Internet Marketing Tips, Tools and Strategies

Online Marketing isn’t just for large companies. Actually, because it’s so accessible, Online Marketing is a perfect tool for small (to medium) businesses. Developing an Online Marketing Strategy gives small companies the potential to not only develop their brand and become a name in their industry, but also improve their bottom line from increased leads that turn into sales.

Here are a few tips for small businesses looking at promoting their businesses online:

1. Be sure that you have Google Analytics installed on your website. Obviously you want to be sure you are monitoring this data as well and using it to make improvements to your strategies.
   
   
2. Don't shun social media. You may think Social Media is just for fun, but in actuality these platforms are powerful Online Marketing tools that you should be taking advantage of. Social media plays an important role in organic search rankings, so ignoring this may be affecting your organic traffic and rankings. 
3. Develop a list of keywords. What are some words or phrases you would use to describe your company? If you wanted to find a competitor online, what would you type into Google’s search engine? Really think about these and develop a list of keywords that you can use for future content writing, PPC ads, etc.
4. Write a blog. Blogging has numerous benefits when it comes to Online Marketing – drive traffic from search engines, a platform for interacting with your customers, etc. Not to mention it shows users that you are an expert in your field. More content in more places = More customers. Several studies have been conducted to prove the previous point, and there is actually a strong correlation between how much quality content you produce and amount of leads/sales you get online. Think of your website and all your social profiles as an asset. You need to build those assets each and every month and the rewards will pay off.
5. Consider calling in an expert. You aren’t an Online Marketing Professional, right? There are consultants out there that understand what it takes to get a company online, generating traffic, and creating conversions – let them do what they do best and help you!

Online Marketing gives small businesses the ability to compete in today’s market. So why not give it a try? Get started by signing up for our FREE website scan which will give you the information you need to be successful online.

Most companies, okay all companies, want to see a return on investment (or ROI) when it comes to their marketing. This allows them to assess if their marketing activities are worth the time and money being spent on them. Measuring the success of Social Media Marketing isn’t always easy to do, but not any less important than any other marketing initiatives.

When it comes to social media marketing success, you have to look at several factors:

Traditional metrics like page views, time spent on site, unique visits, and goal conversions – all of which can be found in Google Analytics.

Engagement metrics like Twitter retweets, or replies; Facebook likes, or comments; blogs comments, or links to posts.

Influence metrics like Twitter followers, Facebook friends or blog/RSS subscribers.

Now looking at the hard numbers is only half the battle when it comes to determining Social Media Marketing success. Unfortunately, when it comes to measuring SMM success, some of the data you are looking at is subjective. Sure you could say having 1,000 followers is better than only having 100, but what if those 100 followers are engaged, consistently re-share your posts across their networks, etc. and on the flip side you never hear a peep out of those 1,000 followers. Now those 100 are starting to look pretty good, aren’t they? So remember to look at the communication level behind the numbers when trying to measure Social Media Marketing success.

Need help making your Social Media Marketing worth the cost and a true success? Download our free Social Media Strategy Kit for insight into utilizing social media the right way.  

 

Even though the internet has grown into such a powerful tool, there are still some businesses that put very little value into their own website or just don’t understand how to position the site correctly online for what they are offering.

Proper web development has rapidly changed over the past few years, but many of the fundamentals are still the same, but believe me when I say this, very few “web designers” understand anything about how to build a website that performs for a business. Why don’t most web designers know how to develop a site correctly? – Many web designers come from graphic design backgrounds and know next to nothing about business. Unless you can give them very clear instructions on what you want, you are going to miss the boat. Make sure if you are considering hiring a company for web development that they have a strong understanding of marketing principles and understand how your business operates.

The more time you spend enhancing your website for conversion and making it user friendly the better return you will get from any online traffic you are driving to it.

Understanding the role of your website is key to successful web development.
For most the main goal of their website is to act as a sales tool for their services and products. But your website can do so much more then process leads/orders.
 
