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By admin, February 8, 2012

Press Releases Are Important

If you are looking to do more online marketing for your business or practice-then you should consider using press releases. Press releases are a great way to build “digital assets” that help your business in many ways. I have outlined 5 reasons why press releases can be important to your business.

1. CONTRIBUTES TO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

Google, and the other engines, give more credibility to press releases because of their high visibility and relevancy. Some of the press releases that I have written have over 500 views, drive lots of traffic to the company’s website, and in some cases, show up in a Google search very quickly.

2. CAN LEAD TO MORE PUBLIC RELATIONS ACTIVITY

If your press release is current, timely, and optimized for certain keywords for current events it can get picked up by a reporter from the news media, or others interested in the topic. This can open the door for more publicity in the form of radio or television interviews, quoting of your copy in newspaper articles, and other public relations activity.

3. CAN HELP WITH COMPANY BRANDING EFFORTS

When people search for your company’s name, the press releases will show up in a search. If linked correctly, a press release can be another way to build your brand because the search engines are only going to reference a certain number of pages from your website. Press releases allow you to decide what content you want people to see when they search for your company name.

4. BUILDS LINKS TO YOUR WEBSITE OR BLOG

Every press release that is written, if done correctly, will get posted on multiple sites. Some of these sites will link back to your website which, in turn, helps your SEO and page ranking results. Many premium, or paid press release services allow you to include some text links, which will help your search engine optimization efforts.

5. ESTABLISHES YOU AS A LEADER IN YOUR FIELD

Posting press releases increases communication and brand visibility, and this communication helps you gain the trust of your potential clients. Once they trust you, they are more likely to work with, or buy from you.

DON’T FORGET TO MONITOR YOUR EFFORTS

For press releases to be a good use of your time and money-I’d suggest that you monitor analytics to determine which content and outlets are working and which are not. You can review the amount of coverage you are getting through most paid press release services as they include analytics such as views, Facebook Likes, Tweets, and search engine visits. In addition to the analytics from the press release service- there are a number of paid services such as webclipping.com, ewatch.com, mediaclipping.com, and Lexis-Nexis, who also monitor mentions of companies and provide you with detailed reports. I also recommend that you have Google Analytics tracking code on your website so you can also monitor which of these sites are directing traffic to your website.

FREE, PAID, or DIY

Free or paid press release services like PRlog.org, PRleap.com, or PRWeb.com, can be effective, but most marketing and advertising professionals agree that press releases sent to a specific editor or journalist directly from you will be read much faster than any press release coming out over a wire. You can pay a marketing or advertising service to help with this as many of these firms have established these contacts already. Or, you can conduct your own research to find the editor or writer in the publication you’d like to target. The advantage to making those contacts yourself- is that, over time, you become known as a knowledgeable expert in your field that this reporter, and others, will turn to, when needed, to get a quote or interview for their story.

Press releases can be an important element in your organization’s overall marketing strategy. If you’d like more tips on using press releases go to my companion article: 6 Tips for Optimizing your Press Releases.

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By admin, January 5, 2012

Oh, Don’t Forget Sends Text Message Reminders

Mobile Devices Aid Multi-tasking

An increasing number of people are using their mobile devices and calendar programs to schedule meeting reminders to keep up with all of their activities. There are also a growing number of programs and tools being developed to help with multi-tasking; enabling us to better track and prioritize our work and family activities.

Scheduling Reminders Helps

I don’t know about you but if I schedule reminders for myself for tasks or meetings then I am more apt to complete the task, plan for, and be on time for meetings.

In addition, many of my coaching clients report increased success in accomplishing goals if they use reminders to schedule actions needing completing on their to do lists.

More People Will Read a Text than Email

Given the growing usage of texting, and the increased likelihood of responding to a text vs. an email, I searched for a text reminder service that would be useful and Ohdontforget.com seemed to work the best.

Ohdontforget.com Text Service

Text messages scheduled through Ohdontforget.com are delivered at the date and time you specify, unless you schedule for “now,” which will send the message immediately.

The Ohdontforget.com service also allows you to remind others by text about an event at a specific date and time.

The service can be used in many ways such as to queue up birthday reminders, or to have your to–do list items sent to you throughout the day.

There is a free version of the service which is limited to sending text messages, and the premium version of Oh, Don’t Forget lets you set up recurring messages/to do lists, review message logs, use up to160 characters, import an address book, and has no ads. It costs $4.95 per month or $47.50 annually.

