MDS Resource — Digital Ad Agency

Tag: local small business

Online Reputation Repair Can Be Avoided By Effective Online Reviews and Reputation Management
Do You Know What People Are Saying About Your Business Online?
What Is Online Reputation Management?
Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of Online Reputation Management:
Online reputation management is the act of monitoring, addressing or mitigating search engine result pages or mentions in online media and Web sphere content. It primarily involves tracking what is written about a client on the Internet, then utilizing sophisticated online and offline techniques in promoting positive and neutral content, while at the same time pushing down those links the sponsor may not want to show when their name is searched.
Did you know the 2011 “Social Shopping Study” indicates that 50% of consumers spend 75% or more of their total shopping time conducting online product research? Furthermore:
- 92% of Adult Buyers Regularly Check Online Reviews Before Purchasing
- 70% of Consumers Trust Other Consumers’ Opinions That Are Posted Online
Why Is Online Reputation Management Important?
Marketing local business online flourishes because the whole world is coming online, too.
1. Your prospects are online
2. Your competitors are online
3. Your customers are online
4. That includes your unhappy customers, too!
The Internet Has Changed Everything !?!?
Local small business marketing has benefited in so many ways from the Internet. However, the online universe has also empowered consumers.
- Before the Internet, businesses delivered their messages to consumers via one-way communication channels that they controlled (think – TV commercials)
- Business NO longer completely control their message!
- Thanks to the Internet, everyone comments on business messages via blogs, social media, customer reviews, etc.
What Are People Saying About Your Business?
Your company’s online reputation is being discussed:
1. By former employees
2. By bloggers
3. On forums
4. On social media
5. In customer reviews
Online Reputation Is Crucial For The BIG BOYS, Too!
Don’t believe me? Google the company names for which these all too common
namesakes sprang up:
- www.walmartsucks.org
- www.homedepotsucks.com
What Are The Negative Effects Of A Bad Online Reputation?
1. Bad customer experience
2. Unresolved customer issues
3. Bad reputation
4. Lost revenue
What Can Happen If You Don’t Repair Your Tarnished Online Reputation?
Internet marketing for small business needs every advantage possible to succeed. A tarnished name puts you at great risk.
1. You could lose existing customers
2. New customers may be difficult to find
3. Your business can suffer financial loss
4. You could go out of business!
What Happens When You Repair & Defend Good Reputation?
1. Your positive good online reputation stands out from the crowd
2. You will retain existing customers
3. You will get new customers easily
4. Your positive brand image will be credible & authoritative!
How To Maintain Your Online Reputation
Marketing your business online is about building and nourishing relatinships. So, too, is reputation management.
1. Be proactive instead of reactive
2. Monitor online conversations about your business
3. Respond and interact with consumers online
4. Regularly create and distribute positive content
What Are The Benefits Of Actively Seeking Online Reviews?
Actively seeking online reviews from satisfied customers is certain to:
- Boost conversions, and
- Provide feedback about your product or service
Consumers trust and expect online reviews and, seeing them, will gravitate to your business.
How To Get Customer Reviews To Build Or Repair Reputation
Referrals and new sales leads continue to be your ultimate goal. What better way to build social proof than to ask for a review?
1. Survey all of your customers for feedback all of the time
2. Offer incentives in exchange for reviews (e.g., coupons, discounts, free samples)
3. Ask customers to review products by placing calls-to-action on your product pages
4. Send customers to your business listings on Google Places, Yelp, CitySearch, etc.
5. Link your business listing profiles to your website
Always Create Positive, Branded Content To Promote Reputation!
Flood the first search engine results pages with positive, branded content:
- Your well-ranked website must be the first result for your company name
- On-going search engine optimization (SEO) for all of your webpages
- Videos, press releases, photos, articles, etc. promoting your good name
- Tips, tools, helpful tutorials & other useful content for your visitors
Monitor Online Conversations For The First Line Of Reputation Defense
Find out what people are saying about your business:
- Do a Google search for your business name …
- What do you find when you search for you?
- Check articles, blogs, forums & customer review sites
- Frequently check your own blog & website for comments
- Pay close attention to the social network sites
Reputation Repair Requires Response & Interaction
1. Listen to what people are saying
2. Be respectful
3. Display a helpful & friendly demeanor
4. Respond to both positive and negative comments
5. Always quickly offer solutions to problems
Why Respond & Interact To Fix Online Reputations?
- It builds relationships
- It allows you to actively manage & control your brand
- It allows other people to see your point of view
- It shows that you care
You do care, don’t you?
How To Repair Your Reputation
Do you already have negative online comments and reviews?
