Dex phone book as we know it is dying.聽 I hope I don’t scare too many people by saying that.聽 The reality is people are not using the phone book for the information in which it contains.聽 Back in the day before cell phones did EVERYTHING, phone books were a great resource to find the local restaurants.聽 They could help you find Joe the plumber.聽 You would go to them to find coupons for the dry cleaners.聽 For whatever reason you went to the phone book, you just don’t anymore.聽 With the ease of a internet enabled cell phone you can find all of those things probably faster and most importantly where ever you want.聽 You can do it while driving, waiting to pick your kids up from school or even in line while waiting to buy a pizza you see a discount code online.

Now that we have agreed that the internet is the way of the future, and growing daily, you need to understand what different trends are when beginning your internet marketing.聽 Every person out there has a different perception of what internet marketing is.聽 To some it might include paying google to list a advertisement for their website when people search a certain term.聽 To others a logo on a friends website that promotes your new business venture.聽 Both are internet marketing, due to the fact that you are trying to expose to internet viewers your service or product.

Marketing on the internet can be so much more than just a listing here or there.聽 It can be a game of monopoly that leaves your hungry to dominate a search term that is growing.聽 That is where we come in.聽 We want to give you advice on how you can make your website visible to the most amount of people, in the shortest amount of time.聽 I am not saying it is a short term effort, because you will see that big efforts at the beginning will have a large compounding effect as your site becomes popular and stronger relevancy in the search engines eyes.

Internet marketing in Phoenix has not been a priority as compared to bigger cities around the US.聽 In fact it has been one of the last states to really see the importance to getting exposure on the internet.聽 As internet marketing grows, watch out for the new industry leaders.聽 The first companies in each industry that jump on internet marketing first will have the strongest presence which leads to more sales than the past big dawgs of old marketing ways.

Tue, Oct, 2011 @ 5:55 pm
Tags: exposure, increase sales, internet marketing, phoenix marketing, phone book, seo
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The internet is an amazing tool to connect with information.聽 You can research the most sophisticated material out there.聽 Remember what it was like the first time you heard that you could bank online?聽 I bet 80% of people that first heard that back in 2001 said there is no way I would trust my banking needs to be met using the internet.聽 Now here we are 10 years later using the internet to arm our security system on our homes.

As the internet grows, so does the market place to make money.聽 There have been too many millionaires from great websites born overnight.聽 These brilliant minds have created a concept that is unique and makes people feel like they now can’t live without it.聽 Creating a great website is only the first part to the puzzle.

Often too many times we have seen some great ideas walk in our door asking what it would take to push an idea to a million dollars.聽 Unfortunately, most people we talk to seem to miss the most important part…TRAFFIC.聽聽 People, you can not make money if no one knows you exist.聽 Once the know you exist, how are they going to find you?

In a perfect world, with lots of startup cash (I know most don’t have it) this is what I would do:

1. Facebook: I would build an amazing landing page.聽 One that captures interest and drives them to “like” my page.聽 This is so powerful, because of the fact you can continually re-market to them everyday!聽 How amazing is that .聽 You dump some cash into fb ads…get some fans… then market to them daily and give them a great reason to recommend your page to all of their friends.
2. Website: This should go without being said.聽 I didn’t want to assume anything, but you have to create a nice website that shows off who you are.聽 Give folks some excitement about your brand and who you are.
3. Re-target banner ads:聽 This is very cool.聽 You can embed a cookie in your website for your visitors to automatically download into their browsers.聽 Once those visitors leave your website, your cookie “speaks” to the banner ad network and it will show your banner ad over and over to each visitor.聽 They will feel as if your banner ad is following them.聽 I can’t tell you enough on how great this tool is.
4. SEO: Obviously, based on my rant above, you knew SEO would be on my list of To-Dos.聽 You HAVE TO rank well organically in the search engines to really make a huge impact.聽 It is too important not to.聽 Essentially you are having the search engines recommend you do their loyal users.聽 The search engines are saying “Hey, I know you are looking for ‘Bright Green Hats’ so here is who I recommend for you.”

I hope this helps get an understanding of how important it is to not rely on just one internet marketing method, but to put together a system that works together.聽 Please feel free to call us or any of our IMS (Internet Marketing Specialists) for help or to just run though some ideas.

Wed, Aug, 2011 @ 7:31 pm
Tags: banner ads, facebook, internet marketing, local serach, search engine marketing, seo
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We have had a consistent question from clients regarding “How do we stand out?” In a world with so many options, it is important to get your customers to notice you.聽 Some companies will try and come up with a bizarre and aggressive marketing plans.聽 Other might rent a blow-up guerilla and hope that people notice it and decide to stop by because a monkey full of air caught their eye.聽 Whatever method you choose, do it right.

