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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.
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Answer Local Small Business Marketing Questions: 612-235-6060
4 April 2011
How To Begin Inbound Marketing Your Business Online Success
Inbound Marketing Your Business Online Begins With Keywords
Marketing your business online effectively depends, of course, on getting great new customers from the Internet. On the one hand, you must be found on the first page of search results or your chances of being found at all drop precipitously. When was the last time you searched online and actually clicked on a link on page two, ten or one hundred? Yes, I, too, sometimes go beyond page one; but, how often do you do it?
Inbound Marketing Your Business Online Depends On Being Found
On the other hand, you must be found by a large enough population of searchers. Clearly, not even you can sell everybody who crosses your path today, can you? The truth is, some are ready to buy from you today, some later and some, quite frankly, will never buy from you. That they many not buy from anybody any time is no consolation, is it?
Marketing Your Business Online Puts You In Front Of Great Prospects
The trick is putting yourself directly in front of the very best of the best prospects. Quite some trick, indeed! Anticipate eager buyers shopping specifically for what you offer and you can appear before them as if they sought you out. Inbound marketing is all about empowering consumers. Be found by enough of the right people and inbound marketing your business online is profitable.
Keyword Analysis Drives Marketing Your Business Online
Taking a tip from the search engine optimizers (SEO’s) you need to study the key words and phrases those eager shoppers type into the search box before clicking search. For simplicity, let’s call the words or phrase of words people type into the search box a keyword. Keyword analysis then is the study of keywords and how you will be found by people using them.
Answer Four Marketing Your Business Online Questions
There are four questions every business must answer if they are to get great new business from the Internet:
Marketing Your Business Online Seeks Buyers
1. What are people actually searching for?
  Although many start by listing those keywords by which they want people to find them, nobody can control the keywords searched by others. If you want to be found by a specific keyword, but nobody is searching by that keyword, you will not be found. Hence, anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer.
Marketing Your Business Online Demands Buyers
1. What is the commercial intent of each search?
  The history of the Internet is a long story about sharing information between government agencies and educational institutions. Little by little all of this world’s information is finding a home online. Any type of research you can imagine can be conducted over the Internet, including names, addresses and phone numbers; texts of the greatest world literature; and known species of fish near New Zealand. I can’t speak for your business; but, my business needs paying customers. Hence, anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer.
Begin Marketing Your Business Online Simply
1. How difficult is it for me to be found on the first page of search results?
  Even if eager buyers are searching for your keyword and they have every intention of purchasing, there remains the daunting task of being found in search results. Some companies have been at this for many years. Some have earned great authority, credibility and trust from search engines and consumers. Difficulty to reach the first page is a function of passing your competitors on the way from last page to first. Many well searched keywords may be easier for your business than others.
Marketing Your Business Online Demands Your Choice
1. For which keywords do I want to be found?
  Knowing the keywords eager buyers search to find you, knowing which keywords are searched for purchasing purposes and knowing the less difficult keywords on which you can build success demands another decision from you. From this sea of opportune keywords you must sort, prioritize and select a subset on which to build your foundation. Know this, a list of keywords by itself holds little promise for you. Great prospects already know the keywords they are using — it’s the solution to their problem that they seek.
Inbound Marketing Your Business Online Begins With Keywords
Inbound marketing your business online effectively depends on delivering great content to great customers on the Internet. The truth is, some are ready to buy from you because they come to believe that you have the solution to their problem. That they use specific keywords when searching for that solution means that content featuring those keywords will attract their attention. Once you have their attention, then you have the right to call them to action and invite them to interact with you. Nonetheless, inbound marketing your business online begins with thorough keyword analysis.
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Answer Marketing Your Business Online Questions: 612-235-6060
20 March 2011
How Inbound Marketing Attracts New Sales Leads And You Give Them What They Want
New Sales Leads Are Looking For You
New sales leads, I am told, are the bane of small business today. Or, shall I say, there is a dearth of new sales leads everywhere struggling business looks. To what do we owe this sparsity? I talk with a lot of business owners. Lately, the two biggest problems I hear are too few targeted sales leads and poor return on advertising investments. Do either of these ring true with you?
