Let’s face it.  The economy is still not that great.  But there’s an upside to any recession.  Businesses now have the opportunity to position themselves for when the market turns around.  If you’re in the right position, business will boom once the recession is over.  And even though the economy is down, people still need products/services.  So how do you position yourself properly?…DEALS!

“People need deals and deals need people.”  You remember that scene in “A Beautiful Mind” when Russell Crowe, er, I mean John Nash, says the best option is the one that benefits both the individuals involved but also the group as a whole?  In other words, you need to create deals for your product/service that are mutually beneficial for both the consumer and for you.  The economy will stabilize once we’ve reached equilibrium.

And how do we reach that equilibrium, you ask?  The WEB!  The INTERNET!  The entire ONLINE ARENA!  Advertising-online is the wave of the new century.  Now is the best time, if any, to get your business into the 21^st century.  If you do, you’ll be in the best position when people start buying again.  Why?  Because there are a lot more people using the web right now than you think.  In fact, the web is very quickly becoming the hub of all media.  The web allows you to watch TV and movies, listen to the radio, or just download music, talk with friends (and even people you thought you would never see again thanks to a little something called social networking, i.e. Facebook, MySpace), buy pretty much anything you want, pay bills, do all your banking, and even get medical advice.  The virtual world is slowly replacing the real one.

So when people start buying again, you better have your DeLorean equipped with a flux capacitor at 1.21 gigawatts (yes, I know that was a corny and completely contrived reference to Back to the Future, but I had to get it in there somehow) because the future is here and there’s no stopping it.  And when people start buying again and go online to do so, if your business isn’t online it probably won’t survive.

In the next couple of posts, I’ll give you some tips on how to get your money’s worth from the world of the Internet and advertising-online.  It’ll definitely be worth your investment.

So what do you do when you can’t spend money, but you not spending money means that you lose even more money?  The answer is quite simple really.  You don’t need to spend more.  You just need to spend smarter.  If you’re spending a couple of grand on some sort of broadcast communications, lets say commercial cable TV, just for one commercial, but that commercial isn’t bringing in any more business than usual, then you need to stop paying for that type of marketing.

Suppose you’re the corner coffee shop.  All the people living around you that need coffee will come to you for coffee whether or not you advertise to them.  So why would you spend ridiculous amounts of money on a marketing strategy that targets those people that are already coming to your store?  That type of marketing is not worth the investment.  If a marketing strategy is not bringing in any NEW customers, then it is worthless.

You need to figure out what amount of customers you would have regardless of your commercials on cable TV.  Let’s say that with the cable TV commercial, you have 105 customers.  But 100 of those customers would come to you anyway, with or without having seen that commercial.  So that commercial is only bringing in 5 new customers.  Now let’s say that commercial cost you $5000.  Those 5 customers only gave you $1000 (yes, I know, that is some pretty expensive coffee, but go along with me here).  You have just now lost $4000.  That type of investment may not be a good idea in this economy.

A good marketing strategy doesn’t focus on targeting customers you would already have.  In fact, a good marketing strategy doesn’t waste any time with those customers.  A good marketing strategy only focuses on targeting the customers that you don’t already have.  These are the customers that will bring in more money.  These are the customers that will make your investment in a marketing strategy worthwhile.

The recession may be bottoming out, but consumer spending is still pretty low.  And it won’t get any better for a while.  When people are unemployed, they don’t like spending money.  And when people are afraid of being laid off, they don’t like spending money.  It’s simple psychology.  But people not spending money just makes the economy even worse.  The economy runs on the transaction of money.  If there’s no money being transferred from one person to the next, the economy will sink.  So the less people spend, the worse the economy gets, which causes people to spend even less, which in turn makes the economy get worse.  It’s simple economics.  Everything snowballs.  Things just get worse and worse, and people get more and more afraid.

Let’s say that you’re a business.  People aren’t buying your product because consumer spending is down.  That means less revenue for you.  Maybe you have to lay off a few people you can’t afford to keep on.  But there’s still work that needs to be done.  So the work from the laid off employees gets delegated to the remaining employees.  But your remaining employees are already up to their noses in work.  So what happens?  Productivity gets cut.  You’re unable to deliver, which in turn cuts your revenue once more.  Everything is snowballing again.

So how do you save your business?  Do you simply stop spending money?  If you cut down on marketing costs, you may save money in the short run, but you’ll lose new customers.  So what do you do?

I’ll tell you the answer…in my next post.

