Businesses today have both a blog and a website as part of their Internet marketing strategy. The blog and the website have very different purposes. The website is meant to promote and advertise products and services. The blog is meant to connect and build relationships. Business blog marketing should be looked at by any business that needs a strong online presence.

We decided to listen to what other business leaders are saying.

1. Cliff Koraska of Koraska Interactive says: “My client recently installed a corporate blog and it has resulted in better customer interaction. From blog posts, we found that most people were not happy with our shipping policies . We made changes based on responses, and our repeat business is up 13%.”
2. Chuck Goolsbee of digital.forest, Inc. says” We use a blog to communicate with our customers the status of our facility. Scheduled maintenance, expansion, etc. Since we use it to communicate everything from the mundane to the important, it REALLY becomes handy during a serious emergency - since customers have come to expect it as our main communications channel. So rather than call or email us, they look at the blog first.”
3. Matt Wasserman of Batanga says “Periodically take some related blog posts, put them together, and turn them into a full length article. Then put them out on an article site for others to use. This builds your reputation and increases your reach.”
4. John Bredehoft of Motorola says: “When I blog, I approach it as offering contributions to the community, which at times result in some interactivity between myself and my readers.”
5. Matt Pfeffer of newMentor says: “A well-written, knowledgeable weblog can provide a crucial advantage to a business trying to distinguish itself in a competitive online marketplace.”

Newsletters are an important part of your relationship marketing strategy. Newsletters can be emailed or printed and mailed. They are a form of targeted direct marketing to a specific established email or address list. This separates newsletters from blogs. Blogs are an open communication that broadcasts your message via RSS to the world.

Newsletters allow you to send industry or company news to your targeted audience on a regular basis. You need to focus on providing value by sending interesting and relevant information. This should be in a summary format that is quick to digest and understand. It is about saving your reader time. They can then determine if they need more information on the topic.

The design of your newsletter should be graphically formatted and inviting to your readers. According to Donna Anderson of Donna Anderson Auctions, “it should be interesting and visually appealing enough to warrant reading.”

Newsletters are generally used for one of two purposes. They can be focused on building your customer base by getting new prospects. Newsletters can also be used as a relationship tool to maintain and communicate with your current customers.

“A newsletter is a great way to stay in touch with your clients, and hopefully, garner new clients through referrals by constantly reminding them of what you have to offer.” — Neal Evan Caminsky- President of Red Dream Studios

Benefits of newsletter marketing.

1. It establishes your credibility
2. Builds and maintains customer relationships
3. Creates cross-selling opportunities
4. Combine to work with other advertising.
5. Email newsletters have low distribution cost.

Make Social Networks Part of Your Web Strategy. Social networks need to be part of your Internet marketing for your business. They are the new frontier that blogging was just a few years ago. Traffic and personal connections from LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace are just too big to ignore.

There are many dozens of social networks, many with specialties or niches. For instance Black Planet focuses on the African American community. 43things.com is about goal setting while wayn.com is about travel. Cardomain.com is the networking site for car enthusiasts.

The best and most effective way to use social networks is to choose the one that most closely matches your market. Find the one that most closely fits your ideal “target demographic” and then spend time and really network and become part of the group.

7 Ways to effectively utilize a social network.

1. Choose a network that includes your targeted demographic. Remember that smaller networks tend to be easier and faster to connect with.
2. Decide on what you want to accomplish and what people (industries, level in the organization) that you want to reach.
3. Don’t just sign-up and visit occasionally. Interact and spend time networking with the members and become a part of the group.
4. Don’t go in looking for customers to convert into a quick sale. Go in with the idea that you want to build relationships. You can create many unexpected alliances that can cause your business to benefit in many unexpected ways.
5. Use the phone to contact “friends” you create to increase the interactions and better build business relationships.
6. Constantly adjust your approach and try new things to get new and better results.
7. Real benefits come from networking over a long period. Don’t expect instant results and the results you get will be proportional to the effort you put in.

The challenge that local small businesses face is how to bring targeted local traffic to their website. Here are seven cost effective ways for a local restaurant or dry cleaner to use to reach local prospects.

1. Organic SEO: Optimize your website with your primary keywords mixed in with city, neighborhood, community and local names. Include phone numbers with area codes. These are all ways that people search for local businesses.
2. Google Local Search: These listings appear along with a map at the top of Google’s search results when people search for local businesses or services. You can add your business listing for free by going to the Google Local Business Center.
3. Facebook: Create a Facebook page for your small business. Encourage customers to join your Facebook presence by offering a free glass of wine or free service. You can then reach them offer specials to your fans. Encourage customers to leave reviews on your Facebook page. Forbes did a nice story on a local restaurant using Facebook.
4. Online Radio Ads: Place online radio ads with a service like TargetSpot. You can geo-target your ad down to the zip code and they advertise that you can start with as little as $50.
5. CitySearch: Citysearch is a local guide with the information on local businesses. These range from restaurants and spas, to hotels and retail. Local guides like CitySearch allow you to advertise with a web ad for a reasonable monthly fee.
6. Blog: Create a blog that deals with local services, issues, history or events. The key here is to create local content that is interesting to your targeted customer and that uses local town and community names to draw in local visitors.
7. Google Adwords: Set-up two campaigns. One that uses general keyword phrases that are manually geo-targeted. The second uses the same keywords with city and/or state added to the beginning or end. Use the state or city terms prominently in the ad to get a higher click thru rate.

