Radiance Road Marketing Blog

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I get alot of questions about using social media these days – Facebook, Twitter and the like. The biggest mistake is talking about yourself, as this article describes. If you want to use social media, make it an effective part of your marketing plan. Learn, plan, apply, test and evaluate like any other marketing activity.

I’ve been reading Joan Stewart a.k.a. The Publicity Hound and her newsletter ever since she started it years ago. She offers great practical advice for small business owners seeking publicity and has grown along with the internet. Her weekly newsletter is free and the credit at the end of the article directs you to her site and blog. She is a “10″ in my book!

This is from the Nov. 24th newsletter:

1. Stop Talking About Yourself
====================================

If social media were a cocktail party, many of us would be heading
for home by 8:30.

That’s because everybody seems to be talking about themselves:

“I’m standing in line at Starbucks.”

“I’m starting my day with a hot bowl of oatmeal.”

“I just dropped my kids off at school. It’s pouring rain!”

Chris Brogan, who is arguably one of the top social media experts
in the world and whose blog has been ranked Number 1 by Advertising
Age magazine, says we should be spending 12 times as much time
talking about other people as we do about ourselves.

He spoke last week at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City. A
10-minute snippet of his presentation at
http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=L69A3&m=1fFHyyzuPTtYrK&b=rXjHm_9biQkYkibc9qCmmQ may be one of the most valuable
videos you’ll watch all year. His tips:

–If you’re not spending time using http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=L69A3&m=1fFHyyzuPTtYrK&b=DIWrIzToQ2CJjZ29Dg9vGA
or the search part of your social media application, you’re missing
one of the best opportunities that social media offers. That’s
because you can search for people who are talking about specific
topics. Following conversations is often more valuable than
following people.

–We should be listening far more than worrying about what to say.

–When we share helpful tips and information from other people,
that makes us more valuable to the people who follow us. Eighty
percent of his Twitter posts are responses to things other people
have tweeted.

–No continual “barking” (his words, not mine) about your products.

–The difference between an audience and a community is the way you
turn the chairs.

As you watch the video, notice the tweets that show up on the
screen behind him. Many of them are from audience members who are
tweeting about his presentation. They’re using the hashtag #w2e in
their tweets. That makes it easy for anyone searching for
information about the conference to find it at
http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=L69A3&m=1fFHyyzuPTtYrK&b=DIWrIzToQ2CJjZ29Dg9vGA

Read more about how to use hashtags for publicity at my blog at
http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=L69A3&m=1fFHyyzuPTtYrK&b=0PwgI_bFrIaM.twXKwq_KQ

and don’t forget to add your thoughts with a comment below!

Reprinted from “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” an ezine
featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity.
Subscribe at http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=L69A3&m=1fFHyyzuPTtYrK&b=doEjuk786e1sxsrpJjUJQA and receive by email
the handy cheat sheet “89 Reasons to Send a Press Release.”

New Feature Article on Lakeland Internet Marketing

By Jack Duncan, internet marketing consultant, Radiance Road Marketing, Lakeland, FL

The successful business in your market continues to take advantage of opportunities to seize more of your potential customers and a larger portion of those customers’ wallets. They are watching their profits grow while having more time to enjoy life’s bounty. Meanwhile, your business struggles to maintain cash-flow to keep afloat. Why?

There are two basic reasons…

continue reading

Read More Marketing Articles at: http://www.radianceroadmarketing.com/articles.html

New Feature Article on Lakeland Internet Marketing

Search Engine Marketing Helps Generate Traffic

By Jack Duncan, Internet Marketing Consultant, Radiance Road Marketing, Lakeland, FL

If you website is not getting the results you want, there are reasons. Internet marketing is no great mystery. The biggest reason your website is not generating leads is because your prospective customers aren’t seeing your site listing when they use search engines.

Are the Major Search Engines Indexing Your Web Site?

This is easy to check. Simply go to Google, Yahoo or Bing! and search. Start your search with your company name and see if your site pops up. Try putting your company name in quotes (for example, “Radiance Road Marketing”). This would eliminate all the chaff, such as listings where the terms ‘radiance’, ‘road’ and ‘marketing’ might turn up out of context. You can also add your location by… continue reading

Read More Marketing Articles at: http://www.radianceroadmarketing.com/articles.html

Professionals develop business plans so they can grow their business in a logical and methodical manner. Part of the planning process includes marketing. Knowing what to do and prioritizing your marketing activities are vital to your company’s long-term success.

An effective marketing plan will certainly boost your sales and increase your profit margins, which is the goal of every business owner. Professionals know that planning is crucial to business success. A good, solid plan will also help you avoid headaches and indecision along the way.  Most importantly, it will help you to discover your best opportunities for success. It is a milepost down the road to success and, as such, care and time should be put into its development.

You must be able to convince customers that you have the best product or service for them at the best possible price. If you cannot convince potential customers of this, then you are wasting your time and money. This is where the marketing plan comes into play, and this is why it is so important.

There are numerous advantages you can extract from the marketplace if you know how. And the marketing plan is an excellent tool for identifying and developing strategies for extracting these advantages.

