My blog contains information for business owners and professionals regarding communication strategies, whether it be B2B, B2C or within your 4 walls.
This blog will cross media and address strategies for Internet, Print, Direct Mail and/or email marketing...whatever happens to be the hot topic of choice.
Amy Beltz
Owner/Giraffe Communications, LLC
Email: abeltz01@gmail.com
Skype: abeltz
Phone: 1-586-206-2716
Posted at 02:10 PM in Business, Entrepreneuers, Marketing, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)
I am only going to harp on this topic, oh...a million more times or so. ;-) But only because it is PROVEN to deliver first page results for your company within a couple days or even hours!
Social Video Marketing!
If you're not doing it, you're missing out on an opportunity that WILL put you above your competitors on the Google results page...unless they beat you to the punch. You don't want that! There is a prime window here for you to dominate the results page for your select keywords before every business and their brother is taking advantage of this and the novelty becomes mainstream.
What are your excuses for not initiating video marketing?
1. You don't have the equipment or know how to produce a video?
2. You don't like how you look on camera and don't want to be on a video?
3. Besides YouTube, you don't know where nor how to submit your video?
4. It seems to too high-tech for your taste?
If any of those excuses ring true, let me ask you these questions...
Would you be interested in trying Social Video Marketing if....
1. If you did not have to use unfamiliar equiment nor produce the video yourself?
2. If you didn't have to be in the video at all because it would be a high-quality multi-media presentation.
3. If you didn't have to worry about how or where to submit the video?
4. If you did not have to anything but say yes and pay the reasonable service fee?
If you are interested in trying social media marketing, comment to this post and let me know. I will contact you with a very special one time offer that you will not be able to refuse. I am not going to openly post the offer here because I want serious inquiries only. Plus, I don't want the competition knowing I am giving away this service for this low of price just yet.
If you accept my special offer program, you WILL have PROOF that social video marketing works and I almost guarantee that you will want to continue the momentum once you see it for yourself!
Hope to hear from you soon!
Amy
Posted at 10:11 AM in Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I was recently reading an article from one of my marketing newsletter subscriptions and there was an article about video ads. There were some geniune points made that I thought I would share with you...in light of social media marketing exploding with success.
Again, these are trends being noticed by top analysts in the industry. It generally takes some time for the average company to buy into a new format of adtvertising....especially where technology is so prevelant. My point being...if you get in now...you will most likely beat your competitors to the "fresh green at the top of the trees" (pardon my Giraffe anology) :-)....again making them pay more to get less when they finally come around. NOW presents the prime opportunity for you lead and win! Menawhile your competitors will be pulling up Google searches and wondering how you become so dominant in the marketplace -- wishing they would have done it first.
The key to getting more qualified traffic to your site, more qualified leads through your site, more sales, more revenue AND more profits...is being at the top of Google organic search results for your select keywords. The key placing at the top of Google in multiple positions -- VIDEO MARKETING. The key to staying at the top of Google organic results long-term -- a Complete SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Program.
You know how authors "die" to be part of Oprah's Book Club these days...Social and Video Marketing could put you on the virtual parallel of Oprah's Book Club in relation to the Internet marketing world. The only differnce is Oprah must select the books/author for her club; here the choice is right in front of you...you simply have to make the small investment and then collect the massive ROI.
Have a great day!
Amy
site: www.giraffecomm.com
myspace: www.myspace.com/giraffecomm
Posted at 04:55 PM in Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
As an entrepreneur, I am sure you have heard all the buzz surrounding social media marketing and the successful results it produces - IMMEDIATELY! Le me tell you, it is NO hoax...we have tested it multiple times with our tools and resources and it really does work -- IMMEDIATELY! We put 3 start-up clients on page one of Google results (multiple positions!) for their respective keywords...these results were within 2 days or less!
Need further convincing that Internet Video Marketing is the minimum aspect of social media marketing that your business needs...here's 16 astonishing facts.
To check out out available service packages, including out "SPOT Test" Trial Package, visit our Marketing Services tab at http://www.giraffecomm.com and click on SMM.
