Online marketing techniques

In the last article we discussed the importance of building an effective online presence. In this follow-up article I will look at three essential marketing techniques for promoting your business online.

Pay-per-click advertising:

"If you build it, they might not come" is very true for a website. You need to spend as much time on promoting your website as you do building it. This may start with some initial search engine optimisation and signing up to online directories to ensure you are found on Google, but consider also adding a pay-per-click campaign to your strategy.

There are many advantages to a pay-per-click campaign: it brings in immediate results and gives you the ability to see which keywords are performing and tweak the campaign instantly to make it more effective.

Using the Google Keyword Tool, work out what keywords bring you traffic and those to use in your pay-per-click campaign. You can also use Wordstream, which gives you more information and I think is better than Google's keyword tool.

The key tip for getting value for money is to set a very restrictive budget. Don't set the budget that Google tells you to set. Set something you are comfortable with. Then, monitor your campaign closely to see if it brings the results you want.

While Google dominates advertising online with Google AdWords, it is not the only medium. Now you can advertise using pay-per-click campaigns in LinkedIn and Facebook. Both are more affordable than Adwords and might be a more relevant medium depending on your audience.

Email marketing:

Email marketing is an important part of online marketing and often overlooked by small businesses. Customers need to be reminded you are out there, and email marketing is the way to do it. E-newsletters are not considered to bespam if a) they contain valuable information; and b) you always provide an opt-out or unsubscribe function.

To run an email marketing campaign you first need a list of contacts. You can start with your existing customers but often small businesses aren't in the habit of collecting names, emails, mobile numbers and so on. Note to self: it's time to start!

Include a form on the landing page of your website with an attractive offer that encourages people to sign up, and you will kick-start the lead-generation process.

Next, use a safe and secure email program such as Mailchimp to send out email marketing. Mailchimp offers great social sharing tools and analytics but there are many other tools out there, including some fully automated marketing software such as Infusionsoft or Hubspot. The important thing is make sure your email marketing campaign gets results by making the content stand out.

Social media marketing:

Social media marketing is the next level of online marketing for micro business owners. Many have started to play with Facebook, Twitter or blogging but without any real strategy. So how do you know which medium will work for you?

Facebook is more geared towards the consumer environment. Retail businesses can use it to make offers and run contests. Having said that it is a great engagement tool for local businesses to share content and build an online community.

Having a blog can position you as an authority in your industry and can gain you credibility amongst your peers and customers.

For service-based businesses, I find a blog combined with email marketing and a PR strategy very effective; while a Facebook, Twitter and social interaction strategy is more effective for a retail business.

The important thing in social media marketing is to monitor the conversation on every platform. This can be daunting for the micro business owner, so I suggest only engaging those tools you are going to manage and use every day and that are appropriate to your business. If your business is in human resources, for example, it is better to be committed to LinkedIn and leverage that as a forum rather than be on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Choose where your audience is and go there. I also recommend using social network monitoring tools such sproutsocial, which helps to track your brand on social media.

Rather than take on all of these techniques at once, start with one and do it well. The real measure of effective online marketing is whether your leads, contacts, new opportunities and returning customers increase.

-- Danielle MacInnis thinks like a customer and creates insightful, practical marketing strategies for small businesses.

source: skynews.com.au

US braces for holiday clash of tech giants

WASHINGTON – It’s beginning to look a lot like a big season in the United States for mobile gadgets.

A major event is the still-rumored launch by Apple in September of a new iPhone, expected to ignite fresh growth in the smartphone market in the US and worldwide.

Apple is also widely expected to unveil a new tablet computer that will be a smaller version of the hot-selling iPad.

But other big tech firms are not sitting idle.

Microsoft is launching its new Surface tablet in late October, and will be pushing hard to sell Windows-powered smartphones. Google has already launched its own branded tablet and smartphone selling alongside other devices powered by its Android system from makers including Samsung.

And many analysts expect Amazon to unveil at least one updated model of its Kindle Fire tablet computer at a news conference September 6.

“This season is going to be exciting,” said Rob Enderle, a technology analyst and consultant with the Enderle Group.

“This is the first time Apple has faced competition on a number of critical fronts. And it’s the first time competition is coming from Google directly.”

Enderle said he expects Microsoft to spend $1 billion on marketing for its new devices and its Windows 8 platform.

