Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Can You Make a Great Impression in Seven Seconds?

In some circles of Internet Marketing, there is a pervasive thought that says you have less than 10 seconds to make a good impression with the homepage of any website. If someone views the homepage of a site and doesn't like it within the first 10 seconds…they leave and move on to another site. Some people say you have even less time! With many marketing professionals, they say it is around 7 seconds. 7 seconds?!

There are many people who use what is referred to as ‘The Rule of 7' in many facets of their lives and business. The number 7 comes up an incredible amount of times in everyday life. What's so special about the number seven? We have the Seven Wonders of the World, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colors, and the seven days of the week? What about the 7 tips for a better (insert your favorite topic here). Why are there only seven numbers in everyone's phone number?

There is no real concrete reason why the number seven is so heavily influences our lives. In 1956, psychologist George Miller, after extensive study, wrote a paper entitled, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information". In his study, he equated seven to the maximum number of information segments that humans can process at any given time. While his view on the subject is somewhat contested in various circles, it does raise some interesting questions and ideas. Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist who took some of George Miller's ideas and ran with them in the realm of social psychology. In his book, Tipping Point, he says, "as human beings we can only handle so much information at once. Once we pass a certain boundary, we become overwhelmed." He then goes on to recount some of Miller's research and comes up with that boundary being near six or seven points maximum.

What we do know is that seven is an important number. So, if we use the ‘seven second impression' time limit as our benchmark in the design and presentation of your website's homepage and navigation, then how do we make the best use of those seven precious seconds? Since we're discussing the enigmatic number 7, let's create seven guidelines to use:

  1. Simplicity. Simple, yet attractive works well. Unique and creative doesn't have to mean complicated and overwhelming. Many times too much action and information on a homepage becomes overwhelming, causing people to click away quickly. Many website designs feature seven main operation/navigation buttons (coincidence? Nah!).

  2. Purpose. What is the purpose of the site? Make it immediately clear. "Great taste…Less Filling" is the idea here. Lean and mean. In the spirit of simplicity, get right to the point with the site's message. Where do you want to take a site visitor? Make it abundantly clear.

  3. Consistency in Layout. Make sure that your site's layout remains consistent from page to page. People get frustrated when they have to search how to go from page 3 back to the home page. Ensure that your navigation process is simple and consistent throughout the entire site. Make sure that everything you incorporate into the site revolves around being user-friendly and interactive.

  4. Know What the Competition is Doing. Research your competitor's sites, find out what they are doing right, and do it better on your company's site!

  5. Professional in Content. While you may be considered the most knowledgeable person about your company's products and services, you're ability to write perfect prose may be questionable. It's always a good idea to hire a writer to create your site's content. Or, if you want to generate the message yourself, consider hiring a proofreader and/or editor to review the text for the site. It's in poor taste to have an excellently designed website that is full of run-on sentences, misspellings, and improper punctuation. Create a completely professional package by making sure your content is written correctly.

  6. Test the Site Yourself. Put yourself in the position of a potential customer/site visitor. Use the site from their point of view. If the site is set up to process orders, then go through the entire order process. Make sure it is error free, not confusing, and transitions smoothly throughout the whole process.

  7. Ask Others to Evaluate for You. Ask other people to use the site and review it for you. Asking for outside help can sometimes bring to light issues that you may have never noticed on your own. Try to use a broad cross section of people to review the site. In doing this you will get a good snapshot of the effectiveness of the site.

These seven guidelines are not all inclusive. There are other things that rank highly in importance too for ensuring you get the most "bang for your buck" in the precious seven to ten second opportunity you have with a visitor to your company's website. However, these are seven extremely critical components that should always be considered.

Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we're eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Online Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business card management.

International Relationship Marketing

Communication, Customers, and Connectivity

Relationship marketing is not a new marketing concept, however, it has become an increasingly more important concept in the modern economy. Relationship marketing basically uses a company's relationship with its current customers as the basis of targeted marketing efforts. This relationship is fostered and closely nurtured to ensure that customers are satisfied with their products or services and that they remain loyal to the company.

