Showing posts with label internet marketing consultant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet marketing consultant. Show all posts

Saturday 6 October 2012

Five Ways To Spot A Bad Online Marketing Consultant

More and more people today are turning to the Internet to buy products, find local services or get information. Sadly, the number of people looking to exploit this fact has also grown. With this in mind, beware that if you are looking for an internet marketing consultant there will be a lot of dishonest people amongst the genuine professionals. The bad consultants will have very little real knowledge of the world of online marketing and will very likely charge you a lot of money but give you few results in return.



To help ensure you find the best service, here are five tips for avoiding the bad consultants:

Vague About Services: If a consultant uses vague terms to describe what they can do for you, be very wary indeed. Using ‘technical’-sounding language to talk about their services without actually telling the potential client in clear terms what they can do for them is a classic tactic of the charlatan. Another way to spot a chancer is that they will be reluctant to set concrete goals so it is hard to quantify what they have actually achieved for you. It’s a good idea, before you talk to them, to read up a little about internet marketing first so you can be ready for them if they try to blind you with impressive-sounded terms.
Wild Promises: If an internet marketing consultant tells you they can guarantee you number one search engine rankings, never hire them. It is extremely difficult, particularly in highly competitive markets, to achieve this position and it is never certain that you will be able to do so. True, it is easier in some niches where there is very little competition, but even in these cases it would be foolish and unprofessional of a consultant to make any such promises.
Cagey About Their Past: Be on your guard if the consulting company you are talking to is reluctant to give you any information about past clients. A good firm should be happy to provide you with references and also to show you examples of their previous work and where it has succeeded. If they can’t offer you this, how do you know if they have ever had any successes at all?
They Are Always Right: A good consultant will be keen to sit down and listen to what you want to achieve from using their services. Rather than tell you what you need without first finding out what your company does, they will want to adapt a marketing strategy to suit you. If they are reluctant to discuss any concerns you have, or make changes if you want them to, they are not providing you with the service you deserve.
They Won’t Talk Prices: This is so important: always, always agree on a fixed price for services before you sign any contracts. If, during early talks, a consultant keeps avoiding the issue of what their services will actually cost, run a mile! You can be pretty sure they are trying to avoid the issue and get you hooked so they can charge you over the odds and add plenty of hidden clauses to the contract so you end up paying far more than you should be.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Want More Leads at No Cost Extra to You? Enter Google Places


It used to be that when we wanted to buy something from our friendly local shop owner or dealer we’d automatically reach for the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local.

Now we Google it!

In fact, a recent survey of business owners by print company Vistaprint, revealed that only 11% of respondents would consider future advertising with Yellow Pages. How times have changed. A decade ago local directories were the first port of call for call for ready-to-buy consumers, now they’ve practically dropped off the radar.
On the other hand, if you’re in business, why would you pay for a pricey directory ad, when you can advertise your business to your local community for FREE? Because that’s exactly what you get with Google Places.
But my business currently appears on page eight of Google. How can Google Places help me?



It’s a well known fact that when searching for a national or international service or product, 80 per cent of us rarely venture past page one of Google’s search listings. In which case, if you’re listed on page eight, all your competitors more highly ranked than you are liable to gobble the lion’s share of the business.

However, it’s an entirely different outlook when people are searching for a local business. These ‘hot prospects’ are likely to be a whole lot more specific about what they are looking for and where. Say for example you run an Italian deli in the centre of town. The sheer nature of your business: fresh, seasonal produce, means in all likelihood you’d prefer your customers to be local.

Google Places is where your local customer base will find you easily. And your Google Places listing will be so much more effective than any ‘dry ad,’ because you can upload graphics, photos, videos, even animations, to provide your potential customers with all the essential information they need to make an informed decision on whether to trade with you. You’ll be able to upload pictures of your products, details of price ranges, customer reviews and testimonials and so much more. You will be giving your visitors the experience of a virtual visit to your premises – or in the case of our deli – a flavour of your business if you like!

Just over 97 per cent of all people with Internet access regularly use search engines and Google is the most popular search engine by far. As well as uploading your promotional tools, Google Places encourages the use of keyword-friendly tags that drive more business to your website, thus increasing its ranking.  If you are unsure you can always ask the help of an internet marketing consultant.

