Grow Your Business…Even in Tough Times with Effective Marketing
New Marketing Plan Class Starting October 6th, 2010 – Final chance to enroll in 2010 Wonder how the new social media marketing fits in with your business? Not sure how [...]
Yahoo and Bing Merge Search and PPC
Yahoo is now switching to Bing Search. So, what does that mean for your website? Well, if your site was ranking well for searches in Yahoo previously, it may now rank lower. Bing has been the search engine behind MSN. While Google still holds the lion’s share of searches (between 65% and 70% depending on the industry), Yahoo and MSN made up most of the rest. Now, they will be using the same algorithm for searches.
Not only should you take this time to check up on your SEO, but you may also wish to consult with an Internet marketer who spends time keeping up with the changes in the SEO market. Contact us for a preliminary review.
Here is another article with some helpful tips:
Yahoo switching to Bing’s technology in the US and Canada is probably the leading search news story of the whole month.
Yes, Yahoo has fully switched to serving Bing results to the U.S. and Canadian searchers. While the average user may not care too much as to who’s providing the results (as long as they’re good of course), this is huge news for search marketers.
We’ll look at how this change affects the search landscape and how you can leverage this for your site a bit later, but first things first.
Today we’re disabling Yahoo! API key in Rank Tracker (which was on by default to let you query Yahoo safely and shield you from ranking dances caused by Yahoo-Bing tests). As soon as you get the new version (restart the tool to auto-update as usual) and run a check you’ll see your Yahoo! rankings change dramatically and become exactly as on Bing (or with some slight alterations).
Whether your positions in Yahoo! rise or fall it’s all because of the switch to Bing technology (this is something you might want to explain to your clients).
If you haven’t been watching your Yahoo rankings and want to learn how this change affected your site, take a peek into the trick that we share at the end of this post. It shows you how to check your old Yahoo rankings. And now let’s see how you can leverage Yahoo’s switch to Bing for your business.
Turn the Yahoo-Bing Merger to Your Advantage
Combined Bing and Yahoo account for about 5.2 billion monthly searches. This is a pretty large traffic pond to tap into (not as large as the ‘Google Sea’, but still). So let’s see how you can leverage the ‘Binghoo’ search traffic.
Since Bing is already serving organic results on Yahoo U.S. and Canada and will be powering all of Yahoo search soon, you only need to concern yourself with optimizing for Bing. Grab top rankings there and you’ll be crowning Yahoo results as well. One shot – two rabbits dead, so to speak. So let’s cut to the chase.
1. Keyword Research
No matter what search engine you’re optimizing for your first step is keyword research. You sure already have a list of keywords that you pursue on Google, but search habits of Yahoo and Bing users are not necessarily the same. That’s why it’s a good idea to use specific keyword research tools for those search engines just to make sure you’re on the right track and check if there are additional keyword opportunities.
Here are collections of Yahoo keyword research tools and Bing keyword research tools (in 2 parts) to help you out.
In case you wonder why you should care about Yahoo keyword tools since it’s Bing that determines the rankings, the thing is Yahoo users will retain their search habits (at least for a while), so Yahoo keyword tools may still be useful.
Depending on the niche there may not be a huge difference in the keywords people use on Google, Yahoo or Bing but it’s still worth investigating.
2. Rankings Check
As soon as you have your list of keywords you need to check where you currently stand in terms of rankings. This way you’ll see how much work is needed to get a decent ranking for each keyword and you’ll learn what webpage ranks best for each term, so you know what page to optimize. So that’s another two-rabbit shot here.
You don’t really need to check your site’s positions on Yahoo as they mirror your Bing rankings.
Checking your Bing rankings is enough. You can quickly do this with the help of Rank Tracker (get a free version if you don’t have one) or with any other ranking tool you use.
Once you know your Bing rankings, compare them against those on Google. If your Google and Bing rankings come close or are the same, you don’t really need to do anything specific for Bing. Just carry on with the SEO work you’re already doing.
