Online marketing solutions

If your business is ready to expand its products to the outer reaches of the globe, it might be time to research your potential expansion. Nowadays you can use search engines to investigate your options and see what’s popular using online marketing tools. If your search marketing tools haven’t come in handy yet, just wait and see because now is your chance to use them.

Find out which Services and Products will succeed in the Global Market

Do some research before you begin wasting money sending out shipments of your products. You need to figure out who wants your products?

Come up with a list of key words that are relevant to your products and services. Test them out in search and see how many results appear. Now you have to be careful with this if you are writing in English and you want to market your products in China or Italy or Israel. You won’t be helped if you translate your keywords, especially with an online translator. You will not get the correct results and the whole process will have been useless.

A keyword that is translated from English is never going to give you the right amount of results on a Search Engine and instead will most likely tell you that there isn’t a possible market where you’re looking. You could potentially lose an opportunity to expand your products to a new market if you trust results from translated keywords. The solution for this problem is using native-speaking professional search marketers who understand keywords and can use the right ones in their native language to conduct the necessary research.

The most beneficial part of this type of market research is that it’s incredibly fast. The not so great thing is that your competitors are probably doing the same thing at an incredibly fast speed as well.

Plan your Market Entrance

You must figure out how you’re going to distribute your products and services to the public. Will you go through agents, your own offices which you’ll have to set up, separate distributors, or simply online? Whether you decide to work exclusively online or with physical distributors or agents, your website will still be a great resource, but your market research will be different based on each method.

Make a list of Companies to test your products on

Just because every time you type your product into Search and there are more results in Australia instead of China, does not mean that there is actually more interest from Australia. It just means that China uses English less in their search. This means that there are plenty of markets out there they just use different key words.

If you use the keyword process correctly, then you can use it for coming up with possible countries that might be interested in your products, just as you did originally to choose which products to market globally. But your research isn’t done there.

You need to read a little bit about the country and learn about the prices for products in each country and if people will buy your product for an equal or greater price than you are already selling it for in your HQ country. You need to know if it’s worth opening your product up and if you’ll earn money in that country, as well as knowing how easy it is to take your money out of the country of interest.

Time to Experiment with a Test Market

After your initial research, it’s time to test out one of your potential markets. You don’t want to invest too much in case it doesn’t work out, so be careful with your initial investment.

Also it’s not necessary to completely rewrite your website for specific market but it helps to make it more user-friendly. A great way to test the waters is by using PPC (Pay-Per-Click). This is an efficient, cost-effective method to test out the market.

Branch out with SEM and Online PR

After you’ve finished testing the waters with Keywords and PPC, it’s time to step up the game. Use some more SEM methods to establish your business in the country of interested. Expand your PR online, localize your website for that country using a Native-speaker and see how well you succeed.

You’ve succeeded once, so do it again!

Go down the list of potential markets that you created and do the research for the next one and the one after that. Start with the keywords, check the results, use Native-Speakers, try PPC, increase your online PR, and the process continues.

BizReport: Mobile Marketing: March 17, 2009

A chain of fashion clothing stores in the U.S. used mobile coupons to bolster sales.

The coupon campaign was promoted online via the store’s website, blog and on various mall websites where the store was featured. Offline, the campaign was promoted via signage in all Planet Funk stores that displayed the shortcode and corresponding keyword.

The results were phenomenal. Planet Funk created over 20% of their total December revenue via the mobile campaign. Nearly 2,000 coupons were generated and 91% were redeemed. In addition, 15% of those that redeemed coupons opted-in to receive future mobile campaigns.

According to BrandWeek: A new study finds that 72% of consumers are using more coupons than they did six months ago.   While newspapers and magazines were the primary source of coupons for 51% of consumers, 39% said they wanted to receive their future coupons via direct mail, while 26% said e-mail, either direct or through newsletters, would work. Another 16% preferred Web sites.

We all love a bargain – and so do our prospects and clients!

Coupons are highly effective and should be added to your marketing mix and coupon strategies.

Why Use Coupons?

• Coupons can reactivate your old customers. Give them a good reason to start buying from you again, rather then going to your competitors.

• Coupons can be a catalyst to other sales.  Offering a bargin or discount on one product, gives you opportunities to sell something else.

• Customer Feedback.  Reach out to your customers and prospects.  Ask them for honest feedback.  See what they want and are looking for in a sale or discount.

