MDS Resource — Digital Ad Agency

Category: Online Marketing For Small Business

How To Get Great Customers With Online Marketing For Small Business And Search Engines
Online Marketing For Small Business Creates Great Customers!
OK, sure, if you’re big business like Wal Mart or Amazon the Internet is great. But, what do search engines have to do with online marketing for small business? In short, search engines are a tremendous opportunity to be found. How’s it working out for you in the Sunday newspaper classifieds? How many new customers found you in the yellow pages last month?
Online Marketing For Small Business Works Locally
Truth be told, right this minute, right here in the Twin Cities, eager buyers are searching for what you offer. Anticipate these eager buyers and you have the opportunity to stand up directly in front of each of them and tell them your great story. Once you identify the buyer personae of your greatest customers, what’s to stop you from stalking your perfect prospects? Isn’t creating great customers the best action you can take in growing your business? Is it possible to have too many great customers?
Search Engines Help Online Marketing For Small Business
Let’s look closely at typical search engine results to see what’s in it for you. For the sake of illustration, we’ll use Google. Sure, lately we’re seeing a lot of commercials about Bing, and certainly Facebook, too, has an impressive number of searches. Google recently reported four billion searches every day, one billion of which are seeking to buy locally. With two-thirds of all search engine searches, Google epitomizes the online search experience.
Depending on your specific search phrase, the Google search results page may contain three different types of results:
Paid Search And Online Marketing For Small Business
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising may appear above all other results and/or down the right side. First and foremost, know that these are paid advertisements. Every time somebody clicks on one of these ads, whoever placed the ad pays Google. From the time you sign up to the time you start seeing results can be as quick as a few hours. Paid advertising can quickly pull prospects, test landing pages and gauge the market.
Local Business Results And Online Marketing For Small Business
Have you noticed the maps? Unless you’re totally oblivious to the Internet and online search, these last two years of online marketing for small business are remarkable because of the local business results.
Google and the other search engines realize that there is an enormous demand for local and neighborhood search results. Why? Because eager buyers are shopping and ready to buy; but, they’re not prepared to put a new house in a shopping cart and purchase it from Amazon. For many items consumers still insist on buying from a person. They still put the relationship before the deal. And that is great news for local business.
Getting on the map is not a function of paid advertising. Nor is it simply a matter of having a great website. Local business results feature businesses that are remarkable in their community. First, they claimed their listing in the local directories, such as Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Yelp, etc. Second, these businesses made the effort to standardize their listings everywhere, including using the same local telephone number and spelling consistently. Third, customers find them remarkable enough to leave online reviews, endorsements and testimonials for local business. The search engines are gathering many public reviews into the local business results.
Organic Results And Online Marketing For Small Business
Last but not least are the well known organic results. They are called organic because they are the “natural” ordering of all web pages cataloged across the Internet. Although, different search engines rank and order web pages differently, the notions of credibility and trust and back link references from other websites are shared. Clearly, if your business is found on the first page of Google results, eager buyers searching for what you offer may click on your link. Also, the more eager buyers find your link the more likely your business is to sell. Although, many say organic results are “free,” do not forget that consumer searches vary and the search engines change their rules to appeal to searchers.
SEO And Online Marketing For Small Business
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of appealing to search engine algorithms in order to place high in their rankings. Effective online marketing for small business must consider SEO because each business must be found by buyers if they are to sell. Neither SEO nor marketing, however, is simply a matter of adding some ingredient to your website. If marketing is the relationship between a business and its marketplace, and every relationship begins with a single conversation, how many conversations with eager buyers do you want online?
Online Marketing For Small Business Creates Great Customers!
Is it possible to have too many great customers? Search engines are a tremendous opportunity to be found. Right this minute, right here in the Twin Cities, eager buyers are searching for what you offer. Is creating great customers your goal in online marketing for small business?
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Online Marketing For Small Business Answers: 612-235-6060
8 March 2011
Who Else Wants Extraordinarily Successful Online Marketing For Small Business?
