SalemGlobal #2 for Internet Marketing
Posted by Aryeh.Landowne on Mar 2, 2010
Right after Wikipedia and right before internetmarketing dot com. Here’s the proof:
Don’t believe us check it out for yourself.
Internet Marketing in New York, NY, NFL Football’s Super Bowl 44 and TV Commercials: What Businesses Can Learn From 106.5 Million TV Viewers
Posted by Salem Global on Feb 9, 2010
This week there is a lot going on. First, we (as in, the USA) had the Super Bowl. (Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints with their 31-17 win over the Indianapolis Colts.) Then we (as in SalemGlobal) have a breakfast Wednesday morning, a Poker Networking event Wednesday evening, and finally an Internet Marketing Seminar Thursday morning. Oh. And possible snow!
According to NFL.com - the official website of the National Football League, this years Super Bowl was “seen by an average of 106.5 million people, …the most-watched program in U.S. television history.” So immediately my marketing side of my brain starts thinking, “Wow! What if I had a commercial air during Super Bowl XLIV?” So then the analytical side of my brain says “Ok. Here is my $3.1 million dollars… lets see what happens.” And then I do the math. First I take a look at the demographics and say football is usually mostly watched by men ages 18 - 49. But certainly if this is the 44th Super Bowl, older men are going to be watching too. Then I also account for the fact that with the women’s liberation movement and overall change in our egalitarian world, more and more women are going to be watching too. So technically the demographics are going to remain the same and I am only going to advertise my products to that segment of the population. And I can say that as an added bonus, I will get some women and older men to watch my commercials also.
So now lets analyze the types of companies that did indeed pay the $3.1mm for a :30 second spot and see if you can spot the trend. First, click on this link and you will get to nfl.com’s page that lists (mostly) all of the 60 commercials that were aired during the Superbowl. http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-super-bowl-commercials?icampaign=SB_HP_SBTVComm#orderBy:allTimeViews. Note however, this is the NFL’s site and not YouTube which might give us a more accurate view of the most popular commercials. Regardless, NFL might show a smaller subset of the true number.
As you can see, here are the top 10 commercials ranked by “most viewed” according to company and industry, with added values:
By the way - just for full disclosure, there must be some politics going on with this since they don’t have my favorite commercial with Betty White and Abe Vigoda for Snickers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rauK4fBjkI
Doritos - snack food (sex + comedy)
Hyundai - car (celebrity + comedy)
Volkswagon - car (comedy)
Monster.com - job search (comedy)
Bud Light - beer (comedy)
Doritos - snack food (comedy)
TruTV - online TV (celebrity + comedy)
Honda - car (? Creative but not great IMHO)
Teleflora - flowers (sex + comedy. Hey Valentine’s Day is this coming Sunday)
Focus on the Family (pro-life (celebrity + some comedy)
Then comes more Bud Light, more Doritos, Dodge, eTrade (my 2nd favorite btw http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-super-bowl-commercials/09000d5d81644636/eTrade-commercial - milkaholic - milkaWHAT?)
A full analysis of all of the commercials would take up too much time for me. I personally fit right into the center of the demographic. I am 40 years old. Male. Two Kids. My interest SHOULD be in sports and football (they aren’t my top but are for many 40 year olds). I also personally like to watch the Super Bowl for the commercials but now with the Internet, I don’t have to waste my time with the actual game. OTOH, I like to get together with my friends, eat and drink and banter. So it’s usually a good party. I also like beer, I drive a car, I don’t need a job, I like to snack, I am online all day, every day and I love comedy - ok - the sex thing works for me as well but as you can see, most companies go for comedy because that is the value that goes viral. So the commercials are pretty much in line with what they should be doing. And now because of the Internet, when a video is good, it gets passed on from computer to computer just like a virus, thus achieving “viral” video.
So you want to learn how to take advantage of the lessons learned at the Super Bowl and you don’t have $3.1 million? Well, easier now than it ever used to be.
Step 1 - buy yourself a flip cam or any competitor (a client of ours found a Kodak that had similar features).
2 - Think of topic to “vlog” about (video log).
3 - Stand camera on tripod or position yourself correctly with an appropriate background
4 - Turn on the camera
5 - Record
6 - Upload
7 - When uploading, make sure you post the correct URLs and descriptions that will brand you and get links back to your main website.
The main thing you want to do is be able to shoot the video and use the software that comes with it, then quickly upload it to YouTube and TubeMogul. In this race, the rabbit always wins when it’s the same video as in the case where people steal commercials and post them. Advertisers though sometimes don’t mind about copyrights because the general public is helping their brand sell more product. This is different from TV shows that don’t get paid because people watch TV for free and broadcasting companies rely on the advertisers to give them cash.
