Strategies to Promote Your Business!

7 Steps to Earning Customer Trust Online‏

2009-07-27T23:39:00.002-04:00

A recent survey found that 81% of consumers don't trust small online businesses. You cannot survive in online business if your customers do not trust you. If they don't trust you, they will never buy and you will fail. It's that simple. Unfortunately, earning customer trust online is not an easy task, especially when there are so many bigger brands out there where they can easily purchase most of the items they are looking for. That brings me to the first item.

Branding

Branding is more than just marketing. It's a way to establish your business as a familiar face, and familiar faces become trusted more than strange ones. The more branding you are able to accomplish, the more trust you will gain.

Make your business appear larger.

This is really just an extension of branding, but you also have to make sure that brand is conveying as professional an image as possible. This means a good-looking logo, a nice usable site design, and maintaining a solid reputation.

Design

Like I just said (and have numerous times in the past), site design is crucial. That is, if you want customers to think of you in a trustworthy and credible light. Why should a customer take a chance on a small unknown site if it is presented in a sloppy and difficult-to-use manner? They can just as easily find a competitor's site that looks better and spend their money there.

Reputation

I have talked about this numerous times too. You have to maintain a positive reputation if you want customers to trust you. People can Google your business and they most likely will if they've never heard of you. This is why you have to periodically find out what people are saying about you online and do your best to counter any negativity out there. Don't hide from your customers reviews.

Of course you also don't want to create a bad reputation on your own. You could do this inadvertently through social media, blog posts etc. Just think about what you're saying before you attach your name (especially the name of your business) to something you're posting online.

Security and Privacy

Customers need to feel secure at your site, and you need to take measures to earn their trust in this area as well. This means privacy policies. Customers also like to see SSL certificates. It makes them feel safer on your site. Read this article from Stoney deGeyter to see what other privacy and security concerns customers have.

Testimonials

Testimonials are a form of marketing, and can be an effective one. Besides that though, they represent your business as one that has satisfied customers in the past. If you can get recognizable names to vouch for your business, that's even better. Again, customers find familiar faces more trustworthy than strange ones.

Humanize Your Business

Like Wayne Hurlbert says, "People buy from other people they know and trust". This is why it is a good idea to humanize your business. Don't be shy about including photos and bios of your staff on your site. Maintaining blogs is another good idea, but humanize those too. Don't just fill them with press releases. Make them fun, and reflect the writers' personalities. Show people that your business is run by flesh and blood people and is not just some cold robot entity who's after their money. Building trust on the Internet is no easy feat, but it's not impossible. The more trust that you earn, the higher your sales will climb, so it is in your best interest to do everything you can to get it.

Innovative Ways to Market Today!

2009-07-27T23:20:00.005-04:00

Marketing is a three-syllable word that seems so simple, yet encompasses so much. Marketing is a multi-faceted approach to promoting a product or service. Both traditional and unconventional marketing methods have a place in the small business world. Marketing helps small businesses focus on building their brand and identity.

There are few limitations to marketing options, and the opportunities listed here are just a few that will generally result in a decent ROI (Return On Investment) for most small businesses. That said, do not be afraid to be creative -- no one knows or understands a small business like its owner, so think outside of the box and don't be afraid to experiment.

Identity Continuity

Create continuity between an online website, logos, letterheads, business cards, and packaging. Create an identity that will make your business stand out from the competition, and leave a good initial impression on potential customers. A professional image associated with your company or product will remind customers of their past brand experiences, and will reinforce your product line.

Trade Publications

Niche publications are journals or magazines that focus on a specific market. If your product or service is appropriate for a specific market, then advertising in their trade publications will allow you to immediately drill down and target that very specific audience.

Promotional Items

Branded giveaways have long been used by marketers to attract potential customers. Products that have a long shelf life will help keep your business in the forefront of a customer's mind. Weeks, months, and even years after a product is purchased or service is performed, promotional items will remind the customer of your brand.

Reviews

Solicit product reviews from reputable industry sources, magazine reviewers, bloggers, or industry journalists. Product reviews lend credibility to a product or company.

Keyword Advertising

In order to help your website's search engine ranking, use keyword advertising. Focused and targeted keyword advertising will drive web traffic that has a genuine interest in your product or service.

Niche Directories

Use online niche directories to promote products or services. Visitors who frequent topical directories have a strong interest and are more likely to purchase.

These are just a few ways to get the word out about your business. If you would like to hear 12 more ways to "Better Promote Your Business" contact me today!

