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What Marketing Strategies Are You Spending on in 2013?

January 22nd, 2013 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

How does your small business’s marketing budget for 2013 compare to that of your competitors? A new survey by StrongMail has some insights. Overall, businesses are bullish on marketing for 2013, with a total of 89 percent saying they will either increase or maintain their level of marketing spending in the coming year. (Some 45 percent will increase their marketing budgets and 44 percent will keep them the same.)

Email marketing, social media and mobile marketing will be the main focus of investment this year. More than half (55.5 percent) of marketing executives report plans to spend more on email marketing campaigns in 2013; 51.8 percent say they will spend more on social media; 42.8 percent say they will increase spending on mobile marketing; and 39.8 percent will boost spending on search marketing.

Two-thirds of the companies in the survey report they will spend more on mobile marketing programs such as mobile apps (39 percent) and SMS alerts (21 percent). Overall, mobile marketing spending will increase by 11 percent compared to 2012.

When it comes to social media, where are marketers putting most of their efforts? Facebook dominates, with 60 percent of businesses saying Facebook is the most valuable social media channel for them. Twitter and YouTube ranked second and third, respectively. Google and Pinterest were somewhere in the middle, cited by 31 percent of marketers, while Yelp, Instagram and LinkedIn brought up the rear.

Email is a strong area of growth for marketers, who plan to use it for a variety of purposes this year. While at one point some experts were predicting that social media would make email obsolete, marketers are figuring out email’s value in growing their social media presence and customer engagement. That’s reflected in the 46 percent who say they will spend more on emails to drive growth to their social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter. In addition, 38.8 percent will spend more on promotional emails, and 34.7 percent will spend more on email newsletters.

Where aren’t marketers spending? Direct mail, trade show participation and traditional advertising will take the biggest hits. Some 37.4 percent report they plan to cut spending on direct mail, 33.6 percent will cut back on trade show spending and 23 percent will decrease spending on advertising in 2013.

You can view a PDF of the full survey results here.

Image by Flickr user Jay Freshuk (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Business Development, Email marketing, Marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, small business, social media
Posted in Business Development, Email Marketing, Marketing, Sales Process, sales process, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media, Web Design | No Comments »

Are You Marketing to Asian Americans?

January 11th, 2013 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

What’s the fastest-growing consumer group you may not be targeting yet? The answer might surprise you. In the last 10 years, the Asian American population has grown at double-digit rates in 49 of 50 states, according to Nielsen’s State of the Asian American Consumer Q3 2012 report. That’s good news for marketers, since many Asian American consumers are affluent, well-educated, tech-savvy and have lots of purchasing power.

The Asian American population has increased by more than 50 percent since 2000, to approximately 18.2 million, and is projected to reach 20.9 million in the next five years. Asian Americans come from many different countries of origin, including China, India, Philippines, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. The largest overall group is Chinese Americans, who make up 22 percent of the Asian American population.

The Asian American population is actually growing a little bit faster than the Hispanic population in the U.S. However, unlike growth in the Hispanic population, which is primarily fueled by babies being born in the U.S., currently growth in the Asian American population is fueled by immigration. In 2010, about 430,000 new immigrants, or 36 percent of the total immigrant population, was from Asian nations, and in the last 10 years, 3.6 million Asian immigrants came to the United States

What are some demographic characteristics of this population? Overall, Asian Americans skew younger than the average American (41 years vs. 45 years) and their household size is slightly larger than average (3.1 vs. 2.6). Adult, native-born Asians skew much younger than adult immigrants (median age of 30 vs. 44).

The median income for Asian American households is higher than average ($63,420 vs. $49,580 in 2012). More than one-fourth (28 percent) of Asian American households have incomes of more than $100K; among overall households, only 18 percent boast this income level.

What are the most effective ways to market to Asian Americans? The number of Asian media outlets increased by more than 1,000 percent from 1999 to 2010, so there’s no shortage of options. However, one of the best (and most affordable) ways to reach this market is online, since Asian Americans have high tech adoption rates.

Specifically, Asian Americans spend an average of 80 hours online each month; view 3,600 Web pages monthly (1,000 pages more than any other demographic group) and visit computer and consumer electronics sites 36 percent more often than the average population. Using search engine optimization and online advertising targeted to these consumers are effective methods to reach this growing market.

Image by Flickr user Cea (Creative Commons)

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Tags: asian americans, asian consumer, Marketing, Search Marketing, small business
Posted in Marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business | No Comments »

7 Quick Tips to Optimize Your Content for Search

January 2nd, 2013 :: Monika Jansen

You create content for various reasons: to build awareness, gain thought leadership, demonstrate expertise, and convert Web visitors into leads and then into customers. Since you’re spending time on content creation, be sure it is optimized for search to make it super easy for potential customers to find you.

