Entrepreneur Archives - Simply Quintessential

6 ways to get 1000 subscribers in 30 days

email list growth — Photo credit @London Scout||https://unsplash.com/

There are 3 important steps in blogging:

Building your blog/ Upgrading your blog.
Generating traffic to your blog.
Monetizing the traffic to your blog.

Without traffic, blogging can be frustrating. So today, I want to expose one of the surefire ways you can generate steady traffic to your blog.

And its called your Email List!

According to Jeff Goins, the international bestseller author of “The Work of Art“, when he approached his publisher about marketing strategies for his next book, they asked him one simple question:

how big is your email list?

When a publicly traded company approached Derek Halpern to buy out one of his popular blogs, he could have asked for 7x to 10x their original offer: If he had an email list!

Why is email so important

Get more traffic to your site: When someone gives you their email, they have given you the permission to contact them and inform them about the latest posts or product on your website. Research has shown that people who gave you their email are 2x more likely to click on your links than someone who liked your page or followed you on instagram. So if you want more traffic, more pageviews and therefore more revenue (especially for bloggers with google adsense) then you need to start building your email list.
Its personal: There are no middle-men like Facebook determining whether your email will be seen and when your reader will see it. Its just between you and your reader. No distractions. No new kitty pictures to drag their attention away. And often times, when you send an email to your list, its like beginning a conversation with them and enticing them to continue that conversation by visiting your blog
Social media messages get swallowed up: I handle two different facebook pages and a twitter account and I have noticed something peculiar: Your updates get swallowed up. Your updates are competing with an ever-increasing newsfeed and most times it does not win that battle. But an email is different. It stands a 42% chance of being seen, unlike social media which has less than 10% chance of your updates reaching your fans/followers
Gets more clicks than any other social media tool: When your message is seen, it increases the chances of click-throughs. That is why email records more click-through rates than social media.
Easy to monitor: I run different campaigns on social media and on email. The stats I get for my email list is so detailed and know who (right down to their names) clicked my links, which links they clicked and those who haven’t bothered to check my mail. This is not yet possible with social media. Due to privacy concerns, no social media giant will give you the name and email of people who clicked on links in your updates/timeline.
Easy to segregate and target specific groups: When a person clicks on a link on your email, you can easily transfer that person to another list, and later target that person with specific sales copy meant to convert that person to a paying customer. Not so with social media.

But I have got news for you. Building an email list is no longer as easy as it was in the golden era of 2001. Terrific content is no longer good enough because everyone is creating wonderful content and readers are spoiled for choice. Pop-ups are so common that many readers now ignore them.

So how do you cut through the competition and build an impressive list in 30 days?

6 surefire ways to build your email list:

1. Run A Giveaway:

Eric of BeardBrand used a giveaway to spike his email list and increase his plateauing sales. Prior to running a contest using Gleam.io, they had 135 subscribers and little sales. After running a week-long contest, BeardBrand had 1001 subscribers. The day they launched the contest, they did about 4x their daily normal sales.

Noah Kagan grew the email list of AppSumo with the first month from 0 to over 30,000 subs with just giveaways! In 10 months he grew his list to 147,973 subscribers; with just giveaways.

Rohan of Wet Shave Club saw how giveaways shot BeardBrand’s email list and revenue. He decided to use it for Wet Shave Club which was a new company he just bought and rebranded.

The results? 2000+ new email subscribers and $100k revenue in 6 months. I don’t know about you but that is pretty impressive. How did they get $100k with their email list?

Simple. By contacting them directly with an discount offer.

Pro Tip: Running a giveaway is an easy way to build your list and increase your blog’s revenue generation. But there is a wrong way to do this and a right way to do this. A wrong way is to offer an iPhone as the prize. Everyone will enter but chances are that most of them are not your target audience. The right way to do this is to give a prize that will appeal only to your target audience. Also promotion of the giveaway is as important as the prize you are giving. Get influencers in your niche/marsupial niches to promote your giveaway and your email list building will skyrocket!

I highly recommend Gleam. I have used them and a few other giveaway software and I completely love their service. You can even start with the free plan.

So if you are too busy to do other methods listed below, a giveaway might be your magic lamp. If you need ideas for a giveaway, drop a comment and I will gladly help out.

2. Guestpost For Influential bloggers/Popular Blogs:

Dan Faggella of CLVboost was able to use guestposting to grow his email list to 10,000 subs in a matter of months. He used guestposting as a watering hose to drive traffic to his site. You can read all about his expert marketing strategy.

Pro Tip: Want your guest posting to result in an avalanche of email subscribers? Then you absolutely must read Henneke’s post on CopyBlogger: Unleash a Surge of Email Subscribers from Your Guest Posts With This Simple Landing Page Strategy

3. Launch Your Website:

When I did my book launch, I made over $3,000 in one day. Launching a product or a service is an effective way of capturing people’s attention.

So why not launch your website and capture emails?

This is exactly what Harleena Singh is doing with her personal website. And her results are spectacular! The traffic to her site must be enough to have spiked her Alexa ranking, even without a single post published.

Ramsey recommends this method and shows how you can do this in this blog post. If you have a tight budget, then you should follow Jon Morrow’s method. While contributing to copyblogger, he was building an email list for his blog. He used a coming-soon software to capture leads. The day he opened his blog for the first time and wrote the first post on his blog, the avalanche traffic was incredible. However, Jon’s method is a slower process of building trust through continuous guestposting/contribution to an influncer’s blog. It might take longer to get 1000 email subs this way but it will be totally worth it in the end.

Tools you can use:

To make this method so much more effective, you can use these tools that will lead to a viral sharing of your launch date and a spike in your email subscription rate.

Launch Rock: A simple tool for launching your website.

SeedProd: I have personally used SeedProd and I absolutely love/recommend them.

4. Content Locking or Article Upgrades:

A article upgrade is an extra material complimentary to the article you just published. If a web visitor loves the article and knows article upgrade will benefit him, he won’t mind parting with his email address, just to get the upgrade. Probloggers like Neil Patel, Bryan Harris have used this technique to increase their email list.

Content locking is more prevalent in subscription sites. A glimpse of the full article is shown (like the first three paragraphs of the article). Then the rest is hidden and only trading an email address will unlock it. This works extremely well in industries where information is not readily available online.

Pro tip: For content locking I highly recommend using OptinLock

For article upgrades consider Optin Monster

5. Free ebook on Smashwords:

This is a smart method and I encourage people to use it too. This is how I found Bryan Harris of videofruit.com and ended up on his email list.

I was simply looking for an ebook on entrepreneurship strategies. In the search results, I saw an ebook with more than 10 contributors who gave great tips on how to upscale your online business. Bryan Harris was one of the contributors. I was sucked in by the practical advice he gave that I immediately clicked the link to his website.

I was not disappointed. His website had more practical advice on how to get customers and build an email list. Long story short, I subscribed to Bryan’s list 3 hours after downloading a free ebook on Smashwords.

Pro Tip: Publishing an ebook on Smashwords or Amazon is great. Making it free is even better. Want to attract 1000s of downloads? Co-author the book with 5 to 20 more experts in your niche.

6. Contributing to another Problogger’s Freebie:

Mary Jaksh optin “The (Nearly) Ultimate Guide to Writing is how I discovered the Freddy Krugger of blogging, Danny Iny and ended up on his email list.

Gone are the days when you see other bloggers as your rivals. If you can collaborate with another blogger, (especially one who has more traffic than you) to contribute to his/her optin, you will be increasing the chances of being found on the blogoshere.

There you have it: 6 simple ways to grow your email list.

Over to you. In the comments, tell me what ways you use to grow your email list. If you are stuck and want to know ways you can grow your own email list, peculiar to your niche, ask me in the comments. I reply to every comment and will gladly help you out.

How to Start a Lucratively Successful Blog

There are two types of people in this world.

People who wait for opportunities to drop from the skies into their laps and those who go out there, to create their own opportunities.

In the same vein: there are two types of bloggers

Bloggers who wait for something to happen to make their blogs successful
Bloggers who work and face the storm to ensure that they create the opportunity for their blogs to be successful.

Now, I will be frank with you: Blogging is no walk in the park. In the past decade, blogging got so complex, technical and competitive that starting a blog these days is like enrolling into an university; there is just so much to learn.

So how do you start a blog you are absolutely sure will help you fire your 9-5 boss? How do you ensure you don’t fall into the unfortunate pool of bloggers who have never been able to make a cent from their blogs?

I compiled a list of articles that will help you build a profitable blog. Afterall, making some extra money from something you love is never a bad thing. Nor is it a bad thing if your blog can bring in 6-figures each month, so you can spend time with those that really matter in your life.

1. Planning:

Before you jump into building a blog, you must first know what your blog will be all about. You must also know how you can turn a profit with your blog. Fail at this step and your blogging will be a horrific experience to put it mildly.

Greg Narayan explains all you need to know in about planning your blog in his recent article: Guide Part 1: How to plan your new blog perfectly

I love how Don Purdum showed how planning can triple your sales in weeks in this post: Why my Business trippled in 6 weeks.

Don reveals that clarity + focus =execution. And I agree completely with him because lucrative blogging requires intentional efforts. Profits don’t just automatically spring from blogging.

2. Content:

We all know Content is king. But many bloggers do not know how to package their really useful blog posts in a way that will attract, entice and seduce their target audience. If you want to be a popular blogger, then I do urge you to learn how to speak to your readers in a personal manner, like you are having a conversation with them. No matter how knowledgeable you are, your content must never sound like you are speaking down to your reader.

