Fast forward to today.  Newspaper advertising still isn’t cheap, in fact it costs more than ever before, even though readership has dropped dramatically in many markets.  So who makes money from newspaper ads?  Newspapers, that’s who!  If ads were ever a good value, they aren’t any more.

Perhaps you’ve heard of coupon mailers.  They’re those envelopes full of nothing but coupons, so surely those must work, right?  Who doesn’t love a discount?  Well, sort of.  In the 4 to 6 weeks a coupon mailer like Valpak or Money Mailer runs a campaign, you may see a bump in foot traffic.  But if the customers are trained to expect coupons and won’t return without one, you could find yourself sacrificing margin to preserve cash flow.  That’s like treading water.  It only works for a short time and then?

This is where the beauty of online marketing comes in.

An online marketing campaign harnesses many tools and opportunities to get the word out there, to bring customers in and to keep bringing them in.  Unlike coupons that expire, your online marketing efforts roll on and on.  Today’s search engines focus on geographical proximity, a fancy-sounding term.  It just means that if a customer searches for a bakery, the first results will be the closest ones.  But this is only effective if those bakeries have built an online presence. It might be easier than you think; happy customers are often willing to write reviews online to share their experiences.  Most people want to help others find the best service providers.  With online marketing, you can be on the short list all over town.

There are so many ways to build your local brand online I can’t cover them all here.  Suffice it to say it would be wise to consult with an online marketing specialist.  We can help you navigate the process and truly bring your business into the 21st century.

Especially with a new business, you may build it – but they may not come. That’s how it works – online and offline.

It is also important to remember that marketing on the internet is different from traditional marketing. In fact, even the most experienced marketers in the brick and mortar world have a hard time marketing online. It is a new kind of marketing and it will require different strategies to make things sell.

While I highly recommend gearing your online marketing materials toward achieving high ranking in the search engines organically – that is, based on the merit of your content and its popularity, there is a time and place for paid advertising. You’ve probably seen Google Adwords, the ads above and beside search engine results. While it can be effective in certain situations, it’s not the easiest to use and has a steep learning curve for the casual advertiser.

Driving traffic through Facebook advertising is becoming a popular trend these days. And for good reason. Facebook is the most visited website online and is easily capable of sending you thousands of highly targeted visitors! Just to be clear, it has nowhere near the scale or robustness of Google Adwords, but it does provide some opportunities Adwords does not.

One caveat however, Facebook is about relationship marketing, not direct sales. That means it’s more important to build a relationship with a potential client or an existing customer rather than closing a sale right away. Facebook is first and foremost a social networking website where each member can build their own network of friends. With the ability to ‘Like’ your ad, viewers can quickly make it viral by spreading it amongst all of their friends.

A great feature of Facebook Ads is that it will let you target ad viewers according to interests, age, gender and other general information. This is extremely helpful if your best clients can be narrowed down by these factors. In one Facebook case study, a wedding photographer spent $600 on ads targeting women aged 20 – 34 with a relationship status of engaged to book over $40,000 in contracts.

As with any advertising, it’s critical to know your target market and know what you want them to do. Many small businesses (especially online businesses) fail because they don’t offer their market a clear objective.

For a direct sales goal, you want the visitor to buy something. With social media, the “buy now” strategy isn’t as effective as a softer, more relational approach. You may only want them to become a fan of your page, and let other fans extoll the virtues of your product or service. Offer free reports or downloads – just make sure they’re of value and not full of fluff.

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – wants to help you leverage social media to reach your goals. His website www.midtntechnology.com

Keywords count

Just as with other types of search engine savvy, the keywords you use so that you are seen by real-time search engines have a big impact, too. Use relevant keywords in your titles and in your updates. For example, you could be writing content for your “Widget X” website and the latest and greatest product updates, so you can update what you’re doing on social networks like Twitter, too.

