5 reasons why Internet Marketing kicks-ass over traditional marketing efforts:

1. Testing an off-the-wall idea is easy

With the Internet, you can go from idea to conception within a few days.  In many cases, digital is so much easier and quicker than having to go through a design/print or guerrilla marketing campaign.

2. It’s easy to measure ROI

With proper web analytics, you can judge the success of your campaign.  Whether it’s tracking traffic or conversions, show ROI!

3. It’s relatively inexpensive

With a budget of a few hundred dollars, you can test things out through pay-per-click – just to test out an idea.  Where else can you test out an idea on a massive targeted marketplace for that cheap?

4. More efficient – cost per click is going down, so targets are being fine tuned.

With proper keyword research and targeting, you can actually test your idea on a specific demographic.  Instead of throwing something on the wall to see if it sticks, at least focus in a bit and throw it on the wall in the direction of someone that may actually be interested.

5. It’s pretty quick.

You can get a campaign up and running pretty quickly compared to traditional marketing such as planning an event, attending a trade show, designing, printing, and mailing postcards.

Forrester Research projects that paid search marketing will grow 26% this year, reaching $11.4 billion in the U.S. In addition, the company’s “U.S. Search Engine Marketing Executive Survey” (conducted by Jupiter Research prior to its July acquisition by Forrester) forecasts that search budgets will remain stable through much of 2009.

Don’t get me wrong…if consumers are not spending money then Search and Internet Marketing WILL SUFFER, but not as much as traditional marketing efforts.  You’ll see a decline, but businesses still have to market for long term growth and they will focus on things that bring them more sales vs. brand building.

Okay, that title was a bit harsh!  Not ALL PR companies have their head stuck in the sand…quite a few are evolving and growing.  We’ve seen this lately through business closures.  Several PR firms are closing their doors because they didn’t adapt to a changing market – even though they thought they had.

One big gap that still remains is PR companies focusing solely on Adwords and sponsored links (pay-per-click) without any On-page SEO or Inbound Marketing initiatives – this is an expensive recipe for failure.

How does pay-per-click work?

Let’s think about how Adwords and Sponsored links work.  Essentially, you are bidding on specific keywords.  As long as you bid high enough, your ad and web site link will show up wherever the Search Engine is serving ads (SERP or Ad delivery networks).  Each time a user clicks on your ad, you pay your bid amount.  The Search Engine decides when to show your ad, how often, and in what order.

There are a few inherent problems with basing your whole marketing strategy on this:

1. You don’t control the Search Engine.  They choose when and were your ad will show up and how much you will pay for the click or impression.  Yes, you choose a limit, but ultimately the Search Engine still has control.

2. You can estimate how much to bid, but you can’t be 100% sure how high you need to bid to take the top spot.

3. If your business plan is based on Pay-Per-Click, then any competitor old or new just has to out bid you in order to take your spot. You can be de-throned and lose a lot of traffic if you are relying just on sponsored links.  This is assuming your web site and product are mediocre.

4. If you did not spend enough time figuring out what keywords to target, then you  may just be throwing all of your money down the toilet.  Pay-per-click assumes you know your market and you know what keywords to target.  If you are targeting the wrong words, you may be wasting your marketing dollars because you  may get traffic, but no conversions or sales.

5. Even worse is letting the Search Engine decide what keywords best suite you.  With Google this is called Broad Match. It takes your list of keywords and then makes an assumption to related terms.  If you targeted the keywords “dog biscuits” and you used broad match, then Google may also show your ad for someone searching for “dog kennel cough” – they both deal with dogs, but someone looking up kennel cough may not be looking for dog biscuits and those marketing dollars were most likely just wasted.

So, what’s the missing key?

Do use pay-per-click, it’s a good way to supplement gaps in Search Engine Coverage, get visibility for new product launches, or even help you with keyword discovery.

Don’t plan your whole marketing campaign on pay-per-click.  Make sure you are looking at on-page SEO and off-page SEO – that’s what you’ll need for long-term sustained growth.

Some people are afraid of change…Unfortunately for some and Fortunately for others – change is now part of life and business as we know it.

Here’s a quick video illustrating change and how change is increasingly speeding up…to me it’s exciting:

I’m still trying to figure out why people have an aversion to change?  Is it the unknown?

Please post a comment and share your thoughts!

