Using Your Advertising Dollars Effectively

Business owners are resolving to use their advertising dollars more effectively in 2009. In our current economy, it makes sense to allocate our already thin marketing budget to the tactics that are going to bring us the greatest return on our investment. When you’re developing your advertising plan for the year ahead, think about new media and how it has impacted traditional advertising.

When is the last time you picked up your phone book to look up a business in the yellow pages? Personally, the phone book frustrates me, because I have a stack of about four different ones, all of which are formatted differently. For some strange reason, some don’t include business listings in the white pages, and other businesses are only listed in the white pages or are in some obscure category no one would ever think of. As a result, I seldom utilize the phone book when looking up a business, or a person, for that matter. I find it far more effective to bring up the trusty Google search bar and type in exactly what I’m looking for.

The trend in 2008 was that almost twice as many people said they use an internet search engine to look up a business address or phone number than those who said they still use the phone book. The really nice thing about those local listings that come up in a search engine search is that they appear in the hot spot where a web searcher’s eyes land first in the results. So how do you get listed in the local search results?

You can spend hours looking for search engines and web directories and inputting your contact information into every form yourself, or you can pay us to do it for you, at a cost that’s less than the cost of a simple yellow pages listing in the average print directory. Best of all, you can be listed across multiple categories and keywords, and we’ll update or enhance your listing once a month for free.

Visit our site for more information: http://www.stringfellowcreative.com/services/local_listings.htm

Be a Resource to Gain Clients and Customers

One of the best ways to market your business is simple: Be a resource to your potential clients and customers. There are many, many ways to do this that are very effective. Being a resource gives you more credibility than you get with a standard advertisement. It’s less blatant, less in-your-face, and actually provides value so your potential clients are more likely to pay attention, particularly if the information is relevant to them.

By being a resource, you’re basically providing information or some expertise related to a topic within your industry. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same thing that you get paid to do, but should be within the same general area, and it should be applicable to your client base. For example, this blog allows me to be a resource to my potential clients, because I provide relevant information and advice that my customers can use today to help build their business. 

Marketing and business are my expertise. It wouldn’t make sense for me to write articles on minimizing your insurance costs, because the people who are interested in reading an article like that are not my target client. If the reader of the insurance article would happen to also be a business owner, they’re not seeking out information on marketing at that moment. If they were, they’d be clicking on marketing articles instead of insurance articles. The key to being a resource to gain clients is to put relevant information in front of them at an appropriate time.

So how can you use this marketing tactic? Writing articles is an easy way to start, and it’s free. You can summarize what you already know about your industry into targeted articles and submit them to article directories all over the web. If you don’t have time to spend on that sort of thing, you can hire an expert, like Stringfellow Creative, to write and submit articles on your behalf, with your name as the author and a link to your website in the byline. It’s a totally hands-off way to conduct an effective marketing campaign.

Blogging is also an easy way to generate publicity for free. You can set up a WordPress blog just like this one, completely free. You’ll have to make an investment of time to keep your blog fresh and up to date with new content regularly, or you can hire a blogging expert, such as Stringfellow Creative, to keep it up to date for you. We have multiple blogging packages available to meet your specific needs, and we can assist in designing your blog as well.

Depending on your industry, it is often useful to offer free seminars in your community. With the ever-growing popularity of the internet and technology, it’s now easy to offer a seminar online to a global audience. Stringfellow Creative can assist with seminar production, marketing, and design. We can create your materials, design powerpoint presentations, and design online delivery systems.

Take advantage of any opportunities in your community to lend a helping hand. Yes, you might be giving out valuable information for free, but it will only build your reputation. Educational opportunities are abundant, you just have to seek them out. Network with other professionals – someone might be holding a panel discussion relevant to services you offer, and you could easily end up being a panel expert. Discussions like these frequently end up getting free media coverage. It’s a win-win situation.

Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. When you offer your knowledge as a resource to your clients, it’s an easy way to get free advertising, and it’s often more effective than traditional advertising. You’ll boost your reputation and your brand awareness, while at the same time saving your advertising budget.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is still one of the best ways to improve your search engine rankings and drive traffic to your site. The key to effective article marketing is to write your articles with search engine optimization in mind. Create meaningful and informative content that uses your keywords naturally. You don’t want to turn your readers away by creating content that reads like an advertisement or sounds odd because of overuse of keywords.

Be sure to come up with a compelling title that will entice browsers to click on and read your article, and use keyword link anchors to help improve your search engine rankings for those keywords. Submit your article to as many article directories as you can, because the links back to your site will also help your rankings.

If you don’t have time to write or submit your own articles, it’s still very affordable to outsource those tasks to a freelance writer or marketing consultant. Visit http://www.stringfellowcreative.com/services/articles.htm for the updated description of available packages and pricing for your article marketing campaign. We’re happy to create custom packages that meet your needs, and we try to combine article marketing with other services at lower prices for longer-term, ongoing projects. Let us help you keep driving sales in this unsteady economy!