Groupon Is A Disaster For Small Businesses

It was only a few months ago that Groupon, the Internet’s latest sensation, was the next big thing. There were copycats galore and the startup was estimated to be worth as much as dollarsignr25 billion in June. Today that price has fallen to approximately dollarsignr10.1 billion and dollarsignr11.4 billion.

By last year, Groupon had spread to nearly 100 cities and 25 countries, with a staff of 10,000 and yet another young geeky billionaire as CEO. It may have grown too fast; competitors like Living Social, Amazon.com, and Google have created their own deal programs that compete on the same level. Customers have no loyalty to one particular site or another and will flock to whichever has the best deal.

Lately Groupon hasn’t been having the best deals, a fact which has trickled down through other sites and has been hurting the merchants that participate in its bargains. While Groupon does attract new customers, it can also attract negative reviews on Yelp.com and drive down merchants’ ratings. A few customer service nightmares by Groupon users have made both businesses and shoppers wary of its deals.

Businesses have something to complain about, too. Through the use of the coupons, it sometimes only barely scrapes by on the cost of the food- and doesn’t turn a profit. Many businesses have reported that the deals for new customers can make loyal long-time patrons angry. All of this, and Groupon still has yet to prove a high “rate of return” where a customer who used a Groupon returns to that restaurant or place of business in the future.

Behind the scenes, Groupon has also been facing trouble. In August, its public relations chief of two months threw in the towel. On the following day, CEO Mason composed a scathing 2,500-word internal email that defended Groupon against the criticisms it had received. The email leaked to the press and damaged the company’s reputation further.

Groupon got in trouble with the SEC as well when it counted its revenue as dollarsignr1.52 billion instead of its true net revenue of dollarsignr688 million.

There is no doubt that Groupon’s growth has been explosive. It has signed up 142.9 million email subscribers since November 2008. The problem is that only 20 percent of subscribers have purchased a Groupon and half of that amount have purchased subsequent ones.

Amidst all this growth is concern about the company’s spending habits. Investor money is typically used to grow a business before it goes public, but Groupon shocked the world when it revealed that it spent dollarsignr345.1 million on marketing and hiring.

Its high debt ratio of 102 percent and its narrow profit margin are not inspiring further confidence from future investors.

Email Marketing Options For Small Businesses

Email marketing has countless advantages to for promoting website. It can in reality benefit you to follow-up on the leads, authenticate you as a professional in your field, and print your business in the minds of your potential customers. Email marketing could be a very efficient way for you to upturn traffic flow to your website and your online profits. There are several key points to consider while using email marketing to make it as gainful as possible.

In order to start email marketing, you must have a list of contacts and email addresses for marketing to promote your website. This list can be made through advertising that needs this information, or with opt-in boxes on your website, among many other ways. With this list, you achieve targeted audience that you can market, while you start to promote your services and products. Give us a call if you need to reach an audience.

Google Adwords Management – How It Helps Small Businesses

Small businesses have tight budgets. Yet they have to compete in a market place along side their bigger competitors who have more financial muscle to attract customers through advertising or other expensive means of communication. This is where Google Adwords can help small businesses.

Firstly, unlike advertisements that have a large reach but may not result in a significant amount of conversions, adwords can help by attracting customers who are looking for the product or service similar to what the company has to offer. This means your communication is more targeted and you get a higher rate of conversions based on the large number of interested customers who visit your company’s website. What this means is that the small business can get a higher Return on Investment through adwords management.

Secondly, the reach that Google adwords has is much larger in terms of the geographical areas that it covers. A small business that may have been advertising only in the local area due to budgetary constraints now gets noticed by customers from all over the country as well as other places worldwide.

However, it is important to manage Google adwords effectively so as to make it cost effective. Ideally, the company should use a combination of adwords in conjunction with email marketing or other advertising. In fact, the customer base that a small business builds up through adwords can also help in designing an email marketing campaign that goes out only to interested customers instead of spam mail campaigns.

Small businesses can also control the amounts that they have to spend through adwords campaigns by using either the cost per thousand (CPM) or cost per click (CPC) method. In fact, the best feature is that they get to monitor the ROI from either the CPM or CPC campaign and can opt out of it if it does not produce the expected results. The keywords can be toyed with to see which keywords earn a larger number of hits.

