Sunergeo Creative Blog

How to Use Facebook to Build Your Business

2010-07-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

With over 400 Million users in the world, 111+ Million in the U.S., Facebook is a business tool that cannot afford to be overlooked. What are some keys to using this tool and how can it build your business? The key is to build relationships with individuals. Facebook clearly shows us that being social is a basic human need. Even when practiced through non-physical means, people like people. We enjoy the interaction with others and yearn to be part of something that is bigger than ourselves. Facebook offers this to everyone with an internet connection.

You Cannot Rush Friendships – Even On-Line

Some feel that a real friendship can blossom and become full grown overnight. We live in an age where we have come to expect “instant gratification”—everything from instant foods, drive thru-windows and now with social media… instant friendship. Building a real connection with people takes time and comes about by the sharing of experiences, events and messages over time.

Developing certain skills can help in getting the process of building friendships. Learning these skills can make the road to building a revenue stream with social media smoother. Time needs to be taken to build more than a surface connection.

Establish, Build and Maintain an Active Interest for your “Friends”

Don’t post nonsense. If you are new to using social media, remember not to insult your friends by making them waste time having to delete you due to messaging that is not related to why they befriended you. For example, a local restaurant can post information about contests, musical groups, and new menu items and has an audience that is more casual in nature. This is different than a local A/C repair company, whose posts need to be more closely related to his industry. Let’s face it, the local restaurant is more desirable visit than the company who you are only going to call when there is trouble. Nonetheless, both companies benefit from social media.
Many who are successful at making friends online and growing business say, “It’s having a real love for people and taking an active interest in others.”

This does not mean you have to always be a cheerleader or fist pumping hype man. For most, this is not part of their make-up. Sincere interest is what will draw people to you. Put your audience first. I recommend more information on why a person will use your business than a click here for a coupon methodology.
Remember to put people first.

The Emotional Road

“Pay attention to how you listen,” is an old proverb. If you are a business owner, you should know the value of listening. Being a good listener is vital to building a friendship and building your business revenue.

Yes, it is just as Voltaire wrote: “The road to the heart is the ear.”
If you become genuinely interested in what others are saying, you will find more people will be drawn to you. The use of direct mail, a web site or social media to build business has the goal of building awareness. The hope is this awareness turns into revenue. Do not be myopic, however, and only focus on your goals – keep a growing interest in your “friends.”

Be Loyal

Today, it seems that everyone is logged in to something; be it email, Facebook, Plaxo and we know the list seems never ending. Some do not mind, it seems, being plugged into everything. Knowing this, our messages can be easily ignored.
Here is a point in being loyal – post information on your social network that is relevant. If you have a message stream that is disjointed or not connected to why an individual is your friend, you run the high risk of losing a ‘friend’ and perhaps a potential client. Once an online connection is lost it will most likely never be re-established.

Stay true to the reason the individual decided to “Like” you.
I always recommend staying far away from post which speaks negatively of clients. I have seen posts on Facebook using such terms as “dumb client”, “idiotic customers” and in some cases the language is best expressed “&$)!**!” These type of posts scream if you do business with me and it goes wrong, I don’t mind exposing this to the “world.”

John is an expert in designing landing pages and online conversion techniques. Contact John ASAP. Go to landing page design atlanta

5 Easy Google Adword Exercise Tips

2010-04-08T15:39:00.000-07:00

1. Exercise.

Yes, you need to get moving everyday. It has been said that 30 minutes a day can push off a lot of diseases, for those who are sedentary. It is the same with your Google activities. Take a few minutes each morning to review your account activities. The failing of many accounts is the lack of exercise. You have to go into the account and work it out. If you manage your own account really dig into your clicks and impressions . You can look at this similar to weights and reps. Can you bench 100 lbs, 10 times? What are your goals with clicks, 1%, 2%, or more? If you have keywords and phrases that are performing well, can you expand on these further and even expand or create new ad groups? Destroy non-productive keywords. Do not hang on to them for emotional reasons. Some people have a 'feeling' they are going to get a click. Then went their keywords do not get clicks – it is the public who ‘just doesn’t know what they want.

2. Read and study more.

You don't know what you don't know. Google seems to be changing every week. Staying abreast of all the information can be a challenge. However, if you have a firm hold on the basics of marketing, advertising and then Pay-Per-Click marketing, it will not be too hard to keep up. Building Your Business with Google FOR DUMMIES and Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies have been invaluable to me. Additionally, information from Marketing Experiments (marketingexperiments.com) has provided a wealth of real world experiments in marketing. The information at Marketing Experiments also helps in the most important elements of executing a well managed campaign.

3. Join a Community

I have been in sales and marketing for 20 years and I have never seen collaboration like what I am experiencing now. Social media has everyone well educated (or so we think). Join a group or online social communities to find others like yourself. If you are a chiropractor, find out what is working for other chiropractors in your area or across the U.S. Second, find out how they are using tools you as a business owner want to use. If it is AdWords, ask questions, most are willing to share a lot of good information. A business owner in another state where you will never compete may become the best litmus test for overcoming obstacles or setting goals. LinkedIN is one of my favorite communities.

