How to Establish Yourself as an Expert and Generate Sales

Whether you are a premier blogging service, non-profit consultant or a fundraising company, the bottom line is you need to generate revenues. Do you know how to make people buy from you? Well, they have to trust you. Do you know how to make them trust you? Basically, they have to believe that you know what you are talking about. In short you have to be viewed as the expert that they can count on in your field.

In this post, I will detail the things that you need to do in order to push your brand and be seen as an expert in your field. Once you have accomplished this, you can be sure that you can easily generate sales through your blog. Here’s how:

1. Write contents that they would be willing to share - The first thing that you should do is to write contents that are share worthy. This means that on top of the facts that you are going to present, it has to be an interesting read and helpful to the readers. If the content you wrote is share worthy, people will recommend it to their connections and this will increase your online exposure to a wide range of audience. This will bring awareness to who you are and the kind of knowledge that you bring.

2. Use multimedia - When I say contents, I don’t mean only written ones. You can also share your expertise using audio and video. You can for example upload talks on Blog Talk Radio or create a podcast at Blubbery. All these can be automatically uploaded to iTunes for greater exposure. And you should not forget to start your own YouTube channel because the exposure that you will get here is simply awesome.

3. Use the features of the social media - Give links to your contents in Twitter, answer questions in LinkedIn Answers, interact on Facebook. In short, using the social media can be helpful.

4. Join groups that are looking for experts for media exposure - Facebook and LinkedIn have groups that are constantly looking for experts for media exposure. Look for these groups and join them and then answer queries related to your expertise. Profnet from PR Newswire is also a good place to brush elbows with journalist and authors to further your exposure.

5. Interconnect your efforts - Your business marketing promotion online should be integrated so that you can exploit its power. You can interconnect your Internet business marketing promotion website and Ministry blogs with Facebook through its social plugins and use tools like Twitterfeed so that you can feed them to Tweeter as well. Aside from the exposure that you will get, you will also increase the PR of your website and blogs through these links.

Unless people see you as an expert, you cannot expect them to part with their money. By making enough credible noise, people will begin to see you as somebody who knows what you are talking about. Take note, you have to make credible noise and not just any noise. This means accountability on your part because the moment that you publish something erroneous, that would be the end of your online fund raising career.

I’d like to share with you things that you should avoid in your email fundraising or other online fundraising campaign. http://bit.ly/w54vB7

How to Grow Your Facebook Page from 0 to 5000 Fans

If your Facebook Profile is your personal account that you share with family and friends, then there might not be a need to increase your fan counts. In fact, it might be better to limit it to just a few that you can truly call friends. Not so with your Facebook Page, which is designed to be a public Company, Product or Brand Page that you use for internet business marketing and promotion, or even online fund raising for charities. In the case of your Page, you'll want to grow your fans to as many as you possibly can. If you are starting at zero, here's how how you can grow your business’s Facebook page from 0 to 5000 fans:

1. Post content that is engaging and relevant to people

In order to win the attention of people, you must establish the fact that your company, product, ministry or service is relevant to their lives. Use Facebook Posts to do this. Post about a problem that your product or service effectively resolves. Post helpful video discussions. Post inspirational content. Post relevant content. Post discounts, coupons and sales offers. Before you know it, fans will start liking your Page. You see, people are constantly looking for solutions to their problems and if you can demonstrate to them through good content that you have what they are looking for, you will win their loyalty. Of course, you have to have integrity here - find good content you can post about that is releveant to your business or ministry. Unlike your Profile, where you might discuss ANY subject, your Page is better when it stays focused around the topics that relate to your company.

2. Post content consistently and backlink when appropriate

While social media gurus have differing opinions about the freuqncy and quantity of Facebook posts, when you are starting out post once per day. Why? You don't have many readers yet, so more is overkill at the beginning, but you also need to establish a good content posting habit, so once a day gets you into a routine of posting. Plus it shows your Page to be actively producing content of value. As people notice that content and like your page, your fans will grow and get engaged with you, and then more of your content will go viral throughout the Facebook channel, to be noticed by prospective new fans. In regard to backlinking, you don't have to outlink from all your posts, but make sure you do link to your company website or blog for those posts require further reading, some kind of download, or a purchase decision.

The Key in these two ideas above and the following four below is to develop a regular content posting schedule for your Company Page, which when consistently applied, will lead to steady growth of fans to your page.