1. Make brand optimization your main focus
2. Use SEO to drive negativity further down the SERP’s
3. Create and publish videos, press releases & articles
4. Create a blog — regularly publish fresh & unique content
5. Engage in social media to build a loyal & eager following
How to Improve & Fix Your Online Reputation
1. Ask for negative reviews to be removed
2. Promptly address issues
3. Don’t ignore unhappy customers
4. Don’t argue with customers
5. Know when to walk away
6. You cannot please everyone!
Call Now
Answer Reputation Management Questions: 612-235-6060
1 June 2012
How Local Small Business Marketing Creates Unlimited Opportunities To Be Found
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Local Small Business Marketing Solves Problems
Local small business marketing sees every web page as another unique opportunity to be found. Traditionally, local small business advertising designed the home page like the dust jacket of a book and its table of contents. Usually any backlinks point directly to the home page, regardless what specific information the visitor was seeking. The only way to find and get to inner web pages is via the home page and elaborate menu navigations. Google and other search engines catalog web pages and their content. Every one of your web pages is an opportunity to be found for some specific content, keywords and phrases which introduce visitors to the rest of your website. Each blog post becomes another web page, another leaf on the tree that is your website. Blog software like WordPress facilitate categorization and tagging blog posts and phrases in your content which, in turn, provide additional opportunities for your content to be found and cataloged by search engines.
Local Small Business Marketing Wants Great Customers
Take a long close look at your very best customers. You know, those two or three customers who, if cloned ten times, would totally transform your business forever! If you had ten more of them you could simply fire the bottom ten customers, sleep better at night and you’d be ever so much more profitable at accounting time. Identify those factors in each of them that make them great customers. Imagine, if you will, one of your ideal buyers browsing the Internet looking for a solution to their problem which, unbeknownst to them is sitting right here in your hand. Their circumstances are far more than simply the keywords they type before clicking [Search]. Indeed, their circumstances include environment, education, age, family, ethnicity, geography, attitude, health and a host of other factors.
Buyer Personae Love Local Small Business Marketing
Why don’t you ask them why they bought from you? Why are they so loyal to you? Why do they keep coming back to you? What is your relationship all about? When you know your great customers so well that you immediately see them, or don’t see them, in a stranger you just met, then you have identified one of your buyer persona. Marketing ideas begin with the reality of your business.
Aim High With Local Small Business Marketing
If marketing is truly the relationship between your business and your marketplace, and every relationship begins with a single conversation, why would you ever intentionally go out of your way to start a conversation with somebody who does not fit your buyer persona? On the other hand, when you have an absolutely clear picture of your best customer in mind, if you meet a prospect identical to that best customer, what will you not do to convert them into another great customer? This isn’t so much a matter of scheming and plotting as it is an organizational principle. There are only so many hours in a day and only so many days in your life. Focus exclusively on those prospects most likely to become great customers. If you’re going to market anyway, aim high, aim at those that will benefit most from what you offer, from what you do best. So, when it comes to web pages, put yourself in your best prospect’s mind.
Local Small Business Marketing Solves Problems
What is it they most want to see? Paint them a picture of you and your company fully solving their problem. Tell them stories of how you have solved these problems for other people and how your customers benefit from your solutions. Everybody is an expert at something. When you go eyeball-to-eyeball with them across the sales table, you will tell them your most persuasive story. Put those stories in writing and publish them on your blog or web pages. Convert that to a video and syndicate it to Youtube and podcast it and publish it every way imaginable online. Seed the entire Internet with breadcrumbs, with stories specific to each persona’s needs … many will follow you and heed your call-to-action and convert from lead to prospect to great customer.
Wasted Local Small Business Marketing Real Estate
Small business marketing can’t waste web real estate. It’s not that you can’t create more. You cannot afford to confuse or mislead visitors. It wastes your time and theirs. Wasted web space is wasted effort that can produce nothing of value. If a web page does not have a specific purpose, if it is not intended for a specific buyer persona, it is more likely to turn away business.
Call Now
Answer Local Small Business Marketing Questions: 612-235-6060
4 April 2011
Ten Ways Local Small Business Marketing Will Drive Eager Buyers To Your Door Day In And Day Out
The Price Is Right For Local Small Business Marketing
As if succeeding at small business weren’t hard enough simply making ends meet, local small business marketing can be quite perplexing, too. When you’re small, so is your budget. Eager buyers are shopping for solutions to their perplexing problems. So, where are they if they’re not here in your office? Here are ten local small business marketing tips to attract their attention.
Buyer Personae Love Local Small Business Marketing
1. Know your buyer personae. Who is your very best customer? Who is she? What does she do for a living? Where does she live, hang out and shop for groceries? How will she know the best solution to her problem? When you know your best customers exceptionally well, exceptional customers will come to you.
