Where to find your Web site links

We’re sure you’ve heard over and over again how people linking to your site can help increase your Web traffic.  However, there is a limit to the links.  You really don’t want to go overboard.  Better for you to have quality links over quantity.  It’s equally important for the links you post on your site.  According to this MSN article, “I’ve seen sites with 25 high-quality links outperform those with a thousand or more low-quality links,” professes Shari Thurow, a Chicago-area search marketer and the author of “Search Engine Visibility,” a 2003 book with a second edition published in August 2007. “Small businesses should focus on getting 20 high-quality links — all relevant to your business,” says Elisabeth Osmeloski, a former SearchEngineWatch.com editor who is now director of online media at travel site Zonder.com. 

So here’s some tips on getting those quality links!

1. Take your time in finding links.  Don’t add all the links in one day.  Spread them out over a period of time because it gives you time to do your research and find those that are high quality.

2. Don’t feel forced to reciprocate to a site that has posted your site on theirs.  If you don’t feel the quality is there, don’t add it. 

3. Check what links your competitors have.  And always check to see what other links a site features.

4. If you’re not sure, add the nofollow tag to the link.  By including the code rel=”nofollow” after a URL in any “href” link you include, you’re telling a search engine that you can’t vouch for the quality of that site.  Otherwise, the search engines hold you responsible for that link.

Some good places to obtain links include:

• Trade and professional organizations.  These have a lot of important content relating to your company’s business and industry.  If you are a paid member to a group, most often a link should be included from the organization’s page.  Make sure to contact them if not.
• Social networking sites in your industry.  If you have a Facebook fan page or LinkedIn profile, you can link to it.  But avoid the general social networking sites.  If you find a good one for your industry (more and more are popping up daily), try to contribute an article or information and include a link back to your site.  And think outside the box.  Real estate sites like Zillow and Trulia count as social networking for the real estate industry.
• Noncompeting sites in your industry.  Mortgage lenders should link to Realtors, real estate attorneys, home inspectors, etc.  And the same is true for those other small businesses. 

Some not-so-good places for links:

• Web rings
• Generic, free directories.  Oftentimes your e-mail address will be spammed and it’s not a reputable site for your industry
• Guestbooks

Just make sure to do your research prior to adding links or having your link appear on another’s site.  If you don’t trust the company, you can ask for your link to be removed, too.

Visit us online to get your Web site up and running!

Prepare your marketing for the holidays

Now could not be a better time to do your research and figure out what your customers are looking for this holiday season.  If you want it to be a successful season for your business, you’ll want to plan your marketing prior to the holidays.  It’s great to take advantage of this down time before the storm hits.  You’ll want to define your goals for this holiday season.  Is it to make more money?  Get past customers to spend more?  Obtain new customers?  That will also help you determine what kind of marketing you want to do.  Here are some tips from this article to use your e-mail marketing to your advantage this season.

1. Get a fresh lead on your market.  Go to your customers directly to find out what their plans are this holiday season.  If you’re a social networker, great.  Post questions on Facebook or Twitter for your customers to respond to.  Ask them what they’re planning on spending.  Ask them if they’re looking for specific gift ideas.  This will help you stock your items and know what a good price point is.  This is a great reason to get on Twitter and Facebook, too.  If you’re not, make sure to send out an e-mail to some past customers to find out these answers.  Send it via a survey for them to fill out.

2. Re-engage your current customers.  This is just a great way to get back in the minds of current/past customers.  You want them to make sure they remember you this season for their holiday shopping.  Ask customers what they use your products/services for or the best way they incorporated it into their business.  Publish the best ones in your next newsletter and award the “winner” with a free gift.  Ask them what they’re doing in their business, given the current economy.  Maybe you can work out a joint venture between your two businesses to be more profitable during the holidays. 

3. Refresh and expand your mailing list.  If you do have some down time, you might want to remove those addresses that are no longer valid.  Make sure that you’re still doing everything to gather new e-mails, whether it be from a Web site sign-up button or handing out your business card at networking events.  Have fans/friends sign up on your Facebook page.  That’s another way to drive business back to your Web site. 

With these tips, you’ll be sure to have a successful holiday season.  And always remember to reward referrals with handwritten thank you notes to the sender along with a small gift. 

If you’re ready to get your holiday marketing out, we can help!  Visit us online at http://www.completeresourceschicago.com

To Tweet or not to Tweet? What’s good for your business?

