Why by an expert?
Whatever your niche, whatever your line of business, you're an expert in your area. There's so much that your customers (or potential customers) need to learn about your specialist area. For me, being an expert and delivering that knowledge isn't just an inroad to free marketing. I believe it's actually your duty as a business owner to ensure that you educate your customers and ensure that they have the relevant knowlege. Here's some examples:
- You are selling Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services. Do your customers actually know what that means and how they can benefit from this?
- You are promoting training courses. Would your customers benefit by learning how to carry out Training Needs Analysis in their company?
- You are selling insurance products. Do your customers know which insurances they should have, which are mandatory and what each one will actually do for them?
- You are selling 2nd hand cars. Do your customers know what to look for when buying a 2nd hand car?
- You are an estate agent responsible for marketing houses for sale. Would your customers benefit from learning about ways that they can increase the value of their house?
You get the idea right? And you're probably already trying to relate this to your own business, products or services.
I believe if any business owner being an expert in their line of business spends just a few moments considering what they can teach their customers, they'll quicky develop a list of things that they can educate their customers (or prospects) on. It becomes almost like a training plan, just like you would create for your employees, but instead for your customers.
How do I promote myself as an expert?
Once you've decided what you are going to educate your customers on as an expert, the next stage is to figure out how to promote yourself as an expert. There are range of methods available to you. I'll start with the best one, that's free, and gives you truly free marketing for your products and services. It's also my favourite.
Google Knol
I have to say my favourite method of educating customers at the moment is using Google Knol. Anyone can create articles, nuggets of knowledge, that will be viewed around the world. It's a massive online encyclopedia of user generated content - a great way of any expert promoting themselves. Each time someone searches for knowledge and they read your article, your associated articles and your profile, you in turn are exposing them to information about you and access to links to your other websites, product pages, blogs etc. When I learned about Google Knol on an Internet Marketing Training course I subscribe to, it made sense how Google Knol could make any business owner promote themselves as an expert.
Linked In
Another one of my favourites is Linked-In. This is a networking site for business professionals who want to connect and network. On there you can create a profile which shows people who you are and information about your products and services. On there is a Q&A section. People post questions to problems they have and solutions they are looking for. Users can respond with answers to those questions. You can reach out to a whole load of people by providing your "expert" answer to their questions. Anyone can do this and again - it's free marketing.
Teleseminars and Webinars
Another method of promoting yourself as an expert is by hosting teleseminars or better still webinars. Teleseminars to have some downsides. Before you go breaking the bank though, be aware that there are some expensive systems available that cost a fortune. Many are limited to telephone only or internet only. The best one I have seen combines the two together so that people can dial up on the phone, or if they prefer they can listen in via the internet. At the same time, the entire call is recorded so that those that couldn't attend can later on listen in again. You can interact with the audience by collecting questions to answer either before, during or after the event and the whole system also helps you to create the associate webpages within minutes. The reason I am so passionate about sharing this with you is I've seen so many people getting their fingers burned with expensive, poor quality alternatives. If you're looking at using this idea as a method for promoting yourself as an expert, then I highly recommend that you take a look at Xiosoft Instant Teleseminar.E-Book Download
Do you consider book authors to be experts? Of course you do. If they know enough to write a book then you'd expect that they know their stuff. The Internet has made writing and publishing books so much more accessible to business owners. E-Books are a great way of promoting yourself as an expert. Whether you sell them, give them away for free, or give away a chapter or two as a hook is entirely up to you. Of course, your E-Books should always contain links to your webpages.
What's next?
Once you've decided to become an expert and realised how it can provide you with free marketing for your products and services, your next step is to:
- Create a list of what you can educate your customers (existing or potential) on
- Decide how your going to do it. Which of the methods above are you going to use. One of them, some of them or better still all of them!
- Decide how often you're going to do this. I don't recommend that you rely on just one article. Write a few. Rather than one teleseminar, why not do a weekly or monthly one. Do you publish one E-Book, or do you provide it as a series delivering one chapter each week?
- Make a plan - and do it! Many companies write a training plan for their employees, this is simply a training plan for your customers
- Make your training plan, part of your marketing strategy and really embed this into your organisation.
Happy Experting!
Ady
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Learn More Internet Marketing techniques like this one with regular monthly video tutorials!
Internet Marketing Expert Armand Morin has opened the doors to his cutting edge Internet Marketing strategies teaching you techniques like this to market your products and services through monthly tutorials to site members.
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