Sue Anne is good at building an engaged audience with her unique content. In this post on her blog, you will find out why. Proven Ways to write Killer Blog Content and get more readers.

3. Build a platform:

When Neil Patel started his food blog, he first started by building a Facebook page for the blog even before he had written a single post. Its very frustrating when you watch your wonderful content gather dust because nobody is reading it. I recently started work on a blog project (will write about my experiences one day) and the first thing I did was to build a Facebook following for this blog. Micheal Hyatt shows just how important a platform is in this video

For the blog project, I knew that building a platform is extremely important. I first created a facebook page, acquired followers and shared other people’s content with them. I shared other bloggers content so that I can tell what my facebook followers loved. I then built a blog and only created content similiar to those that had many likes and shares. The result? Constant traffic and a daily growth of the email list. And the blog is just three weeks old. I do intend to intensify on my platform building efforts on that blog and will share how I did it all when I have attained my targets.
You should focus on building your platform even before you start creating constant quality content. These articles below will help you know how to go about that:

Why you need a platform to succeed

The best first steps to develop your online platform

Dennis Wakeman goes more in-depth in her article: How do i start building my platform? #AskDennis ( a must read for anybody serious about how to develop a platform)

4. Relationships.

Ever been to Adrienne’s blog? Have you noticed how many comments and social shares every single one of her posts have? This is because she is a master at building relationships. If you want a blog that won’t die out, then you need an engaged audience who hang on your every word.

Adrienne shows how you can do this in this post: How to build relationships through blogging

5. Promotion

Building relationships and a platform is only part of the equation. If you really want a successul blog, you must be ready to promote your blog content 80% of the time. That’s Derek Halpern’s theory and this strategy is adopted by most successful bloggers. Nobody will know you have great content sitting on your blog if you don’t share that content with your email list, social media followers and other connections. There is an on-going debate about whether you should blog daily, weekly or monthly. My take is: it all comes done to the revenue. If you run Google ads on your blog, then it makes sense to blog regularly. If you don’t have google ads on your blog, but want to sell your services and products, I say spend less time writing articles (20%) and spend more time promoting it (80%) so that people who will pay for these services and products can hear about you and visit your blog.

6. Revenue

Now we can talk about one of the reasons you started blogging in the first place. Now making money with a blog is pretty easy when you have an engaged platform who trust and hang on your every word. There are various ways of making money from a blog and they can be broadly categorised as follow blogger enstine muki s:

Ads: This is the easiest way to monetize your website. From Google Adsense to Product reviews, anything you do on your blog that involves praising/showcasing another person’s product for monetary gains falls into this category. Enstine Muki does a terrific job of explaining 15 ways you can use this method to make money as a blogger: 15 ways bloggers can make money blogging

Courses: Brian Harris made more than $200,000 from the launch of just one course. Want to create a course? Then you absolutely must read this post on Danny Iny’s blog. Think you are cut out for creating a course? Better read this first.

Consulting: According to Jon Morrow of BoostBlogTraffic, selling ebooks on your blog is a waste of precious time if you have not undergone this step first. Leading internet marketers like Neil Patel, Brian Moran, Jon Morrow all underwent this step. They offered consulting. Some still do till date. Consulting is really interesting and is only a right fit if you know your onions. In this post, Jon Morrow lets you know that a surefire way to make money from your blog is to start with services, then expand to products. Make Money Blogging: 20 lessons going from 0 to $100,000 per month.

Freelance Gigs: This is the way I currently make money from this blog. By getting writing gigs for high-profile clients. All I have to do is show them what I am capable of writing and they are interested. To do this with your blog, you will need to join a number of job boards so that you can be aware of writing gigs for bloggers. Some job boards I recommend are:

Problogger
BlogExpose
Upwork
Not a writer? Maybe you are a designer or developer? Check out these sites for good-paying freelance jobs

Notice I did not talk about SEO, traffic generation, email list building. Why? Because these are tactics in a strategy. Some bloggers chase after the latest SEO fad or traffic generation trick without knowing the underlying strategy. Build a platform first, create really helpful content for this platform and work on developing a strong relationships with this platform and things like SEO, traffic generation and email list growth will happen as a result of this. People will become repeat visitors of your blog and happy customers of your services/products not because Google told them to but because you gave them what they wanted and built their trust in you.

Notice how I put revenue last. Trying to sell to people who don’t know and trust you is trying to put the cart before the horse. There is no way you will be able to sell a consulting service of $1000/hr or an online course of $10,000/yr if no one knows if you will be able to deliver what you promised.

So over to you? How have you been able to build a lucrative blog? What plans do you intend to use and build a successful blog?

How to get your first 1000 customers

One of the things I have noticed business owners struggle with is making money from their startups in as short a time as possible. Because if the business is not making money, it is likely to sink in debt and when bills can’t be paid, the business is likely to die.

But how do you make money from your business?

The answer to that is simple. By attracting a good number of buyers/customers/clients. A good number of customers can be anything from 100 to 10,000 depending on the product you are selling.

However, one thing I have noticed is that a lot of business owners set 1000 sales of their products/services as a milestone. For the purposes of this article I will presume a 1000 sales means purchases from a 1000 customers.

So how do you get 1000 customers?

The answer to this is not so simple, nor is it straight-forward. Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Research has shown that a satisfied customer is 60-70% more likely to buy from you again, while a new prospect is 5-20% likely to buy a thing from you.

For instance let’s say you run an eCommerce website that specializes in custom-made shoes. You have a new batch of shoes and announced it on your Facebook page. Let’s assume that two sets of shoe-addicts saw it: Abigail and Dagrin. Now Abigail has bought one of your shoes in the past and she loved it while Dagrin stumbled on your announcement.

Who do you think will immediately click the link with the intention to check it out and purchase it?

If you guessed Abigail, you are right. Because of the pleasant experience of her last purchase, Abigail will buy anything from you, once she likes it.

Dagrin, on the other hand, would be skeptical. First he has to be sure your website is legit, then he has to be sure the shoe really looks good, then he has to be sure you will deliver his shoes, then he has to be cajoled into parting with his money.

But if your business is new, then you will have to know how to convert Dagrins into Abigails. To help you with this, I will explain how to build your customer base then show you a practical case study after that. Ready? let’s delve in.

How to build your customer base

1. Determine what you will sell

In this article, I will assume that you already know who your ideal customer is. I will also assume that you already have a website or blog. Next you have to determine what you will sell on your blog. There are many ways to make money from blogging but the most popular ones are:

Through Affiliate sales
Through Ad placement
Through sponsored posts and reviews
Through selling your own physical products
Through selling your own training courses/ ebooks
Through selling your services

The model you use will greatly depend on the type of business you ventured into. For instance if you are a catering company, your revenue will most likely come from selling your own meals or outdoor catering services or training courses on how to cook spectacular meals. CrockPot Restaurant is an example of this as shown below:

But if you are a food enthusiast who just loves to write and talk about food, then majority of your revenue will come from affiliate sales and Ad placement. For instance Jenn Segal of OnceUponAChef uses adverts in multiple sections of her site to monetize her site’s traffic

Don’t worry if you are a bit hazy about this at the beginning. You can figure this out as you get website visitors and begin to discover what they like, don’t like and what they need solutions to.

2. Set a realistic goal

Often times I see newbie entrepreneurs hoping to break even and start making a healthy profit within a month or two. Not only is this hard to achieve, such expectations can quickly dampen your spirits when you fail to meet them.

For instance, if you started a photography blog, do not expect to get 10,000 unique visitors within a month of starting that blog. Many 3-year-old blogs can not boast of half of that traffic.

According to Shanelle Mullin, Director of Marketing at Onboardly, “The key to setting achievable marketing goals is to spend time evaluating your current position. Many startups set lofty, unattainable goals and end up discouraged, which can be detrimental in the early days. On the other hand, some startups set easy, insignificant goals and end up missing out on growth potential.”

So it is important to balance it out. Don’t set goals that are too difficult to reach and don’t set goals that are not challenging.

3. Build a robust marketing plan

“Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.”
– David Packard, co-founder, Hewlett-Packard

And David is right. No matter how good your website looks or how terrific your content is, you must actively promote it. Do not expect your customers to find you. Go out and hunt them down! When Noah Kagan, founder of Appsumo and the OkDork blog, launched a new product, How To Make A $1,000 A Month Business course, he knew he had to develop a spectacular marketing plan. His target was to sell 3,333 memberships to the course within 12 months. He reached his target in 10 months!

How did he achieve this?

By breaking down his big goal of 3,333 memberships into monthly goals. Each monthly goal is further broken into daily goals. So each day, he had a benchmark to reach.

According to Noah, “Overall there’s no ‘right’ goal; you want something that isn’t easily achievable but also something that’s realistic so you don’t feel overwhelmed.We break our goal into a daily target so––even if our goal is a billion––we know on a specific day if we are on track; for example, in January when we had to be at 10,000 uniques a day.

A key thing with goals that I learned from Facebook is to only have one goal for a specific period of time. It helps with saying no to other distractions you will face during the year.”

Noah reveals a lot of the marketing strategies he used to achieve most of the stellar successes Appsumo has experienced in this article: Create Your First Marketing Plan

4. Always Act this: “Customers come first”:

Customers determine how fast or slow your business grows, so they should be treated like royalty. This treatment might involve tweaking your marketing plans to accommodate the needs of a vast majority of your customer base. Do not be rigid. Happy customers lead to a thriving business.

