Contents

Cover

Endorsenment

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Introduction: Marketing Is Now Free!

Who Is This Book for?

Will It Work for You?

Part 1: Build Your Reputation–Or Your Brand–For Free

Chapter 1: Supercharge Your Online Reputation

Chapter 2: Defend Your Reputation with Simple Free Tools

Chapter 3: Turn Bad Reviews into Free Marketing

Turn Negative Customer Experiences into Positives

Chapter 4: Use Your Expert Knowledge to Create Customer-Attracting Content

Become a Celebrity in Your Niche

Find Great Partners

Get Found on the Search Engines

Chapter 5: Insane Refund Policy Profits

Chapter 6: Being Irrational Is Great Marketing

Part 2: Simple Inexpensive Websites You Might Need

Chapter 7: Lead Capture Pages and Squeeze Pages

Chapter 8: A Sales Page Closes the Deal for You

Chapter 9: A Community Site Builds Your Audience and Increases Loyalty

Chapter 10: Blogging for Customers

Blogging Options

Part 3: The Habits of Online Marketing Success

Chapter 11: Social Media and Free Marketing

Chapter 12: Brevity Is a Marketing Skill

Chapter 13: Videos, Pictures, and Testimonials Work Marketing Magic

Video

Pictures

Testimonials

Part 4: Standing Out Online

Chapter 14: Search Engine Optimization Simplified

Chapter 15: Keyword Marketing

Google's Free Keyword Tool

Chapter 16: Get Found on Search Engines

Chapter 17: Google Maps and Google Places

First, Let's Hear from Google

Chapter 18: Fill Up Google Places to Get Found

Chapter 19: A Good Name Is Good Marketing

Chapter 20: Fix Your Bad Name Instantly

Chapter 21: Online Video as a Lead Generator

Chapter 22: How to Fool Google and Wind Up on Top Every Time

Part 5: Draw Your Business on a Napkin

Chapter 23: Want More Leads Now? Draw a Funnel

Chapter 24: Draw Your Ideal Clients If You Want to Meet Them

Part 6: Start Hanging Out Where Your Prospects Hang Out

Chapter 25: Using eBay to Find Your Audience

Chapter 26: Find Good Marketing Partner Sites

Part 7: Get Creative with the Media

Chapter 27: Have a Press Kit Ready on Demand

Chapter 28: Influence the Influential

Chapter 29: Press Release Marketing

Part 8: Smartphones Are Taking Over the World

Chapter 30: Text Marketing Can't Be Ignored

Chapter 31: Ask Customers to Put Their Phones to Use

QR Codes

Chapter 32: The Power of Marketing with Mobile Pictures

Part 9: Inch-Wide, Mile-Deep Marketing

Chapter 33: Become a World's Foremost Expert—Fast

Chapter 34: Find Forum Fame

Part 10: Video Is No Longer Optional

Chapter 35: Make Your Videos Go Viral

Chapter 36: 24 Marketing Videos You Should Have

Chapter 37: Essential Video Marketing Tools

Chapter 38: Make Video Even If You Have a Face for Radio

Part 11: Deliver Current Content Constantly

Chapter 39: Call Yourself an Author and Sell More

Chapter 40: Write a Book for an Instant Sales Boost

Chapter 41: Write an E-Book in Days and Benefit for Years

How Will You Create and Distribute Your E-Book?

Chapter 42: A Targeted Newsletter as a Marketing Machine

Aren't Newsletters Usually a Waste of Time?

Chapter 43: Think Free First

Free Services

Chapter 44: Use a Powerful Title for Your Marketing Content

Chapter 45: Your Content Distribution Strategy

Part 12: Social Media Marketing

Chapter 46: Facebook as a Marketing Tool

Chapter 47: Twitter as a Marketing Tool

The Basics

Chapter 48: Do Something Viral

Chapter 49: Other Social Media Tools

Part 13: E-Mail Marketing Is Autopilot Marketing

Chapter 50: The Tools and Language of E-Mail Marketing

Chapter 51: Automated Power Marketing: Customer and Prospect E-Mail

Keep It Short

HTML Is Pretty, But Don't Do It

What Do I Send Them?