Here is a list of things your website can do if the web development is done properly:
1. Act as a forum for discussion and a resource for consumers.

2. Engage customers and build their interest in your company and product.

3. Collect names and email addresses for interested consumers to build a relationship with.
4. Take those leads and build a database of targets to communicate with.

5. Encourage and partake in sharing information through blogs, social media and RSS feeds. Reach out to people and encourage them to reach back.

Building the number of prospective leads builds the value of your business. Creating a website during the web development stage that's set up to grow your business will benefit you forever.

Use your website to share promotions and discounts and pay attention to what works using analytics data. Measure their effectiveness and calculate the income generated from these types of incentives.
When done correctly web development can create an extraordinary tool that will grow your business. Thinking big in the development phase can set the bring success in the future. This all sounds great but it can be complicated for a small to medium sized business to implement on their own. Consider hiring a quality internet marketing company to handle it for you. If you chose the right online marketing company, it will be the best investment you have made in your business in a long time.

Any email marketer wants to grow their email opt-in list. It's necessary as 10% - 30% annual churn can be expected for every list. Growth is required to keep reaching your audience effectively.

When economic times challenge marketing budgets many businesses have turned to email marketing because it is inexpensive and easy to measure ROI. This increase in email marketing has led to cluttered in-boxes and makes it harder to obtain quality opt-ins.

There are three groups to target when trying to grow your opt-in list.
    
1. Current Opt-in List
An important rule to growing your list is to work to keep the names you already have. You can strengthen your list by requesting double opt-in from the beginning. This will ensure that opt-in's are serious about receiving your emails. Then stay consistent with what you've promised your subscriber. If you guaranteed emails containing coupons you need to hold to that promise.  And finally test the messages you send out and experiment with the way you present your content. Does one style garner a higher open rate? How can you get those that haven't opened your emails in several months to begin opening again? Keeping your current list engaged and interested will grow your list by reducing churn.

2. Easily Added Targets
These potential opt-in's are already familiar with you and your product and they should be given the opportunity to opt-in to your list whenever they cross paths with your brand. On your website your most visited pages should include a link to opt-in to your e newsletter. Make the opt-in prominent on these pages and consistent. To reach this audience offline consider an in-store handout or discount incentive for signing up for the email list. Use materials you are already distributing such as sales receipts and packaging to share your message. Lastly, include opt-in options within your social media pages. These are effective and inexpensive methods to grow your list.

3. Bought & Bartered
The third and final group that you can target involves an audience that is a good potential fit for the service you offer but they have yet to have any direct contact with your brand. The downside of this method is that it can be costly. You can reach them by renting a list and creating a message that the owner of the list will send on your behalf. Another option would be to use a pay-per-click campaign with the goal to grow your list. Your PPC ad should click through to an opt-in page. If money is an issue consider bartering with a logical partner. If you build houses, partner with a plumber or window manufacturer. Once you've found a partner send out promotional emails on each others behalf.

Initiating these three tools or a combination of them can help ensure that you keep the contacts you have and grow your list over time.

Landing pages are tricky and extremely important tools. Many people believe that success has been reached when someone clicks through to your landing page, however that is only half the battle. You got their attention enough to push them further but it's the landing page that needs to seal the deal and drive your consumer to take action.

Tafadzwa Marapa recently shared 6 rules of creating powerful landing pages:

1. Determine your customer goal - It's up to you to decide what you want your visitor to do upon reaching your landing page. If you don't make it obvious what they should do upon arriving to your landing page then there's a good chance they will leave without taking any further action.

2. Make your landing page consistent with your ad - Using a consistent message from your ad to your landing page will help the visitor to understand the action you are encouraging them to take. It also let's the visitor know they've landed in the right place. This increases the likelihood that the visitor will follow and complete the path you've set out.

3. Present a professional design - Your landing page should meet or exceed the design standard set by your website. The page needs to look professional and be well designed with quality graphics.

