Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category

Content Marketing – Why And How?

April 11th, 2011 | Posted in Content Management, Internet Marketing
By:

What is content marketing? Content marketing is using relevant and valuable information to attract potential customers to you. This information will not only attract but, if done correctly, will engage your target audience and drive profitable action to your business.

I’m always amazed at the looks and responses I get when I’m speaking to a client and I explain to them they need more content. I’m then almost always questioned “why?”

Think of content as a way of interacting and communicating with your customers without selling.

Need proof it works? Think of an article you read that captured your attention and really engaged you. Did you look to see who the writer was? Were you interested in the company that they worked for and the products or services that they offered? If they were using the skills of content marketing, I can almost guarantee you did.

A great article can market your product or service in a way that the consumer is not interrupted. You are using that article to educate your consumer and create awareness on information that is important to them. This makes your potential buyer more intelligent.

A successful content marketing strategy will deliver consistent valuable information to your target market, when this strategy works you turn the consumers you have targeted into buyers.

Look, it’s no secret that consumers are tired of traditional marketing. This is why you see a rush to social media and permission based marketing rather than intrusive marketing that doesn’t allow consumers to make the choice of when they want to be marketed to. Why do you think consumers skip commercials, tear out magazine advertisements, and turn on online ad blockers? Because they are taking back control and they will decide when they want to be marketed to.

As a business, you have to be smarter in your marketing efforts and this includes writing content that is not only interesting but relevant and valuable to the market you are targeting.

How do you know if your content is marketing for you? It’s easy really. Answer the following questions when reviewing your content or use them as a guideline when creating new content.

  • Is it targeting a specific market? If not the content will be too broad to attract a targeted audience.
  • Is your content informative, relevant and valuable to those you are targeting? Or is it just a sales pitch?
  • Does it educate your target audience about your industry without being too sales oriented and pushing just your products or services?
  • Does your message include a subtle marketing message that grabs the reader’s attention and gets them interested in what you offer? The key is the marketing message must create an interest and a desire for what you have to offer without trying to close a sale. Think of it as leaving a faint fingerprint on the mind of the consumer who is reading.
  • Does it leave the reader wanting more?
  • Does it stir emotion within the reader and inspire action?

If you answered “yes” to the above questions, you have a good piece of content that you can use to market the products or services that you offer. If you were unable to answer “yes” to all of the questions you will want to tweak your content until you can.

You can use content marketing in all areas of your marketing including print, media, events and online. You want to make sure that your website has content that markets to your audience. You also want to make sure that if you have a blog, you are also using it for content marketing. Content marketing is valuable and often leaves a longer impression than any other method of marketing.

The Importance of Internet Marketing

March 26th, 2011 | Posted in Internet Marketing
By:

Internet marketing can be key to modern ecommerce and selling your services.  An online presence is critical for reaching your target audience in today’s Internet focused age. Internet marketing – an affordable alternative to pricey print and broadcast marketing – can reach the people you want without breaking the bank. Let’s face it; your audience is already online; now it’s just a matter of delivering them your message.

To do so, you can work with professionals who understand the complexities of Internet marketing. They will assist you in developing your message, orchestrating a plan, and implementing it. The result can very well be a high level of success and viability for your small business.

To find such professionals check with other small business owners – for whom you have a respect – to determine what Internet marketing professionals worked well on their behalf. It may be beneficial to find someone who has an understanding of your particular industry. This alleviates the learning curve when attempting to construct an appropriate message for Internet marketing.

Internet marketing professionals will also be well-versed on the legalities of marketing small businesses online and can guide you through the process with an eye towards boundaries.
Your actual Internet marketing can be conducted right on your website with the use of surveys, give-aways, and a specific call-to-action.

It may be in your best interest to take some marketing courses so that you can best familiarize yourself with the importance of Internet marketing.

The beauty of Internet marketing is its mass appeal. It would take enormous effort and money to reach certain targeted audiences with specific messages delivered in a particular way. The Internet bridges the gap between all audiences and levels the playing field for those interested in marketing their small business.