3. Add pictures and/or How to videos

Psychology has proven it that we respond better to videos and pictures rather than just pure text. That is exactly the reason why computers developed the so called graphical user interface because of this basic psychology that we have. You capitalize on this by adding illustrative pictures and/or How to videos to your Page. You can post these or use various Apps to sync up your YouTube account with your Facebook page. Good Videos can also be added to your church blog, ministry blog or business website as well as Facebook and will engage your fans further as you provide helpful content that addresses problems they face, and thus develops loyalty within your fan base.

4. Ask relevant questions of your fans

Engage your existing fans by asking them relevant questions. Ask them how your product has impacted their lives, what problems were you able to solve with the services that you offer and similar things. This will give them the idea that you are not only interested in pushing out content, but also in accepting content / ideas / suggestions / recommendations from your clients, customers and fans. Plus you get real time feedback that can help you run your business better.

5. Invite people to answer surveys and ask their opinions

It’s not enough to ask them questions, engage them further by inviting them on a survey. This will engage them further and you will also get feedbacks regarding what you need to improve regarding your product or service. Along with the survey, you also include a portion that they can put their opinions too. This will give them the idea that you value their input.

6. Give rewards

There are hotdog companies that give out discounts if you will “like” their business page on Facebook. You can think of similar strategies to that are applicable to your fundraising company and get the same impact.

What you are trying to do is win the loyalty of people. If you have that, you can expect that the number of you fans will grow and so as your revenue. These are some of the things that you can do to increase your business’s Facebook page fans from 0 to 5000. None of these are stressful because you can just do this after or before you do your personal Facebook page. This is one of those daily leisurely activities that you can do that promises good returns for your online business.

If you are starting at zero, here's how how you can grow your business’s Facebook page from 0 to 5000 fans: http://bit.ly/Hjtmgz

Email fundraising has its own downside but following these tips will greatly improve your batting average and of course, donations will increase too. http://bit.ly/yxX5cA

Let Pathmaker Marketing Help Make Your Website A Success in A Flash!

In a day and age when the whole world seeks Entertainment in all they do, we at Pathmaker Marketing LLC can help you ensure that your Website is as Entertaining as it is Informative. And, we make sure that the Entertainment is far more than forEntertainment alone! By using the ubiquitous FLASH program, we allow visitors to your Website to actually become involved inyour site, making it virtually Interactive in nature!

As you undoubtedly know, FLASH is the computer program that provides Dynamic Motion and historically has been included on 99% of all PCs. Developed to help eliminate a totally "static” situation on your Website, it uses either Java Scripting or Videos to enhance your Website. FLASH gives a site great motion, as is demonstrated by a site we recently developed:www.tenboom.com.

It stands to reason that something that is done professionally is more appealing and effective than something accomplished by amateurs. We can assure you that there are no more talented and experienced professionals in the realm of FLASH than those at Pathmaker Marketing LLC. With a keen eye to the aesthetics of FLASH, we are more tuned into the functionality andeffectiveness of your Website than simply how good it looks!

Aware of the shortcomings of FLASH, we make sure that your Website possesses the supplemental elements that allows for those shortcomings to be compensated for. While Search Engines cannot "Spider” Flash, probing the site for Search Engine Optimization, we design your site so that it is not all FLASH—thus allowing the majority of your site to be Search Engine Optimized.

More than just your Website, we would suggest that you incorporate FLASH into your Blogsite as well. To help you see just how advantageous and effective this can be, we have provided you with a number of sites to visit and explore.

How to Use Animated GIFs for Email Fundraising Impact

We have emphasized the importance of a tailored messages in your email fundraising campaign and animated GIF is just another way to infuse more personality to it. Although this technique is no longer as famous as it used to be in Internet business marketing promotion still, it’s very effective and as a professional fundraiser its still worth your time.

With the exception of Outlook, animate GIFs are compatible with most email clients and therefore, you can be sure that your animation will be viewed by your recipient. Here are a few tips on how to do it:

1. Display a complete message in the first frame

In case the entire animation does not display well with the recipient’s email client, make sure that the first frame conveys the entire message. This is to ensure that what you wanted your clients to know will get home to them even when things don’t work as expected.

2. Small is better than big

In the case of animate GIFs, small is better than big. This is so because you want to avoid the spam filters of most email clients. Another thing is, you want to maintain the speed of the way your email loads because if it’s too slow, you know already what your recipient will do with it.

3. Let the animation cycle for several times

Allowing the animation cycle for several times will ensure that the viewer can see the entire message. After this, allow it to go static for 30 seconds. This is also another reason why you have to keep it small.

4. Consider how the email would look like without the animation

There are email clients that are intentionally set to block animation and that is why, you have to consider how your email would look like without it. The point here is to avoid relying solely on animation to convey the message. You have to remember that your purpose of using it is just to spice it up a bit but not to cripple the entire campaign just because the animation part does not display well.

