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September 5th, 2010
There is a mad scramble among the big players of the Internet to control both search and social. Facebook has the highest traffic at present and a good hold on social media marketing. However, Twitter is still popular, though nowhere near as popular as Facebook. Google has the lion’s share of search in the bag with inroads into social media and Bing at its back door trying to knock it down. What would happen if one company controlled the flow of both search and social?
That would obviously not be good for anyone but that company. But how about a two-player field with one big player controlling search (Google) and one big player controlling social (Facebook). Which would be more important?
I don’t know that we could narrow that down just so. Both are important. Without SEO, a company would not have much chance to be found in the search engines. Even post-social, SEO is still important. Yet, social media marketing has increasingly become more and more important and it looks like it will continue to grow in importance.
One of the benefits to search marketing is you can measure nearly everything you do. That’s also one of the drawbacks to social media. There is so much that you cannot measure. Search puts more control in the hands of the marketer. Social puts more control in the hands of the consumer, or those being marketed to. Does that matter?
I think it does. In this age, consumers prefer to have control. And that could very well play into the hands of marketers. It certainly wouldn’t hurt your marketing any to give the nod to consumers and let them tell you what they want. You should have your ear to the ground anyway.
In the end, search and social compliment each other well. Both are important and you shouldn’t ignore either.
Tags: facebook, google, search marketing, Social Media
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 2 Comments »
September 4th, 2010
comScore reports that in the last year small business retailers online have lost 5.6% market share to their larger competitors. Does this spell the end of small business?
First, let’s discuss the reasons for the shift from small business to large business. Prices. Remember when we said that prices are the No. 1 reason consumers choose to do business with a company? Well, in a downward economy, what’s the first thing that happens? Prices fall.
Unfortunately, it’s the big retailers that win when prices fall. Small businesses tend to compete on price in good economies so when prices fall they don’t have as far to go. That means small businesses have to compete in other areas – like service.
Another way small businesses are able to compete online is with free advertising – i.e. social media. It doesn’t cost anything to use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and often a small business can see a greater return on investment because you don’t have to spend a lot of time on these sites to make a difference. A big business has to pay someone to manage accounts, but you can do it yourself in as little as fifteen minutes a day.
It’s not the end of small business. You just have to be a bit more creative in your approaches to marketing and compete on service, where you can always have the advantage.
Tags: competition, small business
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 6 Comments »
September 3rd, 2010
It’s almost impossible to survive today without some kind of web presence. It is more and more becoming a necessity to have a website. In any kind of business, a website can be an essential marketing tool. Small business marketers have realized that a website can enhance their message, increase their brand image and provide potential customers with a better picture of what a business is all about. The website is the 21st century marketing brochure.
In essence, your small business website can contain elements (and I’d argue that it should) of several traditional marketing collateral:
- It is your digital brochure
- A website is a billboard on the Information Superhighway
- It can communicate like a TV commercial
- It should be a gateway for news media to your organization’s public relations strategy – i.e. a press release
- Through podcasting you can make your own radio advertisements
- Social media can turn your website into a word-of-mouth phenomenon
- You might call it an electronic kiosk
- Turn it into a bulletin board
- Each page on your website is like a marketing flyer
- Blog posts are like little postcards
If you take everything you know about traditional marketing and apply it to your website using the unique techniques that are effective for online marketing then you can have some powerful marketing. There isn’t, of course, a one to one parallel. Traditional marketing does have a style of communicating that is not considered acceptable online, however, while the styles of communication aren’t the same the methods of delivering that communication are similar enough that you can still transfer your off line traditional mareting materials to your online marketing plan.
Will businesses some day decide they no longer need a brick and mortar presence or traditional marketing strategy? Many have. What about you?
Tags: marketing, small business
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing, Traditional Marketing for Small Business | 1 Comment »
September 2nd, 2010
Marketing Pilgrim reports on a survey by ChannelAdvisor.
MP concluded the following based on the study results:
- Retailer value is more important than brand recognition
- Price is the leading factor that determines whether consumers will purchase from you or your competition online
- Free shipping is also highly influential in determining buying decisions
- Third on the list is trusted seller status, but this only makes sense on sites like Amazon and eBay
- Fourth – discount coupons; I consider this one related to price
In other words, if it comes down to a premium brand versus small Mom and Pop and you can offer the same or similar product for less while providing greater value, guess who wins? Yep, you do. Small business rules!
Of course, Marketing Pilgrim also points out that 83% of online consumers are influenced by product reviews.
