It costs a lot less to keep a customer than to work on acquiring a new one. You can reduce costs and increase revenues substantially by turning the customers you already have into repeat buyers, turning your product cycle into a never-ending circle by expanding your customer lifecycle into infinity.
 
So how do you turn customers into repeat buyers?

1.   Create Awesome Products – Your very first line of defense is to create great products. From your freebies to your high priced products, everything should be top-notch and high quality. If you are known for the great quality, word gets around and of course someone who buys something from you then trusts that the next product they get will also be excellent.

 2.   Provide Excellent Customer Service – Even if something does go wrong in terms of the product delivery or the product itself, if you clear it up with customer-centric service some faults will be overlooked and you’ll have gained a lifelong fan and customer.

3.   Under Promise and Over Deliver – Your sales pages and content that promotes your product should avoid too much puffery. When your customer gets your product it should be even more than they thought it would be according to your sales pages and sales copy.

4.   Segment Your Customers – Once someone buys from you and become a customer, it’s important to move them through your product funnel. And the best way to do that is to segment them by what they’ve already purchased, marketing to them only what they have not purchased.

5.   Build Relationships with Customers – Create inner circles and mastermind groups, and even closed Facebook groups to help you build better relationships with customers. Offering customers an insider’s view of you and communication with you will endear them to you in ways that other methods won’t.

6.   Offer Specials for Current Customers Only – So often, sales revolve around only new customers but this is a huge mistake. Offer current customers discounts, bonuses, and opportunities that are not offered to anyone else.

7.   Differentiate Yourself from Your Competitors – Even though you’ve already attracted your audience and they’ve bought products from you, you’ll still need to ensure that you work on being very different from your competition so that you don’t lose that customer to them.

8.   Empower Front Line Customer Service Providers – If you outsource customer service, be sure to give them power to deal with issues below a certain dollar limit without checking in with you. You are only one person and to make the customer wait will create issues that can easily be avoided.

Creating repeat buyers involves a lot of thought and consideration to your customer’s life cycle, your product funnel, and the quality of the merchandise you create. It’s all a mixture of everything working together that keeps your customers buying over and over again.

Did you like this post?  Was it helpful?  If you have a question or a comment please let me know.   You can put them in the feed with my blog post or email them directly to me at doreen@doreendilger.com.   You’re feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Project management can help you with many every day and long-term tasks and projects. But, like with most things, how you do project management can be improved. One way to improve anything that you do is through evaluation.

 

The definition of project planning, according to Wikipedia is, “… the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals…”

 

Evaluation - What to Consider

 

When you read the above definition, one of the things that sticks out is the idea that project management is about “controlling resources, procedures and protocols.” The only way you can be sure that you are doing so is by evaluation. Therefore, part of your project management set-up should be all about evaluating whether or not the way you’re managing projects is working. You know they are working if you’re meeting or beating deadlines, and finishing projects successfully under budget.

 

To determine these facts you’ll need to:

 

·         Compare performance to planned performance

·         Identify correct or mistaken parameters

·         Focus on relevancy, efficiency and effectiveness

·         Determine whether objectives were met

·         Determine why objectives were met

·         Determine why objectives were not met

·         Ask if results were in line with scope

·         Determine what role technology played

 

When you evaluate, you consider all aspects of inputs with desired outputs to determine if goals were achieved and why you can improve the next project.

 

For instance:

 

Project was delivered on time but with considerable stress and over budget. You earned less than you thought you would because your bid was lower than it should have been.

 

Look at:

 

Project proposal compared to project deliverable. How much difference is there between the two? Did you allow scope creep to take over? In addition, which areas of the project were over budget? Assuming deliverables and proposal matched; did you miscalculate the amount of time it would take you to accomplish specific tasks? If you miscalculated your time commitment; why? Did you read the entire proposal carefully before giving your bid?

