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Searching for sales, traffic and branding.

Below is a great article that was recently posted on emarketer.com.

According to a joint study by Econsultancy and search engine optimization (SEO) firm Guava, online marketers around the globe (particularly in the UK) are increasingly turning to search marketing tactics.

Fifty-five percent of respondents said they planned to raise spending on SEO, and 45% said the same of paid search.

In addition, 31% of SEO and 32% of paid search users said they intended to maintain their budgets.

Savvy search marketers use paid search and SEO to accomplish different tasks, however.

In 2008, marketers said that the main objectives of paid search were (in order) to capture online sales, generate sales leads, drive Website traffic and enhance the brand. As for SEO, most marketers said its primary purpose was to drive traffic, create leads, generate sales and brand.

In 2009, marketers’ perceptions are in similar (but lower) proportions across the board.

With the global economy faltering, and money in short supply, search marketing is often the tool that marketers rely on to attract new customers.

“Search marketing is the best customer acquisition tool in the online space,” said eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman.

In addition, SEO offers pluses over paid search—though its advantages must be built up over time, which some marketers have little of in today’s economy.

“SEO improves organic listings, which Internet users prefer over paid search, and it is cost-effective,” said Mr. Hallerman. “Furthermore, optimization works across all search engines, and an optimized site does not drop off the first results page even when marketer spending slows or stops—as it can with paid search.”

Our very own Steve Espinosa had some some interesting thoughts on how Twitter could monetize it’s traffic.

Over the last couple months we have heard many different ideas on how Twitter can successfully monetize their surge in popularity, growing user base, and overall traffic. The ideas range from charging for an account, charging for premium accounts, simply adding AdSense, and the list goes on. What we haven’t heard is how Twitter could add local search into their business model, monetize it successfully, and create more user generated content.
When you think about it almost everything that is on Twitter is inherently local. The simple question “What are you doing?” implies that because, unless you are at home watching TV, you are doing something that is local, whether that is local to you or to someone else. The obvious example of this is when you go out to a restaurant and write about that on Twitter, whether you say “Going out to [insert name here] with @stevemcstud” or “Just had a great dinner with @stevemcstud at [insert name here]“. If you simply perform a search on Twitter for “restaurant in”, the point being to see how many people tweet “I am going to restaurant in [insert city]” or “Anybody know of a good restaurant in [insert city name]?” you can see that with just that one phrasing there are tons of results of people talking about local restaurants.

Read This Article in it’s entirety here

Most experienced sales persons know this adage:

“It is easier to sell them what they want…then to make them want what you are selling…”

Imagine this scenario:

You are working the counter at a convenience store and a client walks up and asks for a Coke.

“I understand that you would like a Coke, but how about a nice Sprite?”

NO thanks just a Coke please…

“I certainly understand your need for a refreshing drink, but how about if I take 20% off the price of the Sprite?”

NO thanks just a Coke please…

“The citrus flavor of a Sprite would be more thirst quenching wouldn’t you agree?”

NO thanks just a Coke…

OR

I would like a Coke please…

“One Coke coming up…here you go…”

Every person has a personal desire or want that they have already bought off on and are fully prepared to invest in.  They will take immediate action if they believe that your product or service will provide and/or add leverage to their ability to acquire their need.

Their WANT will usually stem from the need to fulfill one of the innate instincts:

• Personal Security
• Self Esteem
• Sex Relations
• Personal Relations
• Financial Security

Each prospect’s WANT will need to be identified, and then attached to the action potential of your product or service to tap into this natural state of urgent action. So therefore let me pose a powerful supposition:

What if you could read minds?

I mean what if you could actually know what each prospect’s personal need or desire was?  How would that affect your presentation?  Pay attention to the difference in these two leads:

Bob is an owner of a Tire Shop and spends $400 per month on advertising.
Bob is an owner of a Tire Shop and spends $400 per month on advertising
He is afraid of losing and not being good enough
Having more than enough money is his primary concern
He has trust issues with fast talkers
He wants organized plans that are backed with case studies to feel safe

Which lead would you prefer to have more of?  How would the additional information change the style of your presentation?  Would you change your rate of talk speed?  Would you suddenly find yourself quoting more statistics or bringing up support material for your cause?  How would your product or service help his business win, or safely bring more money to save?

If you could provide this information satisfactorily then he would lurch to buy from you.  He has already purchased these concepts.  There is no need to sell him what he already wants.  You simply need to demonstrate that you have his deepest desires ready and waiting.