It is because of the ease of use, cost effectiveness, quick feedback, and higher rates of conversion that Google adwords should be considered a major online marketing tool for small businesses. With proper management of keywords and campaigns, small businesses can grow faster than they ever anticipated. Google adwords help small businesses get big results from small budgets. If a small business does not have the expertise to handle the adwords program effectively, then hiring a SEO firm can help.

Twitter For Business – Even If You Don’t Get It

Using Twitter doesn’t mean you have to love social media. In fact, you can hate it.

I know I’m one of the least social-networking people out there. Heck, I’ve never even had a Facebook account. But Twitter isn’t all-or-nothing. I use Twitter for reasons that benefit me. And so can you, without having to share your updates or what you’re up to, connect with people virtually, and all that other social-networking nonsense. Here are 5 ways to use Twitter if you hate social media:

1. Set up a Twitter feed for your blog.
Free services like Twitterfeed and FeedBurner will take your blog’s RSS feed and automatically post a message on your Twitter account whenever you have a new post. The message will have the title of the post and a shortened-URL link to it. Automated hands-off goodness. Why would you want to set this up? To offer a feed for those who prefer to get their latest content via Twitter instead of RSS and/or email. I’ve done this for my blog detailing my music-making and business-building adventures.

2. Use Twitter as customer support for your site/company/service.
More and more entrepreneurs and companies are doing this. It’s like a hybrid virtual ticket/FAQ system. Your users can quickly send their questions to you (the virtual ticket part). And when you answer them, other users see your reply, thus reducing repeated questions (the FAQ part).

3. Do Twitter searches to find potential leads and clients.
It’s like a pseudo-classified board. You can do keyword searches for your niche, or even search for specific questions or problems that people would have (ex. “I need X for my Y, anybody know someone?”). I’ve personally found web design clients this way.

4. Do Twitter searches to collect free testimonials.
If people are using and digging your stuff, just do a search for your product/service name (or your name if you are the service). When you see positive Twitter messages praising your stuff, you can freely snag that quote and put it on your site or wherever, making sure to put the person’s name (and a link to the Twitter message for authenticity). What’s great is you don’t have to ask permission, since what the person wrote is already public anyway, and you’re attributing and linking to it.

5. Use Twitter as a quick collaboration tool.
Communicate with clients and partners via private Direct Messages. The 140 character limit forces you to be succinct and ask actionable questions. Plus, sending a Twitter message is less of this big thing than an email, so you can fire off quick collaboration questions and updates without making a deal out of it, or taking much time and attention away from your clients and partners.

Choosing a Social Media Expert

I’ve seen many guides to choosing the right social media consultant.  Many of them fall short because they don’t give you simple empirical guidelines to follow.  I think that’s a mistake and I’ve decided to rectify that oversight.

One of the main points I feel is most important is that the social media “Expert” must be deeply involved in social media.  The experience you gain in personally building a large social network is essential to understanding social media.  The criteria here is how do you find an “Expert” so the bar is set high.  One of the commonly quoted rules is that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert- that’s 2 months short of 5 years.  Which means there are very few true social media experts around.

An Expert is defined as: having, involving, or displaying special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience.
Social Media Expert Minimum Criteria:

1. Google - Your expert should have a dominant presence on Google and should have no problem providing examples of keyword rankings for previous clients. If they cannot or do not provide such a list then you very well better ask for one.
2. Twitter Followers 2010+ the consultant must have a network over 2000 Twitter Followers.  2000 is the Twitter imposed limit where the user must have a following of 90%.  To get more than 2000 followers you must have more than 1800 followers of your own (90%).  In other words, any idiot (or spammer) can follow 2000 people, but you have to work hard to get to 2010. Any “Social Media Expert” who has less than 2000 followers hasn’t put the time in, and doesn’t have the experience to be called an expert.
3. Twitter Lists 100+ One of the best measures of how much others find your Tweets valuable is to measure how many take that extra step of adding the account to a list.  It’s a vote of confidence and recommendation to others for me to say I value your tweets and want to tell others that.  Remember that some lists today are generated automatically so check the lists and look for words like; Retweet, follow, people-i-retweet, interactions, etc.  These lists can be automatically created by tools such as FormuLists and don’t reflect true interest by people.
4. Klout Score of 30+ Klout is a social media rating service that rates a Twitter and Facebook profile for interaction and engagement.  While Klout is far from perfect, it is the best that exists today.  Some social media companies have spoken about using a minimum Klout score of 30 as a criteria for judging a social media specialists.  This score is a gauge of how engaged and interactive the account is in it’s activity.
5. Facebook Friends 1000+ A social media expert must have an extensive network of other social media experts to collaborate with and to exchange ideas.  They should have built that network on Facebook as well as on Twitter and LinkedIn.  They should have an extensive network of Facebook connections and they should be able to call upon that network to connect them and exchange ideas.  Because of the reciprocal nature of Facebook Friendships the expert should have taken the time to build a network of at least 1000 people.
6. Facebook Page with 250+ Fans/Likes - Your expert should have a top notch Facebook Fan page.  If they are going to be building your fan page then they should have a list of fan pages they are already managing as well. If they don’t then how will they know how to help your business?
7. An active Blog with active comments - Blogs are essential to social media and any expert who doesn’t at least have a blog that they update weekly has to be questioned.  If they are blogging there should be some comments, or evidence of discussions happening on other sites like, Digg or Twitter in the comments section. Your expert must know how difficult it is to blog regularly to be able to tell you how to get it done yourself.  It’s even better if they blog for other sites beyond their own.  Because that demonstrates that others value their thoughts enough to allow them to write on their own sites.
8. Profiles on many other social media sites - As a social media specialist, I believe it is my duty to my clients to check out each new social media product in order to determine if it could be a good fit for my clients.  So I have profiles on almost every single new up and coming social network.  Your consultant should have done this too.  They should be on, Foursquare, Shopkick, GoWalla, Digg, Flickr, YouTube and a few dozen more.  Otherwise how could they call themselves an expert if they don’t know what the offerings are?  I’m too busy isn’t an excuse in this case, they need to be doing the homework to determine what is good and what isn’t for you.[Edited after the initial post]
9. Your Brain- Use your brain, if they have some of these attributes in areas where you are interested but none in the areas you are uninterested in, they may be just fine.  If they have all of these but not one customer who can talk to you about what they did for them in social media, keep looking.  This is meant as a guideline for people unfamiliar to social media to help you understand who may be a real social media expert and who is a fake.  The problem is that this field is overrun with fakes and neophytes need some way to determine the snake oil salesmen from the true practitioners. And I’ll maintain that anyone who uses all of the techniques listed in the comments section below to game the system has a pretty good idea of how the social media networks work, although they would be ethically challenged.  (And sorry I don’t have a link to my brain, yet.)

Now every social media expert won’t measure up to every one of these tests. I don’t measure up myself to every one.  But your social media expert should come close to many of them.  If your “so called expert” has a Twitter account with 250 followers and 300 college buddies on Facebook with no significant footprint on any single social network- then it’s time to keep looking.  You should see plenty of evidence of your social media expert in the first 3 pages of their Google Search.  If that’s not dominated by social media mentions then your expert may be more “wanna-be” than “is”.

Small Business Marketing Mistakes in 2010

Marketing people love to write about marketing blunders and mistakes and we all have our opinion on what should be included in the top mistakes every small business must avoid. However, even though we continue to make these blunders visible, I still see these mistakes made, costing small businesses dearly in terms of dollars and results. Solid marketing efforts take a combination of planning, creativity and patience. As you review your plan and adjust for the upcoming year, make sure you are not unknowingly committing the following.

Not Developing a Marketing Plan

Jumping right into activities without assessing your target market needs and desires and understanding how best to reach them sets you up for inefficient marketing with little to no results. By not establishing a solid plan before you being your communication results in ineffective programs that waste your budget.

Not Clearly Defining Your Target Market

Trying to be everything to everybody means you dilute your message and attract no one. People want to do business with someone who understands them and can help them achieve their goals. By specifically focusing on a niche market that you work with, you can clearly identify why they should do business with you and make selection of your services much easier for them to make.

Not Focusing Your Activities

The value of developing a plan is to set the direction of your marketing activities so you can focus your efforts. Once you decide on your strategy, you need to stay focused on executing that strategy. Constant change to compete with the latest fad does not breed success. Figure out what will work for your business and stick with it.

Sticking With An Ineffective Strategy

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Don’t get complacent and think that “things will get better” if you are not getting the results you want with your current activities. Review what is happening at least quarterly and adjust as needed.