2. When you know your best customers, it’s little wonder that pleasing them, too, is so much easier. One size never fits all. When you’re shipping to customers perfectly suited to your products and services, meeting and exceeding expectations is the norm. Match your offering to those who need it most and you’re guaranteed to-die-for word of mouth accolades for your local small business marketing.
3. Regardless your small, medium or large company, networking is at the center of gathering targeted sales leads. Your local chamber of commerce is the logical first step out in your community. Who knows better what your business needs to succeed than other successful business leaders in your neighborhood? Sharing local referrals with them logically leads to reciprocal business.
4. In the online world, LinkedIn.com is the world’s largest professional network. It has numerous groups and categories with local focus eagerly seeking local solutions. Best of all, every Fortune 500 company’s executive management is represented on LinkedIn. Prospecting is as simple as participating in groups where local prospects hang out online.
5. Apparently, Social Media is here to stay. Facebook, for example, is the third largest country in the world and its membership has twice the population of America. Keep your business page up-to-date with events, new offerings and encourage your customers to contribute opinions and share referrals online.
6. Twitter is a mystery to many small business owners. How much can be said in 140 characters? The key is listening, listening and more listening. However, when you hear somebody comment on you and your brand you need to respond. Give thanks for kind comments. Appreciate the customer service opportunity to solve problems quickly when you hear about them.
7. In business, learning from your mistakes and duplicating success are vital. At the end of the day, the purpose of your business is to profit by satisfying human wants and needs. As you get better at building strong relationships with those whose problems are best solved by what you offer, you will succeed at attracting more of those best customer.
8. Continuous improvement means getting better and better at solving customer problems. Continuous improvement is also getting better and better customers, many of whom will refer you to others in need. The best possible local small business marketing results in great customers standing up in public and testifying to the greatness of your relationship.
9. Don’t sell yourself short. Price is rarely the real reason a prospect goes elsewhere. When you provide enormous value to eager buyers shopping for your solution, price is no object. It’s not the pain as much as it is the consequences of not relieving that pain that matters.
10. So, what is your benefit to your customers’ painful problem? How do they value that benefit? How much will it cost them to forego your solution? When you’re in front of your ideal buyers, yours is the perfect solution. Solve their problem and you’re a savior.
Local small business marketing is all about exchanging the right solution at the right price. Driving eager buyers to your door day in and day out is easy once you stop trying to sell to everybody. Anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer and local small business marketing puts you everywhere they look.
Call Now
Answer Your Local Small Business Marketing Question: 612-235-6060
9 February 2011
Give Me New Sales Leads That Immediately Convert Into Loyal Customers & I’ll Burst Through Doldrums
Call New Sales Leads To Action
Are you a business owner in desperate need of fresh new sales leads? Leads are the lifeline of just about any business. No matter what market you’re in every business owner knows that there will be dry spells from time to time. But we’re living in very tough times. Business is tough because unemployment is depressing, many are losing their homes in droves and people just generally aren’t lining up to part with their money.
New Sales Leads Are On The Internet
Although, there may be many answers to this problem, for the purpose of this article we’ll discuss using the Internet to generate new sales leads. Do you think that the Internet is just a fad? What can this crazy caprice, this virtual amusement park for kids and geeks have to offer your local small business? How can this haven for spammers, hackers and Amazon.com stimulate your business’ economy? Simply said, the Internet is where eager buyers are shopping for what you offer. Right this minute they are shopping online and they are going to buy from somebody. How much of that business do you want?
Can New Sales Leads Find You?
So, what’s the secret to producing new sales leads on the Internet? First, your business must be found. You must be found by eager buyers. You must be found where eager buyers are looking. Anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer and everywhere they look you can be there. Furthermore, the more people are shopping there, the more targeted sales leads will enter your sales funnel. If you want a lot of leads, make sure you’re offering something in great demand. This combination of great demand and being found everywhere those demanding are looking is critical to success.
Respect New Sales Leads
Second, treat your visitors like the honored guests they are. Once found, be worthy of their visits. Consider what’s interesting about you and your company. Why do existing customers like to do business with you? How are you unique? Tell your story online and leverage your interesting and unique business character. Never talk about services and products again — instead, focus on eager buyers and how you can solve problems for them.
How can you push the envelope of what is tried and true in your market? Remember, your guests are visiting because they want a solution to their problem. How can you benefit them? Tell them about benefits and they will stay; otherwise they will go elsewhere. Give them valuable and relevant information and you grow in credibility. If it’s easy it’s already been done and it’s no longer valuable.
