Business

Boost Your Business With Blogging!

A Business blog is an incredible online marketing tool that saves you thousands of dollars but provides great business opportunities in just one click. Blogs are user-friendly, customized and flexible medium for disseminating useful information for effective positioning of your products in the market.

Businesses that are actively blogging have a huge advantage of their competitors. Here are just a few of the advantages:

Word-of-Mouth – In a survey, there are currently 14 million blogs with 80,000 more being added each day and about 30 percent of the 50 million users are blog readers. Imagine how much exposure your company will have, if your products are advertised through blogs. The Internet allows information to spread quickly especially if an impressive write-up goes with your product. Soon your blogs will be passed on to hundreds of possible customers.

Awareness and loyalty – Open communication with your customers creates trust and loyalty among them. Being there to respond to their questions and comments makes them more willing to try your products and services.

Feedback – Blogs are great for product research and reviews. It would be easier to improve on your products if you observe your customers’ thinking and behavioral patterns. You can also take immediate action to your customers’ concerns.

For better marketing results, actively promote your business blogs by submitting your blogs to blog search sites and directories. Do not forget to paste in with your blogs, your URL. Be sure that your blogs contain exclusive information with value and are always updated to keep readers visiting for updates.

SourceOne Technologies offers several blogging packages to help you get started. If you are interested in starting a blog today for your business please contact us at 720-306-5001.

By admin|Blogging|0 Comments

What is Local Search Marketing

What is local search marketing? Local search marketing is actually a fairly simple concept. To summarize it is using search engines to connect local businesses with local customers. Now that you know what it is the next step is to apply the concept to get results.

In the past a search at Google or another search engine would turn up results for several businesses and often several were in a different city and in many cases a different state then where you were and where you needed to find a business. This has changed however. It is now recognized that people use the internet to search for local businesses. This change has prompted an increase in online local business directories as well as changes in Google and other search engines.

Keywords are Important in your Local Search Marketing

Using the proper keywords is a very important step when you are creating your local search marketing plan. It is your goal to be found by the prospects and customers in your city or area that you serve. (If you server a global market this may not be that important to you).

When you are working on your local search marketing the keywords you use should contain your business category and your city and often state. If you are an auto mechanic in Thornton you may focus on the following keyword sets: Thornton Auto Mechanic, Auto Mechanic Thornton Colorado or other combinations that would include the service you provide and the city and state.

Using the proper keywords can be done by having a domain name that focuses on these keywords verses your actual name of your business it can also be done by including these keywords in your web copy and in your blog posts.

Online Local Directories

A popular trend that has sprung up in the last couple of years is online directories that help with searching for a business in a particular location. These are great for businesses to use in their local search marketing plan because they allow you to input information about your business, allow customers to post reviews about you and they are also indexed by the search engines such as Google.

One word of caution however is that customers can post bad reviews as well on these sites. This being the case it is critical that you either monitor for any mention of your business on a regular basis or have someone do this for you. If you get a bad review it is your job as a business person to address it and fix the issue. Look at this as an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive. Be sure to actively solicit your happy customers however to visit these sites and provide a positive review for you.

Conclusion

There are several items that go into ensuring that your business is found by local consumers looking for you. This article only highlighted using keywords in your domain and content as well as registering for local directories and handling customer reviews.

If you are looking for assistance with your local search marketing plan SourceOne Technologies can assist you. We have several plans and programs available and would be happy to assist you in the perfect solution for your business.

SourceOne Technologies 720-306-5001

By admin|Local Search Marketing|0 Comments

Social Media Time Management

Social Media is one of our favorite tools for our clients to use to start reaching the right prospects and turning them into customers and then into cheer leaders for their business. Getting started with Social Media however can be over whelming to some because although most of the tools are free they do take time to implement, manage and build the community you are building.

Here are some tips that you can use to help effectively manage your time as you embark in using Social Media in your business.

Schedule time for your Social Media Activities

It is a good idea to block out daily time slots to focus on your social media efforts. In these time blocks focus your time to take care of your Social Media activities. Reply to any questions you have from followers on Facebook and Twitter. Read through content of those you follow and take a few minutes to comment on relevant content and to share this with others in your network. Now is also a good time to share a status update as to what you are up to – be personal. Remember you should share about 80-90% of content and information and only 10-20% should be sales.

