August 30, 2011
We have been discussing the various methods for advertising online using social media sites. Making the decision where to advertise is critical when considering the variety of social media sites available. Deciding whether or not to post predominantly on Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace can be a big decision. Most businesses don’t have the capacity to advertise effectively on all of these sites and so must make decisions about where to focus their efforts.
Facebook
Facebook is the single largest social media network in use today. There are several ways to advertise and market a company using this resource. There are free methods such as creating a business page and updating regularly. This method allows businesses to interact directly with consumers and get their feedback on upcoming sales and special offers. There is also the option to buy paid advertising space. Facebook sells banner ads on a pay-per-click business model. The amount spent on this method is completely controlled by the advertiser and can be limited to the local area. Using paid advertising judiciously along with a free business page can be a great way to increase your online presence. However, Facebook is not always the appropriate place to market certain types of services.
LinkedIn
Business to business services are often best represented on sites like LinkedIn. Instead of being a general social networking site like Facebook, LinkedIn is a networking site geared toward the business professional. This makes LinkedIn the preferred place to advertise to businesses, grow a business network or market a skill set. If you offer services rather than products, LinkedIn can be an invaluable resource. Even if you only use the general profile option, it is a great idea to set up a basic account showcasing the talents and skills that are a part of your business. Ensure that all key employees have LinkedIn accounts and update them regularly to keep your business network growing.
MySpace
While MySpace doesn’t have the number of active users that Facebook does, it does offer a chance to advertise in a less congested environment. Facebook is used by so many people, that it is easy to be lost in the crowd. With the smaller number of users active on MySpace, it is easier to connect with niche markets and get in touch with your targeted demographic.
Carefully consider the options when you are embarking on a marketing plan that includes social networking. This type of advertising requires a considerable time commitment to be successful and it doesn’t happen overnight. Social media marketing is for those that take the long view rather than those looking for an instant response.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
Internet Marketing Training – Internet Marketing Course – Internet Marketing Blog
August 25, 2011
Recently we discussed marketing on social media websites; now let’s get a little more in-depth about marketing specifically on Twitter. Twitter is a social media site that many marketers have trouble wrapping their heads around due to the sparse nature of the posts on Twitter. The first thing you need to understand about Twitter is that direct sales and advertisements don’t work using this medium. Twitter is a site that most people use to be amused and chat about fun stuff. Introducing sales into that environment will simply get you ignored. Here are a few basic strategies that can help you gain a huge Twitter following that will translate into profits.
Be Human! Blokes that only talk business, can’t enjoy a joke and have no vulnerabilities, often don’t have many mates and spend a lot of time talking to thin air. Building a Twitter following is all about making new mates every day, online. Talk online the same way you would to real people in front of you.
Don’t Be Afraid to Be Controversial! A little bit of controversy can drive a discussion. Take a stand on issues that are important to you. Even if some people decide they hate you, many that agree with you will start to follow you and, eventually, buy from you. Don’t go out of your way to pick topics that are sure to get a rise, instead find something you are already passionate about and talk about it freely.
Tweet All the Time! Of course, you don’t always have something deep and profound to say, but on Twitter that is A-Okay. People hop on Twitter to relax and have a laugh, so instead of making deep meaningful statements post a link to a great web comic or a funny YouTube video. People that got a laugh are more likely to follow your Tweets in future.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Action! It is so often the case that the reason people don’t get something is purely because they didn’t ask. Ask followers for re-tweets or site visits. Not all the time of course, but every once in a while this is a great way to gain more followers.
Be Interactive! Talk to people. Comment on their Tweets. Be polite and complimentary. It doesn’t cost you anything to be nice, and it may pay dividends down the road.
Put all of these strategies in place and watch your Twitter following sky rocket.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
August 23, 2011
Social media is now a top marketing opportunity for many growing companies. There are almost a billion people involved in some form of social media, which makes this an ideal marketplace to offer products and services. Don’t get caught up in only marketing on Facebook either. Although it is the single largest opportunity, it is not the only one out there. Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and YouTube are just a few of the other very well-known Social Media sites. The vast array of opportunities for a free connection with potential customers make social media web sites an ideal opportunity to incorporate them in your overall marketing strategy.
