We’ve had several clients ask for our help with Google Places lately and I thought it would be a good time to share an article from Marketaire about local search listings.
This is an area we can help you with if your business is not listed or if you don’t have control of your listing. Just give us a call or drop us an email.
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Many local residents couldn’t contain themselves recently when The Container Store opened a new store in our area. There was a big buzz about their grand opening, and it wasn’t entirely due to that fancy elfa system. They generated a lot of positive publicity promoting the fact that 10% of sales for the entire grand opening weekend would be donated to Interfaith of The Woodlands, a local nonprofit organization.
Being a large corporation, one of The Container Store’s major challenges is to avoid being seen as just another big box store. So they figured out a way to combat the stereotype – by getting involved in their local communities. Each location goes out of its way to partner with local nonprofits, specifically those that promote women’s and children’s health and well-being.
Based on past results, their approach is effective and a great way to introduce a new store to the community. It brings key community leaders to their “VIP” events, and ensures shoppers feel good about their purchases – after all, it IS going to a good cause (I have to admit I’ve used that line as justification a few times myself).
Of course the concept of partnering with nonprofits is not new, and it’s just as important for small businesses to align themselves with local nonprofits. An effective partnership can be mutually beneficial and grant access to an entirely new set of prospective customers. It promotes positive PR, and can be a great way to engage employees by getting them involved in volunteer days or other community events.
But just as The Container Store did their research to choose a nonprofit that closely aligns with its community missions, small businesses need to do their homework before teaming up with an organization. There are tons of great nonprofits out there, but not all are the right fit for your company.
So how do you choose? First, look at the basics – does the organization share a similar vision to your business? Are there mutual interests? Similar clientele? Are their key leaders influential or highly respected in the community? Just because your sons play little league together and their president is the nicest guy in the world doesn’t mean his organization is the best strategic alignment. Of course, there are some things you support just because it’s the right thing to do. But I’m talking about long-term, planned, strategic partnerships with key nonprofits.
One example of an effective small business/nonprofit partnership is the relationship between Couture House Rentals and The Giving Gown Foundation. Couture House Rentals is a local boutique that specializes in rentals of high-end couture for formal events such as galas, weddings, special events and proms. The Giving Gown Foundation is a nonprofit organization that collects new and like-new formal dresses and provides them to high school girls who might otherwise not be able to afford to attend their prom.
Last spring, Couture House Rentals donated many high-end dresses, shoes and accessories to The Giving Gown Foundation. They also became a donation drop-off site where anyone in the community could come to donate dresses. By doing this, they drew new, potential customers into their showroom that may otherwise never have known about their location. They also benefited from The Giving Gown Foundation’s large database of volunteers and partners, not to mention had something to promote on their website and Facebook page.
Before long, the local press ran a story on The Giving Gown Foundation accompanied by a large picture of the owner of Couture House with the dresses they collected. It was a great article and the kind of positive PR every small business owner loves. Talk about a win-win. Actually a win-win-win. Couture House Rentals benefited from the partnership. The Giving Gown Foundation grew from the relationship. But the real winners were the hundreds of high school girls who got to attend their prom looking and feeling beautiful.
Though vastly different in size and industry, The Contatiner Store and Couture House Rentals are two excellent examples of companies that effectively aligned themselves with local nonprofit organizations and positively promoted their image. The partnership gave them access to an entirely new set of potential customers and created goodwill toward their business, all while making positive contributions to their community.
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A sleepover at IKEA for you and 99 of your closest friends!
I love to hear about interesting, unique marketing campaigns. Normally we focus on small businesses – and I realize IKEA is the opposite of small – but the way this particular PR event came about is interesting and applicable to all. It was spurred on by a Facebook page called “I Wanna Have a Sleepover in Ikea.” IKEA didn’t create the original page, but when they found out about it they took the opportunity and ran.
IKEA chose 100 lucky people to do just that – spend the night in their Essex, U.K. store. After they covered their bases by setting a minimum age, pajamas required, etc. they went out of their way to make it fun and memorable for their overnight guests. The lucky 100 received goodie bags with towels, snacks, slippers and more. There were tons of activities including manicures, massages, movies and even a bedtime story read by a local celebrity. Talk about a massive slumber party. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMJD53fxihU&feature=player_embedded
The benefits to IKEA were huge. Free publicity, positive PR – not to mention at least 100 customers for life! But what sets this event apart from so many contests is that it was entirely customer driven. IKEA embraced social media and incorporated it into their marketing actions. Quite simply, they listened to their customers and were open to new ideas.