Call New Sales Leads To Action
Third, at the height of your guests interest, ask them to take action. Think about how information spreads online. What valuable content can you offer totally free? Think in terms of spreading ideas — not generating leads. Make your content easy to find and consume.
In exchange for a little information about your guest, you offer them an opportunity to receive more valuable information. Take them to your squeeze page where they give you permission to continue this relationship. An eBook, consultation and samples can nurture their interest until they’re ready to purchase. Every company has something fascinating, unique or funny that can be turned into a video that people will want to share. You do, too. As long as you hold their interest they’re not going to buy elsewhere.
New Sales Leads Cure Doldrums
Don’t be in desperate need of fresh new sales leads. Leads are the lifeline of your business, too. Great new customers always cure the doldrums. Still think that the Internet is just a fad? This crazy caprice, this virtual amusement park for kids and geeks also offers salvation to your local small business. Simply said, the Internet is where new sales leads congregate when they are ready to buy.
Call Now
Answer Your New Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
2 February 2011
Secrets Of Local Small Business Marketing – Funnel Eager Buyers Through Your Sales Funnel In Droves
Diversify Local Small Business Marketing
Local Small Business Marketing Thinks Big
The first secret of local small business marketing is to not think like a small business. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if your brick and mortar business made you money even if none of your employees showed up for work and your door never even opened? Do you sometimes have nightmares of your company shutting down because your referral system dried up and blew away? If you answer yes to either of these questions, then you must consider the benefits of building an inbound marketing system to anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer and everywhere they look you are there. Instead of tossing and turning at night, with these cutting edge methods of marketing your local business you’ll sleep like a baby and your company will thrive. If the old saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” applies to you, you may want to consider a total overhaul. Changing your marketing strategy can mean the difference between reaching new record sales highs or shutting down and filing for bankruptcy.
Imagine for a moment marketing in a way that targets your best customer in her natural environment. Offer her valuable information that she’s already seeking for free. Imagine she’s so delighted by what you’ve given her that she returns time and again to pay you for what you do best. Sounds like a dream does it? Unfortunately for many businesses stuck in their ways, that is all successful business will ever be — a dream. Let’s face it, the profits of traditional marketing tactics — yellow pages, newspaper ads, telemarketing, etc. — are drying up and blowing away. Where did all of the customers go? Yes, the economy is dragging; but, we all know, consumers are still consuming. So, where did they go?
Local Small Business Marketing Prospers Online
The second secret of local small business marketing is to stake your claim on the Internet. Why the Internet you may be wondering? The Internet is where consumers gather to search, to buy and to share their experiences with other consumers. Web searchers are becoming more sophisticated everyday. Everyday, more and more people search the Internet to find and buy more and more. 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. Literally, billions of searches are conducted every singe month by eager buyers looking to purchase locally. More to the point, when was the last time you flipped through your yellow pages?
Diversify Local Small Business Marketing
The third secret of local small business marketing is to diversify your online promotional portfolio. Ten years ago, it was extraordinary simply to publish your online business card. Woo-hoo! You were on the Internet and everybody was so proud and excited and everybody told everybody that your business is on the Internet! Today, your online business card is a fossil. Nobody cares about your company, except you. What have you done for me lately?
Promote your company on interactive social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. It’s no longer enough to trumpet your features and advantages to the world. As we learn to search and find what we want on the Internet we respond less and less to intrusive messages. I am a consumer and when I’m in the market for a new thing I will search for it. What’s in it for me? When I find your interesting product or service, I’m going to ask my online brothers and sisters about you. I’m going to check you out on LinkedIn; and then I’m going to do the same for your company. I’m likely to watch your and your competitors’s videos and read all of the articles I can find published online. How many fans Like your fan pages and Like your blog posts?
Local Marketing Is Effective
Are you still thinking like a small business? What if none of your employees showed up for work and your door never even opened? What if your nightmares came true and your business dried up and blew away? Inbound marketing anticipates eager buyers shopping for what you offer. Changing your marketing strategy can mean the difference between reaching new record sales highs or shutting down and filing for bankruptcy. Local small business marketing is effective online because it funnels eager buyers through your sales funnel in droves.
Call Now
Answer Local Small Business Marketing Question: 612-235-6060
18 January 2011
Give Me Local Small Business Marketing And I’ll Whip My Dreams Into Profitable Business Over Night
Dream Local Small Business Marketing Profits
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?
31 December 2010
How Local Small Business Marketing Drove My Sales Through The Roof In The Dreariest Of Economies
Local Small Business Marketing Drives Sales
Is Local Small Business Marketing Right For You?
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.
13 December 2010