Charly Leetham

What do you think of the new look of Dr Sally’s site?  Sally and I have been working together over the last couple of days to change the feel of her site, improve it’s energy and allow her to show case a service.

I found the CorpGreen Theme on BlogOhBlog (great resource for free themes) and then set about modifying it to meet Sallys exacting standards.  It’s really nice working with someone who has a definite idea about what colors and features they want.

Once I had made the mods, Sally and I ‘got together’ on Skype and I applied the new theme.  We were able to walk through each section, see what worked and what didn’t and I made some changes as we found bits that didn’t quite work.

What’s really amazing?  I’m in Australia and Sallys in PA! All of this done over the Internet and we’ve never physically met each other.  That’s what I love about being online.

Wordpress is such a powerful engine to run your website on.  The power of Wordpress meant that I could modify this theme and then make the required changes virtually ‘on the fly’ and deliver to Sally a brand new looking site.  The content just translated across.

So let us know what you think about the new theme, does it work for you?  Have we missed something?

Thank you Sally for trusting me to help you on the project, I had a lot of fun.

I know it’s been a while since I posted but I can only claim the rigors of a cold and being incredibly busy.  Today, I want to talk about launching a product, what you may be expecting and some simple things you can do to help yourself.

This was an interesting discussion I had as part of my Mastermind Group a week or so ago.  Three of the ladies on the call had launched EBooks recently and were experiencing a “slump” after the launch. This was mostly due to the fact that a lot of energy had been expended prior to the launch, getting the book ready, the website development etc.  After launch, it felt like a let down and, to some extent, sales hadn’t been what they expected.

The thing that all three agreed was that launching the book, or product, wasn’t the end of the process.  Now that the hard yards in getting their product up for sale was done, they had to expend more effort in promoting it to ensure sales.  Sales just don’t come.  This can be a daunting thing when you think about how much work you’ve just put in…

I also have been speaking with a website design client about what they need to do to drive targetted traffic to the website we are building.  Interestingly, the answer is very similar.

Here are some simple things, that are mostly free, that you can do to promote your product and, hopefully drive sales:

• Write articles about the topic of your book, or product. The articles themselves must be informative and useful but they can also raise questions that your product answers.  Of course, the article (or more appropriately, the article resource box) will provide a link to your product as the answer.
• Submit these articles to article directories like EZine Articles.  Of course, feel free to submit your articles to my article directory as well!
• Use Article Distribution services like Article Marketer to submit your article to multiple directories. Article Marketer has a free service as well as a comprehensive paid service.
• Use Squidoo and Hubpages to develop authority pages for your product or service.  These pages need to be updated regularly to ensure their relevance, but as both Squidoo and Hubpages rank well in Google searches, this is an excellent method of targetted traffic generation.
• Write a Press Release and use a service like PRWeb to announce your product.  In fact, you may want to do this multiple times throughout the year.
• Rewrite your articles and submit to your own blog and blogs on social networks.
• Hang out on Forums and Groups that are likely use your product.  Don’t promote your product directly in these areas, set up your signature to let people know what your product does (check the forum or group policy first!) and become an authority that people turn to for information and assistance.

That is not an exhaustive list of what you can do, but these are things that you should be doing regularly to continually promote your product to the right target audience.  It really is about becoming an authority in your chosen niche.

Certainly this type of work can be time consuming and I have developed a service that will look after all of these things on an ongoing basis.  For more information, see my Product Promotion Package at The Keys 2 Internet Marketing.

O.K, so your busy building your online business and securing your own financial independance. Have you considered your kids though?

I don’t think anyone would disagree that our kids are handling the “new global environment” and embracing Facebook, MySpace and other such networks. Do you think that they would understand how to build a business online? Don’t you think we owe it to them, to give them the opportunity to start young enough and be financially secure before they leave school? Don’t sell them short, they probably understand more than you think they do.

I have been working with my children over the last 8 months in setting up an online enterprise. Interestingly, my 11 year old daughter “got it” earlier than my 13 year old son. She has had a blog and has been promoting affiliate products since roughly November 2007.

However, it took for my hubbie and I to attend the World Internet Summit in Australia in March 2008, to understand just how we could help our kids.