 

As you evaluate each step of your project management procedures, try to identify what can be accomplished easier, better, with less time, and less stress. A very simple fix for avoiding scope creep is to ensure that when the client sends you a change, you add it to the contract and send the contract with a new bid to the client each time. If you make that a habit, you’re not likely to have too many issues with scope creep.

 

If you are having issues with underbidding due to a miscalculation on your own part of the amount of time it will take you to do, why are you doing that? Are you overestimating your abilities in some way? Are you allowing your need for money to cloud your judgment when bidding on proposals? Only a complete evaluation of each project after completion will help you determine these answers. No matter how successful you perceive any one project, an evaluation should be completed in order to help you improve.

 

 

Did you like this post?  Was it helpful?  If you have a question or a comment please let me know.   You can put them in the feed with my blog post or email them directly to me at doreen@doreendilger.com.   You’re feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Written by Doreen Dilger, The Home Based Business Coach

Communication involves the participation of at least two parties. Communication can be written, verbal, and even non-verbal. On a blog, you’re likely more concerned with written communication unless you create video blogs, in which case you’re using verbal communication that will include body language (non-verbal) and other cues to get your message across to the other person.
 
But the real key to ensuring your message gets across to the receiver is to understand that it’s your job as the message giver to deliver the message in a way that it’s understood by your audience. Here's how to make sure that your message is heard.

1.   Understand and Like Your Audience – Even if you are part of your own target audience, it’s important to get out of your own way and conduct real audience research to ensure that you know who they are, outside of your subjective experiences. Find out what they want, what they know, who they like, why they like who they like, what they need and the whys behind their needs. The more you know, the better you will be at creating messages that are heard by your audience.

2.   Let the Audience Know What You Want - One of the most important parts of your message is your call to action (CTA). If you don’t know what the point of your message is, your audience can’t be expected to know either. Be very specific about your CTA within your message so that there is no misunderstanding about your point.

3.   Spell Out Definitions of Terms – In order to get your audience on the on the same page as you, and to help further your message, be sure to spell out ambiguous terms within your content. Don’t assume that everyone understands what you’re saying. Instead, always fill in the gaps to ensure that your audience knows what you mean when you say a particular word.
 
4.   Repeat Important Points – Remember those high school essays that you wrote, and the speeches that you gave? You likely remember, if you give it some thought, your teacher lecturing about the idea of repetition. You’ve heard it said to “tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you just told them”. This works especially well with harder to understand concepts.

5.   Listen to Your Audience – Conduct a poll; ask questions; go where they go such as social media, forums, mastermind groups and so forth so that you can really listen to the needs of your audience. If your content on your blog expresses a true understanding of your audience’s needs, they’re more likely to understand and hear your message.
 
6.   Be Honest – In advertising there is a term called “puffery”; it means to exaggerate the effectiveness of a product or service to try to get across a particular message to the audience. While this practice is acceptable and legal in advertising, it’s better not to do this when it comes to blogging and monetizing your blog. Instead, practice complete, straightforward honesty.

7.   Check Your Facts – Keep trust alive by double-checking any facts that you provide your audience. This is especially important if you hire a ghostwriter, or use PLR without knowing if you’re using a good source. It’s not that people purposely deliver the wrong information, but having a double check helps. This is simply good communication and a good journalistic practice that you should learn.

8.   Write Like You Talk – Don’t try to put on airs when communicating with your audience on your blog. Write like you talk, and if you do a vlog, just be yourself. Whatever content you provide to your audience needs to represent who you are to the best of your ability. 
 
You can be heard by being clear in your intentions and your words, while considering what the words mean to your audience as you deliver your message. Finally, it’s also important to ensure many eyes see your message by promoting your blog posts via ever possible channel.
  
Did you like this post?  Was it helpful?  If you have a question or a comment please let me know.   You can put them in the feed with my blog post or email them directly to me at doreen@doreendilger.com.   You’re feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Written by Doreen Dilger, The Home Based Business Coach

If your marketing efforts don’t match your business plan, you’re going to run into trouble. As you create your marketing plan, it’s important to refer to your business plan to ensure that you are living up to your vision, mission, goals and objectives.

