Over 100 Different Resources for Marketers to Start

February 21, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment 

How do new marketers learn SEO and Pay Per Click? How do professionals stay current with search marketing tactics considering the sheer volume of social media distraction?  Below are the top categories selected by readers. However, we’ve taken it a step further and listed over 100 different resources for marketers to start, maintain or advance their level of SEO, PPC and any other type of search based marketing. Enjoy!

Search Engine Marketing Blogs

SEO/SEM Blog Aggregators:

Testing Tactics on Your Own Web Sites

Search Engine Marketing Forums

Paid Subscription SEM Communities

Search Engine Marketing Webinars

Search Marketing White Papers, Research, Special Reports

SEO & SEM Email Newsletters

Online Groups for Search Marketers (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning)

The Big SEM Conferences

SEM Consultant/Agency Advice

  • TopRank Online Marketing – That’s right, we put our own agency :) – The reality is, your current SEO/SEM agency or consultant should offer some kind of ongoing education and/or training on top of ongoing consulting services. If not, call us!

Print Magazines

Offline Networking Groups or Meetups

Books on SEM

Niche or Regional SEO/SEM Conferences and Workshops

Search Marketing Industry Web Sites

SEM Workshops, Training & Certifications

Search Marketers on Twitter

SEO & PPC Focused Podcasts

What did we miss? Please share in the comments.

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Best 8 Tips for Marketing Consultants

May 1, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment 

1. Areas of Expertise – Establish the fields of expertise where your consulting services are acknowledged and proven leaders. Concentrate on those areas of expertise and keep drilling your success into the marketplace. Let the client’s walls resonate with your consultancy’s brilliance.

2. Innovate – Be what everyone else aspires to be. Become recognized as an innovator. Be the consulting practice that finds unique solutions or uses unique practices to create unique solutions. Innovators capture attention. Never follow, always lead.

3. Keep it Simple – Regardless of the brilliance of your solutions, do not pontificate. Be prepared to explain your products, your services and solutions in simple, easy-to-absorb language. If necessary, educate the client and let them enjoy and savor your remedies. If your solutions are complex, break them down into explainable segments.

4. Testimonials – Resource testimonials surpass all others. If you have references and testimonials from recognizable third-party universities, think-tanks or well-known institutions, put them to work in your marketing strategy. Those are the type testimonials that are unique to your practice and that is what clients want to see and hear.

5. Guarantee Results – The consultant’s guarantee will look and sound good. Be sure you can deliver. Back the guarantee with strong performance and simple language. Your word is your bond. If you can reduce absenteeism, or increase productivity or increase value, say so. Do not force a guarantee. If you issue the guarantee, put it in simple language. If your intended guarantee is burdened with contingencies, do not put it on the table.

6. Be Honest – Clients are skeptical about consulting company claims of success. Be forthright about your consultancy’s successes. Do not overstate the complexity of projects or their results. Be real. Be prepared to explain stumbling blocks, what makes projects work and factors that are destructive.

7. Show Your Hand Early – Make sure your new client-consultant relationship starts well. Give away a tip, some work samples or show a genuine willingness to make the project flow easily by extending yourself early in the project. Be easy to work with and offer free, constructive solutions to developing a working relationship. Allow the client’s staff to excel. You are setting the stage for a win-win consultancy.

8. Be First – This is another way to set your consulting services apart from the masses. Identify the item or items that your consultancy accomplished first. This is another example of the uniqueness of your services. Even if the accomplishment is small, it is a beginning. Keep track of these “first to accomplish” tasks as your practice expands.

Filed Under: Marketing
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Building a Successful Advertising Plan

March 16, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment 

Before you can advertise effectively, you need to answer these important questions.

Q: What do you think is a better advertising plan: $2,000 in direct postcards reaching roughly 3,500 people, or $2,000 in a newspaper ad reaching 750,000 readers?

A: It depends entirely on what you say in your ad. If your impact quotient is high enough, your best bet will be the newspaper. If the direct postcards are delivered precisely to “the perfect target” (which is not very likely), then the direct-mail route is preferable.

Based on the fact that I don’t know the answers to either of these questions, my guess is that neither the direct postcards nor the newspaper will work for you. My advice is that you keep your $2,000 in your pocket until you come up with an actual plan. These are the hard questions you need to answer:

1. What do you have to say that matters to your customer? I’m your prospective customer. I know you want my business, but why should I care? What’s in it for me? Most ads are written under the assumption that the reader, listener or viewer has a basic level of interest and is paying close attention to the ad. But customers tend to ignore all ads that do not speak directly to them. Your first task is not media selection; it’s message selection.

2. Can you say it persuasively? Most ads are ineffective because the writer was trying to say too much, include too much and be too much. Fearful of leaving someone out, these writers write vague, all-encompassing ads that speak specifically to no one. “We Fix Cars” is a terrible headline for an ad.

