I try and pull inspiration from any where I can find it. This video is pure inspiration. It shows me to never be afraid to display your talents to people, even in the Subway. Put yourself out there and see what happens. On the business perspective I counted $6 and change being earned in 4 minutes, which translates to approximately $90 per hour. Anyone want to start a singing group? Enjoy the video.
1. Keyword selectionFirst, we’ll start with free tools, but I recommend if are serious about your SEO efforts to look into more advanced options. Start with an informal survey. Ask friends, customers and employees what they would type into the Google search box in order to find the products and services you offer. Another tool in your toolkit is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. The next option in selecting keywords is to spy on your competitors. They have already taken the time to research and can be a valuable resource.
Finally, one of the best and most affordable keyword research and analysis tools I’ve used is a software called Market Samurai. This software can instantly provide you with keywords that drive traffic but at the same time have low competition. This allows you to rank quicker in the search results for more keywords. The software is priced at a one time fee of $149. Check it out here.
Google looks to the meta page title as the main description of what the page is about. The meta page text appears at the very top of the user’s browser and can be edited within your website’s html. Google also uses the meta page title as the heading for its search results. The key to a really effective meta page title is including all of your main keywords in both a human-friendly and Google-friendly way. The meta page title below includes all of the keywords my client wants to rank for.
Chicago Interior Designer | Home Decoration Services for Kitchens, Bathrooms, Fireplaces
Links matter more than any other factor is SEO. Google gives you credit every time another website links to your website. It is vital for Google that when a user searches for information that they return the best possible results for the user. Google understands that if the user doesn’t find valuable information then they will not use their services.
One of the ways Googles algorithm determines which websites to place on the first page is the numbers of links that point to your website. This is the ultimate sign of trust. If other sites link to your website than it must have some type of valuable information on it. Soon, I will be posting a post about link building and the proper steps to take.
This is straightforward. Put your keywords in your URL. The most common way to structure this is the following:
www.yoursite.com/keyword1 www.yoursite.com/keyword2 www.yoursite.com/keyword3Here’s a secret: Google purposely puts your website into timeout and imposes a ranking delay on new websites. It will usually take 2-4 months for a new website to start ranking competitively. Even after this initial “time out” Google will not release the full potential of your SEO power. Not only does Google factor into your website age, but also the age of the links pointing to your website. Google wants to make sure your website is in for the long haul, but if you truly want to build a profitable business this should be your goal anyway.
Local search is changing the game for those looking to market locally online, particularly small retail stores. Whether using local search marketing or local SEO, the resulting impact on store traffic and sales is impossible to ignore. Get it right and you might corner your local market, get it wrong and you’ll be left in the dust.
90% of online commercial searches result in offline bricks and mortar purchases (proprietary research /comScore). Is this an opportunity you can afford to miss? More precisely, what you need to ask yourself is, when local customers search for what you sell, do they find you?
What this statistic means is that finding businesses locally is becoming an internet driven task. Thanks to local search tools, real local businesses are increasingly visible to local customers online. As a result, the internet is now driving local brick-and-mortar sales.
And as consumers continue to move online, their reliance on online tools to perform searches for local information, local businesses and everything else local will only continue to grow. 61% of local searches result in purchases (TMP/comScore). Almost 2/3 of customers using local search will go on to buy. Is this an opportunity that any local business can pass up on?
You can take advantage of local search in one of two ways. A) Local SEO -or- B) Local Search Marketing. Start with local SEO. Often “localized” keywords face much lower competition and less sophisticated competition – making it easier to grab top positions and click share. As your marketing evolves, add local search marketing to the mix. The seasoned retail marketer who is able to effectively use these two strategies together will thrive.
According to research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing was expected to generate an ROI of $42.08 for every dollar spent on it in 2010. As such, it outperforms all the other direct marketing channels examined, such as print advertising.
Read the above statistic again. People unfamiliar with email marketing often wonder what all the fuss is about. Didn’t spam kill email as a marketing vehicle? What about blogs, Twitter and all the other clever ways we can communicate online? Isn’t email outdated? Yet again and again email prevails, just ask Groupon. Email marketing works for a variety of reasons…
It allows targeting It is data driven It drives direct sales It builds relationships, loyalty and trust It supports sales through other channels
Each email address impacts the bottom line for your business. For example, Alaska Airlines determined that the value of each email address to them was $160, according to Navin Mithel of Alaska Airlines. Their email group used that piece of information to lobby for more real estate on the Alaska Airline homepage for email address capture.
To grow the list for their “Click ’n Save” emails, Southwest Airlines uses posters at gates; messages on their peanut bags, menus and napkins; ads in their Spirit Magazine; and announcements by flight attendants after announcing that it was safe to use mobile devices. Most of these acquisition messages didn’t cost additional money.
To grow their list, Whole Foods educated store reps on their email program and incented in-store sign- up capture with a 2-month contest. They saw 180% list growth over that period, with store reps using posters, chalkboards, bag-stuffers, etc. to promote sign-ups.
Today’s new cross-channel customer is online, offline, captivated, distracted, satisfied, annoyed, vocal, or quiet at any given moment. Marketing campaigns should be cohesive yet distributable across multiple channels. Segmentation strategies should now take into account channel preferences.
To truly become an effective cross-channel marketer, marketers must adhere to some basic principles, most importantly to ensure that the organization is aligned to be a cross channel marketer.
Today, consumers have more options. They can choose which marketing messages they receive, when, where, and from whom. They expect, even demand, interactive communication. The new power channels are the consumers’ channels — email, mobile, social and the web.
