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For My Fellow Marketers: What To Spend Your Reading Time On

July 17, 2014

For My Fellow Marketers: What To Spend Your Reading Time On

For marketers trying to learn internet marketing, there’s a lot of junk out there. By junk, I mean worthless internet marketing content.

There’s a lot of theories out there that don’t hold up in reality.

There’s a lot of dated and obsolete techniques that don’t work anymore in 2014.

There’s a lot of worthless information that doesn’t bring any value to the table.

It seems like a lot of writers write their articles and their article has no point, it’s just they have a job to do and have to write something. Because there’s not big news every single weekday.

So as a marketer that’s trying to learn about internet marketing, one of the big keys to growing is knowing which articles have actual fruit in them and won’t waste your time.

How can you discern which articles have fruit and which ones don’t?

For me, I don’t read content that claims to have a one size fits all solution. I stay away from content that guarantees something. I stay away from content that claims something is easy. I stay away from content where people are trying to lure you in to sell you a whitepaper. Because the purpose of their content is to sell you something.

I tend to read articles talking about new marketing techniques or how a specific marketing technique can be effective.

And if you’re a beginner, reading lots and lots and lots of “how to” articles can be good in getting a consensus on what most people do and what most don’t.

Do Potential Customers Actually Trust Online Reviews?

July 17, 2014

Do Potential Customers Actually Trust Online Reviews?

It’s cloudy at best.

Brightlocal recently put out a study trumpeting that “88% Of Consumers Trust Online Reviews As Much As Personal Recommendations”.

However, when you look at the actual poll, it’s not as clean cut. It’s not like 88% said, yes I trust online reviews.

In the BrightLocal poll, 32% said they trusted online review if there were multiple positive reviews for the same business. So what happens if a business has only 1 or 2 positive reviews?

Then 30% said they trusted online reviews if they “believed the reviews were authentic”. Ok, soooo, that’s pretty subjective. Unfortunately, there’s no follow up question to these same people asking by percentage, how many online reviews in general are authentic.

Then 26% of people say they believe online reviews for some businesses, but no for others. Lol, that’s hardly a vote of confidence for online reviews.

Then 13% said outright, they do not believe online reviews.

So obviously, there’s lots of fine print caveats to this poll.

My take is that online reviews are not here for the long haul. In a few years, word will get around more and more to the mainstream how many positive reviews and negative reviews are fake and how easy it is to game the system.

I’m under the belief that online reviews will be replaced by “local gurus”. In other words, bloggers that write about various local businesses. They’re already starting to pop up. And I’ve seen studies showing consumers trust individual local experts more than review sites. I think this is the direction we’re heading in.

Why Do You Need A Marketing Company To Help You Get On Google? (It’s Probably Not What You Think)

July 6, 2014

Why Do You Need A Marketing Company To Help You Get On Google? (It’s Probably Not What You Think)

Why can’t you just do it yourself?

It would take a little work, but you could probably figure out how to pay Google to be advertised. But advertising on Google is different from most advertising platforms.

Most advertising platforms, you pay for say a full page ad in a magazine. And then whomever calls, calls. And you get what you get.

But Google is different because their pricing is auction based. What does that mean? It means the price per click is determined by what your competitors are bidding and willing to pay, per click.

The #1 reason why you need to hire a marketing company for advertising on Google is because if you don’t know how to target within Google, you’ll get a lot of junk calls and it’ll be hard to make money off the Google advertising. In other words, instead of making a profit off the Google advertising, you’d lose your money.

What is a junk call? A junk call is when someone calls you up asking you for a product or service you don’t have, don’t do and or don’t want to do. Or the person calling is too far away for you to help them out.

Most of your competition has hired marketing companies to do advertising on Google for them. Which means that they’re probably able to do the targeting better and getting better quality calls than you if you were doing it yourself. What does this mean?

With less junk calls and more quality calls, it means they’re likely getting more customers and making more money than you-doing-it-yourself. Why does this matter?

Because when your competition is making money from doing good targeting, they don’t mind spending more per click. Because even if the cost goes slightly up, theyre likely still making money.

But if you-doing-it-yourself is not making money and your cost goes up, it makes it even harder for you to profit off Google advertising.

What is targeting? It’s making sure the quality score and click through rates are as high as possible to drive down the actual cost per click. It’s making sure your business is advertising on the right platform. It’s making sure your business is advertised in the right cities and not advertised in the wrong cities. It’s making sure we have the right negative keywords to weed out the junk (our negative keyword lists are usually around 500). It’s making sure the right delivery method is chosen based on your business’ budget. It’s making sure to use the mobile bid adjuster if necessary. It’s making sure the call extension is set up correctly. It’s making sure to set frequency capping if needed. And the list goes on.

I definitely believe most small business owners can figure out how to pay Google for advertising, get clicks to their website. And even get calls. But calls aren’t good enough. Business owners spend money advertising because the goal is to get customers and in order to get customers, you have to get the right calls and have the right targeting.