Can you believe that it’s only since the beginning of this year that Twitter has grown increasingly popular?  People were using it to update their friends and family members with 140-word messages (tweets) about what was going on.  A tweet is basically an instant message being broadcast publicly.  Now businesses have moved more to the Twitter mainstream.  According to this article, Starbucks posts new incentives and offers, Whole Foods invites customers to events and asks customers what they think.  So is Twitter right for your business?

First of all, you have to commit.  You can’t just tweet once every 5 months and hope for the best.  If you want to have active conversations with customers and they follow you, they’re going to expect to hear from you.  You don’t have to tweet multiple times a day, but a few times a week makes sense. If you’re billing clients for time and you’re tweeting all day long, you can have problems for that, too.

Twitter can be an easy way to broadcast a message about your company that followers, friends, and fans can replicate on other sites.  So word can get out a lot faster than just by you sending an e-mail message.  In fact, the application TweetLater lets you schedules tweets in the future like you would schedule an e-mail to go out at a certain time.  If you’re on Facebook, you can set Twitter up so that your tweets automatically appear as status updates on your Facebook page.  Now you’ve just killed two birds with one stone.

Author Chris Brogan wrote this article on 50 ideas of using Twitter for your business. Some of his great suggestions include using TwitterSearch to listen for your name or those of your competitor to find out what’s going on in your industry.  You could gain valuable insight that way.

Don’t oversell your business or yourself.  People get bored of that very quickly.  Instead, provide links to other useful sites.  Give tips on when to check back when you’ll post information on sales or how to earn something free.  Talk about non-business activities.  But don’t talk about how drunk you got at that last kegger.  Too much information for your customers.  Mention a charity event you attended instead.

Chris also recommends asking questions.  He thinks Twitter can be great for obtaining opinions.  Instead of tweeting about what you’re doing now, tweet about what you’re thinking about or what’s in the news.  He also mentions that Twitter and other social media sites do not replace direct marketing.  You could use a piece to publish your name or how to access you on those sites, but you still have to do direct marketing pieces for all of those people who don’t use Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.  Definitely view his article for more great tips.

So if you need help coming up with a direct marketing piece, be sure to visit us online.

E-mail marketing tips for new subscribers

 

It’s always great news when you get someone new to sign up for one of your e-newsletters online.  Whether it was a referral, someone who came across your Web site, or a friend or past client, you’re thrilled for the opportunity to sell your products or services to a new customer.  Now is your opportunity to nurture this relationship and make sure the customer is getting everything that he expects.  You don’t want to bombard him with e-mails, either.  Here are some tips for new subscribers, auto responders, and when you have to say good-bye.

New subscribers:

You definitely want to make a good first impression when you get someone new interested in your e-newsletter.  Once you have the new prospect’s e-mail address, send them a welcome e-mail with a personalized note.  You’ll also want to set the stage for what’s to come.  Tell them how often they’ll be hearing from you, the type of information you’ll be sending (coupons, newsletters, etc.), and who it’s going to be coming from so they can add it to their address book.  Otherwise, it could end up in their spam box or junk mail folder.

Send them the last e-mail that went out to customers so they’re not waiting a month (if that’s your frequency) for the next one.  And in your e-mail, include a link to past newsletters they can view online or other online discounts for subscribers.

Auto responders:

All auto responders should have a call to action without asking for someone’s business.  You can have a link in the e-mail for an online discount or free consultation with you about purchasing a home.  Some readers aren’t ready for the whole enchilada when they give you your e-mail address.  Keep these messages less frequent than those you send to your regular subscribers.  You don’t want to bombard them with information and prevent them from signing up.  A monthly e-mail is a good starting point. 

Opt-outs:

To make it easy for all your readers, make sure that every e-mail does offer the option of them being able to unsubscribe.  Make it as easy for them as possible so they don’t get frustrated.  If you get a few of these, use the information to help you determine what future customers are looking for from you.  Here are some tips on these.

1. You have 10 days by law remove an e-mail address from your list if it’s requested.  It’s best to do it as soon as possible, however.

2. Send them a friendly note that their unsubscribe request has been received.  Something along the lines of “We’re sorry to see you go but hope to see you again in the future.”  You can always leave a note on how to resubscribe when the time is right or if they unsubscribed by mistake.

3. Give these customers an opportunity to write why they unsubscribed.  You will learn so much from their comments.  If it’s because they were receiving too many e-mails from you, you might think about toning down the frequency.  If they didn’t feel your information was valuable, consider replacing some of your newsletter content. 

More tips for e-mail marketing can be found in this article.

If you’re ready to get your e-mail marketing messages out there, let us help! Visit our Web site to get started.

