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20 Replies Last post: Aug 13, 2009 3:06 PM by WebVisible

Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising

Sep 23, 2009 7:50 PM

Click to view SBOCTeam's profile sboc SBOCTeam 328 posts since
Jul 27, 2007
You've built a great small business and know that the right type of marketing can help you achieve your goals. But, with so many advertising options and so little time to investigate them, you need proven strategies and techniques to make the most of your investment and help drive new business opportunity. The Internet is now the number one choice for consumers when looking for a local business, product or service. Discover the most effective ways to leverage online advertising to grow your business. Learn how to maximize your exposure, convert visitors to customers and accurately track your return on investment. Kirsten Mangers, an expert in Internet marketing for small business will be online to help you navigate these challenges drawing from their experience and a tool called CompassTM.

Kirsten will be on SBOC to answer questions such as:

  • What are some quick-hit strategies that I can use to ensure I'm investing the right amount and in the right advertising areas?
  • Besides asking customers how they heard about my business, how can I measure the true impact of advertising on my bottom line?
  • Like most small businesses, I don't sell products through a Web site, so how important is an information-only Web site to the success of my marketing & advertising efforts?
  • How much time/effort should I spend trying to optimize my Web site for high search engine rankings?

About Kirsten

Kirsten Mangers is chief executive officer and co-founder of WebVisible. A recognized small-business advocate, she has delivered on the promise of leveraging the Internet to drive local traffic to local businesses.

WebVisible, a global leader in local interactive advertising, blends art and science to ensure local merchants can be found online at anytime, on any device, in order to drive new opportunities through major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN; online display and video ad networks; and mobile/location-based advertising.

Kirsten will be live on SBOC on August 13 at 2:00 p.m. EST. However, if you can't participate at that specific day/time - you can post a question now and check back during or after the event for Kirsten's response. Kirsten will try to answer as many questions as possible on the 13th, but may not get to all of them. Note, you do not need to register for the event. You simply need to be a member of SBOC to post a question. If you don't have a user ID, join now, it's free.

For more tips on participating in events click here:
http://smallbusinessonlinecommunity.bankofamerica.com/thread/17347?tstart=0

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Click to view antiques4me's profile Mogul antiques4me 22 posts since
Feb 19, 2009
1. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 4, 2009 10:10 PM
What are different online advertising options if I own a physical store? And how do I go about determining which advertising method is right for me? A friend of mine suggested that I purchase an add on City Search. Not sure if it's worth it or not. What are my options? And how much does each cost?
Click to view SBOCTeam's profile sboc SBOCTeam 328 posts since
Jul 27, 2007
2. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:00 PM

Community Members,


Please join us in welcoming Kirsten Mangers to your Small Business Online Community. Kirsten is here to answer

questions on how to maximize the impact of online advertising to grow your business. Today, Kirsten will be using

the screen name WebVisible.


About Kirsten

Kirsten is chief executive officer and co-founder of WebVisible. A recognized small-business advocate, she has

delivered on the promise of leveraging the Internet to drive local traffic to local businesses.


WebVisible, a global leader in local interactive advertising, blends art and science to ensure local merchants can

be found online at anytime, on any device, in order to drive new opportunities through major search engines such as

Google, Yahoo! and MSN; online display and video ad networks; and mobile/location-based advertising.


To all Community Members
If you have questions for Kirsten, post it here by simply hitting reply and then refresh your browsers often to

view Kirsten's responses. She will try to answer as many of your questions as possible.

Click to view SBOCTeam's profile sboc SBOCTeam 328 posts since
Jul 27, 2007
3. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:03 PM
Kirsten will be answering the question from antiques4me first. Keep posting your questions by hitting the reply button.
Click to view SBOCTeam's profile sboc SBOCTeam 328 posts since
Jul 27, 2007
4. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:07 PM

What are some quick-hit strategies that I can use to ensure I'm investing the right amount and in the right

advertising areas?

Click to view Bluesuit's profile Mogul Bluesuit 136 posts since
Oct 23, 2007
5. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Adverti Aug 13, 2009 2:12 PM
How effective is advertising in online social media? I hear that people are often too busy socializing on these sites, that ads are simply ignored? What do you think?
Click to view WebVisible's profile Professional WebVisible 9 posts since
Aug 12, 2009
6. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Adverti Aug 13, 2009 2:20 PM
in response to: Bluesuit

The latest information on social networking shows us that local advertising plays a major role in individual user sessions. In fact, Facebook just announced that over 70% of their advertising revenues are from local advertising.


Because people are spending a longer than normal session on social sites, your advertising is being viewed for longer periods of time, giving it potential for higher conversion.


The advertising is targeted based on your user profile thus it is normally of higher relevancy.

Always be careful to make sure your advertising content is crisp, geographically relevant and appearing in the right area of a social site

Click to view WebVisible's profile Professional WebVisible 9 posts since
Aug 12, 2009
7. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Adverti Aug 13, 2009 2:24 PM
in response to: Bluesuit

Always take advantage of the "free" stuff! Your first step is to build a personal profile page and the next step is to build a company profile page. List your affiliations and corporate page on all your collateral and email signatures.

