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Upcoming Business Series Announcement

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

More and more businesses are getting online every day. Most of these businesses are doing so only because ‘everyone else is’.  This sense of urgency is good, but needs a foundation.  There’s nothing worse than a business that has a website simply because their competition does.  Online strategy should be learned, discussed and acted upon in order to succeed.

As many of you know, I’m the moving force behind Market Saint Louis, a twice-a-year business conference that focuses on teaching local St Louis businesses the ways of online optimization, advertising and more.  Speakers from around the country fly in to share their expertise on various subjects, from SEO to Pay per Click and Analytics.  2010 is going to be even bigger, with the conferences featuring two separate tracks – one for beginners and one for businesses that are already in the game to some level.

The event isn’t cheap (although the pre-agenda tickets aren’t very expensive) and some small businesses may have a hard time shelling out several hundred dollars in this economy just to learn how to spend more time and money on the Internet.  But it’s crucial for every business to be online now.

To help quell the fears of those business owners, I’ve partnered up with the Jefferson County Library to teach a series of free classes (yes, I said free) on Online Marketing, Social Media and more.  This series of classes will run January through March, and will be very limited both in amount as well as seating.

If you’re wondering just how your competition gets their website to the top of Google searches for items you sell, you’ll learn. If you know your business needs to be on Twitter or Facebook, but you don’t know how to use these tools, you’ll learn.  And if you want to grow your online sales, you’ll learn.

Scheduled Dates

Twitter Basics and Tips

Jan 14 – 9:30AM to Noon or March 4 – 6:00PM to 8:30PM
Learn how to set up a Twitter account and how to ‘tweet’.  You’ll learn about some great tools that will help you get more followers, find great information about your interests, and how to utilize some ‘behind the scenes’ tricks to get the most out of your new account.

Marketing Your Business Website

Feb 4 – 9:30 AM to Noon  or Mar 25 – 6:00PM to 8:30PM
Do you wonder why your website isn’t listed on Yahoo! or other search engines? Are you clueless about search marketing techniques that can draw customers to your site? We will cover topics such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), online advertising tips and avenues, along with ways to increase your website traffic along with other offline marketing ideas.

Social Media for Business – Leverage Community to Build Your Brand

Feb 11 – 6:00PM to 8:30PM
Learn how to leverage blogging, video and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to grow your business.

Download the flyer / schedule

Sign Up Now

All classes have very limited seating and will be at the Arnold branch of the Jefferson County Library.  To sign up, call 636-296-5171.

These will be the only classes offered this Spring.  For more information on the upcoming Market Saint Louis conference (and to get the cheap ticket price) visit MarketSTL.com

Posted in Marketing, Saint Louis, conferences, free stuff, local marketing, small business, social media | 4 Responses »
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What You Can Learn from Presidential Tweets

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Today I stumbled across a great article from the NY Times about one of our great past presidents using Twitter.  Go ahead, read it, I’ll wait.

Pretty cool, huh?

Several things are going on here, which I think you can use for your business.

Niche it, Baby

I’ve never heard of the JQA diaries until today, and most likely neither have you.  Thanks to some graduate student for mentioning that it looked like a Twitter feed, another person for acting on that observation, a Historical Society with a look-forward approach  (and a NY Times writer), now you have.  As of today, this account now has over 6000 followers. This little niche of history buffs is just the audience that the Massachesetts Historical Society wants, and they’ve found a way to “promote their wares” via Twitter.

Lesson: Find a topic that interests people.  Provide updates on a consistent basis, and you’ve got an immediate audience.  People will tell others, and in no time you’ll have a nice following of warm leads.

The Old is New

While reading a 200 year old diary isn’t exactly exciting to everyone, it is to some.  And that “some” is very interested in what is said by the account holder.  Old news is in demand, and over 6000 people are eagerly awaiting the next tweet, whether it’s about rough seas or card playing.

Lesson: Take information in your industry that you think everyone knows, and post about it.  Or blog about it.  You’ll increase your followers, RSS subscriptions, and website traffic because no one else is doing it.

Be Afraid Aware, Very Aware

Every day we are exposed to mundane and boring things in our industry.  We see them all the time, and pay no attention or give no second thought to them.  But smart business owners are taking those simple things and writing about them.  They are showing the behind-the-scenes to their business, or posting updates to their ‘boring’ day and people are interested.

For instance, I have a customer that sells memory foam mattresses.  One day I was at Target returning an item.  In front of me was a lady who was returning one of those mattress-topper memory foam things.  You roll them out on your mattress and they supposedly make it more comfortable to sleep on.  Well, I listened to her go on about how lumpy it made her bed, how it didn’t help her sleep, etc. so I mentioned it to my client.  He wrote up a blog post about these toppers (and their problems), and today it is one of his most popular posts ever.

Lesson: Watch what’s going on around you daily.  What things do you take for granted that your audience might find really useful?  Do you do something to each of your products to make it unique? Do you meet interesting people in your industry that others may find interesting as well?

