By teamsf
BIRMINGHAM, MI – February 19, 2010 (SMARTFINDS INTERNET MARKETING ) – Ongoing FREE webinars (http://www.smartfindslocallisting.com/webinar.php) entitled, An Introduction to the Benefits of Local Business Listings, are scheduled to take place. The webinars are being hosted by SmartFinds Internet Marketing, with two upcoming sessions scheduled for Wednesday, February 24th at 10:00 a.m. EST and Thursday, February 25th at 2:00 p.m. EST. The free webinars will provide business owners with an opportunity to learn the many ways that local business listings can positively impact their bottom line through local business marketing.
SmartFinds Internet Marketing is a metropolitan Detroit-based firm which provides businesses with Internet marketing services and solutions. SmartFinds Internet Marketing launched their SmartFinds Local Listing website to promote the benefits and details of their Local Business Listing Management Service offering. Information about the SmartFinds Local Listing can be found at http://www.smartfindslocallisting.com
An affordable local business listing package service, offered by SmartFinds Internet Marketing, helps business owners claim, update and mange their local business listing, while helping to reduce the cost of traditional yellow page ads. Local online business listings are free through the major search engines and display in search results, as well as on mobile searches. The additional benefits include adding coupons, offers, discounts, photos, videos while changing them anytime – which cannot be accomplished with a traditional-print yellow page ad.
SmartFinds Internet Marketing CEO, Melih Oztalay, stated “We are very pleased to share the benefits of Local Business Listings with business owners through these educational webinars. The benefits to businesses are incredible to be available to their local customers when the customer is looking for them while being around town with their mobile device. The fact that the businesses can also update their offers anytime gives the local business the possibility to adapt to market changes.”
Anyone interested in learning more about the ways in which business owners can use local business listings as an alternative to traditional yellow pages and to be more easily located by mobile local consumer may register to attend the upcoming webinar by visiting http://www.smartfindslocallisting.com/webinar.php). Attendees will leave this event with a solid understanding of:
· What are local business listings?
· How will our business benefit from local business listings?
· What is involved with claiming our local business listings at multiple local listing websites?
Questions should be directed to melih@smartfindsmarketing.com.
About SmartFinds Internet Marketing
SmartFinds Internet Marketing is a 2009 Michigan 50 Companies To Watch awardee. The most critical element of SmartFinds Internet Marketing services is the creativity and imagination to apply the technological aspects of the digital marketplace to the marketing objectives of a particular business. Initial research provides SmartFinds the ability to develop a digital strategy that can be measured every step of the way to insure business growth and revenue generation. Some of SmartFinds’ clients have included Delphi, Flagstar Bank, Guardian Industries, Soave Enterprises, Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau, McCann Erickson, Wendy’s and others. You can learn more about SmartFinds at http://www.smartfindsmarketing.com.
Contact: Esther Lastacy, 330 E. Maple Road, Suite 503, Birmingham MI 48009, 866.501.5758, esther@smartfindsmarketing.com.
By teamsf
The Internet has catapulted to the marketing scene fast and furiously. Once considered a budgetary “optional extra,” the Internet has since moved to the high priority list for serious marketers. As newspapers reduce publication or worse, close down – and as broadcasting audiences change, the Internet has grown in importance for marketing your business.
When it comes to the Internet as a new business marketing medium, it’s worthwhile to review the history. Most importantly, how history has affected marketing budgets. Changes in marketing were evolutionary from the 1920s until the mid-1990s. Print, like newspapers and magazines, were the primary mediums for advertising. Then, radio began to capture a share of the marketing budget. Television expanded from the three networks of the 1950s to cable with hundreds of choices. This expansion was steady but slow. Although budgets were adjusted to include the new mediums as each one arrived to the market, there was resistance by many to each of these media outlets.
Have you ever looked up the meaning of paradigm? It is used to describe a way of thinking or a body of evidence, and we use the words “paradigm shift” to describe a significant change of thought or strategy or a new reality.
