same rules apply here – take the passive marketing approach as opposed to the more aggressive approach.

Facebook Groups
With Facebook groups, you want to seek out the people who would hire you for work.
Look for groups with names that resonate with who you are seeking out.
Answer questions.
Provide helpful links, resources or links to your blog posts.
Don’t join every group on Facebook. Join a few key groups and really maximize your relationships there.

Facebook Fan Pages
Make sure to create a Facebook fan page for your business.
Showcase your expertise and bring in your blog feed, if you have one.
Post often to the wall to keep people up to date with what you are doing but keep it business related.
If you attend events, upload photos / video and post those to the wall and tag people you’ve met in them.
Add a Facebook fan page widget to your website.

Love for LinkedIn
Setup your profile and make sure it’s as complete as possible.
Frequent the LinkedIn Answers section and provide answers to questions that you can and do so often.
Make connections via importing your email addresses / account and add the info to your website.

Real-Time Solutions
Provide real-time solutions to people
One of the things I’m seeing more and more often on Twitter is random project opps. For example, when I need something and don’t have that person on my team, I reach out to Twitter and ask for quick replies.
Answer questions and create real results. A tip: use your blog! When someone asks a question, post the reply to your blog and then link the blog to them. Even better if you have a website that has the blog integrated.

Today, marketing is about engaging with the tribe and delivering products and services with stories that spread.
-- Seth Godin, “Tribes”

Speaking Engagements
Reach out to people hosting teleseminars, webinars and live events to ask to speak
Speaking publicly raises your industry’s awareness about who you are
Speaking publicly lends you credibility and showcases you as an expert
Virtual events allow you to reach out without traveling to live events

Media (Traditional / New)
Internet Radio
Guest speak on someone else’s radio program
Create your own online program at Blog Talk Radio
Online Video
Record videos for use on your websites, social media sites and YouTube
Do live, streaming video using Ustream or Justin.tv

Connecting With Your Peers
Outreach for Joint Venture Partners
Find people doing something complimentary to what you do and pair up with them to offer solutions
Joint venture partners can also become valued affiliates for your business and vice versa

General Marketing Tips
One-to-Many Approach
Your opinions, advice, answers and solutions should service many people – not a single client
Reach out daily to people through social networks, e-mail and your blog
Provide tons of free content to attract in more people who think like you do
Reward the people who are consistent, reliable members of your tribe

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they don’t find them, they create them.
-- George Bernard ShawQuoted from John Naisbitt’s “Mind Set!”

Engage With Me So That I May Engage With You
@ErinBlaskie on Twitter
www.erinblaskie.com and www.bsetc.com
erin@erinblaskie.com

If you are not moving closer to what you want in sales (or in life), you probably aren't doing enough asking.
-- Jack Canfield

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Marketing A Service Based Business & Finding Clients

by Erin Blaskie on Nov 18, 2009

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Marketing A Service Based Business & Finding Clients — Presentation Transcript