TOPVOLUMEMarketing.com

It’s no secret that the days of print advertising for small business in Michigan (and everywhere) has headed south, and has been for quite awhile.

Spending money on print advertising, expensive Yellow Pages ads and the like is like throwing money in the wind.

The Internet has taken over as the choice of consumers when searching for local services. The recent studies prove that so you know I’m not making this up.

If you’re a small business owner in Michigan, you NEED to have an online presence. No if’s, and’s or but’s about it. You’re losing money every day if you have no web presence, or your current website is not performing like you were sold it would when you spent thousands of dollars having it designed and built.

You can build your business online without even having a website actually. It’s great if you have one, but’s it’s not absolutely necessary.

You can market your business with nothing but email marketing. Seriously. I’m not talking about spamming here. We’re doing this playing by the rules.

Did you know that according to studies (eTeam eBusiness Solutions) that email marketing continues to be a small business marketers best friend when it comes to the all important return on investment?

A recent survey (months ago) of U.S. marketers by the Direct Marketing Association revealed that for every $1 spent that email marketing returns an astonishing $45.65.

Are you kidding me? Why isn’t every small business owner in mid-Michigan and beyond using this marketing tactic then? Why do they keep spending hundreds, even thousands every week and month on newspaper ads, and expensive radio spots?

People check their email boxes almost on a daily basis. They don’t read newspapers anymore like they used to. They get their information, news, weather, sports all online now.

eMail is cheap, it’s instant, and it’s worldwide. It can be forwarded virtually forever, giving your business exposure like you wouldn’t believe.

Mid-Michigan small business owners need to be harnessing the power of email marketing in a big way.

With email marketing you can track everything. All your online email marketing campaigns can be tracked so you know what’s working and what isn’t so you can tweak your marketing campaigns accordingly.

And it’s alot more affordable, by far, than print advertising.

There is a pretty good learning curve in understanding the correct software and functions of developing and managing an email marketing campaign though.

TOP VOLUME Marketing can build your online customer list and do all your email marketing and manage your database. It’s what we do so you can keep doing what you do and concentrate on running your business.

With a 4500% Return on Investment with eMail marketing, mid-Michigan small business owners have to realize that by increasing their online presence, building their online customer list, that they can be dominating their local search engine market on the Internet.

For more information on how I can help you accomplish this, give me a call. My phone number is located in the “about us” link above.

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TOP VOLUME Marketing is an Internet marketing small business consultant in mid-Michigan specializing in direct response marketing helping local small business owners develop an online marketing machine that generates profits and builds a loyal customer list virtually automatically. Call NOW.
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Every Small Business Owner needs to pay attention to some recent Internet survey statistics by an offline company called The Kelsey Group.

If your small business isn’t doing business online you are seriously leaving alot of money on the table.

The “old fashioned” ways of marketing your business are fast changing as some recent statistics will show…

- 70% of U.S. households now use the Internet as a source of information when shopping locally for products and services as compared to only 45% who still use the Yellow Pages.

- Of the 70% of the U.S. households that search for a product or service online, 62% of them will end up making a purchase based on the information they found online.

- 92% of Internet users say the Internet is a good place to obtain everyday information.

- 54% of Americans have now substituted the Internet for their local phone book.

Further findings suggest that local Internet searches are poised to surpass newspapers as a local shopping information source and it was reported that 27% of all searches are for local information. (source: The Kelsey Group)

By marketing your small business online locally, you will drive traffic to your website or to your brick and mortar establishment. It’s a matter of getting your company online to tap into your local market who are searching for you.

If they can’t find you, who do you think they do find? Your competitor.

Marketing your business online is absolutely vital to your survival in this day and age. The Internet traffic is exploding and the numbers don’t lie.

Online buyers prefer to shop locally whenever possible. 75% of Internet users have looked for products and services within an area close to their home or business. These people are looking to buy!

Is your business capitalizing on these local searches?

When a customer searches online in your local area for a product or service, do they find you or your competitor?

They need to find YOU or your losing money every day that you could be adding to your bottom line and it’s as simple as that.

If you want to capture the targeted traffic searching locally online, you must be found where they are searching.

Even a small Internet presence can catapult your business.

