I did a quick video interview with Intuit (makers of QuickBooks) about the event that they’re doing this Friday & Saturday in Midtown, Sacramento.  I wanted folks to get a better understanding of what will actually take place at this event.

Check out there site here for more details:  http://lovealocalbusiness.com/sacramento

Are any of you coming?

Details Below

Are You Ready to REALLY Learn How To Use Social Media to Grow Your Business and Brand?

(Don’t forget to watch the Video Testimonials Below)

Overview

The Social Media Business Workshop will train entrepreneurs, marketers, business owners, bloggers, churches how to leverage the power of social media marketing tools such as, blogs, social networking sites, online video, and others to help you grow your brand, build a loyal following, and ultimately increase your revenue.

What you will learn:

• What is social media for business?
• Why you need to be using social media for your business?
• How an entrepreneur used social media to grow his business from $4 Million – $60 Million in just 24-36 months
• The 3 Things you need to do every day to grow your brand
• How to attract new customers to your business
• How to Sell more to your existing customers
• How to create “Celebrity Status” in your marketplace

Click Here to Register

Workshop Outline

Session 1: What’s the big deal with Social Media anyways?
Session 2: Blogging
Session 3: Twitter Marketing strategies
Session 4: Facebook Fan Pages
Session 5: SEO/Search Engine Optimization
Session 6: Tying it All Together

Your Instructor

Alejandro Reyes is a social media marketing strategist, speaker and
Web TV host. He created SacramentoMarketingLabs.com, Sacramento’s first
Social Media agency, to teach small businesses and organizations how to
understand and leverage social media to grow their brand, increase
revenue and build a loyal following online.

Click Here to Register

Video Testimonials:

Location

The Urban Hive
1931 H Street
Sacramento, CA 95811

Date

The first session starts on February 6th at 9am. After you register, please check your email for more information.

Click Here To Register

What kinds of questions do you have about Twitter that we can answer in a video?

No doubt emails are being used to distribute newsletters, promotional mails, and other stuff.  How then would you be able to round up email addresses to send those marketing mails you have?  Here is where an opt-in list comes in.

An opt-in list is a directory of email address you can send to those mails to.  Though it seems to be easy to find email addresses, if you are talking thousands in numbers, it is going to be hard. Besides, you have to determine the recipient of the email. You wouldn’t want your readers mostly male if you are selling lipsticks, right?

A good opt-in list should include the profile of the email address owner.  Here are tips on how to create a comprehensive opt-in list for target market.

Create your website.

Creating a website is made simple nowadays.  A lot of programs are milling about assisting regular computer users in making and maintaining websites in a real simple way.  Some website creator just needs you to cut and paste, like that of a regular paint program. Several web hosting sites are available too.  Some are even free. If you have a site of your own, you can ask visitors to register with you or sign your guest book as they leave.

Set up a promotion or a freebie.

Not all the best things in life are free, as they say.  But you can definitely try to give something out for sure.  You can see this done all over the web.  Free screensavers, free games, free download of programs.  And what do they need from you?  They just ask for an email address, your name and a little something more about you.  Then you can place a check box on the registration form for sending of email.  For sure, you can think of something to give out as well.

Write and write some more.

There are some web magazines where in readers can submit their writings for a particular topic.  If you had a chance to do so, add a link to your article providing information about what you are trying to promote.  Some readers of your article may enjoy your work so much they’d like to contact you, so don’t forget to leave your email address too.

Pose an easy opt-out option.

People who like to join your opt-in list would, along the way may want to opt out of it somehow.  People who are wary of joining may not join at all if they see that it would be near impossible to remove their email address from the listing.  Show them that it is as easy to opt-out as it is opting in.

Check other’s strategy too.

It would be better if you can find a partner in generating an opt-in list.  This way, you can split the expenses and both of you can share the list generated. It will be best to partner with a company that has a business similar to your own line.  Both of you can profit more should that be the case.

Use offline ways too.

You can put up a small raffle preferably in a supermarket for a certain item they buy.  You can place an email address opt-in part in the raffle entry to add to your list.  This way, you’d also know the buying preferences of the participants if you mark the entries systemically.

Creating an opt-in list entails a lot of work and funds.  You should outline how much you will spend in creating an opt-in list.  People appearing at opt-in lists are sales prospects.  They are those interested in a certain product that you may be selling.  Obtaining an optimal opt-in list would boost your sales up so these tools are undoubtedly essential.

Acquire an opt-in list now or generate one.  Either way, you are reaching to people that can be your one of your treasured customers for a long period time!

Not a lot of people use email

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing methods nowadays simply because virtually almost all people use email.  Check on those email fields or blanks required to be filled up on various forms needed in processing different transactions.  A person without an email address is tantamount to a person without an online home, which is one big shameful truth for this generation.

Email marketing campaigns can offend a lot of people

The not-so secret way to surmount this dilemma is through permission-based advertising.  There’s no harm in trying after asking for permission.

It’s stupid to send email to all the people

The key to this predicament is to have a very discerning eye on who to email and who to not email.  Better look for some metrics on how to know which group of people would give you high ROI or return on investment.

The Real Deal with Building Opt-in List

After clearing the fog regarding email marketing myths, here’s how one can benefit from employing the power of email marketing campaigns – building an opt-in list.

However, building an opt-in list is not a piece of cake particularly for the uninitiated.  Here is a roundown of tips on how to succeed in this kind of marketing endeavor.

1. Strategic Collection of Data

Know which information from your audiences will help you in lowering expenses and/or make sales flourish.  Devise a tactic to make people voluntarily provide you with the information necessary to create higher conversion.

Overload of data is not good.  Ask only for opt-in, with their first name and email address.  Make sure that the profiles that you gather are updated to aid in improving the relevance, timeliness and satisfaction from each deal you make.

2. Good Implementation

Old adage says it all, “action speaks louder than words”.  This easily translates to the difficulty one has to undergo during the execution of his or her email marketing efforts.  It’s a good thing that various methods, often low-cost, abound to hasten and facilitate the building up of one’s opt-in database.

Tracking your email marketing results can pose great hardship, too.  Technology and relevant sources should be employed in making this aspect of your marketing a lot manageable.  Your high traffic groups of opt-ins with the greatest result should be taken noted of.

The following are the most widely used methods to leverage channels without overspending:

1. Make use of websites.

It is an excellent tool for data collation and providing you with relevant info regarding your email offers.  Use forms that solicit your visitor’s email address and consent.

2.  Maximize your sales force.

Customer service associates can help a lot in making you benefit more from your email correspondence.  Sales people with proper education on how to aid you in this endeavor can very well contribute to higher ROI.  Techniques like offering account updates and special programs through email can easily land you those lists of valuable visitors.

3.  Don’t make your point of sale pointless.

Forms for signup located at cash registers and other high-traffic and highly visible spots can be very excellent venues for your business to collect email addresses.  Notification of upcoming sales through their email addresses and names can coax them to supply you with the information you need.

4.  Conferences or trade shows can work, too.

Give Away event offers (prime example being http://www.awesomefungifts.com/) or entries on sweepstakes are great for opt-in to volunteer their contact details.

These tactics should be applied with adequate caution and should focus on earning the trust of your opt-in list instead of simply collating data for your sole own benefit.  Always make sure that the forms that you will use and other methods that you will employ will not necessitate too much fuss to subscribe.  This is for people to not be annoyed during the process of data supplication.

With that bunch of information, who can ever go wrong with the feat of building an opt-in list? ☺