4 Great Ideas for DIY Marketing Month
The calendar on the wall says it’s June while the calendar on my smartphone says it’s Entrepreneurs Do It Yourself Marketing Month. For most entrepreneurs every month is DIY marketing month, but as summer rolls in, we take a little extra time to consider marketing.
I don’t want to highlight or honor this month with a rehash of social media marketing tips that you see almost every week. I’m going to pull out a few “gems” that I suspect some of you are overlooking.
Testimonials
One of the most powerful, easy and inexpensive marketing tools in the world is testimonials. If you look at any great service provider’s website, you’ll probably find testimonials on the home page.
If you have some customers who are big fans, see if you can feature their testimonials prominently on your website. Use real pictures of these folks. We can all smell stock photos from a mile away. Be honest. It’s always, as the adage goes, the best policy.
For retailers, product reviews serve this purpose, and when they are from a verified buyer, they truly become a testimonial.
Comment on forums
It is amazing how much traffic you can generate for your website when you post informative comments on forums related to your business sector. When you register to make comments on popular forums, often they will allow a link to your site in your “signature.”
Do some research to discover which forums would perform the best for you and then spend a few minutes every day, scrolling through and reading new posts. Major forums give you statistics on the most visited topics and often tell you how many people are actively browsing. Concentrate your efforts in those locations.
Create beaucoup landing pages
If driving qualified customers or clients to your website would significantly enhance your marketing efforts, create landing pages to match every possible interest your leads would have. Hubspot did a survey of 7,000 businesses and found an interesting relationship between the number of landing pages and number of leads captured among both B2B and B2C businesses.
The increase in leads wasn’t very significant when businesses went from one to five or even as high as 20 landing pages. However when the number of landing pages hit 40 and above, leads increased by five to six times.
Start an affiliate program
Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer is probably most famous for persuading his friends to whitewash the fence for him. Lining up others to sell your products won’t make you an icon of popular culture, but it will increase your cash flow.
Research the various ways you can get an affiliate program going. There are plenty of third party providers as well as plugins and other software solutions. Maybe right now you don’t have something that you feel is appropriate to offer in an affiliate program.
Do a little thinking and find a product that dovetails with your existing product line or service. Use it as a lure to build an affiliate program and then when leads see what else you offer or do, you have a good opportunity to up-sell/cross-sell or turn them into steady customers.
Have any great DIY marketing tips that you’re willing to share?