Changing a Strategy That Works

On the other hand, if you have a winning marketing strategy that consistently gives results, then why change it? Enhance, extend and improve your plan to keep it fresh and effective, but don’t make radical changes to something that is working.

Delivering an Inconsistent Marketing Message

If each activity delivers your message differently, your prospects will get confused and your results will be poor. Being consistent with your message and brand across all of your marketing activities will increase your chances of being seen by your prospects.

Believing a Second Rate Web Site Works

With online and social media marketing being so critically important today for small businesses, it is important to make sure you don’t make too many common mistakes with your web presence. With your website being the hub of your online presence, having a poorly developed, non-optimized website is the kiss of death for your online efforts. As recently as the writing of this post, I spoke with someone who paid dearly for a horrible website and promises of first page search engine results. Perception is reality on the web and people are not going to do business with a company that does not have a quality Web site – period.

Stopping an Activity Too Soon

Easily the most costly mistake is changing your marketing messages or brand midstream. Just about the time you are sick of your marketing, your prospects are just beginning to recognize who you are. Marketing requires patience so give your marketing time to work.

Focusing Too Much On You Or Your Company

Your customers don’t care who you are or how great your company is. They only want to know how working with you is going to fulfill a need or desire. They need to see the value you offer and realize the potential benefits of working with you quickly. Keep the details about you and your company as background information and keep the focus of your messages on how you plan to help your customers.

Cutting Marketing when the Economy is Bad

Marketing keeps you visible when the market is slow and helps to generate leads, build credibility and ensure that your prospects know that you are alive and well. Cutting marketing is the biggest mistake small businesses make in tough economic times. Reducing spending and ensuring your marketing dollar is spent wisely is important – there are many things you can do at a low cost or free – but stopping marketing completely can be deadly.

Be aware of your marketing at all times so you can avoid falling into these traps. Your business will be more successful if you do.

What marketing mistakes do you see small businesses make regularly that I left off the list? Let us know.

Branding Your Small Business with Internet Marketing

Branding your business with internet marketing is the undercurrent to driving sales and expanding profit margins. Essentially, branding is a means to stand out among your competitors and effectively influence your customers by promoting yourself as the only one with a solution to their problems. Branding your business with internet marketing will help you to spread information about your business online, confirm your credibility, help you to connect with prospective buyers emotionally and motivate them to purchase your offerings.

Since branding with internet marketing is invaluable to your online venture, it is essential to know how to build a brand online. One crucial aspect of strong branding is consistency that is essential in creating a brand identity. Consistency refers to repeatedly spreading the same idea or message regarding the business to the prospective customers. For this, maintaining the same username, business image or template and e-mail signatures in your branding campaign is essential. This allows your customers to instantly associate the name, image or signature with your product which can indirectly boost the loyalty of the customer towards your brand and the credibility of your business.

When branding your business with internet marketing, it is not sufficient if you just create a website or an e-mail id. First and foremost, you need to target the customers that are most likely in need of your offerings. This makes it easy to develop the content of your branding campaign. It is also important to create a unique and attractive logo that can remain etched in the minds of prospective buyers and drive them to associate it with your business. It is also essential to mark your presence online which can be effectively achieved through profiles created on social networking or social media sites. Creating blogs or forums also adds weight to your branding campaign. Another crucial step would be to build trust and reputation with the buyers to enhance your credibility and their loyalty towards your brand.

Thus, branding your business with internet marketing is as important for developing your business, as water is important for the survival of a fish. Those who make the mistake of not investing in branding, often realize that their poor online performance is directly related to this error. Hence, if you plan to promote your venture online, branding your business with internet marketing must be your top priority.

YellowBook 360 Marketing Alternative

The advent of internet and mobile phones has opened up plenty of Yellow Book 360 marketing alternatives these days. Until recently the Yellow Pages and print used to be an effective medium of advertising for small businesses. Now their costs are prohibitive just like ads in a newspaper. Cost effective modes of advertising, readily available to the small businesses are, internet directories, cooperative direct mail, billboards, radio, websites, social media profiles and search engine placements. The marketing or sales department of a business will have to study the effectiveness of these alternatives and go for the optimum advertising mix.

Most of the online yellow pages or directories are not costly. A diligent search of the internet for online directory sources will help you to get the best Yellow Book 360 Marketing alternatives. Small direct mail magazines form the backbone of cooperative direct mailings. They mainly concentrate on limited customers in any given category for their listings. An incentive like coupons is an added attraction to buyers when advertising through these magazines which help to maximize business.

