Resources

Find a niche now.

“Anyone can use my product/service” - If I had a nickel for every time I heard a business owner say that…I’d have about $7 and that would be enough for about 6 targeted ppc ads. As a marketer I am repeatedly asked to broaden a concept or add items to reach a wider customer base. Kitchen sink marketing - pack in everything in order not to lose anyone, when in fact they really are losing everyone.

As a scrappy upstart now is the time to really think about your target audience, your niche.

If you continue to market to everyone your ad dollars are likely to be wasted. You need someone to engage with what you’re saying, only those truly interested in your product will spend the time and money on them. It’s not enough to say your target is “Fishermen” You want to get it down to “lake fishermen…who use lures…and are likely to just fish on weekends”

Target your limited ad dollars to those publications and web sites your niche use while honing your message to speak directly to them, no more shotgun blast marketing. Get targeted.

Define what your customers want to hear - how will your product or service benefit me? Be specific. Talking to weekend-only lake fishermen? Don’t just say “You’ll catch more fish” get in their heads, “More fish in less time!”

Do some research and determine what other interests this audience might have. Get to know them. Join a fisherman forum, not every single one, just where you can be most effective. Remember, targeting. Eventually you can start directly asking what their needs and concerns are, make sure the dialog is two-way, let them know what you plan to do next with the information.

When your efforts are targeted and more focused its easier to gain conversion and in this economy every dollar counts. So stop trying to be all things to all people and target yourself to those you really can reach. And when you think you have a target drill down some more, don’t be satisfied until you know exactly who your customer is and what they want - only then are your limited ad dollars going to do the most good.

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The 2008 Election - In Marketing Dollars

As a marketer I am often asked to analyze the potential ROI of a particular campaign or marketing venture. This can often be a lot harder than it looks. Many parts of the ROI are embedded deep under the skin of the consumer and don’t show up on a dollar and cents spread sheet.

If you look at the 2008 election in terms of return on investment there is something deceiving about the numbers.

Looking at the dollars spent and votes cast we see McCain spent about $3.50 less than Obama. But in the end we know the net result and the brand that Barrack Obama has built.

Among the things not factored in is the general intangibles - in this case Obama’s win plants him not only in the White House but firmly in the American zeitgeist as well. How do we measure that? If that were a point on the metrics when establishing the ROI what dollar figure would be appropriate?

In the end marketing investment metrics need to not only ask what is the “sales goal” but what is the intrinsic value to the brand? The hardest part will be quantifying that.

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MyCorporation.com - FREE Inc’s and LLC’s

Starting Monday, Dec. 1 through December 5th [UPDATE: Offer extended until Dec. 31] - MyCorporation.com is offering any Inc or LLC formation FREE. They are waiving their usual $149, but state mandated filing or publication fees and shipping charges will still apply.

Its a great discount - depending on your state you can legally form your business for less than $100.

MyCorporation is an Intuit Company - the same guys who make TurboTax. They cut through the paperwork and details and really make forming your business easy. Remember, the benefits of forming a corporation or LLC can include: protecting assets through liability protection , tax savings, reducing chances of a tax audit, and developing a professional identity with customers.

Use coupon code MYGIFT to get a FREE Inc. or LLC from MyCorporation.com

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Google SEO Starter Guide

Last week google released a very helpful 22 page SEO guide. Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

The guide discusses everything from optimizing your page titles for better organic results to decoding the search results page. It spends a disproportionate amount of time discussing the value of creating fresh, unique content. Certainly that goes without saying. But it struck me as odd - if my content was so phenomenally unique and this alone assured perfect google attention - then why clutter my thoughts with all I need to do to optimize search, certainly I could just focus on being a genius pontificator. Alas this is not the case, I still need to be found, an judging by the lifeless works that come up with most of my searches, I think those of us that take time to craft our prose or discuss a topic thoughtfully should be more mindful of our SEO. Download the PDF here.

The guide does a great job of touching on all the important points including effective use of robot.txt file, site maps, and page structure.

It also mentions a webinar video back from this past June. The Google Trifecta - a great discussion on how to improve your site. The Trifecta Video is embedded below:

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Keyword research tools

Search engines use countless methods to sort, rank and deliver results. Some are highly controllable others can feel like a combination of dumb luck and voodoo. Keywords are a great place to start your SEO process. The following tools will help you discover the best keywords for your site. A good starting process includes, building a master list of key words then separating them into groups. For example an e-commerce site would separate specific product keywords into different groups. Doing this can help you start to optimize your site structure and create linkages you never knew existed

Keyword Research Tools:

Google: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

MSN: http://adlab.msn.com/Keyword-Research.aspx

Wordtracker: http://www.wordtracker.com/

Keyword Discovery: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com

Submit Express: http://www.submitexpress.com/keytracker.php

Keyword suggestions: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Keyword List Generators and Misc:

Google: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

SEOBook.com: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-list/generator.php

RustyBrick.com: http://www.rustybrick.com/keyword-phrase-tool.php

For Local keywords: http://5minutesite.com/local_keywords.php

Google Sets: http://labs.google.com/sets

Tag Clouds and keyword definitions: http://searchradar.webaroo.com/

Related Terms: http://www.kwmap.net/

Related Terms: http://www.urbandictionary.com/

Keyword Aggregators:

SEOBook: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

Source: Website Magazine. Get a free subscription.

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Growth Strategies

We are seeing countless articles talking about starting up in this economy, but Mike Michalowicz of Toilet Paper Entrepreneur does a great job of analyzing how an already established business can take best advantage and really grow in the current financial climate.

