As a Greensboro marketing firm, we also recommend that you make it easy and readily available on your site for visitors to subscribe to your blogs. You may want to provide a subscription incentive and you certainly better have your posts updated frequently. You want to offer multiple ways for people to subscribe and promote your social media outlets. Different people may like RSS feeds while others live in the world of Technorati yet others may read blogs through Facebook. Responding to their blog comments is a great way to stay interactive and keep readers coming back to your site where they will further engage with your brand. You are developing trust and credibility as you help educate visitors through your blogs.

You will have two different types of traffic that will be visiting your site and you must consider both targets as your develop and/or maintain your site. First you will have direct traffic and this is traffic where a visitor comes to your site where they are searching for something specific or a given item. In most cases, they are searching with the intent to make a purchase. Secondly you will have indirect traffic and this will generally be social in nature. They are curious about your products, services, or information and are looking for what you offer. Something intrigued them about your brand or products and you now have to give them an incentive to stick around. They did not come with the goal in mind for an immediate purchase, but could be lured by an offer of providing future sales or giveaway items.

The goal is to get both direct and indirect visitors to stick around on your site and convert them from leads into conversion sales. Keep your site clean and not to messy. Make it easy for them to get around and navigate. Offer personal touches to your site with some good about us information. Explain your unique selling point or points and provide an introduction or welcome to your visitors. Lastly, your site needs to look professional and in most cases will require a professional marketing firm or web designer. If you commit to a professional design that makes the user experience more enjoyable, the visitors will make a commitment of returning to your site and further interacting with your brand.

Princeton Marketing is a Greensboro marketing firm in North Carolina that specializes in web site optimization to help sell your products through to the targeted end user. Contact us today and we will help your business increase leads and conversions.

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You may have developed a pattern of comfort with people going to the internet and you will now have to begin developing a comfort level of people going to their smart phone or tablet instead.

Whether you are creating a Greensboro marketing experience or a marketing experience for the West Coast, you must respect the mobile consumer and fully understand that their mobile device is a shopping tool. They use the device to access product information, to acquire coupons or special offers, to compare products, to purchase goods/services and to locate your places of business.

Controlling the Mobile experience for your customers and prospects is vital to your success with the Mobile Paradigm Shift. You have to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile and tablet users and it will be an advantage for you to create an in-store experience whereby they can interact with the mobile technology. You can implement a system where bar-codes can be used to take the consumers to your mobile web-site that provides more information about each individual product. If not bar codes, then use QR codes. QR codes can also take people to a web page for more information on that product, or they can simply buy it online.

Here are some Mobile Stats that you should strongly review:

According to Studies by Google, Vibes Mobile and Alliance Data:

• More than 80% of people will always have a smart phone when shopping
• More than 87% of active shoppers own a smart phone
• More than 70% of smart phone owners have downloaded an app for a favorite store
• More than 30% of smart phone users have looked up product reviews
• More than 33% of smart phone users looked up competitors prices while in the store
• More than 55% have negative opinion of brand without mobile version of their web site
• More than 52% are less likely to engage with a company not having a mobile web site
• Almost 90% of smart phone users use their phone weekly to assist with shopping

The mistake that you definitely want to avoid is having your data not be available on the mobile site. If a message were to appear saying you needed to view the standard site on a computer populated on the screen, you will have an extremely bad experience, review, referral, and testimonial. You must ensure that all data from products/services and all points in between can be accessed from the mobile platform.

Something also recommended related to social media marketing is to provide links for consumers to share via social sites. People will have a much greater impression of your company and brand if they are provided a good mobile experience.

The goal of Princeton Marketing Group as a Greensboro marketing firm in NC is providing marketing management with measurable results. We specialize in mobile and online marketing along with traditional Greensboro marketing needs or services. Contact us today for local, regional or national marketing needs and begin developing a successful marketing strategy for your business.

The first image is courtesy of supakitmod / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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If for example you want your customers to know about a promotion you are running you might add it to your company blog, your Facebook page and Tweet about it. If you wanted to engage your customers in product inquires, then different networks have different communities and getting to know each communities audience can help you tweek the question and message. Because social media is being used in so many different ways for companies, the traditional synergy mentality does not apply. Where you might have once wanted to use your corporate colors and brand to identify your company, now you might want a subtle approach to communicate the focus on the community and not the company.

Off line traditional marketing rules are not the same for on line marketing and as we see more effects of Splinternetting, term coined by Doc Searls and Rich Tehrani, and reused by Josh Bernoff, to mean the whole framework of the Web (and Web marketing). This is based around the idea that everything is in a compatible format
and will soon be changing. This is due to iPhones, Androids, Kindles, Tablets, and TVs connecting to the Web. Due to variances in formats, your web site may not work right on these devices, especially if it includes flash or assumes mouse-based navigation. Apps that work on the iPhone don’t work on the Android. Widgets for FIOS TV don’t work anywhere else. So…design consideration and messaging needs to be carefully considered for each platform you plan to utilize. Learn more about social media positioning and marketing from Princeton Marketing Group.

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First, you will want to Evaluate Your Message. You may want to assemble a focus group and these people should not know anything about your company ahead of time. You can also simply ask people as well. Just be sure they have no knowledge about the business. You want to ask, What products or services are offered by your company. You want to ask, Why should they do business with you?  You only have about 5 seconds from the time someone lands on your page before they leave. Based upon responses, go back and re-work copy for the landing pages and consider using bullet points to convey marketing message.

