FREE Internet Marketing Training in Cumbria and Lancashire: March 2010

Starting just 2 weeks today we are running a number of FREE Internet marketing training sessions for business owners in Cumbria and Lancashire. If you want to hear what some of our attendees have to say about our training events just visit the Najeda Online testimonials page.

These will be half day events where we share with you some tips and strategies you can go away and implement within hours.

We give practical advice that is easy to understand and use to exploit the advantages an online presence can give you and your company.

There are over 90 billion searches a month on Google alone and TNS data states that; ” over 80% of people search on line for a service provider ”

This could be you ? one of the business’s we work with was shocked to find that over 2000 people a month were searching for their type of service in their local town. What difference would getting a handful of these clients make to your business and cash flow?

In addition to that just think of how many people buy on line.. Amazon and ebay always appear in the top 10 searches in the UK.

If you would like to learn more from 2 expert trainers at no cost, give us a call on 0845 257 0073 or visit our products and workshop page to sign up.

To You and Your Online Success,

Denise and Sharon

Practical Internet Marketing For Small Business: 25 Ideas That Work Part 3

Carrying on the series we are up to number 15 plus the forgotten number 5 oops! Below are a number of small business marketing ideas and small business marketing tips that will work for any business.

11. It’s About Your Customers Not You

An easy mistake that many business owners make is that they “think” they know what their customers want. A classic example of this is creating a new product offering with out testing the commercial viability.

In others words checking out what other people are selling. If it is similar that is actually a good thing. At least you know there is a market for it. If you, Google the word or look in the paper what do you find? If there are adverts and lots of pages on Google you could be onto a winner. If not, maybe your idea needs more research.

12. Active and Constant Market Research.

Your customers will tell you want they want if you ask them. This does not need to be fancy. You can send a quick email or use a free survey tool. A great one that we use is survey monkey. It is intuitive to use and for free you can survey up to 100 of your clients. You can find it hear. http://www.Surveymonkey.com

Find Out What Your Customers Want

This is something we learnt the hard way in our own business. If something is not working you can find out much quicker than you think. Some people call it failing fast. Now this is actually a positive thing! If you just review each week in detail.
Look at the different things you put your time and effort into and what the result was.

This will help you refine you service offerings and where you and your business are in flow. You might find out that one particular activity actually creates more revenue than you originally thought. This could be making a low cost offer to your database of clients, or running a free taster event.

14. Respond to Emails.

This depends on the size of your business and what support you have in place. No matter what, if people contact you make sure someone in your office contacts them. I will never forget the impact it had on me when an internet guy I bought something from actually responded. If fact at the time he even had his skype details visible.

I was totally impressed. Interesting that he has now gone onto be a millionaire in his field. He is called James Schramko by the way and he is a mentor of mine.

15. Look out for Trends

Trend based marketing is applicable to any product or service. You just might need to tweak things a little. Whether you are a Solicitor, Accountant or kitchen designer, focus on where the growth is. Can you adapt or add to your services to make it more relevant.

For instance many areas are now governed by legislation. Perhaps you can help your customers by creating a guide that talks them through what they need to do… This adds value and raises your profile. You might even be able to add a service around it as well.

Missing number 5!!

Ooops just realised we missed something off our first communication. Let us go back to time management. Every bodies favorite subject…not! In honesty you cannot manage time. Though you can manage activities and energy.

Time Management or Activity Management

Looking at activities. How often do we take far too long to complete something? Our perfection streak comes in. If you want to leverage what your business achieves you will have to let perfection go. The odd bit or formatting on a document, waiting till you get every last piece of data before you make a decision etc etc. I am sure you will be able to relate to this one.

Ask yourself the question. Is this good enough? Will spending another hour on this return more to the bottom line?

To You and Your Success,

Best Wishes

Denise and Sharon

Practical Internet Marketing For Small Business: 25 Ideas That Work Part 1

I started to put my thoughts down on this and realised how much I could write! so rather than lose the impact I decided to split this up over five days. Here is the first 5 ideas that will work for anyone that decides to use them!

Internet marketing for small business is entering a huge growth phase. No surprise really with 90 billion searches a month now on Google, and over 80% of consumers or possible clients searching for a provider online.

The thing is though, many small business owners are in awe of the internet. Not really knowing how to leverage its possibilities and capabilities. No wonder really. Everyday we hear stories of mis communication and small business owners being bamboozled with jargon. So as a starter here are 5 of 25 things to consider and think about as you plan you online domination of your local market!

1. Have an Online Presence

This might sound logical! Yet it is not just about a flash website. Consider using a blog. They are easy to manage, generally less expensive and can be managed by you. There are also lots of other things you can use and tap into that help enormously for little in the way of costs. By the way this site is a blog!

