How to market with an hour a day

Posted by: maryk on Friday, February 20th, 2009

Whether you’re working your home business while holding down a full-time job or just starting out or your a seasoned pro with a home-based business… your marketing success is critical to bringing in the cash.

There are so many voices on the ‘net telling us “How to make money” with the latest greatest tools that it can quickly make your head spin and drive us into a very non-productive tailspin… or even paralysis! That’s why today I want to talk about some time management and and offer some clarity about what ‘marketing your business’ entails. A plan that you can act on today!

I’m going to share the top five things I’ve learned that you want to consider if you are building a successful business from home on the Internet.

1. Your Business Foundation

When talking about marketing your business you HAVE to have a place to bring traffic. You need a landing page. In other words… you have a URL that you share with people and when they click, they land on a page that gives people a clear idea of you and your business. Ideally, it has a compelling headline, some pictures, testimonials, an audio or video and ABSOLUTELY… a place for them to leave their contact information. (You know, one of those boxes where they enter at least their name and email in order to receive more information from you).

Which is why you also need an autoresponder. Yes, a good one is going to cost you a little bit of money every month, but if you’re serious about making money with your business you want to find a way to keep developing that relationship with your potential customers and clients.

And finally, you must have a business website. You can do a lot of things on your business website but at a minimum you have to have a place for them to purchase what you are offering.

These three things are the foundation of your business… you will need them to succeed.

2. Your Marketing Portfolio

Your marketing portfolio consists of the platforms and places where you find the people to bring to your landing page. For those of you just starting out (as the others hardly need to be reminded), there are SO many choices when it comes to tools, techniques, platforms, etc. that you will lose precious money-producing time if you explore them all or spread yourself too thin. Believe me, I know this from personal experience as well as observation! I’ve used over 200 platforms… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. So… how do you choose?

Here’s the thing… people have their preferences but at some point you simply have to make a decision and BEGIN! I recommend you limit yourself to 5 platforms for your business. Don’t spread yourself too thin! Here are the 5 I use and recommend… frankly, the first 3 I consider MUSTS… the last 2 there is some variety of choices that make them a bit negotiable. (Today I use a few more but I would not recommend anyone start out that way) –

The reasons for these five are many and each could easily fill several blog posts so for now… just know that for a beginner, especially one working on a shoestring budget, these 5 free platforms will bring you the people and orders you’re looking for!

3. Your Purpose

Okay…I confess, when I started this journey to making money online many years ago I totally lacked clarity of purpose. Here’s the thing… it cost me LOTS of time that you don’t need to waste. Heck, I have a tendency to complicate things so I was making way too big an issue out of this and really, it hurt me.

The good news is that it’s never too late to get clear about your purpose and if you have that upfront you will be on a far faster curve than I was.

I have learned that 99% of the people using these platforms for their business (in theory) real have no clear understanding of why they are marketing there. To move toward success you must be crystal clear about your purpose. I’ll give you an example that I hope will serve you in understanding how simple, yet important this is… what follows are four statements (four goals you might say) that define my purpose in using these platforms:

  1. I am connecting with new and interesting people every day
  2. I am looking for people needing free help around making money from home
  3. I am offering tips and strategies to those looking for my help
  4. I am allowing these people to get to know me

Really… that’s it, that’s all. Notice that my purpose in using these platforms is NOT ‘to make money’. You do not want to be selling anything directly on these platforms. They provide you with a place to find and get into relationship with those who are looking for what you have to offer but they are simply a step in the direction of your bottom line.

That said… be mindful that you want to stick to a specific time frame when using these platforms. They are capable of sucking us in and causing us to lose days of more income-producing productivity. That’s NOT to say you can’t spend personal time with these platforms… just be clear that when your “working” you have a different purpose than when your “playing”. ;-) Don’t let the ‘experts’ intimidate you and just be yourself.

4. Launching your ONE HOUR system

Here’s how I schedule my time. When I’m being sensible I actually use a minute timer… it helps A LOT. (And truth be told… I’m not always that sensible LOL)

Twitter – 10 minutes

Facebook – 15 minutes

LinkedIn – 10-15 minutes

Blogging and YouTube – I rotate these from one day to another – 20 minutes

There you have it… that’s about 60 minutes a day. Naturally time can get away from you and it’s your job to decide how much of your day is spent on these efforts but I can tell you that consistently putting in an hour a day will build you a successful business from home by bringing traffic to your sites. Here’s an idea of the tasks I include with the minutes listed above.