More and more companies are recognising these options, without doing the proper research to make the strategy successful. Jumping in to sink or swim is not the best option. It often leads to failure that is difficult to recover from. Before choosing to enter the social media marketplace, do your research. Figure out which social media site will best market your product or service. Always have a plan before you jump into a marketing push.
The following are some great tips to help you get started on social media marketing:
Choose the Right Site
The first step is all about research. Visit the sites you are considering using for marketing purposes and find out how they work, who is the predominant user and what the most effective methods of making contact with potential customers are. Don’t simply pick the most used site either, figure out if the platform of each site will work with the strategy you are pursuing. Will Facebook, YouTube or Twitter best represent your company? Information is the key to avoiding a desperate sales pitch that will push customers away rather than reel them in.
Honesty is the Best Policy
After you have picked the social media site that offers the best way to connect with customers it is time to unveil your pitch. Keep in mind that sometimes a combination of social media sites is most effective so never box yourself in to only one site. Also, never lie to the consumer. With the easy methods available of sharing information through social media, a lie can hit your company hard and completely close that avenue of client building. Always tell the truth to potential customers and you will have much greater success marketing online.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
August 18, 2011
What is niche marketing and why is it important online? A niche is a very small and specific part of a targeted market. For example, many larger companies might target a demographic of women from age 23-34, which is NOT a niche. A niche would be women age 23-34 who swing dance. There aren’t a lot of these, but the ones there are don’t have a lot of options for shopping that caters to them. In the regular marketplace it doesn’t make a lot of sense to open a store that caters solely to female swing dancers, but online it makes plenty of sense. The online business model essentially says that anyone with a need can be reached directly through online sales. In a more traditional approach you must provide to the masses. Online any customer can find you. Provided you have a website that is optimised to take advantage of your niche, customers will find you.
1. If you don’t target a niche then you are in competition with super giants like Amazon and Walmart for customers. This will not lead to a successful online business. The trick is to find an underserved market. Even if only one person in ten thousand is interested in the product, that still gives you a respectable client base of approximately six hundred thousand people worldwide. It is sort of like a small slice of a very large pie.
2. If you don’t target a niche, search engine optimisation is difficult, if not impossible. Without search engine optimisation, customers won’t find your website and it will languish in obscurity and negatively affect your earnings as it will cost you money to own it, but bring in no profits. Choosing a niche lets you choose specific keywords to help optimise your site.
3. Niche marketing can also provide you with a direction. Starting a business without some direction or focus results in a lot of ineffectual flailing that accomplishes nothing. With a niche decided, you can develop a marketing plan that will work to spread information about your specific products.
Sometimes it is a good idea to research niche markets before deciding on a product to sell. Often once the market is identified the product offering becomes clear. Intellectual property is one of the best sellers online, and it is great for a new start-up since the cost is minimal. Do your research before you get started, it will save you a ton in the long run.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
August 16, 2011
1. Keep is Short and Sweet
In marketing, less usually is more. With Twitter all messages must be short and sweet, keeping all communications on point. The concise nature of the posts on Twitter means that clients will get enough of a teaser to be interested, but not so much that they dismiss the statement. Their interest will convince them to investigate further and find out all the details. Instead of hitting people with a text wall, tweets are more like a tasting menu that fires the client’s imagination.
2. Access
Twitter allows you instant access to hundreds or thousands of people. Even those that don’t stay logged in all the time, often make a point of checking Twitter at least once a day. This makes Twitter a great marketing opportunity since you will always be able to reach those potential customers. Being able to provide potential customers with instant, updated information about what your company is offering is a great way to keep customers engaged.
3. It’s Everywhere
People respond to companies that they humanise. If a company has a face and voice, clients are more likely to respond positively. Because Twitter is more of a social networking tool than a marketing tool, it gives potential customers a sense that they are interacting with a company on a personal level. Anything that humanises a company encourages customer loyalty and keeps the company in the forefront of client thought.
4. Two Way Communication
Remember that selling is just as much about listening as it is about talking. Twitter is a great way for you to keep up with what is happening in your industry. It is a simple matter to start following some users that seem to really be involved in your industry. It is also important to watch industry leaders, not just those that are highly marketed, but also individuals that have gained large followings often have content that is highly relevant and interesting.
