Business Marketing Memo

MONDAY FEBRUARY 20, 2012

You must be aware of how your advertising dollars are being spent. You just can't hand over your money to a media outlet or an advertising agency and trust that you are always getting the best buy. Here are a few examples:

A company says that for $25 a day, they will put your advertising message on their truck. This sounds interesting because the truck sign might expose you to thousands of potential customers. Unfortunately, what the "truck owner" doesn't tell you is that the truck with your sign is parked at the same intersection every day. And while you paid to have your sign mounted on both sides of the truck, only one side is visible to traffic... and since it's at the same intersection every day your sign is not being exposed to others who don't drive by it. This is a true story: we saw the truck parked in the West San Fernando Valley.

An Internet advertising agency takes your money to put your display ads on websites showing your key word which is "mattresses." Yes, the ad agency does put your display ad on those websites but it fails to confirm that the websites with the key word "mattresses" reach customers in the area where your stores are located. This is a true story: an ad agency purchased space on our website for a chain of mattress stores in the Northeast United States and 98% of our web traffic comes from Southern California.

An advertising agency buys you air time on a TV station at a cheap price but your commercial gets no results. Why? Because your commercial ran during a program that your target audience wouldn't watch. This is a true story: In this case, the ad agency purchased "cheap" air time on a TV show that is mostly watched by teenagers, but the advertiser does kitchen and bathroom remodeling and needs to reach an audience of homeowners with disposable income.

You can learn a lot about advertising and marketing from those "sign spinners" you see on the street. Yeah, those guys with the giant arrows. Let's face it, those sign spinners get your attention because they are always spinning the signs, and waving the signs, and twirling the signs. Getting the attention of potential customers is very important. Unfortunately, those sign spinners generally miss the next important point about good advertising: they don't give you a chance to read the sign and connect with the message.

Most sign spinners are so busy spinning, waving and twirling, motorists driving by don't have enough time to read what's on the signs. Even if you are stopped at the intersection, the "sign spinners" are still doing their acrobatics and might even be facing the traffic that's still moving which even then prevents giving you a good look at the sign. And then, those signs sometimes have too many words for a motorist to read in a second which is about how much time a motorist has to see a sign spinner's sign.

So let's take the lessons learned from sign spinners and apply it to other advertising including TV and radio and even print ads.

2. But the advertising message can't be so active that it doesn't have time to "register" or have an impact.

And, if you happen to hire a sign spinner for your business, be sure he stands by your business with the sign held high and steady with simple, big words that promote you.

Sometimes I'm just amazed at what some businesses will pay for when it comes to advertising. I just got an email from an "online radio station" that is offering me the chance to be interviewed about my business. The interview -- conducted over the phone -- would be placed on their website. They wanted $400 for this.

Unfortunately, their website gets half of the monthly web traffic that our website www.AlanBestBuys.com gets. And for the same money, we not only put our business clients on our website, and on YouTube, but we also put them on TV-- of course.

And what really amazed me, is that when I checked this "online radio station website" they had a long list of advertisers who paid them with no proof that anyone ever clicked to hear their interviews. While online advertising can be good, the problem with it is that you have no proof that anyone sees, reads, hears or watches your online advertisement. A website might get visitors, but the visitors to that website might never bother to look at your ad.

One of the ways you can protect yourself if you do advertise on the Internet is to only pay for actual "clicks" or views. Ads that you pay for without a "click" or "view" or other "action" can be a waste of money. TV and radio advertising are different because there are third-party "ratings agencies" which do track the audience size that a TV show gets. There are similar "ratings agencies" for websites, but those ratings agencies can't tell you how many people see, view, listen or watch your website advertisement.

And if you do pay for "clicks" on your website ads, be careful that you are doing business with an honest company. There are scams where robots artificially view or click on ads.

MONDAY JANUARY 30, 2012

I got a call last week from a company that wants to advertise with us for the first time. As soon as the marketing manager of the company told me about his interest in going on our TV shows I thanked him And then I was very blunt with him when I said:

"You know, your company has a lousy reputation. There are very negative comments about you on Yelp and I've even gotten complaints about you from viewers who think I'm still an investigative reporter for the news."

The marketing manager paused for a moment and said, "yes, you're right, and we need help. We have new management, I just started working here, and that's why we're calling you."

Hopefully you don't have the reputation problems that this company has. Here's what I told them to do -- and to do quickly -- if they want to turn around their business and their online reputation.

1. You can't erase the negative comments about you on the Internet. But you can bury the negative comments and negative reviews with new, positive news about your company. So start on a positive image campaign right now: Confess your past sins and announce your new management, new service and prices and quality.

2. How do you pull off this campaign? Here are the steps I suggested:

A. Start a new Facebook account and update it daily with news and information about "the new you." Talk about your new products, your new service, your new management, your new employees. Each day highlight a new employee, a new item for sale, how you redecorated your sales floor, or cleaned up your restrooms, or improved your parking, or have new hours, or have put your counter help through politeness school. Do you have a new return policy? Do you have new suppliers? This is not trivial -- this is damage repair.

B. Start a new Twitter account and Tweet all day news about new products, services, specials.

C. Start a new website. This is really crucial because the keyword is "new." You want a new URL or web address, you want a new design, new colors, and a new attitude emphasizing your support for the community and devotion to your customers. You want to have a blog on your website and update it daily with new news about the new you. You want videos with managers talking about your news service, your new policies, your new products and prices. You will always remember that videos have a certain "confidence factor" that text alone does not have!! You will build on that confidence factor by adding video testimonials to your site -- but you will be careful to have true testimonials from real customers and you will not stage these with relatives or employees.

D. Start getting positive news about your company on the Internet. This can be accomplished by sending out Press Releases through various free PR websites such as free-press-release.com or using pay sites such as prweb.com, pressking.com, vocus.com, prnewswire.com and others. Many of these press release sites have their content scanned and put into search results by Google and other search engines. You can't erase the old, bad news -- but enough new, good news can push the old, bad news to the bottom of Internet search results.

E. And as new, happy customers return to your business, ask them to post positive reviews on Yelp -- the same site where all of the negative reviews are now.

F. I also suggested changing the name of the company -- if possible.

Then we got to the original subject -- advertising on our TV show. And I made it clear to the new marketing manager that they really need a new attitude before I would risk being linked to a company that had such a tarnished reputation. That new marketing manager and I will be talking again in a few months.

MONDAY JANUARY 23, 2012

I've been telling you how important it is to have "fresh content" on your website -- preferably on your home page -- because fresh, new content on your website will help you show up higher on search results from Google and other search engines. Well, now I found out just how much "fresh content" you need. The experts who are in tune with the practices of Google and other search engines say that you should have a minimum of 300 to 500 words of fresh content posted on your site at least once a week. And if you can put 300 to 500 words of fresh, new content on your site every day it will help you even more in the competition for top search results.

The easiest way to add new content to your site is to have your own blog -- an article that tells about what's new in your business or at your store. You can talk about new arrivals, new discounts, changes in merchandise, current promotions, or spotlight a particular subject. Let's say you want to wholesale, or you are offering bulk discounts, or if you're a lawyer you have news about traffic ticket laws, or if you're a dentist you have information about new insurance plans. Keep writing and keep adding this content to your site.

It is always best to put your new, fresh content -- your blog on your home page. This is because search engines will scan or "crawl" your home page of your website at least once a week. And they might not see the interior pages of your site for several weeks or even several months. So by always putting some new, fresh content on your home page, you will help to boost your rank in search engine results.

It doesn't take long to write 300 words about your own business. After all, the research is already done. You are the expert about your own business. Just put your thoughts down in simple sentences. By the way, these five paragraphs with this tip about "fresh content" is more than 300 words.

Once again Google is tweaking how it decides what websites will get the top results on its search results. This is very important information so please be sure you and web designers understand what Google is doing.

Google is now putting even more emphasis on the keywords used in the body of your content -- and they are putting less emphasis on search tags and page titles. What does this mean? This means that when Google says a website is ranked #1 for a particular search result such as "plumber in Sherman Oaks," Google has actually scanned (crawled) the content of the page and it found the content that web users are really looking for. This means that you won't be able to fool Google much longer by adding meaningless keywords to your web pages.

What do I mean by adding meaningless keywords? Well, many web designers like to list community names -- lots of community names -- on their web pages hoping to boost search results. For example, "Joe The Plumber" might list twenty different Southern California towns at the bottom of his web page hoping that would increase traffic from web searchers in those cities. Well -- this trick won't be working in the future. Now, Google will be reading the articles and blog on Joe The Plumber's website to see what cities are really being served.

In other words, Google really wants to deliver "plumber in Sherman Oaks" when someone goes on Google and searches for a "plumber in Sherman Oaks." Google will be trying to avoid plumbers in North Hollywood who might merely list the name "Sherman Oaks" on their website.

