Intro: 

Local Marketing: 5 Creative Location-Based Marketing Campaigns

Need to get up to speed on local marketing for your business?

Todd Wasserman, American Express Open Forum, outlines the success behind a few very successful local brands. Please Leave a Reply in the comment field at the bottom of this page. We welcome your feedback!

Local Marketing
5 Creative Location-Based Marketing Campaigns

June 16, 2011 – One of the ironies of the Internet is that, although it has the power to connect consumers across the world, it also has the potential to make local connections more intense. This is particularly true thanks to the advent of location-based services, which can make users passively aware of each other’s nearby presence.

For small businesses, the appeal of such a service is obvious: There’s an opportunity both to draw in new customers and forge deeper connections with existing ones. But, despite the fact that using such services is free, the vast majority of small businesses haven’t taken advantage of location-based services. Here are five that have.

Local Marketing to Build Local Sales and Reach

1. DBA Barbecue—Atlanta, Georgia

DBA Barbecue offers customers an extra reason to use their Foursquare checkin: free food or at least discounts on food. Sometimes that means boiled peanuts, other times it’s a discount on a beer or cocktail. Either way, it’s a powerful incentive. Owner Matt Coggin says that he often gets the highlighted item for free from suppliers who want the exposure, so he’s not losing any margins. Another selling point of using Foursquare, Coggin says, is visibility: Since no one likes to eat in an empty restaurant, users can see how many people are currently checked in and then decide whether to swing by.

There are other perks as well. As Coggin has previously outlined, he uses Foursquare to forge personal connections with customers. He likes to stop by customers’ tables and thank them for checking in. If he doesn’t get around to that the first time, he’ll often note their previous checkin and thank them for coming a second time.

2. AJ Bombers—Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Joe Sorge, owner of AJ Bombers, is such a big fan of Foursquare that he wrote a book called FoursquareWorks. (He also wrote a book called TwitterWorks.) Sorge points out that AJ Bombers is now up to 9,000 checkins in a city that had just 400 Foursquare users last year. Sorge capitalized on the growing fanbase when he recently ran a “Swarm Badge” promotion. The idea behind a swarm badge is that if you can get 51 people to check in simultaneously, all of them get the badge. That wasn’t an issue with the Swarm Badge promotion AJ Bombers ran: 161 people checked in and unlocked the badge.

One more example? The restaurant’s Foursquare page featured a tip about the Barrie Burger—from that alone (there was no advertising), sales for the item grew 30 percent in the first week.

3. Boloco—Boston

Boloco, a burrito chain, recently took advantage of a new feature from SCVNGR called LevelUp. As explained in this video, LevelUp adds a gamification component to typical loyalty programs and also addresses the “one and done” aspect of most Groupon-like deals. In Boloco’s case, the idea worked like this: Level 1 offered $5 for $10 worth of food and drink. When the customer returned to the restaurant, they could unlock Level 2, which yielded $10 for $25 worth. Those who visited a third time got to Level 3, which provided $14 for $45.

After running the program (which is in pilot in Boston and Philadelphia right now), Boloco saw 1,396 Level 1 deals purchased. Of those, 30 percent bought in to Level 2 and 26 percent of those people went to Level 3.

4. Monique’s Chocolates—Palo Alto, California

A year ago, Mark West, the owner of Monique’s Chocolates, did a little experiment: He bought a half-page ad in a local magazine touting a “buy one, get one free” offer for about $350. He offered the same deal on Foursquare for free. The print ad yielded one new customer, while the Foursquare deal netted 30-plus, four or five who became repeat customers.

West says he likes the geographic nature of Foursquare, which doesn’t blast such deals at people who will likely never come by his store. He says that even Foursquare’s mayor program has worked to his advantage: “There’s now three different people who are competing to be mayor,” he says. “It’s fun.” West says he’s looking to launch a location-based loyalty program to bring things to the next level.

5. Colibri Cuisine—Austin, Texas

Colibri, a Mexican food truck, had no Foursquare Tips in early March and decided to do something about it. The venue started offering a free churro (with purchase) for anyone who left a tip (a note to other users, not a gratuity). Colibri now has nine tips—some from Foursquare employees who were in Austin at SXSWi — which show up prominently in Foursquare’s Explore tab. The placement has helped drive foot traffic.

Colibri also used Foursquare to lure customers in during a typically slow time of day, from 9 to 11 pm, before the late night crowd makes its way out of the bars. In the first week the special ran, the truck got seven new customers.

