Posts Tagged ‘Customer’s’
April 13th, 2010
If you own a small business…
If you have NO Marketing experience…
If you’ve never written a post, blog or tweeted… then this is for you.
1. Market For Free -
Internet marketing is powerful due to the fact that there are so many ways to market for free (or very little) out-of-pocket costs. Here’s a few places to look into: Get involved on social websites (Facebook, Ping, Digg, Stumble Upon, Squidoo), Use video marketing (Youtube, Vimeo, Ustream, Vpype on Facebook), article marketing on places like Ezine articles, post ads on online classifieds sites like Craigslist, all these and more are great ways to market yourself and your business for free. All you need is some time, some effort and a little guidance, and your on your way.
2. Tap Into The Worldwide Market -
The Internet has become the vehicle to connect you with people from all over the world. With online tools, webinar’s, Skype, Social Media – Twitter, LinkedIn, you can learn, network, have video-conversations/webinar’s, build relationships with people from every part of the globe. Your market can be GLOBAL! No more limits on neighborhood only or constricted to your town and it’s competition.
3. The Internet NEVER closes -
Dream of your business being open 24/7? Dream no more, the internet has made that possible. Having an online business with your website available 24/7 makes you visible and available at all times of the day and night even when your sleeping. Cost to you? Price of a website that represents YOU. Do you have to pay for commercials? NO. Realize that ANY content that you post once, can market for you for WEEKS and/or MONTHS to come. That is AMAZING leverage to help you build your business.
4. Optimize Your Website – SEO & SMO
Want to increase traffic to your website? Get ranked by search engines. This can be achieved by making sure keywords/phrases that you’re trying to get ranked for are placed in the html tags and in the content of your site along with your domain name. Many people think their websites are optimized for search engines, in reality most are not. Keep in mind, that getting organically ranked takes some time but is well worth the wait. You also need to place your website information on a Facebook fan page along with submitting to other SM sites to make sure you have traffic from ALL potential search engines. (Google can not search Facebook)
5. No Time restraints -
You have the ability to work from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. You can be visiting family and friends and just drop a line on Twitter, post an update on Facebook, add an informative post to your blog/website and Voila!…you can continue visiting or learning or shopping for better items from ANY city in the world! Now that’s AWESOME!
6. Drive Traffic to Your WebSite.
Most people think that all they have to do is put up a website, sit back and watch their income increase. Nothing could be further from the truth. Realize that having an attractive website is important, but it means NOTHING without traffic. In other words, what good is an attractive website if no one to sees it? One of the biggest reasons that internet-based businesses fail is lack of quality traffic. No traffic, no income, no business. Successful business, regardless if it’s a network marketing business or a “traditional” business rely on TRAFFIC!
7. Video Marketing -
Video Marketing is a another great way to drive traffic to your site for several reasons. Why? Videos allow you to connect with your audience in a closer more personal way than you would in an article. Besides that, IT”S FREE and video is UBIQUITOUS – everywhere ALL the TIME. (Not like some commercial that is scheduled to run every 2 hours and costs you thousands of dollars without a guarantee of any ROI.) In a video, your audience can hear your voice, your excitement and they start identifying with you. (Make sure you’re posting valuable content and information.) While doing this simple marketing, you’ll brand yourself as an expert and drive targeted traffic, 24/7 and 365 days a year.
8. Article Marketing -
Article Marketing is one of the most common method people use to drive traffic to their site. Article Marketing allows you to put a link to your site in your resource box that people can click to get to your site. Writing and publishing articles also brands you as an authority in your target niche, it also allows your articles to be republished by other’s which results in your link being all over the internet. Republished Article = Traffic. Traffic = Potential Income. Ezine Artlcles is a great place for that! Don’t forget to submit to StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Delicious, and post on your Blog.
Happy Marketing!
February 15th, 2010
Well, we’re only 6 weeks into 2010 and WOW!
…lot’s of great things starting to take shape!….
First we have Apple announce the long awaited tablet… iPad.
Lots of controversy on that one. From questions to jokes to reality thoughts and ideas. For Marketing and Social Media this will be a winner. Very simple and straight forward, yet mobile and large enough to portray great visuals. No small screen, no clumsy laptop, but a very simple and straight forward tablet to use for presentations, shows, sales pitches, venues and networking. Stepping forward into space age.
