How To Successfully Market Your Business With A Pink Spoon

If you have ever signed up on a website to receive information in the form of a free report, newsletter or ebook and had this delivered to your inbox, you have experienced the pink spoon. A pink spoon is a ‘free taste’ of what a business has to offer. It is like the ice cream franchise that offers potential customers the opportunity to sample a flavour of their ice cream using a pink spoon. If a potential customer likes their ‘free taste’ they will go on to make a purchase. This catchy phrase was coined by Andrea J. Lee, award-winning author, coach, consultant and online business manager.

Why is Pink Spoon Marketing a good way to boost business?

• It is a lead generation tool. Providing a free offering to visitors to your website is a good way to capture people’s names and email addresses.
• It allows you to keep in regular contact with your prospects. You are building a mailing list that you can broadcast to.
• It is a way to build relationships and trust. As you continue to communicate with your list, they get to know you and see the value of the products and services you have to offer.
• It generates new business. You will earn paying clients when your services fit with their needs.

A Pink Spoon can apply to almost any industry and there are many possibilities of what you can offer as a freebie. Here are a few examples:

• a 5 part (or 6 part etc.) e-course
• a free report
• a newsletter subscription
• a free chapter of your book

Are you ready to start setting up your pink spoon to build your database? You will need:

• An email marketing or shopping cart service with website sign up form and autoresponder capabilities, i.e. AWeber, Practice Pay Solutions. (If you’re not quite ready to start selling products you can still go with a shopping cart and upgrade your cart later with the selling features.)
• A pink spoon sign up form and attached thank you page on your website. The sign up form should be one of the first things someone sees when they visit your website. Generally the form is added to the top right of a web page and is really obvious. The form is usually quite simple asking for First Name and Primary Email with a Submit button. If it takes too long to complete the form or the info you are asking for seems too personal to give out on a website for a free offering, the less likely people will sign up. It is also good practice to indicate that you will never share your prospects information with anyone and that they have the option to unsubscribe at any time.
• An autoresponder or a series of autoresponder emails to be sent out on a predetermined schedule to deliver your free offering and broadcasts for ongoing communication with your list.
• Support with the process. If you are technically challenged, find a Virtual Assistant or a Webmaster who is familiar with this marketing strategy and who has the technical expertise to set up and customize the shopping cart and your website.

If you are willing to take the initiative, pink spoon marketing is something that can be set up once and continue to work for you time after time.

Perception Is Everything When It Comes To Time Management

Why is it that when we have to complete something in record time we are able to, however, when we have one week to complete the same assignment, it takes us a full 7 days? I came across an article lately discussing time management with a reference to Parkinson’s Law and our perception of time. Parkinson’s Law is defined as follows: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Interesting concept.

Time constraints are motivators that work for me both personally and professionally. Think about it and you can probably come up with a couple of instances where you were under the gun and performed brilliantly. With deeper concentration you can attain the same results or better in a shorter period of time. Try it:

• Block out some non-interrupted time to work on something. You can identify your most important tasks of the day and pick one or begin work on a long term goal.
• Make the goal achievable but challenging and schedule it into your calendar.
• You may need to set a timer to help you focus.
• Turn off distractions such as email and phone. One interruption can mean up to 20 minutes to get back to what you were doing.
• Aim for completion of the goal, not perfection.

Note: Never struggle with anything for more than 15 minutes. Take a break and come back to it with a clear mind.

By focusing all your energy on achieving the task at hand, you increase your chances of completing it. Single-tasking means you will be more focused, make fewer errors and achieve better results.

Do you have a larger goal you need to achieve? Break up your goal into smaller portions. For example, think how much closer to completion you will be if you write 5 pages of your ebook every day. As Henry Ford once said: “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.”

Make the time you spend working as effective as possible.