Why blogging your business is worthwhile

As we’ve mentioned in the past, social networking is extremely important in this day and age to obtain new business and keep current clients.  With the onset of new technology, you want to reach the tech-savvy customers.  Another great marketing initiative is to start a blog for your business.  It’s estimated there are about 15.5 million active blogs (those updated within the past 90 days) with 1.3 to 1.5 million new active posts daily. 

What can this mean to you?  How can this benefit your business? 

1. Blogs are free!  What another great way to market your business at no cost to you (except for your time).  A lot of blogging sites are free (take WordPress for example).  It’s very easy to follow the tutorial to get started.  Consider devoting one or two days a week to writing your blog.  Make sure you schedule time for it.

2. You can engage your customers in a no-obligation, no-pressure way.  Talk about the best new products in your industry, trends, advice from industry experts, or even advertise your promotions through your blog.  Traditional marketing cannot be kept this up-to-date.  The other benefit is that you can post pictures and videos and even sound clips in your blog.  If you’re talking about new products, include photos.  If a recent industry leader gave a great presentation, include a clip.

3. You can learn of customers’ interests, needs, and wants by their comments to your blog.  This can help you develop new promotional ideas or products. 

4. Get an advantage over your competitors who don’t blog.  Lots of Realtors and small businesses say they don’t have the time to devote.  This will only put you ahead of everyone else.  If you don’t have time, hire someone to blog for you or ask a family member or employee. 

Use your blog to offer tips and links to other useful information.  Link them to products that you don’t sell but can make your product work better.  Offer them tips to get the most out of the products they buy from you.  Read a book that talks about the importance of your industry?  Review and recommend it on your blog.  Hopefully this can get other bloggers to link to your blog, giving it even more exposure and developing new business. 

Again, try to devote time at least weekly to your blog.  You want to make sure your information is relevant.  If you’re in the real estate industry, the market is constantly changing.  Readers won’t want to return if you only update every 6 months.  Let them know what’s happening now.

More great information on blogging for your business can be found here.

CompleteREsources Chicagois here to help you. We can create and update your blogs, put together your marketing pieces, handle your client invoicing, and even develop PowerPoint presentations. Send us an email at susan.kraut@sbcglobal.net for a quote!

Don’t lose customers with these marketing mistakes

One quick mistake in your marketing message or delivery might not only make you lose a customer, but could keep you from gaining a new one.  These tips should help keep you on track to make more money, and not lose any!

1. Signing up customers to your newsletter without permission.  Do you ever hand someone your business card and then start receiving their e-mail mailings or newsletter?  It’s very common, and unfortunately, could break a customer relationship.  People want the option to opt-in to these mailings.  They don’t want to receive it without being asked first.  This is especially hard if you just meet someone.  You want to develop a relationship first.  You also want to have the freedom to look at their information and then determine if you want to be on a mailing list.  If you send these newsletters out, make sure you have a sign-up form on your Web site or in your e-mail.  And always ask permission when meeting someone new if you can add them to your list.  Don’t just assume they want to be on it.

2. Changing your message because you didn’t get enough sales.  It’s also very common to see an advertisement: 30% off everything until Wednesday!  Then Wednesday is crossed out and it says 30% off until Friday!  You’ll create a much more powerful message if you stick to your word.  If you didn’t get enough sales, save the promotion for a few weeks.  It creates a lot more urgency and shows your customers that you are willing to offer promotions.  You’ll seem desperate for business if you keep changing your current promotion.  It can make customers think you’re going out of business. 

3. Making everything urgent.  Sending out mailings that say “Urgent!” or “Open Immediately!”  This tactic can definitely work, but once is probably best.  If customers continue to see the same messages on all of your mailings, they’ll know it is just a tactic and probably put it right in the garbage bin.

4. Spending it all in one place.  Don’t blow your entire marketing budget on one expensive TV ad or national magazine appearance.  It could be great to get new customers, but once you’ve done that, what’s left for other marketing?  Make sure to evenly spend your marketing dollars and find the best ways to do that based on your customer profiles.  We blogged a few weeks back about sending clear messages to the right target group.  Don’t get all excited about a new advertising stream without researching it first and determining that it’s right for you and your business. 

5. Fixing what isn’t broken.  Some companies think changing their marketing pieces is necessary, even if they’re still getting great success with the same old pieces.  This isn’t necessary.  If it’s working, that’s fantastic.  Don’t just assume you need to change something because it hasn’t been done in a while.  Use test markets and get feedback before trying something new. 

You can find more common mistakes in this article. Visit us online for help designing your marketing piece!

