Adding Renegade Marketing Strategies

Here at Simply Home Business, we have added more Internet marketing to our marketing and business promotion strategies. We are seeing the incredible potential of Web 2.0 tools and social marketing to build our list of prospective customers for products and services faster and deeper than ever before. And, because these strategies are dependent on newer technology, we are getting our help with this process by enrolling at Renegade University. We started with the free stuff, lots of detailed step-by-step guidance in return for our contact information. (See also Who Is Your Prospect? : Build Your List, posted in the Network Marketing section here at Simply Home Business.)

Web 2.0 Tools: Super Effective Marketing Through Connection and Collaboration

Web 2.0 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2)

“Web 2.0 is a trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.” (3/17/08)

We are building a “webby” Internet marketing system using blogs (e.g. this blog hosted by Squarespace.com), social networking (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn), content-sharing (Digg, Squidoo, HubPages) and social bookmarking (Digg, deli.cio.us, stumbleupon).  The primary purpose of our new marketing strategies is to attract prospective customers and clients by providing the kind of content and information they are actively seeking on the Web.

We want them to find us, rather than spending our time going out to find them and engaging with a lot of people who don’t really want what we have to offer and weren’t looking for it. (Some of them were even upset with us because we tried to engage with them to sell our products or services or business opportunity–when they weren’t looking for it and didn’t want it and didn’t want to spend time listening or talking about it. Imagine that?)

Why Renegade Strategies?

It totally turned our business development process on its head when we stumbled across the work of Ann Sieg (Renegade Network Marketing) and Mike Klingler (Renegade University). Because:

• Ann Sieg offers us a viewpoint that includes a solution to our need for cashflow at the beginning of our business ventures through sale of an information product that is low cost and high value.
• Mike Klingler offers us a step-by-step guide to generating and moving traffic to and through our marketing web based on valuable content and social marketing principles.

What Will You Learn?

Ann Sieg and Mike Klingler offer you the opportunity to get a free beginner’s education about using the principles of Attraction Marketing and Web 2.0 tools to ramp up your marketing efforts. At Renegade University (and Renegade Pro) you get step by step help with the mechanics of setting yourself up to utilize the technologies and strategies needed to build an Attraction Marketing engine for your business.

No matter what your business is or what products or services you market, you can use the guidance at Renegade University to set up your system for attracting prospective customers, clients and/or team members.

And last but not least, you’ll learn how to make the most of your efforts to increase cash flow into your business from the beginning, rather than spending and spending more and more money to make money.

Make the most of your energy, time, enthusiasm and imagination. You will work hard and steady but you won’t add insult to injury by driving yourself to the poorhouse while working harder and harder for less and less. Your consistent work will pay off with an endless stream of prospects for your business.

Join us there–and let Dennis and Kate be your guides to a successful home business start up.

Best wishes for your success,

Kate Williams and Dennis George
Simply Home Business

NOT. No, not. Not, not, not a get rich quick method.

If you are looking for a way to get rich quick, stop reading now. Find another path to quick wealth (and when you’ve found it, let me in on your secret, ‘kay?).

You need some time–and some money to get started building an internet business. You can start with a little time, say 3 months working 6-20 hours a week at it–and a little money, for some basic tools to help you get started. If you are cash strapped and panicked about paying your bills (and a LOT of us are right now), find another way to get some quick cash. While you are doing that, reserve some time in your calendar each day and each week for 3 months.

Here’s what you’ll be doing with your time reserved for your internet business:

1. Decide what kind of internet business you will start.
2. Figure out the process you will use to get started and build your list of prospects and clients/customers.
3. Learn some basic internet marketing skills.
4. Learn some essential information and skills for your particular business.
5. Get ready–and LAUNCH into action.

If you feel like you are ready for this process, get started with some free and inexpensive advice and training. Then, set up your work schedule to include time to learn, time to talk to people and time to begin to set up your system. Put it into your day planner, just like you would schedule work on any other projects or appointments. This time is a series of appointments with yourself to build the business to support your future–your future with more freedom, more creativity, more satisfaction and more ownership.

If you’d like a free consultation about Getting Started, please give me a call to schedule an hour to talk and work with me on the telephone. (Or, click here to go to Home Business Start Up consultation sign up.) It’s an hour dedicated to your success in internet business building.

To your best foot forward,

Kate Williams
1-888-278-3506
kate@simply-home-business.com

Internet Business: How the Heck Do I Get Started?

The biggest hurdle most people have when they decide to build an Internet-based business–or use Internet marketing to grow a home-based business–is Getting Started. There’s so much to learn and so many suggestions and steps.

So, take a deep breath–and get started with List Building.

Anyone who has a business, needs a list. Your internet marketing list is the list of people who know, like and trust you–and want to hear from you. You communicate with people on your list frequently, sending them information they are interested in and would benefit from–including offers of products or services–yours or others.

