I ignored telling my buddies about this, thinking that they’re already aware, until one day one of my buddies approached me and asked, “How can I increase my sales?” I was stunned. You should have seen my eyes when I heard her question because I always thought every business owner knows that the best way to increase sales is to get in front of eager buyers. I’d so much rather be in front of an eager buyer shopping for what I offer than tire kickers or garage salers. Targeted sales leads are the best gauge of eager buyers I know.
Of course, whenever I generate targeted prospects, I invariably get better customers and better deals at close. You know what I mean … people ready to buy anything you’re selling. During economic crisis, businesses begin the crunch and spiral, too, into financial crisis — even the doctors and lawyers. While most of the successful entrepreneurs that I know are walking away with fat envelopes day after day, they’re all reporting increased sales. How can this be?
Whether you’re a doctor, carpenter, mover, salon manager or whatever business you own online or off, this is not a secret — sales leads are your life blood. The secret is not that you need targeted sales leads; rather, how are you going to target the sales leads you seek? The only secret is finding out the simplest and fastest way to target leads for your business. Even better, find an affordable way to keep your best prospects lining up at your door waiting to be sold!
Targeted Sales Leads Make A Beeline
Imagine inbound marketing is you putting out the honey trap, a special honey appealing only to eager buyers shopping for what you offer, and everywhere they look they see your honey. Is it any wonder that they make a beeline to you? Can you imagine any better customer than those that call you up and ask, “I’ve tasted your honey. Tell me more. What can you do for me?”
I guess I’m one of those successful entrepreneurs. Expert coach and successful businessman for over 10 years now, I figured out 7 years ago how to continuously generate solid buying leads for any kind of business. Right now, I’m working with several local business owners to increase their sales and improve their business by creating a neverending stream of targeted sales leads. And, on top of that, thanks to the Internet and inbound marketing, all of this fits within business budgets that most are already spending:
What’s your return on yellow pages investments?
How many new customers did you get from your last newspaper ad?
What percentage of your website visitors actually paid you money?
Better ROI Than Targeted Sales Leads?
I help business owners who are disturbed about poor return on advertising investments. May I ask you a question? I talk with a lot of business owners. Lately, the two biggest problems I’ve been hearing are too few targeted leads and how to achieve serious business growth in 2011. Do either of these ring true with you?
Why waste sales time on those who are not likely to buy from you? Yea, sure, you’re persuasive and sometimes you close an unwitting prospect. Be truthful, how good a customer has she been? Optimize your conversion rate with cheap targeted sales leads and appreciate how good customers benefit your business.
If local small business marketing is unfamiliar to you, look at it this way. The target of every business is to get the word out to the maximum number of people to maximize marketplace exposure. In business, market exposure correlates with sales.
Go Online With Local Small Business Marketing
Today in our cyber era, having an effective online presence is of utmost importance. As people spend more and more time in front of the computer, chances are better and better that they will search online for the products and services that they will buy. The Internet allows small business owners to display your expertise directly to eager buyers. Unlike traditional media like billboards, television advertising and Yellow Pages, with online media local small business marketing no longer requires huge amounts of money.
Local Small Business Marketing Is Affordable
It’s true! There are some really cool ways to promote your local business, many of which are free, to attract the targeted leads you desire. Here are some of the methods:
Create web pages that feature keywords specific to your particular products and services. What do we mean by “keyword?” Anticipate what eager buyers type into the search engine box before they click [Search]. Savvy buyers are getting savvier. With local small business marketing you want to attract local customers.
Make sure to choose terms that people will look for to find local products and services. For example, if you own a Detroit furniture business, you don’t want to target phrase “furniture.” It’s too generic. Google it yourself and see 257 MILLION web pages containing that word. Instead, Detroit buyers will type the phrase “detroit office furniture” and search. Now I find 700 thousand competitive web pages and also that local map featuring local furniture merchants.
Build a blog and they will come. Your blog is the ideal way to tell your story and interact with an interested audience. You know? I know you’re great telling your story and persuading prospects sitting across the table from you. Write each blog post that way, as if you’re eyeball-to-eyeball with the largest possible audience. And they will hear your story today, tomorrow and next year — when they’re ready to hear it. Once you’re done writing your post, bookmark it in social book marking sites like Digg.com and StumbleUpon.com to promote even more traffic.
Last but not least, don’t forget a Facebook fan page. Now that Facebook is the third largest country in the world (China, India, Facebook, United States …) your Fan page facilitates keeping up with your customers regardless where they are. Local small business marketing benefits from Facebook patrons Like-ing your page and telling the world how great you are. Local patrons frequenting Facebook are more likely to pay attention to your local business when privy to your popularity. Additionally, Facebook facilitates instant communication with your audience whenever you do something noteworthy, like a special event or a special promotion.
