Can You Identify Small Business Growth Opportunities?

The marketing world is a labyrinth of confusing terms and idioms. It can take months of reading for a small business owner figure out the dynamics of marketing. One thing is certain, marketing, advertising, and business growth go hand in hand.

Four Steps to Finding and Identifying Growth Opportunities

Step #1: Analyze the Competition

Here is a list of cheats a small business owner can use to develop a marketing campaign for their ecommerce business.

• Competitor analysis
• Focus on customers
• Surveys and polls
• Join the enemy
• Follow the money

Almost every statistic on the Internet is public, with the right software. A Search Engine Optimization company or an Internet Marketing company should have the software needed to retrieve marketing statistics from search engines.

Most top keywords have several websites in the top 3 pages of ‘Search Engine Results’ which had major marketing campaigns behind them.  It is not necessary for a small business owner to know ‘why’ the company chose certain keywords, or marketing strategies. All you need to know is that successful companies become successful by marketing to consumers who are ready to buy.

If you want to succeed - Follow the money.  Did they buy a professional logo design? Did they hire a creative web designer? Do they use an SEO/SEM company? Do they pay for consultation. All of these can be the diffrence between a sluggish business and dynamic business growth.

Step #2 Focus The Marketing

Many small business owners face the same problems – not enough time – not enough money. Many ecommerce business owners spend several months trying to market their Internet business, without seeing results. It is normal for a website to stagnate for several months, but after 6, there should be some good keywords.

Pick 10 places to market. Do not try to market everywhere. Do not try to be a part of every forum, social networking sites, newsletters, and groups.

This applies to keywords. Pick 10 keywords you want to appear at the top and focus everything on those 10 keywords. Do not try to be ‘everything to everyone.’ It is extremely difficult for a non SEO company or marketing company to get a website to the top of the Search Results for more than 10 keywords. A good rule of thumb is to build 50 pages that focus on a single keyword phrases before expanding the campaign to include more keywords phrases.

Opportunities are missed because business owners are impatient. They do not do enough promotion, or they do not wait long enough to see results.  It can take 5 – 7 months in cyberspace to thoroughly explore a niche and find an opportunity.

Step #3 Communicate With Consumers

The business world is ripe with stories of people who found the ‘next best thing’ while listening to their consumers’ wants and needs. The smallest change in service, or a product, can make a dramatic difference in sales.

The Internet offers a seemingly endless list of ways to communicate with potential consumers. The ‘new’ commerce community is no longer singular and linear. The old business model was built around big stores taking care of their loyal customers. Today’s business community is diverse. Consumers and business owners work together in a more symbiotic relationship.

Step #4 Take Action

I’ve known business owners who spent so much time preparing to be ‘in business’ they never actually start their business. Do not wait until the business ‘makes money’ to see if it is worth being ‘in business.’ A business is successful when the business owner takes action. A business must engage in a marketing plan, advertising, and branding to make it grow. Growth Opportunities are only valuable if the business owner engages them, and assertively implements a strategy to maximize their company’s growth potential.

Did You Betray Your Small Business Today?

Many business owners betray their business without realizing it. Their marketing campaign delivers a message to consumers. They promise a particular experience, level of service, and product/service – then within the first few minutes of the sales process, they break that promise. These business owners have a hard time closing a sale.

It is common to lose a sale, or take time to learn how to sell through a particular venue, ie, PPC, Organic, Social Networking, etc. However, when you fail to sell in all areas, then it is time to take a ‘grass roots’ look at the company.

Small Business Branding

The first step is to make sure that your branding and marketing campaign does not make promises that you cannot deliver. It is easy to promise great service, friendly attitudes, and quick delivery – but if you do not convey this while chatting with clients, then it becomes difficult to make the sale. Branding starts with the business logo design and ends with the business owner’s attitude.

Customer Feed Back

Listen to the customers. Find out what motivates them to buy. What problems do they need solved? Once you know these, then – and only then – it is time to try selling them. Letting consumers offer feedback through blogs, forums, and comments is a perfect way to find out if your branding and service meet the customer’s expectations.

Are Your Expectations Realistic?

Remember that customer’s expectations change. A customer may want one thing at Christmas time that they may not want in September.  Recently I read a query in a business forum. The business owner was angry because his sales dropped in June and July. Of course, he blamed the marketing and advertising company. After some banter, the business owner admitted that the drop was only 3 weeks old – and started in June.

When the forum group suggested that the person’s product was not needed in June, the business owner became indignant and hired another marketing firm. This business owner did not understand the client at all. It is difficult to conduct a successful marketing campaigning while ignoring the customers.