It reminded me of the grassroots campaign last year to get Betty White to host SNL. If you don’t recall, David Matthews from San Antonio, Texas started the Facebook page “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!” in January 2010. Several hundred thousand Facebook users quickly agreed, and by May Betty White was hosting the Mother’s Day special (which was hilarious, by the way – who doesn’t love Betty White?).
So what’s the takeaway?
No matter the company size or industry, we can all benefit from opening the lines of communications and listening when our customers talk. It doesn’t have to be a Facebook page with a celebrity involved. In fact, it may be as simple as a comment made by a client in passing. But be ready to be humbled, because your most successful marketing campaign of 2012 might not come from you or your marketing department. It might come directly from your own customers. If only you’re ready to listen.
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I originally posted this on ideas4smallbiz.com, but it’s relevant and worthwhile here, too…
I’ve heard a lot of hype about the Doritos “Crash The Super Bowl” contest again this year. In fact, although I rarely vote for anything – not even American Idol contestants – I’ve gone back daily to vote for my top pick, “Hot Wild Girls.” http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/?finalist=14867
Don’t judge before you watch, the spot is fresh and clever and timely. Perhaps I’m biased because the artists went to Colorado State (my alma mater), or maybe because I recently got the iPhone4s and have already experienced a few, uh, misunderstandings with that pesky Siri as well.
Anyway the contest, launched in 2007, is a successful example of a consumer contest that works. Visiting the site daily got me thinking about contests in general, at both large and small levels. Specifically, do they work? We get that question a lot from small businesses – lately geared toward Facebook or Twitter contests – and the answer is the same boring and predictable answer as most marketing question: Sometimes.
Helpful, yes?
But like any type or promotion or campaign, there is a right way to go about it and a wrong way. If well-planned and executed correctly it can be a great marketing tool. If not it can be a colossal flop and waste of time and resources.
So where to start? It shouldn’t be a shock that the first step is to define your objectives. I’m baffled by the number of businesses that skip this step because they’re in a hurry to start giving away free iPad2’s to anyone. No doubt they heard somewhere that was the cool thing to do. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying an iPad2 isn’t a good giveaway. Actually that’s a pretty cool prize and I’d like one myself. But there are a few steps you should take first to ensure you maximize your resources.
First off, what are you trying to do with this contest anyway? Is your goal to increase your number of Facebook fans? Or increase the amount of foot traffic in your retail location? Increase visits to your website? Promote a specific new product? Is it to reward current customers for their loyalty, bring in new referrals or reach an entirely new customer base? Each of these objectives is worthy, but your campaign can’t be a one-size-fits all. Your approach to a customer appreciation contest would likely look much different than one geared toward reaching new prospects.
Once you define the objective it gets easier to define the target customer then plan and execute a contest strategy. But if you skip the first step you could find yourself wasting resources, spending time and money on a contest that doesn’t bring in the desired results.
Really it’s amazing how stopping to think can do wonders, and it’s good reminder. Although you may be using social media as a new tool to promote your business the old basics still hold true: define your goals and your target audience before starting any new campaign. It’s worth the time and effort.
By the way, it could be a coincidence but last time I was at the grocery store I threw a bag of Doritos into my cart. Guess now I’ll just sit back, eat my Doritos and watch the Super Bowl.
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we posted this once in 2010 and once in 2011, but it is still very relevant and worth a read
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a term we’re asked about a lot at adWhite and rightly so. If we just built Web sites for our clients and threw them online with no thought to optimizing the site for search engines, we would be doing our clients a disservice.
SEO is, first of all, a direct marketing vehicle. Successful SEO is only 20% technical Web site factors. The other 80% is marketing.
SEO is about trust and relevancy. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing rank your site based on the level of trust you’ve built with them that your site provides what their customers (search engine users) are looking for. In the same way that businesses rarely open up and are successful from day one, SEO is a long-term process that takes time. You have to build customer trust. You have to work your way up and compete against other businesses that have been around longer. You have to put in some effort to get the word out about who you are and what you offer.
Just putting up a Web site with the perfect use of Meta tags, content, and links won’t make you instantly competitive with other sites that have been around for a long time.
There are hundreds of thousands of factors that determine your rankings. Google and other search engines hold what those factors are as proprietary secrets but they do offer general rules of thumb that, when followed, will put you on good standing.
