Most businesses are looking at how to utilise the Internet and how they can achieve leads from their online marketing. This is not real surprise as more and more people everyday are relying on the Internet to find companies to supply the products and services that they are looking for.

But where do you start? Going from simply having a website to launching an online marketing campaign can be a daunting prospect, there are so many different variables to consider and how do you know what is right for your business? Well, this is where we come in. We work with our clients on an ongoing basis to work within their individual business goals.

You wouldn’t try and fly a plane with no training right? So why would you try  your hand at Internet Marketing with no experience. But I get that it’s hard to put your trust in someone else, especially when you don’t really now what’s involved yourself. How do you know you are being charged correctly or even what you should be doing in the first place.

We get that, we understand that this is often a new area for businesses and this is why we spend so much time before we even start, helping to understand what makes your business tick and also helping you to gain some knowledge in terms of what Internet Marketing is all about.

So if you are a little apprehensive then just get in touch and we’ll be happy to have an initial no obligation about you are your business requirements, you have nothing to lose but the cost of a phone call!

Things have been rather busy in the office during November, Neil’s been growing his Moustache for Movember (but personally I think it’s partly to keep his face warmer – it’s freezing outside) in support of Men’s Health Issues. With the run up to Christmas well underway our e-commerce clients have been seeing an increase in online sales which fits in with research to show how more and more people are shopping online rather than hitting the High Street.

I quite like doing a bit of both to be honest, I love walking round the shops when it’s cold outside, stopping for a coffee and staring out at the shoppers but like a lot of people I tend to find what I like and then go an look for it online afterwards. To give you an example one of my daughters wanted a particular computer game for Christmas (I won’t tell you what it is in case she reads this) and in the shops it was priced at £34.99 a quick search online once we gotten home and we found it for £19.99. That’s a massive saving and so why wouldn’t you?

Anyhow, enough about Christmas. December tends to be that time of years when new task requests quieten down for us and so it’s a great time to review the year gone and plan for the next. We do this for each client taking into account what we know about their business goal, any changes they will be making over the next year and how changes in internet marketing correspond to our overall strategy for them. We are then in a good position to come up with a plan going forwards.

But more than that we also get the opportunity to review our own business goals and look at our strategy moving forwards. I cannot stress how important it is to have a plan for your business and yes this should include online marketing but that forms part of it. So take some time out in between singing carols (we know you do it !!) and eating mince pies to really think about what you want to achieve next year, put it on paper, set some goals and then work out what you need to do month on month to achieve those goals.

And once that’s done – well, there’s plenty of parties to go to …….

Whenever anyone approaches us to help them with their online marketing we always start with research. All of our solutions are targeted to our customers specifically and so how can a campaign for a local Windows company be the same as a national radiator retailer? It can’t be obviously and that is where the research comes in.

We look at the following areas before we even start:

• what people are searching for on Google
• how many people are searching
• who is being found
• why are they being found
• how geographically targeted are their searches
• a technical audit of the clients website
• how the competition are tackling social media

By targeting these areas we can see what is working and what isn’t working and reverse engineer what the most successful companies are doing online. This allows us to estimate quite accurately the time and effort involved to compete against these companies.

Many people we meet have had a beautiful website designed and built but in my opinion unless you are well known in your own right, you have completely wasted your money. Very few people know who you are, very few people are going to visit your website and therefore very few people are going to turn into new customers.

For us those initial meetings with a client are really around education, what is Internet marketing? how much effort will they need to put into a campaign, what kind of budget do they have available to do this. For most businesses if they don’t do something to become visible online their company will surely suffer and in the longer term they probably won’t be around.

So getting that initial research done is vital in ensuring that you have a structured campaign in place that fits in with your overall business objectives. Internet marketing is such a vast area and encompasses a multitude of different tools and techniques and so it really does pay to do the research before so that you can see the size of the opportunity, and more importantly how likely you are to get a good return on investment if you do embark on a campaign.

Sounds dramatic I know but businesses need to understand the importance of being online and how internet marketing is integral to their future success. Working with an internet marketing these days is pretty much the same as using an Accountant, it should simply form part of everyday proceedings. Unfortunately it’s not always viewed this way and not all companies have made the jump of seeing it as an investment rather than a cost.

I saw something recently that inspired me to write on this subject, I can’t remember where I saw it so please forgive me but it was a post on Facebook that said, “Who needs a hair cut? The people searching for hair cut do” and that’s so true. Traditional forms of marketing are based on interrupting someones days to try and convince them that they need to purchase your products and/or services.

Organic Search marketing works in a completely different way, it’s all based around being far more targetted than this. In essence its about being found when people are looking for your products and/or services. So taking the hair cut example, if i’m a hairdressers based in Basildon, then I want to be found when someone types hairdresser Basildon into a search engine.

