Category Archives: Marketing

Green Marketing: Saving the Environment and Your Company

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Filed under Marketing, attract clients, client attraction, ecofriendly marketing, small business marketing

Being green has never looked so darn good. The green craze is not simply a celebrity fad. It’s a growing national movement. Green Movement consumers are on the rise, passionate about saving the environment, conscious of health hazards in food consumption, and keen on decreasing energy consumption. All companies can contribute to the Green Movement, whether it’s through participating in a volunteer program, selling green services / products, or paperless marketing.

How your company can market green:

·       Have a credo of values section on your website, allowing consumers to understand the goals and inner workings of your company. Mention in your mission statement ways your company participates in green practices, such as using minimal packaging that’s recyclable, conserving resources, and using services / products that decrease energy consumption and waste.

·       Join an ecofriendly organization to certify your company as green. For example, if you are developing a new marina or revitalizing an existing one, join a volunteer program such as The Certified Clean Marina Program. Joining organizations shows consumers you are a certifiably clean marina and comply with environmentally clean standards.

·       Create a green conscious product / service line. We’ve all seen this in grocery stores, with a variety of organic meat and dairy products. Clothing stores are doing it as well, designing lines of clothes made from organic materials.

·       Research ways the world is going green and cater your products / services around some of the actions people are taking. Knowing how people are buying and consuming is important to the success of your business.

·       Create customer surveys focused on the Green Movement, and research the top things people are doing to save the environment.

To get more tips on effectively marketing your business and learn about our many result-driven copywriting services, visit Michelle Salater Writing & Editorial, LLC.

Web Design: Do You Need an Update Now?

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Filed under Marketing, Marketing Strategy, client attraction, increase site traffic, online marketing, small business marketing, video marketing, website

You’ve decided it’s time to change something about your online presence. Along with creating new and unique web copy for your site, you need to make sure the design is effective. New website design techniques have allowed users to become more interactive with site content. These techniques also free designers to be more creative and innovative through their designs with flash player, video, audio, and other enhanced elements.

What effective web design can do for you:

· Your website should be user-friendly. Get the client to take action and come back repeatedly through simple navigation tabs on your website. If clients have to search through a website to find what they want, they may become discouraged and move to your competition’s site. Communication is one of the most important components in selling, and a properly formatted website will express to your potential client that you conduct business well and know exactly what they want. Web design should always be unique, but working with communication tabs should be generic and straightforward. This will eliminate any uncertainty and discouragement for the viewer.

· Attract your target market through website appearance. The first impression for many potential clients is your website, and the design of it must sell your company image. Therefore, your design should express the personality of your company. If you have a website for your massage therapy business, you don’t want to use flashy colors, gimmicky ads, and fast-paced photos. Your target market is looking for calm, elegant, sleek, relaxing, and simple features. Create aesthetic pleasure in the client through your website design, and they’ll visit your store for more.


How Online Articles Can Benefit Your Company

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Filed under Marketing, Marketing Strategy, article marketing, attract clients, increase site traffic, online articles, online marketing, target market

Utilize the keywords your target market will likely use on search engines and incorporate those into your online articles. Your goal is to be the leading expert in your industry, and online articles are an excellent way to achieve this.

Increasing SEO efforts can be done through the correct utilization of keywords in niche-oriented online articles. The same keywords used on your website can be used in online articles. Some people make the mistake of thinking the more keywords they use, the more site traffic they’ll receive. It’s about the placement of your keywords and the correct usage of them that build site traffic. Focusing on a small set of keywords in niche articles will bring in more traffic.   

Submitting online articles to article directories with your web address attached in the resource box is a sure way to get viewers to your website.

3 Ways to Increase Web Rankings

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Filed under Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tip, attract clients, client attraction, increase site traffic, online articles, online marketing, small business marketing

Who doesn’t want more site traffic? More traffic means more clients. And more clients equal more sales. An effective way to increase traffic is to strategically post online articles. Focusing on the three areas below will send your site traffic soaring more than if you were to post articles on random directories.

·       Write articles for sites related to your niche market. Other companies in your industry need articles to bump up their own rankings. Regularly posting on niche sites allows you to swap links and further increase your presence on the internet. People will read your content on these niche-oriented sites and be presented with a link to your site. Getting your link on well-known sites that sell to your target market is one of the best ways to put your name out there and draw explosive traffic to your site.

·       Research the most credible online article directories. There are dozens of online article directories polluting the internet. Don’t choose a directory at random. Some are simply not worthy.  

·       Check out some of the most popular social bookmarking sites, such as Digg, Furl, Stumbleupon, and Simpy. Bookmarking sites allow you to post your favorite online articles, blogs, photos, and videos. Post your own online articles and blogs, or post ones from others that you find compelling. These sites have groups or categories directed at a specific area of interest. Your company will benefit from these extremely niche-oriented groups because you won’t be posting in areas with a mixed market. People with the same interests go to these groups and bookmark their favorite articles, thus eliminating any uncertainty about who is viewing your articles. They’ll most likely be in the realm of your target market.