Here’s what to do:

1. Conduct a search

Even though you are 99 percent sure your target market uses specific keywords and phrases, double-check. You might find additional ones you hadn’t thought of.

2. Integrate keywords

Don’t just add the keywords to the body of the content; add them to titles (early in the title is better) and use them in links back to landing or other Web pages instead of “read more.”

3. Optimize images

Because search engines cannot read text embedded on an image, use keywords in the file names and alt text, tag them (like you would for a blog post), and include a description or caption when you can. This is true for images in any digital content – blog posts, white papers, ebooks and downloadable marketing collateral.

4. Optimize video

This is pretty much the same as optimizing images. Use a keyword-rich title and add tags, but when it comes to the description, focus less on keywords and more on a compelling message that will convince people to watch your video. Add a link to your website at the end.

5. Add to executive summaries

When you publish long-form content like ebooks, white papers and how-to guides, write an executive summary, add keywords and use it to publicize your content on your website, in press releases and newsletters, in blog posts, etc.

6. Use on Web pages

Add those keywords and phrases to page titles and URLs where the content is housed, whether it’s a landing page or service or product page.

7. Optimize for social

Look up hashtags on Twitter and keywords on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and any other social sites you use to ensure your content will be easily found once you share it there.

As you optimize your content, just be sure you don’t go crazy and overstuff with keywords. Search engines don’t like that.

Image by Flickr user mRio (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, Search Marketing, small business, social media
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media | 1 Comment »

How Local Search Can Boost Your Business

December 14th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

If your business relies on local customers from the neighborhood and surrounding areas, then you need to know about the importance of local search to consumers. According to a new survey by YP, local search is becoming widespread, and shifts in how consumers rely on how local search will affect businesses now and going forward.

YP discovered that local searches (that is, searching the Web for local businesses) is a way of life. In fact, four out of 10 consumers in the survey say they use local search once a day; two-thirds use it three to four times a week.

The study divided consumers into those with PCs, those with PCs and Smartphones, and those with PCs, Smartphones and Tablets. The more devices someone has, the more frequently they are to use local search. Those with PCs only average about five local searches a week. For those who also have Smartphones, the volume of local search nearly triples, to 13.5 local searches per week. Consumers who have all of the devices perform nearly 21 local searches per week.

The most frequently searched categories relevant to small business were entertainment, restaurants/dining, contractors, retail stores, automotive, professional services, personal and fitness, financial services and healthcare.

While “local” is kind of a vague term, the survey tried to pin it down a bit more and found that for most categories, most consumers actually buy from businesses that are within 15 minutes of their home or work. If you have a product or service that’s purchased less frequently (such as automotive repair or financial services), customers are more likely to be willing to drive farther, which means your “local” base might expand a bit more.

Users who use local search at least daily on a regular basis were defined as “avid” local searchers. These consumers were more likely than others to own both tablets and smartphones. They were also more likely to:

engage in behavior such as “showrooming” (looking up information about products in a retail store on their mobile devices while in-store),
engage in mcommerce (buying products on their mobile devices),
use mobile shopping apps and
click on mobile ads.

As tablet and smartphone use grow, the report predicts, regular users’ search behavior will start to resemble that of avid searchers—so catering to avid searchers now can prepare your business for the future.

Image by Flickr user zabdiel (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, Search Marketing, small business
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business | 2 Comments »

How Can You Motivate Last-Minute Holiday Shoppers to Buy?

December 12th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

The holiday retail season is heading into the home stretch, but there are still plenty of Americans who haven’t checked off every item on their gift lists yet. How can you attract them and what motivates them to buy? The PeriscopeIQ Second Annual Holiday Shopping Survey has some useful insights about what works and what doesn’t.

QR Codes: So far, QR codes on ads, point-of-sale items and price tags haven’t lived up to their potential, reports the PeriscopeIQ study, because nearly three-fifths (59 percent) of shoppers don’t know what the codes are or what they do. Fewer than one in five (18 percent) have ever used a QR code in a retail environment, even though 60 percent own smartphones with built-in scanners or apps. “We believe QR codes will continue to evolve but the actual 2D code will be transformed by a newer, more efficient technology in the near future,” said Mohamed Latib, COO of PeriscopeIQ.

Working Shoppers:  Up to 40 percent of survey respondents admit to shopping online at work during the holidays and year-round, and more than a quarter of those polled shop more than 15 minutes daily on the job.