© 2011 American Express Company. All rights reserved.

Summary:

Small Business Local Marketing Tips:
5 Creative Location-Based Marketing Campaigns

Creativity is key with local-based marketing campaigns. As we’ve learned in this local marketing tip, it’s important to experiment and find the special draw that matches your niche market. Knowing your clients, and what they will appreciate, can help push your small business brand in front of many more potential customers – for FREE – when you use tools that are already available, like Foursquare.

Contact Us to learn how we can help your small business local marketing today. In addition to offering local marketing tips, WebPro360 guides small business toward success online.

Intro:
Small Business Pricing Tips: 5 ways to convince customers your higher prices are worth it

If you’re not more expensive than your competition, you may be missing a profitable opportunity to establish your reputation for higher quality and better service!

Gary Gebenlian, VP of Marketing at FutureSimple, provides some overlooked common sense in this Small Business Pricing Tip. It’s seldom honorable (or smart) to be the cheapest in your small business industry. In this Small Business Pricing Tip, learn the value of turning your higher prices into a marketing asset for your small business. The method and manner in which you present your pricing is more of a determining factor than your actual prices. Please Leave a Reply in the comment field at the bottom of this page. We welcome your feedback!

Small Business Pricing Tips:
5 Ways to Win on Price

It’s a scenario that’s all too familiar: You’re working to win business with a great new prospective client, and your sales prospecting courtship is off to a great start. But you’ve just started the whole discussion around price, and it’s starting to feel like the conversation is heading south. You know your prices are higher than your competitors’, but you’re not having much luck justifying it to your prospective client.

It’s no surprise that pricing is such a big decision driver in all realms of business. In fact, it may be the most important of marketing’s four P’s (the others being Product, Promotion and Place). But rather than hiding behind your pricing, here are five ways to turn pricing into a positive lever to help you win business:

1. Focus on Value

Value = Benefit/Price. Rather than focus on the actual price point like most businesses do, expand the pie. Focus on emphasizing the benefits of your product or service and ultimately demonstrate the value you’ll be creating for your customer.

2. Connect the Dots to Dollars and Cents

Value isn’t a fuzzy thing – it’s measured in dollars and cents. Each feature you provide ought to either increase revenue or decrease costs for your customer. So rattling off a list of features your product or service offers isn’t going to resonate with your prospect. Instead, you need to connect the dots between features, benefits and value in dollars and cents. For example, if a feature you offer is complementary logo design services, the benefit to your customer is that they will save six hours of time instead of doing it themselves, which might be worth 6 hours multiplied by $50/hour in average designer wage = $300 of value.

3. Get the Pricing Metric Right

A good pricing metric should track with the value delivered and should be easy to measure. For example, your software product might be better priced based on hours of usage vs. a fixed price per seat. A pharmaceutical example would be pricing treatment medication per minute of therapy vs. pricing per volume of medication (since administering to children may be higher value and higher cost).

4. Tier Your Offerings

A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work well in marketing. It also doesn’t work well in pricing. Your customers have different needs, so give them different options. For example, offer an entry-level option that comes with limited support, online ordering only and shorter net payment terms.

5. Build Fences

Your different customer segments perceive value differently. Tiering your offerings using variations will naturally fence off your customer segments. For example, airlines fence off business travelers through the Saturday-night-stay requirement (and charge them a higher price).

Pricing is much more than setting a single price point. Think about pricing in a strategic way, and you’ll be on your way to winning more business and increasing your profits.

About the Author
Gary Gebenlian is VP of Marketing at FutureSimple and he has a passion for helping small businesses grow. FutureSimple designed PipeJump, a simple and intuitive software solution to help small businesses manage their sales and contacts.

Summary:
Small Business Pricing Tips: 5 Ways to Win on Price

As we’ve learned in this small business pricing tip, it’s not enough to simply establish your pricing structure for your small business. Careful thought, planning and analysis are all required to make your pricing structure work at its optimum for your small business. The lessons learned in this Small Business Pricing Tip show that your prices are an asset – never a liability.

Contact Us to learn how we can help your small business today. In addition to offering small business pricing tips, WebPro360 guides small business toward success online.

Intro:
Your “Home Base” Could Be Hurting Your Home Business

As business owners, it’s important to keep a keen eye on developing trends. Communication and maintaining a reliable network are critical components for staying informed. The following feature by Lisa Barone, of Outspoken Media, Inc., includes some great thoughts and suggestions with regard to successfully managing your home business away from home. Please Leave a Reply in the comment field at the bottom of this page.