Dream Big With Local Small Business Marketing
As local business marketing becomes easier and more familiar to you, eager buyers will notice. To maximize marketplace exposure your local business must be found. In business, market exposure correlates with sales. What do you have to lose by dreaming big and making local small business marketing an overnight sensation?
All small businesses catering to the real world ought to get started by focusing within a local area on a small niche market. There is a continuous demand around the world for effective strategies for marketing local business to the community. Regardless of this large number of businesses searching for ways to market within their local area, most end up failing. Why is this happening? How is it that so many well intentioned business people fail marketing their local business?
Are these indications that local business marketing is not effective? Is it because business people, although qualified professionals, are not capable of carrying out local marketing tasks successfully? Local marketing is really about establishing your business presence within a specific area, getting eager buyers shopping for what you offer to recognize and respect your brand. Traditionally, there have been numerous ways to market locally, such as radio and TV advertising, telemarketing and print advertising including magazines, newspapers and Yellow Pages. With the advent of the Internet, however, traditional marketing is waning in effectiveness because consumers no longer respond to intrusive advertising.
Even though all of these methods continue to be effective to a smaller degree, we have found it much more affordable and effective to advertise our local business online. Marketing local business online is a broad topic comprised of different strategies. Yes, everybody today has a website. Regardless how pretty your website looks, the true tests of effectiveness are the number and quality of the leads your website produces. How many eager buyers shopping for what you offer contacted you last month because of your website?
Start Marketing Local Business To Nurture Prospects
For starters, not every visitor to your website is immediately prepared to buy. Email marketing targeted at local businesses is a good way for people to continue learning about your business. Social media marketing is also powerful at promoting your brand in your community. Individuals more closely relate to businesses within their community than from dissimilar geographical locations. Additionally, we are a very visual culture and video is a fantastic way to tell your local business story to a local audience. Becoming familiar with these facts helps you to take advantage of and use the strength of marketing local business online.
Search engine marketing is also readily directed at specific geographic areas and regions. Considering the simplicity of this strategy, in addition to effectiveness and affordability, it is the first I recommend that you consider implementing these days. Pay-Per-Click advertising is also readily directed geographically, but due to cost you need to allocate additional marketing budget. Last but not least, increase your website traffic with effective search engine optimization and basic back-linking techniques. SEO is really about publishing the rich, relevant and rewarding content search engine users seek. Back links are testimonials elsewhere on the Internet endorsing your local business by putting a link to your website on their website.
Many people question the effectiveness of search engine optimization for local business marketing. Basically, anticipating the key words and phrases that eager buyers type into the search engines allows you to be found wherever they look. Google facilitates this through Local Business Results and Google Places. Yahoo! and Bing are also eager to provide local business results because all search engines recognize that millions of eager buyers are searching to buy locally.
Marketing Local Business Speaks To Your Community
Marketing your local business is essential if you want any new business from your community. When you fully understand and implement some of these techniques, then your local business will profit from local customers. Every business is different and one size never fits all. Try these techniques marketing local business online and determine which combination best profits your business. Besides that, understanding the strategies and options available enable you to plan effective local marketing that best benefits your local business.
Today the Internet is an excellent resource that you should use to facilitate operating any small and medium size business. As you know consumers have numerous choices when they are shopping online. Need proof? Go to Google.com, type “plumber” in the box and click Search. Right now, at the top of the results on my computer, Google tells me that there are 11,200,000 pages on the Internet about the word plumber.
How do you expect eager buyers shopping for what you offer to find you, to contact you and to buy from you? Out of all those web pages, only one can be ranked number one. Only a small number of links can exist on that first search results page, including organic, paid and local business results.
Effective online marketing results identify targeted sales leads and direct them to your website. Why do you care about the mother looking for Pampers if you’re selling cars? When you don’t know how this works it can end up costing a lot of money and time. How much can you afford?
Continue reading for some tips about how to improve your return on advertising investment. When your sales funnel is full of targeted sales leads you’ll be working full time closing deals with buyers eager to do business with you.
Targeted Sales Leads Cannot Be Bought
Never buy sales leads. There is no way to guarantee that a sales leads list is fresh nor how interested they are in your products. Having bought something similar in the past is no gauge of current interest.
