Businesses of all sizes are using this medium in a variety of innovative, low-cost ways to reach and teach their target audiences. You can too! We’ve outlined a few ideas to get you started:

Customer Service

• Answer customer-specific questions with a video. • Embed product demonstrations or customer support info on your website. • Create “how-to” videos regarding using your service or product. • Show a client their work in progress. • Post a blog entry (or FAQ on your website) and include a video as extra support. • Make your videos ADA-friendly by adding closed captions or subtitles (it’s free and easy).

Thought Leadership

• Demonstrate your knowledge and communication skills by uploading clips of presentations you’ve given. • Create short videos demonstrating your company’s products or services. • Record an interview with an employee or other expert in your field.

Advertising and Marketing

• Promote special events using recordings of previous events. • Conduct a virtual tour of your offices to help clients feel connected to your place of business. • Introduce your staff (great for clients who have never been to your office). • Record client testimonials for instant credibility. • Show someone using your products or services. • Post your YouTube links to FB and other social networking sites. Every week 100 million people take a social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc). • Include contact info (name, URL, phone number, email).

When you have a few minutes, visit www.youtube.com and search your product or business service for examples (“how to clean a pool” brings up 7500 results; “laying carpet” brings up nearly 700 results). People are looking for your expertise, services and products—it’s time to connect with them via YouTube.

According to the Google website, “+1 gets conversations going.” You visit a website and can click the +1 button to give that site your personal approval (think of a Facebook “like”). You can add a comment and share a site with individuals or “circles” of friends or coworkers. Google’s goal is to make a Google search more meaningful—if you’re looking for, say, a dentist and a friend sends you her dentist’s website with her +1 endorsement, you’re more likely to click that search return.

Perhaps the major difference between Facebook and Google is that with Google, there are no friend requests. You can view updates by others without sharing your own. Save your list of +1 sites in a special tab on your public Google profile and show or hide them. (You can set up a Google profile in about two minutes.) Google is giving its users a place to create and store content, as well as sharing texts, video chat and user conversations. +1 is another way to manage and share “favorite” sites.

How will Google +1 affect a website’s ranking? Since +1 belongs to Google, it will all be searchable. Google will collect stats generated by +1 tagging; those are being treated similar to inbound links. +1 is just one factor in the top-secret algorithms that Google uses to rank sites, but it is still a factor. Adding +1 to your company’s website gives visitors the opportunity to share your site with others.

We’ll share more about Google +1 in coming months. In the meantime,  add +1 to your website—or contact us.

Are you a right-brained or a left-brained thinker? Like handedness, one side or the other of our brain is nearly always dominant. But thinking and learning are enhanced when we work on using both halves to process information. You may already know how you best learn. Read on to learn more or jump ahead to take a quick test. Either way, by paying attention to your less dominant style you can learn how to improve it.

Linear v. Holistic Processing

• The left brain takes pieces of information, arranges them logically and draws conclusions.
• The right brain looks for the big picture, and then breaks it down into its components. It wants to start with the answer and work toward the details.

Right-brained people first want to know why. They may find it difficult to follow a lecture unless they’ve first read background information. That way, the details of the lecture make sense. They’ll also rebel against outlining a report or project. They prefer to write it first, and then make the outline if the job requires one. Left-brained people could exercise their right brain by trying this approach.

Sequential v. Random Processing

• The left brain is a list-maker, completing tasks in order and checking them off when they are accomplished. Learning something in sequence is relatively easy, like processing math problems and following directions.
• The right brain approach is random, resisting schedules and lists.

Left-brained people tend to be more organized; right-brained people may accomplish the same amount of work but may not have prioritized that work. Right-brained people might use colors to help them in sequencing. They may also “walk” a sequence, either physically or in their imagination.

Symbolic v. Concrete Processing

• The left brain is comfortable with symbols (letters, words, or math notations). It will memorize vocabulary words or math formulas.
• The right brain wants to see, feel, or touch. The preference is to see words in context or see how the formula works.

To exercise your right brain, seek out hands-on activities. Draw a math problem or sketch a map.

Logical v. Intuitive Processing

• Left brains express themselves in words.
• Right brains need concrete images.

Exercise your right brain by listening to your “gut feeling.” Then solve the problem logically and see if your intuition was right.