How Rare Are New Sales Leads?
Was it always this way? Most business owners tell me, “No, in better times customers were plentiful.” Is this only a matter of good times versus bad times? They tell me that not too many years ago, new customers found them in the yellow pages and called for an appointment. New customers read a newspaper ad and came through their door ready to buy. New customers used to answer the telemarketer’s call eager to give up their credit card number. Really?
Did The Internet Destroy New Sales Leads?
Some bemoan the Internet. “The Internet is a scam!” they tell me. “There are so many hooligans out there selling Google salvation.” OK, now we’re getting somewhere. It’s true, Google is not in business to give you customers. Google is in business to make money and lots of money they are making. Their best customers, however, are not you and me, business owners, and not you and me, website owners. Google’s best customers are advertisers who pay Google to place their ads where eager shoppers will find them, click on them and see what they have to offer.
Does Google Eat New Sales Leads?
Why, then, is Google so large, so dominant and everywhere we look nowadays? They are in our smartphones. They are renting out commercial movies and competing with broadcast media. They are developing a driverless car. But, clearly, they started on the Internet and the Internet is the foundation on which they built this behemoth. Why? The Internet is where consumers have migrated. Yes, those consumers not flipping through yellow pages, those consumers not calling the classified ads, those consumers not answering their phones — those consumers are on the Internet. Eager shoppers are scouring the Internet to buy today’s whim. And they’re telling their friends and family what they found.
New Sales Leads Respond To Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing takes advantage of the Internet and the sea of shoppers there. Anticipate eager shoppers searching for what you offer. Identify the best of these shoppers, identify that most interesting of your offering and place your virtual kiosk directly in their path. Instead of intruding into their lives shrieking “Buy me!” and “Give me money!” demonstrate to them what you have to help them. Offer your visitors some token of your expertise with no strings attached. Show them that, indeed, sometimes lunch is free. New sales leads like that.
Can New Sales Leads Can Find You?
Inbound marketing success is predicated on three things:
1. Be found! Until you are found there is no chance new sales leads will come to you.
2. Be found by enough people. It’s truly unlikely that you will sell all of your prospects today. Some will buy, some will not and others may buy another day.
3. Be found by enough of the right people. At any given instant, some percent of the world is looking to purchase what you have to offer. Regardless the number, these are your prospects — nobody else. How likely are you to persuade a diaper shopper or diner looking for great Chinese food to open their wallets to you?
New Sales Leads Are Looking For You
Are new sales leads the bane of small business today? To what do we owe this sparsity? Many business owners say, “In better times customers were plentiful.” The problem is you are looking in the wrong places. Worse, your best prospects are looking for you and you’re nowhere they are looking. Inbound marketing attracts new sales leads and you can give them what they want.
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Answer New Sales Leads Questions: 612-235-6060
14 March 2011
How To Get Great Customers With Online Marketing For Small Business And Search Engines
Online Marketing For Small Business Creates Great Customers!
OK, sure, if you’re big business like Wal Mart or Amazon the Internet is great. But, what do search engines have to do with online marketing for small business? In short, search engines are a tremendous opportunity to be found. How’s it working out for you in the Sunday newspaper classifieds? How many new customers found you in the yellow pages last month?
Online Marketing For Small Business Works Locally
Truth be told, right this minute, right here in the Twin Cities, eager buyers are searching for what you offer. Anticipate these eager buyers and you have the opportunity to stand up directly in front of each of them and tell them your great story. Once you identify the buyer personae of your greatest customers, what’s to stop you from stalking your perfect prospects? Isn’t creating great customers the best action you can take in growing your business? Is it possible to have too many great customers?