5. Avoid overusing animation

In relation to the above, avoid using animation too much. There are a lot of disadvantages of overusing animation and that is why, you have to use it sparingly. Aside from slowing the loading down, it can create a visual mess when not used properly. You have to remember that you don’t want to irritate you recipient and too much animation is the best way to accomplish that.

Although a lot of professional fundraisers have abandoned the use of animated GIFs in their email fundraising campaigns, still, we suggest that you reconsider using it. It is a great way to customize your mails and add a little bit of personality to it. If done properly, you can be sure that it will bring a great deal of conversion to your overall online fund raising campaign.

Know the tips on How to Coordinate Your Email Fundraising with Direct Mail
http://bit.ly/yxX5cA

We have emphasized the importance of a tailored messages in your email fundraising campaign and animated GIF is just another way to infuse more personality to it http://ow.ly/9S6KF

Church Outreach Ideas -- How to Use a Prayer Wall

A prayer wall is a web application where you can conveniently post prayers and pray for others as well. It’s so easy to use and the convenience will put prayer chain to shame. Updates on past prayers are easy to do, you don’t need to send hundreds of emails to keep people informed. Talk about Church outreach ideas, this is the best there is. Here is how to use it:

1. Post your prayer request like a tweet

The best way to post a prayer is to make it concise so that those who will pray for you will not have a hard time remembering your request. Added to that, there are also details that you want to intentionally miss out especially if they are too personal. You can think of this as a tweet except that it’s a prayer.

2. Post a prayer for others too

Don’t just pray for yourself, pray for others as well. Intercession is a virtue that is highly encouraged in the church and what better way to help your brethren than to pray for them and encourage others to pray for them too?

3. Avoid correcting the prayers of others

If you disagree with other peoples’ prayer request, there is no point in correcting them. You have to remember that the prayer wall is a public environment and making a public correction to someone else’s prayer is just too insulting.

4. Avoid gossips in your prayers requests

It’s easy to fall into this trap. What was intended to be a genuine concern that needs to be prayed for progresses into a gossip. If you think that a request is a gossip in the making, you can flag it as such. The admins of the church website will then remove it from the prayer requests and decide if it is indeed a gossip. Just like other Outreach Ideas, this too has to be protected from misuse.

5. Truly pray

If you want to pray for a request, all you need to do is press the “pray” button and the number of those who prayed will increase. On the downside, you can actually just press the button without actually praying and the person on the other side will actually believe that the number of those who prayed are actually a lot. This just defeats the purpose of a prayer wall and should be avoided. We have to remember that we are accountable to God and dishonesty just doesn’t pay.

A prayer wall is just a web app that makes the job of prayer warriors a little easy. This will encourage more prayers and a great way to see your ministry being fruitful. All you need to do get in touch with Pathmaker Marketing and have it installed in your Church's website or ministry blog. Do you have any other Church Outreach Ideas, we would like to here about it too.

Email fundraising is not something that only the professional fundraisers can do to raise funds. Even newbie fundraisers can do it if you know the secrets. http://ow.ly/9PBJm

Studies have shown that for every dollar that you spend on email marketing, it will have an ROI of $42. http://bit.ly/GGqJYc

Since cost is the most important factor in every business decision, knowing the cost of an email marketing campaign has a lot of advantages. Call (623) 322-3334 now!

Talk about Church outreach ideas, this is the best there is. Check out how to use it @ http://bit.ly/GJwa5q

How to Coordinate Your Email Fundraising with Direct Mail

Email fundraising is not something that only the experts can do to raise funds. Even newbie fundraisers can do it if you know the secrets. Just like any marketing effort, targeting a hungry niche is of topmost importance otherwise, you will be wasting your efforts because all your mails will be instantly deleted. Here are some tips:

1. Customize your email

Do not send a one size fits all email to all your targets. This is an instant turn off because people will just know it when the mail is not really for them. Take your time to create a customize email for the specific niche that you are sending it to. Generic email is a sign that you are being lazy and believe me, people can sense it.

2. List quality is very important

It is common knowledge among fundraisers that paid addresses will always perform less than those that you got organically (e.g., if the donor gave you’re their email address). Although its not a totally bad idea to have paid addresses, you should make it your aim to have more organic addresses than paid ones.

3. Don’t overlook your landing page

It is often said in SEO communities that you have to treat all parts of your website as a landing page because you don’t know where a prospect will land when following a link. You can bring a visitor to your site but if it is not optimized to convert them to donate, you

4. Don’t just ask for money

Again this is an automatic turn off. People will not just part with their money without knowing the value of what you are trying to do. Before you send a solicitation email, make sure that you already have sent at least two that tells a compelling success story, something that recognizes the donors and volunteers and similar things.

