MDS Resource — Digital Ad Agency

Tag: small business

  • How To Succeed At Online Marketing For Small Business With Any Realistic Budget

    Don't Ignore Online Marketing For Small Business
    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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  • Give Me Local Small Business Marketing And I’ll Whip My Dreams Into Profitable Business Over Night

    Dream Local Small Business Marketing Profits
    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?

  • Millions Now Attract New Sales Leads That Instantly Convert Into High Quality And Repeat Business

    New Sales Leads Convert Into Repeat Business
    New Sales Leads Convert Into Repeat Business

    Why are new sales leads getting to be increasingly rare for so many businesses in America today? If you have a small to medium sized business, don’t you know exactly what I mean? Its not that you’re doing anything wrong to complain that new sales leads are getting harder and harder to find. It’s partly the economic situation that we find ourselves immersed in.

    New Sales Leads Succeed

    We’re all suffering in similar ways. Everyday you open up the news paper, turn on the radio and TV only to find that yet another company has gone bust. There is no doubt that this global recession has really taken its toll on small business. If you were to ask them, most business owners would tell you that the one thing that they long for right now is a reliable source of new sales leads that convert into high quality repeat business. This source of new sales leads would make the difference between thriving and going under.

    Many businesses are failing today. Yet some small businesses are surviving, even growing, in the middle of our current financial crisis. The difference is new sales leads and today great leads are found online. The Internet is a goldmine for new sales leads. No matter whether you are looking for local, national or international leads, look for sales leads online.

    New Sales Leads Are Online

    Almost every American has access to the Internet these days — whether it be online through a standard computer or through their cell phone. The Internet will soon be the only method anyone in the US uses to find business products and services. In order to secure for your business new sales leads that convert into repeat business, you need to learn how to use the Internet for effective marketing purposes. Failure to utilize the Internet in this way will result in losing out on all of those new sales leads your business so badly need.

    The bottom line is that all of those customers are still out here. They’re everywhere. They’re just not thumbing through Yellow Pages, not answering telemarketing calls and not responding to newspaper ads. Eager buyers are shopping on the Internet for what you offer. If they don’t find you, they will buy elsewhere.

    Eager Buyers Are New Sales Leads

    Consumers are using different sources to find the products and services that they need. Anticipate your buyers, where they shop, what they type into search engines, which websites and social media they frequent — anticipate eager buyers and everywhere they look you will be there. Once you position your business directly in front of all of your best customers you are found. Otherwise, you’re going to continue to hemorrhage customers and revenue and success.

    New Sales Leads Will Buy From Somebody

    Remember, too, that these eager buyers searching online for the products and services that they need will find businesses with which to consummate business. The question is, Are you happy allowing your competition to profit from your new sales leads? Your best customers are having their needs met. Every day you are not marketing yourself online, you are losing out on the opportunity to convert these leads to your customers. In effect, you are allowing your competition to grow.

    New sales leads are the seeds of serious business growth.

  • For Overwhelmed Business Owners: How Online Marketing For Small Business Gives You Breathing Room

    Room To Breathe Online Marketing For Small Business
    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.

  • Are You Pitifully Marketing Local Business? Lessons To Turnaround Local Business Marketing

    Marketing Local Business Turnaround Lessons
    Marketing Local Business Turnaround Lessons

    Marketing Local Business Effectively Succeeds

    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.

  • How Local Small Business Marketing Drove My Sales Through The Roof In The Dreariest Of Economies

    Local Small Business Marketing Drives Sales
    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.

  • 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

    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.

  • What Is Internet Marketing?

    Why does Internet Marketing matter to you and your Local Business?

    Welcome to the Brilliant Ideas About Internet and Money Frequently Asked Questions Series, Part 2: What is Internet Marketing?


    Marketing Local Business Online Is Internet Marketing

    Previously, we discussed What Is Marketing? itself:


    “Marketing is a system the sole purpose of which is to communicate with the marketplace.”

    Marketing, then, is the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others.  The Marketing concept becomes a philosophy.  It makes the customer, and the satisfaction of his or her needs, the focal point of all Business activities.  It is founded on the belief that profitable sales and satisfactory returns on investment can only be achieved by identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs and desires.

    Let’s look not only at identifying customer needs, but also to satisfying them and anticipating them in the future.  The right product, in the right place, at the right time, at the right price …

    In that same spirit, Internet Marketing is a relationship between Business and customers and prospects that takes place in Internet Media, such as Search Engines and Web Pages.

    Furthermore, Online Marketing is a relationship between Business and customers and prospects that takes place in Online Media, including Email, Mobile Phones and Internet.

    As you recall, a Marketing Relationship is a specific conversation between Business and a market.

    Therefore, Internet and Online Marketing are relationships between Business and customers and prospects that take place in the New Media of today, and New Media of the future.

    Internet and Online Marketing are relationships between Business and customers and prospects — the only difference between these relationships and other Marketing processes is the Medium!

    What, then, is the Opportunity and the Potential offered by this unique Marketing Medium?  Let’s compare and contrast:

    • If a Medium has a continuously shrinking Market, the potential for doing Business in that Medium approaches zero.
    • If a Medium has a continuously growing Market, the potential for doing Business in that Medium approaches infinity.

    This, then, is the crux of everything we have to discuss in this and subsequent conversations.

    • If you want to grow your Local Business, you must participate in the largest and fastest growing Markets for what you offer.
    • If Business is not communicating with a continuously growing Market there can be no relationship with that Market and little or no Business comes from that Market.

    What Relationships do you want with your Market?

    Over 1 Billion Local Searches are performed every month on the Internet …

    … if your Customers do not find you, from whom will they buy ???

    The Internet is one of the largest and fastest growing markets in the known Universe.  Ecommerce and multinational companies have created extraordinary fortunes based solely on Internet Marketing.  Local Internet Marketing for small Business is quite a different animal, as we will discuss in subsequent conversations.

    To learn more about Internet, Money and your Local Business browse our Web Site and see if our ideas work for you and your Local Business.  Look for our further conversations and Brilliant Ideas About Internet and Money !!!

    Marketing Local Business Online Is Internet Marketing