Those companies that think people don’t look for them are on the whole wrong, it’s a simple as that. There are exceptions of course and these are usually where a new idea has been born and people simply don’t know it exists in the first place. The vast majority will look online when making a purchasing decision, this could be in the search engines or asking for recommendations via social media.

Recommendations are powerful and conversion rates for enquiries that come in this way are much better than any other means, so if you can encourage people to talk about your business online then you basically get people to ‘do the dirty work’ for free. They love it as most people want to feel like they are helping others, the potential customer loves it as they are not going into the purchasing cycle completely cold, and the business involved loves it as they have a far greater chance of turning that enquiry into real business.

So I questions anyone that owns a business that says they don’t need to do any online marketing, in fact if you know anyone please put us in touch as i’d love to show them why they’re wrong.

I blogged recently about creating quality content. Once you’ve gone to the trouble of creating great content, that people actually want to read, it makes sense to get the most out of it, so here are some suggestions for how to do that.

Syndicate your content

It seems obvious, but it’s surprising how often it gets forgotten in the rush to move onto the next item on your to do list. Whether it’s a blog post or a new page on your website make sure you share it with as many different people as possible. Tools like NetworkedBlogs make this easier by automatically sending your blog posts out to your Twitter and Facebook feeds and save you having to remember.

Social bookmarking is another good way to get your content out there. Sites like Delicious, Digg and StumbleUpon are all useful, as well as niche bookmarking sites that relate to your industry. Just make sure you follow the guidelines and don’t only bookmark your own content.

If you write an email newsletter then you can also use this to point subscribers towards content that they might find useful too.

Make it easy for others to share

Getting others to share your content is even more effective than doing it yourself as it will then be read by people out of your network too. Hopefully you’ve already got social media buttons added to each of your web pages and blog posts to make it easy for others to share them on their favourite social networking sites. An occasional little nudge or reminder asking people to share a particular article if they find it useful won’t do any harm either.

Internal linking

If you’re referring to a topic already covered in a previous blog post or on another website page then link directly to it to make it easy for people to find other relevant content. Internal linking is important within your website and blog and helps both search engines and readers to find more of your content.

Recycle content

If you’ve written a good article or blog post it won’t take you long to rewrite it (to avoid duplicate content which the search engines frown on) so that it’s suitable for use on another website or blog. Writing guest posts on another blog or articles for another website is a great way to get more exposure for your own website as well as a link back. Using existing content and rewriting it saves you from having to come up with another idea or having do any additional research for a brand new article.

Do you know of any other great ways to get the most out of your content? Please add a comment to share your suggestions.

The ideal strategy for a company is to have a fully integrated marketing plan, this means having a consistent objective and message across all forms of medium, some examples of how to do this are:

• Ensure your logo is the same on everything from business cards to your Facebook page
• Use the same colour pallette for all of your marketing material
• Include your web and social url’s on your offline marketing material
• Keep people informed of your offline activities via your website or blog
• Keep the voice of your business the same

These are just a few ways to ensure that you take a full approach, it is easy to see your online activity as completely seperate from everything else, but they really should be treated as part of the same plan.  In many businesses their marketing professionals are often highly skilled in the more traditional forms of marketing but don’t always have as much knowledge about the internet.

The way that you need to tackle your marketing online is very different, for example, people read a web page in a different way than they might read a leaflet or advertisement in a newspaper.  It is important if you don’t have the skills inhouse to get some external help with this.  This could be a case of out-sourcing everything to an agency who can look after the whole piece for you, or it could mean working with an Internet Marketing Consultant.

An Internet Marketing Consultant will help you to form your strategy, advise on implementation and offer ongoing advice and support whilst still allowing you to retain a tight controls on the where’s, what’s and how’s.  By out-sourcing everything you don’t have the hassle of dealing with the finer detail but have less control.  Either way can work, it really depends on your individual company, the scale of your marketing activity and the level of resource you have in-house.  If you are unsure then speak to a marketing professional who will be able to advise you on the best way forwards for your business.

When Google +1 launched as a feature for websites to allow their visitors to easily share their website on Google+ it was unclear as to whether this would be used.  There are so many sites in the social world already and so no one really knew how this feature would be used and also the impact that this would have on your overall internet marketing efforts.

The feature looks very similar to that of a Facebook Like, but the big difference is that the results are incorporated into Google search and integrated into Google’s new social network Google +.  Google + has just been opened up to the masses and like many other social networking sites it allows you to share content and post to your public profile, creating interests and actually providing a lot of information to the rest of your network.

So how does Google + effect search engine listings?

If people start to use the Google+1 button in any great quantity, this could have a big effect on both SEO and Social Media Marketing.  As this is a personal endorsement of a site, it is much more powerful than anything else, research tells us that we take much more notice or peer recommendation that we do from companies trying to promote themselves.  If people in our networks have had good experiences with a business then we are far more likely to place our trust in them.