At twitter I use tools that allow me to receive alerts when someone is talking directly to me (which is clear either because it arrives as a Direct Message or is publicly posted with the @ sign before your chosen name). The first thing I do at twitter is respond to those messages. I also use tweetlater.com which allows me to set up tweets to go out at various times of day. Also, I start following at least 25 new people a week. There are tools that allow me to search members based on keywords and I will often select new people based on that but more often I start connecting with others based on recommendations from the people I follow. Note: follow people back… it’s valuable to keep your follower to following ratio close.

On Facebook there are 5 tasks I do in those 15 minutes.

  1. Update status (I try to have my update satisfy one of these three – Inform, Involve, or Inspire)
  2. Post a link if I have something to share. i.e. new video or blog post or anything else)
  3. Answer email (do this quickly…mostly involves deleting)
  4. Accept friend requests
  5. Write on friends walls – (I usually check to see who is having a birthday and also write on any new friends wall)

Please feel free to add me to your list of friends at Facebook. You can find me here ===>

http://profile.to/maryk/

At LinkedIn the activities are similar to those on Facebook. LinkedIn has been a great place to get linked in on Joint Ventures with people more than anything else. And THAT is very valuable for getting the word out about what you have to offer.  Link to me at LinkedIn here ===> http://www.linkedin.com/in/marykw

As far as Blogger and YouTube, they are ways to express yourself either in writing or video. The reason I recommend them is because they are very popular and optimized for the search engines increasing the likelihood that you will attract more people. Only you can discover if you enjoy writing or creating videos or both. Any questions feel free to ask.

5. Your Secret Weapon

Here’s an extra tip… yet something that’s likely to be the most valuable thing in your home business marketing arsenal… and that thing is — PERSISTENCE

Stay the course… even when things seem like they aren’t moving.. I promise you, with persistence, you will be amazed at your results.

Thanks!

~~Mary K

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Topics: Affiliate Marketing, Facebook Friday, Internet Marketing

5 Responses to “How to market with an hour a day”

Patrice Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:53 pm

Great article, Mary! I’m going to print it out and read it offline (easier on my eyes). Thanks for sharing!

Aloha,
Patrice

Carlota Says:
February 28th, 2009 at 1:38 am

Whoa!
This was SO HELPFUL! I too will be printing this out and following to a Tee…

I have time management issues with my blog. I am new to all this social media stuff, and I’ve just begun to realize that I ought to be following more people on Twitter.

I’ve also been joining more communities on mybloglog. Do you you use that? I got a rush of traffic when I first joined but then it died off. I just joined more communities in my niche, so we’ll see what happens this next week :P

Thanx again for a valuable post!

Hugs,
Carlota

Jacqui Says:
March 15th, 2009 at 5:59 pm

Mary K,
This is the BEST post I’ve seen on the very basics of online marketing. Thank you so much for sharing. I’m really thrilled to have connected with you thru JMF *smiles*
I have one question though – do you count the first page of a website as the landing page? (I tried to do a general intro on my site for that reason – don’t know if it succeeded!)Or do you make a separate one and then link that to your personal website?
Thanks for your generous help!
Bliss and Blessings,
Jacqui

maryk Says:
March 15th, 2009 at 6:37 pm

Thank you so much for your comments, Ladies!!! I so appreciate them.

Jacqui…

“Landing page” truly is merely the page people ‘land’ on when they first click your link. So… be clear about what you think the people most likely to click your link are looking for… and be sure to send them to whatever page meets that desire.

For instance, the first page of my site here, is always going to show my most recent post on top… but, if I’m talking to someone who I think would find this post valuable (based on the conversation we’re having) I would send them this specific link (http://homebusinessmarketing.youmakeitup.com/how-to-market-with-an-hour-a-day) so that the page THEY LAND ON will show this post.

Now, one of the reasons I really like using blog platforms to build websites is because with the sidebar (or two ;-) ) my sign up box, designed to capture contact info so I can keep the relationship going, appears on every page I share. This gives me a lot of flexibility in deciding which page I want a given group of people to land on.

Boy…guess that was a lot of words to say that it doesn’t have to actually be your website’s HOME page that is considered the landing page… yet it often is… so should be considered a valuable landing page as most sites receive the most hits on the home page (first page) of a site. (for a whole lot of reasons…and that might make another good blog post! ;-) )

Hope that helps… if not let’s continue the conversation.

Thanks and appreciation,
–Mary K

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EXPECT MIRACLES!

maryk Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 7:00 pm

We were talking about landing pages and I was just reading a great post by Tracy Repchuk titled, 10 elements you need in a landing page… so I thought I’d share her link
http://www.marketing-makeover-miracles.com/landingpagetips.htm

 

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