Even with the presence of technology today, it’s still true that flyers and brochures still help, but with more and more people going online for services and products they need, the best bet of a small business owner for advertising his business would probably be the Internet. 

Contradictory to popular belief, Internet Advertising need not be expensive. Whether you are in a developing country or not, there are ways.

There are countless website developers in the US right now that offers start-up websites at low cost. for those without enough budget to have a powerful website created just yet, there’s Bizlanding.com, to name one. Bizlanding provides a good package starting with 3 mini-websites or what we call Landing Pages that are optimized  for Google and Bing.com. A business owner may choose 3 cities of their choice where their 1-page mini-website will be prioritized as a search result in today’s top online search engines and online business directories such as the yellowpages.com. They wave the web-hosting fee for the first three months so all you need to invest on is a minimal amount that they need to start to creating your Landing Pages. The first 3 months should be enough time to get your website out there, reach the target market you need to reach and jump-start your online exposure. A regular website won’t be optimized for search engines and online directories unless you sign up with them and most websites are useless unless a customer has memorized your website address. With a Landing Page, your mini-website may be found on Google easier since once geo-targeting the results is involved while creating your landing pages.

Another way to get your business name out there is to have a proper representation online through business listings or online directories. Veteran companies offering this kind of business may cost, but there are those who offer packages that shall give you online exposure only to the cities of your choice. Zipweb.com, is one. They have packages that can show you as one of the most recommended business in 3, 4, or 5 cities or zip codes only. Just right for a small or a start-up business.

And then there are networking sites such as multiply.com where you can sign up for free. However, since they don’t cost a penny, there’s no guarantee that your site will show up on search engines, where potential customers really go to when searching for a type of service or product they need.

It depends on your business needs, really. So explore the web and maximize the potential of it.

We have already made reference, in a previous post, to our conviction that advertising is basically ´just information about goods and services.´

We invite you to take a look at the following animation.  

Imagine now if we were able to access advertising material that was always up to date, that brought us the very latest products, services, events e.t.c.…; which in the quick glance of an eye enabled us to find the most interesting, the most useful, and therefore the most relevant and that allowed us to obtain all the associated information from the corresponding original websites. 

The solution is our vision: by means of a simple directory that acts as a ´meeting point´ between advertisers and those that wish to access commercial information, on their own terms, when they want to.

And that is the mission of the Aggregators that form part of the Adlandis system.

Why is data analytics important? Well, have you ever tried to manage something that you haven’t measured? You could throw yourself into the deep end of a pool, but if you don’t know how to swim then you’re going to drown. So how do you stay afloat? You need to invest in measuring and tracking services for all of your web traffic.

First of all, you need to be able to measure your sheer traffic volume. Traffic volume is the general number of visitors to your site, whether they were conversions or not. This can give you a clear picture of how many web surfers are even reaching your site, from anywhere on the web. This number is also important because it gives you something to measure everything else against.

Secondly, you need to measure traffic quality. What is the bounce rate of your site? How much time are your visitors spending on your site? These things are important to measure in order to gauge how well your site keeps the attention of its visitors. By measuring this against the traffic volume, you can see what percentage of your visitors is actually staying on your site, versus just looking at it for a couple of seconds and then hitting the back button (or any other way to get off a site so quickly).

Thirdly, you need to determine your traffic sources and measure how many visitors you are getting from each one of those sources. This allows you to see where you are getting your visitors from and enables you to allocate more resources to those arenas. You can measure this against traffic quality to see where the most interested visitors are coming from (from which website or link they are being redirected). You can also measure this against traffic volume in order to determine the percentage of visitors from each source.

Fourthly, you need to measure your conversions. Making that sale, i.e. getting that conversion, is the goal of your business. By measuring conversions, you can see how well you are doing in each category. By measuring conversions against all of the above mentioned kinds of data, you can determine where most of your conversions are coming from, how long each conversion spends on your site, and the percentage of total visitors that become conversions.

Lastly, you need to determine how often you should analyze these data points. This depends entirely on your business and your industry. It also depends simply on your preference. Some people like to have daily numbers, some like weekly, or monthly, or quarterly, or even annually. The point is that you need to figure out how often you need the data reports in order to be on top of your game. But that is entirely up to you.

Again, these numbers individually won’t mean much. A number by itself is just a number; but together, these numbers will paint a very clear picture of the health of your business. With all of this knowledge, you’ll be able to do everything that is necessary in order for you business to thrive. If you know how to swim, into the deep end you go.

Here’s our press release about measuring traffic data (it’s the same thing as above).

Here’s the same press release, but from another website.

