online marketing

How Would BtoB Service Oriented Businesses Market Their Services Online?

Business to Business (B2B) service oriented businesses tend to have different marketing needs compared to (Business to Consumer) B2C and product oriented companies.  As a result, their online marketing efforts take on a slightly different focus than the other type of businesses.  So how would a B2B business approach online marketing online?  Below lists a few different area on how a service oriented business would focus their online marketing efforts to get the most return on investment.

 

1) SEO – Search Engine Optimization

This is still a very effective method to get more exposure for and traffic to your website therefore generating more leads for your business.  Ranking for specific keywords is powerful because you are able to specifically target your marketing based on the keywords people use to find your services.  If they come to your website from the search engines using your targeted keywords, you can be certain they are interested in your services.  Once they get to your website however, you still have to convert the visitors into leads and customers.  There are many web conversion tactics that are outside the scope of this article that you can engage in which will increase your percentage of ‘converted’ visitors on your website.

 

2) Social Media

Social media is a very powerful way of connecting with your target market.  For B2B businesses, it is very imperative to know which networks will work best for your because not all networks are the same.  In my experience, I have found that while Facebook can be a great resource for generating leads, it depends upon the type of business you have and who your target audience is.  For more BtoB service oriented businesses, LinkedIn is usually a better solution because […]

5 Things You Can Do To Increase The Local Traffic To Your Website

I get questions all the time related to getting more traffic to your website.  However, the key isn’t getting more traffic, it’s getting the RIGHT kind of traffic.  For businesses who depend on local traffic, online marketing is still effective if done correctly.  A business owner must have a unified online strategy to be able to take advantage of all the different marketing venues from social media to strategic blogging and everything in between.  So what are some things that you can do that will increase the traffic to your website as well as allow each marketing activity to build upon the other?

All of the methods I mention below will assume and take into account that you have already done appropriate keyword research and know how your target market uses the search engines to find you and your products/services.

Here are 5 things you can do that will increase the local traffic to your website:

1) Submit your website to the Google Places.

Google places is a feature of the Google platform that allows local businesses to place themselves on the maps that you see presented in the search engine results that show you where the local business are.  This service is free and just requires you to enter the information.  Make sure that when you do enter the information, all of your information is current and you are using the researched keywords in your places title (the one that makes the most sense to use in relating to your business) and fill out as much of the information as makes sense on the form.  On a side note, put a picture on your website of your business and in the alt tag of the picture, put […]

Online Business Strategy – the Top 3 Things You Need to Know to Lock in Online Success

Creating success online is like creating success in any other endeavor in life.  You first will need a roadmap of where to go and what to do at each step of the way.  There are so many tactics and techniques out there that anyone can get confused and overwhelmed about what they can do to create ultimate success for their own business and online presence.

What most website owners don’t realize is that many of these courses available about how to be successful online cover some great information, yet they only cover that one small topic, and not necessarily how it fits into the whole.  For instance, there might be a course on how to set up your website to be on autopilot in creating residual revenue through Clickbank, and the ideas are very sound, yet they don’t talk about how  to send the traffic to your website to make the sales, or how to determine which kind of traffic is best to send.

Understanding your overall online strategy first before you either hire out someone to implement part or all of it for you, or end up taking the training you need to be able to do it yourself will give you the edge because you will know what kind of training you need, what the courses must cover to know if the will be helpful or not, and the ability to immediately implement what you have learned in the courses.

So the top 3 things you would need to know that will set the right foundation for your web strategy include:

  1. Who is your target market?  – This is absolutely crucial because this will determine how you need to communicate to your visitor, where your website […]

Online Marketing Plan Analysis Strategies – Internet Business Strategies Show

This information packed show covered some very important topics on the whole line of creating an online strategy plan and the importance of that plan.  If you want your website to generate new business or revenue for you, you have to approach your web presence as a business in itself.  On this show we covered some of the basic things that business owners need to do in order to create a profitable web presence.  Our guest on the show today was Keo Frazier of Keos Marketing Group.

Show Special:

Anyone who mentions the show will receive a free 45 minute consulting session with her.

During our show, we covered the answers to the following questions listed  below.  You will want to hear the answers to these as you will be able to take something from them and use them to enhance your own online presence.

Question 1:    What is online marketing?
Question 2:    What is the difference between search engine marketing and search engine optimization (SEM and SEO)?
Question 3:    Is email marketing still effective?
Question 4:    What are some important things for website usability?
Question 5:    How does one get their website placed in search engine searches (called page rank)?
Question 6:    How important is social media for business?
Question 7:    What can you say about infusing business with personal when it comes to social media and online profiles?
Question 8:    Where does traditional media, such as print and outdoor media, stand in today’s market?
Question 9:    is it better to do flyers for events?

Announcements:

Webinar on how to use networking to grow your client base, and how to incorporate social networking into your overall networking strategy  – November 11th. – Business networking.

Online and Offline Marketing – Internet Business Strategies Radio Show

In our radio show titled “Integrating Online and Offline Marketing”  we had a guest who is very knowledgeable in how to integrate the two and how to get the most bang for your buck.  She is Dana Jessup from Ariete Consulting and  for some background info:

Dana Jessup has been a small business owner for over 12 years and knows what it takes to develop marketing on a shoestring budget.  She has also worked in the marketing departments of large corporations, developing and implementing high budget marketing plans.  This unique perspective allows her to provide Ariete’s clients with effective marketing ideas that they can implement and track themselves.  She partnered with Alexis Gradishar and formed Ariete Consulting in order to give small businesses the advantages of large coporate marketing strategies at affordable prices.

The questions we covered on the show are:

1. What are the benefits of online marketing?
2. What are the shortcomings of online marketing?
3. What are the benefits of offline marketing?
4. What are the shortcomings of offline marketing?
5. How do you effectively combine the two?

6. How do you track your success?
7. What do you need to prepare before you begin any kind of marketing?
8. Why should you choose a target market?

We got into so much detail in answering these questions, that there were still 2 other questions that we didn’t have the time to answer.

Listen in on this show.  I especially liked our conversation about target markets, and the importance of how to choose one.

Dana also gives a free marketing assessment where she will go over just where you are in your marketing and what you are lacking in.  It is a great picture to see where you are on the map so […]

Internet Partnerships – Online Cross-Promotion

In this show, I discuss the different methods in which you can find partners to cross-promote your website an thus your products and services. I talk about how to find these partners, what to look for and how to approach some of these potential partners with the idea of cross promoting. Listen in to the show for the whole enchilada!