If the targeting is done correctly, 80% of your calls should be quality and 20% junk. If half of your calls are junk, it’s going to be tough to make money. Meaning that you might get a customer or two, but it won’t be enough with the cost being so high.

Not knowing how to target within Google and getting too many junk calls is why most small businesses need a marketing company to make sure they’re getting quality calls that will lead to customers.

Everybody Wants To Create Their Own Netflix Now

April 22, 2014

Everybody Wants To Create Their Own Netflix Now

Last week, it was Sesame Street announcing their own version of Netflix…errr… digital TV service.

Now comes a story from Gigaom.com that AT&T is creating a $500 million joint venture to start their own Netflix….errrrr…. digital TV service.

It’s clear where the industry trend is heading.

TV viewing is going digital and online. And everybody from providers like AT&T, Dish Network, and Directv, to content creators like Sesame Street to Major League Baseball are creating their own version of Netflix.

In other words, viewing content a la carte for a small monthly fee.

To me, content creators have the leverage here. Because with where we’re heading, why do they need an AT&T or a Directv? They don’t need help with distribution. All they need is a website and server. Why do they need a CBS or a FOX? They don’t need help in making deals with advertisers if they have a paid subscription model.

Why not sell directly to the consumer and make all the money? I think this is where we’re heading. My take is that AT&T is late to the party.

Google’s Stock Price Hits $800 A Share. Facebook’s Stock Price Is $29 A Share.

There should be no question now on who the real internet juggernaut is.

Google shares are at an all time high for 3 reasons: It has the biggest marketing network on the internet by monstrous proportions. The rise of internet-connected TV’s which will increase the amount of searches. And the 600 millions smartphones that are out there in the world running free Android software, which creates advertising opportunities to Google.

Facebook on the other hand, is still trying to climb it’s way back up to what the $38 a share price it had at it’s IPO.

The stock prices are a clear indicator that investors believe Google is here to stay, whereas Facebook’s business model and viability as a marketing company is in question. Any talk of Facebook being in the same league as Google is foolish.

August 31, 2011

HP Is Done With The Computer Business

10 Years ago in 2001, HP bought Compaq making Hewlett-Packard the #1 computer vendor in the world. Fast forward to 2011 and both Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal are reporting the HP is about to sell it’s entire computer division.

When I read that, I asked myself, why on earth would a large corporation that spent countless time and money to become the market leader, give it up? Just throw it away. To me, i think it’s clearest signal that the computer business is no longer going to be a profitable business to be in.

Steve Jobs declared in March of this year the the “PC era is over.” A declaration that at the time, I thought was ridiculous. My knee jerk thought was that computers aren’t going anywhere. Every office needs them. But after doing some research and re-considering, I can see why HP is doing what they’re doing.

Basically, the computer manufacturing business has become so competitive that the only way to make money off of them is by doing a massive amount of volume. Companies make little money off each computer sold. And over the last 10 years, business has been great doing it that way.

But now the computer has competition. Smart phones and tablets are becoming more and more popular. Less computers are being sold because of this. And I’m betting that HP is betting that this isn’t going to change. That from this point going forward, there will be less and less computers being sold because of all the new mobile devices coming down the road.

The most startling thing I found was Mark Cuban predicting that this would happen back in 2005. Stunning. He hit the nail right on the head.

This is just another example in business that companies need to evolve when the environment around them changes.

June 7, 2011

How Small Business Can Actually Benefit From Facebook

Chris Schweppe
1 Comment
Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized

Of course everyone by now has heard of Facebook. And when small business owners have seen bigger businesses benefiting from Facebook, they’ve of course decided to try it themselves. But there’s a lot of bbad information going around leaving a ton of small business owners with a bad taste in their mouth.

Back in January, i blogged about a chart from emarketer about the 9 main benefits of social media marketing. But let me be clear. That chart applies more often to bigger companies. A lot of the benefits listed aren’t relevant to small businesses because they don’t have enough people “liking” their Facebook page. Because of this, “monitoring what is being said about your company”, “improving customer service”, “resolving problems” and a few others don’t apply.

Now, there’s lots of companies selling $1,000 a month and $500 a month “social media marketing” packages. In my humble opinion, they’re selling snake oil. As of right now, there’s a general consensus in the industry that there’s no evidence suggesting companies are profiting off large social media investments. They’re still working on it and making progress, but we’re not there yet. And most people who will tell you different and that small businesses are making money off of spending thousands of dollars off Facebook, are probably the same people selling these social media services.

At Customwave, we do have a social media marketing package. We keep it simple, provide the basics and do only what we know works for sure. We charge $25 a month for it.

There’s 2 main ways small businesses indisputably benefit off of Facebook. We post regularly on our clients Facebook pages with relevant content. For people who have never heard of your company before and they find your Facebook page, our clients will look like experts and authorities in their industry. This is the type of thing that convinces people to actually go through and do the job with you after they find your phone #.