If you’re not utilizing the Internet in your small business marketing, you need to contaact us and we’ll explain to you in laymens terms what you need to do and where you need to start.

It’s not a matter of IF the Internet will affect your business, but WHEN!

If your serious about your small business, if you’re not already, it’s time you get serious about the possibilities of the Internet and start marketing your business online.

The numbers don’t lie.

Web 2.0 is all the rage on the internet nowdays taking the web by storm.

I have listed 11 quick tips for utilizing Web 2.0 to generate lots of traffic to your website if done correctly. Following these tips will get your website listed in the search engines rather quickly.

The first thing I’d recommend you do is create an XML sitemap of your website and submit it to www.Google.com/webmasters. This will notify Google you exist (you have a website) and it will send their bots over to check it out.

Next you want to create a profile on www.Facebook.com and include links to your website.

You want to do the same thing with www.MySpace.com

Go to www.StumbleUpon.com and Stumble Upon your website. If you can, get your friends to do it too.

Create a free account at www.LinkedIn.com

Got to www.Digg.com and Digg your website.

Head on over to www.OnlyWire.com social network and social bookmark your website

Go to www.Squidoo.com and create a lens based around your keywords and linking back to your website. If possible, create multiple lenses using different long-tail keywords related to your website.

Next, go to www.HubPages.com and create some Hub Pages based around your keywords and link back to your site. Like Squidoo, if you can create multiple pages around different keywords and link them back to your site.

A fairly new site is www.Qassia.com I recently became aware of. Sign up for an account there and put some Intel on their website linking through to yours.

Go to www.DMoz.org and submit your website there.

And if you haven’t already, install a blog on your website. If you’re already using Wordpress - high five! Search engines LOVE blogs and especially the Wordpress script.

Now the good thing about a blog is that it is “fresh content” as far as the search engines are concerned. They like it because it means your site is being regularly updated and so it is more likely to be relevant.

Put articles and information that is of revelance on your site, follow all the steps above 2-3 times a week for 30 days and you’ll be dealing with more traffic than you’ll know what to do with.

Can’t forget about YouTube either but that’s for a different day.

Are you a small business owner in Eaton Rapids Mi or Charlotte Mi? Do you have a small business in Eaton County you’re trying to market online?

So, how’s your business been?… Is it bringing in plenty of profits?…Allowing you to work less?…maybe I caught you on vacation?

My strong hunch tells me otherwise.

Look, I know you probably already have a website, (if you don’t, shame on you!) but is it getting you any new business?

If you’re like most small business owners I work with in Eaton Rapids MI & Charlotte MI, you built your website (and it cost you alot of money) to get you more leads, more new customers, and ultimately more profit. But somewhere along the line that didn’t quite happen, and now…

Your Website Has Become an Annoying Cost!

Instead of bringing in new customers and putting cash in your back pocket like you intended, it sits there collecting cyber-dust while taking your hard earned money from you month after month! Now, it turns out you are paying for a website that does NOTHING to get you new business.

My FREE 30-Minute Internet Marketing Consultation Will Show You How
Your Website Can Bring in New Customers Every Single Week

In less than 30 minutes I’ll ask you some key questions, examine your current website, and provide a very revealing analysis of how you can quickly improve your response rate, start generating traffic to your site and building your customer list.

Then, after our brief discussion you have a couple of options…

You can freely use my advice to improve your website…

Or, if it’s appropriate, and entirely up to you…

Save yourself time AND get guaranteed results by hiring me!

What all this boils down to is this:

Even if you don’t decide to work with me today, after my brief consulting with you, you’ll undoubtedly get more value from your website than ever before.

What’s the catch? There is none.

If you’re in Eaton County, predominately Charlotte Mich and Eaton Rapids Mich, I’m here to help you get the most out of your website so it can start making you money instead of costing you money.

Remember, no obligation whatsoever! Simply contact me now at 517.930.1919 or email me at TOPVOLUMEMarketing@yahoo.com and put “FREE CONSULTATION” in the subject of your email.

I look forward to discussing your online business marketing with you and showing you how to put more profits in your pocket.

I’m a big fan of Andrew Cavanaugh, an excellent copywriter/marketer from Australia. He always has quality content in every one of his responses if you ever happen to run across him in the forums.

