Do you have a marketing plan?  You must have a marketing plan.  Typically, business owners market their business when the phone stops ringing and that’s not a plan.  A marketing plan allows you to capitalize on what really drives your business in a consistent manner that allows you to work smarter, not harder. By having a marketing plan, you should not have to re-create the wheel monthly, but rather have a system that works for you. 

Not sure how to create a marketing plan?  We have a great teleclass called Create A World Class Marketing Plan that is an awesome tool to create your marketing plan.  And so what that it’s July; listen to the teleclass and create a plan thru July ‘10 or thru the end of year.  Just don’t sit on your marketing any longer. 

But, let say all your marketing eggs have been in the Twitter (or another lonely) basket and you are feeling a little uneasy with the recent system glitch.  There are so many ways to market your business; most are low is cost, yet still achieving highest results or impact.   Still do the plan, but here are a few tried and true marketing tactics that work well for small, service based businesses.

• Start a blog and consistently post.  Consumers love information and people want to see new and updated information from you.  A blog gives you a home base and you personally own all your content. (Need some help starting and promoting your blog, purchase our teleclass called How to Plan, Build and Promote Your Blog with Blog Expert Rich Brooks)
• Connect your blog to your monthly newsletter.  Staying in touch with clients in critical to your success.   Use tools such as Constant Contacts to send a monthly newsletter to your existing client base and use blog articles to link people back to your blog.  (Need some help starting and promoting your blog, purchase our teleclass called Launch and Sustain Your Monthly Newsletter.)
• Automatically upload your blog to Facebook.  Start turning followers into profits and paying clients by letting them know what’s going on with your business.  You may be surprised where business comes from.  (Be on the lookout sooner for our Facebook Teleclass with Shama Hyder coming soon!) 
• Offer a workshopin your local community.  Public speaking is a great way to let people know about your business and be sure to leave behind contact information and info to your Free blog.   (Need some help starting and promoting your blog, purchase our teleclass called Take The Fear Out Of Public Speaking with expert Liam Brown)
• Contribute to or write an article.  Articles are fantastic as you can link back to your blog and drive traffic to your website. 

Are you starting to see a pattern here.  One or all of things may work for you, but the plan comes first and then connect the dots so everything works together.  We have lots of resources to help you market you marketing your business.  Check them out and get started on your plan today.

My biggest take away from Nancy was that social media is meant to be fun and engaging.  Until I now I have really been looking at using Facebook, Twitter, etc as a chore, another thing to do so to speak.  And yes, it does take time, but you get out of it what you put into it.  Social media allows me to provide value, build my reputation, increase my credibility and build trust in a very unobtrusive manner. 

Thank you so much for being on the call Nancy.  You have so much to offer.  I wish the call could have been longer. 

Continue to check our website and blog for more information regarding social media tools.  If you missed the Embrace Social Media, a TeleSummit, be on the lookout for Nancy’s presentation available from A Red Bench.

My key learning from Dan’s presentation was not to let my first impression of Twitter scare me off.  I am a professional organizer so when I look at Twitter I just see a lot of clutter.  I had no idea what all the symbols meant, had no idea who all these people were and I immediately wanted to close my account.  What I learned from Dan is that Twitter is like my own TV or radio show only in text format.  If I think about it that it makes those little tweets a lot easier to understand and deliver. 

Thank you so much for being on the call Dan.  It was fantastic and we learned so much.  Continue to check our website and blog for more information regarding social media and Twitter.  Be on the lookout for Dan’s presentation available from A Red Bench.

Anyway, in the spirit of sharing some great information check out this recent article from Time Magazine called How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live.

Wednesday, June 10th
10:00-11:15 CST            
Noon-1:15 CST                
2:00-3:15 CST                  
4:00 – 5:15CST                
6:00-7:15 CST

Thursday, June 11th
10:00-11:15 CST
Noon-1:15 CST                
2:00-3:15 CST                  
4:00-5:15 CST   

The reason TeleSummits works so well is your get expert information without having to leave your office.  No need to fly anywhere, stay in a hotel or pay for meals on the road.  Just sit in your office and call-in at the scheduled time to hear each one of our amazing Social Media Experts.  How awesome is that?  

