The secret to creating a high-impact marketing plan is to optimize your limited budget. A one-time radio ad blitz, glossy brochure, or flash-enabled website will quickly erode your budget and derail your marketing plans. Use low-budget marketing to get your message out to your customers on a regular basis, and watch sales revenue grow.
There are several reasons why a low-budget marketing plan is a must for small business in today's advertising bloated society:
* Expensive ad exposure does not necessarily translate to increased sales. Just ask Super Bowl advertiser Pet.com, whose sock puppet commercial was a hit with consumers, but left the company bankrupt. Every marketing dollar spent should produce a good return in sales.
* Your target customers need to hear your marketing messages at least 7 times to influence a buying decision. Using marketing & sales strategies outside your budget, doesn't allow you to repeat your message often enough to make an impact.
* Marketing impact can be greatly improved by using multiple marketing channels. Prospects will likely become buyers if they: read about your company in the newspaper, attend a seminar, take home a brochure, and visit your small business website. The further you can "stretch your marketing dollars" to reach your target market in multiple channels, the higher the impact of your marketing message.
Low-Budget High-Impact Marketing Plan Techniques
Get A Piggyback: Hitching a ride on the marketing of another company can save your small business time and capital. When computer reseller franchise, Computer Exchange, was looking for methods to reach price conscious consumers on a low budget, the company followed Wal-Mart openings. Wal-Mart`s big budget marketing department would carefully select the new store openings based on demographics and other costly analysis. Cyber Exchange opened stores in the vicinity of Wal-Mart saving real-estate selection costs and piggy backing on Wal-Mart`s marketing plan.
Find The Right Target: A critical part of your marketing plan is targeting the right customer. For a low-budget high-impact marketing plan to work, find customers who are easy to identify and affordable to reach.
Forget the mass market and go for small niche markets. For example, local, large breed dog enthusiasts can be reached by clubs, special shows, and targeted publications. Reaching all dog owners will be ineffective because of limited exposure combined with higher costs of marketing in mass publications.
Make Yourself News Worthy: A mention of your company in the right media can help deliver your marketing message in a low cost manner. My local plumber has mastered the art of self-promotion. When a child's red wagon was stolen, "Pete The Plumber" showed up in his Super-Hero painted van to bring a brand new wagon to the child. It was a good deed; resulting in plenty of media talk.
Form a Joint Venture: Joint ventures are too powerful for small business to ignore. Forging an alliance with a group of small companies or a large corporation can give your marketing plan the ultimate "bang for the buck." A joint venture will lower your costs, enabling you to enter into new markets and create new distribution opportunities.
Maximize Referrals: The most cost-effective method of reaching new customers is by referrals from satisfied customers. A satisfied customer telling others about your small business is more effective than any fancy ad campaign. Spend time to get customer referrals on a weekly basis.
These are just a few of many tactics and strategies used by small business to create a high-impact marketing plan on a low-budget. Marketing success comes from creativity; not from having the biggest budget.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Facebook Still Has Its Benefits for B2B Companies
The toughest kid on the block in the social marketing world still is Facebook in my opinion. The company that has enticed millions of users worldwide, still makes an impact, far outshining its competition. Many people, business owners in general, don't completely feel this way. In most cases, business owners have stated that even with the large shoulders that Facebook has in social media, it still seems to lack the strength in B2B marketing. However, there are many ways Facebook fosters interactive relationships, while providing a platform for employee communities, customers and distributors. Here are just a few strategies that can be used:
1. Photos & Videos: Facebook right now is the only social network that places photos and videos right into a users news feeds. Each update, rather it be video or photo, reaches out to all online fans or friends. Enhancing the phrase "getting the word out" to a broad audience with one click of a button.
2. Asking the Right Questions: Gathering feedback is a great way to gain insight on a promotion or a marketing strategy. Asking the right questions, can be a valuable tool as your Facebook community can become your personal focus group. But keep in mind, feedback goes both ways, as businesses should always respond to community posts. This creates a personal relationship that can be golden for a business, big or small. Make sure to foster relationships.