Text Instead of Email

If you are overloaded with email- you may want to try texting yourself instead with Oh, Don’t Forget and see if it works for you.

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By admin, December 5, 2011

Many companies understand the importance of reserving their company name across the web on various social media sites. If you discover that someone is using your brand name- you have several options; you can resort to legal action to gain possession, or alternatively, create a similar username, but it is better to be proactive and gain control of your name before a problem arises. Due to the growing usage of, and changing nature of the social media landscape-it can be a challenge keeping up with the growing list of sites dedicated to social networking. Even if you don’t plan on using some of these the sites right away, it is still a good idea to at least register your domain or username in case you want to use it in the future.

Here are several reasons why you need to use a tool like KnowEm:

1. It will negatively affect your brand if someone else misuses your name
2. It enables people to more easily find you if there is a consistent name across sites
3. It allows you to more easily monitor your name/brand
4. It helps you create more links into your website and improves search engine optimization (SEO)

This is where the brand security tool named KnowEm comes into play.

“KnowEm allows you to search over 550 popular social networks, as well as over 150 domain names, and the entire USPTO Trademark Database for the use of your brand, product, or personal name.”

At no cost, with one click of a mouse, you can scan your name, brand, or trademarked terms on multiple social media networks to see if they are available for you to register, or are being used by someone else.

I like using the service because it helps me to keep up to date on all the social networks available to my niche and can open up new opportunities to reach your target population.

Although you can certainly register your name on each social media site for free-KnowEm allows you to track which sites you have signed up for and offers paid plans that range in price from $99 to $599. The paid plans include varying levels of registration of your company profile on each social media site. As you probably know from signing up for these sites-the registration process can take considerable time- so may be worth the investment to have it done for you.

Whether you use the free or paid service on KnowEm you will be more in control of your brand, more aware of the opportunities social media affords you, and more likely to have in place protection against any future violations of your brand. For more brand monitoring tool ideas and to learn what to do if you get a bad review-see my companion article “What To Do When You Have Bad Reviews.”

What monitoring tools do you use?

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By admin, December 5, 2011

With the explosion of review sites on the internet, more and more businesses are finding negative reviews about their business online. You may not even know that someone has written a bad review because business owners are not consistently notified by all sites when a review is written. Given the seriousness of a bad review for your business image- it is important to know what is being written about you on the web. This article reviews what to do when you find a negative review online, and how to monitor the internet to make sure you can quickly see the review and can respond to what was written.

Review Sites Are Trusted But Not Always Reliable

Review sites like Yelp, and Google Local provide consumers many advantages for quickly researching and finding detailed information on prospective businesses. According to a 2009 Nielson study, 70 percent of people trust consumer opinions posted online. The review sites also provide consumers with ways to easily share their experiences with providers. Unfortunately for providers, some people are using these sites as an alternative to direct communication about their negative experiences. In some cases, these comments are posted anonymously, as it is easy to set up a new email account and create a pen name with free email services like AOL, MSN, and Gmail.

Even if you believe that the negative post is not accurate-it does not matter to the review site visitors as this is one person’s opinion; and as we know, people who do not know you- may judge you based on how others perceive you. Therefore, by addressing the negative review- you are taking a proactive approach to maintaining a positive reputation.

Steps For Getting Your Bad Review Removed

Once you discover the negative review online, there are a number of steps that you can take to address it.

The first step that I recommend is to try to contact the person who submitted the review using the email or other contact information found in their profile on the review site. Ideally, if you can address the reviewer’s concerns they may choose to remove their review. If they do not and you feel the complaint is unfounded or untrue you can choose to contact the review site and try to get them to remove it.

The next step, is to contact the review site such as YELP, Google Touchlocal, Healthgrades, and ask what the process is to contest the review.

Depending on their policy, the review site may or may not remove the post depending on the validity of the reviewer and the content of the review. The Communications Decency Act (“CDA”), even though it was created to protect free speech, effectively provides some immunity to the websites that publish or distribute the content of others. For this reason, even if a negative review is totally baseless, it can be very difficult for a victim of this online defamation to get the site to remove it.

Ask For Good Reviews

In most businesses, another strategy that works well in combating negative reviews, is to solicit positive reviews from satisfied customers. This works well because the most recent reviews posted show up on top of the review listings and push older reviews to the bottom. Some professions have ethical guidelines that prohibit their members from soliciting reviews so check with your professional industry association to see what is allowed.