Using Internet marketing to further the efforts of your small business can be vastly rewarding. With consistent and poignant delivery of messages through Internet marketing you can experience long term success and viability.

The importance of internet marketing could be very well realized by the fact that it covers a lot of spheres. Internet marketing would be the mantra of all web savvy entrepreneurs. The importance of internet marketing lies in the fact of its mass appeal. The internet marketing serves as a wonderful tool to those net savvy businessmen who exploit the tool to maximize the profit. A small business would assume incredible levels if an internet marketer apply a carefully planned technique to promote the product or a service. The importance of internet marketing lies in the fact that it is not restricted to one particular aspect and covers a large area.

There are several tools that form a part of internet marketing. Internet marketing had always been the prime area of concentration for those who would like to promote the business or a service.

The importance of internet marketing lies in the fact that it would lead to more enquiries and thereby improving the sales. Internet marketing would also lead to the exposure of one’s business to the world and this also leads to the expansion of business opportunities. This exposure might also help to secure newer business opportunities and thus widening the scope and the profit of one’s business.

The importance of internet marketing is growing in today’s digital world. The importance of internet marketing lies in its ability to generate traffic to the website. To any business marketing is important as that would bring in the visibility of the business and would also improve the sales. The same fact applies to internet marketing and thereby one could realize the importance of internet marketing.

Tips To Building Up Your Internet Business

February 13th, 2011 | Posted in Internet Marketing, Marketing
By:

To obtain more local customers for your business, consider expanding your local business through the Internet. If you want to know a sure-fire, almost 100% fool proof secret that will keep your Internet marketing business alive and thriving for years into the future, then this article will show you how. Strategic Internet marketing is going to be the basis for any online Internet business being a success and earning you money.

Finally, niche marketing while not unknown to the offline world, is taken to new heights online where automated internet tools allow an internet business owner to target these highly targeted online niches and exploits them. Firstly, an internet business that sells an online service like service that can be highly automated can potentially outperform an offline business. The benefits of operating an internet home business include enormous profit potential, easy access to highly successful affiliate programs, and an effective means of advertising your service or product.

The key point in building up your internet business, and effective money generating business website is to know who are your potential consumers, or will be; to clearly understand their needs, and turn them into loyal and paying customers who provide the basis of your business survival, let alone thriving. The more you know and understand about your potential customers, the more you are to focus in building your business website to cater for their needs, thus the more successful your business as it goes in the long run. Word of mouth tell all your friends about your website you never know they may tell someone who tells someone who purchases something from you or decides that they too want to get into the internet business and they may join you in building your down line and sign up for one or two of your programs.

In conclusion, participating in internet business or internet marketing forums and helping others along is a good thing. No matter what product or service you sell, developing a support system is critical to the success of your internet home business.

Maximumize AdWords Marketing

February 12th, 2011 | Posted in Internet Marketing, SEM
By:

Google has formed a very productive internet marketing method in AdWords advertising. In accordance with the theory of keywords, the idea necessitates brilliant placement of ads on applicable websites, so as to establish that only the most highly targeted traffic is led your way through those ads. You have the preference of both text ads or banner ads. Google has specified size parameters, and your ad units must abide by those parameters. Text ads must consist of 2 lines of text, along with a header line.

The Quality Is In The Keywords

No matter what you eventually sell on your website – whether it’s a complete product range regarding something, or some services, or even a simple affiliate marketing plan – you must have quality content on your website. The quality of your website content determines the price of your AdWords advertising. It also determines the amount of revenue generated by the hits resulting directly from this advertising.

It might seem like a good idea to use a misleading keyword phrase in your Google AdWords campaign in order to direct more traffic towards your website. But always remember internet surfers aren’t stupid, and they know what they’re looking for.