So what should you do? First, you're going to have to write more targeted copy and articles on your site. If you are Joe The Plumber and you really want customers in Sherman Oaks you had better have lots of information about your jobs and customers and store in Sherman Oaks. You will need to use the name "Sherman Oaks" multiple times in those articles to convince Google that you really do business in Sherman Oaks. Merely listing "Sherman Oaks" along with 20 other towns in a paragraph called "We Serve These Areas" won't work anymore.

Google is out to find the "real thing" so that when web users use Google the web users won't be disappointed in Google's search results. So here's the bottom line: Google wants to remain #1 for search accuracy, and it's not nice to fool Google.

Don't be impressed by websites that have thousands of "followers" and "friends" on Twitter and Facebook because it is very possible -- perhaps even likely -- that they "bought" those followers and friends. You might not know this, but there are companies that create bogus "users" and "user accounts" to artificially increase the number of "friends" or "followers" for websites. Yes, they charge for this deceptive practice. You can "buy friends" and "buy likes" for about $50 for a thousand every three months or so. Should you?

Well, if you think having a lot of friends or likes will add to your credibility -- go ahead. But all it takes is one negative comment on a public forum about your company and it doesn't matter how many friends you have. On the Internet one Forum Foe could be worth more than ten thousand anonymous or contrived friends.

But if you do decide to subscribe for friends you must keep up the masquerade. You can't stop subscribing after three months or your "friend count" will drop like a rock. And that's exactly what happened to a copycat site that mimics our site www.AlanBestBuys.com. I was curious how the copycat site had so many "friends" and "likes" when it was nothing but a shell site that carried nothing but advertisements? Well, I figured it out this past week when its "friend count" suddenly dropped from more than 3-thousand to about 100. Yes, it probably had just paid for "friends" as part of its copycat scam.

As you know, attracting visitors to your website will help increase sales, and the best way to increase traffic to your website is to offer information that web users are looking for. That means you must have interesting content, and usually in the form of articles or a blog. You can write about your business, news about your business, and developments about the products and services you sell.

Research shows that company websites with blogs generate about 55% more visitors than competitors without blogs. Be sure your blog is part of your main website -- right next to information about your products and services. Don't make the mistake of putting your blog on a separate website. You want your blog to attract potential customers to where they will see your products. If you have news about your company, put it on your own website and don't put it on Facebook where visitors will see Facebook's ads and not your ads.

Blog often. Research shows that the more you publish new information the more new customers you will attract. Blogs that are updated once a week don't cut it anymore. Now be prepared to blog at least once a day or better -- twice a day.

Videos can be part of your blog. Website visitors love to see videos. Today, you can immediately record a video on YouTube.com using the camera mounted on your computer. And in your video you can talk about new products, tips for using products, and ideas to help your customers save and manage their money and be smart consumers. Using the camera on your computer you can do it quickly and easily. In fact, I did it and here is a video message I had on my website for a few days:

I used that video blog, which I recorded sitting at my desk, to announce that starting in January our Best Buys Show will move to 9-AM on Sundays.

MONDAY DECEMBER 26, 2011

The new, adult-oriented .XXX website addresses are now being sold. Should you buy one for your business that is not adult-oriented and serves a general audience? Should you get a .XXX web address if your business has a "PG" or a "G" rating? Well, the answer is maybe. Maybe you need to go to the expense of about $100 a year to buy the .XXX version of your website to protect your reputation. Many businesses including colleges and sports teams are already buying up the .XXX versions of their names, trademarks and websites so that some adult-oriented or pornographic operation doesn't get it first. Yes, the annual fees for having a .XXX website are about $100 a year but that might be a miniscule amount to spend instead of having some porn company getting your customers by accident -- or out of curiosity.

Of course, you have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to getting multiple website addresses to protect your name. As I've pointed out to you before (see my memo below for MONDAY AUGUST 29, 2011), there are literally dozens of different extensions for websites including .com and .net and .tv and .la and you can spend a lot of money locking them all up. But perhaps the .xxx extension is the extra one you should get.

After Christmas Sales have become just as important as the final sales before Christmas. This is because more consumers are intentionally putting off major purchases until after Christmas to take advantage of after-Holiday discounts. So now, you must highlight your after-Christmas Sales and your January Clearance Sales almost as much as you promote your holiday season sales.

Let me also remind you that the next big holiday shopping will be for Valentine's Day and then President's Day. Don't make the mistake of doing your advertising at the last minute -- when everyone is making a last minute push. If you wait till the last minute your advertising message will be lost in the flood of ads. Instead, advertise early and plant the seeds in your customers minds early. Besides -- customers start looking for gift items early, especially if it's a big ticket item.

In the last several years, the media business changed dramatically and it's all because of the Internet. Many of the "old ways" of advertising have become extinct -- like the dinosaurs. Gone are the days when consumers would eagerly look through coupons delivered in the mail. Today, those coupon books and coupon magazines get tossed in the trash too quickly.

Gone are the days when consumers would watch TV commercials. Today consumers can zap commercials on their DVRs, or simply change the channel with their remotes.

Gone are the days when daily newspapers were the primary source of information and consumers would actually read newspapers. Newspapers are shrinking in circulation and literally in size.

This means that traditional "outbound marketing" is almost dead. It has been replaced by "inbound marketing." What is inbound marketing? Simply, it is being ready to provide information to consumers who come looking for it. An example: when a consumer wants to look for a mattress, the company that will get the sale will be the company that is able to provide the best information to that consumer first.

And how do consumers go looking for that information? They do a search on the Internet, of course. And to be sure that the consumers find you first you must be sure that you are using the same "search terms" or "keywords" that the consumers are using. For example: if you know that consumers are looking for "really rad mattress deals" then you should have in your website copy the phrase "really rad mattress deals." And if you know that consumers are looking for "best place to get a great price on a mattress" then you should have in your website copy the phrase "best place to get a great price on a mattress."

So, how do you find out this information? Well, the easiest way -- and the free way -- is to talk to your customers in your store. Start doing your own market research by asking them, "what are you looking for?" Chances are the same "phrase" they use when they talk to you will be the same phrase that they will type into the search bar on their computer.

So the next time you talk to a customer, take some notes on what they say, and how they say it. It could put you a step ahead of your competition and get you better search engine results.

MONDAY DECEMBER 5, 2011

Here is a very low-cost (even free) way for you to generate some "social media buzz" about your business: put a "shopper experience video" on YouTube. A "shopper experience video" is simply a video that a shopper might shoot themselves at your store. For example, Sally (this could be your wife or friend or even an employee) has her small video camera on as she approaches your store and "narrates" her experience. She might say something like this while taking pictures of what she is describing:

"Well here I am at Joe's Handy Basket Store and wow look at all these handy baskets. Look at this! A basket for my lipsticks. And here's a basket for my husband's golf tees. And over here, is that a basket for my son's video games? Yes it is! And I love the price on this basket for mail that I won't open for another week, and I really do need this basket for bills from the cable company!"

In this video, Sally shows not only her interest in the store, but talks about the prices.

Next step -- put it on YouTube with a title like "Sally the basket case" because you need a catchy, offbeat title like that to generate "social media interest." This video can be made with cell phones or with low cost pocket-sized video cameras that can cost about $100. And don't worry about editing. If it looks like Sally really did this as a consumer walking through a business it might have a lot of social media clout.

I just heard a new "buzz phrase" for the Internet-dominated world we live in. The new buzz phrase is "attention economy." An "attention economy" basically describes all of the competition for our attention: our time, our money, our habits -- everybody is throwing different media at us to get our attention.

In the Internet, the attention battle includes all sorts of things ranging from your basic website design to what your content is, what videos you have on your site, and what "calls for action" you have on your site. So here are a couple of ideas to help you in the "battle for attention."

1. Your website should have your name, phone number and address right at the top, "above the fold," and in clear lettering.

2. You should have important content "above the fold" on your home page that immediately grabs the attention of your website visitor. This can mean news about a sale, a new product arrival, information to help the potential customer, or a new development in your industry.

3. You should have a video on your home page, and "above the fold" to get your website visitor's attention. People love to watch videos on the Internet. If your video is not prominently displayed the visitor might not stay on your site long enough to find it.

4. You should have several "calls for action" on your site -- with at least two on every page. Use action words in your "call for action" such as CALL US NOW AT 888-555-5555, which is better than just listing your phone number. Or, the CTA (call for action) might say CLICK HERE TO SEE DIRECTIONS TO OUR STORE, instead of just having a link or button that says "Directions."

Over the past few years the biggest days of the holiday shopping season have been Black Friday and the day before Christmas. This year, Christmas falls on a Sunday, so Saturday December 24th will be an especially vital day because it's the last Saturday before Christmas and the last shopping day before Christmas. But I don't have to tell you that.

What I want to remind you is that advertising in the last few days before Christmas is going to be a mess. The same way that shoppers crowd into stores right before Christmas, the advertisers crowd newspapers and radio and TV and the Internet right before Christmas too.

And here's my feeling about that last minute rush: If you're a shopper you best plans are going to be messed up by the crowds. And if you're an advertiser, you are going to get lost in the crowd of advertisements.

So what's smart? If you're a shopper, shop two weeks before Christmas. And if you're an advertiser, pump up your ads two weeks before Christmas too, because your last minute ads are just going to get lost in the mess.