The beauty of Google Places is that it’s for business customers only, therefore your business search listing doesn’t get tangled up with all the normal ‘junk’ delivered in standard search results.
Google Places is still relatively new, so why not jump aboard now and gain a competitive edge, before your local rivals find it for themselves!

Friday 29 July 2011

Why Link Tracking is Important for Successful Internet Marketing

Once you have set up your internet marketing it is vital that you keep track of how it is working and if it is as successful as you require. This is mainly because it is not worth spending out money on certain types of internet marketing if they are not generating the sales that you need. Link tracking is the process in which you use software, website logs and other means of tracking to keep an eye on the response that you get.

How does Tracking Work?

These days there are a number of different methods that you can use to track links including services that will actually do the hard work for you; although these will cost you a small fee. However if you wish to do this yourself then services such as Google Analytics may help and can be a great place to get started before spending out money on paid services. In the main you will need to know a few details about the pages you are interested in such as a small piece of tracking code.



You could also try your own version of tracking by creating separate pages that are identical and giving them different names and then linking your various internet marketing pages to these. This is one way to quickly see which pages are being viewed the most and therefore which of your adverts are proving most effective at generating leads.

Why Track Links?

The main reason for tracking your internet marketing is to see how effective your campaigns are and therefore which to continue with and which may need some work. By tracking this information you can create better advertising campaigns in the future and know exactly how to appeal to your niche market. In the long run this can help you save a considerable amount of money on campaigns that are just not working.

So if you want to make your business successful and profitable you must track your internet marketing and find out exactly how many visitors you are getting. It may seem complicated and time consuming to begin with but the results will be worth it!
Or if you aren't sure then try speaking to an internet marketing consultant, they should be able to help.

Monday 16 May 2011

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Marketing

If you are looking at advertising your business then internet marketing is definitely the way forward. However there are a number of factors that you should consider before taking the plunge!

These days nearly all businesses will have some kind if internet marketing as it is fast becoming the most popular way to keep in touch with people. However the truth is that it is not always as simple as people may first think and it requires a lot of planning to make it successful. For example you need to make sure that you have realistic expectations regarding what you wish to achieve and then plan how you can meet these. One of the benefits to internet marketing is that it is a powerful tool and can really help put you on level ground with some of the larger businesses that are around.



1. Advantages

One of the main benefits to internet marketing and being online is that information about your business and any online shop you may have is available 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. It also means that customers from all over the world and not just locally can see what it is you do.

Internet marketing can be incredibly cost effective as the cost of sending emails is virtually nothing when you consider the quantity you can send. This will work out much cheaper then sending newsletters by post!

Another advantage is that you can update the subscribers that you have immediately via email. Any visitors that click on to your website will also have the most up-to-date news and offers; providing of course that you take the time to update this regularly!

2. Disadvantages

Of course online marketing is not completely free and you will need to factor in the cost of software, hardware, and designing and maintaining your website. The more of this you can do yourself the cheaper it will be.

Not everyone will want to buy online or for that matter will have a computer so you will still need to pay care and attention to other forms of offline marketing.

There is a great deal of competition within the business world and especially during the current economic climate. You will therefore need to make sure that all of your internet marketing such as websites, adverts etc all rank highly in searches. To help you with your internet marketing an internet marketing consultant will be able to provide the resource and assistance you need.

Wednesday 30 March 2011

Using Google AdWords to Increase Traffic to your Website














If you have been trying to find ways to increase your internet marketing then you may have considered using Google AdWords. Essentially this is a way to help you increase the volume of traffic you receive on your website and can be an incredibly useful tool.

1.Quality Scores

You may notice that the phrase quality score is used but if you are new to internet marketing you may not understand what this means. The areas that are key to having a good quality score are the relationship between your keyword and your advert, the performance of your keywords, the quantity and quality of content related to your keyword on your site and how long visitors spend looking at your site.

2.Keywords

The keywords that you choose for your content are incredibly important so it is vital that you give this area care and consideration. These can be a single keyword or perhaps even a phrase, whatever you select will ultimately depend on the nature of your website and home business. You may be able to carry out free keyword research by using one of the many websites available which can help ensure you select relevant keywords.

Other ways to help increase internet marketing traffic to your site include offering one or more of your competitors an incentive to direct traffic your way or purchasing exit traffic from another website.

