Stephen D. Gross

We had the opportunity, this past week, to interview several severely frustrated potential small business clients who were looking for a quick website disaster relief strategy.  The degree of frustration inherent in today’s small business owners seems to be rising at epic proportions during the last 3-6 months.

What is the cause of their frustrations?  Website failure to produce.

More and more we are confronted by small business owners who look to us for website or web presence disaster relief.  Although we are always happy and willing to assist them, the ability for us to do so has become drastically hampered by the impressions and failures left by the previous internet website design and/or marketing company.

Case in point is Kelli (not her real name).  Kelli spent over an hour hammering us with “what-if” and “how-come” questions regarding her Internet strategy.  She claimed to have spent thousands and thousands of dollars over the past 2 years for web design and online marketing.  Unfortunately, as she said, her small business has had little if any return on the investment.

After listening for over an hour, and with Kelli still on the phone, we decided to run a quick real time analysis on her website and ask a few questions about her strategy.  YIKES, not good!!

As is normally the case these days, Kelli had a low-cost individual website designer develop a website for her business.  In addition, nobody considered pre-design criteria like keyword analysis, content analysis, value proposition, competitive analysis, and goals and objectives.  To make matters worse, she has employed two separate website design firms and has attempted at least 3 different online marketing strategies.

Fortunately, Kelli’s website and past marketing efforts have created a strong enough base to allow for some fairly quick and financially painless changes or modification to get things turned around.  Unfortunately, sooner than later, she will be forced to discard most of the past work in order to make room for the much needed long term changes.  These changes will be required to allow her to reach her long term goals and objectives.

So how do you stop this from happening to you, again.  Make sure you only work with a website or web presence company that fully understands the need for pre-design and marketing (not advertising) analysis.  This analysis must include the design of the online destination (website) as well as intended marketing efforts.  Failure to do so could translate into a disaster relief effort, or worse yet, a business failure.

Do you have a disaster story?  Leave a comment.

Interview and content provided by Brookstone Marketing Group

Now that the first decade of this century is over, small businesses are waking up to find themselves in a quandary trying to decide on traditional marketing versus online marketing and the means to finance either one.

Traditional Media Advertising and Marketing is often times out of the financial reach for most small business owners.  Even if they have the resources, small business owners get caught up in the need to justify and ensure a return on the investment of their time and hard earned dollars.  Traditional Media firms normally require an up front payment plus a long-term commitment before launching any campaign.  In addition, the charge for creative work is passed on as an addition expense to the media buying small business owner.

Internet or Online Marketing, more often than not, follows the same routine as Traditional Media firms in terms of financing the campaign and charging for creative.  The difference is that Online Marketing is typically far less expensive, much faster to launch, and easier to track and justify.  However, many online pay-per-click campaigns are launched by inexperienced marketing agents, and thus cost, and at times exhaust, their clients available budgets before a payback can be achieved.

Enter Social and Content Marketing.  These forms of Online Marketing can be seem elusive and untrackable for the small business owner.  Many times, the small business owners lack of understanding of the philosophy behind authority, trust, and communication keeps them from participating and committing financial resources towards this form of marketing.

Small business owners are looking for a low cost of entry solution for marketing for 2010.  The Internet can and will offer a pay-as-you-go alternative to the old fashion no-risk traditional media firm financial model.

Small Business owners seem poised and ready to commit the necessary dollars to get their business growing again.  However, they will only do so if the marketing channel is proven and offers a high opportunity for success and/or has some assurances built-in for controlling and tracking the marketing expenditures.

Brookstone Marketing Group has now released a marketing campaign that fits such a requirement, PayGo Marketing.  For more information concerning PayGo Online Marketing release click here.

What is your struggle with online marketing?  Leave a comment.

PayGo Online Marketing is a campaign offered by Brookstone Marketing Group.

In a recent interview conducted by Smart Brief, Shiv Singh, vice president and global social-media lead for Razorfish, author of “Social Media for Dummies”, discusses several key elements that will be essential for brand and business development starting in 2010.  Here is an exerpt from the interview.

What are the three trends on the horizon that business leaders absolutely must keep up with?
Social brands. The company must be willing to let its employees and its brand advocates become the face of the brand. Consumers demand that, and brands like Best Buy, which are evolving into social brands (think Twelp Force), will be the ones that win.

Real-time brands. Companies that are dynamic and responsive in real time to their customers and their needs will be the ones that succeed. This doesn’t just mean real-time customer service, but real-time market research, real-time product development and real-time customization and personalization of products and campaigns alike.

Identifying, nurturing and managing relationships. Customers increasingly are also influencers, and companies will need to know who those people are and how much influence they actually have. Along those lines, understanding how customers come together as communities and make collective decisions will be important, too.

Do you have a small business?  Leave a comment.

Click here to read the entire interview.

It seems the world of Web Design, Internet Marketing and Advertising, and Consulting is becoming over crowded with Guru’s, Strategists, and so-called experts.  These bobble heads are claiming to be online professionals with top-secret methods and strategies for success beyond imagination.

Well if it walks like a duck…..

Unfortunately, the real professionals find themselves having an even tougher time separating their message and abilities from the crowd.  Have you searched Twitter lately for online marketing experts?

The well intentioned, professional, and successful people like Jeff Walker, Mike Filsaime, Dan Hollings, Frank Kern, Shawn Casey, Tellman Knudson, and the staff at StomperNet to name a few, are providing tons of great information to educate oneself on the means to attack the world of Internet marketing.  Unfortunately, more often than not, the people who listen and learn from these sources do so haphazardly and tend to take a poetic license and automatically deem themselves a professorship at the World Wide Web College.

Can you say impostor?

So why did I use the term “Newscaster”?  Have you ever watched TV News?

