Boyd Bowker, Author at Leverage 123 | Profitable Marketing Made Simple

Boyd Bowker

Author Archives: Boyd Bowker

This Old School Internet Marketing Hack Works!

Okay, I kind of mislead you in the subject line. This isn’t a hack exactly. But it is definitely old school.

Your smart phone is for more than just social media, taking pictures of your dog, and Googling stuff. It’s a phone! Start using it to talk to people!

So many businesses get tired of being hit up by marketers that they started hiding their phone numbers on their websites. Bad idea. Having to answer the phone and tell a salesperson no thanks, is just part of the deal. Who else is calling? Your customers! Hello!

The whole “if you need customer service hit 1, if you need accounting hit 2,” thing has really gone too far. Sure, it all has to be cost efficient, but how much would your business stand out if you actually answered the phone like people used to.

XYZ Consulting…How Can I Help You Today?

That sort of thing!

I would encourage you to try this for a month and see what the feedback is. My guess is you’ll keep doing it!

How To Implement:

Easy, when the phone rings answer it!

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If you would like help implementing these marketing tips, or would like to discuss the many ways that we can help you make “More Sales Now”, visit our “Contact Us” page and let us know how we can help you!

Don’t Skimp On This!

There are a few key skills that all business people need. Basic accounting is one. Sales ability is another. But now, with the Internet, there’s another one that if you don’t have it, you need to at least have access to someone who does, and that’s the ability to write.

So much of the Internet is written. Even if you do just video marketing, you still have to write descriptions for your videos, and if someone’s going to watch them, you’ll have to send out an email to your list. Most people can write an email that says…hey, just created a new video, click here to watch. Here’s the deal though. Can you write in a way that sells your services and engages your reader.

Everything from blog content to elevator pitches to emails needs to sell. Not one inch (digital, of course) needs to be wasted. Fundamentally, if you’re not selling you’re not creating revenue.

Are you creating revenue with the Internet for your business? Reach out to me so we can talk about that. Talk about how to make the Internet your favorite, low cost advertising medium!

How To Implement:

If you haven’t already read books on sales and copywriting, especially Internet copywriting. You don’t have to become an expert. You just need to learn what you don’t know.

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This Technique Is A Loaded Gun!

I’m sure you’ve seen this, and you might even have been tempted to do it. But rest assured…it’s a loaded gun!

I’m talking about putting a quick countdown timer on a sales page and giving your prospect only a short amount of time…fifteen, thirty minutes or so…to buy at a discounted price.

I’ve tested this and the results are questionable at best. My feeling is that people don’t like being rushed, and rushing them more only leads to people not buying. Personally, I like to start out on a much better footing with my clients and customers than this.

I’ve heard from others in the business that this technique actually works. I suspect it works with some buyers in some niches and not others.

In these emails, I suggest a lot of things for you to do. Things that will absolutely increase your bottom line.

In this email, I’m suggesting that you take a long, hard look at this particular strategy. It’s a loaded gun. Could go off at any time. Just make sure you’re not looking down the barrel when it does!

How To Implement:

Maybe best not to… (but if you do, make sure to do a proper split test).

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Do This To Get More Clients/Customers

How would you like to establish yourself as a market leader and also get more leads and sales for your business at the same time, and do this easily in only a few minutes per week?

I’ve talked about your website at length. Especially how it’s doing nothing for your business if you’re not getting new visitors to it. Well, here’s an easy way to get more people knowing about you, your business, and what you do.

It’s called Blog Commenting.

Basically, you use Google to search for blogs that serve your target niche. Not competitors necessarily, although this will work with them too. But parallel businesses. Businesses that serve the same demographic as you do.

Once you locate those blogs, you comment on appropriate posts. This way you’re leveraging other business’s traffic, establishing yourself as a credible expert, and getting more buzz. It’s a win-win-win!

How To Implement:

Here are the steps to getting rolling with this:

1. Use Google to find blogs in your demographic, location, and industry

2. Set a weekly time aside (less than an hour per week for a start) to comment. Don’t waste time worrying about what you say. Just say something intelligent and move on. Your goal is more comments not fewer longer comments.

Need Help?

The Free Lead Generation Tool You’ve Never Thought Of

More leads, leads to more prospects, leads to more sales, and that my friend leads to more revenue. More revenue is, of course, what this whole business thing is all about, right?

So, how do you create more leads?

Here’s a tip for you. Take another look at Twitter. As a social media platform, it’s one of the most powerful out there. A lot of people get lost on Twitter, so let me give you a few tips.

How To Implement:

1. Ignore the newsfeed. It’s useless for our purposes.

2. Start figuring out how your target market tags their posts. I’m talking about hashtags here.

3. Consider using software like Hootsuite to post new content on your Twitter account regular. You’ll need at least five posts a day to make an impact. (That’s why I said software!)

4. Make sure your profile contains a call to action and a link to your website, if that’s part of your call to action.

It might take a while to set this up, but what’s going to come out of it is new leads for your business. People will go to your website, email you, or even direct message you on Twitter. You might want to turn notifications on on your phone, or have an employee do that so you can take care of your new prospects in real time!

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How To Make Your Website A Profit Center

How much did you pay for your company’s website? No need to answer. I just want you to think about it.

Is that website a real profit center for you? For most businesses, their website is not much more than a convenient, online business card that has interactive maps and all their phone numbers.

How about getting a return on that investment?

In a nutshell, here’s what you need to do. You need to make the content on your website dynamic and not static.