Now that you have successfully written, directed, filmed, starred in and uploaded your own commercial for your own company or practice, repeat the process. Be inspired by Super Bowl commercials and know that someday, if you have a product that warrants it, maybe you too will have a Super Bowl commercial. But if you are just like the rest of us, then you need to implement your video strategy and integrate it into a larger marketing program.
And of course, I might as well plug here that my Internet Marketing New York City Seminar is coming up this Thursday. So if you want to know more about Internet marketing, video marketing and the 21 things you need to know to succeed online, come on down to my office across from Bryant Park (sign up at www.TheSeminarSeries.com) at 8AM and you will be on your way.
Next week we will get back to our regularly scheduled schedule teaching you how to marketing your company, brand, practice and products over the Internet. And of course, if you don’t want to wait until then, give me a call at 212-993-5828, send me an email at raphis@salemglobal.com or visit www.SalemGlobal.com and let’s set up a meeting by phone or in person.
Internet Marketing in NY, SuperBowl XLIV, Poker in Vegas: How Your Business Can Benefit From The Most Watched TV Event In The World
Posted by Salem Global on Feb 2, 2010
Before we get into the whole crazy Super Bowl football mania that will take over the world this Sunday at 6:30PM EST, I just wanted everyone to know that I won a Texas Hold’em poker Tournament in Las Vegas this past weekend. Don’t get sooooo excited… I was not on TV and won’t be entering the World Series of Poker anytime soon. No I didn’t win a million dollars (but I am quite happy with my take If you want to know more details about the 65 year old shark at the table at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, the English guy who looked like Sting and how I still won after my opponents 2-3 diamond suited flush beat out my A-K, please email me, I will be more than happy to brag For those of you who don’t know anything about Hold’em or poker or cards, let me give you a free lesson…
Patience and Consistency. As I mentioned last week; business, website marketing and Texas Hold’em poker tournaments have a lot to do with consistency, together with a degree of math skills, memory skills, psychology skills, interpersonal skills and a whole lot of patience. Consistency is the act of being in it and sticking with it. There are lots of people who, whether they are in business or in a card game, don’t have the patience to see things through. They get cocky and ants in their pants and if they don’t strike it rich pretty quickly, they start to get sloppy and lose their cool. They also don’t achieve the balance of how much money they need to “invest” or “spend” in order to get a good ROI, Return on Investment.
In Hold’em, the 2 people to the left of the dealer have to put up a small blind and a big blind. These are equivalent to your businesses operating expenses. You have to pay for your rent, utilities, employees, technology, phone and internet service in order to have a business. You can’t skimp on the basics. Just like paying taxes these are your “antes.”
However, after the “flop,” the first 3 out of 5 cards that are shown and communally shared, which is sort of like your first 1-3 years in business. With 2 cards in your hand after the flop, you can get a good picture of whether or not you have a good thing going, a bad thing, or potential. This is the place in cards and in business where you can set yourself up to win or drop out. This is also the place where you have enough information to say that you are going to “invest” in additional business expenses such as marketing, or “bet” that your cards are better or going to be better than everyone else’s. And the biggest difference is that in poker you can bluff, but in business you can’t. These are 80% of businesses that fail in their first 3 years. Businesses that have the potential but don’t invest in themselves. They think they can ride it out but they don’t put enough effort (not necessarily money) into it and then they fail. I say “effort” instead of money because there are so many things you can do now in the year 2010 yourself online for free (instead of paying a professional like me to do it for you) to help you “after the flop.”
After 1-3 years, you know whether you have potential or not. But it’s the small company that doesn’t invest the time, money OR effort into the CORRECT marketing that usually kills them. Either they don’t make the cold calls, knock on the doors, send out direct mail or spend a few extra hours a day updating their website, blog, creating a YouTube video or sending out a press release or any number of the 21 things you need to do to be successful on the web. They go home after 5PM or maybe 6PM, have dinner, watch some TV, go to bed and hope for a better tomorrow. But tomorrow will only be better if you change it up and do the things you need to do to get your message out there.
I have been listening to a book called “The Little Red Book of Selling” by Jeffrey Gitomer. If you aren’t familiar with it, you should be. I share with the author the activities of writing and marketing while others are watching TV at home after hours. After the kids, wives and girlfriends all go to bed, he says its real quiet after 11PM and he can get a lot done between then and 1AM. Try it once a month, then once every 2 weeks, then once a week and see how you can turn your business around. And if you don’t like to work late, wake up early. Whatever you do, whenever you do it, just keep on doing it. Have patience, positive attitude and be consistent.
