I will be presenting this Friday morning 1st August at my local business swap - Central Coast Business SwapThree Steps to Successful Online Marketing!

A lot of businesses are finding it tough these days. Not only are we in tough economic times, but there is all this new technology to deal with and so many marketing options that it’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t.

Online Marketing is the ultimate Recession Proof Marketing strategy. It’s low cost and can bring you great results. Come along to this presentation to learn simple and effective Online Marketing strategies.

Increase your confidence in this area and learn how a web presence can work for you. Belinda will provide many easy tips that could drive more visitors to your website and ensure your Online Marketing is successful. Learn how to build sustainable relationships with your prospects and clients over time that will ultimately result in more sales and profits for your business.

Here’s just a snapshot of what you will learn during this presentation;

• A Simple 3 step Formula for Online Marketing Success
• The secrets to getting your website found on Search engines
• How to optimise your web presence for RESULTS
• The most effective way to convert website visitors into customers

This presentation will be full of real world strategies that work. You are guaranteed to leave with ideas that you can implement immediately in your business!

For more info and to book go to http://centralcoast.businessswap.com.au/

26 Ways To Build Subscribers To Your Newsletter Or Blog

by Kirsty Dunphey - I’m reproducing the below article mainly because it includes some great tips on list growing but two additional reasons. 1) why re-invent the wheel! Kirsty has already put some great list building tips together and whilst many of them I have already written about there are a few new ones covered here, so I’ll save myself the trouble of rewriting them and 2) Kirsty produces a great newsletter which is really popular and I love to promote others who use Email Marketing so well. Kirsty’s newsletter is currently circulating to over 4,000 people weekly. Here are her 26 list buiding tips; 

1. Have a sign up button or form on every page of your website.
2. Don’t make it too difficult for people to sign-up, people get bored if they have to jump through too many hoops. All we ask for is first name, surname (optional) and email.
3. Set up a facebook fan page for your email and encourage your friends / family and current subscribers to join.
4. To attract those ever present Gen Y’s have a presence on myspace. Some of my favourites:
   • http://www.myspace.com/jackcanfield
   • http://www.myspace.com/thebaileynetwork
   • http://www.myspace.com/jimrohn
   • http://www.myspace.com/thatguywiththenametag
   • http://www.myspace.com/kirstydunphey (and mine of course!)
5. Link your facebook, myspace and linked in pages on your website and newsletter.
6. Any time you speak at a public event, mention your newsletter and encourage people to sign up. By public event I mean everything from a keynote presentation in front of 2,000 to a networking group of 5 – just mention it!
7. If you do any regular public speaking, grab a box, bucket or any receptacle and allow people to simply throw a business card in at the end of any of your talks if they want to subscribe.
8. Promote your newsletter on the bottom of your email (in your signature)
9. Make it easy for people to recommend their friends signup and mention that you’d like them to in your newsletter (in ours we say we’re aiming for 10,000 subscribers – can they help?)
10. I regularly submit articles to be used in other newsletters. Our two most exciting contributions to date have been multiple entries in Zig Ziglar (www.zigziglar.com) and Jeffrey Gitomer’s (www.jeffreygitomer.com) newsletters.
11. Allow people to reproduce your articles in their newsletters – and make it easy. We do this by having a statement telling people they can reproduce our articles in every newsletter and a whole page of articles they can use here: www.kirstydunphey.com/usemebaby.html
12. We submit our articles (which reference our newsletter) to online articles. Try www.ezinearticles.com and www.articlesbase.com, www.goarticles.com
13. Solicit testimonials from the people who currently read your newsletter (even if it’s just 5!) and use them on your website.
14. Allow people to see archived copies of your newsletters – to give them a better idea of what they’re signing up for.
15. Don’t sell or loan your database and make it clear on your website that you won’t
16. Mention your newsletter as often as possible (media, tv interviews, social events, networking).
17. Consider mentioning your newsletter on your business card / letterhead.
18. Link to your newsletter in your blog.
19. Oh yeah – have a blog (see: www.kirstydunphey.com/blog) and if you don’t think you have time to blog read: http://kirstydunphey.blogspot.com/2008/02/are-you-already-blogging-and-you-just.html
20. There are lots of online ezine diretories that you can register your database at (we’ve not had a great response from these – but hey – if you’ve got a spare 10 minutes go for your life!)
21. Ask your friends / colleagues if they’ll mention your newsletter on their website (see: www.kirstydunphey.com/recommendations.html) More links to your website also can do great things for your search engine optimization.
22. You can pitch your product in your newsletter – but it can’t all be a sales pitch. Find a happy medium that works for you in terms of selling vs educating.
23. If you write a book (www.unleashedknowledge.com), mention your newsletter in it.
24. Make your database feel loved – have special offers that are only for those people who subscribe.
25. Use a reputable email marketing service to ensure a good delivery rate, we use icontact but there are several other options available. (hehe can I put a plug in here for Chameleon Mail - ed. belinda)
26. Finally, the number one (and most simple) way to get more people subscribing is to put something out there that’s of value to readers. If people like a newsletter they’ll forward it on and it’ll grow without you having to concern yourself too much!