Your business plan should include the overall strategy for your business. This includes all aspects from finances, markets, sales, products, services, operations and marketing. Your marketing plan takes the marketing portion a step further and outlines exactly your strategy to penetrate social media, content marketing, pay-per-click marketing or whatever marketing you plan to engage in.

Both your business plan and marketing plan help you:

1.   Establish Your Identity as a Business – In other words, they help create a cohesive brand across all channels. Ensure that your marketing matches the mission statement within your business plan, and you’ll stay in line of your business plan.

2.   Conduct a SWOT Analysis – When you create your business plan you’ll do a SWOT analysis. What this does is establish what the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are for your business. You can use this information in your marketing plan to address these issues.

3.   Predict Consumer Behavior – Doing the work to create a complete business and marketing plan will identify potential customer behavior in advance of your marketing plan. If you do your homework right, your marketing plan will work as you suspect.

4.   Understand Your Cash Flow – Creating your business and marketing plan will help you understand your cash flow so that you can create a good marketing budget. Your cash flow is an important consideration when developing a marketing plan.

5.   Set a Realistic Marketing Budget – When you truly understand your business, the opportunities your business offers, and your market, you’ll be able to set a more realistic marketing budget that helps you reach your goals. 
 
6.   Set Goals and Objectives – Based on your analysis and established budget, set goals and objectives for your marketing efforts based on the goals and objectives you set in your business plan. If you stated in your business plan that it would take five years to reach a certain dollar figure per year, is your marketing helping you reach that goal?

7.   Establish Your Strategy - With the information you’ve gathered, narrow your focus to a specific target audience who needs, wants and desires what you have to offer. Ensure that your marketing efforts, while aligning with your business plan, also happen where your customers are.

8.   Measure If You’re Meeting Set Goals – The goals you set should be measurable and you should have a mechanism in place to test whether or not you’re meeting those goals. Be very specific when you set goals so that you can have a number in place that defines success for you.

9.   Review, Rethink, Revise - The good thing about testing and measuring is that you can change midstream and stop doing something that isn’t working at all, and do more of what is working. This is especially true when marketing online. That’s what’s so great about online marketing; you’re not trapped into a marketing plan that isn’t working.

That was the long answer to the question; Do your marketing efforts support your business plan? The short answer is that they need to. If they don’t, you need to rethink both your business plan and your marketing plan in order to craft a successful result from both.

 Did you like this post?  Was it helpful?  If you have a question or a comment please let me know.   You can put them in the feed with my blog post or email them directly to me at doreen@doreendilger.com.   You’re feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Written by Doreen Dilger, The Home Based Business Coach

The more you can stretch your marketing budget, the more marketing you can get done. And the more marketing you get done, the more customers you’re going to have. You have to get the word out about your business and find creative ways to create buzz. The following eight ways can help you stretch your marketing budget.
 
1. Attract Affiliate Marketers

Simply give them a percentage of sales, some graphics and marketing information and let other people promote your products and services for you. You can have an entire legion of people out there promoting and selling your products just for a percentage.

 2. Content Marketing Is Still King

There is no way around it - creating educational, informative, compelling content for your audience is still one of the very best ways to get the word out about your product. You can create the content yourself, hire a ghostwriter, and use private label rights (PLR) content. The cost is not expensive when you consider the results of your efforts.

3. Email Marketing Is Not Dead

You should still be building your email list. Work on moving people from social media and your blog to sign up for your email list. Ensure that you get them to double opt-in to avoid SPAM law issues. Marketing to people with permission is the most effective form of marketing there is.

4. Collaborate with Others

Working temporarily with others in a joint venture agreement on one project can actually help you expand your market for other products and services that you offer, too. Sharing resources will stretch your marketing budget exponentially.

