Small Business Marketing, Sales and Teambuilding Program

Social Media

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:11:17 +0000

Social Media

Social media is one of the new Buzz terms people use as if Social Media is a new innovation recently invented.

But it isn’t, only the implementation is new.

Five hundred years ago, if you were the local blacksmith, people came to your business because you were there. They knew you because you lived in the local community. You most likely went to every joust you could to display your swords and shields and talk to people. This helped you become better known.

Fifty years ago, if you have the local car repair business, people still came to you because you were there but now they could come from further away. If you wanted to expand your business, you went to local shows, sponsored prizes at car shows, joined the local car club etc and became more widely known.

Today, people still come to you because you are “there”. But depending on your product and what you are selling, they could be coming, via the internet, from the other side of the world.

Why would they come to you? Because:-

o They know you

o Someone has recommended you

o They saw your advertisement or

o They found you by chance

None of these reasons are any different from what they were 50 or even 500 years ago.

What is different, is the tools YOU can use to get yourself known. Five hundred years it was all verbal word-of-mouth stuff.

Fifty years ago it was verbal word-of-mouth plus printed media.

Now it is printed media, verbal AND virtual word-of-mouth.

In the past you became known by being out there physically, involved in clubs, shows, events etc.

Now you became known by being out there virtually (on the internet), involved in SOCIAL MEDIA – and you can do it from the comfort of your own home!

You would have all heard of the many social media virtual sites that exist now.

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google Buzz and many more. If you have an interest in anything, no matter how obscure, someone else probably does as well and there will be a site somewhere devoted to it. If there isn’t you can make one!

These sites enable us all to both stay in contact with friends and family or to share a common interest, but they can also be used to enhance and build both your internet and main stream businesses.

So how can social media sites help with building business?

There are over 400 million FB users which clearly shows that today more and more people are going online to find their purchases, get help or information, or just “look around”.

Social media, in the broadest concept has opened the communication lines to enable us all to talk with family, friends, business associates and customers all over the world for very little cost. Think Skype – for the cost of your internet connection, you can talk with anyone else anywhere in the world – as long as they are on Skype.

Such interaction makes it extremely easy to make and maintain friendships with people you have never met in person – like electronic penfriends.

Social Media can help in making new business contacts. Being able to build a rapport with people, becoming a part of their lives, showing interest in what they doing, will build a trust that will in no time give you many more potential customers.

But remember that not everyone is on the Internet to do business. And no one wants to have your business link thrown in their faces every time you “talk” to them. People are looking to build relationships with people not with products or logos.

So correct etiquette is a must.

Also keep in mind that anything you type or post, may be visible to EVERYONE.

Some points to consider to ensure your social media doesn’t undermine your advertising program:

1. Get online and monitor your brands – Put together a profile. Then connect all of your social networks so your communication in other places automatically flows in harmony. Ensure people know that the name you use in social media is really you. It will help you protect your personal brand and helps include your posts in search results.

2. Find and follow your influencers – There are always people who influence the conversation more than others. Put together your list of traditional and social media influencers in your areas of interest and business and then look for them everywhere.

3. Engage by posting meaningful content – Produce meaningful content and then post it to all relevant sites. You'll quickly get feedback and learn how to use this to increase your customer base.

4. 4. Make your Web site, videos, photos and content shareable - Social networks thrive on people sharing stuff with their friends. Studies show that people are more than three times more likely to share with their friends if you have easy-to-use sharing tools that push that content right into their social network of choice. Think how easy it is to share emails. Social sharing provides search engines with fresh and popular content when people are searching for your brand.

Tags:building business,chance,follow your influencers,internet marketing,meaningful content,monitor your brands,recomended,share,skype,social media,word of mouth

Choosing a Domain Name

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:55:57 +0000

Choosing a Domain Name

Everyone knows what a domain name is. It is the www bit used by the internet to get to YOUR website, effectively the Billboard hanging up outside your site. . It is, in essence, a signpost to your business. Thus a good domain name can greatly enhance your business and, while a bad one won’t necessarily reflect badly on your business, it can greatly reduce the effectiveness of your advertising.

If you have an existing business, you must have a domain name which incorporates your business name. This is simply part of your product branding.