If your Bing rankings are considerably lower than your Google positions you’ll need to put in some extra Bing-focused SEO effort.
3. Optimize your site for Bing
If you compare the search results on Google and Bing you’ll see that the two engines rank sites differently. The difference in results suggests that there’s also a difference in ranking factors and the value attached to them.
Among other things Bing tends to put more weight on domain age, topical relevancy and outbound linking. Let’s see what SEO factors play a role in your Bing rankings and how you can optimize your site to drive your website up.
- On-page SEO
There’s no magic bullet for Bing as far as the content optimization goes. Cover the basics and you’re good to go: put out unique content, optimize your page titles, H tags and meta-descriptions, strategically employ your keywords in the body, optimize images and so on. Try to focus on one topic per page as theme relevancy is really important on Bing.
- Relevant Inbound Links
Link relevancy is another key to high rankings on the decision engine. Bing tends to favor links coming from pages with the same or similar topic. Try to acquire links from pages with your targeted keywords in the title, URL, H tags and in the body. Links with your target keywords in the anchor texts are even more effective on Bing than on Google, so be sure to take care of that as well.
- Linking Out
It’s not just who links to you that’s important. Outgoing links are also a factor on Bing. By linking out to authority sites in your niche (where appropriate of course) you increase the authority of your own site and as a result get a ranking boost.
- Blogs vs News Sites
We’ve all heard about Google’s love for blogs because of their fresh content. There are a lot of results from blogs in Google News as well as in the news block in the general SERPs. Bing on the other hand tends to give preference to major news sites. Blogs don’t often make their way into the news sections on Bing, but so if you’re a news blog it may take more effort to get a high ranking on Bing.
- Domain Age
Bing tends to favor old domains even more than Google. The older the site, the more chances it has to rank well on Bing. This tip has not much of a take-away to it, apart from something like: Go, age your domain. Domains are not jeans and the artificial aging trick doesn’t work here, so just sit back and let your domain grow old.
Seven Tips to Increase your Internet Presence
Many of my clients are starting to blog, but are overwhelmed with “What should I write?” and “How do I begin?”. ColoradoBiz Magazine had a recent article by Scott Esmond that has some great tips:
…With effective content strategies, companies large and small can be rewarded with increased customer loyalty, increased brand equity and a perception of leadership in their market. So when launching a content strategy for your online presence, make sure that you follow these seven steps to make sure your story is both heard and appreciated.
Do a content audit of the business. Every company has a voice – whether they work at it or not -and managing it starts from the inside. Identify what type of content is available and what should be updated. Look beyond just your website and include any off-site content (user reviews, organic search listings, social profiles and posts) as well as marketing, sales and PR content. Begin gathering opinions from your own staff, then reach out to the public to reveal any discrepancies between perception and reality.
Designate a content strategy leader. Put one central person in charge of managing the process. This individual is responsible for keeping the content up-to-date, managing editorial calendars and delegating tasks. It’s essential that a skilled, trusted employee is the point person for company information every day. If your leader is not already an expert, some good learning sources include Junta42.com and copyblogger.com.
Be timely and relevant. I recently heard a great quote that sums up the importance of timeliness; “Good content capitalizes on an opportunity in the life of the content’s consumer.” Such information is fed by what’s going on with a company’s brand, what’s going on with the media and what’s relevant to the customer. Try and gain information from the audience, ask them directly what type of content they want, and then follow through and provide what’s applicable to their lifestyle. Much like a relationship, it’s important not to just talk about the company all the time.
Assign contributors. Once the state of environment, audience, and content has been identified, it’s time to write. This is when companies task their most talented and creative staff to help deliver the consumer what they want. Ask that good storyteller to be the voice of the brand.