Next, we have Facebook updating and changing it’s look…
Again, questions, complaints, jokes, comments, all because technology is evolving and moving forward. Facebooks changes are more organized, user friendly and “aero-dymanic” setting the stage for more business use and versatility. On it’s “heels” so to speak, we have Google launch it’s newest attempt at Social Media….“GoogleBuzz”.
Google buzz is suppose to be a handy tool..
“Buzz lets you share updates, photos, links, and pretty much anything else you’d like with your Gmail contacts; it’s an easy way to follow your friends, too. When you click Buzz in your Gmail account, you’ll see the stream of posts from people you’re following, and a box for you to post your updates,” courtesy of googlesystem. But what Google didn’t review was privacy issue’s. Anonymous Comment on Google Buzz: Basically any one you connect with via Buzz gets a full list and access to everyone you ever email or connect with using any of Google services, Facebook or Twitter if you have a public Google profile!!!
2 days later… we have additional updates concerning Google’s tweak on Buzz privacy settings.. Google announced some changes to Google Buzz late Thursday that show it has belatedly recognized the backlash over privacy concerns with the new service.
Summary so far? Jeremiah Owyang states it very well:
Executive Summary:
Brands Must Stay Focused On Where Customers Already Are
Google’s entrance causes media havoc but web strategists should stay focused. Find out where customers already are through developing data around consumer behavior called socialgraphics. Facebook continues to demonstrate a sophisticated marketplace for consumers and brands to mix about, however don’t discount MySpace’s active consumer base –but only if your customers are already there. Continue to monitor Twitter and respond if customers are tweeting –but they’ve yet to indicate sophistication to help marketers, instead rely on third party tools and agencies to respond.
Bottom line…Are you focused? Are your strategies in place?
December 22nd, 2009
Video Marketing is exploding!
Traditional marketing just can’t reach the size of targeted audience that digital can. More and more marketers are pulling away from these methods and investing into digital. For 2010, expect an accelerated move of ad dollars from traditional media to digital media.
Forrester Research says that 59% of US marketers plan to increase their budgets towards digital by pulling funds from traditional outlets. eMarketer currently is forecasting 5.5% growth with banner ads and online video. Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer states: “media dollars have imploded, media consumption will continue to explode. Due to increasingly empowered consumers and further advances in technology”.
With this being a consumer’s market that can skip or fast-forward through commercials, block out emails they don’t want, use cell phones to tweet, text, bank, shop, get directions…using ratings and reviews to make smart purchases…you can bettcha that video marketing is on the rise where businesses need to use creative, quick moments to entertain and sell their wares or services at the convenience of the consumer. This is very important as wherever the consumer pauses…stop lights, traffic jams, train stations, subway stations, airports…digital media can reach them right where they’re at. This is where Traditional media runs into trouble because traditional ad outlets can’t do that. Most consumer’s are now engaged in their mobile media vehicle whether it’s an iPhone, or one of the other numerous phones available.
Video Marketing is a BIG part of search marketing because people are very likely to watch a video that is part of search results over text results. Also…video’s often show up near the TOP of those search results depending on the number of views they have received.
Video’s are also fun and easy to understand.
Consumer’s are more likely to share fun and easy to understand video’s. Viral videos can and have climbed vertically through out the internet world as people have viewed and shared content that they viewed as compelling. YouTube has rocked the online community with it’s versatility and phenomenal growth along with incorporating comments and ratings thus creating an engaging environment. Another statement made by Geoff Ramsey states that consumers in this digital age simply have too much control over their media environments these days for marketers to be pushing unwanted banners, buttons or video’s.
Marketers and agencies need to develop new forms of messages that are welcomed.
Businesses need: “to create communications that are so compelling, entertaining, informative or useful that the consumer is not only happy to receive them, but also motivated to share them with others.” Geoff Ramsey
As the consumer is empowered to: accept, view, delete, block, share, rate, comment, in an amazing amount of Social vehicles then businesses need to capture this audience in 2010 with VIDEO MARKETING. As video can be viewed in a greater arena then the home… remember that your online audience has a very short attention span to start off with. This actually works in your favor because it allows you to save on production time and costs. Some great video guidelines are offered at ReelSEO.
