Masterful Marketing » Online Marketing

Lead Generation: What Works Today

Debra — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:15:02 +0000

I recently presented a workshop at the New England Business Brokers Association meeting about how to integrate online and social media marketing for lead generation. As professional service business owners, we build our credibility by demonstrating our expertise and knowledge of our discipline and the use of social media makes building your reputation much simpler than before.

As a small business owner, how you approach online marketing can make the difference between a successful campaign and an overwhelming exercise. Learning how to use online marketing to drive visitors to your Website and generate leads is going to impact your marketing and ultimately the success of your business.

Here is a summary of the slides:

Slide 3: Small Business Marketing – What has changed?

Social media and the Internet channel has opened up opportunities to reach more potential customers that were unavailable to most small businesses not too long ago. What has changed in the market is the ability for the customer to:

Research service providers long before engaging in the sales process
Obtain reviews about the service provider that may influence the purchase decision
Acquire a perception about the business based on what they do and don’t find about you
Engage with the business through social networks to learn more about you

Slide 4: Small Business Marketing – What has not changed?

What has not changed, however, is the need to develop a brief, but focused marketing plan to help you effectively reach your prospects.

Slide 5: Benefits of Online Marketing

Levels the playing field
Positions you as the expert in your industry
Increases online exposure
Develops relationships / grows contact list
Encourages online WOM
Influences purchase decisions
Increases your reach
Drives visitors / generate leads

Slide 6: Challenges of Online Marketing

Not understanding what you are trying to accomplish with online and social media marketing can lead to activities that are disjointed, inconsistent and totally ineffective. Online marketing requires:

A strategy on how to approach it for your business
A marketing system to ensure consistency
A definition of what makes you different to stand out from the crowd
A valuable offer (content, information) to get attention
Understanding how to sell without selling
A plan for how to prioritize time, energy and money for best results

Slide 7: Online Lead Generation

Acquiring leads is accomplished by doing something that gets a person to take some action, such as:

Fills out a form on your website
Signs up for your mailing list
Calls you to initiate the relationship
Likes your Facebook Business Page
Connects with you on LinkedIn
Takes an action based on something you do online

Slide 8: Online Lead Generation

As with all marketing activities, if you establish a goal, the strategies and tactics will be more apparent and cohesive.

Getting Started with Online Marketing

Slide 10: Do you have a Web presence?

Evaluate your presence on the Internet by conducting a “vanity search” – search your name and business name. What is your first impression of what you find?
Do a review your brand – name, logo, color scheme – to ensure that it is aligned with who you really are and that it is consistent across all your web properties.
Review your website for brand consistency, fresh and relevant content and whether it is developed so that you can easily update it.
Review your existing profiles on social networks – are they consistent and project your value?

Slide 11: Define your Internet Marketing Strategy

The hub of your online marketing strategy is a professional website and/or blog where the goal of all marketing activities is to drive visitors to your website. Do your keyword research and ensure you have a list that you use consistently.

Slide 12: Establish Your Home Base

Spend some time on ensuring your Website has been appropriately optimized. Then develop a content strategy: Know what you want to achieve and the content that will attract your ideal prospect. Take an inventory of the content you have and re-purpose for different uses. Create new when needed.

Develop a comment strategy to become visible. Develop a list building strategy that you can use to market your information products. Syndicate your content via the RSS Feeds or through Article marketing sites

Slide 13: Social Media Strategy

Research your target audience and listen to what they have to say.
Find out where your target hangs out online.
Determine how you can help, educate and gain visibility.
Identify the tactics for engaging your target audience and attract them to you.
Create your complete and keyword rich profile that sets you apart and projects your human side.
Integrate your valuable content – blog posts, eBook, presentations, audio, video posts, advice – to attract your target market
Upload a quality picture that projects YOU!

Slide 14 – 21: Social Media Tools

Google Profile – Shows up when people search for your name. Provides a portal to your online identity.

Facebook Business Page – Profiles your business and enables your clients / prospects to get to know you through your content. To grow your supporters:

Add Like Box to your blog / website
Invite your opt-in email list to like your Facebook Page
Start a discussion so fans can interact with each other
Acknowledge fans when they write on your Page Wall
Create and promote events to your fans and friends
Incorporate your Blog posts
Welcome new fans with a welcome tab
Update your Page status with tips, advice and other useful information

Twitter for Business – Connect and network with people who share your industry, share your views or share quality information and ideas. Get instant access to what’s being said about you or your industry. Extend the reach of your thought leadership by communicating your blog posts and other content

LinkedIn Profile – Create a compelling, keyword rich profile. Make the full view public enabling Google, Yahoo and Bing to index. Get your vanity URL. Claim and update your company page. Marketing using LinkedIn:

Get and give recommendations
Join or create groups of interest, participate in discussions and display your expertise whenever possible
Update your status with content relevant to your connections
Participate in Questions & Answers to attract a targeted audience and make new connections.
Share your expertise and help people
Create & promote events
Incorporate your blog, presentations or e-books on your profile

Slide 22: Integrating it All

Connect LinkedIn to Twitter, Facebook to Twitter
Use Friendfeed for integrating other networks
Use HootSuite for a single dashboard

Slide 23: Internet Marketing System to ensure a Consistent Flow of Information

Daily:

Update Facebook page
Update status messages across networks
Scan Google Reader subscriptions and share content that would be valuable to your followers (add to Friendfeed to ensure it goes out to all social networks)
Check Google Alerts for mentions of your name and business name
Respond to new Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook connection requests

Weekly:

Blog once a week at a minimum
Scan LinkedIn Q&A and answer a few questions
Review content for new uses (presentations, videos, screencams, articles, ebooks, etc)

Monthly:

Tweak profiles
Check Webmaster tools
Check Google analytics for information on traffic
Write a recommendation for a contact in LinkedIn, request one in return
Review Facebook Business Page, update and add new features

Slide 24: Get Connected, Get Found™

Schedule time to work on your marketing and make social media part of it. Don’t overlook any content you create that can be useful to your followers. Set your system up and work it – the value of social media on your marketing will become evident. Be realistic on what you can do with the resources you have available.

What lead generation activities do you use? How do they work?

I am available to present this and other marketing topics for your organization. Please contact me if you are interested in discussing your presentation needs.

Search Engine Marketing is not a Commodity Product

Debra — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:24:47 +0000

Another week and another client calls me to ask about yet another company claiming they can optimize his website and guarantee first page placement on Google. After doing my usual research, I find a Ripoff Report by an unhappy customer who felt they were taken for a lot of money. One unhappy customer does not make the company bad. But this exercise got me wondering about why so many of these SEO and PPC companies have so many complaints posted all over the Web?

SEO and PPC are Not Commodity Products

These companies that call small business owners trying to sell them their software to manage their SEO and PPC activities are trying to treat Search Engine Marketing as a commodity – a one size fits all so to speak. This is absolutely not the case and most likely the wrong business model for success.

Each of my client’s search engine marketing strategy is unique. It takes a deep understanding of their business, their customers and what they are trying to accomplish with their online marketing. It takes creating relevant content that appeals to their prospects and attracts them to their Website. And, what works for one company may not necessarily work for another.

Are there common elements to setting up search engine optimization or a pay-per-click advertising campaign? Absolutely. But what is a common exercise is just a piece of the search engine marketing puzzle.

Take Ownership for Your Online Marketing Success

The following will help you get the most out of your online marketing effort.

Do:

Remember that search engine optimization, pay-per-click campaigns and social media activities are all marketing activities. If you are looking for someone to help you, make sure these people understand basic marketing principals. The technology is a tool – the means to an end – not the end itself. Those who spew technical jargon to confuse you should be suspect.
Find someone with whom you can develop a long term relationship. This doesn’t mean hiring a consultant on a retainer, but it does mean having someone you can call and pay to help you when you need it.
Understand that search engine marketing requires a long-term commitment by you to make it work for you. Your site will get better rankings in search engines if you write content regularly, keep your social media outposts updated and active and you monitor your progress and understand what works and what does not.

Don’t:

Hire a company that requires they take over your website, makes a copy of your website, replaces your phone number with theirs (to track phone calls as well as clicks) or transfers your domain to their control! Your domain name, website and content are assets of your company and you need to remain in control of your assets and your brand.
Respond to emails that say they can optimize your site and guarantee that they can get your site on the first page of Google. If you notice, all the emails say the same thing exactly – they just get sent from different fake email accounts. These hopefully go into your SPAM folder and should stay there.
Believe any sales call that claims that their SEO software can get your site top rankings ever will. Although it may work for some small businesses depending on where they are located and how competitive their industry is, most small businesses in and around major cities or in very competitive fields (like plumbing, remodeling or roofing) will never achieve their claimed results. Find someone who can help you with your overall marketing effort to differentiate yourself from your competition.

Matt McGee wrote a very good article on How to Get Started with SEO that can provide a starting point for those interested in learning more. And although most small businesses may not need the $500 – $1000 per hour SEO consultant, you should plan to invest in someone who can help you do it right. At this point there are too many horror stories of small businesses being scammed out of a lot of money, time and visibility on the Web to not take this seriously.

What do you think? Can SEO and PPC be automated with software and become a commodity?

Personal Brand or Online Reputation

Debra — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:25:21 +0000

Whatever you call it, you still need to manage it!

There’s a lot of conversation about the term personal brand. My favorite personal brand is Bono (no surprise here), but Tom Brady, Madonna, J. Lo, Manny Ramirez, Britney Spears and many other celebritites all have personal brands – some good and some not so good at times.