Make it easy for customers to share. The quickest way companies can allow their customers to share content is putting links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Foursquare and other social media channels on their own website. Consider content your most important design element. It’s imperative for companies to pay attention to content placement and ensure its consumable, not hidden or lost to a lot of scrolling. Also identify the piece as yours, for example, a title card with your company name before a video gets set to go viral on the web.
Study, Study, Study. When it comes to content strategy, businesses should spend a good portion of time in the virtual “library.” Now companies can see where visitors went before and after coming to their website and referral URLs, where people share your content. This information is readily available through Google Analytics, Facebook metrics for fan pages, and social media monitoring tools including (from free to far from free) SocialMention, PeopleBrowsr, Radian 6, and TNS Cymfony. It’s also fairly easy to set up on-site surveys.
Let go of the fear. Conversations about the company’s content are going to happen regardless. That’s why it’s helpful to provide consumers a conversational platform and engage them on your space. Should they be more active on review sites like Yelp, you should still engage and learn. Leading review sites also provide statistics that can help inform your strategy.
There are certainly a handful of companies that are grasping the concept of content strategy. REI incorporated an “expert advice” section for customers interested in rock climbing and provides them with a list of important items to pack for their trips. Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty has done an exceptional job reaching out to teen girls, presenting content that’s relevant and not simply trying to sell their products.
Lastly, Vail Resorts mobilized their loyal skiers and riders to produce user generated content in their Snow Squad competition to become part of next year’s on mountain social media team. The takeaway is effective content strategy leads to effective storytelling in the digital age.
Small Business Owners and Branding…Is it Worth It?
Living in a small town in Southwest Colorado, I primarily work with small to mid-size companies. It is a pleasure working with owners, however, most small business owners do not have very many resources and therefore have to “do it all”. To that end, when I do a web site project for a company, I also become an integral part of their marketing department. Many times I assume the role of IT department, marketing department, copywriter and graphic designer. Through this process, I also try to help owners understand the importance of branding.
When creating a web site or an Internet marketing campaign, one of the most important questions I ask the client is “Who are you trying to reach and what emotional connection are you trying to make?” This starts a larger discussion on branding and positioning.
A lot of small business owners just put an ad together or a web site hoping that the mere presence of advertising will drive business their direction. However, if they have never thought about who they are trying to attract or their overall strategy, they may use the wrong message, photos, and copy that is not attracting their key market. In addition, their web site, brochure, and advertising may be sending different, conflicting messages. For example, they may create a beautiful professional ad but when the potential customer goes to the web site, they have old graphics, miles of copy and confusing navigation. This will cause the customer to jump off the site and not call or Email.
When asking if a company has ever tried marketing in a specific channel, many owners will say “we tried it and it doesn’t work”. However, was the marketing channel the problem (i.e. magazine, PPC ad, online advertiser) or was it the ad itself?
Before starting a web project or any other marketing project, it is extremely important that your marketing team truly understands who you are targeting and what colors, fonts, words and copy will attract that type of person. People buy because of emotions to solve a need, save them money or save them time. If your key audience is not quickly understanding how your product or service will help them, then they will move on. You are not trying to sell the entire world…you are simply trying to connect with potential customers who “match” the value you are offering.
Futhermore, it takes at least 7 “touches” for a person to even recognize that they saw your ad or article. Therefore, marketing should be a comprehensive strategy, not one that just throws mud on the wall to see what sticks.
Finally, all marketing should have a specific lead channel. My next article will talk about the evolution of online brochure web sites to lead generation web sites.
Marcy Mitchell, owner of MTECH Internet Marketing, has been helping small to medium sized business owners develop comprehensive marketing strategies and effective web sites for the past 14 years. For a complimentary marketing review, contact her or call 970-731-6325.
Growing Spaces – One of the 50 Colorado Companies to Watch
One of my clients, Growing Spaces, has recently been named “One of the Top Colorado Companies to Watch”. They are currently featured in Cobizmag.org. Here is a snippet of the article:
GROWING SPACES LLC
www.growingspaces.com/community
SNAPSHOT: Based in Pagosa Springs, Growing Spaces produces energy-efficient greenhouses using a passive solar geodesic design for year-round growing.