“So the conflict in the fourth quarter is going to be legendary,” Enderle said.

“And it’s an election year, so we are going to be awash in ads for voting and ads for buying.”

US consumers appear to be ready to shop.

The Consumer Electronics Association projects record sales of electronics of $206 billion this year, the first time above the $200 billion mark.

Tablet sales along are expected to reach $29.1 billion, up 83 percent, the association said.

“Tablets are the fastest-growing product category in the history of the consumer electronics industry, and sales will continue to increase as more products hit the market,” said Steve Koenig, CEA’s director of industry analysis.

US smartphone sales will total $33.7 billion in 2012, for more than 108 million units, according to the group.

Analyst Colin Gillis at BGC Partners said he sees “feverish” anticipation for the new iPhone, and predicts Apple will sell 10 million of the new phones at the launch and 14 million iPads in the fourth quarter.

Ramon Llamas, an analyst with research firm IDC, said Apple remains the company to watch in the mobile sector because of its rabid customer loyalty and ability to command premium prices.

“Every year when the iPhone is released it should become a national holiday because of all the hype, all the long lines,” he said.

But he said there is strong potential for growth from the new Windows-powered phones expected from Nokia and others.

“I don’t think the platform has been widely evangelized, but I like it,” he said.

Sarah Rotman Epps at Forrester Research said Microsoft has been losing ground by being late to the party, and will cede more customers with its relatively late release of Windows 8 on October 26.

“Every day Windows 8 is not in the market, Microsoft is losing opportunity with consumers,” she said.

She noted that at the start of 2011, Windows was the preferred operating system for consumers but that has slipped as Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS dominate the market for mobile devices.

“Microsoft is rapidly losing mindshare among consumers, but once it hits the market, we do think it will gain traction,” she said.

Jack Gold of the consultancy J. Gold Associates said Samsung, the biggest maker of Android phones also expected to launch Windows-based devices, “is going to continue to be the market leader in smartphones” because of its “huge momentum.”

Gold said the new competitive landscape may be good for consumers, possibly bringing down prices.

“I think there is going to be tremendous pressure on Apple to lower their prices,” he said.

“Apple has the high end of the market but that only works when they have a huge advantage.”

One problem for Apple is that rivals such as Google and Amazon are subsidizing their devices to drive consumers to their content — books, music, film and shopping.

Some analysts say the $200 Kindle Fire and Google Nexus tablets are sold at a loss.

“Apple will have to respond,” Gold said.

Notably absent in the final months of the year will be BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, which delayed its new platform expected to challenge the market leaders until early 2013.

Gold said that “it’s never good to be three or six months late,” although the delay may mean “they won’t have to compete with everyone else and can get visibility.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Google online maps embark on Arctic adventure

CAMBRIDGE BAY, Canada — Google set out Wednesday to take users of its free online mapping service on an Arctic adventure with help from an Inuit community in the Canadian tundra.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined the effort as the Internet titan’s Street View team arrived in the hamlet of Cambridge Bay in the Northwest Passage for one of its most remote projects to date.

“The goal of this project is to share with a global online audience the beauty of Canada’s Arctic and the culture of the Inuit people who live there,” said a Google team member.

Google spent 11 months planning the mapping endeavor with Nunavut political leaders and elders in Cambridge Bay in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

“People are always asking how we live; how we survive,” Cambridge Bay elder Anna Nahogaloak said in a Kitikmeot Heritage Society interview.

“They’re always asking about everything,” she continued. “This will help them understand and learn more about Nunavut.”

Nunavut is Canada’s northernmost territory and was officially separated from the Northwest Territory in 1999.

Nahogaloak recalled being 10 years old when her family traveled by dog sled from Brownside River in 1958 to Cambridge Bay, where they built a cabin and became part of the small community that has grown to about 1,600 residents.

She recounted how many of the dogs starved along the way because game was scarce.

The Street View project began with a “Mapup” at which a dozen residents worked on Chromebook laptops to enhance a Cambridge Bay map with local knowledge — from roads and rivers to the curling club and a stone church.

“It is important for the Inuit people to contribute to the maps,” Nahogaloak said. “The land is everybody’s land. We all share it.”

Google map software supports the local Inuktitut language.