And if your AdWords advertising and marketing says you’re marketing carpets, but there’s no reference of carpets anywhere on your website, your visitors won’t turn into customers just because they’ve reached your website, so they might as well buy something.

On the contrary, this kind of misleading AdWords advertising can have the very opposite effect. It can totally destroy your brand name and market trustworthiness. It can cause the search engines to hate you. It can even lead to a “Google Slap”, which is what happens when Google increases your bid prices for keywords because of irrelevant website content and low page ranks on the search engines.

The Targeted Audience

The importance of relevant keywords can’t be emphasized enough in making your Google AdWords campaign a successful marketing venture. Internet surfers like websites that provide what they advertise. Even more important is that your ads should be relevant to the particular market segment you’re targeting.

For example, if you’re selling health products related to asthma, mention something about the discomfort experienced by asthmatics – in such a way that it touches an emotional chord inside them somewhere, compelling them to check out what you’ve got to offer.

Almost all Internet marketers are however aren’t capable to make optimum use of AdWords advertising. Consequently, they simply end up paying needless costs without adequate conversions into revenues. Furthermore, the bid prices of the AdWords also increases, if the landing page of your website isn’t totally related to the keywords employed.

If you make use of the simple tips provided above, you can easily gain a pretty decent advantage over your competitors, with increased revenues and a reduced cost of advertising.

 Provided by: Charles McDuffie

Should Cut Back on Marketing During Tough Times?

February 3rd, 2011 | Posted in Internet Marketing, Marketing
By:

If you have a business that sells products, you need to get the word out about your product to as many people in your target market as possible. Everything you do should start with getting customers. If you have no customers, you have no business. It is an unfortunate situation that most business owners cut back on their marketing and advertising budget when sales go down. That is exactly the worst approach you can take. Marketing is both a short-term and a long-term investment in the survivability of your company. Saving money on marketing when dollars are scarce may seem like a logical way to cut expenses. But, while you may see a short-term benefit, over the long haul, you may be slowly killing your business.

When consumers are scrutinizing each purchase carefully before they commit their dollars, you must keep on top of their mind why they need to purchase your product. You must keep reminding them that you are still in business and they need what you are selling. It is likely that your competitors are going through the same cost-benefit analysis in which you are engaged and that many of them have decided that they are not willing to spend their dollars on advertising or other forms of marketing. That’s great news. That is how you get to dominate your market. When others are pulling back, you push forward. You fill the vacuum left by your competitors’ trying to save money.

Similarly, if your business is a service business, you still need to market and create new referral sources and nurture the ones that you already have. This is the time to let your referral sources know that you are still in business and how much they mean to you. This is the time to spend on forming new relationships with movers and shakers who can bring you new clients. Keep up with those lunches and dinners, tickets to sports and other events, or however you used to develop new referral sources.

You may want to change your message a bit to acknowledge that times are different. If you are lucky, your product or service is even more needed, now that people are facing hard times and cutting their spending.

Don’t neglect using the free or cheaper forms of marketing that are out there. You can use social media to get your message out for free, you can hire independent contractors for each marketing project (check with your lawyer to make sure that you are not hiring an employee and classifying someone as an independent contractor), you can offer internships to college students to get some help instead of hiring employees (do this through the colleges that are near your office). There are many ways to market on the cheap if you need to economize. But don’t stop marketing. By consistently getting your marketing message out to your existing customers and to your target market for new customers, you are doing the most you can to ride out the hard times and still be in business when the good times return.

Is Time To Revisit Your Website Strategy?

January 30th, 2011 | Posted in Branding, Internet Marketing
By:

Why should you care about your website strategy? Wouldn’t it be easier just to put up a website and hope you hit on something that makes you money? If you’re like hundreds of thousands of other online business owners, that’s probably what you did. But now it’s time to re-assess the results and develop a strategy that will increase revenue consistently.