Verbal v. Nonverbal Processing

• The left brain uses available data to solve a math problem. It reads and listens to draw logical conclusions.
• The right brain trusts intuition. It may know the answer to a math problem but not be able to explain the steps.

When giving directions, a left-brained person will give a detailed explanation: “from here, go five blocks to Pine Street, then turn north.” A right-brained person might say “drive past the big pine tree until you get to the railroad tracks.” Left-brained people can exercise their right brains by visualizing or illustrating things they read or hear.

Think you know if you’re right- or left-brained? Take this 20-question test to find out which side dominates your life.

Article adapted from content on http://web-us.com/brain/LRBrain.html.

219.769.2299 or friends@viamarketing.net

Step One. SWOT/Overview
SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Go through this excercise to help you think through where you’ve been and where you want to go. State in your overview any changes in the market and insights about your competiton.

Step Two. Target Audiences Defined
Who is your audience? List demographics. Are you adding any niches this year?

Step Three. Objectives and Budget Defined
Allocations should change depending on your plans. Don’t add a niche without adding a corresponding budget. Are marketing goals and objectives shifting from branding and market recognition to lead generation and sales conversion?

Step Four. Select Strategies and Tactics
Really think through where your customers are coming from and how they learn about you. There is a synergy that develops when you choose more than one medium.

Step Five. Plot Timing
Create a marketing calendar that contains a month-by-month schedule of marketing activities and events for the upcoming year.

Step Six. Monitor Results Throughout the Year

When finished, you will have a comprehensive marketing plan in hand. This important tool will help you work smarter (not harder) at achieving your goals. As you revise your marketing plan year after year, this tool becomes even stronger.

If you prefer having someone walk you through the process, we offer access to research, facilitation skills and online and offline media knowledge. Please don’t hesitate to give us a call.

219.769.2299 or friends@viamarketing.net

Impress visitors with custom pages

If you already have or are considering a business presence on Facebook, be sure it represents your company well. Many small businesses and most of the top brands add custom tabs to their Facebook pages to give visitors more reasons to return. Promoting an event, posting coupons or including maps and directions help keep people coming back to your page.

Facebook allows html designers to customize tab names and page content. The tab can be whatever we name it, such as Welcome or Services, and the page can contain whatever we program it to say. You can even direct first time visitors to a specific page.

Visit VIA Marketing’s Facebook Fan Page >>

Why should you have a presence on Facebook? Because it’s still growing. As of November 9, 2010, Facebook boasts 143,583,400 users in the United States alone. The strongest age group involved is 18-34 years old (http://www.checkfacebook.com/). Facebook is popular for many reasons. It keeps families and friends connected. It helps you find lost friends. It joins people together over common causes and interests.

For retail businesses and brands, building a Facebook following is an excellent way to persuade customers to buy from you and refer their friends. You can reach out through associations. Involvement in social media as a whole is a tremendous customer relations tool.

Facebook allows marketers access to data for sought-after target markets. You can buy an ad and send it to people chosen by age, gender, geography, and special interests. A common two percent click through rate for a Facebook ad performs better than the one percent averaged by direct mail. Remember it’s marketing’s job to bring you customers. It’s the sales department’s job to close the sale. If your Facebook page or ad directs people to your website, how good a job is your website selling for you?

At VIA Marketing we advocate using a mix of multiple media choices, as you will never “touch” everyone with any single medium. This is especially true if you’re trying to reach both boomers and millennials on polar ends of the electronic stream.

We recommend including both paid ads and public relations in your marketing efforts. But just what constitutes public relations (PR)?

If you’ve ever watched a guest plugging his or her latest movie on Letterman, listened to a radio public service announcement or read an annual report or newsletter, you’ve been persuaded (or at least informed) by public relations.

Speeches, letters to the editor and radio talk show appearances are PR tools also available. Well-done, these types of communication not only inform… they inspire and persuade.

Public relations also works by using third-party endorsements. People generally perceive that a story by someone outside the company has more credibility than a paid advertisement.

Depending on the product or service you offer, you’re probably already using a number of public relations tools. Fact sheets, annual reports, open houses, press conferences… those are some of the many ways of informing your target audience.

