Your business needs a website

Taking a small businesses and putting it online has become a critical step. In this day and age you need to do anything you can to reach potential customers, and convery your message. A website is a perfect way to expand your customer base, and persuade others to purchase your product or service. In addition to this, when a visitor browses a website- this is something that is of interest to them. They are highly attentive, and engaged with your website. These are ultimately the "perfect customers" and if you are able to provide the information they are seeking- you can win them over as customers.

So why isn't your business online? It's fairly cheap to get a website designed ($500 - $10,000), and buying a domain costs only $9.99. You also have to host the site, which may cost anywhere between $5 per month and $500 depending on your needs.

Essentially- the return on your investment is astonomical. Your website will generate highly attentive business leads, and will help your business reach it's next level. What are you waiting for?

Contact Weblantic Design today for a free project quote for your web design project:

http://www.weblanticdesign.com

Maintain the proper balance

When leveraging technology in your business it's important to consider the implications.  Sometimes we have to have it because it's great and new or because others are using it but we must consider the ROI on our technology related purchases and investments.  Check out the following; which contrasts opposing forces that many face:

http://bx.businessweek.com/tech-startups/view?url=http%3A%2F%2Fxaxii.com%2Fblog%2F-%2Fblogs%2Fbalancing-creativity-with-practicality

What are your thoughts about what people should do before purchasing or implementing technology?

Affiliate Marketing: Performance based marketing

Affiliate marketing is an internet based marketing practice that is rewarded for each “action, or acquisition” brought by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Affiliate Marketers use their skills to place these advertisements in locations that will not only get clicks, but achieve some end goal- such as a purchase. The topic of today’s blog will be to cover the perspective of an organization who may be unsure where to allocate their online marketing budget. Performance based campaigns are designed to generate leads, or sales for your business on a fixed cost. Calculating the “cost per acquisition” (CPA) for your desired campaign is the most important step. I won’t go into great detail on this matter, as your cost will depend on your particular business, and what your goals of the campaign are. This blog will help you understand the components of the industry, and will give you clear insight that you can apply to your businesses online marketing efforts.

Example 1

Max owns an online t-shirt business. He structures a campaign to pay out $4.00 per t-shirt sale. He lists this ad campaign with a network. This network is then accessed by ‘affiliates’ who will promote the ad on various websites, newsletters, or search engines. The affiliate can either place the ad on their own website, or find web space available for purchase. Theoretically, your affiliates will be doing the leg work, and will rigorously test various placements and text configurations. In exchange, they get $4.00 per sale they drive your way- without managing the website or shipping any t-shirts. You profit, depending on your costs and prices- what’s left over.

It’s easy to see why performance based ad campaigns would make sense- yet many businesses are reluctant to jump on board because of the shear nature of the industry. Performance based campaigns need to monitored closely to ensure that all of your affiliates are acting in accordance to your campaigns rules. Many performance based campaigns fail because the quality of leads are poor. Back to example 1- if we paid the affiliate marketer the $4.00 for a tshirt that was sold- but the order was canceled before we shipped out the shirt- we would lose out on the $4.00. Similarly, many businesses feel that affiliate marketers ride the fine line of ethical behavior.

Let’s step into the shoes of the Affiliate Marketer in the example above. I am looking to promote t-shirt sales through various channels. I decide I want to purchase ad inventory on a popular clothing search term, “Funny Shirts”. The cost to me would be on a cost-per-click (CPC) level, in which I want to minimize in order to maximize profits. I find that the term ‘Funny Shirts for Kids’ is nearly half the cost- so I buy there to start. The cost to me is .01 per click, I buy 5,000 clicks = $50 buy. In order for me to break even, I need to sell 13 shirts through this link. 13 / 5,000 = .0026 or .26% need to convert on this traffic. If I convert at a higher rate, lets say 1%- I would be earning profit. If it went below- I would be earning negatively. Since this traffic is so cheap however, the quality of the consumer purchasing is lower. Since this is also a keyword targeted towards kids, logically one would assume their purchase behavior to be quite different than an adult. Are they likely to make a purchase online? Do they have a credit card? All of these questions are relevant in the buying decision for an affiliate marketer. But costs are king in the industry. To keep costs as low as possible, some may be willing to give up quality- in turn affecting the perceived value of your brand.

On either side of the transaction, performance based campaigns are surely on the rise. More and more businesses are taking advantage of the solidarity of the networks and their trusted affiliates. Understanding how you can integrate performance based campaigns into your online marketing strategy, could lead to more sales- and more profit.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your night.

. Consumers are required to do something, before we (as marketers) are paid. This means- a consumer needs to either make a purchase or simply enter an email.

