In most cases, the biggest obstacle to winning the new customer for your company, once they have visited your website, is in your products, your prices, or even your competitors. It's the trust and confidence that your new potential customer doesn't have yet.

In other words, it's hard for them to know whether you are going to do everything your website promises you will, and whether or not they will still feel good about their decision to buy from you later. If there were some way that you could ease their minds and reduce these fears, your online leads and sales would dramatically go up.

Luckily, there is something you can do to give customers more confidence in your business – you can let other buyers post online reviews of their purchases.

Having reviews on your site works wonders because customers trust each other more than they do you or the manufacturers, at least when they are first deciding whether or not to place an order. And so, if they see lots of four and five star reviews all over your site, they feel confident that they are dealing with a reputable company and are much more likely to do business with you.

In addition, there are other benefits to having online reviews:

Adding online reviews to your website could help your search engine positioning. Google and the other major search engines love customer-generated content like online reviews, and tend to index quickly. That means that your great reviews help you show up on search engines more often, and may even appear in search results themselves, leading to more sales.

Online reviews are great for Facebook fan pages and other social media marketing. Since the essence of social media marketing is getting other people to tell their friends and colleagues about what you do, it only makes sense to integrate your online reviews into your Facebook business fan page and other profiles. If customers love you, why not let everyone see it?

Online reviews lead to more sales and faster sales. When a potential buyer sees that so many other people are happy with your work, or your products, they generally do less comparison-shopping, make quicker buying decisions, and decide to place larger orders. For that reason, encouraging satisfied buyers to leave their impressions on your website doesn't just build your credibility – it directly increases the profits you can make from your business website.

If you haven't tried a review system on your business website yet, get in touch with us today to find out how easy it is to use one to grow your sales.

Owners of all size businesses should have an internet marketing plan that takes advantage of the tremendous opportunities available in the digital marketing environment. If you would like to sit down and discuss these opportunities, you should contact WSI since we have been helping small and medium size businesses grow through professionally developed online strategies since the mid-90's.

If you're in the Madison Wisconsin area, give us a call today at (608) 523-4255 and let's discuss these opportunities right away!

Best Regards,

Thomas J. Holzkopf
Certified Internet & Digital Marketing Consultant
Tom@WSIPrositebuilder.com
www.WSIPrositebuilder.com
Office: 608-523-4255

 Following is a list of the hot trends going on in the digital marketing industry which business's are subscribing to today. WSI is a full-service provider of digital marketing tools and techniques, and can help businesses of all sizes with any of these opportunities: 

1. Mobile Websites. With the growth of the smart phone technology, all businesses should have a mobile version of their website and it needs to be optimized like a regular website so that it is highly visible to the search engines for your important keywords.


2. Mobile Advertising. Same as paid marketing or pay-per-click, only these textual ads are only displayed when the searcher is using a mobile device, and are linked to specific pages on your mobile website.


3. Mobile Text Messaging. Similar to sending out email newsletters, people are able to “opt-in” to your mobile text messaging campaign to receive information from you about special product promotions, event notifications, coupon downloads, and other opportunities that are only available via their mobile device. You have complete control of your campaigns through the broadcasting tool that we provide.
     
4. 5-star Online Customer Reviews. Putting these on a website and integrating them on to your business Facebook page is a great way to increase conversions. Site visitors are able to visually see how well a company is servicing their customers, and then more quickly make a decision to become a new customer. According to a study, 88% of all online reviews in the U.S. are positive ones, and 70% of consumers trust other consumers opinions, while only 27% trust what the experts have to say.
    
5. Blog posting, article and press release syndication. Integrating a blog with a business’s website does two things. First, it is a great way to communicate with existing or potential customers. Second, the search engines consider it fresh content, and will visit and index more areas of your website because of that. Many of my clients use our professional copywriting service, letting us write the blog posts, post them to the business blog, and then submit them to several online article or press release directories where they will also be picked up by other websites and search engines, and syndicated across the internet. We also hook up the business blog with your Facebook business page if one exists where the post can also syndicate across the social networks.
     
6. Search Engine Marketing. Paid search or pay-per-click advertising and organic search engine optimization is still the number one technique for drawing geo-targeted traffic to a business’s website:
   
   
   1. Organic search engine optimization includes on-page and off-page techniques. Detailed documents that explain what is all included will be provided upon request.
   
   
   2. Pay-per-click targeted search engine advertising is the largest advertising mechanism in the world. Advertising can be locally, regionally or nationally targeted.
             