Why Working Outside Your Home Can Save Your Business

You started your own business. You started it because you had a passion for what you were doing and a belief that you would be more successful on your own than working for someone else. But that was a few years ago. Or maybe it was only a couple of months. Either way, your passion, your excitement and your energy is slowly waning, and the warm weather is only making it worse. How do you get it back?

Well, if you’ve been working from home this entire time, it may be time to get out. At least a few times a week.

One common gripe among small business owners is the difficulty associated with running their business from a home office. Yes, the flexibility and the convenience are great, but working from home can also be isolating if you’re not used to it or you’re someone who has grown accustomed to that office water cooler. If you’re running a home office and the warmer weather is making you feel a little stifled, below are four reasons why you may want to cowork – either from your local coffee shop or at a more formal coworking space.

Take your home business outside

1. Boost Productivity: No, it’s not in your head. Studies show that people really are more productive when they work in a coffee shop – because coffeehouses provide three main things:

   • Just enough distractions
   • No “work hours” pressure
   • Work doesn’t seem like work when you’re out of the office

   That first one has always been the most important to me. When you’re working in a public place, there’s the (needed) pressure of looking like you’re actually doing something. At home you can watch TV or spend time on Facebook. But when you’re surrounded by other productive people, you become more productive as well.

2. Get New Ideas: A funny thing happens when you force yourself out of your home – you expose yourself to new ideas. You meet new people, you see new things, you have new experiences. All of this will affect your view of the market, your company and how you relate to other people. Many times when my writing is feeling a bit stale or I’m not sure how to handle a particular problem, I’ll skip out of the office for a day and go work someplace new. Changing your environment is a good way to free up your mental bottleneck and start seeing things in a new light. If you’re in a rut, break free.

3. Build a Social Network: When you’re a one-person shop or even a three- or four-person shop, it can be hard to build the social ties you need to effectively grow your business. It’s even harder if you’re not the kind of person who is naturally good at making connections or saying hello (like me). Working in a coworking space, whether formal or informal, can make this process easier by naturally putting you around people who can help you when needed. You meet people who can introduce you to new systems, new tools, new methodologies and new contacts. You build your network by placing yourself around qualified people and learning how others work.

4. Find Balance: Some small business owners do a great job at setting realistic hours and expectations for themselves. However, some of us aren’t so good at this. We end up working on our SMB for 12 hours straight, seven days a week, and we come to think this is a “normal” routine. It’s not. And it’s not healthy – to you or to your startup. No wonder you’re feeling stuck. Getting out and working in a coworking environment can give you the physical separation between work and home that so many of us lack–to the detriment of our health, our personal relationships and, yes, even the success of our businesses.

Those are four big benefits to forcing yourself out of your home and into the real world. How do you recharge your batteries? Have you found a home in coffeehouses and coworking spaces, or is your home office still your preferred place to be?

About the Author
Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an Internet marketing company that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services. She blogs daily over at the Outspoken Media blog.

Summary:
Take your home business outside to thrive

The creativity that is often the lifeblood of a fledgling entrepreneurial enterprise can become easily dampened in the home office. If the suggestions mentioned by Lisa are for some reason impossible for your home business, you should at least strive to establish a reliable network of peers with whom you communicate on a near daily basis. Discuss your To Do items and milestones, so you’ll establish an effective source of accountability. But, even then, you still need to be sure to take your home business outside!

Intro:
Why Start on Facebook?

Question: Is your small business already on Facebook? What’s been your experience there? Do you feel your small business’ Facebook page has contributed to overall sales? Helped build your reputation? We’d love to hear from you. Please Leave a Reply at bottom. Thanks!

Twenty years ago, the best way to market your business was through word of mouth. Today, there are different tools for spreading your message through word of mouth, including social media tools like Facebook. Patrick O’Malley, a Boston-based social media consultant, offers these four steps to get your business started on Facebook.

1. Create a Facebook fan page.
Creating a fan page allows Facebook users to “like” (what used to be called becoming a “fan” of) your business and provides a place for them to connect with you and with each other. A fan page includes basic information, like your company name and contact information, as well as a writing space—called your “wall”—where fans can leave comments and start discussions.

