Facebook started out as a simple site for college classmates to keep in touch and has transformed into the largest social media site online.

You want to put your business and our brand on Facebook but don’t know how. Whatever the reason you know how important it is to reach your targeted customers in the 175+ Million users on Facebook.

You know Facebook is an excellent way to get in front of new customers and keep in touch with current ones. Facebook is not just for the younger audience. More and more people in different demographics are signing up for Facebook by the day. Use Facebook to get additional exposure and become top of mind. By setting up pages on Facebook anyone that opts in to follow news and updates made by your company will be shared with their immediate networks and therefore expanding your reach beyond just that single person.

It grew from 150,000,000 users in January to 175,000,000 users today.

“- 45% of Facebook’s US audience is now 26 years old or older.
- The fastest growing segment in the US: Women over 55, up 175.3% in the last 120 days. Facebook growing faster with women than men in almost every age group.
- The number of people on Facebook grew by over 10% monthly in 52 countries in January. It grew by over 20% monthly in January in 13 countries.
- Facebook’s monthly growth accelerated by at least 25% in 30 countries in January vs. December 2008.”

Top Resources to Use Facebook for Business

30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook

The Facebook Marketing Toolbox: 100 Tools and Tips to Tap the Facebook Customer Base

Facebook Group and Brand Pages Best Practices

The Facebook Marketing Bible: 24 Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook

How to Build an Impressive Social Networking Presence, Beginning with Facebook

If you’re thinking of tapping into the Facebook crowd for some high-profile advertising, take a look at this list of 100 tools and tips that will help you maximize all of the applications and opportunities that Facebook has to offer.

Why Facebook?

Why has Facebook become the go-to networking site for marketers? Check out these articles to read up on the rise of this networking giant.

1. Inside Facebook: This blog is devoted to “tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform.” You’ll find useful stats, marketing tips and more.
2. Facebook’s Ads Page: This page explains how Facebook provides business owners with self-service solutions, market-research solutions and integrated solutions when it comes to advertising.
3. Should You Advertise on Facebook?: This article helps U.K.-based businesses decide whether or not they should advertise on Facebook.
4. The Value of Facebook: Even in its earlier days, Facebook was considered a hot commodity in the industry. This post uncovers why there’s good reason for all the hype.
5. What’s the Big Deal About Facebook’s Social Ads?: This article discusses why Facebook’s social ads are such a hit.
6. $240 Million! Think of All the Beer We Can Buy!: When Microsoft shows a $240 million interest in your company, you know you’ve made it. Advertisers will also want to take note.
7. Why Is Facebook Suddenly So Popular Among We Geezers?: A CNET blogger wonders how Facebook’s popularity has stretched from its original base of the under-25 crowd.
8. Ten Reasons Why Facebook Is So Popular: This tongue-in-cheek article explains exactly why Facebook is such a popular site.
9. How Did Facebook Become So Popular?: This blogger tracks Facebook’s rise to social-networking stardom and its technique of “utilizing one of the most powerful viral marketing strategies ever conceived.”
10. Facebook: More Popular Than Porn: Time magazine’s Web site discovers that Facebook is more popular than porn sites among college students.
11. Fifteen Reasons Facebook May Be Worth $15 Billion: Back when Microsoft decided to invest $240 million in Facebook, it also declared the social-networking site to be worth around $15 billion total. The reasons for the site’s popularity still hold true in 2008.
12. The Impact of Facebook’s Platform: This article from ReadWriteWeb compares Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to a young Steve Jobs and applauds Facebook for opening up its company to developers and advertisers.

Advertising

Learn about current and future advertising opportunities on Facebook by reading these posts.

1. Sponsored Groups: Sponsor your own group on Facebook by purchasing a link that hosts ad content, message boards and more.
2. Mini-Feed: When it first came out, members weren’t sure if they wanted to be updated each time a friend added new photos, changed their status or even wrote on someone else’s Wall. As an advertiser, though, you can track your Mini-Feed to find out what your friends have been up to and more closely study your target audience.
3. AceBucks: Facebook users earn AceBucks by playing games and taking surveys, then cashing them in for real-life prizes like Wii systems and iPods. Create your own survey or game to promote your business, then invite others to play.
4. Five Moneymaking Opportunities on Facebook: Mashable! lists several moneymaking strategies available on Facebook, advertising and otherwise.
5. Facebook’s Secret Rate Card: This article explores which Facebook advertising methods are worth your money and effort, and which aren’t.
6. Could Facebook Change Web Advertising?: Listen to this NPR (National Public Radio) report to uncover the newest trends in Web advertising.
7. How to Effectively Advertise on Facebook: Trendcatching’s post explores some of the more lucrative strategies advertisers have used to tap into the Facebook market.
8. How Does Facebook Figure into Your Online Advertising Campaign?: This article is a must-read for business owners who are thinking about incorporating Facebook marketing into their own advertising campaigns.
9. Social Networks Find Ways to Monetize User Data: Learn how to make money off of your Facebook friends (it’s not as sleazy as it sounds) with the tips and analyses provided here.
10. Digging into Facebook’s Ad Future: CNET News.com believes that Facebook has the capabilities to become an “advertiser’s paradise,” despite some social-networking sites’ inability to make serious profits.
11. Promote Your Cause on Facebook in Six Easy Steps: TechSoup shows nonprofits how to use Facebook for self-promotion.
12. Facebook Ads: Facebook’s official advertising page strives to prove how social ads, profile pages and paid ads can increase a company’s business.

