Change the way you think about internet marketing and how your website can generate new business in any location. Websites can be developed in many different ways, but do they work? Some websites are brochure-ware sites or all flash websites.  Both types may mean that you have to market your website instead of your website marketing your business.  It depends on how they are designed.  

Ten areas to evaluate:

1. Do you have to buy Google sponsored links because your website can’t be found? Say it isn’t so! You should never have to buy online placement. If you search for industry-like keywords and the page results are under 2.5 million, but your website cannot be found, then you need to seriously check the page programming and design. Find an expert in website design that really understands search engine placement.

How do you know if the website designer is an expert? Have the expert show you examples of websites they designed that are on page one, two, or three. See where they measure up in their own industry like searcing the term “website design Fargo” or the location they do business in.

2. Do you have errors in the code, script, or programming of the site? Errors on your website could hinder search engine placement. It’s common to find an extra space or character out of place and some search engines will penalize you for the smallest of errors which may effect search engine placement.

3. Are you embarrassed to send potential clients to your website? This is common, but can be fixed by updating your branding or identity.

4. Are you able to edit your website without paying a fortune? This kind of depends on what your definition of a fortune is. Do you want to pay someone to change copy or a link for over $75 per hour or can the same task be performed in half the time for under $35. Are you being charged one hour to change a few links and a few copy changes? Some website design businesses offer discounts for minor edits and web maintenance.  

5. Do you have to type in your business name to find your website? Unfortunately your business name doesn’t count because not everyone knows your business name. Put yourself in your potential client’s shoes. Example: Search for possible industry specific terms like “website design” and the location like Fargo. What service do you provide? Use these terms or keywords first, and then a location.  

6. Do your website pages have proper page titles, keywords, headers, and meta tags for your target market? This is important, but also depends on how the site is developed, or programmed.

7. Do you get contacts from potential clients or leads from your website? If you spend the time and money to market your business don’t you think it should be visible also? You can still have a great looking site and still be on page one. Do you have lead capture forms? Can people contact you easily? A lead capture form can be a quick name, e-mail, and phone number, and there you have it, a potential lead. At the very least, have your business name, phone, and location on every page. Then decide if you want a catch all e-mail or  put your business e-mail address on the pages.

8. Is your business website on page four or past page four in search engines? Think about this one. Do you look past page four? How many pages do you look at? Make it easy for people to find you. Location, location, location does apply online!

9. Do you have minimal copy explaining what it is that you offer or what your business is about? People do look and shop online before making a decision to buy. At a very minimal you should have information explaining the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your business.  

10. Is your copy or text is embedded in the images and not on the page? This might be ok for menu items, a call to action or catch phrases, but get the full value of all your copy or content. Don’t put all your copy in images it does nothing for search engine placement.

Is your business website a work horse or a show horse? A website can be one of the least expensive marketing vehicles you have, and can reach more potential clients if it’s designed for performance. Some businesses get 8 to 10 leads per day or per week from their website; do you? If not, maybe finding an expert website designer to maximize your web visibility and minimize your cost will help.

What does a working website cost? You can get a really good search engine friendly website for about $65 per month it just depends on where you go, and what you need. 

701-478-5955
Suite 171

Print Ad Marketing and Communications.

Are conventional marketing methods, loosing their luster? We are constantly learning about closing newspapers, bankrupt or troubled publications like The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, and The Baltimore Sun.

In the last few months, two thirds of the twenty five national publications we work with are slashing prices because diminishing requests for ad placement. In fact, The Rocky Mountain News (Denver) was added to the list and from the looks of things it must be sold or else… Will cutbacks and low advertising sales affect local newspapers or communication companies in Fargo? Can newspapers and magazines survive the online trends of modern marketing? This is a question that remains to be seen.

Is Fargo behind the times when it comes to modern marketing techniques, as compared to national trends, and new marketing models? Our geographical location and general demographics limit our exposure to viral, buzz or social media marketing like YouTube™, free advertising sites like Craigslist, and social media network sites like LinkedIn. The uses of these websites are on the rise, but do we understand the full potential? Some businesses are taking advantage of new marketing ideas, and with a little education even revamping old brochure ware websites to modern marketing vehicles that get results.