1. About 75% of web users look at the web on a laptop computer. Laptops are notorious for having small screens that only show the top of a website page. This means you definitely want to have your most important information at the top of your web page. If you are having a sale -- put it on top. Be sure your address and phone number are at the top. Avoid web page designs that are long and narrow-- a better design fills the entire screen width so there can be more information on the top of your page which will be visible on a laptop.

2. Only 3% of website visitors ever fill out a "contact us" form. You are more likely to make contact with your website visitors if you have your telephone number on your home page. You should also have your email address on your home page in case someone is looking at your web page outside of normal business hours. It's still OK to have a "contact us" form but don't be disappointed if it doesn't get used much.

3. You should have "two calls for action" with your phone number on each page of your website. A call-for-action could say "Call us now at XXX-XXX-XXXX" but it should be on each page twice-- top and bottom makes sense to me.

4. Pay-per-click ads at the top of search engine results get 25% of clicks by consumers. This means that consumers are more likely to click on "organic listings" that may more closely fit what they are searching for.

5. If you want to improve your search results, look at the keywords that your competitors are using and start to use them too. If your competitor is showing up higher on the furniture search results page look at their website. If their home page is filled with keywords about "wicker furniture" then you should also be using the keywords "wicker furniture" on your home page too.

MONDAY NOVEMBER 7, 2011

I just saw some new research that reports that 40% of small and mid-sized businesses still do not have a website. And having a Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn account does not match the importance of your own website. That's what the research says. Yes, you should have a Twitter account and you should be on Facebook -- but you need the "anchor" of your own website.

The next important piece of information I saw is about what visitors and customers want from your website. These statistics are very important:

76% of web users interviewed say that they want to be able to find what they are looking for easily. Unfortunately, many websites today don't make it easy for a visitor to find anything. Why is this?

The problem is that too many websites have fancy home pages or what are called landing pages. These home pages usually have fancy pictures, perhaps animated pictures, and music but instead of providing basic information they ask the web user to "click here" for more information, including basic information such as the address and phone number. Believe it or not, I had to go through three clicks to find the address and phone number for a clothing store I wanted to contact. And guess what? Few web visitors bother to go to a second page.

So here's what should always be on your website's home page:

1. Your name, your address and phone number.

2. Any current promotions, deals, news that you want to promote. If you are having a sale on toilet seats be sure that sales info is prominent on the home page.

3. Tell your customers how to find what they are looking for. For example, if you are a liquidator make it clear on your home page where the links are to see furniture, clothing, appliances, ceiling fans and sports equipment.

Now, there are web designers who will try to "sell you" on the idea of fancy landing pages with buttons for "contact us" and "more information." Well, that's what web designers do-- they want to create more pages. Web designers are good people. Some are very artistic. But few are business people -- except when it comes to generating revenue for their own business. Sorry, web designers, but I have to tell the truth.

Another important thing for you to have on your site is information. By presenting helpful information you establish your credibility and help to boost your image.

Suppose you are a lawyer and you specialize in Accident Law. You should provide information about what to do after an accident, information about your rights after an accident, information about how insurance companies are likely to deal with you. Perhaps have a glossary of "insurance terms" and words.

If you sell carpet, give tips to your visitors about measuring a room to save yardage. Explain the types of padding available. Talk about the new technology available in carpet manufacturing.

Giving good information online helps to build a relationship with your website visitor and that relationship could lead to more sales.

MONDAY OCTOBER 31, 2011

I had an interesting conversation with one of our clients the other day. He was asking me where to place the video from our Best Buys TV show on his website. He told me the video was very important to him because it showed his business, his products and gave him credibility. I told him I was flattered and then I asked him this question:

"Do you follow the Google heat map for your web design?" Unfortunately, he didn't know about the Google heat map. So let me tell you about it.

First, the Google heat map has nothing to do with climate or why temperatures in Sherman Oaks are higher than in Santa Monica, nor does it have anything to do with global warming or the melting of glaciers. The Google heat map is a study about where website visitors are most likely to look on a web page.

Google's heat map is used by publishers of websites that have Google ads placed on them. It tells these website "publishers" where they are likely to get the most click-throughs or revenue for Google ads.

Well, let's turn that information around for your company's website. If Google knows where consumers are more likely to look to see Google ads on the websites that carry its ads, why can't we use the same information so that we place our most important "content" where visitors to our company's website will see it?

Basically, the heat map shows that web site visitors look at the middle of the page, near the top of the page, and in areas near navigation bars and always "above the fold." Test it yourself. Where do your eyes go first on a web page? The bottom line here is to meet your customer's eyeballs with your best content and don't try to put your best content and most important content where they might not see it.

Click on this link to go to a Google report on its heat map and learn from it:

http://adsense.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17954

The number one strategy in Internet marketing is simply this: share information. Whether you use email, have a website of your own, or belong to Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn, you have an opportunity to share information on a weekly or even daily basis. When you share information -- money saving ideas, information about business, information about health, information that will appeal to your customers -- you not only gain credibility, but you also remind your customers that you are there.

1. You are a dentist and there is new research about certain mouth bacteria being linked to pancreatic cancer. Yeah, that will get your phone ringing.

2. You are in the liquidation business, and you just bought a trailer load of outdoor patio furniture at a discount because the shipping boxes got wet and the big box store chain can't sell outdoor patio furniture in water damaged boxes because of their policy. We love those deals, don't we?

3. You are a clothing store, and you reveal to your customers that sometimes major designers sell their overproduction using a private label so they can discount and move out their overproduction without damaging their major retail customers.

Sometimes this information promotes your business directly and sometimes it's just new information that will build your credibility. The point is this: sharing the information can only help you.

Now, allow me to share some information: football season is underway and I'm very glad that our Sunday Best Buys TV shows are on at 8-am on KCOP because at 10-am it's TV football time. So, if you're going to do some weekend daytime TV advertising you have two choices: you can advertise before 10-am or you can advertise during the football games. Advertising opposite football is like facing the defensive line of the Green Bay Packers in the Superbowl.

You need to know what visitors to your website are looking for on your site, and how much time they spend looking for it, and what they are doing when they are on your site. Are they looking at multiple pages on your site, or leaving after just seeing the home page? If they are leaving your site after just visiting your home page that means you have a very high "bounce rate" and that means you are losing customers as soon as they look at your website.

Think of your home page as the front door of your store. If you can't get them to look at information on another page, it's as if someone came to your store, looked into the front door, and turned around and left. So, make your home page, your front page, interesting. Give them ideas on your front page about what is "inside."

Avoid bland titles on your home page such as "furniture" and "flooring" and "rugs." Instead, use enticing keywords such as "discounted designer furniture" and "discounted custom hardwood flooring" and "discounted designer area rugs." Using these "rich" titles may mean changing the design of your home page so that instead of small "buttons" you have larger "keyword links" that visitors will see and click on.

Remember this: the longer someone stays on your website, the better the chance you have to convert them into a customer. It's the same thing when someone walks into your business: the longer they stay the more likely you will make a sale. You greet your customers when they walk in: you smile, you chat with them, you engage them in a conversation about their needs-- and your website should do the same thing.

MONDAY OCTOBER 10, 2011

For many months I've been preaching the importance of having a blog or some kind of "original content" (an article or column) on your website, and I've been preaching about the importance of having videos of your business on your website and on YouTube.

As you know, I update our websites every day -- sometimes three times a day -- with new articles. And we put all of our advertisers' videos on YouTube so that the world can see our advertisers' videos even if they don't come to our website or see our TV shows. This is why some of our advertisers have had their videos viewed 25-thousand times or more just on YouTube.

So let me just repeat the big reason for having original content such as a blog, and having videos about your business on YouTube: because someone might share your article or your video with someone else and get you free publicity. Share? What's that? That's just Internet lingo for sending a link to your web page or your YouTube video to someone else so they can see it. It's like when a friend sends you an email with a link to a YouTube video of a cat on water skis -- someone "shared that" with you. So you watch it and think it's cute and you send the link to someone else -- and they like it and send it to someone else -- and pretty soon the video of the cat on water skis has gone "viral."

So, what can you share that will bring you free publicity? Here are some ideas that you can adapt to your business: A house painter could give tips and a demonstration about how to remove wallpaper. A plumber can show the quickest way to unclog a sink. A lawyer can explain what information to get if you have a car accident. A furniture store owner can give tips about how to use crayons to cover scratches in wood. A clothing store owner can discuss how to accessorize old styles to make them look like new styles, maybe by changing buttons or adding a belt or scarf.

If your website visitors like what you tell them, or like your video, they're likely to share it with their friends. And as you build "credibility" for being good at what you do, you will attract new customers. This is the secret to using the Internet to boost business.

Building a business is not just about attracting visitors to your website, but getting your visitors to share your content with others.

MONDAY OCTOBER 3, 2011

All of the Internet marketing gurus are preaching the importance of having the right "keywords" on your website. So let's review a couple of basics about keywords.