2. Have a Strategy

Everything starts with a plan. Don’t just throw up your site without any thought. Think about what you want to achieve. All successful businesses have a strategy. Being successful online is no different. You need to know what your goals are, and what you want to achieve.

3. Have a Positive Mindset.

I am not going wowo on you here. Just remember that everything is possible with some planning, focus and most of all belief. There are more people making significant income on the internet than ever before. The sky could just be the limit. Imagine that you increase your traffic and conversions, which with consistent steps is really possible. This could start your own lift off to new heights.

This includes local businesses that are getting switched onto exactly what is possible. We talked about this in a previous blog post. Have a vision think about it, talk about, believe it and you will be amazed at what can and does happen.

4. Learn New Skills.

Internet marketing is easier than many people realise. Like anything there is a learning curve, yet it is easier to climb than most people appreciate.

We have been online for nearly four years now and this is our core business. When we started we knew………………. …………Nothing…………………as the famous TV programme once said. So we decided to learn. At the time cash flow was interesting! to say the least.

Study

We could not afford the high prices we were quoted for a website let alone how to promote it, so we decided to learn ourselves. And we did. As the saying goes trust me if I can learn anyone can!

5. Get a Mentor

This might be a new concept to people and yet having a mentor is invaluable to your business growth. The Merriam-Webster Webster Dictionary defines a mentor as “a trusted counsellor or guide.”

I would add something else to that, from my own experience. Choose someone who has been before you. Somebody that can help and guide you. We were very lucky to drop on our feet with our own mentor.

She is a marketing and branding expert who works on million dollar brands.
For us this gives us the ability to tap into an amazing knowledge base that then means that we can add more value to our clients.

On Monday lets explore 5 other areas that most people just don’t think about,

To You and your Success,

Denise and Sharon

Though it seems to make sense to cut expenditures in lean economic times, 80 years of data proves that cutting marketing to save money is a losing proposition.

Way back in 1927, the Harvard Business Review published a report tracking 200 companies from the 1923 recession on. The results were clear. The companies that didn’t cut back on marketing - those that advertised the most during that period - enjoyed the biggest sales increases.

Another later study measuring the effects of business-to-business advertising looked closely at the recessions of 1949, 1954, 1958 and 1961. In these tough times, sales and profits dropped for companies that reduced their advertising. In addition, when the recovery came about (as it always will) those same companies lagged behind those that did NOT cut back.

That was proven again by McGraw-Hill Research when examining the financial performance of 600 companies in 16 industries during the recession of 1981-1982. The report, published in Laboratory of Advertising Report 5262, showed that sales for companies which aggressively marketed during the recession rose 256% over those that cut back - and stayed growing for up to three years AFTER the economic downturn.

A Cahners Publishing Company study in 1980 and a Center for Research and Development study in 1990 both concluded that those companies which maintain or increase their advertising during recessionary times stand to gain the most market share during that period (an average of 1.5 points.)
Coopers & Lybrand and Business Science International put it this way in their joint report published by Penton Media in 1993: “Businesses that maintain aggressive marketing programs during a recession, outperform companies that rely more on cost cutting measures. A strong marketing program enables a firm to solidify its customer base, take business away from less aggressive competitors, and position itself for future growth during the recovery.”

There is a book of such research findings entitled Advertising in a Recession by Bernard Ryan, Jr., published in 1999. But these examples will probably suffice to tell the story.

The word “recession” has its origins in the Latin for “move backward.” In an economic recession, when those around them “move backward,” smart marketers do just the opposite. They STEP FORWARD.

BBlackwood
Longtime creative director and marketer
Free resources for marketers on a limited budget at my blog: Smart Marketing on Any Budget
http://www.smartmarketing4.me/

Small Business Branding is something many business owners put to one side yet done properly it can bring untold benefits.

From big brands to small, from corporate brands to personal branding - it’s the brand that’s the key. Although the name of your business and your logo on your business card and letterhead are part of branding, it is much more than that.

Branding is about lots of little things adding up to a tipping point where amazing things can happen. Branding is about the feeling you create in your customer. We may not like the idea and feeling and emotions drive our behaviour. Subtle though they may be. To help get you started, here are 5 critical things you need to do to brand your small business:

1) Have a Professionally Designed Website and Logo

When it comes to marketing and brand recall, a unique logo and well designed website work best. Search the net and find sites that are either your direct competitors, or are in your industry. Take note of what you like and don’t like. When you find a site that really knocks your socks off, that’s the designer you want to build your site. Oftentimes there will be a link to the designer somewhere on the home page. If not, a query to the site owner will get you the contact info.