When things are uncertain, some may think it is premature to consider tackling new realities. This thought may resonate with the attitude, “Why try something new? I can use the same methods that have always worked in the past, especially since these are methods I understand.” This conviction may feel comfortable for some period of time, but many people wait until they are forced to try something new and in many cases, it is too late.
The Internet is a good example of a medium one shouldn’t postpone using, as well as a medium that is not waiting for businesses to catch up. With changes occurring on the Web every month, by the time some companies finish a Request for Proposal (RFP) process, there are new strategies or processes for consideration. These new strategies and processes then change budgets that were not part of the considerations for the RFP or the responses.
The Internet changes and grows because input and ideas come from everyone. There are no limits as to who submits their knowledge and in part this is due to the barrier to entry is almost zero. Unlike traditional marketing mediums that required significant infrastructure, the Internet only requires a computer and a connection.
Some examples of these new strategies and processes would include social media, PowerPoints, and video. In 2006 Social Media was limited to forums and blogs; however, by the time we got to 2008, we had MySpace, Facebook and Twitter to name a few. Video on the Web had been steadily been growing for a number of years, but became more popular with YouTube. PowerPoint communities which allow you to get your message out to the Web community have not totally caught on, however, they are increasingly growing as a good resource to get your message out.
We have to consider that the Internet basically has all of the three traditional marketing mediums within. Print, Radio and Video are all a part of the Internet, thus adding to the complication of budget considerations. The digital world also is supported through a variety of external hardware which includes mobile devices like laptops and iPhones. These mobile devices allow marketers to stay in touch with consumers no matter where they go.
Traditional media has always had an issue in giving clients adequate measurements to show a return on investment. Advertising was better than Public Relations, but neither gave concrete results. The Internet gives clients the ability of measuring everything from a news release to social media marketing. This includes not only traffic and sales to your Web site, but the viral nature of any content that is distributed (news, articles, banners, etc.).
As we budget considerations continue transitioning for some businesses, the Internet continues to grow rapidly. Those that embrace the change and engage the medium will get the benefits sooner. They will also be able to build upon their investments into the Internet medium, while others will have to catch-up at higher prices. Are you still considering how much of your budget should be for the Internet?
By teamsf
When you develop your business Web site, do you think about return on investment or how it will look? In the early 1990s, it was easy to ask a system administrator to develop a Web site. Back in those days, the Web site was mostly a brochure, and many didn’t necessarily focus on a call to action, the business brand, or the creative design. The 1990s did not require the sub-specialization needed for today’s successful Web sites.
When engaging in Web site development today, it’s critical to evaluate return on investment. In order to foster results and return on investment for a Web site development project, there are several elements which require consideration. In this discussion, we will not touch on the obvious creative development, but rather emphasize other process elements.
Brand Recognition and Strategy
How will your business name and brand interact with Web site visitors? What will these visitors take away from the Web site; and how will this strategy impact your marketing outside of your Web site later? (A very simple example that tends to be overlooked is your Favorite’s Icon for your brand, since this Icon may carry over into traditional print marketing pieces.)
Research, Strategy and Planning
Every page of your Web site has to be optimized differently and adhere to content relevancy algorithms of the search engines. Understanding how each page will be optimized is important to facilitate Web site marketing. You do not need to guess how to do this, rather use various existing tools that will help you.
Competition and Competitor research helps determine why other Web sites are ranked before yours and how to plan the development accordingly. Also, the ways in which competing Web sites are designed, how they flow and how their Web site metrics are performing will help determine what needs consideration in the planning process.
Subsequently, if every page is optimized differently then each page can become an entry point to your Web site. The impact this has significantly changes the content of each page of your Web site too.
Business and Creative Objective
This objective will determine how to develop the Web site flow. What is the call to action to get the visitor from the entry page to an information page to an action page?
Content Management Systems (CMS)
CMS gives you the ability to manage your Web pages without having know HTML code. It is an interface, in most cases, similar to using Microsoft Word. CMS uses a database and program infrastructure in order to give you this ability to present the Web pages to visitors. To use CMS, a Web site may be prepared using templates and needs to be planned for current and future considerations.