From the perspective of an organization

Additional ways to use Technology

Check out the following link which talks about some simple solutions that can help your business.  Not all technology ideas have to be web based, there are a multitude of ways that businesses can save money and operating at lower costs using technology.  The additional cash flow that results can be used in many ways.   Business owners should try to find that balance of leveraging supportable technology with meeting their business goals.  One pitfall that happens to many companies is they invest in technology and end up spending more than they benefit.  It's important to monitor your technology investments and change strategies where it is not making sense.

http://www.morebusiness.com/technology-grow-small-business

Marketing Megatrend: Mass collaboration is powering the new economy

I recently read a powerful and moving newsletter that I simply had to respond to. The newsletter, which is published by Ad-Tech, was an acute observation made by industry leader: Adam Kleinberg. In the newsletter, Adam illustrates 5 marketing megatrends that have had, and will continue to have- a large impact on internet marketing. For the sake of length, I will only respond to one of his 5 points because, honestly, I could write a novel on the topic.

Adam claims: Mass collaboration is powering the new economy.

Let's take a step back. Everyone these days has a facebook, twitter, and most likely even a linkedin profile. The content of each of these networks is driven by the collaboration and intricacies of social interaction. If we (the social gurus) simply stopped communicating, these massive communities would die off. Of course, this will never happen....but theoretically speaking, you get my point.

Adam's right. Mass collaboration is powering the new economy. Let's take a look at digg.com for example. A great social website where users post links, and others "digg" them, or bury them. Digg has grown very consistently in the past, and continues to this day. It's success is attributed to its devote community. But how can we, as small business owners- develop a mass collaboration strategy that can help drive sales, awareness, and most importantly- revenue.

For starters, getting your business on all of the major social networks is a must-do. No longer is it "just cool" to go 2.0, it's neccessary.

Developing a social media marketing plan, which clearly defines your end goal- will help your business achieve success.

To give a more vivid example, I help manage an entertainment website called Bored.com. We created a facebook fan page, and then we linked directly from our website. After 2 months we now have over 26,000 fans. The growth has been exponential. The more fans we get, the more they tell their friends- and it's great!

Our goal from the beginning was to drive additional traffic to our website. We then developed tactics to support this goal: such as posting random (yet amusing) facts, hilarious pictures, and questions to our fans.

We now have a growing fan base, and we consistently "whisper" into our fans ears. Since the launch, we have not only seen an increase in traffic coming from facebook, but also our direct traffic is increasing rapidly. Our users are realizing that there are people behind the scenes, constantly working on the site. From this, we believe our visitors are coming back to our website more frequently- thus helping us grow.

To get back on track, our facebook fan page allows users of our website to collaborate and drive up the awareness of our website. They comment on our posts, which spreads that particular message around to others. The more comments and "likes" the more exposure the post gets in front of our fans.

Although I have slightly deviated off the subject, I still find this information relevant to mass collaboration. There are of course many other examples, but hopefully this information can empower you to start using social media. Leverage yourself.

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day.

For Shizzle qxwzzer

qxwzzer or not to qxwzzer, that's the question.  Qxwzzer is the word of the future man.  I love to qxwzzer in the afternoon with my people. 

Leveraging your business with Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a fantastic product that can provide rich insights into your businesses strategy. For those businesses with websites, Google Analytics tracks visitors who browse your website. The product is so robust, it's possible to segment your visitors and conduct a deep dive analysis of potential customers. In addition to segmenting visitors, you can also build a marketing funnel in which you can track conversions.

To marketers, this tool is almost like the Bible. Those that understand the capabilities of this software can leverage it to their advantage.

In this blog post, I will specifically discuss the topic of analyzing who your visitors are. This allows you to focus on your business and develop pages that will cater to potential customers. Before we get started, it’s best to login to Google Analytics while I discuss some of the key features of the section "visitors". Once you login, click the Visitors tab on the left hand side. For the purpose of this blog, I will simply talk about the overview page, and how we can use this information to build a better website. This blog will help build the foundation of understanding this tool, and will start to provide insights into who your customers are.

Right off the bat, we can see how many people have visited our website and how they have engaged with the content. The metrics listed on this page help illustrate this engagement. Here are some definitions if you are unfamiliar with the terms listed on this page:

Visits – The amount of people who have loaded your website with ‘fresh cookies’

Absolute Unique Visitors – The absolute unique number of visitors who have visited your site

Pageviews – The amount of pages that are loaded on your site by visitors

Average Pageviews / user – How many pages a user browses on your site

Time on site – How much time a browser spent on your website

Bounce Rate – What percent of people immediately leave your website after visiting only one page

New Visitors – The percent of new visitors to your website

After reviewing these terms, now we are ready to start understanding and analyzing this data.

Let’s start off by trying to answer a few questions regarding the use of the website:

Are visitors taking advantage of the website by viewing more than 4 pages on average?

Is our bounce rate higher than 40%? If so, our website may be overwhelming to visitors- or too difficult to navigate.

If we scroll down to the technical profile, we can then see which browsers our visitors use- and even their connection speed. This can help guide decisions regarding the structure of your website. For example, if you have a website that is mainly based in flash, yet most of your browsers don’t have flash…this could be extremely traumatic to your business. Understanding who your visitors are, and how they engage with your website, will ultimately guide the development of your site. Next week we will discuss analyzing how visitors browse your website, and how you can optimize your layout to maximize each visit.