Carry out frequent surveys of your customers to find out what they want and develop strategies or modify your products/services to suit them.

For instance if you planned to sell a course on “Starting a Photography Business” to your customer base but found that 80% of your email list need to know “How to take a spectacular photo” then you now know you must change your original course to the one your customers need.

If you wanted to create an ebook on “How to prepare delicious African Delicacies” but your survey revealed that your email list needs video tutorials, not an ebook, then you have to adapt your original plan to what your email list wants.

If you run a fashion eCommerce store and from your stats, found that most of your eCommerce visitors navigate to the ‘dresses’ section or ask for ‘fashionable, formal outfits’ then you know what to stock up on to increase your sales.

Also do not make your prospective customers uncomfortable in any way. According to Neil Patel in this article on Kissmetrics, ways you can make your prospective customers uncomfortable include:

Unexpected Shipping charges
Forcing prospective customers to create an account before they can complete a purchase
Being too stingy to offer discounts

Case Studies:

Now its all good and well to state what people should do to grow their businesses. But many atimes, practical examples are the best ways to demonstrate this. For my case study I will tackle an interesting field: Fashion Blogging

How to get 1000 customers as a Fashion Blogger:

1. Have an idea of products you can offer on your blog:

As a fashion blogger, you can make money from any of these avenues:

Being a fashion consultant and offering your services on your blog
Writing and selling a fashion ebook
Making money from Ads
Making money from subscription services
Making money from Affiliate sales

2. Set a realistic goal:

Your blog will only make money if you have a good amount of traffic. To get 1000 customers, you need traffic of at least 10,000 email subscribers. To get 10,000 email subscribers you need a minimum traffic of 100,000 annually. Now if you are a newbie fashion blogger, there is no way you can hit 100,000 website visitors in a month, unless you are well-connected in the fashion blogsphere. First break down 100,000 into achievable monthly amounts.

100,000/12 = 8333

Now we have a more manageable number. Do not fret if you don’t hit this number in your first two or three months. Simply subtract, then stack up the remaining months with the leftover.

Example: January you got 100 visitors

that’s 100,000 – 100 = 99,900 visitors

Divide by the number of remaining months

How many months left: 11 months

therefore your new monthly target is: 99,900/11

= 9081 visitors

So how do you meet your monthly target? You need a marketing plan

3. Marketing plan for a fashion blogger:

As a fashion blogger (or any type of blogger) your marketing plan must first tackle how you will attract targeted traffic to your site. Then when you do that you have to convert this traffic to subscribers. When you achieve that milestone, you will then be able to reach out to these subscribers as many times as you want and hence have many more opportunities to convert them to customer.

So first how will you hunt down your prospective customers and entice them to your site?

Follow these guidelines:

Who is your ideal customer? Who would you love to visit your blog?
Where does your ideal customer hang out? This would include Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and other popular fashion sites. Build a list of these popular fashion sites.
Start blog commenting on these sites. To attract traffic from these sites use the name of your site as your name. A few newbie bloggers do link-spamming or link bombing as shown in the image below: While this can be effective, many website owners frown on it and will delete your comment immediately.
Build a Facebook fan page
Join active fashion groups on Facebook. Be active on these groups and post links to your latest blog posts here. I have found Facebook groups to be a highly effective and cheap source of driving traffic to a website. I use them personally. The trick is to be active on these groups. Don’t be selfish and post only your links. Build relationships by commenting on other people’s updates too. This way the group administrator will not be forced to block you from the group.
Run a giveaway.
Make sure your website design is good. Your website is your fresh impression online. The better that impression, the more likely your website visitors will stay and check out other articles.
Make sure you have an email marketing plan in place. This involves signing up for companies like Madmimi or MailChimp. I use madmimi and love their customer support, so I recommend you try them out. To understand how powerful email marketing is, check out this post by Dan Shewan on Wordstream titled “Is Email Marketing Effective? Three Examples That Prove It Is”
Make sure your email optin forms are super visible.
Offer a better bait than “free weekly updates” for your email optin. Consider something like “15 ways to rock a skater dress from work to party on a tight budget“
Make every new email subscriber love you. How? Ask every new subscriber what their pain point in fashion is. You can do this with an autoresponder. This way you know what future articles to write and what future products to create. Also make sure that when anybody tells you their problem, you answer that email immediately with a solution. Sue of successfulblogging.com does this for every new subscriber she gets:
Keep delivering super, quality content that is shareable. How do you know shareable topics? Head over to Buzzsumo, then copy and paste the link of one of the top fashion blogs you compiled. The more shareable your content, the more eyeballs you can attract to your website and the closer you will be to hitting your target.
Make your website interactive through quizzes and comments. Kamdora uses quizzes as shown in the image below: Encourage people to comment on your articles by responding to each comment. Then if you are having trouble getting comments, consider partnering with fellow fashion bloggers to trade comments on each others sites. Read all about this technique in Neil Patel’s article:The Day After: 11 Things to Do After You Publish a Post

When you have reached your milestone of the number of monthly visitors, you should take a critical look at your email sign-up rate. Typical industry averages are: 3% to 11%. Anything higher than 11% is stellar. That means for every 100 people that visit your blog, 3 to 11 are likely to signup for your newsletter.

Then next take a critical look at the problems most of your email signups complained about. Is there a common problem complained about by most of your email subscribers? Write articles packed with solutions for these problems. Are these articles widely successful? Or more popular than any other articles on your blog? Then you have identified a pain point. You can cash in on this pain point in the following ways:

Find already existing solution-providers and become an affiliate for them: this is the easiest way to cash in
Find already existing solution-providers and write sponsored posts or reviews for them
Find already exiting solution-providers and pitch an advert space on your blog to them.
Start offering a consultancy service that solves this problem: This means you will develop a solution and sell it to your email list.
You can setup a subscription service like the one Kamdora did, where your subs have to pay a minimal amount weekly/monthly to access your best advice. (Did you also notice that Kamdora is running a giveaway?)

And when you start hitting your monthly goal, you can start displaying google ads on your site. I normally advice new bloggers to forget about using google ads on their site until the site is 3 months or older. Because without a great quality of traffic, google ads is useless on your site. In the article, “How to build a profitable blog” Kay Rockley shows us that Huffington post makes $2,330,000 from just ads. When adopting the ads model, your ‘customer’ is anybody who visits your blog regularly.

Click here to see the full infographic

When adopting the affiliate sales model, your customer is anybody who buys through your affiliate links. Pat Flynn made up to $123,853 from mostly affiliate marketing.

When writing sponsored posts or reviews, your customer is any company that pays you to write the sponsored post or review. Enstine Muki makes a killing from this model of revenue generation as seen in this post. He also makes a killing by selling advert space to specific solution-providers.

When offering subscription services, your customer is any person that pays for this subscription service.

When selling an ebook, your customer is any person who buys the ebook from you.

4. Remember Customers come first:

As you try out each type of money-making model on your blog, be attentive. What do your customers like? Which model do they prefer? Which model is reaping the most returns for you? Your objective is to ensure you make money, get more customers and not repel your present customers in the process.

To achieve I suggest you carry out surveys on your email list to find out what they really want so that you can provide it. I normally use Google Forms to do this because there is no limit to number of responses I can receive. I recommend you use this. But if you want a more robust survey system, then use Survey Monkey. I also use surveys as a medium to ask, “What can I improve to serve you better?” and “What is the one thing you don’t like about my blog?”

Watch your ads stats: What is your average Click-Through-Rate (CTR)

Observe the number of email subscribers who eventually buy your products and those who abandon the cart. Then find out from those who abandoned the cart why they did and see if a discount will help in closing that sale.

Another thing you must consider is what you can do to turn your current customers into your ambassadors. Your current customer turns into your ambassador when she shares your posts on her social media accounts and when she recommends your service to her friends and family. This is where embedded social media share buttons, running giveaways or customer reward programs become highly effective.

But first you must satisfy that customer before providing means for her to spread the word about you.

Conclusion:

Setting a milestone for your business is necessary. Depending on your type of business, a milestone of 1000 customers in 12 months is advisable. To achieve this milestone, you should know who your ideal customer is. Then you should have a website too.

One way of getting 1000 customers is to diversify your revenue-generation models. Do not be fixated on one type. Develop a robust but flexible marketing plan as well. Your marketing plan should focus on how to get targeted traffic to your site, then how to convert this traffic to subscribers so that you can have the opportunity to reach out to them and turn them to customers. Then test and try as many revenue-generation models (advertising, affiliate sales, coaching e.t.c) to see which one works perfectly for you.

Whatever you do, do not sideline your customers. They fuel your business so do as much as you can to keep them happy. Also to ensure you hit your milestone sooner, try converting your customers to your brand ambassadors by making it easy for them to share your content or by offering them mouth-watering rewards for every friend they refer.

Over to you. Tell me your greatest challenge in meeting the 1000 customers milestone in the comments below and I will answer right back with actionable tips you can try.

7 easy steps to an effective business plan

You have probably heard someone say it. Maybe it was a parent, or your high-school teacher or even that friendly grocery store owner (with a wistful look in his eyes). But you always managed to shrug it off.

Until now.

Because it has finally dawned on you that those words are true: He who fails to plan, plans to fail.

So you want to start a business and you know that if you don’t plan you will fail. But there is something else you probably do not know.