When preparing to start a marketing plan, it is important to make it “remarkable.”聽 You don’t have to be super outrageous to do this.聽 What you have to do is figure out what people really want, and give it to them.聽 Make sure you do the best you can do in marketing.聽 It will come back to hurt you if you only do a marketing job half way.聽 It would have been just as effective to do nothing at all.聽 Take these few steps help you become remarkable.

1. Design-Don’t be boring.聽 Make your design work for you.聽 Have it be contagious and let people talk about it.聽 When you get a good design, people are more likely to share it and get excited about it.
2. Do NOT Play it Safe- It is risky to play it safe.聽 It will automatically brand you as “Just another …”
3. Where are your customers?聽 You need to be in front of your target customers.聽聽 Figure out who DOES care about your business,聽 and only market to them

Internet marketing is a great place to practice your marketing.聽 You can target specific groups of people with little effort.聽 Take facebook for instance.聽 If you are selling snow blowers…take the time and design a nice eye catching ad that runs on the profile of people living in Wisconsin.聽 Facebook is a great place for you to GEO target your clients.聽 Identify who your target audience is, and adapt your message to them.

Tue, Feb, 2011 @ 11:08 pm
Tags: design, internet marketing, seo, stand out
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This year Local Work Marketing is going against the grain and ramping-up internet marketing in Phoenix, AZ. In one of the states most affected by the weak economy LWM saw that at the end of the day cost effective marketing is the key for companies to make turn profit. The old times are gone where a companies marketing strategy is a billboard and a radio commercial. Consumers demand a lot more in today鈥檚 world and companies need to realize it is what it is and change to meet the demands of today.

People do research on products they are considering purchasing and search engines are the second most used tool on the web just behind e-mail. People use the search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing because the contain information that they are looking for. Surveys showed that close to half of the people on the internet did research on local businesses online, and a few years later it was over 83%. This confirmed that fact that a big part of customers interaction with a company happens online and inorder to provide potential customers all the information they need to make an informed decision they need to find your company online. If they can’t find a business online they will go to their competitor. That will loose your company revenues and put it in your competitors pocket. That is the last thing any company wants to happen, so having a user-focused online presence is more important than ever.

2011 will be a time when a most of buyers will almost completely stop using old resources like the yellow pages in favor of the internet. Most local searches are done to find locations or hours of operations of a business, but 85% of these searchers end up calling or visiting the location and of those nearly 60% make a purchase. Can you company afford to pass up on numbers like that? If so then internet marketing probably isn’t the best option, but if your company could use a big boost during these tough economic times then internet marketing is the best option.

Fri, Jan, 2011 @ 10:13 pm
Tags: internet marketing, local internet marketing, Phoenix internet marketing, seo
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As the year 2010 comes to an end one can鈥檛 help to think about all the things that have gone on in the world this year. Some of the biggest stories this year have been the BP Oil Spill, WikiLeaks, the iPad, Groupon, and the trapped Chilean miners. When you sit back and think about the first place you heard about any of the big events where you sitting in front of your TV watching your local news? Or were you reading about them in the newspaper or did you read or see them on Facebook, Twitter, or on YouTube?

If you are reading this then most likely you heard about most of these things online. So it made me think that this year really should be thought of as the Year of Interaction. For a big group of people they hear about what is going on because of what their peers have said and posted online. Then they might go and look at a major news outlet like NBC or Fox News to learn more about the event, but a growing percentage of people out there hear about news when their friends tell them about it on some sort of a social network like Facebook or Twitter.

One of the biggest successes that came along in the marketing world was the Old Spice campaign with Isaiah Mustafa aka the Old Spice Guy. The commercials were funny, creative, and pretty much genius overall. But really how successful were they? Adweek.com鈥檚 Eleftheria Parpis聽said “According to Nielsen data provided by Old Spice, overall sales for Old Spice body-wash products are up 11 percent in the last 12 months; up 27 percent in the last six months; up 55 percent in the last three months; and in the last month, with two new TV spots and the online response videos, up a whopping 107 percent.” Those are some huge numbers and any company would love to have some numbers that jumped like that. What was that made these commercials so popular? One of the answers is YouTube. All of the videos were released on the website so that people could share them with their friends and it took off. Another great thing that Old Spice did was have the Old Spice Guy make custom videos for people one day and those turned out equally great. All of this points to one thing, customers want to be able to interact with a company or business. If your company does something great then the world needs to hear about it and how they hear about it is becoming ever increasingly important.

Businesses today must decide which mediums they will use to do their marketing and advertising. Gone are the days when you place an ad in the local newspaper, release a couple corny radio ad鈥檚, and rent a well placed billboard for a few months. In today鈥檚 world these techniques may get your company some business but a big part of the population completely ignores traditional marketing techniques so your company must adapt or it will fail.

