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Extreme Makeover: Web Marketing Edition

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Just about everybody understands that having a completely integrated web and social media strategy is important. But for some reason there’s a perception among small business that it costs an arm and a leg to get everything up and running.

It’s true that just a few years back, a website could cost upwards of $10,000. But today you should be able to get something far superior for a lot less.

Great free web tools from WordPress, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter make it easier and more economical than ever to update your web presence.

Just recently I rebranded and relaunched Kurt Shaver’s site The Sales Foundry. Kurt is a professional speaker, I met at the National Speakers Association’s annual convention this past summer in Anaheim.

At the time he had a site that folks generally describe as brochure-ware. Very little interactivity, and no social media integration.

If I were a smarter man, I’d have a screen grab of the “before” to really bring home the improvements in the “after.”

But alas, all I can do is provide a list of some of the new features to demonstrate how you can improve your own online marketing.

First of all, the new site is built using WordPress. It’s a great little content management system that is very easy to customize and is practically designed to feed content to search engines.

The first thing you’ll see on the home page is a set of rotating banners that promote all of Kurt’s services. You’ll also note how prominent the signup is for his monthly newsletter along with the icons for each one of Kurt’s social media pages.

Above each piece of content on every page we have icons to help people share individual pages across various social media – LinkedIn, Facebook, Google.

As I’ve stated before – LinkedIn is the most important social media site for business.

And on Kurt’s blog, we’ve replaced the default WordPress comments with Facebook comments to reduce spam and provide another opportunity for people to bring the conversation into the social sphere.

Staying with the blog for a second, we’ve connected the pipes so that whenever Kurt creates a new blog entry, that content is fed out Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn automatically. We used Feedburner for this.

But if someone is interested they can sign up to receive blog postings via email or install a native Android or Blackberry app.

Social media a a great way to let folks share content. But it’s important to have something worth sharing. Here you will see a quiz that allows folks to do a self assessment for the LinkedIn effectiveness.

Again this is a simple WordPress plugin. But it works great.

Other items a lot of folks seem to miss when building a site, that we’ve included:

  • Proper XML sitemap
  • Privacy statement
  • Feedburner RSS feed
  • Copyright
  • Physical address
  • Videos

If you’re in the market for a new site, make sure your coder/marketing person reads this article. You can also fill in this form and l’ll take a look at your site for free and give you some tips over the phone or via Skype. And of course, you can contact me and we can talk about building a site that includes all these features – in just over a month and for much less than you think.

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Marketing and Coaching Services for Consultants, Speakers and Trainers

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BOOK A 30 MINUTE EXPLORATORY CALL

Why wouldn’t you work with a marketing firm with over 10 years experience helping Consultants, Speakers and Trainers succeed?

Prospecting clients is hard enough without having to take care of your own marketing.

If you are a professional speaker, trainer or consultant struggling to master marketing, you are probably wasting time that could be better used prospecting and qualifying clients.

Short Circuit Media works with speakers, trainers and consultants who are too busy to do their own marketing, need more strategy than a VA brings to the table, and don’t want to add a full time marketing person to the team.


There are a million different companies swimming in the same pool offering virtually identical services.  So the key is not look for the best – most are pretty good – but rather the agency that works best for you. If you are a speaker, trainer or consultant we may just be the agency you’re looking for!

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Here‘s how we’ll work to grow your business

UNDERSTAND


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STRATEGIZE


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EXECUTE


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SUPPORT


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We take the time to fully understand  your business model. What is it you do? Who are your clients? Why are they going to give you a big fat check for speaking at their event or training their people?

These are important questions that you need to know. And if you don’t know them, that’s where we’re going to start. By helping you define your message and align it to an audience, we will make you successful.

From there we’ll present you with a number of strategies that will help get you in front of the decision-makers. This may include a:

  • Website makeover
  • Social Media Integration
  • blog writing, newsletters, podcasting
  • Targeted advertising on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook
  • Content development

You get the point…

Here’s where the fun begins. After we tell you what needs to be done, we’ll do the hard work for you!

We implement the strategies we’ve come up for you; taking care of the technology and arranging the resources to make what we’ve discussed happen.

Simple as that.

For many clients, this is when the relationship takes off.

Once we have a marketing plan implemented, you can choose to take on the challenge of keeping it going yourself, use your existing staff or you can retain us as your very own marketing department; composing and deploying eblasts, writing blogs, sending out newsletters, producing podcasts and assisting in product development, while helping you create and implement new strategies to make your speaking, consulting or training business grow.

Speak to us today

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Social Media Strategy & Internet Marketing for Business

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Short Circuit Media helps small business, consultants and professional speakers make more money by using social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) to create brand awareness, while streamlining online marketing efforts to attract more visitors and convert more sales.

We don’t just tell you what needs to be done. We do it.

dreamstime_xxl_34981713When was the last time you looked in a phone book, checked out the classifieds in the local newspaper, or actioned a piece of junk mail?

Whether you are B2B or B2C, your clients go to the internet first. And that’s why social media strategy and a proper internet marketing plan are the keys to growing your business.

The internet is competitive. And if you’re not keeping up with social media strategies, you can be sure your competitors are.

If you’re a professional speaker, author or consultant, click here for specific information related to your business, and find out how I’ve used social media and internet marketing to help speakers like Kurt Shaver, John Von Achen, Jim Clemmer and Rhonda Scharf.

We can help you if you are looking for information and services related to:

  • Social media strategy (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter)
  • Developing and implementing an internet marketing plan
  • Creative way to market your business online
  • Website development and email newsletter management
  • Search Engine Optimization and marketing