Gassing Up: Some 40 percent say their willingness to drive long distances for a bargain will be impacted by gas prices. And for shoppers in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy, gas availability itself may still be an issue. Consumers’ awareness of gas prices is good news for ecommerce sites that let them shop from home.

Free Shipping:  If you do have an ecommerce site, know that 95 percent of respondents say free shipping is a major factor in whether they buy from a particular site or not.

Smartphones Mean Smarter Shoppers:  Over two-fifths (41 percent) of customers say they are pre-shopping online before going into stores, up from 27 percent last year. A smaller number (33 percent) check prices at other stores or at websites while in-store, and about 36 percent take pictures of items with their phones in-store, whether to get feedback from friends or family, or to do comparison shopping.

Waiting on Mobile Wallets: While mobile wallet options such as Google Wallet or Passbook have captured headlines, these technologies are still in limited use. Fewer than 5 percent of respondents say they use mobile wallet technologies.

Black, White and Read All Over:  When looking for product information, sales and other information about shopping, almost three-fifths (58 percent) of consumers say they still rely primarily on print magazines and newspapers. In comparison, only 24 percent said they look at online reviews of products for information before shopping.

“With more than half of our respondents equipped with smartphones, the multi-channel world is a boon to holiday shoppers,” said Dr. Pawan Singh, CEO and Chief Scientist at PeriscopeIQ. “But it can also be an advantage to retailers who address physical, mobile and online customer experiences with equal diligence.”

Image by Flickr user RetailByRyan95 (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, mobile marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, small business, social media
Posted in Business Development, Customer Service, Marketing, Sales Process, sales process, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media, Technology | No Comments »

5 Steps to Keep Your Sales Funnel Full

December 10th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

No matter how long they’ve been in business, a lot of small business owners are not very good at keeping the sales funnel full. You’ll do a marketing blitz, get super busy and focus on work. Because you’re so slammed, you will then ignore marketing and sales. Then your projects wrap up, and you’re back to square one – you need to do another marketing blitz.

The better, less frantic approach is to always be marketing – it’s the best way to keep your sales funnel full, especially if you tend to have a long sales cycle. Here’s a 5-step process to ensure those marketing blitzes become a thing of the past:

Step One: Create valuable information

Your goal is to first get people onto your website. Devote time each week to creating valuable content, like blog posts, white papers, eBooks, infographics and videos, that are full of keywords. Potential customers will find your site when they go searching for information on a specific topic.

Step Two: Pump up the SEO

Your goal remains the same: get people onto your website. Make sure your website is fully optimized for all the keywords you want to be found for, including location if that’s relevant. Even though it’s not technically SEO, use hashtags on Twitter to make it easy for people to find you.

Step Three: Convert Web visitors

Now that they’re on your site, your goal is to convert visitors into leads. There are two ways to do this: 1) If you’re offering an eBook or free demo, direct them to a landing page and ask for basic information before they can access the item. 2) Use compelling calls-to-action that direct visitors to do something – contact you, sign up for your e-newsletter, like you on Facebook, etc.

Step Four: Nurture and qualify leads

At this stage, your goals is to stay n touch with potential customers and build the relationship through social media and email marketing. Because you’ll stay top-of-mind, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll think of you first. You can also offer specials or coupons, to speed up the decision-making (on a personal level, this always works for me).

Step Five: Analyze your efforts

Your final goal is to simply look at your process and see if people are getting caught up somewhere in the process. Is a piece of content not attracting website visitors? Are people leaving your site when they reach a certain page? What offers are converting more leads into customers? Adjust, and continue.

What do you do to keep your sales funnel full?

Image courtesy of outsideinview.com

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Tags: content marketing, lead nurturing, lead qualification, Marketing, sales funnel, Search Marketing, seo
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing | No Comments »

The Online Marketing Habits of Highly Successful Small Businesses

December 10th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

How can your small business reach the elite group of high-achieving small companies? Online marketing is the key, suggests a new Forrester research study commissioned by Act-On Software. In the face of continuing economic uncertainty, the study, “Driving Revenue in a Volatile Economy, found that the top-performing small businesses are those that truly embrace online marketing.