Online Marketing For Small Business Succeeds
Success and survival are not the same thing. Times are truly tough today and small businesses everywhere are scrambling for survival. Online marketing for small business is a success opportunity that Internet publishing platforms offer individuals with something to say. Commit whole-heartedly to communicating with your online audience and this success can be extraordinary. Listening to many of my clients has convinced me that they have compelling stories to tell. Given a targeted audience these small business owners are effective closers and the audience loves them. How, then, can you attract that just right audience?
Tell Online Marketing For Small Business Stories
Regular, honest and compelling content creation is critical to success. Story tellers consistently share their opinions and thoughts online and rise to thought leadership in their particular niche. Thought leadership? What differentiates you from your competition? What is your unique selling proposition? If you want to be different you must lead; otherwise you are a follower lost in the masses. The leader of the pack is interesting because she is out in front of the pack and all eyes are on her. Speak and the pack listens intently. Call them to action and many will convert into the best customers you ever had. The best customers refer others to you and will stand up in public and testify to your leadership.
Build Online Marketing For Small Business Communities
Build a community around your brand, both your personal and your business brands. Perhaps, the most striking thing about online marketing for small business is the simplicity. Allowed yourself to be yourself. Once you stop intruding on people trying to convert them to buyers — you know: “Buy ME!” and “Give ME Money!” — what else is there to do?
One of the greatest features of the Internet is that you can publish your story in your voice, at your pace and it stays available until I need to see it. Give me relevant information in the format I want to receive it. I will pay attention to you. Create curiosity. Build a compelling story. Tell me just enough to get me to come back next week … same time, same place. Nurture me and my interest. Allow me to come to want your service and I will come to you as an eager buyer sooner or later. Inbound marketing brings eager buyers to you at the moment they are ready to buy.
Share Online Marketing For Small Business
Create triggers that encourage people to share. Basically, there are five types of Internet sharing:
* Video;
* Image;
* Audio;
* Text;
* or a combination of the four.
Be different. Instead of clubbing prospects over the head and stealing money, give them something to take away from meeting you. Give them something for free. Social media is “social” inasmuch as it shared among its users spheres of influence. We social creatures share valuable information in our social networks, especially information about great deals. If you give me an informative eBook or consultation, in my mind its value increases with its free-ness. I will happily share my find with like-minded friends. How is this different from a referral?
Online Marketing For Small Business Succeeds
Tell your interesting and compelling story to an audience that wants to hear it. We will clamor for it Inbound marketing rules are dead simple. Social media and inbound marketing have leveled the playing field and put in your hands exactly the same tools as the biggest corporations in the world. Sharing your story with the world on a consistent and honest basis you can become a thought leader and create a community of followers around your brand. Online marketing for small business is a success opportunity for those with something interesting to say.
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Answer Your Online Marketing For Small Business Question: 612-235-6060
27 January 2011
How To Succeed At Online Marketing For Small Business With Any Realistic Budget
Don't Ignore Online Marketing For Small Business
Are you a small business owner? Do you want to see a lot more customers coming to you in 2011? Certainly, every business owner I’ve met answers these in the affirmative! What’s your plan to grow your business with great new customers?
Clearly, every new customer is a function of new leads in your sales funnel — we know this as conversion. And, every new sales lead is a subset of the number of eager buyers shopping for what you offer who are exposed to your business — we know this as marketing. Admit it, the numbers of people exposed to your business depends on marketing strategy, tactics, advertising, etc. Times change and so has effectiveness of traditional marketing tactics and offline advertising. Whereas, telemarketing, yellow pages, newspaper ads and other previously effective tactics are seriously lame today, online marketing for small business produces more targeted sales leads everyday.
Don’t Ignore Online Marketing For Small Business
Most small business owners ignore online marketing, because they don’t understand how the Internet has dramatically changed consumers. Furthermore, many unwary businesses have been duped into costly schemes to fool Google and other search engines. Have you been duped into believing that #1 on Google first page or a million website visitors in a month are ends in themselves? How do they add to your bottom line? Here’s a clue: work both of them into a business plan, pass it on to your banker and ask for a business loan. Point is, show your banker a plan to get more targeted sales leads calling you on the phone and then they’ll talk money. Google itself and random website visitors do absolutely nothing to grow your business.
