but for most online shoppers, 

the Internet is their local marketplace.

This is especially true for searchers looking for services. They don’t want a car insurance agent in France or a plumber in Cleveland, unless of course they want to drive in France and have a clogged sink in Cleveland.

 If you are like many small businesses, you depend on local customers and, you don’t want to generate leads that you can’t possibly follow up with. So, how do you get local? Check out this list of strategies provided by Hubspot.com:

1. Optimize your site for geographic-specific keywords.

Depending on the competitiveness of your geographic region and industry, this is a quick and easy way for you to start ranking for various keywords that local shoppers are using to search in Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Just make sure that the Page Title, URL, H1 tag and page content of your web pages include your geographic keyword phrase and that you are consistent across all elements.  If you have multiple pages for each town/city you service, make sure they are different enough so the search engines don’t tag them as duplicate content!

 2. Blog!

Talk about your local services and commitment to your local market. Share success stories of work you’ve done.  Use your blog as an opportunity to showcase satisfied customers and highlight your great work. Remember to use the geographic location in your blog title and URL and promote your blog to generate inbound links!

 3. Engage with local bloggers and city-specific websites.

When you engage with local bloggers to share your knowledge and expertise, you begin to establish yourself as a resource and expert in your industry. You’ll be getting your name and company in front of local readers and begin to develop relationships with influential bloggers who may be more likely to do feature stories about you in the future.

 4. Sign up for accounts on ratings and review sites.

Consumers today are more and more likely to start their research process online for a local vendor, car mechanic, doctor or restaurant.  Make sure your business is listed on the major websites that provide ratings and reviews for various services. Here are a few to check out:

 •Google Places (Free)

Google requires you to register your business online, then verifies that you are the owner by either calling you or sending some snail mail to your address. Once you are registered, you benefit by having the opportunity to appear in Google’s Local Business Results for a given search term. Your ranking inside the Local Listings is based on Google’s ranking algorithm that awards well-optimized pages and inbound links to your website from other websites.

 •Yelp (Free)

Yelp has been around for several years now and Hubspot.com says it is the gold standard for getting information on local restaurants, shopping locations and entertainment venues. However, now they’re starting to see a wider variety of businesses listing their companies on their site, including those in real estate, event planning, financial services and medical service providers. This is a great place to encourage your happy customers to leave some feedback. If you receive negative feedback, it’s a good chance to engage with that consumer and turn their experience around with a heartfelt note or follow up.

 •Angie’s List (Free for Companies)

Angie’s List pulls in reviews of local businesses and contractors. Angie’s List attempts to circumvent fake reviews by charging consumers a monthly fee in order to browse their listings and review businesses. Check it out and see if it’s right for your business.

 Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5685/4-Ways-to-Get-Your-Business-Found-by-Local-Searchers.aspx#ixzz0lwrfdHNU

OK, obviously that analogy doesn’t work… the pitcher and the base runner are on opposing teams. I know. sigh!

Anyway,  Guy Kawasaki, formerly of Apple Computers, is a venture capitalist who’s been on the receiving end of too many pitches. He has a simple framework for pitching fast without blowing it. I respectfully recap his plan here because he is so right on!

Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint Presentations.

Your PowerPoint presentation should only have 10 slides,

Which you are able to present in 20 minutes,

And each slide should contain no font smaller than 30 pt.

• Your 10 slides should be a recap of your Business Plan’s Executive Summary and be presented in this order.

1. The Problem that the market/customer faces

2. Your Solution to alleviate this problem through your product or service

3. Business model

4. Underlying magic/technology behind your product/service

5. Marketing and sales strategy

6. Competition you’ll face and how you’ll beat it.

7. Your Management Team

8. Projections and milestones for your new company

9. Timeline to achieve your projections

10. Summary and “the ask.”

• 20 minutes. “In a perfect world, you give your pitch in 20 minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion,” Kawasaki says.

• 30-pt font. When you cram as much text as possible onto your slide in 10-pt type, you tend to read it.“As soon as the audience figures out you’re reading, it reads ahead of you because it can read faster than you can speak. The result is that you and the audience are out of synch.”

Read more at: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#ixzz0lScJuV18

No matter who writes your plan, be on the lookout for these common business plan pitfalls.