Saving Carsons

Here’s a great example of how VIA has used PR to get people to take notice: In 2007, Carson’s parent company was considering closing the department store in Hammond’s Woodmar Mall. The city’s Urban Enterprise Association organized several events, including a public meeting (attended by 500 people), a petition drive (more than 4,000 signatures were gathered) and a letter-writing campaign (more than 300 letters were mailed or emailed). A “Save Carson’s” rally held in a parking lot in mid-January drew more than 400 people. With broadcast and print media coverage, “corporate” took notice: the store is still open.

If we were doing the campaign today, we’d create a Facebook page, open a Twitter account and post event clips to YouTube to get even more people involved.

Want to know more about the campaign to save Carson’s? Find info at HTTP://WWW.VIAMARKETING.NET/CASESTUDIES/CASE_CARSONS.HTML

If you compare an example of each, you’ll likely find the better layout makes effective use of white space. White space, which is not always white and is also known as negative space, is the open space between elements on the page. Your brain notices white space. Expert graphic designers understand that the absence of content draws you to the content and use this knowledge to direct your eye.

Graphic artists use this tool to control where you look first, second and third. Good design composition gives the reader a sense of order and instructions on where to look. Ineffective layouts are disorganized and lack focus. A page crammed full of text or graphics with very little white space almost always appears busy, cluttered and is typically difficult to read. Websites, by the way, are particularly hard on the eyes; white space allows your eyes to take breaks while scanning pages.

White space also improves comprehension. A Nielsen eye-tracking study found that more white space increases comprehension and reduces the time required to move through a page. Used correctly, white space will enhance the performance of printed and online marketing materials. It improves readability and makes a great first impression.

White space, when used generously, creates a sense of elegance. Ads selling high price-point items typically use a lot of white space. Think about upscale ads for jewelry, cosmetics or imported sports cars.

Now you know a design secret. White space is much more than background—it provides our brains with a resting point and time to absorb the material being presented. Negative space is really positive space.

White Trivia
The color white often symbolizes safety, cleanliness and purity. White suggests innocence, perfection and youth. Angels are usually portrayed as white. White represents simplicity and freshness. Doctors, hospitals and sterility are associated with white. Low-fat foods and dairy products are often packaged in white. But ghosts are white and giving white flowers to the sick is bad luck in many cultures. In many Eastern cultures, white signifies unhappiness, death, funerals, and mourning.

For further reading:
HTTP://WEBDESIGNTUTS.COM/WEB-DESIGN/USING-WHITE-SPACE-EFFECTIVELY-IN-WEB-DESIGN/

HTTP://WWW.ALISTAPART.COM/ARTICLES/WHITESPACE

For more information about how to use white space to your company’s advantage, contact us at 219.769.2299 or friends@viamarketing.net.

A search engine uses a computer program called a robot (or just “bot”) to look for any or all of the words you type into the search box. They operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input. The answers aren’t organized by category, and you sometimes have to look through a bunch of them to find what you’re looking for.

A web directory has all of its sites evaluated and categorized by actual people. Thus, you can look for information by either browsing the categories, or searching with a keyword. The categorization is usually based on the whole website rather than one page or a set of keywords, and sites are often limited to inclusion in only a few categories. Because the directories use people to edit their sites, there is usually a charge for them to review your website.

Inbound links add value to your website because you are increasing the places people can actually find you. Plus, search engines use link popularity as one criterion for ranking. A quality site link tells search engines that there is something useful and reliable about your site. Submitting your site is a time consuming process, but well worth the effort. Build them steadily. If you make them too rapidly, you’re at risk of being seen as spam.

Move on if you see a “No follow” feature on a directory. The rel=“nofollow” attribute means search engines will give no weight to the link.

What Makes a Quality Link?
Your link will be treated as a high quality link if your website is mentioned as a source (link) from an article about a topic related to your industry. This is why blogging and sharing on social media are so popular.

Another quality indicator is a link on a page with a high hit rank, like a directory for example.

Where do I Find Directories?
Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ (Open Directory Project) are the two biggest directories on the web, but other important directories include local directories for your state, town, chamber of commerce, etc. The following list is a sample of directories suitable for nonprofit and for profit businesses.

