I just acquired a Droid from Verizon in January and I have been amazed at what the latest ’smart phones’ can do.  If you already have a smart phone then you know what I’m talking about.  If you don’t and you’re a business owner, then you owe it to yourself to at least find out what they can do. It’s still a phone, but I find myself using it less as phone and more and more as EVERYTHING else!  Here is a short list in case you were wondering…

• Web browser, Camera, Music player, Calendar, Organization tool, Email, Phone Book, Alarm clock, Flash Light, Gaming device, Social Media hot links, and much more including a Local Search device.

Smart phone users can instantly search for local products and services, read about business details, get a map link for instant directions, read reviews on the business and more.  This is all great news…if your business is listed.  If you’re not listed, then someone else is and you’re losing business.

The good news is that most small business owners will be slow to react and by the time they do it will be too late.  Savy business owners will have already claimed their online real estate and optimized it to ensure they keep it. We all know the yellow page directories are dying and local search with smart phones is only going to expedite their demise.

So what are you going to do?

If you’re not sure where to start, here are few quick tips.

• Search for your business on your smart phone. Can you find it?  Can you find your competitors?  If you don’t have a smart phone, borrow one from a cool friend.
• Claim your Google and Yahoo Local directory listings NOW!  Populate them with as much information about your business as you can.
• Claim your Business on Customer Review sites like Yelp! and Merchant Circle.
• Develop a plan to get your Customer Reviews in order.
• Enlist the help of a Local Search Engine Optimization specialist

Don’t wait. I think this shift is coming extremely fast and you have a golden opportunity to take advantage of it now.

One of the huge advantages of the internet over traditional media is that you can measure everything…if you have an analytics program. Google Analytics is a FREE program gives the average business more information than you’ll ever need.

Once you start gathering data, then you can answer questions that drive your future decisions on web design and search engine marketing. Questions, such as:

• How many people are visiting my website?

• How are they finding your web site?

• How long are they staying?

• How many site visitors convert and become real leads?

Your focus should be on conversions, leads and sales – not just visits. Once you start gathering data and determine your current results, then you can put a plan in place to improve the results.

Need help?

WSI is offering a Special Deal through January 2010 – Install Google Analytics for $88.  Sign up for this special offer.

Social Media was all the buzz in 2009 and it will likely increase in 2010.  For most B2B businesses, the return on investment is still low at best, especially when compared with other forms of online marketing, such as SEO, PPC, and email marketing.

Ignoring social media should not be an option for any business.  I’m not saying every business should be doing it all. In fact, my opinion is far from that.  For most B2B businesses, I still think the direct impact that social media can have on your business is minimal. My advice is understand it, educate your employees and participate where it makes sense. I’d rather see you spend time on online activities that offer a significant ROI, i.e. SEO, PPC, email marketing, conversion architecture and web analytics.

However, there is no denying the fact that social media is “where the eyeballs are”.  People are spending a large chunk of their time online (over 50%) on social media sites like Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, Blogs and more. As a result, EVERY business needs to have a strategy as to how you’re going to address it.

At a minimum, every business’  Social Media Strategy should address the following items.

• Educate yourself and your staff on social media
• Ensure social media policies and guidelines are established
• Ensure your brand is protected and consistent
• Monitor your online reputation. Setup Google Alerts at No cost.
• Create a social presence and community

Contact WSI for assistance in developing a Social Media Strategy kit for your business.

Method has done a pretty good job of removing the commercial from everywhere it’s been posted. Here’s the only place I could find it online: Watch Video.

Read more about it here.

As a female that is somewhat interested in preserving the environment, I represent their most likely consumer. And as much as the commercial bothered me, I still bought an all-natural shower cleaner the next day. However, I didn’t buy their brand.

The whole thing is a good reminder of the importance of not just knowing your audience, but knowing how to communicate with them. The same applies to web design. A cool flash website may have all the information necessary to sell your product or service, but is it alienating your customers with too much trendiness or loading time or just annoying music? Clean page formats that present your information in an accessible way may be boring to a web designer that stares at designs all day, but you have to design with your customers’ communication needs in mind.

If your website has great information that’s presented in a way that turns people off, you’re advertising for your competition.