The study identified these lessons small businesses can take from top performers and large companies:

Don’t automatically cut your marketing budget in a down economy. Top performers were less likely than bottom performers to cut their marketing budgets (33 percent vs. 56 percent). On the contrary, top performers prove that maintaining or increasing marketing spending does pay off in terms of revenues.
Take lead generation seriously. The top-performing small businesses carefully manage sales leads, vetting, qualifying and nurturing them before handing them off to sales to close. They were also willing to spend more to get new leads, while bottom performers spent their time and money trying to squeeze new sales from existing customers.
Adopt digital marketing techniques. All small businesses in the study focused primarily on traditional marketing techniques, such as print advertising, tradeshows, events and seminars. However, top performing businesses were more likely to have adopted digital marketing tactics and technology tools to help scale their marketing efforts.
Get serious about social marketing. While larger businesses are realizing that “social media” is not just an abstract tool for generating buzz, small businesses are lagging behind in developing a social media strategy and making social media part of the sales pipeline.
Increase collaboration between sales and marketing. By working together, these teams can drive leads more effectively and close more sales.
Invest in marketing automation. Companies that automated marketing functions had better results. For example, 61 percent of top performers used CRM vs. just 46 percent of bottom performers. And only 5 percent of bottom performers used marketing automation, compared to 28 percent of top performers.
Measure results. Nearly half of the bottom performing businesses did not measure any aspect of their marketing. In contrast, top performers measured everything.

Visit Act-On’s website for a free ebook, 7 Marketing Habits of Today’s Highly Successful SMBs.

Image by Flickr user ganesha.isis (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, online marketing, Search Marketing, small business, social media, Web Design
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media, Technology, Thought Leadership, Web Design | 3 Comments »

5 Marketing Lessons From Inc. 500 Companies

November 12th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

The companies that land on the Inc. 500/5000 list (including one of my clients) never fail to impress me. From their growth trajectories to what it is they actually do, I find it all fascinating.

HubSpot analyzed the winners using their Marketing Grader tool. Below, I share their findings about 5 of those companies’ marketing strategies, along with my takeaways:

#5: Gold & Silver Buyers

They have a great rank, but their online marketing efforts fall a bit short. They have a blog, but only post every few weeks, and what little they do post cannot be shared because there are no social share buttons on their site.

Takeaway: Blog consistently (at least once a week) and add those social share buttons to your website! If you don’t know how, your website developer can do it for you.

#11: Nasty Gal

The peeps at Nasty Gal are doing a lot right, but one thing they are not doing at all is analyzing their website. This is one of the easiest and most important things a small business can and should do to improve marketing.

Takeaway: Just set up a Google Analytics account (it’s free!), and you’ll learn so much valuable information about your website, like number of visitors you’re getting each month, which pages they’re visiting, keywords you’re being found for and so on.

You can then tweak your website as needed – maybe remove pages no one is visiting and develop more content around the products and services that are drawing the most online eyeballs.

#9: Red Frog Events

This company a has a lot of SEO issues that are affecting their website. A technical one is the lack of 301 redirects (so if someone doesn’t type in the www before your company name and domain extension, that person will still be pointed to your website). Nontechnical ones include a boatload of images with no tags and pages missing unique page descriptions.

Takeaway: Go into your content management system (CMS), and open up the media gallery. Check that each image, photo and graphic has an alt tag so search engines know what the image is.

Next, open up each page in edit mode and add keywords to each page title, to make it easier for search engines to find you based on what you do or sell.

#47: Vitals

This company does a lot right, and with one small tweak, they can do a lot more: add an email subscription option to their blog.

Takeaway: No matter how much your customers like you, they are not going to check your blog regularly for updates. An email subscription option ensures that all subscribers receive a ping whenever you post a new blog post – and thus gets more eyeballs reading the content you create.

#37: Webimax

This company is doing pretty much everything right: they blog every day and share their content on social media. They have a mobile version of their site that is optimized for a good user experience. They have landing pages that they link to from their blog posts, making it easier to convert visitors into leads. They use marketing automation software to nurture leads. They use analytics to track their marketing efforts.

Takeaway: Putting together an integrated marketing strategy can certainly pay off – Webimax grew from revenue of $123,000 in 2008 to revenue of $7.1 million in 2011.

Now you know what these successful companies do – and don’t do – what small fixes will you make to improve your own website and marketing strategy?

Image courtesy of HubSpot

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Tags: analytics, blogging, email subscriptions, Inc. 500, Marketing, marketing strategy, Search Marketing, seo, social media, social sharing
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

How to Grab Price-Conscious Holiday Shoppers

October 31st, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Consumers are feeling good about the upcoming holiday season. In a new study by PriceGrabber, more than half of consumers say they plan to spend the same amount of money or more this holiday shopping season than they did last year.