You can also use analytics to track who and how many visitors are viewing your page, a tool that cannot be used on an individual’s profile page. A fan page gives companies a chance to personify their brand and engage with customers. (For an example, visit NFIB’s Facebook page.) Here’s how to set one up.

Start on Facebook

1. Go to www.facebook.com and log in or create a personal profile. (This will allow you to set up a fan page.)
2. Once you’ve arrived at your home page, turn your attention to the left navigation bar, where the first entry says “News Feed.” Click on the item “Ads and Pages.”
3. On the right-hand side, choose the button labeled “+Create Page.”
4. Using the drop-down menu, select the categories that best fit your business.
5. When you enter the name of your business, also include keywords that describe what you do. That way search engines can more easily find you and your fan page. For example, says O’Malley, instead of entering “Papa Ben’s Pizza,” enter “Papa Ben’s Deep Dish Pizza in Chicago.” If a potential customer is using a search engine, and they search “pizza in Chicago,” Papa Ben’s would show up.

2. Solicit friends, family, and current customers to build your fan base.
Just because you build a fan page doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly have hundreds of users becoming “Facebook fans” of your business. Ask your current Facebook friends, and others you know offline, to become fans of your business on Facebook. Then, ask them to share your fan page with their friends by using the “+Share” button on the top right-hand corner of your fan page. This action will publish an “update” promoting your business on those friends’ newsfeeds.

3. Encourage more Facebook users to become fans.
Your fan page can be used as a customer service platform, with tips and solutions to customers’ problems right on your fan page wall. Offer your Facebook fans discounts by using specific promotional codes. For instance, if you own a beauty salon, tell your Facebook fans to mention a word or phrase to receive a discount on services. This encourages more people to become fans of your business on Facebook while allowing you to keep track of how much business your fan page generates.

4. Create content that will draw attention to your fan page.
Whether it’s videos, photos, discussions, or news—like the arrival of a new product—offering interesting content on your page is a great way to keep customers coming back to your fan page. Customer-created content is even better. Host a photo contest or post a discussion starter asking fans to suggest new products or services for your company.

Most importantly, says O’Malley, make sure the tone of your interaction with your Facebook fans is not too sales-y. “You’re better off engaging your customers. Get them involved. Be a little educational, if possible.”

Bonus tip: Get your new Facebook page listed by NFIB
Did you know NFIB has a list of small business Facebook pages? Check out those examples for some inspiration when creating your own business Facebook page. Once you’ve finished making your own page, add yours to the list.

Summary:
Why Start on Facebook?

Any small business can start on Facebook without the assistance or guidance of a third party. However, WebPro360 provides the expertise and professional guidance to assure your entry onto Facebook is a success from the beginning. Plus, our Facebook marketing plans are priced specifically for small business. For as little as $350, WebPro360 assembles your new, custom Facebook (Fan) page, and begins adding your content.

Find more information from our Facebook Marketing page. Your business can start on Facebook today!

Intro:
Facebook Marketing for Small Business

You may not realize you need to pay attention to Facebook Marketing for small business. That’s okay! WebPro360 works with many small businesses just learning they must pay attention to Facebook Marketing. This great article by Scott Belsky provides some valuable insight to what helps make an effective Facebook Marketing strategy. We’ve posted it here because we feel it is relevant, and timely, for clients looking to get their feet wet with Facebook Marketing for small business. Let us know what you think!

3 Tips On Marketing
Your Business In The Facebook Era

The modern era has provided many new mediums for marketing our businesses. Aside from the traditional mediums of television, newspapers and magazines, we can now use a whole new array of mechanisms to spread our message: online advertising, blogs, Twitter streams, Facebook pages, and the list goes on.

With so many options, we are faced with the challenge of keeping our message in sync across all mediums.

Facebook Marketing for Small Business

As small business leaders, we often make the mistake of simply re-posting the message from one medium to another. And when we do take the time to create a Facebook or Twitter presence, we do so haphazardly and often fail to maintain the campaign over time.

Here are a few best practices to consider as you market across various platforms.

1. Understand the tone of the medium

The way you describe your product or service on your website will be different from what you say and do in other mediums such as social networking sites, offline advertising and other communications. Facebook is most effective when advertising is presented in the context of friends and social activity. On Twitter, brands succeed when they serve as curators of interesting facts and casually communicate with users. Before embarking on marketing activities in different places, be sure to observe the tone for a while and then assume that tone as you participate.

