Archive for June, 2010

Welcome to the Promised Land: 7 Online Opportunities

Posted on June 28, 2010. Filed under: Communications, Inbound Marketing, Internet Traffic, Jazz, Marketing, Social Media | Tags: Dave Lostracco, Ellie Becker, Harold Arlen, Inbound Marketing, Jazz, Marketing, Music, New Media, Social Media, Web 2.0 |

Today’s musical post is ‘Ac-Cent-Tchuate the Positive’ sung by its creator, the great American composer Harold Arlen in a rare recording. Hope it gets you in the mood to consider this:

The best way to move out of a recessionary mindset is to consider and embrace new opportunity. Projects I’ve been working on lately point up the many ways that today’s web has become a promised land of opportunity for businesses. Let me share a few.

1. Get an edge on the competition. Several current clients are upgrading websites that were state of the art online brochures when they were built five or more years ago. Their owners have come to realize that these sites fail to deliver value in our Web 2.0 world. These clients are getting way ahead of many of their competitors who haven’t awoken to new online capabilities for driving business. They are breaking from the pack and gaining a competitive edge in the process.
2. Become more relevant. A bit of keyword research can reveal the shocking reality that none of the words you’re using on your website correlate with how your prospects are searching for services like yours. Paying attention to your meta data – that behind the scenes code SEO stuff – can help them find you at last.
3. Be a content hero. Once they finally find you in the promised land, those hungry searchers will reward you as they consume the delicious info manna you’ve prepared for them.
4. Start a business or expand the one you have. The ease of launching eCommerce is a boon to the budding entrepreneurial spirit or to the bricks and mortar retailer looking for a way to expand without more bricks and mortar. It still takes smart strategic planning and excellent marketing, but technology has leveled the playing field for the mom and pop store.
5. Defend your small bricks and mortar business against huge online competitors. This is the flip side of the #4 opportunity above. My SEO/PPC partner Dave Lostracco specializes in using online tools to help small businesses compete with the big boys. You don’t need as much traffic as they do because your overhead and business objectives are at a different level. You can rank for long tail search terms and get your fair share of online business.
6. Become a good corporate neighbor. Social networking – the most vaunted aspect of online marketing these days — is about shared interests, shared concerns and shared solutions – ‘shared’ being the common adjective. The communities you build and nurture will help you to grow your business.
7. Look great in your customers’ eyes. Business has never been more competitive. Put a few online tactics into your customer service tool kit. Servicing customer needs via Twitter tweets and other personally interactive methods can definitely win and keep friends.

 Take-away: Look at the online technology world as THE place to catapult your business into economic recovery!!!