3. The VIP Room: Communities love Facebook as it can create that room where only VIP members are allowed. When doing a promotion, develop that invisible line that only members can cross. Curiosity can play in your favor. No one wants to miss out on the next big thing and be the last one to the party.
4. Tagging: You're it, or not. Tagging is a great tool offered at Facebook as new posts can be tagged with the source included. This is a great way to drive traffic to the original source and create a general note that your page is worthy of mention. Of course, only if you use sources that have some type of clout and are known by more than one person.
What other great Facebook tools does your company use?
1. Photos & Videos: Facebook right now is the only social network that places photos and videos right into a users news feeds. Each update, rather it be video or photo, reaches out to all online fans or friends. Enhancing the phrase "getting the word out" to a broad audience with one click of a button.
2. Asking the Right Questions: Gathering feedback is a great way to gain insight on a promotion or a marketing strategy. Asking the right questions, can be a valuable tool as your Facebook community can become your personal focus group. But keep in mind, feedback goes both ways, as businesses should always respond to community posts. This creates a personal relationship that can be golden for a business, big or small. Make sure to foster relationships.
3. The VIP Room: Communities love Facebook as it can create that room where only VIP members are allowed. When doing a promotion, develop that invisible line that only members can cross. Curiosity can play in your favor. No one wants to miss out on the next big thing and be the last one to the party.
4. Tagging: You're it, or not. Tagging is a great tool offered at Facebook as new posts can be tagged with the source included. This is a great way to drive traffic to the original source and create a general note that your page is worthy of mention. Of course, only if you use sources that have some type of clout and are known by more than one person.
What other great Facebook tools does your company use?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Article marketing is just one tool you should have in your website promotion toolbox.
What is Article Marketing?
Article marketing is the practice of posting keyword-focused articles on article sites that then syndicate your content. The reason this is an important website promotion technique is because some of these article syndication sites have a significant readership following.
Most article syndication sites allow you to post your content for free. Once published, your content becomes available for all to see - and potentially reuse. When done properly, articles you post on syndicated article sites can then become "link bait" for other sites. For example, let's say you own a home business that sells closet organizers. If you or your web content writer write an article about organizing your office, others who may want to post a blog entry about organizing your office may link to your article, getting increased exposure for your writing and your subject matter, especially if the article site gets a great deal more traffic than your own website, which is fairly likely.
Some article sites will allow you to include HTML links in your articles. You can then link your keyword phrase to the page on your website you're trying to promote for that keyword - a highly effective search engine optimization technique. Others won't allow you to do that, but they'll have no problem with you including links in your resource box (your profile or signature information used to let people know who you are), which adds important one-way backlinks to your website.
Article syndication sites also typically allow readers to conditionally include your article on their site. Conditions typically include the requirement that whoever reuses your article must cite you as the author and must retain any links in the article. As you might imagine, this provides additional opportunities to increase your site traffic and get the buzz out about your article.
Even if you have to pay to have the article ghost written for you, it's usually fairly inexpensive to have a good article written by a knowledgeable ghost writer and you still get the credit! Therefore, article marketing can be a very cost effective means of website promotion for your home business.
Keyword Research is Important in Article Marketing
Before you go about writing the article, you'll want to do some keyword research. Keyword research is the practice of balancing the popularity of a keyword or search phrase against the competitiveness of the keyword phrase. You certainly wouldn't want to spend a lot of time and money targeting keywords and phrases that no one is likely to use in a search. Likewise, if 80 million plus results come up when you search for your keyword phrase you may have a difficult time getting ranked for that competitive of a keyword.
Balancing frequency against competitiveness results in what SEO Specialists refer to as the Keyword Effectiveness (or Efficiency) Indicator (or Index), shortened as KEI. KEI is a number with two to four (and sometimes more) decimal places. Words that are rarely used in search will have a very small KEI (near 0) and keywords and phrases that are extremely competitive will also have a very low KEI. The higher the KEI the more likely it is that you can achieve top rankings for the keyword or phrase and it will be worth your while because enough searches are conducted to warrant giving the keyword some attention.