The Internet has certainly changed the way we consume. One thing is certain: when we are eager and preparing to buy, the Internet provides us with a plethora of research information about what we seek to buy. Would you rather try to coax people to buy from you, or stand in front of those seeking to buy what you sell?
Establish a schedule and know your place in the sales cycle. Especially if you’re a sole proprietor, time is of the essence. Wearing too many hats (e.g., marketer, salesman, manufacturer and accountant) is the surest way to get nothing profitable done.
Therefore, set sales objectives and schedule time and resources to achieve them. Where are you most effective in your sales cycle? If you plan to search online daily to find potential sales leads, does it make sense that the chief executive does this? Perhaps, you ought to hire a part time worker to get this done.
Search For Targeted Sales Leads
Search for targeted sales leads in your niche market. Everybody is an authority in something. Isn’t that why you’re in the business you’re in? Your business sells a specific product or specific service. Identify the one or two key buyer personae for each product and service.
Who are they? Why do they want your product? Why do they need your service? What is their specific problem? What do you offer that will benefit them?
Once identified, anticipate where they are and how they will seek you out when they’re eager to buy. Be found there where they’re looking. Ask them to call you, come in your front door or request further information online. Just imagine how easy it will be for them to ask for your help. How easy will that be to earn your profit?
Convert Targeted Sales Leads To Great Customers
Think about purchasing a software application to keep track of your sales cycle. Think about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software as a dutiful assistant whose sole job is to prompt you every step of the way to converting targeted sales leads into satisfied customers. Once your online marketing is filling your sales funnel, you cannot afford to let any slippery leads get away.
Yes, you have to research online to find your target market. CRM software can simplify and reduce this work. The key to getting a great start is know who are already your very best customers. Which of your customers, if you had ten more just like them, would seat you in the lap of luxury for the foreseeable future? Why don’t you have ten more just like that one? What are you afraid of?
Don’t Fear Targeted Sales Leads
Don’t be afraid to talk to you best customers. Ask them, Why did you buy from us? Why do you come back to us and buy more? Answers to these questions will put flesh on the bones of your buyer personae skeletons you sketched earlier. Once you understand who benefits most buying from you, anticipate where they are and where they will shop when they’re eager to buy.
The Internet has changed the way that the world does business. It really has changed everything. People no longer stop what they are doing to reach for the Yellow Pages when they need a service or product. They reach for their computer and this has changed everything.
Has Local Small Business Slowed?
Where once you might have succeeded advertising your local business in the local newspaper, now you need to get your business online with local small business marketing My business targets my local community — most of my customers come from a five mile radius. Year on year it’s been getting harder and harder to hit my sales targets. It seems like each year there are fewer good customers out there. Can you relate to my story?
The reason for my struggles is likely the same as your struggles — I was not making the most of marketing my local small business online. It’s less about traditional offline media and all about the Internet now. How has the Internet has transformed local small business marketing? That is where eager buyers are looking for my products and services.
Local Small Business Marketing Is On The Internet
Since I started taking seriously what the Internet offers in terms of local small business marketing, my sales have literally shot through the roof. Where once I was struggling to make ends meet, now I’m struggling to cope with the avalanche of work I have coming in every single day — I need to add staff soon. There is no doubt in my mind that the Internet and its facility to put my local small business directly in front of eager buyers has changed my local small business for the better forever!
Marketing To Local Buyers Grows Small Business
I was taken completely by surprise that my business keeps growing, even throughout these current economic challenges. Not even this global recession has stopped my business from growing. My success is undoubtedly our change from traditional marketing methods to local small business marketing online.
Local Business Profits From Eager Local Buyers
I know that it might seem counter intuitive to use the Internet to connect with customers who are perhaps just a few miles from your door; but, look at the facts: The Internet is everywhere — in our phones, in our ipads and ipods, in our computers and in our cars and TV’s. More than 80% of Americans use the Internet regularly and more than 1 billion people each month search to buy locally.
Get Onboard Local Small Business Marketing
This Internet thing has changed the game of business by moving the goal posts closer for local small business. If you have a local business and you want to grow profitably in 2011 and beyond, wake up to these changes and get onboard. Local small business marketing is what you need to do right now.
In case you have just become a business owner, you should know that it is vitally important to find the best opportunities available for marketing local business. Doing all that it takes to get and keep consumers interested in spending money to benefit from your service will be your key to generate a lucrative profit.
Marketing Local Business Appeals To Eager Buyers
Local advertising campaigns have proven to be crucial for every business, whether you are a professional doctor or lawyer with some years in your field, or a roofing contractor starting out. It is always best to advertise locally even if your business is already established, because local buyers will be the first to invest their money in your products and services. Marketing local business is the best way to appeal to buyers in your neighborhood and for you to cultivate a successful business.
