Urgent Help Needed - Offline Seminar!

[naonline]

Hi All,

Can some of the offline guru's help me out? I've been asked to give a talk to my local chamber of commerce on internet marketing.

With this being such a huge topic I need to decide what to speak about that will be of most interest to business owners. What i'm looking for is maybe 5 headings that will go on the invitations and make people want to attend.

I want them to leave the seminar thinking that online marketing is an investment they absolutely must make and that they need to hire a consultant - me!

Thanks

Nick

[FBisMoney]

Hey Nick,

How about these headings just from the top of my head here:

Staying Ahead of The Competition
How Internet Marketing Will Increase Your Bottom Line
Increase Your Sales Volume and Decrease Your Advertising Costs
The TRUTH About Online Marketing

I would focus the seminar on how you can help them increase their bottom line. Bring actual facts, presentations, charts. Show them actual results you have had in the past and relate to them as best you can. Pretend you are the business owner and you want to make more money, see where that leads you. Hope these help and best of luck in your presentation.

[nimcus38318]

I"m no offline guru, but I do know that most offline business people do not do enough with their customer lists. You know that they have them, but they don't utilize them to their fullest extent. You could explain about email marketing campaigns to their usual customers and how they could get unexpected sales through this avenue.

If you had time, I'd set up a quick site that had the domain name of your city and a generic business (i.e. bestperthdentist.com) and put some content up and see if you could drive some traffic to it. If you could, then you can show the chamber of commerce how quickly they could be getting new clients via the internet.

Hope this helps a little.

[naonline]

Originally Posted by FBisMoney

Hey Nick,

How about these headings just from the top of my head here:

Staying Ahead of The Competition
How Internet Marketing Will Increase Your Bottom Line
Increase Your Sales Volume and Decrease Your Advertising Costs
The TRUTH About Online Marketing

I would focus the seminar on how you can help them increase their bottom line. Bring actual facts, presentations, charts. Show them actual results you have had in the past and relate to them as best you can. Pretend you are the business owner and you want to make more money, see where that leads you. Hope these help and best of luck in your presentation.

Thanks for that. This is the angle I'm looking for. i doubt business owners really care about on page SEO. They just want to know about the ROI.

[naonline]

Originally Posted by nimcus38318

I"m no offline guru, but I do know that most offline business people do not do enough with their customer lists. You know that they have them, but they don't utilize them to their fullest extent. You could explain about email marketing campaigns to their usual customers and how they could get unexpected sales through this avenue.

If you had time, I'd set up a quick site that had the domain name of your city and a generic business (i.e. bestperthdentist.com) and put some content up and see if you could drive some traffic to it. If you could, then you can show the chamber of commerce how quickly they could be getting new clients via the internet.

Hope this helps a little.

Nice idea!

[SusanneUK]

Nick this might be of some help to you.. it's a free report from fellow warrior Andrew "webthings" - this is a snippet from the first paragraph of the WSO for the Free Report:

...then I don’t know what will! And it’s a pretty simple strategy really: you just run low-cost online marketing workshops to teach local business owners how to better market on the internet themselves, and take advantage of the fact that about one third of them will then ask you to do the work for them afterwards!

I have put in bold the relevant part and perhaps from this report you can get some ideas for what to talk about at your Chamber of Commerce meeting.

I know Andrew and he is very thorough!

Go here to see the WSO and get the Free Report:

Offline: FREE REPORT shows how to make $300,000 active income, and $25,000 passive income per month

Hope that helps some
Sue

[FrankHaywood]

Originally Posted by naonline

What i'm looking for is maybe 5 headings that will go on the invitations and make people want to attend.

"How To Recession Proof Your Business"

That will do it.

PM me if you like as I'm just about to start gearing up to do this very thing in Solihull, and I'd be glad to bounce around a few ideas for my own benefit too.