So how do we put this all together? What’s the take away? If you can drop your price lower to beat the competition and still profit, offer free shipping and get positively reviewed on well trafficked websites while building your trust as an online retailer, you’ll sell a lot of product.
Tags: online retail, pricing, product reviews
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 5 Comments »
September 1st, 2010
For the second time since its introduction, the Kindle will sell in an off line retail environment. The company has announced that the Kindle will be sold at Staples.
By selling its flagship product in real stores, Amazon is expanding its reach. This is a smart move. It takes Amazon into an environment where small business owners and retail customers are doing business. If those customers are not already buying books from Amazon online then they will be once they purchase a Kindle. I think Amazon is looking long term here.
If you consider the price of Kindle books and how many of those that Amazon can expect to sell over the life of a single Kindle then the company stands to make more long-term profits from the sell of its books if it makes the Kindle more available and in more places. That’s why the company started selling Kindle in Target last June and now has gone into Staples. It wouldn’t surprise me to see more retail locations in the works.
In light of this real world move by Amazon, will the Kindle become a staple of small business productivity? Will small business owners buy their business books from Amazon to read on their Kindle? Will small business owners use their Kindle for connecting to the Internet, and do all the other wonderful things the Kindle will allow them to do?
I don’t know what the future has in store for Kindle and business applications, but I do know that making the Kindle available to small business owners at Staples is a smart move.
Tags: e-books, Kindle, retail
Posted in Tools for Small Business | 2 Comments »
August 31st, 2010
We’ve recently been looking into Cloud Based Accounting for our business, and I thought I would share some of what I’ve learned so far as I’ve started to research which among the many choices out there we should consider.
This is a very brief overview of cloud accounting, also known as online accounting, or in some circumstances SaaS (software as a service) accounting software.
What is cloud software?
Cloud accounting software at its most basic level is on demand accounting software, so (as long as you have the right internet browser) and an internet connection you can access the software and your company’s financial data from anywhere in the world through a number of devices. Your data is held either on several servers hosted by the software provider in house, or on a third party’s server – for example, Amazon. This is a very basic description, but the main things you should be concerned with are the security of the servers and what happens if something goes wrong (how quickly will things be back up and running?).
Benefits
Access it anywhere:
So the above idea of not being tied to one computer is one of the clear benefits of using cloud accounting software over desktop based accounting software. Not being tied to one location or PC means that you and your work colleagues can access your financial data anywhere in the world (internet connection required!). In the case of a small sized business, if it has an accountant that completes the end of year financial returns then they no longer have to come and visit the company on site; saving the business money in accountant’s fees.
Subscription based:
Another small or medium sized business benefit here, the fact that cloud accounting tends to be subscription based means that it can scale with your company. A small company with few transactions may even find a free package, then (hopefully) as the company grows this can be upgraded through a few clicks of a button. The fact that there is no installing of software or on site data storage also means that you don’t have a horrendous up front bill to pay. Very nice.
Upgrades on the go:
Speaking with accountants you find that one of the really annoying things about old school (desktop) accounting software is the fact that if a client did not have the same software as you then you would have to explain how they can export the software and then send it to you. This time consuming process has been banished as cloud accounting software (depending on the provider) can be upgraded on the fly. The twofold benefit of constant upgrades being that new features will constantly keep coming available and you the customer have the ability to help shape the software’s development. There should be no additional cost for this process. The competitive nature of the cloud accounting market means that software providers need to keep on their toes, if a competitor has a feature you want (like a PayPal import) then leave and go to them.
There are other benefits and drawbacks to cloud accounting software, but this gives you an idea of a general place to start!
Providers:
When choosing cloud accounting software, always make sure the provider allows you at least a 30 day trial. During this period you can then try out several software systems and find which is the most intuitive for you to use or has the features that you need.
The market place is growing rapidly with new providers springing up every day. Below are some of them that are worth a try:
- Xero New Zealand based $18 – $37
- Quickbooks Online $10 – $35
- Clear Books UK Based between $7 – $23
Tags: accounting, cloud computing, small business
Posted in Small Business Finance | 6 Comments »
August 30th, 2010
I’ve got to hand it to Bill Slawski. He writes about search engine patents and the gems he uncovers are fabulous. This morning he wrote about a Google patent that establishes an algorithm for helping searchers find blogs about a particular topic.
Note that this is different than Google’s ordinary search algorithm, which helps users find individual blog posts about a particular topic.
If you are a searcher, for instance, looking for blogs specifically about small business marketing then you might go to Google’s blog search – not the home page search – and type in “small business marketing”. Then you’ll hit the button labeled “Search Blogs”. You’ll get a list of blogs that regularly write about small business marketing as opposed to random blogs that sometimes write posts about small business marketing. You’ll find the blogs, not individual blog posts.
