Archive for Strategies
Pizza Restaurant SMB using social media marketing
Posted by: | CommentsExcerpt from Channel 7 news Santa Clara, CA – Teresa Garcia
SANTA CLARA, CA (KGO) — A South Bay business has now found an innovative way to use the hottest trend in social networking to help keep the business growing.
The Pizza Party parlor in Santa Clara has been spinning pizza pies in one shape or another since 1962.
“We have so many different varieties,” said co-owner Bear Silber, who joined the restaurant in the last six months, but is already diving head in to modernize this nearly half century old business.
“You can find us on Facebook; we’re on Twitter,” said Silber.
This is a sign of the next generation of marketing.
“I’m young. I’m only 26, and I use the Internet everyday anyways,” said Silber.
Silber swears by using online social networking tools, like Twitter and Facebook, as a fresh, free, and fast way to market his small business.
“Immediately when I have an idea, I can tweet it,” said Silber.
Pizza Party already has more than 1,000 followers on Twitter and Silber sends them instant messages about different meal deals and other incentives to come in.
“On Super Bowl Sunday, whoever came in wearing their team’s jersey got free pizza,” said Silber. “Sharks games, same thing,. I’ll do the same thing. I’ll put those out on my Twitter.”.
It has become a marketing and advertising tool that is beginning to help increase business, especially critical during this rocky economy.
Silber says social media can be useful for many types of businesses. The challenge is to think, and act, outside-the-box.
“Especially within the traditional mom and pop pizza parlor, they’re so used to Yellow Page ads, doorbell hangers. These old, old marketing things that in my mind aren’t successful,” said Silber.
But it’s not just Twitter and Facebook that has catapulted Pizza Party into the 21st century. Silber has even developed a way for customers to connect by iPhone.
“We actually have an icon here. It’s its own app. It’s an iPhone app,” said Silber.
And if you really want to feel connected with your pizza, visit www.pizzapartyonline.com from a computer or a mobile phone, and you can watch your pizza being made live on three different cameras. Now that is one modern way to get your customers drooling.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,How To Get Found Online – Forbes Magazine Article
Posted by: | CommentsHow To Get Found Online – Forbes Magazine Article
Naomi Grossman 02.13.09, 5:01 PM ET
Grabbing customers’ attention is always challenging, particularly for small businesses with limited marketing and advertising budgets. Smart search engine optimization can level the playing field by allowing smaller shops to march up the search stacks on Google and Yahoo!. SEO consultant Rebecca Lieb–former editor-in-chief of the ClickZ Network, an interactive-marketing publication and author of The Truth About Search Engine Optimization–talked with bMighty about how small companies can take control of their search results.
bMighty: What opportunities are small and midsize businesses missing with search?
Lieb: Many of them simply aren’t paying any kind of attention to SEO, and they are doing themselves a disservice. Search really levels the playing field.
I was having lunch with some friends, and they were talking about a doctor they knew who was very specialized, and he has a Web page. They were saying, Why would he possibly have a Web site? The implication is, Why would he advertise to the world? The answer is, he’s not advertising to the world, he’s "narrowcasting." The Internet has billions of channels, and users can fine-tune those channels to what they need. It’s the marketing holy grail. It’s getting the right product to the right consumer. For this doctor, it’s ideal.
It’s also how I found an acupuncturist. He has a specific practice in a specific area. If he didn’t have a Web page, I never would have found him. He also had the right keywords in his page, and I was looking for the right combination of keywords and key phrases. Content matters.
Search engines read text on a Web page, and searchers type in text. It’s all about the text. One mistake that small and midsize businesses make is to put their logo on the Web site as an image. Search engines only know the name of the image file; they can only read text. Small and midsize businesses should make sure to include the name of their business and the address if they’re serving a local audience.
How important is search engine optimization to small and midsize businesses?
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,8 Most Important Tips to get your Local Business found online
Posted by: | Comments8 Most Important Tips to get your Local Business found online
Your Local Search Checklist
Here’s a list of the most important factors to look at when optimizing for local search. Focusing on these factors will help you rank higher in both the Geo-Targeted searches and in regular search results.
1. Do extensive keyword research to be sure you’re targeting terms that get searches every day. Incorporate long tail keywords and optimize your lesser pages for terms that get only 1 or 2 searches a day. Build more pages if you have terms that get quite a few searches but you don’t currently have a page that is relevant.