As small business owners in the social media world, it’s not about creating a celebrity-like image but about establishing your reputation and managing how you are perceived by others, especially those who may want to do business with you. Building and nurturing a consistent reputation for what you are good at (your differentiation) is something you should strive for to make finding your ideal client that much much easier.

And as much as some folks don’t like the term personal brand, there is a brand component to your online (and off-line for that matter) reputation that needs to be managed. When creating your online presence, develop your personal brand consistently across all of your social media profiles so that it can work to establish your credibility and authority. Here’s a checklist of things to do to help with your consistency:

Picture

For some reason, some people just don’t want to put their picture in their profile. Social networking is about developing relationships and people want to see a real person and get to know them. If you are trying to develop a relationship that results in brand loyalty for your business, use a good picture that shows your real personality.

The picture does not have to be a professionally taken picture, but it should project your professionalism. Don’t put on a business suit if you’re style is business casual and your typical client relates better to a more laid back style. Remember your brand should be the real you, not something made up because you think that’s what people want to see.

Have several pictures taken so that you can choose the best one. Use it on your blog, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to increase recognition of your brand across platforms. Sign up for a gravatar so that your picture shows up in comments on other blogs if that feature is supported.

Name

The name or identifier you use should be the same one for all of your social networking websites. If you want to build a professional brand reputation, don’t create something cute. Keep it relative to you and your business. If you have a common name that has most likely been taken, use a combination of your name and business name or add a middle initial if that makes sense for you. Decide before you sign up on something that you think would work across the social media universe and try to keep it consistent so you begin to be recognized.

Profile

Take advantage of LinkedIn‘s business oriented profile format to write a complete profile description using relevant keywords and then copy that description or pieces of it to all the other social networks, tailoring it to the audience. Since LinkedIn is the more business-oriented social network, they provide ample space to fully describe who you are and what you do. Setting one social network as the hub for your personal and professional information prevents you from writing something different for each network you join.

Actions

If you write a blog and update your status regularly, stay true to your discipline and expertise. Focus on how you help people and what’s in it for them. Build relationships, connect people to others that are beneficial to them, answer questions in your area of expertise and did I mention focus? I’m stressing focus because I’ve noticed recently on LinkedIn that there are people who have “best answers” to questions in 50 or more categories that are totally unrelated. Can they really be experts in that many diverse categories? Did they really answer them all or had someone else answer the questions for them (if so, not very transparent)? What is their strength? Who are they marketing to? Being a Jack of all trades and a master at none comes to mind. Pick your targets and focus on your strengths. It will draw people to you who need your expertise.

When you are participating in social media, you are establishing your reputation whether you know it or not. Make it a conscious effort and nurture the personal brand that is truly you.

How well do you manage your online reputation? Share your tips and tricks in the comments below.

U2 photo credit Phil Romans.

Baby Boomers Not Interested in Social Media

Debra — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:53:21 +0000

According to a survey of 1800 people in the baby boomer generation (born in 1946 through 1964) by ThirdAge/JWT Boom, people over age 40 participate heavily in word-of-mouth and value personal recommendations and expert opinions, but they have not embraced social networking or blogs despite being heavy users of other online services. Given that this generation is 78 million strong, controls more than 83% of consumer spending and that spending will increase $800 billion to over $4.6 trillion by 2015, I think this survey would be of interest to most marketers.

Being a boomer myself, I have to say I don’t resemble that remark! I’ve always liked being a bit different than the rest – having majored in computer science long before computers were in vogue. And in the social media space, I’m definitely ahead of most of my colleagues and friends. Did I ever mention how much I just love iTunes?

But the information in this survey comes as no surprise based on my anecdotal observations. Most of them look at me funny when I bring up social media topics, how it relates to marketing and whether they use Twitter, have a Facebook page or do they blog. Actually I never talk about this stuff with with my friends, but my 15 year old niece though her aunt was pretty cool having a Facebook page!

The major findings of the study indicate that Boomers:

Connect and interact with others in their communities around shared interests and common issues, but they use more traditional web communications tools, such as email, to keep in touch.

Participate in trusted online communities and share opinions about brands. They’re also open to traditional marketing and e-marketing, as long as the message is coming from a source or brand they know and trust.

Were most likely to trust a Web site’s content if the site corresponded to a trusted brand or featured credible expertise.

Participate in viral or word-of-mouth marketing as much as or more than younger age groups.

The following chart indicates where the Boomers have no interest in spending their time:

The good news is that this generation can be reached online using the more traditional Internet marketing activities. What this says to me as a marketer is that you need to continue to mix traditional and new media marketing into your marketing plans. Unless your ideal client is firmly entrenched into the 45 year+ crowd (and there are definitely businesses targeting that demographic), your plan must include a multi-channel marketing mix across all traditional and new media. This online marketing mix will guarantee the broadest reach to your set of ideal clients.