Free Marketing Opportunities

The beauty of using Facebook as a marketing tool comes from the endless ways in which you can advertise your business for free. Once you’ve set up a free account, use your creativity to maximize these features.

1. Profile Page: All Facebook members get their own profile page when they sign up. Use this as your canvas to upload pictures, logos and other information about your company.
2. Groups: Use the site’s Groups feature to network with your target audience. You can join existing groups or create one just for your business to amp up the buzz about its services.
3. Facebook Marketplace: College kids use the site’s Marketplace to scout out used couches and find roommates, but a savvy business owner can advertise services and product sales, as well as search for new employees.
4. Networks: Ignoring the Networks question when you create your company’s profile could lose it a lot of business. List your business’s city, industry, neighborhood and any other relevant information to let potential customers and business partners know where they can find you.
5. Facebook Badge: Facebook describes its Badge feature as “a customizable way to share your Facebook information on other Web sites.” Creating your own Badge will link Facebook friends to your company’s Web site.
6. Events: Instead of printing out flyers and mailers the next time you want to advertise an event, use the free Facebook Events app to get the word out.
7. FunWall: Mass emails are so yesteryear. If you want to keep in close contact with your Facebook friends, use the FunWall to create a message or send a greeting to everyone at once.
8. Top Friends Network: Reward your top friends by sending them a virtual drink or writing on their FunWalls. As a marketing tool, the Top Friends network serves as another way to group your contacts, keep an eye on your target demographic, and quickly and effectively reach out to your company’s best customers.
9. Inbox: Send secure, private messages to your clients on Facebook with the Inbox app. You can still send out mass messages, but only to the contacts you select.
10. Notes: Mashable! calls Facebook’s Notes application a blogging feature because of the way users post links, messages, photos and other information that they want to share with friends. Even if you maintain a blog elsewhere, give your Facebook friends an exclusive peek into your company’s news and behind-the-scenes schedule by posting here.
11. Contact Importer: The contact importer helps you “find your friends on Facebook.” If you want to find out if your clients or other work-related contacts use Facebook but think it’s a little lame to come right out and ask, upload your contacts from AIM, Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail and more to find out if they’re online.
12. Share Partners: When you publish updates to your company blog or Web site, add the link or a link and a photo to your Facebook profile using the Share Partners app.

Tools and Applications

Facebook add-ons allow you to customize your profile page and build up virtual relationships with clients and customers. Check out these tools and applications that will give your marketing plan a boost.

1. Facebook Social Ads: Pinpoint your company’s Facebook friends and friend wannabes by creating a social ad that reveals itself to visitors of your profile and friends of friends of friends … you get the idea.
2. Facebook Pages: A more business-savvy name for Profile, the Facebook Page now includes all kinds of add-ons so that you can post videos, logos, pictures and other marketing info.
3. Facebook Polls: Businesses can effectively find out what their target audiences are thinking by utilizing this polling service on Facebook.
4. Facebook Beacon: Connect your company’s Web site to your customers’ Facebook profiles with the Beacon action alerts. By integrating just three lines of code, your customers can choose to let their friends see what they viewed and bought on your company’s Web site and more.
5. Facebook Insights: Through charts and mapping devices, companies can accurately track their “presence and promotion on Facebook.”
6. Facebook Platform: If you want stand out from the thousands of other Facebook advertisers, create your own tools and applications with Platform. This system helps Facebook users design interactive apps so that visitors and friends can easily explore what your company has to offer.
7. FeedBurner: Advertise your company’s blog or podcast with the FeedBurner app for Facebook. A feed will appear on your profile, so visitors to your page are instantly updated with new postings, videos and more.
8. Gydget: Small companies, bands, nonprofit groups and other organizations should try out Gydget, “a stand-alone viral-promotions tool” that you can add to your Facebook page and also encourage others to integrate with their own pages Update fans and clients with details about upcoming events, networking opportunities, sales and product launches.
9. Ether: Charge by the phone call when you list your Ether number on Facebook with this ingenious app. By adding the button to your Facebook page, you can advertise your expertise and invite friends to call you for advice.
10. Jobster: Attract new talent from the Facebook pool by integrating a Jobster button with your profile. Your company can build its own job network, submit a listing in the Jobster network and more.
11. QOOP: QOOP helps you create promotional items like T-shirts and mugs from digital photos. Facebook users can use the QOOP app to share the items by letting friends view and purchase your marketing creations.
12. Oodle Classifieds: Organize your company’s advertisements, job postings and classifieds on Facebook with the Oodle app.

Targeting the Right Demographic

Before you decide to tackle the entire Facebook market, try narrowing down your strategy by researching each of Facebook’s demographics.

