Kentucky Business Network » online marketing

Social Networking Techniques For Marketing – Capitalize On This New Frontier!

admin — Sat, 29 May 2010 16:09:57 +0000

Owning a small business in Kentucky can be rewarding but also comes with a plethora of challenges you must face. While creative marketing has always been one of the keys to a successful business, the sheer quantity of methods available today can be overwhelming. Choosing the proper mediums in which to invest your marketing dollars is a critical decision for the small business owner.

The fastest growing and simplest way to market your business is by using social networking techniques for marketing. This term encompasses a variety of methods and is also referred to as Internet Marketing or Social Media. Some examples are:

1. Blogging: Many businesses choose to utilize internet marketing by creating and maintaining a blog. Content should be updated regularly to keep visitors coming back, and can include online discount coupons and special offers for your internet customers. This form of social media is particularly suited to providing a personal touch to your marketing strategy since the tone of blogs is often informal.

2. E-mail marketing: Many small business owners ask their customers to voluntarily provide their e-mail addresses and will then send updates, advance notice on sales or special promotions, and coupons. This is not to be confused with spam, which is unsolicited e-mail and should be avoided as an online marketing tool.

3. Social Networking Accounts: Establishing a page on a social media site such as Facebook can increase your business’s exposure dramatically. This form of marketing may also include a Twitter account for more up-to-the-minute updates on your business.

4. Website: One of your most vital marketing tools today is a company website. Potential customers no longer flip through voluminous phone books to find the business or service they are looking for. Their first choice is usually a search engine that will point them to your website. This form of online marketing requires striking a balance between eye-catching design and utility and ease of navigation. Business owners that are strapped for cash and whose first time it is for owning a website may look for template options, but with some more experience, a small business owner may later hire a web design company to provide better branding, stronger design, integrated social media and clean coding.

Internet marketing is no longer considered to be in its infancy and there are now many outstanding opportunities to grow a small business with the proper targeting of social networking techniques. Business owners in Kentucky know that any form of marketing is dependent on knowing your intended customers and customizing your strategy to reach them. Social networking techniques for marketing are no different in this regard but have the advantage of often being able to be implemented with less money and provide higher returns than traditional marketing methods.

How-to guide for buying an established website or web business.

admin — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:49:43 +0000

We have had a few people write in an ask: “Where can I go to buy an existing website?” or “Where can I buy a ready made website business?”. So, we decided to write a short guide and list a few decent places to help our users purchase existing websites or web businesses.

This article will help:

Business owners understand the benefits of purchasing an established website
Signs to identify bad investments in ready-made websites (or web businesses)
Where to buy an established website or web business

Why would I want to buy an existing website rather than just build my own?
Some business owners might prefer to start from scratch and build a new website by hiring a web design company or freelance web designer. However, there can be a few draw backs to building a website from scratch. One is cost. Depending on the type of website that you want to build and the quality of coding and design, it can turn into a relatively costly process. Granted the cost of building a website will vary between companies, quality, timeframe, experience of the designer, and reputation. In many cases, a lower cost website may not be better for your small business–as a website can be one of the most important marketing devices a small business owns and uses. Another downside of creating a brand new website is timing. It can take quite a bit of time to build a quality website. For example, it took one of our members about three weeks to build a static website, because they decided to purchase extra time to refine their design (look and feel) and get the messaging right. Most web design companies will charge for extra rounds of revisions during the design process.

Purchasing a ready made website can be a quick way to enter the market.
Purchasing a ready-made website or web business can allow you to speed up the process of “going to market.” Granted, you may need to clean up a few things or add new content to the purchased website. Also, you will need to ensure that the website that you are purchasing is quality. (See below for quality assurance testing of ready made websites). In many cases, when you purchase a website, you will have a chance to view the design of the site, wade through the site content and get some facts about it. In this way, you will know what you are buying and can select a site or web business that will give you a head start. Many companies struggle with starting a new website because writing content can take a lot of time–and content production can cause web projects to miss their deadlines. The editing process can be tough, at times. Also, some websites that are for sale may already have traffic, search engine prominence or even revenue… which will give you a leg up from other start-ups.

What are some common signs that a website is poor quality or a bad investment?

