It's no secret that we love to use social media and QR codes to help promote our small business. Moreover, we love to help our clients do the same for their SMBs, so we've created some handy tools to help you drive traffic to your website or facebook page from your storefront and product advertising!
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You probably have all of your holiday shopping done, you're getting ready to travel or have guests, and you already have a big holiday dinner dessert on your mind. But don't let your brain leave work yet...you can't forget about your PPC campaigns. There are probably a few things you should do before leaving the office for several days.
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Enter Dead Horse... Yes, yet another post about why you need to be blogging. If the charts I shared earlier weren't motivation enough, what about the impact of blogging on small business search engine optimization? Most of our small business prospects and clients are familiar with SEO and want help with their site's ranking in the engines.
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As a follow up to my post last week on staying regular with blogging :), I wanted to touch on some actual data for added motivation to start or keep blogging. I came across several great charts that touch on the power of blog content and the benefit to businesses so I wanted to share some of my favorites:
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Tomorrow marks the end of voting for the 4th Annual Mashable Awards. If you haven't already voted, check out the nominees and get voting! My favorite category this year is the Most Creative Social Media campaign. All of the finalists in this category show that creativity is more important than budget. Yes, some of them are able to hire a room full of creative people to come up with the ideas and implement...but in the end it is the 1 initial idea that sets them apart from the rest. Let's take a look at the finalists for 2010.
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This may come as no surprise to some of you, but Forrester Research just released some survey results that show that the average American now spends as much time online as they do in front of their TV! The survey, which had over 30,000 responses, also revealed that Younger Baby Boomers (between 45 and 54) are included in this group.
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Content, Content, Content... It's all we hear these days right? If it's any consolation, it's because a content strategy is highly effective at gaining very targeted traffic. Much like dieting and exercise, content creation is great for you (or your brand), but something most people dread doing... Why is this? It would seem that most people struggle with what they should write about from day to day or week to week. Another similarity to dieting and exercise is that there are a million excuses you can use for not sticking to it.
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With Google nipping at the heels of Groupon, a socially-aware "deal of the day" website that provides its users with 1 amazing deal in their city everyday, and with Amazon having just invested in Groupon's top competitor LivingSocial, it would seem that location-based deals are the next big thing when it comes to online retail opportunities. You might be interested in taking advantage of the deals either website is offering, but more importantly if you're a small business owner this is an excellent opportunity to gain new customers.
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Coremetrics has released some initial data for Black Friday sales and the outcome for online retailers is looking great. Overall there was a 15.9% increase in sales between Black Friday 2009 and Black Friday 2010, and the average price per order is also up by 12.1% (from around $170 per order to $190.80).
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I think that we can all agree that referrals are probably the best lead generation tools out there. This post is not about the power of referrals though...for more on that check out The Referral Engine by John Janstch. This post is about online reviews, the digital referral, from complete strangers or sometimes acquaintances. These days the more online 'referrals' you have, the more likely the reader will pay attention to your business. Not all online or real life referrals are good, there are bad as well. As we have seen, the online community is not afraid to to talk about bad experiences. So what do you do when you get a bad review online?
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If you are executing digital marketing, congratulations! You are most likely already one step ahead of your competition, and making strides to meaningfully connect with prospects online. But, how do you know if you’re seeing continual success year over year, and improving your metrics?
Without the tools in place to analyze and benchmark your efforts, it is impossible to scale your online marketing and ensure continuous success.