   
   
7. Display Advertising & Remarketing – A “push” form of advertising also known as “banner” advertising. Your banner ad is displayed on other websites who have opted in to Google’s (or other search engine’s) affiliate program. You pay when someone clicks on your ad and visits your website. Remarketing is a technique where your ads are displayed when people who have previously visited your website through your pay per click campaign visit an affiliate’s website. These ads can be static photo images, or include audio and video.


8. Microsites – small 2-3 page websites organically optimized for specific geographical areas. Great method for local targeting. For example, an auto repair shop may want to target people living in Madison, Fitchburg, Middleton, and Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. It is very difficult to optimize the main website for each of those locations, so the best method is to optimize the main site for the primary target area, and then create microsites and optimize those for the other locations.


9. Click to Call – Conversion tactic used successfully to convert website visitors into leads. Visitors simply click on an image displayed on your website, and the system then connects them to your business. Call lists can be set up so that calls follow the list, and then go to a recorded voice mail if nobody answers.


10. Groupon – Discount online selling to specific geographically targeted audiences, Groupon is the fastest growing company in the world. You negotiate a discounted price with Groupon who then sells your product via broadcast emails they send to their subscribers on a daily basis, and then they collect payment, keep their fee, and then write you a check for the balance.
    
    
11. Email Marketing – Monthly or quarterly newsletters, event notifications, special promotions, etc. This is a great way to stay in touch and nurture existing customers, as well as market to potential clients who subscribe to the newsletter through the business’s website. We offer a full-service option through WSI Integrated Ad Solutions (Inbox 360) as well as services through our partnership with Constant Contact.
    
    
12. Social Media Marketing. This is used in two ways. First, it is a great way to stay or get in touch with existing or potential customers, to monitor what they might be saying about your business, and be a part of that conversation. Second, the social media networks are a good place to market to potential customers without trying to sell them on your business. Use of Facebook and LinkedIn ads, additional pay-per-click advertising methods, are growing quickly. We offer social media services including the very basic setup to a fully managed social marketing strategy.
    

Owners of all size businesses should have an online marketing plan that takes advantage of the tremendous opportunities available in the online environment. If you would like to sit down and discuss these opportunities or have us review your existing online plan, you should contact WSI since we have been helping small and medium size businesses grow through professionally developed online strategies for many years. If you're in the Madison Wisconsin area, give us a call today at (608) 523-4255 and let's discuss these opportunities right away!
Best Regards,




Thomas J. Holzkopf
Certified Internet & Digital Marketing Consultant
Tom@WSIPrositebuilder.com
www.WSIPrositebuilder.com
Office: 608-523-4255

At first glance, having another company manage your social media marketing might seem like a strange idea; after all, isn't the point to get more up close and personal with your customers? Maybe, but a trained creative team – one that knows your company's online and offline marketing goals as well as you do – might be able to take your campaigns to places you couldn't.

In a nutshell, that's why so many business owners are turning to professional web design and online marketing companies to handle their social communications. It isn't that they couldn't do it themselves, but that they couldn't do it as well, or simply don't have time. Often, that's a pretty good trade-off when you consider that using Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can help you to bring in hundreds of new customers every year… but only if you manage them the right way.

Here are three good reasons to consider outsourcing your social media marketing, and make more money for your business in the process:

A good social media marketing team can keep you posting more frequently. If you were to trace the path of a typical small business social media marketing campaign, it would go something like this: Business owner reads about the hundreds of millions of people who are using Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to find customers, and decides to start some profiles and participate. This goes well for a couple of weeks, until they discover that they still have too many other time commitments, and the whole thing falls apart.

It's no good trying to find customers on Facebook if you only have time to log in once every other month or so. Leave it to the professionals who have time to write and post – social media marketing is one of those areas where consistency counts for a lot.

A writer who knows your business and customers can keep you on topic. In the same way, too many otherwise professional men and women fall into the trap of constantly telling the world about their personal thoughts and feelings, when they should be finding interesting things to say about their products and industry. Because a good social media copywriter can get to know you and your business, but not everything that's going on in your personal life, they can help you keep your posts and content on message and with the right tone.

You might end up with better social media content, and a much more effective campaign. In the end, your success in finding customers through social media sites is going to depend very largely on your ability to spread interesting articles, photos, and videos, and to do it consistently. With quality content, readers and potential customers always have a reason to come back to your website or social profile; without them, you're just another vendor trying to sell something online. If you don't have the time or creative ambition to come up with attention-grabbing content, then do yourself and your business a favor and delegate the project to someone who does.

