Rogers Online Business Management for the Agriculture Community

Posts Tagged ‘strategies’

Idyllic days in the sunshine. Ruby liquid in sparkling glasses. Merry picnickers and live music.

It’s these moments – drinking your wines and visiting your vineyards – that your customers remember. But even the best memories can fade.

Email marketing can remind your customers what they’re missing. It can invite your visitors back. It can inspire your fans to go buy that favorite bottle again.

Once you build up a sold list of subscribers, you’ll need some creative ideas to spark your customers’ memories and bring them back for more.

Here are some ideas:

Pairings and Recipes

• If your chardonnay sparkles with scallops, let your customers know. Pair your wines with complementary dishes and share the recipes.
• If your Burgundy is excellent in beef stew, share that, too. Original recipes for dishes cooked with your wines are even more valuable. If you have an online store, make sure to link up the wines.

Seasonal Gifts

• People are always searching for unique gifts. Show them what you have to offer, whether it’s festively wrapped wines for the holidays, wine and chocolate sets for Valentine’s Day or picnic baskets for Mothers’ Day.

Fun Facts

• Identify wine myths vs. facts. Quote some trivia your readers will want to quote themselves. Feature a rotating glossary fo wine-making terms.
• Your customers may not know why racking wine does not mean putting bottles into wine racks. Tell them why. Give them more than just discounts – give them an education. With insider information, they’ll feel good about themselves and grateful to you.

New Merchandise

• Giddy tasters and frequent visitors alike bring home the winery experience with glass charms, drunken olives and other goodies. If you add a new must-have item, email your list – they’ll be sure to keep an eye out for it next time they visit.

Video Footage

• Videos show off your winery even when your doors are closed. They also let you share more content than the typical email can hold.
• Use video for educational demonstrations, “meet our team” introductions and sweeping panoramas of your estate that call visitors back. Post them to YouTube and link to them with clickable screenshots in your emails.

New Releases

• Stir up some excitement! Introduce new vintages with fanfare. Tell your subscribers where they can find the new wine, and let them know that you can’t wait for their reaction!

Special Discounts

• As faithful readers of your content and proclaimed fans of your winery, your subscribers might deserve a little extra once in awhile. Reward subscribers (and keep them coming in) with email-exclusive discounts and offers.

Events

• Live music performances, tastings, tours of your production area, grape stomping festivals, wine education classes with guest speakers – if you host these, get the word out!
• Send an invitation to your subscribers early enough for them to plan ahead, but not so early that they forget!

Rate Your Wines

• Your wines may wind regional awards, but aside from recognizing this as a maker of quality, customers may not have much reaction. Instead of telling them someone else’s opinion, ask theirs.
• Have visitors to your tasking room rate your wines. Periodically invite your readers to send rating to your “from” address. Announce the winners in an email that subscribers will check to see – Did their favorite win?

Wine Classes

• If you offer wine education classes on-site, make sure to invite your local subscribers (try segmenting by location). Summarize the best points from the class afterward so the rest of your list can benefit as well.

Images

• Don’t forget pictures! Ambiance is an important part of the wine lifestyle, so extend yours to your newsletter.
• Show the grapes being crushed, the wine being bottled. Feature your winemakers, bartenders and grape pickers – give your readers faces to recognize when they visit.

***Don’t forget to watch out for minors! Make age a required field on your sign-up form. Marketing to those under-age could result in fines.

As a winery, what content do you send your subscribers? Do they respond? Do they mention your messages when they visit?

These ideas can easily translate to other businesses. Hotels and restaurants can use images for ambiance. Fitness bloggers can highlight fun facts. Galleries can announce new shows.

What kinds of content can you create from these ideas?

Be sure to take a look at our service packages as we can help you with all your marketing ideas, including shooting the video for your online ad and submitting it to the search engines to get you in the top ten ranking!

Source: AWeber Auto Responder Service

Do you wish you could be more productive at your computer? There’s good news! There are some things you can do that will allow you to get more done in less time.

You may be surprised at how simple these strategies are, how little some of them have to do with your computer, and how much they have to do with organization!

Here are the top five computer strategies to get more done in less time:

De-clutter. One of the simplest computer strategies is having a clean workspace. When most of us think of our computer, we think of the actual machine, but did you know that the space around your computer is as important as the computer itself?

• When you keep your computing space as tidy as possible, you can get more done because you won’t be distracted by stopping to “clear a path” as you work.
• De-cluttering also means removing old software and files that are taking up too much space. You’ll be surprised how much speedier the machine will feel when you’ve cleared all the junk off your computer!