Here’s the PDF.

I’ve been doing this for awhile now and am starting to see which classified ad websites are better than others. My Top 5  are listed below. Let’s begin!

#5: Lundlist.com – This site is great because you can post in multiple cities and in multiple categories as many times as you want! No limit! It’s super easy to do too: just click on your ad and “Magicate” it! It duplicates your ad for you in whatever city and state you choose! This site isn’t as well known as several others yet but it is growing in popularity!

#4: ClassifiedAds.com – This is one of the VERY few that allow HTML in their ads. If you know how to make webflyers using a site like GoGoPin.com, your ads can really stand out! These flyers are transmitted into HTML for you and then all you do is copy and paste them into the description area of sites like ClassifiedAds. Super easy! I also love that they run 6 months before they expire! This site has  a pretty good following,too.

#3: Craigslist.org – It’s a love/hate thing with this site! I love it because it’s the one people go to the most so you WILL get noticed here. I hate it though because  the spammers are all over this site like fleas on a dog. And they are getting worse every day!  You can post on CList but be prepared for your inbox to fill up with ridiculous emails!

#2 : Kijiji.com – Next to CList and the #1 site, Kijiji is probably the one people know about the most. It has a lot of traffic so your ads will get noticed here as well. Ads run for 2 months before the expire. One of the better things about it is how well your pictures come out! It has an enlarge feature that REALLY shows off your photo in nice detail so take advantage of this and take a good picture! You can also share your ad on Twitter  as well as some 60 more sites and search engines!

#1 - Oodle.com – My pick for favorite site! Lots of traffic to this site. Your ad will get noticed here. One of the nicer features is that Oodle sends your ad to several other classified ad sites for FREE! It also picks up ads from other sites. I have placed an ad on Backpage.com before, for example,and it has come up on Oodle. Pictures can be fuzzy though-the only negative thing I can think of. You can also send your ad to Twitter, Facebook or MySpace right after you’re done posting it. Nice feature! Other classified ad sites are starting to add this feature as well.

 This list may change over time as each site evolves. It is really almost a toss up over Oodle and Kijiji but Oodle is just a little better right now.

Let me know what you think? What is your favorite Classified Ad Website?

The internet is a great forum to cultivate ADD habits. Most people using it get bored very quickly. A big reason why a lot of websites start out good but then fall off the radar is that they are not updated. Websites need to be updated regularly. That doesn’t mean that you need to constantly add new content every second. But it does mean that it heavily depends on your industry.

Depending on whatever industry your business is a part of, you’ll need to update your website daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever consumers of your industry demand (aren’t we all at the mercy of our customers). But beware, once you start updating your content more quickly, your site visitors will expect the content to be updated in that same frequency for the rest of your site’s lifespan. So be like the tortoise, start out slow and pace yourself. You can regularly update your site with new content such as pics, videos, or even text. That way, your regular visitors won’t abandon your site completely.

Here’s someone else who thinks so as well: http://wordsyouwant.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/why-updating-websites-is-important/

Local SEO – search engine optimization is much simpler than general SEO. Here’s why. Take for example our company, BullsEye. We describe ourselves as a New Jersey web marketing firm rather than just simply a web marketing company. This is because it is much simpler to win local keywords rather than generalized keywords for which there is much more competition. If you own a mom and pop pizza shop, there is no way in hell that you are going to win the keyword “pizza”. The huge corporate chains will always have monopolies on those words. So, your goal must be to win the keywords that are specific to your locale. After all, if you’re located in Central Jersey, then someone in Northern California will not care about your pizza shop. You should try to win over the keywords that specify your locality so you can bring in new business from around your area. But the challenge here is to define your parameters.

In order to define your geographic parameters, you should identify where you are already getting business from. Let’s say that everyone in your town already comes to your pizza shop for all their pizza needs. But if you go one level higher, let’s say your township, you can still do much better. So you should then run your SEO – search engine optimization campaign for your township. You should simply run your marketing campaign for the market that you are not winning. In our case, we try to win the keywords with the localities of New Jersey and Central Jersey.

Of course this means that your website will receive much less traffic than if you were to win the keyword “pizza”, since “pizza” will be utilized by everyone in the entire country, or maybe even the world, but the rest of the country is not your concern when it comes to selling pizza. You’re trying to win over you own geographic location. So the overall general traffic to your website might be less, but the precision of targeting your locality will result in more business.

Here’s someone else who thinks so too: http://www.searchmarketingmaven.com/going-local-instead-of-going-global/

Blogging is not just for running communications + public relations campaigns. It can and should also be used for SEO, or search engine optimization.