Interesting times ahead for internet marketing

With Google taking these recommendations into account in the search results we may see a massive change in the way results are displayed.  We are of course a long way off of this at the moment and it will be interesting to see how this feature is used over the next months but it will certainly change the face of online marketing if it is widely used.  Watch this space as no doubt Google + is something that will no doubt appear on these pages in the future.

This has been one of those weeks where it seems that spam is taking over my life. It’s in my email inbox, on my Twitter account and on our Facebook page, not to mention on our blog and on those of our clients.

I seem to spend an unreasonable portion of my day deleting spam mail and moderating spam comments and I am truly sick of it.

I’m assuming that the spammers do get some results, otherwise they wouldn’t bother, but the majority of people hate spam just as much as I do. It’s important therefore to avoid coming across “spammy” in any of your business’s online marketing efforts in order not to alienate potential customers.

So what are some of the things that ordinary businesses do that are or can verge on being spammy?

• Sending out too many emails to subscribers – they want to be updated, not inundated
• Only including self promotional material in online content, nothing of value
• Making inane comments on blogs or social media portals purely for links, etc instead of having actual conversations
• Paying dodgy companies to get you more friends/Likes on Facebook or followers on Twitter instead of creating content that is actually worth liking or following
• Promoting your own business on other people’s walls or blogs

Basically if you spend the majority of your time talking at people instead of conversing with them on social media, you’re probably guilty. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and think how you would feel getting that message – would you be grateful or irritated? Be honest!

The internet is a fantastic place so let’s not ruin it by polluting it with yet more spam. There are more than enough true spammers out there already, without the rest of us getting involved.

I know, throw something at me if you like, but before you know Christmas will be here and we’ll all be overindulging in too much of everything like we do every year.  So why is this relevant I hear you ask?  Well, now is the time that as a business you should have your marketing plans in place ready for the season.  If this is your boom time, then you will thinking about how to capitalise on it and if you go quiet over this period, then you need to be thinking up how to fill your sales funnel.

For a lot of businesses, things are a little bit tough out there at the moment, people are more careful about how they spend their money and who to spend it with, but there are still customers out there, they are just more cautious about making the decision to get their wallets out and spend.  So what can you do?

Well, many businesses are having a far more focussed approach to their marketing.  Understanding what they are really looking to achieve and then putting together a campaign that encompasses all elements of marketing so that they are demonstrating a consistent message and adding weight to it by coming at it from all angles.  Now is the time to invest more in marketing, not put your head in the sand and tighten your belts hoping that the ecomony will hugely improve overnight.  In fact many of the most successful businesses do really well out of a recession, they even increase the amount of money on marketing during this time, because they know that once things improve they will be in the best possible position.  Let’s face it Christmas is the time when people are much more likely to make the decision to buy, I do appreciate however that not every business reaps the rewards of the Christmas season.  But if you do, then you need to make the most of it.

The key to integrating online marketing into your strategy is firstly, not to do nothing, secondly don’t just build a website and let it sit there, it won’t help you grow sales or build your brand if people don’t know you exist.  You need to shout about yourself, spread your message through using a range of techniques such as SEO, social media, email marketing and PPC, starting now will give you a good run at it as there will be more people online searching ready for the season of giving and eating and drinking etc..

It’s not all doom and gloom, see this time as an opportunity to get your house in order, tighten up on what you are doing with your marketing budget in terms or really understanding what is and isn’t working and then go for it, in the longer term it will bring you the new business you are looking for and in the shorter term it will help you utilise on the Christmas period and increase your sales and let’s face it, that’s what most companies are looking for.

There has been a lot of press regarding privacy and confidentiality concerns recently. I’m not going to delve into the rights and wrongs of Facebook’s, Google’s and Twitter’s privacy policies, but thought it would be a good idea to go over what is and isn’t a good idea regarding privacy and confidentiality when marketing your business online.

Good practices

• Make sure your business has standard privacy and confidentiality guidelines and that all employees are aware of them.
• What you publish online is accessible to almost anyone and will be there for a long time, so be intelligent about protecting your privacy as well as your business’s proprietary and confidential information.
• Ensure that you and your employees respect brand, trademark, copyright, fair use, trade secrets, confidentiality and disclosure laws.
• Get employees to us a disclaimer when posting on other sites that is something along the lines of “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent Your Business’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Practices to avoid

• Publishing, reporting on or even just mentioning conversations that are intended to be private or kept within your business.
• Sharing client specific information without their permission, e.g. case studies, testimonials or quotes.
• Writing disparaging remarks about other people or businesses.
• Posting anything that makes you feel at all uncomfortable. If you’re not 100% sure it’s appropriate, take some time to think it over or discuss it with someone if necessary.

Sticking to these simple guidelines, especially when making use of social media, could help keep you out of trouble.