What Makes a Quality Website?
When you hear the term “high quality” attached to an item, you probably think it took time and loads of benjamins for that item to be high quality. That may be the case for diamonds, Bentleys, and a good meal. But when it comes to a website, it’s easier than you think and much cheaper than you imagine. This will come to you as a surprise, but you don’t have to spend a lot to get a lot. In reality, a high quality website can be cost free assuming you are a type of person that pays VERY close attention to detail. Judgment of quality is a subjective task since one person may judge a website as low quality (more…)
Social Media 101 for Old Schoolers
For the older crowd, which is pretty much anyone born before 1990, social media may seem bizarre to them. Growing up, the older crowd didn’t have five hundred friends. They had a few friends because quality beats quantity any day. The best moments of their youth were captured in photographs or permanently stored in their memories, not uploaded onto Instagram for everyone to “like.” Though we advance to new levels in technology, we seem to lose something very human along the way. But there’s no use crying over spilled milk.
Social media has heavily integrated itself into everyone’s lives. Grandparents use it to keep in touch with their grandchildren, parents use it to stalk their children, and children use it to show how cool their lives are. What a world we live in. But fear not, older crowd. Though social media may seem bizarre to you, I’m sharing some social media basics so you know what the hell is going. (more…)
The Necessity of Professional Photography
Professional photography is a necessity that all businesses must invest in. The power of professional photography should never be underestimated or undervalued. It has immense value in attracting potential customers to your products or services. I’ll use food photography as it is the best example to show the importance of professional photography. Consider the fast food that you may have eaten at McDonald’s, at Burger King or at any fast food establishment. Order any burger from these establishments and it’s very likely that you’ll receive something that does not really look appetizing because the patty may be lopsided, the lettuce is half crushed, the tomato has discoloration, and the condiments are in a spray of disarray. Now let’s add in the known fact that fast food is detrimental to one’s health, we have to ask – why do people buy and consume fast food? Because they usually see an advertisement about the product before buying the product.
Fast food establishments use professional photography to turn their unappetizing food into five-star entrees. An advertisement of McDonald’s Big Mac is beautiful. Two juicy patties wedged between three fresh soft buns, all topped with perfect slices of lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and onions, and finished with a perfect amount of secret sauce which ensures a flavorful bite every time without fail. Why would you not want to buy one? But you know the Big Mac you order from the fast food chain does not even closely resemble the Big Mac you see on advertisements. McDonald’s uses professional photography so that they can depict a level of quality, even though it is never found in their actual products.
McDonald’s and other fast food establishments are capitalizing on first impressions through the use of professional photography. And it’s something that you should capitalize on as well. Whatever product or service you offer, you must think about how you are coming across to your customers. If the photography used to depict your business looks cheap, then customers will likely think that your business is cheap. And unless you want that, you should avoid cheap photography. Now if you want your business to look professional, then it’s obvious that professional photography is your calling. Though you may have to spend a decent amount of money in order to get fully finished professional photos, just remember that a picture is worth a thousand words. Choose what you want your photography to say about your business.
Marketing Budget: How To Determine Your Monthly Marketing Spend
If you are not devoting any money towards advertising, you may as well pick a day to close your business.
All successful, long operating businesses have one thing in common: a marketing budget. Many business owners underestimate the importance of marketing and view it as wasted money or an unneeded expense. This is extremely far from the truth and a very short sighted way of thinking.
There are a variety of factors that go into what your marketing budget should be: your industry, your company size, your competition, growth stage, and location. All of these are main factors and one may carry more weight than others.
We recently sat down with a close friend who owned a business that was closing after being opened for over a decade. When we asked what his advertising budget was he said he never had one. Increasing rent on his location and declining sales were believed to be the primary factors he stated, however he did not know that not spending a dollar on marketing was really the cause.
Give your business, and your hard work, the recognition it deserves. Pick a suitable budget and stick with it. Tell people about it! Give them a coupon, give them some incentive to visit you! Have a sale and tell the world about it! Give things away! The more outlets your message is distributed on the better your chances are of getting a new customer, or increasing the frequency of a return visit from an existing customer.
What Do You Spend?
A good starting point is 7% of your average revenue. That number should be your annual marketing budget. From the annual budget divide it by two: one for branding and one for promotion.
When Do You Spend?
Will you be advertising weekly? Monthly? Quarterly?
