Today, I attended my first Lakeland Area Chamber of Commerce Schmooze a’Palooza and I am so glad I did! This “power networking” event, held at Florida Southern College in the Eleanor Searle Drawing Room, brought together about 50 of Lakeland’s shakers and movers to promote our businesses – to “sell the sizzle” – and enjoy lunch together.

We gathered in the elegant drawing room on the architecturally-awesome FSC campus about 11:30 this morning where a buffet of salad, grilled chicken, roast beef, pasta and steamed veggies awaited us. I started building my power for the event with some cheese and crackers while meeting some of my fellow Lakeland Chamber members and staff – many for the first time since I am a fairly new member. The Chamber of Commerce’s Vice-president for Membership Development Terry Ottinger and Communications VP Aaron Bates, along with our host – Account Executive Amy Wiggins (reach her at 688-8551 ext. 229) – greeted me and made me feel right at home.

Jessica Gutowski, standing-in for AllSolar’s Dillon Daniels, joined me at my table since we already knew each other from another event. Jessica is a real talented, young up-and-comer in the Lakeland biz world – a recent FSC Public Relations grad working on the Gow Field campaign for mayor.  Sitting to my right was Adam Baust of the Welborn Companies’ Adminstrative Service Offerings, who is opening a new branch here in Lakeland to help local businesses with their accounting, payroll and tax matters. Keiser University‘s Director of Student Services Ryan Reis joined us, as well, and we got got to talk about helping students develop practical business experience through intership and portfolio development with Lakeland companies. I taught at [then] Keiser College in Melbourne, FL and am really excited about mentoring local students. After a nice lunch to power-up for our presentations, the ever-effervescent Amy Wiggins got things sizzling.

At the Schooze a’ Palooza, each attendee gets to stand up and give a 30-second “elevator-pitch” for their business to the crowd. It’s a great way to hone your presentation skills! I enjoyed watching my fellow Chamber members give their pitches. The event gave me a chance to hear local enterprises’ marketing messages and get to know some of the people that are active in the business community. Its a real whirl to go through almost 50 marketing pitches in less than an hour and ‘where the rubber meets the raod’ in marketing. In the marketing world, you are competing against so many messages for attention and to gain interest in about half a minute. YOU GOTTA MAKE IT SIZZLE!

As a local internet marketing consultant, I analyze marketing messages for a living. As a prospective consumer, I want to know what’s in it for me as quickly as possible. This was a wonderful way to take a look at what I do – and how I present my business to prospects. After all, my job is to get your BEST prospects to visit your website and BUY your products and services. I better be able to deliver a clear, compelling message myself!

I recommend that local business join the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce for opportunities like this. If you are a member, I recommend attending the next Schmooze a’ Palooza. In the meantime, if you’d like a few tips you can use to develop or hone your 30-second elevator pitch email me and I’ll get those out to you. It really is a vital skill for anyone who needs to explain what your business does. I’ll be working on my elevator pitch to make the best impression – to make it sizzle – at ALL of the events and encounters here in Lakeland this year.

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

When blogging first came on the scene, I asked myself: “Self, this blog stuff is cool, but what’s the point?”

It really took me awhile to come up with an answer. As a marketing, advertising and public relations consultant, I had generally gone with traditional media and even websites didn’t make a lot of sense for most businesses until the new millennium. With the growth of the internet and the adoption of web searches for local business information, more and more revenue was being generated. Blogging has turned the same corner and offered some serious advantages for internet marketing.

Let me just clarify the difference between advertising and PR. Advertising is paid placement of a marketing message. In public relations, you don’t pay for the placement. PR is not ‘free”, because there are costs to running a PR campaign. However, public relations campaigns are a different means to getting people to notice what you do and understand the advantages of your business. Blogs are PR tools to create awareness and interest in your company. Done right, public relations does generate leads and those leads can be converted into sales.

Blogging leverages your reach with minimal additional cost. Since you don’t add much overhead, most of the revenue from those leads goes straight to your bottom line. And that’s what business is about: increasing your profits.

Blogging has the following advantages:

1. ENGAGES YOUR PROSPECTS – Since blogs, unlike websites, are truly interactive, you potential clients can get involved in the dialog.
2. COMMUNICATES DIRECTLY AND INDIRECTLY – You can speak one-on-one with you potential customer and let others listen in to your conversation.
3. PROVIDES RAPID FEEDBACK – Your prospects can post messages that are seen immediately and you can respond quickly. How often do you update your website? Your blog gets updated in real time. Sooooo much more effective!
4. CREATES COMMUNITY – With a blog, you see and hear the participants and it allows you to have a gathering place for people with the same interests. People enjoy being ‘a part of’ rather than ‘apart from’. We are truly social animals by nature and gravitate to crowds.

The point is that blogging is a highly effective way to generate buzz and you can convert that interest into sales that maximize your profits. The proof is in the results. Large corporations like Disney, Microsoft and IBM are all increasing their bottom-line through their blogs. Now, small, local services companies like remodelers, plumbers, dentists and attorneys are catching on and seeing conversions to sales from their blog sites.

What about Lakeland businesses? I don’t see many getting involved yet. We do suffer a bit from the lag we usually see in trends trickling down to local business. Those businesses in Lakeland that become early adopters of technology usually benefit the most over the long-term. It’s alot harder to play catch-up. Fortunately, blogs are new enough that local companies can enter the race now and get great results. There are real low barriers to entry – it’s simple, straightforward and inexpensive. What are YOU waiting for? If you need help, just ask….

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So you have a blog success story? Please share it with us…..

Thanks