online marketing for small businesses

HOW TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS OR

ORGANIZATION WITH ONLINE MARKETING

Presented by Amy Black - @amyblack

Director of Marketing Communications, TimeTrade

Merrimack Valley CVB Annual Tourism Breakfast

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

NOT GRANDMA’S MARKETING

BEFORE: ONE-WAY COMMUNICATION

ENTER INTERNET MARKETING 1.0

Websites

Email Marketing

Search Marketing (SEO and PPC)

Online ads

No longer just MASS communication

– ONE to ONE

THEN WEB 2.0 – THE SOCIAL WEB

NOW: IT’S A CONVERSATION THAT CAN GROW INTO MORE

CONVERSATIONS

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR SMALL BUSINESSES AND

ORGANIZATIONS?

A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO GROW...

…AND STAY CONNECTED!

A 2010 MARKETING PLAN

ONE THING TO ALWAYS

KEEP IN MIND

YOUR WEBSITE IS…

the FACE of your BRAND

and the FIRST impression

many will have OF your

BUSINESS

WHAT KIND OF IMPRESSION ARE YOU

MAKING?

What does your website communicate?

Does it match the image you wish to project?

IS IT EASY TO NAVIGATE?

Can visitors quickly and easily find what they are

looking for?

PUT YOURSELF IN THEIR SHOES

ASK THEM!

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO

DO?

HOLD ON TO YOUR VISITORS

GOOD EXAMPLES FROM THE REGION

Social media

front and center

GOOD EXAMPLES FROM THE REGION

Highlighting

awards builds

credibility

Good use of video

on homepage

GOOD EXAMPLES FROM THE REGION

Email sign up

Clear call to

action

Easy to find

events

Social media

connections on

homepage

GETTING FOUND WITH SEO

Pick 10 keywords that mean the most

Optimize your website with content to support

One main word or phrase for your homepage

Look for link love

Use keywords and phrases in H1-H6 (Headlines)

Make your image names count

Limit the amount of flash – it’s not searchable

★

GOOGLE ANALYTICS – YOUR BEST FRIEND

Website traffic

Top pages

Site overlay

Sources – where it’s coming from

Referring sites – who’s linking to you

Visits from keyword searches

Free!

★

EMAIL MARKETING

Email is still THE BEST way to stay connected with your

customers and prospects

WHY EMAIL STILL MATTERS

1.4 billion email users

Projected to increase to 1.9 billion by 2013

57% of adult US Internet users check or send email on a

daily basis

The State of Retailing Online 2009 survey reported that email was cited most often as a successful tactic

HOW TO MAKE EMAIL MARKETING WORK FOR

YOUR BIZ OR ORG

Permission-based

High value in emails

Get to the point

Look awesome (go HTML)

Use an email marketing service

Measure to know what’s

working

Learn what your customers are

most interested in

★

OKAY, WHAT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA?

WHY YOU SHOULD LUV SOCIAL MEDIA

Helps you stay connected and build relationships

with the people who mean the most to your

business or organization

Opportunity to extend your customer base –

through other customers (so easy to share!)

Best way to listen and gain insight into how your

customers and prospects feels about your brand

Chance to intervene when you need to – crisis

management

It’s easily accessible, low cost and in many cases

FREE!

ENOUGH ABOUT YOU!

Make sure what you are sharing is relevant

and take the opportunity to listen

TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG?

LOTS OF PROS

Establish your expertise

Quick and easy way to share what’s going on

A place to link back to fresh content from social

media sites

Helps you get found if SEO optimized

The software is FREE

ONE BIG CON

Takes time

WHAT’S

RIGHT FOR

YOUR

BUSINESS?

★

WHY CARE ABOUT

400 MILLION People are active on it

They spend over 500 BILLION minutes per month on the

site

The average user is connected to 60 PAGES, GROUPS &

EVENTS

More than 25 BILLION pieces of content (web

links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo

albums, etc.) are shared each month.

Great job

promoting

Very active

posting

Sharing

photos &

video(visual

Interaction

between fans

Awareness of Twitter has exploded from 5% of

Americans 12+ in 2008 to 87% in 2010 (Facebook's

awareness is 88%)

7% of Americans (17 million persons) actively use

Twitter, while 41% maintain a profile page on Facebook.

51% of active Twitter users follow companies, brands or

products on social networks

-Edison Research

GETTING STARTED: Twitter 101

Open an account – get your exact biz name if you

can

Customize the page to match your website

Look for people to follow using tools liken

bytweet.com and Twellow.com

Follow the people that other businesses and

organizations like yours follow

Promote your twitter account everywhere you can

Start tweeting (or twittering, whichever you prefer)

(More soon on tools to manage your account)

★

Updates on

upcoming

events

Updates on

upcoming

events

Qualities of a great Twitter post:

Information followers value

Not overly promotional

Great use of verbs and action words

Link to a place with more information

Listening:

What are people saying about you?

Monitor so you can jump in to thank

them or respond to their concerns

Learn from what they respond best to –

events, promotions, content you share –

and serve up more of what works

HOW THE HECK CAN I DO ALL THIS?

MORE TWITTER TOOLS ★

Create a

YouTube

Channel for

your biz

Videos

Fun

Informative

Always brief!

WHERE ELSE ARE PEOPLE TALKING?

SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME

Do what you can – Start small if you

need to

Where can you make the greatest

impact?

A little here and there can make a

big difference

WHAT ARE YOUR THREE THINGS?

What’s one thing you learned that you can put into

practice in each of these categories:

Website

Email marketing

Social media marketing

YOU CAN DO IT!

Look for an email with

resources and get this

presentation from the CVB

WHERE YOU CAN FIND ME

www.AmyBlack.com

www.AmyBlackLive.com