2) Your Domain Name Should Be your Website Name

Naming a site after its domain name is important, for the simple reason that when people think of your website, they’ll think of it by name. That’s what they’ll first try in their browser. It is also the easiest thing for them to remember, and whatever that is easily remembered, will be more likely to be tried out than an obscure domain name.

3) Optimise your Website Using Search Engine Optimisation

The easiest way to increase your organic search results are making sure your site has plenty of keywords. Use a keyword as part of your domain name, or if that isn’t possible, at least put them as part of the title of your site.
Incoming links from authoritative sites also boost your page rankings. You can get these by asking for a reciprocal link, or writing a comment on a blog or forum and including a link back to your site. Make sure your comment adds to the discussion and isn’t just a half-hearted attempt to get a free link.

4) Make Sure your Advertising Represents You in a Professional Way

As a small business owner, you don’t have a marketing department that generates new ideas to help grow your business. As a way around this, find a good business or marketing consultant who is willing to become part of your marketing team.

They will take the time and energy to research and cull through the thousands of promotional products and ideas available and suggest the very specific ones that best represent you, your business, and your goals.They will help you “communicate” your brand to your desired target audience

5) Maximize your Logo, Minimize your Ego

Pepsi and Nike already have the brand recognition where they can spend their marketing dollars on “ego advertising”. As a small business owner, there’s no room for ego. Your marketing efforts should be used to tell prospective clients who you are, what you have to offer, and where to find you. One of the best ways to do this is hand out promotional products that look good, have a high-perceived value and are useful to your client.

While there are many things involved with branding your small business, these simple steps should get you started, are not too expensive to implement and will greatly impact your business.
This article is by www.Mangobaypromotions.com

To You and Your Businerss Success

Denise and Sharon

SEO and Meta tags? and then of course there are back links, no follow links, do follow links etc etc etc. Ok I will stop there. For local business owners in essence they do not really care what all the terms mean they just need new clients and customers coming to their site on a regular basis in fact let’s be honest a very frequent basis. Like any skill or technique there is always lots of associated jargon attached to it.

Unfortunately many SEO consultants do have a tendency to bamboozle clients with lots of geek speak that does not really help them. As a business owner though it is important to have some knowledge so that when you are dealing with suppliers like your web designer or online marketing experts that you can ask for what you want and need and be understood.

This is more and more important as the real growth for many small local companies is being delivered by increased local search. Paid search in the form of per per click marketing is still popular though current evidence suggests that approaching 80 percent of searches go to the left had side of the page not the right.

In other words the organic non paid rather than paid adverts. Let’s start with SEO.

The term stands for search engine optimisation or search engine optimization depending where you are in the world. Let’s first have a look at what wikipedia says; “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.

SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search. This gives a web site web presence.” Now this is a little bit misleading. SEO does help a website get ranked only it does not ensure that a website will actually get traffic or the all important click into the site.

What it can do though is help a site appear higher up the search rankings. Encouraging someone to click is another matter. This is where some idea about what your customers are looking for and making your content appealing comes in.

Something that many SEO marketing companies are not always as good at. Having some degree of sales and marketing as a previous background does help! OK hopefully you are still with me. Now SEO we have agreed helps a website appear in the search engine ranking in a higher position according to what the site owner wants to be ranked for. So say you are selling dog training services in London. You would want to make sure that your web site was optimized for the word dog training?

That way when Mr Smith in Golders Green taps in dog training services into a search engine like Google or Yahoo or MSN the search engine will see your site as relevant and deliver it to said Mr Smith viola!

Let’s back track a little as this article is about Search engine optimization and Meta Tags. This is one way that Google and other search engines find your site as being relevant.

The Meta tags within the body of your website helps search engines to find your site and declare it as relevant. The relevance of SEO and meta tags seems to change depending on the day of the week. Though in honesty it takes very little time to get your site really well optimized so why not spend some time making sure that the words you want to be found for are included in
your meta tags.

If you are promoting Dog training services in London then make sure that this is a meta tag that you use. The more specific the better. Of course you will want more than one SEO and meta tags. So brain storm what you think your customers might search for you with. In fact why not ask them. Then when you have a good selection let your web designer add them into your site for you. That way you will start to attract targeted potential customers rather than not.

To You and Your on line success!

Denise and Sharon

Good Usernames:Face book

Just in case you are not aware Face book is now letting you have a username that is brandable. Well let’s clarify this, you can now have a username that is actually your own name rather than a string of words letters and numbers.

Lets give you my own example:
So rather than having a facebook username like; www.facebook.com/4326&!!34567123  as my link name.

I can now have www.facebook.com/deniseoyston. Much nicer don’t you think to add this to an email or newsletter you send to clients?

