On the First day of Christmas, Princeton Marketing gave to me, a marketing plan with managed PPC.

2nd Day… 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

3rd Day… 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

4th Day… 4 new domains, 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

5th Day… 5 GREAT REVIEWS….. 4 new domains, 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

6th Day… 6 web-sites linking, 5 GREAT REVIEWS ….. 4 new domains, 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

7th Day… 7 Social Posts, 6 web-sites linking, 5 GREAT REVIEWS ….. 4 new domains, 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

8th Day… 8 Golden Keywords, 7 Social Posts, 6 web-sites linking, 5 GREAT REVIEWS, 4 new domains, 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

9th Day… 9 Nifty Blogs, 8 Golden Keywords, 7 Social Posts, 6 web-sites linking, 5 GREAT REVIEWS ….. 4 new domains, 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

10th Day… 10 Social Sites, 9 Nifty Blogs, 8 Golden Keywords, 7 Social Posts, 6 web-sites linking, 5 GREAT REVIEWS …..4 new domains, 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

11th Day… 11 Landing  Pages, 10 Social Sites, 9 Nifty Blogs, 8 Golden Keywords, 7 Social Posts, 6 web-sites linking, 5 GREAT REVIEWS …..4 new domains, 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

On the Twelfth day of Christmas, Princeton Marketing gave to me, 12 PR Promos, 11 Landing  Pages, 10 Prospective Leads, 9 Nifty Blogs, 8 Keyword Phrases, 7 Social Posts, 6 web-sites linking, 5 GREAT REVIEWS …..4 new domains, 3 custom ads, 2 mobile sites and a marketing plan with managed PPC.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Many of you now have a Facebook Page for your business since Facebook is the most popular social media platform. Facebook is also one of the best ways to reach your target audience. Now that you have created your business’s page on Facebook, you need to gain “Likes,” also known as followers or fans. There are many ways to gain Likes on your page, but one of the fastest and most effective ways is to do advertising on Facebook.

Utilizing Facebook Advertising as a means to gain Likes on your Facebook page is also known as Sponsored Stories advertising. Sponsored Stories are advertisements that target those who do not already Like your page. You can narrow or widen your demographic based on who you want to target. You can narrow it by age, gender, location, relationship status, and many personal interests. These can all help you target exactly what would be your ideal customer/audience.

Princeton Marketing Group can help you advertise on Facebook in order to promote your business’s Facebook page. Our experts have years of experience with Facebook and have helped companies gain a 25% conversion rate from those who clicked the ad to then Liking the page.

For a small fee, Princeton Marketing Group can set up and manage your advertising campaigns on Facebook. We can also manage advertising for your website through Facebook. We will create ads based on what products or services you offer and will add a link to the ad that redirects to the corresponding page on your website to help you gain web traffic.

Princeton Marketing Group is a marketing, Greensboro –based, firm that specializes in social media marketing and small business marketing strategies. Contact us today for your next Facebook ad campaign, 336-854-0075.

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Our dog, Colin, on Christmas

Oh how we love our pets.  I am bias; I have three pets that control my life, all dogs.  However I recently started to feed the neighborhood stray cat so it looks like I have another mouth to feed, Tarmac.  As I was looking through our neighborhood pet journal, yes they have devoted an entire newsprint around our furry friends, I found these stats on how much we adore our dogs and cats.  I also have to admit I fall into each one of these stats.  Do you?

According to the American Humane Society:

•  27% of pet owners take their pet with them for the family photo including holiday Christmas and Easter shots and 64% include their pets in the holiday cards.

• 20% of pet households leave their TV or radio on for their pet when they are not at home so the animals don’t feel left alone.

• 16% of dog owners claim to have purchased their vehicle with their dog’s accommodations in mind.

• 36% of pet owners celebrate their dogs birthdays, 63% give their pets Christmas presents and 40% include a Christmas stocking for their pet for a total holiday spend each year totaling over $5 billion on holiday gifts!