3.Check your Ads

If you have placed an internet marketing ad then it is vital that you check on this to see how it is performing. You can use one of many online tools to help track this and check to see the rank of your keywords. This is important since you may discover that your approach is not as effective as it could be and you can therefore make changes as appropriate. Keep in mind that Google will often let you know your average position so there is a chance that your ads could rank well in one area and but low in others.
Online advertising can be expensive if not managed and targetted. An internet marketing consultant can help you to set up an account and show you the best ways to manage your account.

Sunday 13 March 2011

Internet Marketing Helps You Get New Clients

How can you be sure that internet marketing will help you find new customers and help your business grow in a way you can support? Read on for some information that could help you shape an effective internet marketing campaign for your business that provides great return on investment in a way that your infrastructure can handle.

Research

Researching your market can help you find out which gaps you could fill for consumers. Researching your competitors can help you find out what gaps to fill so that you can increase market share --- wooing prospects away from competitors because you've created a better value added proposition.
Research can also help you formulate an effective strategy for dominating the internet in a way that brings about an excellent return on your financial investment and on the sweat equity you put into the process as well. That research can also help you prepare your business for an influx of new orders.

Testing

Once you've determined how to move forward with your internet marketing plan, testing is important. Running some split tests could help you carefully plan for the future and do so in a sustainable way. Controlled growth and controlled expenses are going to be important. Don't skimp on testing before rolling out a large and expensive marketing plan. You may want to start smaller scale and get more aggressive as you start to see return on that investment.

Analysis

Analysis of your internet marketing campaigns can help you figure out where to invest going forward. Analysis can help you formulate new plans to expand and improve on a continuous basis. Analysis can help you determine whether the plan and / or the professionals you're working with are doing a good job for your company.

Expanding Your Horizons

Don't get too stagnant. Your business direction should continually evolve, as should your internet marketing plan. Is today's plan bringing you new customers? If not, it's time for a change. Once your marketing efforts bring you five new customers a week, ramp up efforts so it brings you ten. As you expand your customer base, make sure your business infrastructure evolves to be able to support the volume boost. If it seems to daunting to continually expand on your own, don't hesitate to hire a professional. Controlled and careful growth in your marketing efforts as well as careful and controlled expansion of your business could result in a well balanced company balance sheet!

Tuesday 1 February 2011

How an Outsourced Marketing Professional Can Help You Identify your Company's Marketing Problems

When you realize that something is wrong with your marketing efforts but are not sure what it is, an outsourced marketing consultant can help. As the owner of a small business, you are likely too close to the problem to accurately identify your marketing problems. Sometimes, it could be a simple fix while other times may require a major overhaul of your marketing ways. An outside perspective may be just what you need.

Problem Identification
Your salespeople may believe that your prices are too high while customers may not realize that you have multiple product or service lines. Maybe you feel that your business is not targeting the right demographics or geographical area. The first step in solving your marketing problems is identifying the cause. An outsourced marketing professional will bring the perspective you need to accurately identify the problem or problems.

A consultant will use consumer research, if there is any, to help identify the cause. However, they will also meet with you and your staff and perhaps even vendors and faithful customers to brainstorm so that the cause can be narrowed down. Typical causes include lack of brand recognition, market shrinkage, not enough employees to carry out marketing duties and loss of current customers. Your small business may not have a consistent marketing plan or even have one at all. Attracting the wrong customers, a lack of marketing presentation such as brochures or product flyers, and inability to communicate effectively with consumers are additional problems that can be resolved.

Problem Solving
Working together with you and your staff, along with input from vendors and faithful clients, the marketing consultant can pinpoint several key areas where improvements can be made. They will study other businesses in the same industry or niche to see what works for them and what does. With their overall marketing knowledge, a game plan can be created.

When a workable plan, with action steps is established, it will be easier for you and your company to follow through. This plan of action also is a good way to track your progress. When you employ a tactic that doesn't work, you can revisit the new marketing plan and tweak that particular actionable step.

The bottom line is that all too often, small business owners are simply too close to the problem to identify it. It takes the perspective of an outsourced marketing professional to bring the problem or problems to light. Without problem identification, you cannot develop an actionable plan to turn things around.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Your Internet Marketing Consultant - The Key to Your Online Success?