Where Do You Spend?
Television / Local Cable Commercials – Discuss with your marketing representative ideal time slots for running your advertisement. Television commercials can be expensive to create and produce, so make sure they will be displayed when people are actually watching television. Less expensive time slots are less expensive for a reason: most likely no one is watching television at 4:00AM.
Radio (AM/FM/Satellite) Spots – Same logic with television spots. The commuting hours to and from work are ideal time slots.
Billboard – A well positioned billboard can receive hundreds of thousands of impressions.
Internet – Depending on who handles your web work, this could be your most powerful way of advertising.
Social Media – Social Media accounts are free, but the work that goes into your postings can be costly if you do not have a dedicated social media representative.
Print/Newspaper – Offering a discount on a flyer or newspaper advertisement is a great way to raise brand awareness.
Mailing – Bulk mailing in a locally distributed coupon or advertisement flyer.
E-mailing – Make connections with loyal customers and distribute promotional material to thousands of potential customers.
Don’t Blow Your Budget On One Media Spend
Unless you’re trying to reach one specific target audience, it’s generally unwise to spend your whole budget on one type of media. Diversify your media spends, just like your investment portfolio, for maximum results and exposure. Contact Go Social for a free consultation on what your marketing budget should be and the best avenues for distributing promotional materials.
Success With Google AdWords in Staten Island
Success With AdWords
Struggling with ideas on how to promote your business on a limited budget? Don’t worry, we are too! But after reading this we hope to provide a solution for any size business and budget.
You probably know what AdWords are, without knowing it. Every time you do a web search the search engine you’re using will populate the top and sides of the search results with banner advertisements. These advertisements are created via Google AdWords.
Google allows you to advertise products and services you are selling or promoting on your website through Google AdWords. Why is this useful and why should you consider it? Let’s say your business, Widget Land, is in the business of selling and servicing widgets. Our friend Bob is looking for particular widget parts, and could possibly be talked into buying the newest and best looking widget to hit the market. How do we connect Bob and your business?
Make The Connection With New Customers
Let’s let Bob know that Widget Land has the part he’s looking for. We do this by setting up an Ad Words campaign and creating banner advertisements for widget parts. Your ads can be targeted by geographic locations so you can just advertise in your city, state, or nationwide. Maybe Bob is located across the country and you have the best widget prices anywhere. Your Google AdWords campaign can connect you and Bob. Your newest customer found your website via a Google AdWords campaign.
Flexible Budget For Desired Results
All of this sounds great but you’re hesitant to spend money advertising online. You’ll never know the results unless you try. Google AdWords allows you to spend as little or as much as you want. We recommend clients test the waters and spend five dollars a day for a period of three weeks. Google provides you with valuable statistics such as the number of people that saw your ad, how many people clicked on it, and which ads are preforming better than others. If your campaign is success and resulting in sales (which can be tracked and measured), you can increase or decrease your spending.
Google AdWords Management is just one of the services we offer at Go Social. Contact us for a free consultation about this service and other opportunities we have your for.
Google Business View: Why You Need It
Google Business View: Why Your Business Needs It
As a marketing company, we have to occasionally market our own business. It’s an ongoing exercise and we use our successful efforts as case studies for existing and potential clients. What better way to give you an example by talking about Google Business View and the why you need this service for your company.
Google Business View isn’t some kind of crazy voodoo magic, but after reading it’s description you may think that. So basically Google trained and certified (not everyone is qualified to do this) photographers come to your business location and take panoramic photos. These high quality photos are then used to create a virtual tour of your store, office, or any space. Anyone anywhere can now take a virtual walk through your store. Someone that lives on the other side of the world can virtually check out your bar that his buddy recommended he visit while in town. Sounds like magic, but this is reality and more and more small businesses are doing this every day.
Go Social decided to provide this service for our own office. The actual photo shoot for our office took about 15 minutes. A few days later after the editing we had our very own virtual tour. The walk-through was embedded on our webpage and it was also attached to our Google Plus profile. This has the extra benefit of your business showing up in Google Maps and also provides ranking benefits to your website as well.
Take A Google Business View Of The Go Social Office
Have a minute? Take a walk through our front door. You can literally see how many pens and pencils we have on our desks, how many fish our in our fish tank, and our passion for comic and sci-fi memorabilia. Good thing we cleaned! The walkthrough pictures used in the virtual tour are so clear you can see dust particles on that one desk we missed during the clean up (I swear, we’re not messy people).