2. Be mindful of context

I’ve seen a lot of companies stumble by targeting the right people at the wrong time. Your target audience will only engage with your brand —and listen to your message—when the context makes sense. For example, trying to sell accounting services to people while they are using Facebook to respond to friends is probably not the right time. However, there might be other mediums where your target audience is more in the mindset of professional services like accounting. Consider the mindset of your target audience and the drivers that bring them to the medium you are marketing in.

3. Avoid sending an inconsistent message

While you should certainly adjust tone and strategy for different mediums, it is important that your company’s purpose remain clear and consistent. Authenticity is more important than anything else. The value proposition you offer your customers should never change. While you may tweak the tone, you should never alter the core message.

You should certainly diversify the way you market your business, but always with an unwavering sense of your brand and why you are in business. Ask yourself, “What medium is my customer most likely to use when they need my product/service the most?” With attention to tone, context and consistency, you will be prepared to start experimenting with marketing across mediums.

Summary:
Facebook Marketing for Small Business

Good news! WebPro360 provides the most affordable custom Facebook (Fan) Pages for small business.

Ready for more information?
Get started with a visit to our Facebook Marketing for Small Business page, where you can learn more and submit a request for your small business today!

A Few Website Design Thoughts

This short, featured post from NFIB raises the hood on website design specifically for small businesses. It’s so important, as small businesses plan their website design, to consider the end-user and how to best serve them.

4 Website Design Mistakes
and How to Fix Them

Too many business owners think that because their company is small, they don’t need to put too much thought into their website design. But Pinny Cohen, a Fair Lawn, N.J.-based marketing consultant, says even minor design errors can have huge consequences.

“Potentially thousands of people are going to see your website in a week and [could] make business decisions based on it,” Cohen says. Consider the four most basic ways he says small biz websites are missing the boat:

"Too many business owners think that because their company is small, they don’t need to put too much thought into their website design."

1. Hidden information
“People surprisingly forget that the whole purpose of the site is to let customers know what you do, how you do it and let them contact you,” says Cohen. “Over and over I see small business websites with inconspicuous contact information, especially a tiny, hidden email address.”

Solution: Your website should contain an easy-to-find description of services and essential contact information. And don’t hyperlink your email address so that it opens Outlook on the receiver’s end: “Most Americans don’t use Outlook—you often end up causing their computer to crash.”

2. Too much information
After making basic changes to a real estate investment website, Cohen says the company’s conversion rate more than doubled. The site, which enables users to buy and sell property, previously had lengthy and confusing customer forms. Cohen says, “Using Google analytics, I discovered that some people took an hour to complete the form.”

Solution: To shorten the process, “we cut down the form and simplified the options,” Cohen says. They also added a map and directions to help customers locate the business.

3. No trust indicators
Do you request credit card numbers or other sensitive information online? “Nobody does business with someone they don’t trust,” says Cohen. Even good businesses need to show their trustworthiness through seals of approval, association memberships—such as NFIB—and favorable consumer ratings.

Solution: Clearly post industry logos and certifications on your website. Cohen advises sites that process ecommerce transactions to display a current SSL (security socket layer) certification. While pricey, the McAfee certification also puts online shoppers at ease and could quickly pay you back in additional sales.

4. Non-standard formatting
Your website might look fantastic to you—but do you know how it appears to others? Websites appear differently in different browsers, too, so test your site using Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, if possible. If you’re not designing using a standard formatting system like HTML, the page will frequently appear too wide to viewers, causing them to miss crucial details.

Cohen explains, “That could prevent the ‘Buy Now’ button from appearing in a conspicuous fashion.”

Solution: Go to validator.w3.org and plug in your URL. That will reveal glitches you may have missed and let you know about any structural errors that need to be fixed.

Credit Source: Reposted from National Federation of Independent Business. Link: http://www.nfib.com/business-resources/business-resources-item?cmsid=57071. © 2001 – 2011 National Federation of Independent Business. All Rights Reserved.

In summary:
WebPro360 provides the professional guidance your small business needs with website design. Avoid the guesswork with website design that many small business experience. Small business web design and related website services is our niche market. Since 2002, we’ve developed websites and built online success for businesses just like yours. Contact us, and we’ll provide your small business with some free insight, with no obligation. Please visit our Contact page and tell us about your small business website design project today.

When talking to small business owners about social media, the argument I hear most often for their lack of involvement is they “don’t have time.”

SMB owners are notoriously busy, known for wearing multiple hats, juggling responsibilities and working long hours. I understand that. And that’s exactly why you should be investing in social media. Because social media can help you perform tasks vital to the growth and success of your business faster and better than traditional means.

