Can your business benefit from an affiliate programme? A virtual assistant can help with all aspects of the procedure. With an affiliate programme the chance to make extra money from your business, by having others advertise and promote can be dealt with by your virtual support. From the initial set up of your account and details to maintaining the programme. Choosing banners and links and embedding on your site can all be handled by virtual support. By liaising with your graphic designers promotional links and banners can be created to complement your business brand.

Copy can be written, for your approval, that regularly connects you with your affiliates and can supply them with banners and links to use for promoting your business. For Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, virtual support can write social media updates that affiliates can use to advertise and promote. They can write examples of blog posts that can also be used to spread the word about your product.

By implementing a timetable, promotions can be scheduled and materials organised that will be required to run the proposed campaign.

A VA can manage your programme by supporting your affiliates, answering any questions and help them with any difficulties they may have. By keeping in touch with them by email they can provide tips to help promote your product. Contacting affiliates by phone, providing a personal touch, can help your team, knowing that there are real people within the business, there to assist them, in what can be a rather ‘lonely’ internet world.

A virtual assistant can run regular reports to check on affiliate sales and follow up with contact to them to help with promotion or congratulate on their performance!

Are you thinking of starting an affiliate programme for your business? You can email us here, or telephone and speak to Tamara, on 0208 468 8594.

The savings made by removing travel and accommodation expenditure, together with venue costs will obviously make a vast difference to your costs and expenses associated with a virtual event as compared to a physical one.

ON24, a virtual event company, their research shows that between 20% and 95% savings are achieved when the event is a virtual one. When you realise it doesn’t just stop at savings made by attendees and all the travel and accommodation costs, the people who are arranging the event also gain from the ease and speed of arranging a virtual event, together with additional benefits of spending less time on the project.

In creating a virtual event you have produced a permanent record for future use, whether in a learning base, or for repeating at a future date to another audience or to re-purpose the information to use outside of the event.

A virtual event generates excitement, meaning extra customers and more leads. ON24 research reports that 4 to 5 times more leads are generated from a virtual event than from a physical one.

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There are many online business owners who have valuable solutions they could provide given the right Internet marketing. With ineffective Internet marketing in place their ideas simply fade away, leaving them wondering where they went wrong, when the web names they admire have made the big time. Entering the market in the beginning, the webpreneurs that we know and admire, had it all their own way by being first in the market. Now, the webpreneurs of today, need strategies in place to help them find their niche and to market to their target audience.

Without a business plan, how can you, or any one else involved with your business, judge where you are? You can have the best business coach in the world, be motivated and have a fantastic idea but a plan makes the difference between disappearing into the darkness or becoming a shining light in your niche. With business plan in hand, you and others involved with your business can time-line and measure your progress. You can tell when you are ahead in your game or dreadfully out of alignment and therefore need to alter your website to regain your audience and customers.

Business plan:
There are several different ways to create a marketing plan to promote your online presence. Your local Chamber of Commerce may offer free or discounted business planning and development resources to members and non-members or you can try the do-it-yourself way with Marketing Plan Pro by John Jantsch ,powered by Duct Tape Marketing.( It is a simple, practical marketing plan software that makes it easy to plan and carry out the marketing activities you need to grow your business.) Another approach is to find a coach or consultant that specialises in creating marketing plans.

Marketing:
With a business plan in place, now is the time to activate your marketing. If you find yourself without the resources to put the plan into action, use Duct Tape Marketing principles to get things moving until you can hire additional resources. A virtual assistant or online business manager may be an alternative. Paying per hour reduces the costs but gains you experienced help for putting your business plan into action. With a business plan in place, all those involved in moving your business forward are aware of your goals.

Steady as you go:
Now you have a plan in place, you have identified the resources to implement; now it’s time to set off. If you have limited resources, aim for a slow, steady approach and find a rhythm that works with your available resources.

Measure:
The results of your marketing plan and strategies need to be measured and assessed for effectiveness on a regular basis. Do you have an e-newsletter or e-mail signup on your site? How many are subscribed? Or unsubscribe? Aweber and other e-mail/e-newsletter programs generally have reports so you can tell how well different campaigns have worked. Google analytics tracks site visits, page visits and time spent on your site so you can analyse how well each page is working. In the beginning, don’t try and track everything but be aware that the information is there when you are ready. With your reports and knowledge gained from these, you can develop consistency in your marketing to build and grow your business.

Guest post by Karen Haller

“People make a subconscious judgement about a person, environment or product within 90 seconds of viewing it.  Between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on colour alone” – The CCICOLOR-Institute

Beyond the Words, why colour is important for business branding

We are constantly processing information, looking for meaning to what we see.   Before we had the spoken language, our primary signaling system, our language was colour. In nature, red, black and yellow signal danger, warning to stay away and not safe to eat.  For example: red back spider and wasps.

When it comes to marketing, it’s not just the words and logo that convey your brand message.  Did you know the language of colour is communicated quicker to the brain than words or shapes as they work directly on our feelings and emotions?  That’s the power of colour psychology.

You will feel peace and calm when you look at the black and yellow example?  More likely it has the effect of making you feel ‘on alert’, perhaps tightening of breathe.  Now look at the blue example.  Notice how you instantly feel more relaxed and breathing easier.  That’s because light blue is the colour of calm and green represents peace.

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