Social media is a great way to express your thoughts and feelings, not to mention keep up with friends and acquaintances. But if your Madison area business decides to outsource your social media marketing, it can be an even better way to generate leads and find new business.
Best Regards,




Thomas J. Holzkopf
Certified Internet & Digital Marketing Consultant
Tom@WSIPrositebuilder.com
www.WSIPrositebuilder.com
Office: 608-523-4255

Looking For A Turn-Key Solution To Manage Your Online Reputation & Leverage Social Media?

 

There are two things business owners and marketing managers need to know about promoting their companies over the Internet: First, that it's now the number one place that customers look for products, recommendations, and even business-to-business vendors. The second thing they have to understand is that there isn't any single way to reach those potential buyers.

For years, companies could find a steady source of new revenue simply by optimizing their sites for the major search engines, executing and refining a profitable pay per click advertising campaign, or circulating articles and press releases that brought attention to their websites. Those are all still good ideas, of course, but none of them is strong enough, on its own, to succeed anymore. The web has simply become too competitive.

That's easy enough to understand, but it doesn't make your job any simpler. There was hardly enough time to add regular posts to the company blog before, and now with trends like social media, online video marketing and  mobile marketing taking up more attention, the whole task of promoting your company online can seem like too much work to even attempt.

There are other alternatives to burying your head in the sand, however. With WSI's ReachCast service, it's becoming easier than ever for organizations of any size to add new, high-quality content every week, and in all the areas that matter most. By solidifying your marketing message and spreading it in a variety of ways, we have found a simple and efficient solution for the business that wants to do it all but doesn't have the time or budget.

Here are just a few of the things you get with WSI ReachCast:

• Submissions and updates to a specialized blog created just for your business, plus to all the major search engines, social media sites and local business directories. No more filling out forms or going through complicated verification checks. We will take care of all of that for you, ensuring that your company gets listed everywhere it needs to.

• Content that's more than keywords. Anyone can generate a set of boring articles, social updates, and online videos. ReachCast gives you access to top tier creative teams that devise the kind of content that puts your business in the right light to get spread around your industry on its own. In fact, our base package includes professional copy writing and syndication of 8 articles per month.

• Online reputation monitoring and management. What are customers, competitors, and vendors saying about you? Watching the web for any accurate and fraudulent information is important in this day and age when a single bad review, showing up in search engine results, can cost you hundreds of future sales. And guess what, with the WSI ReachCast service, we not only monitor your online customer reputation, we also make you aware of any negative comments, and we re-promote the positive ones!

• Comprehensive social media marketing. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube already have hundreds of millions of members, and they are gaining steam every day. There's never been a better time to start creating and strengthening relationships via social media sites. With WSI Reach Cast, we create and help you manage your presence on these social media sites.

If you're tired of watching opportunities to take advantage of Internet marketing go by, try WSI's ReachCast today. It's a great way to make sure that new customers can find you online, and that they hear the right things when they do find you.

Call us today at (866) 531-1686, or submit our request form.

Best Regards,




Thomas J. Holzkopf
Certified Internet & Digital Marketing Consultant
Tom@WSIPrositebuilder.com
www.WSIPrositebuilder.com
Office: 608-523-4255

Thanks once again to Chuck Bankoff, a highly successful and respected WSI business associate of mine with a WSI office in the southern California area, for putting this clip together.

Once again Betty (a composite of several of WSI's actual clients) has a mistaken impression of what digital marketing is all about. She thinks that just having a Facebook page is “doing” social media marketing.

It is true that social media and search technologies are currently the most powerful advertising options that are available to all business equally today.  However like anything else, it doesn’t just happen without a strategy.

Betty’s online strategy is a little weak…

For some expert social media guidance in the Madison Wisconsin area, visit our website

 

Best Regards,

Thomas J. Holzkopf
Certified Internet & Digital Marketing Consultant
Tom@WSIPrositebuilder.com
www.WSIPrositebuilder.com
Office: 608-523-4255

WSI Franchisee and Internet Marketing Consultant Andre Savoie recently offered his digital marketing know-how to an honorable cause. Collaborating with the Louisiana Tourism Coastal Coalition (LTCC), Andre put his social media savvy to good use in an effort to increase tourism after the terrible BP oil spill of April 2010.

We all remember the disastrous oil spill and the horrible effects it had on several coastal communities in the United States. In effect, the LTCC aimed to rebuild the reputation of the fishing and tourism industries affected by the disaster. And for Andre, who is based out of New Orleans, the initiative hit close to home and collaborating on the project was a no-brainer.

