Beware of Marketing Companies Making Unrealistic Promises

Marketing is a field requiring skill. It requires knowledge and savvy and other skills that not everyone has. That's why companies hire marketing companies --- to get the advantage of skills they don't have which will help them reach their goals. Sadly, too many companies are lured in by false expectations, though. Don't fall victim to this. Spot traits of marketing firms that should set off red flags for you.


Guaranteed Google Results

Be very careful about dealing with a company that promises you to rise to top spot on Google's (or MSN / Bing, Yahoo, or some other search engine) search engine results pages. Not only is it unrealistic to promise such a thing but there's no way to guarantee it. Even if you pay a heck of a lot of money and do achieve it, there are no guarantees you'll stay there. Further more, there are more important aspects of online marketing than just hitting top spot for a single phrase. Is it the right phrase? What will people find when they click on your link? Will your landing page REALLY entice them to buy?


Further more, what if the marketing companies' antics are considered grey hat or black hat? There are ways to get to the top of search engines fast but that aren't considered legal in the eyes of the search engines so your top spot could suddenly translate to being blacklisted altogether. A lot of time, effort, and investment could go down the drain.


Thousands of Visitors / Website Traffic

If you're promised a specific level of traffic to your website, you should ask the marketing company to be more specific. Not all traffic is equal. Watch for marketing companies making these promises because you'll want to know where that traffic will come from so you can determine how useful it will be to you. Expert marketing companies know how to get traffic that converts from a visitor to a buyer and that's the sort of traffic you want.


When you feel like you're being sales pitched, you probably are. Marketing companies should wow you with their results rather than just wowing you with their hype. Ask for proof, ask questions, and look for complete transparency so you can be certain you're dealing with a reputable company that uses ethical marketing techniques that will benefit your company rather than just benefiting the pockets of the company trying to "sell" you.

Got a Great Business Idea? You Need a Small Business Development Plan

You need a sound business development plan in order to bring your great ideas into fruition. A solid product or concept alone is not enough to build a small business. You need a sound plan, preparing for every contingency possible in order to develop your concept or product. Do you know what it all entails?


Defining Business Development

If your strong suit is marketing or product creation, to consider hiring a consultant for your business development needs. A business developer is quite similar to a salesperson except for the fact that a developer's goal is more long range; while in sales, the focus is on the here and now. In other words, a developer takes your potential and shapes it into a workable model that, with some actionable steps, will eventually forge new business relationships and a new marketable product or service. A salesperson sells that product or service.


What This Type of Development Entails

A business developer starts by evaluating your current ties with existing clients seeking ways to improve the relationship. Next, the developer identifies potential new markets for your business that you may not have tapped. In order to accomplish this task, all areas of your business are likely to be evaluated from sales and marketing to management, logistics and even customer service.


Competency in a variety of areas is important for consulting work as a business developer. The ability to identify and capitalise on potential growth is important. Because you are too close to the situation, you may not be the best candidate to draft a development plan. For instance, one of the areas that must be scrutinised closely is your current assets and how they can be used in the maintenance as well as expansion of your small business. A business developer is going to have years of previous experience to guide them.


Feasibility

A business development consultant will thoroughly asses your current business plan to determine whether it is even feasible to carry out your idea with the current set-up and resources you have. Sometimes, they will determine that you may require outside investors to bring your new idea or product to fruition. Or, they will create a plan for restructuring your company to accomplish your goals.


The role of a business developer can be a broad one. It may encompass all facets of the business or it may concentrate on one particular area. The fact of the matter is that you cannot bring a new product, service or idea to fruition without a solid business development plan. Hiring an outside consultant for this job can be a smart move for you as they are not invested in it and can provide an objective view.

Use an Outside Marketing Company to Help You Navigate Social Media Outlets

The 21st century has brought a rise in popularity of social media and an outside marketing company can help you plug into this new way of advertising. The internet is an integral part of marketing these days so it is important to understand your options in reaching potential customers. You need to understand how these potential customers are able to shop, research purchases and share opinions about their experiences.


A number of social media sites provide a platform for users to voice their opinions, share content, information and recommendations about their favorite products, services and more. Your job is to reach these users so that they post favorable comments and reviews about your company's products and services. This is important; because of the internet's global market presence, many people depend on these reviews to make purchase decisions.


