Click to download the article in PDF

TOMORROW — on Thursday, September 22 from 3 to 5 p.m. — BizzyWeb’s Dave Meyer will be giving a talk on “Fishing for Sales With Online Marketing” at the Startup Meetup for New Business Minnesota. We hope you can attend! As of this writing, 141 people are already registered. We’d love to see you there. 

Register now!

This free workshop – Sept. 22 from 3 to 5 p.m. in Bloomington – features a stellar panel that will give you the kind of overview all decision makers should have as a guide to the constantly changing marketing landscape.

Below are some excerpts from the panelists columns, which appeared in the August issue of New Business Minnesota. To read Dave’s article in full, visit this post on BizzyWeb’s site. 

This is one of New Business Minnesota’s most popular workshops. Register now!

Details:

Sept. 22 / 3 to 5 p.m.

DoubleTree by Hilton, Bloomington-Minneapolis South
7800 Normandale Blvd. S, Bloomington, MN
(Formerly the Sheraton Bloomington) I-494 and Highway 100 

Room Location: Plaza 7

EXCERPTS

 CRM
“The key to making money with [your customer data] is using it to deepen the relationship with customers and prospects to increase volume, sales and referrals. It’s not rocket science… It’s Customer Relationship Man­agement (CRM).”

– Jill Gibson Blyth, Softech Solutions.

 Direct Mail

 ”Direct mail advertising makes more sense today than it ever has. It is a great tool to drive prospects to the web where you can measure activity. If you don’t know what a PURL, GURL, QR, or IMB is then all the more rea­son to call a direct marketing expert. Because of the low cost of direct mail marketing you can test headlines, lists, offers and more to customers before you mail to a complete list. The bottom line is to test, test, test!”
 – Michael Bann, Bann Business Solutions

 Mobile Marketing

 ”You should think about where your pros­pect will turn to find solutions and how you can be there. They may consult their GPS device. They may seek out reviews, testimo­nials or discounts with their smartphones or tablets. They get to choose how they look. Your marketing challenge is to make sure they can find you.”
    — Jeremy Rock, MobileReach

 Web Design

 ”Your website is the starting point of every great online strategy. If you don’t have a great website to reel in customers, lures won’t mat­ter much. And although you can buy a $3 rig from Wal-Mart and start casting away, a cheap template site won’t be nearly as effective at bringing in big fish, and will probably break down when you need it most.”
    — Dave Meyer, BizzyWeb

(Psst, did we mention that you should register now? Because you should. See you there!)

About Dave Meyer

Dave Meyer is the President and Owner of BizzyWeb, a fast-growing company that creates and hosts web sites and social media for businesses and helps them market themselves more effectively online. His "social media for the real world" talks have taught thousands of people around the country how to "generate buzz without getting stung." Dave is the chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Program for 2012. Locally, he is also a past-president of IABC Minnesota, an organization of 400 talented communicators. The year Dave was president, IABC Minnesota won the organization's highest award as the 2011 International Chapter of the Year.

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Click to download the article in PDF

The following is reprinted from the August 2011 issue of New Business Minesota. For a full copy of the articles, download this PDF or click the image to the right.

Your Tackle Box Should Have the Right Lures to Catch What You’re Looking For.

Finding customers can feel a lot like fishing: Sometimes the fish are biting and sales are coming in as fast as you can take them, and other times it seems like nothing you do is getting a nibble, much less landing your next big customer.

Luckily, there’s a lot you can do to find customers online.

Decide what you’re fishing for

You need to know who your ideal customer is if you’re going to land their business. Start by outlining who your favorite and most profitable customers are and then answer the key questions they ask before buying from you.

Grab the perfect rod and reel

Your website is the starting point of every great online strategy. If you don’t have a great website to reel in customers, lures won’t matter much. And although you can buy a $3 rig from Wal-Mart and start cast- ing away, a cheap template site won’t be nearly as effective at bringing in big fish, and will probably break down when you need it most.

We suggest WordPress powered sites for their ease of use and ideal formatting for search engines and social media. You can even set up your site to automatically publish to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and more with a single click.

Fill up your tackle box

Once you know where to look, you need to have the right set of lures and bait to land the customers of your dreams.