Have you included video in your 2010 strategies?
November 16th, 2009
Consumers have four universal needs.
Connection, Uniqueness, Comfort and Variety. These needs vary in importance for each individual and each person’s need can also shift resulting in trading off needs. Example: Connection during holidays might be very important to some….others might need comfort, others crave uniqueness (standing out in the crowd) while others yet might like variety or choices (visiting lots of friends/family).
Marketing has only focused on the middle of the curve area…and not worked with consumer NEEDS. So the consumer navigates through the world without the influence of marketing.
How can they do that?
Consumers have shifted their spending with an awareness using online reviews, social media sites, chats and emails from friends. This puts the reins in their hands, helping them make informed decisions. Meanwhile, marketing budgets have been shrinking making it harder for marketers to create awareness let alone interest in their products. With budget cuts tight, marketers need to lean to digital as opposed to traditional. Smart Marketers will take that jump using digital to enhance the brand experience with current customers and acquire new ones through “word-of-mouth” marketing.
As 72% of consumers say prior experience has driven their brand loyalty, 58% of online adults say they trust online reviews MORE than any other medium except chat/emails from friends. For marketers to do more with less dollars, they will need to STOP focusing on gaining and spend more with current customers. Those customers will be your “word-of-mouth” marketing campaign. 
Also use digital means to enhance how you connect with consumers making your brand responsive and connected to the consumers ever shifting needs.
10 Things you can do:
In this Recession people have moved toward comfort and connection. Marketers and businesses MUST be reassuring and comforting to the consumer meeting their unique needs.
Bottom line – How available and helpful are you?
October 26th, 2009
…as the traditional marketing sector has also been affected by this recession. With companies slashing their marketing budgets from traditional means such as Television, radio, newspaper ads, SMM and RM has increased 10 fold due to it’s affordability and outreach.
The gas price inflation which in effect has kick-started this change, encouraged businesses to look for other vehicles or means to “get the word out”. Vehicles or means that were available but low-keyed in existence were: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Myspace, blogs, ping, Youtube, Delicious, digg, StumbleUpon, Squidoo and countless others. They were vehicles just waiting to be boarded and boarded they were.
Twitter’s vertical climb was off the charts and couldn’t be harnessed because it was moving so fast. Facebook’s social outreach created such a landing place for personal and businesses pages that it also has morphed into a community which has blown itself off the charts with phenomenal growth. Youtube went from being a fun place to upload personal video’s to a wide open advertising market, with phenomenal growth continuing as it has and is becoming a tool for businesses & marketer’s having a lower price tag than television. (Consisting of someone shooting the video, processing it and uploading to their site, versus full blown production costs.)
Video itself is ubiquitous – existing or being everywhere at the same time…constantly encountered it also has helped change the market field. Businesses are changing their vehicles from traditional means to places like-YouTube, Facebook, Hulu, Metacafe, Blip.tv, which can host or provide links to user friendly self-help video’s, educational video’s, how to video’s and news-feeds.
Networking has become a part of who we are.
Businesses are reaching out to customer loyalty, which in turn creates “word of mouth” marketing in today’s world on an internet level. This is where Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, YouTube and others have become so important to businesses. People are talking in these places, talking to friends, relatives, and certain acquaintances/businesses. If they like your product or service, they will talk about you, to you, to family, to friends, to neighbors and connect with you.
Online ratings and reviews are an amazing tool that affects consumer’s buying decisions, and consumers really are using this information to make those decisions. Online companies have already realized this and business owners are now turning to this phenomenon as consumer’s are wanting to know how good the product is, how many people are liking the product and more. The consumer has become very active in researching product information. Businesses need to understand this.
Studies show that the average person has around 250 friends, acquaintances, business connections, etc. within their network/social life. Things to focus on – building relationships with your customer/client, not buddy buddy, but really listening to what they need, being helpful, finding the best deals and passing that on, being aware of what’s happening in your region. Keeping in contact with your clients, even sending thoughtful cards to them. These things will bring your customer/client back and open the door for “word of mouth” marketing, whether it’s in person, online with Facebook, Twitter or others.
