Online marketing is not all about techniques and tactics that search marketing professionals are best suited for. As a matter of fact, some of the most effective marketing strategies involve little to no expertise or experience with things like Search Engine Optimization or Paid Search Marketing. One of these new mediums that we are referring to is Online Marketing through Group Buying websites. This strategy is quickly gaining traction as a truly effective marketing medium and we’re going to tell you all about it so you can start taking advantage of it yourself.

What are Group Buying Websites?

Group buying websites leverage the power of collective bargaining to provide attractive local deals that offer significant savings for consumers while also promising lucrative sales numbers to participating merchants. These local group buying websites, like Groupon, BuyWithMe and SocialBuy, have gained a lot of traction as they offer short term, daily deals that discount luxury items and everyday products all the way up to 50% off. Products and services offered tend to sell out within hours, thus making this a very attractive and affordable marketing solution for local businesses.

Group Buying Websites Defined

A business promotes their product or service on the group buying website (i.e. Groupon), typically marking down the cost of the item by 50%, sometimes more and sometimes less. For consumers to take advantage of this deal, a minimum number of buyers must also buy in. Consumers secure their position and interest in the deal by providing their credit card number. This credit card is only charged once the deal attracts the minimum number of consumers who sign up for the deal.

The business advertising their product pays nothing upfront and if the deal does not attract the minimum requirement of sign ups, then the business pays nothing at all. Once the deal is valid (i.e. the minimum number of participants is met) then the group buying site charges the consumers’ credit cards. The group buying site keeps a percentage of the sales as their commission, cuts a check to the business that advertised their product and sends a voucher to the consumer.

Top Group Buying Websites

To help you understand the viral nature of this coupon phenomenon and to get you thinking about how and what you can promote your products and services, we thought it would be helpful to provide a short list of some of the top group buying websites so you could start playing around with them yourself.

Groupon

This is the original group buying and coupon website that sparked it all. Due to its fantastic funding, Groupon offers the most local deals in the most cities across the US, thus making it the most popular option. An added plus of Groupon is that someone can purchase Groupons for their friends or buy gift certificates as well turning this service into a very nice gift option.

BuyWithMe

Although BuyWithMe still only has a limited presence in the US, this site is unique in that it promotes its daily deals through the social web. In addition, and to the advantage of local merchants, this service cancels any deals if the business promoting it does not obtain the sales volume or numbers that it requires.

SocialBuy

SocialBuy, relying more on email marketing to promote their daily deals, showcases special deals on local products and services from food to health products. A nice added bonus that this website offers is a $10 credit in SocialBucks for every friend referred to the service.

CrowdSavings

Very similar to Groupon, Crowdsavings assembles large online groups of people to leverage the collective bargaining power to obtain unbeatable deals and discounts on local products and services.

PriceBunch

Much like the other group buying websites, Pricebunch offers some fantastic deals. The reason we mention this one though is that it offers up some very useful testimonials and reviews for each daily deal so that consumers can make an informed purchasing decision.

There are many more group buying websites out there, and even more sprouting up everyday, but the ones above are ones that we have found to consistently be the most simple, effective and attractive to both merchants and consumers. Don’t just take our word for it though. Get out there and find the best collaborative buying websites for your local area and ask how you can get your business involved.

How to Market with Group Buying Websites

Thanks to the simplistic nature of this group buying / social shopping business model, this “How To” section will be one of the easiest to digest. Not having to think about how many characters have been exceeded in your title tag or how your deep anchor text link is being displayed by some webmaster, this “How To” can be explained in three easy steps:

STEP 1: Define Your Offer

Before you spend any time contacting group buying sites it is imperative that you pinpoint what you’re offering down to its most important details. Many times businesses will put out offers that may seem like a fantastic deal since the cost is being deeply discounted, but once consumers are lured in it is not uncommon for these consumers to find that their offer was just the “cheese in the mousetrap” to spend up to two or three times as much as the offer advertised.

This is obviously a plus for many business, but remember that group buying is also social shopping. Anything social on the web now can also become extremely viral, good or bad. Just make sure your deal is desirable, transparent and inviting. If you can combine those three things into a promotion then you will successfully leverage any group buying website.

STEP 2: Find the Best Group Buying Website for Your Area

Now that you have chosen your promotion, the next step is to find your promotion portal. Although there are tons of group buying sites out there to choose from already, it is important to make sure that you select the best website for your local area and promotion.

Here’s a handy Group Buying Website Comparison Chart to help you make the best choice for your area and business. Groupon.com is the most popular to date, but this does not mean that other websites cannot provide you with the same upside, if not better, so do your homework.

STEP 3: Signup / Contact the Group Buying Website of Your Choice

Once you have narrowed down your choice, simply go to the website, find the “Business Owners” or “Advertise With Us” link (usually somewhere towards the bottom or top right corner) and enter the necessary information.

Some sites like BuyWithMe.com let you simply complete a form right from their website. Other sites, like Groupon.com, can sometimes require a phone call first to make sure that your business / services are a good fit for their audience.

Once you’re signed up and your promotion is running then sit back and watch the cash roll in.

Group Buying Promotion Success Stories

Like most business owners we’re sure you would like to see / hear some cases where businesses actually did well with their group buying promotion efforts so we have provided a few for you here. Before you spend any of your valuable time researching and using these group buying websites make sure that you feel comfortable doing so and also that this model fits what you’re selling.

CASE STUDY 1

COMPANY: Wendella Boats & Chicago Water Taxi
PROVIDED BY: Gregg Pupecki (Sales and Marketing Director)

Gregg’s company sold more than 5,000 discount tickets on its first Groupon promotion and 20,000 on the next, which gave people a 75 minute tour of the architecture lining the Chicago River.

Gregg says, “I think Groupon is one of the best sales and marketing tools to come out since the Internet. Groupon is something any business owner or marketing manager can do themselves, no matter what size the company is.”

CASE STUDY 2

COMPANY: Red Velvet Cupcakery and Tangy Sweet Frozen Yogurt
PROVIDED BY: Tracy Wilson (CEO)

Red Velvet Cupcakery offers $50 gift cards for $25 on LivingSocial.com three times a year. These promotions each bring in about $20,000 to $30,000 (about a week’s gross sales).

Tracy says, “It gives you a no-muss, no-fuss way of marketing your business without any major commitment.”

We would love for you to be our next case study so do some research and try promoting your products / services on one of these group buying websites.

Is Social Shopping the Future for Retail?

Social shopping may just be a trend right now or it may actually be the way that consumers come to expect retailers to sell their services; either way, it has proven to be effective, cheap and extremely viral so it’s worth trying out for now. Who knows, maybe it will end up producing a much return higher than your traditional print marketing, or even your search engine marketing efforts.

What do you think?

If you have any questions, comments or cases that you’d like to share with us, then please do so by leaving a comment below.

Online marketing is primarily about getting prospective customers exposed to your product, service or cause. Once you have made it simple for these prospects to find and see your business online, then online marketing comes to be about converting those visitors into leads / sales. One step past the conversion stage is to keep your newly acquired customers happy, satisfied and wanting more. Although this all may sound a lot easier than it actually is, an effective online marketing strategy, from initial touch to retention, can actually be quite complex.

Fortunately, online marketing feeds off of the technologies that continue to drive increased sales and higher customer retention rates. Business owners can now market their business, sell to their prospects and retain their customers – all from the palm of their hand. The booming smart phone market has completely changed how businesses interact with prospects and customers. Whether or not Steve Jobs of Apple had the foresight to know that his most innovative creation to date, the iPhone, would change the way that we all communicate with each other, it is obvious that his powerful hand held creation has quickly become an essential tool for any business owner.

Market Your Business…With an iPhone

Running an effective online marketing campaign can be a full-time job, let alone running a business as well. Luckily, there are numerous tools available that continue to make online marketing more convenient than ever before. One of our favorite tools is the iPhone. Apple’s iPhone, with its selection of over 1 Million applications, allows business owners and marketers to dynamically advertise and promote their business right from their mobile phone. With the amount of functionality that the iPhone has, it is possible to manage almost all of your online marketing initiatives from just about anywhere.

Here is our list of some of the most useful and effective iPhone apps to market your business online.

NOTE: This list will quickly become outdated so make sure to check back frequently for our newest additions

Best iPhone Apps for Social Marketing

Facebook – FREE

With hundreds of millions of active users, Facebook is an essential and integral piece of any online marketing campaign. The multiple features and vast network of potential prospects makes Facebook a fantastic medium for any business looking to market their services online.