Make your Coupon Campaign a Success

1. Customers want to know exactly how much money they will be savings.  Do not be ambiguous.  Specify the dollar amount.
2. If you are using a discount in percentages, use the higher percentages as in 25%.  Lower percentages give a cheap display.
3. You can offer the buy one, get one free or buy one get half off on your second purchase.
4. Make sure you are clear in your advertisement.  We all want to know exactly what are the discounted items.
5. Use graphics and pictures  of the item on sale – this will help support the text and leave no room for confusion.
6. A strong call to action.  Have an urgency with an expiration date.  You want them to act immediately.
7. Use coupons to obtain subscribers to your newsletter.  Give them a small discount for signing up.
8. Put your campaign on your company blog.
9. Use social media.  Advertisement on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.  You can assume your targets are already using these tools.  This will enhance your Web exposure.  Create a strong buzz.

Demographics

When designing your coupon campaign, you need to know:

• Who your target audience is?  Prospects, clients, or wanting to reconnect with old and inactive clients.
• What is the focus and goal of your campaign?  A clearing house special, a new product, an upgrade?

Don’t forget to track your campaign results. Tracking campaigns results is the only way to measure success.

With millions of people using the Internet and the Worldwide Web for shopping, communications, and business, reaching your targeted segment online becomes easier each day.  No one can promise any method of marketing brings in 100% results. However, the bigger the marketing mix, the better your chances are for success.

An email campaign marketer should use every resource available to create buzz about their company, product, or service.  The acceleration of knowledge and technology is growing and changing at lightning speed.  Sometimes is seems that we will never be able to keep up, but keeping up and staying on top, are the key elements of remaining competitive.

Marketers are very resourceful people, constantly looking and searching for the latest new technology to help their business be seen and heard.  Well Google and Yahoo are actually out there helping.  Not only do these tools work, but they are free!

Google Local Maps: There are so many ways to be found on the web.  When people are searching for products and services, does your business come up on top?  Do you know how your business ranks in the search engine results pages (SERPs)  Some marketing analysts  have stated, it may take from 3-6  months to gain good rankings.   Is there a way to expedite your business ranking?  Yes, with Google Local.

1.  Go the Google Maps. Click “Put your Business on Google Maps.”  -  If you do not have a Google Account, take a few minutes to set one up.

2.  Log into Google with your user name and password.  Click on “Add New Business”.  Note:  If your business has more than one location, you will need to create an excel spreadsheet and use the selection “Upload a Data file.”

If you need any help or information before proceeding, watch this video:  http://www.google.com/help/maps/tour/

3.  Fill in all the information  You will be able to edit, add photos, etc. after completion  Please read paragraph on top of the website page before going on.   Review all your information before hitting next and submitting.

4.  You will have the choice to be contacted by phone or by post card via mail.  Make your choice and hit submit.

Once you are confirmed, check to see if you are coming up with your search tags in the listings.  Google suggests 7-10 days.  Some people have found their listings within hours of verification.

Yahoo Local Maps.  Yahoo combines a search engine with a yellow pages style type listings.  Yahoo gives most of its space to business listings, while providing a tiny map in the left column.

Go to Yahoo Local Maps.  Click Sign up.

1.  Fill out all the information provided on the screen.

2.  Review and submit.  Yahoo states it will take around 3-5 business days.  Check your submission status at:  http://local.yahoo.com/ – for questions or to contact Yahoo Local,  go to this link:  http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/local/

Be aware, that Yahoo gives paid ads more prominence than Google.

Research and  use every tool available to help create a buzz about your business or service.  In today’s Internet marketplace, you need to be a very active player.   The tools are there, using them is up to you.

Valuable Resources: Here is a link that gives you great sites in which to start networking your site, service,  and brand.  Happy surfing!

Social Media has become a fantastic way to market yourself or your business. With easy accessibility to the Internet these days, it makes sense that we would learn to take advantage of it. We can share our whole world with people with one simple click of the mouse. We can meet new friends, connect with old ones, blog about our lives, share our inner most thoughts, and sell our skills and businesses. All this is possible through Social Media. This all sounds amazing, so how could there possibly be a downside to it?

The Bad

With the ability to share our whole world with the whole world that means everyone can know everything about you. People used to be able to have a public life and private life. Our private life, that time that we spend with friends and family, when we are at home enjoying meals with our significant other has become part of social media. Who only knew that their friend was single because his Facebook status was changed from being in a relationship with (insert any girl’s name, I’m sure she’ll be on Facebook) to single? And who hasn’t seen hundreds of wedding pictures and babies’ births on Facebook of MySpace? Some people may like the idea of showing their friends these special intimate moments in their lives, but they are forgetting that once it appears on the Internet it can travel anywhere and to anyone.