The web and email have been two channels that are very common to retail marketers, but are still not being used as effectively as they could be. Social and mobile are two marketing channels that have emerged in only the last few years. Customers are spending less time on the general internet and more time on social networking sites such as Facebook and more time on their mobile device.
Start with a couple key channels to develop integrated, efficient digital marketing programs – i.e., integration of content across social media and email marketing, and the development of more targeted messages based on search behavior data.
Studies have proven that customers are more likely to purchase from a brand, if the brand is able to communicate with the customer through multiple channels. For example, a customer who is an email subscriber AND Facebook fan is more likely to purchase from your store, than a customer who is just a Facebook fan.
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” – John Wanamaker
The most successful retail stores are constantly monitoring, analyzing and optimizing their marketing performance. This process, results in an extreme competitive advantage over your local competitors. Not only will you steadily be increasing your sales over time, but you’ll be doing it more affordably. How sweet is that?
It’s easy to buy into marketing “quick fixes” and hope for the best. But the best marketing is that which gives a measurable result. Treat marketing as an investment, not a cost. And for any investment to be worthwhile, money earned should be more than money spent.
The success of your store hinges on 3 key performance factors (store traffic, customer conversion and average sales value). Since these 3 key metrics are the key to going out of business or building a multi-million dollar business, these need to be measured often. Ideally, it would be nice to have real-time dashboard, showing you the vital signs of your business.
This simple equation takes into account ALL the factors that contribute to store sales. It fully explains why your store made the sales it did. Once these factors are known, the potential can be seen and calculated, and specific actions can be implemented and evaluated independently.
Review these metrics and use them to guide your decisions. With these metrics in place, you can tell which strategies are working and which aren’t. If you make a change, you use the metrics to tell you whether the change improved things or not.
The first mistake that people often make is rushing to get their campaign started. The selection of the right keywords will make or break the campaign. Here is a keyword discovery roadmap that will help choose the right keywords.
This may sound like an unnecessary step for keyword discovery, but understand that all your kewords relate to your positioning. When drafting your positioning statement ask yourself the following questions.
The answers to these questions will help you create a positioning statement. You and everyone that works in your company needs to by crystal clear about who your customers are and how they shop for your products online.
Brainstorming is important because it allows you to break free of keywords that you automatically associate with your business and open up to ones that you never would have thought of, but customers are using.
Invite everyone to this brainstorming session; customers, sales team, IT, customer service reps and all front line staff. The first question you should ask is, “How would you search for our product or service on the web?” Your keyword list will come out of all of these questions being answered.
Other things to consider:
It is vital that you only use a keyword research tool after you’ve completed the brainstorming session. A keyword reaserch tool is a data aggregator of customer keyword search activity on the web. Here are some keyword tools to check out:
The most overlooked step in discovery discovery are negative keywords. These are keywords are a list of search terms that you do NOT want to show up in your advertising. You could end up paying for wasted clicks. For example, if you sell cars and NOT car parts or rentals you want to exclude the terms parts and rentals. By creating a negative keywords list you will save money and receive better conversions from you PPC campaign.
Untargeted companies that fall into this level typically have a “batch & blast” email marketing mentality with very little customer targeting. They may be limited in using technology to support the marketing process or use basic software such as Constant Contact. Campaigns are limited to only email and are offer-driven.
As a next step, businesses at this level should focus on improving their ability to leverage basic information about customers to target email communications across multiple channels more effectively.
Targeted companies at this level segment customer audiences on basic rules and communications use some personalized elements. Managers are starting to think about a more comprehensive email communication strategy.
To improve their skills and move to the next level, these organizations should look for ways to automate existing email campaign processes and make way for new programs.
Organizations at this level have a strong appreciation for the systematic approach versus a one-off campaign approach and are actively working to increase the relevance of their communications, but marketing tactics are still primarily specific to one interactive channel.
Companies should continue to work towards a more customer-focused approach by developing marketing programs around key customer segments and lifecycle stages. Plans should include a mix of tactics from customized messages to behaviorally triggered communications. These groups should also begin to hone their understanding of the customer through customer-specific metrics.
Companies that reach this level have a strong understanding of the customer, solid strategic skills, and cross-channel plans. Social and mobile are more heavily integrated. These marketers leverage automation to implement highly efficient programs.
Data is leveraged across multiple sources for campaign triggers, campaign targeting and channel preference. To progress they must expand their targeted approach across multiple channels. These groups must begin to deploy cross-channel campaigns based on user behavior and preference data.
“In marketing I’ve seen only one strategy that can’t miss – and that is to market to your best customers first, your best prospects second and the rest of the world last. – John Romero
Not all customers are created equal. Segmenting customers according to interests and characteristics for the purpose of sending more targeted messages is one of the smartest moves an independent store marketer can make. This is a good first step, but is not as effective as the following.
To be truly relevant, independent retailers today should segment based on customer behavior, not just demographic information. Use whatever data you have available — previous email or web site click activity, purchases, or more structured data based on RFM (recency, frequency, monetary) analysis — to identify your best segment categories and send more relevant content to subsets of subscribers.
Create different versions of your marketing messages to appeal to the different segments, and take advantage of sophisticated filtering and dynamic content personalization technology to streamline the implementation of your strategy. Perform continual testing to determine the optimal strategy for each customer segment.
As you learn more about your customers you’ll be able to uncover additional categories and further refine your segmentation strategy for greater relevance and ROI. The key to this play is commitment — put forth the effort and it will pay off in the end.
Customer life cycle is a term used to describe the progression of steps a customer goes through when considering, purchasing, using, and maintaining loyalty to a product or service. This allows the retailer to communicate differently with customers based on which stage of the lifecycle they are in or how much they’ve spent. This strategy will have a huge boost in your return on investment of money, time and resources.
