Melanie's Marketing Tips

Internet Marketing Tips

Traditional Marketing Tips

 

MDC Resources

MDC resources page includes an archive of MDC Newsletters and Melanie's Marketing Tips. Check back often as this section is growing and evolving along with MDC.

MDC Newsletter Archive

Here is an archive of MDC newsletters. MDC newsletters offer useful tips on Internet and traditional marketing. Sign up for our Email Newsletter to get occassional emails from MDC.

8/5/2009 - Social Networking and Managing an Online Presence

5/6/2009 - Building Website Traffic and Search Engine Optimization

1/28/2009 - Developing Website Content

11/20/08 - Search-Engine-Friendly Websites

Melanie's Marketing Tips for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses

Welcome to Melanie's marketing tips. You'll find articles in a variety of areas in two categories, Internet marketing and traditional marketing, along with an archive of MDC newsletters. Although most of the focus in marketing today is on Internet marketing, traditional marketing principles still apply and the most effective marketing programs combine both disciplines.

An effective website defines your company's positioning and branding strategies and should be results and benefits oriented. The medium has changed, but the message is the same — how can your products or services help your customers and what makes you different from the competition?

Internet Marketing

10/22/09 - Getting the most from your email marketing program

8/5/09 - Making Sense of Social Networking

5/6/09 - Building website traffic

5/6/09 - The basics of search engine optimization

1/28/09 - When it comes to websites, content is king

11/20/08 - Is your website search-engine friendly?

Traditional Marketing

10/22/09 - The benefits of snail mail

1/28/09 - Branding strategies for small and medium-sized companies

11/08 - Positioning your company for growth

Internet Marketing Tips

Getting the Most from Your Email Marketing Program

There are many factors to consider in the development of an email marketing program. The goal is to create a dialog with your customers and prospects that builds trust and keeps you top of mind so that when they are ready to buy, you are there.

Here are some tips in creating an email newsletter for your company:

Create a simple design that works with your Website graphics
Companies like Constant Contact offer lots of options for designs, but it can be difficult to find one that matches your logo and the look you have established for your company. It's fairly easy to create a design to match your website if you have a little html expertise. If not, hire a professional to create a template for your email. Once you have template with the right look and feel, you can easily add copy and messaging yourself.

Offer useful information that your customers can use
Although your primary goal is to sell your company's products and services, your customers are more interested in how you can solve their problems. If you provide them with useful tips and information, they will be more likely to open your emails.

Create Landing Pages to Track Results
If are having a specific promotion, you may want to create a special page on your website with the details of the promotion to lead your customers through the buying process. In addition to tailoring the page to the email promotion, you can easily track results of your email campaign.

Use Social Networking to Distribute Your Email
With the popularity of social networking, it's easy to distribute your email through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Most email marketing companies offer a "share" button you can include on your email to allow people to post your email on these sites. You can also Tweet a link to your email or email it to social networking groups.

Drive Traffic to Your Website
Give your readers plenty of opportunities to click through to your website for more information. Embed lots of links throughout your email and entice readers in different ways. If you distribute your newsletter through social networking sites, you'll get website traffic and improve your search engine optimization.

Don't Forget Your Call to Action
Make it easy for people to respond to your mail in as many ways as possible. At the end of every section, ask them to call or email for more information. As with websites, you never know where they are going to end up and when they will be ready to take the next step.

Making Sense of Social Networking

Is social networking right for your company? It's hard to ignore the power of this growing medium as outlined in this slide show entitled "What the F**k is Social Networking?"

Getting Started
Here are some tools that I've found very helpful in understanding the basics of social networking.

To Tweet or not to Tweet
Everyone's talking about Twitter, but I have found it confusing to figure out how Twitter actually works. This video on Facebook called "How to Use Twitter" makes it easy to understand the basics. You will have to sign into Facebook to access the video, but it's free and easy to sign up if you don't already have an account.

