Does Yellow Pages still deliver customers?

For some demographic businesses, it still delivers results!

All business owners are aware that Yellow Pages has reduced in physical size, dramatically. Many business owners in Birmingham have found this move away from Yellow Pages very difficult to deal with.

Now small local business owners, whose main focus in life is to run the business, find themselves in a confusing state as they are continually bombarded with sales people who will:

• Guarantee high rankings on Google
• Produce amazing results and leads using Google Adwords
• Provide a business website together with a video that will guarantee buyers
• Set up a Facebook Fan page because social media is now the new marketing stream

Hell guys, no wonder local business owners are at the end of their tether!

The important takeaway here is that business owners are being blinded by the technology and forgetting that the basics of marketing remain the same.

What am I on about?

Small Business Marketing Struggles in Birmingham – Exactly What Is Marketing?

The main problem for most businesses is that the owner doesn’t understand marketing and totally ignore the money to be made from a database.

I’ll explain this further.

Marketing is getting potential clients to know, like and trust you so that when they are ready to commit they choose your products or services.

They select you because they first made contact via your website, Facebook, Twitter , an online directory, etc. (the various paths to your door) and after they made that first contact you kept in contact using emails or Facebook posts and all the other various methods you can stay in touch.

Think of it this way.

Not everyone who walks into a shop is going to buy that day. They could be just browsing, comparing, gathering information.

But it is how you interact with them that determines whether they will return to your shop when they are ready to buy because the time is right.

The real power of the internet is that you can build the know, like and trust factor on auto-pilot when you have captured their email address or had them to ‘LIKE’ your Facebook page.

All business owners in Birmingham need to fully grasp that working hard to put a system into place will make the journey from browsing prospect to paying customer that much easier.

Local Businesses Marketing Strategies in Birmingham

What is really sad is that the majority of business owners in Birmingham will not have a ‘back end’ system in place.

Your ‘back end ‘ is the most profitable part of any business and applies to every single business.

So what the hell Is a ‘back end’ system?

The back end of your business is the database you are going to build on your customers and the automated system you put in place to market to them.

Of course some of you are now saying, so what’s new? … But if you were using automated systems properly you wouldn’t be struggling for more profits.

Look at this for example.

You work hard to get 500 visitors to your website.

Out of the 500 prospects 50 fill in your email optin box for your newsletter etc. and now receive emails from you.

1 buys and becomes a customer or client.

You now ignore them and move on to driving the next 500 to your site!

Is this for real? … You’ve just worked your backside off to get this one person to buy and now you put them aside whilst you look for the next buyer in 500!

The reason most businesses ignore this massive profit potential is simply because there is no system in place!

I’ll give you a simple example of a back end system.

A plumber receives a call and attends an emergency, a leak, a boiler breakdown, you get the idea. He fixes the problem but before presenting the bill points out to the customer that if they signed up for his monthly maintenance contract they could save 25% today.

They sign up for the contract so he now has a monthly income.

Their personal information are added to his database and the system automatically sends out an email 1 week after the call out to the new customers asking if they would leave a testimonial on his Google Places listing, or Qype, Yell, Free Index. So he now starts building up real testimonials, automatically.

His database system automatically sends out an email in May with a special offer to existing clients who want an external tap fitting.

You get the picture?

Think about creating your back end and your profits build.

As a business owner, marketing to prospects in Birmingham, what are you doing to maximize your profits from people who have already indicated they know, like and trust you?

Not so long ago savvy local business owners would create their free Google business listing on Google Maps and for many this was a way to be on page one of the search engine without a website.

However, Google has seen the trend and has observed how over 20% of all searches are for local information.

And that’s plenty of people.

With Google now over the 2 billion searches daily (source: BBC News) this means there are 400 million local searches being carried out daily! Local business marketing … on steroids!

Then, when you consider that mobile devices will overtake desktop computers sometime in 2013 there will be another significant shift.

You can see that even in today’s market local search continues to grow in importance and it is up to you to grab the lions share today.

Think about any normal situation.

You’re in the city centre and on the spur of the moment decide you would love a Chinese meal. Google detects your position because you are using your mobile.

Google displays a local search result on your mobile.

Google also shows you that some of these local restaurants have a special offer in place.

You like the look of one and there is a button on their mobile website that will automatically ring the reservation desk.

Once booked you click on another button on the mobile website and Google presents you with a map on how to get there.

This is how it works … today.

Local businesses need to understand that in a world that is getting faster and faster people want information now.

