Posts Tagged ‘business’

Remember the old saying, “Location, location, location?” The familiar adage reminds us that a location of an entity has so much to do with that entity, and how it is perceived. If you’re running your own business of any kind, having your location made known on Google Places is a must. Google Places is a tool for business users to publish their business information based on their location for free. Consider it a yellow pages of sorts, only categorized by location instead of alphanumerically.

When you Google something like “Pizza”, Google automatically assumes your zip code based on your ISP, and displays local results for businesses that pertain to your query. These listings are based on their address, and contain the location, as well as a phone number, website, business hours, a short description, as well as up to five categories and a business photo. As a business owner, it’s important that you have your business listed in these results. When you list your business with Google Places, Google uses the address you provide to relevantly display your business with search results, as well as it’s location in Google Maps, free of charge. As a business owner, using Google’s unique method of returning localized search results along with listings on it’s popular map service should definitely be a part of your online marketing plan.

Let’s face it; if you’re online, and live in today’s world, you’ve heard of, and probably use YouTube. Since Feb. 2005 when it was founded, YouTube has grown by leaps and bounds, adding new features, and more options. If you have an Apple iPhone or an Android-powered smartphone, YouTube can be found in the palm of your hand, 24/7. Aside from being the world’s largest online repository of video, businesses use YouTube to promote their products, run advertising campaigns and post commercials as well.

YouTube self proclaims that “people are watching 2 billion videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.” To think that your business cannot benefit from the grossly large demographic that YouTube has to offer  is absurd, and a mistake many businesses are making today. YouTube in many ways is saturating the population like color television did when it first came out.

For the business, it is essential that even if you don’t post videos, or don’t post videos regularly, that your business has a YouTube presence. As with any booming social media tool, it has an positive impact on your target demographic simply by having a presence.

Should you want to update and use the site for promotional purposes, make your updates meaningful. In a world where the next video out of billions to be viewed, what’s going to make yours stand out to your audience? Don’t forget to market your YouTube content outside of just YouTube. Herein lies the greatest potential for your business. Informational videos, promotions, and commercials that are uploaded by your company shouldn’t just sit on YouTube waiting for the random viewer. Include your videos in e-blasts, post the videos to your company’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. Doing so will help your channels viewers/subscribers to increase, and will help word about what your business has to offer move quicker in your market.

If you’re a business owner, or you simply work for a business, chances are you use email marketing to get things done almost daily. But what’s to ensure that your emails to clients/subscribers are perused and read, rather than simply deleted without even opening. Is your e-blast a benefit to the receiver, or a nuisance?

Make it Visual

Put some pictures in your email. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, and it certainly shouldn’t cost you any more. It can be as simple as a graph, or some colored diagrams to illustrate what the email is about. Consider a colored header or a footer to make things cleaner and more appealing to the eye. Lines, tables, and simple fonts can also help increase the readability of your email.

Make it Relevant

As with a newspaper, an article in a magazine, or even a Twitter account, the information presented must be relevant enough to the reader for them to continue reading. Relevance takes on a greater importance in the digital world where it is ten times easier to just click onto the next piece of information when one becomes disinterested. Information in your companies e-blast must be interesting enough for recipients to continue reading. Don’t include information that is redundant, or not relevant. Don’t send out an entire e-blast for a few lines of something new. Make your emails to-the-point, while containing relevant and useful information surrounding your topic. Links can and should be used, but they should not generate an entire newsletter.

Consider Your Audience

An e-blast should never go out to a particular audience based just on assuming that they want the information you have to present because they asked for other information about your company or its services. Always allow quick, easy, and visible opt-in and opt-out procedures. If a recipient is expecting an e-blast from your company say, monthly, and on a particular subject, they’ll be happy to receive it and eager to show it to their colleagues in the same field.

Consider Your Technology

Never send e-blasts from your personal email account. Always rely on your e-marketing people to handle your e-blast’s delivery. Sending e-blasts from your personal account looks very unprofessional and can also lead to your account being suspended.Email looks and feels more professional when sent from dedicated email-list software, which will in turn lead to greater readership, and growth of your subscribers.

Email is a powerful tool in the business world to deliver business-related content to your clients.  By following a few simply guidelines and letting the right people handle your email, you can successfully e-market your business. Use a company like Wilson Monnig Creative to handle your email and online marketing needs.

Google mail? Since it’s unveiling as an invite-only service on April 1, 2004, Gmail has done nothing but grow, accelerate, and succeed when it comes to webmail. A free service to anyone who signs up for it, Gmail has become the industry leader in searchable, organizable, easy-to-use email.  Let’s take a look at Gmail’s main features.

1. Threaded emails

Remember when you used to email someone back in, say, 1999? You’d send them a message, they would reply and so on, until your inbox was chock full of individual messages. Sure, they were all quoted in each message so you could keep track, but your inbox was a mess and impossible to keep tabs on. Enter Gmail. When someone replies to your email in Gmail, it takes a nice little slot in your inbox, along with all the other messages in that conversation.

2. Google Search for Email

Remember when Google began to dominate the online search scene? You could search images, documents, and of course, the internet. But until Gmail, searchable email was sketchy and hard to use at best. Gmail allows you to search your email, using that same technology that Google used for their famous search engine. Just like the search engine, you can use all the boolean search terms as well as include/exclude terms.

3. Labels

Gmail allows users to set up labels for different messages, much like folders in Outlook or other email programs. Users can color-code the labels for different items, and apply filters to incoming messages to flag them with a particular label. Labels are particularly useful when using Gmail for more than one email account, and for people receiving massive amounts of email daily. They streamline the email organization process, and when combined with threaded conversations make for a much more organized email inbox.

4. Filters

As already mentioned, filters can be set up to automatically categorize emails. Once a filter is set up, when incoming messages apply to a given filter, the filter will then categorize according to a particular label, or mark the message as read, etc. Filters keep the inbox from becoming one big cluttered mess. They can even delete messages upon arrival if the messages meet given criteria.

Gmail is the all-in-one email solution. It can be set up to check/send email from multiple accounts, and it can also be used via POP access to an email client like Microsoft Outlook.

If you’re visiting YourSocialMedia.com, chances are you are already aware of the growing impact that Social Media can have on your business, and its importance as your business grows. Social Media can be a great tool to use when promoting and marketing your business, but it can also be used to keep your finger on the pulse of your business and its influence on your target market, and online in general. Social media monitoring can be used to generate target markets, gather details about how your business is perceived online, and it can help you make important business decisions about where to take your business in the ever-changing online world.

Take a look at this article from Mashable.com about how to successfully monitor social media from a business perspective.

10 Steps for Successful Social Media Monitoring.