Fortunately for you, this Internet thingy has totally changed the way we consume! No longer flipping through yellow pages or browsing the Sunday Trib classifieds, eager buyers shopping for what you offer are on the Internet right this second searching for you. Every time they search they receive a search results page. If you’re not on that page, they will buy from somebody else. Online marketing for small business has one goal: everywhere they search they find you there.
Affordable Online Marketing For Small Business
Fact is, effectively marketing your business is now possible with any realistic budget:
- Email marketing has long been the favorite of Internet marketers, perhaps because it’s the online equivalent to direct marketing. Done right, instead of intruding in the Inbox, you ask and they grant you permission to nurture them and keep them informed with current and relevant information. Keeping permission marketing foremost in your mind, think of events, specials and successes that you’d appreciate knowing about your favorite vendors. Your customers and prospects will appreciate the same about you.
- Online articles are another great way to increase awareness of you, your business and, especially, those special things you do that benefit your customers. Do you remember fondly thumbing through a magazine, reading interesting articles and clipping some articles so you can refer back to them later? The Internet is several magnitudes greater than any paper magazine. This very minute somebody is reading an article about your product and service and today she’ll bookmark it and maybe tell her friends about it. Have you ever tried to find a article in a magazine you threw out a long time ago? That won’t happen online, because it’s always available to be found, 24/7, 365 days a year.
- Social media is all about family, friends and vacation pictures — right? No. It, too, can be tremendously effective in putting your business in front of eager buyers. Facebook membership alone is the third largest country in the world: China, India, Facebook, USA … In 2010 it’s been reported that the largest growing Facebook demographic is middle aged women. Again, keep in mind how online marketing for small business is primarily about developing relationships with your marketplace. What better way to start a conversation with a new prospect than at a huge party? Facebook, for example, is a neverending party of friends, family and coworkers, and they’re all talking about what’s on their minds. Strike a positive chord with just one, and they’ll tell somebody about you, and on and on.
Follow Online Marketing For Small Business To Success
Online marketing is about branding. The more people recognize your personal name, your business name and your place in the community, the more likely that one of them converts into a customer. Notice how we haven’t mentioned traditional advertising agencies and TV commercial production crews — the prohibitive prices of traditional marketing simply are not necessary online. It’s more about leaving thousands and thousands of bread crumbs from your business throughout the Internet. Whenever some eager buyer happens on one crumb while shopping for what you offer, Hansel and Gretel will follow the trail to your door. Like all marketing, the only goal of online marketing for small business is to create customers.
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Answer Your Online Marketing For Small Business Question: 612-235-6060
9 January 2011
For Overwhelmed Business Owners: How Online Marketing For Small Business Gives You Breathing Room
Room To Breathe Online Marketing For Small Business
Online marketing for small business owners can be somewhat tricky, but, if done successfully, it can make running a small business simpler. Online marketing can make a small business successful while, at the same time, allow a small business owner an easier time running her business. So, how does online marketing for small business really help business? Does it really make things easier for small business, or simply simpler?
Online Marketing For Small Business Or Fail
Well, let me put it this way, small business needs to be aggressively marketed, no matter what, or the competition will eat it alive. If your business is not marketed properly, it will fail — plain and simple. As it is, the never ending race for new business is exhausting and consumes the bulk of my time. I love courting great prospects and the challenge to convert them into great customers. What’s better than bringing a great customer into your family? How can small business get any better than growing your family of great customers?
So, why should a small business be marketed online as opposed to marketed elsewhere? Let me show you several reasons:
First of all, marketing online gives small business owners a greater sense of control over where and to whom the business is marketed. To whom ought you to market your business? Understand your two or three best customers intimately and coalesce that intimacy into buyer personae. Focus on your buyer personae. If you’re not selling Pampers or used cars, do not market to Pampers and used car buyers. Online marketing is much better than traditional marketing for laser focus on target markets.