In the above items, you will find that the disciplines needed for Web site development in today’s business environment cover:
1. Brand and Marketing Intelligence
2. Creative Design
3. Technical Programming, Software and Databases
4. Web Site Assembly, Management and Maintenance
We have seen many times where clients expect their Web developers to have the knowledge and experience to plan around Web site that has results. While some developers possess this capability, unfortunately, the time and discipline required to understand these aspects are not necessarily a part of the average Web developer. Sometimes clients and Web developers have a mis-communication or misunderstanding around the expectations of the realistic results that could be better managed with the appropriate skill set.
As we think about business Web site development, we have to realize the project is not only a minimum of 3 months from start to finish, but also plan around the expected results and return on investment. You are no longer developing a brochure, but a business tool that will help generate revenue. Does your Web site perform to your business objectives?
By teamsf
We learned recently that information submitted to the micro-blog, Twitter.com, does not continually remain on Twitter.com. Since postings on Twitter are eliminated over time, then Twitter may not be considered an effective long- term content marketing tool for your Internet marketing strategy. Instead, it might better fall into the category of short-term Internet advertising.
The general concept of Content Marketing is to post information throughout the Web in such a way that the work being performed will have a shelf life of years. Information posted on the Internet, for the most part, requires labor. Nothing is very automated about this posting process; yet, the significant benefit is the ability to garner traffic from these postings through a variety of sources over the long term. Content Marketing tasks can be reduced after time and even after these efforts are reduced or ceased, you should still continue to see viral benefits.
If we compare this to Internet advertising, the general routine is that as long as you have money for your an ad, the ad will help drive traffic to your Web site. If the money stops, then the ad disappears and the traffic from the ad stops.. For this reason, Internet advertising does not have a shelf life and is generally a short term response. Internet advertising is not very labor intensive.
Twitter, on the other hand, appears to be a labor intensive social media marketing tool which requires ongoing labor to maintain a presence with your posts. For something considered to be a “blog” of sorts, we have to wonder if this process really benefits a content marketing strategy.
As an example, in our Twitter account we saved two different searches. One for our company name “smartfinds” and the other for a very popular article we wrote about the “court of the people”. Both had postings indexed by Google and we could see the number of interested Twitter members grow. Unaware that this information may come down from Twitter, we did not pay close attention, onlyto occasionally check our saved Twitter searches.
Recently, we checked these saved Twitter searches and found they all had zero response. This was quite a surprise for a labor intensive process. The Google indexed pages are still intact; however, they link to a blank Twitter page without the content. This would not benefit us with Google searches and eventually Google will remove the listings as well.
Our recommendation is for Twitter to re-consider its policies and keep postings for content marketing purposes. Twitter currently acts as a short term response Web site for current activity. This and relationship building can be accomplished from a variety of other sources on the Web where the content continues to stay. Without any long term benefits of the posted information, why would one want to Twitter as part of a viral content marketing strategy?
By teamsf
In an age of constant noise of information, how can any company expect to cut through and reach consumers in a meaningful way to become a trusted brand? The answer may seem a bit strange, but to cut through the noise of information you will need more information? Yes, more information!
It may seem counter intuitive to fight the noise of information by adding to what’s already out there, but information’s is among the most valuable tools in any marketing strategy. And in order to deliver effective information, you have to listen first. What is the market saying about your industry, your products or your services? Understanding through listening will help you target your information to meet the market interest.
In fact, listening is the basis of trust in relationships, be they business or personal. Listening enables you to determine what information will be most valuable and relevant to your customers. That information, then, becomes the key to building trusted relationships. Listening is accomplished through research from everyone about keywords being typed into the search engines to discussions in forums and social communities.
The new marketing isn’t about self-promotion; it’s about giving customers what they need to become educated consumers. This is the age of:
- Information marketing,
- Education marketing,
- Content marketing
If you want customers to see your brand as a trusted information source, you need to think like an information provider, not just a provider of goods or services. By empowering customers with relevant news and information, a company becomes one-half of a trusted relationship.