Customer Satisfaction

The most important element of relationship marketing is customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction, which can be achieved through quality customer service, quality products, and quality service, is used to not only retain customers and generate referral business, but it is also used as a source of marketing data. After all, satisfied customers are more willing to talk with company representatives about their experiences, to make recommendations (those all important word of mouth referrals), and to accept marketing materials.

There are several ways in which customer satisfaction can be used in relationship marketing. The first way is through an online opt-in communication system. Customers that want to receive promotional materials and communications from the company opt-in to an electronic mailing list. Viral marketing techniques can also be used as a part of a relationship marketing campaign that is designed to promote customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction can also be measured and monitored through the use of relatively new social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook. Two great examples of companies that actively monitor social media channels (especially Twitter) are General Electric and Chili's. Both of these companies employ very aggressive tactics in the realm of social media to monitor what is being said about them, their products, and services.

Customer Retention

Customer retention is another focal point of relationship marketing. In this case the marketing professional would take steps to ensure the customer remains loyal to the company. This is usually accomplished by offering loyal customers special perks such as discounts, promotional items, private sales, and other rewards and incentives.

Once customer retention programs are in place and a relationship has been established, then the marketer can utilize relationship marketing strategies to mine data from the customer. This data may then be used to create customer retention measures, to identify problems, and to develop corrective plans for those identified problems.

Relationship Marketing

Unlike other types of marketing, the success of any relationship marketing campaign hinges on the ability of the marketer to establish an ongoing relationship with their customers. Relationship marketing has really come to the forefront for many companies, especially in the online/Internet realm. With debacles such as the "Motrin Moms", "United Breaks Guitars", the Nestle problem, and the @keyinfluencer/FedEx issue, it's become more and more apparent that companies need to dedicate time and effort in developing, maintaining, and monitoring appropriate relationship marketing tactics.

As social media continues to develop and grow, relationship marketing tactics will continue to evolve and change as well. Companies large and small need to take a proactive step in their relationship marketing - especially in the main online communities such as Twitter and Facebook. With the speed in which bad experiences, poor service, poor performance, or inappropriate actions can be reported and spread online, the need for vigilance in relationship marketing has never been greater.

Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we're eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Online Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business card management. Be part of the professional business cards company.

Six Tips for Managing Your Company's Social Media Presence

Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, GoWalla, LinkedIn...which do you use? Which ones should you use and why? Business marketing is being reshaped by these platforms and it's important to understand their usefulness for your company and learn how to manage/monitor your company's image with them.

There is a great deal of useful information on the Internet now that discusses the subject of social media and business. If you're relatively new to the social media realm and you do a quick search, you'll quickly get the feeling that you're in over your head. But, don't despair!

As mentioned earlier, there are many different available platforms that are attractive, viable, and easy to use for business owners. Each one offers a slightly different twist or service...making it somewhat necessary to use more than just one. In light of that fact, we thought it would be helpful to highlight the strengths for several of these marketing "game-shapers".

Before you dive in and start using any social media service, it's important to create a plan for your business. While you are working to develop that plan, we want to reinforce six critical components directly related to the use of social media that will aid you in developing your own use policy and guidelines:

  1. Don't simply delegate your company's social media plan and involvement to someone else - whether it's an employee or an outside social media expert. As the owner of your company, you know your brand better than anyone! You understand the importance of reputation, image, and professionalism way more than any of your employees. It's important to take a little time, learn the fundamentals, apply them to your company's overall social media engagement plan, and find the social media systems that work best for your business.

  2. Social media is about return on engagement. It's also a critical component to include in your relationship marketing in today's society. Don't expect massive interest in your products or services without some work on your part. Social media isn't a magical, sales-boosting potion.

  3. Social media isn't an opportunity to reinvent your brand, but to widen your brand's reach. Remember the mantra, "if you're not networking, you're not working." That is extremely evident in the online world. In social media, it's all about connecting with people, LISTENING, and refining your products, services, and marketing approach.

  4. Read the article "10 Commandments of Modern Marketing". http://www.clickz.com/3636027. This excellent article would be a great foundation for any company's marketing plan across the board—not just in the social media realm, but in every facet of how to effectively market your company's products or services. This article is helpful for both new and seasoned business owners to read and apply to their marketing strategy. Be sure to read the comments too as many good insights are in them as well.