According to answerbag.com the most popular answer is:

“Some people are set in their ways…and change means having to do, view, think of things differently. Some are afraid they won’t fit in or they aren’t prepared.”

For me, I’m kind of excited…If everything out there was already created and marketed, then we may as well go get a job at  7-Eleven…but there’s still great opportunity for those who choose to lead the pack and embrace change.

If you are one of those who feels unprepared…it’s okay.  There’s still so much out there to learn, if you get started and learn new things, you won’t miss out.  There’s no shame.  Unless you look back in 20 years and still haven’t learned anything new…

Best of luck.

We’ve met some great Search Engine Optimization milestones for our Denver and National clients in 2008 through various Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing strategies.  But, we do not intend to rest on our laurels!!

In our never ending quest to improve our strategies and tactics to help our clients climb the Search Engine Result Page (SERP), we are heading out to California to attend Search Engine Marketing Expo West!

Now, before you just assume we will be on a sun-filled vacation, know that we’ll be stuck (hapilly) in the Santa Clara Convention Center pretty much every day this week from 8am to 10pm.  We are glad to do this as it helps us stay ahead of our competition and keep our Search Engine Marketing tactics sharp and effective.

A few of the companies that we will be meeting with and listening to are:

It should be a great conference and we are already excited about some of the new things we can try out as soon as we get back!

Make sure you contact us to see how we can help your business scale the Search Engine Ladder.

With 2009 just hours away, there’s hope, expectation, and reservation in the air.

A few thoughts: 2009 will be the year of…

The self-employed

There is one key attribute to success that most do not realize.  Everyone is self-employed.  Whether you work for a corporation or have your own freelance company…you are essentially self-employed.

If you work for a company as an employee and get a W2 at the end of the year, you are still in theory a one person company and your product is…you.  Your time, your creativity, and your talent…that’s what you get paid for.

In 2009, I believe we will see people take more responsibility for their own progress and careers.  Instead of leaning on job security – which is a mind game anyway – we will lean towards independently looking towards progressing ourselves.  You are your own boss…even if you have to answer to someone.

Through this realization, we will see people branch out into other areas.  You no longer have 1 job…you may open up a side business selling info products, freelancing, blogging – who knows.

2009 will be the year of the self-employed.

Shifting priorities

As retirement accounts dry up, loans are called, and credit lines are reduced we need to optimize and adapt for the better.  What were priorities in 2007 and 2008 will change this year.

From families and businesses paying off their debt and re-structuring their expenses to save more to real estate investors going crazy over bargains to be had.

From workaholics spending more time with their families to students finding new ways to pay for school so they don’t have to borrow.

From parents taking back control of their retirement by not relying on extremely leveraged institutions for help to college savings accounts being started for new born babies.

2009 will be the year of shifting priorities.

Inbound Marketing

As marketing morphs into consumer interaction and corporate execs become transparent a new way of reaching your audience is taking hold.  Inbound Marketing is the process of building your brand and evoking consumer loyalty through communication, relationships, and an equally satisfying need to make our world a better place.

Utilizing Search Engine Optimization, Brand Marketing, Social Media, and overall Reputation management; start-ups will compete with giants by creating communities for niche markets and taking over market share through quality products/services and Inbound Marketing.  If you build it correctly, they will come.

2009 will be the year of Inbound Marketing.

Personal Branding

In line with being self-employed, the personal brand comes into play.  No longer do consumers only care about the product or service, they now care about the people behind the curtain.  With so many companies faltering in 2008 it becomes increasingly important to put your money towards the leadership behind a cause.

With the transparency that social media networks bring to executives, personal brand will play a big role in consumer confidence.  This is extremely apparent when you look at Apple and Steve Jobs…then the challenge is how do you pass on “your brand” to the company yet still take it with you when the time comes.

2009 will be the year of Personal Branding

Twitter Emergence

Many people are confused by how to monetize or even utilize social media networks.  Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or twitter, they are confused.  And rightly so…these applications have a feature set but it’s up to the users to determine how that feature set is used.

In 2009, I see twitter emerging to a mass audience.  Whether they know how to use it or not, twitter offers something the other networks are not geared towards..the ability to find and connect with strangers of like mind.  Networking and building, this is where I see twitter exploding.

2009 will be the year of twitter emergence.

On a side note, if you are interested in a really cool twitter showcase coming in January ‘09 – follow me @arifgan – details to come early Jan…seriously, you don’t want to miss this one.