5. Offer Free Work in Exchange for Exposure

Find high-ranking blogs and websites that need content and offer original to spec content in exchange for your byline and bio. Not only will this increase your authority, but it will also help get the word out about your products fast.

 6. Build Relationships



You already have contacts and customers, so you need to pay close attention to them. It’s a lot less expensive to keep a customer than to get a new one. Get close to the customers you have to help develop a sense of loyalty.

7. Get Published

Write an eBook and publish it on Kindle about your main topic of expertise. You can give it away free on Kindle to build up the sales numbers, and then charge for it later. The point of the book is to get your name out there as an expert.

 8. Get Your Customers to Promote You

Ask your customers to give you testimonials on LinkedIn, YouTube and more that you can use to promote your business. Have a contest; best video gets some free product or services. Give them a title, some guidelines, and let them go for it.

Stretch your marketing budget with these creative ideas so that you can get the word out about your products and your business.

 Did you like this post?  Was it helpful?  If you have a question or a comment please let me know.   You can put them in the feed with my blog post or email them directly to me at doreen@doreendilger.com.   You’re feedback would be greatly appreciated! 

Written by Doreen Dilger, The Home Based Business Coach
Blogging with Integrity – Building an Online Business You Can Be Proud Of

There is a movement to “Blog with Integrity” which is a basic standard bloggers should follow. You can learn more at Blogwithintegrity.com where most of this list was found. 

1. Be Honest – If you aren’t earning a million dollars yet, don’t tell people that you are. It’s okay to admit that you’re learning to and struggling. If you have a food blog and didn’t actually try a particular recipe, don’t say you did. The best way to ensure that your audience trusts you is to be trustworthy and honest about everything you say.

2. Don’t Plagiarize – Some people still don’t understand what plagiarism is. If you aren’t sure, and don’t assume that you know, please read more about what plagiarism is. It’s simply not okay to use other people’s work without asking, crediting, and/or paying for the privilege. That includes photographs, art work, blog posts, articles on the news, and so forth. When you write something or have it written, run it through a plagiarism checker like Copyscape or Grammarly. 

More information about plagiarism link - http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/overview/
Copyscape link - http://www.copyscape.com/
Grammarly link - http://www.grammarly.com/

3. Don’t Spam Anyone – Many blogs are often sent automatically to email subscribers. Be sure to use a double opt-in form for newsletter subscribers and explain that they will receive blog updates, and then ensure that your blogs themselves can’t be considered spam. Monitor the comments on your blog for spam to help protect your visitors from those who would harm them.

4. Disclose Financial Relationships – If you have been paid to provide a particular review, or you will receive income if your readers click through to buy something from a particular review, it is important that you disclose it openly. There is nothing wrong with earning money on your blog and there is no reason to hide it. Disclose everything and be transparent. 

5. Be Willing to Admit Mistakes – It happens. You try out a product or service and love it, but maybe you didn’t dig deep enough and did not realize they had terrible customer service, or were unscrupulous in other ways. It’s okay to come out and say so later and admit that you made a mistake. The more open you are about your imperfections, the more people will trust you.

6. Be Respectful – Even if you are calling out another blogger or business owner about something you disagree with, it is important to do so in a professional, respectful manner. There is never a reason to be nasty or rude to anyone. If someone makes a comment you do not like on your blog, remember - people are watching to see how you will react. Keep it respectful even when others don’t.

7. Allow Contrary Comments and Feedback – Receiving criticism is hard. It can hurt very badly and for some of us, even make us cry. But, it’s important to allow disagreements and contrary opinions on your comment streams. Delete spam, but let other people have their own views; it won’t take away from yours.

8. Take Responsibility – If you’ve recommended a product that turned out to be a dud, and the owners of the product will not stand up and do what’s right, it’s up to you to do something to make it better. Take responsibility for your words, too. If you said something wrong, or that was taken wrong, step back and admit your part in any problems. Whether your blog is written by you only, ghost written, or you have rewritten PLR on the blog, it’s your responsibility to fact check, check for plagiarism and ensure the truth of all the content you distribute. 