By knowing which keywords you want to focus on, the subject of your article will become apparent. Additionally you 'll know which words to work into your text (don't overdo it) and you will also use those keywords as the anchor text (the words clicked) for any links in your article or your resource box.
Finding Good Article Sites Using Google Alerts
There are a number of good article syndication sites available and you will have no trouble finding several that you like to work with that are also effective in getting your article noticed. One way to see which articles sites are getting good exposure in Google is to subscribe to [http://www.google.com/alerts]Google Alerts for your targeted keywords.
With Google Alerts you just specify the keyword or keyword phrase for which you want alerts sent to you. You can choose to receive alerts for news articles, blog postings, web pages or groups, or you can select Comprehensive, which will give you the alerts for all of the selections combined. Article sites are included with the Web selection, so you'll want to either choose Web or Comprehensive to receive alerts from postings on syndicated article sites.
Your alerts arrive via email and you can choose to be notified once per day, once per week, or as it happens. You'll see a listing of items that include your selected keyword phrase. Among the listings you're likely to see one or more article syndication sites. Click the news item to visit the site where the article is posted, sign up and you're ready to go.
Article Sites Want Good Material
Syndicated article sites want good material. The emphasis being on good. Many sites won't publish your content if it's not well written. Be sure to proofread your articles and have them spell checked before submitting them for syndication. Even if the article site accepts your poorly-written article for publication, you want to project a good impression for your home business, so it's critical that the article be compelling and grammatically correct to shed the best light on your business and to encourage others to link to your article and even republish it.
Take the Article Marketing Plunge
If you haven't tried it yet to promote your business and/or your home business website, I encourage you to take the idea of marketing information online by way of articles to get your home business or your website the kind of positive public relations exposure on which all home businesses and Internet businesses rely.
Article marketing is the practice of posting keyword-focused articles on article sites that then syndicate your content. The reason this is an important website promotion technique is because some of these article syndication sites have a significant readership following.
Most article syndication sites allow you to post your content for free. Once published, your content becomes available for all to see - and potentially reuse. When done properly, articles you post on syndicated article sites can then become "link bait" for other sites. For example, let's say you own a home business that sells closet organizers. If you or your web content writer write an article about organizing your office, others who may want to post a blog entry about organizing your office may link to your article, getting increased exposure for your writing and your subject matter, especially if the article site gets a great deal more traffic than your own website, which is fairly likely.
Some article sites will allow you to include HTML links in your articles. You can then link your keyword phrase to the page on your website you're trying to promote for that keyword - a highly effective search engine optimization technique. Others won't allow you to do that, but they'll have no problem with you including links in your resource box (your profile or signature information used to let people know who you are), which adds important one-way backlinks to your website.
Article syndication sites also typically allow readers to conditionally include your article on their site. Conditions typically include the requirement that whoever reuses your article must cite you as the author and must retain any links in the article. As you might imagine, this provides additional opportunities to increase your site traffic and get the buzz out about your article.
Even if you have to pay to have the article ghost written for you, it's usually fairly inexpensive to have a good article written by a knowledgeable ghost writer and you still get the credit! Therefore, article marketing can be a very cost effective means of website promotion for your home business.
Keyword Research is Important in Article Marketing
Before you go about writing the article, you'll want to do some keyword research. Keyword research is the practice of balancing the popularity of a keyword or search phrase against the competitiveness of the keyword phrase. You certainly wouldn't want to spend a lot of time and money targeting keywords and phrases that no one is likely to use in a search. Likewise, if 80 million plus results come up when you search for your keyword phrase you may have a difficult time getting ranked for that competitive of a keyword.
