Agog in Cyberspace

A content management system (CMS) can be your best friend if you take your online presence serious.  When it comes to online life, we all use content management systems in one way or another: social media, blogging, building websites, maintaining websites, selling products online, marketing and more.

The refined notion of CMS in the 21st century involves creating a system that can separate the creation of design and content, and then work together to publish these two elements.

Content you can manage with CMS includes news articles, blogs, operators’ manuals, technical manuals, sales guides and marketing brochures. The content you manage might include computer files, images, media, audio files, video files, electronic documents and web content.

There's a lot of fuss surrounding social media these days. If you still haven't jumped on the bandwagon and aren't sure why so many people are making such a big deal about it, here are 8 benefits of social media for your business.

1. Establish a Brand and Raise Awareness

Since the majority of the population is already visiting social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, getting your brand name all over those networks can help let people know that you're around. If you have yet to create a company image online, social networks are the place to do it. Create a fun YouTube video that entertains and informs. Funny videos tend to make their way around the Internet a lot faster than any other kind, so when making a video, keep in mind that you want it to be interesting enough for your target audience to want to share. Using Facebook and Twitter to create a fun online community that your customers will want to visit will boost brand loyalty and drive traffic to your Website, allowing you the chance to make more online sales.
 

2. Spy on the Competition

Follow your competitors on Twitter and Facebook and you'll be able to see what they have up their sleeve. Just make sure to provide a better deal than whatever they have going on.

3. Pitch Products in a More Human, Interactive Way

Since people visit social media sites to get personal rather than be bombarded with ads, discuss your business in a fun way and engage your customers with questions. Ask their opinions and entice them to respond back. This way you're making a valuable connection that will help grow your number of return customers.

4. Bring Attention to Your Products

Featuring a product on a social media site is one of the fastest ways to bring attention to it. Offer a promotion along with it for your online community members and watch your sales skyrocket.

5. Increase Customer Loyalty And Trust

Speaking to your customers in a personal way will make them feel like they are talking to a friend, not a company. This will help build their trust in you, which will make them do business with you rather than your competition. It will also improve the chances of customer recommendations.

6. Listen to Your Customer's Opinion

Social media sites are an awesome way to see what your target audience is saying about your company or your products. Take their constructive criticism and use it to enhance your product to better meet their needs.

7. Conduct Market Research

Listen to what your customers say about your products and track what links they click on and you'll begin to see what your customers like and respond to. People love to express their opinions on social media sites, which will allow you to hear the truth. Then you can use your new-found information to tweak your product or service to please them as well as continue to post more information and links that they will enjoy.

8. Strengthen Customer Service

Social media networks allow your company to answer your customers' questions and concerns directly in a timely manner. This will improve customer satisfaction and also save you money on long distance customer service phone calls.
 

In recent years, it has become very clear that companies need to communicate with their customers in new and more interactive ways.  This change in the way we market ourselves has evolved with the growing advancement and availability of technology. 

 There has also been a major shift in the way buyers research their purchase decisions.  In this NEW AGE of ‘Web Surfers’, potential buyers prefer to move through the majority of the sales cycle on their own.  Some of the most recent studies show that almost all potential buyers move through 50% of the sales cycle on their own.  Many move through 90% of the sales cycle before making any direct contact with the company.

How can you encourage the low-friction relationship today’s prospects prefer, and still gather the critical information needed to nurture prospects with relevant, one-to-one dialogue?  Here are some tips for prospering in the ‘Age of Web Surfers’:

1.  Build up your Content Library:  Position yourself as the expert in your area.  You do this by producing quality Blogs, Videos and more to help solve common products in your industry.  This is more effective than overtly promoting your products and services.

2. Use your Social Media as a ‘lead generator’.  Monitor your social media and engage prospects.  Gone, are the days when prospects go directly from search engines to your website.  This still happens, but the search results will also pop up other sites, blog posts, and social networks conversations.  While it is still true that your website needs to be loaded with compelling content, you also need to put out content in the social media sphere where people may not normally interact with you.  For example, you can join a Facebook conversation and share some informative content from your blog post.

I’m sure you are already aware that without a large ad, it’s near impossible to stand out from the crowd in Yellow Pages. Most of you purchase much more than just one listing. You’ll purchase listings under multiple headings, chalking up several hundreds of dollars more. And for what? A static ad that most people will either stick in a drawer somewhere or toss out in the Recycle Bin. Do you even know how many of the thousands of books that are tossed on the front steps of consumers with your ad in it are ever used? How many people will ever see your ad?If you have something new and exciting going on in your business, you can't update or change your print ad.

True, some provide an “Internet” option with their pages, but once you see what that looks like, and how poorly it compares to the performance of a custom website, you’ll be sorry you ever considered it. We know this from experience. We have numerous clients who have tried the Yellow Pages web options and regretted their decisions. We even experimented with Action Pages a few years ago for a couple of Display Ads. Our "heavily discounted" cost for 1 year was $4350.26. After 1 year, we were able to account for 2 phone calls as a result of the ad, and neither of those were prospective clients – they were trying to sell us something.

The cost of Internet marketing is considerably less per month than the Yellow Pages. Internet marketing can be a dynamic part of your marketing. Unlike the static Yellow Pages ad that is in the book for a year before you can modify it, you can change content, images, and your sales message when you choose. You can target seasonal or new product offerings. We understand that you may not have time to always update and maintain your own website, so we offer that service too. Customer Loyalty:

Your internet marketing campaign will attract attention to your business and allow you to establish connections with both current and prospective clients. They sign up for your newsletter, leave comments on your blog posts, or contact you for more information. Your Yellow Pages advertisement doesn’t help you to build ongoing relationships with your clients. We can help you determine which website marketing methods will bring you the best results without causing you to spend a ton of cash. You’ll be amazed at how much more you can accomplish online!

More and more consumers are searching for products and business services online which is quickly making the Yellow Pages an obsolete form of advertising. Yellow pages are used about 6% of the time and usually by people over 60 years of age. Google Maps, BING and Yahoo Local are the new Yellow Pages! They receive over 88 % of all searches. Yellow Pages online is used more than the traditional Yellow Pages but continue to lose market share because of their business model. 97% of consumers search for local businesses online. Be there when they’re looking for you with Google Places for business. (Source: Google.com) It’s important to realize that Yellow Pages, Super Pages, Action Pages and Yellow Book have never been a true advertising medium. They are simply directories. They do not give detailed information about a business and one needs to be looking for a specific business before they can even find you in the directory. Additionally, the results of a typical Yellow Pages search will reveal the businesses that pay the most to Yellow Pages vs Organic Search Engine results which list the business that best match your search query.

A custom website and an Internet marketing campaign can save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per year.

Some people pay upwards of $1,500 per month for a small Yellow Pages ad while others are paying $5,000 or more for half-page or full-page advertisements.

Compare that to the average cost of a custom website and you could OWN your custom website, and get webMarketing hosting for 8 years.

Don't spend more and get less.  Let us show you how our web marketing can get you better results for less.