He who over-plans, plans to fail.

Weird isn’t it? If you do not plan, your business will fail but if you over-plan, it will still fail. What do I mean by this? And how does one over-plan?

Over-planning occurs when you spend months, years and eons mapping out your business strategy but you never take the first step, or make the first move to turn your plans into reality.

If you are guilty of this, you are not alone. It takes a lot of guts to start a business. Because of the fear of the unknown, the fear of failing, the fear of losing everything. This fear can be so strong that it will paralyze you and prevent you from taking the first step to turn your entrepreneurial dream into reality.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Business planning when done rightly, can help you know if you have a real business in your hands or if you have a white elephant. When I wanted to start this blog, I followed the guidelines I am about to show you to determine if my blog will be a profitable one.

How to draw up a effective business plan.

A business plan, in my opinion, is simply a write-up that shows you how to move from zero business to profitable business. For a business plan to be effective, it must contain methods to verify if a market exists for your business and how to tap into this market to generate revenue.

But it must not be overtly detailed. Not at all.

Sometimes it can be just a page-long and yet powerful enough to let you know what actions you must take to start-up, verify and grow your business.

In order to write an effective business plan, you must answer these questions:

1. What problems does my business or product solve?

If you don’t have a clear answer to this question, you don’t have a business yet. You will need to go back to the drawing board to brainstorm till you figure this one out. Because the success of your business depends on the answer to this question. As I mentioned in this post, the fastest way to become successful overnight is to solve a pressing problem.

Imagine if someone came up with a cure to HIV/AIDS? They will be billionaires overnight right? Exactly. If your product or business solves a pressing problem, you are one step closer to being an overnight success.

Pressing problems are not just limited to medical calamities, diseases or dire epidemics. Boredom is a pressing problem, that is why movies (like the Fast and Furious series), recreational activities (like gaming) and outdoor sports (like soccer, tennis) are hot-sells.

2. Who has these problems?

After narrowing down the problems your business solves, you need to know who has these problems. These people are your target audience. This step is extremely crucial because if you don’t know those that need the solutions you sell, you won’t know where or how to sell your product.

In this stage, I advise you draw up a customer profile of your ideal customer. The customer profile should answer most of these questions:

How old is your ideal customer?
What gender is your ideal customer?
What race/tribe is your ideal customer?
Where does your ideal customer reside?
What is your ideal customer’s occupation?
What issues/challenges does your ideal customer face that makes them need your product?
What is the lifestyle of your ideal customer?

These questions are not exhaustive but they will help you have a good idea of the customer you are targeting.

3. What is their purchasing power?

This question is another deal-breaker. Not all products are bought by the end-user. For example, toddlers need diapers but never buy it themselves. The same goes for secondary school students who need extra lessons but never pay for it themselves.

Your focus here is to determine “who will pay for your product”. This will have a massive impact on your advertising and marketing campaigns.

4. Where do they hang out?

So you have determined who will pay for your product. The next step is to find out where these prospective purchasers hang out. And am not just talking about social media like Facebook. While a lot of people hang out on Facebook, repetitive advertising is the most effective way to get customers.

In my experience, it will take a customer a minimum of three encounters to decide to listen to you. So find out three other places your customers hang out apart from Facebook and advertise there as well.

For instance, if your ideal customer is a banker interested in an international MBA, consider dropping flyers at local banks, advertising to advanced education groups/forums and paying for google ads.

5. Will they be willing to pay?

Having a product is one thing. But determining if your prospective customers will pay you is another thing. The best way to do this is to verify your business idea/solution. Use a $5 Facebook ad to know how many people in your target audience need your solution before you start investing heavily on it.

When using a $5 Facebook ad, these are the steps I normally follow:

Go to Facebook
Click on Ads Manager
Click ‘Create Ad’
Select ‘Send People to Website’
Fill in your website address (if you don’t have a website yet, you can use a survey monkey form or google forms for this. The aim here is to send people to a place where they can answer questions and opt-in for your product)
Use the details of your ideal customer to fill in the questions that Facebook asks you. Be very careful here. You want your ad to be seen by people who are your ideal customers. For instance if you want to open a cookies and yogurt spot in Lekki, Lagos, your ideal customer is someone living in Lekki Lagos State, Nigeria who is female, single or newly wed between the ages of 20 and 32, who speaks English, is interested in food and restaurants and has a birthday coming up (so she can look for a place for a party or to simply unwind)
After filling in the details, make sure you choose ‘lifetime budget of $5’
Then choose the picture you will use and the message you will use. These should be catchy and attractive to your ideal customer. (I intend to do a full post on Facebook ads soon)
Then click place order.

For this to work, you must have a website or a form that people who click your ad will fill out. Also you must be offering something tangible so they will be interested in filling the form.

The form should ask questions like how they spend their leisure and whether they will fancy patronizing a cookies and yogurt spot and how much they will typically want to spend.

The ad should offer a prize to a random winner and the prize should be related to your product. Like a free cookies and yogurt coupon. This way only people really interested in cookies and yogurt will click the ad and answer the questions on your form.

Also your form must collect their email addresses, so that when you are ready to start business you have people to notify; people who could turn into your first customers.

Now after the Ad has completed, study the results.

How many people was your ad shown to?

How many people clicked your ad?

How many of the people who clicked your ad, completed the questionaire?

What were their responses? Are they interested in your product? Will they be willing to pay? What prices are they willing to pay?

To make this ad even more effective, put share buttons on the form and reward each share with a discount coupon. This can be done with free tools like Typeform or Launcheffectapp. Or you can use the free trial period of Landerapp to do this. The aim is to encourage anybody that fills the form to share it with their friends. This will increase the number of people that will fill the form and increase the data you will get.

Results:

If your Facebook ad has a clickthrough rate of 4-7%, that is good. Anything higher than this is awesome. Anything lower than this is not good. So if you Facebook ad was shown to 500 people, if 20 to 35 people clicked the ad, that is good. If higher than 35 people clicked the ad, that’s a great sign. If lower than 20 people clicked the ad, then there is a problem somewhere: either with your ad or the product itself. I strongly advise pausing and looking at the ad critically. If everything is ok with the ad, then your product needs a critical analysis.

Now if 20 people clicked though to your form, how many filled it? if less than 10 filled it, then the questions are either too many and discouraging or the ad was deceptive (it attracted people who did not intend to see questions at the other end)

Next observe the price they are willing to pay. Does this fit in with your plans? If yes, you have a good business in your hands. If not, you need to change either your ideal customer or figure out how to change your price without affecting your profit.

6. If they will be willing to pay, how can I convince them to pay me?

Another factor your plan must address is ‘how do I convince them to pay me‘

Its one thing to have a market for your products but its a completely different thing to get people to give their money to you. The easiest way to achieve this is to get people to trust you. So in your business plan, you have to map out how you will get people to trust you. Then when they trust you, you then have to know how to entice them to patronize you.

To build trust, consider the following:

Having a solid value proposition: A value proposition is that edge you have over your competition. Services like: home delivery within 10 minutes, nationwide delivery, customized products are examples of value proposition. So find out what your competition is offering and see if you can beat their offer with something of your own.
building an email list and sending mails to people in your email list at least one a week. The mails should link to articles on your website. These articles should be related to your business. For instance, if you have a photography business consider writing articles about events you covered and what inspired the different concepts you used.

To entice, consider giving discounts to only members of your email list or hosting a giveaway. For the photographer, I will suggest a combo of both: a giveaway where the winner wins an exclusive photo coverage of her event. Then 5 runners-up win 30% discount. For the giveaway to be effective, make sure you target newly engaged people, or people with fast-approaching events (wedding anniversaries, birthdays etc)

7. How can I use them to attract more business?

The best form of advertising is a friends’s referral. So every time you are doing business with a customer, you must consider how you can get them to recommend your business to their friends. If your business is online, software that can help you achieve this is sloyalty.

So there you have it, 7 steps you can use to build a rock solid business plan. What about you? What have you done to take your business from zero to profits? Tell us about it in the comments.

image by zero5phh

How to drive traffic to your business blog

Its annoying right? You do what is recommended to ensure your business grows: You develop a great product, launch a website, then tell your friends about it.

Then to your astonishment and frustration- Crickets!

No traffic. No sales. nothing. zilch!

Its almost as if you wasted your time, efforts and money because you are getting nothing for it.

I know the feeling. I have been there before. But i did certain things that helped me get targeted traffic to my website and start making sales. Before I reveal the methods I used, I need to answer a very important question:

What is Targeted Traffic?

You have probably heard this term before but have you ever wondered what it really means?

Picture this: Let’s say you have an archery gameboard like the one in the picture below.

Your goal in this game is to hit the bull’s eye (i.e the spot painted yellow). Any arrows that do not enter that bull’e eye spot is a miss.

Its the same thing with target marketing. Your target market is the yellow spot. That is where you must hit with your marketing efforts. Any marketing effort that lands outside the yellow circle is a miss.

How do you determine your Target Market

Your target market is determined by the ideal prospect for your business. Let’s say you are a fitness instructor and you want to open a fitness club.

Your ideal prospect is anybody interested in having a trim, healthy body. Therefore your target market are any group of people who want to have a trim, healthy body and are willing to spend time in the gym to achieve this. Now we know what our yellow circle is.

How do we fire marketing arrows that will hit only that yellow circle?