Need someone to write and post your online articles? Visit us at www.mlsalater.com

Data Research Tips for the Small Business

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Filed under Business Goals, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tip, Small Business, marketing trends, online marketing, small business marketing

Researching the industry that your company is a part of can be extremely beneficial to the growth and long-term success of your company. Understanding the economy, as well as the demographic changes occurring in the U.S. can lead to new products and services, and changes in existing ones. When first researching data for your business, I suggest learning more about your competitors and other business owners in your industry. Research competitors’ demographics, target markets, company success, number of employees, years in business, etc. This is going to give you an idea of what your competition is like, and help you create tactics to be on top. After doing extensive research on the industry and your competitors, dive right into customer profiles and demographics.

Places to Research:

·       Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/ The Bureau is an excellent source for data on the economy and the people of the U.S. It’s a great place to get an overview on the industry your business is a part of. This website provides data on people, households, businesses, industries, geography and recent news.  This website also provides the Survey of Business Owners (SBO), which updated every five years. It’s a great place to find stats on business ownership (based on various demographics), characteristics of businesses, and characteristics of business owners. 

·       Other stores in your industry: Visit other companies’ websites and stores to get an idea of what they’re doing right when it comes to attracting customers. Once you have an idea of the positive aspects of your competitors, figure out what would make your company stand out above the others. Are their prices too high? Is their website amateur? Is the customer service good/bad?

·       ResearchWikis.com: This website provides free market research for over 250 industries and has contributors worldwide. The goal of ResearchWikis.com is to “let the global community of research and others contribute high-level core research on all major business research topics” (http://www.researchwikis.com/Main_Page).

·       Outsource: Market research can be very difficult and sometimes you may not know what to do with the information you receive. It’s about searching, sorting, and analyzing. This could get extremely time consuming and confusing. Outsourcing your market researching to a professional allows you to focus on other areas of your business, things you are more familiar with. Since market researching is an important element to the workings of your business, it’s sometimes best to leave this task up to the professionals.

Want more small business marketing advice? Subscribe to Your Business Marketing Solution, a bimonthly ezine filled with marketing tips and informative articles. 

 

 

 

Sell Yourself with a Website

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Filed under Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Uncategorized, online marketing, web traffic, website

Websites are extremely beneficial to authors. Say you’re shopping your novel. Give agents and editors your web address, and they can easily find you online, read your bio, view your previous work and awards, and learn more about you. You can only put so much in that query letter, and your website can sell you a lot better than a one-paragraph bio. 

 

Agents and editors are looking for writers with marketability. A professional website shows them that you are serious. It says that you know how to connect with people, that you are a go-getter and won’t sit back and expect someone to do it for you.

 

Laura Benedict, author of Isabella Moon (Ballantine Books, 2007), wasted no time in creating an online presence. Within two weeks of signing a two-book contract, she hired a designer to create her website, http://www.laurabenedict.com

 

“There is a mythology built up among writers that a big publishing house will do all kinds of promotions for its authors,” says Benedict. “While that may be true for some very big names, it is not true for the vast majority of a house’s authors.”

 

“I do not regret one dime I’ve spent on web promotion,” she says. “My website is unique, and it presents a professional, public face for me that a publishing house could not give me if it tried.”

 

And publishers know this.

 

For the freelance magazine writer, having a website is a great place to market yourself and your work to potential editors. It also makes the querying process a lot less messy. No more attachments. Simply query with a link to your samples.

 

In early 2007, I decided to build my own website to display my magazine feature samples, my resume, and my bio. The challenge was to create a site that was professional, easy to navigate, and captured my personality. I figured the last thing an editor wants to see is a boring writer.

 

And I was right. But the results weren’t what I expected; the benefits of building a website surpassed my expectations. Not only did I sell more magazine jobs, but editors also started to call me. Yes, you read that correctly. Editors looking for solid, experienced writers in the Charleston area googled “freelance writer Charleston” and up popped my website. I even had a small publishing house call and hire me to write a coffee-table book on Charleston.

 

**The above is an excerpt from the article “Why an Online Presence Is Vital to Your Writing Career,” which was published recently in the Missouri Writers’ Guild newsletter.  

Are You Sure Customers and Businesses Can Contact You?

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Filed under Business Communication, Copy, Copywriting, Marketing, Marketing Tip, Small Business, online marketing, small business marketing, web copy, web traffic, website, website navigation

One of my biggest pet peeves is going to a website, which contains minimal contact information.

The internet is too vital a place to neglect this important information, as virtually all people use some aspect of the internet to communicate with others. It’s crucial to give customers options for contacting your company.

Customers love options because it allows them to choose the most convenient way for them to contact your company. Many people use email everyday, and it might be easier for them to send your company an email with an inquiry, comment, or suggestion rather than picking up the phone and waiting through a recorded message and being on hold for five or ten minutes.