Second lesson comes from Super Bowl XLIV. Since 1967 when the Green Bay Packers beat out the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10, teams have battled for the diamond studded NFL ring. (Next week I will have the link for the video from Dr. John Frank http://www.HairClinicUSA.com where he shows off his two Super Bowl rings from when he was a tight end for the San Francisco 49ers.) This coming Sunday, the Indianapolis Colts (AFC) will go up against the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New Orleans Saints. When I was a young advertising agency media research executive (ok I was just an intern), I was actually running the numbers on how much Super Bowl ads should cost. This year according to the research out there, approximately 90 - 100 million people will watch the Super Bowl. This will cost advertisers approximately $3 million US dollars for :30 seconds of airtime. (Check out these commercials from past Super Bowls: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=superbowl+commercials&search_type=&aq=1&oq=superbowl+co)
So you take a look at the advertisers and you think a few things: a) who are they? b) can they afford it c) is it worth it? So let’s answer one by one.
a) Blue chip, very large, high ad budget companies advertise during the Super Bowl
b) Yes they can afford it
c) Yes it is worth it because they have a product or are launching a product that is relevant to the male dominated watching of the sport.
Cars, beer, pizza, movies, domain names, business, insurance and much more. What you won’t see are tampons, tea, female weight loss and products that women purchase and/or women supposedly buy like baby food.
So the lesson is that you should be advertising to the audience for you. If you are going after the male demographic and can’t afford the Super Bowl’s three million dollar ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRVRTTMwhK8), maybe tone it down a bit and find a different venue for your product or service. During one of my poker tournaments in Vegas I met a woman from California who claims that women are great poker players because they are so unpredictable. In poker she might be right and then again she might THINK she was right. She was good but she wasn’t experienced. The 65 year old shark and I took her down after the other players sloppily lost their stacks to her. We were patient, consistent and played smart.
As a business owner, you HAVE to market yourself; otherwise your competition will take you down. But don’t guess. Go after your audience. Research them. Find out where they are online and then go after them. One by one or 90 million at a time. Stop being so unpredictable and do the obvious. I don’t know who will win the Super Bowl, but I can guarantee that there will be many many men who will drive to their friends houses in their cars, drink beer, eat pizza and snacks during the game, and then will go to work the next day. (Of course with so many people out of work, I also predict that Monster.com or Yahoo Hot Jobs and or some other job search related website will be airing)
So watch out for the unpredictable wardrobe malfunctions, enjoy the game and half-time show, play some cards, and do obvious things that will help you and your business in the short term AND the long term. Do NOT repeat the golden farcical mistake that Pets.com made a decade ago by spending millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads before they went out of business. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sICSyC9u5iI)
And if you want to know more about Internet marketing New York, poker or what demographics are, give me a call at 212-993-5828, send me an email at raphis@salemglobal.com or visit www.SalemGlobal.com. Next week we will talk about the Super Bowl winner and how to take fame and branding further after you make it.
Internet Marketing, Football and Poker: You Win Some, You Lose Some. What we can learn from the Jets loss, the Colts win and consistency
Posted by Salem Global on Jan 26, 2010
So the Jets lost and the Colts won. For all of you New York Jets fans, Sunday wasn’t the greatest. Of course most of you watched the game on TV. My cousin actually drove to Indianapolis for the game. So you gotta ask yourself. Would you rather drive 11 hours TO the game being all psyched and watch live… and then have to drive back home for the same ELEVEN hours! Well. That all depends on your attitude and your overall take on life. I would tend to think that most people would really enjoy a road trip from NY to IN when they have something to look forward to. And they would certainly enjoy being at the actual stadium, feel the actual cold air, watch the pigskin get tossed, and relish the thrill of being in a place where history had the potential of happening. Mind you I am a New Yorker so of course I was rooting for the Jets. Heck, even my friends who are Giants fans were rooting for the Jets. But I have a positive attitude and though the Jets lost and the drive home with a loss is MUCH longer than a drive home with a win, there is something to be said about making the effort.
When I was in Junior High School I was pretty good in math. If I studied, I got an A. If I didn’t study, I usually got a B. Teachers hate us sort of kids. We set the wrong example for the others in the class. And if you are a jerk (like I was), you probably told more than a few people when you studied and how much and when you didn’t and you get the picture. Well, about three months into the school year after acing most of my tests, I decided to take a break from studying before a test and failed miserably. I was devastated. My teacher marched me into the principal’s office and they gave me the bottom line. They didn’t like my attitude and were kicking me out of honors. I was so upset I began to cry. Loud. Everyone in the next classroom heard me. And then on top of it all, I was demoted to the “regular” class. That memory is stained on me and I never want to repeat it. Did I always study from then on? No. I was not a consistent student and I didn’t learn from my mistakes. But now in my adult and professional life, I try to remember this story and the stain and the pain. I try to remember that if I study and keep it up, I will not fail. And if sometimes I do indeed fail, I try to realize that there are always second chances. I will be behind and it will be a struggle to get back but if I keep at it and keep a positive attitude, I will make it to the top.