By marketing only where your target audience hangs out. Any other marketing effort is a miss. For the fitness club I will recommend the following:

First determine how your target audience thinks: Are they visual in nature? Do they like to read a lot? Is your product a formal or friendly one? The answers to these questions determine where you will start. Now for a fitness club, most people who are interested in fitness prefer seeing training sessions in pictures or videos. therefore you should be advertising in Facebook, Youtube and Instagram. Also fitness is a friendly product and requires social interaction, therefore Facebook and Instagram are a must.

Locate where your ideal prospects already hang out: You are not the first fitness club to materialise on planet Earth. Locate other fitness clubs’ pages on these social media and see who their followers are.

Replicate what these fitness clubs are doing on your own social media page: These fitness clubs are your competition. Find out what they are doing, improve on it and do it on your social media page. Are you competitors updating their Facebook pages with motivational images and videos. Create your own motivational image and videos and upload on your Facebook page. Are your competitors using videos to demonstrate on Youtube? Create your own video and upload to your Youtube Channel.

Find other areas that your ideal prospects will be interested in: People who spend time in gym are careful about what they eat. So look for healthy food websites. People who gym wear sporty wear to the gym. Look for sporty wear websites. Make a list of the most popular ones within your locality. Become friendly with the owners of these sites. Then after a little while, ask for a recommendation to their followers or for an opportunity to guestpost for them.

As you can see, the first step in this marketing process was knowing who your ideal prospect was. Once you figure that out, the rest is a whole lot easier.

Ways to drive targeted traffic to your business blog

There are many ways to drive traffic to your website. But if you want your business to make money, you must concentrate on how to drive targeted traffic to your website. This is because targeted traffic are people already looking for the solution you offer. They want it. Therefore it will be way easier to get them to pay for any of your services.

Because they already want the service.

Below I describe methods I use to attract traffic to my website.

1. Search Results:

This is one of the best ways to get targeted traffic to your website. This is because when people do a google search, they need the solutions to their search. To ensure your website always turns up on google search results please follow these guidelines

Your website must have a blog: In your blog, offer solutions to pressing problems your ideal prospect experiences. For the fitness club, this will be fitness-related articles. make sure these articles are pressing pain points. Because people do google search for pressing pain points.

Do not copy and paste: Make the mistake of stealing articles from another fitness site and Google will penalise you by reducing your website’s ranking and hence making it near impossible for you to get to the first page of google search results. And the first page is where you want to be because it converts higher than the second or third page.

Make sure your website is mobile-responsive: If you use a website theme that is not mobile-responsive, Google will remove your website from all searches done on a mobile device. This is bad business for you because 7 out of 10 people use mobile devices to make google search.

Provide high value content in your blog: Ensure you write blog posts that are share-able. Blog posts that go viral are high value content that solve a specific problem.

Encourage Social Sharing and commenting on your blog: When there are so many websites vying for the same keywords, Google puts the sites with the most relevant comments and social shares in the first page.

2. Advertising:

Let’s face it, to make money you must be prepared to spend money. Many may cringe at this fact but it is the truth

To attract targeted traffic to your site, you must be prepared to spend on advertising. Three of the most effective advertising mediums for local business owners are Facebook ads, Google ads and similar-interests websites.

When advertising on Facebook, I greatly recommend using Custom Audiences for the best results

When advertising on Google, I greatly recommend choosing long-tail keywords that are as close to the solution you offer as possible. This way you reduce the money you have to spend on Adwords.

Similar-interest websites are websites that your ideal prospects visit. For a fitness club, their ideal prospect is likely to visit nutritional blogs. Therefore they should look for the best nutritional and health blogs within their locality and approach the site owners to place their ads on their site.

3. Influencer recommendation

I have written many articles on the power of influencers and how they can skyrocket your business sales.

Related: The Secret Sauce of Success

An influencer is a well-respected person who is an expert in a certain field. Influencers typically have from 10,000 to 1+ million followers. Imagine having someone like Don Jazzy or Jay Z recommend your music?

Instant stardom right?

The same applies to business. For the fitness club, imagine having someone like Genevieve Nnaji, or Mo Abudu recommend you? You guessed it, instant sales.

Don’t know any A-list celebrity (or Big Fishes as I prefer to call them)? Then target smaller fishes who are still well-respected influencers and have at least 5,000 to 10,000 followers. I write about how you can accomplish this here (How to build your connections and grow your business).

4. Referrals

The cheapest form of targeted traffic is referral traffic.

What do I mean by referral traffic? When a customer buys something from you and recommends you to their friends, and those friends come and buy from you because of that recommendation, that is called referral traffic.

To get referral traffic, you have to entice your customers with discounts and rewards for each customer they bring. This will propel them to tell their friends about you. Also I greatly advise the use of giftcards on your site.

Giftcards will help current customers attract new customers to your website. I intend to write an entire blog post on what Giftcards are and how they can help your business.

5. Giveaways:

I have used giveaways many times in my marketing career. What I learnt is that if done right, giveaways can lead to targeted traffic explosion and an increase in your email subscribers.

But if done wrongly, giveaways can turn into a huge money sucker that will give you absolutely no results. Trust me, I have had one or two failed giveaways and i have had successful giveaways too. Here is what I learnt

Choose your gift wisely: Unless you are a phone retailer, do not giveaway any phone! Unless you are in the travel and hospitality industry, do not giveaway an all-paid trip to anywhere! This is because your gift is highly instrumental in attracting those that will participate in your contest/giveaway. If you giveaway a phone, every Tom, Dick and Harry’s cat will want to win the phone. Instead giveaway something related to your business. For the fitness club, I highly recommend giving away free membership, or sport wear or one-on-one private fitness coaching. This way people who are not interested in fitness will not even bother to enter your giveaway.
Keep the timing short: Do not let your contest drag for months! Even 30 days can be too much unless the giveaway is worth millions. Keep the giveaway short (between 7 – 14 days) for the best results
Choose your host wisely: One question you must answer before you start a giveaway is “Do I have a large enough following?” There are two ways to host a contest: On your site or on another person’s site. If your email list is 0-100 subscribers and your Facebook page is less than 2000 fans, you should not host the giveaway. Instead look for a similar-interest website with massive following and host your giveaway with them. This way the followers of the website will take part in your giveaway and you automatically acquire a large following!
Choose the giveaway software wisely: The giveaway software will greatly determine your success rate with the giveaway. You want to choose a giveaway software that has many options for making your contest go viral. I greatly recommend Gleam.
Tell your friends about it: One of the biggest mistakes I made in one of my giveaways was I did not tell my friends about it. When you want to run a giveaway, pester your friends about it. Even if you are running the giveaway on another website.

6. Free E-books:

This is an option I am currently working on. This option has high returns. And it only sends targeted traffic to your business website.

How does it work?

You write an ebook about a pressing problem that your ideal prospect has. Then you upload it to ebook platforms like Amazon, Smashwords and set the price to 0.00

That’s right, you make the ebook free!

The goal of the ebook is to attract traffic to your site and not to make money. Make the ebook as concise and straight to the point as possible. Then make sure you put links to a landing page on your website.

Why should the ebook be free?

To encourage massive downloads. When the ebook is free, you remove a customer’s resistance to price. Normally before a customer will buy a book (even if it is $0.99), they will check customer reviews and testimonials to be sure it is a good enough book. Then they will check other alternatives to be sure that your ebook beats the competition.

But when it is free, they hardly check these things. They just go ahead and download it to see if the book is really good. If it is not, they simply delete it.

I have seen this method convert nicely for friends and acquaintances. That is why I am interested in doing it. Many times, customers acquired this way go on to buy products worth thousands.

So there you have it; a concise guide on how to drive traffic to your website. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did please share and help others discover more ways to increase traffic to their business websites.

Do you have a suggestion I omitted? Tell us your suggestions in the comments.

P.S: Want a personalized traffic solution for your blog? Let me help you with my free Business Plan Service. Click here to get started.

How to make so much money from your business – guaranteed!

Let’s sit back for a second and consider some of the reasons you open up a business:

To change the world: Maybe you have an idea that you know can make the world a better place.
To pursue your passions: Life is sweet when you can earn from doing what you already love.
To afford any luxury you want: Let’s face it; you got bills to pay and you want to own a car and you hope to afford vacations every year. Plus you want to provide the best life possible for your family.
You want to be your own boss: Enough said.

But here is the truth: Running a business is not a piece of cake. It can be challenging and if not managed properly, can lead to lack of sales and frustration as you will then find it difficult to achieve any of the reasons you opened your business.

How to Ensure You make money from your Business:

Someone I know told me that Sales solves every problem in a business.

And I agree with him. Because when a business is making money, no matter what you might be facing in that business, it won’t frustrate you. If you have customers that complain a lot, you will swallow it; if you have employees that slip every now and then, you will overlook it; if you have a project that needs financial assistance, you can secure a loan from a bank; if you have a kid that needs special academic attention, you will pay for it.

A thriving business with consistent money flow and profits is every entrepreneur’s dream.

But how can you build a business that makes so much money, bank managers will be following you bumper to bumper just to convince you to put it all in their bank? I drew up a list of ways to increase the revenue-earning power in your business. They are:

1. Watch your business expenditure:

The mistakes a lot of entrepreneurs make is that they do not watch how they spend money made from their business. If you want your business to be successful and profitable, you have to watch your expenditure; there is no two ways about this.