How to Monitor Your Online Reputation

I do recommend that every business set up an early detection alerts using Google and Yahoo Alerts. Google Alerts and Yahoo email alerts can be set up using your desired keywords. Emails are sent to you when Google or Yahoo finds new results that match the keywords that you want it to find. You can set it up for your name, a product name, or the name of your business or organization, and every time the keyword(s) is mentioned, any where on the internet, you get an email with a link to the source. If you are not sure what keywords to track- then just enter your main “buzz” word at Google Suggest to see what are the most commonly searched terms. You can also search in Google Trends for the most recent search trends.

Setting up these alerts is a good idea for the following reasons:

•People may be talking about you or your organization online, whether you choose to listen or not

•It helps you monitor Google and Yahoo results (news, blogs, web, video, training) in real-time

•It allows you to respond quickly to negative reviews or other content about you or your organization

Also, make sure that your business is registered completely on the review sites with accurate contact information. That way, you can be notified when a new review is posted. In this way- you can more quickly address positive or negative reviews and understand what your customers value.

There are other monitoring tools such as Monitor This which allows you to monitor a single keyword across 22 different search engine feeds at the same time, and Trackur which is useful if you are interested in social media monitoring.

Be Proactive With Your Online Reputation

Given the amount of information now available publically online in chats, forums and social networking sites- I recommend that you take a proactive approach to protecting your organization. You may not even be aware that your business has a bad review, or even a positive review on the internet. It might have been posted by a client, your competition, or a disgruntled employee. The internet has changed the way people communicate and express their feelings, and all businesses must adapt to these changes which, if done correctly, can enhance your relationship with your customers and give you greater insight into your customer’s needs.

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By admin, October 31, 2011

Consider Wall Calendars as Effective Branding Tools

To customers, a calendar isn’t advertising, it’s a thoughtful gift. When a customer displays your calendar, it is a personal recommendation of your brand to everyone who sees it.

Consider these facts:

• 83% of customers purchase products or services from the advertiser who supplied them with a calendar, while only 78% did business with the advertiser before receiving the calendar
• 94% of all business people can recall the advertising message on their calendars
• On average, a person looks at a calendar 12 times a day, 84 times a week
• After 365 days, your brand will leave a definite impression: 4,380 times

Given these numbers, calendars are the obvious choice for branding because calendars outperform most other forms of advertising.

There are many options for design that can include adding pictures of products, staff or even adding coupons. Now is the time of year to order your wall calendars. Be sure to include your logo, business name, contact information, website and social media information on the calendars.

Call Wayne at 781-956-9999 for more information on styles, designs and cost. Orders should be in as soon as possible to print in time for the holidays.

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By admin, October 31, 2011

SnapTags for Mobile Marketing

SnapTags can turn your ordinary brand logo into an interactive marketing experience. SnapTags provide business owners an opportunity to engage consumers and create a mobile relationship with them. Consumers participating in a SnapTag campaign can opt in to receive more information, get brand updates or get involved in the brand’s loyalty campaign. All they need is a camera phone to simply take a picture of the logo in which a barcode is embedded.   The image can be sent to a code via text message and instantly the user will be provided exclusive information or downloadable content concerning your business. SnapTags can be posted on anything, including your company’s Facebook page, YouTube channel, or any social media site. Snap tags can be found on the Spyderlynk website.

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By admin, October 25, 2011

A Mobile Website is a Necessity

Market trends indicate that mobile web use is exploding onto the local and global marketplace. Nowadays, everyone has a mobile phone, and an increasing number of people are using their mobile device to conduct searches for products and services. For example, 60% of smart phone users conduct local searches on the web using their cell phone, and 50% of all internet searches for local products and services are done from mobile devices. For businesses that can adapt, this translates into new revenue opportunities, and revolutionary communication and marketing possibilities.

Research has shown that most existing websites cannot be used on mobile devices effectively. And, if you have you taken the time to view your own website on a mobiles device- you were probably not impressed because most websites were created for computer monitors, not small screens. Most sites when viewed on a mobile device are difficult to read, navigate, or have missing text or pictures.

Benefits of a Mobile Website

A well built mobile-friendly website will:

• Show up higher in search engine results for local searches
• Help you attract and retain more customers
• Integrate seamlessly with social media platforms
• Load quicker and be easier for people “on the go” to find/contact you
• Give you a competitive edge over your competition
• Easily integrate with phone selling and ecommerce
• Work better with SMS text marketing

I have observed on Google analytics data that bounce rate (percentage of visitors who enter your website and “bounce,” or leave the site, rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site, is high for mobile users. You have, at most, 3-4 seconds to keep the visitor on your website when they search for it using their mobile phone. If your website looks like a mess, and is difficult to navigate, then you lost your potential customer on the spot.