So, what are some methods for you to distribute information through content marketing on the Internet? First we would recommend reviewing a previous post on our blog related to Content Marketing here. Content Marketing is not directly about your website, but rather what is happening overall within your business and industry sector. This is a communications art and outreach effort that does not involve direct selling, but is rewarded with sales and loyalty. Content Marketing is a supportive method of selling via quality, relevant and valuable information which:
- Educates your customers
- Shows your authority in your field
- Allows prospects to find you through multiple sources
Your brand is what people read about and talk about online. Isn’t it better to be part of shaping the conversation?
By teamsf
The Internet went “boom” right around 1995. Why did the Internet become increasingly accessible and desirable around 1995? There are a variety of reasons. For one, people became more comfortable using the Internet because it started to have the more familiar ‘look and feel’ of television. Also, Windows 95 helped make the process of getting an Internet connection easier. The old days of the Internet only being text and then, moving to something more visually appealing was certainly a big factor.
People who were aged 10, 15 and 20 years old in 1995 are today aged 24, 29 and 34 years, respectively. If we think about today’s 24 to 34 year olds, we realize they all grew up with the Internet as an integral part of their life. In addition, this age range is now, on average, in the beginning of their career or in middle management in their career. Certainly, this target audience is a key market segment and reaching this digitally-minded group requires a strategic, digital approach.
A business executive of any “C” level will likely delegate to this age range, or employee level for vendor research on a particular service. This age range is not likely to look in the yellow pages, or a traditional hard copy trade magazine, or necessarily be enthusiastic about a direct mail piece. The more likely sources for the vendor service research by this age range will include:
- Search Engines using keywords
- Social Communities (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook)
- Their peers on the Web looking for feedback
When the initial research is complete; and they have made contact for a proposal, their recommendation(s) to the executive will come from what they were able to find on the Internet. If your business is not engaged on the Internet beyond having a brochure Web site, you may find it difficult to get in front of this audience. Internet marketing is not only about having a Web site, but also engaging the Internet community through content marketing.
Content marketing is about distributing your information by posting (not advertising) a variety of types of electronic information. This will include articles, news releases, videos, photos, podcasts, e-newsletters, and social community marketing to name a few. It is a process that uses editorial content as a means of advertising. It is a process that shows you are an authority in your industry through a variety of locations on the Internet.
The three factors that will help get you in front of this age range will include the following. (Please keep in mind there are many details associated with each of the three below. We are presenting a summary of these items and can further describe details if you wish to send to us a DM (“direct message”, a Twitter acronym).
Visually Appealing Web site
The visual appearance of your Web site will need to have current design and technology built within to grab the attention of this age range. Certainly the flow of your Web site, along with the structure, layout, features and functionality need to be included too. If your Web site has not been updated in some time, you may wish to look into developing a new site. Please consider having a new Web site developed, not a new brochure. Engage the audience.
Technically Effective Web Site
In order for your Web site to be ranked organically for keywords being searched, you have to achieve a Web site that is technically effective. Insuring your Web site code is W3C compliant will be a good start. Server files along with proper header tags in your HTML code are also important. Follow this with content relevant pages for the search engines in which the meta data and the visual text work together.
Content Marketing (your outreach program)
In addition to the above description of content marketing, consider the following. Imagine going to the magazine racks in a book store. Now imagine an editorial feature or listing about your business within every magazine on the racks. Not just in a trade journal, but in every publication on the magazine racks.
Content marketing can help achieve this type of broad coverage on the Internet. When people search for terms related to your business segment, your ‘trade journal’ listing appears by having your Web site appear in the search results. The Internet’s trade journal is based on the search results for a specific term. For this reason, your content has to be distributed as widely as possible to increase the probability of someone finding your information – regardless of where they may be searching. Social community marketing is a type of content marketing and is included in this process.