5. A Little Humour Goes a Long Way
Everyone likes to get the punch line of a joke, so starting one in a tweet and finishing it on your website are great ways to engage clients. A bit of a teaser is no bad thing. Preserve the mystery. The entire goal of tweets is to convince people to click through to your website.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
Internet Marketing Training – Internet Marketing Course – Internet Marketing Blog
August 11, 2011
Search Engine Optimisation begins with optimising the Meta tags on a website. Each page of a website can have an individual description that will display on a search engine’s results screen. Creating unique, concise, and relevant Meta tags helps to push a web page higher on search results and gets a company more traffic as a result. The Meta tag is located under the HEAD tag in HTML, and for sales websites the programming should be in HTML. There are two tags that should be filled out for each page to encourage search engine results: description tag and title tag. Not only can you add a description, but you can also add a title to each web page. If you fail to create a description tag, then only the title tag will show up on a search engine results page. This limits the number of characters that can be viewed to approximately seventy. Most search engine sites will show a minimum of one hundred fifty characters of description, but only seventy or so for a title. The ability to have both as unique descriptors means that the title and description of each page should work together to market the keywords you have chosen to use to improve your search results. There are several basic things to consider when creating description tags:
1. Keep It Short and Simple (KISS) is the first thing to remember. The description tag is there to help your audience or target market find you. It is not a direct sales tool, and as such should never include words like “on sale,” or any other promotional speech. A coherent, concise, and SIMPLE explanation of your company is what you are looking for in a description Meta tag.
2. Keywords are what make your website able to be searched using sites like Google or Yahoo. Research the keywords that are most commonly used in the specific industry that relates to your website and find some niche searches that you can fill. Add those keywords to your Meta tag description to encourage web views. A niche keyword will often net you more page views and higher page ranking than more popular keywords.
3. Never use marketing techniques that are considered to be bad industry practice. Keyword stuffing should be avoided, especially since sites that use keyword stuffing are often blacklisted by search engines. Search engines work to keep results pages displaying useful information and as such constantly change the method by which they rank pages for search results. Keyword stuffing is not as advantageous, when your website stops showing up at all.
4. Make each page of content on your site unique, and each description tag as well. Carefully consider the description tag and make sure that it is well written and effectively describes the content of the page while incorporating the keyword, all without repetition. This process is not easy, but it is well worth the effort.
Follow these steps to be well on your way to a high page rank and first page search results on your chosen keywords.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
Internet Marketing Training – Internet Marketing Course – Internet Marketing Blog
August 9, 2011
In order to effectively market online you must have a solid understanding of how Search Engines work. The basis for most internet marketing is found in search engine optimisation. Here search engines are explained and the importance of the meta tag is discussed. First, learning about how search engines operate will give you a boost when creating content for the web.
How Search Engines Work
Well known search engines like Yahoo and Google use a specific type of software that creates a keyword list for every webpage they find. This type of software is called a spider or crawler because the software reaches out all over the internet constantly looking for new websites. Beginning with the most trafficked servers, the crawler software will explore to find all the web addresses stored on the server. After collecting the addresses it will also create a keyword index that it stores on the search engine database.
The Meta Tag Explained
The single most used search engine is Google, so most search engine optimisation is focused on improving results specifically on Google. The Google crawler focuses on the information contained in the webpage’s meat tag. A meta tag is a short description of a web page and is the single most important piece of content you will create, simply because it will drive traffic to your site. It is the meta tag that the search engine displays on a results page after a keyword search.
Choosing Keywords for your Meta Tag
Because search engines focus on the meta tag information to develop the key word index for a website, it is imperative to create a highly effective meta tag to optimise your website. Research is the key to a solid meta tag for your website. There are two methodologies for choosing keywords for you meta tag: niche and general. Usually you want to include a combination of both in order to maximise the effectiveness of your website.
Consider the content of your website and then research the most searched terms surrounding that content. Include the top two listing in the meta tag to help improve your search engine rankings. Also, look at specific services that you offer that are different from the mainstream. Include a few keywords that are highly specific to your demographic and product offerings. The combination will help you gain hits from the general public and those more narrowly focused on what you offer. Combining the two will give your site the ability to draw the most number of people to your site.