4. Don't offer extra links - Keep your landing page to one message goal. Don't throw all kinds of links in there and hope the viewer finds something they like.

5. Call for action - If a consumer has clicked through to your landing page they are interested in your product. Make sure they know what to do upon arriving to the landing page to complete the process.

6. Track your results - Is your PPC campaign cost effective? Make sure you can measure your results. Track your conversion rate & the marketing cost per sale.

Click here to read Marapa's blog post entitled The rules of creating powerful landing pages.

In order to grow your dental business you need to market yourself. A radio or print ad can cost you $12,000 and it needs costly design and production before it can run. This day in age our lives are driven by the internet. For most of us it would be a challenge to completely avoid the internet for an entire week. 94,000,000 American adults use the internet every day and 63% of those people are using search engines everyday.  Pay Per Click Marketing can give your dental office a cost effective way to easily and quickly bring in new business. Studies have shown that you can acquire a new customer through PPC for a cost of about $8.50 each. Considering a customer is likely to stay with your dental practice for the next 5, 10 or even 50 years that's an amazing return on your investment.
So how can you make PPC work for you?

Research your keywords. For example, an estimated 40,500 people are searching Google every month for "Dentist Chicago". Finding additional keywords that are more unique will be inexpensive and enhance your campaign. Make sure your ad is clear and well written and stays true to your keywords. A PPC campaign can ensure that you are high on the paid search results but you also need to be sure your website is appearing under the organic search results as well. This will ensure the most clicks as some people gravitate to organic results. (Adjusting your organic ratings is a project for another day.)
 
Need more proof of the potential a PPC campaign can have for you. If you spend $2,000/month on PPC marketing and focus on a 10 mile radius you are likely to get 45,000-50,000 ad impressions (how many times your ad shows up in search engines) and from those impressions roughly 500 - 550 people will visit your site. These people need to land on a page of your site that entices them to call, email or fill out a form to take the next step with your business. On average 10% of these 500-550 visitors will act on the landing page. This gives you 50 new leads for your dental practice. If you want to be more conservative say that only 35 leads came from those visits and 30% of those didn't act beyond that initial communication. From those 25 prospects you may book appointments with 20% (on average.) Thus booking 5 new patients for the month. Depending on the dental procedures they book, perhaps a couple cleanings and a couple cosmetic procedures. If 4 out of 5 were happy with your services they could become customers for decades. Think of the return of 4 patients  for 10 years. More than worth the small $2,000 initial investment for that month.

Budgets are tight but marketing is more valuable than ever. PPC is a way to market your business without breaking the bank.

875 Million People Can’t Be Wrong!

Over the past 2 years, online shopping alone has increased to over 875 million consumers (According to Nielsen’s Global Online Survey). That’s a 40% increase in 2 years. Not to mention all those who use the internet for research and to find local business services, which accounts for nearly 80% of all US adults.

Think of all those opportunities for your business. Pay Per Click (PPC) is an effective and powerful marketing tool that allows your business to get instant exposure online. We have found that PPC marketing returns are some of the strongest in the marketing industry, and averages about the same return as search engine optimization (only 8% of marketers experienced a poor ROI according to www.eMarketer.com), but produces almost instant results.

Pay Per Click marketing allows you more control over your marketing dollars and the ability to pin point market niches more effectively than SEO. PPC is like having an ad in your local newspaper and only paying for the prospects that actually read your ad! According to www.eMarketer.com, PPC advertising will grow to a $16.950 billion dollars a year in marketing spends.

No wonder Newspapers are going out of business, television advertising is decreasing along with radio. Internet marketing is here to stay and Pay Per Click marketing is a valuable marketing tool to consider for most businesses.

Earlier this week, eMarketer published an article that reaffirmed what WSI is always telling our clients - even in a poor economy, you have to invest in your online marketing spending to make money. In fact, for a lot of businesses, increasing your business spending or reallocating marketing dollars into cheaper and more effective (read: online) media during a downturn can help you come out on top as the economy picks up.