Chapter 52: Managing Your E-Mail on Autopilot

Chapter 53: Growing Your E-Mail Lists on Autopilot

Chapter 54: An E-Mail Newsletter Can Be a Cash Generator

Chapter 55: Add Hundreds or Thousands of E-Mail Subscribers Quickly

Part 14: Who's Driving Your Business?

Chapter 56: Using a Survey as a Marketing Tool

Chapter 57: Give Them What They Want

Chapter 58: Remember Who Is in Charge

About Playing and Exercising

Part 15: Spoiled Prospects and Customers Are Loyal

Jing

FourSquare.com

Chapter 59: Spoil Influential Customers in Creative Ways

Chapter 60: Reminders Put Money in the Bank

Chapter 61: Real-Time Problem Solving Is Marketing

Chapter 62: Put Greeting Cards on Autopilot

Chapter 63: Give Your Customers a Voice to Build Loyalty

Chapter 64: Build Loyalty and Credibility with a Membership Site

Chapter 65: Holding Contests to Boost Exposure

Part 16: Powerful Marketing Partnerships

Chapter 66: Set Up a Three-Way Win for an Instant Boost

Chapter 67: Leverage the Power of Joint Ventures

Chapter 68: Find Good Partners for Marketing Synergy

Chapter 69: Bring Down the Barriers Between You and a Great Partner

Chapter 70: Put Your Best Salesmen to Work on Straight Commission

Your Happy Customers Sell You!

Chapter 71: Cross Promotions Are Marketing Synergy

Chapter 72: Use Guest Article Swaps for Easy Exposure to Targeted Audiences

Chapter 73: Expert Interviews: Simple and Powerful Marketing Content

Chapter 74: Recognize Top Services with a Testimonial for Unexpected Rewards

Part 17: Make Your Story Powerful

Chapter 75: Document the Story of Your Business

Sell Your Why

Chapter 76: Create Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) Based on Your Story

Part 18: Actually, You Are Selling You

Chapter 77: When Using Humor in Your Marketing, Be Sure to Laugh at Yourself

Chapter 78: Share Your Life Openly for Marketing Authenticity

How Much Is Too Much?

Chapter 79: Distinguish Yourself and Your Business with the X Factor

Chapter 80: Serving and Marketing at the Same Time

Chapter 81: Strategically Asking for Help Can Be Great Marketing

Chapter 82: Be Controversial to Attract a Crowd

Chapter 83: Become Increasingly Indispensable

Chapter 84: Be Accessible or Be Ignored

Chapter 85: The Passionate, Generous Artist in All of Us Must Be Released

Chapter 86: The Power of Your Why

What If I'm Not Doing What I Love Right Now?