Writing the Finalised Meta Tag
When drafting your meta tags keep the information concise and relevant to the specific page. If you are selling purses, make sure all the keywords focus on elements of selling purses. Never repeat keywords, it is a waste of characters and search engines only show a line or two of text on the results page. Make sure you include your company name in the meta tag so that current customers can find your website easily and new customers will be able to pull your website out of the mix of results.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
Internet Marketing Training – Internet Marketing Course – Internet Marketing Blog
August 4, 2011
Generating sales online is a three part program. To succeed online you need:
• A product
• A sales website
• A top marketing plan
Failure to complete all three of these steps significantly reduces your chances of success.
Product Development
Step one in any sales program is developing a fabulous product. Obviously figuring out the product you will offer can be a large decision. What makes a great product and what should you focus on? The answer is simple.
A great product that will sell well online is one that is not available anywhere else. Consider your skill set and then look around. Find a niche market that is not currently being served and fill a void in current product offerings. Decide on your target demographic and stay true to that group. Make sure that your product is current, helpful and exclusive.
Current top selling products include:
• Member Only Websites
• Information
• Software
• Services
Do your research before you start with development so that you can create a product that will deliver. Quality is definitely important to your strategy. Work with your design team to create something that goes the extra mile for a customer. Customer loyalty is won when you provide phenomenal service and exceptional quality.
Develop Your Website
Once the product development phase is complete it is time to set up your store. To keep your costs low, an online storefront is the best way to go. Very little upfront cost is involved, and maintenance costs can also be very reasonable.
When creating the content for your website, remember that everything on the site should work together. The sole focus should be on effectively selling your product. Your words are the best tool you have to reach customers and close sales.
The right word in the exact right place will bring in more sales than the fanciest graphic ever created. Tell your potential customer how your product can help them. Focus on a problem and lead the customer through the site showing them how your product can solve their problem. Tell readers what you can do to help them, explain both how and why. The bottom line is that the copy needs to be persuasive.
Plan Your Marketing Strategy
Once your website is up and running it is time to start planning your short-term and long-term marketing strategies.
Possible short-term marketing strategies include:
• Ad space in a variety of mediums
• Forum Posting
• Search Engine Optimisation
Some long-term marketing strategies are:
• Mailing Lists
• Blogs
• Social Networking
• Give-A-Way
• Marketing Articles
By combining short-term and long-term marketing strategies to create a comprehensive plan you will drive traffic to your website that will generate sales for years to come.
Carefully implement each of these three steps and you will be well on your way to a successful web based business.
Thanks again,
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
Internet Marketing Training – Internet Marketing Course – Internet Marketing Blog
August 2, 2011
Marketing takes a product and convinces an individual that it is something they need or want. In order to do that the product must be personalised. Not only must you inform people about your product, but you must do it in an interesting and engaging way. With online marketing not only can you personalise your product, but you can personalise how you approach people about your product. To personalise a product or service, you must make it approachable and relatable. The person reading your advertisement must be able to identify with it. Online marketing encourages you to vary your ads based on their location. Keeping your ads engaging and understandable requires several steps which are detailed below.
First, figure out the customer you want to approach. Explore the demographics that make up your current customer base and make some decisions about which markets you want to focus your efforts on. Always include your largest demographic, but never discount your smallest. Anyone is a potential customer.
Next, determine what appeals to each target demographic. You should identify things that those groups want, need or worry about. Once you have decided on some common ground within that demographic you are halfway to creating a successful ad campaign.
Then, decide on the methods you will use to engage the customer. Where will you post your advertisements and how often? Choosing the location of online advertisements is just as important as search engine optimisation. Getting your website to come up for search terms is a great start, but advertising needs the next level of distinction to convince browsers to click-thru to your website.
Finally, customise the ad based on the location. If you are posting for a younger crowd, make the language more hip and youthful. Older crowds may prefer a more formal approach. Families often respond to ads that give them a sense of safety. Personalise the ad to match the demographic you are appealing to and that works with the location you are posting the ad.
By determining the demographic, identifying strategic approaches, picking the right place to advertise, and customising the ad, you create an advertising campaign that is multi-pronged and responsive to customer wants and needs. Instead of general you get a one on one approach that seems to be focused directly toward the reader, making your products and services seem very approachable. Consumers prefer to spend money with companies that understand their needs. A personalised advertising approach allows you to show a customer the specific ways your company can help them. This will help you to seem more approachable to the consumer and make them more likely to buy from you.
Thanks again,
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
Internet Marketing Training – Internet Marketing Course – Internet Marketing Blog
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