In many cases this exposure can expand from local to international with simple, positive word of mouth reviews. By using a marketing strategy that leverages testimonials, this will enable your business to thrive. When you are prepared with the best way to market your local business, you will not spend an enormous sum of money — not even in the beginning.
Marketing Local Business Requires Expertise
The most effective way to market local business and boost revenue is to enlist the expertise of a local marketing company. Once the majority of your community knows about you and also what you have to offer, then you should move on to other effective advertising strategies. Advertisements in the local newspapers, tabloids and magazines in order attract more customers used to be the only way. Those traditional methods may not be as effective today. All of your advertising must prominently display your business logo. It is a major visual component to your brand and can be seen everywhere. Your logo can look great on signs and billboards in close proximity to your business.
Marketing Local Business Exceeds Expectations
After you capitalize on these basic marketing techniques and your profit looks good, then you can continue to the next phase. Going beyond the traditional approach of creating brochures, pamphlets, leaflets and flyers to be distributed all over your local area, continue promoting your local business wherever eager buyers are shopping for what you offer. At all times you want to ensure that you are using all advertising options to your advantage. Striving to make earnings exceed expectations, you will find nothing more essential than effective marketing. You will discover that this is one of the best decisions you will ever make for your business.
Marketing Local Business Fulfills Dreams
Now is really the time to get aggressive with local marketing. Ensure that your local business continues to grow to the level you desire. Dream big! Always remember that the opportunities for marketing local business were never this easy. The sky is the limit if you are serious about success and you keep your finger on the pulse of your best customers. Marketing local business brings results.
Connecting with others regardless of proximity is one of the strongest values Social Media brings to the table. My blog may be read in earnest around the world and I appreciate that. LinkedIn has brought business to table with people I’ve not met nor am I likely to meet (e.g., China, India.) Exchanging tweets across the universe is fun and rewarding. So, what is all of this hoopla about Location Based Social Media?
That being said, I do in fact live here, in this specific place, and not only to I reside here, but I shop here, I eat here and I come face-to-face with hundreds of people every week — right here in Minneapolis, MN USA. Most businesses I see do not benefit from ecommerce and shopping carts. Somebody in Afghanistan on the Internet can go to target.com and order a 4-slice toaster; Target will do the currency exchange and ship the toaster to them the next day — everybody wins. On the other hand, my dentist in Plymouth, MN is not likely to benefit from that Afghani shopper. My dentist has a service area outside of which he’s not likely to profit.
Location Based Social Media are the darlings of 2010. New social media platforms, known as Location Based Services, add a contextual layer of movement and proximity to our relationships online and offline. Location Based Services are smartphone applications utilizing GPS to provide information and social networking relevant to our current location. Location Based Social Media are our interfaces to these applications. We are exploring our community online, tracking our friends whereabouts, recent activities, opinions and we shout out to our world where we are and how we want to be found.
What does Location Based Social Media mean to you? ABI Research estimates, “By 2014 global LBS revenues will have surpassed $14 billion.” The more detailed information we have on prospect behavior patterns and social context, the better we find something truly valuable to offer them. We can also provide more specific, directed information based on the location of our best audiences. Location Based Social Media is particularly valuable for brick and mortar store front business who need to drive local traffic to their store, and for anyone promoting an event at a physical venue.
Social Check-in sites enable users to access information about businesses in the local area. At the same time, Social check-in sites encourage users to develop location based relationships with other users, with their other social networks and with local businesses.
Offer incentives to users to check-in and frequent your establishment. Compelling offers bring new customers to your location and build loyalty with your existing customers. Encourage users to check-in on any and all Location Based Social Media. Honor incentives you offer across any Location Based Social Media a user may use.
Listen to your guests! Review sentiment. Comment on posts. Acknowledge Testimonials and Referrals. Most Location Based Social Media have Facebook and Twitter connections that allow your guests to promote your business to their entire social network.
Some Location Based Social Media have search options facilitating keyword and brand term searches. Look for opportunities to promote special offers to users checking in to a nearby locations. Some Location Based Social Media have advertising platforms that enables marketers to purchase advertisements based either on category or location.
Social Review Sites
Social Review sites encourage users to publish online reviews, referrals and Testimonials based on their experiences at restaurants, hotels, shops and wherever you and your business are found in Location Based Social Media. Quality scores can be assigned to each comment based on this user-generated content.
Not all Social Review sites are Location Based Social Media.