What am I talking about? Below are five common stressors for SMBs that they can accomplish faster and better through social media than without it.

SMB owners are notoriously busy, known for wearing multiple hats, juggling responsibilities and working long hours. I understand that. And that’s exactly why you should be investing in social media. Because social media can help you perform tasks vital to the growth and success of your business faster and better than traditional means.

1. Building Awareness

Everything starts here for a small business. Bigger brands already have this. People know they exist. Sometimes their names are even synonymous with the product they sell (right, Kleenex?). But that’s not the case for a small business owner. We have to build awareness before we can cash in on it. In the past, that meant running a lot of expensive promotions, it meant giving away a lot of free products and, even worse, it meant a lot of time being ignored. With social media, the playing field gets just a bit more level. Armed with tools like Twitter Search, Twellow, We Follow, Tweepz and others, you can find your audience without waiting for them to find you. You can be proactive about your marketing, connect with the people who should know about your business, and put yourself on their radar. Now the ball is firmly in your court.

2. Customer Support

When you have your ear to the ground it allows you to react quickly, and nowhere is this more important than in customer service. Business owners spend a lot of time on the phone or in email responding to disgruntled customers and dealing with support issues — often the same issues over and over. By engaging in social media you give yourself the opportunity to react faster, before a small problem becomes a big one, and to easily point people to resources designed to quickly resolve their problems. Social media also puts you into the conversation at an earlier stage and lets others see how committed you are to making things right.

3. Staying Top of Mind

Businesses are always trying to stay top of mind for customers. We want them to remember us when they’re on the hunt for services. And that’s where social media comes in. Interacting with customers via social media helps them remember you exist. It doesn’t matter if you’re specifically talking about a deal you’re running or if you’re just sharing what you’re up to. Seeing your face, your product or your logo keeps your brand in the forefront of their brains and helps them remember it’s been too long since they visited your restaurant for dinner. The simple act of engaging, regardless of what you’re saying, can give customers a reason to come check you out.

4. Competitor Research

To stay competitive, small business owners need to always keep an eye on what their competitors are doing. Staying abreast of the competition’s movements will help you spot trends, pinpoint new opportunities and clue you in to what other people in your industry are doing or looking at. In the past, this required a lot of listening in, eavesdropping and guesswork. Now? Now it means doing some twit-stalking, blog-stalking and monitoring conversations about your industry and your biggest competition. By following conversations happening about your competitors, you can put down that rusty tin can on a string and listen from the comfort of your own home.

5. Networking With Colleagues

If it takes a village to raise a child, it at least takes a small town to grow a business. And social media makes that town seem just a bit more intimate by connecting you with the people who can really help your business. Through my own personal social media use, I’ve interacted with future business partners, found guest blogging opportunities, and been introduced to some really interesting people and companies. This connection is something many small business owners never had before. They’re not left feeling as fragmented and disconnected as they once were, thanks to not only places like Twitter, but also communities like BizSugar.

If you’re a business owner who has always felt like you didn’t have time for social media, I’d ask you to turn that statement around. It’s not about finding the time to add something else into your day, it’s about using a new tool to do what you’ve always done, only faster.

About the Author
Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an Internet marketing company that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services. She blogs daily over at the Outspoken Media blog.

Credit Source: Reposted from Small Business Trends LLC. May 18, 2011. Link: http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/05/work-faster.html. Copyright © 2003 – 2011, Small Business Trends LLC. All rights reserved.

Looking to improve your ranking and increase traffic to your company website means effectively using every marketing tool you can get your hands on that is within your budget. And one marketing tool that too many companies overlook is local search.

Search Visibility

Few people realize that Google will first pull up results relevant to your keyword search terms within a certain radius of where you are sitting. This means that if you are located in Indianapolis, Indiana or Dublin, Ireland and you sit down at your computer and type in “burger joints” Google is going to show you the closest burger joints to where you are at that moment. Taking advantage of the local search feature can help increase your bottom line.

Main Features

- Security – Google search provides potential customer, clients and others with a local option to what they are looking for (this can give customers a greater sense of security knowing you are local)

- Ranking boosts – submitting your company information to Google Places, Yahoo Local, Local.com, Citysearch and other similar places can help your ranking in those search engines. Better ranking means more traffic to your site.