A few of the advantages are outlined below. Your marketing plan:

1. identifies needs and wants of consumers

2. determines demand for product or service

3. aids in design of products/services that fulfill consumers needs

4. outlines measures for generating the cash for daily operation, to repay debts and to turn a profit

5. identifies competitors and analyzes your firm’s competitive advantage

5. identifies new product/service areas

6. identifies new and/or potential customers

7. allows for testing to see if strategies are giving the desired results

Some of the disadvantages of the marketing plan are:

1. identifies weaknesses in your business skills

2. leads to faulty marketing decisions based on improperly analyzed data

3. creates unrealistic financial projections if information is interpreted incorrectly

4. identifies weaknesses in your overall business plan

The marketing plan offers numerous advantages; however, as you can see, there can be drawbacks. Remember, however, the advantages outweigh the drawbacks, so seek professional assistance when you are developing the marketing section of your business plan. It will be worth your investment.

Or FIVE MYTHS About Marketing Online

Lakeland businesses, like small businesses in towns all across the globe today, want to grow and make more money. As a small business owner, the internet provides a great opportunity to get your marketing message to your target market. However, there are some misconceptions about marketing online that may be keeping you from getting the results you want.

1. Build Your Website & They Will Come. If you’ve setup a website expecting visitors to flock to it just because it’s there, you’re probably disappointed in the results. You may have paid a website design company to build a site for you and it looks great. But how do people find it? Are you indexed in the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new BING? Why should they come? These are the major questions facing any small business owner here in Lakeland who wants to generate leads on the web.
2. A Web Site is An Online Brochure. Many owners simply put up a list of what they do and expect a visitor to be impressed. Many Lakeland plumbers, for instance, say that they fix a leak in a faucet or do toilet repair or install septic tanks. But WHY should they choose YOU over every plumber in Polk County that does the dame thing? What makes your plumbing company different? How do you benefit the customers more than any other plumber?
3. If I Submit To Search Engines, Customers Will Find My Business. Getting found by the three major search engines is important. However, it’s where you rank that makes a difference. If you aren’t in the top ten results for the term “Lakeland plumbing company,” prospects won’t be visiting your site. As a matter of fact, you are more likely to get customers if you are one of the top three sites (among other things). Search Engine Marketing is a complex process that requires more than indexing.
4. The Secret to Getting Customers Online Is…. There’s no secret. There is a PROCESS. It’s not easy and it’s not simple and it’s not over-night. Like anything else worthwhile, it takes time and effort and a proven method. First of all, it’s really like any other form of marketing. It requires a marketing plan. You have to use the basics of marketing and apply them first, then add the internet marketing techniques that work. There are a thousand books on internet marketing and all the good ones say the same things as the marketing textbooks: target your market, create a powerful marketing message, deliver the message to your prospects and motivate them to take action. It doesn’t matter if you are a plumber or plastic surgeon or a dentist or an air conditioning repair company – it works the same way. There is no magic software to get you to the top and keep you there.
5. Once You Set It – You Can Forget It. OK, internet marketing is not the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie, but you use the same basic techniques as Ron Popeil to market your business. Did Ronco make one commercial and play it once? Hardly. It takes an ongoing effort. Repetition works in marketing. Think of all the hugely successful marketing campaigns. They repeat the same message over different channels consistently over time. Marketing research shows that your customer, on average, needs to hear your message at least seven times for it to even make an impression. The internet, especially, is competitive. You can be at the top of Google one day and not there at all the next.

Don’t get fooled by companies that promise you a magic bullet to make your internet marketing successful. Many companies waste their time and resources by not having a solid internet marketing plan. They fall prey to gimmicks and scams and get-rich-quick schemes. If you don’t know how to market online, get some reliable information and maybe some help from a professional internet marketing company you can trust. Avoid the outrageous claims – like guarantees to get you to the top of Google. The only guarantee is that if you do the right things in marketing, the right way, consistently, you will become a competitor in the online marketplace.

Lakeland Internet Marketing Read More Marketing Articles

Does Internet Marketing work for your business?

Looking around the wild world web, I see countless stories about internet marketing. Most give generalities about how cost-effective it is and that you need to be doing it. Some, especially in the trade magazines online, give actual success stories of positive results from online marketing efforts.

I recently was doing some research on the remodeling industry and the effects of internet marketing to write an article. Two stories caught my attention in Remodeling magazine. One talked about how a construction company doubled the number of leads from its website over the last year and how marketing online is more cost-effective than traditional methods. The other company invested $12,000 and is now getting more business from its website than from past customers or referrals (their former leading sources).

These successes don’t happen overnight or without a focused effort and a willingness to invest. Certainly more companies are taking advantage of new technologies today and reaping the rewards. Some of them, like the ones above, have taken advantage of the current situation to GROW.

Lakeland businesses are my concern. As you know, a lot of local companies are struggling right now. They are laying off employees because of a lack of work. Undoubtedly, there is less work because of the economy. However, it also means that you have to get aggressive in your marketing to get the work that’s out there. Unemployment is bad for all of us here in Lakeland. It affects every business, consumer and organization in Polk County and throughout Florida. What can we do?

Working smarter has always been the answer. It was in the last challenging economy and it will help us now. However, the technology continues to change and the shift has left many local companies at a huge disadvantage. Today, more consumers rely on the internet for information. Has your website changed? Can your prospects FIND you online? Are you using social media? What about email newsletters? What are you doing to gain a competitive advantage online?

I’d really like to hear from some local businesses and the projects that are working – or not working – for YOU. You can reply here or give me a call at 863 668-1086.

You can also read my article mentioned above Internet Marketing Creates Opportunity for Lakeland Businesses

Thanks,

Jack Duncan

Radiance Road Marketing

Lakeland Internet Marketing