January 26th, 2011 by Borzou Azabdaftari
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Everyone likes nice things. All things being equal, most would prefer a Ferrari to a Yugo. Most would prefer a Rolex to a Timex. Most would rather safari in the Serengeti than visit the local zoo.
All things aren’t equal though. There are budgets to be considered. Values to be determined. Resources and time to be allocated. Many small- to medium-sized businesses see the money larger companies put into marketing and promotional materials and think “One day, when I have that kind of money, I’ll have items like that too.”
The truth is » Read more: An Ounce of Image is Worth a Pound of Performance
Borzou is managing partner of Falcon Printing & Copying, a full-service printing and graphic design company in Tysons Corner, VA. His company focuses on building relationships and delivering the highest quality print materials, from poster to invitations to business stationery, to their clients. Passionate about printing to a fault, Borzou eats, breathes, and sleeps paper and ink, and his rare combination of intellectual curiosity, technical savvy, creativity, and interpersonal skills have transformed him from a print service provider only into a branding consultant as well.
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January 26th, 2011 by Ken Fischer
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There are 6 easy-to-understand, often-missed opportunities that can be applied to most commercial business and many non-profits. These opportunities are “assessment” or “measurement” opportunities. Each measurement, if properly interpreted, is an opportunity to improve the last purchase or lead through your website. These opportunities are connected in the form of a traditional marketing funnel concept.
For this post, I will focus on the search engine marketing funnel, since that is one of the most important and measurable paths for online success for most businesses and non-profits. The search engine marketing funnel (for the purposes of this post) is the path from a person finding a link to your company’s website to making a purchase from your company or organization. Once you understand these opportunities to assess your search marketing effectiveness, you can start interpreting how to improve the overall effectiveness of your search marketing efforts. » Read more: 6 Missed Opportunities to Improve your Web Marketing through Better Search Marketing
Ken is the CIO at ClickforHelp.com Inc and Director of Gov20Labs.org. He focuses on connecting web efforts to organizational outcomes through measurement, metrics, findability and usability.
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January 20th, 2011 by Monika Jansen
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If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times: having a Twitter account, Facebook page, and LinkedIn profile is not enough. You need to actively use social media for your business to reap any rewards (ie, generate leads and convert leads into customers). That means you need to share interesting information with your audience.
The obvious places to start are with your blog posts and industry blog posts and articles that can affect your target market(s). Those are awesome sources of information. I like to say that if it’s useful and relevant, share it. But don’t stop there! If you want to position yourself as an expert in your industry, get creative and produce and share content that many small businesses do not. You just might just find yourself becoming a social media expert along the way. » Read more: Marketing with Social Media: 6 Quick Tips for Content Sharing
Monika, President of Jansen Communications, is a marketing communications consultant with over ten years of marketing and corporate communications experience. By writing and editing fresh and succinct copy that is aligned with an organization’s overall marketing strategy, she positions her clients as thought leaders and energizes their lead generation and nurturing programs. Her expertise includes website content, blogs, newsletters, marketing collateral (brochures, white papers, and articles), and annual reports.
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January 20th, 2011 by Ken Fischer
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If your target audience is under the age of 50, it’s time to take marketing on Facebook 
seriously. As Facebook matures, the task of using it effectively for social media marketing has grown more complex because of the number of ways in which it can be used. No matter how you use Facebook, though, you must integrate it with your overall marketing strategy, and you should also put together a social media policy and clear social media strategy. I will dive into those topics in later posts. In this post, I just want to clarify what the different basic marketing options are on Facebook, as it seems there is a lot of confusion over them.
Let’s assume you are a small business or non-profit with typical marketing needs, limited time, and a small budget. Before you begin, decide what resources (time, people, money) you are going to commit to social media. Then get started.
Ken is the CIO at ClickforHelp.com Inc and Director of Gov20Labs.org. He focuses on connecting web efforts to organizational outcomes through measurement, metrics, findability and usability.
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January 20th, 2011 by Amanda Fischer
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Most small business owners do not know where to begin the process of choosing the right customer relationship management (CRM) program for their business. If you’re like everyone else, you observe those you admire and you mirror their behavior. In the case of a CRM, you want what the big boys have. You want a technology that will last; a technology that has made successful businesses successful. But wait! CRMs are not magic. Salesforce.com did not make businesses successful; it allowed already successful businesses to become MORE successful. You cannot rely on your small business to thrive simply because you are using a CRM sanctioned by companies structured entirely different than your own. » Read more: Customer Relationship Managers: How to Choose Your CRM
Amanda has worked with over 300 companies in areas of operations, communications, public relations, sales and marketing. Her company, Grade A Marketing supports a wide variety of organizations with extensive experience in professional services, consumer products and health care. Amanda strives to unite marketing and sales goals by forming practical and purposeful plans to ultimately increase revenue.
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