Imprezzio Marketing Blog - Internet Marketing Tips for Small Businesses
The Imprezzio Marketing blog is dedicated to providing new and useful information about internet marketing to small businesses

Should a Small Business have a Blog?

July 10th, 2009
Blogs are becoming more popular on the internet

Blogs are becoming more popular on the internet

EMarketer is forecasting that by 2013, 58% of the U.S. internet population will be reading blogs (a 20% increase from today).  Additionally, EMarketer also forecasted that 17% of the U.S. Internet population will be blogging by 2013 which is almost 30% more than the current number.

The US News & World Report quotes a study of 1,210 small businesses with fewer than 100 employees:

“While celebrities and the under 25-year-old population are flocking to Twitter, small business owners are just realizing the full potential of blogging. Use of blogs for specific business purposes more than doubled in the last 12 months, and 40% of small business owners now use this medium in their business.”

Many business owners read blogs and maybe some even participate by commenting, but even less have active blogs that they maintain on a regular basis.  When it comes to blogging, Jakob Neilson’s 1-9-90 rule applies.  90% of online users are referred to as “lurkers” because they visit online communities such as blogs, but they don’t contribute anything.  9% are individuals who contribute from time to time, and only 1% are active contributors.

This gives any small business owner a great advantage to get ahead competition.  If only 1% of online users actively post on a blog, but 90% will read a blog, this gives the 1% a lot of influence and power.

Imprezzio Marketing has worked with small business owners to help them maintain blogs.  For the businesses we’ve worked with, we know that maintaining a blog can result in very qualified leads from customers who are interested in the product that you write about.  For more information on Small Business blogs, please contact one of our representatives at 1-866-430-0457.

AHHH I got a Negative Review - What do I do???

June 25th, 2009
A Negative Review on Google

A Negative Review on Google

According to Matt McGee from Small Business Search Marketing, getting a negative review posted about your business is not the end of the world.  He states “We don’t live in a 5-star world.  Think about it: Even your favorite restaurant messes up sometimes”.  I would have to agree.  Here are a few ways that negative reviews can actually help your business:

1. It can make the reviews look more realistic - Sometimes, if your business has ALL 5-star reviews, it can almost look fake.  It wouldn’t hurt to have the odd 3-star, or 4-star rating in there.

2.  It can give you good feedback to help you improve - Good business owners always strive to be better.  If you get a negative review, it enables you to humble yourself, apologize to the offended person and possibly even turn them into a happy customer.

3.  They can create buzz about your business - sometimes 1 negative review can spark something in a business owner that will make him want to recruit his best customers and encourage them to post positive things about him online.  This can only end well.

To sum it up, if you get a negative review, don’t cry, scream at the directory webmaster to take it down, or threaten to sue.  Use it as an opportunity to turn a bad situation into a good one.  My next post will cover how a Small Business should respond to a negative review.

Should a Small Business have Video on its Website?

June 11th, 2009
Should your website include video?

Should your website include video?

A lot of small business owners debate whether or not they need video on their websites. On one hand, it looks pretty cool, and some would argue that it makes it easier to communicate a specific point. However, I currently agree with Steve Rubel in his article titled “Why Text Remains King of the Web“. He points out that text is good for these 5 reasons:

“1. Text is scannable – according to Jakob Nielsen users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average site visit and 20% is more likely”

This is very true because I recently had someone send me an email to look at a company she was recommended (http://fortunevideos.com). On this website, there is no content and the video is 45 minutes long! Who has time to watch the whole thing? I definitely didn’t and there was no way to scan the video, so basically 0% of their message was able to reach me. “

“2. Three letters: SEO – For all that Google Universal Search has done to elevate video, search results are still largely made up of text and everyone wants better SEO”

Again, very true. I couldn’t even find the website for www.fortunevideos.com on Google because there is no text on the website so it doesn’t have any rankings for any keywords related to their product. I tried searching “Make Money with Prepaid Legal Services” or “Prepaid Legal Services” and I couldn’t pull them up anywhere.  Google can’t tell what your site is about unless you state it clearly in text!

“3. The workplace – It’s much easier for cube-based workers to read text on the screen and get away with it vs. watching long videos. Watching videos (even work related videos) screams ’slacker’”

This is very true. I’ve worked at places that block YouTube because they don’t want us watching videos online. Also, text is silent, so your co-workers won’t hear the sound blasting from your speakers.

“4. Mobile Devices – Yes, of course you can put a video on an iPhone. But it’s work and requires planning. Text is easier to pull up in a nanosecond”

Anyone who has a new smart phone knows how easy it is to make them freeze. Pulling up regular websites would sometimes freeze my HTC touch phone (which I DON’T recommend), but pulling up video would definitely never work.

“5. Distribution – Nothing flies like text. It’s so easy to cut and paste it and send it somewhere or to clip and re-syndicate it via email, RSS or social networks”

Again, very true. Although many people have high internet speeds, computers are still known to crash randomly and it’s much harder to download or transfer video files than it is text files.