Last week I met up with some colleagues of mine. A CEO of a video production company and a CEO of an advertising agency. We were talking about our businesses and what we can do together to drum up business in 2010 and beyond. Economy Eshnonomy. People are doing business in this market and we need to do something that will land new accounts. Well, after talking for an hour, the ad agency guy asked me a standard marketing 101 question. “What makes you unique over your competition?” I have a very cool and quick answer for people that ask me that question. Basically there are 5 ways of saying New York; “NY,” “NYC,” “New York,” “New York City” and “Manhattan.” I am in the “Internet Marketing” and “Website Marketing” Business. When you Google those keyword phrases, SalemGlobal comes up #1.
SalemGlobal did not become #1 overnight. It took many years of hard work, strategy and time to get to the number one position. It took patience and it took consistency. So when I meet potential clients, I tell them my story. I evaluate whether their website warrants being in the #1 position for their keywords. I look at their competition and I give them the analysis they need in order to decide whether it’s worth competing or not. The funny thing is that I have found that it is only a select few who realize the power of the web and what I am telling them.
There are three basic ways to do business development in today’s super competitive world. As a business owner, you can place an ad in traditional media (this includes direct marketing as well as print, mail, radio, TV etc.) and wait for the phone to ring, you can network or you can cold call. My answer for the past 13 years has been the web! Internet marketing rules in this new tech based economy. There is no more efficient way to market yourself than using technology. The numbers don’t lie. More and more people are using the web to search for things they need and want. If you aren’t competing online in 2010, you are going out of business. Of course I don’t want to put down networking or cold calling. They work too. But you certainly can’t compare the global reach of the web to your personal local networking. And though you can make a phone call to mostly anyone anywhere in the world, there aren’t enough hours in the day to reach as many people as internet users. So in the playoffs of sales, the Web wins hands down!
So Raphi, all of your theory sounds good, but can you give us a real life example? Sure. Take www.4StarCleaning.com. They have been doing PPC (pay per click) on Google for the past four years straight for keywords “cleaning services” and “office cleaning.” We have had our ups and downs with the campaign, but the President, Fred Ross, recognizes how you have to be in it to win it. He recognizes that consistency wins the race. You don’t just turn on the campaign when you THINK people are going to call you. You let it ride. And though the past two years have been rough, we have witnessed calls come through when we least expect it (and when we most expect it too.)
As an entrepreneur and business owner since 1997, if I gave up every time there was a problem I would’ve had a new corporate job each new moon. I wonder if they teach you how to deal with problems and failure in business school. It seems fundamental to me to have the resiliency to bounce back after every setback. But maybe that’s what separates successful businesses from non-successful ones. Not how to deal with the good times, but how to deal with the bad times.
In poker, the idea is not to win every pot. The idea is to win consistently over time. A little pot here and a little pot there. A monster pot every now and then. And not to lose the monster pots. But you aren’t supposed to play every hand. When dealt a 7-2 non-suited, you are supposed to fold. That doesn’t mean you cash in, it just means you lose your ante and wait until the next round of cards are dealt.
So whether you are the Jets, a business owner or a poker player, remain consistent. Keep playing, keep blogging, keep developing, keep at it. The only obstacle in the way of your success is you. And the only person that can make it happen is you. Make the decision to be successful and keep a positive attitude and stay in the game. Next week I will share with you my son’s Chess game anecdotes. We will also cover more content strategies, newsletters and blogging for your industry. And of course if you want to know more about internet marketing NY and poker and networking, give me a call at 212-993-5828, send me an email at raphis@salemglobal.com or visit www.SalemGlobal.com.
Internet Marketing, Football and Poker: What We Can Learn from 2 Minute Warnings, Sudden Death, Flops, Turns and Rivers
Posted by Salem Global on Dec 28, 2009
Did anyone see the NY Giants football game yesterday? I didn’t. But between Facebook and my poker game last night it was hard to avoid hearing how terribly the Giants fell. This week is your last chance to make things happen in 2009. This is your 2 minute warning, your sudden death and your RIVER card all in one. Huh? What am I talking about? Read on marching soldier…
A 2 minute warning is footballs way of saying there are 2 minutes left in the game so you better move faster, stronger and get your head in the game because at this point you don’t have any more time to strategize. It is now time to act. It’s now or never.
Sudden death takes place in overtime and means that the next point wins. If the 2 minute warning didn’t get your head in the game, sudden death should.
