Serious Marketing Guide

Jenni Baty If you’re a small business, you know how hard it is to compete against larger, wealthier competitors. Indeed, today’s small businesses face a dilemma. While they need to sell their products and services as much as any Global 1000 company, many lack the marketing resources big firms take for granted. For example, large companies have highly aggressive sales people driving sales. These people contact customers and prospects regularly, reminding them of a product’s or service’s existence as well as its advantages and benefits. Unfortunately, many small businesses lack the resources to do this and employing other traditional marketing methods, like print advertising and direct mail, is not always financially feasible either.

To compensate small businesses must find a way to ratchet up their marketing communications programs. What’s needed is a dynamic, cost-effective way of marketing products and services, one that helps small businesses battle competitors and capture market share. The Internet has been a viable alternative marketing method for small business. Publishing a Web site is a proven way of selling one’s products and services, and an effective means of reaching a worldwide marketplace. In fact, it costs less to build a site than most people think, particularly when compared to the cost of rent for an off-line business. Web sites also offer benefits other marketing tools don’t, such as regular contact with customers and prospects and the ability to convey large amounts of information quickly and easily. In addition, Web sites offer consumers access to a company’s products and services twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, all year long. But Web sites have one major drawback— anonymity. Consumers are reluctant to buy from someone they don’t know. Other drawbacks include the possibility of misinterpreting the marketing message, the limitations in demonstrating product’s features, and the difficulties of incorporating customer service. Even adding e-mails to the marketing mix doesn’t always help. While email marketing is a cost-effective to send, easy to create, and fast to distribute, they’re often boring, making little impact on the viewer. And the proliferation of e-mails means that your marketing message often gets lost in the clutter. Video communications, which includes video e-mails, video streaming, and live Web casts, represents the next wave of marketing for small business. It’s proving to be so powerful it’s revamping the way businesses communicate with customers and each other. Simple and easy to use, video communications puts a human touch back into the process of communicating with consumers, enabling sales reps, consultants, and professionals to generate “face time” with consumers, clients, and businesses without spending a great deal of time and money.

It’s a win-win situation for all involved, and it’s proving highly effective for small business. Video communications is ideal where personal communications is an advantage. Even political candidates are using it to communicate with their constituencies. Howard Dean, for example, helped transformed the face of presidential politics by being one of the first candidates to harness the power of the Internet. Dean broke new ground by being among the first presidential candidates to use streaming video on his Web site to communicate broadly and successfully with American voters. One of the most effective uses of video communications is video e-mail, which the corporate world is quickly embracing. Once dismissed as a gimmick, video e-mail is now making in-roads into business communications. As the technology has been refined and costs reduced, Global 1000 corporations have begun using video e-mails to reach target audiences. Sheridan Square Entertainment, a New York-based firm, employs video e-mail not only for corporate interoffice communications, but also as a way for its artists to communicate directly with their fans. With offices in four U.S. cities, using video e-mail cuts down on flying time and its associated costs while generating awareness and visibility. Organizations such as the Miami Dolphins, DaimlerChrysler AG, and Eli Lily use video-e-mail for everything from internal announcements to market surveys. They also use the technology for sales training, public relations, customer updates, and product releases. Using video e-mails and adding streaming video to your Web site is simple and easy. In fact, it’s as easy as sending text e-mails, and cutting and pasting text. Most small businesses already have all the necessary skills to send video e-mails and post streaming video online.

And thanks to the emergence of video portals, offering video e-mail, video on demand, video instant messaging, and live Web casts, businesses now have a mechanism for sending video communications to buyers quickly and easily without investing a lot in additional software or computer equipment and without the platform incompatibility or long download problems associated with Windows Media Player, Real Player, or Apple QuickTime.

In addition, proprietary bandwidth protection enables videos to stream at the speed most appropriate to each viewer’s connection.

Video is a boon to business marketing. It provides small businesses with an economical yet powerful way to reach buyers. Delivering the impact of television, it generates higher click-through rates and increases brand recognition, as well as shortening the sales cycle. Simple and easy to use, video communications is the ideal way for small business to compete against firms with more resources. It gives them a powerful competitive edge that other businesses don’t have, and it’s becoming the accepted way of delivering personal rich media. More important, it boosts sales and profits. If you’re a small business, you can’t afford not to use video communications to market your company.

I see this everywhere and still cannot believe that people do not get it. Content is still king on the web. The most important thing you will ever do for your website is to put in good content. Great content will get you links and your position in the search engine results will be because of the content you put into your website. Hundreds of back links will not get you ranked well with poor content. Great content will get you good keyword positioning with or without back links, therefore, content is still the most important aspect of your website. Great design, flash, graphics, and a cool banner will not get you ranked well for your keywords and phrases. Great content will! Let’s first look at the content in your website. Images are great with alt tags. That helps. But it is the text on the pages that, when done correctly, will help your search engine results.