Here are some effective ways to use Facebook’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Keep your Facebook Fan Page updated with useful information, tips and promos relevant to your business
2. Befriend prospective customers and listen in on conversations about those that may be interested in your services.
3. Keep your profile updated with relevant, entertaining and resourceful posts to keep your Facebook friends interested and intrigued

TwitBit – $2.99

With every Facebook account there is a Twitter account. Ok, not really, but that seems to be the case as most business owners who are spending time on Facebook are also investing some effort into Twitter. Although we find Facebook to be much more effective and far-reaching (once a network has been built up), we think that Twitter is a necessary social media marketing tool for any business.

We selected TwitBit as our preferred Twitter app as it has the most comprehensive set of features, including Push Notifications which are extremely vital for timely responses. There are tons of other greater Twitter apps available like Tweetie, HootSuite and SimplyTweet, but we have tried them all and so far prefer this one…for now.

Here are some effective ways to use TwitBit’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Tweet photos, videos and updates about products, services and promos that your business is offering
2. Search “Nearby” tweets to engage and converse with prospective customers
3. Use Twitter search to find trending topics relevant to your business and post relevant updates to start conversations with other users

LinkedIn – FREE

Although LinkedIn does not have the massive following or Twitter or Facebook it is still an extremely useful tool for marketing your business online. Much like other social networks, LinkedIn allows users to post updates and connect with other users to expand their social networks and business contacts. As LinkedIn continues to add more features to its platform it is quickly becoming one of the most essential social networks for every business owner and marketer.

Here are some effective ways to use TwitBit’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Post status updates with links to recent blog posts, videos, or other media that talks about your business, product or service
2. Participate in “Discussions” to prove your authority on specific topics relevant to your business
3. Connect or re-connect with other LinkedIn users to maintain professional relationships to realize the benefits of maximizing your networks

Foursquare – FREE

Localized marketing has become a staple for just about any business. Local search marketing and ge0-targeted applications are making it easier for prospective customers to find exactly what they’re looking for right in their own backyard. Foursquare, one of the top geo-location apps, allows people to explore their city and get rewarded for frequenting certain businesses and places – all from their iPhone.

Here are some effective ways to use Foursquare’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Promote rewards for frequent patrons of your business
2. Assure that your business listing is available and accurate in Foursquare
3. Converse with patrons of your business or those nearby

Yelp – FREE

Much like Foursquare, Yelp allows users to ‘check-in’ at local locations and businesses. What makes Yelp useful as a marketing tool is that it allows threaded conversations to be held for specific venues and businesses. Business owners can and should interact with their reviewers as much as possible to generate interest and participation. These interactions can ultimately lead to a loyal customer who may not have returned to your establishment past their initial visit.

Here are some effective ways to use Yelp’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Chat with local users via the “Talk” feature to answer questions and help users find the best products, services, business (i.e. Your’s)
2. Check-in to spots that you frequent and leave good reviews (if applicable) as this creates a domino affect and often times leads to people leaving them for your business
3. Stay on top of notifications of patrons that visit your business frequently and reward them for their patronage

Best iPhone Apps for Blogging

WordPress – FREE

Having a website and/or blog is a necessary tool for just about any business, especially if that business is looking to find prospects online through trusted, conversational channels. Making blogging even easier than before, the WordPress iPhone app allows business owners and marketers to keep their WordPress blogs updated right from their iPhone.

Here are some effective ways to use WordPress’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Add new posts relevant to your business, product(s) or service(s)
2. Moderate comments from blog readers to provide prompt and informative responses to pending comments
3. Add new static pages to your blog to help readers find useful content easily and to help your blog search engine visibility

Tumblr – FREE

If you’re like many business owners that do not have the time or expertise to setup a professional WordPress blog, then luckily there are other, more simple options for you. One of these options is the micro-blogging platform provided by Tumblr. A Tumblr blog makes it very simple for anyone, novice or expert, to post useful content online and the Tumblr iPhone app allows you to do so right from the palm of your hand.

Here are some effective ways to use Tumblr’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Post multimedia content (i.e. photos, videos, and audio clips) about specific products or services you offer
2. Add new posts about specific products, services or specials
3. Use the “Quote” tool to post testimonials from happy customers who have used your products or services

Best iPhone App for Web Analytics

AnalyticsPro (Thomas Blackburn)- $6.99

Tracking the analytics and web stats of your website and / or blog is just as important as writing content, building links and marketing your business on the top social networks. Knowing your website’s traffic and trends at all times will help you to make the necessary business and marketing decisions to maximize the amount of opportunity that exists online. The Analytics Pro iPhone app allows you to stay on top of your stats at all times.

Here are some effective ways to use AnalyticsPro’s iPhone app to track your online marketing:

1. Check daily, weekly, and monthly website traffic data to discover trends for future marketing campaign ideas
2. Stay on top of your website’s top content pages to recognize opportunities for conversion optimization
3. View the key phrases that are sending your website the most traffic for blog post or content page ideas

If so, let us know in the comments below and if they prove effective, then we will add them to our list above.

The Future of Online Marketing

This short list of the most handy iPhone apps for online marketing is just a taste of what we can expect for the evolution of marketing for just about any business. Soon enough the better part of an effective marketing campaign will consist of strategies that can be carried out right from one’s handheld device. As the iPhone evolves and competitors continue to push the envelope of what a smart phone can do, business owners and marketers will also mold their online campaigns to appeal to the millions of users relying primarily on their mobile devices.

So, if you’ve been holding out on getting that new smart phone you’ve always wanted, then it might be time to pull the trigger. The earlier you become familiar with these technologies, the better positioned you and your business will be going into the future. Technology moves extremely fast and younger generations, many of whom will be your target demographic if they are not already, will be using these technologies even more so. Don’t miss these great opportunities to market your business in as many places as possible.

As search engine users become more savvy, hyper-local search phrases will continue to become more commonly used. For businesses, this means that your website and/or blog must be optimized for its most targeted, local keywords. In addition, it is more important than ever that your business is properly listed in the correct places so that people can easily find your company when doing a search for a relevant product, service or piece of information that you offer. Just remember, the easier you make it for a prospective customer to find your business online, the higher your chances are of having the first, and hopefully, the last opportunity to make that prospect your next customer.

One of the top places to list your business is on Google, more specifically Google Maps via Google’s Local Business Center. With Google dominating the search engine market at over 65%, it is vital that your business can be found easily on Google for its relevant search terms. There is a great amount of opportunity that exists by being one of the first or few to properly list your business on Google Maps. That being said, we are going to show you how to rank higher in Google’s Map results as they are taking up more and more real estate in the search engines results pages.

UPDATE: As of April 19, 2010 Google’s Local Business Center is referred to as Google Places. With the same great features and advantages as described below, Google Places offers some fantastic opportunities for business owners to gain even more visibility and traffic online.

Steps to Getting the Most Out of Google Local Search

Google understands that people looking for information are no longer just looking for articles online, but rather a mix of photos, videos, news stories, books, music and local business information. As local searches become more prevalent, the increased need for specific local business results shall follow suit. Aware of this trend, Google has been displaying more and more Map results for local businesses. With these map results showing above the natural results in just about every case, your opportunity for increased exposure starts here.

Here are some of our top tips to help your business get the best possible positioning in Google’s Map results and thus, get even more exposure for your business on the largest search engine in the world…

STEP 1: Optimize Your Google Local Business Listing

Whether you have already gone through the basic steps of setting up your Google Local Business Ad or have yet to get this far, the following optimization tips will help to maximize the exposure and success of your listing in Google.

When setting up, or editing your existing listing, it is important to capitalize on every field that the business listing offers. Starting with the first step of the process, make sure to do the following:

• Use your business name, but try to work in relevant key phrases naturally (i.e. Business Marketing Blog)
• Use a description that clearly defines what you do, but make it actionable and naturally work in relevant key phrases
• Select categories that are as specific as possible to your business (if each category contains relevant key phrases then even better)

• Add as many photos to your listing as possible. Make sure to use file names that have relevant key phrases in them (i.e. business-marketing-blog.jpg)
• Add as many videos to your listing as possible.
• Use the ‘Additional Details’ section to enter relevant key phrases (i.e. Services Offered: Online Marketing News)

Once you have followed these steps and your listing has been confirmed (via phone or postcard), then you will have the ability to take advantage of a couple more optimization tips:

• Create coupons for your business listing (i.e. 20% off all products when you mention this coupon code)
• Get clients to add genuine reviews on your business listing
• Link to your business listing from your other web sites and blogs and get other websites to link to it as well

Step 2: Optimize Your Website to Help Your Local Business Listing

Directly optimizing your local business listing is a necessary step to get your listing to rank in Google’s local map results; however, it is not the only one. One of the best methods to help your local business listing’s ranking is something referred to as off-page optimization. Off-page optimization is the process of optimizing external web properties (using on-page optimization or SEO) to help your primary web property (in this case, your local business listing) to rank higher in the search results.