How is it possible to get new business form a website or email marketing?

In our experience, we redesigned a business website for national placement. In one month the new website’s exposure was increased ten-fold, and the leads increased from two per day to an average of eight. With the new design and search engine placement the website went from page fifty to page one in all major search engines for the keyword areas and locations targeted.

E-mail blasts are similar to mailing a flyer; it’s just a different technique, and costs less. The differences between a flyer and an e-mail blast is that in an email blast you can track who viewed it, the number of responses, how many people viewed it, when, where, and how often.

Example: Just this last week, we sent an email for one client out at about 4:30 PM and the next morning they had about twenty people inquiring about their products. In fact, I was on the phone with this client at about 10:00 AM that next morning, and they were closing a sale for over $10,000.

How do we know if any marketing campaign works? We can evaluate any marketing campaign or website by answering a few questions.

- Were you able to track the results from your efforts and did it perform according to your goals and standards?

- Did you get calls or new leads, how many and how often?

- What was your return on investment?

- Bottom line – did you get results?

Sometimes it’s difficult to explain old methods vs. new marketing methods but there are two things every business owner understands, and that’s money, and return on investment (ROI). The best advice we can give is don’t just throw money at a problem and expect a solution or results. Here are some important factors before you start any marketing campaign.

1. What does it cost to develop, design, and deploy? This includes concept to delivery i.e. creative work, media buying, and placement.

2. How will you know if it works? What methods are in place to track the performance of your campaign?

3. What is your return on investment (ROI)?

It’s not all doom and gloom for the future of marketing and advertising. The answer may not lie in traditional methods but in reaching more people on the internet.

This website is one example of how content primarily published by users (user generated content) can reach more people. It’s also a tool for people to communicate and share video, commercials or almost anything. Invite people to read, interact, and contribute. Social media website… Send us an article or video.

Give it a try.

]]> http://diymarketingtools.com/print-advertising/internet-marketing-and-print.html/feed 0 http://diymarketingtools.com/online-marketing/business-marketing.html http://diymarketingtools.com/online-marketing/business-marketing.html#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:00:45 +0000 admin http://www.diymarketingtools.com/?p=390 What is online marketing? Article syndication, press releases, & online marketing in a nut shell. Online press releases provide information to a larger audience (internet users) about what’s new with your business, important news, trends, and generates traffic to your website. Social marketing is another cost effective method of reaching potential clients, generating brand awareness, and driving Internet traffic or prospects to your web site. Did you follow the presidential election, and how YouTube, and MySpace changed the marketing and dynamics of campaigning? ]]>

Marketing that reaches more people

What is online marketing? Article syndication, press releases, & online marketing in a nut shell.

Online press releases provide information to a larger audience (internet users) about what’s new with your business, important news, trends, and generates traffic to your website.

Social marketing is another cost effective method of reaching potential clients, generating brand awareness, and driving Internet traffic or prospects to your web site. Did you follow the presidential election, and how YouTube, and MySpace changed the marketing and dynamics of campaigning?

Article marketing and syndication and content specific writing will create buzz within your industry, generate traffic, and builds back links.

Video marketing and optimization  

You can input critical keywords, titles and information when you edit a video. Specific meta data will increase exposure and may generate new web traffic. When you optimize your TV Commercial for the web and submit it to many video enabled sites it will improve traffic, and brand recognition.

Blog marketing

When blogging try to connect with relevant industry related sites or topics to create buzz for your products or services. Build credibility as a subject matter expert and attract possible clients. When you submit permanent links, information, or articles, it will also increase your back links, web PR, and web site popularity. Blog Smart.

A combination of one to many of these methods will increase your website exposure and most importantly your products or services. There are many other marketing tips we will provide, but one of the most important is to have a website that can be found online.

Your web site is like an iceberg you only see 10% of what really takes place. It’s down to the nuts and bolts the remaining 90% is how it’s coded, functionality, meta tag information, titles and descriptions, and critical site maps, robots.txt files, and URL lists.