Measure Your Return On Investment
These Google Business View services can and should be used for any business. The one time cost of providing a virtual tour for your company will have long lasting powerful effects. You own the tour forever, so if you change your website or get started on a new social media platform, it can easily be placed anywhere online.
Imagine you and the guys want to visit a new golf course. Imagine checking out all the holes and the entire course without leaving your living room. What if your buddy wants to check out this “hole in the wall” he found downtown. If they have a virtual tour, you would be able to check the surrounding area for visual clues to its location. A car dealership can bring in new customers by having a walkthrough of their showroom. The possibilities are endless.
In summary: Any one not considering this as a window for potential customers to look through needs to give it second thought. The low cost for this service can actually be measured with online analytics to see how many people took a virtual tour and then be correlated to sales. A third person perspective can also give business owners a real look at their store front and interior contents, showing what needs improvement or at least a fresh coat of paint. As a growing company we are happy to have done this and already it has helped relations with our new clients, letting them know exactly where are we.
How to Choose the Right Marketing Firm
There may come a time when your company will grow beyond its own marketing capabilities and when that time arrives, you will need to hire a marketing firm. However, the idea of hiring a marketing firm is easier said than done. Not every marketing firm may fit your business goals and company needs. So where do you start?
Start by establishing how you will evaluate different firms so you can avoid wasting time exploring options that turn out to be unfruitful in your key decision making. Below are key factors that you should take in account when considering a marketing firm for your company.
Relevant Experience. The marketing firm should have experience with companies of your size and with similar business models. It is important that the marketing firm has the capacity to service the size of your company. The firm does not necessarily need to have experience within your industry though it would be a big plus, but if the firm has experience in various industries, this will prove helpful as the firm can provide an outsider’s perspective into your business. Your company can differentiate itself from the competition.
Handling Challenges. Ask the marketing firm to provide you with reports on how they raised the profile of other companies. Did their strategies increase reach new audiences, increase profits or visit frequency? You have a marketing challenge in mind and you need to know if the company has previous experience in successfully accomplishing similar challenges.
Creativity and Strategy. Inquire about the marketing firm’s creativity and strategy capabilities. Not all ideas and strategies that worked for one company may work for another. Every company is different, so recycling ideas may not be good idea. It’s important that the firm can think differently. The firm should demonstrate its ability to think creatively and critically about your challenges and offer solutions.
Options. If you haven’t established a budget for marketing efforts, ask the marketing firm to provide you with proposals for high, medium, and low budgets. Ideally, you want to give the firm a budget so they know what they’re working with. No marketing firm has mind reading capabilities, so openly discuss how much you can spend on marketing efforts. No one’s time is wasted and the firm can provide a range of options for your budget.
Success. Marketing efforts and its success does not happen overnight, unless you’re willing to spend grand amounts of money. How would you rate success? Your measurement of success and the marketing firm’s are likely different. Discuss what you expect from the firm because when everyone is on the same page, the firm can push your company forward into new directions.
Compatibility. The marketing firm must be compatible with your company. Water and oil never mix. You want a firm that can work with your company on every level. If your company likes to joke around sometime and the firm is stiff, then it may create social tensions. Get to know the firm before you commit to any long-term partnerships. Meet the firm’s staff and get a feel for yourself if this firm will have your company’s best interest in mind. You can also assign the firm small marketing tasks so you can gauge how effective and compatible the firm is.
Hiring a marketing firm is not an easy task. Don’t rush to hire a firm because wouldn’t you rather take the time to do it right the first time instead of making a mistake and starting all over again? Don’t waste your time and money. Good luck!
The Times Have Changed: Social Media and Relationships
SEO Myth: Filling my website with loads of content will prove my SEO effort
SEO Myth: The practice of spamming the search engines can deliver a big payout
You have more to lose and nearly nothing to gain if you practice spamming search engines. Search engines nowadays are remarkable intelligent as they can detect and fight spam manipulation. Google’s Panda is a perfect example of this remarkable intelligence. Since the launch of Google’s Panda, this sophisticate program has mercilessly crushed spam and low-quality websites on a scale unimaginable. If you think you can beat the machine and the corporation that backs it, good luck.