Google loves local businesses and has gone out of its way since 2010 to continue improving the local search results.

When you think about it until recently you had to use the town or city or end up with poor search results.

Now, with the continued improvement in its search engine Google will now present a set of local results even when you didn’t specify a town or city.

Every computer has an IP address so Google can now deliver the most appropriate results based on your computer’s IP address.

As the trend continues for local enquiries to be carried out online it is more important than ever that you as a business owner submit your fully optimized Google local business listing.

The one thing that most folks appear to have forgotten about is E-books. E-books are still an excellent way to make money on the internet if you understand how to market them properly. On This Page we are going to be discussing how folks can make extra money by selling E-books that they write and even E-books that they have the resale rights to.

In case you are selling information that people want, you will see that folks will end up purchasing it. Needless to say you have to make certain that the knowledge you are providing to your customers is a thing that they will be willing to invest cash on.

For instance if you wrote an E-book about how to change a tire on a car, you will see that you’ll probably not sell very many, if any copies of that E-book. But, due to the cost of gas nowadays you are going to realize that an E-book explaining how to get better gas mileage is something that loads of men and women may be interested in.

Having said that, if you have reliable information, it’s going to sell, but if you’ve got useless information you’ll be wasting your time.

Now you ought to additionally be aware that exactly the same thing is true with regards to buying the resale rights to a variety of E-books. Meaning that you can buy the E-book and then you’ll have the right to sell this E-book to other folks for as much or as little as you want.

But again, you’ll want to make sure that the E-book you purchase the rights to, contains information that folks will be willing to spend cash on.

After you create your own E-book or obtain the resale rights to an E-book, you’ll need to generate a website which you can market the E-book from. You may possibly want to find someone who can generate a professional website for you in case you’re not good at creating a site. When you decide on a domain name for your website make certain that it pertains to your E-book.

So in case you are selling an E-book about getting better gas mileage, search for a domain name like getbettergasmileage.com. A domain name like that is a thing that people will type in to the major search engines and they are going to have a good chance of finding your website if you have done proper seo.

In other words, E-books are a great way for folks to make extra cash if they are willing to put in the time to find or develop an E-book that individuals will want. You need to remember that the knowledge that’s in the E-books is key to being able to making sales with E-books.

In the Internet marketing business you will hear everyone telling you how important it is to build your own marketing e-mail list. Here we will go over exactly why this is so important and also share a few ways that you could start building your own list.

Exactly Why Is List Building So Fundamental

List building genuinely can be the corner stone of your internet based business. Let’s pretend that you sold an e-book to someone which included low excess fat recipes. If you had them signup to your newsletter or join your mailing list when they purchased this merchandise, then you can advertise another cookbook you might have on low calorie recipes.

Because this person already bought one package from you, you know they are a buyer and more liable to purchase other products from you in the future as long as they are about the same subject.

Now let’s go one step further and say you promote an arts and crafts “how to” pdf. If you had your own list of people that are into arts and crafts, that you could possibly email every week and promote your arts and crafts e-book to, you would make more sales.

Many people don’t understand the importance of a list, every highly effective Internet marketer will tell you that every one of your list members are actually worth $1 a month. So let’s say you end up developing a huge list of 5,000 folks who are all interested in one type of niche, your list should be earning you about $5,000 every single month.

How Do I Generate A Mailing List

In order to build your own marketing e-mail list you will need a small amount of things, if you want to do it right. You should have your own web page, so you can create your name recognition. You will need an auto-responder, this should make it really easy to contact your existing list at once instead of sending out 1 email at a time from your email account. And lastly you really should have some type of product that you can give to people to get them to sign up on your list.

Once you have these three elements you’re all set to go. Let’s stay with the arts and crafts niche market for this case in point. You will simply create a simple squeeze page that shows your visitors a free product that anybody into arts and crafts would like. They enter their name and email in to the auto-responder form you now have on that page so as to get this product.

They will automatically receive an email with a verification link saying it is OK for you to send them information. They click the link and are sent straight to the download page for the product or service you are giving away. And that’s it, you now have a new person on your email list that you can send other promotions to in order to make money.

Of course there are ways to make more cash online but you’ll have to be willing to put in the hard work to make it work for you. In This Article we are going to explain to you the best ways to begin making more cash from your internet marketing efforts.

Because we need a place to start, in this example let’s just say that you’re spending 1 hour a day and you are taking in about $200 a month. The easiest way to begin making more cash is by simply copying what you are doing and work for yet another hour.

