Category: Markethive

I’ll say it: the days of outbound marketing are over.

I’ll say it: the days of outbound marketing are over.

entrepreneur

The "Wolf of Wall Street" mentality of harassing customers over the phone, sending spamy emails, and going door-to-door to close deals has become much less effective in recent years. Customers have access to so much information every day, they’ve become increasingly resentful of marketing intrusions. The rise of blocking tools such as caller id, spam folders and ad blockers is not coincidence.

Inbound marketing is the new normal. That’s the idea that if you provide value to customers first, they will respond by returning that value back and doing business with you.

To get a peak under the hood inbound marketing, and get tips on how others can use it, I had a chance to chat with A.J. Agrawal — an entrepreneur who built his business, Alumnify, around it. A.J. is a fellow contributor at Entrepreneur as well as at Forbes, Huffington Post, and others.

Here’s an edited version of our e-mail interview:

Why begin with universities?

We started there because we saw a strong decrease year after year in alumni engagement. Right now, alumni engagement is at an all time low — under 10 percent. It was obvious that institutions were struggling to adjust to the new ways their alumni were communicating and engaging. So we saw the opportunity.

For about 85 years, alumni engagement was pretty steady. Then all of a sudden, in the 90’s it began to fall drastically. In panic mode, many schools chose to double down on the outbound marketing tactics that worked in the past: cold calls, snail mail, and increased email addresses. They also deployed better data tacking and software to help optimize open email rates as well as make the giving process easier for graduates.

But these strategies had no effect (or even a negative effect on engagement) because they were built on an overall strategy that was broken. So we decided we would build inbound marketing solutions to provide value to alumni first. 

How do you begin inbound practices?

First, make sure you know what inbound marketing is. At its core, inbound is anything that provides a tremendous amount of value to your target customer without asking anything from them in return. There are tons of ways to do this and the best part is that most of the major strategies can be done for minimal cost.

One thing we recommend to companies we work with us is to start by getting a blog set up and to have someone be responsible for publishing regular content. One of the nice things about inbound marketing is that it requires companies to build major assets for their business. Your content library is a huge asset and will eventually help your SEO, and pull in more customers to your website.

Other popular inbound strategies include webinars, eBooks, infographics, mobile apps built to help your customers, and optimizing your social media.

Each business is different, so the strategy depends on factors including audience, industry, and expertise. Like most things, the hardest part is just getting started. Once you find an inbound strategy that starts to work, it becomes much easier to fine tune and expand on your traction.

Do you avoid outbound strategies?

Not at all. While inbound is definitely the future, some customers still respond well to outbound strategies. Even as an inbound company, we still cold call customers and send promotional emails once in a while — but as part of a complete plan.

When thinking about the brand I want for Alumnify, I don’t want prospects and customers avoiding our phone calls. The image of a customer seeing an Alumnify Team Member calling them and saying “Not these people again” is my worst nightmare. And it should be any entrepreneur’s nightmare too.

Instead, I believe that the key to getting customers to love us is to provide value without asking for anything in return. For example, we have a free inbound marketing email list we just launched yesterday with weekly tips and webinars. And I’m always happy to help any fellow entrepreneur hammer out an inbound strategy. That type of approach may take more work in the short run, but it’ll also help build a much better brand to our customers in the long run.

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Inbound Marketing solution

 

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

What does the Future of Marketing Automation look like?

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According to one marketing automation expert David Raab, nearly 70 percent of marketers are not happy with their marketing automation software.  Clearly, there is much room for improvement in this industry, despite the enormous potential benefits that can be achieved.

One area of particular promise is "predictive intelligence".  Marketing automation software that embraces this type of model will provide better results for customers and those results will improve over time due to the machine learning aspect of this type of software model.

True AI or artificial intelligence really exists only in the world of science fiction, but we can already see how technology like Google's "rank brain" are being implemented at a very high level into their search algorithms.