Billboards and radio advertising can also be considered as Yellow Book 360 Marketing alternatives. In the case of billboards, which are also cost efficient, you can change designs and contents by pulling down the billboard whenever you deem it necessary. Also in the present times the use of electronic digital billboards is becoming popular with certain category of businesses. Radio has a wide reach. Radio stations also cater to various age group audiences and this aspect can be used for effectively reaching a desired target group for specific products and services. In both these cases the ads can be frequently changed or upgraded whereas in the case of print yellow pages one has to wait at least for a year to affect any change.

Most of the small businesses don’t think they need websites, Facebook fanpages, or landing pages as Yellow Book 360 Marketing alternatives. The world is changing very fast which means these are precisely the businesses that really need a website. Small retail businesses can, using the website, face the competition from giants by even, say, announcing extended business hours.

For service businesses without a shop such as plumbers, electricians, carpet fitters or window cleaners a website or fanpage is a boon and a cheap Yellow Book 360 Marketing alternative.  Any number of services in various areas can be offered at no extra cost by these persons. This advertising is almost free can be changed within a day. Clients in the same local area can be reached by using Google Local listing which will feature maps pinpointing the exact location, business timings etc.

In conclusion, most people search the internet for any information on products and services. And websites are becoming more reliant on Yellow Book 360 Marketing alternatives which we can provide you with. Don’t throw away your hard earned marketing dollars to companies that just outsource work to other countries. Your business deserves some personal attention from a marketing firm that will work hard to provide you with results!

MailChimp, Constant Contact, and iContact – Email Marketing

Using email marketing for promoting your business is becoming a highly popular strategy to tap the market and in turn increase sales. Since the advent of the internet, conducting business online has increased and online transactions are currently the fastest means to carry out deals. The ease with which emails can be used for effective communication has resulted in businesses adopting email marketing techniques.

We Can Help You:

• Build Targeted Email Lists
• Send Mass Emails to US Consumers
• Manage Your Email Blasts and Newsletters
• Create Your Email Campaign Designs

Due to the variety of products and services available in the market today, the choice of consumers has expanded manifold. Hence, any business has become very competitive and trying to get loyal customers to stick to your product or service has become extremely challenging. In order to be really smart and outperform your competitors, one of the most efficient means to capture target consumers is by using email marketing for promoting your business. Through the use of emails, you can get in touch with the consumers directly and convey your message to them directly. You can now do away with cluttered space and tiny ads in lengthy newspapers. Through emails, you can now put across whatever you want and in how many ever words you want. By using email marketing for promoting your business, you get the fastest response as well from interested customers. In contrast to physical ads, information exchange via email is cost free and very simple.

Other advantages of using email marketing for promoting your business are the facility to advertise by posting photographs and pictures of the products sold or even uploading videos of any product demonstration etc., if any which is useful information for the consumers. Regular customers can be updated with any new product promotions and discount offers by sending out frequent newsletters via email.

However, what one needs to understand is that no system is completely fool proof and there could be some hitch in using email marketing for promoting your business. The presence of spam can de-motivate internet users and this has resulted in a lot of negative publicity about email marketing. It becomes important to use permission based email marketing or else you could end up losing your reputation and eventually potential customers. By resolving to stick to a strict code of conduct and following an anti spam conduct results in responsible marketing and leads to more efficient communication with clients. Always provide contact information and a link to your website so that potential customers can get back to you for further details. Remember also to collect email addresses in a responsible fashion. This way using email marketing for promoting your business gets a totally different meaning and dimension.

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Google Adwords and Internet Marketing Strategies

Using internet marketing strategies for businesses can enhance the branding of your company and attract more customers to your website. If you are a novice trying to learn the tricks of the trade, there are certain important internet marketing tips and rules that will be extremely beneficial to effectively promote your business. Most business owners that use Google Adwords feel that they are getting the best ROI for pay per click advertising. However they spend no time making sure that their web site has been optimized for search engines and high conversion ratings.