Now, on to you…our readers are clever, creative, and determined so let’s hear it…

2009 will be the year of?

Marketing time versus marking time

Are you twiddling your thumbs waiting for the current economic malaise to pass, or getting proactive about marketing your company?

While many small business owners maintain a love-hate relationship with marketing (they love it when it works, but they hate doing it), the Internet, new technology, and common sense have conspired to offer some ideas that can rev up your revenues.

Operating on the premise that people gravitate to other people they know and like, it’s now possible to get known and liked at the click of a mouse. At the same time, some tried and true “high touch, low tech” avenues can complement technology-centric efforts to create a well-rounded marketing program.

Following are five ways to gear up your marketing efforts:

1. Go back to school. Promote yourself to your alma mater, both through its communications vehicles and one-on-one to alumni. There’s a bond that exists between people who attended the same college or high school—even if there’s never been a face-to-face meeting.

Research what communications vehicles the school uses to stay in touch with alumni. For example, the University of Denver publishes a quarterly magazine that addresses topics of current general interest and details the comings-and-goings of alumni.

Research the editorial calendar of such a publication; it may be possible to get featured in an upcoming article. Minimally, send in information about current professional/personal status for inclusion in the alum section.

Also reach out to individuals. Contact those sparking your curiosity or interest who have been profiled/included in school publications. Or, use the Internet to locate alums, and email them about your product or service. (It may be a good idea to ask for their advice rather than conduct a blatant pitch—at least initially. See “Ask, don’t tell” below.)

2. Go on a date. Social networking via Facebook, Linked-In, MySpace, Youtube and other Internet-based sites is all the rage. Primary uses are sharing information, promoting ideas, products and services, and matchmaking—both professional and personal.

It’s easy enough to check out social networking sites. Just go to their URL and follow the registration directions. To get where you want to go, you may have to shell out some money, but it’s typically a small amount.

Think of these avenues as door-openers, and don’t pigeonhole yourself because of the site’s primary focus. For example, some people on a personal networking site are simultaneously pushing their professional credentials and abilities—obviously figuring that there may be a good business as well as personal match.

Given the relatively low barriers to entry, register for several social networking services and see what, if anything, comes back to you. If nothing else, it’s cheap research.

3. Present new ideas to old clients. First, list out both present and former clients. Then do some research on their industries, trends, and company specific track records. Use results to get creative and proactive with selling your products and services to them. One way to proceed is to think of problem/solution sets. Identify a major problem or challenge that a current or former client has, and offer a compelling solution featuring your company’s offerings.

For example, a software reseller with a shiny new supply chain management application can research past and present clients to determine how this tool can solve a vexing problem they may be having presently.

4. Ask, don’t tell—or sell. When prospecting, consider asking questions or enlisting advice in lieu of trying to sell somebody on something. For example, if you’re a manufacturer wanting to sell homebuilders on a novel invention for kitchens, canvass prospects to get their feedback about value, efficacy and the best way to proceed—versus an overly enthusiastic or hard-sell pitch.

5. Get personal. We’re all flooded with emails, direct mails and other distracting communiqués. Unless something speaks to us very personally, it’s likely to get ignored or tossed. Getting personal involves providing something of value to the recipient in a way that showcases that value.

If you really want to snag that prospect, don’t send a coffee mug with your company’s name on it. Send a good bottle of wine, a spicy salsa, a container of high-end chocolates with the name of their company and recipient, possibly a historical photo tied to their company, and even a short story. This all can be done en masse with variable data printing, a digital process that enables printing thousands of labels or other items with true personalization—affordably and quickly.

This type of item demonstrates class, caring and your ability to focus on the recipient—not yourself. In today’s ubiquitous selling environment, this type of low-key, high-impact sales pitch can pay many dividends.

By getting proactive and personal, small businesses can open up a variety of new marketing opportunities that take advantage both of high tech and high touch approaches.

###

MARK LUSKY is a principal of Lusky Enterprises, Inc., a marketing communications company.

Here’s the deal…we all want to and need to accomplish specific tasks to be successful in what we do.  If you are employed, you better do your “job” or you won’t have one.  And if you are self-employed, well…you know this better than anyone, you have to stay productive.