Run anti-virus software every day. Viruses can slow down your computer or worse. Obviously if your computer is unresponsive, you’ll lose precious time during your workday.

• Running anti-virus software will help you make sure your computer is running at its very best so you don’t lose momentum by waiting for a document to open.
• You’ll also prevent things like hard drive crashes and data loss. So run anti-virus software on your PC or get a Mac.

Organize. A little observed, but very effective, computer strategy is to organize your files and folders in such a way that everything you need is within reach. This way, you can move seamlessly from one task to another without wasting time searching for files.

• Put commonly used files in one place, such as your Documents folder. Also, use full file names so you can easily find what you’re looking for.
• Use a search tool like Google Desktop on the PC or Spotlight on the Mac to easily find files not within reach.

Clean the desktop on your computer. Many people don’t give much thought to their desktop and they may have dozens of unused icons and downloads just taking up space. Keep only the files, folders, and programs you need on your desktop.

•  Delete the icons you don’t use regularly so that you can find what you’re looking for quicker.

Learn the shortcuts. Set a goal to learn something new about the software tools you use the most. There are plenty of options hidden in menus and keyboard shortcuts that can save you time, energy, and sanity.

• Print out a list of common shortcuts and keep it beside your computer for easy reference. When you challenge yourself to learn these new tricks, you’ll get faster and more productive over time.

These are all very simple computer strategies that will help you be more efficient and productive. When you incorporate even one of these strategies into your daily routine, you’ll find that you truly can get more done in less time.

How long should an ebook be? What about an audio recording?

Many people have been asking me the above questions. These actually are very common questions and I always respond in the same way. There is no magical formula that determines how long an ebook or other information products should be. Sure you might hear something like a special report would be about 50 pages, and an ebook about 100 pages. I really don’t know how anyone can come to that determination.

Your ebook, handbook or other product only needs to be as long as it needs to be to fulfull your promise in your marketing message. If you are offering step-by-step instructions on how to maintain a certain piece of equipment on your farm then you just need to provide the instructions, maybe some photos or a video and that’s it. You needn’t talk about the history of the machine and talk about other manufacturers, unless you’re making those a bonus offer on your sales letter. All you have to do is give them the information that you promised them.

When I purchase products related to my business, I don’t like the long books if I’m only looking for a method on how to do something. I’m not a beginner and don’t necessarily need a step-by-step guide. But if the information product covers a subject that I’m not familiar with, then I do like a more in-depth ebook that tells me everything.

You may decide to write a big ebook that tells you everything, or you may decide to do a 10 minute video showing step by step. These are always good to help someone who is brand new. But again, it’s whatever you need to do to fulfill your marketing message.

I think people worry about how long the ebook or other information products should be because they think that people won’t want to pay for the information if it’s not long enough. But realize that people are lazy…if you can show them in a very quick way how to perform a seemingly complicated task in 10 pages, that can be a great selling point.

In order to outsell your competition your marketing needs to blow them away.

Create a hook, market your product in a different way than your competitors. Find out what the hot topics are in your market. What complaints do they have and how can you offer them a solution.

For example, if you’re going to offer a webinar on a new method you discovered for fertilizing your grape crop that saved you money, even though you are not selling a physical product, your hook should convey that you’re going to help them save time and make more money with a better product on an ongoing basis.

You need to be creative in how you market this. Let them know that you may not have a degree in this area but that you learned from trial and error on your own farm.

People want to know that you share their pain and frustration.  So by you letting them know that you are a real honest to goodness farmer just like them then they will automatically share a bond with you and will be interested in your informational product.

Everyone wants to have a lot of productive affiliates, but you need to realize that accomplishing this takes a lot of knocking on doors, getting to know people and a large amount of work. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible, but sometimes people have been lead to believe it’s easy. Sure, once you get the affiliates to say yes to promote your product the money comes in more easily, but you need to get them to say yes first.

You can contact website owners by emailing them or phoning them. Offer to do something for them first. Ask them if you can share their resource with your subscribers or if you can promote their product. Once you’ve helped them, they’re more likely to help you back.

You also need to get to know people in your target market. If you’re going to create a product start getting to know other website and list owners. Someone who knows and likes you is much more likely to promote your product when it’s ready.