1. Keywords are the words that someone will type into a search engine to find a website or information on the web. For example, they might type in: Plumber in Van Nuys.

2. If the keywords on your website are the closest match to the keywords in the "search" then you are more likely to come up on the first page of the search engine's "results." So, if you have the keywords "Plumber in Van Nuys" prominent on your website, you will likely be among the top "search results."

3. For your keywords to be prominent, they should show up on your home page of your site a minimum of three times. So, if your keywords are "plumber in Van Nuys" you might want to use the phrase these three ways:

Bob has been a plumber in Van Nuys for 15 years. We have a great reputation and when businesses need a plumber in Van Nuys they know to call us first. When you need a plumber in Van Nuys remember us for our fast service and low prices.

4. If you can, get additional website addresses that use your keywords in the address or URL. For example, if you are a plumber in Van Nuys but you also do business in Sherman Oaks you might want to have several website addresses that all point to, or link to, your main website. You might want to get URLs that include: GoodplumberinVanNuys.com BestplumberinVanNuys.com GoodplumberinShermanOaks.com BestplumberinShermanOaks.com

Please note that these URLs might already belong to somebody, and they are here for illustration only.

If you do decide to get multiple URLs or website addresses, find a company that will sell you multiple addresses at a low price and have them all point to or link to your main website.

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

In this week's marketing memo I want to urge you to spy on your competition. And you won't be doing anything illegal, either. We all want to know what "the other guys" are doing and these days it's easier than ever thanks to the Internet and thanks to all of the "social media websites" such as Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn.

Since just about every business is using the Internet to promote their business, spying on their business -- or more exactly getting intelligence on their business -- is as easy as sitting at your computer and clicking around. In the past competitors would walk into the other guy's store or send an employee in to do some competitive shopping. Now, you can do this right from your own office or your home.

Step #1 Go to your competitor's website and see what they're putting online.

Step #2 Check their Facebook page. If you simply click "Like" on their Facebook page you have all the privileges of seeing everything including what others are saying about the competitor.

Step #3 Do a search for your competitor on Twitter.com to see what your competition is doing and what others are saying about your competition.

Step #4 Check for your competition on Yelp. Yelp sometimes hides the juicy information if it is not flattering so check for the "filtered" comments that are not prominently displayed. The link to the "filtered" comments is on the bottom of the main review page.

Step #5 Check for your competition with a search on Google and Yahoo and Bing. Google allows you to sign up for "Google Alerts" so each time something is posted on the web about you -- or your competitors -- Google will send you an email with a link to that new website article.

Step #6 Get on your competition's email list. Wouldn't it be great to get an email alert from them telling you about the special deals they are offering?

Ahh... spying on your competition has never been easier... or more accurate. There is no more second-guessing when your competition and their customers make it all public on the web.

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

We all know the phrase "you get what you pay for" and this is true in advertising also. Advertising rates -- whether it be for Television or Radio or Print or even direct mail -- are primarily based on "cost per thousand." In other words, what is the price (cost) to reach a thousand people or households.

The actual "cost per thousand" will vary based on what specific audience you want to reach. Here is an extreme example:

A TV cartoon program with cartoons designed for pre-school children charges $10 for a 30-second commercial. The audience of that program consists of 1,000 pre-school children and a parent who is with them at home. Based on this, your cost per thousand to reach pre-school children and the parent is $10.

A TV stock market show with coverage of Wall Street and investing charges $10 for a 30-second commercial. The audience of that program consists of 1,000 stock market investors. Based on this, your cost per thousand to reach stock market investors is $10.

So far, that's simple. Now, let's throw in another factor: You are advertising "botox treatments." Now, how do you decide which program to advertise on? Which show will give you the best return? Now, you have to look more closely at the audience makeup of each program and ask some further questions, such as:

Which program is more likely to have "botox users" -- the children's program or the Wall Street show? And here, the answer is not that easy:

Upon further investigation, you might find that the audience of the Wall Street show is primarily men, who don't care at all about "botox." And you might find that the children's cartoon show also reaches the stay-at-home moms who are with their kids at 8-AM and the two of them are having breakfast when the cartoon show is on. And you might also realize that the stay-at-home Moms with pre-school children are indeed of the age that consider botox.

Are you understanding the complexity of "media buying" now? It's not that simple. Here's another example:

You are a College for post-high school education and you have your own half hour TV Infomercial. You have the following choice about when to broadcast your infomercial:

1. You can run your half hour infomercial for $800 following an entertainment and comedy program that is geared to teenagers. Or...

2. You can run your half hour infomercial for $500 following another infomercial about face-lifts that targets women 65 years old and older.

Which is your better media buy? Obviously you should ask this question: What is my potential audience of potential students after a comedy show and what is my potential audience of potential students after another infomercial about face-lifts?

Obviously, you might be able to get your infomercial about your college on TV for less money after the infomercial about face lifts, but if none of your potential student audience was tuned in for the face-lift infomercial all of your money spent might have been wasted.

Remember, you get what you pay for.

Before your website can sell a product or sell a service it has to attract customers with information that they are looking for. Give them "information" or what is referred to in the Internet world as "content" and they will come into your online store.

Let's say you have a website for your furniture business. If your site only has pictures and prices and titles of your sofas and chairs and loveseats and lamps you will have a hard time getting customers to your website Because there are hundreds and even thousands of sites with pictures and prices and titles of furniture -- and if anyone decides to look at your website instead of your competitor's site or your manufacturer's site you're just lucky.

So to make your site different and better and to get customers to your site you have to give them more. For example: give them design tips, ideas for matching and blending colors, discuss new fabrics, discuss how to arrange furniture to give more open space, discuss care of furniture and cleaning tips, give them news about new styles that are coming out.

This info will keep them on your site (which is your store) and if you keep them there long enough they will want to buy something from you.

Here are other examples:

Let's say you have a website for your roofing business. Show photos and videos of actual projects that you have completed and explain why the materials on each project were chosen. Then talk about new materials that are being developed to save energy and money.

If you have a website for your restaurant, show your latest dishes and have a video with you discussing the dish and show its preparation. And tell everyone how yummy it is as you taste it. And go ahead, give out a few of your favorite recipes -- perhaps a recipe of the week to keep visitors coming back to your site.

If you have a website for your law firm, each week discuss a different type of legal matter. Maybe it's wills one week, and power of attorney in another week, and child custody law the next week.

And remember that a video presentation is more likely to keep your website visitors on your website longer and that increases your chance for converting a visitor into a customer.

I just read a report that about 690-thousand searches are made on Google every second of the day and the research company HubSpot says that means that Google has replaced the phone book for information about companies and services. You might be tempted to pay for a high search result on Google, but this study points out that about 88% of search engine users never click on paid search ads.

So how do you get high placement on the non-paid search results? There are two basic answers:

1. Have new original content -- articles and pictures and videos -- added to your site on a regular basis. This is easier said than done. I met with a new client this past week who wanted to improve his website traffic for his furniture store. We met in his office and as I looked at his website I commented that none of his current furniture styles were on his home page. That's when he told me the unbelievable -- that his website hasn't been changed in more than five years. No wonder his web rank and traffic were so low. I told him to start writing articles (a blog) about new arrivals, sale dates, special items, and to add our Best Buys TV Show video about his company to his website.

2. Be sure that other websites link to your website. All of our advertisers are featured on our websites including our main site www.AlanBestBuys.com but you can get links to your site from other sites such as Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. It costs nothing to open these accounts. And that furniture company owner and I spent less than ten minutes opening accounts on those sites and posting links back to his website.

MONDAY AUGUST 29, 2011

It is very important that your business has the right website address. The right address should be easy to remember and say something about your business such as "TomsPlumbingInVentura" or "DonnaHairSalonShermanOaks" or simply "BestLACarSupplies." But sometimes, those right names are already taken by someone else as a ".com" or a ".net" and so you might be tempted to take one of the other so-called "top level domains" as an alternate website address.

Recently, marketing companies have been promoting such domains as "dot-CO" and calling it the website for companies, and "dot-LA" and calling it the website for Los Angeles, or "dot-TV" and calling it the website for "videos" or for TV stations. Some TV stations did jump on the "dot-TV" bandwagon but they primarily use their "dot-COM" address because it is more easily remembered.

Well, the truth is "dot-CO" is the country code for Colombia, and "dot-LA" is the country code for Lao or Laos, and "dot-TV" is the country code for the tiny country called Tuvalu which is in the Pacific and is only slightly larger in size than the Vatican.

But there are marketing strategies which can successfully make use of these country codes for website addresses.

If you are a doctor you might consider a website ending in "dot-MD" which is the country code for Moldovo, or if you have a men's clothing store you might want to have a website ending in "dot-GQ" which is the country code for Equatorial Guinea, or if you sell musical equipment you might want a website ending in "dot-DJ" which is the country code for Djibouti.

I wonder if General Motors has made a deal with Gambia to use it's country code of "dot-GM" or if there are advertising agencies using the country code "dot-AD" which is for Andorra?

While some of these "country codes" might be available for use by American companies, try to get a "dot-COM" because it is still the most recognizable and "dot-COM" is more likely to be used just out of habit by consumers when typing in an address on their computer.

