Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
When I talk about marketing campaigns to my clients, they’re often focused on specific tools or tactics designed to increase their bottom line.
But those individual tools and tactics only work if they’re in sync with a bigger, more complete plan… and that plan begins with a marketing calendar.
Your marketing calendar is the outline of things to come… it tells you when new promotions will start and which campaigns you’ll launch when. Think of your marketing plan much like you do your personal calendar – by itself, it isn’t much… but when you start using it, everything else seems to fall into place.
And if that’s not enough to convince you that you need a marketing calendar, here are a few more good reasons: Read Full Post »
Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
There was a time when article marketing was considered to be THE way to boost your website’s rankings in the search engines… and the premise was sound: you create a website, you write articles related to your website, and then you post those articles at other websites with links pointing back to your own.
This not only got the word out about your products and services, it also produced coveted “backlinks,” ensuring that the search engines would move you further up the list of results.
But then like every other trend on the Internet, article marketing seemed to die a horrible death. Those with multiple links in multiple article banks not only lost their high rankings, they also suffered penalties for trying to cheat the system itself.
So, where does article marketing stand now? Is it really dead or is there still a way to benefit from this once tried and true method of marketing online?
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Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
Online Marketing Trends: What You Should Be Doing Now
With the current pace of changing technology, it’s easy to find yourself working on yesterday’s next big thing while your competition is racing ahead to take advantage of what’s hot today. Each new must-have marketing tool, technique, or tactic roars onto the scene leaving marketing teams and small businesses scrambling to keep up so they don’t miss out. Unfortunately, by the time you figure out that there’s something new to learn, there’s something else already on the horizon.
To help you stay ahead of this curve, we’ve put together a quick list of online marketing trends.
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Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
When it comes to optimizing your online presence for the search engines, your strategy should always begin with the right keywords.
And the reason is simple: using the wrong keywords will make it difficult for potential customers to find you. If they can’t find you, they can’t hire you, buy from you, partner with you, or promote you, meaning that every time someone searches for your products and services but finds a competitor, you’ve just lost revenue.
Yet, while the reason for keyword research is simple, the process itself isn’t quite so easy. In fact, deciding on which keywords to focus on can be downright difficult, so we’ve come up with a few tips to help you get the most out of your keyword research efforts. Read Full Post »
Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
For several years now the mantra of social media marketing gurus and experts across the industry has been that offline marketing – the postcards, print ads, and radio spots that businesses have always used to boost business – is dead, a casualty of the social media revolution.
And it’s easy to understand why they say that. More and more people switch to smart phones everyday and our society as a whole has become internet dependent for locating the things we want and the businesses that can provide them. But contrary to all this noise, offline marketing is far from dead. In fact, there are some places where it is more effective now than it was before the emergence of the internet.
You may be wondering what that means for you. If online isn’t the only way to go, do you have to double up, essentially doing all you did before from an offline perspective while also pursuing each online opportunity that comes along? The answer is, yes, no, and it depends.
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Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
Viral content is like the Holy Grail of internet marketing. Every business that markets online strives to create compelling content that inspires people everywhere to share, like and link… and it is easy to see why.
A video that goes viral can have millions, even tens of millions of views in a matter of days and if that video features your business or product, you have expanded your reach farther and faster than you could have with almost any other medium. Like the Holy Grail, however, viral content can be elusive and far less of it spreads like wildfire than we think.
The problem facing marketers then, is finding the magic formula that will make your content go viral. Unfortunately, that perfect formula doesn’t exist. But that said, there are some strategies that can drastically improve your chances of creating viral content and set you apart from your competition at the same time. Here’s my top five:
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Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
Earlier this year, Facebook finished rolling out one of their most visible and game-changing features, the Timeline. For businesses and marketing teams, the introduction of Timeline for Brands promised a better way for businesses to use Facebook. Everyone was buzzing about what it would mean for businesses when the changes took effect and how it would change the way businesses and brands used Facebook to promote products, communicate with customers, and build a fan-base.
Now that those changes are in full effect, let’s take a look at what this transformation means for your business.
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Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
With the rapidly changing face of social media, it isn’t always easy to see how the different platforms fit into a more traditional marketing strategy. This is especially true for Twitter. Even though every business owner I work with knows they need to be on Twitter, very few can actually explain why or what Twitter will do for their business.
If this sounds like you, not to worry… here’s 12 reasons to open that Twitter account today.
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Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
Having a great product or service and perfect copy doesn’t guarantee that your email marketing campaign will be successful. Nor does adding in an eye-catching design or spending large amounts of money for a “proven” list.
You can do all of these things right and still miss the mark if you don’t have a solid foundation in place to assess what works, identify what doesn’t, target your messages, and make adjustments as you go. So, to help you make the most of your next email marketing campaign, here are six tips for forming that foundation.
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Posted By Larry ~ 15th August 2012
Four Things Your Company’s Website Should Have
In today’s competitive marketplace, just having a website is no longer enough. Your prospects are inundated with information – both online and offline – and have become immune to the standard advertisements and sales copy.
As a result, it takes more than just a low price or clever gimmick to make the sale – your prospects are looking for the value your products will add to their lives. To convey that value, you have to build a relationship with your market. That means your website needs to be interactive and engaging, enticing your audience to join the online “community” you’ve built for them.
So, how do you do that? How do you build a website that will attract your target market? Here are five things your company’s website should definitely have.
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