Chapter 87: Appealing to the Influential

Part 19: We Like to Buy from Experts–So Become an Expert

Chapter 88: Experts Make Videos—So Make Videos

Chapter 89: Start a Coaching or Mentoring Program

Chapter 90: Teaching Is Free Marketing

Chapter 91: Creating Audios and Podcasting

Chapter 92: Use Leverage to Grow Your Brand Fast

Leverage You

Chapter 93: Teleseminars Are Instant Expert Content

Impromptu Recordings

Chapter 94: Webinars as the Ultimate Customer Follow-Up and Presentation Tool

Webinar Power Tools

Chapter 95: Improve on What Worked Before

Chapter 96: Embrace Outsourcing for Some of Your Marketing Efforts

Chapter 97: Replace ROI with RLC for Better Marketing Monitoring

A Warning

Chapter 98: Play Marketing Offense with Google Alerts

Part 20: Grab Bag of Ideas

Chapter 99: Collaboration Isn't Complicated Anymore

Free and Inexpensive Tools for Collaboration

Chapter 100: Split Test for Marketing Power

Chapter 101: Cool Marketing Brain Food

Bonus Chapter

Chapter 102: A Love of Learning as a Free Marketing Skill

Acknowledgments

Index

Copyright © 2011 by Jim Cockrum. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our website at www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Cockrum, Jim, 1969–
Free marketing : 101 low and no-cost ways to grow your business, online and off / Jim Cockrum.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-118-03471-2 (hardback); ISBN 978-1-118-12004-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-12003-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-12002-6 (ebk)
1. Marketing.2. Branding (Marketing)3. Internet marketing. 4. Corporate image.I. Title.
HF5415.C54237 2011
658.8–dc22
2011014259

For Andrea

Foreword

A few years ago I decided to take one of the greatest risks I have ever taken by starting my first business while I was still pastoring a church in one of the poorest communities in inner-city Detroit. My plan was to create an inflatable games rental business and use it to employ and educate the kind of at-risk young people that I was trying to reach through my church. My wife thought I was crazy.

After wasting a year trying to get the new company established I remember making a call to Jim for some expert marketing advice. Up to that point I had only tried one marketing technique, which was direct mail, and it was costing me an arm and a leg with very limited success.

In one 2-hour phone conversation Jim coached me through and introduced me to several of the methods that you are about to learn. The results were evident quickly. We posted a 200 percent increase in profits over the first 45 days of implementing Jim's strategies. I was quickly able to start hiring many of the type of people I was trying to reach. This was the start of something big.

After the quick success and results I received from Jim's coaching I quickly found numerous local business owners coming to me for advice to help their own businesses grow so they could get the same type of results that I did. I worked with owners of a photography and media business, a professional sound and lighting company, a Bible bookstore, a copy and print shop and several other business owners. The results were astounding! In almost every case where the business followed through on the strategies (the same ones in this book), the businesses grew substantially. Get ready to learn from one of the most creative and proven marketing strategists you will find. Get ready to accomplish the goals and objectives you have set for yourself, your family, and your business, organization, or ideas.

May God bless you in whatever assignment you have in life and may you experience tremendous results in following the wisdom and coaching of one of His finest!

Pastor Kevin Ramsby
HopeVillageDetroit.com

Preface

Eleven of the Great Ideas in This Book

Introduction: Marketing Is Now Free!

Without spending a dime on marketing or advertising, my partner and I established one of my membership websites a couple of years ago that now has about 9,000 members as of this writing. Thousands of members log on weekly and pay us monthly for the right to access the targeted content and training we provide there. I won't tell you the name of the site for now because that's not the point. The point is this site is just one of the several income streams I've established without spending any money on marketing.

It's not that I am against spending on marketing; it's just that I've found that all of the most effective strategies available are now free or virtually free.

It's as if marketing and advertising have been freed from the clutches of the old, established giants and expensive strategies that use to control them. Even if you stop reading this book right now you'll have learned a great lesson–that marketing is now free–thanks mostly to the Internet.

More facts of note about this membership site that my partner and I run

• Not only have my partner and I never met, we have never spoken! We've been working together steadily for over three years and have never had the occasion to speak. The discussions that I have with my partner have all happened by e-mail. He lives in Australia and I live in the United States. It's not that we avoid each other; it's a time zone and convenience issue. Finding powerful marketing partners who you can trust has never been easier than it is today, yet few of us are taking advantage of this fact.
• For a few dollars per month we manage an e-mail list of around 14,000 people interested in the niche that our website serves. The loyal followers who make up that list have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for us as we promote our own products as well as carefully screened awesome products from others that we receive an affiliate commission for. Again–no marketing expenses.
• One of the best sources of new members on our site has been our loyal membership base. We give them an incentive to spread the word by paying them a percentage of the fees collected for each new member they bring us (that's the closest thing we have to a marketing expense). Online we call this type of arrangement affiliate marketing and it's a powerful free way to gain exposure for any business. It's purely pay-for-performance marketing. I call it free marketing and it's covered later in this book.
• The income stream from this website is just one of several income streams that I manage, but in all cases my advertising and marketing budgets are zero or virtually zero. My accountant can barely believe the numbers when she sees them. My marketing and advertising budget is peanuts, yet I'm one of her top clients with multiple thriving businesses.