He recently replied to another online marketer’s cry for help in trying to gain some momentum for his business as a personal trainer in his local area. Andrew replied with some excellent suggestions that I thought certinately applied to what TOP VOLUME Marketing is all about.

In a nutshell, here is what Andrew suggested this struggling small business owner do to get a leg up in his local area to get some exposure and traffic coming to his website:

# 1 Give out forms asking for feedback from all your cilents (do this as an ongoing exercise).

If they give you positive feedback ask if they mind you using the feedback on your website.

If they say yes get a photo and/or video of them and use that on your site as well.

Give each 1-3 testimonials their own page, use a keyword phrase people are likely to search for to title the page.

Name your photos and videos according to related keyword phrases too.

This is a neat way to add a ton of ongoing content to your website that will attract the search engines like a magnet and be filled with keywords your best prospects are looking for.

# 2 If you got video testimonials on an ongoing basis and named those videos according to keyword phrases you can submit them to YouTube and other video sites.

In many cases you’ll be coming up on the first page of Google for the keyword phrases you target on YouTube as well as on the website where you embed the videos (embedding the videos on YouTube also gets your pages indexed on Google).

# 3 Use Craigslist ads…tons of Craigslist ads.

And put full sales letters into those ads.

In most cases there’s no real length limit on Craigslist ads so tell your whole story…make a full sales presentation.

# 4 Have a lead generating report, video, email course or all of these and follow up by email with special deals, offers etc.

You should be capturing the email addresses (and other contact details) of every one of your clients and following up with useful information, deals etc.

Over time this follow up can create a huge boost in your sales and bring back customers who would normally just forget about you and stop coming.

#5 Press releases are one of the best ways for media exposure to potentially explode your business and give you instant credibility in your marketplace. Huge.

There are many other strategies you can use too but most of these are fairly simple, more or less free and don’t require a lot of skill.

This is as good as offline gold advice can get folks! Apply some (or all) of these strategies and watch your business soar!

A well-written press release can dramatically increase your sales, expose your company to the masses, and greatly enhance the image of your business or products.

Press releases are short documents used to call the media’s attention to an event or newsworthy happening at your company and are an extremely effective tool for marketing your business both online and offline.

It has been proven to be more effective than advertising, and very inexpensive - if you know how to write a release in a format that will be read by journalists, the publicity your business can receive could be priceless!

Press releases are used effectively all the time from world leaders to diplomats to movie stars to artists to the guy who owns Joe’s Corner Market who happened to sell a winning lottery ticket.

Where do you think most of the articles you read in your newspaper come from? Articles from locations all around the country, all around the world for that matter? They come from press releases. The press wire.

Ever hear a reporter remark “it’s coming across the press wire now”, or something to that effect, on a television program? That’s a press release.

That’s how effective press releases are and have been for ions. They work.

If you want your business, service or products to get attention fast, there is no quicker way than by issueing a press release.

Your primary goal is to generate awareness in your target market.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when preparing to write a release:

What results are you looking to achieve with your media release?
Are you looking at this from a journalist’s perspective?
In today’s world, everyone is inundated with e-mails, faxes, texting, paging, and phone calls on a daily basis. Journalists receive literally hundreds of press releases each day by people who want to have news written about their products or services. The business person usually has their company at the front of their mind when considering a news release. On the other hand, journalists will have the interests of their audience at the top of their considerations. If you want to grab the attention of the journalists and get your press release noticed, ask yourself these questions from a journalist’s perspective:
1) Is the release newsworthy to the public?
2) If you were the journalist, would you see a value to your readers?
3) Will the readers be interested in this topic, your product or service?
4) In a stack of press releases, is there something in your release that will catch the attention of the journalist?

Is your release a “sales pitch” or does it have “news value”?
An experienced journalist can easily identify if your release is intended to sell the reader. While the end result may be to increase product awareness and sell your product or service, your release cannot sound like a television or radio commercial.

It’s about credibility
Credibility will gain the customers confidence and can very easily convince them to purchase your product and/or service at the same time. A properly formatted release that is picked up by the media will build credibility for your business that you couldn’t imagine.

