Many service professionals submit bids on project in order to gain work. The business that receives bids compares the bids received, and picks the one that would be the most appropriate. So how do you make sure that your bid is the one accepted?

If you have to submit a bid, I recommend finding out as much about the project as possible first. This includes information about the company, their budget, their requirements, etc.

However, since you run a service business, I recommend to create a long term marketing plan that will eliminate the need to submit bids in the future. I haven’t submitted a bid in many years – my clients find me by finding my web site online, through networking and recommendations by my past clients. Here is what I recommend you do:

– Create a system to increase your circle of influence. People buy from people they know and like, so get to know more people. You can do that by networking both online and offline.

– Create a strong Internet presence – get your web site up and running, optimize it for search engines, etc. Many people search for products and services that they need to buy online. When you have a web site up, they can come to your web site, learn about you and your products and services and find out how you can help them.

Use online marketing techniques such as article marketing, search engine optimization, newsletter publishing and others to build up targeted traffic to your web site.

– Market your business on a regular basis. Marketing is not a one-time event, it is a continuous process. By marketing on a regular basis, you will educate more people about your business, and you will be able to gain more clients.

Learn how to promote your service business online, step-by-step, in my Complete Step by Step Online Marketing Course.

Biana Babinsky

– Do you want to start 2007 with a clear vision for your business that will help you make more money and take your business to the next level?

– Do you want to be more confident about marketing your business and getting clients?

– Do you want to create a system that will bring clients to your business every single day?

Join us to hear me, Biana Babinsky, the online business coach, expert and author, as I discuss how to use online marketing effectively to gain more clients. Learn how to stop being afraid of marketing, become more confident, and use marketing to get more clients and make more money online.

Click Here To Register For The Don’t Be Afraid Of Marketing Teleseminar, FREE

There are many ways to find your target market:

– Online networking is a great way to get in touch with your target market. You are already networking on Ryze, so explore other online networking venues. Yahoo groups, LinkedIn, Xing, Ecademy and others are great places to reach out to your target market.

– Publishing articles and submitting them to online directories is another great way to reach your target market. When you write articles that are of interest to your target market, your target market reads them and visits your web site. I have gotten many newsletter subscribers and web site visitors through my articles.

– Search engine optimization is fabulous for this. Over 70% of online users are using search engines to locate the products and services that they need. This means that your customers are searching for your products and services every single day. You need to find the keywords that your target market uses, and make sure that your web site can be found in search engines using these keywords.

– Business blogging can be used to show your expertise, attract your target market to your blog and get more search engine traffic.

The FREE Tutorial, How To Market Your Coaching Business discusses different online marketing methods to reach your coaching target market online.

However, it is not enough to get your target market to come to your coaching web site – you want to keep in touch with them and market to them in the future. For this purpose I recommend having a newsletter on your web site, that your target market can subscribe to.

Too many marketing things to do, not enough time to do them?

I think every business owner feels the same way – there are many things to do, but you have a limited amount of time to do them. I don’t think there is one trick to simplify everything :) (I wish there was). But there are a few tricks to save some time on marketing online:

– Prioritize your marketing. We can’t do everything, so don’t. As you are trying different online marketing techniques, see which ones are the best fit for your business, and which ones get you best results. Make it a priority to use these techniques.

– Diversify – don’t spend ALL of your marketing time on just one technique. Doing this will keep your business in front of the same groups, and might not get as much results. Learn how to apply a few different marketing techniques. This will help you gain clients from completely different groups and will expose your business to people who would have never heard of it otherwise.

– Be consistent. You don’t have to market non-stop, but you will get the best results when you do it for a short period of time every day.

– Don’t spend too much time doing it alone – get help. If you are trying to learn a marketing technique, but can’t figure it out, get help. Instead of spending months trying to figure out how to apply a marketing technique, you can get help from a marketing professional, and get it done much faster. Getting help will save you a lot of time, sanity and will let you spend your time on doing what you do best. My online business coaching program can help you do just that.

Biana Babinsky

Giving away free products, such as audio programs, special reports and ebooks can get your more newsletter subscribers and increase your online sales.

