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How much business have you generated from your website this year? What's your internet marketing strategy? Some advisors might be asking, “Can I really generate business from my website?”

A content-rich, professional website can do much more than generate business; it can dramatically drive prospects and clients to your door and open the floodgates for rapid business growth.

A recent U.S. Department of Commerce report revealed that 52% of online users 15 years of age or older are using the Internet to buy goods and services. This number jumped 8% between 2001 and 2003 and is expected to continue rising.

The rise in online purchases is not confined to the younger generation. In 2003, 47% of online seniors made purchases on the Internet according to Pew Internet and American Life Project. In fact, Pew Internet says seniors are the fastest growing wired demographic.

The opportunity to grow your business online is limitless. However, most businesses experience little to no growth with their websites. How is this possible when so many people are on the Internet? It's simple; most people don't know how to generate business with their websites.

Here's several tips you can implement to make your website a marketing success.

Step One is to drive traffic to the site. There are a number of effective tactics for increasing targeted traffic to your site. Notice we said, “targeted traffic”? Internet marketing allows you to focus your message on a targeted audience. Here are some specific tactics for driving targeted traffic:

• Get on the search engine radar with a content-rich homepage that focuses squarely on your target audience. Make sure your content is fresh because it will score higher in consumer searches.
• Advertise locally. There are local versions of the national search engine products that will further refine your targeted audience. These are normally priced on a pay per click basis, unlike conventional advertising where you pay regardless of the results.
• Get the word out. Plaster your web address on every piece of advertising, collateral or mail that goes out to your clients. Your website should be featured in every marketing effort.
• Take advantage of credibility marketing by getting published often and wherever possible. The more prospects and clients see your name in print or online the more credible you become. Capitalize on the newest form of publishing—e-zines, which are online magazines.

Step Two is to capture information on those visitors so you can continue to market to them.

• Give them the opportunity to contact you. It's amazing how many websites conceal the ‘response mechanism'. If the visitors don't see it within moments, then they won't respond to your website.
• What's the call to action? All marketing responses need a call to action, what's yours? Is it embedded in the site? Is it easy to act upon?
• Remember ‘Permission = Value'. Seth Godin's book, “Permission Marketing” reminds us that we get permission to contact someone in exchange for offering them something of value. What are you offering that has value to your visitors? One of the basics is your e-newsletter. Give visitors a prominent, simple newsletter sign up. All you should expect is a name and an email address. If you ask for more than that you run the risk of losing a high percentage of potential sign-ups.
• We value your privacy. The news is loaded with stories about identity theft. Make sure your data is secure. If it is then let the visitors know by telling them in plain language, “We Value Your Privacy.” Link this to a strong privacy policy and you are miles ahead of your institutional competition.
• Market using White Papers. If you are using credibility marketing you already know the power of the white paper. This is a high value package of relevant information designed with your target audience in mind. Even though it's self-published, it gives the aura of skill and know-how and carries the ‘flavor' of third-party credibility. It's as if you were interviewed by a professional journal or think tank on a specific subject within your area of expertise. Since these carry a higher perceived value, the ‘permission=value' formula would say you had permission to ask for more information from visitors in exchange for the white paper.
• Use the website to sign-up for events. When you do a webinar, public seminar or workshop, use you website as a place to sign-up.
• ‘Follow-on' articles. In the content of your e-newsletter discuss topics like taxing IRA distributions, or managing portfolio volatility. Provide the readers with a link for more information on your site. If you put the information behind a password then you can ask for their name and email address in order to access the ‘rest of the story'.

The final step is to get those prospects into your ‘drip marketing' program so you can keep your value proposition in front of them. Dripping involves you sending out several promotional pieces over a period of time to a subset of sales leads with a clear, constant and consistent marketing message. For example, you might send out newsletters, e-newsletters, postcards and sales brochures on education planning during the Back-to-School season to capture “top of mind” presence with your target audience. Remember, at BuildYourMarket.com we specialize in online drip marketing programs for financial advisors.

If you are looking for more training and education on website marketing, go to BuildYourMarket.com and learn more about our revolutionary web-based marketing platform for advisors!

We also offer our "Power Marketing Webinar" where you can learn more about BuildYourMarket.com and Best Marketing Practices for financial advisors. Click here to register!

Need help with direct response marketing? Go to BuildYourMarket.com and check out Direct Response Solutions—your one-stop shop for seminar invitations and direct response mailers that work!

Don't believe the scuttle butt. Presented well and to the right audience with the right follow-up systems; seminars are still an extremely effective marketing tool for financial advisors. The problem is that many advisors aren't paying attention to these details. Are there advisors using seminars effectively? Yes! In fact, some of the very top advisor coaches are convincing their clients to focus more on seminar marketing in these turbulent times and these advisors are reaping large harvests from their efforts.

Why use seminar marketing?

Begin with the end in mind, says Steven Covey. In this case, we want to collect a group of highly-motivated, high-value clients from our seminar marketing. We want the return on investment (ROI) to be extremely attractive. We want these to run like clock work. We want our seminars to consume the least amount of our time. Does that about sum it up?

The primary objective of seminars is to generate a lot of new business, not to get compliments on your teaching ability, humorous stories or the quality of the meal you serve.

There are several links in this chain: we need to make sure that the audience has the potential to meet our expectation, we need to close for appointments with 50% of the attendees and we need to convert those appointments into business.

How do you get a target audience?

What is your target audience? A target audience is one where the audience's needs and concerns are aligned with your value proposition and service offering. For example, if your ideal client is the active, affluent senior living in Temecula California then don't expect good results from a seminar that appeals to Baby Boomers with education funding concerns.

In the seminar business there are two ways to qualify attendees: first is with the right mailing list and the second is through the invitation's copy. The right list means using a vendor with a large enough database of households and data points about those households to match your target audience. If your target audience is affluent seniors, then you really don't have a targeted audience. That's simply too broad. But if your target audience were retired boat owners in the state of Texas who were married, owned their homes and were over age 62, then you would be getting closer to a target audience.

How do you qualify with copy?

You want certain characteristics in your audience. For instance, you might be focusing on the IRA rollover market among retirees who own their homes in central Arkansas . When you write the copy you insert phrases like, “You must attend this seminar if you are planning an IRA rollover in the next 6 months.” Or, “If your IRA is worth less than $250,000 then you might not benefit from this workshop.”

How do you get qualified, targeted leads to your seminars?

Once you have aligned your value proposition with your target market you are well on your way. The next task is to rent space in the mind of your target audience through drip marketing.

Drip marketing is extremely effective because you send promotional pieces with clear, constant and consistent marketing messages to a targeted group over a period of time. The group begins to identify you through the pieces and you become like a jingle they just can't get out of their heads. Once you're on their mind and they make contact, you simply have to followthrough with your value proposition.

As you send out your promotional pieces consider putting a schedule of your seminars in them, so there's plenty of opportunities for people to make it to your presentation. The more opportunities you give them to hear what you have to offer, the better your chances of getting them to your presentation.

You can market your seminars through the promotional pieces to catch your target group's attention and drive them to your event. However, the copy in these pieces must not only have the aforementioned qualifiers, but must be fresh, engaging and professional. You must communicate quickly and often how you can earn or save them more money.

If you are looking for more training and education on seminar marketing then go to BuildYourMarket.com and look under the market tab. You will find highly-detailed, easy-to-use marketing strategies to build out your brand, capture market share and reach financial independence. Current user should check out Learn>Marketing and DRS. Not a current user? Click here to learn more about BuildYourMarket.com