But even increased spending doesn’t mean Americans are ending their price-conscious ways. On the contrary, shoppers are looking for bargains with more vigor than ever, and feeling confident in their ability to search out the deals. Two-thirds of consumers surveyed say they expect retailers to offer better prices and discounts this year than last. What will persuade them to buy? Free shipping was cited by 77 percent of respondents, price cuts by 74 percent and coupons by 55 percent.

In fact, customers are already looking for holiday bargains. “Our survey data found that … 59 percent of consumers plan to start shopping even earlier this year to spread out the impact of purchases, compared to 53 percent in 2011,” said Rojeh Avanesian, vice president of marketing and analytics of PriceGrabber. Some 17 percent of consumers started their holiday shopping in September, and 31 percent said they would begin in October this year.

Worried that means it’s already too late to get the business? Don’t be. A follow-up study by PriceGrabber found that while there are those early-birds, more than half of consumers still believe the best holiday deals are found between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Got an ecommerce site? Then you’ve got an edge: When asked where they planned to shop this year, 75 percent of respondents said “online retailers.” By comparison, just 49 percent mentioned department stores, and 41 percent said they’ll shop with local independent retailers.

Even if you don’t have an ecommerce site, you can use local search to give your retail store an edge. A whopping 88 percent of shoppers say they’ll stick to their budgets this year by going online to research products and pricing before they buy their holiday gifts.

Make sure your store is listed on local search directories, on ratings and review sites, and that you use relevant keywords on your website so it comes up in the results when potential customers search for products you sell. You might even want to consider taking out online ads such as pay-per-click or Facebook ads to direct local customers to your store.

Image by Flickr user Steven Depolo (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Email marketing, Marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, small business, social media, Web Design
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, Web Design | 1 Comment »

How to Turn a Boring Topic Into a Viral One

October 24th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

“There is a market for humor and weird and interesting things. An infographic can turn a boring, geeky topic into a highly creative, viral one.”

-Brian Wallace, NowSourcing.com

How does more traffic to your website, more links to your blog, more social sharing of your content, better awareness of your company, and greatly improved search results sound? Pretty great, especially if your company is operating in a highly competitive space.

The infographic experts at NowSourcing do just that. “Infographics are a lot more engaging than a blog post, but of course, they are a lot more work. Good infographics bring together words, ideas, a story, a lot of research, and good design.”

Here are 5 examples of how Wallace’s team turned a boring topic into a viral one:

1. Financial Services

You can’t get more boring than financial services. When a payday loan company in England asked NowSourcing to do an infographic on bartering, it just so happened that Oscar Mayer had just launched a crazy campaign in the U.S. featuring one guy traveling from New York City to Los Angeles with nothing but bacon to barter. Yes, this was serendipitous, but the Art of Bacon Barter infographic still accomplished its goal: turn a boring topic into a viral one.

Did you know? PayDayLoan actually has an entire section called Fun Stuff on their site devoted to visual content. Talk about creativity!

2. Concrete Polishing

Again, a truly boring topic. Concrete Reflections wanted to increase their search position for a few concrete-specific keywords. When asked if they had a sense of humor, the company replied yes, and the Concrete Mafia infographic was born. The infographic focuses on why the mafia uses concrete to bury dead bodies.

Did you know? New York’s concrete industry was once a mafia-owned monopoly. For real!

3. Poker

OK, poker isn’t that boring of a topic, but PokerSites is not a very exciting online destination – it’s a guide to poker sites, just as its name implies. The company wanted to get more visibility from audiences other than gamers, so NowSourcing created an infographic on infamous casino cheaters.

Did you know? There are an average of 5,000 HD cameras per casino.

4. Home Security

Home security is one of those snooze-worthy topics that you don’t think about til it’s too late. HomeSecuritySystem.com’s infographic looks at the world’s biggest art, diamond and bank heists of all time.

Did you know? In February 2003, $100 million worth of diamonds were stolen in Antwerp, Belgium. Police still don’t know exactly how it happened.

5. Online College Guide

Like PokerSites, Degree Jungle is also an online guide – to online college programs. Their infographic, The Cost to Educate a President, is not only fun and interesting, but very timely!

Did you know? Both Obama and Romney earned their law degrees at Harvard.

One more thing:

Once you spend time and money on an engaging infographic, put it to even more work by adding a call-to-action. You could link to a downloadable white paper that your infographic summarizes, a QR code linked to your free, downloadable iPhone app, a link to a free trial or even just a link back to your website.

Do you have a favorite infographic? Why do you love it?

Image courtesy of internet-marketing-blog101.com

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Tags: Brian Wallace, infographics, Marketing, NowSourcing, Search Marketing, Thought Leadership, viral marketing
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Thought Leadership | 5 Comments »