Hello friends. We're all in the same boat! We are trying to adjust to this work at home environment and doing our best to keep business moving forward. For some of you, that is not possible. Perhaps you've had to close your business for the time being. And for others, business has slowed to a crawl. So what can YOU do during this slow time to drum up business? 

MARKETING!
Take advantage of this time to work on your marketing efforts. One of the BEST marketing avenues is Email Marketing. Email marketing has proven to be one of the most effective forms of advertising. But how do you get started, you may wonder? Let me share with you a few valuable tips...

Step 1: Sign up with a reputable email marketing service. MailChimp, Constant Contact, Vertical Response are all great services. Compare prices and options. We personally like MailChimp the best.

Step 2: Add an opt-in form to your website. This will allow people to sign up to receive emails from you.

Step 3: Create compelling emails with valuable information for your clients and prospects.

You might be saying to yourself, "Great Eric, but HOW DO I GROW MY EMAIL LIST?"
Answer: Develop a powerful Lead Magnet!

A Lead Magnet is a valuable piece of content that you give to your audience for free in exchange for an email. These can be in the form of a cheatsheet, checklist, guide, report, emailable tips, etc., that would be valuable to your clients.

Questions to ask to develop a great lead magnet:

1. What are the 3 questions you’re constantly asked by your audience?
2. What are your audiences’ BIGGEST pain points or desires?
3. What content would be so valuable that your ideal customer would say, “I can’t believe this is free!”

Once you've put together your free lead magnet, promote it on the home page of your website with a sign up form asking their name and email address. After they sign up, they are taken to a confirmation page where they can download your free content or be notified to be on the lookout in their email for the tips or whatever it is you are offering. Isn't this exciting? 

Finally, use this downtime to promote the lead magnet on social media!
Promote the heck out of your free lead magnet. Write a blog post about it, create a newsletter, create social media posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with your free offer. Use Instagram and Facebook stories to make videos on the topic and then tell people about the free item you're giving away. Be creative! Have fun with it. 

Do you need help getting started? We have a great offer for you.
For the months of March and April, Visual Media is offering FREE setup (normally costs $250) with an email marketing service provider with the purchase of your first email that Visual Media creates for you. AND the first email is a fixed price of just $150, regardless of length and complexity.

For a one time price of $150 Visual Media will:

• Design and send a beautiful email to your clients and prospect lists.
• Set your company up with a Free MailChimp account*.
• Import your contacts into MailChimp for you.

(*MailChimp is free up to 2,000 contacts after which they charge a monthly fee)

Contact me to learn more and take advantage of this limited-time promotion.

Offer expires April 30, 2020.

Stay home, stay safe, stay busy,
Eric

I am extremely excited to announce that I am going "ALL IN" on Visual Media! After 27 years of running this business part-time, I'm making it my full-time hustle. Read my email announcement and let me know if I may be of service to help grow your business.

When Trimarc Automotive LLC needed a website for their new business, they contacted Visual Media. They needed a simple website to show their services, contact information, location, and hours. We were able to create a simple but elegant one page website that says it all. Trimarc's new website is a responsive website, meaning, it automatically changes it's layout based on the size of your device. So their website will look great weather you're looking at it on a computer, tablet, or smart phone. In fact all of the websites we create at Visual Media are mobile friendly because so many today are looking up businesses and services from their mobile devices.

In addition to designing their website we also registered their domain name, set them up with free email, set up a Google+ page and created a Facebook business page.

These are just a few of the many web and marketing services we offer. Contact us today if you need help with your website or marketing. 

Who says summers are quiet? While most of you were taking summer vacations, we've been busy finishing up several websites. So now you know why we've not had time to post on our blog the past month or so. Take a look at some of the websites we completed at the end of this summer.

Yahoo Mail has been having major issues all week and it looks like it may take a while for them to resolve their issues.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/11/for-online-businesses-how-much-downtime-is-acceptable/

Please email us using our @visualmediaonline.com email addresses and not our personal Yahoo email until further notice.

Thanks,

Eric