The magic is this: If one customer likes your product/service, then you have the potential of reaching 250 more through that one connection. If you have 10 happy customers then you have the potential to reach 2500 connections, if you have 100 happy customers ….. well, you do the math 
Have you changed your playing field yet? 
If you’ve changed your marketing practices…leave a comment in the comment field below and let us know how it’s helped…
If you NEED HELP to change your marketing practices…fill in the contact form below:
[easy-contact]
September 22nd, 2009
Recapping what Social Media is and what SEO does to help businesses.
As Social Media embraces a wide variety of formats, each format provides users with a personal preference appeal means to interact and share information.
- Breaking News: Places like Twitter, FaceBook and blogs give ordinary people the ability to share news and events before the news media even gets there. Items like iphones and blackberries, laptops, along with these sites have increased the news sharing so much that online news or traditional news has almost become snail paced.
- Information Distribution Center: Depending on the format, Social media allows one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many communications. Information can be distributed in multiple fashion, including Twitter updates, RSS feeds, blogs and podcasts, postings on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Ning and YouTube.
- Building online communities around people, events and brands: Using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace along with blogs, enables people to gather and participate with like-minded people.
- Consumer input: Enables user contribution serving as information filters by content sharing and ratings, using the strength of comments and submissions on Twitter, blogs and video sites, also known as wisdom of the crowds.
Social Media has forever changed the traditional content marketplace making it readily available in a large variety of formats. This way the individual or business can mold it into whatever their needs are, making this a very appealing change where companies are in charge of their own personalized media content.
So how does this tie in with SEO?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization brings you to higher rankings in your Search engines like Google, Yahoo, ect. As more and more businesses are launching web sites, blogs and venturing in the online arena, page rankings have become increasingly important. How to get higher page rankings? Have a clear and precise strategy using SEO and Social Media. Why do I need both? Because you can’t succeed at one without the other.
If you venture the SEO path, great…so now your optimized and everything is in place. So how do people find out about you? Answer: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, StumbleUpon, these are just a few examples of important avenues to use in Social Media. One Tweet on Twitter can drive up your traffic. As YouTube and Facebook have become daily routine for most people, an informational video clip of 2 min or less can broaden your traffic, along with increasing your page rankings. So can a Facebook page or blog, inviting discussions, comments, and reviews/share your story places. People are looking for quality, caring and real places.
A great “quick to the point” read would be Ian Lurie’s article about You can’t Separate Social Media and SEO.
I also really like how Lee Odden states in his blog-”if you’re going to create it, why not optimize it?” His Social Media Readiness: 6 Questions is also a great information site and a must read.
Are your Social Media Strategies compounding results?
August 13th, 2009
With power shifts continuing…marketing is morphing itself into a world that influences your brand, your product and your services.
Consumers have grabbed ahold of Social networks in such a frenzy that those networks have skyrocketed in growth five-fold. Building Social Strategies is vital to businesses surviving in this crucial time. To be successful, marketers must use a strategic, systematic approach in setting up this process.
*Listed below are seven practical ways to be efficient in this strategy.
- Socialize content.
- Word of mouth with Twitter
- Aggregate existing content.
- Crowdsource your support.
- Sponsor bloggers.
- Sponsor events.
- Let go with APIs.
*Additional things to do:
- Manage social media for the long term.
- Start small but plan for the long term.
- Accurately prove effectiveness through social application metrics.
- Measure based on objective
- Develop the right roles.
- Social media strategist and community manager
- Educate through social media supplements. Like Procter & Gamble’s social media lab
*Courtesy of Forrester’s Research.
July 12th, 2009
I ran across this article the other day Twitter as a Leadership Tool….and while reading it…thought…WOW! So true! Then the idea’s started running through my head.
Most people are not understanding what Twitter actually does. They look at Twitter as just another “something to do” stating they have enough to do already. I’ve experienced that numerous times. I had an IT guy tell me the same thing…”Twitter, is just another thing to do….and keep up with.” What they are missing is this:
Twitter is an opportunity to give to others and make an impact, leading in a way that wasn’t possible till now.