It is now possible to market your business without spending any money. Marketing using social media such as LinkedIn, and Facebook allows entrepreneurs to spread the word about what they do and reach new customers. This is the new marketing frontier that businesses are tapping into.

Neal Evan Caminsky of Red Dream Studios does just that. Red Dream Studios is a Montreal based web design and video production company. Although started in 2001 as a part time venture, Neal quit his day job and took his hobby full time in May 2007.

Red Dream Studios has a broad offering including web design, corporate identity packages, Flash, multimedia production and photography at extremely competitive prices. His targeted clients are small business owners and people just starting up businesses.

To reach new customers, Neal Caminsky turned to social media. He chose LinkedIn, Facebook and Blogger.com as his marketing tools. All are free services and just require time, energy and commitment.

1. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is known for providing networking opportunities with executives and professionals from all industries. Neal also connected with past colleagues, some of whom had moved onto key positions at major companies. Neal crated a complete LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn Answers allows Neal to interact in all sorts of discussions on a wide range of topics. These connections have turned into work from high profile companies such as Bell Canada.
2. Facebook: Facebook is one of the most powerful social networking services available and is very popular with small business owners. On Facebook, Neal Caminsky set-up a facebook profile for himself and then set up a Facebook group for his company. Facebook allows publishing of photos and video examples of his work. Facebook networking has brought in work from companies like SoftImage Co. and McGill University.
3. Blogger.com: The third major part of the Red Dream Studios marketing strategy is blog marketing. A blogger.com blog was created and then integrated into their website. You can integrate the blog from Blogger, by having it published to an FTP folder on your website.

There you have it, a marketing campaign that produces results at no cost… only time. Marketing on social media leads to connections and connections lead to business. As a side note, I met Neal on LinkedIn Answers and I was impressed enough to create this article about his innovative marketing methods.

It was the best of campaigns and it was the worst of campaigns… It was Target vs. Walmart

Back in the summer of 2007, two mighty retailing giants, Target and Wal-Mart began waging marketing campaigns on Facebook. What were the results? Well the campaigns are still going on, but by March 2008 Wal-Mart has gathered 116 fans and Target has 20,321 fans. Why the huge difference? What went right for Target and wrong for Wal-Mart?

Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart has not had acceptance on Facebook, partialy because the retailer giant is widely known as the practical shopping store with discount pricing. They tried to position themselves as the stylish shopping place with their “Roommate Style Match” campaign in an effort to connect with college students. They presented themselves as the fashion and style store. This was viewed as Wal-Mart straying from their core values and being unauthentic.

Wal-Mart decided to restrict comments and feedback. Comments were restricted to “wall posts” instead of having discussion boards. This was viewed as one-way marketing.

People are also put off by their controversial policies such as their anti-union stance and their impact of stores on local businesses and local wages.

The result was a flood of negative wall posts that quickly spread to many blogs creating a strong controversy.

Target
Target took a different approach than Wal-Mart. They created their “Dorm Survival Guide” to help students who found themselves in a new situation of worry and anxiety of moving off to college. Their approach was not to market products, but to promote social interaction with discussion groups on topics such as recipes, design advice, and topics students were interested in.

The communication was not in typical corporate talk, but in everyday informal student vernacular. Words such as “awesome” were common. Students were encouraged to swap out photos and videos with their own dorm room pictures. The result was an environment that encouraged interaction and discussion.

Target product promotion was low key. Their focus was on offering aid. This created advocates who would tout the Target brand.

So what were the differences? The Wal-Mart page looked more like an interactive ad while Target’s was much more inviting. Target promoted discussions, while Wal-Mart restricted discussions. Wal-Mart came into their campaign surrounded in controversy over their policies. In the end, Target succeeded connecting with college students, while Wal-Mart has failed.

Facebook is the fastest growing social networking website and business owners and marketing managers should consider adding conversational marketing to their toolbox of marketing strategies. Facebook has powerful features that can help grow your business if used correctly.  Follow these tips as you implement marketing on Facebook.