This post is not intended as a treatise on the subject, but only to highlight the development that will inevitably take place in marketing automation to a more predictive and machine learning type model that incorporates elements of artificial intelligence.

So, what would this type of marketing automation software look like, how would it work, and what could it do for clients using the software?

As an example, it is a common marketing strategy to ask the client to start with an avatar of what their ideal customer looks like.  A software with AI elements would be able to examine a company's current database of customers, and analyze all demographic data as well as social media profiles of all current customers.  It would then perform a detailed and sophisticated search across various websites and social media, and recommend an exhaustive list of potential prospects.

This analysis would be based on similarities with current customers, and would also recommend the best way to connect with them which would most likely yield the best results.

This is a highly sophisticated method of marketing automation that does not currently exist. The ability of this type of software to target potential prospects with laser-like accuracy will likely turn the marketing automation market on its head.

The company that comes out with this kind of predictive analysis model may dominate the industry for years to come, and prove to be a highly sought after commodity, even at a fairly high price.  It is also equally likely that the downward price pressure of open sourcing may prove to significantly lower costs for the consumer.

It is clear that forward thinking companies such as Google are investing in the future by relying heavily on automation in a wide variety of markets.  Look at the investment Google has made in self-driving cars, for example.  Uber drivers may become  a thing of the past in the not too distant future.

Consider what Perry Marshall a well-known marketing expert had to say about automation in a recent email.

"2003-2009 was the age of PPC. 

2010-2016 has been the age of Social Media. 

2017 and beyond will be the age of Artificial Intelligence

Now mind you, this “Artificial Intelligence” is not self-aware. It’s not HAL 9000 reading your lips as you talk outside the spaceship like in 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Not yet anyway.

But don’t underestimate this AI. 

I have clients who are taking AI to deep levels, re-inventing the future as we speak. You won’t fully see the results of what they’re doing for another year or two. 

But let’s just say that talking to machines like Alexa and Siri is only the tip of the iceberg.

The key to success in 2017-2020…especially in AdWords…is OWNING some of that Automation.

Automation is a rack-the-shotgun, 95/5, winners and losers phenomenon. "

Prophetic words of wisdom, no doubt, from the marketing and AdWords expert.

Watch for those technologies that claim this type of predictive AI model to emerge and lead the industry by wide margins in the years to come.

Take a look at these three leading-edge marketing automation technologies you can use today.

Markethive – (free) — dramatically increases your reach on the Internet by using cooperative blog syndication technology, and much more

Social Lead Generator – auto-join and auto-post to open and closed Facebook groups, dramatically expand your Twitter followers, and more.

Linked Group Messenger  — Increase your LinkedIn invitation rate and grow a very large group of 1st level connections on LinkedIn.  Especially helpful to avoid the LinkedIn "idk" limit.

 

Of course, I will keep you informed of these trends, and help you to stay on top of these significant technologies.

John Lombaerde — Goldfinch Digital Publishing LLC

 

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Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Happy (Silver) Anniversary to the World Wide Web

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What a long strange trip it's been to arrive at the Internet of today!  It's hard to imagine it has been 25 years ago, (August 6th 1991), that Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the World Wide Web (WWW), put the first web page online.  It was about the World Wide Web project. You can visit the original website, (actually, more of a web page with hyperlinks), at this address.

http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

Quite primitive by today's standards, but remarkable in it's day. The interconnected vast Internet had quite humble beginnings.  Some would argue that it was actually in 1989 the proposal for html and the first client / server transaction took place. Regardless of the which way you look at it, our world has not been the same since.

It is quite easy for millenials who did not grow up in an analog world to take the Internet for granted.  I think about my grandfather who was born in 1888, and grew up with gas lanterns, no electricity and no cars, how it must have been for him to see man on the moon.  Similarly, this interconnected smart-phone enabled world we now live in is quite remarkable.