You need to think about press releases as a stream of water over the landscape. In the short term, the water doesn’t do much. In the long term, it can carve a gorgeous canyon. That’s because it takes time for the media to recognize your releases, and more time for the public to catch on.

So, are press releases really that effective? It’s a no-brainer if you want exposure or publicity for your company or business that could lead to more revenue in a shorter period of time than you ever thought possible.

You can find information all over the web on the proper way to format a press release just by Googling
“press releases.”

Effectively written press releases can be money in the bank and definately well worth your effort to use as a marketing tool for your company or business.

A really great way to drive traffic to your website is with forum marketing. It won’t be a huge influx at first, but you will notice eventually a nice, steady stream of quality traffic making it’s way to your website from your forum marketing.

What makes it quality traffic is you’re getting traffic from your replies in the forum and people are clicking over to your site from your links in your signature file.

How do you go about doing this? You join a forum in your site’s niche. Here’s what you do…

Let’s say your site is all about real estate investing. You want to go into Google.com and in the search box enter “real estate investing forums” or “real estate discussion groups” in quotations just like your reading here.

Hit the search buttom and literally hundreds of real estate investing forums and discussion group websites will show up. Find a few you like, register (free) and start posting quality information or answering posts with good, solid content responses.

When you register for a forum or discussion group you’ll want to log in and edit your profile. In your signature area you’ll want to add a tasty blurb along with your website link so people will click onto it and visit your site.

Every single time you make a post, or respond to a post, your signature will be visable. So the more you post, the more your signature gets exposure which means so does your website link.

Look around and read different forum topics and you’ll notice those who are active posters and serious about their online marketing. Check out their signature links at the bottom of their posts.

Another big plus about forum marketing is you’re mingling with others in your niche. At the same time, your driving traffic to your site and market researching. Your reading about the biggest problems in your niche, what works, what doesn’t work, so you can provide solutions with your website content or an info product.

The more frequently you visit the forums and contribute quality information you’ll become known as the expert in that niche. Users in the forum will then click onto your signature link once you’ve enlightened them with your knowledge on the subject.

A couple of rules to abide by though are:

Cardinal Rule # 1 is never include links to your site in your forum posts, or threads as they’re known as. Only put your site links in your signature only.

Cardinal Rule # 2 is nearly all forums do not allow affiliate links in the threads or in your signature file. Read the forum rules and regulations before joining.

Cardinal Rule # 3 is DON’T SPAM THE FORUMS! That will get you kicked out and blocked from participating in that forum again.

So behave yourself, and reap the traffic rewards that online forum marketing can generate for your website.

If you’re a Michigan Small Business Owner, you undoubtably have a website already. If not, you should.

Your website is a 24/7 employee for you as long as you “feed” it properly. And by feeding it I mean feeding it information.

That’s why the internet is commonly known as The Information Super Highway. You want to provide lots of content information about your Michigan small business so you can get ranked higher in the search engines. Getting ranked higher results in more eyeballs clicking onto your website. More clicks = more revenue.

Easier said than done, right?  Not so fast…

If you have a website (and you should) you probably paid alot of money for it. How’s that website working out for you? I’d be willing to bet that most of you really haven’t gotten your money’s worth - yet.

The reason being there are two different kinds of websites and most people have the wrong kind of website. Most people build the first type, but the second type is much more profitable. 

Don’t fret though if you have the first type because it can be modified. It just has to be by someone who knows the difference and most likely the website designer who built your current site hasn’t a clue.

Let me ask you a couple of questions Mr or Mrs Michigan Small Business Owner…

Did you know you can multiply the amount of new business your website pulls in by making one rather small change? This one small change has been proven to increase sales by as much as 12,000%!

If you already have a website, did you know there are at least 49 simple changes you can make that will instantly bring in new customers?

Do you know what the single most important element that almost nobody uses of a money-making website is?

Do you know what the amazing 3-letter word that makes your customers want to read every word of your website? (Then buy everything you offer them?)

Are you currently getting the name and email address of everyone who visits your website? You can then market your products and services to them for free - automatically!  If you’re not doing this you should be and you can be marketing to them 24/7.

Is your website listed on the front page of Google by any chance? Do you know how, or what it takes to do so?  It would mean an avalanche of traffic for your website.

