How to Generate Leads for Local Businesses Using Blogs – Case Study
You can download the ebook version of this post.
Right click and Save target as.
On 18/7/2012 (Wednesday), I have decided to do an online experiment – an experiment to help business owner to leverage on the internet and to collect local leads using blogs.
Business owners include plumbers, piano teachers, violin teachers, tutors, interior designers, carpenters, furniture shop owners, doctors, chiropractors and so on. The list goes on and on.
One of the major obstacles they face is getting new leads. Without new leads, there won’t be any new customers to sell to and their businesses will die a slow (sometimes painful) death. Most small business owners are very busy managing their daily business affair. So most do not have a proper marketing system to help them get new leads.
In Singapore where I am staying, the common online marketing strategies that business owners use are listing on coupon sites such as Groupon, listing on online classified ads and directories, using Google Adwords and Facebook Ads.
These strategies will ONLY work if you have a proper product funnel. Most just signed up for these programmes and hope they get LOTS OF Customers and LOTS OF $$$. But it seldom works this way. Let me share with you why. Listing on coupon sites like Groupon is bad for small businesses and most owners are going to lose money. Listing on online directories is not ideal too as their ad is competing against thousands of other ads. Most have underperforming ads. Using Google Adwords and Facebook Ads is going to burn a BIG hole in their pocket as too as most use them blindly by not optimising the ads, the squeeze pages and lowering the cost per click.
So possibly, using blogs to reach out to customers may still be one of the most cost-effective (I didn’t say free) methods to educate your customers, to get them to buy from you and to build a strong following.
So what is this online specifically about?
Even though I have started this experiment about 2 months ago and it is still ongoing, I really want to share with you what I did, the challenges I face, the results I gotten (small, big or none) and the steps I took to solve some of the problems I face. I am also sharing what I had been doing due to the good response I had gotten for the 3-parts Niche Tutorials.
When I first started, I have no idea if everything is going to be ok:
Honestly then, I have no idea if it would have worked or not. There were many factors to consider such as category of your niche, competition of keywords, type of customers, spending per customer, whether they will buy online and even if they buy online, what kind of products/ services they really want and how much they are willing to spend.
Looking through all these unknowns had given me a BIG headache and I was scared too – scared to have created an experiment which had a negative outcome and to hear my readers booing at me.
I was hesistant then but my buddy, David from “Learn Niche Marketing” encouraged me to start this experiment so as to prove that lead generation using blogs REALLY works. So now, I decided to create this case study and share it with you.
Well, since this is just an experiment and whatever happens, it will be for the fun of it, right?
Plus by sharing what I did, perhaps you will be able to tweak my methods and develope your personal strategies to help your local business.
Choosing my niche:
So I have decided to go into a niche which I really love – Math Niche. Having background in children’s education psychology, my strength (beside coaching and internet marketing) is teaching students and helping them to drastically improve their academic results within a very short time frame.
As the Math niche is very wide, ranging from pre-school Math to University Math, I must narrow it down further to Primary school Math. I chose this niche because I already know parents are spending a lot of money in this niche plus I have over 10 years of working experience with parents whose kids are in this age group (9 to 13). According to this article – Asia spending billions on tutors: study, Singapore spent US$680 million in 2008! Imagine how much more parents are spending NOW? Perhaps 1 billion dollars solely in Singapore? Who knows? :p
After doing more research and observing the local tuition trends, here is the demographic of my customers:
– Parents with children who are in Primary 5 and 6
– Parents’ age falls between 30 to 50
– Living in Singapore
– English speaking
– Internet savvy
– Already spending money on their kids by signing them up for tuition, buying Math assessment books, registering for motivational workshops. (monthly expenses per parent is estimated to be at least $100 per month and it can go up to over S$5000/ month considering the fees paid for more premium tuition services and other enrichment programmes.)
So the niche has been selected and I am going to set up my blog – my online vehicle for collection of local leads.