Colin and myself on Christmas morning

If you are in the pet industry you certainly have a lot of purchasing power.  These customers cater to their pets and can be upsold with convenience items, boutique food and treats and specialty grooming and toys for their pets.  Just make sure when you see them, your customer service is not just directed to the pet owner but the pets too.  Sharing the love with a pet owner will certainly win you more doggie treat purchases!

Colin and his new toy

There are a lot of creative marketing ideas to cater to pet owners and a lot of ways to win their loyalty.  With a little time and commitment you can certainly become the place to shop and beat out the big box pet stores.  Be creative and innovative and think about what pet owners like, use the stats above to come up with promotional ideas that can win their hearts and their pocketbooks.  Look at opportunities others are not doing and don’t try to promote the same things Petco or Pet Smart do.  Carve out a niche for your service area and get to know your customers and their pets personally.  That in of itself would be something the big stores can’t beat you on.  For specific ideas for your store contact some creative marketing firms such as Princeton Marketing Group.  We make it easy for you to gain market share and increase purchases.

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Image: Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Sample of Great Harvest Bread coupon

I recently read in the NW Observer, a newsprint, that offers a weekly ‘Grins & Gripes’ column a Gripe regarding a coupon misprint.  It seems another area newspaper ran a Great Harvest Bread ad with a buy one get one free offer that ran one week too long.  Unbeknownst to this consumer, she tried to use the coupon in their store.  According to the Gripe, they rejected the coupon because “it was not valid due to the newspaper’s mistake in rerunning the ad.”

Actually that coupon was valid and should have been elegible for redemption unless there was a disclaimer.  And even if there was a disclaimer you might be better off to allow the customer to redeem the coupon and keep the customer happy.  What kind of damage did this employee cause Great Harvest Bread company for rejecting the coupon?

Before deciding whether or not to redeem an out of date coupon you should consider a few things:

What is the cost of the loss in revenue and profit?  In this case maybe $8 for a second loaf of bread in revenue and $2 in profit?

What is your cost value per customer?  You need to take into account what kind of service or product you offer, the shelf life of your product and the average sale per customer.  For a bakery like Great Harvest I am guessing $268 per customer.

Then, ask what damage and economically negative impact this action of not making the customer happy could potentially have on the business.  With the advent of social media platforms, your customer’s “Gripe” could have a tremendous impact on your bottom line.  This customer went to the NW Observer paper with a 26,000 readership.

Let’s do the math on this customer loss to the bottom line:

Counting the $2 of lost profit, $268 of missed future opportunity sales and cost of negative publicity of an estimated 10 people who read the Gripe and decided to go somewhere else, the potential loss is $2950.

Don’t be too quick to judge this estimate as exaggerated either.  As U-Haul has painfully discovered, the Internet, Facebook and other social platforms are unforgiving places and store all negative customer feedback.  Google UHaul and see what comes up under mistakes as far back as 2006!

The next time you have the choice between rejecting that coupon and just accepting it, think about how much it is really costing you.

Princeton Marketing been providing marketing consulting and strategic marketing business planning, media buying and marketing communication since 1998.  ‘Managed Marketing with Measurable Results’ is our specialty.

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Almost 90% of all Internet users use search engines and the businesses that appear within the top 10 results of these searches are getting the bulk of the attention – in fact they are getting 50-70% of the business. (BizMiner 2011)  Search engine optimization and the Local Managed Business Listing service are tools that will increase your business’s ranking results, especially if used together.  But what and where you direct that traffic is equally important.  If you are not taking the time to properly link the content based on what they are searching for, you risk them bouncing to another site.  Online is all about getting the right information to the right person.  Also, make sure they are provided with content rich data to match what they are searching for or your bounce rates will increase.  This marriage of keywords to content will help convert prospects into customers.  Web site design is a factor since attractive landing pages will hold someone’s attention longer.  But if you don’t have the content to back the design, off they will go to another website that answers their search call better than yours did.

Princeton Marketing Group is a marketing Greensboro based firm that specializes in Search Engine Optimization. Please call us today to see how your site can be better found through search engines.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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