When you put up your first website, it was a snapshot of your business at that point in time. As your business evolves your website should reflect that. Have you added new and different products? Have you changed the focus of your services? Like websites, the businesses they support are organic. They grow and change. Your strategy for meeting those goals and objectives must change with it. Adding content piecemeal is necessary to keep your site updated, but at some point during each year you need to re-assess the big picture.

Make time to sit down with your key staff and review what your main business is today. Don’t cling to old notions about what it was or should be. Decide what it IS. Make sure that you are taking advantage of opportunities that will propel your business to the next level.

Analyze your Website Content

Does your content match your current goals? I recommend using a tool called a webmap to analyze your website. You can use any tool that allows you create a map showing all the main branches on your home page. The key here is to strip away the graphics and really look at your content and navigation path. Don’t be distracted by pretty colors and pictures.

Take Action: Create a specific path on your home page for visitors to “walk” For example, if the main goal of your website is to get visitors to call, don’t put up extraneous links to distract them. You want to them to write down your phone number and call you. Everything on your home page should support that! An 800 number in the banner area is a great idea. Links to books they should read on the subject is not.

Compare the Competition

It’s always a good idea to look at what the competition is doing on their website. Create maps for their home pages as well. But don’t assume that because they are bigger, that their website has a better strategy. Deep marketing pockets can often mask website failures.

Take Action: Compare your maps and see what emphasis the competition places on their home page. Do they focus heavily on promotions? Are they using free content to attract visitors? Note the best strategies and see how they apply to you. But have confidence that your content has value.

Revise and Test

Be prepared to change your home page content based on what you learned. Be bold, try new things. But be sure you test what you’ve done. You don’t want to change something that was working. Your webmaster should be providing you with the statistics you need to test and revise.

Take Action: Carefully analyze the changes you’ve made. Buy the best website analysis tool you can. Make sure you know what kind of content generates sales. Then pour it on and watch your revenue grow consistently!

Viral Marketing – A Great Way To Spread The Word

January 29th, 2011 | Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Marketing
By:

Before we explain how you can use viral marketing strategies to promote your online business and get a buzz spreading through the worldwide web, here’s a definition from Wikipedia,

“Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use preexisting social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, images, or even text messages.”

If you’ve ever used hotmail, yahoo or G-mail account, you’ve participated in a viral marketing campaign every time you sent an email to someone – because the company inserted a small (and usually discreet advertisement) at the bottom of all of your outgoing email messages – inviting the people you were communicating with to receive their own free email account.

So, how can you put a viral marketing campaign together for your own online business to get the same advertising buzz like these major companies for free?

You don’t have to look very far to find the answer these days. Viral marketing has taken off with a bang with the introduction of web2.0 web sites like Youtube, Facebook, Myspace and twitter – to mention a few. Bookmarking and social networking sites have made it easier for you to engage your friends in spreading any message you want to promote.

According to a recent survey done by Forrester Research, people are almost 65% more likely to trust a review posted by a peer – or even a complete stranger – than they are to trust the marketing or sales information put out by the company.

Companies like Amazon and I-Tunes have used these tactics to build their brands to mega corporations, and now all the celebrities and broadcasters are using Twitter and Facebook to spread their messages and expand their brands.

Why is this the case? Because as consumers we tend to think that the average “Joe Blow” has less of a personal agenda when posting his review about the latest “Dixie Chicks” album and so we give it more weight.

And, by the way, this is a normal reaction – it’s one that’s kind of hard-wired into all of us. People have always shared the things they like – or hate – with their friends and family members. Back in the 50’s and 60’s, our grandparents used to talk to their neighbors over the “back fence,” call each other on the phone or tell their friends during lunch. The difference is, these days we use the Internet and cell phones.

What’s interesting though, is that with the popularity of the Internet, our trust – and believe in “social proof” – has become even stronger.

By creating your own viral marketing campaign, you’ll be doing more than getting the word out about your new product or service, you’ll be gathering social proof – and that will help your sales to go through the roof.

If you don’t have your own product or service as yet, you can start promoting affiliate products. Affiliate products already have a brand name presence and an established market.