This text is also what will convert your customers into sales. This text is what your customers will read or not read based on it’s quality. This same text is what the search engines will analyze when they decide how relevant your WebPages are to the search phrase you wish them to send you visitors from. Now, let us talk about article marketing. If you know about article marketing at all, you know you will be submitting articles all over the web. The links in the author bio at the bottom return visitors to your website if they read and like the articles, you write or have written for you. Just having your articles in thousands of article directories is not the goal of article marketing, although there are article-marketing gurus out there who think it is. The goal is for webmasters to find those articles and place them in their blogs and websites. If they use your article, their website or blog is likely related to the same topic as your website. You are looking for these quality links. The links for just being in the article directories do not hurt you, but they do not help nearly as much as those from related websites do. Your other hope is that thousands of people read your articles.

Do you really want people to read poorly written articles and associate that poor quality with your website? Well-written articles get people to read them all the way to the bottom where your links are located.

Well-written articles reflect well on your website. If the articles are of great quality then likely your products and services must be great as well. The reverse is also true in the reader’s minds. If the articles are written poorly, then likely your products and services are of little or no value as well. It is not only about the number of keywords and phrases placed into the article folks. With all of that being said, I still find all over the web, especially at freelancer websites, people going in and saying things like; «I need 400 articles written for SEO and I’m willing to pay $1.50 per article.» Or they say something like; «I need someone to write content for my website and I’m only willing to pay $10 per page.» I really try to refrain from telling people they are, well . . . stupid, but I am finding it harder and harder each day when I read this stuff. They will spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have their website designed so it looks really pretty, but the text, the stuff that will actually get good search engine results and sales, they don’t want to spend any money on. Writers that know how to write text that not only is appealing to the reader, but that is also written with the keywords and phrases in mind, are worth being paid well. The moment you start hiring better writers and paying for text that converts sales, you will begin to be successful on the web.

That cheap content is not going to make you any money. A website that is beautiful but gets no traffic and sales may as well be an ugly website. An ugly website that ranks well in the search engine and that makes sales gets more beautiful by the dollar.

I have been in internet marketing for over ten years and have seen marketing techniques come and go. Some are still around and some are new and innovative.

Below you will find what I believe to be the best and most effective online marketing techniques. Article Marketing – Article marketing was and is one of the most powerful online marketing methods available. Not only does it do wonders for you and your business, it is free as well! Article marketing consists of writing helpful, informative, easy to understand articles that actually help your readers, not try to sell them something. Then you submit them to article banks, directories and ezine publishers. When your article runs in a popular ezine, it can do great things for your business. Writing articles is not as hard as you might think so give it a try. You will be delightfully surprised at how much it can affect your business. Remember: Don’t worry about fancy words. People are looking for help, not big words. Advertise in your resource box, not your article. Provide real, helpful info and resources, hot hype! Write from the heart! Let your personality shine through in your articles. Blogging – Blogging is a newer form of online marketing that just started becoming popular in the late 90’s. Blog is short for weblog and means an online publication in the form of a log or journal. Blogs can increase your customer base, your traffic and your search engine ranking, thus increasing your sales. Blogging can be done for free through such sites as: blogger.com wordpress.com and livejournal.com Be sure and update your blog regularly; everyday would be best as people like fresh content, ideas and information. Ezine Publishing – Ezine publishing has been around much longer than blogging and is far more effective, in my opinion. Your ezine needs to contain helpful resources and information, not just sales pitches. Develop a relationship with your readers. Let them know they can trust you and rely on you when they need your help. Things to remember when putting together your ezine: Keep it clean and easy to read. Limit your advertising and be selective. Always provide quality content and information.

Add your personality so your readers can get to know you.

Always provide contact info and be accessible. Be consistent; send your ezine regularly as scheduled. Be sure and proofread before sending it out. Online Networking – Online networking, as with offline networking, is very important to your business. This is when you connect with as many people as possible to learn more and share more about your business. Many leads can come from networking. There are several ways to do this online. Email Discussion Groups: Go to yahoogroups.com and search for appropriate groups. Message Boards: Be sure and follow the rules for posting and offer your help as much as possible. Social Sites: Such as MySpace.com, Ryze, Merchant Circle, etc. These can be great ways to make more contacts and get leads. Joint Ventures – This is when you enter into an agreement with another online marketer that will benefit both sides. Examples of joint ventures: Ezine Ad Swaps eBook Ad Swaps Subscription Page Ad Swaps Affiliate Programs Exchange Advertising for % of Sales and the list goes on and on. Be creative and come up with new ways you and your associates can help each other. Podcasting – Podcasting is using digital media files which are distributed all over the internet via syndication feeds.

Podcasting is still a fairly new way of online marketing and has great potential.