Similarly, this interconnected smart-phone enabled world we now live in is really quite remarkable. Sometimes it all seems a little Dick Tracy-like to me, almost to the level of Star Trek technology.

To all those who grew up in the digital age, I advise you to be grateful for those who pioneered this technological age in which we now live. men such as Samual Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Marconi, Tesla, Tim-Berners Leed, Vint Cerf, and countless others who collectively developed and strove to perfect the technology that it is so easy to take for granted today.

Who knows what the Internet will look like in another 25 years?  It stretches the limits of imagination to think of it.

Happy 25th — you old www!

 

John Lombaerde – VP-NJ Markethive

 

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https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/first-website-ever.html

 

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive and Valentus: Organic Leads and Coffee Partnership

Image result for markethive 

The apex of automated marketing blogging platforms and “weight losscoffee” known as Valentus Slim Roast are ready to launch; however, only those who recognize this unique opportunity are really wanted.

Au Naturale, Markethive and Valentus have joined forces to create a symbiotic relationship between two business entities that are fed up with traditional MLM Industry.  Yes, Marketing & weight loss Coffee are about “empowering both the little guy and gal” to market and sell a product the World consumes daily only after water.  Try going 72-hours without H-2-0 and watch your body breakdown.  Guess what, people feel the same way if, they don’t have their “daily fix” and react like they’re going through withdrawal. 

The Digital Age is here and entrepreneurship continues to explode thanks to technology and those innovators who embrace risk, while providing a solution to a problem.  Guess what you’re one of them because you became a renegade and willing to face the unknown, while incurring the costs in business.  Respect is given to you but, not the industry (MLM), due to its dubious reputation and need for change.     

Yes, it’s time for a change because MLM doesn’t have the best reputation as indicated by the recent Consent Decree Settlement between Herbalife and FTC .  Hey, $200 million dollars isn’t chump-change and sends a message to the industry that “product and consumers” must exist and not “product and distributors”.  Yeah, verification will be needed in the future and old business models will no longer be accepted unless, they can prove that their product is being retailed to the masses.  Guess what, old methods of marketing like “Outbound Marketing” are increasingly ineffective in generating sales and more importantly, establishing a trusting business relationships between consumers and proprietors.  New business models and new marketing methods like “Inbound Marketing” have emerged and increasingly becoming the norm because educated consumers like Millennials, who have purchasing power of $200 Billion dollars are sick and tired of being sold. Yes, these kiddies are tech- savvy and research everything before digging into their debit/credit-cards (nobody uses cash, anymore) and if, your product or service doesn’t address their needs or resolve a problem then, they happily tell you, “hit the bricks”.  Well, if you want to avoid the proverbial MLM Cemetery for Dead Dealers who, operate a Non-Profit Agency then, you better embrace “Customer-Centricity”, like the industry leader Amazon.     

Yes, in the Digital Age of Technology for a business to succeed then, it must embrace the idea of the customer being the priority and less so, shareholders, which is a revolutionary concept among corporate profiteers.  However, Amazon valued at $230 Billion dollars realized that success was centered upon "focus relentlessly on our customers."  Needless to say, title of World’s Largest retailor isn’t by chance.

So, do you want to be part of the “customer-centricity’ trend and be at the forefront of a new era of Ecommerce where relationship building is key to creating a WIN-WIN for both owner and customer.  To learn more I invite you to rcontact me.

Contributor,

David Ogden

Helping People Help Themselves

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Blogging – Why We Love It!

blogging

blogging

Blogging — Why We Love It!

Blogging is not a new activity, at least for those who jumped on the blogger bandwagon a couple of years ago. But more recently, it’s become a platform for all kinds of social, commercial and personal stories and information. While blogging may have started out as an internet fad, these days it’s much more widely used in business, as well as by individuals.

Blogging — tell your stories.