Lack of Advertising Reflects Poorly On Your Business‏

2009-05-28T10:17:00.001-04:00

Over 48% of U.S. adults believe that a lack of advertising by a retail store, bank or auto dealership during a recession indicates the business must be struggling according to research from Ad-ology. That's not a good sign for those businesses who have opted to reduce their advertising budgets as a means to save money. The study finds advertising appears to play a key role in consumers' view of how a business is doing, and by not advertising, businesses may be sending a warning signal to current and potential customers. "It is critical to advertise in the current economic climate, to maintain long-term positive consumer perception of your brand," said C. Lee Smith, president and CEO of Ad-ology Research. "Advertising not only assures consumers of a business' reliability in a soft economy, but it can influence where and what they buy, especially when the ads address concerns about value," Smith said. Other interesting facts from the study include:
- 40% of consumers use coupons more now than a year ago - Most consumers are as willing or more willing to pay more for 'healthy' or 'organic' products than they were a year ago - A 'deeply discounted price' was the number-one factor that would make consumers more likely to purchase a big-ticket item (+$1,000) - TV, newspaper, direct mail, and Internet top local media from which consumers saw/heard an ad within the last 30 days that led them to take action - Store Web sites ranked second only to search engines as the way consumers research products and shop online.

Author Chris Crum

The 3 Types of Website Traffic

2009-03-21T11:55:00.004-04:00

Where does traffic come from? Now I'm not talking about that stuff we all get stuck in during rush hour. Website traffic is essential, if you have no traffic to your website you are not going to get anyone buying your products or reading your articles. Traffic is one of the key components of your website and is available in these three forms.

1. Pay For It.
You can buy traffic typically using what is known as Pay Per Click advertising. The major names in this market are Google and their AdWords program and Yahoo Network Sponsored Search. There are many smaller companies around also but they all follow the same premise.
You create your account, grab a bunch of keywords and create your adverts. You can define the amount you want to spend per click or per day, what geographical areas you want your adverts to appear in and even what time they should appear.

When someone types one of your keywords into for example Google your advert will be displayed down the right hand side of the natural search results. If the searcher then chooses to click on your advert and gets forwarded to your website you will get charged for that click.
The price you pay for each individual click depends on a variety of conditions such as how many other people are competing on that keyword. The more competition the more it costs to be higher up the ranks. The position you want to occupy. The percentage of people who click on your advert, the list goes on.
Pay Per Click advertising can be very successful but has a steep learning curve, it is essential that you do lots of research into your chosen Pay Per Click vender and in the niche you are in.

2. Borrow It.
This option is not for everyone, but in certain niches it can be effective. The first method of borrowing traffic is what is called link exchange. This is where you put links to another website on your site and they put links back to you on theirs. This can be beneficial as you can get traffic from a more successful website reasonably quickly. However this traffic is not always targeted.
The second option in the affiliate marketing world is called a joint venture or a JP. This is essentially where you would contact another marketer or company who had products that complements yours. If they are interested they may send a mailing out to their list or put an entry in their blog alerting their visitors about you and your relevant products.
The key things to remember about borrowing traffic is that you have to give something in return. This can make it tricky when targeting very successful websites.

3. Create It.
Creating your own traffic is one of the best ways to start bringing people into your website. There are literally hundreds of ways to start creating your traffic but I'm just going to tell you about two of the most popular.
Articles are a great way of generating traffic. You can write your articles about your chosen niche, offering advice, definitions, explanations, news, reviews just to name a few. Once you have created your articles you can put them on your website or blog as content. You can also upload them to article directories or even assemble a few of them into a white paper or ebook to give away to visitors.
Video is currently the big thing on the internet world. Everywhere you look there are videos for everything. 50% of all web traffic is video and YouTube alone receives 12.5% of all the traffic out there. YouTube has made it possible for anyone to upload their videos for the whole world to see. Just as you can create an article about anything you can do the same thing with video. The best option is to do both: Create it in print and create it in video.

Contact Harvest Media Works to help you with your websites search engine optimization.

Author: Mark Voce

An Economically Appealing Marketing Strategy

2009-03-20T22:05:00.005-04:00

It's no secret that online video is truly coming into its own in terms of viewership. There's no reason why your business can't capitalize on this. Video is one of the top forms of viral marketing on the web, and viral marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing period. When people share a video with other people, it is because they find it interesting and think others will too. If that video is promoting your business, what better form of advertising could you ask for?