Double check to see if the website is committing gross copyright violations
Too many links? Make sure the website isn’t over linking, which can cause penalties in Google and other search engines.
Make sure the site has quality content!
Click through the site and look for broken pages, elements and links
Make sure the website accurately reflects the market you wish to enter

Background checks and quality assurance for purchasing a website
Hiring a web strategy company can help you identify whether a website is quality by doing an SEO and website audit before finalizing the purchase. Spending a few hundred dollars to hire a web strategy company can save you a lot of time and money down the road.

What are some factors that may demonstrate high quality within a for sale website?

Content, content, content: Good content goes a long way!
Page ranking: Google uses a ranking system to measure the strength of a page within search engines. You may not need a ready high page rank, but it certainly can help.
Good design: clear and interesting (or just simple) design can really make or break a website. Bad design can certainly contribute to a website’s failure.

Where can I purchase a ready made website?

eBay: search for “websites for sale”
flippa.com – an online marketplace for buying and selling websites
marketplace.sitepoint.com/ — a marketplace for established websites and existing web businesses.

Developing A Corporate Social Media Strategy

admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:15:22 +0000

When developing a social media strategy for a company or corporation, it is a good idea to draft formal guidelines that are clearly written and easily accessible for employees, management and future hires. Social media is not something companies should run away form. In fact, social media like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc. should be embraced by companies. Such communication outlets can be absolute gems in terms of customer engagement, web traffic, reputation management and product awareness.

The internet is a key resource for advertisers and for public relations. Cost and the ability to measure Return On Investment are key reasons for moving towards the web with both advertising and PR. When combined with off-line efforts, online marketing with social media engagement can be extremely effective at winning new relationships, strengthening reputation, and expanding visibility.

Dos and Donts Guidelines
Social media strategies should take into consideration various dos and don’ts for how employees should conduct themselves online. We feel it is not productive to discourage employees from joining and participating in social media. In fact, there may be a lot to lose from have employees disconnected from social online engagement. One strategy is to keep private accounts personal. Don’t allow employees to speak on behalf of the company. Give them clear guidelines on how to handle questions or comments directed at their company. Provide employees with a point person in the PR department. Also give them links to the company website for reference, rather than allowing them to make the mistake of answering a question wrong and causing damage to a company reputation. If the employee is blogging on a topic related to their work, provide them topical guidelines and require them to post a clear disclaimer that 1.) the employee is NOT blogging on behalf of the company and 2.) the opinions do NOT reflect the opinions and beliefs held by the company.

Employees can be great ambassadors of a brand. Enthusiasm and excitement from employees can reflect well upon the company. In certain cases, companies may want to consider maintaining social media accounts a requirement for certain types of employees, and requiring such online engagement a job requirement. This may help companies become more in tune with their customer base and with their industry.

Social Media Accounts
Some employees will have personal social media accounts from a range of service providers such as Facebook, Twitter, Ning or Delicious. For this reason, we advise companies that they should create some ground rules for social engagement. Don’t drive your employees underground by banning their accounts altogether, which just creates an air of distrust and bitterness. Simply provide them with rules for how they can acknowledge and not acknowledge their professional lives.

Blogging
Blogging is perhaps one of the oldest forms of social media engagement. Many people own personal blogs and use these blogs as a central hub for all their social media engagement. We suggest business managers become aware of such blogs, but do not discourage them. Try to imbue good stewardship guidelines for personal blogs with your employees. It is important to honor copyright laws with images and text for example and showing respect towards piers. However treading too heavily into an employee’s personal affairs can be demoralizing and can hurt valuable relationships. This is why unified guidelines are our recommendation.

Encourage quality
It may be beneficial to provide some employees with a basic how-to guide for social media engagement. Give them some reference points. For example, explain how “hard selling” a product or service is generally frowned upon in the online community. Encourage them to be participants rather than snake-oil sales people. The online social universe is all about dialogue and conversation–not forcing products down each others throats. If you, as a business manager, do not feel qualified to write a persuasive how-to guide for social media then simply link to the many, good quality references sources on the web. Education is a two way street.

Legalities
It is always best to consult your legal team when drafting these guidelines. Legal advice can save time and money. Remember, keep the language clear and readable, so that employees have a good understanding of what is possible and what is discouraged.

Analyze Your Web Performance With Free Tools

admin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:05:15 +0000

The ability to track visitors to your website is a key to business success online. If you measure and study traffic patterns, you will be able to better understand which marketing efforts are best performing and re-use elements that work and discard efforts that just waste time and energy. Here is a simple list of great tools to gaining better web intelligence. We would love to hear your feedback on any of these tools. Be sure to drop us a line or post a review using a trackback.