Email marketing remains the most cost-effective marketing tool available. More importantly, it allows you to create ongoing awareness of your brand and offerings with your clients and prospects.

Email marketing is often forgotten in the Social Media buzz, but it is a form of social media. 90% of people use email daily while less than 40% visit social media sites each day.  Here are some simple guidelines.

• Start building a permission-based list NOW – No spamming
• Send a newsletter one time per month.
• Develop your plan for the next six months now. Don’t make it a last minute chore each month. Tie it in with the rest of your marketing plan.
• Give your readers useful information or something of value. You want to keep them reading. It could be Tips, Discount Offers, or just interesting info.
• Keep your messages short and to the point.
• Drive visitors back to your website where they can get more detailed information.

Email marketing systems, such as Constant Contact, start as low as $15 per month. What are you waiting for?

Whether you choose to believe it or not, there is a monumental shift taking place in marketing. Technology and the internet has changed the way people communicate and connect.

Take the case of an average 22 year old – I’ll call him Alex.

Alex doesn’t watch regular TV – he downloads shows or watches them online. He doesn’t read a newspaper, watch the news, or listen to AM/FM radio. He stays connected and in touch in his world via his cell phone, texting, email, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. If he listens to music, it’s an iPod, iTunes, or satellite radio. If he watches a movie it’s Netflix, Hulu, or some other downloadable content. If he needs a phone number, he looks it up online or dials GOOG 411 – Alex has never used a Yellow Page book. If he wants to buy a product or see a movie, he checks online to see what others say first.

If he needs a product or service that he hasn’t needed before, such as renter’s insurance, a doctor, or even a plumber, he either asks his small circle of friends first and then checks them out online…or he just searches direct online.

Alex even goes so far as to check gas prices and deals at the local grocer online.  How weird is that to a 50 year old?

My point is that Alex has nearly complete control over what information he receives, who he receives it from, and when he receives it…and virtually none of it is via traditional marketing.

The shift is not isolated to the younger generation either. As technology continues to rapidly advance and become more available, more of the older generation is making the shift. Personally, I never watch the News (too much negativity), I use iGoogle as my blog / news reader, listen to XM or last.fm online, etc. etc.

So What?

Well, if you’re a business you need to determine if your current marketing plan is reaching this ever expanding group of buyers. If you’re not, I can promise you someone else is. Companies that are not in the game are already missing huge opportunities and will find it difficult to play catch up with companies that have been embracing the change for several years.

Doug

Internet Business Consultant @ www.WSIWebworks.com

Contact me at (864) 354-1730 to discuss search engine marketing strategies for your business. ]]> http://www.inbandw.com/2009/08/04/how-do-you-reach-alex/feed/ 0 http://www.inbandw.com/2009/08/04/put-your-web-audience-under-the-microscope/ http://www.inbandw.com/2009/08/04/put-your-web-audience-under-the-microscope/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:54:57 +0000 Doug Fowler http://blog.taprootblog.com/?p=74

… Enter a whole new world of customer information

Follow the trail of your customers

Market research and consumer studies have for long been the beacons for marketers, offering enlightening information on buying patterns, seasonal highs and lows, effectiveness of retail store layout, factors affecting promotions or discount offers, and so on. With the explosion of online users worldwide, several thousand businesses face the challenge of not knowing what their customers really want, how to anticipate their actions and therefore, how to encourage desired actions, i.e. conversions. The related enigma is how to deliver and meet online customer expectations before and much better than the competition can.

Analytics has the ability to put your online audiences under the microscope and study their every move, behavioral patterns and social networking. Early analytics tools and reporting started out with measuring the fundamentals, which still hold weight:

Monitoring and measuring the various sources that bring traffic to your site – landing pages, search engines, paid advertising, banners, email blasts, internal and external links, referral sites, directories, online classifieds, etc.

Site stickiness - studying site statistics and data that reveals which pages keep visitors on a site, for how long and where they leave the site. A high bounce rate and short time spent on a site overall results in lower conversions, quite simply because people are not on a site long enough to respond to the call to action. Which brings us to the next point…

Effectiveness of call to action – this is the crux of Internet marketing success – getting a high conversion rate by ensuring that the objectives and goals of your site are met with users taking the actions you want them to. Whether this is making a purchase, downloading a document (whitepaper, article, guide, reference material, tips, manual, checklist), subscribing to a newsletter or any other conversion goal.

