Last Friday I had the opportunity be interviewed on DealCasters hosted by Jim Fuhs & Chris Stone.  This wasn't your typical interview.  It was an Amazon Live interview.  Now I know you might thinking what the heck is Amazon live and I can tell you it is amazing.  So Chris and Jim used StreamYard to bring me into their show to talk about Alexa and how I'm using it to build my podcast brand for Good Morning Gwinnett.  They both asked me questions on this Amazon live feed, but what was amazing about this was that it was all done live from the Amazon website.  The next amazing thing about this interview was that they put my books in the carousel from the Amazon book store and asked me questions about the reason I had written the books.  This was cool.  I felt like I was on Home Shopping Network promoting my products.  People who were watching the show and there were 1800 people watching live, could just click on my books and purchase them.  

Man I was so supped up about this interview and the amazing things Amazon is doing in the live streaming industry.  Having the capability to go live and sell my books right from the live stream is so cutting edge.  I can't wait to see what Amazon rolls out next in this space.  

I added a link of the replay from the live stream for you to take a look.

Many of you who are reading this article are solopreneurs. Being a solopreneur can not only be lonely, it can also be difficult to grow because you are the one doing everything.

I'm a solopreneur, but I do have help. I have a producer that book the guest for my show and this is a huge help for me. But I realized that I need even more help, so I was in a meeting today with another podcaster and we were discussing how we could collaborate. We came up with some really good ideas. What also came out of that meeting is an administrative assistant who will handle all of the administration tasks that neither he nor I have the time to do. This will be a huge help for the growth of both our businesses. So if you can't afford to bring on a team you should ask yourself who can I collaborate with.

This is not my first time collaborating. I just finished up a great collaborative venture that helped me to pull through financially in my business when many other businesses were closing their doors. This was a 6 month partnership that worked out wonderfully for all involved. I had no idea that Covid-19 would stop us dead in our tracks but it did, but because of the collaborative partnership my business did not miss a beat. Well outside of the fact that I had to close down The Noise Factory which I had just opened and may some day open again when the demand for podcast production calls for it.

Here are the 5 things that are crucial to the success of any collaboration:

• Trust
• Respect
• Willingness To Compromise
• Empowerment
• Effective Communication

You want to make sure that you collaborate with someone who will bring something to the table and you need to be bringing something to the table as well.

I hope you found this article helpful.

Until Next Time
Make It A Great Day!
Audrey

Some business owners may think that writing an ebook is hard or that ebook marketing is dead. Well I want to assure that writing an ebook is not that hard and that ebook marketing is a live and a great way to create credibility for you and your business.

So let's talk about some ways to create an ebook. First thing you should know is that if you have any kind of skill set you can turn that into an ebook. I've written 7 books of which 4 of them are on Amazon as printed books and ebooks. I write about things that I know. When I write the first thing I do is create my book cover, because this leads me down the path of what I will put in the book. Now everyone has their own way of doing things. When it comes to writing books I need to see the end product first. Then I create an outline for what will go in the book. Almost all of my books are at least 75 pages. Which is great, because people are busy and don't want to read a 300 page book. I have a book right now that I believe is probably a great book, but it is over 300 pages I will probably never read it, because I don't have the time.

Another good thing about writing an ebook is that you can repurpose content that you already have and expand on it. You will probably have enough content for an ebook. I just recently launched my new podcast called Impact Marketing. I already know that this will be turned into a book, so I'm very intentional about the topics I share on the podcast. I make sure that the podcast is at least 10 minutes because every one minute in audio is about 130 written words, so 10 minutes of audio will be about 1,000 to 1,300 words. Most ebooks are about about 25 pages which is about 5,000 words. I know that I'm writing books, but I could easily break down my podcast into 3 or 4 episodes and turn those into ebooks. As I write this I just may do that. Anyway, once you've written your ebook announce it to the press and also share it on your social media. People still love to read and ebooks are a great source of not only education, but also entertainment. For some it's a way to relax. As a business owner ebooks are a great way for you to create credibility and exposure for your business.

Now if you still need more information about how to create an ebook, I know for a fact that there is a ton of information out there for you to study. If you can't find a resource to help you let me know and I will schedule a class on how to get it done.  In the meantime if you want to learn how to self-publish check out my book on self-publishing by Clicking Here.

I hope you found this article helpful.

Until Next Time
Make It A Great Day!
Audrey

I've been working on driving more traffic to my podcast website and I found that SEO has been working out well for me. My goal was to post 3-5 times a week on the site. I took a look at my analytics and saw that my website traffic was up 300% with 95% of that traffic coming directly from Google. SEO and content are critical to increasing the traffic to your website. It is not enough just to have a website you have to work hard at driving traffic to that site. There are many ways to do this, but I decided on content and SEO to be the strategies that I would use. Of course you can use Facebook ads or PPC to increase your traffic to your site a little faster, but you will have to pay for that traffic. I decided to go with good old free.

Here are 3 ways to drive free traffic to your website:

For those on a shoestring budget, free traffic is definitely the way to go. Even if you have a steady cash flow, the potential of free traffic sources in bringing you extra eyeballs shouldn’t be overlooked.
Free traffic is essentially drawing visitors to your site without having to pay for advertising fees.

There are several ways to draw free traffic to your site, such as:

-Article Submission
-Search Engine Optimization
-Offline Traffic Methods

Article submission basically involves submitting articles related to your niche topic to high traffic article directories so that people searching for information will find your articles, which leads them to your website through an author’s resource box.