Many years ago I had the opportunity to spend a few days with one of my wife’s relatives.  This relative just happened to have on-air experience with national news casting and a couple nationally known TV news shows (Don’t want to get in a law suite).  After trying to beat him in word games and TV shows several times, such as Jeopardy, without success, I finally asked him how in the world he knows so much about everything.  Was it his world travels? Education? Books? What was this top-secret weapon?

When he stopped laughing he informed me that he really isn’t that intelligent.  In fact he challenged me to get out the dictionary to see how many words he really knew the definition to.  I was astounded!!!  He was right.

So how does that story relate to Internet bobble heads? Just take a look around, find a few of them, and ask them some questions (Contact me if need some advice here).  Most of them can talk about online marketing with the best of them but most rarely ever make a dime for themselves or their customers.  In fact, more than likely, they have never even conducted a long-term online marketing campaign much less stuck around to see if it made money.

Employers get stuck with bobble heads on their payroll everyday.  Slick talking imposters have a habit of over exaggerating their abilities and experience.  For the most part, the intentions are honest but reality quickly sets in that the actual return on the employer’s investment may leave a lot to be desired.

How do we correct this trend?

Time is usually the automatic fix.  As metrics and analytics become less hyperspace-oriented and therefore more user friendly, business management will rely less on the messenger and more on the message for actual results and justification.

Have you been burnt by “Newcasters” ?  Leave a comment.

Visit Brookstone Marketing Group for more information.

One of the little known but highly recognized facts concerning a quality online presence is the effect on employee or staff attitudes and loyalty.

Did you know that the average age of an Internet searcher is over 35 years of age?  Did you also know that the age cycle is growing in both age directions?

To first analyze this phenomena you should first ask yourself these questions.  How good is the website presence of the company you work for or own?  Are they using the most up-to-date practices?  Would you promote the presence of your company to your friends?

In our experience, regarding small businesses, we have found that over 90% of small businesses have an online presence so poor that their staff is either not positively impressed enough to promote their own company website or are so unimpressed that it makes a negative impact on their impression and workplace attitudes.

The fact is that the average age of staffing for small business is under the age (less than 30) of the non-internet world.  In other words, the staff doesn’t remember or hasn’t been alive on this planet long enough to experience life without the use of the internet.

Most small business owners are older than their staff and therefore have trouble relating to an age group that depends on the Internet almost exclusively for information and knowledge.  Conversely, the staff looks upon the small business owner as a fossil and somewhat outdated if the business has a poor online presence.

In conclusion, over 90% of small businesses fail to make a good impression on their staff, can potentially foster a negative attitude, and fail to reap the benefits of word of mouth trust and marketing factors when they ignore their own online presence.

What is your opinion?  Leave a comment.

Please visit Brookstone Marketing Group for more information.

What expertise should I look for?

Research: What experiences and what tools are used to identify Keywords and Keyword phrases used in further research and future content?  What practices are used to identify people and tribes of potential customers?  What mechanisms are in place to identify optimum response rates?

Can’t anyone do it?

Traditional media companies commonly mistake social media as a remedial form of marketing.  These same people will often relay a message to the media buyer that the social media marketing and the Internet are only a fad and can be reproduced by anyone. HA!

According to Neilson, traditional media doesn’t even rank in the top five in terms of consumer confidence.  Word of mouth ranks #1 while content and social media marketing ranks 2-4.  In addition, traditional media advertising (TV, Radio, Magazines) has lost nearly 50% of its revenue over the past 3-4 years.  Anyone care to guess when social media marketing came into existence?  You guessed it 2005….

Only a knowledgeable Internet Marketer with years of experience across a wide variety of Online Media Marketing Channels can properly and successfully create and maintain a growing and profitable Internet campaign.

Provided by Brookstone Marketing Group

So here we are in 2009 with unemployment reaching toward 10%, business failures at a 30-year high, and the ability to get small business credit almost at a standstill. Are these issues the cause or effect of something far more sinister?

Actually the old 80/20 rule of the business universe is just as likely a root cause for the downturn in American retail and small business. I’m sure we have all heard that 80% of our sales come from 20% of our products or 20% of our customers. Guess what? That rule is very questionable at the very least considering the impacts of the Internet.

The actual terminology for the 80/20 rules is “Power Law distribution”. Here is a graph to demonstrate the 80/20 rule.

To the left of the graph are the few products that provide 80% of revenue while moving to the right is the majority of products providing the least amount of revenue.

This phenomena works from both sides and directions of the sales vs. available inventory argument.  On one hand a business might calculate their inventory needs based upon buying trends per product.  On the other hand, a buyer might purchase products based upon the available selection and on hand inventory.

How does this affect you?  Store and warehouse size, product availability, pricing, inventory levels, and even pricing considerations all need to take the 80/20 rule in consideration for business planning.

However the Internet greatly disturbs this somewhat hard to handle premise.  The consumer is able to research product availability, pricing, options, and resources on a real-time basis.  In addition they have the option of purchasing the products and services online at the same time they are performing the research.

The internet merchant is not saddled with expensive floor space, retails displays, on floor employees, licenses, or even some form of taxes like that of a brick and mortar style merchant.

We have, in recent years, seen the popularity of super-sized stores implemented by Target, Wal-Mart, and others to enable them to provide a wider availability of product offerings.  They are attempting to capitalize on the one big weakness of the Internet.  The “need it now” emotional purchase.  They are also combining standard forms of non-food retail products with food related items in order to capture the one-stop-shop oriented consumer.

The next time you visit your nearest retail merchant take a look around and notice if they have increased or decreased their product availability and offerings.  Either one could signal a merchant who has not yet taken time to understand the real long-term effects of the Internet.  The hard-core truth is that they could be on their way to the small business graveyard.

Visit Brookstone Marketing Group for more information.