Assuming you have a primary website or blog (if you don’t then read our post on How to Get a Website) the following off-page optimization tips will help your Google Local Business Listing rank higher in the search results:

• Perform basic search engine optimization on your website (custom title tags, image tags, etc). Read more specifics in our post about How to Optimize a Website
• Place a physical address (should be the same as the address used in your Local Business Listing) and phone number with an <address> tag at least on your CONTACT page and one other page (preferably your home page). If your design allows for it, try to work in your address on ALL pages of your website
• Add hyper-local content that is highly relevant to your business. For example, if you own an Auto Repair shop in Los Angeles, CA then create some high quality content that talks about Auto Repair in Los Angeles, CA.
• Set your Geographic Location in Google Webmaster Tools

Step 3: Optimize Other Web Properties to Boost Your Listing’s Ranking

Similar to the tips provided in Step 2, optimization of other web properties, not just your own website or blog, can be performed to also help your local business listing. This type of off-page optimization involves using search engine optimization techniques, such as on-page optimization and link building, to help your local listing increase its authority in the search results.

Here are some useful, and effective, off-page optimization techniques to give your local listing as much of a boost as possible:

• Get your business listed in local business directory sites. Here are some of the top ones (Business.com, BOTW.org, DMOZ.org, YellowPages.com, SuperPages.com, Yelp.com, InfoUSA.com, InsiderPages.com, Local.com, Kudzu.com, etc)
• Submit localized Press Releases about your business
• Setup accounts on other websites, like Squidoo.com, and populate them with relevant content and links to your website and local business listing

Step 4: Get Social to Increase Your Local Listing’s Exposure

Unless you have been living under a rock lately, then you have most likely heard of, or been involved in, the social media phenomenon that really took off in 2009. Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn increased exponentially in popularity and user base last year and research shows that these trends will continue. It is not too late to take advantage of these networks to help your business get more exposure.

Here are some quick and easy tips to effectively use social networks to help your local business listing:

• Use Twitter to post relevant updates, promos, specials and news about your business (make sure to add a link to your local business listing whenever possible)
• Use Facebook to create a Fan Page for your business and post useful updates or start discussions with fans to create hype and a loyal, attentive following (again, make sure to add a link to your business listing whenever possible)
• Create a company profile for your business on LinkedIn and get employees to follow suit (don’t forget to link to your local business listing)
• Post and upload some fun, funny and/or interesting videos about your business on YouTube

Step 5: Jump on the Location-Based Business “Game” Bandwagon

Twitter and Facebook were unquestionably the trend kings of 2009, but our prediction is that 2010 will be all about some newcomers to the online and mobile space – location-based business “games”. These “games” are growing in popularity thanks to the widespread use of mobile apps on the iPhone and Google Phone. Making it very easy for people to let friends and followers know what they’re doing, when they’re doing it and where, these location-based apps / games are providing local businesses with some fantastic opportunities for increased exposure.

Here are some suggestions to get more exposure for your business while also helping your local business listing get some traction:

• Setup an account on Foursquare and make sure that your business has a listing in the app’s directory
• Setup an account on Gowalla and also make sure that your company has a business listing available for users
• Create an account on Yelp for your business and start promoting it to get people to participate and comment on your page

REMEMBER: Always make sure that when you are creating accounts, profiles or other websites that you include a properly formatted anchor text link back to your local business listing. It should look something like this: Internet Marketing Agency (notice how this links to the local business page for this company?)

If You Don’t Get Local, Your Competitors Will

As people become more familiar with the best methods of finding information, products and services online, it will only become more important for you to make sure that your business is properly positioned in the world’s largest search engine – Google. And as Google becomes smarter with how and when to display relevant results, you can bet the local search results will continue to become more prevalent for each user. So, don’t wait until every competitor of yours has a local business listing – follow the suggestions above and get on track to help your business grow today!

If you have questions on any of the advice provided above then please do not hesitate to leave your question below. Or, if you have additional suggestions that we may have missed then please also leave a comment below so all of our readers can take advantage of your advice.

Social media has exploded over the past 2 years. Businesses, large and small, are integrating social media marketing campaigns into their marketing plans. The ones who truly understand the purpose of social media are reaping the rewards while those who are just following the herd are having trouble justifying their time and money spent on social media marketing.

Don’t be part of the herd by making the same common mistakes when using social media to market your business. If you want to see real returns on your time, effort and money spent on social media marketing, then you must follow these simple rules:

• Be Authentic
• Be Consistent
• Be Patient
• PUBLISH GREAT CONTENT

If you cannot honestly say that you adhere to all 4 of these things, then chances are that you are not going to get far with your social marketing efforts. To work towards these standards it helps to look at what you’re currently doing and understand some of the most common mistakes that marketers make when using social media to market their business online. As well as you may think you are doing, you could very well be making these same mistakes without even realizing it.

Don’t Make These Social Marketing Mistakes

Two traits that consistently contribute to the most common social marketing mistakes are inexperience and laziness. You wouldn’t try to sell a home in a market you knew nothing about or expect to gain a listing by placing just one pathetic ad somewhere. That said, why would you expect to get leads, followers and subscribers from your social marketing efforts if you have no idea what you’re doing or by posting one pathetic tweet or blog post once every other month?

Surprisingly, the same people that are making these common mistakes and have these skewed expectations actually have no idea that they are making the most common mistakes. Fortunately, we are going to define what the most common mistakes are so at least you know what to avoid and how to best use your time, effort and money in your social marketing campaigns.

5 Most Common Social Marketing Mistakes

mistake #1: Being a Poor Listener

Whether you are brand new to social media or have been using it for a couple years now, the biggest mistake you can make is NOT listening to others. “Others” includes your prospects, your clients, your friends and most importantly, those who DO know what they are doing.

Social media is all about online conversation. A conversation is not a one-way thing. If you are not truly listening to what others are asking you or recommending, then you are wasting your time and cluttering up people’s social media streams.

TIP: Use Twitter Search to find people in your industry that are using social media effectively and listen to them. You will learn more than you need to about how to interact and use social media by doing this one thing.

mistake #2: Expecting Results for Doing Nothing

If you’re posting something on Twitter or Facebook only once a month, or even once a week, and are expecting people to engage you, then don’t be surprised if your social media world remains lonely and desolate.

People flock to social media sites to have interesting conversations, learn from authoritative people and get inside access that they would not otherwise have offline. By limiting your involvement in social media to a pathetic once a month / week schedule, you are drastically reducing the possibilities of prospects being able to find and engage you.

TIP: Use a service like Ping.fm to post something interesting, different, controversial, informative or engaging at least once a day. Using a service like Ping.fm will allow you to have each post get sent out to multiple social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many more.

mistake #3: Being Self-Centered

One of the quickest ways to scare people off or lose existing followers is to only talk about yourself / your company and then expect others to talk about you as well. If your social media content revolves solely around you, how great you are, or what someone else can do for you, then you are completely missing the purpose of social media.

People want to follow others who are givers, not takers. They are looking for interesting content. If you are able to deliver that to them consistently and effectively, then you are passively corralling these people to become loyal followers of you. Down the road this makes it easier for you to eventually talk about how your products or services can benefit someone as they will be much more captive at that point.

TIP: Use Google blog search and make it a point to read other blogs within your industry. You should be doing this anyways to constantly improve your skills and knowledge. When you complete an article, leave a comment for the author that asks a questions, disagrees with them, or provides some substance or support to the article written. Don’t leave a comment like “Great article” as this is pointless. The author of the article, and other readers, will see your comment. So, if it is interesting then you most likely get some visits back to your website.

mistake #4: Caring More About Making a Sale than Making a Connection

Everyone is looking for some type of ROI out of their social marketing efforts, but many people make a very common, and enormous mistake, when using social networks for marketing. If you want to lose all of your followers and prevent new people from listening to you in the future in the quickest way possible, then all you have to do is try to sell your product / service through every tweet, status update or blog post you publish.

Social media marketing is about making connections first and foremost. Sales come as a bi-product of these connections and should always be attained passively. People DO NOT want to get bombarded with sales pitches and updates about how great your product is over someone else’s. They want and need to connect with you first, trust you second and listen to you consistently after that. Once you have established these things, then sales will come naturally.

TIP: Force yourself to go one month without talking about your product online. Instead, focus your efforts on talking about everything related to those products or services. Think about what you absolutely specialize in and share that insight and information through great blog posts that are then syndicated online through networks like Facebook and Twitter. People will appreciate your knowledge, listen to you, trust you and eventually come to you directly for related recommendations and services.

mistake #5: Not Being Transparent

One of the greatest things about social media sites like Facebook and Twitter is that a normal, everyday person can get access to people and companies that they would otherwise have a very difficult time attaining. For example, if you have a problem with your AT&T service, instead of waiting on hold for 20 minutes, you can post an @ reply to AT&T customer care with your problem and get a response within minutes. Best Buy provides this same type of access and transparency with their @twelpforce initiative.