This all started a few years ago when a little company called Google started. They were able to gather all kinds of information on the web that was possibly relevant to a search term that people typed in. If they typed in something random like 鈥渃hili peppers鈥� they could get a few results for cooking with chili peppers or they would get a couple results that were about the band Red Hot Chili Peppers. The results weren鈥檛 really narrowed down, Google just put what they thought was the most relevant things up to what they thought you were searching for. So there were lots of people that discovered ways to manipulate Google鈥檚 search rankings and they got to the top of the results for a while. But Google didn鈥檛 like that so they would change up their algorithms and the results would change and the world of Internet marketers would get turned upside down. Getting result like this were and are frustrating for people because they were basically being sent to a big library and told about every place that a word show in the library and told here you go find out what you can. So Internet gurus have now discovered new ways of getting their brands and companies to the top of search engines.

One way that Internet marketers are doing this is by using longer search terms across lots of search engines, directories, and social networks. Another way that this is being done is when search count user generated content into the results that people see kinda like Google instant in some ways. One of the fastest growing ways to get to the top of the results is by optimizing their sites for mobile devices. There literally are thousands and thousands of searches being done on cell phones today your site needs to be optimized for these searchers. One of the most important things your company needs to do is to figure out how your customers are finding you.

The way that potential customers are finding you is constantly changing so you need to stay in front of them so you need a tracking system to do it. You don鈥檛 have the time to do it all yourself so you need to find a company that can do some path mapping, linguistic profile analysis to help your company keep track of who is searching for you, what they are saying, and what you can do to get more sales. Because after all the reason that you are doing all of this is to make more money isn鈥檛 it?

Mon, Dec, 2010 @ 9:05 pm
Tags: internet marketing, sem, seo
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Day #4 Tip #4

Anymore a website is never just a marketing piece. 聽We all wish it were that easy, but it’s not. 聽Websites need to be source of value to a consumer. 聽Make your website a resource to help consumers answer questions.

Many people are worried about sharing “too much” info on their website. 聽That is bogus. 聽If you want to share with people how valuable you are, take the moment to share some of this fancy wisdom. 聽Give your customer a sense of confidence before they call you. 聽 Websites can be a great place for you to share your resume by offering free tips and how to’s.

When a website becomes a valuable resource, it is going to get traffic. 聽Before you know it, this traffic is the thing that makes you money. 聽It’s very simple, the more people that see your site, the better chance you have at making more money! 聽Take the time to create valuable information about your industry. 聽The best way to do this, 聽is with a blog. 聽Make is easy to find off of your home page. 聽Most of all…have fun with it.

Sat, Nov, 2010 @ 10:52 pm
Tags: 30 tips in 30 days, Blog, internet marketing, local internet marketing, Phoenix internet marketing, sem, seo
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Day #2, Tip #2

Business Basics For The Internet

Understanding the basics of the internet is the first step to launching a successful internet marketing campaign.聽 Whether you are local or running a national campaign, the internet is the first reference where people will go to do research.聽 Helping mold your consumers perceptions of your company or product is the key to marketing.聽 That is what marketing is all about, right?聽 Marketing basics is creating your story to ensure your customers find confidence in who you are.聽 This ultimately leads to a buying decision.

To be successful on the internet, you must tell the world that you exist.聽 Any fifth grader can make a website.聽聽 If all you do is build a website, no one will be able to find you in a sea of BILLIONS of web pages.聽聽聽 You must create a path that leads consumers to your door.聽聽 That leads us to the number 1 guide to find a website…Google.聽 Search engines (I know this is very basic, but bare with me)聽 are used to help a user find the page that best meets their searching demands.聽 Understanding this concept is the first piece of the puzzle.聽 I don’t care if you spend $1 million on a website design.聽 If no one can find your site, you have NO worth.聽 It is that simple.

The #1 tip I can give to a small business looking to market on the internet is to focus more on web optimization rather than design.聽 Design can always occur later.聽 Take the time to do research on what phrases your clients are searching for; adapt your website to them.聽 Here is your “How To” tip: Take a look at what words people are using to search for you.聽 Make sure the title of your home page has this EXACT same phrase.聽 If you business is a local fitness gym in Scranton, your title of your site would look something like this, “Scranton PA GYM | Top Fitness Gym in Scranton PA”聽 Keep your title tags of your home page under 60 characters.聽 This tip alone can be a huge difference maker.聽 This is a great first step in SEO (search engine optimization.)

Thu, Nov, 2010 @ 8:22 pm
Tags: 30 tips in 30 days, internet marketing, Phoenix internet marketing, seo
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Why search engine marketing?

Ten years ago we saw the .com boom break through from Silicon Valley to around the world. 聽In the year 2000, there were 200 million internet users. 聽Since then, 10 years later, there is a reported 1.4 Billion internet users worldwide. 聽Marketing is all about telling your story to the right audience. 聽Never before could you target your specific audience like you can today. 聽 If you are considering jumping into internet marketing, here are 4 advantages of marketing online vs traditional methods.