Launching an Online Campaign

The LTCC already had a web presence – www.visitlouisianacoast.com – but along with WSI and a newly launched integrated digital marketing campaign, their online visibility soared to a whole new level. The launch included:

• Social media consulting
• Split A/B message testing
• Creation of custom social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr
• Ongoing management on their company blog (blog.visitlouisianacoast.com)

Boosting Online Visibility

By launching an integrated social media marketing strategy for the non-profit organization, Andre’s efforts have generated terrific results. The Louisiana Tourism Coastal Coalition has gone from having no social media presence to developing increasingly stronger visibility. Some social media successes so far include:

• Building a Facebook network of over 500 friends
• Building a Twitter following of over 400 followers
• 1,000 views on their YouTube channel
• Soaring blog traffic
• A Pay Per Click campaign that has generated triple the traffic they received in the last month

And amazingly, all of this was accomplished within only 3 months!

This is an outstanding accomplishment. It’s a great testament to WSI’s commitment to incorporating online expertise to our social responsibilities around the world.

To read more about the ways your local Madison and Mount Horeb-based WSI Consultant can transform your business, Visit Our Website

Best Regards,




Thomas J. Holzkopf
Certified Internet & Digital Marketing Consultant
Tom@WSIPrositebuilder.com
www.WSIPrositebuilder.com
Office: 608-523-4255

Internet marketing, also referred to as as  online marketing, digital marketing, i-marketing, web marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet. Internet marketing is used by businesses to create leads, improve brand recognition, and increase sales. In today’s digital world, a complete and professionally developed Internet marketing strategy is a must.

Ever since the early to mid-60’s when the Internet first began, the global network known as the World Wide Web has brought various forms of online media to a global audience in light-speed fashion. Because of the ability to interact in real or near real-time, Internet marketing is very unique and different than traditional marketing channels such as print, direct mail, radio, TV and billboard advertising. In the Internet marketing environment, you are able to monitor your customers’ inquiries in real-time mode and respond to them with immediate responses that are customized for each of your customer’s online transactions.

Four Reasons Every Business Needs an Internet Marketing Strategy

1. Build an ongoing stream of profitable and targeted traffic to your website
2. Connect with customers at the very instant that they're making a buying decision
3. Maximize ad spending by targeting only relevant prospects through specific keyword phrases   
4. Expand your market more cost effectively compared to traditional marketing

Internet marketing is segmented to support various phases of your customer’s decision-making and buying lifecycle as well as after-the-fact customer service. Different Internet marketing programs are applied at the right times for you to acquire new leads, convert them into paying customers, and to nurture and to retain them as your long time customers. These Internet marketing programs allow you to listen to what your customers are saying about your products and services when they are talking about you, and to leverage or respond to their positive and sometimes negative feedback.

A Comprehensive Internet Marketing Program Is an On-Going Process

Your Internet marketing plan is not a one-time program, but rather a long-term strategy. To keep targeted traffic flowing to your website and new customers coming in to your front door through your online channels, your Internet Marketing program should consider the following:
    

1. Interactive Website Design based on conversion architecture principles that will keep your site visitors coming back and taking the necessary call-to-action that you want them to take, such as placing a phone call to your place of business, downloading a brochure or whitepaper, or submittinga form. A website that doesn't convert is basically a poor investment, so this part is essential.
2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) consists of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Marketing or pay-per-click ads (PPC) such as those delivered by Google Adwords or Microsoft's adCenter to bring extremely targeted traffic to your website. SEO provides the "organic" or "natural, un-paid listings you see in the search engine results pages, and involves on-page and inbound link building techniques. PPC campaigns can be targeted to specific geographic locations, so it is perfect for targeting people in the local vicinity of your business, and charges only occur when someone actually clicks on an ad and visits a specific landing page on your website.
   
   Online re-marketing is a PPC technique that allows you to display your ads to people who have previously visited your website but left without buying ... an opportunity where special offers such as free shipping might be in order, for example.
3. Social Media Marketing (SMM) involves leveraging the social networks for achieving word-of-mouth referrals and endorsements, keeping in touch with what your customers are saying about your brand, responding to negative comments, as well as being used as another channel to keep your existing customers and prospects aware of what is happening at your business through special promotions, event notifications and customer loyalty programs.
   
