Many small to medium business owners ask me how to get their “brand” “out there more.” There is no single trick or formula that applies to every business, because different markets and demographics respond in different ways. Trends are important factors; so is the economy. When focusing on your brand marketing, you must be open to new things, and expect a learning curve to overcome. The point is: be flexible.
In the last year, here in Tulsa, WalMart has been moving some stuff around. Okay, they’ve moved everything around! The entire layout of the store has changed. The groceries are still on the same side and the retail remains on the left side of the store, but all of the isles are different. You could almost feel the frustration in everyone’s tone while they searched isles and couldn’t find what they were looking for. WalMart had a reason for doing what they did — I hope! I can only imagine how much time and research dollars went into setting new goals, testing and exploring new layouts
What things should you, as a business owner, look for in a company that has promised you online success? With our economy the way that it is, business owners have to get smarter and look for this type of help when it’s not feasible to have someone in house do it all (which would be ideal). So what do you look for? There are many talented 1-man shows out there that know what they are doing, and there are large firms that can do the very same.
Why do you have a website? If your primary reason for having a website is simply because your competitors have a website and you feel like not having one will hurt your business, then I’m willing to bet that you haven’t updated your website in weeks or even months. Mr. Business Owner, this is doing you more harm than good. Your website is a sales tool, and quite frankly, one of the most powerful ones that you’ll ever have. Gone are the days of having a website and not updating it for weeks and months. Not OKAY! You may not see this because you are still thinking about the good ‘old days of direct mail marketing where you got a 4% return one year on a direct mail piece that you really liked.
Why is it so hard to sit down in front of a blank screen and write an article to upload to the website? Your heart rate speeds up, your palms get sweaty, you can think of a million other things to do at that moment instead of sitting there feeling this way. Yet, we can discuss and debate the benefits of our service till the person we’re talking to has to fake a heart attack just to excuse them from the conversation. It a hard thing to brainstorm ideas. To write, speak, or perform in front of a computer or camera is unproductive and time-consuming.
What’s the difference? I think many web content developers and SEO (search engine optimization) professionals assume that our clients know what the difference between paid and organic / natural search results are. You know what paid search results are….they are the ones that no one clicks on LOL! I do sometimes, like maybe 2 times a year, and everything I do I pretty much do in a web browser. Soooo, that leaves the rest of the search results…the ones that are there naturally simply because of the content of the website that is being listed.
I’m currently reading a book entitled The New Rules of Marketing and PR that my friend and local business owner Brad Johnson of Lawn America loaned to me. It’s quite good! I came across a story about a company that we all know and can identify with, and I found it relevant to many of the business owners that I speak to every week. So, I thought I’d share…
Century 21 Real Estate LLC is the franchisor of the world’s largest residential real estate sales organization, an industry giant comprising approx. 8,000 offices in 45 countries. You’ve seen Century 21’s TV ads before, but you haven’t seen them lately. In 2009, the company pulled its national TV advertising and invested those resources into online marketing. That’s a huge move considering the amount of TV they were doing. Read more
Gone are the days of the homepage. True, every website has one, but the days when website owners expect their homepage to do all the heavy lifting are gone.
Thanks to the evolving science of search, the search engines have made our lives easier by providing the consumer with relevant search results for specific keyword queries. Visitors now stream directly into websites via side doors and back doors. They can magically teleport into a website without ever seeing the homepage; they are practically flying through the windows to land directly where they want to be.
For a consumer looking for a specific product or service, this is fantastic, but for site owners and operators, the importance of optimizing each and every individual page you would potentially want a searcher to visit is magnified considerably. When visitors can enter a site and land anywhere, there are brand implications. If it’s not immediately apparent where they are, and why, they might not stick around. The same thought and energy you put into the homepage of the site to brand the product or company must be put into each page that you intend to be searchable for the consumers that you want to be on your site. Read more
Social media has its place, but does that place include replacing our most beloved forms of digital communication: e-mail?
1. Never underestimate the power of the hand-written note or letter. Test this in your work place. Put up a memo in your office, and write something in your own handwriting in red that says, “the power of the hand-written note reaches more people than a typed letter with the most impressive grammar.” I promise they will glance down at the bottom to read the handwriting before the read the first word of the memo. They’ll get the point.
2. Nearly all sites on the web that require registration require an email address. Some are starting to integrate social media into this process (such as Facebook Connect), but that is still a very small fraction, and they typically still allow for email information as well. Read more
Search Engine Optimization is the foundation, the bedrock of online marketing. It is the foundation of all Internet marketing.
Launching a website without actively marketing it properly (and professionally) is like buying a new car, never putting gas in it, and then complaining that it doesn’t work. The potential for leads and sales certainly exists, but without some direct focus on Search Engine Optimization and Internet marketing, you’ll never see those leads.
You see, search engines have taught consumers how to search. They have redefined how people shop and find the services that you offer. And when someone types a keyword into the search box and presses that search button, there are only two possible outcomes:
You can’t afford to allow your competitors to hog all of the search results in Google, Bing, or Yahoo while you spend advertising dollars on avenues that cannot justify a positive return on investment. Read more
