Making my Company Known

[DjDante]

Hi all,

I made a post in the introductions section already, but for those of you (probably most) who have not read it I am the owner of a company called School of Attraction at www.schoolofattraction.com.au.

I started it up about 2 years ago, but only in the last 10 months have I begun to work tirelessly at expanding it into a company that can impact the lives of more people than it currently does. I run 4 week and 8 week courses essentially Helping guys be more self confident and successful with women.

My current business plan is to run monthly free seminars which I advertise on my website and various appropriate forums. At these seminars guys get to meet me and hear what I'm all about and learn something new. From these seminars I pick up new customers because I do have a very good product which is far superior to my competitors, I am very proud of what I do, and that comes through to those who meet me.

Currently, my website is not receiving nearly enough traffic and almost all my business is currently coming through referral and word of month. I ran a couple of promotional girl campaigns with attractive women handing out flyers in the city, but the ROI was not so great.

My plan right now is to first focus on getting more traffic to my site (I really want to see 100 a day average to start with). I have tried a few adwords capaigns with pretty underwhelming results (although i know this all boils down to expertise), and I have added myself to all the free business listings I can find.

My current next steps are to
a) Check my competitor websites through google search and see their metatags and descriptions. Then compare to mine, and see what they are doing that I'm not.
b) Play with google tools to identify most looked up words and phrases relevant to my industry. Populate my website and descriptions and titles with more of these words.

I'm considering making the jump to pay professionals to drive more traffic to my website. Has anyone doen this before? How were your results? I know that I need to keep learning as business is a non-stop exercise in self-education, however I also need to step back some times and call in the experts.

Any feedback from you guys at this point would be much appreciated.

[silkinteriors]

Hi DjDante, thinking about online marketing, have you considered targeted Facebook ads? Advertising on RSVP, eHarmony and other dating sites (if you even can?). Would you be able to throw together some helpful content for your website, even a simple eBook with a few tips for men? I noticed you link to a lot of other articles, but I want to know what YOU think, what your advice is, what are three things I can do today to help me.

Thinking about offline advertising, until I read your intro post, I didn't even know such a service existed. I wonder if there are plenty of others in your target market who just don't have the awareness that your service exists? It may be a bit of a stretch, but getting your business featured in an article in a weekend paper or on a TV lifestyle or current affairs program, or doing an interview about building confidence with women on radio - all of things could really help drive business your way. Build a reputation as the guy who can help other guys build their confidence and attract women.

Sandra

[DjDante]

Hi Silk,

I'm actually considering doing some facebook advertising, a lot of people have recommended it to me in fact.

As for RSVP etc. I've looked into it, and the pricing is $6000 a month, so that's not the kind of juice I can afford to spend at this poitn in time.

I have done a couple of radio spots, but only for small radio shows on obscure stations thus far. I have really wanted to get something more published or broadcasted, but it's an area that I'm jsut not sure how to get involved in, and there are currently so many other things to sink my teeth into that I DO know how to work on, that I haven't gotten around to it.

Does anyone have any ideas on that?

[mikeunwired]

Hi there

just a quick idea. i dont know if you would of thought of it, but how about organising a singles night on a regular basis, like a speed dating type thing?
you would:
1, attract the type of guys that would use your service
2, make a bit of money out of the speed dating night
3, advertise your business along side and in the speed dating business

i thought of this as i work in hospitality and just the other night a girl orgainised her first speed dating session and cost her little to nothing...and the session was chockers!!

The other thing i thought of was that you mentioned google...im sure that alot of your customers if they were looking on the net for services such as yours, i imagine they would of typed the words "single guy" "singles nights" single dating (city)" speed date, " online single etc" so why not incorperate those words into your website and metatags? or better (diversify) and set up a website or blog focusing on "dating" or the single life of a guy, and have all your school of attraction info all over the site!!

the other thing i saw the other day on yahoo is that in china by the year 2020 they are expecting 20 million single guys!! so you would have a good market there ha ha

good luck
mike

[firstmillion]

Very good ideas in the post.

How about targeting colleges, esp. All boys senior school, sponsor a few things etc.