Kirsty Dunphey is an author, speaker and entrepreneur who started her first business at 15, opened her own real estate agency at 21 and retired a self made multi-millionaire at 27. To sign up to Kirsty Dunphey’s weekly email, go to www.kirstydunphey.com Thanks Kirsty - great tips and thanks for sharing…. Belinda

“Goals are dreams with deadlines “

with Football Manager of Central Coast Mariners
LAWRIE MCKINNA | 25th July at Central Coast Business Swap

The Central Coast Mariners are a remarkable success story.

The Mariners emerged and put the Central Coast on the map. This was our region’s first national representation in any sport. They created excitement throughout this community.

The Mariners have united us and injected passion and pride into the Central Coast. They have formed part of our identity, they are our team and we are proud to wear the yellow and blue to support them.

Join Lawrie McKinna and Central Coast Business Swap to learn about the first 3 years of success. Hear from a truly great leader. Come and be inspired to create your own success. This event is on July 25th at Caroline Bay Brasserie, Gosford Regional Art Gallery, East Gosford .

Belinda’ Note: In all honesty I’m not a big footy fan (quite the opposite in fact) however I’ll be attending this event because it’s going to be a HUGE event with lots of fun and business networking. Rumours are that Lawrie is a pretty good speaker and I’m sure he’ll be entertaining! So if you’d like to come along see link below.

For more information visit Central Coast Business Swap website at http://centralcoast.businessswap.com.au/

If you are a small business owner and you are struggling to attract and retain clients then you must read on. If you are spending a small fortune on advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio or even TV, then it’s time to consider some new ways of marketing your business.I believe that the internet offers huge opportunity to small business, service professionals and large corporates alike.

The online world in many ways is no different to the offline marketing world. On and offline, it’s all about people. In fact, if you think about it, every dollar that is spent online must come from an individual choosing to spend their money with a particular website.

Creating an effective website that brings you new customers and makes you money will be more likely to happen if you successfully build relationships. This means building a geniune relationship with visitors to your website so that they come to like and trust you enough to give you their money!

This is relationship marketing. Next step is leveraging yourself as an expert so that clients come chasing you. Online Marketing provides the opportunity to simplify both of these strategies.

Selling as was used in the past is gone. Every day we are overwhelmed with marketing and sales messages and it’s impossible to take it all in - even if we wanted to - and I’m sure you, like me, don’t particularly want to be sold to.

What you want is to have clients choose to want to buy your products and/or services, because they have come to see you as an expert AND they have formed a relationship with you built on trust, knowledge and authenticity!

Having an Effective Website and/or Blog and using your web presence to attract and build a database allows you to form the beginnings of a relationship with prospects. Allowing your prospects to get to know, like and trust you through an Email Newsletter over time gives you the opportunity to leverage yourself as an expert and convert prospects into clients.

No hard selling allowed or required.

These are simple Online Marketing strategies you can implement almost immediately to begin leveraging yourself as an expert in your industry and begin fostering an ongoing relationship with prospects.