The big ad agencies recognize this. In fact, a new report released today from Feed Company shows that 70% of ad agency and media buying executives plan to increase budgets for viral video marketing next year. "In the past, fear of ceding control to consumers during the marketing process made advertisers hesitant to create and release brand-themed video online," said Miguel Gonzalez, VP, creative director of Draftfcb Chicago. "But the parade of content that has 'gone viral' shows that the results are worth the effort, even when the outcome is hard to predict." Most agencies see the potential for achieving "exponential views" as the biggest motivator for creating viral videos.

As Feed Company points out, it is hard to place a benchmark on the success of a viral video. Respondents to their survey cited varied responses including 100,000 views, 250,000 views, or 500,000 views. To a small business, I think 100,000 views could be considered a successful run, with more than that being icing on the cake. If you can get your video viewed by that many people, it is just that many more people who have been exposed to your brand, which is one of the primary goals in the first place. You're not always going to be looking for an instant sale from these things.

Agencies are still seeking improvements on how viral video campaigns are tracked and executed, and these areas will likely see improvement in the future as this type of marketing strategy becomes more common place, which will likely happen as online video viewing continues to trend upward. "The survey shows that agencies recognize the value of viral video for their clients even as they call for improvements," said Josh Warner, president of Feed Company. "We're definitely seeing more of these campaigns because it costs less to produce and market viral video than many other types of traditional media - and that's attractive to marketers during an economic downturn.

At Harvest Media Works we can create an online T.V. commercial for your business. Then that way we can leverage both T.V. and Internet Marketing by not only airing your commercial on our stations but your website too.

Author: Chris Crum

Local is As Local Does

2009-03-20T21:56:00.006-04:00

It looks like search engines have officially trumped the Yellow Pages when it comes to customers looking for local businesses. Data from comScore and TMP Directional Marketing shows that this year more people are turning to search engines after last year's showed that Yellow Pages were on top.

Editor's Note: Increasingly, people are using the Internet to find local businesses. If you're MIA in local search, or if the information doesn't reflect the image you want to portray, you may have a little work to do. What steps are you taking to get found?

What the Data Shows While most people still use a variety of different methods to find a local business, the study found what people seem to prefer as their first choice for doing so:

1. Search Engines (31%)
2. Print Yellow Pages or White Pages (30%)
3. Internet Yellow Pages Sites (19%)
4. Local Search Sites (11%)

Last year's numbers had Print Yellow Pages at 33% and search engines at 30%. When it comes to online habits of consumers, the study shows that more people turn to the Internet Yellow Pages sites than the Local search sites like Google Maps and Yahoo Local, but I suspect the reason for this is that they don't have to go to the actual local search sites to get the same results. If you search Google for a local business, you are likely to get the Google Maps results right at the top. The same goes for Yahoo (both illustrated below with a search for "pizza, lexington, ky").

5 Simple Rules To Website Design

2009-03-20T21:46:00.007-04:00

Below is some great information that you will need to remember when designing your website. If you need help building your website, contact me today.

When designing a website you sometimes only have one chance to keep the internet visitor from clicking the back button on their web browser. Whether you are selling a product or offering a service, remember your website design represents your business.

For years, we have been told that when going to an interview you have 10 seconds to make a lasting first impression. There is no difference when designing your website than making the first impression in an interview. You are making a first impression with the internet visitor who has searched for what you are offering in your website design. The first impression can make the difference between in a paying customer or just a visitor to your website.

Here are just 5 simple rules to keep in mind when designing your website.

Rule #1. Limit the use or do not use flashy banners and advertisements at the beginning of you website. There is a time and place for the banners and advertisements. There is nothing more annoying than clicking on a website to see cartoon characters and advertisements for other products flashing in front of your face. This can be too much for your potential customer. Your customer is there for a purpose and if the blatant advertisements or flashing banners turn them off they may just hit the back button before they find what they are looking for. The only exception to this rule is determined by the purpose of you website.

Rule #2. Make sure your website design make it easy for the visitor to find the navigation buttons. If a customer has to search for a navigation button to find information about the company or the navigation buttons are not working, the visitor may get frustrated and leave you website. As a rule of thumb, your navigation buttons should be on the left side of your web page because the majority of people read from left to right. Think about reading a newspaper or a book. You look at the headlines then you read from the left to the right.

