Category Archives: Marketing

Local Marketing Turf War Domination Through SEO Blogging

Every marketing and salesperson knows it’s all about numbers, eyes, and touches that lead to inquires.  Every day you and I work hard to get in front of the prospect or get recognized as a leader in the industry.  You are targeting prospects with Facebook ads, blogs, and yes, even cold-calling to generate leads.

Over time, you begin chasing numbers, and the marketing scoop widens.  It happens to me as I realized local marketing domination was dwindling. The business down the street is now using my competitor’s service and not mine.  The turf war was lost before it began.

Restablishing my Domination

My local domination occurs because I was actively producing content for my website and after capturing the number one position on Google for eight years I then started to look at other social media and spend the next five years playing with all the new social media outlets that popped up.

Time ticked by and as the company grew, I developed more niche websites, and the SEO formula changed making it harder to grab the top spots on Google’s front page.

One SEO practice still works for page ranking, and that is content creation. Blogging is an SEO tool that works and creating well-niched blog article can take a website lost deep down in Google search pages and moved them to the top pages.

Creating Niched SEO Content

Here are four ways to generate niched SEO content

“When you try to solve a problem, you just make more.” –  John Tavner (Michael Dorman)

  • Micro-niche the blog post
  • Focus on one area
  • Address one problem
  • Talk to one group

Micro-niche: Writing a product review is great but let’s face it, so many people are doing it. To become an expert you have to micro-niche the market and help people with a specified problem. Write a blog post that solves problems, one problem at a time.

Focus on One Area: Every business has multiple products or services. Build content that dominates one area as an expert and dominate the topic.

Address One Problem: When you try to solve a problem, you just make more. Can you remember a home project you started that was only going to be a quick 15-minutes, which turned into a two-day event? Other people are facing that same issue and are looking for a quick fix so they can get back to their main problem. Show your readers how to solve a particular problem.

Talk to One Group: Pick a writing style for the audience; are they going to be beginners, intermediate, or experts on the subject.  How you write these blog posts will determine the amount of jargon, steps, and pictures required to explain your solution.  

Dominate your turf with well written, mico-niched solutions, and address one group and you will see people linking to your articles, repeating your solutions and watch your SEO ranking climb to the top of search engines. And in the long-run, you will gain web dominance in your industry.

About the Author: Dale Obrochta is a business owner, marketing expert, and blogger who has been successfully marketing his business since 1989.  

#1 Reason Marketing Fails!

Photo: Jonas Svidras @ STEP.CAMERA

No Marketing Routine!

The #1 reason marketing fails is lack of a routine.

  • Marketing needs to be done consistently
  • No one ad or advertising media is the cure-all
  • Not having a routine takes longer to achieve your goals

I was naive and thought advertising done once, sporadically or done quarterly would get the results I desperately wanted. It didn’t!

It took me a decade to learn this, and I learned it from a workout coach.

To improve my health, I started a workout routine.  The routine transformed my body, my eating habits, and the way I work.

A steady marketing routine gave me the results I desired.

As you know, to improve any part of your life: working out, dieting, career advancement, you name it, the key is to have a routine.  Those who have a method…get results.

Once I established a routine, my business grew, and I now have the freedom to do what I like, when I want.

I want you to have the same success or better.

Here is a FREE CLASS that gives you a step-by-step routine.  Let’s jump-start your business, excite clients and give you results that will improve your bottom line.

By investing a couple of minutes a day reading emails…in one short week, you can accelerate your business with a strategy to build a better business.


Who is Dale and Why Should You Listen?

Marketing got me this gigs.

Dale has been successful for over 30-years in retaining clients and living the entrepreneur dream lifestyle.  He vacations with family, goes fishing in the morning,  dines with friends in the evening, and lives his dream life.  His routine removed the stress of mortgage payments while allowing him to buy more toys.

Dale will share with you his 90-minute routine.  This is the same routine he shares with his closest friends and is now available to you.

Take your business to the next level that you dream about and make it a reality.

Start a routine that has been proven to achieve positive results and transfer your dreams into reality.  You are only a click away.

How to Market a New YouTube Channel

Create New YouTube Channel iTalkDEO

Have you ever daydreamed about becoming a YouTube reality star or create a viral video? I think it crosses everyone’s mind now and then, reality strikes.  Creating this stuff is exhausting.  Even if you are creative, you need equipment, knowledge of producing and editing video’s and lastly, you need an audience.

You may recall hearing, “Hang out one’s shingle”? It is an American idiom dating back to the early 1800s, when lawyers, doctors, and other businesses used shingles for signboards. When you walk along a sidewalk in a downtown area, you can often see little signs in front of stores, hanging above the street.

Hanging out one’s shingle doesn’t draw a crowd, and I feel that is one reason YouTube channels struggle in the beginning.  Simply posting on social media doesn’t guarantee subscribers.   You may have ideas and a demographic on whose eyes should be watching the channel but lack the skills to get your name in front of this audience.