If you are closed off and do a poor job of responding to @ replies and requests in an open, honest way, then you will never realize the true potential of social media. If, for some reason, you are not comfortable being transparent, then you should analyze why this is because you may have bigger issues to attend to. Social media puts power back into the hands of the consumer so unless you learn to work with this, then you will not realize any type of ROI on your social media efforts.

TIP: Be proactive about being open. Don’t wait for people to call you or your company out on something. Post updates on mistakes you may have made, and also the solutions or plans of action that you are taking to resolve these issues. Request feedback from people and be ready for the negative stuff as much as the positive stuff.

Use Social Media Marketing to Your Advantage

More often than not we find that many people are intimidated by getting involved in social marketing. Common concerns revolve around time, expertise, ROI and vulnerability. These are valid concerns – if you allow them to be.

Social marketing, in its essence, is actually quite simple…

Publish great (interesting, unique, original) content consistently (at least once a week)

Do this and people will find you, follow you, trust you, listen to you and eventually, buy from you.

If you’re a terrible writer, then hire one. Great writers can be found all over the place. Craigslist or Guru are great places to start to look. Listen when we say that one of the best investments you can make is in a great writer. You most likely have tons of knowledge and expertise in your field so let it out and share it with the world. You will establish a loyal following quicker than you think.

Consumers have more power now than ever so enlighten them, interest them and most importantly, be honest with them, and your business will realize exponential growth faster than you think and more cost effectively than the old, traditional, ineffective marketing methods you are accustomed to using.

If you have been successful using social marketing to grow your business we would love to hear about it and even feature your story on our blog and social networks. Or, if you just flat out disagree with the recommendations we have made, then please engage us as we would love to hear why you feel the way you do. Either way, we encourage participation and conversation (as you should) so leave us a comment below or email us at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

Do you know what comes up in the search results when you query your name, business, company or product? If not, then you must read on because this post is going to help you save face and protect your brand. If you do know what comes up and it is not something you are pleased with, then read on as well as we are going to teach you how to manipulate these results to manage your online reputation.

What is Online Reputation Management?

Go to www.google.com and type in your name, business name or product name and check out what comes up on the first page of the results. If you don’t see any results for yourself or if you see something that you would rather not, then congratulations – you have done a poor job of managing your online reputation.

Online reputation management is all about establishing yourself as a credible, authoritative resource for whatever it is you do and keeping the most relevant, useful results about you or your business on the first page of the search engines. Just about every transaction starts online now and if a prospective or current client sees something negative about you or your business as a top result, then you are taking a huge risk of losing that opportunity, and many others.

How to Manage Your Online Reputation

Reputation management has become a necessity for any business as web applications and sites are allowing competitors and customers to litter the Internet with whatever they please. This transparency is definitely a step in the right direction as it gives power back to the consumer. Unfortunately, there will always be that one company that relies on bashing their competitors or that one past client who makes their sole purpose in life to bring down your company because of one bad mistake you might have made.

On the positive side, a solid reputation management campaign can help your business not only bury negative or damaging search results, but it can place your most important business news, web assets and client interactions at the top of frequented search results pages.

Google has actually just recently given the nod to reputation management by posting some advice of their own on how to manage your reputation through search results. Combining some of this advice with that of many other reputation management professionals, we are going to simplify Online Reputation Management for you and provide you with the most useful and necessary tactics.

Claim Your Brand Name

The first step to managing your online reputation is to claim your brand name online. Whether your brand is your name itself, your business name or your product name, you need to make sure that no one else has control of misrepresenting you online by controlling a piece of your brand.

To do this, use one of the following web services to lock up every instance of your brand name online:

• KnowEm.com
• UserNameCheck.com
• NameChk.com

TIP: Be consistent. Use one name across the board. For example, if your company name is XYZ Clothing, then use “xyzclothing” as your username for all of the services available through the 3 resources above.

Manage Your Brand Name

Once you have locked up the 300+ username accounts found through the resources above, the next thing to do is to manage them. Now, there is no possible way that you are going to properly manage all 300+ accounts so instead of spreading your time across all of these just focus on the top 10-25 (listed below). The 80-20 rule applies to these accounts as it does with many other things in business: the top 20% of these services will account for 80% or more of what is most effective.

Top Online Reputation Management Accounts

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Squidoo
• Google
• Multiply
• Vimeo
• Yahoo Answers
• Mahalo
• Card.ly
• Ryze
• Namyz
• VisualCV
• FriendFeed
• Ping.fm
• SlideShare
• Chi.mp
• Tumblr
• Posterous

TIP: With each of these listed accounts, you MUST (at the very least) complete your profile 100% by adding some content, a photo, your info and links to other websites / accounts of yours.

Monitor Your Brand Name

Claiming and managing your brand name are only 2 parts of the equation when it comes to managing your reputation online. One of, if not the most important pieces of reputation management is actually monitoring your brand online. Monitoring search results, blog posts, tweets, status updates and other mentions online can be an extremely difficult and time consuming task. Fortunately, there are some fantastic tools available for businesses to properly monitor their brand name.

Top Brand Monitoring Tools

• Trackur
• MonitorThis
• Google Alerts
• Twitter Search
• Google Search
• Yahoo Search
• Bing Search

With all of these resources, you will need to enter in your top search terms that you want to monitor. For example, if your company is XYZ Clothing then one of your search terms would be “xyz clothing”. These resources will query the major search engines, blogs and online mentions to let you know what has been picked up by the search engines.

TIP: Setup Google Alerts to automatically email you when a new mention comes up in the results. On top of that, check the search results at least once a week for your brand name to always keep a pulse on what these search results say about your brand.

Repair Your Brand Name

Keeping your brand name and online reputation completely spotless is a huge undertaking. Fortunately, as we have shown, there are many ways to manage and monitor your brand online. In the case where you do happen to come across something that is less than favorable for your company, immediate action needs to be taken so your company and brand do not suffer from the wrong kind of publicity. Before action can be taken and you get worried, it is important that you understand what can and cannot be done.

Top Tips for Removing or Burying Negative Search Results

• If you control where the result is coming from, then simply remove the mention of it from your site / blog
• If you don’t control the content, then send a request to the site’s webmaster.
• When the content has been removed, expedite the removal of the result by using the Google URL removal tool
• Create profiles (top ones mentioned above) to help push negative results off of the first page
• Post client testimonials on your website, blog, forum, Twitter, Facebook to bury negative comments
• PUBLISH CONTENT….lots of it!

Online Reputation Management Summarized

The best thing you can do to protect, manage and monitor your brand and online reputation is to post a lot of really good, interesting, useful content. This content should be / could be about pretty much anything that has to do with your business, clients, products, solutions, challenges, etc. There are literally thousands of things you can write about and post online. In addition, content does not just need to be text. Content can and should be videos, photos, podcasts, e-books and newsletters as well.

BOTTOM LINE: Create as many web assets for your brand as you can and keep them populated with great content. Do these 2 things consistently and your brand will be about as protected as it can get.

Do you have any additional ideas, solutions or suggestions that have been effective in protecting and managing your brand?

If so, we would love to hear about them. Simply leave us a comment below or send us an email at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

One of the best ways you can market your business online is with a Press Release. These PR tools are relatively simple to setup and send out. More importantly, they can be extremely effective when optimized correctly for news wires, readers and search engines.

However, as press releases become more widely used by marketers, it will become increasingly difficult for your press release to stand out in the crowd. It is estimated that more than 2,000 press releases are distributed each day across the main online wire services like PRWeb. With that being said, we are going to show you how to optimize your press release so that it quickly gets noticed and so that it provides your website(s) with the most value for search engine exposure and branding.

Press Releases: Online vs. Print

A press release, as online marketers know it today, is a little different than the traditional press releases of just a few years ago. In the past, a press release required a drawn out writing, approval and publishing process. In addition, a business would usually have to maintain some pretty good contacts in the publishing industry to even get their press release distributed and circulated amongst the best print publications. Some of this is still true today, but smart marketers know that there are much simpler ways to publish an effective press release.

For the sake of this post we are going to use the examples of online press releases only. We feel that there are still opportunities for print press releases, but we have found online press releases to have the following advantages over print:

• Can be distributed much quicker
• Can provide SEO value to other websites
• Can be easier to find, read and pass on to others (more viral)
• More cost effective
• Larger reach through online syndication

If you have never setup a press release and don’t know where to start, let us know by leaving a comment below or sending us an email at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

How to Optimize a Press Release

As with any other tool or piece of online marketing, optimization is required to ensure maximum exposure, branding and success. Press Releases are no different. Anyone can write a press release and send it out online, but without proper optimization it is highly unlikely that an amateur press release will receive anything but amateur results.