Understanding the Power of the Internet

You, like many other businesses, are likely finally recognizing the power of these global internet customers. By instituting the right strategies for social media marketing, you can produce higher branding recognition as well as personally engage those global customers.


A marketing company can help introduce you to these social media outlets. Instead of introducing a website and hoping that customers find you, you can promote your company's products and services through these outlets to reach your target audience. You can virtually shape and define new markets through the internet and encourage valuable feedback.


Boost Internet Search Results

Taking advantage of various social media outlets boosts your company's internet presence, specifically search engines. The more information and presence you have on the internet, the more likely your company will appear high on internet search rankings. This translates to a larger global internet presence and therefore, a higher sales margin.


Create an informational page in your company's niche and post articles. Develop a blog and post regularly to create a following. Post pictures, video clips and create business pages on the top social media sites. Hire people to post reviews and positive responses on forum boards and chat rooms to increase your internet presence. All of these things can help improve your placement on the internet.


The bottom line is that in order to compete, especially on the internet, you must get on the social media bandwagon. It is the wave of the future and if you cannot ride it on your own, hiring a marketing company is the best move you can make. They can get you started and train you on maintaining your online advertising and sales momentum.

Small Business Marketing on a Shoestring Budget

Businesses need to work to get noticed by potential and existing customers, even if their business is a really small business. Waiting and hoping someone will notice you and buy from you just isn't enough. Even if you have a prime location, you can't just leave things to 'chance'. Think it's too expensive to make room for marketing initiatives in your already tight budget? Small business marketing can be done, even on a shoestring budget, especially when you use the internet to your advantage. Read on for a few of the things you can do with a small budget in terms of internet-based marketing.


Search Engine Optimisation

SEO, or search engine optimisation, doesn't cost much. A bit of effort and investment will help you get free traffic. Instead of paying for every click to your website through paid advert programmes, get listed for targeted keywords and phrases that people use to look for your product. Do this to send them to an optimised website and you can look forward to traffic streams that can result in sales both online and offline.

Search Engine Marketing

Pay per click advertising sounds expensive but if you research, prepare, and do it right, a small amount of money budgeted for PPC ads could net sales. Take half the profits from those sales and re-invest and you've turned a small investment into an income stream. Don't just jump into PPC advertising without taking the time to learn how it works. A marketing consultant could be great help in this area.


Lead Generation / Email Marketing

Are you treating every visitor to your site as a lead? Don't let that visitor leave without trying to capture their info. Consider adding an opt-in form and doing something to entice people to opt-in to receiving future contact from you. If you've optimised your site well, you should be getting the right sort of traffic and by getting info you can market to that person in the future through e-mail marketing.


The above methods are just a few of the ways you can inexpensively create a small business marketing strategy. As you see results you can increase your budget, knowing that you are likely to get great return on your investment. If you are having trouble, or doubts about, navigating the world of online advertising you can find small business consultants who can advise you and do a small campaign for you to help you gauge potential and then expand on it, should it be successful.

How a Marketing Agency Can Make More Clicks Count

Are you anxious to get more clicks on your small business website? The web can kick your sales up a notch but mere traffic won't necessarily do it alone. Do you want to make sure that those clicks count? Consider getting some help from a marketing agency that is experienced in helping you to increase your conversion rate. It takes more than website traffic to make an online business site successful.

Clicks & Conversion Rates

Clicks are good. Conversion is better. In other words, all the clicks in the world won't help your business if no one buys from you. Your internet marketing strategy should encompass more than getting traffic. It should work on getting targeted traffic and then converting them from a browser into a buyer.

Developing a Marketing Strategy

Web marketing is about more than just traffic and the right strategy can help you achieve your desired results. Most entrepreneurs and small business owners have trouble doing this on their own. Running a business is time consuming and making time for marketing isn't easy. That's where getting help from a consultant can come in and make a dramatic difference.

Marketing companies can work closely with you to develop a website marketing strategy that transforms your website from a brochure into a sales tool. They can do this through a multi-faceted approach that includes some of the following attributes:

• Analysis of your existing website (if applicable). A few tweaks and adjustments could make a difference in your search engine rankings and in how our visitors react to your content.
• Research into your market. A marketing agency will look at your industry and your competitors. Business intelligence gathered will provide valuable info that could help them help you make subtle or maybe even major changes that could boost conversion and click through rates.
• Split testing. If, for example, a website re-design is warranted, split testing may be done to analyse reactions from your visitors. When tests are conducted it can be easy to see which ad or which landing page could make more sense. Results can be evident fairly quickly, allowing you to reap benefits of that redesign quickly.
• Proven marketing techniques that insert a prospect into a sales funnel. The prospect very often exits that sales funnel as a client.