Social Review sites are critical for brick-and-mortar business — do not skip your strategy here. Utilize Social Review sites for the free market research they offer — make the changes your customers ask for as appropriate.
Social Review sites enable businesses to publish local business content. Many Social Review sites facilitate offering coupons and discount offers to loyal customers.
Make absolutely certain that your guests remember that you exist on Social Review sites. Ask them for their Testimonial. Acknowledge customers that take time to post the positive reviews. Respond to your negative reviews with tact and consummate professionalism.
Local businesses need to listen closely to what their customers say about you, and respond to their suggestions and complaints.
There is no more effective marketing than Testimonials. Every review, every referral, every comment is a Testimonial to the quality of your business. The more positive Testimonials you accumulate, the greater your authority and credibility in your community.
In real life you cannot please everybody. Everybody cannot be your best customer. Some customers cannot be satisfied. The minority negative review is real life. Occasional dissatisfaction is more believable than saccharin drivel, and builds your online personality.
Social Scheduling Sites
Social Scheduling sites facilitate sharing your “social calendar” with your social networks. Individuals can find out about upcoming events. Networks of people can plan anything from birthday parties to movie dates.
Rather than publishing to the world where you are at at this moment, Social Scheduling sites facilitate sharing where you will be. Like a public calendar, you publish where you’re going, which events you will attend and with whom you are going.
Social Scheduling sites often include comment and review functionality. Other users comment, share information, and they can publish their own intent with a “count-me-in” button.
Social Scheduling sites can facilitate keyword searching, so customers and Location Based Social Media can find out about your events. Any marketing involving conferences, meetups, parties, or other get-togethers will benefit.
Conclusions About Location Based Social Media
Carefully examine the list of Location Based Social Media. Explore the pros and cons. Determine which platforms will best help you communicate with your customers. Marketing Local Business Online demands that you go where your customers are. Be found everywhere they are looking for you.
Listen carefully and learn from your guests. Self-reporting your location has a value in itself. Declaring your current location is more than just a piece of information — your intention is behind it. Suppose you’re in a bar and the name of the place is broadcast to your colleagues. That’s both a statement about where you are and an invitation to others. They can infer about your availability or your willingness to interact socially.
Engage with your guests — communicate — bring something of value to the conversation.
Remember that Location Based Social Media is very new. You are marketing to early adopters with voyeuristic tendencies and enormous digital mouths.
Be genuine. Engage your guests with open arms, a big smile and kind words. Offer them the right incentives at the right time. Your Location Based Social Media community will become your most loyal customers and loudest evangelists. Location Based Social Media is where we’re at.
Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Of Excuses …
Truth be told, all of the excuses listed below I have used myself. Yes, I’m as guilty — perhaps, more guilty because of my vocation — of irregular blog writing as many of you dear readers perusing this post. Writing my Blog is Social Media. For my Blog to be found I must publish. Search Engine Marketing assumes that my online marketing words can be found; therefore, blog writing is essential to my business success.
Knowing that it is human nature to avoid the unknown, those things in life and business that we do not understand, I, too, have procrastinated and equivocated. Today, Labor Day here in the USA, I want to take a few precious minutes to explore the very best, World Class excuses for not sitting down once or twice each week and scribbling to the world why, O why, are we in business?
Without Further Ado, Here Is My Top Ten List Of Blog Writing Excuses:
I don’t have anything to say.
Really? How do you sell anything? What do you want to say to your Best Customer when she’s sitting eyeball-to-eyeball with you? I know that you are passionate about what you offer; and I know that you will have a great deal to say to every eager Prospect ready to buy what you do best. Suppose you said some of this online. Furthermore, suppose somebody new reads your online words. Is it beyond reason that some of them will be influenced by your words, and ask to buy from you? Blog writing is nurturing your relationship with your marketplace.
Nobody wants to read my blog.
Rest assured, everybody is an authority in something — even you. Regardless online or offline, marketing your business requires you to build a relationship with each Prospect, nurture those relationships, and to service those relationships throughout your business life. Every relationship begins with a single conversation. Some will listen, some are not interested — that is the way of business. When you speak to a larger audience, what happens to the number of your listeners? What larger audience opportunity do you have than blog writing?
I don’t like to write.
Do you like to write sales orders? Will you write a proposal for me? How do you feel when you endorse a check? Writing is an extension of what you have to say. When you are comfortable with speaking with great Prospects, the words drip easily from your tongue. Record your best sales presentation. Listen to yourself. How does that story you tell your Customers affect you? Put it down in writing a few hundred words at a time. Tell your story. Your Customers love your story and they’ll read your blog writing.