I am curious to receive feedback from other professional on what they think of the Internet Video Marketing platforms as well as Social Media Marketing in general --- Comments Welcome!!
Amy
Posted at 03:23 PM in Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I almost always use the click-to-chat feature whenever it is offered. I, like most shoppers, am inpatient and if i have questions I want the answer as soon as possible. Service sites can also benefit from this feature, but if you are an eCommerce site selling merchandise...it is essential.
The best I have found so far is http://www.liveperson.com. They offer a lot of great features plus complete reporting tools. If you know anything about Giraffe Communications, we are huge on metrics.
The great thing about live chat is that you can be logged on during business hours and show as available for chat, but if you leave for lunch or log off...the button shows as unavilable. If you want coverage around the clock, you can hire someone to be logged on during the off-hours. If you step away from your computer momentarily, the feature has a ring tone when a user submits a chat. When you hear it, just go back to your computer and click to accept the chat. For large volume sites, more than one chat can be going on at the same time and more than one CSR can be logged on at the same time.
Businesses that I know would benefit from the click-to-chat feature, yet don't seem to be taking advantage of it.
- car dealerships
- retail sites (meijer, walmart, etc)
- pharmacies/pharmacists
- domain/host sites (i.e. godaddy.com, which I love by the way)
- shipping sites (i.e. usps/fedex, ups, etc)
Click to chat offers a way for you to interact with a customer online...before they come into your store or make a purchase. Being able the interact with a user allows a relationship to start, which we know is the key to earning trust. And of course, earning trust earns the sales as well as customer loyalty.
Some business owners choose not to have a website or choose to do very little with it because they feel it is inpersonal and rather do business face-to-face. This is common with car dealerships because you physically have to enter the showroom to buy a car. However, there is A LOT to be said for methods that bring those customers in the door and it is proven by research that websites can bring in business. Think of your website as a passive sales person for your company. Now add the live chat feature and your sales rep has just become a little more aggressive or as we call it in the biz...interactive.
If don't have a live chat feature on your site or have not given it thought, go to www.liveperson.com (or any other provider) and take a look it how it can enhance your business. I highly recommend it!
Thanks and have a great day!
Amy
Posted at 04:59 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Is your website user-friendly? Don't answer right away...think about it. If you were involved in the development, it may be hard for you to have a clear perspective. Now really, is your website user-friendly?
If it is great! If you not sure then perform this test...or better yet as a someone who has not spent a lot of time on your site to perform this test. Go to the site as a visitor and browse through the entire thing, clicking on all the pages and all the links as the site leads you. While your doing this, ask yourself these questions;
1. Do I have to think?
2. Does the site lead me through it or do I get stranded in the midst of clicks?
If the answers are 1.) No and 2.) Yes...then you are off to a great start. Research has proven that visitors do not want to have to think when they are on a website. They do not want to think "what page was I on when I saw that link I wanted to click on..." They want all the buttons to be available from every page and they want a clean and legibly designed site. your site should be taking visitors through a path that you have created. I idea is to get the user to buy something or make contact with your company. Depending on where they come into your site, there should be a path that leads them to purchase. if you don't know what the pat it...that is a good place to start work on your site. A visitor should not come into a site a find the one element of information s/he is seeking and then be stranded to click-off the site entirely. The idea is to bring them in for the piece of info they are seeking and then lure them to other enticing information (your service/product) and then appeal to their emotion until they keep clicking through to the shopping cart and click "buy now". At any given point a user enters your site...this path should be clearly laid out for the visitor -- DON'T make them think! :-)
6 Other Tips for a User-Friendly Site:
1. Is the main menu available from every page?
2. Is there a short contact form/contact information on each page?
3. Is there a call to action on each page?
4. Do have a click-to-chat feature?
5. Is your shopping cart easy to find, view, operate and labeled as secure?
6. Is your customer service qualified to follow-up order and verify customer satisfaction.
The click-to-chat feature is becoming quite popular, especially for those of us who are impatient and want answers quickly. A more detailed post regarding click-to-chat features will come this week.