SEO – search engine optimization is a way to get your business at the top of a Google or Yahoo search results page. This is the most effective form of SEM – search engine marketing, or advertising-online. If you use Google to search for the service/product that your business provides, does your business show up on the first page of results? How about the second page? Maybe the third page? Does it show up at all? Chances are that your business is nowhere to be found.

Most people these days use search engines to perform product/service research before they buy anything. And more than half of the activity on the Internet is on search engines. So what does this mean for your business? You need to get indexed on search engines so people can see your business when they are searching for a product/service that they need. If you do get indexed, then you will probably have an almost exponential increase in business since the marketing potential of the Internet is unlimited.

So how do you get indexed? That’s where blogging comes in. But first you must understand how search engines work. Suppose you go to Google and search for “pizza shop”. Google will run through the entire World Wide Web and find the sites with the most occurrences of the phrase “pizza shop”. “Pizza shop” here is a keyword.

If you blog for your company, then you can utilize relevant keywords so when people search for the service that you provide, your business will come up. So the point of blogging is to win those specific keywords that are relevant to your business. And since blogging is very frequent, it is easy to win keywords since you can use them over and over and over again.

Here’s some more info on the matter: http://seoarticles.seoforgoogle.com/blogging-for-seo.cfm

It is crucial for any business to run a communications + public relations campaign in order to keep a positive image in the public eye. However, the traditional modes of running such a campaign are slowly becoming obsolete. That is why it is necessary for businesses to update their communications + public relations campaigns for the 21st century. So how does a business update their communication + public relations campaigns? All it has to do is join the virtual world. The quickest and easiest way to run a communications + public relations campaign online is through blogging/SEO.

A business can respond to pretty much anything through blogging, especially negative rumors or negative public reaction to anything the business does. Since blogs are supposed to be updated incredibly frequently (usually every day or at the very least once a week) a business can respond to the public in real time, instead of having to go through all the time and trouble of having to set up a press conference. Also, since blogs allow comments, a business can see the public response to the communications + public relations campaigns themselves. Blogging is a great way for a business to set up a dialogue with the public. And if the public feels that the company is truly engaged in a two-way communication channel, rather than a one-way, then they will feel more involved with the business as a whole. That, in turn, will make more loyal to the business.

Here’s someone who thinks the same thing: http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2004/10/12/blogging-for-pr

Internet marketing to maximize your ROI - Click on the links in this blog to learn how…

Marketing on-line is definitely necessary to compete in today’s marketplace.  If you aren’t maximizing the effect of your on-line presence, you are losing out on a great deal of potential sales.

Arguably, Fed-Ex is one of the most recognizable brands out there. Their name is synonymous with overnight delivery – most people say “I’ll fed-ex that to ya,” they don’t say “I’ll UPS that to ya.”. And now, with what seems as the same sudden and quick pace in which they treat their deliveries, they have made some changes in how they are treating their television advertising dollars. Every year for the last twenty years, Fed-Ex has advertised on television during the biggest game of the professional football season – the super bowl. You could almost set your watch to it. Matter of fact, they have even had their tv spots rated “most memorable” and won several awards during that time. Well, not this year, my friend. Fed-Ex has decided that the Super Bowl isn’t so Super – at least for the money versus exposure….especially when they think they can get the same exposure through online video. Next Monday, Fed-Ex will introduce to the internet world the first online video in its new advertising campaign. They will have five three-minute short films featuring Fred Willard. Yes, the funny man that you recognize, but not from anything you can remember. Obviously, they hope to hit the elusive viral video gold mine.

The videos will appear on a dedicated YouTube channel, and on FedEx’s own Web site. Steve Pacheco, director of advertising at FedEx, said, “we’re still very involved in television…but digital advertising and communication is taking a bigger role in the overall plan, because we try to scale our media plan to be where our customers are.” (Source: N Y Times) But will that involvement include a future spot at the Super Bowl, doubtful considering the $3M price tag for a 30-second, one-time airing. The amount of advertising they can do online for that same amount is probably astronomical in relation. With a big brand like FedEx dipping it’s toes into the shallow end of the online video pool, does this mean other’s will follow? Overnight delivery is their bread and butter, but the results of their foray into online video advertising surely will not be determined as quickly.

Been Twittering my clients every day and boy, do their ads and sites get hits! Also been twittering my favorite Pizza place here in Indiana – Arni’s! Free publicity for them!