We love telling our tales of woe or triumph, writing witty anecdotes, or simply sharing our thoughts with the rest of the world. Blogging has given us the opportunity to get our opinions published for everyone to see, to comment on the latest big news items or celebrity gossip. Writing down our daily thoughts helps us to get the worries and frustrations of life out of our heads and lets us share our big moments on the blogging pages.

Blogging — share your interests.

One of the fantastic things about blogging is that we can write about absolutely anything; hobbies, lifestyle, children, school and work. There’s a whole host of blogging sites dedicated to particular interests, and we can keep up to date with other people’s views on things that we have in common. Whether it’s the latest technology, gadgets, cars or computer games, or things like travel and holidays, we can stay in touch with the most up to date information.

Blogging — get involved in the community.

Charity associations, local clubs, and community groups can use blogging to get their organizations known by a wider reaching audience. Online accounts of recent events is a great way to use blogging pages to get publicity, while a short piece on the next meeting or class can help promote the work of the club, and may even attract more participants or volunteers. The great advantage of blogging over writing web pages is that it’s quick and easy, and can be done by almost anyone!

Blogging — promote your business.

Many companies now use blogging pages as an informal way of connecting with their customers. For the smaller, or new business owners, it’s an excellent way to publicize their products without expensive advertising costs. Just by posting a regular blogging column, small companies can often draw in more business than by the more conventional methods.

Blogging — making a profit.

The biggest shake-up in the blogging explosion has most likely been caused by internet entrepreneurs. Promoting their online products and services has been helped tremendously by putting up several blogs to support their ventures. Blogging has hugely increased the potential traffic to new and existing websites, giving the marketers much more exposure to people using search engines for specific information. Blogging in itself has become a money-making business, even for beginners in the internet marketing business.

Having become one of the greatest internet resources for all types of people, blogging is usually free, easy to get started, and gives us all the opportunity to reach a massive worldwide audience!

MarketHive Inbound Marketing Tools for Entrepreneurs

MarketHive is a social networking site designed for entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, MarketHive isn't only a social networking website, in addition, it includes a blogging platform, plus some very effective online marketing tools to allow entrepreneurs to be successful marketing their Internet business, services and products.

Below you will find some of the marketing tools you will receive once you sign up for Markethive:

•        Autoresponders

•        E-mail Broadcasting

•        Blogging Platform

•        Capture Pages

•        One Click Lead Generation System

•        Conference Room and a whole lot more

You might be curious about how much actually does MarketHive charge for these amazing online marketing tools, well the answer really is these Internet marketing tools are totally free of charge for life, no strings attached. Basically these online marketing tools would cost you hundreds of dollars per month, not at MarketHive. This is the good news for the beginner as well as the veteran Internet marketer.

To learn more click on the following link:

http://blogs.freeinboundmarketingtools.com/go/market-hive/

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call me. My telephone number is 609-641-6594 — Eastern Time Zone

Or Skype me. My Skype ID is imboyd681. Please put Markethive in the Skype message.

 

Thanks,

 

Ida Mae Boyd
Markethive Inbound Marketing Specialist

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Overcoming your Fear

Fear Of Falure

Overcoming your fears with starting a new online business can be a challenging time. You will have many thoughts passing through your mind,such as:-

  • Is it true or is it a scam.

  • Does the product produce expected results

  • How can I sell the product

  • Who can I sell to

  • Will I make money

  • What will my Friends and Family think

  • How can I find the money to start.

  • Who will support me

  • What if I fail

 

You need to carry out due diligence, this generally means checking how long the company has been in existence, what is the track record of the people, running the business , carry out searches on Google and generally avoid new start up companies.

 

Many people choose the Multi Level Marketing (MLM) route. Which is both popular but also likely to fail due to over priced products, leaving distributors with a stockpile of products which they are unable to sell to friends and family.

 

There is an easy way to check on the value of a product by searching on the likes of Amazon and E bay for the products you are looking to sell and see what price they can be brought at auction. If the auction price does not reach the price you have to pay as a distributor you are likely to have difficulty finding customers.. Some MLM companies restrict you from selling online as they know their products are overpriced in order to pay commissions.