1. Big Brands and Facebook: Demographics, Case Studies and Best Practices: This slideshow from Forrester breaks down Facebook’s primary demographics by age, country and other dividers to give advertisers insight into effective marketing campaigns.
2. Facebook Polls Launches Tonight: Marketing Research Paradise: This article details the ways in which Facebook’s Polls app can help your company get in touch with its target demographic.
3. Could Facebook Become the New MySpace: Many have speculated over the relationship between Facebook and MySpace.com, and this article explores the specific demographics of each.
4. Facebook by the Numbers: This article is from May 2007, but readers can still use the post as a guide to study Facebook’s age demographics.
5. Facebook Users Up 89 Percent Over Last Year; Demographic Shift: Find out how Facebook’s overall demographic has changed from its inception to today.
6. Facebook’s Most Popular Apps So Far: Want to know where to slip in ads and find your company’s audience? Find out which apps people are using the most on Facebook.
7. Facebook Goes Beyond College, High School Markets: Even if your company’s target audience isn’t made up of college students, Facebook is still a viable marketing platform. This article explains why.
8. Facebook Market Research Secrets: Discover the sneaky way to perform market research by using Facebook’s tools.
9. Facebook: The Future of Market Research?: This market research analysis holds that “sites [like Facebook] are providing useful business solutions not only to advertisers, but also to market research companies and marketing services companies.” Read the whole article to find out why.
10. Facebook Provides Fascinating Glimpse Into Society, Media Demographics: This analysis of Facebook’s advertisers also gives tips on how to look for marketing clues from your target audience.
11. Social-Networking Demographics: This article tracks the general demographic stats of social networking sites like Facebook.
12. Exercise for the Reader: Facebook Member Stats: The author of this post decided “to pull together some stats on relative numbers of members from each country.” Find out the results by reading the entire article.

How-to Guides

Follow these how-to guides to navigate the limitless marketing possibilities and tailor your own Facebook marketing strategy.

1. Six Ways to Market on Facebook: This article should help those business owners who are still relatively new to the Facebook world. Simple tips include “host an event and post it” and “post news articles.”
2. Inside//Out: Facebook: This blogger gives great tips on how to effectively market your company on Facebook without disrupting the advertiser-customer relationship.
3. Tips to Marketing on Facebook: Writer Janet Meiners considers some of the basic but effective marketing tools that Facebook has to offer.
4. Facebook Marketing. It Can Be a Good Thing: BusinessWeek’s article about Facebook marketing considers the pros and cons of placing ads on the networking site.
5. Eight Marketing Ideas from Facebook Groups: The Influential Marketing Blog dissects seven different Facebook groups and general event groups to find out what works and what doesn’t when promoting your event or business.
6. Ten Killer Facebook Marketing Tips: From sending virtual gifts to adding friends, this article explains why certain Facebook actions are great self-promoters.
7. Facebook Usage and Marketing: Check out this guide for tips on how to make Facebook’s apps work for you and your business.
8. How to Create a Successful Facebook Group: If your business wants to create a group on Facebook to reach a bigger audience, use these tips to gain a large following of fans.
9. Target Niche Audiences With Facebook Advertising: AllBusiness.com publishes this post to help advertisers understand the pros and cons of using Facebook as a marketing platform.
10. How Marketers Use Facebook: This upbeat article has some useful tips to introduce marketers into the world of Facebook.
11. Facebook Marketing: Social Networking at its Best: You don’t have to go all out with social ads and beacons to use Facebook as a marketing tool. This article explains the benefits of setting up your profile page and networking with new friends.
12. How to Use Facebook Status for Marketing Purposes: Instead of letting friends know that you’re “sleeping” or “at work,” use the Status feature to clue customers in on what big business idea you’re working on.

Small Business Strategies

Even if you don’t have the budget to promote a presidential election with ABC, your small business can benefit from Facebook’s marketing strategies. Find out how with this list of tools and tips.

1. Networking: Use Facebook as a Marketing Tool: This article focuses on how entrepreneurs can use Facebook as a self-promotion tool and turn social networking into professional networking.
2. Top Five Viral Facebook Techniques: Learn how to make the most of referrals, giveaways and other simple apps with the tips in this article.
3. Web 3.0 Marketing with Facebook: Find out why Facebook is great for small businesses wanting to tap into a large, global market.
4. Facebook as a B2B Marketing Tool: This article chronicles how ordinary Facebook users have begun to use the social networking community as a place to self-promote and improve business.
5. Top Ten Ways to Use Facebook to Promote Your Business for Free: If your company doesn’t have a huge marketing budget, don’t worry. This article gives tips on using Facebook’s free features to reach consumers.
6. Entrepreneurs Need Both Facebook and LinkedIn: This article from the Small Business Trends website details why entrepreneurs should take advantage of the many self-promotion and networking opportunities that Facebook offers its members.
7. Time for Facebook?: This author tries to figure out why Facebook, not just e-mail, is a useful tool for keeping contacts. Readers will also find tips on how to become more savvy at online networking.
8. Make Money with Facebook Applications: Web designers and developers are encouraged to create their own Facebook applications as an on-the-side moneymaking project.
9. Using Facebook for Business: A Real Life Example: The analysis of a real-life Facebook marketing strategy will help other small-business owners determine if a similar technique is right for their company.
10. Facebook Platform: This page includes “everything you need to get started building a Facebook Application.” Ready, set, design!
11. Facebook, a Marketer’s Friend: This article from The Wall Street Journal tracks a small-business owner and her lucrative, profitable adventures with Facebook marketing.
12. Five Ways Small Business Can Benefit from Social Media/Networking Sites: Small-business owners will find ways to use Facebook to meet their unique marketing needs.