The second main way Facebook benefits will have to do with how many people “like” your Facebook page. The more, the better. Because once someone “likes” your Facebook page and we post content, the content will land in their “news feed”. It’s very similar to email marketing, except in my opinion better because most people these days spend more time on Facebook than their email. This is how small businesses can generate referrals off Facebook.

These are two sure-fire ways that small businesses benefit from Facebook. Everything else at this point on Facebook is theory and experiment.

June 1, 2011

Your Leads Are Worthless Without Doing The Following

So, for local small businesses, it’s all about getting phone calls, right? Usually. Most of the time. But not always. Generating sales leads is phenomenal. It’s absolutely a good thing. But what happens if these calls don’t translate into the client increasing their sales? The answer: the calls are worthless. The client looks for other marketing options. So how can you make it likely your leads will be of good quality?

Your Online Reputation Is Most Important

Almost every client I talk to, I try and make them aware of the report put out by Pew Research last September. The big headline is that 58% of Americans say that before they purchase products or a service, they do online research. In other words, they go to Google and type in your client’s company name. And you better hope that what shows up on the first page reflects the client in a good or neutral way. What good is getting somebody phone calls, if the potential customer googles your client and gets scared off by negative comments?

This is why every company doing internet marketing needs to be doing reputation management. Removing negative stuff from the first page of Google when someone types in your client’s name takes just as much time to get them ranked for competitive keywords organically. Generally speaking, it’s nice when almost all the results that show up on the first page for the company name are websites where you can control the content. This insures the client won’t lose business if the website visitor does a little digging.

(Shameless plug: For anyone interested in help with their reputation management, check out www.customwave.net)

Why You Want To Be Seen As A Guru

I got to find time to write a blog post on how to really use Facebook for small businesses. It’s really misunderstood. But relating to this topic, it’s important to put out an image that you’re an authority in your industry. Especially locally. Similar to what i was mention with reputation management, people will do online research on your company. And if you post regularly on Facebook, or your blog, or other websites, most people will percieve you to be an expert. Obviously, if someone who calls you or is considering calling you is on the fence, this is the type of thing that can tip people in your favor. How many of your client’s competitors have an online image of being an authority? Not many.

This is, in my opinion, the #1 benefit of social networks and blogging. It’s not something you can track or quantify, but definitely something that’s important to focus on. If you can take a few calls a month from people who ordinarily wouldn’t have done business with you, but do because of your guru-ness, it absolutely rewards your effort.

Source Traffic and Targeting

Before the phone call happens, before the website visitor reaches the client’s website, the website visitors originates from some place. You need to make sure that that some place is a traffic source that converts. Google would be an obvious source of good quality, thus explaining why so many internet marketers use it.

But for you others who use affiliate networks, social networks, and other random sources, you need to be able to measure the conversion. In other words, if the client wants sales, you need to track whether or not source A’s traffic is converting into sales. Without that knowledge, you’ll keep spending money on traffic that could be worthless to your client for all you know. I know, this sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed by how many people don’t test and measure like this. It’s called laziness ; )

For people who are doing pay per click, your keyword targeting needs to be right on. It’s critical to test and figure out which keywords are generating the client’s goals and which aren’t. Without knowing this, you’re going to flushing perfectly good money down the toilet.

May 19, 2011

Newspaper Creates iPad In 1994 & Drops It Because Print Is More Profitable

Yes, you read that right. I came across a jaw-dropping story from Business Insider saying that a newspaper called “Knight Ridder”, created a prototype that is very iPad-like in 1994. There’s a video about it on their website.

It was called a “tablet” and the “electronic newspaper of the future”.

Then Knight Ridder was sold to McClatchy. Word has it that the “tablet” was dropped because at the time, print was so much more profitable that this electronic contraption wasn’t worth their time.

How sad.

May 18, 2011

Mobile Search Will Surpass PC Search Sooner Than You Think

Being busy on running Customwave Internet Marketing, I haven’t had as much time to blog as I’d like, so I’m getting to this story a little late. Fashionably late ; )

The New York Times, who is by far, not the foremost expert on internet related matters, actually had an interesting story on how mobile internet use is growing and what Google is doing to take advantage of it. No earth-shattering news there, right?

But the article actually gets interesting at the very end quoting Scott Huffman, a Google engineer, saying that “Mobile search is definitely going to surpass desktop search… and I think they’ll pass before anyone thought they would.”

So in other words, what he’s saying is that as more and more people get comfortable with using the internet on their cell phone or tablet, that these devices, which you can take anywhere, will become more popular than the standard desktop computer. And as a matter of fact, my last blog post was on a survey that said people prefer shopping on mobile devices more than regular computers.

It seems to me, the big take away from this, is that mobile websites are going to become way more important than regular websites built for desktops. And making sure that your website shows up properly on ANY device that gets internet access is going to be critical and essential.