Integration

The JQA diary posts also integrate with maps, making it even more interesting.  Even though the voyage took place  200 years ago, you can follow along today as if it were happening in real time.  You can see where in the ocean JQA is, and experience just what he was.

Lance Armstrong is a great user of integration, often posting his ‘view from the office’ pictures on TwitPic.  Bicyclers, cancer survivors and just fans love these updates.  They are interesting to his readers, and it helps him increase and identify his brand.

Lesson: Use technology to show what you do and who you are.  Become a real face to an otherwise faceless business identity.

You can learn a lot from a president that sailed the seas 200 years ago.  And you can take those things, along with the actions of some smart people, and apply them to your business.  How are you using similar tactics and posts to increase your business?

Posted in Marketing, blogging, niches, social media, traffic | No Responses »
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Your Geeky Friends are Probably Getting It Cheaper

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Everyone loves saving money. Whether you’re blue collar, white collar, or even if your last name is Trump, you still like taking advantage of any opportunity to keep a few more bucks in your pocket.

Getting A Good Deal

Back in the day, (and still today, actually) coupon clipping was a great way to save money. I can remember my mom buying the Sunday paper simply to get the coupons.  She’d go through them, cut out the ones she wanted to use, and then wait for a double coupon day at the local grocery mart.

Today we’ve got so much information to sift through, it’s hard to keep up.  But thanks to social media websites like Twitter, (can Twitter really be called a ‘website’? It’s more of a tool) the ability to watch some of your favorite brands has become easier.  Getting information and savings is at your fingertips. Click to continue »

Posted in money, social media | No Responses »
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You’re Doing it Wrong

Friday, April 24th, 2009

lolcats funny cat pictures

“Know your enemy” – Sun Tzu in The Art of War

If you use Twitter to promote your business (and you should), you are already ahead of most businesses in your industry.  Twitter is a great tool, if you can leverage it correctly.  Unfortunately, I see a lot of businesses using Twitter in ways that, while they think helps them, it’s actually hurting them.

Screwup#1: Missing Traffic Opportunities

If you’ve attended any of my seminars, you know that I’ve said blogging is by far one of the best ways to build your brand, promote your business, and increase your landing page count.  Providing quality information that people are ready to consume will automatically put you in an authoritative position in their mind.  You become the subject matter expert.

So when I see a business post a tweet that is informational about your industry, without a link back to your article, I hang my head in disgust.  Here you have a great piece of information, like a celebrity that uses your product, but you don’t link it anywhere.  You missed the target!

The real enemy here is simply missed traffic.  Twitter gets insane amounts of traffic. Ultimately, traffic back to your website means branding, which leads to sales; and that’s what we’re after.  Even if someone doesn’t need your product today, when they do need it, you want to have your logo/biz name pre-planted in their head.

It’s not enough to put posts on Twitter about interesting things.  Take all those interesting things that you find out and write a blog post about them.  Expand on them, add some great information about why this info is great, and provide it all in a way that is purely educational and not sales-y.

People aren’t stupid. If you’re talking about how blue widgets can kill mosquitos, and they happen to have a mosquito problem, they’re smart enough to click over to your blue widget page and buy.

As I hear all the time when my kids are playing Call of Duty 5, The Enemy has Taken Your Flag!  Don’t let twitter take your flag (traffic) and keep it.  You’re posting the information to help people, right? So make sure the traffic that your Twitter feed is seeing gets to your website.  Don’t drop the ball.

Screwup #2 – Posting Half of a Good Deal

Many business people understand that there’s an advantage to Twitter.  They’ve got the understanding that most people are following you because they’re interested in what you have to say/sell.  You’ve got your target audience in your hands, and they patiently await to be persuaded to buy.

So when you want to offer a deal to people because you’re nice, or because they are raving about your product, don’t post a message telling them that “for a good deal”, they need to contact you.

Why? Well, let’s go back to your audience. Many of these people are interested in what you have to say/sell, right? But they are probably passively interested.  Meaning, they aren’t interested in putting a lot of time into you (along with the thousands of other businesses clammoring for their attention).  So posting a message saying that in order to save they have to contact you, you may have just lost a sale.

Why not just post the coupon online for all to see?  The more your of your audience that sees it, the more sales you’ll get, right?

Screwup #3 – Dumping Your Followers to Competitors

While this one isn’t as big of a no-no as the others, it’s still one that makes me scratch my head when I see it.

You find a great article on something in your industry.  It’s written by a well known competitor, and (unfortunatly) you agree with what they’ve posted.  Or maybe you don’t. Either way, don’t go twitter-crazy and immediately post a link to the guy’s article, especially if you disagree.

If you agree with what was said, consider rewriting the article as your own content (careful here… you don’t want to be accused of plagiarizing or called a Johnny-come-lately) or post something on your site about how your business agrees with what was said on such and such’s site.

If you disagree, you’ve got all kinds of firepower to write up a great blog post.  Inform your readers by (politely) showing how your competitor is wrong, and how your company would do the project right.

In Saint Louis MO? Learn more about Internet Marketing at the Look at Me Seminar in June.

Posted in Marketing, traffic, twitter | 1 Response »
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