The Danger of Facebook

Before you invest all of your company’s hard-earned marketing budget into Facebook advertising, check out these guides that discuss some of the negative challenges you might encounter.

1. Why Facebook Is Not a Viable Marketing Platform: Blogger Muhammad Saleem considers the reasons why Facebook marketing isn’t always a good idea. From lack of focus to lack of visibility, he argues that there are several reasons to avoid this strategy.
2. Facebook Grooming Us for Intrusive Marketing?: A blog at CNET News.com suggests that Facebook’s cozy relationship with advertisers treads on the dangerous concept of intrusive marketing.
3. Facebook Marketing Stunt Backfires: This article reveals how careless marketing tactics can lead to controversial, shady ad campaigns and bad public relations.
4. Five Things That Could Kill Facebook: From inbox contamination to application noise, learn how not to overdo your Facebook activity.
5. A Failed Facebook Marketing Campaign: Discover why Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Facebook marketing campaign wasn’t a success, and what your company can learn from its mistakes.
6. Facebook’s New Ads: If You’re a Good Person, Why Should You Want Privacy?: Can advertising on Facebook backfire? This article thinks that it can, if members are annoyed that big businesses prey on social- networking sites just to spy on their consumers.
7. Facebook Beacon: A Cautionary Tale About New-Media Monopolies: This article condemns certain Facebook marketing opportunities like Beacon by calling the technique “a classic case of overreaching.” Read this post before setting up a Facebook-oriented marketing strategy.
8. Madison Avenue Stampedes Onto Facebook: This video/article combination warns Facebook users against huge corporations that are “using Facebook … to exploit the site’s functions for their own business-networking pursuits, personal expression and just plain goofy fun.” Make sure you steer clear of these sketchy techniques if you want to attract new customers via Facebook.
9. Ten Reasons Why Social-Media Marketing Sucks: From undefined goals to all-around randomness, see why this blogger thinks social-media marketing sucks.

Miscellaneous Resources

These resources provide even more insight into the many ways that advertisers can capitalize on Facebook’s popularity.

1. Social-Media Marketing in a Nutshell: Dosh Dosh introduces the concept of using social-media sites as venues for cutting-edge marketing techniques.
2. Facebook is the Marketing Story of ‘07: According to Influxinsights, “Facebook emerged from college dorms late in 2006 and then exploded onto the cultural scene in the U.S., U.K. and Canada in 2007.” Read the rest of the article to learn why 2007 was Facebook’s year.
3. Facebook Lets Advertisers Reach Members Via Free Apps: To reach customers on a “deeper level,” get tips on utilizing Facebook’s many applications.
4. Employers Reach Out to Recruits with Facebook: Besides marketing your business to consumers, why not market it to fresh recruits? This article shows you how.
5. Inside Facebook: The Facebook Book: This blog provides analyses and excerpts from the book “Inside Facebook” to help businesses understand what the social-networking trend can do for them.
6. Facebook Members Sell Their Own Ads: Though it’s currently against the rules, “more than 1,500 Facebook users have started placing advertisements on their own profile pages.” Find out how selling ads on your profile eventually backfires.
7. Why Your Company Needs to Be on Facebook: Harvard Business School’s Conversation Starter site publishes this article from Forrester’s Charlene Li. Check out the many reasons why all companies should consider joining Facebook.

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Your email design:
Online email marketing services provide you with hundreds of templates to choose from. As a bonus, they’re also very easy to use. The many varieties available give you options to match your marketing needs, whatever they may be.

If you need to showcase promotions involving various products, you can include images of these products to entice your audience to find out more or to purchase directly. In this case, it is imperative to ensure your digital images are premier in quality. Also, you will be able to link these images to your online sales pages so that interested parties can discover more about your products. This also ties into the effectiveness of the tracking beacon which will be explained later.

If you are sending out text based articles and newsletters, Email marketing will help you to create different article sections complete with a table of contents, images and attention-grabbing headlines. Also, by adding a “read more” link at the bottom of the text, you will be able to track the results, such as the different people who are clicking on the article of interest to them in your email.

Having a professional design for you Email marketing campaigns is easily accomplished. It is simply a matter of uploading your digital images and cutting and pasting content into the given fields, then sending it out.

Tracking:
As mentioned earlier, Email marketing tracking and the design process, are interrelated. Together, these 2 features can really help you to determine your audience’s needs and wants. This is essential in establishing more targeted marketing campaigns, and therefore getting greater success out of your Email marketing campaigns as you progress.

Email marketing services provide you with detailed tracking on which of your subscribers have opened your email campaigns, clicked on the links (whether they are images or text), and who has forwarded your emails to other interested parties. This data is accessible through export features, so you can see your data in familiar programs like Excel. You will also be able to follow-up with your leads, as you will have real-time data on each subscriber, including their email address, as well as the time and date they interacted with or responded to your email.

The tracking features of Email marketing campaign will give you valuable information on your potential clients’ interests. And, the better you know your clients, the better you can service their needs.