Cambridge Bay teenagers Mia Otokiak, Siobhan Bligh, and Kean Niptanatiak were among the dozen residents who gathered at Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) to add local knowledge to the Cambridge Bay online map.

Map enhancements included a game hall complete with foosball table and an ice hockey arena that relies on nature to freeze water for the rink.

“I think I’m going to gloat about it,” 16-year-old Otokiak said of fine-tuning a Google Map to be seen by people around the world.

Harper and his wife stopped in to learn about Google software tools being used to craft maps in the way that Wikipedia harnessed knowledge for an online encyclopedia.

“The community accepted Google with open arms,” said NTI coordinator Christopher Kalluk, who sold Google on the project last year.

“They are visitors in our home and we want to show them a good time,” he continued. “That is how we will be feeling with the world viewing Cambridge Bay with Street View as well.”

Google donated 10 Chromebooks to the effort and is lending NTI special 360-degree picture camera gear “indefinitely,” according to Google Maps team leader Karin Tuxen-Bettman.

NTI administers land claims for the people of Nunavut.

“I feel the (people of Nunavut) will benefit with Street View because they will be able to show their communities off to people around the world,” Kalluk said. “It gives them more pride and passion for where they live.”

A Street View trike equipped with camera and satellite positioning gear will be pedaled through the town to the nearby tundra on Thursday and Friday.

Google will not be leaving the trike behind because it wants to deploy it in other Nunavut hamlets next year.

“It is about providing all the tools to perfect that map and then letting the community do it itself,” Tuxen-Bettman said.

“Weather and the remoteness are the biggest challenges.”

Street View teams have cycled, driven and walked through cities and towns around the globe capturing images to add to online maps, letting people see what it might be like to stand at a spot they are curious about.

source: interaksyon.com

Google launches cultural map of Brazil’s Amazon tribe

RIO DE JANEIRO – Google on Saturday unveiled a cultural map of Brazil’s Surui indigenous people, a digital tool that will help the Amazonian tribe share their vast knowledge of the forest and fight illegal logging.

The map, the result of a five-year partnership between Surui chief Almir and the US technology giant, was released online for the first time at a business forum held on the sidelines of the UN Rio+20 conference on sustainable development here.

The map, a collection of pictures and videos mapping historical sites and offering 3-D visualization of Surui territory in the northwestern Brazilian state of Rondonia, is available on the site www.paiter.org as well as on Google Earth.

Donning a multi-colored feather headdress, chief Almir hailed the project that “shows the value of our culture to the world through Google.”

Almir, who proposed the idea of the map to Google during a visit to the United States five years ago, told a press conference that he was particularly proud of the contribution Surui youths made to the project, including narration.

“We really believe that this is ground-breaking, ground-breaking for Google,” said Rebecca Moore, Google Earth Outreach leader. “The Surui people and Google worked together to bring the story of the forest to the global community.”

Almir said his 1,300-strong tribe plans to use the map as well as Android smartphones provided by Google to monitor and denounce illegal logging around its territory.

Moore said that by developing the map Google now had a methodology that can be used to help other indigenous peoples around the world, including in Canada and New Zealand.

Almir said his goal was to raise awareness of the need for a sustainable use of the forests.

“We understand the forest, Google understands the technology and we have established a partnership for the good of the forest,” he said.

source: interaksyon.com

Google honors Disney Artist Mary Blair

Google honors the life and works of Disney artist Mary Blair with a nice colorful simple pattern doodle that made her famous in the world of cartoons.




Mary Blair was born in Oklahoma on October 21, 1911. Mary Blair is a well-known Disney illustrator best known for her work in Walt Disney Company. She designed artworks for popular films such as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Cinderella.

Google to shut down Google Buzz

Internet search giant Google announced that it will be shutting down Google Buzz and focus instead on Google+, Google product vice president Bradley Horowitz said in a blog posting.


When Google Buzz was initially launched, Google Buzz was meant to be the search giant’s first venture into social networking. It's like a combination of Facebook and Twitter and encourage users to share status updates, photos and much more that could then be seen by friends in real time hοwеνеr, Buzz engineers failed tο properly account fοr users’ account privacy requirements.


Now with the launch of Google+, Buzz has completely vanished as Google+ is a complete Social networking tool that is designed in a way much better. Earlier this week, Google+ has 40 million users, and it seems now is the time to shut down Google Buzz.