Competing against big brands in search engine marketing

Competing against a bigger brand in search engine marketing (SEM) can be tough – they get all the name recognition and the top ad placements, and in many cases, users may have already established purchasing accounts through them (looking at you, Amazon). The good news is, there are actions you can take to compete with the big guys and still turn a profit.

Break Down Bidding with Localization

Even if your business is currently targeted to the entire country (or world), there are likely going to be specific geos where you may do better than others.  Additionally, many bigger brands are likely to use one single bid for an entire targeted area, and you can use this to your advantage.
Using the dimensions tab in AdWords, you can easily pull a geo report at varying levels of granularity. For this example, we’ll look at major metros:

Can you spot the outlier?
New York is coming in at almost double the cost per action (CPA) of the top two metros (Los Angeles and San Francisco). In this case, you may want to either exclude New York entirely or move it to its own campaign in order to better target bids to an area with more competition (cost per click (CPCs) are nearly double that of San Francisco CPCs).
The prime advantage offered here is, while it’s great for you take this approach at such a granular level, many larger brands advertising across a huge number of verticals may not see a big enough impact on localization to warrant adding that layer of complexity.
What this means is you can pick and choose priority geos where it makes sense to bid higher and actually beat out the bigger brands.

http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/02/search-engine-marketing-small-business-big-brands-compete.html

Video Marketing How-to: 4 tactics from a small business that generated 1 million YouTube views | MarketingSherpa

Video Marketing How-to: 4 tactics from a small business that generated 1 million YouTube views | MarketingSherpa

Marketing a Website

Here are nine (9) reasons why you want to run away from this type of quick fix website design solution.
1. You’re not a website design expert, so don’t pretend to be one – How many websites have you designed? How many have you actually built? None? Leave the website design to people who have done it before and know what they are doing. It might seem easy, but it’s not if you want it to work right.
2. It won't be built with any marketing strategy in place – What are you going to say on the site? You have 10 seconds to engage with your prospects. They are looking for certain words to help them feel comfortable with your company. Do you know what those words are? Without any marketing strategy, you will be wasting your money on a site that doesn’t connect with your potential customers.
3. It’s not part of an overall Marketing Machine including the required supporting tactics – If you are trying to grow your business, then you are going to need more than just a website. What about the other tactics? Do you have those covered? Blogging, email marketing, content marketing, social media, referral programs, and the list goes on and on. Just buying a website is going to do nothing to help you grow your company. 
4. Your site won't be SEO optimized, despite what they say – Most of the companies mentioned below will tell you your site will be optimized but, beyond a few tricks, there isn’t much they can do. Optimization has to do with content and keywords. If you don’t know your keywords, your site won't be optimized correctly. If those keywords aren’t in the COPY on your site, your website won't be optimized. If you don’t add fresh content to your site with the right keywords, your site won't be optimized.
5. It won't include the analytics you need to help your marketing program improve over time – How do you know if your website is working? You need analytics that show you traffic, conversions and leads. Most of these sites come with basic marketing analytics, but unless you use them to improve performance they won't be very helpful.
6. You won't be able to optimize it with content – One way Google decides how high to rank websites is on the freshness of their content. Are you planning on adding content daily? If not, don’t expect your site to rank very high on Google, Yahoo! or Bing. Make sure you have considered how you plan to update the site on at least a weekly basis.
7. It won't have all the conversion tools it needs to generate leads – Most sites like this come with a standard Contact Us page. But what about all those people who aren’t ready to Contact You? They need offers too. You need to have landing pages and conversion Calls To Action (CTAs) all over your site. Most of these "instant website" tools don’t provide all the options required to create a lead generating website.
8. You probably won't update it frequently enough – Build it once and then let it go, right? Wrong. You have to update your website weekly. Are you planning on doing that? Do these tools allow that? Give you the options to help you do that? Probably not.
9. You might not even own the site when you are done – Is the site truly yours? If you stop paying the monthly fees can you take your website somewhere else? Read the fine print. We have seen many clients who didn’t even own their own websites. Don’t get into that situation.
Your company website is a business asset. Don’t take it lightly. This is the first place most people are going to go before they even talk with you. If it looks amateurish or half-done, they won't be calling you. Take the time to get this important job done professionally so you put your best foot forward. Your company website isn’t an electronic brochure. It should be the first stop in an amazing experience for your potential customers and clients.

Ikigai

A beautiful post from a LinkedIn group member that inspires me and touches my heart.

It is a great honor to be associated with brilliant and entrepreneurial people like you. Be a part of the Team Spurting Innovation Ikigai Innovation. Ikigai is something important one lives for and the reason for being.

Mission:

To support the spurting of grass-root innovation and help translate it into self-sustaining enterprise adding
benefit to humanity.