Successful people are driven and focused.  They may not be caught up on episodes of Survivor, Heroes, How I met your mother, or any other TV shows, but they have their priorities straight.  If you are caught up on your favorite TV shows, maybe you are just much more efficient than me

This post is geared towards freelancers, entrepreneurs, and business people…there is some overlap to those working traditional W2 jobs.

1. Make a list, People like lists!  A list is easier to skim and read if needed.

By making a list, you are creating action items for yourself.  You can look down at that piece of paper and follow it…don’t worry about how big the items are, just make a list of no more than 5 items you MUST get done and prioritize them in order of what is MOST important.  Why limit to 5? To not overwhelm you with a list of the top 182 things you must accomplish this week.

There are different ways of determining what’s most important…that’s for another post Coming soon…

Keep your list handy, it’s funny how our minds forget what’s next and while we try to remember we take a quick peek at Twitter, Facebook, Break, or some other distraction.  Once you are done with item #1, CROS IT OFF.  Seriously, take a marker and feel a sense of accomplishment by marking it complete.

Now, if the project or task is too large for one sitting, you may have to time box it.  Which means, creating a time limit and working on it with determination and focus during that time box and then if needed, creating another time box on a different day to re-visit the project and continue to make progress.

Thoughts from twitter: @acclimedia – When a deadline is looming, I always take a step back and create an action plan of what needs to be done, complete w/an outline.The key is to organize into mini tasks you can ‘check off.’ If it’s a writing assignment, get a shell down on paper you can expand upon.

2. Close your email program, don’t just minimize it.

Close it down, you are less likely to hit the Send/Receive if it’s closed and you have to wait for it to re-open.  In almost every case, email can wait. If something is EXTREMELY important, they will call.  Checking email every few minutes creates distraction that is hard to recover from, do it often enough and you will rob yourself unknowingly.

Suggested by @kristofcreative

3. Get your groove on.

Put on some music. I prefer to zone out, I have a play list in iTunes for working out, for chilling, and for productivity.  You know what gets you going, make a play list, put on some head phones and get cracking in your “productivity zone.”

Suggested by @idesignstudios – Selene actually suggested TOOL specifically.

4. Know your vices.

Turn your blackberry/smart phone off, fill up your water bottle – you know what defeats you. Admit it and then overcome it.

We love to be connected, but studies show that multi-tasking doesn’t help much.  By dividing our attention, we cheat ourselves of valuable productivity.  Know your vices. Let me say that again, KNOW your vices and take control over them.  If you have a bad habit of hitting up Facebook while you are “thinking”, stop it.  Make it a reward…set an alarm, after X number of hours of focused attention on your project, then you can chill on Facebook for Y number of minutes.  If you get up often to get a drink, fill up your water bottle ahead of time.

Suggested by @minjae – turn off your blackberry

5. Turn off twitter, TweetDeck, or whatever you use.

If you aren’t on twitter…you need to be, it’s a GREAT networking tool.  But it’s also the essence of wasted utilization when used incorrectly or at the wrong time.  The Internet NEVER stops.  Twitter NEVER stops, you can not keep up with it all…you may be able to with 500 followers, but you can’t at 60,000 followers.  Don’t worry about it, you will miss something at some point and that’s okay.  Life goes on, when you get back on you can contribute and interact, but feel okay about missing a few things.  The productivity trade-off is immense.

The same goes for Digg, RSS Blog feeds, etc.  Block out time for those; don’t let them steal your time.

Suggested by @andysowards

6. If the van is rocking, don’t come knocking.

Let people know that you are in a “Do Not Disturb” state of mind.  People will respect it and if they have an emergency, they will interrupt you.  The point is to let others know that you wish to not be disturbed so that you can focus.  If you don’t tell them, you can’t blame them for the distraction.

7. Keep it clean.

When your work space is organized, it’s easier to keep your mind organized.  A cluttered environment creates opportunities for distraction, frustration, and excuses.  You’ll stay more organized in your thoughts and you’ll be able to accomplish more if your workspace is organized and geared for productivity.

5 ways to stay de-cluttered by the Container store – more lists

8. Be prone to action.

The longer you delay, the more time you are wasting by thinking about what you need to get done.  This is a tough mental block…aka procrastination.  Just know that those prone to action succeed more often…I’m not saying you should give up if you are a lazy SOB, but if you were that lazy then you probably would not be reading a blog post on how to focus and get sh*t done.