How your site is presented is important but you really need to tackle the technical side of the site so it’s a marketing tool. Build your business website with the best possible search engine optimization, usability, navigation, and structure for the best user experience. If your business website is on page ten then you spend money marketing your site and not your website marketing you. The difference is night and day or could be the difference of spending thousands…

701-478-5955
Suite 171

But then it was Sunday afternoon and I realized that there would be no Steelers – Chargers game.  You can have all the CSI’s you want, but keep your hands off the playoffs!  Panic suddenly gripped my household, and one 30 minute phone call to DirecTV later, we still have no NFL football.  More panic as we realize we may not have our Steelers – Raven’s playoff game next Sunday either.  Even more panic when we can’t figure out if the Super Bowl XLIII will be blocked as well.  (What station is playing the Super Bowl?)

Now my impartial attitude towards this contract negotiation has turned to concern.  Firstly, if DirecTV undervalues our market, that affects local revenues which in turn affects local jobs.  If KX4, KXJB holds out for a reasonable price…I guess we’ll just go to our neighbors to watch the game.  There are plenty of cable providers in our area to keep the game on… just a thought. 

And for those of you with DirecTV… we have free HBO and Showtime for two months; you could make a 30 minute phone call too.  It’s still bunk, old movies for football ~

2. Stock Your Fridge:  By stocking your fridge full of liquids like pitchers of water, juices, bottles of soda, etc, the inside of your fridge retains a more constant cool temperature.  Your refrigerator will use less energy, making a smaller impact on the environment.

3. Glass instead of Plastic:  Glass is infinitely recyclable.  Plastic takes as much energy to recycle as it took to make it in the first place.

4. Storage Containers instead of Baggies:  There are many benefits to using glass or ceramic storage containers instead of baggies.  Containers are more eco friendly because they are reused many times.  Glass containers can go into the microwave without emitting harmful chemicals into your food like plastic containers to.  If you stack your fridge with many glass and ceramic containers, the containers will help regulate the inside temperature of your fridge along with your many bottles of water from tip #2.

5. Recycle Bins: Set up recycle bins for plastic bottles, cans, glass, and paper.  With handy recycle bins, your family will reduce the amount of waste going into your local land fill.

6. Tin-foil not Plastic Wrap:  Aluminum is infinitely recyclable at a lower energy consumption rate than mining the aluminum, unlike recycling plastic which uses the same amount of energy as creating the original plastic.  So even if you recycled the plastic wrap, recycling the aluminum has less impact on the environment.

7. Grocery Bags:  Plastic grocery bags are a menace.  They take just as much energy to recycle into other plastic bags as it took to make the first bag, and they take hundreds of years to decompose in a landfill.  So even using the recycled plastic grocery bags aren’t really saving the environment. You could donate your used plastic bags to second hand stores and hope that the lucky shoppers receiving your bag will keep the re-use cycle going.  But the best solution is to bring canvas shopping bags to the store with you so you don’t have to get a plastic bag in the first place!

In our region winter cold equals higher energy bills. Here are three simple ways to save energy costs and green your home at the same time.

1. Stock your refrigerator. Yes, the more you keep in the fridge the more you save on energy. Here’s how it works. Keep as many filled liquid bottles, containers and cans as you have room for in the fridge. The cold liquid in those containers helps to regulate the inside temperature which allows your refrigerator to use less energy to keep your food cold. Using less energy saves money in your monthly electric bill and you’ll always have a cool drink to enjoy in the process!

2. Unplug unused appliances.  For most people, keeping appliances plugged in is really about keeping its internal clock on the right time.  But if you unplugged your appliances, phone chargers, computers, TV’s and other appliances when not in use, you could save as much as 20% on your electric bill.  Of course that amount varies per household.  When your appliance is “off” but still plugged into the light socket or the average surge protector, the appliance is still drawing energy.  There are special surge protectors you can purchase that will reduce the amount of energy draw, but your best bet to save some green is to simply unplug the appliance.

3. Run your humidifier daily.  Moist air retains heat, makes you feel warmer, and allows you to turn your thermostat a few degrees lower.  Whether you have a cool air or steam humidifier you will see similar benefits:  lower heating costs and a cozy home in the dry cold winter.

Saving energy is a great way to green your home.  Cutting waste is the easiest way to be eco-friendly; and wasted energy is also wasted money.  With these three eco tips, you can green your home and save some green all at the same time.