The eMarketer article goes on to discuss the correlation between businesses that are continuing to succeed and greater marketing spending. The bottom line: "Almost two-thirds of small businesses that expected increased revenues had raised or planned to raise marketing spending, compared with just 32% to 36% of businesses with flat or declining revenues." Additionally, "the survey showed small businesses shifting marketing initiatives toward cheaper digital media and away from traditional channels. The top three marketing tools used were social media, e-mail newsletters and search."

Contact us today to find out how WSI can help your business leverage these three (and other) marketing tools to maximize the effectiveness of your business spending. You may think you can't afford to increase business spending or increasing online marketing spending right now, but the truth is you can't afford not to if you want to survive and thrive in the current economy.

We encourage you to read the eMarketer article in its entirety here. 

Yes. Does that mean you should? Probably not. And here's why - if you're like most small to medium sized business owners, you most likely already wear a lot of hats within your organization. You may already feel like you do not have enough time in a day to complete everything on your "to-do" list, and if so how much time are you really able to dedicate to managing your pay per click campaign? Unless you are able to spend a couple of hours per day (yes, per day) you may be wasting your clicks.

When pay per click marketing first came out, it was easy for small and medium sized business owners to set up a pay per click campaign, choose a few keywords, and let it run for the month. But as internet marketing practices become more specialized, pay per click becomes more competitive and requires constant attention. How much time are you willing and able to devote to pay per click management? Consider this -

- How much is your time worth, or how much would you have to spend to hire someone in-house? Conservatively, let's say that amount is $50/hr.
- You should spend a minimum of 5-10 hours per week on your PPC campaign, checking keyword performance and ads, which is $250 per week or $13,000 per year! And that's on the low end.
- WSI is working with a $2+ million pay per click management tool that enables us to have access to the latest and greatest in PPC technology far above and beyond a basic Google Adwords account. And we are able to track multiple conversion points (Call Tracking, Email Tracking, Web Form Tracking, Sales, Email Marketing Sign-ups, and a multitude of Web Events). We also optimize our campaigns around the keywords that lead to "conversions." Google Adwords tool can only track conversions from Web Forms and Sales, which means you are probably missing out on tracking 60% of your conversions.

We understand that in current economic times, small and medium sized business owners are looking to shrink their marketing budgets, increase their ROI or both. And while it may be tempting to tackle some of your internet marketing campaigns in house, keep in mind that you get what you pay for. WSI guarantees that we will get you better PPC results than if you manage your campaign yourself. Contact us today to find out how.

As companies continue to struggle in the current economy, many are seeing their marketing budgets cut with more cuts anticipated for the last quarter of 2009 into 2010. During this time of change and scrutiny over every advertising dollar spent, it is important to note that the online advertising sector continues to grow as business are taking their marketing strategies online. According to eMarketer, digital spending will account for 17% of total ad spending in the US by next year, up from 15.4% currently and 13.9% last year. An "Interaction 2009" report done by GroupM Interaction indicates that companies are also increasing spending on search and mobile marketing and decreasing traditional media spending. According to this report, the future of marketing is so-called "intention marketing" with a combination of paid and organic search along with mobile and social media marketing.

Savvy marketers are already following this trend, according to a 2009 accountability study done by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and Marketing Management Analytics (MMA). The number one strategy is taking offline marketing online, and reallocating spending into lower-cost digital media like SEO, PPC and Social Media Marketing.

WSI can take a look at your current marketing strategies online (and offline) and provide the online marketing how to that every business needs in this economy. For every industry, there is a correct marketing mix online that will get you the best ROI possible. And one of the significant benefits of WSI's online marketing strategies is that everything we do is 100% trackable so you know almost immediately how well your campaigns are working and where there is room for improvement.

To find out more about the online marketing strategies WSI can provide, as well as a complimentary analysis of the marketing mix online for your business, please contact us today. As we kick of the fourth quarter of 2009, there's still time to end the year and start off the new year with a bang!