There are many blogs out there each one covering one concept. This blog may be a little different because this is one blog covering many different concepts. However the underlying theme here is operations and support in a technologically changing world. This includes SEO, Online Marketing, Customer Support, Employee Management, Employee Motivation, Graphic Design and more. So sit back, relax, and enjoy.
It’s no secret, the world is changing and more people are using the internet to search for local businesses than they did just a few years ago. In fact thanks to Yahoo’s ability to track local searches, their numbers show local search was up 76% in 2009.
In years past, small businesses have had a difficult time competing with larger companies who have millions of dollars to spend for advertising. Now with the power of the internet, small businesses can gain market share for pennies on the dollar when compared to print media. This allows for even smaller businesses to compete with larger businesses if they understand how to use the technology that is available to them.
The internet marketing industry is going under some big changes at the moment. First of all, with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, people are spending more time chatting online versus meeting with friends in public places. In fact, according to Facebook, there are more than 400 million active users and more than 35 million users update their status each day. With this many people using Facebook to update their location, many businesses like restaurants and clubs are getting free advertising via Facebook posts and other social mediums. That doesn’t even count the businesses who already have a Facebook fan page.
Of course using social media marketing is only one point of discussion for small business. When a small business gets a link tweeted from twitter, or a link posted from Facebook, the link better lead to a good looking and informative website, and if not a free link can turn from great to not so great in seconds.
Websites and people have one thing in common and that is you only get one chance at a first impression, so you’d better look your best when first impressions are made weather it’s you or your business’ website a customer is viewing.
Of course like anything different people have different opinions regarding what a business website should offer. Some business owners want to fill their website with pages and pages of information, statistics, and more. Other business owners want lots of pictures and creative content which may include slide shows and moving graphics. These two examples are basically the two extremes where website design is concerned.
There are several major areas it is necessary to research in order to do well in the online marketing industry. An internet marketing company should have a good understanding of what people want to find on a website when they visit. It’s also important to know how a user’s eyes move about the screen, meaning what section of the monitor a visitor will see first, where a user is likely to spend most of his or her time looking, and where the user is most likely to look last. A good internet marketing company must also keep up with changes in technology (I.e. smart-phones, apps, iPads, etc.)
In summary, marketing a business via new technologies shows much promise for small companies working to compete with larger corporations, but in order to get the most out of this move to the online world a business must keep up with all the new information, or hire a good marketing company who does.
Tell me what you think. Do you like lots of pictures on sites you view, or lots of information?
I’ve been getting a lot of traffic from people searching for my post on the Motivational Letter to Our Sales Team I wrote a couple of months ago. For this reason I thought I would do another quick post on the subject as it seems people are relatively interested in motivating a sales team.
From all of my years in management, I can tell you that what I’ve learned most about managing others, is that if the goals of the employee are not inline with company goals, then you’ll find employees less likely to achieve the success the company values. In other words, if the employee feels that their goals are not important to the company then they are less likely to put forth a good effort.
For this reason it is important that every “one on one” sales meeting you have with your sales employees, or customer service employees or any employees for that matter their personal goals should be brought into the conversation as part of the interaction. This doesn’t mean their “personal sales goals“, or “company related goals” at all. This means if they don’t talk about that fact they really want to, let’s say take a vacation with their wife in Aruba for their anniversary next year, they are less likely to find value in the interaction.
The next time you meet with your employees in a “one on one” interaction take the time to find out what their personal goals are. Then figure out a way by achieving the company goals their personal goals will be met, and you will find by the time you are finished the interaction your employees will have a new fire beneath them.
The difference is, by taking the time to talk about their personal goals you show an interest in their well being. By discussing only their business goals, you relay the message the company is more important than they are. By creating a plan whereby company goals and their personal goals can be met with the effort and energy necessary to reach those goals you will find the employees will be much happier and be willing to spend more energy to achieving those goals.