 

I would not suggest selling to friends and family unless the product provides a solution to their particular needs, a few might buy because they feel sorry for you but you can lose many friends.

 

Gather as much information about the products you are going to be selling, looking carefully at testimonials, as well as using the products yourself, this helps you speak from the heart when talking to potential customers.

 

The truth behind success begins with having a good product and being able to market it to potential customers at a price they are prepared to pay. Few people have experience of marketing, however having access to the right tools could be the difference between success and failure. You see all companies offer you a website but how do you get people to go to it.

 

I am a member of a social/ business network called MarketHive, which I invite you to join for free as it not only has the ability to promote your products, but we have experienced marketers who will help you be in profit within 30 days. Gone are the days of having a sponsor who starts you off makes money from you and then leaves you floundering. We can show you how to put you products in front of millions of people on social media.

 

If your start up finances are stretched we have a turn key solution. Feel free to contact me

 

David Ogden

Helping People Help themselves.

Https://markethive.com/david-ogden

http://www.experiencevalentus.com/program

Skype seadogs11

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

How many groups can you join on Facebook per day?

First of all, how many groups are there on Facebook?  Facebook may know the exact number, but according to rough Google estimates there are from 600 million to up to 1 billion groups on Facebook.

If you want to join a large number of Facebook groups, that is fine, but you will have to do it fairly slowly on a day by day basis.  If you try to join too many groups at once, you may get a message from Facebook that you are restricted from joining groups on Facebook.  

Usually, this restriction lasts for one week, but if you are a habitual abuser of adding too many groups too quickly there may be more severe penalties in store for you.

I am wondering how many of you have every faced this situation on Facebook.

I am taking a survey about joining Facebook groups with 3 questions.

1) On average, how many groups do you join per day on Facebook?  __________

2) Do you join a fairly consistent number of groups per day?   __________

3) If you have ever been suspended for joining too many groups, do you know how many groups you had tried to join in the last 24 hours when the suspension occurred?   __________

Please post your answers as comments below, and I will tabulate the responses and report back the results.

Thank you.

 

John Lombaerde – Goldfinch Digital Publishing

 

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

The New secret to rapidly building connections on Linkedin

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I don't send manual invitations anymore on LinkedIn. This is a major milestone in my marketing on LinkedIn, because I have to tell you I have spent a lot of time manually messaging on LinkedIn.

Are you trying to expand your network of connections on LinkedIn? Despite all the benefits of being on LinkedIn, one thing that is not easy to do is expand your network of 1st level connections.

I was able to grow my 1st level connections to 10,000 in less than one year, but I had to work very hard at it. I am a LinkedIn trainer as well as an entrepreneur, and one thing I teach my students is to be careful not to send out more than 40 invitations per day. This is a restriction that LinkedIn puts on free and Business Plus paid accounts.

If you do the math, even if you work at it every day, you would not make it to 10,000 connections in a year, even if you had a very high 50% invitation acceptance rate. For most people, it probably would take around 3 years to do this, on average.

The only reason I was able to do it so quickly is that I had two paid LinkedIn accounts, a Business Plus account as well as a Sales Navigator account. With both these accounts, I was able to send out more than 100 invitations per day, since a free or Business Plus account allows for 40 invitations per day. I also found out that Sales Navigator allows up to 100 invitations per day.

The downside was that it took me 45 minutes to one hour each day to accomplish this. I wanted to send mainly personalized invitations. It was a lot of hard work, and many times along the way, I felt like giving up.

BUT, now I have found a much easier way to send well over a hundred invitations per day, and also to send invitations completely on autopilot. It now takes me only about 5-10 minutes per day to do what took me nearly one hour per day last year.

This particular tool was not available last year, but if I had been able to use it last year, I would have saved an enormous amount of time. I could have saved well over 300 hours last year alone!