Choosing a domain name is an important part of the overall marketing process and should not be taken lightly. Make sure your domain name represents your company, product and image, and you'll be setting a great foundation for future sales.

The following should be considered in choosing domain names. While some may consider contradictory, they become more or less relevant depending one the purpose of the domain name:

Brainstorm 5 Top Keywords
When you first begin your domain name search, it helps to have 5 terms or phrases in mind that best describe the domain you're seeking. Once you have this list, you can start to pair them or add prefixes & suffixes to create good domain ideas. For example, if you're launching a mortgage related domain, you might start with words like "mortgage, finance, home equity, interest rate, house payment" then play around until you can find a good match. There is software available to helpyou find words people are searching for.

2. Make the Domain Unique
Having your website confused with a popular site already owned by someone else is a recipe for disaster. Thus, don’t choose domains that are simply the plural, hyphenated or misspelled version of an already established domain. Who has heard of Flickr – a site for uploading and sharing photos? Type in flicker.com and you get something else completely.

3. Only Choose Dot-Com Available Domains
If you're not concerned with type-in traffic, branding or name recognition, you don't need to worry about this. However, if you're at all serious about building a successful website over the long-term, you should be worried about all of these elements, and while directing traffic to a .net or .org is fine, owning and redirecting the .com is critical. Most people who use the web still make the automatic assumption that .com is all that's out there – don't make the mistake of locking out or losing traffic to these folks. However, if you are a bricks and mortar business with a restricted geographic clientele, having .com.au is most likely enough if you cannot get the .com – which you should also get if you can.

4. Make it Easy to Type
If a domain name requires considerable attention to type correctly, due to spelling, length or the use of un-memorable words or sounds, you've lost a good portion of your branding and marketing value.

5. Make it Easy to Remember
Remember that word-of-mouth and dominance marketing (where your domain consistently comes up for industry-related searches) both rely on the ease with which the domain can be called to mind. You don't want to be the company with the terrific website that no one can ever remember to tell their friends about because they can't remember the domain name.

6. Keep the Name as Short as Possible
Short names are easy to type and easy to remember. They also fit better on business cards and other offline media.

7. Create and Fulfill Expectations
When someone hears about your domain name for the first time, they should be able to instantly and accurately guess at the type of content that might be found there. That's why domain names like Hotmail.com, CareerBuilder.com, AutoTrader.com and WebMD.com are great. Domains like Monster.com, Amazon.com and ebay.com required far more branding because of their un-intuitive names. This takes time and money.

8. Avoid Copyright Infringement
This is a mistake that isn't made too often, but can kill a great domain and a great company when it does. To be sure you're not infringing on anyone's copyright with your site's name, search before you buy. In Australia, business names can be searched on the ASIC website.

9. Set Yourself Apart with a Brand
Using a unique moniker is a great way to build additional value with your domain name. A "brand" is more than just a combination of words, which is why names like mortgageforyourhome.com or shoesandboots.com aren't as compelling as branded names like bankrate.com or lendingtree.com.

10. Reject Hyphens and Numbers
Both hyphens and numbers make it hard to give your domain name verbally and falls down on being easy to remember or type. Don’t use spelled-out or roman numerals in domains, as both can be confusing and mistaken for the other. Unless, of course, that is your company name eg 3.

11. Don't Follow the Latest Trends
Website names that rely on odd mis-spellings, multiple hyphens, or uninspiring short adjectives (like "topshoex," "best…x," "hot…x") aren't always the best choice. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but in the world of naming conventions in general, if everyone else is doing it, that doesn't mean it's a surefire strategy. Just look at all the people who named their businesses "AAA… x" over the last 50 years to be first in the phone book; how many Fortune 2000's are named "AAA company?"

12. Choose a domain name for your business AND for your product.
Multiple domain names. For example, if your business is ABC Corporation and your product is called Maximize Your Sales, then get a domain name called www.ABCCorporation.com and www.MaximizeYourSales.com. You can have both of these domain names pointing to different pages of your web site. This way, customers who only know you by your product name can find you easily by typing in the NameOfYourProduct.com, and those who know you by your corporate name can find you easily by typing YourCorporation.com. (Hint: If you are an individual with a small business, you should register your personal name also).