I'd like to teach you to see marketing the way I see it, if I may.

Who Is This Book for?

There's a good chance we have something in common. I'm busy, and so are you. Being busy is as common as breathing for those of us trying to change the world (or our part of it), so I'll get right to the point.

If I can have a moment I'll help you make the right decision about whether or not you should take the time to read some or (for the truly committed) all of this book.

Here are a few questions I'd be asking if I were in your shoes right now:

• Will these ideas expand the reach of my ideas or my business?
• How easy is it for me to implement these ideas?
• Do I have to read this whole book in order to benefit?
• Are all of the ideas taught in this book really free to implement?

Will It Work for You?

I believe it will because I have a proven history of helping make these things happen for myself and for others–especially when it comes to creatively using the Internet as an effective and inexpensive (free, in most cases) marketing tool.

Over 100,000 people and businesses have paid me for my marketing and business advice in the form of coaching, books, membership websites, and so on, and something very rewarding typically happens in these exchanges. I don't just teach, but I learn something new each time.

As a result of all the interesting people and businesses I've worked with I've become a collector of effective marketing ideas. I have used and seen these ideas at work in my own business efforts, as well as in the businesses of my students and clients, and, in many cases, they have achieved amazing results for nearly a decade. None of these businesses are making big marketing or advertising investments at any point along the way. It's still striking to me how freely available this whole new world of massive exposure and marketing really is.

This is not a read it from cover-to-cover book. Not every idea will apply to you, but I hope you'll find that most ideas will.

This book is a brainstorm of ideas presented in a way that they can be absorbed easily and quickly implemented. Each idea is very budget friendly, if not entirely free. It's not about saving money as much as it's about effective marketing.

Most of the strategies I'll be sharing revolve around using the Internet as a powerful marketing tool, but there are plenty of non-Internet related strategies as well.

I've broken the book loosely into three major sections. The first 32 chapters will help you get found online and establish or protect your reputation. I discuss what I consider to be the new habits and rules that we all must embrace in order to thrive in an economy built on instant virtual relationships and the limitless free flow of information.

In the middle of the book, from Chapters 33 through 77, I discuss building trust and growing your circle of influence. Your message needs to be informational, attention grabbing, and potent. I also try to drive home the lesson that the most influential and successful people among us are those who are creating the best content for their audience to consume.

Consider Chapter 78 through the end of the book the third section. This section will prepare you for whatever is coming next. These are the foundations that will keep you relevant, interesting, and potent no matter what the future holds. Throughout this book I mention services and websites that offer tools or resources that you might want more information about. I keep a current link to these services and sites on a dedicated resource page located here: 101FreeMarketing.com.

If you stop by that page be sure to register with your e-mail address and I'll send you relevant updates as well as book updates. You can also actively participate in helping update and add to this book by leaving your thoughts and comments. Help me write an even better book by adding your stories and insights! I look forward to hearing from you as you apply these ideas and succeed.

Jim Cockrum
101FreeMarketing.com

Part 1

Build Your Reputation–Or Your Brand–For Free

Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

–John R. Wooden

Icouldn't agree more with this quote from the late great coach Wooden. The reality on the Internet is that very few prospects will ever care to find out who you really are deep inside as an organization, business, or individual.

The busy, overwhelmed public will make snap decisions based on a quick glance at your online reputation.

Whether your online reputation or brand is accurate or not matters very little to the masses. Which is why you can't afford to ignore it by thinking that it's entirely based on your good character, or the handful of testimonials on your own website.