 

You can use this program with either a free or a paid LinkedIn account, and the automation program is compliant with LinkedIn's terms and conditions.

Please review the video at the link below, and I think you will discover this is an automation tool you will not want to live without.

 

Check out Linked Group Messenger —-> Click HERE <—-

 

Thank you very much for reading this entire message.

Any questions at all, just reply to this message you received. I will be happy to answer any question you might have.

 

John Lombaerde
Goldfinch Digital Publishing LLC

Note:  click this link below to connect with me on LinkedIn.

VP-NJ Marketing at MarketHive | Entrepreneur | Marketing Automation | CRM | Leads Online | Networker | Social Media

 

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Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

make money online

Struggling to Make Money Online ? 

When you first start a business you need to identify a product that you can sell on the open market at a profit, which usually rules out MLM products as most are overpriced, with even distributors struggling to move products at even the distributor price.

What if I told you there was a popular product drunk by millions of people on a daily basis, made from 100% natural product, which not only satisfies people thirst but has the added advantage of helping people to lose weight..

The number of overweight people throughout the world is increasing alarmingly, such that governments like the UK are considering a sugar tax on popular fizzy drinks. During my work every day I see many overweight people and watch them struggle to complete simple tasks. Perhaps I am one of the lucky few who was throughout my life been able to keep my weight within controllable limits.

Having a product that sells well and makes money online is a great start for any business, however you need also to be able to market the product. The milliennials and older make heavy use of social media, so this is where you need to focus your advertising and any sites you use must be set up to be mobile friendly. I use a system called MarketHive which enables me to get my message across to millions of people with the simple push of a button.

I suppose that the hardest part of the processof making money online is actually writing the blog posts, but even here the MarketHive system has what is called blog swipe where you can edit and use someone else's blog, adding your own twist to the story and pointing it to your own capture pages. It does not become much easier than this.

Unlike a traditional MLM, you will find the members of MarketHive's business and social network are a friendly bunch, willing to help one another achieve their goals, even though they may be in different lines of the business. this cooperation is the root of MarketHive's success.

If you have struggled in the past to make money online, like I have in the past, this could be a life changer, please contact me if you want more details.

 

David Ogden

Helping People Help themselves.

Https://markethive.com/david-ogden

http://www.experiencevalentus.com/program

 

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Are You An Alpha Entrepreneur?

Most MLMers seem to end up with excess products that they can't sell at a profit because the products are overpriced in the first place. You only have to look on eBay and you will see what I mean. Some companies even ban members from selling except from approved sites online.

Become an Alpha Entrepreneur

We have found a company who is different and not only do they have a good weight-loss product but it sells at a competitive price so that Independent Representatives can still make a profit even when selling at auctions.

Now some people face challenges when it comes to marketing, partly due to the price of the product as mentioned above and sometimes because they do not know where to start. Now I have teamed up with a company called Markethive which is making a special offer to all people who join Valentus at the $499 (Ruby) level. Now $499 is a lot of money, however your order when sold online will recover this cost and put you in profit.

Markethive special incentive is an upgrade to the Alpha Entrepreneur membership level. This is an amazing deal as it normally costs $5000 and includes a one-time deposit of $10,000 in Ad credits and contributes $200 in Ad credits per month so long as the member maintains their Ruby level. If you drop below Ruby level then the monthly credits will be suspended until you re-activate it.

Within Markethive you will find a new type of entrepreneur, groups of people who will go the extra mile to ensure you can build this business, teaching you how to extend your reach in social media. We currently have Valentus groups in the UK, Europe and the USA, so you will not be alone, we all help one another, no matter which group you are part of.

All the tools you will ever need, blogs, auto-responders, rotators, combined with active social media media, messaging and conference rooms. All at NO ADDITIONAL cost.

If you're interested in learning more then visit A New Experience to find out more.

If you believe that my message is worth spreading, please use the share buttons if they show on this page.

Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive

markethive.com


Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member