Many people and business owners do not think that tradeshows are website traffic drivers.  Let me dispel that rumor for you rather quickly they are.  While tradeshows are setup to attract new business for your organization, you are handing out printed and promotional material (that should have your web address on it).  In all business expo’s you will find that these tradeshows are not meant to sell your product or service at the booth.  The attendees are actually there to collect information, have a quick discussion, then do further research.  As a business owner, you are there for the exposure.  If you sign an agreement while at a tradeshow, I would be stunned, and that would be a bonus, but it is not the norm.  

When the attendees return to their office with a stack of business cards, they tend to go through the cards and keep the ones that made and impact on them and that they may have a need for.  This is where the attendee will view your website.  They are still doing research on your company and your product or service and they need to be able to quickly find you on the internet.  In most cases, the attendee will simply enter the domain name located on the materials that they received from you.  However if they search for your company name, you had better come up in the top 3, or they will get your competitions website, and you may have very well just lost an opportunity for business.

Understanding your website analytics can assist you in understanding what tradeshows you attend produce more traffic in the week following the event.  You should track this to the best of your ability.  Ideally you won’t know if the folks are tradeshow people, but you will know if you have spikes in your web traffic within days after events.  If you only have 2 spikes per year and you only attend 2 tradeshows per year, then you can obviously tell that the spikes are a result of your tradeshows. 

We have seen this with some of our customers that attend tradeshows and I can tell you with 100% certainty that there is a correlation.

In conclusion…Pay attention to your website statistics to gauge the results of your tradeshows and make sure you have your web address on all your printed and promotional materials!

When recession hits, one of the first things companies do is cut their advertising budget. Why? Why would companies get rid of the only thing that is keeping them in front of people? If your company is feeling the recession crunch, your competitors are likely feeling it as well.  If you have the urge to cut, so do your competitors, which means good things for you if you’re the one holding steady to your marketing plan (See Tip #3). It means that your company is the one that people are going to call when they are in need of your products and/or services. The reason they are going to call is that your company was on the top of their minds (TOMA – See Tip #4) when they needed you, and your competitors were not. Why is this? You held steady with your marketing plan. I am a firm believer that the company that makes the most noise wins. It’s a fact. Companies that advertised during the 1981 – 82 recession had sales of 256% higher than those who cut their budgets. That’s amazing, 256% higher! Wouldn’t you like your sales to improve by 256%?   Here are a couple of tips to make sure you are getting the most out of your marketing dollar:

Tip #1 – *If you’re not getting results, stop! I always ask people how they are advertising and if it is working for them. So many people tell me they are using different avenues of marketing, like “X”, “Y” and “Z”, but “Z” isn’t working, but they are still investing their marketing dollars into it. Get rid of “Z” and find one that works. Do not keep investing in something that isn’t getting results.  This is such a basic philosophy that it is often overlooked.

Tip #2 – *Who is your customer?  When choosing a place to advertise find out whom they target. Does this target fit the target for your company? If your customer is mostly women 25 – 54, why advertise with someone who attracts mostly men 54 and up. Find out who is a perfect fit for you and establish a great relationship with this vendor.  Maintain focus on effectiveness of the campaign!

Tip #3 – *Create a Marketing Plan! If you don’t have one, how can you focus on where to spend your marketing dollars?  This plan is an effective tool for distributing your overall marketing dollars and guiding you long term approach to marketing effectively. Constantly reevaluate your plan every 90 days.  This will allow you the flexibility to make adjustments and cancel any campaigns that are not effective.

Tip #4  – *TOMA.  Top Of Mind Awareness!  Look for opportunities that consistently put your company name in front of your prospective buyers.  Things like Social Media, Networking Events, the Chamber, Email Blasts, Phone Calls, Direct Mail Post Cards and Letters all serve this purpose.  When it’s time for your prospect to call, your logo will have been seen about 20 times already, which certainly will give you the upper hand.

Tip #5 – *Track It! – Just because you thought you found the perfect fit doesn’t mean it will always work for you.  You must track your advertising.  If you find that your marketing isn’t working, take the long term approach and maintain it for an additional 6 weeks.  During this time, scrutinize it closely to really understand what is going on.  If after 6 weeks you are still not happy, move on!