5. Personalize your email

With all the information available online, there is no reason that your donor should receive a “Dear Donor” type of mail. Generic or a one-size-fits-all kind of mail will easily find its way to the recycle bin and that is why you need to personalize it. Put the name of the donor in your opening remarks and it is even better if you can tailor the ask amounts based on the giving history of each of your donor.

If you are trying to win a non-supporter, send a customized email designed to welcome them to your cause and to introduce them to your core programs. This can be accomplished through compelling story contents which will convert them to donors in no time.

Email fundraising has its own downside but following the tips provided above will greatly improve your batting average and of course, donations will increase too. Although email fundraising is not rocket science, you don’t have to take it lightly to the point that nobody believes you at all.

Top 5 Mistakes for Email Fundraising

No matter how much you avoid it, it happens. Those email fundraising mishaps that makes you want to recall all the mails that you have sent to donors. The efficiency of modern technology can be a double edge sword that can wound its wielder if you are not careful. The moment you press the send button, all those mails will be in the inbox of all your recipients and if they contain things that you are not suppose to say, there is no way to bring them back.

Well there is always a next time and that is why, we would like to share with you things that you should avoid in your email fundraising campaign. Here they are:

1. Failure to personalize

An email with a “Dear Friend” in the opening is a good candidate for deletion. I mean, try to put yourself in the shoes, of your donor; why do you think would he support your cause if you don’t even know him? And with all the information available online, it’s just a sign or laziness not to be able to put his complete name.

2. Pestering the donors

Running too many campaigns at the same time and asking too much with the same donors is just too irritating to withstand. Imagine finding in your inbox countless updates and other mails begging for support from the same fundraiser? How irritating can that be?

3. Failure to build relationships

Asking money to people who barely know you or what you stood for is a big no no. People would want to support causes that they identify with from people that they trust. So building relationships is paramount in any fundraising campaign including email.

4. Failure to keep up with the times

Are you still relying solely on email? You can multiply the power of your campaign if you include with it the power of social media. This will make your life much easier because it will complement what you cannot include in a garden variety email. Ease of communication, ease of donating, seeing videos and pictures all add to the overall power that you cannot accomplish with email alone.

5. The shotgun approach

Trying to cover all campaigns in one single mail is what you call the shotgun approach. This can cause confusion on the part of your donor because they will not understand what you stand for. Try to be surgical in your approach and by that, I mean try to limit the scope of your campaign.

Although there are still plenty of “oopps” in email fundraising that are in my list, these five are the most frequent and sadly, the least avoided. Taking these to heart will prevent you from committing them again. Just remember that the moment you press that “send” button, there is no way to get those mails back.

4 STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL EMAIL FUNDRAISING OR EMAIL MARKETING

An excellent way to communicate, email has become so efficient that it has the U.S. Postal Service trembling in its boots! But seriously, if you're still doing direct mail only, you need to add email marketing to your mix of online fund raising tools. And to get the most out of your email fundraising or email marketing program you need to implement the following four strategic steps to success:

1) Build Your Email House File

The most successful professional fundraisers are using email marketing programs to solicit their house files. I know this may be a long process to develop these lists, but once you have a robust house file acqusition process in place, your email lists will grow and your efundraising or emarketing communications to those lists will deliver for you maximum results, way above any external list file rentals.

Typically, your house file consists of various sublists like your customer file (first or two time buyers); your best customer file (regular, large or monthly donors, for example); and your prospecting file of requestors who have asked for call backs, downloaded white papers, signed up for your newsletters, etc.

In as much as your email success will mostly be measured in dollars raised, or as a conversion rate percent of the overall send, it stands to reason that a larger size internal file will deliver you a greater number of positive replies, once you've found ways to convert the list into sales or gifts. In other words, make a commitment to building your house file, and then ensure that's an ongoing part of your marketing efforts.

2) Test, Test, Test

There are several ways to proceed in this realm. First, you will want to conduct a basic Email Split Test. This is where you send out two or three different versions of the same email to determine which one(s) give you the best results. You can test different subject lines, different email creatives, or different landing pages. By determining which ones perform best, you can fix the underperforming ones and/or concentrate instead on the ones that were productive and successful.