This real-time inclusion helps your subscribers and customers feel “in the know,” which is going to bring them closer to you and make them more likely to check you out and stay on top of things — and thus keeping them loyal to you, which also means more cash in your pocket.

What keywords should you use?

Just as with any search engine search, your Tweets or status updates should include those relevant keywords. That way, someone searching for content on those keywords is going to come up with your updates or your Tweets — which in turn will lead them to your site. Remember, if you want people to find your updates, you need to use the proper keywords so that they can keep finding and following you just because they’ve put those keywords into the real-time search engine.

What do you like about your favorite “Tweeter”?

If you follow someone on Facebook or Twitter, and just maybe they happen to be a little bit “famous” (even if they are simply an expert in their field and not a celebrity), what do you like about following them? You like the intimacy of being able to see up close what that person is doing, right? And just maybe, that makes you feel a little special, right?

You can use that to your advantage with your own followers. Even though yes, of course, the ultimate goal is to get people to go to your website and give you more business, it helps if your customers (and prospective customers) feel like they know you, too. So it’s okay to cultivate followers simply because you want them to follow you and not necessarily because they’ll become customers — although of course, they almost certainly will. And again, the best way to help these people find you is to use the proper keywords.

A learning curve?  Sure

As with “the good old days,” when we were learning about keyword optimization for regular search engines, so, too, is there going to be a learning curve when it comes to real-time searches. The thing is, though, if you get ahead of the curve, you’re also going to be the one to reap the benefits. So get in on real-time searches now by using the proper keywords in your updates. It’ll bring you a lot more visibility, a lot more traffic, and a lot more customers.

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – wants to help you leverage technology to reach your goals.  Need to know what YOUR keywords REALLY are? Contact Ken for a free initial consultation to see how the web can work for you.

Then, there are those companies that may have concerns about social media networking and marketing. Their concerns center on the uncontrollable aspects of social media. In other words, they may not be able to control the comments of the site visitors. While this is a valid concern, it should not completely dissuade a business from venturing into the social media world. The reason for this is fairly obvious: there are millions of people who frequent these sites. That means they are a built in audience to promote a business to.

Many have figured out means of dealing with the less than helpful aspects of social media communities. They worry about the potential damage to the company’s reputation, but sometimes overlook the marketing value of dealing with a valid complaint in a satisfactory way. While these are concerns are important, they are not overwhelming. Understanding some of the steps they take will contribute to a business’ social media success.

The key to avoiding any potential embarrassing scenarios is to understand that you can’t.  They’ll find you eventually. Dealing with them head on from a standpoint of empathy with a desire to correct the issue if possible is the most effective strategy.  Admitting there was an issue will garner respect, and making an earnest attempt to right what was wrong will create loyal followers.

As for dealing with issues of content, employees should be assigned the duties of monitoring inappropriate comments or activity. Many social networking sites have control functions for internal comment review prior to publishing. Instituting this function can certainly help safeguard the reputation of the company from internal mischief, and is certainly a far better strategy than simply opting to bow out of the world of social media altogether.

Remember, social media also provides a tremendously valuable function in an extremely cost-effective manner. Social media and networking is a tremendous resource for those companies looking to receive feedback from their customers. By clearly understanding the likes, dislikes, wants, and needs of the customer base, a business can make effective decisions regarding its promotional strategies and what type of products and services it offers. And, once again, this is achieved with very little in terms of cost. There will be a reduced need to hire the expensive market research company.

One of the most important aspects of succeeding in business is to have a knack for forecasting. When it comes to social media, it is clear that such online communities will continue to grow and expand in popularity. That is why ignoring the benefits of becoming involved with social media would not be a wise move on the part of any business. Become involved with this media in an effective and proactive manner is certainly advised to any serious business that wishes to stay competitive.

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – wants to help you leverage technology to reach your goals.  Contact Ken for a free initial consultation to see how the web can work for you.

Some business owners also use their email signature to post information about their offerings, or to advertise big discounts or sales that their customers might want to hear about or be updated on.