   Usually a good SMM strategy will include the setup of branded pages on the Social Networks, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and the creation of a blog that is integrated with your website, a process to get your customers and prospects to find you and become a fan or follower on those networks, and a process to syndicate your digital assets such as articles, press releases and blog posts across the internet and through each of these social networks. By properly syndicating your digital assets, your message can easily go viral and quickly grow your online presence through these new channels.
   
   Other methods for marketing through the social networks include integrating online videos with your website and syndicating the optimized videos through various online video directories, which provides both customer service and SEO benefits to the viewer. Also, by integrating online customer reviews into your overall online strategy, you can increase online sales conversions by 20% or more. 70% of consumers trust what other consumers are saying about a product or service, while only 27% trust what the experts have to say.
4. Targeted Lead Marketing, including opt-in Email Marketing for Lead Nurturing, Lead Generation and Customer Retention. eNewsletters, event notifications, special promotions, informative news briefs and customer loyalty programs are just a few techniques of leveraging this marketing strategy. Spam is not considered a proper email marketing technique, so this communication is only distributed to those who either asked to hear from you by "subscribing", or at the very least are given the chance to opt-out on every email message that you send.
5. Mobile Marketing is a good reason why "Internet Marketing" strategies are becoming known as "Digital Marketing" strategies. Rather than only leveraging the channels that the Internet provides, Mobile Marketing leverages cellular technology as well, usually through smartphone or tablet devices such as the iPhone or the iPad from Apple. With today's technology, we now have the ability to market your products and your brand to subscribers to your mobile marketing programs, similar to sending out eNewsletters or special promotions to email subscribers. Why should businesses consider moving into this environment? Here are a few reasons why:
   
   1. Currently 1/3 of the world has mobile internet access, which is twice as many internet-connected PCs.
   2. 60% of the world's population is expected to have access to the internet through a mobile device in 1 year.
   3. Mobile web technologies allow us to provide location-specific resources to users with the help of GPS technology.
   4. 2.1 billion people are actively text messaging today, and 2/3 of mobile phone users subscribe to "SMS text marketing".
   5. There are 2 times as many active SMS users as are active users of email.
   6. And the real kicker ... on average text messages are read within 4 minutes of receipt compared to 48 hours for email. While 65% of all email is SPAM, less than 10% of SMS is SPAM.
6. Display ads (banner advertising) or the equivalent of ads in newspapers and magazines.
7. Web Analytics will allow you to see your return on your marketing investment. Without web analytics, you'll never know what is working and what isn't. A good analytics program is essentail to your online success.

Experienced sellers know that reaching a potential customer during the right phase of their buying cycle is key to converting interest into a sale. Search engines have the unique ability to connect with prospective customers at the exact moment they're researching a product or service; they want to find your business ... so make sure they can or you will lose that business to your competition!

Success with these internet marketing programs, as with any advertising, lies in making sure your ads are being seen by the right group of people at the right time. This means knowing who you're targeting and where they can be found. It sounds simple, and thanks to the Internet it really is. Your WSI Internet Marketing Consultant can sho
Best Regards,




Thomas J. Holzkopf
Certified Internet & Digital Marketing Consultant
Tom@WSIPrositebuilder.com
www.WSIPrositebuilder.com
Office: 608-523-4255

Ready for results?

To discuss a customized internet marketing strategy for your business, contact your WSI Internet Marketing Consultant today!

Since we’re early into the new year, we thought it fitting to have our first free webinar of 2011 dedicated to starting the year off right. Coming up on Wednesday, February 2^nd 2011, you can join us for a free webinar entitled “Online Reputation Management: 3 Steps to Balance Risk and Reward!”

This particular webinar is specially geared to ensuring that your online brand is ready to effectively leverage the digital marketing realm this year. After all, expert planning and a strategically implemented social media strategy can drastically transform any company’s online presence.  It has the capacity to launch a local, small-scale business into an international brand name!

However, on the other hand, a company who chooses to ignore its online presence and what customers are saying about them online can be equally damaging. As many online advantages as there are for your brand, there are just as many disadvantages and risks as well!

So, on February 2^nd join us for a webinar, where we’re set to discuss:

• 3 steps to effective ORM
• What “ORM” really means – the ins and outs of online reputation management
• How to protect your brand against trademark / company name violations
• Crisis management strategies

There are 2 free sessions available!

Here are the registration details:

Morning

Date: Wednesday February 2^nd, 2011

Time: 7:00AM – 8:00AM CST

REGISTER NOW!

Afternoon

Date: Wednesday February 2^nd, 2011

Time: 12:00PM – 1:00PM CST

REGISTER NOW!