If you are going to take the time and spend the money to submit an online press release, then make sure to use the following 10 tips to properly optimize your press release first:

TIP #1: Make it Newsworthy

If your press release is not newsworthy, then please do not send it out. We get enough noise and interruption in our daily lives so if you are going to submit a press release, then make it something interesting, unique and newsworthy.

Not sure what constitutes newsworthy? The most simple gauge you can use is a friend, family member or even a random stranger. Give them a brief summary of what you would be writing a press release about and gauge their reaction to see if they sound excited, interested or even a little curious. If their reaction is not made up of any of these emotions, then your press release is NOT newsworthy.

TIP #2: Use Keywords

Before you misunderstand what we mean, allow us to clarify….use keywords strategically, DO NOT STUFF IN KEYWORDS. If your press release is just a couple of run on sentences with one specific key phrase repeated many times over, then we promise you that it will be a waste of your time and money.

Instead, strategically insert key phrases into your press release content where they (1) sound natural and (2) provide value to the reader.

BAD EXAMPLE: John Smith, a business broker, just brokered a business deal that places them as one of the top business brokerages in the area amongst other companies that specialize in the business brokerage industry.

GOOD EXAMPLE: John Smith, one of the premier business brokers in California, recently orchestrated one of the largest deals in the past 10 years. This deal has placed John Smith of Company XYZ as the top producing business broker in the state for the 10th year in a row.

TIP #3: Use Anchor Text Links

One of the basic techniques with on page optimization for any type of web content is to use relevant anchor text links. Anchor text links offer value to your press release and the website(s) you are linking to by (1) increasing the probability that someone will click on your link and by (2) helping the search engines realize what the link that is pointing to your website is about.

Using our examples from above, let’s take a look at the difference between the wrong way to use anchor text links and the right way.

BAD EXAMPLE: John Smith, a business broker, just brokered a business deal that places them as one of the top business brokerages in the area amongst other companies that specialize in the business brokerage industry. Click here to view more.

GOOD EXAMPLE: John Smith, one of the premier business brokers in California, recently orchestrated one of the largest deals in the past 10 years. This deal has placed John Smith of Company XYZ as the top producing business broker in the state for the 10th year in a row.

In the “bad example” above, using a generic link with no descriptive text will decrease click through rates. In the “good example” above, a link with very descriptive text tells the reader that they will most likely be taken to a site that talks about John being a top producing broker.

BONUS: Do not make every anchor text link you create hyperlink to only your homepage. Try to find specific pages of content on your website to link to instead. If you find yourself with nothing but your homepage to link to then you need to get going on adding some quality content to your website.

TIP #4: Include Media

No one likes to stare at pages and pages of text. Text becomes more interesting and digestible when different types of content are included to break up any monotony. Some great forms of content to intersperse throughout your press release(s) are photos and videos.

Great images can speak a thousand words. Videos actually do speak for you, but in a more interesting and interactive way. Try including things like your photo (only if you’re at least somewhat attractive, seriously), your logo, or pictures of your business. You can also include videos of client testimonials or brief commercials about your business. Whatever you decide to include make sure that they are good quality as a fuzzy image or annoying video will turn someone away from your press release before they even read it.

TIP #5: Write Professionally

This seems like a no brainer, but you would be surprised at how many press releases we come across that are so poorly written it hurts to read more than a couple sentences.

When writing a press release there are some specific rules you must follow for maximum effectiveness. First, write in the third person. Most press release services will not even allow your press release to be submitted unless it is in the third person anyways. Third person writing makes your press release sound unbiased and as if a professional was hired to do a write up on your newsworthy topic.

Second, stay away from using industry jargon that interested readers may not be savvy to. Remember that your press release is ultimately for your customers. If they don’t understand it, then you are completely missing the point.

Lastly, reference reputable sources if you are going to include statistics or data in your press release. Nothing adds more validity to your statements and claims than a link to a legitimate resource.

Press Release Case Study

To help you understand how to use and optimize a press release more effectively, we thought it would be helpful to include an actual live example.

Business: Marcus & Millichap (commercial real estate)
Press Release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/retailinvestment/realestate/prweb2967024.htm
On Behalf of: Brad Nathanson
Website: http://www.nathansonretail.com

This press release was professionally written and optimized by Brad’s marketing team. As a result of the marketing team adhering to the optimization tips and guidelines that most savvy online marketers use, this press release got an almost immediate push to the first page of Google’s results for a very competitive key phrase “retail investment real estate.”

The search result seems to be off the first page of Google at this point, but the press release received about 400-500 visits within the 3 day period that it was placed in this spot showcased above. To put things in perspective in terms of cost, this same amount of traffic for the same key phrase would have cost Brad at least $500 – $1000 in pay per click advertising with Google AdWords.

Online Press Release Advantages

As you can hopefully see from above, Press Releases can have a great impact on your marketing by driving relevant traffic to your website(s). There are some other key advantages that a press release can bring with it as well. Here are some of the main benefits that your business can realize from using optimized press releases:

• Attain relevant anchor text links back to your website(s) – link building, SEO
• Accumulate web assets that rank for your name, company name, product name, etc – reputation management, SEO
  
• Get relevant traffic from press release readers - traffic generation
• Syndication across hundreds, sometimes thousands, of different websites – link building, SEO, exposure, branding

Ready to start your first press release?

Go to PRWeb.com, or any other reputable online PR service website, and walk through the simple steps to get your first press release out there. Make sure to follow our optimization tips outlined above. And, if you have any questions or get stuck somewhere, simply leave us a comment below or send us an email at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

Good luck!

If you have a website or blog, then you are going to want to read this. If you don’t have a website or blog, go get one now and then read this because a social media game changer hit the web recently and you need to know about it.

Social media is quickly forcing companies to be more accountable, provide better service and start listening to everything their customers want and need. In the past, a customer complaint, suggestion or idea was usually funneled through multiple channels where, in many cases, it disappeared completely. Now – with social media – ideas, testimonials, suggestions and especially complaints, get heard almost immediately – by everyone. This forces companies to be proactive and also much more responsive with every issue their customers have, good or bad.

With the advent of sites and applications like Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and now, Google Sidewiki, customers have more power than companies. They are the ones who can determine what should be provided and how high service and quality standards need to be.

What is Google Sidewiki?

Yesterday Google announced the release of their new social media component called Sidewiki. In a nutshell, Google Sidewiki allows people who download the Google Toolbar to their Firefox or Internet Explorer browser to comment on any web page of any website they wish. The catch is that anyone with this Google Toolbar installed will be able to see, read and add their own comments to any website as well.

Watch this brief 60 second video from Google that showcases how Google Sidewiki works

How to Use Google Sidewiki

Google Sidewiki, like most of Google’s products and applications, is very easy to install and use. Here are step by step instructions on how to get started:

(1) Install Google Toolbar on Firefox and/or Internet Explorer Browser

(2) Once the toolbar is installed, simply click the Sidewiki button in the toolbar

(3) After clicking this button, a sidebar will open on the left hand side of your screen

(4) From here, you will be able to add your comment and publish it for all to see

NOTE: You will need to be signed in to your Google account. If you have multiple Google accounts, then make sure you are signed into the correct one or else your comment will be posted under the wrong account for yourself (yes, I learned this the hard way).

(5) Once your comment is posted you can share it via Twitter, Facebook and email. Your Google Sidewiki comments will also show in your Google Profile.

Effective Ways to Leverage Google Sidewiki for Any Business

Now that you know what Google Sidewiki is and how to use it, we want to provide you with some very useful recommendations to leverage it to help your business.

#1: Be Proactive

User generated comments and content are fantastic as they create interesting conversations about your business. However, in order to get these types of conversations going it is necessary to light the fire yourself. The content on an existing site or blog may be enough to spark these conversations that will quickly accumulate in Google’s Sidewiki, but for sites that don’t evoke this type of conversation you may want to PROACTIVELY POST COMMENTS ON YOUR OWN SITE yourself to get things going. Even a simple “welcome” message from the business owner may suffice.

#2: Be Responsive

Yes, social media can be time consuming, and many times addicting. And yes, Google Sidewiki is yet another thing you will need to monitor as a business owner. Bottom line is that you have to accept this and embrace it. If you don’t others will comment at will anyways and if you fail to respond or take too long to respond then you could be opening yourself up for public criticism and complaints. RESPOND TO COMMENTS IMMEDIATELY to show that you care about your visitors and what they have to say about your business.

#3: Be Interesting

This really applies to anything you do on the web as anything less than interesting, new, or different is not enough to engage people. Hopefully the content on your website is enough to entice people to start a conversation about your business, but if not then take advantage of Google Sidewiki to PROVIDE INTERESTING FACTS, INFORMATION AND INSIGHT on your business to get people to interact.

#4: Be Authentic

One of the most annoying things in social media is when someone just simply regurgitates information from other sources. Spend the extra time to think about, plan out and implement a strategy of getting great content and comments onto your Sidewiki and when you do ADD UNIQUE INFORMATION to create the right type of buzz your business needs to gain exposure.

