In order to live a fulfilled life, you should enjoy your job. I know, this may be easier said than done. But that’s why I work with clients to build successful businesses based on their interests and passions. As past articles have revealed, a successful business can generate revenue from such sources as:
~ Selling products – Your own products, others’ products, or affiliated marketing
~ Creating a content rich site, building an audience, and charging advertisers for ad space to reach this audience
~ Creating a content rich site and charging your audience a membership fee
Once the business concept is established, it’s time to market. To get it up and rolling, try the following 5 Conscious Strategies Marketing tactics:
(1) Send out a press release – Press releases provide an opportunity for businesses to encourage the media to develop promotional news pieces about them. While many assume a PR firm is required, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. You can write and send out your own release:
1. Write It – For format guidelines, visit http://www.webwire.com/FormatGuidelines.asp 2. Create a list of press contacts (these include media outlets and top industry bloggers)
3. Create a section on your website to display the press release
4. Send a personal email to the press contact providing the link to the press release as well as a snapshot to what it’s about and why it’s news worthy
5. Send out a single follow-up email, without being a nuisance
(2) Write a news piece – Unlike press releases which are promotional in nature, news pieces are factual and content rich. As the author, you’ll be portrayed as a subject expert and subsequently increase your credibility and your business’. To write a news piece (i.e. article or column in the local paper), contact the media outlet’s editor. Pitch them your article and why it would be of interest and value to their readers. Once the editor agrees, submit your article (meeting their guidelines). Other outlets to submit articles to include:
1. Ezine – http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html
2.Hubpages-https://hubpages.com/signin/?s=high&url=%2Fhubtool%2Fcreate%2Fname%2F&explain=create%20a%20new%20Hub
3. Squidoo – http://www.squidoo.com/wizard/start
(3) Link Exchanges – Link exchanges are great for marketing purposes and SEO. For those that aren’t aware, a link exchange is the idea of displaying the link to a related website on your site, and in return, the particular website displaying your link on theirs.
(4) Banner Exchanges – Similar to link exchanges, banner exchanges is the concept of displaying another’s banner ad on your site and displaying your ad on someone else’s. Banner ad exchange services include Banner Network, E.Banner.com, and click4click.com. The basics remain the same. Every time your site displays 2 ads from other site, the service will display your banner on one’s site.
(5) Improve Search Engine Placement – Improving SEO is based on a number of factors:
1. Utilizing strong keywords
2. Having other credible and industry related sites link back to yours
3. Submitting your URL to the top search engines (i.e. Google & Yahoo) and the Open Directory Project (a network of volunteers manually adding sites to the directory – DMOZ.org)
I’m not saying simultaneously try all 5 strategies. Rather, choose one tactic and give it a try. Before you know it, your business based on your passions, will increase in success and therefore your happiness.