List Management:
The best Email marketing programs will give you a highly comprehensive list manager. You will be able to ensure that you customize your subscriber list in any way, shape, or form that suits your needs.

Once you have data from your first campaigns, and have exported this data, you can now use the list manager to segment your audiences into their various interest groups.

Now the process begins again: recreate your campaigns specifically geared towards the needs and desires of your contact list, enticing them to purchase more and become loyal customers.

Some things to keep in mind about email marketing solutions:

Make sure that people who are visiting your website or entering your store location are adding their emails address to your contact list. Make sure that you are constantly making an effort to grow that contact list so that you can keep the cycle pumping.

HyperLocal Edge has email marketing services available.

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Even if you have your own business website that allows for comments and is consistently updated, you should be paying attention to the comments and reviews happening on other sites as well. This not only keeps you in tune with your customers but it also could provide you with information that could stem into another revenue stream.

How to use Yelp Business Accounts

Yelp for Business owners can be a powerful tool if used to the full functionality. Not only reading the latest reviews for your business but using those reviews to make your business better. Many businesses prvide a card or some type of form that customers could fill out to rate their experience. The problem with this is that your customers probably never fill them out and when they do it’s typically because they had a bad experience and want to bring it to the owners attention.

The nice thing about Yelp is that other than the information provided in the users profile, the reviews they give are anonymous. If you look through company listings in Yelp, you will see that people rate these companies all across the board. Some of the reviews are as simple as “the food was great.” or “nice place for a date.” but there are a large number of Yelpers that leave very detailed responses outlining what they ate at a restaurant or what color they got their nails painted. The good thing about Yelpers is that they enjoy writing their reviews.

Get to know your reviewers, add them to your network and get them involved in your other social media sites. Imagine the reviews you will get when the reviewers know that you do care what is said and you address their compliments and concerns.

Build your Yelp business profile

If you haven’t done so already, look at your Yelp business listing. Chances are if you haven’t updated it then it looks like the example below. Go into the profile for your business and update the address, website and other information. While your in there, add a picture of your business. Make your Yelp business listing something to be proud.

If you don’t have the time or the resources to update your Yelp profile, HyperLocal Edge can put one together for you. This is one of the services offered under our Silver plan. If you have any questions, let us know.

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Having a professional website for customers and collecting information from them for further communication is the foundation for building a community around your company. Regardless if you are a dentist, resteraunt, mortgage broker or running a home business, building a community around your company will reap rewards beyond your imagination.

HyperLocal Edge can work with you to discover how to build that community and manage it. You will be the spearhead of the community but we would help shape it and insure that the community you build .

By monitoring your brand across different social media platforms using basic and advanced methods we can stay on top of whats being said about you. Being able to answer questions, address concerns and evangelize your company, your community will thrive on having all the information they need to be customers for life.

Building a community around your business works just as much for a local dry cleaner as it does for a retail chain store. You may not need an active profile on every online community site but we can help you decide on where you will get the most traction.

HyperLocal Edge will look for people that can be a part of your community and empower them to become advocates for your business. Managing these online communities on your behalf spreading news and information to your customers and fans making sure everyone knows what the latest and greatest is about your business.

There are different packages for this service to fit any company budget. We can insure your brand is consistent across different social media platforms and your community

Contact us for to talk about how to build a community around your company.

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Over the years, many businesses have been successful with their marketing campaigns because they were able to maximize the potential of their cheap brochure printing by a direct mail strategy. Not only were they able to increase their client database, they were able to provide an effective means to convey a powerful message that gets response more times than they could count.

Any business then can benefit from a direct mail approach in their brochure printing. To help you achieve your objectives without depleting your resources too much, here is how you can optimize your marketing campaign:

Consider other uses to your direct mail.
Before you even think of your design, consider alternative uses to your campaign. Can you include rip-out coupons in your brochure printing? What about exchange tickets that they can use for freebies? Instead of the usual description of your products and services, why not include a couple of how to’s and additional information for your readers. The bottom line is to give them something that is fresh and exciting every time. Give them something that they will look forward to regularly. If you can provide your readers with an incentive to read your cheap brochure printing, you will have print brochures that get opened as fast as you can print them.

Consider color in your campaign.
Color is proven to increase the attractiveness of marketing collaterals. It helps increase your response rate on your backgrounds and graphics. In fact, collateral’s palette has been known to play a crucial role in persuading people to act on a message. So make sure you understand that fact. Do not be tempted to minimize your color to save on costs. Ask your brochure printing company instead on how you can lessen your costs but still have the palette you want for your cheap brochure printing.

Consider a message that is clear and concise.
Do not invest your time and effort in coming up with a message that is too long and too much for your target audience to appreciate completely. A clear and concise message is what gets them to respond every time. All you need is to convey your message in the easiest way that they can understand it and your marketing collateral can be the most effective in your arsenal.

Consider consistency.
Always make sure that your design is consistent with your message. It all boils down to what you would want to say to your audience. So make sure your elements emphasize that one important thing.

Consider credibility.
You got to walk the talk. If you promised something in your custom brochures, be sure to give it. And if you put a claim on anything, make sure that you can prove it. It is all useless if you cannot back your word with your actions.