#5: Be Genuine

If you truly want to create a strong, positive following on your website or blog, then you must be genuine. With the introduction of Google Sidewiki you can expect your business to get called out if it does not come off as genuine and truly interested in the wants and needs of its customers. Show your website and blog visitors that your business is truly genuine – POST COMMENTS THAT TELL YOUR STORY AND HOW YOUR BUSINESS CAN TRULY HELP SOLVE A PROBLEM.

Leverage Social Media, Don’t Let it Leverage You

Social media activity increases everyday. The fact that there are over 500 million users on Facebook and Twitter alone tells you that your business must have a presence on these social networks. Participation creates conversation and conversation creates community. Get your community going by taking advantage of the fantastic tools out there, like Google Sidewiki.

Do you have any other ideas, suggestions or concerns about Google Sidewiki? We would love to hear them. Please just leave a comment below, email us at info@businessmarketingblog.org or leave us a comment via Google Sidewiki.

With so many consumers flocking to the Internet to find information, read reviews and to ultimately buy something, it is more important than ever that your business is easy to find online. Poor exposure, or worse, no exposure can make your business become obsolete very quickly. You could have the most amazing product or service available, but if people cannot find it easily online, then you can be sure that you will not be able to move your product off the shelf.

Fortunately, there are many fantastic ways to assure that your business is getting the exposure and branding it needs to be successful in today’s competitive marketplace. One of the most effective and essential online marketing strategies that every business should take advantage of is Paid Search Marketing.

How Does Paid Search Marketing Work?

Paid Search Marketing (also known as Pay Per Click marketing, PPC marketing, Cost Per Click marketing, or Sponsored Advertising) is one of the best ways to help a business get consistent traffic from relevant search results and other websites. Here’s how it works:

Example

1) Consumer goes to Google.com and types in a search for “best 12 megapixel digital cameras under $1000″

2) Google will yield two main types of search results: (1) organic results = left hand side and (2) sponsored results = right hand side (also on the top left sometimes in a yellow shaded box)

3) Consumer will click on the most relevant ad for what they searched for (in this case, one of the sponsored results).

FACT: People are more likely to click on the organic results than the sponsored results. However, for highly transactional purchases or items like electronics, shoes, clothing, etc. people seem to find more use out of the sponsored results as they are usually more targeted to specific product search queries.

4) By clicking on a sponsored advertisement, the consumer is either taken to a landing page or the homepage of the advertiser’s website to find specific information about the exact thing they searched for.

TIP: Do not send traffic to your homepage as it is usually not the most specific, targeted page on your website for each individual product or service you are selling and advertising.

5) On the advertiser’s end, when a consumer clicks on one of their advertisements, the advertiser will be charged for that one click. Click prices vary depending on the key phrases used to trigger the advertisements.

TIP: To get an approximation of what a specific key phrase might cost you per click on Google, check out Google’s Traffic Estimator Tool.

And, that’s it. Pretty simple right? Well, almost. There are many other factors that go into these campaigns, but the basic model is this:

1) Advertiser picks key phrases that they want their ads to show up for

2) Consumer performs search, sees advertiser’s ad, likes it and then clicks on it

3) Advertiser is charged for that one click

4) If advertiser decides to stop paying for key phrases then the advertiser’s ads come offline. Or, if the advertiser decides that they want their ads to show up higher or more frequently then they increase their bids on their selected key phrases and also increase their daily ad spend budgets to allow for more clicks.

RECOMMENDATION: Hire a PPC Professional to setup and manage your Paid Search Marketing campaign for you. You will save time and money. You will also prevent yourself from having a bad experience with paid search marketing and thus, shunning it forever, which is a big mistake.

10 Reasons to Market a Website with Paid Search

We are very strong advocates of paid search marketing as it has so many benefits to advertisers representing just about every type of product or service. The sponsored advertising system that Google has set as the gold standard is the main contributing factor to Google’s multi-billion dollar revenue stream. Put it this way, if it didn’t work advertisers would not be contributing to Google’s enormous bank roll each year.

Without further ado, here are our Top 10 reasons why every advertiser needs to incorporate Paid Search Marketing into their marketing arsenal:

REASON #1: First Page Exposure in the Top 3 Search Engines

As we have said many times, your business MUST be seen in the top 5 results in Google, Yahoo and Bing. People very rarely look beyond these results or click to ancillary pages of search results. Pay Per Click Marketing is the fastest way to get an advertisement for your business to show in the top 5 results (in the sponsored advertisements) on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

REASON #2: Immediate Traffic

An advertiser can realistically setup a PPC campaign on Google, Yahoo or Bing (Microsoft adCenter) in less than 30 minutes if they know their way around the platform. This translates into advertisers being able to get advertisements for their website on the first page of the main search engines within an hour of campaign setup and activation (again, given they know what they’re doing). This is great for brand new websites that have little to no exposure in the search engines already.

REASON #3: Consistent Traffic

As a marketer, it is crucial to be able to drive as many people to your website as consistently as possible. Huge lulls in traffic or huge unexpected spikes in traffic can kill a website. With paid search marketing, traffic amounts can be controlled as they are tied directly to how much the advertiser is willing to pay per click, per day and per month.

REASON #4: Targeted Ads

The natural results are the most coveted for marketers and advertisers because people still click on them more than the sponsored ads. However, the ability to change, test and optimize the natural results at will does not exist as a web page needs to be optimized in order for its natural results to reflect new changes. With paid search, the ads that are displayed in the sponsored results can be changed, edited, tested, optimized and tracked for maximum effectiveness. This ability allows marketers to know which exact combination of ad text and key phrases work the best.

REASON #5: Testing

One of the most overlooked advantages of paid search marketing is the ability to test online marketing campaigns through the vast amount of features and data that the available platforms provide to marketers. For example, if you wanted to know whether a specific product campaign you are launching is received well with a new marketing campaign and ad creative that you have put together you can setup a campaign in AdWords, run the ads for at least 30 days, and then analyze the data to see if it they were successful. As a matter of fact, many professional SEO firms actually use or recommend paid search marketing as a primary step in determining the best key phrases for conversions and return on investment.

REASON #6: Reach

Besides Google being the #1 search engine with a market share of over 65%-70% over other search engines, Google has also done an amazing job of amassing a network of publishers (other websites) to display Google’s sponsored ads for them. Next time you are reading the New York Times notice the ads displayed throughout the site – those are Google’s sponsored ads and they provide advertisers with yet another way to reach their prospects on other relevant places on the web. This reach is second to none and every advertiser is encouraged to at least look into how it might work for their marketing.

REASON #7: Relevance

Search results are all about relevance, or at least they should be. When someone does a search, they should only get the most relevant results for what they searched for. Google, having the most advanced algorithms to detect relevancy, do a fantastic job of delivering relevant results to users. Google’s sponsored ads, like the natural results, are weighted very heavily on relevancy – from the key phrase to the ad text to the landing page. This creates the best user experience for the end user and also allows advertisers to target and receive very refined, qualified traffic.

REASON #8: Geo-Targeting and Ad Scheduling

A couple great features that the top paid search marketing platforms provide advertisers with are geo-targeting and ad scheduling. Geo-targeting allows advertisers to select only specified locations all over the world to display their ads to. For example, if you had a local pizza place and only wanted to show ads on the search engines to cities that you could deliver your pizza to, then you could select these areas and your ads would only show for those specified locations. This allows your ad budget to go further as it is only targeted relevant locations.

Ad scheduling allows advertisers to select specific days and times of the day to run their ads. This is extremely helpful for marketers who are very familiar with when they get the best response from consumers or when they are able to respond in a timely manner. For example, if you have a Live Chat feature as the main component of your website then it might be more beneficial to run your ads during the hours that your Live Chat is online.

REASON #9: Tracking

It still amazes us that so many companies spend thousands of dollars each month on traditional marketing methods that have absolutely no tracking whatsoever. Take newspaper advertising for example, full page can be relatively expensive compared to online marketing and worst of all, there is no accurate way to track how successful these expensive ads actually are. With paid search marketing, every ad, every keyword, and best of all, every dollar spent can be tracked down to the cent. This allows for very accurate ROI and ROAS tracking and makes paid search marketing that much more essential for any business.

REASON #10: Branding

Paid search marketing has many advantages such as those described above. However, one of the best uses of paid search marketing from a marketing perspective is branding. Effective branding is extremely important for every business as people remember brands, not companies. If your brand is memorable and associated with something memorable then your marketing will be that much more effective. Paid search marketing, through all of the reasons mentioned above, allows for very cost effective branding of your business/ product/ service and company name.

