Back on track!

Hey gang, fell off the planet for a week...so I have a lot of things to catch up on .

First, I am currently reading "Communities Dominate Brands" which so far is a very interesting read on community engagement and the future of business and marketing. When I finish it I will report back!

I have also been working on a larger post that I should have ready by mid week. It's a little research experiment that I decided to conduct...on the presidential hopefuls.

So thanks for being patient and I'll be back posting this week!

The Top 5 Small Business Marketing Tips for Budget-Minded Business Owners

I am fortunate enough to have made great friends in the blogosphere, some of which are the best marketing minds in the business. In particular, Caroline Melberg of the Small Business Mavericks blog has been a regular in my feed reader from almost my first day blogging. I read her posts regularly for all the best insight into small business marketing tactics which also happens to be a primary interest of mine.

So I asked her if she would be interested in guest blogging and she politely accepted. Concerning her expertise in the small business sector I was very interested in what she considered to be the most important small business marketing tips for those who are on a tight budget (which is all of them!) Here is what she had to say:

When it comes to running a successful business, marketing is essential. For a small business, marketing often seems like a daunting task – especially when it comes to marketing your business on the web.

Many times, budget-minded business owners fear that small business marketing needs to be expensive in order to be effective. Fortunately - this isn't true. Here are five simple tips for small business owners who are looking to save dollars, while stil running an effective online marketing campaign.

1. Optimize Your Website

There are three simple steps to take so that you can be sure that your website is working for you.

The first is to use a descriptive title for your site as well as keywords and a description that allows search engines and site visitors alike to know what they will find when they visit your web page. Once that's taken care of, make sure that you are placing keywords appropriately in the text of your website.

Your keywords should be specific to your products and services, and should be chosen with consideration for the terms prospective customers would use when searching with Google or Yahoo or whichever other search engine they use.

Finally, these keywords should also be used in the alt image tags as they relate to the photos and illustrations that you post to your website.

2. Market Your Website with Articles & Distribute Press Releases

Article marketing is an extremely effective way of drawing visitors to your website. By creating an informative short article that relates to your business, your area of expertise and your keywords, you can show readers a bit more of what they'll find from your business – which you can link to in your resource box at the bottom of the article.

Online press releases are another effective marketing tool. Like conventional press releases that let local newswires pick up a story about a new staff member or a new product line, online press release distribution will allow you to get the word out to those who publish online newsletters or who review products and services like those that you offer.

Both articles and press releases published online create valuable, relevant inbound links to your website (via the link to your site in your resource box at the end of each article or press release). Search engines place a great amount of value on the number of inbound links you have to your site, so this is an excellent way of building popularity with the search engines, as well as your human customers.

Both article marketing and distributing press releases will enable you to establish yourself as an expert and your company as a source for products or services. Each is effective, and often, submission to article directories is free – that's right, free marketing for your business, all it takes is a little bit of time.

3. Start a Blog

It's a common statement when it comes to Internet marketing: content is king. A blog – short for a weblog – allows you to create fresh content at regular intervals, driving traffic and search engines to your website.

Like article marketing and press release distribution, having a blog allows you to establish your expertise about the products and services that your small business offers. Unlike article marketing and press release distribution, however, a blog allows you to begin to carry on a dialog with your current and prospective customers.

Your blog works like search engine magic for your website. By linking your blog to your website, you draw the search engines to your website. Your site will rank higher and your customers will have a much easier time finding your site.

4. Commit to a Link Building Campaign and Submit Your Site to Directories and Search Engines

As a small business owner building and promoting your business on the web, having quality inbound links is important. Links allow your site to be found by those who visit similar sites looking for the products and services that your company offers.

Links – like those at the end of your articles and press releases, like those that exist back to individual products or services from within your blog, like those from others who have purchased from you in the past – help to improve your site's search engine rank.

By submitting your business' website to relevant directories and even to industry-specific – niche – search engines, you'll begin to generate additional links. More importantly, however, these niche directories are increasingly used by those looking for very specific sites. Having your listing present will make it even more likely that your prospective customers will find your page; that makes them a particularly valuable marketing tool for your business, and, again, it's often free to submit your site.

5. Look for Joint Ventures with Other Like-Minded Business People

It's not uncommon for small businesses to work together – a movie theater and a restaurant offering coupons for a discount if you spend the evening at both places. In my past life working with large corporations I realized that the largest companies grow by means of joint ventures all the time. However, many small businesses do not look into joint ventures when it comes to marketing their businesses.

Is it always easy to find the right joint venture for marketing your business? No, of course not. But it is possible to find like-minded business owners whose customers could benefit from your products or services just as your customers could benefit from those that they offer.

As a result, both small businesses will be better able to extend their outreach and develop a wider customer base. If you are going to enter into a joint venture, search for companies with similar goals and a similar customer base but a different type of product or service. Stay on the lookout, keep an open mind and you just might find the perfect opportunity to market your business to a new audience.

A perfect example of this principle is a recent joint venture I did with a company who specializes in teaching business credit skills to small business owners. This company markets to the same clients that I wish to add to my customer list, but they offer a completely different service. By working together, we were able to market our services to each other’s mailing lists, resulting in both of us attracting new customers we would not have had otherwise. The great part about this joint venture was that there was no out of pocket cost to either of us – just our time and a little creativity in coming up with suitable promotions to each other’s lists!

Taking your business to the web does not need to be difficult, nor does it need to be expensive. By taking a creative approach, small business owners on a tight marketing budget will be able to find traffic and increase their customer base.

Focus on reaching the search engines: use the right keywords and use them appropriately. Let people know that you have the information they need with articles and be sure to get the word out by distributing press releases. Interact with your customers with a high quality blog, and focus on getting great links. Lastly, take advantage of partnerships with like-minded business owners.

