Archive for Traffic Generation
Foursquare is growing faster than Twitter growth in 2010
Posted by: | CommentsWill Foursquare will have 1 million members signed up in the next couple of week? You bet. This tweet was just published and they are excited to have 1M Checkins in a single day.
Why does this matter to you? If you are a business owner you need to be on Foursquare. People will help you advertise. The best way to describe the service is to actually quote directly from the Foursquare site:
Google Offers Business Photo Shoots for Local Business Owners
Posted by: | CommentsGoogle photographers are available to shoot photos of your business and will appear in a business’ Place Page to help users who are searching for more information about your business. This is an excellent opportunity for you to expose your business and do so with the help of Google.
Interior photographs are a great way to show potential customers how your store or office looks. You have the ability to display your business photos on Google Local and get discovered by your neighbors as well as Google. Go ahead and stand out from the competition. Who wouldn’t.
FAQ
I’d be happy to assist any local business owner in the Twin City Metro area (Minneapolis/St Paul) build their online presence and start with the Google Place Page today. Email me at Lisa (at) Lisa Saline.com or call 952-884-3293
3 Secrets to an Effective Inbound Marketing Campaign
Posted by: | CommentsUtilizing effective inbound marketing properly is an excellent way for you to build your business, as well as to get traffic by the masses into your website. There are a number of different ways in which this can take place, but as with anything, there are always going to be some secrets which will help you to get more traffic. Here are 3 different ways that you can use inbound marketing in order to ramp up the visitors to your own website, and to increase your bottom line.
Content Syndication – The new buzzword is tribal syndication, but you may be a little bit confused as to how this actually works. With this type of syndication, you are actually part of a network of marketers that are working in a related niche. Because there are many power marketers that are involved with tribal syndication, the amount of traffic that gets pushed around can be overwhelming. At times, this type of syndication can work within the same network, such as twitter to twitter or Facebook to Facebook. At other times, however, you can cross the line and push people from network to network.
Search Engine Optimization- SEO has received a lot of attention over the years, and this is not without good
reason. As a matter of fact, many online businesses owe their existence to search engine marketing, regardless of whether it is free traffic that they are getting from the search engines or paid. The big secret to this is to target your keywords properly, and from there you can really expand in almost any direction that you want to go. Because people are very focused with what they are doing online, target what they are searching for and you can grab a piece of that traffic and send pre-warmed leads to your website through the search engines.
Social Media Marketing - Welcome to Web 2.0. Even though social media websites have been around for quite some time, their popularity has just recently hit critical mass. When you take part in social media marketing, such as what can be found on Facebook or twitter, you can really achieve quite a following in a short period of time. Many of these social media networks utilize their own internal search engine frequently, and you can be part of this by optimizing your social media marketing in order to attract those that are interested in what you have to say.
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How to Integrate Outbound Marketing with an Inbound Marketing Campaign
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Using outbound marketing in order to get leads and customers has been around for quite some time, but you might be surprised with exactly how easy it is to incorporate some of your outbound marketing into inbound marketing. As a matter of fact, when you do this properly you can have the best of both worlds because you’re going to be getting leads from your outbound efforts, and leads from your inbound efforts as well. Here are a few ways that it can be done.
If you regularly run television or radio ads, you can convert these over a format to be used on the Internet. This is especially beneficial whenever you are using television ads, as online video is such a hot item now. By posting these with related keywords and a well written blurb on websites such as YouTube, you would be surprised with how much traffic you are able to receive. The reason why this is the case, is because YouTube is the second largest search engine, behind its parent company Google.
If you take part in trade shows or off-line seminars, you might want to start inviting your attendees to view an online webinar. Webinars are an excellent way for you to continue contact with an individual, and you may even enjoy switching them over to electronic contact, as it can be more convenient. Not only that, recorded webinars are an excellent way for you to grab additional visitors from the search engines, or from viral traffic campaigns.
If you’re using print ads, make sure that you always include your URL in the ad. Many people that read these ads are connected at all times, either through their computer or through their cell phone. It is perfectly natural for them to type in a URL whenever they see it, and curiosity will often be motivation enough for them to do so.
Whenever you do flip somebody over to your website through a print ad, always make sure that you offer them something free in exchange for their email address or other personal information. In this way, you stop the tire kickers from simply viewing your website and then clicking away. Rather, you now have a new potential customer that you can market to regularly.
There are many other ways that you can use your outbound marketing efforts and change them over to inbound marketing success. By integrating both of these into your business, you will be able to take it to a much higher level.
Do You Use Experiential Marketing in your Marketing Campaigns?
Posted by: | CommentsExperiential Marketing allows customers the opportunity to interact and engage with brands, products, and services by touching, feeling, smelling, and seeing that creates an emotional attachment and allows for intelligent and informed purchasing decisions to happen.
This week I saw two examples of how this actually works not only in creating brand awareness but as an inbound marketing idea as well. The first experience was when I volunteered at the Pacer Benefit. They had a huge audience and offered a free photo shoot with a mime couple. It was such a unique and fun experience but you had to go to the website on a specific day to see your picture. Do you think they had people waiting at the door ready to find their photos? I sure did.
Another Experiential Marketing campaign that I am honored to be part of Moms Time Out Twin Cities program that includes the use of a brand new Chevy Traverse for four weeks. Four moms in the Minneapolis area were selected to drive this new vehicle for four weeks and blog about their experience. This is truly customer experience that will help the Chevy brand drive sales and increase brand image and awareness.
Letting active moms drive the Chevy Traverse is the difference between telling them about features of the vehicle and letting them experience the benefits for themselves. When done right, it’s the most powerful tool out there to win brand loyalty. After four weeks of driving the Chevy Traverse I am sure it will be difficult to hand over the keys.