Search engine optimization is the art of getting your page to the top of Google or Yahoo’s search engine by targeting high search volume “keyword phrases”.

Offline traffic methods deal with promoting one’s website through offline methods such as banners, flyers, direct response marketing and name cards.

Article marketing was one of the most widely used traffic generation methods in the past, and still is widely used today. 

Here are some links to article directories that will allow you to submit articles.

• www.HubPages.com
• www.ArticleAlley.com
• www.SelfGrowth.com

I use to submit to article directories a lot back in the day, but now I post my articles on my own website. Another great place to post articles is on www.medium.com. You can get a lot of traffic back to your site if you are posting as an authority. Posting to all of these different places takes time that is why I prefer to post on my own site and every now and again I post on LinkedIn. Now I will say that I think LinkedIn can be very good for posting articles and I am looking at post more articles there in the near future.

​I know that I only talked about article marketing here and of course there are way more than 3 ways to drive free traffic to your website, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with too much content.

I hope you found this article helpful.

Until Next Time
Make It A Great Day!
Audrey

Small businesses who are on a marketing budget can take a quick lesson from Taco Bell. There was a story today about Taco Bell creating at home taco kits that people can purchase that would feed 6 people for $25. Now here's where good marketing kicks in. Tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo which is also Taco Tuesday. I'm sure that the marketing team was sitting around when they realized that Cinco De Mayo actually fell on Taco Tuesday and viola' the Taco Kit was born.
 
Now you maybe saying what's so great about this. Well I liked the story, so did the other news outlet where I first heard about it and I'm sure that we're not the only ones that will be talking about this story, so Taco Bell marketing mission is complete. Free publicity for their at home Taco Kits.
 
Is there a holiday that you can get creative with and tie it in with your business? If so make sure to share your big marketing idea with the media. We are always looking for great stories to share with our readers, listeners and viewers.
 
Until Next Time 
Make It Great Day!

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5 Ways To Market Your Business With $0 Marketing Budget 

​If you're thinking about how to market your business online, here are 5 ways to get your name and brand out there even if you have $0 marketing budget.  A lot of entrepreneurs think that you need to have thousands and thousands of dollars to market your business, but that simply not the case.  Here are 5 ways to market you business without any money that are really powerful.
 
1. Write an article and post it on LinkedIn as a post.  If you reference anyone in your article be sure to tag them.
2. Take that same article and change it up a little bit and post it under notes on Facebook.  Again if you reference anyone in the article be sure to tag them.
3. Issue a press release about something major that you are doing.  Now this will probably take some work on your part if you are going to do it for free, because you have to locate the editors you want to pitch the story too.
4. Pitch yourself to podcasters.  Most podcasters are always looking for great guest to be on their show.  The keyword here being great guest.  You must know your stuff, so don't try to bluff the podcaster.  They will see right through you.
5. Host an online event and put it on Eventbrite. Events that are on Eventbrite are syndicated to other online event calendars giving you even more reach.  The best thing about this tip is that you can get visibility and make some money if you charge for your online event.
 
I hope you found these tips helpful.
 
Until Next Time
Make It A Great Day!
Audrey

We are stilled sheltered in place, so marketing may be a little challenging if you are the type of person that go networking a lot. The way to stay relevant in your industry is to create a strong content marketing campaign.

Content marketing could be any or all of the following:

• Creating content for your blog
• Creating your own podcast
• Creating marketing videos
• Creating infographics
• Creating memes
• Doing live streams

You have decide which one of these could work for you. Now here is a little tip that will help you easily create 3 pieces of content. Record a video using Zoom. Take the video and put it on YouTube or Vimeo. Take the audio and put it on a podcast platform such as Buzzsprout or Lbsyn. Now you can use Headliners to transcribe the audio and turn that into a blog post for your website where you can also embed the video or the audio to accompany the text.

Now that you have these three pieces of content you can schedule them to post on different days. If you use this strategy on a consistent basis you will always be relevant even when you can't get out and network.

Need More Help Growing Your Business? Click Here To Set Up A Marketing Strategy Session

I recently did a live broadcast from an expo.  There were about 25 vendors there.  I was hired to do this event, because the organizer was trying to offer vendors more exposure for their business, so she hired me to come and broadcast live and interview the vendors that were there.  She made the announcement that I would be doing interviews throughout the day, so they could come over and take a seat at the table to talk to me and to my surprise only about 8 of the vendors stopped by to talk about their business.  I was sitting there like what's wrong with this picture.  Now I get it, maybe they were busy with customers and just could not get a way for a few minutes, however I doubt that was the case.  I think a lot of them just were not prepared to talk about their business.  So today I want to share 3 tips with you to make sure you are always ready to talk about your business, even if you are shy.

• Keep a mini media kit  in your car or have a digital media kit that you can share with someone
• Make sure to carry some type of marketing materials with, be it a business card or a postcard
• Create a 30 second elevator speech to share with anyone who ask you what you do
• If applicable create a mobile app that will allow people to download it to their phones

You want to make sure you are always ready to share what you do with anyone who maybe interested.  An never give up an opportunity to talk about your business.  Even if you think a media outlet maybe small you never know who reads or listen to the host or writer.  I once interviewed Mark Victor Hansen who is the co-author of the Chicken Soup For The Soul series.  Not only did I interview him once he did my show 3 times.  I hosted my show every Saturday morning at 7:30am EST. and he was on the west coast which made it 4:30 am his time.  I asked him why he did my little show and he told me exactly what I just shared above.  Never give up a PR opportunity.  

I hope that this help you move your business forward.
Until Next Time
Make It A Great Day!
Audrey