5 Reasons Your Business Absolutely Must Have A Web Presence

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Don’t listen to that little voice in your head telling you that you don’t need a website.

A website in today’s competitive marketplace is completely expected by potential clients, making it an absolute must. For any business, a well designed website can prove to be the difference between landing a potential customer and losing them to one of your competitors. Take a look below at the top 5 reasons every business needs a web presence. 

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1) Professionalism

Having a website lends your company an air of professionalism that just can’t be had with an email account. One of the best benefits of a having a well planned website is that it adds credibility to your business—no matter how young or small your business might be. By choosing an agency to help you out with your site is a sure bet that your business is putting its best face forward to enhance the credibility of your company to potential customers. A recent study showed that 75% of users make powerful first impression judgments on the credibility of a company based on its site design, and if you don’t have one, your first impression probably didn’t start out too well.

2) Changeability

Printed material, while still very necessary, can be expensive and troublesome to keep updated. With a web presence you can easily let the public know of changes to your hours of operation, product or service offerings, business address or phone number, staff, etc. You can even let them know what’s new in real time with social media networks like Facebook or Twitter.

3) Branding

A website is a cost effective way to market and advertise your crisp, memorable brand with your logo, motto and its glorious products. All with the ability to expose and explain them in greater detail than many other forms of advertising. You can offer online specials and sales, as well as business information and more will help create a memorable experience for you customers.

4) Convenience

Your website is available to anyone, anywhere, 24/7. Your website can also become a valuable addition to your customer service team, answering many questions that a customer would have to call for without a website to turn to for answers. Whether it’s directions to your business, your hours of operation or detailed product information a website can offer convenient solutions to your customers and your business on a daily basis.

5) Yellow pages are outdated

Bluntly put, no one uses the yellow pages anymore. A lot of markets have even stopped producing them all together as advertisement in them has gotten so low. You’re missing a lot of potential business if you’re not in front of customers looking for you on search engines. This is where Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing come into play to get your page ranked. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft don’t make it easy for the average citizen to be ranked on the front page, so it requires professional assistance to get to the top.

Whether you decide to hire professionals like us to design and build business website for you, or simply do it yourself, your business can’t afford to go any longer without one. Don’t let your competition leave you behind, make a site that fits what your company stands for.

Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to stay current with the latest marketing trends, tips, tricks and techniques!

 

10 Reasons Why Video Marketing Should Be Taken Seriously

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Online video marketing has been around for several years now, so it’s not a brand new, unproven marketing strategy. However, we can’t quite consider it traditional either, especially since many business owners with an online presence just recently discovered its true potential. If you’re looking for something fresh and innovative to add to your marketing, video is definitely something to absolutely consider.

 

Here are some facts that just rolled out that clearly conveys a message – video marketing should be taken seriously:

1) Product videos make consumers 85% more likely to buy an item. -Internet Retailer

2) People stay on websites 5.33 times longer if there is a video to watch. -DigiDay

3) The human brain absorbs 50% more information through moving pictures and sound than the next best medium. -Forrester Research

4) Online video delivers 10 times the response rate of static text and graphics. -double click

5) Buyers are 98% more likely to watch a presentation on video than to listen to a sales rep. -Forrester Research

6) Youtube has 4 billion video views per day, globally, on average. -Youtube

7) Youtube is ranked as the #2 search engine in the world, one behind Google.

8) 85% of people choose to watch a video about a company online rather than read the rest of the website. -Forrester Research

9) Online shoppers watched 40% more videos on retail websites in 2011. -Internet Retailer

10) 3 out of 4 people are more likely to watch a video than read print. -Forrester Research

 

If there is a direction to market your products and services online, it’s through online video one way or another. It may require a little bit more of time, resources, and effort to create than other types of online content, but once it goes live and viral on the internet, you can conclude that it is all worth it.

 

Let us know what you think about these stats in the comment section below. If you want to keep learning about the latest marketing trends and best practices- follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and this Blog.