The Ugly

Some people out there might be wondering why they’re having such a hard time finding a job these days and maybe it’s not just about the economic recession. Maybe it’s because you sent your resume to a company who has interns that look up potential employees through Facebook. And maybe, just maybe, you forgot to take down those pictures of yourself wasted at a bar during your Spring Break when you were 20. It doesn’t matter if the pictures are 5 years old or 10 years old, if they are linked to your name, chances are you just lost a job opportunity because your potential employer chose someone who didn’t have evidence of them being a drunken mess. This may seem hard to believe but some businesses actually do look at your facebook profile and your MySpace profile when they’re looking to hire.

Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

This doesn’t mean that you should automatically become paranoid and delete your Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Blogger accounts in the next 30 seconds. It just means that you should be careful what you publish about yourself. Don’t tell the whole world about your fetishes, don’t add your personal videos if you don’t want people that aren’t your friends to see them. And even though all of these sights have Privacy Policies, there are still ways around it. Sure you think only your friends and subscribers can see what you post, but their friends can see it which leads to their friends’ friends seeing it and so on.

The whole idea of Social Media is to effectively branch out and communicate with others around the world by introducing yourself and your business. People have never been so connected before. Companies can market themselves in Israel even when they are based in the U.S. or India. The key is to market your skills, the positive points of yourself that will make others interested in you and the services you can offer them.

You can now determine whether or not you can open your products up to a new market just by using SEM techniques for research on the web, by typing in the right keywords and within a few minutes you can already begin to understand a different culture and how to become a part of it.

So take part in social media, the benefits certainly outweigh the risks. Just be careful and stick to advertising your skills, and don’t share information that you would regret if it got out to the world.

During an economic recession, very few businesses have the option to expand their budgets. Most businesses are strapped for cash and are cutting all extraneous expenditures wherever possible. This being said, it’s hard to imagine any business being able to spend as much as they want on a marketing campaign. I know every business dreams of having TV spots during the Superbowl reaching millions of potential customers in 30 seconds, but chances are that your business can’t afford it.

But without marketing, how will you continue to stay in business? You can’t just rely on your old customers, especially if you’re a new business because you don’t have any old faithful customers. No matter what, you have to continue to maintain some kind of marketing campaign. Email marketing is an effective way to market your products, services, and/or business to those old faithful customers and to potential customers as well.

Why use email marketing?

There are so many reasons to use email marketing, especially in a time of financial crisis. One reason being, that it’s just cheaper. Sending emails into the inboxes of all of your customers and potential customers is much cheaper than using snail mail. Direct mail involves extraneous costs for paper and postage stamps. Let’s not forget that it is much less effective than email marketing.

Email marketing lets you directly communicate with your customers, instead of sitting and waiting for them to get in touch with you. It reminds them of your presence and what you have to offer them. You can your customers updated, entice them with sales and post direct links for certain services or products that you know they’ll be interested in. The truth is that Google does this all the time. They watch and take note of all of our activity on the web, and then they begin to advertise certain products that they know we’re interested in.

With an email marketing campaign you can see how effective your advertising. You can see how many people click on your links through CTRs (Click Through Rates) and want your services. And you’ll see more traffic to your website. The nicest thing is that email marketing is fairly simple and there are products all over which will help you set up your campaign and continue tracking it to see how effective it is.

It used to be that whoever had the largest marketing campaign was able to establish the most brand-name recognition, which meant a guaranteed greater profit for the larger businesses and small businesses were left by the wayside. And yes, big businesses like Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy still have name recognition and their current customers will return to them, but the face of advertising has changed and there is a new generation of potential customers that just need a little push in the right direction to choose your Local Small Business instead of one of the big guys.

Advertising has moved to the Internet. People still watch plenty of television, but they flip the channel when a commercial comes on and they have TiVo, which lets them fast forward, straight through commercials. So all those millions of dollars that big businesses are spending on their Television Marketing Campaigns are starting to go to waste. What’s important now is a business’s online marketing campaign and their search results on the search engines. This can also cost a lot of money, but it doesn’t have to.