Successful small businesses owners don't always get to the pinnacle of success on their own. In many cases, because they're a small company, they don't have the manpower that larger companies have. Many small business owners don't have the resources to increase their staff permanently and many don't always have the marketing knowledge and expertise to help themselves. A good solution is to hire contractors and consultants to help them.

One area that business owners or entrepreneurs might seek help with is with their infrastructure and their growth. A consultant could help a small company succeed in many ways. Hiring an internet marketing consultant, for example, could help you take your moderately successful business to the next level of success. If your business is failing or flailing, an expert could help you strategise and execute a plan of action to turn things in a better direction. If you're just starting out, a consultant could help you hit the ground running.

Hiring someone in a mentoring role could be just what you need. Instead of hiring a permanent employee, a consultant allows you to hire a seasoned expert either temporarily or in a specific capacity. This can be a symbiotic relationship,

Help for Start-Ups
Let's say you're just starting out. Whether you're experienced with the internet or not, getting help could be detrimental. There are many important facets to your internet marketing strategy. The consultant can help you with web design, search engine optimisation, paid advertising campaigns, gathering market intelligence, product launches, social media optimisation, reputation management, and more. They can also help you analyse your campaigns so that you can achieve optimal results and maximise our marketing budget.

Let's say you're already established but want to fix something that's broken or want to grow your business. An internet marketing consultant can help here, too. A professional can help you ascertain where improvements could be made both to your internal infrastructure as well as to your online efforts. Maybe some website tweaks, a new focus, a direct mail campaign, or another area could help you jumpstart efforts or regain lost market share.

So many different factors could be hampering your success. Maybe you know just what is standing in your way and maybe you're at a loss. In either case, an outside expert could be just what you need for perspective and for guidance on how to get from where you are to wherever it is that you want to go.

Which Steps Are Vital to Take for Internet Marketing Success?

If you want to succeed in business on the internet, marketing is vital. There are many facets to internet marketing. Which ones are the most important?

There's no right answer to that question. This is a subjective topic and because the internet is very open source, there is no right or wrong answer but here is some information from a marketing consultant about several vital steps that could help you increase your chances of online success:

Do Your Research
Before you embark on an internet marketing campaign, doing a substantial amount of research is essential. You'll want to research your market, your competition, your audience, and review information to help you define a search engine marketing and / or pay per click advertising strategy. If you can't do the research yourself either due to lack of expertise in this area or lack of cycles you could hire an internet research or consultancy firm to help you.

What's important from a research perspective? Whether you do it yourself or get some help, keyword analysis is important. Analysing your competition will help you as well. Looking at various social media strategies can provide a wealth of info and gathering general business intelligence will pay off in multiple ways --- helping you define, strategise, and execute a campaign that will work.

Analysis
After you've defined and executed your web marketing strategy, ongoing analysis will tell you what's going well and what isn't going so well. Info gathered for internet marketing campaigns can help you with improvements and can also help you fuel future campaigns as well.

Reputation and Relationship Development & Management
Work to develop a great reputation online. Establish yourself as a professional and establish your company's presence as one that believes in customer experience, value, and service.

Online success needs more that just development of a reputation and / or a brand. It also requires that you nurture relationships. Social marketing is a two way street. So is blogging. Customers are looking for value and this can help to establish trust. Nurturing online reputation and relationships can equate to trust and success in gathering subscribers and followers to your website. Those subscribers and followers could become future clients and sources of word of mouth referrals.

Again, there are many facets to internet marketing and taking a step at a time can help you success. Regardless of whether you're embarking on a campaign on your own or getting help and whether you're new to this or not, taking steps toward increasing your online presence is exciting and can pay off huge dividends.

Saturday 22 January 2011

A Marketing Consultancy Plan is a Necessity For a Business to Succeed

A marketing consultancy plan will help to ensure that your business is moving forward toward meeting your goals. Such a plan will outline a step-by-step guide designed to get your business, and your brand, out in the forefront of the people's minds that are likely to follow through. These targeted people are those most likely to convert to sales for your product or service.

Your Marketing Plan Needs to be Assessed Frequently

There are a number of proven tactics that can be useful when you are trying to market your brand. It is best when your approach to promoting your business includes a number of angles that are designed to target your potential clients. A truly effective marketing strategy means taking stock constantly to determine which efforts are successful and which efforts need to be tweaked in order to help your business to meet the goals you have set for it.