Customers Come First

Placing the customers first is the best way to stay on top. If there are problems with a customer’s experiences or expectations then fix the elements that are damaging the customer’s experience and causes any element in your system to under perform.

New Online Advertising – Engagement Ads

Cyberspace is evolving . Facebook was the first to implement interactive ads. Digg is considering a similar ‘diggable ad’ to implement in conjunction with their campaign to attract an audience beyond the ‘geek crowd.’

Avid digg users and scoffing, they point to the ‘top diggers’ and their ability to work in groups to control the top content. This method of manipulation can be used to control the advertising. This can be why digg co-founder, Kevin Rose, is focusing on ‘real-wold relevance,’ as reported by Cnet’s Caroline McCarthy.

The new ads take Social Networking to the next level. This type of engagement advertising lets users interact by leaving comments, sharing virtual gifts, or becoming a fan. The interaction appears on the user’s news feeds, or the ad can move up to the ‘top pages.’

The communities are warming up to the new advertising. PPC is good for quick ‘drive by’ revenue, but engagement advertising creates long-term relationships. There is also the opportunity to increase ad efficiency. Lets say a community has 200 people who like Y-brand. Those people create a strong presence on the internet, attracting another 200 000 visitors. When these people brag about, or complain about, Y-brand then people sit up and listen.

How can this work for small business? Imagine having a testimonial page built around an ad on Facebook or Digg where your clients, friends, and associates can sing your praises. Death to the testimonial pages and guest books that rarely convinces anyone to buy a product.

Gord Hotchkiss of the Search Insider suggested that anyone who walks down 8th avenue will see 3000 bits of advertising a day. Now, imagine a group of people gathered around a particular ad. You join the group and get the inside scope. The company didn’t need to pay any money on conversions or ROI, your loyal fans will do that for you.

MySpace co-founder Brett Brewer, the chairman of international social networking ad serving network, visited Australia with a sense of foreboding as the US financial markets tumbled. Brewer Acknowledged that cyberspace will ride the storm like it did multiple times before.

”I am reminded of 1997/ 98 when companies were very reticent to advertise online and only a few like ebay and Amazon were willing to embrace the unpredictability and consequently build multi billion dollar businesses. The same thing is really happening today in 2008. The difference is that its social media that advertisers have been a reticent to engage in. But I really think that the winners that will emerge are those that embrace this, harness it for their brands and build multibillion dollar businesses while mot of the advertising public sort of waits on the sidelines.”

The new hope promised by engagement advertising is giving many small business owners reason to breath a sigh of relief and confidently continue to build their businesses while the ‘real world’ sweats the current crisis.

The Basics of Small Business Branding

Small business owners hear terms like branding and marketing without understanding the definitions. To sum it up, branding and marketing simply mean, ‘being the customer’s first choice.’ Would you like your company to be the first that consumers think about when they want to buy online?

Branding creates and maintains a reputation that reflects the customer’s experience when shopping from your website. Customers build an emotional attachment to certain brands. Customer loyalty means tapping into these emotions and giving shoppers a sense of ownership.  A strong brand makes a company stand out on the internet. A brand can mean the difference between being lost in cyberspace and being a ‘name’ people associate with a product.

What Do You Sell?

A product or skill is not the only thing people can sell on the internet.

• Skills
• Excellence
• High-quality
• Relationship
• Extra value in the form of communities, newsletters, etc.
• Innovation
• Problem solving
• Trust

Every business can increase the value they offer their customers by promoting one of the above. Before choosing which one you’ll offer customer, it is important to understand what drives the consumers to buy. Many ecommerce businesses think the secret to success is ‘low price.’

• Trust – can you deliver ‘on time?’
• Security – Does your program focus on client’s privacy and security?
• Relationship – Can clients IM you, ask questions, follow the project step-by-step?
• Increase Customer’s Potential – Can you offer something no one else can offer?
• Social Standing – Can you make them look wealthier, sexier, more influential?
• Power – Do you have what it takes to increase your client’s power?
• Free – Consumers who are motivated by price can feel they are being ‘treated right’ if they give their clients something real. Not an ebook – but a membership or passing on an association newsletter.

Small Business Branding

When building a brand, say the same message with everything in your marketing plan:

• Business name
• Slogan
• Business logo
• Pricing & packaging
• Premises/website/location
• Where you advertise
• Presentation and communication style

If everything from the business logo to the website delivers the same message then customers are more likely to remember the company when it is time to buy.

 

Three Tips to Improve Your Keyword Research

Not all keywords bring shoppers to a website. Every e-Tailer needs to research keywords to learn which give the best results. I am going to use spyfu to help you get started. Here are some tips that will help improve the effectiveness of your website’s keywords.