LEADERSHIP: Owner Michael Parsons started Growing Spaces out of a garage in 1989.
WORK FORCE: The company employed 10 full-time equivalent employees in 2009 and expects to add one or two employees in 2010.
CUSTOMERS: The company has supplied its Growing Domes to more than 1,200 clients in 48 states and 11 countries. Best-known customers include Toyota Motor Co., Shumei Natural Gardens at Rodale Institute and Naropa University.
PIVOTAL MOMENTS: The company cites the “phenomenon of Y2K” as an impetus for people deciding to become more self-sufficient, and the company went from producing 14 Growing Domes a year, to 75. The company launched its website in 1994, putting it well ahead of competitors in e-commerce.
MARKETING STRATEGY: The company’s most successful campaign is its “Tour of Domes” each April in Pagosa Springs when six Growing Dome owners open their domes to the public, displaying fresh herbs, flowers and vegetables when outside it is still snowy. People come from as far as Santa Fe., N.M., and Colorado Springs for the tour.
Growing Spaces has been working with MTECH in developing a robust social media presence with their new interactive blog (http://www.growingspaces.com/community), facebook page and YouTube channel. They are currently re-designing their web site and expanding their marketing initiatives.
Marketing Positioning and CRM for Colorado companies
Most small business owners may not think about their “target market” or “market position” as often as larger companies. However, even if you think you have little to no competition, you may not be aware how important positioning is to increase your revenue stream.
Here is a great article from Marketing Tools:CRM Newsletter that makes some great points:
Marketing Positioning — It’s The Customer’s View That Counts
Where do we fit in our competitive marketplace? That’s a question often posed when new hires are brought into a company and possibly the most interesting and important question for marketing and sales organizations to get right. The question, “Given all of the players in our space, what is our positioning?,” should be answered conclusively.
While marketers often talk about the science of marketing, many people refer to the quantitative aspects of marketing as the science, or hard-marketing. While it’s true there is a great deal of mathematics and analytics in marketing, it’s also true that there is a science to developing an effective positioning, and this methodology can be summarized as follows:
a. Identify your target market;
b. Define your company (or product, brand, etc.) in the mind of the target customer;
c. Develop an understanding of your company’s (or product, brand, etc.) distinctive place in the customer’s mind.
Let’s look at each of these steps individually.
First, identify the target market. This is not always as easy as it sounds. By segmenting the market carefully, and understanding your company’s value proposition relative to each segment, it will become clear which segments are best suited to your solutions, and which ones should be targeted first. The more selective, or granular the segmentation, the better you will understand your very specific value proposition, and this will lead to a much clearer picture of your competitive landscape.
Second, think about your company or solution as if you were one of the target customers. What is your current brand perception, your view of the key values, strengths, and weaknesses, as perceived by this target market? For small, or emerging companies, the perception may be complete lack of awareness.
Lastly, and most importantly, build an honest and complete view of how the customer thinks of your company or solution in terms of a very distinct place in the competitive landscape — a place that is different from all of the other competitors.
Of course, in an ideal world, your customers’ views will match precisely how you want them to see you. If this is the case, then your positioning statements and marketing reflect this existing view. In most cases, however, marketers are challenged with creating a more complete understanding of their company’s value to a target market, in terms of the distinctive place in the market that they believe the company should occupy.
Getting to the most appropriate positioning involves two equally important elements of success. To begin with, your solution must actually do the things you say it does, in order to occupy that distinctive space. That is, it must deliver on that promise. If the actual product/solution is really the same as that of your competitors’, and all you have is marketing statements, that strategy will soon be discovered by the market and a short-lived celebration of success will result.
Next, once you have established that your solution actually works, is distinctive in the specific ways we’ve identified, and solves a set of particular problems for your target customers better than your competitors, you can then start to tell the market about this uniquely beneficial approach.