• Search Engine Optimization – Your website needs to tell search engines what you specialize in, including key search terms, if you want customers to find you. What would your customers type in the “search” box if they were trying to find you online? Make sure you include those phrases in your metadata, page content and links.
• Your company Blog – Your site should include a consistently updated stream of news. Blogs let your customers subscribe to your updates, and are a great way to tell your story and gain your customer’s trust.
• Facebook Company Page – You can easily engage Facebook’s 750 million users with a page that let’s your customers and prospects “Like” you to receive updates. A professional page actively encourages visitors to subscribe.
• Twitter – Twitter allows businesses to share small bits of interesting information with prospects and customers, and can be set up to auto-publish news from your site. Follow your best customers and it’s likely that they’ll follow you back.
• LinkedIn –  The professional social network is great for job-hunting/hiring, brand- ing and connecting with strategic partners or B2B clients. Search LinkedIn groups and start helping your prospects find the information they need.
• Google Places/Yelp/Yahoo Local/etc. – online directories and review sites are a great way to level the playing field with your competitors. When someone searches for what you do and they’re physically located close to you, you’ll show up higher on the list than others who aren’t nearby.
• Email marketing – It’s possible to send messages right to the inboxes of your best prospects. Trickle campaigns can contact customers and prospects without any additional effort on their part, and you can send messages to your ideal clients with targeted lists.
• Paid advertising – Ads on Google or Facebook let you target specific customers and get your messages to them right when they’re searching for your product or service.

Set the hook

No matter how many hits your beautiful new site gets, Facebook Likes you have, or followers you have on Twitter, it won’t help if you don’t show your customer how to buy from you or find out more. Move them to the next step by asking them to sign up for an email newsletter for special offers, tips and advice. Let them join your online club on Facebook, and be sure to reward them for doing so.

Hire a guide

Finally, sometimes it seems like there are just too many choices and options, and it can be tough to figure out how to make the Web work for you. Hire a guide to set you on the right path, show you what works and maybe even drive the boat. It’s the quickest way to success.

Dave Meyer is the president of BizzyWeb, a company that creates websites designed to integrate with social media and Generate Buzz Without Getting Stung. BizzyWeb offers social media training and integration, SEO services and seminars on new media strategies. Contact: (612) 293-WEB3 (9323), bizzyweb.com, facebook.com/bizzyweb, or twitter.com/bizzyweb.

About Dave Meyer

Dave Meyer is the President and Owner of BizzyWeb, a fast-growing company that creates and hosts web sites and social media for businesses and helps them market themselves more effectively online. His "social media for the real world" talks have taught thousands of people around the country how to "generate buzz without getting stung." Dave is the chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Program for 2012. Locally, he is also a past-president of IABC Minnesota, an organization of 400 talented communicators. The year Dave was president, IABC Minnesota won the organization's highest award as the 2011 International Chapter of the Year.

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Social media has changed the way people interact with businesses on the web. A simple website with text from your brochure (that hasn’t been updated for months) is no longer enough. To get the best results, your site needs to be a central hub for everywhere your prospects and customers spend time online, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more. The good news: it’s not tough to manage if you use the right tools and ask the right questions before you start.

Here’s what BizzyWeb asks our clients to help them “generate buzz without getting stung”:

1) What do you do? Think about your best, most lucrative and fun customers and answer these questions: “Why do they buy from us?” and “What makes us different from our competition?” Work the answers into your website and social media.

2) What do you need to accomplish? Know where you need to “move the needle” before you begin any online campaign, redesign or program. Know how you’ll give your customers what they want, and how you’ll use online tools to make it happen. By themselves, the following goals are useless: more Facebook fans, followers on Twitter, hits on your website, or showing up higher in Google searches.

3) What tools will you use? Once you know what you need to do and who you need to reach you can make something happen. A quick cheat sheet:
• Twitter is great for sharing useful tidbits with your followers.
• LinkedIn is fantastic for corporate branding and reaching out to professionals. (See a great article on how to use LinkedIn company pages at Freelance Folder)
• Facebook is perfect for companies who want to reach out to the public (recent Company Page changes have made pages more simple to use).
• Your website should be the central hub where everything comes together, and where you can post to all the above with one click.

4) How will you measure results? Don’t forget to track what you’re doing so you know if you’re successful. Free tools like Google Analytics, search.twitter.com, HootSuite, TweetDeck, and advanced searches on LinkedIn or Facebook will give you data to work with. Keep your end goal in mind when you measure to avoid wasting time.

5) How will you keep it current? You MUST keep updating your content and listen to what your customers are saying. Set a schedule to check your accounts and respond to customers (weekly at a minimum) and be sure to post something new at least as often. For a great reference of recent news to pull from, check out alltop.com, which features syndicated feeds of hundreds of great blogs.

If the above seems daunting, consider bringing in a pro to help set you up to succeed. Online tools don’t need to be difficult to use – search to find someone you’re comfortable with (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are great places to start) and dive in.

What questions did we miss? Speak Your Mind below and add your essential questions for online marketing!