 

Email Marketing: Exporting Linkedin Contacts Into Outlook Email Groups

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Here is an incredibly easy, step-by-step guide to help you send e-mail to your Linkedin Contacts as an entire group. This is a fantastic way to utilize mass-mailing-marketing-efforts to spread the word and get your message across to people that most likely know and even trust you. Enjoy!

Follow this step-by-step guide to get your Linkedin contacts on Outlook:

1) From LinkedIn home page, click “Contact” menu bar item. From the contact page, click “Export connections” at the lower right of the page.

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2) Choose “Microsoft Outlook (.CSV file)” and click “Export” button.

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3) Click “Save” button, then the “Open Folder” button.

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4) Copy the path from the Windows Explorer window. Image

 

5) In Outlook 2010, click File –> Open –> Import. 

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6) Choose “Import from another program or file” then click “Next” button.

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7) Paste the path then browse to the file, leaving the default option.

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8) Make sure you select “Contacts”.

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9) Leave the defaults and click “Finish” button.

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10) Monitor progress and watch for errors. Dialog box disappears when successful.

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11) Open “Contacts” section in Outlook and click the “New Contact Group” menu icon.

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12) Enter a name for the group and click “Add Members” menu item. Choose “Outlook Contacts” from the list that appears.

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13) Mass select desired members of the group, click the “Members” –> button to populate the field, then OK.

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14) Be sure to “Save & Close” the group.

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TIP: When you e-mail this group, make sure you place them in the BCC group so recipients cannot see either other. 

For more tips and tricks with marketing, social media, graphics design, interactive, and video – check out our Facebook, Youtube, and Linkedin pages.

5 Tips to Make Your Small Business Successful on Social Media in 2013

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In this day in age, a massive portion of the population is socializing on the Internet with social media. 1 billion people are on Facebook in the world, including over 175 million being Americans – that’s 1 in 2 adults!  Twitter has over 400 million accounts, and even LinkedIn has an enormous presence at 200 million users (great for b2b). These are trends that small business owners see and are trying to reap the rewards from, but many fail.

It can be tempting for business owners to use social networks to promote themselves and their products. But you can’t just sign up on Facebook, make a business page, and promote your business like it’s a free version of the yellow pages in a phone book – well… you can but you won’t gain much from it.

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The secret to success is to stop thinking like a marketer and start putting your business in your customers shoes. When on Facebook, are you genuinely interested in seeing constant promotions of other businesses? Probably not. The truth is, people don’t want to shop where they socialize. Act like a human – be the sort of person that shows interest in others, does the right thing, and is authentic about what they say. Simply put – be a good friend.

To help you out, here are 5 tips to make your small business more likable and successful on social media in 2013:

1) Give people a reason to Follow or Like your business. Answer the question that the prospective followers will ask in their heads before actually following you, “What’s in it for me?” and then make it easy to do so. Which will give you a better chance of following a company?: “Like our companies page here!” or “Stay up to date with the latest marketing and social media trends at www.facebook.com/PALOcreative.

2) Share useful content that will help your customers. Lets say you’re a mortgage lender and you want to get people to follow your page, and continue to do so. Sharing content purely about mortgages will probably not attract a lush following – but sharing content about new homes, real estate, home additions, renovations, destinations, and mortgages is not only helpful to your followers, but it get’s them interested in doing these things that require your service as well.

3) Ask questions. Once you build a following, social media is about engaging them and having a conversation, not about self-promotion. If you own an Italian Restaurant, posting “Come in today for our lunch specials” will probably get you no responses and none of your followers coming in for lunch, but if you post “which one of our lunch specials sounds the best to you?” people will comment, and be more likely to show up.

4) Share pictures and videos often. Photos tell a story in a way text can’t, which biggest reason Facebook achieved 1 billion users. There is no need for a huge budget with this…just use your cell phone camera and take some cool pictures and videos of things at your business – such as you and your coworkers having fun with your products. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words!

5) Create your own content. Use your expertise to market your expertise. Strategic and effective content creation is a powerful way to achieve greater business lead generation and social media success. Give people free knowledge by using blogs and link that to your small businesses website and other social media outlets. Your expert content fosters trust, helps you become known as an information resource for your industry, and proves your company’s expertise which is critical in the current knowledge economy.