So, how do you set up your own viral marketing campaign? The first thing to do is to get back to the basics.

Then make sure that you’re sending out the right message – an in the right way. If you’re marketing a product to teens, you’ll want to make sure that it’s something they want – and you’ll have to reach them where they’re hanging out. That might be on MySpace, twitter or even Friendster.

What’s the right message? Maybe it’s a special report. But it could just as easily be a video. Or an audio mp3 file. Match your message to your audience. And finally, make sure that you’re getting your message out at the right time – when your audience is ready to buy it.

Make your viral marketing campaign stand out from the crowd – because that’s how it’s going to get passed around and become viral. By understanding the basics – who your audience is, what they want, how they want to get it and when they want it – all you have to do next is to create something that your audience loves – or hates – or finds interesting enough – to pass around to their friends. And because your product comes with an implied endorsement – social proof – those people will pass it around to other people – and the buzz goes on…and on…and on…and you’ll start hearing the “ka-ching!” of your cash register going off a lot more often.

Writen by: James Max

Personalized URL’s

January 28th, 2011 | Posted in Internet Marketing, Microsites
By:

One of the best ways to connect with your customers is to personalize your communications.  A new trend in eMarketing is using personalized URL, or PURL, which is a customized web page or microsite with a unique address for each customer on your list. Incorporating PURLs into your direct mail and or email campaigns, gives you a greater opportunity to connect your messaging with the interactive capabilities of the Internet, which will help convert more direct mail recipients into qualified prospects and valued customers.

A common example of a PURL is a web page or microsite with a URL such as www.xyzcompany.com/johndoe, in which “John Doe” is a recipient who receives a direct-mail or email message that encourages him to visit the web page or microsite. For each recipient on the list, the web address is unique to the recipient, as is the content of the web page. Also, if a visitor to the web page or microsite is asked to answer a few questions or provide information, the answers provided can be immediately used to determine which secondary pages the visitor is directed to or what specific information is included on secondary pages.

Because a PURL site is personalized, a conversational or more direct tone in the language of the site content can be used to enhance the visitor’s sense of engagement with the organization. However, try to avoid overly detailed and personal level of information on your PURL, this may lead a visitor to feel his or her privacy is being invaded.

Utilizing PURLs are a great way to connect with your customers and prospective customers:

  • Enhance marketing campaigns and messaging
  • Gather and update key customer data
  • Track activity and preference
  • Measure campaign successes
  • Educate potential customers about your company in a fun, interactive way

The costs for a PURL campaign will vary depending on web page or microsite design, programming/data integration, the number of recipients in your list, and the time length of the campaign.

If you are considering using a PURL in your next campaign, please contact us for more information on how we can help you take full advantage of this cutting-edge marketing tool. We have all of the expertise you’ll need.

Is Time To Revisit Your Website Strategy?

January 22nd, 2011 | Posted in Internet Marketing, Web Design
By:

Why should you care about your website strategy? Wouldn’t it be easier just to put up a website and hope you hit on something that makes you money? If you’re like hundreds of thousands of other online business owners, that’s probably what you did. But now it’s time to re-assess the results and develop a strategy that will increase revenue consistently.

When you put up your first website, it was a snapshot of your business at that point in time. As your business evolves your website should reflect that. Have you added new and different products? Have you changed the focus of your services? Like websites, the businesses they support are organic. They grow and change. Your strategy for meeting those goals and objectives must change with it. Adding content piecemeal is necessary to keep your site updated, but at some point during each year you need to re-assess the big picture.

Make time to sit down with your key staff and review what your main business is today. Don’t cling to old notions about what it was or should be. Decide what it IS. Make sure that you are taking advantage of opportunities that will propel your business to the next level.

Analyze your Website Content

Does your content match your current goals? I recommend using a tool called a webmap to analyze your website. You can use any tool that allows you create a map showing all the main branches on your home page. The key here is to strip away the graphics and really look at your content and navigation path. Don’t be distracted by pretty colors and pictures.