2. Do competitive research. Outranking competitors often means doing what they’re doing, only better. Research your competitors and see what they’re doing on their pages and with incoming links to make sure you’re doing the same.
3. Optimize your pages for geo-targeted search. Use the keywords mentioned in step one in your page title, meta description, H1 tag and in links pointing to that page. Make sure you use the phrase on the page a few times and mix it up a bit. Use synonyms. For example, Personal Injury Attorney could also be written as Attorney for Personal Injury, Personal Injury Lawyer, Accident Injury Lawyer and so on… Read More→
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,3 Marketing Secrets guaranteed to grow your business
Posted by: | Comments3 Marketing Secrets guaranteed to grow your business
Master these three marketing secrets and your business is sure to grow fast. Do not sell to your customers do these marketing secrets instead …watch the video for the marketing secrets. Share your comments and experiences below.
Please share your comments and experiences below. Read More→
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,7 Online Marketing Strategies to Make 2009 the Best Year Ever For Your Business
Posted by: | Comments
7 Online Marketing Strategies to Make 2009 the Best Year Ever For Your Business
By Kenton Newby
With the whole world in a bit of a financial mess, more and more business owners are looking for better ways to attract prospects and customers to their business. The Internet has become a powerful means of doing just that. Here are a handful of online marketing strategies you might consider using for your business to make this year the best year ever.
1. Start a Blog – No, they’re not just for political groups or high school kids. In fact, many businesses use blogs as a way to provide valuable information about the products/services they offer. Having a blog gives you the ability to easily add new content to your site and to automate when that content is displayed on your site, among other things. They’re also a good reason for your website visitors to continue coming back to your site. Ever wondered why you don’t get much traffic to your website? Do you give people a reason to come there, and to come back? If not, a blog would be a great way to fix that.
2. Post Videos and/or Audios – Another great way to get people to your site and keep them coming back is to use multimedia. You can easily upload videos to sites like YouTube that offer a different way for you to get the word out about your business. It’s easy to add audio to your site too, especially in the form of podcasts. Both of these strategies allow you to reuse written material you may already have available, but in a different format and possibly to a different and wider audience.
3. Email Marketing – Once people are coming to your site, there’s no guarantee that they’ll buy, call, or take whatever action you’re hoping for. A good way to increase the chances of them taking action is to follow up with them over time. Then you can provide case studies, additional information or other offers which they might be more interested in. Email marketing allows you to do all of this and more, and most of it can be setup once and automated. This is a very powerful strategy that many businesses pay lip service to, but don’t go "full throttle" with.
4. Pay Per Click Marketing – If you’re paying for advertising in magazines or newspapers, the rates are most likely based on the circulation of that publication. But there’s no guarantee that the 3 million (or whatever) subscribers to that magazine are going to see your ad, or respond to it. What if you could only have your ad show up when someone was already looking for something related to what your business offers? And what if you only paid when someone actually responded to that ad by visiting your site? That’s what pay per click marketing allows you to do and it’s a very powerful, but misunderstood online marketing strategy.
5. Search Engine Optimization – Take all of what I said about pay per click marketing, then make it all "free". I put "free" in quotes because there’s still a cost in learning search engine optimization or hiring someone who already does. But many time, once you achieve good rankings, you’ll hold those rankings for quite awhile (unless you’re in a hyper competitive market). Good rankings + good conversions of website visitors to sales is the Holy Grail for most online businesses.
6. Testing and Tracking – Often overlooked yet extremely important. If you’re not tracking your results, how will you know what’s working? And since it’s so easy to track the effectiveness of online marketing efforts, it doesn’t make sense not to keep tabs on which campaigns are working. This allows you to get an even better return on your investment and avoid spending time on things that just aren’t working out.
7. Consider Social Networking – For some businesses, social networking still doesn’t seem to make sense for me. But if you have a brand you’re trying to promote or you’re an expert with a specific area of expertise (e.g., a consultant, sales professional, etc), then social networking can be useful. In much the same way that it’s beneficial to have a responsive email list of interested prospects or customers, it can be good to have a list of responsive followers or friends on some of the larger social networks. Online social networks can also serve the same purpose as local networking…allowing you to get to know others in your business. But online, this can be done more efficiently and at a larger scale.
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