By working with a marketing consultancy firm, you will be assured of having their expertise in business working to your advantage. Your entire marketing operation will be analysed to order to provide you with the best plan to garner your business more attention. You will be given a plan of recommendations that, when implemented, will net you an increase in traffic to your website and follow throughs on your calls to action.

A Full Service Marketing Plan for Your Businesses

Many companies who offer marketing recommendations understand that you might not have the time or knowledge to implement their suggestions. For this reason, a company might offer a package deal that includes suggestions to promote your business as well as some implementation of the services recommended. This arrangement would be a good choice for the busy owner of a small to medium sized business.

In fact, an arrangement of this nature ensures that you are able to concentrate on those aspects of your business that you know best while leaving the promotion of your business, and the implementation of those services that are specifically targeted to your clients, to the experts in that field.

When a marketing consultancy plan includes such items as fresh content for your website, email campaigns, and social media blitzes, you will likely not have the time to give these items the attention they need in order for your business to reap the full rewards. Indeed, attempting to market your business can almost seem to be a full time job in itself.

Marketing Consultancy is a Must For Every Business

Marketing consultancy services can benefit every business, regardless of its size and industry classification. Without the help of marketing professionals, a business is essentially selling itself short and typically at greater risk of not living up to its highest profit potential. With a majority of all businesses, profit is the name of the game.

Consultants understand that every business is unique. Therefore, they work with every client on an individual basis to help them meet individual goals and objectives.

Since an Internet presence is now almost as important as establishing a good relationship with brick-and-mortar based customers, these marketing firms are well versed in online marketing strategies as well.

Looking Into the Future

A good marketing consultancy firm doesn't proceed with creating a plan without asking the business owner to look into the future and determine where they want to be within a certain timeframe. The best results are achieved when a marketing plan is based on long-term goals instead of just the immediate future.

At this point, if the same business owner has never really taken the time to realise his future business goals the consultant will be there to make suggestions and help develop the best plan possible.

A Major Benefit

A major benefit, perhaps the most important one, of this type of consultancy is the fact that business owners can concentrate on other aspects of their business while the consultant continues to develop and execute their marketing plan.

This is especially beneficial to new business owners who do not know the "ins and outs" of business related-marketing. It is much more practical and economical in the long run to have a professional take on the job so you can focus on your own core strengths.

Starting a new business is typically very stressful. Hiring a marketing consultant or consultancy firm is an excellent way to reduce some of that stress and help to ensure that the business is essentially on the right track, from day one.

Choosing the Right Firm

Choosing the right firm probably will not happen overnight. To be successful, marketing strategies cannot be taken lightly or put off until another time. Because there are many firms to choose from, this task may seem somewhat daunting. However, there is no reason to put it off. A professional firm will never have a problem sharing their portfolio or success stories with any business that inquires. Armed with this information, deciding on the best marketing company will typically be a much easier process.

Saturday 15 January 2011

Your Internet Marketing Consultant Needs to Be More Than A Motivational Speaker

Have you been searching for help with your online marketing? You may be wise to hire a skilled consultant who can help you unleash the true power of the web. Skills are important and internet marketing consultants should know their stuff. They can often articulate themselves well. But they need to do more than just "sell" you on what they can do for your marketing efforts. An internet marketing consultant needs to be able to demonstrate their expertise and show you real results as well.

Hiring the right person or company to help you with your website advertising and sales strategy is important. You want your business to grow and you want to receive a great return on whatever investment you need to make. Neither the most expensive nor the most inexpensive consultancy firm is necessarily the right firm for your goals, though. Take the time to find the right person for the job by being certain that they'll deliver more than a motivational speech about how wonderful it is to undertake an online marketing campaign. Fab that the consultant talks the talk; but can they walk the walk?

Online and Business Expertise

What sort of internet marketing expertise does this consultant have? Do they seem to know what they're talking about? Are they using cutting edge techniques for areas such as: article marketing, on page optimisation, off page optimisation, and web design? What's their business expertise like? Have they got any familiarity with a company such as yours?