Here is another helpful article on Twitter:
"Marketing Small Businesses on Twitter"

Using Facebook to Promote your Business
Creating a Facebook page for your business can help you connect with your customers and keep them up-to-date. Here is an blog post that I found very helpful on this topic:
Using Facebook Pages to Promote Your Brand

Here is a guide to using Facebook to market your company:
The Facebook Marketing Bible

Although it takes a little time to get the hang of it, social networking can have a big impact on your business if you use it properly. And it won't cost you a dime. So what are you waiting for?

Is your website search-engine-friendly?

Search engine optimization is no easy task. With every company clamoring to come to the top of Google searches for their product category, SEO is unaffordable for most smaller companies. However, there are some things small companies can do to maximize search results for their company.

First and foremost, your website should have a search-engine-friendly design. The web is changing constantly and Google spiders are crawling the Web everyday to look for new content. If your website hasn't been updated in a few years, than most likely, Google has forgotten about you. The more you update your website, the more your site will be crawled and indexed by Google and the better your search results will be.

Here are some simple guidelines for creating search-engine-friendly sites:

If you follow these simple guidelines for your website design, your search engine results will improve. It takes a while for Google to index your site, so don't expect immediate results, but if you start with a properly designed site, you'll be well on your way to attracting more customers and prospects to your site.

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When it Comes to Websites, Content is King

How many websites have you gone to that look nice and seem to have lots of information, but where do you find what you want? Does the website speak to you and your needs, leading you through the buying process to the information you need to make an informed decision? Do you know where to click next or do you just push the back button and move to the next site out of frustration?

Website design is important, but only part of the website development process. How do you create a site that keeps your prospective clients on your site, leading them through the buying process and convincing them to buy from you?

Your website is your company’s primary marketing tool. If you want your website to work, the right content is the key to your website’s success. You have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention and engage them in the buying process or risk losing them forever.

Content development is a complicated process with many different factors to consider. The overall challenge is to take all the information you can gather about your company and its products and/or services and organize it into logical segments of tiered information that can be accessed quickly and easily.

Since different visitors have different information needs, the goal is to make it easy to skim quickly for some, while offering more information for others. In addition to being well organized, your website content should be well written and persuasive, making it easy for readers to move to the next step when they are ready.

Optimizing your content for search engines
Fancy Flash pages are no longer the focus of today’s websites. Google ranks your site by crawling the pages and searching for relevant words. Google spiders don’t see Flash movies and photographs. In fact, a Flash home page blocks Google from crawling and indexing your site’s content.

When someone initiates a search in Google, the search begins with the searcher entering the words they think best describe the information they are seeking. These words are considered “keywords”. Google’s spiders crawl the Web to find the websites with the most keywords in each search and ranks them according to how many of these keywords are included on a given website. There are many factors that go into this process, but this is the basic premise behind search engine optimization.

For search engine optimization purposes, your home page should have lots of relevant keywords so that people will find your site. When they get to your site, they’ll scan the page and quickly decide where to click next. Perhaps your home page will pull them in and they will read it if they find it engaging. Or, maybe they will go directly to the about page to learn more about your company. Another person may go directly to the products or services page.

Once people get to your site, how do you know where they will click next? You don’t. Everyone is different and you have no way of knowing where your website will lead them. This is not a brochure. You can’t assume because you said something on your home page they have read it. They could go anywhere. Once you determine the primary benefits of your company’s products or services, how do you ensure visitors get your marketing message?

Developing Your Website Content
Since you don’t know where people will go when they get to your site, you should write each page as its own entity. This means you may have to repeat the same message on several pages, but since you don’t know which pages a visitor has read already, you’ll want to say it a different way so it doesn’t sound repetitive. (For example, your home page may give some information about the company which you’ll need to repeat on the about page.)

The advantage of this strategy is that it reinforces your marketing message throughout your site. For engaged visitors who are the right prospects for your company’s products and/or services, everything they read will lead them towards buying your product or service. If your message is compelling, you’ll pull them in wherever they land and they will drill into your site for more and more information until they are ready to buy.