Volume of traffic – knowing the numbers. Even though getting qualified traffic that will ultimately convert is the goal of every Internet marketer, it is also important to study overall traffic volumes and get those numbers up. Lead generation and lead nurturing still rely heavily on greater volume because a busy pipeline creates a better sales funnel and drives more results.

Going beyond the basics of site data

Today it is possible to measure the effectiveness of your blog, track your RSS feeds, view statistics about your online press release hits, monitor your Facebook advertising and profile searches, follow the “tweets” on Twitter, count the clappers on YouTube, build your career forum on LinkedIn, the list is endless. With the ever increasing buzz of social media marketing and sites like Mashable.com, you can get deep into the mind of your customer and step up engagement ratios like never before. There is whole new world of chatterboxes out there and you can leverage word of mouth online to build your brand. The trick is knowing who is talking, where, what they are saying and who is listening! WSI Analytics Reporting services will give you business intelligence to deliver what your customers want, when they want it.

Contact WSI Webworks to bring the light of consumer knowledge to your business. ]]> http://www.inbandw.com/2009/08/04/put-your-web-audience-under-the-microscope/feed/ 0 http://www.inbandw.com/2009/08/04/get-your-face-on-page-one-of-google/ http://www.inbandw.com/2009/08/04/get-your-face-on-page-one-of-google/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:46:19 +0000 Doug Fowler http://blog.taprootblog.com/?p=64 Google continues to make changes in their search results and most of the changes are very beneficial to businesses and individuals that are engaged in search engine marketing.

One such change is a recently added a feature to allow you to get your picture on Page One of their search results. Everyone is Googling other people these days – employers, friends, neighbors, prospects, etc. Unfortunately, if you Google yourself you’ll find thousands of results and you’re probably buried on page 10.

Good News – Google is now providing a way to put your personal profile on Page ONE of their results. They call it Google Profiles. I think it’s another great way to brand yourself and it’s really easy to setup.  Google my name ‘Doug Fowler’.  You’ll find my profile at the bottom of page ONE that looks like the picture below.

You should see a Google Paid ad at the top of the page promoting Google Profiles.  Click on the link and get started. Oh yeah, you’ll need a Google account to get started.

At least once a day, someone asks me a question about Social Media. It’s the buzz about business and marketing circles. Social media wasn’t a big deal a few years ago, but it became a hot topic when the masses got on board. Now, the eyeballs are online – people are reading blogs, twittering, stumbling upon stuff and checking their Facebook. There’s no arguing the buzz and rapid growth in social media.  Facebook alone has over 175 million users (see http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics) and is growing at an estimated 5 million users per week.

However, what does this mean to the small business owner? Is it worthwhile? Does it offer a measurable return? Should you even care?

The jury is still out on the measurable ROI question – I’ll address that on another day.  There are some businesses using it effectively for connecting with their target markets, but most of what I see is not providing an ROI, at least not a positive ROI.

Is having 5000 friends on Facebook of any more value to your business than getting to Level 60 on World of Warcraft?  Who has 5000 friends that they can communicate with anyway???

Opportunities for success really depend on your business and who your target market is. There is no denying that social media can be a worthwhile part of your overall marketing strategy. It’s where a growing number of your customers and future customers are, and you need to be aware of the conversation at the very least.

In my opinion, too many companies are jumping on board with no real plan.  Many small businesses have yet to master having an effective web presence, search engine marketing, and email marketing and here they go jumping into Social Media because everyone is talking about it.  Small business should aim their efforts at the biggest opportunities online.   According to eMarketer, over 90% of all web users use search engines and email daily. Compare that to around 16% of web users who hit a social network once a month.

My advice to small business. Evaluate your existing online presence. If your web presence is non-existent, can’t be found, embarrassing or ineffective, get it in order first before you start telling the masses to come look.  Then, start small with social media.  There are a number of relatively easy things you can do to get in the game that I’ll be discussing later this week.  Stay tuned.