An email signature acts as an identifier, and if used well, it can be a great way for you to post information about yourself and get a lot of people to visit your website. However, you can also overestimate the power of this email signature, and if you do not make your email signature carefully and with your audience in mind, then no one will visit your website. If you are interested in promoting your website through a great email signature, then here are a few tips that you may want to take into account when knowing what not to do.

- Be considerate of people who have to work with slow Internet connections: avoid placing multimedia files in your email signature.

Some email software will allow you to place photos and videos in your email signature. If you are working with people who have fast Internet connections, these files can load properly and quickly. But if you are working with people who are still using dial-up Internet, then you put off email recipients, making them endure a long wait – or worse – your information is blocked altogether.  Save them this trouble by keeping your email signature to a text-only format.

- Don’t overload on the text, either. You may be tempted to put in paragraphs and paragraphs of text, with smilies and other emoticons that you think will make your signature look ‘cute.’

- Don’t just hyperlink: type your website address. Some website owners will often put the words ‘click here’ and hyperlink it to the website. This may not show up when email readers select a ‘text only’ option when reading their emails. Keep your website address readable.

- You don’t have to overload on text formatting in order to make your email signature nice to look at and appealing. Stay simple, and avoid colors. Again, if you have email readers who have the ‘text only’ option on, all your colors and formats will be gone.

- Stay with three lines of text, and avoid going for more than this. Think of the compactness of a dog tag: dog’s name on one line, owner’s name on the next, and then contact information on the last line.

About the Author:

Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar” – is a veteran technology addict, consultant, and President of MidTN Technology, a Murfreesboro web design and marketing firm.

According to Mr. Clay and other industry insiders, search engines are going to personalize your search results. This could be based on your past search history, your geographic location and perhaps even clues to your initial intent. For instance, if you are a computer programmer and search for “java” you will get different search results than another person in the same room who is a coffee importer. This is the first of many changes we may see early in 2009.

Third party tracking cookies and Google’s ability to research IP addresses are all key factors in what is to come. From your IP address, Google can (and in test markets, already does) return relevant search results that are close to home. For example, say, you live in Dallas Texas, and you search for a Toyota for sale, you will likely see dealerships in and around the Dallas area coming up first on your search page. This has the potential to be very helpful to business and searchers alike.

Another big change coming down the pike will be in the way of Universal Search. The “robots” used to crawl the web are going to become more complex. The variables in this new complex algorithm will tell them how interesting your site is. In other words, do you have video on your site? The ones that do are going to soar in rankings and those who do not… well; the only way left is down.
Web Surfers: Some Benefits/Drawbacks of Personalized Search

For the internet surfer you should see a lot less spam and irrelevant search results. That is good news, no more having to rummage through page after page of useless search results to find the information you want.

The drawback may be that it will be harder to get information outside of your “historical” search. Like the above example, what will the computer programmer do if he really wants to search for java, as in coffee?

There are also the few people left who still do not have access to high-speed internet connections. If the main results are going to be video-intensive, that could pose serious problems for those with dial-up’s infamously slow load times.
Business Owners: Changes will require you to integrate media and fresh content into your web sites.

The good news for local businesses is they will no longer have to compete for search results on a global level. It will be nice for the small business owner who is selling handmade baskets in Montana because he or she will not have to compete with someone in India!

The downside is everyone will have to get on board with video optimization in addition to SEO. This could prove challenging but not impossible. Video marketing is already becoming more common place on the web. The best advice from professionals is to create great relevant content, integrate video and other “sticky” content, and the customers will come.

Overall, it appears that Google is trying to improve web surfing for everyone, the surfer, and the merchant. When it all comes together and spammers have a harder time high skewing our results, we all win.

About the Author:
Ken Ivey, aka “the Web Czar”, is a veteran technology addict, consultant, author, and President of MidTN Technology, a marketing and web design firm.