This has huge potential for marketers. If you want to develop an audience for your particular niche then it helps to know how the search engines rank blogs that target niches. By learning the criteria search engines look for to determine blog rankings you stand a better chance of having your blog rank highly in the search engine’s blog search feature.
Thanks, Bill. That was a really useful post.
Posted in Blogging for Small Business | 3 Comments »
August 29th, 2010
After all has been said and done about link building campaigns and the importance of driving inbound links to your company’s website, many small business owners and marketers are still confused by link building. But is it really as hard as they’re making it out to be?
To be sure, there are a lot of things to think about when building links.
- Should I request reciprocal links?
- What makes a link relevant?
- Quantity vs. quality
- What exactly is a quality link anyway?
- Do directory submissions really help?
- Is article marketing still effective?
- Does blogging build good links?
- Link age
- Domain age
- Anchor text
- Title attribute
- Surrounding text
- Are image links effective?
- Forum links vs. blog comments
- Social media profile links
- Is social bookmarking really link building?
- Do press releases build quality links?
I could go on and on. There are hundreds more questions and concerns that could be brought up in the discussion of link building and many of them don’t have any real definitive answers. So I can understand how confusing it can be for someone just getting started.
It is sometimes better to think about link building in terms of the negatives – that is, what you should not do versus what you should.
- You don’t want to place your links on pages with thousands of other links.
- You don’t want links on websites associated with warez, malware or other evil creatures of the Web.
- Stay away from iframe links and nefarious redirects.
- Don’t pay people to link to you.
- Don’t do too much link building too fast (although, as a caveat, it’s fairly difficult for a small business to break this rule as “too much too fast” often means thousands of links in a short time frame such as days or weeks).
- Don’t engage in questionable link building tactics.
If you have any questions or concerns about proper link building techniques, read the search engine guidelines – particularly Google and Bing. If they say it’s OK then it’s OK; if they say it’s not then it isn’t.
Link building isn’t hard, but it isn’t exactly easy either. It is important. If you feel like a fish out of water when you try it then you might want to find someone you trust to help you with building solid links with benefits that last a long time.
Tags: link building, online marketing, small business
Posted in link building | 9 Comments »
August 28th, 2010
Cynthia Boris makes a good point. If you can’t measure the effectiveness of your social media then why are you using it?
This is the dilemma of the modern marketer. Social media has proven to be an effective marketing channel for a lot of marketers. But so has television. That doesn’t mean the medium is a proven marketing channel for everyone who uses it. Any marketing channel requires a knowledge of its use that consists of strategies and tactics that have worked for others and that might work for your situation. Without a solid grounding in marketing principles and your market niche, your chances of succeeding in any marketing channel are pretty slim.
Even then, having the ability to measure your results is necessary if you want to gauge your effectiveness. And that’s what social media has lacked for the most part.
Yesterday, we talked about a new addition to ShareThis – social media analytics. And Twitter has had third-party analytics tools available for it for quite some time. Many marketers report they use traditional tools like Google Analytics and Omniture. These are fine. The bottom line is to use something that will give you a visual on how your marketing efforts are panning out.
Remember this maxim: What you don’t measure you can’t change. So measure your results and the next time someone asks you why you are using social media, you’ll have an answer.
Tags: analytics, marketing, Social Media
Posted in Social Media | 6 Comments »
August 27th, 2010
Since social media has become popular there has been a huge problem for marketers – measuring results. How do you measure your results and analyze the effectiveness of your social media campaigns? It’s been a big challenge.
Finally, ShareThis adds analytics for social media marketing.
The analytics are centered around two very important marketing concepts:
The Audience Index is the measure of your audience’s influence compared to that of other websites generally and those within your niche. This metric also allows you to see how influential your audience is or, rather, how you engage with key influencers on your site. It is important to know how well you connect with key influencers because those are the people who will pass on the benefits of your product or service to their audiences and influencers generally have large audiences. That’s why they are called “influencers”. It’s an important part of your audience segment.
Social reach is a metric that deals with how widely your content is distributed and shared. It measures how far your content travels and the resulting return in traffic based on those shares.
Both of these metrics have the potential to help you gauge how effective you are in reaching your target audience and whether or not you are reaching the right influencers based on your niche. As far as social media analytics go, this is a step in the right direction.
Tags: analytics, Social Media
Posted in Tracking & Analytics | 3 Comments »
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