  5. Your customers, clients, and partners are watching and reading...EVERYTHING. It's critical to remember this! Social media is a great tool for genuine interaction with people all over the world. But, if you do it wrong, it can create heaps of trouble for you and your business. Two great examples of this are what happened with Motrin and with James Andrews from Ketchum, a PR firm for FedEx at the time. http://mashable.com/2008/11/16/motrin-moms/ http://www.davidhenderson.com/2009/01/21/key-online-influencer/

  6. Do a lot of listening. Don't just try and shove products and services at people you're connected with on Facebook and Twitter. Simply engage in conversation. Be genuine. When it's appropriate, you can mention your products and services. But, for the most part focus on the "social" part. Marketing opportunities will present themselves if people see that you're truly interested in them.

We hope these six principles will be beneficial for you as you develop your own game plan for using social media. Even if you have already incorporated social media into your company's marketing plan, there are still many concepts and principles listed here that may be useful to you as you further refine your use of social media and as new, exciting services emerge.

Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we're eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Cheap Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business card management.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Business Networking Tips

There is a maxim in the business world, "Network or not work." A growing number of professional networking efforts are a manifestation of putting this maxim to practice. One of the major keys to networking is communication. The importance of communication can never be denied in any walk of life, particularly when it comes to dealing with business. One of the most effective communication tools in the corporate world is a business card! Are you heading to a local or regional "TweetUp" or perhaps a LinkedIn get together where you'll be able to meet potential clients, partners, and customers? If so, you need to ensure that your business cards are up to date with accurate information and are visually appealing to the people that you meet. Whether you are using it to expand your professional network or for establishing new working relationships, a business card says a lot about you and your business before you verbally introduce yourself.

Just as planning is necessary for every step in growing your business, planning for what type of business card you want to design is critical as well. To begin with, you should have an idea of a background you want, which type of font style you like, and how you want your information displayed on the card. Do you have a company logo or do you want to have a picture of yourself or your business on your card? If so, you have the option of uploading your logo or photo and placing wherever you wish on your card while you're using the Card Editor to create it. Don't forget about the back of your business card! Use it to print a message, a coupon, or directions to your business. Don't be afraid to get creative with the backside of your business card. This is valuable advertising space for your company - take advantage of it and use it. Printing on the back of your card can be vital in disseminating company information at networking events big and small.

QR Codes are a new emerging technology trend that is finding its way onto business cards too. QR Codes can be an extremely effective, visually appealing way to make a statement at your next business networking event. QR Codes are eye catching and you can pack them full of information about you, your company, a specific product or whatever you wish - the sky's the limit. Card recipients can easily scan your QR code with their smartphone and immediately learn more about your company or save your contact information directly in their address book.

Whether you're attending a Chamber of Commerce function, a Rotary luncheon, or participating in a social media driven networking event, it's important to have an up to date, usable and effective business card that you can place into the hands of potential customers as you meet them.

Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we're eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Online Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business card management.

Marketing Code of Ethics

Marketing professionals are responsible for following a professional code of ethics. This code of ethics, which is written and monitored by the American Marketing Association, outlines how marketing professionals should act and how their services should be formatted and distributed to the public. If you are a marketing professional, or if you are responsible for your company's marketing, then you need to learn this code of ethics and apply it to your marketing strategies.

Trustworthiness

The first element of the marketing code of ethics is trustworthiness. This characteristic not only needs to be applied to the marketing professional's actions, but it also has to be applied to their marketing products. To comply with this segment of the marketing code of ethics marketers need to create marketing campaigns that accurately reflect what the product is intended to do and they also need to sell their services to new clients based on their actual qualifications.

Do No Harm

Another important aspect of the marketing code of ethics is the "do no harm" clause. This clause simply means that marketers follow all marketing laws and that they follow professional codes of ethics for the industries they create marketing campaigns for. For example, marketers cannot make statements about a product that they know to be false. This is why the advertisements for psychic lines have a disclaimer printed at the bottom of the screen or ad that informs people that the line is for entertainment purposes only.