Site Structure and Content
The important internal aspects of SEO that comprise the 20% are:
Content
Meta Tags
H1 Tags
URL Structures
Image Tags
XML Site Map
Internal Linking
Page Load Time
Overall Site Code Analysis
Market Your Site
As mentioned previously, the other 80% of SEO is marketing. Here are the things you need to do as the owner of your site to improve your rankings. Getting inbound links to your site is the overall goal. Plan out a link building strategy for 8 – 12 months out and do at least five of the things listed below (depending on the scope of your market) per month. You may be tempted to run out and do all these things at once, but that could actually hurt your efforts in the long term. Remember this is a marathon, not a sprint. There are no instant results.
One more thing, avoid link exchanges with non-relevant sites. This will actually hurt your rankings. Know that your natural links will grow over time, if you have something of value, people will link to you.
We recommend targeting “organic” or non-paid search results – following all the procedures we’ve outlined here, your SEO efforts will pay off in higher rankings. If you want to pay extra for Google Ad Words, adWhite can help you get set up with that as well.
If you have any questions about this or want some assistance from adWhite, please contact us.
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I’d like to take a few minutes to share the best article I’ve read so far on SOPA and how it may affect small business. This concerns us and should be a concern to all of our clients. SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that is coming up for vote soon in congress. It purports to give power to the government and copyright holders to shut down Web sites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. While we are opposed to piracy and other illegal online activities, SOPA is not the answer and will cause more harm than good.
Please take a few minutes to read this article and learn what the passage of SOPA will really mean to you as a small business owner.
The Problem with SOPA (And How to Stop It)
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Social Media is buzzing today because Google began integrating Google+ data into search results for users who have Google+ accounts. In addition to the search results we’re all used to, we’ll be seeing what other Google+ users in our circles have shared related to the keywords we’re searching, as well as others that Google deems authoritative on the related issue. This is a huge change in the way Google has worked in the past and presents a new challenge to business owners concerned with optimizing their Web sites for better search engine placement.
Google will rank higher those pages that are +1’d more often by Google+ users (roughly equivalent to having more Facebook likes). Businesses that have Google+ pages with lots of +1’s will be given better placement in their search results, as well as Web sites that give Google+ users the ability to +1 their site by embedding code on the page.
This is a significant leap in the trend to give social media more importance in advertising. Google and Facebook allow the consumer to know what their friends and society as a whole view as preferred or important. Advertisers will need to keep up with these trends, shifting some of the time and money spent on traditional advertising media (tv, radio, print ads, etc.) to the newer social media. Here’s a great article on Wikipedia about the relevancy of social media that is definitely a worth-while read (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media).
Because social media is relatively new and there are so many social media bases to cover, it can be mind boggling to keep up with. Each new social media site presents users and advertisers with a different way to sign up and use their service. In addition, all of the major social media services are constantly evolving, so keeping up with how to update your business page and interact with your clients can change from one week to the next. You end up spending more time having to learn and adapt to these changes, leaving you less time to actually run your business.
Most challenging of all is knowing which social media sites are important for the type of business you’re in, then keeping up with followers, staying engaged and presenting content people will find interesting and relevant and which they will want to share with others. It’s truer than ever that having an unused presence on social media sites is worse than not having one at all. But depending on your type of business, ignoring social media altogether may hurt your chances of success.
Successful business owners will realize that the social media trend is here to stay and growing by leaps and bounds every year. Finding a reputable company to help mange your social media may be more important than ever for those businesses whose owners don’t have the time or technical skills to manage their social media presence. We understand most social media channels pretty well, but Google+ is pretty new to us. We just signed up our personal accounts in October of 2011 and our adWhite account in 2012, so we are newbies. But with today’s news we are planning to spend a lot more time on Google+ so we can help our clients with this seemingly complicated and fairly new social media channel soon.
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There’s a new show on the Science channel I’ve been enjoying called Prophets of Science Fiction. Each episode chronicles the works of a famous science fiction writer and how the ideas they wrote about decades ago have come true. It got me thinking about all the new year predictions we see annually and I think I want to take a shot at this myself. Mine is one big prediction rolled into one.
Computer Brain Implants
I believe that science will find a way to implant a computer right into our cerebral cortex that will give us the ability to simply think of questions and the answers will be downloaded right into our minds. CBIs will replace today’s laptops and tablets.
Eventually the implants will be expanded to handle multiple tasks such as making cell phone calls. We’ll be able to communicate with each other by thinking rather than speaking – a chip will be able to collect the synaptic impulses from the areas of our brains responsible for speech and turn these signals into data that can be sent through our cellular communication implants.
