Internet Advertising on the Rise

Here is a very interesting article about how small businesses are spending their budgets for lead generation. Obviously leads are the lifeblood for any business and spending money to get them is one of the most profitable ventures for a business. It is quite easy to track and figure out your return on investment with most lead gen programs and these leads usually provide for immediate income instead of branding which requires long term investments.

If you look at the top four categories of website design, e mail marketing, new social media, and website optimization, you realize they work with each other. You design your website, its content, and search optimization around driving more qualified customers to your website. Once there your goal is to get them to opt in to your e mail list so that you may market to them for a long time. Once you build up a large list you are no longer at the mercy of traditional advertising to drive people into your storefront.

I also find it interesting that businesses stopped doing most things advertising related in 2009 and now are jumping head first in 2010. This tells me that businesses feel that the economy is turning around and an opportunity exists. Those businesses who start the earliest will have the most “bang for their buck” as some companies are behind the eight ball.

As more lead generation shifts to the internet the ability to track and change campaigns make it very attractive. For instance if you depend on yellow pages you get one attempt and if it fails you are stuck for the year. Most traditional forms of advertising are also hard to track and judge effectiveness. The internet gives you the ability to see what campaign is working in real time, adjust that campaign overnight, and test against other campaigns to see which is most effective.

Have a look at the e marketer article below and start thinking about how to use this information to your advantage. If you would like to talk with someone about it feel free to call or e mail me through the contact page.

Marketers Put More Lead Gen Budgets Online – eMarketer

Small Business Control of the Web

Recent statistics have shown that local buyers research their local purchase online first anywhere between 80% to 90% of the time. They do this for many reasons but most of it revolves around information gathering. What small businesses fail to realize is that they can control the information flow about their business. This is where having a competent search optimization company can help.

Obviously the researcher is looking for places, next to them, to purchase. By optimizing local maps you can be at the top of the listing and of course in the discussion. Most researchers will list 4 or 5 stores that are near them and the directions. If it is a very large purchase they may drive to each store to get the feel of the store. None of this will happen if you aren’t near the top.

The next piece of information they want is getting the specs on what they are buying. If it is a large furniture set for their living room they will then look up furniture (city). This is obviously the keywords you want to be targeting for your website and of course your local listing. You have total control over what you want to advertise for on the web by getting an optimization expert involved to find this out and make the appropriate changes.

Another function of the internet good or bad is the availability of prices online. Most shoppers also want to find out how much each store is going to charge for the item they are purchasing. By doing an online analysis of each competitor an seo expert will tell you how you stack up against the competition. Sometimes you can’t sell on price so you need to sell on other factors.

Finally the savvy internet shopper will look for reviews. Not just testimonials but also reviews by independent sites online. Local listings, yelp, and insider pages and you tube can all have reviews of your business. There are actually a lot of sites but that is why you need an expert to help you claim them all. You can then have your greatest fans give positive reviews at these sites which helps when researchers are looking. You also need to know when a negative review is posted so that you can either respond showing you care or make it right with the reviewer so they may change their mind. Once again it is about controlling information about your business on the web.

As you can see there is a lot more to optimizing a business for the web. It is not about just getting the top ranking in organic results anymore. It is also about getting your word out to the researchers so they can make informed decisions. The key to that though is making sure you control the word that gets out, not someone who knows very little about your business and it’s philosophies.