I don’t have time to write a blog.
OK — time is of the essence. Do you have time to write orders? Do you have time to cash checks? If you find a simple method of attracting eager buyers who come to you to buy what you offer — will you find time to sell to them? Would you rather cold call or be found? I’m betting that when you sharpen your sales tools by honing the persuasive story you tell … I’m betting that blog writing will be well worth your time.
My industry/company does not allow self promotion.
Actually, this can be one of the most challenging hurdles. For example, Financial Services professionals are subject to stringent regulations from the SEC and FINRA, and their broker/dealers and compliance departments may choose to restrict rather than interpret rules. Nonetheless, I find no shortage of commercials advertising one Financial Services provider over another. Find a way to express your personality, your trustworthiness apart from your limited business persona. When was the last time you bought from somebody you didn’t like? Blog writing is telling your story.
I’m afraid I’ll lose my privacy.
Yes, it’s true. Those words you publish online are likely to live forever — and I do mean longer than your human life. You are a professional, and I’m asking you to keep professionalism in mind while writing your blog. Professionalism with personality … this is what makes your business better. This online universe is forcing us to be better businesses. Step up and be the personality for your business. Make your Customers so excited about you that they advocate for you in public, too!
My customers don’t read blogs.
Really? Are you willing to bet your business on this assumption? Yes, it’s true, some people aren’t online often or ever. However, it’s very easy to demonstrate that millions of people are searching online for what your business offers. Google measures over One Billion online searches each month for products and services that the searchers can find locally. When was the last time you sold to a prospect from the Yellow Pages? One person reading your blog might tell ten people about you — but, only after your blog writing …
My business cannot benefit from a blog.
Are you sure? If you want to be successful in this Online Age, you must step up and be a thought leader. The easier it is for Prospects to choose among competitors the better those competitors have to get to keep playing. Practice makes perfect — we’ve been told this forever. Your Blog is a tool. Blogging gives voice to the marketer inside of you. The more stories you tell, the better and more persuasive they become. Your blog writing shall become an influential book about you and your business.
I’m afraid of bad blog comments.
Blog writing is a subset of Social Media, which, by definition, is social and public. Blogs are most effective as discussions. When readers actively participate, you have engendered a conversation — so much more than a one dimensional monologue. As in real life, you will disagree with some, and some will disagree with you. Focus more on gathering Testimonials, and less on trading widgets and widget services for money, utilizing widgets and widget services as a means to Testimonials. Won’t business be more fulfilling and everybody win?
Blogging Return On Investment is too low.
Granted, measuring Blogging ROI is problematic. Measurement is your salvation. If you do not measure, how can you calculate ROI? If you do not know your ROI, how can you evaluate the value proposition? In this online universe, eager Prospects are already searching for what you offer. If they don’t find you, they will buy from somebody else. When you place your story everywhere they are looking for you, qualified Prospects will come to you. What will it take for you to be found everywhere they are looking for you? Writing your blog ensures your visibility.
Whether you agree with items in this list — or you find this all hogwash — I implore you to comment below. Tell us what you do — or don’t — get from blog writing. We want to understand what it is about blogging that does not work for you or your business. Furthermore, we want you to understand what you do not understand. Share with us — we will listen.
… Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Inbound marketing is the surest and simplest means to filling your sales funnel. Marketing local business online works precisely because it puts local business directly in front of eager buyers. A full sales funnel keeps you busy — profitably busy.
Thirty (30) years ago, we had to be told when a new widget or widget service was available. We blithely went about our daily lives mostly unaware of great new things to come. Inbound marketing wasn’t an option, because consumers had woefully less information easily available to them.
Newspapers, billboards, commercials, telemarketers … they intruded into our lives, then we knew what was available for purchase. We allowed these intrusions because, without them, we remained unaware how honest they had been with us. Many companies took advantage of us in many ways, telling us no more than they wanted us to know.
As we learn to search and find what we want on the Internet — when we want it — we respond less and less to offline media. Tivo is popular, especially allowing us to skip those commercials. Caller ID is ubiquitous, allowing us to skip those telemarketers interrupting dinner. Have you checked out the Sunday Tribune Classifieds recently? I see fewer billboards, and read fewer still. When was the last time you flipped through the yellow pages?
Somebody’s Sales Funnel Is Full
Right this minute … Right here in the Twin Cities … Somebody is on the Internet searching for what you offer. If they don’t find you, they will buy from somebody else.