Focus On Online Marketing For Small Business
If your business sells rare antiques, you don’t want teenagers to be the majority of people seeing your advertisements. With online marketing, a business owner easily chooses on which online media to market her business. She can monitor the demographic viewing her website to help determine whether or not that online media is where she wants her business advertised. Marketing to the right demographic is one of the most important factors in generating sales, because targeted leads are more readily closed. This is accomplished most easily marketing small business online.
Furthermore, online marketing for small business makes growing business easier because online media are more readily changed. They don’t need to be as on top of marketing strategies as they needed to be when they ran ads in print or some other offline media. Have you ever tried to change the color palette on a billboard? How quickly can you change from black-and-white to color Yellow Pages spread?
What does this mean? Well, I’m not saying that a business owner won’t have to monitor her marketing strategies closely. Whether they are online or off, one size never fits all. Some techniques will work and others don’t. Some strategies may work today and no longer work next year.
Measure Online Marketing For Small Business
Nevertheless, it’s far easier to monitor effectiveness online, and easier to test multiple alternatives simultaneously. With a simple click of a button, the small business owner can see how many websites visitors she’s attracting from particular advertisements.
More to the point, it’s easier than ever to gather metrics and measure crazy stuff like visitors to leads to sales ratios. How profitable is your Yellow Pages campaign? Traditional offline marketing cannot provide clear cause and effect metrics. It’s exceedingly difficult to monitor how much interest in a business is being generated from TV commercials, newspaper ads and telemarketing calls. Online, these statistics are readily monitored.
Online Marketing For Small Business Is Smart
Overall, online marketing for small business is just plain smart! Making the small business owner’s life much simpler is perhaps the single greatest benefit of online marketing.
22 December 2010
How Online Marketing For Small Business Made Me Forget Yellow Pages And Awful Newspaper Advertising
Online Marketing For Small Business Is Effective
Online Marketing For Small Business Is Effective
Marketing is undoubtedly among the most essential aspects of any small business venture. It is actually how businesses grow and how they continue to work toward profitable goals. However, marketing is also one of the most challenging areas for small business owners to manage. It is often difficult to figure out what type of marketing is needed and which is effective.
Keep It Simple With Online Marketing For Small Business
Small businesses might not know the best places to advertise or might not know which marketing agency to hire. For the most part, online marketing for small business is the ideal solution for most of these concerns. The strategies to carry out marketing online for small business are very simple to understand and are considerably more affordable to use compared with traditional marketing campaigns, such as newspaper ads and Yellow Pages spreads. If you think about how ineffective traditional marketing with wide-ranging strategies is today, you will realize that the amount of money you have to spend on these campaigns is wasteful.
Online Marketing For Small Business Targets Best Customers
Just imagine that you purchase a commercial advertisement from your local television station in the course of their most popular programs. Suppose your product is geared toward the younger market, but the program is targeting all age groups. Even though you might make several product sales and some of your ideal individuals might pay attention to your advertisement, you probably will not generate sufficient interest and sales to cover your considerable advertising costs. The truth is, more often than not, you would have wasted your money.
One Alternative: Online Marketing For Small Business
Now, think about online marketing as an alternative. Your ad is published online in places frequented by interested individuals who want to see it and buy it. These people are trying to find the information that your advertisement provides, whether they are seeking a specific product, your service or more information. Now, because of the brilliance of online marketing, the market you are targeting will find your website because eager buyers are shopping for what you sell. This makes a huge difference, because rather than placing an advertisement in a single spot with the hope that someone will actually see it, your ad will be requested by eager buyers shopping online for what they want at the moment they want to buy it.
Remain Flexible With Online Marketing For Small Business
Online marketing for small business directs customers directly to your business. Done effectively you get considerably higher quality leads. Measurement of traffic quantity and quality allows you to determine how effective each ad is. In addition, in contrast to traditional marketing, online advertising empowers you to easily make changes to your campaign even while it continues to run. Have you ever attempted to do this with traditional marketing promotions? Can you change your Yellow Pages spread once printed? Can you change your TV commercial after production? Traditional advertisements created by traditional marketing agencies could easily bankrupt your business if you insist on changes that are carried out effortlessly everyday online. Flexibility is key to online marketing for small business.
4 December 2010