The marketing must consistently focus on these distinctive benefits, highlighting how your solution is most particularly suited to solve the problem for the target customer in a manner that is superior to your competition.
Rather than diluting your marketing positioning by identifying all of the aspects of your solution, it is essential to position the solution in a very focused way — reinforcing at every possible opportunity that unique and distinctive place in the market that your company occupies, and intends to own.
For marketers, positioning is not about a feature-function battle against competitors; it’s about building a common understanding between the market and the company, relative to the share of the market that it serves best.
We know we have done a good job of positioning our company/product when our prospects and customers know exactly where we fit into the competitive market landscape, and we agree!
Gavin Finn is president and CEO of Kaon. He is an experienced operating executive with more than 20 years of building value in profitable, growth-oriented organizations. Gavin joined Kaon in early 2005 and is responsible for corporate and product strategy, customer satisfaction, corporate growth, and financial performance. Reach him here.
Facebook “Like” Instead of “Fans”
For those of you who have websites that suggest visitors “become a fan” of your Facebook page, you need to update your sites. Facebook has changed “Fans” to “Liking” a page. At their annual f8 Developer Conference, Facebook announced platform updates that work to integrate their platform with sites across the web.
Now with more than 400 million people using Facebook and $100 million of them using Facebook from their mobile phones, Facebook wants to continue this growing trend and develop social applications that integrate web sites with their new tools.
Facebook’s New Social Plugins
- Like Plugin- This is the upgraded “Fan” plugin. This plugin is simple and requires no login. It will show visitors to your site, which of their Facebook friends have engaged with your site recently. If a user likes something on your site with this button it automatically appears in their Facebook profile as well.
- Activity Stream Plugin – This displays a filtered view of the Facebook News Feed containing updates from only your site.
- Facebook Login Plugin- It works like the existing Facebook Connect login button, and it adds photos of your Facebook friends who have already joined the site.
- Social Bar Plugin- A toolbar that is added to the bottom of your site. The Social Bar includes a Like button, friends who like the site, as well as Facebook chat.
- Recommendations Plugin – A plugin that shows recommendations of items or content that visitors to your site may be interested in, based on recommendations from Facebook connections.
So, Why Should Your Business Care About Facebook?
While you should always consider your audience when deciding on any marketing channel, if you are trying to attract people between the ages of 18 and 54, then you should look into Facebook. In addition, if you are using a blog, all of the social plugins mentioned previously in this post help business bloggers achieve the important goal of getting more people reading their content.
As an example, let’s say that you click a link in an e-mail or on Twitter. After clicking, you then go read the blog post as you normally would. If a site is using the Like Plugin, then upon arriving at the blog you could see that some of your Facebook friends have recently read other articles on this blog. As a result, it more likely that you will read more content on the blog and possibly share it with your connections on Facebook or other social networks. As a marketer this is a big deal. It creates stickiness while increasing the reach of your content.
This same example could also be used for landing pages. If you are releasing a new whitepaper and using a form to collect leads, think about the improved lead conversion you could see, if prospects could see that friends had already liked the report on Facebook. In this case a social plugin provides “social proof” for the credibility of your whitepaper. While the likes may have happened on your Facebook fan page, with the new social plugins it is displayed on your own site and landing pages.
Is Your Organization Living Your Brand?
As an instructor for Marketing for Smarties, I spend a lot of time helping owners develop a unique positioning statement. It is important to communicate the distinctive benefits your product or service provides for customers compared to your competition. This unique positioning, along with your overall vision, helps define your brand.