Even if you don’t want to sign the pledge, there is something to be said about blogging with integrity. The main point being that you will feel good about your business, you’ll be proud to tell people what you do, and you'll feel good about every penny you earn and every piece of content that you put out into the world.


Did you like this post?  Was it helpful?  If you have a question or a comment please let me know.   You can put them in the feed with my blog post or email them directly to me at doreen@doreendilger.com.   You’re feedback would be greatly appreciated! 

Written by Doreen Dilger, The Home Based Business Coach

You’ve started your blog, you’re starting to get some traffic, and now you want to finally monetize it. After all, in order to have a real business you have to bring in some money. Thankfully, there are many ways in which you can monetize your blog to start earning an income. Here's how.

1. Affiliate Marketing – Many business owners have products, software and services in which they will pay a percent of sales to people who promote their products. They typically ask you to sign up, provide some information so that they can pay you, and then provide you with some tools to promote the product such as HTML code, images, and even content. You’ll place the code on your blog and other online real estate to promote the affiliate products.

2. Sell Your Own Products – If you know your audience well enough, you have likely identified some problems that need to be solved. If you can create a product that provides solutions to them, then you can market that product via your blog. Great ideas are apps, information products, eBooks, and reports.

3. Sell Your Services – If you’ve managed to create a blog that has a lot of interest, views, followers and fans and you understand writing, content, SEO and online marketing, you can offer to act as a consultant to others who want to do the same thing. You’ve got the recipe, and you’re the magic ingredient to help others experience the success that you have. 

4. Pay-Per-Click Advertising – Most people display Google Ads on their blog posts when appropriate to help bring in some extra money. It’s easy to sign up for Google AdSense, and it’s easy to earn money from the ads delivered based on the content you have on your blog, provided that you follow the rules and create a very niche-oriented SEO-oriented blog.

5. Direct Display Ads – You can avoid ad services and simply sell ads directly to others right off your blog. There are numerous plugins for WordPress that can help you deliver ads that people pay you for. This option works best for higher-ranking blogs and in situations where you’re not worried about your competition placing an advertisement. 

WordPress Plugins link - https://wordpress.org/plugins/adspace-platform/

6. Business Resource Directory – Install a business directory on your blog where others can enter their product and/or services on the directory for a small fee. For example, if you have a blog that offers support to work-at-home moms or virtual assistants, you could provide a directory where they can be listed or where you list products and services that will help them.

Business Directory link - http://wordpress.org/plugins/business-directory-plugin/
 
7. Sponsored Posts – As long as you’ve matched the brands you’ll promote with your audience and the information you provide is true, original, and unique, nothing is wrong with offering a sponsored blog post service. It is important that both parties realize that you will always clearly inform your audience the blog posts are sponsored. You can do sponsored giveaways, and so much more.

8. Sponsored Reviews – Once your blog is established, it is more than likely people will start wanting you to review their products and/or services and they’ll be willing to pay for it. There is nothing wrong with doing this as long as you are upfront that you will be honest about your review, and that you will also let your audience know that someone paid you to do the review. 

Many sponsored reviews include letting the audience in on the behind-the-scenes experience, such as receiving a free trip to Disney for the family and then blogging about the experience with an honest review of every aspect of the trip.

9. Start a Pay Per View Premium Blog – Do you offer expert advice on an important topic where people might be willing to pay for answers? There is no reason why you should give away your advice for free. You can start a pay per view premium area of your blog where people pay for specialized access to your premium content and even access to you such as a monthly teleconference, or a special Q & A session. And yes, there is a plugin to allow pay per view content if you use WordPress.

10. Ask for Donations - PayPal offers the code to add an easy donation button to your blog. Many bloggers use the donate button and make a good living on that model. Even app makers often work from donations only. Some people have found they earn more money if people are allowed to just donate what they feel is fair. 