Balancing frequency against competitiveness results in what SEO Specialists refer to as the Keyword Effectiveness (or Efficiency) Indicator (or Index), shortened as KEI. KEI is a number with two to four (and sometimes more) decimal places. Words that are rarely used in search will have a very small KEI (near 0) and keywords and phrases that are extremely competitive will also have a very low KEI. The higher the KEI the more likely it is that you can achieve top rankings for the keyword or phrase and it will be worth your while because enough searches are conducted to warrant giving the keyword some attention.
By knowing which keywords you want to focus on, the subject of your article will become apparent. Additionally you 'll know which words to work into your text (don't overdo it) and you will also use those keywords as the anchor text (the words clicked) for any links in your article or your resource box.
Finding Good Article Sites Using Google Alerts
There are a number of good article syndication sites available and you will have no trouble finding several that you like to work with that are also effective in getting your article noticed. One way to see which articles sites are getting good exposure in Google is to subscribe to [http://www.google.com/alerts]Google Alerts for your targeted keywords.
With Google Alerts you just specify the keyword or keyword phrase for which you want alerts sent to you. You can choose to receive alerts for news articles, blog postings, web pages or groups, or you can select Comprehensive, which will give you the alerts for all of the selections combined. Article sites are included with the Web selection, so you'll want to either choose Web or Comprehensive to receive alerts from postings on syndicated article sites.
Your alerts arrive via email and you can choose to be notified once per day, once per week, or as it happens. You'll see a listing of items that include your selected keyword phrase. Among the listings you're likely to see one or more article syndication sites. Click the news item to visit the site where the article is posted, sign up and you're ready to go.
Article Sites Want Good Material
Syndicated article sites want good material. The emphasis being on good. Many sites won't publish your content if it's not well written. Be sure to proofread your articles and have them spell checked before submitting them for syndication. Even if the article site accepts your poorly-written article for publication, you want to project a good impression for your home business, so it's critical that the article be compelling and grammatically correct to shed the best light on your business and to encourage others to link to your article and even republish it.
Take the Article Marketing Plunge
If you haven't tried it yet to promote your business and/or your home business website, I encourage you to take the idea of marketing information online by way of articles to get your home business or your website the kind of positive public relations exposure on which all home businesses and Internet businesses rely.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Grow Your Twitter Following
Whatever your social networking goals are, the following tactics will not only increase the number of people following you, but you will begin to experience that old fashioned thing called "community":
1. Habituate your twittering. If Twitter is your water cooler, then drink 8 glasses a day as consistently as possible. I generally let it slide on the weekends, but during the week you can find me tweeting fairly regularly. People will start to expect to see you there. That's a good thing because this encourages more interaction with your community.
2. Engage your followers with meaningful tweets. It's kind of Facebook-y, but Twitterers like getting replies, and they arguably check for them often throughout the day. Just don't be the office chatterbox who has an answer for everything. So annoying. Helpful, witty, or informative is good. Giving people hives is bad.
3. Personable is more important than profound. Much like water cooler chat, the point is to be a conversationalist who knows when to make small talk, when to shut up, and when to speak up. It's okay to tweet about your personal life, but don't bore people with the inane unless it is going to inform or entertain. And be careful with the latter. No one likes a clown after the party ends.
4. Ask people to follow you at your Twitter URL. This one might seem obvious, but most people still aren't doing it. I admit, it was lost on me until about a month ago. Then I added the follow me request, hyperlinked to my Twitter profile, to (1) my email signature and (2) the byline under my blog posts. Next up is to change my byline for the articles I have plastered around the web.
5. Market your microblog on other social networking sites. Put your Twitter URL on your Website.
Like anything else in online marketing though, consistency is everything.
1. Habituate your twittering. If Twitter is your water cooler, then drink 8 glasses a day as consistently as possible. I generally let it slide on the weekends, but during the week you can find me tweeting fairly regularly. People will start to expect to see you there. That's a good thing because this encourages more interaction with your community.
2. Engage your followers with meaningful tweets. It's kind of Facebook-y, but Twitterers like getting replies, and they arguably check for them often throughout the day. Just don't be the office chatterbox who has an answer for everything. So annoying. Helpful, witty, or informative is good. Giving people hives is bad.