Kessler Marketing offers a range of custom mobile website design solutions starting from simple information websites to large websites, all platform-independent. We design simple, beautiful, yet efficient and professional mobile websites by focusing on the user’s experience, so your customers can easily view and navigate through your website on their mobile phone. We create mobile sized, fast loading mobile web pages, that are easy to navigate. We can also convert your existing website to a mobile compatible website to make it more mobile friendly.

Get a Quote

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By admin, October 11, 2011

If you are looking to do more online marketing for your business you should consider press releases. Press releases are a great way to build digital assets that help your business in many ways. I have outlined 5 reasons why press releases can be important to your business.

1. CONTRIBUTES TO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMZATION (SEO)

Google, and the other engines, give more credibility to press releases because of their high visibility and relevancy. Some of the press releases that I have written have over 500 views and in some cases, show up in a Google search very quickly.

2. CAN LEAD TO MORE PUBLIC RELATIONS ACTIVITY

If your press release is current, timely, and optimized for certain keywords for current events it can get picked up by a reporter from the news media, or others interested in the topic. This can open the door for more publicity in the form of radio or television interviews, quoting of your copy in newspaper articles, and other public relations activity. And whenever the media needs someone to comment on a story related to your industry, you will be the one they call on.

3. CAN HELP WITH COMPANY BRANDING EFFORTS

When people search for your company’s name, the press releases will show up in a search. If linked correctly, a press release can be another way to build your brand because the search engines are only going to reference a certain number of pages from your website. Press releases allow you to decide what content you want people to see when they search for your company name.

4. BUILDING LINKS

Every press release that is written, if done correctly, will get posted on multiple sites. Most of these sites will link back to your website which, in turn, helps your SEO and page ranking results.

5. ESTABLISHES YOU AS A LEADER IN YOUR FIELD

Posting press releases increases communication and communication helps you gain the trust of your customers. Once they trust you, they are more likely to buy from you.

There are many reasons press releases are a good use of your time and money. If you do decide to use them, then I would suggest that you monitor the amount of coverage you are getting to see which outlets are working for you. There are a number of paid services out there that monitor companies such as webclipping.com, ewatch.com, mediaclipping.com, and Lexis-Nexis to name a few.

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By admin, September 14, 2011

If you want to make it easier for mobile phone users to call your business from their phone then you need to set up Click-to-Call in your Google Maps/places site.

When using the Click-to-Call feature-the business’s phone number is automatically stored in the caller ID of the caller to make it easy to ring the business back.

Google provides the call link as a free service to all businesses, but air time fees or other mobile fees still apply if you use a mobile phone number. Currently, the calling feature only works in the U.S for businesses in the U.S. And the click-to-call phone numbers appear on mobile devices with full internet browsers.

It must be noted that Microsoft Windows live offer this service as well for those who use that search engine, and there are Click-to-Call plugins for Internet Explorer.

In addition, if you are running ads on Google AdWords-there are several ways to show click-to-call phone numbers on text ads that are shown to users with high-end mobile devices featuring full Internet browsers.

You can also show a unique, clickable phone number to customers nearest a business location, and a different number to all other users.

Whether you are looking for a business or listing your business- Click-to-Call is making it much easier to be in touch.

If you need help with setting up Click-to-Call-just give us a holler at (781) 956-9999.

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By admin, August 16, 2011

Twitter has added a couple new features that I wanted to share with you.

The picture sharing feature enables you to easily add photos to your Tweets directly from your Twitter Page. Adding pictures will allow you to make your tweets more interesting; you can show your customers pictures of your products, pictures of people such as new employees, pictures of places such as a function room, or even show photos of events.

To take advantage of this new feature just click the camera icon in the bottom left hand corner of the “Whats happening” box where you type in your Tweets.

Currently, the picture sharing feature is not available through mobile apps, but Twitter does have plans to  add this feature as well as the enabling of image galleries.

The Geolocation service, Twitter’s Tweet With Your Location feature allows you to selectively add location information to your Tweets.  By turning on this feature, you can include location information like neighborhood, city or town, or exact location where you tweet.

Keep in mind that if you use geolocation when you tweet-Twitter stores that location. However, you do have the option of  switching geolocation on or off before each Tweet, and you can always delete your location history.

A survey conducted in June by the Pew Research Center reported that 13% of adults in the United States with internet access use Twitter.

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