Other Forms of Paid Search Advertising

The main example (Google AdWords) used in most of the reasons above is the most popular form of paid search marketing; however, it is just one way that paid search marketing works. There are actually other ways and methods to get sponsored advertising for your website in front of your consumers. Here are some of the top ones that are most definitely worth mentioning:

Google AdSense

Ever notice the contextual ads discreetly placed on sites like New York Times, MySpace, and even Gmail? Those ads are powered by Google’s ad network that allows publishers (website owners) to display Google AdWords ads from advertisers. Google AdSense allows publishers to collect passive income on successful ads they display on their website(s) while at the same time allowing advertisers to reach visitors of websites that get frequented often.

Interested? Get more information on Google AdSense.

Facebook Advertising

Although still relatively new, Facebook ads have become a staple marketing campaign for many businesses. Facebook ads are somewhat of a hybrid of Google AdWords and Google AdSense in terms of how it works. Basically, Facebook allows advertisers to target very specific demographics of Facebook users. So, for example, if you sell homes to first time home buyers that are usually single professionals or young families, then you can select these demographics on Facebook to only have your ads show for them.

Interested? Get more information on Facebook Advertising.

Display Advertising

Go to just about any major website and you are likely to see banner and skyscraper ads throughout these sites that attempt to entice you to click on them with flashy graphics or attention grabbing calls to action. Display advertising can be extremely effective when done right, like any other form of paid search marketing. There are many different platforms to run display ads from, but a recent announcement from Google now allows Google AdWords advertisers to setup and manage display ads right from their AdWords interface.

Interested? Get more information on Google Display Ads

Video Advertising

Very similar to Google contextual ads via Google AdWords, advertisers have the ability to strategically place advertisements into videos provided by willing video publishers. Next time you are checking out a video on YouTube you might notice the ads that come up during the video you are watching. Another form of video advertising is click to play video ads, which allow advertisers to create video ads that can be placed on publishers’ websites for even more branding, exposure and marketing.

Interested? Get more information on Video Advertising

Paid Search Advertising Gets Results

We have been involved in countless paid search marketing campaigns and are very familiar with online marketing agencies that specialize in paid search alone. The bottom line is that paid search marketing works extremely well for just about every type of business — when done right.

We highly recommend that you at least speak with a PPC professional before you spend $1 on paid search marketing as a poorly setup and neglected campaign can be very costly.

If you need recommendations or references on reputable companies please let us know.

If you are ambitious and driven to learn the ins and outs of paid search yourself and want to get started then we highly recommend that you start with Google AdWords by studying their Learning Center resources. You will find just about everything you need to put together a successful campaign.

Good luck!

Plain and simple, you MUST market your business online or it WILL become obsolete. If people cannot easily find your business online, then consider your business to be virtually invisible to prospective customers. On top of that, if people do not perceive you or your business as a reputable resource or authority for what you provide, then your business WILL get passed up for one of your competitors who have properly established their reputation on the Internet.

We can throw statistics and data at you all day as to why you need to market your business online if you are still not convinced, but really all you need to realize is this: “When someone needs something (info, advice, prices, reviews, etc) they go to Google.com, type in a search phrase and then click on the results that come up the highest on the page and that seem the most relevant to them”. If your website is not somewhere in those top results, then your competitors are getting first crack at your prospects.

Top 4 Online Marketing Strategies

Without further ado, here are the top 4 online marketing strategies that you MUST implement immediately if you want your business to remain competitive. Doing all 4 would be fantastic, but this is often not possible for many people, especially those just now jumping into online marketing, so start with a few (we have prioritized these for you) and work your way to doing all 4 of them in the very near future.

#1 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Over 80% of all transactions start online, usually with a search engine. Google currently (as of 9/10/09) has a market share of over 65% over other search engines. People click on the natural / organic results in Google over 60% more often than the paid / sponsored results. All these numbers mean is this:

YOUR WEBSITE MUST BE RANKED WITHIN THE TOP 1-5 ORGANIC RESULTS ON GOOGLE

Here’s how to get there:

1) Optimize your website to meet the guidelines provided by the search engines. Here is a great document provided by Google detailing what they recommend to every webmaster – Google SEO Starter’s Guide

QUICK TIP: Optimize the title tags, alt tags, meta tags, headers and urls of every page of your website. Do NOT stuff keywords into these tags. Make them something natural and useful.

2) Consistently add new, relevant, quality content to your website. Copying and pasting content from another website and putting it on yours does NOT count. Changing and updating existing content can be useful, but adding new pages that are targeted and well written will be much more valuable.

QUICK TIP: If you’re not a writer, get one. It will be the best investment you make for your website. Check Craigslist to start your search for a quality writer. You can get a quality writer for less than $40-$50/page.

3) Get other, quality, relevant websites to put a link on their website that points back to your website. The search engines value backlinks from other websites to yours as they show the search engines that other websites are voting for your website as a popular, authoritative resource.

QUICK TIP: Like referrals, ask for links from other people often. Put link requests in your email signatures, on your website and anywhere else that reaches people you communicate with often. Make it easy for people to link to you by providing explicit instructions on what they need to do. Before any of this though, make sure your website is something that someone would want to link to first. Set your standards high and aim to make your website as authoritative as a site like Wikipedia. People naturally link to Wikipedia often because it is a great resource for just about anything.

Check out our post on Best Practices for First Page Rankings to learn more about how to use SEO to really help your business gain the exposure and business it needs to be competitive.

#2 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

YouTube has just as many videos as the number of people in the world. Facebook and Twitter have more than 500 million users between them. People, between the ages of 18-35, spend more than 40% of their day on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube. All these numbers mean this:

YOU MUST INTERACT WITH PEOPLE ON THE TOP SOCIAL NETWORKS TO REMAIN RELEVANT

Here’s how you get there:

1) Setup accounts on Facebook and Twitter. For Facebook, setup a PROFILE for yourself and a FAN PAGE for your business. For Twitter, setup an account for yourself as a representative of your business. For both Facebook and Twitter, select a good username (i.e. your full name or your business name). Once you learn the ropes, post useful information and post it often. By any means, DO NOT advertise your products or services on these networks right off the bat. You must build authority first before this is even an option for you.

QUICK TIP: Before your start engaging people or posting updates on Facebook or Twitter, LISTEN to other users on these networks first. You will learn how people talk on them and, more importantly, you will learn how to effectively engage other users to build your following and authority.

2) Start a YouTube, Vimeo or Viddler account and start uploading your own videos. If you can afford a professional video production service, then put them to work immediately. If you cannot afford one, then buy a quality HD video camera like the Flip Camera and shoot your own footage. The goal is to get short (30-60 second videos) online that represent your business. These videos should not be traditional product commercials because no one will watch them. Instead, get creative and make some fun, funny, entertaining, viral videos that people will want to pass around to their friends.

QUICK TIP: Once you have some videos created and uploaded tell the world about them. Embed these videos on your website somewhere, grab the url of the page of your website where the video sits and then use Facebook and Twitter status updates to let your friends and followers know about your videos. This will help to drive traffic to your business website or blog and will also start to build your reputation online.

3) Setup a blog on WordPress. More importantly, write in it, a lot! We are huge proponents of WordPress for so many reasons that a large of community of millions of users will support. Just take our word for it, WordPress IS the cream of the crop when it comes to the best blog platform to use. One recommendation we do have is to hire a professional to create a great looking design for your blog as the default WordPress design is not the most aesthetically appealing. If you need a reference for a company to use for this, please leave a comment below or email us at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

QUICK TIP: A blog is essentially a website, which means that it too needs to be optimized. Check out our post on SEO for WordPress to get your blog optimized the right way. Once you have optimized your blog and posted a lot of great content on it, the next step is to let the world know about it. Take advantage of Facebook and Twitter to promote your blog posts to these two widely used social networks.

Check out our post on How to Generate Leads with Social Marketing to learn more about how to use social networks to really help your business gain the exposure and business it needs to be competitive.

#3 PAID SEARCH MARKETING

There is no faster, more immediate way to get targeted traffic to your website on a consistent basis than with Paid Search Marketing, also known as Pay Per Click. Google AdWords provides the most popular pay per click platform for advertisers looking to get valuable exposure on Google’s search results pages as quickly as possible. Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing both take some ramp up time, which is where Pay Per Click marketing can become extremely valuable.

Working much like a newspaper or magazine ad, the more you pay Google for each key phrase the higher your chances of your advertisement showing up in the search results for the key phrases you bid on. Bid price is not the only factor as Google uses ad and landing page quality to place ads appropriately. The playing field is leveled for all advertisers, large or small, and we highly recommend that every business utilizes a strategically setup PPC campaign to advertise their business online.