You build your list by having a way that people can request information from you. They may sign up for your newsletter or an email course or a free report. You create content that will appeal to your target market and you give them the opportunity to “opt in” by filling out a web form or giving you a phone call or even, signing a guest book. Let’s take a look at some examples:

1. Joan rents a property to vacationers–and she markets environmentally friendly products via the Internet. There is a guest book in her rental with room for comments by guests. People who sign the guest book receive a Thank You card that is sent to them via a web-based card sending program.

Joan has a website that she directs people to if they are interested in the way she keeps her vacation rental free of toxic chemicals that are harmful to children and pets. The web address is featured in her cards, her email signatures, and her instructions and checklists for guests. Joan also has both physical–and Internet-based–ways to send people to her website and the page where they can sign up (opt in) for more information.

People find the website and the page where they sign up in a variety of ways. (In Internet Marketing lingo, this is traffic generation or driving traffic to your website.) Joan has written a couple of articles posted on the Web, sent out emails to former vacation renters, sent cards, enclosed business cards, posted information on her rental website, posted in online vacation rental communities about her experiences as a vacation renter, and a few other activities–all of which point to her website where people can sign up or opt in to her list.

As soon as someone signs up for her list, they start receiving high quality information from Joan that helps them make their homes safer and healthier. This creates opportunities for Joan to market the products and services she offers–and other products and services that the people on her list may be looking for since she knows they are interested in making their homes safer and healthier.

2. Mark has a health and wellness business. He is particularly interested in anti-aging (being a Boomer himself). He loves finding and reviewing current trends in this growing field of interest. He has built a list of others who are interested in staying current with anti-aging information. Mark has a website and a blog. He uses his website to present information that is relatively stable and he uses his blog to post information that is constantly changing in real time.

Mark has learned a number of ways to direct people to his web and blog pages. He relies on his recently acquired skill as a social marketer, interacting with people online in social networking sites and directly those who are interested to content he has created and posted in many places on the web. Mark spends a couple of hours every day passsing on high quality information about anti-aging and a couple of hours a day talking with people who have contacted him via his “opt in” forms, requesting more information or a consultation with him.

As he works each day, Mark becomes more of an expert on anti-aging and also grows his opportunities to market his health and wellness products and services.

Getting Started with Internet Marketing

It is key to your success with Internet Marketing to have a blueprint and a plan. This will save you hours, days, weeks, and months of effort and trial and error learning. A blueprint is a picture of how people will find you and your information, get to your web form, sign up for your list (or lists) and begin receiving more information from you that is helpful to them and eventually pre-sells them on your offers of products and services.

Your specific plan for getting started will depend on the nature of your business, products and services–and your target market (e.g. who will be interested and where you will find them). There are some key pieces:

• web pages that are full of great content for your audience. You can start with something free, or very inexpensive.
• a web form–a web page with an offer and a form where people give you their contact information in exchange for something of value (e.g. a newsletter, an email course, access to audio or video files)
• follow up information/content (e.g. a newsletter, an email course, access to audio or video files)

Technically speaking, there are a few simple things to learn about:

• blogs and how to post
• hot links–how to create links which when clicked send people to another web page
• content-sharing sites and social networking sites and how to set up a profile and post content
• affiliate marketing–how to become an “affiliate” if you want to start out marketing other people’s tools, products, services until you have some of your own–or as an additional income stream even if you already have your own
• autoresponders–how to use them to deliver newsletters, email series, and create sign up forms
• bookmarking–a little bit about key words and phrases and how to use them so Internet searchers find you

Ready to Get Started with Building a List?

1. Check out the Announcements section (top right menu) for some step by step training for new Internet Marketers, or link here to an announcement for How I Built My First List.
2. Take a look at my Squidoo and Hub Pages for examples of content created and shared at content sharing sites.

Steps for Growing Your Cash Flow in a Home Based Business–link here to my HubPage

Home Business Marketing–link here to my Squidoo Lens.

3.  Sign up for a No Cost consultation with me at my Home Business Start Up consultation sign up page (an example of a web form for sign up, or opt in).

Ethical marketing is the work of business people who believe that the trust and respect of their prospective customers and clients is more important than a sale.

Spamming is the practice of sending out electronic messages via email and other electronic channels (e.g. instant messaging) to large numbers of people/email accounts in one blast without the permission of the person receiving the message. Email spam is the electronic equivalent of junk mail that chokes our snail mail boxes and telephone sales calls that we try to avoid by joining the Do Not Call lists.

There is one simple rule for you to follow if you want to build trust with your prospective customers and new customers:

Don’t add anyone to your email list who hasn’t asked to be added and confirmed their interest in receiving information from you.