Tip #1: Use Accurate Keyword Phrases

First, do not assume that a keyword phrase that drives the top traffic numbers equals the best sales. Sometimes a keyword that is overlooked, will result in the best results. For example, most DIY webmasters overlook the obvious:

1. Buy web advertising
2. Buy business cards
3. Find ad agency

These keyword phrases may only generate 500 Click-Throughs a month. But, they may result in 20 sales. The keyword phrase ‘ad campaign’ may bring 10 000 visitors to a website, and generate 2 sales.

Tip #2: Use Full Phrases

Picking keywords has a lot to do with human behavior. The average online shopper hops from website to website. By the time they are ready to buy they are tired of hitting unrelated websites. They stop using the generic websites “ad agency,” “Low cost ad agency” and start using longer, more specific keyword phrases. Choosing these can increase the number of visitors who chose to make a purchase.

At this stage of my campaign I am now researching keyword phrases such as:

1. Whats the best way to advertise my business
2. Best way to advertise my business

I used Google’s traffic tool to see if the competition had much traffic. They had very little traffic, but that did not deter me. I was looking for shoppers, not surfers.

I also used: SEOBOOK’s Keyword Tool This tool brought me a few dozen actual searches.

There are two benefits to the second tool. Some of these searches are actually redirect pages. They can give you a great place to advertise.

Insider Secret: If the Google has less than 8 companies on the ad bar, then you’ve found a winner, both for PPC campaigns and Organic. Google has a ‘suggest’ tool that lets you test keywords at: http://labs.google.com/suggest/faq.html

Tip #3: Search Engine Placement

Search Engine Placement in the top 10 is the only way to increase buyers.

Using the top keywords make it difficult to rank on page one on the search engines. It also makes it almost impossible to start a web-based ad campaign for under a couple hundred dollars a month.

The first step is to test the keywords you find in your research. Look for ones that are clicked often, but may not have a lot of competition. Testing the keyword is easy using any free ‘keyword traffic tool.’ Just type the keyword phrase with quotes around it into your browser. Don’t forget to test Google, Mamma, Yahoo, MSN, Alexa, and a few of the other top search engines.

The best location is surrounded by businesses that offer the same product or service. It is also on a page which is full of articles – but no product. This is especially true on an article page that pre-sells your product. In the end of my research I found my competitors using the keyword:

1. Advertising Design
2. Hire small business ad agency

I also noticed that my competitors favored article advertising over anything else. Keywords are the key to success. The right keywords can help a business excel where others have failed.

Changing Face of Online Business

The internet is playing a vital role in the evolution of business. The globe is shrinking. Even businesses that sell products can ship to Europe as easily as they can ship to a company down the road. The question in front of today’s business owners is not ‘what has changed,’ but ‘what hasn’t changed.

The old rules do not apply anymore. The Walt Disney Company tried to establish the Go Network as an Internet portal to cross-promote its content and services online. Many pessimists draw a correlation to the failure of Go within days of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved America Online’s (AOL’s) acquisition of Time Warner. Others state that Disney’s cross-promotional strategies and its inability to establish a brand name for the portal contributed to the Go Network’s failure.

These good explanations would impress any BS professor.

A more recent example involves South Park’s battle to return their show to Canadian audiences. The short version of the story starts with Canadian writer’s associations refusing to allow South Park Studios onto Canadian television. While the moguls battled in court, the South Park boys decided to make millions on the internet to pay off the Canadians. A perfect example of the fact that ‘it takes money to make money’ does not work on the net.

This does not mean that millions cannot be made. Look at the founders of Youtube and Facebook. Both of these empires were built on the Kitchen table by techies who couldn’t get a job in the real world, no offense meant. Now corporate America is chasing them with the fervor of the paparazzi asking for the secret.

A decade ago, it was possible to use university marketing strategies to build an online empire. But, things change. In fact, it is possible to say that everything has changed without being challenged.

Thriving online has become a struggle for survival. “money doesn’t generate money.” Today it many gurus claim that success lies in the talent of communicators who can write for the ’10 second attention span.’ Other gurus believe the secret lies in ‘interactive widgets’ that seem to put the power in the hands of the end-user. Still, a vast majority of small business owners are left asking, ‘exactly who are these gurus, and can I find them if Disney and South Park Studios can’t?”

That question does have a definitive answer: Yes. The reason that companies such as Disney struggle is, in part, blamed on the fact that the average internet-genius went mad when stuck in an 8’ x 8’ cubical. They chose starving to death over working for Corporate America.

Whether this is right or wrong, the fact is, many of these gurus are working from home, building empires, and contracting their skills to the small business community.