Use tools to Manager your Social Media Activities

There are several tools that you can use to manage your Social Media activities. These will allow you to be able to monitor what is being said about you and your products or services and to listen for a need. There are also tools that you can use to schedule your activities.

The following tools are some of our favorites:

Hootsuite: A dashboard tool you can use to manage your postings to multiple networks which include Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Hootsuite also lets you schedule your postings and to search for items with particular keywords. It is a great tool!

Social Mention is a very valuable tool to be able to keep a real time pulse on mentions of your company, brand or any other key words you which to watch in the social scene.

If you do find Social Media overwhelming we are here to help you and can develop a custom package to work with your goals and budget. If you are interested in learning more just complete the form below.

By admin|Social Media|0 Comments

Questions from Customers and Prospects make great Content for your Blog

Producing content for your blog is often a big struggle faced by businesses; however it doesn’t have to be. There are several things that can be used to produce good content for your blog. Some items include recent industry news, new product or service information, current events and many other items.

The item we want to focus on today is creating content from previous questions or emails from your customers and your prospects. I am sure if you scanned your email right now you could find at least 10 questions that you have received from either current customers or prospects around your products and services. These make for the start of great content for your blog.

Scan through your past email and make a list of the top questions you receive and turn these into blog posts. You could even post them as a question with the answer, or take the question and extract the topic and write more information around it.

Using the questions you are getting already to create blog content will allow you to answer these questions for everyone, create content and also drive search engines to you based on prospects searching for this information.

About the author:

Stefanie Blackburn is an Internet Consultant with SourceOne Technologies. SourceOne Technologies currently offers assistance to business owners in establishing a complete online presence by offer their services as an Online Marketing Consultant.

SourceOne Technologies offers several blogging packages. We can get you set up and running with your blog or we can even provide you with a program where we do your blog postings for you. For more information you can contact us today at 720-306-5001

By admin|Blogging|0 Comments

Tips for Using Email Marketing Effectively in your Business

Tips for Using Email Marketing Effectively in your Business

Using Email Marketing as part of your marketing mix is a great way to stay in contact with your prospects and current customers and in most cases generate more revenue on a regular basis. Email Marketing Tips

One key to using email marketing successfully is to be consistent. Being consistent with your email marketing will keep you in front of your market and help build a connection. Consistency being key you should market to your email list approximately 2 – 4 times a month.

Here are a few additional tips to help you use email marketing effectively in your business:

Provide something of value to members of your list when you send them email. Coupons are great to send out to your list and are often shared with others.

Track your results. It is important that you know what emails are effective and which ones are not. This can be achieved by using a system that shows you who opens the emails and if they click on any links included in the email or not.

Personalize the emails you send. Use a tool that will allow you to personalize the email you send to each prospect and you will see an increase in your open rate. Everyone likes to be addressed by name.

Respect your list. It is critical that you respect your list and never spam them with email they do not want. To prevent this a system should be used that allows subscribers to un-subscribe if they no longer wish to receive your email marketing.

Make it easy to share. Make it easy for your list to share any email you send with someone else. This will help you grow your list over time.

These tips will help you effectively use email marketing to reach your prospects and customers and stay in front of them on a regular basis, ultimately generating more revenue.

About the author:

Stefanie Blackburn is an Internet Consultant with SourceOne Technologies. SourceOne Technologies currently offers assistance to business owners in establishing a complete online presence by offer their services as an Online Marketing Consultant.

If your business is ready to capture the benefits of Email Marketing SourceOne Technologies can assist you in getting started. We offer several plans that range from the do it yourself to the everything done for you plans. Click here to find more about our Email Marketing plans.

By admin|E-Mail Marketing|0 Comments

Implementing an Automated Email Marketing Campaign for your Business

Implementing an Automated Email Marketing Campaign for your Business

Businesses that are run online have been using a strategy for years for selling products and services; email marketing. This is a marketing tool however that many businesses with a store front or office overlooked and did not include into the marketing mix. Email marketing however, can no longer be overlooked and should be incorporated into every businesses marketing mix.

Email marketing will allow a business to build a list of customers or prospects and keep in touch with them on a regular basis. In most cases staying in contact with your list of prospects and customers will increase revenue.