1. Profile: Build an attention getting profile that will make an impact. Think of this as your branding for your business. Include a good photo, contact info, a link to your website, education, work history, personal interests, etc.
2. Networks: Take the time when building your profile to include the city your business is in, your industry, and other networking information. Let potential business partners find you and make yourself more searchable.
3. Friends: Add friends to build your networking. There are tools to find friends that are already on Facebook. Use Facebook tools to meet people with common interests, build a relationship and gather them as friends to build up your base.
4. Groups: Join online groups that are related to what you do. This is an excellent way to make contacts and build from there. If you don’t see a group that is a close enough fit, form your own. An excellent way to brand yourself as the authority.
5. Blog: Create and syndicate your own blog on your personal profile page. Broadcast your blog using RSS and increase your exposure and increase your readership.
6. Comment: Make comments on other people’s profiles. By reaching out, you will start interacting and engaging with new people and contacts. The more comments you leave on these virtual walls, the more exposure you get.
7. Events: List your events and new services by creating an events page. Instead of printing flyers and mailers, use the Facebook Events app. to get the word out. You can invite anyone you want. Guests can leave valuable feedback.
8. Gifts: send virtual gifts to show your appreciation. Send a virtual potted plant or flowers to make that great impression. There are third party applications that allow you to give unique gifts. A great way to build strong relationships.

Facebook is one of the fastest growing social networking sites around and it has many features that help you promote your business on a low budget. Individuals of all ages use the Internet to socialize on networking sites like Facebook. You can market your business and interact with your targeted audience at a relaxed level.

The approach in marketing on Facebook and any other social media site is to keep the sales pitch low key. The goal is to talk with people, engage them in conversation and spend time building a trust relationship. When they are ready to buy, they think of you first

In the past few years Facebook has gone from a college photo-sharing and friend networking site to a major business networking platform. In choosing a networking tool, you need to evaluate if your targeted customer is there.

When comparing MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn, three of the most popular networking sites, look at the nature of the audience. MySpace tends to be more personal consumers, LinkedIn has a high percentage of professionals, while Facebook tends to more in the middle. There seem to be more small business owners on Facebook

To maximize a Facebook marketing campaign, you need to use a variety of tools and techniques. These include Social Ads, Groups, Events, Fan Pages, Share, and the News Feed. You should use the Stumble Upon and Digg buttons to promote your website or your products and services.

Market Lodge is the new program that allows Facebook members to earn 10% commissions on products they recommend to their friends. Thru Market Lodge, you allow other Facebook users to market your product in their “personal store.”

With new Facebook Apps and add-ons, users can not only send a bunch of flowers, they can send each other a virtual drink, create and host events, advertise their businesses through social ads, and more.

Business networking is important to grow your business. Networking can range from virtual online networking using tools like LinkedIn or Facebook to face-to-face meetings. Which forms work the best? Actually, I find that a mix of real and virtual networking is best.

The age of your targeted customer should be an important determiner of which way is best. Match the preferences of your targeted customer with the networking strategies that you are comfortable with. Let’s look at generational preferences.

1. Baby Boomers, those in their 50’s and 60’s will always prefer face to face meetings. They tend to be less comfortable with computer communication and like to interact verbally and when possible, in person.
2. Generation X, those in their 30’s and 40’s tend to be much more comfortable with technology. They prefer keep it simple and are very likely to be using LinkedIn and other business networking tools.
3. Generation Y, those in their teens and 20’s are the most comfortable in using all forms of technology. They know what they want and they will come find you. They will usually have a good presence on MySpace or Facebook.

Face-to-Face Networking: This can include “Leads Groups” that meets at your local Chamber of Commerce or with organizations like I take The Lead. You can also use networking services like meetup.com to find local group meetings. If you want to connect with senior level leaders, then attending a $300 a plate dinner may be a better investment than attending a dozen networking breakfasts. Many professional associations have terrific opportunities for face-to-face networking.

Virtual Networking: the best networking tools are those that get you in front of your targeted customer. LinkedIn seems to be the most accepted business networking tool. Other popular tools include Facebook, Plaxo, and Fastpitch.

LinkedIn Answers has been around since January 2007 and is a powerful networking tool that is often overlooked by LinkedIn users. It is like an online “social event” where business professionals can mingle, meet and network. You can pose questions on any subjects and get answers ranging from small talk to a masterpiece of insight.

“Answers” is just that… anyone can pose a question and anyone can answer. By asking your question around your topic or interest, you will reach people with very similar interests. This helps you meet new people and make new contacts.

Questions can be asked just of your network of contacts or you can open the question to the entire LinkedIn group. If you are in the mode of building your network, it is best to open this up the entire network. You will find yourself meeting and conversing with many different people, some of which you will want to add to your network.

A question will close automatically after several days or when you to close it when you want. You are first asked to choose the “good answers.” Out of these “good” answers, you are asked to choose a “best” answer. The person with the “best” answer gets an “expertise point” that shows in their LinkedIn profile. This is a great incentive to get people to answer questions.

LinkedIn is the power networking tool for business. LinkedIn Answers increases your ability to meet new people and new contacts and should be part of the growth strategy for businesses wanting to tap into the power of social media.