- Customer Feedback/Reviews – most local search results also allow a customer or client to leave feedback on the experience they had dealing with your company. This can help your credibility by establishing strong customer focused services.

How To Create Local Search Visibility

Today’s marketing techniques have come a long way from the good old days where word of mouth and local advertising efforts, confined to newspapers and signage, were the best choices. With the advent of new technology, these mainstays of the past are no longer the most effective means of getting the word out about products that every consumer must have. Local search visibility is what it takes to get business products in front of the masses and make the sales that are necessary to favorably affect the bottom line.

Today, there are a wide variety of devices that create a favorable climate for you, the marketer, to advertise your wares. Personal computers have long been known as a good source for generating traffic to a store front, whether that store front is an actual physical location or one in the virtual world. However, the cell phone is now coming into its own as a quick source of reference for anything the consumer needs to get to fast.

Using search engines, whether on a PC at your desk or on your phone you will be sure to locate what you are after and locate it in record time. In order to get your business found by those looking for what you have to offer, you first have to do a number of things, and that begins with getting your business listed on the search engines.

1) Google Places

2) Yahoo Local

3) Local.com

4) Citysearch

5) Yelp

6) Localeze.com

7) AOL Local

Other things you can do increase your local search visibility would be to join organizations that provide a place to network with other business owners, and provide a channel for feed back on the way you do business. One of the best things that you can do to create favorable feedback is to provide your customers with quality customer service right along with great products.

by Raymond Snyder, Trophy Nation
Copyright © 2011 Trophy Nation
http://goarticles.com/author/Trophy-Nation/306908/

Although according to lore YouTube was created as a dating site, it has evolved into much more. Here’s a fun fact. According to Mashable.com, YouTube was created when one founder, Jawed Karim, unsuccessfully searched for footage of Janet Jackson’s now famous “wardrobe malfunction, and when he and his two friends Chad Hurley and Steven Chen realized they could not share videos through email because of attachment limitations. The three realized the missing link for sharing and sending videos, and YouTube was born.

You Tube isn’t just a video platform, it is also a social network. Because of YouTube’s easy to use format, messages are spread quickly and efficiently across a variety of mediums including Facebook and Twitter, embedded in websites, and via email. You can easily add a YouTube video to your website or your Facebook account, and the end user does not need any special viewer like Windows Media Player or Quick Time to view it.

400 tweets per minute contain a YouTube video, and YouTube’s search bar is the number two search bar on the Internet, second only to Google. Collectively we spend 2.9 billion hours on YouTube in one month. So, if you’re using social media for marketing, YouTube has the potential to be an important part of your overall strategy.

So what’s a marketer to do if you want to make use of the medium, but don’t have a media department or the first idea of how to make videos? You might not have access to Steven Spielberg, or even Ken Burns, but you can still use YouTube to highlight and reinforce your message and to create dialoge around your content. Here’s how.
Customize Your Channel

YouTube allows customization of your channel to compliment your branding, as well as to highlight the content you want center stage. You can set which video displays first and how your playlists and content are displayed. By signing up for YouTube, you automatically have a channel – that’s how YouTube works. Customize your channel and add a description of its contents. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll have access to a menu that looks like this:

YouTube Settings

This is where you can set up your theme and colors, the modules you want displayed (other channels, comments, subscribers), and decide what playlists, layout and which video you’d like to appear in the “featured” spot. You can even set that video to auto play when users arrive at your channel.

A note about comments. Decide in advance how you want to handle comments, and base this decision on your overall social media strategy. How much engagement do you want? If you are serious about the “social” in social media, the answer will be ” as much as I can get,” but if your strategy is broadcast only, you might decide against using comments. If you allow comments think about who will be assigned to moderate them, and what features you’d like. There are several options:

Everyone can automatically comment
Friends can comment, others need approval
Only friends can comment
Everyone needs approval

My advice is to either allow all comments or allow comments with approval. Even though there is a friend option, people don’t use friends like they do on Facebook. If your channel becomes popular and you have “everyone needs approval” checked, you risk cutting off the sharing you’re trying to encourage (because their comment won’t post immediately), and you also risk clogging up your email box with requests for comment approvals. Since comments are emailed to the address associated with the account, you should see the comments as they come in. Be prepared to respond to them quickly if needed.
Curate Content

You can use YouTube to curate content from other channels without uploading a single original video. Use keyword searches to search by category, duration, upload date, features and more, and choose a few videos to add to your channel to get started. Create a favorite list or a playlist, then use the playlist settings to arrange the videos and choose which lists you want displayed. The beauty of these playlists is that the list itself can be embedded into your blog or your website so that when a video is added it is automatically updated on your website. To get the embed code, open your playlist and choose edit My Playlist, then click on the share tab. The embed code is displayed there and can be dropped into your existing website or blog.
Original Content

Maybe you don’t have a professional media department, but don’t let that stop you from creating good content. With a simple flip camera, or even a mobile phone with video capabilities, you can create basic videos. When deciding what kind of original content to create, consider these ideas.