Direct mail campaigns can help you a great deal in conveying your message to your target clients. To achieve a working campaign for your business, maximize your direct mail to get the response you want for your message.

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For small businesses in this challenging economy, getting solid results from a marketing investment is an absolute must. A new survey from Nielsen Online and WebVisible, however, reveals that local businesses and online consumers are often failing to connect.

The survey polled nearly 4,000 Internet users and business owners about their online consumer behavior and business marketing strategies. The data shows a “Great Divide” between media usage and small business advertising. The study provides valuable insight for local businesses that want to better understand online consumer behavior in order to maximize the return on their marketing spend.

Some of the key findings:

• Consumers use search engines 72% more often than they did two years ago
• Search engines are the No. 1 choice of consumers and small business owners alike when looking for a local product or service.

Yet, of small businesses:

• Half spend less than 10% of their marketing budget on Internet advertising
• Only nine percent are very satisfied with their results - meanwhile 63% turn to the Internet first when looking for local products or services

Reliance on multiple resources, reviews, blogs

The survey found that 75% of respondents rely on multiple information sources to find local business information; only an tiny minority (6%) said they used a single trusted source. However those “trusted sources” weren’t identified — whether traditional media or online.

Three fourths of users say they read reviews (product/service business) online. The number is higher (80%) as the audience ages:

–60% of 18-24 year olds read online reviews. –Ages 34 – 64 saw an average of 80% reading online consumer reviews.

–69% use blogs as a source for consumer product reviews, yet only 23% have ever posted a consumer review on a blog (among this group of posters: 45% of the posted reviews were negative, while 15% were mixed and 40% were positive).

Shop online, buy locally

Just over 70% of survey participants say they prefer to stay within a 20 minute drive of their homes to reach a business. And 80% of respondents say they have researched a product or service online and then made their purchase offline from a local business.

These findings are consistent with other information and empirical data in the market but serve to reinforce the importance and power of both search/SEM and local search in consumer purchase behavior.

Getting listed on localized business listings like Google Local and Yahoo Local can be tricky. We can mange these for you and make sure the information listed is up to date and draws customers to your business.

From the several online yellow pages and other local directories there are dozens of  places we can make sure your business is listed correctly and professionally. Getting listed in these online directories is usually free but not an easy task to accomplish with many steps and waiting for confirmations. We can manage this process and insure your business is listed locally for customers to locate easily.

Maximize your local exposure

Localized marketing on the several online yellow pages and other local directories where we can make sure your business is listed correctly and professionally. Getting listed in these online directories is usually free but not an easy task to accomplish with many steps and waiting for confirmations. We can manage this process and insure your business is listed locally and correctly for customers to locate easily.

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• Many others

Many of these local online directories make it easy to reach out to people who have reviewed your business. By contacting the people with the most positive comments to express your appreciation and possibly give them a special deal, you stay top of mind with some of your best influencers for more business. Even communicating with the people who gave negative comments to get a better understanding of the issues could give you another chance to get another customer for life.

Contact us to discuss your options for digital marketing.

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What It Is:
Individual pieces of printed advertising, usually providing a discount or special offer

Appropriate For:
All businesses, especially those with special promotions during the year or with lower ticket items

Typical Cost:
Prices vary depending on how the coupon is distributed, how many coupons are used, printing costs, and the geographic location of the business

How It Works:
Coupons are versatile print ads that entice people to take advantage of a sale, urge them to visit a new location, or reward them for shopping in your store at any time. Restaurants use coupons to build traffic on a normally slow day, amusement parks use them to reduce the price of admission for people who buy their tickets in advance, and dry cleaners use them to lure business away from competitors. Get creative, and you’ll find a way to use coupons in your advertising mix.

Your coupons can do whatever you want them to do and can be distributed in a lot of different ways: You can make them part of your regular newspaper ads, stuff them into customer’s bags to give them an incentive to return, put them on your website for people to print out and redeem, insert them into publications, or mail them.

Coupon packs from companies like Valpak and Carol Wright are stuffed with up to forty coupons and mailed to residential locations through local and national campaigns (and they now also offer printable coupons online). This is a relatively inexpensive option, depending on how many ZIP codes you decide to cover, but it’s a good way to go if you’re watching your dollars. The downside of these cooperative mailings is that your coupon can get lost in the pile. To help avoid that, be sure your coupon is bright and intriguing.

Another way to distribute your coupons is to independently team up with other businesses that compliment–but do not compete with–yours. For instance, an amusement park can distribute discount coupons for admission at nearby fast food restaurants or grocery stores. As an incentive for agreeing to do this, the restaurants and grocers are included in the amusement park’s radio and TV ads as places these valuable coupons can be found. By joining forces, you have a win-win situation and great distribution for your coupons.

Coupons are a slam-dunk when it comes to tracking your advertising. By placing different offers or different designs in different publications, you’ll know exactly which ones are working for you and which ones aren’t. If you’re having your coupons printed, you should use a unique design or paper with watermarks to keep them from being easily replicated. And keep the coupons as people redeem them so you know just what percentage is coming back to you from each place.