Web Analytics

Whos.Amung.Us

http://whos.amung.us/

About this tool: Real-time stats for your website or blog. This tool is free and no registration is required.

Histats

http://www.histats.com/

Real time stats and online user count/list and search engine trends. No limit on log file size.

Site Meter

http://www.sitemeter.com/

Comprehensive real time website tracking and counter tools that gives you instant access to vital information and data about your sites audience.

Web Site Communication Gadgets

Woopra

http://www.woopra.com/

Woopra is the world’s most comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application. And it’s free!

Why Would a Small Business Need a Website?

admin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:02:52 +0000

When you think of a website the first thing that comes to mind is a company that has a large customer base spread throughout the United States and abroad. Today, everyone should have a website, especially Kentucky’s small business owners.

A trend for advertising to move online

It costs thousands of dollars for a business to advertise offline whether you place advertisements in local Newspapers, Magazines or mailing marketing materials to your customers. Many small business owners in Kentucky have focused more attention to advertising on the Internet because they realize they can save thousands of dollars on advertising cost.

On the Internet there are many ways to advertise your business from $0 to $500+. You can actually advertise your website for free on sites like Craigslist and article marketing on sites like EzineArticles.com. You can even advertise your website for a sponsorship fee on high-ranking websites like ABCNews.com or social media sites like Facebook.

24/7 showcase of your products/services

Imagine being able to showcase your products and services 24 hours per day and 7 days per week? That’s one of the primary benefits of having a website. Depending upon the type of business you’re in, your customers can make purchases through your website while you sleep. For instance, if you own an online auto parts store or clothing store, your customers can purchase your products through your website at anytime of the day without having to call or wait until normal business hours.

More people are researching purchases/services online before buying

People are using the Internet to research before they buy a product or service. This is why it is so important to have a strong online presence so that your customers can actually find you on the Internet. For example, a person searching for a good accountant in Kentucky is more likely to search on websites that offer a lot of valuable information about their accounting services. The consumer is more likely to choose the company with the best web presence.

For some a website is a primary selling tool

There are many companies that use their website as their primary selling tool. There are a couple of factors that are important to possess when it comes to selling effectively on the Internet. First, you must have a well designed website that is “clutter-free”. In other words, keep it simple.

Avoid having a website that has too many ads. When a visitor enters your site, they are searching for only one thing and that is “what’s in it for me”. You will lose potential customers if your website screams “Buy Me Now!”

To truly gain your customer’s attention, you of course want to have a great product or service to offer your customers but you will want to also make sure that you’re offering a good amount of quality content about how your product or service will benefit them. This may include offering articles on your website, a blog or a video clip about your company.

Static website vs. CMS editable website

The difference between a static website and a CMS editable website is simple. A CMS editable website shows different text or content during your customer’s interaction. This type of website is complex and recommended for those who are constantly updating their website with fresh content on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

A static website is good if you’re not planning on updating your content on a regular basis. You can actually use Microsoft Word to update and edit your website on an as needed basis.

How Much Does a Website Cost?

It all depends on the kind of website you need for your business. Prices vary and can start as low as $500 to $20,000+. The important thing is to find a reputable web designer or web development firm to build your website. You will also want to work with a company that will build a site that is search engine friendly.

There are basically four types of websites:

Corporate Brochure Style Website

This is type of website offers your visitors basic information about your products and services. Think of it as an online advertisement. Prices start at around $500 or more.

E-Commerce Website

This type of website can vary from simple to complex. An ecommerce website normally starts off at around $5,000 or more. This type of website is perfect for an online retail store where customers have access to purchase your products.

Kentucky Real Estate Agents

admin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:16:30 +0000

This section focuses on real estate agents in Kentucky. We are continuing to seek out submissions for quality and reliable real estate agents for all counties, both residential and commercial real estate. Please feel free to contribute to this list by submitting your business via our contact page.

Mc Cann Real Estate
348 Colony Blvd
Lexington, KY
Phone: (859) 269-6725

Gilvin Real Estate
601 Terry Dr
Mt Sterling, KY

Bridgewater Real Estate
120 S Main St
Winchester, KY

Perry Real Estate
290 Lexington St
Versailles, KY
Phone: (859) 873-5611

Melton Real Estate
3700 Cynthiana Rd
Williamstown, KY
Phone: (859) 824-6678

Montgomery Real Estate
221 E 7th St
Lexington, KY
Phone: (859) 389-7937

Mangold Real Estate
1031 Wellington Way
Lexington, KY 40513
Phone: (859) 296-1506

How Networking Online & Offline Can Help You Find New Customers

admin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:59:23 +0000

Whether you’re a small business owner or a freelancer, you can increase your customer base by networking online and offline …But, there is one catch …you have to know how to network effectively from the very beginning. Many entrepreneurs receive poor results from this form of marketing because they don’t understand the concept of networking.