Items that should be on your “contact us” page:

·       STAFF: I can’t tell you how many websites don’t have a list of their most important staff members listed. This is important because it adds a personal flare to your company and allows the customer to feel as though they are contacting an actual person and not just a company. People may be discouraged from contacting your company via email if they do not have a specific name or title to use.  

·       PHONE NUMBER: Provide a phone number for those who want questions answered immediately and who want to speak directly with a person.

·       EMAIL ADDRESS: Provide an email address for general questions and staff email addresses for more specific inquiries and comments.

·       MESSAGE FORM: Provide a form so that the customer can fill in questions and comments right there and not go through the trouble of creating an email. A message form should have boxes for customers to fill in their name, company name, cell or business number, email address, and their questions or comments.

·        EMAIL AND MESSAGE FORM COMBO: Sounds like a meal at a fast-food place, doesn’t it? An email address and message form would add even more options for your customers to contact you. 

Want more small business marketing advice? Subscribe to Your Business Marketing Solution, a bimonthly ezine filled with marketing tips and informative articles.

 

How-to Drive Targeted Traffic to Your Website

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Filed under Copy, Copywriting, Marketing, ezines, increase site traffic, online articles, online marketing, press releases, small business marketing, web traffic, website
Every company wants more website traffic. Here are a few tips to get your numbers up and get more customers. Three tips to drive more traffic to your website:
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1) Place or swap ads with other ezines in your niche
Seek out other ezines in your niche whose publishers might be interested in swapping ads. In addition to, or instead of swapping ads, you could also purchase ad space in an ezine in your niche that has a large circulation. If you pay to place an ad, for the best results, run it for a minimum of three consecutive issues.
2) Write articles and post them online
An excellent way to drive traffic to your site. It’s simple: write an article that offers people useful information. Often times, people will use these articles in their ezines or post them as content on their websites. People read online articles and click the link to your website provided in the author bio box.
3) Write a press release
Press releases are another way of getting targeted traffic to your site. It’s important that the release be newsworthy and not an advertisement / plug for your service or product. There are numerous press release directories online where you can post for free. Also, don’t forget the power of your local media. Research the proper person at local papers and magazines, then send them a release.

Integrating Your Business

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Filed under Marketing, Marketing Tip, Small Business, online advertising, online marketing, small business marketing, website
Ways to integrate yourself into the online community:
• Write a blog and comment on other blogs
• Post audio and video on Youtube and look at other Youtube videos related to ones you post
• Take videos and photos of your products or services and post them on a photo sharing site (Flickr or Buzznet)
• Join a website that allows users to post reviews for local businesses, such as yelp.com
• Join a social bookmarking site, such as del.icio.us or stumbleupon.com
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Two great ways to get more traffic to your site is through www.yelp.com and www.stumbleupon.com. These two social media sites, although slightly different, can easily integrate you into various online communities.

Subscribe to Your Business Marketing Solution, a bimonthly ezine filled with marketing tips, market trends, and informative articles.  

 

Double Sales with Web Copy

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Filed under Copy, Copywriting, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Small Business, Uncategorized, online advertising, online marketing, small business marketing, web copy, website, website navigation

Selling products and services online can be a tricky task. Don’t shy away from it though because it could be the most effective way to sell your products, doubling and even tripling sales.  

The key element in online sales is to know how to promote your products in the best light. One of the greatest problems small companies have with their websites is a lack of traffic. Translation: there are not enough potential customers viewing their products or services online.
 
Many of the sites having these problems are ones created by companies that have only a basic knowledge of web design and web copy. A website with a few pictures and a couple of words describing a company and its products isn’t going to cut it.When people visit a website, they are attracted by the aesthetics of the site, such as layout, design, and photos. People reach these sites by typing keywords or phrases into their favorite search engines or clicking on links from other sites.

Websites with effective web copy will bring these people into their sites from search engines, increasing traffic. Once potential consumers are at a site, their attention must be grabbed immediately with the words, also known as web copy. These words can persuade a viewer to make a purchase from your site, subscribe to a newsletter, subscribe to an RSS feed, and or bookmark your site.

The harsh truth is, if a customer’s attention is not grabbed within the first few seconds of viewing a site, he or she is on to the next one that will keep his / her attention and evoke a response.

Web copy is also important in promoting navigation through the site. Your goal is to have the viewer click on certain links, such as contact information, newsletter subscriptions, and the company’s blog. You need to have well-written web copy to motivate viewers to further investigate your site.If your company isn’t getting the traffic you need to further your business, then it would be a good idea for you to hire a copywriter. Many freelance copywriters who specialize in web copy. Copywriters investigate the most beneficial ways of marketing your company and design web copy to reach the right target market, pushing more traffic to your site.

What a good copywriter will do for you:

• Create a profile for your target market
• Utilize key words in the web copy (tags and links) that will push your site to the top of search engines
• Write a smooth and fresh web copy that contains no fillers, just vital information
• Create a personal and approachable style of writing, which connects to the viewer
• Put a creative spin on your marketing approach, making your site stand out above others
• Edit the web copy, so there are no mistakes