3. Personable is more important than profound. Much like water cooler chat, the point is to be a conversationalist who knows when to make small talk, when to shut up, and when to speak up. It's okay to tweet about your personal life, but don't bore people with the inane unless it is going to inform or entertain. And be careful with the latter. No one likes a clown after the party ends.
4. Ask people to follow you at your Twitter URL. This one might seem obvious, but most people still aren't doing it. I admit, it was lost on me until about a month ago. Then I added the follow me request, hyperlinked to my Twitter profile, to (1) my email signature and (2) the byline under my blog posts. Next up is to change my byline for the articles I have plastered around the web.
5. Market your microblog on other social networking sites. Put your Twitter URL on your Website.
Like anything else in online marketing though, consistency is everything.
Social Networking Communities Provide Marketing Opportunities
Social networking has never been as crucial and beneficial to companies. In our technical world your next business prospect could only be a mouse-click away.
We all know that by participating in local organizations and being active in our communities we are often greeted with the perk of new business opportunities. However, you may not be aware of the business communities that are being developed and thriving online. These networks allow you to locate business opportunities as well as find companies that may be able to serve your business-to-business needs.
Using these virtual networking tools you can connect with extremely talented and professional people, but don't just sit back waiting for others to come to you. You have to make an effort in building your online network, this means reaching out and building relationships with those that you have something in common with. You will be amazed at how quickly you will begin to get to know others.
Here are a few of my favorite social networks:
LinkedIn
LinkedIn has become my favorite online social network for business purposes. It's easy to view profiles, get connected, and even recruit potential new hires. There is also a recommendation feature that allows you to see what others say about an individual.
Facebook
Facebook isn't just for kids anymore. The demographic of this social network continues to broaden. I've found that I love the features and the different applications that are available. It also carries with it a certain level of privacy that I have not seen in the other networks. With 600 million searches and more than 30 billion page views a month can you afford not to be part of this network?
MySpace
I'm still not fond of MySpace. It continues to carry that juvenile feel for me, but I have some readers that say MySpace works for them. Don't discount it - it's working for some perhaps it can work for you as well.
VisiblePath
VisiblePath is Silicon Valley-based. It is a lot like LinkedIn, but it automatically determines who your real network is, and how strong each individual relationship is, based on your emails and calendar items that involve them. VisiblePath is the new kid on the block; just having launched at Web 2.0 Expo in May of this year.
SoFlow
Prestigious, cream of the crop professionals. Great features, fantastic focus groups, and awesome business networking opportunities. This network launched in July 2004 with great buzz, but seem to have lost the excitement since then.
Ryze
Large database of users, casual and more of a social atmosphere. A little difficult to navigate, but overall it's a great place to hang your hat. Take a few moments browse the networks and look for others that you have something in common with. Who knows you may just find your neighbor lurking around there.
Orkut
Orkut is owned and developed by the mega search engine Google, I have to say at first this network carried with it a lot of excitement, unfortunately I became uninterested when I started getting email messages from people I didn't even know. While the communities are nicely developed I find that I spend more time in the previously mentioned networks. However, don't let my opinion sway you - this network may just have what you are looking for.
Thanks Laura.
We all know that by participating in local organizations and being active in our communities we are often greeted with the perk of new business opportunities. However, you may not be aware of the business communities that are being developed and thriving online. These networks allow you to locate business opportunities as well as find companies that may be able to serve your business-to-business needs.
Using these virtual networking tools you can connect with extremely talented and professional people, but don't just sit back waiting for others to come to you. You have to make an effort in building your online network, this means reaching out and building relationships with those that you have something in common with. You will be amazed at how quickly you will begin to get to know others.
Here are a few of my favorite social networks:
LinkedIn has become my favorite online social network for business purposes. It's easy to view profiles, get connected, and even recruit potential new hires. There is also a recommendation feature that allows you to see what others say about an individual.
