Connecting people and helping them identify mutually beneficial relationships is the secret to my success. I've always strived to bring disparate groups of people together. Every time I do, they benefit. Every time they benefit, my influence among the community grows and so does my business.
I started planning business networking events in 2004. They became the largest and most effective business networking events in the region.
By 2006, I had over 100 business owners routinely inviting their contacts to these events. Why? Because they could more effectively work the room if their contacts were there to introduce them to prospects they didn't know. So, it was in their best interest to invite them.
This, of course, had a snowball effect and the events grew and grew to 100s and thousands of people for a variety of types of events. I was enjoying success because it was in many other people's best interest to contribute to my success.
I was at a juncture, though. I could continue planning these events. But, to make them profitable, they'd have to become business expos. I wasn't interested in doing this, so I began identifying events where our network could get involved; as well as help members of the network promote their own events. Not being distracted by the production and hands on promotion of my own events, I began to focus my efforts on formalizing our distributed promotion network. At the same time, businesses began approaching me about helping them promote their business more directly through email, similar to the way we promoted our events through email.
By the end of 2007, approximately 20 businesses entrusted me to help them do their email marketing. We developed a network of local businesses with similar prospects who agreed to market each other to their respective newsletters, similar to the way that 100 businesses agreed to market our networking events. Collectively, we reach more than 60,000 subscribers within a 50 mile radius. In 2007, we were involved with about 50 events.
However, I quickly realized that co-marketing through email wasn't going to scale much further than 20 businesses. It was impossible to effectively promote 20 businesses in a single newsletter. They all got lost in the mass of messages. So, we began publishing their newsletters to the web and it began generating ongoing traffic to their websites.
At this time, a few businesses began to ask us to help them with their websites. We were driving a significant portion of their traffic to their site. It made sense to help them more directly. Email is great for reaching a large mass of people quickly. The web is better for building an always-on 24/7 active network - similar to a networking event.
So, at the end of 2007, I began reinventing my blog as a hub for existing and future clients. By exposing our network and facilitating connections among members at events, through email and the web, we plan to help each member drive significantly more income through their website.
In the first 15 days of 2008, 9 businesses have signed on as part of the PC4Media network. My partners and I are directly helping each business to attract more of the right visitors to their websites and convert them to leads once they get there. We're leveraging a powerful integrated platform that puts the power of online marketing in the hands of the business owner or non technical marketer, allowing them to leverage paid search, search engine optimization, blogging and the blogosphere, and social media to drastically - yet cost effectively - increase qualified visitors to their site. Once these visitors arrive, we're leveraging powerful yet simple landing page creation tools, web marketing analytics, and lead intelligence to convert these visitors into leads and sales. Additionally, I'll personally be facilitating connections among members so that they can work together to increase visibility of each other's businesses through events, email and the web.
My personal goal is to bring 240 businesses into the network in 2008. In the first 15 days of 2008, I already have 100s of people interested in getting my help. However, I'll be unable to personally manage these relationships and personally help these individuals. Although our internet marketing systems can accommodate thousands of businesses; and our reach scales as the community grows... my time does not.
This is why I am presenting this opportunity to you.