1. DMOZ.ORG has extensive categorization and a large number of listings.
2. YAHOO! DIRECTORY
3. LOCAL.YAHOO.COM
4. GOOGLE.COM/MAPS
5. BROWNBOOK.NET lets users search by keyword, city and country. Businesses “claim” their free listing and may add text, photos and videos and sign up to be alerted when someone reviews your business.
6. CITYSLICK.NET narrows the search by city, zip code and radius. Cost ranges from free to a one-time fee of $149.
7. BUSINESS.COM targets B2B. Products include pay-per-click, banner ads, audience retargeting, and directory advertising. Advertising costs vary per service.
8. MERCHANTCIRCLE.COM allows owners to upload pictures, write blogs, publicize events, and create coupons and newsletters. Submission is free.
9. BESTOFTHEWEB.COM proclaims itself as the “The Internet’s Oldest Directory.” This comprehensive directory can help you choose a college, refinance a mortgage or plan a party. Cost is $149.95 annually.
10. GOGUIDES.ORG lists range from arts and humanities to lifestyles and relationships to money and finance for a one-time fee of $69.95; nonprofits may receive a free listing.
11. JOEANT.COM and RUBBERSTAMP.ORG are comparable to GoGuides. Both charge a one-time fee of $39.95. SITESNOOP.COM has comparable topics and charges $15 per submission.
12. SKAFFE.COM, lists the “best family safe websites on the World Wide Web” It costs $15 to submit a site.
13. GIMPSY.COM starts a search with “I want to…” topics range from adopt to convert to quit to write. Subscribe to their newsletter or jokes. Free submission takes up to six months to be listed, standard submission is $29 and premium is $49 (one-time fees).
14. IPL.ORG is a merger of the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians’ Internet Index (LII). Find information here: Italian dictionaries and hurricane preparedness for example. You may also email questions. Site submission is free.
15. MASSIVELINKS.COM features services for businesses and individuals. Nonprofits may list for free; standard listings are $39.99 (one-time listing) and premium listings are $79.99 annually.

For more go to MASHABLE.COM and scroll down to find the Human Edited Search Engines and Directories listing. Scroll further to find Business Search Engines and Directories.

If you’d like to hire someone to systematically enter your business into online directories, contact us at 219.769.2299 or friends@viamarketing.net

Salespeople accomplish this through perfecting the sales pitch, handling objections, identifying opportunities and closing the deal. Sales is the art of technique and persuasion, many times one-to-one. Because sales is on the front line, salespeople can readily identify any shifts in attitudes about their product or service.

As defined by the American Marketing Association, marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. In short, marketing is designed to find out what customers want so the company can deliver it accordingly. The marketing department does this through studies and focus groups.

Marketing controls product development based on customers wants, helps set a price customers see as a value, chooses the sales channels to reach customers, and promotes the product.

Whether the marketing department is one person or an entire team, marketing efforts improve the selling environment by using promotional techniques such as advertising, sales promotion, publicity and public relations. Marketing invites interaction through Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. It also creates new sales channels, new products and all kinds of new opportunities.

Marketing brings customers in the door by creating a possibility. Sales gets the customers out the door with the product in hand. (Support keeps the customer coming back for more.) VIA is expert in the marketing communications field. We develop your message and communicate it through a variety of media. We research, plan, write, design and execute. We help you brand your product at every touch point, so that you can control your customer’s experience and deliver consistency to meet his or her expectations.

Call us to provide an effective marketing plan. Find, communicate, educate and turn your prospects into paying customers.

For more information about how we can help you market your service or process, give us a call at 219.769.2299 or send an email.

Push marketing uses traditional tools like ads, brochures, press releases, etc. filled with product features and service benefits. The Internet is similar, filled with websites, banner ads and paid search word tactics. These messages are all created with outbound sales strategies.

Pull marketing uses the premise that people find companies and their products because they are looking for them. This method uses social sites to listen to, contribute information and otherwise engage people. Tools like organic search allow web content to be ranked according to the user’s keyword searches. You draw people in with relevant content in the hopes of engagement. Content strategies, optimization, keywords in articles and headlines, tag blog posts, etc. pull in your prospect rather than push out to them.

PR is an example of a tool that can be both push and pull marketing. No longer do you need to solely rely on rigid printed press releases (although they are still important). You can embed video, images, slide shows, and more into social media releases (SMRs) to be shared on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

While push marketing is more concerned with short-term results, pull marketing exists to create loyal supporters by setting a certain standard for their brand. At VIA, we’ve always talked about the media mix. These days, the mix needs to include both push and pull marketing strategies for getting customers to purchase your certain brand, product, or service.

For more information about how we can help you market your service or process, give us a call at 219.769.2299 or send an email.

Let’s talk about it.