How to Generate Leads for Local Businesses Using Blogs – Case Study
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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!
Private Coaching and Apprentice Program [Now Open!]
mushroom95
Hi,
I am opening up another 2 more slots for my Private Coaching Program,
In this Coaching program, I am going to teach you the 4 methods which I am personally applying and making money from:
1. Product creation – you will get to create and have your own product
2. List building – you get to have your own list of subscribers who you can sell to
3. Blog flipping – you get to build and manage a blog of your favorite topic and make money from it
Plus, you will learn how to flip and sell it for a profit.
4. Facebook marketing – you get to leverage on the power of Facebook and get a list of loyal fans supporting you and possibly, buying from you
I will cover one topic every 3 months so that by the end of the 12 months, you are skilled in using these 4 methods and have more than one income stream.
I will support you for 12 months.
If you’re looking for a complete business system for creating consistent monthly income stream while working from home starting from the beginning of 2011, this paid Private coaching is the one for you!
The seats are very limited and there are only 2 slots left.
So if you are sure this program is the right one for you,
sign up now by emailing me at askjohnyeo @ gmail.com to apply.
John
P.S Bonus for this month – I have included another business model – offline consulting in the coaching which has made my student US$8000 within 30 days.
P.P.S. All applicants will have to go through my interview phase.
P.P.P.S. Check out the 22 posts with testimonials and track records of my students!
Plus the product launches I have successfully helped in and I am always in the top 10 among other bigger players.
5 Easy Innovative Ideas to Increase Profit for Your Online Business
from houseoffox
Hi, I was recently approached by a friend who wants to go into online consulting. He showed me a website of a local shop selling ukelele, smaller version of a guitar.
I took a look and realised that though the website was marvelously done, it falls short of certain marketing elements which can be easily set up and by doing these can possibly increase the profit by another 20 to 50% within a short time.
Lately, my wife had been purchasing some baby accessories from online stores or blog shops set up by stay at home mothers. This interesting trend has also motivated me to explore their online shops. Most sites and blogs are professionally done. I am impressed. And at the same time, the following 5 simple ways can be easily implemented to bring them more profit and more returning customers.
1. Get your readers to sign up
Getting a repeated customer is always cheaper than getting a new one. This can be done by setting up an opt in box to collect your site readers (who are very likely interested in your site content) and your customers’ email address.
For someone to opt in, you need to have a bait such as gift which your potential customers want and find useful.
You can build up a database of potential customers and customers who have bought from you and send them newsletters or emails of your latest products or services.
One autoresponder service I used to create sign up forms and manage my database is Getresponse.
2. Getting them to tell a friend
Read more
Bloggers Should Build Their List Too and Here is How…
Hi,
List building is Hard! This is the common response I get when I ask my fellow subscribers.
It is not hard if you know how.
Check out the printscreen I have placed at the top of this post.
Over 900 new subscribers in just 10 days! Wohoho!
Ok, so how can you start building your list?
Read more
10,000 Subscribers! – List Building Tips
Hi, my list size has finally grown to over 10,000.
I took about 15 months to build it
and on average, my list grows at about
600 plus subscribers per month
Wow! That calls for a celebration!
If you want to be successful in any form of business,
you got to have your own customer base.
Look at these highly successful business.
1. The Body Shop has their customer base who they can keep in touch with.
2. Borders Book Shop is gathering the emails of their supporters
3. Amazon.com always has email broadcast to inform their buyers of latest bargains
4. Triump always sent email updates of the latest designs of women wears.
So how can you go about building a list?
Here are 5 simple steps:
1. First get an autoresponder
2. Get a webhost and a domain so that you can build your squeeze page
3. Create a free product so that people can opt in to get this freebie
– You can check out 21 Simple Product Ideas For Your Products
4. Build to a size of about 200 subscribers
5. Do cross promotion or ad swaps with other marketers in your niche
Email Interview #28: Dennis Sim
* Start of Interview *
1. Please introduce your name, who you are, which country are you staying in and your area of IM expertise
Hey everyone there! My name is Dennis Sim, and I’m proud to be from the sunny side of the world in Penang, Malaysia. I’m a college student cum Internet marketer.
Well, my area of IM expertise would be affiliate marketing. I find affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money online and require the least capital ($$) to kick-start my online business. I’ve also created a system for myself to capture targeted list and of course, to make unstoppable affiliate income as well. (I hate the PPC way :p)
2. Share with us your first success in Internet Marketing and how did you do that
Read more
Email Interview #25: Fabian Tan
* Start of Interview *
1. Please introduce your name, who you are, which country are you staying in and your area of IM expertise
My name is Fabian and I’m from Singapore…I’m known pretty much as a prolific article marketer and list builder in various niches. My areas of expertise are article marketing, list building and affiliate marketing.
2. Share with us your first success in Internet Marketing and how did you do that
Read more