Encourage your visitors to take the next step by including calls to action throughout your site. Since you have no idea when your visitors will be ready to take the next step, make it easy for them to respond. End each page with a sentence like, “Call xxx.xxx.xxxx today or email for more information”.

There are many other aspects to consider when developing content for your site including:

In summary, if you want your website to work for you, develop well-written, informative and organized content. If you are not a skilled writer, work with a professional writer to develop content for you. Your company’s website is your most important marketing tool, so don’t underestimate the value of carefully crafted content. The success of your website depends on it.

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The basics of search engine optimization

The basics of search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is a complicated process with many different factors to consider. Basically, there are two types of SEO:

Organic SEO
Organic SEO involves optimizing your website for search engines so that when people do searches for your product, your website comes up on the left side of the page under search results. Ideally, your website should come up on the first page of searches for your product or service, preferably in the top three listings.

This was fairly easy to accomplish a few years ago, but now this is where everyone wants to be, making organic SEO more difficult to achieve. Depending on the type of product or service you are marketing and how competitive your industry is, organic SEO can run from a few hundred dollars a month to thousands of dollars a month.

If you have the budget and your product/service is conducive to selling on the Web, you should seriously consider an organic search engine optimization program. The first step is making sure your website is optimized for search engines and has a search-engine-friendly design. If not, you may want to consider revamping your site first to make it easier to accomplish organic SEO and improve your search results or implementing a paid SEO program.

Paid SEO
If you don’t have the budget for organic SEO and your website is not search-engine-friendly, you can still drive traffic to your site for a relatively small investment with Google Adwords. Google Adwords are links that come up on the right side of the page when you do a search. The process involves choosing the right keywords for your product and bidding for placement. The advantage of Google Adwords is you only pay if someone clicks through to your site. You can set a limit as to how much you are willing to spend per day, and Google only sends you that many clicks. This can cost as little as a few dollars a day and is a very affordable way to bring traffic to your site.

Read more about implementing a SEO strategy for your company’s website.

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Building website traffic

If you build it they will come….
When it comes to websites, this is true, but only to a certain extent. The results you get from your website depend on many factors and building a website is only the first step, and not a panacea to bring buyers to your door.

A website is just another marketing tool, and although it’s the primary marketing tool for most companies today, every business is different. Your website marketing strategy should depend on many factors and one-size-fits-all doesn’t apply to websites.

Developing a website marketing strategy for your product or service
Here are some of the questions to answer before developing a website marketing strategy:
1. Is your business local or national?
2. Are your products or services inexpensive and simple to buy or expensive and complicated?
3. Is your product or service something that people would search for on the Web or something they would most likely get a referral for?
4. What is the competition like for your product or service? Are there many other companies in your space or is your product or service specialized and unique, filling a certain niche?

Local or National
If your product or service is generally sold locally, search engine optimization (SEO) is easier to accomplish. People will tend to search for your business using the name of your town or state, which narrows the field significantly. Be sure to register your site with Google Local Business. It's free to register and searches for your company the include your city will bring up your site and contact information.

For national products, bringing traffic to your site can be more challenging, and depending on the nature of your product, a search engine optimization program may be required to boost traffic.

Simple and inexpensive or complicated and costly?
For products and services that are simple to understand and easy to buy on the web with no human interaction, search engine optimization is very important. If you can drive people to your site and give them the right information when they get there, you will most likely garner sales from your website. In this case, a comprehensive search engine optimization program could be very beneficial.

If your products or services are more complicated, search engine optimization is also important, but in a different way. If your product/service is specific and your market is relatively small, search engine optimization will be easier to accomplish. A well-designed, search engine-friendly website may be all you need to drive traffic to your site.

Web sales or referrals?
Even if your product/service is inexpensive and simple to buy, it might not be something that people tend to search for on the Web. Some things people just feel more comfortable getting a referral for. Things like massages, local restaurants, or more expensive products/services like contractors and lawyers, people like to ask for referrals first, and then they may go to the website to learn more about the company they were referred to. In this situation, make sure your website has all the information they need to sell them when they get there and that it’s easy to find. Search engine optimization is still important, but not the focus of your website marketing program.