Trying to Please all Readers
You cannot expect a business plan to appeal to every possible audience. Focus one industry or one problem. An over-reaching business plan can spook investors.
Looking Boring
If the reader gets two pages into your plan and is bored, it’s over. Spend some money on a good writer and graphic designer for your logo. And always write the Executive Summary last after you’ve really studied your plan. It is important to have the reader interested right from the the professionally designed cover and compelling Executive Summary.
Being Too Optimistic
Although it may seem impressive to project huge potential for your business, this doesn’t impress banks or investors. Unbridled optimism make you appear unrealistic.
Ignoring Competition
Even a totally original product or service will face competition from different solutions to a problem, or different ways that customers might spend their money due to a poor economy.
Repeating Yourself
Keep your plan’s message consistent, but avoid repeating ideas. Once again, a writer that can transform your plan with creative language and relevant imagery will be worth the extra expense over doing it yourself.
Using Jargon
Not everyone in business is familiar with your industry’s jargon. This is especially true in IT, science and engineering. Rely on general terms that most everybody will understand.
Being Inconsistent
Make sure that information in your plan is consistent from section to section and that every fact you state is verifiable.
Not Proofing your plan
Presenting a business plan that has not been proofed, or vetted by a colleague who provided feedback,
can result in obvious and embarrassing errors. However….
Incorporating Too Much Feedback is not OK
While your colleague may have identified some probable investor concerns, but don’t bend over backwards or be too cautious. Your business plan should be a persuasive pitch.
Following the Herd
Don’t create a business plan that reads like every other plan that’s out there. If you submit a plan that promotes your enthusiasm and your personality, you will be more confident when you get your 30 minutes to present it….and that’s the topic of tomorrow’s blog……Presenting your Business Plan in 30 minutes or less.

Todd Tennant has an informative Website all about local search for small business that provides great practical advice. He gives permission to “post this on your blog or e-mail it to whomever you believe would benefit from reading it.” Thanks, Todd.

So what is Local Search?
Any search trying to find something within a specific geographic area. Example:
“downtown Chicago car rental drop off” or “Simi Valley plumber.”
The type of business and customers you have will determine how much effort you put into local search, Tennant says. For some “hyperlocal” businesses like manicurists, dry cleaners and sandwich shops, a local Internet listing is critical.

Google stats reveal that — one of every five searches in Google are location-related.
Google announced this week that  it is rebranding its Local Search tool as Google Places and is adding new features. Hubspot, Inc.,and inbound marketing firm says, “The change will help business owners more seamlessly manage their presence on Google via their Place Pages and is a move toward Google’s attempt to become “‘more local.’”

The name change from Local Business Center  to Google Places doesn’t remove of any features, but does offer an additional set of features to users and simplifies business owners’ connection with their Places Page.

Some of the new Google Places features:
1.Service Areas -this allows businesses to indicate which geographic areas they serve.
2.Simpler Advertising- even though Google Places is free business can ”tag”their listing (for increased listing visibility) in select cities for $25/month.
3.Real-Time Updates can be added by businesses to their Place Pages, which can be used to announce promotions, events, etc.

Tennant has this advice for creating your Google Places listing:

The Internet is now the first stop for consumers researching information about your product or service.

So do you still need to print sales sheets, catalogs and brochures?

Before you completely abandon traditional print for online publications, consider who you customer is and what age, and other demographics, influence the way they shop.

Seniors still prefer printed publications.

Baby boomers like print but for the most part are OK with online publications.

The younger generations do not want printed materials for the most part.

Donna L. Baker writes in Adobe Acrobat 8 How-Tos: 125 Essential Techniques Adobe 2007, www.adobe.com.
“The decision is not driven by cost alone; electronic publications are quicker and easier to produce, distribute, and update. They can also be easily customized to particular audiences or produced cost-effectively for small niche markets. However, there remains a human need to “touch and feel” printed material, so it is important to retain a balance.”

Regardless of where you publish your documents, print or online, the creation process is the same…research, writing, graphics and layout.
You can post documents on your Website as a printable document (Portable Document Format, PDF) or produce paper copies.

Baker says, “There is nothing to stop you operating a hybrid strategy, printing a number of paper copies for direct distribution to selected customers and placing the same publication on your Website.”

Reading a printed publication is different than reading online. Many older consumers choose to print out a document to read it if the content is really important to them. I know that I prefer to proof my documents in printed form versus online, but I did not grow up with computers!

Print On-Demand
Many companies are utilizing high quality in-house or desk-top printers to produce short-run paper copies. We call this print on demand. Gone are the days when a small business had to lock in document content for a year because they had to buy thousands of pieces to get an affordable printing price.