Example: See us on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Include your "handle" for all. Let your customers know they can be a "fan" of your company. You can even start promoting specials and new offers on your profile page. A quick, easy and CHEAP way to self-promote!

To learn more on effective usage of social media , visit the WebVisible Blog Post at: http://blog.webvisible.com/blog/webvisible/0/0/why-should-a-plumber-be-on-facebook-
Click to view MajorNathan's profile Authority MajorNathan 8 posts since
Jun 16, 2009
8. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:28 PM
What has been or will be the effect of the search engine consolidation?? Are SEO and natural search still something that should be a high priority when running a website??
Click to view WebVisible's profile Professional WebVisible 9 posts since
Aug 12, 2009
9. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:33 PM
in response to: MajorNathan

I believe you are referring to the latest announcement that Yahoo and Microsoft are partnering in the Search Engine Network world. The deal we affectionately call Microhoo or Bing-Hoo! This is actually good news for those of us advertising as local businesses online.


Microsoft has always had phenomenal search technology with MSN but has not achieved the audience level of Yahoo. The combined entity will provide us a better search and advertising experience combined with a far superior reach to users. Together they hit 22% plus of the search market and become a viable competitor to Google.


"Optimizing" a web site to appear high in the search results in engines like Google, Yahoo! or Bing can be effective, but often elusive and time consuming. You are competing with businesses that have much more content. And although many factors play a role in search results, content is usually king.


So, getting to the top 10 in the natural listings, and staying there, can be very difficult. Keep in mind, if your listing doesn't appear on the first page of the search results, you are probably out of luck. Consumers generally will not continue to click through, page after page of results-they usually click on only the top few that appear in the search results.


Search engines use complex algorithms to give consumers the most mathematically relevant results to their query. To achieve top placement in the organic rankings, be prepared to spend the time (and expense) optimizing your Web site on an ongoing basis. The algorithms that determine the result placements are fluid, and different for each engine. A third place ranking can quickly drop to 40^th^ or 100^th^ place so ongoing optimization is necessary.

Click to view MajorNathan's profile Authority MajorNathan 8 posts since
Jun 16, 2009
10. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:35 PM
When using an integrated advertising campaign that drives people to my store or the website, how do I figure out where the traffic (foot and electronic) came from?? I have a local search optimized so it is hard to tell where the conversions came from.
Click to view SBOCTeam's profile sboc SBOCTeam 328 posts since
Jul 27, 2007
11. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:40 PM

Ok, just want to take a second to see if the community has any questions? Feel free to reply, your questions will

be answered in order it was received. Thanks!

Again, please refresh your browsers.

Click to view WebVisible's profile Professional WebVisible 9 posts since
Aug 12, 2009
12. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:43 PM
in response to: MajorNathan

Tracking the efficacy of your advertising campaigns remains one of the largest challenges to a small business owner. Yes, there is the proverbial how did you hear about me, but what of the available technologies to simplify tracking your leads?

As stated earlier, the Compass Lite tool provides constant access to advertising efficacy across multiple formats traditional and non-traditional.

As for the online world, we have never had so much visibility into our ad dollars spent. For instance, at WebVisible we offer products that include email lead forms, call tracking numbers, promotional URL's, coupons and video. All events are tracked moment-by-moment and in real time. You can see where your customers are calling from and even see if they have printed driving directions. All the data is available in a 24/7 merchant center for the business owner's review.

This simplifies the process of knowing where the customer comes from and allows us to focus our marketing efforts on the high return on investment strategies we all need. It makes the term "I don't know how much of my marketing works or not" out of play!

Click to view SBOCTeam's profile sboc SBOCTeam 328 posts since
Jul 27, 2007
13. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:45 PM

A few weeks ago, Brent Leary spoke about mobile marketing. What are your thoughts on the viability of mobile

devices for marketing purposes? Is this an area that a small business should explore or should that be left to the

larger corporates?

Click to view WebVisible's profile Professional WebVisible 9 posts since
Aug 12, 2009
14. Re: Event 8/13: How to Maximize the Impact of Online Advertising Aug 13, 2009 2:53 PM
in response to: SBOCTeam

I absolutely believe that mobile advertising is something the small business should consider. I think of local usage online as many different personas. You search at home differently than you do at work and again, differently when you are mobile. In fact, data from Kelsey shows us

70 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers with access did Internet searches on their phones in 2008

This is up 14 percent from 2007.


Advertising on mobile devices is normally quick, concise text messaging or a website or landing page that can render on the mobile device. There are several things to consider:


Firstly, there are many relevant applications on iPhones or on the major devices available for media purchase such as Yellowpages.com and Google Local Listings. Make sure you ask your sale representatives where they distribute their content in the wireless world.


Secondly, and if you are serious, make sure your content on your website can render on any mobile device.


Remember, most folks searching for products and services on their wireless devices are searching "hyper-locally." They desire local business and not just the national brands.

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