One thing we want to point out is that for that second hour you end up working every single day, you ought to use the same strategies you’re using now, but you need to be advertising different products. This is a very simple method to start doubling the volume of money that you’re making each month.

Another thing you should do is to make certain that you have you website properly monetized, this will be sure you are making the most cash out of every visitor you receive.

A lot of people do not use Adsense mainly because they don’t think it’s worth it in the long run, but would you rather not make any cash from a visitor or possibly make twenty five cents, it does add up. Don’t forget that every extra dollar you wind up earning is going to get you closer to your monthly goals.

When it comes to making more money you’ll want to ensure that you are marketing more than just one product from your website. One thing you should realize is that the more options folks have, the better the chance that they’re going to end up purchasing something. You must understand that folks like to have options when ever it comes to purchasing anything.

You may already know this but you should additionally be building backlinks to every page of your website. This will not only help you to rank your home page but you will additionally realize that you will be ranking your individual pages in search engines like Google as well. You are also going to discover that you’ll end up obtaining traffic to your site from the back links themselves.

As anyone can tell you the more traffic you get the more product sales you ought to be able to make. While these are a few simple things that you can do to start making more cash, you’ll also realize that these suggestions are actually a powerful way to help you to make more money.

Any traffic you receive from the traffic exchanges is not traffic that you truly want in the first place. The traffic that you generate from the various traffic exchange programs is not the type of traffic that generates sales.

While you will be able to get lots of traffic, the traffic you’re getting hardly ever ends up buying what you’re promoting. Your best bet is to keep your distance from the traffic exchanges and look for other programs where you can promote your products or affiliate links.

Leads Leap is one of those traffic programs that can actually drive targeted traffic. The good thing about this program is that you can put your Google type ads on a really popular blog. Leads Leap has two different memberships that you can register for.

You can register for Leads Leap at no cost and then earn credits by looking at other people’s advertisements or by getting other people to sign up under you. The Leads Leap program has a membership which is something you would end up paying for monthly. If you believe that becoming a paid member is worth it (which it is), you should sign up for the paid membership when you join instead of waiting to upgrade later.

The nice thing about the paid membership is you will find that you get site traffic without referring new members, but if you decide to refer people as a paid member, you will not only be getting more advertising but you will also earn a commission on anyone that you refer if they upgrade.

There is one more excellent program called Free Traffic Bar, that can generate website traffic without doing anything. Similar to Leads Leap, you will have a few options on memberships when you sign up. Free members can earn free advertising by just surfing the Internet as they usually do an you don’t have to refer others in order to accumulate advertising credits.

When and if you recruit other people, you will even get more free ad credits. Free Traffic Bar has paid memberships and if you choose to sign up for one of the paid memberships, you will get free advertising credits. The amount of advertising credits you get monthly depends on the membership you choose.

List building is a superb way to start getting traffic to your site and there is a program known as My Huge List that can help you with this. If you have made use of other list builders previously, you will discover that My Huge List is different from the others. Similar to the two programs mentioned earlier, My Huge List has a paid and a free membership.

As I mentioned, My Huge List is unique and you will only be getting a couple of emails every day and you will be able to email everyone in your down line every 2 to 5 days. If you have accounts with other list builders, you will discover that My Huge List is not going to fill your in-box with hundreds or even thousands of emails each day.

While you’re growing your mailing list, the people you recruit will also be helping you to grow your email list, making My Huge List a truly viral list builder.

Hence as you have learned through this article, making use of traffic exchanges is not a way to generate good traffic, but you can find other traffic programs that will get you the high targeted traffic you are looking for. While the traffic programs cited are a good way to get started, you will be able to find other programs that can also help you receive even more site traffic.

Employing a number of smaller programs can oftentimes get you better results than paying a small fortune on merely one of the bigger programs that just doesn’t get you the results you are looking for.

It is hard to know just what will hit a nerve with people and make them pass it to all their friends. Internet news is quite real and as soon as it happens to you it can be an amazing thing.

Even so, with all that said, it is possible to affect some viral qualities in your marketing. Some techniques have proven to work effectively consistently, all other things considered equal and executed properly.

There are many people online who are happy to do small tasks for a small fee. That is a little something you can leverage in your favor in a number of ways. Honestly, you are only constrained by your imagination. What some clever internet marketers do is use these small armies of men and women to do things like help a promotion become viral through various social media sites.

This one actually is not all that tough to figure out. Many online marketers have made use of this to great effect and give their new promotions a much needed initial momentum.