In conclusion, it is still very important to integrate video in 2009, but make sure while you’re doing that, include lots of text around the video to summarize what the video is about. Also, you might consider attaching a text file next to the video that summarizes the video word-for-word so that the concept can be shared by users who want to forward or syndicate the text.

For more information about what a small business should have on its website, please call our office at 1-866-430-0457.

13 Ways to Avoid Getting Scammed by an Online Company

May 26th, 2009

Technorati Profile

13 Ways to Avoid Getting Scammed by an Online Company

13 Ways to Avoid Getting Scammed by an Online Company

Unfortunately, recently I have been hearing a lot of small business owners complain about online companies that have ripped them off in the past.  Some experiences involve companies taking their money when they sign up and not delivering what was promised.  Others involve the company simply “disappearing” after the customer signs up without delivering the service paid for.

It is my goal to educate small business owners so that they can avoid these situations from happening in the future.  There are a lot of precautions that can be taken and simple research that can be done so that you, as a small business owner, can rest assured that your money is safe.

1.  Do a Google search on the Company’s name

If you are dealing with a company with a bad reputation, there is a good chance that someone has posted something somewhere online about their experience.  A simple search for the company’s name should expose these.  If the company has a very generic name, do a search for the company’s website address instead (Example: search on Google for “www.examplecompany.com”).

2.  See if there is a phone number and address on the website

If a company does not post their address or phone number on their website, there is probably a good reason for it.  A lot of bad online companies simply have contact forms on their site.  If this is the case for the company that you’re investigating – BEWARE – there is probably a reason why it is not there. Read the rest of this entry »

Advertising Online to the Hispanic Market (part 2 of 2)

May 17th, 2009

Our previous post, Advertising Online to the Hispanic Market part 1 of 2 covered why a small business should target Hispanics in their local advertising.  Now that it’s clear that Hispanics should be targeted, there are many questions that business owners have when it comes to HOW to target them.

Should my Ads be in English or Spanish?

According to an Ipsos Omnibus Poll done in 2008, 56% of Hispanics prefer an English language newspaper and 41% prefer a Spanish language one.   A lot of Hispanics these days don’t have a strong preference for one language over another.  Read the rest of this entry »

Advertising Online to the Hispanic Market (part 1 of 2)

May 4th, 2009

Why should I target Hispanics?

Hispanics are becoming a huge, growing minority in the US.  According to JupiterResearch, 31.5 million US Hispanics are currently online in 2009.  Comscore reported that in February 2009, Hispanics accounted for 11% of the total U.S. Online market.

Also, another interesting fact is that the amount of time spent online by Hispanics is growing at a speed that is almost 4 times greater than the speed of the USA as a whole.  The average Hispanic spends 52% of his media consumption online (approximately 14 hours a week) according to eMarketer.

Areas in the USA with a Hispanic population.

Areas in the USA with a Hispanic population.

Something unique about this market group is that they don’t carry a lot of debt which makes them less likely to be affected by the recession.   Idea Hall reported that the Hispanic buying power is expected to rise to 1.1 trillion in 2009.

How does this Apply to a local business?

Since 83.9 of Hispanics live in metropolitan status areas, it is easy for you to know if they should be included in your target.  According to the 2006 US Census, the states with the highest Hispanic concentration are California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois. Read the rest of this entry »

Should a Small Business Advertise Using Banner Ads?

April 27th, 2009

banner-adsEveryone knows that a small business runs on a limited budget. Banner Advertising is typically known for increasing “brand recognition”, but it is worth it for the local companies to also participate in this particular form of internet marketing? That question can be best answered by looking at the costs and ROI involved with Banner Advertising.

How much do they cost?

According to http://www.markneting.com/internet_marketing.shtml, banner advertising is the most expensive online form of advertising. This is partially because of the cost-per-impression payment model, and also because of the low click-through-ratio that banner advertisements receive.

Although the cost will vary based on the site, I recently had a client that was quoted that it would cost him about $6-$10 for each click he would get from running a banner ad on several sites including automotive and financial sites. Read the rest of this entry »

Should Small Businesses Still Advertise in the Yellow Pages?

April 27th, 2009

yellow-pagesEvery day, I constantly hear my clients tell me that they are cutting back on their yellow pages advertising because ‘no one uses the yellow pages anymore’. I’m sure you’ve heard it too – many people claim the only thing that the yellow page books are good for is firewood. Although this is clearly not entirely true, it’s good to know about the current situation facing the yellow page companies.

What are they losing?

A report called “Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages” was done in July 2008 by Borrell Associates. This report estimated that the Yellow Pages industry will lose 38.9% of its revenue over the next five years because smaller businesses are focusing more on online advertising. It was expected that in 2008, the print annual revenue was $12.7 billion. This is forecasted to decrease to $7.8 billion in 2013.

The Yellow Pages website doesn’t seem to indicate what their current standing is. Here it says that they are “on target to generate 1.8 billion searches by the end of 2007″. Since this information is clearly VERY outdated, it makes me wonder if the reason why they haven’t updated this is because the current number is lower. Read the rest of this entry »