Gas prices are up. The stock market is down. A lot of things are going on in this economy that can scare a business owner to death. I’m here to tell you that - yes, there are frightening things going on but that doesn’t mean you need to panic. People will still buy products and services. What you will see missing is the low hanging fruit. What does that mean to you?

I believe in processes. I believe in measuring. I believe that you control what you control and worrying about the economy is like worrying about the weather. Yes, it can cause problems but you can’t change it. Instinct may tell you to cut your marketing & advertising efforts to save money. That is like not watering your vegetable garden because of a drought.

If the low hanging fruit is drying up right now - that is, the jobs that fall into your lap - do you think it wise to stop looking for new clients all together? My answer is a resounding NO. Listed below are 3 principles to help you get through this tough time.

1. Processes:
If you have processes for bringing in new clients, stick to them. Focus your efforts. Your sales force should still make the calls they need to. You should still ask your current clients for referrals. You should still work on your social networking. You should still plan verticals and look for introductions. This is the time to increase effort, not slow down. Contact your current clients and ask them how you are doing. If they have an issue, you can correct it and increase loyalty. If they are very happy, ask them why they hired you. If they say “fair prices”, ask them if they know anyone else who could benefit from fair pricing.

2. Measure:
Use simple means to measure the results of your advertising such as putting “ask for Mr. Green” in your ads when their is no Mr. Green in your office. Use “mention this ad and receive . . .” or “ask about our fall special.” Have your calls to action go to a specific landing page on your site and keep track of the analytics. Make sure the dollars you do spend are getting you leads. Remember that purchasing is an emotional decision and your advertising and marketing validates you and makes you more comfortable to do business with. This makes it easier for your sales staff to close the deal. You do, however, need to know if your advertising is reaching your prospects.

3. Spending:
Consider spending less on yellow pages and more on your website - this is a medium that you can control and change quickly if you add a new product, service or location. You can also add functions like “tell a friend” or a blog to encourage referrals and recurring traffic. Use google analytics to measure your efforts. Transfer advertising dollars to local Pay Per Click campaigns. Remember that these days 96% of people find local businesses through the internet. Consider doing a couple of e-newsletters in place of just one of your printed versions. Reallocating the dollars will allow you many more customer touches for the same price. Don’t stop the printed version - you may already have clients that look forward to that and you don’t want to disenchant them. Consider spending more time networking on sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo rather than just the standard networking groups. You’ll spend less money and time and reach more people. You may need training to use them effectively.

This is a time to sharpen your efforts, not eliminate them. In the end, you’ll be more effective and increase profits substantially when the low hanging fruit comes back.

Now get out there and look good.

Chris Motley
Motley Creations

©2008 Motley Creations. Use by permission only.

Tags: Advertising, analytics, Marketing, processes.

So you spent a thousand dollars on a full page color ad in a local magazine. The salesman said it would be seen by just the people you’re looking for. He guaranteed thousands of people would see it on a daily basis. He said your phone would be ringing off the hook. Now you run a second ad in another publication. You seem to be getting some new clients but how can you be sure which ad is bringing them in? Can you really tell what your return is on these investments?

The answer is an unequivocal YES - there are several ways from the inexpensive to the fully automated (and costly). As I’ve said before, you are going to make mistakes in marketing. The key is not to make them twice. Thanks to technology, you can have the answers you need.

First, the inexpensive. Let’s say you have 2 ads running. Let’s also assume you have a phone system with up to 4 lines. Each one of those lines is a roll over line with it’s own number or 800 numbers. One way to measure is to put a different phone number on each of your ads - one of your roll over lines. Then you check on your phone records for direct dials to that line. But be patient. One week is not enough to see real results. Some studies show that people need to see your ad up to 20 times before responding to it.

Another inexpensive way is to buy a few clever URL’s (www.NoMoreClogs.com). Short and clever are best. At a cost of $8 a year, you can afford to experiment. Then you simply build a landing page that resides with your normal website and point the URL to it. Add Google Analytics (for free) and point your different ads to different URL’s. They can all be connected to your website, you need not have a separate hosting account for each and you can put all of your contact information as well as special offers and calls to action. At the end of the month, you’ll be able to see just how much direct traffic you received.

If your budget will allow, there are service providers out there that for around $300 a month, will set you up with phone numbers for each ad, route calls through their server, tell you what the result of the call was (connected, busy, abandoned or no answer) and even tell you who it was that called so you can call them back. They can do some truly amazing things. They can tell you the number of leads, average call duration, give you a cost per lead and assign a percentage based on overall advertising. Some will record the calls and even offer training for your staff. And this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Technology exists now to let you know exactly where your best dollars are spent. You will be able to do the math quarterly and make educated choices as to where to keep spending your money and, more importantly, where to stop spending it.

Now get out there and look good.

Chris Motley
Motley Creations

©2008 Motley Creations. Use by permission only.