Everyone will have a different story about social media and how well it works for driving traffic to their business' website. But for the first time, there is an independent report on how well social media works for driving traffic to other websites and the report says that if you are not doing well with web traffic from social media you are not alone.

The conclusion of the report is that social media is good for driving traffic to social media sites -- but it is not good for driving traffic to your website. And let's face it, when you post on Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter you want people to come to your site and not just digest your info on those other sites.

The report said that if you really want to drive traffic to your own site then you should put new content on your site so that the search engines such as Google will find it, and then the search engines will push web searches to your site. The report says few people actually click on links in messages on the social media websites -- and that they'll just read your message and won't go any further.

So, be social if you want, but if you really want to drive traffic to your own website, put the work into your own site and not into the websites of these other social media companies.

The casinos are really the masters at building loyalty and rewarding loyalty and making a profit from it. Trust me-- everything a casino does has to turn a profit. So let's follow what some of the casino companies do and learn from them:

1. Have a loyalty card. The casinos have "players cards" to keep track of betting, and the more you bet, the more "rewards" you get such as cash back or free play or discounts on rooms. So you should have a loyalty card for your business that would work like this: The more you shop with us, the more benefits or discounts you will get in the future.

2. Have an email list. The casinos are always sending out emails which is really a very low-cost method of advertising. No stamps, no printing charges, don't have to pay for page space or air time. The trick that the casinos can teach us is how to get the email address! The casinos offer a discount on a room, or a small amount of "free play" to get an email address. You can apply this by offering a small discount in exchange for a valid email address-- and you get the email at the register/check-out. And the discount for the email is given on the NEXT SHOPPING TRIP when the customer brings in the email to be sure you get a valid email address.

3. Have special events for your loyal customers. The casinos are famous for having special events for "invited guests only" which can include a "gift" or some kind of entertainment. You can have a special event as well such as special shopping hours with special sale prices one evening, or show your loyalty card and get an extra discount on certain days.

4. Referrals. Casinos love to reward their customers who bring in a new player (customer). If you refer a customer and the new customer makes a purchase, thank your original customer by giving them a discount or a free item when they make their next purchase. Remember -- the referred customer has to make a purchase and then the original customer has to make a purchase too.

MONDAY AUGUST 8, 2011

It's all about CREDIT now. The news is all about Uncle Sam's credit problems and the worry about interest rates going up. And that is the #1 worry that consumers have now -- what is going to happen to their interest rates.

That means if you have a financing plan available for your big ticket items you have an edge. And if you can buy down the interest rate you have a really big edge.

The big problem for all of us this week is going to be the "fear factor" caused, in part, by the news media. So I am waiting for savvy business owners to start advertising themes like: "Uncle Sam's credit is still good, and so is yours" and "China may not want Uncle Sam's dollars, but we will deal for your dollars" and "Uncle Sam's dollars might be worth less, but your dollars are worth more with us."

New research shows that some advertisers are paying as much as $55 to have their pay-per-click ad at the top of Google's search results. You don't have to pay to be at the top of search results if your website content is specifically targeted to reach the customers and clients who are looking for you. Someone using just the keyword "Insurance" in a pay per click ad might have to pay $55 per click to be at the top of search results, but if you are specific with your targeted keywords you can be at the top of the search results at no cost. For example, you could use the phrase "low cost renters insurance in West Covina" which would put your website high up on searches for "low cost renters insurance in West Covina" or similar searches.

Make it "easy" for your customers to save money. The best way to do this is to move the "bargain rack" or "bargain counter" to the front of the store. I know, the conventional thinking is to put the bargain section in the back so the customers have to walk through your store to get to the deals. But my thought is that if you make it easy for your customers to find some deals in your store they are likely to keep looking for even more deals. So move the bargain rack to the front.

And do the same thing for your website: make the deals prominent on the home page and then have links to more deals on the inside pages. Remember, the more page views you get the higher you will be ranked by the search engines.

This Marketing Memo has two subjects: updating your website and email marketing. Both of these subjects are worthy of a book or two, and so I'm just going to pinpoint a key point for each.

Updating your website: Many of you have "testimonials" on your site. But are they current? I just took a look at one of our client's sites and his most recent testimonial was dated in early 2009 -- more than two years ago.

I think the best testimonials come from clients and customers who allow you to use their full name. I have a hard time "believing" testimonials from "Tony P." and "Kathy R." In fact, I think the truly best testimonials come from customers who will talk about your business in a video.

Everybody is using email marketing these days as well as using "text ads" placed by Google and other marketing companies. There are so many emails and so many text ads now that web users are now suffering "input overload." So to get your message across, your email or advertisement must really stand out. This is why I suggest having all email and advertisements either contain videos or link to videos.

The entire web publishing business is moving to video and web visitors want to be entertained with video. Go video. Have video testimonials. Have video tours of your business. Have video demonstrations of what you do. Remember that when someone watches your video it's as if they walked through the door into your business.

There are several advantages for having your own half hour TV Infomercial, and let me list some of the most important ones:

1. You can do things in a half hour that you just can't possibly accomplish in sixty seconds-- or 30 seconds which is how long most TV commercials are today. For example you can give a tour of your store, or go into detail about your services. You can offer several testimonials from clients and customers. And you have more time to show and tell the benefits of your product or service.

2. The cost of the airtime is surprisingly low for the audience you will reach. Most infomercials run during the late night and overnight hours when a typical 30-second TV commercial here in Southern California can cost between $50 and $150. But you can have your own half hour program for as little as about $350 to about $800. Of course these prices are subject to negotiation -- but the point is this: why spend $900 for six 30-second commercials when for about $900 you can have your own half-hour program-- or even two of them.

3. A half hour infomercial gives you the opportunity to give your vital information several times without crowding out other important information about you and your product and service. Think about this: how many times can you give your name, address, phone number and website address in a 30-second commercial? Now, how many times can you give that information in a half hour infomercial?

4. TV viewers do watch infomercials that are carefully crafted to tell a story and that give information. When you give information to consumers to help them with their lives, they will "thank you" by staying tuned to your program so that you can deliver your sales pitch.

5. A nighttime infomercial program has less distractions. Many viewers are in bed-- watching. The kids are asleep, the dinner has been put away, the dog doesn't need to go for a walk, the laundry is done.

6. And this is the secret of the TV Infomercial business: Your TV infomercial can also be put on your website so that when customers check out your website they can also see your full half hour TV infomercial. And as we all know, the longer they stay on your website, the closer you are getting to making a deal.

7. Viewers who see your half hour TV infomercial are more likely to pay attention to what is being said and what is being shown than if they just saw a typical 30-second commercial. This is because many consumers just don't watch commercials. When traditional commercials come on the air, many consumers change the channel, or go to the restroom, or go to the microwave, or yell for the kids, or send a text or pick up their phone. But with an infomercial you have a chance to "hit home" with information they will pay attention to -- and the longer they pay attention the more likely they are to see and absorb your pitch.

What's the downside of having your own infomercial? Yes, I'm going to raise the downside, too.

1. They cost money to produce. It costs money to shoot the videos and edit the videos to create a half hour program.

2. You must have a commitment to broadcast your infomercial. If you can't broadcast it a minimum of 20 or 30 times within a year of production, you cannot appropriately amortize the cost of producing the half hour show. Some of our clients are still running Infomercials that were produced four years ago and these have been broadcast several hundred times.

MONDAY JULY 4, 2011

You're going to love the subject of this marketing memo. The subject is "free advertising." And how do you get free advertising? By getting yourself in newspaper articles and in TV and Radio news reports as an "expert." So, you own a hardware store or a shoe store -- can you be an expert for the news? Of course you can, if the news media know that you are available to go on the news to talk about various subjects.

To help establish yourself as an "expert" what you want to do is make a list of what you "know" and what you can talk about. Let's say you own a shoe store. Here are ten things you probably are an expert about that come up in the news all the time:

1. Impact of unemployment on business and on your prices.

2. Inflation and impact on local prices.

3. How the changing value of the dollar is effecting prices on imports.

4. Consumer sentiment and consumer confidence.

5. The recent change in the sales tax rate.

6. Interest rates on loans and credit cards and on savings accounts.

7. How the housing crisis affects business and consumer spending.

8. You can talk about the foreign countries where your shoes are made and what the effect is on you.

9. Why you are or aren't hiring.

10. Politics, Washington and the impact of government on your business and your customers.

Could some of your comments hurt your business? Yes, but some people say no publicity is bad publicity and all publicity is good publicity. And how much is it worth to you to have your name, a picture of your store, and your business name on TV or Radio or in the newspaper?

So your next step is to make a phone call and send a letter or an email to the "assignment editors" telling them who you are and that you are available. Trust me on this -- assignment editors keep track of who is available for interviews on short notice. And if you tell them you're available, they will remember you. And when they can interview you once, it's easy for them to decide to interview you again.