Facebook isn't just for kids anymore. The demographic of this social network continues to broaden. I've found that I love the features and the different applications that are available. It also carries with it a certain level of privacy that I have not seen in the other networks. With 600 million searches and more than 30 billion page views a month can you afford not to be part of this network?
MySpace
I'm still not fond of MySpace. It continues to carry that juvenile feel for me, but I have some readers that say MySpace works for them. Don't discount it - it's working for some perhaps it can work for you as well.
VisiblePath
VisiblePath is Silicon Valley-based. It is a lot like LinkedIn, but it automatically determines who your real network is, and how strong each individual relationship is, based on your emails and calendar items that involve them. VisiblePath is the new kid on the block; just having launched at Web 2.0 Expo in May of this year.
SoFlow
Prestigious, cream of the crop professionals. Great features, fantastic focus groups, and awesome business networking opportunities. This network launched in July 2004 with great buzz, but seem to have lost the excitement since then.
Ryze
Large database of users, casual and more of a social atmosphere. A little difficult to navigate, but overall it's a great place to hang your hat. Take a few moments browse the networks and look for others that you have something in common with. Who knows you may just find your neighbor lurking around there.
Orkut
Orkut is owned and developed by the mega search engine Google, I have to say at first this network carried with it a lot of excitement, unfortunately I became uninterested when I started getting email messages from people I didn't even know. While the communities are nicely developed I find that I spend more time in the previously mentioned networks. However, don't let my opinion sway you - this network may just have what you are looking for.
Thanks Laura.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Motivate People to Sign Up for Your Newsletter with a Bonus
Making visitors of your Web site sign up for your newsletter is getting increasingly difficult as people are more reluctant to give away their email address (and they're perfectly right facing all that spam).
A bonus (in addition to the great newsletter) can motivate people to sign up. For example, you could offer a white paper or -- preferably -- a detailed case study for all those who subscribe to your newsletter, or new subscribers get a special tips and tricks edition of the newsletter, or a funny Winamp skin.
The possibilities are endless, but make sure the bonus is the right bonus for the right people. Whatever you offer, it must be directly related to the newsletter.
Ideally,
* the motivation to sign up for the newsletter is the same as the motivation for getting the bonus, and
* the bonus acts as a multiplier, not as a separate motivation.
A bonus (in addition to the great newsletter) can motivate people to sign up. For example, you could offer a white paper or -- preferably -- a detailed case study for all those who subscribe to your newsletter, or new subscribers get a special tips and tricks edition of the newsletter, or a funny Winamp skin.
The possibilities are endless, but make sure the bonus is the right bonus for the right people. Whatever you offer, it must be directly related to the newsletter.
Ideally,
* the motivation to sign up for the newsletter is the same as the motivation for getting the bonus, and
* the bonus acts as a multiplier, not as a separate motivation.
Create a Clear Call to Action in Email Marketing Campaigns
Sometimes, I get newsletters and marketing messages via email that have everything except a clear call to action. They're beautifully designed, a joy to read, and they get me in the mood to do something — if only I knew what the sender expects me to do.
I don't know where to click, what link to follow, where to order.
Create a Clear Call to Action in Email Marketing Campaigns
One of the crucial elements of an email marketing campaign is a clear call to action.
* Lay out exactly what you want the recipients of your message to do, and
* design the message to make that path clear for the recipient, and easy to follow.
Call to Action Example
Don't distract with too many links or offers, and make not only the call to action clear but also what recipients can expect when they click through. This can be as simple as "Click here for a 20% discount on your next weekend trip."
I don't know where to click, what link to follow, where to order.
Create a Clear Call to Action in Email Marketing Campaigns
One of the crucial elements of an email marketing campaign is a clear call to action.
* Lay out exactly what you want the recipients of your message to do, and
* design the message to make that path clear for the recipient, and easy to follow.
Call to Action Example
Don't distract with too many links or offers, and make not only the call to action clear but also what recipients can expect when they click through. This can be as simple as "Click here for a 20% discount on your next weekend trip."
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