Already Google, Yahoo, and Bing have created local sections as part of their search engine results. First the results were simple. A user would type in a certain keyword/s into search, such as “Pizza New York” and around seven pizza places would pop up under the Local Business Results under Google. The results included a basic map, and a link to their website. Now the results include user reviews, the menu, more pictures, more detailed maps (including directions), coupons from the place, additional details (on payment methods, dining style, cuisine, price range, parking, and attire) and the phone number so people can call the place directly.

Microsoft’s Bing shows pretty much the same details, although Google is much more detailed in their information and the list of businesses are completely different. One thing that Bing has over Google is that they include nearby places of interests to the location you’re looking at, such as movie theaters, cafes, dessert restaurants, and bars.

And now that Microsoft and Yahoo are merging there will be some nice new additions to these results. Expect pictures from Flickr, articles from Wikipedia, travel info, weather updates, and YouTube videos under the local business listings.

Become part of the Local Business Results

If you’re a small business and don’t have a large marketing budget, add your business’s listing to the Local Business section on Google, Bing, and Yahoo. It’s free and the local business results appear first on the search results. So let me say that again: Free Amazing Advertising and Exposure for your Local Business!

You can also continue to update your listing over time with your address, phone number, pictures, and menu. Also try to get your customers to write a quick review on your business, even offer incentives, like a special coupon for 5 or 10% off their next purchase at your store.

Advertise with Facebook

In addition to the local business section, start doing some extra social media marketing (also free!). Create a Facebook account and a fan page for your business and your products. Use the page/s to update your followers about special promotions or deals you’re having. Post pictures on facebook, add a link to your website, a map, videos from YouTube (also easy and free to sign up), and let your followers write comments (which of course as an administrator you can delete them if you don’t like them).

The important thing you need to remember is why a customer will go to your store instead of a larger chain. You offer a personal connection and personal treatment as well. Remember to emphasize your commitment to your customers. If you care about them, they’ll care about you and spread the word about your business through their personal networks.

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According to Nielsen Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, 2009, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. With statistics like this, Social Media is proving to be the largest channel for marketing and communication ever.

What is Social News?

Social News websites allow its users to submit news stories, articles and media (videos/pictures) and share them with other users or the general public. An article’s importance is determined by the value or importance placed upon it by the voting community. Users have the power to influence the visibility of content. Whether the voting process is fair or not, the people rule.

As any business email marketer knows, getting your company and website noticed means putting it in front of as many people as you can. Social Media marketing has become a hot new avenue of marketing, and an absolute must to incorporate into your marketing mix. With thousands of people hitting these sites daily, you cannot afford to walk away from such a large audience.

Which sites to join? Each site attracts a different community. Be aware that there are many sites where marketing type articles are not permitted and will be deleted.  However, there are some Social News sites that marketers can use:

• http://www.reddit.com/
• http://digg.com/
• http://www.propeller.com/
• http://slashdot.org/
• http://www.mixx.com/
• http://shoutwire.com/
• http://tweako.com/
• http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/index.php
• http://www.iliketotallyloveit.com/

Here are some helpful guidelines when creating and posting your articles:

1) Create a catchy headline. Make your headline short, engaging and maybe a bit mysterious.

2) Ask your friends to Vote for You! Email your friends and ask them to submit a vote, if they really like it. Hmmmm…..this will give you a head start. Don’t be shy, get some honest feedback

3) Make it easy to vote. Have a simple, clickable call to action. Don’t make people click through to sub links in which to cast their votes. They just might get a bit frustrated and not vote.

4) Timing is everything. As soon as you publish your article, try to have your friends vote for it right away. The more votes in the shortest amount of time will put your article on top.  Top articles receive a higher search engine ranking. Bottom line, you want quick, and relevant traffic.

5) Become an active community member. Don’t just submit your articles to the social news sites, take the time to vote for articles that you might find interesting, as well. See which articles are getting the most votes. This will give you a better understanding of what type of communities each site is attracting and what they are writing about. This gives you a “heads up” on what these communities like to read.   Customize your article to fit into the community.

6) Success is never guaranteed. No can predict which articles will be successful and which ones will not. Just keep writing good copy about relevant subjects. Social Media News is just a part of your marketing mix. Keep working on all the channels of marketing towards building your ROI.

Know your target sites. With over 50 social news sites and growing, it can be a bit overwhelming. Joining and posting your articles to just any site, is a waste of your time and talent. Focus on what sites and communities will give you the most success.

Social news is getting more mainstream everyday. Within 5 years, we might see a social news site for every conceivable topical or business niche.