Tags: Advertising, analytics, Marketing, technology, tracking.

Putting money into your website and not tracking traffic is like giving a stock broker money and then never checking to see how your money is doing. It sounds far fetched but it’s true. A website is an investment, a tool to help you generate customers and thereby, money.

Websites are reactive in nature. That is, they require a catalyst to drive traffic to them – a keyword in a search engine, a referral, a newsletter, an ad, or even mention in a blog. SEO and SEM are about driving traffic through search engines. E-marketing is about driving traffic through direct or generational contact through electronic media. Then of course there is conventional marketing such as newspapers, television and radio. These days, people are using unique URL’s to track what catalyst was successful in bringing that traffic to their site.

Most hosting companies have a version of web statistic software that comes with your hosting package such as webalizer. They can be a solid solution, but I prefer Google Analytics. It’s absolutely free and it is easy to install in your website. If you’re not a web master, simply sign up and email the code they provide to your webmaster. Chances are, he/she already has it in there.

Google Analytics has detailed and comprehensive reporting. You can drill down to the keyword the person used to find you, the city they were in, how long they were on your site and what page they left from. You can trace purchases to campaigns and keywords. You can view a site overlay that will tell you what are the heaviest traffic areas of your site.

Why is this important?

Let’s say you put ads in newspapers that contain your web address.You choose Dallas, LA and Seattle as your target cities. You will be able to see exactly what kind of response your ads get in terms of website hits and what cities they came from. Of course, you should train your staff to ask “how did you hear about us” if you also included your phone number. From these combined numbers, you will be able to determine if you should advertise in the same publications again or if a particular city does not generate a good return. A word of advice - be patient. Sometimes ads must run for a while to start seeing results.

You can also track the response to newsletters or special offers you send out electronically. You can track by date or use special scripting or links to measure exactly how many people respond to your efforts. If you get little response you know your dollars would be better served elsewhere.

If you are paying for Adwords you can track what the return is on your investment. Sometimes people don’t use the correct industry term to search for your product. You might find you make more sales off of the slang than your correct terminology. You can adjust your efforts so that you are only paying for the keywords that get response and stop paying for the ones that don’t. You will make mistakes - the key is to not make them twice.

Now get out there and look good.

Chris Motley
Motley Creations

©2007 Motley Creations. Use by premission only.

Tags: adwords, analytics, E-Marketing, sem, seo, tracking, traffic, website.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the art of getting your Web site to list higher in the search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Consider it to be like running in a race with 2,000,000 other people. The good news is some of them have only have one leg or are wearing high heels. The bad news is that some are very fast, agile and efficient.

SEO is more of an art than a science (although there is some science involved). There is no “magic switch” – if there were, everybody would be using it, and then we’d all be back to where we started. There are as many theories about SEO as there are Web sites out there. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to keep things basic.

Before we start, you might want to consider how you are going to measure your results. Most hosting servers come equipped with tools like Webalizer, where you can track what the Web site traffic trends are. Google Analytics is a great free way to tag your pages to this purpose if your hosting solution doesn’t provide one. You will, however, have to add a small bit of code to each page or to your template for Google Analytics to function.

Let’s start with a big one – keywords. Those words that bring qualified traffic to your Web site by using them in content, your domain name, page titles, links, etc. The name of the game is to get qualified traffic – people who want what you are selling.

Start by making a list of obvious keywords. If you sell flowers, some keywords might be flower arrangements, flower pots, fresh flowers and flower delivery. Keep in mind that the more general you are, the more sites out there are using it. So you may want to combine some phrases and add more specifics such as “fresh flower arrangements in Lenexa Kansas.” It still has the general term but it also contains more qualifiers to bring specific people to you.

You might also try some of the great tools out there such as Overture Keyword Selector Tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/), Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) or Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool (http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/). You can use these tools to narrow, edit or add to the list by seeing how many people actually search for your keywords and what the competition is for those keywords. Also remember, people tend to misspell and have names for items or services used outside the industry. Some of those “off words” can be beneficial at raising your ranking.

Now what do you do with the keywords? Start with page names. You don’t want 400 keywords in your page names, but you do want keywords relevant to the page content. Then move to navigation. If your top navigation is built in Flash or JavaScript, make sure that you have it again at the bottom in text form and name them, using your keywords. Other things to consider: heading tags and using your keywords in the page content. Don’t try spamming a long string of them in your meta tags – it’s been done – it’s been overdone. Search engines tend to ignore it now.

This is just one 10,000 foot fly-by of some of the things you can do to improve your SEO status. Play with it. Check results more from month to month rather than from day to day. If you are in a big hurry, pay a professional or look into Pay Per Click. This information is to help you start your process, not complete it. SEO is never done. And there are several more factors involved other than keywords.

Now get out there and look good!

Chris Motley
Motley Creations

Tags: analytics, google, keywords, search engine, seo.