Running a business is all about matching up what you can offer with what the market wants. So as 2012 began, I decided to talk my market and see how I could best help them.
My plan was that I was going to start out as an internet marketing consultant. I wasn’t planning on just offering advice and information, I planned to provide services too. So if a business needed a mailing list setting up and managing, I would do that for them. If they needed a new website complete with copywriting and SEO, I could do that too. I didn’t plan to do everything myself, I would work with a team of freelancers (after all, I know plenty of mums offering these services!)
Back in January I kicked things off by offering a free consultation to one of the members of my mailing list. (I send things to my mailing list that you don’t see on Business Plus Baby, so you might like to sign up here?)
This was the email:
I can help you with your website
This week I’ve launched my new internet marketing service – and I’d like to help YOU get more clients online.
Over the last few years I’ve studied internet marketing, copywriting, blogging, social media and SEO, I’ve written and promoted a couple of books, launched an e-course and I’ve launched my own affiliate programme.
I’ve learned a lot from some really great internet marketers. That’s why I now want to help businesses find more customers and make more profits online.
To kick things off, I’m offering one consultation to a Business Plus Baby newsletter reader at no charge. So if you’d like some ideas about how you could make your website better, how to get more eyeballs on it and how make more sales from the visitors once they are there, here’s what you need to do…
Reply to this email and send me the link to your website.
I’ll pick one winner from the replies at random and we can talk either by phone or Skype.
I had a big response to my email within minutes! The best response I’ve ever had to anything here at Business Plus Baby, in fact. So I decided to offer several consultations, rather than just the one. I also met a few bricks-and-mortar businesses face-to-face to talk internet marketing.
The big response to my email made me realise that small business owners do want help with internet marketing, in particular they want to talk about it.
There’s so much information out there already that the challenge is finding someone to talk you through it all.
The free consultations led to me doing some mentoring, too. That was something I’ve not had a chance to do in quite a few years and I really enjoyed it. I could see that lots of other solo business owners could benefit from mentoring – it’s so hard to stay focused when you’re working from home without a boss or a job description.
So I’ve decided to offer these one-to-one sessions
I also discovered that delivering the broad range of internet marketing services the way I planned wasn’t going to work. Not for me, not right now. I just don’t have the time or flexibility to do that with a young family. Even if I outsourced most of the work, the project management and marketing would still take more time than I have at the moment.
So a change of plan? Well, only slightly. I’ll tell you more in the next few weeks, right now I’m focusing on spreading the word about my 1-to-1 sessions and finishing my Start your Own Online Shop ebook!
If you’d like to brainstorm some ideas, work out your next business move, review your marketing strategy or get more focus, take a look at my Hire Me page.