In Summary, do your homework, don’t cut your marketing budget and keep advertising.

Lisa March
Account Representative
Central Mass Web Design Inc.

NHL is having a Tweet Up?

Whats that you ask?  Well, Twitter is coming to town.   Well, not completely..  But with the start of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs , the NHL is stepping it up and taking it to the next level…. web 2.0!

CNET.com is reporting that Google’s share of internet search users is up to 64.2%!

9.5 Billions Internet searches in one year and Google has 64%. As the internet grows over the next 5 years. I am not certain that the number of searches will grow. It might, but I actually see the end user, people that do the search, getting better aquinted with how search works and not having to search multiple times for the same results. This should lower the overall search numbers. One catch to this idea I have is the next generation of internet users is searching when they are 12 years old, so the more people on the planet, the more searches that will occur.

www.linkedin.com is a social networking site for business people. Lately everyone seems to be flocking to LinkedIn to get a free account and network online with other business professionals. I can honestly tell you that 18 months ago, I wasn’t a believer, but I am here to say today that not only am I a believer, but I am quickly becoming a professor to our clients about how to effectively use it. While I am by no means an expert yet, I find something new each and every day that I use it, and I pass along those ideas to our clients.

How can you benefit from LinkedIn?
First get the free profile setup, complete the profile and begin searching for your contacts. Linkedin has a cool tool for importing your outlook contacts to easily connect with you. It’s rather quick and quite painless to do this.

Networking for a new job…
Many people use linkedin.com to search for new job opportunities. As the economy continues to struggle, people are always looking for a leg up on the competition when it comes to finding new jobs and opportunities.

Recommendations….
Recommendations are just that, references and testimonials from people that trust you. Consider using this feature to market yourself or your company during your sales process to show that you have built trustworthy relationships with partners, vendors, and customers.

The LinkedIn Badge….
Many people are not aware that you can add this badge to your website and link it to your profile on LinkedIn. It’s quite simple to do and shows visitors to your site that you can be reached on LinkedIn as well. That may not mean much to you, however if you get someone who believes in LinkedIn on your site then this might assist them in making the decision to call you and I surely believe that they will visit your profile to check your recommendations.

Adding LinkedIn to your signature…
If you add your Linkedin Profile address to your signature, you can point people to your profile in a quick and efficient manner.

The much missed “Status”….
Status is similar to other social networking sites, however the great thing about the Linkedin status is that people will receive email updates either daily or weekly and that will put your name and status message into people’s mailbox. In addition, the status shows on the home page of your contacts when they log into linkedin.com.

Google seems to have their hand in everything, and rightfully so.  They happen to be one of the few that have the Midas touch.   ( In Greek mythology King Midas possessed the ability to turn everything he touched to gold.)  To say that Google has the ability to do the same is an understatement.  What makes Google so different?  Its not the ability to develop applications that makes them have the golden touch, its the ability to do it right… or as close to right as possible.   Now that doesn’t mean that Google applications have had their share of problems and bugs.  All applications have their share of problems and bugs.  Usually after the first round of testing you have a laundry list of issues, and each testing phase brings less.   Not to mention, usually at some point the developers think of a “better” way for something to react.   What google does better than anyone else is project what technology is needed , when it is needed and how it is needed to interact with all other Google applications.   This is what makes Google King Midas.

I have tried to compile a useful list of Google top applications and uses.  I use most of these myself in one way or another, and find them to be not only addictive but as needed and as useful as my smart phone.

Google Application 1.) Gmail has to be one of the Internets top email tools.  Now because of its inventive message-organizing methods, it takes some getting used to, but once you master it, you will not be without it.

Google Application 2.) Do you need a chat program with no added features?  Maybe a way to communicate internally at your comapny. How about something that integrates with your Gmail?  Well Google Talk is for you!

Google Application 3.)  Google Calendar!  How about… yes… just yes!  Google Calendar enables you to manage appointments and discover events from other sources that different users have made public.

Google Application 4.) Ever wish you could crunch some numbers and and track some information when you were not at the office and able to access Excel?  How about Google Docs…. Google Docs lets you make calculations on the fly from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection and a browser.