In poker you get a chance to see community cards three times. First comes the FLOP where you get to see the first 3 community cards. Then comes the TURN that can make or break you. The RIVER decides who wins and what will be the best hand on the board.
Internet marketing can be compared to football and poker amongst many other things. Basically you need to set up a short term and long term strategy. You will not get results overnight. You have to be patient, budget your money and time accordingly and then strike when the iron is hot. Many companies lose faith in their marketing. This can be compared to the football players that give up in the second half when they are down in the first. They still have a chance during the 2 minute warning but psychologically they might be finished. Similarly, people lose when they fold pre-flop, after the FLOP or TURN even though they might have the best hand at the RIVER. They lose faith in their cards, themselves and get bullied out of winning the pot. These people need to learn the odds. They need to learn that long term thinking wins.
So my message to you for this last post of 2009 is not to ever give up hope. Keep on truckin’ as we used to say. Next year in 2010 we will all be doing a little bit better. One of the first poker lessons I ever learned was that poker winners do not win every hand. Warriors do not win every battle, but they DO win the war. Superbowl champions don’t go 16-0 during the season (ok ok there is 1 exception to this statement).
Instead of going out in a blaze of glory, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0UzG-Gc7II
or Thelma and Louise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z88U915uq8
…be more like Jackie Chan in “Young Master”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiyJkIn1Nn0
And remember, not to lose faith in yourself, your family, your friends, your company, the economy… you get the picture.
Want to know more about Internet marketing, football, poker or martial arts movies? Give me a call at 212-993-5828, send me an email at raphis@salemglobal.com or visit www.SalemGlobal.com. Next week we get back to the 21 basics of Internet marketing. Evaluating your website for improvement.
Happy New Year Everyone!
Raphi Salem
The End of the Year Special: Last Ditch Marketing Efforts of 2010
Posted by Salem Global on Dec 28, 2009
My gym sent me a bunch of coupons in the mail for free drinks and guest passes to be used before the end of the year. (They SHOULD be collecting emails all year round and then blasting out weekly newsletters but they haven’t hired me so this is the forum where I can tell them what they should be doing on their marketing front). Toys R Us sent me an email wishing me Happy Holidays and Happy New Year and items that were 50% off. So did eCost, Buy.com, eBay, PayPal and a bunch of others. They all had the same message. All had the same tone and they all made me realize that I should be doing the same thing for me and my clients. Oh - and of course I am going shopping to take advantage of these deals…
For the non-profit I do work for (at a discounted rate of course), we strategized to send out emails to past donors and supporters to send in their end of the year tax benefit donations.
So whether you are big or small, corporate or not for profit, there is still time to act. Each year I try to hand deliver gift baskets to my clients throughout the month of December. In one case, I actually made a donation to a charity I know my client is involved in. He really appreciated that.
In this “recession” we have going on here, you need to be creative and generous all in the same action. You need to tell your clients and friends that this year was a difficult one and everyone knows it but that you care and appreciate the business you have been getting.
So this weeks tip is one of generosity with self-serving needs. You need to send an email, snail mail, blog and post on your homepage that you are running a recession special. The end of the year/ sign up now and take advantage of the times as they are. Now is the time to strike. Many people think that this year is over. True it is December 22 but there are still 3 days left till Christmas and 9 days left till New Years. People are still working. As a matter of fact, at 6PM last night I got a call from a potential client (an architect) who I am going to see today. Believe it or not, he isn’t showing up on the search engines. He told me that things are slow and what else is he going to do? Wait around for the phone to ring? I like this guy. He is pro-active and recognizes that the Internet is here to stay and that he needs to start taking advantage today. Not tomorrow, not next week and not next year. I guarantee you he hasn’t be reading my tips of the week. If he had - he would’ve already been a client. But seriously, he found SalemGlobal on the top of Google when he searched for a “website marketing company in New York.” And then he sang me the song I love to hear: “Obviously, if you are able to get yourself up to the top of the search engines, you must know what you are doing!”
And that is my secret folks. You all do what you do best. I do my best to be at the top of the search engines for keywords that will bring me business. I do the same for my clients and I would love to do it for you. As a matter of fact - we are running an end of the year special right now. Call me and ask me how to get 50% off my regular pricing. You will be glad you did. Your business will improve and you will be on your way out of this recession.
Next week I hope to celebrate the holidays and New Year with some skiing, ice skating and other fun things. But I will still be working. So if you want to get together or call me regarding your Internet strategy for the end of the year or for the New Year, just let me know, give me a call at 212-993-5828, send me an email at raphis@salemglobal.com, or visit www.salemglobal.com. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year Everyone!