Many companies or organizations spend thousands with consultants coming up with their brand, but they don’t know how to effectively communicate that brand throughout their entire organization. Here is a great article from Cobizmag.org that talks about how to penetrate your brand:
The secret behind living your brand
Hire for role fit, culture fit and brand fit
By Kathleen Quinn VotawThe statistics on why companies lose customers haven’t changed for years. Is anyone listening? A full 68 percent of customers who leave are turned away, not by dissatisfaction with the product, but by the indifferent attitude of a single employee. All the money you spend on perfecting your product and advertising its quality is wasted if your employees aren’t delivering what your customers expect. In other words, your entire brand comes down to the individual impression left by a single employee.
There’s a competitive opportunity here for companies that make sure every employee is living their brand. But can you trust your brand to anyone? That answer is no. The secret behind successful brand strategy, whether internal or external, is talent recruitment. The 68 percent of lost customers says loudly: “It’s all about the people.”
Jack Greenberg, Chairman and CEO of McDonald’s, gets it: “We succeed or fail, every day, in every restaurant, because of our people.” What’s true for McDonald’s is true for every business, in any industry.
What is “living the brand?”
If honesty is a core value in your organization, and you ask the receptionist to tell people that you’re out when you’re actually in, then you’re not living your brand. If the plaque on your wall says, “We value our customers” and your menu says, “No changes or substitutions please,” you’re not living your brand.
Your brand is your promise, your commitment to customers. It’s your commitment to employees too. It represents everything your company makes or says – and what it feels like to do business with you. In a sense, your brand has a personality, and it’s reflected in the actions-and attitudes-of your employees, both in interacting with one another and with your customers. The best brands deliver on their promise no matter what the circumstances: a bad economy, a blip in production timing, or a bout of flu that leaves you shorthanded. Core values don’t change, and neither do successful brands. Employees of companies with successful brands find a way to do it.
Your brand is built on your core values, and when employees live it, it means that your brand permeates your organization’s culture. When your employees live your brand, they have passion around your product or service and pride in your company. Who wouldn’t want to do business with you?
Recruit for ‘brand talent”
Just as you look for certain skills and competencies to fill specific roles in your business, and assess each candidate for cultural fit, you need to consider how well a candidate “fits” your brand. People may qualify in every other way, but if they are not capable of enhancing your brand at appropriate customer touchpoints, they are not the “brand talent” you need. Every person you hire should have brand talent that will allow them to “live” your particular brand. If part of your brand promise is “fun,” for example, you wouldn’t want to hire an introvert to interface with customers.
If it’s truly all about the people, brand success comes only when your brand is an integral part of your culture and in an environment where employees bring out the best in one another. This means that brand talent applies to both internal and external customers. There can’t be one brand of behavior inside an organization and another brand for customers. Employees must be engaged with one another in understanding and interpreting your brand and in helping each other execute it at every touchpoint with customers.
Hire for role fit, culture fit and brand fit.
How to deliver your brand promise
Your brand shouldn’t live in your marketing department. It should live in the heart and soul of every employee. Here are steps you can take to ensure that it does:
• Define your core values. This should not be a wish list: What are your real values? How do they align with your brand?
• Understand the competencies that make your brand a success. List competencies in marketing, sales and service areas, and also in product development, quality, administration and every other area of the company as they specifically relate to delivering your brand.
• Hire the right people, with the characteristics and capabilities to live your brand.
• Train every employee on your brand and what your organization’s expectations are of every employee in delivering on the brand promise.
• Develop an integrated communication plan for both inside and outside the company and check for understanding of your values and brand. Employees can’t live the brand if they don’t understand it. Communicate in both word and deed.
• Establish a program for defining and sharing best practices and continuous improvement as they relate to delivering on your brand.
Whether your focus is acquiring new customers, or retaining customers; and whether you are starting your company, growing it or selling it, a strong brand is a key element in achieving your goal. The secret is recruiting the right talent to deliver on your brand. (Shhhhhh! Let someone else hire the indifferent employees.)
Kathleen Quinn Votaw is founder and CEO of Golden-based TalenTrust, a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) firm that helps companies accelerate their growth by hiring exceptional talent. Kathleen is president of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), Denver. Reach Kathleen at kvotaw@talentrust.com or 303-838-3334 303-838-3334 x5.