Monitoring and managing your online reputation has recently become just as vital as any other marketing you may be doing. It's time to play defense.

The term reputation management may be new to you, but it's a term that you must embrace because of the new rules of the Internet economy. Under the old rules if you upset a customer we were all told to expect that they would tell seven of their friends. The implied conclusion was that an occasional upset customer was acceptable and expected, but certainly not potentially devastating.

Now things have changed. If someone has something bad to say about you, their comment could be posted semi-permanently on page one of Google for months or years. This seemingly insignificant act on the part of one customer could potentially impact you negatively in front of hundreds or even thousands of prospects. The fact is, people are increasingly using search engines to research the industries, people, or businesses they are considering doing business with and, like it or not, your business, name, or organization is on the list of those that will be impacted. And it gets worse before it gets better, because on Google bad news floats.

The stakes are high. All it takes is one angry customer, one disgruntled employee, or one bad business partner acting on your behalf and your reputation could take a semipermanent hit. Maybe it already has and you don't even know it.

But there is good news. Take a deep breath.

You can proactively manage your online reputation whether you are a small local business or a big player with customers worldwide. You don't have to be perfect either—which is good news since none of us are.

In my online businesses I've sold services, products, and downloadable goods to well over 100,000 customers in the past few years with my name and business name proudly attached to every transaction. The price points have ranged from $7 special reports to tens of thousands of dollars for multiyear coaching or consulting contracts. In other words, my own business has been a good testing ground for my theories of reputation management.

The big question: Is it possible to keep 100,000 people 100 percent happy on that many various transactions? The answer is no—that's impossible. No person or organization is perfect.

The realistic goal for your business should be to fix every problem fast, and allow no one to become so upset that they post glaringly negative things about you online. On the occasion where a situation gets away from you, you need to be prepared to combat the negative comment strategically. It is possible to manage your reputation through a large numbers of transactions and customers even if you have only a tiny staff like I do.

The other component of a good strategy involves intentionally flooding the Internet with the good news and testimonials about you and your company to help drown out the inevitable bad news. You'll need the help of loyal customers to do this part correctly (and of course 100 percent ethically).

So, how's my online reputation doing with the odds stacked against me?

One popular watchdog site that monitors those of us claiming to teach Internet business has over 40,000 voting members and ranks over 2,000 industry experts. At the time of this writing I'm thrilled to be consistently ranked in the top five most trusted and have spent a lot of time at number one. Also, the first several pages of Google and other major search engines are filled with positive comments and feedback about me, my websites, and my businesses. It's all because of what I'm about to show you in the next six chapters—my six rules for maintaining a good online reputation. I believe these rules will serve any business very well.

CHAPTER 1

Supercharge Your Online Reputation

Virtually every customer has a megaphone and an audience—give them a reason to say great things about you.

This era of instant online relationships and limitless information is the best time in the history of business to run an honest business that also wows your customers. Customers today have the ability to spread the word to unimaginable numbers of potential prospects if you'll just give them a good reason to. In my business I teach anyone who works for me the power of testimonials and feedback with this simple philosophy, “Any positive comment sent to us or posted online is worth $1,000 in our pocket. No amount of marketing or advertising that you will ever do can compare to the viral power of your audience as they share their experiences and impressions of your business online.”

The network of potential contacts that your customers are all a part of is unlike anything we've ever seen in business, and it's growing at an unimaginable pace. If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest country on earth, and it's still growing rapidly as I write this book. You simply must find creative ways to tap into the pool of prospects that are directly connected to your current customers.

Even if you don't have a website. …

It's no longer good enough just to be good at what you do. In order to supercharge your online reputation you must proactively encourage your customers to spread the word. You must lead and encourage them instead of waiting on good things to happen on their own. You need the help of your most loyal fans and customers in order to flood the web with good news that will counter and drown out the inevitable bad review that will eventually show up—if it hasn't already. While you can't put words in the mouths of your customers, you can give them every opportunity to say great things about you, and you can encourage them to do so.