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Above all else – ask yourself – Would you click the “like” button if you saw your businesses content here? Would you want to be friends with your business and see all that content on your newsfeed? 

Thanksgiving “App-Style”

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Holiday season is upon us. Time to stress out about gifts, family, food and fun. But wait, we are in the era of mobility. An estimated 26 million people use tablets in the United States and 43% of Americans with mobile phones have smart phones. So isn’t about time, we do the holidays “app style?”

Here are the best apps to help get you through Thanksgiving.

First things first, we need a menu. I recommend the Thanksgiving Menu Maker from Fine Cooking. Tap your way to a customized holiday menu from more than 75 all-time favorite Thanksgiving recipes, plus get a customized shopping list and schedule.

Chow Thanksgiving Day Coach is a scaled down version for those of us who don’t like the kitchen. This app has only 9 selections and easy to follow recipes and a step-by-step timeline that lets you make dishes ahead of time.

For those of us on a budget, try the AllRecipes.com Dinner Spinner. It has hundreds of recipes for Thanksgiving, including Green Bean Casserole, Candied Sweet Potatoes and plenty of recipes for that perfect Turkey. You can also see ratings of each recipe.

Next, you need a good drink to go with the meal. Wine.com is a beautiful wine app designed specifically for the iPad. But, you need to know your wines before diving in.

Drync Wine Pro will find your wine no matter what. Just type a few words into the search engine and you are sure to find reviews and information on the wine of your choice.

For those of us not so familiar with wine, I recommend using IntoWine Food & Wine Pairing App. The name says it all.

Now onto the shopping. Check your local grocery stores for mobile coupon apps before heading out. When you are at the store, use your phone to scan bar codes and compare pricing and get coupons for specific brands and foods.

For some fun, download some Thanksgiving themed game apps. Turkey Hunt Thanksgiving Dinner is an arcade style game that has you trying to beat the clock to make a Thanksgiving Dinner.

Thanksgiving Jokes has kid-friendly jokes and Word Spree Thanksgiving Lite creates funny random stories that you can share with family and friends.

Thanksgiving gives you fun facts about the holiday that you can turn into a trivia game.

Finally, don’t forget to keep up with the football scores with ESPN Score Center.

Now if there was only an app that would clean up all the dishes.

Are You on The Right Social Media Platforms?

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One of the biggest concerns we hear when it comes to social media is that clients don’t think they will have enough time to manage it. It’s true; social media can be time-consuming, overwhelming and an organizational nightmare. There are so many sites out there and it seems like a new one pops up every day. Unless you have an unlimited budget to outsource every aspect or to hire a large number of employees to manage it, you need to take a look at how your business is actually benefitting from each and every social media outlet.

Here’s how.

  1. Create a simple spreadsheet where you list all the sites you’re currently on.
  2. As you visit each social media tool note down how many fans, followers, likes or contacts you have.
  3. While you’re there, use the free analytics tools (if available) to get the stats on your reach, visits, views, interaction, comments etc (YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook all have analytics tools).
  4. Check your Google Analytics stats (it’s free) to look at your key referring sites to see how many visitors the likes of Twitter and Google Plus actually send you each month (look back over the last 3-6 months to see the trends).
  5. Also check which pages these sites are sending people to on your blog or website.
  6. If you’re using Su.Pr (Stumble Upon) or bit.ly then check the number of clicks on your shortened links.
  7. Look at the level of interaction on your blog if you have one, i.e. comments, social shares ect.
  8. Assess how many minutes or hours you spend each day on these particular sites and whether this is paying off for you.
  9. Set some specific goals that you want to meet over the next 3 months in terms of community, click throughs and conversion. Then start getting strategic with your time spent on social media.

If you want to take it one step further, check out the demographics of people using each of the sites you are evaluating. Compare those with the demographics of your current and potential clients to make sure you are in the same places as your customers.