Competitive market or niche product?
If the marketplace you compete in is extremely competitive and people tend to buy your product or service on the web, search engine optimization should be the focus of your website marketing strategy. However, if you have a niche product that is very specialized, a search engine-friendly website may be sufficient in conjunction with a few simple traffic-building tactics.

Developing a website marketing strategy you can afford
These are some general guidelines in developing a website marketing strategy for your company. Although search engine optimization is important to all types of websites, in some cases, it’s more important than others.

Once you’ve determined what the focus of your website marketing strategy should be, the next step is implementing a program you can afford. Search engine optimization programs can cost thousands of dollars and if your product or service warrants it, it’s well worth the investment. However if this isn’t in your budget, there are inexpensive ways to drive traffic to your site. It’s always best to start with a well-designed, search-engine-friendly website, but if your website is a few years old and you don’t have the budget to revamp it, you can still drive traffic to your site with a paid search engine optimization program like Google Adwords. Learn more about the basics types of search engine optimization.

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Traditional Marketing Tips

Positioning your company for growth

Let's start with the basics of any marketing communications program — positioning. Many companies overlook this crucial first step, but positioning is the key to creating a successful marketing communications program.

The goal is to define your company's unique position in each market you compete in. A clear-cut positioning strategy sets the stage for all marketing communications, and gives you a foundation for your company’s branding strategy.

What is a positioning statement?
A positioning statement is a one or two-sentence statement that clearly and succinctly explains how your product (or company) differs from your competition.

A positioning statement should:

How to position your company and products
Here are some questions to consider when developing a positioning statement:

To quickly develop your own positioning statement, fill in the blanks in this statement:

“For people who [describe the target users], [insert your company or brand name] is the company/brand of [describe your competitive set] that provides [tell the benefit that makes you different and better].”

Target users are those customers who share common needs, and demographic characteristics. The competitive set may be as simple as a product category, but should always be worded in the same way customers describe that category. The benefit that makes you better is the one point of difference you want most closely associated with your product or brand.

Your positioning statement should tell your audience the following about your company:

A positioning statement is a good first step, but to do it properly you should do a thorough evaluation of all the players in your industry, the products they offer and their benefits. Once you have a positioning statement you feel is on target, sit down with the relevant people in your company and get their input. Your company's position is something all the key players of your company should agree on to ensure the success of your marketing communications program.

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Branding Strategies for Small and Medium-Sized Companies

What is branding?
Branding creates an identity for your company and products. It’s a marketing process that you can use to establish a brand name for your products and services, giving customers confidence in your company, and strong reasons to purchase from you. Once you’ve established a strong brand identity for your products, you’ll increase the value of your products by gaining your customer’s trust, and as a result, you’ll increase profit margins.

Often, companies that don’t have a strong market position and brand identity resort to cutting prices to increase sales. Price-cutting leads to increased sales volume, but lowers profit margins, leading the company down a descending spiral of profits. However, if you can create value for your products and services, you can command a higher price and increase profit margins.

Branding for small and medium-sized companies

Big companies like Intel, Gillette, Nike and Proctor & Gamble spend millions of dollars on branding by hiring large sophisticated advertising agencies to help them build their brands. But even if your company is small and you have a limited marketing budget, you can still incorporate basic branding strategies into your marketing program.

In all reality, branding is just a sophisticated term for good marketing practices. Here’s how to create a branding strategy for your company:

  1. The first step is to do a thorough positioning of your company and it products.
  2. Then, use your positioning strategy to differentiate your products or services from the competition by identifying the one big bottom line benefit that your company offers. Pick ONE THING that you do better than anyone else in your industry. Of course, there will be many benefits to using your company’s products or services and you will want to mention those benefits as well, but to build an effective marketing campaign, focus on the one big benefit.
  3. Once you’ve identified your one big benefit, develop a tagline to support that benefit and display it prominently in all your marketing materials. In addition to your tagline, reinforce the one big benefit in your copy by saying it different ways throughout your marketing materials to keep supporting your message.