13. Get product domain names with dashes in them.
In the previous example, we used the company and product domain names. Now, go out and purchase www.ABC-corporation.com and www.Maximize-Your-Sales.com. Why should you do this? Two reasons, really: The first is aesthetic appeal. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s easier to read the long domain names with the dashes in them? However, it is much easier to type a name into your browser without the dashes, and that makes it easier on your customers, which is why you purchased the domain name without the dashes. Additionally, domain names with dashes sometimes rank a bit higher in the search engines. A higher ranking in the search engines will drive more customers to your web site. Search engine algorithms are ever changing, but buying multiple domains and pointing each one of them to a specific, product-related page on your main site can ultimately help you make more sales in the future. Be sure not to point multiple domains at the same page, though — that will get you dropped from most search engines.

14. Purchase domains that are similar in spelling to yours.
Every day, someone misspells a word. Inevitably, they will still land on someone's web page. Why not yours? Using the example above, you might want to purchase www.abccorperation.com and www.maximiseyoursales.com just to be safe. It's easy to reroute these names to your main web page after you own them.

15. Use a top keyword in your domain name.
Let’s use another example to illustrate: Suppose you are selling garden tools. Not just any garden tools, you sell low cost, high quality garden tools. The name of your company is Garden Tool World. Using the tips above, you will purchase the domain names for your company. But what about your product? The key here is to look for names for your product domain that people will be searching for. When a potential customer goes to a search engine, will they look for “low cost high quality garden tools”? Or will they look for “Cheap Garden Tools”? With a little research, you can find out what people are looking for. Two tools used to see what people are looking for on the internet are: WordTracker and Overture’s Inventory. Simply type in the word or phrase you are looking for and you will see instantly which phrases are most popular. So if people are looking for “Cheap Garden Tools”, then your domain name might be: www.cheapgardentools.com.

Stickybeak Marketing would be happy to assist you in choosing a Domain Name, registering it and setting up your website.

Tags:advertising,business development,business name,business services,choose a domain,confidence,domain name registeration,internet,internet marketing,marketing,Recommendations,web design

Workshop Reports

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:39:00 +0000

Stickybeak Marketing recently ran a Workshop entitled "How will your custoemrs find you in 2010" at the Norman Hotel, Buranda.

Durung the 90 minute workshop topics covered included:-

The rules of Marketing in Today's World

Who's in your Market?
What's in a Domain Name?
Blogging and what it can do for you
A Spiderweb for driving Traffic
Social Media

This workshop was well received and promoted some indepth discussions at the conclusion and is a leadup to Stickybeam Marketing's full day workshop designed to help small businesses build, maintain and promote their own website.

More details will be posted as they are finalised.

Tags:business development,customer services,opportunity,web design

What’s in a Domain Name?

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:29:05 +0000

How do you choose a Domain Name?

Traditionally, businesses have chosen their business name as the Domain Name. Offline, customers know the business by that name therefore it was logical to use the same name. However, it has become quite obvious that the internet is 'in space', a vast ether where, if the business name is unknown, no one will find the business. Gradually this changed due to the understanding that potential clients and customers were searching using particular words and phrases to find a service or buisiness they wanted.

The Race is on!

Now it is almost standard practice to chose a Domain Name by using the main keywords and keyphrases are that a potential client orcustomer would or could use to find you. So by now most of the very obvious words and phrases for many businesses are taken. Guess what?

The Unusual

The latest trends used to stand out from the crowd are to chose a highly 'unusual' or incredible image invoving your Domain Name so it will be remembered. It does not matter whether your name has anything to do with your business exactly, or whether the client and customer is searching wit this word or phrase. The idea here is that becasue it's unusual, people will remember it.

Ok, I get that, but tell me, how do people find you in the first place? Back to keywords, I guess!!!

To find out if the Domain Name YOU want is still available,

click here to use the Stickybeak marketing Domain Name registeration Service.

GOOD LUCK

Tags:business name,choose a domain,customers,domain name,domain name registeration,keywords

Welcome to Stickybeak Marketing!

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:48:00 +0000

Welcome to Stickybeak Marketing. Our website will be completed shortly! Please contact us by email :sticky@stickybeakmarketing.com

No tags for this post.