Congrats to BizzyWeb clients and friends Swanson Law, Triton Marketing and S.O.S. Communications for being featured in this month’s issue along with us!

About Dave Meyer

Dave Meyer is the President and Owner of BizzyWeb, a fast-growing company that creates and hosts web sites and social media for businesses and helps them market themselves more effectively online. His "social media for the real world" talks have taught thousands of people around the country how to "generate buzz without getting stung." Dave is the chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Program for 2012. Locally, he is also a past-president of IABC Minnesota, an organization of 400 talented communicators. The year Dave was president, IABC Minnesota won the organization's highest award as the 2011 International Chapter of the Year.

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WordPress released a news statement on their website:

“This release features a lightning fast redesigned linking workflow which makes it easy to link to your existing posts and pages, an admin bar so you’re never more than a click away from your most-used dashboard pages, a streamlined writing interface that hides many of the seldom-used panels by default to create a simpler and less intimidating writing experience for new bloggers (visit Screen Options in the top right to get old panels back), and a refreshed blue admin scheme available for selection under your personal options.”

A favorite new feature for me is the admin bar. WordPress.com users are used to the bar at the top of their page when logged in to their account. The menu gives you quick access to creating a new blog post, various tools, and other features. It’s very handy for logged in editors and site owners to modify their content on the fly.

Mashable wrote about the new admin bar feature:

“The WordPress.org admin bar will only work when users are logged into their own sites. When they are, visiting the site will display an admin bar that will then provide easy access to comments, the dashboard and other assorted tools.”

Whether or not you are a fan of the new admin bar on WordPress, you have the option to disable the admin bar in your “user’s” panel.

Overall, the new WordPress 3.1 is very streamlined and clean. You will find new additions that will help you out immensely with your website(s) and you might find new options that you didn’t think of having. WordPress is a great tool for website management and content management in general.

You can update now to WordPress 3.1 through your dashboard and it is available for download.

Let me know what you think of the new WordPress 3.1 in the comments section below.

Until then, stay bizzy!

@bizzykendall

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The following is reprinted from the February 2011 issue of New Business Minesota. Dave Meyer, BizzyWeb president, will be offering a live presentation in association with this article in early April

Before you spend a lot of time making yourself look big, make sure you’re thinking big. Make it clear why your customers and prospects should do business with you. Know what do you do better than anyone else, make that message simple, clear and memorable, and use it as your tagline.

Build your brand. Spend a few bucks to hire someone to create your logo. A quick online search will net dozens of great designers, and logos can sell for as little as $60. Put some time into research by sending your designer as many examples and links as possible.

Build a great website. It’s no longer a luxury for a company to have a website. The first place your prospects and customers will go when they’re considering you is your website. Draw them in by keeping your site clear, informative and to the point.

The first thing to consider when setting up your website is the domain name. Keep it short, easy to remember, and go with a “.com” domain if possible. If your preferred domain is already taken, check to see if it’s available at auction and consider bidding if it’s for sale. Domaintools.com offers a great, free “domain suggestions” tool to help you out.

Get a real host. Web hosting has become cheap enough that it’s no longer necessary to look for free or sub-par hosting. While it’s possible to get a site up by yourself with free tools, the trade-offs include settling for another company’s advertising on your site, and limited designs. Good hosts start at around $10 per month, and most offer unlimited email addresses, bandwidth, and storage.

Spend some time on web design. Hire someone who knows what they’re doing. “Website tonight” or hacked-together designs look like you don’t believe in your company enough to invest in it, and your prospects will decide if they’ll do business with you inside of 10 seconds of visiting your site.

If you’d like simple, inexpensive and impressive designs, consider using an open-source tool like WordPress to create your site. As one of the largest content-publishing platforms on the web, wordpress.org offers thousands of professional designs and tools, and makes your site easy to use and update.

If you’re technically inclined, you can put a great site together for cheap, and for a bit more you can hire a professional developer to really make your site impressive. The time you save hiring a pro is time you’ll be able to use making sales.

Make sure you can be found. Spend some time on search engine optimization. WordPress makes this incredibly simple, but in general the more often you update your site the easier it will be to find you online. Make it easy to reach you with obvious links to your email, phone and office location. And register for free with Google Places to automatically get top billing with nearby customers.

For your email, use your own domain. Include first and last names on email addresses to make it appear as if there may be more than one person with your first name in the company. Use department names for official correspondence: for sales requests use sales@yourcompany.com, etc. Be sure to use an email signature that includes your contact information and tagline.

Participate in Social Media. Of course, the web isn’t the only place your customers are likely to find you anymore. Be where your prospects and customers spend their time, and make it easy for your fans to recommend you to others.

