Frank Speaking Live

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Twelve quick marketing tips to get more bookings

Everywhere I travel in the world, businesses and individuals have felt the pinch with the downturn in the economy.

Many professional speakers have also seen a downturn in bookings with organisations cancelling and postponing their conferences.

Candice and I have just analysed our year and although our income over the past year has increased, our marketing efforts this year have doubled. Here are some of the strategies we have used, try them, they work.

Contact all your clients you have worked with over the past 5 years and send them your updated details and talks. This has resulted in bookings from clients that I had forgotten about, but not Candice (thank goodness I have someone that is great at detail and record keeping)

Produce a hard copy newsletter for bureaus you are listed with, just make sure they don’t forget you.

Buy an ‘opt in’ list of event planners and send them details of how you can enhance their events.

Have a Google alert for ‘call for speakers’ to see what may be suitable for you.

Update all your photos and marketing materials and send them to clients, potential clients and bureaus.

Have a page where potential bookers can find all your details quickly. I have been amazed at how many bookings have happened after someone has found my website and taken a good look through everything. Take a look at
http://www.frankfurnessresources.com/bureaus/

Start your own video channel and upload videos of you speaking at conferences. Take a look at
www.youtube.com/salestips

Establish yourself as an expert by submitting articles and contributing to social networking sites like linked-in.

Search the internet for conferences and if they suit your talk, contact the organisers.

If all else fails, pick up the phone and cold call.

Use
www.elance.com to build your international databases. I did this earlier this year and followed up with a short email which resulted in me being featured on Dubai FM and working with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

Take your camera with you to every talk and get video testimonials, they are very powerful.

Take a look at
http://www.frankfurnessresources.com/testimonialvideos/

On the other hand, if it didn’t go so well, keep the camera well hidden.

More tips in the next newsletter and my new book on ‘Marketing Strategies for Speakers and Trainers’ will be published next year.

Drop me an email if you want to be one of the first to know when it is released.

Also, you might want to
take a look at my CD series or if you are a subscriber of the http://www.productivitycentre.com
or resources take a look at

http://www.frankfurness.com
http://www.frankfurnessresources.com
http://www.productivitycentre.com

Productivity Centre Updates

This month’s updates for Productivity Centre subscribers include:

Video – how to download videos from YouTube and insert them into your PowerPoint presentations.

Audio – Secret strategies for finding niche markets and products that you can sell to with no experience and make money while you sleep

EBooks – Health & Wealth Magnetism

More next month.....

How to Drive Traffic & Sales with Article Marketing


Article marketing is one of my favourite ways of establishing my brand, building my subscriber list and driving sales. It is the most efficient low cost, no cost way to promote yourself or your business.

It is the quickest and most cost effective way to drive traffic to your website and blog. More than that, it allows you to have permanent links spread across the internet pointing back to your site.

Here are some of the rules to get the best from your articles:

Keywords – before you write, do some keyword research to optimise your article. There are some great free tools like
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

Use your keyword in your headline, first and last paragraphs. The Important thing is that you have an article that has the keywords that are related to your site.

Headlines – use a compelling headline or title that will encourage your readers to take the time to read the article. I use a great tool
http://www.headlinecreator.co.uk

Content - Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good information and help for their needs. Articles should be written well with correct spelling and good grammar. If you want people to trust you, make your work good and well thought out.

People respond well to figures, facts and statistics. Try to get great information and as many facts as you can. A good and well written article will boost your reputation as an expert in your chosen field or topic as more people believe in you. They will be able to trust you and your products.

Promotional Opportunities – maximise on the promotional opportunities. Part of the benefits of article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with a large number of audiences and gaining the ability of leveraging other brands because of the quality of your work.

I see articles as the perfect sales and promotional tool. By educating your readers, you establish yourself as an expert in your field and the business will follow.

Make it interesting - Use short paragraphs and make use of numbers or bullets as well as stories. The article must be client focussed and they must see value in reading it.

Conclusion – end with a conclusion summarising the article and remember to proofread and correct any mistakes.

Resource box – have a great resource box which includes your contact details and your website link. Take a look at my resource box at the end of this article.

Article life cycle – I follow a system with every article I write:

1 – The first place my article goes onto is my website. I want Google to find my article on my website before anywhere else on the internet

2 – Blog – the second place I put my article is on my blog. I normally make a quick video relating to the article, submit it to YouTube and insert the video in the middle of the blog. I then use
http://pingomatic.com to share my blog with all the blog directories (free...)

3 – The third thing I do is to submit my articles to over 100 article directories using a piece of software http://www.articlesubmittingsoftware.com/ which makes the process of submitting quick and easy. I immediately have 100 links back to my website.

Alternatively you can manually submit your article to the directories. The top five are:
www.ezinearticles.com
www.articlebase.com
www.buzzle.com
www.goarticles.com
www.helium.com

4 – The fourth thing I do is submit my articles to the local press. In the past this has resulted in me having my own column in an international publication which was part of the Financial Times and distributed to 40 countries.