Respect

Respect is yet another important element of the marketing code of ethics. This element is very important for marketers to master, as a lack of respect will hurt their business and the businesses that they create marketing campaigns for. To comply with the respect clause of the marketing code of ethics, marketers need to listen to and respect the opinions and desires of their clients, as well as create marketing campaigns that are respectful of people's differences.

Citizenship

The final element of the marketing code of ethics is citizenship. Citizenship, in regards to marketing, means that the marketing professional is an active and valuable member of their community. To accomplish this professional goal the marketer needs to protect the environment, give back to their communities via volunteerism and they need to promote fair trade practices. Finally, acts of citizenship will focus on creating a stronger and more effective marketing community.

Gayle Hawks president of Color Card Administrator is the author of this content. Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we're eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Online Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business card management.

The Term Social Marketing

The term social marketing has been used to describe two different things. The first thing it is used to describe is a process of marketing to improve the social condition of the world. The second definition is used to describe the process of using social networking sites and online tools to market a company. I will be using the second definition as my focus for this article.

Social marketing made a big splash in the world of Internet marketing just a few years ago. New Internet activities like blogging, video clips, and other viral marketing devices caught on quickly, and soon outpaced established online advertising methods like keyword ads and banner ads. Because of this new trend in online advertising, many companies have begun to broaden their marketing campaigns to include social marketing strategies.

Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and GoWalla

These social media sites are receiving the most attention these days from online marketing experts for companies large and small. The power to influence yielded by these websites is immense. There are many excellent articles that have been written detailing good methods and strategies to employ for companies large and small who desire to engage the public using these sites. Even if you're not actively marketing your company on these sites, it's important to maintain a presence on them so that you can monitor what is being said about your business and about your competitors.

Blogging

Blogging is still one of the most popular social marketing strategies currently being used by companies and websites to attract customers and web traffic. Blogging is a web log that provides readers with a periodic posting of information. This information is written by a topic expert and usually relates to the focus of the website or a company's products and services. In order to be successful, a blog needs to be formatted as a discussion or informative article, it needs to include links to the site's product and services pages and it needs to offer a way for readers to leave their comments and carry on discussions with the blog writer(s).

Viral Video

Another popular form of social marketing is the use of video. This marketing strategy involves uploading fun or interesting video clips to a website, such as YouTube and Vimeo in the hopes that people will like it and tell other people to view it and pass it on. This creates word of mouth advertising that can spread like wild fire. Think about the effects of some of the popular videos that you know of ("Charlie bit my finger!", "United Breaks Guitars", and a host of others. Videos, when they're effective and truly go viral can generate millions of views.

eBooks

An older, but still effective form of viral marketing is the eBook. An eBook is basically a short manual or basic "how to" guide that is offered free of charge to people who complete a requested task. For example, you can offer an eBook to people who sign up for your website's newsletter or who enter a drawing on your site. The main purpose of giving away an eBook is to attract people to your website, however, it can also help you to develop an opt-in mailing list for your company. In order for an eBook to be a successful social marketing tool, it will need to provide valuable information.

Social marketing online is an ever changing, evolving landscape. It's important to engage, participate, and monitor what works and what doesn't work. Most importantly, social marketing allows your company to have a direct link with customers and potential customers. It allows you to directly engage your niche audience and strategize a method to reach them that is beneficial for your company and for them as customers.

Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we're eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Online Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business card management.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

David Ogilvy - The "Father of Modern Advertising"

David Ogilvy is considered to be the "father of modern advertising." His methodologies and professional philosophies revolutionized the marketing industry, and they continue to play an important role in the marketing industry today. The foundation of his marketing principles was comprised of four major components: research, creative brilliance, professional discipline, and results. These components are incredibly important to look at and very helpful to owners of businesses - large and small.

Research

Research is one of the cornerstones of the Ogilvy's marketing success. This is because his background was in research, and this is what he knew. David Ogilvy felt that the success of any marketing campaign was dependent on the amount and quality of research that the marketing professional did. He felt that it was very important to know the target demographic that you were trying to reach before you started working on the advertising campaign. Do you invest a lot into researching tactics and products that are offered by your competitors? It's something to consider and think about...