1. Highly Measurable- Just about every aspect of internet usage is traceable. 聽You can track how many people view and ad, to what that person did once they clicked on the ad. 聽You can view how much time someone spent on your site, and how they got there. 聽Trace what patterns people follow once they get to your website. 聽Are they finding your shopping cart? 聽Or are they more interested in browsing specific merchandise. 聽 This is all very important to know what is working, and most importantly what is not working so that you can tweak it.
2. Make Changes On The Run- Imagine running an add in a phone book with the WRONG phone number?! 聽Yes, it happens. 聽In this case your are SOL. 聽With internet ads, you always can control the add visibility, run time, click through location and content. 聽This can prove to be very effective when testing a new product launch or a new demographic of customers.
3. Visible 24/7- The internet is visible 24/7, which means you are able to market your product or service ALL the time. 聽Let your website be your best sales rep even while you are sleeping. 聽Let your FAQ page answer important questions your clients are looking for after business hours to give them confidence in your company.
4. Cost Effective- ROI is important with any marketing 聽campaign, why not make sure to market with the method that has the highest ROI than any other means. 聽Jim Spanfeller, CEO of Forbes.com, said, “Internet marketing provides the lowest cost per lead of any direct marketing technique available today.”

With the cost of online marketing so low, your potential so high, you would be throwing money away by not taking advantage of such an opportunity.

Thu, Nov, 2010 @ 12:23 am
Tags: 30 tips in 30 days, internet marketing, seo
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If there is one thing that people are noticing, it is how powerful the internet is becoming. 聽Honestly…TVs run by the internet? Google is showing its stregnth by launching into the TV market.

2010 has been the year of social media and the power of becoming vocal with your clients via Facebook and Twitter. 聽No one is sure what 2011 will bring, but we have some clues on how to prepare your company for 2011 with 30 tips in 30 days. 聽Make sure to subscribe to our RSS Feed so that you don’t miss out on any of our tips. 聽If you have questions about these tips, be sure to leave them in the comment box below each article. 聽Our experts will go through and answer each question to help you build your internet campaign for 2011.

You can also reference the list below for a link to each daily tip. 聽Look forward to hearing from you.

• Tip #1 4 Advantages Of Online vs Traditional Marketing
• Tip #2 1 Essential Internet Marketing Tip
• Tip #3 Telling the World Exist

Wed, Nov, 2010 @ 11:57 pm
Tags: 30 tips in 30 days, internet marketing, Phoenix internet marketing, ppc, sem, seo
      3 Comments

I am sure everyone has heard the scary numbers relating to the chances of failure of a new company.聽 In case you haven’t, here is a quick recap…80% of start up companies cease to exist after 3 years of starting.聽 After year 5, there is only a 10% chance that you are still around.聽 Not the most promising numbers when considering to leave your comfortable salary and benefits to live a “dream.”

With our break down of mistakes that most start-ups make…it should help you eliminate some risk and get started on the right foot.

1) Starting Your Business With Debt-

Although this sounds like a basic principal, majority of business owners plan to carry negative cash flow with debt for the first 24 months of business.聽 Bad idea!聽 The number one reason companies file bankruptcy is due to lack of cash.聽 It is never due to lack of a good IDEA, or hard work ethic, it is failure to plan on cash.聽 One way to eliminate this risk is to make sure that you have the financing in place to run your business for a minimum of 12 months with no cash flow.聽 If you can with out a doubt look in a mirror and know that you can run your company without making a cent for 12 months, than you are in business.聽聽 With banks on a tight lending leash, there is no way you are going to be able to walk into a lending institution and write up a business loan.聽 They are going to want to see P&L statements of profit in order to lend.聽 There is NO institution that will lend with the idea that you will turn a positive cash flow sooner than later.

2) Hiring Employees You Don’t Need

Avoiding unnecessary expenses is a key element to finding success.聽 One of the ways to eliminate expenses is to hire few employees and giving them a busier work load.聽 Some ways you can eliminate the costs of hiring employees is to look for outsourcing methods.聽 There are companies now that can do just about everything to run your company from a virtual location.聽 This is a big cost savings when starting out.聽 You can use these business expenses as a tax right off, as well as avoid having to pay for employee benefits as well as Social Security taxes.

One of the best sources to building your credibility virtual is by running a professional looking website.聽 A website can essentially be your marketing employee that works for you 24 hours a day 7 days a week.聽聽 Let your website tell your business story the best way possible with pictures, video and interactive features to build trust with prospects.聽 Your website with effective SEO strategies can be found any time of the day.聽 Never forget to use local internet marketing as an effect marketing tool to help your companies branding efforts.

Wed, Oct, 2010 @ 11:38 pm
Tags: internet marketing, marketing, seo
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