Avoid these Four Common Online Marketing Mistakes by Iris Dorbian (included Janet O. Penn)

If there’s one thing that Gene Sower, president of Samson Media, finds frustrating it’s meeting with small business clients who are short-sighted when it comes to online marketing.

 

“I’ve had clients who’ve approached me and the first thing they want to talk about is the color of their web pages,” says Sower, whose Montclair, N.J.-based firm provides online marketing and website services. “I ask them, ‘Okay, but what do you want the website to do?' I try to get them to think of their website as more than a brochure.”

 

Sower says he has made it his mission to help clients with their online marketing by actively blogging about issues he feels are relevant to the subject. For example, he recently posted about the cost-effectiveness of using a template design for a client site versus an original design. Because the latter is often more expensive, Sower maintains that money earmarked for a customized web design would be better spent on a SEO or pay-per-click advertising campaign.

 

Read on to find out the most common online marketing missteps and how you can avoid them.

 

Mistake #1: Not allocating enough money
Just because it’s online, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t spend any money. Sure, you might derive some leads or pique the attention of a few prospects from a clever (and free) Twitter or Facebook initiative. However, these results could be short-term and middling when compared to the reach of a well-executed and strategic long-range online marketing campaign.

 

Says Sower: “Clients think that social media can drive all of their leads and new business when it’s just unrealistic. A lot of what I tell people is that you have to allot some money to marketing—whether it’s PR, advertising, or search engine optimization.”

 

Julie Davis, director of marketing and development for TotalHousehold, a two-year old Danbury, Conn.-based online marketplace that connects homeowners with qualified contractors, echoes Sower’s sentiment.

 

“When you’re looking to save money, you still need to go with reputable companies and the best plans rather than the cheapest plans,” explains Davis.

 

To prove her point, Davis cites how TotalHousehold recently selected PR Underground, which posts press releases online, for their weekly PR needs as opposed to the far more expensive PR Web.

 

“We do a weekly giveaway on our site and for $29 a week, we can generate a press release [via PR Underground],” says Davis. “If we used PR Web, which we do for bigger releases, it would be hundreds of dollars.”

 

Mistake #2: Doing it yourself
Some small business owners might think that if they take an hour-long seminar on online marketing or read a book on the subject they might be prepared to go the DIY route. Although it is possible that some business owners might excel in blogging or sending out e-newsletters, for example, most will not be skilled enough to launch a comprehensive online marketing campaign that will bring results. To get the ROI you desire, you must make an investment.

 

Janet O. Penn, managing director of Janet Penn Consulting, a seven-year-old internet marketing consulting firm in Fairfield, NJ, urges small business owners to steer clear of the DIY approach.

 

“A lot of times when someone starts their own business, they do it because they have a particular talent, such as making jewelry,” she says. “Their area of expertise is providing that service and they should concentrate on doing that. It’s not prudent or even a good business model to have people thinking they can do it themselves.”

 

Penn brushes aside the notion that it’s in her best interest to take this approach. “The lay person might be aware of Google’s changing algorithms but they don’t really understand what that means,” she explains. “There are so many critical strategies and business practices that are changing. If you aren’t spending a minimum of one to two hours every day just observing and understanding all of those changes, such as how to optimize a Pinterest post, you’re going to be left behind.”

 

Penn often counsels small business owners to allocate some funding to hire a marketing professional, even if it’s on a part-time or contractor basis. This allows busy entrepreneurs to tap into the expertise of marketing professional who can evaluate what needs to be done to have a solid and effective online strategy.

 

Mistake #3: Staying static with your website
Not too long ago, having a website, which listed the services of your small business and included a gallery of portfolio photos and contact information, might have sufficed. But in this social media era where information is constantly streamed to the masses, that is no longer practical. If you want to reach a target demographic or get more leads, you will need to be more proactive with your online marketing.

 

“Everybody these days is a content creator,” says Sower. “The new marketing is about sharing your knowledge and expertise with the people you’re trying to attract. You can no longer have a static brochure website. You have to have some kind of blogging component where you’re able to put up timely content that will be able to attract people to your business. This will not only give you something to disseminate through social media, but it will also help your search engine optimization because the search engines are always looking for sites that are being updated on a constant basis.”

 

Mistake #4: Not properly evaluating your online marketing needs
Believe it or not, not every small business needs online marketing. “It is fashionable, yes,” says Helena Zakmane, a marketing professional whose broad range of experience includes running her own small consulting firm as well as working for international companies. “But by no means is it necessary for everyone.”

 

For instance, Zakmane recalls advising a client—an apartment cleaning business—to forgo social media outreach in favor of direct mail in their city. “Not having a sufficient advertising budget made it practically impossible for them to reach their audience via social media channels,” explains Zakmane. “It's also hard to imagine someone following a cleaning company’s Facebook page.” 

The lesson learned: take a good look at the business you’re in before committing funds to an online marketing campaign. Just because many businesses are doing it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for you.

Whether it’s to increase sales or elevate your company’s profile in a saturated marketplace, including online marketing in an advertising campaign can be an effective and efficient strategy to reach new and existing customers.

© Copyright 2014 Bank of America Corporation.

Mari Smith on How Small Businesses Can Use Facebook by Brent Leary

Did you know that your Facebook updates are never going to be seen by 100% of your fans in your newsfeed? Instead, only 2% to 48% will see them. Yet, Mari Smith, who has been called the Queen of Facebook, still says Facebook has value for small businesses. She offers several highly specific tips in this interview about Facebook for small businesses.

Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you got to be what a lot of people call the ‘Queen of Facebook?’