Raphi Salem
It’s 2010. Wake Up and Smell The Internet: 21 Things You Should Be Doing Online
Posted by Salem Global on Dec 15, 2009
Well, if you check our blog and past history of email tips on website marketing, search engine optimization, you should know that there are 21 things that we here at SalemGlobal recommend to our readers and do for our clients, day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year. But before I remind you in this week’s tip what they are, I first wanted to remind you that as a capitalist, business owner and website publisher, that marketing your website, (SEO/ search engine optimization, search engine marketing and whatever term or “keyword” or keyword phrase you come up with) actually means nothing compared to the bottom line. That is, YOUR bottom line. That is, your revenue and your profit.
The reason why you are in business or work is for one reason and one reason only. You want to make money. Even the not-for-profits that we work with want to make money. They want to make it in donations so they can help more people. Doctors want more patients because patients pay them (or insurance companies do, and/or Obama’s Democratic Party healthcare reform bill will), lawyers want more clients, retailers want to sell more product and professionals want to sell more of their services. Regardless, even though SalemGlobal.com is #1 in Google for website marketing around the country and internet marketing in NY, it doesn’t mean a thing. That is, until the phone rings. And even then we (and you) need to get a meeting, make a proposal, present the proposal, get approval, get a signature and finally, get a check. And then you have to keep servicing your clients, with a smile, and keep on invoicing them.
So remember, we are indeed on the eve of 2010. We are 10 years into the new millennium. The Internet is here to stay. If you don’t have an online strategy, whether it is to have a brochure website telling people you exist, or you go all out with a social media strategy and ecommerce play, your competition does or is working on it. And that means that you are going out of business and maybe even retiring. But the good news is that there is still hope. You can change things around. You can get a website for a measly $50 a year. Or you can spend thousands. Is it true that in order to make money, you need to spend money? I don’t think so. But I do think that in order to make money you need to be smart. And by being smart, you need to start using technology to your advantage. So as you read through my not-so-secret list of 21 things your company, office, practice or firm should be doing online, think about your bottom line. Think not only how to market yourself, but also once you do get that customer in your door or on the phone, how are you going to sell them? You don’t need a flashy million dollar website, but you do need a website. You don’t need to spend a thousand dollars a month on maintaining your website if it doesn’t pay off for you ten times that amount. But if you did invest in technology, I guarantee you will be on the right track.
One of my favorite stories from 2009 is the guy who came into my office and was boasting how he spent close to $300,000.00 on his website. It was absolutely brilliant. He paid geniuses from MIT to build it for him and he came to me looking for ideas on how to market it. I gave him the following 21 ideas. I told him my price. He told me he needs to go back to his investors with my price and he will have to get back to me. Well - maybe he will call in 2010. But I can tell him and tell you that if I was an investor and someone brought me a business plan that called for $300k in development and $0 in marketing, I would laugh. I don’t care what business you are in. If you have no marketing strategy, you don’t have a business.
Ok - a few more stories… This year was also the year I met a guy who was going to pay me $1000 a month to market his product that had the potential of making $60,000 a month. Ladies and gentlemen, I now present you with the 60% Return on Investment. Second lesson. Even Bernie Madoff didn’t make 60%. Greed will bring you down. Maybe you won’t go to jail, but be a little more realistic.
And then there was the high-end designer handbag lady. It is amazing to me how you can sell a $500 handbag in New York, London, Paris and Minuch (everybody’s talking about, Pop Musik http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFwy17_M-Ak) and not have the budget to market it online?
Last one. Years ago I met a great entrepreneur who thought he was going to hire us and sell thousands of his products online without an offline strategy to support the online strategy. This was a hard lesson but I learned that a $12 product with a $1.00 profit margin was a pretty bad product. But let’s say we were able to promote it online. Promotion does not happen over night. It happens over time. You need to build up your brand and build up your presence. (And read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point.)
As I discussed last week, you need a long term AND a short term strategy. You need an online AND an offline strategy. Of course there are exceptions to every rule but the bottom line is that you have to be smart and be dedicated. There are no shortcuts to online fame and wealth. This is a long distance race. If you want to know more, If you want to know more, please give us a call at 212-993-5828, send me an email at raphis@salemglobal.com or visit www.SalemGlobal.com. In the meantime, here is my holiday gift to you:
21 Things You Should Be Doing Online:
1) Evaluate present website for compatibility with SEO strategies.
2) Research your industry and relevant keywords.
3) Purchase relevant domain names, for housing blogs and marketing websites.
4) Build marketing websites that are optimized for lead generation, areas of your industry and business.
5) Implement appropriate metadata - pagetitles, keywords, metanames, descriptions and search engine friendly URLs.
6) Rewrite and prioritize content and text on site according to research.
7) Submit site to search engines - Google, Yahoo, and the lesser used engines.