To start with, a beginner must first familiarize himself with the basic marketing systems. Give yourself sufficient time to learn the system and devote yourself to one system at a time instead of jumping from one system to the other. Once you have learned the system, try to implement your capabilities and skills using the system. One of the most important internet marketing strategies for businesses is writing appealing sales copies. This could be done by outsourcing your work to professional copywriters. But in order to save costs, you could learn the art of writing sales copies and do it yourself. Article marketing is another well known technique that you need to master to promote products by posting articles to article directories. Although a time consuming and tedious practice, this happens to be one of the recommended internet marketing strategies for businesses to succeed. What is most required here is to ensure that the articles contain quality content that is useful to the reader and generates publicity for other potential users. Don’t spend all of your marketing dollars on Google Adwords if you want to really attract a wide array of customers to your web site or landing page. With the money you waste on pay per click you could easily expand your marketing reach to thousands of new consumers.

Besides, having a web marketing plan greatly helps in promoting your business online. You also need to adopt an effective web design and development strategy. All internet marketing strategies for businesses aim towards increasing traffic to your website and increasing revenues. Practicing good search engine optimization techniques and getting a higher ranking in search engines can grab the attention of potential customers and divert increased traffic to your website. Once the customer accesses your website, the next stage is to devise means to sell him your products or services. This can be made possible by publishing articles or getting listed in news stories. Writing and publishing online press releases are also one of the internet marketing strategies for businesses.

Blogging is a tested and tried internet marketing strategy. Blogs when created and constantly updated with information that is relevant to consumers can have huge impact on your sales activity and gives great opportunity to the marketer to present his ideas and information on the internet. Including a blog to your website is in fact an ingenious way to improve your SEO rankings. Thus, by adopting these internet marketing strategies for businesses, you can completely change the way business is conducted and bring about increased revenues.

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Dominating Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube in 2010

So we keep hearing about the rise in social media marketing and the staggering numbers of consumers using social media on mobile phones. The reality is that the new consumer is more mobile and cost conscious than ever, and they share everything with their friends. Sadly enough, for most business owners, getting involved in this marketing mix of tweets, fans, friends, and social media can be a headache. Before we get started lets touch on a few marketing statistics that these sites boast so effortlessly. While we’re at it, we will throw in a few new social sites that you may or may not be aware of as well.

Twitter

• now has 106 million users
• It’s adding 300,000 per day
• It gets 180 million unique visitors
• 75% of Twitter traffic is outside Twitter.com (mobile & desktop apps)
• users are doing 55 million tweets per day
• its search engine gets 600 million queries every day
• CEO Evan Williams said the new BlackBerry app led to 100,000 new users in just three days

Facebook

Youtube

• #4 Largest Site on the Internet
• #1 Largest video site on the web
• 300MM Worldwide Visitors a Month
• 100 Million Visitors per Month
• 5 Billion Video Streams Every month – 40% of all videos online
• (Do the Math – 5 Billion / 300 million worldwide visitors = 17 streams a month per person)
• 15 Hours of video uploaded every minute

Now for the two sites that you might not be aware of but should be using to promote your business: Foursquare and Groupon

Foursquare

(bring mobile users to your business)

• has more than half a million users
• 1.4 million venues
• 15.5 million check-ins
• and it’s still growing

Groupon

(coupons on mobile phones & web sites to attract customers)

• a new comer to social group buying
• businesses can offer discounts to bring in new customers
• 2.9 million visitors each month
• 8,198,911 page views per month

With all that being said, where do we start right? The beauty behind these five sights is that you can create a powerful on line too off line marketing strategy that can bring in new customers and build consumer loyalty all at the same time.

We start by targeting interested consumers who are looking for what you offer, either nationally or locally, and then help create messages to those individuals that will deliver the value of what you have to offer. Tweeting your mission statement or sales pitch doesn’t work anymore so keep those on your web site or throw them out the window.

Next we help you engage with new customers and get them walking in your door or calling your phone to get more information. If you want to create a email list of interested consumers that you can email every month, then we can help with that as well.

Still not convinced?

How about this little piece of information? You DO NOT need a web site! If you already have one then we can work with you on making it better and help it co-exist with your social networks.

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Future of Marketing is Now

The net is growing so swiftly that what is innovative one minute is ancient information the next. You can in reality notice this phenomena practically play out before your own eyes. Log into your Twitter account and observe headline after headline be forced even further down your screen as brand new ones are fed out almost by the moment.