Facebook offers businesses free Company pages, and tools like WordPress make it easy to publish news and information from your Website onto Facebook (and LinkedIn and Twitter) automatically.

When you get more than 25 fans to “Like” your page, you can reserve your own username (e.g. facebook.com/bizzyweb) to make your page easy to find. Likewise, post your profiles on LinkedIn and Twitter, and either search for instructions or hire a professional to set everything up for you.

Finally, make sure you use your new online identity everywhere and spend some money on nice business cards and marketing materials. Make your company easy to find when you’re networking by listing all your addresses in one place, including your web address, social media addresses and phone.

Cards don’t need to be expensive to be great: You can get 1,000 glossy, professional cards locally for $100 or less.

The best news in the past few years is that technology has made it incredibly simple to level the playing field. Use the web as your slingshot.

Business owners, how valuable is it to you that you “look large”? How else do you level the playing field with the big guys? Let me know in comments — Dave.

About Dave Meyer

Dave Meyer is the President and Owner of BizzyWeb, a fast-growing company that creates and hosts web sites and social media for businesses and helps them market themselves more effectively online. His "social media for the real world" talks have taught thousands of people around the country how to "generate buzz without getting stung." Dave is the chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Program for 2012. Locally, he is also a past-president of IABC Minnesota, an organization of 400 talented communicators. The year Dave was president, IABC Minnesota won the organization's highest award as the 2011 International Chapter of the Year.

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http://www.iabc.com/awards/gq/judging/articles/meyer.htm

About Dave Meyer

Dave Meyer is the President and Owner of BizzyWeb, a fast-growing company that creates and hosts web sites and social media for businesses and helps them market themselves more effectively online. His "social media for the real world" talks have taught thousands of people around the country how to "generate buzz without getting stung." Dave is the chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Program for 2012. Locally, he is also a past-president of IABC Minnesota, an organization of 400 talented communicators. The year Dave was president, IABC Minnesota won the organization's highest award as the 2011 International Chapter of the Year.

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I’ve been banging around thoughts on my blue ribbon panel experience, and I agree especially with fellow-judge (and electronic communications guru) Shel Holtz’ assertion that a number of the entries “applied tremendous creativity and innovation in support of very specific and measurable business goals.”

That, in particular, is what truly set the exceptional entries apart from the rest. Managing toward real, honest-to-goodness business outcomes is the true hallmark of successful PR, whether it be via traditional methods, blogging or even social media.

Communicating strategically toward measurable results was always “the name of the game,” but the new tools available to communicators will only amplify the signal-to-noise ratio unless everything is done towards a purpose. Page views, equivalency to ad dollars, or even press mentions don’t achieve much other than helping communicators appear busy. I had the honor of judging the first-ever entries in social media this year, and it was crystal clear in the judging process which submissions took the time to think about what the desired end results were before they began their campaigns.

In the new age where content (and moreso relevancy) is king, you need to know how to make sure what you’re communicating is moving audiences toward action. And something as simple as an opinion survey or an uptick in sales or referrals (tracked against a benchmark of course) says a ton more than how many times your content has been “dugg.”

If you want to ensure that your next communication campaign produces real results, visit the Gold Quill rules and build your campaign around it. Even if you never enter, your communication effectiveness will skyrocket.

To offer a shortcut at how to make sure your communications are effective, I’ll paraphrase the key items we screened for from the perspective of someone just putting together a communication plan (note that I’ve worded the items below in the present tense to use as criteria/tips… the actual language in the entry criteria is past-tense as they’re intended to judge completed programs. The real list is available from the link above):

1. Identify as clearly as possible the Need/opportunity. Be as clear as possible in concrete outcomes.
2. Identify your audiences. Demographics, state of mind, background, likely viewpoints.
3. Goals and objectives: Describe what your communication project is designed to accomplish. Goals should be aligned with your organization’s future needs. Objectives should be realistic and measurable, and should examine outcomes such as quantity, quality, time, cost, percentages or other criteria.
4. Outline your project’s solution and the logic that supports it.  Think about your thought process, and use imagination in your approach to problem solving. Discuss how you’ll involve stakeholders in developing the solution. Identify key messages, tactics and communication vehicles.
5. Implementation and challenges. Discern your project budget. Regardless of how much money you have to use, make sure you’re being as efficient as possible. Decide time frames. Outline any limitations or challenges that you’ll face when communicating and implementing your ideas.
6. Measurement/evaluation of outcomes. How will you measure your project’s results? Every result should be linked to one or more objectives. Results must be shown to be valuable, thorough and convincing. Measurement should demonstrate outcomes, not outputs.