The latest buzz is that Google has again refined its criteria for search results-- and who gets listed at the top of those search results. And the latest change for Google is giving added weight to several factors about web sites including these two factors:

There are several ways to increase the number of pages and the time spent on each page on your site. These are not new ideas, but they are the ideas that work, so read on.

First, you must have original articles and original content -- new material that you wrote such as articles not only about your products but how your products are used. For example, your store sells steel bowls. Well, how much can you say about steel bowls? Actually, you can say a lot. Tell some stories about how your steel bowls are used for cooking or preparing clay or for mixing paints. Invite your customers to write stories about how they used your steel bowls around the house. Perhaps Mrs. Jones might write in about how her daughter Kathy used a steel bowl for her fifth grade science project and turned the steel bowl into a model of a shelter for astronauts on the moon.

Second, you must have pictures and videos. A video that runs one or two minutes will keep the visitor on your site for the time it takes to watch the video. A picture could attract web site visitors to read an accompanying article.

Google is watching, and so is Yahoo and Bing and all of the big search engines. And the more interesting content you have on your site and the more videos, the longer visitors will stay on your pages, and the more pages they will view -- and that means the higher you will be on "search results."

And remember -- if you show up on a search result before your competition shows up, you are closer to getting that web searcher as a customer.

Father's Day weekend marked the last of the "big holidays" before the summer lull. But in just about a month from now it will be time for "back to school advertising" and this is when you should be preparing for it.

Back to school business covers a wide range of merchandise and services including health care, eyeglasses, clothing, furniture, computers and personal electronics. And "back to school" can also mean a time for Moms and Dads to also do their shopping for their new "work season" and this also includes clothing and furniture and appliances.

So now is the time to prepare for your back to school and back to work advertising and promotions.

Do not wait till the last minute because you are likely to find that the best advertising placements (time and position) will be sold out. The economy has improved, advertising has picked up, advertising rates have also picked up. So, if you make your purchases for ad space and ad time early, you might be able to get a better deal.

MONDAY JUNE 13, 2011

Do you know who is using your name, and your business name, and what is being said about you? Not everything is said "to your face" and that is why you need to check the Internet on a regular basis -- even on a daily basis -- to stop damaging posts on the Internet and to find out how you are being complimented so you can act on those compliments.

Go to Google.com and do a search for your name and business to see what is being said about you. And go to Search.Twitter.com and do a search for your name and business name to see what is being said on Twitter. And you can also go to Yahoo.com and Bing.com and you can also go to YouTube.com.

You might find compliments and you might find complaints. If you take action on the complaints before too many customers see them you can limit the damage. If you act on the compliments and follow the good ideas quickly you can give your business a boost.

And if your search finds that someone is stealing your name you can also take action. Just last week we found that a YouTube video we did for one of our clients was being used by another business who sent it out as "Tweets" on Twitter to promote their company.

And I have discovered that there are various websites that use my name "Alan Mendelson" in their "search tags" in an attempt to steal traffic and visitors from my websites. In fact, someone even tried to present themself as me on Twitter using "Alan Mendelson" and "Alanbestbuys" but Twitter shut them down when I notified Twitter.

By the way, my Twitter account is @AlanBestBuysTV and please follow me.

You are doing the right thing if you are adding videos to your websites, including videos with testimonials from your customers. Adding videos is a basic tip that I've been telling you about over and over again. Now, one more tip: make sure your videos look professional. Make sure the camera is in focus, that the sound is clear, and that the person you have giving the testimonial is framed properly. A sloppy looking video, or a video with sound that is not clear, will make you look bad. Just as the words of a testimonial are important -- the look and sound and quality of the testimonial video is important as well.

Also, if you are putting these testimonials on YouTube (and you should do this) be sure you include a short article on YouTube using the "key words" from your testimonial video. For example, if you are "Joe The Expert Plumber" you should have the consumer in your testimonial video saying "Joe The Expert Plumber really keeps his word." And in your YouTube article you should write: "In this video Mary Smith says that Joe The Expert Plumber really keeps his word."

You want your text in the YouTube article to reinforce the message in your video. You do this for several reasons and the most important reason is that search engines can only read this text -- and they cannot see or listen to the audio in your testimonial video.

MONDAY MAY 16, 2011

Today, your customer base can also be measured by the size of your email list so do what you can to expand your email list. You can have a simple notebook at your cash register or reception desk and ask your customers and clients to add their email address, or you can instruct your cashiers to receptionist or phone operators to request the email address when they make contact with a customer or client. You can also use the "fishbowl" approach and ask visitors to drop their business card in the fishbowl for a drawing -- and you know that most business cards today come with an email address. Or you can ask visitors to fill out an entry with their name and email address. And once you get those email addresses -- use them, but don't spam your customers or clients. When you send out an email, be sure it has information that is worthwhile to read.

And don't discount the importance of email as a marketing and advertising tool. A well written email, sent at the right time of day, to customers who have signed up for your email alerts will get a high "open" and "read" rate. On the other hand, emails sent to people who did not request them are often likely to be deleted or marked as "spam" and blocked. So your best and most effective email list will be a list made up of customers who asked to be put on it.

A couple of days ago, I got an email from a company that last advertised on our Best Buys TV Show about 17 months ago. He told me that business has not been good lately, and his latest marketing efforts have produced a real "zero return." Well, I was sorry to hear that -- but he can't blame me since he hasn't been on our show in nearly a year and a half. And then he went on to tell me that he spent a lot of money on search engine marketing. Wow, hasn't he been reading these Monday Morning Marketing Memos? He is on our mailing list. And, I guess not -- because I looked at his website and it's the same website with the same content I saw 17 months ago. It seemed that nothing had changed. So whatever advice he paid for was bad advice.

In previous Memos, including the one for February 28th (see below), I detailed what Google does to decide who gets higher ranks on its search engine. And his site does none of that.

What really surprised me is that he never put his video from our Best Buys TV show on his website. Since videos help search engine results he missed a big opportunity right there. He also failed to update his site on a regular basis. Since he sells seasonal and holiday merchandise he easily could have had a new article on his web page with weekly updates about new items for sale and descriptions of those items -- and he did not.

The methodology of search engines has changed. The search engines will find you if you give them something new and fresh to look for. Remember the line from the move A Field of Dreams -- build it and they will come. So build a fresh, original website and the search engines will come to you and give you a good rank on their search pages.

MONDAY MAY 2, 2011

The other day, I got an email offer from a company that promised that if I paid their fee, they would get me a higher "rank" for the number of visitors I get or traffic. There are several independent companies that rank websites for how much "traffic" they get. Google is ranked #1, and Facebook and YouTube and eBay and Yahoo are other "most visited websites" in the world. I am happy to report that www.AlanBestBuys.com is ranked around 300-thousand, which isn't bad considering there are more than 25-million websites that are ranked.

But then I got to thinking, why should I care about my rank for Internet traffic? And frankly, there is no reason for me to care and there is no reason for you to care about your "rank for traffic" either.

I don't care about my "rank for traffic" because I am not selling my website as being one of the most visited sites in the world. I really don't care about website visitors from China and India and Pakistan because I doubt that website visitors from China and India and Pakistan are likely to visit the advertisers on my TV show. And unless you are competing with the sites of Google or Yahoo or Facebook you shouldn't care either. So, if you get an email from a company promising to raise your traffic "rank" you can save your money and ignore it.

However, what is important is how you show up in "search results" and how you "rank in search results" is very important, unlike how you "rank in web traffic."

You want to rank high in search results so that your customers will find you before they find your competition.

Now is the time to start to advertise for Father's Day gifts and graduation gifts. Dads day gifts and graduation gifts can include a wide range of items ranging from jewelry to clothing to furniture to TVs and computers and hobby and sports items. And you should start your advertising right now.

The reality is that everybody is going to do last minute advertising and that causes a problem for advertisers because their ads at the last minute will be lost in that last minute flood or rush of ads. But the advertiser who advertises early will beat the flood of competitive ads and will get their message out to consumers when they are starting to explore ideas for Dads and Grads.

If you are advertising to Dads and Grads only a day or two before Fathers Day or Graduation Day the shopping options for consumers are limited by time. So if you are selling a Rolex or jewelry or an easy chair or TV, or a new suit for graduation, or a new wardrobe -- it is vital that you give your target buyers time to consider what you are selling and time to shop for it.

A Rolex, gold earrings, an easy chair, a computer, or a new HD TV are not impulse purchases. So why would you advertise as if they were impulse purchases? Give the buyers time and a head start to consider these big ticket items.

MONDAY APRIL 18, 2011

What do you do when there is negative information about you on the Internet? This is a problem that comes up from time to time for most companies, and there are various ways to handle it. First, if the information is libelous and wrong, you can hire a lawyer and sue.

But what do you do when the false or damaging information is posted to a public forum and the person making the complaint uses an anonymous "handle" or name? Well, then you have a problem, and unfortunately there are court decisions protecting the publishers of "message boards" and forums that keep you from taking them to court right away. But court action is expensive and takes time -- and in the meantime that damaging information about you is all over the web. So what do you do?