Demonstrated Results

Does the internet marketing consultant have positive testimonials and a portfolio of work that shows that they can do what they say they're capable of doing? When it comes to spending money and to putting your business in the hands of someone else, you'll want to see case studies.

Guarantees

No internet marketing consultant can realistically guarantee the "moon", especially with unpredictable and uncontrollable factors in internet marketing but guaranteed satisfaction, increased search engine rankings, and demonstrable results are essential.

When choosing your consultant, you'll want to know that they know their stuff. You'll also want to feel good about their communication style. Motivational isn't bad but promises shouldn't be empty ones. The wrong online marketing approach could fall flat and result in a waste of your money. Or, even worse, it could result in harmful damage to your website's rankings and your company's reputation with customers and with search engines.

The right approach is important. A successful internet marketing consultant will work within the parameters of search engine guidelines and will work with both your business and your customers' best interests in mind. Have you been searching for help with your online marketing? You may be wise to hire a skilled consultant who can help you unleash the true power of the web. Skills are important and internet marketing consultants should know their stuff. They can often articulate themselves well. But they need to do more than just "sell" you on what they can do for your marketing efforts. An internet marketing consultant needs to be able to demonstrate their expertise and show you real results as well.

Hiring the right person or company to help you with your website advertising and sales strategy is important. You want your business to grow and you want to receive a great return on whatever investment you need to make. Neither the most expensive nor the most inexpensive consultancy firm is necessarily the right firm for your goals, though. Take the time to find the right person for the job by being certain that they'll deliver more than a motivational speech about how wonderful it is to undertake an online marketing campaign. Fab that the consultant talks the talk; but can they walk the walk?

Online and Business Expertise


What sort of internet marketing expertise does this consultant have? Do they seem to know what they're talking about? Are they using cutting edge techniques for areas such as: article marketing, on page optimisation, off page optimisation, and web design? What's their business expertise like? Have they got any familiarity with a company such as yours?

Demonstrated Results

Does the internet marketing consultant have positive testimonials and a portfolio of work that shows that they can do what they say they're capable of doing? When it comes to spending money and to putting your business in the hands of someone else, you'll want to see case studies.

Guarantees

No internet marketing consultant can realistically guarantee the "moon", especially with unpredictable and uncontrollable factors in internet marketing but guaranteed satisfaction, increased search engine rankings, and demonstrable results are essential.

When choosing your consultant, you'll want to know that they know their stuff. You'll also want to feel good about their communication style. Motivational isn't bad but promises shouldn't be empty ones. The wrong online marketing approach could fall flat and result in a waste of your money. Or, even worse, it could result in harmful damage to your website's rankings and your company's reputation with customers and with search engines.

The right approach is important. A successful internet marketing consultant will work within the parameters of search engine guidelines and will work with both your business and your customers' best interests in mind.

Thursday 15 April 2010

What Can A Marketing Consultant Help You With?

If you are considering hiring a marketing consultant to help with one or several aspects of your business, it may surprise you just how many areas a consultant can actually help you with. Some companies outsource all of their marketing needs to a company and some pick and choose specific campaigns or business areas to get help with. In any event, an expert consultant can help you grow and prosper in many different areas, such as some of the categories listed below. Design A marketing consultancy firm knows what sort of design elements will help you appeal to your audience as well as sell more. This applies to overall branding and to brochures and other printed material you hand out but it also applies as well to your organisation’s electronic design elements with your website and electronic adverts. Various elements of design will help you appeal to your customers and prospects and a marketing expert understands how to blend design, colours, fonts, and words to help you maximise your impact on your target audience whilst gaining brand identity. Public Relations Are you managing your reputation? What feelings are your customers left with in dealing with you? Public relations is a vital aspect of running a business. Relating to your public in the right way will help you acquire and retain customers. A consultant can help you develop a public relations strategy that utilises tools and resources that can help you succeed. SEO Paying attention to search engine optimisation is vital for any company looking to succeed in the 21st century. But you’re not an SEO expert. The thing is, SEO isn’t always easy for businesses to take advantage of. You need someone to help you optimise your website in both on-page and off-page so that you can attract the maximum amount of traffic for your marketing spend. SEO also allows you to get traffic with a small budget, versus pay-per-click internet marketing techniques, which can be more expensive. Growth Planning How do you plan to grow your business? A consultant can help you strategise so that not only can you grow but that you can grow sustainably. This can be achieved through uncovering new opportunities as well as cross-selling and repeat selling to existing customers. Hiring a marketing consultant to help you grow your business makes good business sense. There are experts that will help you reach your goals and who will offer guaranteed services that will help you immensely.