Adobe’s Baker notes that electronic documents (PDFs) offer many important benefits, including:
flexibility-once a document is in electronic form, it is easy to repurpose it for other formats such as Braille, print-on-demand, Web content;
archiving-legacy material such as out-of-print publications can be retained for archiving or cost-effective distribution to meet ad hoc requests;
updating-making small changes to content does not require an expensive reprint of an entire document;
enhancement-electronic documents have characteristics not available in print documents, such as animation and hyperlinking;
cost-full-color electronic documents cost less to produce than the equivalent print documents;
distribution-online electronic documents are downloaded on request, with no distribution costs.
increased readership-PDFs can be forwarded at no costs, suggesting the possibility of increased readership.
Trackability -Sending a PDF as a link in an e-mail enables you to measure how many different addresses view the document. Posting the PDF on a Web Site for downloading also enables you to measure acceptance.

When you post publications online, don’t forget to include a sentence or two describing the content of the document. The title alone may not help the reader find the right document.

If you need help integrating your print and online documents strategies, I can help.

jeanne@jeannembrown.com

Organizations big and small compete on a level playing field on the Internet.

Small, nimble organizations can develop and post content to the Internet in a timely manner, while larger organizations must wait for committee or management approval. When the market shifts, the small business has a better chance of seizing the opportunity.

 The Internet can help small businesses and nonprofits provide brand awareness, boost sales, and improve bottom lines.

• Organizations should start by strategically determining campaign goals and  objectives.
• The next step is identifying target markets and finally
• creating a budget, calendar and deliverables to carry out the campaign.

Search engine optimization SEO, blogging and other social media tools like Twitter and LinkedIn will make your web site appear for your customers when they use a search engine to find the product or service you provide.

 SEO is accomplished by identifying keywords or  search terms and by writing relevant content for blogs, social media and websites that hinges on those keywords for that specific business. This relevant content can also take the forms of advertorials, blogs, media releases, online brochures, newsletters, white papers, and more.

 If you want to improve your organization’s, brand awareness, boost your sales, and improve your bottom line,  follow these three steps.

• Get found via inbound marketing. 
• Once you are found, convert those searchers to customers.
• Finally, analyze your Internet marketing on a regular basis

The best way to get found is to have a presence on the Internet through publishing  news releases through a free service, by publishing articles (they are also free services for this) and by blogging. In just minutes a day your postings with your industry’s key words can get you noticed. You’ll also learn what consumers think about your industry and how to tailor your product to meet the consumer’s expectations.

 While you are building an Internet presence, you should be optimizing your website and creating landing pages, business reply forms and/or online shopping carts if applicable. You want to make customers out of your visitors.

Internet Marketing Consultants also called Search Engine Marketers can assist you these three steps.       Just remember you want to:

• get found via inbound marketing
• covert searchers to customers and
• regularly analyse your results

There has never been a better time or place for small businesses to profit than on the Internet Today!

 jeanne@oakcreekmaketplace.com

The State of Inbound Marketing, a report by http://www.hubspot.com/recently revealed the following about Internet marketing or specifically inbound marketing as it is more commonly being called today:

#1 Utilizing keyword strategy and appearing for customers on the Internet when they search (go inbound) offers much better results than the traditional outbound marketing strategies we all grew up with that seek to interrupt the consumer with commercials and other types of media  sales messages.
#2 Blogs lead all other social media categories as an inbound marketing strategy for businesses of all sizes. Blogs are frequently cited as the most useful type of social media marketing, far outpacing advertising, with 75% of those familiar with their business’ blogging efforts saying they are ‘useful,’ ‘important,’ or ‘critical’ to their business.
#3  Inbound marketing delivers a dramatically lower cost-per-sales lead than other kinds of advertising and marketing because it utilizes key word search strategies that buyers already looking for a particular product or service.                                                                             Respondents that spent more than 50% of their marketing budget on inbound marketing consistently reported a lower cost-per-sales lead than those that spent 50% or more on outbound marketing. In fact, Internet or inbound marketing-dominated organizations experience a 61% lower cost-per-lead than outbound or traditional marketing-dominated organizations.
Businesses are responding by allocating a greater portion of their budget to Internet/inbound marketing which include search engine optimization techniques. Currently, 37% of business’ lead-generation budget is dedicated to inbound marketing, whereas 30% is dedicated to outbound marketing efforts. Hubspot expects this gap to widen significantly over time.
#4 Small businesses are most aggressively allocating lead generation budgets to blogging, social media and search engine optimization.
Realizing that inbound marketing techniques ‘level the playing field’ with the bigger budgets of larger competitors, small businesses are spending a 180% greater portion of their budgets on blogging/social media and 36% greater portion of their budgets on search engine optimization than businesses with 50 employees or more.
If you need help setting up a blog or researching blog content that is relevant for your customers as a part of your Internet Marketing strategy,  contact us at Oakcreek Marketplace Web Design and Internet Marketing.