What will it take for you to be found everywhere they are looking for you? Google reports that billions of people every month are filling sales funnels. How many are in your sales funnel?
Admit it. You, too, tune out intrusive outbound marketing. You have at your fingertips the miracle of searching the Internet Universe for whatever you want, whenever you want it. How do you shop? Do you shop before you are ready to buy? Neither do your customers.
Like you, my 80 year old parents go to the Internet when they are curious. They search the Internet to see if what they imagine is available for purchase. When they find it — surprise! — they may also find that it is available for purchase scant miles away. Have you seen the map? The Local Business Results list local businesses immediately adjacent to that map, showing you exactly how to get to what you want to buy.
How Full Do You Want Your Sales Funnel?
What difference will it make in your life when new customers come to you and they ask to buy from your business? When your best customers shop exactly as you shop, they will search for what you offer, go to one of the businesses listed next to that map in the Local Business Results and buy what they want from a local business.
Would you rather cold call or be found?
Inbound marketing is putting your business directly in the line of fire. Learn your customers well, very well. Anticipate what your best customers type into Google and Bing, and you can place a link to your web page on the Search Engine results page that they will read. Marketing local business online requires you place your link right next to that map. Go to where your best customers are looking for you and your best customers will ask to buy from you.
“Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.”
Marketing Local Business online demands a rigorous understanding of how best to be found when people search the Internet for what you offer. To best understand HOW people search for what you offer, it is necessary to understand the tools they are using. As I write this, Web Search Engines stand head-and-shoulders above other search tools; and Google dominates all Search Engines with more than 80% Search Engine marketshare.
Before we can understand Search Engine Marketing (SEM,) we must have a working relationship with Search Engine mechanics. Effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is predicated on creating content that people want to find in a way that the Search Engines will notice and catalog and make readily findable by those hungry seekers.
What is a Search Engine?
A search engine is a tool used to find interesting information in a database. In recent times, such search tools are computerized. In its simplest form, the electronic card catalog at your public library is a search engine.
Although search engine is a general class of computer programs, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Google, Yahoo! and Bing that enable users to search online media, the World Wide Web and Usenet newsgroups.
What is a Web Search Engine?
A Web Search Engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. Web Search Engines work by storing information from billions of web pages, which they gather from the web page code.
Web page contents are gathered by a Web crawler, or spider — an automated Web browser that reads every line of code in every web page, and follows every link on each page. Contents of each page are analyzed to determine how to index it for later retrieval. The index allows information to be found quickly.
Three essential features of Search Engines are:
crawling,
indexing, and
searching.
Search Engines evolved from Internet Directories
Archie [1990], “archive” without the “v,” was the first tool searching the Internet. Archie downloaded directory listings, not contents, of all files located on public FTP sites.
Gopher [1991] combined document hierarchies with collections of services and gateways to other information systems.
W3Catalog [1993] was the first primitive Search Engine, periodically mirroring numerous specialized catalogues.
World Wide Web Wanderer [1993] was the first web robot and generated an index called ‘Wandex’.
Aliweb [1993] was manually notified by web site administrators of an index file at each site.
JumpStation [1993] used a web robot to find and index web pages, and used a web form interface as its query program.
WebCrawler [1994] allowed users to search for any word in any web page, which is now the Search Engine standard.
Lycos [1994] was one of the first Search Engines with a for-profit business model, followed closely by: Magellan, Excite, Infoseek, Inktomi, Northern Light and AltaVista.
Yahoo! [1994] founders David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates at Stanford University, started their guide as a way to track their personal interests on the Internet.
Google [1996] began as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, at Stanford working on the Stanford Digital Library Project (SDLP). Google’s first funding was secured in August 1998 in the form of a $100,000 USD contribution given to a corporation which did not yet exist.
Microsoft [2004] began a transition to its own search technology, powered by its own web crawler (called msnbot). Microsoft’s rebranded search engine, Bing, was launched on June 1, 2009.
On July 29, 2009, Yahoo! and Microsoft finalized a deal in which Yahoo! Search would be powered by Microsoft Bing technology.
How do Search Engines make money?
In 1996, Netscape sought a single featured search engine for their innovative web browser. Five Search Engines paid $5 million each to be in a rotation on the Netscape search engine page: Yahoo!, Magellan, Lycos, Infoseek, and Excite. Today, most Search Engines are commercial ventures supported by advertising revenue.
Some Search Engines allow advertisers to pay money to have their listings ranked higher in search results.
Other Search Engines seek to categorize and prioritize web pages by measures of intrinsic value and make money by running search related ads alongside regular search engine results. Such Search Engines make money every time someone clicks on one of these ads (Pay-Per-Click.)