We are busy at the moment claiming lots of our own clients names to ensure the quality and equity of their own brand and on line presence.

Having your own username on social networks like, Face book and Twitter gives lots of advantages to you and your business. Plus if your name is common it would be worth claiming it now ( e.g. imagine the scrap when all the John Smith’s go online!) 

If you have not yet built this into your online marketing it is well worth putting into the plan even if you just go and sign up and claim your name. Building your on line social networks as a marketing strategy  is very important. This is a whole subject area in itself, that needs more time spending on it. We will cover this in our newsletters over the coming weeks.

Back to claiming your name. You might wonder why? I was chatting to a few people this weekend at a seminar I went to who are building their own brands on  line.  Imagine if people can’t remember your company name they often re call your name. So what is the first thing they do? Well google it. To find out more about you and your company.

Have you ever put your own name into google? Some times it can be a revelation. Making sure your potential customers and clients  see what you want them to see is becoming so important in the new business economy. If you Google my name you will see that my profile as an expert author comes up strong along with Face book. To clarify because of my sales and marketing experience I write for a few companies in the states and UK.

Now having an aligned presence on line that was linked to what I do e.g. sales and marketing on line  was not always the case. Until I started to work on it. Various things came up including; a planning application, a book review on Amazon (luckily it was on  Staffordshire bull terriers so pretty harmless) and a profile from an old company of mine who had not removed me from their site ( not so good and confusing for new clients)

So you can probably appreciate why Good usernames with Face book, especially your own name is so important.

Reputation management is becoming a big thing for business owners.The internet makes it so easy to check up on anybody and within seconds. Strategically using some of the newer sites like Face book and Twitter to make sure people find out what you want them to know is vital.

One of the reasons this works is certain sites have what is called a high page rank which in layman’s terms means Google likes them and makes them an authority site. This is all to do with how much content is on the site and how many links they have going to them.

So for Face book and Twitter these are both page rank 9 even Google and Ebay have ranks less than this at 8 (10 is the highest and no site has that yet)

As we all build our profiles and people “Google” us we are likely to appear through our Twitter and Face book accounts (by the way from a lead generation perspective these sites can really help at no cost)

Now you might be thinking I am not really sure if this fits with what I want to do. Trust me it will as time goes on. If you are not sure what to do yet at least sign up it, is really easy to do and register your own account and username.

To make it easy just click the links below.

Face book   Twitter

Just make sure you have an email address, something, to use as your password that is safe and easy to remember. When it asks for your username ALWAYS use your own name.
By the way remember you can also have company branded accounts as well you just follow the same process.

Hope this has been helpful let us know by leaving a quick comment.

Best Wishes

Denise and Sharon

Free Snagit 7.2.5 For 24 Hours: Spice Up Your Presentations. If you create presentations or documents on a regular basis
or want to add images or text into a presentation or document this is a wonderful tool. Alongside a great marketing idea.

As you might imagine software is continually updated. Snagit is no exception as we are now on to Snagit 9.1.
What a better way to get people to experience what you offer than give away something.

Until tomorrow evening 5pm that is June5th 2009 pacific time US, lets just say midnight for us in the UK. You can get access to Snagit 7.2.5 for nothing. You of course can then upgrade to the all singing and dancing version snagit 9.1 at a reduced rate.
In honesty for most people version 7 is excellent. In addition of course you can also use Jing which is techsmiths free screen capture software which is also wonderful.

This free software will only be available till tomorrow that is Friday June 5th

To get your free, legal and fully registered copy of Snagit 7.2.5 do
this:

First, get a free registration key at
http://www.techsmith.com/Covermount/covermount.asp?ID=8

Then, download your copy from
http://download.techsmith.com/snagit/enu/725/snagit.exe

Note - Snagit 7.2.5 is not compatible with Vista. However,
as a registered user of Snagit (even this free version), you
automatically qualify for upgrade offers, including the Vista
compatible version.

Best Wishes

Denise and Sharon

Google search engine tools have the ability to make our life so much easier. Have a look at the video above for the latest from them. The UK’s favourite search engine wants to give it’s user the best possible experience. The added data makes it more helpful in finding out what our customers might be actually searching for. This then helps us as business owners give them the best possible response. The fabulous thing is this data and information is listed over time.

Imagine having real time data from the past week and month to base growth areas for your business. This will put you well ahead of the game in providing exceptional service to your clients.

The sun is out in the Lakes, Britains got talent is on the TV, and our local wine shop has just had an amazing Shiraz delivered!

Life does not get much better!

Enjoy the weekend!

Best Wishes

Denise

Every time I watch this video it fascinates me in what is actually happening in the world. Get your self a cup of coffee or tea and sit down and prepare to be fascinated.

Best Wishes