There will be a 3 key components:
– Free content as blog posts
– Subscribed content (Reader needs to opt in to get my free e-book)
– Paid content (Reader needs to pay to get it)
Now, let’s go!
[Offline Consulting] Part 1 – 10 Services Using Blog & Only Blog
megapicsel
Hi,
I realised how easy for someone who is totally new in internet marketing, to break into offline consulting market.
I have a student who has made more than $6000 in less than 30 days just by getting more than 10 advertisers to pay for advertisements in a local online food directory – which is a blog.
You can do it too! And the good news is it is really easy.
Let me show you how!
Read more
3 Easiest Blogging Ways To Fire Your Boss & Work From Home
from leefly
Hi everyone,
2011 is coming and some of you might be planning on how to quit your job by then. It is going to be a new start for you and making money online has never been easier.
To help you make money fast and easy, I am going to share 3 shortest shortcuts you can take now to help you build a sustainable monthly income.
(Shortcuts do not mean no work is needed to be done. Lots of works still have to be done but they can be easily accomplished.)
So what are the 3 easiest ways to start working from home?
Read more
5 Ways You Can Make Money By Blogging
from amagill
Hey,
It is weekend again. I have been hearing alot of excuses from some subscribers saying that they have no time, no money…blah blah blah.
In fact, during these two weeks, it had been really tough for me. I think I am almost on the verge of entering depression, having to learn to take care of my newborn plus having to run a team plus 5 staff. All to be done within 2 months!
The excuses which I had been hearing makes me wonder what is stopping people from being successful online.
So I asked myself, what if I were to restart my blogging and internet marketing journey without any list, without any knowledge of generating traffic and marketing and without any team to help me.
In the midst of such tough times for myself, I decided to give myself a challenge. “You must be wondering if I am crazy.
Yes, I am! Beating challenges which I set for myself makes me feel empowered somehow! And yes! Now I feel better, after selling 5 blogs for more than US$250 each in 2 weeks!
One day, I decided to pick up blog flipping – creating a totally new blog from scratch and sell it for more than US$250.
This method does not require you to have a list or any traffic generation or marketing knowledge. And the best thing is you can do it on your own.
In this blog post, I am presenting to you 5 simple ways to make money from blogs, including blog flipping.
Yesterday, I got a few emails from my subscribers asking about the different ways and how different they are. I think it can be really confusing for new marketers and the technical aspect of generating traffic can be overwhelming too.
So let me address these issues now so you can learn something, apply it and start your journey of making money online…Start today!
Let’s Go!
5 different blogging for profit methods:
1. Blog selling/ flipping
Read more
[Blogging for Newbie 101] Step 7: Uploading Of Video & Pictures
Hi,
This is John here and this is going to be the last FREE blogging module.
The purpose of this blogging module is to increase your blogging knowledge. Only if you know more, you can apply it to your blog and really make money.
Action = Income. More Action = More Income.
NO MORE excuse from now onwards you can’t do this or that. (For those who still continue to whine, I am really sorry. A 9-to-5 job is more suitable for you.)
The 7 blogging modules here can help you in creating a decent blog and you can easily
monetise it by selling affiliate products.
If you have no confidence in creating your own blog, you can hire professional help
and our team will be able to assist you.
Here is how you can get help from us.
Read more
[Blogging for Newbie 101] Step 6: More Backlinking To Your Blog
If you miss out the post on “Step 5: Backlinking of Keywords“, you should start from there before continuing reading.
In today’s module, I want to talk about MORE Backlinking to create more traffic to your Bog such as:
1. Ezinearticles.com
2. Twitter.com
3. RSS Feeds
Read more
[Blogging for Newbie 101] Step 5: Backlinking of Keywords
Look at how time flies and you have learnt about Step 4: Publishing of Content & Hyperlinking the Text in the last module.
In today’s module, I want to talk about Backlinking of Keywords from different free web2.0 properties such as:
1. Wetpaint.com
2. Squidoo.com
3. HubPages.com
Read more