A marketing agency can look at raw data and make sense of the statistics and the graphs. Their analysis could turn that data into an action plan that reaps substantial benefits in the area of getting more traffic and converting more traffic into sales. Consider talking to a consultant to find out what they can do for your business and your online success.

Your Internet Marketing Consultant - The Key to Your Online Success?

Successful small businesses owners don't always get to the pinnacle of success on their own. In many cases, because they're a small company, they don't have the manpower that larger companies have. Many small business owners don't have the resources to increase their staff permanently and many don't always have the marketing knowledge and expertise to help themselves. A good solution is to hire contractors and consultants to help them.

One area that business owners or entrepreneurs might seek help with is with their infrastructure and their growth. A consultant could help a small company succeed in many ways. Hiring an internet marketing consultant, for example, could help you take your moderately successful business to the next level of success. If your business is failing or flailing, an expert could help you strategise and execute a plan of action to turn things in a better direction. If you're just starting out, a consultant could help you hit the ground running.

Hiring someone in a mentoring role could be just what you need. Instead of hiring a permanent employee, a consultant allows you to hire a seasoned expert either temporarily or in a specific capacity. This can be a symbiotic relationship,

Help for Start-Ups
Let's say you're just starting out. Whether you're experienced with the internet or not, getting help could be detrimental. There are many important facets to your internet marketing strategy. The consultant can help you with web design, search engine optimisation, paid advertising campaigns, gathering market intelligence, product launches, social media optimisation, reputation management, and more. They can also help you analyse your campaigns so that you can achieve optimal results and maximise our marketing budget.

Let's say you're already established but want to fix something that's broken or want to grow your business. An internet marketing consultant can help here, too. A professional can help you ascertain where improvements could be made both to your internal infrastructure as well as to your online efforts. Maybe some website tweaks, a new focus, a direct mail campaign, or another area could help you jumpstart efforts or regain lost market share.

So many different factors could be hampering your success. Maybe you know just what is standing in your way and maybe you're at a loss. In either case, an outside expert could be just what you need for perspective and for guidance on how to get from where you are to wherever it is that you want to go.

Which Steps Are Vital to Take for Internet Marketing Success?

If you want to succeed in business on the internet, marketing is vital. There are many facets to internet marketing. Which ones are the most important?

There's no right answer to that question. This is a subjective topic and because the internet is very open source, there is no right or wrong answer but here is some information from a marketing consultant about several vital steps that could help you increase your chances of online success:

Do Your Research
Before you embark on an internet marketing campaign, doing a substantial amount of research is essential. You'll want to research your market, your competition, your audience, and review information to help you define a search engine marketing and / or pay per click advertising strategy. If you can't do the research yourself either due to lack of expertise in this area or lack of cycles you could hire an internet research or consultancy firm to help you.

What's important from a research perspective? Whether you do it yourself or get some help, keyword analysis is important. Analysing your competition will help you as well. Looking at various social media strategies can provide a wealth of info and gathering general business intelligence will pay off in multiple ways --- helping you define, strategise, and execute a campaign that will work.

Analysis
After you've defined and executed your web marketing strategy, ongoing analysis will tell you what's going well and what isn't going so well. Info gathered for internet marketing campaigns can help you with improvements and can also help you fuel future campaigns as well.

Reputation and Relationship Development & Management
Work to develop a great reputation online. Establish yourself as a professional and establish your company's presence as one that believes in customer experience, value, and service.

Online success needs more that just development of a reputation and / or a brand. It also requires that you nurture relationships. Social marketing is a two way street. So is blogging. Customers are looking for value and this can help to establish trust. Nurturing online reputation and relationships can equate to trust and success in gathering subscribers and followers to your website. Those subscribers and followers could become future clients and sources of word of mouth referrals.

Again, there are many facets to internet marketing and taking a step at a time can help you success. Regardless of whether you're embarking on a campaign on your own or getting help and whether you're new to this or not, taking steps toward increasing your online presence is exciting and can pay off huge dividends.