Thanks for stopping by! Do yo have any comments?
Amy
Posted at 04:22 PM in Business, Entrepreneuers, Marketing, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Do you consider your business a niche? If so you can capitalize on it and create a significant amount of business, not to mention loyalty.
Don't fret...if you don't think you offer a niche think a little more creatively. With the appropriate spin and marketing campaign, any business can be a niche. A niche isn't always the untapped market, sometimes it is just the under-tapped market.
As entrepreneuers starting a business we often make the mistake of going broad out of the gate, trying to get all of the business and make all of the money, right? :-) If you change that line of thinking you can prosper from going narrow before you go broad. You may find you are doing just fine in the narrow market and never go broad. Just the same, if you have already gone broad and your looking for new business, spin your business model to focus on the smaller sectors.
A couple ways to spin your business into a niche are;
*1. Change-up Your Price-Point/Strategy:* Price it differently than you have been in order to attract your niche market and/or price it differently than your compeition in order to attract the market. *2. Unique Packaging:* By this I mean group services/products in a way that makes sense for your niche market. This also ties to point #1 too.
An online business that has done this very well is www.buyequityads.com. Equity Ads is a search engine optimization and pay-per-click management firm. How many of those are out there? Yes, tons of them! But most of them cater to big business, those companies spending 5 figures a month or more to market online. Equity Ads spun their service and priced it for the small business and start-up market and packaged it based on various levels of monthly spending budgets. Genius!!
I happen to have had experience with www.buyequityads.com too, they are excellent at what they do. So you are getting the same quality of service (probably better) as the big companies, but for a much, much lower price. Although your level of spending directly impacts your level of results, this program allows the smaller businesses and start-ups with smaller budgets to gain traction on a progression basis and still compete with their larger compeitors online.
Niche Business. Niche Marketing.
Which must come first? The answer...it doesn't matter, the right marketing team can run either one both ways so your business is successful no matter what. At least that's our focus at Giraffe Communications LLC ( www.giraffecomm.com)
Posted at 05:47 PM in Business, Entrepreneuers, Marketing, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Well the zoo of course! And Africa. In addition to this blog, you can find Giraffe Communications LLC at the following locations;
www.giraffecomm.com
www.myspace.com/giraffecomm
http://www.linkedin.com/in/amybeltz
Giraffe Communications is a freelance marketing services company that is made up of a group of freelancers that have specific markerting expertise and work under a united banner to help small businesses and start-up grow and prosper.
Posted at 03:45 PM in Business, Entrepreneuers, Marketing, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
For this entry, please open this link in a new tab/window and click to rate the photo. and come back to read the rest. http://www.cutestpetcontest.com/bigpic.php?img=http://cutestpetcontest.com/photos_beta/2008-02/100321375.jpg&enum=100321375&t=newpetentry
I'll wait a few moments for you to that before I go on.....
Okay, by the way THANKS!! If you indeed opened that page and placed a vote, you have some idea the impact that a contest can have on your products or services. I selected this as an example though, because it was not related to Giraffe Communications, although I must admit...that is my dog. I selected this example also, because I wanted you to actually perform the task without worry that I was attemping to collect your contact info, which is a prime objective when running a contest for promo purposes. I was only asking you to make 3 clicks and that's it. A related contest site wants verification of unique voters which requests you fill in your first and last name and email and click to submit. And this is what I would suggest for any small business or start-up promo contest.
1. The key to running a contest to gain hype for your event, service, product website, or otherwise are prizes with mass appeal as well as decent value. For example, people probably won't enter your contest for a free pen or a cheap t-shirt, but definately would for an iPod or trip voucher or a decent value in your products/services.
2. The contest with the best results usually requests entrants to submit a video, photo or something that other users can vote on to determine the winner. This is successful for you because you just have to attract the entrants and they spend their time and energy getting people to your site to vote for them; thus multipling your exposure and clicks by thousands and thousands.
