FaceBook Marketing Services Expand

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Two years ago, we began to offer FaceBook marketing services to our clients in addition to our search engine optimization and marketing services. We now handle the presence for several clients on FaceBook, working together with them to increase audience size and develop relationships with their fans.

It’s only natural that we are expanding what we offer on FaceBook as the medium grows and matures.

Custom Business Pages: First impressions on FaceBook are very important to growing your audience there – and you are only as effective there at cultivating business as the [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Blogging is Social Marketing’s First Step

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Blogging Essentials

Blogging is really not an option anymore. It is an essential part of the Holistic Internet Marketing pie. In my previous post, I gave you some elementary tips to blog correctly for SEO strategies. In this post, we will take one concept to the next level.

You don’t need to be engaged in Facebook or Twitter to blog. But if you are, the incentive to post a blog regularly is that it provides you with additional content to talk about on your social networks. Of course, the other side to this coin being, the sole intent of a business on a social network is to draw the viewer away from the social network community to the business owners’ own web site.

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Your Audience Is Your Priority

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Most of our social media clients have been “all new” in the social media marketplace. Our services include both audience building and posting content. But lately, we have seen a number of clients who have had a go of it on their own but aren’t having much success. After all, it is a tough row to hoe when you have -0- followers. And it can be downright depressing, when after 3 months you only have a few more than that! It’s much easier and a lot more fun to find quirky bits and bytes of information to share. But that’s the rub. Who exactly are you sharing this info with? Is this the best use of your time?

[Read more...]

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The Plight of the Dinosaur

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I like to read a newspaper just as much as the next person. But I also take in news all day long from so many sources I can’t even count. Nor do I have to. Just today, I was intrigued by the buzz story in the Wall Street Journal about Apple’s ITunes considering a move to the web.

But when I went to the WSJ site they demanded I pay them to read the story. Now, if I read the WSJ regularly online I probably would already be a subscriber. In fact, I do subscribe to several online publications. They never demanded that I do it though.

So what did I do? I went back to Google and queried it for “ITunes on the web”. There was the WSJ link at the top of the page. But Mashable had a take on the same news and there was Reality Check and Huffington Post and all the usual pundits. When I clicked on the blog search button I backfilled with more info about the subject. I even viewed a free video about it!

I will not be bullied on the web. After all its my space not the Wall Street Journal’s. But what’s a dinosaur to do? Everyone has always paid dearly to have one association or another with them. It’s not my fault that they lack the creativity to come up with a new workable plan. It’s remarkable to watch businesses large and small get caught up in the sea change.

I just have to wonder how I might have reacted if the story in the WSJ was really, really good and they just let me read it. What if a banner at the end of the story said, “If this article read was important to you click here”, and in so doing I was swept away to an offer page that made me feel like I was an important business reader. How hard would that be to do ? What would the potential be to convert new business after everyone who was going to subscribe to you already had?

Sorry folks there really is no place in the market for relationships that are not win-win anymore. Those days are fully over. Think about your promotions. Are you doing them because you have to and this is how we’ve always done it? Or are you doing it to cause new business to come from a different angle than you are already getting it from?

Filed Under: Industry News Tagged With: , ,

To Discount or Not To Discount

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The burning question in every business owner’s mind this time of year is should I discount and if so when and how much. Under normal economic conditions a good argument can be made for both sides of this discussion. But in tough times like we we face now it’s harder to argue for the side of holding that line. It nearly acknowledges that you are out of touch with consumers.

Because in an extraordinary time like this we are actually resetting prices. Yes, we will be able to raise them again some day, but in my opinion right now we have to pay close attention to what the market can bear. Just look at how WalMart is dominating the early holiday shopping ads with their heartfelt plea to offer low prices.

Face it, if you sell low priced units you are selling less of them or discounting and taking less profit. But most of our clients sell big ticket units and a large majority of you sell leisure and/or vacation oriented units. The plain truth is that consumers who could marginally afford what you offered in the past are “off the list” now. Many who could afford you are now marginal. Yet, still a small percentage are actually doing ok and are able to seize good opportunities to buy cars, homes and leisure time at will when the perceived value is “too good to pass up.” With all of this in mind, you need to spend some time being creative.

What can you offer that is different from the crowd. Right now, it seems like it takes something equal to at least 30% off of your full price. This is not a time to just pay the concept of “discount” momentary lip service and move on. Obviously, the more margin you had to start with the chance you have to still make a reasonable profit. But you also need to look at what a creative discount promotion can do in the long run; create new customers you might never have had.

If you “steal” a long time customer from the competitor down the street through a creative deal that gets people excited and then end up delivering a better product than they got at the other place you sow the seeds for a growing customer base of the future. While out of the scope of our day to day work we do for our clients, we have been marketers since the dawn of time and would be happy to be your sounding board on creative ideas and help you steer through these turbulent times successfully.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: ,

You Know the Yellow Pages Are Dead When…

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I am moving; for joy, for joy. I hate moving but it seems I move regularly. I think this is trait passed on to me by my parents because they never lived anywhere for more than 10 years. I think it’s part of a gypsy heritage.

When I was young I can remember how the phone book was an invaluable tool. You would find notes scribbled on the covers and circles, arrows and margin notes on the inside pages. For most of my adult life, I lived in small town America. The phone book was important to be sure, albeit a tiny book with few pages. It fit in a drawer next to the phone on the wall and was quite light to pick up.

I moved to Southern California a few years ago. One of the first things that amazed me was the huge books I found plopped on my doorstep each year. A mammoth white pages and an even larger Yellow Pages. So, anyway, I found myself moving the other day and under the guest bed was where I had been throwing these books. I didnt even give it a moment of thought when moving time came. The new ones that just showed up along with my “collection” all went into the recycling bin.

After regaining my breath from the haul out, I reflected on the fact that I hadn’t opened any of them, ever! This fact was worth considering more, given I am am marketer, who at one time, made a living placing tiny Yellow Pages ads in target cities. Perhaps, more importantly, here I was new in town and had no need for The Phone Book!

In 2007, Search Engine Land did an exhaustive study that uncovered that searches for the yellow pages online were dropping while searches for Google maps were increasing. This would point towards a double challenge for Yellow Pages publishers. Not only is their print version soon to be a dinosaur. They waited so long to create online versions, they aren’t needed here either. Ouch!

But what does this all mean for businesses? While it is somewhat hard to find statistics that validate my prognostication. 15 years ago 100% of the population used The Yellow Pages. Today it is split even. 50% use the internet and 50% use the printed books. That’s a pretty steep decline in a relatively short period of time. If your business has always done well with the printed book, you probably need to stay in it. In fact I would recommend a smaller size in more categories. At the same time, you better be getting sharp at understanding the various ways someone might find you online as well as how social media will continue to reshape how people filter information in their lives.

It’s not a matter of if, but when the print book will make no sense any more at all. I am betting it will be sooner than later. I’m a bit biased though, because I have a fondness for trees and my expectations are such that there will be somewhat less strain on them when phone books do not exist at all, anywhere, anymore.

Filed Under: Local Search Tagged With: , ,
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