Learn How Small Businesses Are Using the Web for More Traffic, Leads, & Sales!
Feeling a little daunted by the idea of getting your business online? Afraid of screwing something up? Don’t want to make embarrassing errors marketing online?
Or maybe you just need some ideas to be more strategic about your use of what you’ve already got. Are you using the right social media sites or web tools? Are you getting actionable insights from the information you’ve got on hand?
I’m Michael J. Coffey, founder of Ardea Coaching, and I’m offering an intensive, hands-on workshop to get your small business up and marketing effectively online. I’ve been working with e-commerce sites of various types for nearly 20 years now, and been using social media to market businesses since before Facebook even existed (remember when MySpace was cool? When Google was the new thing you needed to check out? Yeah, way back then.)
What You’ll Learn
The course is divided into 9 sessions, each one starts with basic setup and overview information in case you’re totally new to the topic. Once everyone’s got a handle on that, we move on to the strategic use of those tools. In other words, how do you best use this tool to build your business? And more importantly, is this the right tool for you?
Because really, you need to know what a tool does before you know if it’s useful. But if it isn’t, you can safely ignore it.
Between each group of three sessions there will be a “work break”: a week where we won’t meet, but you’ll have an opportunity to select and work on a small project related to the previous group of lessons. You’ll get to pick what you do based on your business needs, and you won’t need to present anything to the class. These will simply be an opportunity for you to directly apply what you’re learning, and get support from the me, and/or your classmates, if you want it.
So what are the 9 sessions? They are:
- Marketing Concepts. (15 Jan 2016) We’ll look at marketing in general, and how marketing online is the same in some ways and different in others. You’ll leave this session with at least a sketch of a marketing plan that will be developed further as you learn about the online tools and techniques.
- Blogging. (22 Jan 2016) This session starts with the basic question of “What is a blog?” and works you through choices of blogging platform, and what it takes to be an effective blogger. It works up to more advanced concepts like doing keyword research and understanding “the long tail” that’s at the heart of blogging’s power as a marketing tool.
- Email Marketing & Lead Capture. (29 Jan 2016) Learn about effective use of email—both sending it and getting people to give you their email address. We won’t start too basic here; I’ll assume you know how to send and receive emails personally. But how about managing all of your business contacts strategically? I’ve got you covered.
- Work Break 1. (5 Feb 2016) This week you’ll work on one of several mini-projects presented in the previous weeks. No class meeting.
- Twitter. (12 Feb 2016) You’ll jump into social media with one of the most straightforward, but certainly major, social media sites. Even if you don’t have a Twitter account, you’ll get up to speed with DMs and hashtags and what the deal is with putting ‘@’ at the beginning of something. By the end, you’ll have ideas for increasing interaction and be able to use link shorteners and maybe even set up a social media management dashboard.
- Facebook. (19 Feb 2016) Using the concepts from Twitter, the more complex (and most widely used) social media site is up next. Even if you use Facebook to connect with your friends and family, there are some differences between personal and business accounts, and things you should know that go on behind the scenes that are crucial to growing your business.
- Google Plus. (26 Feb 2016) Because you do want the world’s most popular search engine to be aware of what your business is doing, right? There are some parallels between Google+ and Facebook, but we’ll concentrate on the unique features of Google+ that can make it a business owner’s best friend.
- Work Break 2. (4 Mar 2016) The social media group will come with another set of mini-projects which you can work on this week. No class meeting.
- YouTube and More. (11 Mar 2016) Since there are more than three social sites, this session broadens things out a little. You’ll get less in-depth look than the previous sessions on the Big Three, but you’ll at least be introduced to business use of YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn, with guest-star cameos from other sites like Vine, FourSquare, and more. And it’ll all seem easy because by now you’ll be seeing the common threads that apply to social marketing.
- Website Structure & SEO. Did you know your website has at least two different audiences? A big mistake is only doing website changes with an eye to helping one of them, but not both. We won’t be talking about design here–the look and feel of your site–but making your website work well for you. You will see some computer code (HTML), but don’t need to know how to program or anything.
- Analysis & Testing. This is the stuff I get most excited about. This is where you move into the big leagues. By looking at data from your website’s users, and by testing different variations, you can really get your online marketing to go through the roof. All the big businesses do it. Once you finish this session, you’ll understand how to go about some of it as well…on a small business scale, of course.
We will be doing this as an online workshop. Each week you’ll get an email with a link for a video chat. All you need is a computer with a webcam (which most laptops do these days, or you can pick one up for as little as $30 at most electronics stores). You may also want headphones to eliminate the occasional echo or feedback. I’ll present some slides, interspersed with live-on-the-Internet examples. You’ll be able to watch, and occasionally I may “pull someone up from the audience.”
How do I join?
Well, it’s pretty easy. You can pay directly via PayPal using the button below. It will allow you to pay with credit card if you don’t have or don’t want to use a PayPal account. If you’d prefer another payment method, contact me through the site’s Contact Form and we can figure something out.
What are the class details?
Dates: Fridays, 12-2pm Pacific (3-5pm Eastern), January 15th through March 26th (11 weeks)
Location: The Internet! Conveniently, you can attend from anywhere you can get online.
If you only want to take some of the sessions, they are $59 each; however, taking the whole series is only $299, saving you over $25 per session!
So join me, build up your leads, increase your web traffic, and make more sales!
P.S. — Remember, I need is your contact email address to send you the video call link (which might be different than your payment address if you use PayPal); the form below will collect that address and your full series investment of $299. You will be able to pay with a PayPal account or any of the credit cards shown below the button.
Thank you and see you in the workshop!
Note: The charge will show up as “Michael J. Coffey” (my legal business name). Again, if you have any questions about this course, feel free to contact me.