Contests are incredibly popular since the majority of people like to win things. Way before the world wide web ever came along, the truth is many decades before, people loved contests. I imagine it is something in human nature, and possibly it has to do with winning and the thrill of entering.

So put simply you can create your own prize draws and use them on your sites, your fan pages at Facebook and just about anywhere else. Just like the majority of things, this offers you the possibility to be as creative as you want to be.

Some internet marketers use Facebook in underhanded ways to get fans to their pages. Or, they’ll use contests to get men and women at Facebook to like their pages or status updates. This is effective, but you have to wonder just how valuable those fans are in the long term.

It is one thing for a person to become a fan since they sincerely like you or your content. But if it is to simply join a sweepstakes we are not sure about the lifetime value of that person. So you may choose to think about that one before using this strategy.

One particular method has worked wonderfully for years, and it involves giving away something for free. As an example, you could have authored an e book full of completely useful information or maybe an incredibly useful software system.

The viral strategy is to offer something very similar for free and allow people to sell it or give it away. This has been extremely powerful for building email lists and getting exposure. It does have a viral component to it, however it can only be as effective as it is valuable.

The first thing you need to know is that you can find loads of programs on the Internet that can assist you in your Twitter advertising. Once you sign up with Twitter, the first thing you should find is an auto follow software.

The more people you follow on Twitter, in general, means that more people will be following you. In order to get the most people following you, you should continually follow other users. And the more followers you get, the more money you can potentially be generated through your efforts.

Then you are going to want to find an un-follow software. This program will begin removing users that you follow that have chosen not to follow you. You can only follow a certain amount of people depending on how many people choose to follow you. Of course, as time goes on and you increase your followers, you will be able to start following more and more people.

Next, you are going to want to look for an auto posting software. With a software like this, you will not have to log in at all times to post your marketing messages. You will choose how often you would like to post and what products you wish to promote and the software will make your posts for you. This is very important as it can free up your time and you won’t have any need to remember when to sign in and post your messages.

By using these types of programs, you will be able to start getting traffic from Twitter to your web sites or affiliate links. You will be able to find other software’s that can help you even more. If you are a blogger, you can even find programs that will automatically take your blog entries and publish them on your Twitter account. This is great if you are using your blogs to generate money from AdSense.

Now instead of looking for all the different pieces of software’s, you can use one software that can do everything you need it to do. While software like this can be rather pricey, for a number of people this is a great option because one software can take care of everything for you. You may even find other types of software’s to help you with your Twitter marketing efforts that I haven’t even brought up here.

Twitter really is a great way to get a lot of of targeted traffic to your web sites and affiliate links. The only problem is that without using different types of software, building a list of followers can take a while. By not using these types of software’s, you may find out sooner than later that the time involved in building your followers will not be worth the hassle.

If you stick with it and keep building your followers, in no time you will have a lot of Twitter followers. The best part is the more people you have following you and receiving your advertisements, the more money you can expect to make.

The problem with this is that you actually need to make certain you are getting traffic to the blog, or you are just wasting your time with it. If you are looking to learn how to optimize each page of your blog I will be showing you how to do that here.

The main thing you want is to get your blog pages listed in the various search engines, as this will be one of the best methods for getting targeted traffic to your pages.

If you have a word press blog, you are allowed to add pinging sites in the settings of your blog, to ensure that every time you update your blog you can have a list of ping sites that will automatically be notified when you make a new post. Your best bet for finding ping sites is to just do a search on one of the major search engines.

The next thing you need to do is to make sure that you optimize the actual web page itself using proper keyword placement. What we are talking about is ensuring you have the keyword or keyword phrase placed all through the content of your page.

When you are starting off you will need to generate a title for your post and you will want to make sure the keyword phrase is in the title. The keyword phrase you are targeting will also be something which you will want to have in the URL of the post. This is the actual URL that you would enter into your browser in order to visit the particular page.

When you start creating the content of the page itself you’ll want to make sure you use your keyword phrase throughout the article without over stuffing the keyword. Basically if you have an article that you’re posting on your blog that has 5 paragraphs, you should have the keyword phrase included in each paragraph.

In addition you will want to make sure that the keyword phrase shows up in the first and the last sentence of the content on that page. Using this technique you will find that you’ll be able to get better positioning for the pages of your blog.

And lastly, as soon as you publish your page you should also take the URL to that web page and submit it to social bookmarking sites. This will help you to get better search engine ranking as you’re building links right to the page itself. You will also find that you’ll be getting traffic from the social bookmarking sites themselves. These are just some simple ways for you to obtain more traffic to your individual blog pages.