Web Success Diva

Conversational Marketing for Solopreneurs… Client Study Updates.

January 25, 2008 · Social Media Marketing

… okay, if you’ve been reading any of my blogs for any amount of time (or know anything about me), you’ll know — I’m a conversational marketing champion. I believe the Internet and its very nature has changed dramatically and most so-called guru online marketers have no idea about the significance of these changes.

Remember these are the benefits of conversational marketing:

Your audience will be pre-sold. When you engage them in converstations on social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, and the like — your “pre-selling” them on what you offer (whether products or services). This, over time, will increase your sales, action conversions.

Client Example: Solopreneur life coach, self-published author. Originally, my client was very weary of any technology that went beyond ezines, articles, and press releases. As part of our arrangement, to introduce the social-media, conversational marketing into her online marketing strategies. We simultaneously implemented her “standard ideas” of online marketing — at the same time, building an online network within the various categories of conversational marketing (social networking sites, social bookmarking, micro-blogging, multi-media marketing, etc.).
Results? Users who came directly from any of our conversational marketing strategies had a 57% higher conversion rate (buying products, opting in, buying services) than those that came directly from the “standard” online marketing staples.

Your audience will likely have more disposable income - coupled with being pre-sold, this lead to higher sale totals. According to studies all across the web — those users that are engaging in social-media, conversational sites (MySpace, FaceBook, Scribd, Squidoo, Twitter, Etc.) have an average of 27% (Source: Comcourse) more disposable income and are twice as likely to purchase such items as luxury goods and self-improvement services.

Client Example: Freelance writer who wanted to introduce info products and provide valuable resources for other freelance writers to earn good money for their writing skills. Again, another client who has been through the ringer in article marketing (yes, she got traffic, but they never converted), online press releases (built a small level of publicity, but never converted into revenues), and ezine marketing (her list was small, not worth the efforts and cost involved in weekly publication), she had even done direct mail marketing (her long opt-in form lowered conversions, and she still has 200 copies of her printed report sitting at home). When all was said and done, she had systems and funnels set-up, that did absolutely nothing for her revenues. While she continued to maintain her “standard” online marketing strategy — our team went to work using social media, conversational marketing.
Results? Much like above, we not only improved her conversions by44% - those who did make purchases, purchased 24% more products in their initial sale — many even converting to her pillar product (ticket price $2995.00). So imagine, she gets 44% more sales, and made 24% more money on those sales.

Your audience can actually find you, even if your a small gal (or guy). Your clients are searching for you. Will they find you? Let’s face it, SEO is not only obnoxiously expensive — many search engines are completely eliminating the factors that USED TO BE important — making all those who haven’t caught up isolated from their audiences. Plus, with millions and millions of websites, do you really think you can get on top simply using Metadata and strategically placing keywords? Get real.

Client Example: This one really gets at me. Client is a successful speaker, author, teleseminar leader — in fact, you’ve likely heard of her if you are a coach or solopreneur. Problem? She was spending over 5,000 a month using old online marketing strategies that simply will not get results. Search engine marketing, content optimization, link-baiting, article marketing, and the like. Like with all my clients - I say, “Let me show you a new way.” We introduced social media, conversational marketing into her online marketing mix.
Results? Like with all the other results - she enjoyed increased conversions, increased sales, and it went much farther. Her clients actually began to find her in all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Etc) - soon, she began to see that all her leads were coming from these social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, and the like. In one month alone 89% of her search engine referral traffic, came from the exceptionally high search engine rankings she received from our efforts. Her MSN profile began to rank in the top 3 for one of her keywords. Her Squidoo pages, began to show up on the first page of Google and Yahoo. For a 10% of the cost, per month, she quadrupled her resulting traffic.

The moral of this story. Catch up. Online marketing is changing in ways that you can not even believe. The way we engage our audience has changed, our audiences’ online behavior patterns have changed, the online marketing tools available have changed. The little gal (or guy) can compete - using social media, conversational marketing… for a significantly less costs… really.

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To Your Success!

Maria Reyes-McDavis

Web Success Diva

The Solopreneur’s Online Marketing Diva

Watch Out! Big, big news coming in February - you may just get a chance to work with me exclusively — for free! My colleagues think I’m crazy… but what else is new