Well, if you can't get it removed from the website immediately, you can try to bury it. In fact, there are companies that do nothing but bury negative information on the web for their clients. How do they do this? They bury the bad info by posting new, positive info on a daily and consistent basis. And if you post enough new material, the old material gets buried in search engine results. So, post new and positive material and keep posting it and eventually the old negative material drops to the bottom of search engine results, and on message forums and bulletin boards.

By the way, this technique of posting new and positive information to bury negative info can also help to improve your own search engine results.

So where do you post the new, positive information to bury the negative info? First, you post it on the same websites where the negative info appears. And then you find new outlets on web to post your new and positive info which can be other websites, other message boards, and you can use the online press release companies-- some of which offer free online press releases. And don't forget about putting new videos about your company on the web -- since videos now can get higher search engine results than text, your positive news contained in a video could overshadow the negatives on the web quickly.

Original content is the most important factor that makes Google like your website and give it a higher rank and getting a higher rank on search engines is vital because so many shoppers now use the Internet before they actually get in their cars to drive to a store or business. So let's review what is "original content."

First, it is articles and text copy that you write yourself -- and not copied from other websites or from the online sites of your suppliers. If you are using (copying) articles and text from your wholesaler's website onto your retail website, Google will see this and will penalize you.

Second, original content includes video. Google is putting a lot of money into expanding video through its YouTube investment. And Google recently bought a company that produces video. The future of the web is all about video. So if you have video on your site Google will likely give you a higher rank.

Third, Google doesn't want to see out-of-date information. That means you must update your website. Just putting a date-stamp on your website is not enough. Google wants to see that you change your articles and videos often.

Now a case in point: The other day, one of our advertisers asked us to show on our website a list of their products with their prices. I told them I could not do that. The reason is that there was no "original content." I asked them to provide a description about the products -- written as if it were an article in a newspaper or magazine -- because it is content like that which would help to raise the search engine results on Google.

The bottom line is to write, re-write, and add new content -- both articles and videos -- if you want to be ahead of your competition on the Internet.

There is all kinds of new research about emails and Internet marketing and this research shows that emails sent during the weekend are more likely to be opened and read. So, if you are sending out emails to customers and clients, you should also be sending out emails on the weekends. And if you are sending out emails during the weekdays, then the research shows that emails that are sent between 6-AM and 7-AM are more likely to be opened and read.

If you are using Facebook to promote your business, the new research shows that your Facebook posts are more likely to be read on the weekends. If you use Twitter to promote your business, the new research shows that your tweets are more likely to be resent to others late in the day -- so send our your Tweets late in the day.

And if you have a blog on your website promoting your business, the new research shows that more blogs are read in the morning, but more blogs for men are read in the evening while women are more likely to read blogs in the morning. The best time for getting your blog read is around 11-AM, but if you want other bloggers to link to your blog it is best to post your blog early in the morning so other bloggers will see it before they write their own blogs.

If you have a website for your company (and if you don't have your own site you are far behind your competition) it is important that you know who is going to your site and what they are looking at on your site. By checking your web traffic you can find out what pages on your site are most popular. If you are a clothing retailer, you want to know if the pages for jackets are more popular than the pages for dresses, or if the pages for shirts are more popular than the pages for sweaters. It is also important that you know what other websites are referring traffic to your website. Knowing what other websites are referring traffic to your site can help you cultivate new clients and customers. If you find for example that a mothers-to-be website is referring visitors to your website you could contact that site and perhaps strike a marketing deal with them. If you do not check your website statistics yourself -- and you have a website manager handling your site -- be sure you get this information on at least a weekly basis, or even a daily basis.

Business owners should not fear "tax season" because the chances are customers are likely to have more money to spend during this time of year. The fact is, more than half of American taxpayers get a refund from Uncle Sam -- and in some years as many as 76% of taxpayers get a refund. Human nature being what it is, those tax refund checks can mean immediate spending. So businesses should be ready to do what they can to grab that extra disposable income. Some companies offer incentives to customers who buy something in their store with their tax refund checks, and that's not a bad idea as long as you know the check is legitimate and it wasn't stolen out of someone's mailbox. Tax refund season is pretty heavy about this time because most taxpayers who expect a refund were among the early filers.

MONDAY MARCH 7, 2011

Just about everywhere now, the price of gasoline is around $4 a gallon, and this is defnitely going to have an impact on consumer shopping. Take a look at my marketing tip from January 17th and consider using "gas money" as an incentive to visit your business. With gas prices up, more shoppers are likely to do more "looking" and "browsing" online, so this means you must take extra steps now to be sure your website is fresh with current inventory as well as descriptions, photos and videos and original content to boost your ranking in search results. If consumers only have a certain amount of gasoline money for "shopping" be sure that the shoppers make you their first destination -- because there may not be gas money to visit the second choice.

Also keep in mind that new, fresh and original content on your website will help you get a higher rank on search engine results and that extra work will pay dividends in the future according to the new ranking system that Google is using now.

Google came out with a new report about how it changed its methodology for ranking websites in its search engine. While the report is not really new, it does reinforce what we knew before: if you have original content on your site you will be higher up on Google's search results. But if you don't have original content or if you simply copy content from another website, or from print ads or print publications, your ranking will drop. So what does this mean?

Well, if you have a "catalogue" or "products for sale" on your website, you should add your own articles or descriptions or information to the standard catalogue pictures. If you simply copy the pictures and text from your supplier or from a print advertisement, you will not rank high on Google's search results. But, if you take the pictures and text from your supplier and add your own articles or descriptions or videos you are likely to get a higher "rank" from Google.

Google says that the sites with "better rankings" will be "sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on."

I took a look at some of the websites of our clients and frankly a lot of those websites need a lot of work. Some sites merely copy articles and pictures from other websites or from newspaper advertisements. Some sites duplicate pages from a supplier's online catalogue showing the products it sells. And some sites have only basic information about their business and do not have any new information. If you do not update the content on your site at least once a week, you will be penalized by the search engines. The search engines reward sites with "new, original content."

So what should you do? Start writing articles about your new inventory or services or trends in your business. Add pictures and videos and be sure you have text articles to go along with the pictures and videos. If you don't do this, you will not be high on the search results for Google and other search engines.

The stock market has been doing great lately. And there are statistics that prove that what happens on Wall Street will affect Main Street six months later. The stock market popular averages (the Dow Industrials, the S&P 500) are now at their highest levels since before the financial meltdown and I think that means more consumer confidence and more consumer spending in the coming months. So, get ready for it.

Of course the best way to get ready for a business upturn is to remind consumers that you are still around, and you survived the recession, and you will continue to have the best buys and best service that you were known to have before the recession hit. If you have an email list start sending out those emails that say "we're still in business" and if you can put a banner outside your store that says "we survived the recession" do it. Consumers like winners and survivors.

You must use YouTube.com to market your business. That's quite a statement coming from someone who produces TV commercials and infomercials, isn't it? But I really believe it. YouTube is a powerful marketing force, and the best part about it is that the marketing and the work goes on with any incremental time or cost once your video is put on YouTube. Yes, YouTube works -- letting customers know about your business, and your store, and your services even when you are sleeping or on vacation.

But to make YouTube work better, you have to know the secret of "working" YouTube. That secret is having the appropriately written text article with keywords to attract your customers to your YouTube video when they search the web. All of the popular search engines "crawl" the text on YouTube. Search engines cannot "see" the video content, but they know what is written about the video. So if your "text article" has the appropriate keywords, it is more likely that your target audience will find your video on YouTube.

And when a customer does find your video on YouTube, it's as if they are walking into your business or store, getting a tour or discussion of your products and services. And you don't have to pay for this once your video is on YouTube. YouTube-- use it.

MONDAY FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Even if you advertise on TV, your website is a very vital link in your marketing and must be part of your TV advertising. We recently saw some new research which emphasized the importance of allowing "smart phone" users to be able to quickly access your website. The research was conducted by Nielsen (the TV ratings company) and Yahoo (the Internet company).

Their research showed that 86% of mobile Internet users (smart phone consumers) are using their mobile devices simultaneously with watching TV. To put it simply, as they watch TV they will use their smart phones to research products, advertisers and look for more information about what they see.

This is one reason -- and one very important reason -- why we became one of the first to use "QR Codes" on the graphics of our TV show. The graphics at the end of each advertiser's segment has a QR Code which allows smart phone users to easily link to website information about the advertiser.

We are also putting these QR codes on the TV commercials that we produce for advertisers. And QR Codes can be printed on everything including shopping bags, business cards, sides of trucks, envelopes and even product samples and packages.

The Nielsen/Yahoo research also says that 32% of those who watch a TV commercial will go to their computer for more information about that commercial, and 23% of those with mobile Internet (smart phones) will also search for more info after seeing a TV commercial. This is amazing information. It means that you must have a website -- or have web content available -- to capture these curious consumers.

MONDAY JANUARY 31, 2011

One of our advertisers spent a lot of money securing a new phone number for his business. This new phone number consists of a "word" that identifies with his business. You might have a similar phone marketing strategy using words such as "law" or "kitchen" or "loan" as part of your phone number.