PayPal donation code link - https://wordpress.org/plugins/paypal-donations/

Regardless of which ways you choose to monetize your blog, it’s imperative that you understand who your audience is, what your point of view is, and how to combine the two in order to provide solutions to your audience that they are willing to pay money for. By doing so, you can earn a living from blogging.

Did you like this post?  Was it helpful?  If you have a question or a comment please let me know.   You can put them in the feed with my blog post or email them directly to me at doreen@doreendilger.com.   You’re feedback would be greatly appreciated! 

Written by Doreen Dilger, The Home Based Business Coach

Working from home is everyone’s dream, right? Having your morning coffee in your PJs while you check your email and sales stats is the best job ever. But, this ideal world will not be all that it is cracked up to be if you lack the discipline to stay focused.


The Myth
When you tell your friends that you are working from home, their first image of you is sitting in your PJs and staring at a computer screen. They think that this is just another way of saying that you are on a “permanent vacation.” It’s not true but you could be proving them right when you have no control over your business day.

One of the biggest drawbacks to working at home is that home and work life seems to run together. Learn to avoid this with a touch of restraint and a plan for taking charge of your daily schedule.

 Five Tips to Help You Institute Discipline as You Work from Home

 1. Know your personality – Do you have the type of personality that is organized and motivated? The situation where you are the boss is more manageable that way. If you tend to procrastinate or get distracted, a more stringent schedule is going to help you keep on task.

 2. Choose a time to start work – Leisurely walking over to your computer and sitting down at different times each day doesn’t seem like work at all. Get into the right frame of mind with a definite start and ending time to your work day each day.

 3. Separate your work space – Even if it is just a half of a room where you have your home office, avoid filling your space with anything that is not work related. When you come to this area, you are ready for business and nothing but. Maintain the separation to assist with focusing on the tasks at hand.

 4. Take a regular break – In the office, employers are required to give employees 15-minute breaks and a lunch period. Observing this at home can break up the day and also foster more discipline in your day. Use that time to attend to small chores, make personal phone calls and rest your brain for a few minutes.

 5. Create a task list – When you are sitting at your desk is not the time to decide what you will do that day. The last task for each business day is to create a list of needed tasks for the next day. With a definite list of business goals, you are more likely to stay engaged in business for the required time.

 Working from home might seem like the dream job but it can quickly turn into a nightmare when control goes out the window.

 Did you like this post?  Was it helpful?  If you have a question or a comment please let me know.   You can put them in the feed with my blog post or email them directly to me at doreen@doreendilger.com.   You’re feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Written by Doreen Dilger, The Home Based Business Coach

Facebook’s popularity with Internet users has run into the millions since its acceptance of anyone with a valid email address in 2006.  Most members play games, update their profiles and upload photos or videos for their friends to view. While planting crops on Farmville, drinking virtual coffee in the cafe or beating off snakes in FrontierVille is addicting, Facebook can also be a powerful marketing tool for Internet marketers.

Marketers, including those using the Internet to market their products, know that in order to attract potential customers, they need to announce the benefits of their products to a large audience and give their readers a reason to visit their site. Simply put, no Visitors = No Sales.  

Facebook members make connections with each other, called Friends, and you are only allowed to contact or message those friends.  Member profiles are only available to other Facebook members, which creates a loose pool to specifically market to. Some of Facebook’s most popular applications, those you probably use every day are specifically for Internet marketers.

In fact, marketers who know how to market on Facebook start that huge marketing process with their Profile, adding games, puzzles or videos that are interesting to other users.  Facebook’s underlying purpose is to make the site a fun place to be.  An RSS feature allows users to syndicate their blogs, increasing their exposure dramatically.

Users can use Facebook to promote products from Clickbank and Amazon as an affiliate, whether they have their own website or not.

Here are some tips to get you started and to keep you out of trouble with this very powerful social networking site.