If we change our paradigm and consider the “Internet boomer” audience as an integral part of our marketing strategy, we will increase the number of prospects our business will reach. We are also more likely to increase the geography from which our prospects will find us. The demographic that we need to target, as part of our marketing strategy, has changed. It is imperative for a business to change how it is reaching prospects. There is a reality that the traditional approach is not as effective as it once was because of this age range that has grown up with the Internet.
By melih
Considering that “Content is King” on the web, it’s important to gauge how wide of a net is being cast through your Content Marketing efforts. Is the content you are distributing of interest to the rest of the world? Does it have viral possibilities?
Perhaps your strategy is to circulate positive information about your company as a digital public relations tool. Or maybe you’re working to promote specific products and services. Whatever your objective, the starting point is the same: research. Your research will help ensure your content is found under the right circumstances, as well as angled toward the areas in which people are most interested.
Your Products and Services Strategy
When beginning the keyword selection process for a web site, many of our clients initially gravitate to words which they personally associate with their business. Their first response tends to be, “we are currently ranked number one for this particular term or terms.” As part of our early research, SmartFinds Internet Marketing identifies how many people are actually searching the term(s) – and more often than not, we find there are no searches – or not a very significant number of searches.
Of course, the more meaningful data comes from our identifying which types of term(s) are actually being searched relative to a client’s products or services. The old days of guessing which keyword term(s) will bring results are gone. All three major search engines and many other resources can help you zero in on viable keyword choices. Terminologies, monthly search volumes and number of competing web pages are all data points that are available.
Use this research when developing your content for articles and news releases – as well as postings for social media marketing. The research is also valuable in determining how to strategically tag and describe your videos and photos. Furthermore, your analysis will assist you with terminologies for your web site and in developing landing pages.
One interesting situation which raises issues is when the world is seeking your business products and services in one way, yet you want to be known in another way. The business focus will need to lean towards bringing the traffic to your web site; and then, educate the visitors towards your focus. One good example of this is “dental benefits” versus “dental insurance.” Most dental coverage is legally known as “dental benefits,” but the consumer market seeks this information out as “dental insurance.”
Using Content Marketing for Business Digital Public Relations
Business digital public relations are all about your company name and your company’s domain name. There is less research required in this process since both items are easily located. The process begins by going to the major search engines and typing your company name in quotes to see what the results display.
The questions to ask and answer about these results are:
- Are they positive or negative about your company?
- How much of this information is on 3rd party web sites?
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Ideally we are not looking for those listings on your own web site, but on others. Prospects are typically more interested in what is on third party web sites than what is on your own web site. (Similar to how a magazine article about your business might be of more influence than your company brochure.)
- Does the information support your sales team when they drop off a proposal with a prospect?
You may find that there are other companies that have similar names; or there is other information unrelated to your business creating content noise that does not support your business. Inconsistent information about your business or neutral responses will not support your sales team.
Take the next step in this exercise by entering a search of your domain name in quotes. We find that companies may have more information on the web about their company name and significantly less with their domain name link. It is imperative that the two reach similar volume over time in order to build the story around your business.
The idea now is to develop content around articles, news releases, videos, photos, social media communities that is all about your business name and with your domain name as the link.
Stay tuned to this SmartFinds Digest; and we will tackle benefits, measurement and search engine ranking effects of content marketing. You can visit our recent post about content distribution at this link.
For now here is an exercise you can perform yourself. Do you know how much information exists on the Internet about your business? Have you performed a search at the major search engines on your company name? What about a search on your domain name? Now compare that to your competitors. Tell us what you found!
By melih
You may have heard that “Content Is King” on the Internet. The statement is 100% accurate. The one with the most content and backlinks to their website wins. (The “and backlinks” statement is significant.)
Of course, developing and writing content is only the first step. Where and how to distribute your content is even more important! Consider this: If you post 1,000 content items on the Internet, but they are posted in a way that lacks viral capabilities, the reach will not expand and will be constrained within the 1,000 original websites. As a result, these content items do not provide much value. If, on the other hand, those same 1,000 posted content items virally find their way onto 100,000 websites, your business achieves a much bigger impact from the outreach effort.