Contests can be a great way to create a buzz before a product actually launches too. There are many things you can do with online contests that deliver an excellent ROI. That said, I always recommend contests be a supplement to your other online advertsing and not a sole driver of traffic. You want to build a following and a loyalty. While you may have some "prize pigs," if you blend a contest with your overall branding and message you are likely to walk away with more customers and less pigs. ;-)
Have a great day! And of course...comments welcome.
Amy
Posted at 02:49 PM in Business, Entrepreneuers, Marketing, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I was recently doing some research to prepare for a prospect meeting, a car dealership. I found that locally, many dealerships were not taking significant advantage (if any) of the online platform. This seemed quite strange to me. Being heavily involved in the medium, I have seen it work 10-fold and deliver enormous revenue. Who wouldn't be interested in that?!
After meeting with the prospect I had a better idea as to why this mentality existed. It was "Old School Syndrome". I asked the client if his goal was to dominate the local online market or simply be seen in the mix with his competition; he actually opted for the ladder. While this puzzled me for hours, it finally occurred to me that the manager (feeling a bit forced into the technology) only viewed the expense as a hard cost to staying in business. Why was this thinking wrong? If implemented correctly (even mediocre), online marketing can't help but deliver a return. The expense of the effort was designed to increase qualified website traffic which would then convert to car sales. Therefore, the expense would be paid for with the first 1-5 sales (depending on the profit margin).
You see, the manager is from the era that sales are made face-to-face in the showroom or on the lot; while that thinking is true, never discount opportunities to bring those faces in the door. That is precisely the purpose of online marketing. Approximately 80% users use the Internet to pre-shop autos and seek a preferred dealership -- don't just be there...be dominant. That's my theory anyway.
I'll leave this entry with one more thought...when the Internet first hit the scene, it was meant to be an informational resource, a learning tool, if you will. The original vision wasn't even intended for eCommerce and do you have any idea how many millions are spent online in a given year? It will make the investment in online marketing look like prices from the 1800's!
Thanks for stopping by and as always, feel free to share your thoughts.
Posted at 03:29 PM in Business, Entrepreneuers, Marketing, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I am just curious about how many business owners/entrepreneuers are handling their own marketing inititives. Of those answering yes, how many have any formal experience and/or education in marketing?
It has been my experience that small businesses that are led by the "visionary" who insists on micro-managing marketing inititives and/or performing them him/herself end up behind the game instead of on top of it or even in it. Has anyone else noticed this trend? I think businesses owners that do not have significant marketing knowledge (and sometimes even when they do) should allow room for their designated employee/company to exercise their expertise - that's why they were hired!
Although I have been personally affected by this trend, the issue has a lot to do with wasting valuable time and even more valuable...money. If it is not your forte, you are liking wasting your time doing it poorly. Time that you are spending doing these things could be and should be better spent strategizing the direction of the company as well as planning for growth and expansion. Although it seems like overhead, you actually will save more time and money hiring a skilled employee or an outsource company to effectively and efficiently perform these tasks.
Two areas that business owners are known to attempt themselves are marketing and human resources. These may seem like incidental departments, but they are actually very crucial to the viability of a company.
For instance, I know a company that wasted approximatly 6-figures by trying to run "his/her" own pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) tasks. Let me clarify wasted. They did see a return and that certainly made them happy and therefore they didn't understand just how much they were loosing. When I referred them to www.buyequityads.com, the expert strategythat was implemented produced a 300% increase in businesses within 30-60 days. Had they just outsourced to someone that knows the platform inside and out in the first place, they would have produced much better results, much faster and been a lot further ahead in profits.
I also know a company who tried to get away with having a close family member do their HR task because "anybody can be a secretary." Let me just say, Human Resources is not rocket science, but it is certainly NOT a secretary. Needless to say, they were audited and received some pretty hefty penalties for several mismanaged items. There was also at least one (usually more) every pay period that had an incorrect paycheck. Once again, if you want to minimize overhead for HR, look into a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) like Premier HR
There are ways to minimize cost and get the top of the line talent. Most of time it can be found via a Google search, but you can always check back here too.
Your Thoughts are Welcome!
Amy
Posted at 05:04 PM in Business, Entrepreneuers, Marketing, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