We have noticed that businesses with a 1st page result in the search engines AND with a sponsored ad on that same first page receive 6 times more traffic then if they just had one or the other. This is all about branding and exposure so take advantage of it. This data means this:

THE MORE EXPOSURE YOUR BUSINESS HAS ON THE SEARCH ENGINES THE MORE LIKELY SOMEONE WILL FIND YOUR WEBSITE

Here’s how to get there:

1) First learn the ins and outs of the platform you are using (Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter) by using a small budget on your live account. Each system provides great learning tools and resources, especially Google AdWords with their robust Learning Center.

QUICK TIP: Hire a PPC professional to manage your PPC campaigns for you. We always recommend to learn as much as you can and attempt to manage your marketing in-house; however, PPC is one of the forms of advertising that can make a novice burn through money faster than they think. Expect to pay anywhere from 5% – 40% of your ad spend for a  management fee to use a PPC professional. If you need a reference for a company to use for this, please leave a comment below or email us at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

2) Run your PPC campaign for at least 60-90 days as it takes a little time for these platforms to kick in 100% in terms of spitting out the accurate data for your campaigns. In addition, this minimum time frame allows for you to collect a good sample of data to analyze and use for many aspects of your marketing.

QUICK TIP: Setup reports to be automatically sent to you each day, week and month from these systems so you can easily stay on top of your campaigns. In addition, setup Google Analytics on your website to properly compare your website’s traffic from the paid results with the traffic coming from every other source. Check out our post on website analysis to learn how to read Google Analytics as it pertains to your business.

3) Use quality landing pages, do NOT direct PPC traffic to your homepage. If you are hiring a PPC professional this should be one of the first recommendations they give you. If not, make sure to ask about them as good landing pages can (1) increase conversion rates and (2) increase quality scores which will help to reduce your Cost Per Click. Here are some creative landing page samples from Marketing Sherpa if you are not sure as to what a landing page is.

QUICK TIP: You MUST test your landing pages consistently. Setting up a landing page and never changing it again is not smart. Utilize multi-variate testing to try different combinations of your landing page’s elements until you find the combination that produces the highest conversion rates. Again, this is something a PPC professional should know and implement for you, but if you are trying this out on your own, then just make sure to always test things constantly.

#4 Email Marketing

Right up there with sleeping, eating and watching TV; email is one of the most common activities that we all spend huge portions of our day doing. Studies show that over 75% of Internet usage is email related (checking, writing, sending, organizing, etc). This data means this:

YOU MUST USE A STRATEGIC EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN TO MARKET YOUR BUSINESS

Here’s how to get there:

1) Use an email marketing system that allows you to (1) use professional looking email templates, (2) track the effectiveness of your email campaigns and (3) auto-schedule email messages to be sent at set times in the future (a.k.a. drip marketing).

QUICK TIP: We highly recommend iContact or MailChimp for those looking to use top notch email marketing systems. All of the features required above are included and these two systems have very high deliverability rates as well which means that your messages will actually get to your contacts more often.

2) Do NOT abuse your email contacts. Having a solid database of email contacts to be able to market to is extremely valuable. That said, even one abusive email campaign to your contacts can completely tarnish your reputation and the success of any future email campaigns.

QUICK TIP: Make sure to provide double opt-out options for email contacts. In addition, make sure to consistently scrub your email lists so that you are not sending emails to those who are clearly not wanting to receive your messages. Constantly sending messages to those who do not want your messages or who have asked to stop receiving them will get your account flagged.

3) Always keep accessibility in mind when sending email messages as everyone has different email clients, computers, browsers, etc. Some people might be able to see your entire message while others may only be able to see blocked images.

QUICK TIP: Include a link to a version of your email on your website towards the top of your email message so people can easily navigate to that in case they cannot view your entire message. Also make sure to always include links back to your website for other calls to action as email marketing can be one of your biggest referrers of website traffic if used correctly.

Check out our post on Effective Email Marketing Tactics to learn more about how to use email marketing to really help your business gain the exposure and business it needs to be competitive.

Tying the Best Online Marketing Tactics Together

There are many ways to market a business these days; however, there are only a few ways now to get the most bang for your buck and for your time. The most cost effective and far reaching methods have been outlined above and should hopefully help to paint a very clear picture for you on what you need to start doing today to market your business smarter.

Although we have listed each of the top 4 online marketing strategies separately you should always work to use these strategies in unison with one another. Having a full scale, aggressive online marketing plan with all of these components working together is one of the most sure fire ways to take your business to the next level.

Start using these today, stop procrastinating until next quarter or next year as the more time you wait the more difficult you will make it for your business to compete with every other smart marketer vying for the same prospects as you.

As always, let us know if you have any thoughts, suggestions or questions about the recommendations provided by leaving us a comment below or sending us an email at info@businessmarketingblog.org. Hopefully we will hear about your success story in the next few months after you have implemented some of these strategies for your business.

WordPress, the platform that Business Marketing Blog is built on, is one of the best foundations for any website. One of the main reasons why is because WordPress is just about as SEO friendly as a blog or website can be right out of the box. Of course, there are always things you can do to make your WordPress site even more SEO friendly, but as many WordPress webmasters will attest to, the essentials are already in place.

This opinion is not only ours or that of other WordPress website owners, but also that of Matt Cutts, head of the Google Web Spam team. Matt recently gave an extremely useful presentation on SEO for WordPress at WordCamp 2009 in San Francisco. His 50 minute presentation provided some great tips and advice on how to optimize a WordPress site. And, as any webmaster or search marketing professional knows, when Matt Cutts speaks, we listen.

If you have about an hour to dedicate to watching the video presentation from Matt at WordCamp, then grab a notepad and start watching….

If you are limited for time, have a short attention span, or like many of us, prefer the “cliff notes” version of most things, then this post is dedicated to summarizing and breaking down Matt’s presentation on SEO for WordPress.

Essential WordPress Plugins for SEO

As Matt agrees, WordPress does not need many additional plug-ins to make it SEO friendly. As a matter of fact, Matt says that you really only need the following three plug-ins:

Cookies for Comments - Blogs can and do tend to get quite a bit of spam, mainly through comments. This plug-in is very effective for stopping spam comments by simply adding a stylesheet to your blog’s html source code. When someone’s browser loads that stylesheet a cookie is left behind. If the user leaves a comment that cookie checked. If it doesn’t exist then the comment is marked as spam. DOWNLOAD THIS PLUG-IN

Enforce www. Preference – One of the most commonly overlooked things of website development is the canonical issue that exists with every domain name. There are two main variations of every domain name.

Example:
www.businessmarketingblog.org
businessmarketingblog.org

If this canonical issue is not fixed, then it is very likely that other websites will link to both versions and thus, dilute any link value passed to your website. This is a simple fix that should be done to every single website, including yours. DOWNLOAD THIS PLUG-IN.

WP Super Cache – To increase usability through fast loading of your WordPress site, having cached html versions of your web pages served up can create a better user experience for your visitors. This plug-in works by caching your site’s pages, compressing them and storing for quick loading. DOWNLOAD THIS PLUG-IN

TIP: If you are looking for one of the best WordPress solutions to make your blog even more SEO friendly, then we highly recommend that you look into the Thesis Theme created by DIYThemes, Inc. There is no better all inclusive option for WordPress so check it out!

How to Get Higher Rankings on Google

Matt Cutts does a fantastic job of simplifying what can be a very complex subject for many webmasters – how to get your website or blog to rank higher on Google. Matt stresses the following two components for those looking to help their site rank higher in Google:

Be Relevant

The search engine algorithms put a lot of weight on relevancy as they want to make sure that they are always serving up the most relevant results to what their users searched for in the first place. Instead of trying to stuff in keywords into your website or regurgitating content from hundreds of other websites, Matt advises to ask yourself the following questions:

What do you love?

What are you really good at doing?

What do you really have to say?

Basically, talk and write about what you are truly interested in and good at doing and your audience will find you. The more specific and niche your website or blog is, the more likely that it will rank well in the search engines and also attract the type of customers, readers and visitors you want.

How to Be Relevant

Write often and write about something you care about.

Be Reputable

As the search engines become more advanced, not only will they put weight on relevancy, but also on authority and credibility. Just as your website needs lots of really good, relevant content it also needs to build its reputation online by proving itself as a credible authority. Google pays a lot of attention to how many other websites are linking to yours as this shows them how “reputable” and “credible” your website its relevant content and keywords and phrases.

How to Be Reputable

Be Interesting. Update Often. Start Small and Specific.

There are many bits of great advice from Matt in his presentation, most of them a little more technical than most webmasters are likely accustomed to seeing. If you are interested in these more advanced, “power tips” as Matt calls them, then check out the video and/or leave us a comment or email and we will be happy to share.

To close out this post, and Matt’s presentation, we will leave you with this advice to help you get your website to rank higher in Google:

Avoid Shortcuts. If your website or blog is not ranking well yet, then you have a lot of work to do. Cutting corners will not help you and even worse, could get your website or blog penalized by the search engines. Put in the time, money and effort and your website will eventually pay you back.