Make it easy for your customers to leave feedback online both in front of their online network of friends and contacts, and on review sites. A few examples of this in action:

• Have an Internet-connected laptop or iPad on hand in your business lobby or waiting room and post a sign nearby that reads, “Free Internet access. All we ask in return is that you tell your friends about your experience with us today on Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail us your story at this e-mail address: MyStory@YourBusinessEmail.com.”
• Post a sign in your business targeted at customers with smartphones, requesting that they leave a review or post a comment on your blog, website, a popular review site, Twitter, Facebook, and so on while they wait. This little prompt could start a viral wave of activity from just one customer participating.
• In every e-mail or correspondence you send your customers encourage them to send you stories of success or mention your services to their online network of friends. If you give instructions on exactly how to help you it will be very well received by your most loyal customers.
• Most cell phones now have built in powerful cameras, and as a result pictures have become nearly as easy to share as the spoken word. We all know that a good picture is better than a thousand words right? Encourage your customers to use their cell phones to take and send you pictures of their experiences with your business, employees, and products. Encourage them to post them online in their social networks and on review sites (be specific as to which sites).
• Hold contests that encourage your customers to create a simple YouTube.com video talking about you and your business. Reward the most creative entries with a prize. I did this activity with my mailing list of top customers about a year ago and created a great viral wave of new activity and publicity on YouTube.
• Create a high quality T-shirt or other branded items that reflect the marketing message of your business and give them away to top customers and sell them to others, but take it a step further. Request that customers send you a picture and post a picture of themselves wearing or using the items somewhere online. These photos make for great eye-candy for any website as well if customers send you a copy! If your customers aren't local, use a service like Cafepress.com to manage the printing and shipment of your T-shirts.

Once we've pulled in positive feedback or testimonials, we post them to our own website where the public can see them almost instantly. We also ask anyone who sends us a great testimonial to please jump on the appropriate feedback sites and leave their comments there. We make it easy for them by providing a link and instructions.

Alternately, it's just as easy to use the Internet to tell the world how rotten you are. Online, bad news floats. This means that if 1,000 people love you and one doesn't like you, the comment from the one angry guy will probably find its way to the top. It's not a kind truth, but it's a truth nonetheless. This truth will guide many of the other rules I show you in the five following sections.

You will have customers post bad things about you online eventually. You need to prepare for this reality. Nothing quenches the pain of a complaint posted online like a host of happy testimonials standing nearby overwhelming the lone complainer. These testimonials and happy stories won't come in on their own, though, and it takes time and great service to get them. You have to go after these stories and testimonials and encourage your customers to give you feedback. People are busy, but if you remind them they are glad to help you out (assuming they like you). As you collect stories of success and gratitude you can post these testimonials on your website, blog, or other sites. You can also encourage your customers to post their comments themselves on popular review sites for your industry, and on their social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

A few things to keep in mind when gathering and encouraging testimonials:

• While you can ask for testimonials, don't give customers prizes for submitting them. They must be sincere or you'll risk damaging your credibility.
• Let customers know the specific review websites and services where you'd appreciate their feedback appearing. Register with all possible sites associated with your industry. Here's a partial list to get you started: Yelp.com, Google Places, Bing Local, CitySearch.com, Yahoo! Local, Local.com, MerchantCircle.com, and AngiesList.com.
• Adding testimonials to your own website is some of the best content you can possibly have. It's called social proof and it's far more powerful than anything you can ever say about yourself on your site.
• Be aware of FTC rules for posting testimonials. More info can be found at www.ftc.com (search for the most current documents on “Endorsements and Testimonials”). Always be cautious when making specific claims of results—those are murky waters with the FTC.
• Whenever possible post a picture, a name, and a city with any testimonials you put online or in your marketing materials. This increases the credibility factor significantly.
• Never give yourself reviews, let your customers do it.
• Don't encourage customers to submit reviews from a single permanently located computer sitting in your office because the IP address will be identical on all testimonials and this will raise red flags with most legitimate online review sites. Instead encourage the use of smartphones for in-house customer testimonial submissions. For example, a restaurant could post a sign where customers can see it that says: “If we didn't earn a 5-star review on Yelp.com today, please let us know how we can earn it before you leave. We rely heavily on your feedback and reviews.”
• Use a service like freeconferencecall.com or any other similar service to capture testimonials. Whenever an excited customer contacts you with a great story to tell, request that they “hold that thought” and then give them your dial-in number for your conference call line. Record the call with the two of you talking, and then edit it to their liking if necessary. I provide more details in the chapter on teleseminars, but you can check out a great example of where I used this very idea myself recently to capture a conversation I had with an excited student (end of Chapter 30). There are also services that will allow you to capture single dial-in customers and record their testimonial, but I prefer to interact so that it feels more like content.
• Watch for positive posts on your blog and get permission to post the comments in other places.
• Any positive e-mails you get can be used the same way.
• Twitter, Facebook, and any other social media site can be a source of new comments and stories that should be shared with larger audiences as a testimonial.
• Use Google Alerts as mentioned earlier in the book to keep an eye out for good news being shared about you and your business.

Chapter 2

Defend Your Reputation with Simple Free Tools

Monitor the entire Internet for any information that could influence your reputation.

Did you know that you can get automatic daily (or even up to the minute) notification showing you exactly where your name, product, business name, or industry is being discussed online?

There's really only one tool you'll need in order to put a very good monitoring plan in place, and it's free. While there are paid services available that can help you monitor your reputation, I've never used or needed anything except the free options.

I use free Google Alerts to notify me whenever any new content or discussions pop up online that contain the keywords I'm tracking. Once you set up the alerts you'll get an e-mail each time any new content or comments appear on any open access website that is monitored by Google (which is pretty much all of them). You can set the alerts to be sent to you immediately, daily, or weekly depending on your preferences.

To set up your free Google Alerts for your relevant search terms visit this site: www.Google.com/alerts.

Here are some creative ways to use alerts to defend yourself:

• Set up alerts for your business name, the names of all key leaders in your business, and any keyword terms relevant to your industry. It's not unusual to have many alerts set up.
• Set up alerts for your website domain names to see when and how they are mentioned.
• Monitor the web for plagiarism of your material. To do this set an alert for a particularly unique sentence or phrase from any content you publish online.
• Monitor the activity of any disgruntled reporters, customers, or employees (by name) who you suspect might post something negative online. The earlier you can catch a negative post about you the better able you'll be to defend against it.
• Take these same steps with Twitter using TweetBeep.com.

Toward the end of the book I also show you some ways to play offense (as opposed to just defense) with Google Alerts.

It's important in this chapter to point out that in many businesses (especially in small businesses) the personal reputation of the owner is steadily becoming more and more tied to the reputation of the business they own and vice versa. You must be prepared to proactively protect both reputations because they are so easily linked. The trend of linking business with personal is an unavoidable virtual marriage that you may not even realize is happening, but in the minds of your customers it's likely already happened.

Even for large corporations we are more interested than ever as consumers in the reputations of those running the businesses that we do business with. The research required to investigate businesses and those who run them is becoming very simple; many prospects engage in some online detective work before deciding who they will do business with. You've been warned—no matter how big you are.

Make sure you have a system in place to monitor the web for those who are saying both good and bad things about you and your business.

Chapter 3

Turn Bad Reviews into Free Marketing

In this chapter I cover:

• How to turn negative customer experiences into positives for your business.
• Why and when you should encourage customers to complain.
• How I've implemented these ideas myself with success.