The manner by which the internet has evolved has brought about significant adjustments in the means that business and internet marketing is practiced. Online marketing and advertising has shown to be far more effective and cost effective than industrial media promotions due to the fact of the total amount of time that individuals now consume on their portable computers. Certainly, a company is not taken seriously if it does not have a quality web site and are unable to be reached via the Internet. So what this also signifies, however, is that simple marketing can be done by anyone who has an above average understanding of the web. It has also contributed to a remarkable number of very uninspired marketing efforts along with far too many scams. It is ironic that we don’t trust a company if they do not include a site on the Internet, while at the exact same moment we are unusually suspicious of the web. The Internet offers an extraordinary variety of information, but it is usually very difficult to tell how reliable the sources are that it comes from.

Now that everyone has grown to be much more mindful of how the Internet can be abused, internet advertising has passed into a cycle of limited progress. It has become common place, we are left feeling luke warm about the majority of it. So what is the next step? How do we re-focus our attention in order to cut through all the buzz and find something that is essentially of importance?

The Graham Marketing Group believes it is time to develop a hybrid marketing method that strives to engage the relationship between online marketing and person-to-person customer conversation. What the large majority of online marketing is missing is generating a customer experience, thereby forfeiting the possibility of developing an psychological relationship between the customer and the product. The Internet can be quite impersonal because of the ability one has to be nameless or invisible. For that reason it is challenging to achieve a trusting relationship with the customer, and less likely that they will build up any sort of respect towards your company or product.

We have recognized recently that there has been an increase in the amount of people that arrive to businesses through the Internet, but then want to make a personal connection before going forward with any kind of purchase. Apple is an exceptional illustration of a organization that produces a comprehensive experience for their customers. Apple sells a lifestyle as well as a product and they work hard at perpetuating this image through their stores, web sites, television and print ads. More companies need to supplement their online marketing tactics with something tangible for the customers to grab a hold of.

This kind of integration of online and in-person marketing is the future of the market.

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The 5-point Lean and Mean Marketing Plan

Minimize participation in the expensive and fading in results media…newspaper and yellow pages. Shift those dollars towards:

1. Have an Internet strategy check up. Be sure you are prepared going forward for the growing importance of the Internet. Your website…Search engine optimization (SEO)…email campaigns…video marketing…social media…etc. Be sure you have a superior website/internet strategy in place.
2. Optimize your web site to be found by search engines and use article marketing and local search tools from Google to attract local consumers.
3. Be sure branding is a part of your strategy. This can be accomplished quite well using broadcast media. Consider using one of the most inexpensive ways to brand your business with local Radio.
4. Generate leads and sales for your business with Direct Mail. One of the most effective…targeted and inexpensive ways to do this is with RSVP Postcard decks. Generally mailed for about a nickel per home. Targeting the top 20% who spend 80% of the dollars on goods and services.
5. Event marketing. Again one of the more inexpensive ways to get your business out in front of people and generate new customers by being able to have face-to-face interaction.

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How Businesses are Using Video Marketing in 2010

There are still debates going on about how business owners can use social media marketing, but the number of CEOs using social media to engage customers is still very low, even among technology companies.

In 2010 it seems that businesses have either grown comfortable, or have been forced to accept sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare.. For instance, there are many impressive CEOs using Twitter to reach out to consumers by creating a personalized touch to their business. Tweeting CEOs like Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Guy Kawasaki of Alltop are well-known for their successful social presences and large followings as a result.

There is more to the buzz than just Twitter and Facebook, and you can see this in action by watching how business owners are using video marketing. We took a look around the web to see how CEOs and founders are leveraging video to educate and engage consumers.

Once again, we found that the number of executives active in the web video space, as in the social media space, is quite small. But for those business leaders taking an active role, we’ve uncovered some great successes. Here’s a collection of 9 CEOs and founders leveraging web video to promote their unique businesses.

1. Tom Dickson, Founder & CEO, BlendTec

Tom Dickson, Founder and CEO of BlendTec, an appliance production company that specializes in blenders, host’s his own Youtube channel – Will It Blend? In the series, Dickson tests his blenders on everyday items to see if they will blend. Popular items that were blended include an iPhone, a vuvuzela, and an iPad just to name a few.

Dickson’s YouTube series is a massive accomplishment. With just over 100 videos submitted, total video views presently total almost 131 million. We’d be shocked if that level of visibility wasn’t affecting the bottom line.

2. Gary Vaynerchuk, Founder, Winelibrary TV

Gary Vaynerchuk is the founder and host of Winelibrary TV, a daily wine video blog in which Vaynerchuk reviews wines and updates the world on the latest wine news.