Each one of us has primary personality profiles.  These are like an emotional thumb print. It has been described many times using all different types of labels:

Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, Phlegmatics
Type A, B, C, D personalities
Red, Blue, Green, Yellow

The list goes on.  So it doesn’t really matter what you call them, just bear in mind that each of us has a merge of several of these distinct emotional patterns and typically one dominant psychological accent.  These accents have base desires and you can read them through language, rate of speech speed, posture and general physical attributes.

Once you know these by heart and can both read and speak the various languages, you will not only be able to accurately identify their base needs, but you will better proffer trust and be able to create much more powerful discovery experiences.  Friends confide in friends and when you speak the matching language of another human they simply feel more comfortable opening up.

Type 1:  The controller
Base Need:  To Win-Control-To Conquer
Language pattern:  Power words, Contest, Get on with it, I’m in charge, Dominant
Language inflection: Strong, Clear, Interrupts, Repeats, Curt when agitated
Posture attributes:  Statement cars, Studies that art of war in all activities

Type 2:  The artist
Base Need:  To play-create-imagine have fun
Language pattern:  Playful Words, Game, Slang, It’s all good, Dude where’s my car
Language inflection: Joker, Cheerful, Fast Talker, Forgetful, Sensitive
Posture attributes:  Flashy or Original Cars, Studies social style and events, Flakey, Chameleon

Type 3:  The organizer
Base Need:  To have order-to prosper social trust through systems and process
Language pattern:  Process words, Flow Chart, Program, Case Studies, Meticulous
Language inflection: Precise, Clear, High Vocabulary, Slower rate of speech speed, Intense Listener
Posture attributes:  Sensible Cars, Studies that art of economics in all life patterns

Type 4:  The healer
Base Need:  To love and be loved
Language pattern:  Sensitive Words, Love One Another, I’ll help, I’m not in charge, Submissive
Language inflection: Mild, Helpful, Never Interrupts, Apologizes, Heals Quickly and Forgiving
Posture attributes:  Non-Descript cars, Studies that purpose driven activities

Your two step process towards effective mind reading is actually quite simple:

Step 1: Use your power of observation to determine the personality profile and match their speech and posture patterns to develop and prosper trust for honest intimate discovery sharing

Step 2: Dig into Discovery and identify the actual primary instinct that is most important to them as well as their primary WANT.  Sell to this WANT and instinct.  Translate your presentation to draw a clear picture. Paint the scenario plainly so that your Prospect can easily see that your product and/or service will deliver to their main WANT.

This is just a snap shot of the primary emotional patterns of the people in our community.  There is a great book I read a long time ago called:  Personalities Plus…It was a quick read and goes into depth on how to communicate to and relate with each type.  If you know that people are different in their base needs you will sense their needs more quickly in your meeting and you will find that they will share with you.  Once you have identified who they are and what they really want then you will be able to add real momentum to your sales process.

Read their minds…sell them what they want and you will sell more often!

While on the road to the Kelsey Group Marketplaces 2009 event this week I stopped by Barnes & Noble to pick up the new book by Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do?  Early on in the book, Jarvis quickly states and focuses on the fact that small is the new big. Companies can start up with a couple people and not grow past 20 and still attract a large amount of customers. At Kelsey this was proven over and over again.

Small businesses will soon be overwhelmed with the amount of choices they have to market their business online through SEO, PPC, Social Media, and Mobile Marketing. A great great of this is the start-up dotMenu, which started out by simply hiring stay at home moms to go out and scan in menus from local restaurants for $2 a piece. This allowed them to keep overhead down, efficiency up, and grow within the constraints of cash flow. In 2008 dotMenu ended up taking 3,000,000 online restaurant orders.

The consistent trend of people connecting, sharing, and collaborating on the internet is only going to have a positive effect on small business marketing. When companies and individuals become more open, competition grows larger. When competition grows larger, innovation begins. Products will start to become more transparent, ROI for marketing efforts will become clearer to small business, and the businesses that provide real value will rise to the top, whether they are small or big.

Every time I attend a Kelsey Conference I am amazed at the overwhelming amount of new start ups attending the conference. But the one thing that is more overwhelming than that is the fact that all these start ups are striking partnerships with companies 1000x their size without even a blink. 2009 is going to bring an enormous amount of opportunities for small business to get online, with the big question not being ‘should we be online, but who should we be online with?’

Now that small is the new big, things are going to be a lot more clear for small business.

Developing a productive call center actually involves the process of developing productive people. The most important asset in the sales quiver is the team and simply seeking the best persons for the job is simply not enough.  Your leadership must be up to the task of continually developing significant growth and change in their lives.