Do you know that there is software that shows you exactly which pages of your website your customers visit…how long they stay…which products they’re interested in…and where they go after they leave your site!  It provides a goldmine of information to you so you know what areas of your website are working, what isn’t and what you need to do to improve it.

Do you know what your current cost per lead is? Do you know that your website can generate tons of new business for you if done correctly and your cost per lead would shrink to about 1/10th of what it is now.

If you’re a Michigan Small Business Owner you can’t afford to stand on the sidelines waiting for your ship to come in. You need to take action and online you can create a worldwide customer base. Forget about the local economy for a minute. Broaden your horizons and generate revenue from outside your current customer base. Just because the economy is in a bad way here doesn’t mean it’s the same elsewhere.

ACT. Action-Compensates-Tremendously

I’ll answer some of these questions in this post at a later date right here. You’ll just have to come back

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TOP VOLUME Marketing consults with Michigan Small Business Owners in Mid-Michigan on how to capitalize and strategically market their business on the internet for maximum profitablility. Contact me for more information. Free 20 minute initial consultation.

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If you really want to build a highly-responsive customer list via email marketing, then this post is a must read.

Unlimited follow-up at virtually no cost makes this one of the cheapest and easiest forms of marketing.

But have you ever thought about how to effectively use email marketing in your business?

Typically, with an online website, you’d have an opt-in form for your customers to submit their name and email address.

Depending on how effective your website sales copy is, your layout, and your offer, you’d get anywhere from 10%-40% of your website’s visitors signing up to your list. Perhaps even up to 70% or more if you had a killer offer and highly targeted traffic.

However, there is another much more effective way for an offline business to build an email list.

Interested?

Actually, It’s quite simple. (Why over-complicate things when you don’t have to?)

Most offline businesses already have a steady flow of customers coming into their place of business every single day. Depending on the type of business they may see anywhere from 10-100 or more prospects and customers a day walking through their door.

Imagine building an email list at the rate of 10-50 new prospects a day!

That’s 50-250 a week - that’s 200-1000 a month - up to 12,000+ per year!

And these are HOT prospects.

They’ve already shown an interest in your products and services simply by being there and having frequented your establishment (or even your website).

Collecting the email addresses of everyone who comes into your place of business (or visits your website) is a necessary tool to building your online customer list and establishing your online presence.

The benefits of building your online email customer list are:

• Unlimited Follow-up
• Pre-sales, Post-sales, Special Offers, a Newsletter
• Virtually No Cost
• Relationship Building
• Business Asset

Here’s what you do Step-by-Step:

1) Sign up for an automated marketing responder account

2) Create an opt-in form where your customer (or website visitor) can enter their name and email address. Now, most people will be reluctant to just give you their name and email address unless you make it enticing enough for them to do it. Provide something of value in exchange for their name and email address, it could be a report, a discount coupon, a recipe, a digital download containing anything of value your customer’s would want.

3) Get in the habit of asking for the name and email address of everyone you do business with, especially customers. Make it a condition of doing business. Radio Shack does this and very few people ever refuse, and they’ve built a customer list worth millions of dollars.

4) If you’re using a double opt-in system then make sure you tell your customers to click onto the link in their confirmation email which then activates them to receiving your emails.

5) Write out your automated marketing emails - these can be weekly newsletters, special offers, per-sales information, or just post-sales support.

6) Don’t make it too complicated at first. Just focus on list building and start off with a simple newsletter and special offers.

I was chatting with a collegue of mine a few days ago and she told me that implementing a system just like this for her client garnered him 2 new customers in the first week - each worth $5000.

That’s $10,000 in the first week! At that rate you’re looking at a system worth $520,000 every year to that business. Of course, that’s an exception to the rule but you can see how profitable the upside of having an email customer list can be to your business.

So, how many people walk into your business every day? How many visit your website? How many of those can you sign up to your automated marketing responder? How many of those can you convert into customers? How much is a new customer worth to you?

You may be surprised at how quickly the numbers can add up.

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TOPVOLUMEMarketing.com is an online consulting business that consults with small businesses on their internet marketing, specifically how to generate traffic for your website and how to build an online database of customers that you can market to over and over. For more information visit our Online Consulting link at the top of this page or call us at 517.930.1919.

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