Your best tips for social networking

We’ve previously talked about how important social networking and social media can be to your business.  It’s great for making connections with past clients, former colleagues, and even high school and college classmates.  You can introduce your business to them in a less formal environment and get the word out about what you do. 

Lee Odden, an online marketing blogger, recently got 26 of his best tips on how to use social media for your benefit.   We’re going to post some of our favorites and why they’re so important.  Everything in bold is an actual tip.

1. Listen first. Don’t be the bullhorn in the party. Social media is a conversation, not a one-way stream.  A lot of people gave advice on listening.  Don’t constantly be the one putting your marketing and advertising out there.  Listen to what your customers have to say and how they interact with your online presence.  Find out what’s important to them.  Do they want to see more photos of your products?  Would they like you to blog on a daily/weekly/monthly basis?  If you just go out there talking about your business without listening to what people want, you’re really doing it all for naught. 

2. Find your employees who are passionate about social media and involve them — passion shows and they’ll do the best job.  This goes hand in hand with another tip: Have at least one person know whats going on and monitor / update in a genuine way the different social media profiles.  Find somebody that knows what they’re doing.  If you’re your only employee and you’ll be doing the updating, make sure to research how to post and upload prior to starting out.  You are representing yourself and your company, so you want to do it right.  And once you start, make sure you continue to update online, especially if you promise your clients and customers a weekly promotion or blog.  They’ll expect to see it, so you need to make sure it’s there.  If you don’t have an employee, maybe think about hiring a high school or college student who has an online presence.  They might know some tricks of the trade to help you out.

3. Don’t pretend you aren’t a company. Yes you’re hanging out with the cool kids on facebook but we know what you really are.   You need to act like the company that you’re representing, which is yours.  Be professional in your posts.  Of course, you can still have fun in your comments and your posts, but don’t change who you are.  If you have teen-aged clients, don’t talk to them like you’re their buddy.  Continue to represent the professional side of your business.  It comes across as a lot more genuine and makes you appear more credible.  Social Media is like a digital porch. People like coming to chat if the home owner is authentic!

4. I would tell them to DO IT! If they are not a part of their conversation, someone else is controlling it.  What this one means is, if you’re not on the social networking sites, your competition probably is!  Would you rather your competition be out there and communicating with your potential clients? Of course not.  If you visit Facebook, for example, a lot of stores and restaurants are now posting their promotions online and getting fans to follow them when something new happens for their business.  Yes, eventually, more stores and businesses will do it, too.  But won’t you remember the first ones?  Won’t it be more likely that you’ll have one book store that you’re interested in rather than 12?

Do you have any more important tips for these sites?  Please leave us a comment or visit us online.

Learning about your customers will drive up sales

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in determining what next promotion to offer?  You realize that you haven’t put items from your fall collection, for instance, on sale yet, so maybe you should give that a try?  You should recognize that by learning about your customers and their past purchasing habits, you can earn more money by appealing to them.  Marketing Professional Ray Boucher has written an article on five important things you should know about your customers.  You’ll want to go through your database and make note of these, as it will greatly improve your marketing effort and sales in the future.

1. What is the most popular purchased product or service?  Let’s use real estate agents, for example.  If you’ve mostly sold condos in the past year to first time buyers, you’ll want to start marketing move-up opportunities for them.  Try to send them information about 3 bedroom single family homes, or the benefits of selling in their particular complex.  For a small business that sells handmade jewelry, what is your most popular product?  Let’s say it’s a bracelet with add-on charms.  Consider advertising to past clients about the new birthstone charms you have available.  If you buy 1, get 1 free.  Try to think outside the box with what products are the most popular.  It should drum up the most new sales if it’s tied to that.

2. What are your customers spending on each purchase?  Let’s say that an average purchase goes for about $50.  Find out what your competitors are charging.  If they have similar products and price, if you offer a product for $44.99, you should get more sales since you’re selling at a discount. 

3. Find out how many of your customers are repeat customers.  First of all, here’s hoping that most of your customers are repeats.  You want to keep them in your database and contact them at least twice a year so they don’t go to your competitor.  If you have their birthday, make sure you send them a card.  Always send them information when you’re offering a new promotion. 

4. When are you getting most of your sales?  Is it typically in a certain month?  Is it generally on a Friday during the week?  By figuring this out you’ll be able to offer marketing that has promotions during the slower periods to help generate more business.  But don’t forget to still market during the busy times so that those times stay busy.

5.  Where do your customers come from?  Are you getting referred from a certain Web site?  That’s where you’ll want to put a lot of advertising.  Do you have a local shop where customers from a certain neighborhood come from?  Sponsor one of their little league teams. 