Turn Negative Customer Experiences into Positives

Complaints happen. It's inevitable that one will be posted online about you or your business.

The good news is that an online customer complaint can often be turned into a positive if caught quickly and dealt with in a friendly, accommodating way.

You not only need a plan in place to monitor the web for comments about you and your business (as discussed in Chapter 2), but you also need to be prepared to respond quickly and professionally to any negative comments. Make sure someone is assigned the task of monitoring the web for comments left about you and your business and also task them with responding appropriately.

Ideally you have several loyal customers who are also willing and ready to come to your defense when the occasion arises. If you run a solid business and have close contact with top customers it's a reasonable request to point out an unfair negative comment to your loyal fans and ask that they respond by leaving honest feedback on top of the offending comment.

Nothing defuses a negative remark like a gang of loyal customers following up in the same forum with several positive remarks specifically addressing the concerns of the unsatisfied customer.

Oftentimes you can win over an unhappy customer with a heartfelt gesture from the top leadership of your business. You can defuse the high emotions of a disgruntled customer nearly every time with a direct phone call or gesture from the top brass in your company. Once the customer is made happy you can request that they modify or remove the negative comment that they left online. Be careful that this isn't done in such a way that it feels like a bribe. Approach the situation as if you are rectifying a wrong, and then let them know how important your online reputation is to your business. Ask them to help you preserve your nearly perfect record. I've found that the vast majority of people respond very well to this and like being asked to help.

Often negative feedback left on review sites can't be altered or deleted, but at a minimum you can try to make sure that a positive comment from the same customer or alternately from other different customers appears nearby any negative comment. If you are able to “make it right” when a customer complains, and you can get them to post a follow-up message on top of their complaint, then virtually no damage has been done and you've likely even earned additional credibility with future prospects who see the online exchange in the coming weeks, months, or even years.

Encourage Customer Complaints before They Have a Chance to Go Public

The best strategy to contain negative comments (besides offering great service, of course) is to give your customers a controlled forum in which to vent before they have a chance to go public. At any point where your customer might have feedback to give, make sure you are there nearby with a suggested strategy for accepting their feedback and complaints. Consider going so far as to literally invite complaints so that you can control and respond and diffuse them before they get out into the uncontrollable public forum online.

Here Are Some Ways I've Used This Strategy in Some of My Online Businesses

In my eBay business we've shipped thousands of products all over the world without a single negative comment from any customers. A 10-year perfect feedback score on eBay is a rare thing.

Does this mean there has never been a complaint? Of course not! We are simply proactive about capturing customer complaints before they go public. Being proactive means that we give all customers an easily accessed hot line they can use to complain at any point in the transaction process. For example, we ship each item with a prominently placed note inside the package telling our customer that we fully expect to receive perfect 5-star feedback. If they aren't prepared to give us great feedback, then we request that they contact us so we can earn it.

After we earn 5-star feedback we then request their feedback.

By doing this, I've done business for 10 years on eBay without one negative customer feedback mark on my primary eBay account.

Another example:

Whenever my outbound call center team calls on interested prospects, I refuse to allow them to use any pressure sales strategies (this goes against the industry trend in a big way). Instead, we use an effective “leave them better than you found them” policy that works as simply as it sounds. We always offer prospects that say “yes” or “no” a free service or product of significant value in exchange for their time. We do this because time is valuable and we don't want to steal any from prospects. This is not only the right thing to do, but it is a proactive way of preventing complaints. Also, we never allow the phone call to end badly. If that means I have to send a letter to them personally, I'll do it. The telephone is a powerful marketing tool, but if used incorrectly you can quickly generate complaints online for your business. We prevent that with multiple strategies for handling customers with the utmost care and respect.

Complaints will always happen, but your ability to capture and deal with them will go a long way towards protecting your online reputation. Be prepared to go so far as to invite complaints and keep them inside a controlled environment in order to protect what is said about you in public forums online.