A close cousin of the coupon is the gift certificate, and you should always have them available for shoppers who are unsure of what to purchase. When customers buy gift certificates rather than products, you’re able to keep more inventory in stock during busy periods. Be sure to put an end date on your gift certificates and include disclaimers, such as “This gift certificate cannot be used to pay on account,” “…cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer” or “…cannot be redeemed for cash.”

Here are a few additional tips when it comes to using coupons to advertise your business:

• Be sure and put an end date (a date when they’re no longer valid) on all your coupons. If you don’t, you’ll have to honor them for as long as you run your business.
• Be careful about your offer. A coupon offering something for free will get the people in, but they may not return. Lots of businesses find that when people come in to redeem a freebie, they don’t even focus on what you have to offer and you lose the ability to sell them something else. Better to offer something free with an additional purchase or give a 50 percent discount on the purchase of one item.
• Include your coupons on your website and keep that page up to date.

You’ll learn along the way what to include and what not to include on your own specific coupons. But these basics will get you started.

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Either you have a website and want some additional exposure or you need an online presence and want to get the attention of your local community. Hyperlocal marketing makes sure the people in your area know about your company. From your online website to adding new avenues of the community finding your business by creating additional links back to your company, we can make it happen.

One of the primary issues facing small businesses is acquiring new customers and managing the communication and reputation of your company. HyperLocal Edge puts your company in front of new customers and people looking for your products and services. We do this by marketing your company through several channels online focused for the maximum local exposure.

I’m sure you are already advertising your business in some way but do you know how to measure those ads? Are you blindly putting an ad in the Yellow Pages and hoping for the best?

As your customers become more and more technical, they are going to be looking for your business online. Either by searching for you company in a directory or heading directly to your company website. The question is, “Do you know how they are getting there?”

We can assist you in getting the details of knowing this information. Don’t trust the listing agencies metrics to say how much traffic they are sending you, know on your own. Find out where your website traffic is coming from so you can make intelligent choices on where to spend more resources getting new customers.

Hyperlocal Marketing is all about giving your company the edge online. We work on making sure your business can be found by the customers in your area.

We have three packages to choose from that cover most business needs. We can also provide specialty services for businesses just needing a specific task.

Starter Marketing Package (Bronze)

Business Exposure Package (Silver)

Complete Marketing Plan (Gold)

Here are the highlights of some of the services we can offer your business:

• Website analysis

  • We dig through your site looking for ways to increase search engine listings.
  • Develop additional content that is keyword specific for your business.
  • Evaluate and suggest changes that will draw more people to your site.

• Website development

  • From new site creation to updating your existing website, HyperLocal Edge can make sure your business is optimized for local search engine traffic and remains easy for you to maintain and grow. Regardless if you are a Real Estate Agent, Bakery, Gym or Restaurant, we can design a site that highlights your company.

• Localized exposure

  • From Google to Yahoo, there are several places we can make sure your business is listed correctly and professionally. Getting listed in these online directories is usually free but not an easy task to accomplish with many steps and waiting for confirmations. We can manage this process and insure your business is listed locally for customers to locate easily.

• Online marketing campaigns

  • Email blasts to current and prospective customers. A quick and effective way to let your customers know about new products and services, special discounts, or last-minute sales.
  • Set up a way to capture customer information easily for future communication.
  • Popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can be a prime place for you to attract new customers and get solid relationships with existing ones.

• Brand/Reputation Management

  • Insure what people find about your company online is accurate and puts your business in a positive light. From online directories to other websites you are listed on, making sure your business is displayed with current and professional information is a necessity for a company trying to grow. We can work with you to identify where your company is listed online and make sure all of the information is correct.

• Website analytics

  • We can set up and show you how to easily see where your online traffic is coming from.
  • Know if specific listings are more effective than others.
  • Make intelligent decisions on where to focus your business resources to grow.

Our business is based around making your company shine. Online and offline, we will get your local business in front of the customers you want and bring in new business for you.

Contact us to discuss your options for digital marketing.

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• Free Website Review
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Your local business deserves custom attention and the exposure to everyone in the community. Our solution gives you everything you need to get your company online and ready to engage customers.

We will get your company website up and provide you with the tools to maintain the site as you grow. Additionally we can be used to help you with website changes and new content.

HyperLocal Bronze Package

[Bronze] $250.00

This is a report we put together for you showing how exposed your company is online. This is a foundation for your company to understand how social media and the internet helps identify your product/service to a wider audience. From your website, business listings and other channels we analyze how easily your business can be found online.

• A Basic Monitoring Report.
• Report will show all mentions of your company in
  • Blogs
  • Blog comments
  • Yelp
  • Yahoo Local
  • Twitter
  • Other business directories.
  • Also would report on absence of listings online
• Highlight all indexed pages and links to your company site in Google, Yahoo.
• Report will also show Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, & Compete Rank.

HyperLocal Silver Package

[Silver Package] $2500.00

This package is designed to get a business on as many social media sites and allow them to see a complete picture of how to evaluate their social media reach and help their networks grow. This service will allow a company to have a deeper view into their customers and allow for communication with them.