Search Engines Help Online Marketing For Small Business
Let’s look closely at typical search engine results to see what’s in it for you. For the sake of illustration, we’ll use Google. Sure, lately we’re seeing a lot of commercials about Bing, and certainly Facebook, too, has an impressive number of searches. Google recently reported four billion searches every day, one billion of which are seeking to buy locally. With two-thirds of all search engine searches, Google epitomizes the online search experience.
Depending on your specific search phrase, the Google search results page may contain three different types of results:
Paid Search And Online Marketing For Small Business
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising may appear above all other results and/or down the right side. First and foremost, know that these are paid advertisements. Every time somebody clicks on one of these ads, whoever placed the ad pays Google. From the time you sign up to the time you start seeing results can be as quick as a few hours. Paid advertising can quickly pull prospects, test landing pages and gauge the market.
Local Business Results And Online Marketing For Small Business
Have you noticed the maps? Unless you’re totally oblivious to the Internet and online search, these last two years of online marketing for small business are remarkable because of the local business results.
Google and the other search engines realize that there is an enormous demand for local and neighborhood search results. Why? Because eager buyers are shopping and ready to buy; but, they’re not prepared to put a new house in a shopping cart and purchase it from Amazon. For many items consumers still insist on buying from a person. They still put the relationship before the deal. And that is great news for local business.
Getting on the map is not a function of paid advertising. Nor is it simply a matter of having a great website. Local business results feature businesses that are remarkable in their community. First, they claimed their listing in the local directories, such as Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Yelp, etc. Second, these businesses made the effort to standardize their listings everywhere, including using the same local telephone number and spelling consistently. Third, customers find them remarkable enough to leave online reviews, endorsements and testimonials for local business. The search engines are gathering many public reviews into the local business results.
Organic Results And Online Marketing For Small Business
Last but not least are the well known organic results. They are called organic because they are the “natural” ordering of all web pages cataloged across the Internet. Although, different search engines rank and order web pages differently, the notions of credibility and trust and back link references from other websites are shared. Clearly, if your business is found on the first page of Google results, eager buyers searching for what you offer may click on your link. Also, the more eager buyers find your link the more likely your business is to sell. Although, many say organic results are “free,” do not forget that consumer searches vary and the search engines change their rules to appeal to searchers.
SEO And Online Marketing For Small Business
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of appealing to search engine algorithms in order to place high in their rankings. Effective online marketing for small business must consider SEO because each business must be found by buyers if they are to sell. Neither SEO nor marketing, however, is simply a matter of adding some ingredient to your website. If marketing is the relationship between a business and its marketplace, and every relationship begins with a single conversation, how many conversations with eager buyers do you want online?
Online Marketing For Small Business Creates Great Customers!
Is it possible to have too many great customers? Search engines are a tremendous opportunity to be found. Right this minute, right here in the Twin Cities, eager buyers are searching for what you offer. Is creating great customers your goal in online marketing for small business?
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Online Marketing For Small Business Answers: 612-235-6060
8 March 2011
Secrets Of Targeted Sales Leads Reside In Your Buyer Personae’s Eyes
Targeted Sales Leads Are Real People
I talk with a lot of business owners every week. One of the biggest problems I’m hearing over and over is too few targeted sales leads. We’re all facing extreme challenges in these trying times. Bottom line, there’s little going down that wouldn’t pale in light of simply finding more business. So long as we’re seeking more customers, why not aim for targeted sales leads?
Targeted Sales Leads Seek Benefits
First, we need to focus clearly on the best possible target. We’ve all had customers who gave us so much grief, never meeting another might itself be success. Why take on more troublesome customers? Remember, instead, the best customer you have ever had. You know, she came to you with the perfect problem, you proposed the perfect solution and she asked to become your perfect customer. Describe in minute detail the persona of your best customer. Profiling your buyer persona includes gathering many facets of her personality, background, daily activities and current solutions for her problems. Seeking a solution to her problem, knowing the solution, you have what benefits her. What’s in it for her? You.