8 ) Submit listings to local directories - Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Merchant Circle etc.
9) Increase User Registration and Lead Generation - implement and promote a user registration form.
10) Build and maintain business blogs.
11) Social Media/Networks - Identify existing online communities, and build new ones.
12) Online video production - distribute your video across shared online video sites.
13) Develop new content - increase number of pages to claim being an authority.
14) Develop newsletter (We are a Constant Contact Business Partner).
15) Build and upload sitemap.
16) Write and promote online press releases for your organization (Interactive PR).
17) Write and promote articles - submission to 700+ online magazines for your organization.
18) Manage Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising (Google / Yahoo).
19) Link building - build inbound links from external websites (including industry sites, Directories, and SalemGlobal network sites).
20) Manage affiliate programs (for ecommerce companies).
21) Monitoring and Reporting - Evaluate efforts and results (e.g. Google Analytics and additional 3rd-party tools).
PPC Strategies for the Holidays: How to Write Your Ads, How to Budget and How to Use PPC in Local Listing
Posted by Salem Global on Nov 17, 2009
So now you are finally ready to take the plunge and give Google some of your money. Why? Well, you’ve heard all about this Google thing and were never quite sure what it meant to your business or practice. Then someone mentioned Google and you became curious. Then you talked with some friends and finally someone brought you here. Well congratulations but don’t get toooo excited. There are a few rules of advertising you must understand before you put up a budget and expect the phone to ring.
First - Do not expect your phone to ring off the hook. It still takes time for people to recognize you, trust you, and then have your ad show up at the right place at the right time. Mind you, Google, PPC (pay per click) and online advertising is the most targeted advertising you can participate in so you are in good shape.
Second - Put your phone number in your ad. So many people create ads that are really creative… and don’t say a thing or have any call to action. True, some people believe the call to action IS the ad but even before that people are thinking about you. And if you are lucky, or smart, they will call you from your ad and won’t waste your $10 to click on you.
Third - Use good marketing language in addition to telling people what they want to know. Use your keywords, your location, tell people how smart you are, you have great prices and that you are reliable. Depending on your industry you need to be able to compete. See what the competition is saying. Can you beat them? Match them?
Fourth - Make sure you activate your Google local business center and link this and your location to your ad. You will receive an extra line of exposure with your address showing that you truly are a local merchant.
Fifth - Make sure click through visitors go to a landing page relevant to what they clicked on and make sure there is a call to action on that page. Do not always direct to the home page.
Sixth - Connect your ad with a URL that reinforces what keyword people are searching for. Four Star Cleaning owns http://www.OfficeCleaningNY.com and http://www.CleaningServiceNY.com. So when people look for their keywords in NY they are perceived as smart and visionary to own the domain name + keywords.
Seventh - Test, test, test. Did I mention to test? No one, not even Google can tell you how much to budget for your ad. They can give you a mathematical, scientific and algorithmic number to plug in but as a human behavior expert, I will tell you that that all doesn’t matter. Google will take your money regardless. So what you need to do is start out with $100 per day and bid your CPC (cost per click) at $10 and see where that takes you. Basically, my rule is that if Google is eating up your whole budget and you haven’t received any phone calls or contact request forms you need to see what would happen if you increased the CPC to $15 and also decreased to $5.00. And then you have to account for the time of day, week, month and year as well as your industry to really determine what the best budget is for you. Don’t give up but also budget for this. Make sure you go into this knowing that click fraud exists and you will spend before you make. And of course if you are getting phone calls and closing deals don’t stop there. Keep going and be consistent.
Examples of the perfect ads: (IMHO 
)
* Office Cleaning NYC
* Low Rates, Free Est. 212-741-9400
* Environment Friendly Insured Bonded
* www.OfficeCleaningNY.com
LASIK Midtown NYC
* 212-764-2020, Ilan Cohen, MD.
* Free Consultation, 0% Financing
* www.WorldClassLasik.com
If you would like more information about PPC or any other aspect of website marketing, please give us a call at 212-993-5828, send me an email at raphis@salemglobal.com or visit www.SalemGlobal.com. Next week we will talk about Social Media, how it has really taken off and what you can do about it to get some business from it.
Linked In linking and Social Media Strategies
Posted by Salem Global on Oct 20, 2009
If you have been paying attention to online marketing over the past few years, you will no doubt be familiar with social networking and social media. Then someone came out with the term “social media optimization” and everyone jumped on the bandwagon. When people think of social media, they think of MySpace which was the father of social media and facebook which used to be the runner up and now has become the leader. MySpace was a great place to build your own page and bands and artists from all over the world promoted it. But then facebook came out and you needed a .edu email address to join. When facebook opened up their platform to the rest of the world, it become THE place to post pictures and videos of our kids, our friends, the band we were seeing, the game we were attending (through facebook mobile and iPhones and the like) and people flocked to it.