Cheers

[Carl Taylor]

Hey Damien,

Have you set up a Twitter and Facebook for School Of Attraction? If you have I couldn't find it.

Also you've got a few great YouTube video's that have useful tips, but you website doesn't make it obvious. Its only because I watched your About Damien video that I found them.

Also your current website has no CALL TO ACTION. What is it you would like people who visit to do?

Before increasing hits to your site by paying professionals, you may want to improve conversion of your existing hits that way you get the most of your investment when you do the large traffic generation.

[DjDante]

Okay, so to update you all on the wherewithall..

I have run a Facebook campaign which worked MUCH better than the adwords one. It was far from perfect, as I paid average $1.12 per click, but I was getting lots of click throughs whereas google adwords was only getting me 8 per day (I'm also unskilled so that doesn't help). Also LOADS more impressions. Unfortunately I ended up pausing it after 3 days because for 100 click throughs, i only had 1 conversion so evidently my jump to page www.schoolofattraction.com.au/events.html was not doing the trick. I then changed the click to page to a facebook event page for a further 3 days but only got one extra subscription that way as well. So not a big victory there BUT I've overcome one hurdle which is where to spend my CPC money = facebook.

I have joined up with aweber.com to maintain my slowly growing mainling list and also so i can use the forms directly on my website and get those forms up onto my first page to capture customer details. As a reward for details I will be putting together a free e-book. In the interim the 'personality test' will be the reward as it is very extensive and the result of a lot of hard work.

I have an SEO company now fixing up keyword usage on my website as well as page titles and metatags.

I am now sourcing a 1300 or 1800 number to my work mobile phone so that I can get a more professional phone number up on the front page of my website. (it makes me appear larger and more established). My question right now, however, is should I get a 1300 or a 1800? I know the differences from a technical standpoint,but what about customer perception? In this day and age I don't think any customers (mine are all under 50) will think twice about dialling one or the other, but does 1800 look better? the costing difference is almost negligible.

Any thoughts?

CARL - Facebook is up as of 2 days ago now I think. Twitter is about to start, I'm thinking of tweeting live in field coaching sessions, readers would probably find that interesting. Also yes, the plan is to get more videos up on the site, but you are correct it's not there. After this weekend (have had a lot of program writing taking up my spare time this week), I am going to make a whole bunch of new videos for the website and general marketing.

[Brendan]

It's starting to look great DjDante.. I do agree with Carl though.. there is no call to action..

Have you thought about using your aweber form on the front page.. just where you have the 'Free seminar' stuff.. maybe have 'Register for the free seminar' and capture their details that way.. then use the aweber autoresponder to send them the information?

It is an instant call to action.. and you are giving them something..

I think a video explaining what it is you do on the front page would be excellent, we just did one for http://www.tradewebsites.com.au and it has been super effective.

YOu might even want to put the video with you in it on the front page!?

Check out my posts in the forum on video marketing.. I think for your niche it could be perfect.

The SEO stuff is very very important.. make sure the guys that are doing it for you aren't just doing 'on page' optimization.. but off page as well.

We have discussed Internet Marketing and SEO on this forum in depth quite a bit.. so do a search for it!

Best of luck with it all mate, looks great.. I'll keep an eye on it.

Where is your facebook page? I'll have it added to the AussieTycoon Facebook favorites page.

[silkinteriors]

It's good to hear your feedback on Facebook advertising. I'm going to set up a Facebook page once I've got a bit more content together and more products added to our online catalogue and then look at doing some targeted Facebook ads.

I've had a Google Adwords campaign since we launched our site last week - with a typo in our web address! What a goose am I? What a waste of money. And to think I was an editor and sometime proofreader in a previous life...

[Carl Taylor]

Great feedback on Facebook effectiveness, very interesting for us all.

Brendan, I'd love to do a facebook fan favourite swap for my facebook page
www.facebook.com/CarlTaylorFanClub

I like Brendan's Suggestion about fill in details for the event sign up, that means you can follow them up and check the interest.

Have you looked at Mailchimp rather than Aweber? Reason I mention it is Mailchimp allow you to have an account for free while you have under 500 subscribers which preserving cashflow in business is a great thing in the early stages