Buyer Personae Represent Targeted Sales Leads
Start by seeing every interpersonal interaction with a prospect, whether on-line or in-person, as an opportunity to listen and identify patterns. Really knowing how buyers think, what matters to them and where they are when they’re ready to buy, you no longer guess what to say, where and how to communicate with them. Have you ever noticed how much simpler and effective it is to listen before you talk to prospects? They will tell you just how bad their problem is. They will describe in great detail just how valuable the solution to that problem is. Indeed, they will tell you how long they’ll endure the problem and when and under what conditions they will buy the solution. Profiling buyer personae gives you a prime opportunity to truly empathize with target sales leads.
See Through Targeted Sales Leads Eyes
Stop promoting a product and see through buyers’ eyes, see clearly the circumstances driving their decision process. A buyer persona is a person, a short biography of whom describes your best targeted sales leads, not just their job description. Break all of your buyers into distinct groups. Catalog everything you know about each of your best customers. Buyer personae make it easier to create content targeted to important demographics.
Targeted Sales Leads Are Real People
High quality, relevant online content is the best and most effective way to communicate with and persuade targeted sales leads. Remembering that great customers are also real people, with real people problems, ought to simplify your side of the conversation. Simpler, though, only inasmuch as your audience is truly in need of what you offer. An archetype of your ideal buyer is a buyer persona, an example buyer representing a real audience, an audience eager to listen to you the more they need what you offer.
Be Found By Targeted Sales Leads
I talk with several business owners every day and I’m hearing over and over that too few targeted sales leads is a major concern. Bottom line, there’s little going down that wouldn’t pale in light of simply finding more business. If we’re truly seeking more customers, why not aim for targeted sales lead? By describing your buyer personae in great detail, you paint a clear picture of exactly who really needs what you offer. Anticipate eager buyers shopping for exactly what you offer and you can place yourself in front of them everywhere they look. Sufficient targeted sales leads are as simple as knowing who they are and be found where they are looking.
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Answer Your Targeted Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
24 February 2011
How I Am Marketing Local Business Profitably By Anticipating Eager Buyers Shopping For What I Offer
Great Customers Come From Marketing Local Business
It’s no secret. Times are tough, job security is a thing of the past and there’s no free lunch. Never let it be said that you’re outdone and victimized by circumstances, right? You’re at the helm of a viable small business and you’re determined to make this work — er, determined to succeed! But, times have changed and marketing local business is not at all what it used to be. Nobody’s calling from the Sunday Classifieds or yellow pages. Few are answering telemarketing calls. Even you probably don’t open too much direct mail.
Marketing Local Business Is More Than Internet
Top it all with these young techies with their rocket science tales get-rich-quick on the Internet. Do you really believe that an award winning drop-dead beautiful website brings revenues in your door? Can it be true that simply appearing on Google Page One, whether pay-per-click or “free,” guarantees that online visitors will grease your palm? Where is common sense? You’re a consumer, too. Look at your own consumer behavior — do you buy from the first automaton that shows up on your phone or screen?
Marketing Local Business In A Consumer Paradise
What is the secret to marketing local business today? Whereas, ten years ago we still paid attention Sunday football commercials to see the latest features of the 2011 Chevy Malibu, today consumers don’t care to be told what’s available. The world is, indeed, your oyster. When you have a need, fill it. When you crave, seek satisfaction. When you are in pain, relieve yourself. The Internet is for consumers the universal mail order catalog. It is so easy to simply search for what you desire, shop it from thousands of vendors everywhere in the world and buy it when you are ready. This is a buyer’s world, a consumer’s paradise.
Inbound Marketing Local Business Is Not Intrusive
Inbound marketing local business is unlike any intrusion marketing. Render yourself findable and prepare to tell your story just like you do face-to-face:
1. Anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer. This is the inescapable first and necessary step. Drop that silly idea that your market is everybody in the world. Your very best customer has a specific personality. Before they buy they have a problem. When you fully understand the problems you solve best, then you know very well those best prospects with whom you ought to speak. More to the point, now you know exactly how they are searching for their solution.