Ways you can watch your expenditure:

Decide what your salary is: A lot of entrepreneurs do not give themselves a fixed salary. This is really bad. They take money based on the profits they make or the issues that might crop up at home. I discourage that. Fix yourself on a salary and every single extra cent that comes invest it back into the business. Instead give yourself a milestone. Tell yourself that if you are able to achieve consistent volume of sales of a certain amount, then you will increase your salary. This way yo will be motivated to work more so that you can achieve your target and hence increase your salary.
Only spend on what is necessary: Entrepreneurs always face an inclination to splurge. Maybe you are a new entrepreneur and you want a shortcut. So you have been told if you spend more on this and that, then boom! your business will be the next CocaCola. Or maybe you have been in business for a while but sales are at an all-time low and you are hoping you can buy back your customers by spending money here and there. STOP! If it is not necessary do not spend on it. Keep your expenditure tight. This way you will have more money and increase the money flow capability of your business.

2. Increase your client base:

More Clients or customers equal to more sales. That’s not rocket science, that is a fact! One of the best ways to invest in your business is to invest in strategies that increase your client base. Follow the following tips to increase your client base:

Do not lose your old customers: Research has shown that it is way more easier to get an old customer to buy another product from you than it is to turn a complete stranger into a new customer. So do everything within your power to keep your old customers. Establish a rewards program, so that when someone buys something from you, they are entitled to a discount coupon they can use on their next purchase.
Give out Giftcards on your site. Sites like Eve & Tribe and Fashpa are doing this well. Giftcards are great because they mean more sales for you. A giftcard is something you purchase when you are not sure what gift to give. Ensure there is a giftcard service on your site, so that your old customers can give it out to their friends and family.
Make your old customers refer you to their friends. The most trusted and effective advertorial is when a friend says, “I have used it before and I loved it. You should get it too.” Encourage your old customers to recommend to their friends by rewarding them for every referral that turns into a sale. Software you can use to do this include Referral Candy and Gleam Rewards.
Do giveaways: Nothing attracts new business like a giveaway. But a lot of entrepreneurs get this wrong by giving away something that will attract the wrong audience. Example: giving away an iPhone 6 will attract every tom, dick and harry to your site. And most of them (99.9%) will never buy a thing from you. Instead give away something related to your business. Do you sell custom shirts? give away a custom shirt. Do you make cakes? Giveaway a sumptuous, mouth-watering cake. Do you design apps? Giveaway an app design and implementation package.
Liaise with established influencers in your target market, so they can advertise you to their audience. This is one of the most effective methods of attracting new customers and clients to your business. Click here to learn more.
Advertise on Social Media Platforms your target audience hangs out: To grow you need new customers. Another way of getting new customers is through advertising. Get the best conversions on your advertising budget by advertising only on social media platforms your target audience already hangs out in.
Advertise on Google: Every single day, millions of people use Google Search. Need new customers? Chances are that you can get them through Google Adwords.

3. Offer more value than your competitors:

Its one thing to advertise to new customers, its another thing to convince them to stay. And this is determined by your Unique Selling Point (USP).

To create a USP that converts into more sales, you need to ask yourself: How can I offer more value than my competitors?

To answer that question, first you need to know what your competitors are offering. Then you need to know what extra value you can add to that.

For example if you are a fashion retailer, offering nationwide delivery is no longer an added value. Everyone is doing it. But you can go a step further by offering clients a LookBook for any outfit they buy. In this lookbook, they will see 6 different ways to wear that outfit they buy.

An advantage of this lookbook is that it will contain more pieces for your store. So customers who get this lookbook will be enticed to buy even more outfits just so they can complete at least one or two of the 6 different looks.

4. Network/partner with the right influencers:

I have written about influencers in this article and this article. Have you ever noticed that whenever a blockbuster movie is about to debut, every single prominent actor/actress in the movie is interviewed by a well-known media personality.

Why?

There are many reasons for this but one of the reasons is to subtly market the movie to the media presenter’s audience. Because when someone like Oprah says, “Wow, I will like to watch this movie” you can bet that more than 10,000 Americans will want to watch the movie because of what she said.

Use the same strategy in your business.

Find an influencer who is well-respected and loved. Get them to recommend your product and watch the sales pour in.

5. Solve a pressing problem:

I wrote about this in the article: The fastest way to acquire success. Imagine if someone was to discover the cure to HIV. And imagine if his solution is simple like pop a drug in your mouth and in 24 hours you are HIV negative.

He will be a billionaire overnight right?

Exactly!

You should apply the same mentality in your business. Try to turn your business into a problem-solver. Solve a pressing problem and your increase your profits almost overnight.

6. Market the blazes out of that solution:

I don’t care how good your product is, but if nobody knows about it, it is not going to sell a piece. I learnt this the hard way and wrote about it here: 10 reasons why failure could be your best friend.

Thee ability of a business to make good money depends on the marketing strategy they have. Market your product to the right people, through the right mediums and at the right time and you will make a killing.

7. Get testimonials:

Nothing chases away good business like a bad testimonial.

Picture this: You are browsing on Amazon and you want to buy a facial repair moisturizer. But you are very careful because you have used two fake creams before and the damage they caused to your face has resulted in tens of thousands in dermatologist fees. You don’t want to end up in the hospital again.

Then you see a cream you really like. And it has got 20 rave reviews and just one negative review. You decide to check that negative review out and you see this:

“If there is something lower than 1 star, I would have given it. The texture of this cream is watery and nothing like the original. To make matters worse, after using this cream for only 5 days I noticed a fungal infection on my face. Do NOT BUY THIS fake product.”

Now be honest with me: Will you still buy this cream? Even though it has 20 excellent, 5-star reviews?

Chances are that you won’t! In fact you will run away from the retailer’s amazon page as fast as you can.

That is exactly what one or more negative reviews can do to your business. It can send customers running.

The opposite is true of a positive review. When visitors click on your ads on Facebook or google and they come to your website, see your products and see only excellent reviews and testimonials, they are immediately convinced to buy. Because if people have used your product and liked it, that means your product is genuine and trustworthy.

To encourage more website visitors to turn into new customers, ask your old customers for a testimonial. Entice them with gifts if necessary (this is because many people will not honour your request for a testimonial but will be more easily swayed if they will be rewarded for dropping a testimonial)

8. Get a website:

So Important. The internet is the home of billions of people. If you really want to make serious money, then you need to start thinking of how to sell your business to as many people as possible.

One of such ways is through a website.

I always advise people to open a website before they open a brick and mortar office. This way you keep expenditure low, then start making money before you start paying for office space. A similar strategy was used by Sweet Kiwi and it greatly contributed to their success.

9. Create tiered prices:

Though this not applicable to all business, it is greatly profitable for coaching and training programs as well as businesses like Makeup artistry, catering, health and fitness to mention a few. Tiered pricing works with this principle: the more value I offer, the higher the price I will charge. Look at the image below to see an example of tiered pricing.

Be creative. Start with a base service/product. Then figure out what extra values you can add to increase the price. The extra values can be video tutorials, more hours spent making up the bride and her family, 3 other cakes of different flavours.

So there you have it; More ways you can turn your business into a cash cow. Do you have an addition to make? let’s know in the comments

Sharing is loving; Share with friends and family so they too can make more money from their business.

How to Build your connections and grow your business

I have been tinkering around Facebook and twitter, trying to find new ways to grow my brand. And here is what I found out.

Facebook Likes are almost useless

Tweeter followers are almost baseless.

No am not lying or trying to make things up. If you have a website and want to use internet marketing to increase you client base, then stop spending money on ONLY facebook ads or twitter ads.

Why?

Because, unless you are a gossip site, you will be discouraged by the results. To better illustrate what I am saying let me give you an example:

You are at a great party, sipping your favorite drink at the bar section. Suddenly a complete stranger walks up to you and says, “Hey hi. My name is Josh. And I have something I am so sure you will like.” And just like that, this complete stranger brings out something from his pocket, sticks it in your face and starts telling you all the benefits of that “something from his pocket”.

How will you feel?

Like you are suffocating? Like you want a breath of fresh air? Like you want to be someplace else but within a mile of “Josh”?

Why? Because you don’t know him, you don’t care about him and you certainly don’t care about whatever he is thrusting in your face.

That’s exactly how people feel when they see your ads on Facebook. When they are browsing through their newsfeed and suddenly see an ad with an unknown business name, that is you intruding into their party time. When that ad goes on about some product they have no clue about, that is you thrusting ‘something from your pocket’ in their face.

And to take a breath of fresh air, what do most of these people do? They ignore your ad and look someplace else – (Wow! Look at that cute little kitten. OMG, is Kim Kadashian naked again?)

But Facebook and Twitter are not completely useless, if you know how to use them. From my tinkering, I found out that Facebook and Twitter (and most social media platforms) are great places to build and solidify your connections and use these connections to grow your business.

Now let’s go back to the party scene. You are silently sipping your favorite drink when you hear someone call your name. You turn around and to your pleasant surprise you find best friend and colleague at the office, right behind you. You squeal with joy and the two of you embrace. Then the two of you do a little chatty talk. Then you notice there is someone beside her. You ask who he is.

“Oh, am so sorry,” she says. “This is my friend Josh. We met at that expo I told you about. Guess what? He has this amazing product I think you need. Josh, why don’t you show her.”

Then Josh brings out the product from his pocket and starts talking about it. For every two sentences Josh says, your friend adds a supporting statement. Then your friend ends it by saying, “I have tried it and I loved it. You should try it too.”