Vaynerchuk uses Viddler to host his daily video messages, and he also maintains an established personal account on Viddler, where he uploads videos on social media, technology, and branding, among a range of other topics.

Business owners with large personalities should pay attention Vaynerchuk’s openness to be straightforward. He’s a straight shooter with an honest mouth. That’s what keeps his fans coming back for more.

3. Mitchell Harper, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform that provides on line stores for businesses big or small. Mitchell Harper, co-founder and co-CEO of BigCommerce, posts videos to BigCommerce’s YouTube channel around once a week, focusing on topics of interest to his primary market, e-commerce professionals. His videos take an educational point of view while maintaining a down-to-earth, yet professional tone. He says:

“I think it’s important to use a whiteboard to explain concepts, and it’s kind of become my trademark in the videos. I could use a proper studio but I want the videos coming off as genuine and not professionally made. Even when I make a mistake, I don’t edit it out, because I feel it takes away from the authenticity of the message.”

Harper appears to be adding value to both his community and business. Since launching the channel about six months ago, they have garnered nearly 420,000 video views.

4. Tim O’Reilly, CEO, O’Reilly Media

O’Reilly Media, a media company that publishes books, magazines, websites, and produces conferences on technology topics. With 1,000 videos and 2.5 million video views, the O’Reilly Media YouTube channel is a well-updated source for the business.

The channel frequently has speeches by and interviews with O’Reilly. We applaud O’Reilly Media for re-purposing helpful content that would have otherwise been lost in the great unknown.

5. Kevin Rose, Founder & CEO, Digg

Kevin Rose, founder and recently appointed CEO of Digg (Digg), a social news website, co-hosts a weekly video podcast named Diggnation, together with Actor Alex Albrecht, in which they explore the top stories from Digg. Diggnation currently has over 3.3 million video views, proving that promoting your business can sometimes be as easy as shooting videos that discuss what is happening in your community.

Rose also has fairly active personal accounts on YouTube and Vimeo, in which he posts on technology, travel and food, and hosts The Random Show with Tim Ferriss, writer of The 4-Hour Work Week.

6. Aaron Patzer, Founder & CEO, Mint.com

Aaron Patzer is the founder and CEO of Mint.com, and currently the vice president & general manager of Intuit’s Personal Finance Group, since Mint.com was recently acquired by Intuit (makers of the popular personal finance apps Quicken and TurboTax). One of the best contributions that a company can make to an online community is educating its users on how to use its products. That doesn’t mean you have to create hundreds of videos, keep it simple and to the point while providing value.

Mint.com’s YouTube channel does a great job of providing valuable information on how to use its products. With just over 20 videos uploaded, many of which Patzer appears in, Mint.com has gained almost 700,000 video views. Congrats to the Mint.com team for keeping it minimalist while still increasing video views. Their channel proves that quality always trumps quantity.

7. Pam Liebman, CEO, Corcoran Group

There are numerous real estate professionals diving into social media, and Corcoran Group, the biggest residential real estate firm in New York City, is on top of the pack. Corcoran has an in depth social media presence, and their video presence covers to YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv.

The videos showcase CEO Pam Liebman addressing issues posted by Facebook and Twitter followers relating to the state of the housing market and New York living suggestions. For example, in the video above, Liebman answers a question posted by Inman News‘ Rob Hahn via Twitter. These types of videos allow the Corcoran team to truly engage with potential customers, as well as showcase their expertise in New York City real estate.

8. Rob Banks (Co-Founder), BuildDirect

Rob Banks, Co-Founder of BuildDirect, a manufacturer and wholesaler of flooring and building materials, has a very active role in the companies marketing strategy. He is in hundreds of videos on BuildDirect’s YouTube channel, speaking about a variety of flooring and building materials. The videos occasionally also feature Jeff Booth, President and CEO of BuildDirect.

BuildDirect’s mission for the YouTube channel is clearly stated: “We want to educate, to entertain, and to let you know who we are as a group of people.” The occasional Pancake Day video certainly gives us a glance into their lively company culture.

Are you ready to put your company in front of potential customers with the power of video? Talk with us and lets get started before your competitors take the lead.

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South Carolina Business Marketing Presentation 2010

Interested in a quick overview of how we help with Internet Marketing? Watch the video below.

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