Mari Smith: Throughout my entire career, I’ve had a deep passion for people and technology. Since 1999, I’ve been deeply immersed in the world of eCommerce, Internet marketing. I was an online marketing consultant for a long number of years. Then, in 2007, Facebook just fell into my lap. I was chosen to be on the data team of an app. It was really a defining moment in my life. I just fell in love with Facebook. Within weeks I became an evangelist.

Small Business Trends: When did you know Facebook was going to be important for small businesses?

Mari Smith: From a small business marketing standpoint, to me, it’s all about relationships. One of my blogs is called The New Relationship Marketing. Relationship marketing is about fostering those relationships which you can start through social media, through Facebook, through Twitter, and then ultimately – you might meet people in person.

It’s really a matter of strategically thinking through what content you are posting through your personal profile and your public fan page in a manner that people are – top of mind. They may think, ‘Gosh, I really need to go and buy a new dress or a wedding cake or whatever different people do.’ You are top of their mind because they have built this relationship with you and you’re in their news feed, sharing valuable content and sparking interest with little personal goodies.

Small Business Trends: Can you rate, on a scale of one to ten, how successful small businesses have been when it comes to leveraging the power of Facebook to help grow their business?

Mari Smith: I would say the vast majority of small businesses are probably somewhere around a three or a four on that scale, unfortunately. I think the main reason is that Facebook is in a ‘pay to play’ mode. They have to make money; that’s just the way it is. It’s just the algorithm that’s at play. You might buy ads in order to build a fan base, which is a terrific use of your advertising dollars, but then people are like, ‘Well, we’re only going to display and post to a percentage of fans.’ Your posts are never going to be seen by 100% of your fans in your newsfeed. It could be anywhere from 2% to 48%. I think at one time years ago, it was at 16%.

One thing to keep in mind as a small business owner is that just because you have 1,000 fans, all 1,000 of those people are not seeing your posts. It could be a fraction of those. You have promoted posts and there are sponsored posts. There are just a lot of complex features in there that you can buy. But unless you know what you’re doing, you might be wasting your money. You might not be getting a good ROI – return on investment.

I think where people struggle is that there’s these complex features and there’s a lot of change. Facebook is always changing their features. If we can back up a second and take complexity out of the picture and look at the fundamentals of small business success, you see that a lot of it comes with not really knowing, ‘Why am I on Facebook in the first place?’ What am I trying to do here? Am I trying to just generate fans and get better sentiment for my brand or actually sell product or improve customer service or just get visibility?’

I would recommend that most small businesses approach Facebook marketing from the standpoint of generating email leads and gently guiding people to cross into your funnel, your e-mail list, your blog, your website and looking into your offers.

Small Business Trends: What percentage of small businesses are actually able to do direct commerce on Facebook? Is that even in the equation for most businesses?

Mari Smith: It is. In fact, there’s a whole factor of online commerce, called Facebook Commerce. There are new sites and there are services and platforms that are popping up all the time. I just came across a new one recently called Bionic and they have an app that you can add an IQ Offer. You can put up an offer that’s maybe 50% off for the next 24 hours. Then you can drive people there through an ad, for example. People can click on that and purchase right away through PayPal. So, for the small business owner, that’s a way to instantly monetize an offer.

Facebook actually has an offers feature. You click the button and you claim it. Just because somebody’s claimed it doesn’t mean that money has actually passed hands, not yet.

Commerce is still in its infancy. I think we’ve got another couple of years yet where people are really starting to feel more comfortable getting their credit card out. With PayPal, there’s a trust already existing there, which is great. Someone getting their credit card out and saying, ‘I feel happy to buy this right off of Facebook’ is in it’s early days yet.

Small Business Trends: Do you feel that small businesses are leveraging Facebook with the right expectations?

Mari Smith: A lot of people that I talk to, a lot of small business owners, come to Facebook as the Holy Grail. They think that they’ve got over a billion members and there are stories of people making millions of dollars through Facebook marketing. Many of them are spending money to make that money with ads, which is quite frankly the most incredible targeted demographics that your money can buy; far better than any other advertising product and I don’t have any agenda saying that. It’s just a fact.

One thing that small business owners could do with Facebook is build up their email list. Put up your email list with 1,000 people, and they’re from other sources, not necessarily through Facebook. You can take that database and upload it to Facebook using what’s called the Power Editor. Upload their own data base and Facebook is going to go and search their site and match profiles with your database. Maybe only half of them will match and that’s okay.

Now you have this set of almost 500 people and you can find out lots more information. You can actually segment your database and get a ton of information as a result of matching them. You can place ads. You can advertise to people on your own database. It’s called Custom Audience. Then you can do something that’s called Look Alike Audience, which means that Facebook will then gather up an audience of people that you can advertise to that would have never known about you, are not on your list, are not your fan, but they look similar to your current database. That’s cool, right?

Small Business Trends: If you were a small business going on Facebook to build a list, what kind of content may work best when you’re trying to do it from that perspective?

Mari Smith: I have this rule, basically 80/20. So, talk to the fans with no agenda value, the 80%. When I say no agenda value, that means OPC – other people’s content. You’re sharing a mix of your content, articles, resources, tools and then 20% of the time, you’re going to ask for the sale. You’re going to ask for the lead.

One of my favorite ways is through a webinar. I gather my fans and drag them over to an option page, where I capture the email address and that’s where I’m going to periodically do that, I don’t do that all the time. I do it maybe once a quarter. I’ll do an initiative, where I’m gathering up, where I’m doing an offer. So, that’s just something to keep in mind is that you don’t have to be asking for the sale all the time. But you have to have it strategically mapped out in your marketing calendar for the year, as to when you are going to do offers and promotions and do them in spurts.

That will add tons of value on a regular basis; ideally once a day. Even if it’s just one post a day or maybe two posts a day on Facebook; on your fan page. That would be plenty; that would be sufficient.

 

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