How do Search Engines differ from Directories?
Historically, Yahoo! was among the most popular ways for people to find web pages of interest, but it operated on its web directory, contents of which were submitted by web site administrators. Web directories are databases of human-compiled results, also known as human-powered search engines.
Unlike web directories maintained by human editors, Search Engines operate on algorithms, or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input. Search Engines automatically create web page listings by using spiders that “crawl” web pages, index their information, and follow each page’s links to other web pages.
Spiders return to previously crawled sites on a regular basis to update web page changes. Everything that these spiders gather is entered into the Search Engine database.
How do I use a Search Engine?
Major Search Engines include a simple dialog box into which you type a word or phrase, and a Search submit button to begin the search.
A Keyword is this word or phrase of words in this simplest sense.
Most Search Engines support using Boolean operators AND, OR and NOT to further refine search queries. Boolean searching on the Internet may manifest in three ways:
Full Boolean logic with the use of the logical operators (rare)
Implied Boolean logic with keyword searching (typed symbols)
Boolean logic using search form terminology (multiple form entries)
When a user submits a query, the Search Engine compares it to its index and returns a listing of web page information, usually with a short summary containing page title and part of its content. Some Search Engines support natural language queries that allow the user to type a question in the same form you would ask it of a human.
What is a Search Engine Result Page?
A Search Engine results page (SERP), is the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The SERP typically lists web pages with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the keywords have matched content within the page.
SERP’s of the major Search Engines may include different types of listings: contextual, algorithmic or organic search listings, sponsored listings (PPC,) images, maps, definitions, videos and suggested search refinements. Major Search Engines visually differentiate specific content types, such as images, news, blogs and sponsored links.
Each SERP also includes navigation to subsequent and/or previous SERP’s, possible search suggestions or refinements, suggested similar searches, and back to begin a new search.
How do Search Engines sequence results?
Initially, web site administrators manually submitted their web site information to be included in Web directories, often for a fee. Often as part of their business model, these “search engines” featured these sponsoring web sites according to the amount of fees collected.
By 2000, the Google Search Engine was gaining popularity among searchers because it achieved more relevant results with an innovation called PageRank. Google developed an algorithm to rank web pages based on the number, trust and authority of other web pages that link back to them. Google’s premise is that good and desirable web pages are linked back to more than less desirable web pages.
Now, major Search Engines operate similarly.
How each Search Engine decides which pages match best and in what order varies widely from one engine to another. The methods also change over time as Internet usage changes and new techniques evolve.
What is an algorithm?
An ‘algorithm’ is an effective method for solving a problem expressed as a finite sequence of instructions. Each algorithm is a list of well-defined instructions for completing a task. In computer science, a search algorithm is an algorithm for finding an item with specified properties among a collection of items.
There are also many algorithms designed specifically for retrieval in very large databases, such as bank account records, electronic documents, product catalogs, fingerprint and image databases, and so on.
Each Search Engine uses a proprietary algorithm to index and return only meaningful results for each search query. The index is built from the information stored with the data and the method by which the information is indexed.
While millions of web pages may include a particular keyword, some pages are more relevant, popular, and authoritative than others. Search Engine usefulness depends on the relevance of the results it returns on each search query.
Who are Search Engine customers?
Major Search Engine business models are for-profit.
Each SERP has a clearly defined topic and targeted theme. Money comes from paid advertisements strategically placed on each SERP. Each ad includes a Web link to the advertiser’s web page. Advertisers pay for these ads to attract people searching for particular keywords.
No search engine has control over the content of the universe of web pages. The better a Search Engine responds to each search, the more money that Search Engine is likely to make.
These Web searchers are becoming more sophisticated everyday. Everyday, more and more people search the Internet to find and buy more and more.
It stands to reason that Search Engines will continuously hone their search algorithms to continuously improve profitability.
What is a Search Engine? Perhaps, it is the key to your Local Business prosperity …
It’s no longer enough to sit back and wait for new customers to come to your Local Business. Fact is, in these times, your customers are more sophisticated than ever. Barraged with thousands of Buy-Me messages everyday, they are determined to find for themselves true value. They are not waiting around for your message; but, they are seeking what they want to buy on the Internet.
Therefore, Marketing Local Business online is your new imperative. Now that you understand Search Engines, how they work and who uses them for what, it is time for you to seize the day. Use the Search Engines to market your Local Business. Put yourself in front of your customers. Take the initiative.
Be found!
Eager customers are looking for you in the Search Engine …