Take Action: Create a specific path on your home page for visitors to “walk” For example, if the main goal of your website is to get visitors to call, don’t put up extraneous links to distract them. You want to them to write down your phone number and call you. Everything on your home page should support that! An 800 number in the banner area is a great idea. Links to books they should read on the subject is not.

Compare the Competition

It’s always a good idea to look at what the competition is doing on their website. Create maps for their home pages as well. But don’t assume that because they are bigger, that their website has a better strategy. Deep marketing pockets can often mask website failures.

Take Action: Compare your maps and see what emphasis the competition places on their home page. Do they focus heavily on promotions? Are they using free content to attract visitors? Note the best strategies and see how they apply to you. But have confidence that your content has value.

Revise and Test

Be prepared to change your home page content based on what you learned. Be bold, try new things. But be sure you test what you’ve done. You don’t want to change something that was working. Your webmaster should be providing you with the statistics you need to test and revise.

Take Action: Carefully analyze the changes you’ve made. Buy the best website analysis tool you can. Make sure you know what kind of content generates sales. Then pour it on and watch your revenue grow consistently!

4 Ways Viral Marketing Can Drive Traffic To Your Website

January 17th, 2011 | Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Marketing
By:

Viral marketing comes with an array of possibilities and ways to achieve your overall goals. As with anything all you need is preplanning and the right setup to create success for years to come. Viral marketing is a very powerful asset every web site owner should pursue.

However, don’t get over-zealous. One issue you must avoid at all costs is spamming. Spamming otherwise known as “spam mail” is still used widely, but with government establishing more restrictions and fines you don’t want this to be a source for income. The professional image of your site will also suffer greatly if you send mail blatantly.

To create Spam mail you typically need a database that contains a huge list of email addresses where you can deliver your message with one click. Unfortunately, Spam mail takes us back to the days of broadcast faxes. It irritates the recipient and kills the validity of your company, which in turn kills the factors that would motivate someone to refer your site.

However there is good news, you can get your message out in a way that motivates people to check it out and keep coming back for more. Let’s look a little further at the next four avenues you should consider.

  • Personalize - Create your website with personal appeal. In other words, design it where customers can go in to setup their own personal profile. This will help to give your customers a feeling of comfort. Let’s face, it people instinctively think about themselves and their own needs above others. So give them the ability to use your site in a way that they feel safe secure, and cared for.
  • E-mail - Email is very important, because it is going to be one of the most affordable ways to keep in touch with your customers. The proper way to handle email permission is to first let your customer know that you will not transmit their email to third party companies. Then you will want to attach the need for their email to the benefits they can receive. For example: Coupons or discounts that are only available to members that receive email notifications.
    With each e-mail, you send, the viral marketing effect takes place. If the receiver feels good about the information they received, they will pass it along which is exactly what you want to accomplish. Another good viral marketing method to use with e-mails is to offer another piece of viral marketing material in your e-mail. Incorporate things like a free report, free e-book, or a free newsletter. Anything free will attract attention and help to build your prospect list through viral marketing.
  • Scheduler - Building a way of reminding people of certain events or sales on your website will go along way in customer retention as well as keeping your site on their minds. Basically, the more you stay in front of your customers the more they will be talking to others about your site. Offering simple services like this can keep your name in front of potential customers on a regular basis as well a generate the viral marketing results you want.
  • Web Forums - Once you have obtained your customers email address you will want to setup a link that will allow them to discuss products or services that you offer with other customers. This helps in building bonds, but more importantly people typically like to include their friends in the arena. Look at gambling sites; the majority of business that they receive is via referrals. Once you’re on the site the majority of them have rooms that you can go to and talk and play with others from around the world.

By properly building a web forum community, you will create a buzz and with the right preparations will cause your business to grow significantly.

« Older Entries

Call Us: 1.888.WEB.HITZ

Request a Quote