3. Are you speaking to a felt need? Let’s say the “We Fix Cars” auto mechanic has a great deal of affection for older BMW 2002s. He knows that 2002 owners love their cars like few drivers on the road and that the only weakness of the 2002 is its evil Solex carburetor. Every 2002 owner knows this, too. So he writes the headline, “BMW 2002 Owners: Aren’t You Tired of Fooling With That Solex by Now?” In the body of the ad, he talks about the fabulous new Weber two-barrel carburetor now available for BMW 2002s, raves about how it dramatically increases performance and reliability, explains that he keeps these new Weber carburetors in stock at his shop, then names the price at which he will install and adjust that carburetor for you. He closes the ad by saying, “You’ll rocket out of here in a completely different BMW than the one you drove in.” If a list of BMW owners in your area is available for a direct-mail card (such as the list from the local BMW club), then a direct-mail card or flier would be the way to go. But if no such list is available, the newspaper might be a second choice. In either case, you’d want to include a large picture of a BMW 2002 to serve as a recall cue and help gain the attention of your target customer.

4. How long is your time horizon? Some ads build traffic, some build relationships and others build your reputation. If you don’t have the financial resources to launch a true branding campaign focused on building relationships and reputation among potential customers, you’re going to have to settle for traffic-building ads until you can afford to begin developing your brand. To what degree do you have financial staying power?

5. What is the urgency of your message? If you need an ad to produce immediate results, your offer must have a time limit. This technique will simultaneously work for and against you. On one hand, customers tend to delay what can be delayed, so limited-time offers generate traffic more quickly since the threat of “losing the opportunity” is real. On the other hand, customers have no memory of messages that have expired; short-term messages are erased from our brains immediately. Therefore, it’s extremely difficult to create long-term awareness with a series of limited-time-offer, short-term ads.

6. What is the impact quotient of your ad? How good your ad must be depends on the quality of your competitors’ ads. A .22-caliber pistol is a weapon against an opponent with a peashooter. But aim that pathetic pistol at an opponent holding a machine gun, and you can kiss your silly butt goodbye. How powerful is the message of the opposition? If your competitor carries a machine gun, don’t go where he goes. In other words, don’t use the media he uses.

7. How long is the purchase cycle? How long it will take your advertising to pay off is tied to the purchase cycle of your product. Ads for restaurants work more quickly than ads for sewing machines, because a larger percentage of people are looking for a good meal today than are looking for a machine that will let them make their own clothes. Likewise, an ad for a product we buy twice per year will produce results faster than an ad for a product we buy only once a year. Remember, a customer first has to be exposed to your ad often enough to remember it, then you have to wait for that customer to need what you sell. How soon will he or she likely need it?

Filed Under: Marketing
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5 Tips to Market Your Business in Recession With No Money

February 12, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment 

Everyone is talking about recession, gas prices and rising energy costs. Top 500 companies are cutting back on their marketing budget and laying off workers.

How can your business survive tough times? How can your business grow while making sure it’s not losing money with bad advertising?

Most business owners still think that marketing is all about spending money to attract visitors. When I talk to small business owners about marketing they think I want their money. However, advertising is just a small part of marketing. Marketing is far beyond the advertising world.

The most effective form of marketing is optimizing your business, website and ads to instantly achieve higher profits. Optimization has been overlooked more than any other thing by most small businesses.

In this article I would like to share with you five solid website optimization techniques to grow your business without spending more on advertising.

1. Analytics – One of the first step to improve website conversion is to install analytics software on your website. Analytics software can provide you all the important information you need to understand your target customers including page view, buying habits, needs,wants, requirements and competition.

There are number of free analytics software available on internet with easy installation guide. You can integrate your website with analytics software in one hour or less for a 5-10 page website.

2. Guarantee – If you are not offering any guarantee or risk reversal on your website then you are loosing tons of customers. When you are selling face to face then its easier to put your clients at ease by verbal communication but its extremely difficult to do that on a website.

You must offer some kind of guarantee on your homepage. Guarantee is not limited to money back, you can offer price guarantee, fast shipping, fast service, best quality (verified by third party) and lot more.

3. Incentives – The easiest way to make your customers buy from you and not from your competition is to offer incentives. Incentives can be anything from free shipping to free trial, discounts, coupons, free gift, buy one get one, free product, free second time service.

4. Customer support or contact information – It is estimated that an average user spends not more than 8 seconds on a website. If your website cannot provide a visitor contact information in less than eight seconds then you can loose them forever. Add your telephone number and email on the top left corner of your web page to dramatically improve conversion.

5. Capture information – Setup a small email capture box on your web page. Offer incentive to encourage customers to leave their name and email. Once you have the customer information you can follow up with them easily.

Filed Under: Recession
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