Thursday 14 January 2010

Doing Company Marketing Through Social Media? Get Info and Manage Your Reputation, too

How do you manage your online reputation? If you’re using social media sites to help you with company marketing campaigns, you should also consider using them to help you with your reputation management as well as data mining needs. Social marketing tools can provide a lot of valuable information to you about your customers, your prospects, what people think and say about your brand, and about succeeding online and offline. Using social media for business is an excellent step toward effectively marketing online. Many successful businesses use tools such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other such tools to reach people who use them in their daily life and those people, who could be customers might be interested in connecting with you through those tools. In fact, you can often use the tools to find new potential customers as well. A lot of companies use Facebook fan pages, post on a company Twitter account, and use social bookmarking services to help them draw attention to articles, blog posts, and press releases. More company marketing campaigns than ever use many of these tools to push out information. But some forget to use them to mine for information as well. Social Media and Data Mining You can gather business intelligence through these tools. Find out: • Who is linking to your site • Who is talking about your products and / or services (and what they’re saying) • Who might be a good candidate to market to, based on user preferences and keywords used You can also use these tools to build authority in your niche. By developing a list of followers and interacting with them, you can do a good deal of relationship marketing and the great thing about the venue is that everything you do can: attract new customers, improve your SEO (search engine optimisation and traffic levels), and help you increase your sales. Because social media tools optimise your site while real-time conversations happen, results can be surprising. Use these tools to talk to others, to find who to talk to, to learn what’s being said about your brand, you, and your industry, and even make direct sales as a result of a tweet, re-tweet, or social bookmarking ‘thumbs up’. Is it any wonder that so many companies use social media tools for marketing purposes? It’s important that you learn how to capitalise on these tools. Don’t jump in head first! There are “wrong” and ineffective ways of using social media. Getting solid advice about a good company marketing plan to launch will help you take advantage of the amazing free tools that are out there.

Thursday 10 September 2009

How Can An Offline Business Use Internet Marketing to Their Advantage?

Should bricks and mortar businesses use internet marketing techniques? Will they help you grow your business?



If you're an offline business, you might not believe that you need to do internet marketing. But if you don't, you're probably missing the boat on opportunities for growth. Even if you don't sell anything online, you can benefit from having an online presence for your customers and your prospective customers, too.

People who are your potential customers are probably searching the internet to find out where to get whatever it is that you are selling. People today use the web as their personal shopper. Even if they're looking for a taxi, a pizza shop that delivers, or a salon to get their hair done, they're looking on the Internet for phone numbers, addresses, and recommendations.

This isn't just happening with teens and young adults either. The largest demographic of shoppers for anything and everything that's for sale (products and services alike) are Mothers and the vast majority of Mums in the free world have a computer that they use as a time saver to help them.

They use computers to read product reviews, look for skilled professionals, and to read recommendations from other Mums who talk about what they buy and use. People in all demographics want to know who they're buying from as well so they like to research local companies for more information.

If you're doing internet marketing you're also going to take opportunities to communicate with your customers (and prospective customers) because you can use tools to remind people who you are and what you sell. Internet marketing techniques like newsletters, e-mail marketing, white papers, and other marketing tools can help you communicate continually with your clients and today's tools let you put that process on autopilot so that very little work needs to be done by you but with the result that you'll gain more exposure for your business and improve brand loyalty as well. If you're having a big sale, you can tell your customers. If you want to talk about a new product you're carrying, you can send out an announcement. You can create a blog for your website that lets you talk about what you sell and this can help you bring increased business to your doorstep.

Not only can you market to your existing demographic with the internet but you can also learn more about your customers through patterns and data related to your website. The internet is a phenomenal business intelligence tool.

Internet marketing is something that's not an exact science but it's something that you can definitely make headway with, especially if you get expert advice. This can come in the form of books, newsletters, blogs, and through internet marketing consultant services. An experienced internet marketing consultant can look at your business and help you create a marketing plan that suits your business model and improves your chances of growth, profitability, and success.