There are several benefits to using email marketing in your business. Here are a few of those benefits:

Low Cost
Offers Unlimited follow-up with your prospects and customers
Offers increased opportunity for more sales
Is a great customer retention tool
Can be automated
Implementing Email Marketing typically increased revenue

There are also several ways that you can use email marketing with communicating with your prospects and customers. Here are just a few:

Thank them for their purchase
Provide a coupon
Send information on a sale or special promotion
Promote an event
Send a newsletter
Share information on new products or services
Profile the customer of the month

As you can see using email marketing has many benefits and uses for every business. Email marketing should no longer be an overlooked item in any business marketing mix.

Stefanie Blackburn is an Internet Consultant with SourceOne Technologies. SourceOne Technologies currently offers assistance to business owners in establishing a complete online presence by offer their services as an Online Marketing Consultant.

If your business is ready to capture the benefits of Email Marketing SourceOne Technologies can assist you in getting started. We offer several plans that range from the do it yourself to the everything done for you plans. Click here to find more about our Email Marketing plans.

By admin|E-Mail Marketing|0 Comments

Business Marketing — Fewer businesses will continue with Yellow Pages

Business Marketing — Fewer businesses will continue with Yellow Pages

If you are a business owner that has used the Yellow Pages in your marketing mix you know that this can be very costly, and sometimes there is little return on this cost. A huge cost with little return is something that most businesses can not afford to keep and remain profitable.

We have one client that was paying almost $1200 a month for their Yellow Pages listed and from what little tracking tools they had were only able to attribute about 2 customers a month from those ads. We have now switched this client to other marketing channels which include Social Media, Blogging as well as Email Marketing. The goal is that within three months of adding these services (at a MUCH lower cost) that we will be able to a substantial increase in traffic and revenue from these efforts.

Looking at other methods to market besides the Yellow Pages is becoming a trend with small businesses or what some call micro-business (micro-business = 10 employees or less). Personally, I believe that there are better methods to market than the Yellow Pages where you can better track and measure the effectiveness of your marketing.

Vistaprint conducted a survey in April of 2010 of 1,100 customers and in this survey found that two-thirds surveyed have no interest in marketing in the Yellow Pages and only 11% plan to use it in the future. Here is graph of the marketing channel trends of those surveyed:

In looking at this graph it is nice to see that many businesses are currently using Social Media, Online Direct Marketing and Physical Direct Marketing. This is a trend that will continue and is one that will help small or micro-business cut cost and build focused prospect lists.

If you would like to read the full survey you can do so here at Vistaprint’s Small Business Blog.

If you are interested in learning more about how you can use social media in your business please contact us via the form below:

By admin|Marketing|0 Comments

Create coupons online for FREE to promote your business

Create coupons online for FREE to promote your business

Coupons are a great way to market your business, products and services, but sometimes they are time consuming to create and manage.

Oneminute coupon is a new service that is in beta testing that allows you to design a coupon for free that can be posted on your website and printed out by your customers and visitors.

It is a tool worth investigating and incorporating on your site to bring customers into your business.

SourceOne Technologies can assist you in implementing this service along with many more to help you drive customers to your business.

By admin|Cool Sites|0 Comments

Are you leaving money on the table ?

Are you leaving money on the table ?

As a business owner are you leaving money on the table? Unfortunately many business owners are doing just this, leaving money on the table; but this doesn’t have to be the case. Don't leave money on the table

One of the top things we see all the time is a business owner missing out on additional revenue, sometimes thousands of dollars worth by not capturing the name and email address of their current customer base. The good thing is that this is something that can easily be corrected.

One of the largest assets a business has is its customer list, but the value in this asset is only there if it is utilized. Current customers that have already benefited from your products and services more than likely will use you again, however you must stay in front of them so they remember you.

Implementing Email Marketing where you capture your customers name and email address and send them regular newsletters and coupons can be set up very quickly for you and in many cases can be greatly automated. Once this is in place you will usually see at minimum a 10% increase in revenue from your current customers.

In many cases your current customers will also become word of mouth advertisers for you and begin forwarding your newsletters and coupons to friends who will also be interested in your product or service.

If you are interested in seeing how Email Marketing can be implemented for your business please contact SourceOne Technologies at 720-306-5001 today.

By admin|E-Mail Marketing|0 Comments


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Tips for Using Email Marketing Effectively in your Business

Implementing an Automated Email Marketing Campaign for your Business

Business Marketing — Fewer businesses will continue with Yellow Pages

Create coupons online for FREE to promote your business

Are you leaving money on the table ?

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