A basic protocol we use as a basis for testing fundraising for nonprofits is the following:
1. Short cause-centric email to longer cause-based landing page
2. Long cause-centric email to shorter cause-based landing page
3. Premium-centric version email to basic premium (ie product Offer) landing page

3) Evaluate Your “Core Metrics”

Your "Core Metrics" are your central pieces of data that help you make primary decisions regarding your email sending. There are three major ones, and numerous secondary ones. The majors we use are the following:

a. Opens (How Many Emails Delivered Were Opened)—This metric is not completely accurate but as a guide it's good to help you determine the effectiveness of your Email Subject Lines. When your open rates are low concentrate on improving your subject lines.

b. Clicks (How Many Opened Emails Clicked Through to Landing Pages) —This metric reflects the effectiveness of the email creative itself. If your click through rates are low concentrate on improving your email content (ie creative). Usually a good ESP will also provide data on which elements of your creative were clicked on, giving you insights into those things that drive click throughs for you.

c. Conversions (How Many Clicks Became Sales or Gifts) —This metric reflects the effectiveness of your landing pages at converting the visitor into a buyer. If your conversion rates are low concentrate on improving your landing pages.

An sub-item to consider regarding conversions is the average amount of each sale or gift, which, will also affect your overall results and thus can help you determine the over-all value of your various Split Test groups and online funraising efforts.

…And a Bonus Step to a Successful Email Fundraising program:

4) Fuss Around to Optimize

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to continue tweaking your programs, looking for pockets of opportunity in the data, and searching for ways to optimize your efforts and their results. Figure out what people are clicking on and accentuate the positives, then eliminate the negatives! Keep a document of lessons learned as well, so you can refer back to things you have gained over the years that you can build on in the future.

Email marketing is a proven and effective way to enhance your ephilanthropy, so use these four principles to accelerate your email marketing efforts, and call Pathmaker Marketing in Phoenix at 623-322-3334 if we can be of any assistance to you. Or read further about this topic on our blog about email fundraising.

5 Proven Search Engine Marketing Ways to Bring Qualified Traffic

Gone are the days when all you need to do to run an online business is to build a website, send it to the major Search Engines and wait for visitors to come. Today, you need to proactively drive highly qualified traffic to it and convert visitors into clients.

Search Engine Marketing is not just presenting flashy website, people are no longer buying that. What you need today is to find a hungry niche and sell them your product or services. The question then is how to drive a great deal of hungry visitors into your website. Here is a five-tiered approach to accomplish that:

1. Search Engine Optimization

It is a fact in online marketing that people will mostly see your website through the Search Engines. It is therefore imperative that the major ones at least (Google, Yahoo and Bing), will find it so that they can feed it to those who are searching. This means that your website should be Search Engine Optimized so their robots can crawl and index your pages. This will greatly influence your ranking in the search results.

2. PPC advertising

Instead of waiting for months to see results from organic SEO strategies, pay-per-click or PPC will give you results within weeks. Through paid advertising, you can then identify which keywords are often search and thus, will be viable in your organic SEO. Although this means you have to spend a little bit of money, the returns are great and that is why you should not neglect this strategy as well.

3. Social networking

The success of websites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube has taken Internet marketing to new territories. No longer do we bring clients to our websites, we bring our websites to where they are gathered and from there, hope that things will take off. It is therefore the job of the online marketer to seize the opportunities presented by captured and possibly hungry niche because these websites have the power to bring huge awareness to your brand.

4. Link building

No website is an island and that is why you have to build bridges to yours. If you can build links to authority websites, this will make your more credible and authoritative. If a visitor finds a link to your site from Wikipedia for example, he will think that you are indeed genuine in your desire to help and will remove the stigma of selling in his mind.

5. Blogging with targeted keywords

The purpose of blogging with targeted keywords is two-fold; to drive traffic and to pre-sell visitors to the helpfulness of your product or service. If you don’t target keywords with your blog, visitors will not find it even if they want to. On the other hand, even if you can drive traffic to your website, but you are not able to convince them of the usability of your product or service, they will also not buy from you. Blogging with targeted keywords then requires the mixture of naturally incorporating keywords into your blog and be as convincing as possible without being too pushy with your prospects.

This five-tiered approach to Search Engine Marketing will ensure that you are able to drive a highly qualified traffic to your website, convert visitors into clients and increase your revenue. Often times they overlap, nevertheless, they work hand in hand to drive that much needed traffic so that your online marketing success is guaranteed.

To learn how exactly, you & your Company can benefit from an E-Welcome Program you need to contact Pathmaker Marketing.Call(623)3223334 Now!

Is your site search engine-optimized to attract the most and best traffic? Get a Free Consultation now! Call (623) 322-3334.

A strategic eWelcome series introducing people to your ministry is a great tool for traffic conversion. Learn more: http://bit.ly/EfoI9