Marketing your small business website may require a lot of hard work, but it doesn't require a lot of money – oftentimes, the best results are derived from the most creative (not the most expensive) solutions.

About the Author
Caroline Melberg is President and CEO of Small Business Mavericks, a division of Melberg Marketing. She has over 20 years of experience creating marketing communications materials and writing copy for some of most successful companies in the world. She publishes the popular eZine, "Small Business Maverick Secrets." Learn insider Maverick Marketing secrets you can use immediately to find new customers and increase your sales. Subscribers also get a FREE copy of her e-Book, "Local Small Business Internet Marketing Secrets." Get your FREE subscription at www.SmallBusinessMavericks.com.

Porn emails have better deliverability than you...

When I waltzed into work today my boss passed along a blog post that he thought was particularly interesting and I have to agree with him.

In a recent study by Lyris, it was determined that content isn't always the factor that trips you up in the spam filters. Here are a few insights that stand out. Of the top 10 types of content that most often trigger spam scores, only two appeared with a frequency that might cause concern. Here they are:

1. Heavy use of images, which can increase spam scores up to a full point and render poorly in email clients with image blocking enabled.

2. Sending messages with a "From Name" composed of numbers or symbols rather than an actual name.

Not rocket science, but interesting nonetheless concerning that its so high in relation to everything else on the deliverability list.

Wendy at imediaconnection makes an interesting parallel about how the porn industry is able to endure high deliverability rates.

"Take the industry for adult content, for example. I'm talking about legitimate pornographic content: websites and distributors with paid subscribers who expect those emails to get through. There is no industry more closely watched and no email content more likely to trigger spam filters.

Yet, legitimate messages from purveyors of pornography or other sex-related content do manage to successfully land in inboxes. How? The senders scrupulously follow best practices and manage their reputations. They use double confirmed opt-ins, they scrub their lists regularly, and they're quick to respond when someone complains."

If there was ever a reason to clean up your email marketing act the time is now. Take a lesson from pornographers.

clipped from www.imediaconnection.com From your first communication, set up clear expectations. Tell people how to sign up or opt-in, and tell them exactly what they're opting-in to. Tell them how often they'll receive something from you and what it will be. Tell them how to opt out. Make them confirm the registration, and again remind them what it's for. Be aware of the company you keep. If your customer service department works hard to follow best practices, but your marketing department does not, then -- just like your mom warned you -- you'll suffer guilt by association. Don't learn this the hard way; if your friends smoke, your clothes will reek, too. Sometimes reputation is a matter of IP address. If it's new, the ISPs tend to be wary. Obviously, there are legitimate reasons that you might have a new IP address; if you're switching providers, for example. But if you have to switch, ramp up slowly.

If Seth Godin had hair...

Okay, so I was chatting with an old college buddy tonight over Yahoo Instant Messenger and somehow we got to speculating about what Seth might have looked like when he had hair. Since we are both old photoshop hacks we pinged these pics back and forth.

The one on the left belongs to my buddy and my attempt is the one on the right...


I think the one on the left is a pretty convincing Top Gun...and I have no idea what I was going for.

So which one do you think Seth most looked like pre-Kojak? Or if you think we missed the mark entirely, send in your own renditions!

And if anyone has a real pic...we can put the speculation to rest.

**Updated**

We can put the speculation to rest! Can you find him in the line up?


Thanks to Seth himself for commenting with the link to the image!

B2B and social media...wheres the love?

Its interesting about how much buzz is given to social media marketing...I must have read ten articles over the weekend about it. But the more I read about marketing on sites like myspace, friendster, facebook, blogs, etc. the more I realize that it is primarily B2C companies taking advantage of this new medium with the B2B crowd staying cautiously out of the fray.

Why is that?

Of course it is inherently easier to mass market a consumer product. You have a much larger pool of potential customers and the marketing is less complex than that of B2B. It will always be easier to go viral talking about the iphone instead of email marketing deliverability rates. And you can market the iphone to millions while an email marketing solution is limited to hundreds of potential clients (maybe thousands if your lucky).

So does it make sense to abstain from social media marketing then?

In a word...no.

The B2B approach to this kind of marketing should not follow that of B2C. You don't need to rely on huge buzz to drive interest in your product so don't feel the need to employ trendy video gimmicks, silly contests, or controversial blog posts in an attempt to "go viral". Its not your style man!

Here are some simple mistakes to avoid.

1. Resist the urge to create a "company" myspace account. This will just make you look silly - especially when no one signs up to be your company's friend.


2. Don't try to accumulate a mass amount of friends. You will look as desperate as the high school geek trying to build a friend empire online.


3. Don't waste your money advertising on myspace. I don't think many high school and college students are in the market to buy your products or services.


4. Like I said before...no cheesy you tube videos. You will never be able to compete against a guy getting hit in the crotch or the cat playing the piano.


5. Don't blog because everyone else is doing it. Alot of people wore a mullet in the 80's too. Know when something makes sense for YOU to do...we can't all be Billy Ray Cyrus.
   

Instead, just simply encourage your employees to use them.

The best way to approach social media in the B2B world is to actually use the social networks that all of your friends, colleagues, and business associates use. Specifically, Linked In is fast becoming the "professional" alternative to sites like myspace, friendster, and xanga. It is a social network site specifically for maintaining business and industry contacts.

But it is not the only resource. If a lot of your contacts are using myspace, get on myspace. In the end you want to stay in touch and be accessible to those people you know and have relationships with. And by using those social networking sites you will find additional contacts...who may even eventually buy something from you.

I'm not saying that there is not a larger marketing opportunity with these sites either. The potential for brand building is great and well thought out strategies exist for making the most out of marketing on them...even if your B2B.

But in the end it's always been about building relationships ...and its no different online.