Tell me the truth, wouldn’t you be greatly tempted to buy the product even though you have never met Josh before?

And be honest, you probably never felt like bolting away from Josh’s presence. You probably enjoyed all that chitchat too.

See the difference?

When a stranger is introduced to you by someone you already know, that stranger turns into an acquaintance instantly and a firm foundation for a better promising relationship is built.

And that is how Social Media should be used if you want to get the best results. You should market your products by using an achiever’s influence

Who is an Achiever?

An Achiever is a person who has accomplished a lot in their industry, is well-respected and has a huge following. Want examples? Steve Jobs was an achiever with a massive following and he was greatly respected for being innovative and visionary. You can’t make three sentences about top-selling mobile products without mentioning his name or his company Apple. Oprah Winfrey is an achiever. Her show touched and changed millions of lives, her grass-to-grace story inspired and liberated many women. Mo Abudu is an achiever, with a huge following and she has inspired many to forget their limitations and pursue their dreams. Tony Elumelu is an achiever and has helped many entrepreneur fund their startups.

Imagine when these achievers with tens of thousands of followers mention you to their audience? Let me tell you what will happen because I have experienced a similar occurrence:

1. You will get massive visits to your blog/website.

2. You will see a spike in the subscription to your newsletter and autoresponder lists.

3. You will feel lesser resistance when you talk about your product to your new audience. Its almost as if they want to hear about your products.

4. You will experience a spike in sales of your products after the achiever recommends you.

5. You will observe that you spent less money and achieved better results than Ads would give you.

So you see the advantage of an achiever introducing you to their pack of followers. You spend less money and you get more sales. WIN WIN!

But there is a little problem.

How do you get achievers and influencers to introduce you to their friends and followers? There is one way to do it: you befriend them first.

How to befriend an Achiever.

I must give you fair warning though: Befriending an achiever is no walk in the park. This is because a lot of people are clamouring for their attention. What I advise my clients to do is to start with the small fishes. Achievers fall into three groups: There are the small fishes, then there are the medium-sized fishes and there are the big fishes.

The Small Fishes:

Small Fishes are those achievers that have set themselves apart in their locality, community, industry. Within these small establishments, they have proven to be different and are respected. They also have more recognition and a large number of followers compared to their peers.

Examples of Small Fishes are

people who have fan pages with 10,000 to 99,999 followers.
people who are moderators of active groups with more than 1000 members.
Recently published authors who have shown their expertise in a field and whose books have been downloaded more than 1000 times and have at least 50 amazon reviews to prove this.

These people are easier to meet and befriend.

How do you befriend them?

Follow them on twitter, like their page on Facebook
Find out their website and visit it.
Subscribe to their newsletter.
Each and everytime they release a post, read the post/article and drop a relevant comment (very important)
Be active on their social media platforms, contributing, liking and retweeting moderately.
Do this for at least 5 months before you ask to guestpost for them.
After guestposting, humbly ask for a mention of one of your products to their audience.

Now you will notice I said that its very important to drop a relevant comment on their website. Bloggers love comments on their posts/articles.

But not just any comment like, “Hey hi. Nice article. Can’t wait for the next one.”

That is not a relevant comment, its a spam comment. It shows that you didn’t even bother to read the article at all.

If you really want to get in a blogger’s good books then, read his/her article and drop a comment that shows you read and learnt something from the article. Do this regularly. That is why I said, you should subscribe to their newsletter. This way you know immediately they release an article and you can rush over to their site, read the article and drop a comment.

Notice that I also said you should be active on their social media platforms. But don’t do this in a spooky way. Do not comment or like all updates on their social media. That will look desperate. Instead comment or like or share most of the updates so that they notice you but at the same time you don’t appear to be spammy or desperate.

The Medium-Sized Fishes

Medium-sized fishes are upcoming stars and celebrities. They are the people that are just beginning to catch the attention of top news channels like CNN or even the attention of established big fishes like Oprah Winfrey (and yes I am ‘unapologetically’ a huge fan of Oprah 🙂 )

Medium-sized fishes have accomplished the following:

Built a huge following of a 100,000 or more followers on facebook, twitter, or any other social media site.
Are proud authors of many books/albums/movies that are just beginning to sell like hot cakes.
Are well-established in their industries and widely known as experts.
Can charge crazy fees for the simplest services and yet people rush to book them.
Have spoken in one or more events or seminars.

These upcoming stars are not easily approachable. Your best bet? To be recommended to them by a small fish that they respect. My advise? Start building a relationship with a well-known and respected small fish.

How to befriend a Medium-Fish

Follow them on all their social media platforms and subscribe to their newsletter.
Comment appropriately on all their content (whether on social media or on their blog)
Attend a networking event you know the medium-fish will be attending. Make sure you know a small fish that is a mutual acquaintance and hence can introduce you to this upcoming superstar.
When introduced, try to find a pain point they might have and offer to help free of charge. Do not forget to mention that you have been actively following and participating on their social media and website.
After you have offered help and your help received high praise, seize that opportunity to ask for an introduction of your product to their huge following.

The Big Fishes:

These guys are celebrities. Everywhere they go people are scrambling to have a selfie with them or have their autograph. Contacting such people is near impossible because all communication is routed through their PAs. Your best bet? Get recommended to them.

If you impressed a medium fish well enough, you will definitely be recommended to these celebrities once the chance presents itself.

So there is my advice. If you want your business to succeed do not rely on Ads alone. Use connections with Achievers to improve your sales. To be able to do this, befriend an achiever. To ensure you don’t get frustrated while trying to catch Oprah Winfrey’s attention, start with the small fishes.

Maximize the exposure from the small fishes and the medium ones will take note. keep excelling while pitching the medium fishes with a carefully thought-out strategy and soon, those medium fishes will not only be your friends, but will be recommending you to established celebrities.

To drive my point home, do you know any popular musician whose first interview was with CNN? Nope. They all started out begging local stations to cover them. But with time, as they rose to fame, CNN now has to call their publicist to book a time that will be favourable to the popular musician.

That’s how it is with business. When you are starting out, you might find yourself begging people to listen to you and care about your products. But with the right strategy you could rise to the popular musician’s status and be like Microsoft who has newspapers rushing to cover any news about them.

Did you love this article? Then share so that it could help another person find out how they too can improve their business sales.

Chose your preferred method of making money

They lied about Online Business

I can imagine the look on your face; like what is she about to say? Is she not one of those that canvasses about the online business model? Or is she about to finally confess? So the truth will set her free!

Sorry to disappoint you guys. I am not about to start shouting on the rooftops that all every internet business should be rejected. Nor am I going to say that internet business is scam.

Not when Jumia and Konga are there to prove me wrong. (By the way if you never shop for Konga, I don’t understand again ooo! Even with the N1000 flat rate delivery to any part of the country?)

No, when I talk about Internet or Online Business I mean those sleazy internet marketers that promise that once you buy their ebook, or pay N3500 or pay $25 (the latest scam I found) you will become a millionaire in 3 days or less than a week.

But these desperate 419ers do not stop at that. For where? they go ahead and tell you that you don’t need computer or even internet, in fact you don’t need to do anything at all. Just own a phone and a bank account. Then pay for their millionaire secret and vavavooom! you don hammer be that.

I can almost hear you say, “Nobody can fall for that trick. Not in today’s time!”

I was thinking like that before ooo, till one of my friends became a victim. As you rightly guessed, I took to my blog to alert other people before they fall victim.

How do you know scam artists:

1. They do not have functioning websites themselves: When next you are browsing on facebook and you see an ad that promises to reveal secrets of how to be a millionaire, be careful. When you click the ad and you land for a website that doesn’t have any other content, does not have a menu, nothing except gist about how the self-named guru will reveal millionaire secrets to you, run! You have entered one-chance. DO not buy anything. Do not copy any account number and go, so you can pay into that account.

2. They promise you don’t have to break a sweat: Like seriously? I do online business and have engaged in most forms of online business from Freelancing to e-consulting, and I have one thing to say; it is work. Not even small work ooo. Sometimes I have to wake around 4:30am just to write a meaningful article for you, my lovelies. I spend a minimum of 1 hour writing the article. I spend hours spread across separate days just to research the material, because I don’t like to vomit rubbish. And someone wakes up from the moon and says all you have to do is switch on a phone and the millions will troop into your account. Story for the gods.

I understand that the rate of poverty in this our beloved country has made it impossible for many people to think straight. Coupled with scarce jobs and the easy-peasy, grass-to-grace story our musicians are spreading (more on that in another article), so many people are desperate for money. But you should be careful. Some of these scammers actually want your account number and they put payment buttons that can be used to get your account details.

So be extremely careful. Before you believe a word you see, make sure of the following:

1. The website has other content. He must demonstrate his skills and this can only be done when there are other articles to show that this guy actually works for his money

2. The guru has authority: has he published a book? Is he networked with well-known experts? Is he learned or dedicated to improving his knowledge

3. He is willing to offer his knowledge free: Or at least a sneak peek of it. You have to taste the pudding and be sure its worth paying for.

Scamming is real in Naija. Shine your eyes my lovelies. Till my next post remain fruitful.

P.S: Have you ever fallen victim to 419 guys or any type of online scam? Do you know anyone that has? Tell us about it in the comments and help others avoid the same fate.