Secondly, you must Find Out Why People Should Buy from You and include at least one USP on the landing pages. Repeat this information throughout the landing page content. Don’t assume that people know what you are about. Take Zappos.com for example. They repeat Free Shipping and Free Returns in many ways on their pages. You may want to create a graphic element for your landing page or create a banner for this content.

Thirdly, you will want to Create a Methodical Approach in Your Sales Strategy. Get name, number, and e-mail to start with and then nurture relationship via phone or further e-mails. Building rapport will be extremely important, especially with higher priced items and with B2B prospects. You have to build the relationship before you go in and ask for the sale. I don’t think you would propose to someone on the first date. Create a process or a system and allow time for the relationship to form and keep building value and trust.

Fourthly, you will need to Test Your Text. When people buy, they are buying from either fear, pride or ego. You will want to vary your word choice to determine what appeals to your audience more favorably. Use similar paragraph structure and change some sentences for various appeal to different users. Be sure to use upbeat or exciting terminology and not mundane or bland wording. Get information from your reviews and see what excites your customers.

Fifthly, you will want to Use Credibility Factors. You can use testimonials, awards, reviews, social metrics like FB fans, tweets, followers, and especially seller ratings from a Google, Amazon, Bizrate or other trusted rating source. You will want to re-emphasize your value proposition or USP with the these sources.

Lastly, you will want to Minimize Page Clutter. You will want to remove certain page elements that do not relate to goal #1 for the conversion. You can remove links to other content and newsletter sign-ups, and navigation on a page and get them to complete your desired conversion on that page. You don’t want the visitor to be distracted because clean will convert better than clutter. KISS….Keep It Simple Stupid is the best method for your page content to obtain higher conversion rates.

The goal of Princeton Marketing Group as a Greensboro marketing firm in NC is providing marketing management with measurable results. We specialize in mobile and online marketing along with traditional Greensboro marketing needs or services. Contact us today for local, regional or national marketing needs and begin developing a successful marketing strategy for your business.

The first image is courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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For example, I dropped into a business the other day with cash in hand ready to buy. I was curtly informed that without a reservation to participate I could not buy. Understood. However this is where the ball was dropped and dropped hard. The staff member did not ask if I wanted to purchase the pre-packaged items nor did she try to schedule me for a future appointment. I was not provided a brochure or additional information. Based on the experience with that staff member I might not have ever returned.

Thankfully for them they had done some excellent marketing and advertising in the past that portrayed them as being professional and welcoming. I shook off this experience and credited the non-caring staff member for the problem. I returned and my experience was excellent. This story ended well for them and for me but did they loose other potential customers from lack of enthusiasm or a sound sales strategy?

Another case in point, a manufacturer had been feeding leads to their distributors only to just discover that none of the leads had been contacted. This had been going on for over the last 12 months and hundreds of leads had been lost to competitors.

Go through your sales cycle process now. Be aware of how your staff is handling prospects and explore any possible break downs to uncover the challenges while finding solutions to problems. When a break down is discovered restructure the procedures and repair it. No one’s sales cycle is perfect but during these difficult times less must be converted to move to survive.

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At least 80% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The idea of optimizing your pages for high Search Engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more likely to make a purchase or provide you with information to contact them.

The higher your page comes up in Search Engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That’s what Search Engine optimization is about. In an example with our company, marketing Greensboro is a term that we optimize and when you search Google, the term marketing Greensboro will populate our company as the first organic listing below the paid ads.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you may be able to look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your homepage. The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase Search Engine rankings, the words on your homepage’s title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name. Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.

The next item to review is website content. Search Engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than cool graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords – words that potential customers will type in Search Engines to find your site. Plan to have approximately 250 words on each page if design allows or at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on Search Engines, this text is essential. However, Search Engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not a graphic image format. To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you can do this, the text is HTML. If the text doesn’t highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, web changes into HTML format will help increase your Search Engine rankings. For example, the words Marketing Consultant must actually be eligible to be read by the search engines.

Next we come to what is called META tags. No, this is not science fiction terminology. It is just a simple code. Many people believe that META tags are the key to high Search Engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it’s worth adding them in the event that a Search Engine will use META tags in their ranking formula.  To find out if your page is set up with META tags, you must access the code. To do this, click the “view” button on the browser menu bar, and select “source.” This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are META tags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a META tag would read: META name=”keywords” content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, web changes to add the code may provide a little ranking boost.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of Search Engine rankings. Almost all Search Engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page. If you type in “free link popularity check” in a popular Search Engine, the Search Engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren’t many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low Search Engine rankings, consider launching a link building campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your Search Engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.

Search Engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. You may be able to perform some of the listed steps above or you may need to contact a search engine optimization specialist like Princeton marketing Group.

The goal of Princeton Marketing Group as a Greensboro, NC marketing firm is providing marketing management with measurable results. We specialize in mobile and online marketing along with traditional marketing Greensboro needs or services. Contact us today for local, regional or national marketing needs and begin developing a successful keyword ranking strategy for your business.

The first image is courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net The second image is courtesy of phanlop88/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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