Internet Marketing Blog
Thoughts, tips, and trends in online marketing
We all know that Google is a major player (if not ‘the major’ player) in search engines and that a significant contributor to a website’s success is how well it is ranked in Google’s search results. While it may be challenging to get your company name or website ranked “organically” for certain terms, there are ways other than search engine optimization (SEO) that can get you listed on page 1. For local businesses it is much easier to get it ranked for search terms that specify your geography (ie: Omaha Baby Sitter), and you can improve your chances for page-1 listings by adding your business to the Google Local Business Center. When you do this, people who search for your products or services and specify your location, may see your business listed even before the #1 organic listing result. You’ve seen it before – Google displays a map and lists up to 10 results in that area.
A Simple and Successful Case Study With the Google Local Business Center: >> Continue reading
I have been a Salesforce.com user since 2005 – a huge proponent of its on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) solution. But if there was a single feature I have always wished they had, it was the ability to create recurring Tasks and Events. You know, like a reminder to email your top customers on the 15th of each month. We’ve all been spoiled with Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, and other calendar programs that offer the ability to make events and tasks recurring, but I never understood why Salesforce lacked that option. Well they finally caught up.
In Salesforce’s Summer ‘09 updates, they have finally included the ability to make Tasks and Events recurring. I don’t know why it took 9 releases of updates for them to move this feature to the top of the list, especially since it has been such a highly requested topic in their IdeaExchange (where users share ideas for new features), but better late than never!
You can now schedule a task or event to recur every few days, weeks, months or years…rather than creating multiple individual reminders for a repeating task. This will be a real time saver when inputting tasks for those contacts who require daily, weekly or monthly check-ups, and it will help preventing tasks and events from slipping through the cracks. The same task you used to have to enter individually each month can now be entered once, with a monthly recurrence. The new rolled out feature is now available within all Salesforce edition.
It’s the little things like this that can help you avoid major hiccups in your sales process automation…so take advantage!
When you speak your customers’ language it’s so much easier to sell. The challenge is that when you’re an expert on something, and you’re trying to sell that something, there’s a good chance your customers aren’t as familiar with it as you are, and may use different words to describe it than you do. That difference in terminology can really dampen your sales pitch. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what words consumers are using to describe and search for your offerings (especially if your competitors aren’t yet targeting those words)?
Web analytics reports tell you almost anything you want to know about how many people have visited your website, how they got there, and what they did while they were there. Because there’s so much in there, like surfing the internet, browsing web analytics reports can be addicting and time consuming. But also like surfing the internet, web analytics can help you uncover valuable nuggets of business wisdom – such as identifying the unexpected ways that your website visitors think and act. >> Continue reading
Aug
Business executives often underestimate the amount of integration search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) efforts should have with a company’s internal business processes, sales processes, and offline marketing efforts – too often considering SEM & SEO independent efforts, measured by conversion rates alone.
As stand alone marketing efforts, SEM & SEO can get visitors to your website or even to your storefront, and drive measurable increases in revenues. But as part of an integrated marketing strategy, those SEM & SEO efforts can also be powerful research tools that help business executives make improvements in other areas of their businesses. Bill Muller of iProspect, another internet marketing firm with a presence here in San Francisco, put it well in this interview video from a recent Search Engine Strategies conference (full transcription of the interview below): >> Continue reading
Ever wish you could show someone exactly what you’re seeing on your computer screen? You know, like when you get an error that you just can’t explain, and you need help fixing it? Well we were recently introduced to a web service that has quickly become one of my new favorite tools. ScreenToaster is a free product that enables users to record videos of what they do and see on their computer’s screen. The recording can be annotated and viewed by others online, which can be extremely valuable when trying to give someone a description of an issue you are experiencing, offering a tutorial, or giving a presentation.
ScreenToaster videos are very easy to record and they are available for use incredibly quickly. It uses a Java interface (which most people have downloaded on their computer anyway), so there isn’t any additional software to download and you don’t even have to create an account to test it out. You can share a link to the video with others, upload the video to YouTube, or embed the video on your website or blog.
Key features of ScreenToaster:
As I was writing a recent blog post, poking fun at yet another poorly executed email marketing message, I started to feel a little guilty. Just a little. It’s so easy to pick on the guys who are going about it all wrong, but hey, at least they’re trying. And although there’s plenty to be learned from analyzing the mistakes online marketers make, there’s often more to be gleaned from sharing some of the good stuff.
So today I’m going to be like Oprah…or something like that…and share with you a few of my favorite online marketing tools. Some you may have heard of, some are hopefully new gems for you to add to your toolbelt. >> Continue reading
Jul
Verio Is a Huge Web Hosting Company, but They Haven’t Mastered Email Marketing
Posted by: Jeremy Reither
Let’s say, for the sake of this story, that Verio is a fairly large web hosting company. And let’s agree that they have enough resources to put together a reasonably compelling integrated marketing campaign. If that were the case, wouldn’t you think that Verio’s integrated marketing efforts might cover email marketing? I would hope so. But apparently it doesn’t. Their sales agents are sending one-off emails to their prospects (like me), and I would argue doing more harm to their brand than good. See for yourself in the screenshot below. The take-away here is that your marketing efforts – online and offline – need to be integrated and coordinated so that your touch-points with prospects and clients are all sending the same message.
Verio claims to offer “Industry-Leading Performance. Renowned Global Reliability. Award-Winning Support.” As a previous Verio customer I would actually take issue with any of those claims (I don’t recommend them as a web host – see hosting recommendations), but still they put on a good facade – their website is nice and shiny; it gets a lot of traffic; they have a lot of clients. So, this marketing email I received from them recently didn’t fit the facade. Check it out – it looks like it’s coming from some guy selling hosting from his basement. >> Continue reading
from flickr.com/skizo
After what seemed like a forever of waiting (really it was about 3 weeks), I finally received my invitation to join Google Voice. I was anxious to test it out and see how it compares to RingCentral, whose virtual PBX system we have been using for the last year.
Since RingCentral is a paid service, I would expect it to have more features and functionality than the free Google Voice product – and it does. That said, there are actually some features that Google Voice offers that RingCentral does not.
The two services do overlap a bit, but they probably ultimately serve slightly different audiences – with Google playing to the individual or solo business person, and RingCentral aiming for small and medium sized business clients.
Twitter has, for many months now, been touted as a powerful marketing tool that enables businesses and marketers to get their message in front of potentially thousands of targeted viewers with remarkably little effort, and a surprisingly high return on investment. But is this use of Twitter as a marketing platform ultimately going to lead to its downfall?
Today I talked to Ash Sud – internet entrepreneur, and founder of AdPoppr (a widget that aims to help website owners, bloggers, and affiliate marketers create unique customized footer ads to increase online customer conversions) – about the use of Twitter as a marketing tool. >> Continue reading
Jul
Buy the Product Featured in That New Music Video…Before the Video is Even Over
Posted by: Jeremy Reither
Years ago marketers talked about the possibility of consumers interacting with videos and shows they watch by pointing to the screen to get more information about the products featured, like the clothes the actors wear. Well, a company called Clikthrough is actually making that happen. Very cool. But I predict the road to profitability is going to be a long one.
The screenshot below is from a music video featured on Clikthrough.com. Throughout the entire video you can point your mouse to the people, places, and things you see. When you point to an item you get more information (or in the case of ‘things,’ sometimes the ability to buy them). At the moment of this screenshot I pointed to a pair of jeans, and whaddaya know – those very jeans are available for purchase over on the right side of the screen. >> Continue reading