Podcasting can be powerful because it uses voice not written words to get the message across. Offer your articles, do voice interviews, offer a chapter in your ebook via podcast, etc. Again, use your imagination to create new ways to spread the word about your business. Ezine Advertising – Advertising your business, product, service, etc. in quality ezines can be well worth the money spent. There are a few things you can to to help you choose which ezines to advertise in. Do a search to find ezines that cater to your target market. For example: if you are advertising kids’ books, you don’t want to advertise in an ezine about cars. Once you find several targeted ezines, subscribe to them so you can look them over and see if the publisher is reliable in sending them out. You can also look over the other ads and make sure the publisher is selective in their advertising. You can possibly learn what the other readers think of the ezine as well. Try contacting the publisher to see if they respond to your email. Ask about testimonials from other advertisers. Find out how many ads they run per issue and what the costs are. You could also ask the publisher to do an ad swap to get an idea of what the response is like. Be selective in your choices and always code your ads so you know which ezines actually deliver.

I hope this article has given you some insight as to how to market your home/online business. I use several of these methods (and should be using the rest) and know from experience that they work! The possibilities with the internet are endless and we need to keep up with new and innovative ways of marketing ourselves and our business. And we need to keep using tried and true methods as well.

The creation of a newsletter is a serious decision because initiating one without the infrastructure and commitment to sustain it can wind up doing more harm than good.

Your e-mail newsletter, once launched, will create an expectation among recipients and if you fail to deliver on that expectation it could lead to a backlash as your customers cll your reliability or commitment into question. The infrastructure you need includes content sources, graphic sources, and the e-mail capacity to send the newsletter. The commitment is eased when you create a timetable that details when the content needs to be concluded, when the graphics need to be completed, and when the newsletter needs to be edited and then ultimately sent. In choosing your send date, you need to think about the other newsletters your readers are likely to receive and make sure that you do not become just one more newsletter in their inboxes. We recommend you send it during a time of the month when there is traditionally less traffic. For example, Tudog sends its e-mail newsletter at the end of each month because most of our competing newsletters are sent either at the beginning or middle of the month. We have found that this increases our readership by approximately 20%. The construction of a successful newsletter has 6 phases. They are: 1. Content The newsletter you send stands or falls on the relevance and quality of the content you incorporate. If your website is meant to entertain you content needs to be entertaining. If it is meant to educate, your content better be educational. Tudog does not believe in using the newsletter for self-promotional purposes, as we think that readers rapidly grow tired of reading commercials and self-serving material. There are other forums to engage in self-promotion. Your newsletter is a service to your customers and needs to be written from the perspective of what they need, and not from the view of how it can serve you. By having your newsletter serve your customers, it will ultimately serve you too. 2. Frequency You need to decide how often you are going to issue your newsletter. There are two primary considerations that need to make up the decision. The first is how often your customer base would engage you newsletter. If your sector is flooded with newsletters, you may conclude that there is an excess of reading material and that a quarterly newsletter is appropriate.

Conversely, you may notice that there is both an absence of other newsletters and a hunger for information, leading you to conclude that a bi-weekly newsletter would provide you with an excellent opportunity. The second consideration is your internal capacity. You do not want to create an expectation for a newsletter that exceeds your production capacity. How many newsletters you are able to release each month needs to be the underlying driver to the decision how often your newsletter is released. 3. Design How your newsletter looks is crucial not only because it represents your company, but also because it could determine how people receive the newsletter and whether or not they are drawn to read it. A well designed newsletter includes a clear delineation of all areas of content, integrated, relevant images, and an identity that is consistent with your company’s identity. It is important that you view your newsletter as an extension of your company and that its personality is representative of the image you transmit to your sector. 4. Database Your database is the list of people to whom you send your newsletter. Your list should be extracted from your client/customer base, prospective clients/customers, and your sector influencers. You should make sure that everyone receiving your e-mail newsletter either requested it or has a way to be removed from your list (clearly and easily marked in your e-mail). Your newsletter can be sent via snail mail, but the costs of printing and postage make e-mail a much more realistic and cost effective often. Using e-mail, you are able to send your newsletter as HTML, text, or in PDF format. You should select your format based on customer preferences. Tudog uses PDF after our inquiries indicated that our clients were most interested in receiving our newsletter in that format.

You clients/customers may prefer a different format, but it should be noted that the content, design, and frequency are not influenced by format. 5. Marketing Your newsletter needs marketing support so that it can reach out to a wider audience and better serve your company as a marketing tool. The support it receives can be as simple as being listed on your website (with a sign-up option) to advertising and special attention. Tudog markets its website by permitted reprints of our articles in magazines and other newsletters, drawing attention to the company, our expertise, and that our newsletter offers continuing exposure to the ideas and hints we publish. 6. Testing We recommend that you test your newsletter before you send it out to your widest audience so that you can benefit from the feedback of your test group and ultimately send out the best newsletter possible. You should select a random group of people (between 50-200) to send your newsletter to, alongside a brief questionnaire asking for reviews on your look and content. Once you have their responses and incorporate some of their comments, you will know your newer version is close to the needs and wants of your target market.

Your e-mail newsletter is an excellent way to reach out to and become meaningful to your clients/customers.

Embark on an e-mail newsletter only if you have the resources and commitment to sustain it. Done properly, it is a powerful and continuing tool for exposure and reinforcement of your expertise.