Rule #3. When visitors are browsing your site, have a clear indication for the visitor of where they are on your website and how to get to other parts.
You may want to put a link on each page that the visitor clicks to take them to the home page or another page relating to the information currently viewing. In other words do not confuse your visitor or your visitor may just click off the website totally.

Rule #4. When designing your website pay close attention to loading time, the time it takes your web pages to load. You can reduce loading time by reducing graphics on each page. A good website design should load under twenty seconds. The longer it takes the pages to load the more frustrating it can be to the visitor. People want it yesterday not today and definitely not tomorrow.

Rule #5. Use a font that is common to all web browsers and easy to read. You have to think of your market. If you are selling a product or service that is used by older individuals you may want to increase the font. Most of us are not going to get younger and with age, we find our eye sights are not what they use to be. In addition, different web browsers display fonts differently. Therefore, you want to use a universal font compatible to the popular web browser for better viewing.

Bonus Rule #6. Make sure the information on your website is up to date, and relevant to what you are offering. If your website is selling 32", LCD Flat Screen TVs you should not be offering products to repair your driveway. I know that is extreme but people want to know they are visiting a website that has up to date information and is relevant to what they are searching for.

These are just a few rules of website design. There are many other things to adhere to when designing your website for optima visitors. When designing your website look at it from the customers' or visitors' standpoint. Would you want to visit this website? Would you want to purchase a product from this website? If you answer "no" then correct the problems. If you deal with customer service, you need to do as they do. Get out from behind the counter and see what the customers see from where they stand. If you go "ugh", that is not good and you need to make some changes.

Author: Pat Turman

Search Engine Optimization And Search Engine Crawlers

2009-03-20T21:37:00.005-04:00

Do you ever wonder how a website gets ranked in the search engines? Below is a great article that will help you understand.

There is a lot to learn when it comes to online or internet marketing and search engine optimization. That is why a lot of people hire SEO consultants to worry about their internet marketing for them. However, if you do not want to have to pay SEO experts to help you with the marketing of your website, then you may want to think about doing it yourself! It's not that hard, it just takes some reading on the internet from trusted sources. Really, most of the SEO services that are provided online are built around one thing, and that is search engine crawlers.

Today we are going to talk more about search engine crawlers, and what they do. Soon you will find out that pretty much everything that you do, as far as search engine optimization goes, is to make these little crawlers happy. It is no longer as easy as a quick search engine submission and your website becomes popular.

As you may be able to guess by the name, these search engine crawlers are little bots that roam around the internet looking for new websites and ranking them based on an algorithm. When they come across a new website, they rank it in different ways, taking many things in to consideration. These ranks help to determine where the site is going to end up in a search done on a search engine.
The first thing that you have to do for these crawlers is to get noticed by them, and that is the hardest part of SEO, or at least that is what SEO consultants want you to think! The truth of the matter is, you can get your website noticed by simply visiting different popular search engines and adding your URL to their submission forms.

You also must get links from other web sites pointing to your web site to obtain link popularity and credibility with the search engines. This way the crawlers will know where your site is at, and find it a lot quicker. They will also consider it a relevant source of information if other sites link to you.
After that, it's all about marketing your web site on the internet through search engine optimization techniques. These little crawlers are programmed to look for certain things on your web site, these are things that SEO experts study and have an understanding for.
Using the services of SEO Consultants to help in your marketing, however they can be very costly, so you should hire a service provider that is talented and can provide a portfolio to ensure you get quality work.
Before hiring someone to work on your web site you should make sure they use ethical search optimization and marketing tactics and also make sure that they can provide results.

The first thing that crawlers look for is, of course, keywords.
Keywords in your web sites content and keywords in the links pointing to your site. When it comes to search engine optimization, use keywords wisely. Don't over-saturate your web site with keywords because you can get docked as a spammer. These keywords have to be worked into the web page and not just listed there. You should integrate them in to your content, page titles, meta tags and URL. Also, it will help the marketing of your web site if you work them into the titles of your web page as well.
Also make sure that your main page headings are bigger than that of your normal font so the crawlers can easily pick out what the main focus of your page is.
SEO consultants also worry about how many links there are out there that point back to your website. The more links, the better. However they must also be quality links from popular sites that are credible with the search engines. That is why SEO experts are always looking for different places where they can post links to your website. While crawlers are looking around, if they come across links to your website, then that helps to boost your ranking online.
As you can see, SEO services are very helpful, but if you can learn how to do online marketing by yourself, you don't need to hire anyone. If you need help with your website feel free to contact me today!

Author: Joel McLaughlin