The usual scenario starts off like the following:

An entrepreneur builds a website, prints several business cards and pamphlets. They attend a couple of networking events offline. At the event, they pass out pamphlets and business cards as people walk by. Following the event, no one gives them a call or visits their website. As a result, they become frustrated and give up.

Then the entrepreneur decides to join a social media site like Ning.com or Twitter.com. They use these social media platforms to bombard everyone with spam posts like “Buy My Product Now for $9.99!” Then the entrepreneur hopes to receive a huge amount of traffic to their website. However, at the end of the month they are greatly disappointed due to poor results from their networking efforts.

If this is happening to you, it’s probably because you’re missing a key ingredient for successful networking and that is “building your customer list”.

How to Build Your Customer List

Building your customer list involves building solid business relationships with your potential clients. So, the next time you attend a networking event; don’t just stand in a corner and hand out business cards and marketing materials to people as they pass by and then that’s it.

Present yourself as an expert and engage people in meaningful conversation. Be prepared to give an interesting 30 second explanation of the product or service you are offering without sounding too salesy. Remember to focus on the benefits of your product.

With online social networking, you’re going to use the same basic principles. Rather than solely posting advertisements, try including tips and suggestions on how your product can improve their lifestyle. Also, make sure you complete your profile once you have registered for an online networking or social media site. One mistake that I have seen entrepreneurs make is not completing their profile.

Remember, your potential customers want to know who they are doing business with. Once your profile is complete, you can begin posting engaging content about the product you’re selling.

For example, if you’re trying to promote your freelance web design business, offer your audience tips on how to improve their website – then invite your social media followers to visit your site by creating a direct link to your site. This is a proven method to increase your customer base. The general idea is to hook your audience with engaging content – then introduce them to your products and services.

What separates a successful entrepreneur from all the rest?

They present themselves as an “expert” when networking online and offline. To accomplish this, you have to know the product or service you’re selling like the back of your hand and you MUST have a clear understanding of how your product or service will improve your clients’ way of life.

Lastly, an important element of successful networking online and offline is persistence. It could take several days before you begin to establish a following but don’t give up. You will eventually find new customers on the Internet if you follow these basic principles of networking online and offline.

Remember, the purpose of networking is to establish good business relationships with your clients. As your customer list grows, you will be able accomplish your bottom line.

How can a website improve my business

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:47:10 +0000

A website provides your company history and authority. An online presence in many industries is a plausible substitute for a brick and mortar office or physical address. As business becomes more and more mobile due to increased communication technologies, the web has become the place where prospective clients learn about products and services. A website gives your business crediability and allows your business to demonstate it’s offerings and features. Possible points of emphasis could be: date your company was formed, some pictures or videos, policies and proceedures, achievements and important milestones–all of which build a sense of credibility and trust-worthiness for your company.

Your website can be a 24/7 promotional vehicle for your business

Potential clients can view your info. and “explore” your company from the comfort of their home or office. This is one of the many great pluses of online engagement–the fact that customers are relaxed and at leisure, puts them in a more pursuasive buying mood. A well-organized and elegantly designed website puts your business before potential clients when they are comfortable.

Even when your physical address office is closed at night, your website will be running and open for business: 24/7 365. It can field basic questions, take information or follow-through an entire transaction. The web can also fulfill marketing functions that you would be otherwise unable to do: such as maintain an active newsletter mailing list or allow you to be found within search engines such as Google (which have be rapidly putting phonebooks, circulars and yellowpages out of business

Updated article: Why Would a Small Business Need a Website?

What is Pay Per Click Advertising?

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:08:59 +0000

Pay Per Click advertising is a form of online advertising where the buyer only pays for the number of times a user clicks on a link to the buyer’s website. Usually the ad buyer pays for each click and often times (depending on the ad space) the price of the click varies depending on numerous factors such as time of day, popularity of the search terms or keyterms and prominence of the ad. Search engines such as Google ( Google Adwords program ) and Yahoo! have championed Per Per Click advertising and have found a tremendous amount of success with such programs. Search engines aren’t the only online venues for pay per click advertising however: blogs, online news sites, entertainment sites, online stores, free email services ( Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc) are all examples of advertising spaces that support the pay per click model.