Marketing Local Business Offers Solutions
1. Put your company in front of them everywhere they look. One foot in front of the other — you learned that and toddled. Only after you fully understand how, what, where, when and why they are searching … only then can you know exactly where to stand to be seen. Offer them a sip of water to quench their thirst. Allow them to see for themselves that you have a solution to their problem. Be found by standing directly in front of your best prospects.
Court Prospects While Marketing Local Business
1. Court them, nurture them and never let them forget you. Once found, they have ample opportunity to get to know you. Marketing local business online makes you a publisher. Carve your best stories into the Internet. They will be there available to be heard forever. Although, you cannot know if you and a prospect met at the right time. You may not be a good fit for each other. They may not appreciate your business model. Respect them and allow them to get to know your company.
Great Customers Come From Marketing Local Business
It’s so easy online to facilitate the gathering of wonderful customers and prospects in your virtual place of business. Honor them and encourage them to openly discuss the solutions to real problems that you offer. When time is right the right prospect will step forward and convert into a great customer. Inbound marketing local business means that they found you, they partook of your hospitality and many of them like what they found enough to ask to buy from you.
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Answer Your Marketing Local Business Question: 612-235-6060
13 February 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.
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Answer Your Local Small Business Marketing Question: 612-235-6060
9 February 2011
If You’re Marketing Your Business Online, You Can Double Your Leads & Triple Revenues In Ninety Days
Marketing Your Business Online Increases Sales
OK, admit it, marketing your business online or offline is not the most interesting topic, is it? Working with your best customer on a great job that turns out perfectly for all of you is interesting. Summer golf tournaments and family vacations in Cancun and your sister’s wedding are interesting. Marketing your business is not quite there, it’s usually something more of a chore than interesting. So, what are you doing here reading this?
Is Marketing Your Business Online Or Offline Working?
Are you sitting around waiting for new customers to walk in your front door handing you money? Is that plan working so poorly that you’re bored to tears with nothing else to do but read this blog post? O, I’m sure it’s not that bad. After all, you could be pestering your receptionist instead, telling her a better way to file last month’s bills. Instead, you’re here looking for answers, right?
The Marketing Your Business Online Question
Answers to what question? If nobody’s reading your yellow pages to find you and call you and come on in, where are all of the new customers finding where to go to buy? Well, the Internet is teeming with consumers young and old. Google statistics pronounce that there are over four billion searches conducted every single day. More than one billion of those daily searches are by eager buyers looking to buy something locally. When would you like to be introduced to some of them? Of course, Google is not the only game in town. Facebook membership is the third largest country in the world, behind only India and China. According to iStrategyLabs, the number of Americans age 55 and over using Facebook grew nearly 59% during 2010. Do you think any of them are going to buy what you offer?
One Marketing Your Business Online Clue
Let me give you one simple yet priceless clue that you can take away from here and implement all by yourself this afternoon. ComScore reported more than 175 million unique American viewers in October 2010 watching an average of over 900 minutes of online video. In 2009 Cisco predicted that by 2013 video will be 90% of all Internet traffic. Video is here, video is popular and video is boosting brands of everyday businesses just like yours. Don’t believe me? Google four words: ‘san diego trial attorney’ — how many trial attorneys do you think there are in San Diego? Look closely at the top two results. The first result was put online nearly five years ago, and the second nearly three years ago. The search engines recognize that Internet users want to watch videos. Video is everywhere: on our smart phones, in stores, on television and everywhere on the Internet.
Marketing Your Business Online With Video Is Easy
The most watched videos are not Super Bowl commercials. Video is ideal for marketing your business online, because online video can be simple, easy and inexpensive. If you can make a Powerpoint presentation, you can do a simple voiceover, add background music and convert that into a great video marketing piece. Affordable video cameras are everywhere, too. Plan to tell your story online just as you would eyeball-to-eyeball with your best customer. Tell us how you solve problems for real people and how that has changed their lives for the better. Every company has something fascinating, unique or funny that put into a video people will want to share. You do, too.