Keep an eye out for the Mom Squad by joining us at:
Facebook: Like Us
Twitter: Hashtag #mtotwincities
Official Site: Moms Time Out Twin Cities
Those of you who live in the MN metro area… be sure to tune in to the Kare11 Showcase Minnesota on Thursday, May 20th. The Mom Squad will be given our cars live on television. Here is a clip from YouTube on the Chevy Traverse. Chevy Traverse
What are you doing to promote Experiential Marketing in your business? Leave a comment below and share your stories
Lead Generation and New Marketing Strategies
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Generating leads is something that people have been doing for years, and although the playing field may have changed as a result of the Internet, the effectiveness of gathering those leads has not changed at all. Here are 7 different ways that you can use the Internet in order to gather these leads through new marketing strategies.
One of the first things that you should do is always to make sure that you’re including a capture form on your website. Make sure that it is highly visible, and that it is above the fold (viewable without scrolling)
A second tactic that you can do is to give away something that is related to your business in exchange for an email address and other contact information. This is best done through a squeeze page, where there are no other exit points other than to sign up for what you’re offering, or to back out of the page.
Email campaigns are an excellent way to stay in touch, and they can be sent out to the masses rather easily. Always make sure to personalize the email when possible, and to ask for a referral. There are many people that will refer your website, simply because you asked.
Don’t forget about search engine optimization, optimizing your website in order to rank for specific keywords or keyword phrases that are related to your niche. When done properly, this can send a flood of warm visitors to your website that are all but sitting there with their credit card in hand.
There are many people that regularly follow blogs, and you may be able to pull traffic into your website by commenting on blogs that are related to your niche. One thing that you may want to do, is to download an RSS feed aggregator so that you know whenever a new post goes on to one of these blogs. Being the first person to post a thoughtful comment will get you the most traffic.
Advertise your lead capture URL in any way that you possibly can, either off-line or online. Buy a bumper sticker, put signs in your yard, hand out business cards or whatever else it may take in order to get people to visit your website and to give you their contact information.
Finally, you may want to try the direct approach and simply ask people that may be interested in what you have to offer to go to your webpage and enter their contact information. It may sound simplistic, but it works very well.
6 Forms of Inbound Marketing Campaign
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Have you used Dot Spots?
Posted by: | CommentsI found this awesome new tool that allows you to comment on any content on the net. Once you create a “dot” you can add additional relevant text, links to blogs and video. It’s been a great tool for exposing one of my clients to target readers of various news posts and articles. A Dot that is connected to one paragraph will be syndicated to all other relevant paragraphs in articles scattered around the web
How is a dot different than a blog post?
Dots can they be connected to quotes or text and be placed in context of news sites. They can’t be voted on. Finally, blogs are not designed for ad-hoc collaboration, so anyone can help improve each entry. A dot is designed to make it easy to do all these things.
Watch this video on how Dot Spots works.
Tools for Starting a Business from Home on a Limited Budget
Posted by: | CommentsWith the state of the economy the way it is today I am seeing an increase in the level of interest a person has in starting their own business. When I ask the new entreprenuer a few basic questions regarding the tools they are using to build their new business I am shocked at how many people have that deer-in-the-headlight look.
So many people are jumping to the conclusion that starting a business from home is tied to a big expense and that the tools they need to use are not affordable to operate efficiently. Therefore, many business owners are not empowered to build strategically with the use of the internet. Because I am a big believer in maximizing online tools I came up with a list that will help take your business to the next level.
Here is a list of necessary tools that are free to use.
Webcast: Mikogo is free screensharing software that you can use for webinars, product demonstrations, online meetings, etc.
Video Production: Animoto is a great way to turn your photos into video. As we all know video’s drive traffic to your website. Therefore, a simple way to create a video is to upload pictures of you or your business into Animoto, select sound clips to match the video and publish to YouTube or other video sites.
Conference Calling: Free Conference Call.com is a teleconference line available 24/7. Do you need to have a quick meeting with your team members or sales staff? Easily done with this service.
Calendar: Google Calendar is an efficient way to keep track of your events. I use this service to color code the conference calls, events, and even set up Text Messaging reminders so I don’t miss a beat. A great feature in Google Calendar allows you to invite others to share the calendar so it works great for planning events.
Business Forms: Google Docs has a host of forms and templates that can assist you with your business. Find a template, complete the form and then print it to a PDF file direct from the desk top. Many of the templates will even feed into specific software programs you might use. It is a great way to invoice your clients.
Advertising: Craigslist is a favorite for free advertising. If you own a service business or want to sell a product this service is for you. Not only is it good for advertising it is also great for prospecting. Check out the “wanted” section as you might be able to fill a need of what people are looking for. Be sure to read the compliance section of Craigslist because they don’t hesistate to shut your account down if your ad is flagged too many times.
Autoresponder: Mail Chimp Not only does this site have a cute chimp on the front page it offers a great foundation for new marketers to start building a list. You can build and manage your list as well as design HMTL newsletters for free. I personally use Aweber as it is the list building tool I’ve used prior to learning of Mail Chimp.
Website Software: Wordpress.org is a great tool for the new business owner to use while building an online presence. With all the new plugins available to the wordpress owner you can create a website in a matter of minutes compared to a few months and at a high expense. Wordpress.org is free but you would need a hosting account to maintain it. I use a few different hosting companies for my sites but I prefer Hostgator as my wordpress host.
These are a few of my favorite tools (sounds like a song doesn’t it?). Be not afraid to learn any one of them as they all have video instructions and are easy to learn.
Do you need to know where to market your website? Go ahead and opt in at the box on the right. I will send you a PDF file and checklist to get you started in the right direction.
Make Internet Marketing Fun!