-Frank Haywood

[naonline]

Originally Posted by SusanneUK

Nick this might be of some help to you.. it's a free report from fellow warrior Andrew "webthings" - this is a snippet from the first paragraph of the WSO for the Free Report:

...then I don’t know what will! And it’s a pretty simple strategy really: you just run low-cost online marketing workshops to teach local business owners how to better market on the internet themselves, and take advantage of the fact that about one third of them will then ask you to do the work for them afterwards!

I have put in bold the relevant part and perhaps from this report you can get some ideas for what to talk about at your Chamber of Commerce meeting.

I know Andrew and he is very thorough!

Go here to see the WSO and get the Free Report:

Offline: FREE REPORT shows how to make $300,000 active income, and $25,000 passive income per month

Hope that helps some
Sue

Thanks Sue, i'll check it out!

[naonline]

Originally Posted by FrankHaywood

"How To Recession Proof Your Business"

That will do it.

PM me if you like as I'm just about to start gearing up to do this very thing in Solihull, and I'd be glad to bounce around a few ideas for my own benefit too.

-Frank Haywood

I'll be in touch Frank, cheers

[DukeNasty]

I have done a few of these and first off, congratulations, giving these seminars are absolutely the best thing you can do to grow your business like crazy. I do at least one a month and even though I am not selling directly, the backend on these is ridiculous! Couple of tips. First, you would be surprised at the amount of information that your attendees already know. They aren't complete idiots in terms of online/internet marketing as most would have you believe, but the vast majority have not connected all the dots to design an overall effective marketing plan. That is where you come in and believe me, they will be hanging on your every word, but there WILL be some skeptics in the room because they are used to hearing crackpot SEO consultants telling them about being on the first page like that is the magical talisman to dominating their market. It is really only one piece and you will probably find that those who have used PPC in the past aren't seeing the returns they were promised. Again, most SMBs don't have an effective overall online marketing plan and that is what I end up selling to most because they have either experienced or heard from their fellow business owners about their disappointing results. Personally, I really have no interest in doing one piece of the pie because I can't achieve the results I promise them anyway.

Back on topic though. The bottom line is that all small business owners are concerned with lead generation and converting these leads into sales so I gear every presentation ultimately to this topic. Whether the topic is website design, social media, etc. I always come back to the point of how these activities can help you generate leads then convert these leads into customers. A growing customer base and customers that purchase more often is the key to sales and cashflow and all small to medium sized businesses worry about this every single day. Like you mentioned, they don't wake up thinking about on page versus off page SEO or anything like that. They worry about growing their businsess and/or keeping the doors open.

Someone pointed out earlier that they also generally have tons of customer list information, but my experience is that these small businesses may have customer information, but they have never developed the relationship from day one that allows them to market to their customers. That presents you another huge area of opportunity because helping businesses developing these relationships by producing content in the form of blogs, videos, branded social media sites gets them to the point of establishing trust with their customers. Once you have trust you have implicit permission to begin marketing to them. Otherwise, SMBs just come across as spammy and who needs more email that they didn't sign up for.

At any rate, there is tons of opportunity here in terms of seminars. I work with small local banks, small business development centers, investment professionals, attorneys, etc. to set these things up and they generally underwrite the tab. I am booked up and I am now expanding into another major southeastern city because the opportunity is huge. Good luck and keep us posted.

E.

[markshields]

I would definetely say when dealing with these offline businesses focus with them on how they need to improve and build stronger relationships with their customer base to result in more sales long term

[turftroll]

Nick,

I go into internet marketing for offline businesses a few years ago for my contracting business.
The money spent on yellow page ads for me was a terrible return for the money spent. Newspaper ads in small, local papers were a little better investment. Direct mail/ postcards worked well in the start of the busy season. My efforts on the internet for my business gave me 5 to 10 times the amount of calls than did the other methods.

Business owners want their phone to ring with prospective clients asking about their services or wares or walking in their storefront - that's it.

" what to speak about that will be of most interest to business owners. make people want to attend."