Marketing Your Business Online Increases Sales
See? Marketing your business online is an interesting topic, isn’t it? Make marketing your business more interesting than a chore. If you’d rather sit around waiting for new customers to hand you money, then you better start being found by eager buyers searching for what you offer. After all, you could be pestering your receptionist instead, remember? You can double your leads and triple revenues in ninety days by marketing your business online with video.
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Answer Your Marketing Your Business Online Question: 612-235-6060
5 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.
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Answer Your New Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
2 February 2011
If You Are Marketing Local Business You Can Double Your Best Sales In Ninety Days Or Less
Free Publicity Marketing Local Business
How does your business survive without local buyers shopping for what you offer? Marketing local business may seem daunting, that you’re at a big disadvantage to the big boys. You probably don’t have an online shopping cart and you create great customers eyeball-to-eyeball. Unlike international behemoths like Amazon and Target, you have a service area issue. Although, you’ll service buyers who travel hundreds of miles to you, your ideal customer lives within a 10 or 50 mile radius. Is this your business?
You’ll be excited to hear that you’re not limited in the ways you can market yourself locally. Yes, I know, most business owners don’t specialize in marketing. This whole advertising thing has become a sinkhole for money you’d rather reinvest back into the business. After placing a few ads all over town, putting your company listing in the yellow pages and networking with your Chamber of Commerce and Lions Club, you’ve probably run out of advertising ideas. Times are tough, traditional advertising is more expensive and, near as you can tell, your return on advertising budget approaches zero. On top of everything else, Dorothy the yellow pages rep and Toto the local SEO geek are pestering you to get online, saying all you need is to be numero uno on Google and a million website visitors. That’s it — nothing more — right?
Not.
It’s true, 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. As consumers, we have definitely changed the ways we shop and buy. We no longer sit around waiting to be told what to buy and what’s available for purchase. Million dollar Super Bowl commercials are mere entertainment now, so why spend wheelbarrows of money on traditional and ineffective advertising? Get with the times, marketing local business benefits greatly from the following tips:
Marketing Local Business Online
Anticipate eager buyers shopping for you online and everywhere they look you are there. Remember yellow pages? Similarly on the Internet, there are directories that catalog local companies by location, by advertising and by customer reviews. These local online directories are quickly becoming popular resources for buyers to find local companies. Little to no cash gets your company listed in these directories. Advertise your company in as many locations as practical to gain maximum exposure. Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Bing Local, MerchantCircle and Yelp are but a smattering. There are also industry, thematic and cultural directories, too.
Free Publicity Marketing Local Business
It’s always vital to announce your business organization, activities and events to your community on a regular basis. This is more than simply telling everybody that you’re still in business. Survival and success are NOT the same thing. New products and services demonstrate that you’re interested in and responding to your customers’ evolving needs and desires. Your blog, Facebook, Twitter, MerchantCircle and even LinkedIn are great places to post your news. Press releases, news releases and media announcements are easier and cheaper done now than ever before. There are many sites online catering to your PR needs. When eager buyers see that you not only have what they’re searching for, but you also have an even newer model, they’ll likely tell their friends about you.
Marketing Local Business Customers Love Coupons
Consider the fact that people love to save money — don’t you, too? — coupons can create great customers. You don’t have to worry about complicated sales pitches, just offer them a discount for trying you out. Instead of direct mail or printing fliers, save yourself the distribution expense and publish coupons on the Internet. With billions of searches on the Internet every month, be creative and put your promotion everywhere your eager buyers are looking. Try mentioning a coupon in your blog post, experiment with QR codes people will scan with their smart phones and consider social media. Internet sites like Groupon, Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and MerchantCircle are only the tip of the iceberg. Get them in the door and you have the opportunity to create another great customer!
Can your business survive with local buyers? Yes and marketing your local business online is easy and fun! You’re not limited in the ways you can market locally. By marketing local business effectively you can double your best sales in ninety days or less.
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Answer Your Marketing Local Business Question: 612-235-6060
24 January 2011