Whenever you’re attempting any type of marketing campaign, you need to get the word out about your company. You want clients and potential clients to feel comfortable knowing that your company or business is an expert in its field. And one way to do that is by keeping your customers updated with news and reports and worthy advice on products and skills that are related to your field. So since, the Internet is the king of all kings for marketing these days, a great way to be constantly in touch with your clientele is by writing to them through blogs and articles.

Articles have been around since the dawn of journalism. And articles come in many different forms. There are news articles, magazine articles, academic articles (in academic journals and papers), encyclopedia articles (anyone familiar with this thing called Wikipedia?), marketing articles (generally a little bit of content that tells you a lot about a product or business), and usenet articles (which is a bit more complicated, so we won’t go into it right now). If you look at Wikipedia, they’ll tell you that blogs and podcasts fall under the article category, but I beg to differ.

The closest type of writing that blogs relate to are columns, mostly personal opinion pieces in newspapers. The difference is that these days, anyone can write a blog, and you don’t need to be hired by a magazine or newspaper to get your opinion out there. In fact, at this very moment I am writing a blog. I’m telling you my opinion on producing and displaying content to the world.

There are pros & cons to writing both articles and blogs. On one hand, articles demand a specific type of format, including: a headline, lead, body, and conclusion. Articles are restricted in their type of writing and they tend to be more formal. Articles tend to follow a schedule. The reader expects to see a new article on the website of a company’s page, around 10:30 am on Friday, every week, in the same way that he or she expects to receive a monthly newsletter, on the 5^th of every month.

On the other hand, the opposite is true with a blog. Blogs are much more informal in their style, their content tends to be a bit more subjective and opinion-based, and also a little bit more unreliable. It doesn’t mean that you’re reading blatant lies as you read a blog, it just means that you don’t have 5 interns in the background fact-checking the content of a blog.

The downside of blogging is that if you want to keep your readership, you have to update your blog much more often than your articles. I remember once telling a friend I was going to start a blog and that I would write one blog per week and she laughed at me and told me that I was a fool and no one would read it, and if they did, they would get frustrated because I wasn’t updating my blog often enough. She was right. You can’t expect people to continue to read your blog if you don’t update it at least a few times a week. Ideally, you should write daily to keep people interested. I have a theory on why this is, blogs are not just informative, but they’re fun. Because they are informal and you have freer reign with your topics, it’s still more of a guilty pleasure for someone to read a blog. And we really can’t deny our guilty pleasures.

Blogs are also a great way to publish your link all over the web

All B2B or B2C email marketers know that email campaigns are an important part of their marketing mix.  With the explosion of social media, further avenues and channels must be explored and incorporated for reaching your targeted audience.  A good ROI does not depend on one strategy alone.  In a recent survey advertising and PR professionals stated that 95% of their clients incorporate blogs as part of their online marketing mix.   Nearly 88% have successfully increased measurable SEO objectives as a direct result of blogging.

“Build it and they will come” was a great line in the movie, Field of Dreams.  But that is not how it works in the real world.  Every day, thousands of new blogs are being created by companies and individuals alike.  Putting up a blog, as with a website, is a great start.  Then you need to optimize both for the Search Engines.  But that is just the beginning.  As with your website, no one can read or subscribe to your blog, if it cannot be found.  So how do you promote and market a new blog to the vast internet public?

First and foremost Content is always King – The foundation of any good copy is content.  Good content is vital to the health of your website or blog.  No one wants to read nonsense or fluff.  Make sure you have something to say, and it is relevant.  If you are targeting a particular audience, do your research and join other blogs and RSS feeds to see what your niche audience is talking about.

As I researched the web, I have found some really good tips to share.  Here there are:

1. Write a list of over 100+ resources or ideas.
2. Maybe you can write a “How to Guide?” Spend time making this awesome.
3. Write some articles and submit them to some article sites:

• Enzinearticles.com

• iSnare.com

• ArticlesBase.com

• SearchWarp.com

For a full list of the 25 top article submission sites, please go to:  http://www.wilsonweb.com/linking/wilson-article-marketing-1.htm

4. Need ideas?  Check out different blogs and see what people are blogging.  You can always modify content for your own niche market.

Don’t Forget About Facebook

Facebook is hot.  If you do not have a Facebook account, you need to create one today.  Take advantage of this powerful marketing tool.  If you have one and just let it gather cob webs, it is time for action.  Use Facebook’s great potential.  Here’s how:

Break of out the box. Join other groups that interest you, reaching out to people you would really like to get to know.