Well, when I picked up my BlackBerry smart phone to test his new phone number, I discovered that my keypad on my BlackBerry only has "numbers" and not the corresponding letters that you find on a traditional telephone, or on what other cell phones have. And to be honest, in all my years of dialing phone numbers, I never memorized which letters go with which digit. And as I asked around, I found out that other cell phone makers besides BlackBerry have also omitted the traditional lettering that appears on their keypads for dialing phone numbers.

I understand now that there is an "app" for this on some phones. But some users without this app when they hear a phone number with a word or letters instead of actual numbers might have to wait to get home to dial it, or they might give up.

(Update: I have since found out that with a BlackBerry if you dial the "letters" of a phone number on the regular keypad using the "alt" button on the keypad, the BlackBerry will dial the correct number.)

Wow. I told the business owner about this and he immediately recognized the problem, and now he has to rethink his "phone number strategy" marketing plan because of this. This problem is particularly tough on advertisers who put these "telephone numbers with words" in radio advertisements. Sure, this business owner can now advertise the "numerals" along with the "word" that makes up his phone number, but the numerals are hard to remember and don't have an easy pattern or progression such as 4-3-2-1.

Take a look at your own cell phone.

MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2011

Today's Marketing Memo comes from the used cars business. How many times have you heard the phrase "the world is a sucker for a shine"? Well, that comes from the used car business. And that's why used cars are always looking good when they are on a lot for sale. They get a shine, a wax job, new or better tires, new wiper blades, new headlights, a clean interior -- all of the low cost items that can make a clunker look darn good.

If you are selling your used car, you are wise to also run it through the wash, get it waxed, replace the wiper blades, get better (if not new) tires on it, put in new headlights, clean the interior and give it a nice smell. Do those things and your clunker will be worth more too.

And it's the same with business.

A friend of mine has a great idea for a business that she wants to sell to others so they can set up shops that will buy her products. What she wants are retailers so she can supply them with her merchandise. Her product is darn good and fairly priced and should sell very well.

But she is having a problem getting people to buy into her concept and set up a store. And I told her why she is having a problem.

Her problem is that her own store doesn't have the look of being successful. It is small, with a shabby exterior, and an interior that doesn't look like it is successful. Sure, liquidators and outlets can have very successful businesses selling in "low rent" stores and districts -- but when you want to sell a business concept you have to look successful. This is why model homes always have expert designs and high end furniture in them -- regardless of the selling price.

I told her to "move up" to a better store location with a better look of success. I also told her to make her advertising look like she is successful. So far her business advertising has been pretty much limited to signs on fences and lamp posts, and a home made sign on her car. Really, is that the "look of success"?

Television advertising and the Internet both can give the look of success without you having to spend a fortune. Successful businesses have web sites with graphics and videos and photos and plenty of text talking about success including testimonials. Successful businesses are on TV and advertise "as seen on TV." It is all about giving your business a shine.

So give your business a "shine" and I promise you it will help.

If you are in the retailing business, your number one project now is to boost Valentine's Day sales. The earlier you promote the better off you are going to be. Impulse shopping belongs to candy and flower sales. But if you are selling a new bedroom set for Valentine's Day, or a diamond ring for Valentine's Day, or a Rolex for Valentine's Day, or a new sofa for Valentine's Day, you have to start marketing yesterday because these are not impulse items.

The second concern for everyone is the rising price of gasoline. On the news every day are reports about pump prices going up and the impact it will have on consumer spending. So now is the time to turn a negative into a positive. So try this: OFFER GAS MONEY FOR CUSTOMERS TO VISIT YOU. It could be one dollar or five dollars -- just ask them to bring in a gas station receipt from the previous two days or simply take their word for it -- and give them a dollar or two for their trouble.

Is that crazy giving a shopper $1 to walk into your store? How much does "customer acquisition" cost you any other day of the year? How much is one piece of direct mail? And-- more importantly-- what could be your return on that one dollar bill?

Want something more creative? Try this: "Because the price of gas has climbed by 10%, if you bring us $9, we'll give you a new $10 bill for visiting our store."

MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 2011

This week's marketing memo is the result of a conversation that I had with a client this past week. The client is not only on our Best Buys show, but the client also has half hour infomercials running on various stations and soon will have a nationwide TV infomercial that we are producing.

Our conversation was about telephone numbers used on the programs. My client said he wanted to have a different phone number for each broadcast station or network so they could track which station or network was "working best." I suggested to him that while that can be done, it might not be a true indicator of which broadcast outlet was in fact "working best" and here's why:

The chances are, this client's programs and spots will be viewed several times by consumers on different broadcast outlets before a call is made. That's just the nature of advertising, which is why multiple appearances or spots or programs is better than just taking "one shot" at getting your message across.

In one scenario, the phone number that the consumer will call might be the one that the viewer saw and wrote down the third time they saw it on "Station C" when in fact the consumer was committed to call the very first time they saw the advertiser's program on "Station A" but forgot to take the number down.

In another scenario, the consumer might have viewed the program three times on "Station B" but decided to call after seeing it only one time on "Station D."

And here's another scenario: The consumer might not write down any phone number from TV, and went to the Internet to find a phone number different from any of the phone numbers used on TV. And in another scenario, the TV advertising might have prompted the consumer to call the phone number used in a print advertisement.

In each of these scenarios, the advertiser would not know which advertising message or outlet was the best for them. So frankly, you might as well use one phone number and not waste time and money and resources on multiple phone numbers.

There is however a bigger concern when it comes to phone numbers: HAVE A GOOD PHONE NUMBER. By that, I mean one that is easy to remember.

Phone numbers that spell out words related to your business are excellent. I know of a business that has a phone number XXX-THE LAWS, and another uses XXX-GET MORE.

Phone numbers with repeating digits are very good such as XXX-985-5555. And numbers with sequences are very good, such as XXX-765-4321.

Avoid phone numbers without a pattern because they are hard to remember-- even if they are on the TV screen for a long time, and especially if your commercial is running on the radio. You have to be a memory expert to remember numbers like XXX-623-1937, especially when the "area code" is not one that the consumer normally uses.

Frankly, your phone number for radio commercials had better be very easy to remember or no one will remember it long enough to write it down at the next red light they come to-- if consumers really do write down phone numbers in their cars, which is something I doubt they do.

And by all means, avoid phone numbers with patterns that might damage your business' reputation or image. One of my first "business numbers" was XXX-476-6666 and it didn't take me long to discover that the phone number used to belong to an "escort service" that was no longer operating.

MONDAY, JANUARY 3, 2011

Happy New Year! It's time to get back to work. All of the conventional advertising agencies are now pushing Internet ads and the easiest, simplest and most cost effective type of Internet ads is with "pay per click" ads. PPC ads include those simple "text ads" with lines of copy that appear on websites, and when visitors click on those ads websites and ad agencies get paid for each click. But the really smart advertisers know how to create their ads so that there is no need to click on them. If the web site viewer can see your information without having to CLICK on the ad, your ad works for you for free. So what should you do? Well, if possible, always have your company name, address and phone number in your PPC text advertisement. If a website customer contacts you on the telephone it costs you nothing to run that ad. But if the website customer clicks on your ad to find out who you are, you could be paying 35-cents or $5 or even $150 (depending on your business) to make that contact.

I've been suggesting that you start using QR Codes in all of your advertising including TV ads, print ads, business cards, road signs, even on shopping bags. Some of you have contacted us about helping you with this. We have already produced one TV commercial with a QR code and our Best Buys TV Show has QR Codes for each advertiser. The use of QR Codes is the future of Internet marketing because these squares with dots and squiggles and lines when scanned with smart phones can connect the smart phone user direct to pages on web sites. We saw that a competitor used QR Codes on commercials that they produce and I asked our graphics expert Jason to compare their QR codes to the ones we use in our production both for the Best Buys Show and TV commercials. Jason told me that our QR Codes have a different type of link than the code that our competitor uses. Our "code" is in fact easier to read because it has the "Internet shorthand" that is best used in QR Codes. Jason did a test comparing our QR codes with their QR codes. Jason said: "Well, since they use full length URL's, their codes have more pixels per square inch than ours so I had to be within 1 foot of the TV screen on my 42" TV to scan their codes. But with our codes I can be 8 feet away. This will vary by TV size, and by the smart phone, and by the scanning application being used." So when it comes to QR Codes, it's not only "size that matters" but also the URL you have in your QR Code.

Be careful what you say in your "outgoing message" on voicemail. I just called a client who has this phrase in their outgoing message: "I will call you at my earliest convenience." What does that mean? It may mean that "if it is not convenient for me to call you back I won't call you back because you may not be important enough for me to call." Or the outgoing message might mean, "you're not important enough for me to call you back unless I have absolutely nothing else to do." A better phrase will be "I will call you back as soon as possible."

Not only should you have a video on your website that tells website visitors about your business, but your video should also be on YouTube. And now, you should consider having "closed captioning" on your website and YouTube videos. Several companies are now offering "closed captioning" for YouTube videos. Think about it.