As I mentioned, I judged in the brand-new category for Social Media this year. I can’t wait for the winners to be publicly announced so I can talk about a couple of them — there’s brilliant outcomes-based thinking packaged in some really cool technology in the winners.

About Dave Meyer

Dave Meyer is the President and Owner of BizzyWeb, a fast-growing company that creates and hosts web sites and social media for businesses and helps them market themselves more effectively online. His "social media for the real world" talks have taught thousands of people around the country how to "generate buzz without getting stung." Dave is the chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Program for 2012. Locally, he is also a past-president of IABC Minnesota, an organization of 400 talented communicators. The year Dave was president, IABC Minnesota won the organization's highest award as the 2011 International Chapter of the Year.

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2) Will Facebook, MySpace, and SMS marginalize the role of email in communication between friends, family, and peers?

For those of us who use the above tools (and particularly the techno-savvy generation enjoying the majority of their user base), it’s hard to imagine that Facebook and other social networking sites won’t have some impact on email communication. It’s very simple to login to your page, see what your friends and family are up to, and chat back and forth to each other (or “write on their walls,” “tweet,” etc.). Likewise it’s really nice to have the ability to share photos online and play interactive games, or even get a text when someone you’ve subscribed to makes a post.

However, I don’t think that email will be “marginalized” in any real way until the devices we use can more fully support and interact with these tools in a seamless way. The closest we’ve come thus far is the iPhone, which has applications for Facebook, Twitter, Loopt, etc. built in, all in a compact device that also takes calls, shoots photos and handles SMS. And now with the 3g iPhone, the additional layer of location-awareness (GPS) and context has been layered onto existing networks and interactions. It’s even possible (although not really practicable yet) to connect with friends based on where they are.

The key point to remember is that devices like the iPhone are nowhere near ubiquitous yet. To reach critical mass on any technology that would usurp email, we need prices to drop on enabling technology, and there needs to be a massive rush on new hardware. Email remains the consistent/constant technology that everyone from your boss to your grandmother has access to. Messages via email are easy, quick, and allow you to check messages on your schedule. And there’s nothing that will move the status quo on the horizon just yet — not until you can keep everything with you, and until these technologies can convice the mass population that being “always on” is a good thing.

So, will social networking tools marginalize the role of email? Not anytime soon — but we’re moving in that direction.

About Dave Meyer

Dave Meyer is the President and Owner of BizzyWeb, a fast-growing company that creates and hosts web sites and social media for businesses and helps them market themselves more effectively online. His "social media for the real world" talks have taught thousands of people around the country how to "generate buzz without getting stung." Dave is the chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Program for 2012. Locally, he is also a past-president of IABC Minnesota, an organization of 400 talented communicators. The year Dave was president, IABC Minnesota won the organization's highest award as the 2011 International Chapter of the Year.

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Great list of handy tools for business bloggers, or bloggers who are in business, or even bloggers wishing to make their business by blogging. The resources are broken into categories including

• Blogging Platforms (I suggest WordPress),
• Design and Content (including great links to WP templates, Photoshop tips, and content help),
• Blogs about Blogging,
• Business Blogging,
• Forums and Networking,
• Search Engines,
• Stats & Analysis,
• Money Making Tools and
• Tools & Misc.

About Dave Meyer

Dave Meyer is the President and Owner of BizzyWeb, a fast-growing company that creates and hosts web sites and social media for businesses and helps them market themselves more effectively online. His "social media for the real world" talks have taught thousands of people around the country how to "generate buzz without getting stung." Dave is the chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Program for 2012. Locally, he is also a past-president of IABC Minnesota, an organization of 400 talented communicators. The year Dave was president, IABC Minnesota won the organization's highest award as the 2011 International Chapter of the Year.

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As a bootstrapper, you know that clients equal business. Without them, you’d just be another one-man (or woman) shop with an office trying not to go into debt. Fighting for and retaining clients against your competition can be a struggle, just like recruiting new employees or searching for a job yourself is a frustrating battle.

Bootstrapper » 52 Creative Ideas for Finding New Clients

About Dave Meyer

Dave Meyer is the President and Owner of BizzyWeb, a fast-growing company that creates and hosts web sites and social media for businesses and helps them market themselves more effectively online. His "social media for the real world" talks have taught thousands of people around the country how to "generate buzz without getting stung." Dave is the chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Program for 2012. Locally, he is also a past-president of IABC Minnesota, an organization of 400 talented communicators. The year Dave was president, IABC Minnesota won the organization's highest award as the 2011 International Chapter of the Year.

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