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BtoB Event Advertising

My scrappy upstart, VirtualAdAgency.com, has secured a print ad spot in SES Magazine, being distributed at the SES Chicago conference this December. For those of you not familiar with SES shows, they are really a top-notch opportunity to soak up information about search engine optimization, attended by thousands of marketers and small business owners.

Advertising opportunities like this are cost-effective, targeted and perfect for scrappy upstarts who provide goods and services to other businesses. Events and BtoB publications offer outstanding outlets to get your message in front of your potential customers. Even if you don’t plan to attend the conference, reach out to the hosts and find out what opportunities there are in terms of print ads, or even sponsorships.

The event guides that are handed out to every attendee at these conferences provide great ad placement. The audience tends to be well engaged and in a purchasing mode. Also, sponsoring a lecture or segment of the event offers an added element of prestige to your organization.

If you are running an ad, try to offer a specialized discount code for attendees, or instead of driving them to your home url - try a custom landing page instead. In this tight market, BtoB conference advertising is a great, cost-effective opportunity any small business should consider.

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Project Management Tools

We spent several months fine tuning the back end to virtual ad agency just to have me start over recently. The back end I’m referring to is the online collaboration and project management area that clients and workers of virtual ad agency see.

In the last 6 months several new project management and online collaborative sites have developed into incredibly robust online apps. Smashing Magazine recently reviewed 15 of the most popular Project Management Tools.

The review includes:

Basic project management apps

Wiki-based project management apps

bFug and ticket tracking, Collaboration

Conferencing

invoicing, and time tracking

Check out the whole article here.

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Not so ironclad rules for starting a tech venture

In this month’s Inc. magazine, Joel Spolsky writes about his journey to creating stackoverflow.com, basically a programming community Q&A site with voting and editing - Digg for programmers.

It seems Joel normally has some ironclad rules he follows when developing sites and businesses, which include;

1. Vet programmers carefully
2. Put everyone in one office
3. Plan - create documents and diagrams
4. Intense bug tracking
5. Test
6. Create a software schedule
7. Think about monetization before launch

Joel explains how after briefly talking with programmer, Jeff Atwood, he basically abandoned all of these principles and still ended up with exactly what was planned (Caveat to rule 7, turns out this one is important to consider upfront - currently StackOverflow has no monetization model).

While Joel didn’t exactly follow his first rule, by thoroughly vetting his programmer he used his experience and instinct when he decided to move forward. And, in the end, partnering up with Jeff seemed to have made all the difference.

On the flip side, here is an article from last year where Joel documents how he broke all these rule and things went horribly wrong.

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14 Big Businesses That Started in a Slump

These 14 enterprises started up during a recession:

• Hyatt Corp.
• Burger King Corp.
• IHOP Corp.
• The Jim Henson Company
• LexisNexis
• FedEx Corp.
• Microsoft Corp.
• CNN
• MTV Networks
• Trader Joe’s
• Wikipedia Foundation Inc.
• Sports Illustrated
• GE (General Electric Co.)
• HP (Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP)

Find out more: 14 Big Businesses That Started in a Slump

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Make your site iPhone optimized - instantly

Brand new site allows you to make an iPhone version of any web site that has an RSS feed.

Intersquash.com - Has a simple 4 step process: enter the RSS feed of your site, enter the site name, upload a home screen image and place the provided code between the header tags of your website.

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A decrease in ad spend is good news?

Sometimes its hard to pick out the good news from constant bad news but I think for the most part us Scrappy Upstarts have a significant advantage in this down time, we just need to be aware of it in all the ‘bad news’ data.

A very recent 42 page analysis from Morgan Stanley, “Internet Advertising Trends” reports ad spend could decline as much as 4% next year. While its bad news for google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and my 9-to-5 employer, Incisive Media, it can mean good things to a scrappy upstart.

Rapid inventory combined with CPM should make for low cost online ads. In other words, decreased ad spend overall means lower cost ads for you

Also measurability - Ad publishers will be forced to make sure their customers ads are performing. Expect to see more robust metrics and easier to use analysis letting you know if your ads are performing.

We’re seeing ad impressions increase with a significant CPM decrease

1) Internet usage growth remains strong

2) Search share gains remain relatively robust

3) Performance-based advertising seeing success

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Where should you put your resources?

As a scrappy upstart you have to consider what’s fundamentally necessary for your site and business to succeed, and what’s just fancy trimming. This certainly comes down to cost-control, but knowing what features to focus on that can be cost-effective and sales inducing is most important.

So fundamentally, what’s essential to your site? Solid page structure, effective navigation, and a point of contact - Simple enough. Now what elements are you convincing yourself are just “bells & whistles”? But may deserve a second look?

Flash intro animation?

.

Probably the most overdone feature of any web site, not needed, usually skipped save the money.

Often called “mystery meat navigation” and probably the worst violation of using dollars and time unwisely. Stick to the fundamentals of clear web navigation. What are they? Well, if your site has navigational features you’ve never experienced online before, then you’re probably doing something wrong. The fundamentals have been refined over a decade, stick to them and users will thank you.

On site Blog/news section?

An area that contains consistently updated content is always a good thing. It helps in SEO, it helps bring your users back, and it can even engage you in your own site. BUT if you don’t plan to commit to updating it weekly or more, then don’t bother.

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Start Ups love a recession…Really.

Blog post over at killerblog discusses 10 Reasons why you should embrace the recession.

Among them:

Downturn makes you think

Availability of great people

Strong get stronger

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Microsoft launches BizSpark

Microsoft today announced BizSpark , a global program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage software Startups. Microsoft hopes BizSpark will provide these companies with software, support and visibility. Find out more at the Microsoft Startup Zone.

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