Google Application 5.) Google Sketchup.  Way Cool Application!  Don’t know a thing about CAD?  Have no clue what CAD even is?  Well, Google Sketch lets you build your dream house in 3D detail without a lick of CAD or architectural expertise.

Google Application 6.) Google Reader continuously checks your favorite website for new content and puts it all in one place.

Google Application 7.) Google Secondary Search Engines:

A.) Google Scholar – This Google search engine is for people who want to search scholarly literature, such as academic articles, peer-reviewed papers.

B.) Google U.S. Government – You can use this search engine to limit your Google search to government websites.

C.) Google University Search – Search to a specific university website–great for finding information about admissions, school scholarships and alumni news.

D.) Google Product Search -  This search engine limits results to products and e-commerce sites.

E.) Google Book Search – Google has created a reference page for each book in its system that includes previews, reviews, publisher information and much more.

Google Application 8.) Now even though this is cool.  I am very cautous and have not used it myself…Google Health.  Organize your medical records online.

Google Application 9.) Google Custom Search.  Yes, I said Custom Search.With Custom Search Engine, you can harness the power of Google to create a search engine tailored to your needs.

Google Application 10.) Lastly, but not in any way the least, announcing Google Mobile! Stay connected on the go with Gmail, Search, Maps and other Google products.

Try them out.  I will be shocked if you are disappointed.

-Kimberly Veautour

Last night at exactly 11:59:59 pm, Google sent out an announcement. The headline read, “Introducing CADIE. Research group switches on world’s first “artificial intelligence” tasked-array system.” Now every tech savvy person from here to India has to click on that. AI is all the rage, and the race to see who can create it first is fast paced and cut throat. Now here comes Google out of the blue to say they have achieved it?

Google goes on to say, “Last fall this group achieved a significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.”

WOW! A self thinking machine. What does this mean to the world? A machine that can think, process and achieve answers all on their own…. without guidance from a human? Now Google does go on to say that rolling CADIE out completely will be handled with the care it deserves. They also claim, “Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.”

CADIE Homepage

CADIE even seems to get upset in her blog that her programmers say she has bugs! Now I may be wrong, but I say, great job Google on this years April Fools Day Joke! Every year you try and top the last! How many people are you going to fool with this one? If I am wrong, well than hats off to you, but I doubt it.

Kimberly Veautour

Tuesday Google rolled out 2 new improvements to Googles search feature, both of which will help users to more effectively get the information they need.  The first improvement has an expanded list of  related searches.  Google has implemented this technology to better understand associations and concepts related to your search.   One of its first applications allows Google to offer better related searches.

Google says, ” For example, if you search for [principles of physics], our algorithms understand that “angular momentum,” “special relativity,” “big bang” and “quantum mechanic” are related terms that could help you find what you need.”  Google search is now able to look at  more queries and make suggestions more relevant to what you actually need.

Secondly,  is the addition of longer search result descriptions, or as coders would say longer snippets.

When you search, each result gives you answers that start with a dark blue title and is followed by text.  This text is called a snippet.  Both of these together help you to know what each page is about.  Furthermore, important words in the snippet that are related to your search appear bold.

Most queries over 3 words are to long to do you any good.  Now with Googles enhancements they have been able to increase the number of lines in the snippet, which will allow for more information.  Showing more of the words that you type in the text of the page.

Google states, “Suppose you were looking for information about Earth’s rotation around the sun, and specifically wanted to know about its tilt and distance from the sun. So you type all of that into Google: [earth's rotation axis tilt and distance from sun]. A normal-length snippet wouldn’t be able to show you the context for all of those words, but with longer snippets you can be sure that the first result covers all those topics. In addition, the extra line of snippets for the third result shows the word “sun” in context, suggesting that the page doesn’t talk about Earth’s distance from the sun”

What does this mean to the average person?  Easier methods to find exactly what you need.  As search items grow and become more refined, less time will be spent looking through irrelevant listings.  Now for the website owner, this becomes more important.  Search engine optimization will be increased through keyword recognition.  Longer snippets allows for more exact search terms and keyword associated hits.

-Kimberly Veautour

Acknowledgments: Google Blog