4. Use checklists.

Write it down and check it off. Using Google is often a challenge if you move too quickly. Mistakes in setting up an account can cost you a lot of money. Simply forgetting to check Google Search or Google Network can have you wondering, where did the money go? Write down what to do in the set up of your account, what to do daily, and work by this list. You will be more effective. Sign up for Google Adwords Blog (http://adwords.blogspot.com/) as Google often has additions to their processes. Then examine where these updates and tips now fit into your checklist. This action will help you incorporate new techniques into your campaign management.

5. Ask for feedback.

Make a habit of surveying past what changes you have made. Make full use of the Change History tab under reporting in your Google AdWords account. The chart metrics can provide a graphical look at the performance of your account. Have the impressions dropped off, you may ask yourself, why? One of our clients told us the phone calls had slowed down. We showed them the impressions had dropped off as their ads were only running in one small geographical location. The smaller geographic area meant fewer impressions and far fewer clicks. As a result, a lot less calls were coming in. Additionally, by using this report, you can examine your Click-Through-Rate. Are there days you experience low click through rates? Perhaps, you may consider turning the campaign off for this day and add to the budget on the best or better performing days. If your ad appears more on your best performing days, there may very well be an increase in sales and profits.

John has been involved in marketing for over 20 years. John is available as an Adwords Consultant in Atlanta.
For more information go to landing page design atlanta.

Using Banner Ads To Build Your Income

2010-02-18T19:54:00.000-08:00

In this Googlized world there are other ways to generate revenue aside from AdWords. In some scenarios, AdWords may not be a good fit. Especially with some cost per click costs being more than $10 a click. If average return is 1.5 percent, a $500 per month campaign will get 50 clicks (at a $10 Cost-Per-Click) and a .75% of a customer.

Yahoo...banner advertising is not dead. The banner advertising I am referring to is in the area of placement ads. With the Google content network you can pick and choose where you want your banner ads to be seen.

Banner ads present a grand opportunity to make 'easy' money. A passive income is what so many seek. AdSense from Google is an excellent tool. This requires one to have a web site wherein these ads can be placed. The site holder does not have any say on the ads that are going to be placed on the site. Google places ads which are closely related to the theme of the site, and then pays the site owner a percentage of every click that is made on the site. Some web masters can buy a website at Template Monster (.com) and have a site ready in just a few hours. With time dedicated to promote the site via Search Engine Optimization or using social media sites on a weekly or bi-weekly basis a following can be built.

There is a new product, the Banner Blue Print which is an awesome product. It is an instructional step by step video class. There are cases where individuals are making a financial killing placing ads on other company's web sites. The course consists of 30+ videos jam packed with 10hours+ of real solid content, including 8 Modules, with tons of videos, ebooks, and mindmaps in each!

Here are some of the items that are taught on the videos; (1) How to get started making the easiest money of your life as soon as possible, with almost no cost and hardly any actual effort... you can be up and running within the hour, and the profits can last for YEARS. (2) How to get paid over and over again by using banner ads to promote other people's products... and I'm not talking about the same old affiliate nonsense you always see... (3) Where to get torrents of traffic that's eager to check out WHATEVER you're offering... the course will show you how to focus so tightly that site visitors will almost have to take whatever action you want them to.

The product is well worth the $77 price tag. You can visit the web site and while you may not make a million dollars through banner ads, they can be a good way to stick a few bucks in the bank. If you do make a million bucks as a result of this column, donations will be gratefully accepted!

Please take a look at the Banner Blueprint Training Course. John is an expert in designing landing pages and online conversion techniques. Contact John ASAP. Go to landing page design atlanta

Using Google Analytics for E-Commerce Campaigns

2010-01-29T06:47:00.000-08:00

If you own an e-commerce site you realize that it is critical to maintain reports to best manage and realize your ROI. Google Analytics can be used and should be used. No excuses as to why you should not use it, Google Analytics is a free tool!

You can use it to give valuable information on your entire site, not just on Google stats. It reports on all traffic sources - are you getting traffic from Google, YaHoo or BING, if you don't know, now you can find out. It gives your bounce rates and what pages are not performing.
Also, key it the page overlay which allows you to see what links are being clicked on. The tool is valuable and very cool.

How you can use it for your own e-commerce site to help improve your PPC account?

Using the Google Analytics e-commerce reporting tools allows you to fairly simply see where the majority of your revenue is coming from, what products your customers are buying, average order value, total number of web-based sales, and conversion rates and much more. As making bid adjustments are key to a thriving PPC campaign, the data you gain here will help you make better decisions. Non performing keywords should be killed, executed and burned at the stake. The quicker the better. Take your ego out of the equation and keep what works. Keeping keyword that you 'feel' should work and do not perform waste valuable dollars.

There are three reports which can assist you in managing your companies PPC account to get better results.

1. Revenue by Medium
2. Revenue by Product
3. Revenue by Keyword

Try these out for size and let me know what you think.