Repurpose content you already have. You can use movie making software to create video content out of still photos and slides from a presentation, which you can turn into video. Add some music and perhaps a voiceover, and you have fresh new content for your channel.

Interview clients or experts on a variety of relevant topics. Decide in advance the questions you plan to ask, allow your expert to see those questions and research the answers, then video the interview. Official channels do not have a length requirement, but if you’re using a regular channel remember to keep the video length to under 15 minutes.

Create How-to videos on a variety of topics. Check out howcast.com, which is a company that helps make how to videos, for more ideas on this type of content. Remember you aren’t going for an Oscar, just relevancy and authenticity with your videos. The key is regular posting, allowing your audience to see the real you, and consistent communication with your citizens. Don’t worry about getting every detail exactly right on a homemade video – just worry about being authentic.
Get Found

Search engines can see that you have a video, but they can’t determine the content. To make sure people are finding your channel you must tag your videos and your channel, properly describe your channel, and pay close attention to video titles. If you allow embedding people will be able to spread your message for you without you having to do anything! Cross connect your YouTube channel to your other social media accounts and to your website to encourage sharing, and remind people to subscribe to your channel so they won’t miss important updates.

There you have it. This is really just the beginning of using YouTube for marketing! Do some research to see how other agencies are using the platform to engage, and use those ideas as a jumping off point for your channel. Get creative and have fun.

And…. action!

By: Sue Reynolds
Copyright © 2011 Sue Reynolds
http://goarticles.com/author/Sue-Reynolds/507227/

Sue Reynolds is a full time Social Media Analyst for a global transportation provider. She also consults with small businesses, non profits and public sector organizations on social media and web marketing and is the site administrator for several small business, non profit and government sites.

Creating a site for your business is one thing, ensuring it is able to convert customers is quite often another.

Setting up your business online may seem like a relatively simple process these days. After all, not only are there many companies willing to do it for you, but there are also a wide range of free tools and resources that can help you maintain your presence and make the most of your site. However, the ease with which you can create a home for your business online shouldn’t be confused with the ability for your business to then make sales based on that home. To truly take advantage of an online presence, your business needs to not only make itself available to customers, but to also engage with them.

One of the biggest problems for companies who have created websites that are primarily concerned with maintaining the brand they have spent so much time and money perfecting is a site that is hard for a customer to navigate and interact with. While it’s obviously imperative to keep a strong brand presence on your site, it’s also extremely important to ensure that this doesn’t overshadow the primary function of your site – to encourage people to convert.

A site that is unable to convert its users, especially for businesses in the retail sector, is completely failing to do its job. But it can be difficult to see where you are going wrong, especially when you have spent a lot of time and money creating your website and choosing your products carefully. An added complication can be the fact that you may not be able to fully understand the statistics and analytics associated with your site, making it harder for you to understand why you are failing to engage your customers and encourage them to make that final click.

By being able to interpret things like the amount of time a user spends on one of your pages, or where in the user journey they decide to leave your site, you can begin to put together a picture of areas in which your site is failing – and thereby find places to make improvements. Another way to find out about the stumbling blocks your business may be facing is to organise some user testing. Professional user testing can help you determine exactly how and why customers are having trouble with your site and provide you with reason for their failure to convert – and this is information that can be invaluable to your business.

Taking the time to investigate areas such as these, in addition to the time and energy spent on creating your site in the first place, is essential if you want to be able to function to the best of your business’s ability online. If you have the capacity to make some of these assessments and recommendations yourself, you may be able to discover any potential stumbling blocks for your business without help. Otherwise, you should be able to find web companies offering Conversion rate optimization services that you can ask to take care of the research and recommendation for you. Either way it’s important to consider this angle when creating, revamping or auditing your site.

By: Harvey McEwan
Copyright © 2011 Harvey McEwan
http://goarticles.com/author/Harvey-McEwan/146576/