This information will be extremely helpful when planning your marketing.  Do you have this information and now need to design the perfect marketing campaign?  Visit us online for more information and a free quote.

Make their jaw drop with these marketing tactics

It’s not enough these days to simply mail out a postcard or a letter to a group of people and hope for the best.  It’s even harder if it’s a new group of people that you haven’t yet marketed yourself to.  You need to stand out in a crowd and get them to be impressed by what you’re sending out.  Even if it’s a group of past clients, you need some new tactics to get them to want to buy from you or use your services.

So what’s going to work?  We came across a great article that offers some tips.  You want marketing material that’s not only entertaining, but something that includes a call to action.  This means that you want to give your target audience enough information to do something about it, whether that means calling you to place an order, calling you to get more information, or asking to become a regular subscriber of your newsletter.

The first step is to get your audience to drop their jaws.  You want them to be extremely impressed by what you’re sending out.  Make them want to read your postcards or mailing, rather than having it go straight into the garbage.  This might include a funny photo, or text that jumps off the page.  Maybe the way you send it to them is what does the trick.  Consider something unique, like a letter in a tube rather than an envelope.  Create text that will make them believe they’re crazy for not purchasing your product or using your service.

The next step is to include testimonials on what you send out.  If you have a Web site (you should!), make sure you also post testimonials from past customers there, as well.  It makes your product or service more believable because they can actually see customers that have benefited from your services.  Make sure these are true testimonials and not made up.  Have past customers available as references so that new customers can contact them if they like.  Get their permission first. 

The last step is to put a limited time offer in your marketing piece.  This creates a sense of urgency and get them to want to contact you immediately, or before the offer expires.  Show them the benefits and get them to contact you for your product before the time runs out.  How often have you seen a coupon for a buy 1 get 1 free that expires in only 3 days!  Doesn’t it make you want to run to the store before it expires?  That’s the urgency you want to create with your customers.

Do you need help designing this marketing piece?  We’re here to put our skills to use!  Visit us online to see product examples and call for a quote!

How having a partner can boost your business

You’re probably working on overtime trying to build your business, beat your competitors, and save money during this recession.  You want to make sure you’re still in business and making money on your own.  What if we had a solution for a way to build up your business, for free??  Have you considered a joint venture?  A joint venture, by definition, is a partnership where people undertake an economic activity together and is a way to share knowledge and expertise.  Terrance Charles’ blog offers his take on the top three most effective joint ventures.

1. E-mail list swaps.  You can immediately add hundreds or thousands of e-mail addresses to your subscriber list by doing this.  So how do you find your swap partner?  If you are a subscriber to some marketing lists, try responding to some of the newsletters you receive to see if the authors are interested in a swap.  How about a past colleague you’ve reconnected with on LinkedIn or Facebook?  We’ve had real estate agents swap lists with financial planners.  You want to make sure you do this most effectively, though.  Let’s say you have a database of 500 current clients, past clients, and prospects.  Let’s take the example of the real estate agent and financial planner.  They decided to swap 10 names a week.  Why so low?  Because they each sent each person a note highly recommending the other’s service.  Then they called the new name and introduced themselves.  Then they each wrote a handwritten note thanking them for speaking with them and sending out a card.  It was then that they added them to their regular list.  So it took time, but the plan was for them to thoroughly introduce themself so they knew they were comfortable receiving their e-newsletters first.  It helped them achieve a lot more sales than just blindly adding names to a list.  So consider how you want to best approach this.  With patience and the right partner, you will no doubt have success this way.

2. Trade content.  Do you have another blog or Web site that you’re constantly reading?  See if the author will allow you to post their information on your site and vice versa.  You can add hundreds of views a day to your site by adding their visitors, as well.  And make sure you give them credit.  Link to their page from your Facebook or Twitter page. 

3. Teleseminars and webinars.  Terrance says, “For a JV, this is good because your building credibility and value for your subscribers and customers. Not only that, marketers are always looking for more content, so it usually get’s passed around on blogs, forums, articles and to their list. It doesn’t have to be a long teleseminar, it can be from 5 minutes to 1 hour, it all depends.”  You don’t even have to make it as formal as a teleseminar.  Just post a video on each other’s sites with some new content.  Posting videos is extremely easy to do these days with the new technology that YouTube and Facebook offers.

Hopefully this blog gave you some ideas on how to expand and build your business by forming a joint venture.  Once you’re ready to get those marketing pieces out to your lists, visit us online so we can create the perfect piece for you!