9. Take control of your most valuable resource.

I directed a large tech team at a publicly traded company and the culture of that company was very reactive.  It took me a while to get out of the mindset of sitting there and waiting for a fire to put out.

Take control of your day and decide what you will get done, choose what will bring the highest results and choose what you will focus on.  You can still block out time for those reactive moments because we all know that fires will come, but you don’t have to let them rule how your day will be spent.  After all, that’s what you are doing – spending your most valuable resource – decide ahead of time how you are going to spend your time.

10.  Be present, physically and mentally.

When you are spending time with your family, do you have a hard time letting go of work?  If you spend your work time focusing on being productive with business related tasks then it becomes easier to spend your family or personal time just focusing on things other than business.

The more productive you stay in your business the easier it is to feel accomplished and let go during personal time.  Your family and your friends will appreciate this.  As they fret, you’ll be the one that “has it all figured out.” 

10.5. Keep true to your purpose.

Why do you do what you do?  Are you trying to make a difference in the world? Are you trying to provide for your family?  Are you saving up for an Aston Martin Vanquish?  Whatever your motive, keep it in mind…determination follows passion, what is your passion and purpose?

Focus, stay determined, and most of all – Don’t let it beat you!

I KNOW you have a tactic that I didn’t mention…how do YOU stay focused?

Read this great interview of Supper Solutions’ President Leanne Deister, by Mom Entrepreneur.  Supper Solutions utilizes our Live-Kitchen.com Meal Assembly Software Application to reduce operating expenses, organize client orders, manage inventory, and take payments.

Visit Supper Solutions now.

So, here’s a tip that’s so simple, many of us have forgotten it – I figured most people had already taken this precaution…but I found that not to be the case.

It is SO Simple, yet it may save you a lot of grief and lost sales. Ready?

• Create a 400 Error Redirect (through Apache or whatever web server you are using) if traffic doesn’t reach you in the manner you were expecting it to arrive.

It’s literally a precaution, in case things don’t turn out how you expected them to.  As I was researching a few blogs I clicked on an advertisement, not sure why – I was curious as to what they were selling I guess.

Here is the Ad I clicked on:

After clicking on this Ad that this company is paying for…guess what comes next?

A brilliant Sales page?

A phenomenally written blog post?

A corporate website with logos of their fancy clientelle?

NO! Here’s what I end up with

Not Found

The requested URL /jvsrc=BtoBlonline_Banners was not found on this server.

You’ve got to be kidding me….

You worked SO hard to put together your Internet Marketing campaign, you’ve got Ads rolling, you’ve got landing pages created, and in case someone ends up at a place you didn’t expect – you are going to lose that visitor because the URL got jacked up or a page was moved.

The fix is easy…so easy.  In your Apache settings or whatever Web Server you are using, you can setup a .htaccess redirect – if your web host supports it.

You can just put in a simple line like this into your .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html

and create a notfound.html page for users to see instead of the 404 Not Found message.  At least then you haven’t lost them and you’ve gotten a 2nd chance.  Sometimes a 2nd chance is all you need to capture a lead.

Consider it…prepare for the unknown!  I’d love to hear from others on simple ways to dodge Murphy and make the most of your Web site or blog.

Comments?

Alright, this may be a stretch in some regard but it was quite apparent and clear to me.

We are putting together our Serious Internet Marketing Dashboard and through a lot of research I’m finding that there are a lot of Internet Marketing Consultants out there. They charge anywhere from $75 – $1,000 an hour.  Seriously, $1,000 an hour.  Why would anyone pay this?

I’ll tell you why someone would pay $1,000 an hour. Because it’s an investment.  Warren Buffet did an interview last month with Charlie Rose and talked about our current economic “issues” and why they’ve occurred.  He talks about the stock market, un-real valuations, and why people still bought.

Why do people spend THOUSANDS of dollars on coaching and e-books to help them market on the Internet?  Because it’s easier than marketing in the real world, and there’s the potential for great RETURN on your investment.

But, you have to do it right…for long term growth.  Slow and steady. It’s not about a big bang to profit, it’s about growth, reputation, and building.

Buffet talks about his $3 Billion dollar investment in GE…Cash is King, but only if you use it…but before you use it, you have to earn it!

In essence this video is about not following and charting your own course…with low start up funds and almost no free time, Internet Marketing is yoru best bet to creating new revenue sources.  Think like an Investor, not like an Imitator, or an Idiot!