We’ll be able to take photos by simply looking at a scene with our eyes and thinking “take a photo.” Ever wish you could relive a special day? Easy. Every waking moment will be recorded on video that’s instantly uploaded and stored on cloud computers. When you want to watch the video, just think of the day and time and think “play.” You’ll be able to watch the video by closing your eyes and enjoying the show while it’s sent directly to your optic nerves in a stunning 4320p ultra-high density stream. Sound will be transmitted directly to your auditory nerves and the whole experience will be indistinguishable from real life.
Think of the possibilities of Computer Brain Implants. No longer would eye witness accounts of crimes be subject to the frailties of human memory. Someone’s video log of the event could be accessed and transmitted to jurors in a courtroom.
No more forgetting phone numbers, birthdays, anniversaries, or well… anything! Our onboard computers can look up any information and feed it to us instantly.
Oh darn, I just looked up computer brain implants on Google and found out other people have thought of this before me. Ok, here’s my prediction – Apple will patent it and their 1984 commercial will come full circle in 2084.
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ExxonMobil is building a new campus in The Woodlands (North Houston) and construction is already underway. The campus will be built on a 385-acre wooded site at the intersection of I-45 and the Hardy Toll Road. Here is a video explaining more about the campus.
As a resident AND business owner in the area I couldn’t be more excited about this. ExxonMobil is the largest company in the world (fluctuating between 1-3 on the Fortune 100) and the employees and supporting vendors this move will bring to our area is nothing but a positive in my opinion. Additionally, the cache of having the world’s largest company in your “town” is a wonderful thing for any brand, and The Woodlands is definitely a brand – a master planned community that is focused on bringing more businesses, more families and more tourists to the area.
I expect this move to further increase my home value, but I don’t really get to realize that return unless I sell my house and buy elsewhere, which I don’t plan to do. What I’m most excited about is the effect this move will and is already having on area businesses (many of which are my clients) and my own business – the mighty and powerful adWhite!
My construction and real estate clients are already feeling the positive effects and that trickles down to the rest of us – or trickles out to the rest of us. Restaurants and retail outlets are more bullish on additional locations, medical providers are growing their practices and expanding their operations to accomodate future residents, etc… The benefits from a business standpoint are endless, in my opinion.
The timing of this video release is nice too, becuase it’s the first week of a new year and many people are still feeling upbeat and optimistic about themselves and their personal finances, their work, etc… (we don’t seem to get totally beaten back down and back to reality until around April-ish). I for one feel good about the year we just finished and I feel very optimistic about 2012 and beyond, both for my business and the businesses around me. I think ExxonMobil and their move and their new campus have a lot to do with the overall optimism here and I’m thankful to live AND work here.
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Power to the People
by michele on January 17, 2012
2011 was an amazing year when you look back and see all that was accomplished through the power of the people using social media.
Netflix
In July Netflix announced that it would increase its pricing on its movie plan, splitting off DVD rentals and streaming videos into two different companies with two different charges. As news spread through Facebook, Twitter and other social media, clients collectively vented their anger and dumped Netflix in record numbers. Netflix heard the outcry and rescinded its decision to split the company in two. Prices are still higher but at least we don’t have to put up with two separate bills and two web sites and registrations.
Bank of America
In September Bank of America announced that it would begin charging customers $5 a month to use their debit cards. People used Twitter and Facebook to organize a Bank Transfer Day – encouraging Bank of America and other banking company customers to leave banks that planned to charge for using debit cards. Bank of America promptly changed their mind, cancelling their plans to charge the fees, and many banks followed suit, announcing that they would not charge fees for using debit cards.
GoDaddy
In December GoDaddy angered customers by backing the controversial SOPA legislation which proposes giving power to the Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement, shutting down the websites, barring online advertising networks and payment processing companies from doing business with the websites and barring search engines from linking to these websites.
Many were angered by GoDaddy’s stance on the legislation because it would drastically change the internet, many people believing that it would destroy the current freedom that is foundational to the way it operates. Through a single call to action on Reddit, in one day GoDaddy lost over 20,00 domains as people moved them to other registration companies.
GoDaddy listened to the public and reversed its position, publishing its new policy on the SOPA legislation just days after the public backlash started.
Verizon
Verizon announced in late December that it planned to charge a $2 fee for online and phone payments. Due to public outcry, in less than a week Verizon issued a statement that they were not going forward with the proposed fee.
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