• Complete HyperLocal Bronze report
• This includes a custom designed Blog, a Twitter account, and a Facebook Fan Page.
  • Blog
    • WordPress w/ Theme and standard plugins
    • Graphic design to add company logo and post graphics
    • 5 custom keyword rich posts written on relevant topic and fed into blog over 5 months
      • Additional posts can be purchased.
    • Pages included
      • Home
      • About + Founder + Company History
      • Contact + fully functioning contact form
      • Services + 3 Specific Services pages
      • Blog + 5 initial Blog Posts already published (Topic related and keyword optimized)

      Domain Name Registration and Webhosting for blog are extra.

  • Twitter Profile
    • Gather Followers Based on Keywords
    • Report of Replies and Conversations
  • Yelp Business Account Management
    • Update Yelp profile with complete information and photo.
    • Tracking analytics added to final report
    • Data on top reviewers you can contact.
  • Facebook page
    • Profile created for owner if needed
    • Page created for business
    • 2 Special FBML pages created to be landing page and a promotional page
      • Local advertising available $60.00
  • 3 additional profiles created from social media sites
    • Complete profile design and implementation
    • All branded for client
• Various searches would be fed to either a Google Email Address or Feed Reader.
• Site would incorporate Analytics, Social Media Connections, FeedBurner RSS,
• Google and Yahoo Sitemap submissions. Business would be listed in Yelp, Google Maps, Google and Yahoo Local biz directories.

HyperLocal Gold Package

[Gold Package] Contact us for pricing

This package is for businesses that want to get the maximum benefits from joining and growing social networks. A comprehensive service designed to give your business an active presence online with multiple social networks building a community around your company.

• A Comprehensive Monitoring Report.
• Report would show mentions of all their company in
  • Blogs
  • Blog comments
  • Yelp
  • Yahoo Local
  • Twitter
  • Other business directories.
  • Also would report on absence of listings online
• Would also show all indexed pages and links to their site in Google, Yahoo.
• Report could also show Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, & Compete Rank.

• This includes a custom designed Blog, a Twitter account, and a Facebook Fan Page.
  • Blog
    • WordPress w/ Theme and standard plugins
    • Graphic design to add company logo and post graphics
    • 12 custom keyword rich posts written on relevant topic and fed into blog over 5 months
      • Additional posts can be purchased.
    • Pages included
      • Home
      • About + Founder + Company History
      • Contact + fully functioning contact form
      • Services + 3 Specific Services pages
      • Blog + 12 initial Blog Posts already published (Topic related and keyword optimized)

      Domain Name Registration and Webhosting for blog are extra.

  • Twitter Profile
    • Gather Followers Based on Keywords
    • Report of Replies and Conversations
    • Communication with users questions and comments
  • Yelp Business Account Management
    • Update Yelp profile with complete information and photo.
    • Tracking analytics added to final report
    • Data on top reviewers.
    • Communication with all reviewers
  • Facebook page
    • Profile created for owner if needed
    • Page created for business
    • Active collection of fans for new page. (based on known customer info)
    • 2 Special Facebook pages created to be a landing page and a promotional page
      • Local advertising available $60.00
  • 6 additional profiles created from social media sites
    • Client decision
    • All branded for client
• Various searches would be fed to either a Google Email Address or Feed Reader.
• Site would incorporate Analytics, Social Media Connections, FeedBurner,
• Google and Yahoo Sitemap submissions. Business would be listed in Yelp, Google Maps, Google and Yahoo Local biz directories.
• Report would be generated monthly showing
  • Additions to networks
  • Growth of networks
  • Site analytics
  • Keyword saturation
  • New comments on networks

Once we have your business listed in the top business directories and profiles setup on multiple social media sites, the real work can begin.

Our team will build your networks up, looking for people already familiar with your company to become evangelists for you and find people around your area that could benefit from knowing you. Little by little building your network of customers and potential customers so you can have a rich platform for targeted marketing and deeper communication.

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Using a WordPress platform (like the one this site is created with) we can put together a unique website customized for your exact needs and remains easy to maintain and build upon. Working with you we can pick out the right look and feel for your company website and provide a proof of concept before building the entire site. This way you have a visual idea of the website you will end up with and can provide us with the little extras you want included.

We can also put together a basic website that will just have a set of pages linked to it. These HTML websites have less customizations but can be a starting point for your company website.

Most HTML websites are not optimized for search engines like Google. Though your website could show up in a search, you are missing out on many of the dynamic aspects of your companies online identity. We use several tools to make sure your company website is easy to find, keyword optimized and picked up quickly by leading search engines.

Since your small business website is one one of the first places a customer looks at, you want to make sure it is something clean, professional and easy to navigate. Our website developers are experts in making websites that fit your companies needs and give your customers a very good experience.

Regardless if you are a Real Estate Agent, Bakery, Gym or Restaurant, we can design a site that highlights your company.

Our web designers have the creative talent to appeal to your sense of style, the training and knowledge of current web development standards and practices, and the ability to turn your ideas into reality!

Your website will put you at your customers’ fingertips

For many businesses, your website is the main line of communication between your customers and your company. Even if you do not conduct all of your business through your website, it may be just what the customer needs to see to choose you over a competitor.

How it works

Your website will be custom-designed and fully functional so that you can begin attracting customers immediately. You can include sub-pages, photos, and videos on your page.

We can custom design a website to suit any business, whether you need one page or multiple pages.

Contact us to discuss your options for digital marketing.

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