Let’s dig into this process of content marketing. First, let’s define content marketing:
“The convergence of editorial and advertising using multiple formats that allows for viral distribution to raise awareness about your business and website.”
Content Marketing is not directly about your website, but rather what is happening overall within your business and industry sector. This is a communications art and outreach effort that does not involve direct selling, but is rewarded with sales and loyalty. Content Marketing is a supportive method of selling via quality, relevant and valuable information which:
- Educates your customers
- Shows your authority in your field
- Allows prospects to find you through multiple sources
There are a variety of types of content, including:
- Articles (informative and educational, not featuring your business)
- News releases
- Photos
- Social Media
- Videos
The above tends to have the most viral impact, however, additional types of content are as follows:
- E-Newsletters
- Powerpoint Slides & Presentations
- Podcasts
- Webcasts or Webinars
…So you get the idea that there are many other items which might be included as types of content
Unfortunately, the process of physically distributing content on the Internet is far from an automated task. Instead, the process is laborious. Many of our clients simply do not have the time and resources for this important outreach effort; therefore, they outsource the management of their content marketing efforts to SmartFinds Internet Marketing. For companies who directly engage in content distribution, it is typically something to pursue at regular intervals over weeks and months. Locating websites that accept your content, specific to your business and industry is not as important as casting a wide net on the Internet. Some distribution point categories to consider include:
- Article Networks
- Blogs
- Directories
- Forums
- News Networks
- Wiki Communities
- Photo Communities
- Video Communities
- …and many more
You will notice that many of the above are plural. Content marketing allows you to support your identity on the Internet and as such, acts as a public relations tool through a variety of distribution areas.
Stay tuned to this SmartFinds Digest; and we will tackle strategy, content development, benefits, measurement and search engine ranking effects of content marketing!
For now here is an exercise you can perform yourself. Do you know how much information exists on the Internet about your business? Have you performed a search at the major search engines on your company name? What about a search on your domain name? Now compare that to your competitors. Tell us what you found!
By teamsf
By now, many of us have heard about the Motrin ad that went up on their website this past mid-November. Certainly, the POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA was unleashed on the Motrin brand with cries of outrage and disgust from their primary audience. Only hours after it launched, due to the huge social media outcry, motrin.com was shut down for nearly a half-day. Although, the company took fast action, this goes to show how companies and brand managers need to be very keen to what is going on, at all times. Social media’s influence and broad reach demonstrates how word spreads quickly over connected networks of passionate people – like lighting, it can strike in a flash.
Times are indeed changing! Let me back this up with an interesting thought… quoting my colleague Gene Brady, who stated today on Twitter, “Could we be at the end of the Industrial Revolution? I read that since year 2002.. 3 million mfg jobs gone, & yet productivity up 80%!” There sometimes seems to be a gray area of productivity when it comes to social media. If used strategically, it is not only powerful, it is also necessary; Social Media is not going away or ending any time soon.
Today, I was searching Twitter for information about a major big three automotive company of interest and found an interesting thing happening. An individual tweeted about this particular company and apparently was not very geeked about the customer service while visiting a dealership. Within hours, this individual received a tweet from the Head of Social Media (of this very same company) in response asking if he could “help with any customer service issues.” Some people might “argue”, big deal this was only one person that he is addressing. However, the point is, if I saw it, how many others did too.
I too have been this irritated customer in the past… unhappy with customer service, sending emails to generic customer care email addresses found on the corporate site and days later receiving generic messages back apologizing. How powerful is that? That is more frustrating and counterproductive in my mind. This one single Twitter situation left me with a better feeling about this company and it wasn’t even my situation! Regardless, this major automotive company clearly understands the changing times, is being productive and utilizing the power of social media one tweet at a time!
Gene also twittered, “At any time in history, opportunities abound. Like…. right now!” I have to say, I agree!
By Doug Menzer, Social Media Director with SmartFinds