But then everyone in the industry was trying to figure out how to monetize these highly trafficked sites. Yes, advertising models provided some clues but the business people of the world wanted more.
LinkedIn was in sleeper mode for all of these years. Business networking sites had come and gone and were still trying to figure it all out. But when facebook exploded, LinkedIn took the hint and added social media to their platform. Now LinkedIn has become my number one online space to promote my business events, services and clients. Linkedin allows you to join 50 groups of which you should be joining the max. If you want to pay for LinkedIn you can join even more. These groups are all business related. People have started separating their fun social life on facebook with their serious I need to make money and network business side. Personally I categorize my 50 groups into social/hobby groups, political groups, business and industry groups and local groups. This way, while playing on the same field as my competitors in my industry, I am also on the fields of my past college peers and my local peers.
So make sure you join your local groups in Miami, Chicago and New York, your industry groups and your hobby groups and start promoting today. You will only be allowed to join a few a day and then you need to be approved but I assure you, the effort you put into it will be well worth it. So far I have met hundreds of people online and have started doing business with a good percentage. I guarantee you results or no money back
If you want to know more about LinkedIn or social media optimization, give me a call at (212) 993-5828 or send me an email raphis@salemglobal.com or visit our website www.salemglobal.com. Next week I will talk about online video and how to use Youtube for your business.
Email Marketing and Newsletters
Posted by Salem Global on Oct 13, 2009
As we began last week, the holidays are coming and you need to be right up front and center with your potential clients and customers. (And for you, non-profits, your donors and supporters.) But we often focus so much on new business that we sometimes forget about “old” business. We sometimes forget that the “new” clients that we brought in last year and the “old” customers that purchased from us last year are still here this year. They really didn’t go anywhere. They are in the trenches as much as we are. The economy is hitting them just as hard as it is hitting us. It’s a challenge to keep in touch with each and every one of your customers and clients but you do what you have to do. It is MUCH easier to hold on to an existing client or sell to someone that knows you already than to try to get new customers and clients.
Since the commercialization of the Internet (and before), email has been referred to as the “killer app.” A killer app is defined as the “end-all-be-all” of all computer applications. The reason for this is that email is very personal and private and always in your face. Even before blackberries and iPhones directly sent email to cellphones, email was always going to get to you whether you checked at work or at home. Even through the spammy years, people still checked their email, they just upgraded their filtering and anti-virus software.
And that is why you finally need to stop talking about how you have collected all of those wonderful emails from every one of your customers since 1985 and start doing something with it.
But be forewarned, email can be tricky. First of all, never send out a mass email from your personal address. If someone regards you as a spammer, that can get your domain name email blacklisted. That means that your emails go into your contacts spam filter because they think you are spamming them or they think you are trying to sell them Viagra or the Shamwow. We recommend using a 3rd party service (we are Constant Contact resellers so here is a link from our affiliate program. They don’t pay us until we make a sale so buy it and support this newsletter All kidding aside, there are plenty of 3rd party email software applications. Check them out and decide for yourself. We use Constant Contact because it’s easy to use, they have good templates, the price is right and their support is great.)
Now that you have the email addresses and the software, its time to start writing. Don’t think of it as “difficult.” If you can write an email to a colleague, you can write a newsletter. You are already an expert in your field. You know everything there is to know about running your own business, the products you sell and the services you provide. Now it is time to let people know about it.
Some people think that they can’t write a newsletter or send an email blast once a week but they can. Here is my secret… Start with every month. Break down your company and products into 12. That gives you 1 newsletter a month. When you realize how easy it is, expand that to twice a month. Then 3 times and finally 4. Write about your business. Send coupons. Tell your customers about a lovely interaction with a customer you had this week. “Call it Wilmas Wonder of the Week.” Ok. Maybe not. I call mine the SalemGlobal Website Marketing Tip of the Week. Catchy… Huh! But seriously folks. The whole idea is to let your customers know that you are alive and well. You might not have time to call up the 600 people in your database every week and 99% of them might delete your email. But how do you know the 1 - 10% that do open it won’t be so happy and they tell their friends and so on and so on and so on. Now you have tripled your customer base and it was all with 1 simple email communication. Not only that, your old customers bought from you and now you have 300 more orders than last year since you gave your current customers a simple way to tell their friends about you.
Need more ideas about email or marketing to your database and customers? Call me at 212-993-5828. Write me. Email me at raphis@salemgloabl.com. (I just got a new computer after my old one died, it works great!) Or vist our site, www.SalemGlobal.com. Next week I will write about some success we have been having with linkedin, a social networking website.