Is Content Killing Content Marketing?

For years we've heard that "Content is King," and businesses around the world have been listening. The growth of social media has provided a platform for distribution of content like never before, and companies are churning out articles, blogs, white papers and other content at a record pace.

So what's the problem?

Not too many years ago, content was produced by analysts, researchers, writers and journalists who spent a great deal of time developing well-written, thoughtful and provocative material. This material was published for readers who had a deep and genuine interest in the topic at hand.

Whether it was exploring new vendors and service offerings or researching competitors and market opportunities, consumers of this content could be reasonably confident that what they downloaded would be worth their time - and the price of their email address or contact information.

The Benefits of Combining Event Marketing With Online Marketing Techniques

The simplest way to achieve success in today's marketplace is to establish your business' presence online. The internet has changed the way businesses do their marketing. You need to keep up with the times and use online marketing strategies to promote your business. Investing in lead generation services and other solutions marketing firms provide may give your business the exposure it needs to stand out in the online market.

This does not mean you have to abandon your traditional marketing methods in favour of online marketing. Event marketing, when properly executed, may still provide you with the exposure you need to succeed.

Lead Generation

Finding potential customers, also called "leads", is one of the most important steps in a marketing campaign. 

B2B Leads Signify Not Only Opportunities But Also Needs

You have to face it. People these days don't like salespeople. Even business owners themselves are starting to absorb the mentality from outspoken consumers on the pushiness and eagerness of companies these days. Who can blame them? For decades, many professionals and analysts have admitted that companies have cared more about selling than they are about giving the people what they needed. And in times of economic uncertainty, both businesses and consumers alike have become more focused and aware of prioritizing their needs first.

However, does this mean the end of sales and marketing? Hardly. It only means that a lesson should be learned here. It means that you need to prioritize those needs first. Fortunately for you, businesses are likely to have more needs as entire organizations than simply categorized groups of private consumers. On the other hand, how do you prioritize these needs if you don't even know what they are?

Referrals - 5 Steps on How to Turn Your Customers Into a Powerful Sales Team

Having a system to get referrals from our customers is one of the most powerful marketing strategies any business can ever employ.

Yet generating referral in this one is also one of the least used strategies.

At one stage over a 2 year period, I generated over 60% of my new business through referrals from customers. In terms of effectiveness, cost (zero), and the small time input, it's easily the most successful marketing strategy that I have ever used.

So here's the system that I use.

1. Drop hints with clients in advance that you will be asking them for referrals. I often say something like 'many of my new clients come through referrals from existing customers so, as we go along, I will be asking you if you know anybody who might be interested in using my services'.

Restaurants Can Increase SEO With Keywords

Customers search millions of things a day on many different search engines. In order to take advantage of these searches, restaurants can use keywords and phrases to increase their SEO ratings and learn more about what their customers are really searching for.

The big mistake that restaurants do at the beginning of creating their keyword campaign is not using the proper keywords to attract people to their sites. To avoid this, SEOmoz has come up with a few things in their "Beginners Guide to SEO" that restaurants should do to insure that their keywords and phrases will be effective.

They should first ask does the keyword match the content that their site offers. It is important that the people that will be directed to the site by the keyword will be able to find the information that they are looking for.

Big Value In Real World Reviews For Affiliates

Don't let the idea of a review site scare you. If you put together a quality web site, that is a true valuable resource, you can rank well in search engines and provide a great buying experience to your readers. Showing your readers that you are the authority on products and how they work will give them a reason to keep coming back and to buy from you!

We have all been to those so called "review sites" that are nothing more than some reviews pulled from RSS or other online sites and slapped together as nothing more than a quick affiliate site. These can make a dollar or two, but when it comes down to it, with recent search algorithm changes, these sites are low quality and can be very hard to rank. If you are an affiliate marketer and you want to stand out from the crowd and grow your website traffic organically, you may have to put a little more time into your effort, but you can build a high quality review site.

The Importance of Pinterest in Online Marketing

There's a new marketing powerhouse in town: Pinterest. If you haven't heard of it yet, it's an image sharing board, and is currently the fastest website to ever break the 10 million unique visitor mark. The community is largely female-dominant (in 2012, 83% of U.S. users were women), however, so not everybody will be able to successfully market there.

The site is based around user-made boards that they "pin" content to. The content is generally high-quality, aesthetically-pleasing images. Some popular categories on Pinterest include food, interior design, fashion, and crafts. When a user sees a pin that they like, they can choose to "re-pin" it to one of their boards, and everybody following that user will then be able to see it as well.

Working at a Missouri SEO firm, I have a few clients that I feel fall into this niche market. 

Why You Should Be Taking Advantage Of Direct Mail Services

When it comes to marketing your business, or spreading the word quickly to get your company's name out there, there are many options you can consider to get the job done. However, like with anything in life, there are better options to take than others. Some paths may be the right ones to go by for your business, but in the past you may have chosen a low quality service to do your marketing tasks for you, therefore results ended badly. It's critical that whatever marketing method you take advantage of, you seek out a reliable, well reputable service to do the job for you, otherwise you will be throwing money down the drain, and we all know how businesses can't afford to do that in present times. Firstly what you must do, is look at your marketing options, and see which one will get you in front of potential clients the quickest, and most effectively. Then you must choose the right service to do the job for you, then you will have chosen the best way to market your company.

So what is the best marketing method today, how can you get your business in front of a potential client the quickest?

How to Make Your Market Research Work

As an entrepreneur, we need to earn from what we offer, right? To do that, we need to make our customers buy. But how can we make our customers buy if they do not want to buy what we offer them in the first place? You need to know what exactly will convince them to do business with you. For that, you will need to get good B2B leads. And how will you do that? By conducting a marketing survey. After all, you will need the information about these business prospects if you want to understand what makes them buy. You just need to do it right.

1. Identify your survey targets - remember, you are conducting a survey so that you can figure out how to best reach out to the main decision-makers. What you say or offer to them will depend on just how accurate the information that you will get from your market research is. 

Obtaining Telemarketing Services: Having In-House or Outsourced Services?

Even with the cost-effective outsourced services available in the world today, such as telemarketing, many still choose to have in-house telemarketing services rather than to entrust it to a third party provider. However, for small and medium firms that have only recently just started and do not possess the needed resources to have in-house services, the only choice would be to go for outsourced telemarketing services. Both forms may have their pros and cons, however, in-house telemarketing services are just a bit more disadvantageous that going with outsourcing. If you are planning to have telemarketing done for you soon, then you would do well to know which type to get: outsourced or in-house services.

As said above, both sides have their positives and negatives but as also mentioned, in-house services may just be a little more of a hassle to handle unlike with outsourced services. Hopefully, this article won't discourage you from picking in-house but rather just give you a view of what you would be getting into.