It has been proven that money is NOT a long term motivator but rather a short term instigator.  The state of being BETTER is truly a long term purpose charged goal of all individuals, and harnessing that leverage is key to curt tailing attrition and generating more happy sales veterans.

Let’s take an inventory of your team development tools and techniques:

What are the primary needs and wants of your team?

How do you recognize if they are infected by fear?

How much time do you invest in their personal vision at work?

Are you expecting them to understand and purchase your mission?

How much time do you spend in significant change in your life?

Your team needs to be heard and understood.

Their belief is key to the selling proposition and they will only truly follow leaders that they respect and trust.  They need a mature parent that has their needs close to heart.  It is necessary to connect with them one on one, in small groups and in team gatherings to discuss what is truly important to THEM.  Let them voice their heart and translate your business decisions, policies and programs to their internal desires.  Remember, it’s easier to sell people what they want then to make them want what you are selling.

Fear is the mind killer.

Every human reacts to fear in one or more of four different ways:
Run away
Attack
Denial
Crippled Stasis
Fear will feed defects and simply stop any sales rep from truly producing.  Fear is based on two facts occurring:  They are afraid of not getting what they deserve or they are afraid of losing what is theirs.  You can not snap a human out of fear by stamping your foot.  Simply put, fear is the absence of HOPE.  So give your team a plan they can believe in.   Demonstrate your experience and saddle up next to them in the dark.  Let them know that they are safe and they will come back to confidence.  We will talk more about this subject later.

Each week talk about change.

Books, tapes, teachers and programs of significant change are necessary for them to connect with work as a purpose filled location in their lives.  They need to know that there is more than a paycheck waiting for them to feel excited about Monday.  There are many great teachers that you can invite via technology into the lecture room to help translate the work experience into an institute of learning and growth.  Meaningful lessons will create leaders that enthusiastically stay!

What is your mission and why should it be theirs?

Building a company should be about personal pride and feeling of participating in an award winning team experience.  Share your vision constantly and get everyone to understand the WHY of it. But most importantly help them connect with it on a basic level.  It must make sense to THEIR mission if you want them to purchase it.  Don’t demand or expect loyalty if you don’t help your group find their own WHY they should.

You can’t give away what you don’t have!

Those who don’t learn can NOT teach.  Watch out for leadership that feels it already knows what it needs to know.  Pride is summed up with:  I KNOW.  Humility is summed up with:  I want to KNOW.  The seeker is growing and has something to pass on.  The man who demands the world follow his plan and is not open to change and grow is no longer learning and is actually of weaker character.  The man who admits their failings and is willing to look at and change their weaknesses is actually of strong character.  Your team will sense the truth of it and will be pulled towards leadership of strong character naturally.

Change…Grow…Learn…Teach…

If work becomes an Institute of Significance, in turn your sales figures will become significant!

March 13th, 2009 — TheBatavian.com has added a significant new service to improve the search experience for all its site visitors and to aid consumers in finding local business services and experts quickly.  A link that joined the top navigation of the site a couple of weeks ago is titled: Local Businesses.  Check the top right corner of www.TheBatavian.com

It is a new online business directory for Genesee County. Every service, retail and expert in Genesee County gets a free basic listing.  We encourage you to use it to find local goods and services.

For business owners and managers, each get free and alphabetized listing in the directory.  For a fee, your business can get an enhanced listing which includes more information about your firm, but that’s not the coolest part of this directory. By enhancing your listing using our directory you also greatly improve your chances of being spotted in the major search engines at or near the top of the search results. That’ll give a significant boost to phone leads coming your way and we can track those leads for you too.

Our first two enhanced listings have been posted:

Diegelman’s Plumbing

Fastec Automotive – (this one includes an online video)

But here’s a key point about the directory: eLocal Listing powers the directory and each listing is automatically optimized for local search.

As most business owners now recognize, hardly anybody uses the Yellow Pages these days. When people with online access want to find a business, they go to Google or Yahoo.  If your business isn’t part of the top search results, it’s almost as if your business doesn’t even exist.

eLocal Listing specializes in helping businesses get found on the Web. They’ve been helping thousands of businesses for a number of years, they are the leading such firm in the world helping small businesses in America get found online.  We’re proud they picked The Batavian to launch their new directory product with.

So when you buy an enhanced listing on The Batavian, you’re not just buying an ad on The Batavian, you’re helping improve your business’s search ranking in Google and Yahoo!

