Last updated 1 year ago
Can consumers find you? Or are they finding your competitors instead?
Any successful business owner knows that a marketing strategy that not only encompasses a mix of media but includes a mix of media that shows their services or products to their potential consumers is the best way to grow their business and spend your marketing budget effectively. For instance, if you’re a realtor, how much would it really benefit you to advertise homes for sale in a college newspaper? Are these really the consumers who are ready to purchase a house? Or if you’re a roofer, how would business would you get from sending direct mailers to consumers who live in apartments?
What you have to ask yourself is - where are my consumers?
Do they read the newspaper, watch the 6 o’clock news, flip through specific magazines or search the Internet?
While I may not be able to tell you which magazines your consumers read, what I can tell you is that they are online.
In fact, there are over 240 million Internet users in the U.S. and consumers who are between 18 and 44 spend more time on the Internet than with offline media. These Internet users spend an average of 2:35 hours a day and 18 hours a week online. And in the last 5 years, time spent surfing the web has grown by 121%.
So, are you reaching your consumers where they are spending their time?
Yet even with all these statistics on where consumers are spending their time, most businesses are still spending the bulk of their advertising budget on traditional, offline marketing efforts (radio, TV, newspaper, direct mail, Yellow Pages).
To give you an idea on how things are changing in where your consumers are looking, I’ll use myself as an example. I’m 29 years old, never married and don’t have kids. I spend well over 2:35 hours a day online, I’ve NEVER used a phone book to find a local business (in fact, the only time I’ve ever used a phone book is to prop up my computer monitors), I only look at the retail inserts in the newspaper, and I DVR all my TV shows so I can skip the commercials.
If you’re interested in marketing your products or services to me, do you really think advertising through traditional media is going to get my attention?
If I’m looking for a local business, I’m either looking at Google, using Yelp or using Google Places, Google Search or Yelp on my smart phone. I am frequently on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and am often found reading blogs, articles and news stories online.
I AM CONSUMER 2.0.
Does this mean I ignore traditional advertising altogether? Not necessarily but you’ll be hard pressed to get my attention through it. Every now and again a clever billboard, catchy radio slogan or amusing commercial might catch my attention but odds are I’ll still search for you online before I ever even consider doing business with you.
“But 29 year olds aren’t my target demographic so why does it matter,” you may be inclined to think. To that I say, anyone younger than me is probably spending more time online than I am and those who are older aren’t necessarily spending less time online they may just be spending their time on news related sites instead of sitting on social media sites all the time.
Try some of these facts on for size though if you don’t think those who are older than I are spending their time online.
- Recent trends show older are among the fastest-growing demographics online
- Social network use among Internet users 50+ has nearly doubled to 42% over the past year
- In the U.S. alone there are nearly 16 million people 55 and older using Facebook
A growing number of older adults are taking advantage of the web right now. Don’t ignore them. (How Baby Boomers are Embracing Digital Media | Mashable)
From 19 to 29 to 69, consumers from all age groups are now spending a significant amount of time on the Internet. And while we may all be using the Internet to serve different purposes, don’t you think your brand should be where your consumers are?
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Author: Leslie Whittaker
TeamBishop is your local Internet marketing consultants with ReachLocal Orlando. Our mission is to help you increase your revenues and decrease unproductive advertising expenses through proven online marketing strategies. Give us a call today to schedule your free consultation.
Consumer 2.0 photo courtesy of blog.wsiwebworks.com
Last updated 1 year ago
Whether you like it or not, people are going to talk about your business – and you should want them to. Unlike twenty years ago, we’re not just standing around the water cooler chatting with 3-5 of our colleagues. Now we’re tweeting about your business, Yelping about what we liked and possibly didn’t or sharing information about your business via Facebook.
Welcome to the new age of word of mouth.
According to Google, there are over 2.4 billion conversations involving a brand every day in the U.S. Talk about powerful! As a local business, harnessing the power of word of mouth is an important way to build your business. (ReachLocal | The Power of Word of Mouth for Local Business).
While the majority of brand conversations continue to happen offline, the Internet, particularly search, still plays a vital role in these word of mouth conversations between consumers. The Internet functions as a top information source motivating and informing these conversions.
Think about your last brand conversation with a friend or family member. Did your conversation initiate because of an article you saw or shared online? Was it because of an online video you watched that you couldn’t wait to share? And what about a conversation that a friend initiated with you? Did you search for more about that brand following your conversation?
With all the time we spend online, we are constantly interacting with brands whether we are aware of it or not. As a result, these brands naturally make their way into both our online and offline conversations.
Not only is the Internet a leading source of information to motivate conversations, it is also the number one source that people turn to during and after conversations to gather more information about your brand. In fact, Google searches directly inform 146 million brand conversations every day.
Are consumers able to find your brand during and after these conversations?
Is your brand proactive and visible online to help fuel these word of mouth conversations?
Is your business web presence optimized so you even show up in these searches?
Are you creating content that consumers want to talk about?
It’s important to think about these questions. And it’s crucial to have a web presence optimization strategy for your local business. Make sure that your brand is visible in the places that people are searching, surfing and socializing before, during and after these conversations. It’s time to get people talking about you!
What have you done to get people talking about your business?
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Author: Leslie Whittaker (part of TeamBishop)
TeamBishop is your local Internet marketing consultants with ReachLocal Orlando. We are experts in online marketing for local business which includes managing your reputation, engaging consumers with social media, optimizing your web presence and establishing yourself as an industry leader. To learn more contact TeamBishop today.
Photo: courtesy of ReachLocal and video still from Google Business video: Word of Mouth and the Internet.
Last updated 1 year ago
It happens to even the best businesses. Even the ones known for their outstanding customer service, like Starbucks, get negative reviews. So what do you do when a customer leaves a negative review or complaint about your business online - for the world to see?
How you respond to these reviews not only says a lot about your business but it can affect how other people, potential customers, perceive your company and help influence their decision on whether or not to do business with you. Ultimately, your response or lack thereof affects your bottom-line.
In this edition of Talking with ReachCast, two of ReachLocal's marketing team professionals discuss the process for dealing with negative reviews.
- Preparing to leave the response.
- Crafting the right response.
- Following up.
Negative reviews provide you with a potentially tremendous opportunity to impact your bottom-line in a very positive way. Crafting timely responses to negative reviews can not only legitimize your existing reviews, especially the positive reviews, it also allows you to demonstrate to current and potential customers that you genuinely care about the level of customer service you provide and that your customers can trust that you will do what is in their best interest and remedy any wrongs. Don't underestimate the power of a negative review.
Make sure that you are constantly monitoring your business on the web. You want to make sure that you are responding to negative reviews as soon as they happen. One of the best ways to monitor your online reputation is to set up a Google Alert for your business name. In order not to miss any thing, make sure to create a few alerts using variations of your business name.
Have you received a negative review about your business? Did you find it in a timely manner? Did you know how to respond? Leave your thoughts about negative reviews in a comment.
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Read More About Online Reputation Management & Reviews
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To learn more about how you can craft responses to negative online reviews, contact TeamBishop today. Dawn Bishop and Leslie Whittaker are here to help you build a positive web presence for your business and can offer lots of helpful tips and tricks to help you.
TeamBishop is your local Internet marketing consultants with ReachLocal Orlando. Our mission is to help you increase your revenues and decrease unproductive advertising expenses through proven online marketing strategies. Give us a call today to schedule your free consultation.
Talking with ReachCast video courtesy of ReachLocal. Video features Mike Merrill and Tiffany Monhollon.