Leading is influence, which really is not anything else but teaching. Twitter provides that vehicle in an extended way. So what is Leadership? Looking up Leadership…I ran across a lot of definitions…most of them relating to influence.
Wikipedia’s definition-
Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”.[1]
The Art & Science of Leadership
The process of influencing people while operating to meet organizational requirements and improving the organization through change.
Dictionary.com–verb (used with object)
- to go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort: to lead a group on a cross-country hike.
- to influence or induce; cause: Subsequent events led him to reconsider his position.
- to guide in direction, course, action, opinion, etc.; bring: You can lead her around to your point of view if you are persistent.
Influencing people also means communicating with them. Twitter can be a mega phone to communicate with large groups at once, like texting one text message to however many followers you have. Imagine that…only one tweet can reach thousands at once - simultaneously.
Twitter is another tool for leaders, enabling Leaders to step out further in ways never thought of before. See additional comment from leaders on Leadership and Tweeting.
Want more info on Leadership? Visit Minding the Gaps by Thomas J. Lee. His comment about Twitter and Leadership?
Leadership is indeed about more than position, status, or title. But it has to be about more than influence, too. Influence alone presupposes that leaders have all the answers. So leadership has to reach for real inspiration, for the excited and collaborative involvement of followers. Twitter can help on this, too, by both implicitly and explicitly encouraging people to be more of what they can be.
What is your focus for tweeting?
June 26th, 2009
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is all about optimizing (making the best use of a resource). It is about rearranging or rewriting data to improve efficiency and/or retrieval. SEO is BIG business as it improves your site to show up higher in search results, meaning more traffic and more business. (See Wikipedia’s definition.)
An SEO expert will analyze what search engines look at when they rank websites, then placing keywords in the right places, allowing the search engines to do their work at the most efficient level. Results? Higher rankings, increased traffic, better search results.
The majority of your web traffic is driven by major commercial search engines, like Google, Yahoo!, MSN & AskJeeves…so if your site cannot be found by these search engines, or your content isn’t able to be inputted in their databases, you are missing out on the incredible opportunities available via search on the internet. Search engines are the primary method of navigation for the vast majority of Internet users. Targeted visitors to a website can and will provide exposure, publicity, revenue, increasing traffic helping your business succeed. SEO is a valuable investment, whether it’s through time or finances, that can have an exceptional rate of return for your business.
Search Engines technology is a continually evolving project looking to improve methods, along with crawling the web deeper to increase relevant results to internet users. Additionally, SEO can help boost rankings where relevant content can be found so searchers will readily see it. This being very important as the online environment has become increasingly competitive, with companies who do perform SEO having an advantage in visitors and customers.
Can I do this myself? or do I need to hire someone?
There are some simple basics to put in place as it’s really not “rocket science”, it’s figuring out some keywords for your site, then putting those keywords in the right places. Those places include – title bar(text that shows up at the top of your browser), headers, headlines and/or bold text on a page and meta data (helpful information in a page’s code that’s not visible in a browser). This task can seem daunting to a lot of people so using a firm with good SEO experience would be advisable for those.
For those of you who DIY…Some great SEO tools to use: SEOTOOLS. Also visit this SEOGuide.
How does your page rank?
June 16th, 2009
Do you need to put a full length seminar or conference online? The answer is USTREAM. Ustream.TV is a live interactive video broadcast platform that can enable you to quickly and easily setup and start broadcasting NOW. This is an amazing tool to help empower businesses, schools, corporations, musicians, houses of worship, to creating engaging content thus furthering their brand. Ustream has the ability to create your own channel and start broadcasting within a few minutes.
Things to broadcast? Endless are the possibilities…
Conference sessions
Training seminars
School Events
Sporting Events
Talk shows
Debates/Political events
Music performances
These are just a few ideas…Want to broadcast now? 
The Internet has become the vehicle to connect you with people from all over the world. With online tools, webinar’s, Skype, Social Media – Twitter, LinkedIn, you can learn, network, have video-conversations/webinar’s, build relationships with people from every part of the globe. Your market can be GLOBAL! No more limits on neighborhood only or constricted to your town and it’s competition. 
