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Ever ask yourself how to build your remarkable business? Read this article to learn 5 simple steps to transform your business into something that stands out and attracts customers.

The following 5 simple steps will serve as your guideline:

# 1 Find your niche first, develop the product next

One of the most challenging decisions for any business owner is deciding who your customers are. For what audience can you add value? Review what you have done in recent years. What problems can you solve with your knowledge and experience? Translate these problems into challenges. Identify the target audience that faces these challenges. This will take you directly to your niche. Next, you can think about the products or services to meet these challenges.

# 2 Decide how to connect with your target audience

Internet offers you a lot of options to connect with your audience. You can choose from various social media channels and each channel allows different ways of engagement. Just think about Facebook. You can start with a personal page on Facebook, create a Facebook page, host a Facebook event, run Facebook ads or start a Facebook contest. Put yourself in your audience and ask what channel you would choose if you were in their shoes?

# 3 Figure out what works and what’s not

One of the wisest lessons from Seth Godin’s Purple Cow is that a successful product or service is not doable without advance contact with your customers. Like creating a hit, there is no telling whether something is successful or not. The only way to initially develop a great product is by asking feedback from your prospects. Listen wisely and learn what works and what not.

# 4 Define your Key Performance Indicators

The growth of platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ are proof that more and more communication takes place via these social channels. A lot of companies are wondering how to fuel the growth of their business with relationship marketing. To determine the ROI of your internet marketing efforts, you should determine what is and what is not measurable. And what kinds of measurable data can be defined as your key performance indicators (KPI). By determining your KPIs and track them over time, you gain insight into the business success of your engagement efforts.

# 5 Monitor your business results

Once you’ve defined your target audience, created your remarkable product or service, chosen your engagement channels and defined your Key Performance Indicators, start monitoring the business results. Determine whether your prospect list or customer base is growing, if the relationship with your customers is improving and if they show their appreciation by referring others to you. If that happens, you’re on the right track to develop your remarkable business.

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Ever asked yourself how to improve your business with a blog? Look no further. In this article you will read how to attract leads, prospects and opportunity without actively selling.

As Michael Stelzner states in his new book Launch: “If your marketing strategy centers on helping people with their smaller problems, many will seek your help to solve their bigger issues“. A business blog operates as the central platform to engage with your audience. Listen to their problems and offer them solutions. Sharing your solutions can take different forms. Think about how-to articles, expert interviews, reviews of products, case studies or news stories. Sharing this type of valuable content with your customers and prospects will keep your business moving forward.

Before you start sharing your valuable insights with your target audience, review these 9 returns of investment you -as a business owner- will harvest with your business blog:

#1 Generate Leads

Leads are the source for the growth of your business. Without leads you don’t have a business. How can your business blog generate leads? Think of your blog as the central hub of your business. Use your blog to share your most valuable content with your target audience. The Internet offers you a lot of syndication opportunities to guide your audience to your blog. Some examples are search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media marketing or inbound links. Ultimately all these touch points should lead to your hub spot: your business blog.

#2 Syndicate your Content

Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or Flickr fit perfectly in your social marketing strategy. The key force of your social marketing strategy is relationship building. Use social media to connect with your target audience and guide them to your business blog. Make sure you have your share buttons activated on your blog site. This way you’ll make it super easy for your visitors to share your blog content.

#3 Successful Position your Business

Positioning is all about understanding how your prospects and customers perceive you and your brand. A blog is a great way to engage with your audience. With a frequent and consistent posting of fresh content, you’ll generate engagement. Start listening and learn how your audience perceives you and discover if your positioning is successful.

Engagement is more than people asking questions or commenting on your blog posts. When it comes to engagement, also focus on Facebook likes, Facebook sharing, Twitter retweets, Twitter replies, sharing via Google +1 button or LinkedIn sharing. Use Google alerts, social mentions or social monitoring tools like SproutSocial or Hootsuite to monitor this engagement.

#4 Improve your Visibility

Successful business owners understand that visibility makes you stand out from the crowd. Your constant flow of fresh content, valuable enough to share with others, will position you as the expert. Start to post new content at least every week. Share it via social networks and watch how your visibility will grow. Monitor the traffic to your blog. Watch your Twitter followers and Facebook fan base grow.

#5 Boost Traffic to your Business Site

Twitter is a great mini-blog site to share your fresh content. Engage with your followers and share their content. Reply to them and let them know how important they are. Use twitter to share your content frequently. Schedule your content and publish it multiple times per day. Discover the time frames that give you the most visibility. Don’t hesitate to post the same link 3 times in 24 hours. Guy Kawasaki is a great example of syndicating the same content mutiple times a day.

#6 Increase Customer Loyalty

Building a relationship with your business blog is the easiest, most cost effective and most powerful method available today. Use your blog to generate loyal customers.

Loyalty means your customers are referring to you and are coming back for more. Use frequent and consistent blogging to surprise your customers with new insights in your niche market. Guide them to new fields of knowledge to support their business. Make them coming back for more. That’s what loyalty is all about.

#7 Grow Engagement with Customers

The majority of people are passive listeners. They value your content but will not comment on it. They might share it with others, even without you knowing about it. Engagement is one of the most challenging parts of a business blog. End your post with a call to action. Ask people for a comment or a question.

#8 Increase your Conversion Rates

Business blogs without conversion are no more than broadcasting tools. Study the AIDA funnel model to understand the four cognitive phases you need to increase conversion rates with your business blog (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action).
The first phase of your business blog is awareness. Use your blog to attract the attention of your audience.The second phase is interest. Generate engagement with your audience to explore if they are interested. Watch for comments and questions. Enter the third phase of desire. Use the engagement to show your audience how your offer will solve their problems or fulfill their dream. Finally, show them how to take action. Make it is simple as possible. Don’t hesitate to ask for the sale.

#9 Improve your Customer Service

The AIDA funnel has been edited with new steps. The AIDAS funnel adds satisfaction to the model. Satisfied customers become a repeat customer and give referrals to your service or product.

Business blogs offer great opportunities to improve your customer service.
Use your blog to invite your customers for feedback. Add instruction videos on the blog. Invite them to write reviews of your products or services. Share the latest developments in your niche market. Start a social community and support interaction between your customers. Use your blog to add additional value to the value of your service or product. The secret to excellent customer service is to surprise your customers. Give them something to talk about.

Now, start harvesting these 9 returns of investment with your business blog. If you don’t have a business blog yet: one of the most successful platforms for your business blog is wordpress. In fact, this blog also is built on a wordpress platform.

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