Bo Bowidowicz | The Perfect Automated Online Business

Bo Bowidowicz | The Perfect Automated Online Business

Trending Stories Richard Branson on Business Ideas in the Growing Health-and-Wellness Industry Richard Branson on Business Ideas in the Growing Health-and-Wellness Industry What Your Desk Says About You What Your Desk Says About You Barbara Corcoran on Projecting a Big Image and Living Up to It Barbara Corcoran on Projecting a Big Image and Living Up to It (Video) Entrepreneur Daily Dose Blog How to Tell Your Company's Story

Every startup and small business has a story to tell, something that will connect potential customers to your brand. As a business leader in the social media age, you have an opportunity to draw devoted customers by rethinking the way you express your company’s core value.
Foodily, a new online recipe database, set out to brand themselves as the largest recipe aggregator on the web. But after hiring LoveSocial, a Vancouver-based social media agency, they realized that wasn't the story to tell.
Founder Azita Ardakani redefined Foodily's core value, saying it gives you the opportunity to spend more time eating at home with family and friends. On social media, she asked consumers to share their favorite dinner table memories and what it means to them to eat at home. "We saw a natural conversation erupting," she says.
What made Ardakani’s interpretation of Foodily's core value so much more successful was that it created an opportunity for human connection. "Human connectivity is the DNA of social media," Azita says.
Related: A Quick Guide to Making Your Brand's Story More Compelling
In order to engage customers, strive to create that emotional pull. Try these three tips to articulate your core value and humanize your brand.
 1. Expand your idea of value. To stand out in today's market, define your value in human terms, not in business terms. "[Companies] often look at their core value in direct correlation with sales," Ardakani says. "That commercial carrot is very distracting to who they are and who they could become."
Your real value is about what you believe in, what you’re trying to do in the world, and how you make others’ lives better. "You need to drill down to why you matter," Ardakani says.
You might ask: How is your product being created? What is your office culture? You're looking for the thing that your organization truly cares about -- an aspect of your business that makes you unique and valuable to the world around you.
2. Establish common language. Your company's core value is a bit like your vision -- everyone at your company needs to be on the same page. "A CEO and employee might describe the company totally differently," Ardakani says. "[Common language] creates internal alignment about who you are."
Ask a handful of people in various ranks and roles to share five adjectives they'd use to describe the company and two aspects of the business that are unique or valuable. Look for themes or especially strong responses, and synthesize them into a clearly defined description.


Read more...

7 Simple Steps to Creating Systems That Get You Big Business Results

Found this post on a great blog site called 'Big Business Results' this is what I'm trying to master right now. 

 

Does the thought of creating processes and systems for your business scare the pants off of you?

Ok, maybe not complete fear BUT surely it sends you into procrastination mode!
I get that. It took me a long time to understand the challenges most people have with creating systems because for me it comes naturally.
I am that person who . . .

• has to start at one end of the grocery story and weave up and down every aisle crossing items off of my grocery list as I go.
• runs errands one day a week in a circular pattern. Yep, I look at where I need to go and I travel a route that begins at my house and logically ends at my house.
• realizes that driving across town to use a $2 off coupon is not wise. Gas alone costs more than that, not to mention the value of MY time!

So since these things come naturally to me, you can imagine why I so easily develop systems for my business and I want to help you do the same.
Sometimes we make things a LOT harder than they need to be. I like SIMPLE without sacrificing effectiveness and efficiency.
Here are my steps to creating systems. Did I mention . . . you MUST have systems if you plan to get Big Business Results?
And the teacher in me hopes using the letters in PROCESS will help you remember the steps. Oh, and use them of course!
PLAN- Systems won’t happen by hoping. You have to plan to create systems.
RECORD- A good system begins by writing down what you do to complete a task. But since this is where the overwhelm comes in, please focus on creating systems for no more than 3 tasks at a time.
OBSERVE- Once you finish recording, I want you to use your notes the next time you complete the task. It would be even better if you can give your notes to someone else to use as a guide for completing the task.
CHANGE- Following your notes will help you catch things you may have overlooked and make changes to clarify what you have recorded.
EVALUATE- How do you know if a system is good unless you evaluate? Use your revised notes to examine the steps and how long it takes to complete them.
SIMPLIFY- Remember, a good system is efficient, effective and adaptable so now it’s time to make your process a simple as possible. We all do things in our business that are unnecessary, repetitive or overlapping. Find those areas and get rid of the junk.
SYSTEMIZE- Now you have clear accurate notes. Type them up, give it a title and wahla you have a system.
The BEST part about having a system is being able to pass your formal document off the a team member for completion with the confidence that it will get done the way YOU want it to be done.
THAT is how you get Big Business Results!