Every business owner I talk to whether their in my line business or I am selling them a internet marketing service is primarily interested in what it cost and what will the results be. How many times did your phone ring last week for what type of advertising you did. Were they (the leads) tire kickers or decent leads. Did you run a ad in a certain publication and what were your results.

"I want them to leave the seminar thinking that online marketing is an investment they absolutely must make and that they need to hire a consultant - me!"

"An investment they absolutely must make" then show them what part of online marketing you are offering that will make them more money or increase the money they get for what they are spending on advertising now.

That they need to hire you - Their buying advertising. From my experience I haven't met anyone yet who wants to do it themselves. That is why they are paying for all the other forms of advertising. If you get their phone ringing and they know it is coming from you - you are GOLD.

Good Luck to You

jim

[naonline]

Originally Posted by DukeNasty

I have done a few of these and first off, congratulations, giving these seminars are absolutely the best thing you can do to grow your business like crazy. I do at least one a month and even though I am not selling directly, the backend on these is ridiculous! Couple of tips. First, you would be surprised at the amount of information that your attendees already know. They aren't complete idiots in terms of online/internet marketing as most would have you believe, but the vast majority have not connected all the dots to design an overall effective marketing plan. That is where you come in and believe me, they will be hanging on your every word, but there WILL be some skeptics in the room because they are used to hearing crackpot SEO consultants telling them about being on the first page like that is the magical talisman to dominating their market. It is really only one piece and you will probably find that those who have used PPC in the past aren't seeing the returns they were promised. Again, most SMBs don't have an effective overall online marketing plan and that is what I end up selling to most because they have either experienced or heard from their fellow business owners about their disappointing results. Personally, I really have no interest in doing one piece of the pie because I can't achieve the results I promise them anyway.

Back on topic though. The bottom line is that all small business owners are concerned with lead generation and converting these leads into sales so I gear every presentation ultimately to this topic. Whether the topic is website design, social media, etc. I always come back to the point of how these activities can help you generate leads then convert these leads into customers. A growing customer base and customers that purchase more often is the key to sales and cashflow and all small to medium sized businesses worry about this every single day. Like you mentioned, they don't wake up thinking about on page versus off page SEO or anything like that. They worry about growing their businsess and/or keeping the doors open.

Someone pointed out earlier that they also generally have tons of customer list information, but my experience is that these small businesses may have customer information, but they have never developed the relationship from day one that allows them to market to their customers. That presents you another huge area of opportunity because helping businesses developing these relationships by producing content in the form of blogs, videos, branded social media sites gets them to the point of establishing trust with their customers. Once you have trust you have implicit permission to begin marketing to them. Otherwise, SMBs just come across as spammy and who needs more email that they didn't sign up for.

At any rate, there is tons of opportunity here in terms of seminars. I work with small local banks, small business development centers, investment professionals, attorneys, etc. to set these things up and they generally underwrite the tab. I am booked up and I am now expanding into another major southeastern city because the opportunity is huge. Good luck and keep us posted.

E.

Thanks Dukenasty,

Relationship building is going to be a big part of my presentation.

[JohnMcCabe]

Another way to boost ROI and provide tangible benefits is showing how a website can make doing business with a company easier for the customer.

I've seen doctors and dentists put up PDF versions of the forms they ask new patients to fill out, leading to more accurate and easily readable forms along with patients spending less time in the waiting room balancing clip boards on their laps.

I've seen restaurants put menus online, along with either online ordering or another PDF fax-back sheet. I've also seen online reservation systems.

I've seen a hardware store put up a "project of the month" with a complete bill of materials the customer could print and bring to the store. Some projects even had pre-bundled kits.

The common thread here is that adding touches like this has nothing to do with SEO, etc. and everything to do with differentiating the business from competitors who don't go the extra mile.

Many times, the difference between selecting one business over another is the ease of doing business...

The benefit for you is that bringing things like this up differentiates you from the "front page of Google" SEO peddlers.