The five best payment processors in Nigeria

Gone are the days when customers had no choice other than to go through the hassle of making direct payments into a merchant’s bank account for a successful order. Now, with the availability of online payment processors, customers can place orders right from their homes, once they are connected to the internet. Merchants yet to embrace the online payment method are throwing a lot of money out the window.

But not all payment processors are built equal.

While there are a plethora of payment processors to choose from, some of these payment processors are designed for small scale businesses while some are designed for established businesses. I give a rundown of the 5 best processors, as well as their strengths and weaknesses to guide you in making the right choice for your business. My benchmarks for accessing each processor is ease of use, website integration, ability to undertake local and international transactions, timely processing of transactions, Cost of procuring service and if they have affiliate opportunities.

Interswitch

Interswitchs Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) switching application, supports major networks including Verve, Mastercard, and China Union Pay, besides other proprietary networks. The infrastructure is based on open-system architecture and uses relational database technology, offering clients portability, and reliability as they expand.Our open-systems architecture reduces/eliminates the considerable expense, of paying for proprietary hardware, software, and PCIDSS compliance.

My verdict: 4 stars (٭٭٭٭)

Pros: Interswitch is an established platform with international links and has been in this game for a long time. Their network is robust and is used by most other payment portals. If you are a top-tier company whose ranks fall within the same space as Jumia or Microsoft, then this is the platform for you. Also with this option, customers can pay for you services from anywhere: ATMs, computers, mobiles etc. Also they process payments in a timely manner, and money made reflects in your bank account.

Cons: Very Expensive. Not designed for the small business. Their setup fees alone start from N150,000 with 1.5% fee on each transaction to a maximum of N2000 (as of the time of writing). Their cheapest plan, Quickteller basic, has a setup fee of 16,500 and a percentage deduction of 3.5% on every transaction made. Unless you are an established business with a high rate of turnover, this is not the platform for you. No affiliate program. So you can’t make money by recommending them.

WEBSITE: http://www.interswitchng.com

GTPay

GTPAY is a one-stop, safe, secure and convenient web payment solution that enables merchants receive payments from both local and international payment cards.

My Verdict: 4 stars (٭٭٭٭)

Pros

International Acceptance: GTPAY accepts both locally and internationally issued cards including Interswitch, MasterCard and VISA.
Timely transaction processing and reporting: Merchants get value next day after transaction takes place.
Reduced sign-on fee: GTPAY integration fee is waived for merchants, so you don’t need to pay a developer to integrate the platform for you, unlike Interswitch.

Cons:

Very expensive. Setup is N150,000 (as at time of writing).
A noted preference for GT Naira card. I have noticed that e-commerce sites that use GT Pay accept GTB Naira mastercard easily than other cards. For some other banks, if you don’t have internet banking activated, it will be extremely difficult to pay with GT Pay.
No Affiliate program.

WEBSITE: http://www.gtbank.com/

Simple Pay

Simple Pay allows any business or consumer with an e-mail address and a bank account to securely, conveniently and cost-effectively send and receive payments online or through their mobile phone. Their network provides a global, real-time merchant transaction processing solution. SimplePay for merchants is ideally suited for small businesses, online merchants, individuals, and others currently underserved by traditional payment systems.

My Verdict: 5 stars (٭٭٭٭٭)

Pros:

Ideal for small businesses. Registration is free. With rates of 1.5 per transaction, they are affordable for the small business owner.
They charge all types of cards, local or international. So you can accept payments from Nigeria and beyond.
Sales Reports. This way you know just how much you have sold in real time.
The processor with the most plugins developed for different platforms like wordpress, joomla, woocommerce etc.
An Affililate System: They reward their affilates with N125 per verified account. So you can also make money by recommending them.

Cons:

Integration Costs: Unless you have some knowledge of programming languages like HTML, you might need to hire a programmer to integrate their platform on your website. If you decide to contact them to do that, you have to pay them for such a service.

Website: www.simplepay4u.com

Cash Envoy

Cash Envoy is like the Nigerian version of Paypal; it allows account owners to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility of payment using their bank accounts and debit cards. It is safe because account holders will not have to expose account details on the numerous websites they do business on. Convenient, because users don’t have to carry about cards to process transactions. Apart from using it to pay for goods and services online, it can also be used to donate money for a cause.

My Verdict: 4 stars (٭٭٭٭)

Pros:

The only independent payment platform I know that is approved by Central Bank of Nigeria – BPS/PSP/GEN/PSM/02/010.
No integration fees (as of the time of writing)
Fast Settlement: According to them you get all funds generated from business transactions that same day.
Relatively affordable: Transaction rates For Naira Cards: 2.5% + N12.60, maximum of N3500.For Int’l Cards: 3.9% + N12.60, maximum of N5000.

Cons:

No affiliate program
Integration cannot be done by self, unless the merchant has some knowledge of programming knowledge. You must rely on them. A service they have warned might not be free in the future.

Website: https://www.cashenvoy.com.

Vogue Pay

VoguePay is a unique online payment processor whose vision is to offer buyers and sellers a secure and easy-to-use means of transacting business online.
VoguePay allows site owners to recieve payment for their goods and services on their website without any setup fee.

My verdict: 3 stars (٭٭٭)

Pros:

Vogue Pay has been around for a while and can accept money from local and internation cards
Simple integration: You don’t need a developer. All the help you need is in their members area.
Wonderful Affiliate system: They use a multi-tier affiliate system. So when someone signs up through your link, you will keep earning a percentage from every single sale the person makes on their website. And this will go on for 6 months before the affiliate duration expires. If you are also looking for a way to make money in your sleep system, this is one of it.

Cons:

High verification fee: You have to verify your business account before you can use it. And the verification cost N2500
Everything is charged on percentage level. For people to buy your product you can pay up to 4.5% per transaction. For you to withdraw your money, you pay 1% per amount you are withdrawing. For transfer of funds, a transaction percentage of 1% applies. In the end, you are milked for every single transaction you can think of that you want to make using this payment processor.

Website: https://voguepay.com

So there you have it. The five payment processors any business in Nigeria should consider. If you have other suggestions, lets know in the comments. If you have a question, send a mail to canozie@simplyquinessential.com. I try to answer every mail I receive.

Sharing is loving. If you found this article insightful, please share with your friends. If you know someone this article might help please share too. Thanks.

The fastest way to acquire success

The easiest way to succeed as an entrepreneur is to take advantage of opportunities. When Ebola broke out and nearly halted international transactions with certain countries (Nigeria inclusive), many saw the disease as a problem. Only a few saw it as an opportunity. Because of the Ebola outbreak, Businessman Jon Schultz of Blue String Ventures made a whopping $200,000 in one day!

How?

In 2008, he bought the domain Ebola.com for $13,500. When Ebola broke out in 2014 causing global panic and frenzy, he put the domain in the market and sold it to a Russian company for $200,000. (The Verge)

But Jon Schultz was not the only one to capitalize on an epidemic.

The first place winners of the 2014 AMPION Venture Bus West Africa were developers who used their skills to create solutions tackling healthcare issues; specifically Ebola. Ebola was such an epidemic that AMPION choose to consider favourably applicants who could present plausible solutions to eradicating the disease from a digital standpoint.

And this is just one epidemic. History has shown that once you can help people by offering a solution to a pressing problem, you will be successful almost instantly. More examples include Jumia (which became widely successful because of the ease of transaction and guaranteed delivery it offered), MTN in Nigeria (which became widely successful because it solved the headache of acquiring a Line from NITEL and made communication more seamless).

Now there are two ways to capitalise on a problem: Either you provide a solution (which the winners of AMPION did) or you invest in events/products that could lead to a solution (which Jon Schultz did). Of the two, the less risky and more viable is option A. I am a firm believer in helping people solve their problems, putting people first because when you do this, money will always find you.

Interested in cashing in on a problem? Follow the steps below:

Identify the problem: This is the first step. If you do not see the problem, you will never know what solution to look for
Determine the magnitude: A problem experienced by a handful of people is not as profitable as a problem crippling a nation. When Edison created the Lightbulb, it was a massive hit. Why? Because the alternative source of light energy at that time, the gas lamp, was not as cost effective, safe, energy conserving and bright as the light bulb.
Figure a solution fast: When the Ebola epidemic broke out in Nigeria, a lot of smart shop owners stocked their shelves with Hand Santiziers. These shop owners made a killing before other shop owners saw what was going on and rushed to do the same.
Analyze your solution carefully: Business oftentimes demands an investment of cash or human resources or both. Make sure that your solution will be worth investing time and money on. Determine how much this solution will cost you and how many people are likely to buy it. Hint: make sure your solution is a plausible one and that it really helps people. Always put people first when starting your business, not money. Because once you develop something that is insanely helpful, people will be more willing to pay for it. Also make sure that during your cost price analysis, your product/solution will be affordable. This will also help you get more customers.
Deploy as soon as possible: you are not the only smart person on the planet. Chances are that someone else is brooding on that same idea. Normally the first to act and deploy gets the most reward. Example MTN is enjoying a large share of Nigeria Telecoms market not because of the quality of their service but because of the fact that they came in first. Same thing with Indomie and Coca Cola. So if you have an idea that will help people immensely to get rid of a terrible problem, work out your logistics, costs and market price, then deploy. Otherwise someone else will beat you to it and you will be forced to scramble for leftovers.

I really hope this article helps you and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to send a mail to canozie@simplyquintessential.com. If you have any additions or suggestions, let us know in the comments.

Sharing is loving. If you find this article insightful or know someone this article might help, please share. Thanks.