Premiere Ads is chugging along, keeping busy with current clients and still looking for more! Online advertising is still on the upswing and I see more and more clasifed ad websites all the time. It’ll take them ahwile to compete with the more well-known ones but they’ll get there.

One negative note : I’m contemplating discontinuing use with Craigslist. The spam you get when you list a product or service is now totally out of control. I have seen the software (I assume it’s software) that’s available for doing this on Craigslist and it is abundant in the extreme. Everytime I list on Craigslist I get automated respones from someone called “sweaty reuben” or “meltdown barnet”. They then ask me, “Are you in Debt.”, or someting similar. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever placed ads on CList. Sometimes I eeven get a response for an item that I haven’t even listed. When did I ever try to sell an old TV from NJ? I don’t have a clue how I get those but they’re popping into my mailbox more and more. So, until CList can get a handle on things, I think I’ll lay low for awhile. I’ll start trying out the other classified ad sites. You know, that has never happened with Kijiji or Oodle. How do they keep them out? Or maybe the spammers just haven’t bothered those sites yet. YET.

New design features and functionalities are already up and running in the Adlandis Network channels.

Intelligent channels that allow associated web editors to recommend “that useful-to-know information” that isn´t necessarily being searched for.”  

The fact is that that which is unknown cannot be valued:-

And you don´t always know what you are looking for until you find it………..

Each channel is distinct, updating information at a frequency that allows the mind the opportunity to process the suitability of what´s on offer. You already know it, and we keep repeating it: the human mind likes images.

I had been anticipating seeing the Tranformers sequel like a teenage boy anticipating his first car, minus the acne. So this past weekend, I grabbed my five year old son and headed to the cineplex. He too, had been anxiously awaiting the fist-pumping, shape-shifting, metal-on-metal, explosion-filled spectacle. Truth be told, I was really there for Megan Fox.

 The movie was good, not life altering, but as advertised. After we finished watching Transformers, we snuck into “Up,” the latest Pixar creation, to attempt to bring the testosterone levels back down to an acceptable level to drive home. “Up” was a good movie as well. All in all, nice day at the movie theater, two movies – neither of which were the normal dismal experience.

So, later that night I asked my five year old son which movie he liked better and to my surprise – he went with “Up.” I asked him why and he said it had a better ‘series.’ So, I had to clarify what ‘series’ meant and after a little sleuthing on my end, what he meant was the ‘story.’

There’s a lesson here, folks. If a five-year old boy, who lives for the wham-boom-pow in everything, sees more value in a good story than the glitz; what does that mean for you? Well, I’ll tell you, wrap your product, brand or service around a story and you’ll win every time. Tell a story – a good one – engage your audience and watch the results. Hopefully, you’ll be as surprised as I was to my son’s choice in film. Even Megan Fox couldn’t sway him.

This is an obvious and natural question. Anyone who pays for any type of advertising wants to see that it’s working – that their money isn’t being wasted. So here’s the answer regarding online advertising: NO ONE REALLY KNOWS!  And that’s exactly like any other form of advertising – you put your information out there for people to read,see and hear and hope someone bites. I’ve run across a lot of business people who advertise in the paper. A few says it works, most say it doesn’t. Some stop advertising in the paper when they see it’s not really getting them more business but others continue to advertise. Why? Why do they keep putting it in there, spending all that money when they don’t feel they see results? Part of it is because that’s just what you do. ALL businesses advertise in the paper so it must work…at some point…sometime…maybe. So they keep hoping. And sometimes it does work. Know why? Because they are keeping their name out there. So it goes with other forms of advertising including online advertising. It takes time. But if people see your info out there time after time they will remember it more than something they only see once. But can’t that get expensive? You bet it can!! That’s why a lot of people stop advertising in the paper,on radio,tv,etc. They simply can’t afford it. And that’swhy advertising online with Premiere Ads Online makes sense! Which choice would you make:

Newspaper- 1 month at $100+, black and white text, limited lines, no idea of who sees and who doesn’t, limited to who reads the paper.

Or: Online Advertsing- $54.95 (40 site listings), full blown color ads (webflyers), nearly unlimited text on most sites, bi-weekly updates on “hits” to your ad, unlimited audience! And if that’s still  too expensive, you can choose the lowest option of $14.95 (5 site listings) and still get great exposure.

So, in a nutshell, advertising - in whatever form – will help you get your name out there but it doesn’t guarantee you more business. You just have to choose which you feel works best for you at the most affordable price.

Premiere Ads Online

www.premiereadsonline.com