The Three C’s of Marketing

Now that you have a handle on the elements of your marketing campaign, simply follow the three C’s of marketing: consistency, consistency, consistency. Look at all your marketing materials and ask yourself these questions:

    • Do all these materials look like they came from the same company?
    • Is my company’s logo consistently and prominently displayed?
    • Do I have a meaningful tagline that supports my company’s position in the marketplace?
    • Is my messaging consistently supporting the same key benefit throughout all my marketing materials?

With the focus on Internet marketing and cost-cutting, many small to medium-sized companies skip these important steps. Most business owners are not marketers and don’t see the value of hiring marketing professionals to help them with their messaging. The result is often a website with no personality that doesn’t speak to customers about their problems and how to solve them. Or email newsletters that focus on what the company wants to say and not what the customer wants to hear.

Think Like a Marketer

If you incorporate the right messaging into your marketing materials, every dollar you spend will work harder to grow your business. Think about your marketing materials from your customers’ point of view. How can you help them? What problems can you solve? It’s not enough to have a website. Make your website work harder with a little thought and effort up front. If you do your homework, your marketing program will get better results and your company will grow quicker. If your business is slow, now is a good time to rethink your marketing materials and your website. Be ready to take advantage of the upturn when it comes, and it will.

The Benefits of "Snail" Mail

Although most companies have abandoned direct mail for more cost-effective email
programs, you shouldn't discount this valuable tool. The majority of the people that get your emails don't even open them and others have spam filters that are filtering out your email before it
even gets to them.

Direct mail is more expensive than email, but it still works. Here are some of the advantages of direct mail:

SNAIL MAIL MARKETING TIPS
Direct mail is complicated. Many factors contribute to its success or failure, which makes it difficult to do effectively in-house. However, if you plan carefully, and use some of the following suggestions, you should be able to achieve success, even with a limited budget.

Fine-tune your list
A major component of any direct mail program is a qualified mailing list that’s segmented, breaking your customers and prospects into at least two different groups. With a well-defined list, you can target the needs of individual markets, and tailor your message to address the needs of each segment. If you plan to buy lists from magazines or other sources, make sure all the names you buy have been updated within the last year, and make your selections are as specific as possible.

Tailor your message
Once you’ve segmented your list, approach each segment individually, thinking about the needs of each group. Develop your messages accordingly. The more specific your message, the better your results. For example, different industries may use the same product, but you should look for different benefits for each of them. Also, mailings to customers will have a different emphasis and tone, than mailings to prospects. You can target your messages cost-effectively by printing one mailer in several different versions, or by using different cover letters.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF MAILINGS
There are many different formats your mailings can take, and which one you choose depends on many factors, such as your budget, product, message, audience, etc. The only way to know what works for your company is by trying different things, and comparing responses. If you’re going to use direct mail, you should think of it as a long-term program; something you plan to do on a regular basis.

Letter Packages
Letter packages can be developed in a variety of ways. A typical letter package includes a letter, some type of insert or brochure, and a reply card. Often, there’s also a teaser on the envelope to entice the recipient to open the package and read further. Letter packages are particularly effective for new product and service introductions. They generally out-pull self-mailers, but of course, it depends on the package.

Self-Mailers
Self-mailers are fun, offering you a variety of design formats to communicate your message. They can be black and white, two, four, or six-color, and as simple as a postcard, or have several panels, one of which should always include a business reply card(brc). Self-mailers are particularly helpful for promoting seminars because people tend to save them, and pass them around. They are also good for simple messages, offers, and announcements.

INVITE YOUR CUSTOMERS TO RESPOND TO YOU
Make it clear you want your customers to respond to you, and then give them different response options. The more options, the easier you make it for them to contact you. Remember, that’s your goal. So make sure to include your phone number, e-mail, website, business reply card (brc) or coupon, anything that will help you communicate with your customers.

Do you want them to request a catalog? Call to place an order? Have a sales rep call them? Give you specifications for a quote? Then let them know.

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For more information or a free consultation, call Melanie at 978.921.2650 or send her an email.