This was my main concern when I started iTalkDEO.  A YouTube channel dedicated to helping people improve their communication skills.  The voice in my head kept asking me, “How do I get eyes to watch my videos?”

As I mentally struggled with this problem, it occurred to me, right in the middle of my twenty-fifth pushup. The morning workout is when I did most of my abstract thinking when the word popped into my head – product rollout.  As a promotional entertainer, I have worked with many companies at trade shows helping them roll out a new product that’s not in the stores for several months after the show.

Marketing a New YouTube Channel

Taking this new idea, I started to create my iTalkDEO channel. I created a banner, logo and uploaded a couple of videos.  The starter video is a TEDxNaperville Talk and the second is a Toastmasters Keynote address on building a Toastmasters Club.

The main videos had not been producing.  I just had the basic idea for the first video.  It was several days later that I sat at my desk early on a Saturday morning, that I hand wrote out my thoughts that I was going to produce.  With the foundation laid out, I started marketing my channel on Facebook, Twitter, direct emails to friends and blogging about the new channel.

The results were seventy-two subscribers over ten days. A far cry from the 500K I’m looking to grow the channel too, but it’s a start.  Without me investing time in the pre-rollout I would be struggling to get twenty subscribers to let alone seventy-two.

The key to creating a new YouTube channel is to start the marketing before the release of the channel as this is as critical as every video uploaded and promoted afterward.  Market your channel every day until that first video goes live.  Your YouTube channel success is a measurement by your dedication to marketing your channel daily.

Are You Giving People Something to Rally Around?

Why the Rally Flag is Important to Businesses

Why do companies have a business flag? If you’re like me, you would have never thought about a flag, but here I was at a meeting talking with my friend Arthur about flags. I know, it was like being with Sheldon from the Big Bang series talking about flags. So what got us talking and thinking about flags? This TED talk by Roman Mars: Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed. I’ll put the video at the end of this article for you to watch.

The way Arthur talked about this video, I had to go home and watch it and as I watched I heard these flags are the things that people rally around. At that moment I had a realization – this is why companies have flags.

Thinking about all the events I worked, 5K runs, fundraisers, zoos, libraries, and Park Districts, none had a flag. But in hindsight, they should have.

What symbol brings your group together? Is it a logo, ribbon, or nothing at all?

Every country has a flag. Major corporations have flags, and 90% of the cities have flags. I figured my business is as crucial as the fortune 500 company; so I made a flag. It was easy using Roman Mars’s basic flag designs. I made twenty-five different designs before I settled on this design.

deo-flag

The flag design is based on my occupation, family and love of country. The blue circles are balloon bubbles. The two red stars represent my two sons and the layout of a red star, white background, and blue bubble symbolize the United States – Red, White & Blue.

If royalty, countries, states, cities and Fortune 500 companies can have a flag to rally around, shouldn’t your business, association or club have a flag? It can. Just design one and use it as part of your marketing to give your fans something to rally around.

Marketing Through Other’s Blogs

“What we yearn for as human beings are to be visible to each other” Jacqueline Novogratz

Millions of posts happen on Facebook and what do you see next to your blog response? A gravatar. A picture that links to your Facebook page. But do you realize the Internet blogs have been allowing you to do this for years and the talented marketers of the world have been leaving breadcrumbs for others to follow?

Gravatars are not new, just overlooked.

Gravatar - Marketing

Here is how you can leave marketing breadcrumbs for others to follow.

Search Engine Optimization  (SEO) companies have suggested the concept of improving Google rankings. You must be active on the Internet.  They recommend being a guest blogger or leaving comments on related websites.

Spammers love leaving comments, and they leave links to a website. Many great people leave comments and have a gravatar with an image or logo that when clicked, links this breadcrumb back to their contact information. Breadcrumbs allow search engines, individuals and bloggers to verify the user. No longer are you a spammer, but a real individual that can be followed and credentials verified to your creditability links.

How to create a Gravatar

I created my first Gravatar years ago, and it’s straightforward to do.   Go to this URL http://en.gravatar.com/ register. Once registered, update your link and contact information. A gravatar will be created with your image/logo and will appear next time you posts to a web blog.

You’re now leaving breadcrumbs on the Internet for bloggers, clients, fans and search engines to follow. Become visible and valuable in your blog marketing in less than 90-minutes.

Here is my Gravatar:

Gravatar - Dale Obrochta

http://en.gravatar.com/balloonanimals

Place your mouse on my picture located in the signature and see my gravatar in action.

How to Find the Best Clients

FIshing for Clients - Dale ObrochtaFinding the best clients is like fishing. When I fish, I see minions swimming by the shore. My bait and hooks are too big for their tiny months and are not the fish I’m looking to catch. I’m bass fishing, and that requires me to understanding the fish’s characteristics. With a little practice and knowledge, I can skillfully catch a bass.

Fishing is all about knowing what the fish eats when it eats, and where it lives; I use this same logic when marketing. I define the client I’m looking to catch in detail.