Since March, we have each been coaching our children in finding and developing a niche. With some great success. My 13 year old now, manages most of my blogs and regularly updates his own blog and finds new information to share with his readers. He also checks the analytics on his site to see what people are looking at, and how they’re finding his site.

My daughter, is active on a number of “children friendly” forums related to her niche and has some very good discussions around her niche. She is more into the product creation side of the marketing and is now considering what she can do to expand her offerings, or start in a new niche.

My point? Simply, by giving my kids the basic principles of marketing online and some easy to use tools, they are keen to ensure their own financial independance. If they do take on JOB later on, they will do so because they want to, not because they have to.

I did a Video interview with the two of them recently and the results were really astounding. View the Video interview with two young Internet Entrepreneurs.

So, are you helping your children ensure their own financial independance while your building your business? Tell me what you’re doing.

I must say how honoured I am that Dr Sally asked me to be a guest authour on her blog. What a shock I got yesterday when I saw my smiling face on her home page!

I thought it would be appropriate for my first post to be a little about myself and my journey so far. If you heard my interview with Sally on Blog Talk Radio, you will already know that I live in Canberra Australia and that I have a fairly technical and customer oriented background.

Last year, I decided that I could use those skills to develop an online business and here I am nearly 12 months later and my plans are coming to fruition. I still have a long road to travel but I have a plan now and this will help.

What I would like to share with you is that this journey has not always been clear, or easy. When I decided to start a business online last year, I had no idea what I wanted to do, all I knew is that I wanted to be entrepreneurial and be my own boss. It wasn’t even really about earning heaps of money, it was about bringing in supplemental income for the family.

What I found however, is that there are a lot of offers online that want you to buy their product, but not a lot about how to start online. I had read about Niches and Niche Marketing, but couldn’t really see how to find one. I worked out I needed a list, and actually started building one, but didn’t really know what to do with it.

In July 2007, my husband and I went to a Internet Marketing course and it’s information was incredibly helpful, but still in February this year, we were struggling to make our efforts paid off.

We were approached by an organisation in September 2007 who offered their mentoring program and their guarantee was that with what they taught us, we would be able to earn our investment each month. Their written guarantee stated that we would make our initial investment back within 6 months, or they would continue working with us until we did. Six months later, after applying the techniques they recommended, my conversions had dropped and my list wasn’t building…. I’m following through on their guarantee.

As I had started building a list in the Internet Marketing Niche, I knew that I needed to be marketing to them. Following the advise of several EBooks, I developed a stable of products. Most were affiliate products, although some were Private Label Right products that I modified and offered as my own.

So with all this activity, did I succeed? No. About the only thing that I had going well was my blog The Keys 2 Internet Marketing, because this came from the heart.

It really wasn’t until March this year, when I attended the World Internet Summit in Sydney, that I worked out what I had done. I had spread myself too thinly, I was trying to be a master of everything and ended up being a master of nothing. I resolved then, that this would change.

At the same point in time, I purchased Diane Corriettes “What I Would Do Differently (in my Internet Marketing Life), If I Could Do It All Again”, affectionately known as My Internet Marketing Mistakes. The message in this product was clear and so similar to what I had already resolved, that I could not ignore it.

So what were the messages I heard that have made the difference? Simply:

1. Choose a Niche and stick to it. Be prepared to do the homework and take your time in working out whether this is the right niche and find out what people are looking for.
2. Promote 1 thing at a time, and keep promoting that 1 thing until you have success with it or determine that it isn’t right for your niche. Don’t promote multiple things all at once, your message gets lost.
3. Find a Mentor! Find someone who can coach you through the process of getting online and don’t be surprised if you find you need a couple. The first Mentor you will need is one who can help you find a niche and develop a strategy. Try Dr Sally herself or Women Internet Marketers as a place to start. A great home study course is the Internet Success System, which I have used myself.
4. Find someone who can help you with the Technology Challenges you are bound to face and don’t be phased by the technology. You don’t need to know it all, you just need to know where to go to get help. One of the services I offer to people is assistance with Technology Challenges.
5. Finally, do it step by step. Don’t shortcut or rush. It will happen.

If I had followed this advise (or if I had found this advise) 12 months ago, I would be so much farther along the track.

So until next time, happy step by step marketing.