Register nowto take advantagse of earlybird pricing which ends May 20th.

Rich was an A Red Benchexpert last year and his teleclass, How To Plan, Build and Promote Your Blog, was awesome.  We expect his contribution to the TeleSummit to be just as outstanding. 

PS: Don’t forget to registe for our Social Media TeleSummit!

Here are some facts:

• Facebook has 200 Million Members.
• YouTube visitors are viewing 13 Billion Videos a month.
• LinkedIn has over 15 Million Businesspeople networking.
• Twitter is growing at over 40% a month.
• Digg and Delicious are driving millions of visitors to websites every month. (I don’t even know what these are)

So you can’t deny there is something going on here.  I either need to get on the bus or be left far behind.  In an effort to better understand this frenzy, I’ve been attending some social media events and have learned some info to help me better understand this.  Here are some my learnings thus far:

• Social media is a listening community.  Provide good content that is valulable and relevant and a “tribe” will follow. 
• Have an engaging home base.  This means have a place for people to go, from FB or Twitter, that is interactive.  Like you own blog.
• Be real, honest and transparent.  People will see through you otherwise.
• Build a network online, but grow it offline. 
• All boundaries are broken in terms of a client can now come from any city, country or continent. 
• Give and take; don’t just take from conversations.  Give back to them and in turn, get a lot.
• Don’t be a one night social media stand. 

So what does this mean for me.  Well, I don’t think you will ever find me constantly “tweeting” as that’s just not for me.  But I do see the benefits in terms of meeting really smart people, making connections I would have otherwise not made and potentially making contacts with anyone, anywhere.  That I can get my hands around and will dedicate some time too. 

We know our members have many questions about social media so we putting together a SM TeleSummit called From Prospects to Profits: Thriving Using Social Media.   If you are overwhelmed with the social media frenzy, attend the TeleSummit and get all your questions answered in our mutli-day conference all from the comforts of your own home telephone.  If you want to be the first to know about it, let us know at info@aredbench.com.  We will be announcing it very soon!

Follow us at https://twitter.com/ARedBench.

We are really excited that we will be officially announcing our social media TeleSummit very soon.  A TeleSummit is similar to attending a mutli-day conference all from the comforts of your own home telephone.  Our TeleSummit, From Prospects to Profits: Thriving Using Social Media, will include seven (we added a bonus speaker) social media experts who will teach you a soical media skill, tool or technique in 75 minutes.

Imagine how powerful it will be to have SEVEN of the smartest, successful, trail blazers in the social media industry gathered to talk about what works, what doesn’t work, how to get started and become highly successful, more profitable and better known in your industry. 

Here is who we have lined up so far…

• Dan and Lara McComb:  Founders of online social networking tool Biznik will kick off our TeleSummit with topic The Social Media Phenomenon. 
• Dan Hollings:  One of the internets most sought after marketing consultants, Dan will share How to “Tweet” Your Way to Profits.
• Nancy Marmolejo: The award winning founder of Viva Visibility will discuss How to Turn Followers Into Fans (and Fans Into Leads!)
• Gillian Muessig:  President of SEOmoz, who provides companies around the world with consulting, Internet marketing and search engine optimization services.  Topic is SEO Tips and & Tricks: Ideas so Juicy, You’ll Need a Napkin!
• Mhairi Petrovic:  Founder of OutSmarts and blog expert.  Topic is
  Using a Blog to Expand Your Marketplace. 
• Chip Lambert:  of Network2Networth, is a Business Development expert Using Linkedin To Leverage Existing Relationships.

We are still working through the details and titles may change, but the stage is set and we are busting at the seams.  We are thrilled to have a team of experts on board for the TeleSummit. We are still searching for a Facebook expert who wants to share their knowledge with a thirsty audience.  Let us know if you are interested at info@aredbench.com.