Each user has a profile page and part of that page is used for The Wall; Effectively a place to post messages for each user to see.  If your “friends” have access to your full profile, friend marketers can post messages on your Wall.  Perhaps a more effective application might be posting attachments to your Wall promoting products.

Use The Marketplace.  Free classified ads are allowed in a few categories.
Marketers are jumping all over this free application in the four allowable categories, For Sale, Housing, Jobs and Other.  Any Facebook user can take advantage of this treasure trove of opportunities.
 
Application developers have found a home with Facebook and are happy to design applications that rapidly become standard Facebook apps, taking advantage of the Web 2.0 graphic and audio options available to users.
 
One feature that's used by those who scan posts instead of reading them is the Status feature. This feature is a quick update on what you are doing and, used carefully, can be a powerful marketing tool.  For instance, using Facebook’s format, “John Thomas just finished his new software.”  A convenient link to that sales page for that software would get a lot of traffic just from curious members.
 
A Facebook Event is used for keeping friends aware of upcoming events.  Here is where a marketer can advertise seminars, podcasts and ecourses, to name a few. Facebook’s rules about announcing an event should be carefully read in order to avoid being branded a spammer.
 
Videos are everywhere and have rapidly become the most popular method to use to market many Internet products. Videos can be added to Facebook with a Facebook Mobile application, which has a webcam feature. The videos cannot be shared outside of Facebook, but with the huge membership ranging in the 60 to 70 million users and growing daily, that shouldn’t be too much of a setback to a smart marketer.
 
Facebook is the perfect versatile application for creative marketers to increase their traffic and, therefore, their customer base. Simple processes can be powerful marketing tools and Facebook is no exception.
 
Did you like this post?  Was it helpful?  If you have a question or a comment please let me know.   You can put them in the feed with my blog post or email them directly to me at doreen@doreendilger.com.   You’re feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Written by Doreen Dilger, The Home Based Business Coach

Audio interviews and webinars, video PowerPoints, and how-to screencast demonstrations are no longer considered "new" in Internet marketing, but they're communication mediums that are certainly here to stay. 

Although audio and video work great for imparting information, the need for the written word is still there, especially to accompany the audios and videos.  I'm talking about transcriptions; written documentation of what you've recorded verbally and/or visually.  Why should you go the extra mile and the extra expense to have your webinar transcribed?  Here are a few reasons:

1.  When you have your audio or video transcribed, you've just increased the value of your product.  Perhaps your audio interview is free to your listeners, but if they want the transcribed version, they'll have to pay for it.  Or you could offer your product with the audio and transcription for one fee, and without the transcription for a "lite" fee.  Another idea is to add the written document as a bonus to your product, or offer it in an upsell. 

2.  Even though audio and video are popular, not everyone likes this medium.  Many people prefer reading over listening.  It could be they're fast readers and like to go at their own pace rather than be at the mercy of an audio that seems to be going too slow.  Or maybe they are short on time and prefer to skip to the parts that are of particular interest to them.  Some find themselves daydreaming or becoming distracted and can't follow along very well.

3.  There are times when people can't listen, no matter how informative your webinar is.  The timing may not work into their schedule - people are so busy with work, kids, chores, civic duties, etc. and if you lose them, you lose your chance to impart your wisdom, take your brand up a notch, make a sale, or whatever your reason for doing the webinar.  Similarly, the person might not be in a location where they can turn the volume up (like at work, in a waiting room, while on the bus) and they don't have earphones.  After all your hard work of putting on the webinar, you don't want to lose any potential customers.  Offering a transcription of your webinar will make these people happy.  It shows goodwill on your part.

Doing webinars, audio interviews, podcasts, and videos is great for business.  It adds dimension to your brand, gives your sales page or website some punch and makes lots of people happy who like to listen.  But take it a step further and make everyone satisfied by having your audios transcribed.  It's a good business practice that can affect your bottom line.

 

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