How often do you change the content on your website? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? For most businesses, it’s not even yearly. Yet fresh content is how you get new visitors, and new visitors are one of the ways you get new customers and clients.

In these emails I send you, you’ll see a lot of tips and even hacks for doing this, for easily getting new content posted to your website.

Let me suggest that you start implementing some of these tips. If you don’t have time, reach out to me. I do this stuff professionally!

How To Implement:

Read through my past messages and find one thing you can start doing this week. Once you do it the first time, decide on a reasonable schedule for doing this. Don’t expect immediate results, especially if you’ve never done this sort of marketing before. Glaciers are huge, right? Yet it takes thousands and thousands of years to create one. Don’t worry! Getting more business from your website won’t take nearly that long!

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The Real Reason Why Most Businesses Fail

You’re constantly reading about how must businesses fail in their first five years. Not sure what the statistic is, but it’s pretty grim. Common knowledge is that most business fail because of lack of capital. Personally, I don’t believe that at all! Being a marketer, I believe that most businesses fail because they don’t do the basics when it comes to marketing.

Here’s a free program for you, which you can implement right now to sell more and gain more clients/customers.

I call it my Refer A Friend program. I’m sure you’ve seen this, and I of course, didn’t invent it. But, it’s shocking how many businesses don’t do this.

It goes something like this. If you refer a new client/customer, you either get something extra or you get a certain percentage off your own order.

Setting this up isn’t hard, either, since it’s a one time deal for a new customer.

If you don’t really know how to work this in your own business, contact me. I can help you outline what to do!

How To Implement:

1. Think about what it is you want to use as a reward.

2. Also, consider how you’ll track this. You might do it manually for a while, just to prove it’s worth doing.

3. If I were you, I’d market the daylights out of this! Press releases, videos, blog posts, ads, more!

Need Help?

Leverage Other Experts To Establish Your Credibility!

Here’s a great way to easily increase your visibility and establish yourself as a bona fide expert in your business, even if you’re not really one at all!

And, it’s completely legitimate.

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, then I’m sure you know of people who are looked at as experts in that business. Instead of competing with them, how about cooperating with them?

Help them help you!

How To Implement:

Once a month reach out to a new expert and ask to interview them. You can use GoToMeeting, Skype, or Zoom for this, among other platforms. Send them a list of questions you’re going to ask them, and then for about thirty minutes to an hour, interview them.

Interviewing is actually not that difficult to do. You ask questions, then you be quiet while the other person explains. Experts love the attention, and they love to teach. Let them do the work for you. You be the beneficiary of their work.

This is kind of like the scrawny kid in school being all big and tough just because he or she is hanging out with the school bully. (But in a positive way! )

In all my emails, I’ve given you scores of ways to take content and use it. You can take this interview and put it on YouTube. You should link to that from social media. Of course, it goes on your blog. And, it gets emailed out to your growing list.

Pretty soon, people will be reaching out to you, seeking your advice as an expert!

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How To Leverage LinkedIn For Any Business!

For business owners and managers, LinkedIn is a gold mine…if you know how to work it. Now, there’s a lot to know, and I’m not covering all of that in this one email. But, I did want to show you a quick little “hack”, which will yield incredible results, if you’re consistent with it.

I call it The LinkedIn Group Hack.

You may or may not know this, but LinkedIn has groups just like Facebook. And, you can join up to 50 groups at a time. There are tens of thousands of groups. There are groups for virtually any business niche.

You need to find those groups and become a member. Then you need to start posting in those groups so that you can establish yourself as and authority in your business.

It gets better than just posting, though. LinkedIn has made some changes recently, which have taken away many of it’s better features for free users, and changed all of this even for paid users.

If you want to get connected with people in a given, targeted niche, like a geographic niche or a specific business niche, you can no longer use LinkedIn’s advanced search feature. The only real way to do this is by joining groups and then reaching out to the members of those groups and connecting with them.

A complete discussion of LinkedIn marketing is way beyond the scope of this email, but if you’ll do that one thing, join groups and start connecting with people in those groups, you’ll find that your networks grows automatically among the types of people you need to be connected with.

Again, if you need more information about this, reach out to me.

How To Implement:

You implement this by doing it.

1. Review your profile to make sure it’s up to date.

2. Join relevant groups.

3. Connect with other members of those groups.

4. Enjoy the rewards of your growing network!

Need Help?

Increase Your Website’s ROI Massively!

If you’ve been reading my emails and tips, then you know that I’m all about intelligent use of the Internet to grow your business. One of your top priorities should be to grow your email list. Another top priority should be to increase your reach on social media.

Here’s a quick way to do this, which is almost effortless once you set it up.

We call it Gated Content.

You see this all the time in news outlets. You’ll see a link to an article, and when you get there you can only read the first paragraph or so. Once you get that read, you’ll have to click a button to continue. Sometimes, it’s just a button that needs clicking. Other times, however, you’ll even have to submit your email to continue. Yet other times, you’ll have to share on your choice of social media outlets in order to continue.

Personally, I like the sharing strategy best. It’s a lot to ask for an email just to read an article. But, it’s really not that much to ask someone to share a link to their Twitter of Facebook accounts. When your reader shares, their friends and followers see the link. Some of them will then click that link and come to your website. Some of those folks will end up being customers and clients.

Best of all, once you set this up, it runs on its own!

How To Implement:

Determine what type of platform you use for your website, WordPress, Joomla, or is it just straight HTML (rare these days). Get with your web developer and ask them how to implement this strategy. It will take a little garden variety software to do. Nothing big, and probably either free or not expensive, either. The most important part is to get going!

Need Help?

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