5 – The fifth thing I do is to find magazines where my article could be a good fit and submit them to the editor. This has resulted in my articles being published in numerous magazines all over the world. As I have said, the best form of low cost, no cost marketing.

6 – Promotion – my last step is to publicise the article to my subscriber list and through my various social media accounts. One easy website to do all of this quickly is
www.ping.fm

Now it’s up to you, start spreading the message and watch the traffic and sales follow.

Frank Furness CSP CFP TOT is a professional speaker and author specialising in sales and technology. He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 48 countries. For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales Tips & Ideas’ newsletter, email
frank@frankfurness.com For resources take a look at
http://www.frankfurness.com
http://www.frankfurnessresources.com
http://www.productivitycentre.com

NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to frank@frankfurness.com

Take a look at other articles, free software and e-Books at
http://www.frankfurness.com/ Download 39 Power Sales Closing Scripts at http://www.frankfurness.com/closingscripts.cfm

Newsletter Update

Welcome to the latest newsletter and apologies it has taken so long since the last one. I have been travelling all over and at last had a chance to sit down and share some information.

It has been an interesting year and fascinating to see how different countries and cultures have adapted to the downturn in the economy.

After months of development work, the Productivity Centre
www.productivitycenter.com is up and running and great value with over a thousand resources for growing your business and increasing your productivity. Please take a look at the website and download the flyer

Anyone signing up in the next 2 weeks will also get a copy of my Ebook ‘How to Find New Clients and Business’.

I am currently finishing another EBook ‘Internet Marketing for Newbie’s’ with great information and links to some of the best sites and free resources on the net. As soon as it is ready, it will be available for you for free.

I am also intending to do a shorter and more regular newsletter with marketing tips and videos in the New Year, so spending some time this month producing the videos.
Why not spoil yourself or your clients this festive season and buy a business card scanner.

All those cards that have been piling up for months could be potential business.


From now until Christmas there will be additional bonus software worth £80 for anyone investing in their card scanner on http://www.businesscardscanner.co.uk/

January is a good time for a sales 'kick-off', so please give me a call to come in and work with your team.

I will also be doing some international work, so if you see that I will be in your area, please contact me to arrange a presentation:

Singapore & Malaysia - Jan 24-30

Hong Kong - Feb 2-5

Iran - Feb 16-26

Dubai & Abu Dhabi - Feb 27-March 5

South Africa - March 10-16

Download all my presentations and take a look here for more details.

Have a wonderful festive season and may next year be a great one for you.

A little known website strategy to get more traffic

Many people I speak to tell me they have a great website, but very little traffic. When I ask if they have done the most basic thing and submitted their website to the various search engines, most answer that they have not.

Here is a great strategy that very few people know about. DMOZ (also known as the Open Directory Project) is the grandfather of search engines and most search engines index use it for indexing websites.

So it is essential for you or your website administrator to submit your website to be indexed into DMOZ so that search engines can find additional information about the website.

This is how you do it:

1. Visit the
DMOZ directory website.

2. Review the top-level categories and click on the most appropriate category to fit the website that you will be submitting.

3. Choose a subcategory which suits your website. These are located below the alphabet links in the top centre of the page. Since so many categories are extensive in size, there may be many subcategories from to choose from.

4. Continue to choose subcategories until you are at the lowest possible category. Although not always, it will generally be a small category with no more subcategory links at the top.

5. Click suggest URL which is the third link from the left in the gray bar of links at the top of the webpage.

6. Read the guidelines and rules thoroughly that are on the website submission page and ensure that the submission form is correctly completed.

7. Complete the submission information so that it is complete while following all of the submission guidelines. The category should already be filled in with the category that was chosen. Also, make sure to include your user verification and email address.

8. Read the Submission Agreement and once complete and you agree with it, press submit.

9. Wait for the website to be indexed. All of the website submissions for each category are reviewed by volunteers who spend their time to review the website submissions, so this can take up to 6 months.

Remember that all category editors (who are the users who review website submissions) are entirely volunteers. Some categories may be more thoroughly watched and reviewed than others.

Not all website submissions are accepted, regardless of how well the submission form is filled out. There are various reasons; the site may be illegal, pornographic or simply a one page sales pitch with no information. Remember, the internet was created to share information.

DMOZ has a website index for over seventy languages and is always adding new languages. If you own a website in another language, submit that as well.

There are millions of unreviewed website submissions presently - only submit your website once to avoid being penalised!

So don’t wait, get your site indexed straight away.

Frank Furness CSP CFP TOT is a professional speaker and author specialising in sales and technology.

He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 48 countries. For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales Tips & Ideas’ newsletter, email
frank@frankfurness.com and for resources take a look at
http://www.frankfurness.com
http://www.frankfurnessresources.com
http://www.productivitycentre.com

Download 39 Power Sales Closing Scripts at
http://www.frankfurness.com/closingscripts.cfm