Target Marketing with Google Alerts

Everyone knows what Google Alerts are. Most of us overlook this SEO/eMarketing tool in our quest to find something sexier, more powerful.  The few webmasters who are familiar with this tool see it as nothing more than an excellent way to catch bloggers flaming their posts, spammers, or people damaging a corporate image. These barely taps into the usefulness of this tool.

Google Alerts has proven to be a powerful tool in the hands of an expert eMarketer/Social Networking guru. They put the emphasis is on web-surfers, not page rank. This may seem revolutionary, but the whole purpose of generating traffic is to find shoppers, real people, not algorithms.  It is possible to have 100 pages land in the top 10 search engine placements, and still have a conversion-to-buyer ratio that is so low it will not pay the web hosting fees.

Focusing on people first, targeting consumers who are ready to buy, requires a slightly different approach to SEO. Targeting humans is not as precise as targeting a search engine.

There are advantages to targeting the human who owns the Visa card. First, it reduces the number of steps between hooking a client and closing-out the shopping cart.

Google Alerts are a powerful eMarketing tool in the right hands. The search engines can only do so much. They can calculate. When used right, these calculations bring people to a website. They cannot follow social trends, impulse shopping trends, or social preferences.

Relevant Links

One of the most frustrating things for webmasters is turning page rank into sales. There are more link building schemes than there are search engines, most are worthless. The trick to building exposure is to build links. The secret to attracting real people to a website is to give them something they want.

This is where Google Alerts come in. Google Alerts can be set to track topics. A classic car sales person may set their Google Alerts to track the keywords on their sites, their company name, and personal name. This tracks their impact on the website.

The tool can also track keywords relating to car shows, improvements, engineering developments, shows, events, etc. These Alerts track relevant conversations, fan based discussions and hot forum topics.

Customer Conversion

The customer does not always come to the website. A webmaster can control their conversion results by going to the user. Example, the top keywords are: buy widgets, find widgets, and cheap widgets. However, a behavioral marketer completes a report. These keywords send 10 000 visitors to a website, but only 5 convert.

The consumers use different keywords: brand X widgets, widget replacement parts, and how to use the widget. These keywords may bring low traffic, only 2000. Shoppers use these keywords, increasing the conversion rate to 25.

Target Marketing

The alert will bring webmasters to a blog or forum when the topic is still hotly debated.  These hot topics remain at the top of searches for weeks, or months. They are a great time to participate in the topic and increase exposure.

How to Get Started

•Watch the Pros. They will have a readymade audience. Their articles are designed to satisfy the needs of their fan-base. These sites are predominately Content Management Systems, making them the perfect place to find people who are pre-sold on a product or service.

•Build Relationships with the professionals. Anyone can brand themselves as a professional, ‘by association.’ The key to success is ‘not’ promoting yourself or product. Support the original article. Agree with the author. Offer at least one extra point.

•Link the username back to a similar article on your website – not the index page, squeeze page, or buy-now page.

•Track web analytics. Eliminate the keyword that brings people looking for freebies, downloads, and communities. Focus on those that bring shoppers.

•Search the top blogs or forums for <no=follow> code. They retain value as ‘hooks,’ but lose their value as ‘relevant links.’

Three Ways to Improve An Internet Marketing Campaign

Social Networking & Marketing
Buidling a social net creates a spider web within the Internet with each strand leading Internet Users toward the main website. This virtual web can include lenses such as myspace, bebo.com, facebook.com, yahoo groups, and other social networking lenses. Social networking lenses can be anywhere from three to ten levels from the main site.
The experienced webmaster will build blogs and newsletters one degree from the main site. These will pre sell the product or service for sale.
The virtual web may expand to include podcasts, blog phone interviews, internet radio, live chat, and forums.
There are a few ways to use Social Networking to increase Page Rank. In theory, Google sends more traffic to the websites with higher page rank. Writing Good Content on Social Networking sites will increase Page Rank if the following rules are applied: no more than 5 keyword phrases are used, only keyword anchored links are used, links are not reciprocal, and the sites are not carbon copies.
I have one word of warning to new ecommerce business owners. Do not spam your name to every networking site. It is better to build a good lens at 5 – 10 reputable, high traffic sites, and use them to build credibility.
Link Building Campaign
Google started hitting paid-links hard. They now have tools that measure which websites are accumulating links too quickly, or have too many links in directories. The only viable link-building tool left to small business owners is article marketing.
Article marketing can increase Page Rank within months, without leave the main website on Google’s banned or benched list.
There are two secrets to a successful marketing campaign. Secret one, is to make the articles publisher friendly. Webmasters who manage content management systems want articles that are relevant, cutting edge, and easy to skim. They are looking for keyword rich headings and titles. Publishers have a list of criteria for a good article:

No more than 5% keyword density
Easy to skim articles
Headings every 150 – 200 words
No evergreen content
Good grammar and sentence structure
No long signature lines
No link stacking in article or signature
No invitations to visit the author’s website

The second secret is to make the article easy to optimize for search engines.
Keyword density must be no more than 5%. Google benches or penalizes web pages with a keyword density over 5%. Yahoo and MSN allow 7% keyword density before penalizing the page.
Optimize Each Web Page
Optimization does not start and end on the index page. SEO is built on landing pages, exit pages, squeeze pages, buy now pages, and Communication platforms. Any single page on the website can be a landing page. That is why it is important to optimize every ‘content page’ for search engines.
Search engines rarely read more than 150 words, including the link bars and page code. The first rule of search engine optimization is to realize that search engines are stupid. They start to read at the Body code. They do not differentiate between code and content. If you want to see the page as the search engine does then open any page on your browser and click ‘view’ from the menu.
Each page must be broken up. This makes it easy to skim article. Articles that are divided every 150 – 200 words serve two purposes. It is easy for readers to skim the content and decide to read the article. It also lets SEO webmasters use the sub titles to optimize the page.
Search Engines see the H1, H2, H3, H4 heading titles as page breaks. Each one starts the keyword count over again. A search engine will only read the first 150 words of a 1000 word article. Add five heading titles, every 150 – 200 words, and the search engine will read the whole page.

Do You Follow the Trends in Email Marketing?

One of the most overlooked Internet marketing campaign tool is the email marketing campaign. Many of us assume that because we have no patience for spam emails in our inbox, that everyone shares the same sentiment. This is a common mistake made by many small business owners. We design our marketing campaigns around our wants, needs, and goals.

Take a look at the following information before embarking on a Do-It-Yourself list building campaign, or try using an Open Source tool for your campaign. A good email marketing service may have fees attached, but that money can be recouped in increased ‘open’ rates, and  increased Conversion Rates.

Email Marketing Trends

The Pew Internet and American Life Project reported some amazing statistics concerning spam and email:

18%: Spam is a big problem (25% in 2003)
51%: Spam is annoying (57% in 2003)
26%: Spam is not a problem (16% in 2003)
68%: Almost never unintentionally open spam (63% in 2003)
27%: Sometimes open spam email by accident (34% in 2003)
69%: Base decision to use the Report Spam Button, or dump in Junk file based on the subject line

Several elements of an email marketing campaign can have an effect on the campaign’s ‘open’ and ‘click through rate’ (CTR).

Study the Metrics (Statistics)

Email marketing works. Amazingly, email marketing is a numbers game. Statistically, most people open emails between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. while the emails sent through traditional business hours have less than a 50% chance of being opened. Equally, There is more response from Yahoo and ‘other’ email domains, than from AOL, Earthlink, or Hotmail. 

Statistically, Wednesday is the day most people open emails, while Thursday and Friday are the biggest ‘delivery’ days. Part of this is because these email companies block emails before they reach the recipients.

These statistics are not meant to be used as guidelines. The purpose is to encourage email marketers to keep a close eye on their statistics. A successfully designed email marketing campaign may fail due to the day, and time, the emails were delivered.

However, marketers should pay attention to a couple statistics:

• 21% of email messages show up as ‘blank’ when the recipient turns of their images feature.
• 28% of email messages are sent with nonfunctioning links.

Source: “The 2007 Rendering Report,” published January 2007, the Email Experience Council.

There are many marketing tools that fail when one or two elements are ‘off.’ Email marketing is no exception. The secret to success is simple. Know the market. Know the audience’s behavior. And, then know how to use it in your favor. For example, look at the following independent report on users.

How targeting affects campaign performance:

Untargeted broadcast emails
Open rate: 20%
Avg. CTR: 9.5%
Avg. conversion rate: 1.1%

User-triggered campaigns
Open rate: 27%
Avg. CTR: 9.3%
Avg. conversion rate: 2.3%

Lifecycle messaging campaigns
Open rate: 26%
Avg. CTR: 9.3%
Avg. conversion rate: 2.3%

Clickstream-based campaignsOpen rate: 33%
Avg. CTR: 14%
Avg. conversion rate: 3.9%

Source: David Daniels, Jupiter Research.

(A clickstream-based email is a message takes into account a user’s clickstream data. Whereas a personalized email might include up-selling data (because you bought X, we recommend Y), an email that includes clickstream data can be more specific.

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