Here are a few tips on contacting people:

• Always give a full review copy of your product
• Make your contact personal and show that you know about what they’re doing online and comment on some specific projects.
• Offer a larger commission than your competitors and also larger than you do through your regular affiliate program
• Show them some of your sales results if you’ve already started selling your product

Two of the most important things to keep in mind when contacting people are:

1. Don’t take things personally.
2. Make sure when you contact people they understand there is no obligation if they agree to check out your product. There’s nothing worse than burning bridges by harassing people to promote your product. Even if they don’t promote it at this time, keep the doors open to have this product promoted later or for some possible co-projects. Good affiliates don’t have the time or resources to promote everything that comes their way. Sometimes, the timing isn’t right or the products isn’t quite right for their target audience even though they liked it. Do send them a follow up email but don’t harass them.

I have to share my experience about an email I received from someone who wants to share website links. I know this is a little off the subject about affiliate partners but it still applies here as well.

Here is the email I received. I have had no previous connection to this person and no knowledge of what email she is referring to:

Hello,
Sorry to bother you again. My name is (removed); I contacted you some time ago on the possible partnership issue.
In two words, I searched for the websites related to my website topic, and found your site really attractive and content-rich. I think we could benefit from link exchange, as my website (removed) has much in common with yours.
I will be glad to link to your site in return to you linking back to mine. Please let me know if you feel interested in the possible partnership. You can contact me at (removed).

Best regards,
(removed)

So I’m a little taken aback for the following reasons:

1. The email was titled “Partnership Issues.” Using a very strong word like “issues” is not good! And I didn’t know there could be issues with someone I don’t have a partnership to begin with. Now if she would have used the word “request” I might consider exchanging links.
2. If she had really searched for websites related to her topic and took the time to really read my website she would have addressed me by my name and not a generic “hello.”
3. She says that she thinks we could benefit by this link exchange because we share similar content. Ok–but I share similar content with thousands of other websites as well. She should be telling me how this partnership would differ from any other link exchange I might consider, as well as tell me a little bit about herself and her business.

By not doing these simple things above, I was not interested in a partnership. I was annoyed that she did not take into consideration how precious my time is during the day. Oh I’m not saying I don’t appreciate an email offer for link exchange, what I’m annoyed about is that I would now have to take the time to investigate her and her business.  I would then have to email her back and ask her how she planned on promoting my business and then wait for yet another response back from her. Too much time wasted!!!!

Her email should have covered any possible questions I may have about this partnership but it gave me nothing. I still don’t know anymore about this person then I did before she emailed me.

So my point for sharing this with you is make sure you are polite; check that you are not using words that could be taken in a different meaning by the reader; and be sure to answer any anticipated questions your reader may have about you, your company, and what the benefits are for them.

I have been receiving a lot of questions about how can you research a subject for your Ebook before you spend a bunch of time writing something that no one may be interested in.

The fact is that you want to tap into people’s greatest desires. People like to make money, save time and are passionate. Your goal with your Ebook is to help people pursue their goals.

One of the easiest ways to do your research is with your own readers. If you are already doing business online and have a website and a mailing list, you have your very own research center. Get to know your readers and what they want…and then sell it to them. Ask them questions and really get to know them and how they respond to different mailings and bits of information you give them.

It is so much easier selling to someone who is already a customer then to go out and look for other customers. That is why I limit my products to my main market. I already have a decent list of customers, why would I go create an information product on something completely different when it would be just that much harder to sell to them?

But if you don’t have a list or a website with much traffic, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start creating information products. We all had to start somewhere so if you’re just getting started there are plenty of research tools available.

Tools:

Google Suggest: http://labs.google.com/suggestfaq.html
 - As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you’re typing and offers suggestions in real time. Google Suggest uses data about the overall popularity of various searches to help rank the refinements it offers. Just write down the suggestions that come up and then later enter them into a spreadsheet to keep track of them.

Google Zeitgeist: http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist/index.html
 - Several tools that give insight into global, regional, past and present search trends. These tools are available for you to play with,  explore, and learn from. Use them for everything from business research to trivia answers.

After you’ve done some keyword research, you should:

1. Look for other products on the same topic. If there is no other information product or book on the same topic, don’t get discouraged. Usually this would mean that the idea may not be profitable but in our case the agriculture industry has been untouched by this new way of marketing. Think of how you can blow your competition right out of the water by creating information products in this way.
2. Promote similar products as an affiliate. Sign up for the affiliate programs for these type of products and sell them on your website, blog, or through a Google Adwords campaign.