John is an expert in Landing Page Design and Conversion. Contact John ASAP. Go to landing page design atlanta

5 Google Videos Advertisers Must See

2009-12-21T03:23:00.000-08:00

Google recently began publishing videos on their YouTube channels which are designed to help advertisers make better use of Google’s various advertising ।
If you want to learn to maximize the profit from your AdWords advertising, and learn a few tidbits that you can’t find reading Help Center documentation, you must watch these five videos। All are nicely arranged here:

http://www.w3roi.com/blog/2009/10/5-google-videos-advertisers-must-see/

John Atterberry is a Marketing Strategist for Sunergeo Incorporated and is a Certified Google Advertising Professional.

Introducing AdWords Comparison Ads

2009-11-02T04:52:00.000-08:00

Google has launched a new feature of called AdWords Comparison Ads, which lets users compare multiple, relevant offers more easily. Comparison Ads is part of Google's continuing effort to make ads more relevant and useful to our users and to help you, our advertisers, reach the people who are most interested in your products and services.

AdWords uses a host of targeting and relevancy signals to determine the best ads for each query. However, sometimes a user's query doesn't provide enough information for us to confidently predict what they want. Take, for example, users who search for "mortgage." Do they want a new home loan or a refinance? Do they want a fixed rate or an adjustable rate loan? Comparison Ads improves the ad experience on Google.com by letting users specify exactly what they are looking for and helping them quickly compare relevant offers side by side.

With Comparison Ads, you can also target your offers at a more granular level, leading to more valuable, qualified leads. To see how it works, let's use our mortgage example. Users searching for "mortgage" on Google.com may see a promotion from Comparison Ads prompting them to select the type of loan they are looking for and to compare various rates.

(click to view full size image)

If they click the promotion, users are taken to a page with more detailed sponsored results. They can choose directly from the offers listed on that page, or they can further refine their search by providing additional information like income and home value. By giving users the ability to refine their search on a number of relevant attributes, we are able to show more targeted ads and provide you with more valuable leads.

Once users find an offer that matches their specific needs, they can either call you directly or request a quote. If a user requests a quote, Google automatically anonymizes the user's phone number and sends you a unique code that you can use to contact the user. You only pay if a user calls the phone number on your offer or fills out a form to request a quote.

(click to view full size image)

While Comparison Ads is still an early-stage feature, we've focused on a number of ways to enhance the user experience:

* Speed -- Comparison Ads shows targeted offers in less than a second. There are no long forms for users to fill out - Users see specific offers immediately and only need to fill in additional information if they wish to further refine their results.
* Transparency -- Comparison Ads only shows real products. There are no teaser rates, or bait and switch offers. Comparison Ads also standardizes the information presented to users, making it easy for them to sort and compare offers on a side by side basis.
* Privacy -- Comparison Ads won't send advertisers any user information, including anonymized phone numbers, unless the user explicitly requests more information about an advertiser's offer.

At this time, Comparison Ads will only show to a small number of users in select US states and is only available to a limited number of advertisers in the mortgage/refinance space. Over time, Google will increase the number of users who see Comparison Ads offers as well as the number of advertisers able to participate.

What do you think of Google's pursuit of real estate? Let me know by leaving a comment.

John Atterberry is a Marketing Strategist for Sunergeo Incorporated and is a Certified Google Advertising Professional.

Before Social Networking - Be Sure You Have a Website

2009-09-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

With all the talk about social media over the past few months, it would be easy to forget the basics. One of the basics in this case is having a web site.

Since I am in the technology marketing business I take a lot for granted. I assumed that "everyone" in business had a website up...even if it was a page that said "under construction."

I was shocked to see an April 2009 survey by The Discover Small Business Watch found 62 percent of small business owners still do not have Web sites for their businesses. That is down from 65 percent in November 2007.

Sixty-two percent is a lot. This number is staggering in the consideration of where we are with the availability of technology. Google is no longer a search engine, but a religion. How easy would it be to type - "I need a web site" info Google or any search engine and get a roughly estimated two-jillion responses? In reading the report from The Discover Small Business Watch I was left shaking my head as to why a small business would not look to leverage the technology of having a web site and the Internet to build sales, increase their visibility and to sync up with their customers.

A web presence is affordable. Everyone does not need a whiz bang Flash or multi-media site. In fact for small businesses we recommend a clean site with the basic links: Home, About Us, Contact Us etc. These types of sites are much easier to optimize for the Search Engines and maintain in-house if the business chooses this route.

The power of the web can be harnessed by small businesses. It would be extremely self-serving to say Sunergeo Creative could build and maintain a web site for a small business that does not have a web site...BUT I am in sales...so call me, John Atterberry at Sunergeo Creative if you do not have a web site or want to improve on your current design. (678) 561-IDEA.

As a small business owner I know how the web can leverage the playing field when competing with larger companies. I also know the positive response when customers and prospects alike see our investment in creating an effective web presence.

We all realize 'everyone' is Twitter-ing and Facebook-ing nowadays, but please remember the basics and get that web site up and running.