Professional Discipline

Professional discipline was another cornerstone of Ogilvy's marketing philosophy. This element of his philosophy put a great deal of stock in the importance of professional training. Ogilvy felt that knowing your craft was as important to a successful marketing campaign as the creative aspects of the campaign's design. Again, this is one of those points where it's good to do some self-evaluation. Are you well-versed and skilled in your profession? Are there some things that you should brush up on in order to make you more effective and valuable to your customers and clients?

Creative Brilliance

Another important element of the Ogilvy marketing machine was creative brilliance. Ogilvy felt that generating ‘the Big Idea" was key to the success of a marketing firm, and a marketing campaign. Ogilvy himself was credited with several "Big Ideas" during his career including the slogan, "at 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock" and many, many more.

Results

The final element of Ogilvy's successful marketing philosophy was results. He felt that creative genius was basically useless if you couldn't sell your ideas afterward. This means that successful marketing executives not only needed to be creative professionals, but they also needed to be able to sell themselves and their ideas to their clients. Are you seeing results from your efforts? Do you have metrics in place to measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategies?

Learning More About David Ogilvy

During his life David Ogilvy wrote three books on marketing and his marketing philosophy. These books included "Confessions of an Advertising Man" published in 1963, "Blood, Brains & Beer" published in 1974 and "Ogilvy on Advertising." All of these books are great reference materials for marketing professionals and small business owners.

David Ogilvy's strategies are ones that we try to employ daily at CCA. We work hard to research new business avenues, refine our customer service, sharpen our design skills, improve our websites, and create useful tools for our clients. We are a results driven company. How do we measure results? We measure them in the number of happy, satisfied customers. We aim to please every customer that orders business cards from our company.

Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we're eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Online Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business card management.

The Long Tail: Background

The term 'long tail' has traditionally been confined to the field of statistics where it was used to describe the distribution of wealth within a system. However, in the October 2004 edition of Wired Magazine, writer Chris Anderson applied this term to a unique collection of modern business models. These business models based their corporate success on selling lower quantities of a larger selection of products. This formula, surprisingly, allowed online distributors to corner a unique niche in the market and they made a killing.

The Long Tail Business Model

The long tail business model is based on a unique business strategy; sell lower quantities of a lot of different hard to find items. For example, instead of selling 10,000 copies of two or three best selling videos, an online store can make more money by selling 10 copies of 10,000 harder to find videos. Companies such as Amazon have further improved their profit margin by coupling popular items with harder to find items. In doing this, they have been able to cash in on both business market advantages.

Amazon is the Best Example of The Long Tail in Action

As mentioned above, Amazon is one of the most successful examples of the long tail business model. Amazon was one of the first online companies to really perfect this marketing strategy. Today the site offers hard to find items like out of print books and collectibles, as well as in-demand items like newly released DVDs, bestselling books, popular clothing items and in-demand household items. Amazon also offers new textbooks and text book exchanges. Actually, at this point, there isn't much that you can't find or purchase via Amazon!

Developing a Business Using Long Tail Marketing Strategies

In order to develop a successful long tail business you first need to understand why they are successful. You can do this by studying successful long tail businesses like Amazon and Netflix, which is another prime example. Next you will want to figure out what merchandise you can offer that people will be interested in. For example, you can sell hard to find candies, you can sell hard to find auto parts, or perhaps you can sell hard to find toys. Take a look at your own passions and analyze whether or not there is enough of a business margin to perhaps invest in a business that follows your passions. Finally, you need to develop an online interface that will: attract a lot of traffic, be able to display your available items in an attractive manner, allow easy searches of your inventory, have the ability to handle online sales and be integrated into your inventory and bookkeeping systems.

Once You're Ready to Launch or Promote Your Business, You'll Need Business Cards Too

We too have pursued an aggressive long tail strategy within our business. We offer business cards in just about every business and personal niche we can think of! For those niches that we haven't discovered just yet, we offer customers the ability to request a customized, professionally designed business card from our Featured Artist Community. So, when you're ready to launch your new venture, come to us for your business cards.

Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we're eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Online Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business card management.