The standard package is $49 to set up and then $59 per month.  Businesses can add a “trackable” phone number — what that means is, we’ll be able to deliver a monthly report showing you how many times you’re phone rang because of the service.  We’ll also show you how you are ranked in Google Maps and the Yahoo Local Showcase, it’s impressive to watch The Batavian’s customer gain that improved visibility.

We also can offer a limited number of upgraded packages that add more features to help your business be among the best ranked in Google and Yahoo.

These packages are $79 set up and $89 per month.  In this package, we create a short 18-20 second video in about 150 categories like plumbing, car detailing, spas, law, hair salons, the Main Street businesses of America.

And as long as we’re talking about their advertising, please find a comprehensive display advertising media kit at www.batavian.com/mediakit.com .

If you want to get your local business showing well in the major search engines start by advertising on TheBatavian.com.

Have any questions, contact:  Howard@theBatavian.com

Here at eLocal I find myself doing less “web design” and doing more User Interface design, as well as a lot of UX research/design/testing. This has caused me to really step back and see team development in a new perspective. The more interaction I have with our engineers (local, and offshore) the more I understand their world, and how it relates to me as I develop the front end of a lot of our applications, and the more user testing, and UX related research I do the more I have really come to a good understanding of all of the components and effort (individual and team) involved in making a great product (and or website) that is visually appealing, easy to use, and truly beneficial to the end user.

So this is the start of a new series on designing/developing in a team environment and how to take steps to ensure that you and your team are working towards success. Wether you are a team lead/manager or one of the cog’s in a bigger mechanism each role is important and if we can learn what we can contribute to the team we can help insure the success of the products/web sites that we are a part of creating.

The series will be split into four parts:

1) Coding in a team environment.

2) Effective Dev Team Communication.

3) There is no I in team… and no U in win.

4) Wrapping things up.

Hopefully as we look at these (an possibly a couple extra) points we will be able develop a focused pursuit of development team bliss, granted it may not be as easy as it sounds, but developing a solid dev team that works together to accomplish a common goal is instrumental to the success of any design firm, start up, and or top secret missions.

I wanted to welcome you to the new improved eLocal Blog. It’s a place where our team can share insights into where we are going and and what we are doing to get there. This is a really interesting and exciting time in our story. As you may know we are highly focused on getting our customers great marketing value online. We do that mostly through our special flavor of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I found this very interesting article recently which talks about how even in very tough economic times SEO is showing strong growth. It’s an approach to marketing which works across the board. This article is more focused towards SEO for larger businesses. We specialize in delivering great SEO value for the small business which comprise the backbone of the US economy and we do it a price point most small businesses can afford.

Very best wishes

Tim

SEO Investments Expected To Grow More Than 20%
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101301
As marketers begin to better understand how Web site optimization fits into overall campaigns, budget investments in search engine optimization (SEO) will grow at a higher rate each year, compared with other types of search marketing strategies, according to a recent report from eMarketer.

The report, “Search Marketing Trends: Back to Basics,” suggests that growth will decline for paid search from 15.9% in 2009 to 11.3% in 2013–while SEO growth will jump from 17.7% to 20.3%, respectively.

“Every company is losing some business because of the economy, whether they buy less, or not at all,” said David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst. “There is a greater focus on customer acquisition. Search is the best tool for that.”

Internet users generally find organic listings more relevant than paid search ads, so they tend to click on the search engine results more often than pay-per-click (PPC) ads, Hallerman said. But marketers should design campaigns that combine paid search advertising and SEO.

Overall, U.S. spending on search engine marketing will nearly double from $12.2 billion in 2008 to $23.4 billion in 2013. All four types of search marketing will gain more marketer dollars each year.

Successful deployment of both methods could mean higher rankings in search query results. Each offers benefits. For example, paid search’s effects are immediate, but marketers need to spend consistently for those sponsored-link ads to appear in search results. SEO effects take time, but marketers need Web site maintenance more than daily spending to sustain high organic results. How long it takes to deliver a return on investments (ROI) depends on conversions, Hallerman said.

While lots of data makes search more accountable than other ad media, too much data could overwhelm marketers and create confusion that clouds decisions, according to Hallerman. More important, the abundance of data makes Web analytics crucial for managing the process.

While marketers might see increased traffic as positive, if the search ad’s cost relative to its conversion rate means a reduced bottom line, the marketer would need to examine the strategy, including bids on certain keywords, keywords to bid on, and the search engine to place ads on.

“Far more marketers say SEO is much harder to gauge because it has far less metrics,” Hallerman said. “SEO is like public relations. You hope people will notice and buy the product. It’s a lot like tracking buzz.”