I define the perfect client by who they are, their educational background, job title, places they do business, who they interact with both socially and business-wise, and create a clear picture of the perfect client I want to work within the coming year.

I’ve personally evaluated my business and have found people that I like to work with as an entertainer. My crucial client are people who own a business, have young kids, have an interest in sports and the community, are detailed, finically established, religious, and married.

Characteristics of their events are multiple hours, fancy parties, are concerned about my wellbeing, willing to take advice, offer me food and drink, will reimburse for parking, recommend me to others, willing to pay top dollar for my service, and will interact like a long lost friend and not a paid helper.

Now that I have defined who my perfect client is and their characteristics I can now go fishing for them. I now troll networking groups, Chamber of Commerce, sporting and church events for these clients.

Defining my clients is reshaping the way I market and is making it enjoyable and profitable to work with these individuals. It takes works to land these clients, but the results are well worth the efforts.

How to Get Better Marketing Results – The Mind Shift


MarketingCommitting to change is not easy; it could be giving up sugar, working out, or writing a blog.  What needs to happen is a mind shift and learning how to change one’s priorities.  Once you accept the change, the results will start.  Without taking charge, you will never hit your marketing results.

ShiftIn baseball, we have what we call the shift. The shift is when the third baseman and shortstop shift and move towards the right field.  The pitcher now pitches the ball to the outside of the plate forcing the batter to hit the ball where 90% of the team is standing.  The outcome is typically an out.

I have personally found that if I want to make a shift in my life, I need to stack the odds in my favor to win. It may mean tossing out all the sugar in the house, giving up TV for a workout, or prioritizing my time better in the workday to advertise.

To become a better marketer, you have to incorporate the mind change and become proactive.  That means going to network meetings, calling clients, and increasing communications with past and future clients.  The marketing shift should be focused on solving customers’ core conflicts, not trying to sell them.

My father taught me that it is easier to sell to their needs, not to their wants.  We all have wants, but our desired requirements overwrite most of those wants.  This is true in business.  Show the client a solution to their problems, and they will listen.  Appealing to the clients wants only gets lookers, not sales.

My mind shift changes when I stop looking at a client as “How can they help me?” to “Can this person help somebody I know?”  When I did this mind shift, I found that I listened more intently to the client’s conversation, and listened for their needs.  This allowed me to connect with the client and offer a solution to their problem.  I found that looking closely to the client’s core needs allowing me to target my marketing better.  No longer was I solving all their problems, but seeking to address their core issues.

Did I win all of them as a client and make them a sale?  NO!  I’m marketing — which for me is the process of developing a relationship with the client. When the client calls to buy, that’s when I become the salesmen and take their order.  Getting an immediate sale is not the mind shift I’m looking to achieve when marketing.

Understanding the role of marketing is a mind shift.

 Like the 3rd baseman who finds himself in the mid-right field, the goals have not changed, its how we go about getting the results, which has changed.  If solving a client’s problem leads to sales, then the marketing goal is to focus on problem-solving.

Make the mind shift from sales to problem-solving, and your marketing ads will write themselves.

It’s All About The Niche

Niche MarketingIn my early years of business, I first viewed marketing as a seasonal process and quickly realized that a successful business doesn’t stop marketing. It is a continuous cycle.

My solution was print ads. Let’s faces it that is one of the easy ways to market a business. Pay a graphic designer to make a pretty picture with your product, toss in some well-crafted text, and let the ad run for several months.

I’ve tried this and failed. The world of print media is much more complicated than tossing an advertisement in a paper. You have to know the readers’ demographics, the location of the ad, and you need a call to action that generates leads or sales.

I questioned myself. If advertising needs to be done continuously, how does a small business achieve its marketing goals with limited resources?

Several years later I found that to be successful in advertising you need to have a marketing plan.  Define who is your target audience. Is this a seasonal product? What are my customer demographics? Once I learned about my customer’s background demographics, a picture of who my target markets were developed.

Targeting a demographic creates a single target to go after. No longer are buckshot flying all over the target. You now are actively targeting a niche.

After carefully analyzing my entertainment business, I learned that I needed to niche market my business for entertaining at private events to birthday parties. I needed to go further. So I looked at the data. Where are my customers coming from? What is the age segment I am serving? Which gives me the greatest joy? Scanning my Google calendar, I realized that 1st birthday parties were the largest segment of my clients. I had found my niche – 1st birthday parties.

I learned that niche marketing is beneficial and profitable for small business.  I find that my website, copy, and marketing material are more comfortable with producing just because I can be particular on what I say.   I found that I spent a full day trying to make one advertisement work in multiple situations. I have seen that spaghetti web page that has no focus, and I struggle to figure out who is the demographic that they are trying to serve. I found my marketing, but apparently, they didn’t find their niche market.

Things I did to improve my niche marketing

  1. defined my audience
  2. defined my niche market
  3. became an expert and active in that niche market
  4. establish whether I could make a living off that niche financially
  5. I surrounded myself with other experts in that niche market
  6. committed resource/money to that niche industry
  7. made sure I addressed the niche’s core conflict