Have a voice – don’t be shy.  The whole purpose of having a Facebook account is to reach out and interact with the other members.  Write encouraging comments, ask relevant questions, letting people get to know the person behind the name.

Create a catchy profile. – Facebook has applications that let you do some cool stuff.  You can add YouTube applications that allow you to embed videos.  If you have some videos on there related to your profession or some you have made, that is being savvy.

Keep an up-to-date profile. – If your profile is not kept active, it will start dying down.  It is a commitment, but one worth keeping.

Online Videos

What a creative way to market your product, service, or company.  People like seeing and hearing a person.  No one wants a relationship with a company brand.  Letting people see who you are and what you are all about, is a way to reach out and touch your audience.

Once you have created your video:
•    Put it on your Facebook Page
•    Include your website and blog address below
•    Upload your video to different video sites
•    Put the video on your website
•    Share the video with friends
•    Remember to use rich keywords in the title

There are so many great ideas out there in Internet space.  Research and read the best ones and start implementing your strategies towards getting your blogs noticed.  And when you do, don’t forget to send them your replies.

To carry out successful email marketing campaigns, business marketers must know their market and their competition – plain and simple. Whether your competition is direct or indirect, you need to know what your competition is doing, and why they are successful.  Remember that old saying; keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?  So why do you want to know what your competitors are doing?  Are you being too intrusive?

No.  We are not being intrusive.  Using savvy, strategic internet tools, gives you a picture of your competition’s present and past.

Let’s face it; we are in a race for better SERP ranking, higher sales, and most of all – sustainability.

Attracting new prospects, converting prospects into clients takes time, creativity, research, and strategy.  Oh, did I forget to mention patience and commitment.  This is no overnighter.  Be in it for the long haul.

However, there is good news.  Now, with social media exploding on the web, you can easily follow your market, and your competition, whiling still hearing your targeted consumer’s voice – speaking loud and clear.  Getting the facts enables you to make intelligent and specific decisions on what changes and directions you need to make, and where to make them.  What a fabulous moment in time to be an internet email marketer.  With all the technological tools at your fingertips, we can span the international globe, create accurate analytical reports, never leaving our desk or getting out of our pajamas.

Powerful Free Tools for Internet Marketers

Start creating your reports with some of these free and powerful internet tools.  Sure, there are plenty of brand named monitoring tools that are quite expensive, but in a recession, you need to keep your overhead down.  Listed below are just a few of the tools that you can start with:

1.    Google Alerts:  set up alerts (including blogs, news, web and video) using the names of your competitors and their products.  Be creative.

2.    Twitter Search: similar to Google Alerts, you can use this to find chats between companies, customers, and employees.

3.   Backtype: Set up alerts to find what is happening within your niche whether through new blogs, community forums, or news

4.   Website Grader:  Generate free reports about your site, as well as your competitor’s site including:

•    Website overall grade
•    Google Page rank
•    Google Indexed pages
•    Traffic
•    Inbound links (how many are linking back to you)

5.    The Way Back Machine: Displays the past changes of any website.  Just like a time machine, you can view your competitors’ past – what modifications they have made through the years, and what they have kept.

6.    SpyFu: Lets you check the keyword words and AdWords being used by your competition. (Create a free account to begin)

7.    Technorati – Search the latest new blogs and posts by subjects.

8.    Research Social Bookmarks and Social News: Social bookmarks and news are hot.  Bookmark databases can be searched with keywords, topics, and subjects as you do in Google.  See what people are writing about now.

9.   BoardTracker: Use BoardTracker to read what people are saying about your competitors across 37,000 forums.  BoardTracker also has an Alerts function that you can customize.
Remember to subscribe to your competitor’s newsletter.  Read their blogs and news; while receiving their updates, newsletters, and software information.  If it’s important enough for their clients, then it is crucial for you.

How to Use This Information
For any research and information to be useful, business internet marketers must skillfully and intelligently seek solutions towards greater marketing strategies.  Posing the right questions, helps you apply provable results, with focus, and meaning:

1.    What does my competition know that I need to apply to my business as well?
2.    What keywords and phrases are they using; what are their SERP results?
3.    How are my products and services doing worldwide?
4.    What channels are being used for their marketing tactics?
5.    Are there areas where I need to improve further?
6.    What are they writing and talking about?
7.    What can I learn from their mistakes?
8.    What are their customers saying about them, and about me?

Successful campaigns are not achieved by playing a guessing game.   Every business campaign needs to be founded on what works – the stats and the facts.