I give away my Top 5 Ways to Increase your Online Sales Report to everyone who subscribes to my newsletter. This has helped me get many new newsletter subscribers, as well as clients. Many of my clients have implemented the same strategy to gain more newsletter subscribers and clients. This is a strategy that definitely works.

Here are some recommendations for you to take advantage of this approach:
– Create one item you can give away

– Ask for something in exchange from people who take advantage of your offer. For example, ask them to subscribe to your newsletter.

– Promote the free item everywhere – the more you promote it, the more newsletter subscribers (and clients) you will have.

Biana Babinsky

There are two ways to increase your product sales:

1. Get more of your existing web site visitors to buy.

2. Drive more targeted web site visitors to your web site.

I would recommend doing both. Let’s see how:

1. There are many things you can do to increase sales to existing web site visitors:

– Make it easy for your web site visitors to find products they need. You can do that by having a professional and user-friendly web site.

– Make a compelling case for buying your products. Once your web site visitors find the products they need, you need to convince them that they have to buy your products. You do that by writing compelling web copy and sales letters.

– Make the checkout process easy. Even if a buyer thinks that she needs your products, she will leave your web site if the checkout process confuses her. Make the process as easy as possible.

2. Here is how you can drive more targeted web site visitors to your web site:

– By publishing your newsletter on a regular basis, and using it to drive your readers to your products pages. A newsletter is a great way to keep in touch with potential customers and increase your product sales.

– By doing search engine optimization and making sure that your products can be found in search engines. I have traced many of my own products sales to people finding them in search engines and buying them – this is a very powerful way to get new customers.

– By doing article marketing. Another one of my favorite marketing techniques. Many of my articles have been re-printed on various blogs and web sites, which increased my name recognition and sent many web site visitors to my web site.

I also recommend business blogging, holding free teleseminars and events and online networking to get more web site visitors.

The FREE Tutorial, How To Market Your Coaching Business discusses, step-by-step, how to use different online marketing methods to market your coaching business and sell more of your products online.

The concept of target market is the same for any business, whether the business is selling products or services. Your target market are people who want, need and can afford your services. Finding a good target market is the first thing I recommend that my clients do, because until you know exactly who your target market is, you can’t start promoting your service effectively.

Also, a service business does not have to stay a service business forever. Many service business owners create passive income streams by creating various products (software products, group programs, reports, e-books, audio products, etc) that they can sell on their web site, in addition to selling services. Creating products helps service business owners earn more money without having to constantly sell their one-on-one services.

Biana Babinsky

Here are some tips for you for Internet Copy writing:

– Write your copy from the point of view of your clients. This means that you need to concentrate on what your clients will get when they hire you, buy your products, subscribe for your newsletter, etc.

Use few ‘I”s and many more ‘you”s, to show your clients how they will benefit from your products. Remember, it is all about them.

– Make your web copy easy to read. Don’t go on and on, with long paragraphs and no breaks. Write in shorter sentences and small paragraphs. Use a lot of white space and subtitles to separate your web copy into small chunks. Doing this makes your copy easier to read.

Drop that jargon! While you are an expert in your field, your clients are not. Therefore they will not be able to understand your jargon.

– Use testimonials. Many people say that they bought a product online because they read lots of great testimonials about it. However, many business owners forget to include testimonials for their products.

Don’t use a testimonial if it doesn’t say great things, though, as it will do more harm than good. If you don’t like someone’s testimonial, it might just be because they aren’t sure how to write one. In this case, contact them and ask if they can change it for you. Or, re-write it yourself, and ask for their permission to use the re-written testimonial. Many times you will get permission to do so.

I will be teaching Online Copywriting Teleseminars in
January and February. The January one will concentrate
on promoting your free products to get newsletter
subscribers. The February one will be all about writing
product descriptions and sales copy for your for-fee
products.

Members of my online business coaching program, MarketingSalad.com will be able to attend the seminars FREE, so join now to attend.

Or, just subscribe to my newsletter to receive more information about the teleseminars.

Biana Babinsky