Right Product, Wrong Marketing Channel
Printed on Cobizmag.com By Esty Atlas
True Story: It was a Friday morning at a Washington, DC subway stop. A typical morning rush hour, there was a man playing an instrument for tips. But this time, something was quite different from the usual street busker. That’s because this musician was part of an experiment being conducted by The Washington Post.
The busker was playing his violin for about an hour in the subway. The test was to determine if people passing by would appreciate his music. They didn’t. The Washington Post purposely placed a world renown violinist into a remote location to study people’s responses.
Herein lies a wonderful lesson for marketing products. Normally, this musician, better known as the famous violinist Joshua Bell, would command, at minimum, $100 per ticket at one of his typical stage performances. But in an a-typical environment (an underground subway station), the public reaction was less than the customary standing ovation he normally received.
Before I tell you the exact response, take a guess. What do you think his recognition factor was: 5 percent, 10 percent, 20 percent, 25 percent?
Despite the fact that he was playing Bach’s legendary “Chaconne” to perfection on his $3 millon Stradivarius violin, of the 1,097 people that passed by that hour, only ONE person recognized who Bell really was. Yep; one person. That one person left a $20 tip.
As for the other 1,096 people who heard him, but thought little of the talent they were passing, he collected $32.17 in tips for a total of a whopping $52.17 earned in an hour’s worth of work. Suffice it to say, substantially less than his normal compensation for a stage performance.
This is the key point. Just because you have a product or service that you believe is wonderful, getting other people to notice is no slam dunk if it’s not put into the right context.
The editors and researchers at The Washington Post were genuinely surprised that the famous violinist wasn’t recognized more. Reporter Gene Weingarten came to the conclusion that basically people are too busy during rush hour to notice true talent. He also concluded that in a concert setting, people are in the right frame of mind and are expecting brilliance. In an unexpected environment, however, people took little notice.
So, how does this experiment translate to a marketing or PR blunder? Simply put, it’s a case of Right Product – Wrong Place.
What does it means for your business?
If you are running ads in the wrong publication, sending out mass direct mail to zip codes rather than to specific people, you are playing the numbers game. It doesn’t work anymore. Consumers tend to screen out anything that looks unfamiliar as they did to the violinist in the subway. They toss unsolicited mail, throw spam into the trash, guard their email addresses with their first born, fast-forward through the commercials of their favorite TV programs, and rely on caller ID to see who it is.
Your challenge in the 21st century of marketing requires strategic new tactics to get recognized. It takes a combination of common sense and creativity to be received positively.
Your Strategy Should Be: Do your homework. Create the right environment for your product or service. Make sure it’s a good fit. If you’re not sure, spend a few bucks to do some market research. Many factors affect marketing, but placing the right product in the wrong places is unlikely to produce the desired results.
Esty Atlas is the public relations director for Hughes & Stuart Marketing located in Greenwood Village. She is a four-time Emmy Award-winning writer, creative producer and coauthor of “Roadrunner Marketing: Strategic Secrets You Wish You Knew.“ http://www.hughesstuart.com.
Facebook Now Sending Weekly Updates on Visitors, Fans
The only true way to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing channel is to track it. MTECH is all about comparing the ROI of one marketing channel versus another. With the advent of social media, many clients constantly ask me how this helps them increase the bottom line of their business.
Well, Facebook just made that decision a bit easier by now Emailing a weekly report of the visitors, fans and posts to your Facebook page.
By comparing this to other website landing pages driven by marketing advertisements, you can start to see how Facebook compares to the amount of traffic it potentially drives to your site as well as how well it connects to your key audience.
If you don’t have a Facebook Page (not profile) yet, you might be surprised how many of your customers are using this vehicle. So, I encourage you to take a little bit of time, set one up and start playing with it.