Where can I set up an account to begin Pay Per Click ads for my business?

The most popular pay per click advertising venues would be the top search engines. Google is by far the most popular and success advertising venue for this model. But we will list a few of the best sources below:

Google AdWords

Yahoo Search Marketing

Microsoft Adcenter

Ask Sponsored Listings

What do pay per click ads look like?

Pay per click ads can vary in the way that they look from advertiser to advertiser. Placement options also vary between advertisers. Each advertiser will establish their own rules that govern the ways ads can look, what you the buyer can say, and where the ad can be placed. Google Adwords has perhaps the most rigid control over language, and for this reason users have responded due to the clarity and quality of the ads matching the service or term that they are seeking. Below is a screen view of the two primary placement options for paying advertisers (marked in green outlines).

Can I Manage A Pay Per Click Campaign Without Professional Help?

This is a yes and no answer, but I will give you reasons for each.
Yes:
Google AdWords for example was set up so that business owners could easily create an account and begin an ad campaign in a very short amount of time. In about 30 minutes you would be able to read some of the instructions and set up an account to initiate your paid advertising campaign. Google has built in tools to help with your transition into pay per click marketing, such as keyword finder tools and popular keywords. If you have a good understanding of your business and perhaps a Google Web Analytics account ( or traffic analyzer) installed, you will be able to make a basically informed decision as to choosing keywords and preferences.
No:
Even though Google has made it easy to create an account and set up and track your ad campaign, simply reading instructions and having a clear understanding of your business does not mean that you will get results from your pay per click campaign. Often times businesses will set up a campaign only to see their daily budgets used up and their visitors spend next to no time on their website. In addition, sometimes businesses will go months and see few results from their paid ads (except for the clicks to their site). Professionals can build more successful campaigns because of their depth of online marketing, user behavior, SEO and Landing Page Optimization understanding and marketing insight and experience. The reason for hiring professionals is because they can target the right users, under the right keywords, at the right time, with the right tools and can help you gear your marketing program to yield better results. Note:
Please keep in mind, this does not mean that laymen or business owners (non-professionals) can’t run successful campaigns. They can…it just takes work, study, research, and practice.

Learn about how to measure traffic to your website or web promotional: Website analytics and traffic

Why Should Web Analytics Be Important To My Business?

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:41:32 +0000

You do not need to be an expert SEO professional in order to utilize and benefit from website and traffic analytics tools. The ability to measure traffic, links, incoming search query referrals and bounce rate data are valuable ( if not essential ) vital stats for your online business. Business and website owners should make the review of website analytics a weekly, if not daily practice in order to understand both the effect and visibility of a website and its content.

Analytics: Simple to install and inexpensive

The financial investment can be very minimal. Google has an excellent product called “Google Analytics” – google.com/analytics – which is free to any visitor with a valid email address. Google Analytics can be simple to install on your site. Simply insert the Google Analytics tracking code just above the tag on each web page or once on a template web page. Google provides very simple and clear instructions onine for the installation and FAQs for its Analytics program. The image below shows a screen view of the Google Analytics interface: Dashboard page.

Above: Google Analytics Interface: screen view

Above: Tracking visitors by location

Web Analytics Helps Me Count Visits To My Site…..But What Else?

Analytics tool help a business or website owner understand where their visitors come from, how they reached the website, which pages they viewed, how long the visitor stayed on a page or on the site and which page they exited from. Some analytics tools allow you to view a heat map screen over your website interface that shows the hotest and coldest links and areas of a particular page. Other tools will give you the ability to see how many clicks each internal link has generated, along with a percentage of usage for that link. Such information will allow business and website owners to make better informed decisions about content, site performance and give them a guide for future growth.

Analytics and Measurement Tools

Here are a few suggestions for website measurement tools and analytics:

Google Analytics: google.com/analytics

Core Metrics: www.coremetrics.com

Stat Counter: www.statcounter.com

Visitat: visistat.com

Omniture: www.omniture.com/en/

Note:
Web servers normally already produce logfiles ( traffic log ), which is a record of activity on your site visitors in raw data form. Analytics tools help by re-presenting that data (or by collecting their own) so the business or website owner can conceptualize the data and information.