Online marketing solutions

Now raise your hands if you know the difference between SEO and SEM that is if you know what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are to begin with. I’m sure many of you out there are looking a bit lost now, and really it isn’t your fault. We have been using these terms interchangeably for awhile now and it’s time to stop and end the confusion.
SEO is actually a smaller aspect of SEM (Search Engine Marketing). SEM includes everything that is all the methods to promote a website on search engines, a form of online marketing. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the technique of promoting a website in natural or organic search results using key words.

The one, two, threes of SEM

Organic/Natural SEO

This method naturally improves a website’s rankings on search engines. The trick is using specific key words or phrases that represent the services offered on a company. The words should be used pretty often on the website itself within articles, links, headlines, and more. Those who are experienced in SEO can really improve a website’s results. SEO brings more readers to the site, which will bring more clients.

Using Local search

A local search uses SEO strategies in conjunction with info on state, city, and zip codes. This particularly helps users searching for local businesses. This can also include local directories, Google’s directory, profiles, and more.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC is advertisements on search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Bing… The advertisements will appear under the sponsored results each time a user types in a key word that relates to the subject of the ad. Advertisers only have to pay for users that click on their websites, explaining the name “pay per click.”

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing is the use of Internet applications to communicate and market yourself. This includes blogging, Twitter (micro-blogging), using social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and YouTube to advertise yourself, your business, or your services. Set up a profile on one of the sites and begin to market yourself and your skills.

Article Marketing

This is a type of advertising in which businesses write articles about their industry, business, services, and more. The articles are then published in the marketplace or on their own websites. You can add links in your article to get users to your site.
Marketing works best when you use more than one method. Use SEO and try some other SEM techniques. Come up with a plan when you are creating your website. Discuss traffic to the website, plan SEO into the structure of the website instead of after your finished and see where it leads you.

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.

How Restaurants Can Use Social Media

Every kind of business and service is getting on the bandwagon of Social Media.  Whether you are using email bulk campaigns or e-newsletters, Social media has given the Internet a new intimacy of virtual relationships. Reaching out to your customers and prospects has never been easier. This indeed is another great marketing channel for every restaurant looking to grow their brand awareness.

If your restaurant has been in business for years, and is known in the neighborhood, trust me, people are talking about you online. Make no mistake that there is chatter happening. The question remains, what are they saying? Most restaurants know that having a spectacular dish or menu is not the end of it all. Your customers want to be appreciated and connect personally with you in some way.

I don’t know about you, but when I enjoy a meal, and feel very satisfied and happy with the service, I start talking about that restaurant almost immediately.  Don’t you?  We tell our friends, you need to check this place out, great food, fabulous service. You want to share a good thing when you find it. How much better it would be if we could actually connect with our favorite restaurants online, or see what they are talking about. It sort of completes the experience.

Here is a list of tools that any restaurant owner could use to connect with their customer that in return could produce a type of brand evangelist.

Social Media Tools for Restaurants

• SEO: – your website must be optimized with your key words. That is a must. Being found on a search and ranking high in the SERPs is the first step for brand awareness.

• Sign up with the local restaurant search engines: Yelp.com, Urbanspoon.com, and TripAdvisor.com – Request that any  positive feedback be shared on the site publicly.

• Twitter: – Create a Twitter Account – publish you profile and use it to announce special family deals and discounts on meals.

• Create an E-Newsletter: – Ask your repeat customers for their email addresses and send a double opt in to subscribe to your e-newsletter.  Send a new recipe once a month, include some food preparation tips.  Ask for feedback for your next newsletter.  This is a great way to start your database list for future use along with acquiring a solid lead of customers.

•  Blog on your Website: – Bring your customers into the kitchen, behind the scenes.  Let them feel they are part of the action -  as if they are participating.  We all want to feel a little more than just being filled with good food.  We all want to belong.

•  YouTube – sign up for a free account.  Make a YouTube video of one of your most popular dishes.  Send out the URL on your newsletter and announce it in your blog.  As for feedback from those who have tried the recipe.  What a great way to engage people.

• GoMobile – Collect your client’s cell numbers and send SMS messages about specials and coupon deals.

If you need some guidance with marketing ideas, see this free online source: Virtual Restaurant

BEFORE you Jump into Social Media Marketing:

• Create a plan: First, know your audience, says L. Michelle Smith, president and CEO of Dallas-based media-strategy firm M Strategies Inc., whose clients include Atlanta-based Church’s Chicken.  Are your customers on social networks, and if so, which ones? Next, know what you want to accomplish: Is your goal to build a relationship through dialogue with an audience? To tell people about the brand, or about news and events? “It’s not a strategy just to be there,” Smith says.

• Listen to what customers are saying: Search social-media sites and read what already has been posted—not just in reviews but in comments and conversations. “You’ll learn a phenomenal amount,” says Van Vandegrift, president and emerging-media consultant with Matrixx Pictures, a Santa Monica, Calif., production company whose clients include Austin, Texas-based Schlotzsky’s Deli. “They’ll say all the things they love and all the things they hate, and that’s incredible business knowledge.

• Know your Voice: Decide whether you want to speak to consumers in your personal voice (i.e., as the owner, chef or general manager), or as the overall brand, says Christina Wong, restaurant and chef publicist at JS² Communications in Los Angeles.

• Create brand ambassadors: Find the people who really love your restaurant.  Share your vital info with them, let them spread the good word.

• Make  your conversations interesting: Just listing menu items, unless they’re particularly unusual, makes for a boring post. “Say something that shares part of who you are, like, ‘Chocolate ice cream is the only worthy ice cream’ or ‘Just finished making my grandmother’s bread-pudding recipe and it rocks,’ or ‘Completely slammed in the kitchen, no end in sight,’” says publicist Ellen Malloy.

Remember, social media is just a tool, but you are the one to make it happen.  Listen, answer questions, and connect with people online.  Take these opportunities to reach out to your customers.  When you do, they will be telling others about you, building your brand, and making you visible.

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.