I really want to encourage you not to be afraid of this new way of marketing. The agriculture industry needs to look for ways to make things better than what has been out there. You need to make yourself stand apart from the rest of the crowd…differentiate yourself from the competition and outsell them!!!

Do you think you are an expert? In every day life what someone considers an expert may be different to different people. If you can share your experiences and opinions, you can become an expert and gain a following. The important thing is that you help people.

If people can learn from your advice, experiences and from your opinion…you are an expert to them. And that’s what makes you unique and helps you stand apart from the crowd even more.

In order for you to differentiate yourself from your competition you need to outsell them. One way to do this is to make a better product.

Study your competitor’s product and make a better one. Find out which important questions still are unanswered in your competitors products so you can make more complete information. Find a way to help your customers make more money, save more time or whatever your product does.

If your competitor just sells an ebook–create audios, videos, or a workbook. Anything that can make your product have a higher perceived value and appeal to all kinds of learners. After all, not everyone wants to read an ebook so you are losing a lot of customers who want to listen to an audio in the car or be able to download a recording to their iPod. So if you can make a better and more useful product, you’re way ahead of the game.

It’s not true that everything that has been said has already been written. Since that unfortunate axiom came into use, the whole universe has changed. Technology has changed, ideas have changed, and the mindsets of entire nations have changed.

The fact is that this is the perfect time to write an ebook. What the publishing industry needs are people who can tap into the world as it is today–innovative thinkers who can figure out how to solve old problems in a new way. Ebooks are the new and powerful tool for original thinkers with fresh ideas to disseminate information to the millions of people who are struggling to figure out how to do a plethora of different things.

Let’s say you already have a brilliant idea, and the knowledge to back it up that will enable you to write an exceptional ebook. You may be sitting at your computer staring at a blank screen wondering, “why? Why should I go through all the trouble of writing my ebook when it’s so impossible to get anything published these days?”

Well, let me assure you that publishing an ebook is entirely different than publishing a book in print. Let’s look at the specifics of how the print and cyber publishing industry differ, and the many reasons why you should take the plunge and get your fingers tapping across those keyboards!

Ebook available at the Ease Your Workload Shopping Center

Submitting a print book to conventional publishing houses or to agents is similar to wearing a hair shirt 24/7. No matter how good your book actually is, or how many critique services and mentor writers have told you that “you’ve got what it takes,” your submitted manuscript keeps coming back to you as if it is a boomerang instead of a valuable mine of information.

Perhaps, in desperation, you’ve checked out self-publishing and found out just how expensive a venture it can be. Most “vanity presses” require minimal print runs of at least 500 copies, and even that amount will cost you thousands of dollars. Some presses’ minimal run starts at 1,000 to 2,000 copies. And that’s just for the printing and binding. Add in distribution, shipping, and promotional costs and–well, you do the math. Even if you wanted to go this route, you may not have that kind of money to risk.

Let’s say you already have a farm business with a quality website and a quality product. An ebook is one of the most powerful ways to promote your business while educating people with the knowledge you already possess as a business owner of a specific product or service.

For example, let’s say that you’ve spent the last twenty-five years growing and training bonsai trees on your farm, and now you’re ready to share your knowledge and experience. An ebook is the perfect way to reach the largest audience of bonsai enthusiasts.

Ebooks will not only promote your business–they will help you make a name for yourself and your business, and establish you as an expert in your field. You may even find that you have enough to say to warrant a series of ebooks. Specific businesses are complicated and often require the different aspects to be divided in order for the reader to get the full story.

Perhaps your goals are more finely turned in terms of the ebook scene. You may want to build a whole business around writing and publishing ebooks. Essentially, you want to start an e-business. You are thinking of setting up a website to promote and market your ebooks. Maybe you’re even thinking of producing an ezine.

One of the most prevalent reasons people read ebooks is to find information about how to turn their businesses into a profit-making machine. And these people are looking to the writers of ebooks to provide them with new ideas and strategies because writers of ebooks are usually people who understand the new cyberspace world we now live in. Ebook writers are experts in marketing campaigns and the strategies of promoting and distributing ebooks. The cyberspace community needs its ebooks to be successful so that more and more ebooks will be written.

You may want to create affiliate programs that will also market your ebook. Affiliates can be people or businesses worldwide that will all be working to sell your ebooks. Think about this? Do you see a formula for success here?

Figure out what your subject matter is, and then narrow it down. Your goal is to aim for specificity. Research what’s out there already, and try to find a void that your ebook might fill.